Dr. Aziz LIVE Stream Replay - From 2/24/2018

All right, we're. We're going. The video will automatically kick on in a minute. Sweet.

Monitoring Facebook in case more people have questions going that way. I can't remember if it shows these people. Actually.

I see that on my screen. Little eyeball with the number next to it. Up top. Hey, everybody. We're just about to get started for the first ever Facebook Live. Just figuring out our tech. Boom. Hey, everybody. Welcome to first ever Facebook live with me, Dr. Aziz, your host and confidence expert. And behind the scenes, I got Al over there. Yeah. For those of you who have ever been to a live event, Al is at all of those, doing all of the music and lighting and air, everything else, and I really do mean everything else. I call him. My nickname for him is the uehb. Ultra effective human being. Just get stuff done. We have a problem hanging posters in a room and he figures out how to get a laser to line them up, not to mention getting this Facebook Live set up. So I'm excited to be here today on a Saturday with you. And one of the cool things about Facebook Live is an opportunity to be more interactive. So I love the YouTube videos that I have where we're doing more and more. If you follow me on that channel there, we're doing more and more interaction where, you know, with the comments, I'm getting ideas from videos and I'm recording them faster than ever before. But still there's a lag time, right? Someone asks a question and I do my best to answer it, and then they get a video, which is awesome. But this is even cooler because you can ask your questions real time, I can answer them real time, and then if you have a follow up, we can go deeper. So this is a great way to interact. So today's going to be a chance to really dig into confidence because that is what I spend most of my day thinking and talking about with people, how to increase your confidence. And you know, this is the kind of thing where it's always good to reflect on that. It's always good for you to think about, take a step back and think about, how is my confidence level? And the reason it's so valuable to do this is because our confidence level is different in different areas of our lives, and it's changing all the time. It might even be changing day to day. So as you're showing up to this Facebook Live, it could be good to think about where is my edge right now? Where's the thing that I'm focused on right now? Where could I use more confidence in My life right now, not a month ago, not a week ago, but like today, where would it serve you to have more confidence? Would it be in your relationships? Romantic relationships, social life, dating, putting yourself out there, forming deeper friendships, being more authentic, being more vulnerable, maybe in your career, Being more direct, more assertive, more of a leader? And sometimes it's external stuff, like, you know, I got to approach that person, I got to speak up in this way, blah, blah, blah. And sometimes it's internal, though. Maybe you're doing that stuff, but you just want to feel more relaxed on a date. You want to doubt yourself less at work. So whatever it is, internal, external, any area of life, self confidence, other confidence, relationship confidence, career confidence, we're going to be talking about that today, and we're going to help you get to the next level, because there's always a next level in your confidence. You can always grow in your confidence. And any story you have in your mind that says, I can't do this, I'll never be able to do this. Maybe I can grow in other ways, but not here. Maybe I can do well in my work or in my health or my finances, but not when it comes to being a smooth conversationalist, socially comfortable. I'll never get there. Watch out for your always stuck, never get there stories. They're complete and total bs. Every problem has a solution or a set of solutions. And that's what we're here to do today, is to help you solve those problems. So let's start by just digging into questions. I mean, there's tons of things I could teach you. Got hundreds of videos and books and all this stuff. But that's not the point for me to get on here and teach something again. So let's answer some questions. I know we have some that came before and we have some that are coming in now. Yeah. Simple greetings. Who do we got here? Ah, hello, Dr. Axis. Very good. Thanks, Muhammad. That showed up on the screen, too. Yes, very nice. What's up, man? What's up, Mohammed? I'm just going to assume that was an autocorrect on your keyboard because probably, hopefully we know my name is Dr. Aziz. Anyway, the guy who's changed a lot of lives. Awesome. Ahmad. I think we talked on the phone one time. If you're the same guy. I remember my actor friend. Absolutely. I know. Finally live. Ishmael says I'm finally live. I know, dude. Al has been plugging away for a good six months on this, and he really even had to push hard at the last, last minute here to make me do it. And I was like, no, it's gonna be on a Saturday. I'm no. And then. So I'm really glad to be here. It's really fun and. And it's great to be with you guys. And thanks for showing up. Shows to me that you are taking this seriously, which is awesome. Very good. Other high praise of me. Very good.

Danny from the Netherlands.

Ah, what's up, Danny? Great to see you, man. Good to be here with you.

Here's something we can. We should talk about real quick.

How to find. Oh, yeah. Jennifer says thank you for your books. You are most welcome, Jennifer. I'm so glad that you benefited from them. I have three books wrote. My first one, 2013, the Solution to Social Anxiety. Then 2015 was the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. And the most recent book, Not Nice, that just came out about four months ago. Three, four months ago. I. In 2017, which is all about how to be your most bold, authentic self. Not Nice is a hot topic. All my videos from YouTube. Not Nice was the most. It was the most intriguing kind of video. People really liked it or they really hated it. And if you want to find out more about those books, go to drzbooks.com and it should take you to the page that's got all my books. But you can get them on Amazon. Audible. Audible is great. I read them myself. So if you want to hang out with me. And the books have gotten progressively longer. So not nice. It's like 500 pages. So if you want to hang out with me for 18 hours listening to Not Nice, then you could. And it's worth it. Because the reason that book is so long is because I wanted to make it as thorough as I could because the topic is so nuanced and it's hard. It's hard to change the patterns that we've had for 5, 10, 20 years of being too nice, too accommodating, too pleasing and afraid to be direct, assertive, say no, have boundaries. So I really wanted to lay out exactly how to do that in the best way that I could. So check out those books. Love Not Nice. Yeah. Awesome. Jennifer, why don't you type in, like, what's one of the biggest breakthroughs or insights you've gotten from reading Not Nice or what you've applied in your life or what really something that really shifted for you as you read that book and applied it? I'd love to. That's what I love hearing most, is, you know, what changes it's making.

Meanwhile, let's Pull up a quick question here.

All right, let's do some questions.

This is a biggie.

Oh, here we go. How do you know? Kevron says, how do you know when you have mastered confidence? Well, my mind immediately goes to. I recently. Where is it? I recently cleaned out my bookshelf. Used to have a bunch of old stuff in there that I didn't need. I wasn't even reading anymore, so I just cleaned it out and kept, like, the best stuff. And this is, of course, one of the ones I kept. Mastery by George Leonard. So that's what my mind immediately goes to, which is that mastery is not a destination, it's a process. You've never mastered something. It's just higher and higher levels of mastery. So I would say that there's no end to how confident we can be. And there's always another level that we can grow to if we're aspiring to be more. More free, more expressive, more alive, more open in our hearts, more loving. You know, you can aspire to a higher level of being outspoken, powerful, bold, direct in your career and also in your personal life. How to love more. In fact, I was just this morning doing some stuff with meta meditation. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but you should check it out. You can go. Just look up YouTube Meta M E T T A Meditation. There's a great book, forget the author's name. It's called Love 2.0, and she did a lot of research on Metta meditation, and it helps people feel better in a lot of ways, but it's kind of a loving kindness. Meditation comes from Buddhist traditional, and in it, there's, like, levels of how much you can open your heart. You know, one is to really open your heart to the people in your life that you love, really opening your heart to yourself and loving yourself unconditionally. And then loving people that are, like, just strangers. And then at the end of the meditation, they have you, like, stretching that muscle to love people that you know are your enemy or people that have wronged you, or people that you're upset by. You know, sort of the highest level of these Buddhist monks is to be able to practice this, where they can love people that have done them harm. And man, not easy, huh? So there's always another level to grow to, and it's worth it because the more. Here's the thing is, there's a lot of goodies along the way. You know, the relationship, the feelings of connection and purpose and career, success, material success. Those are the byproducts of that confidence. And as you achieve those things you realize like what feels better than all that stuff is your inner sense of confidence, how much you like who you are, feel engaged in your work and in your life. So there's no end, but it's worth continuing to do the work. And here's the thing, there's always an edge. There's always an edge to your comfort zone. So keep pushing it, keep growing.

Here's a universal, really good universal question.

So Imad says, what has been the best way for you to manage your anxiety while overcoming your social anxiety? So that's. You seem to know exactly what he's talking about. Al. You mean like general anxiety? Like anxiety about life?

Well, I'm thinking it's anxiety, like I've got it. So I'm working on it. Like how it's kind of a catch 22, like how can I manage my.

Right, right, right, right. Yeah, that's an interesting question. So it is, it's this balance because okay, so we experience, we can experience social anxiety. Here's the thing, we're not experiencing anxiety 24 7. Most people aren't. Right. So certain situations tend to bring it about. Maybe it's a certain event, you're going to go to a certain kind of conversation before the interaction, during, afterwards you're beating yourself up. So it's kind of focused in certain areas. You're scared of your boss at work or dating or something like that. So what we tend to do in life is we tend to try to avoid what's painful and we shrink our lives to move towards the stuff that we're good at and not towards the stuff that's uncomfortable. But we still feel the anxiety even though we're trying to run from it. And what happens is we get weaker in our ability to confront the challenge. So and many of you, if you're watching this and you follow my work, you know what I suggest and what everyone who's helped people overcome fear suggests is you gotta face it, right? It's a no brainer. But knowing that and doing that are two different things. So then when we start to turn towards the thing that scares us, we start to move outside of our comfort zone. You know, you want to avoid, so you approach, you want to stay silent, so you speak up, you want to hide. So you show up fully and introduce yourself right now. What's going to happen? Well, you're going to be liberating yourself but you're also going to feel anxious because you're not avoiding it anymore. So how do we manage that anxiety? What I found over the years is it really involves two things. Bold action and mastering another side of this, which is being on your own side no matter what. And that means really taking good care of yourself. So you can't just like, I'm gonna go do all this stuff. And then as you're doing it, you're like, that wasn't enough. I should be doing this better. I should be over this by now. And you're treating yourself with coldness, with harshness. You really gotta start to think about yourself as your own inner parent or inner coach, and just think about a parent who's really demanding of their kid and they want them to do better, and they're very cold about it. How's that kid gonna feel? How, like, successful is that kid gonna be? I mean, maybe outwardly they're gonna strive for success. They're not gonna feel good. So we. We need to give ourselves the support that we need. So what that looks like is you, before you're gonna go do the thing that's scary, speak to those people that intimidate you, that are, like, higher than you in your career. You. You sort of put them on a pedestal. Before you do it, you. You notice the dialogue, which is like, oh, they're not going to want to talk to me. Who am I? And you say, wait, wait. This is literally what you might say to yourself. And if you're alone, you can do it out loud. You can say, whoa, hold on a sec. Listen, no human is better as a human. It's just, we're all people on the planet. Maybe they have more experience or a more impressive track record, but I have a lot to offer, and here's what I have to offer. A, B, C and D. Look, I bet they're going to be open to talking with me. So you give yourself some encouragement and some support, and then you can do that in your head while you're talking to them. You got this. Really start to think about what would it be like to be on my own side no matter what, My own best friend. And then afterwards, this is the key part, is learning how to soothe yourself afterwards. So if you've done something outside of your comfort zone, you might be kind of amped up in your nervous system, even if it went well. But maybe if it didn't go well, or sometimes we don't even know, it just went. And our mind says, maybe that was bad, maybe that was good, I don't know. And we're just amped up and we need to master the art of self soothing. So breathing, slowing your breathing, deepening your breathing and then really communicating to yourself in a gentle, slow way. Something along the lines of like, it's okay, you're fine, you're safe. We have to learn to calm our nervous system system. And that's the balance is put yourself out there and then calm your nervous system. Put yourself out there and calm your nervous system. And things that can be really helpful for calm nervous system are going to be breathing things that get you into your parasympathetic. So there's the activation fight or flight. I'm ramped up, I'm scared, I'm ready to fight or flee. And then there's a calm, everything's okay. So what gets us into the calm? Breathing slowly in and out through your nose will bring you down into that calmer state. Stepping outside and having your feet on the grass for 10 minutes as you do this will be really helpful. Making sure that you slow your thinking with some sort of meditation can be helpful. Journaling can be helpful. But we have to have these self care practices that help us soothe ourselves as we're taking on these new challenges. That's my answer to that question. Thanks. Great.

One elephant in the room.

Is there another epic beard? Thanks, man. Yeah, the beard people have a lot to say about the beard. I was very surprised. I grew a beard when I was younger, I think in graduate school and no one cared. And now like people coming out of the woodwork to comment on it tell me it's either a pro or against. But either way, everyone's got an opinion. And not everyone, but a lot of people. And they like to tell me. And I just find it fascinating. I find it like this is what I do at my live events. Al, can you toss me one of my shoes over there? So I did this at my summer event. The ultimate confidence breakthrough. Boom. Flying shoes. And this is a fascinating demonstration, right? So I said, I held this up at the live event and I said, it wasn't this shoe. It was a much fancier shoe that I wear at my live events, a Nike free. But yeah, I get real dolled up for those things. Anyway, I said, is this a good shoe or a bad shoe? And everyone kind of sat there quietly. I was like, shout it out. Is it a good shoe or a bad shoe? Do you like it or do you not like it? And then some people say, that's good, it's bad, it's not great. I say, okay, show of hands, who thinks it's Great. You know, some people raise their hand who don't like it. Some people raise their hand. Who's neutral, who doesn't care, Right. Who didn't raise their hand because they don't even know what's going on, Right? So people, everyone had a different reaction to the shoe. And I said, well, let's call on the people, the people who liked it. Why did you like it? What did you like about it? And they would share. I like the shape. I like this, you know, this one. They might say, oh, it's minimal. You know, it doesn't have, you know, it's good for your feet. It's wide, whatever. Some people don't like it. It doesn't look professional enough. That's what one person said about my Nike freeze. I told him to get out of the event and never come back. No, I didn't do that. This is a really helpful thing for you to really grasp anything about you. Your facial hair, your clothes, your shoes, the way you smile, your nose, your voice tone, everything in the way that you show up. There's going to be people that like it, are neutral to it, and don't like it. And on an intellectual level, we know this. But on an emotional level, especially if you're stuck in nice person pleasing mode, then we feel this compulsion to get everyone to be on the neutral to positive end of the spectrum. No one can have a negative or judgmental thought. So one of the best things you can do for yourself is to put yourself in situations where you're being you. And however that's expressed, the way you move, the way you dress, whatever you're being you. And if you get some pushback, notice that there's. That part of you is like, oh, really? Okay, I'll change my shirt, I'll change my shoes, I'll shave the beard. And you just bring it on. Just realize, like, look, I cannot please everybody. It's impossible to please everybody. So in a way, the general consensus or random opinions of other people don't even matter. So what do you turn towards? You got to look inward. What do I like? Do I like the shoe or do I not like the shoe? Do I like to make those kind of jokes or do I not like how to make those jokes? Do I like to, you know, tell stories? Let's say you love model airplanes and you're just fascinated by model airplanes and you love to go take them and build them, and then maybe those aren't model airplanes. What are those airplanes that people take and they go fly them around the parks around here. Rcs. What does that stand for? Radio controlled airplanes. Let's say you're in a radio controlled airplanes and then you're trying to tell someone about it at a party and like, what are you into? And you're like, radio controlled airplanes, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're all excited about it and they're like, oh, neat. Hey, listen, I'm gonna go over here and leave, right? And then you're like, oh man, I'm a loser. Radio. And worse. What if it was someone you were attracted to? What if it was a woman that you thought was amazing or a man that was just the cutest guy there? And you're like, oh, no, apparently. Well, actually, I'm gonna make a generalization here. Are there any women that do radio controlled airplanes? Women are into it. Okay. I thought it was like my uncle, Uncle Gordon. There's two. In any case, you know, that person's like, not interested. And you're like, oh man. Maybe radio controlled airplanes are not cool. As cool as I thought, but they really are. But, you know, maybe I shouldn't have talked about it so much. And we start to second guess. If you've ever done that, you know what you're doing, you're out of yourself. Remember? It's just, is it a good shoe or a bad shoe? Who knows? There's a million. There was like 40 people at the event the last time I did this. There's going to be 40 different opinions. Am I going to decide what I do with my shoes based upon trying to get the most yeses out of the group of people? Am I going to live my life by like a random guess of a consensus? No. So if you notice yourself doing that after that RC conversation, the person's like, nah, I'm not into it. Just don't doubt yourself. Like, oh, here's what you tell yourself. Well, maybe that's just not one of my people. You know, I can still be respectful of them and wish them goodwill, but I don't. That's not gonna be one of my people. It's not gonna be one of my close friends. Because guess what? If you don't shut down at that party and you're just totally relaxed and say, oh, they're not into that. That's cool. And then you have another conversation with another person later on, they're like, so what are you into? And you're like, oh, I'm into these. And you don't get all sheepish about it. Well, these like, lame things. Airplanes. Now you're like, same enthusiasm, right? Because it's just you. I'm into radio control, airplanes. They're awesome. Very well. That next person could go, really rc. Oh, man. Either they're into it or they might be someone like me who's never not that into it. But I'd be like, wow, I have so many questions about that, about that hobby. That's fascinating. How does it work? I'd be curious about the tech. I'd be curious about if you build it. I'd be curious about what you like about it. So all of a sudden you're no different, but the next person likes it. So do you see how if you're externally dependent, it's good, it's bad, you're interesting, you're boring, you look good, you look bad, all based upon the next person you talk to. You got to get off that treadmill. You got to go inward. What do I like? What am I passionate about? What kind of shoes do I like to wear? And just own it. Own it. And if it changes later on, you like a different shoe or you no longer like RC airplanes, then let yourself grow and change and evolve. But while you're into that thing, while that's who you are, own it. That's my question. I'm gonna put the shoe down now. It's a pretty cool prop for the rest of the next thing. Everyone listen to confidence. All right, very good. By the way, it's 8pm Durayd Durade Ali. Deraeed Ali. It's 8pm in Cairo, Egypt. Yeah, all over the world, baby. That's awesome. Hell, what's up? Cairo, Never been there. Fascinating place.

From Dee. And his question is he has social anxiety and he's working on it. He's doing good work on it, but he can't bring himself to test friends, family and co workers about it. He's afraid he'll look weak or that he'll have problems or there'll be embarrassing questions. He can't get over that hump.

Right, great. So for those of you, I don't know if it came through on the mic, but this question from Dee, who has social anxiety, is working on it, is making great progress on it, but is not told co workers, friends, family about it. And it feels like it's a hurdle. He doesn't want to have awkward conversations or uncomfortable questions that they're going to ask. So to me, a few things I could say about this one. Let's just take a step back. You don't have social anxiety. None of us have social anxiety. That makes it sound like it's like a virus you've contracted or something. It's. You do social anxiety. Social anxiety is. It is a pattern that we run. Now, you might be running it a lot and even been running it for like 20 years. So you're like, whatever. That's semantic. I have it, I do it. But it's very powerful for your subconscious mind to start to separate from that label of I am a socially anxious person, I have social anxiety. Because what does that do to your subconscious mind? Well, it tells you that I have this. So I'm going to always have these symptoms. I'm always going to feel anxious. I'm always going to feel uncomfortable. Now maybe I can overcome it, but I'm still going to always have to deal with this. Versus, yeah, I do social anxiety. I experience social anxiety sometimes. Even if you experience it, what feels like all the time for you, I would encourage you to start in your language, catching it, saying, yeah, I sometimes experience social anxiety. So that's just for you. But that also might be how you frame it with your friends, family, colleagues, co workers. If you want to talk about it, you know, do you want to talk about, like, I have this thing. So sometimes people identify with their struggle and they think their struggle is who they are, and we unconsciously derive a sense of significance from it. Because, like, I have this thing, this thing that I must overcome. This is part of who I am. And so when we reveal it, like, we're like, I have this. I have this disorder. And on some level, we're looking for something. We're looking for some, like, acceptance or some, maybe even some on some way to like, impress other people that we have this thing. And I'm sure that's happening for you. I'm just talking in general for everyone, listening, to be aware of all that. And look, social anxiety is just a pattern, and it's just a thing that comes up for you sometimes. And I love your impulse to be more authentic and transparent. So if I were to share that with people, it would be something like, hey, I just want to let you know I've been reading some really interesting books about overcoming fear and social anxiety. And social anxiety is something that I've experienced in different situations. Or sometimes I feel anxious around others. And I am. I noticed it's really impacted me in my life and I'm really excited about overcoming. Depends on how close the relationship is. If it's a really close family member, I might be saying, like, you know, I've kind Of not wanted to show you this or reveal that about me because I thought you might judge me. But, you know, I'm wanting to overcome that and be more vulnerable, be more authentic in my life. Just put it out there. And that's just one way to do it. First, there's a million ways needing to do it in the exact right way. And how to do it is a form of trying to avoid rejection, a form of trying to stay safe. And look, there is no safety in hiding. You just got to get into the current. And so you got to take the leap, take the risk. And your safety police, which I talk a lot about in the Art of Extraordinary Confidence, your safety police is the voice in your head that tells you, don't do that thing outside your comfort zone because terrible things are going to happen. So it's telling you right now, don't reveal this to people because they're going to hate you and they're going to judge you. And you can try to logically talk yourself through that for years. The only thing that's going to liberate you is to take the actual risk and see what really happens. But again, I would encourage you to frame it more as, like, I experienced this thing and I'm working through it, versus I have this super terrible condition. And like, more trying to get sympathy or something like that, because that's just not going to serve anyone. Those are my thoughts. And well done, by the way. And check out the solution to social anxiety, if you haven't already. And check out chapter nine in that book called the Courage to Be Real. Directly about this stuff. Directly, 100%. So if you haven't read that or it's been a while, or even if you have read it recently and you're looking to do this work, d just go reread it, read it like once a day until you are doing this stuff. Because it's in that book for a reason. Because we all go through this. We all realize we have to be more authentic and more real in all of our relationships.

Wouldn't it be interesting if he told someone in his family and they were like, phew, I'm so glad, because. Me too.

Right? That's another thing about social anxiety is people think it's like some sort of, you know, oh, I have this horrible. It's like, you know, what leprosy, what it might have been, you know, 200 years ago or something, like, they're going to put me in a quarantined island and I'm a social outcast. It's like, look, first of all, social anxiety is a spectrum. Again, it's not a thing that you have. It's not a permanent genetic, you know, you were born with, I don't know, there's certain conditions, genetic conditions that you can be born with, blanking on spina bifida, maybe or something. That would be one where, you know, there's a chromosomal difference and you have that from birth. That's not social anxiety. Any story in your mind that you're born with it, that's in your genes. If you look at your family and say, oh, it ran in my family, my grandma had it, my mom had it, I have it, you know what that is? That's conditioning. The patterns are passed. The patterns of thought, feeling and behavior are passed down through modeling, through observation, unfortunately, through subtle manipulation of the children. Because a socially anxious parent who's not done their own work is going to want their child to conform. You know, it's like, oh, don't embarrass me. Oh, people are going to judge us. Don't do that, Right? They're going to conform. So it's not genetic. There can be dispositions, personality dispositions to towards more sensitivity or behavioral inhibition. I talk about that in the solution of social anxiety. But that's not shyness, that's not social anxiety. That's just like we might get overstimulated. In any case, you might reveal this. And a lot of people, a lot of people struggle with social anxiety, but people hide it. And if you need evidence of this, just go to any social function and see what's there. Alcohol, almost every social function. Why? Because people, to go there and meet a bunch of people, interact with people with no buffer, people are uncomfortable. Now, what does a few drinks do? Well, it calms things down. So, yeah, a lot of people are anxious. And here's the thing. What your safety police tells you is often the direct opposite of the truth. So your safety police says your friends and family and these people are going to judge you and hate you. Actually, if you have the courage to be real, you're going to find that the vast majority of them respect you more and like you more. And me telling you that is one thing. You doing that and experiencing that is what's going to change your life.

Here is a comment that is a wonderful support for that.

This is from Philippe. Hey, Philippe. I've met him before. The patterns are so difficult to overcome. However, once you do retrain the brain, then it starts to use the new skills. Tough but doable. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. Thanks for sharing. I'm gonna grab a sip of water here.

Yeah, I'll put it up, but I'll try to paraphrase it, see if that helps. It's from Kirsten.

Okay.

And basically, she's starting or building her own potential business, and she's asking about, how do you prioritize in your business? Because she gets overwhelmed. She gets totally overwhelmed, and then she destroys her motivation. Then she does nothing. It's an inaction, I would say, probably paralyzed to some degree.

Mm.

And so how do you. How do you overcome overwhelm?

This is a great question. I can see the things she's working with that she's trying to balance. Producing new content, reaching out to new clients, learning new skills, posting to social media, keeping up to date with editing, file organization, networking, maintaining gear, updating business experiences, and so forth.

That sounds like someone I know.

Yeah. Yeah, I do do all that stuff or have people on my team that do it too. So that's another thing is, you know, the delegating. But maybe that's not an option when you're first starting out. But yeah. So this is something I obviously think about a lot, is how to prioritize. So there's a lot of things. First things first. I approach overwhelm is independent of your. Of your life. It's very important, the sense of overwhelm, because we think there's all this stuff that I have to do or all this stuff that I could do or the stuff that I need to do now, I'm overwhelmed. And we think that A, causes B, all the stuff causes the overwhelm. That's actually not true, because it's possible to have all that stuff to do and not feel overwhelmed. It's possible to have all that stuff to do and feel focused or methodical or excited or thankful that you have something that's giving you purpose and drive to want to go out and do something or inspired or whatever, a different status. So why does it create overwhelm? So here's the thing with overwhelm. Overwhelm is I have to get all of this done now or most of it done now or all of this done sooner. Too much to do in too little time. That's what creates overwhelm. And that's a really important distinction, because the thing is not there's a lot to do. If you run your own business, there is an infinite number of things you can do. And even if you got the most productive in the world and had most time in the world, you and Just started hack through that like you were just hacking your way through the jungle. You could always do more. You could create new projects, you could create new whatever, reach out to more clients in more effective ways and build this out and make your business better and better and better and better. Make it grow and grow and grow and grow. So it's an endless amount of thing. So what we need to do is we need to catch that state of overwhelm and say, okay, this is me telling myself a story, that I need to do it all now. Then we want to slow down. And this is the most counterintuitive thing in the world because the freaked out part of our brain wants to speed up. But actually when we are. I learned this from one of my mentors, Rich Litvin. He says slow down to speed up. So first things first, write that down somewhere and have it at your desk. Slow down to speed up. So when you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, first thing you want to do before you try to frantically do eight things from that state, slow down and focus then. So that's kind of managing the interstate. Another thing that I might tell myself to help deal with overwhelm is to say I have all the time in the world for everything that matters. And I believe that's true. I have all the time in the world for everything that matters. And sometimes we got to get creative and we got to make some decisions about our time. So that gets more into the realm of boundaries and time management. But there's the interstate of calming ourselves down. Because from a frantic state you're going to be so much less effective. Then it gets really interesting because then we want to make a study of productivity. And I don't know if you've ever done this before, but it's really worth it. And I don't mean like year long study, but just some basic studying. One fantastic book about this, it's called Deep Work by Cal Newport. Check that one out on Audible or read the book if you want. But really good stuff. It just stresses the importance of focused work blocks. And really the problem we think is I don't have enough time. But our problem is our inability to focus and being so spread so thin and multitasking and distractions and reading that book, I mean I've always been pretty productive. But reading that book, I've just taken it to a whole new another level. I realized I would have my phone on, you know, while I was working on something. And so if I got a text, I would check the text. So I started having my phone on airplane mode during my work blocks, I started prioritizing work blocks. If you can get yourself two 60 minute work blocks in a day of deep work focused work where you're not trying to do all, you just have one thing I'm going to focus on. You know, I forget what her specifics were but like I'm going to focus on my creation of new content for this hour. I want to focus on reaching out to new clients for this hour. And you have that mapped out and you got two hours a day, five days a week, that's 10 hours of deep work time and it's really focused. You can get an insane amount of stuff done. The issue is not that we don't have the time, the issue is that we're in an anxious state, we're overwhelmed and then we get all spazzed and we do like I'm going to check social media and then I'm going to watch the news and I'm going to read something on YouTube and then, and we just bleed out our time. And there's all this stuff in deep work that talks about that when you're focused on something and then you go over to social media real quick and then go back to your thing that you're working on. You think, oh, I just lost 10 seconds there. No, I think they call it attention bleed or attention lag. Your mind is like still crunching on that other thing. Especially if it's email because email, unless you respond right away is now your mind is trying to figure out a response and let alone if it's like a, an email with some emotional charge to it. So in any case, deep work, managing that time and don't get me started on polyphasic sleep, that's my new secret superpower. Alright. Ismail says coach, when I try to own my strengths, if it, if I find somebody who does the thing better than me, then it's very hard to accept that strength. What's the solution? Great question. Great job on trying to own your strengths. So super, super important part of building self esteem and confidence is to do two things. One is to notice the ways that you tear yourself down. I call this your toxic coach. In my book five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. And probably everybody in my books has something to that effect. How you tear yourself down, that was stupid, you're not good, you can't do it, blah blah, blah. You gotta start to get aware of that and get control of that. You gotta learn how to respond to that toxic coach or it will drive you into the ground. No matter how successful you are, it will make it seem like it's not enough and you're not enough. So you gotta get control of that negative, inner toxic coach. You gotta fire that toxic coach and start getting on your own side. But then the flip side is so bring down the self attack, self criticism. But then we also have to be able to acknowledge our strengths, acknowledge what we're good at, really give ourselves credit for what we've done, and feel a healthy sense of pride for how you show up for who you are from little things like, hey, I'm a patient person. Like, I slowed down and really gave that person some attention. Or I'm a productive person, or, look, I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to take that cold shower, I didn't want to go to the gym. And I did. That was awesome. Like little things like that, you know, all the way up to like your core strengths. Like, I am really, I'm a really good writer, or I am really good with people, whatever your core strengths are. So. But the problem is we start to identify them and then when we say them, we don't believe them or our critic cuts them down. And in Ishmael's case, he's like, you know, I don't know what one of his strengths is, but he tells himself, I'm good at blank. And then he sees someone who's better at blank and he's like, no, no, I'm no longer good at blank. So here's a good distinction. Being the best versus your best being the best. Good luck, man. I mean, who is the best at anything? It's like the smallest subset of the top of the pyramid of people who've put like 10 years or more of like insane practice and focus on that one skill to get the best at that one thing, right? You know, the best basketball player, the best athlete, best runner, whatever it is they're achieving or trying to achieve. And then how long are they best the best for? A couple of years maybe. It's like, that's insane. Like, imagine like you're like the third best player. You know, there's different positions in the NBA, so I don't know. The third best wide receiver in football, in the, in the world. And you're like, yeah, but I suck. I'm not number one, right? So. And that's our ego. Our ego is always going to do that. So we just got to catch it and say, look, I don't need to be the best. I just want to be my best, which is what I'm. You know, and here's another thing. Maybe you don't even need to be your best all the time. Maybe you just need to be you. And that behind that idea of I need to be the best or even on my best always is, is this idea of I'm not, that I'm not worthy of love. And that is you confusing two things, my friend. You're confusing significance and love or connection. So significance is I'm the most. I'm unique, I'm special. We all crave that. We all want that. You know, that's the person who's famous. That's the person who's the most sought after, popular. I want to be significant. I'm listening to a biography right now. A client recommended it to me, and it's totally different than the normal kind of book I read. And it's a biography of Alexander the Great by Philip Friedman, an audio book. Freaking awesome. What I love about it is back in the day, there was no qualms about, like, my mission in life is to achieve eternal glory. And, like, there's not, like, in this modern era, like, a lot of people are still striving for glory. Like, I want to be the biggest and the richest, and my company's the best, and I have the most and the fanciest cars and stuff. And a lot of people are striving for it. But there's also this other current of, like, yeah, but I got to be kind of humble about it. And, no, I'm not really interested in just the money and the success and the fame, and it's no big deal. And there's a lot of other subset of people like me. You kind of grew up in a culture of sort of, I don't know, almost like New age stuff, where it's like, yeah, that's bad to strive. And you gotta let go of the ego, man. Eckhart Tolle taught me that you should. It's all about ego, and you should let it all go. And I'm listening to this book, and I'm like, there's something pretty badass about just, like, you know, going balls out for as much significance as you can get anyway. You can pursue that, but you can get lost in the sense that I need to be significant in order to be loved. And I call this the significance gateway. And I teach it in depth, in Confidence University, which is being constructed behind the scenes as we speak and will be coming out soon. It's epic. Like, tenfold bigger and better than any other program I've ever created. Very excited about it. It's my masterpiece. But significance, so significance gateway. When I'm this significant, it's like the certain bar you got to leap over. When I'm this significant, which in your case is the best in the world or in the room, at least then I can be worthy of love and connection. And so we're always striving. And you know what that is? That is like an achievers form of avoidance. An achievers form of what It's. And I see this in my clients as well, especially my mastermind clients, because they're usually successful in life in some area. And so they want to just keep doing the thing that they're good at. But really you don't need to be any more significant to have love and connection right now. You just got to be able to more boldly and freely and openly share who you are with those around you. Ask what you want to ask, say what you want to say, Reveal something about your interests or your hobbies or your struggles, and then you will get that love and connection right away. You don't have to go strive for five years to get the best abs in the world or be the richest or conquer the known world and the Persian empire. Like you can just be you and get that. And I work, I worked with people for months and I try to show them that and they're like, yeah, right, that's probably true. But I really do need to conquer Asia first. Wouldn't that be. Are you sure? This other way. I'm like, dude, yes. Yes, I'm sure. Just try it. And they're like, you know, and then eventually most of my clients I can sway over. And eventually they will. And when they do, they realize like, whoa, hey, whoa. I was accepted for me all this whole time. Who knew? And then from that place, feeling loved, feeling worthy. You want to go out and achieve something great. You want to pursue undying glory and have your reputation live on forever, then you can do that. But it's coming from a very different place.

Here's something that's common in all versions of self help and business building.

I'm listening. I'm going to grab one thing over here. Going to come back from sick.

I realize they should be doing this while I'm talking.

It will help me out greatly. Go ahead. What's the question?

Holding it up? Yeah.

Okay.

It's actually two people have the same question at the same time.

Must be a good one. Okay.

Which is basically they. They bought this. Josh in particular, bought not knights all the bonuses. Done anything with it yet?

Procrastinating bonus materials are not nice. The book. Oh yeah. I think when we first sold the book we were given doing promo and they got the Art of extraordinary confidence interviews. $500 program. Listen to me interviewing like 15amazing, super successful people all around their journey to confidence. I learned so much doing those interviews. You should totally watch them. This happens with a lot of books and programs. I get them, but don't read them or do them. How to change this pattern and if this is meaningful.

Muhammad says specifically you can't seem to go through.

Get to part two of programs of the book. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. Part one is like helping you understand the problem. Part two is helping you solve it. Part two is scary. Part two is when you're going to have to douche stuff. Is this a PG13 event? Part two is you're going to have to do stuff. I know. Scary, isn't it? So that to me reflects that you have not reached a threshold moment yet. A threshold moment is when you experience this shift, the level of frustration that you feel about the way things are, plus the fear of living life another 5, 10, 15, 20 years like this, that horrible sinking. Oh my God, I can't imagine that feeling when that clicks. And all of a sudden, compared to that fear and despair and dismay and frustration compared to all that negative feeling, the discomfort of being more assertive or having a boundary or asking for what you want, all of a sudden it pales in comparison. That happened to me. I talk about a not nice, my threshold moment when I'm sitting there about to play Warcraft 3 again to escape the fact that I feel like a loser and. And I'm never going to date. And my roommate's in the other room laughing with his girlfriend. And I have this piercing moment where I'm like, I'm never going to have that. And I believe that thought. And I feel so low, so depressed about my life. And I tried already to change it and I couldn't. I tried so many things. It must be broken. And just that. Like that stew and just really feeling. And I think the real kicker is not living in that weird denial that we do when. Which is like, somehow it's going to get better somehow later. Most people that are smokers, cigarette smokers, live in some sort of denial about what's happening to their body. And a lot of them will have a story about when they're going to quit. Oh, when I hit this milestone when work Calms down when my son's born, when I reach X years old, I'll quit. Or I just don't like to think about it. And they kind of live in denial. And we can do the same thing with not living our life fully. We live in denial. That that's. Look, there are people that are 80 years old that are regretting a life unlived. There are people that are 60 years old that are 50 years old, that is a 40 years old, that are. That are regretting 20 years, 10 years, however many years that have gone by of a life not lived. And it is painful because there was a squandering of this gift and that's. That weighs tons on us. And so we got to wake up and see the effect and say, well, this frustration and this fear of the future is going to mobilize me to say, you know what? I'm going to do whatever it takes. And that's why I share the five levels of commitment in the book. In the end of part one and not nice. You got to get to level four. And level five. Level four is I'm going to do my best. And I'll give this quick rundown for those of you who have not read that in the book. So the five levels of commitment. The first level is no commitment. Do I want it or not? I don't know. You're probably not even watching this live stream if you're at that level. You're not getting my books or anything. The next level of commitment is I want it, but I want the magic pill. I want the quick fix. I want it quickly and easily with no effort. I want the abs by getting my stomach shocked by a machine when I'm sitting on my couch. You know, I want the pill that says, take this pill and eat whatever you want. You want burgers and pizza? Great. This pill is gonna make it so with no effort whatsoever, you all of a sudden are, you know, ripped. And you know, we want that and so we're not. We want the result, but we're not really committed to doing anything. The next level of commitment is I'll try. I'll try and I'll try gets us some better results. I'll try gets us from being like stuck stagnant water to like slightly moving a little bit. But here's the thing with I'll try now. I'll try is I'll buy the book, but I won't really read it that far. I'll try is like, oh, he says to do an exercise here. I'LL do that later. I'll try is that level. And you know what kind of results we get with I'll try is minimal results, poor results.

Yoda not fond of number four.

That's right. Yoda says do or do not. There is no try. And there really isn't. It's try is like, I'm not fully mobilized yet. I'm not ready to do whatever it takes yet. And here's the thing, no one can make you ready. And if we're looking for someone outside of us to make us ready, then we're still at that level. We're probably at level two. Then what's the matter? Who's the magic person? It's not the magic pill, it's the magic person. It's got the magic powers. That's going to like hypnotize me into being ready. No, you must activate that in yourself. And sometimes you got to go into the pain and see how bad it is and see how bad it's been. And that is not going to get better. It is not. This is where I am, like, not the positive thinky guy. It's like, yes, you can improve. I believe in the power of the personal. The ability for the human to transform and evolve is incredible. And it doesn't just happen and it won't just happen. And so if you've been stuck for five years and you're running those same patterns for another five years, you will be in the same place or worse five years from now. Because now those patterns are more entrenched. Now the stories of why you can't have it and why you're messed up are even stronger. The fear you've been avoiding for five years and you avoid for another five years. Not only at first, I used to say, well, the fear gets stronger if you avoid it. But just about a month ago, I said, no, that's not true. The fear doesn't get stronger. Your ability to face fear gets weaker because you're not using that muscle. So really get in touch with that while it's bad. Then it gets us out of level three into level four, which is I'm going to do my best. I'm going to do my best. Which means I'm going to get the book and I'm going to do the exercises. And at the end of the book, I have the boldness training boot camp, which is a 30 day program of like do this each day. I'm going to do my best is I'm going to go through that dang boot camp and do it. And I'm going to do my best, get some powerful results in life. It gets some significant results in life. And it doesn't always lead to the transformation that people want. Because here's the thing, as good as that book is, and it's pretty amazing, a book is just a book, right? Or maybe a teacher that you're working with or some person that gives you tips or a program or something. Like, you try it and maybe it has some results, but they don't last. Or you hit a wall or something happens, right? It's not one thing is not the solution forever for everything. And so what happens with I'll do my best is we put some effort in. We put a lot of effort in, and then we hit some snags and we're like, well, I guess that doesn't really work. And we'll still stop at some point. And then the real transformation. And I'm saying you can drastically improve your life at level four, commitment. But if you want, like, real radical and rapid transformation in your life, which is what I'm all about, and probably you are, on some level, if you're watching me here is I'll do whatever it takes. And this is the difference between I'll do my best is like the current of the river. It's like a flowing river. And that's good. You're getting somewhere. I'll do whatever it takes is like a waterfall. It's a gushing waterfall. That's just like flying into the unknown, flying off the edge. I'll do whatever it takes. So instead of reading, I'm going to read that book. And then when I hit some snags in there, I got a lot out of that material. I got a lot out of that book. But you know what? I still don't quite understand boundaries. Aziz talks a lot about boundaries in that book, and I've applied some really good stuff. But he also mentioned these other books about boundaries. I'm going to get those books and read about boundaries. Great. Oh, you know what? Okay, now I'm also going to join. There's this men's group I can be a part of. I'm going to go join that. Okay, great. I'm going to do whatever it takes. And when you do that consistently, not only in the. I'm talking about teaching and resources and, you know, pursuing things, but also in yourself, like, I'm going to take that action and that action and that risk and that risk. And if you do that consistently over time in a shorter time than you could imagine. I'm talking months. Even if you've been stuck with something for decades, I'm talking months. Your life can be radically different. And the only problem you're going to have is your identity takes some time to catch up because all of a sudden people are responding to you differently and you're kind of like, huh, me? Me? No, you must be. You're finding me attractive. I'm confused. And then your identity catches up and you're like, oh, right, right, right, right. Of course, of course. And that's the only challenge that you're going to have.

A two parter.

Yeah.

From Joel.

Yep.

And one is a question that the reason I bring it up is why don't we tell people how they can pursue other coaching options?

Oh, yes. Can we have a conversation session soon? Okay, so let's see here. Best way to do that would be to go to the my main webpage, socialconfidencecenter.com socialconfidencecenter.com There's a confidence coaching tab there at the top of the page. Go to that and you can find out more info. You can also enter your name and email and then we'll send us the info. And then Janae, my director of client care, will get in touch with you and we'll start to see kind of what you might need. And we can have someone, I have coaches on my team that could speak with you. And also if you go to the about, there's a way to email us directly if you want to send in more information. But even if you just do the form on the confidence coaching, we'll reach out to you and just try to find out a little bit about your situation, what's going on, what your challenges are. And there are so many ways that we can support whether it's. We have one on one coaching with a coach on my team. I do. I have a mastermind program that I run. It's a group coaching program. It's extremely powerful. We have live events. We got one coming up in just two weeks. Yeah, two weeks from now. Got some new lights coming in, thanks to Al, the ultra effective human being. We're going to set those up. Very exciting.

Darn. You're sold out, too.

Yeah. I think Janae was asking me the other day, she's like, what's the capacity of the room? And I was like, I don't know. We're going to find out. So it's going to be full, which is fun, it's going to be exciting and it's those Events are awesome because, you know, talk about a group of extremely motivated people. And when you get a group of people like that together, the energy and it's like the exact opposite of the voice in your head that says, no, you can't. It's like the yes, you can energy is super strong and people end up doing stuff they've never done before. So those are great ways to get in touch. Looks like Al's pulling up. That's gonna put you to Wistia. Yeah. Because it auto completed to Wistia. Al's looking up. Are you looking up the events? Al's going to share a screen of the events. Not private. What is. Oh, is it. Did it finally happen? I thought I paid that maybe. Okay. Oh, I see. That'd be funny if it was because they keep sending me. Hostgator is what we're talking about. They keep sending messages saying I need to pay the money. I'm like, dude, I paid my bill. Hostgator, what's up? All right, so here's the. Al's gonna throw this on the screen in just a second.

Wait a minute. You're seeing it?

Are you sure?

I'm not sure.

This.

I've never done this before.

Al's never done this before, but he is uehb, an ultra effective human being. So if there's any way to put the. There we go. Like that. Ultra effective. There it is. Supremely confident Conversation Master is the event that's coming up in March, March 9th through 11th, 2018. That is awesome. That's three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday where we're going nonstop on how to be a conversation Master. And there's some two major components to that. One is a ton of nut nuts and bolts. Skills of like, well, how do you start conversations? What do you say? How do you know what to ask? How do you never run out of things to say? How do you be more spontaneous and direct and all this stuff we're going to be teaching you all that. But it's very experiential because you can learn that, you know, from a book or from a website. So we got to get you doing it and get you practicing it and get it from up here into your body because a lot of people there know kind of the ideas but like really doing it. And of course what you find when you start to have people really doing it is that the real issue is not just I need the technical skills. The real issue is fear, self doubt, self esteem. My stories aren't interesting. I'm uncomfortable with eye contact who am I to share that? The. They're going to be upset with me if I start a conversation with them. And that's where we do a lot of deep work at the event. Because that's what you know about my books and my videos. I'm all about that. Like, the confidence is an inside job. So how do we help you transform that? That's what we're going to do for three days in March. Very excited about that one.

Tell him how I got here.

Oh, yeah, he went to get here to check out the events because this one is mostly full. Maybe we could fit one more in. I don't know. We should probably figure that out before we keep selling tickets. But then. So, yeah, so go to socialconfidencecenter.com events. That's my website, socialconfidencecenter.com and there's an events tab at the top and you can find out. There's two more. There's one in the summer called the Ultimate Confidence Breakthrough. That one is all about raw boldness, power, authenticity. Less nice, more you. How to eliminate your fear of embarrassment, of rejection, and just really show up powerfully, which is good for your social life, but also every other area of your life. And then in the fall, we have one the unlimited dating and relationship confidence. So how do we take all this confidence stuff and apply it to our love lives? And how do we date confidently and create extraordinary relationships?

Here's part two from Joel, which is really good because he's talking about physical symptoms.

Aha. Joel says, I keep getting heartburn often when I get tensed about something like a talk on my presentation. What can I do? Yeah. So anxiety and all emotions produce physical sensations in our body. And if we have emotions, intention, over several days or weeks, we will also form chronic forms of pain like back pain and muscle tension and neck pain and jaw problems and stomach problems. And so those are all signs of emotion that we need to work with. So how to work with that? Well, it's just anxiety. So whether the anxiety is showing up as burning sensation in your heart or your low back hurts, you want to focus less on the physical symptom and more on the anxiety that's underneath. So how do you work with that anxiety? Well, I would look at what the anxiety is coming from. What am I afraid of? He says before presentations. Right. So usually when we're afraid or anxious about presentations, we are afraid of our performance. We're afraid of being judged. That's almost universally the case. So what I would do is I would first and Foremost, get your stuff together and prepare, because that will help you. Competence leads to competence. So, you know, don't let the fear stop you and put you in procrastination mode. Prepare. Run through your presentation, practice it, Develop your slides, do whatever you're going to take. Then also look at what am I most afraid that people are going to judge me about? They're going to be like, what? Oh, he was stiff or he was boring, or his presentee doesn't know what he's talking about. Come up with a very specific list of all the things you're scared of. And next to each one, write a response to it. Write how you can handle it. Write what you would say in response to this, even if no one ever said it to you, but you're just afraid they're going to judge you for it. You got to get to a place where they might judge me for being dry. Okay? And as you realize you can handle anything, then the anxiety starts to reduce.

Just want to show everybody that we have some multiple questions from people we've already answered. I'm going to try and grab some new ones, but we'll come back.

Okay? Yeah, yeah.

So everybody gets a chance to get more answered.

Nikki says, hi, Aziz. How do you stop trying to be someone else? For example, I often hear myself saying to myself, you should do more of blank. Just like Dr. Aziz. How do I stop that so I can be myself instead? Instead, yeah, definitely don't want to be me. It's a mess. Yeah, that's just. Even in the wanting to be me or whoever you're wanting to be, like, that's really just a reflection of something that you want, like, maybe you want to cultivate. What is it that you want to emulate? Do you want to. Is there a certain quality of boldness or whatever? So you want to see what is that quality that I want to develop in myself? And also that is key is letting go. Like, there's this idea of if I were someone else, if I were just like, so and so, then I would be what? Then you would what? Have friends, you'd have a relationship. You'd be happy, you'd be worthy. Usually what it comes back to is, then I'll be somebody, then I'll be worthwhile. And that's a long uphill quest that never bears fruit. The only person that you can be is you. And anything that I can say on the subject is going to sound cliched and trite, but it's true. Right. So who are you? Who are you? And what are you about and what are your values and is that enough? And you want to really want to do some inner work to get to a place where like, I am me and I am enough and this is me. And the more you can be you. And here's the thing, when we have this pressure to be better and pressure to be like someone else, what we're not doing is we're not putting ourselves out there as we are as much as we can. And so we're not as powerful in the world. We don't get the same level of impact and results and response from other people. But if you can let go of trying to be someone else and just fully be you, then you start to get this response from other people and it reinforces it. So I actually have a chapter in the end of Not Nice. I think it's chapter 14, right towards the end of the book called 100% you. And it's all about that. And I even tell a story in there about how for many years in my professional life, I'd always be comparing myself to Tony Robbins because he's sort of like the kingpin and the stuff self development world. And I always be like, oh, Tony Robbins could do better here. Tony Robbins would do this. And it was always like, I should be more like him. I talk all about that and how to let that go. And so that would be a great place to go further is with that. And that book's really all about authenticity too. So it would help you develop that in general too. Miles. Hey, Miles. My anxiety is mild and I've always been able to get by socially, but I have a felt sense of not being fully myself. I think I get complacent because I feel like where I am is good enough. Any tips on pushing yourself to the next level of extraversion and expressiveness? But why? What's the. It's mild anxiety. I get by. I feel good. I'm. It's good enough. So I would say, what's the motivation to change? The only thing that I can see in there that might motivate you is I have a felt sense of not being fully myself. So here's the thing. The only thing that really motivates us is to get out of our comfort zone is we want to is desire or getting away from pain. And really getting away from pain is more powerful than what we want. Because we could want it like, oh yeah, that would be great. It's a lot of work though. I don't know. But when we really feel something that's like not good in our lives or painful in our lives. Then we start to like. It's like an itch. It's like a. It's like a little pebble in your shoe. It starts to really bother you. And so I would focus in on that. What is not being myself? What's the effect of that? The subtle effect of that? How does it make you feel at the end of the day? What's the cumulative effect after a month or a year of that? What's the effect in your relationships? What's the subtle effect on your energy? And when you start to see that, it might give you the impetus to really get into action and change. That's what I would say for that. Jan. Hi, Aziz. I'm trying to be more attractive. I see the pictures done. Problem solved. Next question. Attractive man. So I'm trying to speak with more energy. I see. So he means like, you know, personality wise. So I'm trying to speak with more energy to use nicknames, etc. Nicknames of like, the people. Sport, what's up, sport? What's up, Tiger? So my son Armand has gotten like, probably the most nicknames in our family. So his name is Arman Zaim. My older son, who's 4, Armand's 2, dubbed him Mani when he was born. So we mostly called him Mani for the first couple years of his life. And now it's Arman and Mani. But so sometimes we would say Mani Chani. Very natural progression. You say Mani Chani, you know, and so then you start calling him, and then sometimes you say Mani Chani Chani. You just add to it. And then somewhere made the shift from Monty Chany to just Chany. Sometimes we call them, hey, what's up, Johnny? And then one day I said Chonny Chonkers. I was like, zaim, where's Chonny Chonkers? And then it progressed into sometimes saying, hey, Zaim, are you going to give that to Chany Bonky Bonkey? And just like this long string of random names. So those are the nicknames that you need to use with people. Your name's Sarah. Can I call you Sarah bear McFerra? No, don't do that. All right. But I have created some kind of obsession with how to behave. Now. I'm repeating these rules. Did you read pickup? Have you been studying pickup artist stuff? This sounds. This smells of pickup artist negative side effects. I know these. Well, now I'm repeating these rules on how to behave all the time in my head again and again. Yeah. And I feel the need to repeat these thoughts. It's kind of frustrating for me. But if I try to stop repeating these rules, I have almost feeling like I don't know how to behave. Yeah. So how do you have some advice on what to do? It feels to me like a Lulu situation. Yeah, dude, Jan, thanks for your question. I feel you. I feel you. Because I went from. So here's. This is the issue. We go from like social anxiety or running that pattern a lot which in a lot of ways is low self esteem. I'm not look in your. In Jan's worldview, John, Jan, his worldview, I'm not attractive. That's the identity. That's just. That's the place we're starting from. I am trying to be more attractive. So if we're trying to be more attractive on some level there's a story, the belief I'm not attractive. So we're already starting from a negative place. We're already starting from not the truth really. You're already not. You're already not able to be who you are and to own your value right now. So all that other stuff aside, how to behave, I would start digging right in to like I'm assuming this is romantic stuff. Maybe it's socially too. But let's. The way he's talking and seems romantic connections. What's great about you. Can you recite that? Do you know that make a list of 10 reasons why someone would be lucky to be on a date with you or in a romantic relationship with you or a friend of yours. If this is about social outside of dating, what's your list? What are 10 reasons why it's good to be around who you are just as you are not by applying all the rules that you learned. Just you at your most relaxed when you used to not even think about it and really get in touch with that because then. And that's the most important step because then if you're coming from that place of I am, what value do I bring? Not when I'm playing all these games, but just as me. And then when you really get in touch with that, it will start to change how you show up. And man, I used to learn. I went from that place of low self esteem, learned all these pickup artist rules and got obsessed like I have to do this or I'm not going to be attractive. I got to do this or that. And it led to some. I had more outward success in dating. I didn't feel good though. I felt anxious a lot. And so some of what they teach is good. But really, the core of raising your own sense of value matters way more than a lot of the particulars. That's the first place I would start, Jen. And then I would just start saying, look, from that place, if I knew that I was awesome, if I knew I had so much value to bring to a relationship just for who I am, then what would I say? Then what would I do? And you got to reclaim the authority. You got to be the authority in your life. Not some book that you read, not some pickup artist. Like, how would I behave? Because that's you. And that's the most attractive thing of all. If the boldness and the attractiveness that comes out of you and you're fully owning yourself, that's what's going to attract dating and relationships in your life. And of course it's going to be another. It's not out yet. I wish it was already out. Confidence University just finished recording the entire dating mastery course that's part of confidence university. 42 lessons. Goes massively in depth. It's like the best of both worlds because we teach you some of the skills and the ways to be externally, but it's rooted entirely in core confidence. So there's none of this weird, I'm losing myself. You just become more and more powerfully you. So definitely check out that program. We're looking for a release date of a launch in May, but might be sooner. So very excited about that.

Okay, this is complex.

Okay, let me get a sip of water. Here we go. He's complex. I like the picture. It's the Jordan Belfort.

I think the best thing to have you do is read it because it doesn't make sense until you see the context.

All right, everybody settle in. Rasma says hello. I asked this question on YouTube. I'll copy and paste it here. I probably didn't read that part, but anyway. Hello. I have many controversial viewpoints. One of those viewpoints is that people always have the right to choose. And the most problematic one in relationships. Okay, controversial viewpoint one is that people have the right to choose. Is he talking about, like, pro life or. Okay. And the most problematic one in relationships is that I reject to acknowledge the birth country as my country. Just because I was born in some random place, that doesn't mean it's my country. Fair enough. And people fail to understand that. Some people are even so deeply brainwashed that they think this is a fact. And they keep talking as if that was my country or those people were my people. Sure. Or as if that culture were my Culture, or as if that language is my language. And to be blunt, this gets on my nerves, but I keep the intense anger inside and be nice. Good. Stuff it down into your belly. And because it is so common to assume this, I can't seem to be able to make any friends. Of course, I mean, while being my authentic self, which does not have that country, culture, people, etc. In its identity. So what would you do if you were in this situation?

Sounds like he believes that wherever he is from has a lot of negative connotations.

Yeah, I mean, I have a. I'd be curious if he's. So are you in the same country that you were born in that you don't identify with and people are still relating to you as if you do? Or if did you move to another country and people are saying, oh, but you're still from blank. So that. So let's just assume he's in a new country and people like, oh, but, yeah, but you were born here, right there. Right. Man, this can be complex because I don't know where you are in the world and what country you move from, from where to where. Because there can be a lot of cultural pressure. There can be a lot of racism. There can be of a lot. A lot of rejection of people based upon their backgrounds. So that exists in the world. I'm not going to say this is all in your head. You might be getting that pressure. Right. So let's put that on the table. And the power that we have always comes from realizing that you do have a choice. That's what you said in the beginning. Right? So how am I going to choose to respond to this? So first things first. It sounds like you're clearing yourself. Like, I don't identify with where I was born. I don't identify with that culture. It doesn't fit for me. It's not the right fit for me. And that's totally your prerogative. That's your choice to say, look, I am going to be different here. Now the question, though is now you're in this new place, why are you getting all this pressure or all this, like, you're supposed to be this way? Are you bringing that into your life in some way? Are you showing up? Are you attracting people that are kind of pushing on you? Do you feel guilty about it? You're saying you're nice. How could you be more a first things first? If I were in that situation, I'd look at, how can I be more outspoken in the situation? So someone's like, oh, you should know your people are da blah, blah, and you're like, no, I don't really know that. I don't really feel that identified with that culture. Just say that again and again and again until people start to get that that's not, you're not going to be that representative of that culture. I'd also look at who are you hanging out with? Do you want to change or upgrade your friendship group so that you're hanging around people who don't, who have similar viewpoints to you, who don't care as much? There are people that don't value historical place of origin and culture as much like you. Right. So can you. They see it more as like, I'm an individual or I'm who I, how I behave in the world, not where I came from. So find those people. Find your people. It could be in the same city. It's just a matter of we get in comfort zones. Oh, well, I know these people. Even though they pick on me for this, I'll still hang out with them. So you got to take the leap, step into the unknown and say, I'm going to find the people that I really resonate with. And if it's certain family members or whatever, you got to look at where am I spending my time and can I reduce, minimize time with those people and start to maximize it with people that really support and inspire me for who I am and who I want to be in the world? That's my answer to that question. Duraid Ali Is it okay to feel pain and want to give up while overcoming social anxiety, low self esteem, and problems with eye contact? Yeah. Is it okay? It's like part of the process, man. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole battle, right, Is like the taking the step and then the what I'll say, I say this in. Well, I've said at my most recent live event a number of times, but it's our biggest obstacle, our biggest challenge is not that we don't have the skill or that we have patterns of social anxiety. The biggest obstacle is doubt. Self doubt is the voice in your head that says, and here's the thing, what Philippe said earlier, right, it's doable and it's hard. And look, that's the truth. I'm not here to sell something at level two commitment where it's like, take this magic pill and it'll all go away. Because that's not how it was in my experience. It's a road, it's a process, it's a journey, it's Effort over time, it's hard at times and it's worth it. It is so worth it. Because when you break through to the other side, and that doesn't mean you never feel anxiety again, but you break through to a new normal, a new level, a new plateau, where all of a sudden you can be more yourself, you can have friendships, you can date. It's awesome. It feels really good. And then you get to the next level, like, wow, not only can I date, but I can create an extraordinary relationship. It's awesome. And oh, wow, now I can be more powerful in my career. I achieve a new leadership position or I start my own business. It's awesome. So it's worth it. So, yes, you might feel like you want to quit sometimes, but then just dig into something that inspires you. Whether some of my materials, hopefully my materials do that for you. And some of you listening the YouTube channel, the podcast, we should do a little plug for the podcast. If you haven't been listening to this, definitely listen to Shrink. For the shy guy, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com we've been doing that for, geez, three years now is how long it's been going.

Good for women too.

It's good for women. So I just said that in a recent episode I recorded. I'm now using Guy. It started out for men, right? Now I'm saying it like my son, my four year old son Zaim says guys, he's just like, hey guys. And he'll say it to men, women, he'll say it to when there's just one person, like just him and Candace, my wife are hanging out and he'll be like, hey guys. Hey guys. Guys, let's get oranges. So it's guys, girls and guys. But check it out, there's a lot. You can just get a lot of inspiration or any other teacher book material that gives you inspiration to hang in there and keep doing the work and listen. Sometimes you need to take a break. You don't always need to be pushing your comfort zone and doing stuff. Every day there's pushes and then rest, you know, find your path, but stay in the process and you will break through to the next level and it will be worth it. And you're awesome and I love you. Imad Confidence, muscle building. Top exercises that one can practice on a daily basis by you Confidence. Okay, so daily exercises for confidence building. You know, one that I'm a huge fan of right now, which is totally within your control and totally not a little out of left field. You Might not think of it as a confidence building exercise is cold shower. What? So I've been studying Wim Hof, who's awesome. You should look him up, go to YouTube and type in vice V I C E Wim Hof. There's like a 45 minute documentary about him, also known as the Iceman Dutch athlete. But I went through his training, his 10 week course where you learn how to be more cold tolerant and stronger in your body, stronger immune system so you don't get sick. And he's a big proponent of cold cold exposure. So you start by taking a 30 second cold shower at the end of your normal hot shower. You work your way up till you're doing just cold. And now for the last maybe three weeks or so, I've done nothing but cold showers, 10 minutes a day. He had this one day challenge where you do 10 minutes for a cold shower. And I was like, this is so powerful. I'm going to do this every day now. You don't have to do that and start small. And of course, whatever. Check with your doctor before you do anything along these lines. And if you have health conditions, check with your doctor, make sure a cold shower is right for you, blah, blah, blah. Disclaimer. And once you've done all that and your doctor says yes and they make all your decisions for you, then you can do it. And then try it out. Start with 30 seconds of cold at the end of your shower and then work your way up. That builds confidence in so many ways. Because what's going to happen, and here's why this is a powerful confidence building muscle. Because at the end of the day, the only thing that stops you from doing the bold move in life. You know the bold move, the one where you're assertive. The one where our friend who was sick and tired of people pegging him for the culture they came from, he's all nice. The bold move for him is to say, hey, stop doing that. I don't like that. Just let it rest. I was born there, but that's not who I am. Like, boom. Saying that directly or being more assertive with your boss or approaching that person you're attracted to, whatever it is. The only thing that stops you from the boldness that you want is the voice in your head that says, that's gonna be uncomfortable. They're gonna reject me maybe. Or they're gonna say you're being different or whatever else. Or it's just unknown. It's gonna be uncomfortable to get embarrassed. No, no, no. That's Just not right. That's the only thing that stops you. Guess what? You can get direct access to working with that voice every day when you take a shower. Because before you flick your water on cold, whether you start with cold or you're doing your hot, you know what's going to happen before you turn it to cold. That voice is going to kick in, turn it on cold now. But it's so warm. That's going to be uncomfortable. Is it really safe? Isn't that bad for you? I mean, come on, it's dangerous. You could die. Don't do it. Or, you know, in my case, I know it's healthy. You could look up the health benefits of cold showers. There's. There are many. But now I've been doing it and I'm committed to doing it no matter what. So there's no negotiation. That's what I'm trying to build in myself is a sense of when I say I'm going to do something, that voice has no power to stop me. And I'm just trying to refine that to higher and higher levels of willpower and self. Self mastery. So I know that I'm going to do it. And yet that voice still tries every morning. Today, no. But it's losing power because it's like it can't say anything to stop me. So now it's just kind of like, maybe we should just wait a few minutes before we do it. Maybe we should take a slightly shorter shower today. And so here's the thing. Just do it and study that voice and practice overriding it and going into discomfort. And if you could override that voice and go into the discomfort of your cold shower, you guess what you can do when you're in that meeting. Override the discomfort of speaking up and do it. And I've seen this, and this is not just me. I introduced it to people in my Mastermind program and a lot of them started getting into it. And we've seen a direct result of boldness, of power, of willpower. So that's my cutting edge current confidence building technique. And I think we have a video coming out on YouTube tomorrow. I think the ice bath one is coming out tomorrow. Did you watch that one? Oh, Amy. Amy checked it out. But anyway, you'll see me doing an ice bath tomorrow. It's fun.

I think it's so good. You should probably mention too, for a daily thing, if you're out and about the whole friendly greetings.

Friendly greetings, yes. So a less random one, more direct one will be friendly. Greetings. So this one is basically you walk down, when you're out and about, look for opportunities to just say hi to people. So simple, so easy. You could do a more kind of thorough one where you find a busy street, walk down and say hi to 10, 15, 20, 25 people. You want a high number because you want to get comfortable with. Some people are going to say hi back, some people are going to ignore me, some people are going to be excited, some people are going to give me a weird look, but you just keep doing it and you become more and more impervious to any response. You can also look for more casual opportunities like you park your car, you walk into some building, you just say hi to three people as you go in. And the more you practice that, that one's so simple, but so powerful, so friendly. Greetings.

This guy's going to embarrass you first.

He's going to embarrass me?

Yes.

Unpossible, I think. I don't know. Let's find out. Alex says, Dr. Z's, you're one of my favorite people on this planet and you've helped me overcome so much. So I just wanted to thank you for that, first of all. Was that the embarrassing part? Oh, well, that's actually very sweet. Thank you so much. Man, I am so glad to hear that. And I love hearing about that, about what people have done as a result of learning from my experience. Because when I turned off Warcraft 3 and decided I was going to learn how to not be such a loser and learn how to date, I was like, I'm such a loser, right? I had no thought about other people. I didn't care about anyone else. I was like me. And it was only later that I realized that, oh, that was like way bigger than me. Something moving through that was part of my. One of my core missions in life is to help inspire radical and rapid transformation as many people as I can. So when I hear that that's being carried out, I just feel super grateful. So thanks for sharing that, Alex. Second of all, his question is, I have a question for you. I have a tendency to put people on a pedestal, whether it be a good friend or a romantic partner. When I do this, I get more nervous around them and I find it hard to be in the flow. What would you recommend I do to combat this? That's a great question. Yeah, we can do that, right? You know, whether it's they're really attracted to us for some reason or they embody certain qualities or. Or they Seem really, we know something about their life. Like they have a successful business or powerful. We can sort of make a separation or a distance. And this can be really like quick and sort of subconscious. I think it really goes back to like our inner pack animal, which is assessing social status and pack hierarchy. And it's like, oh, they're higher than me. So a couple ways to deal with this. One is to identify why. Really slow down when you're not in that situation. Be like, what? Why? Why are they better than me? And make the list. Is it because they're better looking? Is it because they make more money? Is it because of what, what's the thing? Or maybe it's the multiple things. Then there's a few options on what to do. Even that can be helpful. Then the next thing to do would be to look at how much am I buying into that as a measure of human worth and can I let that go some? So let's say you're like, well, they run a really successful business. Like, I have a business and I, you know, I do well, but man, they have millions of dollars coming in every month or every year or whatever. And you're like, oh, they must be really amazing and powerful. It's like, okay, so you're equating either money or business success to worth. And money is money, business success is business success. Those are cool things. Those are cool abilities. Maybe you can learn from them. It's a great thing. You're friends with them, but they're not worth as a human being. They're not more valuable than you are. And you want to really work on disengaging your sense of self, esteem and value and value from those things as much as you can. Because when you do, you become free. Because check this out. If you really didn't think that the more money someone had, the better they were, then you could walk into a room full of billionaires and not be intimidated. Be like, oh, look at that. You just be like, oh, hey, what's up? Yeah, what do you like to do for fun? Oh, cool, Neat. I like to do this right. You could walk up, you know, if it wasn't like, whoever's got the most best physique is the most worthwhile, then you could hang out with someone who's really in great shape and not feel any sense of inferiority. So the key is to disengage from that. That's. I would say that's a process. That's something that I continually work on to get back to what really matters, what really creates what really makes a human being valuable and. And what you keep finding, if you do really do the deep inner work, is that it has nothing to do with what they look like or even how much they've achieved. It's just their presence in the world. Their unique presence brings something of great value.

This one's really specialized and near and dear to my heart.

Okay, Josh. Josh says, what advice do you have for overcoming misophonia? Oh, this is the one. The sound thing you're telling me about. He's got. Oh. Al's got this. People chewing near me, especially at the office, drives me crazy, and it's hard to sit with it. I get extremely tense and anxious.

It's misophonia. It depends on how bad he has it. Almost destroyed my marriage. Because it tends to be. The people that are closer to you trigger it. Worse. You like more. You're. The more you're fond of someone, the worse it gets. It's like this horrible nexus of, like, I love you more and then, therefore, I hate you more.

Wow.

And the. I was actually part of a MIT study or whatever because of my level. And for a lot of people, the. If you have to sit there and you keep trying to bear with it, then you are overcome with violent thoughts.

You want to.

Like, if he's in the office, he'd like to pick up a stapler and jam it into their eyeball. And you get the images in your head, and it's really disconcerting. The bad thing is there's no known cure, and the whole, like, exposure thing doesn't work. This gets worse and worse and worse. I think the best thing I could tell somebody is I felt like I was going crazy and I was the only one. Tens of thousands of people have this.

All right.

It's on Wikipedia. It was only identified the last five.

Years or so, so. Interesting. I have to do more research about it. I don't know much about it at all, so I'm not gonna seem, you know, proclaimed to have solutions.

I hate to say, like, there's no solution. Avoidance. But that's hard if you're in the office.

Right.

Sometimes. None of these may be fantastic, but I just use my personal experience.

Mm. So I hope people can hear you. Okay, good, good, good. Okay.

If you can. If you're allowed to. In the office. Headphones.

That's what I was thinking. Yeah.

Get yourself. It's isolating, but sometimes you need to survive.

Yeah.

And the other. This thing. So evolving. What do you call them? No medical advice intended Here.

But they no advice of any kind. This is all for entertainment purposes only.

I was one of the unusual ones in the clinical study that I was in because for a separate issue when I was put on antidepressants, it turned it down, the volume down by almost 80% and gave me a whole new life. They have never heard of that before. So I don't know if that works for everybody, but if that's something you want to investigate, you might investigate that. And Josh, man, do I feel for you. It is awful. It's completely awful to deal with. So I wish we had like, like you said, hey, there's this pill they've come out with, completely wipes it out and everything's rosy and there just isn't. It's all about coping.

Right.

So far.

Right. Well, again, so I'm curious about this. I'll have to look more into it. Thank you, Al. Sharing that the one thing that I will say is that I have a belief which is that every problem has a solution. Every problem has a solution. And that's just an empowering belief that I decided to adopt at some point in my life. Now, is the solution that, you know, you can take a pill that makes it go away. Maybe not, but maybe this. You know, there are a set of solutions. Right. You know, and Al, suggesting headphones, explore antidepressants, like so it helps us keep looking. And sometimes we look, sometimes we seek. For years. I had chronic pain for 20 years before I found a permanent solution. And now I'm pain free. That's a whole other story I can get into. So every problem has a solution. I don't know what it is for you and maybe it's a series of self care measures you have in place that allow you to live and thrive. But that's just an inspiring belief that I've had that's really helped me overcome a lot, especially in the physical or medical side of adversity. So I'm noticing the time here. Let's do a bit, a few more and then we'll wrap.

Here's a common question.

Yeah. Jennifer, which of your books or other resources do you recommend to help someone that no longer knows what they like or what makes them happy? Hmm. I mean the one place you mentioned not nice. So there's a lot in not nice about what do I want? So that would be the one. But maybe you already read that book. But I would go with that further. I think that you do know it's probably just there's not enough space to. There's not enough slowing down to listen to that small still voice inside that's guiding you. So I would first and foremost, give yourself permission. Sometimes we block it out because we don't think we deserve to find things that we like, or we judge the things that might come up, or we put up blocks so we don't discover because we think it's bad or selfish. So definitely read not nice to help clear a lot of that up. And then give yourself space. Go for an hour walk or more through random streets in your town with nowhere to go or nature and just be like, what do I? Like what do I want? And not like, you need to find the answer right now on that walk. That's like grasping, right? Just being curious. What do I like? What do I want? What matters to me? And some of this stuff comes immediately, and some of it comes more slowly. And a lot of time what I find is because I have clients that come up with this, whether it's they don't know what they want in their career or in their relationship or something, or just in life. And what often happens is when I have them do something like this, they'll come back and they're like, I didn't get anything. I'm like, okay, remember, you weren't supposed to find the answer on that one walk. But anyway, what did you think of? What did you reflect on? And they'll start sharing stuff. And there's a lot of this. Well, I thought about this thing, but blah, blah, blah, and that thing, but blah, blah, blah. And there's a lot of, like, something starting to emerge, like this little seed starting to grow from. To a sprout, and they take their boot and go like, well, that's why that's a dumb idea. And it'll never work. And so we want to just let the seeds grow. Like, one client I was talking to was like, well, you know, he wasn't satisfied in his career. I was like, maybe I'd want to. I get some this idea of like working in an orphanage in Thailand, but that's insane. You know, he's like, in financial industry in New York. What is that? And I'm like, hold on, let's just stamp on that seed. What is it saying? What is that communicating to you? What do you want underneath there? And. And he wanted purpose. His work felt purposeless. He wanted meaning. He wanted connection. He wanted contribution. So he started looking at ways where he could experience that without quitting his job, moving to Thailand. Next thing I know, he's telling me just this Is just recently he is getting involved in a non profit that volunteering that helps them and they work with orphanages all around the world. Now is that going to be something that deeply fulfills him and inspires him? We don't know. He doesn't know. And I told him, I was like, you don't know? Because part of him was anxious, like what if this is a waste of my time? It's like, well that's how you find out Test. So I'd say really give yourself, slow down, listen inward and then let what emerges really focus on it and give it that attention and then go test. Because if it's just like a series of potential, I could do that. Maybe it's that I just don't know. And you're waiting for it to become super, super, super clear. It's not, it's more like, huh, maybe it's this, this or that. Okay, okay, well let me try this or whatever version works in my life here, let me try that. I'll try that for a week or two and then I'll. Or a month and then I'll try that. So you learn, you discover by taking action and eliminating paths until you discover what you really do enjoy.

So then when it comes to your resources, a common question.

Kristin says, what is the difference between your Confidence Code, Confidence Unleashed and Confidence University which is best for conversation skills? These are great questions. So confidence. So current programs that exist are Confidence Code and Confidence Unleashed. And Confidence Code is a deep dive into two things, Self esteem and Conversation mastery. How to start conversations, ask questions, join into groups, all that stuff. And the reason that's combined with self esteem is because I talked about this, about the live event that we do on that subject. If you have all the conversation skills in the world and you think you're not worth talking to, then it's not going to work. So we had to get people to a place of like feeling good about themselves and then they can talk to people. So that's the confidence code. That would be the existing program that you could start with right now that would give you a massive a dose of not only the skills but getting the place where you can apply them. Confidence Unleashed is like a. Just think of it like a boldness chamber. It'll just build you to a place of being able to take bold action in the world. So that could be useful. It is useful for conversations, right? For overcoming fear. But it's overcoming fear in all areas, being more bold in all areas of life, caring less what people think of you and Showing up more powerfully, leadership at work, speaking up, being direct, being assertive, being who you are, eliminating stories that make you filled with doubt and just smashing through those obstacles and those doubts. That's what that program is all about. Confidence University. Well, Confidence University is the latest and greatest thing in the world. No, I'm very excited about Confidence University. Confidence University is going to be an extremely comprehensive. The idea is for it to be the most powerful in depth confidence training system in the world that covers all the core areas that we need to have a life of confidence and to make it accessible to everyone in the world and at a price that everyone who's committed can afford. That is my mission because I'm like, I want to spread this to all over the world. And so it's going to be online, entirely online. All you need is access to the Internet to be able to get into it. And what you do is you start with a core foundation. We call it the ultimate foundation of confidence. Everyone in the university has to go through think of this as like the 101, like the prerequisite, right? You've got to get that core solid foundation of self esteem. How to get clarity. There's a whole set of lessons on getting clarity for your vision, for your goals, for what you want in life, short term and long term. There's self esteem, there's how to upgrade your identity. So if you thought of yourself as messed up or a loser, how to shift that, how to overcome, how to be able to get into action and face fear and overcome this fear of rejection so you can pursue what's meaningful. That's the foundation. Everyone needs that. Then you get to go into specialty tracks. Do you want? We have a social mastery specialty track which is like what's inside the confidence code on steroids, like 10x of what's in there. From your friendships to your conversations to everything. How do you create the ideal social life for you? Then we have a dating mastery track which leads to from zero dates to how to have conversations, how to have dates. It's for men and for women and not only that, but not just how to get a date, but how to date. All the next steps of the pathway from like dating people and having difficult conversations and assessing if it's a good fit and what do you do for breakups and how to really get to that stage of like finding someone that you really want to be in a long term relationship with and then how to start that relationship in the best possible way from the best possible you. And then we have the other track, which is career acceleration, and that's the one that I'm building out right now, which is all about how to take all this confidence and boldness and use it to thrive in your career, in your work, in the world, whatever that is and that might involve. And we're going to help you get clarity. And then like, what is that? Is that accelerating your company? Is that accelerating in your field and outgrowing your current organization and environment and saying, look, I'm going to rise and then move somewhere else? Is that starting your own business? Is that just having a more powerful conversation with your colleagues and with your boss? So really taking all this confidence and using it to grow in your career in the ways that matter most for you, that's Confidence University. Down the road we'll probably have even additional courses, but it's going to be awesome. So you know that's coming out in a couple months. If you don't want to wait for that, get Confidence Code. But that's my short answer on that. As you can see, I'm very excited about it.

Question about the upcoming event. Is there any contests, giveaways, opportunities for the win tickets, anything like that?

Probably not for this one, but we will have a giveaway for the next one for sure. Al, the ultra effective human being is going to be on how to set up the tech for that. But you have my word, we will do a giveaway for the ultimate Confidence breakthrough, which is in Portland in the summer, June 22nd through 24th. So hang on for that one.

Additional conversation. Question.

Nikki says, hey, I have overcome most of my fears of talking to people, but I have one problem. I am really afraid of people being upset, so I avoid disagreeing and having touching conversations. How do you overcome the fear of upsetting others? I would say read Not Nice. Have you read Not Nice? That's going to be the most comprehensive. I mean, I can give you. The tidbit that I give you now is going to be like a potato chip. That book is like the salad bar with everything you could ever need in it. I don't know, everything you could ever need. Tons of solutions, tons of specifics. It's basically at the core of it, it's conflict avoidance and it's probably some fear of the end of the relationship. I have a thing in the book here. See if I can flip to it real quick. Top 10 reasons why people are Afraid of Speaking up. See if I can find that. There's a whole chapter in here called so there's a chapter called Please like me, that's about approval seeking. I think you'd resonate with that. There is a chapter about guilt and why we feel guilty for speaking up. And there's a chapter called don't be mad, and it's all about phobia of people being upset with you. And we have in there the top 10 reasons. Of course, it's not in that chapter anyway. It's in the book. You just got to read it, find it. Top 10 reasons. There's a bunch of reasons why you're scared to speak up. You're afraid of people being upset with you. The short answer is to come up with what you're most afraid of. Role play it ahead of time, journal about it, work with someone about it to get to a place where you're willing to face it in real life, and then expose yourself to it and then realize that you can handle it. That's the short version, but I think I would highly recommend get the book for a more comprehensive solution. All right, Al, I'm gonna have to put about five minutes left, and then no wrap up before then. So just get the key questions in, and then we'll be closing up in about five minutes.

So the answer to this is yes.

Yo, I'm late. If you get a question right now, we got five minutes left. Gearson and, you know, glad to have you here.

If Les Gerson gets one, then here's a.

John Bennion. If you had to pick one practice or ritual that has had the most positive impact on your life, meditation, journaling, what would it be? Okay, this one's probably not a rich. I think you might not be referring to this. But the most impactful one is if I'm scared to do it, I'll do it. That's a good one. That's more powerful than the journaling and the med. Those are all to help you get to that place. But if it's. If I'm scared, then I'm going to do it. That's the most powerful ritual that I found. So because it started with, like, I'm too scared to talk to women. Then I learned, like, oh, you. To overcome that fear, you have to face it. And then I read Susan Jeffers book. Good one. Feel the fear and do it anyway. You haven't read that one or haven't read in a while. Reread it, read it for the first time. Powerful. And I got like, oh, that's how you overcome fears. You got to do it. So then I said, oh, everywhere I go, I'm going To look for that edge. So I was like, I want to get better at public speaking. Okay, I'm going to go to a Toastmasters. Okay? When I'm at the Toastmasters and they say that the person who is supposed to do the talk that day is sick, does anyone want to do an impromptu speech? My hands going up, I don't even know what I'm going to talk about. I'm scared. But if I'm scared to do it, I'm going to. And if you take that mindset and you make that a daily ritual, no, it's. Maybe it's not daily. Maybe it's whenever you can that will change your life fast. Faster than anything else. And then as a backdrop, I'd say the most important man. But they're all so good, right? Physical health is so good. Meditation is really good. So I would say for those, pick the one that you're going to stick to is the most important thing, and then take action. Lots of it, liberally.

Not sure we can do this one, but I'll throw it up anyway, because he said he would look at it anyway. But there's a long answer to this one.

How do you make better conversations with a girl you like but you just recently met? You focus on building your conversation abilities in general. So you may or may not have any success with this one woman. She might just be the catalyst, the motivation that gets your butt in gear to really make a study of this stuff. And then I would say get into total ownership of owning this skill, of getting better at this skill. It's my responsibility if I want to learn how to do this, if I want to have this power in my life, I got to figure it out. And then go seek out resources. There's a million and one for free on YouTube on how to have better conversations. Start with that. Then if you want to go further, you can check out shrinkforthshyguy.com we have whole episodes about that. And if you really want to master it and invest in yourself, check out the confidence code on my website. Go to socialconfidencecenter.com and then there's products. And get the confidence code, because that will give you, like, a systematic approach that's way more in depth than anything you'll find on YouTube. But whatever resources you pursue, it's all coming from like, I'm going to solve this. And then whether it's this girl, you might not figure it out by then, but by the next time, you know, a week from now, two weeks from now, a Month from now you'll be in a better place to be able to do what you want. All right, let's take one more question.

Favorite topic of ours. Someone else who has a friend with ankle losing spondylitis wants to know your some direction to learn what you learn about.

Oh really? Wow. Yeah. Ankylosing spondylitis. So for those of you who don't know that's an auto fancy sounding autoimmune condition. How do you eliminate Darren says Dr. Ze's. What did you do to eliminate ankylosing spondylitis? A friend of mine suffers since 2006. What is your advice? Thanks. Hold on, I'll be back. I'm not going anywhere but I'm going to go off screen for a second.

Oh, this could be good.

There's more, there's more but I can't grab them all. This is what I read in my pursuit of healing ankylosing spondylitis. Here's the thing and this is the man. This is a big topic. I would question the diagnosis. That's what I had to do. Deeply challenge the diagnosis. And the assumptions that are embedded into the mainstream medical Rheumatoid arthritis or not just rheumatologist community perceptions of it as a permanent condition, as an unknown condition with no cure. You must take medication forever to manage it. Question all of that and start pursuing resources of people that have real answers. Starting with this man right here, John Sarno book called Healing Back Pain. Start with that. That will be really powerful Mind body prescription also by Dr. John Sarno. So write these down. Just look up John Sarno S A R N O this one really good Mind Over Medicine by Lisa Rankin. Basically taking total ownership and saying look there is a solution, there is a way out. This is not just for ankylosing spondylitis. I worked with a woman, I'm a coach that I'd recommend as well. She's from the Pain Cure Clinic. Her name is Laura. Just go to Pain Cure. Just type in Pain Cure Clinic and her and her husband John do coaching with people. She had rheumatoid arthritis. Completely cured that because these conditions are not what people think. They're not just these sort of biological machinery run, run awry and just taking over. It's, it's you, it's your personality style. It's perfectionism, it's goodism, it's nice guy or nice girl syndrome. It's having this accumulative effect of tension that's causing wreaking havoc in your body. I talk about this in not nice. Whether it's stomach problems or back problems, or in my case, it was like pain in the back and down my leg and in my butt and like, couldn't walk, couldn't move. It's about personality, it's about emotion. And when you learn how to heal that stuff underneath and change those patterns, the pain goes away. But it's a process. And talk about doubt and stories. And one of the resources I'll recommend, well, two others, Another phenomenal book, the Great Pain Deception by Steve Ozanich. My most recent podcast is actually an interview with him. So show that to your friend. Have your friend listen to that. And TMS Wiki tmswiki.org phenomenal. It's a message board. It's like a community of people that are healing themselves. You got doubt, you got fear, which you will have in this process. There's so many people there that help you. I've been active on there. But yeah, man, it's an incredible process of liberation that I've gone through. To be in with chronic pain for 20 years, to be completely liberated of that. No medications and in the best shape of my life. So I know it's possible with so many conditions. Carpal tunnel, plantar fasciitis, any kind of low back problem, upper back problem, neck problem, jaw tmj, migraine headaches, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, knee problems. I mean, just the list goes on and on and on. And so much can be healed. And you just got to start looking for solutions and taking total ownership. And your sort of primary care doc and who they recommend as a specialist is going to be one source of information. And then you got to take ownership. If you're not getting solutions there, go on the warpath and find answers. And thank God for the Internet in this day and age because you can find a ton of solutions where you couldn't have even found that stuff 20, 30 years ago. Yeah, this will be available for replay on YouTube. It goes on Facebook too, right.

I don't know how Facebook archives it.

Okay, maybe Facebook, but it'll be on the YouTube channel, which is. Do we have the thing for the YouTube channel? Yeah, go to YouTube and type in Dr. Z's or type in get more confidence is the name of the channel. And that will be a way you can watch the whole thing. If you showed up late or you want to rewatch certain things, or I mentioned something really quick or you got inspired and you want to get, you know, Rewatch that later on, then go to YouTube and check it out. And of course, subscribe to that channel there. I got new videos come out. We used to do a video once a week. Now I got videos coming out, like, two, three times a week. In fact, go subscribe to my channel if you're not already subscribed. Tomorrow we're going to be releasing a video of me, stop me doing these cold showers. And my brother was, too, and he's like, he upped the ante and he took an ice bath where he put cold water and dumped ice in it. And I was like, oh, yeah, well, I can do that, too. So, you know, brothers. So I was gonna do it, and Candace was like, oh, you should film it. And, you know, because she knows that I'm teaching a lot of my clients about the cold showers. So we filmed it, and it's pretty hilarious. You can see my two kids in there throwing ice and water on my face. So check it out. Go to the YouTube channel. Ton of great resources there.

One last time, where all you get all the books.

All the books. Drazizbooks.com and yeah, man, tons of resources. Stick with this no matter what. Every problem has a solution. Remember that. Internalize that. And sometimes the solution is immediate. Sometimes it's a series of things. Sometimes it's a specific thing you got to get. Sometimes it's about letting go and trusting and not needing something to be different and just really surrendering to the process, whatever it is. Every problem has a solution. Yeah. Yeah. We'll be doing this again soon. And awesome. Thank you so much for being with me today, for taking time in your life to really focus on your growth and yourself. I really commend you for doing that and admire you and resonate with you. You're a brother or sister on the same path as me. We want to grow. We want to liberate ourselves. We want to be more free and expressive in the world, and that's awesome. So thank you so much for being with me today. 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 guys soon.