3 Nice Guy Tactics (That You're Probably Using)

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. I hope you're doing well today. Unless you are in the southern hemisphere, it's peak summer right now, which is absolutely extraordinary. I don't know about you, but I love to spend as much time as possible outside in the summer, especially because maybe I live in the northwest where we got three months of sun and that's it. So. But I'm not outside right now. I'm inside my office. I'm excited to share with you in this episode. Three tactics of the nice guy or nice person, might not be a guy, might be a lady. That's fine. This is gender neutral tactics that nice people use unconsciously, that don't serve them, that perpetuate the niceness and some other interpersonal problems and anxieties that can continue. And I can speak from experience, having used all three of these myself repeatedly. So I think you're gonna find this very illuminating. You're gonna perhaps see yourself in this episode, but don't despair. This is how it changes. It changes with self awareness, where you become conscious of what you're doing and why you're doing it, and then you can change it, which is the whole premise of pretty much every course I've created. My mastermind and of all the books I've written, they follow a certain pattern, which is to illuminate the challenge in detail, uncover why you're doing it, and then making a choice. And then. And then after that choice, you can put in new behavior. But if you try to do new behaviors, but you are unconscious of what you're doing, or you haven't made a fundamental choice to do things differently, then we just revert over time. So let's illuminate what's happening and give you more choice and more freedom. Sound good? Okay, let's dive into it. First of all, what's a tactic? A tactic is an interesting term that I didn't really give Much thought until about man, it's only been about a month, maybe a little more that I've gotten really into chess. It's surprisingly fun. I knew how to play it since I was a kid, but I never really gave it much thought and I started playing with my kids more and then I started to realize, you know, I don't know that much. My chest abilities peaked at, you know, age nine or whenever I stopped learning rules basically. And so I started to study it and play it and just find it absolutely fascinating. But that's a term in chess is tactics. So what is a tactic? Well, a tactic is a, is a set of actions that's carefully planned to get to reach a certain result. So a tactic in chess might be a one move tactic, like, ooh, I can go here and then that's going to force my opponent to do this, which is suboptimal for them. Or it could be, you know, if you're really good or have studied it a lot, it could be a multi move tactic, like I'm going to go here and then I'm going to do this, then I'm going to sacrifice this piece and then haha. Gotcha. And I just basically suck at chess at this point. So I lose all that stuff. But it's an action for a specific end. So what tactics would a nice person be running? What's their specific end? Well, I'm going to share that and I'm going to share three. Now this is not comprehensive. There's probably 30, but here are the three big ones that you're probably using all the time without knowing it. All right, so the nice person tactic is actually let me do it this way. I'm going to share one of the tactics and then I want you to guess what is the end result of this tactic? What's the purpose of it? All right, and this one is the most common. It's. You'll, you'll see it everywhere. You're probably using it often and why are you doing it? All right, here we go. It is having an apologetic tone. That's tactic number one. You change your voice tone to be apologetic. What does that mean? Well, an apologetic voice tone can be hesitant. It can might literally be saying I'm sorry. But you might not be using the word I'm sorry. Your tone might have a, ooh, I hate to break it to ya. But hesitancy caution, I'm sorry is just embedded in the voice tone. Can you relate to this? Do you have an apologetic tone? Oh, I can't. I Can't get there. Right? You can hear that. It's like the. The I'm sorry is implied. Is implied in the tone of my voice. I would say, is that so wrong, Aziz? I mean, shouldn't people be apologetic? Yes. We could all benefit from apologizing. I'm a big fan of apologizing. I will apologize readily when I feel like there's something to apologize for, you know, so I'll see this come up. In my close relationships, maybe I'm a little short with Candace or my boys. It's about something, or I jump to a conclusion and, you know, say one of my sons was doing something when I didn't really have a full awareness of the situation. And then afterwards, I might say, hey, I'm sorry about that. That wasn't your. That was me jumping to a conclusion. So I want to clean that up. And so I do that all the time in my close relationships. Or if there's a client and I drop the ball on something, I, you know, I will apologize. Like, oh, hey, I said I was gonna get to you on that last call, and I didn't, you know, my apologies. Let's see. Let's find a solution for when we can, you know, answer your question or whatever. So there's nothing wrong with apologizing. It's the apologetic tone is something that we're doing when we haven't done anything wrong. So when someone asks you, can you come to this party? And you say, no, unless you have, I don't know, said, yes, I'll be there, and I'll bring the cake, and then you're bailing last minute. But if they say, you want to come to this party and you know you don't want to or you have other plans, you say, oh, thanks for the invite. I have other plans. Why do you need to apologize there? Oh, I'm sorry. I wish I could make it. I have other plans. You might say, aziz, that's just common courtesy. Is it? I don't know. What if you have to share some news on. At work, there's a situation you have to let people know. Like, hey, I'm sorry to tell you guys this, but whatever the situation, why you're trying to. What are you doing there? You didn't do anything wrong in this. In these examples. So why are you apologizing? What might feel so natural? Because it's a tactic. What is the purpose of that tactic? What do you think? What's the. Why have that apologetic voice tone? Or literally apologize for something when you're not at fault when you haven't done anything wrong might say, well, it's to help people feel better. It's to help soften the blow. Okay, so it's for them. Alrighty. So now your friend hears that you're really sorry about not being able to go to the party, and your friend feels what? Cared for, I guess. Well, if you say, hey, thanks for the invite, I would love to be able to come, and I have other plans, your friend would feel pretty cared for in that way too, right? It's not like, no, I don't want to come to your party. You're very tactful. You're very respectful, very kind. So why is it really about them? Well, yes and no. It's. The nice person agenda, whether you know it or not, is to make sure that nobody feels uncomfortable feelings. Because if someone feels uncomfortable feelings, then maybe they won't like you. Now, there's a little bit of mental gymnastics here. It doesn't go always that directly. It might say, well, if I say no to my friend and I don't apologize a ton, then they're gonna feel hurt, so they're gonna feel bad, and then they're not gonna like me, so I gotta protect everybody from feeling hurt and disappointed and upset and angry and sad and anything. And it becomes unconscious. It's just feeling a word. Alert. Feeling awareness, a word that was a combination of alert and awareness. In case you didn't know, that's a totally real word. But you become feeling alert, and then you're just constantly running this pattern to mitigate potential feelings without even knowing if you've done wrong. And, you know, the. The kind of. The end case of this challenge in the nice person's world is if you are upset, then I have done wrong. And there's no capacity to analyze or really determine or discern. Well, they're upset. And at the same time, I. I've spoken what was true, and I did it in a respectful way. No, no, that's not an option. Nice person's world. You're mad. I'm sorry. Whatever I did, I don't even know. I'll apologize first and I'll figure it out later because I got to get rid of your feelings. Hmm. So that's the end result of that tactic. Let's look at another tactic and see if it has a similar end result. So tactic number one was apologetic tone. Tactic number two is over explaining. So you're gonna share something with somebody. Maybe it's bad news. Maybe you need to critique somebody. Maybe you need to give someone feedback. Maybe they didn't do something properly. Maybe they dropped a ball, maybe they said they're gonna do something and they weren't there or they were late or whatever. Personal, professional, you need to tell them that. And instead of saying, hey, you told me you're gonna get this to me on Thursday and now it's Friday, I don't see it. What's up? Instead of saying like that, hey, I. I don't want to bother you. I know you have a lot going on over there, and we talked about getting it to me on Thursday. I believe that was clear. I want to check in with you, though, to make sure that you have that on your side. And when do you think I might get it by? So what's going on there? Well, I'm saying a lot, which is diluting not only the content of what I'm trying to say, which is, you know, this was supposed to happen and it didn't. I need to know or I need to get it right. That's the essence of the message. But it gets diluted in all these words, so many words. And also on top of that, my request, my. It's not just the content, right? There's a. There is a tone that gets diluted as well. Now, what's the tone? The tone might be frustration, or even if it's very neutral when you say it, you're not like, what the hell's wrong with you? There is an element of bringing a spotlight to the error so it can be corrected, but that gets lost too. And now we have potentially a very watered down message. And the other person might not even know what the hell you're saying. Or they might know, but because your message is so, I don't know, weak noodle, they're like, hey, look, I got a lot of people I'm dealing with at work here. That guy over there, Aziz, he's a weak noodle. So I can kind of kick that can down the road and address a more pressing problem because I got this other guy breathing down my neck. I got to deal with that. Now, that might be conscious, that might be unconscious. It's just the way that people respond. And so when we are very nice and pleasing, then we tend to get worse results. But that's not what this episode is exactly about. It's about the tactic and why you're doing it. So why might you over explain, do you think? Well, I want to over explain so the person doesn't get upset or they don't think I'm demanding and then dislike me or feel a grudge against me or become resentful or resistant. Okay, so they're going to feel what, bad feelings? And then they won't like me. Or maybe in a workplace scenario, like, I'm okay with them not liking, but they're not going to want to work with me or that it's not going to be work well together. And look, all these things have some reality to them, right? You got to have good relations with your co workers. And you might want to give a statement of acknowledgement, like, hey, I know you got a lot on your plate right now, but that's it. Maybe a statement of acknowledgement. And you said you're gonna get this to me by Thursday, and it's Friday and I haven't seen it, what's up? Right, and you might not say what's up in your workplace environment, but you get my point, right? All right, so we're seeing a theme here, a trend, right? It's all about making sure that people don't feel anything. Well, now you're getting the hang of it. Let's look at the third one, and you'll probably guess what the ultimate result of the tactic is. But it's still good to know because this one I bet you're doing all the time, which is pre compromising. I first learned this back in my training where I did some training in couples counseling, which is not what I do primarily. I'll work with people who are in relationships, but I don't necessarily. It's rare for me to actually sit with a couple in a coaching or therapy context. But back in the day when I was learning this and did some of that, the. There was a concept of pre compromising, which I see all the time with clients in their relationships, where essentially instead of, let's say here's. Here's an example. You want to go to something. You want to spend the weekend with some friends and you're in a relationship, and instead of going to your partner and saying, hey, you know, the weekend of the 7th, I want to be. I'm gonna be out of town. It's a couple weeks out. I want to. I'm gonna be out of town that week, or I want to go see my friends that week, I just want to, you know, do you have anything scheduled or is there anything we need to coordinate about or however you'd ask with your partner or share with your partner or tell your partner what you're doing, however you do it, that's. That's not Pre compromising. That's direct. That's putting it out there. And maybe they're like, oh, we have this thing planned. Or you agreed to this. You're like, oh, shoot, I did. Okay, well, let me figure that out now. Pre compromising. Is this you think to yourself, oh, I'm gonna go to this thing in a couple of weeks. It's gonna be great. I'm gonna go there with my friends. It's gonna be awesome. I don't really want my partner to come. I kind of want some solo time with my friends. That might upset them, though. Maybe they'll feel hurt. Maybe I should bring them along. Okay, well, no, I don't want to do that. Okay. But that's a long time to be gone. So instead of going, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you know, I guess. I guess, you know, missing the whole weekend, she might be upset or he might be upset. So what I'll do is maybe I could head out there instead of Friday morning like I want to do. I could head out Friday evening. You know, maybe we could spend Friday afternoon together after work, and I'll. Then I'll leave Saturday morning, you know, and then I don't really need to stay all the way to the end on Sunday, so I could just come back midday on Sunday? Yeah, okay, that sounds pretty good. What's the problem here? Who has this conversation been between? Not you and your partner. Although it might seem that way, because you have a little construct in your mind where you're running a simulation, right? No, it's between you and you. And so now when you go to your partner and you say, hey, I'd love to go to this thing, I'm thinking, I'll leave, you know, and you probably combine it with over explaining and maybe an apologetic tone. Just go for the triple whammy. So then you say, hey, hey, guess what? I'm sorry. I'm doing something wrong right now. So let me explain a lot. I was thinking I'd go on Friday, but then I got this thing and I saw. But, you know, I really want to spend the day with you. So I'll go. Let's go on Saturday morning and I'll come back on, you know, I don't need to stay all the way to Sunday. I really thought about this. I'm gonna do this other thing. Besides, it's really important to build these relationships, don't you think? Friendships are important, honey. Okay, so I'm gonna go and I'll come back on Sunday, midday. And now you're a hero. You've taken care of everybody's feelings, you've apologized, you let your partner know how important they are to you with your over explaining and how much you don't want them to feel bad. You're really trying to, you know, big reveal here, control them and how they feel. Because that's the whole agenda of the nice person is actually to control everybody. It's extremely controlling pattern. Even though it doesn't look that way because it looks so well, pleasing. But it's really about controlling everybody's feelings to make sure no one could be upset with you so you feel safe. It's a survival strategy. I cut straight to the chase of that. I believe in chapter one of my newer book, Less nice, more you. The first chapter is called nice versus Kind. And it really just lays out what niceness is. So you do all that and then you're a hero, right? Because you're not even going for the full three days. You nailed it down to a day and a half and then your partner says, oh, this full day and a half away, that sucks. I had these plans, I think this great idea on Saturday we're gonna do this thing and we thought we were gonna go wine tast. Besides, you said you really wanted to do that. And so I, you know, I was already talking about the people when we're gonna go with these other friends and I already told them you're gonna come and, and now you're up, you're pissed basically, right? You're like, hey, you're not even gonna give me a day and a half. And maybe you're. You, you, you get angry and resentful, or you get quiet and pouty, or you're so nice you just stuff it all into your guts and get some IBS problems and then you say, okay, that's fine, whatever you want. What's happening there? You've pre compromised because you're afraid just to say directly what you want. Why are you afraid to say what you want? Because you're afraid it might cause feelings in your partner. And maybe it's based upon these distorted ideas about relationships. Like if we love each other, we're supposed to spend every moment together. Or it's bad for people wanting to do things apart. Or maybe it's just bad for my partner to feel disappointed because maybe you know that your partner might feel disappointed and is that okay? Is that your responsibility to make that go away? Or can you be two humans who are in love and also want to do other things and you can support your partner they're like, oh, I'm so disappointed. Say, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I love you. What do you think you might, you know, do on the time? Or what are you sad about? And there when we're staying in connection. But I don't need to apologize a bunch because I'm, you know, I can say I'm sorry that you're sad or hurting, but it's not like, I'm so sorry for having these desires. I'm terrible. Right? That would be more apologetic tactics. So illuminating stuff, huh? What do you see about yourself? In fact, let's. Let's turn this into action. Time for action. Action Action. For your action step, the question is to reflect which of these patterns are you using, have you used recently? And the action step is to note when you're, well, ideally about to use one of these in some of your mental rehearsals before a conversation, you're noticing it's steering towards one of these, or you notice yourself pre compromising, or you notice yourself even in the moment starting to have an apologetic tone and to consciously do something different. To let ultimately, ultimately we're looking at here is removing the purpose of the tactic, which is to have the agenda, which is to make sure that nobody feels anything bad. Because niceness is a survival strategy. So you got to unwind that whole thing. And ultimately it's getting to the point where you can have feelings and I'm okay and you're okay. And if you want to take it further, definitely check out Less Nice, More you, if you haven't already, because I think you'll learn a ton about how to apply this in your life Less. All right, thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.