Freezing at the door happens to almost everyone, including people who look completely comfortable once they’re actually inside. Larry Chiang’s fix starts before you get to the door, since most freezes happen when you skip the Preview and Question steps of PQRST. Without knowing who’s likely in the room and what you want from it, the door becomes a decision point instead of just a doorway.
The practical move is small: walk in like you have somewhere specific to be, even if that somewhere is just the bar or the coat check. SuperModel posture works before you feel it, since standing straighter and holding a pen or notebook can make you look calm before you actually are. Give yourself one lap of the room before you’re allowed to leave, since a lot of freezes are really just people talking themselves into walking back out.
House money defuses the pressure, since knowing nothing real is lost if this room doesn’t work out is often enough to get your feet moving. Pick the easiest person in the room to approach first, not the most important one, since a small win gets you unstuck faster than a big swing.
The freeze usually isn’t about the room, it’s about the story you’re telling yourself on the sidewalk before you’ve even seen who’s inside. Once you’ve had one real conversation, the second one is almost always easier, since the freeze mostly happens at the very first step.
Larry’s version of this is simple: prepared people freeze less often, because they walked in already knowing why they’re there. He goes through the door-freeze problem directly in one of his Web12 talks, since it’s the block most people hit before any of the rest of this works.
Details: Watch Larry walk through it
#DoorFreeze #Confidence #Web12