Professor Alison Wood Brooks

I find quite nerve wracking.

I think they're probably judging me.

I've also had difficult business conversations.

Yeah, they are judging me.

And I can feel it.

And as I go towards those conversations, I'm like, oh my God.

And then I end up just like freezing or being a little bit paralyzed.

And you'd think as someone like me who does this for a living, finds conversations easy.

I absolutely do not.

Amen.

I like to ruminate on an awkward encounter I had like two and a half weeks ago.

Of course.

I was like, I should have just da-da-da-da.

But actually in reading some of your work, I thought about what I could have done.

And we'll get to this, this idea of preparing for those moments, which I typically don't because I assume I should be a natural.

I think one of them is I am a bit of an introvert in my sort of self-classification.

And as people know who I am more in the world, I think I've become more introverted.

And sometimes that can be perceived in the wrong way.

So my happy state is kind of being alone or around people that I'm extremely familiar with.

If I leave the house and I go, say, to a gym or something, I have a little bit of paranoia.