In situations like this does your mind go blank?

This is not unusual. That feeling is often fear of rejection.

When you feel afraid your emotions take over, you feel tense and your ability to think logically vanishes into thin air.

And that is why you can talk to close friends without a care in world but never know what to say when you meet new people. i.e. emotions cloud your thinking.

What is answer to this challenge?

You need to take charge of fear of rejection:

1. Imagine worst case scenario.

Run it through in your mind. How will you handle rejection if it does happen?

Our fears often take on a life of their own. However when you can stop for a moment and plan in advance, whatever does happen is usually not so bad after all.

Once you accept this you will feel more relaxed and better able to deal with what does happen.

2. Decide what rejection means

When we react emotionally to rejection we can usually come up with some awful reasons why people reject us, such as:

- People dislike me - I am a failure - I am not worthy of their approval - I am not good with people

However there is one success secret that costs nothing. And we can all use it today to get ahead more quickly. I am talking about cultivating exceptional people skills in a way that puts you ahead of crowd, in a way that respects and honors people you deal with in your life.

Ironically when we neglect people skills complex business and social infrastructure of our world can fall over in a moment. What do I mean?

Have you ever walked into store of a major nationwide retailer and walked through multimillion dollar premises only to find nobody to serve you?

Have you ever phoned your bank and got a busy signal or even worse got cut off despite their huge customer service focused advertising campaigns.

How about in your workplace? Have you ever done a fantastic job, stayed late to get it done and felt taken for granted? The corporate slogan about caring for welfare of staff rings hollow after this happens more than once.

On other hand if you learn from most successful individuals and companies you will find one trait in common -- excellent people skills.

Here are three ways to become more successful by developing your people skills:

1 Learn from people who manage to remain cheerful in face of massive challenges and stress.

A good friend of mine was on verge of losing his business last year but you would never have guessed it. He was always smiling and confident things would get better. He somehow managed to still treat his staff well even when he was worried about running out of money.