Minor Attributes of Confident People – Part 2

By Reg Scheepers

The purpose of the “Minor Attributes in Confident People” series is merely to guide those who, like me, are not naturals at this to start feeling more and more comfortable in social situations and even eventually start leading the conversation if they so desire.

I personally believe that the idea of introvert and extrovert is over-rated. Even introverts come out of their shell when they feel safe among friends they know well. An “introvert”, by my definition is somebody who has associated anxiety or some other discomfort to the process of relating to people or to strangers and has not yet been introduced to the deep sense of reward of meeting and relating to all sorts of people.

Since I started my endeavor to become a people person, there have been times I wished I could meet every single person on earth. There is serious reward to mastering this area of your life and I’m continuing to find out just how true that is.

My road to becoming a people person has been a hard one – one that I still struggle with. Some of my friends are absolute naturals when it comes to relating with people, public speaking, and so forth.

For me, even telling a joke to someone, even someone I know well, has been a source of anxiety sometimes. I worry I’ll forget the punch line and then I often do (for reasons relating to the brain that will be explained below).

I must confess that I used to feel very uneasy when speaking to people. At first it was because I couldn’t think of what to say and that would result in one of two scenarios:

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Break the Rules – Part 3

By Reg Scheepers

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth”

- Albert Einstein

So far, my case for rebel rule breakers has been little more than emotional rants well and truly exposing my early childhood issues. But I believe there’s a well-grounded case to be made for the rule-breaker non-conformists among us – those who say “up yours” to some of the commonly accepted conventional wisdom.

Rebels like to challenge commonly held beliefs of what can and cannot, should and should not be done. As you might expect they get heavy resistance from those who appreciate the status quo. Often rebels are wrong but sometimes they are right and when they are, a better way of thinking and doing is adopted which is eventually considered “obvious”.