There is an Indian child born in the United States who is very good at reading. After finishing high school at the age of 14, he was admitted to the University of California, Los Angeles. But he has few friends and doesn't know how to chat with others.
There are people like this around us: they are very good at reading, but don’t have many friends; they can only read, but they don’t take the initiative to communicate with others. After they join the work, they will find that they are not good at communicating with others.
What can you do if you encounter this situation? The Indian kid knew he wanted to make friends and build his own social life in college. To this end, he made a step-by-step plan for talking to strangers:
First, start by chatting with someone for 1 minute, and then change it to 3 minutes and 5 minutes. The ultimate goal is to be able to chat with strangers. Long conversations with strangers. He wanted to talk to all kinds of people: men, women, young and old, people of different races and backgrounds.
Secondly, at that time, he had no ready-made friends and no experience in making friends, so this plan seemed impossible to start. In order to find strangers, he thought of starting online.
At that time, the instant messaging software ICQ was very popular, and he used the "chat with strangers" function in it. That way, he can easily find strangers. At the beginning, he only chatted with strangers for a short time, and gradually increased the length.
Third, when he entered college, he felt that he had developed the ability to meet strangers through chat software and could use these experiences in face-to-face conversations.
The starting goal for chatting with people in person is to chat for 1 minute first, and then add 2 minutes after that. In school, when he saw someone he could chat with, he used his online chat experience to go up and chat with them.
At that time, it was not difficult to chat in person. He met a lot of people in college, some of whom he kept in touch with for many years. Friends described him as cheerful and outgoing. Others can't imagine how anxious, clumsy and shy he was before.
His experience in communicating with others from shyness to confidence laid a good foundation for him to make greater achievements later. Later, he used network technology to found Khan Academy. He records interesting videos to teach people medical knowledge.
His ability to connect and influence the entire world is all due to his ladder plan.
In fact, whether you want to get to know more strangers, climb mountains, learn musical instruments, or do hard work, don’t focus on it at the beginning: When will you become a popular king? When can we reach the top? When can I perform on stage with other musicians?
Instead, you should first think about how to take the first step on the ladder: chat with someone for 1 minute, start with online chat, and hit the right voice and rhythm first.
In "How to Think and Do It", the author said:
To complete a small goal, it may take weeks or months. Sometimes, to achieve a small plan, several small steps need to be completed. But just focus on the small steps and the rest will appear naturally over time.
Therefore, those who feel that they are not good at communicating with others at work should first focus on short-term goals and start by talking to others for 1 minute. This will make real changes.