The 101 of Character Building
What are the most Basic Social Skills Everyone Should Know?
#4 Curiosity
Photo by visuals on UnsplashDisclaimer: The advice below is my opinion and applies to both real and virtual social interactions.
Today, I saw one of my friends emailing his office for a day off on Thursday. He is not good with words so he asked me to do it for him.
I took his phone and what I saw, let’s just say did not make me happy.
There was no greeting, no beginning, and no end. He had simply started with the body of the email. Hint: This is not a social skill.
The Absolute Basic Social Skills
You have asked most basic social skills, so I will mention only the ones that are bare minimum and absolutely necessary and cannot be neglected at any costs.
I mean you will have to be stupid or from an uncivilised part of the world to not have these skills.
Mind that we are talking about skills here, which means they can be learned. If you don’t have them yet, you can practise and learn them. Let’s being with the one we already covered at the beginning.
1. Greeting
Whether it is the beginning of a conversation or the end, you always greet. Unless it is your best friend forever, to whom you can even kick in the balls, you always start with a greeting.
E.g. ‘Hi, How are you?’ or ‘Hello, My name is Lucifer Morningstar, also known as The Devil.’
This is especially true for online communication, such as email. Not every conversation online is an informal one. When you email your boss, you don’t just say,
‘Here is the final report you asked for.
Thank you, Lucifer’
You shouldn’t even start with a Hello. Yes, a hello to your boss is not formal. A ‘Hi’ is. Did you know that?
And then you end with a greeting too. ‘See you later’, ‘Have a nice day!’, or simply ‘Bye!’.
Once you know how to enter and leave a conversation, what’s left? The actual conversation. For that, you must…
2. Listen Actively
Yes, you saw it coming. Everybody seems to be talking about this topic.
And they have a valid reason too.
Listening is one of most required and yet the most rarest of skills of the 21st century. We all hear things but not all of us actually listen.
Whether you just hear or you actively listen, separates the successful from the failures.
Why? Relationship issues? No. It is not just about your girlfriend/boyfriend.
What active listening does is, it helps you at a fundamental level so that you can apply the results to almost any problem or issue at hand. Active listening helps you find patterns and those who can identify patterns out of anything, are the ones proactively working for a successful life.
If you can find patterns in your relationship, you can understand how to add to it in a positive way and how to resolve problems. It sounds easy, I know. It is easy as well.
Try it.
Do not try to be a relationship guru and try to solve the problem.
Listen to what they have to say and actually try to understand it first. I know it’s not easy, especially when there are a lot of emotions flowing around but if it were easy, we all would have ideal relationships.
And, please, for god’s sake, listening is not just sitting and creepily staring at the other person. You must remove any distraction such as a smartphone and fully immerse in the conversation. They are giving you time and opening up to you, the least you can do is reciprocate.
You don’t stop at listening. Once you understand what they said, it is now your turn to…
3. Speak
Speaking may be the most underrated-underestimated skills of all time.
Growing up, I came across this advice a lot — You should talk less and listen more. So, I internalised it. I thought it is all about listening and understanding. In my quest to listening, I forgot to speak, and because of that all I can do these days is listen, smile, and nod.
Speaking is more important than you think.
We talk about listening (pun indented), because we think listening is easy. Easy in the sense that you simply advice everyone to sit and stare, which we recently established is not listening.
But, when it comes to speaking, how can you advice someone to speak. I mean, speaking is just speaking, right? Wrong.
Trust me, speaking, when done right, can start world wars or pacify angry teenagers.
Be concise. Use fewer words. Give deliberate pauses. Use silence as a tool.
These are all just a few tips you can use to get started but if you really want to know how you can speak so that people listen, I highly recommend watching this TED video by Julian Treasure.
But, what do you even speak about, right? For that you must have…
4. Curiosity
How is being curious a social skill?
It is a social skill when it allows you to create deep and genuine relationships. We just asked what could two people even talk about, answer to that question is curiosity.
You establish a social connection with another person if they have something in common with you. If there is a common topic, you both can talk about it. What if there isn’t?
This is where curiosity helps. Curiosity helps in all kinds of situations but especially in this one.
When you don’t know what to talk about, be curious.
Ask them about who they are, what their dreams are, what they think their future looks like, what they fetishes are, deepest darkest secrets, etc.
And then listen. Genuinely listen and try to understand.
Ask question if you don’t understand. Give verbal nods when you do understand. Make eye-contact, not the creepy one (use the 50/70 rule).
You can even be curious about yourself.
Brene Brown, in an interview with Tim Ferris said:
The reason there’s so much hate and unhappiness in the world is because people lack self-awareness.
Practise curiosity on you. But don’t be too hard on yourself when looking for answers. You may not like the answer but beware of harsh self-criticism. We are our own cruel critics.
It’s hard to be curious about yourself when you’re constantly judging yourself.
Be more curious, in you and when talking to people.
Apart from these skills, there are plethora of other social skills at your disposal. Honestly, the list is never ending. I gave these 4 because, in my opinion, they are the fundamental pillars on which other skills stand.
Once you expert these skills, you will see a character change in you. You will be more empathetic and reciprocal.
More amiable. More…present.
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