A short YouTube talk by Dr. Aziz on becoming unfazed by criticism. He argues that the criticisms that hurt most are the ones you already believe ("if there's no enemy within, there's no enemy without"). Rather than trying to avoid criticism, he recommends strengthening inner confidence by identifying the worst criticisms you fear, repeatedly sitting with them, examining what internal beliefs they trigger (shame, pride, need to prove), and intentionally building acceptance or neutrality toward those claims. He frames the approach as practical exposure to the painful thoughts (writing them down and reflecting for minutes/days) to reduce reactivity and live more boldly. The talk closes with encouragement to practice and share reflections in the comments.
Chapters
I don't like anything about you. I don't like your jerk off face. I don't like your jerk off name criticism. I mean, isn't that what we're all afraid of? Whether it's spoken or thought or imagined, that people are thinking of it? I don't want any of it. It's painful, it's awkward, it's uncomfortable, it hurts. How do I not get any criticism? Well, that doesn't work. And you know that by now, right? Because living in a cage of social anxiety or niceness, or you're trying to be pleasing and invisible and just get through the day without anyone noticing you or judging you, that's not working for you. If it were working for you, you wouldn't be here watching. So it's not working for you. You want more confidence, to put yourself out there, to be bold, to express yourself, to speak up, to be alive, to be confident. There's this little problem, but yet people are gonna criticize me or maybe judge me or reject me. So how do you deal with that? Better yet, how do you become unfazed by it? There's an old saying that I heard from Les Brown, which is, if there's no enemy within, there's no enemy without. And so the judgments, the criticisms that you're most afraid of are because someone's gonna say something that you already agree with, and then your boundaries, just like it's like you open the gate, right? Think of it like in ye olden times of. And they would be warring with each other and there's the other city's army outside of the gates, and then someone just opens up the gate for them. What do they do? They just storm right in. And that's how it is with criticism. The criticism that upsets you the most is the one that you already believe. For example, if someone were to say to you, you know, your eyelashes are really messed up and you didn't have some weird issue about your eyelashes, you'd say, okay, thanks, sorry, but what are you talking about? So it wouldn't phase you now, but if someone said, hey, I don't think your work is very good, or I don't think you're smart enough to do that, or I think you're a self person or whatever and you're like, ow, why? And then you get defensive. How dare you say that I'm selfish. I'm the least selfish person alive. You're selfish. Why are you doing that? Because it got in, it triggered shame, and now you're gonna try to push it out and go on the offensive, which is an effective strategy. The best defense is a good offense. So if you want to know how to become unfazed by criticism, just criticize the hell out of everybody. Go on the war path. No, I'm kidding. What you need to do is find out what are those things that you think are intolerable that you cannot handle. And you got to face those criticisms and find you a place to being at peace or neutral around them. You know, I did this a long time ago. The more I put myself out there, the more I was exposed to criticism from anyone, anywhere, anytime, any country across the entire earth, thanks to the Internet. So someone could judge a video in a comment, someone could judge a post on a blog, someone could judge my books and they could put it there publicly for all to see, including me. And then also people could send me an email from anywhere in world. They have no contact me and they could send me an email. And so I found that my mood and my day was very vulnerable. Some random person sends me a random message or I read a random comment online and I'm like, ow, how could you say that about, how dare you? And I realized this is no way to live. And I got to strengthen my confidence. So I came up with this confidence strengthening exercise. I said, well, what are the worst things that I can hear someone say about me? And I wrote every single one of them down. And then I went to the first one on the list. I said, okay, I just read it and I just like I got stirred up. I felt hot, I felt angry, I felt defensive. And I said, okay, what do I need to let go of? Is it some sort of pride? Is it some sort of needing to prove something? Because that's what a lot of it came to is. I felt a need to prove myself or show that person they were wrong. And I thought, what is going on there? Do I know myself? Do I feel like I'm living in integrity? Do I feel like I'm intelligent? Do I feel like this or that? And as long as soon as I started to strengthen that up, like people would judge me for all kinds of things. You know, someone might say, oh, one common one was like, oh, his book is too long and he tells stories about himself and his family. He's a very self indulgent person or something like that. Not used to hurt my feelings. I'm like, no, I'm telling the story so that you can relate. And I'm being vulnerable and sharing about, you know, they don't care, right? They've already made up their mind. And so that's me trying to convince someone else. But I'm like, hold on a second. Do I know why I'm telling the stories? Am I okay that my book is long and full of personal stories? I like the way that I write, and I think a lot of people relate to it. It's not for everybody. But until I got to that place and I didn't just write this once and was done, I'd sit with it for like 10, 20, 30 minutes and then come back a couple days later and sit with it again until you could say pretty much anything to me. It doesn't mean I'm completely impervious from everybody. You know, if my wife has a criticism and I've been acting out of integrity or something, maybe I'll feel hurt or defensive or something. We'll have a fight or whatever. But to be very sensitive and vulnerable to any random person at work or a stranger or someone online, like, we want to strengthen that up. And the more you strengthen your reality, the more you get on your own side, the more you faced all those enemies within, the more unfazed you become for criticism and rejection. So share down below in the comments what you're finding most valuable. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, we have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you are awesome.
