Dr. Aziz (weekly confidence boost) teaches that to build social confidence you should shift from a defensive/avoidant stance to an offensive one: proactively move toward others, initiate conversations, ask questions, and steer interactions. He illustrates with a brief neighbor anecdote and gives everyday examples (walking up to people, speaking up in Zoom meetings, sharing ideas) to show how small acts of initiation create more connection and opportunities in relationships, dating, and career. The piece closes with encouragement to practice courage and initiation.
Chapters
Hey, welcome to your weekly confidence boost. Today, let's talk about how you can go on offense, social offense. This is how you win in conversations. So what does that mean, to win in conversations? Does that mean you get your point across and you defeat the other person and debate them? No, not necessarily. What I mean by winning here, winning is more freedom for you, more connection for both you and the other person, more opportunities that can happen in your life, whether that's socially and dating relationships in your career. And we want to make a shift when it comes to your stance towards social interactions and towards other people from defense to offense. Now, just take a moment to think about that. If you've ever played a sport or watched a sport, let's say the team has the ball and they're on offense. What are they doing? They're advancing, they're moving towards the other basket, goal posts, touchdown, whatever it is, they're moving towards it, and they're finding ways to continue to get closer and closer and closer. And that is what you want to start to train yourself to do socially, you know, and what you might find is that you. You may have a long history, especially if you experience social anxiety, of having a default stance of avoidance, which means defensiveness. And what that means is there's someone over there and you're like, ooh, you're the other way. There's an opportunity to share something and you stay silent. You don't ask questions, and often you're waiting for the other person to interact with you. And you might even be giving off the vibe of like, don't talk to me. And they might feel that you're aloof or disinterested or disengaged. And that sort of deters them from wanting to pursue you or interact with you or try to connect with you. And on some level, that's what some part of you wants. That socially anxious part that's like, people are threatening. I don't want to get hurt. People don't like me. I don't want to be judged. All those stories can take over. And then we sort of stay closed, stay guarded, stay on defense. And so you want to start to shift that. And one really simple way to do that is just to think about being on offense. So just the other day, my commute is from my house to this studio in the back of our property. It's about 30 seconds and just walk across our yard and I'm here. It's fantastic. We have a neighbor that are dear friends of ours. They have a kid that's about the same age as our kids, and they love hanging out with each other, and we've known them for years. And my neighbor was out in her yard, and there was this man she was with who I met a few times, or I know him from many years ago. I don't really talk to him that often. Don't have much of a relationship with him. And I'm walking from my house to my office, and then her and this guy are in the yard together, just sitting and chatting, having a conversation outside. And so I am walking. I have, like, a bowl of food that I just made for lunch. I'm about to go sit in my office and work and eat, and I see them. And my default is just to, like, move towards it, just even for like a minute. And I'm like, hey, how's it going? You know, what are you up to? He's a builder, and he'd been building stuff recently that my neighbor was telling me about. It's like, hey, I hear you've been building up a storm. And so I asked him a few questions about that, and I was like, okay, great, well, enjoy your time out there. I'm gonna go back to my office. See you guys later. And I walked away. Now, it might seem like such a simple, insignificant interaction. In many ways it is, and it was. But. But what I want to highlight is how that reveals a general attitude or stance of, I'm going to go on offense, I'm going to move towards, even if it's not for a long conversation. And when you're moving towards, you're driving the conversation. You ask the question, you say, hey, how's it going? What you been up to? Or, I heard you've been doing this. Or, how's that thing going in your life? You're willing to steer, you're willing to drive, you're willing to move towards them. And they might be closed, they might be open, they might want to answer your questions, they might not. But you are the one moving towards them. And you want to start to find a way to just bring more and more of that into your daily life. So if you're in a work meeting and it's like a zoom thing, and people are hanging out before it starts, just start. Be the one who asks someone a question, hey, how was your weekend? Or, oh, what do you guys think about this thing? Or whatever it is, or you share something, Hey, I was watching this really interesting show the other day. It was about, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Has anyone else seen it? I'm talking little things, big things. It could be about, specifically about a work project and sharing your ideas. But you are the one who's initiating. You are going on offense. So there are a million one examples I can give. But the key insight for you to get here is that if you want to thrive in your social life, if you want to build your social confidence, if you want to create the connections that you want, have the friendships that you want, the relationships that you want, the career opportunities that you want, the life that you want, you got to go on offense. It's not gonna come to you. No one's gonna knock on your door and be like, you are amazing. Please, please be my friend. Please. You know, it's like the fantasy that we have, but you gotta put yourself out there, and you gotta start to move towards other people, and you gotta be the one to initiate. You gotta be the one to connect and pursue who it is that you want to connect with. So hope this serves you. And until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk soon.
