Talk to people, by far the easiest and most effecitve way.

I agree that its the most effective way, however I can't yet agree that its the easiest. There's a deep seated reason why shy people are shy. They certainly don't want to be shy, quite the opposite, they often day-dream of being socially affluent. Its not just simple fear of being embarrassed or worse that makes them shy. Its much deeper and more powerful than that.

EDIT: For example, I am afraid of heights, to the point where looking over a low balcony makes my knees knock (I'm tall). Its probably due to one of my uncles holding me over balconies for my amusement as a child (I was a big fan of superman ), and my older brother always scaring the crap out of me by pretending to push me off balconies whenever I looked over them. Whatever, people do stupid things, especially kids. Anyway, but if someone were to randomly place 100 euros at the top of say 1 of 10 climbable trees, and gifted them to me, I would push past my fear of heights and climb all ten trees if necessary to get that money.

EDIT: On the other hand the value of a friend or other half is much higher than that of a 100 euros, but I cannot make myself talk to 10 strangers for the potential reward of a friendship or other half (even though objectively its probably a much easier and safer task than climbing 10 trees). It could almost be described as an abject terror that renders you almost incapable of logical thought, action, or speech, a rabbit in headlights effect. Its simply not that easy for those who are shy.

Here is an idea that worked really well for me. Sit down with a piece of paper and write the letters of the alphabet down the side. For each letter, think of a story that you can tell about yourself that someone would be interested in. So for A, telling someone about your exploits in the mythical realm of Azeroth is not going to be interesting. It can be a funny story, it can be heart warming, it can be whatever, you just need a story. Once you have your list of stories, practice them. Learn how to tell them in interpersonal settings without sounding like you have a pre-canned story that you're reciting. If you're having trouble coming up with ideas for each letter, just use whatever cities you've been to that start with that letter.

Some examples from my "story book"
A - I spent a weekend camping on Assateague Island, it was one of the most ethereal experiences of my life. I tell how the horses act like just another group of people hanging out on the beach, how they come up to you and are interested in you, but are still completely wild animals. Don't pet them! Would you try to pet a stranger on the street? You'll get about the same reaction. This one is particular good for girls. If I'm in a group of guys, I don't focus on the horses as much as how I ended up setting both of my hands on fire for a brief moment.
B - This is usually "Bristle Bots", and I tell a story about how I built 100 bristle bots for an art exhibition, calling them "macro bacteria", and making them run and bounce against each other in a giant, round "petri dish" that I made out of MDF and clear plastic.
C - This one is "Catapult" about the various weapons of war that I build out of pens and binder clips and rubber bands in my office if my boss doesn't keep me busy. I believe that people shouldn't be merely unproductive with their time if they cannot be productive, I believe they should be distinctly destructive. Hence, I usually have lots of interesting work. I'm hoping to eventually change this story to "Car", where I recount a project to build a gravity car, but that probably won't happen this summer.
...
Z - I did special effects work for a small independent film troupe that was making a Zombie film. They wanted to set one of their extras on fire and came to me "because I kind of remember you playing with fire when we were kids". I told them there was no way we were setting anyone on fire and that they should just leave it to me and I'd take care of everything. I built a man-sized torso on a cart with off-centered wheels to give it an intentional wobble to simulate walking. With the wobble, it made the hinged arms swing back and forth just like a person running. I dressed it up in clothes, molded a face out of clay, put a hat on it, doused it in kerosene, and set it on fire for the shot. It came out perfectly, a large group of people actually showed up just to watch because they had heard this was happening.


You get the point from there. A lot of my stories involve me nearly dying from doing something stupid "in the name of science". Most of my stories involve some sort of project that I built, some group of people I helped, some place I traveled. If you can't fill the entire alphabet with stories, then you're probably just not a very interesting person and should look to expand your interests so you can be a more well rounded person. Once people like you, it's pretty much a cake walk to get them to do things for you. And actually, you can get them to do just about anything. People want to be associated with interesting people and will do things just to be your friend. Since I've started doing this, there has not been one time that a girl has turned me down for a date. I get job offers from startups constantly. And I have the time of my life figuring out new ways to update my bank of stories.

There are tons of other things that you can do, but this is probably the most important. Everything else kind of flows from there. Oh, and don't dress like a slob. You can have your own style, just make sure you're clean, and that your clothes fit and are neat, fresh, and in good shape. Seriously, as long as you dress well, you don't even need to worry about your physical attractiveness otherwise. Don't believe me? Look at Robert Pattinson. By all accounts he is an ugly dude: he has crooked nose, pasty complexion, no muscle tone, beady little eyes, and makes pouty lips like a sorority girl standing in front of her bathroom mirror with her iPhone. But people like him because his hair is perfect and he dresses well. That's all it takes. And it's super easy to do, just buy a subscription to Esquire or GQ magazine and do whatever they tell you. Or go completely off the wall and do things like wear a kilt or giant gold chain on top of an otherwise respectable business suit. Being quirky makes you seem interesting, and once you're "interesting" to someone, you can make them do whatever you want.

Trust me. Because this guy:



As bald and overweight as he is, can sit in a bar and have at least 3 gorgeous women come up to HIM and want to know more about him

when this guy:




who was fit enough to run 3 miles in 20 minutes without barely winding himself, could hardly get women to give him the time of day (God, I can't believe that jacket, ugh. Where did I ever get that thing?).


If you're not getting anywhere in life, it's because you're just not that interesting of a person.

In most cases, career success is both tangible skills and social skills. And this is the way it should be: it doesn't matter how smart you are if nobody wants to work with you. Most professions are a team-effort, and if you're the guy that tries to go it alone because you can't deal with other people, you aren't going to be a valuable member of a team.

Of course, if you're amazingly/super/ultra/funky brilliant you might be able to go it alone and still succeed: if you discover a cure for cancer, or a renewable energy source, you might win a nobel prize or something. But In the typical business world nobody wants to work with somebody who doesn't want to work with them.

...

Nice read, thanks. I will try that A-Z story thing out. Will be fun, and as you say probably helpful.

can sit in a bar and have at least 3 gorgeous women come up to HIM and want to know more about him[/quote]

Believe it or not that actually happens to me almost every time I go out at night! But almost invariably I end up smiling like an idiot, saying very little, and the bits I do say are often forced and awkward, so we rarely click. I have to meet someone that makes the first move, is very keen on me, and very compatible for it to work out at all. Which is just crap really lol. And so many times, including platonic situations, I know that someone wants to talk to me and I just can't do it, so its a perhaps golden opportunity chucked away.

If you're not getting anywhere in life, it's because you're just not that interesting of a person.[/quote]

I have to agree that is usually probably true, as harsh as that can seem, and as difficult as it can be to admit. I am definately going somewhere and I have been to places, but on the other hand I could be much further along than I am, and could get to where I'm going more quickly and productively. For example, without having thought about it much, I guess I won't be able to fill the A-Z list at this point in time...

Henry still has an advantage because charisma is learnable.

Aspects of charisma can be learned however some aspects you are naturally born with and these aspects are your emotional intelligence. This mainly has to do with your ability to [font="Arial"]recognize and pickup on what others are feeling though subtle cues, the ability recognize your own emotional state and to control it, and lastly the ability to express yourself in a way that makes others like you. These things are not very easy to learn and for some they can be near impossible especially if they suffer from asperger's syndrome or simply didn't develop the foundation for these skills at a young enough age.[/font]
[font="Arial"]
[/font]
[font="Arial"]Much like capn_midnight suggested there are some tricks you can learn to over come these short comings but if someone who is naturally social put the same effort into learning this it would no doubt improve his charisma as well. In my personal experience I am starting to become pretty good at controlling my own emotions and I have seen a positive in pack on my ability to resolve disputes and people actually like me better afterwards. I'm still lacking in many areas though but I'm trying my best to improve my skills. [/font]

[quote name='capn_midnight' timestamp='1305378532' post='4810656']
Henry still has an advantage because charisma is learnable.

Aspects of charisma can be learned however some aspects you are naturally born with and these aspects are your emotional intelligence. This mainly has to do with your ability to [font="Arial"]recognize and pickup on what others are feeling though subtle cues, the ability recognize your own emotional state and to control it, and lastly the ability to express yourself in a way that makes others like you. These things are not very easy to learn and for some they can be near impossible especially if they suffer from asperger's syndrome or simply didn't develop the foundation for these skills at a young enough age.[/font]
[/quote]

Not true at all, and you sound like a person who is just making excuses for themselves and why they're "doomed before they even begin". You certainly don't sound like a person who has done any reading on modern education psychology.

There is no such thing as naturally born talent, outside of the whole autistic savant thing, which comes with a pretty heavy trade-off. The idea that normal people are more naturally attuned to certain skills and subjects is a bullshit line popularized by western psychologists in the late 19th and early 20th century, based on nothing other than speculation. In cultures untainted by those Victorian era asshats, there is no concept of such division of skills, and average people perform relatively equally in all areas. You'll see a lot of teaching experts, stuck in their ways, STILL push the old lies that people have certain, specific ways in which they learn (visual, spatial, aural, etc) and that other forms cannot be adapted to, and that people who are strong in one area of subjects, say Art, are typically weak in other, opposed areas, say Science. There is no such thing as boundaries between skills! There is no such thing as "Emotional Intelligence" or "Mathematical Intelligence" any more than there is "Blowing a Snot Rocket Intelligence" or "Masturbating Intelligence". Classification of skills is just an arbitrary construct that people have created. It's all just learning, and learning is just another skill.

Now, given two people with equal base knowledge starting studies in a new area, you might find one of them picks up the basics more easily than the other. This is where the danger of this stupid idea of separation of skills comes in. In our Western society that believes in such wrong headed ideas, the kid who struggles with the initial steps of the task will likely assume he's just not suited to learning that subject and give up entirely, while the other kid assumes he does have a "natural talent" and continues practicing. If they would both just continue to practice, they would both get equally far. If this were a marathon, the kid with so-called "natural talent" is really only one step ahead at the beginning. At the beginning of the race, that might seem like a huge advantage, but by the end of the race there is no accounting for it. It's all about the effort you put in.

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1305402554' post='4810819']
[quote name='capn_midnight' timestamp='1305378532' post='4810656']
Henry still has an advantage because charisma is learnable.

Aspects of charisma can be learned however some aspects you are naturally born with and these aspects are your emotional intelligence. This mainly has to do with your ability to [font="Arial"]recognize and pickup on what others are feeling though subtle cues, the ability recognize your own emotional state and to control it, and lastly the ability to express yourself in a way that makes others like you. These things are not very easy to learn and for some they can be near impossible especially if they suffer from asperger's syndrome or simply didn't develop the foundation for these skills at a young enough age.[/font]
[/quote]

Not true at all, and you sound like a person who is just making excuses for themselves and why they're "doomed before they even begin". You certainly don't sound like a person who has done any reading on modern education psychology.

There is no such thing as naturally born talent, outside of the whole autistic savant thing, which comes with a pretty heavy trade-off. The idea that normal people are more naturally attuned to certain skills and subjects is a bullshit line popularized by western psychologists in the late 19th and early 20th century, based on nothing other than speculation. In cultures untainted by those Victorian era asshats, there is no concept of such division of skills, and average people perform relatively equally in all areas. You'll see a lot of teaching experts, stuck in their ways, STILL push the old lies that people have certain, specific ways in which they learn (visual, spatial, aural, etc) and that other forms cannot be adapted to, and that people who are strong in one area of subjects, say Art, are typically weak in other, opposed areas, say Science. There is no such thing as boundaries between skills! There is no such thing as "Emotional Intelligence" or "Mathematical Intelligence" any more than there is "Blowing a Snot Rocket Intelligence" or "Masturbating Intelligence". Classification of skills is just an arbitrary construct that people have created. It's all just learning, and learning is just another skill.

Now, given two people with equal base knowledge starting studies in a new area, you might find one of them picks up the basics more easily than the other. This is where the danger of this stupid idea of separation of skills comes in. In our Western society that believes in such wrong headed ideas, the kid who struggles with the initial steps of the task will likely assume he's just not suited to learning that subject and give up entirely, while the other kid assumes he does have a "natural talent" and continues practicing. If they would both just continue to practice, they would both get equally far. If this were a marathon, the kid with so-called "natural talent" is really only one step ahead at the beginning. At the beginning of the race, that might seem like a huge advantage, but by the end of the race there is no accounting for it. It's all about the effort you put in.
[/quote]

I know someone who is clinically diagnosed with [font="Arial"][color="#1c2837"]asperger's syndrome and I'm going to tell you now he was completely unable to detect when I was becoming annoyed with him. I eventually locked him in the other room and ignored him for 2 hours until his dad came to pick him up. Yet even after that he never picked up on my irritation towards him and suggested that we hang out more often. He actually is very smart as well but he is completely unable to pick up on what others are thinking. If you are suggesting that he could become normal or above normal through training I'm seriously doubtful...[/font]

I know someone who is clinically diagnosed with [font="Arial"][color="#1c2837"]asperger's syndrome and I'm going to tell you now he was completely unable to detect when I was becoming annoyed with him. I eventually locked him in the other room and ignored him for 2 hours until his dad came to pick him up. Yet even after that he never picked up on my irritation towards him and suggested that we hang out more often. He actually is very smart as well but he is completely unable to pick up on what others are thinking. If you are suggesting that he could become normal or above normal through training I'm seriously doubtful...[/font]

Oh come on, the dude has autism. You can't expect to use an autistic person as an example of what normal skill acquisition is like. No, I don't expect the handicapped to be capable of the same things as fit. I don't expect a paraplegic to ever run in the Olympics, no matter how hard they try. On the other hand, I don't expect a blind man to become a painter, but it does happen.

So what are you saying? Henry in your original scenario has a mental deficiency of some kind, rather than a skill deficiency? If that is the case, how does that at all prove that persuasive skills are somehow more "powerful" than academic skills? And you still haven't addressed the fact that your own arbitrary scenario tries to make John out to be a dolt, and yet he still manages to get shit done and change the world.
You say,
"[color=#1C2837][size=2][John] reaches out to his talented friends and co-workers who admire him and he persuades a few of them to join his company."[size=2] -- That's just good management! A successful company depends on more than just the efforts of one person. Get over this fantasy that you can live in your head and all by your lonesome become a millionaire.
[color=#1C2837][size=2]"Over the next few years John is able to make a profit..."[size=2] -- yeah, because he's a good manager.
[color=#1C2837][size=2]"...despite making many blunders..."[size=2] -- that happens to everyone, nobody knows exactly what to do all the time. Henry blundered on how to get funding and how to manage people. A much bigger blunder than "didn't make the thing right the first time".
[color=#1C2837][size=2]"...he was always able to find the necessary funding to cover them."[size=2] -- now you're contradicting your own scenario. If the funding is covering up the losses, then he never made a profit. So which way do you want your contrived scenario to go?