Sometimes when you are in a group of people, you may feel shy or simply may not know what to do. Your silence can become frustrating for yourself until you simply dislike being there altogether and don’t really enjoying their company anymore.

Have you ever experienced this?  Most introverts are quite familiar with this scenario.  Since they are naturally task-focused as opposed to people-focused, group interactions for them is usually mysterious, uncomfortable or simply not as flowing as they may desire.  If you suffer from this problem, rest assured that there is an elegant solution you can use to solve it.

It turns out that you can take advantage of the incredible power of your imagination. Here is how it works. You can use an imaginary role model and take his or her role instead. For example, pick a person you really admire and like as your role model. You don’t have to find someone you completely agree with. You just need someone who you admire when they interact with others. Every time you see them or listen to them, you enjoy their grace, movement, the combination of words they put together and their mannerism. You feel how wonderful it would be if you could have the same personality, charisma, presence or grace.

Examples of such role models are:

• Thuli Madonsela
• Thabo Mbeki
• Richard Branson
• Julia Roberts
• Minnie Dlamini
• Jack Nicholson
• Barack Obama
• Oprah Winfrey
• Boity

Now next time when you approach a group, imagine you are the mentor you selected.

Say you imagined Oprah Winfrey as your imaginary mentor. How would you (or Oprah) behave when you join this group? If you were Oprah Winfrey, you expect others to be immediately impressed by your presence and start listening to you. Your presence can be so strong, that even when you stop talking, others follow suit as if waiting for you to resume the conversation. Perhaps you would be very charming, use sophisticated words, good diction, elegant or sophisticated non-verbal signals when you talk and use a strong matter-of-fact voice no one can dispute. You simply won’t be shy and quiet the whole time, that’s just not Oprah Winfrey!

Equally, you can imagine yourself as Boity. You will be joking a lot, continuously talking and really entertaining others in the group with many stories, experiences, events that have happened to you in the past or great projects you are involved or are about to do.

A great feature of this method is that you can switch between your mentor roles given different situations or groups.  You don’t have to be Oprah Winfrey all the time and you can switch to mater the general emotional state of the group as effectively as you can.  This way, you can maximise your chances of establishing rapport.