HerWork

Just finished a great book: Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi. The ideas in this book resonated with me because I’m an avid networker. In my freelance business, networking has been the key to a growing bottom line. And Ferrazzi has crystallized how and why this works.

Some passages that especially rang true for me:

The great myth of “networking” is that you start reaching out to others only when you need something like a job. In reality, people who have the largest circle of contacts, mentors, and friends know that you must reach out to others long before you need anything at all.

Power, today, comes from sharing information, not withholding it. … We’re an open-source society, and that calls for open-source behavior. … [T]he truth is everyone has something in common with every other person. And you won’t find those similarities if you don’t open up and expose your interests and concerns, allowing others to do likewise.

Quoting Tom Peters: “I’m sick to death of hearing, ‘I’d like to, but they won’t let me.’ Be the CEO of your own life. Raise hell. Let the chips fall where they may.”

And, Ferrazzi’s sections on “pinging” and “Balance is B.S.” are nothing short of revolutionary. I’ll probably write more on these later.

It’s in the last chapter, “Welcome to the Connected Age,” that Ferrazzi reveals how he came to this way of life. He explored a spiritual path that took him to the meditation tradition of Vipassana, which he says contributed a level of clarity that allowed him to embrace joy every moment. I find in every one of these cool career or management books I read, there’s a spiritual underpinning. It’s everywhere!

Ferrazzi concludes the book with these thoughts:

Remember that love, reciprocity, and knowledge are not like bank accounts that grow smaller as you use them. Creativity begets more creativity, money begets more money, knowledge begets more knowledge, more friends begets more friends, success begets even more success. Most important, giving begets giving. At no time in history has this law of abundance been more apparent than in this connected age where the world increasingly functions in accord with networking principles.

The “law of abundance” is something I believe in. I’d like to understand it better, that’s for sure, but I know it’s real. I’m on the lookout for it today.

// posted by Laura @ 5:27 AM