The 5 Words That Can Reconnect You With Anyone

Welcome to episode 31, where i share the five words you can use to reconnect with anyone you've ever met no matter how long ago it was you last talked to them I was recently asked to be a guest lecturer at one of the colleges here in Boston. The students were a mix of graduate and undergraduate and the course was professional practice in architecture. That means everything having to do with owning an architecture practice that isn't actually architectural or design. My lecture was on networking, personal branding and business development. I love presenting, but what I've gotten to love more and more over the years is the question and answer part, which is funny because when I first started speaking, that was the part that scared me the most. I was afraid of not being able to answer a question. Over the years. What I've realized is that when I field questions from an audience or in this case classroom of students, The questions helped me gain a better understanding of what people struggle with in regards to networking and relationship building. And this learning on the spot has made me a much better speaker and coach. One of the questions that I received after the lecture is one, I've actually gotten a number of times over the years, either from an audience member or a client that has asked me directly over the course of our working together. The question is how do I reconnect with someone when it has been years, since we last saw each other or talked. Time seems to go by so fast. Doesn't it like one day you're in high school, seeing your friends every day and then you blink and it's your 25th damn high school reunion. It happens in business too. You make connections. You have every intention of staying connected, but you get pulled in a million different directions and forget to send that email or pick up the phone and make that call. And then at some point you determined that far too much time has gone by. That it would be weird to reach back out because. You don't know what you would say or how you would explain why you haven't been in touch. The truth is there is no amount of time that can't be overcome. No distance between your last hello and goodbye. That can't be bridged. If you use just five simple words. I've been thinking about you. These five words and your unexpected and spontaneous reach out will be such a nice surprise for them. This will make them feel special and everyone wants to feel special. Follow up those five words with, I don't know why it's been so long since we connected. Let's fix that. People think they need an excuse or reason to reach back out. You don't, you simply need to say that you have been thinking about them. That is reason enough for you to reconnect. Maybe something triggered your memory. A song, a picture, an article, anything you can say. I saw this article and it immediately made me think of you. I'm sorry. It's been so long since we last spoke. Yes. In terms of networking and relationship building, I talk a lot about the importance of staying in touch and having a rhythm and a cadence to your outreach and connection with people. But I know that life happens and that life is big and messy and sometimes time just goes by without you noticing it. So like every podcast that I do, there's a research portion of what I talk about. So. Now onto the research part of the podcast and why connecting with people is so important to you and your career. There is an MIT Sloan management review article titled the power of reconnection. How dormant ties can surprise. The article mentions that adults accumulate thousands of relationships over their lifetime, but actively maintain no more than a hundred to 200 relationships. So remember back in episode two, when I mentioned the research done by Robin Dunbar and his study of non-human primates. No. Well, In a nutshell, his study suggests that there is a limit to the number of stable social relationships that humans can maintain. And that number is directly related to the size of the human neocortex in the brain. The number is termed Dunbar's number. And that number is 150. So we can manage about 150 stable relationships as adults. So. This study that I'm referring to now. Falls in lines with that, thinking that yes, we meet thousands of people, but we only really maintain about a hundred to 200 relationships at a given time. So the other 800 to 900 relationships, those people that we've met, those relationships are what the researchers called dormant. The article went on to describe a study by professors at Rutgers George Washington and Northwestern. The research facilitators asked 224 executives in for executive MBA classes, three in the United States and one in Canada. To reconnect with two people whom they had not communicated with for at least three years, but who might have advice that would help them on a. Major ongoing work project or help them with, uh, something in their career. The 224 subjects were not gung ho about this assignment, but in the end, in spite of their initial hesitation, almost all of the executives in the study reported that they received tremendous value from reconnecting their dormant relationships. In fact, the advice the executives received from their dormant contacts was as useful and often even more useful than the advice they were receiving from their current relationships. The conclusion was that dormant relationships often overlooked and underutilized can be a valuable source of knowledge and social capital. And remember these reconnections were with people that the person had not talked to in more than three years. So here's a little exercise for you. Go through your phone or LinkedIn and look at your connections. Pick five people to reach out to this week that you haven't talked to in a year or more. Send them a message on LinkedIn, shoot them an email or give them a call and say, I've been thinking about you. See, what it can do for you and for them. And if you're listening to this podcast and you want to try it out on me first, you know, my email, Julia Julia Brown, bd.com. Shoot me an email and tell me you listened to this podcast and it made you think of me. Do that. And then you only have four more to go after that. I guarantee you, it will make someone feel special. You will make their day and you will enrich your own life and your network. Okay. Onto the drink of the week. And I have to admit. All I can think of lately as spring, once meteorological, winter was over. All I could think of whispering. I love spring. When you feel that heat of the sun on your skin for the first time in what feels like forever. Leisure time for me in the spring means spring skiing. And then when that is over, I dedicate most of my free time to setting up my garden for the summer. My garden is a mixture of perennials and annuals, and one of the first perennials to bloom is my lavender plants. I have a number of them in the yard. So with the inspiration of the first bloomers, I've decided to make a lavender cocktail now. First thing you do is make a lavender simple syrup, which is just equal parts, water and sugar. So like one cup of water, one cup of sugar, and then fresh lavender, like three tablespoons of fresh lavender. If you have them or dried, if you're buying them in this tour. Combine the lavender and the water over high heat until boiling and then reduce the heat and add the sugar until it dissolved about 15 minutes. Then remove from the heat and let it steep for about an hour and then strain the lavender from the syrup. Now you have this batch of lavender syrup and you can make a shit ton of cocktails with it. You can make lavender giblets. Lavender lemonade, lavender, sours, lavender BCS for today. I'm simply making a lavender Collins, which is just one and a half ounces of gin. Three four sounds of fresh lemon juice. Remember always fresh juices. And half ounce of the lavender syrup. I combine all of that in a Collins glass ice and a top-up soda got water, and I garnish it with a lemon it's delicious and it's a fabulous way. To remind you that warm days are ahead. Now quick, uh, announcement. If you're interested in working with me, one-to-one or on networking, personal branding, thought leadership content creation, my breakthrough 60 minute sessions. I'm opening those up in my calendar again. For the first time since last year, the sessions are $197 and they've been super, super popular and helpful as Kickstarters for my clients. The last time I released these, they sold out in a Jiffy. If you're interested in one, click the link in the show notes to schedule a time with me, or you can just email me and I'll give you all the details. So. Until next week, please do your homework. Please do reach out to those five people and say, I've been thinking about you. And then until next week, cheers.