James Haforlarin - How to overcome social awkwardness in 21 days: The complete Guide to making friends and being memorable

Howdy

Honestly I dont know the point of writing an introduction, you have bought the book already and you should get right into it, but my editors says its a must so here I am trying my best to give you a summary of everything you are about to learn .

Or not.

I will tell you my story instead. I used to be really awkward socially, I dont know what to say or do, and my conversations were really terrible. This book contains everything Ive learnt most of which I didnt come up with and Im so grateful for the social scientists that did.

What we are about to do is simple. This book is meant to teach you how people work minus the boring psychological jargon behind why they do. In this book, you will find lots of practical tools, tricks and hacks that will show you how to relate with strangers and make them your friend, but not only that, you will learn how to be charming while you do it.

I dont care how savvy you are already with people or how much you suck at social gathering, by the time you finish this book and you make use of most of what you learn, you would be super social .

And thats enough story. If you are ready to join me on this marvelous journey of self-discovery and not be like millions out there who purchases books that can change their life only to fail to read it. Flip the page.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression

Will Rogers

I used to wonder why people neglected me and how I always got awful responses from people back in the days. I would worry and worry trying to figure it out. You have probably been in this situation too.

I usually thought that it was all about what I said, so the few times I did meet anyone I would think too much on what to say and end up saying nothing or ended up blabbing too much and looking stupid and hating myself.

There must be something wrong with me I believed.

I was wrong. There was nothing wrong with me and neither is something wrong with you.

You don't just know the rules of people.

I bet you have wondered when you were at a public location in the past, in a bar or a pub and you realized the striking face that some few guys or girls seem to easily get all the attention, and the rest (including you and I) seem to easily fade into the background and stay there.

You might have asked what made those guys so good with people?

What made them special?

The answer is actually simple. It is all about the signals they send. Because there is a science to making people like you even before you utter a word. With that let me introduce you to

THE FRIEND-FOE CONTINUUM

You wouldn't believe it but it's true. We all have this subconscious territory scan in our head of everyone in our immediate vicinity.

We are always picking up body language and facial cues of everyone around us in order to place them on a continuum, we judge some people as a friend, some stranger or some Foe.

I hope you've heard of the fight or flight response. It actually the great nature defense mechanism that kept our ancestors from dying. Our environment scan is always on alert to trigger this response according to the signals we receive from those surrounding us.

Usually this scan is always at a baseline and everyone you don't know falls on the stranger's end of the continuum.

But once in a while, a stranger does something to get into your circle of influence, and according to the way our big brains evolved; it happens to hate anything new in particular.

Your territory scan will kick up a notch and since it takes just a moment for someone to stab you with a knife in our ancestral environment(the savanna), your brains does the best thing, it searches for signals that will give it information if this stranger should be taken as a friend or as a foe.

What this means for you is that you've got to be deliberate about the signals you broadcast to people even before they meet you. You have to place a firm emphasis on your first impression, that is that you do before you utter a word.

Sending plenty of friend signals makes the other person relax around you. Whereas plenty of foe signals makes them close up, put doing that flings them into the fight or flight response forcing them to flee from you, hence the 'I need to go to the restroom'.

SMALL TALK IS NOT ENOUGH

See, it doesn't matter how good you are at small talk, if your body language and appearance is wrong and you are busy shooting wrong signals to the people you want to meet, you won't get anywhere. They will close up and find the quickest way to get away from you.

Surely you have met someone and within a few seconds you seem to click. And at times you meet someone else and something seems to bug you about them.

This is why the first thing you need to fix is your body language and make sure you are sending the right friend signals to the people you would like to connect to.

You should be sure to signal to the other person that you are not going to hurt them, you're a friend and you just want to have a nice talk. Everyone seems to think it's all about bravery and finding the courage to approach, but being likable is far beyond that. You can't walk up to any stranger just like that, that's so not bravery in the least, it is idiocy.

Just like a wise man Albert Einstein once said; Insanity is doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result. I know you might just want to approach people and of course you can. The problem is just that when you approach someone coldly without making the person aware of you and giving them signals that will make them relax beforehand, the chances of rejection is kind of high, think 50/50.

I've done it a lot, all those street approaches and bravery shits, and I've seen the hard truth in them. More often than not I get treated with utter disdain. Which is why, now I always find a way to make the person I want to approach take a notice of me before I take a step towards them. This way I can overload them with friend signals so they just relax to me.

There is a fine art of approaching strangers and making a killer first impression. The doing is subtle and trust me, it will win you a lot of friends.

What better way to start than with the common Foe signals we project.

FOE SIGNALS

The crazy thing about foe signals is that they are subtle; we usually dont get any inkling that we are broadcasting them, but they are usually there screaming to the world that we don't want to mingle. Stay away!

And until you consciously rectify these deeply ingrained social habits, I hate to say it but your first impressions will always take the suck.

Here are the top 6 that you need to kill.

CITY SCOWL

This is the tightness we hold around our eyes and lips as we go about our daily lives.

If you take a minute to observe people in traffic and virtually everywhere - the bar, pub, mall, offices, on the road etcetera you'd quickly see this widespread scowl and frown everyone is carrying. It tells you straightaway "stay away you don't want to speak with me, I'm the most terrible grouch in this place. Talk to me and I'll gorge your your eyes" and we are often not aware of this hideous signal.

You might even have this scowl on you right now. That's how mind boggling it can be.

The problem this these body signals is that our scanning system already had millions of years to make insane upgrades so by now it's stupidly fact. Fast as in two seconds or less.