Speaking Spells: Why What You Say About Networking Is Already Your Result

The magic most of us practise without realising

There is a kind of magic most of us practise without realising it. We do it at breakfast, on the drive to an event, in the moment before we walk into a room full of people we don’t yet know. We do it quietly, in the voice we reserve only for ourselves.

We cast speaking spells.

Not the kind that require wands or incantations. The kind that require only a thought, a repeated phrase, a belief we have held for so long it has started to feel like fact.

The spells we cast before we even arrive

I’m not good at networking.

It takes so long to see any results.

I never know what to say.

It feels forced.

It feels fake.

It doesn’t work for me.

These are not observations. They are instructions. And the extraordinary thing about the human mind is that it will follow them, faithfully, devotedly, without question, because it does not know the difference between a belief and a truth. It only knows what you tell it, repeatedly, with feeling.

Language is not a neutral tool

This is not a new idea. Every tradition that has ever taken the inner world seriously, from ancient philosophy to NLP, from neuroscience to contemplative practice, has arrived at the same conclusion: the stories we tell shape the reality we inhabit. Language is not a neutral tool. It is a creative act.

So when you say networking doesn’t work for me, you are not reporting on an experience. You are building one. You are narrowing the aperture through which you meet every room, every conversation, every opportunity. You are, in the most literal sense, making it so.

Why networking spells embed so deeply

Here is what I find genuinely fascinating about this in the context of networking specifically: the results of networking are slow to arrive and slow to depart. Which means your speaking spells have had years to embed.

The woman who decided at her first awkward networking event a decade ago that she was simply not a networker has since proven herself right several hundred times. Not because she was right. Because she kept saying it.

How to reverse a speaking spell

The reversal of a speaking spell is not complicated. It does not require you to become someone else or to pretend you love small talk. It requires only that you become precise about what you actually mean and curious about what becomes possible when you change the words.

Networking takes so long might become: I am building something that compounds.

I never know what to say might become: I am learning to ask better questions.

It feels forced might become: I haven’t yet found my version of this.

These are not affirmations. They are more honest than the original phrases because the original phrases were never objective truth. They were just the first story that arrived and was never challenged.

What becomes possible when you choose different words

The Athena Network was built on the belief that the right room, the right relationships, and the right conversations change the trajectory of a business. But before any of that can work, you have to believe it is possible for you. Not for other women. For you.

Your invitation this week

Audit your speaking spells. Not with judgment, with genuine curiosity.

What have you been saying? What has that been quietly creating? And what might you choose to say instead?

The spell is already being cast. The only question is whether you wrote it on purpose.