Defining your goal
Defining your goal means deciding on whether you want to create a bond with someone or "beat" someone.
Creating a bond: make a friend; make an ally; get your colleagues, clients or boss to like you; convince someone; win a negotiation.
Why does language help to create a bond? Humans naturally feel drawn to other humans they feel similar. It is normal for people to try to find common ground during a conversation. Typical similarities we try to find are: the way we look and dress, the way we move, origin, job, and last but not least language. The pursuit of similarity is by the way also the reason why men wear suits at work (We will focus on this in a separate chapter at a later stage).
Language can play the role of a common denominator, both in private and professional situations. For example, when two Finnish people meet in France, the will immediately be interested in each other’s private life. They will immediately ask a question like: "Which town are you from?". They will then try to find further similarities, such as family or friend they have in the town the other person mentions. If they do not know anything specific about that town, they will at least confirm that they know where it is (which is the last desperate attempt to create a bond for lack of other similarities).
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