First, I want to apologise for not sending an issue last week. The reason was that I had to work on the literature review for university, and this took up most of my time. I didn’t want to have to work on anything else simultaneously, so I could avoid context-switching and distraction.
Now I’m back, though, and I wanted to discuss an idea that I’ve covered before but in a different capacity. And that idea is to make sure that you’re connecting with real people at every opportunity.
The reason I ended up regaling myself with this idea again was the fact that I’d gone a long time without doing any live events or calls for my business. Then a couple of weeks ago, back when I came back to university after Christmas, I had a call with a person who’d bought my PARAZETTEL program and found an Easter egg in there for a call with me.
After getting to know each other and talking for an hour, I felt refreshed and was reminded of how important it is to connect with people, especially those you can relate to and guide towards their goals.
I’d written about this in the past around spending time in new places, taking inspiration from my travels back in the summer of last year, mentioning that sharing things with others magnifies the overall experience greatly…
This point is largely the same, only in the context of work - and it’s especially true if you work online.
You can spend all day putting together content that might really help someone, yet you might never know. You’re not delivering your insight personally, you’re doing it en masse to anyone it might be relevant to.
So it’s even more important that you’ve got good avenues set up for people to connect with you. I like offering video calls (that was the Easter egg inside PARAZETTEL), and I’ve done a couple of live workshops in the past within the business, which have both been so well received in the moment, by people I could actually talk to.
I’m still yet to connect with someone I met through this work in person, but that’s another step up to look forward to making another day. And I expect it to be even better than doing things live over video.
Connect with the people who make the effort worth it.
•••
Thank you for being patient while I get stuck in to my university assignments. I’ve got one more exam for this semester so I should be able to juggle creating content with revising for the next month or so, meaning I’ll be around rather than absent.
Have a good week,
— Theo
What you should watch this week…
A couple of months ago, a close friend Archit gave a TED talk at the University of Lodz about the importance of having a ‘village’ around you to buffer you against feeling alone.
I can hardly express how proud I am of this man and how he delivered this speech. Storytelling and presentation are very much his forte, and this shines through in every dimension of this video, from stories from his youth in India and more recent ones from Sheffield, the city we share as a home. You should watch it right now.
Last fortnight’s extended cut…
Read the issue - 081 • AI tools as vehicles for personal development