You never want to learn things the hard way.
But that happened to me… even though I thought I was doing something kind.
The backstory is that for our business, we often film case studies with our students. And the last time we were in Australia in 2018, we filmed a whole bunch with our customers there.
Fast forward a couple of years and I was reviewing some of those stories and it triggered a thought… I should follow up and see how some of these people are doing.
So I sent a few DM’s and emails.
Sure enough I heard from a few people and it was great to hear their updates. But a couple people it was radio silence. “Strange”, I thought.
Nonetheless, I didn’t think much of it at the time and continued on.
Fast forward a couple more years and I see an email from one of those people who I reached out to. It was her weekly newsletter. I was curious so I opened it and that’s when my heart sank.
She was talking about remembering her husband on the 5 year anniversary of his passing. She shared how in an instant, she lost her husband and became a single mom of 3 young kids… 9, 7 and 5. My heart sank.
Right away I went to Instagram to send her a DM and saw my last message… the one where I reached out several years earlier. I realized the message was sent about a year after her husband passed away. I felt like a total jerk. Here I was being happy go lucky and trying to catch up - completely clueless to what was happening in her life.
Did I know? No.
But could I have taken 5 minutes before sending a message to get a sense for what’s happening in someone’s life before hitting “send”... of course.
It was a hard lesson to learn and a moment I wish I could get back.
Take a moment. Read the “virtual floor” so to speak. Get a sense of what’s happening in someone’s life before reaching out. Doing that can make all the difference in the response you get and the connection you build.