Become The Kind Of Person Who Owns The Room

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 you owning the room, working the room, being able to confidently talk to anyone, move from person to person. This could be a social situation. This could be a work situation, a conference. This could even be an online scenario in which you are in different meetings or breakout rooms with other people. It translates whether it's in person or online. You having a powerful presence, a social confidence that allows you to interact with people, talk with people, and ultimately be you around anyone. That's what we're talking about in this episode, which is especially relevant because we have our next virtual event coming up that's called Supremely Confident Conversation Master, where you and I and a group of amazing people just like you get to spend three full days together in immersion of building two things. One, your conversation confidence. And that's a huge part of the second thing, which is your conversation skills and mastery to be able to know what to say next and keep the conversation going and be playful and be engaging and be warm and be connected with others. And it's not just techniques, because if you have techniques, but your confidence is low, you cannot really create any connection. And so you're going to learn both and practice both. And so if you want to be completely relaxed and comfortable and confident in your own skin, then this episode's gonna help you. But let's take it one step further, because there's only so far you can get from podcast episodes, right? It's gonna take a next level of immersion. And there's people all over the world just like you who are coming together. And honestly, that's probably the most amazing parts, is the group of people and the connection that's created in three days virtually too, where it's like, at first, you're kind of like, oh, what's going on here? And who are these people? And then by the end of day three, people are warm and open and have created deep connections with others. So I invite you to experience this. It is our last event of the year and something you're definitely gonna want to be a part of. So go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and under this episode, you'll see an option to get right now. Depends on when you're listening to this. Right when it comes out. This episode is the super Early Bird ticket option, which takes 80% off of the price for the online tickets. So a great time to get your spot. Now you can also go to drazeez.com that'S-R-A Z I Z drazeez.com and go to the Events tab at the top. And then you'll see an option to go into Supremely Confident Conversation Master and get your ticket that way. So in the meantime, before that event, how do you become the kind of person who works the room or owns the room? I've heard clients say different things, like that's sort of their end state of what they want to be. And maybe your version doesn't have owning the room or working the room. Cause neither of those appeals to you. But it's something like that, right? Where you can just confidently approach and interact with anyone. And I know I hungered for this. Cause I used to be so uncomfortable. I don't even go into group environments where you could interact with people. I would just not go. If there was some circumstance like a party or something where I would be going to it, I would cling to the edge. I'd cling to the person I came with. And I'd also cling to alcohol and anything to get me through the experience. And I was far, far from owning the room. So how do we do this? Let's dive in right now. The first thing I'm going to share is the most simple and most liberating thing. And it goes like this. If you want to become the kind of person who boldly walks over and talks to people, then boldly walk over and talk to people. If you want to become the kind of person that speaks up in groups, then you got to speak up in groups. If you want to become the kind of person who can casually chat with someone you just met, then practice casually chatting with people that you just met all the time. Now, you might be kind of rolling your eyes at this point saying, this is what I came here for. But I cannot tell you. It's so obvious when you hear me say this. But when I work with people, there is a mindset Of I want to get there. I want to become that kind of person, but I don't want to do it a lot. And it does not compute why? Because it's our emotional brain that's trying to make the decision where we know. It's like, how do you become a fit person? And that is a mentality a lot of people have. It's like, how much do I. What's the least amount of exercise I can do to get the most gains? Right? And I get it, you know, from a time efficiency standpoint. But it's also not the right mindset to actually become the strongest or the most fit or the most functionally healthy, strong version of you, because you got to be able to use your body regularly. You want to become the kind of person who's fit and strong and capable in your body, then use your body a lot, like every day in a variety of ways. And it's no different. This is like physical, you know, that's physical fitness. This is social fitness, conversational fitness. And so if you're listening to this, hoping for some silver bullet or magic technique, it's repetition. That's why I'm putting it first. It's the least sexy, it's the least selling. People want to be marketed the magic pill. But this, this is the most effective. Now, you might hear that and say, yeah, but that's why I'm listening to this episode, because it's so uncomfortable. I'm not good at it. It doesn't go well. Well, yeah, let's talk more about how to make it go well, how to do it as successfully as possible. But you still got to get those repetitions in. And one more thing I'm going to say about the repetitions, which is so important, is it's more than you think. I was just talking with some clients about this, and it's like, oh, man, this was a dating scenario. But there's a lot of overlap. And he's like, oh, man. I approached this woman and I asked her out, and she said no. And other people were listening, and it was so embarrassing. It was humiliating is the word he used. And so we addressed that situation and helped him really see that humiliation. Embarrassment is something that you buy into. And so if you feel embarrassed after someone said no to you, that is you being buying into that. That's you creating that. Now, sure, someone else could point and laugh and make fun of you, but the fact that you take it in is saying, oh, I did this thing that was wrong. Asking her out where other people could See, or just asking her out in general was a wrong thing. Or maybe getting no is the quote, wrong thing. You get to choose when your reality is going over and asking someone out, or in the case of social confidence, going over and talking to someone, going over and creating a potential business connection, and that person not being interested, not being available. Is that a shameful thing? Is that an embarrassing thing? Is that a thing that should not happen? And look, that could be in someone else's reality. True, not my reality. In my reality, there's no shame in falling flat on your face, going for something, speaking up, sharing, being bold. Because in life, boldness is rewarded. And so if you go over and talk to that person, you go over and ask that person out or start the conversation with them, even if that person doesn't want to talk to you, you're the kind of person who does that. And if you're the kind of person who does that, then your life is going to get better and better and better and richer and richer, both in connections, love, experiences, and also money. Because if you can connect with people and you can network, that can give you better job opportunities. Being able to speak to people and interact with people is absolutely essential for ascending in your career too, because there's only so high you can get from your technical skills alone. You have to be able to elevate into leadership. Working with people, managing people, delegating, firing, hiring, having difficult conversations. That's what companies want to promote, those kinds of people. That's what if you have your own business, that's the next level that you're going to need to be able to develop in order to grow that business. Because if you're just going to be a solo person doing everything yourself, you can get to a certain level and you might be able to have yourself a job that's yours with no boss. And that could be good. It could also be extremely tiring and stressful and daunting. Whatever your experience is, if you want to grow it, you're going to need a team and you need to be a leader for that team. And so social confidence, as a result, your social confidence and your conversation confidence allows all these doors to open up in your life. And when I'm sharing with clients and I hear that they are wanting it, basically we're wanting it faster and easier. We're wanting the result without going through the discomfort of the training and the learning process. And so what I'll often do with clients is I'll quote them numbers that are made up, but somewhat based in my reality and experience of what I can reasonably guess for somebody, but you don't really know. But I'll give them numbers that are way more than they think. So they'll be like, I just want to confidently walk over and talk to that person. In the case of this guy who wanted to ask her out, I was like, okay, 38. He's like, what? And I'm like, 38. You'll get confident. You'll be able to confidently do it when you've asked 38 women out and his eyes got wide and his jaw dropped. Why? Because the idea of asking 38 women out is terrible and terrifying. And so that right there, that's the problem. Not that. Does a person say yes or no? Not, do you have friends or not, Whatever you think the circumstance is, the problem is this is unpleasant. And so I don't want to do it. And if you do it more, it becomes less unpleasant. And then eventually could be fun. And then you can get more repetition in. And so how do you practice this? How do you do this more? Well, a key component of owning a room is how you enter that room first. It's this determination of, like, is this something I got to get through? Is this an unpleasant waste of time? Is this only good if I get something from this? All of those mindsets are going to make it way harder to work the room because you're trying to get something out of it. You're resisting it already. What's much more effective is saying, one ideally, hey, I'm here to connect and have fun. I mean, that makes it way, way better. Maybe, yeah, I want to make some friends while I'm here, or potential friendships. So you can have an outcome. It's just, is there an outcome that you can meet no matter what? Because if, oh, only if I get a date here, is it worthwhile? It's like, well, what about connecting and having fun? Can you do that no matter what you get out of it, for that night, that day, whatever the experience is? And then also, can you see it as a training ground? Like, oh, this is an opportunity to start 10 different conversations with people? Yes. That's another thing. See how it makes it automatically a win? I'm going to go there and I'm going to have 10, I'm going to start 10 conversations with people. That's in your control. It's not dependent on any particular outcome. And same thing with, I'm going to connect and have fun. You get to choose how you're going to approach people looking for opportunities for connection, looking for opportunities for play to make it more fun and engaging. So this attitude, this approach, makes all the difference. And then there's also a literal. Like how you enter the room. And one of the most powerful things you can do is to enter the room with some momentum. I did not know this at all. So that's why when my shy, anxious days, I was the epitome of the wallflower, where I would kind of eke in through the side door and kind of cling to the wall. Right. And there's a different way, which is when you're not trying to be invisible. Because in those days, I was trying to be invisible because I thought being seen would mean ridicule, rejection, dislike, disapproval. So there needs to be a willingness to be seen. And so that means literally coming into the room in a way where you're not trying to be invisible. Now, again, that sounds kind of strange. Like, what do you mean people are trying to be invisible? Just watch them. They're quiet. They take up less space. I'm not saying you gotta kick down the door with one of those guns that shoots dollar bills in the air or something. Look who's in the house. Right? No, but just like, boom. Walking in tall, standing fully upright, owning the space and just physically doing that. And I'll have people do this during events or in the groups that I run is have them walk around the room that they're in that they're joining this event from, as if they own the space. And it's a very different experience in their physiology, which is surprising to them because they're like, oh, oh, that's what that's like. And you might think that's just a slight tweak that makes all the difference because you're transmitting all kinds of things. You're transmitting way more with your body language, with your emotion, with your energy, than with the words that come out of your mouth. So showing up with this powerful presence and walking into the room with that level of owning the space really does make a difference. Then on top of that, you want to keep that momentum going. So when you walk in, take a moment to survey the scene, and then go walk over and talk to someone within ideally five seconds, a really, really short amount of time. Right. Because if you stand there and kind of scan the room, there can be this strange sense of, like, people are looking at me. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm alone. If you're alone in a group, that means you're a loser. Now everyone's Seeing that I'm a lose, and that means people are gonna want to invite me into their little subgroups and just your mind just goes crazy. And the best way to deal with all that is just to walk in the room, look around for a minute and be like those people and walk right towards them. You don't have to know what you're gonna say. You don't have to have any idea of if they're gonna like you or not. I'm just gonna go interact with those people for just a minute. These might not be your best friends for the whole party or the workshop or whatever. These could be people you interact with for literally 20 seconds and then you move on. But now what you've done is you've created this momentum of like, when I'm here, I'm here to engage with people. I'm not here to cling to the sidelines. I'm not here to look at my cell phone and pretend like I'm doing important stuff on there. I'm here to connect. And so I'm gonna do that right away. And I'm also here to connect impartially where, look, I might be looking for something out of this connection, friendship, love, relationship, whatever. But I'm also here to just interact with a lot of different people. Right, so you're not doing the sniper method where you're like, I can go talk to that person. Yeah, we probably wouldn't be best friends though, so what's the point? How do you know besides just get some momentum going? So go walk over directly to those people and interact with them. And if you're wondering, well, geez, how do you start a conversation if you don't know what to say? That is its own topic of how to join groups and how to start conversations. I can share some of that now. But again, for a full in depth study of that and practice of that, definitely check out Supremely Confident Conversation Master. If you're liking this, you're going to love that. But really it's people think. You have to think ahead of time a lot about what to say. Actually, the simplest way to join in is just comment on the environment and ask a question or just simply ask a question. Hey, how are you guys doing? What brings you here? Oh, I noticed you were in conversation. Can I join in? What are you talking about? I'd say, oh my gosh, you can't do that. How? You're butting into people's lives. They're not sitting there at a cafe having a lunch date by themselves. This is like an interaction where a group interaction, where people are there to mingle and interact with each other. So of course you can join in conversations. And even if two people were having a conversation at a cafe, if you're the kind of person who boldly walks over and starts conversations, then you can talk to those people, too. And it is way more uncomfortable, it's way scarier, because you're like, oh, my gosh, they're going to think I'm interrupting. But what you can do is with that owning presence, you can have this energy of, I belong here. And so you might start the conversation slightly differently. If it's a group of people sitting by themselves, you might say, hey, can I ask you guys a quick question? And now all of a sudden, there's a little bit of pausing what they're doing and being like, oh. And they can say, no. He's like, okay, well, have a good rest of your night. Or they could say, yes, then you can ask them a question. Now you're in with that one, too. But if it's like a conference, a social gathering, a party, a place where people are mingling, getting drinks, the bar, you don't have to have some fancy, sneaky conversation starter. That's what I used to think for years, and that actually stopped me from talking to people, is, oh, my gosh, I don't know what to say. I don't know what the greatest thing to say is going to be. And, you know, the craziest joke of all is it turned out it didn't matter. So I spent all these years. And of course, you know, if you listen to any of these shows, you know, it's not really about the problem of not knowing what to say. That is a problem of the safety police coming up with stories as to why you can't interact with people and why they're not going to want to talk to you. And so you gotta have the perfect thing to say, okay? So you gotta get committed to building your social fitness. Be willing to talk to dozens, maybe even hundreds of people to build up a social fitness muscle. When you first get there, you want to own the space, own your physical body. Stand up tall, roll your shoulders back, get a strong sense of physiology. And this one's a little. Maybe a harder one to teach via podcast. But at the events, what I have people do is activate their physiology and actually get strong in their bodies first so that you're able to actually naturally adopt those more powerful postures. And then when you walk into the room, you take A moment to scan the scene and then make a beeline towards somebody. And you jump right into that conversation. The other thing you can do is you can interact with a group of people, and if you talk to them for a few minutes and you'd like to go move to someone else, because you ever seen someone who's work in the room, they talk to somebody, they go talk to somebody else, they talk to somebody else. So how do you do that? Well, you chat for a few minutes and you say, hey, listen, I'm gonna go check out the other side of the. Whatever the party or this thing. I'm gonna talk to those people for a minute. I'll catch you in a little bit. And so you're kind of narrating that you're leaving, and then you're gonna come back to them, and then you can come back to them. And if you just imagine. Just imagine two different scenarios here before we wrap up this episode. One, it's a work conference, right? And so during the planned sessions, everyone's kind of quiet and paying attention or whatever. But then there's the breaks, and then the breakout rooms and the lunches and all this stuff. Imagine you go to this conference and there's this thing on, you know, the night before. It starts on Thursday evening or whatever, and it's like a mixer and a gathering. And you don't go because you're like, I'm tired. I'm gonna stay in my hotel room. I just don't feel like it. I'll just catch the first session in the morning. And before the first session, there's coffee and, you know, whatever, danishes. And you're like, I don't want. I don't know people. I'm just gonna go to the first session. And so you go to the first session and you're listening, and it's useful information. And then there's a break. And then on the break, you're like, oh, man, I don't know anybody. This is all awkward. Where's my cell phone? And you pretend to be busy on your phone. Do you see how you can just go through the whole conference and basically talk to nobody? Contrast that with this. You go to the conference, it's Friday night or Thursday night before it starts, there's this mixer thing. You say, you know what, I'm gonna go. You take a shower. You. You get your clothes on, get your fancy duds on, and you go there. In fact, in your hotel room, before you go there, you bounce up and down, you put on a song, you like, you get strong and big in your body, you make some noise, you walk around the room like you own the place. And you carry that same physiology downstairs to this little mixer thing. You walk right in, you walk right over to this group of people and you say, hey, where are you guys coming in from? You jump right into the conversation. You're assuming familiarity with that one, by the way, which is a whole other technique I can share at another time. And then all of a sudden, now you're having an interaction, and then you do that again. You do that again. You talk to, like, you know, 20 different people that night, give or take. Now the next morning, you go to the coffee thing and you see some of those people. And have you ever noticed how once you met somebody and you see them the next day at something, it's almost like, hey, it's you. As if you're like, really good friends, right? Why? It's this human connection and familiarity and bonding that occurs. And then all of a sudden, it's the first break of the event, and look, there's people, you know, everywhere. And then there's someone else. You can walk over and say, hey, I want to talk to them. And then as you're talking to that person, someone else comes up to you and says, hey, how's it going? You're like, oh, hey. And the person you're talking to is like, who's this guy? Why is he so popular? Right? Why? Because you've practiced. Because you've been on offense. Let's talk about how you can turn this into action. Time for action. Action. Action. The most important action step you can do is to practice. Practice some version of this. Because if you listen to this and you say, wow, that sounds great in theory, but oh, my gosh, I'm not going to go walk over to people. I don't have a gathering coming up tonight, so I guess I'm not going to practice this stuff. Where can you practice social fitness, conversation fitness? Today? Maybe it's your workplace. You can go move towards somebody that you normally avoid. Maybe you can go somewhere specifically just to say hi and have a short conversation, maybe even with a stranger. And if these things sound like too hard or daunting, then you may not be at that place of willing to do whatever it takes. Because I used to make excuses like that forever until I got to a point where I was like, my life is not what I want. This is not the life that I want for myself. I have to do something different. And then, so, yeah, driving down 15 or 10 minutes to some, you know, strip mall area where there's a lot of people around to go literally just go there to have conversations, not to buy anything or whatever. Became not some, oh, it's so arduous. I can't do that. It became like, yeah, of course, right? Why? Because it's training. Would you drive to the gym or to the trails, or you like to work out or run or bike? You say, ah, it's too much work. Well, then you don't get fit. And it's no different here. So find a place, practice. And if you want more practice in the room and to learn way more techniques and strategies and tools and build that inner confidence, then definitely come join me at Supremely Confident Conversation Master 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.