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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. Aziz. Hey, everybody. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're gonna be talking about social freedom, something that's near and dear to my heart. It's something that I actually, when I first created the work that I'm doing in the world through the center for Social Confidence, I had some tagline for the business that was like, you know, social freedom or something. And then a bunch of people are like, what does that even mean? I don't even know what that means. Like, you should change it and make it better. So I think I stopped using that word a lot and stopped saying that a lot because I don't know if. If people. Maybe you're not even walking around thinking, I need more social freedom, right? But I think when I share with you what social freedom is and what it means to me, you're gonna love it. And I think you do want more of it. You're probably already creating more of it in your life. And I'm so excited to share with you how to just blow the lid off of this and develop more of that social freedom. So I'm gonna share what that is and how to have more of it, and the secret to really growing and building that for now and for your entire life. So I'm excited to share all this with you today. If you'd like to go deeper into the show, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com. that's shrinkforthshyguy.com you can also get a copy of my ebook there. Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. That is my gift to you for free. And someone, a friend of mine, a colleague, was just. He'd never. He's known about the work that I do and how I help people, but he's never actually gone to my site and got my ebook and stuff, but he did. And we had lunch the other day and he said, dude, that's like a real book you're giving out. I'm like, yeah. And he's like, oh, I thought it was like a three page handout or something, a checklist. And I was like, no, it's like the five steps to unleashing your Confidence. It's legit if you do those five steps. So anyway, you can get that whole ebook. And I also follow it up with video trainings on each step. It's extremely powerful and it's all free. And it's designed to help you radically boost your confidence. So go to shrinkforthshyguy.com to check out that and more. You can also ask me questions there as well. And I do the bonus episodes of Ask the Shrink where I'll respond to those questions if they're a good fit for the show. So let's talk about you and social freedom. What is social freedom? When I say that phrase, social freedom, what do you think of? What do you imagine now, if you're thinking of society and larger freedoms, freedom of speech, et cetera. Bring it down. Bring it down to the individual level. Bring it down to you, your level of social freedom. Because the reality is, many people, many of you listening to this live in cultures that are relatively free in the sense that you can wear what you want, you can go places that you want. I mean, there's limits, and depending on what country you're in, there's more or greater or fewer limits. But still, we live in an era in the world where there's a lot more basic choice and freedom than in different eras in time. And I know that's not true for all places right now, but that's like what's sanctioned to you or given to you by society. But then there's another kind of freedom, the amount of freedom that you take. Social freedom. How free are you around others, around other people? Do you feel limited? Do you feel stuck? Do you feel afraid? Do you feel confined? Are there things that you want to do but can't? Those are signs of a lack of social freedom. Because to me, here's what social freedom is. Social freedom is exactly what. So freedom is the ability to do more of what you want. Choice, opportunity, it's the same thing. Social, social freedom. To me, that's being completely free and feeling completely free around other people to say what I want, do what I want, and be however I want. And that could be around anyone. That's my goal. Social freedom around anyone and everyone. So some people have some freedom around, say, your family. You feel a lot of social freedom. Like you can wear what you want, do what you want, say what you want. Some people have the opposite, have no social freedom around their family. And, you know, it's very confined and they feel judged. But, but. Or maybe for you, it's around a good friend. Where do you already feel a lot of social freedom? Maybe there's certain situations, maybe, you know, you don't feel it in a lot of places, but then you get on the basketball court and you're playing a game of pickup or something, and boom, you're free. You're laughing, you can say what you want, you talk some trash, you're more free to be you. Or maybe it's when you're, you know, gaming, got the headset on, you're like, yeah, I'm a badass. I say what I want, right? And it's not just about saying what you want. That's part of it. But it's also about dressing how you want, communicating in other ways that you want, laughing as loud as you want, asking the questions that you want, moving in the way that you want, standing in the way that you want, and going over and talking to the people that you want. That's all. Just imagine total freedom. I can do whatever I want. That's social freedom. Now, a lot of people experience that. And you might experience that in some areas, but not others. Or maybe if you're really stuck, you don't experience it at all. There's no place where you feel totally free, but usually there's some place, maybe just a home alone with your cat. So how do we. Where are the edges? Actually, the question I have for you, where are the places the most common are? Well, you might not feel totally free around people that you're attracted to if you are a man, maybe around women that you find beautiful or compelling in some way, or if you're a woman listening around men that you find handsome or charming. Maybe you feel like I'm a little confined, I'm not myself, I'm not freely myself. Or maybe it's in a situation at work, especially if you're dealing with people that you feel like, well, it could be around anyone, but it could be around people that you think are more powerful. You know, this can come up in all situations. I was talking to one of the guys in our Mastermind the other day, and he is. He runs his own business. He's got maybe, I don't know, maybe eight or nine people in his company. And he. It's funny because he can feel very free in some situations, but around certain employees or if he's going to need to say no, you can't take that time off or basically hold some standard or limit. No. Very little social freedom. It's very hard for him to say and do what he wants there. So it can come up in all different areas. And, you know, honestly, I don't think. I think it's a. Social freedom is a goal or a practice. I don't. I don't know, maybe someone achieves total 100% social freedom around everyone all the time, forever. I haven't gotten there. There are places where I feel constricted. I know for me, as I reach out to people that are more and more influential and have bigger lists of followers and I want to engage with them, interview them, see if they want to promote me in some way or collaborate with me. I find if they're very. If I perceive them as very powerful or influential or like they don't have much time, then I notice that some of my social freedom level goes down. It's a little harder for me to say what I want, do what I want, be how I want. That's my edge right now. There's others, too, but it's just an example. So this is a lifelong practice, but this episode, hopefully right now your brain is popping with like, whoa, where am I not? Where am I already socially free? Where am I not socially free? And how do I get more of that? Because if you're like me, you want more of it. Because it feels good, doesn't it? So let's dive into how you can get more of it. We're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, I have a list of things that I'm excited to share with you. They're almost like permission statements. They're me giving you and hopefully you giving yourself permission to be how you want to be, to be free. So you definitely want to listen to that. Stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this.

The other day I was at the supermarket and I saw this cute guy in the produce aisle. I was hoping he would come and talk to me. I gave him all the signals. I looked at him for a second to get his attention. I. I stood nearby pretending to look at some apples. And I even smiled at him as I walked by. He just looked nervous, averted his eyes and turned away. It was almost as if he wanted to talk to me, but just didn't know what to say or do. It was a shame, too. I was really hoping to meet him. I've been feeling lonely recently.

Are you tired of being that guy? I personally spent many years in that place where there was women everywhere around me that would have dated me and if I just had the courage to go talk to them. And that is the same that is true for you. Even if you think you're too short or too fat or not rich enough, that is all just stories in your head. And if you want to learn how to transform that and break through to the next Level and create the relationship that you really want just by being yourself. Then go to www.30daystodatingmastery.com and get started today. Welcome back. So let's get into the secret to social freedom. You know this. I'm gonna read a number of things here. So there's a lot of little tips and techniques, but the overarching secret is you don't have to. You don't have to. You have choice. I mean, that's the secret to all freedom. Really. Cause we think freedom is unfettered access and unlimited. Whatever I want not really fetter. Freedom is actually just to realize you have a choice in every situation. And the opposite of that. I have to do this. That's not freedom, right? That's like you're trapped, you're confined, you're caged. I must. I have to. And it's easy to fall into a victim of circumstance mindset, not just socially, but in life. I have to do that. She made me do this. They're forcing me to do that. I don't want to, but I have to. And anytime we're falling into that, we're gonna feel discouraged, anxious, resentful, disempowered. So we always want to remind ourselves. And I talk about this a lot in my book, the Art of Extraordinary Confidence, which has a whole. There's a whole section in there about becoming the owner in your life instead of being the victim of circumstance. And there's also a whole chapter on power, which, if you're liking this stuff, I think you'll love. There's stuff in there about social power and just really calling out this power in you to be who you want and say what you want anyway. So part of social freedom is you don't have to and you can choose. And, you know, there's so many things socially that we think we have to do, and they're conditioned in. We sort of were trained to do them. But the more you question those rules that you have in your head, and the more you give yourself more and more permission to just do more of what you want, the more free you become and the better you feel. So here are some of these things right now. This is a first one. You don't have to answer all questions asked of you. You don't have to answer all the questions asked of you. So if someone asks you a question, you can not respond to it. You can respond to part of it. You can gloss over it and answer something else, or you can change the subject entirely. Isn't that it's weird. This one took me a long time to learn because I was like, wait a minute. You know, Someone says, so here's a basic example. Someone says, so, how was your weekend? Right? Common question on a Monday. How was your weekend? Now, you might think you need to tell them how your weekend was, right? That's what you do. But you don't have to. You could just say whatever you want. You can say anything you want. How was your weekend? I saw an awesome movie two weeks ago. I want to tell you about it. You might want to throw in one word, like, oh, it's great. Hey, I saw this movie two weeks ago. Or, hey, I'm doing this thing next week. I want to ask you about it. Like, boom. Just write over that question. Because maybe you don't want to talk about your weekend. Maybe you weren't that interested in what you did. But. So instead of saying, well, they're gonna determine what I talk about because they asked me, so now I have to talk about it. This was interesting for me because I remember I had a lot of challenges in dating. Even once I overcame my fear to talk with women, I would talk with them, but then have kind of boring conversations, conversations where they didn't seem that engaged. I honestly didn't feel that engaged. But I was like, well, at least she's talking to me, right? But in there, she'd ask me every question she'd ask. I felt like I had to answer and just stay right on the course. And what you're doing there is you're letting the other person determine what you talk about and where the conversation goes, which is okay if you're enjoying it and that's what you want to do, but you don't have to. That's where social freedom comes in. So I learned that if someone, a woman would say, so what do you do for work? Especially if it was really early on, like, the first conversation, I realized I don't have to answer that. Because then we get into this, you know, oh, I work down the street in the building over there on the fourth floor, and I sell insurance. And it's, yup. You know, type in the reports every morning. And then she's like, oh, neat, right? And then you're just down the most boring conversation in the world. Even if your job's interesting to you, that's okay. But you don't have to go there if you don't want to. In fact, in a lot of ways, especially early conversations, to keep things more interesting, you don't have to say something Totally different. So where do you work? Ooh, the where do I work? Question. I will tell you, but not right now, because I have a more interesting question to ask you. Right? So there's a lot happening there, but it's different. You're not answering. I'm also being playful and I'm a little bit teasing her by saying, you know, you're asking me a boring question, right? So that's just one example. There's tons there. But just remember, you don't have to answer all questions asked of you. This is super liberating to realize. Here's another big one for social freedom. You can say no. You can say no. You can say no to anything for any reason. What? No. That makes you a bad person, doesn't it? Makes you a selfish, awful, bad human. No, no. You can say no to anything. You don't have to have a million reasons. In fact, you don't have to give 5,000 reasons. When you say no in excuses and explanations, you can just say, no, that's not going to work for me, or no, I'm sorry, I'm not available. Then boom, next question. So you don't have to go on and on. That comes from our own insecurity and anxiety about saying no. They're not gonna like me. They're gonna resent me. They're gonna hold it against me. I'm a bad person. But instead you can just say no. You have that right. That's how you build your social freedom, is by saying no. I had an unpleasant exchange recently where there was someone that I know through. This is from a number of years ago. We did some personal growth work together. And we were never really close friends, but, you know, we got kinda close for a little while as we were doing that work together. And then we haven't talked. Maybe we talk maybe once a year. I'd go out to lunch with him. And just a little while back, he invited me, like, hey, you know, let's get some lunch. I have some stuff I want to ask you. And, you know, I got a toddler and a baby and business and a lot of stuff happening over the summer. And I was like, dude, let's look at our calendars in a couple months. Like I'm, you know, maybe three months. Two, three months. I'm pretty, pretty full right now. And he got upset. He's like, bleh. Two, three months. Come on, you know, what's up with that? You're pushing me away. I was just like, I'm sorry. That's just. That's my availability right now. So I just got to say I get to do a double no there, but you can say no. And then, of course, some feelings came up, like, oh, man, I should. But I was like, no, wait a minute. I'm not gonna do anything I don't want to do. There's already. I mean, life. There's things already in your work, in your family that, you know, they're all by choice. That's right. But, you know, if you want to be a good dad for me or if you want to be. You want to keep your job, there's things that you might, you know, kind of get yourself to do that you don't immediately want to do. Right. You're already doing that a lot in your life, so why would you want to add that into your social life? For your social life, you want to do whatever you want to do, man. If you want to hang out with someone that you like, hang out with them. If you're not having that good of a time, say no. Just because you were friends in high school doesn't mean you have to fucking hang out with them now, 18 years later. Sorry, no, I'm busy. No, I'm not available. And then don't even offer another time to reschedule it if you don't want to. Oh, this makes you a terrible person, though. I'm sorry. Terrible human. Maybe being socially free and feeling good and feeling powerful is more important than pleasing other people and avoiding anyone's hurt or upset feelings. Maybe. Maybe. Here's another one. You can talk about what you want. You can talk about what you want. Bring that into. And whenever you go into a conversation, remember that. Talk about what's interesting to you. So back to that. So how was your weekend example? You don't have to give them a rundown of the whole weekend. Well, Saturday morning we got up and about 9pm 9am and had waffles, and then we went to Target and in the park and then went for I. Unless that's engaging to you, but probably not. You're just giving them a rundown. Talk about what you are most interested in. Was there one moment over the weekend that fascinated you, that was interesting to you, that engaged you? We'll talk about just that. Or in a conversation. I talk about this a lot in the confidence code about following. The fascination is you want to ask the questions that you're actually interested in. Because if you just let them steer the conversation, you could be a nice person all day long and maybe listen for five hours and they think you're real nice, but you're not having fun, you don't want to do it again. So you got to talk about what you want to talk about. You can change the subject whenever you want. Whenever you want. You can change the subject. You can interrupt. I mean, there's so much more. Let's take a quick break and we're going to keep going with this list of all the freedoms you have, all the choices you can make in all of your interactions to radically increase your sense of social freedom. Stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this. Are you sure about this, J dawg? This line to get in is so long. I know, man, I already told you we don't need to get in. All the ladies we could ever want are here outside of the club. Check it. Hey, ladies, what's up?

Ew, don't talk to us.

See what I'm talking about, man? They're everywhere and looking to hook up. Look over there. You see that girl standing all by herself? Go talk to her, man. Oh, come on, Wizzy, you got this. Alright. Hey, what's up?

Uh, hey there.

You want to come back into the corner and hang out with me and my friend?

No. I mean, no thanks. I'm waiting for a friend. I have to go stand somewhere else now.

What happened, man? She didn't want to hang out? Forget about it, man. We got all night. Tired of struggling to meet women and go on dates? Are you ready to get this part of your life really handled? If you go to 30daystodatingmastery.com you can get a free ebook I've written called 7 Ways to Start Conversations with Women Anywhere, Anytime. It'll give you guidance on how to build your confidence, how to connect with women in a variety of settings, and to do that all by being yourself without weird pickup lines or game tactics. So go to 30days to dating mastery.com now to get your ebook and find out how to transform this area of your life. Okay, welcome back. So here's more. Last one I said is you can change the subject whenever you want. You can interrupt whenever you want. I got a great practice doing that. We had some contractor helping us with some work on our house and he liked to spin yarns, tell long, drawn out, boring, tangential Grandpa Simpson style stories during a meeting where we're trying to like, Dude, I got 30 minutes away from work. Let's figure out what we're doing with the wall here. And he's like, let me tell you about my daughter's husband's mother's brother's son back in 1984, he had a motorcycle. And I'm like, oh my God, dude. Right? So. And the first few times I would just be like polite. Oh, okay, Interesting. Yeah. And maybe engage with him. And eventually I realized like, dude, we're not going to get anything done here. So I started doing this. He'd tell me that brothers, husbands, sisters owned a motorcycle. And it's like, wow, that sounds pretty cool. Hey, let me ask you this question. I was wondering about the wall here. Like, boom, I'll just start doing it. Like I thought, wow, that's pretty harsh. Or short. But you know what, I just had to do it because otherwise we would never get anything done. And he talked with me for two hours. And I don't want that. So it's okay to interrupt. You gotta interrupt. You gotta start taking care of yourself. Notice how all this stuff for social freedom is about taking care of yourself and not, you know, you might think that's being selfish or bad, but actually you trying to be totally selfless and just do what everyone else wants and. Okay, he wants to talk to me for two hours about this, I'll do it, okay? They wanna talk to me about the weekend, I'll listen to whatever they wanna talk about. I won't change the subject. Cause I'm not sure if they'll like it. All of that. You might tell yourself it's making you a good person, but actually it's you being scared. It's you pleasing other people. It's you trying not to ruffle any feathers and trying to get everyone to like you. And that is the opposite of social freedom. You're perpetually under threat. You're perpetually in a cage. So let's break through. What else can you do? What are, what are your other choices? What are your other options in any situation, you can leave. You can get up and leave in a conversation, you can say, hey, it's been great talking to you. I gotta go. You're having a fight with your husband, wife, boyfriend, partner. You can say, listen, let's just take a few minutes, I gotta get some fresh air. Let's come back to this in just a minute. You can leave. In a relationship that's not going well for you, you can leave. In a job where your boss is criticizing or ridiculing you in front of everyone, you can leave. And it's been really fascinating to watch people like in my one on one coaching or group programs who have left jobs while they've been in the in the program and before, they wouldn't because they didn't have the confidence. But they got. As their confidence built, they're like, what the f. This person's talking to me like this all the time. Unacceptable. So you can do that. You can leave. You can approach whoever you want for whatever reason you want and ask them anything you want or say anything you want. That's a big one. You can approach whoever you want for whatever reason you want and ask them whatever you want or say whatever you want. Let's just let that one sink in. Imagine that you can approach whoever you want. Who would you approach? Maybe it's someone you find attractive. Maybe. Maybe it's for dating. Maybe it's a networking event. Maybe it's a. You know, when I was. I work with. Sometimes with people about creating their social life, their friend network, and there's a sense of, like, well, people already have their friends full. And people. It's the same thing in dating. People stay in their comfort zone and try to find someone to date or someone to be their friend. So they stay. They look around them at work. All right, who are my potential friends here? But when you give yourself total social freedom, you could be hanging out at a park, and you're just like, I don't know, sitting there on a blanket, reading a book, perhaps the Art of Extraordinary Confidence, which I hear is a fantastic book. So you're reading that, and then you look up, and there's a couple of guys, I don't know, throwing a football around. And let's say you are like, oh, man, I like to throw a football around. I. You know, maybe you hear them laughing or something, and you're like, oh, I would love to, like, hang out. Maybe. Maybe they're fun people to hang out with. Maybe I'd be friends with them. The freedom to approach whoever you want for whatever reason you want. Hey, what's up, guys? Hey. Hey, can I join in? Boom. Now you're throwing the football around with them. And then after you start chatting with them, you can say whatever you want. You can ask whatever you want. You can open up your entire world by giving yourself these permissions. Here's the core of it. You can be more of you. You can be more of you. In fact, the more you do, the better you feel, and the more others are drawn to you. We have it all backwards. We think, if I do these things and say what I want and ask what I want and approach what I want, all that stuff, it's gonna be bad times. It's Gonna be just a never ending string of horrendous rejections. But it's the exact opposite. The more you give yourself that permission, the more you show up powerfully and just do it. The more people are drawn to you and the better you feel. And it's a win. Win. So let's talk about how you can apply all this stuff in your life right now with your action step. Time for action. Your action step for today is to come up with the top permissions. Maybe the top three that you would really want to have for yourself. The top three. You know, I listed a bunch here, maybe there's even some that I didn't list, but maybe I hear I said, you can interrupt or you can say no, or you can approach whoever you want, or you can ask someone for something. So pick the three that sound most appealing to you, that you get a resonance with. You're like, ooh, I want more of that. And change it from you to I. I can say no. I can change the subject whenever I want. I can interrupt, I can leave. I can approach anyone for any reason. Now come up with the three that are most appealing to you and write them down somewhere, repeat them in your mind, think about them, hold them in your awareness, and then live. Like, live them out, do them. So if you're in a situation, you're like, I can change the subject. Then in that moment, practice changing the subject. Practice proving to yourself that you do have those abilities, that you do have that choice, even if you're a little nervous. In fact, that's the only way you're going to transform this and build that social freedom is by doing it. Even though you are nervous. You can't just say this to yourself and then never do it and hope that everything changes. You have to say it to yourself. I can say no. And then practice saying no. And if three is too many for you, if you're like, whoa, that's a lot, just pick one. Just pick one of these permissions and build on it from there. And as you do that, as you stack more and more and more of these, your level of social freedom will just start to skyrocket more and more and expand, and then your life gets better and better and better. So thanks so much for being with me today. I really appreciate your willingness to show up, to learn and focus on this stuff and to create a life of more confidence and an extraordinary life. You're awesome. So 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 socialconfidencecenter. Com.