How to become socially fit and have a good conversation with absolutely anyone

Smith says being socially nervous is something which can actually help us to bond (Getty)

I talk for a living – and what no one really knows is that it hasn’t always been easy for me to communicate. As a child I had a debilitating speech impediment. I can still hear the dinner lady laughing in my face when the five-year-old me asked for fish fingers, but couldn’t get the words out. I still feel sad for the five-year-old Josh who was too shy to say almost anything at all.

Seeing the effect this had on me, my parents took me to a speech therapist. After months of working on my “th”, “f” and “ph” sounds they became passable – if you listen carefully I still can’t say them perfectly. I got my confidence back, but then as a teenage boy I faced a new challenge – my voice didn’t sound like other boys. Everyone else’s voice dropped. Mine didn’t and I became a target for homophobic bullies who teased me mercilessly just as I was still trying to figure out who I was. I shrank inside myself all over again. “If they say I am disgusting, unattractive and unlikeable, then maybe I should hate myself too.”

So, no one is more surprised than me that, now, 10 or so years on from those darkest days, I have found my voice quite literally. My job is interviewing celebrities, and I have talked to hundreds from every walk of life and mood – from Victoria Beckham to Oprah.