| The Inner Game of Social Skills |
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Technical Instructions
There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence to see for themselves.
~Will Rogers
The challenge with Social Skills is that it is not very easy to meet in flesh someone that knows well that skill, unless you really search for him. As most social skills have a bad name in society, people that know how to perform them keep a low profile: Seduction is a classical example. As a result, most people have only written instructions to learn from. Imagine if someone would try to learn salsa dancing only through a
technical book without ever having actually seen the dance itself and you will understand why learning social skills can be hard. If any one would ever try to put all of the salsa dancing rules in one book, that book would collapse under its own gravity and form a black hole.
Social Learning Theory dictates that people may engage themselves in previously forbidden behaviors if they have modelled someone that got a positive feedback by performing those behaviors. As such, when the number of people performing successfully a previous forbidden behavior reaches a certain critical mass of the population, the rest of the society will silently follow their example. This phenomenon is closely related to the back-wagon effect where people do what many other people do. ... Women take cover.... Cause here they come!
Technical Instructions originate from modelling people that were good at some social skill by reducing and digitising their behavior in simple, easy steps. Modeling teaches new behaviors and this influences the frequency of previously learned behaviors. This is why my cousin, once he found out what he could do with a Playboy magazine, he no longer wanted to leave his bathroom.
Where were we?
How can we use Technical Instructions, Modelling and Social Learning Theory to teach ourselves some social skill ?
In order to learn a skill you must watch someone executing the technique successfully. Visualising the outcome is not good enough as you don't have true feedback but only an imaginary one. (Actually with a lot of drugs you can see things that don't exist even in films but it won't teach you anything. I think. )
A. Find someone that is good at the skill you want to learn and watch him performing it, without thinking of what he is doing. Simply watch him/her. The person doesn't have to be in front of you: A video will do the trick. :)
B. Now, find a model for his behavior either by devising one or by finding one that exists already. Here is where written instructions come to play. They can help you realise what has just happened.
C. Now, perform the same behavior, you saw or read earlier, in front of a video camera like an actor who rehearses his role.
D. Watch your video and AVOID JUDGING the outcome. Simply watch the video and trust your subconscious for doing all the necessary corrections.
F. Go back to C until you manage to get it almost right. AVOID TRYING HARD: The whole process should seem as a funny game, nothing more, nothing less. Let your self make errors, let your subconscious learn naturally. Make sure to visualise the outcome as you assume that role and your subconscious will pickup and make the necessary corrections. AVOID INTERNAL DIALOGS at any cost, BE IN THE 'NOW' and not in what you did yesterday nor in what you may do tomorrow.
Step A is not always easy to perform as people good at social skills are somewhat RARE to find. If you do not know someone good at it and cannot find a video of him, just get the technical instructions and start from step B.
Watch out for 'George' - Relapsing
 This method has one drawback in relation to the older learning method where 'George' talks, criticizes and judges your subconscious: It is less fun. There is NO EGO satisfaction, there is no 'I made it work, mama' pleasure spike to feed your ego mind, as now everything is treated by your subconscious and the improvement can pass unnoticed. As a result you EGO mind will try to take the control again, first by saying: 'Wow, I am doing it right!" and then by proceeding to an older school instruction as "I am now touching the hand of the girl and I am now moving to astro seduction technique X1bc4 where..."
*BOOM*
The magic is gone away again and you are back at thinking about that social skill starting from scratch.
Short-Circuiting Naturals :) If you want to spoil the magic of a natural, (why would you do that?
 ), just ask him to 'analyze' what is he doing, how does he manage to always get the girl. The moment he starts to analyze, the moment he tries to explain, it is the moment where he looses his Midas touch. ;-) This is why explaining a joke , kills the joke altogether.
Wrap-up
VISUALISE but THEN LET GO OF THE OUTCOME, BE NONJUDGEMENTAL, TRUST YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS, LET THE LEARNING PROCESS TAKE PLACE, BE IN THE 'NOW', BUY US A DRINK.
The way to succeed is to double your error rate.
-Thomas J. Watson
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