Use Your Connections to Get Lucky

I had the unfortunate experience of having to rush to the emergency room 2 Friday nights in a row and have learned a very valuable lesson:  Use any connections you have whenever you can.

Friday July 26, 2008:

Last Friday night my 17 month old daughter tripped into the corner of a wall and split her head open.  She was gushing blood from her forehead but thankfully she was still conscious and very aware of what was going on.  We called a community volunteer ambulance service right away and they were there within minutes.  They bandaged up my daughter’s head and took us to the closest hospital.  While we were on our way, the EMTs called the top plastic surgeon in the area to meet us at the hospital to stitch her up. 

From the time my daughter fell to the time we returned home from the hospital was maybe 2 hours.  This is unheard of and only happened because we called this particular emergency service and they called the plastic surgeon to meet us.

Friday August 1, 2008:

My daughter was playing with my son and fell down again (this is not a regular occurrence, it just happened to happed 2 weeks in a row).  She started bleeding and we didn’t know how bad the bleeding was because she still had her bandage on from the previous week.  My wife and I thought about asking some of our friends who were EMTs to take us to the hospital in case my daughter needed stitches again but decided we didn’t want to bother them.  Instead, we took a taxi to the hospital.

We registered ourselves and then were told to wait.  And wait we did, for 7 of the longest hours.  It took them 7 full hours to take a look at my daughter.  By that time, the cut was practically scabbed over already.  All they had to do was take a quick look at her head to see if she needed new stitches.

At 4:00 a.m. we finally were able to go home knowing that she didn’t need any more stitches.

The lesson once again is to “use your connections”.  Don’t be afraid to bother your friends when you need something from them that can save you time and money.  After all, they are your friends and would probably want to help you out and they know that you would do the same for them.  You may not be able to return the exact favor but you may be able to do something for them in return that will save them time and money.

Sometimes an activity that will take you a week, will take one of your friends or connections a few minutes or just a phone call to do.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Just make sure that you are always there to help out your friends and connections in any way you can. 

You can see the same thing when it comes to social media.  For example, having a twitter account won’t do you any good unless you provide value to the people you are following.  The more value you provide, the more value they will provide to you.  What goes around, comes around and you want the absolute best to come your way. 

My daughter is perfectly ok now and is bouncing around  as if all of this never happened (although I try and get her to calm down a little and take it easy).