Shelf-life is probably a bad word but I can’t think of anything else now – so rather than breaking my head on it I decided to explain what I mean and it will all get cleared in a minute.
We meet or get introduced to all kinds of people on a power scale. Some – powerless on one end of the spectrum and some – extremely powerful and can have a huge impact on your life on the other end of the spectrum and some – that are in between.
Once we meet, we talk and meet again and talk and slowly build relationships.
Young and upcoming professionals typically have a hard time building relationships with very powerful people unless they bring something extremely compelling to the table. Unless this changes, their own rating on the power scale won’t go up. Meeting powerful people is only a part of the equation. The real test is how long can you hold the attention, engage them and keep them in a relationship (shelf-life of power relationships)
Here is a quick exercise you can do:
2. For each of these new introductions, write down the length of time you were engaged fully. If some of these relationships are current, very good. If not mark times in months such as 1, 2,3..6 etc.
3. For ease of calculation, take an average and that should be the “shelf-life” of power relationships
4. Lastly, the new year is coming up – what could you do to consciously increase the “shelf-life” next year?