Connecting With Busy & Important People

I grew up in a church of 2,000 where we had close to 30 pastors on staff. For some odd reason, I decided to make appointments with about 10 of them to pick their brains on organizational leadership, and really… life. I was in 9^th grade and my school was connected to the church. I’d skip lunch in the cafeteria to simply be around guys I thought were pretty great.

Fast forwarding to today… I’ve had the privilege to meet with some people I thought were too busy for me, and who I think are too important. I used to be majorly intimidated by busy and important people, but after a few short years of doing it often, here’s a few lessons I’ve learned about connecting with people you truly want to learn from:

1.)  Purpose – The number one pet peeve of busy & important people is having their time wasted. The most valuable thing any of us has is our time. You never want to be sitting at a one-on-one meeting with someone you admire and they think to themselves, “Why am I here again?” If you only want to meet with them because they’re “cool”, then don’t waste your time or theirs.

2.)  Plan - At bare minimum, come up with a plan for your meeting. Write down  4 or 5 good questions you think could help drive the conversation. Do your homework.

3.)  Pursuit – My mentor is the busiest person I know. But most of our meetings happen when I was driving him to or from the airport. I’ve sat at his kid’s basketball games, showed up to family barbecues, or figured out flight times he’ll be traveling and calling him an hour before his flight when I know he’s just sitting in a terminal. At an early stage of our friendship, I let him know that I was willing to “meet” or “connect” with him WHEREVER. That let him know that I valued his time and that I was serious about learning from him.

4.)  Value – If you can, add value to the conversation. My pastor grew a church from 600 to 3000… so what kind of value could I bring to him in a conversation? He’s already got a highly-trained staff, a sharp board of elders, and other pastors that can clearly offer him more than enough value. False. Here’s what I bring to the table: youth. I wrote a Young Adult Ministry proposal for him two weeks ago not because I’m an expert on Young Adult Ministry, but because I am… a Young Adult. =)

No matter who I connect with, I’m confident that I can bring some sort of creative element to the conversation that allows me to give more value than I’m trying to get. You have your thing, your gifting, and you should walk confidently in that.