Friends of Dave #358: 🙇more than saying sorry🥺
When you think about it, who really knows you?
Have you ever stopped and thought about who really knows you?
Like knows the real you?
A few separate things got me thinking about this over the past few weeks.
Last weekend was homecoming at my alma mater, Boston College – which also coincided with our 30th reunion.
It is odd for me to think it has been 30 years since I graduated from college……it’s the equivalent of a freaking Millennial….I literally can’t even…..
I consider myself lucky – I’ve stayed close with my college friends through the years. And not just my closest friends – like a good deal of the people from my graduating class.
I guess that has been one of the most positive side effects of social media. It is now really easy to stay connected with acquaintances that come in and out of your life by following them and seeing updates on your professional and personal time lines.
Our class ended up having the largest turnout for reunion weekend, with over 400 people coming back to campus to relive past stories, share a lot of laughs, and appreciate the connections we made so long ago. As it turned out, the people with whom I probably spent the most time catching up were the ones I met my during freshman year, 34 years ago…..now that’s like a freaking ancient Millennial…..
Many of my classmates have become quite successful – from investment bankers to entrepreneurs to famous actors or comedians to indy music rock stars.
Some people changed very little appearance wise. Some looked a lot different.
But for one weekend, honestly, none of that mattered. No one cared how much you had accomplished (or hadn’t) in the 30 years since many of us last saw each other, if you had some gray hair (or no hair) or a few extra pounds or some personal baggage.
We all got transported back to a unique time in our lives when we were discovering who we were and wanted to be, having a fun and making lots of stupid mistakes along the way.
I was doing a bit of a recap with one of my closest friends the day following the reunion event and I wondered how we could so quickly get back together with a group of people, many of whom we really have nothing in with any more, and just have a good time as if time hadn’t passed.
My buddy said this:
“I guess, when you think about it, all of those people met us and got to know us at a time in our lives when we were who we really were. Life just hadn’t changed us too much at that point.”
When I thought about it, he was so right.
In college (or that age) you are the purest form of young adult you will ever be. You are just learning to live on your own and apply everything you learned up until that point to try to navigate life as an independent, functioning adult.
Most of us hadn’t been jaded yet by the real world.
A reunion gives us an opportunity forget this just for a little while.
For a brief time, we can put aside the life lessons that hammered and chiseled us into the more hardened “responsible” adults we so carefully want the world to believe we have become and hopefully allow us to revisit those carefree beginnings we once shared.
Sure I may not be the same person I was back then, but I know I found myself rediscovering that kid once again through each joke that was cracked at my expense, each story that was told and each spirited interaction with my old classmates.
I guess you can say that last weekend I was reminded who I really am and how far I have come….
Which has an interesting tie to this week…and a conversation I had with a business colleague who has only known me for a short time.
So when you think about how most of us do business in the post COVID, work from wherever era, a good chunk of professional interaction these days is done over video conference.
As a result, connectivity to co-workers often comes in the form of quick pre-meeting banter, impersonal 1:1s and whatever people can learn about you on your LinkedIn profile. Just not the same as it once was back in the day when we were all residing in cubicle farms in an office together.
Now I usually try to go the extra mile and share tidbits about my life with people to establish a connection. But I can also be pretty intense and task oriented when I have stuff to get done — which I guess can make video interaction with me somewhat clinical at times.
This particular colleague, who I really like and respect but is probably as introverted as I am extraverted, agreed to have lunch with me in person this past week.
As we were winding down our conversation, she said she had a funny, random story for me. I guess I had shared a link to a business article or something with her a few weeks back, which lead her to my LinkedIn profile……and then lead her to click on the link to my Friends of Dave site.
She told me started to read my posts — and came across the preamble from few weeks back breaking down and analyzing hugs. She complimented me on it, thought it was funny, and said “Wow Dave, I never knew you had that side to you!”
I honestly have to say I had mixed feelings about the comment — sure, I was grateful for the compliment and glad she enjoyed the post, but I was taken aback that this person was so surprised to see this creative, off beat side to me.
These days it is not something I go to great lengths to hide, so I guess I thought I was projecting a little bit of it through the interactions (mostly on video conference) we had….but apparently not.
I laughed, thanked her and just said, “Well, if you have a chance to read others, as we get to know each other better you will probably end up finding that the intros are probably as close to the real me as you can get.”
It was a reminder that you may think that the persona you present at work, on your LinkedIn profile or on social media is the real you, but there is no guarantee that people will perceive it that way.
It makes you wonder, who really knows the real you? What steps are you taking to let people see that side of you?
Perhaps more importantly, what are you doing to get reacquainted with that person so that you embrace and understand the real you?
I’ll leave you to ponder that for a bit — enjoy the weekend and the extra “Fall Back” hour you are probably getting when you set your clocks back this Sunday in the US.
XOXO
Dave
And now a few things to make you smarter…
In 2022, for the seventh year in a row, recorded music revenues in the United States rose, hitting a record high of $15.9 billion.
Check out link showing a graphic using data from the Recording Industry Association of America to chart the music industry’s evolution over the last 50 years.
Instead of offering a straightforward exchange of wares for money, New Store 1.0 gives patrons the opportunity to trade their urine for a piece of Piss Soap.
“I judge people by the quality of their apologies.”
Dave Kellogg delivers once again, taking a page out of the FoD handbook and instead of analyzing hugs, provides a breakdown of what elements comprise a good apology.
Thanks to lifestyle changes and the miracles of modern medicine and science, the number of people living into their 90s and beyond is growing every year, even with a slight dip in life expectancies due to the pandemic. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that at age 60, most people reach the pinnacle of their potential, and then ride that wave into their 80s. Check out some of the interesting and unexpected side effects of an aging population.