Have you ever walked into a room full of people and thought, who should I talk to? What should I ask? Now imagine walking into Thrive with a clear roadmap, knowing exactly who to connect with and how to spark conversations that could change your business. Well, that's where Chad Littlefield comes in. Forbes calls him the global expert on asking questions that build trust and connection. But here's the thing, he doesn't just talk about connection, he creates it. Chad is the co founder of we and me, a TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and the mastermind behind the We Connect cards, a tool now being used in over 80 countries to turn small talk into meaningful conversations. His book, Ask Powerful Questions, co written with his late co founder Will Wise, has been a number one bestseller time and time again. Oh, and if you want to impress your kids or your grandkids, tell them you met a real life YouTuber. Chad's 500 plus videos have racked up millions of views, helping leaders make connection and engagement easy, whether in boardrooms, classrooms, or even top secret government agencies.

That's right. Chad's work has impacted leaders at Crayola, JetBlue, Johnson & Johnson, and Starbucks, just to name a few. So get ready because this session could make a six or seven figure difference in your business next year alone. Please join me in welcoming Chad Littlefield.

How many of you have already met somebody at Thrive? That's good. So when you meet somebody for the very first time, what questions do you typically ask? Where are you from? What do you speak on? If you're at the NSA, what are you wearing? What are you wearing? This is interesting, right? This is a room full of very smart people. And I've asked this question to 100,000 plus people and it doesn't matter how smart the room is, we always slow down after about three to five questions and maybe somebody's really funny in the back and says, are you single? And adds number six. So nothing against those questions, but this is interesting to me because what happens, right, is I walk over and I pair up with somebody with a lifetime of mostly ungoogleable experience. And out of my eight pound block that sits on the top of my head, I pull out, where are you from? And so it's not bad or good, it just is interesting. And so one of the things I'd like to do today is experiment with what happens if we wouldn't do that. So the ideal might be you open the doors to this ballroom and somebody hands you a pair of glasses and you put those glasses on and it Just highlights one person and you walk straight up to them. And then when you get close enough, a little bubble pops above their head with the exact right question to ask the exact right person.

The problem is those glasses don't exist. And until somebody here invents them and then quickly retires, I'd like to think that all of my work and all of my focus tries to accomplish the next best thing. And so for the next 30 minutes, what I would like to do is take the National Speakers association and turned it in to the National Askers Association. All right, so two quick stories to help frame up what happens when sometimes people don't ask you those questions. So 12 years ago, I was standing outside this arboretum garden thing and a mentor is about to get married, right? So my heart is pounding because this is like kind of a long term decision I'm realizing now. And people from all different chapters of my life were coming up and saying some version of congratulations. I'm so happy for you. Except for one person.

His name is Jeff, or still is Jeff Hayes. He's a mentor of mine. He walked up, no niceties, no hellos. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, are you present? Because you really don't want to miss your own wedding. Now here's the thing. If Jeff didn't ask me that question, I, I probably would have been there. My body would have moved to all the places it needed to go, probably would have got a ring, and hopefully I would have been married 12 years later. But because he did, he shifted my state and I experienced that entire night very differently.