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And



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in most cases the fuel for new relationships is common interests.



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But what if you don't have a common interest with somebody.



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Well think about this for a second.



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So you're here in this course and you're probably a pretty smart person.



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I mean after all you did take the time to take a course on developing your soft skills and building



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your career.



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In fact I would guess that you really love to learn who doesn't love to learn.



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I know there are some people that don't but I bet you that you do.



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So let me tell you how this all connects.



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So for example I made friends with a guy called Brian Birbal and Brian Burwell had been kind of around



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my family a little bit.



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He was he was a family friend and Brian Birdwell was the CEO of one of the largest management consulting



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companies in the world.



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He is an extremely successful man and he is a Stanford MBA.



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He's done consulting engagements with companies like Heineken and Volkswagen.



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He knows Fortune 500 CEOs all over the world and I respect Brian and I want him to become his friend



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so that we could talk about things like business.



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Brian Birdwell was really interested in reading and history and I found this out really quickly by asking



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questions.



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What do you like to do with your time.



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Oh ok.



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Why do you like that.



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And over time I found out that Brian was really interested in Abraham Lincoln.



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So I started asking him about Abraham Lincoln so you can see the sign in it.



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Let's just take a step back here.



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The dynamic is that I have found out that Brian is interested in Abraham Lincoln.



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I am generally genuinely curious and generally curious.



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So I just asked Brian about Abraham Lincoln.



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Now Brian is going to want to talk about that because he's interested in that right now.



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Brian started sending me books he would send me books on Abraham Lincoln and I would read them they



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were fascinating.



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And now Brian is a really good friend of mine and he actually was an early investor in easel so I'll



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present a situation to you.



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Let's say that you have a meeting with me coming up how would you find out what I'm interested in and



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formulate some questions to ask me.



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I'll give you a little hint.



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Lots of people are on social media and I'll go ahead and put my Twitter handle here on the screen at



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the link.



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Go to the Twitter handle and then think about some questions you would ask me.



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I'll pause the video and wait for your response.



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All right.



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Now that you're back I would guess that after visiting my Twitter profile you found things like that



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I'm interested in things like sustainability innovation entrepreneurship journalism.



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The fact of the matter is most people are on social media these days.



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If you have a meeting with an H.R. person a CEO a line manager maybe it's a sales contact.



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You can find out what they're interested in if they're interested in the natural world.



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Maybe that's a good topic to bring up early on right.



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So sell up here.



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Common ground is the fuel or forming new relationships.



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And you just need to have a little bit of curiosity to ask the right questions to start finding common



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ground with people that you're meeting.