There are four negative experiences which can contribute to your fear of authority figures.

1. Strict, critical or overbearing parents or guardians who made you feel inadequate and powerless to do anything other than as they dictated you should.
2. Traumatic incident involving a person in authority who publicly embarrassed, humiliated, rejected, or punished you for some perceived infraction.
3. Conditioned response to some authority figure who made you to feel negatively evaluated, judged, and rendered powerless over time.

Status is something you consciously and unconsciously concern yourself with. This is because of its accompanying authority and requirements for what you should do and should not do with respect to those who have this high status. Having some acknowledged social value, high-status includes social status, financial status, business status, celebrity status artistic status, and political status.

Everyone makes social comparisons with other people. You do it naturally to see how you compare with others on success, wealth, attractiveness, education, privilege, job, pay, job perks, abilities, experience, interests, and talents. You compare yourself to see if you are in sync with the expectations of your society, the culture, a group or individual you value, or with specific beliefs and attitudes you consider important.

You do it to see how you are similar to those you admire or dissimilar to those you don’t like and devalue. You do it to see what you might do to make yourself more like those you admire.

However, not all social comparisons are equal. Some social comparisons can create problems when you do not use them to positively enhance your behavior to achieve your goals—if you use them, instead, to negatively point out possible “inadequacies by comparison” in yourself.

Negative comparisons tend to create anger, a sense of powerlessness, low self-esteem, and maladaptive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors—things that can get in your way in your personal and work lives.

In the workplace negative comparisons can affect your level of productivity, mood, interpersonal interactions, and make you vulnerable to the authority’s use of the power that you fear. When you feel you have to obey or respond to specific others in a standardized, structured way, you tend to see them as being more entitled and deserving because of their status or authority.

Because you lack their accompanying power, you tend to automatically feel yourself as less deserving by comparison. This helps keep your fear of authority figures alive and well.

One important characteristic of self-made millionaires is that they meet as many people as they can. They network everywhere, all the time because information and connections are a very valuable currency. For example, 84 percent of jobs are gotten through networking contacts.

Your career development and achievement of most of your important life goals (as well as many trivial ones) have been through the use of contacts. But unless you’re an active networker, it may not seem so because you many not even think about where you gained the information and resources you use.

In Megatrends John Naisbitt listed “networking” is one of the ten major trends changing our lives. So what is networking? It is an active process of information exchange which is built on relationships of mutual interest, trust, and rapport. Why should you network? Because it is the primary way you gain access to tips, leads, and referrals for ANYTHING you do.

Who makes up your network? Your network is made up of diverse individuals – family, friends, and associates – people to whom you have access. These people are divided into a primary group and secondary group. Your primary is made up of your family and close friends, people who tend to share values, beliefs, attitudes, and friends.

Your secondary group is made up of acquaintances, those with different values, beliefs, attitudes, and friends. The casual contacts who make up your secondary group come from everywhere, past and present: Work, community, school, and service providers. They can be employers and colleagues, classmates and teachers, doctors, dentists, and accountants, church friends, local politicians, and club members.

Research has shown that whether you want technical information, someone’s experience, advice, or support, you can get it most effectively through contacts. Specifically, a contact is someone with whom you can meet and talk. S/he is available to listen and give feedback. Someone who can do something for you and for whom you can do something in return. Reciprocity, or fair exchange, is the foundation of networking.

Your relationship with the contact may be personal or impersonal, depending upon who the contact is, that is from which networking group. Impersonal contacts (secondary group) are best for providing information and resources whereas personal contacts (primary group) are best for providing assistance over time, helping you improve your skills, or grooming you. A contact may be anyone who provides you with access to what you want.

Contacts are useful because of what they do, who they are, and whom they know. Because of this contacts are said to have information power. Information power is knowing where to find the facts, details, and help you want when you want them. It’s not having every fact or detail on the tip of your tongue.

Whether you’re trying to find an apartment, a dentist, or used car, you rely upon others as information sources or conduits to others who may have what you need. This is networking in its everyday sense. But to be an effective networker you need to document whom you know who might be helpful in any given instance. Thus, you need to be aware of your existing network. This means putting on paper who your contacts are and what resources they represent.

As hard as it may be to believe, you have exponentially more contacts than you would ever imagine. Of course, not all contacts will be useful for all things at all times. Thus, who will be helpful will be dependent upon what goal you have in mind at any given moment.