The 30 Day Authenticity Challenge

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 today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about the confidence and the courage and the boldness to be authentic, to be yourself, to really be yourself and say what you want, be how you want, do what you want. And that is something that is not easy. I'm sure you've experienced that. I know for me, it's an ongoing thing, you know, and to be able to do it more and more in deeper and more powerful ways at work in your relationships and all of your life. So it's a super important skill. We're going to talk about how to do that, how to build that in today's episode. One thing that I want to start with is asking, asking you this. If are you benefiting from this show? Are you finding it valuable, useful and helpful for you? And if so, my request, my ask of you is to go to itunes and give it a rating, preferably a five star rating, but not just a rating, but a rating. And then like a review, if you could, some sort of review of the show. And the reason for that is because my goal is to reach even more people and find that person who's in their room who's like, ugh, I suck. And then they happen to look on their phone because they're desperate, and then they find it and they're like, oh my God. And they can shift their life just like I did so many years ago. And I want that. And the way that I'm gonna be able to do that is by, is by having the more reviews it gets, the more it gets shown on people, people's phones and podcast, what places and whatnot. So that would be a great way, if you're benefiting from this as a free service, to give back. And that allows me to keep doing it because it's a lot of hours for free that I'm putting in, into planning, creating, putting up the website, all that stuff. And I don't get any money for the podcast. So this is a great way to give back to me, give me the energy to, to keep reaching out and helping everyone here. So I'd much appreciate that. You can just do that at itunes. If you just go to the itunes store or the podcast, place on your app, on your phone or whatever, and then do a search for this show and then hit a review. However you'd find your Way there, however you're listening to the show maybe is a great way to do it. And also, if you go to shrinkforthshyguy.com, we have a link there. It's like, subscribe on itunes. So you can subscribe there or click on that link and then give it a review. Awesome. So thank you so much for doing that. And let's talk about being authentic. Let's talk about this and the name of this episode today is a 30 day authenticity challenge. I'm gonna describe what that is and what I'm going to offer as a challenge to you in this episode. But first, let's start with this. How authentic are you? Just reflect on that in your life, in different areas of your life. At work, in your business, in your career. How authentic are you? How much do you say what you want to say? How much do you censor yourself? Same thing in your love life, dating, relationships. Maybe you're in a relationship, maybe you're single. How authentic are you? You being you, fully you and comfortable with you, it's okay to be me. How much does that feel true to you? Or does it feel like, oh, man, I can't share that here. The people that I'm gonna date could never know this about me. Oh, my God. At work, I can't show up this way. I can't say that I can't do this. And then maybe there's even stories piled on top of like, of course I can't do that. No one could do that. It's wrong to do that and kind of build up all these stories on top of that fear. So how much do you censor yourself? How much do you hold back? How authentic are you really? That's an important question to ask because I think being authentic is one of the scariest things that we can do. To be able to show up fully. It's scary and we try to hide from it as a result. Maybe with dating, we'll have pickup lines or we'll kind of put on a front, and then if they reject us, it's like, well, it doesn't hurt as bad because I wasn't really being myself. Or at work, we hide in our businesses, we hide because it's scary. Why is it so scary, do you think, to be authentic, to be fully yourself? I think it's because on some level we're afraid of being rejected. We learn somewhere along the way that these things are not okay. That's not okay for me to do that, for me to say that, for me to act this way, be this way, dress this way, pursue this thing, share this thing. And so because it's something we're afraid of and we learn that it's not going to be acceptable, it's not going to be loved, it's not going to be approved of, we don't do it. We hide it. We keep it under wraps. And anything that we hide, any fear that we avoid, guess what? It grows stronger. So then our need to avoid, our need to hide grows stronger and stronger and stronger. And the next thing we know, we're just feeling alone or lonely or afraid or less powerful, less respectable, less successful, less of everything. And I think the way to break through all that is to become a lot more authentic. And that's what the 30 day authenticity challenge is, in fact. Well, we're gonna explore in just a minute what that would look like for you. But first, I want to share a great story about me getting sick and tired of not being authentic and saying, you know what? And this is true. Aziz Scorpio, full on. I'm just gonna do it hardcore because that's how I do things. Kind of Extreme in a lot of ways. That's how I am in my life. So I'm going to share a story of me being extreme, extreme honesty. So stay tuned. We're going to take a quick break and we'll get back into that humorous, embarrassing and slightly awkward story in just one moment.

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Hey, welcome back. So let's talk a little bit about this extreme authenticity challenge that I had for myself. So this came about when I was I'd already completed my graduate training. I was doing my residency, I believe, at Portland State University. And man, that environment felt so confining to me. There were so many psychologists there that like, had these fronts and they were like the most, in some ways, some of the most guarded people that I'd met. And I was like, this is crazy. Like, we're here to try to help people be more loving in themselves and heal them of these challenges and these problems. In their life. And we're all guarded and scared and not vulnerable. Like, what's up with that? And, but you know, and there's lots of posturing and like I got this article published and oh, this is why my field of specialty is better than yours. And I just didn't like. It felt so confining. And I was just being so nicey guy in a lot of ways. And. And then I came across a book by Brad Blanton called Radical Honesty. And I've actually interviewed him for this show. If you go back, type in Radical Honesty or Brad Blatton in a search bar@shrinkforthshyguy.com that's where the show is at. I had to remember that. Shrinkforthshyguy.com youm can, you can look up that and listen to my whole interview. He's great, he's fun, and he's quite honest, as you'll find in the interview. But his book called Radical Honesty basically is saying, hey man, so many of our problems come and our anxieties come from just not fucking being real. Now, he didn't say it like that, but that was my synopsis of it. And so he advocates for just being radically honest, just saying what's actually true for you. And it's a full on kind of extreme philosophy. And I decided to do it. Imagine what that would be like immediately in your life to be radically honest, to just say whatever is absolutely true for you in the moment, even if it's scary, even if someone might not like it, even if it could be offensive. Are you feeling freaked out if you actually imagine doing that? Because I sure was. But I was willing to do whatever it took because I could see that there's another level of nice guyness that I needed to break through to be fully powerful, fully confident, fully myself. So I decided to do it. So I woke up, you know, whatever Monday morning was like, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be radically honest. And I remember feeling so anxious. It's like, oh, I don't know what's gonna happen next, right. It was this total feeling of uncertainty, which is. That's. Well, that means we're growing. And I remember I would say stuff in work meetings. Like I would. I started disagreeing with people, I just started saying stuff. And the one specific I remember really, really well because this was a number of years ago. But one thing I remember specifically was me and the other resident there were sort of forced in a way to do these trainings. It was orientation week at the University, end of summer. And so we would. They had these like, breakout sessions where parents and their kids who were going to go into school would come and our breakout, you know, so during whatever, the lunch hour, they could go and choose whatever session they wanted to learn about. And our session that we had to teach was like, resources available to you and your family at Portland State University. And we would talk about the counseling center, which is where we worked, and the rec center where you can go work out, and a bunch of boring shit. And it was a pre canned slideshow that had been passed down from year to year. The residents always had to do it. You had to do it like five times. It was boring. You're just basically reading information off the slides, shit that I knew nothing about. But all I know is what's on the slides. And we had to go do it. And so we're doing our presentation that day. And I'd done it maybe two or three times. And in the past I was trying to pretend, right, like, yes, according to the, you know, the rec center, your people have blah, blah, blah. And then if someone asked me a question, I'd try to come up with an answer. It made it look like I know what I was talking about. But this time I was radically honest. And so I was going through. And I said something pretty early on about like, so we're here from the counseling center to give you this presentation. We're gonna share about some of the resources with you. If you have any questions you can ask us. Most likely we won't know the answer because we're just reading these slides that we got for the first time last week. And I remember my partner there kind of like looked at me and he was like. His eyes were like, what? Why'd you just say that, man? And I was like, well, I didn't say. We didn't talk about it until later. I was like, I'm just being honest. And so at some point, someone asked me a question and I said, yeah, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that one. And someone else asked me because I don't know that one either. Yeah, in fact, we just got this. These slides just last week. So we don't really know. I don't know much about anything outside of the counseling center. I'm just here to do the presentation. And you could see the people in the group were kind of like, whoa. And some look surprised. But you know what was fascinating, extremely fascinating, was at the end of the breakout session, a lot of people filtered Out. But some people were kind of just still hanging out there. And this discussion started to emerge where people were talking, like, really openly and really honestly with each other about different things, about the counseling center, about needing counseling, about life. And it was really interesting. And one, one, one of the mothers just like, was kind of obsessed with like, what is this guy going to say next? So she just kept on asking me questions and I was just completely radically honest. Oh, yeah, no, we didn't. I don't really want to be. I didn't want to do this presentation. They, you know, they kind of forced the residents to do it. I'd say stuff like that. And she was like, blown away. She kept asking me questions. And she was also kind of amused. I could tell that she was like, what? Who says this shit? Is probably what she was thinking. And man, I mean, I challenged people at work. I definitely rattled some cages. I talked about research around psychedelic mushrooms in a team meeting. I remember my co resident there was like freaking out, like, dude, you can't talk about that. I said, dude, I didn't say I eat mushrooms. I just said that there was legitimate research from John Hopkins University that showed that mushrooms, you know, had a powerful effect. Right? And so it was just a, it was a wild ride and I learned a ton and there's some tweaks that I've made since then, but that energy I've definitely kept. So let's take a quick break right now. I want you to think about honesty in your life where you could use it more. Maybe you're not going to go the radical honesty approach, but where can you infuse just a little more? So we're going to take a quick break and then when we return, I'm going to share the 30 day authenticity challenge with you and how you can bring it into your life.

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Welcome back. So Here is the 30 day authenticity challenge. Let's start with this. How could you be more authentic in your life? More honest, more direct, more you? What would that look like for you in your life? Would it be being more vulnerable and sharing more, Sharing more with people close to you, Saying more what you think, saying more what you want and don't want? That's something I've been working with a client on is she is so conditioned to saying yes to a lot of things and she feels so guilty if she says no. And so we're working on her. Look, if something, if you want to and it's a hell yes for you, like hell yeah, I want to do that. Whether it's a hike with a friend or a date or your parents dinner party or whatever it is, or a coworker says, can you take this from me or can you see this client of mine? If it's a hell yes for you, then you say yes. If it's anything other than that, you say no. If there's like a yeah, I don't really want to, but I think I should, or maybe they'll be upset if I don't. No. That's what we're working on. That's what she's practicing. And it's scary, but it's empowering. And that's how she's going to shift and transform her entire life. So what would that look like for you? Would it be saying no more to more people and more things? Would it be saying yes more? Would it be asking more? Asking for what you want more? Notice how at the beginning of this episode I asked you if you'd be open to writing a review for the show. That's me being more authentic, me being more vulnerable, me putting out there what I would like. So what would that look like for you?

Good.

Now that you're imagining that my challenge to you is, is a 30 day authenticity challenge. So for the next 30 days, here's what you do more and more. As much as you can. You say what you want to say, you say what needs to be said. You're willing to challenge people. You're willing to ask questions, you're willing to interrupt. You're willing to disagree. You're willing to take Those risks, you're willing to say yes when you want to say yes, and it's a hell yes for you, and then say no. And guess what could happen? Maybe you'll feel scared, maybe you'll feel guilty, but that's perfect because you want to work through those feelings. Those are the feelings. Or more specifically, your fear of those feelings is what's keeping you caged in your life. And guess what's the most powerful way to overcome fear? That's right. Is to face it. So we face the feeling of guilt, we face the feeling of anxiety. Oh, what if they're not gonna like me? We face it. You realize you can handle it. You work through it, you overcome it, you grow. And then you become more powerful, become more authentic. And the more you build on it, it's like a muscle. You get more and more able, more and more willing, and it comes out more and more quickly. And then you feel better, you feel more confident. And here's the thing. When you do get positive responses, and you sometimes will and sometimes you won't, and you get to learn how to handle the won'ts, but you also will, and you'll probably get even more positive responses in the sense that the hiding, the censoring, the just trying to be ult nice and ultra polite, maybe you don't get a whole lot of harsh rejections, but you also don't get people wanting to talk to you again. You get the kind of like, yeah, he's nice, but I don't want to date him. Yeah, he's okay, but I don't want to promote him. Yeah, he's okay, but I don't want to hire him, hire his business to do services for me. You just get a lot of meh. But if you're more authentic, you're going to get people that really like you. And you know what the best part about it is? As they like you, you're gonna feel it more, you're gonna receive it more, because you're being you. If you have this front and then nice person Persona and all that stuff, and then they like you, you're kind of like, yeah, but they don't really like the real me. They certainly wouldn't like it if they saw this. But if you're putting more out there, then you really receive more. And it's powerful and it's awesome. So that's my challenge for you. The 30 day authenticity challenge. In fact, that is your action step for this. Your action step for this week is to decide if you want to do this challenge, if you want to do it, don't just say yes right now. Think about it, really imagine it, really play it out and see if that's what's right for you at this time in your life. I don't know the specific situation in your life. Maybe you don't want to do that. Maybe you got too much going on, maybe it's overwhelming for you. But if you're ready and you want to do it, so decide. Decide today, decide tomorrow, give it a day or two, decide. And then when you decide, then you do it, then you commit, then you say, I'm gonna do a 30 day authenticity challenge. I'm gonna find opportunities each day to do these things. Go back and listen to this episode. If you wanna be inspired along the way, along the journey, and if you wanna share your experience, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com you can send me a message through there. You can also go to facebook.comSocialConfidence facebook.comSocialConfidence and there you can share about your experience, ask questions, just get more involved in the community there. So thanks so much for listening for being a part of the show. You are awesome. I can't wait for the world to experience more of you. And if you take on the challenge, good for you. Best of luck. It's going to be only bring good things into your life until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are, to be more authentic 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. 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.