This Soft Skill = Happiness đ
Strong Relationships Are Key, But How Do We Build Them Strong and Co-Grow
The Newsletter is broken up into 4 parts
Bite-size: the core idea put simply (15-second read).
The Scenic Route: A Thorough Exploration (3-10 minute read).
Inspirations: What fed this writing (1 Minute List)
A Present: Books/Articles, Podcasts, and Videos with value/insight I am exploring at present (~1-minute exploration).
Enjoy!
Bite-size: Relationships First
The foundation for growth, happiness, and most good things in life starts with your ability to build rapport with others in a meaningful way. How you do this matters and there are ways to do it genuinely, efficiently, and with high impact.
The Scenic Route: Foundations and Banks
I had never felt so thoroughly useless to another human being. It was the first student I ever tried to help, and I left him with more questions than answers. It is often said that our jobs can act as a mirror, and I was staring back at an aspiring teacher who couldnât have been more misguided. When I stepped into the small study hall to fulfill my state obligations for tutoring hours, I had pure intent to help students. I so desperately wanted to be of use to a student. I was going to save the world by being an educator and it all started in that tiny study hall. A young manâs hand went up, and he asked me a straightforward question about a practice English ACT question, and I proceeded to stutter my way through an inexperienced answer that only wasted his time.
A few years later I was teaching in my first full-time teaching position. I still had the blind youthful ambition to save the world, one student at a time. I landed a job where I teach a customized curriculum to neurodivergent kids. Thatâs fancy education lingo for, âI teach custom-made stuff to kids who think differently.â I was making progress but I still wanted to be the guy with all the answers. The teacher who was a sage on a stage.
I was teaching economics to a student who I had a connection with but was still in the early stages of rapport building. One day, we went through a central topic. He looked like he was taking diligent notes, but he left the paper on the desk when he left. The paper had a few doodles and two words, which had nothing to do with our topic. I challenged him on this in the following class. He took it personally and stormed out, leaving me with a gut feeling that I had completely mishandled the situation.
Just a few months ago, I was working with a diverse set of new students, all of which had extreme views of the world, but were passionately set on their own path to making the world a better place how they saw fit. To be useful all I had to do was guide their passion, not squash it with useless information. I built a system of guidance with each of these students in different and genuine ways. I didnât have all the answers. I wasnât a sage on a stage, but I had allowed their natural inspiration to flourish. They in turn taught me a great deal I didnât know at the start of our classes. Itâs what I like to think of as an ideal co-grow situation. I was fulfilled in my work, and I was a better person for sharing time with these great kids. I didnât save the world. I didnât even save their personal world or my own. But I made each a little better while our worlds co-existed.
Whatâs the difference between these situations other than a few years? Rapport building as a soft skill. I sharpened this skill by accident at first, but with intent as years passed, and it has unlocked a new level of satisfaction and happiness in my life. The foundation of meaningful interaction, learning from one another, coaching, helping another grow, helping yourself grow, being a good friend, loving family member, all include rapport.
Build a Foundation First and Quickly
I donât think I am unveiling some unsaid truth. I think most humans figure this out on their own at some point. What isnât so evident is how to do this with intention and efficiency. It could be argued something like âefficiencyâ has no place in the world of relationships, but I disagree. The faster we get a strong foundation for relationships, the longer we can spend with the best parts of well-built rapport, which in turn means more happiness and growth for all involved.
Back to me being utterly useless to that young man all those years ago. I didnât know him, he didnât know me. In that situation, I didnât have the time or structure to get to know him, but it serves an important point. You have to get to know someone if want to help them, at least on some basic level.
It starts with really listening, not just waiting for your turn to talk. In fact, do as little talking as possible at first. This was hard for me, I am an extreme extrovert. Share who you are, but ask them open-ended questions that elicit more responses. Give them space and time and when they mention something they seem particularly into, ask more specifics about that thing. Let them be the expert.
When you let them be the expert, they feel safe and in control. While they enthusiastically share their expertise, be sure to actively listen and ask more. You will be surprised how much energy this can add to a conversation, and how many opportunities this can lead to for more rapport-building in subsequent interactions.
Asking follow-ups about what they spoke about in subsequent interactions really lights people up. I call it the power follow-up. When you ask about something they spoke about in your last conversation, it sends a signal to that person. The signal is that you were listening, you cared, and cared enough to remember after some time has passed. Thatâs surprisingly rare. I am always delighted when my students ask me on Monday about some specific weekend I offhandedly mentioned the previous Friday.
Vulnerability is a key factor in early rapport building as well. When you help someone, it is an inherently vulnerable situation for them. No one likes to feel this way, especially with someone they hardly know. When you allow them to teach you about something, even in a small ongoing way, you can demonstrate how comfortable you are with being a novice. This modeled behavior and trust building are dually powerful when the roles change and you help them.
Building early rapport with someone is like starting a bank account. It needs regular, preferably big deposits to jumpstart. Allowing them to be the expert and demonstrating ease with vulnerability are your initial deposits. They wonât be enough alone. You need ongoing deposits so that when you make withdrawals, like asking someone to do hard things they are uncomfortable with, the funds are there.
An ongoing deposit you can make is to make sure you have interactions that go beyond requests or problems. Make sure you have ample interactions that are get to know each other more, see how they are doing, follow up, celebrate recent wins, find shared interests, share more about yourself, or any other reason that doesnât end in a request or problem. Rapport building takes time and making sure these deposits are regular over time compounds your ability to help.
Justin Suâa, a career mindset coach for the top athletes in the world, defined it best when it comes to these relationship capital withdrawals. While on The Knowledge Project podcast, he said he always aims to get his working relationships with athletes to the point where their sessions can bear the weight of truth. Itâs a strong analogy. The weight of truth is unavoidable if you wish to help someone grow. Growth is uncomfortable and vulnerable, so your rapport has to be stronger than that discomfort. If you have made enough deposits and the rapport is strong, the truth will resonate. If you have not deposited enough, your account goes negative and you harm the relationship. If you have made little to no deposits, then you will come off as someone who is at best pestering them and at worst actively trying to make them miserable.
The good news is that when you over-withdraw, it can lead to stronger connections if you check your ego at the door. When I angered that student about his economic notes, I had a follow-up with him the next day. I owned the fact that I hadnât checked in enough, and I wasnât working hard enough to customize the material. He appreciated the apology and also apologized. Our rapport doubled in strength because of this shared vulnerable moment, and only got better in the following year. He is one of the students I stay in contact with to this day, years after he graduated. Every failure is an opportunity for something more, you just have to be cool-headed enough to recognize it.
Authenticity: Double Down on Personal Strengths
I have a few more suggestions on the early phases of building rapport, but it comes with a disclaimer. These are techniques that are tailored and built on years of learning what my strengths are as a teacher and doubling down on them. I realized early on that most people, especially students, sense when you are doing something carbon copy rather than with authenticity. In other words, donât use techniques that arenât âyou.â I have known teachers who can build rapport rapidly by joking around with a loose style. I have known others who do so through strict daily rhythms and routines, rarely breaking them. I have seen teachers build rapport by giving students a hard time in a supportive way, beating snarky teenagers at their own games. All of these techniques worked because they were thought out, built on genuine personal strengths, and authentic. Authenticity feeds confidence, and people connect with confidence.
I realized early on I am an exuberant nerd. Not in the sense that I am naturally smart and deep in my knowledge of things, but I am a nerd who is endlessly curious about a lot of stuff, and it can be contagious for students. When you are building rapport and teaching someone, they have a lot going on in their life. We all have our battles to fight. You can help quiet the noise of these battles if you are consistent and have overwhelming excitement whenever you see someone. I over-enthusiastically greet all my students, to an almost comical level. Even the most cynical of students crack a smile eventually if you do this consistently. An enthusiastic greeting means acceptance. Overwhelming exuberance demonstrates it's okay to nerd out. The combo makes people feel welcome and ready to get curious about their own interests.
When I was younger, I fluctuated wildly between being with the âinâ crowd and being bullied. Often I would do what I could to make sure I wasnât on the receiving end of being made fun of, but the ice was thin. One coping mechanism I learned was to be self-deprecating. I figured if I made fun of myself in a comical way I could beat bullies to the punch and get some laughs. Sometimes it worked, other times it backfired. As I got older, I cared a lot less what others thought but retained my skill of self-deprecation which ended up serving better purposes.
When you are willing to make fun of yourself, in a genuine humble way that isnât motivated by insecurity, it shows confidence and models how not to take yourself too seriously. Notice the modeling is consistent through a lot of these suggestions. Think, âdo as I do.â We all have known âdo as I say, not as I doâ people. Itâs a quick path to losing rapport.
Speak affectionately about others in your life. People notice this. I have theories as to why this is effective but the most likely is that people admire that you speak well of people you know, and think you will do the same for them if you have a good relationship.
Use strategic vulnerability. Strategic meaning being aware of when it is appropriate and effective to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable meaning relating challenges you have faced and overcome. The strategy is important so you donât come off as âone-uppingâ or invalidating feelings. We all have vented to someone who always has âgone through something worse.â They suck and waste your time. Donât be that person.
Being strategic also means knowing how vulnerable to be. Empathy and vulnerability can serve as a rapport builder, but you have to know how much to share. Too much is likely inappropriate and not helping, but the right amount shows that person you understand and that they are not alone. You can omit details, change features of your story, or alter anything that doesnât detract from the goal. The goal is always to build rapport.
Find your tools, sharpen, build rapport, and be happy
If youâre unsure about the importance of relationships and happiness, along with supporting soft skills like rapport building, just check out the longest-running study on happiness conducted by Harvard. What makes people happy includes relationships. How you do this is to develop and practice soft skills like rapport building.
Did I leave that student in the tutoring hall confused? You bet I did. Did I allow myself to repeat that mistake endlessly? No, I did not. Over many years of reflection and practice, I have sharpened my ability to build rapport rapidly so I can get to the real work of helping others and reaping the rewards of fulfillment and happiness. You can do this too, you just have to practice and know the work is worth it in the end.
Inspirations
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
My amazing students over the years. Thank you for teaching me so much
A Present
Knowledge Project (Podcast): Barbara Tversky has me thinking a lot more on how to incorporate diagrammatic ways to serve you better as an audience. More to come. Also, gestures precede language. I am seeing communication a little differently.
No Stupid Questions (Podcast): How can I incorporate more cognitive endurance training into my life? What about my students? I havenât cracked the code yet, but more to come on this too.
Really great post. I learned a lot. Some of what I do is instinctual, but you have clarified so much and I can be better for it. I hope you keep this up. I want to learn and grow and never stop!
Great post, CJ! This is really personal and relatable. I'd love to talk more about it!