As I drove up to the RBC Center last night just before 6:00, I realized that this Chamber of Commerce After Hours I mentioned yesterday was going to be way bigger than I thought. There were hundreds of cars in the lot already and I was in one of the side lots. I walked in and went upstairs to the meeting room and bar area and there were tons of people there. It was interesting just to walk around and look at who was there and from what companies. Clay and I had a good time, catching up with a couple of people we knew already and meeting a lot of great business people. It's funny how connections happen: Clay had vaguely recognized one guy in one of our passes through the room and wasn't sure where from. As it turns out, they used to work out at the same gym. His name is Rick Gonzales from New York Life and it was fun to see these two figure out where they knew each other from. Another new person to us was Hugh Bannard from Orkin Pest Control. He was kind enough to introduce himself and give us the name of his brother, a Cary chiropractor, in hopes we could benefit each other.

Speaking of chiropractors, I talked for a while to two different guys, both from Cary. One, Dr. Mark Workman of Cary Neck & Back Clinic, is a doc I had worked with when we both volunteered at Campbell University a few years ago. It was good to catch up and we realized our gym and his office are very close together. A second chiropractor was actually walking past me, noticed my name tag and the Athletic Nation name and struck up a conversation. Dr. Steve Palazzo turns out to be a great guy from New York who's been in this area for about a year. His office, Integrative Chiropractic, is also close to us. With his interest in rehabilitation and prevention, I think our businesses can mutually benefit each other as well.

I saw two extremely contrasting examples of how to do this type of personal networking. One guy walked up to me and Clay as we were walking through the crowd, handed us his card, told us the name of his business and walked away, without letting us say a word or really interact. We glanced at each other and threw the cards away.  Note to self - don't ever do this! The opposite, much better, example was Saed Hamad of Digital Ad. He saw my nametag, asked about Athletic Nation, talked about his history with the fitness struggle, and basically connected with me. Very nicely done, Saed! Then we talked about Digital Ad and what it could do for our business. It was a conversation and exchange, with, hopefully, value given and taken on both sides. That's what these networking things are for.

One of the most interesting people we met was Wendy Bray of Toshiba Business Solutions. She has a tremendous background in exercise physiology and personal training and understood the concept of what we're trying to do at Athletic Nation right away. I'm hoping we can get to work with her a bit in the future and utilize her knowledge to both our benefits.

In short, a great night. I'm glad I went, in spite of my lukewarm attitude yesterday.