Ryan Jenkins is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, the top worldwide thought leader on team connection, leadership futurist, and a globally-recognized generational expert.

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Guest Resources

Ryan’s Website – Be connectable. Inspiring team connection, engagement, and loyalty in an age of growing disconnection.

Claim your connection kit – Access tools to measure your connections.

Rivet – Human connection made easy.

3 Value Bombs

1) Meaningful success cannot be achieved alone because meaningful success takes connection.

2) The simple and greatest predictor of our health and happiness is the quality of our connections.

3) No matter how independent or introverted we may be, we all want to belong and make connection our intention. We have to be connectable and cultivate more connections.

Sponsors

YT 100: Email JLD to learn more about making YouTube magic in 100 days: john@eofire.com

Airbnb: If you’ve got an extended trip coming up and need a little help hosting while you’re away, hire a co-host to do the work for you! Find a co-host at Airbnb.com/host!

Show Notes

**Click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.

Today’s Audio MASTERCLASS: How to Strengthen Team Connection in an Age of Growing Disconnection.

[1:21] – Ryan shares something that he believes about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

• Meaningful success cannot be achieved alone because meaningful success takes connection.

[2:09] –  Ryan talks about the significance of team connection.

• Isolation and disconnection actually makes our team 7x more likely to be disengaged, 5x more likely to miss work and 3x more likely to underperform and 3x more likely to quit.
• Connection is important. The longest study of adult development and the core mission of the study is to find a definitive answer to a long health life. The answer to this is quality connections with others. Not health, diet, exercise or wealth.
• The simple and greatest predictor of our health and happiness is the quality of our connections.
• We have urgent needs, that is shelter, food, water and mental space but our most significant need is connections.
• One research showed how our brain reacts to exclusion. The part of the brain that lits up is the same part that registers or experience physical pain which means being excluded is like being physically harmed.
• If you or your team shows up to work being disconnected and isolated and lonely, they are distracted at best and debilitated at worst.
• If we want to show up fully for our colleagues, clients and customers that we serve, we have to make sure we are feeling a healthy sense of connection or else, we will be distracted at best and debilitated at worst.
• In summary, exclusion paralyzes and connection energizes.

[7:30] – Ryan talks about the state of connection in the global workforce.

• Loneliness is a universal human condition and we all experience it. It shoud not be shameful but we should look at it as a signal that you need to be connected with others because we are a social species.
• It is a useful emotion for us. What people get wrong is loneliness is the absence of people when it is actually the absence of connection.
• Part of the solution is to work with it. If you have a strong connection with your family, vendors or clients, you can still have a great sense of connection even if you are not in the presence of people.

[9:09] – Ryan talks about what’s at stake if we don’t connect our teams.

• What’s at stake is our personal well being. Isolation can shorten a person’s like by 15 years. It is the worst thing that we can experience as humans and we are underestimating the importance of connection and thinking of it wrongly.
• The other thing that is at stake is when team connection is high, recruitment goes up, performance goes up by 56% , engagement goes up and retention makes a major boost.
• The last thing at stake is our resilience. Base on a research they did, if there is one person standing next to you , you become more resilient.
• As entrepreneurs, we have to be resilient that if it feels we are going through a lot, we have to find folks to come alongside of you because it makes things easier.

[11:54] – A timeout to thank our sponsors!

• YT 100: Email JLD to learn more about making YouTube magic in 100 days: john@eofire.com
• Airbnb: If you’ve got an extended trip coming up and need a little help hosting while you’re away, hire a co-host to do the work for you! Find a co-host at Airbnb.com/host!

[14:57] – Ryan talks about how to identify if there is disconnection amongst our team.

• The signs of disconnection are lack of initiative, changes in communication pattern or being highly unresponsive to a certain degree, resistance to feedback , excessive working or being too busy for connections and distrusting the people around them.
• The disconnected person in your team will not reconnect with the team. It takes the team to proactively go and pull back that person into the tribe.

[17:04] – Ryan talks about connection inhibitors and how we can overcome the top team connection inhibitors.

• According to research, the connection inhibitors are fear, lack of confidence, apathy and the one that stands out as entrepreneurs is busyness, workloads and a lack of time.
• Time constraints severely limits our willingness to connect.
• We have to find meaningful margins in our calendar for our teams. What they practice for their teams to break the busyness is “Connect Five”. At the top of their team meeting, each of them will share a one non-work related picture and talk about it for 5 minutes. It is during this time that they see the human behind the job.
• According to research, connection can occur during a 2 person interaction in as little as 40 secs.

[20:11] – Ryan gives his key take away.

• Too often we think that we are connecting when in reality we are just communicating.
• Communication is the the exchanging of information and we process this in the front part of our brain.
• Connection is a feeling of understanding ease of communication to people and we process it in the back part of our brain.
• Texting is communication and it doesn’t become a connection until your hear the tone of voice or see the body language or feel the embrace.
• Communication is dealt but connection is felt.
• We are not connecting with technology and we fall for that mentality that we are connected with emails and texts. We are communicating but not connecting.
• We can trade communication for connection that instead of a text message , make it a phone call. Instead of a virtual meeting do it in person. We can make small trade offs to cultivate stronger connections and stronger businesses.

[22:19] – Ryan shares a story.

• Meaningful success can’t be achieved alone. He tells the story of Chris McCandless from the book “Into the Wild”. He decided to live alone away from civilization and camp in an abadon bus in Alaska. He didn’t survived and his final words were “Happiness is only real when shared”,
• No matter how independent or introverted we may be, we all want to belong and make connection our intention. We have to be connectable and cultivate more connections.

[23:50] – Call to action.

• Ryan’s Website – Be connectable. Inspiring team connection, engagement, and loyalty in an age of growing disconnection.
• Claim your connection kit – Access tools to measure your connections.
• Rivet – Human connection made easy.

[24:42] – Thank you to our Sponsor!

• YT 100: Email JLD to learn more about making YouTube magic in 100 days: john@eofire.com

Killer Resources!

1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!

2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!

3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!

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