Shatter Your Stories

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 today's episode of the show. Today, I'm going to share a story with you, a personal story from my own confidence Edge the places that scare me and how I go into them. And my hope is that this will inspire you and energize you to go face your dragon, whatever that might be. There be dragons, whichever ones you want to face. And you know why. What's on the other side of that for you? What better life are you creating by facing your fear, by doing the uncomfortable, by building your confidence, by challenging anxiety? What more is possible for you? And that's something we'll be talking about in this episode as well, is possible versus impossible. How do you know the difference? How do you discover what is really true and not just what your mind or your doubts say is true? And also what do you really want to create for yourself? Because ultimately, on the other side of those dragons is an extraordinary life. And what's that life for you? And I also want to highlight how this journey never ends and so you might conquer, grow, expand your comfort zone in one area and then there's other areas, or even in the same area, there's another level. There's always another level. And that doesn't have to come from a perfectionistic place where you're not enough or something. It's more just like, yeah, as long as you're alive, you're gonna want to keep growing. So let's see where that is for you. For me, one of the biggest areas of challenge I find is, is around physical capacity and health. That's where I will face often the most fear and have the longest history of limitation, lack, or suffering. Now, I definitely had a lot of lack and suffering around social anxiety and excessive niceness, however, made massive progress in those areas. And the stories have really changed for me when it comes to the physical health. Some of those stories are still in there, and I notice that I need to keep Challenging them in order to break through or shatter them, which is what we're gonna be talking about in today's episode as well, is shattering those stories. So let me give you a brief background. I'm not gonna go super in depth in this episode, but just give you a quick history. And you may have heard a little bit of my interviews with people like Dr. Ian Chambers or Steve Ozanich or Laura Heidrick. I believe her name is, forgive me, Laura from the pain cure clinic. And you probably pieced together, like, oh, Aziz had some issues with pain, and I sure did. So when I was a young kid and early teenager, I was very active, played soccer. I started to run cross country when I was 14. And then when I was 15 years old, I woke up one morning out of the blue with intense, crippling chronic pain that made it basically difficult to walk. And I had these episodes where I be hobbling around. I could basically be in bed or sitting, but movement of any sort was excruciating. Even when I was lying down is excruciating. And then the episode would pass after a couple days or a week or two, and then I'd be able to move around, but I was kind of always uncomfortable and always in pain. And another episode would come, and they got more and more severe, and I got more and more scared. My family got more and more scared. And so they took me to a number of different doctors. And the doctors were like, well, there's. There's nothing wrong in your MRI or in your X rays or all these other imaging techniques. And, you know, we don't know what's going on, basically. And so fortunately, they didn't recommend surgery. Probably if I was in my 30s, they would have said, let's cut you open because your spine's got some. Whatever signs of wear and tear. You got the gray hairs of the spine. Let's cut you open. But they didn't. But I did get, like, injection treatments, cortisol treatments, all sorts of other structural medicines, painkillers, all kinds of things. Throw the kitchen sink at it, and nothing worked. I remember one night I was lying in bed and they'd give me some pretty strong stuff. I think it was hydrocodone maybe. And so I'm kind of groggy and drugged out feeling, but I still can't sleep because the pain is so severe. And it felt like the drugs did nothing. I remember lying there and I'm like, how is this doing nothing to the pain? I could feel the pain, like, searing through my back. And it was like in my low back, in my. Deep in my glutes and then down my leg. It was just, like, searing. Like I'm lying there doing nothing, and it felt like someone had, like, a butcher knife, and they were just, like, slicing deep in my nerves. And, you know, getting up to go pee is an ordeal. And so I remember walking towards the bathroom. I'm 15 years old. I'm on all these medicines. I'm in pain. It's not working. I'm not playing soccer. I'm not running. I don't feel like I'm a strong, desirable young man. I felt like I was broken. And I look at myself in the mirror and I just start crying. And in that moment, I think there was a lot of conclusions being made, a lot of stories being constructed, even though I didn't consciously say them. But in that moment of me, I'm in my boxers, I'm looking at myself in the mirror, walking to the bathroom, I'm crying. And in that moment, I think I decided I'm broken in my body. Any sense of divine or God or benevolence in the universe was, like, shattered. Like, there is no God or certainly nothing good out there. I'm alone. I'm abandoned. And then this other thing. No one can help me because my parents couldn't help me. The doctors couldn't help me, the system couldn't help me. It was very scary. I was very despairing. So those stories got locked in, and I lived for the next four years in that cycle of chronic pain. When I was 19, I got a medication. Finally, I saw a rheumatologist who diagnosed me with something called ankylosing spondylitis. And he gave me a medicine called Enbrel, which is an immunosuppressant. It seemed to curtail some of the major back pain symptoms, which was a godsend. I was 19. I was able to start, like, moving around. I was able to start walking and hiking and doing a little bit of jogging, but nothing much, but just basic functioning worked okay. And as I used my body, though, I would find that inevitably, if I tried to do anything, like, I played the guitar a lot, and I would get repetitive strain or carpal tunnel injuries or syndromes. If I tried to run, I'd get plantar fasciitis and couldn't run for a year. If I tried to lift weights, I'd have neck pain, shoulder pain. If I had to swim, I would get pain in my shoulders that would hurt. If I sat at a desk, I'd get insane pain in my neck. If I have pain in my jaw, I'd have. My jaw would lock out. So I had temporal tmj, temporomandibular joint disorder. I had stomach issues, irritable bowel syndrome, ibs. I had knee pain, whatever, you name it, I had pain. I had migraines. So while the main symptom was being suppressed, obviously there was still a lot of shit going wrong. And so I concluded, or continued to conclude, there's something wrong with me, I'm broken. I mean, what else would you conclude? It's obvious. And so sometimes I would feel kind of go about my life and feel grateful that at least I could move more. And other times I'd feel really down and frustrated and jealous and look at my friends and look at other people. Or I'd watch like soccer on TV and be like, look at these guys running around like it's no issue. Like, I'm never going to be able to do that. So there'd be this kind of aching and longing and despair. And then when I was 30, a friend of mine gave me a book called the divided mind by Dr. John Sarno, who's one of the pioneers in mind body medicine. And sort of the resurgence of that in the 70s, I think, is when he started the 70s and 80s, when he really got big with this stuff. And he introduced the idea that the pain is actually not structurally originated. It's not due to your biochemistry or your structural problems in your spine or your musculature. It's actually due to tension in the nervous system. And that tension can come from a chronic fear stress overload in your autonomic nervous system. And that comes from a stressful lifestyle. That comes from stress from being a perfectionist or being a nice person. And you're pleasing everybody all the time. So you're constantly chronically stressed if someone's upset with you. And it can also come from emotions that you think are stressful, like resentment or anger at loved ones, which are very natural. But if you're a good person, you don't feel those things. So I remember I got this book from my friend and. And I didn't read it and I was like. I think I flipped through it and I was like, no, no, no, I have something different. I have ankylosing spondylitis. This isn't me. And then about a year later, I came back and I actually downloaded a different book by John Sarno. And I started listening to it on this drive home and I had to pull over the car. Cause I was gonna get home in about 30 minutes. And I was like, I can't go home until I listen to this book. So I sat and walked in this little estuary park outside of Portland for three or four hours just listening to this book. And it was like light bulb after light bulb going off. I was like, holy cow, this is me. I have that personality, those traits. I do that. I am under stress. And it's like, wow, wow, wow, wow. I really got it. It pierced through the layers of conditioning and stories. And no, this is structural. And no, I have a diagnosis. And no, that's not me. And I'd reached a level of willingness and openness to explore other options. And then so I went on this journey of using his work and other books like Steve Ozanich's the Great Pain Deception, Dr. David Schechter's Think Away youy Pain, Dr. Schubiner's I think it's Unlearn youn Pain. Alex Gordon. You can go to the tms. TMS is the name coined by John Sarno, which used to stand for Tension Myositis Syndrome. Now they call it the mind body syndrome. TMS still the same acronym. And you can go to tmswiki, tms wiki.org and get an insane amount of resources and access. So I really dove into that and had tremendous success in healing all sorts of pain. Foot pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, wrist pain, headaches, stomach problems, all that stuff. It was phenomenal. But the pain that I couldn't resolve was that original back pain that just crushed me when I was 15. So I was still taking this pretty hardcore medication, which you have to get your blood test every six months to make sure you're not, like, dying. So age 35. I'm 38 right now. So age 35, I'm like, that's it. I've studied this enough. I know this original pain is tms. It's Mind Body Pain. If I can regulate my stress and my nervous system and recondition myself, I don't need this medication. And so I got off of it and I started to challenge myself. I started to work out physically. I remember I went and got a trainer and I started doing things like deadlifts, which I'd never done in my life because I thought my back was broken and weak. And I got stronger. I got more fit than I ever had physically and muscular strength. And then I started to say, well, what else can I do? And I would say, I'm going to go first. I started running More. And I said, well, can I run? And I ran a half marathon. And I was like, well, can I run a marathon? So then I trained and I ran a marathon. And all the while I'm growing stronger and stronger. And then I would have, boom, these episodes where I would have this intense crippling pain. And for about a week I would be hobbling around. I could barely walk. It felt like I was back to being 15 years. You know, it's 2 in the morning, I need to go pee, and I'm like, how am I gonna make it from here to the bathroom? And then, you know, two weeks later, I'm out running a seven mile run. So it's getting more weird. It's like, wait a minute. Okay, clearly there's nothing wrong with my body, right? This is all. This is in my. This is my patterns, this is my nervous system. Like, you know, so what that led me to is saying, okay, there's another level. There's another level of mastery here. Like, this is pretty good. This is pretty awesome. And I'm extremely grateful for what I can do. And there's another level because if I'm having these episodic pain, I'm not free. So I got coaching from Laura at the pain care clinic. Laura and John, phenomenal coaches there. I later on started working with Ian Chambers, who's a network spinal. And they kind of operate on your nervous system, create a sense of safety and relaxation response in your nervous system on a regular basis to train your body how to not freak out, basically. So when I did that, after about four months of working with Ian, I'm driving home from his office and I look over and there's this mountain near Portland called Mount Hood. And I say to myself, actually, Candace was in the car and I said to her, I said, I bet there's a trail around that. And she pulled out her phone and she looked up and she said, there is. And so I think I actually recorded an episode about this about a year ago. But I, you know, declared and decided I was gonna go around that trail. It was 43 miles and it was about 10,000ft elevation gain and drop. And I'd never done anything like that before. But I decided I was gonna do it and I figured it out and I faced all these fears and my brother came with me and we did it, and it was epic. And I think I recorded a podcast about it. So problem solved, right? Well, here's the thing about challenging your edge and doing the things that you think are impossible. And where this story Is really most current right now for me is you can have a breakthrough experience and it might change your stories forever. And they also might reformulate. Kind of like Terminator 2. If you ever saw that movie, the T2 robot, you shatter him into a million pieces and he globs back together and there he is again. That's what those stories are like. If you haven't seen that movie, just think of like a zombie movie where you kill it and it comes back, doesn't matter how many times you kill it. There it is. You're not enough. In my story, it's like you're broken. It's like you're broken. You're not capable. If you use your body, you're going to have intense pain. That's the story. So been pushing that edge over the last couple years and this year. So after doing Mount Hood, I was like, that was amazing. I'm going to do that every year. In fact, I'm going to hike more than I ever have this year. So I did. I hiked all throughout the fall, all throughout the winter, all throughout the spring. And then come early spring, we get this puppy. Or late spring in May, I guess, we get this puppy. And all of my hiking, all my running, everything has to stop for a while. And so when I got the puppy, I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna do Mount Hood this year because I can't train for it. And I'm choosing this because long term, I know he can hike with me. We got a little mountain dog, a little mini Australian shepherd, but I can't take him on long hikes right now. He's a little puppy. So I really scaled back my exercise for a couple months and just focused on training this little guy. But then come July, late July, I got the fever. I got the fever. I was just like, I gotta go to the mountains. And so I was like, I'm gonna be freaking unstoppable. So I have this little pack that you could put this dog in. And he, at this point, when I did that hike, he probably weighed about 15 pounds, plus the pack, plus the water, plus everything. It's probably like a 25 pound pack. And it ain't designed to be, like, comfortable. It's not like a backpacking, you know, ergonomic pack. It was just garbage. And I just go and I hit it. And I hike 20 miles on the. On the trail, you know, 10 miles out, 10 miles back, huge elevation gain. And by the end of it, I am, like, in crippling pain. I'm just like, hobbling back to the car, and I'm like, you know, part of me is discouraged, and another part of me is like, dude, I'm unstoppable. And so I recover from that, and I'm like, wait a minute. If I could do 20 miles with a dog on my back, I bet I could do the full trail with just like a, you know, a little day pack with some water and food in it. Like, it's go time. So then I say I make a commitment. I make a decision, Okay, a month from now, I'm going to go hike this trail. And as soon as I make that decision, I then have intense body pain the next week. Why? Because I'm all constricted about it. Why? Because when you claim the thing that you want to do, that's when doubt is going to come strongest. That's when the story is going to rise up and the story is going to try to prevent you from doing the thing. What is the thing for you? Is it in your love life? Is it, I want to create an extraordinary relationship. And then as soon as you claim that, you get totally discouraged or you have a date that doesn't go well and you feel despair, and you're like, it's never going to happen. Why? Because that story wants you to think it's never going to happen. It wants you to stay in the past. It wants you to stay stuck. It wants you to stay small because it wants you to stay, quote, unquote, safe. And so a story for me is like, you can't do this. It's not possible. Because it wants. It's the familiar, it's the known. And I think the part of us are safety police and is not only scared of this next thing you're gonna do, it's scared of the next, next, next, next, next thing. So, for example, the relationship example, it's not just scared of you going on a date or even scared of you getting into a great relationship. It's scared of what's gonna happen beyond with that relationship. Like, you know, what's gonna happen next? How's your life gonna change? Are you gonna have a family? Are you gonna, you know, all these things that are more unknowns, more vulnerability, more, well, frankly, engagement in your life. And the safety police is freaked out by that. So all these doubts started to come up stronger and stronger, and, you know, it was day to day. One day I'd be like, I can do it. And the next day is like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to do it. Look at this pain I'm having in my back. Oh no, it's impossible. So what did I do? I turned to resources. Just like I hope you do. I turned to coaching. So there's a man, what's his last name? Dan Pain4U is his channel on YouTube. I love his channel and I listen to his channel a lot. And I said, you know what, let me just join his coaching program. So I joined his coaching program, went through his course, listened to the replays of the calls and really on my game with the mind body stuff because he's a master of teaching that. And it's a lot of, you know, it's a lot of overlap to what we do here, like sending messages of safety to your nervous system. Don't freak out when you feel the pain. Just say, okay, there it is, let's keep going. Today I'm not going to radically alter my life and I'm also not going to freak out and it'll pass. And how I respond to the pain determines how long it lasts. And the more calm I am, the faster it goes. So I'm in and out. And as it gets closer, the fear gets stronger and stronger to where two days before I'm like, I'm weak and my throat's hurting and I'm like, I'm sick. I'm gonna get sick. I knew I couldn't do it. It was like always some reason why it's not possible. Does your mind do that? Does it look for a reason why it's not possible? And it's like this irrational intensity that I would feel. And I just kept on like, I'm just gonna take one step in front of the other. It's almost like in order to get to the hike, I needed to like just keep one step in front of the other. It's almost like the pre hike to get there. And that's where commitment comes in. That's where determination comes in. That's where one thing I've trained myself to do is make a decision from an empowered place and then just move forward. And doubt is the storms that come and go, they're the weather patterns. But they don't, they don't steer the ship. They don't determine whether I stop or turn around or not. And then finally it's the morning of and I wake up at, you know, whatever, three in the morning and get hiking at 4:30 in the morning. And it is dark and it is misty and I feel good. I feel ready. And some part of me is like, dude, you're gonna get halfway around the mountain and be in crippling pain. It's gonna be awful. And I'm like, okay, well we will see what happens. Let's just go. And then I start going and I'm able to jog chunks of the trail as well and work my way up and up and up and up. And usually there's these incredible. And then the sunrise happens, but it's all gray and misty and usually there's these big like cliff views and vistas and now it's all gray, foggy. But I'm feeling just grateful to be out there. And then I keep going. And then I realize, well, part of me is not just afraid of like, you know, mind body pain. Part of me is just afraid of the natural discomfort of doing a long distance experience. People in the ultra racing community call it the pain cave, where inevitably and probably in marathons this occurs as well. You know, there's going to be a portion of your experience or maybe multiple episodes throughout the experience where you're just like in a lot of pain emotionally or physically. You're like, I want this to stop. I can't keep going. And I know, you know, you know that's gonna be part of the experience. So some part of me was afraid of that. And then I realized like, wow, I'm actually just afraid of pain. You know, so much pain when I was younger and so much reactivity to it and having no tools. No tools. There was no meditation, mindfulness, self compassion, journaling, therapy, nothing. It was just like, you know, be in my room, try to figure this out on my own. Scary. So scary, right? So this developed this, you know, sort of sensitized me to this fear of pain. So part of this journey is desensitizing me and retraining myself. Like, no, I am strong. I am beyond strong. I am a freaking machine. Let's go. So start hitting that brutal moment around, I don't know, around mile 15 or so. It's kind of like. But I knew it, I was anticipating it and I knew that it was just like there would be these periods of discomfort. And I trained myself to not look at the distance very often and just keep going. And anytime when you're doing a long experience like this, you start calculating how much longer you have to go and there is nothing that's gonna bring you relief. Cause if you're like, oh, it's only another 30, 27 miles. Oh God. Right. So you just need to bring yourself to this next foot, this next moment right now. And that's a metaphor that applies to all kinds of things, right? Big transitions in your life, big projects, big change, even your growth towards greater confidence and social confidence. It's not just if you focus on how far you have to go, it freaks you out, and there's nothing to do about that now. It's just like this next foot in front of the other, so I keep going. And then there's some moments that, you know, as always is the case when you're willing to push and break through those limits. There were some moments of just total ecstasy and rapture where I'd turn a corner and there'd be, like, you know, a meadow in front of this mountain or this cliff face with just rock, mountain from floor to sky. And beyond words, just. It would literally bring me to tears. Partly because I was probably extremely exhausted and emotionally volatile, but I think partly it was the liberation, because it is the complete opposite of the broken story. This is not what a broken body does. This is what an athlete body does. And so I embodied that further. And then I actually had a friend who was going to come meet me for the last six miles or so of it. So I had that little carrot, little beacon to move towards. His name is Landon. Landon, you're the man. Thank you so much for coming out to meet me. So we coordinate because I have this little satellite receiver that I can send messages from. So we coordinate, and we eventually find each other and meet up, and then we hike back together. And that was a boost to my spirits and hiking the last six miles together, the last two, it got dark, and it was. And then it got windy and stormy, like, really cold wind. And it was all uphill and sand, and it was pretty brutal. And I just went into machine mode again. I was like, let's do this. And it's training. It strengthens you to go into that discomfort. And then we make it back. And that was, like, at that limit is where, because of the wind and the uphill and everything, whenever we would pause for a minute, I would just be swaying. And I was like, oh, that's probably not a good sign. So we got back, and I was gonna camp in our van in the parking lot there. So got back, ate some food, hung out with Landon, and it didn't really settle in until I went to bed that night. And then I woke up the next morning and. And I was exhausted. It was like I tapped on my energy for the next day on that hiking day, which is to be expected, but I felt victorious. And it wasn't just. I Hiked around this trail. The trail is a symbol. What is the meaning? That's something I often ask people in my Mastermind program once they've done something, whether it's, you know, I went over and talked to those people, or we had someone share the other night, like, he went over to a group of women and asked them to rate how attractive they thought he was. And this is a guy who would be, like, terrified to even approach someone, let alone a woman that he found attractive, let alone a group of women, let alone to ask him kind of a strange question that, you know, is going to be, you know, playful and different and maybe uncomfortable. So just awesome progress for him. And he. Mr. D, if you know who, you know who you are, you're the man. But, you know, I asked him in the group when he shared that, because we celebrate wins in the group, and I said, what does that mean? Like, what does that show you? And he said, nothing is impossible. So when you have a big breakthrough, when you shatter those stories, it's helpful to internalize it more by asking yourself, what does this mean? What does this show me? What does this say about me or about life? And for me, it was, I am an athlete. Like, let's go. And once the walls. And you could say, well, didn't you shatter them last year on Mount Hood? Or didn't you shatter it? It was a marathon. And the answer is yes. But it comes back. And that's not a problem. That's not wrong. That's not bad. That's just, I don't know, like, physics or something. It comes back until it doesn't. It comes back until your identity is permanently upgraded. And maybe it always comes back to a certain degree, but you just start to brush it aside more and more and more because you get more and more familiar with, like, well, okay, there's that story, and it just fades away. In my experience, certain stories just eventually completely dissolve, and you just. It becomes really rooted in your identity. So, you know, I used to have this sort of, like, I'm not interesting, and I don't know if people would want to be my friend. That story has completely dissolved to where I know that first of all, clearly, I'm highly, highly fascinating individual. No, but, you know, I just know that, yeah, I'm interesting. I'm engaging. Of course, a lot of people would want to be my friend. Doesn't mean everyone wants to be my friend. Jerks. No, but, you know, some people don't. Don't want to. You know, I'm not for Everybody. But I don't have any doubt about, like, there's plenty of people that I could have fantastic connections and social life with and all that. And same thing for dating and relationships. And it wasn't always that way. That's just changed over time with enough evidence and exposure and repetition. That's how it is with this stuff. So what happens when you shatter the story? Well, when the limits of impossible get lifted, what do you want to do? I personally want to explore. So as soon as I'm. While I'm hiking this Mount Hood Trail, I'm like, you know, there's another trail called the Lewitt Trail that I wanted to explore. That's 31 miles, I think, around Mount St. Helens here in the Pacific Northwest in Washington. And I was like, yeah, I want to do that. And so I got that on my calendar in a couple weeks to do that. That one's not radically pushing the edge because it's a shorter distance. But then a couple days after the hike, as my body recovered, I thought, and I mean, I even said to Landon, like, I would never want to do a distance greater than this. That was during the last five miles of the hike. But a couple days later, I'm like, you know, I wonder what it would be like to run a 50 mile ultramarathon through the mountains. It's a little different because I did a lot of hiking and some jogging and this would need to switch. It's mostly jogging with some hiking or walking, so more training would be needed. But I just started to chew on that. And then I started to look up 50 mile races in Oregon and Washington for early next year, about six months out. And then the safety police. Oh, God. Oh, no. Not possible. Yes, you could hike 43 miles, but you could never jog or, you know, jog and hike 50 miles. That's not possible. Here we go again. You just keep pushing the edge, pushing the limits, learning how to work with that voice. Why? Because. Why not? Because don't you want an extraordinary life? And for you, your thing might not be crazy distances. That's just small subset of weirdos. But you got your own things. You're your weirdo in your own way, right? Whatever it is you want to create, maybe you want to offer something in the world. Maybe it's in business, maybe it's in love and connection. Maybe it's your passion, maybe it's your hobby, maybe it's your art. And not everything is to get famous and rich. I'm not winning any medals. I'm not getting Any kudos or national recognition for going around Mount Hood? No one cares, right? And so, you know, you want to create your art, you want to put your music out there, you want to share something. It doesn't mean you have to become famous or make a living off of it. I mean, you might, I don't know. But it could just be, hey, this is what I want to do. Because this is where passion is. This is where energy is. This is where aliveness is. This is where I get to shatter the stories and face my fear and ultimately become more of who I'm meant to be. That's what we're talking about. So I hope that inspires you and energizes you. Thanks for being with me on this journey. Thanks for hearing my story. This is one of the biggest places where I'll face the most fear. And I'm sure it's not over. I'm sure it's there again. And bring it on, because that's where the greatest growth is. So before we complete today, let's talk about you putting something into action. Time for action. Action. Action. Your action step for today is pretty open, which is I want to ask you a question as you listen to this episode. What? What are you inspired to do? What does it galvanize in you? What is it catalyzing you? Is there an energy coming for something? Maybe it just makes you want to be more fit. I don't know. But it also, maybe it makes you want to do something. Like where does it want to make you want to push your edge? Does it make you want to push your edge? Challenge those stories, shatter those stories? Where does it make you want to be unstoppable or do the impossible? That's what you get to decide. Maybe you want to commit to something. Maybe you just want to start to move in a direction. You get to choose because life is a choose your own adventure. But I know, as the captain of your ship, someone who values boldness, courage, confidence, determination, that you're going to choose well 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. Sa.