I’ve been fortunate to make some pretty incredible friends. I work with my friends, and consider myself lucky to do so. More importantly, in my own mind at least, I’ve learned to do what I love in friends living rooms, offices, and over coffee or beer. Social networking has become second nature for me, and increasingly, for a generation.
More than half of relationships now start online, and e-commerce seems to be one of the only economic sectors still growing reliably. If you’re into the idea of doing what you want instead of what you have to, find yourself a specialty, and start connecting with people online.
But don’t stop there. Make sure that if you really help someone out in learning your craft, they have some way of telling the world how great you are. Make sure to ask them to recommend your work on LinkedIn, and look into setting up your own free WordPress blog to write about what you’re helping people with. I was shocked how easy it was to import my old windows live blog posts, it took like 2 minutes total. literally. Facebook is a whole other thing- it’s great, but it does entail a level of involvement and intent totally different from the previous methods.
Most importantly, take your valuable relationships offline as often as possible. There is nothing more important than a warm hello followed by a hug or a handshake.