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Image: jupiterimages.comNetworking is a very important factor towards success in some areas of life, and certainly cannot be ruled out when considering the overall aspect of success in life as a whole. Yet, many people take it too lightly.
I have a couple of friends who are very good at keeping in touch with a surprisingly large number of people who have crossed their path throughout their life. I estimate that over ninety percent people unfortunately give networking a very low priority, knowingly or unknowingly, and get through life leaving behind old contacts and just interacting with those who are presently involved in their day-to-day activities.
Do you have friends with whom you have been out of touch for a long time? Do you somehow find it difficult to make the time to make contact, or are just waiting for the “right” time, which just never seems to come by?
As posted earlier, our challenge for this month is:
“Each day, phone a different friend whom you’ve been out of touch with”
Take this challenge as an opportunity to push yourself into making that one phone call that will rekindle the old friendship and change things in positive ways for you as well as your friend. Imagine how it would be to do this daily for 21 days. Twenty one rekindled relationships, and your life may never be the same again!
It’s the 4th of the month and it’s time to have a look at the Logical Goal for this challenge.
By the way, did you complete your preparation for this challenge? Do you have your list of friends / contacts ready? How about their contact numbers? If you are feeling so excited that you don’t know where to begin listing the names, or are lost for ideas as to whom to contact, then start with your out-of-touch family members, friends, schoolmates, college mates, playmates, ex-colleagues, business leads,… the list can go on but, with just these options, I think you would be able to get enough people on your list.
The challenge starts tomorrow, so it’s time to hurry and get your list ready.
Meanwhile, here is one way of setting the Logical Goal for the challenge for this month:
Triggers:
1) I feel disturbed at the realization that it has been so long since I got in touch with quite a few of my friends / contacts.
2) Days come and days go, and getting in touch with old friends seems to rank low amongst other priorities. The right time never seems to come, and before long it could be years before I can get in touch with them if things continue this way.
3) I am not even sure whether I have the current contact numbers of some of them, especially old business contacts. What if they have changed their contact numbers, switched jobs and subsequently even their e-mail address? Would that mean that I may never be able to get in touch with them again? Maybe it’s still not too late. Well, the only way to know is to try to contact them, now!
Target (The Challenge):
Just for the next 21 days, each day, I will phone a friend whom I have been out of touch with for a long time, and talk about good old times.
Tip 1: Make the phone call at the earliest feasible time of the day, and live the day with an air of accomplishment.
Tip 2: It’s a time-saver to make calls when waiting for something or someone, or when walking, or when doing other tasks that you find easy to multitask simultaneously with a phone call.
Foreseen Risks and Planned Measures:
| # | Risk | Action/Response |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Not being able to contact some of the people on the list due to unavailability of a valid contact number. | 1) Have more than 21 names on the list. The additional ones will help cover up for those you are not able to contact right away. 2) Keep adding more names as and when they come to mind. The more the better; you can call remaining ones even after this 21-day challenge is over. 3) Initiate a search for the contact information of every person you are not able to reach, though the search itself would be out of scope of this challenge. If you find their proper number while the challenge is still on, that’s great. If not, call them when whenever you get hold of their number. |
| 2 | Running out of balance in case of use of a pre-paid service to make calls. | Allocate additional budget for the purpose of the additional calls for the challenge, and charge your account beforehand. |
| 3 | Not having the list of names and numbers at hand when you find time to make a phone call. | Print a copy of the list, or even two or three if you wish, and keep one handy at all times. |
| 4 | A gut feeling not to call the next person on the list. | May be your mind has tapped into a reason not to call the person. In that case just skip the person and call the next one on the list. Make sure to mark the person you skipped as pending. |
Conditions:
1) The call should not be longer than 15 minutes. That way the challenge will not get in the way of other priorities – both yours and the other person’s, and will yet help in creating a rhythm to continue the activity even beyond the 21-day period of the challenge. If it seems to take longer, just tell the person that you need to end the call for now, exchange required contact information, and end the call on an anticipatory note – a reason to get in touch again soon.
2) Balance the list with people from various walks of your life – friends, family, people from places you’ve lived in, ex-colleagues, business contacts, etc. That way you will be able to identify, and attack, any mind blocks you may have in networking with people from any particular category.
Timeline:
Daily, from September 5, 2010 to September 25, 2010
Vision:
(There’s a reason why this is written in the present tense. I’ll talk about that in another post)
1. The feeling of having gotten back in touch with so many friends after so long is exhilarating. I can’t believe and I don’t know why I had been putting aside, all this while, an activity that brought me so much happiness.
2. It feels so much easy now to get in touch with old friends. The mind block seems to have disappeared, and I feel I will be able to network much better going forward.
3. I actually enjoy the idea of calling an out-of-touch friend each day. It gives me so much happiness.
4. Making this a regular (daily) practice is taking me to a point where I am not out of touch with any of my contacts for too long. I am being very good at networking!
That’s the Logical Goal for this challenge. The challenge starts tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to delivering on it. How about you?
I’ll be posting comments on this post to update you all on my progress on this challenge, and would be most glad to see a large number of you join in on this challenge and post your comments too.
Let’s Network to Success!
Alright, I get to be the first one to comment
I’ve got my list of names, a total of 26 as of now. Unfortunately I don’t have the contact numbers of half of them, and some of those that I have could very well be outdated. So there’s work to be done to get those numbers in place, and this challenge is thus going to be more than just making phone calls.
Today I called up the first person on my list, a close friend I’ve known for about 10 years. The first number I called was not in use anymore, but I was happy to hear the familiar voice on the other end of the overseas call when I tried the second number I had in my records. It was a very very hearty talk, and I couldn’t be happier to start the challenge with such a fruitful conversation.
It’s been a lovely day, and I can see the challenge making a difference in my life already. With the first day underway, I’m looking forward to the next call tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I look forward to hearing from all of you who are participating in this challenge, so please do leave your comments here.
Wishing you success,
Mark
Today I phoned an old fried whom I had been out of touch with for over an year now. I asked him to guess whose speaking, and it took him a while before he could figure out, until he jumped with joy upon realizing it was me. Well, at least I thought he might have jumped. The response in itself was very gratifying! Sending an e-mail would have been no comparison for the satisfaction that comes from giving a surprise call to a close friend.
Yesterday’s call had crossed 20 minutes, so today I was more careful about keeping time. The call could have easily gone to an hour, but the condition of the logical goal, which requires that I keep it short, helped keep it under control and close it in the 16th minute.
As you can see, this challenge is more fun than you might have expected. To me it is much more fun than I had expected it to be.
For those of you who might have read about this challenge a little late, please join in from whichever day you read this. It’s better late than never
It was yet another overseas call today, and what a coincidence it was. This old friend was so surprised to receive my phone call that he couldn’t believe I called up just out of the blue without knowing what day it was. “It’s my birthday today!”, he shouted with joy. He said my call made his day. Well, it sure made my day too! I was probably more happy than him at the beauty of this coincidence. Did I ever think this challenge would be so wonderful?
Surprise calls one after the other, slow and steady – just once each day, and oh I’m having so much fun!
Today I called a college friend I’ve been out of touch with for about an year now, and haven’t spoken on phone for over 5 years or so. You see, e-mails are a boon, until they start trying to replacing the beauty of phoning your friends and enjoying the heart-to-heart talks.
So that was it – a wonderful heart-to-heart talk, catching up on loads of stuff from over the years and talking about so many minute and special things, which sending e-mails just can’t make up for. What a fruitful day, again!
I think this challenge has been unique in the sense that though I do the same thing everyday, each day holds in store a surprise and an unique experience from talking to a different person each day.
Today I called up a friend who I thought I had not e-mailed for may be six months now but, as we discussed, it turned out that it was close to an year since we last exchanged a few e-mails. There were a few updates from either side. My friend had even gone through a surgery (thankfully nothing very critical) a couple of weeks ago. The call was, in a way, a timely one.
It’s surprising how some of the calls are turning out to be such coincidences… the call on the 7th coinciding with my friend’s birthday, the one today being a timely opportunity to express Get Well Soon wishes,.. and I wonder what more surprises are in store as I still have 16 more days to complete this challenge.
For a change, today’s was a domestic call. He was my colleague around 6 years ago, and though we didn’t spend close moments in personal life, there was a special bond and mutual respect that we shared while we worked together.
It had been such a long time that it was tough to figure out what to speak and what not to speak. But there were some important updates to share, and we were both glad to speak to each other.
I had been thinking about making this call for years now, and I’m glad to have finally made it. Turns out that he too had been thinking about calling me for a long time, but couldn’t get past the barrier of not having my contact number.
It feels special to be back in touch again!
So far I called up a few friends, and an ex-colleague too. Going by condition #2 of the Logical Goal, I decided to call someone from a different group today. So I called up a relative’s home this time.
Many a times we tend to giving more time for everyone but family. Okay, well, most would give time to the intermediate family, but relatives are often taken for granted.
Today’s call landed up being a pleasant surprise, and everyone at my cousin’s place took turns in speaking to me. That’s what usually happens when I call any relatives after a long time.
It does feel special to have relatives who really care, and since it’s just once in a while that we all get to come together, besides special occasions, a phone call at least once in a six months makes a world of a difference!
It makes you feel even more special when you make an international call and just Say “Hello ABC” (ABC being the name of the person, of course), and find that the person immediately responds to you hello with a loud exclamation of your name! Such an instant reaction only makes you think that the person has either been thinking about you, or has a very good sense of voice recognition, or both.
Well, it was less than an year since I had last called up this friend of mine, but I wouldn’t let that be a reason for negating the feelings of happiness that arose from that immediate response.
It was a very heart-warming call today, talking to a close person on the other side of the earth and making plans to meet up during the upcoming holiday season!
Today I called up an old friend, who was happy to hear from me. Sounds like the usual story? Keep reading…
After some time, may be a little abruptly, he changed a topic to talk about something new that he had started working on. It turned out that he had taken up life insurance sales part-time. He quickly moved on to try and sell me some “very nice” policy that was (according to him) very promising.
Now the thing about friendship is that it puts you in a tough spot when someone asks for such a favor. Saying “No” could impact the relationship, and saying “Alright” would impact your finances.
Over a decade of professional experience has taught me enough to deal with similar situations. This call was an interesting experience in itself, and I’m glad I could get out of this sticky situation gracefully. I know that this can be a tough situation for many, so I think I’ll write a post about that in the near future.
Well, today’s was a story quite different from the others so far. It did act as a gentle reminder that not all calls are refreshing, but if you take it with the right spirit, even those calls can be interesting
The good thing about calling up your contacts is that you get to hear from them about what’s going on in the lives of other common friends too. I’m not talking about gossiping about others, but rather getting to know about any major stuff that may be going on around. This serves a good purpose because it gives you a heads-up on how you might be able to help in case someone needs assistance, or even a reason to give them a call to inquire about them or congratulate them or whatever the situation demands at that moment.
Today I called up an ex-colleague who has now started his own business. Not only did we talk about ourselves, but he also told me about quite a few other colleagues whom we had both worked with earlier and are currently residing in the same country as him. I am not so “close” to most of them that I can put them on the calling list for this challenge, but I might give them a call someday soon. Nevertheless, it was nice to hear about them through this common friend and also pass on my regards to them through him. Do you see the point? I am not calling those other ex-colleagues yet, but trusting that this friend would convey my regards, a communication would already be taking place between members of that part of my network.
This is one of the reasons why condition #2 of the Logical Goal for this challenge suggests that there be diversity in the people you reach out to. After covering the critical names on the core list, it is better to diversify and touch a wider area of your network.
It was just one call today, but I can feel the magnitude of the reach of this call. I didn’t think about all this when I started with this challenge, and I’m really glad at the way things are turning out.
Mark, you are a true gem! Thank you for checking up on me. Yes, I’ve been ‘away’ from my blogs, preoccupied with a host of other things. It’s where I feel I need to be just now. I feel so grateful for people like you – online friends of the heart and mind, if not of the eyes
You really seem to be doing a terrific job here – what a great amount of care you put into your content.
BTW you’ve got my email address here. Do send me an email so we can stay in touch that way. I’d love to keep this friendship going…
Lots of love, TBT
TBT,
Thanks so much for writing back! You had really got me worried… I’m feeling good to be back in touch with you, and I think I’ll have a very good night’s sleep just knowing that things are under control on your side.
I’m also glad that you have got your priorities right. Take your time to do what you must do. Your blogs will wait for you, and so will readers like me, but your real life is where you ought to first be.
I liked the phrase you coined here – “online friends of the heart and mind, if not of the eyes”. How beautifully said! Well, you sure have a friend in me, and I appreciate you took the time to drop a response in spite of being so busy.
I’ll be sure to keep in touch. Can’t wait to see you make a comeback in the blogosphere. Here’s wishing you all the goodness and strength you need to get through (or around) the busy phase in your life.
Success always,
Mark
Time really flies! Today I just felt like phoning a friend of mine whom, surprisingly, I had not put on my list for this challenge. Thinking about the reason why I hadn’t included him on the list, it could have only been because I had thought that I had “recently” spoken to him.
As we spoke, it turned out that it had actually been eleven months since we last had a call, and there was not even an exchange of emails after that. But it sure didn’t feel that long at all!
I suppose phone calls do make a much stronger impression than e-mails, and have much more value. Further, with international calls costing just a tiny fraction of what they used to a decade ago, I think it’s time to start pushing the usage of e-mail into the backseat. Especially when it comes to close friends and contacts, e-mail should be pushed back behind the lines that it has crossed over a little too far.
Today I went further out of my way and called up someone from a new group. So far in this challenge, I have called up friends, ex-colleagues and distant relatives. Today I called up an ex-customer of mine, whom I had worked with a few years ago.
Calling up an ex-customer or ex-boss doesn’t come naturally, and requires most of us to go out of the way to do so. I’m one of them. So today I kind of broke that barrier and made this call.
One would expect that business people or those in managerial or CxO positions would be too busy to entertain calls from those who are no longer associated with them. But these are the people who are successful enough to understand the value of networking. So, on the contrary, they are the ones who are most willing to have that discussion and know what’s up at your end, just as eager as you would be to hear from them.
Networking with contacts from this group adds feathers to professional side of life, and hence should be perused more often.
This is certainly not rocket science. I know you would know this, and I’ve known it all along too. But like I stressed in yesterday’s post on the master key to success, unless you take action you will never be able to understand the true value of actually getting down to doing things. There’s a world of a difference between knowing and doing. I’m performing my actions, and I can see prosperity coming along. How about you?
Some friendships are timeless. I’m not sure whether that would be the correct word to describe it. I’m talking about friendships where two people may be out of touch for what seems to have been “forever”, and yet, when they have a talk, it seems as though they have been in touch all along.
Such was the mutual feeling between me and the friend of mine whom I called up today. We’ve both been busy in our own worlds and hadn’t taken the time to speak to each other for about an year and a half, but, when we spoke today, it seemed like we had always been in touch.
I have experienced similar situations many a times. It’s difficult to conclude on what exactly it is that makes a friendship like this possible, but I believe it is about mutual respect, selflessness, matching of wavelength, and many more factors, but, most of all it is about what I had summarized in an article about 3 years ago: the magic of expectancy.
Today I called up an old colleague from an East Asian country, after about 2 years, for the first time since he returned to his hometown.
At first I played a small prank by greeting him in his native language (Just a couple of words that I had learnt earlier). He immediately responded with the same greeting, which made me feel good about my pronunciation
Then he followed with one or two sentences, of which I understood nothing. So I just greeted him again, while trying to control a laughter. He followed once again with (what I guess was) a question or two. Then I finally broke the ice and greeted him once again, this time in English, a language that we could both understand.
He was happy to hear from me, but at the same time feeling out of place trying hard to bring out his best English. He said it had been a while since he spoke to someone in English. I had very much anticipated that situation, and had therefore been speaking to him in a slow and clear manner.
Overall, it was a nice call. It certainly helped reinforce our connection by weakening the minor but perceived barrier of spoken-English, which would otherwise keep our communication limited to mainly e-mails only. All thanks to this challenge, in the absence of which I would have probably not gone out of my way to make this call!
Do you have friends who are totally out of the Internet world? I have a few.
Today I called up a friend who doesn’t delve into the Internet world, by choice. Actually he says he never felt the need to. Would you say he is missing out on a lot of stuff? I wouldn’t be so quick in my judgment. I know he’s enjoying a very happy life, away from the information overload. He has a relaxed lifestyle that many would only dream about.
How different was today’s conversation from the others I’ve had earlier on during this challenge? Just because of the fact that he doesn’t have exposure to the online world? Hardly any different! Come to think of it, I’ve hardly spoken to anyone else about online stuff when I’ve called them up, besides verifying the “current” e-mail addresses of some of them.
The call re-surfaced some of the thoughts that I ponder upon many-a-times: How much time people would be wasting all over the world doing useless stuff online… pointless chatting, wasteful use of social media websites, directionless browsing, and what not! If only they would put all that time to productive use!
The last week of this challenge is in progress. What initially seemed to be a big task, now feels fun, so much that I just felt a tickle of sadness as I typed the last sentence. But well, there’s no reason to feel so, as I am sure to continue this habit of networking even after this challenge is done.
I called up another college friend of mine today. Life had been busy at both ends, and it was a long time since we spoke on phone.
Life has changed a lot over the years. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I say that today we probably landed up talking more about our kids than about ourselves. Seems perfectly fine for the current phase of life, but it’s just that the feeling was different – there was this very distinct gap between what life used to be and what life now is, with a void in between that was filled with emptiness of not having been in touch with.
We sure miss some good things while we are busy with other priorities in life. But life goes on… it doesn’t wait for anyone, now does it?
Did I mention that calling up people could be a wonderful stress buster? But it depends on whether it is a refreshing call or not.
First of all, you should be careful to not make the other person the target of your whining. Secondly, even if you are not whining per say, the call should not have a word of your problems spoken. That way you just focus on the positive side of things, and that’s a good way to make the call a stress buster without leaving the other person drained out, nor leaving yourself with so much static negative energy.
I know some people can call up someone else, express all their negativity on the call and come out refreshed, only at the cost of passing on negative energy to the other person. And that’s certainly not a good way to treat your contacts.
Today I was at the receiving side of such a whining session. It’s kind of habitual, you see, some people just love to see the glass half empty always. Anyway, I did protect my energy from getting drained – I just closed my brain for most of the whining part, only to peep out sometimes to check whether the whine was over.
So that’s one thing to be on the lookout for, just to make sure that the call you make doesn’t leave you any less happy than you were before you made the call. So much for the not-so-good part of calling up some people.
Today I called up a friend from yet another country. He’s originally from my hometown, but has now taken up citizenship of this country that he currently resides in.
I had a question on my mind when I called him up. I wanted to know whether he was going to be down to his original home during the year-end holidays when I’m going to be there too. I was a little disappointed to know that he didn’t have any plans, but then he quickly followed his initial opinion with a ray hope that he might change his plans in the affirmative.
I’d surely be happy to meet him this year-end and, if it really works out, I’m going to attribute our meeting to this challenge.
Could I have even imagined all these possibilities when I set out on this challenge? Not at all! It’s interesting how opportunities just keep jumping out of nowhere when you set out and use the master key to success! Just amazing!
Another new country joined the list of phone call destinations for this challenge, as I called up an old business contact who is now in one of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
It had been about 4 years since we last e-mailed each other. We both got busy in our own lives for the last few years and, meanwhile, totally lost touch as he changed companies and had communicated no personal e-mail address before doing so.
That’s one more lesson learned – always exchange personal e-mail addresses before parting ways with anyone, as you cannot expect people to stick to any organization forever, not in today’s corporate world.
Luckily for me, I noticed a familiar name in an e-mail that floated recently amongst a group of my contacts, right when this challenge was in progress, and I was glad to have made contact with him once again. The timing was perfect, and I had a nice call with him today. Feels so nice to get back in touch with long lost contacts!
I called up a friend in my hometown today. I meet up my friends whenever I visit home, but I rarely call them up when I am away. So today I changed that trend.
And guess what, that opens up a whole new bundle of phone calls to be made. I’ve just called up one of my friends from my hometown, which means that now I will be obliged to call up all of them, lest anyone feels that I consider them any less important
The fun and surprises of this challenge never seem to stop. Well, I certainly wouldn’t want them to stop anyway!
Today was the 21st day – the last day – of this challenge. I spoke to two of my school friends today. They are married to each other now, so technically it was just one call. It was a wonderful call. I felt as though I was right there with them as we caught up on old times. Can I say that this was the right call to make on the last day of the challenge? I don’t know. There are still so many whom I am yet to give a call, and although the challenge officially ends today, I see that this is one habit that I will stick on to for a long time to come.
I’ve had so much fun with this challenge, and it has been so refreshing. I know it would have probably not been this much fun if I was used to calling all my contacts often. But hey! If the number of contacts runs into hundreds, I don’t see it ever happening that I will call up all of them often enough such this would be any less fun. There are always those who will be called less frequently, and hence, there will always be a reason to continue making such calls, almost always and forever