Dr. Aziz explains why trying to avoid judgment backfires and offers a better approach: let opinions land on you like flies and then move on. He uses an on-set anecdote to show how this works in practice.
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You want to care less what others think of you, right? Not be so worried about everyone else's passing, thoughts, judgments, opinions, feelings. But how do you do that? Especially if you've been a nice person your whole life. It's like that's what my whole world is about, about being liked. So making sure I'm not judged. How do I not care? It sounds ridiculous. It sounds impossible. Well, guess what? It's absolutely possible to care so much less what other people think of you. That's what I've been dedicated to doing my life and helping clients do for many years. And I want to share some of the key insights about how you can care less what others think of you and therefore feel extreme sense of liberation and freedom to be who you really are in the world. I'm Dr. Aziz. I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence and the author of six bestselling books, including Not Nice, which is all about how to not care about what other people think of you and being fully yourself, not this nice, pleasing version of you. Now, I want to give you a visual metaphor today that's really going to help things shift for you, because there's two ways to go about trying to deal with this fear of being judged thing. One, which is probably the most common in life, is to curry favor. How do you want me to be? I'll be whoever you want me to be, and so then maybe you won't judge me. So I'm watching you. I'm paying attention. I'm subtly or not subtly altering who I am to be what I think you want me to be. This one feel resonant for you, just the strategy you're using right now. And not only that, but I'm going to be worried inside all the time because what if I'm failing? What if there's something I'm missing? What if you judge me anyway, even though I'm trying my hardest to make sure that you don't? It's a lot of hiding, a lot of pretending, a lot of fretting, a lot of worrying, a lot of stress. That's option one. What do we think of option one? Thumbs up or. Yeah, okay, what's option two? Well, let me give you option two in the form of visual metaphor from some interview I heard a long time ago. This was so random. I don't know where I heard this. I'm not a huge movie buff, but I did. So I'm not the kind of guy who's, like, watching, you know, the director's cut with commentary to get all the insights. That's not my jam. But I did hear this interview, I believe, with an actor, or maybe it was the director, about a movie called the Proposition. And this has nothing to do with content in the movie. It actually has to do with the filming of the movie. So. So during the filming of the movie, it's a western. It's pretty interesting. It's kind of a gritty Western, and it's got Guy Pearce in it, the guy from Memento. Anyway, they're in Australia, I believe. I think that's where it's supposed to take place. Or maybe it's supposed to be the Wild West, I don't know. But they film it in Australia, and they went to some place somewhere out there, and when they were filming it, there were flies everywhere. Flies everywhere. You know, I actually noticed during the movie when I watched it, there was flies. There was, like, flies on the characters. They'd land on their face as they were talking and climb on their lips and stuff. And I was like, wow, this Western's really grew. Wow, those guys are tough, right? But it turns out they just incorporated into the movie because there was flies everywhere. They would cloud around them. They'd get into the food. They'd be landing on their face, and the actor was saying, you know, when I first got there, I was just a wreck, you know, trying to get this fly, get that fly. Ah. Every little fly. Judgment was causing him stress, and he was trying to catch every single one or dodge every single one. Is there anywhere I can get to where there's no flies? They follow you everywhere. And the answer was no, there was nowhere you can get to where there was no flies. And that's why they brought him into the movie. And they're like, yeah, let's just make it this gritty kind of experience. He said, you know, something profound happened, though. After about five or six days being on the set and shooting and being out there all day with the flies, I just stopped trying to stop the flies. And the guy saying, well, what happened? He's like, well, they would just go everywhere. They'd crawl over your face, they'd call over your lips, and then they would fly away. And they'd come and they'd fly away, and he's like, you know, interestingly enough, after about a week or maybe 10 days, I even stopped really noticing them. And the person was incredulous. Like, really? How? She's not noticing? I don't know. I just didn't seem to bother me. And then when I heard that Obviously, it's interesting story about the movie and the flies, but I thought, isn't that how it is with judgment? The more I'm like, you better not think this, you better not think that. That's a fly. That's a fly. That's a fly, and it's a cloud of flies. And how many humans are in your life? How many people do you interact with? Or do you put yourself out there in any sort of way at work and social media and life? Oh, my God, it's even more humans, more flies, more potential judgment. How many freaking judgments can come from just one human in your life? How many can come from your own mind about yourself, about life? I mean, we're talking thousands per day. It's a lot of flies. That's a lot of things to try to catch. And so what I'm going to invite you to do is what if you just imagined letting those flies land and go away? How could you do that? We have to get one key thing. The flies are annoying, but are they dangerous? The flies going to kill you? Are the flies going to make you sick? Are the flies going to bite you? No, they're just going to land on you and maybe drink your sweat. I don't know what they're tasting. Tasting your flesh. And they fly away. And that is how judgments are. They're a nuisance. They're not damaging. They're not going to kill you. They're not going to bite you. They're just there. I think you're dumb. I think you're smart. Okay. Ugly, you're pretty. Okay. And the more you let people, like, what if the judgments. What's. What if someone else's judgments are there and they have nothing to do with you? That is where the true liberation is. Then you can let the fly land. So you watching this? You think Aziz is great? You think Aziz is dumb. Okay. And then it flies away and I don't need to do anything about it. What a relief. That's option two. My question for you is how do you want to live? Option one or option two? Now this is sounding appealing to you, and you're like, yeah, I get it intellectually, but I really want to experience a shift. Then I highly encourage you go further. Go to my website, Drizz.com. you can get five steps mini course on the Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. Be who you really Are in the world. I have a podcast called Shrink for the Shy Guy on. You can find it on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And all that. And if you're really serious about it, I do work with people in a Mastermind program, a 12 month immersive program with extraordinary results. Go to DoctorAziz.com and check out Under Coaching. Watch some of the videos of people and the absolute transformation in their life. What your life can be like when you just let the flies come and go and really, really allow yourself to be who you fully are. Beautiful to watch. So in some way, shape or form. I hope this serves you and you can take things further. To be fully, freely yourself in the world until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
