In the world we live in, you can have anything you want (almost) instantaneously.
Want a hot news flash? A newsfeed app on your phone will scratch that itch.
Want a hot retail item? Amazon Prime will have it to your door in no time.
Want a hot meal? UberEats will deliver to your door.
BUT...there are two things, that no matter the improvements in our society or the advancement of technology, you simply cannot speed up.
What are they?
Relationships and Job
Skills
No matter how hard you try, you cannot speed up quality relationships or important job skills. They just take time.
As your Chief Encouragement Officer, allow me to share a story that illustrates this point.
Fifteen years ago, I met a man who had some ideas of how we might partner at that time. We went to lunch to discuss the opportunity. While we hit it off personally, we both recognized the timing wasn’t right for a professional endeavor.
Fast forward five years. Through another encounter, I reconnected with this same person. We thought the timing was better for us to pursue working on a project together. As it turned out, the timing still wasn’t right and we didn’t have any more contact until literally just a few months ago.
When we reconnected a few months ago, we immediately recognized that all the skills and relationships we have developed over the past decade finally put us in a spot to pursue working together and we are currently working together on an exciting project.
My first meeting with him was fifteen years ago and it took that long for both of us to know the right contacts AND to have the proper skillsets to actually make a partnership work.
Today, let me encourage you to see that while you can certainly speed many things up to create greater efficiencies and productivity, you CANNOT speed up the building and development of relationships and job skills.
Spend some time today listing out who you could reconnect with to continue building important relationships. Additionally, what job skills do you need to sharpen this year?