When you shake hands, look into their eyes. Make a note of their eye color- this will ensure that you use a deep, attentive look, which will make the person facing you feel very special. As you move in for a handshake, open the space between your thumb and index finger wide to make sure the webs of your thumbs are touching: this gives a feeling of comradeship.

Your palm should be close enough that you could hold a marble between your palm and your partners, and they should be exactly perpendicular to the floor.

Did you ever notice how many successful business people had mentors? Warren Buffet had Benjamin Graham. Jack Welch had Scott McNealy. And Eliza Doolittle had Henry Higgins. The history of mentoring reaches back to Homer's Telemachus and Mentor (though the latter set a rather poor example).

Mentors are people who can guide you, advise you, share their experiences and their mistakes so you won't make the same ones. By visibly endorsing you, they can give you credibility; by bringing you to events with them, you'll gain visibility; and by introducing you to their contacts, they'll give you access. Visibility, credibility, and access--mentors are important indeed.

So, how do you go about selecting, acquiring, and maintaining your mentoring relationships?

How healthy is your network? It's no good working morning to night making great contacts if afterwards you let them die of neglect. A network is like a plant; needing daily care and attention. Keith Ferrazzi, one of the gurus of networking, said that "Relationships are like muscles: the more you work them, the stronger they get." And the contrary: if you don't use them, they often atrophy. How can you make sure you keep your network in top shape? Network maintenance, that's how.