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What's Your Story?

Yesterday, I was listening to a SUCCESS Magazine CD and one of the contributors was famous business coach Dan Sullivan. He had excellent advice for any entrepeneurs but one of his nuggets went farther than that...this is POWERFUL to any human being on the planet, in my humble opinion.
When asked about the one piece of advice he would give any entrepeneur, here was his answer: Make a list of 10 people you would like in your company, on your team, to be mentors, etc...and invite them to breakfast, lunch, or dinner on YOU. Then....you simply ask them to tell you their life's story and DO NOT INTERRUPT EXCEPT TO ASK QUESTIONS!! Do not mention at all your business, what you are currently doing, your family, or anything....THIS MEETING IS STRICTLY ABOUT THEM!!! He said this is the most powerful tool he knows for anyone wanting to be successful. Everyone has a story, and truth be told, everyone wants to tell it...but no one seems to want to listen! He went further with this and said that if you truly do this...the referrals that will come your way will astound you! Why? Because you have earned their trust in the most important way possible!!!

True Networking is like this...it is about the OTHER PERSON and how you can help THEM, not how they can help you!!! It is also the basis for what we call 1 on 1s....getting to know the other person...not pushing yourself or your business on them. Nothing is more irritating than going to meet someone and them spending all the time talking about themselves and their business and realizing they could care less about you! You simply fulfilled a quota for them!

Also...this is a very powerful tool for the person seeking a job opportunity! You can realize where the person came from, their background, and what made them who they are today. It will help you narrow your focus or possibly suggest to you a new avenue of inquiry.

I have to confess....I LOVE THIS IDEA!!! I LOVE to hear someone's story because I am an auditory learner. I remember this about a person so much more than what they looked like....or what they wore. I was just telling someone over the weekend that my favorite college professor got me to LOVE history (where I had always had football coaches teaching me in High School) simply by telling one story after another. I started reading Historical Fiction books voraciously after that because it made the era come alive to me! Whether or not every little detail was completely true was immaterial to me....I understood the big picture and felt how the participants must have felt and that was extremely powerful to me!!!

So....your call to action is simply this: FIND 10 whom you WANT to be associated with: in business, personally, with a charitable enterprise, or just to learn from and practice this and let me know how it works....because it undoubtedly will!!!!

To your success: Raising my cup of  Earl Grey Cream to you!!!

Sheila Williamson
www.sheilasenergy.igniteinc.biz

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