I was flying to Atlanta to speak at the Southeastern Interfraternity Council Leadership Academy last month. Usually on flights, I am tuned out with my headphones on, reading or doing some work. My seatmate was equally involved in some work, but in the moment when “all electronic devices must be off and stowed away,” we struck up a conversation.
An hour or so later, we touched down in Atlanta, made our way through the terminal together and have now even exchanged emails. At one point, my new friend commented that he usually doesn’t have those conversations; but that doing so had made the flight one of the best he’d been on.
I found out that he was a senior executive in a Central Florida Internet company, in charge of sales—big 6-figure income. We talked about life, college, society, emails, writing, finances, students and the Internet. It was a freewheeling conversation across many topics and issues. We equally invested the hour in one another and even if we never meet again or speak again, a connection had been made for the better.
I tell you this to remind you a successful life is never one that travels solo. If you’ve been around me, you know how much I value community. The connection of one human to another is what really brings life alive.
So, if community is so important and even the short connection on an airline flight is a wonderful possibility, why doesn’t it happen more often? Well, typically because we are either unaware of the need to network or we have grown too used to the isolation.
Worse, often what happens for many of us is that we burn bridges. We cut off community and connection, whether that happens in anger or due to simple disuse. Sometimes, we simply allow a relationship to die.
Yet, most people know that the most successful people are always networking, always looking for a way to make and keep connections. They have the proverbial “rolodex” full of all the important people. I suppose today it would be whose in our top Myspace slots or “whose in your five.”
Tomorrow, start viewing the journey of your life, through your day, as a moment-by-moment chance to make a critical connection to someone who can literally change your life. This, by the way, would include the “invisible” people around you—the person in the drive-through, the maintenance person, the people who clean around your office or dorm, the garbage people. Begin tomorrow to make it your task, your goal, to speak to these people, to make that connection.
Invest in others; that kind of reputation gets around. And, you never know when someone you connect with today remembers you five years from now when you walk in for an interview, when you come in for that bank loan, or simply have a need.