Hi, I’m Rob Riker.

I help people create amazing relationships by teaching them how to make new friends, connect deeply with the people in their lives, and have fun conversations with strangers.

I’ve been featured in Business Insider, written for websites like Lifehack, and told my story on Tiny Buddha.

But it’s my unique experience that allows me to help you best.

Here’s my story:

When I finished college and moved to Vermont for my first full-time job, I finally learned that making new friends isn’t easy.

Throughout my life I was always involved in different groups, sports, and other activities, and unsurprisingly these are the places I made new friends. However, when I moved to Vermont I quickly realized that making new friends in a new city is much more difficult than I expected.

Unfortunately, rather that taking responsibility and learning how to solve the underlying issue, I blamed my inability to make new friends on living in a small city. So, when I wasn’t alone hanging out by myself, which was often, I hung out with my aunt and uncle (whom I lived with), and the few coworkers I saw each day at work.

Six months later I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since the population of Santa Fe was much larger, I thought that I’d finally be able to make new friends.

Only I didn’t.

Even though I had been reading and learning about social skills for five years, I still couldn’t get this right. It made me feel like a complete failure.

But this time I didn’t blame the city. I took responsibility and decided to figure out what was going wrong.

I took a step back and analyzed all the friendships I had made. I talked to other people and asked them about their friendships and how they came to be. I read, I did research, and I kept learning.

Through this informal education and lots of trial and error, I figured out how to make good friends quickly, and how to have a blast doing it.

I wasn’t slaving away talking to strangers who wanted nothing to do with me. I was going to places where people wanted to get to know me.

Things turned around fast, but I realized I needed to go a lot deeper.

Getting To The Root Of The Problem

One of the reasons I never worried about my social skills is that I always seemed to have plenty of friends. From the outside, I almost saw myself as popular.

But from the inside, that really wasn’t the truth. I had a few good friends, but all the other people were really friends of friends. Those other people seemed to accept me, but I never had one-on-one relationships with them. They were never hostile, but we never connected either.

Deep down I was in a lot of pain. I suppressed my emotions and acted like everything was great, but this kept me from tackling the core issues.

I wasn’t good at making new friends.

I was terrible at making real connections with people.

I hated talking to strangers.

I was devoid of the three most important aspects of a healthy social life.

When I learned how to make new friends in Santa Fe, I didn’t stop there. I also taught myself how to connect deeply with these people. I learned how to start talking to strangers, while enjoying it.

Once I started getting better in this area of my life, everything changed. I became happier than I had ever been before. I was more productive and more focused. My mind wasn’t wandering around everywhere panicking about thousands of little things anymore.

A couple years after leaving Santa Fe, I realized that the mindsets and skillsets I had learned through this process were life changing. Yet, it’s not easy to find this information anywhere.

Although I’ve found plenty of books and websites covering various tactics and strategies for improving your social skills, I’ve had a lot of trouble finding one-stop shops on how to make new friends, or how to build strong connections with people. And the ones that I do find are missing a lot of the information I’ve uncovered.

That’s why I started The Social Winner. I enjoy helping people who struggle to make new friends, who struggle to connect with the people in their lives, who feel uncomfortable talking to new people.

Want to learn more?

You can join The Social Winner Newsletter to stay up-to-date and get new articles right when they come out (and get my free 8-lesson email course Making New Friends The Easy Way).

Or you can go to the Start Here page which helps you navigate through a lot the other material I have.

Lastly, feel free to contact me for any reason at all.

-Rob