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Deep dive into PEOPLE PLEASING – with Dan Munro and Angie McQuillin

Discover masculine confidence with my Nice Guy Recovery course

Coaches Dan Munro and Angie McQuillin are both experts in helping people-pleasers become more assertive, confident and honest. Dan focuses on Nice Guys who struggle in their romantic relationships, while Angie focuses on C-Suite executives who want to be more assertive in their careers.

In this epic 2 hour podcast, Dan and Angie dive deep into the concept of people-pleasing, and what it means to be a People Pleaser. They look at how to know if you are one, what the real impact people-pleasing has on your social life and your career, and what you need to change to become more confident, healthy and successful.

Dan’s Top Resources

Books

Dan has 3 bestselling non-fiction books available in both written and audio form:

  • The Naked Truth, his latest release, shows you how radical honesty builds self-confidence and relationships
  • Nothing to Lose explores how to build confidence from the inside by correcting the programming in your brain
  • The Legendary Life is a very practical, action-focused guide on how to plan and execute a life plan that brings you your ideal lifestyle

Online courses

Dan continues to put out high quality online self-paced courses through the Udemy platform

Full transcript (unedited)

Okay, so Angie and Dan are back doing our conversations around self development. And today we’re going to be talking around people pleasing. So before we dive in today, we just decided that we’re not going to have any specific structure. There’s no specific question askers or anything like that, we’re just going to talk and see what comes up. So everything you hear today is literally freestyle. It’s a part of our world that we’re stuck into quite a lot with our clients. So it’s, like be quite good for people to listen to and learn from. Yeah, sounds about right. I think we’re both kind of, we’ve lived it live with it’s helped people with it, it’s been a big part of our lives, maybe a.so seems appropriate to talk about it. So let me kick off then. Because one of the things that I remember you saying to me years ago, when you have a regular coach are going to have those weekly meetings with you. And you said that although you’d beaten the most of people pleasing, it’s not something that necessarily completely goes away. And you sometimes you slip back into it and you catch yourself. So let’s start with that about what people’s expectations are around people pleasing. And even if the break the break the back of it, how much they can still expect it to sometimes materialize in their life. Yeah, well, we might need to start by even defining it. I’ve been surprised, especially the difference between people’s reaction to the term nice guy as a nice guy syndrome. And then the term people pleasing, somebody will actually say they’re a people pleaser in a bragging tone, which tells you how they view the the idea. But that kind of correlates with your question. The I guess, is, you know, where does it start? And what is it? Because the reason I would consider myself always in recovery is because partly, I think, the structure of people pleasing, so deeply embedded in my brain that it cannot be erased, it can only be managed, some of the outer stuff that you know, tactics or strategies I learned when I was older and thinking critically had been completely demolished, because there’s a level of the brain I can get to. But others, you know, we talked about, say, the initial reaction, you have to something before you can even think about it, you know, that comes from a part of the brain that’s locked and sealed up, there’s no access in that part of the brain. It’s childhood trauma, shit, which is, it’s not like incurable in terms of, you can’t adjust your behavior and have lesser reactions, and so on. But the initial spark, the kind of trigger, as it’s often talked about, I think, there are certain parts of this that are untouchable, and you’re gonna have to watch out for them like an alcoholic, you have to watch out for your entire life, you’ll never be okay with alcohol, it’s just never going to happen. So maybe we should start by trying to find what, because there’s people pleasing, which is like a verb that is describing a behavior, a range of behaviors. But we’re going beyond that today, I think we’re talking about a people pleaser, which is like the difference between behaving badly and having a personality disorder, like there are people who consistently behave badly kind of thing. So I don’t know it’s just drafted. I mean, we can almost do it as a personalized thing, because it’s different for each of us. But for you, what do you think it means to be a people pleaser, or even people pleaser in recovery? I think people pleasing is effectively when you’re, well, I’m gonna go for two levels. So on the surface level, it appears that you’re serving other people and being kind and doing these things for the people at the compromise of yourself. So that’s where it can be quite soul crushing, because basically, the narrative that you consistently embed in your head is other people are more valuable than me. What other people want a need is more valuable than what I want to need. On a deeper level. Although we convince ourselves it’s actually to give something to other people and to, to be kind and generous towards other people, it’s actually more along the lines of, I’m trying to take something from somebody. So if I give you this, more than often, there’s a secret IOU attached to it. But it’s by rarely known to the person, often very unconscious of the fact that I’m giving this thing with the view to take something about whether that be validation, kindness, affection, to build their own reputation, whatever it might be the something that they secretly want in return. So although it appears like a very giving thing, it’s actually very taking thing so it’s actually driven from a selfish perspective. So there’s a part of it that’s very self compromising and therefore self sabotaging, but there’s also a very selfish part of it that mostly slips under the radar above people’s awareness or below people’s awareness. Sorry. Yeah, that was pretty much lineup was what I think of it. I think that’s kind of the uniting factor of But like bringing all the people pleasers, together under a single category is the hidden intention. As a kind of allude to hidden even from the people pleaser themselves, the narrative in their own head is I’m a good person, I’m a nice person. Sometimes there’s more dark and narrative like, I’m giving more than other people are, and I deserve better than this. And things are unfair. And we all fluctuate between those narratives, but then narratives screensaver, and the real programs happening underneath and the real program is, you know, everything I do, is designed to serve me and to make me feel more comfortable to get more rewards, to probably a more familiar situations to avoid pain, hassle, emotional discomfort. And it’s all it’s all like a master plan. It’s like your tactics and stress and chess, but there’s the strategy of checkmate, you know, and that’s there’s a kind of checkmate strategy overall for the people pleaser is how do I get to a place where everything’s all good for me all the time. And every that’s I mean, that was a huge wake up call for me when I you know, for me though, a wake up call was really no more Mr. Nice Guy, I finally had a kind of termed put to this thing that I am sure I never found a term that suited up before was I couldn’t find a movement in my life that wasn’t in some way. At least influenced by this goal of smoothness and total social approval, and the end of any unhappiness or discomfort or effort. Everything even if I was putting in huge efforts, and being very uncomfortable, it was the the long term game of not having to do that, you know, and I just remember being quite shocked and a little depressed for quite some time of going fuck is anything I do real? Is it all just a stress is all bullshit is every like decision I’ve ever made from the big things like what degree I’m going to do and a job I’ve done down to the little things like how I word a sentence, is everything part of the strategy? And why is it that I get that massive, like, like Boulder off my shoulders when I’m alone? Is that the only time I’m not doing it? You know? And I think the answer is yes, there was the only time like, I used to fucking love being by myself. And like, no, like, no one’s watching me, it’s like, I finally get to take my clothes off. And you know, let the heaviest body like breathe of it. And just how like, instantly the anxiety will hurt me if I heard someone coming up the stairs, you know, or something like my time alone is about to end, quickly, they will change whatever I was doing to something else, something more, something, I think we’d get more approval. So yeah, I think you and I are right on the ideas. We tell ourselves, we’re good people, we do a lot of behaviors that if you isolated that and wrote down on a piece of behavior, you could easily describe it, you know, piece of paper, you could describe it as generosity or kindness or whatever. It could also be that with different intentions, perhaps. But if you know that there’s like a narrative that I’m self sacrificing for the greater good, which is actually hiding a deeper intention of I’m not self sacrificing at all, I’m getting exactly what I want out of this even looks like I’m self sacrificing to guilt trip people have given me even more so on. So overall, I mean, that was a long winded way of saying I think I agree with you completely, possibly. So when you’re in a client call, I’m sure you’ve been asked this because I certainly have and I’m gonna, I’m curious to see if your answers been similar to mine. But sometimes people ask me, for example, how do I know that when I’m doing something for someone, if I’m doing it to be good, and if I’m genuinely being kind, because there is such a thing in the world, people can do things with people, and it’d be purely from a place of kindness or generosity and with with no strings attached kind of thing. With nothing expected in return? Well, how do I know if I’m doing it from a place of people pleasing? How do you answer that? Well, there’s a few different answers and depends on the context. But one of the things that’s like being, like I said, like being an alcoholic is, it actually helps to have a little bit of distrust around that, to not be sure of yourself. And to take measures to prove it to yourself, at least on occasion to keep up to date. You know, for just an example of top of my head is to give anonymously, only you know, that it happened. That’s something that people please can’t do with any satisfaction. You know, if they don’t get any rewards. With the exception, some people think they get some sort of karma or like a religious point scoring thing that they’re doing here. But if you know in such a way where it genuinely it was self sacrifice, for example, like you take the hit for someone and they don’t know what happened, and you never tell anyone. You don’t even write it down in your journal in case someone might discover it. Or how do you feel You engage in that behavior when you’re doing it just because it was the right thing, and no one got to applaud you in any way, don’t get any points for it. That’s a good little tester. But generally what I like to think of as before you worry about the intention, make sure at least to get the behavior, right, make sure you are doing good things. Because one of the things I actually slightly disagree with you, but a nuance from your definition is that on the surface, they appear to be doing nice, kind, generous things. That’s not always the case. It’s always the case in their mind that they think that rather than it plenty of nice guys who are actually quite cruel in nasty, at least on occasion, they do spiteful behaviors, they sulk, they’ll sabotage other people for their own success, they won’t participate or pull their weight, they’ll avoid things that require effort and allow other people to suffer because of that, you know, there’s nothing more callous than a people pleaser, who can’t get anything from you. You know, if you’re not like in the zone of where there’s some reward, you’re nothing to them, you know, they’re quite happy let you suffer and burn. People pleases the least likely person to anonymously give to a charity of another on the other side of the world, because there’s no gains and there, but they’ll give to the homeless guy if people are watching, you know. So the idea that they actually engage in good behaviors consistently, like sort of objectively good behaviors, that’s often a lie. A great example is like unsolicited advice. It’s one of the most annoying things in the world to get unsolicited advice. people pleasers do it all the fucking time constantly telling you what you should and shouldn’t do and how you should feel and doing stuff for you taking over and fixing things that you didn’t ask for help with. I mean, that’s horrible behavior, it’s not even close to good. So the opposite of being helpful. So first, you got to make sure that your behavior is actually helpful, beneficial, does add value to the situation for almost everyone involved, including yourself, then you start going, like, why am I doing it now? You know, and started making little tweaks, you know, let’s say I, let’s say I give my wife a compliment on her appearance, because I know she’s insecure about her body, and that will make her feel good, which will make her like me more. This is a gray area, you know, I actually believe the compliment. But why am I giving it? As opposed to I can say it in a different way, where I lead her to recognize her own strengths. Right? So I might say something like, Well, what did you do well, today, which is going to have much more power than my compliment. But actually, I’m not the one giving her the validation. She’s self validating. So I can make a little tweak, where I’m no longer people pleasing, because I’m not the one who’s gonna get the reward for this pleasure. She’s going to reward yourself. I’m encouraging rather than fixing someone. I’m kind of ranting here, but it’s because that is the big question. Ultimately, once someone becomes aware, and they’re like, I want to work on this, they go fuck, how do I know? I’m a fish in water? I don’t even know what water is. Like. I don’t know what what do you use? What do you say when people bring this up for you? Well, I think firstly, our our demographic or clients are different. I tend to work with more like corporate kind of individuals. And more than often it’s down to maybe something that they’re trying to do at work or maybe an exam, like a qualification they’re trying to gain or maybe the car that they drive or something like that. And the question that I often ask is, like, say we’re talking about, like, I’ll give you a specific example, I had one client one time she was looking to do this quite senior qualification, I won’t even say what industry was, but it will take it to a much higher level, potentially open her up to new things in the business. And I said to her, or she was saying that only a small amount of people in the business will be that highly qualified. Was that okay? And I said, if? And I said, do you actually want to get the promotional features I don’t think I do, because it’s going to serve so much more stress, so much more aggro, going to have to do like two or three times bigger team, a bit of a pay rise, but I don’t think that really balances the extra level of stress. I’ll come with it. But it’s still quite late to get the qualification. And I was like, Well, why is actually because because it’d be nice to be one of the whatever it was make it up to 20 people or whatever. I said, Well, let’s look at it on a different way. I said if you could do that qualification, and have nobody ever know that you did it. Would you still go ahead and do it? And she was like, no, no Chancellor said so what’s your motivation behind doing it? Is it to actually have the qualification because you want it? Or is it the qualification because what other people will think of you because you had it and it was then that it cuz she was like, you could see the face change the penny drop. She’s like, it’s because of what other people will think by me having it and they say those types of moments when people realize actually the motivation is externally driven as opposed to internally driven. And it’s the same with when somebody has like a massive Wash car like really fast, but you can’t know if people enjoy cars. Who am I to say, don’t have a flashy car if you genuinely enjoy it, and you can afford it or not, I wouldn’t encourage it was putting you in multiple 1000 pounds worth of debt. But again, the question is, I always say to people if you were to drive your car, but nobody was ever to see it, and you could only drive it on roads, I had no other cars, would you have it? And the ones who say, Absolutely, yes, then they’re probably doing it, in my opinion, probably for the right reasons. But the ones that say no, then they’re doing it because of the validation because the image setting because of what other people will think of them, because they have this car. So they gain more like a high level of reputation or something by having this car versus the person that would know, I wouldn’t care if nobody even knew about it kind of thing. And as long as they’re being honest with themselves, like you can, to a degree have to take the word that they’re being honest. And if they’re not, it will come up in some other way later, because I’ll, you know, trip themselves up or not know it. But it’s very similar to your kind of your questioning really is like, if nobody else knew about it, if nobody, you know, like giving anonymously or something along those lines, nobody knows about it, then you cannot get validation if nobody knows about it. And that’s when you see people sit back and go, now I feel differently about it, or actually, I don’t feel any differently about it. Yeah, I think it’s good place as well for people to start with those big ticket items. Like what are the huge things I’m doing that are just like fun and get the validation and approval for it. I lose zero like I have zero interest in it after that. You know, because what you’ll find there’s those and then there’s like a nuance middle where it’s like I’m still kind of into it just not as much now that you say that and you can see that like, hey, maybe there’s a genuine passion here that’s been like, bashed to death by the inclusion of people pleasing. I think of people pleasing as being like a poison that taints things. You might really love your sport. But if you’re also doing it to impress your father with how well you do with the sport can kill the sport for you. You know, there’s there’s lots of stories of sort of famous athletes going grassroots and having way more fun, you know, who said ridiculously good basketball player, super famous. I can’t remember his fucking name right now. Might be LeBron. Yeah, I think it’s LeBron James in. He plays in like this league with like, overweight, 40 year old dudes, he just crushes the mall. So it’s not even fear. But it’s his favorite. You can tell he’s just having so much fun. You know, it’s just surprising these small towns when he shows up and there’s 20 People watching his basketball player on Earth shows up, you know, you can see all that he really does love this, as opposed to say, there’s guys like Muhammad Ali, Andre Agassi, who, after their careers, admitted that they kind of hated every second of it, but it was all about the glory. You know, Muhammad Ali, he hated all of his training. He’s admitted to that freely. He just wanted to be known as the greatest in the world. And that was his key driver. That’s actually a form of people pleasing Will Smith’s latest books, a great read, for like the most extremely talented version of people pleaser, everything he does, and I stunk still to this day, given everything is happening with him. Actually, since the release of that book, he’s still there. He’s still basically an extreme people pleaser. And Andre Agassi hated tennis from the day picked up a racket but just did it because the dad pressured him and he wanted to impress his dad and so on. His book open is really good for like, holy shit. His whole career was a scam, you know, like, he never He never enjoyed hitting the ball once. It’s ridiculous. But you know, where I think it’s really struggling, you know, this is the difference now clients I have. It’s not that I’ve never had clients in corporate or anything, but usually they come to me because they’re struggling in their social life more than anything else. As opposed to you guys. You know, they’re looking for maybe career related improvements. Or at least the person persona in the Korea. Well, I’ll come back to that, but carry on. What I found is the real, like meat of the work is in the little things. You know, from what they were, you know, I had a great debate with a girl once where I called wearing makeup people pleasing, as there’s not like a bad form of people pleasing, but I said, Would you do it at home by yourself? She’s like, Yeah, I would I would count more. Do you though really, like how often how often if he does dressed up in front of the mirror, because maybe you do in which case great, but I can wear all the makeup you want. Especially if you’re happy to go out to like a big public event without makeup like that doesn’t concern you and see that there’s non attachment in that way. Like I wear clothes rather than walk around naked in public. You know what I mean? Like I obey some rules. Does it people pleasing well, I’ll happily streak as well just to have some fun. So there’s times where, like, if you can find exceptions, you know, you’re not hooked on the thing. But it’s those little details. It’s come down to how they phrase a sentence. I’ve found, for example, that questioning is quite often driven by people pleasing, you know, confidence. Usually they speak in statements. You know, I always use stupid like little examples, because they’re so common Marsay like, I want chicken for dinner. That’s a statement. But if I’m like, What do you want for dinner? I’m now on to people pleasing. I want to see how you react. First, I want to gauge your level of interest, I’m going to adjust to what you say, I’m actually making you lead so that I can get it wrong. I’m avoiding the risk of rejection. It’s like huge. Lots of stuff going under what is a tight little question that a guy might ask, you know, two or three times a day, and not realize why he’s asking why he always asks and never see is, you know, you know why you and I have talked about at length in the bedroom. You know, a lot of guys, they do not initiate sex. They do kind of encouraging movements towards it, they’ll kind of make themselves available, but they won’t be the one who takes the risk, to get things really crossing the line from not being sexual or being sexual. And they just do this, like they live in the subtle way of avoiding rejection, they always make other people lead, they never crossed the line. Like they tell jokes, but they’re so honed to their audience, they know that they’ll never actually offend anyone, they’ll they have this ability to read people that they’ll never go too far with their joke, they’ll never take a risk of being in trouble with HR, for example, or whatever. And they’ve just got this constant like little adjustment thing happening almost with every word they say. There’s thought going into their strategic planning going into it. And that’s where the hard workers in terms of recovery. That’s the hardest ship because it’s just an everything. Everywhere I was I was doing Isha. And I think there’s there’s different degrees to me. And I don’t know if you agree with this, there’s a different spectrum of people pleasers. So you refer to yourself as a recovering people pleaser. And you probably share, we’re gonna go back to that original question in a sec. But you are still on the spectrum of people pleasing, you’re at the very high end where you may be slipping into the neck dam is bloody got me again, and you maybe redeem yourself or change that. Or maybe it’s just very, very rare it comes up or something along those lines. But sometimes people take conversations like this were very literal sense that think maybe they were kind of on the higher end of not people pleasing, but now they might hear this and go. But I asked my partner all the time, what they want for dinner, and I don’t think that makes me people pleaser. So I think if I if I kind of paraphrase what I’m hearing anyway, and what probably I’d like the audience to potentially pick up on as well. Just because you do something like ask somebody for dinner of what they want for dinner doesn’t immediately make them a people pleasing. It might be a form. And actually that isn’t a bad thing to say to your partner what you want for dinner, it becomes an issue when you’re constantly doing that, because you’re unable or unable sorry to make that decision for yourself. I historically, not these days, but historically have gone out with guys where I’d say what do you want for dinner? And they always reply with whatever you want and be like, well, we can do chicken we can do. I don’t know like something else or something else. And then it’s like, well, you choose bed. And it’s like just make a bloody decision. Like where would you like to go tonight? Well, I don’t mind you choose tonight. Okay, well, you want to go to this restaurant, this restaurant, this restaurant that you choose, that’s when it that’s when it starts getting bigger and more pronounced. It’s not just if your life is generally very balanced, and you just want to have what’s happened say to your partner, what what you want for dinner, that we’re suggesting those people are massive people pleasers, but it’s when it’s a pattern. And when it’s this constant inability to lead, that’s the thing to look at. It’s not showing an interest in somebody else’s preference of food. It’s actually this inability to lead and this avoidance of making a decision as the person at the front basically. Absolutely. I think this separates the definition of people pleasing as a behavior, which can be happen two or three times a week and there’s nothing wrong with the kind of thing versus being a people pleaser, which is the kind of behaviors we talk about the go to their the autopilot, they’re more likely to happen than anything else. They there’s patterns. Sometimes there’s unbroken patterns, like you always like without exception, do it this way. So money and it’s like if you’re not a people pleaser, it still doesn’t hurt to adjust the people pleasing behaviors, how rare they might be. It’s just you don’t have anything wrong with you, like carry on with your life. No harm has been done by this. But even so I’d say like, if I asked somebody I know what I want for dinner, but I asked them what they want. First, I’m still forcing them to lead whether I’m a people pleaser or not. There’s better ways I can communicate. I say look, I feel like chicken it makes it easier for them if I do this, like I feel like chicken I’m gonna take the risk of you saying no, I’m never into I’m vegan. Fuck you. And you and I have a big problem. I’ll take the hit for the team, that’s real self sacrifice, not the bullshit the people pleasers, there’s like, I’m actually going to take a hit, I’m gonna take the risk, I’ll be the one who gets rejected, I’ll be the one who loses and fails. That’s real risk taking not the risk taking people pleasers think they’re taking, when they’re actually avoiding all risk. But absolutely. Put it this way, if you have to work on being a people pleaser, it’s like kind of any other psychological disorder, there’s kind of two criteria. One is you have to have the symptoms a lot. And two is they have to have a negative impact on your life. That’s the criteria for a clinical psychologist actually say you got to work on the shirt, or take medicine or whatever. So if I occasionally like all of us, I occasionally hear a voice in my head, I don’t meet the criteria for schizophrenia. But if I’m walking around all day, and I think people are shouting insults at me, and makes me want to fight people, I got schizophrenia, and I got to do something about it. And it’s the same with people pleasing, if you constantly make these moves to adjust people’s impression of you to something more favorable if you’ve lost yourself on that. And if you always avoid taking the risk and avoid leadership, and you know, reduce the options in your life down to what other people say they want. And this is costing you, you’re not happy with who you are, you’re not in healthy relationships, your career is not where it should be, your health is bad, you need to do something about this, you’re in that category now. So it’s kind of Yeah, people pleasing as a behavior as always something that could be improved. When something must be improved. It’s when it’s more often than not, and your life sucks because of it or life is significantly impaired. And some challenge, I was gonna take him with you, because I’m a high achieving people pleaser, there’s different types, you could say that’s one of them. The extroverted show off is how I’d put it, I call it the performer. So when you find a talent for something, especially that comes easily to you, as a people pleaser, you might cling to that and go, I’m just going to use this like a weapon to get approval, I’ll just impress the shit out of people all the time. You know, it’s usually something that’s easier for you naturally, then requires a lot of hard work. But sometimes it can be a hustle. And what I found is that absolutely took the flavor out of winning. And I was wondering, I wanted to know from you your perspective, working with like high achieving people in corporate, how many of them have climbed up the ladder, and they’re still not satisfied, and they just can’t enjoy it, they can’t enjoy the wins that they’ve sustained. Because there’s always the not good enough story, there’s always been a wins, they get used to it like a drug and they don’t get high anymore. What are your thoughts on that? And I would say with 100%, because if they weren’t having those experiences, they wouldn’t be my client. So it’s, you know, I’m sure there’s some very high achieving C suite, directors, senior managers, whatever this title is out there, that are very happy and not having these emotional challenges. But it’s far less common than people realize. And until you’ve had the experience of seeing behind the scenes of my line of work, it doesn’t come with this. Like there’s a lot of people that maybe work at a less, you know, in terms of hierarchies and organizational structures, they work at a lower level on paper. And they assume that because the person is a senior director, or the CEO or the CEO, whatever, they they’re just like, well, everything’s great, we’re looking at him from the outside, they’ve got this massive house, got this massive income, got a couple of bloody Porsches sat on the driveway, they’ve got a couple of gorgeous kids, yada, yada, yada. And people make these assumptions because we never as I think it was Simon Sinek who said this was something but we don’t measure each other, and how people feel we measure each other and what we see basically, so we make assumptions around how people are feeling. And if people aren’t actually being particularly open with what they’re feeling. Nobody is going to be any none the wiser. They’re just going to see the material stuff, and the smiley faces, big house, big house, big family, whatever. But it is very, very common in my line of work when people get there. And they’ve been incredibly successful. I’m thinking of one client in particular, I don’t work them in the longest it was we finished it like few months ago. The guy was a multimillionaire, but he didn’t need to work he chose to work because he like it was almost like part of his identity to work, but the stress and the pressure that came with that. And this constant narrative of beating himself up if he dropped a ball on anything that the pressure put himself under massive perfectionism, procrastination, sleepless nights, like if one of the boards or like one of the investors in the business that he was CEO of will say, can we have a meeting, his brain would immediately default to oh my god, they’re gonna sack me. So if he got an email on Friday, saying, Can we meet on Monday morning? He spent the whole weekend in a state of panic and what does he want? What is it about was an in this instance is a perfect example. He has actually been told that he’d done a great job and he’s getting a random bonus that you didn’t expect. But he spent all weekend thinking he’s gonna sat me, he thinks I’m crap like this is what what have I done and then going through all his work and his notes and seeing what is it that he wants to actually go for and have a word of me about. So this constant narrative of I’m not good enough. Sometimes like I think there’s a very high correlation that you and I have also identified that when it comes to things like high achievement and perfectionism, there’s, there’s often the to often go hand in hand very easily. And then what I’ve found in my experiences, well, from my observation, shall we say, people use the strategy of I’m not good enough narrative. And they seem to think that by telling themselves and I’m, I’m not good enough, that will be their motivation to propel them forward to work harder, I must achieve. So they work longer hours, they work weekends, they, they take on work, and probably work that they don’t need to be doing. They study in their extra time as well, when they burn themselves to the absolute bone. In order to achieve achieve achieve, then they get very, very far doing it. And that strategy on paper seems to be a successful strategy. Although underneath that it feels like every day kind of feels like a bit of a firefight because they’re constantly battling. What are people thinking, imposter syndrome, I’m not good enough details like exhaustion, etc. But I think there comes a tipping point. And that seems to be the point where I feel that the it’s not unusual for those people to enroll with me is that the strategy that has actually served them well on paper to be so successful, starts working against them. Because as they get more senior, everything is distorted. So they’ve got more eyeballs on them. So they’ve got the carrying a heavyweight, they’ve got more visibility, they’ve got more responsibilities. So the workload has gone from here to here, they’ve got more budget to manage. So there’s a bigger risk, if something goes wrong, they’ve probably got a bigger team to manage. So when the team used to be six, it’s now 30. So everything has been, you know, doubled or quadrupled, even more or whatever. And it’s almost like the way I see it is that the analogy I often give is that as you’re going through your career, you imagine having a rucksack and everyday a little marble, is put in that rucksack, and every time that marble is in place, it’s because of the I’m not good enough story. But that drives them forward. And even though this rucksack is getting heavier and heavier filling up with marbles as they spend 20 years in the career, 25 years in the career, they get to this point where they just physically can’t carry this bag of marbles anymore, and it’s grown on them. So it’s got bigger and bigger. So gradually, it’s almost become a noticeable because of almost desensitized to this pressure and this worldly living and then it’s like the knees buckle, I just can’t carry on anymore. And that’s when they’re like something is wrong, I need to go to somebody to speak to this, but they can’t work out what’s wrong, because the strategy in which has gotten there has been very successful historically. And now it’s actually working against them. And that’s just my analogy of it. I don’t know if you’ve had any similar experiences and if you’ve worked with senior guys that that obviously new women as well. But it seems to be this ongoing pattern of the same thing. And all that journey of the marbles is people pleasing, lack of boundaries, lack of honesty, not being able to start like manage outwards, as well as manage downwards. It’s this I will do everything in anything to be recognized for that next promotion and that self compromised self compromise but the people pleasing is the connection to I’m doing this for my gain of my career, the self the self sabotages. I’m taking punches along this whole route whilst doing it and ripping shreds off myself in the process. And then they hit this breaking point where it’s like something has to give on I’m just gonna leave or I’m gonna get depressed or something and sometimes they already are. Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s definitely sort of the the path rate pathway of the corporate high achieving people pleaser where I’m more so see the social pathway play out, which is very common to my own experience, which is a works exceptionally well when you’re a little kid. Like you’re having way more pleasure than pain, employing, like when I figured out that I’m academically smart, and funny, and I figured that out when I was a kid. Those two weapons I could just like slay I was murdering. You know what I mean? Like I just killing it every day. Teachers think I’m the best kids looking up to me because I crush it but I still play sports or whatever. I’m the funny kid. And then I could make my parents love just like I could make kids laugh I eventually figured out like I can get the whole range going I was everyone’s favorite person and I was quiet I was floating this way than I think this one strategy sticks is because either creates so much pleasure pleasure or reduces pain so much. The like this is killer, like a kid who’s being traumatized and abused at home finds a way to like reduce that significantly. Or Fuck yeah, I’ll keep this going like a little bit of pains way better than heaps. So you get this definite sense of like, because there’s I’ve kind of I didn’t start doing this. I figured it out when I was about seven or something when I moved must be when I moved to the school and tried a new way of law. Because before that I was a bullied kid, I was the cry baby, no one liked me kind of thing. I was alone at school every day, still get anxiety walk into schools and thinking how lonely it feels in a school for me. So I figured something out when I see them the strategy, like finally fucking works, and it was killing it. And in high school, it pretty much worked. It kept me out of the bottom, I was kind of floating in the middle. So I was like, I was in a band, which was kind of cool in my school, and I played enough rugby to be acceptable as hard. You know, I wasn’t good at it. But at least I played, I was in a group of friends that were generally respected and not beaten up or anything and, you know, got enough trouble at parties and took enough drugs to be accepted as enough of a bad so I was kind of like a goodbye on it. Already, I was noticing that I’m struggling with gills more than the other boys seem to be and so on. But I had friends who also were so maybe I felt like I was still in the middle there. And I got like a long term girlfriend at the end of high school that gave me the illusion that I’d broken free of this. I didn’t realize I was really doubling down on people pleasing once I got into a relationship. I was to learn that lesson much later. But then like a lot of my people, it’s usually in the 20s, mid 20s Especially what used to work doesn’t anymore. And the results aren’t there gradients. So it’s kind of a combination of drug tolerance, you know, your your highs just aren’t getting high anymore. I remember like a girl kiss me in high school I’ll be floating for a month ago kisses me and you know, when I’m 22 I’m like, oh, but why didn’t she sleep with me? Like I’m not high at all? Right only way more to get high. Or being like the cool band guy in high school, my fucking on the man. And then no playing in a band when I was in my 20s on my only 15 people showed up. Right? Like, I just the high wasn’t there anymore. But also it just it actually wasn’t working even to get baseline. You know, I my big crisis, my turning point was going four years without six. And that was not a choice. Right? I was doing everything in my power to end their drought. But of course, you know, I think they call them in cells now, which I would never choose to identify with. But I felt like I was doing everything I was like eating every healthy food you can find and working out 10 hours a day and still being obese. You know, it was like Jesus Christ, nothing fucking. Because I mean, I wasn’t really doing anything different at all. But that was my wake up point where I was like, Okay, I keep getting this fucking feedback that I’m the nicest guy ever, that I’m the favorite guy in the group. And yet nobody sleeping with me. There’s that serious. Like, I’m doing something wrong and finally clicked like, I don’t like the results. I mean, it was pretty superficial. Around six at that time, but there was a gateway to deeper understandings. Like I’ve even had just this year, I had a memory that was must have been almost like traumatically repressed. And just popped back into my head, there was this year where all of my friends organized to go away from New Year’s, which is, you know, there’s the tradition in New Zealand because New Year’s Eve is summer for us. And we all go away camping, and everybody between the ages of like 13 to 30 Does this and they do it in groups, and everything’s all booked out to fuck from like March onwards, you gotta get in quick to get the beach spots and so on. And they’d booked it without me. There’s no spots left. I can’t get anywhere near them. And I’m facing New Year’s on my own. And the brutal thing is they simply forgot. I mean, it almost be better if they didn’t want me there. But I was such a nonentity to them that they didn’t think to include me in the planning. Partly because I spread over lots of different groups like lots of extrovert people pleaser, that didn’t have them in the group or another group, they expect I’ll be doing something else with the band or with the other group. So so my core group of friends booked a New Year’s without me, and I just had this wake up like, fuck do I even have friends? Are they real? Is any of this real? Do I actually you know, it’s actually only in my career that I felt certain that I was perceived to be a value. But everywhere else I’m like, if I died and didn’t come back with anyone give a fuck. Like how good is the stuff of God? I went away to America for six months. It was my first real self development step. So I didn’t think of it at the time. And I remember the grief I felt when I came back and discovered that nobody had really missed me that all carried on with their lives just fine. That nobody was pining for Dan to get backs. It may be my family. You know, but as a people pleaser, I just took them for granted. Look for more highs. But this wake up call that I didn’t really matter that much to anybody. And I’ve been trying so hard to please them all. And that’s the result I was quite bitter about it. As I was about like being the nicest guy that any girl ever met and she wished she could find a guy like me, but she won’t sleep with me like there’s a lot of bitterness building up. But unlike a lot of nice guys, the bitterness was self directed on my this is a me problem. Like some of the guys I work with, they become misogynistic, for example, they get a red pilled and they think women are the problem. Am I dude woman seem to like other guys, or you know what I mean? Like, dude, if it’s just you, and like 10 Girls in a row don’t like you. And those 10 girls find other guys they like maybe it’s you, bro. And like a lot of people that you’re bitter towards the world and the universe, they think it’s unfair, the social situation that they’re in. But I was very much of the mind. Like, I’m fucking, I’ve missed the ball here somewhere. And I got to the good thing about missing out on six is it creates an actual quite visceral desperation. Like I was physically desperate. And that was enough to give me some courage. You know, there’s enough to go like, this sucks so fucking much, I don’t care what happens, I’ll try any fucking thing. You know, like, I don’t care if I crash and burn because it can’t be worse than this. I can’t do another four years. You know what I mean? It’s fucking lonely. I’ve had enough. And so that opened me up to trying some new things. So I think that’s how the kind of crisis happens when we’re talking in the social sphere, is that the social circle the relationships quite often, it’s like just the marriage ends in divorce, or, you know, they hate their partner, like the relationship is separated, even though they like roommates or whatever, quite often, lack of sex is involved. There’s not many nice guys who are also players, you know what I mean? Like? So there’s this kind of moment where they go, like, I don’t even have anything good for all this. If, and, you know, I’ll pass it over to you in a sec. But I was inspired a nutritionist, friend of mine cheese, she was talking about diet. And she said, if it used to work for you, and you’re not right now, then it never actually worked. I was like, That’s fucking brilliant. Because if something really works, it has a sustainable, ongoing success. And if that all comes crashing down, you revert back to zero or worse, then it was an illusion that it never worked. You know, and I think that’s the thing that people pleasing is, can you create an illusion that it works for quite some time. And it comes crashing down, you’re trying to like, repeat what you’ve done before? You’ll actually do you’re always set up for for this, you’re, you’re playing a system that’s doomed to cannot work, no matter how much you like, amp it up. And never, it’s never gonna work. It just took you a while to figure that out. So the classic saying from Einstein that the first time that madness is repeating the same behavior and expecting a different output or something like that, exactly, yeah. But the problem with the people pleasing is often a begins, you get what looks like rewards, you do feel good about how it’s going. It seems to be working. It’s making life better. And it gives you the impression, it’s like, it’s really similar to say any other drug. Like if you think of drinking alcohol, your first two beers in your life, I feel way more confident this this is good shit. The idea that you’re consuming poison that you’re going to pay for heavily in the future just doesn’t even occur to you even an experienced drinker. Doesn’t go back and wait for their massive fucking hangover that takes I feel really good. I hate being drunk. I just love the hangover. So people don’t seem people pleasers are very short sighted, they look for the immediate instant gratification. They don’t go like this is higher purchase, man, you go pay interest on this motherfucker forever, and you can’t afford it. Which is you know, the opposite of people pleasing as essentially doing what’s right, but hard. So you get the reward later. And you know, I think you can talk more about this. And I came I think high achievers are good at getting instant wins with. There’s the Amazon, I’m just gonna pause it. Right, the Amazon man is gone. So as you were saying that? Well, so you can speak to it more in terms of your line of work. But what often looks like hard workers and their high achiever realm, you know, the greats, whether it be in business or entertainment or whatever. It isn’t actually that hard for them. They’re kind of playing to their strengths. They’re doing things that come to them naturally, or they pick it up quickly. They’re in an area that like excelling is easy for them. Now they might grind and work really hard and get really stressed. But like another person doing the same amount of work wouldn’t achieve as highly because they don’t have their natural talent. And that’s what I noticed in my own career. I kind of I unconsciously would pick the path of least resistance, I’d find the thing that I’m going to do well, but there are other things that might have been more rewarding that I’d avoid, because I wasn’t going to do well straight out of the gate with them. You know, there’s a reason I’m not a mechanic right now, is because after 20 years, I’ll still be an average mechanic, I was never going to excel there. And so it doesn’t even occur to me to try that pathway, even if it might have been enjoyable. So I was keen to hear from you a bit about that, like, is it true that all the CEOs and C suite guys are working harder than everyone else? And grinding more and they struggling as much to learn as everyone else? Or are they actually picking a kind of path of least resistance? I don’t know about I don’t know how to answer the path of least resistance, what what I can say, I can’t really even measure if they’re working harder than other people. Because, you know, there’s two ways you can say that, you might say that a CEO has a busy workload, but he has to, obviously he or she has to make a decision that might have consequences on the business. That could mean the business goes bust. But that’s a pretty damn stressful position. But then maybe a CEOs pa who is swamped with itty bitty things to do you know, that would, how can you measure who’s busier because actually, the calculations behind those decisions, and they both really work long hours, whatever. I just think that the key thing for me is that whether you’re a CEO, whether you’re a director, or whether you’re not these symptoms that arise time and time, again, a universal now how much pain somebody feels, I think is how embedded they are into how often they are a people pleaser. So I don’t think you can measure the level of pain from one person to the next. Or if it’s because they’ve taken the path of least resistance. It’s just where they find themselves based on how many times that they people pleased in order to get where they are. Because whatever that is, that’s going to cause the most pain. If you’re doing it in a serial way. Were you doing it every day with almost every decision, like you described at the beginning? Or is this something that pops his head up once or twice a week, or three times a week or whatever? So that that to me is is you know, that’s that’s how I’d measure it, I don’t think you can make a direct comparison. But I think where the misconception is more often that people at that level don’t suffer. People at that level don’t struggle with making decisions, people at that level don’t struggle with what other people think of them because they’ve already cracked it. No, it’s because of the strategy that’s got them there. And the behaviors in which they’ve adopted in order to be very successful is now working against them, and putting them under a normal, enormous pressure. But it might be maybe more exposed when they’re at that level. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not being exposed that your main demographic that wishes maybe somebody in the young 20s in a more social capacity, as opposed to somebody in their mid 40s. And mostly my clients are male, I do have female clients as well. But I’d say these days where 80 85% are male, and it’s pretty much always been that way. So often when I slip into he’s just because my brain goes into like examples of my own clients who tend to be tend to be men. But I’m what is interesting with a couple of things that you’re saying is, although these people contact me, because we spend eight hours a day, often more five days a week, most weeks of the year working. So here’s where it often shows up the most, in particular with my clients anyway. But actually, when we get into the nitty gritty, the people pleasing behaviors aren’t just in work, like they have people pleasing traits that show up in shitloads of their world, whether it’s with their friends, whether it’s with the partners, whether it’s in the the married, like with the marital partners, whether with the kids, you know, I’ve got clients that are directors, and they still struggle to say no for a night out in case of what their friends think of them. I’ve got one client that actually didn’t like drinking alcohol at all. And he always used to say yes, and go out and hate getting pissed and hate having to, like just pretend to enjoy the evening. And it wasn’t really realized that he was actually people pleasing in that moment, he started just being more true to himself. But if he didn’t want to go out, he didn’t. And he wanted to go out he would but he actually stopped drinking, which is what he wanted to do for a long time and fell brilliant for and he did take a bit of banter, and a bit of pushback and a rouge you all kind of thing like you know, those typical comments that people start saying and doing in order to derail you from becoming, you know, a better version of you, shall we say, obviously makes them feel uncomfortable when they see somebody else doing some really confident shit. But it’s those types of things. It isn’t always that although people come to me saying, I want to be more assertive or manage upwards, actually, when I spend some good few hours with them, it starts going into their relationships and starts going into the social lives. And actually this stuff is universally impacting on their lives in a multitude of different areas. And actually the work stuff is the easiest stuff to fix. And that’s the stuff we fix most quickly. It’s when we start talking about the marriages or the relationship with the children or like the set situation with the local football club or whatever. And actually, because those things are harder to fix, and once they’ve got those things like sorted, and more under control, they find the work stuff is like this is a doddle. Like I’ve just done the easiest stuff like this, I’ve just done the hardest stuff, I’ve just, you know, sat down with my wife and told you that how, you know, worried I feel about our connection moving forward. And I want to help maintain our, our marriage, that took a lot more balls to do than telling my boss that I didn’t want to do that spreadsheet by tomorrow. By so actually, what happens is they this stuff starts infiltrating into all areas of the life. But normally, people realize that, you know, a lot of people make the assumption that when they roll with me, they’re just going to exclusively talk about the career. And that’s only sometimes half. I mean, there are some that is just exclusively about the career. But more than often, I’d say at least 95% of the time, personal stuff starts coming up are probably the things that are really given them proper, sleepless nights, over and above the boss or anything like that. You are that sparks off. There’s an interesting dynamic, here, we’re talking about spectrums and stuff. There’s also different types of people pleasers, they can be quite different from each other, but different types. And one such differentiation is where does the pleasing go, and there’s certain people where the further out you are in their circle, you get more pleasing. And actually, they treat the people close to them quite horribly. I’ve seen it in the extremes where like someone’s an absolute tyrant at home, like abusive, and yet they roll over at work and can’t say no to anybody, and they kind of take that stress home with them. I think that’s actually quite common in sort of high achievers in the workplace. And then there’s the opposite. Whereas, you know, that would be my type of nice guy, which is, you know, the partner gets 90% of my energy. And, you know, I might be sort of actually quite assertive, or bluff with a total stranger. Or in my case, I was actually just trying to please everyone all the time. But generally, my efforts went, I was more effective emotionally, the closer the person was, but it amazes me, and I’ve seen it so often, that somebody’s well loved at the workplace, they’re really kind to a stranger. But the wife feels neglected, the kids barely know the dad like that kind of thing. And when they reverse that, that’s actually really healthy. When they go, You know what, I’m gonna make sure that my family is the best. And my energy is not people pleasing, just the best of view. And then everybody else can have whatever’s left over. And that was one of the most powerful shifts I’ve made. And it’s, I’ve doubled down on it since having a kid, we’re really gone. Like, I’ll literally like somebody who’s even slightly lesser out in the circle than family. You know, like, if one of Lucy’s friends, I won’t even bother smiling, you know, my, I got nothing left for you, I’m saving the smile from my wife. Do you know what I mean? Like, in my most extreme sleep deprived times, I like don’t waste a shred of energy on anyone who’s not important, almost, it’s been a complete turnaround, where there’s no pleasing, no extra behavior that’s done to get a good reaction whatsoever. Like, I’ll still interact and be respectful and get the job done sort of thing. But being able to, like from the little things like, again, email from someone, I don’t know, I just delete it. And then I respond to my clients email with 10 minutes worth of, you know, thoughtful writing, being able to like, change that dynamic, where, if I’m gonna put some effort into people make sure it’s the right fucking people. Like, it’s got to be one of the I, in fact, I know for a fact, it’s one of the Top Five Regrets of people on their deathbed, the elderly on the deathbed, because they were so trying so hard to please everyone that they forgot about their family. And they get to the end and their loved ones, which could include say best friends, children, partners, mothers and fathers, whatever they get to the end, they’re like, fuck, I’ve lost them. You know, and they’re the only ones who made it. And the ones I was pleasing I was being fake with. So I didn’t have anything there either. I actually had nothing, I’m alone. And that’s one of the chief regrets brawny where if you look up her work, she used to work with people, at least she was a nurse working with people die. And she did this huge research on non scientific research. But you know, that will just keep coming up like I should have cared about the people who made it. I should have been honest with people more those two go together hand in hand. And they should have cared more being honest with myself and more, cared more about myself as well. So things like that the compromises that we make on traveling the world and people have a desire, but if I do that, I’m going to have to compromise on my career. And if I do that, I’m going to lose all this reputation that I have because people think I’m the kickass see to the street, and I’m now going to miss out on seeing the world. And they’re the types of things that come up on those deathbed stories as well. I think when people get to that level of pain that you talked about before you, you refer to it as like going sex free, but not my choice for four years. And I think at that point, people have a choice to make when they’re either willing to look within and go, there’s a pattern here and it always seems to be me coming off the worst, or I can protect that part of me and be continually blaming everybody else and everything all that like the massive victim place where all these things are happening to me. At that’s in those situations, like you describe it would be no like, women, they just like assholes. They just love going out with an asshole. And what’s wrong with these women can’t really see what what a good person I am. But you know, and it says it kind of shows up sometimes in the same as in the workplace. Like, there’s no point in me applying, there’s no point, there’s no, there’s no point, there’s no point, I shouldn’t do this, I shouldn’t do that, because they’re not going to see it anyway. So that the kind of compromise and what it is that they actually want and compromise and who they could actually be. Because they it’s too painful to work with them. And sometimes people need to go to a place of more pain to be willing to go there. And sometimes people never do and they spend their entire lives in this victim place of all these things are happening to me, if only they could see how cool they’ve been to me when actually not realizing that that’s a very disempowering position, and it’s up to them to make the choices for themselves. So, and just randomly. This isn’t really to do with my line of work, but it is connected to what you said earlier around the, like the connection side of things and lack of intimacy for four years, women know I’ve made a video on this, and I might send you it’s much easier. And I spend 30 minutes we rant in the camera with my whiteboard. But women very, very, they pick up on that. And it’s the most say the least sexy thing that you could be if you’re just a massive people pleaser. And I think I might have even mentioned to you before, but I’ve got on the top list, you’ve got all these nice qualities like attentive and kind and generous and giving and yadda yadda. But underneath that you’ve got boundaries, and you’ve got all these other things that are connected with it. And being assertive and willing to lead and willing to stick your neck out and say something bit controversial. And in actual fact, a woman likes those nice quality Nice Guy qualities. But without the other stuff. It makes it a deal breaker. So I’d go as far as saying the other stuff is more important, because it’s always the stuff that becomes the least sexy if they’re missing, because that’s the masculine, that’s the masculine energy that women are drawn to. But that doesn’t mean you’ve got to be an asshole. If you have those traits, because you can be all of those boundary based, assertive, willing to stick your neck out like willing to lead and you can be kind and you can be affectionate. And you can be attentive and you can have both, but it’s when people categorize them as there’s one or the other. And if women choose the other because it’s very important to them. They’re deemed as like the only the only attracted to assholes. Yeah, it’s a common dilemma for my guys. You know, I think the Final Crisis somebody has to go through as the responsibility crisis, essentially, this is and without that there is there’s nothing you can do. It’s actually one of my qualifying questions when I’m going to work with someone new. So whose fault is this? Let’s say like mine, Mike, okay, let’s start, like, well, society, but on my goodbye, I can help you. And if somebody goes like a very least they blame themselves we can start with, we’ll move it into responsibility from there. But you know, most of my work is about healthy masculinity. It’s what is the thing that’s neither nice nor the jerk? What’s the third thing? It’s not even in the middle? Because it’s not on that spectrum. It’s what are those qualities look like when they’re with integrity? You know, there is some truth to the old cliche that woman like a bad boy, but it’s actually the qualities that guy’s just displaying that’s attractive. You know, he’ll speak his mind, he’ll stand up, he believes and he’ll do a little bit of risk taking and courageous and exciting behavior. Now total prick can do all of that, which is kind of you know, I feel bad for men like they’re kind of hooked in through the attraction they can’t control into a guy is actually coming from a really unhealthy place. But yeah, somebody is really giving and generous is attractive. Somebody who’s like so kind it’s charismatic is attractive. But if it’s again the person this is the thing I think nice skills don’t suffer in dating. In terms of missing out as much as nice guys do. Nice girls have a different suffering, which is attracting kind of users and abusers. But they attract plenty of them. You know, they still got lots of options. If that’s a one. I think the reason why Yeah, the way nice guys tend to miss out and love is because women are so intuitive. They know when there’s something wrong with the intention. You know. And so you can like you can take a guy’s generally genuinely confident, and a nice guy and they do the exact same behavior, almost mirror image, the girl still be able to nine times out of 10 tell you this guy’s more attractive. Yeah, she might not even be able to tell you why she just knows. Whereas guys will listen to it in such a way. You know, we’re talking in generalities here, but I don’t think I’m going to be proven wrong anytime soon. But this is yeah, sorry. I thought you finish sorry for them. Well, this is just goes beyond six attractiveness. If we think of it as a general term of wanting somebody in your life of valuing them, as preferring them over somebody else, or being alone. people pleasing kills it in all areas, not just romance. You know, when the boss like I remember a boss giving me a very critical piece of feedback that I didn’t quite understand the time. I wanted to be in this prison release team, which is the high risk sexy stuff as a probation officers working with a real bad boys, you know. And I was in the supervision team, which is like drink drivers and people who shouted out their wives so much that the neighbors caught it was nothing, you know. And I came up to him and he was the big bad dude at the workplace. I was like, How do I get into your team? And I can’t remember exactly what he said. But the gist was like, You’re too nice. Come back when you got some balls. He could see he didn’t want me in his team because he needed somebody who can you need a masculinity in this team? Whether it’s a guy or a girl, he need somebody who can stand up to a fucking murderer and say, shut up. Don’t talk to me like that. Right? Like, and he knew I couldn’t he just, he could smell it on me. Right? I’m working with mostly drug addicts, I don’t need to be masculine. I needed to be feminine with them, you know, they needed I shouldn’t even be in the system. That’s another topic. But I’m working with guys who are bad now. You know, we used to talk about criminals difference between men and bad. There’s two types of criminals. And to work with bed, you got to be tough. You got to have some fucking balls or strong ovaries, whatever the equivalent is for a woman like, actually, the thing was mostly woman not surprised. But you know, we we couldn’t just go in there and be a pushover. He could smell it on me. And I had many other instances in my life non romantic, with a people pleasing was actually a deal breaker. The few people weren’t tricked by my act. And there was only a few. There are perceptive confident people on guy at school, just one in a school of 1500, who clearly didn’t like me. And as time has gone on, I’ve seen like, that was the only real conflict guy in our school, like, the only guy who wasn’t a teenager or for them security. He was he was like the man that really, and he could just he knew something was wrong with me. And he didn’t, he wasn’t mean to me or anything. It’s just avoidance. Like, if I’m in the same room as me always seem to be 10 meters away, no matter where I stood, you know, it was just put off by me. So yeah, I think it’s, it’s ultimately very unattractive, and you will pay for it. Because you’re only going to attract very insecure, naive people. And that’s like a nightmare, whether it’s a workplace or your bedroom. And you’re going to put off conference, people who are looking for other confident people, which means you miss out so much. And that that particular thing about being too nice, and your promotion isn’t an unfamiliar thing that I’m here my typical clients as well. I’ve had a lot of people who wrote to me saying, I’m about to go for promotion, I’ve got all the skills get on well, with everybody boss loves me, but they think I’m too nice. And I have no idea what they mean. And they’re either my brain goes, Okay, I can work with this kind of thing. So it’s, it’s very, it’s one of the qualities that is massively needed in leadership. A lot of people think to be a good leader, you’ve just got to be liked by everybody. Well, you’re not going to like you’re not going to be liked by everybody, when you’re making decisions that affect different categories of people in different ways. And some people aren’t going to be as well off from that decision, not only financially necessarily just their circumstances might not be as preferable compared to somebody else’s. Or maybe a project gets cancelled, or maybe need to slash a part of a project or change a deadline or something along the lines, that somebody is going to lose out because of it. And if I read a phrase boss who said if you want to become a leader, if you want to be liked by everybody don’t become a leader become popcorn cellar, or something like that, where everybody likes you. And it’s one of the things that is a critical for being a good leader. And that the analogy I often give people and you and I have touched on this in the past Gemini as well. Is that if you think about the most inspiring leader you’ve ever thought of in your life, whether it’s somebody famous or someone you’ve worked with or whatever, people often go Yeah, but I need to learn my job more I need to go to I need to learn my industry. I need to understand this more. Thinking that’s make the difference of making being a good leader. So if you look at the most inspiring leader you’ve ever had, it isn’t because they’ve got a plethora of like industry knowledge. It’s because they’re intangible. It’s because they’re brave is because you trust what they say. And you know that they mean what they say. It’s because there’s no actually environment around them because they’re safe, because they know that they’re going to be predictable. And what they say is because you trust them to stick their neck out and speak the truth, whether it’s in defense of themselves, or in defense for you. And I’ll say the right thing, because it’s the right thing to say, that’s why you admire these people. And they’ll go, oh, my god, yeah, that is it. And they get so latched into performance and delivery and deadlines. And I should get promotion because you know, my work is great. But actually, leadership skills are very, very different, just being very good at your job. And that’s when it starts hitting home actually, when, when they’re focused on I’ve just got to get on with everybody. How many times have they not been assertive? How many times have they had to have a really bloody uncomfortable conversation with somebody that actually in the long term will benefit them. But they’ve been avoiding it because they’re scared of upsetting them, or the scared of the uncomfortable environment between them? How many times have they taken on a piece of work from their boss, and worked all night, you know, and told everybody about it the next day, they’re passing a message to their team, that this is the way you have to behave in order to get through in life. So that style of behavior is cascading down and you’ve now got a burnout team. Actually, what they need to see is inspiration to say, No, we’re already maxed out dude, like, I can’t take on anything more, we’re going to have to find an alternative way to do it. Or I don’t know why we don’t do it, whatever. But it’s those types of behaviors that make the difference between a leader or not, but not all of them. But a few of them actually said I’ve been rejected based on I’ve been too nice. So that that phrase, people get so confused by it, but this, everything you’ve just said and everything I’ve just said is exactly what that means. Basically, I’m too nice. It’s like it’s not assertive enough. You know, thing. Yeah, that’s, that’s just universal. It’s the workplace. It’s home life. It’s family, the same rules apply. So it’s kind of human nature rules there. There being too nice is off putting and creates defensiveness and people there’s something wrong with the sky. The thing is even a people pleaser knows that when another people pleaser as people pleasing them, you know, then someone’s like, being too helpful to a people pleaser. They know something’s wrong with the person. They know more than anybody. They’re like, I know why I’d be doing this as a some bullshit, right? And they don’t realize, hey, I’m actually repulsed by this behavior. Why don’t I click and this was a huge like, kick in the nuts for me, that made me feel like I’ve wasted most of my life. Because I’m like, Hey, I already know this behavior sucks. Because I know when other people do it. I don’t find them more attractive. When they do I don’t want to be around them when they do it. Like some stuff like I like being around a funny person, for example, but a way prefer being around a person who’s fucking like, one of the things that I was always kind of clued me up as to who I really want to be, is, you know, people I admire. And that’s a kind of key thing I do with my clients. If you want to find out what your core values are, start with, who do you admire? And try to figure out why you admire them. What is it internally about them that you’re looking up to? Because that’s who you’re not being in want to be? Well, there’s a throughout my life, I’ve always liked being around very confrontational people. As long as it’s not with me, as long as I’m the friend. Like, you know, I had one friend in high school it wasn’t a fight every week you would go to parties and just punch some random dude in the head and just because this guy was just he was like, I don’t know that he like attracted trouble is just getting arrested otter eyes loved I love the thrill of like writing like never been in trouble myself but being right next to him when he got in trouble for like, when I got older I liked the guy who was always causing shift in the workplace or the person’s role argumentative I had a lot of friends like that. Something I found attractive about it. And as because it was everything I wasn’t in desperately wished. You know, I used to just with longing a fuck I wish I could say something like that may sit right to his face. How the fuck did that, you know, I used to have those moments. And I didn’t realize I was getting feedback. Like I’m attracted to that. Everything I’ve been told tells me that’s bad behavior. Why do I like it then? As what I’ve been told, you know, we all told you know, be nice. Don’t say anything. If you haven’t got anything nice to say you know this what people pleasers are raised with a we’re often attracted to the opposite. We like a bit of friction as long as it’s non us. We love to watch something, you know, awkward and confrontational like the office as long as we don’t work there and we’ve got this attraction for it. And you know, I you talked about there happening in the workplace person not getting the promotion. I mean, the same thing happens in marriage. His, which is like, you know, my sex life has died. I’m like, okay, so where’s the sexual tension? Where’s the tension? And you’ll find there is none. I eliminate it all, and make sure it doesn’t happen. There’s no arguments in my house, or when they do happen. They’re like massive explosions of all the pent up rage, which isn’t the same as like a healthy, tense conflict. I was like, What do you think your partner wants? You think they want a bland flatline of emotion? You think that’s life? You don’t think they want to range? Well, how are you supposed to have highs if you don’t have Lowe’s? He’s supposed to have soft if you don’t have hard. He’s supposed to have calm if you don’t have chaotic. Like, do you understand this package comes at a price you have to have the whole range. And it’s amazing. Like when I first started experimenting with it, and relationships, romantic relationships and friendships to some extent. I was like, what happens when I pass them off? As long as it’s done with integrity? I’m like, You know what, they’re not gonna like this opinion. But fuck it, here it comes. Or I’m gonna tell them off for their behavior. And how often that would be followed by immediate boost of sex life. Just took me a while to click on like, is it actually not bad that we argue? isn’t actually okay. Well, I would say it’s slightly. I think we’re saying the same thing. But I’m gonna add on, like, slightly different way of saying it because I think some people I’ve said similar things to people, and they’ve they’ve taken it as start an argument or go and be a bit of a jerk or, you know, piss off your wife. So you can do makeup sex. No, no, no, no, I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is, when what I think you’re what you’re saying to find an answer correctly, when you’re willing to be real to yourself and express what you really want express what’s most unhelpful to you express what your preferences are, whatever, that inevitably will come with the caveat of disagreements, it’s inevitable, because otherwise, you’re basically saying, every single person on this planet I spend time with, they’re going to see the world in exactly the same way as me on every single topic that we talk about. And that is a complete impossibility. So it doesn’t mean it necessarily has to come with an argument, it might escalate into that from time to time, as long as you integrity, integrity, communicating, you can always defuse that, but why it often I would imagine, and in something with more intimacy is because in that moment, you’re demonstrating strength, you’re demonstrating bravery, you’re demonstrating that you’re independent, you’re demonstrating a masculine energy. And that passive stuff is the opposite of that. And that’s why it’s not attractive. And I’ve never been personally one for like makeup, sex or anything like that. But if I’m with a guy that is absolutely sure about his thoughts, even if I disagree with him, I’m so much more attracted to him, than I am the guy that says yes to me on everything. Because that’s I’d goes for it saying it’s so repelling these days to me that I could possibly vomit like it is that bad for me. Whereas somebody that it doesn’t mean that they’re a jerk about it. And it doesn’t mean if they say it in a cruel way that I’m going to accept it. But it does mean that underneath that if they said it in a kind way, but I see a completely opposite end of the spectrum of beliefs. It’s actually really attractive, some like, well, you’re not going to buckle, you show me that you’re strong. You show me that you’ve got your mind you show me that you’ve got your intelligence, you show me your own bravery, show me that you’re not going to just say how high if I say jump, and that’s what’s attractive about it? Absolutely, I think that’s the correct way to interpret what I’m saying. I’m not saying manufacture a false disagreement, I’m saying is prioritize honesty over harmony. Right. And it’s not like seeking disharmony. Because that’s a form of falsity itself. You know, there’s a type of people pleaser, a rare niche that I call contrarian, which is they deliberately disagree to get attention. And so they actually appear quite confrontational, and they have a lot of conflict in their life. But they actually like that they like being the bad guy. So it’s actually a kind of inverse form of people pleasing. It’s people displeasing, but it comes from the exact same place. It’s just, it’s just a strategy. I’m not gonna say the name, but I think you and I know somebody that you’ve spoken about. He absolutely do. And we both know who we’re talking about. Yes. And it’s fucking annoying. Yeah, but and it’s also just, it’s just so transparent. You can say two opposite things. And they’ll disagree with both like yeah, you know, they can be easily tested, but and that’s not going to go anywhere. But it’s the integrity this where I try and get across the guy’s integrity is attractive. And that goes far beyond the bedroom. It you know, there was a breakthrough in my career, where I stopped trying to please people to start to do the job right by my standards. And I was like, fuck this trying to be like, Now the irony was when I started doing that which includes Passing off a lot of my peers, they gave me the name golden boy, which wasn’t a compliment. And so I was kind of there, not all of them. But there was a group of my peers who would certainly gossip about me when having a smoke break or something, I got glimpses of information about this. And I was kind of reviled for being this high performer. But I wasn’t high performer to please anymore now as high performer because I had integrity, I’m coming into the workplace, I’m gonna fuckin crush this job, because it’s an important job to do. And I was getting in trouble upstairs as well, because I was breaking the rules because I was doing what was right, rather than what followed the rules and so on. So I was kind of like, on an island here, like fuckness, even even likely, who gives a shit, I’m just gonna do my job. But there are a few others who like me behaved with integrity, and we wouldn’t form a clique or anything, but there was mutual respect there. Long story short, I’ve told the story before I accidentally got sent an email. Because my name was on a meeting minutes. But it was way way high up meeting, I shouldn’t have seen this fucking agenda. But the Secretary just thought you know, since name you must have been there, as accurately get an email from my manager, like fuck, don’t read that you’re not supposed to get some like, I’m definitely reading this Oh, my God. Anyway, so I read through, and there was a bit with our talking about this really sticky, difficult potential media outrage kind of issue that needs to be dealt with a very difficult offender, very high profile, very famous and New Zealand serial killer. And, you know, he was about to come out, and they’re just like, What the fuck are we gonna do because no matter what we do me, there’s going to crucify us. And they just put, we’ll put our secret weapon down on the case. As I that’s how they view me. And what I realized is like, my integrity had done the work for me, I was not trying to get this kind of validation. I wasn’t trying to be seen, like, I was, actually multiple times I did things wrong, like, they gotta fire me now. Like, I just had to be done, I don’t care. What I didn’t realize is way above my station, I’m being watched. And they’re like, who’s someone we can rely on to have integrity. And they’re waiting for like, the moment where they got to play that card, you know, where they need someone who will take the hits from the media and won’t bend and who will deal with someone who’s a big deal, but won’t fucking be blown away by it, and so on. And I was like, fuck, that’s the best thing I could have done for my career. But you wouldn’t have known it. If you asked the people. I was like, noticing. I wasn’t getting immediate instant gratification. But my career until I left to start my own business skyrocketed. After I changed this behavior. I was always the youngest. Whenever I got promoted, I was the youngest ever be this thing. And then the next thing, am I just, my scope got bigger and bigger. I’d show up to like job interviews, my tattoo showing no tiny thing. There’s just like, Oh, my God, you’re hired, because I’ve done all the work. Like I didn’t have to people please in the interview, I just I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a good example for that, blah, blah, blah, I’m still getting the job. Because my reputation was not manufactured. It wasn’t something I tried to maintain. It was just the long term work of integrity, where eventually, all the lies gets settled, all the gossip gets crushed. Because you’re so consistent, that you never slip, you know, you see the the cancel culture thing happening these days. And it’s often this kind of like this glaring thing, and one or two things happens either the person sort of acts out of character, and gets crushed, because like there’s, you know, you get the Kevin Spacey type. Let’s see why such a nice guy as a native fucking predator. Right? You get this out of character thing, or and this is the one that breaks my heart is somebody’s actually in character, but then they apologize for it. So there’s I, there’s instead of saying, Yeah, I talk like they’re delay on I shouldn’t have tweeted that thing 10 years ago. And then, of course, because they say sorry, and they ashamed of it, they get crushed. And I always think like, if you just stay strong, you can’t get crushed. Look at Dave Chappelle, the guy should have been canceled 400 times by now he doesn’t. Why? Because he doesn’t shift. He’s always Dave Chappelle, whether you’re talking to him at a bar, whether he’s doing a stadium, whether there’s an interview on the news, he never is inconsistent. And that’s why he can say anything and never get cancel. And that’s why always every time he does something controversial, he just gets even bigger. You know, there’s a there’s a pattern playing out there. And I’m seeing the opposite, you know, an hour hour field actually, sort of an hour field, you get the self development guru types, the real like cheesy marketing. Look, I got six Porsches, and I just hustle and grind so you know, just follow me. And a lot of them are actually falling apart. Now. You know that? I mean, I’m sure they’re still got money in the bank, but that approach has started falling apart now. You know, the started sort of by Tony Robbins though I think it was him being a bit more genuine than the others, but you got the Tai Lopez and all these other guys Grant Cardone. And they came through. And they had this real sort of high pressure, bullshit, Guru like tactic that they were playing. But it doesn’t have longevity. It’s lasted about four or five years, given 10 at the most. And now nobody believes a fucking word they say, and they know that the Porsches and the ad were just rented and it’s all kind of fallen down for them. They’re struggling now. And whereas he got someone like, as someone I follow, like Sadhguru, there’s a few other people who have been doing the same thing consistently highs and lows, rain and sunshine sort of thing. And they never die, because you can’t take down a personal integrity, right. And that was the kind of deal that I took on faith, when I decided to quit the people pleasing, is like, I’m going to trust what I’m seeing. And just go the honest route. Like, even though that’s going to create a lot more waves in the short term, I’m gonna trust that that’s actually how you create smooth sailing and long term. And so far, that’s exactly how it’s played out for me. Like, I don’t have like no conflict in my life, I’ve learned to accept, there’s a certain degree of it. But it’s just so rare for me now, because who’s gonna argue with me now, I’m so sure of myself in a way. I’m surrounded by people who are right for me, and so on. And when I have disagreements, they’re fun and playful, and usually helpful. And I’ve like paved the way. But I had a very rocky start. And I think this is what a lot of people pleasers struggle with, that you and I work with, as I call it, the phase one, the transition phase, which is when you switch to being honest, yeah, it’s gonna get rough, like you’ve got a whole life built on dishonesty, is not going to respond well to a shift the people around you are not going to necessarily like the new UI, or should I say the real you, and you’re going to lose a lot. Some of you will need to change careers or change, where you work, some of you are going to get divorced from your partner and lose your best friend or so called best friend. And some of you may never speak to your family again, like there’s some rough shit that happens when he switched honesty. You can get through the valley. On the other side, you’re so solid, that you never have to worry about that happening again. That won’t be allowed to build up like that, again, you’ll never have to undo that damage. Yes. And what’s more, the concept of behaving like that, again, is more painful than the pain that comes with losing things by being honest. That was my experience. So even though on my own journey, and we’re all on a journey, like we’re not, I don’t think I’m the finished article. And I don’t think you’re trying to say that either. But on that journey, I’ve definitely gone through bumps I’ve I’ve lost friends, I’ve had shaming comments and people I’ve had arguments. Yeah, I’ve had to, I’ve changed my career. I’ve done things differently. I’ve got your heads, people that it comes with the caveat of, you’re going to trigger other people, because they start seeing a society that probably they want themselves and it rocks, their exposes their insecurity, when you start being a better, stronger version of yourself. But once once you get to that stage, the moment it’s like this is the norm now and I feel so much better feel so much more healed almost on the inside. And it’s so liberating to live in this way. The thought of going back to that shrinking violet, to be the person that says yes, and they want to say no to be the person that agrees or something that we don’t want to agree to the person that laughs at a job that isn’t bloody funny. Just to fit in, is so repelling an unbearable. Like, it’s almost like a seesaw. And as you go on this journey. Once it’s weighted down to the new one, there’s no going back, you can’t go back to that, that version of who you used to be. Because the pain is too great to actually experience that despite the fact that you probably have lost a couple of things on that journey. Absolutely, like it sits with me so hard now when I slip that that’s actually my biggest problem in life is a relapse, like worrying about happening and then never does happen. I’m so like, distraught that Oh, destroy everything to undo it, you know? And whereas before, I was exactly the opposite. Like if I accidentally did not please someone if someone didn’t like me, or lie awake for two weeks trying to figure out how to change their mind. Now, you know, I mean, someone could like me just for the wrong reasons. Like if I sign up a client, and I know that I was kind of using a bit of sales tactics on them or something. And I’ll just lie awake at night like I need to fucking in this with this. Like this is wrong. This is fucked. And I just can’t I can’t live with it. I can’t even accepting money. You know what I mean? Because, as I said, it’s one of the hardest things as the transition is because once you open the door to how dishonest you are, you can’t shut the door and lie to yourself anymore. And people who stop during the transition are in hell, it’s better to be a people pleaser. If you’re a people pleaser, knowing that you’re people pleasing, it’s all full of shit, but you still won’t like work on it. I mean, there’s no greater sort of torment just to watch yourself living without integrity. Just watch yourself being a fake person, and it doesn’t even work very well. And what horrible life that’s where you got to push through the other side, once you’ve had your awakening is like go all the way. have full faith because you can’t stop in the middle. You have to keep going. It’s like swimming from one island to another. You can stop drowning water. Yeah, I can swim like, yeah, it. I have to emphasize like, the things you’re worried about happening. Yes, some of them are going to happen. And even on occasions worse than you imagine, most of the time, it’s way, way less. And most of the time someone loses a friend, they actually are fucking relieved to get rid of that idiot. They don’t realize that they they’re scared of nothing at all. But sometimes it is, you know, I remember the first time someone said that though, like disappointed in me. I was like, hurt for like, three days from that. And like, that was my fucking Achilles heel. that very word disappointed. Oh my god disappointed someone that hasn’t happened since I was a kid. You know. I was just like, Fuck, I just have to sit with this pain, I just have to let them be disappointed. I have to realize like, their expectations are not my problem that I behaved as good as I can possibly behave, I actually always am behaving to the best of my ability everyone is. If that’s not good enough for them. That’s actually their inability to perceive reality. But Jesus Christ, My chest hurts, you know, and I just had to let my chest hurt and let them be mad at me until they got over it on their own. And resist the urge to go and change their mind about that to try and either convince them they were wrong. Or convince them like through making up for my behavior. I said to be like, now I’m the bad guy. That’s it. That’s That’s how this case ends. Doesn’t even with me being the good guy again. But the freedom like you say it’s just what we’re really talking about. Underneath all of this is freedom. people pleasing as a fucking prison. It sucks. And everybody is doing it knows that if they just stop for a second just fucking see couple once stop falling their mind with busyness and drugs and Netflix. And just go How do I feel about my life? It all hits you. There’s a shit. This is it forever. Fuck this. This is horrible. By acting, and you don’t even enjoy the part. And you don’t even win an Oscar and nothing is just shit. You know, and you don’t get any choices. And you’re just constantly having to keep things in all the time and just think it’s so exhausting. Yeah. I mean, I’m sleep deprived now, but I’m not exhausted in their way anymore. You know, that way where I just had a million secrets. And I had to keep profiles on everyone in my head and constantly like a vert crisis, anticipate and prevent confrontation and try to like, it’s like spinning plates. And every time I saw them, try and get their approval of me up again and keep it spinning and fucking Christ. How I ever did anything is beyond me. Whereas now you know, just to walk into a party and go, whatever these people think of me as finalists just let they can figure it out for themselves. So I don’t have to do anything. Just sit on the couch the whole night. Oh, that’s fine. I don’t have to put in you. Yeah, it’s quite nice. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I’m gonna write as you’re talking about and things down to want to come back to them. Because I another thing as well that I think when it comes to people pleasing is well, you know, this is a lack of assertiveness, which is pretty much the be all and end all of what got me into coaching in the first instance to be coached. Obviously, I’ve since become a coach since then. But that lack of assertiveness because the fear of what somebody might think of you or the damage that it might cause to the relationship or, or these are the stories, or these are the stories in your head around a man to get the promotion or it might just be seen as weak or it might be seen as incompetent and or whatever the story is, like telling you like the fear based story, basically. But a lot of people still misunderstand honesty. And although I help people and obviously you do too, with being more honest and being more assertive, telling somebody that they’re a jackass, to me isn’t being honest. So often people think they’re being honest. And actually, they’re just going massively into a place of judgment that’s probably going to trigger somebody else from not a place of integrity, and what the communicating isn’t a place of integrity. So one of the things I spend a lot of time where these people go, yeah, oh, I said that. I said that to them, blah, blah, blah. And they haven’t they’ve said it in an indirect sarcastic way. They’ve said it in a passive way. They’ve said it in a Hindi way. They’ve said it in Uh, in a way that isn’t actually clear, but what they’re actually saying. Or they’ve just waited until that pressure is built up so much that they do it in an aggressive way so that the quiet you know, not just confrontational but quite mean about it as well. So I think people often like one of the biggest things as well as people pleasing is the ability to walk. speaking honestly, actually is, and I got a lot of this from you in our training was actually honesty is a reflection of what’s going on inside you, and then making that correlate with what you’re saying and doing on the outside. But if you’re just going Yeah, but you don’t know because you’re a dickhead, that isn’t actually being honest, that’s just being aggressive and judgmental, and you’re not going to get the results in which you want. So understanding a to be more honest, but what honesty actually looks like, and not slipping into a place of judgment thinking that’s going to be more honest. And therefore, what tends to happen is that people don’t understand I think that’s what the punishment, people don’t understand what honesty really looks like, they seem to think or the they might misunderstand what we’re saying, and go into a room of a social environment go well, I’m not going to care what they think of me, but I’m just going to be honest, they walk in you go, I don’t like your shirt, or you look like a prick wearing those shoes, or you need to leave some way. And obviously, I’m being pretty extreme here. But people think that’s being honest, it’s not. And that’s going to cause more damage them actually not was probably going to cause as much damage as not saying anything, if you want to be honest, understand that honesty is actually a reflection of what’s going on inside of you, not what your judgment is of somebody else, that this is something that’s happening inside of me by now. Because that’s where the as long as you’re projecting onto somebody else, you’re avoiding what’s actually really happening inside of you. It’s almost become like a cover, or like a defense mechanism to look with him because you’re just on the attack and the projection of somebody else. What are your thoughts on that? That’s a really important distinction. I, you know, I boil it down on my book, The Naked Truth that dishonesty is ultimately sharing your inner experience. And a simple way to put it as you should be talking about yourself. That’s honesty. I mean, there’s times where you talk about other things, but I’m talking about being what I call powerfully honest, you should only be talking about yourself. I feel like think I believe I perceive this to be the narrative in my head says, and it’s actually a very vulnerable thing. You know, a lot of people think they’re being honest, when they’re being a dick. Like, say someone like you’re an asshole. And they think that’s being honest. And like they didn’t share a thing about yourself, when you say they’re not taking any risks at all. You’re just throwing an insult someone How about saying I’m upset, see how that feels. feel way more vulnerable? Like, I’m seeing sort of, I can’t handle your behavior. That’s honesty, you’re actually saying the same thing. Someone says you’re a dick, that’s what they really mean is I’m so upset by your behavior that I can’t handle it. Now, that’s a truthful thing to say, Yep. You know, I disagree. I disliked this. I don’t want to be a part of this. I don’t want you in my life anymore. You know, these are powerfully honest things to say you don’t need to say a thing about the other person, you’re just talking about yourself. But this is the kind of honesty people are terrified of dying. And this is the honesty that will be is the game changer and was a massive game changer for me. So you’ve seen it on social media all the time, when I’ll give you an example comes to mind, there’s a lady that I follow on, on one of the platforms that I utilize. And she is in like she works in legal stuff. So she’s a lawyer. And she’s covered in tattoos, like all her hands, all arms, whatever. And it’s only sleeves, whatever. But she often takes pictures wearing sleeveless tops, and whatever. Like if that’s what she wants, that’s what she wants. But then people will comment on their saying, you don’t look professional. This is the this won’t work in your industry, you’ll never get a client. Just being honest, that’s not frickin honest, that’s judgmental, because a business is bloody booming, and good on her as well. What that person is really saying is I don’t believe in my opinion, that you look professional, I wouldn’t hire you as my lawyer. And I don’t know if this will impact on your business or not. But they say it with this factual certainty, that that’s being honest. But when somebody projects it as this is fact that you don’t look professional, that’s not honest. So the honest thing is, I don’t think you look professional. And as a result, I wouldn’t hire you. But if that was the case, nobody would hire and a business would be floored. But she’s, she’s got like now 15 staff, and she’s absolutely killing it. And is because she’s so authentic, and so real about who she is. And she obviously knows a shit when it comes to her industry. She hasn’t got an issue finding clients, if anything, tattoos attract a bit more attention to help bring in a few more clients or anything, but She’s shameless about it. But it’s those comments that bugged me. When people so strongly misunderstand what honesty is and when people project their judgment in this place of this is factually correct. And it’s a big thing from when people move from being more open. And people We’ll find it easy when you understand this to move away from being so locked about I can’t be, I can’t say what I want to say I can’t express myself, I’m scared, I’m going to offend people, I’m scared of what people are going to think of me. But actually, when they get away to deliver, it actually becomes a little easier for them to stop people pleasing, because they can say something in a way that isn’t attacking the other person. And not only that, they’ve just got this release of what’s actually going on inside of them, because it’s actually much, much more honest. But without that knowledge, it becomes like so much harder to be honest, which therefore becomes more of a lock for people pleasers. And it’s also the reason in my experience that not necessarily people I’ve worked with this form. But people that have gone from being a people pleaser, listen to a show like this and gone Oh, just need to be honest, walks into a room of people and being honest, being hit hard with loads of rejection, which fundamentally is one of their biggest fears anyway, and then said, if this stuff doesn’t work, well, firstly, the fact that you say does it work, which suggests that you have the wrong motivation, because it was actually manipulate rather than doing it for the right reasons. And secondly, your approach was shit. So no wonder it’s gonna feel awkward. And then it kind of it just gets more entangled. And this is why having a coach I believe, helps streamline that of what is actually honest, what isn’t honest, what’s people pleasing? What isn’t? What’s your motivation to be this person, when you say doesn’t work, your motivation was obviously to get a particular reaction. So you were still people pleasing in that process when you’re doing it. And that lack of awareness keeps people locked, repeating these behaviors. 100% You know, one of the biggest lies people pleasers tell themselves as I’m an honest person. Now you’re, you’re like, really not, you’re like really, really far away from and you’re gonna be blown away when you see it, you’re gonna think I had a memory come back to me just last month. You know, there’s there’s moments in a people pleasers life where they do experience true honesty, true connection. And he’s often kind of like, moments, they can’t think of how it happened, they can’t repeat it, they don’t even try, they don’t dare. Usually moments supported by alcohol and drugs. They have these moments with a sugar real for a little bit, usually in a positive way. And I had such a memory where that kind of festival doesn’t matter. But I went to a tent with a girl that I’ve known for a long time. I did find her attractive and everything, but I don’t know, I think I was on ecstasy. And we just talked, and we talked so long that the sun came up and people were getting their breakfast ready and shit. And we just had to like stop, we were just stopped, we would have talked until we died of starvation if somebody hadn’t intervened. Can’t remember a word or what we spoke about other than the tone of just complete transparency. It was one of the only times maybe in my entire life, I had been totally real with someone without even a hint of manipulation. And it was reciprocated, we could you know, when you just know someone’s being real with you, there’s just you don’t need to prove it. You just know for certain there’s kind of key markers where you’d be like, they’d never say that if they’re trying to like impress me or something. And we’re just probably, as far as I remember, we’re just mostly talking about our insecurities and our fears and kind of not in a therapy way. But in like, like a connecting way like God, it’s hard to be a human isn’t it? Like Jesus knew to fuck I do that too. It’s mental. Why do we do this stuff, you know, as that kind of conversation and we just got so excited about it. Just like, Oh, I get to finally admit to this, and I’ll try admitting to that and then to and the nice, like, the, the one of the least lonely experiences of my life, you know, especially at that time, that was one of the only times I really like, I just didn’t want it to end. I was more interested in Congress, you know, she was like, the hottest girl I know. And I was like, I don’t want to say cuz I want to talk like, I’ve never talked like this before my life never felt so free, you know. And it was definitely drug assisted. But all drugs do is just, you know, reduce inhibitions that was in me, it was really me. It just me without fear for once you know. And that kind of honesty is what we’re talking about. And the people who say they’re honest, have very few and far between memories of that actually happening or when they open everything up like I talked about like when’s the last time you open up your forehead and let someone see how your mind actually works? Where you being inside your head is the same as what’s coming out of your mouth. When’s the last time you did that? And the answer if they’re being finally honest, is fucking never right not even with my wife or only with my best friend but nobody else or whatever. You know, that’s sometimes we will have a mark like there’s one person they are actually honest with. A brother maybe their partner sometimes with people pleasers. They partners like the one like safe space for them. I’m like, Well, if you’re not talking like that with everybody, then no, you’re not an honest person. And it’s actually a great I prefer actually when somebody has a reference point like that. Because I’m like, when you tell me your office at the workplace, you know, you’re honest at the workplace. Are you saying you talk at the workplace the same as you talk to your partner? No, fuck no, my well, then you’re not honest. In the workplace. It’s as simple as that. I’m not saying the topics will be the same. But you know what I’m saying? When your partner does something annoys you say, oh, that’s annoying. When your boss or something, you’re noisy, you just like sit there fuming. That’s different. That’s called dishonesty, and so on. And so like you said, like, I mean, the internet comment section is just a place to go on. Want to kill yourself, you know, it’s just that makes you lose faith in humanity. But you’re actually seeing a pretty accurate representation of people who, you know, through the safety of on the internet, they can be more confrontational than they usually are. And they think they’re being honest. Why do you haven’t shared a thing about yourself? So what’s the honesty? What do you mean by honesty, if you nothing about you, as revealed, other than that you’re a bit judgmental right now. But like you said, you know, the person who says, you know, your tattoos will crush your business or whatever. What they’re really saying is, I’ve been emotionally affected by seeing a picture of you and tattoos, I’m so uneasy about it, that I’m going to try and change you. Or you never see a comment that says they’re right. That’s what they’re saying. Or when we’re trying to shame you because of my discomfort, because my own shame is too, too uncomfortable to handle. So if I project my shame onto you, and blame you for my feelings, you’re the one that ends up being shamed. Yeah, if enough people validated me by liking this, that I can convince myself for a short period of time that on the one on the right, don’t you wish people commented like that, but they don’t, you know, but the thing is, you can translate it as that. And you can see, that’s a contrarian type of people pleasing. I’m going to be the bad guy to get attention and validation, and hide the fact that I actually am the bad guy inside. I’m gonna make it look like you know, all the people who do anything critical on the internet, basically, I was actually thinking about this the other day, like people are critics as a job. And you know, I don’t mean to rag on people personally here, but I’m like, the best thing you could think of doing his job is like, doing detached judgments of other people. But even criticism, it can be different to like, the food was terrible, versus I prefer things that look this way. Yeah. Two completely different statements. You know, one is honest, and the other is judgmental. But see, people pleasers have a false dichotomy. They think the only opposite to being nice as being a jerk. Yes. So being honest, means being an asshole. As I know, you’re still on the wrong spectrum all together. Yeah, all of those people are sick, is get off that spectrum. Well, I think also to add on to that that’s been many of their experiences. Because often people pleasers will suppress, suppress, suppress, with the inability, not inability, because he’s got the ability, but without the knowledge of how to express it when they really needed to, basically with that pressure cooker building, building building, and by the time they release it, it’s come from a place of heightened emotion, because that straw that broke the camel’s back, it’s actually nothing to do with, it’s a disproportional reaction to the one thing that was the trigger, there’s all this like, catalogue of events that they haven’t expressed themselves previously. And then in their own personal experiences, when they have expressed themselves it is aggressive. So that like, Well, if that’s what it means to be assertive, I’d want to be that person. So I’m just going to stay the suppress person, but then they can’t stop it, it’s too emotional. And over time, whether that’s a week, a month, six months, a year, whatever, at some point, that is going to come out. And then they carry that shame around it. And it’s like a built in ability at the time or lack of knowledge of knowing how to say, this is bugging me, but I want to say something now before it builds up, because if this happens on repeat, I’m gonna get really pissed off about it. But rather than speaking like that, the wait until it’s happened 10 times and like raw, and then like, oh shit is that what I’ve got to be to be assertive and it’s not, that’s not assertive. That’s a very unhelpful form of aggression. That’s definitely is a very big difference. And so few people understand that. Assertiveness doesn’t even have to involve conflict. Almost always people make the association. For me to be assertive, I have to be in conflict. Or when I say I help people becoming more assertive to think, Oh, you help people do conflict management. It includes conflict management. But if you’re assertive, it doesn’t even get to bloody conflict unless you’re dealing with a genuine balance and that’s a different topic. But if you’re genuinely assertive on a much more regular level, in an integral way, it rarely reaches conflict and that is the massive misconception that so many people don’t understand. Your saying at all. That’s the truth like it’s it’s money that people think holding it in as a good idea. If you’re to talk about someone else doing it, they’re gonna go, oh, that’s a terrible idea. But as soon as it comes to themselves, they kind of disassociate and they think it’s not worth the conflict and blah, blah, blah. But like you said, they’re trapped in a loop because they think being honest is this horrible thing that you do to people? You know, being assertive could be defined as strongly expressing your preference. It’s nothing unhealthy about that there doesn’t even have to be strongly does it just explaining your preference expressing it at least strong enough that you know you don’t allow yourself to be bowled over? You know, like, the waiter comes over to your table and says, How’s your food and your chicken Rolls Royce, I’m really sorry, I have a chicken, his rock and I have another one please. That can be done. So assertively, but so kindly. But this, you know, British route or mustn’t cause a scene like that still assertive, it doesn’t have to be strongly it doesn’t have to be aggressively. It’s just saying what you bloody want. That’s it, that’s still being assertive? Well, actually, maybe that’s one way we can kind of wrap. No, no, we’ll keep talking for hours if we don’t. But, and I’ll ask for your opinion on your chief tactic. But for me, if I was gonna give one piece of practical advice that is the most effective is to honestly express your preference at all times. There’s people pleasing, and being a jerk does not do that. So being jerks, I will try to dominate and so on and so forth. Yeah. But they won’t actually be honest about the vulnerable, you know, intimate, weak parts of themselves, their insecurities and so on. And nice guy might be honest about all that stuff, if that’s the kind of thing that will get approval and compassion and sympathy. But they’re not going to be honest about what they don’t like very much, they’re not going to be honest about preferring a different option to what’s popular, and so on. The view, not only is expressing your preferences, assertiveness, and it takes you out of that spectrum. You don’t have to like you say you’re quite right. You don’t have to do it strongly. You don’t have to beat people up with it. You can simply say in a meeting, I disagree, but I’ll go with the group if I have to. It’s just making sure that whatever you felt about it gets heard gets said even if it doesn’t get heard, and is accurate. It is honest. The long term effect of doing this isn’t just about other people, you’ll find out who the fuck you are. people pleasers lose themselves, the screen so long trying to fit in or fit a reputation that was built without them whatever, that they don’t even know who they are. Jim Carrey went through a big revelation around this a few years ago. He’s like, What is Jim Carrey? I don’t even know anymore. And he sort of started over again. But when you start saying like, I have to say what I want, you have to think about what you want. Ignore the autopilot agreeable thing go, what do I actually want right now. And you might surprise yourself sometimes, you know, surprise myself both ways like going, like, I don’t want to go to their movie actually. More actually, for me, I was like, I don’t want to go to nightclubs ever again. Wow. I’ve always known that actually. Why don’t I keep going? And there’s other times where I’d be like, okay, yeah, I’ll go to Australia for a weekend. What the fuck, why not? I don’t care if it’s a hassle. And there’s been times where I’ve been surprised by like, what I actually want. That’s what got me into dancing this approach. Some girl asked me like, you want to try the salsa class, I was like, Okay, actually do Just don’t tell anyone Christ, you know. And I was like, Shit, I think I actually liked dancing. I’ve always known that I just didn’t know that I knew that, and so on. So that’s my number one tip, if you want to break out of this, it’s a smallest just expressing your preferences as often and honestly as possible. And that’s, you can focus on just that and see massive gains. Yeah, I’d agree with that. I think for my one tip would be first of all, taking away I mean, again, this will take a bit of work to understand exactly what honestly truly looks like we’ve touched on it. But there’s there’s more depth than what we’ve actually gone into. But whenever you feel the resistance to say something, because it’s based on what other people might think, or what other people might say, or how other people might react is probably the most important thing for you to be saying. So this expressing your preference, I agree with you, if you get in a pattern of expressing your preferences, it can come as small as I prefer to have water as opposed to lemonade or something that really doesn’t make any difference. I prefer jelly beans over jaffa cakes, whatever. But the times that you can pretty much get the measurement if this is something that’s going to be damaging for you is the times when you get that resistance to say it because there’s a message there that that is the key indicator for me that if I don’t say something, I’m going to this is going to contribute to something not good. Whether that’s a buildup of something later whether that’s me feeling frustrated later in the evening, whether this is a pop experience later in three months time because it’s going to keep happening. And that is the main thing to look out for. Are the resistance at the times when your body is saying, I want to be speaking more honestly now, and you’ve convinced yourself probably through a story of a fear based story or total bullshit story in your head of not to say it. And they’re the key indicators of light that we would, I would suggest to pay more attention to because for me, they’re the more damaging moments than than anything. Yeah, I think we’re kind of saying the same thing. I mean, you could almost combine the two. Like, if you keep expressing your preferences, it’s only a matter of time before you hit the point where you’re scared to do so. And that’s when you really got to do it. Like that has to happen the most. And again, it doesn’t have to be your dick. It’s just preferences. I’d rather you didn’t do that. Yeah, and I like that plan for this team or whatever. Any of you just like you just become this almost like religious fanatic about expressing those things. Like you say you’re looking like it’s amazing. The breakthrough you can have if just just once at a time, you’d never do it. Right that do it once for once you know, disagree with the boss for once. Tell your partner that you didn’t enjoy the cooking for once. You know, just get it out once and just see like, can I actually handle what happens next? Because they’re so scared that they can that so catastrophic in their head, I’m gonna lose my job, my partner will divorce me, nobody will ever like me. That goes such extreme places. I used to imagine being homeless whenever I was in trouble at work, and I really homeless, like that’s the next step. Like there’s no other steps in between. Like, I might be like, I’ll never work again. I can’t live with my parents. Nothing like it’s so ridiculous. But there was this catastrophizing all the time such like huge panics I’d have. But I yeah, I just remember the first few times I got confrontational mode to say I look, I’d rather you guys didn’t do this, or, you know, I don’t agree. Or, you know, I remember I’m not going to drink anymore. That was a huge one, actually. And I like, you know, that’s good example. I went through rolling, fucking resistance with their like, I tell people, I will laugh at me. Then I go to the party. They’re trying to force me to drink I have to say no, again. They get drunker and they start giving me shit and saying You think you’re better than us. And you know, that starts happening. But what happened was, I got through all of it. It was messy and uncomfortable. And I actually found out I don’t like some people after there, which wasn’t a bad revelation, but certainly wasn’t pleasurable. But afterwards, I’m like, I’m still here. I’m still standing. What was I scared of again? Exactly. What did I think I was going to end up being after this. And I think sorry, to cut you off. But I think I have a really good point on what you’re saying is the measurement of success. I’m always banging on about measurements of success, being the fact that you did it. You’re the measurement on how other people reacted, because I’ve also heard that and say, Well, I did say, and I did come from a place to me, and he turned around and told me that I was too sensitive or the they told me that I’m overreacting, or they told me that I just need to pipe down and not say anything, again, in meetings or whatever. And actually, that if the measurement is how, if other people react, you’re still in the people pleasing mindset, you’re still in the mindset of I’m trying to do the right thing. But my measurement of success is on how you react. So now you’re back in control, again, actually, the measurement of success is I’ve just done something that I’ve never frickin done before in my life. And that is going to help me and that is basically a unconscious message to myself, I’m worth it. I’m worth fighting for and worth expressing myself for not, I’m not worth it, because somebody else told me I’m not worth it. So that’s connected to what you’re saying. But it just for me, it’s like how you then measure it if you do take their lunch and actually, you know, do it. Exactly, I guess the measurement is you prioritize your integrity over approval from others. If you did that, that’s a win. It doesn’t matter actually how they respond. You know, I’ll finish with a story that like broke my heart or the client I was working with many years ago. He was you know, really struggled with standing up for himself and we had this kind of big ticket item we’re building up towards which was he was gonna stand up to I think it was his business partner or his boss I can’t remember and say something he didn’t like that he’s been holding on to for fucking years. Right. And so we’re building up to the slow little confrontations along the way climbing the ladder. And we got to a finally did it. Of course, it was nowhere near as bad as he thought was going to be. The guy’s like, yeah, fair enough. I’m glad you said something. Let’s change it was a great response, actually. But he came back next week and he was morose as I do, you should be on a high What the fuck like you want he finally did it. He’s like Ebro so anxious. So what I was genuinely like, and is that no, that’s that’s the whole story. He was disappointed without it felt like it was a loss because he didn’t feel good doing it. Yeah, I hear that a lot. You know, I’m like, Dude, that’s, that’s not a loss. In fact, if you felt good doing it, it’s not a win. Like You only know you made progress if it was horrible. You know what I mean? Like, course, like, Do you really think discomfort means you lost the fight, and even lose the result? You won the result you did what you had actually set out to do, which is the point, three months, three years, you’ve been trying to find the courage to do this, and you finally do it. And you think being anxious is a failure. Like I still get anxious when I confront people. Yeah, that’s how I know. That’s how I know like, I’m at the edge, like, I’m actually being better than usual. If I’m feeling comfortable, I’m just in the zone like I’ve already done this before. And that’s it. Yeah. So that’s a huge thing, like being a people pleaser, is all about being familiar and comfortable, specially familiar. They got to understand like, you are going to have conversations that make you feel yuck inside. And you’re actually doing that, right. You’re gonna have people be upset with you for a sustained period of time, sometimes it never ends. And you actually did the right thing. And that’s the new world that you’re living in now, which is like, there’s a full range of emotions now. You know, and it’s hard, like, I’m half psychopathic, as well as being a people pleaser. And like, when I first started having emotional experiences, it wiped me out. You know, like, I’d have a disagreement with someone they’re like, you know, I never want to talk to you again, or something. And I’ve said it was guilt and shame and fucking anxiety about the thing beforehand, and then like, a kind of, like, withdrawal exhaustion thing afterwards. I just feel like Jesus Christ. How do people live like this? It’s like a marathon. But it was just a training I had to get through. And I can handle emotions much better now. But I had to open the range up and was terrifying. And I thought I was doing it wrong. Until I realized, like, how can me being true to myself be wrong? Like, I don’t have any secrets anymore. I’m surrounded by people who love me for what I am, rather than what I pretend to be. I’m doing a job that suits what I believe in. Like, where’s the loss here. And not only that your new friends are more solid than the old friends. Anyway, I’ve noticed since I’ve been more open and honest, is that anybody I’ve met in that period of time, and this continues to be the case as well, even now, that actually there are 10 times better caliber than the friends I was talking about with 20 years ago that I was constantly, like, frustrated with so I don’t have the frustration even on the basic level now. Because I’m now attracting people into my life that are much more on the same kind of operate like the way that they operate, the way that they communicate the way that they think about the world is so much more in alignment with who I am now, versus people that I used to connect with when I was the old version of me. So although I lost friends in the journey, I’ve gained new ones that are much more solid apart from with the exception of my best mate who I don’t think that seven I think it’s unshakeable but that he’s he’s an exception but everybody else they’ve come and gone and come and gone some have been on the fence we’ve got bit close with one solid but the new people absolutely belt in France absolutely love it. So I’m generally just way happier as a person than trying to be somebody that I wasn’t when like years ago whatever. Absolutely. And look I have to go soon, but one of the things I always keep in mind is I think the ultimate tragic lesson is Robin Williams. You know he committed suicide thing last year might have been the year before I’ve lost track of the time Jesus way before then done was I had a kid five years ago. I’m like Down Syndrome about time dilation now I’ve got no sense of anything but he so he committed suicide and talk about a guy who ticks all the boxes for pleasing people. Right? He was one of the most pleasant people who have ever existed in recorded history. He was so well loved. Super popular without controversy, right? Comedian both stand up and an actor he played some of the most loved roles of all time the genie from Aladdin, you know what I mean? Like not everyone found him funny but everyone thought he was a good dude. You know used to go and dress up and go to sick kids hospitals and make them more feel better. And you know, everybody’s everybody’s famous has got a story about how Robin Williams just made the day or the week just randomly for no reason and so on. This guy kills himself with a belt of all things so for me that details on porn is just such a rugged, like, homely way to kill yourself. Do you know what I mean? Like in the end? Even the way he went out was was was like normal, you know? And the thing that stands out to me I’m like he did people pleasing better than anyone and couldn’t like it’s rare to kill yourself at that age. Most of most suicides for men happen early 20s or midlife crisis and early 40s And then it really dies down their stats die down significantly after that most guys get through their life fucking awesome. To the end kind of thing, or they do, they’re like subtle suicide with alcohol. But so for a guy to kill himself at that stage, like he still, after all those years couldn’t find a formula that was enough to get him through to the end. Yeah, he was still that tragically depressed and miserable. That is the big red flag. That’s how bad people pleasing is, in fact, the better you are at it, the more it ends up hurting you. You know, and I think he was a genuinely good guy underneath neath at all. That’s one of the great tragedies with people pleasing, at least half of them are quite genuinely decent people tainted by the need for approval. And everything he did was unsatisfying, because there’s never enough approval for him. I’m guessing at this point, but he couldn’t even appreciate the amount of love that he got. Because of that taint, that toxic little bit of motivation. He had to like, be pleased, you need to be loved. Who knows a bit, you know, his comedy probably would have been darker and even funnier if he just not given a fuck what people thought of him, you know, who knows, he would have got more satisfaction and be more real in his career. If he hadn’t had that little toxic drip of I need people to love me. And the reason I use him as an example, is because like if he wasn’t happy, what chance do you have? You know, he takes 10 out of 10 and all the categories of pleasing people. He killed himself with a belt. Like it doesn’t work. If it was going to work for anyone, it would be him, right? Yeah, sure. Look at Will Smith’s life just disintegrating now because he finally had a nice guy puke at the Oscars and slept Chris Rock, like, I don’t believe that was I’m sorry, but I think that was staged. But whatever it was, it didn’t do him any favors, you know? And you know, good luck fucking getting a decent roll after this. And I actually personally believe because like, Will Smith as is me just did a better like I read his book. I’m like, Haha, that’s fucking me. I know exactly what’s going on even the bits he isn’t sure of even how he brags in the book and why you’re still doing it motherfucker. Like, you’re still me, you know? The outrage that he feels like he is statistically the most successful actor of all time. Still not happy. Still doesn’t have a healthy relationship. Right? You could say as Korea’s doing exceptionally well. But if he doesn’t enjoy it, then what the fuck is the point? Don’t they both live with other people, they have an open relationship with me. They went through a phase it’s not quite like there but who knows what you read. But read is books really interesting. Like, cuz it’s also written by Mark Manson. He’s very aware of people pleasing and stuff. So you see a lot of Manson’s influence and how things are portrayed in the book, he kind of he must have done a lot of calling out shirt and Will’s bragging and stuff. But the point being is like, it doesn’t work. If it worked. These guys would be super happy and healthy. And you’ll never hear any controversies from them, and they’d be crushing it. You know who you don’t hear controversies about. Fucking Keanu Reeves. You know? Like that dude. Like he he’ll make a crap movie just because it’s fun. He’ll give half his money to the people who work there but not tell anybody. The guy lives in a flat he takes the subway, like, the guy is not trying to be cool. Maybe you was once but he’s not anymore. He’s not people pleasing. Like, he’ll make a movie just for his fans knowing that the movie is gonna bomb. Like, that’s not people pleasing. That’s generosity. Right? He’s doing it differently. He’s not going to get crushed by his famous success because he doesn’t give two shits about he just gives a shit about doing what he loves and being around people who likes and it’s just so clear. And that’s why there’s always so many good news stories coming out about the guy his integrity is lasted the distance. Anyway. I love piano. Yeah. How can you not though and that’s the thing. He’s not actually people pleasing. Yeah, I love them anyway, you know? Anyway, look, we’re gonna wrap this up. But I could go on forever. I love that you and I have differing perspectives on like, We’re the people that come to us where they why they come, you know, you got the hyper Korea type people. And I’ve got the last and struggling and love type people with crossovers. But we see people pleasing let the pattern the result. It plays out just in different contexts, but it’s playing out the same has the same story to it does. Yeah. And I like you I could, I could literally talk about this all day. Like I could just get on and on and on about it because there’s so many examples I could give additional nuances like differences between One type of people pleasing to another examples in ex relationships were just, you know, one quick like 32nd example is a guy that was seen good few months ago got set up through mutual friends waiting for this amazing person to emerge from whatever never really ever felt it was going to give it time keep being told is incredible. The deal breaker for me was when he said, If I get angry, you’ll never know. And I was like, No, I want to know, I want to know if you’re angry because No, but there’s no point. You know, if I was angry, I would never I would deal with it, but you’d never know. And as like, trust me, I’d fucking know. And secondly, that is the biggest put off ever. And at that moment, I knew that it was just like it was over no matter what happened after then it was going to be over. So that comment alone, just people don’t realize how damaging it is when you especially when you’re dealing with somebody that is trained to be in people pleasing. What’s the worst thing you could say? So, but even if I wasn’t trained in that, or whatever other people would pick up on the topic common is repelling, it’s absolutely repelling. So, you know, people just keep falling into their own traps, making things worse themselves and not realizing they’re constantly shooting themselves in the foot and spotting it do something about it. Hiring someone like you hiring someone like me, whenever we’re watching a podcast like this have like two hours, whatever it takes, but doing something don’t just mill around and play the victim because nothing ever changes. And like you said, it doesn’t work. It will never work fact, prove us wrong. We’ll take you on any day to try and prove us wrong that people pleasing actually works. Can I yeah, I’m yet to see evidence. I’m waiting. Yeah, exactly. The guy just described the poor guy thought he was bragging. Oh, god, is that the worst thing you could have said, but anyway, Dan, let’s wrap this up. So how can people get in touch with you if they want to reach out in any way? Just email me, Dan ambrogio.org. That’s how I do everything now. Personal. Cool. Let’s be sweating. Awesome. And for myself. It’s my website, www dot Angie mcquillan.com. Or my email, which is info at Angie mcquillan.com. Nice and straightforward. So Dan, as always, thank you very much for your time. It’s always a pleasure. We always have the problem that we’ve talked long enough to chop it up a little bit to get it into my editing tool. But I’m calling it’s great to see you again. And thanks so much for your time. You too. I’ll catch you later.

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