Have you ever had a friend, coworker, or a long-time contact reach out to you and say “It’s been a long time! I’m checking in to see how you are doing. Let’s catch up!” If you have, wasn’t that the best feeling? I had two people do that for me recently, and it made me feel so good.
Why?
As people we were created to have relationships with others. I love alone time and it's hard managing a work/life balance. However, catching up with a friend, coworker, partner does energize me because of the personal connection.
A few weeks, a coworker asked me to connect with him for breakfast. It’s easy to say “Sure! Let’s do that!” Often times, you both go on with your workday and forget to schedule the meeting. We avoided that by scheduling our meeting right then. Two weeks later, we sat down for an early breakfast to connect. We caught up on family, parenting tips, kid’s successes, and life. We did discuss work for the last part of the breakfast as well. What really impressed me was the wisdom my friend and coworker shared on why connecting together was important. He said “Patrick, I wanted to have breakfast with you so we could catch up and pour into our relationship. We used to connect. I know things have been really busy for the both of us with work and family, but I miss it. When we do take time to connect, it also helps our working relationship flow well. I want that.” I was so impressed that he took the initiative to seek me out then book the get together right away. His words reminded that relationships are built when intention and positive connecting moments. You can’t live off the past connection moments forever. Each relationship needs new moments to make them stronger now.
Another reminder came this week when a friend/contact from a partnership reached out to me via email with the subject title “Blast from The Past”. That was so exciting to see his name and the fun email subject.
The message was great that he sent me. It touched on my family, business focus and it gave me encouragement. He said, “Nothing would please me more to have your positive energy back in our mix.” WOW! That was such a lift to my spirit. I did respond and we are looking to setup a time to connect.
We have used “Just Checking In” for emails with clients for the past 20 years. Each time I love hearing the response from our client. They are always appreciative that we took time to check in. Don’t forget your coworkers and partners need the same attention from you.
The picture I selected for this blog shows a group of us from work connecting on the golf course. We all have worked together for a long time but we don't get to relax when we connect at work. The focus at work is about getting updates on our business goals with heavy analytics. Finding time to connect outside of work was important to bring this group closer together. This picture showed four very different people coming together to have fun while building into our work and personal relationships. It reminded me that I need to keep making these moments happen because we all need to feel human connection.
Reach out by setting up one of the following....
Breakfast, Lunch, Happy Hour, Dinner (Food and drinks brings comfort to the situation!)
Leave A Fun Voicemail
*No one can hear your tone or heart with either, so make it fun.*
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