S1 E26 – “A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats”

What if the opportunity that changes your life is waiting in a room you haven’t walked into yet? In this episode of Dream Doers, Jana dives into the surprising power of networking and how stepping outside her industry after twenty years in business opened the door to new relationships, opportunities, and ways of thinking. If you’ve been building your dreams mostly on your own, this conversation may inspire you to start showing up in new rooms.

✨Episode Highlights

00:00 Embracing Life’s Challenges
09:49 The Power of Networking
22:30 Building Relationships for Success
25:20 You Tube – Outro

---

Follow Jana

🌈 Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube → @thedreamdoers.podcast

🌐 Visit my website at www.thedreamdoers.com

✨  Subscribe to Dream Doer’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@dreamdoers.podcast

---

Show Notes – “A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats”

Jana Marler (00:00)
Welcome back, dream doers. This podcast is for women and men who have been through some things, the kind of women who have faced loss, chaos, setbacks, and the moments that could have taken them out and still chose to keep building their lives anyway. Around here, we talk about how we pursue our dreams, build our businesses, raise our families, and create something meaningful in spite of life’s hardships.

not after the storm passes, but right in the middle of it. And today, I’m starting with the story. I didn’t even plug my mic in today, and I’m using this awkward light in my kids’ room. Once again, I’m back here because I just held a meeting here, and I knew I needed to pop my computer open immediately and start talking about this. And I don’t even know how to eloquently say this best, so I’m just gonna come out and say whatever it is that needs to be said, but I cannot tell you.

how important it is to pour the very best of you into the community and the world and people. When you do right by people, it will come back. I have been leaving the hardest season of my life and you know, there’s been such beautiful pockets where I’m just, I feel like I’m out of it and then it comes right back and the monsoon comes right back.

And even in the midst of what feels like a crisis, multiple crisis, loss, ⁓ just layer upon layer, I lost my dog last week. And I knew, I knew in the middle of all of the hardest season of my life, I would lose that absolute love of my life, a puppy. And so you enter back.

into a season of like survival. My poor puppy had liver cancer and everything was just failing and I, we went to two different vets and then again medical bills stacked up. So here I am in a place where I’m fundraising for my own health for an urgent surgery and then my puppy and I knew it would happen like that. He was getting older.

so it wasn’t quite as unexpected and I had been mentally preparing through all of my own mess and recovering through such a hard season. I just knew that would be the worst part of what could happen to me and it was and I had to and I still am as you see I’m grieving that but that on top of a surgery that’s urgent now because I put it off to get through the hard season now is more urgent and more severe which takes

a traumatic toll on my body and back again on my mental and emotional state. So I wanted to share today because a lot of us in these situations can really go inward and isolate and a huge part of my healing and my growth did happen in isolation between me and God. I was stripped of a lot of things and people and it was

hard then, but looking back it is so beautiful because I had so much time for one-on-one healing with the maker of the universe and I found my wholeness again in who I was and who I was in God alone. So a lot of us go to isolation, but it can become so unhealthy It can turn to drugs, alcohol, ⁓ scrolling mindlessly on the phone, which I have fallen guilty of that and I hate it. ⁓ But when we do have that isolation,

I encourage you to lean into God so much. I highly recommend God. I don’t know how people make it through anything without God and my dog. There’s a reason I talk about this all the time, but God and dog are spelled the same backwards. ⁓ So I had a lot of time to heal, but I spend so much of my life pouring into people, helping get funds for others, know, building.

literally building homes over 15 years in Mexico. What an opportunity. I built my network. I felt so alone in this process as far as family and immediate people went. But I really did have a solid group of friends and mentors that poured into me. I’m so grateful for them. And because of who I was building my trust with people and who I was.

remaining in integrity and remaining in my character. Not perfect, definitely not perfect. I have responded to some really difficult things and things that have been done to me, not always perfectly. But the core of who I am has been outpoured into people. And so during this process, that’s being poured back into me. And that’s what chokes me up. And that’s why I knew I had to throw over my computer today and just start talking about this, because God is providing to me.

the right support, the right people who know the right people who have connected me with the right people. it’s because I’ve taken that only an opportunity to pray and really, you know, spiritually pour into God and ask and seek wisdom and seek guidance. But I’ve also really gone inward and I’ve done a lot of my own work. And in that process of doing my own work, I’ve also showed up because with prayer has to come action.

Action can look so many different ways for so many people. And I kind of joke in this process because I think God gave me a voice and I’m still learning how to use it. I’m still learning how to speak eloquently and I’m still learning how to take what’s in my heart and portray it with the right words. And I’ve not always done the best with that. And starting a podcast in the middle of learning all of that and growing so rapidly has also been interesting. And I say all the time, just start.

My second or third episode was just start, you know, and God’s gonna open the right doors and close the wrong doors and open the right windows, close the wrong windows. By using your voice and by putting action with your prayer

together, you’re gonna have these, so much of your journey is gonna open up to new people and new opportunities and then you’re gonna meet the right person who introduces you to another right person and

I just want to say I am so full of gratitude, so full of gratitude for what’s being poured back into me personally and professionally in my business. I have had clients step up and treat me like family and pull me into theirs who’ve prayed over me, who’ve

you know, given me gifts who supported me. I’ve had my church support me financially with my utilities and people have supported us with food. And I know it sounds so silly to look at someone who the perspective is that they’re so successful and they do so many things. And you’re right. I’ve had a lot of great success, not only financially, but just in again, the network and the community I was building. I had such a beautiful life, but life happens and it’s going to happen to all of us. And if you

have listened to any amount of episodes I have posted so far. It’s that things are going to happen to all of us. It’s inevitable. Hardship does not look at your bank accounts. It doesn’t care your background. It doesn’t care your ethnicity. It cares about nothing, especially timing. It’s gonna stack on top over and over again. And have I highly recommended God to you enough yet?

because I would highly recommend God. Because God sees your heart, He hears your heart, He sees your intentions, He sees all of it. You can’t keep anything from God. And if you’re pouring out and you’re remaining true again and you’re seeking that growth and that personal development and you’re seeking God, the maker of everything around us, it’s guaranteed He’s gonna pour back. I don’t want you to hear me

correctly, God is not a vending machine. I have said this my whole life. Look, we don’t wait for crisis. We don’t go to the vending machine and put in the numbers and put in our money and then expect God to give us something in return. That’s not how it works. In fact, if you’ve been through really hard things, you understand like me, it definitely, it’s gonna layer up and it’s gonna be like, like how God, there’s been so many times I have said, this is a joke, right?

I’ve never doubted God and I’m so thankful for my faith that it’s been unwavering. I’ve never doubted God and what he’s doing, but I also know God is not to blame for all of the choices that humans have made and the hard things that have been brought in this earthly world to us. It’s not God that’s doing that, but what God is, is the lemonade maker. He is the Redeemer, the healer, the king of restoration.

And if we are finding our joy and our strength and our wholeness in God, He’s gonna send the right people to pour into you, to speak life into you, to uplift you. And so with all of that said, I wanna talk about the power of networking today. I wanna talk about the power of community.

And the family, so when we think about family, we’re constantly thinking about maybe our partners or our spouses or the children or our biological parents, or maybe you have been pulled in by people that feel a lot like family that aren’t biological. That family, that group, that system, that ecosystem, the wholeness of the people around us.

that’s pouring into us as much as it is, and that’s family. so family becomes personal and business, right? So who you show up for every day and what kind of company you pour into, that becomes your family too. So I wanna talk about the power of networking. And so here we go. We’re gonna dive in with another really great story. Recently, a group of friends and I went to Big Cedar Lodge down in Branson, Missouri.

and we got to go to Top Of The Rock and we learned a lot about the history of the owner of the Bass Pro company and all of the visions he’s had and everything he has built. And there was a metal craftsman who once took a job, a singular job for $400. That was the bid, $400 to build a gate for a property connected to Bass Pro shops.

It was not a massive project. It wasn’t a career defining moment at the time. He was just a skilled craftsman taking on a small job and doing it well. But the owner of Bass Pro, Johnny Morris, he noticed his work and his craftsmanship and the attention to detail and the way something simple had been built with care and integrity. And that one small project led to another opportunity and then another

And eventually that craftsman, Tim Burroughs, became the primary metal worker behind many Bass Pro properties across the entire country. So if you’ve seen any metal railings, gates, light structures, decorative metal pieces, architectural elements across any of the locations that the Bass Pro owner owns, that’s him. All from one connection. One person noticed his work.

One relationship opened a door. And when I first heard that story, it stuck with me because it highlights something about success that people don’t talk about nearly enough, which is why I’m here and why I’m so passionate about this and why I want to talk about it today. Because sometimes the biggest opportunities in life don’t come from working harder or posting more or trying to out hustle everyone around you, which we all fall into those categories.

Sometimes they come from proximity, from being in the right room and meeting the right person or the right people.

from the one conversation that quietly changes the direction of everything. And that brings me to something I’ve been learning a lot about recently, which is the power of networking. So now I’m going to admit something that might make me sound a little behind the curve as a business owner, and I am. I was, and I am. I’ve been running businesses for almost 20 years. I’ve built photography businesses.

worked in the wedding and events industry, traveled for work, built relationships all over the place, built my photo booth company, now I have a new Legal Shield company with Rich Life Alliance with my friend. But until recently, I had never truly networked outside of my own industry. I knew photographers, I knew wedding planners, I knew venues, DJs, flores, videographers. That was my circle and it felt big at the time.

thought that was networking and it was within that small bubble. But looking back now, that was really just my professional bubble. But over the past year, I started stepping into rooms with people who run completely different types of businesses, like real estate agents, financial advisors, chiropractors, attorneys, contractors, marketing agencies, small business owners across the city. And with me wanting to pivot to working more with brands and doing brand photography,

It’s opened up a whole other world for me. Honestly, it felt like discovering a whole other ecosystem that had existed all along that I had never stepped into. There are groups of business owners meeting every single week with the intention of helping each other grow. They share leads, they introduce clients, they connect people who need each other’s services, they celebrate each other’s wins.

and they genuinely look for opportunities to help each other succeed. Once I started experiencing this environment, something really clicked again for me. It’s just clicks after clicks after clicks these last few years, you guys. It’s called alignment. Opportunity moves through relationships, not algorithms, not ads,

Not perfectly curated social media feeds. I’ve tried that. But relationships. Research supports this in a huge way. Studies consistently show that about 92 % of people trust recommendations from someone they know more than any form of advertising. Think about that for a minute.

Almost everyone trusts a recommendation from a real person more than marketing. That means when someone you trust says you should call this person, that referral carries more weight than any ad you could ever run. There’s another fascinating piece of research from sociology called the strength of weak ties. A Stanford sociologist named Mark Grenovater, I don’t ever know how to say that, right?

studied how people actually find opportunities. What he discovered surprised a lot of people. Most opportunities don’t come from our closest friends. They come from our acquaintances. It sounds so strange at first, I know, because we’re always told like, who is your closest 10 people, they’re going to support you the most. But it makes sense when you think about it, your closest friends usually know the same people you know, they move in the same circles, they hear the same conversations and see the same opportunities that you do.

Acquaintances live in completely different networks.

They meet different people, work in different industries, and hear about opportunities that would never naturally cross your path. So every time you expand your network, even a little bit, you expand the number of conversations you’re directly connected to.

Another statistic that caught my attention comes from LinkedIn’s workforce research. They found that people who consistently grow their professional network receive up to five times more opportunities than people who stay in small circles. Not because they’re more talented, but simply because more people know who you are. Networking also doesn’t require nearly as much time as many people assume. Most networking groups meet once a week.

or every other week. Sometimes there’s a one hour meeting where everyone shares updates about their business. Sometimes someone gives a short presentation about marketing, growth strategies, or leadership, those types of things.

Outside of that, people might grab coffee with someone new once in a while or once a month. That’s really it. A few hours a week or a few hours a month. But those few hours connect you to dozens of other business owners who are paying attention to opportunities within their own circles. Instead of constantly trying to market to thousands of strangers online, you’re building relationships with 30 or 40 people who are actively looking for ways

to send business your way. That’s a completely different strategy. There’s also something called social capital that plays a role here. Social capital is essentially the value created through relationships and trust within a network of people. This happens both professionally and personally, you all. I say it all the time, we’re the same person that moves between the two.

Some entrepreneurs have enormous social capital, not necessarily because they’re the best at the market, but because people know them, trust them, and introduce them to opportunities. So over time, that network grows and expands. Every relationship introduces you to more relationships. Every conversation connects you to new circles. Eventually, you’re connected to hundreds or thousands of people through the web of relationships you’ve built.

There’s also an interesting psychological reason networking works so well. Humans naturally trust people they regularly see. Researchers call this familiarity bias. The more often we see someone, the more comfortable we become with them. And that comfort slowly turns into trust.

of business opportunities are never publicly advertised. They’re filled through referrals, introductions, and relationships before they ever become public opportunities. Which means if you’re not connected to networks where those conversations are even happening,

You may never even know those opportunities existed. You have to show up. Networking also expands your thinking. When you’re surrounded only by people in your own industry, conversations tend to revolve around the same problems and the same solutions. But when you start talking with entrepreneurs from completely different industries, you hear how they approach business in totally different ways.

how they structure projects. A financial advisor might explain how they build long-term relationships with clients. A marketing strategist might describe how brands position themselves in the market. We are all bringing our gifts to the table and a rising tide lifts all boats.

Those conversations stretch your thinking in ways that don’t happen when everyone around you does the same work that you do and there’s something else that happens when you get into rooms with other entrepreneurs. You realize you’re not the only one figuring things out as you go. Entrepreneurship can feel isolating. You’re making decisions alone, solving problems alone, carrying the pressure of your business alone.

But being around other business owners reminds you that everyone is navigating challenges, learning lessons, and building their way forward.

There’s a shared energy in those environments. And you hear about someone landing a new client, someone launches a new service, someone expands their company, and that creates momentum for you and for all of us.

For anyone listening who has never tried networking before, the easiest step is simply finding a room where business owners are already gathering. Local chambers of commerce, B &I groups, entrepreneur meetups, small business alliances, community networking events. The goal isn’t to walk in and sell something. The goal is to connect and build relationships, ask questions, listen, be curious, look for ways to help the people around you.

And when you’re doing that, it naturally comes back. The people who become great networkers are often the ones who focus on connecting others. They introduce people who might find benefit from knowing each other, and they share opportunities. They help solve problems.

And ironically, those are the people who end up receiving the most opportunities in return. And when you’re on the other side of it and you’re seeing it come back and you’re just like, I was just pouring into people because I care and I, and I invested and I, and that’s who I am. And that’s going to come back. So what kind of person might I ask? Do you want to be? Because when I evaluate some of the situations that I’ve personally been in and I watched some of those struggle,

They struggle because they struggle and they’re not pouring into people and then they’re gonna remain in that struggle.

Looking back on my own journey, I sometimes wonder how different the early years of my business might have looked if I discovered this side of networking sooner. But I still did the best that I could with what I had. And until we know better, we cannot do better. Now that I know better, I can do better. But still building my character, my integrity, and who I was and how I was showing up for people, that mattered.

and I’m reaping the benefits of that now.

But there’s also something exciting about realizing how many opportunities still exist simply by stepping into new rooms and meeting new people. Sometimes the next breakthrough doesn’t come from pushing harder, it comes from the proximity, from conversations and relationships, from one introduction that opens the door you never expected.

Just like the craftsman who took a $400 job and ended up shaping architecture all across our country. Because somewhere out there is a person you haven’t met yet who could change everything for you and your business.

So if you’ve been building your dreams mostly on your own, consider stepping outside your usual circles. Go to a new event, grab coffee, introduce yourself. You never know which conversation might change everything.

and dream doers, sometimes the opportunity that shifts your entire future begins with something as simple as saying hello. So thank you so much for listening in today. I hope you could feel my heart and how much I have just loved growing in this area and how much it’s benefited me and to see the outpouring of people from all angles of my life step in and step up and support me and my kids has been one of the greatest blessings I have ever experienced and I have

So many people praying over me in the coolest and weirdest environments, to be honest, in coffee shops and grocery stores, as I’m working, meeting new people online. It’s just so, so incredible to see the good in the world and in people and see it coming back.

when so much of my life was spent trying to do good and do right by people. So I really want to encourage you to continue working on yourself, continue pouring into others, not as a manipulation tactic to get back something, but to know you’re pouring into people and things and your job and your family and your kids and volunteering and stepping up where you can because you are you.

and know that the earth is going to bless you back in return. So I hope you feel encouraged by that today. Believe it. It can and it will happen for you and it’s going to happen for you. And when the hard things come, know that you have spent all of your time preparing and building for this time so that you can remain a sustainable person and your business can stay afloat and you can get through the shit storms of life by soaring right through them. So thank you.

all for listening in today. Make sure you subscribe across the board wherever you love to listen in or watch on YouTube and until next time!