Let the Unique Power of Email Help You (Re)Connect with People

When you’re an introvert, it can be hard—as in awkward—to (re)connect with people. But you have a secret weapon at your disposal: the power of email.

In the early 2000s I was publishing a newsletter called Campus Career Counselor—which was aimed at college and university career services professionals across the U.S. and Canada—when my first wife, Lois, was diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma.

The people who subscribed to Campus Career Counselor were, as the name implies, career counselors at college career centers. I had been one of those myself for a time.

So to me, the people who bought the newsletter were more than merely my customers. They were my professional colleagues, and I theirs, even though I never did and never would meet most of them in person.

Everyone knew all along that Campus Career Counselor put the small in the concept of small business. It was just me writing the thing and Lois handling the subscription and mailing tasks.

I didn’t know what to do with Campus Career Counselor when we got Lois’s life-threatening diagnosis. She would most definitely be out of commission indefinitely. I would be with her, the two of us ultimately making weekly, 200-mile round trips to Mayo Clinic.

There was just no way that regular life was going to continue on as it was, to say nothing of Campus Career Counselor life.

“Do I keep this news quiet and try to carry on?” I asked myself.

“Or do I tell the newsletter’s subscribers what’s happening?”

When Colleagues Become Friends

I went with the latter option, sending out an email to all the subscribers telling them about the situation and its potentially devastating impact, immediate and future.

From that moment until the moment Lois died in 2012, I got loving, supportive messages from many, many Campus Career Counselor subscribers.

My colleagues had become my friends, another family almost—even though I would still never meet most of them face to face.

One of those colleagues was Jill Barlow-Kelley, then director of internships and career services at College of the Atlantic in beautiful Bar Harbor, Maine.

Once or twice in my email interactions with her, I told her that I had family ties to her area and that, if I were ever in her neighborhood, I would stop by to not only say hello, but to thank her from the bottom of my heart for all she’d done to help me and my family.

Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

A while back, my wife Adrianne and I were in … Bar Harbor, Maine, where we had road-tripped for a just-the-two-of-us vacation while our kids ate ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with their grandparents.

I mentioned to Adrianne that I’d had a Campus Career Counselor subscriber (Jill) in this town, and that I had always only half-jokingly said I’d drop in to see her if I ever could.

Now, though, introvert that I am, I was hesitant to do so—even though we had already driven right past the campus gate twice on our way to the most challenging hiking of our lives in nearby Acadia National Park.

Adrianne, an introvert herself, nudged me to go forth.

She reminded me that I didn’t have to drop in on Jill unannounced, and that I could and should use the introvert’s secret weapon in such situations …

Email.

Tap into the Power of Email

So late one night near the end of our stay, I emailed the friend I’d never met, Jill Barlow-Kelley, and asked her if she remembered me and if Adrianne and I could drop by campus the next day just to shake her hand and say thank you in person.

“Peter!” she wrote back enthusiastically the next morning.

“Do come to campus.”

We did—and we spent an hour and a half with Jill as she gave us a personalized campus tour, treated us to a delicious lunch in the college’s dining hall, and engaged us in a deep conversation about education and one-on-one career guidance.

And as I hugged Jill as we left, 
I was filled with gratitude all over again.

For her.

For Adrianne.

And for my good friend email, which had let my introverted fingers once again accomplish what my mouth often can’t.

Or won’t.