“Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” says the now-pop culture cliche. And while the phrase is often said with a particularly acid tongue, there is truth at the heart of the sarcasm.
I don’t think I am alone in being someone who has (or at least thinks they have) difficulty in connecting with new people and making new friends. I know that, in my own experience, it’s one thing to meet someone and have a conversation at a party or event or some such, but it’s another to keep that connection going afterward.
Difficult but not impossible and often very much worth it.
As an example… I had the good fortune to be introduced to Aaron Reynolds during Fan Expo Canada here in Toronto a couple of years ago. Aaron is the cartoonist behind the social media sensation Effin’ Birds and has a wealth of information and experience with marketing creative content not too dissimilar from my own.
Aaron and I chat regularly (humble brag) and he’s been incredibly giving of his time and wisdom as I try to build an audience for my comics and podcast online. I even had him as a guest on that aforementioned podcast, the Handsome Genius Club Radio Show, for a very entertaining and informative conversation about the ups and downs of building your own brand.
Mutual friends and shared interests are a great inroad to starting a new friendship. And finding someone who gets your most obscure pop culture references is priceless. But over the past seven months, I’ve been on a different journey with a very new set of people.
Coming back to college, after thirty years away from school, to study digital marketing, I’ve been on a mission to become a social media manager. It’s been a daunting task and not one to be taken on alone. Marketing is largely about reaching out to people. Obtaining information and delivering messages. And finding work in marketing… in any job, really… is about fine tuning yourself as a product and selling that product to a prospective employer. Again, not a task to be taken on single-handed.
Luckily, fate took a hand and in my very first class on my very first day, I was assigned to a work group with Sydonnae Simon and Kenix Po. Sydonnae and Kenix have become good friends and excellent project partners. I’ve had excellent teachers across the board, but with my personal focus on content creation and social media, I’ve again, been lucky to have teachers like Rochelle Latinsky and Kyle Ashley who have made it easy to come to them for advice on both current projects and where I’m going in the future.
In addition, joining LinkedIn has and will keep me in contact with the students, teachers and lecturers that to whom we’ve all been introduced. And those kind of connections can prove both personally fulfilling and professionally rewarding. Sharing these blogs with one another on sites like LinkedIn is just one example of how to foster those relationships. Maybe I will say something herein that entertains my contacts or sparks joy or grants them some measure of my vast wisdom. And maybe their blogs will do the same for me. And if we share each other’s blogs with others, maybe that entertainment and joy and wisdom will spread and new connections will form.
I am currently in the process of searching for my third semester co-op placement. Sifting through job listings on the George Brown College Careers site and on indeed.ca and Google and directly with some of the companies that have personally recommended to me. As nerve-wracking as it is, it’s been made at least a little easier by having friends to share the experience and to help vet each other’s opportunities.
The internship I most have my heart set on (we all have one of those, don’t we?) was something discovered during a group mosey through Indeed. And it is, coincidentally, the workplace of a dear friend, who has kindly written me a letter of recommendation. I’ve also applied to internship with a professional basketball team in a league for whom my brother is the lead play-by-play announcer. And for the corporation for whom I currently host discussion panels at a handful of their live events.
In other words, there have been people on the inside or adjacent to some of the best opportunities I have seen. A hive mind to help with information and best practices when contacting the company. People who, with any luck, know who’s who and can “put in the good word” on my behalf.
When it comes to making friends and fostering relationships, it really is something you have to want to do. You have to want to take the chance and extend yourself. Don’t force it. Be inspired to learn more about someone and from them, as well. But most important of all, when you have the chance to meet someone like an Aaron Reynolds or an Adi Montas or a Cathy McKnight and they have knowledge or wisdom or experience that you are interested in gaining for yourself, don’t be afraid to say hello. Ask them your question.
If you are polite and sincere, most people will be willing to give you some small measure of their time to discuss their passion with you.
And, hey… you may actually make a friend.
