Author Kelly Corrigan on connection: "If more people feel deeply connected to others, better things will happen."

For a lot of us, the pandemic has been isolating. My wife and I have been talking about this recently. We’re both working from home, and we just don’t see that many people. And even though we spend every day together, it’s even hard right now for us to feel connected. She’s heard all my stories.

The thing is connection.....it’s everything. As author Kelly Corrigan told me: "If you look at 50 years of social science, across time and across culture...they say, what drives human happiness? The number one answer is always the same: meaningful connection to others."

Kelly's a writer and host of a new interview series on PBS called Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan. That's also the title of her best-selling book, in which she breaks down the most important things she has learned to say. Kelly’s work is a master course on human connection. She understands that the engine of human connection is that feeling that we have been heard--and if you want to drive it, you need to relearn how to listen. Not just conversational listening, but listening beyond the words and even beyond the questions.

You can download the episode to hear about it, or listen to it below. Then, please, share your own thoughts and tag them #HelloMonday so I can jump into the conversation.

??Here are some highlights….

On happiness: "What drives human happiness? The number one answer is always the same and the answer is meaningful connection to others.... happiness in and of itself is not that worthy of a pursuit. [It is worthy] only in the sense that it underwrites productivity and contribution."

On human connection: "If more people feel deeply connected to other people, better things will happen."

On listening with the intent to speak: "It's really fun to solve a problem, but you should let that fun be the other person’s. You should not snatch it away from them. Not only because it's greedy, but also, cause you're probably wrong."

On connecting well with your teenager: "It's almost like being an FBI agent who's good at haikus."

On listening for the expected: " In almost all interactions, professional and personal, after a certain amount of time spent together, the other person knows more or less what you're going to say...people start tuning each other out."

On what you're listening for: "Real stuff happens and it's stunning. It's so shocking what people are carrying and what they can absorb--more than I would have thought."

On embracing the personal at work: " I don't think compartmentalizing and the pretending that goes into work is to the greater benefit, or to the personal individual benefit. So any reminder that you're doing this in the context of a personal life has to be a net positive. It has to make us more understanding, more compassionate and more connected."

?? Office Hours: How do we listen better?

And this idea of how to listen well...it’s really been on my mind. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be editing an episode, and I’ll hear something a guest said that I missed the first time around. So this week on Office Hours, we’re going to talk about it. What it means to listen well. How do we do it? When can it help us? I hope you’ll join me and our producer, Sarah Storm, during our weekly Wednesday coffee break. We’ll go live as usual at 3pm EST from my LinkedIn profile. To join us, rsvp below or email us for the link at [email protected].

?? Listener Feedback

Every week, we get wonderful notes from listeners who, over time, have become our community. We try to write back with thoughts and advice, and I'd like to share some of these notes with you. Listener Eva Eulenstein recently wrote to us with her own experience of a quarter-life crisis. Eva started her own business as a learning & development facilitator and a coach last year. She writes: Eva, we're glad you're listening.

• I am helping my clients to navigate through career/life transitions and realizing their purpose. I also work with international organisations like UNICEF and DHL to develop the future generations of their leaders. I would like to share my story because I think it could help other thirty-somethings who have similar questions and challenges.
• I was born in Germany to a German father and Spanish mother. I lived in Brazil after high school for a social year and married a Brazilian who came back with me to Germany afterwards. I finished my master degree with a thesis on the meaning of Diversity Leadership. Intercultural communication and collaboration has always been a part of my life. I started my career in an international company as a learning and development expert, where I learned a lot and had the opportunity to grow over the years. Before my 30th birthday, I started asking myself more and more what I want to do with my life and who I want to become. I knew it was time to change. I didn't want to be dependent on a company, be caged in an office. I started a coaching certification and as a result of that changed my whole life, e.g. starting my own business, traveling the world and now working from Portugal - I call this my Quarter Life Breakthrough. What I see in my work is that more and more people challenge the status quo and want to design a life according to their unique values. Why wait until you are retired? My father died at 66 years old and he never got to enjoy retirement. 

Thanks for writing, Eva, we're glad you're listening.