The Third
Principle:
Connecting
Before
you can begin to build a relationship with
another person, that person must have the
desire to enter into the process with you.
You may be a perfect match for each other,
but if you don’t start connecting —
establishing a link or bond with the person
— from the very beginning, you’ll
never find out.
The first two
principles we discussed were really laying
the ground rules. You’ve set the stage
for what you want and need. You have
established a process for communicating those
needs with your partner. Well, it’s like
taking dancing lessons; you’ve learned
the steps, you’ve picked the music you
like. You’ve even decided whom you want
to dance with. Now, it’s time to act.
You’ve got to get the person to want
to dance with you. The music is
playing, so let’s begin...
This chapter
was somewhat difficult for me to do, perhaps
because it’s about a topic that has been
covered so many times before. So many books
and articles have been written about how to
attract someone. Though some of this material
contains some pretty good ideas, I can’t
help but wonder: why isn’t all that
advice working? With all the books and tapes
out there, why don’t we all know
how to instantly get someone? Why are so many
wonderful, delightful people still looking,
always looking, yet never finding the person
they want?
My purpose
here is to share with you not merely good
ideas, but actual techniques that have
worked well for many people — including
people with much less going for them than you
have. I’m not going to teach you how to
flirt, how to seduce, or how to come up with
a great opening line. I do hope to show you
how to truly connect with
other people, how to attract people into
your life who can participate in your future
growth.
But first I
think we’d better say a few words on how
not to connect.
Flirting
with trouble?
Many people think flirting is a harmless pastime. But is
it? As a matter of fact, flirting can keep you from truly
connecting with someone.
Most of the
people I know who have good, long-term relationships are
not flirtatious at all. They are very much one-man women
and one-woman men. They are, however, friendly people who
have a knack for connecting with everybody.
Take Stacy,
a friend of mine who, prior to her engagement, dated many
men. She’s always been very popular, has had several
successful relationships, and, in fact, has received more
marriage proposals than any woman I’ve ever known.
One day I said to her, "Stacy, I want to talk to you
about getting people’s attention, and about attracting
men. What do you think about flirting?"
Stacy replied,
"I’ve never been a flirt. Have you ever seen me
be seductive, bat my eyes, or in any way act flirtatious
with a man other than the one I’m with? I’m a
very faithful, very loyal person."
We were in the
grocery store at this time, and as we approached the checkout
lane a male sacker recognized Stacy and rushed up to her,
took her cart and whisked her into a line ahead of several
other people. Stacy greeted the checker with a smile and
then said to her sacker friend, "So how are you doing
today, Alex? It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?"
He said, "Yes,
it is. It’s really pretty." They continued their
light banter as he sacked her groceries, and then he eagerly
said, "Here, let me take your key and get you out to
your car."
As we exited
the store she asked him, "By the way, are you still
playing those lotteries?" He said, "Yes. I even
had one win." Stacy replied with genuine enthusiasm,
"Oh, really? That’s great. Do you have a system?"
With that he launched into an enthusiastic recounting of
his personal lottery number-picking system.
Throughout this
exchange I noticed how well Stacy connected with this person.
She wasn’t flirting, and she certainly wasn’t
attempting to seduce him; she was connecting.
I looked up
the word "flirt" in the dictionary. The Webster’s
Dictionary definition of flirt is "to act amorously...without
serious intention." This certainly doesn’t sound
like something a person of integrity would do. Next I looked
up "seduction." To seduce, according to the same
dictionary, means to persuade someone to have sexual intercourse
with you for the first time. It also means "to lead
astray from duty, to persuade someone into wrongdoing by
offering temptations."
Well, who would
want to persuade someone to do something they didn’t
want to do, or that wasn’t good for them? Who would
want to act with such false intentions? Is this the type
of person you want to be, or to have a relationship with?
Women, when
you’re flirting with a man across the room and acting
seductively towards him, what is he thinking about? Is he
thinking about you as a person? Is he thinking about getting
to know you, or about having a serious relationship in the
future with you? No! He is responding to the seduction,
not the person. In other words, he is focusing on sex. At
this point, a relationship does exist, but it is a shallow
one at best. It may result in sex, but sex in and of itself
does not equal intimacy.
Or, men, think
about this. A woman is batting her eyes, essentially using
you for an "equipment check" — gauging your
responses to make sure her seductive apparatus is still
in working order. Is she thinking about you as a person?
Is she thinking about advancing her (or your) spiritual
growth? No, she’s not. She’s looking to you for
validation of her attractiveness.
I’m assuming
you want to attract your soul mate, someone with whom to
spend your life. You cannot do this by being deceptive or
by "acting in an amorous way without serious intention."
You can’t do it by trying to persuade someone to have
sex with you when you don’t have any intention of becoming
emotionally involved with that person.
Eleven
secrets to making a true connection
You may be wondering what I mean by "connection,"
if not that initial surge of excitement you feel when some
incredibly attractive person first catches your eye. That’s
a fair question, so let me explain. By connection, I mean
that initial link with a person and the sense that there
is, at some level, an affinity between the two of you. That
link is a signpost that herein lie the makings of a real
relationship.
Before we go
any further I want to share a list of eleven secrets about
connecting. These are all important to know if you truly
want to connect with someone, anyone; in fact, I recommend
you use them to enhance all of the relationships in your
life, not just the relationship with your soul mate.
1. Your
happiness depends on you and your state of mind — not
on your state of matrimony or relationship. Think
of this secret as the Prime Directive. You don’t have
to be married, or in a relationship, to be happy. Happiness,
like self-confidence, is an inside job. In fact, let’s
face it: there are many unhappy married people out there.
They’re miserable, and wish they were single. They
think single people have it all. While it’s fine to
set a goal of having a wonderful, loving relationship, it
is a mistake to believe that you can’t be happy until
you reach that goal. You’ve got to enjoy the journey.
You have to live your joy, not search for it.
2. You
cannot be too attached to the outcome of the relationship.
If you can accept the first secret, this one shouldn’t
be too difficult. In Chapter One we talked a little bit
about the importance of not getting too attached, but it’s
a point worth repeating because it is absolutely critical
to remember when you’re contemplating a relationship
with anybody.
I want to make
an important distinction here. Remaining unattached to the
outcome doesn’t mean that you don’t care about
the person or the relationship. It means that you don’t
have a clearly defined script which must be followed in
order for you to realize a positive benefit from your involvement.
Your goal is to attract people and connect with them, as
opposed to attaching yourself to some specific result.
Please note
this secret applies at any stage of a relationship, not
only at the beginning. Technically, a relationship exists
from the moment you meet somebody. Whether it becomes a
lifelong relationship or merely lasts a few hours, you should
gaze "with hunter’s eye," as a poet once
wrote, to constantly seek its value to your continued growth
and happiness.
3. Two
whole people are what makes a relationship work, not two
desperate people who are trying to fill up their own emptiness
with someone else. You do not want to attach yourself
to another person out of desperation, hoping to reinforce
your sense of self worth. Even as you do not want to be
attached to an outcome, you don’t want to be attached
to another person in such a way as to restrict the person’s
freedom to grow. Your objective is to connect, to link with
people who are going to help you along your path to being
a better person.
Men, do you think that a woman can’t tell if you are
in desperate need of attaching yourself to her? Women, do
you think that men can’t tell if you’re looking
for a meal ticket or someone to take care of you?
No one wants
a person who is endlessly needy. They want a whole, vibrant,
unique person who has a full life. They want to be with
someone who brings happiness into a relationship, not someone
who desperately looks to the relationship as their sole
source of happiness.
4. People
want to connect with a happy, confident person.
One of the biggest turn-ons in the world is a person who
is obviously happy. Everybody wants to be around a happy
person. When happy people walk in the room, smiling and
upbeat, people gravitate toward them because they want to
share that person’s happiness and confidence. Just
by being around a happy person, others begin to see the
same happy world for themselves.
How, then, do
you realize your own happiness and confidence, so you can
project it to others? A great way to start is to go back
to the exercises you did for the first chapter and concentrate
on what is good about you. Focus on your assets and on how
you’re diminishing your liabilities. Don’t forget
to look at that little list and the affirmation you created
to carry around with you everywhere. Do whatever it takes
to reinforce your confidence in yourself. Remind yourself
that you are a unique, worthwhile person. Build your confidence,
and make sure that confidence comes across every time you
encounter another person.
5. Smile,
smile, smile! Learn the art of the genuine smile,
and practice it often.
This goes along
with happiness and confidence. Perhaps you feel this advice
is simplistic, but think about it — what do happy,
confident people consistently do? That’s right: they
smile. I’m not talking about a phony smile or a grimace,
but a smile that comes from within. If you’re working
to develop and enforce your happiness and self-confidence,
a genuine smile will come easily. So do learn to smile more
— not just at people, but within yourself. You’ll
be amazed at the difference it makes. As the old song says,
"Smile, and the world smiles with you."
6. Practice
eye contact — but don’t overdo it. It
has been truthfully said that the eyes are the windows to
the soul. People want you to look at them. And people who
want to establish a level of intimacy with you want you
to look beyond their surface.
They also want
to know that you are looking in and focusing on them and
only them, not on everything else that’s going on in
the room. There’s nothing worse for a woman than being
on a date and having the guy sit there looking around the
room at all the other women who walk in. What does this
say to her? It says that this man’s interest in her
will last only until something better comes along. People
who are good connectors make eye contact, and place their
focus entirely on the person they’re trying to connect
with. Making eye contact with a person helps keep that person’s
focus on you as well.
This "eye-contact"
business can be a bit of a double-edged sword, however,
and should be handled somewhat delicately. While you want
to establish good eye contact to let a person know you are
interested, you don’t want to stare unceasingly into
the person’s eyes. Look away occasionally, to think
about what has been said and to allow each of you a sense
of private space. While intimacy involves sharing each other’s
secrets, we all need to feel that part of us is withheld
from general view.
You probably
know what it feels like to have someone gaze intently into
your eyes, never looking away. You sometimes get the feeling
that you’re in the company of one of those emotional
"black holes" we mentioned earlier — that
the person wants to fill up with your thoughts and feelings.
Or perhaps you feel the person is trying in some way to
manipulate you, exercise some sort of control, establish
some type of "power" over you, with an unwavering
gaze. In any case, you don’t like it, and neither does
anybody else.
No matter how
deep the level of intimacy you achieve with another person,
you each need to maintain your own individual space, inviolate.
When you first meet someone, it’s particularly important
to respect the boundaries of individual space. Master the
judicious use of eye contact, and you’ve gone a long
way towards mastering the art of connecting.
7. Genuinely
care and have empathy for the other person. We
all need to feel that someone really cares about us. When
you go to a therapist, you pay $100 or more an hour for
the privilege of having the therapist listen to you with
great focus. She may ask a few questions to help you think
about your situation from a different perspective, but for
the most part she simply listens. And generally, you leave
feeling better. I have a friend who refers to therapy as
"rent-a-friend." But no matter what we think about
it, the truth is that it helps. In fact, I think it would
help if the counselor didn’t give you any advice at
all. What she’s giving you of value is her total focus,
her energy. Your self-esteem goes up because you’re
feeling a connection with another human being.
What happens
if you go to regular sessions with a therapist for a year?
At the end of that year, you may know virtually nothing
about the therapist, but you feel very close to her because
she knows so much about you. The key to connection here
is not so much that you’re telling all about yourself
and sharing mystical clues about your innermost workings.
It’s that you’re being focused upon by someone
who is genuinely interested in you.
Most of our
relationships, of course, take place outside of the therapist’s
office. I have a good friend named Leah who, like my friend
Stacy, connects with everyone. She connects with the sales
women in department stores, with the waiters and waitresses
in restaurants, with virtually everybody with whom she comes
in contact — but she never flirts. She has a husband
with whom she’s madly in love, but men and women like
her and remember her because she connects. Perhaps her greatest
quality is that she’s very empathetic. She genuinely
cares about what people have to say, and they love her for
it.
I suggest you
cultivate this quality too, but it must be as genuine as
Leah’s. In fact, this is a characteristic you don’t
even want to consider faking. You know how easy it is to
spot someone who pretends to care about you when they really
don’t, and you know how uncomfortable you feel around
someone like that.
You may be asking,
"Okay, so how can I create a feeling of genuine caring?
That almost seems a contradiction in terms." The truth
is, it’s really pretty simple: you have to have empathy.
And empathy is something you can develop. How? You have
to find something about the other person’s situation
or personality to which you can relate. Perhaps you can
remember a time when you felt a similar emotion or had a
similar experience. You need to figuratively walk in that
person’s shoes. As you begin to empathize, you will
find you don’t need to create or fake that caring.
It will arise naturally.
Perhaps most
important of all, learn to be a good listener. If eye contact
and smiling are the icing, the art of listening with your
full attention is the cake. If you really want to connect
with somebody, ask questions that show you’re truly
interested in what that person thinks and feels.
8. Learn to laugh and find humor in your life. Once, when
I was very ill, I read a book by Norman Cousins, Anatomy
of an Illness, in which he illustrated that laughter is
one of the greatest cures for illness. He helped heal himself
by watching funny movies.
Cousins wasn’t
the first to discover that laughter and humor are important,
and he certainly wasn’t the last. Why do you think
so many "humor consultants" are now making a living
conducting seminars and workshops on how people can integrate
laughter into their businesses and their personal lives?
A whole new industry has grown up around the principle that
laughter is vital to our well-being.
This doesn’t
mean that you have to be a professional comedian with a
full repertoire of clever jokes. I’m not talking about
performing humor; I’m talking about recognizing it
and making it part of your life. It’s crucial that
you be capable of seeing humor in your life, even in yourself,
and not being afraid to laugh at it. What a delightful experience
it is to genuinely laugh, not at someone or something, but
with them. When you develop your sense of humor, you develop
your sense of joy in life.
Here’s something else about laughter that you may not
realize: It’s one of the greatest aphrodisiacs in the
world. Laughter and a smile can be more of a turn-on than
bulging biceps or a low cut blouse.
9. People
like to be around other people who are like them; find something
you have in common with the other person and tell that person.
People who are skilled in the art of connecting know how
to find common ground with virtually anybody. If you’re
talking to someone who expresses an interest in a topic
that interests you, by all means, let the person know! This
comes easily if you allow it, for more than likely the other
person will be giving you all sorts of clues. It’s
your job to let someone know when he or she has mentioned
something that sparks your interest.
So effective
is this approach that there is even a sales technique called
"match and marry," in which you zero in on something
you have in common with your prospect and respond accordingly.
By stepping upon common ground with that person, you both
feel more connected immediately.
There’s
only one catch, and you’ve probably guessed it: this
common ground, like empathy, has to be genuine. You wouldn’t
want to fake it, anyway. If you have to pretend to relate
to each other, the entire relationship will be built upon
deception. Even if it did last longer than a few days, would
you really want it to?
A fundamental
requirement of a good relationship, and one of the factors
that deepens the connection between two people, is the sense
that the other person can contribute to your personal growth
by providing you with new information or a fresh perspective.
We’re not talking about latching on to another person
to "fill the hole in your soul." We’re talking
about connecting with someone who shares your interests
and passions, and possesses knowledge that you believe will
broaden your scope of knowledge and awareness.
A client of
mine named Tammy has recently been thinking seriously about
studying one of the forms of martial arts. She told me,
"You wouldn’t believe how many martial arts enthusiasts
have ‘magically’ started to appear in my life,
when I’d never encountered any before! In just two
weeks, I’ve met at least three people who are taking
different forms of martial arts. Of course, each of them
believes that his or her particular form is the only proper
one to learn. When I say I’m interested and that I’m
trying to decide which form to study, they invariably launch
into an explanation of why theirs is the very best. I listen
intently because I truly am interested. And I really think
each one of those people leaves liking me a little better."
I think Tammy’s
right. Her martial arts friends do leave liking her a little
better because they’ve shared something of themselves
with her and they feel connected to her. They feel that
they are contributing to her life, that they are important
and valuable to her. "And it’s a two-way street,"
Tammy adds. "I leave feeling enriched by what they
have shared, because they truly have contributed to my life."
In short, Tammy is connecting with these people.
10. Find
something positive that you really like about a person and
share it with them; if you genuinely like someone they almost
always like you back. Always look for one positive
thing that you really admire about a person, and let them
know it. Of course, it must be genuine. Empty compliments
always seem patronizing or manipulative. Never, never, never
pay a compliment you don’t mean.
Your compliment
should be directed more to the person’s substance than
to physical attributes. For example, if you are trying to
connect with someone who has a beautiful body, it’s
far more effective to say, "I admire the discipline
it must take to work out and be in such great shape,"
than to simply say, "Wow, you have a gorgeous body."
Put yourself in the other person’s place: even if you
do have a fantastic body, wouldn’t you rather be admired
for your self-discipline than your genetic good fortune?
Wouldn’t you rather hear praise about something for
which you can take full credit?
11. Be approachable; no matter how attractive you
are, you must be out there connecting with people.
People don’t connect with people who look unapproachable.
No matter how beautiful or how handsome you are, if you
don’t smile, don’t make eye contact, don’t
laugh, and generally don’t seem interested, you won’t
connect. If you appear aloof, and uninterested in being
approached, nobody ever will approach you, and you will
never make a true connection with another person.
I found this out while working with clients of my video
dating service. Some of the most glamorous women, who looked
as if they had just stepped off of a cover of Vogue, never
got selected. On the other hand, the women who looked like
the girl next door with the big smile were selected so many
times we couldn’t keep up with them. Why? Because they
looked approachable.
If you think about it, you will see that all of these "secrets"
on this list have one common element: they arise naturally
when you allow them to. You don’t have to create interest
in, or focus upon, or caring for, someone you already find
interesting and appealing. You don’t have to force
yourself to look at someone whom you find attractive. You
just have to allow yourself to do what comes most naturally
when you are enjoying the process and not obsessing upon
the end result.
Get out there and practice!
Now that you have these secrets, the best way to use them
is to practice them. That’s what your assignment is
for this chapter.
In your Relationship
Journal or in the space I’ve provided, make a note
of three different people with whom you’ve decided
you truly want to connect. The one stipulation is that you
don’t begin with some attractive person you spot across
the room at a party or a club. It’s best to start out
slowly, in a situation where you don’t feel you have
so much at stake. In fact none of these people should be
someone with whom you have had or want to have a romantic
encounter. Here are my suggestions:
1. The first
person should be a very casual acquaintance or perhaps someone
whom you don’t know at all.
2. The second person should be someone you work with, ideally,
somebody with whom you do not get along very well.
3. The third person should be a platonic friend.
For example,
try exerting your happiness with the sacker at the grocery
store or the counter person at your favorite fast-food restaurant.
Find out, in a safe situation, just how infectious and engaging
your smile really is. As the person responds in kind, notice
how much higher your confidence level is. This simple act
will build your confidence much more than going out and
catching someone’s eye at a bar, batting your eyes
and wiggling seductively (or strutting defiantly if you’re
a man). The response your smile will elicit will be one
of acknowledgment and appreciation.
As in previous
chapters, please do not skip over this assignment. Truly
practice being open, listening, being empathetic, and being
generally better at connecting.
Gauge your progress; make notes each evening about what
you did well and what you could have done better. If you
really practice these techniques you will notice that people
are connecting more easily with you, and getting more interested
in you. This will help you tremendously when you begin dating.
You may begin
this assignment right away, and complete it over the next
week or so. Even after the assignment is completed, continue
using the secrets of connecting with everyone you meet.
Exercise
I. Practicing Connection Skills
Person Number 1: Casual acquaintance
Relationship:
Results:
Person Number 2: Co-worker (with whom I am having conflict)
Relationship:
Results:
Person Number
3: Platonic friend
Relationship:
Results:
Okay, so where and how do I start meeting
those wonderful people I’m actually going to date?
Let’s say you’re on your way to mastering the
secrets of truly connecting with casual acquaintances and
platonic friends. That’s terrific. Sooner or later,
however, you’re going to want to start connecting with
people for dating purposes. Where do you go to meet these
people?
I’m not
going to spend a great deal of time in this chapter on all
the different ways you can meet people, because there are
already plenty of books about that. The fact is you meet
people everywhere — in the grocery store, while pursuing
your hobbies, in classes, at the gym. Meeting people is
the easy part; actually connecting with them is trickier.
Perhaps I’m
prejudiced, but I think that dating services are a wonderful
idea. You can be reasonably certain that the other people
are really interested in relationships if they’re willing
to spend time, energy and even some money to find people
who interest them and screen out those who don’t.
In my opinion,
bars and clubs are some of the poorest places to meet interesting
people. All too often, you end up with people who perceive
drinking as a necessary tool for establishing relationships.
And there’s no doubt that some of these people have
a serious drinking problem. It’s a hard place to make
a significant soulful connection.
I’m not
saying you should completely eliminate clubs as a source
of contact. Just be wary; be really awake, and very clear.
Know your own limits, and stay within them. It’s possible
to meet the person of your dreams while partying at a club,
but be clear enough (yes, I mean sober enough!) to tell
the difference between the person of your dreams and the
dreams themselves. You may have heard the old joke about
"leaving the bar with a 10, but waking up with a 2."
It’s a joke based in sad truth. Let the connection
between you be real, based upon who you both are as people,
not upon your comparative levels of need and intoxication.
On that note, I’ll put my soap box away, at least until
Chapter Four when we talk about safe sex.
Friends are
a good source of people to meet. If you clearly state what
you are looking for, your friends can be a wealth of material
for relationships. You must, however, never assume that
your friends know what you want.
Robin, a client I recently worked with, had ended a long-term
relationship and decided she was ready to start dating again.
When she asked me for advice, my first suggestion was that
she try asking friends to introduce her to somebody. She
returned a couple of weeks later, somewhat discouraged.
"I’ve called up all my friends and asked them
to introduce me to someone," Robin said. "They
all told me the same thing: ‘I don’t know anyone
who’s good enough for you.’" Her friends’
flattery was sincere; Robin happens to be a very attractive
woman with a lot to offer — but all the compliments
in the world couldn’t bring her any closer to meeting
somebody she wanted to date. "What should I do?"
she asked me.
I suggested
she try again but that she be more clear with her friends
about how important this was to her. "Let them off
the hook," I suggested. "Call them back and tell
them to really think about it, but let them know you’re
not looking for a soul mate at this point. Your objective
is just to start getting out again."
So Robin approached
her friends a second time with clearer criteria. "I
told them, ‘Look, it doesn’t have to be the person
of my dreams; I just need to get out and start being around
people again. I’m not looking for someone who meets
impossibly high standards. I mean...do you know anyone who
can breathe and walk at the same time?’"
Once she began
placing more emphasis on the matter, once she let them know
she was serious, her friends began to seriously consider
her request. Then Robin decided to carry her plan a step
further. "One of my closest friends, a woman named
Sherri, owns a barber shop," she explained, "which
meant she cut lots of men’s hair. To drive the point
home about how serious I was, I said, ‘Listen, Sherri,
if you introduce me to someone I go out with more than three
times, I’ll give you $200. If you introduce me to someone
whom I actually have an intimate relationship with, I’ll
give you $500.’ Sherri laughed and laughed — until
I said, ‘I’m dead serious.’
"Sherri
came up with a couple of candidates, each of whom I did
go out with more than three times. When I offered to give
her the money she said, ‘Don’t be silly, you’re
one of my very closest friends.’ The point is, offering
the money made her realize how serious I was. It made her
know I really wanted to meet people." In fact, Robin
has been steadily dating one of the men Sherri introduced
her to; they’ve been going out for a few months now
and are planning a ski trip together.
I’m not
suggesting that you adopt Robin’s tactic of offering
money, but you do have to let your friends know how important
this is to you. And once they start fixing you up, thank
them for it.
*
* *
I hope I’ve
gotten the wheels turning in your head. I hope you’re
realizing that you have lots of places to meet people; perhaps
you’re going to join a dating service, or ask your
friends to introduce you to someone, or scope out the possibilities
at the gym or the community college where you take your
night courses. There really are many choices, and we’ve
just skimmed the possibilities here.
The best way
to ensure that you actually start meeting people, however,
is to set this up as a goal. The goal-setting principles
we discussed in Chapter One apply here too. All you have
to do is set up a goal and write it down, e.g., "I
am going to meet and go out with at least two new people
in the next 30 days." Then take steps to make that
goal happen. Work at it just the way you would work at going
out and finding prospects if you were in sales. The people
you meet do not have to be the "perfect people"
— the point is to get out there and get started.
Now that I’m meeting people...what
if they’re not quite what I expected?
Let’s say you’ve set your goals and you’ve
succeeded in making a date with someone; your best friend
has fixed you up with a co-worker, or you’ve gone to
a video dating service and chosen someone who looks promising.
You’re excited, perhaps a bit nervous, and you can’t
wait to practice the principles of connecting with this
dream date.
What if the
man or woman who shows up at the door or meets you after
work at the local cappuccino bar is not the person of your
dreams? First of all, even if you know right away that this
is not your soul mate, nor even someone you’ll want
to date casually, you still want to connect with that person.
You don’t need to go out again, but you do need to
connect.
And just because
this person wasn’t the paragon you were hoping for,
that doesn’t mean you’re going to have a miserable
night. He or she may ultimately introduce you to your soul
mate. Or this perfect stranger could become a dear friend,
and you must never underestimate the value of a friend of
the opposite sex. You just never know; everyone you meet
is the key to a world of possibilities. Someone once said
that each stranger is a bearer of gifts. I’ve found
that to be true: every person has something unique to offer,
but if you’re so focused on what someone is not, you
never will discover who that person is.
Above all, don’t
ever show disappointment. This is another human being, a
person with feelings — so do everything you would do
normally to connect with someone. You’re not flirting,
you’re not trying to be seductive, you’re not
giving off false signals; you’re trying to get to know
your date as a person.
Don’t be
discouraged if the first several people you meet don’t
turn out to be potential soul mates. There is something
in all of us that wants, even expects, instant gratification
of our wishes; when we first start getting ourselves back
out there in the world we only want to go out with "prime
candidates."
It’s a
given that you’re not going to meet your mate if you
don’t get out there, but if you haven’t dated
for a long time, or have been dating unsuccessfully, the
odds are you’d sabotage the relationship even if the
perfect person walked in your door right now. You need some
people to "practice" with. You need people to
sharpen your connecting skills with. In other words, you
need those people who "aren’t quite right"
for you. If you truly practice finding what’s good
about everyone you meet, I can guarantee you’ll be
richly rewarded.
* * *
...This has
been a very important (if very lengthy) chapter. I hope
you practice the principles of connecting for the rest of
your life, because connecting with people is one of the
most important skills you’ll ever learn; it helps you
in all areas of your life, whether business or personal.
So practice
these principles, and over the next year go back and "refine
your technique." An effective way to do this is to
ask for feedback from your friends. Ask them, "Do I
really focus on you? What are some of the things that I
do wrong?" Ask your girlfriends to watch you; ask your
guy friends for feedback.
If you’re
a man, I realize that asking another man to give you criticism
is a heavy step. Maybe even asking a woman friend for feedback
is scary. Most men don’t like to ask for criticism,
but if you’re really committed to personal growth,
you will.
If you practice
what you’ve learned in this chapter you’ll find
yourself becoming better and better at connecting. You’ll
discover you’re making more solid connections with
more positive people — and that, my friend, will lead
you to have a better life.
Now hang on
to your hat, because next we’re going to get into Chemistry.
