Ellen Hendriksen || How To Be Yourself

we have doctor Ellen Hendrickson on the podcast. Doctor Hendrickson is a clinical psychologist who helps millions calm their anxiety and be their authentic selves through her award winning Savvy Psychologists podcast, which has been downloaded over five million times, and at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. Her latest book is called How to Be Yourself, Quiet your inner critic, and Rise above Social Anxiety. Hi, how's

it going really well? Thanks for talking with me. Oh, thanks for talking to me. Sure love your book And I love the title of the book, how to be Yourself. You know, there's like it's very hotly debated in psychology what yourself is. First of all, you know what that word even means. And I like how you define it, So maybe you could do that for the audience a little bit. What does it mean to find yourself? How

do you know when you found that? Sure? So without getting too much into like philosophy or like deep existential definitions, So the way I define it for the purposes of the book and for social anxiety is that your self is the self you are without fear. So you know, we all feel comfortable around the people we love, or our closest friends, or even just when we're in blissful solitude. And so for folks who get socially anxious, it's often

around you know, people like authority, figures or strangers. And so again for this book, the definition of yourself is the self you are without fear when you're feeling comfortable.

Oh that's so interesting, Yeah, because like humanistic psychologists and all the you know, Carl Rogers and everyone, and they're really interested in authenticity and they kind of talked about that real self as being that real live center within yourself that Karen Horney talked about as well, Like, so that's really what this is about in a lot of ways, is finding that spontaneous creative center within yourself and not being scared of it, right, right, the self that you

are like without. You know, we've all had that moment where we're if we're in a you know, socially anxious situation, we tend to turn inward. We tend to start monitoring our thoughts and things like, oh, why did I just say that I sounded like an idiot? Or oh, gosh, I hope I didn't offend them, or like does my hair look weird? Or oh, he just like looked the other way. I wonder if he's looking for an escape route.

And so it's the self we can be when we're turned outward, when we're engaging with the world and not monitoring ourself and our performance. Yeah, I like this quote. Social anxiety is self consciousness on steroids, right. It's just it's not just to run the mills self consciousness. But you know, if you reach the level of social anxiety, you really are you need to regulate that a little better within yourself. I'm fascinated with individual differences, and there's

differences in this strait. So not everyone is self conscious, you know, right, And you can have the other extreme, you can have grandiose narcissism, where like there are some people in this world where I don't think they really are that self conscious about what oh what I just said. I hope it didn't hurt someone's feelings, you know. Like, So what's really interesting for me and reading your book is like, you know, you want to help people get from like maybe negative seven to what to two? You

don't you don't want there? Like it's an interesting question, right, right, right? I mean, it's just I think it's an interesting question, like what is the goal? Like when do you feel like with your patients? You know, it's like, you know what, I really think that you've reached a point where you just doesn't need to be a concern for you anymore, because you know, I personally, and I would love to

see what you think of this. I personally am of the belief that self consciousness and self esteem that's like a deprivation drive. It's not a growth drive. So the goal there is actually getting to the point where that's not even a knee for you anymore, you know, right, and then you can really focus on the real things that help you grow, like you know, love and exploration and all these other things. So, yeah, it's just something to think about, Like is you know what's the optimal

sort of point. Yeah, so it's interesting because it's funny you bring up like raging narcissism and whatnot, because there have been studies to show, like what is the opposite of social anxiety, Like if you turn social anxiety inside out, like a lot of people think well and also a lot of people who have social anxiety thinking, oh, I wish I could just turn this around. I wish I could just be confident, Like they think confidence or like

more confidence is the opposite of social anxiety. But really, according to brain scan studies, psychopathy is the opposite of social anxiety, and that there's this fearless dominance or this kind of entitled narcissism. And so we're definitely not aiming for that. Like you said, we don't want to go from negative two or even negative seven all the way up to ten. We want to kind of inch it

up the scale. And also, I think think inching it up the scale is great because as we lose our social anxiety, we don't lose the things that often come along as a package deal with that social anxiety. Like a lot of the people that I work with in my office who have social anxiety come in and are also very conscientious. They care about other people, They have

a lovely openness to them. They're quite agreeable. But they're scared and self conscious, and so as they work on that and face their fears, all those good traits don't go away, which is so great. And so it's really really neat to see them grow into themselves and be able to realize how great they are, because that's when they come in well. I mean, this can get into the definition of social anxiety, which is a lot of people think it's like a fear of embarrassment. That's really

more like a consequence to the fear coming true. So there's this wonderful professor at the University of Waterloo, doctor David Moskovich, who talks about the core fear of social anxiety being a deficit, a perceived deficit I want to emphasize, Yeah, will be revealed and will become obvious to everyone, and so as a result, we try to hide, We try to conceal whatever we think is wrong with us, whether that's we're awkward, or we're socially incompetent, or we're boring,

or we're not funny. Does any of bazillion perceived flaws, and so he says that that is what social anxiety is. It's that urge to cover that perceived flaw. And so if we can help people realize that is exactly that is a perduption, is actually a distortion, then that really sets them free. It can help them int along that scale. Yeah, you say that this book will help relate to that. You say this book will help you feel comfortable when

you're caught being yourself. Now that's a really that's really clever. That's a really clever phrasing. You know, that really encapsulates a lot of what you're saying, because when you're caught, that means you're not being self conscious about of who you really are because you're being yourself, you know. And it's like, yeah, that's performative act. Yeah, I really like that. You also say nothing is wrong with you, and I mean that's an interesting question, but I mean there's some

patients where I don't think that's true. I mean, there's something wrong with you. You You know. I like to be honest, you know, with people, you know, so if you have high social anxiety, I mean, that's what's wrong with you, you know, Like right, But there's nothing wrong with the live, unique best self within you that needs once to be expressed, right, is that what you're saying? And the fear so when I say nothing is wrong with you, because social anxiety

is there's a perceived fatal flaw. Like people think that there's something like deeply wrong with them. Oh you can feel, but really that thing that they're afraid of is something that either doesn't exist or exists to such a small extent that nobody really cares like that. We're all human, we're all boring at times, we all strip over our words.

We all you know, don't speak ineloquent full paragraphs, and so and so I think the folks with social anxiety often think that they are deficient because of like these you know, these perceived problems, but that really we're just human. It's just the foible and the blemishes of being a person. And so that is what I mean by nothing is

wrong with you. Thank you. That was really helpful. And you had me thinking of the amazing work of christ and Neff on self compassion and how one of her facets of self compassion is sort of like a commune humanity or yes, and kind of recognizing that and so it seems like maybe with a lot of individuals who are having social high social anxiety, that maybe some self compassion exercises, meditations, things would be helpful. Absolutely, yeah, No.

Doctor Nef was kind enough to comment for the book and she talked about how you know, we're all in this together, and you know we're all on this kind of long awkward journey together. Oh yeah, and absolutely, And so that I like to tell my clients that you know, if there's ever an embarrassing moment you have, like, I can guarantee that millions of other people have had that same embarrassing moment. Even if you feel like you're the only one you're you're definitely not alone. So yes, doctor

Nef is definitely on this for sure. And then let's talk about the difference between like introversion and shyness, because a lot of people conflate those two things, and you see it conflated in the community is online of introversion, like Susan kin'es has a huge following, and so you get all sorts of different types of introverts and you see, so to be introverted doesn't mean that you are necessarily having social anxiety or there's something wrong with you if

you are not as interested in socializing with lots of new people as maybe other people are, right, right, exactly. So introversion and extroversion is more about where you get your energy. So extroverts recharged by being around people. They recharge by talking to others and interacting and being in groups, and introverts often recharged by being alone or one on one or with like a small group of people that they trust. And so that's again that's more about energy.

Whereas social anxiety, which just you know, the everyday way of saying socially anxious is to say shop. So those are really the same thing. That's about fear, and that's about again wanting to conceal this perceived flaw. And so you can be a socially anxious extrovert. Like a person I like to talk about as an example is someone I met who is both a teacher and a stand

up comedian. And so this gentleman loves being in front of crowds, like loves getting the energy of being at a microphone or being in front of a group, but he's simultaneously afraid that nobody wants him there and that they're all judging him, and so he is a great example of somebody who is socially anxious but also really extroverted.

And then I think people often conflate introversion and social anxiety because it is fairly common to see folks who are both who get their energy by recharging and being alone or in smaller groups, but are also have this fear of social situations which could be generalized or could

be very very specific. Absolutely, my friend Jennifer Grimes, for her master's thesis, she went behind the scenes backstage after oz Fest with the you know, the heavy metal musicians, Yeah, yeah, and she took them aside and she specifically her research was on introversion and highly sensitive people trades, highly high sensitive traits, and she found a very high proportion of highly sensitive traits amongst the rockers and backstage. And I'll

send you the article about this. I think, well, for research, she found that backstage, so many of them, this is literally they just performed on the loudest They would say things like, oh, I really can't stand loud noises, and they literally they would say this after they just performed, but say, that's the way for them if they can control it as long as it's not spontaneous, then it's okay. But when they're on stage, they're in control of it,

and that was different to them for some reason than absolutely. Yeah. I've met a lot of both introverts and socially anxious folks who say, if they have a role, and I talk about this in the book as well, if they have some structure and a role to play, that takes away uncertainty and certainty is what drives anxiety. And so if they know what to do, like they can play the kind of persona of this heavy metal rocker or you know, whatever they're supposed to do, that is much

more comforting and so structure here. Like in the book, I talk about this wonderful study by the Australian researchers, doctors Simon Thompson and Ron Repey, And so they had a study where they compared women who had social anxiety and then women who were like on the above average confident, chatty.

And they took these two groups of women and one at a time sent them into this experiment that unbeknownst to them started as soon as they stepped in the waiting room, because this male research assistant would come in the room and sit down and just say, hope, we

don't have to wait too long. He was pretending to be another participant, and then he would just roll with whatever conversation came up, and if they talked, that was great, and if not, every thirty seconds he prompted them again with like another you know, just quip or you know comment, and they saw what kind of you know, social interaction ensued, all right, So that was for five minutes. And then after that five minute chunk, a researcher came in and said, Okay,

thank you guys for coming. You know, so glad you're here. Here's our experiment in the next five minutes, and are getting to know each other as well as you can in five minutes go. And so now these women had some structure, they had a role to play, they had you know, they knew what they were supposed to do, had a purpose. So after the whole study was over, they had raiders view videotapes of the interactions and rate

the women on their social competence. And so in the first five minutes, when it totally unstructured, naturally, the women with social anxiety rated quite a bit lower than the kind of overly not overly but confidently chatty women. But in the second five minutes when they had a mission, they were almost neck and neck. And I like to stress that the folks with social anxiety again did almost as well as the people who were above average in terms of their confidence and ability to just chat with

a stranger. So that really struck me, and it has really stayed with me in terms of just you know, give you both both helping my clients but also for me, you know, like I use I like to say that I'm not not only the author of How to Be Yourself, I'm also a client. You know. It's like the hairclub for men from the eighties, and so like I use

all these techniques. When I go to a holiday party, I'll think, like, Okay, I'm going to try to talk to three new people, or you know, just give myself a little mission, and that makes things so much easier. Oh gosh, I love that so much. Yeah, you talk about in your book about researches, research, and yeah, no, I love that. I'm a client too, you know, like I would not want to propose any sort of exercises for people that I haven't tried myself. Sure, Yeah, based

on that study you're just talking about. In my mind is brimming with like forty seven different directions to go in right now, and I want to just like commit to one right now, so I'll do that. Sure. Are you familiar with the re and research on the genetics of what are called orchid orchid dandelion hypothesis. I know the orchadene line, but I don't know if I know

the genetics, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah, So what I find so interesting about research is that you can find particular genes that, under particular environmental conditions lead to high anxiety, but which those same genes, under supportive conditions lead to higher levels of exploration than anyone else that doesn't have that gene. Yeah. Oh cool. So I think that relates a little bit to the study

that you just described. It matters so much for people, you know, the context matters, and the framing of what your trade is matters. Because people who have this have these genetics, have a heightened vigilance. But if you actually convert that vigilance to like curiosity, it actually can lead

to great creativity. It can lead to right, a lot of a lot of great things in life, right right, Yeah, no, absolutely, because I think, yeah, under the right conditions, I think because we okay, so we're all we're all born let's just take anxiety. So we're all born with, you know, some greater or smaller tendency to be anxious. We all have like the raw plato you know, of of like

being anxious about something to a degree. But then our experience has really shaped that plato into whatever it's going to look like. And so if we're born with a larger tendency to be anxious, then our experiences are going to mold that into either you know, a tendency or to mold it either to into social anxiety or you know, perhaps you know, generalized anxiety or OCD or whatever. Yeah, but I think that also our experiences can mold it the other way into the yeah, the flip side of

those things or both. You know, it doesn't have to be justally exclusive, totally does not have to be that's right, Yeah, you know that. Going back to just Aaron's lean, Aaron's concept of the highly sensitive person from a personality perspective, I find her that's her scale is almost perfectly correlated with neuroticism. So that's I think that's a lot of the trait dimension we're talking about here when we're talking about what you're talking about in your book stems from

neuroticism domain of personality. But I do also find it very interesting there is this consistent correlation that pops up in all my data sets between neuroticism and openness to experience and artistic interests and sort of like beauty, like appreciation of beauty, and some of those items are even on Alien's scale, which is why she found that it's

a coherent scale. So yeah, I think that's an interesting, interesting correlation that, you know, I'm just trying to wrap my head around or what's driving that commonality, but it's sure. I guess my riff on that would be it's a tendency to feel deeply, and whether that's a tendency to feel negative emotions deeply, negative experiences deeply, or to feel deeply when it comes to the all standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, or the wave of emotion you get when you stand in front of a great

piece of art, you feel everything deeply. I think you nailed it. That is what it is. You know. My dissertation was trying to break up the openness to experience domain into its components. One of my compone was what I called effective openness, openness to both the positive and negative emotions within yourself. That's different than neuroticism, but it was actually an aspect of openness, okay, and that was correlated with all those other forms of openness as well,

you know, as well as compassion. Yes, great stuff, great stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I love I mean people social anxiety are my favorite clients. I'm a generalist and I work with everybody, but sure, the folks with social anxiety are near and dear to my heart because they're often just wonderful people. They are compassionate, and they are open to experiences and again care deeply about others. So it's you know, it's a nice bunge to work with, and especially great to help them realize

that about themselves. Are they more fun to work with than your grandiose, narcissistic patients. It's very easier. I have a better time with the internalizers. I do have to admit, it's easier to work with the people who are depressing anxious than those are acting out, acting out. Yeah right, yeah, let's talk about some practical things. So you say you have a phrase heading out into the world, Like that concept itself could trigger some of our more socially anxious listeners, right,

just the thought of having to head out towards. So maybe you could talk about some of the things you talk about how to kind of get your confidence and kind of getting in touch and with that true self

again as you talk about absolutely. So one of the things that I like to kind of set expectations with clients with is that many people will come in and say, Okay, I wish I could just like kind of hit pause on my life and retreat and like work on my confidence and feel better about myself, and then I could hit play again and go out into the world and live my life. And I always say, that's awesome, And

let's do that in the opposite order. Let's have you go out and live your life like before you're confident, and your confidence will catch up. And so like a nice analogy I like to use is that of mood and action. Like we often think we have to feel like doing something before we do it. You know, we have to feel inspired before you sit down and write, or we have to feel like, you know, going swimming before we actually go do some laps, and that that's

not actually true. If we actually just go and get started, often our mood catches up. We're glad we did it, we're happy we're there. Inspiration strikes as we're kind of going through the motions, and so it's the same thing with confidence. So I like to tell people to start before they're one hundred percent ready, like stretch a little bit, go a little bit outside of your comfort zone, and that will refute the two biggest lies that anxiety tells you.

One is that the worst case scenario is a foregone conclusion and will absolutely happen. And two is that you can't handle things that you can't handle what life throws at you. And so by getting some experience under their belt, they learn, oh, that wasn't so bad, and oh I was able to roll with things, and then that builds confidence and then they're ready for the next thing. So that's one thing I do to set expectations. We talk about giving yourself some structure. And then a third biggie

is to try to turn attention inside out. So, like we talked about at the beginning, when we're in a socially anxious moment, our attention often turns inward and we start to monitor ourself, and we start to monitor ourselves from mistakes especially. And so if we can turn our attention outward and focus on where we are in the moment, so we can focus on the person we're talking to, we can focus on the group around us, the environment around us, we can listen very closely to what the

other person is saying. Then that frees up a lot of bandwidth and we can fill in that remaining band with just like natural curiosity, natural interest, our authenticity, and that makes us not only feel better, but in studies, if you ask confederates who are are research assistants who are in the study talking to the participants, those research assistants rate the participants as more likable before than people who are kind of inwardly focused, so they's come across better.

Everything is also more authentic, So it's a win win situation. You feel better and you also come across better by turning your attention outward. That's great. So a lot of this is really getting out of your own head and getting outside yourself. Yeah totally, yeah, yeah exactly. So shall

we bust some myths of social anxiety. Sure, a lot of people have this feeling like, you know, I have to sound like the shoulds, you know, like Karen Hornay get talked about this back and the like the tyranny of the shoulds is what Karen Hornay called called it such a great phrase. Yeah, I love that. I think that she's really underrated. But you know, like people, there's like a lot of oldies but goodies you know in

the psychoanalytic literature that aren't discussed. But maybe you could talk a little bit about, Yeah, how does perfectionism hold us back? Sure? Yeah, so perfectionism is a huge driver of social anxiety. And so I mean I can relate to this like I you know, I after PhD in clinical psychology in several decades, you know, I'm much more

comfortable than I used to be. But definitely I realized that over the years that perfectionism had really driven a lot of my own anxiety in thinking that like, yeah, I had to be entertaining, I had to sound smart, I had to carry the conversation for both of us if I was talking to one other person. And so just the realization that you know, your social life or you know, conversation is not like a laser maze, you know, like alarms don't go off if you make one mistake.

Is so helpful, And so I quote doctor David Burns in the book, who wrote the first evidence based self help book way back in nineteen eighty for depression, and so he has a chapter in there called dare to be averaged, And I love that phrase. So it helps us lower the bar and realize it's okay to pause in conversation, It's okay to lose your train of thought,

it's okay to have an awkward moment. It's even okay, you know, spill your drink on somebody, You apologize, and you move on and again, bringing back Christ enough like this common humanity. We're all in this together, and I'm sure that everybody has had drinks spilled on them at some point as well. So to be able to to dare to be average and not have to perform as it were, makes things so much easier. What if you're intentionally like, what if you're a grandiose narciss and you're

intentionally pouring drinks on people? Like, that's not okay, that's another problem. Ye, okay, it's not. It's not always okay for our audience. It's okay, I imagine not narcissisting this. Okay, good for this audience. Okay. I always ask Chris enf that question, like she was on my podcast, and I was just like, you know, like sometimes some of this language can get to like, you know, you're perfect the way you are? You don't, And I'm like, is that true? Well?

The thing is, there's a common humanity there in the sense that none of us are perfect the way we are. You know, do you know what I mean when we say you're perfect the way you are? I kind of rolled my eyes a little it because I'm like, you know, speak for yourself. I'm not perfect the way I am. But what I was supposed to work on as anybody else. Absolutely, yeah, I got the same problems. Okay. Cool? And then so

what's the myth of hope in a bottle? Oh my gosh, So this is so this is this is so common. So folks with social anxiety will drink to make themselves feel better in social situations. And quite honestly, like many people do this. You don't even have to have diagnosable social anxiety or anyway. This is you know, pregaming is a thing like people routinely they would have a drink before they go out to loosen up. They call it

liquid courage, and so it's just so common. But then when you have especially for folks with social anxiety, if they then have a good time or they feel better, then alcohol gets the credit. And so what we want is we're certainly not I'm not anti alcohol. I'm not telling anybody to stop drinking, but what I am saying is that you have that confidence in you and it's

just the inhibition that's getting in the way. And so to try not to give alcohol the credit and to have a drink because you want to, not because you think you have to. So that's a distinction. Yeah, so much about the shulds or the he do you have much? Yeah? Yeah, no, I love that. I thought of a question I would to ask you. Well, first of all, this is good driving crazy until you ask you how can you do laps without swimming first? This is a good question. Okay,

that's one question. Yeah, because he said earlier said some of us want to do the swim first before we do the lapse. I'm like, don't you need to do that first? Okay? Clear my brain, my brain did one thing. If other thing, I'm that's just me being cheeky. That's my real self being cheeky, and I'm not going to be self conscious about that now. Okay. Second one, I wanted to talk to you about sex difference. Gender differences.

I think it's interesting to think about in this particular domain because, like, it seems from my perspective that most of the audience of people that like are tracked to like Brene Brown's message, for instance, about vulnerability, tend to

be women. And I wondered if maybe you could talk a little bit about maybe what are some unique needs or maybe like being a woman, like growing up in certain environments and kind of being treated a certain way by the world, etctera, etcetera, that you think might cause that gender difference, or maybe I'm imagining the gender difference. You can tell me that too. Yeah, sure, sure, no, that's I'm glad you brought that up. So what thing?

So the cover of my book has this woman in a party dress, like hiding behind some balloons in it, so it's very it's like got purple lettering since it's very feminine cover. But don't let the cover full of you. This is for this is for everybody. And social anxiety disorder, So what I call capital s social anxiety, which is when it gets in the way of living your life or kind of crosses this line into being impairing, is one of the few anxiety disorders that is actually equal opportunity.

And so an equal number of men and women suffer from social anxiety disorder. So it's again, this is really for everyone. And so I think that beyond that, when you talk about anxiety in general, there is I think, I think the recent stature like there's a two to

one ratio of women to men who are anxious. But I think that a lot of that is driven by self report and who's willing to say I am anxious, who shows up for therapy, and who shows up to get medication, or who you know, who's even willing to in their own head interpret what they're feeling as anxiety, And so I think for a lot of men, anxiety might manifest as irritability or anger and might also come

out kind of secondarily as substance abuse. And so I think that even though social anxiety is equal opportunity already, I think maybe other anxiety disorders and anxiety in general might be closer to fifty to fifty than we think. That's so interesting at that point you just made about how a lot of men might have this but not

conceptualize it in the same way as women. Like I think it's undeniable that women are tend to be more attracted to like Brene Brown's kind of writing and maybe even yours, But that doesn't say like, maybe a lot of more men would be attracted to it if they like identified with it more as anxiety. Right, Yeah, you're just having me think of that now, So thank you for that elucidation. I really appreciate that. I want to be respectful your time, and I just have one last question,

of course about the uh oh cool. Yeah, if I want to be respectful, you know, you talk about the building blocks of beautiful friendship. I want some beautiful friendship. So I'm down on So why are those building blocks maybe not what we think they are. Sure so for folks with who are socially anxious or or prone to social anxiety, so we tend to hold things close to the vest. We tend to not really talk about ourselves,

not reveal much, and that's actually a mistake. And so because relationships intimacy, you know, not necessarily sexual intimacy, but just getting to know another person is and this Elaine Aaron talks about, this is gradual and reciprocal. And so that means revealing a little bit about what you think and do and feel and then you will likely get back something about what the other person thinks and does and feels. And it doesn't have to be a confession.

It doesn't have to be your deepest, darkest secret, it doesn't have to be your life story. You know, talking about something as simple as the weather can be a disclosure. You can say like, oh, I'm so glad it's raining today because I find the grace Guy's really soothing, or you know, oh it's finally sunny. I'm so glad that i've been getting I've totally been having cabin fever. That's a disclosure. That's talking about yourself, even though technically you're

still talking about the weather. And so to talk about oneself is part of building a friendship. Another thing is to just keep showing up that it takes on average, six to eight conversations, like real conversations, not just hey, hey, hey, before someone considers you a friend. And so yeah, yeah, I always stop at five, and I wondered if something

was wrong with me. Exactly you figured it out. So what happens is that, because it's driven by perfectionism, a lot of folks with social anxiety go into a social situation and expect to connect, instance with a new with a potential new friend, like with a stranger, or they expect to go to an event and like walk out arm in arm with you know, a new buddy, and that doesn't happen. And so what we have to do is to have repetition, to keep showing up over and over.

And that means that the places where you want to meet people are where you see the same people over and over, like this what I call like this steady drum beat of the same faces. So like meetups where the crowd changes every time are actually is actually not a good place, right But if you if you go to a dog park, you know, with your dog at you know, and the same people are there every morning, that's perfect. Or if you drop off your kid at

school and the same parents are there, that's perfect. Things like that where you see the same people over and over. Would it be creepy for me to go to a dog park, even though I don't have a dog, But I just want to make friends. Waderline creepy you it'd be creepier if you had an invisible dog or claim to do that. I'll tell yes, yes, yes, yeah, sorted,

yeah right right. But I think the most important thing for making friends is that a lot of people who are specially anxious, I think they have to project this image of being confident and competent and like that that is what people are looking for, But that's not actually true. What people are looking for in a potential friend is warmth is simply being kind and trustworthy and loyal. And you don't have to be impressive, and you don't even have to be confident. You just have to be nice.

And so that's a really important kind of thing to get one's mind around when we think about making friends. So repetition, disclosure, be nice. I love it, I love it. And being too over confident anyway backfires. Peudle. Don't want to be friends with people who think they just rode in on a high horse, right, That is that a metaphor? I'm bad metaphors, but yeah, we'll take so. Yeah, people want to be friends with people who are human not superhuman? Right?

What you said? Right? Forget the horse thing? Or well they came to the dog park riding a hole. There you go. I don't know anyway. Hey, thank you so much for the chat. This is delightful and I wish your book all the best. Do you end the book all the best? Yeah? I appreciate that so much. Thank you so much for chatting with me. It is a delight delight for me too. Thanks for listening to the

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