Why I need (better) social interaction skills
September 15th, 2005More interesting words from Steve. His latest post answers the question: why become an extrovert? A lot of folks were asking this question, and he provides a moving answer—one that I am definitely going to keep in the forefront of my mind the next time I’m caught in an uncomfortable social situation.
But the reason he gives (creating powerful relationships with people) is not the reason I decided to work on improving my social interaction skills. Rather, I wanted to have a fighting chance to accomplish several of my life’s goals and I knew I could not do it alone. And I knew because I read Keith Ferrazzi’s book: Never Eat Alone. It’s an amazing book about why building relationships matter, about how to connect with people, and about creating meaningful relationships with every person you meet.
Anyway, read Steve’s post and pick up Keith’s book. You’ll be the better for it—even if you disagree with every word they wrote—though I doubt you will.
March 21st, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Just thought I’d comment, there are two different definitions of “extrovert” and “introvert” that go around. The technical psychological term only means that your stronger set of traits gets energy by being directed inward versus outwards. The popular term means whether you are shy or outgoing. What confuses people is that introverted people by one definition are quite often introverted by the other as well, but you can learn to be outgoing (or shy) regardless.
There are four basic traits: sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling. We each have an order of strength/importance for these, and two of them are introverted while the other two are extroverted. Also, two are strong and two are weak (it follows a special pattern) so weaker traits can generally be run in the opposite direction of their preference without much trouble.
Good luck with learning your people skills.
—Luke