I’m so sorry I had no idea who you were…

A few years ago I was introduced to someone “important”. He was “important” due to all that he’d achieved in his career – some fairly impressive accolades. I was excited to meet him.

He was… less excited to meet me. We were introduced, he briefly said hi and then left while I was mid-sentence to talk with someone “more important”.

I was a little disappointed, but, them’s the breaks, right? Not everyone is going to want to have a yack. I soon got over it.

The next day, I got on stage and gave the speech I’d been flown into the country to perform for the organisation this important fellow worked for. Later that day “Mr Important” asked to take me aside.

Suddenly, he was excited to talk to me. He even went so far as to apologise for his rudeness the day before. He said, “I’m so sorry, I had no idea who you were”. He didn’t realise I was the guest speaker. He didn’t realise I was “worthy” of his time.

I worked with this company for many years and never formed a close relationship with this chap. In that initial interaction he’d told me so much about himself. When he thought I was no one, I wasn’t even worthy of a minute of his time. When he thought I was important, suddenly I was worth common courtesy and more.

Does every person you interact with get at least a base level of common courtesy, respect and friendliness – or does someone need to be “important” to earn that?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell andReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.