You may be about to go on a date and think to yourself, “Oof, I feel so nervous.” Or you get invited to a party and wince at the social anxiety of having to start conversations. 

I get that this can feel scary—I’ve been there. 

But it wasn’t until I was able to step out of my old mindset that I realized how much my shyness was holding me back. In today’s video, I share the #1 thing that helped me overcome my shyness . . . something that continues to give me confidence, and allows me to make a big impact in any room despite any nervousness. (Plus it’s something you can start doing today!)

---

MATTHEW HUSSEY

Whether it’s shyness or social anxiety or some combination of the two that is affecting you, I know how painful it can be to find that you don’t get excited about events or times when you’re going to be in a room with other people especially when there’s going to be a lot of people—how it can make you unable to be present and actually enjoy whatever situation you’re in because you’re spending too much time in your head, feeling uneasy, not feeling present at all, having no sense of calm. I know how it can ruin dates, how it can ruin parties, how it can just make everything feel like a really big deal.

So, my aim with this video is to give you something practical that you can use that helped me overcome my shyness and my sense of social anxiety that once I had it worked every single time I stepped into a situation that made me feel anxious. And when you’re able to do that, we start to make a bigger impact on the world and the results we get in the world start to change. That might mean more dates, it might mean attracting love, it might mean being more powerful at work, in a meeting, in a presentation, or it might mean that you’re much more fluid and confident working the room in a social engagement.

So, I’m excited to share this with you. Have a pen and paper ready. If anything speaks to you in this video, make notes.

So, I was a shy kid. And I have also, for much of my life, identified with having some form of social anxiety. That is surprising to a lot of people who see me as a very extroverted and confident person, at least on the surface. But anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a natural life-of-the-party kind of person. I identify with Stephen Fry’s notion that there is nothing he hates more than a party. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had some amazing parties. I’ve had an amazing time at some parties. But if you ask me to come to a party tonight, my initial reaction is, “Ugh.” And there’s a good chance, over the course of my life, that on my way there, I will feel uneasy or even anxious.

In fact, when I was a kid, and I used to go to birthday parties of other kids, they used to give out party bags to all of the kids at the end of the parties—slime you could throw at a wall or something, which was always the thing I wanted. If there was ever a party bag, the only thing I really cared about was something I could eat and some slime that I could throw at a wall.

But I was too shy at the end of the party to go and collect my bag. The kids would all run to the area where all the—there was a scrum of kids who are fighting over party bags, and my cousin, Kasey, who is my same age, who is my best friend in the world, she would go and get her party bag and mine, amidst the scrum, and bring them back because she was a lot more confident in those days than I was. I’ve played a little catch-up since, but she was much more outgoing and confident than me.

I remember growing up being at New Year’s Eve parties. That was always the memory in my head. It’s like going to a New Year’s Eve party with family, seeing everyone dancing, and people in my family coming over to me and telling me to go dance, like, “Come on, dance.”

It was like, you know when it turns into like almost an aggressive thing. Like, “What are you doing standing over there? What are you doing? Lighten up. Dance.”

And, it took my shyness and it kicked it into overdrive because now I felt like there was a spotlight on me. I resented the way I was being cajoled into doing something that I already felt apprehensive about and felt self-conscious about. And so, all it did was make me retreat more into my shell. 

The only time I do remember dancing with utter abandon was in front of the TV screen as a kid, watching Mary Poppins, the original, when all the Chimney Sweeps do Step in Time, which was either my cockney roots coming out and just, sort of, there was something in my blood that reacted to a bunch of chimney sweeps or dancing to Step in Time with Dick Van Dyke, or it was maybe my grandma who was sat with me who loved my moves. I mean, she really thought they were incredible. So, maybe it was a willing audience that I really wanted.

But there’s something in that, isn’t there? Because it’s not that I didn’t like dancing. I did like dancing. But the idea of dancing with my nana on the sofa and just having a crazy time in front of the TV screen was a different thing than being at a New Year’s party with lots of people and being told I should go and dance in order to be normal like everybody else.

By the way, if this video is resonating with you already and you have felt plagued by social anxiety or shyness in your life but you really do want to get out there and meet new people whether it’s to find love or to find new friendships and expand your social circle, I have a brand new free guide that shows you some very specific things you can say to connect and spark up a conversation with a new person. When you’re feeling shy or socially anxious, it can help to go on autopilot instead of having to think too hard and question everything that comes out of your mouth. This guide helps you with that. You can use them as they are or you can make them your own. Either way, they are free, they are super practical, and they’re there at your disposal anytime you need them. It is called Spark and Connect, our new free guide, and it’s available at WhatToSayNext.com.

Shyness is often portrayed as something— it could almost be cute or endearing. And sometimes those labels—although I’m a huge proponent of giving love to the parts of ourselves that are responsible for us being shy, responsible for us being socially anxious. I think that’s a very, very important approach, is to find a way to love those parts of ourselves. But I think sometimes we frame it in too much of a noble way that actually can have us clinging to that identity as a shy or socially anxious person.

I’m not going as far as to say that it feels like there’s something noble in it. But sometimes we can almost start to wear it as part of our identity, like “I am just an incredibly shy person,” like it’s an endearing thing about us, or it’s, sort of, almost some kind of affliction that we have that we struggle with. And I actually think that one of the really powerful things we can do, and bear with me as I say this because this is—for some people, this is like almost an idea that can make them recoil at first, but like I said, this has made a huge impact on my life, is recognizing that shyness or social anxiety is inherently inward-looking.

When we are shy, when we’re socially anxious, we are thinking of ourselves. We’re thinking of how to protect ourselves, how to keep ourselves safe in some way. Like I said, we should give love to the part of ourselves that is trying to keep us safe and thinks the best way of doing that is to avoid social situations or not to speak too loudly, not to say anything stupid or embarrassing. We should give love to the part of us that’s behind that.

This is actually a part of me that’s just trying to keep me safe. But it may be misguided in how it’s trying to keep me safe. And it might be especially misguided in what it perceives as danger. Because the things that it thinks are danger are actually not real danger. But maybe there was a time in our life where it felt like those things were real danger, or maybe it’s just part of our personality that we’ve taken with us from a very young age.

Either way, giving love to those parts of ourselves is important. But what if we started to see that the effect of that, which is, okay, let’s call it shyness and social anxiety. But what’s the effect of those two things? We stay quiet. We hold back. We censor ourselves. We’re extremely cautious about talking to people or putting ourselves out there or bringing our authentic vulnerable selves to the table. And it can often be, from the outside, seen as a real lack of warmth because people can’t read our minds. People only know what we tell them.

So, people can’t necessarily look at us and ascertain that, “Oh, that person is incredibly shy. That person is incredibly socially anxious.”

People don’t necessarily register that. What they register is a standoffishness, a coldness, and unapproachability.

And so, what I started to realize is that there is something very inward-looking about this fear that I have, and because it’s inward-looking, it can ironically amount to a kind of selfishness, or to put it another way, a lack of generosity.

Now, allow me to explain this. Every single person wants to exist and operate in environments that make them feel safe however they achieve that. People achieve that in very different ways. But everyone wants to achieve a feeling of safety. Anytime we go into a room, there are other people like us who are trying to achieve that feeling of safety, of feeling at home in an environment that feels strange, feels different, sometimes feels alien to them.

Our shyness actually contributes to the opposite kind of environment for those people. Through our shyness and through our lack of willingness to go out and connect and put ourselves out there authentically and warmly, we are sending a quiet message to other people in the room that it’s not safe for them to do that either.

Now, we all know that there are some people who come in very loudly and brashly no matter what, right? Because that’s their nature or that’s their style or it’s what they’ve learned as a way to feel safe. But there are other people in that room who are just like you and me, who are looking for a way to feel accepted and at home in this environment. And in our shyness, in our inward-looking, our fear of rejection is preventing us from making someone else feel less alone.

In a sense, that should be comforting because it also says to us that our shyness, our social anxiety is, in a sense, not special or unique. It’s not our badge of honor to wear on our own. We are not the sole victim of these kinds of thoughts and feelings, that they are actually extremely common. And that by recognizing that they are extremely common, we stop personalizing these feelings as there’s something wrong with me, and we can start looking at it as there is just something about being human that can make these kinds of situations scary or difficult or feel threatening, especially if certain things in my past have helped to create that association for me that’s also happened for many, many, many other people.

So, in a sense, that’s a leveler. I don’t have to see myself as beneath everyone else. I can see myself as like everyone else, in that these are extremely common feelings.

So, if there is there is this kind of communal feeling of, “It’s not easy,” then we have a choice to make—do I, in my shyness or in my anxiety, make it the responsibility of everyone else to do all of the work or do I step into a kind of generous leadership where I go and make other people feel the things that I know I would love to feel in this situation?

Quick news update for everybody out there who wants to come and join me for six days this year in September from the 9th to the 15th, my Live Retreat is happening once and once only this year. So, if you want to come and be with me on the beach and do six days of immersive coaching, this is where we do it together, and we will work through the deepest issues that are holding you back whether it’s holding you back from finding the love you want or whether it’s holding you back from loving the life you have.

It’s going to be an amazing event. Go to MHRetreat.com to apply. We have very limited spaces at this point. So, if some part of this speaks to your soul, if you are like, “I love this content, I love following this channel, and I want to take it to a new level,” this is where you can do it—MHRetreat.com.

Now, I know none of these ideas of I’m being selfish or I’m not being generous, I’m letting everyone else do all of the work, consciously go through our mind when we’re being shy, when we’re being socially anxious, but that’s actually my point, is that if we do consciously bring those ideas to the forefront of our mind, instead of saying, “I feel really shy right now,” we might say to ourselves, “Wow, I’m really lacking in generosity right now. Wow. There’s something almost selfish about what I’m doing right now. There are other people who feel this too, and I’m making it all about me, and in doing that, I’m actually depriving someone of the kind of warmth and love and authenticity of the feeling of being at home in a room with other people that I myself am craving.”

This requires a transition away from this idea that my kindness, my warmth, my authenticity, is something that someone has to come along and unlock within me, which is kind of a transactional relationship, in a sense, right? “You have to come and unlock these things, and when you do, I will give them to you.”

But if we take ourselves away from the transaction of that and simply say, “No, I am warm. I am kind. I am authentic,” notice I’m not saying, “I am confident. I am bold. I am outgoing.”

You don’t need to be any of those things. You don’t need to be anything you’re not. But if you are kind, if you are warm, if you are authentic, if you are caring, then these are things that we should offer out more freely without this constant regard for ourselves that says, “I have to get mine first.”

So, remember, number 1—other people want to feel just as at home as you do. And number 2—you actually have the power to make them feel at home by the way that you approach or treat or engage with them.

What I’m trying to say in all of this is, when you go into a room and you’re anxious, and you’re afraid, and you feel shy, and you go into self-protection mode, if you feel like, “Oh, my god. I need saving,” allow that to become a new trigger to go and save somebody else. Any time you go into a situation—and this takes seconds. Remember, this isn’t years of therapy or psychoanalyst. This is seconds. Where you go into a room and you say, “I feel like I need saving right now. Great. Then let me go save somebody else.”

And it puts us in such a generous state. It puts us in such a state of leadership where we say, “Oh, I’m the one that can make other people feel better and I am perfectly placed to do that because I, in my own shyness and in my own social anxiety, understand exactly how this feels. I have this mainline to empathy of how people feel in this situation because of what I have experienced my whole life. Let me use that, let me make it my superpower, let me make it this artery of generosity any time I’m in a situation where other people are present.”

Turn shyness into generosity and let your generosity be this strange backdoor to confidence.

Now, I don’t say that as some kind of a one-size-fits-all truth about shyness or about social anxiety. Of course, I know that there are many times where we’re crippled and certain people, on an ongoing basis, are crippled by social anxiety and the idea that I’m constantly hoarding my generosity or I’m being a selfish person any time I’m being socially anxious, for some people, would be an offensive one.

So, I understand that. What I’m offering is a frame of reference that can actually be incredibly helpful as a way to take us from a very disempowered state to an empowered one.

One of the greatest ways to get ourselves out of inward-thinking where we’re constantly thinking about how to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe is to think about what someone else needs or how we can show up for somebody else who is in need, somebody else who might be having a hard time, or how we can take all of the pain we felt and help someone else not feel it. And the great irony, the thing I’m talking about here in this video, is that by doing that, we actually take our anxiety and our shyness and we convert it into its opposite, which is a very, very powerful thing.

While we’re at it, how can we make other people feel comfortable from this state of empowered leadership and generosity that I’m talking about here?

I want to tell you a quick story in contrast to that idea of me being a kid on New Year’s Eve, being dragged to the dance floor, and feeling like I would do anything to get out of it because I felt dragged and shamed for being shy and being the way I was.

I remember a school disco. It’s a funny word, isn’t it? Disco. I must have been around 13 at the time, 12, 13. There was a friend of mine who I looked up to, and I thought he was quite cool, and I remember him saying to me, “Shall we go dance?” And it wasn’t like “I’m dragging you to go dance.” He just said, “Shall we go dance?”

And without even really thinking about it, I went, “Yeah, okay.”

I remember us laughing and being a bit silly. I remember I did a little spin. And he looked at me and he went, “That was really good.” He’s like, “Let me try.”

And then he tried to do it. And we were laughing, and he looked at me, and he went, “You’re fun, you.”

And I remember having this moment when he said that, where I went, “I’m fun. I’m fun.” And it felt so good and it felt so non-judgmental. It wasn’t like anyone was trying to look cool. It was just this idea that we were both having a good time together and someone had suddenly given me this label, this identity, that I hadn’t thought of myself as previously. It’s a very powerful thing when someone gives you an identity like that. And all of a sudden, you stop questioning what you know about yourself and how you think about yourself.

I tell you this story to illustrate that when you see someone else who’s maybe standing on the sidelines, who’s shy, who maybe would like to be more involved, or someone who just wants to feel more at home, one of the great ways to do it is just to bring them a non-judgmental loving energy that invites them into the room or ask them to teach you something, “How do you do that? You have to teach me that.” Because that puts them in a position of leadership and empowerment. All of a sudden, you’re not saying, “You should be doing this.” You’re saying, “That was really cool what you just did. How do you do that? Teach me how to do that.”

Now, you’ve made them braver by putting them in a role where they’re teaching you something. And when they do, do something that maybe is a little out of character for them, at least publicly, but probably isn’t out of character for them, they’re just finally doing something publicly that they normally do privately in the shower or in the car, when they do that, let’s not make the mistake of pointing at the thing they’re doing and being like, “You’re doing it. Look. You’re doing it. You’re dancing. You’re singing. You’re being brave.”

That is the thing that all of a sudden, makes someone focus on themselves again. And that’s the root cause anyway. Now, what you’ve done is you made me aware of myself. And in making me aware of myself, I start going inward-looking again. And when we go inward-looking, we start to close down because I start to go into protection mode.

So, when someone is engaging, when someone is coming to life, instead of pointing it out in a way that shines a light on them, just be in the energy with them. Be the energy that they are. Be beside them, with them in that energy. When in doubt, go back in a loving way to that childhood version of yourself. When you were scared, when you were shy, when you were anxious, when you were in your own head, when you were inward-looking, and find out what does that you need? What did they need back then? What kind of support or love or encouragement or teammate could they have used back then that would have helped them to feel comfortable expressing themselves more?

Once you know what that is, ask yourself who could I go out and give that to today?

And as a last point, one of the most beautiful things you can ever do that can take away your own shyness, your social anxiety, or not even take them away, just make you realize that you can still go and express yourself in spite of them, is when you recognize what they child needed, you can actually give it to yourself today. You can give yourself the very warmth and love and encouragement and the teammate, the dance partner that you’re craving on the outside because you can actually be that friend to yourself in any room. And when you do that, you will realize that you never went to any party alone. You never went to any event alone. You are always taking this incredible ally, this incredible teammate and cheerleader. And that is you.

Key takeaways from this video—number one, shyness is inward-looking. Focusing on our own fear of rejection prevents us from making someone else feel less alone in a room. Focusing outward is the cure. Generosity of spirit is the antidote to shyness. Two, our kindness shouldn’t be a transaction that depends on someone else unlocking it within us. And number three, we will worry less about our own image and our own self-preservation if instead, we think about being an expression of the love, compassion, and vulnerability that somebody else needs. And we know they need it because it’s something we ourselves are wishing for.

I know that so many people who watch this channel are simultaneously on a journey to find love, to build stronger relationships in their life in general, and to build a better relationship with themselves. And I have a place you can do all of that over the next few months and year. It is the Love Life Club where we have an incredible community of people. I answer your questions live every month, along with my wife, Audrey, my brother, Stephen Hussey. You share your experiences with other members in the community and connect with this global network of amazing people who are on the same path. And we even have some brand new live events coming up, they’re exclusive for members, this year in different parts of the world.

So, if you want to come and join this thriving and beautiful, loving community of people who are all on this path to becoming more confident, loving life more, and finding the love of their life, then come join us in that experience. And I will see you in the next video. 

By the way, if you liked this video, I think you will also really enjoy this one right here. So, if you’re in need of something else to do for the next few minutes, go check this one out.