There’s a curious pattern that shows up again and again: people say they want more connection, more belonging, more community — and then quietly avoid the very practices that would help them build it.

This reflection explores why deep, human networks feel so confronting in midlife, how shame and fear sneak in disguised as “being busy,” and why meaningful connection isn’t something you wait until you’re ready for. It’s something you practice while you’re still unsure.

This isn’t about networking tactics. It’s about remembering who matters, and letting yourself matter back.

What This Explores

1. Why smaller networks often carry more emotional weight than we expect
2. The quiet fear that stops us from tending relationships we actually want
3. How urgency crowds out what’s meaningful — and why that costs us
4. What changes when connection is treated as a living system, not a tool
5. A tiny, human experiment that rebuilds trust in belonging

If this stirred something tender or familiar, you’re not alone. Many people quietly carry the same longing — and the same hesitation. You don’t need a bigger network. You just need to start where you are.

If you'd like your next year or decade of work to be more enjoyable than your last, check out the three work-life redesign programs I offer at https://www.midlifeunstuck.com/work-with-me.

Want more? Check out my resources for Networking like a Midlife Human

This is the Joy at Work podcast, and I'm Lucia Knight This week I've got

a new experiment for you to try, but firstly, let me share a little insight

on something that's been quietly banging around in my brain this morning while

I've been refining materials for one of my quarterly masterclasses for clients.

Now, here's what usually happens with these masterclasses.

Every single client shows up, or if life gets in the way, or time zones

don't match, they catch the recording.

Why?

Because they work, they've been evidence tested, results tweaked and

experimented into shape over years.

These masterclasses are practical, grounded, and they bring more joy

to your work life, if you try them.

But there's one exception, just one.

It's the only masterclass I offer with low client attendance, and I don't mean

slightly lower, I mean dramatically lower.

At last count, just 20% of clients took part.

The masterclass is called Advanced Networking Like a Midlife Human.

And it follows on from the Foundational Masterclass Network Like a Midlife

Human, which has a hundred percent attendance and rave reviews.

That class helps people reframe the way they think about their network,

not as a means to an end that you go off and ask for help when you need a

job, but as a living, breathing group of humans, you know, like and respect.

But the advanced class is the only class which has two pre-entry requirements.

The first clients need to draw their network and share it with me.

Yes, draw it with boxes, arrows, colored pens, doodles, whatever works for them.

I guide them through it step by step.

But still it asks something that feels a bit vulnerable.

The second pre-entry requirement is that they need to have practiced

the five minute exercises from the foundational class and be ready

to share what they've discovered.

It's simple, but it's also confronting.

So me being me, I asked clients why they weren't coming, and they told me.

I feel embarrassed by how small my network is.

I feel ashamed, I haven't looked after my people.

I can't even remember who I used to love working with.

I meant to do the exercises, but I didn't.

I can't draw for toffee and I don't want to look silly in front of the others.

I'm still finding the basics hard.

I want to know my new direction before I start networking.

And to all of that.

I say, yeah, I get it.

This is important work.

Tender work and it pokes at places we'd rather leave unexamined.

But when I zoom out and listen between the lines of all of those

reasons, what I really hear is fear.

Fear that building and acknowledging a truly human network might actually work.

Fear that it might lead them straight to what they've been

quietly wanting all along.

Here's something I see again and again.

In our very first week together, I asked all clients to write down at a really

basic level what they want more of.

Nearly every time, the answers circle back to some version of connection,

community, belonging, security, fun.

A tribe, a team, their people.

And yet, when given the tools and structure to build that

very thing, we sometimes freeze.

It's so human.

Why?

Because unfamiliar territory triggers our inner protectors.

We default to what's urgent instead of what's important.

We default to what's right in front of us instead of our longer term dreams.

And here's what I know from doing this work with hundreds of midlife humans.

When we are surrounded even loosely by a small group of humans we care about,

who care about us, something shifts.

We remember who we are.

We feel seen and heard.

We are braver.

We take chances.

We open doors for each other.

That didn't seem to exist before.

These aren't networking contacts.

These are real live human beings.

Our kind of humans who move mountains when they know we need help.

Who whisper our name in rooms we've never even been in who remember our

weirdest superpower and tell others about it and note this kind of

community does not happen by accident.

It happens when you are brave enough to decide who your special people are and

to keep showing up for those special people, the human beings, you know, like

and respect again and again and again.

But maybe you are sitting there thinking I'm wrong and I might very well be wrong.

Maybe my clients are just tired.

That would be fair.

This whole joy at work business asks a lot of midlife humans, but if there is

even a small part of you that lights up at the idea of being part of a

meaningful human web across industries, across countries, across time, then

I want you to try something today.

Your experiment this week is to reach out to one person in your world, someone

you've worked with at any time in the past, someone you know, like and respect.

Send them a tiny, teeny, tiny short message, a kindness droplet.

Tell them you remember them.

Tell them you appreciate them.

Tell them they matter to you.

That's it, because when you do that, something beautiful happens.

You're keeping the world of joy spinning at work and way beyond.

If you'd like your next year or decade of work to be more enjoyable

than your last, check out the show notes for the only three work-life

redesign programs on offer, and I'd love to see you in my advanced classes.