WHO IS DAN MUNRO?
TL/DR: I am a Confidence and Integrity Coach, and have been since 2013. Prior to that I worked in the Department of Corrections, rehabilitating criminal offenders and managing staff.
I put out as much content as I can about building confidence and living with authenticity: I’ve written and published a number of books; I publish a daily newsletter called The Daily Dose of Integrity; I run a YouTube channel and podcast; and I create online courses.
My focus is on helping Nice Guys and People Pleasers discover their core values so they can live with integrity, primarily through learning to be powerfully honest and more shamelessly masculine.
My story
In my early childhood I developed a people-pleasing persona, commonly referred to as Nice Guy Syndrome. Small events that I misunderstood led me to create a massive fear of rejection and abandonment. I was simply terrified of being disliked and had a crippling fear of confrontation.
In my teens years this mutated into consistent approval seeking behaviour. I would pretend to be whatever it was I thought others wanted me to be – funny, smart, sensitive – whatever each person liked the most.
I became hypersensitive to the reactions of others, and could always keep people calm, entertained and agreeable. People getting emotional would concern me and I always tried to “fix” it.
In my early 20s this started to frustrate the hell outta me! Night after night I lay awake wondering why I couldn’t just be honest and real with people. If someone was angry at me, or disappointed, it would ruin my week.
My connections with people were mostly superficial, because the guy they thought they liked didn’t actually exist. He was just a mask I wore to hide my weaknesses and negative emotions.
This affect me most with women. I worshiped them, particularly if they were attractive, and did everything I could to make them think of me as a good person, even if it meant being completely fake.
By the age of 24 I decided that I couldn’t live like this any more. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew I didn’t like the way my life was going. It was EXHAUSTING trying to please everyone. I just wanted a rest.
The results astonished me. While some people hated the new me (which hurt but didn’t kill me), others it turned out really loved me. And the more authentic I became, the better my life got. I soon realised that authenticity required that I pursue my passions and dreams as well. It wasn’t good enough to be a social leader, I also had to start my own business, take care of my health, and master my hobbies.
I was desperate for change, and this lead me to go through a brief phase of becoming a Pick Up Artist – learning how to exploit people’s psychological weaknesses to make them like me. But this made me feel manipulative and I could see that I was hurting people’s feelings. It was just WRONG.
Over time I realised that my problem was low self confidence. A lifetime of being fake had ingrained in me the belief that THE REAL ME was not worthy of being known by people. So slowly, in small steps, I started releasing him out into the wild.
I started being more honest, more courageous, more respectful of myself, and less fake about why I was doing things.
I combined the tools and psychological strategies I used to rehabilitate criminal offenders with Stoicism, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) principles and other philosophies like Taoism.
I researched the most confident socialites, artists and leaders to uncover how they were different. I became an expert in Nice Guy Syndrome, confidence-building, self-acceptance development, defusion techniques and learning principles.
I used all of this on myself to build massive self-confidence, and then I started coaching others with what I had learned.
I’ve reverse-engineered the path I took to figure out how it works. I’ve learned how to build confidence, and can now take others through that process in just a few months.
Through my coaching, books, podcast, YouTube videos and blog posts I’ve been sharing what I’ve learned ever since.