Loneliness and feeling disconnected are common experiences today, affecting how we feel about life. The longing for real connection is stronger than ever. But it’s not just about having lots of friends; it’s about having meaningful connections that make us feel understood and valued. How do we close this gap and build relationships that truly matter?
In this episode, I have the pleasure to chat with Coach Lee Hopkins, the founder of Patterns of Possibility. Coach Lee Hopkins is an expert in helping people build more meaningful connections in both their personal and professional lives.
Throughout the episode, Coach Lee guides us through understanding the nuances of genuine connections, both online and offline. He talks about the complexities of modern-day interactions, offering actionable strategies to enhance the depth and authenticity of our relationships. Learn how small, intentional steps can lead to profound shifts in our relationships, bringing us closer to a life filled with genuine connection and fulfillment.
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Building Real and Meaningful Connections with Coach Lee Hopkins
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you selling for less. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about loneliness, lack of connection. Now, you probably heard a lot of talk about the loneliness epidemic. One of the decisions I often cite in some of my presentations is that a survey was conducted around how many close friends people have, because loneliness is not just about how many people you’re around, it’s not just about isolation, it’s also about the meaningfulness, the depth of the connection. A survey conducted in 1990 showed that over 60 percent of all people said they had five or more close friends, how they would define as close friends. That same survey conducted in 2021 put 48 percent of all people in the one to four category for how many close friends they had and an alarming 12 percent actually reported having zero close friends and this is impacting just our quality of life in general so it’s good for us to kind of regroup and think a bit more about how we actually form meaningful relationships with other human beings. And to that topic, I bring you my guest today, Coach Lee Hopkins. Coach Lee Hopkins is a social connections coach, founder of a company called Patterns of Possibility. With this company, he uses a simple three-step process to help his clients find and maintain closeness in their friendships.
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Coach Lee Hopkins, welcome to the program.
Thank you so much for having me here. I’m so glad to talk about this topic because it affects so many people.
Let’s start with what’s affecting people. What are you observing in the world today, like right now, regarding the quality of our connections we’re making between human beings?
The quality of our connections. What I observe is there’s all kinds of statistics out there. As you pointed out, there’s some statistics about the relationships that my own observations is searching through TikTok and being on social media, listening to what other people are experiencing as well as watching and seeing my own experiences is that we’re not as connected as we were before and I would love to just tackle that and look at it from a different angle because what I define as connection is a little bit different than what most people do.
They think simply because we are focused on being online so much that we’re disconnected. Click To TweetOf course, that keeps us separated but even when we’re in person, we’re also not making the intentional kind of connections there too. We’re just like in spaces with people and not being connected. The phenomenon that I’ve noticed is we’re disconnected online and then we’re so unattached to people that when we get into spaces with people, we don’t know how to be either. And so disconnection is just pretty rampant.
So is this a mindset that kind of penetrates both environments? Because when you’re online, you’re having three, four, eight, twenty conversations at once, and we all observe people that literally do that and they got 30 group texts and they’re on the Gram and the TikTok and all that. Does that mindset then penetrate your offline world so that when you’re in front of people, you’re still kind of operating under that same mode?
Absolutely, it certainly does. That idea that you have to pretend, you have to be fake, you have to process or you don’t know how to deal with feelings right in the moment because you get all the time in the world to do it online, you’re behind the screen and you can just put your phone down and process and think and do what you need to do, but when it comes to meeting people in person, dealing with these emotions, whether it be good, bad, ugly, rejection, feeling sad, I don’t know how to express that to a person in front of me so I behave the same way. It’s the same mechanism that we use online and it ruins our relationships. It really does. I think we don’t honestly know how to connect. We don’t know how to be.
And so are you seeing a generational divide? Now, I hate to be divisive on this issue because I don’t want to define people as being part of one group or another, there’s way more to who someone is, but one of the things I do observe is that when people talk about the difference between millennials like myself who are old enough to remember the world before we had smartphones everywhere we went, you know Zoomers, Gen Z, younger generation that doesn’t, are you observing a difference between how well people are making connections on that divide?
I’m also a millennial, I’m an older millennial so I’m happy to make that separation just because we’ve had different experiences and it is worth it to acknowledge who we are as people and the way the world looked to us and those experiences if we’re going to connect with people so I love that you brought this up. I remember what it was like to have a house phone with a long cord. I also remember what it was like to have a cordless phone and to try to pretend that I could take it out into the street and still make a phone call when it was not possible. Now, we have these cell phones where we can just take everywhere and anywhere and then not only do we have this ability to communicate everywhere and anywhere, it exploded, we can do everything and anything, talk to anybody on this, and so the idea that it’s supposed to bring communication to us in our pocket and connection to us in our pocket, I think we’re overwhelmed with so many options.
We don’t have the opportunity to really focus and think about how I feel connected to this person, what it is that I want to say, or recognize that perhaps when, back in the 90s, when I was growing up, is that phone call and being in that particular place is the time and is the focus for that person. The same with the internet. The internet was once a place that you went to, it was a computer that you sat down at, you logged on AOL, and you had conversations with people but you didn’t do it all the time. And that overwhelm, I think, gives us so many options and we have this fear of missing out on top of it, that we just don’t know where to really stay and really show ourselves to people and we don’t know how to if we could make a decision. It was easy to make that decision.
So, let’s talk a little bit about that struggle because, obviously, and I’m not saying this is just one generation struggle, it’s just going to manifest differently, but what does that struggle look like? Because I think it’s natural for us humans to have the desire to create that connection so you’re probably dealing with a lot of people who really desire that connection but just for some reason can’t find the right manner in which to build that meaningful relationship.
Yeah, I am talking to quite a few people with that. This is because I struggle with it on my own, just trying to figure out how to connect. What makes me interesting as a millennial to speak on this topic was because I knew what life was like without the gadgets and the easy, quick connections and conversation so I also didn’t develop the skills to be connected, I still felt disconnected from people even though I didn’t have a smartphone in my pocket when I was growing up. And I think that is true for the generations before me because there is a particular skill that we need to learn to really make authentic connections with others. And so when we look at the people who grew up with the cell phones and the easy technology and the constant “connection” and communication, and I would like to put connections in quotes, this full connection with people with the Instagram and the TikTok and commenting and constantly texting, there’s an element there that’s missing from both generations or all generations.
And we love to gravitate and we love to look at generations because I can talk to you about, Remember a time when we sat at a computer to get online? Remember a time when we had this and we had that? These people don’t understand me and how I feel about my experiences. No, they don’t, because they grew up in different generation,” but the skill to make the connection requires you to understand your own feelings but also tap into other people and how they might feel. And a key piece of this is not just knowing that, just saying, “Oh, I know how they feel. Oh, they must be this way or they must…” No, no, no, you have to demonstrate to them through conversation that you understand. And they would shake their heads like, “Yeah, I get it,” and that’s the connection and it doesn’t happen if you’re not being intentional with that, with that skill, whether it is online or offline. A real key component is to be in person and to do it in person and to talk to people and deal with those feelings in a focused manner.
Well, there’s also been a discussion around what percentage of our communication is nonverbal and I’ve seen different numbers so I’m not going to comment on which particular one is right but every number I’ve seen has been above 50 percent. And so my concern is sometimes that when we discuss talk over text messages or shared posts or likes, we’re missing out on a lot of that nonverbal clues and just so you know, although I only post audio parts of this podcast, I do conduct all my interviews over a Zoom video so that me and my guests can be looking at one another. So is there a component where people just get so used to communicating and only getting that 50 percent or less of the actual communication from that person with all these interactions?
You know, I hadn’t thought about that as people being used to it. I haven’t thought about the fact that being used to it is one of the things and when you get in person, I believe you probably develop something like social anxiety where you’re overwhelmed and you’re not used to people looking at you a certain way but you have all the space in the world to make something up about that look or about that smirk or about the way they turned away from you and it’s not even about you but you’re so not used to seeing that and experiencing that, that, boom, I assign something to it that makes them want to reject me. Oh, no, it’s overwhelming. You want to go back behind your phone, you want to go back behind that, and I think that it is a challenge to get through that to deal with that overwhelm overall. But I really think that’s a really great point to bring that up about how people may be used to it rather than people just being able to get out there, and, back in the day, I can say that now, back in the day, there was something called the Sadie Hawkins dance, I don’t know if people still do it, I don’t have kids these days, but in the Sadie Hawkins dance, it’s where you’re supposed to ask people out and it was the women who asked the guys. Just imagine that being the norm, dealing with the facial expressions, and the talk or everything that goes with it, the nonverbal cues, you have to deal with it and you get the process and you’re like, “Oh, well, they’re just raising an eyebrow, it doesn’t mean anything about me.” We’ve had plenty of practice back in the day, but today, we don’t have that as much.
Yeah, and I’m worried about what the period of time during the pandemic especially did for people, although for a lot of people, this primarily online life was not just during the pandemic, a lot of people haven’t returned back outside as much and a lot of people were already starting to retreat into their online world half a decade or so before the pandemic even hit.
It can be overwhelming to be outside, as people would say these days. Every time I say “people would say these days,” it makes me feel like I’m not a part of this generation, I stay outside too. So going outside is in the sense of just not being in your own space and being around other humans. So, I think that it’s very comfortable being in the space by yourself but when we get there, it’s a requirement, I think, to be alone to connect with yourself. But there’s a balance between the two. There’s the inside and there’s the outside, learning more about who you are. During the pandemic, a lot of us sat down and reflected on our life and our experiences and some of us haven’t gotten up from it. Some of us haven’t gotten up, we’re comfortable sitting in the space where we’re alone but also there’s an existential dread about going back outside but there’s also desire, it’s such a paradox, it’s such a conundrum to be in.
Yeah, and that’s a huge paradox, and one of many paradoxes that are in the world today because, oddly enough, whenever I think about even your use of the word “connection” and how you put it into quotation marks, the idea that everything, on the surface at least, I’ll let people who have whatever wild conspiracy theories think through it but on the surface, the purpose of everything was to connect people and Mark Zuckerberg is still going around telling countless congressional hearings and stuff that the purpose of his company is to connect people, even though it’s done all but that.
Yeah, they’re doing something there.
You don’t overdo, you want to enjoy the balance of life, and I think that people have looked at social media and they thought, “This is all I need to connect,” and they’re missing out on the other pieces. We talked about how there’s the nonverbal cues and maybe the embrace of somebody, a hug or just sitting in the space with somebody, we’re missing that and we’re fooled into believing that all you need to do is to like somebody’s post on social media or post your pictures of you having a good time but it doesn’t really convey the rest of your life experience. So many people are so terrible at communicating these days and lack empathy and connection, they’ll post things, I saw this on TikTok, ironically, I guess, somebody asked a question is it just my mom or is it that everybody’s mom lacks communication and empathy, and they showed a picture of how they relayed via text that somebody in their family had passed, and with TikTok, you have this ability to stitch with other things so that other people can also comment and there was just other posts with the same kind of thing. We don’t know how to communicate. We believe that just sending a text is enough and it’s disconnecting to do so. So with Facebook and TikTok and those things, we’re fooled into believing that all you have to do is write a few lines of text and then you disassociate because we do, we disassociate from the experience that person is having because we’re not in the space with the person, we’re not receiving that kind of energy, we’re not getting those nonverbal cues, we’re not hearing their voice, we’re not being connected with people, their idea of, “Yeah, this is gonna be ultimate for connection,” it’s nice to keep in touch with people. What I like to do with these social media places and what I do, I tell my clients to look out for connection and try to connect with people on social media, it’s just to meet that person that you wouldn’t likely have crossed paths with before and then you take that conversation and you bring it into life by meeting in person, by a meeting in person, I encourage all of my clients to do that. So it’s wonderful to facilitate but it is not all that there is. It is not.
Yeah, and it’s kind of interesting the idea of putting everything in context, because a long time ago, and even longer ago, before the days of the AOL, the You’ve Got Mail, all that stuff, is that we can all remember when the internet was only the thing that your father used at work a few times and didn’t have at the house. You had like three methods of communication, You would either go to someone’s house, write a letter, or call them on the phone and that was it and so it was easy for people to kind of sort through that and say, “Okay, I need to borrow some sugar,” to borrow a word from an Outkast song, “and I’m gonna go over to my neighbor’s house,” because the purpose of this is to ask for something, whereas like I want to connect with a relative in another city, well, it’s obvious you make a phone call, “I gotta give someone an update about my life,” pen pal, it’s a letter, but now we don’t know which mode of communication is for which, so is part of it just kind of understanding the context around the modes of communication and having a clear purpose as far as, “Okay, I’m on this site to do this. I’m on Instagram because maybe some of my friends are going on vacation and I’m just gonna find out so that next time we talk in person, be like, ‘Oh, I saw your pictures from Cancun. That sounds like it was a lot of fun. Tell me more about it,’” and then that further facilitates the conversation eventually in person.
I really like how you frame this question. As you talked, I thought certainly about how we get on social media and we don’t have the purpose behind why we’re there. We’re just trying to kill time or just looking at things. And if we were trying to connect with people, if our intention was to connect with people, we would use those platforms to be intentional about the connection so reaching out to those people and commenting on the posts, opening up, going directly to that page, looking at the photos and being the good friend to comment and then getting off the app because that piece right there is the bit of connection that you wanted, you received, you saw, but many times we don’t actually do that. Of course, we just scroll, endlessly looking for something that feels like connection, which gives us a feeling, whether it’s sad, angry, joyful, fearful, whatever it is, and it stops us in our tracks. We’re just looking for that thing. I really want people to really think about, and I think that’s where you’re going too, is to consider what am I doing here? Why do I want to communicate? Who do I want to communicate with, first of all? Who is that person? What is the purpose of it? Are you my neighbor? Lend me some sugar. Just throw it right back. But we’re not doing that and it’s just so easy and convenient to be on this app rather than to knock on my neighbor’s door and say those words to them. It’s so easy to even be so disconnected to even like order on an app. Let’s order on Postmates to get the sugar brought to me because I don’t want to talk to any of those people. I’d rather pay for the service. I don’t know how to interact with other humans. As the world changes, we had this big explosion of community and connection sold to us by being online but really it is our neighbors, it is the people within our physical community who create that connection for us, who can be a very big source of connection and understanding down to the levels that I think we want.
First of all, we go through the journey of kind of your typical client, would a typical level of connection that someone who hasn’t gotten those deep meaningful relationships through conversations, what does it look like? Whether we want to call them chronically online or anything else.
I think those people, they lack a bit of a purpose in themselves and understanding what it is that they’re looking for in the first place so that’s the very first level. They’ve been sold, just like I have and I’m speaking from my own personal experience, I’m not out here bashing anybody about their life and their experiences, I’m speaking from my own personal experience. I was out there screaming from the top of my lungs that I want friends, I want connection, I want community, I want those things. Bring it to me, bring it to me, and I’m kind of demanding, and that’s what most people do. We’re told that this is the way life should be and we’re looking around and like groups of people who are hanging out with each other, posting and posing with their duck lips on Facebook, what’s going on with me? Why can’t I have this relationship with other people? And so the first thing is that there’s no understanding of what that looks like. There’s no understanding of what it looks like because as I was out there screaming at the top of my lungs, friends, connection, respect, and people from all over the world, they would bring their versions of that to me, the connection, the respect, the community, they would bring it to me and I would be like, “Ugh, I don’t want that,” and slap that out of their hands. “Ugh, I don’t want that either.” And they’re frustrated with me because they brought what they thought I wanted, because I said the words, “Bring me respect, connection, community, bring it to me,” and it’s not what I’m looking for and I don’t know what I’m looking for. Frustrated. I was told somebody else had it for me, just be in this group, just fit in, you are going to make the best connections and they bring that to me and it’s not what I want it. Not only am I frustrated but they’re also frustrated because I asked for it, I asked for it. And so the people who have so much difficulty connecting with others, if they’re not grounded in themselves and they don’t know what it is that they really want, that’s why they lack this purpose in searching on social media for something, nothing, connection, but what does that connection really look like? And I think you did a really great job of describing, well, it’s the vacation that I know my friends are taking and I’m looking at their Instagram and liking and commenting just because that connection with these people that I know. We don’t know what that looks like at first.
So that is a big part of the process, especially for a society where we’re constantly distracted and we can just pull our phones out whenever we want, wherever we want, finding time to connect with ourselves, doing things like meditation, breath works, yoga, etc.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s hard. I had a friend, he had said he started to use this app, I forget what it’s called, but it is probably Calm or something like that, same kind of vein, but, essentially, it’s supposed to help you meditate and he was just like just meditate one minute, just download the app and meditate one minute. I was like, “No, there’s no way, why would I ever — it doesn’t make sense, it’s so stupid. I don’t care about this.” And then I had my awakening and more understanding in 2021, about three years ago, and I started to do this meditation and my whole life changed. My whole life changed. And I say all that to say that it’s difficult to get into. You may sound like a broken record, Stephen, because you’ve said these things before, gurus have said it before and that’s only because it works, this meditation, this journaling, the spending time with ourselves, and it’s difficult because we’re used to being stimulated so much and when you just take that away, it feels so awful or weird or different, uncomfortable, however you want to describe it. It doesn’t feel like something we want to do. But if you push past that discomfort and get to know more about yourself, on the other side of it is real understanding of you and then the connections that you want.
That’s amazing and I must acknowledge the time of recording of this podcast, it’s April 11th, 2024, so three days ago, we just had for a good part of the country, a total solar eclipse, which is a very rare occurrence. I personally traveled to Western Arkansas to be in the path of totality, my 45th state so I have five to go, but one of the things I’m wondering is as we’re looking at these opportunities to slow down and connect with selves, do you see events like this one and any other similar event in the future with as a beautiful natural phenomenon as opportunities for people to connect with themselves? Do you see a lot of people connecting with themselves, I mean, on Monday when the Eclipse happened? And do you see that as part of potentially helping with this trend that you’re trying to ignite in getting people to better communicate, better understand themselves so that they can go out there and better understand what they want and form better friendship circles?
Yeah. And that’s a really fun question because the solar eclipse was quite an experience for millions of people, millions and millions of people, and if we go back to the definition of connection, connection is the demonstration that you understand how I feel about my experiences. There were millions of people who looked at this one beautiful experience and they were like, “You know exactly how I feel. You were here. You traveled four miles across the world to be in this one space for this one particular event. There is without a doubt that you understand how I feel,” and definitely I believe that those people who moved into that space felt more connected than they ever could in any other time. Essentially, we know why we’re here and what we’re looking for. It has moved us into action. And I think that events like that instantly bring people together, especially when we’re in a time where we’re just like, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t know what’s exciting to me. I don’t know if I can talk about those things that are fun, interesting, and exciting to me.” But when those people made the space, went to the place, and they looked up, they looked around to other millions of people, they’re like, “Yeah, you get it, I get it. It’s definitely safe to talk to you and these other people. I can be authentic about this one particular event.” And I think that many events in the future will bring people together just like that, just like that. I mean, how was that experience for you? Wasn’t it just amazing?
Yeah, it was amazing. And I went to the eclipse in 2017 so I understood, fundamentally, what an eclipse is, like astronomically, how it happens and what to expect on a surface level, it gets darker, the temperature drops eight to ten degrees depending on where you are, et cetera, but then like when you’re standing there in a place that pictures, you see the pictures online, probably doesn’t even do it justice to what it’s like to actually be there, but when you’re standing there, you’re just looking at it in awe kind of.
And you will continue to talk about that for years to come. I’m sure people will be like, “I was at the eclipse,” and there’s so many videos and pictures of it and just being connected over that one event is I think what we’re looking for in life in general. And what really I teach people to do and I help with this connection piece is to understand how you feel about your own experiences and being able to share those with other people. And if they don’t feel the same way, because there are people who looked at that eclipse and they were just like, “Oh, well,” or they knew about the eclipse happening and they’re just like, “Oh, well,” I mean, to be able to understand also why they feel the way they feel and being able to accept and understand and appreciate that is part of the connection.
So it sounds like there’s a lot of just events and places in general where you can kind of better connect with yourself but also use that as a stepping stool to better connect with others. You talked about the shared experience with the eclipse or any other shared experience, even our generational shared experience of remembering what it was like when you had to dial into AOL online, it would take like half a minute for the modem to go — to do all that and everything.
Yeah.
And I actually did once got in trouble for being out late and my parents didn’t know when I tried to call them but the phone was occupied by they’re using the internet so I couldn’t, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Those shared experiences there really connect us. Is there something that people can do on a day-to-day basis when there’s not something special going on? I know the next eclipse in the US is not going to happen now for another 20 years, when there’s not even any kind of an event, just an average, mundane, normal, say, Thursday.
To really connect with other people, I talked about, of course, this huge shared experience that we have and you brought those, but our relationships aren’t really made in those shared experiences, the key is how we feel about the experience. So those people who went to the eclipse, well, they know how they feel, they feel lots of joy and excitement about being in that space, but what happens if you don’t know what the shared experience is? What we want to do to make connections with other people is to talk about those things that are joyful and that are interesting to us, because we’re tired of small talk, we don’t want to talk about anything that’s not interesting, that’s boring, that doesn’t excite us because we think other people want to hear that, that keeps us kind of hidden, it’s like equivalent to sending a text message about nothing on social media or whatever. But you want to be able to talk about those things that are important and joyful to you. And the reason why is because you want people to know that about you and you want to see how they feel about your experiences too. If they’re joyful about those experiences, then you can connect. If the feeling that you want to connect on, if you went out to the eclipse and somebody said, “Oh, poo, that’s stupid,” you said something that was joyful and important to you and you could see how they’re going to respond, there’s a likelihood that they’re not going to treat your feelings the way that you want them to. If you’re sharing something that’s important and joyful to you, it’s likely that you’re going to you’re going to see that phenomenon. So that’s something to help you start connecting with other people because I think that’s one reason why we use social media is we hide behind screens if we don’t know what to say, but if you can face that rejection because if they don’t like what you’re going to like, you move into the mindset to be like, “Well, you know what, I really liked it and I wanna be around people who like the things that I like,” you’re going to be able to navigate the world outside of social media and with other humans without much difficulty.
Yeah, and I love the way you said “with not much difficulty” because I think we’re always kind of making things more difficult than they need to be and is part of it just being okay with the idea that there’s a person out there, you tried to resonate with them and you didn’t, for one reason or another, but that’s okay because that’s not the person you were meant to form a connection with?
Right, right. You got to have that mindset in which that you are a prize and that the things that you like or the things that you have interest in are important to you and that’s really what matters. That’s really what matters. And, furthermore, to cement this is that some people just can’t fathom the depths of who you are. They cannot fathom the ideas and the circumstances of your life and cannot have your experience. Some people just do not and will not understand. It’s not your problem but there are people out there who do understand, who want to, and, in fact, they’re looking for you. They’re looking for you. So now, also, what’s the combination of self focus versus leaving room for others? Because I just envisioned when I was growing up, I would hear a lot of older people talk about the 60s, the 60s, all the 60s, and I’m like I wasn’t around for it and I got to a point where I was tired of hearing about it. And so now when I deal with some of the younger generations, I don’t think they want to constantly hear about when I had to dial in to AOL and how great things were before smartphones were everywhere because that’s not part of their experience. So how much is there in considering what that other person’s experience and not kind of just superimposing your own truth onto them kind of?
Back in my day in the 60s, oh, my god, back in my day in the 90s.
Yeah, it’s like the same thing happening again.
I know. Okay, so how do we balance that? Well, I like to move and to think about how everybody wants to be heard, understood, and appreciated. So when you’re in conversation with something and you have a topic, a general rule of thumb that I like to go by is the person who spoke, they came to me with, “Hey, this is something that I experienced,” I would like to turn off my sense of self and to tune in to what they’re saying to me, do a good job of demonstrating that, understand, okay, this is how the 60s are, this is how the 60s were, uh-huh, I can understand your experiences, and make sure they feel heard. And then it’s like tennis, like hitting the ball back and forth. Now it’s my turn to share something if I’m not exhausted or if I’m not interested in a topic anymore, I don’t just step on it but I’m like if I’m not interested anymore, I’m going to offer something. I would say don’t wait for them to ask about you, I would ask you to offer. I would suggest that you offer something to the conversation like, “Yeah, I heard all about the 60s. I understand this. Do you feel like I understand you? Great, great. So now, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I know that’s harsh language, but maybe something like, “Let’s move to another topic,” or, “Here’s something that it reminds me of that I like to share about me,” so that we can also be known, because not only do they want to be heard, understood and appreciated and accepted, you also do. You also do. And so that really creates the balance in your relationships with others.
And now what about those conversations, we’ve all witnessed them, we’ve all been a part of them, where it seems like you just instantly click and you’re instantly just laughing about a whole bunch of different things. When someone experiences that, is that usually a genuine connection? Or is that usually in the danger of becoming a little bit too surface level and too focused on that one topic?
Oh, no, it’s a lovely connection. I genuinely like to connect on joy, because I mentioned talk about those things that are joyful and important to you and just watch how other people are going to respond and if they’re like, “Yeah, I like that thing too,” then what we do is we move to different topics that are important to you. So watch, because it could be a genuine connection, but it could be just focused on this one thing, like maybe you’re really passionate about crystals and astrology and nothing else in your life lines up and you have to talk about those things, you have to check. So what I like to do is talk about those things that are fun, joyful, and exciting, and then what I teach my clients to do is move to other emotions and talk about those other emotions. And there are four, and, again, I’m not a psychologist or a therapist, I’ve just had a lot of time reading and understanding these experiences for myself so when I talk about these emotions, there are four, there’s joy, anger, sadness, and fear. And so we have the joyful thing. We love to connect on joy. What’s exciting? What’s fun to us? Laugh it up a bit. But what about those things that are a little bit frustrating for you? Can you share that with them? And let’s see how they’re going to respond. The things that are sad, the things that are fearful for you. Share those things and see how deep your connection can go. Because if it is a surface level connection or if it’s an association where all you do is just hang out and talk about crystals and astrology, then that’s what you do, then you don’t make this relationship more than it is. They’re not capable of it and you’re going to cause yourself some heartache so it’s best to check.
What happens when someone’s in such a hard place that they have a hard time leading with joy? Someone has just had a death in the family or has a really, really frustrating work experience and it’s just eating at their minds all the time to the point where the first thing they always want to get off their chest is what’s making them feel sad or frustrated.
Well, if you’re a person like that, I would recommend that you go seek therapy or maybe talk to somebody who’s a professional because — so let’s just pull it back to thinking about the intention of connection with other people.
They will not know that. When you start to feel better, when you start to do better, you’re going to find contention in their relationship because they’re used to being better than you and supporting you in those situations. So you don’t want to start off with those, you’re not doing a service to yourself. And if you’re trying to connect with people who were genuinely joyful and exciting and may have the same interest as you, you treat them as if you’re throwing a 50-pound weight at them. You just toss it at them and expect them to connect and collect that. You have a really heavy dense in motion and you just made this person your friend responsible for this thing and they’re going to be like, “Ouch, this is heavy, I’ve got my own stuff, I’m managing it, what is wrong with you?” and you unintentionally hurt them. Not your intention, you’re just trying to connect. So I’d recommend that you talk to somebody who is willing and knows to hold space for that heavy thing that you’ve got going on.
So it’s a matter of that expectation, so if you show up at like a support group, you’re going into it and you’re expecting to hear some really, really heavy stuff.
That’s what the space is for. And that’s what the space is for, just like as you talked about being on social media, there’s like an intention to be in every space and every kind of connection that you have with other people and so everybody is they’re prepared. They’re like, “This is heavy, I’m also gonna share this heavy thing too so you’re also gonna be prepared for that.” Generally, when we’re walking about living our life, we have enough things and we can all use a little bit of joy and we’re looking for that. I think we’re looking for that. So if you could be that person, then do that, share those joyful and interesting things to you.
If you’re having difficulty with it, go to a space in which people are prepared because not only do you want to not hurt other people but you also want to be supported in a way that lasts for you. Click To TweetNow, what about conversations around the minutiae of day-to-day life, and I’m talking about conversations that appear neither joyous nor like an expression of some kind of frustration or some support, just like I got my oil changed yesterday or something like that. Are those conversations that generally don’t create these meaningful connections or is it more likely that if I find something uninteresting, because it seems like that day-to-day life minutiae, maybe that is the thing that’s bringing that other person joy and I’m just not resonating with it?
Wow, that’s a really interesting question. I enjoy that question. Because talking about those little things in life are important. I think they’re very important. You’re always doing something people will say, “I didn’t do anything today. What did you do today? I did nothing,” but, meanwhile, you did a whole bunch of things. You went to work and you were commuting and there was something that happened in the train or it took a long time to get to work, you had a day at work, maybe nothing really striking emotionally but you did things throughout the day and talking about those little minutiae, the oil change that you did after work or maybe on your lunch break because you had time is important to show who you are.
It’s like being conscious of the fact that you’re here and you’re always doing something and it’s one step closer to focusing on your emotions. Click To TweetSo I like to tell my clients to focus on how they feel about their experiences. And so let’s say you did go for an oil change and you’re not looking at it as much of a big thing but perhaps you’ve been trying to get this oil changed for several weeks and, finally, you got into your lunch break and you just squeezed in, you just squeezed it in. I feel excited or happy about that. Finally, I got it done or accomplished that I got it off my to-do list, but there is a feeling associated and if that’s joyful, even if it’s small, it doesn’t have to be hitting the lottery but it’s something that your friends or other people want to know about you. I want other people to know that about me otherwise. And so you could be missing it if you’re not sharing. I encourage my clients to talk about those little things that they do from the day to day, it keeps them in tune, in tune to themselves.
Yeah. Not every day can be a highlight, right?
Yeah, not every day can be an eclipse. We’ve got to wait 20 more years here in the US.
You know, I mean, some days are just your average Tuesday and that’s kind of like almost reminds me of something social media has done too, because social media has kind of pressured us to have a highlight to post as opposed to like you’re not going to get as many likes if you just show like, “Yesterday, I rode my bike seven miles to a shoe store to buy a new pair of sneakers.” I did not post it because I’m like, okay, who cares that I’m at DSW?
Wait, is that a real thing that you did?
Yeah, yesterday, like I got a new pair of sneakers. It’s not really, you know…
That’s exciting to me. I was like, wait a minute, that’s not an example, that sounds like a real thing. That’s really exciting. You rode seven miles to get a pair of shoes, like people would do other things, they could have like Uber or walk or whatever it is but you decided to ride your bike. I’m like, for me, I’ve got all kinds of questions, like what kind of bike? What was the weather like? What kind of shoes did you get? Why did you do that on this particular day? You know, all kinds of questions and that just feeds into more connection. Now, I want to know more about you. But those are little things. Those are the little things.
So you can like ask a follow-up question and then I can talk about, well, you know, I got Adidas shoes. I really liked them. And then I listened to that Run-DMC song afterward. So, yeah, so you’re showing how that connection works. So, before we wrap up, I just want to give everyone listening a chance to get a hold of you. I know you offer services kind of on an individual, group, and business level. What would be your website or what would be the best way if someone’s interested in talking with you about how to create better connections?
Well, thank you so much, Stephen, I really appreciate that. Well, so many, you can get in touch with me at patternsofpossibility.com, that’s my official website. I’m on Patterns of Possibility on all social media out there, on TikTok most of the time, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook that I go live, on LinkedIn, I go live on all of those channels three times a week so you can interact with me, ask me some questions, I’m happy to support you. I also have a podcast called Patterns of Possibility. All you need to do is type in Patterns of Possibility and you’re going to find me doing all kinds of amazing things. I’m going to drop my Linktree to Stephen and he’ll put it in the show notes and you can see the other things that I’m up to. I also do speed friending events and, unfortunately, they’re not online but I’m local to Chicago so if you happen to be listening and you’re in Chicagoland, you can come check out the speed friending. It’s in person, it’s practicing these skills and making these meaningful connections. So you’ll find all that on my Linktree. And, of course, patternsofpossibility.com is a great place to start to look at the other things I’ve got going on.
Well, Coach Lee Hopkins, thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing so many great ideas about how we can make better connections. In the era where we do have the smartphone, the social media, they’re not going away, you just need to kind of synthesize that and really kind of focus on our intentions around creating deeper connections.
Thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed the conversation and learning a bit more about you as well.
Definitely. And I also want to thank everyone out there listening today, for tuning into Action’s Antidotes. Hopefully, you got some inspiration around this story and hope you’re ready to go out there and connect with the people you need to connect with in order to create the life that you really want.
Important Links:
- Coach Lee Hopkins
- Patterns of Possibility
- Email: patternsofpossibility@gmail.com
- Links: www.linktr.ee/patternsofpossibility
- Cycle of Loneliness: From Solitude to Solidarity: Escaping the Loneliness Loop (youtube.com)
About Coach Lee Hopkins
Coach Lee is a Social Connections Coach who helps his clients build and maintain meaningful relationships, improve social skills, and enhance their overall well-being through connections with others.
Known for his talks, “From Solitude to Solidarity: Escaping the Loneliness Loop” and “Needs, Negotiables and Nevers: Creating Boundaries That Stick” he gives actionable steps to empower folks to embrace their true self and practical steps to communicate from a place of radical honesty and strategic vulnerability.
In his social connections coaching company, Patterns of Possibility, he uses a simple 3-step process to help his clients find and maintain closeness in their friendships and with their families as well as with coworkers and business partners.