Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 971903" data-attributes="member: 99">You are absolutely correct about this.&nbsp; You can't just tell somebody to &quot;be confident&quot; when they aren't.&nbsp; The best advice I can give on that score is just to be observant about the results of your social interactions.&nbsp; Like I said in a previous post, the worst that will happen is you make a bad impression.So go talk to ten people and make ten bad impressions.&nbsp; Observe that even with ten worst case scenarios in a row, the world didn't end.&nbsp; It won't end if you make ten more.&nbsp; Once you realize that the consequences of failure in any give social contact are fairly close to zero, the fear should start to fall away.And the fact of the matter is that you simply aren't going to make ten bad impressions in a row unless you really are an absolute jerk deep down.&nbsp; Even most jerks come off as cool one in ten times.&nbsp; So long as you are at least making the slightest attempt at civility and some sense of manners, the worst most people will be able to say about you is that you seemed nervous.There's an Alison Krause song out called &quot;The Lucky One&quot;.&nbsp; One line in it goes something like &quot;The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing.&quot;Play the game.&nbsp; Playing is sometimes fun even when you lose.&nbsp; The ante is low and the jackpot is huge.Trust me.&nbsp; I just tucked my two year old daughter into bed ten minutes ago and I'm going up to kiss my wife right...now.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Rel, post: 971903, member: 99"] You are absolutely correct about this. You can't just tell somebody to "be confident" when they aren't. The best advice I can give on that score is just to be observant about the results of your social interactions. Like I said in a previous post, the worst that will happen is you make a bad impression. So go talk to ten people and make ten bad impressions. Observe that even with ten worst case scenarios in a row, the world didn't end. It won't end if you make ten more. Once you realize that the consequences of failure in any give social contact are fairly close to zero, the fear should start to fall away. And the fact of the matter is that you simply aren't going to make ten bad impressions in a row unless you really are an absolute jerk deep down. Even most jerks come off as cool one in ten times. So long as you are at least making the slightest attempt at civility and some sense of manners, the worst most people will be able to say about you is that you seemed nervous. There's an Alison Krause song out called "The Lucky One". One line in it goes something like "The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing." Play the game. Playing is sometimes fun even when you lose. The ante is low and the jackpot is huge. Trust me. I just tucked my two year old daughter into bed ten minutes ago and I'm going up to kiss my wife right...now. [/QUOTE]

Verification