Colleague or Compadre

I write weekly on tactics and insights on cultivating authentic relationships that matter to your business, career, and life.

I’m thinking about writing another book. Two, actually.

I’ve learned there is a common path. Decide to write a book. Spend many months in misery, struggling to get it done, cursing that you’ll never do it again. Feel isolated from the rest of the world. Sweat it out. You go through hell, but you finally get it out. Swear you will really, never do it again. Then suddenly, a few years later… gut instinct and a healthy dose of amnesia kicks in, and you think about doing it again.

Yeah, a man just compared writing a book to pregnancy. This is going to be a fun one, isn’t it?

I swore I would never write another book, but here I am today, the outlines coalescing in my head and notes.

One would be a continuation of my last book, where I laid out the technical strategy and tactics behind maintaining professional relationships. I’ve learned a lot since then, and, with my own personal journey, I understood that most of what is holding us back is… us. I’ve helped thousands through this over the past few years, and I’m ready to share it more widely with the world.

The other would be about friendship. I feel I suck at being friends with people. I’m not alone though. It’s something in the water. I’ve picked up a lot of insights and some pretty useful systems to nurture one's own social health. Given our epidemic of loneliness, I feel more would benefit from that.

If you’re interested in either of those, awesome, let me know. But that’s not what I’m here to expand on today.

I’ve realized more recently that they are one and the same.

Thirty years ago, they might have been two books.

Back then, people went to work, did their jobs, got promoted, and went home. On the weekends, they went to temple of one kind or another, met up at the mall with friends, and went out to dinner with their significant other.

The paint has been mixed.

We’ve had the opportunity - and necessity - to take more command of our careers, including who we want to work with and who wants to work with us. As our desk merges with our kitchen table, our clients and colleagues start to look like our community. And given how hard it is to cultivate a sense of belonging anywhere else in our lives, that might be the only community I have.

Taking Action

Two invitations for you:

• For your “work” colleagues - are you willing to pull back the curtain on your personal life, and see them for who they are beyond their resume? A simple “What are you reading/watching” can open doors.

• For your “friends” - they probably have jobs, career goals, people they are trying to meet for one reason or another. How can you help, even if it’s a “What are you working on now?”

Some of you might bristle at this. But I’d bet good money - and one of my children mentioned above - that you would be a lot fewer in number than 30 years ago.

Until next week.