TED Talks Daily
How do you stop caring what others think? A filmmaker and a therapist answer | Baron Ryan and Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile
14 Jun 2025
How do you quit people-pleasing? Internet filmmaker Baron Ryan and family therapist Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile unpack the all-too-common fear of rejection and explore the practices necessary to reclaim your ability to finally say “no” and stop caring about what other people think. (This conversation is part of “TED Intersections,” a series featuring thought-provoking conversations between experts navigating the ideas shaping our world.)For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. TED Intersections is back for a second season. This original series features unscripted conversations between TED speakers taking on subjects at the intersection of their expertise.
In this conversation, internet filmmaker Barron Ryan sits down with marriage and family therapist Stephanie R. Yates Anyabwile to answer the question, how do you learn to love yourself? They dig into the struggles of people-pleasing, why we care so much about what people think of us, and how we can resist that sneaky urge to compare ourselves to others.
I respect my dad's opinion a lot. And so oftentimes I won't call him for advice because I'm scared.
That I'm wrong.
That I'm wrong. And because I respect it so much that I know there's something inside that says he is right no matter what. Yeah. Yeah. But I think one of the wisest things we can do is not listen to our elders too closely. There's a great value in discovery, in doing the wrong thing and learning for yourself, as opposed to learning what the wrong thing is and never trying the wrong thing.
So the first question I have is how do you see people pleasing manifest in your relationship with yourself and others?
I think you could probably answer this question better than I could. But I think for me, realizing that I have people-pleasing tendencies was a slow evolution, a slow revelation. I realized that I was comparing myself to people that I thought were obvious people-pleasers, like my clients even. But I started realizing that
When certain people would ask me for things, even if it was something I was dreading for weeks beforehand, I wouldn't say no, just because I think I was afraid that if a specific person saw me as difficult, then that's true. So I think for me, it was very much based on my level of respect or desire for a person to love or appreciate me.
And if a person didn't fall into those categories, I could say no. But if they did, then I had a really hard time with just even saying, this is going to be a challenge for me, but sure, I'll do it for you. And I would almost act as though I was excited about it. So people pleasing has shown up for me in multiple ways.
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