Connections and reconnections; that’s the real spirit of Christmas (and the spirit of Shiageto)

It’s the week before Christmas and like most of the Western World, I’m crazily trying to balance finishing work for the year with festive preparations and all the other things I have going on.

These last few days alone I’ve been filming Shiageto’s Christmas video (watch this space peeps), undertaken madcap last minute buying of presents, run client workshops, given blood, sorted out my business accounts and above all have been catching up with as many people as possible (all within Omicron restrictions I should add).

It’s the last of these that have bought me particular joy; I never underestimate just how great it is to catch up with people (in person or virtually). Not only is it what drives my business but it really helps with my mental health. The more I do it, the more I realise it is important for others’ mental health too.

In the last week alone, I’ve had a couple of lovely reminders on how it’s never too late to reconnect with old friends and contacts as well as making new acquaintances.

Let’s start with with an amazing event that happened this week: meeting up with an old friend from 17 years ago, someone I worked with back then in the Palestinian town of Nablus on a youth camp (back when I was a youth). I hadn’t seen him in all those years and then suddenly realised that in the interim he’d moved to the UK. After reconnecting and discovering this fact, we made a plan to see each other in the run-up to Christmas. So, lo and behold, it’s how 17 years later we would spend a fantastic evening reminiscing about the good old days and start to make plans for good new days too.

[Incidentally those days in Palestine, were the first time ever I kept an online blog and if you want to read what my younger self’s writing style was back then, check out this]

A somewhat similar story from yesterday is about going to an amazing carol service. What was amazing about it was not just the chance to bellow out my terrible singing but it was more to do with the fact that I went there with an old university friend that I reconnected with last year.

After almost 20 years without seeing her I realised that, having moved earlier in the year, we now lived 5 minutes from each other. Obviously in Faris’ world this meant that we reconnected and now regularly hang out. Without that reconnection, my last year certainly wouldn’t have been nearly as fun and warm.

Or let me tell you about the fantastic dinner I had at a swanky Indian restaurant earlier this week with an old friend from my gap year prior to university; someone I hadn’t seen in 23 years before this autumn. I would never have imagined that we would click straight back into our friendship. So much so, to the point he was able to talk candidly about some big work frustrations as we dined this week.

You may begin to see a theme here (as a friend tells me regularly: “Do all your stories start with “I was out with someone I reconnected with after X years when…” ?”)

It’s not just about reconnecting with old acquaintances; it’s also about making new ones. Last week I attended the inaugural dinner for a men’s support group. Over dinner I met a bunch of new people who very happily opened up about the personal challenges going on in their lives right now. Against the backdrop of a delicious Italian meal, there was talk of divorces, failed business attempts, parenting difficulties, addictions and even suicide. It was one of the most powerful evenings I had been to in a while and I was amazed at the level of openness and support that can come from relative strangers.

This is not a one-off observation. Every week I have the pleasure of meeting at least 5 new people through my ongoing business networking and I am absolutely flabbergasted at how much people will share with me within the first hour of meeting them.

Just 2 weeks ago I met someone new and we were chatting on zoom for the first time. During our conversation, he felt comfortable enough to share with me the story of how he had recently changed jobs because of falling out badly with his last boss all at the same time that he was going through a divorce and whilst he was struggling to support his daughter with their trans journey. It was a powerful 45 minutes that had simply started with me asking: “How are you? I’d love to learn more about your journey”.

Obviously, this doesn’t happen every time I talk to someone new, but it is something that happens more often than not. For me it is an honour to be trusted this way and definitely helps me do my job bringing more emotional intelligence to companies. I also 100% appreciate just how important it is for the other person.

So, the good news is that I won’t stop connecting and reconnecting with people. It’s something that brings me so much joy that I even hope I get a chance to connect with you dear reader at some point. In the meantime, enjoy your festive fun and if you have the time why not connect with someone new or old from your life? I assure you, it won’t be time wasted.

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ