I heard a phrase recently that’s been sitting with me: Give people a channel by which to build the relationship. It was said in passing—something about travel, I think—but it keeps echoing in other places.
It’s one of those quiet ideas that hides in plain sight. Most of us want good relationships—at work, in our communities, with our families—but we don’t always notice that relationships need something practical: a way in. A channel. Some structure or rhythm that gives people a chance to actually build the thing.
It’s like offering someone a ladder instead of just pointing to the tree.
Travel’s a good example. When you’re on the road with people—whether you know them well or just met—there’s usually something that makes the connection easier. Maybe it’s the shared meals, the long car rides, the awkward group photo stops. Those moments are channels. They make space for something to happen.
And once you see it there, you start seeing it everywhere.
At work, a weekly one-on-one isn’t just a meeting—it’s a channel. It’s a place to check in, to drift into side conversations, to notice when someone seems off. Without that, you might still like the person, but the relationship doesn’t have much room to grow. It stalls out at the level of polite updates.
Same goes for neighbors. You can live on the same street for years and never really know someone. But put a Little Free Library out front, or start borrowing eggs, or walk dogs together—and suddenly, there’s a channel. A place where casual overlap can quietly become something more.
I think we sometimes overestimate the need for grand gestures. We imagine big retreats or elaborate bonding activities. But most of the time, people just need small, regular ways to bump into each other. The group text. The standing Thursday lunch. The dumb inside joke that somehow keeps getting airtime.
Without a channel, even the best intentions have nowhere to go. Relationships need a bit of scaffolding—not to make them artificial, but to give them a shape.
And sure, not every channel becomes a superhighway. Some fade out. Some drift. That’s fine. The point isn’t to force depth.
It’s to offer a way in.
When I think about the relationships in my life that stuck, most of them didn’t start with big declarations. They started with showing up at the same place, over and over. They started with a channel.
So if you want to build something with someone—at work, in your neighborhood, wherever—don’t just wish for it.
Build a channel.