Blaze Your Own Trail - S2: Episode 1: Screw Being Shy With Mark Metry

Starting point is 00:00:07 Hey, first off, I wanted to send a big heartfelt thank you for everyone that's been listening to the show. We wrapped up season one. This is the first episode of season two. Thank you so much for being a part of my journey. Today's episode features Mark Metri, 22-year-old kid. He's an author. He's a TEDx speaker. He helps people along their podcast journey.

Starting point is 00:00:36 He has a global, you know, top 10 to 100 podcasts in the mental health and entrepreneurship category. So I hope you enjoy his story and his journey. And we will chat after the episode. Hello, everyone. And welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza. And I've got a very special guest with me today. His name is Mark Metri.

Starting point is 00:01:07 And Mark, if you can, in your own word, just give the audience a little bit about yourself. Yeah, so I'm this really interesting 22-year-old that's living on the East Coast, northeast of the United States in Boston. And I've just gone through an interesting life. That's made me just kind of realize that mental health transformation, fulfillment are the most important things about life. And so as of today, I am author of this book called Screw Being Shy, learn how to manage social anxiety and be yourself in front of anyone. That's me. That's awesome, my friend.

Starting point is 00:01:50 Now, it's so amazing, too. Congrats on the book. And I'm sure we're definitely going to wrap about that here in a little bit. But, you know, what I'm always interested in on the show is, you know, it's all about hearing how people have blazed their own trail. And I know a little bit about your journey. I'm sure there's going to be plenty in the audience that have heard your name and seen your content. but if we can, I want to rewind back to when you were younger. Let's go back to the elementary school day.

Starting point is 00:02:19 So where did you grow up? And what kind of kid were you when you were in elementary school? And then we'll kind of fast forward back to today here in a little bit. Yeah. So my parents came from Egypt. They immigrated to the U.S. a couple years before I was born. And, you know, we really just kind of learned. live like the immigrant lifestyle. My parents worked all the time. We moved to like

Starting point is 00:02:45 thousand different apartment buildings. Had it just kind of like a very simplistic childhood had some fun times, but it was very simple and humbling. And when I got a little bit older into middle into elementary school, excuse me, I ended up, we ended up moving out of like kind of the bigger city area into a more rural place outside of the city. and we moved into this small town with like 5,000 people. And in this town, a very interesting town. And it's very unique in the sense that there was no like racial diversity whatsoever. And so basically everyone at that school looked the same.

Starting point is 00:03:27 Everyone was white except for me and like a couple other people, a couple other families. And so I definitely had my fair share of like people, racism, bullying, all that stuff. Eventually I developed like some physical health issues like asthma issues with my digestion, sleep, skin. And really what ended up happening was I just began to develop like social anxiety because of the environment around me was so bad and I didn't really have any energy because of the physical health conditions I had. Like elementary school, I was like the super, super shot kid and like the thing is like I was always always. probably introverted in my life, but there's a big difference between being introverted and being shy and then having social anxiety. Introverted is just a personality trait, and it means that

Starting point is 00:04:21 the way that your brain works is you're more focused on the internal world. You're more focused on your ideas, thoughts, and emotions. And it's okay to be shy every once in a while. There's a natural level of where it's healthy. But some people can, you know, be shy. in every scenario they walk into. They can be shy in every single situation they walk into and eventually becomes social anxiety where they largely can't even control it because their body is running on an emergency system response

Starting point is 00:04:55 where it puts their body into a panic state every single time they have to talk. And so for me, that was the kid that I was growing up for like a solid 10 years from elementary school to eventually when I was 18 and I kind of realized that I had this problem. Okay. So you realize you have this problem at 18 and, you know, that wasn't, you're 22 today. So wasn't, wasn't that long ago really in the grand scheme of things, but I'm, I'm sure, you know, the progress that that you've been documenting and you've been making, I'm sure it feels like it's probably been even longer, right? Because you went through, went through a ton of experiences. So when you had that, you know, really I'm looking at it like a pivotal moment, right? There's just this moment. You're 18. So, so what? What was it that happened and what was it that you did to take the first action that created

Starting point is 00:05:46 the momentum to, you know, kind of what's leading us to where we are today? Yeah. So this is the crazy mystical thing that happened, right? So I went to my first college party. And I got drunk for the first time in my life. And when I got drunk, you know, alcohol is a, you know, it shuts down the part of your brain that factors in social judgment. And then I was like, whoa, I could walk up to any.

Starting point is 00:06:11 girl or guy and say whatever I want to for the first time in my life. And so when that happened, I was just like, whoa, like I've never, I've never experienced this before. And then sort of like the days after that, I was, I sort of began to realize that like, oh, wait, I'm actually not like some messed up kid. I'm not like some kind of a moral failure. I just have this thing called social anxiety that I had no idea my entire life until now. And so when that kind of happened, You know, at first, I just sort of tried to run away from it. You know, because I think when you become aware of a problem, like of a legitimate problem of like a deep problem, you kind of like, you see kind of like two forks in the road of like, I could try to learn more about this.

Starting point is 00:06:57 I could try to actually get on like the proactive side and try to like learn how to manage this better. I could learn to get healthier. And there's like this other path of like don't take that responsibility and just try to escape. You know, just try to run away from your problems through, you know, you know, very shallow forms of usually pleasure. And so for me, I tried to escape. I did not try to take on that right path. And so for me, you know, dabbled a little bit with more alcohol and drugs partying. But for me, my real drug of choice was food. And so, like, I had nights where I would just binge eat and order pizzas and all this stuff. And I do that every single night because I was like feeling so much. pain that I was just using food as like a crutch. I was using food as an emotional coping mechanism. Next thing I know, I've gained like over 75 pounds. I'm over 200 pounds now. My social anxiety that I kind of always had actually starts to get worse and actually begins to like try to get me to

Starting point is 00:07:59 socially isolate myself. And then I never really had depression or anything growing up, but I kind of began to develop that seriously for the first time, which event. led me to, you know, even being a point in my life where I was flirting with suicide. And so all these things just kind of happened. And it was because I tried to, like, run away from that. I tried to run away from, like, the real person who I was. Because, you know, this is the thing. Like, you know, I've had problems in my life, but I've also had some successes.

Starting point is 00:08:28 You know, I've had some good things in my life happen. And when I kind of realized I had social anxiety, I realized, like, wait, I'm not actually giving it everything of God. I'm not actually using my potential 100%. And so, like, I had always grown up because I had social anxiety, I had always grown up and I just had so many regrets. Because people that have social anxiety that can't really express the real them to others, they always walk away from scenarios and they're always so regretful. Like, I remember staying up like every night as a kid and being like,

Starting point is 00:09:00 man, I should have said this to that person. I should have said back to this person, which then gets you to, overthink and try to project what you're going to say tomorrow to all those other people. And so, like, it's a real mental game that can kind of get people just stuck in their own dome. And so when I kind of realized that, I kind of, like, hit my own version of rock bottom through being suicidal, through being, through being obese. Excuse me, my mic just fell there. And eventually, you know, I just felt the level of pain of where I was like, I really can't escape from this anymore. It's either I'm going to become a statistic or I'm going to.

Starting point is 00:09:36 going to like at like first and foremost like I realized that I kind of had this potential because I realize that a lot of people who are suicidal they don't even realize that um like this is their rock bottom they don't even realize that this is super super painful for them and they're kind of stuck in this trance and they're unconscious of it and they just do something that's impulsive but for me when I was in that state I realized that like um I realized that like like it was a Is this or I'm going to die? And so I kind of use that pain to essentially just take like small steps to get out of that.

Starting point is 00:10:13 And for me like while this is going on, you know, I didn't know what the words like mindset were. I didn't know what like any like these words in leadership that we use today. And so for me, I was just like, okay, how can I lose weight? And so I just started doing research about health and food and like diets and nutrition. And I began to learn that food, what you put in. your mouth actually has a lot to do more than other than just like your waistline. You know, food controls your mood. Food controls your energy.

Starting point is 00:10:49 Food controls your sleeping patterns. Food can, you know, if you play it out, food can even control your behavior around other people. And so for me, like, some of those first steps were actually getting my physical health together because when you actually look at the science, and again, there's for sure exceptions, but physical health is usually tightly correlated with mental health. And so for me, like, it was just sort of accidentally stumbling into improving my own mental health just through like the fact that I realized that I was overweight through looking at myself in the mirror

Starting point is 00:11:21 and just being like, okay, let me try to lose weight. And I began to like tackle just the problem that I could see. And as I kind of got into it, I realized there were things that were a lot deeper sort of under the surface. Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, I heard a quote recently. I was down in Orlando for some team meetings. And I don't know who it's by, but you may have heard this before. It goes, the inner game controls the outer game, right?

Starting point is 00:11:48 That's exactly it. And like, I don't care if it's life, it's sports, it's business, it's fitness. Like, literally mindset is everything, right? it's it is the game if you have a positive attitude positive things start to happen and when you go to the other end of the spectrum as you know you've experienced this on the negative aspect negative things happen right and it's all about the messaging that we're telling ourselves and that's exactly it that's exactly it man and and like the thing is is that like everyone's brain like in everyone's mind we think what we think is right.

Starting point is 00:12:29 And like the matter of the fact is, like, the game, the brain, excuse me, is the master at playing this game. And so what I mean is like when you actually like, there's a chapter of my book where I kind of break down like the neuroscience of like life itself. And like there are these things called cognitive biases and distortions that our brain. brain has hundreds of them that essentially run our lives. And what I mean is this, right? So our brain is this survival organ that has survived for thousands of years by keeping humans alive, not by keeping us happy. And so our brains will literally create this reality. It's like it will create an internal game that may not even be right. And in turn, that'll affect what you do in the outer. So it's like everyone's brain takes a model of what it sees in the world.

Starting point is 00:13:31 It takes examples of models of like, okay, if I do this, then this will happen. It creates like these many rules. It creates like these parameters in which the internal game is run. And the matter of the fact is, is depending on those inputs, depending on your circumstances, usually earlier in life, your internal game might be wrong. Your internal game might be fooling you. because like I said, the brain is the best master at playing this game in it up itself. It's like there's a quote in my book and it's like,

Starting point is 00:14:03 the mind is the worst prison to be locked into because you don't know where the jail cell starts and ends. And so a lot of us, we're going through our lives and we're like, okay, the pictures and videos that when I open my eyes, I see, we automatically assume those are right. When in reality, if there are some underlying issues going on, whether it's, let's say your brain is inflamed, it has inflammation, or whether your gut microbiome, which is this ecosystem of bacteria that we have,

Starting point is 00:14:43 that control a lot of aspects of our health, is unbalanced. Maybe you have some sort of traumatic events early on in your life that taught you, a model that isn't even necessarily correct about how the rest of the world operates. And so essentially, as kids, we build our internal game. And when we grow up, some of this internal game isn't even right. And so when we're adults and we're trying to use those same rules, the same things that our brain has learned, we run into a lot of these problems. And so a major aspect of I think what it means to be successful is constantly just understanding

Starting point is 00:15:20 like what neuroscience is and how our brain actually operates. Because like I said before, your brain's main job is to keep you alive. It's not to keep you happy unless you teach it how to do that. And so that's like a major, major rule that I think gets a lot of people sort of mixed up. And then if someone isn't even aware of this, then they'll think that the main problem of their life is in the external. And for sure, there are problems on the outside. all the time. But like a mentor of mine, Jay Shetty, he says that if you want to go further in life, if you want to advance more, you have to go deeper inside of yourself. And so for me, like, in all of the most professional, like successes that I have, almost all of them tie back to a time

Starting point is 00:16:15 where I had to like really go deep into myself, go into that self-development, kind of understand. the internal game from like my mind from my heart from like the gum microbiome scientific objective to like my soul so that's the way that I kind of think about it and it's so so important because I think once you get that straightened out then a lot of things on the external are just flow easier it's easier to sort of handle when you've got this handled first absolutely and I was actually I had a guest on the show earlier in the week and we were we were talking about EQ right? And, you know, how adversity, you know, people that experience adversity in life end up, if they're able to really dissect these experience, having very, very high EQ.

Starting point is 00:17:08 Right. And, you know, I'd given him some examples because when he said it, I was like, you know what, that actually makes a lot of sense, right? Because you have these decisions to make you. you get put into these pivotal moments in these situations. And, you know, I think every human, we have these in life. We have trials and tribulations and adversity that we face. And if you can come out of them on top, that story and that journey can really attribute to you being able to manage your emotions better. And that's really what EQ is all about is, you know, for one, being self-aware of your emotions. and then being able to manage them when you feel them coming on

Starting point is 00:17:53 and then being able to do that in social settings and with relationships. So what are your thoughts on EQ and really how it attributes to people's success? So this is what I think it is. So I think for sure, like when you see someone who's been through a lot and they've been able to get out of it, then for sure. Like they, like it's just totally different. Like back to what you were saying of like, I've almost. been on this journey for like the last four or five years and yet it's been like a lifetime like

Starting point is 00:18:24 that's what it's i felt like i've kind of lived like three different lives and so for sure you learn more about yourself you learn more about people you learn more about circumstances that just kind of make you learn and kind of understand these the way it like works but honestly i think that like in the big picture this is the way that i think about it so i think our brain at a very macro level can be broken down into two sides. An emotional side and a logical side. And the best way I can describe this, and I am borrowing this analogy from Mark Manson, who is the author of the subtle art of not giving a, and I've had on my podcast, he's a great guy. The way that he breaks it down is this. So our logical part of our brain and our emotional part of our brain are talking to each other,

Starting point is 00:19:14 But it might be in a dysfunctional way. And the way that he describes it as like, the logical part of our brain is the adult driving a car and they have their hands on the steering wheel. And they get to drive it. They go left or right. They have their foot on the gas on the brain. The emotional part of our brain, which is usually more dominant, is the kid in the backseat, the baby in the back seat, crying and screaming. And so a lot of the times we'll be on the high. highway of life and we'll be driving and like we think we know what we're doing and like our logical

Starting point is 00:19:50 part of our brain is just moving step by step but then all of a sudden the emotional part of your brain starts crying and you look in the rear view mirror and you're fixated on the emotional part of your brain and and your baby's just crying and the next thing you know you're like swerving because you're not even looking ahead of you and right then and there like this is this describes like a lot of behavior that people either want to do, but they can't get themselves to do or behavior that they don't want to do anymore, but they can't stop doing it. And so a lot of times, like, we might think in our logical brains that like, oh yeah, we know what we're doing like it's one plus one, two plus two, I just got to do this. When in reality, there are some much deeper underlying

Starting point is 00:20:33 emotions that are actually dominating our lives. And if you can address the root of those, then you can almost synchronize and connect your life in a way that's not destructive or self-sabotage. Like this is essentially like what therapy does. Like when you go to a therapist, they don't really talk that much. They ask you questions. And the reason is, is we haven't been taught to synchronize both of these parts of our brains. We haven't been properly taught to communicate the logical side of our brain with our emotional side of our brain. And if you neglect one or the other, it'll come up to bite you deep down and break through the surface.

Starting point is 00:21:15 And so when you go to therapy, they just ask you questions because they're trying to open up these feedback loops to get our brains to sink. And I mean, it doesn't just have to be with therapy. It can be with, you know, having a good conversation with a friend that kind of knows how to give someone space and give someone curiosity to kind of ask themselves to those questions. because a lot of people, you know, try to, like, change their minds. They try to change their EQ or whatever. And they're approaching it from very much like a group force perspective of like, I just got to hammer down this information. I just got to repeat this stuff.

Starting point is 00:21:52 And for sure, repetition, consistency, that's a major part of it. But a lot of times, if you just give someone like advice or you give someone information, their brain is closed off to it. But if you can get them to maybe ask themselves questions, or begin to see things in a different light, then they can start to open up and kind of connect the dots between the logical side of their brain and their emotional side of their brain that then can help someone develop the legitimate EQ and just other sort of areas of their lives. So that's kind of the perspective that I take on.

Starting point is 00:22:27 That's awesome. And yeah, it's very interesting, you know, because we all know people that have a long fuse and a short few. right, whether that's, you know, friends, family, relatives, co-workers, business partners. And it's always been interesting to me when, you know, person A reacts very, very calmly. And person B, you know, can that fuse can be ignited really quick. And, you know, I teach a six-month leadership program for the company that I work for. And one of the sessions that we talk about is it's called an amygdala hijack. right and it's when the primitive part of your brain gets taken over so much that you're not even able to react or respond and it's almost like you know when you snap out of it you're looking at the other person like something's wrong with them you know what I'm saying so and I know I know I've experienced this in my life whether it's you know with my spouse or with my kids and can you tell me about a time that this has happened to you and you know what what have you done to really kind of bring

Starting point is 00:23:35 yourself out of that at that place yeah man it's and it's so weird too because it's like when you begin to like learn about it and you begin to learn that awareness and then it happens and then you it's like you step outside of it you're like like what like what was that like what cloud was over my head like what kind of weather storm was that because i don't even feel like that person it's it's so strange but um i mean honestly like for me i mean like for me like my entire life that story for that was social anxiety. My response was, it was not lashing out, it was not getting angry. Mine for my amygdala was shut down, make yourself smaller, retreat, hide in the corner, social anxiety. For me today, honestly, like, there aren't too many scenarios where I feel like my amygdala

Starting point is 00:24:23 acts up for sure. But, you know, of course, I definitely experience anxiety here to there to a normal degree. But I mean, like one example is like I think maybe in January. Yeah, like at last week of January, I don't want to use the word depression because I don't want to like minimize that word because I don't really think I have depression. But I kind of felt like for like a solid like half of the day, it was just like like there was just like a cloud over my head. And I had to like what I did was I just went for a walk and I was just like kind of looked at it and I kind of looked at my like my schedule and I realized that like I stopped taking a lot of time that I would normally take for like you know self care like taking walks doing these kinds of things because I was sacrificing

Starting point is 00:25:14 for work and hustling and all the stuff and so I remember just like going for a walk like in the forest like in woods like in nature where I haven't done that a little bit and after that and after I had talk to a friend about it, things had sort of calmed down. But I mean, I think the reason is is because the reason why it's not that big is because I do things every day that purposely train my amygdala and train my brain to calm down. You know, one of those is meditation, you know, which a lot of people talk about. You know, meditation is, you know, a lot of people talk about meditation that, a lot of people talk about meditation from the perspective of like it's there to like calm you down.

Starting point is 00:25:54 and for sure it can do that, but I think that's just a side effect. You know, meditation actually just completely restructures and rewires your brain, and it gets you to act and respond to when your nervous system is in a different state, and it's not in this fight or flight nervous system, parasympathetic response. That's one of them. Another one is like, sleep. Sleep is a big one. you're much more likely to like see your body kind of like react primitively if you're not giving

Starting point is 00:26:28 it the right resources. I talk about the study in my book where they show people who consume increased amounts of sugar and processed food have a heightened activity in their amygdala, which is massive. And so I do a lot of these things on a regular basis to where like I haven't really like hit a time where I've been like freaking out or something. But for sure, I definitely get in my moments. And I think the biggest thing that's changed is like when you get in those moments, it's gone from like when I was like a teenager or when I was a kid where I would be in those states for like days or like weeks at a time to now it's like, you know, on a good day, like three seconds, you know, or on a not so great day, maybe it might be 30 minutes. It might be an hour.

Starting point is 00:27:17 It might be two hours. I don't know. So it's really shortening that response time. to where you can get back into your own head. Hopefully I don't kill myself with this microphone. But yeah, that's what I think, man. That's a great question. Awesome, awesome. And so you mentioned that you're more introverted, right? And you gave a brilliant description.

Starting point is 00:27:38 So for the audience that, you know, didn't hear that earlier, it's really where you get your energy from, right? Do you get your energy from the inner world or the outer world? And I think you made a brilliant point when you said that just because you're, You prefer introversion, right? Because it's it's a preference, right? You prefer to be more to yourself versus around larger groups, right? And it doesn't mean that you can't, right?

Starting point is 00:28:04 And I think that's an important thing for people to understand. It doesn't mean that you can't get in front of large groups or you can't be around people for a long period of time. What it does mean is that the energy that after those events and those experiences, like, you don't want to talk to anybody. You want the radio off. Like you need that time to get back to to yourself, right? And for me, you know, I've always been more extroverted. So I get my energy from being around a ton of people and the party's over and I'm ready for the after part. Right.

Starting point is 00:28:33 And so it's so interesting. Once you start to really understand type, you know, noticing it in other people, right? Because it helps you be able to relate to people. It helps you to be able to know how to approach people. And so, you know, I actually am certified in my. Myers-Briggs and before I got certified, I didn't really understand personality. Like I knew introversion and extroversion, I think most people, like you hear about that more often, but people don't take the deeper dive, right? People don't get into, are you a thinker versus a feeler,

Starting point is 00:29:06 are you a judgeer versus a perceiver, which really gets more in depth into personality. So what are your thoughts on, you know, the different assessments that are out there? Have you taken any of them, you know, whether it's, you know, the strengths finders, emotional intelligence 2.0 or maybe MBTI, you know, how familiar are you with those? Yeah, definitely. I mean, we'll say, you know, back up, I think that, you know, you, like, you can be an extremely sociable introvert. You can be actually a pretty shy extrovert, which is a really interesting combination. But, I mean, ultimately, yeah, it is how you get your energy. And it's also like, like you said, it's a personality type. Like, you know, I believe that

Starting point is 00:29:51 being an introvert, being an extrovert is, is largely fixed. You can't really change it. However, you know, if you are shy and more people who are introverted are prone to being more shy because they kind of spend more time in here, which can, you know, back to internal models can, can, you know, have some nuts of great results depending on those models. Um, you know, um, And then honestly, like I see like a lot of speakers that I know, a lot of successful people, they are introverts. And just because they can like speak at an event for 500 people doesn't mean that they're afraid. And so I think I think there's a lot of sort of interesting things. And, you know, honestly, when it comes to personality, the test, I think a lot of it has to depend

Starting point is 00:30:51 with, like, the mood and say that you take the actual test. Like, I've taken Myers-Briggs, like, 10 different times, and I've gotten different personality types almost every single time. And so I think, I think some tests are better suited for some other people than ever, than others. I think a good test out there is won by this organizational psychologist. by the name of Dr. Tasha Eurek, she's a New York Times best song author too. Her test is more on like self-awareness.

Starting point is 00:31:21 That is very, very helpful. So that's one that I would recommend people to check out. Awesome. So I want to give the audience a little bit of context about, you know, the fruition of your podcast, right? So can you give the audience, you know, when you look like, when first of all, when you came up with the idea that you wanted to start one, and then what was that first 30,

Starting point is 00:31:45 days like after you launched. So, yeah, I mean, so technically I actually had a podcast back in 2011 that I started with me and a couple other people, but we quit like a week, two weeks in because we were like, man, there's no way this podcasting stuff is going to catch on. But, you know, I started my podcast, Humans 2.0 because, you know, quite frankly, like I was just getting started in like this whole sort of new chapter in my life with like all the self-development stuff. And, you know, for anyone who's on this journey, you know, you know, it's definitely

Starting point is 00:32:24 rewarding and it's meaningful and it's fulfilling. But it's also very hard. It's very difficult. And so for me, I was kind of like running into all these problems in my life. And I just didn't really have solutions on how to handle them. And so I was like, you know what? I got to get, I got to get that direct sort of like primary resource access to like the best information from people who like are.

Starting point is 00:32:48 actually doing the things that they talk about in the world and are known as the best, the best of doing them. And so I was like, I'm going to start a podcast to just sort of like put myself in the system like a school based school where I could like talk to someone after someone. I'd read their book and then I'd ask them questions and I'd develop my own understanding. And then I'd put that out there online and then people would give me their feedback and my learning would grow and so on and so forth. And then I remember like I was on a run in the middle of the woods and I came up with the name, Humans 2.0. And, you know, I didn't, like, at first my podcast was kind of like more about technology.

Starting point is 00:33:26 Gee, but as I kind of understand, understood more about life, I kind of realized that, like, like you said, like, it's more about the internal game than the outside game. And it doesn't mean that you, like, shouldn't host a podcast on the outside game because everyone's just got different goals and stuff. But for me, I kind of want to drill down to like that human route. Like what makes us human? Like how can we improve the state of like being a human in of itself? And so software background, I don't really do that anymore. And so I was thinking, you know, like, you know, like software has versions. You know, you could, you know, get on that track of like updating that software and trying to like upgrade yourself.

Starting point is 00:34:10 And so that became in the podcast. And yeah, I mean, it's been a crazy, crazy ride. Like the first month of me launching it, nobody listened to my podcast, bro. Like, if I should get downloads, then maybe like a year after. And I also come from a background of marketing too. So I definitely sort of knew what I was doing. After a year, I had like a decent base of people listening to my podcast. And after that, I just totally like blew up and it like became a life on its own.

Starting point is 00:34:41 and it's probably become like that and like LinkedIn have probably become the two biggest like vehicles or path drive is my like success when it comes to professional success and then honestly quite on personal success too because you're always learning you're always growing your relationships too so yeah it's been a crazy ride that's awesome and so how many guests have you had to date uh i think i'm like reaching 300 now. Okay. That's awesome, man.

Starting point is 00:35:14 And did you set any type of goal when you started? Did you say like by 2020, you know, I hope to have, you know, 300 episodes or has this all really just happened organically and just, you know, as it started to scale when when everything started to blow up, has it just been like, all right? Well, I don't know. I don't know if I have a number's goal. I just want to impact as many people as I can, you know? Yeah. So, so when I first started, I had no idea what I was doing. and so like I kind of I kind of came up with the idea to start the podcast like in like summer of 2017

Starting point is 00:35:51 and then by like the end of that summer in like August I had actually pulled the trigger to actually do the podcast and like August, September, October, December, I didn't really take it seriously. I would just I didn't really prep for my episodes. I would just like show up. I didn't really care who I brought on. I was just like randomly doing like random stuff. And of course that's why people didn't care. But at the beginning of the year in 2018, I remember January 1st, I was just like,

Starting point is 00:36:19 like man, like I'm either, I'm either going to do this to like the best of my ability or I'm not. And so that was a period where I just really started to get serious about it. And I really began to like put in more marbles into it. I began to like put out more episodes. I began to learn more. I began to research more about like my guests, what makes you good episode. I began to market better.

Starting point is 00:36:47 I began to really do all these things. And so when I started it, it was just kind of like random. And like four months later, after I had gone on that track, I was like, okay, I'm either going to do this or I'm not. Then I went on a plan to take it seriously. And then I've like been on this conquest ever since.

Starting point is 00:37:04 Okay. That's awesome, man. And so who would you say, has been the most inspirational person to you on this journey, whether it's a family member, friends, a mentor, because I think it's important that people know who these foundational humans are in our lives that really help us and see things in us that we don't see in ourselves sometimes. So can you tell the audience who that person has been for you? And if there's multiple, that's fine as well.

Starting point is 00:37:39 Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, I think, I think first and foremost, the fact that, you know, I'm not a statistic and I didn't kill myself has a lot to do with just like my earlier past of like, you know, the fact that I had great, you know, my parents never abused me. I can really think, like, if I was suicidal and I had like no family foundation, I definitely would have think I would have become a statistic for sure. And so like indirectly, my parents, my family, my sister has helped me my best friend, a lot of people. And then also like, you know, to throw a curveball, you know, I also think that a lot of things in life, you have to do by yourself. And I remember, like, when I was at my rock bottom, one of the things that actually made me get up and get motivated was the fact that I realized that nobody was coming to same. And the fact that I had realized, like, all throughout my life, I was always waiting on other people. I was always being held hostage for people, waiting on people to open the door for me. But when I actually realized that, I was like, man, like, when it comes to, like, really deep internal things, like your mental health, your psychology, I mean, of course, like, you have to learn, you have to get out there and you have to grow.

Starting point is 00:39:02 But it's also, like, a lot of this stuff, people can't do it for you. You know, like a lot of this stuff you have to do yourself. So, besides from, like, my family and, like, my close friends that helped me, you know, I think some other people that have helped me, like, there's this guy named Tim Ferriss. He hosts a podcast if you know him or don't know him. I don't know him personally, but I remember, like, when I was kind of at my rock bottom, I remember hearing one of his podcasts where he talked about the time where he was suicidal. And when I kind of like got that snapshot of like, wow, there's like some successful guy now who hosts a podcast and he talked about the time where he was in college and he was suicidal, I was like, wow, like that gave me a little bit of hope.

Starting point is 00:39:48 And like there were there were dozens of people like online like content creators, authors, people that I read their books and they changed my life for sure. Whether that was Tim Ferriss or in the entrepreneurial lens, Gary Vaynerchuk or people like, um, uh, Navine Jane or, um, just a wide ride of people. And the craziest part is a lot of these people now have actually become my friends. A lot of these people through the podcast have become people that I've known and I've met in real life. And I,

Starting point is 00:40:19 and I, and I text and I get to hang out with. And so like, I'm super grateful for that. And like when you do kind of see that, it kind of makes like the circle kind of go around. And you kind of realize that you've got to do this to other people too. You've got to.

Starting point is 00:40:33 If you can, if you've got your own stuff sorted out, you almost have a responsibility to be this person, but for other people. So everything comes around, you know, full circle. Absolutely, man. And, you know, that's one thing that I've been really realizing over the last couple of years is that, you know, our stories, our journey, you know, it's not for us to keep in, right? It's for us to share with the world and the hopes that we can impact others to inspire them to think differently, maybe do something differently. or maybe take some action, right? Because there's no way you can create momentum without action, right? You can sit around a lot, but if you don't actually move,

Starting point is 00:41:13 then you're not going to create the momentum that'll take you out of the place. And it doesn't matter what place that you're in. You can get out of anything if you just start to move. That's exactly right, man. And, you know, in action creates anxiety. And anxiety creates, either inaction or action. You know, anxiety can actually be like a double-edged sword

Starting point is 00:41:37 where it can like get you to do stuff or it can also get you to like fall deeper in like that like procrastination and action cycle of you feeling worse and worse about yourself. But it's just because you haven't gotten up and sort of like done something. You know, so like for me like, for me like I take very seriously like my, like a lot of people

Starting point is 00:42:00 refer to them as like self-care habits and they view them as like optional things for me I take them very very very seriously because they are like these things that I can just sort of check off my list and on top of like doing those habits that actually like help me manage my amygdala better and help literally help my brain work better they also like check off that box of like just doing something to like slowly build that momentum to get ball of moving and so I know it's very well awesome man and so let's let's jump into the book a little bit as we're as we're coming to a close here so give the audience the name of the book and then really let's let's give everybody five key takeaways that they're going to get when they pick this book up and where they can find it yeah I mean so

Starting point is 00:42:49 so it's largely what we've been talking about but this book is all about mental health transformation social anxiety. It's called screw being shy. Learn how to manage social anxiety, be yourself in front of anyone. And I mean, five tips. I mean, I would say, I would say number one, you have to invest in yourself, whether that is money, time, love, emotions. And so honestly, like, if you're listening to this podcast and you do have social anxiety or you have trouble being yourself in front, of other people. But quite frankly, you're looking for like simple hacks.

Starting point is 00:43:31 I mean, I think that's the first place to start right then and there. Like the short-term mindset of like trying to find hacks or trying to find like magic pill solutions to like easily do. Because the matter of the fact is that that's just not the way that life works. And like in my book and why I actually chose to write this book was and because I've read so many books that because I've interviewed so many people on my podcast. I know what a good book is and what isn't. And by no means am I saying this is a good book because it's my first.

Starting point is 00:44:01 So who knows? But number one is like you have to get to the root cause. No, rather number two. After you understand number one, there is no such thing as a hacker, a quick fix. Number two is you have to understand the root cause. So a lot of people in this industry are mostly focusing on the surface area of like things that you can do. But you actually have to get to the root cause and a major part of that root cause song. understanding your psychological trauma and understanding your childhood.

Starting point is 00:44:28 Number three is I would say you have to gain like a neuroscientific perspective at a very, very simple level of just how the human brain works, how our brain works, whether that's the amygdala or our neocortex or our hippocampus, and then also how like that relates into everyday life, like the things that your brain has sort of been designed to do versus what are modern society has created. So like for example, like I talk about this in the book, but like every single mental health condition has been linked to a deficiency in vitamin D, which is largely caused by lack of sunlight, which is largely caused by people not going outside and just staying inside. And so you might not necessarily know that or think that, but yet our brains know that and they will,

Starting point is 00:45:19 you'll suffer the consequences if you do not meet that need. Number four is I would stay to like again, learn a little bit about the basics and the and sort of like the primitive aspects of what it means to behave as a human being. And there's a percentage of people who are shy and have social anxiety because they haven't really learned how to communicate with other people. They haven't exactly learned how to, like, go up to someone and introduce themselves. And so people who have social anxiety will often fall on the cycle of, like, they're inside because they're socially isolating themselves. And it's not because they don't want to talk to people, but because it's super scary. And the reason why it's super scary is because they don't know how.

Starting point is 00:46:08 And so someone will sort of, like going back to inaction, someone will sort of constantly keep going back into these circles and not actually learning on how to, like, expose them. themselves and just learn and get in those rooms and get in those situations. And so if you can do the research, of course, it's in my book. It shows you how to do this. You learn things like body language. You learn things about like nonverbal communication. You learn sort of how to introduce yourself to people. You learn about the social aspects of like the very basic things of what it needs to act

Starting point is 00:46:40 like a human being. That can be a big help. And then honestly, probably the last one is to expose yourself. And what I mean is like you need to incrementally like I think you to do one through steps one through four first. But once you sort of begin to understand the lay of the land and you identify your fears, then you just begin to expose yourself incrementally. You begin to take like the smallest action of that fear. So for example, for me, when I kind of realized I had social anxiety, what I would do is I would go I would like write in my journey. I write down like today I'm going to go outside and I'm going to talk to five random people

Starting point is 00:47:22 and I go outside and I would try to do that but I failed and I realized that was too broad of a goal to give my mind and so I had to go back to the drawing board and be like hey I'm going to go up to five random people and just ask them what the time is and so I go outside and then because it's like a very logical sort of thing like the logical side of your brain you're like, hey, sorry to interrupt you. What's the time? And you do that and you slowly begin to ease that fear. And then you walk up to another five people.

Starting point is 00:47:54 And you're like, hey, what's the time? And then also you know how to get to directions to go to this place over here. That's like right over there that you know how to get there. And so you work your way sort of down these steps. And then eventually you can randomly walk up people and kind of start these conversations. So there's definitely more to it than that. But those are five ideas, I guess, that someone can have in their mind to kind of look at this differently. Awesome.

Starting point is 00:48:21 No, that definitely makes a whole lot of sense. And, you know, I think it's always interesting. And, you know, you kind of understand it and why they really try to get kids involved in extracurricular sports, right? It's a lot of it's obviously that from the sports aspect, you get the teamwork, the camaraderie. You get you get to work your muscles. But also from the fundraising aspect, you get out of the house. You get in front of people, right? You get to knock on doors and sell the cookies and the beef jerky and things like that.

Starting point is 00:48:55 And I know for me, I think that was foundational in really building up my people skills at a young age, right? And my first job was at 14. I went door to door signing people up for newspaper subscriptions. So like I had to hear 100 people tell me no every day. So, you know, I think having those experiences in, and again, I think you're right on the money when it's start small, right? Start with the logical questions and then work your way up, right? Because the more people you talk to, the more you're going to get comfortable. Yeah, absolutely, man.

Starting point is 00:49:32 And like, I recommend that too. So it's like regardless of whether you think of yourself as like an athletic person or not, I think the best thing to do. And quite honestly, not just for kids, but even adults. is to like join some sort of a sports team because like on top of like the physical exercise, which is great for your mental health, you also get that communication. You also get like what it's like to like do something in a group with people and kind of have those altercations for sure. And like, you know, if we can get multiple people to do that early on for sure, then you'll

Starting point is 00:50:05 definitely, you know, see a population with people who don't struggle or, you know, maybe they're able to sort of go out. of their shyness and not have it sort of develop into social anxiety where like a lot of it has to do with like your nervous system and a lot of like your biochemical signals. But if you get that early on for for sure, man. So that's what I always recommend people too. And, you know, if you have kids, definitely try to get them like that. And then, and then, you know, for sure, like the fundraising aspect that you have.

Starting point is 00:50:35 Like I think that's good not just for getting out there, but also just like teaching people how the actual world works of like, if. you want something you basically need money or you need to get it from someone else you know you need to get those resources so invaluable invaluable resources man and thank you for having me on and i didn't mention it but people can check out the books group being shy on amazon um you can go to my website for just sort of like a more central place to check out what i've got going on which is just my first and last name dot com m-r-k m-tr-y-d-com awesome man hey listen it's been an awesome time having you on. I appreciate you, you know, really telling the audience about your journey. And

Starting point is 00:51:18 I can't wait to see what's in it next for you. I know you've got some, some big plans, I'm sure. So thank you so much for being on the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. Wow, what a great episode with Mark Metri. He's got tons of information. He's helping a lot of people out through his content. Make sure that you all check out his website, Mark Metri. com and connect with him. You know, he's on social, he's on Instagram, he's on LinkedIn, he's on Twitter as well. So make sure you check out all of his info in the show notes.

Blaze Your Own Trail - S2: Episode 1: Screw Being Shy With Mark Metry

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