It's easy to think we possess reasonable social skills because we know how to have a conversation with strangers and can occasionally make a whole group laugh.  A greater test than this, and surprising in its ability to trip us up, is to have a pleasant time with a child we don't know. In theory, this should be easy as we were all once kids. But in reality, it is strangely hard to be at ease around children we're not familiar with.

Limited social skills

The reason why we may feel tongue-tied and inept around shy five-year-olds or a moody 10-year-old is that children are unable to do any of the usual things that ease social encounters between adult strangers. They don't ask polite questions about what we've been up to. They don't consider what might be important to us. They don't do the news or the weather and can't tell us much about themselves and their interests.

Children are the greatest tests of one’s mastery of the arts of charm and kindness

Montaigne said he found nothing more notable in the life of Socrates than that he was very gifted at playing with children. In his later years, Socrates spent many hours playing games and giving children piggybacks for 'all actions, says philosophy, equally become and equally honour a wise man.' He did not deliver lectures to them. Henri IV, the King of France, was very sweet around children. He once kept the Spanish Ambassador waiting while pretending to b a horse for his children to ride on. He did not sit on a throne discussing how to rule a kingdom.

Famous examples of people who know how to become vulnerable

Both King Henri VI and Socrates knew how to engage with children.<ul><li>They put aside their well-known virtues and prestige to make themselves vulnerable - the same way one should be when a friendship is at stake.</li><li>They knew how to find common ground. They imaginatively searched for what unites people and could find within their characters the joys and excitements of someone who has not been on earth very long.</li><li>They feel their way into the needs and points of view of strangers.</li><li>Even if they are confident, they know how to be in touch with the more timid version of themselves.</li></ul>

How to engage with strangers

You’ll know you’ve truly become socially adept when you finally manage to make small talk with that most challenging and unforgiving of characters: a small child you hardly know. If you like our films, take a look at our shop (we ship worldwide): https://goo.gl/aLr91M Join our mailing list: http://bit.ly/2e0TQNJ Or visit us in person at our London HQ https://goo.gl/tGq1RG FURTHER READING “It can be easy to imagine we possess reasonable social skills, because we know how to maintain a conversation with strangers and – every now and then – manage to make a whole table laugh. But there’s a test far sterner than this, surprising in its ability to trip us up: the challenge of having a pleasant time with a child we don’t know. Theoretically speaking, this should be so easy. We were all once kids. We know a great deal more than they do and – as far as they’re concerned – hold all the cards: if we felt like it, we could buy 26 packets of biscuits and go to bed whenever we wanted…” You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://goo.gl/9APsau MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Our website has classes, articles and products to help you think and grow: https://goo.gl/y51g7f Watch more films on RELATIONSHIPS in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLrelationships You can submit translations and transcripts on all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog&tab=2 Find out how more here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623?hl=en-GB SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Martin Pickles http://martinpickles.com/ #TheSchoolOfLife

Stashed ideas

The Ultimate Test of Your Social Skills

When you ask most people how they are doing, they will respond by saying they're busy. Being busy is seen as a currency in our society. We've cultivated the myth that busyness is the same as value, which equals worth. While we're struggling to maintain this status, the stress of busyness is leading to major public health concerns. More concerning is that if we think of ourselves as busy, we make ourselves victims. "I have too many things to do that are out of my control. I feel overwhelmed."

Being “busy” wrongly demonstrates value

Messaging and language can shift how you think about things. If we view our schedule as "full" instead of "busy", we can regain control and reframe our entire day. Being "busy" means you're running nonstop. But "full" means it is rich, happy, and content.

Changing our perception

When you view your life as "full" instead of "busy", <ul><li>You become grateful for all the different roles you play.</li><li>You learn how to prioritize. You view everything on your to-do list and decide if it adds to your day being full or detracts from it.</li><li>You take back control of your life. When you live a full life, you're content.</li></ul>

How your mindset can change

There’s a better way to reframe busyness (a negative!) by using different words, this comms exec and self-described word geek says.


You’d be a lot happier if you stop saying you’re so busy

Dr Herluf Lund, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Chesterfield, Mo., started performing aesthetic enhancements 30 years ago. Then, most of his patients wanted their surgeries kept a secret. Now, his patients expect their pictures to be taken, and they want to post them. Procedures used to be done discretely, but in the post-Kardashian world, transparency is just part of the process. Social sharing, particularly among celebrities and influencers, has reduced the stigma about plastic surgery and medical aesthetics.

Plastic surgery is becoming more transparent

Dr Devgan, age 42, uses her social media to extend her medical practice by educating viewers and managing their expectations around what is possible.  @celebface on Instagram shows the amount of work that goes into making famous people look the way they do. Though social media has been part of removing the stigma of aesthetic work, keeping up with the Kardashians is ushering in a new transparency around undergoing procedures.

Education and expectations

Part of the new display of aesthetic enhancements is about status: You're saying you can keep up with the Kardashians if you can get procedures like them. Part of self-care has been stretched to such an extent that it might include getting injections in your face every six months so you don't look "tired". Yet, no one can achieve the ever-escalating beauty ideal without training, diets, and cosmetic interventions, which is becoming a part of a normalised beauty routine.

Status and aesthetic enhancements

Justine Bateman, 55, a filmmaker and former actress, writes in her new book, "Face: One Square Foot of Skin," that women's faces are not broken and don't need to be fixed. The book reflects on women's faces and the cultural pressure to be ashamed that their faces aged naturally. Ms Bateman says she can either look in the mirror and think she looks horrible, or she can think it's a super cool face. But Dr Devgan points out that plastic surgery allows people to look like the best version of themselves.

Pushing back

Procedures used to be done in secret, but in the post-Kardashian world, transparency is just part of the process.

The Mesmerizing Pull of Plastic Surgery Videos

Growth loopsEngagementRetentionDefensibility

The benefits of Social+

<ul><li>Having a social graph that is unique and inseparable from the product.</li><li>Own the community – building a product on top of a pre-existing social graph means the network is owned by someone else.</li><li>The social element needs to be integral to the experience.</li><li>Peer-to-peer social engagement is essential to the product.</li><li>The community should engage with each other rather than being a passive audience.</li></ul>

What makes a company Social+

<ul><li>The social interactions should feel authentic.</li><li>Has an interactive layer, which appeals to the user’s emotional and cognitive side, and a transactional layer which appeals to the rational and functional side.</li><li>These layers should be mutually reinforcing.</li></ul>

Challenges to building a Social+ company

Social+ companies usually surpass their non-social counterparts. TikTok and Fortnite have higher values achieved on shorter time frames than Spotify and Assassin's Creed.Categories that remain open for Social+<ul><li>Fitness</li><li>Food</li><li>Money</li><li>Real Estate</li><li>Education</li></ul>Social+ allows us to layer social into the activities that we already enjoy.

The future is Social+

Companies like TikTok and Fortnite have built an integrated social experience around music and gaming. They are Social+ companies.

No category is really won until the social product is built. These are challenges and the open opportunities in building "social+" companies.

Community Takes All: The Power of Social+

Why do some networks succeed and others fail? One consistent pattern of successful networks is that they have scarcity early on so that people can signal status, and then over time the network moves toward providing more utility. Humans are hard-wired for status games, so product builders would be wise to understand how status & scarcity function.

Status Games: The Premise

Offering a utility to your user base is the most stable sort of long-term competitive advantage that you can have.A lot of network-based utility only is realized at some level of scale.That’s where status comes in.A lot of networks that have achieved super scale had some sort of status incentives or status games built-in, very early on. It helped them to get that kinetic energy that you need in order to achieve the scale that then increases your utility. Those networks were paying you to contribute — paying with ego, with status, with a sort of an emotional payback rather than money.

Status Drives Scale

Social media, ultimately, is mostly just about entertainment, not utility. But, if you have a network like Uber or Lyft, you’re ultimately about getting someone from point A to point B. That’s not really an entertainment-based product. So your competitive set may be more limited.
It’s very critical if you’re doing a startup to understand if you are going to be offering a product that is actually an entertainment-based product — because that really widens your competitive set.

Products Are Often Entertainment-Based

An understudied and overlooked aspect of product design is that a lot of times, people use products that just make them feel good.People in the gaming world have an intuitive understanding of how important this is — how important it is, moment to moment, to track your user’s emotional valence.

How Products Make You Feel

Because games are continuous, interactive experiences. The user in a game will churn out if he’s not feeling the right balance of:<ul><li>Challenged</li><li>Motivated</li><li>And rewarded</li></ul>That same principle can be applied to a lot of other products. How products take off = a lot of it is in how they make you feel.

The Right Balance

Mental frameworks that are more common in business and analysis tend to be more focused on things that are measurable or easily measured, which often is some sort of utility-based function. It is much harder sometimes to measure that emotional quality.

Emotion And Utility

<ul><li>It’s easy to forget that product development in the tech world, in the software world, is actually still a relatively young profession in the scheme of things.</li><li>If we study traditional status mechanisms in society, just generally, it’s always the case that someone is always going to create something even more scarce to differentiate.</li><li>One of the important things to understand in the long run is that managing a network and the status dynamics within it evolves over time.</li></ul>

The Precarious Nature Of Status

If you’re in a tech world where you have winner-take-all dynamics and network effects, where you have things that are absolutely free and infinitely available, well, at the edges of that, the old prescriptions kind of break down.If you’re allowed to define scarcity on any axis, that is a form of power.Video games have become leaders at figuring out how to define forms of scarcity. You can also look in the retail world for similar things where you have flash sales and things like that, where it’s just constrained inventory or limited time for something.

Scarcity Is A Form Of Power

If a centralized provider can guarantee the scarcity of that virtual good, then it actually does have emotional value. People who play League of Legends all know how hard it is to acquire certain types of equipment in that game and there’s a flourishing aftermarket for it.

Virtual Scarcity = Real Value, Real Status

Every product person or entrepreneur moving forward needs to have familiarity with the tactics and strategic understanding of this important point: Structurally, when determining how you build your product, part of what you’re doing is defining what scarcity means on your platform.

The Underlying Mechanics of Scarcity

You can think of all of the things like sales ranking and customer review ratings as a game. There is always some sort of proof of work. There is some hurdle that you have to do to capture that amount of status. And if you can define some unique form of proof of work, then you may have something that jumpstarts a new game.These restrictions, in order to create scarcity, drive initial white-hot centre type activity, which then can bleed into bigger products.

Scarcity-Based Games

In the early days of Instagram, there was a sense of progression in that they had filters and things that allowed you to feel like you were improving as a photographer. But the part of Instagram that’s challenging now, is a lot of that network is about if you have a lot of wealth or something, and the average person is going to be like, “That’s not my life. I can’t compete with that.” And so there is a point in which you start to feel you could churn out of that network because you’re not going to feel any progression.

Instagram May Be Imploding

<ul><li>There’s something to the idea that humans are wired to be very, very conscious of status. It may have come from another time in mankind’s history when your status within your small tribe or group was actually critical to your survival.</li><li>That carried over to the modern world — and the fact that we have these social networks that knit together the world, that allow us to see the activity or status of other people all over the world has sort of risen the stakes.</li><li>These social networks have pushed the emotional stakes of status games to, maybe, an unhealthy place.</li></ul>

Humans Are Wired To Be Conscious Of Status

All product people have had it beaten into their heads that, “Hey, you’ve got to remove friction from every process in your app. From the signup flow to this flow, everything has to be fast and easy.” That is not necessarily good.We have to start distinguishing, at the product design level, between positive and negative forms of engagement.You actually need proof of work. You do need some friction in the product, and it can be used for something good. It can be used to motivate.When we think about product design, we have to think about those positive forms of friction.

Designing Products With Positive Friction

In the first decade or two of the web and the smartphone, everything was really focused on efficiencies achieved from going asynchronous.In every field, you can see there are huge gains to going asynchronous.But we’ve lost that social feeling of community that comes from synchronicity.Over time we will once again say: “It actually does matter occasionally that a society is all watching something at the same time, or that you and a group of people benefit by doing something together.”You start to feel like societies start to fracture when you don’t have that feeling of communal harmony.

When Our Asynchronous Society Starts To Fray

We have long held this idea that there will someday be this kind of Metaverse-like world that more of us live in. We actually have already partially transitioned into it with our smartphones. We’re not necessarily wearing VR headsets and spending all our days like those people in Wall-E. But most people today spend a good fraction of the day with their faces in their phones, interacting in software-constructed environments. The fact that it’s not 3D doesn’t matter — it’s still a form of sort of low-fidelity Metaverse.

Status in the Metaverse

James Currier & Eugene Wei (product lead at Amazon, Hulu, Oculus), discuss the underlying status games that drive us all—in technology and life.

Status Games: Engineering Scarcity in a World of Abundance

A successful job interview hinges on a great story. A great story takes the audience on a journey. It has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
<ul>
<li>The “before” version of you was met with a challenge that forced you to learn, grow, and ultimately do something differently.</li>
<li>You made a decision you never would have made before.</li>
<li>Sometimes you succeeded. Other times you failed. Either way, you walked away with a lesson. You survived a challenge and emerged as a more powerful version of yourself.</li>
</ul>

Tell A Story And Get Hired

We’re all human, and sometimes we don’t always slay the monster — that doesn’t mean we aren’t heroes. Telling your interviewer stories of both successes and failures will help you stand out as an emotionally intelligent and a self-aware candidate.

A Self-Aware Candidate

If you’re one of the people seeking a new work opportunity, then you’re probably prepping for a job interview (or a few).
You don't have to spend all your time memorizing facts about the company and your role. Learning as much as you can about the company you’re interviewing with is smart, but everyone does this. The interviewer knows what their company already has, and they’re looking for what you can add.

Interview Time: What Not To Do

Are you Googling “tips for a successful job interview” and reading the top articles? 
Rehearsing “your greatest strengths and weaknesses?” Yawn. Instantaneous boredom.

Don't Stay Up Late

Without the context of how you show up when it counts, you won’t impress the interviewer. 
Your impression will stay at the surface level, leaving the interviewer with no emotional reaction to compel them to take a deeper look at you.

Don't Share Facts Without Context

We’re all familiar with the most popular interview questions:<ul><li>“Can you tell me about yourself?”</li><li>“What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?”</li><li>“Can you explain a challenge you overcame?”</li></ul>Every situational question your interviewer asks you can benefit from a great story. And understanding how to tell an authentic story about yourself in a way that leaves a permanent mark — in a way that allows your prospective employer to really see you — is the key to standing out

A Successful Interview Is A Story Well Told

A great story takes the audience on a journey. It has a clear beginning, middle, and end. 
The “before” version of you was met with a challenge that forced you to learn, grow, and ultimately do something differently (the beginning). You made a decision you never would have made before (the middle). Sometimes you succeeded. Other times you failed. Either way, you walked away with a lesson. You survived a challenging and emerged as a more powerful version of yourself (the end).

The Journey

Every one of us has faced challenges at work. Your task is to unpack some of those moments — something few of us have taken the time to do — and practice relaying them in a compelling and authentic way.Maybe you saved the day by speaking up when you saw something unjust. Maybe you salvaged a client account with a fantastic idea. Maybe you supported your coworker through a difficult day. Or maybe from time to time you’ve failed, walked away recognizing your mistakes, and are a stronger and more strategic performer as a result.

The Beginning: Choose a story that left a lasting imprint on you

When you share your story during an interview, you’re trusting your interviewer with a handful of unique details about your life and identity. That extension of trust is far more likely to be met with trust in return than a series of rehearsed responses.

The Middle: Bring the interviewer into the memory with details

Your goal in sharing your story during an interview is not to portray yourself as amazing all the time. The last thing you want to do is come off as a one-dimensional, cartoon hero. (That’s likely what every other job candidate is doing.)If you want to distinguish yourself and make a real impression, you need to display the fullness of your character. As in our original example, you can do this by choosing to balance your stories of success with a story or two of failure

The End: Don’t just be a hero — be vulnerable

Vulnerable authenticity tells your interviewer that you won’t show up to work every day pretending everything is always awesome (a false reality and untruthful in the long run). And that means that anybody who works with you won’t have to show up as one-dimensional, either. 
Suddenly, your interviewer can relax because they are talking to a human being and not the caricature of one. A successful interview is a memorable one. Vulnerability is memorable.

Vulnerability Is Memorable

An interview is easily won by telling a story, in which there is a beginning and end, with you as the hero.

Stop Googling “job interview tips” and master this skill instead.

The Best Job Candidates Are the Best Storytellers

A key stepping stone toward naming your passion is curiosity. How to do this:<ul><li>Make a list of all the things you're vaguely curious about.</li><li>Review the list for areas of overlap.</li><li>Set time aside daily to explore your overlapping interests.</li><li>Share your findings with others.</li></ul> For example, your list could include copy editing, biographies, and health and fitness. A point of overlap could be exploring opportunities to copy edit biographies about health and fitness experts.

Use curiosity to find your passion

Curiosity is the key to thriving as a freelancer

<ul>
<li>Before jumping off from the ship it is important to take the necessary precautions and lay out the possible path you've been offered or plan on taking.</li>
<li>If you received another job offer, make sure that you have it in writing (with a confirmed salary and benefits package) to avoid embarrassment if and when the offer is rescinded. </li>
<li>If the reason you're leaving can be addressed with a supervisor, try bringing it to their attention.</li>
<li>Most importantly, before leaving make sure everything on your end is settled -- such as finances or pending job applications.</li>
</ul>

Have A Good Reason For Leaving

Giving out a formal notice to your employer is a considered standard and a courtesy Letting them know why you're leaving opens up an opportunity for them to learn. A two weeks notice benefits both you and the employer.
It gives them time to scour candidates for the position and it gives you enough time to tie any loose ends and hand over any projects that you were working on to someone else. This will make your exit less dramatic and well appreciated.

Give Formal and Sufficient Notice To Your Employer

It's important to stay professional in all interactions with your current employer because there are some companies who call them up and ask about your character.
Regardless of why you're leaving, don't take the option of having a network and being known as a person who is able to maintain professional relationships away.

Stay Professional

Tips for navigating the tricky situation of leaving a job soon after starting it, including how to move on professionally with contacts intact.

How to Quit a Job You Just Started

We all struggle to speak up at times for many reasons:
<ul>
<li>It's harder to read physical and social cues onscreen and even impossible on a big team.</li>
<li>If you're a junior employee or still new to the company, you may feel reserved around your teammates.</li>
<li>You may feel your ideas are still half-baked and won't be seen as valuable.</li>
<li>You may feel someone more experienced may take your suggestions as personal critiques.</li>
</ul>
However, if you stay silent, the quality of collective decisions may suffer.

Difficulty speaking up during virtual meetings

Finding the courage to speak up is critical to your success and your team's success, as collective decisions are driven by the diversity of your experiences and expertise. To be more productive in your next virtual meetings, shift your mindset from:
<ul>
<li>"My idea is not complete" to " It could be the source of someone else's breakthrough."</li>
<li>"It's probably not my place to speak up" to "Silence is not in the interest of the team."</li>
<li>"I want to sound intelligent" to "This is about the collective intelligence of my team."</li>
</ul>

Shifting your mindset

Employees may refrain from speaking up because they:
<ul>
<li>Fear being ostracised</li>
<li>Don't want to be embarrassed</li>
<li>Want to avoid negative remarks</li>
<li>Feel like speaking up is inappropriate</li>
</ul>
They may decide to hold back an idea that is not thought out thoroughly. Shift your mindset: Your half-baked idea could be the first step in a team breakthrough. Speaking up may help your team advance from idea to execution.

Half-baked ideas are useful

Young or inexperienced people are often reluctant to share ideas because they are not in a position to do so. Shift your mindset: Never underestimate the value your perspective brings to the table. If you remain silent, you are effectively choosing not to help the company.
<ul>
<li>Ensure your idea is relevant to the group, not just one individual.</li>
<li>Offer an alternative solution if you plan to disagree.</li>
<li>Aim to strengthen the discussion.</li>
</ul>

Don't underestimate the value of your perspective

Research on collective intelligence shows that participation increases collective intelligence and the decision-making quality of the team.
Shift your mindset:Think of your next virtual meeting as a puzzle where each team member holds unique pieces to that puzzle. Holding back your expertise and experiences, regardless of size or importance, may leave the puzzle incomplete. The purpose of speaking up in a meeting is not to stand out but to contribute to on-topic information.

It is about the collective intelligence

<ul>
<li>Prepare your nudge: Think of one on-topic question you want to see answered during the meeting and write it down. Even if you get "cold-called", you have at least one thoughtful question.</li>
<li>Rehearse your introduction: Don't say: "Hi, I'm Haruto, and I'm happy to be here." Say, "Hi, I'm Haruto. Thank you for inviting me. I look forward to sharing my initial thoughts on ..."</li>
<li>Use the chat function to make yourself "seen."</li>
<li>Find your window: Unmute yourself and share your idea when someone deliberately pauses.</li>
<li>Raise your hand: Try using emojis to draw attention.</li>
</ul>

How to speak up in a virtual meeting

It can be especially hard in virtual settings.

Career

How to Overcome Your Fear of Speaking Up in Meetings

It is common courtesy to spell out or pronounce the name of a colleague correctly. However, many people with non-generic or non-western names face a problem of their name not being registered in the right way in other people's minds.
This results in a less inclusive workplace, both physical or virtual, for people who are from diverse backgrounds.

Unable To Pronounce That Name

<ul>
<li>Having a non-white name that is hard to pronounce or remember can negatively impact our chances of employment in many western countries, and the screening starts at the resume itself. </li>
<li>Mispronunciation of a name also results in an ‘internal cringe’ when it is heard by the namesake, resulting in needless doubt and uncertainty professionally. </li>
<li>Even kids with names being mispronounced get affected emotionally, and score lower than others.</li>
</ul>

Racial Microaggression

<ol>
<li>Ask the person to pronounce it and listen attentively.</li>
<li>Don’t make it obvious that the name is unheard of, unpronounceable, or awkward to pronounce.</li>
<li>Observe how the name is pronounced, clarify it again and practice it a few times.</li>
<li>If the name has been mispronounced by you, apologize and make amends.</li>
<li>Correct it for others who are also pronouncing it wrong, even if the namesake person isn’t around.</li>
<li>Don’t ask if the person can be called by any other name, as it shows arrogance.</li>
</ol>

How To Pronounce Names Correctly

<ol>
<li>Create a phonetic recalling word or object that is memorable, associating it with the name so that the correct pronunciation is easily verbalized (like Ruchika is pronounced ‘roo-chee-ka’, as your ‘cheek’)</li>
<li>Interrupt and correct people, giving your name the importance it deserves.</li>
</ol>

The Ultimate Test of Your Social Skills

You’d be a lot happier if you stop saying you’re so busy

The Mesmerizing Pull of Plastic Surgery Videos

Community Takes All: The Power of Social+

Status Games: Engineering Scarcity in a World of Abundance

Enzo E.