You grow or stay stagnant. My point is that you either are taking action to improve yourself and your business or you are not. This is like being all talk and taking no action or being fully engaged. Action matters and there is no time like the present to put yourself out there, meet people, and try to expand your network.
Another component of this is continually assessing whether actions and activities you are doing are achieving your desired results. This informs what actions you continue to do, abandon, or change. By doing this, it has helped me utilize my time better and have much better results.
If all I can do is write about what to do, but not do it, that is to my detriment. I like writing about networking and similar topics, which is why you are reading this today, but my goal is not to be a writer. I want to be known as an attorney who is constantly trying to expand his network and develop meaningful relationships with the people I deal with. By doing so I have better control over my professional path and create opportunities for me and those with whom I’m connected.
One of the things I like best about what I do is meeting and working with all different types of people including other attorneys (really), accountants, other professionals, business owners, and many others. The diversity in the people I deal with keeps me engaged, interested, and energized to keep networking. It keeps me trying new things in my effort to expand my network and develop interesting work for my colleagues and me. I always say, if we were all the same, the world would be a boring place, which I truly believe. Those differences are the fabric of the world.
So, are you working to meet people and expand your possibilities or are you staying stagnant? You either are improving yourself or not. If you do not do so, you are destined to stay in place and live the life of the worker bee, which is not necessarily a bad place to be. But if you want to be climbing higher with larger goals, no matter if it is in your profession, your company, or your industry, start by expanding your network and see where it can take you.
As always, this post and others can be found on my blog, Business Law Guy.