Press it thin (under 1cm) before freezing. Instead of a frozen brick you have to microwave forever, you get a rice "sheet" that snaps into portions by hand and reheats in about 45 seconds straight from frozen. Been doing this for months, zero more soggy re-microwaved rice.
okay so backstory. I've always been the guy in the group who over thinks every text message before sending it. genuinely thought I was born without whatever gene makes people "good talkers". so when I had to start selling my own stuff (long story, freelance work) I basically decided before even trying that I was gonna suck at it.
for like 2 years I avoided any direct sales conversation like it was a physical threat. I'd build the actual thing, spend weeks on it, get it to a good place, and then just... never actually pitch it to anyone properly. I'd send like a weak "hey if ur interested lmk" message and then ghost my own conversation out of anxiety if they didn't reply in a day. genuinely sabotaged good opportunities bc I convinced myself I needed to be some smooth charismatic talker first, like a switch that either you have or you dont.
my roommate at the time (extremely extroverted, could sell ice to a penguin) kept telling me "bro its not about talking good" and I kept nodding along not actually believing him bc in my head every closer I'd seen online was loud, confident, fast talking. I am none of those things. I mumble. I say "um" a lot.
so fast forward, I finally got desperate enough (bills lol) that I had to actually talk to a potential client directly, live call, no hiding behind text. I was so nervous I actually wrote a script. did NOT plan on the guy going off script immediately and asking me a question I didn't prep for.
here's the twist — the second I abandoned my "sound smart and confident" script and just asked HIM what his actual problem was and shut up and listened, the whole call changed. I wasn't performing anymore, I was just literally repeating his own pain back to him in slightly clearer words. he actually said "yeah exactly, you get it" TWICE.
closed the deal in that same call. the one I had zero confidence going into.
went back and reread stuff on persuasion after that (was convinced it was a fluke) and realized the actual mechanics have almost nothing to do with charisma: loss aversion, specificity of pain, letting the other person say the conclusion instead of you saying it, silence being a tool instead of something to fill nervously. the "smooth talker" thing is maybe 10% of what's happening in a good sales conversation, if that.
kept testing it after that on smaller stuff (even like negotiating a bill, asking for a discount) and it kept working the same way regardless of how confident I sounded. sometimes I still mumbled through it and it still worked, which honestly broke my brain a little.
the actual TIFU part: I spent 2 years being scared of a skill I was never actually bad at, because I confused it with a completely different skill (public speaking confidence) that I genuinely don't have and still don't have. lost 2 years and probably several thousand dollars of opportunities being scared of the wrong thing.
TL;DR: thought selling = talking smooth and confident. avoided it for 2 years because I'm introverted and bad at small talk. turns out its just applied psychology and listening, had nothing to do with the thing I was scared of. found out by accident on a call I wasn't even prepared for.