I used to ignore people and judge them by the first 30 seconds I saw them, by a 15-minutes conversation or by their full of non-important stuff emails.

In that way I think I lost many valuable colleagues and friends. I’m sure of that.

My ego system didn’t let me pay attention to what I needed to see.

On the other hand I feel lucky for people I’m collaborating with and if I look closer I see that they are here because of their consistency, patience and persistence.

Every time I ignored their emails they sent me one more. 

Every time I postponed our meetings with an excuse, they rearranged it without hesitation or whining.

Every time I didn’t answer the phone or ignore their messages they called me again and again, politely adding that they understand they may disturb and still they want to remind me they were there.

They stayed, with one goal in their mind; to make me see them, and they succeeded.

Their consistency, patience and persistence made me start reading their emails, go to meetings and answer their phone calls.

I saw them and some of them are worth a lot. More than my time, more than my work and more than me.

They became good friends, amazing partners, great colleagues and most importantly I learned a lot from them.

Knowing stuff and being good at what you do is one face of the coin. The other face is to stand in front of the people you want to persuade knowing that they’ll slap you on the face, that they’ll bully you, laugh at you, and ignore you. 

But if you are consistent, patient and persistent in the right way they will finally start paying attention to you.