In this newsletter Iâm going to teach you how to make wonderful new social connections with zero effort.
You should want to learn this because everything great that humans have achieved has been achieved by teamwork. Even the solitary mathematician chewing on a problem for months on end is in collaboration. (Because sheâs relying on the mathematicians who created the foundational principles.)
Unfortunately, most people struggle to unlock their true friend-making potential because of insecurity, doubt and anxiety.
Self-Consciousness (The Friend-Making Kryptonite)
Itâs good to want whatâs best for yourself. Itâs good to be concerned with your own well-being. But when youâre facing another person, you might want to consider suspending that for a moment, because to do so is how you unlock benefit.
Of course, whilst youâre concerned with your needs, the person youâre talking to is concerned with their needs. So the simple hack for making friends is empathy.
If you can be more concerned with the person youâre talking to than you are with yourself, congratulations: you win the social game.
This is just how humans work. When we see that someone else is genuinely interested in our well-being, we open up. We begin to trust. And when we trust, we can invest without fear.
If you convince me through your genuineness that you care about me, now I know that I can care about you and my energy wonât be wasted. (In fact, itâll be returned with interest!)
Sound good?
Good.
Because Iâm about to tell you how to kick out insecurity and unlock your inner friend-making machine.
Step 1: Mindfulness
If youâve spent any time with me at all you wonât be surprised to see mindfulness at the top of my list for improving your social skillsâor anything else.
Mindfulness is a uniquely potent antidote for insecurity, doubt and anxiety. Just ask anyone whoâs been meditating for a year how theyâre doing with these 3 emotions. Youâll love what you hear.
Simple Meditation Instructions
- Get comfortable in a quiet spot
- Relax (accept things as they are), let go (stop wishing things were different), shut the fuck up (stop judging and describing)
- When you notice tension or distraction, acknowledge the noticing as successful mindfulness practice
- Repeat steps 2 & 3
As you do this, insecurity, doubt, anxiety and other afflictive emotions will start to look different. Where previously these things may have seemed solidâas if they had power over youâslowly you will see that theyâre really just sensations, coming and going within awareness.
That sounds much less scary, doesnât it?
And if at first you can see this in meditation, next youâll be able to see it whilst in conversation. When you can see this in conversation, you create space to deploy empathy.
Empathy makes friends.
My Wife, The Introverted (Then Not-So-Introverted) Psychologist
When I met my wife she had 2 degrees in psychology and was working on her 3rd.
A lot of people think that someone with a psychology degree must have their mental landscape perfectly pruned. Actually, thatâs rarely the case.
Most people who study psychology are looking to understand themselves. That tends to take a while.
But my wife discovered a shortcut when she and I met.
See, while my wife was growing up in the Eastern hemisphere and studying the mind theories of the West, I was here in the West studying the mind theories of the East.
Comparing notes was how we hit it off. What we found was that the Westâs presentation was lacking one super-important thing that the East had already been nailing for millennia: practical application (i.e. mindfulness).
So Debbie started practising mindfulness every moment of every day, just as I had. And sure enough, she found that her introverted tendencies diminished.
Now she finds it much easier to make friends because social interactions donât cost her so much energy (insecurity, doubt and anxiety are a lot of work!)
Step 2: Interact Genuinely
If youâre like everyone else then youâve had the following experience:
đčThey talk, you listen
đčThey keep talking, you get distracted
đčThey ask a question, you feel a rush of anxiety as you realise you have no idea what the context is
Weâve all been there. It sucks. But why are we like this?
Self-centredness isnât popular, but it does serve a purpose: it keeps us alive.
If you had no concern for your own needs you wouldnât keep yourself hydrated, let alone keep your boss happy.
But thereâs good news: weâre all pretty safe now, which means we donât have to think about ourselves so much.
It usually takes time, but you can relax that old programming that kept your ancestors safe in the jungle. And when you do, youâll have more mental space to be genuinely interested in what your conversation partner has to say.
Small Talk Meditation
To avoid that common problem of zoning out, turn your conversations into a meditation.
đčTune into the sound of their voice
đčTune into their facial expression
đčTune into their gesturing
And use these vivid clues to figure out how you can benefit them. Do they just need you to listen? Do they need advice? Do they need to hear a joke?
On the flip side, thereâs almost always something you can gain from listening to someone. They donât have to be an expert in your favourite subject: even hearing the most inaccurate point of view ever expressed can be insightful.
Consider questions like:
đčWhat must be true in order for this person to say what theyâre saying?
đčWhat experiences has this person had that led them to this conclusion?
đčWhat does this personâs angle tell me about my own?
Being with another person in this way is a tremendous gift to them. Most people just want to feel heard. And when you listen in this way you might surprise yourself with the quality of your responses.
Step 3: Ride The Upward Spiral of Mutual Benefit
Human collaboration is the single greatest force in the known universe. With it, weâve been able to:
đčPopulate the planet (for better or worse!)
đčTravel beyond the planet
đčImprove our living standards far beyond what historical ruling classes thought possible
Thisâand all our achievementsâbegan with simple communication. The better you get at it, the more youâll spot opportunities to help others.
The more you help others, the more theyâll seek opportunities to help you. Itâs just how we work.
Sure, there are selfish people in the world. But hereâs a cool truth: those people arenât interested in the kind of interaction Iâve illustrated in this newsletter. Selfish people are too busy seeking win/lose arrangements to even resonate with mutual benefit.
How to Find Your âMutual Benefit Tribeâ
I signed up for Twitter 3 months ago.
Since then Iâve made hundreds of beneficial connections with the strategies Iâve listed here.
If youâd told me 4 months ago that this would be my experience on Twitter Iâd have called you a liar!
But I went out onto the digital frontier specifically to find my tribe and, sure enough, they were out there.
Yours are too. The internet is too big for you to not find like minds.
Good news: if you like what youâve read here then my tribe is your tribe too.
Win/win for the win,
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