Why Healthy Selfishness Is Essential

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 more about niceness, particularly about selfishness, guilt, the fear of being less nice and more direct and more real and more assertive and really how you can free yourself to do that. And this has been a common theme of this show for the last couple weeks as we get closer to our Not Nice Live event, which is gonna be coming up in early March. So if you haven't gotten your ticket for that, make sure you do. So go to draziz.com that'S-R-A-I z.com and go to the Events tab and. And you'll be able to get your ticket for Not Nice Live. I cannot wait to spend three days with you liberating ourselves to be less nice and more real. And there's a lot of nuance to it because I wrote that big book, not nice. It's like 500 plus pages. It's the biggest critique of that book, by the way, is it's too long, make it shorter. And the reason it was so long is because there's so much nuance. If it was just like, hey, be less nice, bam. Then the book would be like a page. But. And I work with people week in and week out in my group coaching programs, mastermind program, and it's all of these specific situations and the nuances of how to apply this, where to apply this. And it's tricky. It's tricky for a couple reasons. Because to be authentic, to be real, to do what is best for you can feel really wrong. And so if you're trying to be a good person, if you're trying to what feels be, like, ethical, and then you're saying, but I'm doing something that feels wrong, oh, no, maybe I should just not do that thing and just do the, quote, right thing. But then the right thing might actually be unhealthy, dysfunctional, causing more problems to you or others later on. So it's really interesting. I'm giving a specific example too for my own life that's just recently coming up that really highlights the discomfort here. And I'll illuminate some of the guilt and the selfishness that comes up. But basically selfishness is not a binary thing. It's not like you're selfish or you're not. It's a spectrum. You could be more or less selfish. And a lot of people think of, hey, if you describe someone as selfish, is that a good thing? And most people would say, no, selfishness is bad and wrong. However, that makes it seem like you either have it or you don't. You're doing it or you're not. No, it's a spectrum. So sometimes is it good to be more selfish? And if you don't like if the word selfish is automatically bad, let's call it self interest. Right? Cause isn't that what selfish is? I'm looking out for my own interests. So if we phrase it that way, are there times where it's important to look out for your own self interest? The answer to that, I'd imagine you agree with me, is yes, right? When is it important to look out for your own self interest? Well, what if someone might take advantage of you? What about when it comes to something like you're deciding how to steer your life, Whether it's what kind of healthcare provider to go to, what kind of procedure to do, or what kind of medicine to take or not take? You know, those are decisions where your own self interest is really important. So if you're like, well, I don't want to upset the doctor because she told me to do this and if I said no, she's going to get mad at me. And then you end up taking something or doing something that's not good for you. I think we can all agree that you don't want to go down that road where you're being really selfless, really self sacrificing, really nice, and then you end up screwing yourself because you didn't want to say no, because you didn't want to choose what's right for you. Same thing when it comes to say, investing your money. You know, this person's really nice, they seem really friendly and they really wanted to help me, you know, so maybe I should invest with whatever their thing is. And maybe, but maybe you need to look at your own self interest there and say, wait a minute, what are the fees associated with this? What are the results? You know, I mean, the vast majority of people that are attempting to outperform the market with investments do not outperform the market over any length of time beyond a year, maybe or two. And so you have this nice person who's going to help you invest in some sort of vehicle that ends up actually hurting you in the long run. And that doesn't mean that person's bad. It just means that humans are, you know, they're focused on themselves a lot. They don't or they think what they're doing is right, but it doesn't mean it is. They think what they're doing is going to be helpful to others and it might not be. And so it is your responsibility to know your own self interest. Does that make sense when I'm saying it? Maybe usually theoretically with people, they're like, yeah, that makes sense. But then when it comes to actually doing it, when we don't or we do it less than we could. Why? Because it feels bad, it feels wrong. Let me give you a specific example of how it feels bad and wrong. So my wife and I are currently looking at moving and it's something we've thought about a little bit here and there over the last couple years. And then in the last year it's gotten become more of a real conversation and we started looking at where and how we talked about all the different places all over the country, maybe even outside of the United States. And we visited some places and we're really exploring a bunch of different options. And then we're also exploring staying here in the northwest, just moving from, you know, in the city of Portland to somewhere a little bit more rural. And we have a realtor who we know, friendly guy, and he was involved in helping us get the house that we own now a number of years ago. And so he's kind of been our guy. When we've looked at stuff around the Portland area, we've called him, he showed us maybe a couple houses over the last few, four or five years and everything was, we were always kind of in a little bit of like, yeah, we're just looking around. So nothing, nothing serious. Now we feel like we're in a more serious stage. And so we called him to look at a place and he helped us look at it. And then I started talking to a good friend of mine who is also, he runs a property managed business and he's also a realtor. And he is a really sharp guy, really smart, very effective businessman. And I just start talking to him and I'm like, this guy knows his this guy knows his stuff. I think he knows his stuff a little more than the realtor that showed us these houses. In fact, not only does he know his stuff, but because he's a friend of mine and he runs this business like he's gonna. He could give me a good deal if I want to, if I want to go with him. If we are end up, you know, selling a property, a house and getting a new house. So I'm like, I think I want to work with him. Oh, how wrong and bad that would be. This guy has been in our world for a number of years. You know, he helped us buy this house. He's been around. We've called him up, and he's been responsive to us. He's a nice person. Oh, he already showed us a property. Like, oh. And so I noticed this nice guy in me that's like, oh, man, I can't do that. He's been really friendly and. And no, we don't have any official agreement. We don't have any papers or anything we've signed. It's just been a relationship that he's been tending to for one of his many clients that he probably tends to in hopes that one day they're gonna do something and I'm gonna go with someone else and I'm gonna call this guy up and have a conversation and tell him that. And there's a part inside of me that's like, I don't wanna. I don't wanna have the conversation. Maybe I could just send an email. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Because that's like. And I'm saying, if someone else wants to do this, it's wrong. But for me, the only reason I'd want to send an email instead of having a phone call is because I'm scared. I'm scared of emotion. I'm scared of his disappointment or hurt or upset. Maybe he had an expectation, he had hope that if we did something, we'd work with him. And I'm going to possibly create disappointment or break that expectation. It wasn't an agreement. There's a big difference between an agreement and an expectation. This is super important when it comes to niceness. Nice people think all expectations are agreements, your own and everyone else's. And so you're constantly hurt and offended by other people because they didn't do the things that you wanted. And you're constantly scared that you're offending or hurting other people because you're not doing everything they wanted. An expectation, someone's desire, someone's preference. Someone's fantasy, someone's hope, someone's wish, someone's dream is not an agreement, and you do not have to fulfill that unless you made an official agreement. If I made an agreement said, hey, you know, we're officially going to work with you. Let's sign an agreement. Let's help, you know, have you find us a bunch of properties and show them to us and all this stuff. But it wasn't like that. And so there's no agreement there now for the nice person. And I still have that little nice person in me that's like, oh, but I don't wanna. I don't wanna do this. So I said, you know what? This is how I've trained myself over the years. If I don't wanna do it, I'm gonna do it. I lean into what makes me uncomfortable. I embrace the discomfort. And that's why this morning, as with every morning, and it's the. It's cold this time of year, so it makes it more uncomfortable. I get home from the gym or a run or whatever, and then I go into our shower, our bathroom, right as my family's waking up. And, you know, boys shuffle in to go pee or whatever, and what do they see their dad doing? I'm over there in the corner of the shower doing, ice cold shower every morning. There is never a morning that I want to do it. It's not like morning where it's like, oh, this is gonna feel great today. There's always a part of me wants to stall. Oh, maybe I'll go snuggle with the kid. You know, snuggle with them in bed before they get up and pet the dog. And yeah, it's gonna be great. I'm like, oh, you can snuggle and pet the dog after your ice shower, my friend. Cause the days where I stall are the days where I might not do it. The days where I tell myself, I won't do it in the morning, I'll do it in the afternoon. Yeah, right? Mm. There's like a high chance that I won't do it that day. And so I do it. And why do I do it? Because the second that water hits me, it's uncomfortable. But my power increases. My power increases for that whole day. Because I'm saying, you know what? This is uncomfortable, but it's good for me, so I'm going to do it. So having that conversation with this realtor is uncomfortable for me, but it's good for me and I'll do it. And I brought the same mentality to dating and relationships because I was a super nice guy in dating relationships. I'd be nicey, nicey, nicey. You're the greatest woman in the world. I love you so much. And then I would, you know, I gotta break up with her after like, you know, four, six weeks. Because I was just being this false, partial version of myself. I wasn't bringing my full self to relationships or dating. And so what I started to do is to, you know, in the past, I would break up via text, via, you know, maybe a phone call. And as I got more mature, I started to say, I'm gonna. Especially if I dated the woman for, you know, any period of time or we'd slept together or there was any sort of intimacy there. I. I would say I'm going to break up with her, like, face to face. And I didn't even know why at the time. It just felt like this is part of being respectful to her. And it's like training myself somehow. Maybe I didn't even know why I was doing it, but what I was training myself for is to be able to handle other people's emotions and not have to run and hide from them. Because that is power, that is strength. Because if you can handle other people's emotions, then you can be more assertive. Because when you're more assertive versus pleasing and accommodating, other people are going to have more feelings, maybe negative feelings, upset, hurt, sadness, confusion, trying to convince you otherwise, trying to plead with you, crying, who knows what might come up? But instead of running from that, I decided, I want to run into that. And I started to do that. And it was only after a couple of dating experiences that I did that, that I met Candace and started our relationship that we've been in for a little more than a decade now, right? So it was like I was priming myself, I was prepping myself. And so I'm going to lean in and I invite you, whether it's a breakup. I mean, who wants to have a breakup conversation? They're terrible, they're uncomfortable, and it's not meant to be comfortable and easy. That's not even a sign of confidence. I mean, if a breakup is, like, comfortable and ain't no thing, you know, what are you, Batman? You, like, opened your heart to nobody. You know, it's like, yeah, it's gonna feel uncomfortable just like the cold shower is. And we do it. And so to help you, to help you do this is to really take a look at the insanity of not taking care of your Self interest. It truly is insane. So, for example, let's take this. You know, you could take a relationship example. You know, it's like, well, I'm not gonna break up with you, even though I know it's not a right fit. What do you. And I'll tease clients about this. I'll be like, you know, they're kind of like, well, I want to break up, but oh, I don't want to have that conversation. I'm like, yeah, that conversation sounds really uncomfortable. You should probably just get married and have babies. And then they laugh because they see how absurd it is. Same thing in this realty example, right? So let's say, oh my gosh, I don't want to hurt this guy's feelings or have him be upset with me. So I'm not going to go with the realtor that I think is sharper and could get us better deals, save us thousands or I don't even maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or this new guy that I want to go with because he's been in property management for so long, he knows how to walk through a house and like, see a lot of stuff, see a lot of questionable things or know what might go wrong or all these things that you might catch even before you have to put an offer and get an inspection. So, you know, there's a level of savviness and I think he's a much better negotiator. I mean, all these things. So I'm going to go with someone because I want to be nice. I would go with someone that could cost me thousands, tens of thousands, or I don't know, maybe 100,000, maybe more. I could get into a property that has problems that I wasn't aware of that are a major headache. I could have things that are major detriments to me and my family, but I could be nice and not have the upset of this conversation. Pretty crazy, huh? So when you zoom out and you look at can really help you. So the next time you're like, I don't want to have this conversation. Okay, well, let's say you never do, what is the long term effect of that potentially? Right. Remember I was talking about someone managing your money as an example as well. So because I don't want to ask this person what their fees are or say that seems unreasonable or I'm gonna go somewhere else or I don't like this or whatever, because I don't wanna have that conversation with you, I'm gonna just keep all my money there with you and over the lifespan of the. Whatever it is, investment vehicle 401k or whatever, because of the fees, because of the trading that they do, because of this, because of the fact they don't beat the. If you just put it in some index fund and left it there, or whatever you want, put it in crypto, whatever you want to do with it, you did something else and you didn't have them do it for you. You could have, depending on what you're starting with and what you earn, what your time frame is, a difference of 50,000, 100,000, US$500,000. And these numbers could be different, they could be all over the place. But you should look this kind of stuff up. If you want to get some interesting information on this, check out Tony Robbins and Peter Mallouk's book called Unshakeable. And it's a quick primer on investing and some of the major things. Peter Mallouk has got a great book as well. He's the founder of something called Creative Planning, which is a money management company that charges radically fewer fees than sort of most companies that offer that service. And he's got another one called the Five Big Mistakes Most New Investors Make. I think it's what it's called. Peter Mallouk is his name. M A L L O U K. I'm going to guess, but you could check that out anyway. That's a little tangent there on the side. But you know, there's a lot of sharks out there in the money management world. And they're nice people. They'll be friendly when they talk to you. There's a lot of sharks in the medical world. They're friendly, they're nice people. They might even. They're not like, ha, ha, I'm gonna get you and I'm gonna trick you. They are congruent. They think what they're doing is good for you and it's not. There's something better. And it's your responsibility. It's my responsibility for us to discover that. And this is where niceness can screw you. Cause you don't discover that or you don't wanna look at it, or because of the temporary discomfort of a conflict or a change or a challenge or something, you're gonna just passively go into something much more severe. And here's the thing, at the end of the day, that person that got you into that situation, that's no good for you. They're long gone. You know, months have gone by, years have gone by. They're not even working at that company anymore. That firm Anymore. That realtor's not even there anymore. That person's dead. And then you're left with the consequence. And what's that gonna create? It's gonna create resentment, frustration, and potentially worst of all, it's probably gonna create more of that victim mentality. Like, oh, man, look what life did to me. Look what that person did to me. Oh, I trusted them and they betrayed my trust and they're so bad. Okay, maybe, maybe. But have you ever heard that saying? It says, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Because if you never had any experience with a certain field, whether it's law or medicine or money management or you had no experience, you were totally naive, and then you got burned, maybe. Shame on them. They should have given you more information. They should have disclosed more. They should have talked about the side effects or risks more, whatever. But then once you've learned a little more, because first of all, after that one time you got burned, what do you got to do? Well, I guess you don't have to do anything, but I would invite you to get more savvy and say, wait a minute, wait a minute. How does this really work? What's really going on? Read some books, watch some videos, listen to some podcasts, listen to some interviews. Try to understand what's really going on here. And then you can make better, more informed, more wise decisions. That pain of that first time you got burned actually really helps you because it creates the wisdom that you need. It's the only way to get wisdom is through experience. And the fastest way to grow through experience is to have painful experiences. So fool me once, shame on you. But now, Now I know. Now I know. And if it happens again, don't buy into that victim story of, oh, they took advantage of me. Well, you know what? You might have let yourself get taken advantage of. You might not have been willing to be direct, willing to disagree, willing to challenge, willing to question, willing to say no. And what does that. What must you do to be able to do all those things? You must claim more of your healthy self interest. You must claim healthy selfishness and say, it's good for me to take care of myself. It's good for me to look out for myself. It's good for me to look out for my family, for those around me. Yeah, there are times to be generous. Yeah, there are times to just hand something over to somebody else and trust. But not without doing my due diligence, not without being skeptical at first. That's my responsibility. And can you feel that can you feel the power in taking ownership of your life in that way? And that's one of my favorite phrases to have people say at events and in my mastermind is I am the captain of my ship. And this is part of being the captain of your ship. The captain's got to understand where he or she is navigating and what's going on and why. And you learn over time. And this doesn't mean you're perfect. This doesn't mean that some of your choices, of course, you look back and say, oh, I would have chose something different if I had known. And you are choosing to the best of your ability, not from a place of niceness and fear of disapproval and fear of upset. That's like trying to steer the ship with both your hands tied behind your back or a blindfold on. You just can't make effective decisions. You can't choose. So in order to choose, healthy self interest, AKA selfishness to a reasonable degree is a necessary component. Let's talk about how to put this into practice in your action step. Time for action, action, action. Your action step for today is going to be to practice healthy self interest. So ask yourself this question. What do I want? What do I want here? It could be real small. You're gonna spend some time with someone. What do I wanna do? What do I wanna talk about? Where do I wanna go? Maybe it's something bigger. What do I want in this relationship? What do I want in this workplace environment? What do I want here? And then ask for it, state it, share it. Hey, you know what I love to do? Let's go out to this thing. Hey, I like to talk about this. Hey, you know, there's something I noticed about this workplace. Like, you know, maybe there's a dynamic there that you want to call attention to. I noticed that so and so gets this, and I would prefer this. You speak to it, claim that. And if you want more strength and capacity to do this, so it's not just theoretical, but it becomes a part of your life, not just once in a while, but your daily life, your weekly life. You're doing this again and again and again, which puts you on a whole different trajectory. And thinking of the captain who's steering your ship, like you're gonna go to a very different place if you apply this stuff each week of your life. And I invite you, if you wanna build that muscle, to join me for the not Nice live event that's coming up quite soon. You can go to draziz.com/a z I z.com and check out the Events tab. It's gonna be powerful experience and I can't wait to share that with you. 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. 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 shrinkfortheshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.