Tim’s 2017 Social Approach Challenge Video Series

Back in May 2017, I decided to start a new challenge for social approach. The idea was to go out over the course of a month and meet new people. The following video series was the result of that challenge:

TRANSCRIPT OF FIRST VIDEO (edited for readability):

Hi there my name is Tim this is kind of an intro video to a my 30-day challenge which I’m about to start.

It’s an approach challenge. I will go into town every day for 30 days or town or business or just get out of house to talk to people.

I tried to do it in November of last year. I managed five days and in those five days there was an incredible amount of growth that I experienced, and I found that my ability to to open people and just my overall confidence and my self expression was much greater.

It was night and day just within a couple of days. Now the problem was I just had too much on at the time, and I think and in the end it got to the better of me and I got ill.
I had to stop but I didn’t want to leave it there, I want to carry on.

I’ve got to got to see this through because I want to make this a core part of my life where my lifestyle involves being outside.

One of the big problems that I have is that I tend to stay indoors. I’ve got a job where I can work from anywhere. I use a computer and one of the downsides to that is I don’t have to go outside and have to talk to anybody and it kind of sucks in a way, but it’s also kind of comfortable and that’s why it kind of sucks because I can easily be a hermit if I want.

I spent years doing it actually in my teenage years so much so, that back then I got sick of it and in about I’d say 2004 I just deleted all my computer games, deleted all my music and decided that I needed to do something about it.
I ended up getting all sorts of social jobs. I did door-to-door sales that was a cool one. Just getting rejected all day long but I did get some sales and that was pretty cool!

I was just surrounded by these salespeople all day long and they’re all just like ‘YES! YES!’ like that and then telling them about like the law of averages where it’s like if you if you do 100 approaches then you’re guaranteed to have at least one be totally successful.

In fact that one will be waiting for you, and actually I found that to be true. So I got a lot of that. I found though that people were very stressed the salespeople it’s not a job that I would want to have forever.

Another job that I did was fundraising Street approach. So, I was working for a charity. You go around and you travel around the country going to different cities, you stand in the city centre and just basically approach hundreds of people all day long.

I was doing about 400 approaches a day and again that taught me a lot not only about myself but about other people.

One of the things that I learned from that was that you can’t judge a person by the way that they look. I would often think that ‘Oh that person isn’t going to sign up for charity’ and they be the one that did. So I learnt that it’s important to talk to everyone, because everybody can surprise you.

I’ve done a few other things. I’ve done a bit of telesales but most of that was was a long time ago now. I’ve just come here. I’ve just moved to Manchester and I don’t really know anyone yet. I did have a short stay back in November and then I left for Asia. I’m back again now and it kind of sucks not having friends and that’s something I need to fix.

I’m very lucky and I’ve got my partner Olivia you can see her in more of the videos on this channel. You know I think she wants the same thing as me – we want to have more friends, we want to have more people in our lives. People that we really like and get along with and that’s that’s one of the main reasons why I’m creating this challenge for myself.

I am also doing the YouTube channel because I think maybe it will attract the people that I want into my life so I will just put myself out there.

Another thing that I really need to work on is self-expression. I’ve been told this by a few people that I really respect and they told me that I’m not expressive enough. I don’t know how that comes across in this video because I am kind of quite naturally quiet, even though I have done all this sort of social stuff. I’ve known about social dynamics that kind of thing since about 2000 or 2001 and I kind of actively went out did approaching maybe from 2005.

I got into relationships and a job. I worked and then I kind of left it there because I thought you know – what I’ve got is working the way that I want. Now, looking at again there are aspects to it that I’m just not happy with. I never really got that good. I look at people now and I’ve always stayed within those communities, and I look at people and they just do it a lot better than I do. I never really got to the stage where I thought I could just go out and do all these things. Like go on an instant date with somebody.. I never actually achieved that in all the time that I went out and talked to people and I have been on a lot of dates. I have talked to a lot of people; thousands I guess, but then you know it’s not the be-all and end-all that you can do that like instant date in a day or would instantly go out for coffee.

It didn’t really matter because I could still meet people and I can still go on dates, so it’s okay it doesn’t matter and I still feel that way. Despite that, I think maybe I would like to work on it more. I mean why not? Other than the fact that I just want to get to the end of the challenge, I want to be able to do 30 days without stopping because that for me would just be a major achievement. Most of the things in my life, I start them and then I stop them.

I just think it must be really important and it must be something that can really improve your life and that’s one of the things that I want to have in this especially leaving the house and being social.

I don’t know if I’m going to have any footage of me in the street. Maybe it’ll just be me talking. I don’t know I’m just going to leave it open and we’ll see if anyone wants to comment on this. Give me some ideas and things that I want to work on obviously. I’m going to welcome that because that’s one of the reasons why I’m doing this.

I’ve gotta be honest this is really scary the thought of doing it every day, especially since I know that I already tried. I’ve gone through that failure and had to sit back and think ‘what happened?’, and then think that I just want to have another go. I really want to do this for 30 days. If I don’t manage it this time then I’ll just have to try again until I get it done.

So tomorrow will be my first day. What I think I need to do is I need to aim for something that requires courage.If I aim for something that requires courage and have that as my target then that’s what I’ll do.

Tomorrow is day one. What would be courageous? I think approaching a mother on the move or in the town centre. That would be quite scary for me. I might try asking someone that I’d like to go for coffee straightaway..

Tim LO

Tim is a love coach and writer for Love Openly.

He has qualifications in NLP, hypnotherapy and stress management. HPD, DipHyp, DipNLP, CertSM