On Legacy & Values
December 1, 2021
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February 1, 2022Blog
Got Isolation Blues?
Loneliness and social isolation are linked to serious health conditions. As the Covid 19 pandemic continues, loneliness is spreading.
Never have we been forced to re-examine our connections and community. Instead of meeting face to face, we are experiencing Zoom fatigue. Instead of celebrating birthdays, holidays and accomplishments, we are forced to celebrate online or cancel our in person get togethers due to someone having symptoms of a cold.
I don’t know about you but the past two years have been quite a challenge.
While there have been some clear benefits, overall I am ready to get back to living life fully. I want to be free to travel. Free to connect. Free to build my community and that means not just online but face to face.
I understand the health and safety implications but has anyone paused to think about what loneliness and isolation are doing to our health?
What Isolation and Loneliness Do to Our Health:
- Social isolation significantly increased a person’s risk of premature death from all causes, a risk that may rival those of smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity.
- Social isolation was associated with about a 50% percent increased risk of dementia.
- Poor social relationships (characterized by social isolation or loneliness) was associated with a 29% increased risk of heart disease and a 32% increased risk of stroke.
- Loneliness was associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide.
- Loneliness among heart failure patients was associated with a nearly 4 times increased risk of death, 68% increased risk of hospitalization, and 57% increased risk of emergency department visits.
These are daunting statistics. If that’s not a wake up call, I don’t know what is.
Personally I am feeling the side effects. I feel the constant roller coaster of hope mixed with shut down misery. It’s exhausting and depleting.
How to Survive and Thrive
I was recently reading the book Belong by Radha Agrawal. In it she speaks about the importance of building your community based on your values. She alludes to us carrying around our own personal backpacks.
Our backpacks are full of our baggage from the past, our values, our experiences and our personalities. The more aware we are of our baggage, the better equipped we are to build lasting relationships and thriving communities.
Strategy One: Know Your Values
While you are stuck in isolation and silence, why not use that time to examine your core values? What are the values that make you who you are? What are the deal breakers for whether people are in your inner circle or not?
Define your values. Write them out. Share them with your inner circle. Ask them what their values are. Use this as a way to connect more deeply with your circle of friends.
You may find it brings you closer. You may find that some relationships in your inner circle have outgrown you and it’s time to move on. Either way, this is a great way to get clarity. To help you know which relationships you want to invest in more deeply. And which ones you need to let go of.
Use your core values as you explore making new friends. Try to find others who align to who you are at the core. Those are your people. Bring them into your inner circle.
Strategy Two: Reach Out
When we are lonely, the hardest thing to do is to reach out. In fact, people who are depressed or lonely find it a struggle to simply get out of bed.
Force yourself to reach out to at least one friend. Have a phone call. Schedule a Zoom date. Get together for a walk or hike.
The more lonely and isolated you feel, the more you must force yourself to connect and reach out. Otherwise, it could get out of control. You don’t want to lose yourself in isolation.
Humans are built for connection. We are built to share stories. We are built to visit in person. To share meals and experiences. This is a basic need. It’s part of our DNA. So stop denying yourself of your basic instinctual needs.
Set goals each day to build connections. It could be having a phone call. Meeting for a coffee. Going to a fitness class. Joining a meetup. Whatever it is, make goals each day and take action to make it happen.
This is how we combat isolation. One baby step at a time. One day at a time. One moment at a time. You’ve got this.
Strategy Three: Celebrate
Celebrate even the smallest of accomplishments. Acknowledge your progress. No matter how little it may seem.
List out three things you are grateful for every day. When something awesome happens, write it down. This way on days where you are depressed or down, you have something to help you keep things in perspective.
When we are lonely we lose our perspective. We get out of balance. That’s why having daily tools to celebrate is so crucial.
One idea I read about recently was to create a “Jar of Awesome”. Decorate your mason jar. You can add glitter, ribbon, whatever helps draw your eye to it. Whatever inspires you, create that.
Once you have your jar, every time something awesome happens, write it down and put it in your jar. And if you are really down, “awesome” might be something small you are grateful for. Baby steps.
The reason this is important is that it’s easy for us to remember all the good things in our lives. Our brains are programmed to have a negativity bias. It was helpful back in caveman days where we needed that bias to survive and remember bad things and how to survive them in the future. But today, it’s something we must combat.
Tools like the jar of awesome and having a gratitude journal will help you get into the habit of combatting this bias. It will help you get back into gratitude and joy. It will help you keep a balanced perspective.
Get the whole family involved. Make it a fun, connecting experience. It could bring you closer together. Let me know how it goes. Comment below.
Strategy Four: Join a Community
Sometimes what we need is to find our tribe of people. The people who can support us. Cheer us on when we are down. Give us that kick in the butt when we need it.
This is especially true for business owners and entrepreneurs. People seem to think that owning your own business is this magical, beautiful thing. And yes it is. But there’s also a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into making it a reality.
It’s not magical. It requires consistency, dedication, commitment and great belief in self. And guess what? We are human too.
We need encouragement. We need support. We need new ideas and fresh perspectives. We can’t see our own blindspots.
This is why we built the Business Builder Ninja Community and Mastermind. To help Health and Wellness Warriors (i.e. business owners and entrepreneurs) combat isolation and kick tail in business.
We found ourselves struggling with isolation as we launched our Business Builder Throwdown live stream show. And in doing so, we built our own mini-mastermind amongst the three of us. Without my collaboration and connection with D. Scott Smith and Matt Rouse, I would not have survived and thrived in 2021.
These guys are like my brothers. They are my business mentors. They are the two I go to first when I am facing a challenge. When I have something big in my business to celebrate. And when I feel lost in my business.
So we decided to expand this serendipitous mastermind we built to others. We have weekly office hours where we share business growth strategy, mindset mastery, marketing tactics that work and every third week we mastermind around real problems members are facing. You will walk away every week committed to a specific action. Clear on what you need to do next in your business.
Every week we make it a point to celebrate something with every single member. We also have each member check in at the end of each session and commit to an action they will take. You get community, brainstorming, learning, accountability and FUN all in one place.
And you get support between sessions too. We have a Marco Polo Community group. We share ideas, challenges and wins between weekly sessions with members. We also encourage members to connect one on one. You never know where your next collaboration or partnership may come from.
