Dr. Aziz (founder of the Center for Social Confidence) explains that people who identify as "nice" repeatedly prioritize safety—often dozens of times a day—by avoiding risks like disagreeing, asking questions, or making themselves seen. He argues this daily pattern keeps people "in a cage," trading aliveness, boldness, and confidence for short-term safety. The video illustrates micro-moment examples (conversational choices, saying no, changing plans), reframes decision-making as "cutting off" alternatives, and issues a call-to-action: notice when you choose safety and deliberately choose risk/expressiveness instead; additional support (books, Confidence University, mastermind) is offered.
Chapters
If you're a nice person, you're making one decision every day, probably at least 15 times a day, that is keeping you in that nice cage, keeping that pattern going. This is the one daily decision of nice people. And you're definitely going to want to watch this because if you shift that, if you. If you make a different decision, it'll steer your life in a completely different direction. One of the more freedom, more expressiveness, more boldness, more aliveness. So if that sounds good to you, watch this video. I'm gonna share exactly how to break free. I'm Dr. Azies. I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence. And I'm passionate about helping you become more confident, more expressive and more alive. Because I know what life is like in the cage and it sucks. And so I wanna help you break free. Cause it's a lot better on the outside. And there's one decision that's keeping you in that cage of niceness. And it's a decision of what you prioritize. So without knowing it, if you're a nice person, you're going through the day prioritizing one thing. And that's going to show up at work, it's going to show up socially, it's going to show up in your relationships, it's going to show up everywhere. That's why I said you might be making this decision 15 times a day or more. And what is the decision? What are you prioritizing? What is the most important thing for you that day? You know, is it your kids? Is it making money? Is it being healthy? All those are important, but not as important as this. The number one thing you're prioritizing, if you're nice, is safety. You're prioritizing safety. And what that looks like is there are dozen moments throughout the day where there's a moment to take a little or a big risk. Saying no to somebody, challenging somebody, sending an email, that's a little more direct. Instead of pleasing, disagreeing about something, asking, asking a question, not just immediately smiling and nodding, but saying, hmm, Felicia, what are you saying? Or saying, oh, I know I agreed to that. I need to change that or I want to make a different choice here. Whatever it is, there are lots of moments like that throughout the day. I mean, we could break it down even into a conversation with somebody. When you want to change the subject of the conversation, when you want to end the conversation, who you want to talk to, who you want to approach, how you want to approach them, how direct you are, how bold you are. Do you speak up? Do you raise your hand? Do you ask a question? I mean, there's probably more than 15, it's probably like 30, 50 a day. Little opportunities like this. And without knowing it, your mind can quickly seek the safe option. Nope, nope, nope. It's like a little fork in the road and it keeps going down one side. Safe way. The safe way. What's the safe way? Don't speak up, don't share, don't take the risk, don't, don't ask the question, don't make yourself seen and certainly don't disagree with anybody because that's only going to end badly. And so you're trying to make it through the day as safely as possible, minimizing all risk, avoiding all risk, and therefore avoiding all discomfort. And what your safety police will tell you is, you know, death and ruin. If you were to speak up, oh my gosh, horrible things are going to happen. You're going to get fired, you're going to get broken up with, everyone's going to leave you and your life's going to be a pile of rubble, which is absolutely not true. That's just a voice that's designed to keep you as safe as possible, which is the decision that you've been making daily. Is this ringing true? Do you relate to what I'm talking about? I know this from the inside, not just from clients. Clients came later. This client came first. This got so messed up. Still kind of messed up, but it's better. Better. In any case, every time you're making a decision, you're choosing one thing and you're cutting something else off, right? That's why deciri is the Latin root of decision, which means to cut off. So you're choosing. If you're choosing A, you're not choosing B. That's how decisions work in life, right? Do you choose to buy the thing or not? Do you choose to be with that person or not? And sure, there's vague areas like situationships, but I mean, for the most part, are you with the person or not? Right. So when you're choosing safety, what are you not choosing? Well, I asked this recently in a workshop I was running online, and people put all kinds of things in the chat. Like if you're prioritizing safety, you're not prioritizing achieving your goals, taking the risk, breaking free, confidence, and, and there's this whole list of stuff. And I said, yes, all that is true. And I would summarize all of that as saying when you're choosing safety, you're not choosing being fully alive, you're not choosing being fully alive. And that's a little depressing. Maybe a lot depressing. Maybe depressing isn't so bad. I mean, I know personally I had to get pretty, if not depressed, then disturbed about my future, about where I was heading, about my life, so that I had the impulse and the energy to do something about it. I'm hoping this video and highlighting this decision that you're making is going to agitate you a little bit. It's going to make you start to pay attention to that. That's my invitation for you, is just to watch it over this next couple weeks. Is this true? Don't just take my word for it, observe it in your own experience. And if it is true, when are you going to start choosing different? Because the risk here is not most likely your literal death. You're probably not going to die from avoiding all these risks, but you are gonna not fully live, which is a different kind of death, right? It's like the death of your spirit, the death of your soul. And so if that agitates and disturbs you, then good. I've done my job for today and I invite you, I encourage you to make a different decision, which is to take the risk, which is to lean in and do the uncomfortable thing. And I know you can do it no matter what that voice of doubt says in your mind. And if you need extra support, I'm here. I got books. Check out my books. I got Confidence University on my website. I have a 12 month mastermind program. There's things that you can do and I'm just one teacher about this stuff. There's so many other people. The only thing that I would encourage you to not do is to keep choosing safety over being fully alive. So share down below in the comments what you're finding most valuable and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
