Who Answers When You Reach Out

Last week, four college friends randomly crossed my mind, so I texted them. Some of us hadn’t seen each other in years, but when the calls started, the conversations picked up somewhere in the middle, like we’d all briefly stepped away to refill our drinks.

There are friendships that need regular watering, sunlight and careful attention.

Then there are college friendships, which can apparently survive for years in the back of a closet next to an old hoodie and still fit perfectly when you pull them out.

Why is that?

Maybe some connections don’t depend on constant contact. Maybe they last because there’s still an understanding that someone will answer when you reach out.

We talked about proximity versus connection during Thought Lab at The Nexus on Thursday. The difference between being near people and actually building something with them.

I offered myself as the case study, which is one of the risks of creating an open-topic discussion group. Eventually, the topic opens directly on you. 

I admitted that I’ve sat alone under the tent at Night Market watching everyone else connect, and that’s a strange experience when you helped create the event. 

It’s a little like hosting a party, seeing everyone having a wonderful time and realizing you’re standing beside the folding chairs wondering whether anyone needs more trash bags.

Or someone can tell me I’m a great boss, and I can appreciate that while also wondering whether our connection goes much deeper than project updates and the occasional thumbs-up emoji. Someone asked how I could admit that in a room I was supposed to be leading. 

And I don’t really think of myself as the leader of The Nexus. The people there are my peers. I may have helped build the room, but that doesn’t mean I’m the person with all the answers.

Most weeks, I’m one of the people arriving with more questions.

And the room answers me.

Someone pointed out that if I truly needed something, the people there would show up. They reminded me that being honest enough to raise the question was itself a form of connection.

Yes.

Maybe connection isn’t about knowing everyone’s favorite movie or coffee order.

It’s knowing who’ll grab the other end when something gets heavy.

Earlier this year, our team at JHD stepped into a large engagement that needed rescuing. We inherited several hundred issues, incomplete processes and almost no documentation. It was the digital equivalent of opening a closet and having everything fall directly onto your head.

Now, the work runs almost entirely without me.

I join one weekly check-in while the team clears the backlog and documents everything. They’ve created order where there was confusion, and they don’t need me hovering over every decision.

That’s a beautiful thing.

Now I’d love to say I responded with complete peace, confidence and healthy detachment.

Instead, I saw one part of the business running smoothly and immediately wanted every part of the business to operate that way forever. Apparently, businesses don’t become permanently self-correcting.

While the team was focused on the large engagement, several other projects had gone quiet. Clients were emailing to ask why their work hadn’t moved, and the answers weren’t always clear. I was frustrated.

Building capacity had solved one problem, but the wobble had simply moved somewhere else.

That’s the part of delegation nobody puts in the presentation.

The slide usually says something like, “Empower your team.”

It doesn’t say, “Empower your team, then keep scanning because something else may now be going on.”

I made a list of the projects that needed attention. I asked the team to update the work, clarify each status and communicate with the clients.

They carried it. No heroic all-nighter where I fixed everything myself.

I saw another version of the frustration when a local franchise owner came into The Nexus this week. She was frustrated because corporate controlled all of her customer data, which meant she had very little direct connection to the people actually buying from her.

But, she left with a loyalty program branded, configured and installed on her phone as a live test. Not a strategy document describing the exciting possibility of one day having a loyalty program. A working thing. 

There’s something deeply satisfying about watching an idea leave a conversation as an actual tool someone can use.

Even The Nexus moved this week.

Our regular Monday and Tuesday sessions didn’t happen in the space because a Nexus member was leading a two-day small business marketing workshop at Launch Fayette. I went to support him, learn from the sessions and teach an hour on what actually makes a website convert.

Apparently, community is portable.

That may become especially important in The Nexus’s next chapter. Our Trilith lease ends this year, and the future of the building is uncertain.

At first, the natural question was where we could find a bigger room.

Now, the conversation’s become more interesting.

What if the next version includes an arts and creative incubator alongside the business incubator? Art classes. Life drawing. A dedicated deep-work room. A silent Flex Friday where someone plays a full record and nobody talks.

For some people, that probably sounds peaceful.

For me, not talking for an entire record may qualify as an advanced endurance event. 

I love the idea.

The Nexus was also never supposed to be valuable because of one particular suite. Its value comes from the people who keep showing up, sharing ideas, challenging one another and creating things together.

The vision can move because more than one person’s holding it.

I used to think leadership meant carrying the most.

Carry the vision. Carry the pressure. Carry the client concern, the team concern, the budget concern and the folding tables after Night Market.

The older I get, and the longer I lead JHD, the more I believe leadership may be about knowing what not to carry alone.

That doesn’t mean stepping away from responsibility.

It means creating enough trust that responsibility can move.

A friendship can survive years because someone still answers.

A project can move because the team knows what to do after I name the problem.

The Nexus can leave one room without losing the community that made the room matter.

The strongest things in my life aren’t strong because I’ve maintained a white-knuckle grip on them. They’re strong because, when I loosen my hands, they don’t immediately hit the floor.

Sometimes someone else catches them. Sometimes they were already holding them with me.

And sometimes all it takes to remember that is texting four old friends and discovering that the conversation never really ended. 

The right people still pick up mid-sentence.