”I had a doorbell moment this week,” Patricia told Tracy.

Both have sons serving in the same Marine unit in Iraq. Patricia is describing the fear that grabs her the moment her doorbell rings unexpectedly, thinking that the officer on the other side has come to tell her that her son is dead.

Tracy understands.

Hint One: Through shared experience, expressed aloud, we adopt “shorthand” expressions and feel understood, closer and often even comforted.

When Tracy’s son, Derrick was deployed, she knew that those who would most understand her feelings were other mothers in the same situation so she started a support group.

Wrote Cynthia Gorney way back in 2005 when the war still seemed new, “Draped over a banister in Tracy’s house was an unwashed T-shirt Derrick had dropped during his last visit home. I thought Tracy was apologizing for her housekeeping, which I had already seen was much better than mine, but she cleared her throat and said that what I needed to understand was that she hadn’t washed the T-shirt because if the Marine Corps has to send you your deceased child’s personal effects, it launders the clothing first. ‘That means there’s no smell,’’ Tracy said.”

Hint Two: Smell is the most directly emotional sense.  Nothing else comes close. Use smell as memory anchors of your shared experience

“Tracy’s closest friends in the world right now are other parents whose sons and daughters have served in Iraq or are serving there now.

Hint Three: Your strongest emotions right now can lead to your closest sources of support.

“Tracy knows that the grandfather clock in Patricia’s house chimes nine times when the other clocks say it’s noon because the grandfather clock is set to Baghdad time.

Tracy knows that Patricia has figured out how to tell if someone is in her driveway by squinting at the reflection off a certain glass-covered picture in the dining room, so that if it should ever be two men in uniform, Patricia will know they have arrived before they start ringing the bell and before she is obliged to look directly at them and hear what they have come to say.”

Hint Four: The specific detail paints the picture that people will see in their mind’s eye and shapes how they will feel and remember what you say.

Holidays are times of great loving and loneliness and we often don’t know who is experiencing which. For many it is a bit of both.

For us all this can be a prime time for kindness, sometimes by sharing what we have.

And kindness is often unspoken. “An eye can threaten like a loaded and leveled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. At another time, Emerson wrote, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

“You may be sorry that you spoke, sorry you stayed or went, sorry you won or lost, sorry so much was spent. But as you go through life, you’ll find—you’re never sorry that you were kind,” said Herbert Prochnow. There’s a French proverb on the wall of my study, “Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble.”

Authentic praise is an extension of kindness. Whatever we praise we encourage to flourish. Whatever we criticize or “simply” snub goes deeper and lasts longer.

Each moment we choose our emotional response. We choose where to put our attention, emotion, and intention. Emotions are energy. So, look to someone’s positive intent, especially when it appears she may have none.

Even though after his death his wife probably disagreed with how he displayed some of his “kindness” on the road, Charles Kuralt wrote, “The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.”

“Keep what is worth keeping. And with the breath of kindness blow the rest away,” suggests English novelist, Dinah Mulock Craik. Here’s to making more opportunities to play, laugh, celebrate, and act together in cultivating kindness as life’s genuine “keeper.”

Life contains few absolutes, and one of those few is that kindness usually cultivates connection, something we yearn for in a time-pressed, ear-to-the- cell-phone, relationship-diminished culture. After all, the heart can be our strongest muscle if we exercise it regularly. Yet being kind is not a guarantee of safety from hurt — nothing offers that fail-safe comfort.

“Kindness and intelligence don’t always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: there are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships,” wrote Barbara Grizzuti Harrison in an article for McCall’s magazine way back in 1975.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares,” wrote Henri Nouwen in Out of Solitude.

Years ago from my college classmate, Alasi Perdanan, I heard a Persian proverb, “With a sweet tongue of kindness, you can drag an elephant by a hair.”

“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate,” wrote Albert Schweitzer. “He who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love,” wrote the Greek religious leader, Saint Basil.

“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom,” wrote Theodore Isaac Rubin in “One to One.”

“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness and small obligations win and preserve the heart” said English chemist Humphrey Davy.

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop that makes it run over.

So in a series of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over,” once wrote the Scottish lawyer and biographer, James Boswell.

“We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck . . . But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness,” wrote columnist Ellen Goodman.

From an artist’s perspective, ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov once said, “The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.”

Willa Cather believed that “When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason has left them.”

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution, “Kahlil Gibran reminds us.

Ultimately, “kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not,” noted Dr. Samuel Johnson. Albeit unevenly, this holiday, I am attempting to practice giving what may be the most nourishing and priceless present and by now you can probably guess what that is.

Your thoughts on this?

In a New Yorker cartoon, a bored-looking couple are sitting apart on a couch, facing a smiling therapist who says, “Any healthy relationship requires fundamental acting skills.” Clearly the Michelangelo Effect is not in play.

Couples who affirm and support each other’s best side also “sculpt” each other in beneficial ways. They become deeply committed and enjoy fresh experiences and learning – through and with their partner, according to researchers, Arthur Aron and Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr. In psychology, this is called self-expansion – growing through experiences with others. Not surprisingly, the dissolution of such relationships is especially devastating to one’s sense of self.

Reading this research, it dawned on me that the behaviors that build sustainable marriages could also help leaders model relationship-building that enables colleagues to optimize their talents for each other and their organization.

Leaders who encourage colleagues to support each other’s strongest talents and to introduce each other to new topics may also spur workers to self-organize around vital projects where they can use their disparate, best talents together. In so doing colleagues sculpt each other’s strengths as they succeed at projects they could not have accomplished alone.

Such experiences whet the appetite for further deeply engaged work together. Many of the happy couples turned their differences into sources of interest rather than conflict, enabling them to learn from each other. Leaders might evoke a similar effect by first inviting their colleagues to join in reading Marcus Buckingham’s classic book, Now Discover Your Strengths.

To understand the power of diverse people working together around sweet spots of shared interest, they might then read Morton Hanson’s Collaboration, Scott Page’s The Difference and Keith Sawyer’s Group Genius. After that the leader could champion discussions on how colleagues can dovetail their strengths on specific work projects.

As in a sustainable marriage, what’s key for relationship-building leaders to model are three traits: a strongly felt, shared mission; a mutual understanding and expressed support of each other’s strengths and a desire to learn, grow and create with others.

As a relationship-building leader, you can measure how well you are doing by adapting a few questions from the marriage researchers, Aron and Lewandowski:

• How much has working with this colleague resulted in your learning and doing new things?

• How much has knowing this colleague made you a better person?

From other marriage researchers, we can glean further insights into how leaders can grow their organization by enabling colleagues to do greater work together through passionately engaged and sustained relationships at work.

The renowned Gottmans believe that those in happy marriages exhibit certain behaviors with each other. While some researchers criticize the Gottmans for scant proof that marital happiness can be connected to these behaviors, they seem worth considering for building closer, productive engagement at work. I have adapted some of them, slightly for modeling relationship-strengthening leadership at work:

• Know each other. Discover and be mindful of their strongest likes and dislikes, greatest talents and passionate interests.

• Focus on each other’s best qualities and opinions of each other, and the rewarding times you have shared.

• Interact as frequently as needed to stay engaged in the shared work. Speak forthrightly about differences so you experience working disagreement and can trust that you know where you stand with each other.

• Allow your partner to influence you so you both can feel heard and can learn from each other.

• Solve your solvable problems. Don’t try for complete agreement on everything. Consider, does this difference between us affect our top goal or can we work around it?

• Understand your partner’s underlying conflict that is preventing resolution. Either find a way to address it directly or offer an alternative that can overcome it. If you two are disagreeing for more than ten minutes, by the way, you are probably not discussing the underlying problem. Not resolving it means it will probably grow.

• Create shared meaning. Find strong sweet spots of shared interests, values, past experiences, needs or traditions.

Since many of us spend the majority of our waking hours working, the leaders that show us how to accomplish greater things through stronger relationships will probably become increasingly sought-after.  Perhaps it is not too odd to look to the secrets of lovingly engaged couples for insights about how we can make our work more meaningful and satisfying together.

Got a business? Nervous about your future?  Anyone who says they don’t feel fearful sometimes in the face of this uncertain economy is in deep denial.

One symptom, research shows, is that it is literally harder to hear when we’re stressed. That’s a signal to savvy, caring business owners to listen sooner, deeper and longer.

Only then can we discover which problem keeps our customers awake nights. Solving that one hottest concern is the thoughtful and successful way to sell.

In so doing you can begin collaborating with that prospect or customer in front of you.

Just Listen – then collaborate with them into buying

Who does most of the talking when you are with a prospective buyer? As in fishing, until you find the hook that grabs their attention so they want to know more it is highly likely that they will get away.

As infants most of us were rewarded with wide smiles and warm voices when we talked. Later we enjoyed more reinforcement for talking as we learned to read.

Beginning in kindergarten, we’ve been rewarded to sit still and be quiet. Yet, even when we do, but we aren’t trained to listen. Yet we are expected to know how. As we grow older we may hunger to be heard and understood yet not learn to listen. We talk until they go on a mental vacation then physically leave.

“It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

In this increasingly connected yet complex economy competition can hit faster and from more places. That’s all the more reason to listen closely to diverse people. You’ll be better able to serve your customers and to identify valuable allies with whom you can generate stand-out value in your mutual market – perhaps becoming the top-of-mind choice.

By listening closely, then speaking to the sweet spot of mutual benefit you can also forge profitable partnerships with complementary companies that serve the same kind of customers as you.

Collaborating with other businesses in this way is often the most credible and cost-effective way to stand out from your competition – a priceless possibility in this bad economy.

Here are 16 pointers to sharpen your listening-to-connect skills – vital traits in this increasingly transient, economically uncertain, information flooded and time starved world:

1. Control outside interruptions and distractions.

2. Where possible meet in a place that is not noisy, where seats are comfortable and where you can sit at a right angle, “sidling”, rather than across from them.

3. Avoid patterned shirts, blouces or other distractive clothing especially on the upper half of your body.

4. Get your whole body involved in listening and show that you are paying attention. Look the person squarely in the eye most of the time, using facial expressions and other non-verbal clues to show that you hear and understand what she is saying.

5. Open your eyes, mind and ears to be truly receptive to the messages the other person presents – both by what they say and what they avoid saying.  Begin listening from the very first word and give the person your undivided attention.

6. Lean slightly towards them, look them directly in the eye, nod sometimes and do not fidget. Avoid frequent rapid movements of your arms or legs. You are demonstrating your attention – making the other person the center of attention.

7. Focus on what the person is saying right now. Avoid trying to figure out what she is going to say; you may miss what she actually means.

8. Don’t interrupt. It sends the message that your views are more important than theirs.

9. Confirm your understanding of what they said, using their words. Don’t paraphrase.

10. Ask follow-up questions to clarify and to glean the specific benefits they seek or the problems they want to solve.

11. Take notes. It demonstrates interest and respect and enables you to recall exactly what was said. When you take notes you triple the amount you remember – even if you do not look at them later.

12. Be direct in answering questions. First answer, then elaborate – not the reverse, which is more common. Don’t give qualifiers and background before answering. That’s underbrush they must wade through. You will seem evasive or thoughtless or both.

13. Remain genial and receptive. Do not react negatively – even and especially to highly charged words and tones. Hear the person out, then respond. Don’t change the topic. Most people will cool down and begin to talk calmly once they vent their anger and frustrations and feel heard.

14. When the other person gets more intense – negatively or positively, she is discussing what most matters to her.  That’s your hook.  Offer the specific benefit – the solution to that point to move her closer to buying.

“Every moment counts, and that moment is lost if you’re not in that moment 100 percent.” ~ Tachi Yamada, M.D.

15. Remember, your objective is to listen your prospective customer into buying or potential ally into collaborating. You do not need to remind yourself of what you think, you must find out what your prospect thinks. There is no sales principle that suggests you must “get your two cents worth in.”

16. Look for connections between apparently isolated remarks. What’s the underlying theme, the hottest thing that most concerns them?

“To truly listen is to risk being changed forever.” ~ Sakej Henderson

The bonus? The more strongly that person connects with you the more likely they will emulate your behavior, tell others and extend your presence to their friends and the friends of their friends.

“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.” ~ Karl Menninger

“The bottom-up world is to be the great theme of this century.” ~ Matt Ridley

Nobody can know everything, nor do everything well.

Yet you can know someone who does – or know somebody who knows somebody who does.

And that may be the secret to staying sought-after in this increasingly complex and connected world.

In fact, next to honing your top talent your most vital trait to strengthen is probably your capacity to collaborate – especially with those extremely unlike you.  Seven of the ten trends in how we work involve being adept collaborators.

“Collaboration is the new competition.” ~ Pamela Slim and Michele Woodward

The next trick is understanding exactly how to connect so others want to collaborate with you. It starts with speaking to the sweet spot of mutual benefit.

“A radically different order of society based on open access, decentralized creativity, collaborative intelligence, and cheap and easy sharing is ascendant.” ~ David Bollier

For a project on which I am collaborating on with the remarkable Kris Schaeffer, ably assisted by Steven Toy (expect an announcement in December) here’s some books that helped me discover why and how to collaborate:

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky, Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity and Reap Big Results by Morten T. Hansen,  Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, The Culture of Collaboration by Evan Rosen, Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy by Moises Naim, The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison, What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, The Firefly Effect: Build Teams that Capture Creativity and Catapult Results by Kimberly Douglas, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni and Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.

“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

See other books on collaboration that I recommend at Listiki and please add your favorites. After all its a collaborative list.  I also tweet about  examples of collaboration here.

“Collaborations are strengthened through appreciative relationships.  You know you’ve got it right when you find yourself in a relationship in which you are listened to, dream together, choose to contribute, act with support, and are positive.” ~ Ben Ziegler

What makes a community abundant in this new new normal world? In this uncertain economy where budgets of local governments and non-profit budgets will continue to get slashed, it is especially heartening to read the mutual-reliance message inherent in this book.

How Communities Can Run Leaner and Better

Rather than rely solely on outsiders and related funding and services, the authors suggest we band together with other locals to come up with our own solutions to problems – and ways to leverage the resources we each have in support of “our” community.

While the authors advocate “no more relying on institutions or systems to provide us with the good life”the community-building they intend should lead to wider adoption. Hopefully some of the ideas that evolve, from the grassroots up, will be honed (with ongoing public input) into systems and sometimes even institutions then adopted in other communities.

That’s part of the ebb and flow of community design.

Mutual Reliance Sparks Innovation

Another reviewer at Amazon notes that the authors advocate our striving toward greater compassion for each other rather than greater systems of efficiency. I believe however that, like natural systems and user-friendly design, collective useage inevitably leads to innovation and thus efficiency.  Yet isn’t that co-innovation an apt way for neighbors to care for each other in their community?

Not only do I feel compassion but usually genuine liking for those in my community who suggest a way to make our community better run and/or close-knit.

That’s compassion in action.

As a long admirer of Block’s ideas who believes that the U.S. economy will be bumpy at best for the decade I am heartened by the several specific ways that bottom-up community-building is happening – and that the models for such local efforts are spreading so leaders in different communities can learn from each other’s local experience.

The more specific and immediately useful the  ideas is  the more “spreadable” it becomes. Often community-building methods are, in fact, more efficient ways to be mutually supportive.

Own Less.  Share More. Get Closer.

Some examples are as seemingly mundane as Freecycle – which is elegantly moderated in my Marin County by “Nicole,” co-working spaces, and The Village Movement, started in Beacon Hill, to enable more people to age in place among tight-knit neighbors.  Shareable is doing a vivid job of covering the evolving ways we are working and playing better together and stretching resources.

When people do discover concrete ways they can be mutually-supportive they tend to adopt them, then modify them and to tell others.

Word naturally spreads.

From my work in forging partnerships to generate more value and visibility for individuals and organizations I’ve found that identifying the sweet spot of mutual interest between individuals and/or organizations is a crucial first step to exploring how to accomplish greater things together than one can alone.

Accomplish Greater Things Locally Together Than You Can Alone

When people collaborate around an explicit shared purpose they tend to bring out the better sides in each other so they inevitably get closer.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the co-authors use their influence to advocate the creation of an online community where we could exchange ideas about what is working to create “abundant communities”?

Some books that I’ve found helpful around the notion of helping each other and learn from each other include What’s Mine is Yours,  The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, Consequential Strangers: Turning Everyday Encounters Into Life-Changing Moments.

It is also gratifying to see the neighborhood-strengthening start-ups that are springing up like Patch and the community and town-wide businesses such as Steven Johnson’s outside.in and the smart phone apps like mycityway that will enable locals to share with other locals and visitors their knowledge of local history, architecture, food, sight seeing places, crafts and more.

Partners – romantic and otherwise – tend to fight when one feels neglected or threatened. When Peter Bregman’s wife yelled from two rooms away, “at least pack the shampoo” she was feeling neglected.

Recognizing which underlying feeling is being evoked helps you know how to resolve the conflict. So discovered psychology professor Keith Sanford.

Which one is your hot button? Find out here.

When one feels threatened he sees his partner as critical, blaming, hostile or controlling. When one feels neglected it is because she perceives her partner as failing to contribute sufficiently to the relationship.

Sanford’s research shows it helps to talk about neglect yet discussing a perceived threat may not be helpful.

Sanford’s advice for being happy in love also make sense for any successful partnership or other collaboration: “For the most part, successful couples avoid letting fights get too heated. Specifically, they go easy on the four classic negative fighting tactics:

1. Criticism
2. Stonewalling
3. Contempt
4. Defensiveness

The famed marriage researcher John Gottman calls them the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,’ because they can spell doom for a marriage when used too frequently.”

I can’t help but add that Gottman, “found one factor that was the best predictor of all. This was a positive predictor, one that predicted long-term success rather than failure in marriage.

Gottman found that marriages are likely to thrive when the man was willing to be influenced by his wife.” (Gentlemen – want to win points with the women in your life? Comment positively about this finding.)

Sanford’s further advice for couples also seems helpful for non—romantic relationships: “Happy couples resort to negative tactics too, Sanford says, but only sparingly.

When they do bring up hurt, anger, and other negative emotions, they often balance them out with a constructive approach. In the best-case scenarios, couples use conflicts as a time to express concerns and share emotions. Instead of telling his partner ‘you make me sick,’ a man could try saying something like ‘It hurt me when you called me lazy.’

Shifting the conversation away from the partner’s faults and towards one’s own feelings is a tried-and-true way to defuse even the most intense conflicts.”

Even though we know we are more likely to savor life and attract more opportunities to collaborate when we click with others, we often get in our own way – especially when we are distracted or worse.  Here are five concrete ways to connect with others.

1. Face the world as you want to be treated

We’ve all been startled by observing a passerby’s dour expression instantly transformed into a warm smile when someone they knew came into view. The fixed-face habit is increasingly common yet it limits one’s opportunities to make friends or just be treated well.

I envy those who naturally display an open face, yet, with practice, we all can. We don’t have to turn into grinning fools. Research shows, however, that even slightly elevated eyebrows cause the eyes to widen and – presto – one looks more open and less judgmental. Strangers unconsciously project onto such people the qualities they most admire in others, believe those people care – and act more generously towards them.

Unknowingly, as a journalist I came to have an intense facial expression, especially interviewing people I found fascinating (that’s my excuse anyway) until I interviewed an expert on Paul Ekman’s research on reading faces. He gently suggested that it would only take a couple of months of practice to “transform” my face into one with the open expression he was exhibiting in our interview.  It took me much longer – yet his advice comes to mind every time I see a dour or hardened face. That person probably does not understand the missed opportunities for friendship and more – just from this one simple habit.

2. Tour your body for vital signs

When you are literally uptight–rigid in any part of your body - others instinctively resist or even react against you. This phenomenon is akin to bouncing a hard rubber ball on a concrete surface as compared to a soft carpet. The ball bounces higher and faster against the hard surface than the soft one, of course, just as others react more against a body that is even inadvertently held tight against the world.

Whenever you are entering an unfamiliar or potentially volatile situation, loosen up physically. It will help you feel more at ease. Walk, stretch, and release tension from the places where you hold it in your body.

Probably –like many conscientious, hard-working people– you hold your shoulders higher and slightly more forward than is natural, with one of the tendons in your neck tightened up even more than the other. If someone can give you a quick three-minute shoulder and neck massage, you will relax – and look at ease.  Others will respond more warmly to you.

Here’s another quick way to feel and look comfortable. Take your “pointing” fingers and the ones adjacent to them and rub both sides of your face in small circles, beginning at the cheek bone, near the sides of your nose, continuing along that bone towards your ears, down to the jaw line and on toward the center of your chin.

3. We feel closer to happy people, especially when we are happy

Enjoy the bond-building boomerang effect that happens with contagious happiness (when you’re happy, you cause your friends to feel happier, and that makes their friends happier).  As the circles of friends around you feel happier their upbeat behavior will swing around back through those friends towards and around you, reinforcing your capacity to stay contented.

Plus those positive feelings that boomerang back to you in waves from others serve as an emotional cushion in your rocky times. I’m suggesting this as reinforcement for you to smile your way into a better way of feeling. When we feel down we close down and withdraw. This boomerang affect enables you and those you are around to open up to each other.

4. Worried? Don’t keep thinking about it. Act towards what makes you happier.

Women tend to worry more than men so it is especially important for us, when we start to feel anxious or depressed to mentally change the channel of thought to something – any small thing – that lightens our mood.

Consider this.  In any situation you only have three choices: 1. Change how you act, 2. Accept the situation, or 3. Leave.  The sooner you make a decision the less likely you deepen the rut in your memory of fixating on worrying rather than acting to change.

5. Meet new people to see fresh sides in yourself

Want to pull new people into your life?  Like to show an evolving new facet of yourself?  Get out of your orbit. Attend a lecture, sit at a lively café, join a civic, special interest or non-profit committee.   In short, put yourself in a place where you don’t know anyone well.

That’s when, “we are more free to experiment with ourselves, and less likely to have our new behaviors and roles reflected back to us by people who object, ‘But that’s not like you!,’”  says Melinda Blau, co-author of Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don’t Seem to Matter. . . But Really Do. She adds, “Strangers help us stretch beyond the relatively rigid boxes that the people who have known us the longest – our family and close friends – often put us into.”

This may be the surest way to turn the page for the next chapter of your life to be the kind of adventure story you now want. Even within one hour you can learn specific ways to stand out in your work or life.

I met my high school boyfriend when I was upset and swung open my locker door so fast I banged him on the head as he was leaning into his locker. Not everyone can take such a first encounter in stride let alone retort with a grin, “If this is how you treat strangers how do handle enemies?” This unflappable humor made us instant friends and helps in his work now as an ER doctor.

I met one of my closest girlfriends at a fundraiser dinner when a big donor at our table made a snide comment to us about a homely woman at the adjacent table. My soon-to-be-friend responded warmly to him, acting as if he meant his insult as a compliment about that lady. In so doing she warmed us up towards her and deflected him from continuing that line of “humor.”

“The best time to make friends is before you need them.” ~Ethel Barrymore

Here are six ways we draw people to us:

1.  When someone is snide or otherwise rude, thoughtless or difficult in front of others, rather than acting affronted, interpret their words or actions as if they meant well.  That way that person has the opportunity to self-correct and save face rather than feel cornered by your correcting him so he escalates his negative behavior.

2.   Use self-deprecating humor that highlights an admirable trait in her – especially one that matters to her, at the expense of your own related trait.  In so doing she flourishes around you.  When others like how they feel when around you they will like you.

Some  effortlessly make friends with all kinds of people. For the rest of us it helps to understand how they draw people to them. Having just a few close friendships is especially vital in this increasingly connected yet more transient world.

Thankfully even apparently small behaviors can make a huge difference in our ability to make friends.

“In my friend, I find a second self.” ~Isabel Norton

3.   College students living in the center of dorms tend to have more friends than those at the end of the halls. Those in center offices have more relationships with colleagues than those who work in the corners of buildings.  Those who sit side-by-side in just one meeting will feel more comfortable with each other later than with others in the meeting yet will not usually know why.

This so-called Proximity Effect is discussed in Rom and Ori Brafman’s new book Click. When you want to get to know someone, find a way to sit or stand next to them in some situation – the more times the better.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too?” ~ C.S. Lewis

While it’s obvious that people like people who are like them the extent of this so-called Similarity Effect is considerably deeper than I would have thought. For example, in a study cited in Click, if a woman asked me for a donation, she would have double the chance of getting me to give if she was wearing a nametag with my name on it.

That’s why bonding happens when people first meet and ask those innocuous yet safe questions about where they live, work, went to school or grew up. Once you find a shared interest – the deeper the better – explore it further. I’m drawn, for example, to other avid readers.

“Probably no man ever had a friend that he did not dislike a little.” ~E.W. Howe

To connect with someone, here’s the warning – we are wired to respond sooner, longer and more intensely to the negative rather than the positive things someone else does. It’s our primitive brain wiring to survive – Fight or Flight Syndrome.

Yet when we are physically close to someone when seems much different than us then we are likely to feel, not more positive, but more negative towards that person than if she was further away. That’s why, for example, that students in racially mixed high schools are more likely to be racist.

People like people who are like them and people like people who like them.

Here’s why that’s important, especially when you first meet or re-meet someone. Focus on finding the things about that person that are most like you and that you like:

A. Speak first about those traits you share.

B. Speak next about what you honestly respect or like about that person.

Keep those feelings and thoughts top-of-mind so that you feel, act and speak to that side of the person. That’s relationship glue-building. If you start to get irritated about something don’t focus on the feeling.  Instead turn your mind to one of their positive traits.

There’s a double benefit for you in practicing this. Your capacity to befriend those who are not like you enables you to:

A. Lead a richer, more varied life where you may have diverese adventures and work and social opportunities.

B. You will be able to recognize and express more facets of your temperament and use your talents in more varied ways.

“Friends are relatives you make for yourself.”  ~Eustache Deschamps

5. Those who make friends most easily are what psychologist Mark Snyder has dubbed “high self-monitors.” The Brafmans call them social chameleons. When done consciously, followers of NLP call this mirroring and matching. Without effort or an attempt to manipulate however chameleons instinctively bring out the facet of their personality that is most like the person they are with.

As Rita Carter suggests in Multiplicity, we have many people inside of us. Some people bring out our worst sides and we dislike them for that effect.

“Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

These chameleons bring out the best side on more kind of people. Sometimes that makes them adept instigators of projects, or facilitators of teams with diverse personalities.  They may become the glue that sticks the group together. See how much of a self-monitor you are.

The downside is in deepening friendships as high self-monitors may not demonstrate how they feel but rather what they feel is wanted by others. As with any strength there’s a flip side. The good news is that, in understanding both the strength and the disadvantage of such chameleon behavior, we recognize the value of it in the beginning to create the familiarity that builds trust.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.” ~Anäis Nin

6. I love to design and arrange furniture and glass lighting yet have difficulty with even minor computer problems. One of my dearest friends is a gadget geek who helps me with computer fixes and advises me about if and when to buy the shiny new thing. And I thoroughly enjoyed creating Danish/Italian-style sofas, chairs and a dining table for the home he just bought.

Those who keenly aware of their talents are more likely to see the benefits in befriending individuals with different ones because such relationships enable them to accomplish greater things for each other – or together. This is the Complementarity Effect. Sure we can find most anything online yet we can’t be an expert at everything. Having friends who have different talents and interests makes life easier and more enjoyable.

“If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone.  A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.”  ~Samuel Johnson

We have to go out of our way to keep such friendships strong because we have different top interests and ways of thinking, talking or doing things.  Yet research shows that we tend to take  for granted that which comes easily to us and to value that which we work at maintaining.

Here’s to cultivating and keeping ever-deepening relationships to savor life together.

“It takes a long time to grow an old friend.”  ~John Leonard

“Cesar Milan says that when a dog sniffs you she’s gathering information. My dog is preparing an extensive dossier on me,” wrote Paula Poundstone.

Humor is a way to get information about each other.

How we evoke and respond to it says so much about how comfortable we are with ourselves and how flexible, open and fun we will be with others.  That’s helpful information if you are thinking of collaborating with someone – or even considering whether to get to know them better. “A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your step as you walk the tightrope of life,” wrote William Arthur Ward.

Every relationship has bumpy moments.  Humor can be quicker than praise to smooth them out. Humorless people make the bumbs bigger. “A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs,” wrote Henry Ward Beecher, “jolted by every pebble in the road.”

Unfortunately I don’t know how to be funny nor have a humor-evoking face like Ricky Gervais – yet I am one of the first to laugh when others are.  Us “first responders” to friction can start what researchers call a laughter cascade to spur the emotional contagion that gets others laughing. Once I broke out laughing in a packed movie theatre only to hear someone yell out, to my mortification, “Kare – glad to hearing you’re enjoying it.”

“Humor does not rescue us from unhappiness,” wrote Mason Cooley (or from arguments I would add), “but enables us to move back from it a little.”

Yet humor is a two-sided sword – it can either cut and divide or unify – bring people closer like “a rubber sword – it allows you to make a point without drawing blood,” wrote Mary Hirsch.

Why inject unifying humor into a situation?

• Because it’s the best way to get us in relaxation mode – and begin to bond.  We become less fearful or tense.

• That’s when we are most likely to like each other, bring out our better sides – and be productive and creative together. “If you can get someone to laugh with you, they will be more willing to identify with you, listen to you. It parts the waters,” said Robert Orben.  As we lighten up we become more playful – which can make us productive if we need to be – and happier.

• Humor aimed at oneself is disarming – as when Chris Pronger answered a reporter’s questions, when Sandra Bullock referred to “us old people” and when President Obama said, “in mock dismay, ‘Don’t be cheering when I say that.’

• Humor diffuses tension. Werner von brown recalled that when astronaut John Glenn was strapped into his seat before take-off, dryly remarked, “Oh my god, I’m sitting on a pile of stuff created by the lowest cost bidder.”

• “When they’re laughing, they’re listening,” said Adrian Gostick, co-author of The Levity Effect.

Humor holds our attention:

- Making us popular as the most popular cat on Twitter has discovered.

- So we learn and remember as teacher-turned- monologist Taylor Mali discovered in performing the hilarious The The Impotence of Proofreading.

• Shared laughter keeps relationships fresh and interesting. “All emotional sharing builds strong and lasting relationship bonds, but sharing laughter and play adds joy, vitality, and resilience.”

•  The one thing “shared by mass murderers, felony drunk drivers, starving children, head banging caged laboratory animals, anxious overworked students, and most reptiles. They don’t play… What do most Nobel Laureates, historically renowned creative artists, successful multi-career entrepreneurs and animals of superior intelligence have in common? They are full of play throughout their lives,” wrote Stuart Brown.

So what actually makes us laugh?  Researchers have found just three clues: incongruity, superiority, and the pattern of three.  We do know that we who laugh last – why not laugh more together?