I'm still in Denver and at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference.  We finished "The New U: News Entrepreneurs Working Through UNITY" yesterday (Wednesday) and the team repaired to a bar that has a nice view of the Rockies from downtown Denver.  I wanted to get a sense of the team, some thoughts from the participants and do it in a relaxed atmosphere.  One of our mentors is Rod Colon.  He's a former Human Resources VP for JP Morgan.  He quit and started up a professional coaching business several years ago.  He was talking with one of our participants, Claudia Anderson, who had mentioned that she attended a networking event recently in South Florida where she lives.  Claudia mentioned the event was depressing.  She said, "I wanted to toss myself off a bridge" after it was over.  She was smiling when she said that.  We weren't worried.

Rod said, "sounds like you were in a room full of people showing their boo-boos."  We all lightly chuckled and asked what he meant. He said, "there are many networking events where the main goal is for people in similar situations to get together and share their stories."  It can be helpful in some cases, he said, but most of the time is spent talking how bad it is. Being in a roomful of people like yourself can be good therapy the first time, but then what?  A colleague of mine who is also here in Denver  said one reason he loves where he lives is that people tend to have a more upbeat assessment of their "failures."  He said it's as if failing at something is expected and people are not pitied because something they tried didn't work.

Rod advised Claudia to go to events where people have already created or are in the process of creating their next big thing.  He said, "you should walk among the living."