NOT NICE: What Nice Really Is

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, yo, welcome. Question for you to begin today. Are you too nice? Are you too nice? What do you think? What's your gut response to that? People usually know right away. It's like a, yep, that's me, or no, no, that's not me. And then there's people that are like, well, I am nice. I don't know if I'm too nice. I don't know if you can be too nice. Nice is what you should be, right? And if that's going through your mind, you're probably too nice. But that's what we're gonna be talking about today and actually several episodes after this one, because this is the first four part series of episodes all focused on not nice. This is a huge topic. In fact, it's so important that I wrote an entire book on the subject. The book, brand new, coming out, releasing on November 1, 2017, we're going to be building up towards that with episodes. We're going to be sharing key pieces of the book, key elements of content, things that are literally in the book and distilled versions, things you can start using right now to be less nice. And we're gonna talk about that. If you have a reaction to that, like, oh, I don't know about that. Maybe I don't want to be less nice. Stick with me, because trust me, you do. And the opposite of nice isn't that you're gonna go push your grandma down the stairs and just be a raging maniac. It's actually getting to a much more solid, confident, less afraid, less guilty, less restricted version of you. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Because this episode is all about what nice really is. And then we're going to be talking about the five pillars of anti nice. We're going to be talking about how to speak up for yourself. You're going to learn about the costs of nice, how it affects not only your emotions and your relationships, but even your body in ways that being too nice can actually be harmful for our health as well as our emotions and our relationships and just the quality of our life. So you are in for an amazing journey over these next four episodes. And then, of course, when the book comes out at the beginning of November, you're definitely going to want to get your hands on that one. It is thorough. It is just everything that I've learned about this subject over the last 15 years, tons of stories from my own life, as well as clients, so. So I'm super excited for you to get your hands on it. It's called not nice. Stop people pleasing, staying silent and feeling guilty. And start speaking up, saying no, asking boldly and unapologetically, being yourself. Yeah, it's a long subtitle. I know, I know. I was encouraged by my editor to shorten it and I said, no, I will not, sir. I told him no, it was not a nice guy move. Right. So there you go, practicing what I preach. So let's get started with this first episode in the series here. What is nice? What is nice? Really? So when I say the word nice, are you nice? What do you think of when you're assessing whether you're nice or not? What are you looking at? How do you know? So what is basic question, but this is the kind of place that we want to start with, with this inquiry is what is nice? Great. So what are you coming up with now? For a lot of people, it's a lot of things. It's. Well, you care about others. You are. Maybe you give to others. You think about others and what they might want. So maybe there's a little bit of empathy there. Maybe. Maybe there's a lot of generosity there. Maybe there's an element of kindness involved in it. Sometimes, though, there's also an awareness that nice might include being polite or being friendly when you don't want to be, or not saying something because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. Those are all ways to be nice too, right? In fact, a little example that I give in the book, which is a fun way to illustrate this, is say, okay, let's say you and I were driving somewhere to. To a house party and it was my friends and you didn't know them, but you're my friend. So I'm bringing you along. I'm gonna introduce you to everybody. And right before we pull up to the parking spot, before we're gonna walk into this house, there's gonna be about 20, 30 people there, I say, and I address you by name. I say, hey, your name. When we get in there, be nice. Now, how would that affect you? How would you interpret that? What would I be telling you or requesting that you do in that situation? Now, for a lot of us, when we hear that, don't, you know, be nice? Okay, well, first of all, take a moment to actually play out that scenario. How would you be at the dinner party? How would you not be if I just told you to be nice? You probably wouldn't get in there and get drunk and tell a story about sexual escapade. You had challenge or disagree with someone openly. You'd probably be a little more polite, a little more quiet, more nodding and smiling and listening, more nice. So that's what I'm speaking about in this book, not nice. And in these episodes, I'm not talking about kindness and generosity and love and warmth. Those are all qualities and virtues that we want to have, we want to experience in our relationships and in our lives. It's how we want to show up. And yet I want to make a distinction that those really aren't nice. And that when we use the word nice, what we're really referring to is a pattern of fear that is rooted in people pleasing, or another way of saying that is approval seeking. It's a whole way of being in the world that is designed to make sure that people don't get upset at us, people don't dislike us, people don't judge us. It's a way of being so unoffensive, so polite, so pleasing to others that they couldn't possibly be upset with us. That's what I think nice really is. At least that's the kind of nice that I'm talking about when I say let's be not nice. And if you know what I'm talking about, where you hold back but you want to say something but you don't because you don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. Even though it's true. You don't say no when you want to say no. You don't challenge anyone. You don't disagree openly. You don't express upset or disappointment openly. You just stuff it all inside and take it. You let people walk all over you and you don't speak up for yourself. Those are the qualities of nice that I want to help you eliminate. And you're going to become way more free to be the fully expressed, fully most powerful, bold version of you that can speak up, that can say no when you need to, and want to that can express displeasure or discomfort or upset with something that someone's doing. That can show human emotion like frustration or anger. That can be you and as a result be a powerful force in the world that people listen to and look up to and follow. And whether you run your own company or you work in a company or you're just with your family and your friends being a powerful version of you in the world, that's what we're going to be focusing on and that's what we're talking more about now. Let's dig in this episode more into these qualities of the real core of nice, this approval seeking, people pleasing, guilty, I'm afraid of you getting upset kind of quality of nice. So stay tuned and we're going to dig into that and free you of that right after this. Are you tired of feeling stuck and helpless when it comes to meeting women? Well, I'm going to show you one powerful technique that will make her absolutely go crazy for you. I mean, she'll become so addicted to you that she won't be able to help herself. I started using this technique and I was sleeping with over 45 women a month. Does that sound too good to be true? Well, it probably is. I'm Dr. Aziz from the center for Social Confidence and there is so much stuff on the Internet that is frankly garbage and really doesn't teach men how to create awesome relationships from a place of knowing that they're valuable. And that's my intention for you, is to learn how to increase your self esteem, how to improve your social confidence to the point where sure, you can get into relationships, you can meet women, you can go on fun dates, but it's all coming from a place where you are fully confident in yourself and who you are and you don't need to use any strange scripts or techniques or any other pickup artist stuff. So check out SocialConfidenceCenter.com to start your journey into greater social confidence all by being yourself. Welcome back. So if we were to distill it down to what nice really is, I'd say it's three things. One is approval seeking. Two is taking too much responsibility for others and their feelings and therefore feeling guilty a lot of the time. And then the third one is fear of conflict, disagreement or upset. Anything that's not just super smooth harmony. Everybody's happy all the time. So those are the three things. Approval seeking, taking too much responsibility for others and fear of any sort of conflict or confrontation. That's what we're going to be looking at. In today's episode now, you might immediately, as I'm saying those identify that you experience all three of those things. And that's pretty common. I find most people experience at least one of those. Often. I know myself, my own personal experience was that was like my life, all three of those. Just every day I was going around wanting everyone. So let's start with the first one, which is approval seeking or people pleasing. It's another way that people say it, but it's all pointing towards the same thing, which basically this is like a program that's running in the back of your mind, kind of like on your computer. You can have some programs that are running. You don't see them running, they're just kind of up at the task bar at the very top or something like that, and they're running in the background and they're doing something. And that's what approval seeking is like. So what it does though is it influences you. So you. And if you have social anxiety, then you have an issue with approval seeking. Those two go hand in hand. Those are two peas in a pod. And what that means is when you're meeting somebody, here's the sort of the laws or the require, the mission. The target for approval seeking, it's got what I would call a Prime Directive. The Prime Directive must be achieved according to this approval seeking program. And the Prime Directive, believe it or not, is not to get approval. Seems like it would be, right? I mean, it's called approval seeking, but it's not to get approval. Guess what it is. You might guess it already. It's to avoid disapproval. It's to make sure that. Not that you know. So obviously we want everyone to like us and be like, that guy's awesome, he's so great. But that's not the Prime Directive. The Prime Directive is, they better not think that I'm blank, that I'm dumb, that I'm too pushy, that I think I know more than I do, that I'm aggressive, that I'm too passive, that I'm too scared, that I'm too arrogant. Whatever it is, anything bad, I don't want them to think anything bad about me. That's the Prime Directive of approval seeking. Now, secondarily, if they think I'm great, that's even better. I'll take that too. But first and foremost, I better make sure that they don't think negative of me. So we're walking around with a program that's basically saying, make sure that no one ever thinks negatively about you. Now you Might say, well, Aziz, that sounds pretty messed up. I don't do that. Okay, well, it's subtle sometimes. It doesn't show up as, like, us in our head saying, God, they gotta get them to like me. I gotta get them to like me. But do you get nervous around certain people? Do you feel tense or anxious? Do you feel worried about, you know, do I need to come up with something to say, what should I say next? Or do you just feel uncomfortable or anxious in your body around somebody or some groups of people or in certain social situations? Then in those situations, there's a part of you that is afraid of the situation, right? You're feeling anxiety. Anxiety is just another word for fear. So what are you afraid of? The answer is always the other person's judgment, AKA their disapproval. Because you're probably not afraid of positive judgments. You're probably not afraid of them looking at you and judging you. As, you know, that's. I'm gonna judge him as the most intelligent, beautiful, funny human that I've ever met. Like, you're not afraid of that. You're not afraid of being judged positively. You're afraid of being judged negatively, which is just disapproval. So all social anxiety a feature of it, in order to feel social anxiety, which is just social fear around others, that means we're afraid of their disapproval, we're afraid of their judgments. And so here's where nice comes in. Nice is a protection strategy, right? Because remember, we're afraid of the disapproval. There's a threat there, their judgments. And some part of us, usually a young part of us, learns that their judgments are threatening, are dangerous, and we better make sure that they don't happen. Now, of course, as you'll discover in the episodes to come, you can find a way for that to not be threatening at all. And it's. You can. In order to be your most freebold confident self, it doesn't mean that you somehow become so awesome that no one ever judges you negatively. No, you find your core and your inner strength to be okay and to not need anyone, not to need to control anyone's perception of you. Because good God, man, can you even control all the thoughts and judgments in your own head? Have you ever had a judgment where you didn't want to have the judgment and it just went through your mind and you're like, oh, I'm being a jerk, right? So good luck trying to control everyone's perceptions. But so we want to get just really centered in ourselves and know ourselves and authentically be ourselves. That's the way Out. So the nice thing though is a protective strategy. Go something like this. I don't want to upset anyone. I don't want anyone to dislike me or judge me. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna play it safe, and that means playing it nice. Play it safe. So I'm gonna be polite. I'm gonna ask questions that I know are safe, that are maybe a little boring, but better boring than offensive. So I'll say, where do you work? Oh, cool. Oh, how long have you worked there? Oh, nice. Neat. And notice how I'm very affirming when they're talking. Yeah, that sounds great. Oh, yeah. Mm. So I'm gonna agree a lot. I'll probably nod a lot. I'll sm. They're saying, look. Look how pleasing I'm being. How could you possibly disapprove of me right now? Right? That's the tone, that's the energy. That's the attitude behind niceness and that's approval seeking. That's the core feature of niceness. And there are two others, which is taking too much responsibility for others feelings and then feeling guilty all the time as well as afraid of upset or conflict. So we take a quick break. Think about approval seeking, where it shows up in your life most. And we'll be right back to cover those other two right after this. Do you want to rapidly change the way you see yourself? Do you want more confidence and better results in your life? If so, then you need to learn about cognitive rescripting. It's one of the most powerful tools that Dr. Aziz teaches. He is so adamant about everyone learning this life transforming tool that he is actually giving it away for free for a limited time. Go to www.confidenceunleashednow.com to claim your free copy of Dr. Z's new eBook and audio training program called Rewrite youe Three Steps to Triple youe Confidence. Welcome back. We're talking about the what nice really is in this series of episodes leading up to the release of the book. Not nice. Stop people pleasing, staying silent and feeling guilty. Start speaking up, saying no, asking boldly and unapologetically being yourself. The book is a beast. For those of you who read my other book, the Art of Extraordinary Confidence, this one's longer than that one. I know. I tried to make it shorter but there was just so much, so much I wanted to say, so much I wanted to really help you be liberated as you read it so that you know there's a lot of activities and things to do. But I wanted the book itself to be a tool of liberation that opened up the doors for you to be your most bold self and stop feeling so afraid of others, stop needing everyone's approval, and stop feeling guilty. And so guilt is what we're gonna talk about right now. This is another hallmark feature of niceness, because niceness also is synonymous with taking too much responsibility for other people's feelings and experiences. I call this in the book, over responsibility. So what is over responsibility? That's when you invite some people to go out to dinner at a place that you like, and you're worried and anxious about if they're gonna like the restaurant or not, and it reflects on you, and you're like, oh, I need to. Oh, man, I hope. Did they order something good? Do they like their food? I hope they don't. Same thing. If you're like, oh, this movie's great. You should watch it. And they're watching it and you're like, I can't enjoy the movie because I don't know if they like it or not. Over responsibility is. I can't say what I think or what I feel in this situation. It's gonna hurt someone's feelings. I can't tell them that I don't like the food. I can't tell them that I don't want to go to the river today, that I'd rather do something else. I can't say no. I don't want to hang out on Friday night. I want to just do my own thing. I can't say no. That's just going to crush them. That's going to hurt their feelings. I can't stop dating this person. That's going to destroy them. I can't do that to me. I can't break up with this person. No way. That. And that's just a little tip of the iceberg of over responsibility. So why is it called over responsibility? Well, in all those scenarios, we are afraid of what. What are we most afraid of? Why don't we want to break up with that person? Why do we want to say no in that situation? Why don't we want to tell the person we want to do our own thing on a Friday night? Why? What would you be afraid of in those situations? Now, we might say that we're afraid of hurting their feelings, disappointing them. And that's true. That is true. But you know what's truer? You are afraid of how you'll feel about them being disappointed. You're afraid of your own guilt. That's probably what you're Afraid of, right? So, you know, you say, no, can't hang out with you on Friday. And they're like, oh, okay, well, have a good time, and, you know, we'll see you next week. You say, okay, bye. You're done. Now they're gone. They're out of the picture, right? And they're probably gonna be fine. But you, in your own mind, is like, oh, what have I done? And it's like you have. It's like some sort of Shakespeare play where you have blood on your hands. Like, what have I done? The guilt, the remorse. And I know the feeling. I know how intense it can be. And it makes it seem like you're a really just conscientious, you know, compassionate, good person. Because look at how worried I am. Look at how much it hurts me to say no to other people. But you know what it is? It's poor boundaries, man. It's a lack of you being able to know where you end and where someone else begins. And for you to be able to. Healthy, in a good way, say, no, that's not for me. No, thank you. It doesn't have to be full of malice. Like, fuck you. No. It could just be like, no, no, thank you. Not for me. No Friday night. No. No, thanks. We don't have to have that. We're not. And so make a distinction in the book between hurting versus harming someone. So harming someone is like intent to do damage, you know, psychological or physical. That's like, you hurt me, so I'm gonna F you up, man. So you can see it in my little kids. They're three and a half. One and a half. Almost. Almost four and two, actually. No. Yeah, almost four and two at this point. And older brother Zaim hits younger brother Arman, who's two, and he just. There's a moment of, like, shock, and then, like, this immediate, like, mobilizing his defenses, and then, bam, the counter attack, right? And then it's off to the races from there. Got to intervene, Break it up like a referee. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sometimes I just come in swinging, you know, take them both down. Knocking my mic stand here, getting all fired up anyway. That's like, you know, an intent to harm, right? It's like, you hurt me, I want to hurt you back. And we've all been there. We all can do that. Whether it's usually. It's usually not physical. For a lot of us, it's usually verbal or mental or emotional. And someone says something and you want to say something back to, you know, well, yeah. Well, I never. You ugly and I never liked you, right? So that's harm. That's harming someone, and it slips out sometimes. But in general, I think it is a good policy to want to minimize the harm that we do in the world. World. Now, that's very different than hurting somebody. Hurt is emotional pain in any way or form. I'm hurting right now, right? Like you step on a nail. Ow, I'm hurting my foot. You stub your toe. Ow, I'm hurting my foot. You wake up in the morning and you're feeling sad. You don't even know why you're hurting, or you're feeling anxious, you're hurting. You look at someone and you think they look really good. And you compare it to yourself, and you're like, look at me. You're hurting in that situation, right? You're feeling inferior. That's a form of emotional hurt. So here's the thing. Can you make sure that everyone around you never feels hurt, ever? Is that possible? Do you even have control over that? And that's what you'll find reading this book is how a lot of this is just letting go of control. Like, you just don't have control of whether someone approves of you or not. You don't have control over whether what you're gonna say or do hurts somebody. I mean, you can try to massage it and make it just this, like, perfect, nice little package. But guess what? You water down your message. So if you're speaking authentically from your own experience and being honest, and your intent is not to harm, but just to express yourself, to share what you like and what you don't like, to be who you are. And someone gets hurt along the way, that is not your responsibility. And just to demonstrate the madness of trying to make sure no one ever gets hurt around you, let me give you this quick example. I was speaking with a client recently, and he was at a party, him and his wife, and they were leaving, and the hostess came up and said, hey, so great you guys were here. I mean, you guys are just an amazing couple. I love being around you guys so much. You just, you know, just so fun, so sweet, so loving. You guys are fantastic. Just a very, like, you know, pouring love on them, right? And he inside, instead of feeling great, feeling inspired, feeling happy, feeling loved, guess what he feels. Feels hurt. Feels pain. Why? Why would he feel pain? Well, because he doesn't know what to say. He somehow, without understanding why, feels very awkward and uncomfortable, wants to get out of the situation, and then he Says some stuff. He doesn't know what he says and just leaves. And then he starts judging himself for what he said, starts judging himself for feeling nervous or anxious when the woman's just giving him a compliment. And it triggers all this hurt inside of him. So should you not give people compliments? Should you not tell people the truth? Should you not express what you want and what you don't want because someone might be hurt? These are interesting questions. Now you can see why the book is so long. Because I gotta get into all these nuances, and there's so much programming in us that's like, nice is good, Nice is good, Nice is good. Be nice, be nice, be nice. I call it nice training in the book because we got so much of that when we were young that it's like this robot that kind of defaults back to its programming even if we show ourselves, hey, look, this isn't working. There's a better way to do this. And we're like, yeah, maybe. Nope. Must carry out prime directive. And we keep going back. So you're gonna get some repetition here in this episode. Repetition in the book. We really wanna make this stick so you can open up a new path to a new way. So I know there's more. There's more about conflict avoidance that we didn't get to in this episode. Because the time man, we're gonna be covering that in a future episode about how to speak up for yourself. We're gonna talk about our fear of conflict, being more bold, not only having the power to speak up, but the mechanics of how to do it, how to be assertive in a really effective way that's really gonna serve you in your life. But before we complete for today, we gotta take what you're learning and turn it into something. Time for action. Action. Action. Your action step for today is to notice those two things. Just do it for the day, do it for the week. Actually notice when approval seeking arises in you. And also notice when you are taking responsibility for someone else's feelings. You don't need to stop those patterns. You don't need to eliminate them and just notice. But just bring attention, bring awareness, and then maybe there'll be a little back and forth in your head like Aziz told me. I should not take responsibility. No, But I should. That's wrong. You know, I don't know. I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm just telling you to notice. So if you notice that little argument with me in your head, that's probably a good sign. That means There's a little bit of progress because you're thinking about things. And that's my goal here, is to just peel back the layer of programming so you can see what's actually true. Because. And I'll leave you with this, what's actually true. And I talk about this in the book. We're so scared. Like, if I'm less nice, man, I'll be a jerk. I'll lose my friends, people are gonna dislike me. I'll lose my clients and customers if I say no to them. You know, if I cancel on this person, they're going to hate me forever. You know, we have all these fears, but do you know why niceness and breaking free of it is? I'm talking about it and I'm the confidence guy, because it's just about confidence. It's about a bolder, deeper, more powerful, authentic version of confidence to bring to all of your relationships. It's like higher level confidence, more subtle confidence, more nuanced confidence. And it leads to the same breakthroughs and a sense of freedom. And so what I'm going to leave you with is that when you learn these tools that I'm going to teach you in these episodes and in the book, when you can get it in just a couple weeks here, three weeks, when you learn these tools and you consistently apply them, not only does all the terrible predictions not happen, but you break through to a higher level of freedom and better relationships. Feeling better in your relationships, people respond to you better, they're more attracted to you. Your sex life is better because you're not being afraid and people pleasing all the time. You are seen as more of a desirably sexual partner as a result, because you're more powerful, you're more expressive, you're more free, and everything you want is on the other side of this. Just like all our fears, right? So stick with me, keep listening, and for this week, just notice until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. 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 social confidencecenter.com it.