I used to think the night only mattered if I could trace it to an outcome. A contact, a follow up, a reason to say it was worth it. Then a pattern started to show up. Conversations that had no strategy behind them were the ones that stayed with me. The night where nothing was gained was the night that taught me the most. Why does that feel backwards at first?
The Problem
I became a DJ before I became a regular clubber. My early motives were not pure. I wanted access, recognition, later a place in the scene. When I stood on the dancefloor, I was not moving. I was analyzing. I was judging DJs in my head. I told myself it was about taste. It was really about status.
That judging voice was easy to spot once I noticed it. I would hate to be judged the same way.
So I stopped. The problem is what replaced it. I started performing appreciation instead. I was hunting DJs in clubs, shaking hands, saying “great set,” then moving on. It sounded positive, but it carried an agenda. I wanted to be seen as respectful. I wanted the exchange to mean something for me.
People can feel that. Respect that arrives with a hidden receipt is still transactional. The moment looks polite, but it feels thin. The other person might still smile, but it does not land in the body the same way. That is the problem I could not solve with better social skills. The issue was not my words. It was my why.
If you have ever replayed a conversation in your head and wondered why it felt hollow, this is the place I was stuck in. I was trying to do it right. I was still trying to do something.
The Solution
The shift did not come from a strategy. I never sat down and designed a new approach to networking. I just became more curious. I started caring about the person in front of me more than the role they held. The change was slow and accidental, and that made it honest.
The conversations started to move away from music, from careers, from who is playing where. They became about daily life, travel, the atmosphere in the room, the setup, the people around us, the vibe of the city. Often the other person kept it going. Sometimes the exchange ended after a few sentences. That was enough. There was no expectation to turn it into a thread.
I saw the pattern repeat.
With Guy J, the interaction was minimal, and it resonated more than any planned encounter. The other time with Estiva, backstage at a festival, the conversation was about regular life, not about performance. With HAAi, it was a chance meeting at the bar in a dark club in Prague, a shared drink, a brief moment on the dancefloor, and a clean ending. No asks, no favors, no introductions requested, no attempt to convert a moment into opportunity.
What stayed consistent was what was absent. I did not need anything. I did not posture. I did not plan a next step. That absence created space for trust to appear, even if it was only for a minute. If you have read Treating People as People, this is the longer arc behind that late night encounter. It was not a one off. It was the result of a quiet internal realignment.
Why does this keep working? Because DJs and artists live inside projection. People want something from them all the time. When you do not want anything, it is a relief. Small clean interactions stand out more than big gestures. Presence cuts through noise more effectively than positioning. I learned this in another arena as well, when I wrote Presence Beats Reach: A SoundCloud Retrospective. The same rule applies on a dancefloor. Presence is a signal that says you are not here to take.
This approach has a cost. You will miss short term wins. You will skip the chance to extract access or leverage. Your visible career might move more slowly. But the relationships that do form are clean. You can feel it in your chest. There is less residue. There is less confusion about why you are there.
So here is the system that emerged without being designed:
- Remove agenda from interactions.
- Let curiosity be sufficient justification.
- Treat moments as complete in themselves.
- Allow conversations to end naturally.
None of this is about being saintly. It is about being aligned. When your inner posture matches your outer words, the room responds. The conversation feels alive. The other person can relax. You can relax too.
Authentic conversations are not created by effort. They emerge when performance is removed.
Conclusion
The difference was never who I spoke to. The difference was why I spoke to them. When the interaction carried intent, it felt thin. When curiosity led, it felt alive. When nothing was needed, trust appeared.
If you are trying to be more present in rooms that feel heavy with status, start here. Notice what you want. Name it honestly. If the answer is to be seen, ask yourself if there is a cleaner way to be a person in that room without trying to be a product. What would happen if you let the moment be enough?
The quiet paradox is that the less I tried to do it right, the more real it became. That is the only form of progress that has ever felt like peace.