What to Do When You're New

What to do When You're New, How to be Comfortable, Confident, and Successful in New Situations, by Keith Rollag, Amacom 2015

Filled with "positivityness" tips and practice ideas, this book is a great addition to your life.  We all avoid "new" situations - "new" interviews, "new" speeches, "new" projects, "new" friends, but Rollag, a professor at Babson, offers real success tips to move beyond the why and how and what-ifs, to confidence and achievement at "new."  For example, he urges us to imagine the kind of newcomer we'd like to become.  Try it out by applying your best skills to a learning situation, and then look for more opportunities to progress.  I like his eight steps to increasing chances for the "new" to work:

1.  Make a public commitment - i.e. tell a supportive friend what you are attempting

2.  Acknowledge your stone age brain

3  the worst case scenario rarely happens

4.  put yourself in others' shoes

5.  approach new situations as experiments, not tests

6.  give and seek energy

7.  write things down

8  be patient