You Are Worthy Of Friendship

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. Welcome to today's episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, and today we're going to be talking about a very important topic for your life, but specifically for your social life and the friendships that you have, which is a immensely important topic. I think there's a way that people can look at friendships as something that just kind of happens in life, not as much intentionality around it. It's sort of like who you're around and who lives near you and who your kids go to school with, if you have kids and their parents or maybe people that you work with, your spouse, if you have a spouse, you know, maybe your partner, their friends. And there's. What I often find, especially if people have a level of social anxiety, is there's definitely not a sense of I get to create the friendships that I want with the people that I want that are awesome, that are amazing. My friendships are so awesome. It's not the most common statement that I hear. And maybe I hear, you know, I don't really have that many friends or I don't really have any close friends, Honestly. I have acquaintances. I have people that I work with. I have people that I know through different places, but maybe no one really knows me that deeply. Or, yeah, I have friends and, you know, they know me. We've been friends for a really long time. But then as you start to get into it, there's a lot of missing. Something's missing in those friendships. Maybe those friends don't really grow or change much. And they're the same as when they were, you know, twice, 25 years ago in high school or something. Or they tend to be a little toxic or negative or critical or stuck in their ways or other things. And so the people that are coming into my world are wanting to change and grow, and then all of a sudden they find that maybe I don't connect as well. Maybe I don't want to get together and kind of bitch about so and so or gossip or talk about why life sucks for us. And instead I want to improve. I want to change things. I want to create something better. And they find that their friends don't really want that and maybe in some situations might actively be kind of holding them back or critical. So today's episode is going to be about improving your social life, improving your friends, and we're actually going to be looking at the most important aspect of it. There's been other episodes on this show about how to make friends. Just go to the search bar@drinkforthshyguy.com, shrinkforthy guy.com youm can just spell it out or just go to drazeez.com and under resources there's this podc and you can go there, do a search, type in friend or friendship. And there's other episodes, you know, covering all different aspects of this. But today I really want to zone in on one aspect, which is honestly the biggest determiner of whether you have amazing friendships or little friendships. No, friendships are not the friendships that you want. And we're going to cover that exactly in this episode. So I'm so excited that you're here. It's also fitting timing because we just opened up the early bird ticket sales for my next event, which is going to be an in person experience. Oh, yes. The real human form in November of this year, 2023, November 3rd through 5th, which is a Friday through a Sunday all day. So you'd be flying in. If you're flying in, you're gonna fly in on Thursday evening. And then we're gonna start early in the morning on Friday. Go all the way. You're gonna fly out either Sunday, late night or Monday morning. And that event is called Supremely Confident Conversation Master, where you're gonna learn how to talk to anybody, get comfortable around anybody. I don't know what to say. And I love running this event. I've run it virtually, but I love running it in person because, man, over the course of those three days, you really see people adopt that identity of conversation master. And they end up saying, wow, I just spent 30 minutes talking to someone, you know, in the evening. The event, we break for the evening and they're maybe hanging out with some people from the event. They get some dinner and on the way back to their hotel, like, I just spent 30 minutes talking to a strange and we had an amazing conversation. I've never talked like that with anyone that I just met. And that happens during the weekend because something gets unlocked inside of you. And one of the key things that gets unlocked is not just the conversation skills, which we practice, but it's also this key thing that I'm going to touch on this episode. So if you're interested in that and you're not already on my email list, go to draziz.com to be part of my email list, go to the events tab@drizes.com get your early bird ticket. Right now, you can save 50, 50% off of the ticket price and you can come on out here during the early bird for just 3.97 for the entire three day immersion event. Plus there's a VIP option as well if you want to be able to have meals and extra bonus sessions. Now, what is the one thing that's not just the conversation skills that really makes the difference? Well, it's kind of, there's a hint given away in the title of this episode, which is, you are worthy friendship. You are worthy of friendship. And it turns out that the biggest obstacle to making friends, making better friends, creating the friendships that you want, the type of relationships that you want, is not your social skills. It's not, you know, if you know the right people, if you're really connected, it's not how cool you are, how funny you are, how many adventures you've had, how rich you are, how successful you are. It's your core belief about your worthiness for friendship. And hands down, when I start to help people build their social skills, this is the key, first major sticking point that we bump up against. Because a lot of the conversation skills you can learn really quickly. You know, I teach them. There's episodes about them on this podcast. And if you want an immersive, you know, fast track experience, then join me for the event. But we, we teach those and practice them at the event. But then we also go to this area because this area is what makes all the difference. So let me ask you that question. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest, what number do you feel like right now in terms of worthiness for friendship? You imagine someone you'd love to be friends with, you know, someone that you find interesting or funny or creative, or you love their energy, you love their interests, you love the way they see the world, you love what they're up to in the world. You want to be friends with them. And now look, I'm not saying that everybody is available for friendship always. Maybe they're busy, maybe they got a bunch of friends, maybe they don't. Have time for it. I'm not saying that whether they're gonna be your friend or not, but just when you gut feel, when you imagine someone like that, do you feel a sense of like, oh, yeah, sure. I mean, if they're. If they got time and space, they would love to be friends with me. Of course I'm worthy of that. That would be a high number. Like an 8 or a 9 or a 10. If it's like, I don't know, little old me. I don't know. I mean, I'm kind of this or that. I'm not enough this. I'm not enough of them. I'm not really that good. I'm not really as smart as now. They're probably gonna think I'm that interesting. Now the numbers starting to drop, you know, down to 5, 4. And then if it goes low enough, it's just a feeling of like, oh, man, I don't know. No one's gonna want to be my friend. Not the people that I want to be friends with. I don't know. What do I have to offer? I'm just, you know. And now we're. Now we're settling down to the bottom of the ocean like detritus that the crabs and lobsters are going to feed on down there. You don't want to be there. Trust me. Sucks to be at the bottom of the ocean being fed on by crabs and lobsters. Now you gotta be on the surface where it's light, the sunlight's still there in a well lit area of the ocean, and you want to be soaring, perhaps even above the ocean. That's where you know that you're awesome and you know that people are lucky to have you as a friend. So let me ask you another key question, which is what are three reasons why someone will be lucky to have you as a friend? 3 reasons why someone would be lucky to have you as a friend. If I could use the jeopardy. Theme music, I would right here. But I'd probably be sued. So I'm going to hum something similar, but not the Jeopardy. Theme because obviously that's copyright. Do do do do. Okay, that's enough. Anyway, what do you got? What are three reasons why someone will be lucky to be friends with you? And if you don't have anything right now, either you were just totally enthralled with my highly amusing antics over here, or we got a problem. And the problem is that you don't immediately know and you don't really think that that's the case. And so what's going to happen is you're not going to put yourself out there boldly. You're not going to start great conversations, you're not going to insert yourself into opportunities. You're not going to ask people boldly to spend time with you because deep down you're telling yourself, ah, I'm kind of a bother. And you have to shift that. You have to see that my presence adds value. Of course people would want to be friends with me. And here's the sticking point that I see for most people. The reason they don't give themselves out of 10 out of 10 unworthiness. The reason that they don't have three reasons why someone will be lucky to be friends with them is not because they're like terrible vortexes of black hole energy and no one wants to be near them. They're just sucking the life out of the world around them. No, no. The reason is because they're hyper self critical. They discount their own wins and their own value. They have poor self esteem. They see the worst in themselves. They tend to be overly focused on their own mistakes and shortcomings. They compare themselves to others negatively often. And the result of that is a distorted perception of yourself. It's not accurate. But if you're in that world, it feels accurate. It feels 100% true, right? It's like a trick of the mind. If you put on a virtual reality headset, I haven't used the new Apple one yet, maybe it looks amazing, right? So you put something, imagine that, like futuristic, maybe even beyond what we have right now, maybe Ready Player One kind of stuff, and they have a headset on and it is so freaking real that when you look around this world, you cannot distinguish. You're like, how can this not be real, right? It's not. It's a fricking computer on your face. But it's the same thing with this perception of yourself as not worthy of friendship. It feels so real, but it's not. It's a computer on your face. In this case, it's malware that you're running. It's an app that you're running that's overlaying. Maybe it's more like augmented reality. You're overlaying this on the world around you, on your perceptions, on what you see other people like and what you see yourself as. And it's filtering and distorting everything and leaving you with this very negative self image. And so the key thing that you have to do to build your social confidence, to develop the friendships that you want to Go take the actions. To even practice the social skills that I can teach you is you have to challenge this story that you're not worthy of friendship. Not later, not like, oh, yeah, I should think about that. I'll work on that later. No, how about just right now? Like, right now. Why are you running a campaign against yourself? I remember I talked about this with a client one time, and she was going on and on about all the ways that she sucked. And we'll just call her Michelle. That wasn't her name, but I said, you know, Michelle, it's like you're reading off a list to me. That's called why I Suck, comma, a list. And you're just, this is it. This is your. This is your pep talk before you go meet new people. And look, I could tease her about it because I did the exact same damn thing, only mine was in the shower. That's when I would do my evening or morning ritual. Pet myself up by standing in the shower, in the lukewarm water, kind of hunched over, just letting it hit my body and just thinking about all the ways that my friend Chris was better than I was. I was never good at anything. Why? He was better at many things. He was. There was nothing I was better than him at. Even the things that I was the best at. I was never that good at him. And that was my. That was my morning ritual. So I'd come out of the shower feeling like a champ and just go crush it at school, talking to all the ladies, getting all the friends. No. Afraid not. So you are doing the same damn thing to yourself? Most likely. Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe it's just kind of bad. Or maybe it's just. Could be better. Like, why not. Why not celebrate who you are? You may say, well, I'm not there yet. I do need more interesting things. I do need better social skills. I do need this. I do need that. Maybe. Maybe. But what if you were already worthy of friendship right now? I'm not saying you don't want to improve your ability to walk over to someone and start a conversation, have it be smooth. I can teach you how to do that. Come join me in November. Will practice it. But let's say you could do that. Or even before you could do that. What if you just adopted the belief, the story, I am worthy of friendship right now. What if you operated that way right now? I am worthy of friendship. Just try that on. Hundred percent worthy of friendship with anybody. What would you do? Like, really try this on as a thought Experiment, you know, some of the places you might go, how you might be in those new environments. Because here's the thing that I found. In order to create friendships, you don't need to be really funny and witty and have the loudest story right in the circle of people who are sharing. And you're like, yeah, well, one time I, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you watch the person doing that and you're like, oh man, everyone's paying attention to them and laughing. Oh, I suck. Look. That is not required to have amazing friendships. If you want to learn that skill, you can learn that skill too. We do a bonus in the VIP session, a storytelling thing at the event. But that you don't look, you don't have to be able to do that. I do not like holding court like that and try to muscle my way into big social circles, like a big circle of people standing around and like, I'm gonna tell the story now, blah. I'm just like, nah, I'd rather just chat with one or two people off to the side and have a deeper conversation. That's more my style. Right. And you can create that too. So you don't need to be this sort of whatever version you think. And another, the real obstacle is that because you're telling yourself you're not interesting, because somehow you are not interesting or worthy enough, you hold back. So then there is an opportunity to connect and go deeper. Someone's like, hey, how's it going? Or you just met someone. Or you are in that big circle of people and there's another person. You guys are kind of off to the side and you can start chatting with them, but instead of you being effusively open and just sharing who you are, like, oh, yeah, well, I'm into this right now. What are you into? Oh, I hate that. Or I love that. Oh, this is what's going on for me. You're kind of reserved and armored, held back and like, I'm not going to say anything. You, you spill the beans. I'm not spilling no beans. What you got? I'm not. Oh, my cards are close to my chest. Not telling you shit, right? And we have this kind of guarded. And even if it's not obvious, like you're not, I'm probably. You're not saying, I'm not going to tell you shit. But your energy, you don't give much to work with. You're a little, your tone probably has a bit of a wrap up vibe to it. Like, well then, so that's that, that's There you go. Yep, yep, that's it. And what your tone is doing is telling them, I'm done talking. Now, please focus on you because you're uncomfortable with a focus on you because you have all these negative stories about yourself. So at its root, friendship and amazing friendships start with confidence, with self esteem, with celebrating who you are. So when I ask you, what are three reasons why someone will be lucky to be friends with you? What do you got now? What do you got now? In fact, let's turn this into your action step right here and right now. So it's not a later, someday, maybe kind of thing. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step is to come up with an answer to that question and maybe even write them down. And by maybe, I mean definitely write them down. Three reasons. And if you want to get crazy, crazy. How about five reasons? Five reasons why someone will be lucky to have you. Yes. You as a friend. And I want you to really go beyond some tangible thing like, well, I'll give them money. I don't. I'll give them my lunch. Right? No. What? Just your essence, the way you listen, your humor, your smile, your enthusiasm, your passion for life, your quirks, your humor. Anything. And it's not even so much about what exactly is on the list. It's about you embodying and owning and letting yourself know that what's on that list is enough and you are enough. And the obstacle is not all the things that you think. It's the guardedness that's coming from this story that you're not worthy of friendship. So when we resolve this, and then you go out and operate in the world, which is the second part of your action step, is once you've written out these three things, or five, if you want bonus extra credit, is to go out there and say, okay, if I didn't have the story that I wasn't worthy, if that wasn't even a thought, if that didn't even make sense to me, what would I go do right now? Conversely, you could ask it if I knew I was 100% worthy of friendship with anybody. What I go do right now, how would I go talk to that person right now? And then, of course, go practice that in the world. Beautiful. Thanks for being with me today. I look forward to possibly seeing you. Giving you a high five in person in Portland in November. Until we speak again, we 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 socialtrain confidencecenter.com.