Ferate's 5: What's Your Daily Deposit For Connection? (020)

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What’s up, everyone? Ahhhh the good ole Daily Deposit. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you have heard me say “Daily Deposits” over and over again, so what is it and why is it important?

Taking action with daily deposits and investing in specific areas of your life that over time start to compound. A simple example is consistently investing in my health by hitting a minimum of 30 minutes every day. Usually, it is strength work, running, walking, or jiu-jitsu. Stacking days baby!

Daily deposits are daily actions that help you make votes for the kind of person you wish to become. Taking the concepts from James Clear and Atomic Habits and then matching that up with the idea that we are always on our way to becoming someone.

Might as well make daily deposits towards the person we want to become instead of letting others dictate where we are going.

The thing I can’t stop thinking about this week is making deposits in another area of life. The first thing that comes to mind is people investing in their health, journaling every day, writing, working on the podcast, meditating, cleaning the dishes every night, making their bed, and the list could go on and on.

The one that has constantly on my mind though is deposits in community and connection.

What action do you take to build deeper connections and a better community? What is your daily deposit for connection?

Daily may be a little tougher for connection and community, here are a few ways I have looked at it over the past few years.

1. Wednesday Sauna Squad: This has been a cornerstone and foundation for me over the past year and a half. Incredible dudes! We met back in 2016 when I had the opportunity to coach them for their senior year and WCC championship season in men’s soccer at the University of Portland. Every Wednesday night we meet up to catch up, sauna, and sometimes get some food. It's hard to even put into words how much I appreciate this consistently weekly investment.

2. Jiu Jitsu: I started training jiu-jitsu with my friend Max Munson in September of 2020 and has been one of the greatest decisions I have ever made. Not only is the training fun and great for my health. Jiu-jitsu forces connection and community because it is hard not to connect with others when you are rolling, training, and improving your craft.

3. Take a moment to hit up friends: This one is big for me. There is a lot of power behind a text, voice memo, or phone call. Genuine check-in, catch up and learn something from them. The key is to pause and be intentional with those moments of reaching out.

4. Engage in people’s work: Connection and community aren’t limited to the people you know. I push myself to reach out to people who share engaging books, podcasts, writing, etc. “Hey, I loved your podcast, because of XYZ.” or “Wow loved that article made me think of this and this.”

5. New community and connection: Lining up time for phone calls, face times, or meeting up in person to learn from people. Being interested in their work, curious about what they are building, and then taking action by lining up a time to connect with them.

What I have observed from coaching in college athletics for 12 years. Student-athletes get a cheat code by having a team. That cheat code is instantly having +10 friends. When you graduate, you start asking now what?

Adults have to make an active choice to invest in friends, and community and create new touchpoints to connect. Takes more effort but those deposits are worth every penny!

During a student-athletes career, you roughly have a whole team of instant friends and a community around you, simply by being on the team. Once you graduate your teammates move to different cities, instead of practice you have a job and the challenge of planning out time to connect with friends starts to come up more and more.

Instead of waiting for a community to come to you or for people to initiate contact, take the initiative. Be the friend. Be the one to reach out, plan experiences, and create opportunities for consistent connections.

ACTION: You’re next daily deposit can be hitting up one friend a day via text or voice memo under 60 seconds for the next 30 days.

HABIT DEVELOPMENT: A weekly consistent deposit is putting something on the calendar with your friends. Jiu-jitsu and sauna were my weekly examples. Super curious about what your weekly connection point is. How you are consistent with it?

How do you make connection, deep meaningful relationships, and community a priority in your life? Daily habits? Daily actions?

Wishing you all love and consistency. We all wrestle with “What am I doing with my life?” and the question “Who am I becoming?” Keep stacking daily deposits towards the person you wish to become and making every day the best day of the year, until tomorrow.

Ferate