A Human-Focused Approach to Professional Growth

Count the People in Your Day

Think back over yesterday, but instead of your tasks, think about the people. The person you interacted with to get your coffee. Or the colleague who stopped you to ask a question. The client or customer who called you needing some advice. The text from a friend. The family that was waiting for you when you got home.

If you stopped to count, the number of interactions in one day would probably surprise you. We tend to think about our days by what we did, the meetings we had, the projects that made progress, the tasks we completed. But underneath all of that, there is a day mostly filled with human interaction. Almost everything we accomplish, we accomplish through, with, or for someone else.

Often, we don’t stop to notice this. Work tends to feel like, from the outside, a series of tasks and transactions we must accomplish every day. But spend a day paying attention and you may quickly find that: nearly everything that matters runs on relationships. The tasks and projects are only where the relationships begin to form.

So, it’s worth asking three questions about connection: why does it matter, how does it help you, and how does it help the people around you?

Why Connection Matters

Connection is the foundation of every facet of your life. Not just your personal life, but your career as well.

We often treat relationships as secondary to the business side of “getting things done” but instead, the opposite is often true. Getting things done is, or should be, secondary to relationships. Career opportunities, trust, the ability to get timely help, and even new business leads don’t come from nowhere. The opportunities come through people who decided you were worth investing in.

For example, say a friend invites you to dinner with some other people you have never met. Over dinner, you come to learn that one of these people works in an industry you have been wanting to transition into and you share your wishes with them. They offer to grab coffee with you to discuss what you are looking for and wanting. You have two options: reach out to schedule the coffee or never follow up. If you schedule the coffee, you may open the door you have been wanting to walk through, or at least learn how to get there, simply because you took time to show up for each other. However, if you never follow up, never invest or allow them to invest, that door doesn’t open and you may have just missed an opportunity you were wanting.

Connection isn’t a layer that is added on top of the life you have or want. It is the structure that helps build it. Strip the relationships and you are left with only a pile of tasks. But if you keep them in, allow them to invest in you and vice versa, you may find tasks become a way of caring for people.

How It Helps You

The benefits to connection in your own life are real. When there is connection with someone, you do better work. When you know the person, and not just the thing they are asking for, you understand what a good outcome looks like for them. You may catch something they did not mention, because they didn’t know they needed to mention it. You stop guessing what they want, and start being able to deliver the quality they are wanting without them having to ask.

When you have connection with others, you go further. It is true to a degree that it is about who you know. The mentor you have that has given you guidance or the coworker who helps explain something you were too embarrassed to ask. Even the former peer who thinks of you when an opportunity comes across their desk. Careers and lives are built by people who decide to open doors. A strong network isn’t the sum of the business cards you gather; it is the sum of the people you genuinely invest in who are glad to invest in you back.

You last longer. Hard days and seasons are inevitable. When you don’t have connection, the long days and harder seasons aren’t sustainable. What makes a demanding life worth it is the people. Feeling like you are working towards something bigger than yourself, or that what you did mattered to someone, makes the work more worth it. Connection in this case is what keeps the work from hollowing you out and wearing you down.

How It Helps Them

The easiest part to overlook is that your connection is a gift to the other person too.

When you build a real relationship with the people you serve, they get more than just a transaction. They feel someone understands their situation, who they can be truthful with, and someone who they trust enough to call early (before that slight problem becomes a big one). The trust they have in you also benefits their life, not just yours.

The people you mentor or encourage get a door held open, the same way someone once held one for you when you were early in your career. The friend you check on feels less alone. The community you show up for at the meeting or the fundraiser that has nothing to do with what you do for a living, becomes a bit more woven together because you take the time to show up.

Connection multiplies outward. The care you invest does not stop with you; it lands in someone else’s life. That is not another domino falling, it is a catalyst.

Invest Before You Need It

If there is anything to take away from this, it’s this: build relationships before you ever need them.

Not because they will pay off (though many times they will), that is backwards. Connection isn’t a tactic used just when you want something. It is the foundation you lay over years, which define your life. The coffee, the hallway question, the call that you return with a bit more empathy than you had to, it all helps to define the life you ultimately live.

So go back and count the people in your day. Then ask yourself, what did you give in those moments and what could you build, for the both of you, if you treated those connections as the real work? Because they are. Your tasks are a downflow of the connections you build every day. How will you choose to connect?