Kaley Chu has a confession: before embarking on an ambitious mission to banish her shyness, she felt like a boring person with "absolutely no stories to share".

"It's pretty hard to impress people when you're just so not interesting," she tells ABC RN's This Working Life.

The business development manager had surrounded herself with similar people — who could speak her native Cantonese — since moving from Hong Kong to Australia for university.

"I thought my English was OK because I started to learn English when I was three, but when I got here I couldn't understand what [people were] talking about," she says.

The catalyst for change was a client meeting where she failed to utter a single word, despite being prepared.

She and her boss brainstormed ways she could improve her conversation and networking skills — and in turn overcome her shyness.

Lunch with 100 complete strangers, they decided, was the remedy.

So why lunch with 100 people?

One of Kaley's lunches was with Ray Malone, founder of crash repair company AMA Group. ( Supplied: Kaley Chu )

Kaley, who works in finance in Melbourne, settled on the number 100 because it was realistic — and more likely to make an impact than a handful of lunches.

"I can't do it every single day, like 365," she says.

"But I thought if I want to get the result, then I should have a goal that should be able to make a difference."

She began sending messages via LinkedIn to people from all walks of life, telling them about her goal and asking them to lunch.

Only 10 per cent of Kaley's invitations were accepted; most people declined or simply ignored her request in the beginning.

Among those who said yes were business owners, electricians, teachers, engineers, graphic designers, IT programmers and truck drivers.

She admits "nothing really happened" during the first few lunches — she couldn't will herself to talk much.

But the same thought-provoking question kept coming up: how do you get the most out of life?

"I feel like for the first 20-something years of my life, I lived on autopilot," Kaley says.

"You just go to work, go home, Facebook, Candy Crush and then you sleep and start the day... "

A more interesting life

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A lunch with a billionaire changed Kaley's way of looking at the world.

She told him that all she wanted to do was "pay the bills and live happily ever after" — and then felt embarrassed by the remark.

"I think he was expecting me to have big goals, and big dreams, and change the world or something," Kaley says.

"He got me thinking that maybe I could do more, and maybe I have underestimated my potential."

Kaley realised she needed to find her passions. She began sharing more stories over lunch, and asking more questions.

It resulted in a life that's a "lot more interesting" — she's tried skydiving, run a marathon, joined a mud run and authored a book about her personal experiment.

Kaley has lunched with people from all walks of life. ( Supplied: Kaley Chu )

"Now when I go out and meet people I usually have something fun to say, 'Hey, I did this at the weekend, this is where I went,'" she says.

"It's easy to build a connection with people."

She says those connections have also changed the way she works.

Gone are the days of chasing clients — her lunch dates have offered up new opportunities, and introduced her to other people to build her network.

Networking and the 'elevator pitch'

Kaley also had lunch with Vinay Samuel, the founder of analytics technology company Zetaris. ( Supplied: Kaley Chu )

Career coach Leah Lambart says Kaley was wise to choose a form of networking that suits her personality.

Kaley was also smart to build her network while she still had a job — she was genuinely interested in meeting people, rather than just asking them for help.

"Many people only start their network when they've lost their job. Ideally they want to have that network well established long before they actually need the network," Ms Lambart says.

"It should be focusing on long-term. Mutually beneficial connections and quality connections, rather than just looking for people when you need help."

A lot of networking these days happens online on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook — and you can join niche groups specific to your industry.

But face-to-face interactions are still valuable.

"No level of demonstration of how good you are online will tell you that you're good at listening," executive recruitment specialist Sinead Hourigan says.

She recommends that you have a 30-second "elevator pitch" about yourself to build on when you meet people, and buy into conversations to make genuine connections.

"One of the things that I often talk about with my own team when we're talking about how we do networking in a positive and effective way is to avoid the 'roving wine pourer' which can be the downfall of many people with good intentions at networking events," Ms Hourigan adds.

You could also take a leaf out of Kaley's book.

Ms Lambart recommends people set up "information interviews" with others — but be mindful that not everyone has time for an hour-long lunch.

There, you can ask questions about their job and industry, and make a connection that could propel your career forward.

There's no such thing as a free lunch

Kaley now has at least 240-odd lunches under her belt, and stays in touch with most of the people she meets.

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She hopes to one day create a "100 lunch club" to help others combat shyness.

"I know for a fact if you have lunch with 100 strangers, doesn't matter what your goal is, strangers can help you fast track them," she says.

And as for the question of who foots the bill? Kaley says it's usually split, though she always offers to pay.

"I think most importantly, if I [had] to pay for every single lunch that I had, it [was] worth every single cent," she says.