The Quiet Cost of Conditional Worth

Welcome to this episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz. And today I'm excited to share something with you that has been coming up a lot, literally this week with clients and in my own life too. And I'm absolutely certain that you will resonate with this because it's a very human thing. But it's especially challenging in people like me and my clients where we have a history of being nice, maybe some confidence or self esteem challenges, you might say, that have reared their ugly head at times in your life. And this illuminates something that is the core pattern underneath. And it can show up as anxiety before conversations, before meetings, before presentations, a pressure to perform, just unease, uncomfortable, maybe ruminating, replaying. It all comes out of this. And also not just moment to moment stuff throughout the day, but larger stuff like, oh, I'm behind in my life. Oh, look at that comparison, right? Like look at that person over there. Oh, you know, and if you can't hear that in my voice, I'm lamenting how that other person is better than I am, in case that didn't come across from my groans. But so this is what's underneath all of it. And it's not gonna be some grand reveal cause it's in the title of this episode, but it is conditional worth, a conditional sense of self worth. And I talk about this in my book on my own side. I call them value equivalents. But basically this is where we, all of us can do this. We hook our worth onto something. And the metaphor I was using with a client earlier this week was it's like, you know, those grappling hooks, I don't know if I've actually ever seen a real grappling hook or touched a real grappling hook. But I imagine them from I ninja shows or something when I was a kid. The Three Ninjas. Did you ever watch that movie? That's. This is really gonna put me in a specific place in time and space. But it was big when I was a kid, probably in the early 90s or something, late 80s, early 90s. It was big. The three ninjas. Yeah, it was great. Anyway, maybe they used a grappling hook. Maybe the Ninja Turtles, also dating myself there, used a grappling hook. But it's this thing that kind of hooks onto a wall. It's got a rope on it and you can climb up that wall or whatever. So we get these grappling hooks and we throw them and they hook into something and then that is where my worth comes from. My sense of value. That's why I call it a value equivalent. If this, then I'm worthy. And worthy is a feeling. It's the opposite of shame. Inadequacy, Small, collapsed, constricted, bad, hide, avoid, don't look at me, right? That's unworthy. And then worthy is puffed up. Big. Yes, me, I'm great. I feel good. And maybe even just a sense of relief. Like, yeah, feel good. Here I am. I like me, that would be worthy. And so whether you get to feel that or not. And every human likes the second one, right? We don't like feeling bad about ourselves. But whether you get to feel it or not is based upon whatever you've thrown that grappling hook onto. And many of us have thrown the grappling hook onto 50 different things. It's a long list of ands. So back. You might not know this about me, but back in my day, before I pursued clinical psychology, I was. My earliest leanings in my freshman and sophomore year of university were to computer science. And so I did all kinds of base math stuff and programming and really got into that Java. JavaScript was the thing at the time. And there was, you know, there's a basic thing in logic encoding, which is, you know, or. Or. And so for an and function, this has to be true. And this has to be. And this has to be true versus an or function is it's this or this or this. If any of them is true, then move forward, right? So when it comes to your sense of worth, we can have it be a long and function. So it's. I have to. I remember there's a client I worked with, this is many years ago and we like spelled it out like, well, what has to happen for you to feel worthy? He's like, well, and it was not just big life things, but it was the very day he had to wake up and get out of bed at a certain time, maybe slept in. He'd feel really bad about him. I'm a loser, I'm lazy. He had to go work out. When he was working out, he had to increase his lift amount, right? Like it had to be more than he had to be progressing. Then he had to go to work. And then at work there was all these conditions of what needed to happen. And, and, and I was like, wow, this is like a really complex code on a safe. You got to punch in like 637-232-69. Oh, you can't do four, nine. It's got to be nine four. Yeah. Okay, then the safe opens. Ah. I get to feel good about myself. That is conditional worth. And the question I have for you is, is yours an and function and how many. How many criteria are there? And here's the thing. We don't even know. We know some of the big ones, but a lot of them we don't even know until we bump up against them. And here's the thing that makes it a little more challenging is when we buy into it, we believe it. So this guy really believed. No, I have to do this. You don't understand. I don't progress my lifts. That's terrible. No, I have to make a certain amount of money. No, I have to have this person respond to me. No, I have to have this position. You don't understand. So we really buy into it. Say no. Yeah. My conditional worth is conditional because that's how life is. Okay? That's how people are. That's how the get. Wake up. Grow up, man. See how the world is. It's harsh, judgmental, brutal, and we'll put it on other people. Yeah. Yeah. No one would see me as worthy if I was like that. It's very embarrassing. It's very shameful. Or if you want to be dramatic, you call it humiliating. It's humiliating. It's humiliating. That means, like, you feel bad about yourself, and everyone sees it and they agree, yeah, you're bad, and it feels awful. And we're in this story, in this drama of it and in this. So I guess that's a key question that I'll have you investigate right now, is where. Where are some of those grappling hooks? So what's the grappling hook metaphor? Well, it's like you. You hooked your worst to it, and then you're trying to pull yourself up that wall. Some common ones might be your appearance. I know ones for me have been. So for the longest time, I didn't. I felt bad about my appearance from when I was very young, and I tried to fix it when I was a young teenager. And then I had all this chronic body pain, and I kind of couldn't climb up that wall anymore. So I'd kind of just accepted, like, hey, this is how my body is. And then I. There's other episodes on this podcast you could listen to about me liberating myself from. From decades of chronic pain. Pretty cool. But I then got into a lot more athleticism and sports and starting at the age of 35, I'm 43 now, so that was about eight years ago. And it was like the Metaphor I use is like my life got put on pause physically at the age of 15. And then at 35, I went and I went unpause. And it was all of a sudden like, you mean I can run, I can lift, I can do all this stuff? Holy. Whoa. But it was, in some ways it was like a 15 year old got unpaused. So it's like, I'm gonna get to the gym, I'm gonna be shredded. All the girls are gonna like me. It's like, but you're already married, you got a couple of kids. Yeah, but whatever. When you get to the gym and all the girls, I mean, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna be with them. I love my wife, but I want all the girls to look at me and be like, well, that guy's so muscular and awesome and I want to be with him, but I can't. Cause he's so good looking. But oh, look at his abs. I'm like, yeah. And it was about appearance, but it was also about like power and proving something in the world. And that's a lot of what conditional worth is, is proving something. I'm proving essentially that I'm worthy. And if I could just prove it enough to myself and others, but mostly myself, if I can earn it, then, then I'll finally feel good and relieve relieved inside. So I was hustling to earn it with, with appearance. I've definitely done that with a big one for people. And so this could be like physical appearance, muscular. It could also be performance, athletic based. I can lift this, I can do this, I can run this fast. And a lot of people have already given up on that one because they're like, my joints hurt and I don't move and I'm sedentary. Fortunately, on that one, I've. It's settled into a much more beautiful place, celebration of what I get to do with my body. And so huzzah. There's a way out, There's a way out. But money is another big one. Oh, back to appearance. There could also be youth. I know, I was talking about this with my wife. She was saying, oh, yeah, there's like a sense of young and beautiful forever. That's the pressure she feels, especially as a woman. It's kind of like, yeah, you gotta have this certain kind of skin forever, forever. Endless beauty. Which makes me think of that. Is it Snow White or one of those Disney movies where it's mirror, mirror on the wall? Let's put a little bookmark on that because that's Something I wanted to come back to. Mirror, mirror on the wall. I'll make a note here. Mirror, mirror. Okay, so appearance. You got that one. Money. Money's a big one. D. Did you make enough money? Do you have enough money? And there's sort of like, I have enough money so I can live or maybe have a sense of choice or freedom in my life. That's cool. But then there's also like, yeah, but how worthy are you? Because how much you earned? And that could be not just money, but job titles and professional advancement and power and that kind of thing, right? Like you're becoming a somebody in the world. I could just become. And then maybe all the stuff that goes with like, I got this kind of house and I got this kind of car and I go on these kinds of vacations and got. I'm going to be a somebody. And that's what we do. I got to go. I got to go become that somebody. That's. That's another form of conditional worth. Right? So what, what are, what are the things that make you as somebody that you might have your worth hooked on right now? And that's a, that's a worthwhile investigation. And you know, what I found is. And I, man, I wrote. I don't know when I wrote on my own side probably in 2018, 2019 somewhere. I think we released it in 2020. And so I been helping clients with this for years. I was doing that work my. In myself. There's a lot of that, my own growth in that book. And that's actually how I really healed some of the stuff around body images as I was writing that and helping other people with that. I was doing my own work on that. And what. And yet what I did not realize, what was lurking in the shadows was that there's ways that we can be getting hooked our worth hooked onto things without knowing it. And that we can be drawing a sense of worth from it because we're hitting that target and we only feel it in its absence. I remember there's this guy that I worked with when I first started in the coaching world. I was moving over from a therapy practice into the coaching world. And this guy was also becoming a coach. And he'd worked in the corporate world though, and he said to me, you know, I realized that pretty much all of my self esteem came from my title and my paycheck. And I think something happened. Either he made the change or he was laid off or something. And he's like, I. Everything collapsed. Not literally. Still had a roof over my head. But my identity, like, who I was, was entirely pinned on that. And I heard that story, and I was probably. I was in my. Maybe mid to late 20s at the time. He was probably in his 40s. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, don't do that. Just. That's a bad thing to do. I slaughtered it in my head. Yeah, yeah. Your worth is way too pegged on one thing, and it's conditional. I'm not going to do that. Loser. No, I didn't say any of that. But there's something, right? A cautionary tale, message received. Or so I thought. And then I go into the coaching business myself and start to find. Reach more people online. And I write a number of books, and the first couple are people are buying them. It's pretty cool. I'm like, oh, my gosh, People actually buy the books that I write. I. When I was writing my very first book, Solution to Social Anxiety, most of the time that I was writing, there's a voice in my head that said, like, nobody's gonna buy this. I don't know about you, but my voice of doubt makes weird sound effects, as does my normal voice. And apparently all the parts of me just make weird sound effects. So blah, blah, blah. Isn't that a very convincing, scary thought, which is like babbling its lips do. Anyway, that voice was just saying, no one's gonna buy this. This is terrible. No one's gonna buy this. And it wasn't true, as the voice of doubt never really is, but we all have to learn that for ourselves, repeatedly. And so I. But then. But then I wrote my third book, which is called Not Nice. Maybe you read it. Maybe that's what brought you here. And it was, like, way more impactful than I realized. Like, well, everyone liked that one. Okay, great. I'll just keep making books like that. And then no other book was like that one. I'm like, but these books are maybe even better. In some ways. I've gotten better as a writer and a coach and, like, really skillfully navigating the world with people. And I think it's reflected in the books. My writing's gotten Better but Not Nice is the book that everybody wants, right? But it was very effective and getting my message out there. And there's a little bit of, like, I got interviews on radio shows and stuff, and local news is like, ew, we gotta talk to you. And I went there, and I put my suit on, went to the local news. I was becoming a somebody man. All of a sudden, more people Were reaching out and are. I started doing. I was doing these in person events, and more people wanted to come to them. And then we did virtual events starting in 2020 with COVID and a lot of people wanted to come to those. And I was like, yeah, somebody now. And it was great. And I was so glad that the word was getting out there. And there was also this grappling hook that got hooked onto reach or impact. And the best metaphor I have for it that I was just realizing this week, is that it's like one of those inflatable inner tubes you might go tubing down a river or on a slide or something with. And they got that little hole you blow. They're probably not blowing into that thing. Maybe hopefully using a foot pump or you're gonna go blue in the face, but you're filling that thing with air, and it gets fuller and fuller and fuller until it's really, like, puffed up and strong and rigid feeling. And there was a way that I was getting puffed up without knowing it, because I wasn't walking around being like, dude, I'm the man, and I'm better than you, and I'm better than you. And if anything, I was feeling excited and also kind of nervous, like, I gotta go teach here. Am I good enough? Okay, let me work through this, okay? Imposter syndrome. Okay, I'll work through that. I didn't even just. I didn't walk around feeling. Feeling all puffed up, but I was getting puffed up because there were the. The steady supply of pumping, and my worth got hooked to was. And that happened. And then it went on for a number of years. And then there was a shift where, you know, the book continues to sell, but not as well, not as much as when it first came out. I'm not getting, like, calls from radio shows and stuff, so I gotta go reach out to people. Hey, you want to have me on your podcast, right? Putting virtual workshops and stuff out there into the world, and people come kind of more like maybe not before the not nice came out, but somewhere in between there, right? There's sort of this, like, the spark. Just calm down a little bit. I'm like, oh, I guess I'm a loser now. And I'm like, what? What? What are you talking about? This is me talking to a part of me that's feeling like I'm a loser. Oh, deflated. Like, imagine that raft is like, what are you talking about, dude? This is amazing. You're helping people get you to work that you love. This is Meaningful. You get to write. Yeah, but look at where I was before. And it was really painful. I felt insecure, I felt embarrassed, humiliated. And I was like, wow, that conditional worth just snuck in there. And that's what I realized about. So there's a part of us that is obsessed with our own inner stock, right? Because every company's got a stock. Well, every publicly traded company. And the company's doing all kinds of things. They got a new product, they're doing marketing, they're whatever, trying to extract resources, doing their things. And they make a certain amount of money. And then there's the company stock. So how much the per share price is. And they can align or they can be wildly off, right? So a company can have a really high stock, not because they're earning crazy amounts of money, they could even be losing money. But everyone thinks this is the next best thing. Or they think this stock's gonna keep going up, right? So they're trying to make some quick money on the stock. So the, the company is imagining more steady. It could be going up or down, it could be doing well or going down, but it's still like, you know, it's progressing along. But the stock can go way up and then way down. And we all have that. We all have our own inner life that's going on. I went and said hi to that person. I spoke up here. I landed that deal. All that thing went well in my career. Oh, that thing was a setback. And we're kind of bumping along, maybe a little up, a little down. I'm growing here, struggling there. Just imagine a little black line that's kind of moving up and down. Maybe if you want to feel like things are progressing in life, it's slowly going up. It's got an uptrend to it. The company's going, prospects are good. This is the company of you. But then imagine like these huge red, like a green line that shoots overshoots your black line way straight up. This company's the next best thing. Tesla's optimus robots going to make a trillion dollars. Boom. Oh, my God. Their fourth quarter earnings on their cars were down. Boom crater. And the metaphor I was using in a recent Mastermind call was imagine a guy, because this is definitely a dude thing, not a lady thing. A dude who's like, I don't know, 30 years old and he kind of hit it big with his some business thing and it took off and his company's making a lot of money and he goes out and he buys a Lamborghini and then he lives in Miami, and he takes it down to some big thoroughfare and lots of foot traffic. And it's a red one, of course. And he gets in there, and he's at a stoplight and just goes. Guns the engine. And some people look over. He's like, yeah, how's his stock doing? And I don't mean his company stock. I mean his personal stock. Through the effing roof, right? He's like, dude, such a somebody. And then he gets out of it and parks his car wherever the restaurant, and someone asks him, oh, is that your car? And he's like, oh, that thing. Yeah, I guess, you know, that's mine. Doesn't really define me, though. I mean, I'm more than that. Doesn't. Things. Things. You know, physical possessions don't really mean that much to me. I think people are more about their essence than their material things, Right? People are like, damn, this guy's wise, you know? And in his. In his. His. How puffed up is his raft right now, it's just max, pump, max pump. And then it's through the roof. And then something happens. I don't know. Maybe his company loses some money or whatever. He gets upside down or something happens, and then he has to get rid of the car. It was a lease, not owned. Then what happens? Well, if you look at his regular life, maybe his company's still going and he just overshot a little bit, or he needed to clean up his operations and figure out how to keep. They got a lot of income, but then they couldn't deliver, and so he's ding. Or maybe he shifted and now he's working for someone else, and so his life's still going on. He's still got a body. He's probably still healthy and maybe has some relationships. So, like, if you look at his life, still pretty good. Still going along. You look at his stock, that's his perception of himself cratered, right? He gets rid of the car, and he's like, oh, I'm such a loser. How embarrassing. And then he's hanging out with his friend. He's like, hey, friend, where's your. Where you just go for riding your Lambo? And he's like, oh, God, I got. I got rid of that thing. I don't want to tell the person. I'm so embarrassed. I should never hang out with this person again. I got to get new friends so no one can see how bad I am. That. And this is the drama that we live in. And, you know, the. The most fascinating Liberating and maybe saddest thing is that his worth remained unchanged throughout that entire drama. So to bring this back, remember earlier I said mirror, mirror on the wall. I feel like that's what we're all doing, right? We're all, every day go into that. And if you're not familiar with that quote, I believe it's some sort of snow ice queen, whatever, Disney stuff, right? But some elegant royal beauty lady of the finest nature, of the finest order. And she goes to the mirror and she says, mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all, right? And the mirror is alive, I guess. Or there's someone trapped in the mirror. I don't know the story exactly, but the mirror talks back to her and says, you, milady, you are the finest or something. And she's like, yes. Ah. And you watch characters like that and you think they're all arrogant, but we're all doing that. But we're more desperate. We're like, am I good enough today, Mirror? And many of us, unfortunately, the mirror is like no loser. We're like, oh man. But we're still caught in that drama. Whether you think you're the you're all puffed up or you're deflated, it's all made up. That's all the conditions that you have placed on your worth. Now, you might have learned that someone or someone might have taught you, you got to be the most pretty to be desirable. But it's mostly conclusions that you came to. And certainly you are the one who's perpetuating that now. You are the one who holds the keys to that code. You are the one who determines your worth. Even if you say, no, that's not true. I got it's not true. Well, who does then? I don't know. Some voice in my head, I guess. My dad. How old are you? 47. Why does your dad determine your worth? I don't know. Because he told me things 37 years ago when I was 10. And that's how it is. Who's choosing that? My dad. It's his fault, right? We give up our agency and our authority. And the truth is, you, you are the author of your life. I am the author of my life. Now, I'm not saying it's simple. You just rewrite it like bazooka bang done. You know, rip up that paper and write a new one. Haha. It's a process. It's a process of growth. And that's what I do with people, is we spend time together, usually over the Course of a year, sometimes longer, to radically rewrite that. But no mistake, it does get rewritten. I was talking to a guy, recently completed the Mastermind. He said, you know, it was almost like I took that old identity of who I needed to be, to be loved, and I. And I put it on the tip of an arrow and I lit it on fire, and then I shot the arrow. I was like, wow, I like that metaphor. So long. And now he gets to show up fully to his life as himself, no longer trying to hustle to earn his worth. And I would say that's the same is true for me. And you're like, but wait, didn't you just tell me a story about how you felt unworthy? And it's like, yeah, but what I've learned now is how to unhook. So when I see that instead of like, okay, how do I hustle? So I get the Lambo and I'm the prettiest, and I get the big audience and I'm good enough again, or collapsing into like, well, I never. I don't have it anymore. So I guess I'll just suck for the rest of my life. I do neither of those things. Well, I'll do. I'll do both of those things for a little bit, and then I'll remember and I'll say, oh, wait, I know the way. I know the path, because it's something that I've walked for many years, and I help people walk all the time. It's like, wait, we gotta unhook the worth. And I'm the authority. And I remember, and I come back to truth, and I freaking claim it. I am more than this. I am more than my circumstance. My soul remains unchanged by the comings and goings of gain and loss. It's about who I am and how I show up. And you can feel it in my voice and my energy and it's accessible. And boom, then I'm back on track and I get to live my life and get to enjoy today and get to enjoy the adventure that is your life now without having to wait until you got enough stock and the mirror tells you you're good enough. Awesome. So thanks for being with me today for this episode. And as always, I'm going to end this episode with an invitation for action, because it's all great to listen to this. And I'm going to do it this way today, actually. What action are you going to take from this? Instead of me telling you, I'm going to invite you to reflect on listening to this yourself. But before you go, listen to something else or just immediately move on to the next thing. What if you take the next 30 seconds and say, what specifically can I apply or do from listening to this information? Because otherwise, well, it's just entertainment. And thank you, I guess, for thinking that I'm entertaining enough to listen to for 30 minutes. But that's not really the point. I don't want to just entertain you. I want to liberate you. Or ultimately to share things that help you liberate yourself. Awesome. So thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.