Dedicated professionals and business man and women are just that – Dedicated. Usually it is the other areas of their lives that are compromised to enable their success. I have seen it in countless clients whose relationships are non-existent or take a second place to work. This does not mean that they are not attractive or anti-social. Actually quite the opposite, some of the most attractive and amazing people in my life are just that!
These types of people, the type of person who you may be if you are reading this article, have needs that are the same as every other man and woman on the planet. We all desire human interaction and mental stimulation and when we don’t receive these basic needs we often feel lonely and isolated. Sure Successful individuals claim that they interact daily in their jobs with the people they deal with on a day-to-day basis and I do agree, to a point.
The stimulation that your workmates and clients are not able to provide is on a higher level, an emotional and supportive level. Remember the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks. In the movie, Toms need for human interaction was so great that he created a “friend” Wilson out of a coconut. We do not go quite this far in our professional lives however, I ask you to critically review a number of your professional relationships and consider wether you have made something out of nothing.
Let me ask you this? Do you consider it appropriate to discuss your inner most thoughts with the next client that walks through the door or arrange a meeting with your boss to talk about your sick brother-in-law? No – thought not. These are the types of subjects that we normally reserve for our close friends and partners.
So how do successful people find attract and maintain relationships under these circumstances? Well you have a number of options. You can try the local club and pub scene. If you are anything like the clients we have at Social Dynamics you will probably find the quality of the people there very hit or miss. I know myself I became frustrated by the drunken girls and aggressive guys and decided that it was just not worth it! You could try online dating. The advantage of online dating is that you can streamline your preferences and narrow your search to only the types of partner you are looking for. The downside of online dating is the amount of time that is required to invest and find the right person. I have also found a number of individuals pretending to be something that they are not.
Once we have found a potential “date” the second thing that a number of individuals struggle with is starting and maintaining the relationship. This is common and unfortunately it is not something that is included in school curriculum, it is not until we understand a few basic concepts that we can be a successful partner!