In this motivational monologue, Matthew Hussey addresses social anxiety as a common human experience rather than a fixed label. He warns that labeling someone as having "social anxiety disorder" can become a self‑fulfilling excuse, and shares his own history of avoidance in social settings. Hussey then outlines three practical strategies to diminish anxiety: (1) become familiar with the environment by repeatedly visiting the same bar, coffee shop, or speaking venue; (2) start small, treating a crowd as a series of one‑on‑one interactions and focusing on simple greetings rather than grand outcomes; and (3) be generous with your energy, shifting focus from self‑centered worries to making others feel good. He explains how anxiety fuels judgment and how generosity counters that tendency. The talk concludes by encouraging viewers to adopt a human‑being identity, combine the three tips, and consider a paid program that provides step‑by‑step social‑skill practice.
Chapters
Have you ever found that when you're picked on to answer a question in front of a group of people, your heart rate immediately goes up? Or when you walk into a party, you immediately feel that sense of nerves and trepidation? Or when someone tells you that you might have to give a speech or an announcement that you suddenly seize up with fear at the very idea of it? If this is the case with you, then you're someone with social Anxiety. It also means that you're a human being. See, the problem with the culture that we live in is that we're so quick to put labels on people for what they are. And of course, when you take someone who gets socially anxious, and of course, people with social anxiety disorder are described as being so fearful of embarrassment, so fearful of social situations that they seek to avoid them, who among us hasn't done that at some point, by the way. As soon as you give that person the label of having social anxiety disorder or social phobia, immediately they start to wear that as a badge. It becomes who they are and an excuse for everything that they do from that point on. I think this is very dangerous. I grew up very anxious in social situations and of course I did avoid many situations because I didn't want to embarrass myself. Whether it was approaching a girl that I liked or going to a party or giving a speech, I avoided situations proactively. I I don't think that meant that I had social anxiety disorder. I think it meant that I was like everybody else. Now, I'm not saying that social anxiety disorder in the extreme sense doesn't exist, but I think so many of us are so busy identifying with a problem that we lose sight of the human element of it. That actually many of the symptoms of something like this are things that we all feel. They connect all of us and there are ways to deal with it. So as I grew up, I decided that this wasn't something that I wanted. And you may have decided that if you feel nerves in social situations, that's not something that you want either. I started working on tips that I could introduce into my life, little ways that I could start to erode my own social anxiety in situations that are unfamiliar, situations where we feel like we're not competent, and situations where we focus too much on the thoughts of others. By the way, don't ever think that just because you get rid of it on one occasion, it won't come back again in some form. I was recently in a situation in Hollywood where I went to a party that was very sceney. It was one of the very sceney hotels, and it was very full of Celebrity type, whether it was wannabe celebrities or real celebrities, there was a mixture of the two. And I remember walking into that place and feeling that immediate sense of not belonging, that immediate sense of being on the outside looking in, both being within and without at the same time, and watching everyone in this environment and feeling that fear that I felt back when I was a teenager or a kid, feeling that come back again in that moment, watching all of these people and this feeling that everyone else gets it and I don't somehow, or everyone else knows each other but I don't. I'm not important in this environment. I felt so out of my element. I'm from London, I'm not from this place. It was so weird to me that I started to feel socially anxious in that moment. Now, I don't identify with that anymore. I identify with being a human being. A human being who sometimes feels anxious and sometimes feels comfortable, depending on how acclimatized I am to a certain situation and of course to some extent depending on how competent I am in a certain situation. There are many things that can affect how anxious we feel. Let me give you three right now that are really gonna help you. First tip, get familiar with social environments. Go to the same bar several times in the next couple of weeks. You probably would get to know the bartender, he'd get to know you by name perhaps, you'd get to know the regular faces that went into that bar, you'd know where the restrooms were, you'd know where the tables were, you'd know what time it started to get busy, you'd get familiar with that environment. and that doesn't just apply to night spots, it also applies to the coffee shop that you go to every morning as well. You'll find that you'll get more comfortable the more you go to that place. When you go to a new environment, it can be like the jungle. Even though it's safe and you know it's safe, it feels like you found yourself in the middle of the wilderness and you don't know what to do. Get familiar with places. By the way, that also works for situations. If public speaking is your fear, get familiar with public speaking by doing it as much as you can. Doesn't matter whether it's in front of two people or 200 people, get familiar with that environment. Second tip, start small. I just said the public speaking example. Start with one or two people, right? Just start doing it. If you find yourself in a party, do what I did at this event. Start small. I know that a room of 100 people is the same as a room with one person. It's just scaled up. This room has just multiplied, but the rules are the same. I just need to start small. I can start with a simple hello. I can talk to the person that's right next to me, or the doorman, or the bartender. Doesn't matter if male, female, what age, what shape or size, what my intentions are. Right now, my intention is not to get a date. It is not to go out and make the best friend I've ever made or to develop a whole new social circle. My intention is simply to get comfortable with this environment. See, if you can focus on taking one individual at a time, you can see them for who they are, an individual. I think one of the worst traits of social anxiety is it actually makes us more judgmental. It turns us into the person that we don't want to be. In fact, it turns us into the very people that we fear, the ones who judge the most. Because when we're in a fearful state, that's when we start judging other people. For example, when a guy is in a fearful state and he's trying to attract women, it's from that fearful state that he labels that woman a bitch because she won't talk to him or because she looks angry. He's just projecting onto her. It's from that state that that woman who's afraid of that guy says, he's arrogant or he's a pig, I don't like guys like that. Or we look around and we say, everyone here is just stuck up or everyone here is just a celebrity or a wannabe celebrity. It's from that place that we start to get judgmental and it's one of the worst traits. Instead, see that person as an individual. Someone who, of course, despite any obvious flaws that you see, actually might have some interesting opinions on the world or might have an interesting history or if he doesn't have either of those things or she doesn't have either of those things, Just could be a fun five minutes of your evening, a fun interaction. Step 3 Be generous with your energy. So often social anxiety is a particular kind of self-indulgence. It's in some ways a particular kind of narcissism. You have to walk in to a situation thinking that everyone is thinking about you, worried about what everyone thinks of you, whether you could possibly be liked by everyone, whether you could get a date. It's all very me-centric. It's all about me. Instead, get generous with your energy. I'm going into this room to see how I can make other people feel. Can I make them feel happy? Can I make them feel like the outfit that they wore tonight was a great choice that they put themselves together very well? Rather than go in trying to get something, go in trying to give something. Get generous because as soon as you get generous, you'll be focused outside of yourself instead of being in your own head the whole time. So there it is, three quick tips for overcoming social anxiety. get familiar with your environment or your situation, start small and get generous with your energy. If you combine those three tips with avoiding the trap of identifying with social anxiety instead of identifying with being a human being who obviously gets naturally nervous in certain environments and just has to overcome it, if you can do that, you'll gradually start to overcome social anxiety and as you chip away at it, you'll start to realize it's not how you have to be and how you have to live, but something that you can overcome. Thank you my friends. I'll see you next time. By the way, some of you I know are already on this program, but if you're not right now, I have a program for you that actually helps you overcome these things because I actually get you out into social environments, talking to people, meeting and attracting new people, and it's a great step-by-step process to actually overcoming some of these things in pursuit of the guy that you want. I will put up a box right now. You can click it, go through, watch the video, and see if that program is right for you. Take care, guys. I'll see you soon.
