“But do you actually know all those people”, a friend asked me as we were discussing our differing approaches to how we use LinkedIn.

She’d read my recent blog all about how I treated LinkedIn as a journal and was grilling me about it — I’ve previously explained in detail my evolving approach to using LinkedIn.

“If it’s a journal, why would you be willing to let others read it and, why do you care how many people read it” — she was commenting on the number of followers I had.

I know it doesn’t necessarily make sense but for me it’s an honour to share my journey with others [particularly having set up a business during Covid, a time that was incredibly tough and lonely] and I love connecting/reconnecting with everyone that has been a part of that journey.

Every former client, every workshop attendee, every former classmate, every one I’ve had the pleasure of working with; they are all part of the journey.

In many ways, I wouldn’t be the person I am nor had all the experiences I’d had [good and bad] without each and everyone of them — for me, a great analogy is that I see them as all the people that have starred in the movie of my life [hence the photo above].

I’m fairly certain in the future, AI will be able to keep a track of literally everyone you’ve ever interacted with [from your long-term partner to the super-friendly waiter you met briefly on a holiday 12 years ago]. In the interim, for me, that’s a secondary purpose of social media; you can stay connected with so many more of them.

In an ideal world, I’d love to track down absolutely everyone that I have interacted with from my life and it pains me that certain people in particular [I’m thinking a few former friends, amazing work colleagues and exes] have slipped away.

In the meantime, I’m just over the moon staying connected with so many and just as over the moon [maybe even over the sun] that so many of them follow the journey.

The connections can also come in handy when the shit hits the fan as a small business, although some people do have a habit of ignoring you.

The downsides of being a connection-lover

Ever since I started my own business, I have definitely seen the number of connections and followers going up as I go about doing all the things a small business owner must do.

As such, I just recently passed through the 16000 follower milestone on LinkedIn.

It was great, it was terrible, it was meaningless.

Great: how flattering that 16000 people want to follow my journey

Terrible: for every 5 new followers, I lose one old follower. It may be that they are tired of seeing my face every day or something has changed; despite whatever the valid reasons, just like losing business, it still hurts a little bit when I discover that someone I thought was close has stopped following or has disconnected😔

Meaningless: Ultimately number of followers doesn’t mean anything; it doesn’t make you a better person, it doesn’t change your actual number of friends. At the end of the day it’s as arbitrary as the New LinkedIn Top Voices awards.

What does the future hold?

Because of my approach to life, I can imagine my connections continuing to increase as I continue to build my business.

This will be great but at the heart of it each of those connections is a person and, because I lead with EQ, that means every connection gets:

• my evolving approach to using LinkedIn.0 when we connect [some also get this on their birthday if they are a Facebook or good friend]
• A coffee (my evolving approach to using LinkedIn.1) to catch up each year
• my evolving approach to using LinkedIn.2
• A plethora of engagement in their journeys and lots of questions along the way
• A shoulder-to-cry-on/someone-to-bounce-ideas off anytime they need one

Hopefully they enjoy this approach; people tell me they do!

I am fully aware that I won’t be able to keep up this level of personalisation as I get even more time-poor so, just like before,my evolving approach to using LinkedIn.3.

In the meantime however I will keep sharing, keep connecting, keep going for catch ups.

I wouldn’t have it any other way; this approach has brought me new friends, reacquainted me with old friends, found me collaborators, delivered employees, generated new clients and so many more opportunities.

In fact, only today I went for lunch with a former university friend that I hadn’t seen in over 10 years all thanks to this approach 💪.

And that’s why I value connections so much.

It really doesn’t matter if you have 10 connections or a million; it’s the person you are that counts.

My opinion is simple: Let’s all celebrate our connections and followers as best we can and good stuff will flow🙌

Faris 🙂

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

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Originally Published on https://farisaranki.medium.com/

Faris Aranki Strategy & Emotional Intelligence

Having spent over 20 years delivering strategic change for the corporate and non-corporate worlds, Faris has experienced first-hand the fine differences between strategic success and failure.
His work has spanned numerous companies (from global behemoths to small start-ups), in numerous countries, across a range of sectors, supporting them all to unlock strategic success.

He came to realize that often what hinders institutions from achieving their goals goes beyond the quality of their strategy; it is their ability to engage effectively with others at all levels and remove barriers in their way. This has led to his passion for improving strategic effectiveness within all businesses and individuals and the foundation of Shiageto Consulting.

Over time, Faris has worked to distill his knowledge of how to solve complex problems in a structured manner combined with his skill on engaging effectively with others and his ability to quickly determine the barriers to a strategy's success. This knowledge has formed the foundation of Shiageto’s workshops, courses and methodologies. Faris believes that any firm or team can adopt these improvements; all it requires is a little of the right support -something Shiageto provides!

On top of leading our business, Faris is now an accomplished speaker and contributor for a variety of outlets.