Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement

BUILDING YOUR NETWORK
Here is a great exercise for you. Over the course of the next six
months to a year, make a list in a notebook of the 100 most impor-
tant people in your community. As you gather these names from the
newspapers, from conversations, from news broadcasts, and from
your work as you move around, begin to think of how you could get
to meet and know these people. Remember, the more people you
know and who know and think about you in a positive way, the
more successful you will be in every area of your life.
Once you have your list of 100 people, you should add to it reg-
ularly. Begin to network systematically with these people. Once you
have a name, think of how you could communicate with that per-
son. The simplest way of all is to write a letter expressing your opin-
ion on something that the individual is involved in, or simply
expressing your congratulations on the person’s success for some-
thing recently achieved.
Be patient when you start to expand your circle of contacts.
Don’t expect the person you wrote to call you back or to come in
your door to meet with you.You are in the business of sowing seeds.
Sometime down the road, you may see that the person has done
something else and you can write another letter. Over time, these
little efforts will begin to bear fruit.
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