My social life took a bit of a hit when I first fell ill almost 2 years ago now. I went from squatting twice my body weight at CrossFit, salsa dancing, performing fire shows and going out 3-4 times a week on just soda and lime to breaking down, becoming a recluse, feeling terrible all the time and completing GTA V, maxing out my Skyrim character and putting on 20kg.
Since leaving England I’ve been on a path of self improvement to get back to where I was. It was quite easy to be anti social and just train at Tiger Muay Thai which was awesome at the time but then we created an awesome little digital nomad posse there so I was forced to reintegrate with society so there have been some self help, social books like this in my reading list recently.
This book is pretty good, once again reaffirming everything I knew anyway but it’s good to keep the various elements in mind. You’re not going to make many new friends by sitting in a corner quietly and hoping everyone says hello to you, you’ve got to get up, go out, meet people and say hello. Simple.
Since moving to Barcelona I’ve made tons of friends, started going out several times a week in the evenings, been to awesome parties, been having fun days out on the beach, played volleyball all with out the social crutch of alcohol. I’m now 38 days ‘sober’ woohoo! Whilst I’m not going to attribute all of that to having read this book, I will testify that I am definitely using the social skills the book talks about. Social skills that most social people will intrinsically know already anyway.
If you aren’t very social, are a bit of an introvert and experience social anxiety this book is very good value and I definitely recommend it. By itself it won’t take away your anxieties and create a healthy social circle of friends for you, but it will create a self awareness of your social skills and give you a path to follow and a framework to work in to help you become more social.