 When we are out and we're trying to connect with people it's not about searching for commonalities and it's not about puffing our chest up and celebrating all of our wins and how amazing we are. It is looking at the emotional state of the other person and connecting on that emotional state and we can do that by evoking positive emotions in them through questions and asking them about things that were positive experiences in our life or we can do it by sharing our own positive experiences and stories that allow these emotional connections. Absolutely. So we have two ways to connect outside of the superficial commonality searching that most people rely on. What I love about all of this is the concept of emotional bids and I learned about this concept, I want to say it was like six or seven years ago now, there's a pretty famous researcher Dr. John Gottman and he's built his entire career around studying relationships that have longevity. We're talking marriages that have lasted 40, 50, 60 plus years and his research looks specifically at what are those couples doing that preserve and lengthen and strengthen that relationship that some of us who are struggling in relationships can use to our advantage, can help us create and foster a deeper, stronger bond and he coined this term emotional bid and I think it really speaks perfectly to what we've been saying here. When we are trying to connect with one another, we are constantly putting up these emotional bids as Dr. Gottman calls them. These are bids for attention, bids for interest, enthusiastic engagement, celebration, extend conversation, play, humor, affection, emotional support and even some self-disclosure. These bids are attempts, these are almost like hooks that we're casting out there, hoping someone else can see them, recognize these bids and share in this emotion with us. If you're not looking for them, if you're looking for the commonalities to grab a hold on, you're missing all the best parts, you're missing where you can put a cheat code which is by grabbing the right things and allowing nature to do its work. Right, so Dr. Gottman says the hook is the emotion, it's not the logical conclusion. The hook is the emotion, so the more we can share emotions, the more we can query other people about their emotions and look for these positive emotional bids, the easier it'll be for us to strengthen and lengthen our relationships, right? So Dr. Gottman's research says that relationships that have longevity, they have partners that are sharing in their emotional bids together, recognizing and celebrating the emotional bid of their other person in the relationship. So I like this silly example of, let's say I've been married for 55 years, right? And AJ, I'm an avid bird watcher, love watching, finding beautiful birds and my wife Susan happens to be in the kitchen, we just had dinner, busy day at work, she's washing dishes. And I just happen to look out the window and I see a beautiful purple parakeet for the first time in my life, right? I've been bird watching for 40 plus years, Susan knows this, and I scream, hey, you have to come see this purple parakeet, it's so beautiful, right? In that moment, Dr. Gottman's research says there's this opportunity for Susan to either ignore or recognize the emotional bid by AJ. Now, if she says, honey, I have to do all these dishes, I got to get to these chores, I got to grade these assignments later, I don't have time to look at the bird and just ignores that emotional bid, right? How do you think I feel in that moment, right? I feel let down, I feel like I'm excited, why is my partner not sharing this with me? Now, if she chooses to put down the dishes and come run over and look at the bird with me, well, she's accepting and sharing in my emotional bid. And his research has shown that the recognition and the response to emotional bids is far higher in relationships that have longevity, that have stayed together 40, 50 plus years than those in divorce situation or younger relationships that have not lasted as long. So emotional bids strengthen and lengthen relationships. I completely agree with Dr. Gottman. I also believe that you wouldn't be having that relationship in the first place. You wouldn't be in that relationship in the first place without the recognition and response to those emotional bids.