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Posts Tagged ‘Meeting’

A few years ago I recall the looks of pity my friend Sarah would get when she mentioned she’d been trying online dating. I must admit, at the time I thought she must be desperate; couldn’t she meet anyone in ‘real’ life? Didn’t she meet people at work, or at parties? I judged her actions and concluded she must be either a bit weird or socially inept. Of course, you know I wouldn’t be writing about this if she had never met anyone… sure enough, she met a guy online and fell in love. And he didn’t live in Bahrain either, he lived in her town.Just one experience like this in your own circle of friends can make you question your hasty judgments. So could online dating prove to be a mainstream way of meeting people, or would it remain in the margins of society? Is it humiliating to look for people online?Well let’s say you’re busy all day at work (nobody eligible there), you go out twice a week with your usual group of friends (been there, dated them), and the rest of the time you’re washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning your home (or more likely a combination of Facebook, TV and surfing the net); realistically, HOW MANY NEW PEOPLE ARE YOU LIKELY TO MEET? Even if you met one new person a week, how many of those are likely to be a good match? One in a hundred? At that rate, it would take a couple of years to meet someone you could fall for. Not bad. But in the meantime, you’ve spent two years alone!So let’s say you look at these statistics and realize you need to up the odds of meeting someone. You do the logical thing and search a database of three million people on a UK dating site. Isn’t it still a bit like shopping for a laptop on Amazon?! Isn’t it less ‘real’ than bumping into someone at a party?Well is email less ‘real’ than talking? Be honest, which do you do more of these days? Be even more honest, which mode of communication would you prefer when meeting someone for the first time? THIS was the main factor that converted me. Talking to someone new that you like the look of is hard! Actually initiating communication is WAY easier online; you get to think through what you say and how you’re coming across, you don’t have to worry about blushing or sweating or your mouth going dry. No more nervous chat-up lines and stuttered introductions. Unless you’re a ‘player’, you’ll be REALLY glad of the generous advantages that online communication gives you.Yes there are negatives – you can’t completely check someone out until you meet them in person and pick up on the non-verbal communication. But let’s say you meet ten people a week now – even if only one of those turns out to be eligible, you’ve increased your chances of meeting someone by 1000% over the natural method I mentioned earlier! Can’t argue with that.In conclusion, it didn’t take much to convert me. eHarmony claims to be responsible for over 2% of marriages in the USA. That is incredible. A long time ago, online dating seemed to me like a last resort for lonely people. Now I am convinced that it is surely the best place to start.

Recently I presented a business development training session at a conference. The audience were managers from all across Australia. I gave them a 2-minute break and asked them to get up and talk amongst themselves.

When we resumed I asked how many of them made a point of meeting someone they didn\’t know. One lonely hand went up in the air. Only one!

This was particularly important as the conference workshop was about building effective business relationships.

The moral of the exercise was that we naturally gravitate towards people we know and like. And it is easy to stick with our current network of clients, colleagues and industry contacts.

It can get scary when we have to meet new people.

But – from a business development perspective – it is extremely selfish when we are not brave enough too reach out to people we don\’t know.

It is selfish for us to avoid engaging with people with whom we may be able to develop a mutually beneficial relationship.

I have spoken with many clients and training delegates who are reluctant to meet new people. They feel a bit awkward and unsure of themselves.

Does that sound like you too?

In many cases this reluctance is based on self-centred feelings such as:

It is ironic that most people feel the same way, and could easily comfort each other. Yet everyone keeps to the safe relationships they already know.

So, in our efforts to stay within our comfort zone we act selfishly and do not fully explore new opportunities.

This can be the kiss of death to a service business. Especially for new businesses or those that are trying to expand into new areas. Meeting new people is critical to the success of the organisation.

By meeting – and fully engaging – with new people (prospects, industry partners, or referral sources) we open the doors to:

One of the greatest challenges for service providers, professionals, business owners, and new sales people is to have the confidence to strike up new relationships.

You owe it to yourself and to your business (or to your employer).

The tools you will need include:

For those who muster the courage, and learn the necessary skills, a whole new world of possibilities and success awaits you.

Approach anxiety is one of the most common things you hear about when it comes to dating and meeting new people. A great misconception in our society is that only males feel approach anxiety, this is absolutely not true and even women can feel approach anxiety when wanting to start a conversation with other women or men. Approach anxiety is basically when you want to start a conversation with someone you don’t know yet, but you freeze because you feel nervous and don’t want to seem weird.

Approach anxiety goes all the way back to the beginning of human history when we lived in tribes of 50-80 people. At the time we lived in these tribes because we humans were very dependent on each other and we wouldn’t be able to survive out in the wilderness by ourselves. Because of the small size of these tribes you could easily compare the social structure of these tribes to a very small village in the way that everyone knew each other and always knew what was going on in the village. This created a very close bond between people in the tribe but it also had some disadvantages.

The biggest disadvantage and the one that started approach anxiety was the fact that if you did something weird or not socially accepted everyone in the tribe would know about it within a few hours. Therefore getting rejected by a member of the opposite sex, would lead to you becoming less attractive in the eyes of all the other people in the tribe and in really severe cases it could lead to you being thrown out of the tribe.

At the time being thrown out of your tribe meant guaranteed death within a couple of days and therefore humans started building the defense mechanism of approach anxiety in order to secure their survival.

This mechanism has followed us until today where us being thrown out of the “tribe” is totally unimportant and won’t severely minimize our survival chances. However this fear is hardwired into our brains and comes to haunt us when we want to meet new people. The easiest way to overcome approach anxiety is to immediately approach the person you are interested in when you start feeling the anxiety coming up, the longer you wait the harder it will become to actually approach the person you want to meet. Make sure you exercise self control and take action; it could make the difference of you meeting your ideal partner.