Why You Get Anxious Before Interviews, Dates, and Presentations (It's Not What You Think)

What do job interviews, first dates, presentations, and social gatherings all have in common? They're all situations where someone could disapprove of you — and your nervous system knows it. In this episode, Dr. Aziz breaks down the single pattern running underneath all social anxiety and performance anxiety: the fear of disapproval. He explains why your brain fills uncertainty with doom predictions, why those predictions feel so convincing, and why the solution isn't about becoming more impressive — it's about building your capacity to be in the unknown. This episode is part of a series of new discoveries Dr. Aziz has been making about how our relationship with approval shapes everything — our confidence, our conversations, our careers, and our relationships. More on that in the coming episodes.

You can listen to Why You Get Anxious Before Interviews, Dates, and Presentations (It's Not What You Think) online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Why You Get Anxious Before Interviews, Dates, and Presentations (It's Not What You Think) is an episode from Shrink For The Shy Guy by Dr. Aziz: Social Anxiety And Confidence Expert, Author and Coach.

This episode is 14:23 long.

This episode was published on Mar 31, 2026.

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