The start of a new year is a great time to take stock of your relationships. In fact, making an effort to stay connected is a great new year’s resolution that can pay dividends for everyone involved. It’s one resolution that you won’t want to break.
But how do you get started?
Last week we shared that relationships matter to us so much that we built a business to help you connect to the important people in your lives. We have some ideas for staying connected– and have started using them ourselves.
Many of us are familiar with calendaring for appointments and work commitments. So why not do the same for relationships? Try creating a January Connectivity Calendar – a day-by-day list of people with whom you want to connect and reconnect during the month of January.
We don’t want to be accused of turning everything into a to-do list (but … guilty😊), however we thought it would be helpful to make a written plan to connect with all the people with whom you have been meaning to talk to but have not found the time.
Using our plan, we recently have had some wonderful conversations with friends old and new. There is one investor we have gotten to know well and we connect with him for advice and his sage council. Last week we told you about a couple of new friends we have made in 2020, CeCe Olisa and Dr. George Everly and we are looking forward to continuing to develop those relationships.
Use tech to fill in communication gaps
We all have people that we see based on time of year or when schedules align and we understand that we will have gaps in seeing each other but aim to pick back up where we left off when we can be physically together.
One tactic to fill that gap of time is to use the connectivity calendar as the foundation of text message or email groups. We have several active texts chains with friends and family in which we share quotes, jokes, GIFs and memes. It’s amazing how any one of those things can be more powerful than words alone. We also use text chains to stay connected with our business relationships. Text chains are a powerful connectivity tool for us that we are using as part of our January connectivity calendar, and it turns out we are not alone.
As you develop your own text and email chains, think about how you can be more inclusive and add someone who might be interested in the dialogue you are having. What niece, nephew aunt or colleague would add valuable thoughts to the conversation?
Another benefit of staying connected is the possibility of building new connections. A case in point is the friendship we developed last year with Dr. Chloe Carmichael, a clinical psychologist. We were introduced to her by another friend, Kevin Greaney, who thought it would make good sense for us to get to know one another. In fact, the conversation we had with Dr. Chloe about COVID’s impact on children was so meaningful we turned it into a digital roundtable.
We would love to hear how you have reached out to others, especially during the pandemic. Though a traditional phone call or text will always do the trick, there are so many creative ways to express and connect with others during this time. How will you be connecting?
All the best,
Chris & Jim
Written by our Founder and CEO, our Celebrations Pulse Sunday Letters aim to engage with our community. From sharing stories to welcoming your ideas, we want to help you to express, connect, and celebrate the important people in your life.
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