About the Book
Meaningful relationships are a must-have to sustain and further your career, yet networking remains a rarely taught art. Your Invisible Network is your guide to building, maintaining, and effectively leveraging professional relationships with both nuance and integrity-and in only twenty minutes a day.
A network built on reciprocity, depth, and trust isn't merely helpful to your career growth; it is absolutely necessary. And your network can't consist merely of people you are drawn to. You need practical ways to engage with all the people who are crucial to your career.
Relationships are the key to activating all your other career assets. Your skills, work ethic, education, lived experience, passions-all of these will only achieve their full potential when paired with meaningful relationships. But how are you supposed to do this? And how can you do it in a way that is authentic to who you actually are?
Your Invisible Network provides a practical, actionable plan for building and sustaining a network that is crucial for your growth-brought to you by Michael Urtuzuastegui Melcher, an internationally acclaimed executive coach and leadership expert who has worked with professionals in nearly every field for decades. Melcher provides nuance, subtle truths, and clear suggestions that go well beyond the pablum of business gurus and Instagram influencers. Every chapter of Your Invisible Network contains a series of quick lessons and manageable practice exercises that even the busiest of professionals can fit into their schedules.
As you build up your network, you'll learn-
The seven types of relationships critical for your career successHow to foster meaningful connections with people with whom you have little in common How to find mentors and sponsorsHow to reach out to people despite discomfort-and what to do if they don't respondHow to be a resource to othersHow to have a happier and more fulfilled work life
Relationships are a form of wealth that is under your control. You can build this wealth from nothing, and once you have it, no one can take it away from you. No matter what career stage you're in, it's time to reevaluate your network and equip yourself with the tools to boost its power-your secret weapon for career success.
About the Author :
Michael Urtuzuastegui Melcher is an internationally known executive coach and leadership expert. Over the past 20 years, he has helped entrepreneurs, attorneys, investment bankers, White House appointees, tech wizards, healthcare leaders, community activists, board chairs, parents returning to the workforce, and young people just starting out. He has delivered keynotes and workshops at Camp David, at Google, at leading universities around the U.S., and in a dozen countries on five continents. Melcher was raised by a Mexican-American single mother who was the first Hispanic woman in America to earn a doctorate in accounting. He is a gay dad to his twin sons, Nicolas and Mateo.
Review :
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""This is a book that will share immediate practical steps for achieving your career potential. That alone makes it worth the price of purchase. But it's also a fascinating, engaging, entertaining read. Michael Melcher doesn't just know his stuff. He can really write.""
—George Stephanopoulos, ABC News, Host of Good Morning America and This Week with George Stephanopoulos
""We all recognize the value of a network—but how exactly do we build our network? In this invaluable resource, Michael Melcher clarifies the process by providing clear strategies, real-life examples and models, and manageable steps.""
—Gretchen Rubin, Author of The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, and The Four Tendencies, and host of the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin
""MichaelMelcher has written a clear manual with elegant proofs and a sense of humor. YourInvisible Network takes the mystery and, most importantly, the stress out of building a personal network in a way that, to quoteMichael, ‘fits into your life as it is right now.'""
—Daniel Sturman, CTO, Roblox
""Reading Your Invisible Network is like getting advice from an expert who also happens to be a close friend.Michael Melcher's relationship-building knowledge is deeply nuanced and global in scale.""
—Carmen Chang, General Partner and Head of Asia, NEA
""The book reads like a novel. The stories come alive off the page, perhaps because they are real humans in all their diversity and humanity. And there are plenty of fascinating vignettes about the author himself at different ages, as he learned from trial and error the brilliantly nuanced practices he lays down.""
—María Alvarez, Social Impact Leader / Common Sense Latino Founder at Common Sense Media
""The adaptive leaders the world desperately needs in the coming years must have skill and confidence in building and maintaining relationships. Yet this remains an obstacle for many. Your Invisible Network demystifies how to take intentional action to expand and improve your relationships.It will be equally relevant to experienced CEOs and to recent grads entering the workforce.""
—Pam McLean, PhD, Cofounder & Chief Knowledge Officer, Hudson Institute of Coaching
""Reading this book is like having one of the world's most insightful coaches whispering in your ear. It should be required reading for every soon-to-be graduate and for anyone navigating the inevitable twists and turns of a long and satisfying working life.""
—Marci Alboher, VP CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org) and Author of The Encore Career Handbook and One Person/Multiple Careers
""For both entrepreneurs and investors, relationship building is crucial, yet few have a grasp of how to manage this process. Your Invisible Network is the guide we have been waiting for. In clear, compact language, Michael Melcher lays out how to build authentic, reciprocal relationships while you're busy doing everything else, and how to leverage them in ways that are productive and human.""
—Soraya Darabi, Cofounder and Managing Partner, TMV
""We all know we need to ‘network'—but this is the rare book that gives us very practical and pragmatic advice on how to do that with purpose, and with results that will help in business and in life. We know Michael Melcher's confident yet humble voice from his engagements with PSI, and one of his gifts is to let us learn from his own mistakes and limitations. Your Invisible Network reads very differently from most American business books:practical, honest, accessible, and yes, funny.""
—Karl Hofmann, President/CEO, Population Service International (PSI)
""It's been a long time since Michael Melcher was my business school study partner, but I can assure you that his voice is exactly the same: intelligent, warm, funny, and very provocative. What's changed is that he now has several decades of experience seeing exactly what works in building a high-impact career, and in this book he shares it all with you.""
—David Sze, Managing Partner, Greylock Partners
""Michael Melcher's genius is his ability to get right to the heart of complicated career issues and provide practical steps to make significant change . . . When you finish Your Invisible Network, you'll have a plan for reaching your potential—and a dose of Michael's wit along the way.""
—Minh-Thu Pham, Cofounder, New American Voices and Lecturer, Princeton University
""For years, Michael Melcher has been a go-to resource for Stanford alumni. One of his skills is breaking down complex, subtle topics into specific, actionable steps. Your Invisible Network is a cogent guide to building and managing professional relationships—and also goes a long way to demonstrating how to be a caring, capable human in an imperfect world.""
—Carly Janson, Director, Alumni & MSx Career Services, Stanford Business School
""I loved Michael's book—and you will too—because it's really all about relationships: how to build, nurture, and leverage them so you lead a richer life, and get more of what you seek, professionally and personally. His book is also immensely practical, full of real examples, scripts, and exercises, which reflect what people (and their coaches) truly want and need on this topic.""
—Michael Chang Wenderoth, Executive Coach, Author, Get Promoted"
