What If You Were 100% Responsible with Darren Gold

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today, we're going to be talking about everyone's favorite topic, 100% responsibility. And this might be something you've heard me talk about. I often phrase it as I am the captain of my ship and taking responsibility, taking full, total ownership for our lives. And there's different ways of saying this and different ways of talking about this that are all kind of pointing towards something similar. And yet it's a topic that we want to keep talking about regularly, again and again and again, because it's so easy to slip out of it. And I'm excited because I have a guest expert who has a ton of experience with this. He's worked in coaching for years, and he's coached some of the most powerful people in the business world. And this is what we spend a lot of our interview talking about, is taking total ownership, which might seem like kind of a quote, basic concept. You're like, oh, I've heard that before. But hearing it and doing it are completely different things. And then doing it consistently and sustainably, radically different. And I love this because even in this conversation with him, and I'm someone who's like, yeah, I take total ownership. I got that. And then in the conversation, I'm thinking of, like six different things where I'm like, yep, no blame in there. Yep. And he's got a really amazing question that he asks himself and asks his clients to help them get into that. Total responsibility, total ownership. That really empowers them. And I asked that question to myself during and then after that interview, and it really opened up things in my life, some of the current challenges I was facing and seeing where I was not showing up with 100% responsibility, or externally, I was acting that way, but internally, I was blaming in my head. So I can't wait for this interview. I think it will empower you, not only in your career, but in every area of Your life to be able to live an extraordinary life. So without further ado, let's dive into that interview now. My guest expert today is Darren Gold and he's the managing partner at the Trium Group where he's one of the world's leading executive coaches and advisors to CEOs and leadership teams of many of the most well known organizations. He trained in the past as a lawyer, worked at McKinsey & Co. And was a partner at two San Francisco investment firms and served as the CEO of two companies. And now he lives in San Francisco and has a book he's releasing called Master your Code, the Art, Wisdom and Science of Leading an Extraordinary Life. Thank you for joining us today, Darren.

It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

So I love that title and just very curious about the work that you've done in general. But let's start with that. Let's start with the word that comes out to me first is extraordinary life. That's a term that I like to use, is extraordinary. So let's start at the top there. What does that mean? What is an extraordinary life?

Oh wow. It's a great question. And I use the word intentionally. Partly it was think intuitive, right, that you associate the word with extraordinary with something extraordinary as being the very best. But I think it means something very different depending on who you are and where you are in your life. And I actually start the book with a definition of three things and we can get into these if it makes sense. One is something I call your program, second is your code. And then I use use the word extraordinary and I define it as very unusual or remarkable. But really what it's pointing to is this sort of universal desire and I think opportunity and possibility for everyone to live a life that is extremely fulfilling and rewarding and that everyone deep down wants that and as I said, I think deserves it and has the potential to achieve it. So I wrote this book really with an effort towards speaking to everybody that has tapped in to that desire to be leading a life that's truly fulfilling and rewarding.

I love that. And what is your sense of what creates that? What do you think leads to a fulfilling life? And maybe there's no universal thing for each person's unique or maybe there's certain principles you've discovered. But what would you say you've seen?

Yeah, I think the book really points to one thing in particular and I'd like to say that you can either be a prisoner of your mind or a master of it. And I start the Book. The first quote in the book is a quote by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who says, no man is free who is not master of his own mind. And so the book, the argument in the book, and I think it's a persuasive one, is that everybody has the opportunity to be the master of their mind and not imprisoned by it. And the other two definitions that I offer at the beginning of the book is really the average person, and I don't mean this in any judgmental way, like 99.9% of us go through life being run by a program, a set of subconscious safety based beliefs, values and rules that automatically drive your behavior and limit your results. And I draw the distinction between program and your code, which is a consciously chosen set of beliefs, values and rules that is purposefully designed to serve you and produce extraordinary results. And it's really that distinction and the choice that everybody has and can make to really mastering their own code that really separates the average person and the extraordinary person.

So we have this program that conditioned or from upbringing or what have you, that's mostly safety based. And then if we discover that and choose to operate more from a chosen code that allows us to have our own values and decisions and stuff, that's not sort of carrying out this old program, that process allows us to be the master of our mind. And in so doing whatever we pursue from that place creates fulfillment.

Yeah, I make the claim in the book, and it's sort of a reductive one, but there's only so much you can do in a book and that there are really 10 essential lines of code. And the book's divided into 10 chapters. And I go through each line of code as sort of the essential guidebook to leading an extraordinary life. Now, there's obviously a lot more involved than 10 new declarations, but in my experience, my own personal experience and my experience and the privilege I've had working with business leaders and other people that are trying to achieve really extraordinary results in their lives. I found these 10 areas of life or 10 lines of code to be the most important, the most critical, and the places where people have the highest leverage if they get real mastery.

Do you have maybe the first couple or some of the key ones? I don't know if they're sort of sequential, like one builds on another. But what would be an example of one of these lines of code?

Yeah, so in some ways they're sequential. And the first chapter starts with declaration, which is I am the author of my life. Which really speaks to the capacity to be aware. And I say your program's first rule is that you shouldn't be that you're not aware of the program. So. And then it builds on there. You know, for one example I would give is chapter four is I am 100% responsible for my life. And I spend a lot of time addressing and talking about a fundamental belief, a default belief that most of us hold about how we think about our circumstances. I draw the distinction between victims mindset and responsible mindset. That would be one. Chapter seven, the title of that is I own my identity. And I talk a lot about the beliefs that people hold about themselves, our self image or self concept. So that's a couple of examples that.

I. Yeah, and so by sort of looking at this code, consciously choosing it, reading about it through the book, then there's a way to adopt that so that we start to live from that place more and more.

Yeah, I think, you know, and this, I think is work that probably resonates deeply with you but that you know, there's a, this fundamental notion that how we behave, how we act, the actions that we take are a manifestation of the beliefs that we hold and the beliefs that we hold. I say in the book there's really three things that are true about beliefs. Number one is that they're all made up, every single belief that you hold. Number two, those beliefs are designed to protect you and keep you safe, not necessarily for you to thrive and be extraordinary. And number three is that you know, since every belief is made up or constructed, they can be reconstructed. And that's really, you know, what I call the human superpower. Our ability to choose our beliefs, our ability to choose the meaning that we give to our circumstances. And it's in that realization and the acting upon that realization that the unlock happens and major growth can occur. So the book sort of starts with that premise which for people in this field like yourself and myself is pretty self evident. But for a big chunk of my life, I went through my life having no idea that I was being run by a set of beliefs, many of which were serving me and I succeeded in some large measurements, but also many of which were holding me back and limiting my growth. And it was that realization, that profound realization for me that I was being run by and I say in my book, I was a 40 year old man, you know, being run by a program written by a seven year old boy. I was being run by a set of rules, values and beliefs that had their place when I was a young child, but had run out of their, you know, had sort of exceeded the limits of their effectiveness. And in that realization there was extraordinary freedom and power to create and to master and to author my own code. That's the, that's the basic premise. And then I think what the book does well is it synthesizes a large body of philosophy and psychology and science and I weave in my own personal story to really give people access to. Okay, given that realization, what do I do now? And the feedback and the reviews that I've gotten from the book is that it is a very practical guide for taking action based on that fundamental realization, but it doesn't compromise on substance. I go really deep in the book and I trust and respect that the reader will both appreciate that and can really, can really benefit from going deep, which I do.

Yeah, I love that. And so let's get into some of these programs and then the more empowering code that we can put in. Because there's sort of like the obvious stuff like, oh, I don't have the result that I want in my business. Let me blame a bunch of people who are. It's their fault, it's the economy, it's this and that, or, or the. I'm not gonna take action because I'm afraid of rejection. And I don't wanna dismiss those as inconsequential. Those might be the most common ones. But what have you seen? What are some of the programs that trip people up if we wanna help the listeners get more self awareness, Being that one of the first steps in the process, or the keys to unlock things. What are some things that you've seen that really can trip people up maybe without them even seeing it or without even knowing that the program's running?

Yeah, I'd point to a couple, and you sort of named one already. And I did alluded to it earlier, which is this belief that circumstances shape me. I don't shape my circumstances. That is a fundamental distinction. It's a default mindset to go through life, and many of us do, and I did for a long time.

Because.

It'S a seductive belief, right? If the world happens to me, I get to blame the world, I get to blame others. And the payoff is I get to avoid responsibility. But I get the payoff of avoiding responsibility with the cost of no growth and no results. So one of the things I spend quite a bit of time on in the book is addressing this default mindset that we have, which I call the victim mindset. And other people have spoken about this and I challenge the reader to declare that they're 100% responsible for every situation. And what I do in the book is I say not because that assertion is true. There's very, very few circumstances where we're truly 100% responsible. So I say oftentimes that I'm really not. I really don't care what's true. What I care about is the belief you're holding serving you. Is it empowering? And a belief that I'm 100% responsible for every situation, while not necessarily totally true, is a very powerful stand to take in the world, a stand that will totally shift the actions that are even available, even that you can see as available to you. So that's one where I often start there in my coaching of business leaders. And what I'm listening for is any sort of complaint. And we do it all the time. Right. It's sort of America's favorite pastime. And cue that you're operating from a victim mindset and that the actions available to you are going to be super limited.

I love that. Let's drill further into that one. So you're working with someone, I understand you work with a lot of people that are in leadership or CEOs of big corporations and other folks as well. And so there's obviously to get to that level, there's some degree of ability to take responsibility and action to reach that level in a career. And yet there they are running organization. There's a lot of people involved and probably a very natural human tendency to subtly or directly hold ourselves hostage to life circumstances. So when you hear someone blaming in any capacity or complaining, what do you do and what's your goal? How do you help them shift that?

Yeah, and it's a great observation, right? Even leaders at the highest part of their career running, you know, they're running large organizations are still aren't immune from this basic human phenomenon to blame or externalize responsibility. And so the first thing is just to point it out, right? I mean, and that's the power of awareness. And oftentimes even people that have gotten this far in their career have not been exposed to the distinction. And I talk about distinctions in the book. Distinctions is the kind of intentional use of language to expose what you didn't know that you didn't know. There's huge value in just understanding the difference between one mindset and another, let alone doing anything about it. So number one is I just notice and have them notice and give some language to it, which oftentimes can be really transformational, even to very accomplished senior Leaders. And then two, we really examine it. So we talk about the belief that they're holding, and I talk about an example I had where and I do this work for a living. And yet I still find myself blaming and judging and externalizing responsibility if I'm not intentional and careful. And the part in the book that I mention is I was working with coaching a CEO, and I had a team of coaches that was supporting his leadership team. And midway through our engagement, the CEO decided to put a pause on coaching. I won't get into the details of that, but here we are coaching a senior team of a very prominent technology company without the CEO himself being coached, without blaming. And I'll get into the part where I did blame for a moment. It was certainly impacting our ability to be effective. And I found myself blaming and commiserating with the other coaches about the impact it was having on our ability to be effective in this engagement. And without really being aware that I had slipped into a victim mindset, there was nothing I could do to affect the situation, and we were stuck until I snapped out of it, until I recognized what I was doing and said, okay, what if I were 100% responsible for this outcome being incredible? What would I do? What actions would be available to me out of that belief? And as crazy as it sounds, the simple action that came to me immediately was I'd get on the phone and without any energy or charge, I'd have a conversation with the CEO that I had been coaching, let him know that it was having an impact on our engagement, despite us doing everything we were committed to doing, and a request that he resume coaching, which is what I did. And in this case, he actually agreed. But I like to say that give up the right to blame unless you've exhausted 100% of the things that you could be doing to affect the situation.

And I love that the question that you asked yourself in that moment was, what if I were 100% responsible? What could I do? And I love that because it bypasses some of our internal resistance and just says, well, what if I were? And starts to open up the range of possibilities? And then of course, invites the belief in that I can hold it this way, I can hold it as I am responsible.

I can make any belief, and it's going to better serve me to hold that belief because it's going to give rise to a set of actions that I couldn't even see holding the prior belief. And even the most obvious actions, like your listeners are probably listening right now saying, well, that's obvious, right? Pick up the phone and call. But not to somebody that's holding a belief that there's nothing I can do to affect my situation, that's been seduced by the willingness to blame somebody else for their misfortunes. And if you slow down enough and you watch yourself and you watch others, all you have to do is stand in line, you know, get a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and guarantee you'll be hearing people complaining, including yourself, all the time. So this is one of the most powerful shifts that a person can undertake. And it's related to a concept in psychology called locus of control. And I have a resource for people to take that test to see where they lie on this locus of control spectrum. But it's a very powerful body of work that I bring into my coaching.

Yeah. And it's such a valuable thing to read about, to have this conversation about, because it's like anything else. We can slowly settle back into a pattern of subtle victimhood, maybe without even really knowing it or just perceiving it as like, well, this is how it is. Or, of course I feel that way because this is this way. And the next thing we know, we're doing it without fully really realizing that we've fallen down from where that more empowered place could be.

Yeah, that's right. And it's an ongoing daily practice, like anything that's never ending. But that reminder done repeatedly on a daily basis, can really radically shift things.

And what about a situation where someone finds themselves, you know, what I see with clients or people that I work with, they're in a situation that doesn't work for them, and they have kind of tried to make it work for a long time. I see this a lot in people in relationships or at a certain particular job or company, and they've tried to make it work, tried to take responsibility in that way, and then as a result, they. They get sort of burned out, and then they are. Then I notice them kind of falling into a resignation or a depression around that. Have you seen that with people? And what is the pathway to resuming that responsibility in a way that empowers them?

Yeah, well, oftentimes I'll caution people, because responsibility can, if you're not careful, merge into blame where you begin to blame yourself. That's dangerous territory. Right. And so this is not about saying I'm to blame or that I have actual responsibility. And that's this sort of distinction that I make around whether it's true or not. This isn't like taking full responsibility for Things. It's just to ask the question, if I were responsible, what actions would be available? And so I had a client come up to me once and said, you know, I've tried this responsible mindset thing out, and I'm exhausted. And that was really what had happened. He was trying to blame himself for anything. And that's. That's the nuance in this distinction. The, you know, every distinction that's powerful is going to have some powerful nuances to it, and one of them is to avoid blaming yourself. And it's, you know, it's sort of like the serenity prayer. Right. That there's only, you know, you have to understand what's in your control and what's outside of your control as a kind of a, you know, almost a separate distinction, if that makes sense.

Yeah. It's also like wondering what, you know, getting clear on what the responsibility. What that means, you know, because I think, I mean, people hear responsible, and it's such a default assumption to be like, who's responsible for this? You know, which is like, oh, my gosh, me. Right. And it's. What I'm hearing. And what you're describing is it's not really looking at. Even that question's not looking at, like, who's. To. Who's at fault for this? Which is how people, I think, distort that question often. It's, in a sense. So what is it that people. Are we responsible for our own outcomes? Are we responsible for our own attitude? What are we responsible to?

Yeah, I mean, certainly how we interpret and how we respond to situations, for sure. But in this question, there's always something I can do to affect the situation is really at the heart of what I mean by responsible mindset. Right. So in any situation, however bad, however wronged you may feel and indeed may have been wronged, there's always something you can do to affect the situation, even the smallest thing. And finding that smallest thing is going to be the more empowering way of looking at it. And it doesn't mean not holding other people accountable. Right. So there is. And that's what I call. You know, I sort of offered this elsewhere in the book, the idea of polarities, right. Where I can be 100% responsible and I can maturely hold other people accountable for the commitments that they've made or their own obligations. And I can hold both of those truths simultaneously. So there's a lot of richness and nuance in this. And it's sort of like, don't try this at home. But of course, do. And I think the other thing I oftentimes tell people is it's sort of a Gandhian notion, right, that, you know, be the change you want to see in the world. Which is actually not really what he said, but it's the spirit of that quote, which is responsibility is unconditional in the sense that it starts with yourself and really, until you've become pretty masterful at this, should stay there. So the last thing you want to do is, you know, come, you know, get the distinction and come home and say, hey, honey, aren't you being a little bit of a victim? That's not going to go over too well at home or on your team, right? Trying to get others to be responsible. My big belief around leadership, maybe the most important thing is that you have to first and foremost, and maybe almost entirely role model the qualities and attributes that you'd like to see in others and almost give up the right to change, anybody or anything. And if you powerfully take on these principles, you act as if maturely, you have a responsible mindset. There's always something you can do to affect any situation. That way of being will become so attractive that you will inspire and influence others to be the same. But it won't work if you abdicate your own responsibility for mastery and begin by trying to change others.

I love it. And one thing I'm curious about is you've talked about people that are in high levels of leadership, and I think it's so good to talk a little bit more about the challenges there, because there can be this illusion in our culture that, well, if someone reaches a certain level of wealth or a certain level of success or power in their career, then they've arrived, and there's this illusion of ease, comfort, endless success, all that sort of thing. And on some level, we kind of know that that's not true. But I think there can be this artificial distinction that people create. And so that could be really helpful because a lot of my listeners are struggling to grow. Grow confidence, face their own fears and whatever level in their social life, their careers, their relationships. What would you say are some of the common fears you see that people that are at high levels of organizations face? What are they afraid of?

Oh, boy, they're as human as anybody else. So the notion, and I know you've already said that we sort of know it, right? The notion that people that have sort of made it don't suffer from the same fears and concerns and anxiety and frustrations that every one of us does couldn't be further from the truth, I'm not sure There are a set of common ones I talk about in my book, what I call survival strategies. And this is the sort of notion that. And this is equally applicable to a Fortune 50 CEO as it is to anybody else. And this is the notion that when we're children, our primary goal is to be accepted, included, loved, and to feel worthy, particularly by our parents. And we will adopt strategies to get love and attention and to feel worthy. And these survival strategies generally fall into really three categories. One is a belonging strategy, which is some deep commitment to be liked, to belong, or to be included. And that may be your dominant survival strategy or the Fortune 50 CEO's survival strategy. There's distancing, which is the sort of. Second, and that's sort of a person who seeks safety by maintaining some sense of separateness or distance. That's sort of the need to be right, to be smart, to be above it all. And then finally there's a controlling strategy, which is people that find safety through achieving and are committed to winning, to results, to being perfect. Now, each of us has a mix of all of those survival strategies, but there's usually one or two very dominant survival strategies. And I don't care what you've accomplished in life. In fact, some of the people that have accomplished the most will have these strategies most acutely because they've been so successful. They haven't really had a need to take a hard look. And it's often the thing that's holding them back from either achieving more, whatever you want to, you know, however you put achieve in quotes, or feeling fulfilled from that level of achievement that they have. Which is one of the biggest complaints I hear is I've. I've reached this sort of pinnacle of my career. I. Number one, I feel overwhelmed still, and I don't feel fulfilled. I feel far from it. And often what we're doing is getting to sort of some of these underlying psychological survival strategies that were adopted very early in childhood that are still continuing to run that person. And once you've. Once you're able to see that and understand that it is a construction of a child and that you have the freedom to reconstruct it, the degrees of freedom, even well into life, become available to people. They can be very powerful.

That's fascinating. So a common pattern is. Is operating from one of these survival strategies, and then maybe even because of the strategy or in spite of it, they're able to achieve a great deal. And then. And yet there's a lack of that fulfillment which, you know, there's different ways to describe that word, but I imagine a lot of people want to feel a sense of peace or joy or gratitude or happiness or engagement.

And.

And that's absent or limited in spite of all the achievement. And maybe, as you mentioned, the overwhelm is still there in that they haven't reached that sense of peace. And then. So through this process, though, of identifying and changing these survival strategies, it sounds like that people are able to experience a lot more of that sense of fulfillment, not necessarily by changing external circumstances, at least I didn't hear that yet. But more so do I buy letting go of that survival strategy. And now I'm all of a sudden feeling a lot more content or fulfilled. Is that right?

Yeah. And even, you know, the survival strategy will always be there. So it's in some ways not so much a letting go as an expanding of range. And I think that's an important distinction because, you know, as soon as, you know, somebody feels like they're diminishing or demonizing or trying to get rid of something that is absolutely serve them well, right. It's just. It's not going to work. So it's really just an expansion of what's available to you that I think is an important nuance. And there are a lot of leaders I work with that, despite having achieved the title, are still pretty massively limited in their effectiveness. And so another misconception is that people that have gotten to very high levels within organizations have it all figured out, right, where everything's working effectively. And the reality is there are still huge amounts of growth. There are still places where they're massively stuck. There's still areas where they're very ineffective or at least at best mixed in terms of their effectiveness. And so, you know, and they've more than compensated with other strengths and accomplishments, but huge areas of growth available to them.

I love that. And I think it's so important because there can see this tendency, and I've seen this in clients, I've seen this in myself, too, where it's like, okay, I've reached this level. I feel generally about the same as the previous two levels in my career. What do I need to do? I know I need to get to level four, level five. That's where it's at. It can just be this kind of doubling down on the same methods. But then, of course, that doesn't actually change really much of anything except for perhaps external circumstances.

Yep, that's right. And you can get into sort of more of that. But this sort of accomplishment cycle that people get stuck into. And that's sort of our conditioning in our culture. You know, I'm going to get into the best college and I'm going to be happy. Well, then I get into the best college and now I'm going to graduate and get a good job. And I graduate and I get a good job. And now I graduate and get a job. I've got to get promoted. And it goes on and on and on. And by the time we know it, we are reaching the end of our life, never really feeling fulfilled. And part of the sort of undertone of my work and the book is to sort of expose that fallacy and to begin to generate a life that is intrinsically rewarding and have control over your, you know, over your life. Because circumstances are circumstances, very little control over those, how you interpret them, the meaning that you give to them, the life that you create out of those circumstances is in many respects entirely within your control.

And so what would you say, and I'm looking forward to reading the book and hearing you said you mentioned your personal story in there, but you talked about having this insight of what the seven year old created. What was that that the seven year old and you created and what did you adopt? What's sort of the new code that you've created for yourself in this journey?

Yeah, and I do speak about this a lot in the book and for, you know, long time was very reticent to talk about it. And I grew up in a what I describe as a very highly dysfunctional family, you know, sort of on the edge of poverty. Both my parents were incarcerated intermittently. My father, who I grew up with sort of in a single apartment in la, was a loving, loving man to me, but a very, very violent man outside. And so I was exposed to this mix of experiences that in some respects were incredibly nurturing and gave me some gifts that I have benefited from and in many ways exposed me to some things that forced me or if I, you know, were more responsible that I chose to create a set of rules for how I was going to live my life that had two effects. One is they really served me and others that really, really held me back. And I talk about one of them in particular, since you asked for my experience. But one was an innate need to be liked. I moved back and forth from another country. I was born in London, England, which, you know, at age 18 would have been a really cool English accent. At age 8 was not. So I was teased mercilessly and I moved every Single year until I was 12. So I had this sort of very volatile situation. I went to a new school every single year until middle school. I had, you know, had to conform to a new culture in LA from London, which was a big change. And I didn't know it at the time, but as a. As a 7 or 8 year old when I finally settled in LA, this need to be included and to be liked was just massively dominant for me. And I got insanely good at it. I was, you know, I was a kid who could show up and within a few days was liked. I had a group of friends and. But it became my way of making sense of the world. There was no separation between who I was and that belief in likability. No space to ever consider anything doing anything different. And it had a really beneficial impact. I did really well in my career, but it robbed me of a lot of growth. Number one, I couldn't give people really direct feedback. I really struggled for a long time in my career to be direct. I would beat around the bush and I would deprive people that worked with me and for me, really honest, mature feedback, which, you know, in some respects I regret, but I've forgiven myself. And then I. The paradoxical thing was I was so likable that it made it really difficult for other people to give me honest feedback. And so I was. I robbed myself of the kind of honest feedback that I would have gotten. And my just conversations were muddied and muddled as a consequence. So it's just one example of a really strong belief that I adopted early on to survive my circumstances that benefited me in some respects and really, really held me back. It wasn't until I realized that and did my work on that belief that I was able to be both very kind and direct. And it's still something I work at, but I am much, much better at it than I was.

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing more of your story. And I think it's just so relatable to everyone listening and to myself, and helpful because every single one of these patterns is emerging out of this long history. And then it's something that we figure out, as you said, or adopt at a certain age. And then we just keep sticking to it until we raise that awareness and then make a choice. So I think that's such a essential and necessary human journey. And then I'm glad that you put this together in this book that people can uncover what these things are and then make a shift in them. And it's just really empowering for everyone. And so the book is called Master your Code the Art, Wisdom and science of leading an extraordinary Life. And it's available on looks like Amazon, Audible. And if people want to find out more about the book and about you and your work, what's the best place to learn more about you?

Yeah, so a couple places I have a website, darrenjgold-a r r e n j g o l d dot com and then I am a managing partner at the Trium Group which is where I do all my client work. And that's Triumgroup T R I u.

M g R-O-U p.com Fantastic. Thank you again Darren so much for sharing this story. I'm actually really intrigued by the book. I love how sort of depth with which you teach some of these things and I'm excited to learn more from you. So thanks for sharing with us today.

Thank you. It's been a real pleasure.

That brings us to the end of the episode and before we leave though, your action step. Time for action. Action, Action. Your action step for today is to ask yourself that question. If I were 100% responsible, what new actions would that open up? So pick a situation in your life where maybe you feel stuck or challenged or frustrated or hurt or down or disempowered or something that's not working for you. Just pick one. Don't try to apply this to everything at once. Just pick one area. You'll know the one that's coming to your mind right now. That's probably the best one to start with. And then ask yourself that question, if I were 100% responsible, what new actions might open up? What could I do? How could I respond? How could I react? How could I choose to respond? What could I choose to do? Because remember what he said in the interview, that the key thing in getting that responsibility is that you have some your agency here. You can affect things in some way even if it feels like you can't. So ask yourself that question repeatedly. See what actions come to mind. And of course take those actions. Beautiful. 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.

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 love link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.

J.