Now Is The Time

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. Welcome to another episode of the show. Today is the final episode of 2016. Oh, yes. Brings us to the end of the year. I don't know how you feel about the end of the year and about New Year's, and maybe you're in like a, I don't know, a holiday, you know, virtual coma. From all the food and drink that you've had, you're like, oh, God. Thinking about New year is exhausting. I don't know where you're at. I personally love the new year. I love looking back at the last year, 2016 here and seeing what I learned, what the challenges were, what the successes and wins were, how amazing the year was. And then looking forward to 2017 and seeing what I want to create. And we're going to do some fun stuff with that in this episode and the next one. To start, though, if you've been listening to this show, whether this is your second episode or maybe your, I don't know, 30th episode, if you're enjoying it, if you're benefiting from it, then I want you to do me a favor. Go to itunes or your podcast app or wherever you downloaded this from and give this show a rating, ideally a five star rating, assuming you think that deserves that, which it does because it's awesome. But, you know, giving it a great review and that supports me, that helps me in a ton of ways because then I can reach more people, which is my mission. I want to reach those people that are thinking that they are stuck, that there's something wrong with them, that they're broken, and I want to reach them and help them see. And like you, many people find me for the first time through the podcast. Also, interestingly enough, once you have more reviews then guests who you want to interview, other amazing people who can help us and learn, I can share their insights with you. They start to take you more seriously and are more willing to say yes to interviews if they see that you have a ton of reviews. So it will help me reach more people and it will help me get more amazing guests on this show. So it's a win, win, win. And you'll feel good because you helped me out. So do that if you can. Preferably now. Ish. And speaking of now, that's what today's episode is all about. Now is the time. Now is the time. We have so Many reasons to delay. So many excuses, so many ways that we've resigned ourselves and just kind of settled in different areas of our life. In fact, maybe take a look at your life right now. Where, where have you maybe just resigned yourself or settled for something less than you want or maybe less than you on some level know you deserve? And it could be in any area, right? It could be around Big area. In this show, a topic is our relationships. Because social anxiety affects all our relationships. Maybe you don't have the friendships you want. Maybe you don't have the relationship with co workers and colleagues that you want. Maybe you don't have the level of career influence and success that you want. Maybe you don't have the dating relationships or you're not in a romantic relationship in the way that you want. Where have you settled in your life? Where are you settling right now? And where are you telling yourself, that's just how it is. It can't be any better for me. Oh, yeah, maybe for other people, but not for me. Because I'm. I'm messed up. I'm weird, I'm awkward. I'm not healthy enough, I'm not capable enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm not smart enough. I just. Not for me. I'm not attractive enough for that. Where are you selling yourself? A story that is keeping you stuck in resignation, keeping you from really having what you really want. It's good to think about that, it's good to reflect on that. And if it's a little uncomfortable, if it feels a little negative or like, I don't want to look at that. Good, good. Because dissatisfaction is what moves us more than anything else. Desire for something great, pleasure, that moves us. But guess what moves us more? That's right. Pain. Pain is twice as likely, twice as motivating as pleasure. Moving towards something that we like. And so when we look at the things that we've settled and we feel something negative, that's actually good. If we can harness that, that's a power that is more powerful than that desire for something great. Desire for the relationship, desire for the career, success, desire for the friends. Whatever your desire is, that's not as powerful as a dissatisfaction of not having it. The frustration and the pain of not having it, that gives you energy, that gives you drive, that gives you commitment, that gives you power. And now is the time to access that. Not later, not maybe not. Oh, yeah. And that's why I love the new year, right? Because it brings it straight into context. Like, look, dude, another year has passed Sometimes this happens on people's birthdays, too, right? Another year has passed, and where are you? Are you on track? Are you progressing? Have you made it in the area that you want or not? Or at least are you progressing? Are you feeling great about it? Because you know what I found after doing this for many years, it's not necessarily getting the girl, getting the relationship, getting the whatever. It's the progress that we make towards it that feels good. That's where we feel good. So you could be really far from your goal. But if you're making progress, if you feel like it's possible and you're taking small steps, you're gonna feel good. Unless you got some, you know, I don't know, perfectionism thing that's beating you up, you know, you're not there yet. You suck, you know? But if you give yourself a break and you're just acknowledging your progress step by step, that feels good. And now is the time to activate that. So if you're feeling dissatisfied, good. In fact, let's work with that. Let's amplify that. In fact, I want to tell you a story from my own life about how that changed my life, how dissatisfaction was my saving grace. It was my savior. It helped me shift the course of my life forever and for the better, by far. Stay tuned. I'm going to share that story when we get back right after this. Does working with Dr. Aziz actually work? Can you really break free from social anxiety and live a life of confidence, success, and happiness? Here is what one client had to say about his experience.

People are a lot more open to me now. Since I've been working with Dr. Aziz, I feel much more confident talking to people because I have the skills to talk to people. And even people that I don't know, I can talk to. Now there are people at my pool hall where I go to for pool league. I'm being there every weekend for a couple of years now, and half of them I didn't know because I didn't have the social skills. And now I'm talking two, three hours a night every time I go to pool league with them. And when I'm in the bar, when I'm in a coffee shop, I can start conversations with random strangers. And it's really improved my quality of life. So I think Dr. Aziz is an investment in yourself, and he can teach you a lot of things on how to develop some good skills and improve your life.

To get started on your journey towards lifelong confidence with Dr. Aziz, simply go to socialconfidencecenter.com coaching. Welcome back. So what made me think of this story was recently someone asked me, you know, what was the turning point for you, Aziz, where you really shifted from, you know, out of shyness, social anxiety, into being a more confident person? What was the turning point for you? And there's many ways to answer that question. You know, is it when I reached a certain level of confidence or a certain level of ability? But where my mind immediately went was my apartment in Santa Barbara in 2004. I think that's where my mind immediately went. And I can, I can see the apartment right now. It's got. It's had a bed, a closet and a desk and a computer on that desk. And I played a lot of games on that computer. A lot of Warcraft and Starcraft and other crafts. Command and Conquer. Command and Conquer. Red Alert was freaking awesome, by the way, as was Warcraft 3, as was Dota and the Frozen Throne. I love all that stuff. But anyway, I played a ton of video games and I didn't have a girlfriend and I didn't really talk to women that much. And the one or two sort of quasi girlfriend situations, I had only lasted a couple of weeks and they basically approached me and then I wasn't that attracted. And then I was also just kind of totally uncomfortable in my own skin. So I ended it and had tons of stories about why I sucked and why I wasn't attractive. And the turning point for me, what shifted, what turned it all around, was not desire. I desired a relationship. I desired to be able to talk to women. I desired to be the confident guy that could approach women, women and be suave and get numbers and all that stuff. I desired all of that. I craved it. I was envious of the guys that could do that. I was envious of the guys who could stand up in front of a room and be bold and people who could speak in front of others and be charming. I was envious of all of that. I wanted it, but I didn't really do anything about it until the pain got so great and then I had to do something about it. And the pain culminated. The peak of the pain, the top of the wave. The crest was after having worked up the courage to approach a woman, she said yes to go on a date, had what I thought was an amazing date, only to have her blow me off without any reason, without any understanding, without any explanation. And this happened twice in a three or four month period. And right after the second time, I remember the day it happened. It happened towards the end of the day, and I was on the phone with her and I. We had one day, and I thought it was great, and I asked her to go do something else. And just her tone was so different. It was just kind of like, no, don't bother me. It was painful. I remember I hung up the phone. There was flip phones back in that day. Like, you'd flip it open Star Trek style. I closed. I snapped my flip phone shut and went back to my place. And it was getting dark as I got home. The sun had already set, and I went up the stairs to the apartment. I opened the door. It was totally dark inside. I went to the kitchen and made some food. And then I went into my bedroom, turned on my light, and was gonna either play Warcraft or, like, watch your replay. Watch a replay of Warcraft to study what people that were better than I did so I could, you know, always got to compete. Anyway, so I went into my room, and then I realized I wasn't home alone because I heard my roommate who lived in the other room. I heard his voice through the wall, and then I heard his girlfriend laughing.

Ha ha ha, ha ha ha.

So that's all I could hear is like, It's very accurate, very accurate depiction of what I heard. And it was so, like, I could. As I'm talking, I can feel it. It was like this ripping, tearing, painful feeling in my chest of, I'm never gonna have that. And I thought that before, you know, like, oh, I'm never gonna have that. Oh, I'm not. I'm never gonna. I'm not as good as them. I had that, sure, tons of times, hundreds of times. But something was different that night because it was the pain reached a threshold point where something snapped. And I said, fuck this. And I got angry, I got fed up, and I said, God damn it, no more. At least that was the energy. I don't think I verbally said it, but that was the energy. I was just like, nah. And it was mobilizing anger. It was frustration that led to action. And that moment was like, if you think of, like, a fork in the road, right, or a fork in a path, one path, the other path. In that moment, I shifted off of one path and onto another. That's led me to here, talking to you, whatever we are, 10 years later, no, 12 years later, 13 years, I don't know, many years later, all because of that frustration. And that's what we want for you. We want you to activate that level of frustration. So what area of your life Right now is pissing you off because you just can't get that shit handled. It's the same thing again and again. Is it your dating life? You just can't. Oh, there's that person. I want to approach him, but I just can't. I just can't. Oh, I just couldn't do it again. And that's been happening for how long, my friend? Like, months, Years of your life? Or maybe you've overcome one hurdle where you could approach someone and then they're kind of like, nah, you're. No. Yeah. And you've never been the one who's been desired. Every time you've wanted someone and been really excited about them, they haven't been interested in you. Have you repeated that five times? A dozen times? Maybe it's not dating at all. Maybe you are happily in a relationship and you have an amazing marriage or something like that. But. But I guarantee there's another area of your life you're sick and tired of being terrified to speak up in meetings. You're sick and tired of being freaked out before you have to go into that meeting. So you go into the bathroom to try to calm yourself down because you're so fucking anxious. Maybe you're goddamn sick and tired of that, and maybe you're getting pissed off, or maybe it's something totally different, but you got to find what that is for you, and you got to tap into that. Pissed off. I'm not going to take this anymore. Are you just gonna kind of be this slug that just, like, flops down and life just squishes you, and you're like, I just can't do anything about it. This is how it is for me. Are you gonna step up? Are you gonna say, fuck that. Now is the time? Now is the time. Because guess what? Now is the time. There is no other time for you to take action on this. There is no other time for you to begin shifting this? And you might say, well, I've already done some stuff on it. Get in a higher level of commitment, get more activated, get more determined, get more certain, get more relentless, get more fucking unstoppable. Because that power is what's gonna drive you. And the only way to access that power is by getting frustrated and pissed off. And if you're listening to this as a spectator and saying, wow, he's. He's certainly getting a lot of emotion going, then join me. Don't just spectate. If you just take this as entertainment, it's not gonna do shit for you. You gotta feel it. You Gotta activate it. You gotta access it. So if you're not accessing anything right now, maybe just pause this and think about it for a minute. Find the area that pisses you off that you're sick and tired, that you're fed up, that you're not gonna take it anymore. And decide right now, with me that you're not gonna take it anymore, that you're gonna do whatever it takes to break free, that you're not gonna let fear or some bullshit story in your mind that tells you you can't. That is totally fabricated. That has nothing to do with reality. That is actually designed to just prevent you from taking action and do shit that's scary. Are you gonna let that control your life? Control your destiny? Imagine five years from now, if you haven't changed this area, if you haven't done anything significant, if you haven't taken bold, decisive, powerful action five years from now, being single five years from now, being ignored and looked over at work. Five years from now, where everyone else that you're working with is promoted above you and they're younger than you are and you're in the same place because you didn't take risks. You were too scared. How about 10 years from now? Can you imagine a decade of your life going by, just dragging by where it's the same thing? Oh, I wanted to talk to them, but I was scared. Ten fucking years later, how many opportunities would you miss? How many potential friends would you never meet? How many lovers? That maybe the most perfect partner for you in your life, which I do believe exists for you? Maybe you. They're sitting 20ft away from you and you never even know it. You never even meet them because you're living the same pattern. Is that the kind of life that you want? Because guess what? You don't have infinite time and neither do I. So think on this. I'm going to share more. What? I mean about that last part in just a second. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Oh.

Enter if you must.

Greetings, nerd king. Word of your wisdom has traveled far across the land. I have come to seek your counsel.

A brilliant idea on your part, obviously. Hail, weary traveler. I am at your service, but make haste. May I offer you a beverage? Perhaps a Mountain Dew, Code Red? Or a vodka and Red Bull?

Ah, thank you, good sir.

Now hurry. What is your ailment?

Well, there's a woman, and I've known her for months. She works on the third floor of my building. I see her once per Day. Just for a few minutes, we exchange. Hello. But I want to say so much more to her. For you see, I love her and I want to tell her this.

No, no, no. This is all so too tawdry. You must play your hand more wisely than this.

Really? Well, this is why I sought your counsel. Good. Nerd King. What should I do?

Hmm.

Well, first you must place a mana card. Perhaps an island or swamp. Then on turn two, you must place another land. And then a two drop. Do you have any two drops with flying?

I'm not sure I follow.

Then. Oh, and now. This is brilliant. After all, I just thought of it. Then on turn three, only play a lad. Don't play any creatures. She will think you've run out of steam. But then on the next turn, you will play your 5, 5, 4 drop. Ember.

Beast.

Dragon. She won't know how to contain herself.

Nerd King, Are you talking about real life?

Of course, you fool. I've used this method to slay hundreds of maidens.

But I don't want to slay. I don't understand. What do I say to her the next time that I see her?

I believe I have already answered that question. You must play an island or a swamp. It's quite simple, really. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some serious camping to do on my favorite modded Counter Strike server. It's in Belgium. You know, the ping is a little high. The lag is tolerable.

Good hunting.

To you.

Need real advice on what to say to that woman that you're really drawn to but haven't spoken to yet. Or go to 30daystodatingmastery.com to find out exactly how to do this. From a place of authenticity, being yourself, and truly feeling confident in who you are. Go to www.30daystodatingmastery.com now. Welcome back. So, have you been thinking about it during the break? Yeah. You fired up about something. Is there something you want to shift that you're committed to shifting, that you're going to do something about it? And are you committed to doing something now? Because I spent 10 years putting off doing anything that would scare me, that would push the edge of my comfort zone. And it led to that pain that night that I was telling you about. And then I decided that I had to shift. And I'm fortunate in the sense that I discovered this early and I took action on it. There was one client that I was working with who didn't start until he was much older. He was 43 when we started Working together. And he'd done some therapy in the past and had some progress with it, but he wanted more and wanted someone who was specialized and known for helping people break free quickly from the shyness. He had tons of shyness, tons of social fear, tons of nice guy. I'm worried about hurting other people's feelings and offending them and kind of afraid of people all the time. So we started to do some great work around that, and I really grew to like him, to love him, to appreciate him and his humor. He had a great sense of humor. He was a really sweet guy. And he started to speak up more at work, started to become a lot more bold. He was going through a divorce after. Pretty soon after, we started to work together and completed that and then wanted to start dating. And he'd been in this marriage for, I don't know, more than 20 years, where many of it was unhappy and dissatisfying. And so he started to make these big shifts. He started to be able to approach and talk to women. He started to put an online dating profile up and actually learn how to talk to women. He'd never really done that in his whole life, and it was amazing. He came out to two of the weekends that I. That I do and just would do. He would just be so bold out there. I have a memory of him laying on a sidewalk as a challenge, a comfort zone challenge, laying on a sidewalk. But he picked a sidewalk that was between, like, a food cart and a tree, and so people literally had to step over him or walk kind of off the sidewalk. He was, like, blockading the whole sidewalk, and he did it. And of course, people just walked around. It was really weird to watch. But, I mean, that was the kind of guy he was, and he was an amazing man. And then he was in my group program after he did some individual work with me, and he didn't show up to maybe, like, three group calls in a row. So I reached out to him and heard nothing. That's strange. Then a couple weeks later, he called me up and said, hey, I have some news I want to share with you. So I got on the phone with him and said, aziz, turns out I have fourth stage. I think it was fourth stage lymphoma. And the doctors are predicting I have, you know, four to six months to live, and he's on hospice care. There's nothing they can do. The cancer was like. I don't even know if it was lymphoma. I don't remember the diagnosis, but it was some sort of Cancer that was throughout tons of his body, so much to the point that they didn't even recommend doing treatment because they didn't think it would be effective. And then he talked to him one more time, and then he died. And it wasn't four to six months. It was four weeks from the first time I talked to him. Four weeks, six months ago, you know, he was feeling fine. He was jumping up and down. We do a lot of that. My events, you know, get really activated in our bodies and access our physical power. Jumping up and down. I mean, he was doing great, and he was dead. And it really impacted me. And I. In a lot of ways, you know, one, I was just so surprised, and I missed him because I really enjoyed talking to him. I enjoyed having him in the group, and he was a friend of mine, and it was a massive reminder to me of, like, holy shit, we don't have the time. I mean, we might, but we might not. And we. And you know what? Not only do you not have the time, but your family, everyone that you love, we don't know how much time there is with them either. And so we. Now is the time we want to wake up. We want to take action. We want to shift our life to start living it now. Because you might not have next year. And you might say, oh, that's not going to happen to me. But I'm pretty sure Steve wasn't like, yeah, probably happen to me. I'm probably going to die next year. You don't think he was thinking that way? I mean, none of us do so. But we have to take that action, and now is the time to do it. So what are you going to do? What are you committed to changing in this coming year? What is going to be the thing that completely shifts in 2017, where maybe it's plagued you or bothered you or challenged you for the last five years, 15 years, I don't know. But no matter how long it's been there, what is the thing that you're gonna take control of and Shift forever in 2017? What is the thing that you're so fed up and so frustrated and you're not gonna stand to live another two years, five years, 10 years like that, or just die having never solved it? That. That thing, the one you're thinking about right now. That's right. That's the one good, in fact, that brings us to our action step. Your action step for today is to find that thing, if you haven't already. And maybe you already have it. Maybe you're crystal Clear. And you're like, I'm sick and tired of this. I'm gonna solve it this year. Awesome. That's your action step is to find that thing, get committed, get clear, become decisive about it, and resolve in yourself that 2017 is the year that you're going to turn all of that around and shift all of it. Good, Good. Now, if you're feeling excited, awesome. If you're feeling a little nervous or scared, like, how could I possibly do it, then good. Because anything is better than resignation, hopelessness, depression, despair. Those are all signs that you're just rush, running and hiding from it and resigning yourself. That's your soul trying to shake you and wake you up. And sometimes when we wake up, there's some anxiety, there's some fear. That's great. That's a positive, healthy energy that can support you. And in next week's episode, we're gonna look at how to create everything you want and more for 2017. So one of these major things that you're gonna shift, you're already gonna know for that episode, but we're also gonna look at all of the areas of your life that matters. Your dating life and relationships, romantic relationships, that is your health, your career, your finances, your friends and family and social life, your spiritual life, everything. We're gonna wanna learn how to help you get everything you want and more. We're gonna take you through a powerful process to help you discover what it is you want, perhaps in a deeper way than you've ever done before, a way that's gonna give you more clarity than you've ever had before. This is something that I often do with private clients, something that is a part of their journey and they invest a lot of money to be able to shift this and really transform themselves. And you can get this for free. So stay tuned for that episode and until we speak. Then, Happy New Year. Happy end of 2016. I hope you can reflect upon this year and give yourself the successes, the wins, the seeing your value from this year. Even if you've had challenging times, giving yourself credit, giving yourself love, forgiving yourself, supporting yourself, having compassion with yourself, believing in yourself. And I can't wait to speak with you in 2017 till we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard 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.