How many times have you been in a situation where you had a premonition or a tingle that said you should or shouldn’t do whatever it was you were about to do?
According to a well-respected neurosurgeon, you should take heed of that feeling.
Dr. Allan Hamilton, a neurosurgeon with the the Arizona Health Sciences Center (and the author of “The Scalpel and the Soul”), told a few stories on an NPR interview recently that drove home this point. The one that got my attention was when he told how he had delayed a patient’s surgery and his delay saved the man’s life. He told how earlier in the day before this man’s brain surgery Dr Hamilton had seen a rabbit dead by the side of the road. When he was with the patient and the man’s wife, the doctor heard her say “It will be fine, my little bunny.” Something made the doctor tell his nurse to delay the surgery by a few hours because he “had a feeling.” In the time of that delay, the patient had a heart attack that he survived. If the heart attack had happened during surgery, the patient most assuredly would not have survived.
While this is a dramatic example, it is true that we should pay attention to those hairs on the back of our neck, that twinge in the stomach, that feeling of doubt or assurredness. You are being told something and you should listen.
So the next time you are in a networking situation, listen to the feelings you have when you shake a hand, what comes over you as you make eye contact, what you heard in the conversation and how it made you feel.
Communication takes many forms: verbal, non-verbal and emotional. Like a good book or movie impacts your emotions and feelings, pay attention to those signs as you connect with people. It will be like a sixth sense in helping you build your network, connect with people and enjoy your life.
Relentless
