Book Excerpt: Networlding

Excerpted from: Networlding: Building Personal and Professional Relationships for Success in the New Connected Economy, by Melissa Giovagnoli and Jocelyn Carter Miller.

The model above illustrates the hierarchy of the development of relationships (like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for individuals) that evolves from a conscious communication exchange process with a select group of people.

Emotional Support: The part of consciousness that involves feelings. Our feelings about others serve as the foundations for our relationships. The focus of exchanging emotional support with another is to create rapport, a relationship of mutual trust and affinity.

Information Support: Information is a combination of messages. Once there is an initial rapport built, we then feel comfortable to share information of value.

Knowledge Support: Here, we add the element of experience. By sharing our personal experiences and those experiences of others we have heard, we add an additional value to our exchanges with others.

Promotional Support: As we continue to build rapport we naturally share with others the attributes of those whom we value. We heighten the awareness of these networlding partners to others and in doing so, better position them opportunities that arise.

Wisdom Support: Wisdom adds an element of time, clarity and understanding to our communications with others. Wisdom also adds the element of caring and compassion—a real desire to help others develop and achieve their life’s dreams.

Transformational Opportunities: A natural result of emotional, informational, knowledge, promotional and wisdom support is a favorable or advantageous combination of circumstances. Opportunities can be leads or referrals or new jobs or business, personal or professional. The Networlding Exchange creates opportunities we can actually see evolving.

Community: this support results from a series of exchanges. A critical mass is reached when two or more people consciously connect regularly to support one another. There is a ripple effect that occurs as each party to a networlding relationship shares various forms of support with others in his or her community and it is further shared and so on and so on. If you change yourselves, you will, in turn, change everyone around you and they will in turn, change everyone around them. Eventually, there will be no one in a community not touched. Something changes in the whole matrix of experience.

Fulfillment: A deep, personal sense of satisfaction comes from finding your purpose and making things happen in life that fulfills that purpose. Throughout the networlding process we receive fulfillment from our exchanges individually and even greater satisfaction from the awareness that we are making a difference for the people we are benefiting through our exchanges. Fulfillment offers us a panoramic view of the literally thousands of conversations we have with others throughout our lifetime and gives us a gauge that measures the degree of satisfaction we feel we are achieving. Celebrating small successes is a big part of this.

If you would like to become part of an Online Networlding Circle through email, at no charge except for the cost of the Networlding book (at a book store or through our web site), which you will need to get in advance, please email us back. We will put you on a list and when a group opens up, we will include you.

Reprinted with permission

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