Over-connected, under-nourished
Many years ago, a group of friends and colleagues gathered together at a local coffee shop to talk shop.
We had set up a regular cadence of every two weeks, and we’d use each gathering to share ideas, brainstorm challenges and make connections for each other around our businesses. I loved those meetings and always left feeling inspired and ready to take on the world.
At the end of one meeting, we all gathered up our laptops, put our dishes in the bin and hugged our goodbyes. I decided to stick around to work a little longer (taking advantage of a much-needed break from two young toddlers). My dear friend Suzanne, the second last to leave, waved goodbye and popped into the adjoining magazine shop to look around before she left.
I buried my head in my laptop and took another glug of coffee.
About 10 minutes later, Suzanne was standing back at the table in front of me. I smiled curiously at her, she smiled back, and then she plopped herself in a chair and said,
“I was going to leave, but then I came back because I wanted to know how you’re really doing. Like, truly. We talk about work and business and life, but we don’t get the time to go deep enough to know how we’re all really doing.”
I’ve never forgotten that moment because it felt like such a meaningful gesture and an act of true friendship. And how in her one question, she offered us both permission to cut through the surface and go deep instead.
We spent the next half hour talking candidly about how we were both doing and what was really going on in our lives. We said the things we had been too timid to share only an hour earlier.
Years later, she and I, along with two other friends, Dani and Blythe, still have an ongoing quarterly date (Zoom-style lately, typically in a restaurant) to check in and catch up. What always amazes me is that despite months going between the four of us talking, when we gather together again, we ditch all pretense and just get into the weeds and get real.
While these women aren’t aware of the day-to-day realities of my life – the ups and downs, the minor frustrations, the small wins – they are there for me in a way that I’ll always be grateful for. They see me, they get me and they care to know who I am. And I, them.
This memory came back to me as I was reading all the think pieces asking whether we’ve lost our social skills during COVID, whether some of our relationships may have changed irrevocably, and whether we have the capacity for small talk any longer (did I ever have the capacity for small talk?!).
After more than a year of working from home, spending hours on Zoom, and conducting too many conversations via text messages and WhatsApp groups, many of us are feeling very over-connected, but highly under-nourished.
I think what we’re really craving is the kind of connection and conversation Suzanne offered me in that coffee shop. We want to be seen and felt heard.
We want someone to ask us, “No, but how are you really doing?”
In a year that has kept us apart from each other and been so emotionally taxing, we’re over the platitudes and preformative-style connections on social media that no longer fill our cups. We want substance, depth and realness combined with care, humour and and a little shared commiseration for good measure.
I’m doing my best to bring that to the spaces I offer my community. In LEAD.Well I host monthly roundtables to dig into our theme, and so far they’ve exceeded my expectations as women share candidly about their experiences.
And I’m bringing back the Leadership League Mastermind after several women reached out to me privately to ask if I had a small peer group space for them to share the ups and downs of leadership in a candid, honest way.
These groups have highlighted for me that we aren’t as tired of connecting, talking and sharing as I thought we were (even online), but that we’re only up for it if it goes beyond the shallow minutia and digs a little deeper.
As we look ahead to a world where in-person gatherings are a possibility, and our social calendars are poised to quickly fill back up again, we also have an opportunity to consider where we want to engage, who we want to be in relationship with, and how we want to show up.
Here are a few questions for you to consider:
💫 Who do I want to spend time with?
💫 What kind of connection am I in need of right now?
💫 Where can I deepen a relationship instead of keeping it surface level?
💫 What does community mean to me at this season in my life?
💫 How can I create or find the community I’m craving?
Your answers might come easily, or you may need to give it time to marinate. You might realize you have people who are already filling the roles you need, or you might find that there are some gaps to fill.
Either way, I encourage you to be intentional about it.
It’s not hard to find groups to join or people to connect with – especially as we all step back out into the world again. What’s harder, but far more rewarding, is to seek out (or create) the kind of connections and communities that foster a true sense of belonging.
They often take time to build as intimacy isn’t an overnight thing, but they are worth investing in for what they bring us: people who see us, know us and are a witness to our lives.
And that often starts with simply asking, “How are you really?”
Steph (she/her)
x
p.s. Interested in being in community with me? The Leadership League Mastermind begins May 11th, and applications are open now. I’ll likely run two groups of 5-8 individuals (one for professionals, one for entrepreneurs). Click here for details.
💡 FRESH, HAND-PICKED RESOURCES
Curated links from around the web to help you work well, live well and lead well.
My client and friend, Michelle Peña, has created a thoughtful and free space for women to gather to pause. The Pause is a monthly online women’s self-care circle. An invitation for you to own time for yourself away from outer distractions and pressures, and practice tending to yourself with curiosity, gentleness, and kindness. Sign up for her next session here.
How to Make Small Talk After We’ve Been Through… a Pandemic. “If you are feeling lightly anxious about having nothing to talk about, oversharing, spontaneously crying, making a joke that does not land, snapping at the friend-of-a-friend who casually reveals they hosted a wedding for 200 people in October 2020, talking to a new acquaintance in the same voice you use to talk to your dog, or simply blurting out, “How ‘bout those Cubbies, huh?” at the first hint of an awkward pause, you’ve come to the right place!”
Two great books and one great person on community-building. If you’re leaning toward creating your own community, may I point you in the direction of three great resources: 1) The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker – this book shifted my thinking around what it means to gather, 2) The Art of Community by Charles Vogl – this book offers seven principles for belonging, and 3) Rosie Sherry – she writes exclusively on community-building and shares a lot of great insights and curated resources.
A never-could-have-planned-it kind of story – the best kind. Dude, Wheres My Couch?
As we approach summer season and diet culture kicks into high gear, this post from dietitian and past client, Sarah Remmer is an important reminder that the BMI means absolutely nothing. Ya, really. It was developed by an astronomer – not a health practitioner. And was only set to measure a white, European man – not even for health purposes. Should you wish to go down the rabbit hole further…a look at the racist history of the BMI.
Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy series on CNN was the pandemic pause I needed. And my family is benefiting: there’s been a lot more pasta and pizza on the menu lately. And my son regularly asks for mortadella sandwiches now.
A good reminder…
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
~Neil deGrasse Tyson
🌱 INSIDE LEAD.Well:
You are welcome to jump into LEAD.Well at any time, and enjoy the conversation, content and community of like-minded women exploring and growing in their own leadership
Here’s what we’re up to in LEAD.Well:
- New theme for April! – Communicate with Confidence
- Leadership Lab: Communicate with Confidence – April 13, 15, 20 & 22 (a 4-part workshop series)
- Curiosity Club Discussion – reading Brag Better by Meredith Fineman
If you love my Leadership Letters, LEAD.Well offers you deeper analysis, behind-the-scenes insights, a private podcast feed, monthly events and a growing Leadership Resource Hub filled with my best tools and recommendations.
Learn more and join us here.
💥THE WEEK IN A GIF
Today’s letter was written with copious amounts of care…and caffeine.
