The world is an incredibly small place. I can tell you countless stories of running across people in strange places from other parts of my life. My husband and I have never directly worked together, yet have worked with many of the same people. I used to work with Finney, and now I work with his Wife, Becky. The point of this is- Don’t burn those bridges, whenever you are upset, mad, whatever, keep building bridges. Keep building relationships, because they do go around and come around again.
Honestly, it can be incredibly tempting whenever you leave a phase of your life to move on to let people have it. Switching schools? Let the old administration and teachers have it! Problem is, people remember stuff, particularly negative things. That means that they are likely to come back to haunt you later. Remember my comment about coming across people in other environments? It happens. People go different ways in life, and sometimes they don’t cross again. Sometimes they do.
Life is about building relationships. You may have heard by now that when you’re looking for a job, it’s not what you know, but who you know. Build bridges, because you never know when you’re going to need them. Keep going, because it’s important that you have as many friends as possible. One simple example I’ll give you is my current business. My employees have largely come from people I know, or people they know. I found Becky through Finney. Alisa was one of my dad’s caregivers. And Christine, I met in Girl Scouts. Many of our clients come from networking contacts we’ve built, or people we’ve known for years.
Building relationships is worth it.
Here’s your 1 Tip to Build Bridges
- Meet people face to face. Go out for coffee, for lunch, for dinner. Meet them where they are. Even if you’re in a technology job, or whatever, go out to lunch with former co-workers. Meet new people, and go out. Keep building, and watering those relationships. People are important. Real relationships are super important. Women frequently don’t spend the time networking and building relationships, because they have families, and other concerns.
What do you think? Have you ever benefitted from maintaining a relationship?
