Latest / Art of the Question / How To Stop Being a People Pleaser - Frederik Herre - #21
Transcript
- speaker-0: Fred, so nice to be sitting here with you. First live episode I've ever done. ⁓ it's exciting for me. I recently started this podcast and so far everything has been online, which has been a lot of fun as well. But obviously if you're sitting face to face from each other, it's ⁓ usually a bit of a different vibe. So very excited to be doing the first episode with you from... this wonderful place, Bali. So thank you for that. speaker-1: Thanks for having me. speaker-0: Yeah, of course. So I think the topic that we'll be discussing today is people pleasing. It's something that you, ⁓ yeah, for these last couple years have, ⁓ yeah, become interested in and also started helping other people to become less of a people pleaser. So why did you become interested in this topic? speaker-1: So it all started when I was living in Berlin, roughly two years ago. And I had this realization that I was stuck in a place in life where I really didn't want to be. And I didn't see like a way forward. I was living in Berlin. was basically working every day from home, trying to build a podcast business, like to produce podcasts for other people off the ground, get that off the ground. but I was just like leaving my house every third day to go grocery shopping and was just locked in my apartment. At the same time, I felt like this wish within me of like, you know, having a family in the future. And I knew that in order to have a family, I need to kind of have a wife. And in order to have a wife, I kind of need to, you know, have a girlfriend. And in order to get a girlfriend, I need to date someone or at least see other humans. And I saw this like, this discrepancy between like my life, which I kind of wanted to have. and which I was living at the moment. And then at that time, another friend, she was also a coach. She told me, I'm sensing a lot of people pleasing tendencies from you. I was like, ⁓ what is that? And I started to Google and that was my first touch point with people pleasing. speaker-0: Yeah. All right. So how, so how would you define a people pleaser? What does that mean? speaker-1: Apebipi, people pleaser is someone who has some hidden contracts with himself. He grew up and kind of promised to himself that it's, he's a good person. And ⁓ as long as you're a good person, like good things will happen to you. If you take care of the needs of everybody else, then everybody else will also take care of your needs. And ⁓ so people pleaser generally try to live a very, you know, easy life, a life where they don't have conflicts or very conflict avoidant, a life where they don't try to upset anybody and try to be liked by everybody. Yeah. speaker-0: And how did this, what did this mean for your life? How did this ⁓ happen from day in your day to day interactions with people? speaker-1: I generally speaking, people pleases or the specifically the male version of it, which I call nice guys are affected in like a, many different areas of their life. There's three specific ones, which I usually point out. The first one is dating. They usually don't get the, let me ask you, ask, start with a personal example. Yeah, for For me personally, It played out in a way in dating where I was like single for nine years because I was too uncomfortable to communicate romantic interest because I was always having this belief in my head. if I'm the creep? What if I'm the predator? The things I read online on social media, what if I make her feel uncomfortable? And I didn't want to be that person, right? Like the nice guy, the people pleaser is very like, he doesn't want to upset anybody. He doesn't want to. make anybody feel bad and he feels responsible for other people's feelings. So caretaking, I was caretaking of other people's, right? I was thinking, okay, when I approach her and I know women generally, according to statistics, 80 % of women would like to be approached, but what if I upset her? Right? And that's, you can never be a hundred percent sure, but the nice guy wants to have that certainty of like everything's smooth. So in dating that led for me to become very passive and being single for nine years. Yeah. speaker-0: And sorry, but it's so interesting to that you mentioned dating there because I believe Chris Williamson has this saying which he calls, ⁓ believe it's like advice ⁓ hyper responders. And an example he always uses is the Me Too example, right? So usually ⁓ what happened after Me Too is that ⁓ The people that were the actual creeps and the people that were actually harassing girls, the Hollywood executives, the predators, whatever. If they see hashtag me too on an Instagram story, they're not going to change their behavior, right? But maybe the people that already had these nice guy tendencies as you call it, they're like, ⁓ my God, me too is happening. I- will never be able to approach a girl anymore because what if she thinks I'm a creep? ⁓ that, yeah, I had to think about that when you, ⁓ when you just told me. speaker-1: Exactly. That's like what I see in a lot of my clients also and in myself from the past that as you said, this hyper responding to that, the people who would need it the most, they don't listen to the advice and the people who needed the lead, like, okay, you're already thinking about the other person's emotion and feelings and everything. And now you're thinking, ⁓ my God, have to caretaker even more. And so that just stunts them and makes them actually less authentic and less trustworthy because they're just trying to take care of your feelings and not able to communicate their own emotions, their own feelings. speaker-0: Yeah, and was it just ⁓ in the sense of, ⁓ yeah, in relationship to women or do you feel like you've also had like people pleasing tendencies when it comes to work, for example, maybe when it comes to a colleague or maybe someone in your friends or your family? Was it broader than just women? speaker-1: For sure. Yeah. One specific example I'm thinking about right now, and it's still there a little bit, is that when I was working with someone, that person would send me a voice memo. For example, I gave them maybe some piece of work I just finished for review. I get the voice memo, my first thought was like, ⁓ my God, I hope they don't have anything to complain about. So kind of the perfection is coming through. I want to be good enough. I want to be approved, have the approval from the other person. But the first, it's interesting to observe your own mind in these situations. It says a lot about what you think about yourself, right? The ⁓ low self-worth coming through, which is very typical on nice guys and always kind of in dating, right? Putting the other person above themselves, but then also either when you're an employee status or like if you build your own business, it's always about all my clients are all here. Like I have to make it up for them. ⁓ Typical thing when you're employee could be you take on all the work for everybody else. Right. So you're over giving constantly and you slowly build resentment because you don't get it back. Nobody pays it back to you because you never learned how to set boundaries because you're conflict avoidant. And in the entrepreneurial world, that could mean that you don't feel comfortable to charge higher prices and you always try to make it good and comfortable for everybody. And therefore it's hard for you to grow because you need a certain amount of money to grow your business. speaker-0: For sure. And do you see that also in the people that you're currently helping, that when someone is a people pleaser that it usually across the board, or do you also see people that are people pleasing when it comes to women, but are very hard entrepreneurs, for example? speaker-1: So there's for sure a little bit different emphasis sometimes. Generally spoken, it depends on what you learned early on about yourself in life. I have one client who surprisingly didn't have any problems approaching women. So there's no problem at all and it probably comes from him having good experiences with that. He tried it in the past, it worked out. So he got a lot of evidence that why would he be like have any, any negative thoughts about that? It worked for him. But then in other areas of his life, especially in work, he was like very much pleasing and always like having struggles to communicate his own boundaries, communicate his own needs, even recognizing his own needs, recognizing his own ones. It's always about like the other person and trying to make them not upset. speaker-0: Yeah, and it's an interesting one, right? Because if you think about it, like, why is people pleasing a problem? Because in a way, it probably means you're a good person. It probably means that you think about other people. It probably means that you have a good heart, that you, yeah. want to do good for the world, you just want to be a good person in general, right? ⁓ So why is people pleasing a problem, you think? speaker-1: The hardest pill to swallow for people-pleasers in the beginning is that you think you're doing it because you're nice, but when you dig deeper, you find out that a lot of the things you're doing is to get something back. So a lot of the action is not unconditional. I catch myself after starting to really observe my thoughts that a lot of the times when I wanted something from someone like I gave someone a compliment, but I catch myself that I did it because I want to have a compliment back. wanted to have the re- so what I really needed was the reassurance from the other person, but I didn't ask for it. So in a sense, I was manipulating the other person to give me a compliment because I gave it first. the same goes in dating for women. Generally speaking, the nice guy tries to without ever risking of saying his full opinion with not shrinking himself and saying like, really like, I would like to go on a date with you. kind of tends to play it safe and stays in a more passive role, like inviting her, hoping that she notices and kind of builds resentment when then she dates this other guy. Told her what she, what she wants. ⁓ and. speaker-0: Yeah, who- speaker-1: It's that level of being not honest with yourself and therefore not being honest with the other person, which creates mistrust with women. They actually can't trust the man that much who doesn't know what he wants and doesn't know how to communicate that. But for the nice guy, feels exactly the opposite. It's a nervous system, nervous system regulation for the nice guy. Do that. speaker-0: So you nice guys end up in the friend zone basically because they don't make their intentions clear. They are afraid to get hurt. They're afraid to make their intentions known. And therefore I believe if you, there are some good signs on that. If you don't immediately go in offense, to speak, ⁓ girls stop seeing you as a potential mate, a potential partner. And they'll just, yeah, see you as a friend and put you in a friend's home. Is that one of the biggest risks of being a nice guy with women? speaker-1: Um, yeah, I would say, I would say there's also nice guys who are not like that, as I said, but like a big majority of them has these internalized beliefs and therefore struggles a lot to attract an adequate partner in their life. speaker-0: Yeah. And so how, what does your journey currently look like? You recognize that, Hey, I have people pleasing tendencies. Recognition is one thing. Where do you go from there? speaker-1: Yeah, there's three steps to change your behavior patterns. first is the awareness, the recognition. And that's the most important one. second is then being able to name the pattern to get to know the part of you and the thoughts, the actual thoughts, which are coming up for you and being able to stop yourself in the present moment. A lot of times it happens that afterwards you're thinking, ⁓ man, shit, I could have said this or I should have done it differently. Sure. being able to catch yourself in the now, which can be trained with meditation, other mindfulness exercises and awareness. And that takes a lot of time. Usually it's not just like, you you mentioned Chris Williamson. He recently was here in Bali and one thing stuck with me. said, ⁓ something along the lines of people always want short-term solutions for long-term problems, but he believes that there's only really short-term solutions for short-term problems and long-term solutions for long-term problems. So if this is something which was going on for you your whole life, you can expect that it needs a few months to years even to, you know, change that and to kind of build that new identity. And so the last point after you recognize the behavior, you have the awareness, you stop yourself is changing it. And that's the most scary one because then it's like, Okay, how would I, how would a person who's not a people pleaser, how would a person who has more confidence react in a certain situation? For example, approaching the girl, ooh, scary, right? Your ego comes in with all these stories about today, you're not looking good enough. Like you're not actually feeling that well. Actually you, I don't know, so many excuses. You didn't go to the barbershop the last three weeks, something like that. know, we all guys know these thoughts. being able to actually take the first step one time to give you that piece of evidence, to change that inner story, that inner belief of yourself. That is what then in the big trajectory of the next month and years, if you do that repeatedly, changes your identity. And the best way to approach it, there's a few things, like is community. And this is why I'm doing men's circles also to give men this kind of space to share their, you know, uh, advances in specific areas where they can say like, okay, I have this pattern and then there's other people who understand me because they're also nice guys. And now I'm trying to do this thing the first time maybe in 25, 30 years. speaker-0: ⁓ If we make it as practical as possible, you said there's three steps to it. ⁓ Let's just start at the first one, recognition. How do people recognize that they have, that they're potentially a people pleaser? Because you told me you had someone reach out to you or at least say it to you. I recognize this in you. I can imagine that not everyone has that person around them to tell them. So how can people... on their own without any help ⁓ recognize this in themselves. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Good question. there's, believe when someone is ready to hear something, any kind of source from the outside will come up. Like it sounds a little bit boo boo, but I think actually throughout life that maybe even four years ago or four years before I changed, someone else told me I'm a people pleaser. And I was just like, no, that's not my problem right now. Right. So there's this moment when you feel like, okay, I'm, I'm ready for this. And you hear it and it kind of makes sense for you. It clicks for you in that moment. I believe you can do several things. guess, um, reading the book, normal Mr. Nice guy can seem like, okay, this is a very practical step. I, you know, uh, relating to the, to the problems in the book? Sure. I can watch the YouTube video about the summary, right? If you don't want to read the whole book. Another thing is like, I created a quiz actually about, I a nice guy? How much of a nice guy am I? So we could link that in the video description to just see like, okay, what kind of patterns are there, which I might relate to. ⁓ then, yeah, just, think researching about the topic and talking to other people and finding out like, ⁓ there's other people who have the same patterns. Cause that itself always gives you a little bit of reassurance. ⁓ that's normal. And this is a pattern which is recognizable. speaker-0: Yeah, and I think like deep down, you'll know, like, for example, like I wouldn't say I'm particularly a people pleaser when it comes to women per se, but I was definitely a people pleaser in my work environment, right? And still probably am too much when I'm doing stuff for clients. ⁓ When I told myself, now I'm going to take this weekend off, you know, I'm going to relax this weekend and then... new job comes in. Sure, there's the money. Sure, there's maybe you don't want to upset the client. So maybe if you say no now, they won't hire you in the future. But there's also deep down, I know that sometimes I just say yes because I didn't have a Dimi to say no. So for me, it's an interesting ⁓ That's why I asked, like you don't necessarily have to be a people pleaser across the board, I believe. ⁓ You can be towards maybe, maybe you're only a people pleaser towards one person, right? May also be the case. ⁓ But I know like when I have those moments that I just described, like I know, like deep down, you know, you feel it in your, in your soul. Like I, I did that to please this other person that wasn't for me. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's when we go deeper into that, it's really about three core things. the ones, the needs and the boundaries, and then separating this for yourself and the other person. And this is also the difference between, ⁓ like a nice guy and kind of like a toxic guy. The internet talks about the nice guy is ignoring their own needs, and boundaries. No setting up boundaries. doesn't even know what they want and what they need and only cater to the other person's needs, wants and boundaries. And then at some point, that shadow side can sometimes flip for some people. I remember having these thoughts in the early twenties, like, ⁓ only these like macho guys getting the women, like I'm not getting anybody like it's shit to be a good person. Maybe I should just, you know, be like these macho guys. Sure. And then it can flip and it flips the whole script. And now you become the person who think about their own needs, boundaries and ignores the other needs, wants and boundaries from the other person. Especially like with women, how would that look like? you you say like, I want this, but you don't, you ignore her completely. You, you play games with her. You're not really honest what you want. Maybe if she wants a relationship, you're like in it for the only short term. You're not really honest with her, you know, not really. communicating on a partner level, but being on a, no, now it's about me. I don't care about others anymore. And the solution for this is like to elevate it from that level and integrate both and kind of become that person who says it's about my needs, wants some boundaries and I got to know myself and I know what I need and I know what I want. And I know how to set boundaries without crushing emotionally because it's too, I'm too afraid of it. So putting work within yourself and then how having empathy. checking in with the other person. What do need right now? How are you feeling being able to relate to the other person's experience? And it's a lot of skills to learn for sure, but that's where I believe the, like a healthy masculinity comes from. speaker-0: Yeah, and let's say someone is listening to this and they recognize themselves as being a people pleaser, right? ⁓ So that's step one, recognition. ⁓ Let's move to step two, what does that look like in practice? speaker-1: Step two requires a lot of practice of catching yourself in the moment, stopping yourself in the moment, having that awareness, like in meditation, where you observe your own thoughts, being able to, okay, I'll give you a practical example. When I started to be more aware of these thoughts, I would walk down the street and I would notice that every time I would make eye contact with someone, I would automatically look away on the ground. Wow, that's interesting. Like I never noticed that about myself. That was just a normal reaction I had. And the more I listened to what actually in that moment, like usually when we try to change the behavior, so I was forcing myself to keep looking at the other person's eye while the person walks by and then the voices get louder so you can observe them. So sometimes I'm like constantly go into that uncomfortability just a little bit, like dip the toe in. And then I get this like, ⁓ what am I actually afraid of? And then for women and men, was different. That's in that specific case for women, was like, ⁓ I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. I don't want to be the creepy guy who stares at them. So I'm like looking down immediately. And then for men, it was like, ⁓ I don't want to make them aggressive or feel like I'm asserting dominance or whatever that means. Like just walking down the street somewhere in Berlin, right? It was really this like shrinking myself, making myself small. I don't want to be an inconvenience for everybody. don't want to. Yeah. It's again about caretaking the emotions from others, right? speaker-0: assumptions going on there as well. Because as I listen to this, it's like you're imagining all these things that you have no idea whether they're true or not. speaker-1: Exactly. This is like a super interesting topic I dove into recently. And I listened to Peter Krohn. He's kind of like more of a spiritual leader. And I saw one Instagram reel from him and I really liked what he was doing there. He had the audience raising their hands and was like, who here is scared of the unknown? And like 80 % of people raised their hands. So then he said, it's bullshit. You're not scared of the unknown. How could you be? It's unknown. What are you scared of? You're scared of what your mind is projecting into the unknown. So where does all the information come from, which you project into the unknown? From the past. That's your only source of evidence. So now we know we have the past. We take these thoughts and we project them into the future as I did. Like, maybe I make that woman uncomfortable, right? Maybe I make that man aggressive. I don't know. And then we can question that, wait, is that an absolute truth that happens? when we start to dissect this a little bit on a, yeah, maybe on a spiritual level and say like, okay, I'm the observer, I'm observing myself like in meditation, there are these thoughts, who am I really? Then we find out that the ego, kind of all these thoughts, which are constantly popping up and like, you know, talking in your head and making you shrink and making you not take the action and not approaching the girl. that this part of you constantly sees fears everywhere. The whole, the unknown, hence the future, it's just a huge field of threats for it. But when we manage to shut that down a little bit and then quiet the ego, then we find out that the unknown for our soul, for that part which really is playful and like, maybe like when we were children, that part sees... opportunities and possibility and everything is exciting because there's so many things we can explore it, right? And it's really just two different angles towards the same thing. The unknown, something you don't know. There's like uncertainty, but like how you deal with that uncertainty. You always want to be safe or do you embrace the uncertainty? And that's on several levels, something you can't just understand logically, but you have to slowly learn on several levels. Like on one level, the observing. the understanding your patterns, which we just discussed. And then also understanding your nervous system, how it reacts. Like maybe you start shaking, you know, in certain situations where you're like really afraid, right? Because it's so deep ingrained in you from when you were a child. speaker-0: Yeah, that's super interesting. and it's, so if I understand correctly, like it starts with just recognizing it in general in yourself. Then the second step is like also recognition, but in the moment. So like life recognition, if you, if you will. And then if you have both, then you can start taking action, right? Because. Now you know that you're a people pleaser, you know when you are pleasing people. ⁓ So then the third one is changing your actions, right? ⁓ What does that look like? ⁓ How do you change your actions and which actions are we talking about in maybe some scenarios? speaker-1: Yeah. A friend of mine posted this Instagram recently. really liked it. said, awareness gives choice. You don't have a choice when you're not aware of your patterns of how you live the last 10 years. Right? So when we have the first and the second step, have that awareness or recognition, then we are able to have the choice of changing our course of action. And I really like one framework there, which ⁓ I'm going to explain it here, but you can. Go to put it on the screen or something like that. It's like four words, but basically, um, it's a framework where we understand that thoughts always evoke a certain emotion. Um, so when we have a certain emotion and that leads to a certain action and an action leads to a certain outcome, depending on what we do. So thought, emotion, action, outcome. Now, how can we use that framework? And how, like in the way of to change our life for the better, for example, to start dating, if we feel like very uncomfortable with it or to ask for the race we haven't in years. the thought might be when we're imagining ourselves in the situation, okay, I want to approach that woman now. Thought, I don't know if like she's too good for me. I'm not looking good enough right now. I should have gone to the Baba. I'm really not in shape right now. I'd rather go to the gym. ⁓ What kind of emotion evokes that? Excitement? No. Right? It leads to fear, leads to shrinking, it leads to feeling uncomfortable. ⁓ What does fear lead to? Taking action? No. speaker-0: Not really. It depends on which kind of hair there is a dog running after you, but in this case not at all. speaker-1: Exactly. But it's generally like an, want to go away from it. When a dog running, same as you, you want to go away from it, right? It's not like pulled towards. It's like a push away. Sure. Right. So it's like in the dog situation is actually useful because you want to push away from the dog as as possible. At least in Bali when they chase you down, know, not the cute ones in Europe. ⁓ So, and then we have the action and that is the part where we say, okay, now I have the outcome. I don't have a woman because I'm not approaching her because I feel shitty because I have these thoughts and these thoughts I have because I have certain beliefs. We talked about the nice care beliefs. So now if I want to turn it around, how do I do that? We can reverse engineer it. I want to change the outcome. So I want to approach the woman. ⁓ What do I have to do? Approach the woman or like outcome. I want to have a girlfriend, action, approach the woman. How do I have to feel? Probably excitement and joy and a positive feeling. What do I have to think? in order to evoke that emotion. ⁓ I have to probably think, wow, like maybe that is a really great connection, like some positive thoughts. ⁓ I'm really excited to meet her. It would be cool to have a nice connect. Like, you know, like very much more positive thoughts. And then what kind of person, what kind of beliefs do I have to cultivate to do that? And now that we understand the belief level, how to get to the outcome we want, then... We have to understand that in order to change beliefs, we have to gain evidence. So that's where we stop ourselves. Like we have the awareness of our patterns. Then second step, we stop ourselves. And then the third step would be, okay, now I want to gain new evidence. I really want to change this belief. I know this belief is not me. So we have a little bit of separation of like, not I'm the nice guy, but a part of me is a nice guy. It's like, that's not my true self. And I really want to want to change that now. And with all that knowledge, how like, okay, there's one trick, for example, to be, ⁓ go into the scientific mindset. How would it look like if I wouldn't be a nice guy? If I would have more confidence in just test it. just pretend I'm that, or I just make the experiment of how does a woman react differently to me when I do X, Y, Z. No opposition to what I do usually. And that sometimes creates a little bit of a, of a. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: distance between you and that part of you, is so afraid to do it. And you do it and see like, okay, can I get some evidence? Can I get some new evidence? And then usually what we find out because of the projecting into the unknown, that is not at all like how we projected it into the unknown, but it's usually different and way more positive than we imagined. speaker-0: Yeah. So as I hear it, has some, some identity shift has to take place as well. And what you just told me also reminds me of a section of atomic habits. Did you read the atomic habits? Well, there's this example in the book of one of his ⁓ clients who wanted to get in shape and go to the gym. Right. So what he figured out on his own is that in order for him to become consistent at creating this new habit, he needed to generate a shift in his identity. So what he did for a couple of weeks is he promised himself that he was going to the gym, but he didn't even have to work out. He just needed to go to the gym and he did. And it was very easy because like Was he tired? Yes. Did it matter? No, because he wasn't going there to workout anyway. So he went to the gym for a couple weeks and after that he was like, okay, I'm going, but I'm going to do a workout for five minutes. And then he was a guy who was going to the gym regularly. I mean, he wasn't doing any crazy workouts yet, but sure enough, five minutes became 10. He's like, I'm here now, right? So I might as well. I mean, I'm here now, so I might as well. do 10 minutes and 10 minutes became 20. And before he knew it, he changed his whole identity of a guy who goes to the gym and work out for four hours and also actually enjoy the process. But, this is such an interesting example to me because I think it shows the power of identity. It's when people, ⁓ stop smoking, right? Or want to stop smoking. Are they saying I quit or I'm trying to quit? You know that the latter will probably fill and will pick up that cigarette after they had a few beers. If you just tell yourself, I quit, I go to the gym and then slowly build up evidence towards that new identity. I think ⁓ you can make a lot of things happen. So to bring it back to people pleasing, what are the small steps someone can take in order not to feel overwhelmed? Because it seems very scary to me. ⁓ I generally don't have a problem talking to women, but approaching a random woman on the street is still pretty scary. Right. So how can someone change their behavior in a way that doesn't feel as overwhelming to them? speaker-1: That's a very good point you're bringing up here because I just wanted to say that atomic habits, if you remember the part of the book, the book title, it comes from not from atomic in a sense of bad, but the smallest habits you can do. that contains all of our identity, right? Because the atomic part kind of is like the smallest piece of our universe. So in the example, to give an example of the same perspective, but from the NISQA perspective out of my own life, I was like, okay, how do I change dating? it started the first thing because it can be very daunting and people generally always want to change the whole identity immediately, right? I go to the gym now and go four times a week with like two hour training. Instead of like starting small, right? And then it fails. So how can I make it really small? As you said, and ⁓ being aware that this is usually the only way it works. and not having this like huge sudden shift in your life. So for me, I remember even before I started dating, I figured out, ⁓ my God, I have a lot of fears taking initiative. I saw it my dad, how he like interacted in the relationship with my mom. And then I saw me having the same pattern. So being very passive, very not initiative driven, but very, and in the moment I tried to do it, I figured out, ⁓ I have a lot of fears of being judged by the woman. judged by the person I'm inviting. So what I did was with a friend, I didn't tell her about it, but with a friend I was like, okay, how would a person that has more initiative, yeah, behaves more like someone who is confident, how would that person do it? I was like, okay, that person would totally just offer, like have a suggestion for a cafe. And it wasn't even a romantic thing with her. I just wanted to catch up. And I had so many fears. just offering, in the end I managed to offer two, have two suggestions because then I thought, oh, she still have a choice. But it was just the smallest step for me to offer like two cafes. I was like, oh my God, what will she think? And then the response was like, okay, yeah, that sounds lovely. Let's do it. I'm like, oh, wait, what? She's not super angry. Okay, let's just go there then. I was like, oh my God, I hope she likes the food because I was so afraid that she would criticize me for the choice of cafe I made. So, but at that time I recognized how much I was just driven by these fears, but that was the first single step. And then a few months later, I started to go on dating apps. I was like, okay, like how can I just chat differently? Which was like a very low and like low risk entry of like being okay, what I'm so afraid to be. Yeah. The bad guy, the guy who's kind of making a woman feel uncomfortable when I'm just inviting someone out like that after two times texting. And I just tested it and was like, you just, okay, here for nice guys, write that down. You always, you have to be able to risk being the asshole. This was the one thing sometimes where I changed things was like, okay, I'm risking being the asshole in this situation. I hope I'm not, but. I just don't see another way of trying this out without risking to be the asshole in this situation. But then what I found back, the feedback was like, the women were like, oh yeah, let's go on a date. I'm like, wait, what? This is as easy as it gets. Like I just get dates now? Oh, just should have asked before. Like I was just not feeling comfortable because I was so afraid of them feeling bad. speaker-0: Yeah. And what I like about this is that I also believe if you just think it through, like fear lives in the vague, right? If you are just like, what if I get, what if she says no? Okay. Scary, scary. She says no. You get denied. Okay. Your ego gets a dent, whatever, but think it through. She says no. That means you didn't get the date. Okay. But by not asking, you're not getting the date anyway. So the worst case scenario is your current scenario. So you might as well ask it because at least then you'll have a chance that you'll improve the current scenario. I try to, when I feel like I'm scared of seeing something or doing something, yeah, making a decision, whatever it is, I just like, if you think it through, and go all the way until the end. Like what's the worst that can happen? Usually the worst that can happen is ending up where you are right now. So therefore you should probably just try and make it happen. speaker-1: Yeah. I think we have to give Niska a little bit of grace though also, because if we look at it from an emotional perspective, the worst thing which can happen is not the external outcome as you said, but that deep inner feeling of like, what if she completely shuts me down? That is another huge piece of evidence that I'm the worst person on earth. like, I, it feels like death. feels like death. And That is the bigger fear in comparison to, I just stay alone. I'm just staying safe. It's easier to stay safe than to risk death. sometimes from the outside, it's not really relatable for other guys who don't have that too deeply. It really is like that. So I have a of, a lot of empathy for, because we can try to boil it down to a logical decision. And it sometimes helps to reframe things. And as we said before, create the distance between yourself and your ego and the fear thing. so like, okay, I'm better off, right? I'm better off with trying it than without as I said. But on the other hand, for nice guys, oftentimes it's the other way around because they're so afraid of doing that thing. Because the core fear of like, can't handle it. Whatever comes up, they can't handle it. speaker-0: And we've spoken about people pleasing in a romantic sense, taking baby steps there, right? So maybe start out through texting, maybe start out with proposing to restaurants rather than asking, where do you want to go? Little things like that, but how... What would this look like baby steps? What would they look like outside of this realm of romance and talking to women? Because ⁓ I can imagine if someone is a people pleaser in a broader sense of the word and they are also a people pleaser at work, yeah, it might be very different steps, very different baby steps. have to take in order to prevent yourself from staying at people-pleaser-dar. Even though I think taking steps in one area will probably also help you to take steps in others. speaker-1: Yeah, it comes back to the same principles, but to name some specifics and I can talk more for the entrepreneurial world, even though most people are probably employees who listening to this. ⁓ It comes back to the same foundation, the same basics of recognizing what are my needs, what are their needs? And am I doing something because I kind of want to alleviate a feeling of uncomfortability or do I really feel inspired to do it? So when someone asks you at work for, ⁓ like, I want to go on this extended weekend with my girlfriend. Could you take this extra shift for me?" And you're like, yeah, sure. No problem. Like why, like being a hundred percent honest, why you're doing it. Is it because you avoid conflict? Is it because are you bullshitting yourself by saying like, oh no, I really do it because I like the person? Or is there a deep down part of you where it says, no, I actually don't want to jump in for you, Steven. Yeah, like it starts with honesty there and then same principle taking the small step of like, okay, how can I, how can I communicate that in a way where my needs are met? And also I'm kind of okay to upset someone else, but that is a huge thing. I'm coming back to the foundation of getting some men's circles, some support from the outside, someone you can celebrate these small wins with who really gets you there. Um, and someone, yeah, who also holds you when you get shut down, because it will happen also that you over or like another person also had their trauma with something and then shuts, shuts you down and you're like, that was right in the core wound. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that support is really important. speaker-0: And how do you, let's say someone is very successful at, they used to be a people pleaser and now they aren't anymore. Like they're, following all the steps. How do you prevent yourself from taking it too far? Because I have a funny story actually of, I believe it was a family member of my mom, maybe, maybe a far niece or, or a friend or whatever. I can't exactly remember. the relationship, but it doesn't really matter for the story. But basically there was this woman who also ⁓ followed a course ⁓ to stand up for yourself, right? So it's pretty similar, ⁓ not being a people pleaser, learning how to stand up for yourself. But she was like taking it way too far. Like every single request or just question that would come her way, she would just say, No, I'm not doing that. So for example, like, Hey, do you want to, do you want to go for a walk tonight? was like, no, I'm not going for a walk because you want me to go on a walk. And it was kind of a running gag in, in, in the friend group. it was like, okay, that's what happens when you take it too far. Obviously this might be an exotic case, but I can imagine that, ⁓ as soon as you start to recognize these. things and work on being less of a people pleaser that there are going to be these moments where you aren't really sure, right? Where he is like, okay, ⁓ am I doing this for me? Am I doing this for them? And how do you make sure that you're not going overboard with being the exact opposite of a people pleaser, which is just an asshole. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. I think there's several, yeah, several things which can support with that. The first is I don't remember if Aristotle said it or Plato or like, but it's basically you always have to explore the edges to know where the healthy middle is. And I think this is where sometimes people can go a little bit on the other side because I have to say usually They're so afraid to go on the other side. Then when they think they're on the other side, they're just right in the middle. So the right balance, but they think, oh my God, it's way too far. Um, but sometimes in some cases it can happen that they shift on the other side. I think just being really open to feedback again, coming back to community and having a men's group for men specifically now, or a women's group for women. Um, people don't sugar coat everything, but like people. really call each other forward in celebrating the good things with you, but also calling you forward on bullshit. Yeah. And say like, ⁓ no, we think you went too far. Can you think that through? What do you really want to do? What kind of man do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to be? It's that like, you know, and then it needs some dialing in. And as you said, a lot of times for me personally, I know that I need sometimes weeks or month to get clear. of like a specific situation where I'm like, wait, what do I really want? And this kind of intuition, it's intuition, right? To intuitively feel, is that something I want or something? In the beginning, it's hard to untangle that. You get better at it over time though. then the beginning, you know, it's like with everything it's practice, practice, practice, but it's good to have the support from the outside and not just reading books and kind of like having this one-sided kind of I'm watching videos about it, but also. having a constant filter, someone who mirrors you, right? To kind of find that balance in the long term. speaker-0: And you also ⁓ help people with becoming ⁓ less of a people ⁓ pleaser. I mean, we've discussed the steps, obviously, but what does it look like when someone approaches you and they say, hey, I think I'm a people pleaser. Can you help me? Where do you go from there? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So usually, um, there's the first step, the low entry step is just being part of a men's group. Um, that is like a one and a half to two hour call could be online, could be offline depending on where everybody is located. Um, it's, just a way for men to come together and to practice showing themselves authentically. So. exploring the vulnerability, exploring the emotions, exploring, okay, what do I even feel? Because when we don't know what we feel, we haven't even touched that topic actually, but when you don't know what you feel, you don't know what you want. If you don't know, if you feel excited by something or if you're scared by something because you're so numbed out, then how can you decide where you want to go? And to explore these parts in a safe space where everybody else is exploring the same things is really powerful. It's just like a lot of men tell me how, how much lighter they feel after a circle. Like one guy recently told me like he didn't have anybody to talk to since 10 years. And it's just like that feeling, like I'm getting goosebumps when I talk about this because like I'm only 32 now. there's guys who went through life for decades who have not been able to open up about anything because they held everything together, they are in a situation where they care take about everybody, it could be a parent, someone they have to take care of or they feel the duty, but then they forget themselves in the meantime and they have no support and nobody to talk to. And they're just numbing out because it's better than, you know, facing the emotions in that level of reality. speaker-0: Do you think there's a stigma as a man to discuss your feelings? speaker-1: For sure. I hear so many discussions even here in Bali about like how much should you open up to your woman, like to your girlfriend or how authentic should you be? I have a very specific opinion on that. We don't need to go into that now. But generally speaking, I think it's always good to go into, to be open, to opening up for, because we are all just, a lot of men just performing to be men. But inside they feel like little boys. And a lot of the work is starting to change that feeling within you, which starts with like taking responsibility and leadership starts with self-leadership and starting to lead your own life, which means listening to yourself and being open and being expressive and integrating all these different parts of yourself. So that is like one thing you ask about what can people do? And the one thing is the, the men's circles as kind of the low entry thing. then the other bigger one is, then either signing up for a bigger coaching, which also would include men's circles because the community part is such a big thing. ⁓ includes learning about certain topics, learning about polarity, ⁓ especially when it comes to dating, learning about, yeah, more advanced than techniques about awareness. How do I actually, you know, practically can support this growth journey? and make it a long-term change. And I'm just like, okay, we do the three months and then afterwards, we forget everything. And then also in the future, I want to offer retreats. There's also other men's retreats out there where it's about emotional release, about like meeting these parts of you where, you haven't maybe, where you can really explore yourself and find out, okay, like find out more about your patterns, building even more awareness. at the same time, releasing a little bit of like stuck emotions, which always sounded a little bit woo-woo to people who've never thought about emotions and grew up like me in Germany. It's like, what the fuck you mean? Releasing emotions. don't feel anything. But there is stuff often covered up and it was for me. So I've talked with a lot of certainty that I haven't cried on the book. Like when my grandpa died, I was like, yeah, no, he's dead. what do you, like that's how life goes. Like that's how numb I was. And I really needed to just like discover feeling grief and sadness again. And only last year I started to be able to be more emotional and cry in a certain situation again. And in front of other people, that's the next level then. That's even harder. speaker-0: Yeah. And I mean, we've mostly discussed men, which makes sense because you are, we're guys and ⁓ you are well, the expert in, in the no more Mr. Nice guy. So it makes sense that we are mainly targeting men in this discussion, but I can imagine that people pleasing is something that a lot of women deal with as well. Right. How does that, Yeah. What does that look like in practice for most women? Is it very different from how it looks, what it looks like in men? speaker-1: I would say women were originally nice guys. feel like people pleasing was more connected with women in the past. Just recently, kind of, we've gotten more awareness that a lot of men also just kind of develop these patterns, these identities. For women, it's pretty much the same in a lot of ways. Of course, there's the over-giving, the caretaking. the ignoring your own emotions, right? As even culturally very much we're in Asia here, but also in Europe and Asia, think specifically it's like, you know, you're kind of subordinates to the man, ⁓ you know, make him happy. It's kind of this 1960s mindset maybe where it's like, ⁓ I don't really, you shouldn't, there's so many limiting beliefs women got told when they're young also, like you shouldn't be. like too loud, you're too much. That's a really big one for most women where they have to work through in their own life. You're too loud. Especially girls who were like, like to play with the boys and stuff like that when they grew up getting shut down early on, no behave. This is not what girls are doing, stuff like that. yeah, it's the same, it results in a lot of the same patterns. Obviously in the relationship, it's a little bit different how the result from that is, but. Yeah, especially in work, least so the same things, right? Overgiving, not asking for a raise, stuff like that. speaker-0: Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned like the difference between Asia and Europe there. I'm not sure, but I can imagine that the whole ⁓ people pleasing phenomenon in men also has something to do with the fact that we in the Western world ⁓ in the last 50 years have had luckily major improvements for women, right? They have access to They can vote for starters. They are now going more often to university than men are. I believe more of the corporate workforce ⁓ are women currently. So we're definitely seeing this shift happen of women entering into the workforce, taking these higher paying jobs, higher positions, having better education, which is all. Amazing of course and yeah like it should be but I feel like that could also have something to do with this role shift why you see a lot of western men ⁓ get into this role of being a people pleaser. What do you think about that? speaker-1: I'm thinking how much I want to go into the topic now. I can give you a little rundown and then you can tell me if you want to go deeper or not. So what I know is that everything already started with industrial revolution. That before that boys were mainly growing up with the mother until they're kind of 12. Then majority of people were farmers, right? In Europe and the US didn't matter. speaker-0: Yeah, no, sure. speaker-1: It was mainly farmers. So after they're 12, would, the boys would be taken kind of by the men and would be going to the fields with the uncles, the brothers, the fathers. So they would get socialized by other men. What happened then was that we built the factories and the school system, all that came together and kind of we removed the autonomy from families and like the dads and every, like the state got more responsibility for everybody to grow up. And now. The dads leave for work back then 12 hours a day, seven days a week. So the kids, the boys didn't have any connection to their dads anymore. that over several generations then being replaced, blue collar workers becoming white collar workers now going to the office instead of the factory led to boys not being socialized by men anymore at all. Like if you think about it, the moms are at home, then you had women teachers mostly even in the like Higher school education, it's mainly women, maybe that in university, it kind of like averages out, right? So where are the masculine role models? Then we have no initiation anymore. There's no... Yeah, elders, which kind of teach you the way of like how to grow up. when boys nowadays learn how to be men is like, you know, online, their phone is like, and rotate and scrolling. It's really complicated because that's where a lot of the patterns come from because a lot of the, there's a few different options, but to name one is that. when you grow up with a single mom who even my mom, didn't like, she was always grateful that my dad supported her even after they divorced. But there was that underlying sense of like, he did this, he did that, right? Like it's normal. Our ego kind of blames that part of the other person is like, that was unfair and I didn't like this. that's every, everybody is like that, right? Me too. But then me as a boy growing up kind of getting all this information about my dad, making me be like, I don't want to be like my dad. So how do I decide to be? I want to be someone who pleases women. That's one thing where it comes from, right? So now we have also way more like single households all the time than boys being majority of them again with the women. And that kind of snowballed over many years where now the No More Mr. Nice Care book was written in the nineties and it's... still like more, he gets invited to podcasts now a quarter decade later. speaker-0: Yeah, and what's the movie called? American... Shit, I really want to remember. American Beauty is the name of the movie. Have you seen that? speaker-1: I remember roughly the story but... speaker-0: ⁓ it's an incredible, incredible film. You have to see it. It's a classic, but basically it's about ⁓ a nice guy and ⁓ he gets tormented by his wife. He has a very ⁓ uneven relationship. ⁓ His wife is pretty evil. ⁓ She's just nasty towards him. And then one day he decides no more Mr. Nice Guy and the movie follows him. ⁓ to that journey, ⁓ through that journey rather, ⁓ where he, ⁓ just stops giving a fuck basically. ⁓ and it's, very artistic movie. It's very deep. It was shot beautifully, great actors. ⁓ but it, it, that's an old movie. That's basically what I was saying. Like, ⁓ the movie was, I believe it was, came out probably around the time we were born or something around 93 ish. Um, maybe I'm butchering this, don't quote me on that. Definitely fact check. But it's, it's your right to say that it's not something that is like, it's new, but it's not like last five years. So as I say, no. Um, you mentioned briefly, um, uh, about recognizing feelings. You said we, we haven't even touched on that. Um, So yeah, how did you recognize feelings? What did you mean by that? speaker-1: My first experience with my emotions, okay, that sounds weird. When I first joined the men's circle two and a half years ago, I remember we had to, like at the beginning of every circle, before we shared, we had to say how we feel physically, emotionally, mentally. And I remember the first circle was like totally... I was just thinking like good or bad. that's spectrum of how to describe my emotional landscape. We're laughing about it now, right? But like it's, it's, it's really like a testimony for how little we think about how we feel. ⁓ I'm feeling good or I'm feeling bad. It's like comfortable or uncomfortable. It's like binary. And so with the help of these emotion circles where you have like a few base emotions in the middle and then more nuanced, you know, emotions on the outside. It really helped me to get more clear of like, okay, wait, how do I actually feel when I have this feeling? How does it feel on my body? Maybe do I have a constriction somewhere in my throat, in my chest? Like, ⁓ this is how fear feels like. This is how sadness feels like. Interesting. And yeah, making this body mind connection really being like, because then you can also reverse engineer it. The other day I was giving a workshop. And a classic one is like this, right? I did this. And I was like, ⁓ I'm apparently like, want to hide myself right now. In the moment, what I was talking about, I was recognizing while I was doing the workshop, was like, ⁓ okay, crazy. No, I don't want to be like that. I want to, I want to stay open. And then I put my arms down again. And it's these little things. So we can really learn about like, ⁓ wait, I feel this in my body also right now. Apparently I need to, I'm feeling this emotion right now. Or you recognize the emotion, then you feel the according thing in your body. And that really helps you to make more informed decisions. What do I want? What do need? Like, especially when a woman asks you on the relationship, what do I need? Well, what do you need right now? Because men are like puzzled. It's like, I don't know. I need you to change something. You know, it's like, no, but like, what do you need? It's not about the other person. It's about me. I couldn't answer that. speaker-0: Being better at recognizing different emotions, that awareness helps you to ⁓ take better actions. Is that accurate? Or why is it helpful to be in touch with your emotions? Why isn't the binary ⁓ good enough? speaker-1: Because emotions are running everything. Emotions running our lives, right? Remember the thought, emotion, action, outcome? Yeah. The emotion runs our action. If the emotion isn't in place with the action, it's maybe short term, it works sometimes to beat our self and submission and doing it. But ultimately it's a more wise decision to get in touch with your emotions and being like, okay, how can I change the emotion to an emotion I kind of want to feel and then, you know, go for it. So it's like detrimental if you want to change your life. speaker-0: Yeah, but should we always listen to our emotions though? if something, fear is an emotion, right? And often that fear is unjustified. ⁓ Maybe ⁓ we feel ⁓ insecure about something and maybe if we... If you still do something while feeling insecure, like for example, public speaking or something, everyone is going to be, especially in the beginning, but I think even the most hardened comedians, right? They still feel nervous when they walk on that stage. And I know a lawyer who said, ⁓ still, when I have to go up and do my story in front of the judge. I get nervous and the day that I don't get nervous anymore is the day I quit because I need to feel nervous. But that's someone who knows that that nervousness can bring value. But if we were always to, if we always listen to our emotions, oh, this is scary. I'm nervous. I don't want to do it. So how do you determine which emotions to listen to and which one to push through? speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ Awareness gives choice. Yes. I've talked about that before. So ⁓ the Buddhists were pretty good in figuring that kind of stuff out. Basically they say, okay, have the awareness, observe yourself, and then you can make an informed decision of what I want to do and what I not want to do. So in the example of public speaking, ⁓ what the example of what I said with the framework of ⁓ thought, emotion, action, outcome. When I have an emotion, now usually when you're not aware, The fear stops you from taking action. Now, when you're aware, you're aware you have fear and you're aware you want to change that because you want to go on that stage now and you don't want to shrink and you want to change your life or you want to approach that girl and you feel fear right now, but you don't want to be single all your life. Now we can make that informed decision or say like, no, I want to do it instead. And it's very hard in the beginning, but I always, there's like only two things which motivate us in life really. And it's the push motivation or pull motivation. And a lot of times we act from push motivation. What does it mean? We see something or we feel something. We're like, I don't want to be here. I really would like to go somewhere else. I just hate it here and I want to go somewhere else. And that generally speaking is not a good motivation. It's not a long-term motivator also. And the other way to see it is like, ⁓ I see something in the farthest sense. It's looks like the light I'm feeling inspired by it. I'm not feeling fear and want to run away, but I feel inspired by it. feel a pull motivation, I feel pulled towards to it and I want to go there. We can analyze our simplest life decisions according to that framework. So an example I always use because it's so stupid simply is like, okay, you like everybody goes to get a haircut every once in a while. So there's guys who are thinking. I'm not looking good enough right now. ⁓ my God, I'm going on the stage next week or like, what are the girls thinking about me? And like, it's all these kinds of thoughts and that makes them to go to the barbershop. Is that push or is that pull motivation? speaker-0: ⁓ that's a good question. So if, if a guy goes to the barbershop because, ⁓ I dunno, it, I, it depends the way you look at it. speaker-1: It's push motivation. Because he feels fear of judgment, of not being good enough. And that's why he's feeling pushed. Then there's the other kind of guy who says like, ⁓ I want to look like I'm feeling so good inside and want my outer self reflect my inner self. And I want to treat myself good out of self-love. And this is why I go once every two weeks, every three weeks to my favorite barbershop and speaker-0: about that. Good. speaker-1: He's always treating me well. I always get my cup of tea here and we have good conversation. That is a totally different energy, but the outcome is the same. Both go to the barbershop, right? Yeah. So these two are the differences. And I guess... That is kind of a framework we can utilize to see if we should do something, even though we're afraid of it. Is it something we're kind of inspired by? Does it it apart from us feel inspired to be a public speaker, but we're just feeling fear in the moment and maybe it's worth it overcoming the fear. speaker-0: Yeah, and I think the push-pull metaphors is really a good one because if you think about it, if we use the dog example, right? Let's say we want to get away from the dog. That's a push. You want to get away from something. So as soon as you are like two blocks away, maybe you're like, My plan was to go five blocks, but two blocks seems kind of safe, right? So you've only been pushed blocks. But let's say you ⁓ want to get an ice free, which is five blocks away, like you're pulled towards something. as soon as you, I think the push pull metaphor is a good way to describe like. ⁓ speaker-1: to blow. speaker-0: Push isn't great because as soon as you get far enough away from something that you lose your motivation in order to get away from that thing. Whereas the opposite will happen if you get close to a goal, if you're like 80 % there and you're like, can so close, you can almost taste it, right? That's when you get that extra bit of like motivation to go and get it. So I think push and pull are very, great ways of determining which action you should take for sure. speaker-1: Yeah. Yes. As you say, right? Like when your bank account is empty and you're afraid of getting broke, then you get enough motivation to make a little bit of money. But then the motivation is gone to make more because you just wanted to get away from zero and then you plummet again. And you're caught in that loop of having a little bit, having nothing, having a little bit, having nothing. The dog is catching up. I'm running. I'm tired of running because the dog is not there. ⁓ the dog is there again. Right. And when you're inspired to... Tony Robbins is a good example, right? I have this vision of feeding, I don't know, 10,000, 100,000 families. Like that can inspire you for a very long time before. It's not like I don't want to be broke. Yeah. But like, you know. speaker-0: So those are, ⁓ it's like, what's interesting about this topic is that ⁓ being a nice guy, being a people pleaser is very intangible, right? It's a pretty broad concept. It doesn't, it isn't related to any like hard numbers. ⁓ But when, yeah, what we just discussed, it may help in order to have some sort of number goal or some very tangible goal. you can work towards in order to become less of a people pleaser? Is that something you've experimented with, like setting certain goals for yourself that you can like check off, ⁓ asking X amount of girls, saying hello to 10 girls walking down the street or asking this many women on a date or whatever. speaker-1: It depends from what kind of person you are. I tried that so many times, right? The typical thing we, which gets teach nowadays is smart goals, right? It's like measurable, specific. I don't know, there's three other acronyms abbreviation for it, right? But ⁓ I found myself oftentimes being overwhelmed by it. So I think it really depends on what kind of person you are. If these goals help you really to achieve these goals, great, try it out. For me, it leads to more overwhelm sometimes to have this specific goal. And then I'm not doing anything. So it doesn't help me personally. ⁓ And I always say the strategy which works the best is the one which makes you move, right? There's no best strategy, so to say, it just depends on you as a person. And we often in the West, especially have this. kind of mindset about wanting to control everything, control another big buzzword also for nice guys, right? Wanting to control the unknown, wanting to control of not upsetting anybody, wanting to control the emotions of others, wanting to control their own emotions. So, but that's also a big Western concept of, okay, these 10 steps are being done and then we have that outcome. But in reality that really works. And when we look into the Eastern world, they have more of that concept of cultivation and their philosophy. So. You don't put a flower together step by step, And like put the plants and the leaves and everything. Or you put the seed and then you water it every day. And this is how the plant grows. You look after it. This is how children grow, right? We sometimes assume it's like, ⁓ I these 10 self-help books or these 10 how to raise children books. And now I'm going to raise that child. But then we know you can raise two children at the same and they're completely different. So there's always a certain element of surprise and of... uncertainty in life in general and accepting that and kind of going into like a cultivation mindset instead of a, need to control everything and this is my quarterly report goal. I think also has some value to see, okay, on what side of the equation are you standing? What helps you the most personally? Yeah. speaker-0: And we've discussed a lot of ways people can recognize people pleasing in themselves. We've discussed ways what they can do about it to change that behavior. ⁓ Where are you in your journey? ⁓ Where are you standing now compared to a couple years ago? And are you already where you want to be or is there still some more growth that you want to explore? speaker-1: So I think, I actually believe that there will never not be growth. There's always another thing to unpack. But what can I say is that I feel so much lighter than two years ago. Concrete outcomes where I was nine years single, I was in a relationship last year and I didn't only went into the relationship, I also ended the relationship, which people would be like, oh, what? Like, that's not my goal, you know? But. for me was a big goal because it meant being okay with hurting someone else and someone else's feelings. And that's one of the biggest thing of the nice guy, right? Being okay to be seen as the asshole. My ex blocked me. Okay, cool. Like how do I deal with that? it's somewhat like, you know, when I tell this to people, maybe they're like, yeah, ready. I don't want to learn how to break up with someone. I talk to many nice guys and that's a big. speaker-0: No. speaker-1: big problem for them that they don't go into relationships because they're so afraid. What if I don't like it long-term and then I have to break up and have to hurt her. don't even go into it. Right. That's repeatedly something I hear. So this way I wanted to point that out, but then in general, more self-confidence last year I went on stage because I could hand like I was aware that I have the fear and I still did it because I felt inspired to talk about this thing, which is bigger than me. which was the name of the talk was boys deserve love too. And I talked about what we talked about today roughly. Yeah. Then just two years ago, I was wishing that I could be a man who could feel or be seen by others as like masculine. And I really went on that journey to find out what masculinity means. And now a day, like I just, two days ago, I had a hard conversation with ⁓ a woman I just met and it was this fourth and back and like basically we ended after having this really open conversation. It was so much more open than I ever was in the past. My past self would have ever been. ⁓ that she told me, wow, I could really see your masculine side and it's so attractive. I'm like I'm that person where I couldn't have dreamed two years ago that I'm that. And I have women consistently, even like friend women, say me like they trust me so much and I'm their safe space. And I'm not in a friend zone there and kind of want something from them and they friend zone me. No, I'm very clear about with these, I don't have any feelings. We can be friends. Oh, with that person I have feelings. I tell her like, want like, I'm very clear of what I want now. I communicate it and therefore everybody in my life, especially women feel so much more safe around me. And that gives me such a, such a good feeling personally, because that's what I always wanted. Ultimately, the Nice Care wants everybody to feel good about them. But only after I discovered setting boundaries, knowing what I want, communicating what I want, communicating what I need and being empathetic towards others. That's when I reached that goal really. speaker-0: That's awesome. That's incredible. ⁓ Fred, before we wrap it up, is there anything that we haven't discussed that you would really still like to or something that you would like to emphasize? speaker-1: think we went through a lot of stuff. There's probably always some more, but. speaker-0: We just have to run it back some other day, right? speaker-1: like this, there's more stuff like the whole men versus women. Maybe I want to say one thing there because today in the morning I finished to read a book. It's called King Voria, Magician Lover. It's about masculine archetypes. And the last thing and what I really like about the author, the last chapter was about this fight in between. between men and women. And he wrote that book again, also in the nineties again. So it's not a new debate necessarily. It just gets more heated up now with social media. And his insight is that this whole debate is not really about men versus women, but it's about men, like immature masculinity, immature men versus immature women, or the immature men versus the mature, healthy, masculine men within every man. And then the women working on their own little inner girl hurt in a child girl versus their like woman in a woman, higher woman kind of self. if we would focus on that, that everybody works on themselves, then we could come together and create so much more beautiful relationships. But instead it's always the focus against each other and that I don't like and that I want to explore more and spread more the message about, like let's work on ourselves and have empathy for the other person. Because oftentimes it's really just like children throwing mud at each other, to be honest. speaker-0: Where can people go if they want to keep up with your work, they perhaps want to become one of your clients or just follow what you're doing? speaker-1: So I have my Instagram, it's Frederick, we put in the bio-proly. Then, yeah, I have this quiz, which I mentioned before, then we can have a call, a conversation. I love to have like a discovery call to see if there's alignment, if I can really help there. yeah, in the year, probably next 30 to 60 days, like when I'm back from Europe, I want to start like a bigger... coaching program with where people can, um, yeah, and enroll. That's like sign up, uh, where people can sign up. And then, uh, yeah, we have like this 12 week coaching course where you learn about specific frameworks. What we discussed today, you actually get to practice it. You get to integrate it. You get to share it with a, with the guys in a man circle. And it's really designed to give you, yeah, the long-term growth at the end of 12 weeks. And yeah, so you can become the more elevated version of yourself and the more confident, the less nice guy, the more healthy masculine version of yourself. speaker-0: Awesome. Well, Fred, thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. ⁓ As I mentioned, the first live episode I've ever done and it's a lot better to talk to someone in person. So thank you for the great conversation. speaker-1: even give ourselves a high five. That doesn't work offline. ⁓ speaker-0: Thanks man.