It’s great to make new connections, contacts, and friends, but it’s really important never to forget about the person you’re stuck with for the rest of your life… YOU!

Thinks I’ve been doing to connect with myself, in no particular order of importance or level of help connecting to me.

1) Waking up for 4am yoga… yeah crazy I know… my roommate heard about it and we wen. We were two of four people crazy enough to be there. I slept through most of it, but hey I tried something new.

2) Walking around my neighborhood to Momo Sushi. It’s a 3 mile loop and I got to watch Culver City High School beat Beverly in baseball while eating.

3) Making dinner for a friend. Sometimes a nice dinner at home with whatever I an find in the pantry/fridge and great conversation is the best way to remind yourself where you come from and who you are.

4) Watching old movies. I have a thing that I like to see the classics. In college I took an American Cinema course to be forced to watch films like Singing in the Rain, Girl with a Yellow Ribbon, and the Godfather. It was great! In the past few weeks I’ve watched All the Presidents Men, Boondock Saints, The Emperor’s Club, and Full Metal Jacket… this week hopefully I’m going to watch Taxi Driver.

5) I returned to Rockclimbing. This was an activity I took up the last time I was unemployed and was looking for something that would provide positive reinforcement in the absence of a man or a boss. This weekend some friends and I went climbing in Point Dume on the beach in Malibu. There was a pod of dolphins and humpback whales that cam by just a few hundred feet off shore. It was amazing!

6) Free Yoga class at Lulu Lemon. The instructor was amazing, and during the class I came up with the name for one of the sections of the Iphone Apps (”Xtras”) and a quality tagline “Stalk and Talk with StarTrax”. Mental clarity often comes when you aren’t trying to connect with anyone but yourself.

7) Reading my favorite magazine… The Week. Much like other things I like, it pulls together pieces of columns from top news sources to provide less biased reporting on the top stories from the previous week. If you’ve never read a copy, I’ll give you one. It might be the best news in print. I haven’t gotten the chance to pick up a book to read, but maybe sometime soon.

Catching up on my DVR/Tivo. I have a guilty pleasure… it’s called Brothers and Sisters on ABC. Until I got a DVR I used to watch it on Abc.com, but I’ve always watched 2-3 episodes at a time. I’m not very good with waiting for cliffhangers to be completed, so catching up with a few episodes at once works out nicely.

9) Going to NYC. I maybe the only person who goes to New York and relaxes, but the GEL 2009 conference was a great excuse to visit my two best friends and sisters who live there, and not do very much else. I think I had 80 emails on my blackberry that collected while I was there, but I got to them eventually and no one seemed to be too mad to wait a day or two. In NYC just sitting on buses and subways for long periods of time can be a very meditative experience.

10) Walking my old dog. When I lived in Santa Monica, land of the lucky people, my roommate had a wonderful golden retreiver named Bella. She’s the best dog ever… chill and friendly… and super soft to pet. When I was forced to move out (my roommate’s fiance was moving in), it was agreed that I would get “visitation rights” with Bella. Now that I’m in Santa Monica practically every day to work at Tsavo, I get to go over and have Bella accompany me on a long walk along the ocean at least once a week. Few things are as relaxing an calming as walking along the ocean, listening to the Beatles, and having a friendly companion like Bella.

11) Sleep. I’ve been sleeping a lot more. It turns out that every day is better if you’ve gotten some sleep the night before. Who would have thunk it? There was a point in January/February where I was sleeping 4-5 hours a night and working my tail off. This did not make me happy and didn’t make me that fun to be around, so I’ve been sleeping more. It means I can’t be at as many events, or be there for after parties, but I feel better, and as mentioned in the beginning, it’s all about ME for this post.

Please tell me what you do to connect with yourself….

When at a networking event with alcohol available, each of us struggles with how much to drink.

As a rule I tend not to drink around people I don’t know. Maybe it’s a single girl security issue, and maybe it’s my knowledge that I’m a bad driver to begin with. Either way I rarely drink more than one drink if I don’t know that someone’s around who has my back. This is one of the ways I save money while traveling also. When traveling on a budget, alcohol is not a necessity.

But what about if you are there with people who you trust enough to make sure you get home safe? I say MODERATION!

In How to Become CEO: The Rules of Rising to the Top of Any Organization, Jeffrey Fox mentions the importance of avoiding being under the influence in front of business contacts, but takes it to another level. He has a whole chapter (XII) titled “Skip All Office Parties” which maybe a little extreme, but drives home the point. It’s important to keep business contacts as business contacts when you can.

That being said, a very important part of today’s socializing in business surrounds alcohol. Therefore, when networking, don’t avoid all bars, you’ll have very few events to attend. Simply, control yourself and your drinking at the bar. A VP level executive I know doesn’t drink at all, and it doesn’t stop him from joining contacts at bars, he just has soda. I’m not sure if it’s an LA thing, with all of the AA meetings available, but no one judges you for saying you don’t drink.

If you’re actually going to have a drink, how much should you drink? I took a Twitter poll and over 70% of respondents said they have less than 3 drinks at networking events. That seems like a good policy, most people can handle 2 drinks without getting sloshed, obnoxious, or loosing control. You also won’t have to have an embarrassing conversation with someone you’ve just met about how you are getting home.

Here are some tips for keeping the number of drinks low:
1) Pay in cash. Opening a tab is nice when you’re treating others to drinks, but paying in cash will limit the number of drinks you’ll imbibe. If you really want to buy someone a drink, you can always pull out the plastic and close out immediately.
2) Drive to the event. Most adults are smart enough to not want to wreck their vehicles (it’s often the first or second biggest investment people have). If you drive, you’ll be easily able to refuse additional drinks by saying, “I’m driving.”  Peer pressure tends to fold when you’re actually being responsible and logical. In LA a DUI is a right of passage that most of us would prefer to avoid.
3) Drink slowly. This should be a no brainer, but if you drink slowly not only will you not need another drink faster, but the ice will melt a bit and the watered down beverage will help you avoid drunkenness.
4) Have plans. Whether it’s dinner later that night, or an early morning meeting have another event that you need to be alert for. This means that you’ll have an excuse to leave before the “party” really gets started, and a reason to self-regulate on not getting wasted.

If you have drinken a lot unexpectedly, here are some things that will make this better:
1) Taxis. In some cities these are harder to find, have a taxi number in your cell phone to call when you need it.
2) Water. The feeling of being drunk is actually very associated with dehydration, alcohol has no hydrating effect on the body only the reverse. Drinking water will help sober you up and if you add a lime to it, no one will know you’re not having straight up gin or vodka.
3) Leave. Hop in a taxi, visit the ladies room,  go home with the first co-worker you see leaving, or just walk outside. If you’re drunk, it’s better not to be seen or heard, because it’s always the person who you don’t want to see you under the influence that’s there. If you’re not there, they can’t see you.
4) Eat Something. You should have done this before you started drinking, but even if you have, eat some more! Don’t scarf down all the appetizers in site, but grab a few crackers or pretzels they’ll help absorb some of the alcohol away from your liver and give you energy to keep moving… out the door.

Got any tips???

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