A short motivational talk by Dr. Aziz arguing that many people don’t act on what they truly want because they feel they lack permission to say no or change plans. Using a dating anecdote, he shows that people often know their preference but are constrained by conditioning ("nice person" rules) that equate rescheduling or saying no with disrespect. He introduces a technique (referred to as "CSI: complete self interest") to reveal true preferences and urges viewers to practice saying no and making changes to recondition themselves toward authenticity.
Chapters
Do you have permission to say no? Do you have permission to change your mind? Do you have permission to start doing one thing and then decide that you want to do something else? These are important questions. And I'm not talking theoretically about do humans or these rights for humans. I mean for you. Because what I see all the time, and a lot of people that I work with that are overly nice, they're overly considerate, overly polite, overly conscientious, they want to follow the rules, they want to make sure everyone's okay, but they do that at the expense of themselves. And they sacrifice themselves and they put themselves last all the time. And so what happens is they'll be in a situation where it's important for them to say no, but they don't. And underneath what's going on there is they don't have the right. They're not allowed to. Other people might be able to, but I'm not allowed to. Let me give you an example. There was a young man I was working with who just started dating somebody and he was going to have a date. I think it was her second or third date. And he got a call from a friend and there was some time sensitive thing that they could do together. And he wanted to go do the thing with that friend. But he's got this date. What does he do? I don't know. So he came to me, he's like, I just didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I said, really? Do you really not know what to do? It's possible, but I believe we generally do know what we want. We just don't have permission. It's not allowed. It's not okay. It's bad or wrong. What we really want. Is that the same for you? I see this all the time, little things. And this is a small example, but I see big things. I'm not sure if I want to leave this relationship or not that I've been in for so many years. I don't know what I want. And I'm like, you get me in a room with someone for two hours, especially a big thing like that, like their relationship, do I want this marriage or not? We'll know at the end of two hours what they really want. We all know deep down. It's just that to discover it can be scary. But let's take a smaller example, like this little date. So we uncovered it. And the way I like to uncover what you really want is a powerful technique. I teach it in my book. Not nice clothes. Call it csi complete self interest. So I said to him, I said, you know, if she was totally okay with it and your friend was totally okay with it, you know, either way you chose, no one would be upset. They'd say, oh, okay, no problem. What would you choose? And he's like, wow, I'd go do the thing with my friend and just see her later that day. I said, oh, great, so you do know. And he paused and he's like, yeah, I guess I do. Which was one interesting discovery for him. Maybe he does always know underneath. Maybe you always know underneath. The problem was that he didn't know. The problem was he didn't have permission to do it. So I said, great, why don't you just reschedule her? Oh, I can't do that. Why not? Well, you gotta. You gotta treat people respectfully. It's disrespectful. That's not treating him well. I said, really? So rescheduling something is insulting and disrespectful? He's like, yeah. Said, okay, interesting. And in his mind, that's how it was. So if someone canceled on him, that's disrespectful. If he cancels or changes on someone, that's disrespectful. And so I said, huh? So what are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to. You're supposed to go on the date and then be a little bit tense because you kind of would rather be doing something else, you know? I said, what if the tables were turned and some of them are going to reschedule on you? And they said to you, hey, listen, I really want to see you again. I got this opportunity that came up and I don't want to miss it, but I'd love to see you either later today or earlier in the week, next week. What works for you? How would that sound? And he's like, well, that sounds pretty good. What if you're allowed to make these little changes in your life or big changes in your life? What if you're allowed to listen to what you want and either say yes or no? What if it's okay for you to be you? And these questions start to open up doors which you can go into, and then you start to build the muscle. Because it's one thing to have a thought like, oh, yeah, maybe it is okay for me to do it, but nothing's going to change in this guy's life until he actually makes the phone call or the text and reschedules on this person. You know, nothing's actually changing your life until you start to say no to people regularly. And this is uncomfortable because you're challenging the old stories, the conditioning from when you were young, the nice person conditioning. But there is no way to break free of that conditioning and recondition yourself to something new, something more authentically you, without piercing through it and doing the opposite again and again and again and again. So thanks for being with me. Share down below what you're finding most valuable from this and what you have permission to do in your life. And until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are, to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
