I care a lot about chocolate. Most people say that, but I really do. In the first year after my late husband passed, chocolate was my primary source of calories. Probably not such a good idea, but it was the only thing I wanted to eat. At least it was organic, dark chocolate, and I lived through that year, and the years after that.
I care deeply about my children and my grandchildren.
Through 40 years of my career, I have cared about a lot of things. Many of them have become significantly less important to me. Things that used to scare me are now sometimes mundane.
When I began consulting, I was terrified of speaking in front of a group, as most people are. I would lose sleep with every research presentation, lying awake the night before, rehearing what I would say and what I would do if something went wrong, planning for every eventuality. And the night after the presentation I would go back over it in my mind, taking an inventory of what went right and what went wrong, creating a checklist of things I would have wanted to do differently, things I would do again the next time, things I would never have an opportunity to fix because the moment was over.
Now I consciously remind myself to take a few minutes before a presentation to mentally prepare.
I tell myself that’s okay and ignore the dire article on the newsfeed that says apathy is the first sign of dementia. I tell myself that I am simply better, more practiced, at what I do, that I have “more clubs in my bag,” to use a popular golf metaphor.
Perhaps it is not apathy, but lack of exercise. Perhaps professional caring is just like our physical muscles, the older we get, the harder we have to work to keep them in shape.
I recently went through a period of intense project activity. Lots and lots of client work with hardly a moment to breathe between deliverables. I care a lot about that, and those periods are exciting, full of adrenaline, almost addictive. But at the end of it I looked around and realized I had stopped reaching out to anyone other than clients and team members. Oops! That is a classic consultant mistake.
It took about two weeks of staring at my contact list to wake up my networking muscles, to remember how good it feels to be connected to others, to get over my fear of being told, “No.” “No,” is the price of admission.
Last week I had coffee with someone I met at a speaking engagement 10 years ago. We have since collaborated on a project here and there. We touch base about once a year or so. It’s not likely that he will ever be a client of ours. So why have coffee? Because it’s good for my networking muscles, and once someone is part of my network, they are part of my network, for as long as I am breathing.
He shared that at the time we met, he was between jobs, and he had taken the chance of asking me for a coffee meeting, taken the chance that I would tell him, “No.” But I didn’t. Over the years, I have referred him to a job opening that he was perfect for and he landed, and he has referred me to clients that we were perfect for and able to help. He summed it up in one perfect word, “Hope.” I offered hope when he needed it most. For him, “no” was the price of admission to hope. And for me, it was a reminder that I don’t always need to see what the outcome will be. I only need to be open to possibilities and to be willing to work the muscles, and to trust.
This is what I care about.