Jordan Peterson simplifies the solution to conquering social anxiety, offering advice on effortlessly overcoming social fears.
Connections, Relationships, Opportunities, Meeting, Engagement, Collaboration, Communication, Skills, Building, Professional, Industry, Contacts, Networking, Mentorship, Social
look Let's say you're socially anxious. Okay, so what happens when you're socially anxious? You go to a party your hearts beating why the party is a monster why cuz it's judging you and it's judging you. It's putting you low-down the doorman has her key cuz that's what a negative judgment is that interferes with your sexual Soul success and that means that you're being partially evaluated by Nature itself. Right? So you are confronting the the dragon of chaos when you go into the social situation and so what are you do you like this might be hunched over and that's low dominance. I'm no threat. Like that's not going to get you very far, you know, but that's a logical thing to do in in the in the face of a tyrant are no threat. You know, you look at the king in your dad. I'm no threat and hunched over and then what's happening internally how it would have people thinking about me what are people thinking about me? Am I looking stupid? Am I looking foolish G's, I'm awkward. I hate being here man. I'm sweating too much. It's all internalized. Right? It's all cell focused. The guy isn't worth the eye. Isn't working. What do you tell people stop? Don't stop thinking about yourself cuz you can't it's like don't think of a white elephant white elephant white elephant whale since you can't tell someone to stop thinking about something because they get caught in a loop. What do you do with socially anxious people as you say look at other people look at them, right? Why if you look at them, you can tell what they're thinking and then you unless you unless you're terribly socialized and some people are some people have no social skills. And so the reason they can't go to a party is cuz they don't even know how to introduce themselves like they're just no one ever taught them how to behave until they're really good. Candidates for behavior therapy, can you walk them through the process of how you actually manifest the procedures that are associated with social acceptability but most people aren't like that they have the ability. So it's a really interesting high in neuroticism. They can usually talk quite well to someone one-on-one why cuz they look at them. When I look at you some other things to do with your ever speaking to a group of people never speak to the group of people and it doesn't exist you talk to individuals and then they reflect for you the entire group cuz they're all been trained to look at one person. They broadcast you what everyone's thinking and you know how to talk to one person so it's easy. So as soon as you focus on the person, not you push your attention outward use your I push your attention outward and you start watching while then all your automatic mechanisms kick in and you stop being awkward cuz if we're talkin and I'm looking here. I don't know what you're going to do next and I'm going to put disjunctions into the like they're like a bad chords in The Melody of our of our conversation. And the reason is I'm not paying attention. So that's why the eye is the thing at the top of the pyramid is like the thing that enables you to win the set of all possible dominance hierarchies is the I pay attention pay attention. That's the critical issue. That's why the Egyptians worshiped Horace. That's why Horus was the thing that rescued Osiris from the from the depths. It's the capacity to pay attention. What do you pay attention to most? What your right hemisphere signal has an armless and it attracts your attention like this is going quite right. I'm not looking at that wrong. That's what you look at. That's what you look at. What's not going right? Because that's see that's the terrible monster that might eat you but it's also the place and get all the information. So that's why it's useful to have discussions with your enemies. Cuz they will tell you things you do not know and that's such a great thing because if you don't know them, well, you're not very smart. Are you you know, there may be a time when you go somewhere this that's the thing you need to know. Maybe your enemy will tell you why you're such a fool in on a bunch of other things that aren't true to but even one thing that's a curious like yeah. Thanks very much man. Maybe I'll do some work on that and I won't have to carry it forward. So and then that's part of the reason again why the terrible Predator it's always the terrible Predator that has the gold. It's like it's a person who delivers the message you do not want to hear so it's rough rough, but it doesn't matter who life is rough.