Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently

by John C. Maxwell

You can become better at connecting if you’re willing to work at it.

To connect well one-on-one, you need to: • Have interest in the person. • Place value on that person. • Put his or her interests ahead of your own. • Express gratitude to and for that person.

If I had to pick a first rule of communication—the practice above all others that opens the door to connection with others— it would be to look for common ground. That rule applies whether you’re resolving conflict with your spouse, teaching a child, negotiating a deal, selling a product, writing a book, leading a meeting, or communicating to an audience.

Florence Littauer’s book Personality Plus. For the first time I recognized that different temperaments caused people to think and act differently than I do.

if several people walked down the beach together, their recollections of the experience would be very different based on their representational system.

Each of us creates a framework for the way we process information.

“If you can learn to pinpoint how those around you experience the world, and really try to experience the same world they do, you’ll be amazed at how effective your communication will become.”