I’m reporting to you live from the National Conference Center in Who The Heck Knows Where, Virginia. I’ve been sent here, along with 500 of my co-workers from around the world, to be trained in the methods of leadership. You see, mine is one of many companies that will be suffering from a severe shortage of technical leaders in coming years as the baby boomer generation begins to retire. But at least our company has had the foresight to start training the youngest generation to start assuming those critical leadership roles.

Each day, I’ll present to you something I’ve learned at this conference about leadership or business in general. These teachings should be universally applicable to just about any job or career you can imagine, so hopefully they’ll prove useful to you in advancing your career. Today’s lesson was one of the first things we learned at the conference–and certainly one of the most important.

• Network, network, network. You’ve probably heard it a thousand times–just how important it is to develop relationships with other people, even ones you don’t work with now and may never work with again. But that person you strike up a conversation with in the hall could end up being a future manager who will remember you and your interests when they have a great position to fill. I’ve been doing some networking myself; outside of class, I’ve been hanging out with some folks at one of our New Jersey locations instead of just the people I know from our own place in Maryland. I have started developing some terrific work relationships with these people, and I know they’ll all make fabulous vice presidents when I take over as CEO of the whole company!