Something wonderful is happening to our view of the world.
"I can't believe you answered the phone!"
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few months, it’s the importance of human connections. If I can make them and keep them - I have everything I need for good times and bad. I can set aside pressures that once consumed my energy, like the quest for attention or command or cornering the market on being right -
When I’m supposed to be doing Good.
I no longer count electronic connections to call attention to my influence. Rather I stay focused on being Someone of Value. Gone from my mind is any desire to go viral. In an era of masks, it’s no stretch to declare the end of the selfie. Each day continues my quest to say hello; and ends not with leads generated but differences made.
That’s what happens when you start focusing on the mirror.
"I’m surprised you answered. I figured I’d be leaving a message,” said a client recently when I picked up the call. “We’re connected on Facebook, you know,” she added as if afraid I’d hang up.
“I know,” I replied, “That’s why it was so important for me to answer a friend. If you call, that’s my purpose. To be there.”
How satisfying it is to focus on a single connection. How little it takes to do the job - of friend, peer, mentor, client. Showing up for real, not just in the search. How reassuring to know you’ve earned your way every day - only filling your wallet by being present to fill their bucket.
Contrast that to comments that are increasingly frequent: “I’m leaving Facebook. Taking a break, maybe forever. Won’t be posting here anymore. I can’t take it anymore.” It’s mind-boggling to imagine how that can happen in a system that, by design, is a gathering of Friends.
When I think of where the world stands today, I see a defining moment.
I’m not sure we’ll so easily go back to the cheap seats on the plane; We’re done with smelly plastic items shipped without care for customer or planet. Playing by the rules of empty eggs named Jack or Zuck whose unknowable algorithms lack more than just money. They lack morality. After a few months of reflection, maybe we are questioning what they’ve become. And why we want to start again.
One connection at a time.
So It begins in each of our hands. Not answering the email, text, tweet - but answering the call. To change the conversation. To demand a quality of connection driven by a new set of criteria. To realize our confidence in the future comes from conversation not just communication. That a tweet is not a discussion and a comment not an invitation. That the biggest flight isn’t from the city to the suburb or the office to the home. It’s from the incessant to the important. From doublespeak to determinate. When we now eye to eye in a Zoom, we must live up to the duty of having our face on our deeds.
Only that explains the surprise we get when someone actually answers the phone.
It’s a flight to the future - one of quality not quantity. No longer accepting the bargain of being disconnected for a discount. It’s a challenge - asking each of us to show up our best first. But the rewards will make us less busy and noisy and numb. To share our Presence, not Presents and put Empathy before Celebrity, at the forefront of the connection. To commit to creating with our efforts a few moments of time well spent between -
Me and You!
So take your seat and buckle in. Today is the first leg on a journey of unlimited growth. Give yourself permission to board the Flight to Quality: Not merely that quality of correctness or product or even profitability, but most of all the Flight to an amazing -
Quality of Life!