People Skills Decoded

Social confidence newsletter reader Mark asks: “I would really love to know what to say to a girl I like. There is this cute girl at work who often drops by my department with various tasks. She always smiles at me and I’d very much like to talk to her, but I don’t know what [...]

I got an interesting question a few days ago from a reader of the social confidence newsletter. He noticed that very frequently, in buses, on the street, in the supermarket, while waiting in line, people look intently at him. So he asked me: “Why do people stare at me?” It’s not that “Dang! You’re hot!” [...]

Make no mistake about it: in today’s world, knowing how to talk to people is one of the most important virtues you can possess. If you don’t know how to talk to people it’s hard to make friends, build a social life, grab the interest of the opposite sex or get ahead in your career. [...]

A conversation is basically an exchange of information on various topics between two or more people. When the content and form of the conversation are appropriate, people connect with each other. Having good things to talk about plays a big role here. When you have good things to talk about with somebody, either a guy [...]

If social interactions don’t go for you as well as you would like and you sometimes tend to put your foot in your mouth during conversations, you may be asking yourself: “Am I socially awkward?” Drawing from my experience as a social confidence coach, I want to explain the characteristics of socially awkward people and [...]

I see conversation as the glue that sticks people together. If you pay attention to how people bond, socialize and build partnerships, you’ll notice that it’s done mostly through the art of conversation. It’s a very big surprise to me that throughout most of our formal education, we don’t learn how to improve conversation skills, [...]

An attention whore can be a pain in the ass. This person (either man or woman), due to their deep-seated need for validation from others, will often try aggressively to takeover any social setting. Their extraversion, theatricality, verbal skills and desperate desire to woo people often makes an attention whore quite loud, pushy and annoying. [...]

A few years ago, I was learning to be more spontaneous in social interactions and practicing saying whatever popped into my mind without thinking twice. I ended up saying a lot of witty and creative stuff, combined with even more goofy and retarded stuff. I remember that during that period, there was one condescending comment [...]

Recommending people conversation topics is tricky. Personally, tuning my people skills, I have learned to talk about anything and everything. I can do this now, not because I know a lot of stuff (which I don’t), but because I can relate with people on any subject. Simultaneously, I am aware that particularly when you’re talking [...]

Some people seem to naturally know how to start a conversation. They can kickoff conversations anywhere, from a party, to a seminar, to a queue at the supermarket. I’ve always admired these rare people. On the other hand, working as a social confidence coach, I often meet people who don’t know how to start a [...]