Connecting When Life Throws You Curveballs
2025 did not get off to the start I hoped for. I spent New Year’s in bed with the flu which triggered some longer-term issues, including laryngitis that lasted the entire month of January. With absolutely no voice for nearly 3 weeks and only a shadow of my voice after that, I had to get creative to maintain existing relationships and forge new connections, both professionally and personally.
In a recent post, I shared how technology, when used well, can amplify and enhance our connections to others. With no voice, I quickly needed to rely on tools like email, texts, and LinkedIn to express myself and engage with others. And when I did have to engage with people face to face (like going to the grocery store), I got very creative with sign language and mouthing my words.
As a connector who loves to talk with others, this felt like a jail sentence. But as time went on, I realized this was a creative challenge to put my money where my mouth was and that I could find ways to keep connected and communicate with people around me.
Challenge yourself to use different methods (while knowing your limits)
While platforms like Facebook and Instagram can be great for maintaining connections, I hadn’t engaged with either in years and it just didn’t seem like something I wanted to pick up again. But I am on LinkedIn and found that LinkedIn’s messaging was a great tool, especially for connections that I had lost touch with and new connections who were looking to engage with my work. Unlike open posts or comments, messages allowed me to be a little more personal and real about my current situation, and gave me an easier way to explain why follow up conversations might need to wait a bit. In the meantime, it gave me a longer form way to maintain that “conversation” with the other person and keep moving things forward.
Message people out of the blue (aka follow up on your intuition)
I frequently find myself thinking about someone and meaning to reach out to them, but life gets in the way or I get distracted. Having no voice spurred me to follow through on more of those impulses, particularly reaching out to people I hadn’t connected with in ages. I texted Jacob, a longtime connection who moved to the other side of the world, just to say I was thinking of him and hoped to connect again soon. He texted me back right away to say he was unexpectedly in the US with his family. While his schedule was too packed to make a side trip to see me, just being in the same time zone allowed us to communicate in real time and we’re scheduled for a FaceTime catch up very soon.
A topic for another post, but always trust your intuition because clearly we were in tune with one another and I was meant to reach out at that very moment!
Take time to connect with yourself
We frequently think about connecting as a person-to-person activity. But making new connections for yourself is equally important. Spending time quietly with your thoughts gives you space to connect to a new idea, find a new resource, or shift your mindset to cultivate a new way of thinking. Listening to podcasts and reading Substacks particularly helped to open my aperture during this time and gave me new perspectives on how to approach my own work this year. I’ve even started a new edX course on AI and am learning to use tools that I’ve been slow to adopt in my business.
We frequently think there’s a “right” way to do something, but life will throw you plenty of curveballs to challenge your assumptions. The beauty of these curveballs is they force you outside of your comfort zone and, most often, teach you new ways of thinking and operating.
So, how are you going to challenge yourself to connect to other people, ideas, or resources in a different way? Feel free to join the conversation on our Substack to share your thoughts.
If you want to work on developing your leadership and connecting skills, check out our open enrollment workshops or learn more about our individual and group coaching opportunities. Or send an email to hello@theconnectors.net to get a conversation started with me.
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