Yaps Club

One of the best things about Personal Development books is that, unlike accounting, you can test out the ‘theory’ fairly easily. Just go to a gathering and you have as many ‘test subjects’ as you desire or have the strength to meet. Pardon the referential term used but I think it serves well for this one occasion, would you not agree?

However, if you are anything like me, you soon realise that you do not have many gatherings to go to… and that is where these clubs fit in.

Dictionary.com defines ‘Club’ as:

“A group of persons organized for a social, … or other purpose.”

So with that in mind, I registered with Yaps to attend their March ‘Networking Event’. Yaps stands for ‘Young Asian Professionals’. Interestingly enough, when I got to Victoria, I was greeted to a huge rally of motor bikers who were staging a protest outside the Westminster council building against road tax on bikes. It was simply amazing to see so many gorgeous bikes all lined up… Cannot think of many occasions when I had a desire to get a bike but this occasion certainly reminded me of what I may be missing. Here is an image from the rally courtesy of Flickr.

 

 

The event itself was hosted at Slug & Lettuce Victoria and was incredibly congested. Imagine 50 odd people crammed into one corner of the pub/bar and you may get the idea. The venue itself was quite nice though, being not a big fan of pubs myself. The lighting and and friendly bar staff helped give it a comfortable feel, which was needed as I had no idea what to expect from the event itself, all those thoughts of standing by myself in the corner had given me long enough a company en route to Victoria. Thankfully, coming in early has its advantages and I fortunately found my first company all by himself in the middle of the room and this was before I had put aside my coat! And that was the start…

I did not even realise it but I ended up spending around four and a half hours there. As where I live in London, there is hardly any Asian community (save for few Chinese), I was pleasantly surprised by how young, dynamic and successful many Indians and Pakistani were… all in all, a wonderfully enlightening experience which resulted in me making quite a few acquaintances.

Interestingly enough, all those advices from ‘Anthony Robbins’, ‘Dale Carneige’, ‘Leil Lowndes’ were forgotten when it got busy… save for one advice which I held onto the entire evening (no idea how), and that was Dale Carneige’s:

“Be genuinely interested in people”

Such a simple and basic advice yet so powerful and practical too! And judging from the response I got, I think I did quite well, if I may say so me own self.

Yaps have another event lined up for end of April and I am already looking forward to. This time with a few more ideas in tow.