Get outside the comfort zone..

To be successful today you have to be bold. You have to learn to step outside of your comfort zone, and set your fears of rejection aside. In today’s economy, and today’s business climate, in order to successfully make contacts, you need them to remember you, at the same time, you want them to remember you in a positive fashion.

My wife and a friend of mine often talk of how I am talented at selling myself, I somehow accomplish this with out being cocky, although, I am always sure of myself. My wife jokes a lot about how much I flirt, it could be the old lady on the street, or the male waiter at the restaurant, I tend to always flirt. One of the easiest ways to leave an impression on someone is to make them smile. Compliments work well, I can find something to compliment about anyone. Flirting is a natural occurrence between two humans, the laws of attraction are normal, if people find you attractive they will remember you, however, being good looking isn’t necessarily being attractive to others, personality means everything. It honestly isn’t often that I walk into somewhere more than once with out the people remembering me, even my local Starbucks knew my order by my second visit.

One of the biggest reasons people can’t make these achievements is fear of rejection. Fear of rejection is a normal human instinct, nobody enjoys being rejected, and most people protect themselves from rejection by avoiding it altogether. Thankfully, we can condition ourselves to ignore those fears, and throw caution to the wind. Here is a challenge, the goal of this challenge is to help overcome the fear of rejection. To find out more about this, I suggest a book by Timothy Ferris called The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.

Challenge A - Everywhere you go in public, look directly into every persons eyes whom you find attractive as you walk past. Do not break eye contact, even if they aren’t giving you the eye contact back. If the person asks you what you are looking at, just state that you thought they were someone you know.

Challenge B - Go to your local mall and find the most attractive person you can, someone you would normally be nervous to approach. Approach this person and ask them for their phone number. It is best if you prepare a script ahead of time, state something along the lines of the fact that you are in a hurry, however, you wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to get to know them because you are so attracted to them, tell them if they aren’t interested at all, to just give you a fake phone number. If you have a significant other, just throw the number away. The key here is to repeat the exercise as quickly as possible.

If you get the opportunity to try this out, please feel free to comment about it, I would be interested in hearing about your experience.