A few years ago I attended a round-table discussion in my industry and met Alana. She was seated at the other end of the table, so during the session we only exchanged eye contact, but after listening to her comments to the group I was curious to learn more about her. At the mingling session after the discussion, I sought out Alana to talk with her.

On the surface we didn’t have much in common. She was considerably older than I was, probably in her sixties; she didn’t have kids; she’d just moved to the area for the first time; and she had a niche specialty that I knew little about. And yet we effortlessly chatted until the event broke up. We decided to grab a quick glass of wine together, and two hours later we were still discovering all the things we connected on, and all the ways we might help one another. She had extensive experience as a coach, which she much preferred to being a trainer. The training component of my business was really taking off, and I loved that kind of work, so I needed to start finding collaborators who could fulfill my clients’ coaching needs.

Today Alana and I are still working together, and we regularly refer clients to one another. Yet if I’d just gone on surface appearances when I met her, ignoring my curiosity about her and assuming that we had nothing in common, I never would have developed this fruitful relationship.

I remember walking home that night after Alana and I met, reiterating my philosophy to myself: Always have the conversation. My relationship with Alana is a continual reminder for me that when an opportunity to make a connection presents itself, take it. Engage someone in a conversation rather than staying silent, because you never know where that conversation may lead.

No matter where we are in our careers, forging new connections is a vital part of continued development and growth. When we are just starting out, creating and sustaining these connections can seem daunting. Once we’ve progressed in our professional lives, foundational skills such as effectively making new connections can atrophy, because we don’t always use them as often as we once did. In either situation, meaningful relationships are the pathways to productive, fulfilling work, and the methods for building those relationships are the same: Be curious, listen, look for commonalities, and create positive feelings.

In the four chapters in this section, we’ll take a closer look at these concepts to learn how to harness them effectively during moments of interaction, and to understand why you should always have the conversation.