The Magic of Serendipity: Reconnecting for Success
Over the past few days, I have been reminded of what a small world it is. I have been co-facilitating a program and, on the first evening, we brought in a guest speaker. It turns out this gentleman went to primary school with one of the participants in the program. They’d not seen each other in nearly 50 years. They spent a bit of time reconnecting after the day’s events had ended. It turns out that they’ve gone into similar lines of business and have many mutual interests. That conversation opened a door for them to explore how they might collaborate together in the future.
That same participant had, at one time, lived and worked in Boston. When he mentioned the company that he’d worked for, it was the same organization a friend of mine had worked at. The moment I shared her name, his face lit up. He had fond memories of their time working together and the relationships their families had built but, when he’d moved from Boston nearly 30 years ago, they’d drifted apart. He asked me to extend his warm wishes to her and share her contact information so he could reach out to her. I was able to do one better and invited her to join us for the reception at the close of the program. It was wonderful to see the joy in their eyes at the opportunity to begin to catch up on one another’s lives.
During the course of the program I was helping to facilitate, I had several conversations with participants about their perception of networking. One even mentioned the research that had been done where people had talked about wanting to shower after networking — they associate networking with feeling dirty.
As these participants witnessed these two interactions, they were able to see that there is a different way to think about networking. Rather than networking being a simply transactional exchange (who are you and what can you do for me?), it can be a richer, more genuine dialogue; a connection that transcends time.
My guess is that if I asked you to think of 5 people that you haven’t connected with in a meaningful way (following them on social media doesn’t count) in the last 5 years whom you remember fondly, you’d probably be able to fairly easily come up with that list. My invitation to you is to reach out and reconnect. No agenda. No motive other than reestablishing that tie. Who knows where the conversation may lead!
Maybe you end up enjoying this exercise so much, you make another list of 5…and another! I’d be grateful if you shared some of the highlights of these reconnections.
