People Aren't Intimidating, They're Fascinating!

This week's episode was sparked by a single dinner-table question from my 14-year-old: "Mom, where do you get your confidence?" What followed was a whole conversation — and now a whole episode — about why some of us move through the world with curiosity instead of caution, why strangers are fascinating and not intimidating, and what it really means to be confident (hint: it has nothing to do with never being nervous).

We talk server introductions, weak-tie connections, the neuroscience of warmth, pants — yes, pants — and what I actually want my kid to take into the world with him.

Topics Covered

• The dinner moment that started it all

• Where fascination with human behavior comes from

• 'We all put our pants on one leg at a time' — unpacked

• The psychology and neuroscience of human connection

• What confidence ACTUALLY is (not what movies told you)

• How menopause accidentally made me bolder

• 5 practical ways to lead with curiosity

• A love note to the teenager who asked the best question

#WhyAmIYelling #MomPodcast #MenopausePodcast #Confidence #HumanConnection #PeopleWatcher #MomLife #MiddleAgedAndThriving #PeopleDontIntimidateMeTheyFascinateMe

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, yellers! Welcome back to Why Am I Yelling? Musings from a middle-aged menopausal mom. I am so glad you're here because today's episode is one that I've kind of want to been doing for a while and wasn't sure how to kind of approach it. And then one dinner with my family made it happen. So if you're new here, welcome. Pull up a chair. This is a show where I muse, I ramble, I occasionally yell, and I talk about everything that's rattling around in this middle-aged menopausal brain of mine. Today's episode is called People Don't Intimidate Me, They Fascinate Me. And we are exploring one big beautiful question. Why are so many of us afraid to just talk to people? And more importantly, what does it actually look like to move through the world with curiosity instead of fear? So today we are going all in on that one question.

unknown 1:15

Welcome!

SPEAKER_00 1:16

I'm your host, Krista Rizzo. I'm menopausal, I'm opinionated, and apparently I'm confident. So let's talk about it. Alright, so let's set the scene. Uh picture this last Friday night. We're out to dinner. My whole family, me, my husband, the big kid who wanted to grace us with his presence and come home from college for the weekend, and the little one who incidentally, my children are 20 years old and 14 years old, and they both tower over their short mother. Um, our server comes over, she's super nice, and I do what I always do. I look up, I smile, and after she introduces herself and takes our drink order, I say, Hey Kelly, I have no idea what I'm in the mood for. What do I want to eat? And what do you love on this menu? Like, what's your personal favorite? So that's like standard stuff for me. Uh having a banter or a conversation with our server. And so, you know, her face lights up because people always do when you ask them something genuine, right? They light up when they can give you information. And so now we're kind of off to the races. We're having a conversation, we're talking about food, we were um at a great little place in our town for Mexican food, and she was, you know, offering up suggestions and things that she loved, and it was great. And off she went to get my spicy margarita, which chef's kiss, so good, right? Then my kid, the little one, looks at me across the table. He's dead serious, and he says, Mom, where do you get your confidence? And then the big kid chimes in and says, Mom, you're so embarrassing. You do this every time. It's like you can't make a decision, to which I reply, and my husband also backs me up, so thanks, Will, for that. Uh, it had absolutely nothing to do with my decision making. In fact, I'm excellent at making decisions, which is a different topic for a different episode. What I'm doing is creating a sense of connection and letting our server know that I care about their opinion. And in all seriousness, when you get a recommendation from a person who works at the establishment where you are going to be dining, if it's something that you like that they're referring to or suggesting for you, they're not going to steer you wrong. Like if my server said to me, Oh, I would go with the liver and onions, I'd be like, sorry, that's not for me. But because she was like, Oh, hey, this taco is great, this taco is great, this is great, you can't go wrong with that. Do you like this? I I had a great dinner. I mean, it's a win-win if you ask me. However, that's kind of where the conversation stopped. Like we bantered on a little bit more about it. But later that night, when I'm laying in bed, I couldn't stop thinking about what he said. And I thought, you know what? That's the best question anyone has ever asked me, first of all. And it came from a 14-year-old who was watching his mother introduce herself to a server like they were about to become besties. So let's answer it. Where does this come from? Where do I get my confidence? And here's the thing: I want to be super careful about how I couch this because I don't want to make it sound like I walked out of the room, womb, the room, the womb doing TED Talks, because that is definitely not the story. It's messier and more interesting, actually. Um, I have been fascinated by people since I was a kid, right? I I love to people watch. Uh, I was a kid who people watched. I used to hang out. Uh my parents were known for having events and holidays, and there was always people in our house when I was growing up. And so I was always uh, I was like a sponge. I was taking in, you know, the stories and the nuances and the body language and the way people interacted. And I loved it. And that has kind of it spilled over into my adulthood. I remember when Will and I first um moved in together in New York City, we for years before we, you know, we got married, even when we got married, but like before we had the kids, we would on Sundays get up and go grab a New York Times, a Sunday Times, and then we'd run to Murray's Bagels on Sixth Avenue and grab our bagels and our coffee, and even though I don't drink coffee, um, and then we would go sit in Union Square Park on 14th Street, and uh we would pass the paper sections back and forth to each other, and we would people watch for hours. It is something that we love to do. I probably should have been a psychology major because I have always been fascinated by human behavior, by what people do, when they do it, and why they do it and how they do it, by the gap between what people say and what they mean. By the way, a stranger in a grocery store line can tell you something profound about their life in 60 seconds flat if you just give them space to do it. And somewhere in all of that fascination, the intimidation just kind of dissolved. And here's what I mean by that. When you are genuinely curious about someone, when you see them as a puzzle to explore or a story to discover, you stop seeing them as a threat. You stop being in your head about what they think of you, which by the way is none of your business. You start being present to what makes them them. That shift from fear to fascination is where the confidence lives, at least for me. Now, I want to acknowledge this because this is important, because I know someone is listening to this and thinking, well, that's easy for you to say, Rizzo. You're extroverted, you're comfortable. Some of us aren't wired that way. And you are 1 million percent right. People are wired differently. Introversion is a real thing. Social anxiety is very real. Trauma around being being seen or judged is painfully real for some people. I am not here to tell anyone that confidence is just a choice and you should smile more because that's not what this is. What I am saying is that I think some of what holds us back from connecting with people isn't just personality. That's a story that we've been told, or it's a story that we have told ourselves about who is accessible, about who is approachable, about who is worth talking to, and who isn't for us individually. And that's the story I want to poke at today. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. Can we talk about that saying for a second? We all put our pants on one leg at a time. I love that saying. I have loved it my whole life. I heard it. I don't know where, but I was very, very young when I heard it. And that has become a great equalizer for me. It doesn't matter if you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a Grammy-winning artist, the most beautiful person in any room, the smartest person in your field, the most intimidating presence you have ever encountered. Every single morning you are sitting on the edge of your bed, putting your pants on one leg at a time. You have a body that gets hungry, you have a heart that gets hurt, you have days where you don't know what you're doing, you have insecurities, you have fears, you have a weird thing you do when you're nervous that nobody, you hope nobody notices that you do it. We are all at the core of it. Just people. Complicated, contradictory, trying our best people. And when I truly think about that and absorbed that, not just as a saying but as a belief, it changed how I walked into a room. It changed how I would approach a stranger. It changed everything. I started seeing the server at the restaurant as not someone performing a role, but as a human being who has a whole life outside of this dining room that we're sitting in right now, who has a favorite dish on that menu for a reason, who might be working two jobs, who might be in school, who might just be having a really rough day, and my smile and my question and our interaction might be the best thing that happens to them all shift. Or not, or maybe they're fine, and maybe it's just a quick interaction for them. But here's the thing: I don't do it to make an impact, I do it because I am genuinely interested, and that energy, people feel it because genuine curiosity looks completely different from performance. People can feel the difference between someone who is being warm because they want something and someone who is being warm because they're actually interested in you. I introduce myself at restaurants not because I took a customer service course, although I am an expert in client success and customer service, and I teach a course like that. I do it because I want to know who I'm talking to. I want them to know who they're talking to. I want the interaction between to be between two people, not just a customer and a server. Is it a little extra? Probably. Do I care? Not at all. Because nine times out of ten, something beautiful happens when you treat a stranger like a person. And now my children watched all of this happening. The introduction, the laughter, the easy back and forth. And from the little one's 14-year-old perspective, what he saw was confidence. And maybe it is, but I think what he actually was seeing was freedom. The freedom that comes from not needing the interaction to go in any particular way. From not being afraid of that stranger, from being genuinely, shamelessly, delightedly interested. Okay, so I probably should have really been a psych major, I think I've said that already. But let me put my imaginary psychology hat on for just a minute. Because here's where the actual research tells us about human connection. And we crave it, right? We are wired for it, like biologically, neurologically, and evolutionary. We are built to connect with other people. There's this concept in psychology called co-regulation. The idea that our nervous systems literally calm each other down. So when you're in the presence of a calm, warm, genuine person, your nervous system responds to that. You feel safer and you open up. That's part of what's happening when I interact with a stranger with genuine warmth. I'm not just being friendly. On a psychological level, I may actually be helping their nervous system settle. And it goes the opposite way too. When I approach somebody with openness and they respond in kind, even for a second, my nervous system gets a little hit of oxytocin. That's the connection hormone, the belonging chemical. And that's why small interactions with strangers, what researchers call weak tie connections, are actually really important for our well-being. There's a researcher named Nicholas Christakis, who has written extensively about how our social networks shape our health, our mood, and our longevity. The brief conversation with the barista, the smile and nod at an elevator, the chat with the server who you actually find out their names and their favorite item on the menu. These things are not small. These things are part of the fabric of being a human being. And here's what gets me. We have largely been trained out of this, especially in the last several years. Global pandemic, the loneliness epidemic, or whatever we're calling it. Phones are in our faces, earbuds are in our ears, our eyes are down, we're not looking up, we're not catching people as we're as we're walking across the street. Don't make it weird, don't bother people, don't be too much. Those are all things that we have conjured up in our heads because society has made it like that for us. I want to push back on that, gently but firmly, because I do think that we are lonelier than ever as a culture. And I think part of that remedy is exactly this: it's the willingness to be present with the person in front of you, even for 60 seconds, even if you never see them again. People are not an inconvenience, people are the point. How about that for a thought? So let's redefine confidence, right? Let's come back to the little guy's question one more time. Because I've been thinking about that since dinner on Friday, and now it's Wednesday, and I want to try to put that into words more clearly. When most people think about confidence, they think about the absence of self-doubt. Like confident people don't get nervous. Confident people walk into rooms and own them. Confident people don't have bad hair days. My roots need to be done. Or say the wrong thing or care what others think. And that's not it. That's not confidence. That's a character in a movie, actually. Real confidence, in my experience, is not the absence of vulnerability. It is the willingness to be vulnerable anyway. When I walk up to a stranger and introduce myself, there is a chance, a genuine chance, that they look at me like I have three heads. There is a chance that the interaction is awkward. There is a chance that they are not interested in chatting and they'd like me to just order my food and leave them be. And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with it not going perfectly because my worth is not determined by whether this stranger thinks I'm delightful. Delightful. That is the confidence, not the certainty that it will go well. The okayness with with a it's the okayness with with the possibility that it won't go well. And I think that's something you build over time, over many interactions, over many small risks, over many moments of choosing curiosity, over self-protection. Okay, here's a um a confession. I wasn't always like this. I mean, I've always been loud and a little bit more extroverted than introverted, but in my 20s, I was definitely more self-conscious. I was more concerned with how I was landing, more in my head about whether people liked me. And honestly, as I've matured and grown up and brought children into the world myself to be able to, you know, be a good role model for them. And of course, menopause, I'm bringing that into it too. You know, it's it's all been a strange and unexpected confidence accelerator for me. Something happens when your hormones go completely feral and you stop sleeping properly, and your body is doing whatever it wants, and you stop having energy to care about the stuff that just doesn't matter. You get very clear, very fast on what you actually care about. And for me, one of those things is genuine human connection. The other stuff, what the stranger thinks of me in the first 10 seconds, gone. I just don't have the bandwidth. And somehow in losing that, I found this. So maybe the question isn't where do you get your confidence? Maybe the question is, what did you finally stop giving energy to? And what grew in its place? So how do we actually do this? I don't, you know, as per usually, I don't want this to be an episode about, you know, just me talking. So, you know, about you know, these beautiful ideas, and then you go back to your regularly scheduled life and nothing changes. And so that means we have to have a practical moment. So here we go. Here's a practical moment. If you want to start moving through the world with a little more curiosity and a little less intimidation, here is how I would start. Number one, start small and stay genuine. You don't have to introduce yourself to every server you meet. Start with just making eye contact. Actual warm human eye contact, not the kind where you're looking through someone, the kind where you're looking at them. That alone changes an interaction. Don't be looking down at your menu ordering. Look at them in the face. They deserve that. Number two, get curious before you get impressed or intimidated. When you find yourself in the presence of someone who feels quote unquote out of your league, meaning more successful, more beautiful, more powerful, blah blah. Ask yourself, what do I actually wonder about this person? Not what do I think of them? What am I genuinely curious about? Let the curiosity lead. It's almost impossible to be intimidated by someone you are genuinely curious about. Three, use names. When someone tells you their name, use it. There's almost nothing that makes a person feel more seen than hearing their own name in a conversation. It signals I received you. You are a person to me, not a role. Give people the gift of the interesting question. Instead of how are you? Try what's been the best part of your day so far? Or what do you love about this job? Or what's your favorite thing on this menu and why? Open questions invite real answers. Real answers lead to real connections and real conversations. Five. Be willing to be imperfect at it. Because perfection does not exist. You are going to have interactions that feel awkward. Yep. You're going to they're going to feel like too much. Yep. Uh, that they don't land the way you had hoped. Of course. And that's all fine. That's how you build the muscle. Every awkward interaction is data, not failure. And honestly, the most important thing I can say is this other people are not the audience for your performance. They are the other players in a conversation. When you stop performing and start participating, everything shifts. Okay, this one I want to address directly to my son. So I want to be honest. He will probably never listen to this podcast. But just in case he does someday, or in case someone else's kid is listening, or in case you are listening and you needed to hear this from a mom figure or a friend, Bubs, the fact that you noticed that you were watching how your mom moved through the world and you were curious about it instead of mortified by it, which you were probably a little bit both, that means something to me. The confidence you saw at the dinner table wasn't about being loud or bold or fearless. It was about genuinely believing that the person bringing us our food was worth knowing, worth a name, worth a question, worth two minutes of actual human attention. I want you to grow up in a world where you're never too impressed by anyone to talk to them and never too cool to be too warm. I want you to know that connection is never a sign of weakness, that curiosity is always more interesting than armor. And that the most confident thing you can do in any room is be the person who is genuinely interested in everyone in it. People do not intimidate me, babes. They fascinate me. And I hope someday, in your own way and your own timeline, they fascinate you too. Alright, yellers! That's a wrap on today's episode. We're sub 30 minutes. I hope that gave you something to chew on, maybe even something to try the next time you sit down at a restaurant or find yourself in a conversation with a stranger. People don't intimidate me, they fascinate me. And the world is a lot more interesting when you lead with curiosity. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. Leave a review, send me a voice note, tag me on social, share it out on all your platforms. I want to know what came up for you during this conversation. And if your kid has ever asked you a question that stopped you cold in your tracks and made you think, I want you to tell me about it because I love that stuff. And maybe that will be a future episode topic. You never know. Okay, until next time, I am your host, Krista Rizzo, and I'm still metaplausal, I'm still yelling, I'm still absolutely delighted by every person I meet. Until next time, go introduce yourself to somebody. I love you.