Courage For Difficult Conversations

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 help you build courage for difficult conversations. Now, we might have a fantasy. Well, we probably have a couple fantasies here, right? One is that we would never have to have difficult conversations. That's fantasy number one. You know, I could just skate through life and everything would be smooth and everyone would love each other and I'd love everyone else. And of course, love means that you never have any disagreement, any conflict, any differing opinions whatsoever, and you just sort of coexist in harmony and bliss. And then there's a second fantasy. It's like, well, if that's not going to happen, then I need to know how to have these difficult conversations in just the right way and say everything so perfectly that the difficult conversation becomes an experience of harmony and bliss, right? And so if you look at it underneath, we're just trying to avoid what's uncomfortable. And so let's look at that today in this episode of the show. Let's help you unpack these difficult conversations and move towards them in your life with more courage, more freedom to have them. And first of all, what do I mean by difficult conversation? Well, that's going to be defined by you, but it's maybe an uncomfortable conversation could be another way to think about it. There's a book called Crucial Conversations. They probably chose that word because of the alliteration. But. But uncomfortable conversations of any sort in any area of your life. This could be at work. This could be in your dating life. This could be with friends. This could be with your family. This could be with your neighbor, whatever situation. It might be any conversation where you think about going into it and you're like, oh, boy. Right? So what makes it difficult? What makes it uncomfortable? Well, typically, we anticipate some level of conflict, right? Like there's going to be a differing opinion. We're going to want different things. It's going to be a Conflict of wills. I'm going to want to go this way and they're going to want to go that way. Or maybe I need to tell someone something that I think is going to upset them. Maybe they're going to, you know, they're not going to want to want the same thing that I want. So let's say it's a dating situation and you want to do something else instead of spend time with that person. You don't want to spend time on Saturday with them. You want to do something with your friends on Saturday and you need to tell them no. Or you want something that maybe is a bigger difference than that person. Maybe you don't want to date at the same level, or you want more space or something like that. There's a million different permutations in our dating life and other relationships. And whatever the specifics are, you know what they are in your life. There's that kind of dread, the desire to avoid the conversation. Because it's like, this is gonna be so uncomfortable. And we also might have a story in there that says not only is it gonna be uncomfortable during, but it's gonna lead to bad things. It's gonna be worse after I have the conversation. So that is especially important for us to address, because if you think that, then you're gonna avoid all difficult conversations. And maybe you've done that for many years in your life. And the question I have for you is, how does that work? So for me, I was trying to go through life avoiding all difficult conversations, all uncomfortable conversations. And what it led to is a lack of power and a lack of intimacy or closeness. Just think about that for a minute. Because different situations, you want to be able to assert yourself, say what you think, ask for what you need, express a differing opinion. That's a form of power. And if you can't have those difficult conversations, then you can't express or exert any power. And also, if you can't have any difficult conversations, you can't have intimacy, you can't have closeness, you can't have deep love and connection. I thought deep love and connection was the absence of conflict, the absence of difficult conversations. But actually, difficult conversations are the ticket to admission for deep intimacy, love, and connection in an extraordinary relationship. So. And you can look and reflect on your own life, but what it's led to, and sometimes the consequences aren't super severe immediately, but they just take their toll over time, don't they? Like, you drain your power a little bit. Little bit, Little bit, little bit. And next thing you know, you're just scared to speak up at work. You're scared to do basic things. You're scared to have a conversation with your lover or with your partner that you know you need to have. So that's the question I have for you right now. What is a conversation that you know you need to have that you've been avoiding and with who and about what? You know, in romantic relationships, some of the biggest things we avoid are sex, money. Those are the two big ones. Other things, though, desires. What we want to do with our time and our free time, where we want to go, what it's like to be with each other's families, and then what about in other areas of your life? So if you're not in a romantic relationship, what about in your dating life? What about at work? And here's the thing. These uncomfortable conversations, there's a spectrum of them, right? Like, they're not all super intense. Maybe you just need to have a discussion with someone that you work with or someone that you manage or someone on your team that you need to. There's some process they're doing that's sloppy, and you need to clean it up. You need to address it. Or they're not hitting their targets, or they're slow, or they're not meeting a certain agreement or a standard that you hold. And you need to express that to them. You need to have a conversation about that, right? That's not an intense thing. You're not firing somebody. You're not ending the world there. You're not quitting. You're not challenging the CEO in the boardroom and kicking down the door and doing something dramatic. You know, a lot of these conversations are just small little things that we need to address, and if we don't address them, they become bigger, and they become bigger. And now it's five months later, and instead of just like, hey, you didn't hit those targets like you said you would. It's like you've been doing that for five months. You motherf. In. Unreliable, lazy, terrible. You know? Then you're going to the conversation with all this heat because you've been stuffing it inside. So you have a conversation in mind, I'm sure. Maybe several. Let me ask you this. What are you afraid of? A fight, a conflict, the other person being upset? Maybe you getting upset, maybe you losing your cool, not being able to keep it all together? Maybe they're gonna see that you're pissed. Maybe it's gonna get a little messy. Oh, no. And then maybe there's these fears of just in the moment, but then fears of afterwards, right? Like something ending, something falling apart. It's just not it being the beginning of the end, it being worse, as I mentioned earlier. So what is it for you? It's important to identify because that fear, it's basically a fear of conflict is what you're looking at here. And that fear of conflict creates doubt, doesn't it? So then you're like, maybe I shouldn't have that conversation. Maybe I should forgive. Maybe I shouldn't be less judgmental. Maybe I should talk to somebody else about it. Maybe I should just do more work myself. Maybe I shouldn't be so picky. Maybe I'm being too demanding. Maybe I should. Now, we don't need to talk about that tonight. That's just gonna dampen the mood. Let's just talk about it later. Maybe, maybe I, maybe I can just get used to the way that we're making love now. And it's fine, it's good enough. I don't want to bring it up. So let's look at this. How do you know what's going to happen? How do you really know what's going to happen? Is it possible that things could be better as a result of this difficult conversation? I think it was Gay Hendricks, he had this great quote, and I'm going to paraphrase it, but it was something like everything extraordinary that you want in your life is just a. Is just on the other side of a sweaty 15 minute conversation that you don't want to have. And I love that. And it's been so true in my life, especially in romantic relationships where there's something I got to talk about with my wife Candice, and it's like, oh, God, here we don't want to death. This conversation is going to be terrible, of course. And then I go into it with that energy and then she's like, what, what, what? And I'm like, well, it's going to be terrible. And she's like, oh, God, I'm nervous, right? So obviously if you can come in with a different energy, it's going to be a lot better. But here's the thing. It's okay to get messy, it's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to bumble a little bit here. The key thing is to get into the game and to start having these conversations. Because what is the cost of not talking about it? What does it cost on the relationship? What does it cost on your experience at work? What does it cost on your anxiety? What does it cost on that diminished sense of power and intimacy and closeness and the loneliness and isolation that ensues. What is the cost overall time of your life? So what if it can open something extraordinary? Time and time again, I've seen this. Things can get better on the other side of that conversation. So how do we do it? How do you find that courage? Well, I think courage can often come from a couple of different places. One is getting so fed up with the way it's been and how much it's costing you that the pain of staying where you are and imagining that for another two years, three years, five years, becomes a lot greater than the temporary discomfort of this conversation. You know what I'm talking about? And so I'm asking you some of these questions about the cost. Another thing, though, that can inspire or motivate or give you the courage is to really look at the. The upside, the potential here. What could it bring? Because I have a philosophy that said, well, Jews, you know, if a lot of relationships, romantic relationships, basically disintegrate over time, that's the norm, unfortunately. And they either disintegrate in form, like people get divorced, or they disintegrate in emotion and connection and charge and passion, and they just become kind of cohabitating, maybe peacefully coexisting, maybe not. Housemates, roommates. And I didn't want either of those. And so I looked at the trends and my studies came across like, yeah, people don't want to have difficult conversations. They don't want to talk about what's really going on. They don't want to talk about their finances. They don't want to talk about their sex life. They don't want to talk about these things. And so I had a commitment going into my relationship that I'm going to talk about these things because I want the result. I want that extraordinary experience of getting closer and closer together year after year after year, and deepening and discovering ourselves more and more through living together, through being together and opening to just a whole other dimension of life that's only accessible through that intimacy with another. That's what I wanted. That's what I want. And so it's like, well, jeez, in the face of that, am I willing to be a little uncomfortable? That's the question I have to ask you. To create something extraordinary in your life, are you willing to be a little bit uncomfortable? So whether it's to get, you know, to. You're fed up from the costs of it, or you're drawn to what it could bring to your life, or both let's look at this difficult conversation that you're facing. Can you imagine? Can you imagine, like, going and having it today? Ooh, we're getting closer now, right? Aren't we? It's getting more real. Shit's getting real. Here we go. So now, what often happens if we imagine having it? Then we're like, okay, well, I mean, like, today. Today, or what? Okay, yeah, yeah, today. Well, I can't. I'm listening to this at night. Can't. Well, how much accountability do you want to have? You could text someone and say, hey, let's set up a meeting. I want to chat with you, something about something. Tomorrow with you. Boom. Get yourself. Then they're gonna be like, what? What did you want to talk about? Right, so you're throwing your hat over the fence with that one. Or let's say you can't do it today, you do it tomorrow. Whatever. You're gonna do this conversation soon. Then our mind's like, well, what would I say? How would I say it? How would I. I don't know what. I don't know what to say. I don't know. I don't know. It's gonna be bad. And so let's talk about that briefly here. So oftentimes, when we've been passive for too long, I want you to think about a spectrum here. And imagine a pendulum. A pendulum is just any object that's hanging from rope or a string. Imagine a tire swing. That's a type of pendulum. So imagine you pull the tire swing all the way over to passive, and you're holding it there. And to be passive might indicate no energy because you're passive. It actually takes a tremendous amount of energy to be passive, to suppress our natural desires and thoughts and feelings and perspectives and to shove it all down and not say anything. Tremendous amount of energy. That's why it drains your energy. That's why it can drain you physically. That's why it can lead to chronic fatigue and body pain and fibromyalgia and all these things from chronic suppression. So it takes a ton of energy. A metaphor that I like, that I heard from someone one time was, imagine taking a beach ball and pushing it underneath a pool or. Or the ocean with your hand and just holding it down there. And it just takes all this effort to keep it down. Now, what happens when you let your hand go? That's right. Boom. Wants to pop back up. So we've been holding it, holding it, holding it, holding it. What we're terrified of is that pendulum swinging all the Way to the other side. So the other side from passive all the way to the other side is aggressive. Aggressive is like, so passive is, hey, whatever you want is fine. I don't want to upset you. I don't want to cause you any discomfort. I'm sorry. I don't want to bother you. What I want is probably not that important. What you want is more important. Your comfort is more important. Your desires are more important. I'll just take care of myself. And that's in romantic relationships. That's at work. Whatever. So that's the passive side. The aggressive side is like, screw you and your desires. And what you want is my time now. All right, here's what I want. Here's what I think. It doesn't matter what you want. It doesn't matter what you think. And that does. That's fire, man. That can burn bridges, burn relationships. If the people don't like that, it doesn't serve in work or love. So naturally, we're hesitant about that. But here's the thing. There's a middle of that pendulum, right? There's a middle, right there. Middle of the spectrum. That's called assertiveness. You say, what's the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness? Well, assertiveness is, hey, I do want something. I do have needs. I do have desires. Here's what I think is important, and so do you. You have needs. You have desires. Those are also important. Now, yours are important to you. Mine are important to me. And look, yours are important to me, too. But I also got to focus on what I want, what I need, and you got to focus on what you want and what you need. Let's talk about it. Let's hash it out. Let's explore. Let's get really honest. What is it that you really want? What is it that you really need? What's not working for you? What's upsetting you? Okay, well, here's what's upsetting me. Here's what's not working for me. Here's what I want. And then we put everything on the table and we figure it out. We collaborate, we solve the problems. That's assertiveness. And if someone doesn't want to solve the problems with you, you try to find another way to communicate with them. If that doesn't work, you try to find another way to communicate. If that doesn't work, then you try to start to escalate the assertiveness. Or maybe you need some boundary or some consequence. So if someone is repeatedly interrupting you or repeatedly criticizing you, or repeatedly treating you in ways that are poor. You communicate about that with them, and if they keep doing it, you say, listen, this doesn't work for me. If you keep communicating that way, I'm not gonna be able to call you, and we're gonna be more distant. I'm not gonna see you that often. Let's say this was a family member. Now you've escalated your assertiveness. It's still assertive. What you want matters, what their community. They still matter. Aggressiveness would be like, shut up. Get that. You know, you're an awful, critical bitch. Get out of my life. Right? That is going to be aggressive. So assertive. Now, here's the thing. If you've been passive for a really long time, being assertive feels aggressive. It feels bad and wrong and hurtful to say, hey, listen, you told me you were going to get that report done by Friday, and I was counting on that, and you didn't. And I'm frustrated because I needed that, and now I can't do the work that I need to do, and I'm behind. So I want to find out what happened there, what's going on. How come you didn't hit that target? How does that sound to you? Does that sound like, oh, my God? Ooh, dangerous, scary thing to say. Well, first of all. And this is what I tried to do for many years, first of all, you should take out any charge. You should be assertive, but not have any of that. There's a charge there. You're saying you're frustrated. You're saying you're upset. No, no, no, no, no, no. Assertiveness should sound like this. I noticed that you didn't get the report done on Friday. How come? Well, I just didn't. There's a lot of stuff on my plate. Just couldn't get to it. Okay, I can appreciate that. Well, it's very important for me that you get that done. When do you think you'd have that done by? I don't know. It's like this sort of neutralized version, and we think that's assertive. You know what that is? That's the passive person trying to be passive. Still, under the guise of assertiveness, it's not gonna work. You gotta have some fire. You gotta have some power in there. So it's okay. It's okay to show that you're upset. It's okay to be frustrated. It's okay to be messy. It took me a while to learn this. I really did think assertiveness was like that. And it just wasn't working very often and people weren't responding to me in the way that I wanted and I still felt bad afterwards and I felt all guilty and it was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is you reclaiming your right. You have a right to say what you think, say what you want, say what's not working for you. You have a right to point things out when someone doesn't follow their agreements or doesn't keep their end of the bargain. You have a right to ask questions about that. Now you can get more skilled and you could say, instead of saying like, hey, you didn't meet that report, you, what the hell's wrong with you? That would be more aggressive. You could say, hey, I noticed you didn't hit that report. I'm frustrated because I need this thing done and I want to explore what happened with you. And here's the assertive part. You really do want to explore what happened with them. You really are curious. It's not just like, I want to explore why you messed it all up, you lazy son of a. No, you really want to know how come they didn't do it? Did something get in the way? What's going on? You want to understand their thinking, you want to understand their experience so you can collaborate and solve the problem. But along the way, like say they give you some half assed story, like, well, the instructions weren't clear from you and they subtly blame you or something. Like the instructions weren't clear and so you couldn't finish it. Okay, so then what you want to do is you want to be able to paraphrase what they're saying. So the instructions weren't clear, that's why you were not able to complete it by Friday. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Why didn't you ask anyone? Did you ask someone to clarify the instructions? You didn't come to me about it. Did you go to anyone else? So you persist. Part of being assertive is you persist because remember, what's your outcome? What is it that you want? You want this person to follow their word and get their shit done on time. So that's what you're persisting in. That's what I want. That's important to me now. What's going on in their world is important too. But here's the thing. If they're not able to do it and their excuses are poor and they're not showing up fully because some people don't show up fully at work, then it's time to start letting them know that Listen, this is important. So we gotta solve this problem. So in the future, if the instructions are unclear or for any reason, you're not gonna hit that deadline. I wanna create an agreement that you're gonna come to me or so and so on the team, so that we know that and we help you get on track. What do you think you could do? Let's collaborate. Let's solve the problem. That's a very powerful technique for assertiveness too, is to ask someone, what do you think we could do? Here's the outcome. I want timeliness and our deadlines. What do you think you could do? What else could you do? I have some ideas too. And now you're collaborating, you're solving the problem. And here's the thing, if they do it again and they fall short, the next time say, hey, listen, we created this agreement. Did you do this? Did you do that? You didn't. Okay, this doesn't work. This is not the standard that we hold ourselves to. And if you're in a position of authority, you could tell them, this is not the standard that I hold you to. I expect more than this. Yes, that's all in the realm of assertiveness. And it might feel so bad to you, oh, my gosh, I'm making that person feel bad. Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. You're not making them feel anything. You are expressing yourself. You have a right to be assertive. Now, if you're just going to them and saying, listen, you lazy idiot, what the hell is wrong with you? Or a more toned down version of aggressiveness might be like, so you didn't get that reported on time. I mean, what the hell are you thinking? Those are not really assertive. They're more aggressive. Do you see the tone? Do you see the way that you sort of don't care about the other person that what they did or didn't do doesn't, they failed you already and so you're writing them off. Can you get a sense of that? You might want to re. Listen to some of this stuff to get a sense of the examples of assertiveness. So hopefully this is helping you unpack a sense of how to do it. And look, it's going to be messy. It's not going to be perfect. Even if you communicated it perfectly right in the middle of the assertiveness realm, they could get defensive, they could react. There's no way to protect against that. And you got to still have the conversation anyway, because what's the alternative? To strangle yourself? To Suffocate yourself. To not be you, to hide, to give away your power, to not have the connection that you want. Barf. That's not the life that I want. And I'm guessing that if you're listening to this show, it's not the life that you want, is it? So what can we do about this? Well, two things. We're gonna talk about your action step in just a moment. Other thing you can do is get your butt to my online live event, the ultimate confidence breakthrough. It's coming up in just a month or so. You can still get the early bird tickets, those are still on sale for just a little bit more time. And get yourself a great access to that event at a discounted price. And it's gonna be powerful. We're gonna go deep into how to be the most assertive, bold, expressive version of you who can speak up for yourself. Because here's the thing, it's not just about techniques about what to say and how to be assertive. It's about your fear. It's about your fear of their upset, your fear of their disapproval, fear of upsetting anyone, fear of rejection or judgment of other people. Either it's that person or if someone else saw me be assertive and they judged me, all of that fear is just pushing you, pushing you, pushing you further and further from the life that you want. It's time to take control. So join me in that event. You can go to this episode@shrinkforthshyguy.com shrinkforthshyguy.com or go to draziz.coM-R-A z I z.com and click on the Events tab and get yourself access there. So that'll be my first recommended action. Now let's get into your official action step. Time for action. Action. Action. Well, this one's gonna be pretty obvious, right? Your action step is going to be to have the difficult conversation. Oh, yes. Maybe start small, maybe a slightly uncomfortable conversation. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is, you know, sweating at your armpits and your face is melting off. Maybe pick a three or a two or a four. It doesn't matter. Something, just lean into it. Maybe you disagree with someone in a low stakes environment, maybe you offer your opinion when you normally wouldn't. Whatever it is, just dip your toe in the water. Or if you're feeling bold, then jump right into the deep end. It'll only serve you in your life to start having these conversations. Not just once, but repeatedly and regularly. Awesome. Thanks for being with me. Today. Until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. 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