Strong mutually beneficial relationships are an important key to your life and career success. I devote 20 tweets in my career advice book Success Tweets to relationship building. But I missed one. Here it is…
Tweet 140a” “Get to know the people you work with as people. Learn about their thoughts, dreams, hopes and values.”
It isn’t difficult to do this. John Maxwell, one of my favorite leadership and career success writers, says you can get to know others very well by asking them three questions…
- What do you dream about?
- What makes you sad?
- What makes you happy?
I agree with him when he says, “If you can uncover a person’s dreams, hurts, and joys, you’ve discovered the central dimensions of their life.”
When you get to know another person’s dreams you see what excites them. You learn about their passions. Tweet 121 in Success Tweets says, “Get genuinely interested in others. Help bring out the best in everyone you know. Others will gravitate to you.” There is no better way to get to know others and help bring out the best in them than by asking them about their passions. I have had remarkable conversations with people who were passionate about something in which I thought I had no interest. But by listening to these talk about their passions, I not only learned something, I learned a lot more about them as people. And my life was all the richer for it.
When you take thetime to find out what makes people sad you are showing that you really care about them. Tweet 127 in Success Tweets says, “Pay it forward. Build relationships by giving with no expectation of return. Give of yourself to build strong relationships.” Listening to someone who is willing to share his or her vulnerabilities, someone who is willing to share stories of his her pain and loss, is a great way to pay it forward. This type of listening helps you add huge deposits to the emotional bank account you have with this person.
Learning about what brings joy to another person is also a great way to get to know them. Often these things are something very simple that you can do for another at little or no cost. It’s very important to do these things. Doing things that bring joy to others is a wonderful way to build strong relationships. Besides that, it’s fun. John Maxwell says, “Enjoyment is an incredible energizer to the human spirit. When a person operates in an area of pleasure, they are apt to be brimming with life and exuding passion.” I agree.
The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Build strong relationships with the people in your life by showing that you care about them. Learn about their dreams and what makes them happy or sad. When you take the time to learn about another person, you show that you care. And caring is important. Tweet 124 in Success Tweets says, “Everyone has something to offer. Never dismiss anyone out of hand.” This is great career advice. You never know who might be important to you and your career success. That’s why you want to build strong, constructive relationships with as many people as you can. Besides that, learning about others in a rewarding experience in and of itself.
That’s my career advice on getting to know people at a deep, not superficial level. What do you think? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment. As always thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.
Bud
PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained. It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy. You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.
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