Building Relationships

One of the things I get excited about today is meeting new people. Mike Dooley (www.tut.com) says that you should always be doing “something”. If I am unemployed and I sit at home then it is likely nothing will happen. But if I get out there and do “something” then “something” will happen. What I think this translates to in terms of actual experience is that by getting out there and doing “something” I will very possibly meet other human beings. As I meet these strange beings, I will begin to develop relationships with them. We talk about the laws of attraction like they are some mystical phenomenon. Here’s an example I like to use where the laws of attraction are very obvious and practical in nature. If I get out there with a positive attitude then 2 things begin to happen. One, I am out there doing something and two I am out there with a positive attitude. Well by being out there and doing something with a positive attitude I am going to attract people to me. This isn’t mystical and it isn’t metaphysical. It’s literal. Aren’t you attracted to people with a positive attitude? Isn’t that why you are reading this? Don’t you like reading something positive? So if I am out there with a positive attitude, then I am going to attract people to me. More than likely these are going to be other people with a positive attitude or at the very least a desire to be around those with positive attitudes in order to learn how to have ones themselves.

Coming to the point, when I attract people to me in this manner they will come with all kinds of opportunities. In Leveraging the Universe and Engaging the magic, Mike Dooley talks about an example of a guy who takes a job at a restaurant waiting tables even though he really needs to earn more money than this job affords. I am very roughly paraphrasing this. The guy does the job with gratitude and a great attitude. This gets noticed and eventually attracts the attention of the right person and he is ultimately lead from this experience to a very successful career.

When we get out there we get an opportunity to meet people. We begin to build relationships with them. This is very important in business and it is even more important (and I think often overlooked) in our personal lives. We don’t think of “networking” in our personal lives, but I propose the following. That we should be networking in our personal lives very much like what we do in business, but with a different end in mind. In my personal life my ultimate goal is to grow as a person. To learn to be more loving, caring, courteous, kind. To be a better husband, friend, son and so on. So shouldn’t I be “networking” or for that matter looking to surround myself with people who serve as an example of these things? If I recognize that someone I know is really respectful of his wife and instead of talking about what a “this” she is or a “that” she is he is talking about what an amazing partner she is – that’s the person I want to be around to learn how to be a better husband. On the other hand when I encounter the person bad mouthing his wife, I want to encourage him if I can to focus on what he can do to improve his relationship with his wife and a good first step might be to stop bad-mouthing her to his friends.

So I start to think about the people I want to surround myself with in business and in my personal life. The simple generic answer is to surround myself with positive people. Summarizing and taking it one step further I want to look for people who serve as an example to me of what I want to become. Then I can start asking them for guidance – this of course take a very important key life ingredient to be able to ask someone for guidance or help..

Shhh – don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret..

humility

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