Hello everyone! Welcome to the first episode of my podcast called Shy to Dynamic! I’m really excited to get this started because it is a manifestation of my journey over the last ten years or so towards understanding myself and understanding how the Universe works and improving myself and my life. My name is Maxx Mitchell and I am your dynamic host, or at least that is what I’m working toward being. So part of this endeavor is for me to develop myself into the dynamic person that I know I truly can be.
But the other part of it, of course, is to help my listeners as well. I want to help others to overcome their shyness or social anxiety or just lack of confidence in themselves so that they can come out of their shell, as I have done, and to be their best selves. There are so many benefits to overcoming shyness including: 1) happiness -- because you are more capable of making connections and making more friends, which helps to alleviate loneliness, which in turn makes you happier. 2) More knowledge… which can then lead to more opportunities. You learn a lot from people by talking to them. Sooo many ideas come from listening to other people! Think of what you can do with a world of ideas that can come from talking to many people. This can lead to more opportunities or even new paths in life… whether they be financial… or friendships, and maybe even romantic relationships. 3) Confidence: Shyness is rooted in a fear of presenting yourself to the world. So almost by definition, when you rid yourself of shyness, you become more confident. Or rather, you have already become more confident in order to become less shy. It is cyclical relationship. I want to coach or help you, whether thru this podcast, or in my posts, or one on one, or in small groups, to overcome and win the battle against your shyness, social anxiety, lack of confidence, and to be able to release your most authentic self to the world.
So, in order to do that, I decided to start a podcast. So you might ask.. Who am I to start a podcast? Am I an expert on shyness? Well, yes I am, in fact. Because I’ve lived it. Nearly all of my life I have been shy. I remember being shy from a long ways back! I can remember when I was young, my family and I attended a church about … I don’t know… about 80 miles from our home, and after the services my parents and other family members would talk and socialize for an hour or more afterwards. I was too scared and too shy to talk to the other kids, so I just sat near my mom, waiting for her and the rest of my family to finish socializing, enduring what seemed like endless boredom while waiting for them to finish talking. Looking back, it seems utterly ridiculous that I was not capable of striking up simple conversations with the other kids. So me and shyness go way back to my childhood… we’ve been pals forever!, so to speak... But it was a love-hate friendship of course.
But now, I have overcome shyness, let’s say… 90% or so. In fact, literally everyone that I know and that I meet now says that they don’t understand why I would ever call myself shy and that I am far from shy at this point. Which is still amazing to me when I hear that… I mean how can that possibly be, right? That is not who I have been most of my life. But I’ve begun to accept that my identity has indeed changed. I am no longer a shy person. And that’s an important part of growing and improving…. Changing your identity… being able to see yourself in a new identity… looking at yourself in a different way and with time, you begin to do things differently because you see who you are as a different kind of person than you perceived yourself to be before.
And as far as the second part of the name of this podcast… Am I an expert on being dynamic? Now that is harder to answer yes to. But I can say for sure and definitely, that I am well on the path to being dynamic. One brief example…
A year ago, I was very intimidated to host any kind of event. I didn’t feel comfortable being the center of attention or the person in charge that people had to come to. This year, as of now, I have hosted six social meetup events, and people have said I have done a great job! (And if you don’t know what meetup is, you can go to the internet and go to meetup.com… I am a huge fan of meetups as far as getting to know new people and overcoming your shyness. That was the starting point for how I overcame my shyness.)
But back to what I was saying, I’ve hosted several meetup events successfully. And now I actually have some people texting me on the weekends, asking me what’s going on this weekend?. And I’m thinking to myself… Am I like a social director now?? Well, yes I am, in fact. Because my identity has changed now. And it’s absolutely crazy how far I’ve come!
My internal personality is still the same, but my outward personality, my outward identity, how I present myself to the world, has changed because I reveal much more of myself to the world now. And that’s always a good thing. Now if you’re some type of person with violent or dangerous or toxic tendencies, showing yourself to the world might not be the best thing, and you would need to see a professional therapist about that, but assuming you’re a regular ol’ person, then being your authentic self is the key to improving your life, and I am living proof of that. I mean I actually have something to do or someone to meet up with every weekend… and that would have been inconceivable even a year ago!
So… Other than trying to match up to the title of my podcast, I will tell you more about who I am, what I’ve done in my life so far, what I’ve learned the last few years, and what I hope to bring to the podcasting world.
So first things first, I grew up in a small town in northeastern North Carolina called Ahoskie. That’s A-H-O-S-K-I-E. Yes, that’s a strange name for a city. In fact, its motto is “The Only One”, which is written on the welcome signs when you enter the town, and that slogan means that it’s the only Ahoskie in the world…. Which I think is something to be proud of???.... I’m not really sure. Anyway, I was raised by an absolutely wonderful and smart mother who loved me and supported me in everything, and just frankly was good at being a mother. But she also had a career as a high school teacher, which she started the year that she was pregnant with me. In fact, she has shown me a picture taken of herself in her classroom while she was pregnant with me. I have always admired her leadership and confidence skills. Some of those skills were to be able to speak confidently in front of a group, and to be a strong leader, which I have always wanted to be like her in that sense.
I also had a wonderful grandmother, my mother’s mom, who loved me and was so wise. What I loved about her most was that ALTHOUGH she was very religious… she was the good kind of religious, not at all judgy, but humble and loving to everyone.
I learned a lot from her about God and religion. And even beyond that, a lot of my wisdom, if I have any, comes from her. I’d like to think I was her favorite grandchild, but who knows?
Both my mom and grandmother both gave me a sense of morality and compassion, which I believe made me the type of person that is empathetic and who wants to understand people and their emotions and their drivers. I also have a wonderful older sister who was great at looking out for me and was a great big sister as I was growing up. She is also very outgoing, unlike me or at least unlike how I used to be. She always has been very extroverted and energetic and she’s always taking on a new project or hobby or some kind of endeavor. She has accomplished a lot of things that really wow me, such as she wrote a book about Healthy Eating and healthy life habits. And she’s even been on the Rachael Ray show. And recently she had one of her photographs featured in a state park calendar. She has also raised a wonderful son, my nephew, and he has always amazed me as well.
One of the things I am most proud of personally is that I have a great relationship with my only nephew. And that’s not always guaranteed of course. He is so smart, clever, and independent. His independence is one of the traits I admire most. I ALSO was very independent and strong-minded at his age, but what I like about his version of independence is that I think he is much more world-smart and confident than I ever was at that age. I actually get some level of financial knowledge from him… and he is only in his early twenties!. But I wonder how my young nephew is so much wiser about some things than I am… But I guess he got it from his mom and dad, or maybe that’s just who he is. So many of our traits are just built-in, which I’ll talk about a little more later.
All of my family are truly interesting and special people, and I’m always interested in what they have to say and what I can learn from them. My grandmother has passed away, as well as my stepfather. My stepfather really helped raise me as if I was his own biological son. He was a positive male role model in my life. He worked hard all his life and he was also a preacher later in life. I don’t remember him ever saying a negative word to me, and he was super supportive of me too, way more than anyone would expect him to be. And he was super funny. I still remember funny ongoing jokes and inside jokes that my family shared with him.
So I have definitely spent enough time talking about my family, but there is an ulterior motive. When my podcast becomes huge and I become uber-famous, I want them to know that they were included in my inaugural episode!
But now I know that you want to hear more about me!... because I’m pretty awesome. So I’m attempting to tie my family back into my own personal story.
My family is an important part of who I am, and they help explain who I am. I have always had a nurturing supportive family, and that makes me incredibly blessed and lucky. I had a nurturing and safe childhood, where I was allowed to truly be myself, and my input and my emotions were truly valued and supported. So it’s amazing even to me, when I think about it, that I have been so shy all my life. It’s not like I had anyone tearing me down or making me feel bad about myself.
Which goes to show you, that shyness is something that is just built-in, which I alluded to before. I mean it may not always be built-in, but I think in most cases it is. Now did something happen to me when I was a year old that scarred me for life and caused me to become shy? Or was I too coddled and nurtured and supported? Or is it because I am a gay man… well, back then a little gay black boy? Could I sense that I had a secret that was something to be ashamed of and therefore I held myself distant from the world? Well, I can never know if any of those reasons came into play. But at any rate, I love who I am now and what I have become, as well as how I grew up, so if shyness is one of the biggest battles I’ve had to overcome, then I’d choose that battle again any day.
Now I don’t want anyone to think that I was so debilitatingly shy that I couldn’t function in life. I actually achieved quite a lot. Not so much financially, because like I said I have really sucked at managing my finances…. But academically, yes. I went off to a state high school in North Carolina for the “academically gifted” during my junior and senior years of high school, which was definitely one of my most formative experiences of my life. I studied chemical engineering for four years in college and graduated with an above 3 GPA. And later on, I got two additional degrees, one of them in statistics! So I was pretty smart. And I have had various technical jobs related to those fields.
I have functioned very well as an individual contributor in my professional career and of course I also had to work on teams with other people too… but I never skyrocketed to stellar hights in my career. And I think that was largely because of my shyness and social anxiety. It’s hard to be considered a leader when you are somewhat quiet and you don’t speak up often to give your opinion or input. Frankly, it just doesn’t work. I never desired to be any type of manager because that would require way too much talking and communicating and expressing myself.
Now that I have changed so much, I actually want to communicate A LOT! I mean…. Can’t you tell? I’m doing a freakin’ podcast right now. I’ll say this again – I’ve truly come a long way. And now I want to share my voice to the world and I want to help other shy people to do the same thing… because it brings so much fulfillment to my life… and overcoming shyness will bring fulfillment to your life as well.
I was always extremely inquisitive and wanted to learn about so many things. Looking back, that is a recurring theme in my life. I’ve always wanted to understand how things work…. Both physical things, as well as non-tangible things like systems and hierarchies. I’ve also always been into numbers and math. I’ve always known the number of days that each month has. I was amazed when I learned that most people don’t know that. I hear people at work saying the deadline is June 31. And I’m thinking to myself… June 31, are you serious??? So I’ve always been into numbers, and also a lot of revelations come to me by how numbers align or certain dates line up. Maybe I’m an undercover numerologist, which I will talk about at some point.
I also have always loved geography. I always know exactly where I am on a map. I am oddly fascinated by the boundaries of places, and how highways and streets are laid out. I remember drawing a whole city on paper when I was 7 or 8 years old because I was so fascinated about how Washington, DC was planned and laid out. The city I created was called Maxerton…. So dumb I know. I still have that city on paper in my storage room. That city of course didn’t have nearly all the things that a city needs to have, but hey I was 7 or 8 (or maybe younger), so what do you expect?
Anyway, as far as geography, I love to travel and I still love to travel alone even though I’m less shy. I love to research everything about a new place and then plan my itinerary, and plan the itinerary for others simply because I love new experiences and I love gaining new knowledge about places and people. In fact, my sister says that travel is what I should focus on. But I defied her wishes and decided that this effort is what I should focus on for now. However, I will do one little thing with my podcasts which is an homage to my love of travel. I will dedicate each episode to each of the 200 largest cities in America, but starting with the four cities that I identify with most. So each podcast will be identified by number and by city. And by the way, this episode is named the Charlotte episode after my current beloved city.
I have also always had a love for music. I truly get into really complex music where you hear all these amazing sounds and melodies and harmonies, and where you can hear all these cool nuances in the vocals and the music. Basically, the more creative the song the better, as long as the music appeals to me. Some of the artists who have created the most complex and interesting music, almost to the point for me to be a spiritual experience, are Janet Jackson, Prince, Britney Spears, Blake Lewis, Luther Vandross, even Nick Jonas. So some of those names give a strong clue that I’m gay, but it is what it is. Some of these names wouldn’t necessarily be recognized as masters of musicality, but hey, they do it for me.
So I have always been fascinated by those three things: 1) numbers and math, 2) geography and maps, and 3) music….
But over time, my inquisitiveness and curiosity has morphed into a curiosity of how the spiritual or metaphysical world or the Universe works and how our minds and our thoughts and emotions work. How we can improve our own world, and how we can even, in effect, create the world we want with our own minds. People have such different and unique and wonderful personalities, and they have so many different motivations and rationales and drivers for the decisions that they make. And only a small fraction of that is even observable at the conscious level. There are so many subconscious thoughts and mindsets that we have, that affect who we are and the life we live and build for ourselves. Not only that, we can learn to modify and expand those mindsets to work out to our benefit and to the benefit of the people we love and care about.
More personally, I wanted to understand how my own mind works and how I could get over the things that held me back, including shyness, loneliness, low self-esteem, lack of friends, feelings of inadequacy, transitioning from a young person to a middle-aged or older person. Only once I conquer those things can I satisfy my desire to fulfill my own destiny, the desire to make a difference to the world, the desire to make a difference in people’s real lives. The desire to be influential. The desire to be important. The desire to be.. DYNAMIC.
And that leads me back to that word, DYNAMIC. That is the word I chose many years ago to be my future goal in life. I wanted to be DYNAMIC. Even my mom remembers me bringing that word up years ago as my goal.
And I knew that in order to become DYNAMIC, I needed to not be shy. I needed to not be afraid of people from an emotional standpoint. I needed to come to terms with the idea that I have an important voice. And that I can be an important, dynamic person.
I’m not saying this to imply that it’s all about me. But in a sense, it IS all about me… from my perspective anyway. Because that’s the way that everybody needs to feel in order to overcome their shyness and social anxiety. You need to know and believe that your value and importance are not dependent on whether others can see it. Your value is dependent on whether YOU can see it. And when you see your own value, you are naturally more confident, and then other people see your value as well. Because the confidence that you gain is then reflected out into the world and other people pick up on it subconsciously. And they will become drawn to you. Obviously, not everyone will be drawn to you, but the right people will be.
So you might ask… How did I overcome my shyness?... and did I really overcome my shyness? The funny thing is I don’t remember actually telling myself that I wanted to get over my shyness. But I did use the words that I wanted to “be more social” and I wanted “more of a social life”. I had already undergone years of self-improvement mainly by reading quite a few books on my own. My main two books that inspired me: First, Who Says You Can’t, You Do? by Daniel Chidiac and 2) You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero. They were both life-changing for me and I wholeheartedly recommend both of them. The two most important topics that both of these books talked about, from in my opinion of course, were 1) how you can change your mindset to get what you need and want and 2) how the Universe is your friend and partner, and when you align and connect yourself to the Universe, or maybe another way to say it is to “tap into the Universe”, then the Universe will provide everything you truly want and definitely the things you need.
So during all this time that I was reading books and just trying to learn and grow and improve internally, I was still very lonely. I really didn’t have any local close friends where I lived in AZ. I did have a few local friends after I moved from Tuscson to Phoenix, AZ, but those friendships never fully developed or they kinda fizzled out. And some of the problem near the end was due to the pandemic, but that was just the final blow. I know now that the most likely reason why I still continued to struggle was that I was still ashamed to be my most authentic self and ashamed to express myself fully. And this was because I didn’t love and appreciate and value who I was. I felt I wasn’t interesting enough or clever enough or even wise enough to be someone that was worth talking to or hanging around. I felt that I was judged negatively by everyone I met or would meet. I was still scared of people emotionally.
But… when you seek the answers, when you connect with the Universe, it will provide you the answers. The only drag is that often it takes a long time… or at least longer than you want it to take. And it doesn’t necessarily provide you the answers that you want to hear. But in the end, you always end up finding out that the answers are the right answers for you.
The first way you connect with the Universe is to meditate… which is a way to allow the answers to come to you or flow to you from your subconscious or from the Universe…however you want to think of it. There are multiple ways to meditate, and I am not a meditation expert, so it is not my place today to try to explain how to meditate, but there are thousands of instructors who specialize in that. Oftentimes people tell you that meditation is clearing your mind of everything. But it’s a little confusing because growing up, I would hear about “meditating on the Scriptures”, so clearly that doesn’t involve emptying your mind.
I feel that you can get some meditative effects sometimes be going for a walk or a hike in nature. But I think the best way is to sit in a quiet room and close your eyes and just pay attention to what images or thoughts come into your mind. You just turn off outside distractions and just think about what it is you want to see change in your life. Clearing out those outside distractions will allow those concepts you’ve previously ingested to surface into your conscious mind. The Universe won’t usually speak to you directly in terms of words or a conversation. Although to be honest, that can happen… Sometimes when I meditate, words do pop into my mind out of nowhere. Those words may or may not make sense at first, but it usually eventually does!
When you declare that you want things to change in your life, that puts it out into the Universe and the Universe will begin to find the solution for you. This sounds like magic, but it’s not so much magic as just simply the way the Universe actually works. But most people don’t know that. In the end, you always end up finding out that the answers you are given are the right answers for you. Even though you may be resistant to those answers initially.
For instance, I was led over and over again to leave Arizona and move back to my home state of North Carolina. My mom kept telling me that I was going to eventually move back to North Carolina. I didn’t believe her when she was saying it, but she was right. And oftentimes, the answers to your life come thru other people.
But even beyond my mother’s repeated gentle suggestions… a.k.a., insistence, I still had my own personal reasons for leaving Arizona. I just could never find happiness there. Not that Arizona is a bad place. It’s a dry place, but not a bad place. It’s just that the Universe was telling me that it wasn’t the place for me. The Universe tells you what you should leave behind by making it uncomfortable for you. I was lonely… I couldn’t find a circle of friends. I couldn’t find dates. I couldn’t find any connections to keep me there. So I eventually knew I had to leave. And I eventually gave in. Not that I really had a choice, because once I built my connection with the Universe, the Universe was going to make sure I did what I needed to do to find peace and happiness and success. That’s just the way the Universe works.
The Universe showed me that the best city for me to move to was Charlotte because it brought me closer to my mother in nearby Raleigh and my nephew actually attends school in Charlotte, and what’s more -- my company had another regional headquarters in Charlotte, so it was pretty easy for me to transfer here, and when I asked my boss if I could move to Charlotte, she immediately said yes and that it was no problem or difficulty at all. So everything lined up perfectly. Because that’s how it was meant to be.
Now, I thought Phoenix, and I still think Phoenix is stunningly beautiful. To some people, the desert is too brown and dry, but for me, I’m somewhat color-blind, so brown and green aren’t that far apart, and to me, trees are overrated. The geography of the whole state of Arizona for the most part is simply breathtaking. On the other hand, I had always thought Charlotte was ugly or at least not very visually appealing and definitely not at all impressive. Geographically Charlotte’s not very interesting either. Great skyline, but no elaborate system of highways that blow your mind. Terrible highway system actually. But in spite of my negative opinion of Charlotte, and my trepidation about moving my life here, I made the move to Charlotte and the Universe came thru for me as it always does… and my life changed drastically and tremendously.
My opinion of Charlotte changed once I had lived here for only a few months. Because Charlotte is just so daRn interesting and fun. There are so many things to do and see. I had researched the city beforehand, and I knew that the Charlotte’s visitor guide made it sound like the most exciting city on the East Coast. But I didn’t really believe it. I thought the authors were just overhyping it, just like most cities do. But little did I know that it would live up to the hype! I would say now that Charlotte is very impressive… it’s the definitely the place to be if you want elements of Atlanta without all the drama of Atlanta. I probably shouldn’t compare it to Atlanta because it always gets compared to Atlanta.. but anyway, Charlotte isn’t necessarily naturally beautiful like Phoenix, but it’s definitely cute. Charlotte is a real life example of learning the principle that… In life, external beauty is less important than the heart.
And the heart of Charlotte is amazing. Which made it seem more attractive and lovely to me over time.
And more importantly, Charlotte changed my life. Well, the Universe changed my life, but it did it via Charlotte. I moved to Charlotte because I was destined to move here and to become my best, most authentic self here. Now, do I believe that this could have only occurred in Charlotte? No not necessarily. But the Universe molds your world in such a way as to make it become your reality. The Universe molded me in such a way that Charlotte became just what I needed, and maybe in some small ways, the Universe actually molded Charlotte to become what I needed as well.
When I moved here to Charlotte, I had the immediate goal to be more social and to have more of a social life. I joined meetup groups. It was very uncomfortable for me at first, but I slowly met more and more people. Repeatedly putting myself out there and revealing my personality and going to events and showing up for myself made me progressively more confident and socially adept. I began to expand my own social capabilities. It wasn’t instant and there were a few hiccups, but you should never expect life to be perfect. And over several months, I became more confident and began to realize that I could be at the forefront of these meetup events. I began to believe that maybe I could host my own meetup events! I expanded my belief in what I could accomplish! Which ultimately led me to believe that I could even host this podcast!
To show you how far I came, at first I believed that I would eventually move 70 miles away to Greensboro, and I would host my own meetup group there because it was a smaller city with less of a big city aura and it would feel less competitive in the meetup game. I thought the meetups I went to in Charlotte were pretty awesome and exciting and how could I host anything like that as introverted and anti-social as I was?!
But I was on a path… I didn’t know I would keep growing, but I did. After a few months, I realized that Greensboro wasn’t enough for the kind of person I was becoming. So what was I thinking to want to move to Greensboro?! The big city of Charlotte was the place for me to be and to live and to thrive! I started hosting my own meetup events and they were all successful! People asked me Why do you consider yourself to be shy?! I’ve recently begun to believe their sentiment. I no longer accept the label of a shy guy. I am no longer shy! Mission accomplished!
And I believe anyone out there can make the same transition as I have. Granted, there are many out there who may have gone thru more traumatic events in their lives and may need some extra assistance, but anyone can do it.
And I want to inspire others to do it! As a coach, I will work with you and do what coaches do… which is to challenge your assumptions about yourself and who you think you are. And I want to get you to a higher state where you believe that your voice has value no matter what… no matter if you’re talking about something trivial or something more important. Whether you say things awkwardly or eloquently, your voice is important. Even if you’re basically repeating something someone else already said, your voice is unique and important because it comes from unique you.
So just go to my website if you want to talk to me about any shyness or social anxiety issues.
So just a few words about what this podcast will be like. Ideally I would like to talk about overcoming shyness forever and ever, amen. Not because it’s the most interesting thing in my life, but because it could be helpful to many people. There are new shy people born everyday.
But instead, although I will cover shyness most often, I will cover many other topics that I find interesting. I want this to be a conversation with my audience as if you are my friends and we are trying to get to know each other. I think it’s important for you to get to know interesting dynamic ME. I want you to know I’m a real person. I want to talk about principles that I’ve learned in life that I feel are important and are key to living a good life.
I will talk about mindset. I will talk about transitioning to an older person. I will talk about issues of masculinity. (I added the part about masculinity before I made the decision to focus on masculinity!) I will be frank about my identity as a gay man and a black man, and the effect that those things have had on my life. Maybe by sharing I can help others deal with a lot of issues. I am being called right now to share as much of my life as reasonably possible… because I believe that being my authentic self and sharing my soul are the avenue to success in my life and leaving a legacy for those around me.
But I’d also like to get to know all of you eventually too. So if my story and future stories resonate with you and you think I can help you come out of your shell and be a more confident outgoing person, then please contact me at one of the contact options listed in my podcast description such as Instagram or Facebook, or visit my website!. Even if it’s just to ask me questions or to ask my opinion about something.
If you have enjoyed my introductory episode, then please give me five stars and write a review. And if you need more time to evaluate me, then also please do listen to a few more episodes -- and then give me five stars! I look forward to any feedback you may have about this podcast and this movement I’m creating.
As always, remember to show up and DELIVER for yourself today and create a NEW dynamic version of yourself.
Thanks so much.
Episode 1, the Charlotte episode is now done!