Vanessa Van Edwards says people practice new social skills with whoever makes them most nervous, like their boss, which guarantees failure. Start instead with micro skills you already have: storytelling, listening, eye contact. Use people who make you feel confident as your lab, then expand from there.
Here's the mistake that people make with this, is they start with the skill or the person they're most nervous with. Okay, I'm gonna go into my boss's office. Wrong. We've already made a mistake. Why would you start a brand new social skill you're just trying for the first time with the person who makes you the most nervous? And then you get the negative feedback. The boss is like, what is going on? We're gonna start really small. I like micro social skills. Micro social skills are the social skills you're already good at that you didn't actually realize was a skill that you were naturally good at. For example, telling a story is a micro social skill. That could be even quiet power, like listening really, really well. That could be— a nonverbal thing. You're good at nodding, you're good at eye contact. Identify what you're already good at because you need that courage to get you through the discomfort. Then who are the people who make you feel like your best self at work? Let's try a little new micro skill that you might be good at with them. We're using soft skills as an experiment and we're starting with a good because the only way to get through it is to fall back on the micro skill that you're good at.
