Connecting is identifying and relating to increase your influence.  When you communicate the goal is to create a connection.  

Opportunities to connect occur in networking, office gathering, meetings and training.  Make connecting fun and a challenge.  Seek out avenues that cause you to make contact with other individuals.  

When making a connection, you are striving to create an experience that individuals will enjoy and remember.  You want to be remembered.  

Connections are made with the heart using the tongue.  The tongue communicates what is in your heart.  

3 Key Factors to Connecting:

1. All about others. It is not about you but about the other individuals.  Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply. -Stephen Covey
2. Requires energy.  Be fully present to listen with curiosity to understand what is behind the words.  Do not listen to reply but listen to understand.   
3. Aids in finding common ground to lift you and the participants to higher ground.  Seek to find commonalities and similarities.  Building and creating alliances supporting in soaring higher to get to the new levels. 

The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. -George Bernard Shaw.

There are three powerful communicators that have impacted my growth and development.  

• Bill Clinton – forged an emotional connection with his audience through nonverbal communications.  Does not distract using rehearsed gestures or gimmicks.  He had the ability to get his point across.  
• Martin Luther King, Jr. – Monumental speech “I Have a Dream”.  He delivered it with passion and using anaphora.  He repeated the same phrase at the beginning of different sentences. King said “I have a dream” eight times.  Repetition done tastefully and in the right places, reinforces the point and solidifies it into the minds of the listeners.
• Oprah Winfrey – Understood that listening is as important, if not more important, than speaking.  She was honest and earned the trust of her audience.  She was genuinely interested, developing empathy and putting the focus on the person speaking.  

There are five tips that I have incorporated to aid me in communicating to connect:  

1. Build the relationship first.  First show that you care.  Take the time to say “Good morning.”   Ask how the other person is doing.  Showing that you care builds rapport.   Aids in building trust and creating influence.
2. Listen more than you speak. Do not dominate the discussion. Imagine a meeting where the presenter talked for 55 minutes of the hour.  The presenter failed to understand the audience and to discover what they needed.  There is only one rule for being a good talker – learn to listen.” -Christopher Morley
3. Focus on understanding the other person’s motives.  Do not spend time on preparing a response.  Instead focus on asking good questions to help you get clarity and understand what the other person is communicating.   Seek to uncover what is really behind the words. Asking questions shows engagement, willingness to learn and obtain understanding.  Let the emphasis be on listening and understanding.  The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” -Peter Drucker
4. Pay attention to nonverbal communication.  Voice tone, body language and facial expressions speak louder than words.  Nonverbal has a great impact on the interaction and the message.  
5. Open your mind to new ideas.   Do not immediately reject a new idea, approach or way of thinking.  Take time to pause and consider the possibilities.  Your way is A Way, there is another way.  

I leave you with this final thought.

Half the world is comprised of people who have something to say and can’t and the other half are who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. -Robert Frost 

Which half do you fall in? 

Contributed by H.S. Jackson, Author, Coach, Speaker and Trainer