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ometime back in 2010, I listened to Micheal Gelb, the author of the book, How To Think Like Leonardo Davinci. He was being interviewed by a friend of mine Jeffrey Howard on Visionary Business University (VBU) that I attended. Gelb blew my mind away especially when he talked about how we ought to make emotional connections with those that we intend to serve. At face value, the aspect of “emotional connection” might seem intense and manipulative, but not when you get deeper to understand it.

Two Ways To Be Memorable

I have had two incidences in my life where I connected with people. It is from those two experiences that I know that the two ways to be memorable o people are as follows:

• Make them feel special. Don’t do this so that you can get something out of them. Do it because you are genuine and you care
• Connect with them emotionally at the level of their problems. On this one many people tend to be very general when they are saying who they are or what they do.

Related Read: The Best Answer to ‘What Do You Do?”

The Emotional Connection

Few months back, I attended a mastermind of leaders organized by Inspired Leaders International. In this mastermind we were meeting an Asian biologist, philanthropist, social entrepreneur and investor. He was introduced to us by the luminary Amos Wekesa of the Great Lakes Safari’s fame. Naturally, we each had to introduce ourselves. From people saying “I am a Coach”, “I am a teacher”, “I am a Doctor” and so on, all was normal until someone introduced his “practice” by saying, “We are a Law firm that focuses on nurturing growth and providing peace of mind”. My goodness, I was floored!

Emotional Connection Leads to Recommendations

When is the last time you heard a lawyer introduce themselves like that? But come to think of it, when you are in trouble and needed legal service, don’t you think that the very craving of your soul a that time is to have the issue resolved so that you can have peace of mind? That introduction left an indelible mark in my life. I tell you what, this Law Firm did not just come up with that “slogan” or that emotional connection to their prospective world while taking a walk. I have since consulted with them and have found that they are extremely deliberate about what they are doing, they are extremely deliberate about how they are perceived. They structure their work around this core purpose and try as much as possible not to make their work “business as usual”. Is it any wonder that in 2018, this law firm was recognized as “A Highly Recommended Law Firm”, at the Africa Legal Awards!

What’s Your Difference?

To make the best out of life’s connections, we ought to go deeper than mere “Titles”. To do this, we ought to find out the sweet spot between our expertise, and the emotional feeling that those we are helping get after we have helped them. Given the choice to select between “I am a Lawyer” and “We are a law firm that is focused on nurturing growth and offering peace of mind”, I probably would go for the one with emotional connection. To find that sweet spot needs time and deliberate focus. In a way, what we ought to do is to keep asking further until we get the emotional attachment. For example from the title, “Musician”, how much further can we go until we get the emotional attachment? Before that the pool world-wide is full of “musicians”. So the question would be, “what is your difference as a musician?”

Going Deeper

To get the emotional connection, our musician has to do the basics first. In the previous article, we mentioned the need to narrow down to get a specific niche. This musician has to know or have an “avatar” of the person that they are writing songs for. Let’s say our musician has narrowed down to Gospel Music. The second thing would be to determine what purpose that music has. Is it to entertain? Is it to inspire? Is it to worship? Is it to praise? The third thing that our “musician” needs to do is to determine the effect of her music to her targeted audience. Remember, not everyone is her audience. When she is through, you might find her saying something like this, “I write and perform songs that connect people deeply in God’s presence, encouraging them through life’s journey”. You see the difference between “I am a gospel artist” and that? Let’s all learnt to go deeper.

Getting the Best of Life’s Connections

People get connected to you when you emotionally connect to their needs. For us to create that emotional connection, we ought to do the following three things.

1. Be Authentic

By all means, do not copy and paste someone else. The moment you are discovered to be a phony, that is the moment that your connections will collapse to the third degree of separation. This simply means that those connections will tell their connections and their connections’ connections about how phony you are. Be real. Be you. Do you all the time.

2. Care Deeply

I think the worst betrayal you can portray is when you fake “care”. That is all I can say about it. When you are found out to have ulterior motives other than deep care, there goes your connections. This is how you know you care deeply: You are not looking for an immediate or even medium term return to your care. You only are genuinely out to help.

3. Focus On People, not Yourself

When you see someone talking about themselves more and more, then you know you are dealing with a self absorbed individual. That person cannot emotionally connect with others and have long term rewarding relationships. People tend to shun self-absorbed individuals. You know that saying, “There are two types of people. There is that person who enters a room and says, “Here I am”, and there is the person that gets in a room and says, “Ah! There you are!”” Focus on people and their issues and genuinely seek to provide them with a solution.

I cannot over-emphasize the need for emotionally connecting with people. Let’s get it done.