I’ll Never Be Good At Talking With People

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you, I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence, first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to this episode of the show and welcome to 2018. Yes, you made it. I mean, if you're alive, you made it, obviously. So if you're listening to this, you made it. And well done, well done on whatever you got through in 2017, whatever your accomplishment, achievements and wins were, and whatever your struggles, challenges, trials and tribulations were, it doesn't matter. You're here. And if you listen to last week's episode, you are unstoppable. So I'm, so, I'm super excited to be with you for this episode, for this year. Welcome. And I don't know what state you're in. Maybe you're excited and hopeful. It's a new year. Maybe you're feeling discouraged, sad, down, because, you know, life can happen at any time of year. Maybe you just had a bunch of time with your family and that made you feel feel sad or frustrated or hurt. Maybe you just, I don't know, ended a relationship and you're struggling in some way. It doesn't matter. Wherever you are, you're in the right place because over the course of this year together, we're gonna help you turn things around. We're gonna help you transform things in your life. We're gonna help you get to a place of total ownership where you know that you're the captain of your ship and you're the master of your destiny. And that doesn't mean you're the greatest. That doesn't mean that everything goes your way always and you always win. And you're some, you know, know, crazy fantasy version of a human. It's just you being you, you accepting who you are, you being on your own side, no matter what, liking who you are, having high self esteem and then from that place, being able to take actions, create the life that you want, pursue your dreams, whatever they are, your romantic life, your, you know, whether you want to be dating people more freely, approaching more openly and Authentically and boldly to create connections and conversations. You want to really find that person who is the deep love, you know, deep fit for you, a partner for your life. Or you want to crush it in your career. You want to start speaking up more in meetings. You want to start being bolder and more of an authority and more assertive and more powerful. And if so, you should check out my book, Not Nice, by the way, that just came out a couple months ago. Audio version is out as well, so check that out. Not nice. There's a ton of guidance there, but any area, your social life, connecting with people. And that's really what today's episode is all about, is connecting, conversing, having conversations. And this is a hot topic of focus because right now, starting today, is the early bird for my event. We do it once a year in the spring or well, it's technically right before spring, beginning of March, which is called Supremely Confident Conversation Master. You might have already heard about it. You've seen it on my list, if you're on my mailing list. But it's awesome. It's probably one of my favorite. I mean, I don't know which one's my favorite event because they're all distinct and awesome in their own way. But this one's so good because it's all focused for three days. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. This one is March. Look at my calendar right now. March 2nd, 3rd and 4th here in 2018. It's a Friday through a Sunday, but it's three days of deep immersion on how do we become Conversation Masters. And what I love about it is, you know, the people going there are not like, I'm excellent at conversations and I want to refine my abilities slightly. No, they're like, I suck at conversations. I can't keep them going. I'm not good at this. Some part of me thinks I'll never get this. There's something wrong with me. Like, those are the stories that people have going in and then watching what they're like three days later. It's like night and day. And one of the things I love about it is people realize how much capability they already have and how much of the problem is not skill like they think it is. Although we do cover a lot of skills and strategies because that helps give our confidence up. If we know, we know what we're doing. But real, the main obstacle is fear. It's stories, it's hesitation, it's lack of trust in self. It's low self esteem, it's not thinking we're worth talking to. It's all this core stuff that we clear out. And then, man, people are just, like, sparkly with be the word. So I want you to be there. I think it would. If you're listening to this show and you get anything out of these episodes, you will get way more out of being in the room. I know that. I've heard that story again and again and again and again. When I talk with people, I'll find out, like, what did you get from the event? Or someone on my team will talk with them and we'll find out, what did you get? And it's always, I am surprised how much different it is to be here than to listen to a podcast or watch a YouTube video or read a book. And the reason for that is because when you listen to this podcast, right now, as you're listening to my voice, you're in one state. You know, usually it's a kind of an intellectual state. We're taking in information. You might be doing other things like driving or cooking or whatever, and we're just kind of taking in some information. And it's useful, it's interesting, it's helpful. But when you're at a live event, it's not intellectual information. It is immersion. And so you are emotionally connected. We're working with people live. You're seeing effects. You're feeling shifts. You're doing stuff. You're doing activities. You're in your body, and there's no escape. We lock the doors. No, no, we don't do anything weird like that. But you just, you know, you're in it. You flew out there, drove out there, like you're ready to work, and so you're not. You're not. It's kind of like podcast. You can just pause it and not get back to it, but this is. You're really there. So as a gift to you, you giving a gift to yourself, and I encourage you to come to this event. And right now, starting today, the early bird is going for a little short period here where you can get tickets to the event for half off. So normally the tickets are $19.97, and during the early bird, they're just $9.97. And we have a payment plan, too, if you want to break it up. So there's just so many reasons if you want to make 2018 the year that you really transform things. I can't think of a better way to kick it off. And as I said, the event is just in a couple months, March 2nd through 4th. So go ahead and get your ticket. Now you can go to shrinkforthy guy.com shrink for the shy guy. And under this episode there, there'll be a link to go to the early bird page or you can go to your confidencecode.com event yout confidence code code.com event. You can also go to the events page of my. Of my page social confidencecenter.com so let's talk about you in conversations, though, right now. And one of the core stories that we have to help you transform is I'll never be good at conversations. Some version of that. Now, the wording might be slightly different for you, but there's some story as to why you can't be good at that. And maybe it could be in certain contexts. Maybe you are good at talking with people and connecting with people in one setting, but you'll never be able to do it at work or you'll never be able to do it with an attractive woman or a man that you're interested in. You'll never be able to do it socially. I'm good at talking to my colleagues and co workers about work and a few other things, but really deeply connecting with friends. I'll never be able to do that. Like, there's some area that you think you're not gonna be able to have conversations. You're not gonna be able to connect. Do you resonate with what I'm talking about or do you feel like total 100% certainty and belief in yourself? Like, yeah, not only can I become a conversation master, I am gonna be excellent at conversations within several months. And if you have that confidence, like, awesome, then you will succeed. You will create it. I have no doubt. And though what I found is myself for a really long time did not think I was capable of that. And you might think that for some reason as well. And in fact, I want to find out why. So if that is your story or some version of that, why not? Why are you not capable of creating conversations, of having good connections, smooth, charming interactions? Why are you specifically not capable of that? Usually we don't examine a story like this. I'm slowing down right now on purpose and creating a little bit of space here for you just to reflect and think about that. But we usually just. The story goes through our minds like, you can't do that. And we just react to it like, yeah, you're right, I know it's true. I suck. And we don't actually slow down and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why not? So do that right now. Come up with A list of your reasons. Why would you not be capable? Why is it possible for others but not for you? In fact, we're gonna take a quick break right now. Think on that during the break, and when we get back, we're gonna find out more. Stay tuned.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work directly with Dr. Aziz? After breaking free from shyness and social anxiety himself, he has now gone on to help thousands of men and women do the same. Here is what One client of Dr. Aziz has to say about his experience.

Well, before I started working with Aziz, I definitely had a lot of doubts.

Sure.

Yes. I thought that, you know, is this guy a scam? I'm paying all this money investing all this time into building my confidence. He might just be some guy that I found on the Internet who knows that if it's going to work or not. Definitely. Definitely. I know that a lot of guys have this kind of experience, too, but you know what it's like taking a risk versus just living in my small life for the rest of my life. I say, you know what? I'm going to do it and see what happens and just see what's out there. I just want to tell Dr. Aziz, Man, I love what you do. I love the fact that you are just really willing to help people to make this world a better place, a more lovable, more confident. Just really bring out the full potential in people. Because, you know, when I first met you, I was really small. You know, my boss hated me. My dad thought that I was a failure. I thought that no girls, no woman's ever gonna want to date me. But now, you know, I'm starting my own business. I got my own patent. I'm just really looking forward, aggressive. I want to do business with Walmart, Costco, and I have multiple women, you know, different numbers, wanting to just date me and just hang out with me. My dad thinks I'm awesome person. Just over this past one year, I've shifted dramatically. And I just want to thank you, Dr. Aziz, for just bringing the full potential in me. And thank you.

To get started on your journey towards lifelong confidence with Dr. Aziz, simply go to socialconfidencecenter.com coaching.

Welcome back. So what did you come up with? Why, for you, is it not possible? And I've heard a lot of people share their reasons, and I knew what mine were as well. I'm curious what yours are, but common ones are, I'm socially awkward. I'm not good at responding to people's subtle cues and other things. I don't know. I never know what to say. I don't have interesting things to say. I don't know the right things to say. I'm not interesting in general as a person. My life's not interesting. There's nothing interesting going on in my life. So I have nothing to share. I'm different from others in some way, somehow. It could be. My background is different. My cultural background is different. I grew up in a different country or a different city or a different culture. I grew up speaking a different language. My language abilities aren't good enough. I therefore can't get the jokes quickly enough. I can't be witty enough. I can't make good enough eye contact. I'm too nervous. And people see that I'm nervous and so they're gonna become extremely nervous. I'm gonna ruin things for everybody. Or the wastebasket. Catch all. Which is the vague. There's something wrong with me. I don't know, there's just something. There's just something. I remember one guy, one of the groups that had that going, and I just kept on pressing him. I'm like, okay, but what? What is it? And he's like, ah, something. I don't know, I'm just. And he kept on using synonyms, you know, for. Like, there's something wrong with me. Okay, but what? I don't know, I'm just like, I just don't have something. Okay, like what? I just. There's something wrong with me. Yeah, you already said that. What's wrong with you? I don't know. I'm like defective in some way. I'm just broken in some way. I'm like, you're just saying the same thing. It's like this weird cloud, you know, that seems so convincing and it's complete and total bullshit. And I know it is for you too. Even if, as you're listening, you and I haven't met in person yet. I know if we had sat down for a 30 minute conversation, we could uncover how this is complete and total bullshit for you too. Do you want to know the truth? The truth is fear. Scary. It's the only obstacle that really stops us from learning this. Conversations. Being able to talk to another human and feel relaxed, at ease in the flow. Knowing what to say, knowing what to ask is a basic human capability. It is so ingrained into your nervous system that it's almost like saying, I don't know how to chew and swallow, you know? I don't know. There's something wrong with me. I'm never I'm never gonna be able to do that. It's like, no. There's just been things that have happened in your life that have, like, interrupted some of the natural learning. In fact, you know, kids, little infants have to learn how to chew and swallow. They don't. No meat that immediately coming out of the womb. They just are used to drinking milk, right? Just swallowing liquid. And then at some point, they can start getting interested in food. And then you have to, like, give them little tiny things of food, like little bits of avocado and such, or else they'll just kind of, like, jam it all in their mouth and just be like, bleh. My older son, Zain, was very interested in food, like, demanding to, you know, put stuff in his mouth at a very young age. And so if you happen to be near you on the table or something, and he would, like, just grab a fistful, whatever, on your plate and just, like, shove it into his mouth and. But he didn't know how to chew and swallow it, so he'd just have this big glomma thing in his mouth and just go, wait for about, you know, 10 seconds. His victory. 10 seconds of like, yeah, that's right. I got it in my mouth. And then he'd go just, like, barf it up all over the place. It's adorable. In any case, that's like, you. No, but you have that ability. It's not like, well, he didn't get it right away, so I guess he's never meant to chew and swallow. It's like, no, he just needs to develop it, and you just might need to develop it, and there might have just been some obstacles that prevented you from developing it, you know, what got in the way? Well, usually it's some fear, some story, you know, someone you're afraid of getting made fun of. You're afraid of that awkward moment. You know, I've met people that they've had, you know, just a moment that was just so awkward with someone, or it's happened, you know, a handful of times or maybe even more than that. And they're so. They dread that awkward moment. And that awkward moment. Maybe it's not even that awkward. It's just silence where they don't know what to say, and they're feeling kind of tense, but they dread that so much that they don't talk to anybody. Or, you know, very minimally, they'll interact with their co workers just as much as they need to, you know. Yep. Yep. How you doing? Okay. Great. Back to work. But they don't you know, approach strangers. They don't go to parties, they don't have social interactions that much. Or if they do, they keep them as short as possible. All because they're avoiding that one little awkward feeling, that little awkward interaction. It's fear. It's fear. And then the stories that we build around the fear to protect ourselves, like, I don't like talking to people. People at those parties suck. Oh, it's all small talk anyway. Or more disempowering stories like we were talking about earlier. There's something wrong with me. I can't, Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're all just stories. The only thing stopping you is doubt and fear. Old toxic stories. The truth is you are totally capable of interacting with anyone. You're totally capable of having great conversations. You know what? Here is a stretch, perhaps for you. You are totally capable of being charming, being charismatic. Now, I can almost see some of you sort of shaking your heads right now, like, well, now as easy you had me and I could talk to people, like I was sort of nodding and getting on board and then all of a sudden, me, charming, me, charismatic. Just get the fuck out of here. And you know how I know that one to be true is because I would say I am charming and charismatic at times, maybe not all the time, but I can be. And guess what? If you would have told me that when I was younger, that that was possible for me, you know, if you told me that in high school or college, like, you know, you can be a charming guy, I would just be like, what? What are you talking about? That is so false that that is so fundamentally untrue. I know what charming looks like. It looks like that guy over there. That's not me. It's not who I am. It's not what I'm capable of. And it's an incredibly disempowering story. But the truth is you can do all of these things. You can connect with people, you can share, you can be more engaging. And there's just some core shifts that need to occur. So what are these shifts? And of course, for the super in depth, life transforming version of this, come out to Portland for the supremely confident conversation master. Because, you know, that's where you can really turn these things from intellectual into practical into applied for the rest of your life. But here are some of the shifts that you need to make in order to really create connection with conversations. First and foremost is to say, yes, I can do this. This is just a skill. Social confidence is a skill. Conversation is A skill, and we talk a lot about that in the first, in the morning of Friday of the event to really get people open to the possibility that they change this not only over 10 years or something, but very rapidly. The second thing that you need to really take in into your mind and get is that you always have something to say. Because I feel like that's the biggest fear. Right. Well, okay, there's a couple. There's maybe one precursor before that, which is you have permission to talk to people. So let's look at both of those. You know, one is that you have permission to talk to people and two, so you always have something to say. So the first one, you have permission to talk to people. You might. So much of the time, the fear, the obstacle is like, people don't want to hear from me, I'm going to be bothering them. Do you have that, do you have that doubt about creating a conversation with especially someone new, maybe somebody you don't know that well, maybe even total stranger, but even sometimes approaching colleagues and other people for social interaction? We have this story. It's like, ah, I'm gonna be bothering them. Some version of like, this is a detriment on their life. This is taking something away from them. And the first thing you want to do is shift that and say, like, I am adding something, an interaction with me is adding something into their life and you really want to own that. I talked about this with one client where we called it super bowl confid. Excuse me, super bowl confidence. Where we were looking at, I think it was dating for him and was talking to women and he just felt like, why on earth would they want to talk to me and let alone why would they want to go out with me? Like, he just had such a toxic perception of himself, such low self esteem. So he really spent a lot of time working on that. And one of the key distinctions for him was, okay, what if your presence was a gift? What if you asking her out was like going up to somebody and saying, I have two tickets to the super bowl and I got a space. Do you want to go to the Super Bowl? And I said, if you ask someone if they wanted to go to the super bowl and it's, you know, it's a huge game and it's going to be, you know, they're great seats, they're right near whatever the best seats are. I don't know if it's near the field or high up so you can see more. But I'm not a fan of watching any sport live really? Or at all. But he loved football, so that's why I use that analogy. And I said, if you invited someone to go to the super bowl and they said no, like they didn't want that ticket, what would you think? And he said, I think they were crazy. He's like, I'd go to the super bowl no matter what if someone gave me a ticket. I said, I know you would. I was like, so let's say you asked someone, do you want to go to the Super Bowl? And I said, no, what would you do? He said, I'd say, are you sure? And then I laughed. I said, great. And I said, then what would you do? He's like, then I'd go ask someone else. I was like, exactly. And if they didn't want to go to the super bowl, does that mean there's something wrong with you? And he laughed. He said, no, that means there's something wrong with them. Right? So what if your presence is a gift? What if going, you know, being around you is like going to the Super Bowl? And you might say, well, it's not, though. And this leads into the second one because I don't have anything to say because I'm awkward, because I'm not interesting, blah, blah, blah. Well, here we're going to take a quick break right now, and when we get back, we're going to just smash that one, kick that out of the door, and help you install something much more empowering. Stay tuned.

Dr. Aziza's most popular training program, Confidence Unleashed, is helping men from all over the world transform their confidence levels. Here's an email from a recent. Thanks so much for your program, Dr. Aziz. Here is a story about a recent job interview I had. Before going through Confidence Unleashed, I had a long history of avoiding social events I thought of as threatening. I have this internal coach that tells me I'm not good enough to pull it off. You'll step into a fearful situation that is beyond your capability. You'll make a complete fool of yourself. Just accept it, my friend. You're where you are now because you're not not meant to be any higher. I became visibly smaller physically, shrinking in my seat over breakfast. So I applied what you teach and distanced myself from this internal voice. I said to myself, I, Anthony, will now get farther down the road than I would if I took the advice of that BS coach. As my job interview drew closer, I grew increasingly more petrified as my negative coach came back and fed on my doubts. Confidence images from Confidence Unleashed reminded me that my future self will be more confident so long as I do something now to make it so. Forget the end result. Just do what the person I really want to be would do if he was now facing the situation. I made the negative coach sound ridiculous and feel ridiculous. I viewed my negative coach as a whiny imposter and owned myself for the good person I really am. The journey was tough and seemingly immense, but. But I faced my fear instead of running away and completed the day by experiencing pure euphoria. Warmest regards, Anthony. Go to www.confidenceunleashednow.com to learn more.

Welcome back. The Boring Identity. Oh my God. I have so much to say about this. Come to the conversation, Master man. I swear, sorry, you're gonna get so much. Just about that. We're gonna just obliterate the boring identity at that event. But let me do what I can here with you right now. So the boring identity is this story that you have that you're boring, that you're not interesting or not interesting enough or you don't have enough going on in your life or whatever. And there are so many problems with this identity, and yet people cling to it so hard. They defend it so hard. First of all, before we even get into why it's not true, why are you defending that? What's the payoff to thinking that you're not interesting or that you're boring? What does it give you? They call this secondary gain. I get into this in my program. Confidence unleashed. Like, what is the secondary gain? What is the benefit of having this toxic story, toxic belief, toxic pattern. One of the most common ones helps you stay safe. Because if I know I'm boring, then I don't have to open up. I don't have to go approach that person. I don't have to take the risk. It's one of the most common ones. Another one, in a weird, twisted way, is that it gives us a sense of significance. It makes us feel special in some weird way because it's like, I'm the most boring. I have the least going on. Other people can learn this conversation stuff and share and be more interesting and stuff, but not me. I'm too messed up. And in a weird, twisted way, it gives us a sense of significance, of being special. Now, it's not the kind of special that you probably deep down want, but hey, we'll take what we can get, especially if it's easy. So, man, that's just a quick crash course. There's a lot we could do there to help shake up, help you See the secondary gain, but hopefully you're seeing some right now. And then the truth, the truth is, be engaged in your own life. Are you engaged in your own life? Are things in your life interesting to you? And if that's a no, then you either are depressed and just kind of dismissing all the things that you have going on in your life, or you truly are living an extremely safety, police controlled, sheltered, boring existence, in which case, step up and take some risks. You know, do things, approach things that are interesting to you. Look out into the Internet or the world around you or poster boards at the coffee shop and find some shit that you're interested, whether it's an open mic or an improv class or a pottery making, I don't know, evening random stuff that comes to my mind, or a running club or a meetup or going out to play the gathering tournaments on a Friday night. That one's totally hypothetical. I've never done that before in my life. Whatever it is, just getting out, engaging in things. And some of those things don't even have to involve people. Like maybe you love going for hikes in the woods by yourself. Do that. Do whatever turns you on in life, engages you, activates you and your energy, whatever energizes you, do that. Engage in that. Break the habits and the addictions of technology and watching a bunch of TV and whatever else is stopping you from doing that and get into fucking life. Create the life that you want, be engaged, and then from that place, just share. Know that. Whatever. If it's interesting to you, it's interesting. That's an interesting distinction. Or maybe a new distinction for you. If it's interesting to you, it's interesting. And you might say, but how do you know that? How do you know they'd be interested? Well, why is them or someone else being interested? The determining factor, whether you are interesting, your identity, is determined by someone else's random reaction to you. What if it's a stranger? That person you never met in your Entire Life in 30 seconds is going to decide your worth and your value as a human, whether how interesting you are or engaging you are. So what are you into? And we do this at the event too, where it's like we have people practice talking about what they're into and notice how they do it. And, you know, usually people have years of habits of being dismissive. Oh, yeah, you know, I go to the gym, workout and stuff. Like, that's how they'll say it. Like, I go to the gym and I work out and stuff. All right, let's do better than that. I mean, be engaged here and I'll kind of play with people and tease them and bring them out and you talk about what you're interested in. Oh, man, I went to the gym. It was awesome. So we're doing these things called deadlifts. I don't know if you do any weight lifting. You know what that is, but that's like you bend down and just pick up this heavy weight straight up off the ground and then drop it back down. And when I first saw that, I thought, isn't that like the worst thing in the world you can do for your back? I mean, isn't that just like everything you read and look at and stuff, and warnings from doctors like, don't lift, don't do stuff with your low back. And the deadlift is just a straight up thing with your low back. It's crazy, you know, and you just share a little bit about my experience. That's what I was doing there. And just little nuggets like that or you. It's like, what did you do? I watched a movie instead. Oh, I watched this. And here's a scene that stood out to me. Or this was interesting. And this is what I thought about as I watched it. Like, you just share what's interesting to you. I mean, there's so much more here that we could dive into, but this is gonna get you kickstarted. And of course, the most important thing to do is to put this all into something. Put this all. Well, all that we're learning, we need to put it into. Into something. Time for action. Action. Action. Oh, right. Action. That's what it is. That's put it into is action. So of course you got to practice this stuff. And so right now, you know, momentum is key today. Look for opportunities to have conversations. Instead of moving away from conversations, move towards conversations. Practice the conversation. Remind yourself that you do have these capabilities and just look for little opportunities to ask questions or share. Start in low risk situations where it's easy and then you can work your way up, but you'll know what that is for you. Start for that thing that's just like a little bit outside the edge of your comfort zone. You don't have to take the biggest leap in the world, but practice those conversations, engage in those conversations, do that consistently, and your perception of yourself will transform. And if you really want support in this and you really want to make this fast for you and make 2018 an incredible year, get those early bird tickets for Supremely Confident Conversation Master I cannot highlight how valuable that will be for you, especially if you're listening to this podcast and you resonate with me and and I would love to come hang out with you or for you to come hang out with me here in Portland for three days for a life changing weekend. And regardless, apply this stuff and any story in your head that tells you otherwise is false. You can do this and you're awesome. Till we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are.

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.