Building Great Business Relationships
Who are you surrounding yourself with?
Tony Robbins says, "Proximity is power." We become the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with, don’t we? Well, then, it stands to reason that we are either empowering ourselves by investing our time with those people who lift us up, or we are disempowering ourselves by investing time with people who drag us down.
We all have ‘lifters’ and ‘draggers’ in our lives, but sometimes we don’t recognise them for what they are. Often, we allow people to come into our lives by default, not by design.
Who are you surrounding yourself with? You may want to ask yourself a few quick questions and do a bit of a relationship audit:
Do they support me?
Do they inspire me?
Do they think differently to me?
Do they make me slightly nervous or uncomfortable (in a good way!)?
Do they challenge me to be the best version of myself?
Skip the echo chamber.
While it’s comforting and familiar to hang around people who think just like we do and tell us we’re great all the time, an ‘echo chamber’ is not where we experience growth and expansion of our minds, our skills and our character.
Investing time with people who might be a few years ahead of us in business or personal development is a wonderful way to level up! As a matter of fact, Ivan Misner (the founder of BNI International) calls this concept ‘Networking Up’. It’s networking and intentionally building relationships with people who are at that next level. Why? Because it can be inspiring, you can learn a whole heck of a lot from them and often, they are very open to helping or mentoring someone who is genuinely interested in improving themselves or their business.
Another way to empower yourself is to not only surround yourself with people who lift you up but to also be mindful of what information you surround yourself with – and when! We really need to be aware of what we consume all day long every day. What kind of media do you look at, read or watch at night or first thing in the morning?
Our mind, as we know it now, has over 60,000 thoughts a day!
The reality is that we are not always in control of it, but quite often it is in control of us. What we need to do is recognise that and intentionally start our day in a way that's really productive. Recognise the very first thoughts you have when you wake up. Are they serving you or not? Then, determine what you’ll feed your mind throughout the day. Because just like you would work out at the gym and build your muscles, your mind is the same type of thing. You want to grow your mind into a muscle that's actually going to serve you rather than it taking you down the wrong pathways.
Our business success, or lack of it, is a direct result of how well we look after our minds and our bodies! Start your day with empowering thoughts. After all, business is about serving people. And to be able to serve the kinds of people we want to serve in our businesses, we need to support ourselves to be the best version of ourselves! It all starts and ends with us. Start your day with empowering thoughts and habits. Start your day with hydration! Our brains are 73% water! So, when we’re dehydrated, we literally find it difficult to think clearly.
When we can think clearly, we can prioritise our day! We can decide which activities will help us really move the needle in our business that day.
As opposed to waking up to your phone buzzing on the side table notifying you that someone has liked your Facebook post, or someone has emailed you. We think – ‘oh, I’ll just have a quick look’ but then we go down the rabbit hole of other people’s agendas! Which can put us in a very negative, unfocused space to start the day. We get triggered into picking up our devices and then go on autopilot. Use the tools you have as tools to support you – don’t allow them to take you off track.
Now it’s your turn:
What we would really encourage you to DO as a result of reading this today is twofold:
First, identify 3-5 people who you really want to have around you – people who are just that little bit farther along than you are – and go make contact with ONE of those people today.
Second, choose ONE morning habit you will STOP or START that will serve the purpose of setting you up for a great day ahead!
