Secrets of Success with People Different than You

It is rare for someone to achieve success on their own.

Our success usually depends on being successful with an array of people.

Successfully developing a meaningful and supportive relationship with someone who is different than you can be one of the biggest challenges you face in becoming as successful as possible in life.

When someone is different than you, they can easily feel a range of negative emotions towards you.

It can be a feeling of simply being uncomfortable with you to a more extreme negative feeling such as seeing you as outright conflicting with something that is particularly important to them.

That includes such things as not aligning with their values, beliefs, viewpoints, expectations, unconscious and conscious biases, and etiquette “do’s” and “don’ts” to name a few notable features that make us who we are.

An effective way to understand why you are not successful with them is to realize each of us live in a personal “Comfort Zone.” It consists of our powerful cultural, generational, and personality style values, beliefs, values, viewpoints, expectations, unconscious and conscious biases, and etiquette “do’s” and “don’ts, etc.”

Our “Comfort Zone” is the only “Comfort Zone” we usually know and understand.

It “who we are” and determines how other people experience us.

When you are trying to engage with someone different than you, you are unintentionally not engaging with them according to their “Comfort Zone.”

They feel that you cannot relate to them. As a result, they will lose interest in you.

The secret to you becoming successful with them is for you to become aware of, and understand, how you are different than them. That requires you to listen carefully to them and mirror their body language and tone of voice.

Most people in Western cultures like the USA and Canada are culturally programmed to speak significantly more than to listen.

Our predisposition to speak more than listen can easily self-limit our success with people who are different than you. When you speak most of the time, you are expressing your values, beliefs, viewpoints, etc. No doubt, some of their values, beliefs, etc., will be different than yours.

To be successful with them, you need to hold back from jumping in and speaking more than them. Make yourself listen and find out what is important to them about whatever it is you are talking about.

Not only will you come to understand them more, but by careful listening to them they will appreciate you as a being respectful. They will usually reciprocate by respecting you more. Obviously, mutual respect is essential to building a successful with a person different than you.

Align yourself with their “Comfort Zone” is a sure way of significantly enhancing your chances of being successful with people different them you.

You will become noticeable more successful with people different than you.