• When attending events, do you have tips on engaging with attendees? From my experience, it's slightly intimidating. Let me tell you, going up to other attendees at events and introducing yourself is one of my least favorite things to do. I totally hear you. It sucks. There’s a very small percentage of the population that's just like walks into a room and is like, "Hi, I'm this person. Hi, I'm this person, I want to meet you.” That is not me. I've always struggled with it.

    What I have to force myself to do if I'm in that working event is I have to set a goal. I’m decently goal-oriented person. A lot of you who are watching this, we talked about goals all the time and tracking your follower growth goals, engagement goals, things like that. Walk into that event say, "I am going to walk up and introduce myself to five people. I’m not going to leave this in that until I do that,” and then it doesn't become a choice.

    That is something you've said you're going to do and so now you have two options. It's no longer, “Do I feel awkward and am I going to go up to this person?” It's now, “Am I going to do what I said I was going to do or am I not going to and I'm going to chicken out?” I find that simple mental shift helps me to take away some of my anxiety because I would rather do something I'm uncomfortable with than let myself down and not do something I said I would do. That's really the only thing.

    The other thing is just like everyone is uncomfortable in events. Nobody doesn't feel awkward. Go to the person who's standing alone, that's an easy one and be like, "Hey, how's it going? I'm such and such. These things are kind of awkward, right?” You can be honest too and be like, “I always feel awkward doing this but I told myself I'd say hi to five people so I just want to come up and say hi. What do you do?”

    You're not walking into someone's house and saying hi, you’re not walking up to a stranger on a street. People are at an event. They're there to potentially meet people or mingle. It's not unexpected for you to come up to them and say hi. Set a goal, look for the stragglers, look for the people who are alone, go up and be honest and just say, “I feel really awkward doing this but just wanted to introduce myself.”

    The last thing, I guess number four. I said there was one thing, now there's four. That's very typical of one of my answers. The last thing is that it doesn't fucking matter. You're going to leave that event, you’ll probably never see those people again in your life. Who cares? What's the worst that's going to happen? Someone's going to be like, “Oh sorry, I'm having a private conversation with my friend?” Just say, “Oh sorry, didn’t mean to intrude. Just wanted to say hi.”

    Literally, there is nothing really bad that's going to happen. Nothing bad can happen. You can't even really make an ass of yourself because the expectation at the event is that you're meeting people. It is uncomfortable, it is awkward, I hate it but just set a number, get it done. It gets easier with time. That is all
    Episode #105
    - Being More Interesting on Instagram, Brand Pitches, Influencer Events