Episode 28: Excelling Socially as an Introvert

Daniel Findlay used to struggle with social anxiety and a lack of confidence; now he teaches social skills to CEOs. His coaching method helps clients develop confidence and self-esteem by focusing on listening skills, small talk, building rapport, and polite assertiveness. Learn from a self-described introvert how to use simple conversation hacks that inspire genuine connection. As someone whose life was transformed by becoming a Meetup member four years ago, Daniel also gives practical advice from the experience of attending his first event.

Ranked as one of the top 25 CEO podcasts on Feedspot, Keep Connected with Meetup CEO David Siegel is a podcast about the power of community. For more details on other episodes, visit Keep Connected on the Meetup Community Matters blog.

We hope you’ll keep connected with us. Drop us a line at podcast@meetup.com. If you like the podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts. Learn more about Keep Connected host David Siegel’s experience as a leader and decision maker in his book, Decide & Conquer. Pre-order your copy today!

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Excelling Socially As An Introvert

We are a few weeks into 2022. Hopefully, you have still kept your New Year’s resolution. If you are, you’re in the top 50% of people that have. Many people’s New Year’s resolutions involve the community, people, going out, and doing things. We all need that extra motivation to be able to do that. Daniel Findlay for me and hopefully for many of you is that extra motivation. He is someone who went from having high anxiety and challenges around social skills to someone who now teaches social skills to CEOs of companies. If I learned from him, many of you will learn as well. Happy reading.

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Daniel, welcome to the show.

David, it’s great to be here.

I am so glad you are here. I read about you. I was motivated by it. I’m looking forward to this conversation. To everyone here, Daniel is someone whose life has been transformed since he became a Meetup member years ago. He’s a self-described introvert. He struggled with anxiety and social skills but has transformed himself beyond no longer struggling as much and now he teaches social skills to others. Let’s get straight to it. Tell us your social skills evolution story.

For many years, I used to struggle with my social skills, being around people, and mixing with people. This started from a young age for as long as I can remember. During school, it was difficult, and growing up, was challenging. When I started to get to my late teens and early twenties, I realized that I didn’t have many friends. I found it difficult to maintain relationships, meet and approach people. My life was the same thing every day, going to work and coming back. I see people on social media having all this fun, going on trips with friends, and going out.

I wanted to have that in my life but I didn’t know how to find it. I tried lots of different things for many years. For example, I have tried joining a football team. You call it soccer in the US. I tried things that I know like football and table tennis. I tried joining a running club. I found that I couldn’t meet people because the people were there for the hobby, not necessarily for the friendship. I did get a bit downhearted. I tried this for a couple of years and I couldn’t find those friends. I was putting the effort in and trying to get myself out there a bit. When I found Meetup, then it all changed.

Let’s fast forward. You found Meetup years ago. What happened?

I saw an advertisement for Meetup somewhere. I went on the site and I was amazed. There was this site for different groups and events where you could meet people. At first, I couldn’t believe it because I had never heard of it before. When I first saw it, I presumed that it was going to be only in large cities such as London and New York. I searched for my city of New Castle and I was amazed to see that they had events and groups in my city. I was excited, and then I’ve got a bit anxious thinking about attending the events. I found an event and a group and went to my first event. From there, that’s where things started changing.

What was your first event?

The first event was a drinks night, so you go to a pop-up bar. There were lots of people all from Meetup there. You walk around, mingle and talk.

If you don’t know what to talk about, use the 5 Fs: family, fun, future plans, favorites, and fire up.

Were you intimidated at all coming for the first time?

I was a bit but the good thing is a lot of other people were in the same situation. Also, I was talking to someone on Meetup. It was his first event, too. I met him outside so we walked in together. That was great.

The best advice I usually could give to people that are considering going to their first event is to grab and find someone to go with your first time. It makes it easier. When you get there, try to find someone else to have a conversation with. Everything always becomes easier once you have someone else to be with. As the CEO, I’m glad to hear the advertising is working. That was nice to know that you saw our ad. You went to that event and some other types of events as well.

At that first event, I met good friends, who I’m still friends with. The person who I walked in with is one of my good friends now. From there, I went to a couple of more events and different ones like drinks events, meals, and some activities. There was a point early on where I was thinking, “Should I go back?” It was great but sometimes you get comfortable you think I have been in a couple. The best thing I ever did was I kept going over a long period because that’s when I started to gain friendships and became more familiar with people. That was the key moment. As important as the first time was to keep going and attending.

That’s great advice. There’s a difference but people oftentimes will go to a therapist 2, 3 or 5 times and say, “That helped. I’m good now.” In reality, if you look at every study on therapy, it takes many months to get to a point where you have meaningful change, which is what you were looking to do. Speaking of change, do you believe that an introvert can change the core of who they are and become extroverted? What is your perspective on that?

Most people are a blend of introverts and extroverts. I don’t think many people are necessarily one or the other.

It’s a spectrum.

When people think of introverts, they think of someone who is quiet and shy but that’s not necessarily the case. I believe an introvert has more to do with your energy. I’m confident socializing with people. I coach large companies and work with CEOs myself. I feel confident doing that but I still need time away for myself. If I go to a social event, I’m not going to be the loudest person there. I’m going to be confident in myself. I still need some moments to myself. That’s what being an introvert is. It’s conserving your energy, not necessarily about how loud or quiet you are but conserving your energy and knowing where to put your energy.

It’s an incredibly important distinction. Many people make the mistake of associating introverts with being shy. It’s a correlation but it’s not the definition. The definition that has always resonated the most with me is exactly what you said. It’s where you get your energy. If you spend 2 or 3 hours talking to people, do you feel meaningfully energized after that conversation and want to continue? Do you feel like, “I need to take a little bit of a break,” and then go back?

You might have enjoyed it the same in both situations but you might get more energy from reading and a little more exhaustion from talking to people. It doesn’t mean you enjoy it any less. I like that distinction. Thank you for that. Speaking of your business, I would love for our readers to learn a little bit more about some of the ways in which you coach your clients and principles that could be helpful for others to know.

I trained as a coach for two years before starting this business. I wanted to combine social skills with coaching. What I do is help people with their social skills and confidence to move forward in life. I look at areas such as building rapport, listening skills, small talk, assertiveness, and many of the different skills. I help to teach those skills but also combine that with deep coaching on confidence and critic self-esteem. Putting that all together with the social skills, the clients get a real transformation that they can go and achieve anything after that.

Assertiveness is one that I’m always talking to my kids about. It’s so important in life to be nice, be assertive, ask for what you want, demonstrate what you need, and always do it in the right way. Sometimes people see those as polar opposites, “If I’m being assertive, then it means I might not be that nice. I might offend someone if I’m overly assertive.” It’s an important thing to try to break through for people.

Being assertive is about looking at what you want but also what’s best for those around you. It’s not about being aggressive or passive. It’s about finding the balance of what’s best for me but also those around me.

That’s a great addition. Assertiveness isn’t about a personal need but it’s about what’s better for two people. Thank you for sharing that. You mentioned confidence. Can confidence be taught? Are there ways of becoming more “confident” from your perspective?

For many years, I tried to become more confident. I read a lot of books and did a lot of exercises but nothing stuck. When I was training as a coach on my two-year Coaching diploma, I started to realize that confidence comes from taking action. You get confident by doing something like going to a social event, going to a store they wouldn’t usually go to, and meeting up with someone. Over time, those small actions lead to confidence.

If I’m coaching someone, it has to be a two-way thing. I can help someone with that direction in how to become more comfortable. They have to take the action and be prepared to do it or they won’t become more confident. That’s the thing. You become more confident when you try something. If it fails and doesn’t go well, you would still get more confidence from that than from staying home and doing nothing.

Confidence is not just about mindset. It’s about the behaviors that are manifested from that mindset. Even if you don’t have that mindset, your behaviors can create that mindset. That’s something also that I fundamentally agree with. Is there any other advice in terms of building confidence that you would give to our readers? I know it’s something that you have spent time reading a lot about and helping others with.

One of the main things for confidence is also watching the way you talk to yourself. If you are speaking to yourself negatively every day, you’ve got this critical voice. No matter how much action you take, it’s going to be difficult to become confident. I always recommend to people to challenge the way they speak to themselves. This can be difficult. A lot of people don’t want to do this because it takes a lot of time and effort. Every day for a month, write down all the negative thoughts you can and challenge them with 2 positive thoughts for that 1 negative.

Over time if you keep at it, you will start to notice that you start speaking to yourself more kindly. You are not going to remove the critical voice completely. That’s still going to be there but it’s not going to control you. That’s a key part of becoming confident. It’s taking action and starting small as well. If you are underconfident, you don’t have to go and do this huge thing at once. You can start small and each week build it up. That will lead to becoming more confident.

To gain confidence, you need to stop talking to yourself negatively. This’ll develop an inner critic voice. No matter how much action you take, it’s going to be really difficult to become confident.

The power of small wins. It never ceases to amaze me how true that is in all aspects of life personally and also professionally like when I’m working with our team and we are figuring out what goals to set. If you set overly ambitious goals and don’t end up hitting those goals, then it’s demotivating. If you set goals that hit a small win and hit another win the next month and another one the next quarter, it has this momentum. It builds on itself. It’s the same thing from a professional and a personal perspective as well. People oftentimes, especially around New Year’s resolutions, set overly ambitious goals.

The average New Year’s resolution is dead by early February. February 10th is the date of the end of New Year’s resolutions. It’s a lost opportunity not to set small goals. I’m glad that you work with clients specifically around that. Do you consider yourself a confident person at this point? I know it’s a spectrum like everything else in life. Do you feel like, in that spectrum, you are where you would like to be or you are on the path to where you would like to be from that perspective? Do you still feel like that same person as you were in grade school, elementary school, and early twenties from a confidence perspective?

I feel more confident in who I am but that took years of constant work to build up. With any personal development, it’s a journey. It’s never going to end. If you can work on your confidence, you should be working on it from now until you are old. You can always get more confident and develop more. I’m confident in who I am now but I still want to improve, push myself, and go further.

Most people would be surprised about me. I used to lack confidence as a teenager. I was always nervous around girls and speaking in public. Practice helps. The more that I spoke in public, the more confident that I became, and the more relationships and friendships that I gained with others. I don’t think I would describe myself as that. Frankly, I struggle more personally with the risk of being overly confident and having hubris. That’s something that unfortunately many leaders have. It’s incredibly important to check oneself and be careful to not develop that because it’s a dangerous and terrible character trait.

I work with a lot of leaders, CEOs, and directors. That is a key problem that they have. They don’t want to come across as overconfident, sarcastic, and condescending, which sometimes feel they can. That’s a different challenge that they have.

It’s extraordinary. You went from someone who didn’t even realize that you had social anxiety and confidence issues to finally realizing it, acknowledging it, doing something about it for yourself, and teaching others. You are coaching CEOs on how to build their confidence. What a beautiful journey and path that you’ve been on.

I have heard you have talked a bit in the past about the 5 F’s of Small Talk. I love those paradigms and models for our readers, especially for those who are more introverted and perhaps are less confident in nature. Do you mind talking about those 5 F’s to help people to think through quick ways that small talk can come more easily?

There are lots of different modest techniques people use. This is one I like to use. The 5 F’s would be something to keep in mind if you are not great at small talk or you struggle with what to say and talk about. The 5 F’s are Family. Ask the other person about their family, “How many brothers and sisters do you have? What does your partner do?” There are so many different questions about family.

The next one would be Fun, “What do you like to do for fun? How long have you been doing that? What is it about it that you enjoy?” The next one is Future Plans, “What are your plans for the weekend, the summer or the winter holiday?” The next one is Favorites, “What’s your favorite food, travel destination and sport?”

The last one is Fire Up. Fire Up is what the other person is passionate about and interested in. You can find this out through having a conversation with the person on the previous topics. It could be anything. They could be interested in cars, gardening or cooking. When you find that out, the conversation will be effortless because you’ve got the other person talking about what they are interested in. The great thing about this method is it’s covering what people love to talk about like family, future plans, fun and favorites. If you get people talking about this, the conversation is going to run smoothly and you are going to come across as good at conversations as well.

Did you develop this or read this somewhere?

This is a development from another one. The one I read was maybe the 3 F’s or the 4 F’s whereas I developed the 5 F’s. There are different variations and models of it. There are lots of different great ones out there. I didn’t create this but I developed this one a bit further.

I have to ask you that. What fires you up?

What fires me up is working with people, helping people from companies, and helping individuals improve their social skills or confidence because all of that links. When someone is confident and has good social skills, they can then be more productive, improve their performance at work, and lead happier lives.

Tell me about 1 or 2 of your clients or 2 different types of situations, what the challenge was, and how you were able to help them.

An example I could give is a client I had. When he first came to me, he was struggling with his confidence and social skills. He didn’t have many friends at all. He wasn’t doing well in this job. We worked together for six months. I looked for a way where he wanted to go. We created a plan and broke everything down. I also taught him different social skills. He attended Meetup as well, which he loved. Now, he’s doing great. He’s got a group of friends. He’s networking and also running a networking group, which was unbelievable because, in the beginning, he was struggling to leave the house. He’s got friends and a good social life. That’s one example.

Another example, which is on the opposite side, is a director of a company who I have coached. He was coming across as a bit condescending and struggling to see things from other people’s points of view. The people who worked for him weren’t coming across well. Ultimately, that was affecting the performance of the company. What I did is I looked at what skills he needed to work on. We created a plan, set goals, and broke them down. He has made a lot of new friends. He’s getting on a lot better with his work colleagues in his companies, performing a lot better, and making a lot more money now. Those are two examples.

Do you get any clients through Meetup as well? Is it more of a social and friend relationship opportunity versus if you have generated any business from Meetup?

I have had one guy from Meetup who knew me from a few years ago, which was quite surprising. He reached out saying, “I have seen your Instagram and LinkedIn.” That was one client but apart from that, Meetup is used for me to go and socialize. To all of my clients, every single one that I have worked with, I have always recommended Meetup because it goes well with what I do and works together so well. All of my clients always love Meetup, too. A lot of them say, “I hadn’t heard of that before,” and now it has changed their lives.

We have to advertise at New Castle a lot more often. I will talk to our VP of Marketing. I read about that. You are the ultimate word of mouth. We always say, “We reach 50 million people but we should be reaching five billion people plus because everyone can benefit from going to any Meetup event.” It’s unfortunate that so many people have not heard of our platform and many people can benefit from it. You even at one point hosted some events, which is wonderful. Is there any advice you would give on hosting a Meetup event to many of our readers who are both Meetup organizers and Meetup members?

When someone’s more confident, they can be more productive. They can then improve their performance which can lead to a happier life.

I had some great experiences hosting Meetups, too. When you host a Meetup, it’s important to make sure everyone is involved. When you are a host, you can’t stay in your little clique. You’ve got to make sure every single person feels comfortable. You’ve greeted them and made them feel welcome so that they want to come back. You have made that a memorable experience for them.

I went to a Strategy Board Game Meetup group because my son and I went to Charlotte, North Carolina. He said to me, “Dad, what do you want to do tonight?” I said, “Let’s go to a Meetup event. There’s nothing more fun than that.” We showed up at the event and we were playing all these strategy board games and having an amazing time. The people were so welcoming and friendly to us.

My son was like, “I’m able to stay for half an hour.” We ended up staying for 3 hours and 30 minutes. Jesse, the organizer, was such an incredible and effusive person. In the end, I say, “I’m the CEO of Meetup.” That’s always a fun moment. Daniel, I enjoyed this conversation so much but it’s time for our rapid-fire questions. Keep your answers short and concise. It’s something I’m completely unable to do. When was the first time you saw yourself as a leader?

When I was younger, I did have examples of being a leader. I did a bit of sport when I was a kid but the thing that always stood in the way was confidence. I had those leadership abilities and aspirations there but confidence was the main block. When I worked on the confidence, the leadership started to come on.

If you could be in any place or time in the world, past or future, where would you like to be?

I would like to be in Tokyo. That would be in another world because I’m happy in New Castle. I’ve got a fiancé here. I have been to Japan. I have done quite a lot of traveling and that was the one place that I loved.

Is there anything that you want to call out that’s on that bucket list of yours that you have always wanted to do and one day you are going to do it?

I would like to give more live talks to people or something like a TEDx Talk. I give a lot of presentations but a live talk with a large audience is something that I would love to do. I would like to do even more traveling when things in the world improve as well.

Let’s have this show lead to your TEDx Talk. What is the title of your TEDx Talk going to be? Give me a title off the cuff.

It would be How to Excel Socially as an Introvert.

That’s a great title. It’s applicable to hundreds of millions of people or perhaps billions of people. You would probably get many views if that happens. Here’s the last question, which I know the answer to. Daniel, you have helped out so many people in your life. You have decades ahead of you to help many more people. What do you most want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered as someone who is relatable and someone who took the time to go the extra mile to help people.

Often, people who are busy and try to help many people struggle with going that extra mile. It’s hard because life is oftentimes a zero-sum game. What ends up getting sacrificed is you do lots of things and check off things on that checklist but oftentimes on the checklist is not that extra mile. Sometimes the greatest impact that you can have and the most memorable experiences that people always remember you most for is doing those extra things that completely shock other people, “I can’t believe they did that to help me.”

It doesn’t necessarily have to take time. It’s oftentimes a mindset of saying, “How can I do this extra thing for someone?” Daniel, I want to thank you. This all came up because you emailed us proactively and talked about how much Meetup helped you and your life. After reading that email, our team said, “We have got to talk to Daniel and bring him on the show.” I hope that this helps to accelerate all of your ambitions. You are a wonderful person and a true motivation for me. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me, David. I wanted to be here because if it hadn’t been for Meetup, I wouldn’t have had the friendships and the business that I have now. Thank you so much.

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Thanks for reading. Sometimes we have great stories and sometimes there are great learnings, and now, it was legitimately both. Confidence is not about just mindset and what you can read but taking action and the importance of attending Meetup events not once or twice but going on a consistent basis if you want to get the most out of an experience. Finally, the last for me was the 5 F’s.

I am going to have a great conversation with someone about how to have fun with your family in the future, talking about your favorite things and what gets you fired up. If I hit on those five things, it’s going to be an amazing conversation. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you enjoyed this, then subscribe, leave a review, and check out my new book. Remember, let’s keep connected because life is better together.

Important Links:

• Book – Decide & Conquer
• Daniel Findlay
• Meetup
• Instagram – Daniel Findlay Coaching
• LinkedIn – Daniel Findlay
• Strategy Board Game Meetup Group

About Daniel Findlay

An introvert and he used to find social situations uncomfortable. It was difficult to make friends and he much preferred spending time alone. Did not enjoy school, which led to many years of anxiety and low confidence.

When he left school, he was determined to improve his people skills, so he signed up to do a two-year acting course. This was totally out of his comfort zone – however, he was determined to improve his confidence. He went on to study Performing Arts and followed this with a short course at an acting school in the USA.

Although his acting confidence was improving, he was still lacking the social skills and self-assurance in other areas of his life.

When he left university, he was worried about losing his job and had no social life. He started to become depressed and even felt anxious going to the shop. He didn’t know how to communicate with people at work and the worst time of the day was the lunch break: he’d find himself walking around outside eating his lunch, just to avoid social interaction.

Last modified on January 19, 2022