Creating connections used to be easy. Cross someone in the street, tilt your hat, shake hands, talk about the weather! That was then!
With the invention of the internet and all its fancy apps today, it appears to be even easier to ‘connect’ with others in this present day. Right? We can follow/ like/share/even spy on our high-school crush from back in the day, through the long lens of the social networking platforms these days! (Oh, go on, own up, we’ve all done it!)
So, what about the old-fashioned type of connection? The kind where we take an extra few minutes during our day to ponder over politics at our local grocery store, chat at the checkout at the supermarket or negotiate with the neighbour over who will clear the leaves this week (in a positive tone of course!). It seems to me that life (and all the chores, tasks we must get done on a daily basis) have accelerated! WE cram our to-do lists and multi-task at any given opportunity! Many of us have forgotten what real, human connection is all about and how necessary it is for the soul (and on many other levels).
The world is an unsure place at the moment, and we can all make a little extra effort to connect, such as grabbing a coffee for a colleague on a break, helping the elderly person to cross the street, offering to carry someone’s shopping to their car…there are so many small yet meaningful gestures we can do to make other people’s day nicer! The most simple and effective is of course sharing a SMILE!
My favourite is when I am walking my dog, to say hello to people. Walking a dog is a great ice breaker most of the time, it breaks down barriers and makes us all equal – people love to come over and talk “dog.” I’ve met so many people in the area around my office, initially for their attraction to my dog Nelson. (See him below)
Then the conversation opens up: Who are you? Where are you from? Are you working, retired, etc?
If dogs are the great icebreaker, imagine a world where we wouldn’t need them, where we could simply step up and talk, really talk to people!
Start today, it’s the leaderlike way, and we could all do with a little more kindness in today’s world!
Stay leaderlike, say hello and make those connections!
Thank you for following and have a great weekend,
Rob!