
Ask HN: How can I “learn” to talk to people? - stonecodegump
In the recent Ask HN about acquiring freelance jobs, the number 1 answer was to find a local agency, phone them up and talk to them.<p>The thought of having to talk to some one, in particular someone who I have never spoken to before fills me with utter dread. But reaching out to people and talking to them seems to be an incredibly valuable life skill in just about any area of life.<p>It&#x27;s a skill that seems to have completely passed me by and is really holding me back. So, HN, how do I overcome this? How can I start to learn how to reach out and talk to people?
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davelnewton
You start reaching out and talking to people.

Expect some initial trepidation and the occasional epic failure. Learn from it
all.

You could also try something like Toastmasters
([https://www.toastmasters.org/](https://www.toastmasters.org/)) which some
folks I know have said helped them quite a bit.

It's a skill to develop and practice, like any other, except that humans are
awful.

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enkiv2
The answer to this question depends upon what specific issues you have talking
to people. If you merely have unfounded anxiety, confidence-increasing tactics
like joining toastmasters will help (although that will give you experience in
public speaking, which is very different from private speaking). If your fear
of talking to people stems from poor social skills, I recommend reading the
first half of the book Games People Play, because it explains in pretty
concrete and procedural terms a model of communication that addresses some
common mistakes people with poor social skills make (particularly, talking
significantly more or significantly less than justified by the situation). (I
don't really recommend the second half of the book, because those ideas are
less useful for the purpose of keeping good relationships & have also spread
much more widely.)

~~~
stonecodegump
I think a big part of the problem is I have aspegers and thus find human
conversation exceptionally confusing - thus very poor social skills. I am
however, aware that this is also very likely to just be an excuse, and I want
to just push past it.

I will look up that book, thanks.

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lsiunsuex
Stop caring about what others think of you.

Back in the day, I was pretty shy and probably still am to a certain point. I
was always self conscious; was I dressed properly, did my hair look ok, etc...

I made it a point to stop being like this. To just be me. It's not to say,
don't care what you look like or how you carry yourself or etc... But stop
worrying about what others think. You can't please everyone; not everyone will
like how you dress, talk, etc... That's ok. Your not out to please everyone.

Own the room / conversation / email.

Over the last 5 years of doing my startup, we started going to events where we
were exhibitors. I go to help out - pass out free t-shirts, tell the students
what we do; how we help them, etc... So a shy person having to talk to 600
strangers inside of 3 hours? Yeah, no. So I decided to own the room. I walked
into that room prepared; I knew what I'd say; I knew what I'd have to offer
and if I couldn't answer; I'd defer to my partner. At first, I wore a suite /
tie. This last year; I wore our t-shirt and a sports jacket / jeans. We own
the room at these events.

Know what your talking about.

At first, I was just the developer. I knew very little about our target
industry. I built the site for sure, but anything past that - "I'd like to
introduce you to my partner..." It wasn't until I took an interest in our
industry could I speak confidently to our users. Being confident in what I was
talking about took time for sure; but where I was nervous about going to this
event in years past; now I walk in like it's a party. We're there to see our
users face to face, give out some cool free stuff and make new connections.
It's become my favorite thing of the year to do. Smile from ear to ear, baby.

So - confidence, knowledge and level of comfort with a given subject. Nail
those, and you'll have an easier time.

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brudgers
Very very few people enjoy cold call sales pitches...or you're not alone in
how you feel. Cold calls are hard because the odds are you, or anyone else,
will be rejected.

One technique I heard about some where is to measure and track the number of
rejections. Partially because this is a big number and easy to increase,
partially because it aligns with the hard part of making calls...calling and
risking rejection.

Another technique is to team up with someone who likes talking to people.

Good luck.

