In this solo monologue, Matthew Hussey expands on his previous video about shyness, responding to viewer comments and controversy. He clarifies the distinction between shyness (rooted in fear of embarrassment, rejection, and insecurity) and introversion (a natural personality trait). Hussey argues that overcoming shyness requires confronting rejection, proposing two approaches: seeking acceptance or deliberately courting more rejection to become desensitized. He cites professions that face constant rejection—cold‑callers, actors—to illustrate how repeated exposure can reduce fear. He warns against craving immediate acceptance, describing it as needy and counter‑productive, and instead urges viewers to act congruently with who they want to be, even if it means frequent rejection. The talk ends with a light‑hearted disclaimer about his outfit, hinting at an upcoming audition and potential TV appearance.
Chapters
You're not shy, you're boring. Part two. So last week I did a video on shyness, which seems to have hit a bit of a nerve. There were many comments, many of them good, overwhelmingly good in fact, but also a little bit of controversy. Stirred the pot a little bit. Few introverts coming out the woodwork, getting a little bit angry. Here are some of the comments. Wow, I needed this. Yes, I am scared and not shy. I can't use shy as an excuse anymore. No you can't, Lainey Bee. Do what works. That is so true. It's important to be yourself, yes, but it's also important to be who you want to be. Extremely good point, Citizen Slang. I am shy and I really can't help it, so I felt like he was getting angry at me for having a personality trait. Frowny face. Thank you for telling me I'm boring. Now I feel even more worthless. He's like Harry Potter, smiley face, hee hee. Bit of a will I am thing going on with your hair, do, Matt. When will the camera guy make an appearance? TeamJameson. Jameson, did you comment on our own video? No, no, no, no, no. Disagree with most things you say. The response to this video is the reason that I wanted to do part two. A lot of people were talking about how shy and introverted are not the same thing. Even though in the dictionary those two are synonyms of each other, I see the difference as being this. Being introverted we associate with being part of someone's nature. Being shy we associate with being something as more derived from insecurity. The fear of embarrassment, rejection, not living up to someone else's standards. So we get nervous. That's what we really mean when we say we're shy is I feel like it's a polite word for being scared. What we have to do is say okay if I want to overcome being shy as I know so many people watching these videos do, one of the big things that we have to realize is we have to overcome rejection. There are two ways to overcome rejection. One way to overcome rejection is to get accepted. In other words, get a positive result. You go and talk to someone, they're nice to you, you go, oh, being shy wasn't necessarily something I had to do. I could talk to that person and it went well. I like being this way. The second way of dealing with rejection is just to get more rejection. Well, more rejection is just gonna make me insecure. Except it doesn't have to. If you talk to anyone who has to go through rejection every day, whether it's someone who makes cold calls on the phone, an actor who goes for audition, they'll tell you that they have to go through that rejection all the time and they can become, if they choose the right path, they can become desensitized to that rejection. We have to just decide who we wanna be, regardless of acceptance or rejection. We just have to be that. I think so many people are expecting to be accepted as soon as they go up to someone, as soon as they ask someone on a date, as soon as they try flirting with someone, as soon as they go for that job, they just want to be accepted like that. But life doesn't really work like that. See, if you go into a situation craving acceptance in the short term, it ends up messing up your whole thing. People can smell it a mile off. It feels needy, it feels desperate, it feels like you're living for that gratification instead of just being you. So don't worry about acceptance to begin with. Go for rejection. Get rejected as much as possible, because here's what gets you accepted more than anything else, being congruent with who you really are and who you wanna be. Now let me just add a little disclaimer on this snazzy outfit I've got on right now. I'm wearing this because I just came from a kind of, it was like an audition-y thing, which I might get rejected for, by the way, we'll see. But I also have been told that this would be perfect for the Today Show next week, so don't be judging when I'm on the Today Show next week and I'm wearing exactly this. It's not laziness, it's sufficiency. I'll see you soon.
