I was recently looking for a new software development project to take on, but was really struggling to decide on exactly what I wanted to create. I took a couple days to relax, meditate, brainstorm, hoping that something inspiring would reveal itself.
Something did reveal itself, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. I’ve been battling a fear of failure, it’s one of the reasons I started to blog in the first place. But thus far my battle has focused mainly on myself and on technology. What I realized is that I need to spend time focusing on the other people in my life.
I’ve had so many magnificent mentors over the years. But as they or I have moved to other roles I’ve lost touch. I was hyper focused on work, and until recently I’ve also shunned all social media, and that made it easy to lose touch. But my fear of failure was also a driving force. Once I’d lost touch I didn’t want to reach out again. My mentors might not want to reconnect, they might be angry or disappointed that I hadn’t made more effort to keep in touch. So I wouldn’t try to. I didn’t want to risk that feeling of rejection and failure.
So last week I finally risked reaching out. Do you know what happened? Almost everyone reconnected! Ilir taught me my first SQL statements nearly 25 years ago. He wasn’t angry I’d lost touch, he appreciated knowing I’m still grateful for his mentorship after all this time. Venkata took the time to call me from out of country. I had dinner with Carita, I had a wonderful walk with Matt. Another Matt, a couple Scotts, Nathan, Jason, all with encouraging messages. Classmates from University times, co-op students I’ve worked with over the years, and many past managers and colleagues, all of them reconnected. Some shared their amazing adventures over the years, some shared stories of struggles and how they overcame them. It was wonderful finding out where everyone has ended up. It was a genuinely enlightening experience.
So if you have past mentors you’ve lost touch with, please consider reaching out to them. I think most of us get busy, many lose touch, it just happens. Maybe some will be angry you lost touch, but that’s ok, fearing that scenario just isn’t worth losing out on the ones that are willing to reconnect. In my case I found that the majority were just happy to know they’d made a positive impact on someone else, and hearing their stories and advice proved far more valuable than any development project I could have dreamt up.
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