When Self-Confidence Isn't Enough

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. The show to help you break free from social anxiety, people pleasing and self doubt so you can speak up, connect and be 100% you. I'm Dr. Aziz, sharing tools that have transformed my life and thousands of others. Let's all liberate ourselves together.

Hey, welcome today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be looking at when self confidence isn't enough. What? What isn't Confidence. The. The answer to everything. No. Kind of. We'll see. I mean, maybe it's a different type of confidence that's needed, maybe it's something else that's needed. But I'm going to share what some of the limits are to confidence and what something I call the self confidence ceiling is and how we can go beyond that. What's needed to go beyond that. And it's especially relevant. And I'm extra excited today. I really genuinely am excited to be with you in these episodes and to share and what a gift, huh? To be able to have this time and be able to put this out there through the magical ether of the Internet and for you and I to connect across man, thousands of miles depending on where you are, time and space. Right? Because I record this now and maybe you're listening to it the very moment the next day or freaking three years from now. It's pretty cool, huh? So that's generally exciting, but I'm especially excited, time sensitive excited because something exciting is coming in two weeks and it's relevant to you and I'll share more about that in just a minute. So we're getting all that in today's episode. You ready? Okay, let's dive in.

So I discovered what I would call the self confidence ceiling by kind of bumping into it. I didn't know it was there and it looks something like this. I struggled with a lot of lack of confidence, as you probably know, having listened to this show and, or read any of my books or something. And it's. I have a lot of social anxiety, a lot of self doubt, a lot of people pleasing, a lot of trying, you know, inauthenticity, trying to be someone else. So other people like me, the works. And that's what informs a lot of my work today and this show and my books and how to help people out of those cages. So I have been progressively going out of those cages and at first I thought it was just, you know, we always see it's like you're hiking or climbing a mountain or something. You're like, oh, it's just over this next ridge. And when we get there, we made it. Haha. And then of course you get to the next ridge and you're like, oh, it keeps going, right? And that's kind of, you know, for as long as I remember when I was young and I had lacked confidence, I was like, if I could just get a girlfriend, man, that would be like, I won, I won life. And then you realize you get there and you're like, oh no, actually, you just keep going. And now there's another thing and there's another challenge or another goal and that's life. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's beautiful. It means we continue to keep growing. In fact, a great quote I heard from Tony Robbins, which is our biggest problem, is that we think we shouldn't have any problems, right? Because problems are what is the next thing. Growth. That's part of life. It's good. It's good that you're still got something to do, right? If there was no problems, you'd be dead. Boo. And at the same time, there's no static point. We get to where we sail off into the sunset and we solve the one last problem. And it's all ease and no challenge from then on.

But I began to take, I realized, oh, it wasn't just a girlfriend issue, it was a Z's issue. It was a self confidence issue. I need to learn how to become more confident. And that's what started the whole journey. And here we are today and hopefully you're learning confidence as well. And we're challenging the myths and the stories that this is the way you're born, this is just who you are. And so I broke out of, you might say, the cage of social anxiety where I had to hide and I couldn't approach anybody and I couldn't talk to people and I couldn't be seen. I couldn't be the center of attention or I would die. Right? And I, and I overcame that, you might say. And it's not all like one night, one day. I overcame it. It's a process, right? And there was some initial bursts and then it continued and then there was layers. And so, you know, it's an ongoing process. But over time, you might say, I looked back at some point, I was like, wow, I don't really think I have much social anxiety anymore. It comes up now and then I'm human, but it's not a dominant part of my life. That's pretty cool, right? So that was coming out of a cage and then you Know, out of one, you know, out of the frying pan, into the fire. Oh, geez. Now I'm. I didn't know this, but I can't really have close relationships, not just because I'm hiding from everybody with social anxiety, but because I'm too damn nice. I don't even know. I was too nice for many years until I had a therapist in a men's group I joined who's like, you're really nice. I said, thanks. And he's like, no, it's more complex than that. That wasn't fully a compliment. Here, read this book. And he gave me Dr. Glover's book, no More Mr. Nice Guy. And Dr. Glover is amazing. I'm super grateful for him and his book and really kicked me off on a whole new path in life. And I've interviewed him for this podcast a couple of times. Awesome guy. And so that was a realization, oh, my gosh, I'm in another cage. And then there was a long, uncomfortable process to start to change that and overcome that. And it's like little one of those nesting dolls, right? One is inside the other inside the other. And.

At that time in my life, I thought it was like, what's the next. You know, you overcome the thing, you break out of the cage, you overcome the fear, and it's their distinct, separate things. And now I realize it was part of a larger process. I didn't realize this until I was in my 30s. I was like, oh, it wasn't just overcome social anxiety, overcoming niceness or people pleasing or whatever. This has been a process for me of liberation.

From slavery to freedom. Essentially, you can think of that as inner slavery. The cage you bring with you everywhere you go. And so, oh, this is a process of liberation. That's when I discovered, wait a minute. That's more important than the specific problem or the specific fear, the specific challenges. I am.

Dedicated to, obsessed with, committed to.

Liberation. And then I realized it just wasn't for me. Right. It was like, oh, for me and others that I am blessed with. I'm gonna put. I think it's truly blessed. But, you know, at first you might put blessed in quotes. Right. Thanks. I've been blessed with a lot of cages to be in. Oh, another one was chronic pain. Right. So liberation from that as well. And now I help people with that too. So it's a. It's liberation for myself and others. And so I was going along, it wasn't smooth sailing as, you know, overcoming some of these patterns can be very uncomfortable. And then I reached A level where I would have thought things should feel better than they do, right? I'm. I don't experience a lot of social anxiety. I have a lot of self confidence, I feel good about who I am. I have an amazing relationship with my wife, I have children, I have friends, I have a lot of intimacy in my life. I can share and be who I really am with a lot of people. And for work, I get to do what I love. I really, I mean, man, I get to. If I feed off of authenticity, many people have to kind of put that down when they go to work, right? They're like, okay, that was great to be authentic. And so with so and so now I gotta, you know, go do this thing in a box that I don't like. Now hopefully that's not you. And if that is you, that's. I think that's part of confidence is be able to steer your career, steer your life till it becomes more and more of a reflection of who you really are. And that's part of becoming more and more authentic. So I'm looking at this circumstance though, and I'm like, this should feel pretty good. And honestly, I didn't. What I really felt was anxious, quite anxious in fact, in some ways more sticky, persistent, neurotic, obsessive, frustrating anxiety than even in the cage of social anxiety. Because in the cage of social anxiety when I was a lot younger, there was, I don't know, a lot of numbing out, a lot of avoidance. I didn't feel that nervous because I wasn't gonna go talk to anybody. I mean, I got really scared if I thought I had to go do something or give a, you know, presentation in a class or something. And it freaked me out. But for the most part, I could keep my life really small.

And.

Same thing with the niceness cage, right? The fear was only in when I really started to confront these patterns. But here I was, I'd confronted a lot of these patterns. I'd liberated myself in all these different ways. I was helping other people do it.

But day to day I was feeling pretty anxious.

And I didn't know what the hell was going on. And I realized now that I bumped into the self confidence ceiling.

And I used this metaphor as I started to discover this. I was teaching a workshop, I don't know, maybe three years ago. And I have these at my desk, I'm grabbing them right now. I have these three ping pong balls and a little beautiful bowl that my mother in law gave me at my desk. There's a dead Stink bug in there underneath the balls.

These little critters. I don't know where you are in the world, but when I was a kid, I grew up in California, and stink bugs were these big, nasty black beetles here in Oregon. They're like these little brown critters. They're not that threatening at all. They smell kind of weird. If you touch them, they smell like two green grass or something. My younger son hates them, but for me, I'm like, that's a mild version of a stink bug. Anyway, they love to infiltrate our house in the fall, and then you find them dead everywhere over the next couple months. Anyway, there's one in the bottom of the jar. Okay, clean that out. Got my ping pong balls. I'm holding. I got a green ball and a red ball and a gold ball. Now, this was from a metaphor that I used at an event where I had mostly red balls in this bag. And I was highlighting as, like, hey, we got to take action in life. And when you take an action, you have control over whether you go do the thing or not, but you do not have control over the outcome. That's an illusion. You don't. You might influence it. If you're super awesome and suave, you know, maybe someone will like you, but maybe not. Maybe you're trying too hard now. Right? And the best influence I believe we have is a clear intent, like an actual intention for something that's beneficial, mutually beneficial, not just for me, me, me, me, me. And you're unattached to the outcome. I believe that's how I have the most influence in my life. Not because I'm running some super sneaky NLP hypnosis pattern on somebody. Although I tried to learn that stuff when I was younger, very insecure, and thought I needed that for dating. Oh, God. Ross Jeffries, the guy they talked about in the game. Oh, my God. Just gnarly stuff. Don't go there. The dark side doesn't work anyway. All right, so you got the red ball, green ball, gold ball. Mostly red balls in there. Maybe 20% green balls. And then three gold balls that I put in there. And so people would reach in during the event. It's kind of dramatic. Like what? You know, they'd say, okay, this is for me in my work life. I want to, you know, go for a new job or I want to speak up more. Go for leadership, right? And it's like, is it gonna work out everybody? And then they pull the ball, red ball. And I was teaching people how to have the emotional resilience to handle the red, but meaning to give the red ball because you give the meaning as, like, I'm a loser. Then you're not gonna wanna pull another ball. You're not gonna wanna go for it again. And, you know, same thing for a green ball. And what are the goal balls? Well, hey, sometimes in life you go for something, and not only does it go well, it's a home run, and it surprises you, it delights you. It's usually unexpected. I believe it's guided and. And, you know, that's like me going to a workshop, and the person teaching it is Candace. And the only reason I'm at the workshop in the first place is because I was in a train wreck of a. We'll call it a relationship. But now that. I'll put that in quotes now, because that was my version of a relationship. And I'm super nice and I'm. I'm keeping it together. Let's say we're in some sort of ship. And the intimacy level is quite low, though. And, you know, but I pull. I pull a gold ball in the sense that not only do I meet her, but eventually she wants to be with me. Amazing. Anyway, but what I discovered when I was teaching, during the teaching of this. I'd already planned that whole exercise with the balls to teach, like, you know, resilience and courage and going for it and stuff. But I'm holding the green ball right now. And I realized in that moment I was teaching, why I was so anxious.

Is because I'd had. I got a lot of green ball. I went for a lot of balls, man. Over the last decade or more, I mean, Since I was 21, I discovered feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. Right? It's just like, yeah, okay, I'm sold. Let's go for it. Bold. Bold is the answer. I still got a bracelet on my wrist. It says, be bold. It's good. Good medicine. Boldness in life is rewarded. Cowardice is ignored. These are phrases that I came up with and taught and teach and believe. Now to this day, they're the phrases, the principles of confidence. What I was not aware of was the limits of confidence and self confidence. And so I had this green ball in my hand. I was teaching. I realized, oh, the reason I'm so anxious, because I took all this action, got a lot of red balls, but also got a lot of green balls. And now I have all these green balls in my life. I got an amazing wife that I love. I have two children that we poured our hearts into. And if you've had kids and a deep relationship with them, it's like a, for me, a crazy feeling of like, okay, I'm like pouring my heart into this being. And if something were to happen to them and same thing with Candace, the more intimate I am, the more it would just obliterate me. I would feel so much grief and pain if something devastating were to happen to them. And yet they're a being outside of me. It's not like I can control my own body and safety. And I could still get hurt and injured too. Right. But it's just a feeling of like there's this person running around and my heart's in them. Oh, so vulnerable. Right. And then I had this beautiful business and these clients I get to work with and these books and like in this house we just moved. Actually, the anxiety pretty much started at peak levels when we moved to this new house. It was like a dream home out in the woods. I get to work from home. I get to be surrounded by old growth trees and a forest. I mean it is. And down the road, within like a mile and a half of my house of running on a. On a country road that very few cars are on. I get to be out in what I call wild country, which is just endless gravel roads through forest. They go for like more miles than I could ever run. All the way to the Mount Hood National Forest if I ever wanted to go that far. Like what? It was such perfect gifts that I freaked out. I didn't know how to handle it. It was too many green balls. And so my anxiety was I became obsessed with clutching and grasping at and maintaining all the green.

You know what I'm talking about. And maybe you don't have to have everything green to have this occur, but even just one or two good things. And that's when I realized, oh my God, there is no self confidence solution for this. Right? There's no, like, take more bold action and get more green balls. I'm like, I got a lot of green balls. This is hard to, you know, it's a lot to manage. This is good stuff. But I'm going to run out there and create a bunch of new stuff and forget about what I got. Like, what do I do?

And that's when I realized that there was a big void in my life.

And that is when there's this book that I'd been. That had been kind of circling in my mind for literally years. I knew the title, I knew it would be about. And I tried to Write it three times, and it was just, like, awful. I'd write a bunch and then I wouldn't like it. It didn't feel right, didn't feel good. It's because I wasn't living it yet. And every book that I write, I have to be living it, have lived it. Has to be taught from my own experience, not just what I think or conceptually or maybe one day I can do this too. It's got to be like, no, here's this experience, and here's how it works for me. Here's how it works for clients. Let's go.

And when I started to discover that ceiling, that's when I realized that I needed to do the work. And then I did, and have been doing it at a deeper and deeper level. And then the book started to come quick and easy. And the book is called Doubtless how to Believe in Yourself. That's the confidence part. And here's the missing piece. Trust in life.

There was a big missing piece for me there. Big gap in my capacity to trust in life. And maybe I could say words that sounded like that, but if you looked at my emotional state, my heart, it was very mistrustful. It's like, life is going to screw me, right? It's just a matter of time. The other shoe's gonna drop. Look the F out, man. Right? So it's like a hyper vigilance, a mistrust.

Danger. And the better it gets, the more the danger, right? The higher they go, the further they fall. You're gonna be like Icarus going to the sun.

So that was where the anxiety came from. That was where the growth edge for me has been. It's been radical growth over the last, jeez, I don't know, four years in this area. Know, when I look back, the seeds were planted. Even four years before that.

When I was sitting in a meditation and feeling a lot and suffering and feeling this, like, ache of loneliness that I'd felt for a really long time underneath, whenever, despite having, you know, a family and children and. And.

I tell the story in the book where it was like, what is this ache all about?

And then I had this thought come to me out of nowhere, and I said, I want to know God. I was like, huh? That's not my usual typical language. What's up with that? And I kind of sat with it for a little bit and then didn't. I don't know, didn't really go anywhere. Maybe listen to, like, some sermons or something. I was like, no, this is not right for Me, because I don't know about. And this is really where doubtless comes in, is like, it's for. If you have a really strong faith and it's a big pulsing part of your life and it's boom, right there and accessible, then that's awesome. And this book will, I think, compound that for you and strengthen that. But.

Really, who this book is for is people who are just like me, who maybe you grew up in a religion, but it doesn't feel like really charged up with faith. You kind of have a lot of ideas and stuff in your head and things you're supposed to do and maybe even rituals you follow, practices, prayers. But you don't feel super lit up and like, in your heart you're like, yes, I feel like alive. Faith, trust of life. This is awesome. Or if you're like, I don't know about all that God stuff and you're more agnostic, more spiritual.

You know, I went through all that and I talk about that in the book My Own Phases. I was an atheist for many years, and then I became more like, whatever, if there's a God thing, it's doing its own thing, and I'm going to do my own thing and we'll just kind of live side by side. And then. And then over time, it became a lot more spiritual seeking, but still very much anti the religion I grew up in and other religions and more like, I'm going to find my own way, you know, in sort of New Age or sweat lodge kind of Lakota traditions really spoke to me. And then, you know, I'll go into the whole journey in the book, but it's really teaching a pathway to open and unlock a living sense of trust in life and man, the more I was able to do that, the more I am able to do that. Holy. I don't think I can curse on this episode, this pod anymore, because we don't. We don't have it as explicit. Is it still explicit in your. In your. Wherever you listen to podcasts? Because if it is, I could be cursing like a sailor, but I'm trying not to. Holy cow. That's what I say. Holy cow. Holy. I hate. I hate all those. Holy shmoly. Ugh. Cringe. Holy moly.

It's extraordinary because then you get to create. You have the self confidence to create the green results that you want in your life, the resilience to keep going. But then there's so much more. You get to really enjoy them, really receive them with gratitude, really live in a. In a state of not fearing things, dissolving or changing.

And that's what I want for you. And that's why I'm so excited, because I have a beautiful creation that's come through me. That's the book called Doubtless how to Believe in Yourself and Trust in Life. And it's here and it's coming in, like, two weeks or less. I don't know. I remember, like, finalizing one last little piece and then we're getting out. So my goal is, I think literally next week.

It could be around December 18th, like next Thursday. We'll see somewhere in there. Worst case scenario, December 21st. I don't want to get it too close to the holidays because then it might get lost in the shuffle. But, man, I know it's got to come out this year. We're so close. And the audio version will be coming out soon after that. It's already recorded. We have the print version that you can get the layout person I found Luca. I don't know if you listen to this podcast episode. Probably not, but you're amazing. Gift, man. The best, most beautiful layout I've ever had for a book. First time I ever worked with him, and I looked at it and he gave me his first draft. I was like, this is. This is art. I mean, my books have always looked okay. They're like professional looking. But this is, man, the ideas. He came up with creative liberties, and he's like, tell me if I took things too far. And I was like, no, you, sir, are amazing. Thank you for taking them as far as you did. Thinking outside the box. So print version is amazing. There'll be a Kindle version as well. And yeah, I'm very excited to share this with you. So stay tuned. I'll be talking in the next podcast. Next week's episode, I'll go into a lot more depth of, like, the process of becoming Doubtless, how to believe in yourself and trust in life. Kind of a little crash course of the book. And I. I'm also going to be doing a masterclass on Doubtless next week. I'll be sharing more about how to access that. The short version is. You got to be on my email list to find out about that. It'll be totally free. It'll be on the release day or the day after the release of the book, something like that. And we will send out an email about it, a couple emails, like one maybe probably this week and one next week. So, uh, if you're not on my email list, go get on there so you can Find out about this. It's just go to Dr.aziz.com d r a z I z.com you can enter your can join the list on there. You can just get the mini course is probably the easiest way to get get on the list. And then you'll obviously get a mini course too. And then you can find out about this, this masterclass. So I'm super excited to share that with you and the book too. Okay, so before we complete, we always, always got to put what we talk about into action, right? Time for action. Action, action. Your action step is to reflect on these two questions. One is what is your rate of reaching into that bag and pulling out balls? Like going for risks in your life, going for things. And maybe that's a pretty general question. So you could think about it in one area right now. So in my love life right now, in my career right now, you know, and maybe it's like X numbers a week or whatever. It doesn't even have to be that specific or granular. I'm just talking about like a feeling. We kind of know when we're in a state of like, yeah, I'm taking some risks. I'm going for things versus more in a state of like, no, I'm kind of in a state of like paralysis or fear or holding back. And just look at that and reflect on that because then as you hopefully, if this resonates for you, check out the book when it comes out. You'll be learning about the balls and how to go for things and how to really build that belief in yourself. And you can kind of see, start with where you're at now. And the second question is looking at the other side of that ceiling, right? Which is faith, however you define it, whether it's in, you know, and what do you put your faith in right now? And I asked that in the beginning of the book. It's like, where do you put your faith? You put in yourself, you know, this guy, a little shaky. Some days I'm on, some days I'm off. I'll tell you that, right? You put it in. Do you have a relationship with God? Do you have a relationship with like a broader spiritual sense, life divine. And what I'm really clear about in the book is like, this isn't all right, A prescriptive here's a way to think everybody. That's not my place. That's I am know. Who am I to tell people what to believe and think about such a great mystery? But I do say, hey, whatever your path is, I do know this, you gotta have some pathway to this. And I tell a pretty.

Intense story from my life, a period of my life when I didn't have any faith. In fact, when all faith was severed and I'm like, dude, it gets pretty dark. It gets pretty brutal. And so much more is possible when. So we want to rekindle that. So again, it's just more of a temperature check, like, where are you at right now? And of course, stay tuned for next week. Get the book as well, and you'll get such a better map of how to get to where you want to go, which is believing in yourself fully and having that trust in life. Awesome. 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. 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 socialconfidencecenter.com.