ACTIVATE YOUR NETWORK With Alana Muller

Hello, it's Howard Brown. It's the Shining Brightly

Show. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Oh my God. We are going to have

coffee. And we are going to shine so brightly today. I've

got an amazing guest, Alana Muller. How are you?

I'm great. Howard. I'm so happy to see you and talk

with you today.

I already feel the energy. It's just incredible. I

have to tell you that your son goes to Babson College.

I signed us to Babson. We are we are Babbo

people.

We are battle people. Yes. And so being my

alma mater, and being a former trustee and president of the

Alumni Association, I bleed green, and now you're bleeding

green. And also big shout out to

Mindy Corcoran, our wonderful mutual friend who

I think is the way that we met one another. I

believe Mindy said you have to meet and we did. And

now we've become we've become friends. And then we found the

Babson connection. And it's truly incredible. And the more I

learned about your story, I was like, you gotta be on my show.

And this is incredible.

Honour, it's an honour. Thank ya.

So for those that are just listening, a letter has

actually coffee, lunch, coffee and checkboxes all behind her on

her screen. And she's going to tell us what that is. So why

don't you share just a little bit more about you.

I would love to thank you so much. And truly,

it's such a pleasure to be here you are an inspiration. So I

just love talking with you. But my company coffee, lunch coffee,

what I primarily do is I train people to build better, more

meaningful professional relationships through

networking. I think that, you know, in this day and age, we

cannot afford not to welcome networking into our lives not to

somehow incorporate relationship building authentic, meaningful

connections into into our daily lives. And so I get the

wonderful privilege to help people do a better job of making

those connections. I also do a lot of strategic planning, a lot

of facilitation and really what that what that does for me is

that allows me to truly live my purpose and everyday connect

with wonderful people around the world.

And you do a lot of community service.

I do. I do. In fact, through Mindy and I who

honestly she and I've been friends for many, many years.

But as you know from having had her on, you're on the same

podcast, Mindy had a tragedy in her life that that drew us even

closer, we were always professional friends. But truly

now we think of ourselves as a start, she she started an

organisation called seven days, which really focuses on

overcoming hatred, through education and understanding. And

that's that's driven by, by different ways to promote

kindness. And so Mindy and I have gotten very close over

seven days. And and really, it's it's part of both of our our

living purpose. Yeah,

for those listening, Mindy lost her dad

and her son for domestic terrorism shooting at Kansas

City at a Jewish Community Centre. They're not Jewish, they

were there for a theatre event. And she's wrote a book and she's

been on the podcast to talk about how you can heal from

grief and move forward even know how difficult it is. So shout

out to Mindy and such a great thing that we're connected this

way now. All right, you have to tell us something maybe we you

don't share all the time or that we don't know about you?

Well, well. Okay, so one of the things that I'll

share with you is that the name of my company as as you know,

coffee, lunch coffee. Yeah. My little secret, though, is that I

don't drink coffee. So as you know very well, I'm very well,

caffeine, right? There's no There's no problem with that my

caffeination level. But but it's not about the coffee. It's not

about the coffee, I get plenty of caffeine intake. But to me

what coffee lunch coffee really stands for is is an approach to

what I call intentional networking, intentional

relationship building. And so when I first began building

relationships very intentionally, I thought that if

I carved up my day, along the lines of the days of people like

you people who I wanted to connect with that eventually

you'd say yes to me. And so I structured my days along a

morning meeting, time slot, a midday meeting timeslot, and an

afternoon meeting time slot. And as a joke, I call that morning,

midday and afternoon coffee, lunch, coffee, and it stuck. And

so coffee, lunch, coffee is sort of the way that I live my life.

It's my days really do look like coffee, lunch, coffee, sometimes

it's coffee, coffee, lunch, coffee, coffee, drinks, dinner,

and dessert, of course, but but the idea is that this is much

more about again, structuring those meaningful opportunities

for connection.

What do you drink, then?

I drink a lot of tea. It used to be a call, I

mean, real Coca Cola. But, um, but yeah, in fact, when I wrote

my book in the back cover of My blog has me drinking a giant

Coca Cola. But, but I gave that up, I gave it up. And so now, a

lot of tea,

I drink enough coffee for both of us, I make my

own my own ice, ice brew cold brew and all that stuff. They

say it helps your colon I don't know. But yeah, I love my

coffee. So I have to have that. Well, I want to dig in a little

bit deeper, because what you're doing, okay, is very similar to

what I actually love to talk about, which is mentorship is

leadership. But you're giving people and making value over

over coffee of people how to actually build trusted

relationships, build high quality relationships, take take

me more into how you're training people to do that. Well,

so one of the things I love that you said is

to build trusted relationships, you know, and you and I actually

have experienced this, we've actually never been together in

person. And yet, I feel like we're close, I feel like we have

a trusting relationship. But as you know, that is built as a

series of touch points over time, right. So if we have touch

points, over time, a series of those, we're able to establish

more of a connection, we're able to get to know one another

better to know how we can support one another. And

something you do very well, that I always think is so critical,

when it comes to relationship building is asking the question,

What can I do to help you and actually following through on

that. And so when I think of building those trusting

relationships over time, it's having a touch point, another

touch point, and another touch point. And the deal is this,

we're all busy people, right? We're very busy people, we all

have the same 24 hours in a day, and we are filling up those

days, we're filling up that time. And so at least in my

life, nobody is sitting by the phone waiting for my phone call.

And yet, if our first connection is an authentic one, if we're

having a great conversation, if we if we genuinely and

authentically want to get to know one another, then the next

time we come together, whether that's in two days time, two

months time or two years time, what that means is that the next

time we connect, it's going to be authentic again, and we can

continue to build out those relationships. And so that

that's one of the things that I stress is to is to really

understand that nurturing your connections is just as important

as having them in the first place. So we have to continue to

cultivate those relationships that we already have. So when

people talk about, you know, is networking, all about new

relationships, it's not it's about continuing to cultivate

the relationships that we already have, as well as

establishing new ones.

I actually have to tell you that we've been on

about a monthly cadence, okay? We got connected through Babson.

And in the green room, you just told me a fascinating story

about meeting some other Babson, you know, women that have

children there or alum there and things like that. And I have to

tell you that every time we talk, it is valuable. We don't

mess around, we actually we catch up, we talk family and all

that. But we also are pushing it ahead. And we've had already,

you know, very high quality introductions that we believe

can benefit each other doesn't always work out. But I've

noticed that. And so I guess I'm kind of like a little hybrid

model, because I've actually didn't realise that since we got

introduced in February been touching about every month. And

we jump on for a half hour on a zoom. And we've been actually

making very good use of that time.

We're sort of, we're sort of the rats in our

own maze, right. We're experiencing this in real time.

And I agree with that. And, and the thing is, we I think what

that shows us that we not to overuse the word, but we both

show up as our authentic selves, we have these robust

conversations. And I mean, in the spirit of leaving, leave it

leave them wanting more, as they say, I always feel like we run

out of time, before we completed our conversation and in some in

sort of an amazing, wonderful way. I love that. And it's not

that I don't want to finish the conversation. It's just that we

don't have enough time to get it all in. And I think that that's

a very special mark of a good relationship, a good friendship,

right. And so and then I want you to take it a

step deeper, because not only do you actually help people, for

their professional lives, you actually help discover their

purpose. And that is that is really when you get to know

somebody when the trust is there. And you and I have shared

you know, of our caring of community and caring of

community service. And I love that part about it. Tell me how

you're able to do that.

So I had a I had the very fortunate opportunity

many years ago you and I are both in the entrepreneur,

entrepreneurial space entrepreneurship world. And many

years ago I was running our company called Kauffman fast

track which many many of our listeners today may be familiar

with. It's a it's an old programme that has been

incredibly successful at training entrepreneurs to start

and grow companies. And so when I was running that company, one

of my clients an organisation out of Vail, Colorado, invited

me to come in experience their approach to entrepreneurial

development. And through that experience, I was able to

establish and articulate my own life's purpose, which sounds

like sort of this big thing that was impossible. And yet they

broke it down in a way that made it incredibly doable, and in

some ways obvious. So what I tell people is that my mission

is to connect, inspire and empower community. And as basic

as that might sound for me, it just fills me up, I want to run

to the rooftops and shout to connect, inspire and empower

community. My family can say that out loud, they can they

know exactly who I am when I say that, and I think it really

does. It really does illustrate kind of what I feel in my heart,

as well as in my head. And so I tried to help other people to

identify, sort of tease out, identify and articulate their

own purpose statements so they can get started on that. You

know what one of the things that I think is interesting, at least

in this country, we're on the United States recording this

podcast. In this country, we have a tendency to

compartmentalise our lives, we have a home life, we have a

community life, and we have a work life. And for many people

never the twain shall meet, they don't like to overlap those

concepts. For me, though, I like to think of those as sort of

three bubbles in a Venn diagram, I was a math major, so

everything feels better, and some mathematical terms. So I

like to put them together like a Venn diagram. And as you know,

with a Venn diagram, when you put those bubbles together,

something magical happens, there's that thing in the centre

that overlaps. And Howard, I think that that is where we play

our our most authentically, that is where we are our best selves.

And we as individuals get to decide how close those bubbles

get to each other. So sort of how big or how small the overall

graphic is. But the closer those bubbles get, the smaller the

overall graphic gets, magically, the thing in the centre gets

bigger and bigger. And I just love that. And the thing is, I

don't think we should be just one circle, right. So I think we

should save a little bit of ourselves just for home, a

little bit of ourselves just for work a little bit of ourselves,

just for community. But if we can get those bubbles relatively

close together, I think that we can just be the person we are in

all venues. So you know, it shouldn't be that when I stepped

outside my front door, suddenly I've become a different person,

I want to show up for you the way I would show up for the next

person I interact with and the person after that. And so by

helping other people to identify their purpose, and to create

sort of diversion for them of that Venn diagram that is the

most meaningful, I think people live happier lives. They're not

only happier in business, but they're happier, in general,

happier in their lives overall.

Wow, the Venn diagram example is incredible.

Because I guess you're right, people just want to show their

business face. All right, they show their, you know, at home

face or anything like that. And that is only looking at a

fraction of the person. And so I liked that, that you're coaching

and that your ability to do that allows you to explore deeper,

and then you actually get to control how big that bubble in

the middle goes. Okay, there are certainly times when you want to

put on your business hat and stay in business mode. There are

other times where, and I crossed the lines, and maybe I'm not the

best use case for you. Because I am an open book, right? I wrote

a book about my entire life, okay. And I share openly about

my experience, and not everyone has to do that. I totally

respect privacy. And there are things that you can and maybe

should keep private. But I like to know people. Well

roundedness, okay, and the we live in a world right now today,

where we all don't look the same talk the same, we didn't come

from the same countries didn't grow up with the same learnings

eat the same foods. And I think we've now kind of it's a very

tough place out there. I always say we could choose not to hate,

but I do a lot of work in the interfaith world, I know that

you do as well. And I just want respect and kindness and healing

for other and it also makes you broader. We know these other

people it rot into, and I think we've got a little more of a

closed loop going on in the world today. And I hope that

changes soon.

Don't you think that I mean, we do a lot of this

work with seven days especially with with young people. Don't

you think that by by articulating your own position,

listening to somebody else's position, and then being able to

process that we understand ourselves better? So it there's

this is not about changing minds, but it's about opening

minds. And and I think that's what you're describing is that

that, you know, by by embracing one another by listening to

what's going on with the other individual, we are growing

ourselves and so I think it's a really special thing and

especially as you describe in the interfaith world where we're

so polarised, we don't we don't need to be we don't need to be

as polarised we don't have to change one another's minds. But

I do think we need to open our minds and our hearts to one

another. I

agree. So hopefully others will as well.

So when, when you look for inspiration, where do you what

are you looking to do? How are you actually supporting yourself

because one of my main tenants is to use your light. Okay to

lift up others, okay? And everybody walks in darkness,

life is not an easy, you know, cake. Right? It's a roller

coaster. But what do you do for inspiration? How do you support?

You know, keeping yourself? Yeah,

you know, I really do. I really do agree with this,

like my, my own approach, I'm sort of eating, eating my own

food, so to speak. So. So you know, connecting with other

people is the thing that gives me energy, I just love that I

spent, our family is very, very close, as you described, my

husband and I have one son and the three of us are, we're

tight. And so we love to travel the world together, that is

something that sort of fills our buckets and multiple ways. You

know, we kind of have this this happy place when we're when here

we live in we live in the Kansas City area. And there's a there's

an area near our neighbourhood that we call the enchanted

forest. And it's just a it's a place where we go walking. And

it's just, you know, it's not it's not really a secret place,

but it feels like our special place. And it's a it's about a

one mile walk round trip from our home. But what it does is it

allows us to connect with each other, get outside get a little

fresh air. And so those are the kinds of things I do so I would

say connecting with other people being with other people. And

then especially being with family and and certainly the

three of us, but our extended families as well.

I love that. I will tell you that because our

Emily actually graduated University Michigan now 16

months ago, she's in Missoula, Montana. So we get to very

luckily watch her on the app. She's a TV reporter, she just

won an Emmy for a climate change story on Flathead Lake. She's 23

years old and she has it at me with her name on it. It's I'm so

I am so gushing. I'm so I'm so so proud. But we get to watch

her because we don't get to see her as often she's far away. But

we'll see her soon. I hopefully as well. I want you to hold up

your book, or your book for those because we'll show the

video. Tell us about your book,

coffee, lunch coffee. So, you know, it's

interesting I was as I described, I was a math person

numbers were much more my friend than words. But what happened to

me was I had gone off to kind of a professional development

retreat and came home a changed woman, I woke up my sleeping

husband to announce I was going to quit my job. And he thought

that I had lost my mind. But we talked for a very long time, I

reminded him that I'd always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

But of course, I had no idea for this. And so I thought that the

way I would discover myself was to finally finally start

networking in the community. Because like so many of us, I

was overly and solely focused on the four walls of my job, head

down just doing my work. And I really failed to look up to see

what was going on around me. So that's when I started this

approach of a morning meeting and midday meeting and an

afternoon meeting. And what was remarkable is that I went from,

at least in my mind, having no real professional network

outside of my company, to suddenly connecting with people

all over the world. And interestingly, people started

reaching out to me to say, well, you get together with me. And I

wonder, you know, what could they possibly want from me?

Well, they wanted the secret to networking. And I said the

secret to networking, there is no secret to networking. But But

what was interesting is that I discovered that for me what felt

very natural does not usually feel natural to people. So

thankfully, that means I'm employable, I can teach people

how to network and to network in a way that makes them

comfortable, and really does to help them expand and become

happier in business and in life. And so coffee, lunch, coffee was

born as a blog, it's still going all these years later. That was

I started blogging in 2011, if you can believe it, which maybe

around the time that you started as well. And, and still going

strong to this day. But the book coffee lunch coffee is about the

first it's sort of it's a compilation of I would I would

say that about the first 50 blog posts, so edited and

consolidated and cleaned up. But what it is, it's what I call a

field guide for Master networking. And so I would say

anybody who utilises the book utilises the exercises that are

laid out inside it'll give them a really good jumpstart on how

to activate their network, how to activate the relationship

base they already have, as well as build it out to something

that is useful and meaningful to them. That's awesome.

It's incredible. So get a lot as book and start

building out your networks and making them more robust and and

making them work for you. And also the part of that is you

working for them because it's always a two way street. While

we're at the time of the show. I'm going to ask you to put on

your sun lamps. Yes this is good because we are shining brightly.

Yeah you look and shine and brightly. So we are at the

shining brightly spotlight. I would like you to tell people

how they can get in touch with you. And then I would love for

you to leave the show with some inspiration a story a quote and

then kick it over back to me for a close Thank you got

it. You got it? Well, I would love for people to

come visit me at my website coffee lunch coffee.com You can

access the blog at blog dot coffee at lunch coffee.com I'm

on LinkedIn. And you can find me on Facebook but I would love to

hear from people and to see what I can you be helpful to them in

terms of a sort of a moment of inspiration. You we had talked

about this before. So I've been thinking about it. And I'm gonna

I'm gonna take us back to our Babson connection if that works

for you. Okay, and another mutual person in our lives is is

Dean Larry Ward, who is now no longer with Babson. But at the

time that my son Ian started at Babson Larry was was the dean of

students. And I remember he gave a talk to all of us parents who

were dropping off our children for the first time and feeling a

little itchy about that. And he said he asked a question about

where's home? You know what he basically said, you know, when

you think of home, what would you call home? And he said he

was going to encourage the students, and not to just say,

you know, kind of name rank and serial number, but to say, you

know, tell me your name, and where do you call home. And so,

my son heard Larry speak as well. We talked about kind of

the the two conversations that are the two presentations that

Larry had given to the parents and then to the students. And

then my son told me that his the fellow sitting next to him that

freshman year, turned to him and said, so where's home? And my

son's response was wherever my parents are, which I'm gonna cry

sitting here, Howard,

might drop Mic drop. Oh, my God. Wow.

Okay, so after the tears, and I could process the

fact that my son had just said, Wherever mom and dad are. You

know, what that tells me is that we did something right. In terms

of raising our child, it reminded me that I really am

living my own purpose to connect, inspire and empower

community and that at least some of that has rubbed off on my

child. So I'll leave you with that. That you know, Thank you

Larry ward. Thank you Babson College. Thank you, Mindy.

Corporon and seven days for connecting you and me, Howard.

But but you know, there there are, you know, comments and

moments that happen in all of our lives. And that's one of

them that allowed me now to shine brightly.

And boy, you shining brightly, I'm going to

take my glasses off. So thank you for that big shout out to

Larry Ward who's left. Babson is now the president of University

of Hartford, l dub, we love you. And we wish you only the best

and brightest, because that's your new home or one of your

homes as well. And incredible inspirational quote. So thank

you for that. Well, this has been the shining brightly show.

Please find me at shining brightly.com. There, you'll

learn and you can find my book, you can find and hire me to

speak. I'm a terrific motivational speaker, and also

the information of run this podcast and more importantly, my

advocacy because that's the thing that I call home where I'm

helping cancer patients. I'm helping Babson young

entrepreneurs find their way in the world and doing my

interfaith work. So that's, that's some of my homes that I'm

sharing that to go on the theme there as well. Do you want to

give a quick shout out to the people that kind of support me,

sponsor me and get me going forward, as well. So the first

of all, a brand new sponsor, the diamond beauties magazine,

that's produced out of South Africa has come on board. And

then my publisher front edge publishing, read the spirit

magazine that goes up to over 50,000 Every Monday, and then

amplify new your network that makes my podcasts great, and

gives me these amazing shows every week. So thank you for

that. And I just want to say you are an absolute amazing guest, I

will have all of your information, the LinkedIn, the

book links and everything in the show notes, as well as all the

social media posts as well. And just remember, just like we did

today, shine brightly just a little bit each day, maybe doing

it during coffee, lunch and coffee, that would be helpful

for yourself. Use your own light, okay, and then go lift up

others, and then do it in your communities and do it in your

neighbourhoods, and the world become a better place. A lot of

thank you. Terrific guests. Great high energy show. And I

just appreciate you very much.

Likewise. Thanks for having me.

Keep shining. Thank you