An Ode To Risk

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 this episode of the show. Today is an ode to risk. Oh, yes. And so in case you're not familiar, ode is like a poem or a song that usually exalts something, something that we really love. Like, if someone were to say an ode to puppies, they would talk about how much they love puppies. And so this is an ode to risk. We're going to talk about how much I love risk. Now, you might hear this and be nodding your head up and down in agreement, or you might be subtly shaking your head back and forth from left to right, thinking, what the hell is he talking about? I don't love Risk. Love. I mean, you know, shoot, maybe they're necessary. Maybe I have to take them now and then. But love them? Are you insane? Well, probably, but insane. Good. Crazy good, man. But no, here's the thing. Most of us unconsciously are running a pattern throughout the day, which is, how can I get through this day with as little discomfort as possible? How can I be as comfortable as possible in every single moment? That's kind of the background unconscious pattern that we're running now. For example, when you get into your house, you have the temperature set to the exact right comfort level. And if it's too warm, you're like, ah, turn down the heat, or turn up the ac. And if it's too cold, you're like, ah, turn up the heat. And then I need a sweatshirt, I need some socks on, I need another layer. And then we eat usually the amount until we're totally full. Maybe you eat the food that just tastes the best, gives you the most comfort as you eat it. And we get into our car and we drive somewhere, and that's totally temperature controlled as well. When we take our shower, we want the water to be just the right heat, not too hot, not too cold. We want the food that we eat to be just the right amount of sweet, just the right amount of everything. Is geared towards being the most comfortable as possible. And that might not be a problem when it comes to our temperature in our house or our shower or what we eat. Unless you're just eating a ton of comfort foods, right? And having weight issues and health issues as a result. But where it becomes problematic is when we take that same, I don't want to do anything uncomfortable to our lives, to our social life, to our work life, to our love life. And then basically that transcends it into I don't want to take any risks. Because risks are uncomfortable, aren't they? And just so we can define it, a risk is when you do something where you don't know the outcome. And it could potentially be good, but it could potentially be painful. That's what I think of when I hear the word risk. So approaching that person to start a conversation, speaking up in that meeting, sharing something that's real or authentic for you, making a joke can even be a risk, right? Being more spontaneous can be a risk because you're going to do something, you're going to be a certain way and you don't know if that other person is going to like it or they're not going to like it. So that there's just a few examples of risks. And when we have this comfort driven quest for seeking comfort always, then we avoid those risks in those social situations, at work, in relationships. In fact, when you look at your life and you hear me describing this and just to look back at say the last, I don't know, week, two weeks, how many risks are you taking? What is your stance or orientation towards risk? Do you dive in? Do you go for it consistently? Do you tend to avoid it completely? Maybe somewhere in between where you do take a risk, but you work yourself up for it for quite a while and then you end up hesitating on a lot of them and not doing it and only doing some, do you beat yourself up afterwards for it or have you maybe just become resigned and you're like, yeah, of course I didn't do that again, knew I wouldn't. Such a loser. Do that little dance in your head. What's your experience? How do you deal with risk? I want to read something to you from a book called Risking by David Viscott, author of the Viscott Method. You know, it's a good method if you name it after yourself. I gotta start calling things the Gazipura method. Anyway, it's an interesting book. It, I don't know, I got some good stuff out of it. It wasn't as awesome. As I hoped it would be. But it's called risking. And he goes in this one section and lists some of the underlying fears behind risk. And I'm just gonna read a little section of that to you here. In risks of love, people fear losing the love of others. They fear being rejected, being hurt, being hurtful. And they also fear losing love for themselves. Ooh, that's a good one. Not good as in it feels good, but good to see that that often one of our biggest fears of putting ourselves out there in love. It's like, they're gonna reject me. And yes, there's a fear around that, but there's also a fear of then losing love or respect for ourselves after that happens, because we think, well, they rejected me. That means I suck. I don't like myself. That was pathetic. I'm bad, I'm ugly. And we go on this sort of attack on ourselves. So that's one of our biggest fears around risks in love goes on to talk about. We also can fear falling out of love, losing their lovability, and losing their worth as persons. These are the risks in love, in risks of power, that is, risks of business, money, influence and control. People fear losing whatever they use to control others. But underlying all these is the fear of being weak, bad, angry, impotent, unfit or vulnerable. In risks of esteem, people fear losing face or reputation. They dread being embarrassed, shown up, made fun of or ridiculed. They fear appearing diminished to others. They fear of having their true feelings made public, especially when they haven't come to terms with those feelings. People who take risks of esteem often panic at the moment of truth. This is the basis for most of stage fright. The fear of performing, of being seen, of being counted, measured, evaluated or judged. Any act of risking in which one seeks to be judged worthy or excellent can create great fear. So that's just a little section. It's by no means a comprehensive list of what we're scared of, but what does that trigger in you? I mean, look at that list of, you know, no wonder we avoid risk, right? You might be listening and think, well, shoot, I don't want to lose love, be embarrassed, lose esteem, be weak. All these things, of course, right? Scary. It's terrible. It's terrifying. That's right. Forget risk. Fuck risk. My ode to risk is that risk sucks. End of episode. No, no, no. Obviously this is. We're just peeling back the layer. We're starting where we're at, which is usually not even thinking about it. And then if we do examine risk a little bit. We're like, bleh. Bad stuff can happen. No thank you. Go back to my life. As usual, hope everything works out. But as you probably are experiencing, it doesn't work out. At least not in the way that we really want. We end up settling. We end up being ignored. We end up not having the love that we want or the relationships that we want, or the career that we want, or the health that we want. We just end up kind of bleh. Going through life as meh and I did that for many years. If you're doing that now and you're sick and tired of it, risking might be your answer. So stay tuned. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back right after this.

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Hey, welcome back. So here's the thing about risk. You kinda have to take it. Let me explain here. So basically, life is constantly changing, adapting, growing, evolving. Problems arise in your life even if you're trying to avoid all problems and to confront them may be a risk. And then you basically have a choice. You can avoid it, but it doesn't go away. And then it's harder and worse later on. So let me give you an example. Let's say you're in a work situation and there's some issue with your boss or supervisor and you get nervous and then you don't share ideas and you don't speak up in meetings. Maybe not just with your boss, maybe even other co workers, right? You don't want to sound dumb. You're afraid of looking stupid or showing that you don't know something or someone challenges or criticizing you. So you tend to be quiet, smile and nod. Now, you're avoiding the risk of speaking up. Right? And that's what we might call a risk of esteem. Right? I wanna look good. I wanna keep my reputation as a smart guy by not saying anything. I don't wanna look like a dumb guy. So you avoid that risk. Now, here's the thing, though. Whether it's a week from then, a month from then, or maybe even six months or a year later, guess what might happen? You might be pushed into a situation where your boss pulls you aside and says, hey, some version of like, we're not hearing from you, we're not sure if you're engaged here. We're not sure if you're, you know, how much you're doing, because you might be doing a lot, but maybe you're not speaking up so people don't know. And you can get pushed into a situation where now you have to speak up and it's like, you need to speak up or you're gonna get fired. So now, because you've avoided the risk for a year, the situation is higher stakes, more intense. And not only that, you have not strengthened yourself over the last year by practicing and taking that risk. So not only is the situation higher stakes, you're weaker. In a sense, you even develop that. It makes it even harder. Another example, this one I know very well, say you don't approach people that you're attracted to because you're scared. You get to avoid that risk of rejection, right? That's the risk of love, not being feeling loved. Risk of feeling rejected, losing love or esteem or worth for ourselves. So we avoid that nonsense, right? Yeah, any sane person would. And of course, we put stories and excuses on top. I don't have the time. I'm too busy. She's not my type. He's not good enough. I don't want to. Approaching people is stupid and wrong. I'd rather do it this way or that way. You know, we have a bunch of stories, but at the end of the day, if you watch your behavior, we're just avoiding the risk because we're not taking the action. Then we know what's really true. We're avoiding the risk. Doesn't matter what our story is. I had one of a friend of mine who says that there in life there are reasons and there are results. And he's talking about, you know, people that he worked with. And basically he's like, either you're giving me reasons why you're not doing it or you're getting results. He's a tough guy, tougher than I am, but I like that. And so in love, we avoid that risk. We don't approach that person. But guess what happens six months later, A year later you're still single. And a year has gone by and now the situation might be worse. Maybe you're more lonely, you're more desperate. Maybe you haven't had been with someone for a really long time. Maybe you're older now because you've been avoiding the risk for 10 years now you're in your mid-30s and all your friends are getting married and having kids and you don't have that and you don't feel like you're anywhere closer to getting that. And then now you are facing this other challenge of maybe losing some of your social network because those people are all busy with their kids. And either you get to go hang out with their babies and them, or you got to go find new friends. Oh shit, another risk, right? So these things pile up when we avoid things. It gets worse later. Always, always. So there's a necessity to take that risk. And by the way, you're weaker in that situation too, right? I certainly was. Because you haven't approached people for months or years or very consistently so you're not very good at it. All this fear is there, all this self judgment is there maybe even a lack of skill of how to start conversations and be spontaneous and be expressive. And I could go on and on about examples. When you avoid the risk in the short term, it creates. We're weaker, the problem's worse later on. So we've moved from total, not even thinking about it. Just sticking my comfort zone all day, every day to well, geez, risk could be really painful. Blah. Look at all these things. Loss of love and esteem. Yuck, yuck. But now we're also moving to yeah, but it's kind of essential. And it's not a matter of if you're going to take a risk. It's win want to do it now or you want to do it later. If you do it now, it's gonna be uncomfortable, maybe, but if you do it later, it's gonna be worse, it's gonna be harder. So now what? Guess what? Take the effing risk. Just do it. Do it. As we're talking about this, you probably already have like 3, 5, 7, 10 things in your mind that are risks that you can take. Or maybe just one, one risk. Maybe it's that one conversation with that One coworker. Maybe it's saying no to someone when you want to say no. That's a risk, isn't it? The risk is they're going to get upset. I mean, think about anything that you're afraid to do. Anything that's outside of your comfort zone probably feels like a risk. Maybe it is. Calling up that relative who you feel like, I don't know, you just feel you didn't do something right a long time ago or you made a mistake or you slighted them in some way and it was, you know, three years ago, and you still kind of feel bad about it, and you sort of avoid them at house, you know, family gatherings. Or maybe you don't avoid them, but you're kind of like, they probably hate me or whatever it is. Maybe the risk is to call them up, be like, hey, I was thinking about you. I wanted to share something with you. Maybe the risk is to ask for something that you want in your relationship. Maybe the risk is to talk about your sex life with your partner. I don't know what it is for you, but guess what? You do. Your mind has lots of ideas. So what is that risk for you? Are you willing to take it? Are you willing to dive in? We're gonna take a quick break right now, let you think about that, and when we get back, we're gonna just keep moving up the dial from not only just forcing ourself to take risk, but can we actually love risk? Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

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Hey, welcome back. So here's the thing. If when you really get that to create the life that you want, you got to take consistent risks, then you can start making a habit of taking those risks. Start looking for the edge, looking for where you'd be uncomfortable, and then moving towards it. And here's the thing. When something clicks and you do that, you start to do that. Not like, okay, I'll take a risk a year, but can I take a risk a day? And you start to habitually look for and move towards the thing that scares you and take that risk again and again and again and again. Some magical things happen. One is it stops being so damn scary. Simple example, if you were to go walk down the street and say hi to 25 people out of nowhere, out of the blue, busy sidewalk, hey, how's it going? Hi. What's up? Hey, guys. Hey. Just bam, bam, bam, one after another. It's called friendly greetings. Many of you know this already, but if you were to go do that, guess what most likely would be the hardest one to do. That's right, the first one. And guess which one would probably be the easiest one to do. That's right, the 25th one. Anything. When we expose ourselves to fear. This has been shown in a bajillion research studies. You expose yourself to fear, and that could be any kind of fear of phobia, like a phobia of a spider or elevators. That could be like trauma fear and going through a traumatic memory. They have trauma reprocessing therapies. All of them involve exposure. Because long ago psychologists learned, well, if someone's scared of something and they're like, I'm scared to go in my closet. And you're like, yeah, shit, don't ever go in your closet. That. That doesn't make the fear go away. Not only that, but then the fear starts to creep out and they're like, shit, I can't go upstairs. Shit, I can't go in my house or out of my house or wherever, right? Or to talk to that person or to work or to this or to that or driving over this. And fear actually keeps growing and growing and growing. Not only does it stay, it expands like a fungus. So we need to get in there and we start taking the risk, facing that fear again and again and again and again and again. Here's the thing when you do that, then you start to become powerful. You start to become the kind of person. And I've seen this again and again with clients that I work with where maybe like, I don't know, three, four, five months, they're in the Mastermind program or something like that and all of a sudden one of their friends is like, how did you do that? You're going and approaching that person or you're doing that, like what's happening? Can you show me how to do that? And they're usually a little bit surprised and kind of proud of that. They're like, yeah, that's right. I am doing cool stuff. And it's not because it's they're a better or a worse person than their friend. It's just that they have started, they've really got this. And when I work with people in the one on one, in groups, the live events, I can sort of see who's really got it and who's kind of like, okay, all right. I mean there's people way, way on the left who are kind of like, I don't want to take risk. Those people are usually not, you know, I don't take them on as clients. Maybe they'll come to an event and be like, okay, but I don't really want to take a risk. But then there's the people who are like, okay, I'm willing, fine, fine, I'll frickin play this game, I'll take a risk. Maybe here once, right? And then there's the people who really get it, who are like, yes, I get it. To overcome this, I must face this. And one client actually, he's awesome. He was in the unstoppable Confidence Mastermind program and he, I think this was about six, maybe even eight months into the, It's a year long program. He's about six or eight months, made tremendous amount of progress in all different areas. A lot of confidence building, able to approach people way less. Just anxiety and social anxiety and million different situations. Ended up stopping drinking. When he would go. He used to drink to go on dates to feel comfortable. He stopped drinking and not only that, started being a lot more authentic on the dates. Awesome to watch. And it was about maybe the seven or eight month mark. He's like, you know, I'm terrified of dancing. I either drink a ton or I just don't dance at all in order to be able to do it. And he said, I want to, you know, want to overcome that. And about a month later we were having A live event here in Portland, Oregon. And there was like a. We did this little activity that involved, you know, being able to do some silly dance. And he, like, just attacked that. You know, just like, just out in the middle of the dance floor doing this thing. And then a little bit later in the. In the event, he. There was just some music playing, right? I have a guy there who's an awesome dj, makes a lot of music, makes the events, like, fun and exciting. And at one point, it's kind of a break. And then we're getting everyone back in the room, and he's playing a song. And sure enough, Al as the DJ plays ymca you gotta love YMCA you know that song, right? It's fun to say it. YMCA I don't know the words, but anyway. And you're supposed to do those hand gestures. I mean, if you've ever been to a middle school dance, you know this song or high school dance. Anyway, so he's playing that song, and a few people in the group, you know, people before they sit down their seats, are kind of doing the hand gestures. And this guy jumps up onto the stage and starts, like, leading the group in that dance. And remember, he is terrified to dance. He's terrified to do this. So it isn't like, oh, yeah, he's a rock star. But that's what we do. We look at someone who does something bold, and we're like, oh, yeah, it's easy for them. They're just this. No, they've conditioned themselves, and you can, too. It just takes consistent pattern doing it. And this is why. This is my ode to Risk. I fucking love risk. Risk is where it's at, man. Risk is the juice of life. Every day I'm looking, okay, where can I lean into that edge? And it's like, at this point, there's, like, two things that drive me. One is love and contribution. Like, I love talking to you through these. I love seeing people at the live events and seeing their shift and in the mastermind. I really love the people that I work with. That's what drives me to do this work and growth, man. Risk. Because it's not about money at this point. We have enough money for my family and supporting ourselves and all that stuff. It's like, what is my edge? What's gonna juice me? What's gonna be, you know, to do what scares me in the service of something greater? So that's what guides me, is like, oh, let's take that project on. Let's reach out to those people. How many rejections Can I get here? I make it a consistent habit every month. Any project that I'm working on involves some element of risk of doing something that I've never done before or unknown and some element of rejection. You know, even most recently, I was just getting. We were putting together everything for the book. Not nice. And I needed blurbs. You know, that's when another author says like, you know, this book is great and here's why. And they've read through it and they give their thought and their feedback. So I was like, I need blurbs. So instead of just asking the authors that I knew who I thought were likely to say yes, I shot Big Man. I reached out to people that I have only peripherally met and known who are big time New York Times best selling authors. I reached out to people I didn't even know and it's like, hey, you want to help me with this? Hey, you want to write a blurb? Hey, you want a blurb? Guess what. Tons of nos, tons of rejections. But guess what? It's like you're unstoppable when you just go there and you keep taking the risks again and again and again and again and it juices you. And guess what? Amazing shit happens. You know what my bookmark is in the risking book Reaching over to Grab It Right now by David Viscott. I mentioned earlier in this episode, author of the Viscott Method, which you may have heard of earlier in this episode. The bookmark that I have for this book is a picture of my wife Candice. And she's probably, I don't know, 16 in this picture and has a shirt that says Girl Power on it. I should ask her how old she is and it makes me smile. This was a while back. I was at her, I don't know where, we were at her mom's house or something. And they had this box of pictures. And it was amazing to see all these pictures of her from all different ages of her life, like Tod, whatever. And I mean, they were so sweet. I just felt so much love for her looking at those pictures. And I remember this one, you know, there's like a handful of loose ones. And I was like, can I have this one? So sweet, you know, And I love her so much and I am with her right now because of risk, because of high level risk, because of saying what I wanted, expressing what I wanted, making my feelings clear. Even though at the time that I knew that I loved her, she was married and I steered clear. I was like, I don't want to break up. A marriage. I don't want to be a terrible human, so I don't want to do that. So I steered clear. But she was teaching these workshops. I kept showing up to the workshops because I was benefiting from the material that was being taught there and the growth I was having. But somewhere in there, about maybe eight months after meeting her, I took a risk. And I said, you know, I noticed that I sort of avoid you at these events. I'm a little uncomfortable around you, and I just want to call it out to kind of clear the energy and just become, you know, be more relaxed. And the reason I'm anxious around you is because I am so attracted to you. I find you, so I'm so compelled to you. I'm so drawn to you. I think you're extremely intelligent and wise and beautiful and amazing. And I shared everything that I appreciated about her. And then I ended it with, and you have an incredible ass. I just had to throw that one in there, you know? And I was like. And I'm so uncomfortable because I'm imagining that when I share all this, you're going to be repelled and, like, want to get away from me, and then your husband is going to come punch me in the face and. But I just want to share all this, and so I can kind of let it go and just be more relaxed around you, not have to hide all this. That was my risk. And truly my intention was to release that, because in my mind, it was a done deal. She was married. They had a house together. They'd been together for, like, 10 years. Like, forget that, right? And so I just was clearing the air, putting it out there, taking that risk. And guess what? Seven years later, we're married, we have a house together, got two kids. Yeah. Now, that's a whole story about how that all happened, and it's pretty amazing. I feel extremely grateful. But it comes from risk. So what's gonna come from the risks that you're gonna take today? In fact, that brings us to our action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is to take a risk. Man, woman, take a risk. Just do it. What is it? You know, you'll find an opportunity. Make it small. Doesn't have to be huge. Just 5% risk, 3% risk. Just a little edge. Just what's. What's a little bit outside the edge? Take that risk and take it today and see if you can commit. This is an even bigger action step if you really want to transform your life. You're really sick and tired of being shy or socially anxious or stuck. Make it a habit. Make a decision. Make a commitment right now to consistently take risk, to move toward risk, to love risk. Because you know on the other side of risk is everything that you want in your life. The love that you want, not just that person, but the depth of the relationship that you want. All of that is available on the other side of the risk. So when you take that, your life opens up, your life transforms. And I want that for you. So thank you so much for being with me today. And until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. 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.