YES Talk 286- Mr. Nice Guy is Gone (Why Being a People-Pleaser Holds You Back
18 Apr 2023 · 11 min
The speaker ends his lifetime of people-pleasing and self-sacrifice, which left him resentful and damaged his relationships. He argues that putting others first undermines who you are, and that the Bible's "love your neighbor as yourself" means you have to love yourself first. Since he stopped trying to please everyone, he says he's actually become better at loving others.
Chapters
All my life I've been a nice guy. All my life I've been Mr. Nice Guy, the nice guy. I don't know if that's how other people have seen me, but that is certainly how I've seen myself. Some of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, that's how I see myself. I always wanted to be one of the best husbands. I always saw myself as super loyal, super supportive, super loving. No man ever loved a wife more than I love my wife. That was my belief in my first marriage, that was my belief in my second marriage, that was my belief in my third marriage, and yet didn't work. What's wrong with Mr. Nice Guy? He doesn't work, right. Mr. Nice Guy doesn't know how to be himself. Mr. Nice Guy is too busy worrying about being nice, making everybody else happy, doing what gets him approval, what makes people think he's nice, but it's a lie. And so today I'm just having this conversation about the death of Mr. Nice Guy, having this conversation with myself. Mr. Nice Guy believes that if he is nice to everybody, if he serves other people and puts other people ahead of himself, if he cares about other people, even to the point he's willing to sacrifice what he wants, that people are respect him, people will love him, and life will work great. And it's a great theory, kind of like great theories that aren't true. They don't work because it's not the way it works, but it's the way I was raised, and it is the way that countless men and women have been raised. Now I relate from the male perspective as a guy that this Mr. Nice Guy a thing. And that is if I support my wife, I make my wife happy. The happy wife, happy life syndrome is one of the greatest lies of the 21st century. The lie is that if you make your wife happy, you'll be happy. And yet the fruit on the tree says, no, that's not the way it is. Happy wife, happy wife, happy wife. Trying to make your wife happy, number one, it doesn't really make her that happy. And number two, it definitely doesn't make you happy. And I see women do the same thing when they live their lives trying to please somebody else, trying to please their husband, or trying to please their kids and their whole identity, our whole sense of well being, our sense of self worth, our whole sense of being okay comes down to if other people approve of me, if I take care of everybody else, I'm going to be taken care of. I know for some of you going like, that's the way it is. I'm like, I know. That's why I always thought it was. It's not that way. There was this thing that Jesus said. He said this thing like, love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. Now when I look at the way Jesus taught about love, love was not a way you felt about somebody. Love was the way you treat somebody. It was actually showed up in your actions. Love your neighbor as yourself. So take care of other people the way you take care of yourself. Put other people first the way you put you first. How does that work? Well, it actually works. It actually allows me to be true to myself first. Shakespeare got it. He says, hey, if you can be true to yourself, you can be true to everybody else. That's not the way he said it. But I don't speak Middle English. So when you take care of yourself first, when you care about yourself first, when you listen to yourself first, when you please yourself first, when you care about yourself first, you actually have the fullness to actually care about other people. Took me a half a century, over half a century to figure this out. I am officially declaring today the death of my Mr. Nice Guy. What's crazy is I don't feel mean, I don't feel rude, I don't feel disrespectful of anybody else. I actually feel an intense amount of love and care for other people because I'm happy with me. I've made moves in the last few months of my life that the four I would have always considered way too selfish to make these moves. And yet they are the moves that have given me a fullness of a sense of a sense of fullness and wholeness and completion like I've never had before. And I know that there are people who judge me for it. It's okay, I hear you. Thank you for sharing. But the difference is today I listen to me more than I listen to you. The difference is I figured out that the reason burned my life to the ground over and over again was not because I was selfish. It was because I was trying to be too unselfish and ended up not taking care of me. And so all the resentment, all the things that I would repress, all the feelings I would repress or suppress or whatever it is that I was doing would eventually show up by me burning it all down. And I look at those that built lives that they don't burn it down. And I've always thought a lot of those people were super selfish, super self centered, And I'm like, yeah, but when you get right down to it, they end up being able to give more to other people because they're full. Happy. Happy wife. Happy wife. Happy husband. Happy husband. Happy human. Happy human. The death of Mr. Nice Guy doesn't mean you can't be a nice person. Not what it means. It means no longer is my life defined. And my worth defined. And my fulfillment defined by other people seeing me as nice. Yeah. What about you? How much of your life have you shut down trying to make everybody else happy? How much have you repressed? Much emotion. Anger, resentment, regret. How many things are you hiding? Addictions, toxic behaviors that you use to release all the stuff you've suppressed. Trying to make everybody else happy. Trying to look good. Because you know what? If people know the truth, they may disapprove of you. And of course we can't have that. So you got to be perfect. And so we hide all of our shit and hide it all. Gotta look good. You gotta be perfect. Gotta sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Selfish indulgence. Closet that. Stick that in the closet. Don't let anybody know. Because if they know, then they may like that. Well, they may disapprove. They may think you're narcissistic, selfish. Because you actually have feelings. You actually have needs that need to be met. And you don't want to ask anybody else to meet them. Because after all that, be selfish. This, my friends, is the trap of the Mr. Nice Guy. I don't even know how to process all this. I don't even know how to communicate all this. But I know that's as I look around. I just finished reading a book called no more Mr. Nice Guy. Can't remember the guy's name. Dr. Robert. I don't know no more Mr. Nice Guy. Powerful, powerful book. We gotta figure some stuff out, my friends. Gotta figure out how to get yourself full so you can help others before. So say hello to Leonidas. To sleep in the back or lounging in the back and find yourself. You matter. Your needs, matter. What you want matters. So go get your dreams. Create the life that you want. And the right people will come along. And you'll have more to give than you ever imagined.