The Confidence Silver Bullet

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. Hey, welcome today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about the confidence silver bullet. Oh yes, there is one. Yes. Very good. I know, I know you want it. I know we all do, right? You know, what's the, what's the thing? What's the hack? What's the secret? What's the trick? And even if we have, you know, learned like, okay, you know, a pill is not the answer. There's no quick fix. When we get a self help book or we get a program or watching a video or listening to a podcast, there's a part of us that's like, is this it? Is this the thing that I'm looking for? And whether it's a new mental technique or a new behavioral strategy or a new system or whatever it is you're gonna do in your life, there's some energy we have towards it of like this, this thing. This thing's the thing. It's gonna fucking solve everything. I'm never gonna be anxious again or I'm never gonna feel sad again, or I'm never gonna get rejected again if I just did this. And it's this kind of extreme expectation that we have because I think deep down we want the silver bullet. We want the answer. We want it to end all of our suffering. We want it to be the panacea, the cure all, the thing. But guess what? I have the answer. Oh yes. No other human has been able to discover it but me. Haha. I have the panacea, the cure all for confidence. The silver bullet. You wondering what it is? Oh yes. That's we're gonna discover. That's what I talk about. I'm building it up first. Get a little energy going, but let's just dive right into it. If you're benefiting from this show, by all means, give it a five star review on itunes if you would be so willing or whatever review you think it deserves you can just go to itunes. Open up the itunes agent, the client agent, whatever you call it, the thing, the app, the program on your computer or on your phone. I think you could probably rate them from your phone, but give it a review if you can. That would help me reach more people. And obviously, if you know someone in your life, you want to share this with them, please do so. Share an episode with someone that you think would benefit from it. Perhaps this one, because this one's going to be fun. So let's talk about the silver bullet. Are you ready? Because this thing, like this is the answer. Everything that you want, you can have with this. In fact, this is the thing that's standing between you and everything you want. So once you get this, you can solve it and you can have more of what you want. If you want more dates, this will help you get more dates. You want to have more sex, this will help you get more sex. You want to have a better relationship. Once you're in a relationship, this will help you have a better relationship. You want to be in better shape, this will help you be in better shape. You want to earn more money, this will help you earn more money. This will help you grow in your career, become more of a leader. Even if you want to start your own business, this will especially help you start your own business and then turn that business into being more and more successful. And then if you want to grow in your leadership and learn how to delegate and actually run a business, rather than just being a business operator who's into your eyeballs and work every day, this will help you do it. Does this do it at all? Oh, yeah, of course. It improves your relationship with your parents. It can improve relationship with siblings or other people in your life. You can have better friendships. You can create the friendships that you want. It even helps you have a better emotional and spiritual life where you feel better every day. Now, what the f could this be? Is it a new mega super pill? Is it the ultimate vegan diet? No, but that certainly helps. What is it? All right, I'm going to tell you, but I was talking about this with a friend. I got a pretty preface, this here. So I got to prepare you for it because I think it's the ultimate, ultimate secret to life. So I gotta preface it because it's too powerful. It could melt your face off. Like the. Like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. You ever watch that? That's like a relic now. But the guy. I think it was Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he opens it up what are they? They're trying to look for the lost ark. And he finds it and he looks at it and it melts his face off. And that just terrified the shit out of me as a little kid. His face melts. Should go find that scene on YouTube. Anyway, it's like that. So I have to preface it with this. I was telling a friend, like I truly. We were joking about, because we were talking about this episode title and he was saying, you know, it's like a silver bullet. So I gotta give him credits. Al, Al, if you're listening, you came up with that title. As I said I would credit you. But I said, you're right, it is the solution to everything. But it's a bitter pill. Cause I'm telling people like, do you want this? They're like, yeah, do you want to have a better relationship? Yeah. And here's what it is. And they're like, oh, okay, that's it. So you know, it's a bitter medicine, but it's the truth and it will work and it will help you transform your life in powerful ways. Okay, you might be guessing what it is. Maybe if you know a little bit about what I teach you already have some inklings. What is it? The silver bullet for unstoppable unlimited confidence is discomfort. Or maybe I don't know what your reaction is. Discomfort. That's it. What separates you from where you are now. And everything you want is just discomfort. It really is. Think about that in your love life. You want more dates right now that probably means taking more risks and putting yourself out there more. That means asking more people out, whether it's online, on an app. In the so called real world, you know, when we step out of the Oasis in our VR bubbles, we actually go interact with other humans, approach someone. What a concept in a coffee shop. I've heard of these so called in person approaching things. How quaint. People used to do that in the 50s. And the reason we don't do it is because it's uncomfortable, right? So we don't have the amount, the date potential that we want. Or maybe you are talking to people you're attracted to, but you're doing so in a really nice, pleasing, wet noodle kind of way. And, and you need to be more bold, you need to be more assertive, you need to be more direct, more confident, more you. And that means maybe they're not gonna like me, maybe they're not gonna like the joke that I make. Maybe they're gonna disagree if I make a statement with clarity. Or authority or certainty. So I tend not to have any opinions and just be like, I don't know. When you think, so you need to be more you. And the only thing stopping you from doing that is discomfort. And the discomfort might show up as fear. Fear of what they're gonna think. Tension in your body, inhibition. Like, I couldn't do that. Fear of embarrassment, fear of making a mistake, fear of failure, fear of an awkward interaction, fear of someone being upset, fear of hurting someone, fear of feeling guilty. It's all just fear. It's uncomfortable feelings. That's the kind of discomfort that we're avoiding more than anything. What's between you and the level of health that you want? It's discomfort. Whether it's the discomfort of that moment where you're driving home and you could go home to the soothing bubble of your lair, or you could turn left and go to the gym. Or it's 5am and you could go outside, get your running clothes on and go outside in the air out there. The non. Get this. Outside, the air is not temperature controlled. What the fuck is that? I don't want to do that. So there's that discomfort. Do I go out into the cold air, go for a run, or do I stay in the bubble? So what's between you and the health that you want is discomfort. Same thing with food, right? The healthier food choice maybe doesn't feel as comfortable as the really decadent. Zap all your nervous system at once with cheese and salt and sugar. So there's discomfort and maybe not eating those things for a while, and eventually you adapt and you don't really want those things. Discomfort. I could go on. Same thing with starting a business, being more of a leader in your career, being more assertive, Everything. The only thing stopping you is discomfort. Isn't that crazy? Isn't that liberating? And doesn't that help you see what to do? Because we've all heard like, oh, yeah, you got to get outside your comfort zone, right? To grow, to improve your life, to improve your confidence. You got to get outside your comfort zone. We all know that. But we never slow down to think, okay, that means, like, what is the getting out of the comfort zone? Oh, it's uncomfortable. Oh, well, shit, I don't want to do that. And we have this strange collective agreement in our culture that no one should be uncomfortable. And if we are uncomfortable, we're fucking outraged about it, right? Like your flight is delayed and it's like, it's uncomfortable, right? You have to sit in an airport Longer. Or, God forbid, you know, it's delayed half an hour or an hour when you're already on the plane. And it's like, now we have to experience even more discomfort in the form of restriction, in the form of having to sit there and do nothing. Boredom. The discomfort of boredom. We're outraged at it. We're, like, indignant. How dare life present me with discomfort? And there's this collective agreement that you should be outraged that something is terribly wrong? You ever been in a restaurant and the air conditioning's blowing or something, and someone's like, God, it's so cold in here. This is terrible. It's 3 degrees less than my body wants it to be. This is unacceptable. There's a great book, if you haven't read it. It's called what Doesn't Kill Us? By Scott Carney. As in, you know, referencing the phrase, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. And it's about his initially, his fascination and learning from Wim Hof, Dutch athlete who's got the world records for cold tolerance and cold adaptation. Sat in an ice bath, like, literally just almost all ice. I don't think there's any water in there for, like, two hours. Bonkers. Wim is amazing. I've learned so much from him. But anyway, he goes beyond Wim Hof and starts to explore discomfort in all these different ways. And just how we live our lives in the bubble of comfort and what the costs of that might be. And so to get what you want, you're going to need to be uncomfortable. And yet there's this collective idea that we shouldn't be uncomfortable. In fact, people even say this in their language, like, so go out and do blah, blah, blah. Unless you're not comfortable with that, or someone will say, hey, can you do this thing or do that? And the person says, I'm not really comfortable with that. And then the other person says, oh, sorry, okay, yeah, well, we'll find someone else to do it. And it's like, well, wait a minute. What does that. Like, what does that matter? Unless you're saying, no, I don't want to do that. I'm not gonna do that. But is that because it's uncomfortable, or is there a better reason? Is it uncomfortable because it's against your values? Is it uncomfortable because you don't like doing it? Is it uncomfortable because you feel scared or embarrassed or whatever? It's like, well, hold on a second. Just because you're not comfortable with something doesn't mean that we don't do it. We want to lean into our discomfort. We want to face our discomfort. And there's different levels that you can be at with this one is you can just be just totally into comfort seeking. I'm going to just seek out comfort. And people usually do this unconsciously, I don't think. When I was younger, I thought to myself, like, I am comfort seeking and I avoid discomfort. I just did what I did. I was sort of unconscious about it. Then the next level is you become aware that in order to get what you want, you gotta face your discomfort and you gotta do it. And so there's kind of like a. Okay, but how much, like, how little discomfort do I have to have in order to get what I want? What's the minimum effective dose? So if I can get what I want with only three units of discomfort, I'd rather do that. I don't want to overshoot it. In fact, if anything, I'll undershoot it and see if that works. And then wait a while. And if that didn't work, I'll do a little more discomfort. So this is like, okay, I'm going to ask someone out like once a month and see if that gets me the love of my life. I don't want to do more than that yet. Okay, I'm going to speak up, but only when it gets really bad at work, then I will. But before then, I don't. Right. So it's just kind of like you're trying to bargain in a way, and that will get you some better results than total comfort seeking. Beyond that is when someone really gets like, okay, all right, all right, I get it, I get it. I gotta do it. I gotta do it. There's no way I'm gonna get what I want unless I face discomfort. And then they go face discomfort. And that's when your life really starts to transform and speed up and become just so much more amazing than you could realize. Because you're able to do the things that you never did, and then when you do them consistently, it becomes an identity. This is just who I am. So what's beyond that? Because there is always a level four. There's always a next level. What's beyond that is you embrace discomfort. You seek discomfort out, you become a little fucking crazy, crazy awesome, crazy good, crazy confident, crazy alive, crazy free. Because you realize, wait a minute, if this is the master skill, if this is what gets me everything in life, then the stronger I am when it comes to discomfort, then the better my life is gonna go. And this is where it comes into training what I call your discomfort tolerance muscle, where you actually look for opportunities to be uncomfortable, and you do them even if they're not, because it's directly related to a result that you want. So you know at the level before, you're like, okay, if I really want to grow my career, I have to have these uncomfortable conversations. Okay, I'm going to do it. And I'll have these uncomfortable conversations at work. Now that's a powerful place to be. Even more powerful is, okay, I need to have these uncomfortable conversations at work. In a previous episode, I was talking about having conversations about sex and money with your romantic relationship. So I got to have these uncomfortable conversations, and I want to feel healthy and strong on my body, so I need to be uncomfortable there. So same as the level before, but then. So this person says, great, where can I seek out discomfort in all these areas and more, where can I lean into discomfort today? And you look for it, and you do it. And it's not because you have to. It's not because you're, like, forcing yourself. It's this fascination. It's this desire for liberation. And so for me, one of my favorite places to do this is with physical discomfort. Because I find physical discomfort is. So it translates to everything else. Like, if you can be physically uncomfortable, then you can also be emotionally uncomfortable. So one of the things that I love, one of the best ways to do that is with cold. And it's great because now we're entering into, you know, fall, into winter here. But even when fall started, it's like it starts to get colder. So it's like, well, what if I just don't wear a sweatshirt when I go out to this thing? What? You know, and what if I intentionally take cold showers? What's that like? And just to notice all the emotion that can come around that, especially the not having a sweatshirt somewhere. This is. Oh, this is so uncomfortable. This is so bad. I can't enjoy myself. This is awful. And just noticing all that, all that resistance, like, what's actually happening? What does the discomfort feel like? And the same thing when you're doing something physical with your body, you can lean into that edge. Like, what does this discomfort actually feel like? Sometimes I'll intentionally eat something that's really bland and then just see if I can taste it and go deeper. Like, what is the discomfort of this? Is this really uncomfortable? And actually doing that has trained me to be able to eat incredibly simple whole foods and actually taste them. Like a sweet potato, a baked sweet potato. Just eating it with nothing on it. So you're like, wow, this actually tastes really good. And that was because of. First it started as, like, discomfort tolerance, and then it actually has a benefit. And same thing with a cold, actually. It can benefit you in a lot of ways and benefit your health. But what are the ways you can lean into discomfort? What are the ways that you can intentionally move towards what makes you uncomfortable? I was giving some physical examples, some dietary examples. But what about in your workplace? What about socially? That's another place that I love to lean into discomfort. And just so you have a question for someone, I just ask the question. What do I really want to know? I just ask it, even if it's a little uncomfortable, even if it's direct, even if they. Whatever. And then same thing when it comes to sharing what do I really want to share, what's real. And then I'll share that same thing. When it came to being with clients, leading groups, workshops, events, that sort of thing, and just starting to be way more bluntly honest with people, this is what I see is going on. And for years, my nice guy training still lingered in that area. So I would couch it and I would phrase it and I would overthink how to say it to make sure I took care of them. And now I just say, oh, wow, okay, so what you're doing is it sounds like you're living in a pretty defended, guarded way, like, really trying to keep life out. I just said that to someone yesterday. It's very direct, and it might seem like it's not that big of a deal to hear it, and it's probably not. I mean, what I found is clients actually really crave it and want it, and people aren't so fragile. They actually are like, yeah, I am living a defended life. Thank you for pointing that out. So that's why they're there. That's what they want to hear. So you realize a lot of these things that might seem so intolerable are actually very beneficial, whether it's the health examples I'm giving or the social examples. But that's just something you see over time from doing it. The point is discomfort tolerance. The more you can tolerate the discomfort, the more you can get everything that you want in life. So let's talk about how to put this into uncomfortable action. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is to get uncomfortable. Oh, yes. Get uncomfortable in whatever way you can, whatever way you want. And if you're not sold that that's going to benefit you, take a moment to really think about what's between you and what you want. I know you might have a story about why you can't have it, why someone is blocking you, why you're fundamentally flawed, why it possible, why you tried. But if you really step beneath those, and this is what I talk about a lot in my book, the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I talk about the layers, how there's excuses and then stories. And underneath both of those is just fear and ways to deal with fear. And then we get into action and how to take action in your life. That's what the, the whole structure of that book was designed to help people walk through what's really getting in the way and stopping them. And so beneath that is just fear, is just discomfort. Fear in itself is an uncomfortable emotion. And that's another thing. Being uncomfortable is not just out there. All of the things that we're really afraid of are just feelings inside of us. And so you want to be able to build your tolerance to be with uncomfortable feelings and not resist them, not fight them, not run from them, just be with them. So you put yourself out there and you get rejected. It's not just the act of getting rejected, that's one form of discomfort, but what you're really uncomfortable with is all the feelings that happen afterwards, right? The sense of failure or inadequacy or embarrassment. And so you want to build your tolerance to be with all of those feelings compassionately, lovingly, with deep self acceptance and work through them and get to the other side. Because then you can go out and put yourself out there again and again and again. So you want to be able to face discomfort and be with discomfort internally, externally. Doesn't matter to me where. I don't care where you do it. But you want to start to make that not just, you know, depending on, see where you are. If you're starting this episode at like that level zero place where you're like, man, I've been really comfort seeking my whole life. Then maybe just moving into looking for how being uncomfortable in one area of your life could help you get what you want. If you've already been doing that, maybe look at how to turn it up so it's not just once a month that you do it. But like, how can I regularly do the uncomfortable things in the area that matter most to me? And if you're already doing that and you're crazy like me and you want to just look for places to be uncomfortable because you know it's the master skill and it makes you fucking badass, it makes your life that much better, and you're seeking not just regular confidence, but extraordinary confidence and liberation to fully live your life on your terms. Then seek out discomfort. Take a cold shower. If it's wintertime where you are, try going without a sweatshirt for like just 20 minutes. I'm not saying you commit to being out on the whole day somewhere in the snow, although you can do that too. You probably have to train yourself a little more for that cold adaptation training, but just start by depending on how cold it is. There's Even if it's really cold, go outside in a t shirt for 30 seconds and come back in. It's kind of refreshing. It's a blast. Or find other things just to lean into socially, at work, in your relationship. Lean into discomfort. Seek it out and watch your life transform. Awesome. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. 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, 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 it.