Diversifying My Network: Why the People You Know Across Industries Matter More Than You Think
I have been building relationships for a long time.
Before I started my doctoral program in clinical psychology, I spent over a decade in human resources and talent management. I earned a master's degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology. I co-own a fitness studio. I have moved through corporate environments, academic spaces, and community settings, and in each of them I have met people who became part of my life in ways that continue to matter today.
When I look at the full picture of my network, what stands out most is not the number of people in it. It is the range.
What a Diversified Network Actually Looks Like
A diversified network is not just about knowing people in different companies or different job titles. It is about having relationships that cross industries, disciplines, life experiences, and perspectives.
My network includes HR professionals and organizational leaders from my corporate years. It includes fitness instructors, studio owners, and health and wellness practitioners from my work in the fitness world. It includes fellow doctoral students, faculty members, and clinical supervisors from my academic life. It includes community members, veterans, and advocates whose lives intersect with the work I am training to do.
None of those groups exist in complete separation from the others. They inform each other in ways I did not always anticipate when I was building those relationships.
What Each Part of My Network Has Given Me
The people I worked with in human resources taught me how organizations function from the inside. They gave me a practical understanding of workplace dynamics, power structures, and the gap between how institutions present themselves and how they actually operate. That knowledge shows up in my clinical thinking more than I expected.
My colleagues in the fitness world -- particularly in pole dance -- taught me about community building, body autonomy, and the relationship between physical movement and emotional wellbeing. They also taught me what it means to create a space where people feel genuinely welcome regardless of what they look like or where they are starting from. That is directly relevant to the kind of clinician I am becoming.
My academic community at Adler University has given me intellectual rigor, ethical grounding, and a cohort of people who are serious about the same values I am. The mentors and faculty I have connected with there have shaped how I think about my role in the larger system of mental health care.
And my community connections -- the people I know through advocacy work, through the Association of Black Psychologists, through veterans organizations -- keep me grounded in the real-world impact of what I am training to do. They remind me that clinical psychology is not just an academic discipline. It is a practice that touches people's lives directly.
Why Diversity in a Network Matters for a Clinician
Clinical psychology does not exist in a vacuum.
The people who seek mental health care come from every background, every industry, every kind of life experience imaginable. A clinician whose network and frame of reference is narrow will always be working at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding the full context of a client's life.
When I sit with a client who is navigating workplace stress, I understand organizational dynamics from the inside. When I work with someone whose relationship to their body is complicated, I bring a perspective shaped by years in the fitness world. When I engage with veterans or active duty service members -- one of my specialty areas -- I draw on relationships with that community that began long before my clinical training did.
That breadth of experience does not replace clinical training. But it enriches it in ways that a more linear path would not have provided.
The Unexpected Value of Staying Connected
One of the things I have learned about networks is that the relationships you build during one chapter of your life rarely stay confined to that chapter.
People I worked with in corporate HR have connected me with community resources that became relevant during my clinical training. Colleagues from the fitness world have shown up as unexpected sources of support during the harder stretches of my doctoral program. Faculty mentors I met at Adler have opened doors to research opportunities and professional communities I could not have accessed on my own.
These connections did not stay in the lanes where I first built them. They traveled with me, evolved, and continued to provide value in forms I could not have predicted when those relationships first began.
That is what a diversified network does over time. It compounds. The relationships you invest in genuinely -- not transactionally, not strategically, but with real care and reciprocity -- tend to come back around in ways that matter when it counts.
Collaboration Across Difference
There is something else a diversified network gives you that is harder to quantify but equally important: the ability to collaborate across difference.
Working with people who think differently than you do, who come from different professional cultures, who hold different lived experiences, builds a kind of relational flexibility that is essential for effective clinical work. It trains you to listen without assuming you already know the frame of reference. It expands the range of perspectives you can draw on when you are trying to understand a problem. It makes you more useful in complex situations because you are not limited to a single way of seeing.
For a clinician whose work is fundamentally about meeting people where they are, that flexibility is not optional. It is core to the work.
Building Your Network With Intention
If you are a doctoral student or an emerging clinician reading this, I want to offer one piece of thinking that has guided how I approach relationships:
Build with genuine interest, not strategic calculation.
The most valuable connections in my network were not ones I made because I thought they would benefit my career. They were ones I made because I was genuinely interested in the person, their work, or their experience. That authenticity is what makes relationships durable. People know when they are being networked at rather than connected with.
Show up consistently. Stay curious about people's lives beyond their professional titles. Share your own story honestly. Be useful to others without keeping score.
A diversified network built that way becomes one of the most enduring assets you will carry through your career. It strengthens your ability to understand different perspectives, creates meaningful opportunities for growth and impact, and provides both support and continued learning across every chapter of your professional life. If you are ready to create a plan for your career or academic you can schedule a call here: https://www.jasmynsteele.com/shop/p/career-academic-planning-session
Jasmyn Steele, M.A. is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology (Military Track) at Adler University, Chicago, IL. She has over a decade of experience in human resources and talent management, is co-owner of Pure Gravity Fitness Studio, and is an active member of the Association of Black Psychologists. Follow her at jasmynsteele.com.
