How to Leverage the Power of Connection & Reconnection | Jason Levin | The Creator Community Podcast

Jason Levin, MD: People want to hear from you, whether it's been a year or 5 years or 10 years or 20 years or 25 years. And if you're looking to make some type of decision in your career, or if you're looking to grow your practice, or whatever you're looking to do in your own professional development, widening the scope and sphere of people you interact with is a good thing.

On this episode of the Creator Community, we'll meet Jason Levin, a seasoned world traveler, executive leadership and career coach, and father. Learn how Jason discovered the power of staying connected and reconnecting to so many in our lives, and what we can all do to overcome the awkwardness of reaching out after we've been out of touch for some time. We'll follow Jason Levin's journey of growth and discovery to creating deeper relationships and the psychology behind why connecting is so important. We'll see how this led him to finishing his decade-long dream of publishing a book. Check out the show. Welcome to the third season of The Creator Community. This is a podcast series from book publisher New Degree Press, or NDP. I'm your host, John Saunders, founder of Forward Advisory Solutions. This show is designed to celebrate, elevate, and showcase many of the incredible authors that have published their books with NDP. This year, 2021, NDP will cross over 1,000 published authors. In this show, we get to know the authors and their books, as well as give you a behind-the-scenes look at their journey. We'll find out what it takes to bring a book from an idea to being available wherever you buy books online. It's no easy task. Nothing worth it ever is. But with solid structure, coaching, and community, it's very much attainable. Today I have with me Jason Levin. Jason's a father, an in-demand career and business development coach, as well as a speaker and trainer. Coming from career experience in brand management at Unilever Consulting, at Accenture, law firm branding sales at Vault.com, Jason is now an author of his new book, Relationships to Infinity: The Art and Science of Staying in Touch. His book will be available this January 2022 wherever you find books online. Jason, welcome to the show.

John, thanks for having me.

Really a pleasure to have you here. So let's find out a little bit more about the Jason Levin career journey. I think a little bit of a non-linear path for you. Could you give us a bit more background about yourself?

Sure, sure. Grew up in New Jersey, and after graduating from college with a degree in accounting, I realized I wasn't a good accounting major. So, so in the beginning, I worked in consulting. I started out at Accenture and really enjoyed that. And then I won a scholarship to study in France, and I was able to, after that year, get a French consulting firm to hire me. And I moved to Paris after studying a year in Lyon and then I'm living in France for 5 years. Came back to the US, did an MBA at Georgetown, and that's where I transitioned into brand management. I was always interested in why people buy, why do people decide on one product or one service against another. And I got a chance to work for Unilever on Dove lotions and creams, anti-aging lotions and creams. I've personally tried over 130 different types of face care products. Amazing. The eye cream and the night cream for my wife. And so, you know, always been fascinated about purchase decisions. And at that time I was living in New York. My wife, who's an attorney, was living in DC, and I decided to move down to the DC area. And that was about 15 years ago. And that's when some interesting things happened. You know, you go on this, I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna do this. And then I felt really lucky. The world started coming to me. The Georgetown MBA Career Center reached out to me where I'd done my MBA, invited me in to be a career coach in their program. The career website Vault had offered to have me run a remote sales team, which I hadn't really thought about at that moment. And so the world was really speaking to me in a lot of different ways in terms of business development and career. And so actually I started working from home in 2008. So I've been a remote worker now for 13 years.

Long before it was fashionable.

Yes. And yeah, and then I got into coaching, speaking, and training about a little over 10 years ago. And it's just amazing how all those, all those different career experiences, you know, now I live every day and it's been a great ride. I really enjoyed it.

What was the switch for you that after working in corporate America for these big companies that made you say, wow, I, I'm going to try this coaching thing out? What was the switch for you there?

You know, it's really interesting because in 2011 I was working for a website that wanted to have all its employees back in its main office in New York, and I was based in DC. And so to think, you know, 10 years ago that you couldn't work remotely for a website. And at the time my wife said to me, well, you know, you've been doing this coaching on the side. What would you say to yourself on what you want next? And I said, actually, I said I wanted to write a book and I wanted to do this coaching thing. I wanted to give it a try. And here I am 10 years later as a coach, speaker, and trainer. And I think that it's been a wonderful mix of my interest in career, my experience in business development and sales, and I get a chance to live that every day. So it's—

it seems like your resume brought you right to this point, right? You spent time in business development, you spent time in coaching and consulting, and found a way to turn it into your own operation. You know, what do you think your favorite part about coaching people is?

I think my favorite part about coaching people is when they figure it out for themselves on what's possible, that They— you move away from, you know, the script, and they internalize, and they truly believe what they can do, and then they go out and execute. And to watch that happen, and then you see the, the, the thank you notes or the phone calls or the text, I got the new client, or I landed that promotion. 'Or I got that job.' And for me, joy, full-on joy. But when they're able to move into that place when they're ready, it's fantastic.

I love that, helping others see what's possible. What a, what a great thought. And I remember when I moved into a leadership role on Wall Street and started getting a lot of coaching, my firm was nice enough to hire a group to coach us as the sales leadership team. And I remember on a call with somebody and it was a remote team, again, long before it was fashionable— and literally hearing the light bulb go off for the other person. And I was just asking them questions. How do you do this? Why do you do that? How do you do that? What's working so far? And hearing— you could almost see it. It was on the phone, right? You could almost see the light bulb going off above their head. Oh my gosh, I've got it. So that really resonates with me. I appreciate that.

Yeah.

So you spent some time in France, and I think you told me the number was you've been to 30 different countries. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah.

Where did this travel bug come from?

Well, when I was in high school, my father was working in the Garment Center in Midtown Manhattan. And he had experienced unemployment during the recession of '89-'90. And at that time, I was supposed to go on a trip to France with my high school French club. And so it didn't make sense at the time for me to go. So I always had in the back of my mind I wanted to go to France. And I had that opportunity in college. I actually got a chance to work at the US Embassy in Paris over the summer. And it was an amazing experience. But one thing that I realized is that in any US embassy, you're never going to learn the local language because you're essentially— it's like a little United States in that city. And it just got me really interested in how do I get back there? How do I get a chance to learn the language? And I was looking at different programs and I was lucky enough to win a Rotary scholarship several years later to do a year of study in Lyon, France's number 2 city. And it confirmed everything that I had been interested in. Not only are you immersing yourself in a different language, you're in a different culture. So it's, it's really taking a step back and thinking about it from other people's perspectives. Not that different than coaching, because if you're listening and you're truly listening to what's behind the words, what's behind the actions, why are they doing this, and then you get a better understanding, well, that's what they care about. And then getting a chance to move from Lyon to Paris, where actually a French consulting firm hired me, got me my green card, and I was one of the few foreigners working for them. That was a whole other experience of moving from the academic world to the professional world. How is a meeting conducted in France? What does it mean when a French person asks you to coffee? What they really mean is they want to talk, and they want to really dive into things. And so actually, in Paris, I started drinking coffee. I wasn't a coffee drinker beforehand, but I think having lived abroad for 5 years and traveled to different places, I think it's made me a better observer of others and realizing there's a lot of different ways that you can approach things and get to the result that you're looking for.

So no one way to get there. You know, this being more empathetic, being a good listener, asking good questions, I mean, all incredible skills that, you know, clearly have, have led you to the career you're in, which is, which is Awesome. Were those 30 countries you visited, was that, was, was that while you were living in Europe? Because they're kind of easy to get to, right?

Yeah. So one, after working for the consulting firm, I spent 3 years working for a grad event organizer where we bring together graduate schools and candidates interested in those graduate schools. So it was kind of a traveling roadshow of grad education and Part of my work was Western Europe, so everything from Madrid to Frankfurt, all the way out to Moscow, and then Central and South America. So part of those countries is through traveling through there and working through there with the events we were running. And other pieces are when I was at Georgetown and doing our global residency in Vietnam, or when I self-organized an internship in Sri Lanka. So it's been, it's been really fun to be able to not only interact with those cultures, but then to actually have worked in those cultures as well. And so walking around the DC area and you hear an accent, and I can almost relate. Are you from, or, you know, tell me a little bit more about your own background, and I have something to relate, right?

And that's such a big part of coaching is, is being able to relate to people. And given your diverse and immensely well-traveled background. I'm sure that makes it even easier for you, which is great, and probably a lot of that comes naturally. So you spent this time learning, you spent this time traveling, you moved into this coaching career that it sounds like your, your wife kind of helped nudge you towards, which is, which is fantastic. You know, how did you end up being an author? How did— what did that journey look like for you?

I didn't set out to initially be a coach. I wanted to write a book, and this was 10 years ago, and the book just never happened because I was too busy, you know, trying to make the coaching, speaking, training thing work. And it's amazing how the universe just comes out with— comes to you with opportunities. So an NDE author named Elisa Parenti, she reached out to me, who she and I had met through— actually through Twitter. She's a journalist, a business journalist, When she was working for Dow Jones doing MarketWatch business segments, we had done some segments together many years ago. Actually, earlier this year, she had reached out to me and said, Jason, I just wrote a book through NDP. I think you have a book in you based on all that I know about you. You should consider it. It was just funny. We had kept in touch, but she never knew that I was interested in writing a book.

And she just sensed it.

Just sensed it.

That's amazing.

And I can't tell you how quickly I went on the NDEP website. I got a meeting with Eric Custer, and I was like, I'm in. There's something I want to do. I'm tired of— I'm tired of talking about it. My wife's tired of me talking about it. And, and, but, and by the way, 10 years ago when I said I wanted to write a book, the title of the book was gonna be "Relationships to Infinity." It was always gonna be this title because for me, keeping in touch is something that is not something you say, it's something you can aspire to, you do, you work on, you— And so to be able to write on a topic that I care so much about and to have an NDE author like Elisa suggest that I go through the program, It's just been fantastic. So it's actually keeping in touch got me to writing a book about keeping in touch.

You are a living model of what your book is about, and it never seems to end. I think we'll hear a bit more about that as we go on. Yeah, fascinating that two great women in your life— for what, one helped you get into coaching, one helped you write a book? I mean, this is really a thank you letter to women, I think, is what this, this conversation is about.

It's a thank you letter to not only getting great suggestions but then acting on those great suggestions and saying, you know what, you're right. I should, I should. That goes to listening and acting.

You know, it's funny, when I think about my own book, honestly, it's like 3 inflection points where I kind of felt stuck, or maybe not even stuck, but just didn't even realize what was possible, to use your line from earlier. And I went to a friend, a mentor, and said, hey, or a manager, and said, hey, I'm sort of— I'm not sure what to do here. I feel a little bit lost. What would you do here if you were me? And, you know, they gave me great advice to run on. I did it and ran with it, and it ended up completely changing the trajectory of my career in a positive way. And I'll never forget those moments. And I've reflected on those a few times and someone said to me, they're like, "Yeah, you not only asked me advice, but you did something about it, right?" Getting advice is great, but if you do nothing with it, it just sort of dies on the vine.

Always in the execution, always in the execution. That's the hard part.

Innovation, the line I've often heard is, you know, 10% idea and 90% execution, right? It's something like this. Yeah. Thinking about your journey, you're a busy guy, you've got this business, you've got a family. How did you fit the book into your life? For others out there who might be thinking, "I don't have time to write a book." It doesn't seem like you would either, Jason Levin Levin. How did you get that done?

Carving time was— and then that's something that I thought a lot about. You're talking to somebody that's a recovering night owl. I was actually finding myself waking up at 7:00, 7:30 in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays so that I could hit my weekly word deadline with my editor. And it was great. I brew a cup of coffee. I would go downstairs, you know, where nobody could hear me. And I'm turning on either Tom Petty or U2. And I'm just writing. And I think that getting into that habit— getting into the habit was the hard part. Because once you block the time, you actually need to say, all right, this time is blocked. I need to do this activity. Where I'm blocking the time. So it's even like a step further. It goes beyond even blocking time. It's acting on that time block. And, you know, one week turned into two weeks and then one month turned into two months. And I'm like, you know, there's more words. This is great. It's growing. It's actually starting to look like a manuscript. Oh my God.

So changing, you know, it's amazing when you go through these types of journeys that you find out, you know, there is some time in my week that you know, I can actually get some things done. Grad school might have proven otherwise. I think that was a near-death experience for me trying to fit that into my life. But the book wasn't quite so time intensive. But you created some new habits, found the time, the structure.

Yeah, and having that community and having that structure was super helpful. So the writing was on weekends, but then I still needed to interview my subjects during the week. And being able to block that time— and actually, there was so much— it was so much fun to interview the myriad of people that agreed to be interviewed for the book. And for me, that was super fun, diving deeper into people's experiences and how they went about things and going beyond the puffery of that 30,000-foot advice you normally get, which was exciting.

That's awesome. Well, let's dive a little bit more deeply into the book, Relationships to Infinity: The Art and Science of Keeping in Touch. Why is this a topic? You know, what's it about? What is The Art and Science of Staying in Touch?

So for me, The Art and Science of Staying in Touch is about connection and reconnection and living at the intersection between the two. And so one of the reasons I wrote this book is that there's all this advice on networking out there, which makes people's eyes glaze over. And the critical piece that I have seen in my talks and in working with the wonderful clients that I've had a chance to work with is that they forget the people they already know. So one, they forget the people they already know. And then two, they have an amazing amount of angst about getting back in touch with people they already know. And I was like, why is this happening? And I felt like year after year, rinse and repeat, I'm working on these types of topics. I said to myself, there's something more. There's got to be something more behind all of this. And there's got to be a better way to go about connecting and reconnecting. And so that's why I wrote this.

So the, the seeing it in your own practice, your own life, people— and I, I get that, right? You know, you've known someone for 5, 10, 15 years and like, oh gosh, I haven't reached out to them in 2 years, now I feel awkward doing it, or something like this.

Yeah.

You know, you did a lot of research around the book, Jason Levin. Like, why is that awkward, or why is that so hard for all of us?

So There's a couple of reasons. Having spoken to several therapists on the topic, there are these stories we tell ourselves, you know, months, years, on why they don't want to hear from me or you and what will not happen when you reach out to them. So all in our own heads, all our own heads, it shows that One, there's an amazing amount of stories that are not true that we tell ourselves. And then two, sometimes we just forget. And, and it's not for any other thing than life happens. So it's been, it's been fascinating to get a better understanding of like, all right, what are those stories? What's behind those stories? And what do you call those? And then there are— you can break free, you can break free from your own mind to actually start connecting and reconnecting. And it's amazing the amount of clients I've worked with that have actually enjoyed the process once they've gone through this transformation. You know what, let me get back in touch with some people.

When you think about the people you interviewed— when I, when I would think about your book, I would think maybe you just went to business leaders. What was the motivation to go talk to therapists? That— where'd that idea come from? That's fascinating.

You know, I was going into different research around the social, in the, in the social science realm. And one of the business leaders said, you know, look at friendship, because underlying a professional relationship is also a component of friendship. So we call, you know, they're a friend or they're a work friend, or, but they're all, there's always that, that friend piece. And so I started looking at the social science around Friendship. I actually— and I wasn't expecting to do this— I wrote a chapter on friendship. It was so powerful, what friendship means and being likable and how do you connect with somebody. And so getting back to connection and reconnection, when we connect, there is some really critical components of friendship in there. And as I was doing the research around friendship, that's when all of the psychological research started coming out and I said, you know, I need to start talking to people that really work on this. And it's, it's not coaches, it's the therapy community. And they were fantastic. And we were really doing a deeper dive into what that all means. You know, how are you likable? What are the stories that you tell yourself? How do we connect?

And getting it to its very core components allowed me to really get a better understanding of all I really appreciate the fact that, one, you set out to write a book about relationships not intending at all to interview therapists, and here, just through your research and learning, I think one of the— you know, you made that pivot, if you will, or I'll say that refinement in the middle of it. What's fascinating about the story and what's so interesting about the book journey is so many people think about it as writing an output, and in so many ways it's about— especially the way that the coaching program goes— it's about you learning and finding new ways. And as you learn, you learn right? You, you uncover a new stone and you learn something new and it sends you off in a new direction. And it, as you said, it created a whole new chapter. I love that. So it's been a journey of not only writing but also learning. What were some of the key elements of friendship that you learned about?

So that one was time. So there are certain— there was research done, there's certain amount of time to go from a casual acquaintance to a friend to a best friend. And at the— to get to that best friend piece, it took like 200 hours of interaction to become a really, really close friend. So if you think about it, it's not that uncommon at work that you become friends with somebody, or you become friends with a client because you're interacting with them so much. So that defines its classicness as friendship. And so you think about it, it takes so long to actually get that connection that if you move on to something else, it's not that the connection is lost. That friendship is still there. You just have— you're not in touch. So I think that one aspect about friendship was really interesting. The second is around reciprocity. So the notion that we agree to be friends, or that I'm calling you my friend, and the friend is saying, you know what, you're my friend also. And so there's this almost a contract component, verbal of course, between people. Yes, we're friends. And so it was fascinating that part of friendship is time and frequency of interaction. And then the other piece is giving it, you know, yeah, we're friends, or let me introduce you to one of my friends and having that reciprocal relationship. So that it was really interesting Because it— and then it also, in talking with the therapist— and I think this ties back to the last 20 months of where we've been isolated— why we're so unhappy is because we can't spend time with our friends. In my interviews with the therapist, food, water, safety, security, and social interaction go at that bottom piece of the pyramid. So friendship is really a driver of energy for us, introvert or extrovert. And I think that was another piece that in my interviews, both with business leaders and with folks in the therapy community, is that regardless of your personality type, you still need social interaction. How you respond to that social interaction afterwards, whether you need downtime and quiet or you need more of it, you know, is based up to you. So yeah, friendship's a really big deal.

And it sounds so simple, but it's right. It's so hard to sort of manage all these things in your life. You know, I was interested to see after the, you know, we've sort of started to come back out of our shells from quarantine, and I've tried to put together some sort of small friend gatherings. And I had one friend, you know, opt out of the thing I thought for sure they would attend. And I kind of pressed them on it, and they, you know, that I think sort of living in this weird isolation thing kind of even pushed them further into their shell.

Yeah.

And I think they're probably not unique in that circumstance. So friendship is a key part to this story. What are some other key pieces to relationships into infinity, Jason Levin?

You know, I think another key component to this is just finding time in your calendar. Time— so time to reconnect. And how do you think about blocking time to make this a priority? So either you let your calendar happen to you or you can be more intentional about your calendar. And one of the great things that I found in my interviews is that people have different ways of doing it. You know, one of the people I interviewed, she does it on Friday mornings, and she has a little note in her calendar for half an hour. It's called CC, connection calls. And, you know, this was somebody that I had worked with that was not a natural keeper in toucher, even though I had a wide array of relationships and people appreciated her and honored her and trusted her. But keeping in touch wasn't on her radar. And once she decided to make it an intentional priority, then it got on the calendar. So I think in our busy lives, it's not like you and I are in college anymore, and it's so easy to just go out with friends because we have all the time in the world. So I think time management is a real critical component to keeping, keeping in touch back on people's radars.

Right. And I appreciate the fact that much like getting your book done, it's, it's not about, you know, taking every hour you have in the day. It's about carving out specific time each week to focus on it. And as you said, it's 30 minutes for this one person that you work with. You know, any other strategies you might offer for people out there to try to stay in touch and overcome that awkwardness of making that first outreach?

I think that you start with the people that you want to get back in touch with most, uh, and you start with that list. And then the piece that really struck me was share a memory about them. So there's a lot of research, and actually there was an article on this in the Wall Street Journal last week on nostalgia and how nostalgia plays into friendship. And so actually developing out a list of people you want to get back in touch with and what do you remember about them. So actually sharing memories is a personalized experience that allows for you to connect and reconnect with someone and shows and rekindles what that friendship was all about. So it's looking at or it's listening to a song and you're like, wait a minute, we used to listen to that song when we were working on ba ba ba. Or it's you're at a restaurant like, wait a minute, we used to order this meal together when we had to. And so taking those moments in time and sharing that with people, because often the one thing I get from clients is, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. It's been 5 years, it's been 10 years, and it's like, it's not what it's what you need to share.

So once I've found a good way to connect through nostalgia, through bringing back some fun memories I've had with that person, what if, God forbid, they respond, Jason? What do I, what do I do then?

Well, you know, it really comes to what you're looking for. Are you looking to just do a quick hello and a quick text or a quick direct message? And that's fine if they're not in the same city as you are. Are you looking to do a Zoom or a phone call, or do you really want to see them? And then you need to leave it to the other person to see where they're at also in their own mind. And that's just the function of logistics. Okay, I'm free here, I'm free there. Let's go for a walk in the park, or you're 3 hours behind. Why don't we do a phone call after I put my kids to sleep something like that.

You know, it's funny how much Zoom has become a part of my life with friends in this last, you know, year and a half, 2 years, as I've had some friends that have kind of moved around the country. And, you know, I'll have like 2-hour Zoom calls sometimes on like a Saturday night or something, just like we're hanging out as neighbors again, or, you know, buddies in the same town. And it's fun, interesting how that's worked out, you know. So social interaction engagement is such a core part of our essence as humans, you know. Sometimes we get sort of jammed up about doing it, but this outreach is not so hard. Find a common memory, find a way to reach out to them and reconnect. Have you seen this? How have you seen this play out? Can you share a story about where this has played out for clients and how it's helped them out in their lives or careers?

Sure. So I was working with a partner in a law firm and started going through, okay, what's your practice look like? Who are your, you know, who are your clients? Who are your past law school classmates? Who are your past colleagues? And we started to work through, okay, so you have a whole set of clients that you need to get back in touch with that are no longer at those organizations. And so he developed out a list of like 5 or 10 people and started doing that over 3, 6-month period. And actually, I mean, in professional services business development, it's not like you reach out to somebody and all of a sudden you get work. He had just written to me, we had worked together about 2 years ago, that he, through that process, he's actually gotten a new client engagement by going back to a former client that had switched organization. The same person also had reached out to former colleagues that were at competitor law firms. And because they respected him when they worked together, they were conflicted out of a case that they couldn't work on, and the client asked them for a referral. Went to him. And so, and, and so there's really two things I think that are really important. One is to actually get in the act of keeping in touch and then realizing that this stuff doesn't happen— positive things don't happen the next day or the next week or the next month. It literally can take years until some positive things can happen. But when they do it, I mean, it's wonderful, right? And it was all authentic and real. There was nothing salesy about it. He was just asking how people were doing and catching up with people.

[Speaker:BRYAN_LAWRENCE] It's amazing how you have these relationships. People know you. Even if it's been 3, 5, 10, 15 years, they know you and trust you and this kind of thing. I had an old friend I had literally met 25, 26 years ago, my first week on my job on Wall Street. And they reached out to me a week or two ago. They knew I wrote the book. They bought it in the presale campaign and asked me if I could work with them on some coaching for their team. I mean, we hadn't spoken in, I bet, at least 6 or 12 months, and that was around the book last time around when I think the presale was going on. But it was fascinating for them to pick up the phone and reach out to me in that respect. And why? I think because she knows me and we've trusted me and we've known each other for 25, 26 years. And totally out of the blue, it was really nice to get that call.

[Speaker:BRAD_STONE] Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about trust. I was thinking about writing a chapter on trust, but after doing the research, I put in a chapter on trust because it's such a critical component. And after you've built trust in a relationship, that trust is always there. That trust is always there, whether you're in touch or not. And that's actually very, uh, a critical component of the relationship that they trust you for your expertise. They trust you for your ethics. They trust you for a whole host of reasons. And that's, you know, it's a great story on how that—

it was really mind-blowing for me. And yeah, trust was, I think, very much at the anchor of that and trust that you are going to do what you said you're going to do. Right. And this, this kind of thing, which was really cool. You know, when you think about the journey, the book journey for you, anything that surprised you along the way?

Yeah, I, you know, for me, I think the biggest surprise was the outpouring of praise that I've been getting for the book. And this was completely unexpected, but I am over the moon excited that Dan Pink gave his endorsement of the book. I think that's been— It's funny, you spend a year working on this and you don't know how people are going to respond. The response has just been wonderful. I've been super excited.

Dan Pink, the bestselling author, I think is who you're referring to, Daniel Pink, some people know him as. I'd love to share that quote that he wrote about your book. I think it's really brilliant. One of the most powerful tools— this is from Dan now— one of the most powerful tools for success and satisfaction is at our fingertips, unused. The social ties and connections that too often we let wither. Jason Levin compiles wide-ranging research with his own broad experience to demonstrate how we can reconnect with those we've known and then nurture those opportunities to advance our professional and personal lives. I mean, wow, how did it feel to get that quote from Dan Pink?

I was over the moon excited. I was jumping up and down. And so, so it's It's, it's absolutely fantastic to have someone of his stature take a look at my work and say, yeah, you know, I like what you've done here. So, and as a first-time author also, so what incredible validation.

And did you just reach out to Dan out of the blue, or how did that—

so he lives in the DC area, and I had seen him give a talk about 8 years ago, and this is when he wrote Drive. And he was already a name back then. And I said to myself, wow, this guy is amazing. I need to get a coffee with him. And so I was able to get a coffee with him about a year, 15 months later. And he just gave me some really great advice on being an independent coach and being out on your own and all the questions I was having about working for myself. I said, you know what? I'm going to keep in touch with him. Every year, year and a half, there'd be different events in the DC area. If he was speaking, I'd show up. It got to the point, a couple years ago, I was at an event and he's like, oh, hi, Jason. I was like, wow, he knows who I am. The fun part with the connection to the book is that Dan actually spoke to the NDP author community earlier in the year. So I had reached out to him and said, listen, I think it's great that you're speaking with us. I'm going to be part of that group. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. And ever since he spoke, every couple of months, I would write to him and say, listen, this is how my book is coming along based on your advice. And one of the pieces of advice that he gave was butt in chair. Have your butt in your chair and keep writing. Goes back to time management and blocking the time. And it actually got me more excited about sitting down to write my book. I'm like, all right, I'm going to put my butt in my chair and I'm going to keep writing. And that was the most important thing. So all of these interactions, I finally got to the point where I'm like, OK, let me see if he might be interested in this. I mean, he probably gets he gets millions of these types of requests. And I wrote to him and he wrote back to me same day, "Sure, send it over. Show me what other people are saying about the book and give me a generous deadline." And it all worked out. So I'm excited.

So meeting Dan Pink 8 years ago and staying in touch with him, dare I say, led you to getting a beautiful quote for your book. Well, that is a fantastic story and a living testament that your process, your system works, right?

Just keep in touch, John.

That's it.

It takes work, but if you keep in touch, good things happen.

That's awesome. And, you know, I love that his advice was similar. It's all about writing. You just— the books don't write themselves, so you got to log the hours in the chair.

Yeah.

You know, speaking of all of these things and getting the book done, you know, have you found any ways that the book has changed you?

You know, one, I find myself quoting research a lot more.

So much of it in your brain now, right?

It's so much. I feel like I'm quoting scripture. I'm like, well, actually, if you look at the academic research, it says— and so I feel like, you know, you're an MBA, I'm an MBA, there's no dissertation, there's no thesis. But I feel like this book process has given me my own thesis on connection and reconnection. So I think the way that's changed me, one, I'm quoting research more often. And secondly, I'm actually, as a daily, weekly activity, I'm looking out for research around these topics of relationship management a lot more. And it's really interesting that I feel like I'm more in tune to the academic community I'm more in tune to the social science. And now that I've gotten a real taste of it, I want more.

This is one thing I find fascinating about learning, and I, uh, why I encourage anyone that I come in contact with to continue to learn and grow, certainly mentor mentees in my life. And is, you know, it's got two huge benefits, right? One, you learn something new, but two, you become aware that, hey, maybe things aren't as, as clean or simple as I thought they were. And now you've got this new knowledge to go chased after it and do something about it, right? And you can just continue to build on this. So the power of learning— I just could not agree with you more on that one— is so important. Uh, when you think about how you have gone about this, you know, this, this journey, and how you've learned and grown, I hear somebody who might be heading towards, you know, professorship work. Jason, is that what I'm hearing? Or what's next? What are the big goals for you? And as this book is out there and is, is in the world now, Well, I don't know if I'm going to be a professor or not.

I honestly, I respect the PhD community. You know, I think for me, getting on, getting on stages and getting in front of a wider group of people with this message, now that I have an understanding of what the topic is really about on connection and reconnection, I think for me is where I want to go. In terms of speaking engagements and webinars and getting people not only excited but engaged in the people they already know. There's a lot of good things that can happen. So yeah, so I think for me, I'm looking forward to sharing this with a wider audience.

I really appreciate what a line you said earlier, I thought you shared earlier, about, you know, helping people as a coach, help people understand what's possible, right? So many times we think, see things as impossible And it sounds to me like with this book, you're helping people understand what's very much possible in their relationship, in their network, and what they do from day to day, week to week. And it's just about finding the time and intentionality to get it done, I think is what I'm hearing. And so many times we get under our own heads, as you learned from the therapists and in your research. And I love that you made that pivot to those folks to get a better and broader perspective just outside of, you know, some of the executives you research. So given all these things, Jason Levin, is there an overarching key message you'd like to share about your book? What would you— what would you like readers to take away?

I want readers to take away that it is never too late to get back in touch. It is never too late to get back in touch. People want to hear from you, whether it's been a year or 5 years or 10 years or 20 years or 25 years. And if you're looking to make some type of decision in your career, or if you're looking to grow your practice, or whatever you're looking to do in your own professional development, Widening the scope and sphere of people you interact with is a good thing. It's a really, really good thing. And so it's never too late to get back in touch because you're going to be able to have a wider perspective. Because for the people that you've lost touch with, they've had a whole host of experiences since you haven't been in touch. And so when you reconnect, there's this whole sharing of ideas and experiences that are just wonderful. So never too late to start. And never—

it's never too late to start. It's never too late to reach back and connect. Sounds like we've got some great, very practical tools on how to go about doing that. And the power of it, both personally and professionally, and I think psychologically and emotionally, can be incredibly impactful for all of us. What a fantastic story. What a fantastic book filled with lessons on this journey, how to go about doing it, and really why. And certainly there's been some great outcomes that you found. Jason, if people want to learn more about you and your book, where might they go?

They can go to readysetlaunch.net, and on my website is a book section. You can send me a quick note. My email is jason@readysetlaunch.net. Happy to connect, talk more about connection and reconnection.

Jason Levin, career and business development coach, speaker and trainer, and now published author. Relationships to Infinity: The Art and Science of Keeping in Touch will be available this January 2022 wherever you buy books online. Jason. Thank you so much again for being on the show today.

Thank you, John. Appreciate it.

My pleasure. I'm your host of the Creator Community, John Saunders. Keep moving forward.