• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Discovery Zone Coaching logo blue text with orange accent box

Discovery Zone Coaching

Lead, love and learn with confidence.

  • Home
  • Work with Me
  • About
  • FAQs
  • Blog
  • Contact

Connecting

David Bell · March 25, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Connecting with others

We spend a lifetime connecting with others. For some, this is very easy. For others, it can be very challenging. For sure, it takes some effort to connect with others.  There are two types of connections. We may connect with people who are like us or with people who are not like us.

As a child, it seemed to be very easy to connect with other boys who liked sports.  I liked baseball. I made connections with other boys and teammates who liked baseball.  I attended church as a child. I made connections with others who attended church.

As an adult, we may find ourselves searching for commonalities, or common interests.  If you go to someone’s home or office, maybe they have a picture of playing sports and you share that you have that common interest even though you did not experience it together. Finding things is common is one of the easiest ways to make connections.  Getting to know someone requires a conversation with them. Although, you may learn some things about them through a third-party, a website, or social media, you can a better understanding of them through conversation. Finding things in common and having conversation means that you ask questions and the other party shares information about themselves to you.  We all connect differently around a host of different topics.

What are some of the areas for us to discover that we may make a connection? We can attempt to learn more about them through asking questions related to where they live either now or in the past. We can ask questions about marital status, family (immediate and extended family) and pets. We can ask questions about their work, travel, special interests, hobbies or even things in which they are passionate. Connecting on similarities means that you will want to share things about yourself. The things we have in common provide us additional conversational opportunities; therefore, we can connect with others with the parts of our lives that are similar. 

What about those things that are different?  This is where the skill of being curious, open-minded, and respectful are important.  We may have many areas of our lives that are different, including age, race, gender, ethnicity, cultural experiences, family, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, or beliefs.  These are sometimes the things that divide us. Being curious means to treat the differences that you discover as a point of fascination and interest. This is an opportunity to learn even more about this person than what meets the eye. We have an opportunity to have a deeper conversation about thoughts, beliefs, values and matters of the heart.  Open-mindedness means that we don’t judge the other person. This can be very challenging, but it is doable.   Being respectful to those things that are different honors the belief that all people are humans and have value.  We all share flaws, as well as many positive traits, experiences, and characteristics.  Being curious, open, and respectful does not require you to change who you are. It does allow you to make a human connection which may enhance your career, your business opportunities, and your life experience with others.

Making connections is about connecting with others who are like us and connecting with others who are different than us. Either way, we may discover opportunities to lead, love, and learn.

Leadership, Sales Connecting, discovery, Leading, Learn, Love

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

girl on a journey

Ready to reach your maximum potential?Get Started

Discovery Zone Coaching

© 2023 · Discovery Zone Coaching · Terms · Privacy · Site by Tempora

Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
Preferences
{title} {title} {title}