Dr. Aziz (speaker) presents Step 1 of a five-part confidence-training series focusing on improving one’s internal self-coaching. He argues many people have a "toxic coach" in their heads that undermines confidence by criticizing and predicting failure. The recommended sequence is: catch the negative self-coach, question its claims, and deliberately replace it with a supportive, empowering internal coach (use verbal self-affirmations, written notes, or imagined sideline-coach language). The video includes personal anecdotes (Aziz’s pre-talk self-coaching ritual), concrete example prompts to use aloud or mentally, and a call to practice this technique before the next video which will cover changing one’s life story.
Chapters
Welcome to the first video of the Five Steps training program. If you apply what you learn in this video and the four ones to follow, I guarantee that you will notice a dramatic shift in your level of confidence, your level of social ability, your social comfort, and your ability to take risks and put yourself out there in life at a level that's going to bring you the results that you really want. And this first step is be a better coach. You've got to be a better coach to yourself. Because right now, if you're struggling with shyness, with social anxiety, with self doubt, with who holding yourself back, with being inhibited, any of that stuff, I can guarantee you that you have a bad coach in your head, you have a toxic coach that is telling you a lot of terrible stuff. And if you saw the last video about my story where I shared some of the stories I was telling myself, but you're doing the same thing right now, and your coach is just going at you all the time or any situation where you're nervous. So you know, you're sitting in a meeting and your coach is saying, you sounded nervous. You, you don't know what you're going to say or you think of something to say, and the coach says, that's going to suck. That's not intelligent enough. People are going to think you don't know what you're talking about. That's not the right time to share this. Keep your mouth shut. You want to go talk to that woman and your coach says, what? You have nothing good to say. She's not going to want to talk to you. She's going to be annoyed. She already has a boyfriend. She has men who hit on her all the time. Right? You want to give a talk in front of a group of people, what does your coach say? You don't know what you're talking about. You look nervous. People think you're an idiot. I mean, it just goes on and on. Can you imagine if you are an actual. In a sport like pick your favorite sport, basketball, soccer, football, whatever, and you imagine that the coach on the sideline is saying that kind of crap to his players. You know, the players got the ball and he's about to, you know, pull up for a jumper and the coach says, you're going to miss it. You suck. What kind of coach is that? Or after the player takes a shot and he misses it, the coach says, you're a terrible player. Don't ever take that shot again. You're the worst one on the team. I hate you. I mean, that coach is not going to be a coach for very long. He's not a very effective coach. And that's what most of us are to ourselves. We're horrible coaches to ourselves. And a lot of guys will ask me, aziz, how do I build my confidence? How do I build confidence? If you go on Google, it's a major search, build confidence. And the idea is, well, building it is important. But you know what's even more important than building it is maintaining it and keeping it going. And if you are letting that toxic coach run rampant in your mind, then what's happening is you're shooting your confidence cup full of holes. And you have this cup and you fill it up, something good happens, you take a risk, you put yourself out there, you build up confidence. But then if in your mind, your coach is saying, that wasn't very good, people don't like you. You don't know what you're talking about. You can't do that again. Then you're just shooting little holes in your confidence cup. And the next thing you know, it's all just drained out. You just hemorrhaged it out as quick as possible. So what you have to do is you have to take charge of this coaching process in your own mind. You have to learn how to identify the toxic coach when it's happening and label it as such. Say, whoa, whoa. That's some pretty intense, negative coaching going on right there. And that's the first step. But most of us don't even do that right. Well, what happens when you notice that coach going? We just say, well, I guess it's right. I guess I am a loser. We don't even question it. And that's what you have to start doing, is you have to start questioning it. Being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's intense. That seems a little unrealistic. That seems a little unreasonable. Not much empathy or support there. Jeez, what kind of coach is this? So the first thing is you gotta catch it, then you start questioning it, and then you gotta start saying, what kind of coach do I want to be? How do I want to coach myself? Start asking yourself these more empowering questions. What kind of coach would I need to be to myself to get to where I want to go? That's a very powerful question. So I'm going to say it again. What kind of coach do I need to be to myself to get to where I want to go? So where do you want to go? Do you want to go to talk to that woman? What would your coach inside of your head need to say to you, you suck. She's not going to like you. You're ugly. That's not. That's not toxic coach. What would that coach say? Don't just wait for the answer for me. Think about it right now in yourself. What would I need to say to get myself to go do that? What about to. Before you're going to give a talk to a group of people? What about to speak up in a meeting? You know what I say to myself every time before I give a talk? I mean, because I've been doing this for years, hundreds of talks. I still get nervous every time before. And you know what I say to myself? I say, aziz, you got this. You're an incredibly articulate, intelligent speaker. You can communicate with skill and clarity. You are brilliant. You have so much to share. You have so much to give. Just be yourself out there, and you're going to reach people's hearts and make a difference. And I'll just go on a rant, a positive coaching rant to myself, and I'll say it out loud. I remember I'll be walking down the street to give a talk. I was giving some talks at the university here not too long ago, and as I walk down the street, there's people all around. I'm just muttering to myself. Probably thought I was a little crazy, but I didn't care because I was willing to do something different to get a different result. And that just opened up my whole world. And it could open up your world, too, if you start taking control of that toxic coach. So go ahead and do that this week. Notice when you're doing the negative coach, put in a positive coach and just start practicing. Doing the positive coach all the time, even when nothing bad's happening. You got this. You know, just think of the ideal coach on the sideline of your favorite sport and the kind of stuff that they would tell their players. And start saying that stuff to yourself. If no one's around, say it out loud. I know it's a little weird, but actually it has a powerful result on your subconscious if you not only say it, but your mind hears you saying it. Very powerful result. If there's people around, you don't want to say it, just think it in your mind. Write it down. Do whatever you can to reinforce this positive coach. So that's the first step of these five. Stay tuned for the next step is which is going to be all about how to dramatically change your story of your life and of yourself and of your future and possibilities. So stay tuned for that and look forward to talking to you in the future.
