A while ago I told you that there is no such luck, and now I’m going to bust another myth – that some people are good at things, while others are not. Waste! Anyone can learn to be good at anything. Read on to find out how to recreate the successes you see other people enjoying.
Confessions of a wallflower
Fifteen years ago when I was working for the UK government part of my job was attending conferences and meetings all over the world. I hated. I am an introverted person; I feel tired after social occasions and at parties (when I can’t avoid them), I usually watch until it’s no longer rude to leave.
A job that required me to approach strangers, make connections and build relationships very quickly made me extremely uncomfortable.
If you want a skill – learn it
I had a colleague who was wonderfully outgoing. Drink in hand, she worked in the room, seemed to know everyone, and had a full international contact book. Having recently trained in NLP, I tried one of the most famous Neuro Linguistic Programming techniques – modeling, to learn to be more like it.
For a few days, I watched her at work, trying to capture her social success in action. I noticed that she didn’t wait for people to approach her and that she didn’t seem to have a hard time breaking into group conversations. She never seemed to be pushed back. It was immediately a lesson to me – professionals at work aren’t like teenagers in the playground – they’re not going to stare at you in contemptuous silence until you run away.
Ask an expert to teach you
Next thing I did was take her for a cup of coffee and I just asked her how she did it. At first, she was very surprised to be interviewed – it had never occurred to her that she possessed this skill or that it involved techniques that she used unconsciously.
The NLP metamodel offers a series of questions to help you and the person you’re talking to really deepen your understanding of the technique. For example: have they ever thought about what would happen if they did something different? What do they do specifically before implementing a behavior? What do they compare their results to?
It turned into a very deep conversation, with her truly exploring her childhood and her attitudes towards life. Obviously, I couldn’t recreate his upbringing on my own, but I learned some very useful tips: be prepared, don’t just come. Suppose you are welcome. Keep the connection.
Preperation
Before an event, she found out who was going to be there and what they were doing. She identified the people that it would be most helpful for her to meet and she would contact the host of the meeting, or a mutual friend, and ask to be introduced.
Having found people she needed to meet, she spent some time researching them, gleaning enough information about their work to be able to ask intelligent questions when they were face to face.
She would set a goal of gaining at least three new contacts by the end of the event.
She practiced mental rehearsal: imagining herself at the event and seeing herself as alive and engaging. Under my guidance, she also began to identify the sights, sounds, and other sub-modalities that she successfully associated with networking.
She said that in fact she was quite a shy person, but before embarking on an event, she “Channeled Boadiceaas she said. She stood up straight, put her shoulders back and walked into the room like she owned it. The classic scythe until you do.
Implementation
It had never occurred to him that people wouldn’t want to go online. “It’s a networking event,” she said. “They are truly grateful when you break the ice for them. “She had a number of tricks for remembering names and faces, and was a great ear, really making people feel like they were the center of her attention.
Followed
There is no point in establishing a connection that you are not using. After the event, she spent a morning emailing people she had met, thanking them for their time and suggesting ways to work together. She never let a connection get cold.
Has NLP changed me?
I learned a lot from this conversation. Fifteen years later, I’m still an introvert and I’d much rather read a book than go to a cocktail party; but in a work situation, just like I put on an elegant suit, I also put on my “schmoozer” character. I talk to strangers, inspire them to volunteer at our school, excel at putting people at ease, and have a long list of helpful people to turn to in any situation.
NLP modeling is a useful technique for a wide range of situations where you want to improve at what you do – not just to help introverts network. Why not give it a try?
Comments are closed.