The Only 2 Things That Stop You

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. Welcome to today's episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz. And today we're gonna be talking about the only two things that stop you from building the confidence that you want, creating the connections that you want, being the person that you want to be in the world, and all the results that can come from that. And I know it might seem like there's 2000 different things that could stop you or other people, and it's all very specific and based upon what happened when you were younger or this situation, my dating life, but this person at work, and. And I get it. I get it that life is complex and circumstances are very specific to the individual. And underneath, it turns out after studying this for a long time, there are only two things. So we're looking at the larger pattern here, and this is going to be really helpful, because if you are trying to solve 2,000 things, well, that's hard. That's a lot of things. But if there's only two, well, two is manageable. Two is very doable. So I'm excited to share this with you. Thank you for joining me today. We're gonna dive right into it, and if you haven't already heard about it and you're not aware, I am really excited to have an opportunity to spend three days, hopefully, with you and anyone who wants to, virtually, in a very short period of time, where we're gonna dive into niceness, completely deconstruct niceness, the nice version that you think you have to be, that you think makes you a. That he thinks. If you follow these rules and be what people want you to be and please others and smile and nod and just give and be nice and be what you're supposed to be, things are gonna work out for you. People are gonna care for you, that you're gonna get what you want in life, that you are going to get all the rewards that a good person should get in the world. And you might have reached the point where. Where something's a little fishy about that narrative. Now, some people hear this and they say, oh, you're saying, be a jerk. Just be mean to everybody. And that's not what niceness is about. Niceness is not about kindness. In fact, my new book, Less Nice, More youe, which is out on Audible now, is the first chapter is called Nice versus Kind, and it shows that niceness is rooted in fear. In fact, that was in the beginning of my other book, Not Nice. I say it's driven by fear, not virtue. It's not making you a good person. It's actually making you a fearful person who's afraid to really be who you are. Because the opposite of niceness is not to be a jerk. The opposite of niceness is authenticity. It's boldness. It's being who you really are, saying what you really think, advocating for yourself, taking care of yourself. And this is all great stuff. When we read it in a book, it's intellectually interesting and stimulating. I want to help you make that a real change. Same thing with this podcast. And what I know about these virtual events, what makes them different than a podcast or different than a book, is that you're gonna be in that room and you might say, yeah, but it's on a screen. I'm just watching. No, no, trust me, if you haven't been, try it, because it feels very different. I just myself participated in a virtual event, a five day one, earlier this month. And day one, you're kind of like, okay, I'm on the screen. I'm sort of, I, okay, gonna get into it. That's a little resistance. And by the end of the day, and especially by the second day, the second day is like, I gotta get back in that room. You can feel the current of energy. You can feel that it's not just some prerecorded thing. You can feel that there's real people and it's happening and you don't wanna miss it. And the beauty of it is, when you're in that room, you're going to do things that you will not do listening to a book. I promise you. And what's better is when you try to go do them on your own. Reading a book or listening to this podcast, it's kind of scary and overwhelming. When you're in the current of the room and the energy and with me and everyone out there to support you, it's actually exciting. It's actually energizing. You don't have all that time to fret and worry. You just do things. And so we're practicing things in the room, activities, exercises. You're gonna go out and do some action steps during the event and trust me, you will leave that event changed. So check it out. Now it's March 1through3, 2024, March 1st through 3rd of this year, a couple months out and you can get a super early bird ticket. That's why I'm mentioning it now for about another, I think week, maybe 10 days or so. I don't know the exact end date of that, but depends on when you're listening to this. Sometime early February is when those stop. So make sure you head on over my website, drzeze.coM-R-A z I z.com and also if you're not on my email list, that's where you can get access to the super early bird and stuff. So you can sign up for my list there. If you just scroll down on the homepage, it'll say join. You get a free training five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. And that puts you on my list. Or if you go to the events section, you can, you can get on my list directly to hear about events and get on the wait list or get early bird specials and stuff. So I cannot wait to spend that three days with you. If you want this year to be different, we gotta do things. We gotta do something different for this year to be different. So speaking of doing things differently, let's talk about the two things that are stopping you from doing things differently. The two things that you that prevent you from being really who you are. Because ultimately how you want to show up in the world, what you want to do is going to be an expression of a more free version of you. So what's getting in the way of that? In fact, let's not just have me tell you about it, let's go through it and you'll see for yourself. And to make this real, you have to know what that thing is that you would be doing. So a more confident version of you, a more free version of you, what is it? What's the next thing that you'd like to be able to do? Don't worry about five years from now or some super perfected version of you. Just the next thing, this week, this month, maybe you want to be able to walk towards a group of people with more confidence. That's a very common one, with social confidence. Maybe you want to be able to chat with people at work, at a dinner party, Maybe for you it's not the initial stuff, it's going a little deeper, it's sharing a little more vulnerably. I was just speaking with a gentleman the other day who, his wife has been, they've been married for, you know, maybe six, seven years. And she's basically getting to the point of like, hey, if I, if I can't know you more, then this isn't going to work. I hear that all the time from people where they, they have this block to being more known. And maybe it's something else. Maybe you want to be able to give presentations or be more bold in sales or whatever. I don't. It doesn't matter to me what the thing is. You know what the thing is. But what matters to me is that you pick one thing right now. Because if we leave this very vague, it becomes very theoretical. And then you're just kind of floating in the realm of this is interesting, this is intellectually stimulating entertainment. And I'm not here to stimulate you intellectually. All right, we'll leave that aside. Jokes about stimulation, but let's focus on making this frickin real in your life. That's what I'm here for and that's what you're here for. Ultimately, even there's the part of us that wants to hold things back and make the change real slow so that it's safe and comfortable. But there's another part of you that wants something radical to change. And we gotta make that real and specific. So you got the thing. Okay, great. Now I want you to imagine doing the thing. Now if you're driving or something, you don't have to close your eyes. And if you're not driving, you can close your eyes, but it's not necessary. Maybe you're in the gym or something. Just keep doing your thing. But in your mind's eye, focus for a minute on doing the thing, approaching the person, speaking up, saying no to somebody. Remember you're picking something specific right now, when you focus on doing that or having that or experiencing that or creating that, what happens? Notice and watch. And what's going to occur is first of all, some feelings. You're going to feel some things. What do you feel now? If it's something that we've done before or we have high confidence that we can do, we might feel positive anticipation or excitement or enthusiasm or energy. Maybe a little bit of nervousness, but it's kind of a pre roller coaster nervousness. Like, this is gonna be awesome. I'm so scared. That's what I say every time before a roller coaster. I swear I'm 41 years old and I'm like a 9 year old kid. I'm like more giddy and scared than my kids are before roller coasters. Like, oh my God. Oh my God. I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out. My 10 year old's like, dad, let's chill out, man. Right? So, but I'm excited. I'm having a great time now. If you pick something that you don't have as much confidence in, I'm gonna guess that to a small amount or to a larger amount, what you felt is the. Is the. One of the main things that stops you. This is one of the two things that stops you from doing what you want to do is fear is fear. Now that's probably not some radical reveal, like, whoa, I didn't know this whole time it was fear. It's like a twist ending in an M. Night Shamallalala movie. No, that's not brand new information, but it's good information. It's good for you to see that it's fear. Fear is what's been stopping me. You can say that out loud if you want. Wow. Make sure you say the wow. Wow. It's just been fear. Because that's great news. Fear is not fatal. Fear is not necessarily even dangerous or damaging. That's, that's our unconscious interpretation. And when we're scared, we're like, that's just dangerous. Stay away. But is it always is all fear. I mean, you can be afraid of something dangerous. You know, you're in a dark alley and there's a couple of shady dudes coming at you two in the morning, that fear might, might be some danger there. But walking over to say hi to Tim by the water cooler, I mean, come on, is Tim gonna shiv you? Where do you work, man? Right? So the fear is not necessarily danger. Now it feels dangerous, hence the fear. But the key thing is to realize that the thing that's stopping me is fear. And there's lots of ways to work fear. You can overcome fear. You can dance with fear. You can accept fear. You can surrender to fear. You can challenge fear. These are all different tools that I teach and I help people do. And that's why over time, if you practice these tools, you will have a different experience of the fear. You'll have a different relationship with it. And when your relationship with the fear changes, your life will change. Because fear is not the problem. I talk to clients all the time about this and they're Like, I want to be not nervous. I want to be not anxious. Okay, what are they saying? I want to be not afraid. And I say, great, you can get there. Oh, that's fantastic. I'm glad I'm paying you. I'm like, yes, I know. And the way that you get there is to feel a lot of fear. And then they're less glad that they're paying me, but ultimately, hopefully, they are glad when they get to the other side, because you can shift that experience through repetition. That's the essence of exposure. It's been proven since, like, the 40s with behaviorism coming out. Right. I mean, it's. This is not theoretical. This is as close to fact as you get in psychology. It's a proven process. If you repeatedly do the thing that scares you, the fear will diminish. The problem is people want it to diminish faster. They don't want to feel the fear at all. They want the fear to be gone before they do the thing. And as long as you do that, it won't change, because now you're fighting with the fear, and your outcome is to be as comfortable as possible. And when comfort is our outcome, you know, what you resist, persists, the fear just stays. And then you're afraid of having the fear. You're frustrated by the fear. You react to the fear. The fear becomes the problem. The fear is not the problem. That fear is the path. It's calling you. What if fear was an invitation, saying, hey, hey. This is an area to focus on. Don't shy away from this. Because that's the biggest problem with fear. Not that it's there, it's that we shy away from it. It's avoidance of the fear, of the circumstances that create the fear, as opposed to confronting the fear. And when you confront the fear, well, that's how you get to solve the second underlying issue. Because oftentimes we don't necessarily even feel the fear. When you did that little exercise with me, you might have felt the fear. You might not have. You might have been. I don't know, I might have felt hopeless or discouraged or frustrated or angry or upset. And then what you notice when you are experiencing any of those things, including the fear, the second thing that gets in the way, and this thing is actually much more of a deterrent, much more of a problem can last many, many years, is your story, the narrative you're telling yourself about whatever that circumstance is. So if it's walking over and talking to somebody, there's a story. You have a story. What is the story. The story is a description or prediction of what's going to happen. It's got a future element to it. It's got. Think of just a story or book that you read or a TV show that you'd watch, or a movie, right? There's characters in that movie and you are one of the characters. And this is all usually subconscious people, they don't know they're doing this. They don't know they're putting themselves into a role. They're playing a character and they act that character out. So someone who has social anxiety, who's afraid of going to talk to somebody, has in their mind, in their role, they're the character that's kind of the third wheel, the nobody, nothing, the bother, the burden, the annoying one, the peasant, the pauper, the fool, the villain, and whatever label you want to put on it. It's something where people aren't going to want to talk to you. So now I'm telling myself that people don't want to talk to me. Now how's that gonna make me feel before I go talk to somebody? Excited? Happy? No, I'm gonna be afraid. And then. And this is where it gets even more where people can get really bound up in this stuff. Because if I'm afraid, I have this story that says I'm not that likable, I'm not that worthy, but I want connection. So I want to go talk to people, but they're not gonna like me. So now I'm feeling afraid and I'm gonna avoid it. Meanwhile, if I do push myself to go face my fear. But this story is still really strong and I still really believe it. I'm coming from that perspective. Guess what? Well, now what am I going to focus on when I go approach you and I'm really afraid? I'm pretty sure you're not going to like me. What am I going to do? How. How am I going to go do that, that approach? What do you think? Effectively? Less effectively? Ineffectively? Optimally, Suboptimally. That's right. It's gonna be a little suboptimal because I'm really tense. I'm really scared. So I'm kind of bracing myself. I'm probably not gonna be the most warm gushing. I'm probably not gonna be reveal that much information about myself because I don't freaking know you, man. You're gonna stab me. Tim's gonna shiv me. I gotta watch out for him at the water cooler, right? So I'm mistrustful. I'M guarded, I might not share that much. Or yeah, I might just be energetically guarded where it's not even about what I'm saying. I might be smiling and trying to be friendly, but underneath my, my cells are tight, my energetic system is closed. And you, if you don't think that people can feel that or you don't think that that that exists, that doesn't change that. It does exist and people do feel it. And that's probably a big part of why you're not having the solutions that you want in your life. As you can say, that's a bunch of hogwash. Energy, I don't care about that. But then you can just keep getting the same result instead. Pay attention people. Humans are emotional creatures. Information is being transmitted long before you open your mouth. And so if we're closed off, we're also focused on who. When we're really nervous, when we're really anxious, when really feel like we're not enough, who do we focus on? Look, nothing personal to you. I do this too. But when we're really anxious, we become the most self absorbed people in the world. It's like, I don't have time for other people. I gotta worry about me. What did that person think of me? Did the person think that my joke was funny? Was my joke funny? I think my joke was funny. But they didn't think it was funny. I didn't think it was funny. It was a pretty good joke. Was it a good joke? Probably wasn't a good joke. Wait, what were they saying? Oh yeah, me. What about me? Me, me, me, me, me, me. What should I say next? I don't know what to say next. I'm worried. Meanwhile, they're talking to you. They're sharing about something in their life and you're nodding. You're running an outward, you know, pattern to look like you're attentive and inside, where's all the focus going? Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Now these patterns, what they do is they produce what kind of result, what kind of response do you think you get? That's right, not suboptimal. And then the story is reaffirmed. Ah, look at that person. They went to go talk to someone else. Why? Well, because you're a boring loser, that's why. And it has nothing to do with that. Was not you. The problem was your story. That's why. There's a great quote that I think captures this, which is the only. I heard it from Tony Robbins, I've heard it attributed to other people. Too. So I don't know who originated it, but the quote is something along the lines of, the only thing between you and what you really want in life is a story you keep telling yourself about why you can't have it. So those are the two key elements, your story, the fear. And of course, you can see that they play off of each other. So how do we shift this? Let's turn this into action. Time for action. Action, action. Here's your action step. As you focused on that situation, I want you to discover, inquire, get curious. What am I telling myself? That's the best way to discover your story. What am I telling myself? And it might be real obvious. You might have to sit in silence for a few minutes. What am I telling myself? You might have to focus on that situation. Feel that fear bubbling up inside. What am I telling myself? Okay, great. Now what? Here's your. The second part of your action step. What would be a healthier thing to say, a better thing to say? What would someone who's fully confident probably say to themselves? And I'd really encourage you to write this one down, both the old story and the new story. And you might say, okay, all right. Yeah, sure. Someone who's confident would say, yeah, I'm. You know, people are probably gonna like me, I guess, right? Okay, write that one down. Great. People are probably going to like me. Okay. Now, sometimes people bristle at this and say, but I don't believe that doesn't feel true. I say, great, doesn't have to feel true. I don't care if it feels true. Yet here's what you do. Ask yourself this question. What if that were true? I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying it is. But what if it were true? And then you imagine the situation again with that news story. If that were true. If it were true, that people were most likely are probably going to like me when I would go talk to them. What changes then? How would you approach them? What would you say? What would you reveal? What would your energy be like? Yeah, that's how we want to start to practice this stuff. Then we go face our fear. Not with absolute certainty. The new story is going to be true. No, it's. Look, I don't know, but I know that that old story is just a story. And this is about eroding the foundation, eroding the certainty of that old story, because that's all that it's about. It's not true, it's not real. It's not who you are. It's not accurate in its predictions. It's about having a sense of control and certainty, safety, protection, binding, and it keeps you trapped, keeps you stuck. So it's time to change it. And if you want to change stories more rapidly than ever before, best place that I know how to do that is going to be in immersion with me. So remember we talked about earlier that event in this episode? Not nice Live. It's a virtual event you can attend from anywhere in the universe, including from Mars. If you're out there from space, we'll be having attendance from. I should start saying that. You know, people say, like, we have attendees from 37 countries and five continents at our event. I'm gonna say, dude, I got attendees from outer space. Actually, I don't. I don't think we will. But if you're in space and listen to this and you want to come, that would be amazing. In any case, I look forward to seeing you there. Check out drzezease.com if you'd like to come. And until we speak next week in this podcast, you 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 Confidence center dot com.