How to connect with people who seem to have nothing in common with you?
For some this may be a natural skill but for others it is a skill that can be learned, improved and developed.
It has often happened to you that, in certain circumstances, you meet people with whom "apparently" there is nothing in common? Nothing that can connect you? Nothing you can talk about? You are in front of perfect strangers. And yet you have realized that even our best friends at the beginning were perfect strangers…
How did this happen? What allowed you to make these strangers your friends ?: Having something in common.
It all starts from the ability to focus on others and find or identify common points and develop the relationship based on this bridge or bond that you have identified.
Before going on to find common ground, what attitudes, ways of thinking help me to identify with others more easily?
• The Basics: Be willing to focus on others. Forget about you, get out of your world and think about them.
• A genuine interest in the other person that allows you to care about their needs, aspirations, dreams, fears, sadness, joys, sorrows, triumphs, hopes.
• Being the friendliest person in the world in such a way that allows you to be someone accessible who offers friendship but does not show you indifferent that it is something that will not do you much good.
• Stop thinking "That you have to like or like everyone."
This type of thinking is a paralyzer in the genuineness or authenticity of your relationships, since by trying to please everyone, to like everyone, you end up inhibiting yourself, inhibiting you from expressing your own opinions, your own ideas, from saying or expressing what you really think. In this way, you have greater freedom to relate as it will not matter what others think of you but what you think of yourself. Control is within you.
• Be willing to take the initiative in starting the connection, be proactive, the one who stars and not wait for things to happen, if the opportunities do not occur, you will be there to create them.
"You get more in two months caring for others than in two years waiting for others to care about you" Dale Carnegie.
"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care about them." John.C. Maxwell.
• Curiosity to ask, open attitude to listen and offer feedback; a good balance 30/70 or 40/60 to talk about yourself / listen to the other person.
• Do not look at the ranks and positions of people, they are all as valuable as you are. Your self-esteem and personal value must be over the top.
Always focus and look at the human side behind each person, the good side that they can have and that is always in them, create the best of the person with whom you are dealing and doing so, then you can consider it, treat it and make it feel like the most important human being in the world.
Finding commonalities that identify us with others
Any time you decide to start a conversation with a person, you will realize that there are many experiences that happen daily and that when you share them you will notice that you feel identified with something because in some way in a certain way At the same time something similar has happened to you.
• Past experiences are also a good topic to connect.
• What we plan to do in the future is something that will also allow you to identify yourself, they may not be the same, but you also have dreams, however different they may be.
• Explore hobbies, hobbies, activities they do in their free time.
• They can be the same places where you have lived, been, known or would like to know.
• Treating Work, business or activity to which it is dedicated, talking about sports, about children, family, mutual friends, school, hometown, language, country, culture, custom, ideology, experiences that have marked us, and among many other things in which you can agree.
• What else does the other person have that can identify me with them and be able to treat them as someone I know?
"Let's find the one percent that we agree on and give one hundred percent of our effort." John. C. Maxwell.
We are all different, but even in these differences we can find common ground.
Finding emotional common ground:
At other times it can be very useful to connect on an emotional level, that is, on a feelings level.
Remember these three words that always work: "Feel, Sense, Found."
First: Try to feel what they feel.
Second: Recognize and value those feelings and identify with what you have also felt in a similar situation.
Third: manifest what you have found when the same thing happened to you.
Keeping in mind and practicing these principles from now on will allow you to:
-Connect easily with anyone even when you initially think there is nothing in common.
-Feel comfortable, confident, relaxed, calm in any situation you have to meet or deal with strangers and even improve your relationships with people you already know if you are and behave as a truly friendly person.
-You will know that you can turn any unknown person into a known person, a stranger into a friend.
-Apply them to any area of your life, in your family, with your friends, coworkers, partner relationships, business relationships, etc; to be a more empathetic person to whom everyone has the privilege and pleasure of meeting you.
How many people do you know would also find this article very useful? Do not hesitate to share it. From now on, are you going to focus on differences or similarities?
