Relationships: The Foundation of Success

09/22/17 • 18 min

I have been away for some time. Life has been extremely busy in a great way. I have spent the last few month moving into a new beautiful home, planing an amazing wedding in the Caribbean and working towards a big promotion at my company. Now that the dust has settles, I have all of my boxes unpacked, I secured my big promotion, and I get to come home everyday to an amazing wife, I thought it would be a great time to touch on relationships.

Relationships are the cornerstones of success in just about any endeavor you pursue. Not just your romantic relationships, but also the relationships you have with colleagues, with friends and family, and most importantly the relationship you have with yourself. These all tie in very closely to becoming truly successful. If you have a weakness in any one of these areas, it will ultimately spill over into the other areas of your life.

Your place of work can be an office, underneath the hood of a car tuning an engine, behind a lawnmower landscaping, or in the cockpit of a jetliner. Whatever your profession, the relationships that you have with the people around you will ultimately determine to some extent how high you can climb. I work in Talent Acquisition in a very large company and have seen first hand how powerfully relationships can affect the trajectory of your career. Many times it's not always the most skilled person or the hardest worker who gets ahead, it's the one who has the best relationships, and has those relationships with the right people. I like to think I do my job extremely well, but I can tell you that no matter how good I am that I would not have been promoted if I did not have a good relationship with my boss and the people in my company who are ultimately my clients. The key part of the equation is figuring out who the key players are. Who has the most influence and how can I get in front of them. One of the best ways to build a great relationship with key decision makers is simply to become a problem solver. Each and every day high level people in large organizations are faced with problems that they rather not deal with. As an example in my function as a recruiter, I must find high level talent for a variety of functions. These candidates who are chosen to work at my company ultimately are tasked with managing our clients. If I don't find the talent, the client is not happy and the business losses revenue, not a good thing. What I have done to build relationships outside of the small circle I recruit for is quite simple but required a little extra work on my end. I frequently "drop by" offices of the CEO's and Presidents and introduce myself. I let them know I work in talent and that if they after have a problem with a hard to fill job I am there guy, regardless if it is my division or not. More often than not these stakeholders are more than happy to introduce me to one of their staffing challenges. At the end of the day, when my work is done, I start working on their problem and I go above and beyond the hours and workload that are required and expected of me. The end result? Anytime the CEO or President has a challenge, they request me. I have become a problem solver in my organization simply by stepping outside of of my normal responsibilities and going the extra mile. keep in mind that I just don't go around and do extra work for anyone, I pick the key players, the top guys. Having their attention is worth far more than the hours I have put in to help them. Over the course of of 4 years I have been promoted quickly through the ranks often ahead of my peers. Now when they see me they greet me by name with a smile, had I not mustered up the courage to "drop by" their offices, I d not think I would be in the position I am in right now. It may require extra work, it may require you to be more creative and think outside of the box, but I can assure you that if you identify the right people, build relationships with them and solve some of their problems, you will put yourself on the fast-track to your next promotion.

On the other hand, lets say you don't work in a big company, you own a small one. Who do you build a relationship with to get ahead? After all you are the CEO right? The answer to that is an unequivocal no! Your clients, they are the CEOs. Without them you have nothing. Whether you sell a product or a service, your business will ultimately be built on the relationships you have with your customers. So how do you build relationships with your customers and clients? You communicate with them. Every business owner should read Kevin Kelly's "1000 True Fans". It gives insight on how large of an impact having just 1000 true fans can have on your bottom line. So who are your true fans? These are the people who will buy any product or service you sell, read any article you write and travel miles to hear you speak. To build a true fan base you have to connect with your audience, whoever they may be. Take a look at you...

Previous Episode

The Power of Persistence

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit"- Aristotle

Some 350 years BC Aristotle knew the power of persistence. Today we hear quotes on persistence from some of the most prolific people of our time. Of all the traits of successful people, I have come to see persistence as being omnipotent. There is nothing in this world that can stop something that refuses to quit. On the contrary, the reason why most people fail to reach there destination is a lack of persistence.

In reading "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, we are introduced to the story of R. U. Darby. Darby's uncle struck gold in Colorado and headed home to Maryland to purchase some mining machinery to properly mine the vein of gold from the earth. He had "gold fever." Upon his return home he took out some loans to secure the machinery and headed back to Colorado bringing Darby with him. At first things went well, they almost found enough gold to rid them of their loan debt. Soon things would take a turn and the gold seemed to disappear. They dug and dug running through their resources but found not a spec more of gold. Eventually they decided to cut their losses. They sold their machinery and with their heads hanging low they returned home.

This is just the beginning of the story. The man whom they sold the equipment to was not convinced the gold had run out, so he hired a mining engineer to give a second opinion. What the man found was astonishing. They gold vein that Darby and his uncle were mining continued just three feet from where they stopped digging. The man took the machinery and continued digging. He eventually mined what turned out to be millions worth of gold.

The moral is simple, we often give up when we are so close to our goals. When Hill interviewed Darby for his book, he was a millionaire. He attributed much of his success to the lesson he learned out in Colorado. Never give up! In life the surest way to get to where you are going is to never give up. Persistence can and will conquer anything. It is persistence day in and day out. The sum of all the small things we do on a consistent basis that will bring us to our goals.

I will say never give up but I say it with one caveat. If something does not work then try something else. When we have a goal we often get tunnel vision and set off on a course to achieve our dreams. I see so many people quit when things don't go their way. We must all learn to be fluid in our approach. Your ultimate dream is something you should never compromise on. We have one life to live and we should not spend a second of it not doing something we love. This does not mean, however, that there is not another way to get to where we want to go. If you keep running into a wall and it doesn't budge, try going around it. Lacking a fluid approach can be your biggest disadvantage in life. If you have a goal and something along the way does not work out, try something else. There is more than one way to cook an egg. Sometimes giving up on a project that isn't working is the best thing we can do. It forces us to think outside of the box for a better solution. It is these small bumps in the road that make the journey everything it should be, a challenge. Getting to the top is never easy. Facing challenges will build character and resilience. Learn to adapt and see new roads that lead to your destination. Stay focused on the end goal but do not be afraid to switch your strategy. Be persistent and you will always reach your destination.

In this episode I give you some of the tips and tools I use to stay persistent in working towards my goals yet stay fluid in my approach. I hope you enjoy.

-Stay inspired!

-Raf

Next Episode

The Time is Now

I once read a story of two college professors who were married to each other. They had dreams their whole life of traveling the world together but always found a reason to put it off. As a young married couple they thought that they should put all their money towards saving for a "rainy day." Soon they were on their way to having a child and thought they would have to put off their travels until their child was off to college. Some almost 20 years later, still longing to make their dream come true, they thought they should wait until their child was out of college and had begun their career. The years passed and they had saved all the money they needed to travel but wanted to wait for one last life event before heading off, they wanted to retire. The thought of retiring and then finally pursuing their lifelong dream together seemed to good to be true. One year before they retired the wife develops life threatening cancer and sadly passes away. They never had a chance to live their dream together, and while this is just one small example, I hear similar stories over and over. All to often we put off the things we really want in life. Hearing stories from people who are interviewed at the end of their lives, I noticed an extremely distinct pattern. People regret more the things they did not do in life as opposed to the things they did.

I like to think that we all have dreams but all too often I see people make excuses to either put off chasing their dreams, or simply not chasing them at all. Some of the most common excuses I hear are, I don't have the time or money. I'm too young, or I don't have enough experience. The list goes on but what I know for an absolute fact is that if its important enough, you will make time for it, and you don't need any money to start because there are people who have started with absolutely nothing. very simply if there is a will there is a way.

Life is made up of moments, some small, and some that become the defining moments in our lives. Don't let life just happen to you, be the creator of your defining moments. You only have one life to live, go after the things you want, if you want to travel, then travel. Don't let your circumstances write the story of your life. You are not a product of your circumstances, your circumstances are a product of the things you do with your time., and your time is limited. The reality of life is that you may not have another tomorrow. Your life is too short to not go after the things you want. So don't make an excuse to not go after your goals, don't make an excuse to put it off until later because later may never come. You have to believe in yourself. We are capable of far more than we give ourselves credit for. Each an every single human being walking this planet has the ability to be truly amazing. So go plan that trip, take the first steps towards starting your own business, apply for that job. Do whatever sets your soul on fire, and go do it now. Right now, this moment, make this the defining moment of your life. One of the greatest truths we can ever discover is that through the spirit of determination, there is absolutely nothing that is impossible!

Stay inspired!

-Raf