The Liz Moody Podcast - How To Become More Confident: Quiet Your Inner Critic, Stop People Pleasing, and Unlock A Bigger Life With Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Actionable tips for breaking free from hesitation, fear, and self-doubt to live your fullest life from the world’s leading confidence expert.  whether confidence is something you have to be born with the biggest factors that get in the way of confidence (+ how to overcome each of them) exactly how to stop believing your inner critic  a science-backed way to stop comparing yourself to other people how to stop people pleasing and live YOUR dream life a trick for becoming more comfortable with awkward moments or conversations  a simple practice to get way better at making hard decisions  how to know what you want so you can go after it a hack for feeling more confident in job interviews or on dates  a genius way to immediately feeling more confident in the moment how to effectively instill confidence in kids and so much more!  For more from Dr. Gazipura, visit draziz.com and check out his latest book, Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself.  To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. This episode is sponsored by:  Wild Health: go to wildhealth.com/liz or use code LIZ for 20% off.   Seed: go to seed.com/daily-synbiotic and use code LIZMOODY for 15% off your first month. Pique: go to piquelife.com/LIZMOODY and use code LIZMOODY for 15% off plus free shipping FOR LIFE on Pique’s Radiant Skin Duo. Cymbiotika: get 15% off using code LIZ at cymbiotika.com.  Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're busting myths about the latest skincare trends, learning simple hacks for managing anxiety, or overcoming the fears holding us back from taking risks. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. This topic has been requested for years, and I am so,

happy that I finally, finally found the perfect guest to speak on the subject. I've always thought of confidence as a more amorphous thing, but it turns out that there is science and concrete action steps that we can all use to become more confident. I am so excited to welcome Dr. Aziz Gazapura to the podcast. Dr. Gazapora is the world's leading confidence expert, the host of the podcast shrink for the shy guy, and he has written five bestselling books, including the art of extraordinary confidence and his most recent book, Not Nice, Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent and Feeling Guilty, and start speaking up saying no, asking boldly, and unapologetically being. He is the founder of the Center for Social Confidence, where he offers coaching, courses,

and events all centered around building confidence. In this episode, we get into whether confidence is something that you have to be born with, the biggest factors that get in the way of confidence, plus how to overcome each of them, exactly how to stop believing. leaving your inner critic, a science-backed way to stop comparing yourself to other people, how to stop people-pleasing and live your dream life, a trick for becoming more comfortable with awkward moments or conversations, a simple practice to get way better at making hard decisions, how to know what you want so you can go after it, a hack for feeling more confident in job interviews or on dates, a genius way to immediately feel more confident in the moment,

how to effectively instill confidence in kids and so much more. I would love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaways as you're listening to the episode. So definitely screenshot and tag me. I'm at Liz Moody and Dr. Gazapora. He is at Dr. Aziz Confidence Coach on Instagram. Literally, I feel like 98% of the world needs to hear this message. This episode is one of my favorites in healthier together history. I do not say that lightly.

There are just so many actionable takeaways, and it is such an important subject. If we're confident, we can start to do all of the other things that make our lives rich and full and amazing. So please send a link around to any and all family members, friends, coworkers, anyone you know. Sharing is also the best way to support the podcast and it is so, so appreciated. Okay, let's get confident. Let's be our most confident selves with Dr. Aziz Gazapora.

Dr. Gaspura, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here today and to get into all things about how to be more confident. Me too. Let's do it. Let's start off. Can anybody be confident or should some of us be realistic about how we look or our intelligence or our abilities? What if you're surveying yourself and you're like, I don't have anything I should be confident about? That's a great question.

Can everyone be the most beautiful, the best athlete, the model? No, that's biological factors, crazy lifestyle choices. But that does not mean that everyone cannot be confident because confidence is not based upon those things as much as we might have been conditioned to think that it is. Well, I don't look like that, so I can't be confident. Actually, confidence is an inside job, which means your own perceptions, how you see yourself, your own psychology. And you can actually develop something called unconditional confidence, which is not derived from your money and your appearance and other things, and then you can access that. And that's something that anyone can learn. Do you think some people have a head start, though? Like if you are born with everybody telling you

how beautiful you are or how rich or successful you are, is it easier for those people, in your opinion? Or are there other conflating factors? Yes and no, because someone who is popular in school and does sports or whatever, they might have a lot of evidence that says, hey, you're worthy and desirable. And they do tend to have that assumption about themselves. At the same time, I've also met many people who are extremely successful. They got all the straight Aids. They did all the AP classes or whatever. And they have a great job and a great career. And they still feel like an imposter. Or the person who's extremely beautiful. And I've talked to some very beautiful clients. And they have an incredible perfectionism around their appearance that

makes them have this distorted sense of their value and their worth. And so it's not a free ticket to have a certain upbringing or a certain body type. It actually is, well, maybe you did really well in school and you did have all these opportunities. But every day you got home, one of your parents was like, is that all you got? What about the A plus? What about this? It doesn't matter how much you did and what you look like. You still feel like you're not enough. And I think that goes back to that confidence being an inside job. I think that's the danger of any external fact. as they can go away. I have friends who have been rewarded societally for how they look for a really, really long time, and they're struggling more with aging than any of my other friends who maybe

weren't rewarded as much for how they look. Do you get it? Everyone has to do the work. Everyone has to do the work to let go of what you've hooked your confidence hat on. And maybe you put it on like, well, I was the fastest. But now you're 48 and sure, you're still a good athlete, but there's guys that are faster than you. Or I was the most beautiful. I never even had to question that. You rose higher and now it's farther to fall when you're turning whatever age versus some woman who maybe never got that shower without attention. And she's actually had a lot more peace now. And you didn't have to do that work. And now you do. It's very humbling for me to see that, hey, all of us got to do that work to let go at some point in our lives.

What do you think are some of the biggest factors that get in the way of people becoming confident? First and foremost, their relationship with themselves. We all have an inner monologue, dialogue between different parts of ourselves. And the louder and the stronger your inner critic is, the lower your confidence is going to be. It's kind of like a no-dust statement, but most people are partially aware of their critic. They actually agree submissively. They look in the mirror and they're like, ugh. And they agree with that.

They don't say, whoa, that's a crazy thing to say to myself. maybe occasionally they catch the critic, but 80% of the messages are just getting through. So that's the biggest obstacle, I'd say. And the large portion of the work I do with people is helping them learn to identify, challenge, and change that inner voice. The second thing is people buy their self-protective stories. We all don't want to fail. We don't want to get rejected.

We don't want to have all those negative outcomes. So we'll usually spin a story around the risk and say, I would do that, but it's probably not going to work out. So why? And then we buy that story and we don't test the edge. We don't test the reality. We don't take the risk. Therefore, we don't grow as rapidly.

We don't achieve new things. We don't experience life. And I'd say that's the biggest other pattern I've seen that hinders the confidence growth. We'll talk about all of these different factors. But I want to get into what you say. Can you say those three factors again with your inner critic? You identify challenge and then change. Yes.

Can you walk us through what that might look like in an example in practice? the identification, the challenging, and then the change? Absolutely. The first part of identifying it is the inner critical thoughts will be mixed into your general thoughts stream. Most of us, we're all thinking all day long, unless you're actively trying to meditate or something. You will have very functional thoughts like, oh, I've got to meet that person at 2 o'clock,

kind of observational thoughts, like, oh, I'm hungry, or that person is looking over at me, or I think they said they liked me or not, or whatever. And then you also have thoughts that are going to be very selfishness. focused and very harsh. And they're mixed right in there. So I'm going to meet that person at two o'clock. I think John might be upset with me. I'm a horrible person who's never going to be lovable. And then I'm going to go pick up my car at the mechanic. That's literally going into our thought stream, which then affects our whole nervous system, our perception of now I'm not going to go put myself out there on the internet because I'm worthless because I believe that critic. It's mixed in there. So the first step is

identifying it with clients. I'll often have them do a practice. Catch the critic is what I call it. There's different ways to do this, but I like to go old school. And instead of using your phone, get yourself a little three-by-five card and put it in your pocket and have the date. And then you just mark a hatchmark whenever you notice it. So you literally pull it out and put a hatchmark. There's something about that analog, physical thing that really gets a different level of

awareness and practice going. And what people will notice is first day, maybe they hatchmarked 10, 15, 30 times. And they're like, wow. But over time, within a couple of days, you will start to say, wait a minute, that was a critical thought. Hey, hey. And then I take it further and have people give their critic a name. And I encourage playful names.

Sometimes people will just call them The Critic. And I'm like, well, okay, a playful name allows you to catch it and start to separate or dissociate from it a little bit. My current name for my critic is Commander Chucky. And I'll be like, whoa, Commander Chucky. What are you doing? And for me, it's so absurd that it starts to help me break the pattern a little bit. So that's the catching.

Once you've caught it, though, a lot of people in this process will say, yeah, I heard my critic all day long, and it kicked me around. So what next? And that's where we have to challenge it. You have to change your relationship to the critic. And it starts by watching, are you the submissive child to some abusive inner voice? That's what most people are. And just watch that for a minute.

This critic starts talking and you become a subservient five-year-old. So what's going on there? And I'll guide people to reclaim a sense of power. One of my favorite phrases is, I am the captain of my ship and really helping them see that. Okay, wait a minute. I'm not going to give control of the ship to this critic. And so there's this finding of some sense of pride, healthy pride. Like, wait a minute, hey, hey.

And another metaphor I'll use is the drunk dad who kicks down the door and everyone goes running. maybe that literally did happen to you, but now it's you in this critic in your head and you do have the power. So I guide people to stand up and find that place to challenge it from and then changing it. Changing it is where you actually start to dial. And a lot of people have a pitfall with this because they're like, oh, do I just say the opposite? So my critic says I'm an ugly loser. I say, I'm a beautiful winner. And it's like, try it, try it. Maybe. Maybe it works great. But usually what happens is those things fall flat and we just feel like we're trying to puff ourselves up. Really changing it is about first coming to your senses.

And I have a book called On My Own Side, which is all about challenging your inner critic. I call this insanity. This whole pattern is insane and everyone's doing it. So you wake up from it and you say, this is insane to treat myself this way. This is really messed up. Why am I doing this? And really get shocked by it, get saddened by it. and then you get compassion.

Because it's not about the phrase, the zinger you say. It's about this sense of compassion. When I do this with clients, they'll start to say, I actually feel really sad. And I'm like, yeah, that's been sad to treat yourself that way for the last 20 years. Let yourself feel that. That's your heart. The walls coming down. Then from that place, we can start to change it.

And it really is giving different messages to yourself and also talking to the critic in a different way. What if we believe the critic? What if our critic says, you're ugly, you're a loser, and we can't challenge that because that rings the most true to us? Yeah. At that point, what's happening is you need to go a layer beneath. So you're ugly. You're a loser. All of the critics' statements and all of the criticisms in the world can be boiled down into one statement, which is your bad.

It's your good or you're bad. So as ugly is bad. Selfish is bad. Lazy is bad. What's good? Beautiful. Successful. Rich.

So it's all saying you're bad. And when we're in a certain level of consciousness, it's all good and bad, right and wrong. Oh, no, I better be good and right and not bad and wrong. And so it's really hard to beat the critic at that level because it might just keep hitting. He's like, no, look at your appearance. Look at this. Look at the societal beauty standard. You're not winning here.

What we do there is we have to go a late. beneath. Where is this coming from? And the critic is always coming from pain. It's trying to protect us from some sort of pain. I actually have people do this dialogue with the critic. Don't just take it at face value and try to defeat it. Say, okay, you're saying I'm ugly. What do you mean? Well, you don't look like this. Okay. What are you afraid it's going to happen if I don't look like that. And if you really start to go deeper, what you'll discover is it always comes down to some form of, I'm going to be alone, no one's going to like me, I'm going to be hurt, and that's where you start to see the soft underbelly. The critic seems like this big guy with a stick, but really it's this scared

three-year-old that's tantruming against the basic facts of the universe. Like you don't have control. You can get hurt in love and relationships. And so when we dialogue and we go deeper, we can start to soften and actually accept these kind of existential realities and then live more fully and more connectedly. Is comparison a form of that pain? Like, I'm ugly because I don't look like that person. I'm unsuccessful because I see this person who's more successful than me. Is that a form of that same pain? Most comparisons are pretty loaded with a sense of self-judgment and deflation and envy and suffering. Sometimes there's a real raw kind of objective like, hmm, but we all know the feeling difference between the two. And I'd say the different quality is when we're actually comparing

and we combine that with a sense of, I want to know how to do that too. Or I fully accept and acknowledge that there are differences and they might do something different or better than me. And that's okay. When we're doing it from that place, it doesn't hurt. And so if it's hurting, it's either giving you a message that you too want to strive more to achieve that, which is sometimes legitimate. Like, wow, I'm going to be like that person. Great, that pain kind of galvanizes you. But often, if you pay attention, it's not galvanizing. It's deflating. It's a form of your own perfected image. It's like, well, they're that perfect person. Your critic is using them as the stick, really. Then is the dialogue still sort of the same? Are you challenging

in the same way if you're not living up to some sort of external idea of perfection that you have? Yeah. And another form of challenging, which kind of sounds counterintuitive because it doesn't sound like you're challenging at all, is what David Burns is a cognitive therapist. He called it the acceptance paradox. Basically, you accept the face value fact without accepting the therefore you suck conclusion. So you say, that person is more popular than I am, as evidenced by their social media or whatever. You look at it and you say, that's right. They have a lot more followers. All of a sudden, it's like, yeah, okay. So, well, then that means these are better than you. Oh, and that's where you continue. And when I say challenging, the best way to challenge anyone, not just your critic, but in life,

is not to beat your chest and try to talk over them. It's through questioning. And you say, okay, better than me how. And I'll do this all the time with clients. One of my favorite role plays is, okay, you be the critic, and I'm going to be you talking to it. And we do a lot of lot of that so they get to see how it works and then we switch. And it's like, well, tell me more about better how. Because the critic, just like in debates and political arena and propaganda, people use these big broad brush statements. Those people don't care about the elderly. And you're like, wow, what bad people? And you're like, can you tell me more? What do you mean by not caring? How? And it's the same thing with our critic. And this might sound really complex or something,

but it's actually not all it takes is a willingness to even just sit down and practice this. And I recommend people do it with a journal because it slows the whole things down or I like typing because I'm faster at it. Just, okay, critic, what you got? All right, I'm going to respond to that. And even if you're not great at it, you don't know all these tips. Just practicing that is going to be radically different than what most people have done for most of their lives and is going to start to bear fruit pretty quickly. You almost want to be like a two-year-old who's like, well, but why? Well, but why? Well, but why? You want to be the annoying toddler. It'll start to melt down because you'll realize it's like a smoke and mirror show that's designed to stick you with a cattle prod. And you're like,

oh, okay, all right, I'll try harder. I'll be better. And you slow down and you realize there's nothing there. It's just a whole lot of fear, really. Where do you think the messages that keep us unconfident come from largely. It's interesting that you're like, oh, it's a smoke and mirror show, but who's, in your opinion, creating that smoke and mirror show? I don't think it's a singular cause. There's definitely a quality from our upbringing and our interpretations of our upbringing, where we got these messages. And I think it's everyone's responsibility and ultimately, if you want to be more free from suffering, a requirement to at some point disengaged from the reality of your parents or family of upbringing and recreate your own

reality in which you reside, which might have some similar qualities. You might believe similar things or some of the same things. But if my dad thought I never did enough, now you've adopted that reality. One of the things I do with clients is have them create this new bill of rights, like in my reality, blah, blah, blah. And so they can start to claim that. That's one of the factors that people can carry with them for a lifetime. And then, of course, there's a lot of external pressure. We're inundated with imagery and have been probably at a very heightened rate for the last 50 years, and it's only increased.

The pipeline is pretty fast and pretty intense. We're very susceptible to the influence. I loved the Bill of Rights exercise that you shared in your book that you just mentioned. Can you walk us through how to do that if we wanted to do that at home and why you think it's so valuable? When we're overly nice or just struggling with confidence, we're living in someone else's reality. And there isn't one the reality. We all might agree, that's a tree over there, and that's a car. That's a pretty base, concrete level of reality. But then if you say, is it a good car? You get eight billion different answers. Well, is it energy efficient? What color is

it? And how can you use it? And that's the realm that humans live in, the subjective and the emotional and the values. We're not living in the reality. We're living in your reality. If you, you feel like every room you go into, you're at the bottom of the totem pole, it's because in your reality, you reside at the bottom of the totem pole. We have to change that. And one of the powerful ways to change that is the Bill of Rights exercise where you start to write out all these rules. You got 101 shoulds. I shouldn't say no to people and disappoint them. I should give when someone asks, no matter what the cost. I should be earning more. I should be achieving more, whatever all these shoulds are. And you actually take a few minutes to write them out. And these are your rules.

These are the pressures that you're going to be putting on yourself every day that are going to have you feeling better, more confident, or like a failure. And you might say, well, that's what other people think of me. And that's what they and society, you are the primary enforcer of those rules. So then we want to change them. Some of those shoulds might be good. I shouldn't hit somebody. It's like, yeah, we're looking at the rules that feel restricting, extreme, unrealistic, unhealthy. And a little litmus test I have people do is to say, okay, step outside of yourself. Imagine you had a good friend and you read this rule and this was something that they should live by. Does that seem healthy? And then you get to create a new set of rules, your new bill of rights. And that starts with all

the things that you have a right to. I have a right to say no. I have a right to feel angry. I have a right to ask for what I want. And how do you make this list? What rights do you want? What do you want to claim? What's healthy for you? And again, maybe this is in contrast to what you learned growing up or the cultural programming. So I have a right to.

I have a right to. And then say it, like a bill of rights. And I also strengthen it by saying, in my reality, I have a right to or I have permission to. The part about saying it really seems to strengthen and invoke it and being involved with, You don't want to do this exercise, fold it up in an envelope and put it in the bottom desk drawer and let it collect that. Have it be a living document where you're actually reading it and thinking about it.

Instead of dinking around on social media in the morning when you're eating your breakfast, read that bill of rights. And it will just completely change the whole way that you approach that day. Could you share a few more rights that people might have for somebody who, I don't know, if you've been living in a less confident place for a long time or denying yourself a lot of rights for a long time? It might even be hard to have things come to mind. Yeah, and you might not do this all at once in one sit down. Maybe you sit with it for a couple of days and think about it and let things come to you.

But here's some examples. I have a right to feel any feeling. I have a right to feel that feeling without having to justify it or explain it to others. I have a right to like what I like without knowing why or needing to explain it. I have a right to dislike what I don't like without needing to have to explain it. I have a right to disagree. I have a right to challenge people. I have a right to upset people, which is a complete kind of 180 for nice people.

I have a right to advocate for myself. I have a right to ask. I have a right to say no. I have a right to ask again, even if someone has said no to me once, which is another mindblower for nice people. And this isn't about steamrolling. This is about someone says no and you say, okay, well, let me ask you this question. You're persistent.

Those are some key rights. I have a right to ask what I want in my relationships. I have a right to be treated with a base level of respect and we can all define that in our own way. But for me, that would be communication that's devoid of character attacks on me. Any single one of those rights can completely change your life. Because, for example, I have a right to be treated with a certain level of respect. So let's say I'm in a conversation with someone and they just keep talking over me and kind of dominating.

If you don't have that right that I just said, you'll be like, okay, all right. And maybe even flip it on yourself. Oh, I shouldn't have upset them versus, whoa, whoa, this doesn't work for me. And all of a sudden, a whole other capacity comes out of you. You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I want to keep having this conversation with you, but not like this. We're going to have to wait until you cool down. and then it's a whole other version of you that's coming out because you have this new right.

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it both ways. You can't be fully yourself, truly authentic. What does authentic even mean? Well, it doesn't mean you have the right to buy whatever brand of clothing you want to wear, although that could be an expression of authenticity, how you want to dress, but it goes way beyond that. It's also how you talk, how you move, what you might talk about, your beliefs, thought freedom, and perspectives, perspectives that may or may not agree with a culture or a norm or a group or whatever. Authenticity is going to be pursuing a life that's the most meaningful to you and doing things. So maybe you learned that art is stupid and a waste of time, but maybe you're, an artist at heart and you're drawn to that, right? So part of you living your authentic life is to

challenge that family programming and pursue art. And God forbid, pursue art that's not even designed to make you money. It's just because your heart lights up when you do it. And then, of course, it's even pursuing work that's meaningful to you and all of those things. It goes really deep authenticity. Most people when you talk to it and you frame it that way will say, yeah, I want that life. And you say, okay, well, you can have that or you can be liked. by everybody. Which one would you pick? And honestly, you can't even have the being liked by everybody.

You can try to be liked by everybody. That's probably the best you can do. And if you're going to choose authenticity, it's their mutually exclusive. You're going to be disliked. And that doesn't mean you can't have relationships and you're isolated. It just means that sometimes people will be disappointed or upset. And those people that will be disappointed or upset will be people close to you.

Your partner might be upset with you for a little while. A client may be disappointed in you. And that's the cost of authenticity. We all get to make that choice. But for me, long ago, I'll choose being real over trying to be liked. And is the secret to dealing with that acute pain of disappointing your boss, disappointing your partner, disappointing your mother, your mother-in-law, knowing that the other side is you getting to be your authentic self?

Or is there any other sort of concrete tips we can use in that moment to be okay with that acute discomfort. It's very uncomfortable. That kind of gets you back to your values. What kind of life do I want to live? And maybe an awareness of what I'm striving for is impossible. That's almost like, I don't ever want to experience the discomfort or the acute pain of anyone or any pet or anyone close to me ever getting sick or dying. And it's like, well, I'm sorry. I don't think you can choose that in this life. Sometimes that just base awareness of reality and how life is is helpful because then we can access some sort of acceptance. But then also real time, how to deal with it,

it's also a form of fitness in a way. It's like discomfort tolerance. If you're avoiding anything, you get weaker at it. You're avoiding using your body, your body gets weaker. You avoid assertive conversations. You get those atrophy. You're not as good. You tend to shy away from conflict.

And if you avoid speaking your mind and asking for what you want and all the things that might generate disapproval, you actually become very fragile to disapproval. And the best way to get more strength and peace and resiliency in the face of disapproval is unfortunately to receive disapproval. And that doesn't mean you have to behave in ways that feel really bad to you to try to get it quickly. Just be more real and you will experience it.

I do this with clients to help them break that phobia of it, really, to say, let's go out and get disapproval on purpose. One of my favorite exercises for that is to, go ask someone out in the world for $100. And you're going to get rejection and not always disapproval, but some people find it funny and they'll laugh. But some people are like, no, you get a little cocktail of disapproval and rejection. And it sounds simple, but anyone listening, go try it.

And don't just do one, do five. Because what will happen is you'll have an experience over that 30 minutes or however long it takes you to do it. And by the way, out of those 30 minutes, 25 of them will just be you trying to get yourself ready to do it because you can do it in like five minutes just like, can I, no, can I? The cool thing about this is I'm likening it to physical fitness or something, but the benefit of this stuff is you don't physically have to grow new muscle fibers. And once you switch into like, bring it on, I'll go get the discomfort. You actually can access a sort of sense of

power that can happen instantaneously. And that's really what we want to access. We want to go on offense with this stuff, so then we're not so afraid of it. Do any of your clients ever just get $100 from somebody? No one has ever gotten $100 yet. But I'd like hearing the answers. Sometimes the person they ask will say, no, but can you give me $100, which is one of my favorite ones? It reminds me of the line in your book that I absolutely loved, which was the more we try to avoid short-term discomfort and pain, the more we experience long-term discomfort in pain. Can you speak to that concept a little bit more, I thought it was really illuminating? The discomfort is kind of like interest on a credit card. If I take the short term

avoidance, I didn't speak up today in that meeting, like, ha, made it through again. But then six months later, you start to feel way more disengaged at work because you've come up with some story. Like, they don't care what I think. And they make all these stupid choices. but you didn't in that meeting six months ago say, hey, I don't think this is a good idea because you were scared. Now, six months later, you're disengaged. Two years after that, maybe all this time that you could have been passionately pursuing something in your career,

you've just been kind of flatlined. And we could talk about this in relationships. We could talk about this with dreams in goals you want to pursue. And then you have the ultimate pain, which is the pain that people experience on their deathbeds or close to it, which is the pain of regret, pain of a life that I lived that was not fully my own. And we don't really know what that is until we get there. We can hear about it or watch a movie and say, yeah, that's right.

Live each day to the fullest. But until we get there, that's when we're going to know if we really did. So when we have that awareness, that really helps me dive into the discomfort, just putting that perspective on it. Do you have any other tips for beginning to overcome some of the fears that are getting in the way of us becoming our most confident selves? That's a good question. One would be having that awareness.

That's what tipped it for me many, many years ago. There's a great quote from Lisa Rankin. It's basically like when the pain of staying the same exceeds the fear of change, we leap. So when you really get that this is not working, this is not where I want to go. To me, that's the biggest motivator. Then there's more short-term levers. I think that can be really helpful, which are little things that make a difference like your physiology. If you are in a heightened state of stress and fear and you've worked yourself up into a frenzy

and then you're going to try to go take a bold action from that place, it's going to be really hard. Your nervous system's on like 7 RPM and you can't rev it very much. One of the things I teach in my group programs is practices to help calm the nervous system. and one of them is called the peace process, which I learned from Christian Michelson. If people go to notnicebook.com and you enter your email there, you get access to all the resources from the book, even if you haven't bought the book. But bookmark that page. And then there's something called the peace process.

It's a 20-minute process of me guiding people to calm intense emotion and pain of discomfort, of being judged, of fear, of hurt, of loneliness, and getting that nervous system calm. The other practice is the opposite. So, you know, what tool to use when? Well, that just comes with practice. But it's actually to amplify your nervous system to get it more into the fight side of fight or flight. Because most people with lower confidence and niceness tend to error on the imploding side. Their nervous system is heightened.

They're in fight or flight and they're not fighting. They're fleeing or freezing or fawning. Start this when no one's around you, space that you feel safe and comfortable. and no one's going to judge you. And put on a song. It's got a little bit of attitude. You know, it's different for everybody. I'll pick something with some electronic music or something.

Start to move your body, literally jump up and down, and then do gestures, maybe even as you say, your bill of rights, that amplify your energy. And you're on purpose and just do it for like literally a minute. A lot of people, if they do it half-heartedly, like, oh, this is stupid. It's not going to do anything. When I do this with clients, I say, like, walk around the. room like you freaking own the place. It's conditioning this other part of you that's like, hey, hey, wait a minute. And then that part is what can come out in the moment because you've primed

it for that day. So it's almost like we can't even tap in on a physical level to what we feel like when we're confident, when we're in the zone, when we're powerful. And we almost need to train that into our bodies and our minds. Exactly. It's like a form of rehearsal for the body. And you can even combine it with exercises from NLP while you're standing and the song is going. You could put your arms out. It's something that takes up space. I like arms up because not only is it taking up space. These are like classic victory poses throughout all of humanity.

They tend to change your body chemistry naturally. And then remembering a time where you actually did feel confident. And the way you do is you actually imagine yourself going up out of your head back to that time, right back into that moment, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard, what was going on, what were you saying to yourself? What did you believe about life? And you do that for just 30 seconds, and you will start to like, yeah. And it's really about finding that pathway in your brain, and your nervous system, because a lot of us, it's atrophy. And when I do this with people, if they're not doing it, almost always, the reason is because the critic is right there at the

past with the gun saying, well, whoa, whoa, what's all this weird stuff you're going to be doing? Come on now. Because it knows that if you really start going down that path, its days are numbered in terms of being in control of you. So it's going to try to stop you. And so then we can challenge and change in that moment so that we can do the thing that we want in that moment. And a great thing to remember, this is another tip for overcoming the fear and the critic at the same time, two for one, is the metaphor of the bouncer. It might seem like the critic is this brick wall or something that's impassable, but really start to think of that critical voice or that voice of fear that says, you can't do it, don't try. think of it as a bouncer who's just standing next to a door and he looks intimidating,

but he actually has no power to touch you or move. And so as you start walking, he's like, where are you going, buddy? Huh? You can't go through that door. Don't even think about it. And most people are like, whoa, okay. But it's a big bluff because if you start walking, it'll be like, hey, hey, I'm back here.

And you can just walk right through the door. And that's all the critic does. it's just noise. It's just going to bang its chest. And of course, you walk through the door and he's not done. Bouncers yell him back. Yeah, I told you, you suck. But it never has any power.

This is another exercise I do at my events. I'll have people imagine the bouncer. I'll have people imagine it as this big sliding glass door and seeing what they want on the other side and then just walking right past. And something about that imagery and that metaphor helps us remember, oh, oh, I am the captain. I get to choose. This is just a voice. This isn't in control of me.

That and then also the $100 exercise reminds me of the notion you shared in your book that the formula for courage is to do something that you're scared of and then do it again. Can you speak to why that works specifically? Courage is truly the capacity to go into discomfort. I mean, there's a thousand different names we have for the discomfort, whether it's a physical courage, the person who jumped in to save the people in the river or an emotion. I'm going to be vulnerable with this new dating partner and maybe they'll not really love me after I share more openly with them. You can all boil that down to discomfort.

Courage is the capacity to go into discomfort. Even confidence itself, you can think of it as a muscle or a skill that you build through understanding and repetition. How do you get better at courage? You practice courage. Instead of trying to get through the day with as little discomfort as possible, which most of us will be doing by default. how do I make this smooth? And then something uncomfortable arises, especially if it's unexpected. And we're like, oh, man, I shouldn't even have to deal with this today.

Instead, it's what can I seek out on purpose once per day that makes me uncomfortable? And it doesn't have to be some horrible, most biggest fear. It could just be, oh, my God, I got to email that person and ask for that thing. And all right, I'm going to do that. That's my one thing for the day. And if you just approach it that way, your courage muscle will be huge in like 30 days. What I love about that is that it turns moments of discomfort into opportunities. It turns moments of being scared of something into this really great opportunity to work your

courage bustle and to become more confident instead of these things that make your life worse. It's back to the beginning. It's an inside job because if you see it that way, it is so. Is that event terrible and life befalling you and hurting you in your confidence? Or is it making you stronger? It might sound like a cheesy meme or something, but it is absolutely a choice that we get to make. We have to be looking for this. Or else the gentle current of the familiar and our old identity will always put us back

to that same shore of niceness. And so we kind of have to paddle out up current. and people might be like, oh man, for how long? Like every day, maybe humans have always wanted this. We want it easy. We want to get to that place where we've arrived and it's all done. And I don't think life works that way. And even if you got it all dialed in and you're rich and you're successful and you're loved

and you're beautiful and you're fit, well, then your mom goes to the hospital. And you got this emotional pain. There's no sunset. There's no end. But the more we steer that little canoe into the current, the better we feel each day, even when circumstances are challenging and not perfect for us. So that's practicing discomfort. Can we talk about practicing being decisive? Because you talked about the importance for that for building power in our lives. And for me,

the fear of making the wrong choice is the thing that keeps me from being as decisive as I should be. How do I overcome that fear? Yeah, that's a great one. And there's a great book on it. about the paradox of choice. It's about decision styles. And one he calls a maximizer and what he calls a satisfacer. And the maximizer is the one who's like, well, what are all the prices? And let's check 12 other stores to make sure. That's me. Yeah. Because maybe we can get the ketchup for a dollar cheaper at Fred Meyer or whatever. And then the satisfacer is like, okay, we want ketchup. That one. Let's go. And obviously you need a mixture of both. I tend to be a satisfacer most of the time. My wife tends to be the maximizer. One's not good and bad. It's a balance. It's probably useful because I will make

huge purchases way too quickly because I'm like, oh, it's fine. Let's just move. I think we should just move. Should we move? She's like, whoa, whoa. At the same time, though, I think if we're too far on either spectrum, we're going to suffer. And so if we go too far to the maximizing side, what's underneath the maximizing that it can cause suffering is a belief that there is one right choice. And what we're most afraid of is not the pain of the consequence. It's the pain of having chosen wrong and the sense of I could have controlled it. I should have done this and I could have known that. One thing that's really helpful to realize is there is no catch up that's going to fully satisfy you. There is no choice that is all pleasure and no pain. Every choice is going to have,

well, that's good and that's good. I don't like that. And I don't like that. And I don't like that, it's a mixture of things. We might say, well, yeah, okay, but I want the choice that's got more of the good things and less of the bad things. And I'll say, great, but here's the biggest challenge of it. You don't know. It's like you're here and there's a hill or a mountain and then there's more terrain on the other side of it.

And you only can see what you can see right now. And so a little bit of due diligence and maximizing just to get a sense of like, well, what do I think and what are the best? Okay. And then you're making a judgment call. You're making a gut decision. There's an understanding that this is going to have things that I like and things that I don't like. And there is no choice that's going to be any different in terms of that it's going to have a mixture of things. And that can really help us relax and then just start practicing like the courage, like tolerating discomfort and rejection. It is practicing decisiveness. And so I'll invite people to be more decisive and make more mistakes on small scale stuff.

I want you to go to a restaurant and order from the front or the menu within like 10 seconds. Just scan through it, pick one, close it up. And I've had people come back and say, I experienced so much regret at that meal. I haven't chosen the wrong thing. I get it. It's like food envy. Like, oh, I should have. Oh, my God.

As bad as that feels, that is your medicine. That is so good for you. to learn how to tolerate. Sometimes I get stuff that I love and sometimes I get stuff that I don't. But the benefit of being decisive greatly outweighs some of those things. And I also help them see, was the meal that bad? Or was it the suffering of I didn't pick the best thing? And that's the part that we want to tease.

More mindfully follow through on that choice. Okay, now you're in traffic because you picked the wrong way. What's it like to sit in traffic? Are there any hidden gems here? Do you start an audiobook? Do you make a phone call to your cousin that you normally don't talk to because now you're sitting in traffic? Every choice has gifts and things that you don't like.

So let's just go. In a line, what is the actual benefit you're experiencing by making the choice quickly? One is, it is literally you can move quicker. It's a form of self-trust, too. the more you've built up that self-trust, either A, you'll pick generally good enough most of the time, and if not, you can handle it. What that allows you to do is make bigger decisions more quickly. Does it matter if you take 10 seconds or two minutes to pick your meal? No. But if your muscle, decisive muscle is not strengthened, and you need to make a change in your career, am I going to

leave this job or not? Am I going to go back to school and study this thing or not? And there are people who've been thinking about it for seven years. And then there's a decisive person who's like, I did it, I'm doing it, I'm moving, I'm moving in this new city, I'm taking this new job, and they sat with it for four months, and now they're in the new place. And maybe they only live there for two years. And then they're like, you know what, I'm moving again. But you're making these decisions from different places, not sitting at that one fork in

the road thinking about making that first decision. If someone is having a hard time picking an item on the menu, they're going to freak out and making a big decision like moving or something like that. And yet, man, life has these opportunities that come by. And there are more of them, but each one is unique. And I tell us to clients who want to connect more in dating and relationships, often a man who wants to be able to put himself out there more. And I'll say, look, there's going to be a moment where there's going to be a woman. It's not going to be a place you're going to see her again and again and again. there's one opportunity. And she may or may not be the love of your life, but wouldn't you want to at least

be able to talk to her and see if there's a connection and not just lament that forever? The only way you're going to be able to do that is if you've done practice of this kind of work ahead of time and built that common. Because if you've never done it, you're never going to take that opportunity. There's no way. It's too freaky. We moved to this amazing house about eight months ago out in the country in Oregon. We got forest all around us. It's like the greatest move of my life. And it was a big decision. It was scary.

There's a lot of, do we do this? Is this right? How is this going to affect our family and risk and the costs? And I don't know how long, but I'd say my wife and I decided. I mean, the whole process took months to execute. But probably within two weeks or less, we'd made the decision and maybe even less. It was like, yeah, we had a couple conversations about it. And I was like, yeah, let's go.

Those kinds of opportunities pass if you just hesitate on them. So that's another benefit, I'd say, of decisiveness. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years, and I'm so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older.

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on your mitopure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. It seems like two primary elements. of confidence are knowing what you want and then having the ability to go after it. And I think we've talked about the going after it a fair bit. But what about somebody who doesn't actually know what they want their life to look like in the first place? Would you have any advice for them? That's often a symptom of all the stuff we've been talking about, a symptom of niceness and people pleasing and living in someone else's reality.

From a very young age, you learn to suppress your own needs, wants and desires. And when you suppress them, you disconnect from them. I don't know what I think. What do you think? I don't know if I liked the movie or not. Did you like the movie? I don't know where I want to eat, wherever you want to eat. And it's not true that you don't know, that that information is not available to you. It's that you've blockaded the roads and nothing can get through right now. Those signals are still trying to come. Just think about if you've ever been around a five-year-old, they know what they want, and they want it now, and they're going to advocate for it a lot, generally. We all have that inside of us. People get kind of freaked out. Like,

I don't even know what I want. I don't know. And then they stress and they try to figure it out. That's like trying to, I need to go to sleep now or else I'm going to be tired tomorrow. Go to bed. It doesn't work. You got to relax into sleep. You got to let go into sleep. And it's the same thing for discovering what you want. You've got to let go and start to listen and say, I am curious to discover more of what I truly want and what makes me tick. I want to get to know me. And instead of trying to pressure myself to become this version of me that I'm supposed to be, what if I spend the next year of my life actually getting to know who I really am? What do I like? What do I not like? What are my passions? What are my hobbies? What are my

interests. And it does not have to be this frantic. I don't know. I don't know. It's like, I'll discover it. Maybe I experiment with some things. Maybe I listen to the subtle changes in my energy. Oh, did I light up in that? Oh, what's happening there? And you actually become really curious and make a study of this. And most people, they start it and then they start to listen and like, no, no, no, no, that's not a very good thing. You shouldn't want that. That's a stupid thing to like. That's nerdy. So you have to really be doing this work with the critic we were talking about because it'll stop you. Deep down, all these things, the critic, the niceness, the social anxiety, they're all defenses against this core story, I'm not okay. I'm not enough. I'm not

good. Who could love me for who I am? The ultimate liberation is to discover who you really are. And that's an ongoing process. You're not just static, but to keep discovering and keep sharing who you are now with those close to you and maybe even more in a larger format to more and more people and be seen and be known, then you can get really good at knowing what you want. It's very clear. I don't want to go to that thing. I do want to do that hike. I don't want to go there. And you may override that. I mean, I say, I don't want to go, but man, that would be good for my wife and kids if I was there to support. So I'll do it. But that's a very conscious decision rather than, oh, whatever you guys want, I don't know. One is empowered. One feels good and one is suffering.

I love the idea of quieting that part of ourselves that's afraid that we're unlovable by unveiling these layers of our authentic, truest self and showing them to people and getting that affirmation that they are indeed lovable. Because I do think that's a core thing that a lot of people struggle with, even if it's hard to admit that even to yourself, that who you actually are at your core is not a lovable person. Yeah. And I really think that's the invitation and the challenge and such a worthy pursuit of life, regardless of our own individual talents and gifts and career pursuits and all that stuff, but just a core kind of universal human purpose could be to have the courage

to risk being known and to share and be seen. And everyone, every human has an edge with that. We like to think there's a sunset. Well, once I've done that enough, then I'll be totally at peace with me. But you're always changing and evolving. And you're totally at peace with you as this version, but then you get alopecia and all your hair falls out. And now you have something else to be seen and known as, or you're no longer as strong and you're injured and all these things. Life's going to humble you. There's the next time, the next time. It's not about being done with the process. It's about having the courage and that capacity that you've built over years to continue. continue to unveil yourself. And if you do that, I mean, it leads to deep meaningful connections

in your life with others, with your work and pursuits in the world, but also with yourself and even something bigger than you too. What if we have that confidence and we are like, my authentic self is lovable, but we're still facing some of the external factors or the people who are telling us that's not true, like the boss who's saying, your work is shit or the dad or mom who, giving you negative messages that are from your childhood about what they wanted your life to look like. How do we combat the voices that are ongoing? The external criticism is a very manageable problem when our own critic is under control or we're in better relationship with ourselves. So that way when the boss says your work is shit, instead of it

instantly poking that I'm worthless button, you sit with that criticism for a minute. And you say, okay, in his reality, it's not good. In my reality, is that true? Do I agree or do I disagree here? Is there any part of it that I agree with? Is there something here that's useful for me to see? Was I kind of hustling through this and just doing my bare minimum? Am I really not that engaged? And so I'm not giving this place my all? Like, you can really inquire. And when we're raging with our own inner critic, we can't inquire. We're so sensitive because we've been bludgeoning ourselves. And now someone comes along and blows on us and we're like,

ah, get away from me. If someone's criticism externally disturbs you big time, I'm not saying it might be a little bit annoying if someone communicates disrespectfully or they kind of put you into a category or they don't see you accurately. Oh, you're just like that. Yeah, natural response is like, fuck you, you don't know me. I think that's a healthy response to being inaccurately categorized or written off or labeled. But we then can inquire because we actually have a separation from their reality and our reality.

And if we don't, if it just gets right in there, like, oh my gosh, they said I'm bad. I'm so bad. I'm bad. The problem is not out there. The problem is not their criticism. You want to slow down and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what do that trigger in me? What's happening in me? Because all of a sudden, what they poked on is your rules.

your good, bad, right, wrong list. And they implied that you were selfish or greedy. And you're like, ow, ow, ow, how dare they? And then you slow down and you say, wait a minute, is it in my reality? You can never want things for yourself or you can never put yourself first. And this is hard to see in a moment because we get reactive and we're hurt and then we're angry. But when you get disturbed by someone's criticism of you, that's a huge gift. It's such a massive learning opportunity. And you don't have to do it all in that moment. The first moment might just be like, whoa, can you calm your nervous system down? That peace process I was talking about earlier, just like sit would be for 10 minutes and just get to a state of, whoa, wow, there's a lot going on there. Okay. But then over the next couple days,

you can just mine so much gold from that criticism. And then you get more and more okay with certain categories of criticism. So someone says, your podcast sucks or your book is bad. I've gotten so much exposure to that stuff that I'm like, okay, someone doesn't like the book. My book's not for everybody. And I will on purpose sometimes go in and look at reviews. And sure, I like the positive reviews. Like, oh, I am so great. Thank you very much.

But then I'll on purpose go look at the one-star reviews. And someone might say, why do you do that? Isn't that bad? I'll read your one-star review. And then I'll be like, you know, and then I'll say, all right, what is happening here that I need everybody to like me? and everything that I've done, let me address that grasping, that attachment, that needing.

And this is an opportunity to kind of soften and relax that. The greatest inoculation to criticism is to be criticized. I need to try that with my podcast reviews. I don't have many low podcast star reviews, but they hurt my soul on such a deep level when I read them. I think it's just because the podcast is so important to me and I work so. hard on it. And I want to be able to go in and have a conversation with that person because I do want to have everybody really, really love it. So I need to do that practice. You're not seeing

me. And they might even be disliking you for the very thing that is your gift. One of the criticisms of my books is I'll share very vulnerable personal stories for my own life. And the people that love the book are like, oh, I connected it with this guy. He wasn't some academic. It felt so good, yeah. And the people go, this guy just talks about himself. He's a narcissistic, insecure piece of crap. It can hurt because the very thing that is your gift, for me, it's being vulnerable and sharing in these ways, is what's being attacked or judged. And not just like, I didn't like his style. It's like, this guy sucks. And I'm not saying you have to masochistically spend all day reading these, but even just dabbling with one as like a meditation, it could be extremely fruitful.

Yeah, I might try to do that. Do you have time to do a quick speed round? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, I'm going to call this round just one tip. So I'm going to share specific situations or just quick questions, and I would love just one tip about each of them. Could you share just one tip for how we can start to dream bigger? Be somewhere where you're away from desk technology, ideally outdoors.

and spend a couple hours with nothing to listen to and keep asking what else and keep most importantly listening to what do I really want? What am I called to? What is life calling of me? I found it to be one of the most powerful and poignant parts of your book. When you were like, people aren't even letting themselves dream big dreams that broke my heart a little bit. Yeah, oh my gosh, because if you dream it and you want it, are you going to go for it and maybe fail? Oh, no. Or are you going to feel the desire and the hunger? Oh, no, that's uncomfortable too.

People just keep that all out of sight, out of mind. Can you share just one tip for when we're normally feeling confident, but all of a sudden we're in a situation with people who really intimidate us? see them as a whole person, not just some role like the boss. I had a woman who was very intimidated by the executive committee in her company. She was the number two salesperson on the company, big heavy hitter, but she had to meet with the executive committee. And I said to her, what are the first names of the people in the executive committee? And she's like, oh, yeah, Teresa, Bob, Jim.

I'm like, do you know these people? She's like, oh, yeah, I know them. I was like, do you know their kids? Oh, yeah. Tell me about Bob's kids. And we start talking. All of a sudden, I'm like, how intimidating is Bob? And she's like, oh, yeah, not that intimidating.

So humanize them, maybe even see them. It's a little graphic. Do they poop right away when they wake up? I was going to do it at dinner. I was wondering if you're going to go there. The human on the toilet, you know, especially in this day with these cell phones, right? Most people are like on the toilet with their cell phone and just really see that powerful person.

And it just levels the playing field or see them crying when their child is hurt or when their parent is sick and just really humanize them. And it just, poof, cuts away all those roles that we can limit people into. One tip to be more confident in a job interview. Know why it is that company's benefit to hire you. Just like a date, I have people say, what are five reasons why someone would be lucky to be your partner or to be dating you? What are five reasons why this company would be lucky to have you as a employee contractor? and write that list out ahead of time. And know that, get that in your core, that you are the selector, and then all of a sudden

your attitude and energy is very different. You're not pleading and hoping. You're offering a very strong value proposal to them with your presence. And if you have a hard time coming up with five things? That means your critic is too loud. You are not actually giving yourself credit. What you could do then is start with polling several people who know you. personally or professionally, what do you see are some of my strengths? And sometimes I have people

like, oh my God, that's so weird to ask. Say, hey, I'm looking to take positive steps forward in my career and I want to get an accurate assessment of what I bring. What is your sense of what some of my strengths are? That sounds very powerful and professional to say it that way. So get that outside feedback and you might see a lot about yourself. I love that. One tip for decreasing physical signs of nervousness, like our voice shaking or blushing. Some sort of rehearsal. And not just the content. Most people focus on content rehearsal, actually focus on getting in a place like your car or your house when you're alone

or a room where no one's around or the family who doesn't care. And practice saying just a few things, but with a lot of force and power and get a sense of power as you speak. And then also one other tip is a quick exercise from NLP. That's called anchoring right before you go. up. So remember we were talking about earlier in this interview, you do like a minute of on a song where you get into a powerful place. Right on the coattails of doing that, do some very subtle, simple gesture. And so for me, I'll expand my hand out really wide, usually down by my side

where no one can see it. And I'll do this quick in breath. So it looks like this. And I sit up right, breathing through my nose and make this weird gesture with my hand. But it's not super obvious. So no one's going to see it's under the table or whatever. That's just a unique physical gesture that I'm not doing. And this is purely classical conditioning where you're in a certain emotional state, generally powerful, feeling good about myself, and I make that gesture. And I must have conditioned that thing in 500 times or 1,000 times. And then before I'm going to give a talk, they're going to call my name. I'm nervous. Like, oh, here I go. Right before I go up, and go and do that. And then all of a sudden, I'm still nervous, but it doesn't have the same effect on

my physiology because now it's getting watered down with that more powerful physiology. And that tends to allow us to perform in a certain way, even though the nerves are high. What is one tip to be more confident at a party or in a social environment with new people? I love this one. I use this to this day. The second you get into that environment, go to the bar and get three shots. No. You get real loose real quick.

But honestly, that's what a lot of people do, right? But I would say the first thing when you walk into the room is go interact with somebody, ideally someone you don't know right away. And this was so counterintuitive to me because I was the shy guy, the wallflower, never wanted it. But you walk into the room and instead of making a B-line for the bar, you go up to those people. It could be literally a two-second interaction. Like, hey, how are you guys doing tonight? And they're like, good. Does we know him? All right, well, have a good rest of your evening. That's it. Because what you've done is you've pierced that I'm separate veil. Now it's like, oh, we are here. I'm of this group. I'm here. We are here.

And yeah, just go instantly talk to someone that you don't know and it will change the course of your night in miraculous and beautiful ways. What do you usually say? Hey, how are you guys doing tonight? Okay. I'm like, should I be complimenting them? Should I have like a witty conversation starter? I'm a big fan of, hey there.

I might say, oh my God, that's terrible. That's not a good line. Well, the truth is it's all about what do you follow it up with. And I'm a big fan of observational stuff. They're holding a drink. What do you got there? You might say, oh, that's not very close. clever and interesting. And that's the biggest killer to conversation starters. I got to have this

clever witty line. No, just start with the basic stuff. You don't need to wow people from the beginning and then let the real conversation unfold. You can start with basic stuff. What brings you guys here to this evening? Have you ever come to this kind of stuff before? And if you stay there, sure. You do that for 10 minutes and everyone's yawning and looking at their watch. And what that's doing is actually better because the beginning of a conversation is not about the content. It's about humans doing some sort of data processing on an intellectual conscious level, on an emotional level, on an energetic level of, is this person good to talk to? Do I like this person?

Do I like their energy? We're processing that really fast. When you go to them and you just use some basic normal human conversational patterns, it allows everyone to be like, oh, they're approaching me for a conversation right now. okay, and then you can say something maybe a little more vulnerable or a little more funny. You take a risk, but you don't have to do that right out of the gate. In fact, that can often kind of shock people. What do you want for me?

I like to start casual and then be a little more creative if you want. Okay, let's end on this one. What is one tip for instilling confidence in children? It's not about just a lot of pumping them up. It's really about this idea of being seen and known. for who they are. As much as possible, can you slow down to really look at them in the eyes and really just be this curious, open energy that they can share into? And just be spacious to have them have their moods. My son's nine years old now and sometimes he's in this really

excited state and he'll just saying stuff that's kind of like, you don't need to say all this stuff. And then this thing, and then he'll be this kind of nerdy laugh. And I'm just like relishing in that. Let me see and know you in this side of you. Then I got a seven-year-old who likes to play that he's like a little puppy. And so sometimes I'll just like, you know, where's the puppy? You just meet him where they're at and really see and know the different sides of them. And that does so much more than you can do anything you want, son. If you put your mind to it, it could be a good message on top.

But really seeing and knowing them just does something deep to their core that sends a much more powerful message. We talked about a lot of stuff today. Can you leave us with one homework assignment, something that. that we can do today right now to start to be more confident. Do what scares you or makes you uncomfortable. Start right now. Don't make it crazy. I'm not talking about doing the hardest thing that freaks your body out.

I call it the five pound weight. Just lift a little bit of a weight and do it consistently and you will grow. I love that. Well, I so enjoyed this conversation. Can you tell us a little bit about everything you have going on and where people can find you and further this exploration? Absolutely. This one was fun. There's so many great questions. The best place would be Dr.aziz.com. That's D-R-A-Z-I-Z.com. There you can find a free mini course called Five Steps to

Unleash Your Inner Confidence. I have a podcast called Trink for the Shigah. It's been going for eight years. You can listen to that. You can learn about my YouTube channel called Get More Confidence. So tons of free resources. If you want to take it further, there's some programs. I also have virtual events and one in-person event this year, actually. Those are three-day operating. opportunities to go much deeper. And then if you've not read or listened to the books, not nice is a great one to start with. I'm working on the sequel to that called Less Nice, more You. And that should be coming out in quarter three of 2023. I love it. We'll have to have you back. Yeah, more nuances than that one. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today.

I really enjoyed it. My pleasure. Okay. Do you see why I am so obsessed with this interview now? I loved how actionable Dr. Gasapora's tips were, and he really broke down confidence in a way that I have never heard before. If any of you try asking people for $100 bills on the street, let me know. I would love to hear how that goes. Please share a link for this episode with anyone you think would benefit. And if you're new here, make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on. Just go to the main podcast page, the one that lists all of the healthier You're Together episodes, and you will see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple Podcasts.

That way, all of the new episodes will show up right in your feed so you will never miss out on one. And you are definitely going to want to be notified because we have some incredible episodes coming up, including a brand new science-back sex tips episode, an episode all about reducing burnout, and one about breaking family pattern. so we do not repeat our childhood trauma. So make sure that you're following so you do not miss out. Okay, I love you and I will see you next week on the next episode of the healthier together podcast. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder.

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