Lost Touch? Simple Prompts to Reignite Friendships [Social Intelligence Brief]

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0:56CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere. Restrictions and fee may apply. Life gets in the way. You start a family. You make a big shift in your career. and all of a sudden you've lost touch with those people that are most important to you and it can be quite daunting to reach back out and reconnect with them.

1:20All right, welcome back to another social intelligence brief. And today we're tackling a topic that a lot of our clients in the X Factor Accelerator joined the program for, and that's how to reconnect with those friends that you've lost touch with. Scroll your phone. How many names make you smile? How many of them are you guilty of losing touch with? If you put a lot of time into building out your network, well, you certainly don't want to let all of that work go to waste. Like anything that you build, maintenance is required to keep it up. These tactics are also great for reestablishing and maintaining building up your network.

1:59And here's the thing. We've talked about on the show numerous times how many hours spent together is required for you to build deep relationships. It's harder to build new relationships than it is to keep those old relationships fresh and connected. So today, we're going to tackle how we actually do that. And here's the thing. Light touch actually keeps those doors open. It's not a heavy lift that we're talking about. In fact, the mere exposure effect, even a quick like a text around the holidays refreshes that familiarity and boost positive feelings in the other person. And we know that relationships decay over time.

2:36In fact, friendships that kept talking even briefly avoided the quality slides seen in silent ties, meaning people that you have not talked to for months or even years. So keeping and maintaining those relationships is huge. And we're going to share with you four strategies to do so. Now, here's the reality check. You can only keep about 150 acquaintances in your life. Period. And that's the Dunbar number. So let's not waste effort on filling new people in. If you've already built a great network, it's worth keeping in touch with people. So a 2022 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology series looked at 6 ,000 participants and found that recipients valued surprise check-ins far more than senders predicted.

3:22So when you're feeling awkward or weird about reconnecting with someone, the person receiving that reconnection is not feeling that way. In fact, they love hearing from you. And the longer the silence, the bigger the bump in appreciation. So you may be feeling like, wow, we've gone months or even years without talking, but the other person receiving that thoughtful message from you feels incredible when you reconnect with them. And that's so important, right, Johnny? AJ, that awkwardness is in your head and not theirs. and something else to think about. When we're in our head and we're trying to imagine what it might be like, a lot of those things are exaggerated.

4:05Our mind plays tricks on us. So be careful when you're thinking about those things. Don't talk yourself out of something that should come natural and is good for you and the people you're reaching out to. Just to go along with this, I am now 51 years old. And as odd as that sounds to say that out loud, relationships continue to be incredibly important to me as with everybody. And as I grow older, they're only going to be even more important. In my own life, this year alone, I've had three people reach out to me to reestablish connection from some old friends and some business contacts. and it was nice for me to be on the other side of that because usually I'm the one who's initiating it and because I'm the one who's initiating it I'm always thinking about it from this perspective it was so nice to have people reach out to me and tell me hey you meant a lot to me I know that I haven't spoke to you in a while a lot of things have happened in the last five years and I just wanted to touch base because my relationships are important to me.

5:20And hearing that made me feel special. You're going to be adding a lot of value to a lot of people's lives by reaching out and reestablishing those connections. As the weather finally cools down, I'm swapping in the pieces that actually get the job done. Warm, durable, and built to last. And Quince delivers every time. Quince has all the false staples you actually want to wear on repeat, like 100 % Mongolian cashmere sweater starting at just$60, classic fit denim, and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up. I've actually got my eye on their suede trucker jacket. It's perfect for layering, and it hits that balance of casual but still put together.

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7:12You can even use your own phone, keep your number, and bring all your contacts with you. No hassle. Mint Mobile is unbeatable at this pricing. Ready to say yes to saying no? Make the switch at mintmobile.com slash charm. That's mintmobile.com slash charm. Upfront payment of$45 required, equivalent to$15 per month. limited time new customer offer for the first three months only speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on an unlimited plan taxes and fees extra cement mobile for details so let's get to four simple ways you can do that right now with people that are in your phone the first one is what we call the expert tap this is reaching out to someone that you value their expert opinion from so the trigger is, hey, Steve, I need your expert eye on something.

8:01Now, why does this work, Johnny? Because asking for advice signals respect and pulls them towards you. And here's the thing. I recently did this with a mentor of mine that I had lost contact with. It had been about five years since I had last spoken with him. And we were putting together a big proposal for some corporate training that we were doing. It was the largest scope we had ever done. I sent a text message to my mentor saying, hey, I need your expert eye on this proposal I've been putting together. And I was nervous. I thought, uh-oh, maybe he's not going to respond. He's going to ignore me or he's going to say, what the heck?

8:34AJ, you haven't talked to me in five years. He immediately responded. And then we ended up having coffee. And not only did he give me great feedback on that proposal, but we started reminiscing about the time we actually first connected and all the work we had been doing. And he was so excited to be back in my life. And I just let that relationship slip, even though he was a very important mentor to me. So think about that person whose expertise you really value and shoot them a quick text asking for their expert opinion and watch how fast they respond. AJ, I love that. It's a beautiful story.

9:06And again, it just goes to show people are craving connection and our relationships are important to us. And it is something that we take for granted nowadays because we're hyper connected, but yet this hyper connectivity yet makes us feel so alone at times. So that reaching out rekindles all of those old emotions and those friendships and relationships and just makes people feel good. Now let's talk about the second strategy, which is the thoughtful share. Now we talk about this all the time, how important sharing your knowledge is to growing your social capital. So this one's simple. I ran into this podcast and I thought of you.

9:45I knew you would love this and share a link, podcast or article. Here's the thing. It's so impactful because it allows instantly for you to reconnect on that thing, that passion, that interest that you both have. it shows that you still see them. It's the mere exposure bump that you've talked about earlier, AJ. This is one that I use a lot. In fact, I like using it with my writing when I'm writing songs. It's so fun to have all this technology. And now I can send guitar tracks to an old buddy, right? And he can lay drum tracks on it. And then I can send it over to a bass player to do their part on it and get everybody's opinion on the process.

10:31Technology makes it so easy for us to share, collaborate, and cooperate on new projects. And the other thing about why I like this technique more than the others is that it shows what your interests are and what you're working on and that you haven't just submitted to the world, that you're still out there conquering it. And this fires people up. They want to be a part of that. So when you show what you're working on, it makes it easy for people to join in. Everyone's looking for a way that they can collab, that they can cooperate. You're setting it up for them. Now let's talk about a super strong effect and that's nostalgia.

11:12And this is our third strategy, the nostalgia spark. Remember that time we blank, it just popped in my feed or share an actual photo from that time that you were doing it and put that other person back on that trip to Thailand, back at that NBA finals game that you both enjoyed. It could be years ago. And here's the fun part about it. With Apple Photos, with Facebook, these memories are constantly popping up. So all you got to do is scroll through your photo album, find a memory that you had with that person that you both shared nostalgia for and send them that photo and reach out. Yes, nostalgia primes warm emotions and instantly resets that shared identity.

11:55And there's a reason why Facebook sends those messages out. There's a reason why iPhone goes, hey, do you remember this? These companies know how powerful nostalgia is. And again, it's connected directly to those warm and fuzzy emotions. Now, a question we get all the time is, how do I get a mentor? How do I get someone to help support me? And this is really where the rubber meets the road. And we call this one the results loop. So what you're going to send is, I tried that tip you gave me and here's how it turned out. Meaning that one time you sought advice from someone, you asked them to look at the proposal, you asked for feedback on your resume, you asked for them to give you a tip on networking, reach out to them and share how it worked.

12:40show them that you actually did it, that you followed through. And what's going to end up happening is that person's going to feel extra appreciated because you actually took their advice and they're going to want to hear more. That's right. You close the feedback loop. You deliver a mini win and tee up their next collaboration. It's great. And it's so much fun. And AJ, this is also something that we've talked about on the podcast. There's nothing that a mentor hates worse than somebody that they give advice to and they never follow through. When you let them know that you've been thinking about them and what they have told you and how you've implemented in your life, there is no bigger compliment.

13:19And it only makes you want to work with that person more, especially when that other person is so excited about those results. And this is actually something that one of our clients, Sarah and the X Factor Accelerator did. So she was working on a big presentation at work and she wanted an extra set of eyes. And she remembered an old coworker from a previous role was really good at putting slides together. And she reached out, shared her finished work and said, hey, you know, anything that I should know before I give this big presentation? He actually helped her rework one of the stories in the presentation.

13:53Of course, the presentation went phenomenally. And we encouraged her to reach back out to that old coworker and let them know how the presentation went. Well, she did exactly that. She shared that the presentation went really well. he actually let her know that there was a new job opening in his company and she got the inside track to apply for it and actually get the role. So here's the crazy thing about it. These connections that we have allowed to go dormant, we've left languishing because we didn't know what to say, we didn't know how to reconnect, they are ripe and ready for that reconnection.

14:27And we just shared four great strategies that you could use right now with names in your phone. So here's what we want you to do. We want you to pick three names this week, one friend, one potential mentor, and one former coworker. And you're going to choose one of those four strategies to reconnect with each one of them. Now, jot down a little bit about the backstory, what's going on with this person, maybe jog through their social media before you send that message so you get up to speed. But we want you to reconnect, rekindle relationships with three people in your phone this week because those warm connections are going to be rekindled faster than starting completely cold with new relationships.

15:08And you're going to find that people on the other end of those text messages can't wait to hear from you. Right, Johnny? Absolutely. In fact, this is one of the first exercises that we have every member of our X Factor Accelerator perform. And if you're thinking, these are great strategies, but I need the reps. Well, we actually built the dojo for you. And that is our X Factor Accelerator. That's right. Every single week we run persuasion triggers implementation sessions live. You show up with a script, we pressure test it, polish it, and you walk out ready to deploy it before lunch. And think of it as a gym for your social skills.

15:46In fact, structured drills, exercises, instant feedback, and even a sparring partner that high fives you after. Are you ready to train with us? Jump over to unlockyourxfactor.com and hit the apply button. Tell us your goals and we'll see if you're a good fit. Stop stockpiling just tips. Come get the reps at unlockyourxfactor.com and we'll keep a seat warm for you.