Takeaway from 2019 — Let’s get coffee?
Looking back at 2019, it has been a great year packed with a job change, renewed passion at work, a couple of good vacations and great health. Out of many things that happened over this year, I am very glad I picked up a new habit — Meeting people professionally over coffee.
Earlier this year, someone asked me out for coffee over LinkedIn. During that coffee meeting, we shared our thoughts on technology, work, productivity, and personal projects. At the same time, he introduced me to CoffeeBreak — an app to meet professionals over coffee.
I continued to use CoffeeBreak, LinkedIn and Shapr (similar app), to meet over 30+ people for coffee over the rest of the year. Entrepreneurs, Surgeons, Financial advisors, New Grads, Software developers, Program managers — I have met people from various backgrounds and various industries. Initially, I wasn’t keen on who I meet, I admit there were some great and not so great meetings. Over time, I realized with whom I can have worthy conversations and most importantly how I can make any meeting worthy. Everyone had something to say what they are passionate about; that kept me interested in meeting people.
Meeting people had multiple positive consequences in my life. Firstly, I started to get better at conversations with less awkward silences and apt questions that led to meaningful knowledge exchange. I was able to present myself better and draw things I wanted to know from the meeting. This resulted in building confidence when I place myself in a social setting.
Second, I started to pick up some great habits from the people I met. A 65-year-old entrepreneur I met, keeps looking out for problems, learns various systems, ideates products by mapping problems to solutions, all by being inquisitive of surroundings and asking questions like how does this work and can this be any better. Ex-Microsoft Program manager whom I met him on the last day of his 20 years career at Microsoft read about 900 books to date. I was amazed looking at his GoodReads profile and he goes on to talk about how everyone should make book reading or physical exercise as an addiction. Another surgeon I met, talks with great passion about leading life with giving nature, and quote from Go-Giver book, “Your influence is defined by how often and how much you focus on others’ interests first.”
The list of good things I gathered from these interactions with various people is long. Most of these habits seem familiar or partly something we already do, but after meeting people, I started to retrospect myself on how much I practice this in real life. Measuring and increasing productivity, working on side projects, building a habit of reading books, learning new technologies, practicing deep focus periods at work, being open to giving are some of the best things I have incorporated into my lifestyle after meeting these people.
Lastly, meeting people allowed me to understand them more personally and offer help when needed. In a few scenarios, it meant connecting people with others, in other cases, it meant taking part in their effort to build something, learn a new skill or find a job. I had great pleasure when someone ran ideas through me, and we sat down to refine it and build the prototype; when someone wanted to learn how to build a website to get a job and I was able to mentor them the best I can.
Building connections has turned out to be a worthy trait for me, transforming and opening new paths for me towards what I want to be. I strongly suggest the same for you, no matter what stage of life or career you are in. If it doesn’t help you, it may help the ones you meet.
Similar to you all, I look forward to 2020 to bring lots of goodness.