Stop Hustling, Start Listening
blog.alexgodin.comAccording to Alex: When you show people respect, something magical happens, people respect you back and it pays off. Suddenly, they want to help you win.
This reminds me of one of my favorite rules from Stephen Covey: Seek First to Understand [1]
According to Covey (and I paraphrase), good conversations begin when one party makes a real effort to understand the other. This generally triggers a similar reaction on the part of the other person. It seems like a small change in conversational style but what happens as a result is revolutionary.
Alex says: people will "want to help you win". In my experience this seems to be the case. It's also just a more pleasant way live.
There's nothing wrong with networking, but effective networking comes out of genuine interest in other people, not out of self-serving opportunism.
Check this out: Helping others makes you happier. Five steps to doing it right: http://bit.ly/17cPhDe
I couldn't agree more with this. Personally I would much rather have 1 person that I have fostered a very strong relationship then 10 people who I have weak connections with. I think that quality beats out quantity just about every time. Just my opinion.
Personally I would much rather have 1 person that I have fostered a very strong relationship then 10 people who I have weak connections with. I think that quality out beats quantity just about every time.
Possibly, but maybe not...
http://acawiki.org/The_strength_of_weak_ties
http://sociology.stanford.edu/people/mgranovetter/documents/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_ties#Weak_tie_hyp...
Some interesting links. There definitely is a point to a lot of weak ties, and I'm sure it works really well for some people. However I do tend to opt more towards a smaller close knit network, probably just my personality but I find that works a lot better for me.