Paying the price to put into practice the principles Mackay outlines has paid dividends for me numerous times. I experienced one yesterday. A couple of years ago Denece Kitto was added to my network when we served together on Utah Governor Huntsman's Student Achievement Working Group. We have been in contact off and on since that time. Yesterday Denece called me to get some information she needed for an application. Yet, that wasn't the end of the conversation. As we visited about a variety of other individual endeavors we found that not only did we have some similar goals but also each of us had resources that could benefit the other.
It is well-worth the effort to take some time teach day to do the following four things:
- Adding at least one new person to one's network
- Updating pertinent information such as birthdates, interests, names of spouse and children, etc. on index cards or another filing system about people in one's network.
- Contacting at least 1-3 people in one's network through an email, a card, or a telephone call to congratulate, thank, or just to say, "hello."
- Mending any fences that need mending.
We just never know when someone from within our growing and nurtured network will be just the solution we need or when we might have or be the solution he or she needs.
