When Your Career or Business Takes Off, Do You?
by Kate Nasser | 8 Comments »
When you get busy with success your focus changes and trouble lurks if it blinds you completely. When your career or business finally takes off, do you?
Do you forget people who have formally or informally mentored you? Do you abandon friendships?
Do you recoil when others who helped you now ask for your help? Do you leave people while telling yourself you are still there?
You may have busy blindness!
Career or Business Takes Off and Causes Busy Blindness!
Signs of Busy Blindness
- When asked for a time to network, you reply “I am working mega hours per week and the rest of my time is spent with family.”
- You wait to reply to emails until you want to connect?
- You send out the December holiday letter summarizing your year to people you overlooked all year
- Post updates about your life online all year at Facebook or Google + and consider that networking.
or
Do not despair. Busy blindness is curable.
People-Skills Tips to Cure Busy Blindness
- Recognize it. Are there people who made time for you when they were busy? When they try to connect with you now, what is your response?
- Kick your fear that people may want too much time from you. Staying connected doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your success. You still have control over your life.
- Find 5 minutes each day to connect with one person directly via phone, email, or text. Or at least reply to their outreach in a timely manner.
- Subscribe to their blogs. Leave an occasional comment so they know you are thinking of them.
- Oddly enough, ask them for more help. If you are extremely busy, you may find that your network that has helped you before will be glad to help you still. Helpers like to stay connected.
- Turn off the television. You will be amazed at how much time you discover. [Thanks to Jeffrey Gitomer for that one.]
- If you aren’t even watching television, you can afford to hire a part time personal assistant to keep track of your networking. This assistant will schedule a calendar of connections for you, help you to follow up, and keep your network on your radar screen.
Perhaps Katie Couric says it best in her new book: The Best Advice I Ever Got: “Today you may be drinking the wine, tomorrow you could be picking the grapes.”
Either way stay close and connected to the vine!
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach
©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.
Related post: Is Anyone There? by Henry Alford. Source: NY Times.
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to fill the gaps of diversity with business wins. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.
Great post Kate. It is so easy to be blinded by business. You also share a great point about asking for help. I see that every day. When you are drowning in to-do’s, good friends will often throw you that much needed safety rope and pitch in to help.
Joan
p.s. does this count as my 5 minutes. 🙂
Thanks Joan — so many ways to keep connections healthy and alive. Appreciate your feedback and yes, it counts as your 5 minutes 🙂
Kate
Kate. This post is WONDERFUL. (I’m glad that I took the time to read it. I guess that means I don’t have busy blindness today) We often overlook the fact that relationships are critical to success and happiness. I’m leaving myself a note to re-read this post during our busy period.
Have a wonderful day!
Frank
Love this Kate. I have been on the receiving end of this problem and it caused me to pull away from the individual. While I want to be a bigger person and be true to my convictions, my motivation is significantly diminished to do that.
Great post!
Hi Kate,
I agree with the others that this is a wonderful reminder with actionable steps to correct any case of “busy blindness”. Certainly, there’s a lot being written and said about the importance of fostering relationships in business, especially in today’s ever growing online social connections. Your post is a good reminder that in any relationship, we get what we put into it and treating relationships like obligations instead of as something that’s valued and appreciated will have us soon losing much of the ground we worked so hard to get in the first place.
Great reminder, thanks!
Thank you Andrea for the feedback!
Regards,
Kate
Thank you . Really it is a good advise because it is easy for any one who cares about work to be busy blindlness My husband is suffering from this problem and he start feeling unhealthy . I like your idea of finding 5 min each day to connect with others .