8 Jun 2026 · 21 min
Dr. Aziz Gazipour explains why we crave approval from childhood through adulthood, and how social media amplifies that need. He identifies four approval types and argues that nervous-system retraining, not willpower, lets you build genuine confidence grounded in your own values.
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Do you feel unsettled when someone gets upset with you? Maybe your boss doesn't make very much eye contact with you in a meeting and it sticks with you all day. Or you text somebody and they don't get back to you, and then you start to worry and wonder, oh my God, did I upset them in some way? And in that situation, it doesn't just feel like curious or a little bother. It can feel very unsafe, like something is threatened and you feel anxious inside and you can't put it down. And then we fixate on what do I got to say? What do I got to do to get their approval, to get them to respond to me, to get them to like me? And we don't pause to question why does this person's opinion have so much power over me? And that's what we're going to answer today, and we're going to go much further than that. You're going to discover exactly why you get hooked, why it creates that sense of fear, what the pattern underneath is, and how to change that, how to reclaim that so that other people don't have so much power over you, and that passing dislike or disapproval doesn't shatter you or create turmoil and upset inside of you. I'm Dr. Aziz. I'm the founder of the Center for Social Confidence and the author of 7 bestselling books on confidence and one key things I've seen over the years is that a universal fear of everyone that I work with, and honestly a universal fear of billions of humans right now on the planet, is not to their physical safety. Like, I'm not going to get attacked today. It's actually someone is going to dislike me today. Someone's going to disapprove of me. Someone could disapprove of me. And that could be direct face-to-face at work, in a social situation. That could be comments online. And then we get afraid of that because it seems threatening to us, and we end up pulling back Hiding, holding back. It's the opposite of being the most free, authentic, confident version of you. And I was just in a room not that long ago, maybe 200 professionals, and the speaker asked them, how many of you have thought of over the last few years, hey, I could write a book, and actually wanted to write a book? And I would say 90 to 95% of the room raised their hand. And he said, great, how many of you have ever released a book? And it was probably 20% of the room. So what— and this is a room of people like me, experts, authorities, they know their stuff, professionals. Why? What's that gap? And so the speaker started to ask people, like, what— why not? What's the fear? And you know what came up again and again and again and again? How is it going to be received? What are people going to think of it? Maybe it's not going to do very— maybe people are going to like it. Maybe you're going to give me negative comments, right? So this doesn't just go day to day. This goes for your whole life. What decisions are you making right now? What decisions did you make this last week that were about avoiding disapproval and ultimately not being who you fully are professionally, personally, in your relationships, because it might upset somebody? And and I'm going to reveal why it feels so threatening, why we can't just tell ourselves— this is the most common challenge I see with clients that I work with— they've been telling themselves for years, just be more confident, just be yourself. That's like the worst advice that I got when I was young, and I was very anxious, lots of social anxiety, lots of self-criticisms, fear of other people's judgments. And I asked my friend Ryan at the time, as we walked into a party— he was very confident— I was like, Ryan, how do you do it? How are you so confident when you walk into a party? And he said, Aziz, just be yourself, man. And then we walked in, and it did not help. I was not myself. I guess I I was that version of myself where I hide in the corner and don't talk to anybody, but that's not my real self. So what's happening there? Well, I'm afraid to be my real self because I could get disapproval. And why is disapproval so uncomfortable? Why does it unsettle you so much? Have you ever slowed down to really ask that? Because we focus so much on how do I get approval, how do I avoid disapproval, who do I need to be right now in this moment, in this conversation, in this video, in this life, so that you don't disapprove of me. And we're fixated on that, we're obsessed with that. And then we mold ourselves, right? We limit ourselves, we chop parts of ourselves off, we hide. Even in your closest relationships, I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with where with their spouse, with their friend, with their family, huge parts of them— their playful side, their sexy side, their bold side, what they really want, what they don't like— it can't be expressed. Or at least that's how it feels, because if they express it, there might be gasp disapproval. What's happening there? Why is it so threatening? Well, it taps into some deep wiring below your conscious mind that says, if you disapprove of me, maybe— or you're upset with me— maybe you won't like me. And if you won't like me, then maybe you won't want to be with me, spend time with me, hire me, hang out with me, date me, love me. And so in order to preserve that connection, I need to survive, in essence, right? Because back in our evolutionary programming, survival was connection. So in order to preserve that connection, I just gotta do whatever it takes. I'll just be who you want me to be. And we've also got a layer added on top in our present culture. I talk about this just recently, if you go back and listen to me, where I talk about the approval economy, where we live in a culture now where approval is measured 24/7 and visible on display in terms of comments, engagement, likes, responses, reviews. Even if you're not putting your stuff out there and getting reviewed, you see it everywhere. You realize everybody's reviewing everything. And if you ever read comments or reviews, they can be nasty and harsh. So we're like, oh God, I don't want that to happen to me. And maybe people are thinking that about me. And so we've linked up in our mind that approval is safety, but also approval is my sense of self-worth. That, that equation is what's sinking the ship. It's what creates all of our anxiety. It's what prevents you from being yourself at work, socially, in relationships, in connection with people. It's the opposite. It's the death of authentic confidence, is approval equals my self-worth. And we have been giving that approval equation, that power away for years. And it's time, my friend, to take it back. Now, a lot of people, you too, might be here listening and saying, you know, I'm with you. I've heard, I get this. I get this consciously. But I shouldn't care so much what other people think. You know, what does it matter what my boss thinks of me? What does it matter what that person online thinks of me? I'll be okay. I could get a different job. If some stranger doesn't like me, I'm fine, right? You know that consciously. So what's going on? Why does the pattern keep repeating? Why do we still get anxious? Why do we get graspy inside and try to control people and make sure they still like us and do that dance. The reason is because underneath that rational brain of yours, you have a primal emotional system in your brain body, in your nervous system that says override, do the thing that keeps us safe. And you know what? That was actually very fitting, very appropriate, and very smart at a certain time in life. And so, I'm going to draw something here for you. And if you are listening to the podcast version of this, I'm going to describe it as I draw. And if you want to check out the video version of this, go to my YouTube channel. Just look in the description below and you'll see a link to the YouTube channel. I'm just Dr. Aziz Gazipoura on YouTube and you'll be able to look this one up. So here is— imagine a wheel and the wheel is half above ground and half below ground. Now when you're above ground, you're alive. What happens when you're below ground? Well, that's the end of this episode, right? I don't know if you spin back on the wheel and come back again, Or you go off into some other realm. That's up for you to determine. All I know is that you're on this wheel right now. That's what we can all see and agree on, right? Now this wheel has— it turns and it turns only in one way, which is to the right. So you start, imagine you're just emerging above the ground. That's you getting born. Ha! Here, congratulations, world, planet, you are here, right? And your presence is a gift. And that's not me being patronizing. That's actually something that I communicate consistently to people that are in my world, family, friends, clients. And when you really get that, it changes something powerful, and you have a beautiful pathway to authentic confidence. When you really get my presence is a gift. Here you are, you're born, and then you go through the first couple years of life, and let's say you're at 5, 5 years old. Now, when you're 5 years old, you're barely on the beginning of that wheel, right? But what about your parents? I don't know, your parents might have had you young or middle-aged or whatever. Let's just say your parents are 35 when you're 5. Imagine the parents are right at the— I don't know how long they're going to live, how long you're going to live, but let's say 35 to 40 is right about the middle, right? Maybe you live to about 75, 80 years old, maybe longer, maybe you're gonna live to 105, whatever. But let's just say 80. So imagine right at 12, at 12 o'clock on the wheel is 35 to 40, and that's how old your parents were when you were 5 years old. When you're 5, it's absolutely fitting, appropriate, and intelligent to look to the authority adults in your life and say, am I okay? Am I doing the right thing? Is this good or bad? Am I a good or a bad boy or girl? That's developmentally appropriate. And a child who is running the household at 5, if you've ever seen those nanny shows, it's problematic, right? You shouldn't give the 5-year-old the keys to the car, the keys to the cookie cupboard, the keys to the screens, right? The parent is like, nope, don't do that. Do this. Don't hit the other kid in the mouth. Ask him for his toy. Hitting in the mouth is bad. Asking for the toy is good. Right? We need that guidance when we're 5 years old. That's very appropriate. So you look to the parent. Am I okay? Am I okay? Am I okay? Perfect. But here's the thing. That wheel turns, doesn't it? So imagine you were 5 and click, click, click, click, click. The wheels turn to the right. And now where are you? How old are you now? 25, 30, 35, 50? Now your parents have gone where? Well, if they're still alive, maybe they're in the later part of the wheel, right? All the way to the right, about to go back towards the ground. Maybe they're 70. 75, 80, right? So let's just put 75 here on the wheel. Now, are you 35 or thereabouts? You're in your prime of life and looking to the way at the end of the wheel and be like, am I okay? Am I okay, Dad? Am I okay, Mom? Am I okay? What do you think? Am I doing— am I good? Am I bad? And you might hear that and say, Dr. Aziz, how dare you? I'm not doing that. Of course, I've talked to a lot— I've done this in my life where you don't say that out loud. You're not walking to your dad and saying, am I okay? But you're looking to them, right? You're looking for signs of approval or approval. You're sharing about your life and then you walk away and you're hurt. You're like, oh, they didn't, they didn't care about me. They didn't love me. They don't agree with my life choices. Oh, they didn't approve enough of this or that. Now we're hurt and we're bothered. And underneath that, I'm like, I still am looking to you as the authority in my life to see if I'm okay. Is that developmentally appropriate? Do we want to do that at age 35 like we did at age 5? And it gets worse because you might not just be doing it with your mom or your dad. First of all, your mom or dad might not even be alive. And it doesn't matter because you often— people are looking for their parents' approval from a different era. So even though they're 30 years old or 40 years old, on some level, psychologically, emotionally, beneath their adult conscious mind, there's a little part inside that's like the 5-year-old who's like, am I okay? Am I okay? And we can feel it and be checking if I'm okay or not based upon some old program we got when we were 5 years old. So the parent may be old or dead or something, but they're still the authority. They're still in their prime. They're still the booming 40-year-old and you're the 5-year-old. But meanwhile, you're in the adult body now. I tell you how many times I talk to clients about this and they are like, they have a moment. They're like, yeah, I was just hanging out with my dad and he's kind of old now. He's got gray hair and he talks quiet, doesn't hear so well. I'm like, yeah, not as threatening now, is he? Right? But emotionally we can still be hooked. But it gets worse. As I mentioned earlier, we can be hooked emotionally on not just your mom or your dad, but your boss, any authority figure you want to pin that onto. And then we're energetically approaching them in the same way. Am I okay? Am I okay, boss? Am I okay? What do you think of me today? Or we could do that on a date, a new person that you just met. Am I okay? What do you think? Is my worth good today? Bad today? And so we are outsourcing our sense of worth because we've linked it with approval, right? Yeah, that person on a date with you, your boss, is going to approve or disapprove of you to greater or lesser degrees today and every other day. And it's true, if they disapprove of you enough, maybe they won't want a second date with you. And that's, that's life, right? So you might not be able to control whether people approve or disapprove, but that has no actual bearing on your worth. We have to break that equation in order to really set yourself free in life, free to be you, free to be your authentic self, to have authentic confidence, to show up as you are, say what you really think, be who you really are meant to be around everyone— friends, family, at your workplace— and unleashing a whole new level of you, a leader that meant to be. A powerful communicator, a leader, not just professionally but maybe in your personal life, in your community, with your family, with your future family, in dating and relationships, right? That version of you, that authentic confidence, only comes when you have reclaimed that worth. Because as long as my worth is plugged into your approval, I cannot be myself. It's physiologically impossible in my nervous system, no matter how much my conscious mind says, I'm gonna do it today, I'm gonna go in that room, just be myself. You're not. You're going to default to one of the approval types, approval patterns, which I mentioned before. There's only 4 of them, and if you want to find out what your type is, go to www.drazeez.com and you can take a 2-minute quiz and find out your type. There's 4 ways that we override ourselves to try to get approval, and once you see your type, you can see how to start changing it quickly, right? And that occurs automatically, subconsciously, in our nervous system despite our best intention. So we have to do something to be able to shift this, and part of that is, is a training of our body and nervous system, which I do when I work with people over time. But one of the first key steps that I want you to look at today with me is how do you reclaim that worth? How do you take back the keys? How do you say, okay, thanks Mom and Dad for raising me, for loving me, for nourishing me in all the ways that you did to help me grow into the great man or woman that I am today, and I don't need that from you anymore? And maybe that's a conversation that's long overdue. And I don't mean you say it to them. This is a conversation inside of you, between you and you, where you say, hey, me, all the parts inside of me. I know it. We've been doing this, we've been running this pattern for a long time, but it's time for something new, and I'm going to reclaim that worth. And a lot of people struggle with this. They say, uh, okay, yeah, that all makes sense, but how? How is this— how do I reclaim my sense of worth? And that is a powerful and worthwhile question. That is a radically superior question to how do I get them to like me, or who do I need to be in order for you to not be upset with me, what do I need to hide or hold back or attend or placate? How do I need to please you so that I can hang on to a scrap of approval from you? And those are the terrible questions that we're asking ourselves, often unconsciously. So asking yourself, geez, how do I reclaim my worth? Well, now you can start to find something. Now you can find a pathway to power. And the answer is, it's different for everybody, and you can find your way. I'll give you a few examples here, but I want you to actually be asking yourself this question, because again, even just looking to to say, okay, what is— it's not that, then what is it, Aziz? Do you see how that's continuing to defer authority? And that's the biggest first step, is you must reclaim authority. I am the one who needs to determine that worth. I need to find a pathway to create a stable sense of self-worth that's not based upon the fluctuating approval of every random person in my life. And then you start to look for it. So I'm going to give you some examples and some ideas, things that work for me and clients, but that's not the full list. And ultimately Ultimately, even if one of these examples is perfect, you are the one who needs to take it and sit with it and install it and claim that. And it's uncomfortable to do that because there's something we lean on that's like, okay, I'll just be the good boy that my dad wanted. I'll just be the good girl that I learned. Then I'll blame my parents and say, well, they made me this way. It takes something to claim full adulthood, total ownership of your life. And so one thing you could look at for your sense of worth is if it's not based upon other people's temporary approval. What is it? Maybe it could be based on your values. I'm going to show up and do what I feel like is the right thing. My own internal compass, my internal ethics, my own morals, my own sense of integrity. So I'm going to be honest with this person even if they might be upset with me, because that's what I value. I value honesty. Or I'm going to tell in this meeting, I'm going to share at work my perspective. My boss might frown at me, but I think this is what's going to add value in this meeting. This is what he needs to hear, she needs to hear. So I'm going I'm going to do it because I value contribution, I value excellence, I value getting the job done, I value my performance more than their approval, right? So what matters to you, what you value, is one of the most powerful things that you can ground your sense of worth in. And so my worth, how good I get to feel about myself, is not whether you like it or not. It's am I showing up as me? And the day that I show up and I get to live what I value, what's important to me, is a day where I feel good about myself and I know I did What's the right thing? What's the right thing? Well, you get to discover that. You get to claim that. You get to base that on whatever framework you want, whether it's a religious one or some ethical one or some just inner gut sense for you, or even just the idea of what's healthy. That's what I often ask clients, 'cause they're like, "Well, I know saying no here is the right thing, but it feels so wrong." And I say, "Okay, in this relationship, is only saying yes healthy?" And they say, "Well, no." "Would you want that for if you had a friend or a son or a daughter to be in a relationship where they could only say yes and never say no?" And they say, "No." No. Say, okay, then maybe it's not about whether it feels right or wrong, because that's you being permission-based— am I okay, Mommy or Daddy?— and actually saying, what seems healthy to me? Because that's you aligning with probably a much more updated system than your old 5-year-old self. Another powerful source, if this pathway exists for you, is connecting to something bigger or a higher power. I talk about my journey with that in the book Doubtless: How to Believe in Yourself and Trust in Life. And that pathway is very accessible for some people. Some people, when I mention this to them, they're like, oh my gosh, why haven't I been doing that? Why haven't I been accessing prayer? Or like, this is between me and God, let me ask for guidance, let me determine, okay, so-and-so's upset, but what feels like the right thing here, right? And that— if this doesn't resonate for you, don't worry, that was for me for many years. Uh, religion didn't stick with me when I was young, and then I had many years where I was really standoffish with it, honestly, kind of an atheist, and like, that's all dumb. And then over time I realized, wait a minute, there is— I'm missing out on a lot of confidence and love and freedom if I close that. And so I began to search and began to look. And if you want to learn more about that, check out my book Doubtless. It's a beautiful journey and a beautiful guide for you to find an access to faith that has no bearing on— you don't have to follow any specific religion or specific set of ideology. It's just you find your way. And I make the case for that and how to do that. But one thing I've seen in really pursuing that in my life is, okay, I've been looking to my dad for all these years, like, do you approve of me? Am I okay? Am I okay? Okay. And at some point I was just doing this prayer and this meditation, and I felt like, wait a minute, it was almost like my dad, this little man just like me— I'm a little man, I'm a little human— like crumbles away. And I realize like, wait, the creative force of the universe, whatever created the cosmos and the galaxies and the infinity that we see— if you ever look through the Hubble images or James Webb Telescope— that creative force, that's my father, that's my mother, right? I had a mom and a dad, a human that came— I came through, but my mom didn't make me. I mean, sure, her body made me, but she didn't sit here and like fuse all the pieces of me together, right? It happened through her. Life happened through her. And so that creative force is my source, is my authority. And then I get to be the authority in my own life in accordance with that, right? So that's another really powerful source. And man, I can't tell you, one client who's a Christian, and after working with me for about 6 months, he just came to a group call and he said, I just had an insight. I was like, what? He's like, I realized that I'm a child of God. And as a child of God, I'm whole and complete. And it doesn't matter what someone thinks about me. And I was like, yeah, Amen, right? And that— I mean, he'd been a Christian for years before working on his whole life, but that clicked into him. He didn't realize that was a pathway for him. So whether it's in your own values or in a higher source or in something else, it doesn't matter. I'm not telling you what it should be. What I am telling you is that if you want to be free to be yourself in the world, it's not just a pep talk saying be yourself. It's going to be a change in your nervous system that I can show you how to do. And if you want to practice this with me, stay with me, go check out my website. Go if you want to learn how to work together with me for a year in a mastermind program. This is what we're training all the time. But it starts with this, and then we reinforce this every day. We practice this. You, you must find a way to reclaim that worth. I gave you two powerful examples, and if you really want to make this change in your life, you're going to think of these two and many more, and you're going to go on a quest to find that. And when you do, when you reclaim that, when you realize like, wait, I'm at the center of the wheel now, this is my time, I get to choose, I get to determine, in fact, I'm going to be a leader and help other people and help the next generation really discover what I think is best. And I'm going to share this. I'm going to own my perspective. I'm going to know what I really think and feel, and I'm going to stop living in an apology and letting other people determine who I am. So if this resonates for you and you're fired up, you're excited, I cannot wait to go further with you in this. Again, if you want to find out your approval type, go to www.drziz.com, take the 2-minute quiz, find out the type, find out how to shift this and become more fully, boldly yourself in every arena of life.
