Breathe! Surgery / job search analogy

On Friday morning after surgery the nurse kept bugging me to breathe. I think he was holding my hand or patting my arm.

That was so annoying.

My wife was also encouraging me to breathe.  To make it worse, I had to breathe through my nose… so when I kept dozing off and breathing through my mouth they would bug me, er, wake me, and remind me to breathe through my nose (since that is where the oxygen tube was).

So very annoying. I just wanted to rest.

Here’s the analogy:

In my job search I was told I had to network.  People all around, and books, and websites… everyone was like “network!  It’s how you find a job!”

I didn’t want to network.  And it was annoying to hear this continual chant (network! network!).

And then I realized I was networking wrong (without a purpose or system) and I was told to network with purpose (a la “Never Eat Alone”).

I really just wanted to mope while my resume and job applications would do the hard work for me.

But that wasn’t the right thing for me to do.  It was as ineffective as breathing through my mouth right after surgery.  The actions where there, but it wouldn’t get oxygen in my body.

I know networking is hard.  It’s not the funnest thing you can think of doing.

But it’s the thing that will move you to the next level.  For me, breathing right and getting oxygen meant I could go home.

For you, networking right could mean you get out of unemployment.

It’s worth it… I’m telling you… NETWORK!