How to Create Your Next Meaningful Community
As we wrap up National Recovery Month, I’m reminded of a post my friend Marin offered a week ago: “The opposite of addiction is connection.”
You don’t need to be an alcoholic or an addict to isolate. Although isolation is common among alcoholics and addicts, there are many entry ways into loneliness: Shame. Disappointment. “Terminal uniqueness;” feeling like no one will understand what you’re going through.
Connection is the way forward. It’s a light we can hold for someone experiencing disconnection, disengagement, and isolation.
Where We Get Connected
When you get hired into a job, you’re incorporated into a network of colleagues. Teammates, leaders, cross-functional partners, stakeholders, customers, they all become integral members of our professional relationships. They become part of our weekly lives.
When I was thinking about leaving my corporate role to start working as a entrepreneur, one of the first things I did before making the jump was to reach out to several professionals who had traveled this road before me. I had important two questions:
“What did you wish you had thought through first before making that leap?”
“What caught you by surprise?”
In every conversation, they all talked about the importance of connection. Each person I chatted with stressed how lonely it felt as they started out. They realized how critical it was to rebuild their identity of being part of a team, of having colleagues to chat with, run ideas by, and get feedback from during this new career stage. Most admitted they didn’t realize how much they longed for community and how much they missed having a professional network as a natural part of their daily work.
Even for those with abundant personal networks, having a close professional network of supporters can make all the difference to warding off isolation, especially for those entering into an entrepreneurial endeavor. While our friends outside of work can offer much, most don’t know the ins and outs of the work we do and the challenges we face. Often we don’t want to burden our friends and family with work stress. For many, there’s constraints around what we are can discuss outside of work.
How to Create Connection
People in recovery learn quickly how essential community is for their success. It’s not uncommon for recovery mentors to recommend to the new people that they call two or three people each day to create a support network. A daunting proposal for people who have been comfortably uncomfortable in a state of isolation!
We can apply the spirit of that action in business. This is critical for those of us who suddenly find ourselves without that ready-made corporate network through job loss, layoff, or by choice. It even works when you’re inside a company and may have been moved to a new internal organization.
Reach out to two to three people you don’t really know each week.
As someone who’s been working remotely for over a decade, I had ample time to practice honing my skills developing relationships over the phone and then over video. I understand how awkward it may feel to cold-call colleagues you barely know and ask them for a 30-minute coffee chat, especially if you’re an introvert like me. But it works – it really does.
You may find yourself wondering how intrusive that “non-business” invitation may feel to the recipient. With the speed of delivery increasing every month and resources tightening, we’ve become accustomed to more transactional interactions. We call that “efficient.” But the investment you’ll make in developing those strong professional relationships pays dividends in the long run.
You never know how much that invitation to join you in community may help your colleague, too.
What's one meaningful professional connection you've made recently? How did it impact you?