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Do You Take The Time To Get Your Message…
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a French mathematician, logician, physicist and theologian – One of his famous quotes – “Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte”. (Literal translation – I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter), has been paraphrased many times..
Today our communication has been reduced to sound bites that are almost totally ineffective as most people put very little thought into what they want or need to say.
We have created a culture of gross miscommunication, a culture that is now hell-bent on communicating everything in a meme, a 140 character message or a 5-10 second video. Too many times I have seen memes, like the one I have used in this post, with absolutely no explanation whatsoever, other than the saying in the picture.
The biggest challenge to me, and I expect most people, is that we don’t really know the intent of the person who was posting this meme . Are these messages reflecting what the person thinks, feels or are they just trying to say, “Look at me, I think the same as the famous person in this meme, aren’t I clever?”
I feel, and I could be wrong, that just posting a meme without a personal explanation or comment or opinion is a total waste of time and it can actually detract from a persons personal reputation online. I see this happening too many times on Facebook, now LinkedIn and Google+, and my first thought is, do these people have a life, isn’t there anything else better they could do to contribute to their, community, their family or themselves?
On the other hand if they are posting opinions and comments with their memes, we are getting an insight into the person, their heart, we are actually making a connection, a connection that can be the beginning of a process to building a relationship rather than wasting people’s time and bandwidth.
We need to put more thought into what we post, write or say because our communications runs the risk of being dumbed down, if it hasn’t already, and we will continue to lose huge opportunities to connect with the right people, in the right way, simply because we haven’t taken the time to create the right message, for the right circumstances, for the right person.
What are you doing? Are you being relevant? Are you achieving the success YOU want to achieve?
Blog
Why Is Business Networking Confusing?
Business networking like social media, means so many different things to so many different people and because of this, there is a lot of confusion in the marketplace about what it is, what it is used for, and how effective it can be.
I can understand when people use the term “networking”, and they put a great deal of emphasis on coffee catch ups, social networking, getting together for drinks etc…
But when you confuse this with “Business Networking” then it can create a problem because expectations can be very different.
In the last few months I have had the privilege of engaging with 273 people and asking them all a very simple question.
That question was:
“What is your understanding of business networking?”
Interestingly, there is no wrong answer to this question, however, in my opinion, only two people actually nailed the most appropriate answer to the question.
Many people said it was to make connections, to make a sales pitch, to build relationships, to build my database and so on… each of these are a valuable perception.
As I stated earlier, there is no wrong answer!
Two people on the other hand categorically stated that business networking was a system.
You see… they understood that “networking” isn’t a verb… ie. “I’m going networking!”
They understood that “networking” in a noun… that describes a process… ie. “I’m going out to network.”
A system that is not just valuable in business, but needs to be used by everyone, in everyday life, in every situation where we connect and communicate with others.
In fact, everything we do with other people is the process of networking… building relationships.
Most people don’t actually understand the real importance of “networking” in their lives, and they are never taught the fundamentals of developing an effective networking system that will help them build good quality relationships with people.
The system has a number of components, the first of which is actually getting an understanding of why we network and why it is so important in our lives.
Remember – every time you connect with somebody… you are starting an amazing relationship journey… enjoy.
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What’s Your Most Important Relationship?
It is interesting that whenever you use the word “relationship”, the majority of people automatically think of “romantic relationships.”
Relationships come in many shapes and sizes, for example; your relationship with your best friend, your relationship with your barista at your favourite coffee shop (I couldn’t resist), your relationship with your next-door neighbour, your relationship with your boss and of course your relationships with other family members and people who are close to.
Relationships are not limited to the “romantic” variety, but the most important relationship of all is the one that we generally give the least attention to, in fact in a lot of cases it is often forgotten about altogether.
The most important relationship of all is the one you have with yourself… and unfortunately, even though we don’t intentionally focus on this relationship, our continual negative self talk has a profound impact on who we become, how we act and what we actually achieve in life.
If you want to achieve any kind of success, improve who you are or start creating really good quality relationships with others, then you need to change the story you keep telling yourself. That story needs to have all the “can’ts, don’ts, shouldn’ts, and other negative words removed… and before you use that very old worn out excuse of, “I am just being realistic”, understand this…
THE STORY THAT YOU KEEP TELLING YOURSELF WILL CONSTANTLY DEFINE YOU… so choose your words wisely and create a positive, dynamic and powerful story that will re-frame your reality, your relationship with yourself and your relationships with others.
Change your story, come and LIKE our page and join this amazing group of people of Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/FLOW-Australia-542313922848778
To become part of a global community and create significant change… contact me by clicking here, to find out if you have what it takes to achieve your goals and dreams and impact powerfully on our community.
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Time To Make A Change!
One of the greatest challenges in life is that we are constantly giving away our power.
We give our power away at work, in relationships (both personal and business), with our families and certainly with the society in which we live.
The best way in which to regain our power is to constantly improve what we know and make a decision to reduce our ignorance in areas that are important to us.
Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being ignorant… what it means is that at any one point in time we didn’t get the knowledge or information that we needed… to help us in this moment… because that is something we can ALWAYS change, (stupid on the other hand, is another matter :-)).
Our business and work lives are such an important part of who we are and the success we create for ourselves, yet we do very little to make the necessary changes to improve what we do and how we do it.
Instead of worrying about what is going on in the world and how little power we have, we need to take steps to change what we are doing so that we can guarantee our future successes in our job or business.
Making the right connections, learning to have great conversations and building powerful and profitable relationships is a great place to start.
Come and check out the FLOW Australia YouTube Channel , learn many greats hints and tips about networking and discover how you too can grow your business and personal skills for profit and success…
To become part of a global community and create significant change… contact me by clicking here, to find out if you have what it takes to achieve your goals and dreams and impact powerfully on our community.