Dr. Aziz explains that beyond tangible gains (career, relationships, money), a major hidden benefit of developing confidence is becoming more authentic and discovering who you are. Using an Austin, Texas anecdote (exploring a cactus patch and enjoying nature), he argues confidence gives you courage to try new things, follow passions, and reveal deeper life purpose, emphasizing bravery plus self-compassion and self-love.
Hey, Dr. Aziz here. And I want to share one of the hidden benefits of confidence. You know, when you think of confidence, you might think of, I want to be able to earn more money or get a girlfriend or get a husband or, you know, be more respected at work or whatever. The top of mind things that you think of. And I think those are all worthwhile. And that's why in my events and other things, I teach people how to have the confidence to do that. But what people find is they really start on this journey of confidence with me. And you might have discovered this as well. Well, is that you do get the sort of those tangible benefits, being able to achieve more or experience something in your life. But what you're not anticipating might be the intangible benefits. And that could be summed up right here. You can see that it's a little cactus patch out in the middle of this green belt here. I'm in Austin, Texas. I'm here for a business training. First time I got on an airplane in five, six months. And I got here, it's a four day training. I'm gonna be in a room all day long. And I had an afternoon when I got into Austin. You know, many things I would have done in the past, maybe I would have gone to my hotel room, maybe I would have maybe walked around the city, maybe got a meal at a restaurant. And, you know, what I decided to do now is like, what's the closest patch of nature I can get into? And then let me spend as many hours as I can. There's another cactus patch, and it's been about three and a half hours. It's gonna get dark soon. I have a headlamp though, ready? And what does this have to do with confidence? Well, one of the hidden benefits is as you start to, in order to achieve those things, the relationship, the career, success, the more money, all those things that you want, the confidence for what it requires is you to be more you. That's everything I teach comes back to that is like to be more authentic, more brave, more courageously more you in the world. And one of the benefits of that is you become more attractive, you become more successful, you become more compelling and more of a leader. But you also get to discover so much cool shit. And what are you discovering? You're discovering you because knowing who you are, just being who you are, it's not like this set thing where you just say, okay, this is who I am. Boom, here we go. You might have an idea of that. It might start that way. Like I'M a more outspoken person, or I'm a more funny person, or I'm a. I'm more of a leader. I want to pursue this kind of career. And you have an idea. But that's just the beginning, my friend. Then you go into a season of discovering some amazing things about yourself. And much like this trail, you turn a corner and I was in, like, woods and a river, and now I see fields and fields of these little cacti as far as you can see everywhere. So you're gonna discover these things about yourself, too. What makes you tick, what lights you up. And then because you've been practicing confidence, you have the boldness and the courage to pursue those things, to accept those things, to own those things, and say, yeah, I'm going to go do that. Whatever it is, whatever passion it is, whether it's a recreational passion, like, for me, I've awoken to a whole new level of hunger and passion for being outdoors and absolutely loving being in the wilderness around Portland. But other things, too. You know, what I've discovered in my career and what kind of work exactly I want to do and how I want to be with people and how transparent I want to be with friends and all those things. You get to discover more and more of that, and you get to follow those passions. And what you do is you stop being one of those people who's on the sidelines of life saying, someday, maybe I'm going to do that. And you start to do shit. And you get to experience more and more and more, and life can get better and better and better as you achieve those things, as you have those experiences. But most importantly, you get to discover so many miraculous things in life and probably ultimately discover many of the reasons why you're here. So hope this inspires you to get out there, try new things, test things out, practice bravery and self compassion, self love, those are the two key ingredients. All right, thanks for being with me today. Hope you have a good rest of your day. Until we speak again, you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
