Seek Out Fear

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 second, 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. Yo. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about fear. Oh yes, everyone's favorite topic. Not only about how to deal with it, how to work with it, but actually something that's very counterintuitive, which is how to seek it out. What? Who does this? Well, you do. Well, anyone who wants to be free does this. Anyone who really has achieved a great level of success, ability, liberation, freedom, whether that's, you know, they're free to go pursue the career that they want or free to, to pursue who they want for love and relationship, maybe even just a sense of social freedom, being comfortable and free to be who you are around others without self consciousness or fear or social anxiety. Any of that requires this new relationship to fear. So that's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. I can't wait to dive into it. It's one of my favorite topics. And by the way, if you have not already checked out the webpage for the show, you can go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and and you can find out more about the show there as well as get my free ebook which you can also get on my main site, which is socialconfidencecenter.com socialconfidencecenter.com and on there you can get an ebook called Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. And while it's free, it is not just something that I threw together in like a day or something. It's an in depth book that goes step by step in guidance on the the five key things that you need to do starting now to increase your confidence rapidly. So check that out. There's tons of other good stuff on the websites as well. If you want to go deeper, that's the place to go. And also by the way, if you don't know this, I have a YouTube channel called Get More Confidence. Some people don't know that. And I'm surprised to find that out. Like, no, you gotta check them both out. So if you're enjoying this podcast, definitely check out, get more confidence on YouTube. All right, let's talk about fear and a new relationship to fear. So what highlighted this was I was interviewing someone recently who was a client of mine. First one on one, then they did a year in my Mastermind program. He's been to a lot of events, and people are just at the events. People are always kind of gravitating towards him, like, what did you do? What's your secret? And he shares a lot of insights and things he's learned, and so much so that I actually brought him up for just about 15 minutes at one of the live events and interviewed him so people could get a sense into his psychology and his experience. And one thing became very clear from that interview was that he has a different relationship with fear now than he did many years ago, and that he really has gotten on a deep level that fear is something that you face. And let me explain more about what I mean around that. It's like, there's different ways we can do this. I mean, the lowest level is when we're just living in avoidance. And maybe you've done that for a really long time and you're sick and tired of that, like I was. And so that means if something's scary, you avoid it. If it's afraid, if it produces fear, you run the other way. That's just a. Seems like a natural evolutionary thing to do, which does make sense. If the thing is, I don't know, rattlesnake or something like that. Yeah. Then go the other way. There's probably no reason why you need to confront that snake. But what if the fear is of rejection? What if the fear is looking bad or being embarrassed or someone not liking you? Well, then the cost of avoiding that is you don't move towards what you want. You don't express yourself. You don't go for what you want and maybe fail, but also maybe get it. You don't get the date. Or maybe you do get the date, right? It's all these social risks and emotional threats, and then if we avoid all those, then our life just becomes very restricted, limited, and depressing. So there's avoidance, which you're probably done doing, but then the next level above that will get some results, but not that many. And what that level is is this. It's like, okay, fine, fine, avoidance isn't working. And usually we've waited a Long time to see that that's true. So it's not just like, oh, things are a little worse in my life. It's like, oh, my God, I cannot take another day in this relationship that I should have ended two years ago, or, oh, my God, I cannot spend another day at this job that I should have quit five years ago. You know, it has to get so bad that eventually we do it and then we do, and then it's, okay, fine, fine. Let me face my fear. All right, I get it. I have to do that now. What's the least amount that I have to do in order to get over this? And even if you don't think you're asking yourself that question, you might be. I see this all the time. It's this attitude of like, okay, approach someone to get more comfortable approaching or start conversations to get more comfortable starting conversations or speak up in groups to get more comfortable speaking up in groups or be assertive at work. To get more familiar and confident with being assertive at work. All right, the story checks out. How many times? Like three or we do it. We're like, okay, I worked up my courage and I was assertive at work once, but it didn't go well. And besides, how many times do I have to do it? Or it's still hard after my two attempts. And there's this language that's talking about it as if it's supposed to go away, it's supposed to get easy. When's this fear going to stop? I just want to be comfortable doing this. And there's this kind of almost entitled energy that we can have that it's just supposed to get easier or it shouldn't be so hard anymore. As if, I don't know, God or someone up there is like, doling out what's easy and what's hard. And you didn't get the good hand. But the truth is, it's just formulaic. If you do something repeatedly, you will become stronger, more confident and less afraid of it. And this is visible in people that have done this a lot. And the next level, though, and this is the level that this client I was talking about was at. This is what I play at, and this is what you might play at in the areas where you naturally are more adept, confident, strong. And that is you seek out that edge on purpose, proactively. You seek out fear. Fear is an invitation. Fear. It's not just like, oh, this problem. Okay, let me avoid it, avoid it, avoid it. Fine, fine, I'll do it a little bit. And Maybe it'll get a little better. It's okay. Where's my next challenge? What's my next thing? Oh, that's hard. Okay, I'm gonna do that. Oh, that's scary. Alright, I'm gonna lean into that. So where your default becomes, oh, I'm scared of that. Well then I'm gonna do it. And it's not this huge deliberation process or mini month avoidance process. You just start to do it faster and faster and faster and faster. And the people that are really good at this, they don't even have to, they don't even think about it. It's just a natural habit. Just like the natural habit to fear in the past might be avoidance, their natural habit towards fear is to move closer to it. I just watched a movie not too long ago, you might have seen it. It's called Free Solo by a climber, a mountain climber named Alex Honnold who climbs mountains, crazy mountains like El Capitan and Half Dome and Yosemite and all these different sheer rock faces, that kind of climber and which is hard enough, but then on occasion he leaves all his ropes behind and climbs up the freaking side of a mountain face with no ropes. So one falls, you know, one error and you die. And it's a fascinating movie. If you haven't heard of it, it's worth watching and definitely worth a couple hours just because of, well, the feet of climate. So it's a documentary on him climbing El Capitan, not Half Dome, he did that earlier. But the feet, the physical feet is just mind boggling. The scenery is beautiful and incredible because it's all over Yosemite and top of mountains and stuff. But then the psychology of it is incredible. Like what drives someone to do that? It's really, really fascinating. But one aspect of it is his approach to fear. And so he's trying to climb El Capitan, which there is a route, there's a climbing route up El Capitan. When I was watching the documentary I was like this is a route. This doesn't seem like that seems like a lot of the steps are just crazy. But it's like well I guess if your premise is like, hey, we got to get to the top of this sheer rock face. I guess that route is your best option because it's the one where it's technically humanly possible. But anyway it involves all kinds of crazy maneuvers and holding on to like bare rock faces with your fingernails and crazy shit. And so he's doing it and he knows he eventually wants to free Climb it, which is where you do it with no ropes. So what he does is he climbs it I don't know how many freaking hundreds of times with ropes where he just does massive repetition of the part that scares him. So there's one part where he has to, like, lean and then shoot his leg out and then lean that leg against the side of a cliff and then reach over and it's like some crazy karate chop or karate kick, you know, above his own death, which is fine with ropes. I mean, still would be pretty freaky. But, you know, the idea is that if you fell, you just fall about 5, 10ft and you're fine. But when he does it without the ropes, if he falls, he dies. So there's great fear there, right? So he has to massively repeat again and again and again and again, again this one move that scares him. And he knows. He just knows this by now. Like, if I want to be able to do this later, this is what I do now. Fortunately for you and me, the stuff that we're facing is not nearly so life threatening. I don't know what your profession is, but there's a very low likelihood that I'm going to plummet to my death today. For him, that's potential. But we want to take that same psychology of doing the thing again and again and again and again, and all of a sudden you break through. And that's what came out in the interview that I did with this client as well, in front of the live event. So one of the things that he was breaking through, his fear of was approaching women he found attractive. And what was really fascinating is when I first met him, that was like, he'd never done anything like that, and it was terrifying. But he was lonely and single and didn't really ever have much of a dating life. So eventually he decided he was going to start putting himself out there more. And so he did face his fear and grow in his confidence and then started to actually reach out to women. And he met a girlfriend that way. Only problem was, it wasn't a very good fit. And it was an okay relationship. It started out okay, and then it started to get real bad, and he couldn't have deep conversations with her, and she'd kind of do these, like, icy, stonewalling things. And. And he was a sensitive guy and was just tearing him up inside. And eventually he broke up with her, which was one of the hardest things in his life. And he was sobbing and it was so intense. And then, though, after that, something clicked, because before it Was like, okay, how many times do I have to do this approach thing until I can just get a girlfriend. And then after that, it was, I'm gonna do this until I can. It no longer scares me, and I can have total choice of the best woman for me. And then he started to approach women again and again and again. It wasn't just like, oh, here's. Maybe there's an opportunity. Oh, that's hard. Forget it. He's like, I'm going to go out and practice. I'm going to go intentionally go do this and practice this this afternoon or whenever he was out. And there was this consistent repetition of like, I'm going to seek this out. I'm going to face this fear. And when I saw him doing that, I was like, oh, this is just a matter of time. He's on the path to mastery. And as I started to reflect on this and I started to think about it at the event and then before this episode recording, I realized that that is my default approach to so many things in life. So I'm working with a business coach. He's helping me grow. She's helping me grow my business and reach more people. And there are many things that it's a team of people and many things they suggest. And a lot of the things, when I hear them, I'm like, that's a good idea. Not even that complex of an idea. In fact, I probably would have had that idea, but I haven't been doing it. Why? Because I've been avoiding. And look, this habit to avoid what we find scary is ingrained in us. It's so common. So sometimes we need that help. And I've grown the most in my life and the most rapidly with the support of others. So I haven't stopped. So I'm always working with someone, a group training. So I'm working with this pair of business coaches, and they give me ideas and I hear them and I'm like, that's a good one. Okay. And then inside I'm like, but it's scary. It involves putting myself out there more, making a bold request or asking someone if they want to promote me or giving a more powerful sales presentation or raising the price of this thing, or going out there and trying to partner with somebody so that we can joint venture on things. And it's just being more bold and powerful and confident. And so I hear the thing and I'm like, it's a good idea. It's scary. But I'm like, all right, let's do it. Because I'VE trained myself in this way. And I know it's like, well, the business is going really well. I could not do all those things and do nothing and wait for it to start to get in dire straits and then have to freak out and fight my way off the ropes and blah. But I don't want to do that, because here's the thing. If you systematically keep approaching that next edge and keep going to the edge of your comfort zone even before things are bad, then it's just going to get better and better and better and better. You don't have to worry about it getting terrible before you take that next step. So they'll give me ideas, I'll take their suggestions, and I'll implement it. I've been doing this. I've been working with them for about six months or so, and I'll get the feedback from them pretty consistently, like, almost every month or every other month where they're like, wow, you implement what we talk about so fast. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm paying you for. Yeah, no, no, we know, we know. But usually it takes a lot more, like, time, and we have to convince people more and do more. You just do it. You just implement it right away. I'm like, yeah, well, if it's a good idea and I agree, then I'm just going to go do it. And they're surprised. And sometimes you don't see yourself until you get that reflection back. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, I do do that. But the cool thing about it is I didn't always do that. I mean, you know my story, right? For a good chunk of my life, I was just terrified of taking risks and doing the uncomfortable. So what I love about this is, you know, whether it's the client I'm talking about or myself or someone you've seen or maybe your own life, you see the potential for this. You see that if we change our relationship to fear and systematically go towards it. And I don't mean just for a day or for a weekend, and I tell people that at live events, I'm like, you're gonna do a lot here. You're gonna change your relationship to fear here over these three days. But this is just the beginning. Because if you have all these new experiences here, new connections, new power, new confidence, that's not an accident. That's a byproduct of what you're doing and how you're being here. And it's really cool, and it's a beautiful window and it's transformative and it boosts your momentum and it inspires you. And if you go home and you don't implement anything and you just stop everything, go back to exactly what you're doing, it's not going to last. Like this is meant to boost you and charge you to then go. Keep taking those actions in your life, keep making that progress, keep facing that fear. And if you systematically do way beyond three days, but just week after week, month after month, move towards what scares you. What if all the things you're afraid of are invitations? Because I guarantee the things that you're afraid of, maybe it's like death in a car accident or some sort of physical danger and calamity, in which case, yes, you probably want to avoid those things. But I'm talking about the fears day to day, that grip you. Fears of being embarrassed, fears of making a mistake, fear of someone looking down upon you, fear of whatever, fear of rejection. What if you move towards those on purpose, systematically, regularly? What would change in your life? How quickly would things change? That's the other thing I love about this. If this, if you want to go fast, this is the fast button, is to be able to go directly towards what scares you. And then when you've done that, you move towards the next thing that scares you. When you've done that, you move towards the next thing that scares you. And look, fear doesn't always have to be shaking in your boots, terrified. It's just like, oh, that sounds hard, or that sounds uncomfortable. And I'm constantly doing this. And you want to balance it out, of course, with like, you don't. When I say I'm constantly doing this, it doesn't mean like, you know, from like 5:00am to 5:00pm Just like, what's the most hard, uncomfortable shit I can do all day? It's not that extreme. I mean, when I say consistently or regularly, I mean, I mean, depending on the activity, it could be something you do every day, maybe it's even just once a week or a couple times a week. So if you're working on being more assertive and bold at work, maybe you speak up twice a week on purpose in two different environments, two different settings. If you're working on dating and relationships, maybe you reach out towards someone you're attracted to two times a week, three times a week. Of course you want to do more, you want to go faster, you can do that too. So it's not about crazy amounts of your life dedicated to this. It really isn't. I mean, the time investment could be limited to an hour or something. I mean, two 30 minute sessions a week, maybe even less if you're talking about being assertive at work. I mean, you're gonna be in that meeting anyway. You're just gonna speak up. It takes no extra time from your life. It isn't about time. That's just an excuse. It's about willingness to face that fear. And when you do, things change and they change fast. And that's what I want for you. So let's talk about how to do that in your action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step is to look at where's that edge for you and what's the one that's the guts gonna have the most bang for your buck. What's the thing that excites you the most or would bring the most benefit to your life if you were to systematically approach that fear? You know, what are some of the basic things you're afraid of? You can start with thinking about that and then, okay, what's the one that's in the path towards something that matters most to me? Maybe it's dating relationships right now for you. Maybe it's career confidence, maybe it's social confidence, but what's the area where you're like, yeah, that would be awesome. To feel more free or more powerful or more outspoken or more confident in that area. And then you go face the fear and ratchet it back. If it's too intense, go small, find a 5% or a 10% thing that just pushes your edge a little and then do that. But do it systematically. Do it repeatedly. This is the thing that, if I could just convey one thing, it would be this, like, it's a lot, it's a lot of reps. And if we think it should be faster or easier, like according to who is it that there is no cosmic. There's no one there who's like, okay, well this is fair. There's no cosmic fairness, judge. Well, this person gets a little. Okay, you've put in some effort here, so you deserve this. It's like, no, the result is in how you feel and what your experience is. So maybe you have to repeat it more than you want. Maybe you have to repeat it 500 times depending upon the thing. And that's okay, because when you get this attitude of like, I'm going to face this, I'm going to take it on, something shifts. And I remember I asked this client at the live event, I said, when you're going to approach a woman, how do you feel right Beforehand, are you scared? Are you still scared or are you excited? And he laughed and he said, no, I can still feel nervous, but often I'm also really excited. I said, that's right. And that's what happens when you start to face the fear repeatedly and you challenge it, you take it on. It stops being this horrible burden or oppressive, uncomfortable thing you have to face. It's just. It's the path. It's something that can excite you and energize you. In fact, when they're interviewing this guy, Alex Honnold, before, he's gonna go try to free climb El Capitan, one of the most impressive and terrifying cliff faces in the world. And it's like the day before he's gonna do it, he's like, it's getting close. Like, I'm getting excited, I'm getting stoked. That's what he says. And as the layperson in the theater, non climber is watching it. I'm like, this guy's a freak. That's terrifying. People in the audience are like cringing and gasping just watching him do it. But to him, because of the massive repetition, yes, there's fear, but there's also this excitement, there's this charge. And that's what you get to activate. So that's your task for today and for the days to come. Enjoy and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. 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 it.