3 Fundamental Confidence Truths #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 Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, and this is your place to come to learn confidence. That's right, you heard me correctly. Learn confidence. Confidence is not something that you're born with or is mysteriously bestowed upon you. It is a muscle that you build. It's a skill that you can learn. And that's what this show is all about, is helping you learn confidence. And over the years of studying confidence, first voraciously for my own suffering, and then over the, you know, many number of years to. To really serve others and to find a way to help crack the code for as many people as possible on how to unleash the more confident, free version of you, I've come across some truths, some fundamental confidence truths. I'm calling them. Think of these as. As first principles or axioms or things that are distilled down to the. As. As simple of an essence as possible and that appear to be universally true for humans. And, you know, obviously I'm. It's reductionist and I'm taking a stab at trying to boil down something as complex as life and humans to some simple truths. So these are models. These are ways of trying to understand yourself in the world. And they're not. Don't confuse the map for the territory. And at the same time, I think they can be really, really useful for you in building a whole nother level of confidence. Because if you accept that confidence is a skill, it's a muscle. In fact, that's maybe a good starting point, is do you perceive confidence as something that you can learn? Do you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? Because if you have a fixed mindset, you're basically screwed in life. This just came up recently on a mastermind call. Someone was talking about a story in their mind that if I have not done it yet, then I won't be able to do it. Which we all might relate to if you haven't done it yet, it's impossible. And I said, well, you know, my kids are learning to read right now, so if they can't read a full adult book, should I just tell them, well, I think it's time to throw in the towel. Stop trying to read with these children's books. I mean, you're never going to get it, you haven't done it yet, you haven't read Charles Dickens yet. So I'm afraid you won't, son. Right? What? It's absurd when you think of it that way, because we all have a growth mindset when it comes to learning reading or writing. Although some people have a fixed mindset when it comes to math, for example, or writing. You know, I can't write very well or I'm not a writer or I'm no good at math. So people can adopt fixed mindsets all over the place. Even though we know that they're bs, we do it anyway. We'll talk more about that when we get to the third fundamental truth. But the question is, if you agree that confidence can be learned or developed, then you might want to get curious about how to develop it. And what are the things that people do that help them develop it? And just as important, what are the things that people do that stop them from building their confidence and developing this muscle? Because if you want to grow, you move towards what you want, you also remove the obstacles that are in the way. So I'm going to cover one truth per episode over the next three episodes here, and by the end of that, hopefully you will have a much better understanding on how to truly live with more confidence and build this muscle, ideally indefinitely. I love the idea of ever increasing confidence, where every year you become more confident than the year before, all the way until your final breath. So if that sounds appealing to you, let's dive right in. By the way, if you're benefiting from this show and you want to take things further, there are a few ways you can do that. The best place to go is draziz.com that'S-R-A z I z dot com. You'll also be able to look at Drink for the shy guy. Under the resources there, we have a blog as well. It's got videos and text that you could be reading or watching, all for free. If you really want to take things to the next level, check out some of my virtual events. We also have one in person event in 2023 that's under the Events tab. And then of course the full package, the full, the complete solution, I'd say is wrapped up in the Mastermind program, the unstoppable confidence. Mastermind. That's the program that's running for almost eight years now. Seven and a half to eight years, helped hundreds of clients. You can find out all about the Mastermind program, how it works, what it includes, and also watch people's stories of transformation, which are super inspiring. So this show is one of the many things that I'm offering in the world. But if you want more, if you're learning, but you're looking, you're hungering for more profound transformation, just know that that is possible. And I would love to support you in that. Let's talk about fundamental confidence. Truth number one. You ready? All right. Life is unstable. That's fundamental. Truth number one. Life is unstable. Now, I can't see you right now, but you might have a quizzical look on your face, like, is that the supposed to be giving me confidence? What's happening? Is this about confidence? What are you talking about, Aziz? Well, we wanted to start with the most basic boiled down principle that I could come up with, which is life is unstable. And this has everything to do with your confidence, even if at first it might not be clear how. Let me explain. So nothing in life is solid. This is pointing towards a fundamental quality of the universe, which would be called impermanence in Buddhism. But, you know, maybe relates to something like entropy, which is things break down in physics, but nothing is stable. Life is unstable, right? You think about stability versus instability or being unstable. Stability is, it's there and it's the same. And you come back the next day and it's there and it's the same. And nothing is the same. Nothing is totally stable. Now, there's things that seem more stable than others. So you go take a shower in your bathroom and you go back the next day, your shower is probably still going to be there, barring some sort of calamity. But even those really, really solid things, they can change, right? I had a friend who lived in Texas, in Houston, and they had a crazy flood. And everything in this house was not the same after this flood. In fact, the house was destroyed, right? So even those really solid, seemingly stable things like brick and mortar and wood and construction can change or shift. It also changes and shifts over time, slowly, right? The shower starts to get marks and mars and the grout starts to fall off. And so it'll change as well over time. And that's the most stable stuff we got. You know, our Buildings and our construction, then you've got even less stable stuff, right? So your job, this is a. There's a form of stability there, right? You've worked there X number of years. You know what you do there, you get a paycheck every couple weeks or whatever. But it's not. It's impermanent, right? It's changing, it's in flux. And even if it seems like it's going to be the same, it just like your shower is changing, it might have sudden changes. Like, hey, good morning, guess what, you're fired. Right? That's the, that's the unpleasant version of that. Maybe it's like, hey, we're downsizing, you're awesome, but we're letting you go. Maybe it's not such a dramatic thing. That's like the, that's like the, you know, analog to the Houston flood situation where it all just changes at once. But maybe like the shower breaking down over time, your job is, it just kind of changes. Like, hey, we've been doing things one way and now we're convert. You know, we're converting to this new system and you got to learn this new system. Or, okay, we used to sell to these people and now there's a regulation in that state and we can't settle them. So we gotta go to this other state or we gotta figure out this new market or we gotta change our marketing because to fit with the times, get on the next social media platform, blah, blah, blah, right? So there's always change that's unstable as well. So what does this have to do with confidence? People that are struggling with confidence, that are feeling anxiety, social anxiety, but also other types of anxiety, self doubt, insecurity, not believing in themselves, have an excessive desire, almost a demand for life to be stable. They're trying to make life stable and it's not. Hence the fundamental axiom here, life is unstable. And so there is a immediate. And consequence of that trying to make the unstable stable. And that consequence is anxiety and social anxiety, right? So you're trying to control things that cannot be controlled. And I'm not. I used examples like your shower and your job. It goes way more out there into the land of total instability, total flux. And yet the anxious person is trying to control it all. Here's an example. I'm trying to control what you think right now and how you feel towards me right now. Now you go to work and you try to make sure all your colleagues and all your clients and all your customers and all your supervisors all feel and think a Certain way you're going out into the oceans of liquid change. When you talk about people's feelings and perspectives, I mean, oh my gosh, how many things are impacting that? Do they have their coffee that morning? Are they having a rough time at their house? Are they sick? Are they in a good mood or a bad mood? And you're, it doesn't matter. You're trying to get stimulated stability there. And so when you're trying to get stability and all, everywhere you go, and especially with other people and all these factors that are just really inherently extremely unstable. People's moods are very unstable. And I don't mean they're, you know, in some, you might hear that and think like, oh my gosh, this person's unstable means they're crazy. No, I just mean the average healthy person, there's not a lot of stability. People's moods, they're up and down. They might, you know, they might have a Persona where they look kind of the same every day, but inside they're gonna have all kinds of, they're happy and they're sad and then they're angry and then they're hurt and then they're jealous and then they're ecstatic and then they're excited. Let's just be in a human that's just having emotions. And so there you are trying to control the uncontrollable. I gotta make sure that you think and feel a certain way. That's going to give me stability here. And this is where this truth becomes liberating is because when you really, really see life is unstable and you're, and you agree with that, like that makes sense to you, then you start to change how you're approaching life on a fundamental minute to minute, hour to hour, throughout the day level. Then you stop trying to make everything stable. You stop trying to look for that stability because the person's got anxiety, social anxiety, feels scared of the instability and is unwilling to allow life to be that way. And so they try to control it and then you can't control it. So what do you do? Well, you clench your intestines and any other body part, your low back, your jaw, your, your breath, you constrict your chest, you feel tight. You know, that's what the most common reason that people, when they're having a condition, you know, a non threatening condition, when they go to the er, one of the most common, I guess, confusions, or you could call it an unnecessary trip to the er, perhaps one of the most common ones is that people go there with chest pains, thinking they're having a heart attack, and they're having panic, right? Cause what's happening is their body is so constricted that they can't freaking breathe. Why is their body so constricted? Because I can't make the unstable stable. But if I brace my body, if I tighten my body, somehow I'm gonna control the world and make the world around me more stable. Now, it's absolutely absurd when you hear it explicitly laid out like that. But that doesn't stop us from trying and from doing it. And I was teasing a client the other day, said, you know, if you tighten your intestines hard enough for long enough, you can actually control the time and space fabric of the universe around you. And he looked at me for a minute, seeing if I was being serious. And then he saw a little smile on my face and knew I was teasing, right? Because like, you cannot, you cannot do this. It's not going to work for you. So what does that allow you to do? Allows you to take a full, deep breath in and just start to let go. Life is unstable. There will be change. And that's a good thing. And that's okay. And I am waiting for it. I'm welcoming it. And just observe your natural or default pattern, your habitual way of responding life, right? Something demonstrates that it's unstable today. Something always will. You know, I always drive this route to work. I always do. And then you start to drive that route to work and they're doing construction or there's an accident. You can't go that way. You know what happens? Do you freak out like this? Just unacceptable. I can't handle this right now. So we're doing some construction on this house that we got, and they're mucking around with some of the electrical and they turned off this. It's called a vantage lighting system. It's a low voltage lighting system that goes through the whole entire house. And so a lot of the switches are not normal switches. They have these little buttons and you press a button and it turns on like, you know, a bunch of lights. And it's, you know, it's low voltage, so it uses like less electricity and it's also all programmable. And so you can have different mood lighting and stuff like that. When we moved in, we didn't touch it. I don't. The lighting was just fine. So we just. We would just use the buttons as switches to turn it off and on. Anyway, when they messed with it, the system malfunctioned. And now it says we need a firmware update. I'm like, I need a firmware update. What the hell's going on? So I got a call out to this lighting system rep, and someone's gonna come out to my house, hopefully in the next couple of days. But most of the lights in our house don't work right now, just the ones that have the regular switches. And so, you know, my parents are visiting, and we got these torch lights around the house. And. And when it first happened, I got home and everything was dark. My initial reaction was like, what? This is bullshit, man. I don't have time for this. And then I caught myself and I was like, you. If you are freaking out when. When life demonstrates that it's unstable, then that is showing you that you are having the demand on life, that it's stable. And when you have that demand on life, you're gonna suffer and you're gonna feel anxious, right? Cause how much of your social anxiety worries are what ifs? What if this person doesn't like me? What if this doesn't go well? What if they judge me? What if I try and I fail in front of them? What if I get rejected? And it's basically saying, I want life to be totally predictable, totally in my control, and totally stable. And I'm freaking out because I don't know. And the key to liberation is to allow it to be unstable. Allow your life to have these moments that things change and you don't know when. And I think what trips us out as humans is the way instability works, is usually everything is one way and then it changes to something else. It's sometimes gradual, but usually not. Or the gradualness is happening beneath the surface. And so everything looks one way and then it's the other way. Right? And that's. That's unpleasant. It's vulnerable, right? So there's these periods of our life where everybody know, I go to work and it's the same. I go to work and it's the same. I go to work and it's the same. I go to work and it's the same. And then six months in, and then all of a sudden they're like, hey, guess what? Things are not the same anymore. They're very, very, very, very different. And we're like, but it was the same yesterday and the day before. Yeah, I know. That's how it works. That's how it's going to keep working. And so finding freedom in the instability, finding freedom in the change, finding freedom in the unknown might say, but the unknown is terrifying. That's where all the bad stuff comes from. You're not scared of the unknown. People say this. I used to say this. I'm scared of the unknown. You're not scared of the unknown. Your whole life comes out of the unknown. That's like saying, I'm scared of the future. I'm scared of life. And you might think you're scared of the future and you're scared of life. No, you're scared of certain futures. You're scared of the potential for a certain kind of pain. And so you're unwilling to take action. You're unwilling to live your life because you don't want to experience that. But you can spend your whole day, your whole week, your whole month, your whole life. Resistance to how it is. It shouldn't be this way. And that's not going to change anything. You know, it reminds me of this. This movie I watched when I was in high school called Clerks. It's a Kevin Smith movie. You may or may not have heard of it. I don't know, it's not that great, but. So don't go watch it. I'm not recommending you watch it. But in there, there's a guy who's a clerk of a store, and it's like a Saturday or something, and he's off for the weekend, but the guy who's supposed to work is sick. And so he gets the call from the Boss, and at 6am on a Saturday, hey, I'm gonna need you to come in and work. And he's like, ah. So he goes in and sure enough, it's a day of instability. All kinds of antics happen, all kinds of stuff goes wrong. And every time something goes wrong, like the vending machine breaks or there's a leak or there's some problem or whatever, and he has to deal with it, his first response is, I shouldn't even be here today. And I've thought about that a lot recently because I feel like that's how most of us are approaching life. You shouldn't even be here today. This change shouldn't have even happened today. I shouldn't even have to deal with this. And yet life keeps on ticking. It's like yelling at the wind. Turn off the wind. Or yelling at the rain. You get out of here. Rain. You can do it, but you're just basically ineffectively, impotently insane. What? Nothing's happening. Life doesn't care. And so when you're clenching your bowels and trying to control everything and trying and resisting the instability, instead of going with it, you're going to have social anxiety. You're going to have anxiety for your entire life. It's never going to go away. You're never going to be able to control circumstances enough and get enough stability that you feel good. Even if you get things real stable, you inherently know that shit could change tomorrow or a year from now, and you don't know when. It's the unknown. That's the thing that people are scared of, is the bad stuff, quote, unquote, could happen. And I don't have control and I don't know when it can happen. And guess what that is? That's not scary. That's not bad. That's not wrong. It's vulnerable because you're part of this whole thing. You're not in control. You can choose. You can act. You're the captain of your ship, but you're ultimately not in control of how everything's gonna unfold and how it's gonna go down. And guess what? That can be terrible or it can be so liberating. And you get to choose. So let's talk about how to turn this into action in your life. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is just going to be to notice this fundamental truth playing out over the next week. Notice when you're feeling anxious and ask yourself, what is it that I'm wishing I could control, that I'm attached to wanting control of right now? Where am I resisting the potential for change or instability? How am I fighting with that fundamental quality of this existence and life, and can I align with it instead? Because if you can't beat them, join them. Thanks for being with me today. 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 vlogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com. Sam.