The Science of Success Podcast

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Stop Being Afraid To Be YOU - The Power of Bold Authenticity with Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Lace Gilger
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In this episode, we explore how you can confidently be yourself - even if you’re afraid of what other people may do or think. We discuss how our obsession with niceness and people pleasing is often a problem and share specific tools you can use to overcome it. We also talk about the power and importance of saying no - and the right way to do it so that you can move away from approval seeking and step into bold authenticity with our guest Dr. Aziz Gazipura. 

If you want to learn to be boldly authentic, crush anxiety, and stop people pleasing be sure to check out Dr. Aziz’s Confidence U by clicking here!!

Dr. Aziz Gazipura is a clinical psychologist and founder of The Center for Social Confidence, which is dedicated to helping others break through their shyness and social anxiety. He is the author of the #1 Amazon best-seller Not Nice: Stop People-Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself. Aziz’s work has helped thousands of people through workshops, coaching, media appearances, and more.

  • Do you struggle with people pleasing and being afraid to say no to people?

  • Should you stop being nice to people?

  • What’s the difference between being nice and behind kind?

  • Is the opposite of being nice being mean?

  • Niceness is rooted in fear, not in love and connection

  • Niceness is rooted in the idea that you want people to love you. 

  • A lot of the behaviors that we think are nice often come from fear, obligation, or guilt 

  • The opposite of niceness is BOLD AUTHENTICITY

  • Niceness is a way of being that is focused on “damage control”- being in a place of “safety mode” 

  • When we are focused on being nice our #1 priority is to focus on avoiding possible danger - making sure everyone is pleased 

  • If you didn’t care at all what people thought of you - would couldn’t have any relationships - you would be a sociopath

  • You don’t want the approval-seeking to dominate your actions and behaviors 

  • The “MVP Question” that can change your life

  • What do you want out of this situation?

    1. Not what you THINK you should do - but what YOU want to do

  • “Nice conditioning” - is a pattern that is conditioned into us from an early age. We’re systemically told not to trust our own desires and to instead “do the right thing” and “be nice” 

  • Is it selfish to ask “what do I want?"

  • Why we’ve lost the ability to ask “what do I want” and how that is dangerous

  • We need to move away from the toxic message that what you want is inherently bad or wrong 

  • There is a big distinction between feeling and doing

  • Clear the negativity away from asking what you want. 

  • When you’re more in touch with what you want, it’s better for everyone 

  • The classic example of being nice creating problems “I dunno whatever you want” (when picking food, movies, etc) 

  • You gotta take some time to clear the fog and figure out what you really want 

  • People watch an average of 11hrs/day of screen time in 2018 

  • It’s really hard to figure out what you want when you’re compulsively externally focused (constantly on your screen, constantly on social media) 

  • Why you should be more selfish

  • Selfish is not binary - it’s not A or B - its a subjective label that you put on something 

  • Selfishness is a spectrum - you can definitely go too far, but most people are way too far on the other direction of being too self-sacrificing

  • Intense self-sacrifice might be essential in a time of crisis - but if you operate that way all the time 

  • Excessive niceness is not benign - it’s coming from a place of fear, insecurity, and feeling threatened - and when you’re constantly in that space you are much more likely to experience symptoms of stress, anxiety, sickness, pain and more - TMS - Tension Mytosis Syndrome - from living in  place of chronic stress 

  • First become AWARE that it’s OK to say no and that we need to say no

  • To retrain from niceness to authenticity - it’s about being uncomfortable and discomfort training 

  • How do you say No to people? 

  • You live in a cloud of stories and dramatic fantasies about what will happen when you say no - TEST THE ASSUMPTION and see what happens. 

  • Usually, nothing happens

    1. Even if someone has a negative response, you can handle it

    2. But it might be uncomfortable 

  • Facing your fears and facing discomfort is like strength training 

  • Make a commitment that you will say NO twice this week, and start saying no to more and more things 

  • How do you say no? “Just start practicing and you will figure out how to do it” 

  • Step One: Give yourself complete and total permission to say no. Remind yourself that you have permission to say no and that it’s healthy. 

  • Step Two: Minimize and remove all qualifiers and explanations. 

  • Step Three: Be willing to sit with the No. Don’t say anything or overcommit to anything else. 

  • When saying no: It’s not that bad and you can deal with it even if it does get bad. 

  • What are street shenanigans?

  • You can be silly, you can be outrageous, you can say weird things, and you will be OK no matter what

  • Doing pushups on a street corner, howling at strangers, and being awkward? 

  • Why you should do a “social fitness” “warm up” to get out of your comfort zone. Friendly greetings to strangers is a great strategy for this. 

  • The world is a friendly place. 

  • There is a social “critical velocity” - overcoming the gravity of social anxiety - the more you break through the more velocity you generate and it becomes easier and easier to do things that used to be scary and uncomfortable.

  • It’s like launching into orbit - after a few tries, you reach a breaking point where you “pop” into zero gravity and you’re no longer being held back. 

  • Niceness is not serving you, it’s not who you are, it’s a safety pattern.

  • You can’t just read or listen to this - you have to DO the behaviors. Get in the “social gym” and get uncomfortable! 

  • This is how you STOP BEING AFRAID TO BE YOU

  • This is how you tolerate someone else’s disapproval 

  • Ask BOLDLY for what you want. (But first, you have to figure out WHAT that is)

  • Find 2 opportunities per week to specifically ask for what you want. Then build that muscle, start asking for things that are edgier and edgier and edgier for you. 

  • “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear” 

  • Keep lifting up the “weights” and getting in your “reps” around the things that scare you - build the muscle and keep expanding your horizons - just like discomfort training 

  • If we have a parent or friend or partner or boss who we are especially scared of disappointing or triggers these feelings of people pleasing within us - are there any special strategies for dealing with them in particular? 

  • Don’t stop at the top of the mountain. You can’t lift that weight yet. Do all the baby steps first, get more comfortable with it first - do the 5 lb weights first. 

    1. Look at the dysfunctional patterns with that parent or boss - work on them elsewhere first 

    2. Work on it elsewhere first. 

    3. Your parents and your family are at the epicenter of this. 

  • Homework: Make a fundamental decision that you don’t want to be as nice anymore. Write out a short paragraph about why it’s no longer serving you to be the nice and that you are going to do something different. 

  • Without that fundamental decision, the underlying story you have about niceness will win out

  • Homework: Pick one thing - what’s the one thing that will be the easiest for you to do that would benefit you and change your life the most? 

Thank you so much for listening!

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