20 Tips From 20 Years Of Confidence (Part 1)

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Welcome to today's episode of the Show Show. I'm your host, Dr. Z. And I'm excited to be with you today. Because today I have gone back through the annals of time. Is it annals of time sounds a lot like anals. Anyway, back through time over the last 20 years. That's right, 20 years of obsessively studying and then helping people with confidence. Now, 20 years ago, I was not helping anyone. Actually, I had one friend that I was helping. Cause we were both trying to meet women. And that was the source of wanting to build confidence. And then what happened though, is it became like a raging fire inside of me. It became, oh, this is my life's work. And for him it was like, dude, I got a girlfriend, I'm good. And I was like, we're just getting started. And so that was when I was 20 years old and I just turned 40 a couple months ago. So it was right in my 20th year that I reached that threshold moment of pain and suffering of a life not fully lived. A life in the cage of severe social anxiety and excessive people pleasing and niceness and disconnection for myself and numbing out and avoiding with video games and drugs and alcohol and smoking and trying to feel better to breaking through something and saying, you know what, I got to do something about this. I'm going to do whatever it takes to break free. And that was the beginning of the story that here we are 20 years later and I've gone on to not only become more confident every year, that's why I wanna share these tips with you. I'm so excited because it's not like, oh, yeah, I broke through and then that's it. It's every single year. And probably if you break it down every month, there's some new insight, some new breakthrough, some new version of me that keeps coming out. And I want the same for you. And so my goal here isn't for you to Just overcome social anxiety. I see that. It's just the first step, my friend. Let's overcome social anxiety and then unleash you into the world so you can go out there and start living at higher and higher levels of who you're meant to be. Joy, satisfaction, contribution, meaning purpose, success. And these 20 tips are going to guide you to do that. So over the last 20 years, I've been able to apply what I want to want to share in these episodes with you, to continually grow confidence. And as your confidence grows, your life gets better. Your life circumstances get better. So better relationship, better family relationships. Whoa, throwing water bottles around here. Better. A better life, better success, better career. Not just in terms of money, but also work that you want to do. You get to be the captain of your ship and you get to steer your life. And that doesn't mean your life doesn't have pain or challenges or hard moments. But man, it means it's pretty sweet most of the time. So I want to share these tips with you. Now, I have 20 for 20 years of confidence. Honestly, when I was making this list, I probably could have come up with 50 or 100, but I thought 20 seems like a more digestible number and it fits the theme of 20 years. Now, I'm not going to share all 20 in this episode because I would just be blazing through them, and I actually want to teach you them and explain them to you so you can use them, not just have a fancy checklist. So I'm going to go through. We'll see how many get through. In this episode, I'm going to imagine I'm going to spread this out over about three different episodes or so. So we're going to dive into it and see where we get to today in the 20 tips for confidence that comes from 20 years of learning about this stuff. Now, you ready? Some of these you might have heard from me in different books or videos or other podcasts, but as you start to let them sink in, they will inform what you do this week, this month, and hopefully help you shift your life in a major positive way. You ready? Here we go. Tip number one. Confidence is a byproduct of action. I love this one. It's a pithy phrase. Confidence is a byproduct of action, which means if you want more confidence, you must take more action. That's right. And people have it all wrong. They're waiting. I'm going to do more stuff. When I feel more confident, I'm going to put my videos out there. When I feel more Confident I'm going to go approach that person when I feel more confident. I'm going to speak up or apply for that job in my career when I feel more confident. And then they're waiting and you're waiting. And a month goes by, a week goes, a year goes by. When's my life going to start? That's what it felt like for me. It felt like I was on the sidelines of my life. Why? Because I was imagining that I needed confidence first. But instead, confidence comes from taking the action, comes from confidence is a byproduct of action. So get out there and start doing stuff. What actions? Well, probably the actions that scare you, right? Because otherwise there's no growth in it. You know, go out, go to your kitchen and make, make a sandwich or a salad for lunch. Probably not too scary. Not going to grow you very much. Not going to build confidence. So what kind of actions am I talking about? Not the sandwich making kind. I'm talking about the actions that scare you or make you uncomfortable. Now, it doesn't have to terrify you. We'll get into that in a future tip. But it's got to be something that's on the edge, a little uncomfortable, and so you can sustain that over time and build your confidence. Okay, that's tip number one. Confidence is a byproduct of action. Tip number two, get good at catching and labeling your limiting stories. Get good at it. Make that a useful sub skill in your life. What does that mean? Well, we all have limiting stories, limiting beliefs, limiting ideas. These are different ways, ways that you may have heard these terms. And if you've never heard this term, this is very useful for you to know about. Basically you have an idea in your head about you and what you're capable of or how something's gonna go. We all do. And a certain number of those are false limiting stories that are not actually based upon what is truly in your capacity. Right. You probably think of, you probably see some of those in your own experience. If you reflect back, oh, I told myself I'd never be able to learn this or I'd never be able to date that person, or I'd never be able to do whatever, learn this care. And then here I am five years later, seven years later, and I'm with that person. I did that thing. So it's helpful for you to look back and see at least one or two limiting stories and how you did the opposite of what they said was possible for you. Because then it starts to cement in your mind. Oh, oh, Those aren't real. Those aren't true. Now, the fascinating thing about limiting stories is those ones in the past are obviously not true, but the ones I'm telling myself now are, are very true. At least that's how it feels. But they're not. They're no more true than those past ones. But if you're not aware, if you're not paying attention, they have a very hypnotic quality to them, and we just sort of believe them. And we don't really even consciously think, oh, I want to do blank. I want to go have a better dating life, or I want to excel in my career. I want to make more friends. Oh, but I'm telling myself a limiting story that says no one's going to like me and I'm not smart enough, so I'm not taking action. No, that we're usually not that conscious of it. We're just, oh, there's an opportunity. I don't know, I just don't feel like it. Some low energy, Our thinking is pretty negative. Oh, I don't feel like I don't want to. I couldn't. But it's not really clear. And so this tip is to get good at catching and labeling your limiting stories and saying, I, hey, that's a limiting idea. That's a limiting story. I'm telling myself, you know, simple example, which I might have talked about in a recent podcast, but moving out to the country here, been out here for about, I don't know, depends on when you're listening to this recording, but at the time, this recording, about nine, ten months. I love it. It's the greatest place I've ever lived in my whole life. And coming out here, I knew I would need to learn how to take care of a property of a forest and a house. And I had always avoided everything about that irrigation, which I still don't like, by the way, but using tools, learning how to fix things around the house avoided all of that. And I had a limiting belief that says I can never learn this. I remember many years ago I used to bike commute when I lived in the city of Portland. And I had a good friend of mine who is really good with bikes, and so he helped me buy a bike and I was using it all the time, and occasionally I needed to do something like change a tire on the bike or do some basic fix on the bike. And I was so not only just unable to do it, but like, helplessly. I could never learn this. It's too overwhelming, it's too hard, and there's all this cloud of confusion, like, oh, my gosh, this is so impossible. It's really weird how the limiting stories affect you like that. Like, I can't even imagine how I would make friends. Oh, my gosh, it's so overwhelming. And really, it's just like, walk over to that group of people and start talking to them. Are they gonna be your best friends? I don't know. But just do that a number of times, and you'll make new friends pretty quickly. So these limiting stories prevent you from taking the action of which confidence is a byproduct. You see that how I linked it back to tip number one. Yeah. Anyway, label it as limiting story. Hey, I have a limiting BS Story. And once you know it's a limiting story, you know that it's false. And then, therefore, you can start to do the opposite of what it says. And the way that is, you just lean in. So I started taking massive action when it came to this limiting story about learning how to use tools. And now I've used and am fairly proficient, I'd say, in a chainsaw, a pole saw, a pressure washer, a tractor, various other things, a log splitter. And on the next frontier is maintenance of these machines. Now, I have some stories about, like, I don't know how to change transmission fluid and filters. Like, I'm gonna mess it all up. I don't know what's going. Complete and total bs. Just another belief system. What happens with these limiting stories is when you challenge them, they'll recede. They'll retreat to, you know, like in warfare, if an army or in a battle they're losing, they might not just drop their weapons and run. They might do a retreat where they pull back to another stronghold that they can hold that, you know, that town or that position. And that's how your limiting stories work. They retreat, and they say, okay, all right, yeah, you can talk to people. Maybe you can do that. Maybe you can make some friends. But then it retreats and says, yeah, but you'll never be able to have great friendships. You'll never have the friends you really want. They don't think you're interesting. Right. So it pulls back and then keeps firing its shots. So for me, now, it said, I can't do maintenance, but I know it's a limiting story. Game on. Let's go. What do I got to do? Learn about the maintenance practice. The maintenance. Watch YouTube videos. Turns out one of my best friends has been maintaining vehicles his whole life. So what a great person to come on over and help Me. Right. So your limiting stories are false. You have to be able to label them and see them. That's tip number two. All right, you ready for tip number three? Tip number three is social confidence is a learnable skill. So I was giving an example of learning about tools and machinery. You might be really good with that stuff and say, oh, yeah, duh, everyone can learn that. Or maybe play an instrument. Oh, yeah, duh, everyone can learn an instrument or anything. You do artwork, woodworking, singing, your hobbies, making a vase. I don't know what you do. You know, go running a sport. Right. All of these things we know are learnable skills. You say, oh, I don't know how to play soccer. I don't know how to throw a football. You might say. You probably say, okay, well, someone's got to show you how to throw a football, and you got to practice. And you're not going to necessarily be in the NFL, but you can at least throw a football. And if someone's like, no, I just can't. I just can't throw a football. You might be like, well, do they have some sort of disability where they can't use their arm? Like, no, no, no, I can. I can do that. I just never going to be able to throw a football. You'd look at them like they were crazy. Like, what are you talking about? And it's the same thing with social confidence. It's a learnable skill. But there's this strong. It's a limiting belief, a strong story that I lived in for so many years, which was, this is the way it is. It's a fixed mindset. I'm just this guy who's not socially confident. Look at that guy over there. He's confident. That's how it is. It's like, you know, your hair color, your eye color, it's set in your genetic code. And that's really what I believed. That's how I looked at the world. And now that I look back at that, I'm like, wow, that's a. That's a really strange way to look at the world. It's so inaccurate, but that's how I saw it back then. So tip number three is for you to realize that social confidence is a learnable skill. Now, the question is, you probably heard me talk about that on this show, or. I mean, that's kind of what this whole show is based on, right? Because why would you be listening if you thought you couldn't change anything? Now, when it comes to this, people might intellectually or verbally Say, yeah, oh, yeah, of course. Someone could learn confidence. Sure, theoretically. But then underneath is some irrational distorto belief. It's like, but not me. And it might not even be totally verbalized, but that's where you want to challenge that. Do you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, how certain are you that social confidence is a learnable skill? What's the first number that comes to your mind there? Is it a 10? All right, let me ask you a follow up question. On a scale of 1 to 10, let's say it is a learnable skill. Maybe if you don't agree. Well, then we'll agree to disagree. Let's say it's a learnable skill. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you believe that you can learn this skill? Because if you're like, yeah, it's learnable for somebody else, someone else can learn how to throw a football, but not me. Right? Then you're back to really not believing it. So if you don't believe it, then you're not gonna take actions that have a byproduct of building your confidence, which is tip number one. And you're not gonna catch your limiting stories because you're living in one. So that's number two. I'm weaving these back. I'm not gonna promise that I'm gonna weave them all together every time. That would be like some sort of strange game where you have to say everyone's name. You ever play one of those icebreaker games? They're kind of fun. You imagine it's a circle of people and you're trying to learn everyone's name. So you know, Jeff, Ahmed, Theresa. Coming up with, see, look at that diversity in the names. I'm coming up with Aziz. So, you know, you go around the circle and you have to say everyone's name up until that point, and then your name, and then the next person has to say everyone's name up. So you have to recite everything. I might do that. Let's go back to 12 days of Christmas here. All right, tip number four, you will never feel not afraid before taking meaningful risks. Never going to happen. So that's the good news. You can stop waiting. Because what happens is people are like. When I say meaningful risks, I'm talking about going for what you want in life. Whether it's a small thing, like approaching that person or asking them out, or, you know, having that conversation with your partner that's vulnerable, that you've been avoiding, or trying to make that new friendship or taking that risk to Go for something at work or starting your own business. I'm talking about small stuff, big stuff, daily stuff, once in a lifetime stuff. Those are the meaningful risks. So meaningful risk doesn't mean it's the biggest risk of your life. It just means it's in this. It's towards the life that you want. It matters to you. And you can make small, meaningful risks, you know, a couple times a day. But if you're waiting for the fear to not be there, you're gonna be waiting forever. And so people think something's wrong because they're afraid. And the way to see it differently, the liberating way to see it is it's not, I need this fear to go away. It's you get better at knowing how the whole cycle works. Like, oh, there's something I want to do. Oh, there's fear and some limiting ideas. Okay, Then I take the action anyway. Oh, then I get results. And you just follow that whole cycle around. You don't try to fight any part of that cycle. No, I shouldn't be afraid anymore. I don't like it. Get better at being okay with a little bit of fear. So what? Yeah, I'm a little scared. In fact, that's. In fact, that's part of the process. You know, it's almost like you can imagine a little. I need to draw some sort of flow chart here with air circular arrows, where it's like, okay, go. Yep, now I'm in the fear stage. Now my limiting beliefs are telling me not to do it so I can get out of the fear and avoid this whole thing. But I'm going to persist, and then I'm going to take that action, which is going to produce a byproduct of confidence. And now that fear no longer is a major factor in your life. And then, of course, from, like, the teachings of acceptance and commitment therapy, which is what I really focused on in my graduate training in psychology, is paradoxically, when you stop trying to make the fear go away and be all stressed out and really just not give it much energy at all, it actually does tend to dissipate. And you might have a lot of experiences where you're not that afraid at all. But if you're trying to make yourself not afraid, you're spending your energy in the wrong place. Focus instead on this question, which is a question I love to ask clients, you ready? They're saying, oh, my gosh, I'm so nervous about this speaking thing. I don't want to do it. Or I'm nervous. I'm too scared to go talk to that person. I'll say, okay, what would you do if you weren't afraid? Why? I guess I just walk over and talk to them. Okay, what would you say though? Right? Because so much of our fear is like, I don't know what I'd say. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to do it. I said, okay, what if you weren't afraid? What would you say? Why say anything? I'd say, how are you doing? Are you enjoying this place? Okay, great, great. So just go do that. No, no, no, no, no, no. Bruno. We don't talk about Bruno anyway. Encanto, anyone? No, I can't do that. Why can't you do that? Because I'm afraid. Okay, so you're gonna wait for the fear to go away before you do it. Is that the only way? Right. And then it's this chicken or the egg thing. The fear is never gonna go away, my friend. Never, never, never nerver gonna go away. So just do it. And if you do it and allow the fear to be there, you'll have some moments of grace where you're not afraid at all. But that's not the main point of this thing. The point is to live your risks, and your life will get better and better and better, and your confidence will improve. And then you get less scared of life, less scared of risk, less scared of other people judging you. Less scared of being open to the world, less scared of being you. Because you've built that confidence. You've earned it. And that's what these tips are all about. Now that brings me to the next tip, which I believe would be number five. Yeah, yeah. Number five is. And this one's really helpful. I didn't know this one when I was younger, which is take it slow, five pound weight. So when I talk about doing what scares you and you're like, oh, my God, but I'm too scared. I can't go do it. The answer there is not well, come on, grit your teeth, you wimp. Get some willpower. That's not gonna work. Maybe you're gonna eke out a little bit more action out of yourself, but it's not sustainable. Your body's in a state of tension. Fight or flight. Sympathetic overload. You're scared you're walking over to that person. Eyes wide as saucers, body as tense as a wound top. Hi. Do you want to go on a date with me? It's like, I got to get away from you, man. Right? Because your Energy is so bound up. So then you're setting yourself up for failure, right? It's like, I knew she wouldn't like me. Look, see, it's like it's not you. It's, that's how you're showing up. It's your approach, it's your style, it's your energy. So, so what do you got to do? Take it slow. It's tip number five, which is, I call it the five pound weight is my metaphor. But if you wanted to build strength, you don't go into the gym and throw around the heaviest weight you can. You don't go try to pick up a weight you can't lift. You know, if you don't bench much, bench press. And how much you want to bench, I don't know, put, put 250 on there. Okay, great. And then you some have someone help you lift up the weight over your chest and they let go. It's going to go straight down into your chest and crush you. And you got to start thinking about stuff like walking over to that group of people that you don't know and starting a conversation. Look, if you've built up a certain level of social fitness, that won't be that hard. It won't seem impossible. You might be nervous, but you can do it. But if you haven't, it's going to be trying to will yourself to lift a weight that's impossible. Now it's technically not impossible. Right, Because a physical weight your muscles, literally. I mean, I don't know, maybe some sort of crazy adrenaline scenario where a kid's getting crushed by a car and his mom has weird superhuman powers. One of those stories. But for the most part, you know, you're in the gym, you can't be like, I'm gonna lift double the amount of weight that I normally can because I want to. No, you're not. You're physically limited. Now technically you could go walk over and talk to somebody or you could take a meaningful risk in your life because it's not a physical limitation. It's more of a mental emotional limitation. But for the most part, the mental emotional limitations are pretty freaking hard to just push through. And it's not a very kind way to do it. It's not a very self compassionate way to do it. And it's not the most effective. So what's more effective is to take it slow to build on those things. Now the problem with that is people have a dismissive attitude towards that. Like, what is building a slow mean? Well, one of my favorite Exercises is friendly greetings. You might have heard me talk about this. Go to a busy area and walk down the street and say hi to five, 10 people. For some people, even that's really intense. They're like, oh, my God, I can't do that. Well, can you walk over to someone and ask them the time? Can you give a call to a restaurant and ask their hours of operation? I mean, real basic stuff here. Start where you're at. I remember there's a client, my mastermind, who was at that place. Really, like, intelligent, capable guy, ran a construction company with his dad in his mid-20s, so could do stuff, but was just so freaking scared all the time. And for him, I talked about friendly greetings, and, you know, his eyes went wide. Seemed terrifying. And I didn't say, well, just come on, do it, do it. Try harder, man. Right? If you're doing that to yourself, that is shooting yourself in the foot. Super counterproductive. So instead, what do you got to do? I said, let's scale it back. And for him, it was calling a few different places and asking their hours of operation. Literally, that was it. And his hands were shaking before he did it, but he felt able to do it. And that's the key point here. It doesn't matter how scared you are. It matters how doable it feels. Even though you're scared now, those two tend to go together. So if you're terrified out of your face, taking the action is a little. Is harder usually. But, you know, he was nervous, but he was able to do it. That's what you want. I'm nervous, but I'm able to do it. Eventually you might be in situations where you're like, I'm freaked out, but I'm gonna do it. And that comes from the social fitness. You're not going to get there by willpower. Just like, if someone's been working out a lot and they want to do a hard workout or go for a lot further of a run, they can, because they're prime, they're ready, their body's in shape for it. Same thing for you. You want to take this bigger risk because you know life will happen where there's an opportunity. There's that person walking by. You want to go meet them. Oh, man. Like, now's the time. And you might be able to leap even though you're really scared, but only if you've been building up that social fitness. So take it slow, Build up that social fitness, and you will start to have extraordinary results in your. So was that number five I think that was number five. Let's recap here for today. Confidence is a byproduct of action. That's number one tip. Number one tip. Number two, get good at catching and labeling your limiting stories. Number three is social confidence is a learnable skill. Number four is you will never feel not afraid before a meaningful risk. So just get out there and face that fear. And number five is the gentlest, most compassionate, most effective, smartest way to go about this with the 5 pound weight is with gradual exposure, is with taking it slow but consistently building up those action steps. Speaking of that, let's talk about an action step for today. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is do nothing. Just listen to these tips and all your problems will be solved. No, no, you got to do something. So, man, there's a lot of good opportunities here. Do you want to take one of those tips? I mean, I think maybe the best action step though, instead of just saying go out and do one of these tips, it was going to be this. I'm going to encourage you to write these tips down. No. In the episode description, I'm not going to write them for you. I want you to physically write or type them somewhere where you can see them. So start a document file on your phone. You have the first five already. Maybe you can put on a little note card if you want to go old school and have it in your desk or something like that. But something you're going to see regularly. And I want you to read through those first five and then as you listen to future episodes that have already built on this list, well, add more to that list because that regularly exposing yourself to this is gonna. It's gonna change your life. And it's. And I know that that term is overused these days and whatever social media, personal growth, influencer world, it's gonna change your life, man. But it truly is in extraordinary and magical ways. So thanks for being with me today. I look forward to sharing more tips in future episodes. Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com it.