Adrenaline Peak

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about adrenaline peak. Oh yes. And what I mean by that is I'm going to tell you a story about facing fear and how it relates to positive risks in your life. Because I see this all the time. In fact, I was just talking about this earlier today with someone in a mastermind call that I was running. And he is making a positive shift in his life. He is looking to make a change in his career and he requires him learning new skills. Regarding. So he is in hardware engineering and he wants to go into software. So he's studying and doing this like coding boot camp and practicing and learning and gonna go on these interviews and he's putting in his time, he's developing a skill and growing and it's uncomfortable. You know, he's gonna put all this time and energy, is it gonna work out? Is he gonna get the jobs? Is he gonna put all this effort in and it's not gonna work out and people are gonna notice that and they're gonna judge him and he's got these fears of, you know, being socially judged or his own self worth and all this stuff that's part of the process. And that's just one example of a positive risk. You know, positive risks might be entering into a relationship, putting yourself out there more in dating and relationships, moving to a new city, making any change in your life that you know is ultimately beneficial for you but is uncomfortable. These are all positive risks and part of developing confidence, living with confidence, growing our confidence requires us to take positive risks in our life. If we do not take risks, our confidence will wither and will shrink. And so we must take these risks again and again and again in our lives. And yet what he's going through and I know so well is we're like, I'm gonna go after that new job or I'm gonna start this relationship or I'M gonna do this thing and. And we get into it, and now we're in the process of it and we're like, oh, God, this is so uncomfortable. I don't like this. Why am I doing this? I don't want to be doing this. And we fight it and we resist it. And so as we were talking about that in the group call, it reminded me of an experience I just had recently with Adrenaline Peak. So I want to tell you that story, and you can draw from it what you will that will support you in these positive risks in life. And it goes something like this. So we're at this amusement park, and it's the first time my boys have been to an amusement park. And it's not a huge one, like Six Flags or something, but it's a smaller one where you go. This is like carnival rides and up and down things and spinny things, you know, so they don't have a whole. It's like in a big parking lot, they don't have a ton of space. But they do have one roller coaster there. And I didn't even know they would have it. We just showed up and I looked in the parking lot and I was like, whoa, what is that thing? And when I noticed that roller coaster, I mean, it goes around a little curb and then it goes literally straight up in the air, curves over the hump, and then goes straight down, free fall. And then you do like a loop de Loop360 thing, and then you spin and then you rotate and then you're done. And it's a very fast ride. It's about 20 to 25 seconds. And I'm watching the cars go and people go on as we're getting in the line to get in the park. And I have two thoughts. One is, oh, my God, that looks scary. I don't wanna do it. And then a. Ah, shit. Guess I'm gonna do it like this, knowing that I'm just gonna do it. And that comes from my years of training for the last, like, 16 years. That's just how I've lived my life is like, do what scares you in the service of something greater. If there's a positive risk that you can take, take it. And, you know, any excuse, any reason not to, it's just like, okay, I can sometimes choose that, but for the most part, I'm going to attempt to choose the positive risk again and again. Because that's a form of strength. It's a form of muscle building. And there's always a reward on the other Side. And I learned that from the very beginning of my dating life when they're, you know, a positive risk would be approaching someone you're attracted to, right? And there's all this fear, discomfort about it, or it could be there was for me. And yet when I learned to just go into that and to face that fear, my life got exponentially better. And so I've applied that philosophy continually for the last 16 years and it's led to, I'd say, an extraordinary life. And I just bring that to every area. And it's never comfortable, it's never easy. It just becomes more habitual, it becomes more. There's almost this sense of like, I know I'm gonna do it anyway, so. Alright. And so we get to the front of the line and you get a wristband for the park that day. And if you want to be able to ride adrenaline peak, you gotta pay a little extra for that, you know, bonus on your wristband. And so I do it because I'm like, I'm gonna do it. And then I proceed to spend the entire day not going on that ride. We're there for like five hours. I did a bunch of other rides with my kids. I made the fatal mistake of doing like one or two of the spinny rides that they wanted me to go on with them. Oh my God. Oh my God. Who is that fun for? You must have some sort of weird inner ear fortitude, some, you know, mind of steel. Like I'm on one of these spinny boat rides and my kids next to me are like, this is so fun. And I'm just like totally silent. I feel hot and flushed in my head. It feels like right before, you know, you have like an intense fever and you're about to throw up or food poisoning or something. It's basically like a food poisoning simulator. And I'm like, this is so terrible. And then it's not even done. Like when you get off. When I get off the ride, I'm not like feeling great. I'm feeling sick for like 30 minutes. Anyway, after the second spinny thing, I was like, no, no more spinny rides for daddy. But anyway, the day goes by and we're. It's like the park closes early that day, closes at 4 and it's like 3:50. And we're walking out of the park with some friends and my wife goes to the bathroom and we're walking towards the exit and one of our friends is like, are you gonna do that ride? And I was like, yeah. And then she's Like, I'll watch your kids. Just go do it. I was like, all right, that's all I need. Here I go. So I walk around kind of the ramp to get to the entrance, and it's end of the day, there's not many people there, at least not waiting for that ride. And the line is like, there's like eight people in front of me or something. And there's two cars going at a time. Each car holds, like, you know, 12 people. So it's gonna be like a three minute wait, not that long at all. And so I'm standing in the line. And now once I made the real. I mean, I made the decision in the morning to do it, but then there's like, the real decision, right? And have you noticed that with a paus risk, there's like, yeah, I'm probably gonna talk to that person later. You know, maybe there's some fear then. But the fear, maybe it's usually more dread. The raw terror comes right when you're walking over towards them, doesn't it? Same thing with like, yeah, maybe I'm gonna make a change in my job or whatever. Great. It's all hypothetical. And then the moment that you start to put out those interviews, or the moment you're gonna get that job interview, or the moment you start to apply yourself in that new way, you're like, oh, God, I hope it works out. I'm so freaked out. Right? So the fear starts to escalate now when you're in the action. And this is the moment where we shoot ourselves in the foot oftentimes in life because we start to feel that mounting fear. And then we're like, oh, this is wrong. Something's wrong. Do I really want this? I don't really want this. This is not right. Ah, maybe I don't even care about this new job change. I don't even want to date anyone right now. Our mind just starts spitting out bullshit stories because we don't want to reside in that discomfort. Now in adrenaline peak line, fortunately, discomfort is only about three minutes. It's not three months. So I just witness it. And a great question to ask yourself is like, oh, how intense is this discomfort right now? On a scale of 1 to 10, how strong is it? And I tune in and my body, I'm like, It's a freaking 10 out of 10. And I haven't been on a roller coaster in a while. I mean, I can't even remember the last time I was on roller coasters. But when I was a kid, I had Utter fear of them. And I would not go on anything, even like a kiddie ride. And I just avoided them. I had friends, you know, when I was younger, we'd go to the amusement park with some cousins or whatever, and I wouldn't do anything. I wouldn't go on any rides, any roller coaster rides. I'd go on like the, you know, drive your automobile along the track kind of ride. And then in middle school, some kids would go to like the amusement park, you know, once a year or whatever, and they'd invite me and I'd be like, oh, I can't, I'm. I'm busy that day. And then eventually in high school, some kids invited me and I just decided to go. I don't know if I was ready to face my fear or what. And it was so fucking scary. I was like. And they were all laughing on the drive over. It's like a 30 minute drive to get to the Amazement park. And they're laughing and talking. I'm just like dead man walking sitting in the backseat of the car, like counting minutes that I have to live. And then we get there and they're all laughing and talking and we get in line for the first. They're all so casual about it. And I'm trying to be casual because, hey, I don't want to look like a loser. And then we're waiting in the line and you know, at that it was called Great America, I think, in the Bay Area. And the lines were, you know, whatever, 30, 40 minutes for the first ride. And then we get to the front and I am in utter terror. I've like never done this before. I've never been on a ride like this before. And so this is one of the ones where they strap in your chest and your legs are dangling and we zoom off, we go around and fly all over the place. And I get done and I am just like utterly elated because I'd never done anything like that before in my life. And my friend who'd been on roller coasters before, I was like, oh, that was fun, you know. And from that moment I was hooked. And I was like, oh my gosh, roller coasters are amazing. And it was kind of my first taste of you can face your fear and overcome it. And this was long before I really overcame social anxiety, though. But flash forward, you know, just the other day and I'm at this amusement park and I hadn't done on a ride for a decade, probably in a roller coaster. And so that fear can be really intense. Fear when you don't like, you can be facing all kinds of different fears in your life, but specific fears will tend to rebuild themselves if you don't consistently do that thing. So, for example, like dating and relationships, I have overcame the fear of approaching women and did that hundreds of times in my life. And I've been married now and with Candice for what, eight years or something like that. And so if something were to happen, which would be awful, and something were to happen to Candace and she died and we weren't together, and then I healed and went out to go date and approached years after that. It was an unpleasant thought experiment, but you know, that could happen, right? That's part of the field of possibilities in life. And I were to go approach for dating after X, whatever, 10 years, 15 years of not doing it, I'm sure I would feel pretty strong spikes of anxiety before going and talking to women. And there's nothing wrong with me. I don't have any shame about that. That's just the human fears will kind of reformulate unless you're consistently facing them. So. And that's okay. I'll face that fear if I need to down the road. But the roller coasters had kind of reformulated. And so we're on the ride, I get in, I'm just feeling utter terror. We go around the little loop and then we start to go up that straight up. It goes straight up and you're strapped in just in your waist. You're not going. It's not a chest strap, it's just in your waist. And so we're going up, up, up, up. And there's like a few other people on the ride and they're all like kids. They're all like 10, 11 year old kids. And the girl next to me, we're going straight up. We're looking at the sky and she goes, isn't that sky beautiful? And I just thought, wow, what an interesting experience. Her experience is so different than mine. Like, I'm so, I'm so scared. I'm so fucking scared. And we get to the top and I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And right before we get to the top, I have this thought, though. I said, aziz, I was talking to myself because I was freaking out. And I said, in my mind, aziz, it's possible to fully enjoy this experience. And I realized, like, I could experience it and allow it without all the dread. And I kind of had that thought right. We get to the top and then we go down and it's like a Straight down towards the ground. And you're only strapped in with your waist. You kind of feel like you're getting tipped out of the car. And then you spin around. And it was intense for 20, 25 seconds. Didn't know what was going on. I was just screaming and laughing and yelling like a maniac. And then we get done, and you kind of pause before it kind of brings you back around to where you can get out. And I'm just, like, breathless and laughing and elated. And life is amazing. And then we get out of the ride. The kids, this was their secret. This is why they were little courageous, valiant heroes. They'd been on the ride before. So when the ride's done, they get out, they run around, they do it again. And I'm like, oh, I look at my watch, it's only three, 53 or whatever. I got five, six more minutes before they close this sucker. I'm gonna do it again. And so I ran around with the kids out of my way. Me, me, me. And I get around, and the second one is like, the fear is reduced by, like, 70 or 80%. There's still fear, but there's also this, like, whoa, that was amazing. And then I do it a third time, and now it's like, no fear. It's just there's a little bit of apprehension, like, oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit. But it's, like, built with excitement. I ended up doing it five times before the park closed. I snuck on one last time. It was 401. I was like, can I just do it one more time? And the woman, like, let me in with the rest of the crew. It was awesome. So what is your adrenaline peak? What can you draw from this story about positive risks in your life? Have you experienced something like this in your life that maybe it's condensed, like a roller coaster, but maybe our positive risks in life tend to be more drawn out, don't they? So this guy is looking at a job change, or you're trying to enter into a relationship, or you're growing a business, or you're taking a new risk in your career or something, taking on a new project. These things can go over many months or even years. That kind of positive risk. And so how can you reside in that without all the dread? Is it possible to actually relish and enjoy the experience? Is it possible to know that the breakthrough is coming, the elation is coming, the adrenaline is coming, the payoff is coming, and that you're in the process right now and not even like, okay, it sucks? Now, but the payoff's coming. It'll be great. But is it possible even to relish the process right now? The building phase, the studying phase, the risk phase, the learning phase, the not knowing phase. One thing I found can be really helpful for me and clients to actually do that is to. What creates most of the suffering is fear of uncertainty, fear of the unknown, and particularly an unwillingness for there to be certain outcomes. Like, if I'm gonna put all this work in this job hunt or learning these new skills, I better get the results. It's unacceptable for me to, quote, fail and not get the job right away. It's unacceptable for this person to not want to talk to me or not want to date me. It's unacceptable to go on a date and have the person not like me and want to see me again. It's unacceptable. And that unwillingness to have a certain outcome creates a lot of suffering. And then we're stressed and we're. It would be so awful if that happens. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh my God. That's the dread. And really, it's the dread of sensations, isn't it? Just feeling certain feelings. And so the pathway to really relish wherever you're at is to surrender to all outcomes. And so I was doing that with this man in the Mastermind. You know, he was saying he had this fear of, like, what if I'm going to put all this effort and it's not going to work? And he's like, on top of that, people, my friends and family and people know I'm doing this. What if they see that I tried and I failed? Like, ugh, they judge me for it. And I said, let's face that fear of failure head on. What if that happens? What if you put this effort in and you go for this first round of job interviews and you don't get anything? What? Then he started to squirm in his seat and he's like, ah. Put his hand against his face. He's like, ah. It's so uncomfortable. Like, I don't even like to think about it. I'm like, exactly. But let's face that demon right now because otherwise you're running scared. Otherwise you're anxious, otherwise you're attached. Otherwise you're desperate, you're grasping and you're not thinking clearly. You're not making the best decisions. You're not presenting well in interviews because you're all nervous. Let's face that right now. And he's like, well, if I didn't get that job I'd just feel like a failure. I'd feel like a total loser. I was like, okay, well, let's say that did happen. Let's say you had a phase of just walking around the house in a bathrobe just feeling like a total loser. Your wife's like, how you doing this morning? And you're like, she's like, what? You're like, I feel shitty. She's like, why? Well, because I'm a loser, that's why. And you mope around and you feel bad and you imagine people are judging you and you suck and everything's awful. Okay, you do that for a little while. But then what? And I could see then there was a turning point because I don't think he ever like took it further than that. And then in his mind he like paused for a minute and he's like, well, I guess I would, you know, do more prep and apply for more jobs. And all of a sudden his demeanor started to change, right? Because he made it through like dark passage of like fall off the end of the earth. And it's like, no, life continues. And then I said, is it possible to leapfrog over the self hatred phase? And just if you apply, you don't get the jobs that you want. Maybe you feel a little disappointed or frustrated and then you get back at it, like, do you have to be a loser? Do you have to be a failure? Right? So what if you could just allow whatever outcome might occur for you along this journey and what that does is that frees you up to actually really relish the ride. And that's what it is. It's all a ride. It's different games, it's different amusement park rides, isn't it? I'm going to change my job. I'm going to create this relationship. I'm going to meet someone here, I'm going to do that. These are all different rides in the human experience. And so if you're like spending most of your life kind of dreading and enduring, trying to wait till that one moment where maybe you get the outcome you want and then you can feel good for a little while. Like, I don't know about you, but that's not a very fun way to play for me. So let's talk about how you can turn this into action in your life. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is to look at whatever positive risk you're engaged in right now. Or maybe a positive risk you take regularly, like approaching someone or dating. Or maybe it's like a Big thing like this client of mine who's making a shift in his career, but wherever you're taking a positive risk. What I want you to do is, like, go into the face, that demon face, like, what's the outcome that I don't want to occur that I'm so scared of? And just do what then? Okay, that happens. Then what then? Then that happens. What then? You know, I've done this as I've grown this coaching and teaching business that I do, and I felt a lot of fear, especially as I started to expand it and grow, because there's more people. More people wanted help, more people wanted services, and I couldn't do it all. And so I realized, like, I need to grow a team and I need to hire people. And so I started to do that, and that pushed my buttons like crazy. Like, oh, my God, now there's more expenses. Now there's more on the line and more moving parts, and I got to figure all this out. Like, oh, God. And the main fear was, like, it's all going to contract and implode in, like, a fiery wreckage. And then now it's not just my own me and my own family, but it's like, other people's livelihoods and, you know, more badness. And so I would just be running from that fear. And eventually I'd say, like, okay, first of all, that's not happening. It just could happen in the future. Secondly, this is making my present moment suck, so I gotta, like, face this. So I sat down one day, I said, okay, let's say that does happen. What would I do? And similar, like, oh, my God, be so bad. Be so bad. Okay, then what? Great, Then what? And I just kept on doing that with myself. And I realized that I would find a different way to teach and coach and practice whatever healing work that I do. I would just find different methods in different ways, and it would take. Might take a totally different form, and maybe there'd be discomfort or pain around loss or embarrassment or money fears or money tightness or other things. Like, there'd be shifts in life, but, okay, then what? Then what? And when you really face that, all of a sudden you start to become more free of it. So that's what I encourage you today do today for your action step. Thanks for being with me and until we speak again, may 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 shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com. Sam.