自我投资：社会关系与人际网络.docxVIP

自我投资：社会关系和人际网络 24EN Editors Note：Recently, I discussed the value of investing in yourself - putting time and money into improving you, not building assets. Today, we’ll look at one area of investing in yourself as part of an ongoing series on the topic, spread out once per weekday over two weeks. If you’d like to review all the entries, look at the investing in yourself subcategory. I’m a rather introverted person. When I’m in a group of people, my gut instinct is to clam up, be quiet, and sink into the woodwork (unless, of course, I’m very comfortable with most of the group). It takes genuine effort for me to speak up in a group situation, and for much of my adult life I simply wouldn’t do it. I’d just sit there, waiting for someone else to talk and quite often not engaging at all. This antisocial streak was hindering me, and I knew it. A large group of friends and associates are incredibly valuable to have - they can provide support to you in countless ways and you can provide support back to them as well. By sitting there like a bump on a log, not only was I not actively working towards building friendships and relationships, I was actually sending off a negative vibe to people. ? There were two books that really turned things around for me: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone. These books actually have a lot in common - they both focus on how exactly to effectively interact with other people. Carnegie’s book focuses on the actual interactions themselves - how do you actually step up and converse with someone? Ferrazzi’s book continues that thought - how do you build a conversation into a relationship that has value? They’re both filled with very specific tips that you can start applying right off the bat. With that information in hand, I had a good idea of what to do - I just needed to get started doing it. Here are some direct actions you can take to start investing in building a network of friends and ac