Confident Dating Mindsets with Amber Grubenmann

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 second, 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's gonna be fun because we're gonna be getting into dating. And as any, as always, dating and relationships is one of the most fascinating areas where confidence is essential. And you could say that probably about every area of life that your confidence level, your belief in yourself has a big impact on how you show up, how people respond to you, the results that you get, and so on and so forth. But nowhere is it more immediately apparent, I found, than in dating and relationships. And I'll be talking more about what I mean by that. But I'm also excited because we have a guest co host with me today, Amber Gruenman, a amazing coach on my team who helps people with all areas of confidence, but really knows her stuff when it comes to dating and relationships. So thank you for joining me today, Amber.

Of course. I'm happy to be here.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's get right into it. This episode is going to be all about confident dating mindsets. The mindset you want to have when it comes to dating is that's really gonna set you up for success. And so let me set the stage here to highlight how important confidence is in dating, in that I think when it comes to, I don't know, our physical fitness or even our careers, we can kind of point to where we are. And so let's say you all of a sudden got a burst in your physical confidence or burst in your career confidence. If you're like, you haven't run in two years and you have a burst in your physical confidence, you might not just be able to go run a marathon that week. It's probably a bad idea. And let's say you've been kind of scraping along in your career, and then you have a burst in your career confidence, you're not going to become, like the president of the company in a week. So you can systematically change that area of your life. But when it comes to dating, there's no, like, external marker. Like, you could go from, like, having a drought or a dry spell or never having done anything. And if you have the right confidence and the right energy about you, you can have, like, four dates lined up within a week. And that is mind boggling to me. And when I really got that, it blew me away. Now, not to set crazy expectations, obviously you have to work at this area too. But I just really want to highlight the potential and the possibility for rapid change, and so much of it comes back to confidence. So I have some great notes. I know you do as well, Amber. Let's get into. Let's hear some of that. Maybe one. Start with one of the mindsets that you think is key in the clients that you worked with in terms of dating. Confidence. Mindsets?

Yeah. I think one thing that holds people back is the fear of getting embarrassed or making a mistake or just like, these little things in communication, like losing your train of thought, messing up your words. Like, all of these things that get blown out of proportion for people with social anxiety or just people who are nervous about dating. And so I think a really helpful mindset is that there's room for all of that. And I'll give you an example. Just a few weeks ago, I went to dinner with some people, and I can't tell you exactly what I said because it embarrassed both me and my boyfriend who came with me to that dinner. And basically I said something really weird. And, like, the entire table, like, stopped eating. And they were like, what the fuck did you just say? Like, and one girl actually was like, okay, check please. Like, kind of joking, but kind of, like, it was just like, I just said something weird and I was embarrassed in that moment. But like, a few, like, I was embarrassed for like 10 or 20 minutes, and then I was like, oh, whatever, like, that happens. And the next day, actually, that girl who was, like, the most weirded out by what I said, she texted me the next day, like, hey, you want to hang out this week? And it just, like, proves again for me that there's so much room for, like, embarrassing yourself, saying the wrong thing, losing your train of thought, not making perfect eye contact. And so I think, like, a lot of people who get into the pickup artist stuff, they become perfectionists and they think I have to say, like, the exact right thing at the exact right time and keep the perfect percentage of eye contact. And she has to talk 80% of the time and I have to talk 20% of the time. And all of that can lead you to believe that there is no space for mistakes and. And there's no space to say the wrong thing or like, mess anything up. And that is actually going to affect your confidence in a really negative way. And you're going to show up to the date, like really stiff and uncomfortable and nervous and anxious, which is the exact opposite of what you're trying to achieve with the pickup artist stuff in the first place.

Yeah, that highlights a really good point about the. That I think a lot of people, I certainly was drawn to the pickup artist stuff, Coming from a place of lack of success in my dating life and also a pretty heavy sense of inadequacy of I'm not enough as I am. I mean, I think that's pretty true for almost all people that are drawn to pickup artist stuff. Because if you thought, oh no, I'm great as I am, I have so much to offer and of course, you know women or some people want to date me. Yeah, then you would start to put yourself out there more. But it's usually you get people who have low self esteem in this area. And one way to compensate for that is to get into that perfectionism thing you're talking about. It's like, oh, okay, well, this is the pathway to be good enough to get dates. And obviously me as I am am not enough. So I think what you're highlighting is so important is that you are okay and there's a lot more space to be you. In fact, that actually goes to one of the ones that I wanted to touch on, which is. And this one might. People might have heard me say this before. It might seem obvious, but when you really get it, it's a game changer. And that is knowing your value, deeply knowing your value, Especially in a romantic context here as we're talking about it, because when that's there, things click and when it's not, it's an uphill struggle. In fact, I was just talking with a former student in the mastermind. He's gone on. He's completed my mastermind program, he's been to a number of live events, and now he's really thriving in his dating life and his life in general. I'm just so proud of him. And I recently gave him some feedback. I was like, whoa, when I interact with you now, it's like he's like a strong, solid, powerful man. And in some ways, when I first met him, it was almost like he had this boy energy. I was kind of looking to others and looking to women. And anyway, he's strong in himself. And he was just telling me about, he's like, yeah, I had this big breakthrough like a couple weeks ago where I even more deeply got how much I bring to relationships and how, you know, just he was like floundering for the words. But you could tell, like he really got like, I'm awesome. And he's like, since that time I've just had so many dating opportunities. Like I'm getting my apps. Like he had bumble and whatever are like way more is happening on there without me doing anything. And I'm like, yeah, I know. And he's like, you taught me that a long time ago. But I don't think I really got it until now. And so if you're listening to this, one way to help yourself start to get it is to slow down and find a way to convince yourself that you bring value into a dating interaction or a relationship. And you might have a reason, you know, 17 reasons why you don't and why you're not good enough and why you're awkward and why you can't do that. But as long as your energy is going into that, you are really stuck in a lot of ways. And we want to shift into why I'm what I bring as a value because it'll change everything about how you show up to the date, about whether you're the selector or hoping to be selected, and so many other things.

So what do you think are like some examples of value that people bring to dating and relationships beyond like the obvious? Because I think a lot of men especially go straight to like, I have a job, money, good looks, like just like very surface level things. Like what for example, for you, what do you feel like you bring to your relationship with Candace?

Right. Well, definitely top of the list is lot of money, nice car and abs, you gotta have those. And maybe some biceps too. And then chiseled jaw and blue eyes. Those are, if you got those, you're fine.

But you don't even have that. You don't have blue eyes.

How dare you? How dare you say my abs are not chiseled? Right. So yes, this is what our mind goes to, is all those superficial things. And what's mind boggling is that people have none of those and have incredible relationships. And not to say that you can't thrive in your financial life or your health and have a relationship too, but so yeah, the value that we bring. So if I were to think about what do I bring into a relationship, one is I am a very self aware person, which is of extreme value in a relationship. Because if you're not self aware in a relationship, you're gonna have a lot more blaming of the other person, reacting to the other person, not being able to reflect and say, hmm, why am I getting bothered by that? Instead you're like, you shouldn't do that anymore. Stop it. You know, or whatever. So self awareness is huge. I'm extremely good at communication. So being able to talk through stuff, bring stuff up, talk about emotions. These are things that I think are essential for relationships. And I think a lot of people unfortunately don't learn, but I can do them very well. I think I am able to be very present, which is extremely important. I'm able to, like, be fully with someone. In this case Candace, my wife, be fully with her, listen to her energetically, be there and be grounded. And she can feel that. And I think it's deeply nourishing to anyone. But especially a woman really needs that from her partner, from her man, to be present and grounded. I'm definitely funny. Some folks say hilarious, but enthusiasm for life, man, like, I just. I just, I get inspired by things. I get excited by things. I'm growing, I'm changing, I'm evolving. And generally, you know, it's things that fit right in with what she wants to do and how she wants to grow. So whether it's our health or parenting style or whatever. And she's this way as well. So we both kind of feed on each other. And so life is never boring, never stagnant. It's always changing and growing. Even if from the outside, it might look kind of simple in a way, like a lot of family time and together, not crazy adventures out in the world. But there's so much personal growth and change in our diet, in our mindset, in our outlook on life. And this is just so. These are not premeditated. But if you said, aziz, come up with five more, I would come up with five more. And you said, aziz, dig deep, come up with five more, I would come up with five more. And that's not because I'm a crazy egomaniac. That's because I love who I am and I fully want to engage in this life. And I've seen other people that when they activate that energy in themselves, they become powerfully magnetic in a dating context.

I think for me, one that just came up, I think I really like about myself that it doesn't take a lot for me to have fun. I know a lot of other people may need, like, a lot of external stimulus to have Fun. Like, we have to go on a crazy date. We need to be traveling all the time. We need to go all over the world. And that's all fine and great, but I can also have, like, a really awesome time just at home, like, on the couch and, like, be laughing, crying on the floor because I'm having so much fun. So that's one thing that I like about myself that I think also really adds to my relationship with my boyfriend.

Mm. And I think that's great. And I think, you know, as you're listening to this, how readily accessible are your. The things that you bring, the value that you have, and a lot of it, you don't have to look super far and super hard or it doesn't have to be some objectively, like, society says it's great. Notice how what the thing that Amber is sharing there and what I'm sharing, this is just like. It's just kind of who you are. Right. This is just an aspect of who you are. You're able to really enjoy the simple things in life. And so I encourage you, as you're listening, to reflect on this and focus more and more and more of your attention on that versus how do I need to be? Because if we're not aware of our awesomeness and this is something we definitely want to hit on in this episode, Amber is. A lot of people fall into the pleasing, approval seeking energy when it comes to dating. So what would you say is a mindset or an alternative? Like, how can people do something different when it comes to dating and relationships?

Yeah. So I think the approval seeking comes from a place of, like, we may know that not everybody can like us. And we may have heard that and we may say, like, yeah, I know. Like, if I go in a room of 100 people, not everybody can like me. But then we proceed to go out and try to make everybody like us. So I think it's actually like deepening that belief. And so the way we do that. So when we're born as babies, we don't have any beliefs. We don't think we're male or female. We don't think the earth is round or flat. We don't think people are pretty or ugly. We're just born a clean slate. And then somewhere along the line, different beliefs get planted into our minds consciously, unconsciously, through experiences and other people and those beliefs get nourished. And so when you're approval seeking, you may. One of the beliefs that may be behind that is that if everybody. If somebody doesn't like me, that means I'm bad or I did something bad. And so we need to confirm the belief, the opposite belief, which is that it's normal that everybody won't like you. And you wouldn't want everybody to like you because that would mean you're kind of like bland or you're not being authentic.

Mm. And there seems to be a. I've seen this and myself too. There can be like a fundamental resistance to that fact. It's like a fighting against that. It's like, yeah, I know, I know that's how it is. But no, no, I don't want it to be that way.

Yeah. And the belief behind it is kind of like if I were doing this right, then everybody would like me. But actually the opposite is true, is like, if you're doing it right. And by right we mean you're being authentic, you're sharing freely, you're being yourself, you're having fun, then not everybody will like you. And that's actually how you know that you're doing it right. Like social interactions and dating interactions.

Mm. Yeah. And I think there's. There's something just about. Really calming, like there's no threat in someone disliking you someone. And that's. I think that's the. There's this unconscious, it's really dangerous and I'm gonna die if that happens kind of reaction that we have to it. And as much as you can really relax into seeing it as like, it's no threat and this, you know, so. So when it's coming up and you're feeling that like, I gotta gotta this, it's like, see if you can find a way to just remind yourself and some soothe or relax yourself. Like, it's okay. It's no, it's not a threat to me if this person doesn't like something about me. And one thing that is very helpful also to consciously remind yourself of before approaching someone before going on a date. You know, heck, even before, like responding back on a dating app or something even, you know, before you engage, take a full deep breath in and as you let it out, say out louder to yourself, I don't need anything from you. I don't need something from you. Like, what if we could shift our focus from what am I going to get from you? To just curiosity and openness, maybe even seeing how you can give to them. But at the very least, just being curious and open. Because as soon as we get into like, I gotta get something from you, we go out of relating and just sharing who we are. And asking about them, and we move into controlling. I gotta control you. I gotta make you see me this way and not that way. I gotta make you feel this way, but not that way. And as soon as we start that path, even if it goes the way we want, we suffer because we're anxious, we're tense. Sure, that day went well, but what about the next one? And we're kind of on this endless hamster wheel of approval seeking. So just remember that when you're in that moment, I don't need anything from you. And, you know, it's designed to remind you of a truth, and then you just keep. I found, like a sigh kind of helps further convince me of that fact.

Yeah. And I think another belief that can help with this is that you can't get rejected by the right person. So a lot of times when somebody rejects us, either, like, we just asked them out and they said no, or like three dates in or a year into the relationship, we have this feeling like, if they hadn't rejected me or if I hadn't messed this up, then we would still be dating and living happily ever after. But I actually don't believe that. I think when somebody rejects another person, they were just the one to notice first that it wasn't a good fit. And so usually, like, for example, when you're in a relationship and you break up, it's not like, okay, three, two, one. And now we both notice that we don't want to be together. It's usually like one person notices before the other that it's not right, and they end up being the one to reject the other person or break up with them. But that doesn't mean, like, if they hadn't felt that. That you would still be together, if you had stayed together, you would have been the one to notice down the line that it wasn't a good fit.

Right? Yeah, I mean, I think that's. That is a key point is like, there's this. Clinging energy. In a way. It's like, no, it has to be this person versus realizing, well, look, even if you think that they were perfect in every single way, if they're not open or available to be with you, then it's obviously not a right fit. Again, there's just, like this sort of arguing with reality. I think we can do in that case, or in the case of wanting everyone to like us. And there's an element of, I guess, maturity where we just sort of say, yep, that's how that is. That's how that goes. Awesome. So what Else. Do you have any other mindsets that you. That are coming up in this conversation or that you thought of as you were preparing for this?

Actually, just one thing that I thought of right now as we were talking about that is just in general, when things happen that upset us, even if they hurt in the moment, just the thought that I'm not sure that this is bad for my life. Like, okay, this feels awful right now, but overall, there may be some positive consequences. Like maybe because this person said no to me, I'll meet this really incredible person down the line that is actually going to be my soulmate, or it'll force me to look in words at why I'm hurting so much when they rejected me, and it'll lead to some personal growth. There's always positive and negative consequences of everything. And so just having that perspective as well, because usually when somebody rejects us or we just say the wrong thing and we feel embarrassed, we just jump right to the conclusion that that was bad and that shouldn't have happened. And, like, it's just bad and there's no good consequences of it. But if we actually stop to question that belief, we can see that there may actually be a lot of positive consequences of that painful thing.

Yeah. And, I mean, I would go so far as to encourage people to, like, decide that that is how you're going to choose to react to events in life. And sometimes we fall into a victim mode and lose that, but returning to your center. And one phrase for it that I learned from Tony Robbins is the principle of utilization, which is, I'm going to use whatever happens to me. And so if it. Okay, that didn't. Okay, I'm going to use this opportunity to go inward and look at my pain around rejection, or I'm going to use this opportunity to continue to risk and put myself out there and find someone new. And that's sort of taking the power back into your hands.

And.

And ultimately, I think there's great benefit in having a more almost spiritual philosophy of what life is unfolding exactly as it should. And there are lessons that I need to learn that are going to be presented to me again and again until I learn them. And also there is, like, the lesson and the medicine and the growth is in the experiences, and they're not all pleasurable. And if they were, I wouldn't grow. Because the truth is, we don't really grow too much from pleasure. We grow from pain. So you go, you know, you ask five people out and they're all like, heck, yeah, you don't grow that much, you might feel great. But then when the last person's like, nobody like you, or, you know, even worse, they go on a date or two with you and then they're like, nah, nah, nah. Like, you think about that one a lot more. You're like, what? Why? Yeah, and maybe you're going to learn something why? Whether it's something specific that you're doing. Like, in my case, it was a lot of people pleasing energy. That extra last rejection nail in the coffin felt like the worst thing in the world for me. And it was the best thing that happened to me because that last worst rejection that I got in my early dating life literally spawned me on a path that has led to this conversation right here. I didn't know it at the time, but it led to obsessive personal growth and exploration and wanting to learn how to overcome the obstacles I was experiencing in my dating life. And then when I got a taste of that, I was like, whoa, I can learn and then improve my life. Well, then I got hooked. But I'm glad you brought that up. I think that's super important. You know, one other thing I wanted to bring up too, just as a key dating mindset is, is and this comes back to approval seeking and not appro. You know, and doing something different. When we're in approval seeking mode, we're very self absorbed, even if we try to hide it, even if we tend like, we're not. Like, we're asking them lots of questions and we're following up on the questions, being like, oh, interesting, tell me more. You know, and we're looking really engaged. But if we're fully honest with ourselves, our focus a lot of the time during when we're listening is, okay, how did that come across? Did they like what I said there? Was that the right thing that they wanted to hear? How am I? Am I looking right? Am I doing this right? Do they like this? Do they like what I'm doing? And there's this like a program running on your computer that's taking a ton of RAM and makes the rest of your system run kind of jerky and clunky. And it's the kind of thing that the other person might not be able to point a finger to and be like, oh, wow, he was so distracted, or, oh, wow, she was just really, you know, self absorbed. They are not going to be able to say that because you look really engaged. But energetically, they're going to feel it and it's not going to feel as good. And they're probably not going to want more. And I've seen this again and again with clients and I experienced it as well. And so it's essential to get that totally self focused. Am I doing right and just getting out of that and experiment with when that other person is talking, what is it like to be fully focused on them and actually just really curious about what they're saying? You know, oh, what was her trip like? Or oh, what is. When he's telling you something about work, we're like, what is that like there in that workplace environment? And you're just really immersed in that world and their experience. And that's gonna not only you're gonna feel a lot more relaxed and better, but it's actually gonna have a much more magnetic effect in the, in the dating experience as well.

When you're pretending or putting on a mask or people pleasing, you can have a hundred interactions with people, but you won't really feel nourished by any of them. And you always end up still feeling a little bit lonely because they weren't really with you, they were with the facade that you put on. And so just like with, for connecting with people, it's really important to learn how to let go of those expectations, to please everybody, to get everybody to like you. Because it's lonely and it's actually painful.

Absolutely. Yeah, I've experienced that firsthand. And I'll just say, well, you know what, we'll turn this one into an action step. So that brings us to our action step. Time for action. Action, action. So your action step. And there's so many things, one action step could just be to take one thing that you learned from here and go do it, go apply it. But I would say the big one, that's just piggybacking right off of what you said. Amber is take the risk to be more you. You know, Amber was sharing that story in the beginning about saying something embarrassing. And like not to say that you are immediately going to be horribly embarrassed, but you might, right? That's the fear. Oh no. If I let go a little bit, I'm going to say something terribly embarrassing, but we'll take the risk. And that might not be a horribly embarrassing story that you share, but it might just be, you know, one client in the master. I was saying recently, like he just, she brought up something. A woman he was dating was sharing something about her past relationship and his reaction was like, oh wow, that was really fast that you did blah, blah, blah with the next partner and he just said that out loud. Like, oh wow, that's really fast that you guys did that. And he's like, in the past I wouldn't have said that. I would have been like, well, does she think it's fast? Is that judgmental? Is that whatever? He's like, well, I don't know. That was just the thought I had. And so I'm just talking about that little risk to be more you because a, that's the name of the game in dating and relationships is love is a high risk game. And if you want to experience it and feel it and really enjoy it, you gotta go fully go all in. But you know you'll have better results, but you'll also feel more loved and more love. So that would be the action step. Amber, before we conclude today, do you have any final thoughts or parting words on confident dating mindsets?

I think everything has been said on the topic.

Yeah. Boom. We nailed it. We've covered all possible confident. If you listening, have your own confident dating mindset that you think that we missed. You're wrong. You're wrong. We nailed it. Nailed it. So slam. Doug, awesome. Thank you for joining us today. And until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are, to know that you're awesome and we look forward to talking to you soon. Be well. 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.