By Kymberli Speight
Should you get involved in service to your local NSA chapter?
The short answer is Yes. However, the truth is you will have to identify your personal
reasons that motivate you to make this commitment. When I am asked what the reasons are to get involved with your local NSA chapter, my response is simply you cannot afford to pass up the opportunity to serve on a committee or take on a leadership role within your local chapter!
A reasonable question to ask yourself before deciding whether to lean in or stay on the sidelines of your chapter is, what are the benefits of serving versus missed opportunities from not spending time elsewhere? This is a rational question. But it isn’t the question that influenced me to believe that “yes” is a good decision. Here are the more important questions:
How can I give back to the organization that is helping me grow my business?
How can I also continue to grow and accelerate my number of business opportunities each year?
The answer to these questions will provide the reasons and motivation to make a “yes” decision.
Regardless of the industry, I have concluded that growth, both professional and personal, as well as business growth, is the product of one main ingredient – the ability to develop authentic momentum building relationships (investing in relational capital).
How do you invest in relational capital? The formulas or equations I use are:
Building Social Capital + Being Mindful + Paying Attention to Every Human Interaction = |Vr|TM &
Ps = m |Vr|TM;
Where:
Ps – Momentum for success
m – Mass (The number of relationships an individual has.)
|Vr| – Velocity (The “absolute” or mutual value those relationships generate. How much beneficial value you and others get from these relationships.)
Social Capital is the value you offer someone, other than monetary means. It’s not what you value necessarily, but what is valuable to the other person. Being Mindful means intentionally being aware and acknowledging the people that come across your path. Paying Attention to Every Human Interaction is being ultra-observant during engagements, meetings, casual conversations, and social media interactions.
The link between investing in relational capital and getting involved in service to your local NSA chapter is that you are investing in your future professional and personal growth through building authentic momentum building relationships! Connections matter.
Published studies and articles from the New York Times, the Harvard Business Review, Gallup, Taylor-Chadwick, and others provide many statistics that support this axiom. Here are two:
- 65% of business growth depends on relationships.
- 84% of business-to-business (B2B) buyer purchases are initiated by a referral.
The more I said yes to involvement in my local chapter, the more people I met in my chapter AND in other chapters. The more I said yes to help when needed, the more opportunities to serve, as well as opportunities to speak, emerged. The more I served on committees and in leadership roles, the more influential relationships I developed and the more wonderful authentic personal relationships I developed. Referring to the social science momentum equation I introduced, Ps = m |Vr|TM, the degree of success in life and business you will experience will be dictated by the number of relationships multiplied by the mutual value those relationships generate. If you doubt this equation, think of every successful individual you know. I guarantee that these individuals have many momentum building relationships and can make events happen with a simple text, phone call, or email. Think about what you do when you need to generate some momentum to achieve or accomplish something…
This has been my experience and my journey. Yours will look different, depending on your personal circumstances. But can you serve your chapter in some way? If showing up at your meetings is all you have the bandwidth for right now, you will still receive a lot of benefits from doing that. But can you give an hour a month to help somewhere? I look at service as “I get to, not I have to.” It is an honor to serve. What I have also found is that the real question to ask yourself is, “How can I afford not to invest in my future professional, business and personal growth?”