As an introvert it’s important about who I spend time with. This is one reason that when I network, I run from those energy vampires. You know the ones both online or in person? They profess to have an interest in helping you, getting to know you, but their actions are incongruent. The conversation doesn’t move forward. It goes nowhere. No big surprise. I do my best to not connect with this type but it’s hard to tell from the get go.

Even when I select friends I tend toward people who are more optimistic, open and have similar interests. Recently I had lunch with a new neighbor. I discovered she is quite a successful entrepreneur who is expanding her business. Her energy was so refreshing from some of my other neighbors, particularly the women, who don’t work. I’m not being snobby here, it’s really just a preference. Many of their conversations are often draining for me because they want to either complain about this or that, or they stay at the small talk level.

My new friend – she reminded me twice in quite specific terminology that she feels we have the start of a great friendship – was excited about the restaurant we picked for lunch, talked happily about her business, and delighted with the fact that we each made time in our busy days to have lunch.

Why would you surround yourself, if you could choose, with anyone less than this? My friend and colleague Snowden McFall, my guest blogger, has some wisdom about how to Surround Yourself with Winners:[Continue Reading…]