5 Simple but Powerful Ways to Connect with People & Build Relationships through Philosophy
...Even if You're Shy or Introverted
It is frighteningly common how many people feel more disconnected and isolated than ever. Especially in a world that is more globalized and connected than ever.
Take a moment to think about that. It kinda doesn’t make any sense. At all.
It is literally easier than ever before to meet people from all over the world through the magic of modern travel and the internet. Yet so many of us feel like we cannot connect with even those that consatntly surround us. We feel like nobody understands us. Perhaps can’t understand us. And that it’s really hard to break through the polite bullshit and really talk about something that matters with people.
We’ve lost touch with the art of connecting with each other. With the art of building relationships.
Back in the day meeting someone out in the world (not in your native village) was a momentous occasion. It is no accident that Zeus was the god of hosts. Connecting with strangers, sharing stories, and beliefs about different parts of the world have been a part of the human experience for a very long time. In the industrial-revolution—fueled-economic-rush to connect technologically with one another, we have gained the opportunity to connect with basically everyone. To take advantage of this opportunity, we must rekindle the art of connecting.
How can we do this? Well, awesome as it might be, we don’t need to burn fat tied around animal thighs to honor the gods for our guests. We can begin with a cheaper but also more fundamental approach. A philosophical approach.
1. Realize that You have the Power to Connect and Build Better Relationships by Having Better Conversations
The quality of our relationships largely depends on the quality of our interactions.
The quality of our interactions largely depends on the quality of our conversations.
A bit of reflection and observation confirm that:
The quality of our conversations largely depends on what information we discuss with each other and how we make each other feel.
So, if we want to improve the quality of our relationships, we can begin by improving the quality of the information we discuss. The quality of the feelings we make each other experience.
It’s weird and kind of simple, right? But I think you’ll agree with me that this is basically right.
What’s the best way to do this? The first step is as easy as asking better questions.
2. Learn to Ask Better Questions: Awesome Questions
Connecting better with people begins in a simple enough place: asking better questions. All too often, we waste our time with polite small-talk about the weather and shallow pleasantries about our commute.
Life is too short for that shit.
We must do away with that polite ordinary oppressiveness. It only makes people gravitate towards meaningless small talk.
In order to do so, you don’t need to put on an amazing, contrived show. You don’t need to be the life of the party or an extroverted social butterfly.
Remember, the quality of our connections depends largely on the quality of the information we discuss and the feelings we experience. We can, therefore, connect better by asking awesome questions that make people discuss information that makes people come alive. Information that makes people want to share their sincere joys, passions, and fears with the world.
Start with these three questions next time you want to connect with someone, be it a stranger or somebody you’ve known your whole life.
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What’s the most exciting thing in your personal life right now?
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This question is an awesome way to get somebody to discuss something that makes them come alive and that gives you some important information about them.
When a person answers this, you get a view into something that really matters to them and how it connects to their present position. This question thus allows you to get a glimpse of some important aspects of a person’s life. Where they want to be. Where they are. How they’re getting to what they want to be.
When a person answers this question, they share what they take to be important in life. Their answers can help you see what they care about in their development as a person. What they want their lives, relationships, and projects to look like.
Even if you don’t like a person’s answer. Even if you completely disagree with them. This question and listening to their answer will help you understand people at a deep level. At the level of what matters
Another powerful question that allows people to discuss things that make us come alive is a slight variation on the former one:
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What’s the most exciting thing in your professional life right now?
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Whether we like it or not, work is an important part of life. And something that, on some level, gives our life meaning. Everyone wants on some deep, inescapable level to contribute to something greater than ourselves. And work is often one vivid way in which we try to do so.
Although work can often be mind-numbing and soul-sucking, it can also be exciting and empowering. It can give our life meaning because, through it, we contribute.
This question then invites people to share the positive aspects of their work life. Once again, it allows you to see what they care about in their work, and what is happening in their work-life that is working for them. Making them excited.
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Notice that with answers to these two questions, you have the information to start piecing together a relatively deep picture of what the person is like.
Once again, even if you don’t like a person (which will inevitably happen sometimes) you will be able to understand them at a surprisingly deep level by forming a conception of what that person cares about in life and their work. Where they are in their own mind with respect to this. And what is working for them.
A third question that takes a slightly different route but still gets people to discuss something important is:
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Who are your (non-family) heroes or role-models?
This question is a powerful one because it gets people to share the values and ideals that they have cultivated for themselves. This may be in line with their family heroes, but it need not. And when they come apart, I think the non-family heroes tell you more about the person. It tells you about what they've chosen to care about and to hold to be the very best of humanity. Even if it was not taught to them by their family.
Once again, by listening to the answer to this question, we can piece together a picture of what kind of person they are.
Ultimately, as we interact with others, if we are to make the best of it, we want to figure out people’s character. What they really care about. The values and principles they live by. And then we can decide what kind of place we wish to give different people in our life.
People love talking about themselves. By asking the right questions, you can easily get them to talk about important. interesting stuff. Stuff that can teach you a lot about them.
Along with this reflective approach to conversation, a philosophical approach to building better relationships requires self-knowledge. It requires understanding yourself. Being in touch with what you want out life. With what works for you What speaks to you. A key part of this is, of course, to have your own magnificent answers to the above three questions thought out.
3. Learn to Share Your Authentic Answers and Best Selves
If you don’t have answers to these questions at the tip of your fingers, then stop right now. Take a moment. Ponder these questions for some minutes and actually write out answers to them. Answer them in a couple of sentences in a piece of paper or your journal. Get in touch with the good in your life. With what you care about. With what you hold is best in humanity. It’ll empower you in a very real way. Trust me. It’ll be worth it.
If you haven’t done it yet, do it now. Don’t wait. It’ll feel really good once you’re done, trust me.
Once you’ve written out your answers to these questions. You need to realize that these are things that you need to share with people in order to really connect with them. You need to become seriously comfortable with these answers. Talk yourself through them. Revel in what’s exciting about them, what’s exciting about your life. Be willing and excited to share. The world wants to hear it. Much more than they want to hear about the weather.
Be authentic. Don’t censor yourself because you think they won’t like what they hear. If they don’t then fuck ‘em!
Life is too short to spend with false friendships with fake friends. And Magnificent times with true friends are too awesome not to have in your life.
Don’t focus on how awesome you’re coming across. That will make you get in your head and worry about things that ultimately don’t matter.
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Focus instead on doing right by the things that you care about. Building them up for other people to see how truly awesome they are. Let yourself shine by sharing your passion for the things and people you care about in life.
We shine brightest when our light illuminates and reflects the very best of what we care about. Just as important as authentically sharing information is really listening. Truly understanding. Making others feel understood.
4. Learn to Truly and Actively Listen, to Understand, and to Make Others Feel Understood
We've all been in that place when talking to others. You know. Where you find yourself sort of listening, but really just waiting excitedly for your turn to speak. Already rehearsing what you're going to say and how awesome it's going to be. And how smart you'll look.
Natural though that frame of mind is, it seriously kills our ability to connect. We complain about not being understood. But all too often, we do not do nearly enough to make others feel understood. Let us begin with ourselves then.
You need to COMMIT TO TRULY LISTENING. Learn to take your time listening, processing what a person really says. Once again, consider how what they say and do affect your evolving picture of the person they are. Instead of practicing what you're going to say, actually listen to EVERYTHING the person says.
Nod and acknowledge what the person is saying as they share with you. Make them feel understood by genuinely processing and understanding what they’re saying as they are saying it to you.
And then. Once they are done. And only then. Begin to think of your answer and share it. Don’t rush to think of it and give it. It’s far more important that it be considered and authentic than that it be quick.
The power of active listening is not anything new. But it is timeless wisdom. And like all timeless wisdom, it can only improve our lives if we actively employ it and use it to shape our lives.
So let this be the day you decide to really listen to everyone in your life. Wouldn’t that be pretty awesome?
5. Consider the Moral Balance of Love and Respect in Our Interactions
In one of my favorite passages in all of moral philosophy, german philosopher Immanuel Kant writes that love and respect are “moral forces or powers” of attraction and repulsion. Both are needed for us to have moral relations with one another. Relations of mutual benefit in which we help each other pursue our unique happiness together. As part of a community of equals who recognize each other as sources of inviolable moral worth.
You have to continually strike a balance between love/intimacy and respect/autonomy in your evolving relationships. The balance is different for partners, siblings, parents, children, etc. And the balance can and should continually shift as each of us goes through life’s ups and downs.
But it is a balance that always needs to be struck.
We always need to love and help each other, but we always need to respect each other and remain independent individuals. Both of these dimensions need to be considered if we are really to do justice not just by others but by ourselves in the way we connect, interact, and build relationships with one another.
Even life partners are partners. Not a single entity. There is something pathological about forming relationships with one another in which one person decides everything about how they are both going to live. As much as they may love each other, this is not a relationship that allows each to flourish as the unique individual they are. Such a partnership essentially lacks respect: it requires suppressing the self-respect and autonomy of the submissive partner and for the dominant partner to view the submissive partner as inherently less worthy of respect.
We must each pursue our own unique happiness even if we help each other and share a common world.
Start Connecting and Building Relationships Now
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Conclusion
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We all want to connect and build meaningful relationships. Now more then ever we have the resources to do so. Philosophy can help us take advantage of those resources as we develop the art of connecting with others.
It comes down to discussing the right information, information that makes us come alive. It comes down to asking the right questions. It comes down to authentically sharing and listening to the answers. It’s all about really understanding others and making your authentic self understood in a way that is both loving and respectful.
With this all in hand, we can capture these lessons by reframing our perspective and having a transition in mindset:
Unreflective Oppressive Mindset:
Meeting and connecting with people is hard. It takes a very long time and it rarely works.
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Philosophical Reframing Mindset:
People are waiting to connect, to be understood, to share. It can happen anytime if I ask the right questions, really listen, and share authentically.
Get rid of the former mindset. Whatever it takes. It’s mistaken. It's wrong. It does you no good at all. Embrace the latter mindset. It will change your life. It is well within your power to find the human connection we all crave.
Here I shared 5 ways in which philosophy can help you do so, taking your level of connection and the quality of your personal relationships to the next level.
The right kind of relationships involve both people really looking out for each other and bringing out the best in one another. This involves a mindset of reciprocity, openness, and support on the part of both people.
Of course, having this openness and willingness to support is easier said than done. But it is precisely what we need to work on to be better and more forgiving.
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It all starts with a commitment to reframe things and adopt a perspective that frees you of what holds you back and fuels what pulls you forward! In order to help you overcome what's preventing you not just from building meaningful relationships but from reaching your full potential, I have put together a Cheatsheet for Conquering Limiting Beliefs that you can use to Liberate and Empower Yourself to a Next Level of Life. To free yourself of what's preventing you from building the kind of relationships that can make your life better and more inspiring.
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All you have to do is click below and subscribe.
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SUBSCRIBE to Get Your Philosophical Resources for Building a Better Life
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I am committed to helping you use philosophy to build the life of your dreams. It all starts with cultivating the right mindset. The right perspective. So when you get this Cheatsheet I'll also include some Core Philosophical Mindsets that will liberate and empower you to live with a new level of joy, meaning, and success when you adopt them.
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AND
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Because I want you to really use these mindsets to improve your life and not just to say the philosophical words, I am also including some Powerful Inner Game Techniques to keep those Philosophical Mindsets Where They Must Be. In Daily Consciousness. Shaping Your Life. Preventing life’s hypnotic rhythm from sucking you back into complacency.
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So go forth, my friend. Conquer those Fears. It will be worth it. Fighting to get getter always is.