Increase the size of your network 2

In one of our recent posts we advise on how to grow your network. We explain how developing a strong gravitational pull to others will affect the size and quality of your network, both in your personal and professional life (view post). There are useful tips in this muse, but that said, what do you do when the unexpected happens and these useful tips aren’t helpful? When meteoric events blindside you, upending a relationship or even destroying one? Here are a few types of the meteoric events that we’re talking about:

• You’re really enjoying the close relationship you have with your favorite client’s CEO only to have that CEO tell you she’s retiring next month.
• A major event occurs – A close family member passes away unexpectedly, unearthing debris from the past, throwing the family unit off course, with relationships strained, uncoupled, even adrift.
• The products you’ve successfully offered your clients for the past decade (e.g. educational tools for college students) are now free on Google. The meteor struck you without warning.

Do any of these types of events sound familiar?

Disruption is part of life and it always has been. Relationships will be stretched to galactic proportions. Meteors can send you off course. And your clients, family and friends may have you feeling that they have no time for you.

Our first response is often to make big sweeping changes.  The other is to bury our heads in lunar sand. Neither of these is a good option.

Here’s what we advise.

Don’t react impulsively. Instead, look at your solar system and the relationships you have within it. You need to speak to those most critical to the disruption you are currently facing and do these 3 things:

1. Meet with them in person. Be honest and direct about the disruption and how it affects you. Don’t sugar coat, deceive or manipulate.
2. Then attentively listen and listen some more to what you hear back. Listening restores gravitational pull and helps you connect effectively.
3. And most importantly, don’t complain and blame. Complaining and blaming infers that others are to blame for your plight (and they may be). Remember the simple truth that disruption is often not avoidable – It is a part of life, pure and simple. So, our best course is to accept it and reach out and nurture our key relationships. Being compulsive and not conversing with others is allowing the meteor to directly hit you. Your goal should be to decrease the impact.

All we have comes from the relationships we’ve built and nurtured. Increasing the size of your networking universe is a good practice in good times and in times of disruption, too.

At NK&A we’re always here for a Zoom or cup of coffee and some honest discussion – with a positive, inquisitive attitude, too. Call if you’d like to connect.

We’re in your solar system.