7 Ways To Build Social Confidence During Social Distancing

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 today's episode of the show. Today's episode is brought to you by social lockdown. Coming to a neighborhood near you. Yes, that's right. We are in the midst of a pretty significant alteration in our daily lives, and it has not happened to your community. It most likely will. If you're listening, in the United States, if you're in other countries. Well, it depends upon the coronavirus, and it's spread to your neighborhood, your vicinity, your state. But as it stands in the United States, many different counties as well as entire state decrees are banning and stopping things. From large gatherings to small gatherings, to gatherings of 25 or more, to restaurants, bars, movie theaters. There's a big trend right now towards flattening the curve for the coronavirus. And that means limiting, highly limiting social contact for work, for business, for connection, for gatherings, for fun, for everything. It's known as social distancing. And it is something that is being used to prevent a rapid spread of the coronavirus, which for the vast majority of people will have minimal to no significant symptoms. However, there will be a small percentage of people who will need ventilators and other ICU care. And at the rate that this thing spreads, if everyone spread as fast as possible, then there'd be an excessive demand for ventilators and other ICU care and the United States, which could put a massive strain on the medical system and basically lead to a lot of people not getting care. I'm sure you've heard about this sort of thing already. So what are we doing talking about on a show about confidence? Well, there's a lot of things we could be talking about. We could be talking about how do you be confident in a crisis, whether it's a personal crisis or a global crisis, or you fear there's going to be a financial crisis, how do you stay confident during that? And that might be a future episode. But today there was some people on social media in a group that I run called Confidence Warriors. If you're not a part of Confidence warriors, it's something you could be a part of, part of that community for free. It's part of what I'm trying to do here, which is to help us not feel alone or isolated in our growth, in our confidence growth and development. So as you listen to this podcast, you know there's thousands of other people that do as well, but, you know, you're not interacting with them. It kind of feels maybe a little isolated. So go to Confidence warriors online on Facebook and just click there to join, and we'll vet you thoroughly. Make sure you're not crazy. No, basically, just want to make sure that you're not a spamming account, and then we'll let you into the group. And it's a fantastic community. But someone in there mentioned something to the degree of man. How do I practice my social confidence drills during social distancing? It's not right. It's not fair. And who knows, they might be going through Confidence University, which involves a lot of interaction with people, especially during the initial Building Confidence foundation program. Or maybe just in general, you know, you listen to this show, I recommend doing a lot of things like friendly greetings and, you know, saying hi to people and doing all these things. And maybe you feel like, man, I can't do anything right now. And that's one thing I wanted to address. First off, before we get into seven specific strategies and tools and ways that I have that you could build social confidence right now during social distancing. But the first thing I have to address is notice if your mind looks for an excuse. I was like, well, I can't do that stuff because, you know, Corona. I totally would, totally would if it weren't for that. It's like, well, were you before at an accelerated rate? And maybe. Maybe it just caught you at just the wrong time. Like, you've been avoiding this stuff for 15 or 20 years, and all of a sudden you got motivated and you started listening to this podcast and you read one of my books and you got Confidence University. And you're like, yeah, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it in March 2020. And then March 2020 turned out to be a big pandemic outbreak that fucked up your social life. Maybe. But come on, what was happening last year and the year before and the year before and the year before? Was there always some excuse, whether it's for your social life or your dating life or your career? It's like, wow. I'm too busy. I don't have the time. I don't have the time to date. I'm too busy with my career. Right. I've heard that one a lot with clients that I work with. So we always have an excuse. So watch out. Is this an excuse? Because here's the thing. I'm gonna give you seven ways, but this is not by any means the only seven ways that you could build your confidence and strengthen your social confidence and conversation skills. But there's so many. But I'm gonna give you seven. And then you. If you were determined, if you're unstoppable, if you really. If you're playing at level five, commitment of like, I really want to resolve this. I really want to grow in these areas, then you'll find 10 other ways that are beyond these seven, because I want to highlight that to start. Because we're always looking for. Part of us, I should say, is always looking for an excuse to avoid discomfort, to stay the same, to. To stay in simple patterns or ruts that are comfortable yet very limiting. And of course, this one, you can say, wow, I got extreme social circumstances now. So I have a legitimate excuse. It's like, well, not really. And in fact, you'll see in just a minute what some of those are. And I do want to say that if you really want to master this, the best thing to do is we're reopening enrollment for the Supremely Confident Conversation Master event, which is now going to be an online event, which is extremely exciting. We have some very powerful tools and technologies to help you grow in your social confidence. Yes. Through an online format, we can use breakout rooms. We have a ton of different ideas on how to make this event even more powerful than if we were in person together. And this is really cool because it opens it up. Maybe you're in Europe, maybe you're in different parts of the country. Maybe, you know, even before this all happened, you weren't going to fly out here, and now you don't have to. So this is the first time we've ever done one of my live events online. And we're going to do it, and it's going to be powerful, and I would invite you to join me. In fact, if you want to join, you can go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and below this episode, there'll be a link. You can also go to my website, draziz.com,-r-a z I z.com and then on the events tab, there'll be one called supremely confident Conversation Master. And we have an online discount for the virtual attendance, and it's going to be a powerful experience. So I'll share more about that at the end of this episode. But I wanted to put that in your mind right now that there's registration, you could join. I mean, what else are you doing? Social lockdown anyway? Might as well grow. Might as well master this and emerge from this stronger and better than ever before. So let's talk about the seven ways to build social confidence during social distancing. In fact, what comes to your mind? If I were to press you and say, okay, come up with three ways you could do it right now? What comes to your mind? You want to build social connections. You want to build conversation confidence. You want to build relationships. What are three things? I mean, come on, before I give you the answers, stretch your mind a little bit. Come on. You probably already even have two that are coming to your mind right now, right? What's one? What's at least one? Great. Good, because I want to make sure we're both playing full out here and not just in passive listening mode. But here are some other ideas to add to your three, giving you a total of 10, at least. So one thing is adapt Friendly Greetings, which is where you say hi to people as you walk down the street. Adapt it to online. Say hi to 10 people on social media. This is number one. Say hi to 10 people on social media. You know, do it through Messenger. Do it on their page. Just say, hey, how's it going? Or what's going on in your world? Or how are you? Right, just message 10 people. People that you don't know that well. What? Crazy. I know, I know. We're just practicing. We're just getting warmed up. So that's one. Number two is this one's fun. Greet yourself in the mirror, like, dozens of times. So you're just like, you know, you just got out of the shower and you're drying off. Or look in the mirror and be like, hey, how's it going? Hey there. What's up? Hey, how you doing? Hi. Now, aside from if you have any housemates or roommates or a spouse who's gonna think you're utterly insane, you can let them know what you're doing, but actually, what you're doing is you're practicing the pattern, right? And so if you're gonna play an instrument on stage and you practice it at home a thousand times first, you're gonna be a hell of a lot better on the stage. Right. It's the same thing for these sorts of things. And here's why. This is a benefit. You might notice weird stuff you do. Maybe you're like, why does my eyeball go in that weird direction? Every time I say hi, the person's in front of me. Why am I looking up and to the left? Right. And you wouldn't notice that unless you did it in the mirror. Maybe you do this weird smile thing that you're like, oh my God, that's a weird smile thing. Why don't I just like not try to do that and actually just say hi to the person. You might catch some pattern that you're running that is off putting or odd or something like that that you could change and just maybe some pattern of anxiety that you see. So greet yourself in the mirror dozens of times per day. Just do a little mini session. It takes like what, five, you know, maybe 30 seconds. Hey, how's it going? Hi. Hi. So that's number two. And if you're thinking that's weird, well, my motto is whatever it takes and whatever works. And if you want just total social liberation, then you gotta be able to do stuff like that. Like, who cares what everyone thinks of you? Okay, number three. To build social confidence during social distancing. This is a written one, this one. This is some introspection time is to ask yourself and even journal about what do you really want in a friendship? What do you really want? What are you looking for? It's the time to re evaluate some things, right? What do I really want in my friendships? What kinds of connections do I really want? Maybe they're not as deep as you want. This is often the case when I work with clients. Like they, maybe they have some people in their life, some friends, but they're not deep friendships. They're not confidants. They're not people you can talk about anything with, or maybe you do have some. You can talk about anything with this person, but they're just so kind of mopey and negative or down all the time that you're like, man, I'd love to be able to talk about anything with someone and have them be more energized or inspired or, you know, activated in their business or their career or their relationships or their health or something, you know, so not just kind of a downer all the time. So what do you want in your friendships? Awesome. And then here's another question. How do you need to show up to create that? How do I need to show up to attract those kinds of people into my life and to sustain relationships with them. And that's a fun one because you realize that you basically need to become the kind of person that you want friends with, to be friends with, right? Because if you're like just low energy and negative about everything all the time, you're probably not going to attract people who are more inspired, energized, the captains of their own ship, as it were. And so you need to step into that. But it's a beautiful thing to look at because then you can start to evaluate, who do I want to move towards, who do I want to spend more of my precious life with? Great. That's number three. Number four is to reach out to three people for an extended conversation. So right now you probably have lots of people, maybe in your phone, maybe on some social media account that, you know, maybe you used to work with them. Maybe they were a close friend at one time and they're not as close to him. They live in a different city. Maybe it's a cousin or a family member, maybe it's someone in your life, maybe it's a colleague, but someone. And this could be for your business, for networking. This could be for connection with family. This could be friendship, just social connection. Just reach out to those three people and with the intention of having a longer conversation. So maybe you send them a message like, hey, you're free to talk later today or this week. I'd love to catch up. And then you have a longer conversation with that person. I'm talking like 20 minutes, 30 minutes maybe, if it's going really. If it's really engaging, maybe talk for 45 minutes or an hour or something, Right? You just really open up to a deeper conversation. Now that's another beautiful thing that might not happen. And here's a gift right now. And what's happening is that people are more open to social connection. They really are. You know, many years ago, I attended 8 Burning Mans in a row. I know that might seem like a sort of a strange, random statement, but stick with me, there's a reason. I mean, I love that festival so much that I went literally every year in a row for eight years. And then we had our first child. And the idea of bringing a baby out there sounded totally unfun. So. But people do it. They're crazy. But I didn't. And now our kids are 4 and 6 and. And we were really close to doing it this year, almost about to. And then we're actually deciding, no, we're going to do it in 2020. One go out there as a family. So that should be fun. But one of the reasons why I kept going back to Birdie man and there were many, but one of them is it was an environment for me to practice being socially expressive and connecting with people where it was different than the default day to day world in a city where people were actually very receptive and warm and open and friendly. So if you walk up to someone in a big city and be like, hey, how's it going? They're like, what do you want? Whereas at Burning man, you're like, hey, how's it going? They're like, doing great. You want some food or whatever? It's just friendly. People are for the most part very open, engaged and warm. And so what a great place to work through social anxiety, right? Whether it's for just connecting with anyone or friends or women, for dating, for me it's like, hey, I reach out to someone and you know, not everyone's gonna want to be your friend or kiss you or something. But there's a lot of openness and warmth and love, really. So there's something similar happening right now in that people are feeling isolated, they're feeling bored, they're feeling uncertain, they're feeling just. Even if they're not, even if they lived a pretty internal life anyway and didn't go out that much. Just the fact that they can't, they're like, ah. And the fact that it's like, how long is this gonna last? Ah. So you could reach out and you get a lot of people who would want to connect. People are slowing down. People would have a longer conversation with you, and you can start to create that. Because conversation mastery is not just about talking to a stranger for a few minutes or being smooth when you first meet someone at a dinner party. Although those are fun skills too. It's really ultimately about deep connections. I mean, the whole purpose of my supremely confident conversation Master event and all the work that I do is to help people really create deep relationships, deep connections, even if it is just one conversation. But wouldn't you want that one conversation to be where you feel nourished and connected versus just some superficial BS that doesn't fulfill? So you want to have that in the short term, but you also want to be able to create those deep relationships. And that's what these phone calls or reaching out for video calls, whatever you want to do is going to help you create. So number what are we at? 5. Number five on seven ways to build social confidence during social distancing. Is to send two love texts. No, not those kind of love texts. Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about appreciation texts. So find two people in your life that you could find something to appreciate about and send them a text out of the blue telling them what you appreciate about them and make it as real, not just be like, you are awesome. I mean, that's fun, right? There's nothing wrong with that. Heck, that's a better text than they probably receive most of the time. But actually really think about, what do you love or appreciate about this person? Maybe some friend of yours is just, they're really funny and they make you laugh every time you're with them and just take a moment to really think about that and what you love and appreciate about them and their humor. And you might say something via text, you know, hey, let's say their name is Pierre. You say, hey, Pierre, I was just thinking about you earlier today and appreciating how funny you are and how every time we're together, you make me laugh and brighten my day. You're awesome, or I love you, whatever you want to share. So now as they're saying you're awesome, you say that other thing and then end it with you're awesome or whatever you want. And, man, how do you think that affects Pierre that day? How do you think that impacts your relationship? How do you think that affects you for the rest of that day? What does that do to your brain chemistry and your hormones? In fact, it does all kinds of beneficial things they've done in research. It can improve your mood for a day or more to do something like that. So what if you sent two out? What if you send two out a day and you didn't repeat people regularly? Although you could. I'm sure there's no downside in sending that regularly to your sweetheart or something like that. But, you know, stretch, find other people, keep sending it out again and again, and don't let any sort of fear of, like, oh, my gosh, is this too much? Is this too vulnerable? Is this, you know, I don't know if I know them well enough to say this. Like, dude, who does not want, who does not appreciate a text out of the blue, even if it was someone I just met? And then like, you know, five days later, they sent me a text like, you know, I know we just met, but, man, you are just so this or that, something affirming of me. I'll tell you what, I'd just be like, oh, awesome, right? And there's no downside to this one other than our own discomfort with real connection with others. But that's the one thing that you gotta get over, and that's one thing we teach a lot at the Conversation Master event and we'll do in the online version as well, is we gotta overcome our fear of direct contact with people. Like, we want connection, we want friendship, we want meaningful relationships. And then we're like, oh, real connection with people. Like, really talk to them and share what we think and feel and ask them the same, and then just be real with each other. That sounds scary, right? So we're never gonna get it if we let that fear run us. So we gotta overcome that. We gotta deepen that. Okay, number six is sentence isn't like a advancement on number five. It's a building on number five. Send a short video to someone. Send a short video. This one's fun. And it also helps you work through any weirdness you got of being on camera. So you get to send them a short video. 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, same thing. What you love and appreciate about them. Or sometimes the video could just be, like, something random or something funny. You know, you're walking, you see something. You see a little clip on your computer, and you, like, just hold your phone up and capture the clip and send it to one of your friends and be like, thought of you when I saw this, or something like that, or share a music file with someone. I did this just the other day. We were in the car, and it was one of my friend's birthdays, and so I took her. There's this video. We happen to have some, like, dirty grindy dubstep playing on our. On our stereo, off of my wife's phone. And my kids love that stuff. They always request that. And I'm like, guys, guys. So much dubstep. But anyway, they were playing this super grindy song, and I thought of this friend because many years ago I'd attend raves and stuff with her and actually Burning Man a few times. And so I knew she'd love that. And I thought it'd be pretty hilarious if she saw these little kids requesting this dubstep music. So it's playing in the car. I flick on the video, and I'm like, hey, how's it going? Happy birthday. Love and appreciate you. Thought you'd like to see this. And the drop's about to happen in the song, and the bass drops. And if you're not familiar with dubstep, just look it up online. But it's Pretty like grindy like. Anyway, so the bass drops and my two kids are in the back and they're just like staring out the window, like no reactivity. Whereas right before I started recording the video they were dancing like crazy. So I was like, eh, go. Figures. Anyway, she responds a few minutes later, says, that was one of the best birthday messages I received. Thank you so much. I love how non plushed your kids are by that. And it was just this sweet moment that affects her, it affects me, affects our whole family, affects whoever she touches that day. So sharing those little videos that make someone laugh or are sweet or whatever is another powerful form. And then number seven of seven ways to build social confidence during social distancing. Number seven is frickin master this thing. Commit to mastering your social confidence. Use this downtime right now to study, you know. And the best way to do that is gonna be through the supremely confident Conversation Master Event. And we're doing it in an online format. So I highly recommend if you're engaged in this and you made it this far in this episode and you're drawn, there's really no, there's no obstacle to this. We're doing it online. So it's not like, well, I can't get time off of work or I can't fly out there or whatever. It's April 17th through 19th and we're starting it at 4pm on Friday. So you can do it even if you still have to work on Friday. Just get off a little bit early if you work a normal 9 to 5 and join us from 4 to 7 on Friday and then we'll do it again on Saturday during the day and then Sunday half day. So. And we're gonna keep it highly engaging. I am a master of education and engagement, as you can tell from this podcast how engaging it is. But imagine being in video, multimedia format. We're gonna bring in audio, we're gonna bring in videos, we're going to bring in me teaching new stuff that I've never taught before at any Conversation Master event. Core skills that you need to be able to talk to anyone and have the con. So how to maximize your confidence so you're not afraid, going into interactions, how to really get on your own side and be able to reach out to people knowing that you'll be okay no matter what, whether they want to talk to you or not. And then, I mean so many activities and exercises we're gonna do that are gonna help you actually practically apply this and get this in your life. So it's not just some lecture. It's an interactive experience. I would love to share this with you. And we're reopening the enrollment for that, as I mentioned earlier. So if you just go to draziz.com,-r-a z I z.com and go to the Events tab and then click on Conversation Master, you'll be able to get your pass there and then we'll send you all the details on how to access it and everything. So I cannot wait to share this with you. And remember, you are unstoppable. So this is just seven. These are my seven. Come up with seven more of your own and or not. Just take some of these and do them. Because coming up with the lists is one thing. In fact, that brings us to your action step. So maybe I'll save this for the action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is to do one of these things. At least pick one. Pick one of the seven that I shared and do it. So number one, say hi to 10 people on social media. Number two, greet yourself in the mirror. Do a little session of repeatedly doing that. Number three, what do I really want in a friendship and who do I need to become? How do I need to be in order to create and sustain that? Number four is to reach out to three people for an extended conversation. Try to create one of those this week or today. Number five is to send two Appreciation, AKA love texts. Number six is to send a short video to someone in your life. And number seven is to sign up for the supremely confident Conversation Master Online experience and master your social life. So pick one of those and do it. Do it now. Initiate that now. Get your phone out and start texting someone. Or reach out to see if they want to have a conversation with you. Or go run out as soon as you're done listening to this and go start greeting yourself in the mirror, whatever it is, or go get your ticket for supremely confident Conversation Master. Pick something and do it now and you're going to master your confidence during this time where most people might be restricting and limiting having stories and excuses, you can emerge from this with even more social confidence than ever before. Beautiful. Thanks for being with me today. And until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. 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 shrinkforthyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.