Dr. Aziz explains that the key to being interesting is not external accomplishments (travel, jobs, hobbies, news knowledge) or storytelling skill but freely broadcasting your present inner experience—what you notice, feel, think, and like. He illustrates with a trivial anecdote (enthusiasm about rainbow Post-it notes), links the idea to couples therapy (‘broadcasting to improve’) and emotional intimacy, and encourages practicing open sharing to draw others in and strengthen relationships.
Do you want to know the secret to being interesting? Of course you do. That's why you're watching this video. Let's talk about what it is. So you have probably an idea about what it might be to be more interesting. And some of our default ideas are, well, if I just traveled more, then I'd be more interesting. If I had a better job with the cooler stuff happened in, maybe I'd be more interesting. Then maybe, maybe I need to have more adventures. You know, I don't need to travel, but I need to do more interesting stuff. I need to have more hobbies or more things that I could talk about. Maybe I need to read the news more so I know what's going on in current events. That would make me more interesting person, right? Or pop culture, you know, knew what was going on with the Grammys and Oscars and whatever else. Or sports. Maybe I just knew more about sports that'd be more interesting. I could talk to people and they would like sports too. And then we'd all get along. Everyone would think I'm interesting. Or maybe you're like, I just need to be a better storyteller and I could turn anything and make it interesting if I could just tell better stories. These are all things that one by one, I thought all those things at different times in my life. And it's none of those things. None of those things are going to make you interesting. In fact, there's only one thing that's the key factor to make you more interesting. And the beauty is you could do it today, starting right now. Want to know what it is? Share freely, a hundred percent freely share you and who you are and what you're interested in and what you want to say and broadcast what's happening inside of you. That is the most interesting way to connect with people. That's the most interesting way to be. And it's going to draw people towards you like crazy. Now I know that there's already resistance building as you watch. It's not true. You don't understand. I'm boring. I'm not interesting. That's the problem. That's the real problem is your story that you're not interesting. The idea that somehow whatever's going on for you is not worth sharing is not interesting to people. And you're always assessing that. You're always filtering for that. Something comes into your awareness and you're like, I don't know if that's interesting enough. Probably not. And you don't share it. Or if you do share it, it's like 20% of what it would be if you were sharing freely. So you want to share something you're really excited about. Like, I love Post it notes. I love. I've just looked over at Post it Notes on a desk over there. I love those rainbow color Post it notes, right? The most trivial example in the world. Trivial example in the world. If you were to share that, let's say you're at work with someone and they're at their desk and they got like a couple of Post it notes and you're like, I love the rainbow Post it notes. Those are awesome. And you said it just like that because that's how you felt it. Guess what? They got those too. They might spark. Like, oh, really? Oh, fun. Where'd you get those? Oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah. And it's the most ridiculous example. It's the first thing that came to my mind. Here's the thing. If you don't think that you might notice the rainbow Post it Notes and be like, yeah, so anyway, about that report and you just gloss over. You don't even mention it. Or you mention it at 20% and you're like, oh, yeah, I like those Post it notes. Hey, anyway, about that report. And so your energy, the way you bring it up, the way you talk about it is so like, yeah, you're communicating. I don't really want to go there. Then it doesn't stick. But if you put energy, if you put your enthusiasm, you show 100% where you are with it. It is magnetic, it draws people to you. And here's the thing, the biggest problem here is this block to sharing. It's this habit of not sharing. And it's so easy to fall in this. I will still fall into this sometimes, even knowing this, even with people that I love, even with my wife Candice, sometimes I'll get home from work and our life's pretty chaotic with dogs and boys and whatever. And it's just like, there's not much space to have a kind of a full conversation until they're asleep. So it's kind of like, Jess, like, how's your day? Or whatever. And I could say little things, but I'm just kind of like, I don't know what to share. Like it was just a normal day at work. That's kind of what my thinking is and what a missed opportunity because I'm thinking I need to share something interesting or something different or put all my ideas together in a great way. That's not, that's not what I need to do. I need to see what's going on right now and just say it. Oh, I'm feeling really excited about this interview. I had. Or. Oh, man. We had this problem with some program, and it sucked. I didn't like it. It's just, what is there right now? Another thing is, like, what's happening for you right now? What's present for you? What am I noticing? What am I feeling? What am I thinking? What am I interested in? What do I not like? What am I drawn to? And you just share those things. In couples therapy, they call this broadcasting to improve. And one of the biggest problems that leads to the decline and eventual death of romantic relationships is a lack of emotional intimacy. And, you know, that increases problems and fights and distance and then conflict around all kinds of other things, right? You know, decisions, parenting, money, all that stuff. But the core problem is a lack of emotional intimacy. And usually one of the primary sources of that is the man in the relationship. If it's a heterosexual relationship. This is kind of a generalization here. That's often the case in couples therapy. And so one of the things that couples therapists will teach the man, or whichever partner is more reserved to do, is to broadcast more. And that means, like, just narrating what's happening. As I was describing before, narrating what you're noticing. That's what you want to do. If you do that and you do it consistently and you do it freely and you do it fully, you will be incredibly interesting to other people. Now, does that mean everything you say is 100% interesting to everyone all the time? No, that's impossible. But you just keep doing that, and you'll find a lot of people are interested in a lot of the stuff you say. So just practice that. Practice that for, like, a week. Just share freely, broadcast freely, first and foremost. It'll feel so much better. Now, afterwards, you might have a little bit of, like, contraction, you know, A little bit of, you know, when the moment's over and you're driving home and you're like, why did I say that? Oh, they shouldn't have shared that. They don't care about that. Like, that's just your safety police trying to smash you back in the box. Fuck that. Keep going out. Keep expanding. Keep sharing. Don't listen to that. It is good to share. You are worth sharing. Your life is worth sharing. Your experience is important, and it matters. So share in the comments below what you're noticing, what you're learning from this video. And until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
