Confidence is the doorway to success in all areas of life. Whether you want to excel in your career, triple your income, create an amazing relationship, or just feel happy and satisfied with who you are, self-confidence is essential. In this inspiring and liberating book, Dr. Aziz slices through each obstacle on the path towards ever-increasing confidence. Through stories, activities, humor, and the world’s most powerful tools, you will discover how => Eliminate self-doubt and negative thinking. => Master five ways to overcome fear. => Discover how confidence leads to greater wealth and prosperity. => Boost your social power so you can confidently talk with anyone. => Enjoy more love in all your relationships. => Boldly ask for what you want, so you finally get what you really desire out of life.
Dr. Aziz is a clinical psychologist and one of the world's leading experts on social confidence. After being stuck in shyness and social anxiety himself for almost 10 years, he became determined to find a way to social freedom. Through thousands of hours of his own training, counseling, reading, group work, and coaching, he has truly mastered what it takes to break free from shyness and social anxiety into a life of confidence. In 2011, Dr. Aziz started The Center For Social Confidence, which is dedicated to helping everyone break through their shyness and social anxiety. Through his unique blend of compassion, humor, and personal courage, Dr. Aziz has helped thousands of people all over the world increase their confidence. Through confidence coaching, audio and video programs, podcasts, a detailed blog, and intensive weekend workshops, Dr. Aziz lives out his mission: To help every person who is stuck in shyness liberate themselves to pursue the relationship, career, and life they have always dreamed of.
He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Candace and son Zaim (who he claims is the "most socially confident badass kid in the world.")
This book was about 10% useful. Most of the time I wondered why I kept reading and didn't move on to something less irritating.
In general I found the author highly annoying, approval seeking and desperately trying to please, which really goes against his message.
A lot of the book was geared toward making people like you. I don't think that is what confidence is. True confidence is doing what you think is right, when you ought to do it regardless of what other people think. He did also touch on that as well which added to a number of contradictions in the book.
I don't think this is useful for anyone with normal levels of confidence but it could help people who are scared of call centres, shop assistants and so on.
Therefore the title is misleading as it does little to move someone toward extraordinary confidence anymore than we all intuitively know which is to do/say something anyway regardless of any second thoughts or concerns.
Just finished audiobook. Life-changing. Life-AFFIRMING. Side-splitting. All the good things you’d want from an audiobook with absolutely none of the bad, and educational to boot.
Get this book now. Like...you should’ve had this book in your library yesterday. Can not recommend enough!!!
The first half of the book is quite solid and genuinely useful. However, the rest feels unnecessarily stretched, with the author trying to apply the idea of confidence to almost everything—money, getting rich, and other areas in a way that isn’t very convincing.
"I thrive on uncertainty, disorder and chaos" (location 2395 of 5230 of ereader)
Some of the best coaching i've had in the last year has been from Dr. Aziz's "Shrink for the Shy Guy". Combining the best materials from psychology, motivational literature and men's popular culture, Aziz creates a program that is both supportive and challenging. I think he occupies a unique role in the field too, as so much of his message is himself, an ordinary guy, who chooses an extraordinary mindset. As much as I like Tony Robbins work "Awaken the Giant Within" or some Zig Ziglar sales training...I think Aziz's humane straight talk just has a stronger personal connection.
Mindset, seeing our beliefs, seeing if they are mistaken, and ultimately making choices. Aziz sometimes takes a subject, one that I thoght didn't have a lot of "umph" to it, and totally challenged my basic assumptions. For example, his chapter on money just openned me to up to all my internalized beliefs about money: what it says about a person's worth, what having a lot of money says about a person's goodness. So easy to think that money is an obvious, objective thing, but when you dig into the subject, our relationship to money is related to our attitudes toward success, spending our time, and our goals. In a chapter that I thought would be awash with lame truisms, what I found instead was a very interesting chapter on subjects of worth.
Time, and how it's used for us as a motivator and demotivator is explored thoroughlly. It lead me to the connection that sometimes we get to an anxious place when we limit our time (think FOMO) or we can put off things forever by having far away goals, or dreamy ideas about slowly improving at somethings.
Gaziupura's book is may be the catalyst that you need for real change. I've found his podcasts, and this book to be enormously helpful in amplifying confidence and sharing a more authentic version of myself to the world. End of the day though, we can see our barriers, insert new beliefs...but the real work is going to be off the page, and into the daily actions of our ever changing lives.
One last note, if you ever want a saturated insightful look at how we can change our relationship to fear, check out his episode: My Beloved Little Monster.
”Confidence is the superpower that gives rise to everything you want into your life.” Dr.Aziz explains that being confident is about being totally yourself which requires the capacity to be courageous, vulnerable, and bold. Confidence isn't attained by having an impression of perfection and invincibility but instead facing your fears head-on and embracing being uncomfortable, nervous and making fear your helper. The book asserts that by emptying all the excuses and stories you tell yourself it can change your life if you are ready to take ownership of it - The Onus Method, the opposite to this is Victim Card way of life where life is beyond your control and leads to hopelessness. Dr Aziz lists some very useful power questions, for example, If you knew you couldn't fail what would you go after?
It doesn't get scientific which makes it a very simple read, however, it's a remarkably useful book and potentially life-changing. The book provides some helpful, actionable steps to encounter your fears: ”Rules to Face Fear”, with the proposal that if you don't face your fears, you will live in discomfort. ”Fear is an invitation to take action” and the most vital skill you need to utilize is your ”action muscle.” since on the other side of fear is everything you want.
The book then goes onto a chapter on money which had me confused nevertheless it was surprisingly insightful but dragged on a while. One of my favourite chapters was on ”Asking.” The Art of Extraordinary Confidence has chapters on love, the importance of social skills, and living in the present (the now) in a state of urgency and effort.
I would certainly recommend The Art of Extraordinary Confidence. This review is about five per cent of the knowledge and motivation you would get from reading it. Personally, this book is a life-changer and a satisfying read. I will be going over it, again and again, in order to execute to the practices and philosophies into my own life - 5 Star rating 💫
Bit too long than it needs to be but that's the charm of some of it. Enjoyed some of the waffle. Some really useful concepts, and you can tell Aziz has been through it all and come out the other end - inspiring. Feel the fear and do it anyway - don't trust the safety police!. Will certainly try and use the advice
The book is OK in some parts, although my woo-sensor was alerted a couple of times, which was a bit off-putting. The author is a clinical psychologist, so I was expecting a book more based on reality and evidence-based research. I was disappointed a little bit.
My favourite point from the book was this: “We are all enjoying our own games and we are all worthy. Which games we choose to play is irrelevant.”
For me, confidence in most areas of my life is not an issue I face. I like to think that I am pretty confident in my abilities and identity, confident in social settings and confident in asking for what I want in my relationship. But there is one weakness in my confidence arsenal, which I’ve recently noticed within myself: My self-confidence can be knocked when I compare myself to what other people are doing in life.
But that is why I LOVE this game concept!! This concept of all things being their own independent game, and each game has equal value. If you’ve not enrolled as a player in the game, then obviously you’re not going to be any good at it!!!
Now I no longer feel undermined when seeing someone excel in finance or in their cooking abilities, because I recognise that I am not playing that game right now, so how can i feel bad?!
The games I’m currently playing are: - Learning Sylheti - Excelling in YouTube - Achieving my dream hair - Memorising the Quran
Once I’ve mastered and completed one of these games, is when I’ll swap it out for another game. This concept has made me feel much more in control, knowing that might time will come with different things and comparison makes no sense!! :)
I'm being a bit charitable and rating this book based on the first half or so. I think it was longer than it needed to be, veering more into pep talk territory toward the end. It's absolutely worth buying and reading for the first part, though.
If you've read any other books from Dr. Aziz, this one won't disappoint. Great actionable advice and insight into the things that truly keep people's confidence low and stop them from going after what they really want.
The Art of Extraordinary Confidence is one of those self-help books that's actually worth rereading and taking notes on---at least the first chunk, anyway.
I would rate this about 3-3.5 stars. While it contained points that shifted my perspective on confidence with tips on how to be more assertive and powerful in my daily life, parts of the book dragged on longer than necessary. I felt like there was a lot of fluff and there was a lot of emphasis on approaching people you’re attracted to as a way to build confidence. I found that emphasis to be a bit repetitious and not really what I focus my lack of confidence on. Maybe I don’t really fit the audience he had in mind for this book. Yet, I still got something out of it so all wasn’t lost.
I thought there would be more practical data or actions one could take from the book. I didn't do a lot of research on the author before picking it up. This guy is a life coach, not really someone who studied stats or can offer interesting factoids I suppose I was looking for. I commend his efforts and personal struggles to get where he is today, however, I couldn't get a lot from the material in the book. Think of it as a self-help book with a lot of testimony from a man who managed to improve his life.
An amazing supplement if you’ve already read his book “Not Nice”. Really strengthens and reinforces what you learn in Not Nice, as well as introduce lots of new topics. Transformative, but maybe didn’t have the BIGGEST impact on me because I’ve already read his book Not Nice and there was some overlap. Although if you’ve never read any of his books, this book will be MUCH more transformative for you. But you need to TAKE ACTION, as it says in the book. Empowering read.
I don’t regret choosing this book. I may have opted to choose it under another streaming platform instead of Audible as the credits here are pricey.
For the book, Dr Aziz has some good anecdotes and stories to share. His extra information like e books and podcasts are equally great. If you’re a seasoned self help person like I am, perhaps this is at best beginner to intermediate level. Still, no regrets and thank you.
I’ve been reading Aziz’s books one by one and I’m impressed. I am more aware of how much I need to change my outlook on life and really look within myself. Life is too short to live it at half capacity. Confidence is the key to living a deep and meaningful life.
Strong start and premise. Overall good content, but got a bit redundant and lost towards the middle and end. I highly recommend for those thinking of starting a business or needing to unlock their hidden power of confidence.
Lång bok men gilla den. Finns många delar att skippa men lyssna på alla för att se vad som passar en själv. Många saknar någon typ av självförtroende och denna bok tar nog upp alla. Gillar delarna om action och asking.
I enjoy Dr Gazipura's tone and sense of humor he took with the topic of confidence. It helped me acknowledge what I was good at identify things I could do better on. It's a great read regardless of your age or where you are in life.
This book is a great book for anybody who wants to be more confident and learn a few strategies. I liked the book because it reminded me of some ideas I already knew but wasn't living by them.