The Art of Confidence: Find It, Grow It and Use It to Your Advantage

00:00:00.000 | Confidence is a term we're all familiar with,

00:00:02.680 | but most of us have trouble building it or using it.

00:00:05.280 | Today, we have Dr. Aziz Gazipura,

00:00:07.240 | one of the world's leading confidence experts,

00:00:09.380 | to talk about how you can cultivate and grow confidence

00:00:12.000 | as a way to harness your true potential.

00:00:14.000 | So if you want to learn how to use confidence

00:00:15.900 | to become successful and live a happier life,

00:00:18.400 | you'll definitely want to keep watching.

00:00:20.240 | And if you want to support the channel,

00:00:21.720 | please give us a thumbs up and subscribe.

00:00:23.760 | All right, let's get into it.

00:00:25.200 | (upbeat music)

00:00:28.620 | (audience cheering)

00:00:30.860 | Aziz, thanks for being here.

00:00:32.740 | - I'm glad to be here, thank you, Chris.

00:00:34.580 | - I think most of us know what confidence is

00:00:36.680 | or what it feels like,

00:00:37.860 | but I think it'd be good to start this conversation off

00:00:40.460 | by just having you define it for us.

00:00:42.860 | - Yeah, my favorite definition is going straight

00:00:46.240 | to the root in Latin, which is confides,

00:00:48.780 | which means with faith,

00:00:50.860 | which is pretty broad, with faith,

00:00:52.700 | but it's like faith in what?

00:00:55.220 | Well, you can have self-confidence.

00:00:56.780 | I believe in myself.

00:00:58.860 | That would be called,

00:01:00.300 | they call that self-efficacy in psychology, right?

00:01:02.860 | I believe I'm effective.

00:01:04.300 | I believe I can do that.

00:01:05.500 | If you've been a mechanic for a bunch of years,

00:01:08.180 | you have self-confidence that you can fix a car.

00:01:11.040 | But then there's also social confidence.

00:01:15.740 | Are you able to talk to people?

00:01:17.580 | Are you able to connect with them?

00:01:19.860 | And then we can also have confidence in our careers,

00:01:22.660 | in our romantic life, but in any area of your life,

00:01:25.300 | do you have faith in yourself?

00:01:27.740 | Do you have faith in possibly something beyond you

00:01:32.580 | in the future, in what you can create?

00:01:35.060 | But that's really at its root, what it is.

00:01:37.420 | It's really just a belief in you

00:01:39.540 | or in something going the way

00:01:40.780 | that you think you can create it.

00:01:42.740 | - What do you think most people are getting wrong

00:01:44.420 | when they think about their own confidence?

00:01:46.780 | - I think at its root,

00:01:48.420 | most people don't think that it's an inside job.

00:01:53.620 | Their confidence is very contextual.

00:01:56.700 | It's very based upon the circumstances of their life.

00:01:59.300 | So they make money, the job goes well,

00:02:01.980 | the deal goes through, they feel more confident.

00:02:04.700 | The person likes you.

00:02:05.580 | You get the positive response on social media

00:02:07.740 | or someone's like, "I think your work is great."

00:02:09.380 | Or someone wants to go on a date with you.

00:02:11.380 | And you're like, "Yeah, yeah."

00:02:12.780 | And your confidence goes up.

00:02:14.260 | And then rejection, setback, bad day, challenge,

00:02:18.500 | confidence goes down.

00:02:19.620 | And most people are kind of riding that current

00:02:22.500 | up and down, up and down.

00:02:23.900 | And they fail to realize that confidence

00:02:25.920 | is actually an inside job.

00:02:28.360 | And it's not, sure, we're affected by circumstances,

00:02:31.980 | but it doesn't have to be a buoy

00:02:33.960 | on the surface of the water.

00:02:35.200 | You can actually choose and practice tools

00:02:39.060 | and habits to sustain higher confidence,

00:02:41.460 | more unconditional confidence

00:02:43.220 | that doesn't require your circumstances

00:02:45.020 | to be in your favor.

00:02:46.140 | 'Cause, I mean, how often are they always in our favor?

00:02:49.260 | It's like, we don't have control over that.

00:02:51.540 | - Yeah, I mean, you've said you can cultivate,

00:02:53.140 | nurture, and grow these habits.

00:02:54.700 | How do we do that?

00:02:55.980 | - Ah, well, you gotta first know what the habits are, right?

00:02:58.340 | What are the habits of confidence?

00:02:59.580 | And there's a handful of them

00:03:01.220 | that are gonna be like the 80/20,

00:03:02.580 | the ones that get you the biggest bang for your buck.

00:03:05.060 | And a lot of people might have heard of a few of them,

00:03:07.980 | but are we practicing them?

00:03:09.800 | And do we really know how to do them?

00:03:12.220 | And so I'm gonna distill it down just to two,

00:03:14.180 | 'cause 10 is too many, just two.

00:03:16.920 | You do these, it's gonna change

00:03:18.660 | the lion's share of your confidence.

00:03:20.820 | One is inside of what you do,

00:03:22.980 | and one is what you practice in the world.

00:03:25.180 | So on the inside, I call it being on your own side,

00:03:28.760 | on my own side.

00:03:30.460 | And that's a phrase that is basically,

00:03:33.180 | how do you treat yourself,

00:03:34.540 | and how do you relate to yourself?

00:03:35.860 | So we all have a relationship with ourselves,

00:03:38.060 | as well as with your family, your friends,

00:03:39.640 | your spouse, your kids, whatever.

00:03:41.100 | But then there's you and you.

00:03:43.100 | And you're with you 24/7.

00:03:44.700 | And if you look inside of most people's heads,

00:03:46.620 | if you were to kind of peel it back and observe,

00:03:50.340 | most people, even successful people,

00:03:53.500 | have a negative or toxic relationship with themselves.

00:03:57.420 | If you were to observe two humans,

00:04:00.700 | like at a restaurant talking to each other,

00:04:02.420 | the way that you talk to yourself,

00:04:04.500 | you'd probably be like disturbed.

00:04:06.420 | You'd be like, do I have to sit here?

00:04:08.060 | Can I move tables?

00:04:09.420 | Right, it's critical, it's negative,

00:04:11.900 | it's predicting the worst, it's harping on things,

00:04:15.260 | it's nitpicking.

00:04:16.820 | And this isn't just horribly low confidence people.

00:04:20.180 | And most people are just kind of trying

00:04:21.300 | to push through that and ignore it,

00:04:23.740 | but it's like a dead weight on your confidence.

00:04:26.340 | So you have to change your relationship with yourself,

00:04:28.940 | and we can talk more about how to do that.

00:04:31.020 | That's the first habit, to be on your own side,

00:04:33.980 | to treat yourself like someone you actually love,

00:04:36.620 | and to learn how to optimize the way you coach yourself.

00:04:39.680 | Most people are very bad at that.

00:04:41.340 | And then the second side is,

00:04:44.140 | you have to consistently build the muscle of confidence,

00:04:48.060 | which is a byproduct of bold action.

00:04:51.580 | So if you take bold action in the world,

00:04:54.020 | you will, just like if you lift weights

00:04:55.980 | and push it to the edge, you will grow muscle.

00:04:59.420 | And it's the same thing with confidence.

00:05:00.980 | If you do what scares you,

00:05:01.820 | then the byproduct of that is confidence.

00:05:04.340 | And if you combine those two,

00:05:05.660 | and you practice those regularly,

00:05:06.900 | you can have high sustained confidence

00:05:08.700 | through any season.

00:05:10.180 | - It's funny how so many of these big things in life

00:05:12.740 | seem to be able to be distilled into two things.

00:05:15.180 | We had a conversation with Vanessa Van Edwards

00:05:17.680 | on Charisma, and she's like,

00:05:18.700 | "It's a balance of competence and,"

00:05:22.280 | oh man, I just totally spaced it,

00:05:23.860 | "Warmth and competence."

00:05:24.900 | It's a balance between warmth and competence.

00:05:27.500 | And it's like, if you can master those two things

00:05:29.340 | and the balance between them.

00:05:30.460 | So I wanna dig into this, right?

00:05:32.500 | Why is this not so obvious?

00:05:35.620 | Like why are we all walking around,

00:05:38.020 | beating ourselves up and not taking bold actions?

00:05:40.740 | Is it that people don't know that that's what you need to do

00:05:43.260 | and that's your life's work?

00:05:44.600 | Or is it that it's actually really hard

00:05:46.540 | and there are easier ways to do it?

00:05:48.220 | Or maybe it's both.

00:05:49.340 | - That's a great question.

00:05:51.580 | I think a lot of people, if you intellectually ask them,

00:05:55.140 | are those things good to do?

00:05:56.260 | They'd be like, "Oh yeah, just like eating my vegetables

00:05:58.740 | "and working out every day and spending time slowing down,

00:06:01.500 | "unplugging from my phone and connecting with my spouse.

00:06:03.480 | "Yeah, that's all, it's great."

00:06:04.720 | But are we doing all those things, right?

00:06:06.380 | And the reason we don't,

00:06:07.820 | just like we don't do all those other healthy habits,

00:06:09.700 | well, maybe some people do,

00:06:10.700 | but the reason it's a challenge to do something

00:06:12.900 | that sounds very simple

00:06:14.540 | is because there's an emotional driver

00:06:18.940 | underneath the surface.

00:06:20.660 | And each one has a payoff.

00:06:22.840 | The bold, I start with the bold action.

00:06:24.380 | There's a huge set of payoffs for not taking bold action.

00:06:28.840 | And one of the payoffs is we get to avoid the thing

00:06:31.520 | that everyone by default is trying to avoid in life,

00:06:35.060 | which is pain.

00:06:36.460 | And so, when we take a bold action,

00:06:38.020 | we're gonna experience a variety of forms of pain.

00:06:41.020 | Some of it's just discomfort.

00:06:43.060 | To wake up, to focus, to take the action,

00:06:45.620 | to consistently follow up, there's a discomfort to that.

00:06:48.940 | And then there's an emotional discomfort

00:06:50.980 | of what if they don't like my show?

00:06:53.580 | What if someone doesn't agree with me?

00:06:55.700 | What if someone criticizes?

00:06:56.840 | What if my work's not good enough?

00:06:58.640 | What if I'm rejected?

00:06:59.780 | It all comes down to that, disapproved of, rejected.

00:07:02.320 | And most people are so afraid of that

00:07:05.660 | and even unconsciously avoiding that,

00:07:08.540 | that they push the action to later.

00:07:11.700 | They make it way smaller, they delay it, they hesitate,

00:07:14.900 | and they don't even necessarily know

00:07:17.100 | that that's what we're doing, right?

00:07:18.420 | It's just like, no, I'm busy, no, this.

00:07:20.060 | But underneath, I'm scared.

00:07:22.500 | And then we got our, you know,

00:07:24.180 | we don't wanna, we wanna look macho.

00:07:26.160 | We don't wanna say we're scared,

00:07:27.460 | so we say I'm stressed and I'm too busy.

00:07:29.340 | So that's the payoff for the bold action.

00:07:32.380 | You might say, what is the payoff for treating yourself bad?

00:07:34.900 | I mean, obviously that's terrible.

00:07:37.020 | Well, I would say that it actually serves the same master.

00:07:41.460 | So when I tell myself it's gonna fail, I'm not good,

00:07:44.860 | I didn't do that right, that's creating this,

00:07:48.220 | it's almost like a fog, an amnesia.

00:07:50.620 | I kind of forget my strengths.

00:07:52.980 | I'm sure you've done that, I've done that.

00:07:54.220 | It's like two in the morning

00:07:55.060 | and the way you're seeing yourself

00:07:56.180 | is like this helpless, incompetent person.

00:07:59.300 | You're like, wait a minute, that's weird.

00:08:00.620 | Why am I even believing this?

00:08:01.940 | Because the more we believe that,

00:08:04.500 | we stay in this kind of shell.

00:08:06.780 | It's like a protective walls of this negative identity.

00:08:10.220 | I'm a nobody, who am I?

00:08:12.140 | And that nobody who's nothing

00:08:14.380 | is even further from taking that bold action.

00:08:17.340 | And all of this is under the umbrella

00:08:20.140 | of what I call your safety police,

00:08:22.020 | which is like a mechanism in your psychology,

00:08:24.260 | you could think of it.

00:08:25.220 | That is, its purpose is single fold.

00:08:28.460 | It is to keep you safe.

00:08:30.740 | And the safety police is like a survival mechanism inside

00:08:33.440 | that's run amok.

00:08:34.280 | It's just too high, the dial is set too high.

00:08:36.720 | And so safety means no pain, no rejection,

00:08:40.160 | no threat, no danger, no risk.

00:08:43.240 | And so you tell yourself you're a nobody

00:08:45.040 | and you avoid the action

00:08:46.560 | and you get to stay in that bubble,

00:08:48.720 | which feels safer in the moment.

00:08:51.080 | Of course, meanwhile, your life is passing you by.

00:08:53.640 | - So it seems like both of those are a little bit

00:08:55.280 | like this voice in your head,

00:08:57.480 | this inner critic that is kind of controlling you.

00:09:00.600 | Is that a fair assumption?

00:09:02.720 | - Yes, yeah, the inner critic,

00:09:04.040 | you could think of it as like the mouthpiece

00:09:05.680 | of the safety police.

00:09:06.680 | It's the one who's kind of narrating.

00:09:08.200 | And the crazy thing is like, why do people believe it?

00:09:11.640 | It's almost like, because it's familiar

00:09:13.800 | and also because it has proximity.

00:09:17.360 | You know, it's coming from in your head.

00:09:19.560 | And so it's like, it's closer than your closest friend.

00:09:22.920 | And so like, where is that?

00:09:24.000 | Okay, I guess that's true.

00:09:25.880 | And I'll often do that with clients.

00:09:27.080 | I'm like, where is that voice coming from?

00:09:28.720 | And they're like, what do you mean?

00:09:29.560 | Like, it's from my childhood.

00:09:30.640 | Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, right now.

00:09:33.160 | How are you even hearing that thing?

00:09:34.920 | And then it's like a confusing mindfulness question.

00:09:36.840 | I'm like, I don't know, right?

00:09:38.800 | But it's close.

00:09:40.160 | And all of a sudden we assume because it's close

00:09:42.080 | and we've heard it a lot, that it's true.

00:09:44.440 | But if you pay attention,

00:09:45.480 | this is probably one of the tools

00:09:46.320 | I help clients break free with,

00:09:47.840 | is if you pay attention to its track record of predictions,

00:09:51.720 | it's really bad.

00:09:54.440 | It's really bad.

00:09:55.280 | Oh, you're gonna fail at that meeting.

00:09:56.240 | No one's gonna buy the thing.

00:09:57.680 | And you go there and it goes okay,

00:09:59.160 | and people buy the thing.

00:10:00.000 | And the person would never go out with you.

00:10:01.640 | And then the person goes out with you, right?

00:10:03.200 | Maybe not that one, but the next one.

00:10:04.960 | And if you look at its track record, it's terrible.

00:10:07.480 | But then still the very next day,

00:10:08.960 | think about that if you had like a financial advisor

00:10:11.520 | and they were just, they couldn't beat the market.

00:10:13.160 | They were wrong all the time.

00:10:14.920 | And you just keep going back to them.

00:10:16.280 | And you're like, well, what do you think this time?

00:10:17.960 | And they're just so certain that you keep going to it.

00:10:20.720 | And I think that's how we are with the inner critic.

00:10:22.960 | - So what do we do with both of these areas

00:10:25.560 | and what are the tactics?

00:10:27.320 | - A lot of people, when they discover this,

00:10:29.000 | they're like, okay, how do I kill the critic, right?

00:10:30.560 | It's the enemy, slay the demon.

00:10:33.120 | And I don't think it works that way.

00:10:36.040 | You can think of like the parts of our psychology

00:10:38.240 | as that old show Survivor.

00:10:39.720 | I don't know if it's still running.

00:10:41.040 | You can't vote them off the island.

00:10:43.600 | You can't get rid of them, right?

00:10:45.200 | They actually are a part in there.

00:10:47.400 | The problem is not the survivor and the safety police.

00:10:49.920 | The problem is the dial, the setting is too high.

00:10:53.240 | You do need some survival skills.

00:10:55.200 | That prevents you from jumping off the 30 foot building

00:10:58.240 | and breaking your legs, right?

00:10:59.680 | It's like you have a sense of risk and all that.

00:11:02.400 | The issue is that we need to turn the dial down.

00:11:05.080 | And so, the first thing that people have to do

00:11:07.000 | is they have to even know this conversation

00:11:08.840 | that we're having exists and say, wait a minute,

00:11:11.360 | it's not just me, Aziz, or you, Chris.

00:11:13.680 | There's a lot of Aziz's in there.

00:11:14.960 | There's a lot of parts inside.

00:11:16.160 | And one of the parts is this inner critic.

00:11:17.960 | So the first thing I do with people is,

00:11:19.960 | can you know when your critic is talking?

00:11:22.400 | Do you know when it's you thinking versus the critic?

00:11:25.280 | Now, we don't have to get crazy, just philosophical,

00:11:28.240 | like what is me, right?

00:11:30.200 | But, you know, are you seeing clearly?

00:11:34.280 | Are you having a distorted view of yourself

00:11:36.560 | as incapable and unlovable?

00:11:39.000 | You'll start to hear the critic and get better at it

00:11:42.160 | because you'll know, it's languages and extremes.

00:11:45.200 | It's gonna go awful.

00:11:47.200 | Everyone's gonna think you're terrible.

00:11:49.120 | It magnifies.

00:11:50.840 | It's just like a fun house distorted mirror.

00:11:53.280 | So you gotta get, one, is identify the critic

00:11:56.520 | and just get good at it.

00:11:57.360 | So with clients, I'll have them do an awareness exercise,

00:11:59.400 | usually for like a week or two,

00:12:00.880 | where they're just noting it, tracking it.

00:12:02.480 | I'll have them name it too.

00:12:04.120 | And some people just call it the critic.

00:12:05.800 | Some people come up with these like pretty funny,

00:12:07.440 | creative, silly names just to break the pattern

00:12:11.560 | a little bit.

00:12:12.880 | So you start to name it.

00:12:14.880 | Then the biggest technique, you could call it tool,

00:12:20.560 | is not some hack to just know what to say.

00:12:24.000 | It actually is deeper than that.

00:12:25.800 | You have to make what I call the decision of a lifetime.

00:12:29.280 | So I have a book called "On My Own Side,"

00:12:30.640 | which is guiding people through this.

00:12:31.800 | And so you're aware of this critic.

00:12:34.480 | And they're like, yeah, yeah, it's all the time.

00:12:36.240 | I can name it.

00:12:37.080 | I can see it now.

00:12:37.900 | Okay, great.

00:12:38.740 | Take a moment and really pay attention

00:12:42.080 | to what's happening here.

00:12:43.760 | Like really observe it for a while.

00:12:45.400 | 'Cause when you do,

00:12:46.480 | hopefully there's some part inside of you.

00:12:48.720 | It's like when you watch a movie or I mean,

00:12:50.920 | maybe this has happened in your life.

00:12:53.120 | You're watching someone be almost

00:12:54.560 | in an abusive relationship.

00:12:55.920 | And if you're watching a movie and what's that one

00:13:00.000 | with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro

00:13:02.320 | from way back in the day, "This Boy's Life,"

00:13:04.320 | some just terrible, abusive stepfather.

00:13:06.240 | When you're watching that movie

00:13:07.400 | and you're identifying with the young character,

00:13:09.540 | every part of your body wants that young son or character

00:13:14.880 | to like stand up to that tyrant and say like,

00:13:19.480 | this is effed up.

00:13:20.960 | Like I'm leaving your house, I'm out, I'm done.

00:13:24.520 | And basically people have to have that moment

00:13:27.480 | inside of themselves.

00:13:29.200 | Because what happens is like, okay,

00:13:30.560 | the critic's beating them up and they're believing it.

00:13:33.080 | And they're like, okay, I caught it.

00:13:34.220 | Now what do I do?

00:13:35.560 | But the energy is not there.

00:13:37.800 | You need to have a revolution inside.

00:13:40.680 | You need to usurp the power of the critic

00:13:44.000 | and take control of your inner self

00:13:46.560 | and be the captain of your ship, as I call it.

00:13:49.000 | And that means like the critic is the parent

00:13:51.800 | kicking you around.

00:13:52.640 | You need to become the parent.

00:13:54.040 | So it's a decision and the decision comes

00:13:55.840 | from like reaching a threshold moment of really observing,

00:13:58.920 | like this is effed up.

00:14:00.720 | I can't, like what am I doing to myself?

00:14:03.900 | And you gotta have this sense of almost outrage

00:14:06.580 | or disgust or revulsion or something.

00:14:08.720 | You say, all right, that's it.

00:14:09.600 | I'm gonna take control here.

00:14:11.160 | Because otherwise, before that decision,

00:14:13.180 | it always goes like this.

00:14:14.920 | And I see this all the time.

00:14:15.800 | People go to cognitive therapy.

00:14:17.400 | They teach them how to deal with their negative thoughts,

00:14:19.040 | which is their critic.

00:14:20.120 | And they'll write out the critical thoughts.

00:14:21.960 | You're a loser and nobody likes you.

00:14:23.600 | And they're like, okay, what do I do?

00:14:25.160 | The therapist is like, challenge the thought.

00:14:27.200 | And they're like, okay, I'm good.

00:14:29.560 | And many people do like me.

00:14:31.420 | Is that right?

00:14:34.000 | And it's got no power because they're still,

00:14:37.480 | they're framed, they're still living within the reality

00:14:41.160 | created by their critic.

00:14:42.360 | They still see themselves that way.

00:14:44.620 | And so we have to shatter that

00:14:46.940 | and be willing to see what's really true.

00:14:49.580 | And I could go deeper and more granular, but I'll pause.

00:14:51.840 | - Yeah, so I'm curious how applicable this is to everyone

00:14:56.300 | or is this kind of for people who found themselves

00:14:59.220 | so deep that they have no confidence?

00:15:00.940 | Because I imagine there's some people listening

00:15:02.960 | that don't necessarily feel like they don't have confidence.

00:15:05.500 | They're willing to go to a meeting

00:15:07.300 | and feel like they're gonna do a great job,

00:15:09.280 | but it could probably level up as well.

00:15:11.100 | So I'm curious if you address some of the tactics

00:15:13.980 | you said, it's like, you make me feel like,

00:15:15.700 | wow, like I'm not even sure I'm at that point yet.

00:15:18.260 | However, I have no doubt that there is something

00:15:21.380 | to be learned for everyone.

00:15:22.820 | So where does this, how does this calibrate for people?

00:15:25.540 | - This doesn't have to mean that you're impaired

00:15:28.020 | to the point where you can't go into that meeting,

00:15:29.780 | but a lot of people will go into the meeting

00:15:32.120 | and what are they, the morning of the meeting,

00:15:34.900 | they're short with their spouse.

00:15:36.860 | They're stressed out.

00:15:38.060 | Like I got that meeting.

00:15:39.060 | Maybe they had a little trouble.

00:15:40.300 | You know, maybe they're confident.

00:15:41.860 | But I think if you look at a lot of people,

00:15:44.060 | there's some fear underneath.

00:15:47.860 | And the fear is like, this has to go good or else.

00:15:51.580 | I have to make this presentation.

00:15:53.380 | And they might say, I'm gonna crush it.

00:15:54.740 | I'm gonna just nail it.

00:15:55.780 | Maybe.

00:15:56.620 | Now that's great.

00:15:57.940 | Then you could observe, what are you doing?

00:15:59.620 | You probably are having,

00:16:01.020 | you're probably reinforcing an identity,

00:16:03.740 | how you see yourself of capability.

00:16:05.540 | I got this, I can do this.

00:16:07.100 | And you know what that is?

00:16:08.860 | Their critic has been swapped out

00:16:10.780 | with what I would call an optimal self-coach.

00:16:13.500 | And that's a process that you can observe.

00:16:15.340 | So even if your critic's not terrible,

00:16:17.260 | you gotta start listening to it and say,

00:16:18.620 | well, what?

00:16:19.460 | You could ask this question before a meeting.

00:16:20.980 | Am I nervous?

00:16:22.020 | What am I telling myself?

00:16:23.140 | Who's, this is a great, powerful question.

00:16:25.020 | Who's coaching me in my head right now?

00:16:27.660 | And then you could say,

00:16:28.500 | well, what would an optimal coach say?

00:16:30.740 | And you could think back if you've ever had a sports coach

00:16:33.180 | when you were young or a life coach as you got older

00:16:35.700 | or someone who was a mentor or a guide

00:16:40.300 | who actually fulfilled that role for you.

00:16:42.580 | And like, well, what would they say?

00:16:44.180 | How would they perceive this?

00:16:45.420 | How, what would they, what would I think?

00:16:46.620 | And you can start to tap into that

00:16:50.060 | and draw on that before the meeting.

00:16:52.460 | Usually with people with high confidence

00:16:54.060 | are kind of doing this unconsciously.

00:16:56.500 | But I would say that there's still often

00:16:57.780 | a layer of fear underneath.

00:16:59.620 | And that fear is some level of,

00:17:02.860 | if this doesn't go well, then dot, dot, dot.

00:17:06.000 | And I think true, like the next level,

00:17:10.580 | if you wanna talk about extraordinary confidence, right?

00:17:14.020 | It's the people that are willing to face that dot, dot, dot.

00:17:18.400 | And to go into any scenario of life,

00:17:22.820 | even the stuff that we would never want to occur.

00:17:26.340 | And to not say, oh, great, I hope that happens.

00:17:29.620 | But to say, you know what?

00:17:30.540 | If that happens, I'll be okay too.

00:17:33.460 | I know I can handle anything.

00:17:35.460 | That's when you get to a certain level of confidence

00:17:37.740 | where you're able to kind of move through life

00:17:39.320 | without that roller coaster of fear and up and down.

00:17:44.320 | - So I wanna double click a little,

00:17:45.900 | 'cause what I heard was, okay, everyone seems to,

00:17:48.780 | whether you have no confidence or a lot of it,

00:17:50.780 | it sounds like you could have more

00:17:52.020 | and the impact on your life of having more would be great.

00:17:55.460 | So you just need to confront

00:17:57.220 | and stand up to this inner critic.

00:17:59.600 | Are there more kind of habits to build

00:18:02.580 | or types of coaching to kind of keep it going?

00:18:05.140 | 'Cause it seems like it'd be easy one morning to be like,

00:18:06.940 | you know what?

00:18:07.780 | Forget it, this is gonna be great.

00:18:08.620 | But that doesn't mean that it's gonna last forever.

00:18:10.940 | - Yes, okay, so here's a simple one.

00:18:13.700 | You wanna think about, I think it's helpful

00:18:15.580 | when you think about what habits to do,

00:18:17.340 | is like, what's the outcome?

00:18:19.020 | What are we trying to do?

00:18:19.860 | And you say, well, I'm trying to build my confidence.

00:18:21.240 | Yes, but what you're really trying to do

00:18:25.100 | to have high confidence is you have a,

00:18:29.180 | when you, when your identity is expanded enough

00:18:34.180 | for whatever it is you're trying to do,

00:18:36.300 | you don't need to like pep talk yourself.

00:18:38.960 | So I'm sure there's things that you can do.

00:18:40.720 | I don't know, there's something in your life

00:18:41.840 | where you feel like it's not,

00:18:42.880 | you don't think about it as confidence

00:18:43.960 | 'cause you've just done it so many times

00:18:46.240 | that it's no big deal.

00:18:47.400 | Is there anything in your life like a hobby

00:18:48.840 | or a work task or anything?

00:18:51.640 | I know you do a lot of travel.

00:18:52.680 | So for some people, travel is overwhelming.

00:18:54.600 | Like, oh my God, where would I even go?

00:18:55.920 | I don't know if that even feels that way to you

00:18:57.320 | at this point.

00:18:58.280 | Yeah, it's funny.

00:18:59.120 | It's like, I don't stress out about,

00:19:01.660 | we're taking this trip we talked about

00:19:03.180 | right before we started in a couple of weeks

00:19:05.180 | and we have no idea where we're going.

00:19:07.180 | And I know a lot of people will be very overwhelmed.

00:19:09.180 | It's like, we're going on a trip for a week.

00:19:10.740 | In two weeks, we have no idea what we're doing.

00:19:12.580 | And I'm like, no, I just know

00:19:13.900 | that we're gonna be able to find a great trip.

00:19:16.460 | It's just not, it doesn't even bother me.

00:19:18.180 | My wife's like, well, yeah,

00:19:19.220 | but I might need to buy some clothes

00:19:20.460 | if it's gonna be cold or warm.

00:19:21.860 | So it'd be good to know, you know,

00:19:23.340 | on more than a day's notice.

00:19:24.420 | But for me, I'm like, yeah, we got,

00:19:25.860 | I have warm clothes, I have cold clothes.

00:19:27.680 | I'm pretty confident we'll have a good trip.

00:19:29.920 | Yes, okay.

00:19:30.760 | So you can hear there's like a relaxed sense of certainty

00:19:33.620 | around that.

00:19:34.900 | And a lot of people wouldn't have that.

00:19:36.460 | I don't travel.

00:19:37.300 | I used to travel a lot when I was younger.

00:19:38.300 | I haven't traveled that much in the last like,

00:19:40.080 | I don't know, seven, eight years.

00:19:42.420 | And so for me, it'd just be like,

00:19:44.220 | I don't know if I'd be like overstressed about it,

00:19:46.220 | but it would be kind of like more than you, right?

00:19:49.460 | 'Cause there's something different there.

00:19:50.820 | So what's the differentiating factor there?

00:19:54.860 | It's that you're, there's a level of,

00:19:57.900 | my sense is you've probably traveled a lot.

00:20:01.100 | You do a show that involves some travel, right?

00:20:03.220 | So you've expanded your identity.

00:20:05.340 | So Chris includes travel, got it.

00:20:09.360 | How did you expand the identity to include that?

00:20:13.540 | You weren't born that way.

00:20:14.900 | Did you grow up with world traveler parents?

00:20:18.940 | - A little bit, yeah.

00:20:19.780 | I mean, I wouldn't say that, definitely travel.

00:20:21.600 | My grandparents traveled a lot.

00:20:23.340 | My parents traveled, we went places, so yes.

00:20:26.700 | - So there you go.

00:20:27.620 | So you had this exposure and practice

00:20:31.300 | and it becomes normal would maybe be the best way.

00:20:34.860 | It's familiar and normal for you to do that kind of thing.

00:20:37.660 | So now we're gonna go on a trip in a couple of weeks,

00:20:40.500 | no big deal.

00:20:41.740 | That's like someone who, you know,

00:20:43.480 | I had a buddy when I was young who was like one of those

00:20:46.060 | straight out of a movie hacker nerd kids.

00:20:48.460 | And this was when the internet,

00:20:50.060 | this was in like '97 or something, '95.

00:20:54.980 | So, you know, everything was simpler in a way,

00:20:58.020 | like the computer systems, the internet,

00:20:59.540 | and he could just like, you know,

00:21:00.740 | furiously type and like literally at the school library

00:21:03.540 | be like in the administrator section of the school.

00:21:07.460 | I'm like, what are you doing, right?

00:21:09.780 | Because he grew up on computers.

00:21:11.540 | He just knew how to do that stuff.

00:21:12.660 | So what does all this have to do with, you know,

00:21:14.460 | confidence at work in our lives and that sort of thing

00:21:16.720 | is that we need to expand our identity

00:21:19.620 | so that we see ourselves as like, this is no big deal.

00:21:22.140 | This is normal for me.

00:21:23.420 | Otherwise it's always a, oh my God,

00:21:25.660 | am I gonna pull this off?

00:21:27.060 | I don't know, that whole, I don't know.

00:21:30.180 | That's a reflection that you don't see

00:21:32.580 | as a part of your normal identity yet.

00:21:35.700 | So we want to expand our identity.

00:21:38.060 | So the habits have to be expanding our identity

00:21:40.300 | to include that.

00:21:41.180 | So one thing we can do is to do the thing, right?

00:21:44.140 | Like start getting exposure to it.

00:21:45.860 | And that sounds so simple,

00:21:47.500 | but if we're not great at it yet,

00:21:49.300 | or it causes stress for us, we slow the process down.

00:21:53.660 | We're like, I'll get to that next month.

00:21:55.660 | I'll do it once in a while.

00:21:57.540 | Like, no, the biggest change is gonna go on offense,

00:22:01.020 | I like to call it.

00:22:01.940 | So let's say you do okay at work meetings,

00:22:04.640 | but you want to just like own the room.

00:22:06.580 | You want to be like a powerful force of leadership

00:22:09.100 | and speaking up and authority.

00:22:11.400 | So then you say, okay, I'm gonna have a commitment.

00:22:12.900 | Like every single meeting, I'm gonna intentionally speak up

00:22:16.420 | and I'm gonna intentionally steer at once.

00:22:17.900 | I'm gonna intentionally ask a question.

00:22:19.660 | And so you start to build that.

00:22:21.300 | That's the action side.

00:22:22.700 | Now the habit that really strengthens that,

00:22:25.020 | and it serves multiple purposes.

00:22:27.180 | It neutralizes the critic and it builds your optimal coach.

00:22:30.540 | And this one is right after the meeting is done,

00:22:33.060 | force yourself, don't just do it in your head,

00:22:35.340 | force yourself to do it on a note file on your phone

00:22:37.900 | or on a sheet of paper if you want to do it old school,

00:22:40.060 | where you write down three wins

00:22:42.180 | from the meeting right afterwards.

00:22:43.620 | What are three things that you did that went well?

00:22:46.300 | You might say, no, no, I don't need to do that.

00:22:47.540 | I know it was fine, it went great.

00:22:49.860 | No, no, no, this is gonna really

00:22:51.940 | like encode it into your identity.

00:22:54.300 | So you say, well, I spoke up there, I did this.

00:22:56.260 | And it doesn't matter what you write down.

00:22:58.260 | It matters that you're training your brain to say,

00:23:01.020 | hey, when I go into these situations, I'm competent.

00:23:03.380 | Remember you were talking about Vanessa Van Edwards,

00:23:06.100 | competence and warmth, right?

00:23:07.220 | So yes, you say, I know I'm competent.

00:23:09.760 | Not all of you knows that all of the time.

00:23:13.900 | So what this is doing is like linking your brain.

00:23:15.660 | So I do this and I'll do this with clients.

00:23:16.940 | Well, let's say if you write down

00:23:17.780 | three things like that a day,

00:23:19.900 | and within like two to three weeks,

00:23:21.980 | there's a man I worked with who is,

00:23:23.540 | he was already very successful.

00:23:24.900 | He ran multiple companies,

00:23:25.980 | but he basically felt like

00:23:26.980 | he wasn't never successful enough.

00:23:29.180 | And so he started to do this because in his mind,

00:23:31.940 | at the end of the day,

00:23:32.780 | he cataloged all the things he didn't do well enough,

00:23:36.080 | even though he was successfully running three companies.

00:23:39.140 | And so with this practice,

00:23:41.020 | he started to simply write down

00:23:43.380 | three things at the end of each day that he did well.

00:23:45.940 | And within three weeks,

00:23:47.020 | he's like, something, a big shift happened.

00:23:49.500 | I was like, what?

00:23:50.340 | He's like, well, I was talking with my wife

00:23:52.420 | and in an offhand manner,

00:23:54.420 | I referred to myself as successful.

00:23:57.020 | And for him, this guy who runs three companies,

00:23:59.620 | he's like multi-millionaire.

00:24:01.380 | For him, the moment that he knew he was a success

00:24:03.300 | was when he casually told his wife something

00:24:05.100 | and implying he was successful.

00:24:06.900 | So that's the power I think

00:24:07.980 | of really upgrading our identity.

00:24:10.140 | - And is that making a point to speak up in a meeting

00:24:13.420 | or take charge,

00:24:15.100 | is that the bold side of the two habits you wanted to build

00:24:19.020 | or is that something different?

00:24:20.460 | - Yeah, that would be an example.

00:24:21.740 | For a number of people, that might be a challenge.

00:24:24.420 | And whatever the bold action is,

00:24:26.620 | how do you know what it is?

00:24:28.020 | It's whatever makes you uncomfortable

00:24:30.220 | or scares you a lot.

00:24:32.060 | Generally, if it freaks you out,

00:24:34.220 | you probably have to work up to it.

00:24:36.380 | Think of it as like weight training.

00:24:38.300 | You're not gonna just bench press 300 pounds

00:24:40.420 | if you can't bench press 150.

00:24:43.820 | So practice and repetition of the smaller amounts.

00:24:47.780 | But yes, that would be an example of bold action.

00:24:50.180 | - Yeah, I was talking to,

00:24:51.460 | we went to a birthday party for a three-year-old

00:24:53.020 | this weekend and one of the parents said,

00:24:54.540 | "Oh, have you ever traveled with your kids?"

00:24:56.380 | And I was like, "Yeah, we went to London and Paris."

00:24:58.340 | And they're like, "Whoa, we could never do that."

00:25:01.180 | And I was like, "Okay, then why don't you go for a weekend?"

00:25:03.500 | I was just trying to tell them

00:25:04.540 | they're not gonna ever feel like they could travel

00:25:06.300 | with their kids as much as they want

00:25:07.580 | until they just do it.

00:25:08.660 | So I assume that is a little bit of what you have to do

00:25:11.340 | and you don't have to go

00:25:12.420 | and take an international trip right away,

00:25:14.620 | but maybe you just go somewhere for a night,

00:25:16.900 | go somewhere for a weekend.

00:25:18.340 | - 100%, it's a gradual exposure.

00:25:19.820 | It's a 10-pound weight

00:25:20.860 | and you work your way up to 20, 30, and so forth.

00:25:23.260 | And most people will never,

00:25:25.260 | in their mind, it's like the 100-pound weight or nothing.

00:25:28.140 | I wanna go international.

00:25:29.180 | We'll do it when they're teenagers.

00:25:30.860 | And then it's like, but what about the overnight?

00:25:33.020 | Ah, that's not enough.

00:25:34.180 | Ah, I don't know.

00:25:35.020 | And we all do this.

00:25:35.900 | The small stuff is like, nah, nah, nah.

00:25:38.900 | But really, it's the only way to get that confidence.

00:25:42.900 | - And when it comes to the inner critic,

00:25:44.860 | can you talk to me about what the difference is

00:25:47.020 | between kind of planning for the worst

00:25:50.500 | and feeling like the worst is gonna happen?

00:25:52.380 | I think sometimes my wife and I have these debates

00:25:54.980 | where I'm like, everything's gonna be great.

00:25:57.060 | And she's like, well, what if this happens?

00:25:58.620 | What if this happens?

00:25:59.660 | And I don't actually think she's necessarily saying

00:26:02.420 | it's going to happen.

00:26:03.860 | She's just like, well, we should be prepared

00:26:05.860 | because if something does go wrong,

00:26:07.620 | we wanna make sure that we have a contingency,

00:26:09.900 | a plan, enough diapers, enough extra snacks.

00:26:12.380 | And I'm like, well, if the kids are hungry,

00:26:13.940 | we'll go find a store and buy some stuff and it'll be okay.

00:26:17.300 | And I think we both realize

00:26:19.180 | that we balance each other out well,

00:26:20.540 | 'cause I'm like, nothing's gonna go wrong.

00:26:22.060 | Everything's gonna be perfect.

00:26:23.340 | And I wouldn't say she says everything's gonna go wrong.

00:26:25.740 | She just wants to make sure we're prepared if it does.

00:26:28.700 | You know, not making this about my wife per se,

00:26:31.900 | but is there something, is that a self-critic

00:26:35.220 | or is that a preparedness

00:26:36.460 | or is there a blurry line between the two?

00:26:38.740 | - That's a great question.

00:26:40.140 | Also, a similar dynamic between me and my wife.

00:26:43.420 | I don't know if that's like roles or personality styles

00:26:47.460 | or, you know, male-female energy,

00:26:49.460 | but it's definitely like, what do we need?

00:26:52.100 | Like, okay, whatever, let's just grab, let's go.

00:26:54.540 | We've definitely been on hikes with my boys

00:26:58.060 | where we ran out of water and stuff.

00:26:59.580 | And I'm like, well, we survived.

00:27:01.220 | But yes, so I think you're highlighting a great point here.

00:27:05.460 | There is, it all comes back to risk

00:27:09.780 | and our willingness to take risk.

00:27:12.020 | And each person has a different level of risk tolerance.

00:27:15.620 | And if someone's risk tolerance is a little lower,

00:27:18.460 | it doesn't mean it's bad.

00:27:19.620 | It might mean they're prepared, right?

00:27:21.460 | You know, I'm not gonna take the risk of bringing nothing.

00:27:23.660 | Let's bring these three things

00:27:25.740 | so that we have some supplies.

00:27:27.740 | There's a downside to that.

00:27:28.780 | You gotta think of the things,

00:27:29.620 | you gotta carry them around, right?

00:27:31.020 | Like, so we all find our balance there.

00:27:33.580 | And in day-to-day life, as you're describing,

00:27:35.740 | you know, probably not too significant of an impact.

00:27:38.380 | I'd say the problem can come in

00:27:40.860 | when people start becoming less willing

00:27:45.740 | or even unwilling to tolerate risk.

00:27:49.020 | That would be your wife saying,

00:27:51.900 | I can't go until I have three backpacks,

00:27:55.420 | diapers, foods, disaster supplies.

00:27:58.340 | You know, it starts to become really extreme.

00:28:00.100 | I'd say, well, that's over the top.

00:28:01.740 | But people do that in their lives.

00:28:03.340 | I'm not gonna start my business

00:28:05.180 | until I have this lined up and I've achieved that.

00:28:08.340 | And I have X amount of money in the bank

00:28:10.100 | and this and that, and the kids are older.

00:28:12.860 | And now the business has never started.

00:28:15.220 | I'm not gonna have children

00:28:16.420 | until I got A and B and C and D all lined up.

00:28:19.820 | And then they don't have children, right?

00:28:20.820 | So people will avoid significant positive risks

00:28:24.500 | in their lives because they are unwilling to tolerate.

00:28:28.740 | And that's the key thing, to lean into the risk,

00:28:32.540 | we have to be able to tolerate uncertainty,

00:28:35.900 | the I don't know what's gonna happen.

00:28:38.060 | And the boogeyman that stops us from doing that

00:28:40.780 | is the mind says, okay, well, we don't know.

00:28:43.020 | Could be awesome, could be fun, could be spontaneous.

00:28:45.820 | It could be death.

00:28:47.580 | It could be the terrible thing, right?

00:28:49.620 | And because of the human prediction machine

00:28:52.340 | that is our brain, it can, within a quarter of a second,

00:28:58.300 | imagine, see, and even feel like the death of your child

00:29:02.980 | or a financial ruin, you know, which is pretty intense.

00:29:06.740 | You're sitting there eating your cereal

00:29:07.900 | and all of a sudden you go, ah, financial ruin, right?

00:29:09.860 | Like that's a significant emotional impact.

00:29:13.340 | And so what do you do with that?

00:29:16.180 | And people that have anxiety, you know,

00:29:17.940 | if we get caught into anxiety or we're catastrophizing,

00:29:20.980 | we can really live in that place

00:29:23.420 | and start to imagine that it's gonna happen.

00:29:26.420 | And the key there is to take a step back.

00:29:30.660 | I would say start with like your nervous system.

00:29:32.900 | Are you ramped up?

00:29:35.820 | Are you breathing really rapidly?

00:29:37.460 | Are you shoveling food, junk food in your face?

00:29:39.700 | Like take a moment, as simple as it might sound,

00:29:44.620 | take like three breaths where you slowly breathe in

00:29:47.260 | and count to where you're breathing out longer

00:29:49.660 | than you're breathing in.

00:29:51.660 | And then ask yourself, is this like,

00:29:56.660 | what kind of risk am I afraid of?

00:29:59.340 | What's the line here?

00:30:01.100 | And usually we can see like there's a certain line

00:30:04.580 | that makes sense.

00:30:05.420 | And then, but what if, but what if, what if,

00:30:07.420 | and then at some point we have to be willing

00:30:09.700 | to go into the what if and say, you know what?

00:30:13.620 | The odds are very, very low that would happen.

00:30:15.940 | But if that would happen, let's face that.

00:30:21.540 | And I'm not saying you're really gonna have a kid die

00:30:23.180 | or something, but I mean like in that moment,

00:30:24.780 | you emotionally face it 'cause the fear feeds on avoidance

00:30:29.620 | and flight.

00:30:30.460 | And if you turn to face it and you face the fear

00:30:33.380 | for just a moment, what you'll notice is that

00:30:36.140 | it gets really intense, but if you just let it rip

00:30:39.060 | through you, it will, without needing to do anything,

00:30:43.020 | the moment will pass, the storm will pass,

00:30:47.060 | and you're okay to take the step forward.

00:30:49.060 | The problem most people make is they're like,

00:30:50.780 | but what if it leads to that?

00:30:52.700 | And then they just stop.

00:30:54.460 | It's like getting to the edge of the cliff

00:30:56.180 | and not even looking down.

00:30:57.820 | And what you need to do is become really mindful

00:30:59.420 | at the edge and say, okay, what it is is we're at the edge

00:31:03.300 | and if you look at every catastrophic thought,

00:31:06.820 | it's all about loss, pain, and survival stuff.

00:31:11.140 | Always what it is.

00:31:12.540 | And underneath what it is is we all know

00:31:15.420 | that this is impermanent.

00:31:16.940 | Like none of this stuff is, we don't have control.

00:31:19.780 | We don't really know what's gonna happen.

00:31:21.380 | The people that we love, it's extraordinary

00:31:23.660 | and our hearts are bonded,

00:31:24.580 | but something could happen to anyone.

00:31:26.060 | You know, our lifestyles, everything is in flux and change.

00:31:29.420 | And it might be steady for decades and it might change.

00:31:32.220 | And we know that, and so what we need to do

00:31:34.900 | when we're facing our catastrophic thoughts

00:31:37.020 | is we're facing impermanence.

00:31:39.140 | And we need to look it in the face

00:31:40.860 | and there's a part inside that's like,

00:31:42.180 | the problem is not that things are gonna change

00:31:43.860 | or that something, quote, bad could happen.

00:31:45.780 | The problem is that you are fighting it

00:31:48.820 | and bracing against it and unwilling.

00:31:51.140 | You're saying, no, I do not sign that contract with life.

00:31:55.540 | I will not accept that something unpleasant

00:31:57.820 | could happen to me.

00:31:58.660 | And you clench everything inside.

00:32:00.100 | You get anxious and it doesn't do anything.

00:32:02.620 | It's not like the universe is like,

00:32:03.820 | oh, he's really tight in his bowels.

00:32:05.620 | Let's like give him what he wants.

00:32:07.380 | So the only thing to do, the only sanity is to practice

00:32:12.380 | having a practice of surrender and letting go

00:32:14.460 | and saying, look, if that happens,

00:32:17.580 | (exhales)

00:32:19.220 | I will face that then.

00:32:20.900 | And it's not a verbal thing.

00:32:22.380 | It's in your body.

00:32:24.020 | It's a physiologically softening and letting go.

00:32:27.860 | - I guess an interesting takeaway for me

00:32:29.420 | is confidence doesn't have to be optimism.

00:32:31.900 | It sounds like confidence can be acceptance

00:32:36.700 | that it might not be the optimal.

00:32:38.660 | I think in my mind, it was always,

00:32:40.300 | well, I think this is gonna go well

00:32:42.100 | so I can be confident going into it.

00:32:43.420 | But you could also be confident going into it

00:32:44.700 | and say, it might not go well.

00:32:45.940 | I'm just confident that whatever happens, I can deal with.

00:32:48.660 | - That's the underpinning of confidence.

00:32:51.740 | That's like the, because the other one,

00:32:53.780 | the other one's not bad.

00:32:55.060 | The other one, you could think of it as optimism

00:32:56.500 | or positive anticipation.

00:32:58.300 | And that will tilt the scales in your favor, right?

00:33:03.300 | If you go into a social interaction being like,

00:33:05.580 | people are gonna like me, this is gonna be great.

00:33:07.180 | We're gonna have fun.

00:33:08.100 | Like it's, you tilt it in your favor

00:33:09.940 | versus going in like, this is gonna suck.

00:33:11.420 | I don't even like people already, right?

00:33:13.060 | Of course, that's gonna tilt it the other way.

00:33:15.340 | Now you can go and be like, oh, this is gonna be fun.

00:33:16.940 | You can say you're meeting a friend of a friend

00:33:18.540 | at this party and oh, we're gonna connect.

00:33:20.140 | I've been wanting to meet this person for so long.

00:33:22.260 | You know, it's gonna tilt it in your favor.

00:33:23.620 | And still though, you get there

00:33:25.100 | and the person's standoffish or, right?

00:33:27.260 | You don't have control.

00:33:28.660 | So we have to say, look, it's probably gonna go well.

00:33:31.300 | I am capable of connect.

00:33:33.860 | I can talk to anybody, right?

00:33:35.140 | That's the identity piece.

00:33:36.540 | That sets you up for positive anticipation.

00:33:38.860 | But then you remove the background fear of like,

00:33:40.980 | but what if it doesn't?

00:33:42.300 | It's like, well, I'll be okay.

00:33:44.860 | And that is the sentence that I think captures

00:33:48.580 | the most unconditional confidence is either way,

00:33:51.580 | I'll be okay.

00:33:53.220 | - Okay.

00:33:54.060 | So I'm gonna try to do a quick recap.

00:33:56.620 | There's these two big habits

00:33:58.140 | and one of them is that you wanna be on your own side

00:34:02.060 | and you just gotta stand up to the self-critic.

00:34:04.580 | And the other is that you need to put yourself out there

00:34:07.940 | and take some bold actions.

00:34:09.020 | Any other kind of bold discomfort practice

00:34:12.660 | that people can do?

00:34:13.540 | Things that they could exercises?

00:34:16.140 | - Yeah.

00:34:16.980 | My favorite one is a visceral one

00:34:19.860 | and it's not with the mind at all.

00:34:21.020 | And it's a cold plunge.

00:34:22.180 | And if you don't have a cold plunge,

00:34:24.620 | you can do a cold shower.

00:34:26.260 | And it's, you know, that's,

00:34:27.820 | but maybe that's come up on your show a lot.

00:34:29.020 | I don't know if it's, it's a big hack,

00:34:30.340 | but it's from a psychological perspective,

00:34:33.020 | there's physiological benefits too.

00:34:34.460 | But just facing the every morning

00:34:37.780 | before I go into the cold plunge,

00:34:39.140 | there is a voice in my head that says, I don't want to.

00:34:43.060 | Like every morning, it doesn't matter how long I've done it.

00:34:45.420 | And it's like, it's a practice.

00:34:47.060 | I'm going to override this because it's for my benefit.

00:34:51.460 | And I'll even sometimes say to myself,

00:34:53.940 | it's like, I don't want to.

00:34:54.780 | And I'm like, I do want to.

00:34:57.020 | Because when I face what's uncomfortable,

00:35:00.180 | my life is better for it.

00:35:01.260 | And of course, the cool thing about the cold plunge

00:35:03.420 | is that you get an immediate payoff.

00:35:05.060 | Like it's not even when you get out.

00:35:06.820 | For me, the first one, it's like the four seconds

00:35:11.700 | of getting in and submerging my head.

00:35:13.500 | And then when I'm sitting in it, it's uncomfortable,

00:35:16.220 | but it's like intense and kind of fun and weird.

00:35:19.100 | I think I'm in an altered state almost.

00:35:20.700 | - Yeah, the hard part was getting in.

00:35:22.140 | - Hard part's getting in.

00:35:22.980 | And that's a great metaphor

00:35:24.020 | 'cause that's the same thing for whatever it might be.

00:35:26.700 | The hardest part of the risk is jumping.

00:35:28.860 | It's walking towards those people you don't know

00:35:30.660 | and want to create a business connection with, right?

00:35:32.300 | It's calling the person up.

00:35:33.460 | It's starting the thing.

00:35:34.820 | It's initiating.

00:35:36.100 | 'Cause then once you're in it, you're in the moment, right?

00:35:39.380 | You're talking to the person.

00:35:40.580 | And now it's off to the races.

00:35:42.620 | So, I think that's a really powerful practice

00:35:45.180 | is the cold plunge.

00:35:47.300 | On the physical side, I like to do those as well

00:35:49.020 | 'cause I think they're so,

00:35:50.700 | they transmit a message that's not just

00:35:53.060 | us talking to ourselves.

00:35:55.940 | So, another physical thing for anyone could be there,

00:35:58.260 | it is some sort of athletic pursuit

00:36:00.100 | where you have a practice of doing something consistently

00:36:03.740 | that's uncomfortable even though you don't want to sometimes.

00:36:06.340 | Whatever it is for you.

00:36:07.340 | I don't care the sport or activity.

00:36:09.220 | But I think that and the cold plunge

00:36:10.540 | are really foundational things

00:36:12.900 | that you might not think be related

00:36:13.940 | to your confidence at all.

00:36:15.780 | But they're very much related to the psychology

00:36:17.980 | of being able to go into discomfort

00:36:20.100 | because going into discomfort equals freedom.

00:36:22.540 | - I thought you were gonna bring up

00:36:23.420 | asking people to give you money

00:36:24.900 | 'cause I've heard you talk about that in the past.

00:36:26.340 | - That's so fun.

00:36:27.180 | So, oh man, talk about like rejection practice

00:36:29.580 | and other things.

00:36:30.420 | Those are on the social side

00:36:31.820 | and those are truly liberating as well.

00:36:34.540 | - Yeah, so just talk a little bit about that exercise.

00:36:38.100 | - Yes, okay.

00:36:38.940 | So, this is for fear of rejection

00:36:41.900 | and a lot of people might say,

00:36:42.820 | "I don't have a fear of rejection."

00:36:44.220 | It's like, okay, try these exercises

00:36:45.820 | and see if that's true or not.

00:36:47.380 | So, here's a great one is you basically,

00:36:50.900 | you walk up to someone and you ask a question

00:36:52.980 | that you are basically 100% certain

00:36:55.860 | you're gonna get a no for.

00:36:57.140 | And one of the simplest ones for that is can I have $100?

00:36:59.620 | Or whatever the currency of your choice is

00:37:01.420 | that's equivalent to a large amount of money.

00:37:03.500 | And you do it in a friendly, warm way.

00:37:05.660 | So, that's where it makes it fun, right?

00:37:07.220 | It's like you're asking them for what time is it?

00:37:10.260 | Or do you know a restaurant?

00:37:11.420 | But you're saying, "Hey, can I have $100?"

00:37:14.060 | And it confuses people 'cause you're not begging,

00:37:16.660 | you're not like, "Oh, poor me."

00:37:17.940 | You're just like, "Hey, I have $100."

00:37:19.420 | And you get all kinds of fun reactions.

00:37:22.020 | But you'd be surprised,

00:37:23.580 | your heart might be pounding before you go do it.

00:37:26.340 | Why is your heart pounding?

00:37:27.660 | 'Cause you're in fight or flight, why?

00:37:29.740 | Because there's break, it could be the rejection.

00:37:32.420 | It could also be that you're breaking like a social norm.

00:37:37.100 | You're disturbing,

00:37:39.220 | this is a whole topic we can dive into it,

00:37:41.060 | but I would call the cultural field.

00:37:43.100 | So, there's an invisible field,

00:37:46.300 | just like gravity is invisible,

00:37:47.700 | but it's affecting us right now.

00:37:49.100 | That's why we're staying in our chairs.

00:37:50.660 | The cultural field is affecting you right now.

00:37:53.660 | Even in this interview, it's affecting us.

00:37:55.220 | How I talk, how I use my face,

00:37:58.260 | why I'm not, for those who are watching,

00:38:00.140 | why am I not going like this?

00:38:01.140 | Like me, I just did it.

00:38:03.860 | But it's because the cultural,

00:38:05.860 | if you were to do that in a work meeting, right?

00:38:07.980 | People would be like, does he have a condition?

00:38:10.380 | Like, should we be, you know, is this okay?

00:38:13.180 | Right, it's unusual.

00:38:15.780 | And so, but social freedom,

00:38:18.860 | which is part of confidence is,

00:38:21.180 | as long as you're not hurting somebody

00:38:22.780 | or being aggressive or something,

00:38:24.180 | but you just to be able to free to wear what you want,

00:38:26.740 | say what you want, laugh out loud,

00:38:28.620 | ask whatever you want of anybody,

00:38:30.580 | that requires this kind of bold action of getting rejected.

00:38:34.780 | So asking for $100 is a great one.

00:38:36.500 | And I have some fun stories of at my events,

00:38:38.220 | people will go out and ask for all kinds of things.

00:38:41.380 | And shockingly, they actually end up getting yeses

00:38:43.820 | more than you'd think for stuff

00:38:45.580 | that would almost certainly seem to be a no.

00:38:48.260 | - I mean, you gotta give a couple examples there.

00:38:50.020 | - Okay, so the man, this one, you can see.

00:38:54.660 | Someone walks up to someone at a restaurant.

00:38:56.500 | Hey, can I have a, they have a chips and guacamole.

00:38:58.780 | Can I have one of your chips and dip it in your guacamole?

00:39:00.780 | They say, okay.

00:39:02.260 | Yeah, you might say, that's not crazy.

00:39:03.700 | Here's another one that I was really surprised by.

00:39:05.340 | This was surprising.

00:39:06.900 | A man walks up to a woman who's outside

00:39:08.700 | at a Mexican restaurant and she's eating a burrito.

00:39:11.180 | And he says, excuse me.

00:39:12.540 | She says, what?

00:39:13.380 | No preamble, excuse me.

00:39:15.300 | Yes, can I have a bite of your burrito?

00:39:17.860 | And I mean, like, she's gonna let him eat it?

00:39:21.100 | And she's like, okay.

00:39:22.900 | And gives him a bite of her burrito.

00:39:24.740 | Another one, someone says, hey, can I take your bicycle?

00:39:27.500 | The guy's on a bike.

00:39:28.620 | Can I take your bike for a spin around the block?

00:39:32.220 | The guy says, yes.

00:39:33.620 | We've had people get nos to that stuff.

00:39:35.220 | And this is my favorite one.

00:39:36.700 | A woman goes up to someone who's got a dog.

00:39:38.660 | And she says, hey, can I take your dog for a walk?

00:39:42.260 | No preamble.

00:39:43.300 | And the woman's like, okay.

00:39:45.460 | And then this person who's participating at the event,

00:39:47.860 | their goal is to rack up rejection.

00:39:49.200 | She doesn't wanna sit there walking someone's dog.

00:39:50.940 | So she's like, actually, I don't want to.

00:39:53.820 | She walks away.

00:39:55.020 | The person's like, what?

00:39:56.460 | So there you go, social freedom.

00:39:59.260 | - I like it.

00:40:00.100 | Let's talk for a second about social freedom.

00:40:01.300 | It's something that until I was kind of reading up

00:40:03.900 | on your work, it's not even something I'd heard of.

00:40:05.740 | So what does it mean?

00:40:08.100 | And what can it do for your life by having more of it?

00:40:11.220 | - Yeah, as far as I know,

00:40:12.380 | I haven't heard that term anywhere else.

00:40:13.660 | I just came up with it 'cause I was thinking of like,

00:40:15.240 | what's the opposite of social anxiety, right?

00:40:17.820 | It was like a social confidence, but yeah,

00:40:19.760 | but it's actually, it's like social freedom.

00:40:21.600 | So the idea is you're free to be 100% you

00:40:26.140 | and do what you want in the world

00:40:27.900 | and not be restricted by the cultural field.

00:40:31.260 | Obviously you have constraints, there's laws,

00:40:33.820 | there's things that don't feel good

00:40:34.860 | to your own personal ethics, right?

00:40:36.700 | But most people are in a cage that's much tighter than that.

00:40:40.820 | It's not the laws, it's, oh, my mom told me

00:40:44.180 | I was bothering people when I was young,

00:40:45.660 | so I don't want to bother people.

00:40:46.940 | Oh, I learned when I was in junior high

00:40:48.700 | that if I look too interested, then I'm desperate.

00:40:51.500 | Okay, I'm going to look cool, right?

00:40:52.760 | We have all like hundreds of little conclusions

00:40:56.760 | and if then statements of how we should be

00:40:59.260 | in order to be good, lovable, worthwhile,

00:41:04.260 | attractive, all these things.

00:41:06.400 | And so we're operating in this cage

00:41:09.120 | that ultimately though, it's not really you.

00:41:11.820 | And the kicker is you're actually more attractive,

00:41:15.220 | more lovable when you step outside of that cage

00:41:18.160 | and you let your natural enthusiastic self,

00:41:21.220 | your funny self, your quirky self, your weird self,

00:41:23.860 | all the things that make you you

00:41:25.340 | that you were connected to when you were like 10 years old,

00:41:28.220 | you bring them back in.

00:41:30.060 | And that's something that we actually have to consciously do.

00:41:32.460 | And man, I've seen people who are like

00:41:34.460 | powerhouses in business.

00:41:36.180 | They're so confident and they seem like

00:41:38.460 | they have no issues with this.

00:41:39.580 | And then to go walk down a street

00:41:42.120 | and say hi to 15 or 20 strangers,

00:41:44.920 | it makes them nervous.

00:41:47.860 | It kind of freaks them 'cause like,

00:41:49.060 | oh, I'm confident in this role as a business person,

00:41:52.460 | but the social freedom of I get to be

00:41:54.260 | whoever I want around people scares them.

00:41:56.700 | And so that's just another place

00:41:57.860 | that we wanna practice those two things, right?

00:42:00.180 | Changing the way you talk to yourself,

00:42:01.340 | being on your own side and doing the bold things

00:42:03.820 | that make you uncomfortable

00:42:05.220 | so you can free yourself socially.

00:42:07.380 | - So we got social freedom, we've got confidence.

00:42:10.020 | Are there other byproducts of kind of,

00:42:12.680 | or ways to use these two habits to increase our happiness,

00:42:16.540 | our satisfaction in life or anything?

00:42:18.840 | - Well, I mean, I don't know if you can

00:42:22.020 | officially claim this one on internet marketing,

00:42:23.780 | but I have an internal phrase that I say,

00:42:25.380 | which is double your confidence, double your income.

00:42:28.140 | And I truly believe, and I've seen this in people,

00:42:30.660 | that as you grow in your confidence,

00:42:32.540 | if you're willing to take bold action,

00:42:34.940 | which means here's some bold actions

00:42:36.540 | that a lot of people,

00:42:38.380 | it's not just saying hi to a stranger

00:42:40.620 | or getting a date or something,

00:42:41.780 | it's can you ask?

00:42:45.340 | A bold action is to ask for something,

00:42:48.140 | to ask directly, to ask unapologetically.

00:42:51.300 | And there are hundreds of examples

00:42:53.700 | if you're willing to ask, life can give you what you want.

00:42:57.780 | And so I've seen people who renegotiate,

00:43:00.580 | who ask for promotions, who renegotiate salaries,

00:43:03.420 | who've been at companies for years and have never done that.

00:43:07.100 | And they're kind of maybe waiting for the employer

00:43:09.020 | to be like, oh, here you go.

00:43:10.600 | And maybe that happens,

00:43:12.100 | but often you gotta kind of advocate for it.

00:43:14.620 | And all of a sudden they do it

00:43:16.220 | and they're expecting how dare you,

00:43:18.940 | you ingrateful, horrible person, you're fired or whatever.

00:43:22.180 | And the negotiators are like, yeah.

00:43:24.380 | Sometimes it's like, yes, okay, here you go.

00:43:26.980 | Other times it's like, well, not now.

00:43:30.460 | And then I coach them instead of being like,

00:43:32.580 | okay, fine, sorry, sorry.

00:43:34.260 | They're like, you know what?

00:43:35.340 | Okay, well, can you tell me more about when that might be

00:43:39.340 | or what might I do that might warrant

00:43:42.060 | that kind of promotion or pay increase, right?

00:43:43.740 | Like being in that direct contact

00:43:46.100 | with their employer, with coworkers.

00:43:48.020 | Running a business is all about asking people

00:43:51.860 | to promote you, to work with you,

00:43:53.660 | to buy your products or services.

00:43:55.740 | And I can't tell you how many people

00:43:57.380 | are not as successful in their own businesses

00:43:59.200 | because they're afraid to boldly ask people

00:44:01.780 | to buy their stuff through the form

00:44:03.980 | of marketing calls to action.

00:44:06.380 | So, and I did, I did all this stuff.

00:44:09.000 | So for me, it'd be like,

00:44:09.840 | I'm gonna put a lot of free teachings out there.

00:44:12.560 | And then maybe if you wanna buy something,

00:44:14.480 | you'll just do it, I guess.

00:44:15.660 | And I learned I had to actually be able to say,

00:44:17.340 | hey, if you're enjoying this

00:44:18.520 | and you're benefiting from this,

00:44:19.780 | go check out this program.

00:44:21.260 | Here's why you want it, right?

00:44:22.740 | So being able to ask boldly.

00:44:24.660 | So if you do those things,

00:44:26.100 | plus you keep expanding your identity

00:44:27.940 | to see yourself as successful and capable,

00:44:30.340 | I've seen people change jobs,

00:44:31.820 | start businesses, grow businesses,

00:44:34.100 | and definitely increase their income

00:44:35.740 | from just these two habits as well.

00:44:38.820 | - I got an email the other day that said,

00:44:40.820 | hey, I work for this company

00:44:42.260 | and we have a client who wants to understand more

00:44:44.820 | about the automated investment advisory space.

00:44:47.580 | Your background looks like you know,

00:44:49.060 | would you be up to do a one hour call?

00:44:50.820 | And I do a two minute call with this guy.

00:44:53.040 | He's like, yeah, right now the rate is $300 an hour.

00:44:56.020 | And I was like, I was thinking $1,000 an hour.

00:45:00.500 | Like, you know, it's one hour,

00:45:01.700 | it's not a long-term commitment.

00:45:02.920 | It felt like an opportunity to just see what happens.

00:45:04.900 | And he's like, I think we could do that.

00:45:06.500 | And I was like, that was more than three X

00:45:10.700 | for just a response.

00:45:11.660 | - Yeah, double your confidence, triple your income

00:45:15.420 | doesn't have the same alliterative flow,

00:45:17.140 | but you know, look at that, double your income or more.

00:45:20.300 | And that's the crazy thing, right?

00:45:22.300 | It's you are bold enough to ask

00:45:24.540 | and you could have gotten a no or a negotiation or whatever,

00:45:26.920 | but so many people, so many of us, myself included,

00:45:30.580 | we just won't ask, why?

00:45:33.700 | Oh, because it's uncomfortable and it's unconscious.

00:45:36.100 | Oh, I don't know, I don't know.

00:45:37.740 | And it's, but that moment right there is no different

00:45:40.140 | than getting into the cold plunge, right?

00:45:41.500 | There might be like a, okay, so that's exciting.

00:45:44.780 | And then once that happens though,

00:45:46.460 | it sets up a cascade where you're like,

00:45:49.340 | hey, this is what I do.

00:45:50.380 | People pay me a thousand dollars per hour, which is true.

00:45:53.140 | And so now, and you could even say that, right?

00:45:55.460 | And this person's like, well, how much do you charge?

00:45:57.060 | We were thinking 300.

00:45:58.540 | Well, people typically pay me a thousand.

00:46:00.460 | So that's what I'd be willing to do.

00:46:01.540 | If you want to do some sort of longer term thing,

00:46:03.220 | we might be able to negotiate something different,

00:46:04.940 | but for a one-off it's a thousand, right?

00:46:06.660 | Now, what is that?

00:46:07.540 | That's your identity has expanded.

00:46:09.540 | - Yeah, I think that one was hard for me

00:46:10.940 | and it took some practice over some time.

00:46:13.440 | So we've talked a bunch about kind of the inner critic

00:46:15.640 | and the fear.

00:46:16.480 | One of the places I face that the most

00:46:19.420 | is when I'm trying to make some decision,

00:46:22.260 | usually in an area I'm actually probably more confident in.

00:46:26.360 | So it's saving money or it's booking travel.

00:46:28.940 | And I have this fear that I could be making

00:46:32.140 | a more optimal decision.

00:46:33.780 | It could be as silly as, you know,

00:46:35.740 | I'm buying groceries online and I'm trying to make sure

00:46:37.980 | that I get the best deal of the basket of goods

00:46:40.260 | or it's, I'm trying to pick a hotel

00:46:42.380 | and I want to get the best hotel.

00:46:44.100 | And this critic is like telling me,

00:46:45.940 | oh, well, like maybe if you just do a little bit

00:46:47.760 | more research, you'll come to this optimal answer.

00:46:50.680 | And it's kind of in the lines of maximizing

00:46:53.160 | versus satisficing, but can I use these habits

00:46:56.640 | in that situation or is there something about that fear

00:46:59.840 | that I need to recognize that I won't make the best choice?

00:47:03.520 | - Well, I think that would be the interesting question

00:47:05.080 | to look at is, so maybe that's true.

00:47:09.800 | Maybe you could find a hotel that is cheaper

00:47:13.040 | or has better bang for your buck

00:47:15.860 | based upon whatever things you're looking for.

00:47:18.240 | Let's just say that that's true.

00:47:19.880 | What is painful, like there's a part of you

00:47:24.840 | that's like, no!

00:47:26.140 | But I guess we want to investigate that.

00:47:29.200 | Like why is that so unacceptable?

00:47:32.420 | Right, and that's the part that we would want to go into

00:47:36.640 | and be like, okay, there's some feeling inside.

00:47:39.520 | My sense is it's almost like if we don't get the best thing,

00:47:43.480 | it's almost like unsafe, like something bad is happening.

00:47:48.000 | Is that what it is for you?

00:47:49.360 | - Yeah, I mean, maybe it's the,

00:47:52.080 | I could have gotten a better deal/experience,

00:47:55.960 | but I think I've heard you even say something

00:47:59.040 | along the lines of even the optimal outcome

00:48:02.180 | still has some negative possibility.

00:48:05.240 | So there is no optimal outcome, I guess, is the real answer.

00:48:09.200 | - Well, you're choosing a circumstance

00:48:12.680 | and every circumstance in our life,

00:48:14.580 | every hotel, every trip, every date,

00:48:17.280 | every day of your life is going to have a mixture

00:48:21.840 | of good and bad, pleasure, discomfort, pain.

00:48:25.820 | There is 100% no day that's avoidable of that.

00:48:28.440 | And if you have the greatest day of your life,

00:48:30.080 | it's all orchestrated and all the activities are fun,

00:48:32.440 | you'll have challenge with your emotional state.

00:48:34.320 | You'll be like bummed out or anxious

00:48:35.880 | for whatever reason, you don't know why, right?

00:48:37.440 | So we cannot control it all.

00:48:39.480 | And so I think that's helpful

00:48:41.280 | 'cause the allure of the maximizing pattern

00:48:45.400 | is like, well, if I could just nail

00:48:47.120 | the right combo of external factors out there,

00:48:50.000 | I'm gonna get the perfect day, the perfect trip,

00:48:52.680 | the perfect experience.

00:48:53.680 | And that unconsciously is thinking,

00:48:56.000 | perfect means all pleasure, no pain,

00:48:58.580 | all good times, no frustrating moments.

00:49:02.200 | And when you say, you know what,

00:49:03.760 | this amazing hotel is gonna have some great things about it

00:49:06.260 | and there's gonna be something at this hotel

00:49:08.080 | that I don't like, even if it's the best price,

00:49:10.480 | best deal, best everything.

00:49:12.200 | And this one also over here is gonna have some great things

00:49:15.440 | and some things that I don't like.

00:49:16.640 | So I'm gonna do, I would put a cap on it too.

00:49:19.520 | I'm gonna do a couple, I'm gonna do 10 minutes of research

00:49:22.580 | to make sure I'm not like going to some total dump, right?

00:49:25.920 | But then look, these things,

00:49:28.120 | they're basically gonna give me the same.

00:49:30.380 | Every path is gonna be a mixture.

00:49:32.220 | And when you see that, when you really get that,

00:49:35.280 | all of a sudden the back and forth

00:49:36.740 | doesn't have the same urgency

00:49:38.820 | because ultimately it's all gonna be a basket

00:49:41.760 | of pleasure and pain.

00:49:42.600 | You might say, no, no, no,

00:49:43.420 | but if I pick the right one,

00:49:44.260 | it'll have a higher percentage of pleasure over pain.

00:49:49.020 | And yes, maybe, but you generally don't have the data

00:49:54.020 | to know that it's in the future.

00:49:57.460 | - Yeah, I almost think it's trying to avoid the pain

00:50:00.460 | of making the wrong choice

00:50:02.160 | than have the joy of making the right choice.

00:50:04.980 | - Interesting, right?

00:50:06.540 | And how do you know it's the wrong choice?

00:50:08.780 | - Yeah, I mean, that's probably why it takes so long

00:50:11.300 | to make a decision 'cause there's no criteria to know that.

00:50:14.060 | - I think the wrong choice would be

00:50:15.620 | you're in that future moment

00:50:17.140 | and something happens that's unpleasant.

00:50:19.860 | - Yeah.

00:50:20.700 | - And you say, ah, you see, I made the wrong choice.

00:50:22.980 | And it's this fantasy world where if I chose the other one,

00:50:26.900 | I would have nothing unpleasant happen.

00:50:29.620 | But then no matter where you go,

00:50:31.220 | you have unpleasant stuff happen.

00:50:33.540 | And then it's like, I need to decide harder next time.

00:50:37.180 | And so when you really embrace that mixture of stuff,

00:50:42.220 | it's so relaxing, it's so relieving, I think,

00:50:44.860 | 'cause we're trying to avoid

00:50:46.780 | these inevitables of life through...

00:50:49.180 | And if you just, all it takes, I think,

00:50:51.820 | is just to observe that pattern from start to finish.

00:50:54.100 | Okay, I'm maximizing on the hotel thing.

00:50:55.860 | All right, let me just pick one.

00:50:58.100 | And this is where bold action comes in.

00:51:00.140 | So for the maximizing habit,

00:51:02.340 | the bold action is to set a cap

00:51:04.940 | and decide within whatever the decision is

00:51:07.340 | a reasonable amount of time.

00:51:08.180 | So a trip or something like that, pretty quick, you know?

00:51:11.260 | It could be deciding on where we wanna go

00:51:14.980 | from just one conversation, one feeling.

00:51:17.220 | Okay, let's do this, right?

00:51:18.340 | And then picking the accommodations,

00:51:19.980 | maybe you set aside an hour

00:51:21.340 | and just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang 'em all out.

00:51:23.940 | And you know, here's the funny thing.

00:51:26.060 | Let's say you get someplace that really sucks.

00:51:27.660 | So I was down in San Diego.

00:51:30.060 | My wife was getting some medical thing done down there.

00:51:32.420 | And we were there for, we said,

00:51:33.700 | "Oh, we'll spend a week down there at the same time."

00:51:35.660 | We get this Airbnb.

00:51:36.900 | I pick the Airbnb.

00:51:38.940 | Maybe similar to your, we should probably,

00:51:41.020 | I do like no maximizing, which is a problem.

00:51:44.980 | So we go there and to be fair,

00:51:47.580 | they had it listed as a beach view.

00:51:49.860 | There was no beach view, so that was a misrepresentation.

00:51:52.620 | But we get there and the place is just real tiny

00:51:55.420 | and cramped and dirty

00:51:56.660 | and some things that I could not have predicted.

00:51:58.980 | And there was no view.

00:52:00.060 | And it got real, real fast.

00:52:03.060 | My first time at Airbnb experience

00:52:04.420 | where we messaged the person who was hosting

00:52:06.900 | and she got real like aggressive and crazy

00:52:09.460 | and just started saying these crazy threatening things.

00:52:11.460 | So then I had to get Airbnb support involved.

00:52:14.100 | And there's this illusion that Airbnb is like this company

00:52:17.020 | that's gonna like take care of you.

00:52:18.220 | And it's just like some support dude in India

00:52:19.980 | who's like, "Let's see what I can do."

00:52:22.220 | Anyway, we ended up having to leave, like dramatically.

00:52:24.780 | It was like, we had to get out

00:52:26.220 | within 15 minutes to not be charged.

00:52:28.860 | And so we're hustling out of there.

00:52:30.020 | She's sending these like threatening texts

00:52:32.060 | and then we leave.

00:52:33.540 | And you might say, "Wow, what a terrible, bad experience."

00:52:37.020 | It ended up that we found another place

00:52:39.620 | that the guy was amazing and the spot was way better

00:52:43.780 | and it was cheaper.

00:52:45.540 | And so I think that's a really helpful thing

00:52:47.100 | to remember as well is, but what if this happens?

00:52:50.340 | Well, what if that does happen?

00:52:51.900 | And then it leads to something extraordinary.

00:52:55.060 | And you wouldn't get the extraordinary

00:52:57.620 | if that challenge didn't happen.

00:52:59.580 | - It's funny 'cause my example of this

00:53:01.220 | is the exact same example, which is,

00:53:03.740 | when we went to London, we had this horrible Airbnb

00:53:06.980 | and the host, we had problems and we surfaced the problems

00:53:10.700 | and they told us we have to leave

00:53:12.020 | and we got Airbnb support,

00:53:13.700 | like literally the exact same thing.

00:53:15.380 | And then Airbnb, where it deviated

00:53:18.340 | was Airbnb support was incredibly helpful

00:53:20.900 | and booked us a place that costs twice as much

00:53:23.380 | but didn't charge us any extra.

00:53:25.420 | And we ended up staying at this ridiculously amazing place

00:53:29.140 | that I still think about because they had this kid's room,

00:53:33.580 | it was like a Harry Potter themed room with a train bed

00:53:36.260 | and a little tree reading nook

00:53:39.140 | and they turned the radiator into a castle, it was crazy.

00:53:42.980 | But it was really awesome.

00:53:43.900 | And that experience wouldn't have happened

00:53:46.380 | had we not picked the crappy Airbnb.

00:53:50.100 | - Right?

00:53:51.300 | So what if you really internalize that and said,

00:53:54.260 | "Hey," it's like talking to yourself, you're like,

00:53:55.780 | "Hey, the unexpected, the problems

00:54:00.060 | can actually lead to extraordinary."

00:54:03.500 | And I think when we really get that,

00:54:05.260 | now we're talking about something that,

00:54:07.100 | if we were to go way back

00:54:07.940 | to the beginning of this conversation,

00:54:09.060 | how do you define confidence?

00:54:10.980 | Well, after I've been doing this for like 20 years now,

00:54:12.900 | I started my own self-confidence at age 20, I'm 40 now.

00:54:15.660 | But there's like self, your confidence for yourself,

00:54:19.460 | I can handle whatever happens.

00:54:20.720 | But I discovered that there's a cap on that.

00:54:22.620 | Like how joyful and awesome our lives can be,

00:54:26.820 | there's a ceiling on self-confidence.

00:54:28.700 | And to go higher into really thriving in life,

00:54:32.080 | I think we need to have confidence

00:54:33.380 | in something beyond ourselves,

00:54:35.260 | whatever you wanna put in that box, I don't care.

00:54:37.740 | But that's the kind of belief that's tapped into that.

00:54:40.620 | Hey, even out of the challenging experience,

00:54:42.700 | something extraordinary is gonna come.

00:54:44.580 | And that's a beautiful example of that.

00:54:45.980 | And you have that memory for the rest of your life, right?

00:54:47.740 | It's like a little reminder

00:54:50.180 | so that the next time you're sitting down

00:54:51.260 | to book something and you're like,

00:54:52.740 | just like, whoa, whoa, I'm maximizing.

00:54:54.740 | I'm gonna give myself three minutes,

00:54:56.260 | pick a thing and who knows,

00:54:58.140 | it's gonna lead to extraordinary.

00:54:59.460 | - I love it.

00:55:00.300 | I wanna come back, well, I've been thinking

00:55:02.020 | ever since we stopped talking about social freedom,

00:55:03.900 | there's something that's been resonating in my mind,

00:55:06.260 | which is all of these kind of social obligations

00:55:09.740 | that my wife and I always look at each other,

00:55:11.180 | we're like, gosh, I don't wanna do that thing.

00:55:12.340 | And she's like, yeah, I don't wanna do that thing.

00:55:13.820 | But because this friend invited us this thing

00:55:16.700 | or this family member said we have to go to this thing

00:55:19.260 | and we kind of have to do it and we don't wanna do it.

00:55:23.300 | It does that play in there?

00:55:24.740 | And is social freedom truly being able to tell your friend

00:55:27.380 | or your family member, it's like,

00:55:28.500 | hey, we don't actually wanna hang out with you.

00:55:30.220 | So we're not gonna do like,

00:55:32.620 | I know you've written a book called "Not Nice".

00:55:34.220 | So like, how does this all come together

00:55:36.340 | in situations like this to be able to actually

00:55:39.580 | do the things we want with our lives

00:55:41.180 | and be happy and live our lives,

00:55:43.300 | but not make everyone around us think we're assholes?

00:55:47.180 | - Well, definitely tell them just like that.

00:55:49.420 | I just don't wanna hang out with you, period, full stop.

00:55:52.140 | No, I think, okay, there is really tuning in

00:55:57.140 | and asking yourself, what do I or in the case,

00:56:00.020 | maybe you and your wife, what do we really want?

00:56:01.540 | Or maybe it's what do I want, what do you want?

00:56:02.940 | Let's really get clear on that.

00:56:04.660 | And a lot of people don't even let themselves discover that

00:56:07.380 | because that's bad to not wanna go

00:56:08.540 | to your uncle's friends reunions thing, right?

00:56:10.580 | It's like, how bad of me, what a bad nephew and son I am.

00:56:13.980 | So, but just in the safety of your own brain

00:56:17.300 | and maybe with your partner, it's like,

00:56:18.500 | hey, what do I really want?

00:56:20.380 | I don't wanna go to that thing.

00:56:21.220 | You wanna go, I don't wanna go to that thing.

00:56:23.140 | Okay, and just give space to that.

00:56:25.820 | That sounds so simple, but most people don't.

00:56:27.340 | And they're just an override, override.

00:56:29.140 | Sometimes just airing it and hearing that part of you

00:56:31.700 | is like, ah, that feels good.

00:56:33.580 | Then you actually have a choice there.

00:56:35.340 | It's like the cold plunge.

00:56:37.140 | I don't wanna go to the cold plunge,

00:56:39.020 | but I do because here's why.

00:56:41.060 | And just tune in.

00:56:41.900 | Is that true in this situation?

00:56:44.180 | So I don't, look, when it comes to going on a trip

00:56:48.020 | and so Christmas time,

00:56:49.780 | we go visit my wife's side of the family.

00:56:52.580 | And I love her side of the family.

00:56:54.140 | And when it's like travel and this and that,

00:56:57.180 | it's like driving there and packing everything up

00:56:59.100 | and then staying in their place.

00:57:00.500 | Some part of me is like, ah, there's a lot of work.

00:57:02.420 | I don't know, just go without me.

00:57:03.820 | I'll just stay home, that's fine.

00:57:05.620 | But then I tune in.

00:57:06.500 | I'm like, what do I, what do I?

00:57:08.300 | Yes, there's a part of me, it's like, it's easier,

00:57:10.060 | but what do I really want?

00:57:11.820 | And it's like, oh, I really want to be a part

00:57:14.180 | and connected with my wife, with family.

00:57:17.380 | And so I'm gonna endure some of the discomforts

00:57:20.540 | because I ultimately do want,

00:57:23.220 | I value and prioritizing or optimizing

00:57:26.300 | for connection and deep relationships.

00:57:29.140 | But that doesn't mean I go to everything

00:57:31.300 | and every function and every person's thing.

00:57:33.140 | So we have to have that choice of like,

00:57:35.820 | what are the relationships

00:57:37.540 | that I want to really nourish and invest in?

00:57:40.020 | And it does involve saying no

00:57:42.220 | to a good percentage of things.

00:57:44.980 | And doing so in a warm and loving way,

00:57:50.260 | thank you for letting me know.

00:57:52.060 | I'm not gonna be able to make it to that.

00:57:53.700 | You don't have to give a ton of reasons.

00:57:54.540 | I got to take the kids to the dentist.

00:57:56.140 | You know, it's like, no, I'm not, I'm not available.

00:57:58.020 | I'm not gonna be able to make that.

00:57:58.980 | Thank you so much for thinking of me.

00:58:00.100 | I hope you have a great time.

00:58:01.620 | But do know that, you know, there are,

00:58:05.020 | there's a kind of a social currency

00:58:07.620 | that if you have a friend

00:58:08.740 | who's always inviting you to things

00:58:10.060 | and you always say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:58:12.580 | Then when you invite them,

00:58:13.900 | they might not be a yes, right?

00:58:15.300 | Like there's a certain investment.

00:58:18.340 | But the question is just

00:58:19.220 | where do you want to put that investment?

00:58:20.620 | And some friends you want to invest a lot with,

00:58:22.940 | some you're like, oh, I'll see him once in a while.

00:58:25.860 | And some honestly, if it's mainly obligation,

00:58:30.060 | it's time to let it go.

00:58:31.860 | - Yeah, I think sometimes it's,

00:58:33.940 | I've already let it go

00:58:35.220 | and there's people that just keep asking

00:58:37.340 | and you're like, what's the polite way to say,

00:58:40.340 | I don't want to go to this

00:58:41.260 | and feel free to not invite me ever again.

00:58:44.500 | I haven't figured out the nice way to do that.

00:58:45.980 | - Well, I think just a simple, like, thanks for the invite.

00:58:48.220 | I'm, you know, I'm not available.

00:58:49.900 | And just like, if you do that, I mean, first of all,

00:58:52.540 | I'd be at some point there that it'll extinguish,

00:58:55.100 | I'd imagine, right?

00:58:55.940 | It was just continually no.

00:58:58.020 | At some point they'll be like, he's not available.

00:59:00.060 | But I mean, you could, that's the next level

00:59:02.100 | that would be kind of like just being more direct and real.

00:59:05.260 | And that's, hey, look,

00:59:06.580 | I always tell people life is a choose your own adventure.

00:59:08.660 | You might say, I can't be that guy.

00:59:09.820 | That's an asshole thing to do.

00:59:11.460 | Well, I mean, just go back to what you said

00:59:13.460 | about being bold.

00:59:14.300 | Like there are times where I think it took me a while

00:59:17.620 | to get the courage to tell people

00:59:18.860 | that I don't have time in my life to do a thing.

00:59:21.460 | And I felt like I was being the asshole.

00:59:24.380 | And especially with work obligations and responding emails.

00:59:28.060 | And I was having a conversation

00:59:29.980 | or maybe I was preparing for a conversation

00:59:31.660 | with Derek Sivers, who had said, you know,

00:59:35.140 | I like to tell people I don't have time.

00:59:37.420 | And when I got his email at one point where he was like,

00:59:39.380 | I might not respond to this.

00:59:40.940 | There's a lot of stuff going on in my life.

00:59:42.180 | And I'm really trying to focus on the things

00:59:43.620 | that are the most important.

00:59:44.460 | And right now, you know,

00:59:45.900 | spending time with my kids is most important.

00:59:47.260 | I was like, I'm not mad that you told me

00:59:49.500 | you can't reply to my email.

00:59:50.700 | I'm actually jealous that you're like able to.

00:59:53.340 | So it had this effect.

00:59:54.580 | So maybe the answer to use the same set of habits here

00:59:58.620 | is you might think you're being an asshole by saying that,

01:00:01.540 | but maybe you're not.

01:00:02.740 | Maybe it won't actually be interpreted in that way.

01:00:05.940 | - Yes, you know, it sounds like he communicated

01:00:08.540 | with some vulnerability or transparency there, right?

01:00:11.820 | Like he shared, it wasn't just like, fuck off.

01:00:13.460 | I don't have time for you, right?

01:00:14.740 | It was like, you know, hey, this is what's going on for me.

01:00:16.780 | And so that's a great way to do it.

01:00:18.100 | It's like the sort of the technique

01:00:19.660 | or the communication style.

01:00:21.380 | But here's the thing.

01:00:22.220 | I think this is the biggest part of social freedom.

01:00:24.740 | Are you an asshole or not is based upon,

01:00:30.020 | it's in the eye of the beholder.

01:00:32.500 | So if you're bad in your mind, that's the biggest problem.

01:00:36.580 | If you're not allowed, it goes against your,

01:00:38.620 | I call this your personal bill of rights.

01:00:40.340 | You might not have a right to say,

01:00:41.900 | no, I'm not available for that.

01:00:43.580 | You might not have a right to not respond to all the emails.

01:00:47.100 | And as long as you don't have that right,

01:00:49.540 | 'cause you haven't claimed it, you're gonna feel guilty.

01:00:51.980 | You're gonna feel stressed.

01:00:52.980 | You may even feel irritated at them.

01:00:54.260 | How dare you ask me?

01:00:55.620 | 'Cause it's now I feel guilty.

01:00:58.420 | And if we have a right, like I have a right.

01:01:00.140 | So in my personal bill of rights,

01:01:01.180 | I have a right to not respond to all emails.

01:01:04.340 | Because in this day and age,

01:01:05.340 | if you feel pressure to reply to all your emails,

01:01:07.420 | like good God, that's...

01:01:08.740 | And the more emails you reply to, the more emails they are.

01:01:11.380 | It's like they multiply.

01:01:12.900 | And so I'm just, I'll reply to a lot of,

01:01:15.980 | some of the emails of my clients.

01:01:17.940 | I'll try to get back to a lot of them,

01:01:19.060 | but not everybody, not all the time.

01:01:21.100 | And that's just...

01:01:22.460 | And so someone out there sometimes might think

01:01:25.340 | that Aziz guy, he's an asshole

01:01:27.900 | 'cause he didn't do X for me.

01:01:29.900 | And you know what?

01:01:31.380 | That's okay.

01:01:32.300 | And if we're operating in life

01:01:34.780 | where no one must ever think that of me,

01:01:37.420 | then you're gonna be in a pretzel position

01:01:40.540 | faster than you can imagine.

01:01:41.860 | And it's unsustainable and it's not you.

01:01:45.860 | So really finding that permission

01:01:47.580 | to not do the things that you truly don't wanna do.

01:01:51.460 | And then that's certainly bold action, by the way.

01:01:53.580 | - Yeah, let's go back to this bill of rights

01:01:54.820 | because when I talked to Ramit Sethi about money,

01:01:59.540 | he has this Ramit's money rules.

01:02:01.620 | And they just like really simplify

01:02:03.340 | his decision-making about things

01:02:04.900 | 'cause he just took the uncertainty out of it.

01:02:07.020 | So he says, "If someone is raising money for charity,

01:02:10.540 | I always give money.

01:02:11.860 | If I fly for more than five hours or whatever the number is,

01:02:15.140 | I always fly business class."

01:02:16.420 | And it just makes it super simple

01:02:17.860 | 'cause he's thought about the decision abstractly

01:02:21.300 | from actually having to make it.

01:02:23.140 | It's like, I always buy books.

01:02:24.820 | Like if I wanna learn something

01:02:26.020 | and a book might have the answer, I always buy it.

01:02:28.020 | I never stress out if it's $10 or $12 or 20,

01:02:30.180 | I just always buy it.

01:02:31.220 | Talk about this bill of rights

01:02:33.140 | 'cause it seems like something that I

01:02:35.340 | and maybe everyone listening would benefit from having.

01:02:38.100 | - Yes, and we all have one.

01:02:40.780 | It just, it might be a very short list of rights

01:02:44.420 | or it might be a long list of rights.

01:02:46.180 | The more socially not free you are,

01:02:48.420 | the more you're in the cage,

01:02:49.820 | the shorter your bill of rights.

01:02:51.460 | A bill of rights is just a statement of permissions.

01:02:54.580 | I'm allowed to, I have a right to.

01:02:57.420 | And you'll know what's in your bill of rights

01:02:59.540 | based on how you feel and what you do.

01:03:01.900 | So do I have a right to say no

01:03:03.740 | to that person requesting I come to their thing?

01:03:06.500 | Well, did you say yes when you didn't wanna go?

01:03:09.900 | Then you might not have a right

01:03:10.740 | that says I get to say no to people's requests,

01:03:13.780 | people's invitations.

01:03:15.300 | You might have, and this gets,

01:03:17.540 | you might say, I have a right to repeatedly say no

01:03:22.100 | to someone's requests, right?

01:03:23.780 | That's a different thing.

01:03:25.300 | And here's some core ones that I encourage people to adopt

01:03:28.100 | and make sure they have on their bill of rights, right?

01:03:29.940 | Like I have a right to ask for what I want.

01:03:32.660 | I have a right to say no.

01:03:37.420 | I have a right to approach anyone,

01:03:42.300 | whether that's virtually or in person.

01:03:45.180 | Doesn't mean they wanna talk to you,

01:03:46.820 | but if you stop yourself

01:03:49.380 | before you even allow the opening or the approach,

01:03:54.700 | you're gonna limit your life significantly

01:03:56.580 | and people have all kinds of stories.

01:03:57.700 | Oh, I'm gonna bother them.

01:03:58.740 | Oh, hey, I don't know.

01:04:00.540 | Maybe they'll be bothered.

01:04:01.380 | Maybe they won't.

01:04:02.220 | Let's find out.

01:04:03.260 | In the case of the person wanting to hire you

01:04:05.580 | for your services, right?

01:04:06.540 | I have a right to ask for whatever fee I want

01:04:10.380 | for my services, whatever feels right.

01:04:12.660 | And so the longer, and actually it's an exercise.

01:04:15.260 | It's very much worth doing.

01:04:16.500 | And I do it with clients,

01:04:17.660 | like have them sit down and like, well, write it out.

01:04:20.140 | It doesn't have to be perfect.

01:04:22.140 | What would feel empowering to you?

01:04:25.260 | What as you write it,

01:04:26.140 | you're kind of nodding your head being like, yeah, all right.

01:04:29.420 | And then just come up with a list of five, 10,

01:04:32.660 | and this is your like a nation

01:04:36.380 | that has a bill of rights for its people.

01:04:38.300 | This is your bill of rights for you.

01:04:40.740 | And those must first be written

01:04:43.060 | and then they have to be practiced.

01:04:44.540 | Otherwise, they're just flowery language on paper.

01:04:47.580 | You're not actually doing them.

01:04:48.740 | - Are there a few more examples you can give

01:04:50.220 | to inspire people as they're hopefully thinking

01:04:52.500 | about what would be on theirs?

01:04:54.380 | - Yeah, I mean, I think one thing to break it down

01:04:55.940 | is just think of the different areas of your life, right?

01:04:57.780 | So you think about in your relationship,

01:04:59.940 | your romantic relationship, right?

01:05:01.940 | I have a right to tell my partner

01:05:08.540 | when something's bothering me.

01:05:10.120 | And now it might sound real simple,

01:05:12.780 | but a lot of people shy away.

01:05:14.940 | I don't wanna upset them.

01:05:15.900 | I don't wanna bother them.

01:05:17.340 | I have a right to, oh, here's a...

01:05:20.740 | This one I had to add to my bill of rights.

01:05:22.820 | It's a doozy.

01:05:24.060 | I have a right to disappoint people.

01:05:26.040 | Particularly, I have a right to disappoint my partner.

01:05:30.780 | - Let's talk about that, yeah.

01:05:32.620 | - Well, that one was like,

01:05:33.660 | I would be running around in my whole life

01:05:35.580 | trying not to disappoint anybody.

01:05:37.060 | I don't wanna have anyone be let down.

01:05:39.260 | And look, it's great to be connected with your spouse

01:05:42.540 | and not just constantly not give a crap

01:05:46.100 | and disappoint them all over the place, sure.

01:05:47.860 | But no matter how loving you're trying to be,

01:05:52.180 | how generous you're trying to be,

01:05:54.100 | if you're being authentic and true to what you really want,

01:05:57.060 | sometimes you're gonna disappoint them.

01:05:59.100 | They want you to go to that thing and you don't wanna go.

01:06:01.060 | They wanna have time to connect with you,

01:06:03.260 | but you are unavailable for whatever reason.

01:06:06.340 | And so being able to say no

01:06:11.380 | and then withstand that discomfort

01:06:16.380 | of someone is disappointed in me.

01:06:18.140 | And the reason I created that bill of right for myself

01:06:19.820 | is 'cause I lived with this kind of

01:06:20.860 | chronic background anxiety

01:06:22.740 | that someone somewhere was gonna be disappointed with me.

01:06:25.580 | And so just to be like, yeah, I have a right.

01:06:27.700 | Sometimes people are disappointed with me

01:06:29.060 | and I have a right to do that sometimes.

01:06:31.380 | And really resting on that, that's what it feels like.

01:06:33.940 | It feels like you can rest on your bill of rights

01:06:36.260 | and like all is well.

01:06:37.300 | Like I'm allowed to do that.

01:06:38.860 | And it's almost like teaching a child,

01:06:43.140 | like, hey, you're allowed to do this,

01:06:44.620 | but we kind of have to do that for our own selves now.

01:06:46.940 | So you can look at that relationship life,

01:06:49.140 | look at inside of your career and your work.

01:06:50.780 | What are you unique to your thing?

01:06:52.500 | I have a right to ask a question in a meeting.

01:06:56.140 | I have a right to disagree with somebody.

01:06:58.860 | That's a big one.

01:06:59.900 | And you can think about it socially too, right?

01:07:01.660 | Like this is a great one.

01:07:03.180 | I have a right to change the subject of a conversation.

01:07:07.180 | 'Cause nice people can get trapped on the rails, right?

01:07:10.940 | Oh, we're talking about their thing.

01:07:12.300 | I don't want to talk.

01:07:13.140 | How do I get out of this?

01:07:13.980 | And then they pause for a minute.

01:07:16.020 | And because you don't have a right to change a subject,

01:07:18.260 | instead of changing the subject, you say,

01:07:19.940 | hmm, tell me more.

01:07:22.540 | And then the conversation keeps going and you're trapped,

01:07:25.140 | right?

01:07:25.980 | I lived in that one for a long time.

01:07:26.820 | So I have a right to change the subject.

01:07:27.820 | Ooh, here's a good one.

01:07:28.780 | I have a right to interrupt people, right?

01:07:30.740 | 'Cause sometimes you're talking to someone

01:07:31.980 | and they're going on and on and on.

01:07:34.100 | And you say, hey, I want to ask you something.

01:07:36.500 | That's a great technique for interrupting, by the way.

01:07:38.540 | As if it just came to you.

01:07:39.980 | Hey, right in the middle of their sentence.

01:07:42.340 | Blah, blah, blah.

01:07:43.180 | Hey, I just thought of something.

01:07:44.500 | I wanted to ask you something.

01:07:45.660 | And then boom, you can steer it a new direction.

01:07:48.540 | - Yeah, wow.

01:07:49.820 | So many things.

01:07:50.660 | Okay, you mentioned last thing.

01:07:51.860 | You talked about relationships.

01:07:53.580 | You have kids.

01:07:55.420 | I have younger kids.

01:07:57.380 | I feel like what I've taken away from this

01:07:59.860 | is that there's virtually no reason

01:08:02.980 | that confidence wouldn't be a skill to improve for anyone.

01:08:06.700 | How, as parents, should we think about this

01:08:09.700 | and helping our kids have confidence?

01:08:12.060 | - Yeah, I love it.

01:08:12.900 | I'd say the biggest transmission to children,

01:08:16.460 | hands bar none, is modeling.

01:08:18.740 | They're going to observe you all the time.

01:08:23.180 | They're gonna replicate your style of speaking,

01:08:26.940 | your belief systems, your attitudes toward the world.

01:08:30.300 | Later on, they'll rebel and they'll adopt their new,

01:08:33.020 | you know, they'll kind of create their own views.

01:08:34.740 | But as young, they're gonna really model you.

01:08:36.980 | And so show them is much bigger than telling them.

01:08:41.980 | So you might say, ah, just go out there and do it.

01:08:44.420 | What are you afraid of?

01:08:45.580 | There's no monsters in your room.

01:08:47.260 | Come on.

01:08:48.380 | But are you boldly approaching the things in your life?

01:08:52.060 | You might say, well, they don't see me at work.

01:08:53.740 | Doesn't matter, doesn't matter.

01:08:55.260 | They just, they pick up on you

01:08:56.900 | and your essence in the world.

01:08:58.140 | So practice these things yourself.

01:09:00.980 | And then I love to look for little opportunities

01:09:04.300 | to like teach them through games and practice.

01:09:06.700 | So down our, we live out in the country and down our road,

01:09:11.700 | there's this like a big plot of land that was clear cut.

01:09:15.580 | And there's a trail that goes through it.

01:09:17.460 | And it ends at this creek and then the trail continues,

01:09:21.940 | but you have to jaunt onto someone's property briefly

01:09:24.820 | for the trail, and then you go back onto the trail.

01:09:27.100 | And every time I go down there, I'm like,

01:09:28.700 | I wonder where that trail goes.

01:09:30.180 | But you know, just going on people's land

01:09:32.140 | randomly out here, nah, not that, you know,

01:09:35.060 | I don't know if that's one of the social freedoms

01:09:36.500 | I wanna break, right?

01:09:37.380 | So I'm like, I'm there with my son and he's seven.

01:09:41.300 | And I'm like, you know, let's go to the guy's house

01:09:43.740 | and ask him if we can just walk on the edge of his property

01:09:46.420 | and keep going on the trail.

01:09:48.020 | And my seven year old's like, no, I don't wanna,

01:09:52.020 | I'm scared, right?

01:09:53.620 | And so here's what I do, and this is intentional.

01:09:56.300 | We're walking side by side on our way

01:09:57.900 | to where we would ask the guy and I hold his hand.

01:10:00.700 | So I'm transmitting a message of like safety,

01:10:03.260 | like we're okay, we're together.

01:10:05.460 | And that's what we would do with the part inside of us

01:10:07.500 | before the action that's like, ah, I'm freaking out.

01:10:09.820 | You like, you don't tell yourself like,

01:10:11.380 | stop being a coward, you suck, right?

01:10:13.660 | No, we're treating yourself like someone you love,

01:10:16.540 | almost on my own side.

01:10:18.420 | And so I grab his hand and I'm like, oh, are you afraid?

01:10:22.380 | And he's like, yeah.

01:10:23.580 | And then this really struck me.

01:10:24.740 | He's like, wait, isn't this what you do for work, dad?

01:10:28.940 | Help people that are afraid.

01:10:30.700 | And I was like, as a matter of fact, it is what I do.

01:10:32.980 | So here's what we do.

01:10:34.620 | How about we ask them?

01:10:36.180 | And the worst that he could say is no.

01:10:37.700 | So I'm just modeling for him to bold action.

01:10:40.340 | Then I let him change the level of weight, right?

01:10:44.580 | So he gets, starts getting more scary.

01:10:45.980 | He's like, I don't wanna ask.

01:10:47.060 | I was like, well, how about I go to the front door

01:10:49.620 | and you just stay back and you can watch me,

01:10:52.460 | but you don't have to be there.

01:10:54.020 | And he's like, okay.

01:10:55.380 | So I titrated it for him as opposed to like forcing him.

01:10:58.420 | 'Cause if you try to force them

01:10:59.460 | to do what they're scared of,

01:11:00.900 | that doesn't build the confidence, right?

01:11:04.940 | 'Cause they're not taking the efficacy.

01:11:06.580 | So I let him hang back, but modeling, watch me.

01:11:10.100 | So I knock on this guy's door, this old man opens the door.

01:11:12.500 | He's like, it's already going bad.

01:11:14.740 | When he opens the door, he's like, can I help you?

01:11:18.220 | And I was like, well, just on the edge of the trail,

01:11:23.220 | can we go to the land?

01:11:24.060 | And he's like, no, that's our land back there too.

01:11:27.100 | We like to keep it private.

01:11:28.580 | And then I said, okay,

01:11:31.220 | but even if we just go right along the edge,

01:11:34.380 | would that be okay?

01:11:35.380 | And he's like, no, we wanna keep it private.

01:11:38.060 | I was like, all right, that's fine.

01:11:39.220 | And then, so we walk away and we're walking back

01:11:41.940 | and my seven-year-old's like, why did you ask him again?

01:11:44.740 | And I said, you always wanna ask twice,

01:11:48.380 | just in case you miss something,

01:11:50.700 | maybe you could offer a new idea.

01:11:53.020 | And he said, he's like, but he said no twice.

01:11:55.060 | And I was like, yeah, well, that's what happens.

01:11:57.380 | But if you get a no, you can always ask one more time

01:12:00.420 | 'cause maybe they'll change their mind.

01:12:02.180 | And so that's a little bit of like teaching and modeling.

01:12:04.460 | And look, I'm playing a long game on this.

01:12:06.060 | This doesn't mean tomorrow he goes and applies all this,

01:12:09.300 | you know, but I have space and he's shy.

01:12:12.700 | Both of them are, especially him, is a little new people

01:12:15.860 | and I don't push him like, you gotta do it.

01:12:18.060 | It's more just like creating this spacious,

01:12:20.700 | really long game modeling and knowing that over time,

01:12:25.220 | he'll find his confidence and highlighting his strength.

01:12:29.460 | And then one last thing I'll say,

01:12:30.580 | which I mean, maybe you do this as a,

01:12:32.900 | yours are kind of young, so they might not,

01:12:35.420 | this language might not mean a lot to them,

01:12:36.940 | but my kids age seven and nine,

01:12:39.300 | just telling them that you're proud of them,

01:12:42.080 | but not only when they like score the goal and get the A,

01:12:48.100 | but just like, we're sitting there, we're eating breakfast

01:12:50.260 | and I just put my arm around one of them and was like,

01:12:51.580 | hey, I love you, I'm proud of you.

01:12:53.900 | And I don't have to explain why.

01:12:56.220 | And you just see them, they're just like their top button,

01:12:58.540 | like, hmm, you know, they feel 10 feet tall.

01:13:03.140 | And why am I doing that?

01:13:04.460 | Because we just have this negative toxic critic

01:13:08.740 | in most of us where it's not,

01:13:10.560 | maybe it's not tearing you down to the bottom of confidence,

01:13:13.360 | but it's like, it's doing a little bit

01:13:15.760 | of who do you think you are?

01:13:17.280 | You haven't done enough yet.

01:13:19.380 | And just letting them know that they can feel proud

01:13:21.980 | of themselves without even achieving,

01:13:24.940 | going to the moon or not,

01:13:26.740 | can really build this core sense of,

01:13:29.100 | I'm on my own side and I'm worthy.

01:13:30.780 | - I love it.

01:13:32.460 | Yeah, I mean, one year old's not really learning

01:13:35.500 | a lot of these lessons, but at three,

01:13:38.100 | I think there's a, she was trying to climb this ladder

01:13:41.140 | at this birthday party.

01:13:42.380 | And I think I probably, I have a different approach

01:13:44.660 | to how I might've taken that now

01:13:46.980 | than trying to tell her she could do it,

01:13:48.420 | even I knew she could do it, but she didn't.

01:13:50.860 | And I have some new ideas that I'll take care of.

01:13:53.700 | - One thing is like, oh, you want me to hold your hand

01:13:56.100 | while you do it?

01:13:56.940 | Like you kind of find the, like,

01:13:58.700 | is there any way that I could be an aid

01:14:01.740 | in getting you to do it?

01:14:03.180 | - That's what we do on the slide.

01:14:04.400 | When there were some steep slides,

01:14:05.700 | she was like, I don't want to do it.

01:14:06.540 | I was like, do you want to hold hands?

01:14:07.360 | No, do you want me to come up and go with you?

01:14:08.740 | Yeah, like just giving various alternatives.

01:14:10.580 | - Did you find one that clicked?

01:14:12.140 | - Yes.

01:14:13.380 | And now she's like, I don't want your hand.

01:14:14.780 | Now she doesn't want my hand.

01:14:16.140 | - There you go.

01:14:16.980 | Make sure that if you encourage them to do the thing though,

01:14:19.020 | and they don't, that you yell shame at them

01:14:22.340 | until they're crying.

01:14:23.260 | That's the, no, no, I'm just kidding.

01:14:26.140 | And one last thing I'll say for your kids age one and three

01:14:28.420 | and anyone you're listening,

01:14:29.260 | I mean, even at this age, seven and nine that I have,

01:14:31.180 | but one and three, man,

01:14:33.340 | I just think give yourself a lot of credit.

01:14:35.580 | I mean, you're spending time with them.

01:14:37.460 | You're being on the playground with the slide.

01:14:41.360 | I mean, I remember when my kids were that year,

01:14:42.580 | part of me loved it and part of me was like,

01:14:45.540 | this day is going on forever.

01:14:48.020 | I'm so bored, you know?

01:14:50.060 | And just like giving space for that

01:14:52.300 | and knowing that at that age,

01:14:54.180 | the most powerful transmission you can do

01:14:56.620 | is I see you and you matter.

01:15:00.500 | And you're not saying that a thousand times a day,

01:15:01.860 | but just your energy, your attention on them.

01:15:04.000 | And I know in this day and age

01:15:05.340 | where we're all overstimulated and stressed and this,

01:15:07.500 | but just like slowing down,

01:15:08.660 | it doesn't mean 24/7, but just, you know,

01:15:10.580 | you're there a certain amount of hours every day.

01:15:12.180 | Just like, hey, I see you, I'm with you.

01:15:14.340 | It sets this foundation also of like,

01:15:17.380 | I'm worthy of attention.

01:15:18.980 | And I think that's really healthy too for confidence.

01:15:21.940 | - I have a lot of things.

01:15:23.180 | I didn't necessarily feel unconfident coming into this,

01:15:25.660 | but I still want to go and work on a lot of this

01:15:27.660 | and kind of level it up.

01:15:29.420 | So thank you so much.

01:15:30.860 | Where can people go get more from you if they're interested?

01:15:35.300 | - Just go to my website, draziz.com.

01:15:37.300 | That's D-R-A-Z-I-Z.com.

01:15:40.020 | There's a free mini course

01:15:41.980 | about the five steps to build confidence.

01:15:44.860 | And again, this, you don't have to be in the gutter.

01:15:47.100 | As Chris is pointing out, right, this is about optimizing.

01:15:49.260 | So, you know, in there you'll learn key strategies for free.

01:15:53.660 | I also have a podcast called Strength for the Shy Guy,

01:15:55.780 | YouTube channel.

01:15:56.940 | You can look me up there too,

01:15:57.980 | but just lots of free content to take it further.

01:16:00.860 | And anything else you want to learn about my events

01:16:02.900 | or other things are on the website as well.

01:16:04.540 | - Awesome.

01:16:05.380 | Well, thank you so much.

01:16:06.220 | You also got books, lots of stuff.

01:16:08.500 | So thanks for being here.

The Art of Confidence: Find It, Grow It and Use It to Your Advantage

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