When you're business networking, the first thing to stop doing is thinking you're out to get something. You're not. You're out to give. What, you might ask. The most valuable thing you could possibly give – a friend. You as a friend. So you attract friends. Not customers.



When you converse, you want to ask questions so the other person has a chance to talk and you have a chance to see and hear who and what they really are. You want to know if this is a person with whom you could become real friends.

One of the things I like to ask is, are you a reader? I'm a reader and I'm looking for something in common. Something in common helps us be friends. But not just anything in common. If someone's a reader, it often tells me this person is doing well. They have time enough and money enough and, perhaps, luxury enough to be able to sit around and enjoy reading. It can also tell me they are ambitious. They want to learn what will help them get where they are determined to go. It can also mean they have mental peace enough to enjoy new things, like me and what I have to say. And perhaps, if I'm lucky, they might even recommend a good book.

And yet, reading is more powerful than all that. Reading fills us with the thoughts we choose to think. Our thoughts determine our success and happiness. Our thoughts create a thought-field around us. Our thoughts transform all around us into what we perceive things to be. Our thoughts sort and repel what is foreign and attract what is similar. We must consciously choose our thoughts if we will create what we choose to create. We must read to improve the quality of our thoughts. It rarely happens by accident.

In this great country of ours we are bombarded by what is called “the news.” When you think about it, when you admit what you actually see or read from “the news,” you see that most of it is nothing more than reports from the Dark Side, chronicles of the most terrifying events on the planet. Not everyone knows where they are going. Not everyone takes responsibility for what they have in their lives. Not everyone knows that they think worried thoughts. Not everyone intentionally chooses their thoughts.

To be carefree, to be good company, to have mental peace, let alone improve the quality of someone else's thoughts, we must make a conscious, intentional effort to choose our thoughts and look and listen for others who do the same. We must intentionally improve the quality of our friends and the quality of our lives. All from reading? Reading helps. Perhaps this is a good article for parents to read to their children. You read it here first.