Fearless Social Confidence with Patrick King (Part 2)

Coming to you from the center for social confidence in Portland, Oregon, welcome to Shrink for the shy Guy. Helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Azeez.

Hey.

Welcome to another episode of Shrink for the shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz. And you're in the right place even if you're not a guy, even if you're a gal. I know we have a lot of women listeners, and welcome. Sorry. The name of the show has guy in it. You can't change it once you make it. But I find. I'm sure you, like anyone else, will find that if you just listen to these shows, this applies to not only people who, you know, think they have shyness or social anxiety or maybe you're not sure, but kind of everyone. Because deep down, I think most people struggle with, was that good enough? Am I good enough? Do they like me? What if I don't do that? Well, these are not just problems for people that have some disorder or something. These are human problems. These are challenges that everyone, no matter how successful or accomplished or loved or famous they are, on some level, questions, doubts themselves, holds back, is hesitant when they want to be bold, doesn't take a risk because they're scared of what people will think. I mean, these are human challenges. So you're in the right place. Man or woman, gay or straight, this is the place for you. And I'm excited that you're here and that you found this show. And maybe this is your first episode. Maybe this is your 50th, I don't know. But if this is literally your first, you should at least go back one episode to the first part of this interview. And in today's episode, we're gonna hear the second half of an interview with a confidence expert named Patrick King, who's written, like, at least a dozen. I think I maybe was in the last episode, and I asked him how many he actually wrote. Maybe it's in, like, the 30 plus range at this point. Books on everything. Confidence, communication, conversation. This guy's a master. So I'm super excited to have him on the show and feel very grateful to have him as a guest. So this is the second half of that interview, and you're gonna get a ton more out of it if you go back and listen to the first half. Not a requirement, but strongly suggested because we're gonna be building on that, obviously. And there's some powerful things that he shares and in this half of the interview, including your social purpose, which is really eye opening for me. I think it will be for you, too. And he ends with an extremely powerful exercise about how to activate and tap into your own social confidence and sense of value and worth. That I think you're gonna find really good. And you're gonna get more out of it if you listen to the first half. So pause this. Go back to the first one, which is just last week's episode, and if you've already heard that one, then let's rock and roll. Let's hear more from Patrick King on how we can unlock Fearless.

Expert interview.

So you have a chapter called Slaying the Dragon in your book. I love that. I love the names. A lot of the chapters in your book tell us more about what that.

Is Slaying the Dragon is all about. And this is something you're familiar with as well. It's basically adapting what CBT psychological techniques, which. Basically, the basic, most accepted one is exposure therapy. When you're. When you're dealing with these situations is okay. But translation, doing the things that get you out of your comfort zone to make you feel more confident, because there's degrees of good feedback and there are ways that are, you know, you might be saying, but isn't that just. The point is that I feel like I can't do these. Yes, but these are. These are things. These are, you know, the same actions that are in smaller degrees or in, you know, for example, safe contexts or controlled contexts, or they're similar to the thing that you fear, but in a way that you're comfortable with. So, for example, you know, another one of the things that I always will tell clients to do is be that, you know, it's okay. Be that person who, you know, talks to the barista or the cashier for one or two more sentences. And often for people like that, it's just like even the act of saying hello, even the act of, you know, replying to the barista saying, how are you? That's a victory for them. So the thing is to focus. The thing to focus on is, you know, not how well it goes per se, but just actually doing it so that, you know, talking to a barista would be doing an action that you fear, but in an easier or less intense situation, you know, and once you feel like you're good at that, or you. You can say hello, then you add to it, and you say hello, and then you ask, how was your day? They're going to say something generic, and then you say, that's great, and then you ask a question about it. So that might be Another milestone. Just that kind of set of question and responses. And, you know, with. With the clients, it's worked pretty well just like that. And on some level, it turns into a little bit of a feeling, like a. What is it called? A scavenger hunt.

Right.

Where it's like, do this, you know, ask a person to do this. Ask them this, say this, say this to them. You know, snap a picture with them, whatever. But these are all things that. When you have a social purpose, and this is. This is a pretty important concept, having a social purpose, not socializing just to socialize, but having a purpose behind it. Basically plausible deniability for your psyche. That's something that's going to open up so much for you.

Yeah. Tell us more about that approach. The social purpose.

Yeah, and this is mostly when I talk about ice breaking, but having a social purpose, the example that I always use is, okay, maybe you walk. So you're hiking. No, let's say that you're driving and your car breaks down. Are you going to have any trouble flagging, you know, trying to flag someone down, you know, to help you? I don't think so, because there's a very strong social purpose or purpose for that interaction. But when you're just, you know, when you're on the sidewalk sitting next to someone, there's no purpose to talk to the person next to you. And that just is so much harder. But if you give them a purpose, such as I want you to just find out the time, or I want you to ask for information, I want you to ask for their opinion on something, then that makes it so much easier because you think there's a reason for doing this. I'm not weird. They're not going to think I'm weird. There's no way they would. So I can do this.

Isn't that fascinating how if we were to talk to someone and our purpose was not, you know, to get instant information, but our purpose was, I'm drawn to you in some way, whether I find you attractive or I just, you know, I like the. Even just for a friendship, like, oh, you seem like a cool person. Like, I like the, you know, I like the cut of your jib. I want to talk to you and just see, you know, if it's fun to talk to you, which. Which could very well be a lot of our purposes behind talking to people.

Yeah.

Isn't it weird how if that is your purpose socially, it's sort of like, weird, why are you talking to me?

It's impossible. Yeah, it's Very, very tough. And a lot of. Yeah, a lot of people are okay with that in a direct setting. You know, a lot of people are okay with that in a business sense. They're like, I'm gonna talk to you so I can try to get some sales or revenue. But in a social sense, like, you're talking about, like, I just feel like you're a cool person. I just think you're funny. These aren't things that we say to people or hear from people. So it automatically becomes grouped into this feeling of weird. You know, I'm using air quotes right now. Weird or creepy when it's not, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's a funny thing. Cause I'm thinking about my son Zaim, who's almost 3, and he'll be just.

You know, I like you.

I. I don't like talking now. It's so out there. You know, I definitely feel like there is space for that as you've. But you're right. It's not the icebreaker. It's like, once you started to talk, you've chatted for a while. You could say something like, wow, I love talking with you, or this is really fun, or, you know, I love your humor, or whatever.

But.

But, yeah, that's really interesting. So having that social purpose, getting the opinion, and that's sort of your initial purpose. And then you can veer into a longer conversation.

I will say that you don't actually have to need the opinion or you don't actually have to need the information, because that's a lot of. I know you're gonna hear this because I hear this all the time. It's like, but I don't care about this thing, or I already know the time. Well, it's not the point. Right? It's how they. It's. The reason that you're having a social purpose is because we feel like it makes it okay for the other person. So regardless of what you have swirling in your head, you're going to present the same to the other person as you would if you really did or did not need that information or opinion.

We're going to pause for just one moment and then get back into the interview with confidence expert Patrick King.

Do you want to know the fastest and most powerful way to completely change your confidence levels for the rest of your life? It requires more than just listening to something or reading a book. It requires you step up and say that you will do whatever it takes to break out of fear and create the confidence you know you deserve in this life the fastest and most powerful way to create that confidence in yourself is to work directly with someone who knows exactly what you're going through and who has traveled the road ahead. Go to socialconfidencecenter.com coaching to find out more about how to work directly with Dr. Aziz in private. One on one coaching.

What do you think about a social purpose? About just curiosity. Like you're curious about what book they have, you're curious about their backpack, whatever. Some, some article of something they're carrying.

I think that's perfect. That's, you know, that's, that's like a combination of asking for opinion and information. It's like, what is, you know, that's a really cool looking backpack. Where did you get it? Now, I don't. Now you ask yourself, is that a weird thing if someone said that to you? It's not at all.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I was just thinking about. I also do a lot of kind of inclusive stuff. Like if you're in line at a, at a counter, a restaurant, whatever you order at a counter, you can just be like to be up to the person behind you, hey, you know, which one do you think is better? That or that or what do you think? Would you get that? And it's just, it's again, but you're right, it is, it's an opinion. I never really broke it down that way. But you are. I am often asking for opinions or information.

Yeah. And you know, just to make it easier, it's. You don't have to worry about what the conversation that happens after because the victory here is just doing it. You know, it's okay to just ask for the information or ask for the opinion and then that's it. You say, okay, thanks. But that's another, you know, that's kind of another notch on your belt where you find and discover that it's okay, I can do this. I am the type of person that can do this. People aren't going to bite my head off. And this next one is going to be something that's very hard for people to accept. But there is nothing to be afraid of. But these are, these are all things that there's a very high cumulative effect that it takes, you know, it takes a long time to take root in your brain. But that's how these, these simple small things where the simple act of doing is the victory is where you can start.

Yes. I love that you said that. There is nothing to be afraid. I mean, it's something that I've been considering more and more Is this idea of no threat. Like, yeah, you know, I'll sometimes say that in my mind, like there, you know, if I notice anxiety about something or fear, it's like, okay, I'm having anxiety or feeling fear because some part of me in my brain is perceiving threat. And then I slow down and I breathe and I say, you know, is there a threat? There's no threat here unless there actually is. But 98.7% of the time, there is no actual threat. It's just there is no threat, especially socially. And what's fascinating and I'm really curious about is how do we get to that point where talking to someone and they don't want to talk to you back.

Yeah.

Is no threat. There's no danger in that. It's just an information. It's just a packet of information that comes back to you.

Hack it in if you get there.

That's extremely empowering. Well, let me ask you one more kind of tactical question, because I know you're very good with this kind of stuff. So let's say someone has worked on this for a while and they've gotten the, you know, hey, what time is it? Or hey, you know, some basic question opinion down. You know, another great one is like, hey, would you have a restaurant you'd recommend around here? So let's say they got that down and then they do want to take the conversation a bit further. How might someone, you know, after they get over that initial high, or how's it going? Or quick question, what next? How to keep it going?

How to keep it going? Well, there's a few ways that I teach this, but for the sake of this, I might just go with the one where it's like, it's very simple in that you can. What you do is, you know, break conversation down. Okay? It's a statement or a question to you. You answer with a statement or question to them. That's what it is, right? So to make things easier, one of the things that I teach people is kind of scripts to use. And within the scripts. Now this is a long conversation, right? The scripts, you know, there's. Oh, God, there's basically you plug and play it. So with the scripts, there are nine possibilities for responses. And these range from, like, your personal history, a personal anecdote, your opinion, your stance, something that's related, a free association term, a compliment. So what you do is you plug all these in and blah, blah, blah. But I'm over complicating that. To make it easy, you just say, you Ask for your information. You get your response. Here you go. You ask one or two more questions about the response, about the information that you've just gotten, and then you ask about them. It's a very easy thing to do, I think. So, for example, if I'm going to ask someone where. I don't know if they're. If they know if there's a coffee place nearby, they're first.

Let's. Let's actually just do it. Let's role play it. So I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be standing there, whatever, outside of a coffee shop or something, and. And you want to come talk to me? Let's. Let's rock and roll.

Okay. Hey, excuse me. Do you know if there's a good coffee place anywhere nearby?

Hey. Yeah, actually, I'm. I'm waiting outside of this one. This. This one's. This one's great. I like this one.

Oh, cool. Do you know if they have food here or is it just. What kind of place is it?

They have some stuff on the menu. Okay. Not much, just, like, some baked goods.

Oh, okay. So it sounds like this isn't really a lunch place, then.

No, no, definitely not.

All right. What are you waiting out here for?

Oh, I'm going to meet a friend, and then we're going to get some. Get some coffee.

Oh, that's nice. You're actually going to go here? Well, see, what I did was, if we can just break that down. Two questions about the cafe that were, I would say, plausible and normal and, you know, relatable. And then I switched suddenly to, wait, why are you here? And then you answered, then I could have asked more about, you know, the friend. I could have asked about you. Are you from here, what are you meeting from or for, what are you meeting for, etc. So that's kind of just that easy. Yeah, sometimes.

Well, so. So what about the. You talked about those little green lights.

Yeah.

What I found is when you first start talking to someone, especially, you know, if you guys don't know each other, you can get. Sometimes there's like a hey, I'm ready to talk to you vibe coming back, but sometimes it's a little more like. And I was trying to do that in this role play, like, I'm not giving you tons of information. My. My answer's a little bit shorter. How do you help? Like, do people. Should people interpret that as, okay, they don't want to talk to me, I'm bothering them, or is there some sort of, you know, social they need to Lean in to kind of. Until the person's like, oh, okay, they're actually talking to me. How do. How do we deal with that?

Right. So, yeah, I did notice that you were doing that. I was wondering if that was unintentional. I was like, God, should I come on this podcast? Knew. I'm just kidding. But, yeah, I did notice you were doing that. And the way to deal with that is that you have to. Basically, there is. Okay. You should have the expectation when you're doing something like that, that you have to be the first one to share. You have to be. I don't know. This isn't really the right word, but the aggressor. You have to be leading the conversation. You have to be filling the gaps because the other person doesn't care at first. They're not invested. So at any point convenient to them where the conversation. There's a lull or the conversation drops, if they don't have any interest or engagement, they're out because they fulfilled what was asked of them. But for you, if you want to make a conversation happen with someone, what I'm basically saying is that you have to put the work in. Yes. You have to be the first one to do it, and you have to be the one to do it the most.

Yeah. And so you got to lead it. And if you were getting that. That kind of response for me, would you kind of exit the conversation or would you persist and to see if I warmed up.

I would persist to see if you warmed up, because I kind of cut it off before we got to the more personal stuff.

Mm.

So then it would kind of depend on whether you would want to share that stuff with me. And then we'd go from there.

Sure. Yeah. That's great. And I think that's. I do that on purpose to see. To see how you would persist through it, which is great. I wanted to model that. That, you know, sometimes you get a big green light, but sometimes people are a little unsure or they're in their own space, or they're just whatever. They were thinking about something different before you came up.

Right.

And I think if you would just, like, with your tone was really great. Warm, friendly. You know, you can kind of. People will start to engage more, you know, not all the time. And if not, that's. That's fine, too.

Yeah. And not all the time. That's true. Yeah. I forgot what I was going to say. So go ahead.

Some of the time. Well, with Patrick. Almost all of the time, because he's damn good. We're gonna pause right here for just one more moment and then dive back into the interview with Patrick King.

Have you ever wanted to know how to start conversations with anyone? How to never run out of things to say, how to make friends quickly and easily, how to shift out of boring small talk conversations and into something way more fun? And how to stop second guessing yourself during conversations so you can feel completely relaxed while talking with anyone? If so, you need to learn the nine elements of social mastery, which is a key component of Dr. Aziz's program, the Confidence Code. Go to www.yourconfidencecode.com to get your copy today and become a conversation master.

The last question I want to ask you is obviously people can find more about this in the book. You have a 30 day plan to social confidence. We've talked about some of the pieces. Is there anything else from that plan or maybe a 30,000 foot view? Like what's the, what's the overall process to building this?

The overall process is a lot of what we just talked about. There is one thing that I do want to mention that we, I guess kind of glazed over. It's basically the conversation slash confidence resume. I'll get back to that in a second. But the 30th day, you know, the bird's eye view of the plan is basically you got to start with, you got to start with yourself. You got to examine all the negative self talk you have. You got to examine what you're thinking about the world. You got to examine how that ripple effect is actually affecting you. Because if you think it is, it's affecting. If you think it's affecting you, then it's affecting you a lot. That's basically the thing of it. It's like the tip of the iceberg type, type phenomenon. So it starts with that and then it transitions, the latter half transitions into basically just degrees of exposure. That which gets you into situations where you can get the good feedback and you can build your skills and you can build your confidence based on these good experiences. But I'll get back to the conversation resume or conversation confidence resume now. And that's basically this is also one of my favorite things to do with people because the conversation resume. I ask people to talk about themselves. I ask people to talk about their greatest accomplishments, you know, something like their unique achievements. What's unique and great about them, what are they above average at? What are they better than most of their friends at? And then some social things such as what are, you know, what are five times that you were in the zone you know, it can be insignificant, but just five times, it can just even be like, oh, that party at Lisa's house or whatever. It doesn't matter because what you're doing now is you're priming these things. You're looking over this resume, so to speak. You're looking over it, you're thinking, I am that type of person. I can do that. So what you're basically doing is you're reversing your negative self. Talk forcefully by reading this every day.

That is great. I really like that. Like having them really reflect on the ways that they are naturally above average, skilled and also socially competent and can have great experiences.

Yeah, it's tough for a lot of people to do that at first, but. So that's why it can take a little bit. But that is often one of the big keys I found to people, not just the 30 day plan, but just getting themselves feeling more comfortable with themselves because they realize they can like themselves. There's likable parts of themselves.

Damn right. Yes, I would highly recommend that. And not only that, but Patrick's book, Fearless Social Confidence as well as many others, if you're really interested about some of those things he was sharing with us about, you know, the next steps in conversation, the different, the nine kind of statements you can make. Super valuable stuff. Highly recommend other books he has around, all sorts of conversation tactics. You can find all of them on Amazon. And if people would like to go further with you, is there something else you offer in addition to books, any sort of training or ways that they can learn or work with you?

Yeah, I do offer, I am a coach, of course, so I do offer coaching and you can find all that on my website. But I also have a course called Conversation Tactics and in it also, you know, the first module is titled, you know, Social Confidence. So it's about that and it's about how to get comfortable in conversation and socialization and just dealing with people in your life because, you know, cultivating strong relationships is probably, well, not probably is proven by studies to be the number one predictor of happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction. So conversation is really the key to that and it's also the foundation of what makes that. So it takes you through all that. Also hits Fearless Social Confidence as well. And you can find more information about that as well as some free training stuff. I like to give a lot of stuff away for free. So you would get a cheat sheet. You get something to actually help you make the conversation confidence resume, a worksheet for that and some free training videos. I like to give stuff away. So that's all@conversationtactics.com great.

And that's where people can find out more information about the full course as well.

Yeah. Yes.

And we'll have a link below if you're listening to this@drinkforthshyguy.com we'll have a link below this episode with the information to click on that as well, because I would highly recommend the program. It's a great way to learn. Books are great way to learn as well. But the programs can get more interactive and we can take in the material much faster and better, I think, through that kind of training. That is awesome, man. Thank you so much for sharing. Just a tip of the iceberg of all the knowledge you have in this area and super appreciate the work that you're doing in the world to help everyone.

I appreciate you, man. Thanks a lot for having me.

That brings us to the end of the interview and almost the end of the episode, but there was something so good there that we got it turned into an action step.

Time for action.

Your action step for today is to do the exercise that Patrick just recommended.

At the of the day.

End, end there. What am I above average at? That's the question you want to ask yourself. You want to ask it repeatedly until your mind starts giving you answers.

So at first, if you're like, what.

Am I above average at? And your mind says, nothing, you suck. Well, don't just stop there. Ask again with more conviction, with more uncertainty, expecting an answer, what am I above average at? Ask it throughout the day. Many times. Now, when you say expecting an answer, you don't have to force something, but just keep asking it and the answer will emerge. The answers will emerge. And, you know, you can also put a little qualifier in front of it, which can help bypass resistance. So you can say, if I wanted to find what I was above average at, it would be blank. Or if I wanted to give myself credit for what I was above average at, if I wanted to give myself credit for what I was above average at, that's another way to kind of bypass it. It's like, well, I know, critic, you say I'm good at nothing, but if I wanted to give myself a little credit, I would say I'm above average at. And then just start filling it in. Just say whatever comes to your mind. Don't filter it, don't question it, don't doubt it. Just let it emerge. And then start to build on that. And if your critic stops you from doing this exercise, just Go back into the archives of this show. There's tons of episodes about how to deal with that inner critic, which is the core source of our, you know, low self esteem, social anxiety, not feeling good enough. It all comes back to that sucker. So you're definitely gonna want skills to learn how to work with him. And actually you can get my program the Confidence Code and the whole first half is dedicated to helping you eliminate that toxic inner critic. You can check that out@yourconfidencecode.com and I have a free ebook if you go there that teaches you some of these tools. So yourconfidencecode.com but whatever it is, you're going to want to be able to do this exercise because it will build your social confidence and help you strengthen that over time. And if you go to shrinkforthyguy.com shrinkforthshyguy.com and look up this episode, which is called Fearless Social Confidence, you'll find Patrick below the top of the show there where it shows like the picture and you can listen to the episode right below that there's the show notes and there you'll be able to find out about him and download his book. Highly recommend it. Just go to Amazon and type in Fearless Social Confidence or Patrick King and I'm sure you'll find it. So thanks for being with me today and until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com. Sam.