Welcome to this on air with Ella minisode. A little bite-sized boost to your day. Always quick,

always thought-provoking, and always under 10 minutes. Let's go.

Catherine, can you indulge me for just a quick conversation on networking? And I'll set up the

problem for you. All of us, we women, this podcast fan,

like we want to broaden our connections. We want more relationships. We want more people that,

frankly, we can call on if we need something professionally. And we do that a lot of the time,

Catherine, by offering our own services to help other people first. Okay. We know that,

but invariably, so many women I talk to still struggle with the concept of sort of putting

themselves out there in a networking way where they are declaring to other people, here's what I do,

here's how I'm of value, let's connect. Catherine,

what have we got wrong about this process? I have never loved the term networking, even before I

really dove into the research on it. It just feels manipulative to me. And there's nothing about

that word that's inherently manipulative. It's just the feeling that I attach to it.

I prefer to think of it as making friends. And if we make friends, I'm more likely to help you,

and that feels good to me. And if an occasion comes up where I need help, you're more likely to help me.

And by the way, that feels good to you. Like, research-wise, it feels good to you to do something nice for someone else. The thing on networking, there's this one research that was done by Brian Ousey out of Northwestern that I just nerded out on for like six months. His team analyzed 4.5 million emails, which is mind-boggling to me, although for you, it might just be like a Tuesday, right?

That sounds like my version of hell, actually.

Agreed. They found that women, so they mapped, they took these emails to map out networks of various people.

And they found that what I had always believed is that the broader your network, the more powerful it is.

What they discovered is that was true for men, but that's only half the truth for women. For women, the women who were most successful

had a broad network, but then also a close inner circle of other women. And what they found is that

women who had that close inner circle were 2.5 times more successful than women who didn't have

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