Dr. Aziz argues that social anxiety, inadequacy at work, and fear of speaking up aren't personal weakness but equations installed by culture. Once you see the cultural patterns shaping how you judge yourself, you can change them.
I realized that, you know, across all these domains that I'm helping people with, there's actually a singular pattern underneath all of it. Took me a lot of years to see that. And what's underneath, whether it's a social anxiety or a person who's afraid to go say the thing that they really want to say, or the person who feels like they're not good enough at work all the time in the background. And they think like, oh, there's just something wrong with me, right? Because they feel that insecurity. And then they're like, oh, this is really bad and shameful and embarrassing. I just have this personal problem. I'm too weak. I'm too insecure. I don't— maybe I lack confidence. And that's what it feels like. But what they don't realize is that there's certain equations in their brain that have been installed by the culture that they grew up in, that we live in now, that have set us up for this. And it's not your fault, and it is something that you can change. But if you don't see all this, if you don't see the ocean that we're swimming in, it becomes very hard to change it because you think it's all just some problem with me.
