This episode discusses the challenges of self-love and acceptance, emphasizing the importance of treating oneself kindly.

We’ll explore the common struggle everyone has with stress, pressure, and societal expectations, which often lead to self-loathing and coping mechanisms like overworking, substance abuse, and people-pleasing.

True self-love involves reducing stress, being kind to oneself, and recognizing your achievements, searching for a balanced approach, free from the extremes of high pressure or complete apathy, looking for self-compassion and realistic expectations.

Practical solutions include reframing thoughts, focusing on controllable aspects, and fostering genuine connections.

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How to Stop Being Hard on Yourself

This episode addresses the challenges of self-love and acceptance, highlighting the importance of being kind to oneself.

We’ll explore the common struggles everyone faces with stress, pressure, and societal expectations, which often lead to self-loathing and coping mechanisms like overworking, substance abuse, and people-pleasing.

True self-love involves reducing stress, treating oneself with kindness, and acknowledging your achievements, all while seeking a balanced approach—avoiding extremes of high pressure or complete apathy, and fostering self-compassion with realistic expectations.

Practical solutions include reframing thoughts, focusing on aspects within your control, and fostering genuine connections.

Cutting Through the Bullshit: How to Actually Love Yourself and Why It’s So Hard

Welcome back to Brojo online. Today, we’re taking a softer approach. We’re going to talk about being kind to yourself. We’re going to unpack what it means to love yourself. There’s a lot of talk out there about self-love, but in my opinion, it’s mostly bullshit. It’s either difficult to apply, doesn’t work, or comes from people who don’t really understand it themselves. So, I want to offer something people can actually use to feel better about being with themselves.

We’ll dive into why people struggle with self-love, why it seems to be a challenge for nearly everyone, and what causes it. We’ll also explore its connection to stress, pressure, feelings of not being good enough, and living in a world that makes it harder to love yourself.

Most importantly, towards the end of the podcast, we’ll talk about practical solutions—ways you can change your behavior, exercises and practices you can engage in to help you like yourself more.

You Are Not Alone: I Struggled for Years Too!

Here’s a bit of backstory: This is something I’ve struggled with my entire life. Of all my values, I think acceptance is the one I struggle with the most. Acceptance means allowing things to be as they are without trying to control them, letting go of control. And honestly, I’ve never been a fan of letting go of control. But the inability to let go of something you can’t control and shouldn’t control is a huge source of suffering. When that something is yourself, it leads to self-loathing, or at the very least, frustration with yourself. This is something I’ve struggled with ever since I can remember. Part of the reason it’s been so challenging is that there’s very little out there that actually helps with this in a way that is practically applicable and truly works.

You know, there are a lot of platitudes out there—lots of books, videos, and advice—but when it comes time to actually apply it, nothing really changes for long. It doesn’t address the complex issues of the human psyche. So, people tend to fall into patterns—this has been my experience as well—either completely giving up and thinking that’s self-care, having no standards, or fluctuating between that and pressuring themselves to achieve highly. It’s this cycle of high and low, high and low—procrastination followed by bursts of busyness, pressure followed by more procrastination, giving up, and then starting all over again, going up and down this fucking roller coaster. I’ve been on that roller coaster my whole life, and it’s what I see most people doing. Most people don’t seem to know how to cope. They turn to coping mechanisms. If you think of any of the things I’m about to list as signs of someone struggling with confidence—basically, their issues with being kind to themselves and loving themselves—then you’ll see just how many people are really struggling.

The Struggle with Overachieving: How I Learned to Accept My Limits and Stop Self-Punishing

So, being busy, right? Doing more than you really need to—that’s a coping mechanism. Alcohol, especially in social situations, or any other kind of drugs, gambling, porn, working really hard—these are all signs of someone not content with just being who they are. Not to mention things like people-pleasing, showing off, bouncing from hobby to hobby, or relationship to relationship, and sexual addiction. All of these behaviors point to someone who’s not content just being who they are. I mean, can you think of anyone who doesn’t do any of those things? Probably not, right? So if you’ve ever wondered if you’re the only one struggling with this, well, you’re not. Nah, the rare ones are the ones who aren’t.

But over the last few years, especially since my daughter was born, I was forced into a position where I couldn’t achieve at the level I had before. I had to accept that my capacity was reduced due to sleep deprivation and parenting responsibilities. I realized I have to figure this out. I realized I had to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t constantly impress myself with new growth every second. I had to be okay with not winning all the time, with being mediocre in my output—because otherwise, I was just going to keep suffering. You see, I’ve always been kind of gifted and cursed. I’m a high performer who gets a lot done. If I set my mind to something, I achieve it. And sure, that’s got plenty of upsides, but the downside is that I expect that level of performance from myself even when it’s not possible, and that’s where I really suffer. When I can’t solve a problem—not because I won’t, but because I can’t—it’s a tough pill to swallow. Becoming a father made me realize I had to reprioritize. I simply couldn’t do it all anymore. I’d finally reached my limits, and yet I still punished myself for not exceeding them. I came to understand that this self-punishment wasn’t helping anyone—it was only diminishing my quality of life and eating away at my self-confidence. So, I had to figure out a way to change that.

Turning Compassion Inward: Why Treating Yourself with Kindness Starts with Understanding

Now, I’m not saying I’ve perfected it, but I’ve definitely found something that works, and that’s what I want to share with you guys today. I’ll get into the practical steps later, but first, we need to unpack why this happens and what it is before the practical stuff will actually make sense. I’m not trying to tease you, but to make it truly practical, you have to understand what’s beneath it all. That said, let me give you a little something early: Being kind to yourself and loving yourself is essentially how you would treat someone else if you loved them, weren’t judgmental, and just wanted them to enjoy life with no hidden agenda. You would want what’s best for them and want them to have a good life. How would you talk to them? How would you encourage them or critique them? How would you support them? Being kind to yourself is just turning all that inward—treating yourself like you’re someone else who deserves all that care. Now, some of you can’t do that yet, because you have no frame of reference. Maybe you’ve never treated somebody else like that, never been truly helpful, generous, or kind without it coming with your own agenda—without trying to control them or being manipulative in the process.

The Double Standard of Self-Kindness: Why You Treat Others Better Than Yourself

Some of you might think that taking care of someone else means trying to make them into something you prefer, but that’s not love—it’s control and manipulation. However, most of you, or at least many of you, have probably had someone in your life that you are non-judgmental towards, and you simply want the best for them. Their happiness makes you happy. It might be a nephew, your own child, or a best friend—someone you just want to see have a good life without needing to control them. You’re there to support them in any way you can. When they’re down, you encourage them to see their strengths and be more optimistic. When they make mistakes, you help them ease up, not be too hard on themselves, and encourage them to learn from it and move on. You’ve got that kind attitude towards them. If you can treat someone else like that, then this isn’t a “how to” practical problem.

Really, you already know how to do it—you just have a double standard. You give everyone else this loving treatment, but not yourself. Everybody else gets this loving treatment, or some other people get this loving treatment from you, but you don’t get it from you. The tools are there, but it’s like you’re a mechanic with a broken car in your garage: you fix everyone else’s car, but your own is rusting away. This double standard is driven by ego. You think you deserve worse treatment. You’re special, aren’t you? For everyone else, you’re compassionate, understanding, and encouraging. You’re tolerant of their humanity. But for yourself? No, there’s no tolerance. You have to be perfect. You have to do more, be better, be more independent, and more successful than others, even though you’re kinder and more tolerant toward them.

Reducing Stress as an Act of Self-Kindness: Shifting from Struggle to Enjoyment

When you think you deserve harsher treatment than others, you’re essentially saying you’re special, and that’s an ego thing. Even if it’s negative, it’s still ego because you’re claiming to be significantly different from others. That’s ego, because you’re fucking not–you’re just another primate. Anything else you tell yourself is a bullshit story. One of the practical things we’re about to dive into is the reduction of stress. Stress, after all, is the definition of not enjoying life, right? It’s the term we use for the state of not enjoying life. Therefore, causing yourself stress is the opposite of being kind to yourself, and reducing stress must be a form of kindness. So, if you do anything to yourself that causes more stress—whether immediately or over time—that’s unkind, unloving treatment. We don’t stress out the people we love. If we do, we’re not being loving in that moment.

I think the easiest way to approach this practically is to consider whether what I’m doing is causing me more or less stress, both in the short term and long run. Is it improving my quality of life mentally and psychologically, which is where true quality of life exists, or is it diminishing it? Being kind to yourself means anything that reduces stress or replaces it with enjoyment, meaning, and satisfaction—not the instant gratification or immediate highs of pleasure, but more the longer-term fulfillment and enjoyment in life. Anything that shifts you from the stress end of the spectrum to the enjoyment and meaning end is an act of kindness. It’s what you would do for someone you truly cared about, without judgment, out of love—helping them move from stress to enjoyment in life.

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What is Stress?

We need to understand stress. So, what exactly is stress? Let’s start from the beginning. You can research this on your own if you’d like, but here’s a summary: Stress is essentially caused by high cortisol levels. Cortisol is a neurochemical that floods your central nervous system, preventing other chemicals, like serotonin and dopamine, from being released. When your body is flooded with cortisol, you can’t experience the positive feelings because you’re overwhelmed by negative ones.

Cortisol levels can stay elevated for extended periods of time. For example, if you’ve just moved house, it could take up to a year for your cortisol levels to return to normal, simply due to the stress of the move. Or, if you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, even if it’s been five years since their passing, your cortisol levels might still be elevated because you haven’t fully processed the grief. And if you continue to pile on other stresses in your life, it makes it even harder to bring those levels down.

What often happens is that someone experiences an external stressful event, like moving, losing a job, or losing a partner. Then, they behave in ways that cause more stress, preventing their cortisol levels from returning to normal. Over time, they remain far from their baseline, and with cortisol levels elevated for so long, it becomes their new normal. They’re swimming in it and don’t even realize it.

I spent a lot of my life like that—so stressed that I didn’t even realize I was stressed. It had been that way for so long, it had become chronic. I had bags under my eyes, man boobs, and I found myself yelling at my computer every time it was slow to load. That was just normal for me. It took me a long time to realize that wasn’t actually normal, even though it felt like it was.

Stress can manifest in many different ways. You might feel irritable, agitated, or constantly worried. You could be miserable, have a hatred of people, or feel like you’re constantly surrounded by bad luck. Maybe you feel overwhelmed, like life is unfair, and you’re being unfairly targeted. You could be paranoid, exhausted, or even confuse burnout with depression.

Sometimes, people think they’re just really busy, constantly thinking about the past or worrying about the future, never enjoying the present. You might feel restless or bored, struggle with sleep problems or digestive issues, or even experience more serious long-term effects like heart disease, stroke, or dementia due to chronic stress.

On Stress, Money and Happiness

I think Eckhart Tolle sums it up best: stress is “being here when you want to be there.” It’s a simple yet profound definition. Stress is the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be.

You’re not the person you want to be. You want to be someone else, in a different place, doing something else, or having something else. As soon as you desire something more or different than what is, you enter a state of stress—unless you can immediately fulfill that need. Most people can’t, and even when they do get what they want, they often find it no more satisfying than where they were. Once they get there, they want to be somewhere else, and that new place becomes the new ‘here.’

It’s like what they say about making money: if you can’t be happy with $30,000 a year, you won’t be happy with $300,000 or $3 million. Your mentality about not being happy here will follow you. It won’t disappear just because you reach the next destination. It’s like chasing a rainbow that moves as you do—you never quite catch up.

Stress is a state of mind, not a state of your bank account. Stress typically arises as a reaction to things outside your control. It’s often about trying to control something that’s not going the way you want, or something you simply can’t control, and you’re deluding yourself by trying. You might get stressed over a business deal, feeling like it’s mostly under control, but it’s still dependent on someone else or a mistake made by your secretary. These are things you can’t control, and they create stress.

Some of you get stressed about things that are clearly out of your control—things like the upcoming election results, global warming, or the war in Israel. These are issues that, no matter how hard you work, you could barely make a dent in, like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. One person once put it to me this way: stress is always about fixating on something outside of your control and wanting it to be different from what it is. This leads to the physiological reactions that come with that desire.

As I mentioned earlier, I think of stress as the opposite of happiness. People often think happiness is balanced out by sadness, but I used to agree with Tim Ferriss, who said that the opposite of happiness is boredom. But I now believe boredom is just another form of stress. It’s an unnecessary word—stress is already enough to describe it. It’s the agitation of not being satisfied with what is.

The Role of Acceptance in Achieving Happiness

So, what is happiness? Happiness is when you don’t want anything to change. When you’re happy, you want things exactly as they are—what is currently happening meets your standards, fulfills your needs, and feels meaningful. You wouldn’t change a thing. Stress, on the other hand, is the opposite. You don’t want things to stay the same; in fact, you’re eager for something to change.

There’s no such thing as being stressed about something you’re satisfied with. That strange concept we call happiness can be understood as the absence of stress. Our entire lives seem to be a constant fluctuation between stress and happiness—between wanting to be somewhere else and being okay with where we are, between acceptance and intolerance, battling back and forth between the two.

Now, coming back to the idea of self-love or being kind to yourself, you might call the end result happiness. It’s about reaching a place where you are at peace with what is, including who you are right now—no changes required. As soon as you feel a need for change in what’s happening right now, you enter into a state of stress. That’s where being kind to yourself comes in.

Is Stress Necessary?

There is probably an argument for a certain level of stress being necessary. After all, if we just sat around saying, ‘Everything’s fine all the time,’ when would we go to the toilet? When would we eat? A certain amount of motivation to adjust or grow is essential. But the real problem arises when stress comes from something we can’t control, when we’re asking more from ourselves than is currently possible—even if it seems achievable in our heads.

The Problem with Perfection: How Stress Undermines Our Progress

If stress didn’t exist, we wouldn’t feel the pressure to do more—we’d just do it, right? As soon as you start wanting more from yourself, say you take an exam and score 97%, and then think, ‘I should have gotten 98%,’ you’re entering a state of stress. But if you approach the exam with the mindset of, ‘I’m just going to do my best with the knowledge I have, and whatever happens, happens,’ that’s still growth without the stress. You’re pushing yourself to test your limits, but you’re not asking more of yourself than you can actually deliver.

Once you start asking more from yourself or from life, you enter a state of stress, and there’s no real benefit to that. All it does is undermine any happiness you might have in the moment and rob you of enjoying the process. And why would you want to stop enjoying the process? Isn’t enjoying the process the most important part of success? If you always enjoy the process, how much growth can you achieve? But if the process makes you miserable, how often will you give up, procrastinate, crash or relapse? People think stress is helpful, but I disagree entirely.

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The Stoic View of Stress: Fate and Acceptance

So, what causes stress? I think we’ve already touched on it, but let me sum it up with an analogy from Stoicism. Imagine an old-fashioned cart or chariot with wheels rolling slowly down a slope, and there’s a dog tied to it with a rope. The dog has a few options: it can struggle and strain against the rope, trying to go somewhere other than where the cart is going; it can give up and lie down, getting dragged behind the cart; or it can run alongside the cart, staying within the limits of the rope, and do what it can within that space.

These are basically his three options: try to run away from the cart unsuccessfully, give up and be dragged painfully, or run alongside the cart and make the most of the journey.

This is the Stoic metaphor for fate. They say that you have a limited range of motion within fate—there’s a lot you can’t control. When you try to avoid going with the cart, which is too heavy to move and doesn’t care about you, you just end up suffering. You either struggle or get dragged.

Stress, then, is when you’re struggling or getting dragged. Happiness, on the other hand, is when you’re running alongside the cart and making the most of the journey.

Another metaphor I’ve used to explain this is thrashing in a chair. Imagine you duct tape me to a chair, and I start thrashing against it. This doesn’t set me free, but it makes it painful to sit in the chair. However, if I sit still as if I chose to sit there, then it feels no different than if I had chosen to sit in the chair. Even though I’m tied up, I can act as though I’m not, and it becomes as comfortable as just sitting in a chair by choice.

Once I start thrashing against the ropes or the duct tape, I hurt myself, but I’m still stuck in the chair. The cause of stress is trying to get beyond what you’re capable of. I’m not talking about pushing yourself to grow. For example, if I go to the gym and do more push-ups than I usually do, those extra push-ups are within my capability, and I grow from them.

The Stress of Trying Too Hard: When You Push Beyond Your Limits

Stress happens when I ask myself to do even more push-ups than I’m capable of, and I can’t get off the ground. Now, I’m stressed because I’m asking myself for extra push ups that I don’t have in me. Whether it’s physical or mental, it doesn’t matter; If I can’t get off the ground this time, and I keep asking myself to do it one more time, I’m now stressed.

I’m now pulling against the cart. If I keep doing that, I might give up altogether, stop going to the gym. I may just give up and not want to go to the gym anymore, because I always feel like a failure when I go to the gym, because I’m always a few push ups short of what I’m capable of in my head. Then I just don’t go to the gym. I go sit home and I eat chips and watch TV and get fat again, and now I’m getting dragged behind the car. Now I’m gonna have the misery of not participating in life and just being pulled along by it.

When you’re being dragged by the cart or thrashing against it, that stress builds up, and eventually, you’re going to want relief from it. And when that happens, you’ll likely turn to coping behaviors. Everyone has their own. What are yours? Mine are sugar, binge eating, and scrolling. Some people turn to drugs and alcohol—those used to be mine. Others might use casual sex, gambling, or gaming. What’s your go-to? Maybe it’s busyness, work, or exercising to extremes.

We all have these ways of trying to feel better after the stress of thrashing against the chair or pulling against the rope. But the problem is, we start treating our body and mind poorly with these coping mechanisms. And what do you think this does to our stress? It elevates our cortisol levels. So now, we’re caught in a cycle where our “cure” for stress actually becomes the cause of more stress.

It’s like smoking a cigarette to calm down—you’re not reducing stress, you’re actually increasing it. You’ve just set yourself up for the craving of the next cigarette, which raises your baseline stress level. That temporary illusion of relief is fleeting, but now you want the cigarette even more. So your stress baseline has gone up, and if you’re feeling stressed later and don’t have cigarettes, you’re going to be even more stressed than someone who doesn’t smoke at all.

One of the key reasons behind this cycle is anxiety, and we’ll dive into that in more detail now.

Anxiety: The Fear of the Uncontrollable and Its Role in Stress

Anxiety is the fear of something that doesn’t exist or something you can’t control. You try to protect yourself from this imagined threat, but since you can’t actually protect yourself from it, you end up just running simulations of negative experiences in your mind. This leads to burnout because you’re stuck in a loop without making any real progress. Anxiety is a form of stress because it’s like trying to do too much and never feeling good enough. You always set the standard just beyond what you’ve achieved, so no matter what you do, it feels like you’re falling short. You keep moving the goalposts, creating an endless sense of failure.

I see this often in my own life, and with others, too. People set a goal, but by the time they reach it, they’ve already reset the goal so they never truly achieve it. This leads to stress, as they feel like they’re constantly failing and falling short. I often think of stress as a combination of external bad luck and poor reactions, which then create or magnify that bad luck. For example, a few things go wrong in a row, and bad luck tends to stack up. It doesn’t happen evenly—it’s more chaotic. You have a good streak, then suddenly everything goes wrong at once because life isn’t structured in neat, predictable cycles. So, when you take a hit, and you’re not at your best, you react urgently or from a stressful place. You don’t think things through, and that leads to more problems. Now, you’re dealing with a bigger stack, coping mechanisms kick in, and you’re more stressed.

Stress and Depression: How Your Reaction to Problems Creates More Stress

For some people, this is where depression comes from—they feel life has been relentlessly beating them down, but they don’t realize that their reaction to the real, objective problems is actually doubling or tripling the stress they’re experiencing. If they had dealt with things in a healthier way, they’d have had problems, yes, but at a manageable level. Many people dream of a life with no problems, so they procrastinate and avoid dealing with challenges properly, which only creates more problems. Sometimes, we need to accept that difficulty is a natural part of life and learn to deal with it.

Then there’s the pessimistic view, where people take every problem and spin it into a negative narrative, making it seem worse than it is. There’s a chicken and egg situation. Was it because you got stressed or you stressed because the view doesn’t really matter, but they actually take everything that’s happened and then give a negative narrative to it, to spin it as even worse than it is. For instance, Let’s say you live in a Western country, a civilized, developed country, and you know, people who like to talk about their life as if they’ve got really bad luck, as if things are really hard for them. I always just try to think of, like, right now there are more slaves in the world than there’s ever been in human history before, right? And I just imagine what those slaves would think if they heard you, you know, like, “Oh, I can’t believe Netflix canceled, even though I gave them the right credit card information.”

This is bullshit. Imagine a slave working in the cobalt mines of the Congo, earning just $1 a month, while three of his closest friends are whipped to death right in front of him. And here you are, complaining because your Netflix isn’t working. Yeah, poor thing, right? People have such a skewed perspective on reality, thinking their situation is objectively bad when, in comparison, most of us are doing incredibly well. As I often say, if you have the technology to listen to me and the time to spend on a podcast, you’re already doing better than most people on Earth. In fact, if you’re among the poorest people alive today, you’re still doing better than the Egyptian pharaohs. Humanity has made such leaps in the last couple of thousand years that for anyone today to claim they have a bad life, they’re essentially painting neutral events as catastrophes.

Take something as simple as stale cereal—you’re upset because it’s a bit stale? You’ve got food. That’s it. Or maybe there’s a leak in your roof—well, you have a roof. So, people often make their stress worse by painting life as worse than it actually is. And of course, this stems from comparing yourself to others. If you want to stress yourself out, just start comparing yourself to someone else. Or, compare yourself to your younger self, and suddenly, everything feels like it’s slipping away. I used to be able to do this, people say. Well, of course—you were younger and had more energy! Why would you expect to do the same things now? Yet we often compare ourselves to those we see as doing better, not those doing worse. We never consider the people who have it worse off than us. We also tend to cherry-pick moments from our past when we felt better or more accomplished and think, “I should be able to do that now,” even though we’ve changed. So we see ourselves as failures and create more stress.

How Unaligned Values and Unrealistic Standards Fuel Inner Conflict

Another factor could be living by rules or values that aren’t in alignment with your authentic values and principles. I see this constantly—it’s incredibly stressful to follow rules you don’t believe in or engage in behaviors that cause guilt. It creates cognitive dissonance to follow rules that you don’t believe in, or to do behaviors that you feel guilty about and people do this all the time, right? Many people live by religious commandments or societal laws they don’t agree with, creating a dissonance between who they really are and who they feel they should be. That cognitive dissonance is a huge stressor. It creates a dissonance, like an authenticity gap, the difference between who you know you should be and who you actually are.

There are certainly other causes of stress, such as genetic issues, childhood trauma, or brain injuries. But when we look at it overall, it’s clear that stress often comes from trying to control things we can’t or shouldn’t, holding ourselves to unrealistic standards, and then compounding these issues with unhealthy coping mechanisms.

So, returning to the concept of being kind to yourself and loving yourself: all of these behaviors you’re engaging in could be seen as bullying, torture, or poor treatment. If nothing else, this isn’t how you would treat someone you truly love. You wouldn’t hold them to standards they can’t reach, nor would you ask them to do something they’re not capable of. You wouldn’t discourage them if they failed, right? So if you’re doing this to yourself, you’re not being loving to yourself. And really, what’s the point of not being loving to yourself? Do you think it’s motivating? What’s your evidence for that? Just because it’s something you’ve always done doesn’t make it right. Just like you could have cancer and still be succeeding, it doesn’t mean that cancer is the reason for your success.

Thank you for your interest in the Nice Guy Brotherhood—a group coaching program designed for nice guys and people pleasers who want to build confidence and assertiveness to improve their relationships and careers. This program is also for any man who wants to become more masculine, bold, honest, and authentic.

In this program, we focus on addressing the people-pleasing and approval-seeking behaviors that hold men back from reaching their full potential in self-confidence and healthy relationships. We’ll work on overcoming challenges like avoiding conflict, trying to fix others’ emotions, molding yourself to others’ preferences, failing to stand up for yourself, not pursuing what you truly want, and not knowing who you really are.

The goal, with the support of myself and the community, is to help you build the backbone to stand up for yourself, stop caring about others’ opinions, and stop getting lost in your thoughts and feelings. Instead, you’ll learn to act decisively based on your own core values, not what others want you to do. We aim to replace conflict avoidance, procrastination, and people-pleasing with pursuing what you truly desire, based on who you really are.

To achieve this, we use several methods. Each week, we gather for a group session, which includes Hot Seat coaching, where someone gets on the mic with me for a coaching session in front of others. The group provides feedback and support, addressing specific issues that arise in relation to building confidence and overcoming Nice Guy Syndrome. We also have group discussions during these calls where we share resources, feedback, questions, and support each other’s growth.

In addition to these group calls, you’ll get full access to my online library of self-development courses, covering topics like building rapport, setting boundaries, and confronting your fears.

If you’re interested in joining, we offer your first month for just $1 so you can try it out and see if it’s the right fit for you. After the first month, the program is available for $250 USD per month, which includes full access to all materials, including the entire archive of call recordings. And if you bring a friend, both of you will receive a 50% discount.

We also offer a zero-risk guarantee: if at any time you’re unsatisfied with the program, you can cancel and receive a full refund for the last month—no questions asked.

So come check it out! For just $1, you’ll get full access for a month with no risk. I’m so confident in the value of this program that I’ll even refund your dollar if you’re not satisfied. That’s how certain I am that this program will change your life.

Why Anxiety and Nervousness Aren’t the Same

At this point, I want to segue into the idea of anxiety versus nervousness. It’s something I’ve been exploring as a mental experiment lately. I came across a concept from someone (I can’t remember who) that there are really only four core emotions: mad, sad, glad, and afraid, and everything else is just a variation of those. I tend to agree with this, and I think anxiety and nervousness are simply elements of fear, each falling somewhere on the fear spectrum. There are words we use to describe different facets of fear, but I’ve realized there are key differences between anxiety and nervousness. One leads to stress, and the other doesn’t.

Nervousness doesn’t cause stress, but anxiety does.

Anxiety and nervousness are different in two main ways: time and control. Anxiety is almost always about something that hasn’t happened yet, and often something you can’t do anything about anyway—something outside your control. If I’m anxious about something, I can’t point to it in the present. It’s not happening now. It’s just in my head, a fearful imagining. It might seem like a logical prediction, but it’s not real; it’s only in my mind.

Nervousness, however, is focused on something real and immediate. If I’m nervous about going on stage, the stage is there, the audience is there, my name is on the call sheet, and I’m next in line. I’m not imagining it—it’s happening now. Nervousness is about the moment. It’s the anticipation of something that’s about to happen. Anxiety, on the other hand, would be if I were lying awake the night before, worrying about stage fright or how people might judge me. In that moment, the stage and audience don’t exist—they’re just in my mind. That’s anxiety.

Anxiety vs. Nervousness: Why One Will Hold You Back and the Other Will Push You Forward

Nervousness also tends to focus on what you can control. For example, if I’m nervous about giving a speech, I might worry about whether I’ll say the right things, whether I’ll get my point across, or whether I’ll sound credible. That’s nervousness. Anxiety, however, is more like: Will they like me? Will they judge me? These are things I can’t control. No matter how well you perform, even your best performance will still piss off somebody in that crowd, right? Anxiety leads to stress because it fixates on things you can’t control—whether it’s something that hasn’t happened yet or something too large to change.

Nervousness, on the other hand, is about focusing on the task at hand, something real and manageable. Nervousness doesn’t stress you out—it tends to exhilarate you. Think about bungee jumping, performing on stage, or asking someone out. If you focus on what you can control, nervousness can be a thrilling, alive feeling. Anxiety, however, offers nothing to enjoy. You’re just panicking about something that isn’t happening and doesn’t exist and probably will never happen. Even if it does happen, it’s not going to happen the way you think it’s going to, or anywhere near as bad as you think it’s going to. Finally, even if that does happen, you still can’t do fuck all about it. This is what leads to stress.

Why You’re Choosing Self-Sabotage When You Choose Anxiety

People who tend to catastrophize and become anxious often live in a high-stress state. So, if we look at it, allowing yourself to be consumed by anxiety—when you could choose to be nervous instead—feels like a form of self-punishment. You have the power to shift to nervousness by finding something real you can control, something that’s happening right now. This is an act of self-love, whereas choosing anxiety is an act of self-sabotage.

Think of it like this: anxiety is like being dragged down a wild, raging river. There’s nothing you can do except cough and splutter and half drown and just worry about being in the river. There’s nothing you can do except one thing: slowly paddle over to the side of the river and get out. This doesn’t mean you’ll reach a place where there’s no fear, but it’s about finding something you can control and focus on. Go find something you can do. For example, people worry about big, overwhelming issues like the climate crisis, but they haven’t answered their emails. Right there, you can go answer the fucking email, but you’d rather imagine dealing with an impossible problem, which is like whipping yourself on the back. That’s not an act of self love, whereas actually answering the email would be. Even though it makes you nervous, if you’re okay with being nervous, if you understand nervousness is a massive upgrade on anxiety, and that nervousness is perfectly fine, that nervousness is often the bridge between here and being satisfied with your behavior.

Then choose nervousness over anxiety by finding something smaller that you can control, that you’ve been putting off another element of the stress which also leads to being unloving to yourself is not seeing the truth of the way we’re all living. Now this might not apply to every single corner of the earth. Maybe there are some tribes living in the Brazilian forests who have got it right, but most of the rest of us live in a society, in an environment that is a serious mismatch for our brains.

Why Our Society Makes Us Burn Out (And What You Could Do About It)

It is actually weird to not be depressed and burned out in this way that we live. I mean, consider environments like a nine-to-five job or school—both are terrible setups for our minds. If you put a primate in a similar situation, it would go insane. We’re not built for it either, but we’ve adapted. Concrete underfoot, artificial air, and constant demands from others—our brains aren’t designed for that. So, you need to step back and understand that you’re in an environment that’s objectively harmful to you, and do what you can to mitigate it.

There’s a reason that life feels meaningless or exhausting, or that you’re unproductive or that you’re fixated on money instead of just directly enjoying life. We have been trained and conditioned to join this machine that does not suit the human psyche at all. Go ahead, find me a scientific study that says this way of living is good for us. Okay? You know, in school, you’re trained to obey rules and authority even if you disagree with them, even if you have misgivings, even if you don’t like what’s being done. Why? Why should we have to do that? So, we become adults that do it. Most of us are living most of our time looking at a computer screen. Our brains aren’t built for that. Our optic system isn’t built for that much stimulation, that much light, right, that much information to just barrage our brain. We’re not built for that. No contact with nature.

When’s the last time you held wood from a tree in your hands when I was telling your feet dug into the dirt, that’s what we’re built for. I’m not being a fucking hippy here. I’m saying wearing shoes and walking on concrete and touching nothing but plastic. We’re not built for that, right? No wonder we’re fucking stressed. And worst of all, I think, is our disconnection socially. And this is a rather recent development social media, the big COVID Wipeout.

You know, love is probably the easiest thing to reduce stress—love between people, hugging friends—releases oxytocin and reduces stress. There’s all sorts of studies and evidence that being connected with others cures loneliness, another major source of stress, and yet most of our connection now is with data on a screen pretending to be a person.

It won’t be long before we won’t even know if it’s a real person or how often are you hugging people? How often are you talking to them face to face? How often are you just spending time chilling with someone’s shit, even if you are going to watch a screen? Have you got your arm around someone while you’re doing it, as I mentioned before, following other people’s rules instead of developing your own philosophy and your own values? Do you think you’re going to find a meaningful, enjoyable life doing what some other guru thinks is the right way?

Most of the people came up with these rules of fucking psychos, and you’re just doing what they said. You know, I always find a way that we’re born into laws. You know, I actually agree with most laws most of the time. I’m like, Yeah, fair enough. You know, people get hurt if you don’t do that. But no point was I asked, you know, I was born into it. Like you can prosecute a nine year old for shoplifting. It’s like he’s not even old enough to discuss what law means, and he’s already in trouble for them.

It’s like you’re born into a world where somebody else made up the rules and you gotta follow them right from day dot you don’t even get a chance. Like, okay, take a week. Read it all. Let us know if you agree with it or not. And that’s just like the secular laws of the country. What about the cultural laws of your family, or the religious laws that your society follows, or whatever like you’re just barraged with other people’s ideas about right and wrong? When’s the last time you figured it out for yourself and lived by it?

In the end, these pressures lead us to escape through distractions—porn, drugs, gambling, video games—just to try and decompress from this over stimulation and this boredom and so on. So, we actually fail to process normal human emotion, which again stresses us out. It’s again, something we wouldn’t do to someone we love. We wouldn’t say, don’t process your emotions, right? We’d give them time and space to figure things out. If you wouldn’t tell someone you love to ignore their feelings, why would you do that to yourself?

If you were truly compassionate toward others, would you treat yourself the same way? Because you don’t extend that same care to yourself when you turn to distractions like video games or porn. Instead, it’s about sitting still, journaling, or going for a walk—things that allow you to fucking process what’s really going on. Do you give yourself the space to process this crazy life we’re living? Even if you can’t escape it, can you at least work through it, find some clarity, and give yourself room to breathe?

Are you the nice guy, the people-pleaser, who wishes you could be more assertive, more honest, and earn the respect you deserve? Since 2013, I’ve been helping people just like you discover their integrity and apply it with courage.

Together, we work to build deeper, more meaningful connections, gain the respect of others, and become the confident person you’ve always wanted to be.

Imagine being able to speak your mind without worrying about how others will react or whether you’re saying the “right” thing. Picture yourself standing up for yourself and your loved ones without hesitation, feeling confident in your choices.

Now, imagine never having to apologize for who you are or what you want. Imagine living free from shame and the nagging “I’m not good enough” voice in your head. Picture going to bed every night knowing you took every opportunity that came your way—without regret—because you always knew what you should be doing, and you did it.

I’m so confident in my ability to help you unlock your highest level of self-worth that I offer a free coaching session to prove it. In this one-hour session, we’ll identify the biggest barrier standing in the way of your confidence. Whether it’s an awareness problem (you don’t know what you should be doing differently) or a courage problem (you know what to do, but you find it too intimidating), I’ll guide you through a breakthrough that helps you push past that barrier. You’ll do it in a powerful way—without feeling terrified or risking everything you care about.

I’ve had people leave their first session with such a powerful shift that they never feel the need to come back again. It launches them into the highest level of confidence they’ve ever experienced. And if that happens for you, I’m completely fine with that. My goal is to help you unlock your potential so you can live the life you’ve always wanted.

One client put it this session was more valuable to me than three years of therapy combined.

So, if you’re tired of trying to keep everybody happy and you’re sick of worrying what other people think of you, and you’re concerned that your people pleasing and conflict avoidance is going to damage your relationships, then come and have a talk with me.

Worst case scenario, you get to experience what it’s like to talk with someone who actually understands what it’s like to be you. I’ve lived the nice guy experience for decades. I know it inside and out. I know that pain case scenario, and very likely you will have such a powerful insight into a behavioral change that you can make in the next 24 hours to significantly improve your confidence, relationships and career.

What I ask is that you be honest, open to change and willing to try something new. Why wait another 10 years to discover confidence when you can do it today? Fill out the brief form below to apply for a trial coaching session. Do this quickly, because there are limited spots each month, and then I’ll get back to you to book a time to talk.

The Truth About Pressure: It’s Actually Sabotaging Your Success

Let’s talk about pressure. Pressure is that feeling of “I have to do more, I’m never good enough.” The interesting thing is that pressure is often credited with people’s success. Many people who put a lot of pressure on themselves argue that it motivates them, that it inspires them, and that without it, they’d just sit on the couch all day. But here’s the thing—they’ve never actually tested that theory. It’s like having someone walking beside you, giving you shit  you your whole life. So, whenever you succeed, you believe it’s because of that person, because they’ve always been there.

But here’s the problem: correlation doesn’t equal causation. Like I said before: just because you got cancer doesn’t mean you should credit it for anything you’ve achieved while you were sick. That should be obvious, right? A tumor is in your way. You’d probably accomplish even more without it. You know that feeling when you’re sick—you don’t thank the sickness for your success.

So, what if pressure is sickness? What if you could do even better without it? Have you ever considered that you might perform even better without it? This is why high performers often struggle with the idea that pressure isn’t helpful. They’re usually outperforming everyone around them, so they believe pressure is the reason. But even if you’re excelling, that still might not be the top of your potential.

You’re always asking more from yourself, always feeling like you’ve failed, like it wasn’t good enough. You get a compliment, or you win something, and you still say, “Yeah, but…” Giving credit to pressure for your success is like assuming you perform better with a brain tumor.

Have you ever watched kids and how self-motivated they are without pressure? You’ve gotta observe them young, because most parents start applying pressure pretty early. But if you catch them young enough, you’ll see that kids stay busy all day with fun things to do—never bored, never stressed out, never lying around doing nothing—and yet there’s no pressure.

So why do you need pressure if kids don’t? Do you think you’ve lost that natural motivation—the joy and exuberance of being a kid—and now you have to pressure yourself to get things done? Or do you think pressure came first, and that’s what wore down the motivation? I’d suggest the pressure came first.

Think back to school. Do you remember when the pressure first started? Maybe it started early for you, maybe your parents pushed you, dragged you into all these after-school activities. Forced to do piano lessons, constantly being told to clean up, being told what to do. Do you feel like you were forced to do things? Is that why you lost that natural motivation? Now, it seems like the only way you can get things done is by forcing yourself. What is pressure? It’s resistance, right? To push on something is to resist.

Breaking Free from the Pressure: Find Your Natural Flow

Why would we think pressure helps us move forward? When you put pressure on an electric system, the amps go down, right? Pressure on any system usually causes performance to drop, not increase. If water is flowing and I build a dam, less water flows. The water becomes still, leaking out through a tiny hole in a high-pressure stream that only causes damage. I should just leave the river the fuck alone. It will flow just nicely, won’t it? It’ll keep flowing to the end of fucking time.

I’m not going to cite sources here, but you can check with ChatGPT or Google for the studies. Generally, they show that people who are relaxed and having fun are better problem solvers, more productive, and higher performing. I’ve tested this on myself—when I don’t try to force things, I get way more done. It doesn’t make sense in my brain until I actually do it, and then I realize I’ve been fooled. I’ve been conditioned to believe that pressure is helpful, but it’s so obviously not.

There’s no way you’d choose a brain tumor over not having one, right? So why would you choose pressure over free-flowing energy if you want high performance? It just doesn’t make sense.

Pressure is a liar. All it does is stress us out. It undermines our successes and magnifies our failures. It pushes us to do more than what’s necessary, forcing us to control things we can’t—and shouldn’t—control. And none of this is being kind to yourself.

Dr. Robert Glover says that the opposite of crazy is still crazy, and this is an important idea to keep in mind when you’re diving into self-development. The extreme opposite of where you’re currently at is probably just as harmful as the position you’re trying to escape. People often think the opposite of stress and pressure is giving up completely.

Whenever I’m debating with a high performer about taking it easy on themselves, they tend to swing to the extreme: “Why should I just give up completely? If I don’t put pressure on myself, I’ll just end up sitting around, smoking weed, doing nothing, and wasting my life.” No, that’s just as crazy. Of course, crashing on the couch and binge-watching Netflix all day isn’t good for you—it’s not a healthy response to pressure and stress. But here’s the thing: that’s a false dichotomy. You don’t have to choose between high pressure and low performance.

It’s not being kind to yourself to burn out and engage in unhealthy coping mechanisms. If anything, that’s just a cop-out. There’s always a healthier option. Always. Or at least a better option than the extremes of high pressure or complete avoidance. So, if you’re not taking that, then you’re stuck in the false, false dichotomy.

For example, if you’re struggling with sticking to your diet and think, “Well, if I can’t do it perfectly, I might as well have ice cream and pizza,” maybe there’s a third option. Could you choose something more balanced? Similarly, if you’re overworking and feel burnt out, you don’t have to quit your job completely—could you just reduce your hours in a sustainable way?

The key is finding a sustainable middle ground. High pressure is a fight response. Zero effort, on the other hand, is a flight response—running away. Both are fear-based reactions, driven by panic and stress. So, what if there’s a healthier, sustainable middle ground?

Performance Without Pressure: How to Achieve Without Stress

What about getting off the fucking roller coaster and cruising, no highs, no lows, just sustainable, constant growth. What if that’s an available option? Why are you not looking for that option? Why are you stuck in that false dichotomy of just high and low? It’s not even a middle ground—it’s not staying on that spectrum at all. It’s about getting off that roller coaster of pressure and giving up, and getting into a car, driving down the freeway. You’re not even on the ride anymore; you’re thinking completely differently.

You got to think about getting off the pressure to give up stress spectrum and start thinking about kindness, which is different, really fucking different.

You need to stop thinking about the pressure-to-giving-up spectrum and start thinking about kindness, which is different, really fucking different. It’s a complete paradigm shift for people like us—it’s like an alien concept. We can’t understand it within our current mental framework because it doesn’t fit in. When I talk to high performers, they immediately think I’m talking about giving up completely, because that’s the closest they can come to interpreting what kindness or self-love might mean.

They think, “I’ve got to pressure myself to do healthy things.” “I have to make myself get lots of sleep, make myself exercise, make myself talk to that girl.” But no—you’re still processing everything through the old model. You’re not interpreting it correctly.

For some of you, you’ve never experienced self-kindness, or it’s been so long that you’ve forgotten what it feels like. Maybe the last time you experienced it was when you were a toddler, and since then, you’ve just been hard on yourself. You don’t have a frame of reference, and I get that. That’s exactly how I felt. I felt like I was learning a new language—one that didn’t even follow the same basic grammatical structure as the old one. I had nothing to reference. It was like starting with a blank slate.

But that’s the point: you can’t reference the old way. This isn’t about pressure. It’s not about giving up. It’s about a third option you’ve probably never tried before. It won’t make sense to you at first, but trust me, it will.

In kindness, there is still performance—but without pressure. There is rest and recovery—but without crashing or inactivity. You can shift from moving to slowing down, like running with the cart at its pace. You never stop moving with the cart, but you never ask more of yourself than what you can do at the moment, tied to the cart.

So you gotta let go the idea of just tuning the dials you’ve already been using and just take on a completely different approach.You’ve got to let go of the idea of just tuning the dials you’ve already been using. You need to approach things differently.  Like I said, it’s the same approach if you have that double standard that you would apply to someone who’s not you, who you care about, right? The trick is turning off the double standard you’ve been applying to yourself.

Thank you for showing interest in the Nice Guy Brotherhood, a group coaching community program for nice guys and people pleasers who want to become more confident and assertive, and improve their relationships and careers. This program is also for any man who wants to become more masculine, bold, honest, and authentic.

In this program, we focus on overcoming the people-pleasing and approval-seeking tendencies that hold men back from achieving true self-confidence and healthy relationships. These include things like avoiding conflict, trying to fix others’ emotions, molding yourself to others’ preferences, failing to stand up for yourself, not going after what you really want, and not knowing who you truly are.

With the support of myself and the other members of the community, our goal is to help you build the strength to stand up for yourself, stop caring about what others think, stop getting lost in your thoughts and feelings, and learn how to act decisively based on your core values—rather than trying to please everyone else. We aim to replace habits like conflict avoidance, procrastination, and people-pleasing with pursuing what you really want, grounded in who you truly are.

To do this, we use several methods. Firstly, we meet each week for a group session. A key part of these sessions is Hot Seat Coaching, where someone gets on the mic with me, and we have a coaching session in front of the group. Everyone gives feedback and support, and we address specific issues related to building confidence and overcoming nice guy syndrome. We also have group discussions during these calls, sharing links, resources, feedback, questions, and anything else that can support each other’s growth.

Along with these group calls, you’ll also have access to my full online library of self-development courses, covering topics like building rapport, setting boundaries, and learning to confront your fears.

If you’re interested in joining, we have an offer where you can try your first month for just $1 to see if it’s right for you. After your first month, if you choose to continue, the monthly membership is $250 US, which gives you full access to everything, including the entire archive of previous calls.

If you join with a friend, both of you will receive a 50% discount.

We also offer a Zero-Risk Guarantee: if you’re not satisfied with the program at any time, you can cancel, and we’ll refund your last month—no questions asked.

So, come check it out! For just $1, you get access to everything for an entire month, risk-free. I’m so confident this program will change your life that I’ll even return that dollar if you’re not satisfied.

Turning Kindness Inward: Practical Steps to Treat Yourself Like You’d Treat a Friend

So, enough foreplay. Let’s talk about the practical side. What does it really mean to be kind to yourself in terms of your behavior, thought patterns, and actions? You can figure this out for yourself. As I said before, start with the external. What would it look like to be kind to others?

You might want to pause here, grab a piece of paper, and brainstorm. If you were being kind and loving toward someone else, what would you do? What would you say? How would you respond to their struggles? How would you treat them when they’re feeling down or when they’re celebrating a win? What would encouragement look like? What would love look like?

When’s the last time you showed love to someone? What did you do, and why? That’s your code right there, even if you’ve only done it for someone else. But if you haven’t, that’s okay. You can start asking yourself some questions to rethink what it means to love and care for someone.

Now, let’s take a common scenario. Imagine a friend of yours is struggling to achieve a goal that’s clearly beyond their current abilities, and they’re being hard on themselves because of it. Picture this: your friend comes home from the gym and says, “Man, my workout sucked. I went in there thinking I had to do 10 pull-ups because I did 10 last week, but it just wasn’t happening.”

Imagine your friend says, “I tried my best, but I only did seven. I’m such a weak cunt.” What would kindness look like in that situation? Would you pressure them to work harder? Would you scold them for falling short? Would you agree with them and say, “Yeah, you should have done more this week”? Is that kindness? Or would you tell them to just give up? “Oh, exercise isn’t for you. Here, just take these drugs and crash on the couch. Forget it.” Is that what you’d do?

Would you advise them to keep pushing themselves, even if it’s clearly unsustainable, just to keep doing something that’s making them miserable? Would you encourage them to keep going or distract them with something else, like gambling? You might be tempted to do these things if you don’t understand what kindness really is.

Here’s what a kind person would do: they would remind their friend of how well they’re actually doing. They’d remind them that survival itself is an achievement. Everyone dies eventually, so if you’re still here, you’re doing okay. You’ve probably become complacent about your achievements because they feel normal to you. But consider this: if you’re having a shower today, that’s a huge deal. Try being a homeless drug addict. A shower is a luxury for them. The fact that you’re exercising at all is amazing. Whatever it took for you to put food on the table for one more day is an accomplishment. You made it through another tough day, another hour in this crazy world, and you didn’t end it. That’s a win. Getting to the gym is a huge step in itself. The fact that you even showed up is remarkable. Doing 10 pull-ups? That’s just icing on the cake. Sometimes, you just need someone to remind you that you’re already doing really well.

There’s no pressure required here. You’re already on top of things. You tease out their narrative and help them compare it to the evidence. A lot of people tell themselves stories about how badly they’re doing, but those stories don’t always line up with the facts. Someone says, “I’m broke,” and you ask, “How much money do you actually have? How come you’ve got a roof over your head? How come there’s food in the fridge? What do you mean by broke?”

Kindness isn’t necessarily about saying, “Oh, poor you,” that’s pity. Kindness is about reminding people of the facts, and sometimes challenging them to see that they’re actually doing alright. If someone says, “I’m a fucking loser,” you might say, “Well, how are you still here? How have you made it all these years? If you’re a loser, you wouldn’t still be here.”

Challenging Your Story: What If You’re Doing Better Than You Think?

I don’t mean to undermine anyone who’s passed, but I always keep this in mind: suicide is an option. I’m not recommending it, but if you’ve chosen to stick it out, despite knowing that option is there, then you’re a fighter. It’s a tempting option, trust me. You didn’t choose to be born, and it feels unfair to be thrust into a world that someone else wrote for you. But if you’ve made the choice to say, “I’ll stick it out for one more day. I’ll try to get through this,” that’s courage. You’re fighting. And I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who’s been lost to suicide.

I get it. I get the giving up. There are plenty of reasons to throw in the towel, which is exactly why the people who don’t give up are incredibly courageous. So when someone says, “I suck at life, everything’s terrible,” I would say, well, that only emphasizes how well you’re actually doing. If you think life’s terrible and you’re still going—fucking bravo. It’s easy to keep going when life is easy. But when life is hard, and you keep pushing forward? That’s something worth recognizing.

Someone says, “I have bad luck.” Really? When, exactly, does bad luck strike you? Take a recent client of mine. They experienced multiple bereavements in one year—roughly one a month for about six months. That’s undeniably hard, and the grief must have felt overwhelming during that time. But here’s the thing: those people only died on one day each. I don’t want to sound callous, but that means for the other 29 or so days of each month, no one was dying. In other words, There was a time when nobody died. Is that not good luck? Have we forgotten the normal human state?

Think about it. Thousand years ago, losing half your family before the age of five was normal. If you’re only dealing with one loss a month, that’s 29 days of non-death every month. In that context, how bad is your luck, really? And if you’re feeling sad about six people passing, that means you had six people in your life that you cared about enough to mourn. Good for you. That’s a social blessing. There are people out there who never have a funeral to attend because they have no one close enough to grieve.

That’s not to sort of make you feel guilty, that you feel bad, but just to make sure you’re not adding to the story about what’s actually happening.

You know, one of the things I’ve been grappling with lately is the story I tell myself about not getting enough sleep. Since my daughter was born, I’ve been pretty much sleep deprived. Every night, she wakes me up two or three times. But when I stop and think about it—look at me doing this podcast. How sleep deprived am I, really? I’m not in the hospital. I’m not bedridden from exhaustion or illness caused by sleep deprivation. Sure, I’m tired, but I’m still getting by. I’m getting things done, making it through the day.

So, is the story that I’m not getting enough sleep actually true? Or is it more about me wishing I had more sleep? Do I even need that much sleep? Is that a proven fact? I mean, I’m tired, sure, but maybe I’m tired because I keep telling myself that I am.

Kindness vs. Stress: Practical Steps for Turning Kindness Inward

Kindness is about not indulging in a story that isn’t backed by evidence. The reality is that despite being tired, look at how much I’m still getting done. That’s the truth I should be telling myself if I want to be accurate and kind.

I used to work with criminal offenders, many of whom were drug addicts, and it was incredible when some of them actually showed up for their sessions with me. Many of them were living in such chaos—homelessness, addiction, gang involvement, pending court cases—and yet, in the middle of all that, they somehow managed to make it to an appointment. They’ve got pending court cases, and they remember to come and have their interview with me, that’s kind of amazing, right? In their world, with everything else going on, getting something as basic as an interview done is nothing short of impressive. So, are they really losers? Or are they actually incredible, managing to do something so simple in the middle of such a chaotic storm?

When you’re kind to others, you help them recognize when they’re being too hard on themselves—when they’re asking too much. You point out that if they’re feeling stressed, it’s a clear sign they’re expecting too much, or else they wouldn’t be stressed. For example, if they’re saying, “I didn’t get anything done today,” then whatever they’re trying to do is too much. Because if they were asking themselves to do the right amount, they’d feel like, “Man, I crushed it today.” That’s what it should feel like when you ask yourself the right amount. You should never feel like you’re running out of time or overwhelmed. It should feel like, “Wow, I ran out of things to do by 3 pm—that’s a good day.”

The problem is, we make our lists too big, and the list is completely arbitrary. You decide how much is on that list. And if you reach the end of the day and haven’t finished it, that’s because you set yourself up with too much. I guarantee you 99% of things on the list were not required for your survival today. That means they’re “optional extras”. You asking yourself to do more optional extras than you can handle doing is unkind.

Instead, try this: write a to-do list that’s done by 11 am, and leave room for spontaneous, optional tasks after that. If you think, “I could never cut the list down that much,” you’re lying to yourself. Take your list and highlight everything that must be done for survival—anything that if left undone, would lead to someone dying today. If it’s not highlighted, it doesn’t have to be done. You’re lying to yourself if you think it does.

Remember, when you’re doing things the healthy way, you won’t feel stressed. Stress is a sign that you’re doing it wrong. Don’t pressure yourself to keep doing things wrong—take a step back and figure out how to do it right.

Call out the false dichotomies. If someone you’re helping is stuck in the mindset that it’s either “this” or “that,” and both seem terrible, ask them: Is there a third option you’re not seeing right now? Because, honestly, there’s never only two options—unless you’re literally facing an execution, where maybe your choices are limited to saying something before they pull the trigger. Even then, you could argue there are other possibilities for what you say or how you react.

Stop Waiting for the Perfect Option: Choose What Works for Now

I’ll put it out there as a challenge. You give me an example of a situation where you’ve only got two options, and I will come up with a third guaranteed.

But in most situations, when you tell yourself, “It’s either this or that, and both are terrible,” you’re lying to yourself. You’re being unkind to yourself. So when you feel trapped, ask: If these options both suck, is there another one I haven’t thought of? Or, if you can see that there is a range of options and they all suck, ask yourself, Which one sucks the least in the long term? And go with that one.

Stop waiting for a perfect option. Life doesn’t always offer a “good” choice, but it always offers a range from best to worst. The quicker you act (and thoughtfully, of course), the more options you’ll keep available to yourself. If you sit around waiting for something “better,” you’ll usually miss the best opportunity—the first one you had. And the longer you wait, the worse your choices get.

So, stop waiting for the perfect situation. Sometimes kindness is just gently helping someone see that there’s no ideal option—just a range of possibilities.

Challenging the Martyrdom Complex: You’re Not Defined by Your Struggles

Challenge your ego and your attachment to suffering and martyrdom. You know, the identity of being the “poor underdog” who’s always unlucky, the paranoid victim of the universe, the one whose life is just unfair. It’s not kindness to attach to that identity. When I tell myself, I’m the guy who doesn’t get enough sleep, that doesn’t serve me. In fact, it’s not even true. I’m not a failure, and I’m not unloved. I’ve worked with people who struggle with severe loneliness and isolation, and yet they always have at least one person who loves them—even if it’s just me.

We often attach ourselves to stories about being worse off than we really are. But kindness is about releasing that attachment. Maybe I’m not some “special case,” some uniquely unlucky person. Maybe I’m just a regular human, like everyone else, trying to navigate life.

Can I let go of the need to be something special—even negatively special—and just accept being one of the millions of people on this planet, trying to get through it? Is it okay to just be ordinary? Can I let go of the idea of needing to stand out for my suffering and just embrace being normal?

Accept Where You Are and Ask for Help

And look—get coaching and support. Why are you trying to do everything on your own? The idea of being “self-made” or “independent” might sound noble, but it’s actually a trauma response. Healthy people know that they don’t have to go it alone. They’re resourceful, they’re confident, and they work with others. They understand that cooperation, collaboration, and asking for help are what gets things done—not clinging to the myth of rugged individualism.

If you’re struggling, get support. Ask for help. I know this is one of the hardest things for me to do. Recently, I hired two people to help me with my work—one for creative admin and one for sales. It took me months to get the courage to ask for help. And after I did, I thought, Why the hell didn’t I do this sooner? It’s made my life so much easier, and it’s made their lives better too. What the fuck was I waiting for?

Every time I’ve hired a coach, seen a therapist, or asked my wife for advice, I haven’t always followed their exact recommendations, but the process of involving others has always been helpful. Even if it’s just to validate my own ideas or to get me back to basics. And the basics are important: Stress is being here when you want to be there.

Kindness to yourself means accepting where you are. You need to base your decisions on your current reality: your physical fitness, your mental strength, your financial situation, your relationships, your environment. Instead of wishing you were somewhere else, or that you were a better version of yourself, or someone else entirely—accept where you are right now.

So you bench pressed 100kg last week, but now you have a shoulder injury. Well, you’re not the guy who benches 100kg anymore. You’re the guy with a shoulder injury. That version of you is gone, and that’s okay. So now, do what’s right for your body: push-ups. Not benching. You can’t do what you used to do, but you can do what works for where you’re at. Stop wishing you could go back to the guy who benched 100kg. That guy’s not here. You are. And you can still move forward, just in a different way.

“I wish I had more money.” Well, you don’t. You have the amount you have right now. Go check your bank account. That’s your reality. Create a budget based on that. Make your financial decisions based on that. Sure, maybe you could afford lattes last month, but this month you can’t. So, goodbye lattes. It’s that simple.

Kindness to yourself means working with what you’ve got. It’s about being resourceful, present, and realistic. Stop dreaming about what could be and focus on what is. Focusing on what you don’t have only brings you down, so take small steps, one at a time.

In the end, we’re all just living until we’re not. There’s no final destination—there’s only staying alive, and that’s hard enough. You don’t need to add more pressure to that.

So, ask yourself: What’s the next best thing I can do with what I have? What’s within my capability right now? Something I can control, something meaningful, and aligned with my values. Do that. And when that’s done, do the next thing. And then the next. Until the end.

Thank you for watching, listening, or reading. I’ll see you next time.

Are you a nice guy or people pleaser who wishes you were more assertive, more honest, and better respected by others? Since 2013, I’ve been helping people like you discover their integrity and apply it with courage—to build deeper, more meaningful connections, earn the respect you deserve, and become the confident person you’ve always wanted to be. Imagine speaking your mind without fear of what others think, knowing exactly what to say and how to stand up for yourself and your loved ones.

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Thanks for reading

Hope to speak to you soon

Dan Munro