There is a lot of great advice in this sub, a lot of mantras and philosophies and ways of thinking that help us become more charismatic, courageous, confidant people.
The issue is that certain kinds of advice in the realm of “stop caring what other people think”, “listen”, “be bold”, “be comfortable”, “smile”, and other common mantras thrown around are too broad to be of use to the type of advice many posters are looking for.
Let’s say you want to learn how to paint. From a fundamental view, a great mantra for painting could be something like “Just let go, express yourself, stop caring if your painting will sell”. While these things are true, they are too heady and hackneyed to be of any use to someone who doesn’t have a clue about how to start painting.
A complete beginner needs to learn the fundamentals of painting. How to hold a paintbrush, how to observe what’s in front of them, how to break things down into simple shapes and build upon them, how to combine colors, etc. All of these are fundamental, technical skills to be learnt before you can move on to the fun mantras and philosophies.
When it comes to social skills, the “fundamentals” are often learnt as one grows up. Ideally, we would be able to practice these fundamentals through trial and error when trying to make friends as a child and teenager.
But so many of us did not grow up in that ideal childhood, so many of us did not get a chance to practice the fundamentals of social skills.
So you get people posting to this sub asking for advice about the social skills, and the advice given is often something like a cute phrase or philosophy that has no use for someone who is a complete beginner.
So, what are these fundamentals we need?
How to carry a conversation, how to listen, how to read body language, how to follow the give and take of a conversation, how to speak with conviction, how to project your voice, the rhythm and timing of a conversation, eye contact, how to ask questions, the list goes on and on…
Where do we learn these things? Obviously I could not boil it down to one post, but I will provide some resources that actually help.
Books:
The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane. Hands down the best book about social skills I’ve ever read.
92 Ways to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes. I love this because it provides practical advice, little things often overlooked in conversation.
We Need to Talk by Celeste Headlee. Very interesting discussion on connecting with people and how to do it better.
Useful article that goes into the fundamentals of give and take: https://cavemancircus.com/2013/01/17/social-skills-101-how-to-keep-a-conversation-going/
Hope this helps!
3 comments
Take my upvote, I agree with you but still social it is 5% theories and 95% you jump and do. So when we said stop worrying about what people think about you it’s pretty much 4 of the 5%.
As I agree with your sentiment. I also think that you can read a book and understand it’s content but when you put it to practice you still may be terrible at it. People can tell when you’ve just read bullets in a book telling you how to socially act vs. how it naturally happens. When saying “just go for it” provides you with the experience that you need to learn these social cues. It doesn’t need to be perfect right away, but it will be learned over time via experiences.
The painting analogy although true, the same could be said. You could teach yourself to pain through experience of doing, perhaps it won’t be professionally done…. But does that matter?
I see your point. I am one of those who do say here “stop caring about what others think”. But I don’t just say that with absolutely no context. I always tell what happens when you care too much about other people and why it ends up becoming a bad thing: you train yourself to become unnatural, anxious, and needy. But rather than stopping there, I give actionable advice as to what people should be doing to avoid this. They have to learn how to be genuinely busy in life focusing on their goals and hobbies while learning how to build social skills on the side. The latter requires them learning how to genuinely connect with people in person, which include the tips you were suggesting in your post.