Success Through Networking

Rajendra Sagolsem *

There are so many roads to success. One such road is building a network of friends. By the way, have you come across people who are quite friendly and can mix up with anybody in no time? Even in a group of strangers, they will quickly engage in friendly conversations. They will quickly occupy the center stage and others will throng around them to listen and talk. Don't you want to be one of these people? If you want, you can. And I will tell you how. We all are social being. We are born and brought up in a society. We live in a society. So your success in a society depends on the number of people who support and help you.

If you have a huge network of people behind you, success is inevitable. They will push you up high in the society. Socially-empowered people achieve great success only because people behind them support and help them to do so. They earn love, trust and confidence of the people around them. The question now is how they can build huge network of friends. Some people are charismatic. They are born so.

They can attract and charm the people around them like a magician. But they are very few amongst us. Most of the great personalities had a hard time training themselves to succeed. They faced hard realities. They walked through failures after failures. They didn't stop. They continued their journey to success. So they achieved success in the end. If you genuinely want success, you have to train yourself.

And if you choose the road of networking, here are a few tips you may consider. Develop your personality Bad-tempered, complaining, argumentative and generally gloomy type of people can't go along with others. They can't attract and influence people. Rather they are irritating to the people around them. If you think you possess some of these traits, get rid of them quickly. They will continuously hamper your growth and block the road to your success. Think of growing yourself into a pleasant personality. Take sustained interest in reading success stories of great personalities. Give special attention to how they go along with people around them. Imitate them and ultimately, their good traits will become your traits. After all, we all grew up imitating our parents and people around us. Be confident When you train yourself to be friendly with people, you have to be confident. Develop self-confidence. You should be able to be friendly with anyone in this world.

Take the chance to attend every gathering you are invited for. In any gathering, you will notice some people standing in a corner sipping their coffee alone. They are lonely and aloof. But that doesn't mean that they don't want to talk to anybody. Most of the time, they lack the spirit to initiate a conversation. If someone talks to them, they may respond and a good conversation may take place. In your self-training, go to such lonely people with a sincere and pleasing smile and convert your talk into a good conversation.

Practice control Anger is our worst enemy. It not only spoils our health, it also spoils relationship. Anger is an emotion. You can't suppress it either. You have to control it. If you are angry in any situation, don't be harsh with anyone. Learn to avoid any kind of outburst. Any outburst will bring down your maturity level. This will hamper your socializing progress. People seldom go to an angry person. So stay calm and collected.

Take control of the situation and transform your anger into something productive in human relation. Be genuine when you smile. Be genuine when you talk to the people. Be genuine in your interest in people. A fake smile is easily caught. Don't be hypocritical when you deal with people. People don't like hypocrites. Once people come to know that you are not genuine in your relationship, you have lost every chance of making friends. So do everything with your heart. Only then people will believe you.

Be a good listener. If you want someone to come to you very often, then listen to whatever they say. Listen to their problems. If you can, suggest some practical solutions. If not, just sympathize with them. If you want someone to praise you as a good conversationalist, listen to them. Simply nod your head or say yes, yes, yes, when they talk. They will say you are a good conservationist. This is the nature of most of the people. If you listen to them, they are happy with you. Take this advantage and listen to whatever they say. But don't pretend that you are listening. Look at their eyes when they talk. To earn love and trust of the people, listen to their problems with your heart.

Help people. Every one needs help in some way. They may need encouragement in difficult times. They may need suggestions or advice. They may need your cooperation. They may need money. Wherever possible, extend the little help that you can afford. This little help is big enough to win friendship. You don't have to offer all your savings to charity. Little act of kindness is what matters the most. Show a blind man his way. Help an elderly person cross the street. When you commute in a bus, give your seat to a lady if she doesn't get one.

Love yourself. When you are making constant efforts to become a socially-empowered person and building a huge network of friends, don't forget yourself. Take care of your health. Without a sound health, you won't be able to continue with your endeavor. Proper diet, proper sleep and proper exercises are essential for you. Moreover, nobody wants to mix up with an unhealthy person. If you are weak and sickly, no one will come to you. If you want others to love you, you love yourself first. I want to remind you that if you don't love yourself, no one will love you.

Don't neglect your family. In your endeavor to build a network of friends, you should not neglect your family. Your Mom, your Dad, your brothers and sisters, if you are married, your wife and children, if any, are all important to you. Your relationship with your family is too significant and precious that you must not neglect it. Give quality time to your family as often as possible.