Are you limiting your network?

Photo by Leoplus

Where do you think your network is and where do you think it could be?

If you would have asked me that question two or three years ago, I would have pretty much told you Wisconsin or even central Wisconsin. My business has changed exponentially in the last year in many ways but the largest way is the reach I have and the connections I have in places that I would not have thought of before.

Yesterday I was checking to make sure I had the time right for a client call with a client in California. Just as he called me, I had written this in an e-mail:

Time Zones… I have to keep checking, asking and adding… You are Pacific time 2 hours later, Greece is 8 hours earlier, the UK is 6 hours earlier, East coast is one hour earlier… and Mountain time is one hour later so I have to keep thinking as I schedule.

Though I have talked to people in other parts of the country for years, this is the first time I have to think about it as I schedule my day. At the moment, I have clients in Greece, California, Minnesota, Texas, and Wisconsin. Earlier this year, I was working with people in Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Michigan. I have many colleagues and new friends I talk to throughout the United States and lately, I have been talking to colleagues in the UK regularly.

Don’t build limitations

I tell you all of this because I think we limit ourselves because we only see our network taking a small space and don’t really look at the potential. Some clients I work with tell me that they have no network. I doubt it. Unless you never talk to anyone anywhere at any time, you have a network. You just aren’t building it.

Once we can start to understand that there are no limits to who we network with in terms of where they are in the world, we can build on it and grow relationships. It doesn’t matter if your old college roommate lives in Italy and you live in San Diego, if you were connected then and remain in touch, there is the opportunity to network.

There are a thousand ways we limit ourselves daily, this is just the one on the top of my mind today.

What steps are you going to take to examine how you might be limiting your network and reach out to someone  today?