Want More Confidence? Be More Selfish! - Dr. Aziz, Confidence Coach

Do you want to know a surprising trick to becoming way more confident in yourself and just feeling more bold, strong, certain, powerful, unafraid, fearless about other people. Just really solid confidence in any area. Dating, relationships, work, career. Do you want to know that? One simple trick. And guess what? It's totally counterintuitive. It might go against everything you've learned. If so, stay tuned because I'm excited to share with you in this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, best selling author of the Solution to Social Anxiety and the new book the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. And this show is for you if you want to 10x your confidence, maximize your confidence in dating, relationships, work, career, finances, income, every area of life that matters. Confidence is the doorway to success in all areas. So let's help you master life by mastering your confidence. And today I want to share an extremely powerful trick to help you master confidence in all areas of life by doing something that's counterintuitive. And counterintuitive means doing something different than what you'd expect, different than what seems to make sense and maybe different than what you've been taught. And that might be part of the problem, what you've been taught. And it's probably going to be a little controversial and I'm sure some of you watching are going to hate me. So bring it on. Here is what it is. You want to be more confident starting today, be more selfish. Be more selfish will equal more confidence. No, that's like saying something real bad. Like, you want more confident, be more racist. You know, it's like, oh, selfish is a bad thing. You don't want to be more of that. Yes, you do, and here's why. So there's a spectrum, you know, and there's two ends to that spectrum. On the one side is just totally self absorbed, narcissistic, egomaniac, selfish prick. And that's the person that's just steamrolling people, stomping on people, using people, interrupting people, really manipulating and hurting people and not giving a shit. Then the other way, way far end of the spectrum is the super selfless, super nice, whatever you want. I don't even have an opinion or a feeling. Yes. For you, my own Wesley from the Princess Bride. As you wish. Right? It's totally selfless. Now, either extreme as in life, extremes are no good. But most people that I've found that are lack, you know, most people actually, most of the world is actually, if here's a spectrum is kind of in this part like more towards the selfless part, which might sound good, right? Because spiritual teachers and religions tell us to be selfless. Give, serve, don't focus on yourself, can't contribute. Right. So we, you know, most people are over here and I think most people could benefit not going all the way over to that guy, but like just ratcheting up the dial a little bit to the middle. Because being over here, Fs you up because you are. Here's the problem. It's not being kind, it's not giving to someone. It's not sometimes doing something for someone else that is inconvenient to you. It's not about not doing those things, it's about compulsively doing them out of fear. So you want me to come to this party? I don't really want to go or I have this other thing. But okay, I'm scared to say no, so okay, I'll do it or man, I don't really feel like helping my friend move this weekend, but I really should. It's very selfish of me to say no. Okay, so I'm going to do it because otherwise he's going to be upset with me and he's not going to want to help me later in life. Right? So your decisions are all fear, a fear of how that other person is going to respond to you. Now what that does is that doesn't give you the choice to be more self focused or giving to someone else. You're just always. I have to do that, I have to do that. I have to do that. I have to do that. I have to do that. Now I have to do that again. And guess what? Now I'm burnt out. Now I'm resentful. But I can't show that because I'm supposed to be this selfless person who just likes to give, supposed to make me feel good all the time. Because that's what Jesus said. And I don't know if that's actually what Jesus said, but you know, it's the teachings that we, that's how we interpret it. But I'm supposed to feel good. I actually don't. I better just give more to be a better person. And it's all about this. Like if I do this, I'm a good enough person and if not, I'm bad. You know what I'm talking about? If you don't, you're bad. And here's the thing, you gotta be a little more selfish. You just have to, in order to get the confidence that you want. I really ground out that gotta be there. You gotta be. Cause I mean it. I'm passionate about this because my life sucked when I was too not selfish enough. I was scared of it. I thought I'd be a bad person. And then I was in a men's group and it transformed my life. Helped me realize that. You gotta start taking. You gotta start taking. It's not being bad. It's taking care of yourself. You gotta take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, you can't give in the long run. So here's how you start taking care of yourself. You have to ask yourself, what do I want in this situation? What do I really want? Not what should I be to be this saint like person, but what do I really want? I really don't want to do that. Okay, well, that's legit. Let's actually acknowledge that. Because sometimes when we're trying to be so selfless, we don't even allow ourselves to see that. We just stuff it all down. Remember, this is about choice. This is about options. You're going to choose ultimately whether you want to serve or take care of yourself or whatever. But I want to help you increase your awareness so you have more options and ultimately more confidence. So what do I actually want? I don't actually want to do that. Okay, great. Now I can choose. I know I don't want to do it, but ultimately am I going to choose to do it because it serves that person or it's better for a relationship over time or no, I'm not gonna. And you really do have a choice. And you've worked through the guilt and all that self shame that comes up by taking care of yourself. So how do you work through that guilt? How do you work through that shame? You do it. You say no, you take care of yourself instead. And then you deal with the stuff that comes up. Is the short answer. You have to start doing it. You can't always just say yes to everyone. Somehow work on it at the same time. You have to take the risk and say no and then feel bad and then work through it. So here's a few examples for you. I was working with a client recently and her parents were having this. Their friends were having some party, I don't even know. And they were trying to tell, like, this is really important for you to come. And she didn't want to go. She's a grown woman, by the way. This is not like a teenager or something. But her parents are like, oh, you should come. It's gonna be so Important to them. And she checked in with herself and was like, no, no. And then later on they ask again, no. And we had a session before and she was gonna go and she was like resentful about it and upset that they pressured her. And I was like, wait, wait, wait. Let me just ask you this. Do you really want to go to this party? She was pretty clear. She's like, no. And I said, okay, what's gonna happen if you say no? Oh, my God. Guilt trip city. Oh, yeah. How are they going to do that? How are they going to. How is your dad going to guilt trip you? Oh, he's going to say this, he's going to say that, he's going to say that. I said, great, let's do some role plays. Let's help you learn how to work through that so you're not so scared of that. Because here's the thing. No one, people can try to guilt trip you, but no one can make you feel guilty unless you already are thinking you're bad for doing it. Does that make sense? So if you're totally okay with it, like, of course it's fine for me to say no. I, I don't have to go to this party. It's fine. I can say yes and I can say no. And I want them to be able to do the same thing. If I invite someone, I don't want them to have to say yes. If I ask for help from someone, I don't want them to have to say yes and then be like uncomfortable and resentful about it. I want them to say no and then I'll ask someone else. Because here's the thing. Everyone's got other resources. You're not the only savior. Everyone's got other resources. So she said no. She got the guilt trip. We worked through it. She gained social power and social confidence. That's how it works. One other example, I remember when I first got together with my wife, Candice. She was getting divorced. Now I know everyone says that's a terrible time to start a relationship, but we rocked it and we're awesome and she's awesome and I love her, but she was like moving out of the house that she had with her ex husband and he was out of town and she had a couple friends, a guy with a truck and another friend. And I said I would go help. And I got there and I was just like, dude, this feels like I am way too much in the business of her exiting other relationship. Like it just felt energetically not good. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be that enmeshed. It's like, look, I'm happy to start a relationship with you, but I don't want to be there, like, helping you move out of your house with your other dude and looking through all this stuff and just like, ugh, like, get your friends to do that. That's what my inner reaction was. And I felt so. I was in the men's group at the time, thank God, But I felt so, like, bleh about doing it. But to my credit, I was working on it at that time in my life. So I did. And I said, you know, it doesn't feel right for me to be here. I want to go. And I imagined Candace, my wife, was totally understanding. The other two people were kind of like, oh, okay. Kind of ambiguous responses. And I remember being like, I left. And I was like, oh, they're thinking, this. They think I'm this. They think I'm selfish. They think I'm a bad person. I'm a terrible boyfriend. All in my own head. I had no idea what. Actually, I found out later from Candice that they were both just a little disappointed because they wanted to hang out with me, because they liked me. They had no. They actually both totally understood why I was uncomfortable. But in my mind, because all my own inner guilt stuff, right? I remember driving home and I felt so bad beating the hell out of myself. And that critic is trying to get you to go back to being that extra nice, selfless person. But you got to withstand it. You got to fight it, get some support, get one of my programs. Confidence Unleashed will be a great program for you if you want to work on this. Confidence Unleashed is all about bold social power. How to not care what others think, how to be assertive, how to go after what you want, not give a shit so much, not be so nice. That program will get you more powerful, so that can support you. Talk to a friend. I went to the men's group that I was in, and we talked about it, and I helped. Everyone there was like, no, this is good. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. And I was like, okay, this is intense. But step by step, I did it and now can be way more assertive, way more free to say yes or no and not have any guilt about saying no or if it comes up. It's, like, really brief, and I can work through it, and it no longer stops me. I know the power and the importance of asking yourself, what do I want? So ask yourself that question another thing you might want to do is subscribe. Ask yourself, what do I want? Do I want to subscribe? If so, do so because you'll get more updates about future shows. You'll stay connected. Ask me your questions. Share your comments. What are you learning from this? What? What's working for you? How are you growing? What risks are you taking? Any questions you have, share it below in the comments. And let's all help each other grow. 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. I'll talk to you.