And hello to you. It's Friday again. And so welcome to today's special bonus episode, which I do every Friday.

And today, I want to talk briefly about something that touches a lot of lives, and that's shyness.

So this is a short little nudge in the right direction, but if you want the full episode, I've got a longer version available on

Patreon. But for now, let's have a little looking to shyness, shall we? So, shyness is one of those

things that can sneak into our personality and settle in like an old jumper. It can be

comfortable, familiar, but not particularly helpful

when you're trying to make new connections or express yourself. And a lot of people think that

shyness is just a personality type. They'll say, oh, I've always been shy. It's just the way I am. But shyness, like many things,

isn't a permanent trait. It's a behaviour, a reaction to a feeling. So it's actually a habit. And the good

news is the habits can be changed because nobody is born shy. No baby ever

refused attention because they were worried what people thought of their babbling.

Shyness is something we pick up through experience, through fear, through misunderstandings

quite often. Maybe we spoke up once and got laughed at. Maybe we were ignored

or just didn't get the feedback that we needed. Over time, our brains then build a rule,

keep quiet and you'll stay safe. And while it might have helped protect us back then,

it doesn't serve us anymore because it

creates a loop. The fear of being noticed leads to avoidance. Avoidance leads to silence and silence

leads to being overlooked. And being overlooked confirms the belief that we're not worth noticing.

So we stay small. But the real you, the one behind

the shyness, isn't small at all. They're just hiding. So your voice becomes more internal. But that

voice is usually quite the critic. We call it the inner critic, don't we, that says things like,

don't say anything stupid, or they won't like you, or best keep quiet. But that voice isn't

...