Is your brain processing power all it could be? Can you think on your feet and contribute to conversations, no matter what the subject?

 

Having a blank mind in conversations can be unimaginably frustrating and embarrassing. Especially when your friends are all relaxed and talking away, but you are rigid and self-conscious, your mind blank, hoping attention doesn't shift to you for a contribution.

 

What can equal this frustration, and make anxiety a self-fulfilling prophesy, is not knowing if you will be like this for the rest of your life. 

 

 

 

Naturally, you want answers to questions like these that are festering in your mind. So you read articles, and you post questions in forums and groups, but the responses always seem to come from either those who never experienced it, or those who don't really know.

 

The result is, you get a collection of sticky plaster suggestions to practice, such as, 'ask open-ended questions to keep the other person talking', but you get no real life answers that will address the source of the problem - shyness or social anxiety. 

 

That's why I decided to create my own answers. 

 

What causes the mind to go blank?

 

Your mind going blank is the side effect of a safety mechanism in your head - the fight or flight response. This doesn't have to be a life-threatening situation, just something that leaves you feeling exposed, vulnerable, or under the spotlight. A social situation you don't have the tools, or social confidence to handle.

 

Now your mind wants to get you out of there, so it starts diverting blood from non-essential areas of your body, and into your muscles, ready for sudden, explosive action. One of those areas is your higher cognitive functions.

 

The result?- Your mind slows right down.

 

 

How to stop your mind going blank in social situations

 

When it comes to shyness and social anxiety, it's mostly a matter of breaking the chain that makes up your social timeline, and keeps you stuck in a pattern of anxiety responses:

 

The past link: Your childhood mind got exposed to scenarios that conditioned it to respond in a defensive way. 

The present link: Your mind retreats and goes quiet in social situations  when attention is on it.

The future link: Your self-esteem plummets and you work harder to avoid all but nessesary social interactions.

 

Lacking in knowledge or life experiences, getting a blank mind in conversations, all contribute to low self-esteem and low confidence, but exposure therapy is not the immediate answer.

 

So what is the answer, apart from get a better night sleep, start popping vitamin pills, and begin reading encyclopedias whilst going on a world trip?

 

If anxiety is causing your mind to close up, it's time to train it to stay relaxed.

If your mind is lacking life experiences, knowledge, talking points, it's time to fill it up.

If your mind muscle is weak through lack of exercise, it's time to give it a workout.

If your mind is lost and not stimulated by life, it's time to feed it a life-changing hobby.

 

 

 

Quotes - genius vitimins for the mind

 

Everybody loves seeing and reading a good quote image in their social media scroll, but for most, thats where it ends.

 

This is like being handed one of those super smoothies, complete with spirulina and wheatgrass, then only taking one sip.

 

Quotes are like little bitesize pieces of wisdom and humour, concieved by some of the greatest and funniest minds the human race ever produced. We should be devouring these quotes and letting their message take seed in our mind, so we become richer in the mind, and in our conversations.

 

 

 

 

Quite simply, the idea of memorising, gives most of us flashbacks to those late nights, revising for exams. Only to discover we can't recall what it is we tried to learn. At least, not until several hours past its usefulness.

 

If you're going to start learning quotes, it should be quick, easy, fun, and rewarding. In other words, what's the point in memorising quotes unless you can easily recall them, precisely when you want to use them in conversation? Problem is, the brain doesn't think in words...

 

 

 

Some years ago and somewhere in deepest darkest Africa, apparently, the human race got together and invented words and language. Or something like that anyway. As a consequence, we were now able to communicate with each other, instead of grunting and bashing each other.

 

One little problem with this whole communication revolution however, is that our brains don’t process in words, they process feelings, imagery, and all it receives through the five senses.

 

That’s why schools make us learn by tedious repetition, because hammering the information into our minds, over and over again, is the only way words can be retrieved from our memory - even a little bit.

 

But this is time-consuming and unreliable. Introducing the technique of quotesnapping...

 

You’ve probably not heard of quotesnap before, I like to think of it as a 3s full technicolour version of other mind exercises like crosswords or soduku.

 

Quotesnapping is the ability to rapidly memorise quotes using your brains own primary language, so that we can recall them again whenever we like, and at the precise moment it becomes useful to us in conversations. Times that one quote by a hundred, or a thousand, and you will find yourself the secret genius in any room.

 

 

 

There are two aspects to becoming a Quotesnapper:

 

1. Memorising quotes

2. Rapidly recalling them (when you want them)

 

The fastest and most effective way to memorise your first quote, is to work with the primary language of the brain, and turn it into an image. Let's take an example:

 

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other - Jack Handey

 

What a great quote right? Especially if you find yourself in a casual conversation about boxing, but you don't have the first idea about this conversational topic. This happens all the time in daily life. 

 

Normally, you wouldn't be able to contribute, so you would remain quiet, and feign interest by asking some questions from time to time.

 

But when you are a Quotesnap genius, the moment the topic of boxing arises, your mind makes an instant connection to the visual image you created for your quote.

 

In this case, the image you create, might look something like a ballet where the dancers suddenly descend into a fist fight. Or your image might look like a boxing match where the fighters suddenly start pirruetting around each other.

 

Either way, you have a seriously memorable image that you could easily recall the quote from. But the best part? you don't have to try and force a recall of this quote like you were in a stressful exam, when your brain recognises a match between a conversation topic, and a memory quote image, it automatically pops that image into your mind like magic. 

 

 

Quotesnap can do many things for you, including:

 

Strengthening your mind through this powerful visual mental exercise

Sharpening your focus and attention

Speeding up your memory and recall abilities

 

All these, combined with the new ideas that a wealth of world class quotes can introduce into your mind, and belief system, can indeed give birth to a creative genius.

 

Having a world of quotes, not so much at the tips of your fingers, but on the tip of your tongue, ready for use in any current topic conversation turns to, is just a very happy secondary benifit. 

 

Cautionary note
 
 

By itself, Quotesnap will not make you a great conversationalist, or give you great social skills. but it will put you on the path, and give you the kinds of options in conversation that is not available to many people.

 
 

Just remember to put quotes into your own words, so they sound more authentically like your own thoughts and opinions, rather than reciting a verbatum.

 
 

Allow me to leave you with this quote from Winston Churchill:

 
 

The empires of the future, will be the empires of the mind.

 

 

 

Thank you for listening, this has been the disruptive social skills podcast. Be sure to subscribe to us in Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere all good podcasts can be found so you don’t miss the next episode. To find out more about Lifeconfidents world exclusive programs such as quotesnap university, or the super socialiser method, visit lifeconfident dot com. Thanks for listening, I’ve been Richard Gray, and you’ve been amazing.