This is FiveMinuteFriday, episode number 154, socializing.
Hello and welcome back to the Super Data Science podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, very excited to have you on the show today. And this episode is about socializing. Why I think it’s an important episode is because I’ve personally experienced this just recently. Not to say that I’ve socialized for the first time just recently but I’ve personally put a focus on socializing just recently. You may have heard or may remember that a few weeks ago we had an episode with Vitaly Dolgov who’s my mentor and we talked about time management and being efficient and one of the topics that came up there was the PERMA framework which is a psychological framework for happiness, one of them. It’s the abbreviation stands for positive emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning and accomplishment. If you’re not familiar with the framework, highly recommend checking out that episode. Episode with Vitaly was 147. And so we talk about it there.
But one of the components of happiness is relationships that you build with friends, family or just people around you. I noticed that a lot of the time, or I know this about myself that I am being an introvert and yes I am an introvert, if you’re surprised at that. An introvert is a [inaudible 00:01:38] is not about how you can be in public and how you can engage with people, I don’t believe that that’s the case. I think it’s about where you get your energy from and I personally definitely recharge when I’m on my own. And so I’ve known this about myself that I spend quite a bit of time, I can get carried away spending a lot of time on my own and working or learning something, doing things and sometimes not see other people except for the Uber Eats delivery guy for days. And I’m fine with that. I feel content. I feel like I’m growing and things like that but at the same time being a person like that I don’t realize what I’m missing out on.
And so I recently forced myself to actually go and attend social events and I’ve had a few weeks of very filled few weeks that were very filled with social events. So for instance I went rock climbing three times in two weeks. I went to play boardgames twice. I went to a few parties and so most of these were where I didn’t actually know the people I was going with. And so that really put me out of my comfort zone where I had to not just go there with somebody and meet people. That I did a couple of those a well. A few I did where, or not a few, majority probably I did where I went there by myself and met people in the place.
So how did I do that? I used meetup.com. Again, don’t think we’re affiliated with this app in any sort of way. It’s come up a few times in the podcast just ’cause it’s convenient. It’s very easy to install in your phone and then check out what’s going on around you and especially based on your interest. I like rock climbing, I typed in rock climbing and hiking and I met a few people that were going for those activities and met up with them and we did some fun things together.
What I want to say in this podcast is if you’re like me and there’s a high chance that you are because let’s face it, we’re kind of you’re listening to this podcast, we have similar interests and we are in a similar field. There is a chance that we are similar in many ways. If you’re like me and you do get carried away being on your own, don’t forget about that component, that social component of your life, that very important aspect because a lot of happiness actually comes from there. And there were moments when I was socializing when I felt like carried away. I felt I was so engaged in the conversation or listening to a person so attentively that I just forgot about everything else. A couple times I found myself really caught up in conversation and I really felt that I was very engaged.
I’ll give you an example. This one time went to play boardgames and there I met some people, two guys and a girl and they are choir singers in a church in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Brisbane. First of all, I had no idea that I can extrapolate that that’s an important profession and people do that for but I never thought of it that way and at the same time what then I learned from them was this whole thing going on about choir, cathedral choirs and which ones exist and which ones are better, which ones are worse and what they do and how they get into them and how they want to build, some of them want to build a career on it, some of them don’t. It’s like a whole new world I never knew existed I would’ve never known it existed unless I had met those people. I probably would have gone my whole life and would’ve never, ever thought about learning a bit more about what the world of choir singers and cathedrals is and what’s it’s all about.
Completely random and counter and at the same time so interesting. I learned something absolutely amazing. It’s not in any way relevant to what I do but it made me feel like I’m, I don’t know, it just made me feel good and engaged and for that half hour, hour I was talking to them, completely forgot about the whole outside world. It was so fascinating. Just an example and hopefully you either already have this in your life where you have enough social encounters and not just with people you know but also with people you don’t know to get out of your comfort zone and see what else, what other professions, what other opinions exist out there in the world. But if you don’t already have that there’s ways you can create that for yourself. So don’t be shy. I did it. I could get out of my comfort zone. I’m sure you can do it too.
On that note, find a way. Find a way to socialize with people. Of course do it in a safe way and make sure it’s a trustworthy environment and everything is going to be okay. But yeah, just if you have a chance and you feel that you’re missing out on that then you probably are and it’s time to change that. That’s my call to you this weekend. My inspiration, hopefully for you to go out there and meet some new people. And on that note, hope you enjoyed today’s podcast. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, happy analyzing.
