5 Lessons on Connecting with Anyone: Wisdom from Legends & Leaders
When I set out to create and host a podcast of my own, I never imagined I’d be sitting down with legends and leaders of industries including many of my personal and professional heroes.
The podcast began as One New Person, a companion to my first book Three New People. It eventually morphed into what is now Beyond Networking. The show’s thesis is: Every interaction is meaningful, and every person you meet is important. And therefore, it fundamentally seeks to answer this question:
How do you connect with anyone?
After three seasons and dozens of conversations I’ve distilled my guests’ wisdom on human connection across three major content areas: social interaction, networking, and work/education.
In this article you’ll find 5 bite-sized nuggets of wisdom from some of the smartest and most successful people in a variety of different industries.
You’ll find the complete ebook and companion audio experience, featuring many more incredible people and insights, free to download here.
There must be something we have in common.
Seth Godin, Author, This is Marketing (S2.1)
“It is possible that there is someone on earth who I totally understand, but I have never met them. Some people like milk chocolate. I still find this impossible to believe. But there must be something about their humanity that we have in common.
Like, do you hope that your kids will have a good life? Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about that.
Do you get satisfaction from going for a walk on a nice spring day? Well, yeah. Why? Let's talk about how that feels.
These are strategies, these aren't tactics. Along the way, someone may come up with the tactic that we should burn as much color as we possibly can to get as much electricity as we possibly can, because if we get richer, then we'll have more resources and then we'll be able to build new technology and the world will be saved.
Now you and I can disagree about that. ‘Cause I think that's foolish. But we can both agree that you're doing it for the same reason I'm doing it, which is you care about your unborn grandchildren.”
I am because you are.
Getrude Matshe, Serial Social Entrepreneur (S2.11)
“In Africa we believe that humanity is one: I could not be here without you, and you could not be there without me. So it's in the observation of each other that we exist.
When I first left Africa, I felt like a fish out of water because my very existence up until that point was based on the people around me. I kept trying to connect. And every once in a while, I would have these magical moments where I would bump into these random strangers who saw me, who looked at me, who had a present conversation with me, because the other thing about ubuntu is being fully present to someone when you speak to them.
I come from a culture where in my language, there is no sarcasm. There's no innuendo in our language. So if somebody says something to you, they mean what they say. So ubuntu is also in the language, and this is something else that I discovered after I left Africa.
It's interwoven in so many ways. Like, if you wake up in the morning, you say to someone, “Good morning, how did you rise?” And the answer is, “I woke up well if you woke up well.”
So if you're not okay, I'm not okay.”
Listen to the listening.
Julian Treasure, Sound & Communication Expert, TED Legend (S3.1)
“Always speak into a listening.
And that's an important thing to consider because it allows you to start asking the question, “What's the listening I'm speaking into?”
That’s listening to the listening. It's being sensitive to the receiver. And that is crucial because the biggest mistake I see people making all the time is assuming that everybody listens like I do. And they do not.
We listen through this set of filters that I talked about in my third TED talk. It's very important to be sensitive to those things, the culture, the language, your values, attitudes, beliefs, the things that you accrete along the way from your parents originally. And then perhaps from friends, role models, teachers, whoever it might be.
You choose some, you throw away others. I've chosen different ones and I've thrown away different ones. Probably there may be many similarities, but they will not be identical.
And then in any given situation that you may have intentions, expectations, you may have emotions going on, assumptions about how the world works and what people think about me, and so forth. Everybody you speak to has got that going on too.”
We don’t have to be best friends.
Heather Monahan, Author, Confidence Creator (S3.2)
“ stems from someone that's insecure and they feel threatened by the other person for whatever reason. And you know, that's not up to me to evaluate. But that's the only reason why wouldn't you help other people, or be honest and open with them.
Listen, I've worked with people that I don't really care for. I'll have the conversation and say, “You know, while we need to find a way to work together, you and I personally, we don't seem to mesh well. So knowing that, I'd like to have a really honest dialogue with you. How can we coincide together and make this a successful partnership?”
And usually when you have a conversation like that, you can move away from negativity, and improve the relationship. Sometimes in my career that's been a pivotal moment for me, and I've actually ended up friends with the other person.
Let's just both be who we are. Let's accept that we're not best friends, but let's find a way to support each other, and work together in a positive way.”
What does this person care about most?
Christie Lindor, Management Consultant, Award-Winning Author (S2.3)
“Instead of focusing on what I don't know, or the things that I don't understand about that particular client, I always try to find the common ground.
And sometimes that may mean trying to really learn who they are on a personal level, because maybe for them family's most important. And family's important to me too. Right? Starting out with that common thread of shared values is, is where I like to go first.
For other people, they're very proud about their credentials and very proud about all the hard work and how far they've gotten in their life. And so maybe the connection is helping them think about development and sending articles on ways they can continue to have a competitive edge.
So I think it's really finding out what people's true motivations are.
And sometimes that happens when you're having conversations with an individual, and you don't just answer their question. You answer the question behind their question. You can always get back to: What is important to that person? What values do they hold dear? And how can I really align to those values?”
Gain More from the Audio Experience
Discover these nuggets and others via a 70-min audio experience, featuring full, uncut clips directly from the podcast. It’s a fantastic resource that expands upon the themes found in this article.
Download it for free here.
And here’s one bonus lesson for reading until the end:
Better to be interested than interesting.
Alan Cohen, Executive Coach (S2.8)
“My spouse is, I guess you would say maybe he was like an extroverted introvert. But given his druthers, he'd rather be having a conversation like this than a room with a lot of other people.
And so often we'll like friends of mine will meet, meet him and there'll be like, he is the most interesting, interesting guy. And I'll ask him like, so what did you talk about?
And he's like, “Well, I basically just asked them a lot of questions about themselves.” He will always be the most interesting person in the room because he's the most interested.”
