Truth is the chiropractor of the mind.

Hey everyone! Welcome back to the show. Today’s topic is a really important one that either impacts you listening directly or indirectly, and those around you – Mental Health. In particular, redefining anxiety and what it means to be shy.

Mark Metry knows about that firsthand. He’s a TEDx speaker and host of the wildly popular Humans 2.0 podcast, a global top 100 podcast. He’s been featured in Forbes, Inc, HuffPost, Amazon Prime, and he’s been a guest on over 100 radio and podcast shows.

In this episode, we take a deep dive into:

• Shyness, Introversion and Social Anxiety,
• Success culture,
• Building your mental health on a biological foundation,
• Cognitive bias, and a whole lot more.

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Shy vs Introverted vs Socially Anxious

All my life, whether it was a teacher or my parents, they would just say, “Mark is just a shy kid. He’s just a quiet kid.” I can’t tell you how many times I hear this when I go to a school or speak at a university. People are so used to the same language.

Some people are just introverted; some people are just quiet. However, for the portion that actually have pretty severe social anxiety and they have so many boundaries on their life that they can’t just live it due to neurological, mental health issues – those people are being heavily disserviced by these labels.

How do you know that the kid who’s sitting alone at lunch, or sitting alone at the library, is doing that because he’s an introvert and he chooses so? Maybe they just have social anxiety and they don’t know how to make friends.

Cognitive Bias

The brain is such a complex meta organ that has been created and evolved through thousands of years through learning shortcuts and various biases to help us survive.

Our brain has this mechanism called cognitive biases. If you look at science, they say that there are anywhere from 60 to over 300 cognitive biases.

Of course, these shortcuts are good because they help us process information faster and make judgments much quicker and take action. From a survival standpoint, it’s great.

However, a lot of these cognitive biases can be wrong. A lot of them can almost certainly create illusions in our mind and the way that we think.

Dealing with cognitive bias

One of our cognitive biases has to do with perceiving other people. In terms of this comparison culture of seeing someone at the foot of a Ferrari or something and me comparing myself and being like, “Wow, I don’t have a Ferrari. Maybe that guy is my same age. What’s wrong with me. I suck.”

People with social anxiety and those who have a low sense of self-esteem do that same thing all the time.

I remember sitting in the classroom, and seeing the kid next to me who had brand new Air Jordans, designer jeans, an American Eagle sweatshirt. I would think to myself, “Wow, this person sitting next to me has everything that they want. They’re successful; they look better, they seem cool and have everything figured out.”

And that kid, the one with the Air Jordans, he could be looking at me and thinking, “Man, Mark is so smart. He gets better grades than me. He’s able to focus more than me. He has a lot of time to work on different things.”

We can compare ourselves, but the person we’re comparing ourselves to, for all you know, they could be comparing themselves to you in a different way, or a different angle, whatever they perceive as success.

You know the totality of your problems, but you don’t really see the problems of other people. You can really get caught up in this trick that our brain is trying to play with each other when you compare yourselves online, and even in person.

 

Links and Resources

Connect with Mark: LinkedIn | Twitter

https://www.markmetry.com/

Humans 2.0 Podcast

Screw Being Shy by Mark Metry

The End of Mental Illness by Dr. Daniel G. Amen

Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

Game Changers: What Leaders, Innovators, and Mavericks Do to Win at Life by Dave Asprey