Top 5 Insights From My Conversation Mastery Training

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. How are you today? Hopefully, this finds you well and you are feeling inspired, energized, excited, ready to take life on, create the life that you want for yourself. And if you're not quite there yet, as you're listening to this, stay tuned because this episode might help you get into that state. Do a state of feeling empowered, feeling like you are the architect of your life rather than the victim of circumstance. I mean, that's the whole purpose of this show. Whether you're working on shyness or social anxiety. You want more confidence. You want to be able to date more, you want to be able to connect more freely and more easily. We want to be able to be more powerful, less scared, less nice, more you. Some days are easier and some days are harder. And when we are feeling more anxious, more tense, more afraid, all of that stuff is harder. And my job here is to help you clear that away so you can find your own power, your own focus, your own motivation, what you're going after in this life and feel more inspired to do it. And today I want to share something that actually really inspires me, which are the top five insights that I got from my recent live event that we did about a month ago or so, maybe less than that, three weeks ago. And it was called Supremely Confident Conversation Master. We do it every year in the spring or the beginning of the spring here, beginning of March, and I love it. It's the first one of the year, and it is just an amazing experience to be this time we had about 30 people to really immerse ourselves for three days on looking at how do we master this area of our lives. And the focus is on conversation mastery. But I start off by saying, okay, there's the skill of conversation. We're going to teach you a ton about that. And the most important thing is being able to be comfortable and confident in your own skin. Because if you're comfortable and confident in your own skin, you're way better at talking to people. You're way better at handling rejections, you're way better at knowing what to say next and all the other things that trip us up. So we do a ton of work on core confidence, self esteem, and then, of course, the strategies of conversation, ranging from how to start conversations, what to say, how to make eye contact with people, shaking hands, even how to give high fives. We did some fun stuff around that. So through the process, and I know each person there had their own insights. But here are the five core insights that I wanted to share with you today that I got out of the event. Here's the first one. You ready? Five pound weight versus 70 pound weight. So this came about. I was actually working, as I do at the events with one of the participants there, I do, coaching with people there and see if we can help take all that theoretical knowledge that we have and say, great, how can we help you use that today to be more confident, to move towards people, to be more bold, to take action now. And there was one guy we were working with who had a lot of intellectual knowledge but was just scared of taking action. He wanted to be able to approach women and compliment them and start conversations. He wanted to deepen his relationships with friends and colleagues and co workers tended to be very distant or maybe more guarded than he wanted to be. He wanted to be more boldly himself. And yet he felt a ton of fear about doing that. And because he had felt that fear for so long and avoided doing those things for so long, his mind was telling him this story which you might be familiar with. Well, it's just not possible for me. It's just not possible for me. And through the course of the conversation, it became clear that he wanted to be able to do all those things, but there was too much fear in his way. And you might be able to relate to that as well, all the things that you want to do, but there's too much fear. And I brought up the metaphor of lifting weights because I really do think that building our confidence is like building any skill, just like building strength in our muscles. It's a form of social fitness, this confidence thing. So he wants to go, you know, have an amazing relationship with a woman that's like a 70 pound weight. Those are those big weights at the gym, those big dumbbells that no one's picking up. And that would look cool to be able to lift that. We all sure want that kind of strength, but it's not where we're at. And what he didn't want to do, at least before he came to that event, and what you might be avoiding in your life is the five pound weight. So I said, well, if you want to create this relationship and be more free with women, what's the five pound weight? What's the smallest little increment that you could be building on right now? He's like, well, and we Kind of came up with approaching someone and giving her a compliment. It turns out that actually was scarier and we needed to dial it back a little bit to a five pound weight, the smallest little increment that he could do. And if you can do a five pound weight and really take this metaphor on for a second, if you go to the gym and you try to lift a 70 pound weight and you're like, I can't. I guess I'm just never meant to lift weights. That's what we do, right? And then we say, well, hey, you want to lift this five pound weight? That's a waste of my time. I don't got time for that shit. I got 70 pound weights to not lift. And then think about this. Let's say you're gonna say, okay, fine, I'll. Fine, I'll start with a five pound weight, and then you lift it once and you put it back on the rack. And then you leave the gym like, yeah, did my workout for today. What kind of progress is that gonna give you? Virtually nothing. Absolutely nothing. So, like, the five pound weight in the gym, we wanna do that small rep 20 times. So in this case, walking out and giving a woman a compliment, doing that literally 20 times, that was the challenge for him because we have a period each event where we go out into the world and we do stuff. And so I encouraged him to do that when he went out. And right before we went out, I said, okay, there are two ways that you can play this. I said, first, you have an hour right now. You could spend 40 minutes or maybe even the whole hour grinding out those 20 compliments. You know, you take 10 minutes to work your way up to the first one. Oh, no, that's not the right situation. Oh, no, she had a friend nearby. Oh, no. Those people could hear me and they would judge me. Oh, no, I just didn't feel like it. You could do that for 10 minutes and then you could give one compliment. Then you could wait another five minutes and then work your way up to another, or on your way out of your second floor of a hotel, between now and the lobby, and then out to the front through the entrance of the hotel. You could give three compliments, give one in the elevator, give one to one of the people in the lobby, give one to one of the hotel staff, and you could be blazing through. And then you could give 20 compliments. In five minutes, in 10 minutes. And then you have a whole other 45 minutes to see do I want to keep lifting the five pound weight or Do I want to do something more? Because what I've often found is once we've done the five pound weight, we find we have more energy, more resilience, more capacity to take action, to be bold. So that's something I want you to consider in your life, is the five pound. What's the five pound weight for you? And do you have some sort of resistance? Like, oh, that's a waste of my time. Because that's what his mind was saying too. Like, what's the point? That's a waste of time. But that's just all fear talking. The truth is it's still uncomfortable even if it's a five pound weight. And in order to create the life that you want, you have to start with that low weight and you have to do a lot of repetitions. So other examples of five pound weights would be the smile and hello practice. You might have heard on this show, walk down a busy street and just greet 20 people. Another one is ask 20 people for the time, give out 20 compliments, right? Those are small little things that you can do that are the five pound weights. And if those are too intense for you, scale it back. If that feels like a 15 or 20 pound weight for you, then find a five pound weight. You know, one guy that I was working with, one of my groups, he we for him it was call 20 places over the phone and ask them what hours their store had. That was it. And he was nervous as he did it. And now at the event, he was there six months later and he's approaching strangers and talking to women and doing all kinds of things that normally would have in the past been 50 pound weights for him. And now he's doing them. So you can build this up. So what's that five pound weight for you? And notice the numbers here, the repetition, and you've heard it. If you've heard me talk about friendly greetings, I don't just say, go out and do it three times. I say go out and greet 25 people. Do that once a day for a week. Because the massive repetition of that small weight just rejiggers everything in your brain, your nervous system, to where you realize you can handle it. You don't die, you're safe. And then you get tons of momentum. So we're going to take a quick break right now and then we're going to get back with the other four biggest insights from the Conversation Mastery Weekend. Do you want to know the fastest and most powerful way to completely change your confidence levels for the rest of Your life. It requires more than just listening to something or reading a book. It requires you step up and say that you will do whatever it takes to break out of fear and create the confidence you know you deserve in this life. The fastest and most powerful way to create that confidence in yourself is to work directly with someone who knows exactly what you're going through and who has traveled the road ahead. Go to socialconfidencecenter.com coaching to find out more about how to work directly with Dr. Aziz in private. One on one coaching. Welcome back. So let's get into the second insight from the from the weekend intensive. This one really struck me this weekend, which is upgrade your environment and you upgrade your life. Upgrade your environment and you upgrade your life. And what I really got this weekend was just how powerful who we surround ourselves with is. And most people that were there at the weekend, this was their first exposure to something like this, this kind of environment. And you could see how people who in the past would have been afraid to speak up in groups or afraid to share or afraid to do something by the second day are like raising their hand and sharing or blurting stuff out or making jokes or doing some silly dance move. It's crazy to watch. And it's all because the environment. And maybe back at home people would judge them or they're afraid that their friends wouldn't like it or other people in their life aren't into personal growth. So like why are you reading those books and trying to do different stuff? Just accept your fate in the mud with the rest of us, right? Or some message like that. And so you upgrade your environment and all of a sudden everything shifts. And this became even more noticeable with the people that were there who are in my Mastermind program, which is a year long program and they come back to multiple events and whoa, the transformation in those people. I mean I talk to them on the phone each week so I hear about their progress. But seeing them in person and watching what they can do and how they interact in groups and it's incredible. And that's because they've upgraded their environment. So these people in the Mastermind, it's not just one weekend. Once in a while they're like on the phone each week and we're talking about this stuff and they're immersed in that. And that really was powerful for me to see because sometimes I get anxious when I'm running these events or the Mastermind calls because I'm like, I gotta fix everybody. And I get all wrapped up in that and just Seeing how powerful the environment is, how when you surround yourself with people that are motivated, inspired, intelligent, driven, want to break free, not just go from, you know, I have anxiety and I'm less capable to normal. Everyone there wants to have high confidence. They want to be free, to be themselves, to approach who they want, say what they want. They want to be leaders. So it's, you know, people that are really aspiring to living an incredible life. And when you're around that, it shakes something up in you and it brings that out in you as well. So that one really struck me and it made me think about, okay, who am I surrounding myself with? And I've known that for a long time. You might have heard that before, but the people you spend the most time with is what you conform to. And I've just been upgrading the people that I spend time with, the people that are amazing, inspired, turned on, activated, healthy loving. And the more time I spend around those people, the more that's activated in me. So I'd encourage you to look at your environment and think about how can I upgrade my environment? And that could be all kinds of things. The people you hang out with, where you work, how you spend your free time, even literally what's in your house and what kind of food you have in your pantries, right? Like, really thinking about upgrading your environment to upgrade your life. The third huge insight from this weekend is the utmost power of eye contact. How incredibly powerful eye contact is and how most so many people are weak in this muscle. And at this event we go, we do just a complete transformation for people with their eye contact because it's conversation mastery, right? And if you can't look at people in the eye when they're talking and you're listening, that's especially important. But also when you're talking, if you can't look at them in the eye, then people feel disconnected from you. People don't trust you as much, people don't love you and connect with you as much. Eye contact is huge. And most people are uncomfortable with direct eye contact. Not just shy people, not just anxious, but most people. And you see this all the time. They talk to each other and they look a little bit here and there, but there's not this relaxed, sustained, just I can look at you while you're talking. And so we actually have people practice that every single day, all three days in a row. And the first day, people are like, uncontrolled. Some people are, like, uncontrolled. They can't control their bodies. They're like twitching around and looking down and making sounds and talking, and they just can't help themselves from trying to get away. And that starts to settle down by the end of the first day. And then the second day, we do the exercise again, and people have more solidity in themselves, more power, more like, okay, I'm feeling a little uncomfortable, but I can hold this eye contact. And then by the third day, people are, like, enjoying it even more. They're, like, relaxing into just looking at other people. And this is extremely valuable because when you can just relax and hold people's eye contact, that you instantly can put others at ease. And you not only are, you know, come across as more confident, more powerful, more certain, you also get to enjoy connection more, because there is a tremendous amount of love and connection that is transmitted not in the words that we say, but in the eye contact that we make. And the more you build this muscle, the more you build that capacity, the more you can really take it in and enjoy it. And it's essential. And so I wanted to create an environment where people could really practice this, which is maybe not as easy or practical if you're just listening to this by yourself. And yet it's so essential that you master this skill. So I would encourage you to practice eye contact. I'm gonna give you an exercise right now which might seem a little strange, but just trust me on this. I would suggest taking 90 seconds a day. Set a timer on your phone or your watch or whatever, and look in the mirror and just hold eye contact with yourself for 90 seconds. You don't need to do anything. You don't need to say anything. You don't need to have an affirmation or whatever. Just breathe. Just think of it like a meditation. Just notice what's happening in your breath and your body, and hold eye contact with yourself for 90 seconds, preferably in the morning, maybe when you get out of the shower or just you have a few minutes there in the morning. And then as you move forward throughout your day, when you talk to people, intentionally hold eye contact longer than you normally do and breathe. And just like you did in the mirror, kind of relax and pay attention to your body, because if you get really tense in your body, then it's gonna come across in your face, and you're probably gonna want to break eye contact. So you basically just think about it like building a muscle. The more you practice it, the stronger it's gonna get, and the better you get at it, the more you will receive. And there's so much that came out from the weekend about how people feel uncomfortable being seen. You know, when someone's really. When you're really looking at someone, you guys are making eye contact and having a connection. Whether it's romantic or just friendship or even for business, sometimes that can really trigger a lot of discomfort because we feel like, oh, no, they're really looking at me in the eye and I'm really just holding that eye contact. I can't hide anything. They're gonna see me. And that's why we do so much work at the weekends on self esteem. Because if you are scared of people seeing you because you think that deep down you're no good or not good enough or they're not gonna like you because you suck, then you're gonna shy away from that. And that's everybody's loss. And if you want to go deeper with this stuff and you know, obviously I would encourage coming to a weekend training, but the confidence code program also does a ton of work around building these nonverbal capacities in you for conversation and self esteem. So we're gonna take a quick break right now and then we're gonna get into the final two insights from my Conversation Master Weekend. Are you single? Do you want to meet someone but feel completely held back and stuck when it comes to meeting women, flirting, and getting dates? After spending over a decade of his life stuck in the same struggle, Dr. Aziz found the way to freedom and confidence with women. It's what he teaches his private clients how to do every day. Want to get there yourself? Go to 30daystodatingmastery.com to get a free copy of Dr. Aziz ebook 7 Ways to Start conversations with Women, Anytime, anywhere and start meeting women today. Yo, welcome back. So the fourth insight from the Conversation Master weekend is I have a right to be here. That was something that emerged, I think, on Saturday, the second day of the event, where I was just seeing how much of that fear that we have about initiating contact with others, making conversations, whether it's with a stranger or a colleague that you want to move closer towards at work, chatting with someone who's a higher up in your company, meeting potential clients, dates, relationship, there's so much fear around that. That comes from a lack of permission. It's almost like we don't have a right to be there. That's what I was seeing again and again in different people that were scared or uncomfortable with it. They have this like, unconscious idea like, I don't belong. I don't have a right to be here. I shouldn't be here. You know, People are gonna be upset at me for being here, and so on and so forth. And so on the last day of the event, I wrote this on the board in the morning on Sunday. And people could see it as they walked in and sat down. And it said this. Here I am, I am Here I have a right to be. Here I belong and I matter. Why? Just because it's a powerful thing. Think about that. Really take this in. Here I am, I am Here I have a right to be. Here I belong. I matter. Why? Just because we don't need a reason. You don't need to earn it. You don't need to be the best or somehow achieve something so that you then earn the right for people to want to talk with you. You have a right to be there. You have another right, which is you have the right to initiate contact with your fellow humans. Some of the times people might not want that, and that's okay. Some of the times they might be into it, and that's great, but you're not doing anything wrong. You have a right. You have a right to be here. You have a right to talk to who you want to. You have a right to say no when you want to. You have a. You have a right to be here. And really enforcing that, really honoring that and owning that gives you the freedom and the power to approach people, to start conversations, to speak up in groups. So the next time you're gonna go somewhere, whether it's gonna be talking to people or a work meeting, or meeting people at a bar, whatever it is, just really think about this. Here I am. I am here, and I have a right to be here. I belong and I matter. And then from that place, just notice, how do you show up? What do you say? How do you interact with people? How much do you just assume that people are open to talking with you as opposed to assuming that they don't want to talk with you? What opens up for you? The fifth and final insight I'd like to share with you is my personal experience of teaching, which is maybe different than what other people that were participants got out of the weekend. But this was a huge one for me, which is be you fifth insight is be you. So what happened is on the second, on the end of the first day, Friday, we'd been doing a ton of great work. We'd had people go out into the world and try things. I'd done some deep work with people who had like fears of putting themselves out there and lots of self criticism and self hatred after not doing it really dove in there and did a ton of work. And then at the end of the day, we sent him home. And I just felt so uncomfortable, you know, I was like, ugh, yeah. And so I was talking with one of the people on my coaching team there, and he was helping me out, seeing what was going on. I was kind of meditating and sitting with it. And there was this, like, strong, pervasive sense of, I'm failing, I'm not doing this good enough. And coupled with that was a sense of like, I, you know, who could do it better? Well, Tony Robbins could do better. And I couldn't even put my finger on what would have. Should have been different or should have been better, but it wasn't good enough, and I wasn't Tony Robbins. And then I was thinking about another teacher I have named Christian Mickelson, who's done a lot of live events that I've been to. And I was like, ah, I'm not as good as him either. I just started comparing myself to all these people that I've learned from and just feeling like I'm failing, like I'm not doing it right. I'm not doing as good as these guys. And so I sat with it and I worked with it that evening for about an hour with my friend and coach there, Ben. And then I got home, went to bed. And the next morning when I was taking a shower, I had a few minutes where my wife was able to be in the bathroom at the same time. And someone was with our. Ben actually was with our boys. He was staying over. And so we had this, you know, sweet little opportunity in the morning to actually talk for a little bit before the event. And I told her what was going on because I woke up still feeling it. And I was. Then I was kind of nervous about going to teach because I was like, I don't feel that confident shit teaching a confident, confidence building event. And I'm not confident. No. And through that short conversation with my wife Candice, who herself is a master coach, I realized something, which is, I gotta be me. Like, the people at this event are not here for Tony Robbins. They could go see Tony Robbins if they wanted to, or Christian or anyone else. Like, they're here to work with me and to work on this issue with me this weekend so I don't have to be anyone else. I just gotta be me. And there was this little switch that flipped from I should be someone else because someone else is better to I'm gonna be me and I'm gonna be Even more me. In fact, maybe yesterday, I was trying to be other people subtly, without knowing it. I'm gonna be just 100% me. So my humor, my nerdy references, the ways that I'm gonna work with people, what I'm gonna teach, the spontaneity, everything is gonna be 100% me. And there was this little switch that flipped right then when I was talking with Candace, and I just felt, like, total relief and total freedom. And so I showed up that day and did exactly that. And we veered off the script of what we were supposed to do. The outline for the weekend ended up throwing in a ton of spontaneous, really awesome exercises both on Saturday and Sunday, and just much more flow. And it was fascinating and incredible, and it just felt so powerful and freeing. And then, I gotta say, I mean, didn't poll everyone, but my sense is that people's experience was way more powerful on Saturday and Sunday because of that. So after that, like, I'm gonna sit down and take some notes to read for myself before the next live event so I can get into that state on day one. So I'm not spending that time, you know, maybe limiting myself or holding back. And that's something that I realized applies to all of us in all areas of life. We gotta be you. And I'm currently working on my newest book called Not Nice. And there is a chapter in that book called 100% you. And that's really what we want to get to, is owning who you are and showing up that way and not thinking you should be or need to be anyone else. What would that be like in your life if you did that? In fact, that could be a great action step. Time for action. Well, your action step for today is actually potentially that. But there's many other things you could take from this episode. Your action step could be to find your five pound weight and make a commitment to go do it, you know, 20 times over the next four days, 20 times a day over the next four days or three times this week, go out and do something 20 times. Just lift that five pound weight, whatever that is for you. Another option could be to upgrade your environment. Look at ways you could do that. Another option for your action step could be to look at your eye contact. Do that mirror exercise I talked about, and then practice with other people, looking at them longer in the eye, reminding yourself, I have a right to be here. Going through that, or committing to being you and looking at what that would look like in your life in different areas. Work, socially, dating, relationships, and just showing up as more you. So there is a buffet of options today. For your action step, I'd say pick one of these five insights that works for you and apply it and use that. And 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. 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 shrinkforthyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.