ECFC excerpt and Twitter GIVEAWAY

It’s here! Tomorrow is the “official” release date for Everyone Communicates, Few Connect.

And even though many bookstores actually started stocking it weeks ago, we still want to celebrate by offering something to you now. So over the next few days, look for promotions here on the blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

TOMORROW (March 30) is an all-day giveaway on Twitter.

(Obviously, if you don’t already follow me there, now’s a good time to start.)

Just log onto Twitter 3/30/2010 at or after 9:00 a.m. EDT, when I’ll share how to enter. Your patience will be rewarded.

Now on that note, I’ll share a timely excerpt from Everyone Communicates, Few Connect:

Connecting Requires Patience

We live in an impatient culture. We use drive-through windows to buy meals, pick up our dry cleaning, complete banking transactions, and order prescriptions. I think Lisa Thorne’s comment on my blog describes a lot of us: “The good news is I move fast; the bad news is I often move alone.”4 Everybody is in a hurry, but that prevents most of us from connecting with others effectively. If you want to connect with people, you need to slow down.

I must admit, impatience has always been a weakness for me, and I have continually had to work on it. Early in my career, I wanted to do things as quickly as possible and move on to the next thing. If someone didn’t want to move at my speed, I breezed right past him or her. But that leadership style hindered my ability to connect with others, and my relationships suffered. The good news was that I moved fast. The bad news was that I often moved alone.

Moving at the speed of another person can be exhausting. It obviously takes energy to keep up with someone who is moving faster than we are. But isn’t it also tiring to move at a slower pace than we want to? Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The man who goes alone can start the day. But he who travels with another must wait until the other is ready.” I find waiting very frustrating. It tries my patience. However, if I want to connect with people, I have to be willing to slow down and go at someone else’s pace. Good connectors don’t always run the fastest, but they are able to take others with them. They exhibit patience. They set aside their own agendas to include others. These things require energy. But I’ve discovered over the years that anything really worthwhile in life takes time to build.

From Everyone Communicates, Few Connect