When you reflect back at your own life, you will notice that most big shifts in your life occurred because of someone. That someone opened a new world for you when you came in contact with them. I am sure you have thanked them. I also hope that you thanked those that made that connection happen.

Making Connections Matter

Let’s talk about connections. You have a lot of them and I have a lot of them. Since we both may not “directly” know each other, let’s just focus on you for a minute.

Let’s take a quick look at ALL your connections – the ones that are close to you and ones that are far away from you – both literally and figuratively. If you spend a few minutes thinking about all the people, you will notice that some of these people should meet each other. Such a meeting would open a new world to both parties. You know both of them very well and you know what good things might come about when both of them meet each other.

Then, why wait?

The Big Objection

I have presented this scenario and asked this question to many smart people. The answers have varied but the most common one is “But, neither have them have asked for that meeting.” That is a good answer and a valid one too. However, the question back is “how would they know that they need to meet the other person?” The only person who is connected to both parties is “You” and only you can make the determination of what kind of positive impact this new connection will create in the lives of both of them.

The Qualifier

I hope I have made a case to make more connections. I am not asking you to jump and send a zillion emails connecting everyone. There is one step before connecting and that is “creating the awareness” about the need for that connection. You need to do that to both parties. Both of them should see the need to connect to to the other – otherwise, a new connection looks like “work” to them. If they are aware of what kind of a new world will open up because of this new connection, they are open and looking forward to it. Trying to raise this awareness is a good qualifier in the sense you can be certain that this new connection WILL make a positive impact in their world.

What do you get out of this?

Opening new worlds for people in your life is priceless to them. In return, it must be mean something to you.

Personally, I have a long way to go as there are a ton of pending connections to be made. So far, it’s worked out great and I can’t wait to see what else is in store.

Photo Courtesy: DonkeyHotey on Flickr