Friends who care about you are hard to find and should be held onto even when one screws up. There is always room for open honest communication and forgiveness. The hardest part is the open honest communication, and ASKING for Forgiveness then GIVING it!

I wrote the above statement and posted in on my Facebook Profile, because of the numerous comments I decided to write more here. The most important thing that we build in our lives are relationships, the people whom we call friends, those who help us, mentor, encourage and cheer us on. Now and then we screw up, do something wrong or hurt someones feeling and suddenly we find that we have caused great damage to the relationship. We may not have intended to do it, nevertheless we did. At this point we have a choice, let the relationship die or reach out and attempt to repair the relationship.

Repairing the relationship first requires open and honest communication. Both sides need to be willing to speak what is there without blame or excuses, to listen to one another. That communication should consist of 3 things.

Take Responsibility – don’t make excuses, don’t blame, just take responsibility. Part of taking responsibility is making sure you have taken steps not to repeat the action.

Ask for Forgiveness – asking for forgiveness is not easy. It is necessary if you want to recover your relationship. There is nothing more that needs to be said beyond “I take full responsibility for my actions and I ask for your forgiveness.”

Give Forgiveness – if you want others to forgive you when you screw up, and you will, be willing to Give Forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that you condone the action, you just release the anger, upset and disappointment and move forward.

People who really care about us don’t come along everyday. We are all human and in our humanity we screw up, it is our nature, but it does not mean that we have to give up the friendships we have created.

Going out for a drink with friends, playing golf, and hanging out at a cookout are all ways that we build relationships. It is the social aspects of our relationships that make for strong business relationships too. It is those times when I get to know someone personally that makes me want to help them achieve their goals. While we may not be fast friends we have developed a deeper relationship and it is that relationship that builds trust and a desire to help. Building my network effectively is very important to me, adding the right people, building relationships with them requires that I stay in communication with them.

One of the things that I love about Twitter is my ability to have communication with local tweeters, to meet them face to face at tweet-ups in a casual manner. Because we have spent so much time getting to know each other on twitter it is as if we have already met, we start the relationship much further along than if I had just met them. I already know what they are interested in by the tweets they post and the links the tweet. I learn about their business when they tweet and list their blogs and I build credibility with my followers when I take the time to post good material on my blog, when I post good tweets. I give to my network of tweeters by recommending them and retweeting their tweets. When we finally do meet at a tweet-up we already know each other.

If you are tweeting take a little time to set up groups of local people who are tweeting. They are most likely people you are going to have the opportunity to meet and build networking relationships with. For me, Tweetdeck has been a great tool for sorting my tweeters and creating groups that I can interact with, create relationships with and add to my network.

I go to a lot of events, from workshops, seminars, networking events and social events, and I talk to a lot of people.  I am comfortable asking people questions and drawing them out or sharing information back and forth.   But I hate it when one person wants to show the group how much smarter he is than everyone else and dominates the conversation with his blinding brilliance,  that no one really cares about.  Then to top it off, he is speaking in “Jargon” you know the “Code” of his industry.  After all that makes him look smarter and he is just waiting for one of us to ask him a question about it so he can show off some more, as he leads us down another Jargon Riddled path.  PLEASE don’t be one of these people;

Here are 3 simple tip for you to follow:

1.  Don’t speak in your industry code.  No one really knows what the heck you are talking about and really are not that interested.  It is kind of like being in a room full of people who speaking in a foreign  language, they all understand each other, but you feel left out.

2.  Do not Monopolize the conversation, especially when you are a guest at the event.  Answer questions as succinctly as possible and move on unless you are asked another question.  Sometimes you just need to say, that question would take a lot of explaining maybe we could excuse our selves or meet one to one.

3. Take time to really listen to others and ask them questions about what they want or need.  80% of good conversation is in the Listening.

Don’t be a Jargon junkie, conversation hog at your next event, ask questions and listen to others. When answering a question be succinct, you will make more friends and people will want to learn more about you.