1 . Having a good sense of humor makes you more enjoyable to be around.     1     . Here’s how you can develop your sense of humor.

●Surround Yourself with Humor

You learn more effectively when you fully expose yourself to a subject. Similarly, you can improve your sense of humor by surrounding yourself with humor. Watch stand-up comedians. Listen to programs that amuse you.Read humorous books.     2     .

●Learn What Amuses You

    3     . We amuse our friends by praising a change they made. However, when it comes to being funny, don’t change your sense of humor to amuse other people. Instead, start with what amuses you.Then, if you think the other person will also be amused with it, share it with them.

●Think About Timing and Audience

You don’t have to be funny all the time, so don’t expect that of yourself. When you catch yourself trying to be funny, slow down. Simply speak slower so you’re not as likely to stop and repeat yourself. Try speaking at 60-70 % of your usual rate.     4     .

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You don’t need to seize every single opportunity to be funny. If you’re in the middle of a bad joke, just end it. “You know what, now that I’m telling it, it’s not as funny as it sounded in my head,” can be a bit of an awkward end and hurt your pride a little bit, but it saves everyone time and patience. In the long run, they’ll respect your taste.

2 . When I was nine years old, I was desperately in love with a man who was 40 years my senior. Don’t worry; Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees didn’t even know I existed because he’d stopped being an actor 20 years earlier. But that didn’t stop me from decorating my books with love hearts.

The Monkees were entirely manufactured, but as a product they were a success: they used the media to develop a bond between an audience member and her target. In their TV show, they regularly broke the fourth wall, throwing knowing winks (眨眼) to camera, and shared their funny behind-the-scenes lives. They made us think we knew them, as a friend.

This kind of “parasocial relationship” (准社交关系) has long roots in media. Radio characters like Lonesome Gal started her program with, “Sweetie, I love you,” speaking directly to her listeners in the the 1950s. Each individual felt he had her undivided attention. She was an entirely virtual girlfriend, at a time when the word had nothing to do with technology.

Parasocial relationships have become a means to an end in the digital age, now that selling yourself has become a way of life. Using these relationships is how you gain followers, credibility and influence. But once you start to gain a critical mass, the relationship necessarily transforms—at least in the eye of the digital personality. You can speak directly to one fan, or even five. But it’s not possible to respond to the 10, 000 people who subscribe to your TikTok. What was once a close and friendly relationship turns into a business transaction (交易).

Rising social media stars have to manage themselves and their boundaries. That’s one of the most undeveloped skills in the digital age. Today’s parasocial relationships are surfing unknown territory, so it is expected that they—we—will make mistakes. And who is there to help when we’ve put ourselves out there online?

3 . According to Jaime Roberts, good consulting is often about loosening the body, opening the mind and, more often than not, keeping the mouth shut.

Your body language matters

Jaime Roberts has been one of my go to experts for advice for decades. When I once asked her why she was so good at consulting, she was quick to mention her body language. “    1    ,” she said, “Otherwise, they might not open up to me as much as I would want them to.”

You don’t have to fix the problem

That’s another thing Jaime Roberts has learned on the job, “People who ask ‘What should I do?’ often want to process a problem themselves.     2    ,” she said. “Part of the trick is remembering that listening is the best thing you have to do, in most cases.”

You don’t need to give advice right now

Texts and FaceTime might be immediate, but your advice doesn’t have to be.     3    . “Forcing yourself to give advice when you can’t will do more harm than good,” she said.

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You’re bound to hear about problems you haven’t experienced firsthand. That’s why Jaime Roberts says you should let them know that you’re just human beings with limited experience.     5    .

4 . We’ve all been in a position where life gets busy, schedules are difficult to coordinate and connecting with friends feels harder than ever. With some friendships, we may lose touch and want to reconnect. However，the more time that passes, the more uncertain it can feel if they want to hear from us.

A recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says it’s time to reach out. Researchers found numerous benefits when reaching out to friends and old acquaintances. Especially if you’re unsure of how well they’ll receive hearing from you. The study, led by Dr Peggy Liu, is called The Surprise of Reaching Out: Appreciated More Than We Think. In the study, researchers posed the question: Do people accurately understand how much other people value being reached out to by someone in their social circle? To answer this question, researchers carried out 13 experiments with more than 5,900 participants. In the experiments, researchers measured how much people estimated their friends or acquaintances would appreciate them reaching out versus how much those on the receiving end did appreciate it. They also examined different forms of communication-phone calls, texts, emails, notes or even small gifts—and their impact.

Over the series of experiments, experts discovered a similar trend: those reaching out significantly underestimated how much their friends would appreciate hearing from them. Plus, the more unexpected the communication was, the more the friend on the receiving end appreciated it. “People are fundamentally social beings and enjoy connecting with others,” the researchers wrote.

In fact, what made these moments of reaching out so impactful was the effort they showed—no matter the form of communication. Dr Amie Gordon, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan, emphasises the importance of small moments and making efforts in relationships in a Psychology Today article. “In a busy life, these little moments might feel just like that—little moments that don’t really matter ... But each moment we ignore is a missed opportunity to connect and build up an emotional bank of positive moments.”

The science is clear—people appreciate the effort we put into our friendships. And we greatly underestimate it. One phenomenon that may explain why those who reached out underestimated their positive impact is because of “the liking gap”. Psychologist Terri Apter writes in Psychology Today that the liking gap is a tendency to “how we often underestimate other’s responses to us”, and the reality that other people like us more than we may think.

5 . Developing an optimistic outlook can be good for both your physical and mental health. Here are some ways to make thinking positive thoughts easy.

●Spend time with positive people

If you surround yourself with constant complainers, their negativity is likely to rub off on you. Spend time with positive friends and family members to increase the likelihood that their positive thinking habits will become yours too.    1    

●Recognize and replace negative thoughts

You won’t be successful at positive thinking, if you’re still stuck in frequent negative thoughts.    2    If you find yourself thinking something such as, “I always mess everything up”, replace it with something more realistic such as, “Sometimes I make mistakes but I learn from them.”

●Consider the consequences of negativity

Spend some time thinking about the consequences of negative thinking.    3     For example, a person who thinks, “I probably won’t get this job interview,” may put less effort into the interview. As a result, he may decrease his chances of getting the job.

●Create a daily gratitude list

If you start keeping a daily gratitude list, you’ll start noticing exactly how much you have to be thankful for.    4     And you focus on the positive in your life instead of thinking about all the bad things that have happened in the day.

●Look for silver lining

When something bad happens, look for the silver lining.     5     While it may be difficult to find good in a tough situation, it is always there if you look hard enough. Focusing on the positive helps you to stay hopeful and optimistic even when things are tough.

6 . Perhaps,you are a smart person with good knowledge and creative ideas, but when you move to a new environment or have to work with some new people,it is not always easy for them to recognize you or respect you immediately.    1    How can you get other people to pay attention to you and respect you?

Be curious and be willing to learn new things.

Moving to a new working environment,you may need to deal with new things or skills.     2     In such a case,people who are more willing to learn new things can become more flexible and be able to meet new requirements in their job.

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Learning or working in a new environment,you need to have a good sense of judgement when joining a discussion or making a decision. You should consider what is virtually right, and look for long-term goals,and not be distracted by small choices for the short term.

Be confident and make eye contact when talking to people.

When you go out and meet people,it is important to look confident. For example, if you are going to an interview,but you don’t feel confident, what can you do? Before you walk in, think to yourself,“I own the room.”    4    Remember to look other people in the eye—it’s the key to creating a connection with people. Soon,you will feel as confident as you look.

Set clear goals and learn.

When working together with others,it is important that you have a clear vision and a working plan to achieve it. Let people know what you stand for. You need to find out which ideas can really unite people and then express those ideas clearly.    5    .

Be helpful to others. When working, don’t focus on what is your work and what isn’t. After do-ing your own work,always be ready to help others.

8 . When someone hurts you, it can feel good to hang onto the anger and resentment (愤恨) that may bubble up after their actions. However, forgiving others can actually benefit you both mentally and physically.    1     Forgiving yourself for hurting someone else is another tough task. With a little bit of patience, you can learn to forgive yourself or others.

Forgiving is a willingness to move on from an injustice you went through.    2     While you can consciously decide to forgive someone, it may take some time to process your emotions and actually come to terms with your situation.

    3    You yourself value relationship with him or her, and believe that forgiving is worth it. Forgiveness is a decision that should be made thoughtfully, especially if someone did something seriously wrong. Take time to think through your feelings and your reasoning, to better understand the situation.

Avoid giving someone too many chances.    4     But if they are repeatedly and knowingly hurting you, or if they have done something extremely terrible, then you should consider protecting yourself. If someone has shown that they will mistreat you again and again, or that they are willing to do you serious harm, then you need to protect your own well-being.

Take the time to process your emotions. Sometimes, it takes a while to untangle (排解) all your feelings and figure out what to do. That’s okay. Give yourself time and space to process. Helpful processing tools include: Write in a journal about it. Talk to a mentor or trusted person about the situation.    5    

10 . In conversations with strangers, people commonly tend to think they should speak less than half the conversation time to be likable. But we’ve discovered this idea is wrong. Our data shows that people tend to think they should speak about 45% of the time to be likable in a one-on-one conversation with someone new. However, it appears speaking up a bit more is actually a better strategy.

In our research, we randomly assigned people to speak for 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% of the time in a conversation with someone new. We found that the more they spoke, the more they were liked by their new partners. This was only one study with 116 participants, but the outcome is supported by other researchers’ findings. For example, a previous study randomly assigned one in a pair to take on the role of “speaker” and the other to take on the role of “listener. ” After engaging in 12-minute interactions, listeners liked speakers more than speakers liked listeners because listeners felt more similar to speakers than speakers did to listeners. This outcome suggests the reason people prefer those who speak up: Learning more about a new partner can make you feel like you have more in common with him or her.

Further, we assigned people to speak for up to 70% and even 90% of the time. The result shows it is not an ideal strategy. Our research does not suggest people hold down a conversational partner but rather that they feel comfortable speaking up more than they usually might.

Research like ours can help people gain a ‘more reasonable understanding of social interactions with new people and become more confident about how to make a good first impression. It has the obvious benefit of allowing us to carefully control speaking time. However, it does not reflect more natural conversations. Future research should figure out whether our findings generalize to more natural interactions.