Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome to the social
skills for beginners class. My name is Armand children, the founder of our money
talks media company, which helps engineers and entrepreneurs improve their
communication skills. One of the skill sets that
they are money talks, brand covers is social skills. Think about this real quick. I'm sure throughout
your childhood, you've heard plenty
of times that human beings are
social creatures. I'm sure that you've
heard that human beings, we need one another. That's the case. How come we were never
taught about how to turn a stranger to a friend. How to spot the
difference between an acquaintance and a friend. How to follow up. Well, that's
what this class is for. In this beginner's class, you will learn the importance
of having a social circle. You'll learn the
difference between an acquaintance and a friend, how to properly follow up. Plus you'll be given a final project at the
end that will help you boost your social intelligence if you're ready and excited, I look forward to
seeing you inside.
2. Why Have a Social Circle: I'm busy. Why even bother with the social circle
in the first place? I'm a lone wolf. You may be thinking
this right now. And I know that you
may be thinking this because I've taught this
in many stages of my life. There were plenty
of times when I felt as though that
I could do things better by myself rather than
involving other people. Because anytime I would
involve other people, they would debate, they
would create drama. Gossip. People are very overrated. And I'll give you story
that we'll talk about. My change in perspective. When I was in the
College of Engineering, I used to do a lot of
the studying by myself. I felt as though if I could learn these formulas by myself, read the text by myself, and be self-educated on my own. That meant that I
did a good job. Eventually, what began to happen was I was taking a long
time to do certain things. Eventually, one day, I
had this realization, Hey, instead of doing
everything by yourself, how about every now and then, you go to that one
building where a lot of the other engineers
hangout and just see what the hype is about
in regards to teamwork. So I began hanging out with
a lot of these engineers. And what I noticed was that
a lot of the definitions, formulas, and homeworks that I was struggling with on my own. These people were
solving very quickly. The reason why was because
certain people had specific knowledge that I
could tap into as well. Plus, there was that level
of commodity that was being built with us engineers
hanging with one another. That's when I learned that. It's not people that
are the problem. It's ambiguity. That's a problem. When you have no clarity, what happens is that you try to work with everyone in sight. When you try to work
with everyone inside. That's when you get Drama, hate, gossip, and all of that. The purpose of this
class is not to just build a social circle for
the sake of building one. It's to build it in
a strategic manner. So U2 are capable of having that camaraderie that will
make your life much easier.
3. Friend vs acquaintance: One of the first
things that we need to understand is that an acquaintance and a
friend are not the same. The reason that a lot of people have snakes in their life, aka disloyal people, is because they cannot
tell the difference between a friend and
an acquaintance. The reason that a
lot of people feel lonely in their lives
is because they cannot tell the difference
between a friend and an acquaintance or cut
straight to the chase. A friend is someone
that you have been through the ups and downs work. Well within acquaintance. You don't necessarily have to go through the ups and
downs with them. So I'll give you an example. Think about your best
friend real quick. Throughout your interaction
with one another, has there ever been
a joyful memory that you have shared with them? I'm pretty sure that you're
nodding your head right now. Like, yeah. Plenty of joyful memories. Okay. So you've went through
the ups with them. What about some darkness? Has there ever been a certain
moment where you felt in life and they were there to help you back up or vice versa. They fell and you
try to help them backup with encouraging
words and a pat on the back. Once again, I'm sure
you're nodding your head. So this is what a friendship
is typically based on. You need the ups and the downs. And when you're factoring
in that definition, you'll see that building
a friendship often takes some time because you
are looking for loyalty. Now with an acquaintance, we evaluate them in a
completely different light. One of my acquaintances
is my barber, and he's a cool guy. And whenever I need a haircut, I'll go book an appointment
and I'll talk to him. But what am I normally
want? Good stuff. I don't want to go through
the ups and downs with him in terms of the service. That means that I'm over
here paying him for poor haircuts every now and
then that's going to happen. But for the most part,
with acquaintances, we have a more surface level
understanding of them. And that's perfectly fine. So that's the biggest
difference between a friend and an acquaintance. With friends. We go
through the ups and downs width and with acquaintances
we have more so of a, what can you do
for me mentality. They view us like that. And we view them like that.
4. Quantity of Acquaintances: So here's the philosophy. With acquaintances. Have a lot of them. The more acquaintances
that you have, the more debt or social
circle has power. So you want to have an
acquaintance that's a barber. You want to have an
acquaintance that's a plumber of
Facebook ads expert. And so much more. The reason why is because this allows you to expand your reach. And whenever you have a
personal issue in your life, you can tap into that circle. And likewise, you have
to give value to, because human beings, they have that sort of mentality
with people. What have you done for me? What can you do for people? Anything, if not, find
skills to invest in? Only foolish people
tried to separate social skills from
self-improvement does not wise. Because the more that
you self improve, the more that you become that valuable person
that can tap into different circles and industries with acquaintances
have the philosophy that you're going to have. Many of them from a wide
range of industries. And this will help
keep you social.
5. Quantity of Friends: With friends, keep a few of, I believe you don't
need that many. France, I believe a
three to eight people. We could even say five
people are more than enough. The reason why is
because with friends, we have deep
relationships, width. And if you're trying to build a deeper relationship with them, then it's gonna be
wise for you to not spread your
attention way too wide. I'm sure you've watched a lot of entertainment
throughout your life. And you've seen a lot of those
shows where a popularity, It's determined by how
many people you know. One of those jokes
in the TV shows, they're surrounded
by a herd of people. I fell for that narrative. There was a certain period
where I had a lot of friends. I was over here trying to
keep up with everyone. And I felt as though that I could share my self-worth them. Here's what would happen. I would notice that a lot of
people would be trimming. It says though, that they didn't understand that
I was telling them a secret or they just weren't looking out
for my best interests. The more that that
continued to happen, the more that I realized that I was duped by a lot
of these shows. It's not the number of people that demonstrates
popularity. It's more about loyalty. Are these the type of
people that you can call when you've hit rock
bottom, you're struggling. And when you're struggling, you will see that the number of people are no longer that much. They began to disappear or your friends disappearing
to hopefully not. Hopefully during
times of trouble, you can contact
them and they will be the first person to respond. And to have that sort of depth, I tried to have less friends
and improve the quality.
6. Social Filtration System: Thus far, we've talked
about having a lot of acquaintances and a few friends. Now, here's what an acquaintance and a friend have in common. They started off as strangers. So here's a quick little
filtration system that will guide your mind
in the right direction. Whenever you're over here, let's say in a networking event, let's just use the networking
event for sake of clarity. You go in there and a lot of these people are going
to be strangers. So that's step number one, expose yourself to strangers. Then you're going to spark
the conversation with them. Understand that whoever
sparks a conversation first automatically establishes
higher social value. From there with the stranger, you're creating small talk. We're creating small talk
with the intention of seeing what we have
in common with them. Simply setting that theme allows the conversation to
go much smoother. You're asking questions,
you're contributing. And eventually the stranger is beginning to
understand who you are. You guys exchange
contact information. At this stage, you can
follow up a couple of times where now you're possibly
building an acquaintance. So stranger to acquaintance. But notice I said, possibly, sometimes this person
is non-responsive. Perfectly fine. Other times they're a weirdo. So you're at that stage
where you're like, do I want them to
be an acquaintance or do they disappear
into the abyss? I'll let you decide. So stranger, acquaintance
or possible no-show. Now, you are filtered from strangers to something
more narrow. From there. Acquaintance can possibly
one day become a friend. Here, your guidelines are stricter because you're
looking for loyalty. Is this going to be
a person who's going to go through the
thick and the thin, what you only one way
to find out time. So you guys are maybe
hanging out more, getting to know each other more, understanding each
other's dreams, desires, ambitions more. And possibly this
acquaintance is going to come into the rare
friend category. Or they're just going to
remain an acquaintance. Perfectly fine with that. So that's the social
filtration system. Just a little recap. We expose herself to strangers. We break ice with the strangers. Strangers could possibly become acquaintances or a no-show. And the acquaintances can
possibly become France.
7. Follow Up Strategy: So we've talked about
how acquaintances and friends are two different
groups of people. Therefore, our follow-up
strategy must also be different. With acquaintances.
The thing is, we don't have to
follow up that much. A typical touchpoint,
which is a fancy word for following up just to
see how they're doing. It can be once a month or
once every other month. With acquaintances. It's more rare. And they like you
more for that too. Because if they view you as acquaintances or they don't want to just hear from
you all the time. That's like my Barbara
just calling me on his way back from work. I'm like, What are you doing, bro? Well, with friends. Contacting each other more often is normally the way to go. How much more should you do it? That's really up to you. Certain people that are
more introverted in nature. They don't really like talking
on the phone that much. They may text every
now and then. But the phone is really
not their style. Other people love to
talk on the phone and your other friend loves getting a
phone call from you. Just the bottom
line thing that you want to understand is that with acquaintances where
follow-ups are completely fine
while with friends, more frequent follow-ups
are the way to go.
8. Group Chat: You may be at that stage
right now where a lot of your friends are
all over the globe. One of your friends
is in Canada. One of your other friends
is in Africa, your cousin. And by the way, that I mentioned that family members can be friends as well,
is in California. Bottom line, they're
all over the place. How is it that you guys
still maintain a friendship? Technology? The cool thing about our era is that we have a lot of information technology
ranging from telegram to WhatsApp group mean. So I recommend that
you think about investing in a group chat
with a lot of your friends. Now, I get it. There's a lot of
distractions out there. So you don't want to be one
of those guys that's creating a group chat for all
of your friends, are for all of your
acquaintances. It's an easy way to lose focus and to divert your
focus little too much. But just having
that one group chat where every now and then
you guys a message, each other, joke around a
shared life wins and such. I just keep the nucleus shrunk. And if one of your
acquaintances from the social filtration
system is ready to graduate from
acquaintance to friend. You always have a
place to initiate the n. So check out a, a group chat. Those always help in terms of solidifying a social circle.
9. Final Project: For the final project, I want
you to pull out your phone. And then I want you to get the last ten people that
you came in contact with, whether it was via text,
phone, call, messaging, whatever, write their
names down on a list. Once you have put
them on a list, I want you to identify them. What are they? An acquaintance. A friend, or are you
currently unsure? This tiny exercise is going
to help you distinguish between a friend
and acquaintance. And it's going to give
you much more perspective in social intelligence
as a whole. Once you are done, uh, classifying your list, I want you to create
a report that talks about your experience
where you mind blown. Did you ever think about
at this particular person, Susie as being a friend
or were you like? I always thought matt
and I were close. But he's technically
not a friend. He's actually an acquaintance. Were there any mind-blowing
moments like that? Did you have any
added perspective after doing this exercise? Get as detailed as
you possibly can, and post this report in the final project
section right down below. I look forward to reading it. If you enjoyed this
beginner's class on social skills and how to
build a social circle. Be sure to check out
or money talks.com, which has plenty of my blogs, my videos, my podcast, books, and much more. Money talks.com, or go
on and check it out.
Arman Chowdhury, Confidence thru Communication
