Creating Human Connection – Joe Beckman, Ep. 74

Podcast on creating human connection with motivational speaker, Joe Beckman

Are you ready to reclaim authentic human connection, with friends, with neighbors, with strangers … and with yourself? That’s the mission of our guest today, Joe Beckman, who visits educational settings all around the world while creating human connection.

It’s Joe’s feeling that our schools are experiencing an unprecedented shift and that student loneliness is at an all-time high while self-worth and feelings of belonging are at all-time lows. Joe feels the culprit is lack of human connection, and I’m pretty sure I agree with him.

And I would say, it’s not just connection with each other we’re lacking, but with ourselves.

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Joe’s story, about his own journey and the handful of experiences he had the time to describe in this episode, are sure to strike a chord in some fashion. Joe’s a guy who is out there everyday, actively engaging with students and educators and the hearing about challenges that they’re facing everyday. Interestingly, what he shares sounds to me a lot like the challenges that I know many of  my peers in middle age are also facing.

Some highlights from the conversation with Joe:

1. Energy versus Talent – Joe tells a really interesting story about where he was first introduced to the idea of how important energy is, how people want to be around others with good energy, and how that can overcome a lot of other perceived limitations, such as a talent that has not yet been developed to its fullest extent. Listen for Joe’s story about Robbie Robinson and what he was told about energy. It’s something we all could keep in mind.
2. The trap of trying to talk your way to a solution – Joe shares a rather touching story of what a student shared with him and how he now wishes he had handled the moment differently. I would love to tell you that I would have been more predisposed to keep my mouth shut and listen than Joe said that he was, but I confess that this is a lesson I’m still actively trying to learn every single day. Sometimes, the best thing that we can do when we are trying to offer a compassionate and safe space for others is just close our mouths and listen.
3. “Go big with this moment” & reconnecting with yourself –  When Joe described the moment when he said, “5-year-old Joe met 18-year-old Joe,” I immediately reflected back on times when I felt like I had rediscovered and reconnected with an authentic part of myself that I had lost sight of. It is an electric, visceral experience when you reconnect with who you really are. If we can remain open to that, embrace and then act upon it, our positive energy becomes almost unstoppable. Sadly, many of these moments go either unrecognized or are allowed to pass by unattended for a variety of reasons. Listen for the story Joe shares about when he told himself to “Go big with this moment.” You will love the story!