Meet the brainchild behind www.socialsuccessmastery.com, Gary Uranga, who has been studying social dynamics since 2003.
As an engineer, his problem solving skills allow him to go through, firstly, understanding what the origin of a problem is and, secondly, applying the easiest possible solution for it.
That is how Social Success Mastery was born out of learning from various resources and advice offered out there, being personally tested and figuring out what worked and how.
Social Success Mastery lays down a path for every guy – no matter where you’re at – who wants to get his social life handled, make it awesome, and walk the awesome path to social success.
1.) What’s your background history in all this? What was your life like growing up?
I was born an introvert, and was kind of a naturally shy kid. Raised by overprotective parents, I was never motivated to be social at home. Actually, most times I was discouraged to go out with friends because my parents thought it was dangerous or whatever reasons crossed their minds at the time.
Even though I was a pretty lonely kid, I managed to always make friends with the cool kids at school. Though because of my insecurities, I would never see my friends outside of school. This went on until high school, when at some point I stopped being the quiet guy who was friends with the “cool kids,” and started being the quiet guy that was friends with the less socially-skilled “nerdy kids.”
I automatically became one of them (the nerds) even though I was just the quiet guy, especially around girls. The character Raj from the tv-show “The Big Bang Theory” is a good example of the way I acted back then, and how bad my social skills and insecurities were. It was my frustrations in regards to dating that motivated me to get my social life together; get friends, women, help others like me and influence people.
2.) What’s the biggest problems guys face with being social?
Identity and self-perception is a big issue. It takes an enormous amount of time and energy to “retrain” your brain towards a confident way of thinking. Identity defines how you’ll act around others and how they will react to you – it’s all in the way you’re presenting yourself. Social success is a “mental click” away, but making it sustainable in the long run is where the “retraining” of your thoughts comes in. The topic of identity opens a whole (very interesting) can of worms.
However, I would say the biggest problem facing guys is understanding where your social shortcomings originate and committing to the process of resolving them. Once you understand where they come from and how identity works, then there will be no questioning what has to be done, the rest is just taking action. I’ve seen so many guys who want to improve their social life, but they just don’t understand where their insecurities, bad emotions, or persistent anxiety is coming from. They just get stuck in an infinite negative thought loop that keeps bringing them down more and more.
Once you understand how the “social matrix” works (where your limiting beliefs and anxiety provoking thoughts come from) and once you believe in the methods to counter them, that’s when commitment and hard work will have a solid base to work from. It’s the first step where the vast majority of guys fail: these are the guys that will later be bashing on self-improvement and it’s where most people are.
3.) How would you take an outcast social-loser, and turn him completely around to being “cool” and “popular”? How do you be cool and popular?
The pinnacle of being socially successful is to actually be perceived as cool. Many times, socially limited guys tend to view coolness as a bad thing: relating the concept to being a jerk or bullying others, as guys who behaved this way tended to be considered cool by others during their teenage years.
On the other hand, everyone has their own concept of what cool is. We all immediately recognize some quality that we admire in others, want it for ourselves, and, in turn, consider this person to be cool. The second relates more to what becoming cool actually means one cannot fake coolness – at least not for a long time – coolness is about being, not about doing. I also believe that coolness usually comes from a deep-rooted self-trust, and this is what will make you cool. So, that’s the starting step, getting a deep-rooted self-trust.
If you want to become cool and self-assured, then you need to go out and get all the social experience you can. Go socialize outside your comfort zone. As you do this more, you have to become fully involved with it and make it a part of who you are, a natural characteristic. For a lot of guys it just clicks naturally and their upbringing makes them cool, maybe they come from a family that raised them in an environment where their self-esteem is constantly nourished. For others – probably my case – their upbringing actually motivated them to not trust themselves.
Coolness is a mixture of deep-rooted self-trust and being socially acute. These you can only learn by challenging your own self-defeating beliefs and socializing respectively.The answer to perpetual coolness is to transform your perspective and make some lifestyle changes so that you are constantly growing in self-trust and social skills.
As for popularity, it’s one of the easiest things once you’re a cool guy. While the process of getting social skills changes constantly, due to the fact that no interaction is ever the same, and there’s infinite, uncontrollable variables coming into play. The process of gaining popularity needs to be a persistent one, learning to do real life social networking is just about putting yourself in the right situations and connecting with as many people as you can. Your coolness will take care of the rest.
4.) What’s the most important skill somebody needs to master out in any social gathering?
Whether it’s with girls or social interactions, holding a “frame” is very important. What this means is keeping an attitude and a role relative to others. It’s a natural consequence of self-trust, but when you’re just starting out and maybe haven’t really developed much self-trust, then consciously holding the frame is kind of a “mental strength” exercise. In order to do this, you need to break the usual shy guy role you usually put yourself into and act in a more confident way.
This breaks down into:
– Viewing yourself as a cool guy who has a lot to add to the interaction.
– Not letting others force less empowering roles onto you.
– Keeping a positive attitude towards every social interaction. (No them VS me mindset)
Another more practical skill is directing attention and being able to manage it. It’s an awesome and almost indispensable skill to have to become socially successful. You’ve got to be in the conversation, you’ve got to be able to direct attention your way and to use this attention in a positive manner. What this means is that you take part in conversations or social initiatives, such as “let’s tickle that girl friend over there”, “let’s start dancing right now”, “let’s jump off that rooftop” or any other absurdity that comes to mind. You have a strong role in them and you handle the situation positively. While being loud to get attention in a conversation just to add some nonsense is a bad social practice, saying random nonsense can be funny if done in the right way – but that’s opening another can of worms.
Pages: 1 2
