The importance of "Vitamin B"

On July 16th I met two very interesting, very different people with experience of life everybody can learn of, Paul Frehling and Aleksandra Efimova. They shared their knowhow about leadership with us whereat the two of them had different focuses. However both of them told our group how important it is to have contacts in life you can relate to when you need something.

 

Paul Frehling, very experienced Chicago lawyer

Aleksandra Efimova, CEO of Russian Pointe

Aleksandra built up her own ballet shoe business out of nothing and had to deal with the fact she did not know anybody who could help her, in addition she had to build up her whole network herself. Paul shared the experience with us that you always meet people twice in your life, so it is important to get along with them, “you can disagree without being disagreeable” he said, so state your point of view but treat your business partners with respect at the same time. In case of John his business partners were adversarial lawyers.

networks of people are important, in life as well as in business

I myself also had the experience that relations can help you in your life and your career. I was able to work half-a-year in Hong Kong thanks to relations of a family member of mine. I enjoyed this time a lot and am very grateful I was able to have that opportunity. In Germany we call this vitamin B (B stands for “Beziehung” what means “relation” in English).

The Logo of my venture project team: säft.

“Don’t burn your bridges” Paul told us and I totally agree with him about that. Every contact you know today can help you in your business tomorrow. Also for our venture project I think relations are important. On the one hand, we got to know new people here in Chicago, new students as well as entrepreneurs and I myself will try to stay in contact at least with my venture team as we are having a very productive and harmonic team atmosphere. On the other hand I think our old contacts such as companies everyone of us has worked for, may also help us to master all the challenges.

Thank you Paul, Aleksandra and Valerie, I enjoyed that Thursday morning.

Julian