My Twenty-Seventh Rule of Media Relations is One shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but there simply isn’t time to read every book in the library. People have no choice but to make snap decisions about those they don’t know.
There are more than six billion people on Earth. The average life expectancy is 75 years. You’d have to meet millions of people per year to say hello to all of them. That doesn’t count the ones who are born or who die during your journey.
Even if you borrow Santa Claus’s sleigh–reindeer in tow–and manage this feat, would meeting them count as knowing them? Probably not. You may have met some people at a party. How many of them do you truly know?
You’ll have to narrow your focus somehow unless you plan to spend your entire life developing superficial acquaintances. Connecting with someone on a deeper level will take time.
It’s a bit like conducting a Web search for “humans.” You’ll get about 86.9 million results on Google. To make your search worthwhile, you’ll need to decide what you really want.
A lot of people base their search on physical appearance, then sort through their remaining necessary criteria–intelligence, personality, wealth, status, for instance–with a much shorter list of candidates. “Living humans” returned about 40.5 million results on Google. You can tailor your search for information, friends or a partner broadly at first, then more specifically as the field narrows.
Thomas Jefferson was said to have known everything there was to know about everything. Even if that was so, the canon of knowledge has expanded exponentially in the past two centuries.
There’s no way to be a generalist now. When you need a lawyer, a plumber and a contractor, do you hire one jack-of-all-trades with moderate skill in each field? Or do you find one expert in each subject in you require help?
Most politicians specialize in a few areas. The environment, health care or national security, for example. They become well-versed in those topics. The same way you did when you entered a career.
It’s impossible to have everything. Decide on the two or three things you consider to be most important and go get them. Understand though that you may need sacrifice some of the things you consider to be not quite as important.
You might decide that money, career and status are what you want most. You can get them but you may not be able to stay in your favorite city or with your favorite people. As time passes, rerank your priorities.
When dealing with the media, understand there are thousands of outlets. Television, print, radio, Internet. You can’t manage to talk to them all. Rod Blagojevich tried but even he failed. Cultivate some important contacts and hold them dear. You’ll need to use them along the way.
