Connecting Through Commonality

Have you ever heard someone say that one of their relationships ended because they just didn't have anything in common with the other person? Of course you have. If we put so much emphasis on commonality and our romantic relationships, why don't we think about how we could use it to transform our business relationships as well? Welcome to this shit works. Episode 62. I'm your host, Julie Brown. And today we are talking about the power of connecting. Through commonality. This episode is sponsored by Nickerson, a full service branding, marketing, and PR and communications agency with team members in Boston. Los Angeles, Miami and New York city. Visit them@nickersoncos.com. Last week during my conversation with Dr. Tannenbaum, she mentioned the power of commonality in connecting people together. I've talked about this a lot over the years. It's one of the reasons that I created the list yourself approach, because something on your list. Well, 100% be a bullet on someone else's list. And you can use that shared interest as a way to begin your conversation. These commonalities and shared interests allow us to have conversations, build relationships, and also it creates the possibility of doing these things together and creating shared experiences with someone else. When it comes to conversations, especially initial conversations with someone we need to do more listening than talking. We need to use those dopamine inducing questions to grab onto the threads of commonality that you discover between you and the other person. And I don't want you to use this in networking situations alone. Think about capitalizing on discovering what the interests are of your coworkers and your existing clients as well. There are a number of things that you might have in common with someone else, but let's think about them in terms of buckets of interests. So. Let's look at the four easiest buckets to talk about. Entertainment or hobbies. So entertainment could be. Books. Television in case anyone is wondering what show I'm currently watching. It's Ted lasso. Dammit. If you haven't watched Ted lasso, just press pause on this and go get on apple TV and just watch an episode and then come back here. It's not good. Okay. So entertainment could also be podcasts. You listen to, they don't have to be true crime. There are so many out there. It could be music. It could be sports, professional or collegiate. Could be anything. Um, hobbies. You know, entertainment and hobbies, uh, hobbies offer a veritable schmorgus board of things you could have in common, like running or skiing or biking or kayaking or chess or knitting or golf or wine tasting or video gaming or gardening or traveling, whatever. There's so many things that could fall in that bucket. So the next bucket would be. Issues. So now I'm going to say, please stay away from politics and religion here, unless those two things, those two issues are actually part of your job and, or you are at a networking event specifically for either of those two things. Okay. Other issues could be animal welfare. We all know that I'm all about rescuing animals and donating to animal shelters. So that's something I have in common with a lot of people. There is disaster relief organizations, the environment. There's so many things that are important to you, that others also have a passion for. Wait. After talking to Terry, am I not supposed to use the word passion? Am I supposed to be looking for a different word in affinity for, okay. Let's go with affinity and affinity for. The third bucket would be mutual friends. Remember when I talked about triadic closure and how relationships that share common friendships tend to be stronger. When you were talking to someone and you find out that you have friends in common. It's almost like a validates your friendship with that person. Of course, we're friends because we have all these other mutual friends. Like of course we're friends. Definitely tap into the power of common connections and friendships take the time to scope this out. When you're meeting new people. To discover how many friends you have in common or how many connections you have in common with that other person? It's a very, very powerful tool. And another bucket would be shared history or similar experience. This is why alumni groups work so well because they are built off of the shared experience that you all have of attending the same college or university, even if you didn't attend at the same time. The commonality of the shared experience is powerful here. This is also why support groups work so well for people. Because we like to talk to people. We have an understanding of an experience that we have gone through. In the future, when talking with people, see if you can unearth a shared experience that you might not know, you have. When I wrote my book, I was honest about the fact that my biological father was a heroin addict. I was honest about what this did to my life and how he died at the age of 57 because of his addiction. Since I wrote that book I cannot tell you how many people have reached out to me to say that they grew up with a parent who was also an addict. That reading my book made them feel seen. This similar experience was so strong of a connection that people reached out to me to thank me for writing about it. Similar experiences bond as to others, even though the experience we'd had, wasn't shared with them. Have you ever been on vacation and country where you don't speak the language? Like have you ever been on a vacation in a country where you're like, I don't understand a fucking word. Anybody is saying around here. And then suddenly you hear someone talking in English. What do you do? You find them, and then you start talking to them because they speak English because you have that in common, because you've been surrounded by people who don't speak English and then you've glommed onto this one person because they speak English. Doesn't matter. If that person is from Boston or California or Texas or England, you don't give a shit. They speak English. So you want to talk to them? Commonality. Relationships formed on a shared interest or experience. It's a powerful thing and a tool that you should be using in your business. So we are in the throws of fall. You're all. So the drink of the week. Is an apple cider bourbon cocktail. It's a little. More sophisticated. Then the last cider cocktail I made, which was like, um, I don't know, grabbed some cider, grabbed some rum and store it with a cinnamon stick. This is a legit cocktail. Here's what you're going to need. Two ounces of bourbon. One ounce of apple cider, one ounce of sweet for mood. A half an ounce of lemon juice. Remember fresh lemon juice and a dash of orange bitters. Okay. So this is what you're doing. Oh, if you want a garnish, you can garnish it with an apple slice and a Sprig of time. So, this is what you're going to do. The bourbon, the cider, the sweet vermouth in the lemon juice. You're going to combine that in a mixing glass with ice, and you're going to Our star till it's really cold. And then you're going to strain it into a coupe glass and then. Add that dash of orange bitters at the end, and then garnish with the apple slices. In the time. All right friends, you know, it's been a while since I asked you to all, please submit a review on iTunes and it kind of shows because there haven't been any new reviews on iTunes in like forever. Uh, even though the listenership is still growing and continues to grow with every episode. So if you don't know how to leave her a review, I've included a handy link to a video in the show notes, which will show you exactly how to do it. So pretty deeply take a moment to leave a review. It really does help other people discover this podcast. Next week is going to be a super, super, super fun episode and it's all your stories. It's highlighting all of the cringe-worthy networking stories that you have sent to me. And some of them are pretty damn funny. So until then, Cheers.