social skills

How To Get A Toxic Mother Out Of Your Nervous System

When we are children our survival depends on having support from our biological caregivers, principally our mother. If she rejects us, we die. Since our very life depends on her support, this gives us a tremendous desire for approval from our mother that goes deep into our nervous system.

If our mother was emotionally mature, mentally developed and physically competent at facing the challenges of her own life, her relationship with our father and of raising us, her reciprocal feelings of love towards us motivates her to meet our basic needs. Our nervous system calms down over time as we learn to regulate our emotions via the empathic bond that we share with our mothers, and to a lesser extent with our fathers, siblings and other significant older people in our infant lives.

Over time as we begin to individuate from our mothers, particularly during adolescence, our need for love, support and approval from her diminishes as we learn how to form healthy relationships with other people and to meet our own survival needs. Once our survival is no longer dependent on our mother and we are free to pursue our own goals, even ones that she may not approve of. This is part of the process of growing from a dependent boy into a [intlink id=”33″ type=”page”]confident, independent man[/intlink].

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Practice Using “I” Statements

Hey, it’s Graham here from The Confident Man Project again and today you’re going to learn about becoming assertive by using “I” statements in conversations. I find that a lot of times when talking to people or listening to people who lack confidence, what we often tend to do is we use the word “you” where really we mean “I”. Often the reason behind this is simply bad practice, we’ve got into a bad habit of doing it, and also we’re wanting to try to connect with the other people who we’re talking to so we end up saying “you” to talk about general experiences in the hope that they’ll get where we’re coming from instead of saying “I” where we’re talking about our specific experience.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Start Conversations with Strangers

Hey, it’s Graham here, and I want to talk about starting conversations with strangers. And there’s a little trick here that I’ve worked out that I want to share with you which I think is kind of important. So the reason why starting conversations with strangers is important is that it’s in conversations and our social skills that our confidence is most important and is most obvious to other people.

Now, there’s no magic silver bullet to starting conversations with strangers. The reason for that is that it doesn’t really matter what you say to people when you first meet them. Everything that’s really important is in the attitude that you have. If you’re nervous and insecure or edgy when you meet somebody, particularly a woman, they’re going to sense that and they’re going to feel like, “I’m bit uncomfortable about talking to this person.” You’re not going to come across as very confident.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

8 Things Women Wish Men Knew

Communication between the sexes. It’s always been difficult, and even as the workplace and the world in general open up more and more to women, we all still know that men and women are a little different. We think differently, speak differently, and expect different things. But when we share these differences, we can dramatically improve communication and relationships.

Guys, whether you’re married with kids, a newlywed, or just looking for love at the moment, read this list of eight things most women wish you knew, and remind yourself of them often. If a man can get these eight things right, he’ll definitely notice a difference in his relationship with just about any woman.

1. You don’t have to fix all our problems.

Whether it’s because of nature or socialization, women tend to be more relationship and feeling oriented creatures than men. While men like to solve problems with concrete solutions, women need to talk things out and be understood. Numerous studies have confirmed this, including one recent study through the Harvard School of Medicine. This study showed, that women and men were happier in their marriages when both partners made an effort to understand the feelings of the other partner.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Be Popular

I hardly need to spell out the advantages being popular: more friends, a wider social circle, [intlink id=”33″ type=”page”]greater confidence[/intlink], more people to play and have fun with, and more women to choose from when dating. Being popular can either be superficial like Glinda in the musical Wicked, or a deeper trait based on being an all-round great guy. I’d suggest going for the deeper version every time.

With that in mind, here are tips on how to be popular:

Make Other People Feel Good

Popular people love making other people feel good because it’s more fun having fun with other people than doing it by yourself. Learn how to make other people feel good by being around you, and they’ll want to be around you more and more. Pretty simple, really.

Learn How To Make Other People Laugh

Making other people laugh is a great way to make them feel good. Develop your sense of humor and learn to express the quirky, amusing thoughts that go through your head. Learn to tell stories that amuse other people, show off your strengths, and make them laugh. If you don’t consider yourself funny, read books on stand-up comedy and learn the secrets that comedians know about how to make other people laugh.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Why “Being Yourself” Doesn’t Work When Meeting Women

I often hear women giving guys who struggle when it comes to meeting women the well-intentioned but deadly advice:

Just be yourself.

Any guy seeking advice on meeting women knows that this just doesn’t work. After all, you’ve been “being yourself” your whole life, and look where it’s got you so far. Given that so many women offer this nugget of advice so frequently, it’s worth looking at why it fails in practice:

Who Are You Really Anyway?

Who you are is a combination of your core self, and all the learned behaviours that you’ve acquired since you were conceived. Together, these make up your personality. Of all the animals on the planet, humans have the largest capacity for learning, and hence the highest proportion of learned behaviour in our personalities. Your personality is what other people experience when they meet you, but it’s not really who you are at your core.

Given that most of your personality is learned behaviour, if you are sufficiently motivated and persistent you can learn new behaviours which get you better results; especially in your interactions with other people. If you feel like a failure when it comes to women, you need to realise that they problem isn’t you; the problem is the way you have learned to behave and communicate.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago