Two Jobs

Two jobs – that’s all I am going to give you in this article and you can choose to act on them or not. There is so much information being shared by bored isolated gurus, coaches, thought leaders and trainers you cannot possibly act on all the good advice and ideas being shared so here are just two things for you. Pick up the phone and cull your connections – that’s it. Time to read on and see what I mean.

Two jobs to do now!

As humans we are not designed for isolation and in extreme environments isolation kills. We must be mindful and supportive of each other to lessen the burden and find ways to interact constructively while helping others. It’s that simple – when all the glam and noise is stripped back and everything is laid bare as it currently is, all we have is each other and what we do and how we support each other is what truly matters. Simple!

Most of us are rubbish at asking for HELP. We must get better at this because few of us are telepathic and we all need a little help on occasions. It’s time to make a call. Too many of us are poor at picking up the phone and offering to help others in whatever way possible. I know it is normal to just send a text message or a social media post but that is not personal, it’s not as heart felt. We need to engage on a personal level with how we talk to others. Consider the time you rang an elderly relative or an old friend out of the blue and you heard the joy in their voice when they realised it was you… you don’t get that from 144 text characters. I may sound incredibly old here but I recall the arguments in my house when I was growing up about the queue to use the house phone.  Conversations would be going on for hours with that family member sitting in the way because the phone was attached to the wall at the bottom of the stairs, just chilling on the phone, chatting with the people they cared about.

Why not consider practising that old-fashioned skill of writing? Write a letter or send a card. The art of letter writing has long gone but it’s always a pleasure to receive a letter penned in person to you, to get a physical thing just for you. I still have letters sent to me decades ago, I know I should really ship them on but it’s part of my history. Letters from my grandmother and my mother who have long since passed, written with a fountain pen in green ink. I have no idea why my grandmother always wrote with green ink but for her it was a thing and you always knew who it was from when the letter sat on the doormat. It was very personal and heart-warming before you even read the content. Now is the time to make a little more effort.

Who really matters to you? It’s time to cull the unnecessary clutter and hoarded noise in your life. Who am I trying to kid having just confessed to hoarding old letters?! Let’s look at your social media connections – some people have a policy of obtaining as many names as possible who “like” their stuff. There is no relationship here, it’s just pure ego and status and almost feels like the old “loadsa money” comedy character from Harry Enfield. A very unpleasant character who just shouts and shows off about how great he is because of his large wad of cash. Just ugly.

I was challenged a while ago by a LinkedIn coach, James Potter, who had a simple philosophy with LinkedIn connections – if he can’t recommend you then he will not become a connection with you. How would that impact on the number of your LinkedIn connections? How many could you honestly recommend? Maybe 20%? In which case that means you have a lot of noise on there who are not as valuable as you once thought. The other side of his thinking was to delete 10% of his connections on a regular basis to make sure everyone he is connected to is current and still able to be recommended.

My connections on LinkedIn are all people I have met or interacted with from past colleagues and friends to clients and delegates alike. But are they all current and relevant or are they just noise to make my precious ego feel loved and wanted? Start at letter A as most people do and just go through each connection and ask the following questions:

Do I actually know who are you?

Can I still remember who you are and how we know each other?

Do I trust you?

Do I know you well enough to recommend you and your business? Still?

How long has it been since we last interacted?

If I lost my connection database would I miss you?

What value is there for either of us being connected?

If you’re not sure what to do with a particular connection, then delete them. It should be obvious to you why you want to stay connected and if the numbers drop down dramatically then that is a good thing and will give you scope to build again using strong criteria for connecting.

So, be a good citizen in these difficult times – support your neighbours, the isolated and the vulnerable in whatever way you safely can. Also help your own sanity in this time of isolation and get yourself fully primed and raring to go when we all get back to normality. You have plenty of time available to do this so get on with it – please!