Friday, August 20, 2004
IT'S NOT WHO YOU KNOW, BUT HOW YOU KNOW THEM
I've heard a lot of the pessimistic crowd in my years of taking calls...and it really wasn't until this most recent experience of mine that I've figured out a good answer to the phrase, "It's not what you know, it's who you know."
The phrase above is usually used by someone who is a quitter, or a leftover non-conformist-type person - even a socialist. It's meant to point out the inequities of the kinds of relationships people form with one another. People act as if there's something wrong with knowing someone who can help you achieve a goal or get ahead. I've usually relegated these people to the lazy among us. They who sit around and wait for what they believe is owed to them...
I've received a lot of help from people in the emails - people offering resume advice, career path advice, job openings, suggestions on how to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. For the life of me, I couldn't understand why someone would give that kind of advice to someone they may never have met. I get all kinds of emails - cialis offers, home mortage spam, credit card offers, a whole host of emails with very misleading subject lines...(even though I have spamkiller filter plugins, I take a peek at some of them just in case they're from a listener)...
So what was it that made these people want to extend a possible answer to a problem? I don't know them, so the phrase "it's not what you know, it's who you know" doesn't apply to them. It had to be something else. So the best I could come up with was:
It's HOW you know them
And by that I mean, what was it about your personality that made someone want to help you? It wasn't kissing butt - brown-nosing...it wasn't by nepotism or a "good ole boy" club...
It just may be something simple like the golden rule. How you treat others around you and how you can maybe set an example for honesty, leadership, trustworthyness, character...all those things we say we don't really care about in our political leadership. Am I saying I'm perfect in every one of those traits? No...I honestly don't know exactly what combination of the above I did properly. But I can tell you the result - nice surprises and offers of help...and a renewed faith in people in general.
Try it...you won't get a "reward" for it...but when you least expect it (and mostly need it) you'll find the same thing happen to you. Trust me...
I've heard a lot of the pessimistic crowd in my years of taking calls...and it really wasn't until this most recent experience of mine that I've figured out a good answer to the phrase, "It's not what you know, it's who you know."
The phrase above is usually used by someone who is a quitter, or a leftover non-conformist-type person - even a socialist. It's meant to point out the inequities of the kinds of relationships people form with one another. People act as if there's something wrong with knowing someone who can help you achieve a goal or get ahead. I've usually relegated these people to the lazy among us. They who sit around and wait for what they believe is owed to them...
I've received a lot of help from people in the emails - people offering resume advice, career path advice, job openings, suggestions on how to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. For the life of me, I couldn't understand why someone would give that kind of advice to someone they may never have met. I get all kinds of emails - cialis offers, home mortage spam, credit card offers, a whole host of emails with very misleading subject lines...(even though I have spamkiller filter plugins, I take a peek at some of them just in case they're from a listener)...
So what was it that made these people want to extend a possible answer to a problem? I don't know them, so the phrase "it's not what you know, it's who you know" doesn't apply to them. It had to be something else. So the best I could come up with was:
It's HOW you know them
And by that I mean, what was it about your personality that made someone want to help you? It wasn't kissing butt - brown-nosing...it wasn't by nepotism or a "good ole boy" club...
It just may be something simple like the golden rule. How you treat others around you and how you can maybe set an example for honesty, leadership, trustworthyness, character...all those things we say we don't really care about in our political leadership. Am I saying I'm perfect in every one of those traits? No...I honestly don't know exactly what combination of the above I did properly. But I can tell you the result - nice surprises and offers of help...and a renewed faith in people in general.
Try it...you won't get a "reward" for it...but when you least expect it (and mostly need it) you'll find the same thing happen to you. Trust me...
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