Coming to you from the Center for Social Confidence in Portland, Oregon, welcome to shrink for the shy guy, helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination.

With your host, Dr. Raziz.

Hey, welcome to today's show.

Today's episode of shrink for the shy guy is going to be focused on the word no.

That's right.

No, the word that many of us are trying to avoid in our lives, right?

We want to get a yes.

If you ask that person out, you want that person to say yes.

If you apply for a job, you want them to say yes.

Even if you ask to cut in line, you want the person to say yes.

But what about the word? No.

We don't want that word. We don't like that word.

We don't want that experience. We don't want that outcome.

And yet, there is tremendous power in the word no.

Tremendous power, if you can tolerate a no, and if you can move beyond that and actually start to

be comfortable with the word no, to actually even seek the word no out, then your entire life opens up.

And that is one of the main inhibitions or challenges when we're feeling shy or stuck,

is we're afraid to try because we don't want to get a no.

Whether that's a direct no or an indirect no, like the person stops talking to us or someone's going to

judge us. That's sort of a more vague no, but it's still in the camp of no. It's not a yes to who we are

and what we're doing. So oftentimes we'll play small, we'll hold back, we'll inhibit, and we'll say,

okay, I'll put myself out there, I'll put my stuff out there, put my art out there, I'll sing, I'll start that project or that business or tell people what I'm doing.

...