Think about last week. You met with a lot of people personally and professionally. Only a handful of them “really connected” with you. Most others ( even those that impressed you ) did not bother to “connect” and you will probably wipe them out of your memory sooner than later.

[ Note: On the flip side, it works the same way for you. Most people that met you will forget you sooner than later ]

Where is the gap?

Why is that most people that you meet don’t “connect” with you?

The gap is simply in establishing the relevance of what they can bring to the table to what you care about.

Think about it.

Most people will quickly establish their expertise, their connections, their accomplishments and their influence. There is enough proof for that. After they have a few accomplishments, it becomes easy – all they have to do is to share what they have done. While this might create a “Wow” experience and also establish their credibility on a topic, it still does not mean what it “means to you.” One has to fill that gap to “really connect” with you.

Why don’t they do that?

Simply because it takes hard work to care about what you care about. It takes hard work to establish the impact they can make with what they bring to the table. It is also not a totally scalable process any more. Why? If they have to keep talking about themselves, they can repeat the same thing all day long. When they have to establish relevance to what you care about, they need to do a lot more thinking. A step before that – they need to have a lot more “caring” about what you care about.

Now, think about those people that “really connected” with you recently. More often than not, they cared for you and most important, they brought something to the table that was “relevant” to what you cared about.

There is good news though. There is less traffic on the road to “really connecting” with people. Most people will stop at establishing how good they are and why they are entitled to all the glory and respect. You could make an exception by filling in the gap by
a) really caring AND
b) establishing the relevance of what you bring to the table to what “they” care about.

Have a great week ahead.

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Note 1: Here is a Squidoo lens that links to most of the previous articles in this series:
Squidoo: Distinguish Yourself

Note 2: The first 25 entries in the series have been packaged in a ChangeThis manifesto that was published on September 07, 2005. You can download that manifesto here:
ChangeThis Manifesto: 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself (PDF, Free)

Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. This is a photographic manifesto featuring 15 of my mini sagas (stories in exactly 50 words). Here is the link:
ChangeThis Manifesto: Mini Sagas – Bite Sized Lessons for Life and Business (PDF, Free)

Note 4: Photo Courtesy: just.Luc on Flickr