#884 - Nick Pollard - How To Stop Being Such A People Pleaser

26:19I think the way that I distinguish it is by the emotion itself. So when I give to somebody from a place of love, and that can be anything, whether I'm buying my girlfriend flowers or whether I'm taking my kid to the park or whatever. There's a sense of peace in that.

26:53And sometimes I want to do it, sometimes I don't. But that overwhelming sense of peace in being

27:07giving is real. And I think that's real for all people, right? I think generosity is probably one of my, you know, if it's not my North Star, it's probably in the top three, right? And so I think there's this beauty and generosity and being authentic about that. When I find myself in the pleasing modality, there usually is something bubbling behind it. Like most people know when they're doing something wrong. Like you can feel it. It's like the minute that resentment hits you, you need to correct the course. And for me, resentment in the body just shows up like right here in my solar plexus and motherfucker, why am I having to do this?

27:49I know if I start hearing that narrative in my mind, and I've trained my mind to hear it now, it's like maybe I need to not You know, do that. The other thing that I think you can really do to determine this is put space between your decision giving. So if you make a decision like, I'm going to give, you know, 500 bucks to the way I trust because that's a cool thing to do with Christmas or whatever, right? That's fine, right? That's perfectly normal. You're never going to see a person again. They're not going to be pleased with you for eternity. But like, when you're ready to give to somebody you love, give yourself an hour.

28:24Give yourself a day to ask the question, like, what is the purpose of this? Am I doing this for the reasons that are genuine and generous and kind? Are you loving or am I doing this because I need validation? Is there a difference? You mentioned it earlier on, guys and girls that you work with. Talk to me about the difference in how men and women show up with their people pleasing nature. Is it motivated differently? Does it present in different manners? is the framing different in any way? I'd say it's similar. I don't know that there's a wild difference. It's one of those really interesting things that it's between the masculine and feminine.

29:05I don't know that I could pinpoint like a major difference so much as I would say there's different ways of recognizing it. Women tend to be, you know, they're, So I've never met a people pleaser that wasn't angry. I've never met a people pleaser that wasn't a liar. And I've never met a people pleaser that wasn't aggressive or passive aggressive. Women tend to be more passive aggressive on this side. So the one thing that I can say about, you know, and I'm weirdly, my practice will shift. It does this weird thing. Like I'll have guys and then it will stop. And then I'll have girls and then it will stop.

29:43I don't know why it doesn't this, but it does. And right now I'm working with mostly women, but what I find mostly in women is they tend to externalize it as a problem of everyone else where men tend to internalize it as I'm a piece of shit. Yeah, that's interesting. So women will say to me a lot, like, if I could only get this person to do this thing, I would be able to set boundaries. I'm like, no, like maybe set boundaries and then if they don't the thing that's we've on from that, whereas men are like, I'm such a piece of shit, I can never say that. So, I was thinking about this. I wonder whether there's an extra level of shame for men around being pliable.

30:32You know, you're supposed to be this sort of rigid, stoic, self -sufficient pillar of the community or your relationship or your friendship or your family or whatever it might be. And that's not to say that women shouldn't have a backbone as well. obviously they should, but the level of assertiveness that we just expect dispositionally from men tends to be higher, men on average are more disagreeable, etc., etc., etc. And regardless of whether or not the actual manifestation of it is more or less acceptable, I think the story that men tell themselves around their pliability, I think that there's perhaps some additional levels of shame in that.

31:12I would fully agree with that.

31:17I think it shows, I think it rears its ugly head in a lot of ways. And one of, you know, potentially one of the biggest, most toxic ones is in sexuality. You know, the unfortunate news about being a man in this day and age, especially one that happens to look, talking act like me, is that I have no voice. And if I do, then I'm also a piece of shit. But if I don't, I'm also a piece of shit. There's no way to win in this present environment. But I think the manosphere isn't helping by any stretch of the imagination. I think this idea of like everybody has to be stoic and if you're not self denying yourself and if you're not, again to your point of like, if I'm not deferring my gratification, why even show up?

32:11but if I don't make $300 million a year, I may as well just hang myself. It's all of these kind of giant narratives where it's the loudest, craziest people on every spectrum that get the most notoriety. And so I don't think that's helping, but I think you're touching on something that's very interesting is that We've redefined masculine as this toxic trait. And meanwhile, if we don't function in our masculine, we're considered toxic. So most of my... Or useless. Right. It's either useless or toxic. So most of my male people, please, you know, when I look into that genre, you're gonna find that Dr.

33:04Glover and I, you know Robert Glover, function in the same realm as the male version of a people, please, there's a nice guy. And very often, nice guys were raised in predominantly female environments where mom was in control, dad was generally either not available, semi -colon, or in this sphere of abuse or some other awful thing, which is part of my story. And so I think to find those guys and tell them they're okay, like this is okay. Like it's just, you struck on something that's like deep in my heart. So I'm trying to get this to articulate. And it's not quite working because I spent my entire life being ashamed of who I was as a man.

33:59and then when I wasn't, I was pissed. Yeah. Because I was, because now I'm like, now I'm like, now I'm like, I spent my whole life not thinking women liked me. I spent my whole life not thinking I was good enough. I spent my whole life climbing a ladder. I didn't want to climb. Like I did all this crap for everyone else. And I became a resentful, angry, drunk, addicted piece of shit. But I don't know what to do with it. There's nobody, and you've said it before, and I've said it a million times, is that I truly believe that psychology as it exists today is not built for men. It just doesn't, I don't need you to tell me I'm okay, and I need to cry in your shoulder, that's not what I need.

34:45For somebody to just say, hey, maybe like, let's look for some purpose. Let's do something else. It's been so helpful, but yeah, I don't know if that answers your question. I understand this sort of threading of a needle between... We want men to be strong, but we also want them to open up. Men want to be understood, and they want their suffering to be recognized, but they also don't want to be pandered to or treated with kid gloves. And this is a really difficult balance to strike. It's super difficult balance to strike, because you don't want to patronize guys, because that's going to switch them off.

35:19But the line between not patronizing and ignoring is actually perilously pretty close. And then that speaks into all of the fears that every guy has about, well, if I open up, I'm going to be shunned by my girlfriend or my wife or society. I'm not going to be seen as a competent man, so I'll just swallow it down. But I'm also told that if I don't do that, and I also have the sense as well, that that's probably not super healthy for me from a psychological standpoint. I feel like I should be able to, you know, feel joy and feel fear and feel pain and feel scared and feel excited. And I want to embrace all of these things.

35:52but in order to do that, I need to concede the entire spectrum of human emotions. And if I do that, then I'm at the mercy of them. And being at the mercy of them doesn't have the mastery and control and conquer of your inner landscape that is typically... So it's messy, it's messy. And it's endlessly fascinating to me to kind of try and unpack this and hopefully, I don't know, lay out some sort of a path, or I don't know, at least like some way markers of like, here's some interesting things that guys can think about, or that girls can think about for the way that they show up with the men that are in their lives.

36:25And, uh, yeah, that extra degree of shame around being pliable for men, I think is going to be something that they'll feel quite acutely. I think that, um, well, here's a, here's a sound bite for you, it'll probably get me canceled. Um,

36:44women are not equipped to handle male emotion.

36:50and men are very often not equipped to handle female much. Unless, and this is, you know, this of course is unless you're exceptionally well trained, but I don't take my big feelings to the women in my life. So one of the things that you can look for if you're wondering like, am I a people pleaser? Count on one hand, how many guy friends you have if you're a guy and girlfriend you have if you're a girl. If that number's less than three, you've got a problem.

37:18because people pleasers almost universally struggle to connect with the same sex. Why? Shame. Learning to open up to somebody that isn't trying to, so women tend to feel more safe with men if they're in that people pleasing mindset, men tend to feel more safe with women if they're in that people pleasing mindset. It's kind of no why that is. I would love I should probably ask Scott Galloway or Dr. Blover why that happens, but I need two men smarter than me to answer that. But that's just the pattern that I see. And I haven't had a client in the last five years that had a ton of meaningful guy friendships.

38:00I haven't had the same as with women. I'm still struggling a little bit to understand, despite the fact of being the recipient of it, why it's so hard for certain people to advocate for their own needs. We would think from a evolutionary psychology, adaptive survival and reproduction perspective, advocating for your own needs should be the first thing that you do, maybe up until you've got a partner and kids. Like after that, yeah, okay, perhaps there is something that's even more important than you because that's your genetic progeny or your family going forward. But I'm just trying to work out why it becomes so difficult to make on needs known and to advocate for our own desires.

38:50I think there's a component of rejection.

39:00So you get to a place where you've kind of advocated for everyone else long enough and And you don't know how. So then you face this idea of, if I ask, will I even receive? Where I think you get, as you start to heal from this profoundly challenging way to live, is you stop worrying so much about that and say, okay, well, I'm going to ask for what I need and if I don't get it, I'm going to give it to myself. So there's that. But I think the advocacy, the rejection to somebody who lives like this doesn't feel like rejection. It feels like abandonment. And you're going to have to forgive me because I hadn't said that.

39:52I don't think I realized that till you ask that question. You're good at this, Chris. And I'm a little emotional about it.

40:04Because the biggest fear that I see in that people pleasing set when I talk about things like setting boundaries is everybody's going to be mad at me, everybody's going to hate me. And when I hear that, I hear my own, I hear that part of me that was a little kid that that just wanted to be loved and accepted, and I just wanted to make friends. And I struggled with that, you know, mightily most of my life. So I think it's, I think the advocacy of self presents a really big challenge because it's probably the scariest thing you can do is to say I need something. And when you're a kid and you don't get it, and then you learn to ask, is dangerous or could get me abandoned, or to stand up for myself means the bully gets bigger, not goes away.

41:10I think that's where that comes from. Certainly the pattern of simply not being used to it, not thinking that your needs are valid, definitely, you know, thinking if you grew up in a household where it was difficult for you to communicate transparently, maybe parents didn't communicate very transparently. There was a lot of passive aggression or shadow sentences. People didn't say what they meant. They said a thing and hoped that the other person would arrive at the thing that they meant and then resent them if they didn't. At what point have you got the training for it? So you know, for all for me to say, you know, to try, it seems very strange that we wouldn't be able to advocate for ourselves with the first person and you go, well, I guess so.

41:56But what it really shows is just how far from center your life has sort of taken you that you don't even think that advocating for your own needs is something that you should prioritize. I imagine as well that there must come a stage or the more heavily ingrained people pleases, they must get themselves to a situation where they've people pleased for so long that they don't actually know their own opinion or what they believe or what they want. Like advocating for a need is tough if you've subjugated them for so long that you have no idea what they are anymore. Yeah, it's really hard to come back from in that way.

42:37Like if you do it long enough, so it's interesting you come to that because we talked a little bit about, what is the difference between agreeableness and people pleasing?

42:51Well, at some point you just become agreeable to everything because it's not that you don't care, it's that you don't know, right? So if you ask me on a Tuesday, do you wanna go out and get tacos or do you want to go out and get pizza? I'm not gonna give a shitting away. I like food in both those sound great, right? So that's what agreeable means to me. It's like I'm happy to just go along, go with flow from time to time because I don't care, right? But when you do that because you don't like want to be the issue of the moment, and you do that long enough, you're right. You don't have a sense of like, what do I even like pizza?

43:32When was the last time I had an opinion on God forbid, Donald Trump or Joe Biden? When was the last time I actually spoke up for myself? And this can be hugely powerfully painful at work, especially if you've done the corporate environment, like I have, I was a corporate sales monkey for years. I was always number two, never number one. That was always interesting because I didn't wanna get, I wanted to be seen, I mean, I don't want to be that seen, right? And I never stood up for what was right. I never stood up for what I believed. And the eventuality was I burned out in corporate America. And I'm a pretty talented guy.

44:13I just couldn't do it anymore.

44:17So yeah, I think that over, I think that line gets really blurry. And that's probably one of the first things to go in terms of your self image, is your ability to formulate opinion. I mean, I can't put it on, I couldn't like, delineate a timeline. Like, you started at 16 by the time you're 24, you won't have it at any more. But I would say that like the first thing you probably start to feel is I don't know what my interests are and I don't know what my opinions are. And there's really only way to find that out is to, you know, do some journaling and go try some fit. Yeah, it's a particularly, it feels like a particularly unfair curse to know that maybe you've begun to see the light, you've realized that I need to be more assertive, I need to stand up for myself.

45:02And then when you think, well, what am I standing up for? What is myself? Presumably there's some concoction of things that I want, well, what do I want? And you don't know. And you realize that the reason you don't know is because you buried it under layers and layers and layers of appeasing others as opposed to appeasing yourself. And prioritizing others as opposed to prioritizing yourself. And you think, well, I know that I kind of need to do this thing. And I don't even, I mean, a fucking dark jail cell. And I don't even know which way, which direction the door is to get out to begin to think about my fucking escape plan.

45:34So yeah, I think about that a lot. I realized toward the end of my 20s that, you know, I'd, uh, I'd spent a lot of time trying to do whatever I thought I needed to do in order to be able to make other people like me. So when somebody asked me a question, I wouldn't think what do I think about this thing? I'd think what does Nick need to hear in order for him to have the best impression of me and The you know, there's a million problems with that But one of the biggest ones is that you never actually feel connected to any of your successes or any of the praise that you receive Because oh god, that's a big one.

46:08Yeah Any positive reinforcement that you get is not somebody seeing you that just applauding this role that you play They're saying hey well done for doing the little dance that you did that is not you It isn't you. So I would say, you know, maybe another, at least from my past experience, one of the identifying factors is, do you feel connected to the successes that you do or do they feel like somebody else did them sort of on your behalf? That is, that is a question I'm going to steal from you. I'm taking that. So, um,

46:46I've drawn that line, but I've never asked the question that way, where I can see, you know, I'm working with a really great CEO now and fascinating dude. And that's something that's really interesting in that vein that I want to come back to is how interesting people please there's actually are. But he says to me all the time, well, you know, I just got lucky. Right? I just got lucky. It couldn't have been the 25 years of toil. It couldn't possibly have been that you have the mind for the work. It couldn't possibly have been that you're talented. Right? And I fall into that trap a lot. Myself still.

47:30So, and I've mentioned to you, like, this is not something that you...it's not like... I say in my videos very often that I'm a recovered alcoholic. I don't know that I'll ever actually recover this. I think this is just a thing that I do. It's like everybody has their thing that they have to deal with in life. And if you listen to whatever personal growth literature that you may tend to absorb, but my very favorite one is Scott Peck. He started with the line, life is difficult. And it remains difficult until you realize it's difficult and then you don't care that it's difficult so it's no longer difficult.

48:04So, but this is the difficulty of my life. This is the thing that I'm gonna overcome for years to come and I hope that I can teach my children to overcome. And all those things. You said, people please, they're interesting. And I would agree not being fucking filating myself here. But I think the reason is that, you know, they've got the only way that you can be a people please, is if you have some sense of depth, You are a deep thinker in one form or another. You care very much about others. You have an amount of empathy. You have social sort of agility in a way that if deployed correctly could be really, really fucking useful, really powerful, it can make the world a better place.

48:48So it doesn't surprise me that you get fascinated by these people that you get to meet. And this Thomas Soul quote, which I can't stop thinking about, even though I'm known it for ages, it just, it becomes more true the longer I think about it, which is there are no solutions only trade -offs. And you may sort of scream at the sky and shake your fist and say, if only I could have this thing without this thing. And you go, well, what if both of those things come together? What if that is kind of like a single meal as opposed to ingredients that you can make a dish from? And I get the sense that, you know, a lot of people if they can start to transcend and include or alchemize the more pathological parts of their people pleasing nature, what they're left with is probably the things that they care most about themselves, that they love most in themselves.

49:39I love that you said that. It goes back to that thing we were talking about. And I've played with an idea that's also interesting that I wonder if people pleasing and narcissism aren't on the same through line. But the beautiful parts of you don't have to die for the toxic parts to go away. So it's like when people see, you know, they say, so I've heard you say, you know, I'm a people pleaser, I'm struggling people pleasing and like, okay, well, I don't experience you that way. Now I've heard some of the backstory. I might have been incorrect, but the generosity, the kindness, the loving way you show up, the joyful part of you that actually gets fulfillment and levels up by giving, that's awesome.

50:34Like, that's beautiful. That's humanity. That's the good shit. But to allow the self -deprecation to go away, right? To allow the self -deprivation to go away. To look at yourself not as a problem, but as having a set of problems. And then solving each one, you know, through a long enough timeline, you get to keep all those things you love about yourself. You don't have to turn into an asshole. You just get off that line. It's like, if you're driving head on at a bus, just steer. Because you'll be fine. And I think that's... Maxwell Maltz was probably one of the first real books that I ever engaged in.

51:28It's called Psycho Cybernetics. I don't know if you ever read that one. I've heard of it. I've never read it though. It's been a while. So, you know, this is going to be clunky and probably wrong. But his equation of humans is that we're all kind of servomechanisms like guided missiles. And missiles don't actually, guided missiles don't actually aim at a target, they aim away from not the target. So when you just start to realize, okay, well, I'm not on target, so just okay, aim away from not on target. And then you're going to course correct your way to a pretty happy life, just taking good care of yourself and getting in shape.

52:03and you know, starting to eat well, it's always the first thing I work with my clients on. It's like, all right, let's go to the gym. Let's get some of the anger out of your body. Like, please, you're a pissed historically. Over every person, they're just mad, because their life hasn't gone the way they want it to go. Well, it's not gonna unless you do something about it. So get some of the anger out, get them in shape. We start to build up on this idea of like, how do I make more money? And then you start to see life improve. Yeah, I don't know how I answered the question here. I got lost in my own brain.

52:36Let's move down from the first physical practice is stepping in on diet, presumably sleep, training, blah, blah, blah. How psychologically, in terms of reframing, in terms of the psychological tactics and strategies, what are the first steps that you get to take people through when it comes to their rehabilitation? Probably better as a relatively small demonstration, but if I say to you, like I say Chris, you're not enough. What do you feel physically when I say that to you? Like closing over, shoulders come full. Okay. So you kind of feel it in your chest, you feel it in your shoulders, right?

53:23Well, the first thing you need to do is learn to sit with that. Learn to just sit in that feeling. And ask it questions. Like your emotions are not fact, just in there. And they come from experiences, they come from your past. And I can probably iterate a million different personal growth books on that. But once you just feel it and you say, OK, so now I know what that feels like. The next question is, what does it mean? What am I actually saying to myself? So if anybody's listening, whatever that thing is that you hear in your head, there's always a bullshit story that plays around here. Like I'm not smart enough.

54:00I didn't get enough schooling. You know, there's a million ways you can tell yourself, you're piece of shit. Pick the one that's most meaningful. And then just say it to yourself in the mirror and let yourself feel it. And then wherever that shows up, just ask it the question, what are you? Are you real? Are you, is this somewhere, did you come from and get curious about these things? Like if you get, we tend to, we tend to judge our negative emotions by calling them negative emotions. I don't think there's a positive or negative. I can tell you for sure that I can remember the first time I ever was going to kiss a girl.

54:32I know exactly what that felt like. I also remember the first time I thought I was going to die. I remember exactly what that felt like. They're eerily similar. So, you know, kind of butterflies in the stomach. That's where I get anxiety. That's where I feel it. So now I feel that. And I go, okay, what are you? Are you excitement? Are you fear? Are you anxiety? And it'll, in generally, I'll get an answer and okay, where did you come from? I'm gonna say, well, you know, you're going on a Christmas show. It's a big show you've ever been on Nick, you know, you sure? This is what we're supposed to be doing yet.

55:06Like, you should have four million followers before you go on that damn thing. By the way, this is a real iteration from this morning. And so, as I kind of dealt with that today, that's how I take other people through it too. It's just kind of learning to sit in the darkness. The other thing that I really would stress is that there has never been a people pleaser I've ever met that was created in a vacuum. So getting around other people that are kind of dealing with this is vital. And it's so much more fun because I said it earlier, people pleaser are super interesting. Like they forget that they have all these weird hobbies and they're quirky.

55:43and you get them laughing and talking about who they are, and you find these vibrant, exciting humans that are just waiting to be unleashed, and you know, here they are in a cage that's unlocked, just open the door, fly the fuck away. So I think to answer your question in a long form, the first thing is learning to sit in the emotion and recognize it, because it really is emotion -based. It's that feeling you get when you feel like you're not enough is the thing you have to look out for, and it's the thing that will sabotage you the fastest. Is that feeling of insufficiency for you, the sort of root cause that then the people pleasing nature is born out of?

56:24Yes. Yeah. For me, yes. For most of the people I work with, yes. Because you're trying to squelch that. Like that feeling when you felt like your shoulders were hunched forward and you kind of, like I could see it on you. That you were like, I don't like that. That doesn't feel good. but it almost reverts you to being a child, right? You looked as though I had scolded you and it probably felt as though I had scolded you. And what are you gonna do with that feeling except for go, oh, well, fuck, how do I make that go away? Right, how do I make you like me again? Hmm. Right, so when you can sit in that and get used to it and then start to get curious about when it shows up, But that's been the gift for me and this is not that I cured it.

57:12It's that I'm curious about it. So it shows up and I'm like, what's that? Like this morning when I had to take a five mile walk just to get out of my head. You know, and I'm almost fan boy when you got to, oh my God, it's you. And so I take this walk and I'm like, what am I worrying about? I think this is either going to go greater. It's not like there's nothing I can do. So, you know, I'm not a moron. I'm gonna be fine. What am I really worried about? And here I was, you know, back in that mindset, like, well, what if he doesn't like me? Well, what if? It'll be what it's gonna be. And it was me sitting on the capital steps at here in Denver.

58:00On the mile high step, there's a step right there that's a mile high, exactly. I like to go sit on that when I'm kind of thinking and it was there was like, okay, what am I, what am I believing about this? I'm believing if I don't show up and I'm a piece of shit. Like, if I don't do this right, then it's going to be the last podcast I'm ever on. And then like, okay, how am I reinforcing that belief, Nick? Well, I'm sitting here pondering this over and over and over again and ruminating in my brain like a psychopath and having conversations with myself on the street, like the other people that are around here.

58:28And it's not looking good for me. Like they're probably going to lock me away. And then it was like, okay, well, you know, these four questions have saved my life a million times. You know, what do I want to believe about this? No matter what happens, I'll be okay. And I'm okay. Like I don't have to be enough. I don't have to be good enough. I want to be bad enough. I just have to be okay. And then what do I want to do? And it was okay. Well, I really want a piece of taffy and I want to have a pellagreino and then I want to get on the show. And that's what it did. It just got myself in, because my brain is going to tell me what I want.

59:04Your brain's actually really smart. You listen to it. And it was like, let's have a piece of Andy and relax and be a kid for 10 seconds. And it's going to show and have some fun with Chris and we'll see what happens. Dr. Glover was funny about this. I told him I was coming on the show and I was afraid of it. And he says, what are you afraid of? I said, well, what have I screwed up? And he goes, well, you're gonna. Oh. We need such a thing. Okay. Great. So now what? You guys, listen, learn to laugh, have more fun, make mistakes, and enjoy yourself. And that's what I'm doing. And I was able to do that by reaching out to, you know, my team, my men that I went with and to, you know, kind of talk myself through this, this danger zone.

59:54What are the other two questions? You said that there was four questions that have got you through a lot of things. So the four questions are, so when you get that feeling where you're hunching forward, right? The first question is, what am I believing? So our beliefs, driver, behavior, or behavior creates our environments. We need to be very careful about what we're believing, especially in a moment like that, right? So the first question is what am I believing? Very often it's come back in some iteration of I'm not enough, right? I mean, whatever iteration that could be, you know, maybe I'm not smart enough.

1:00:23Maybe I didn't go to Harvard. Maybe, you know, it doesn't matter. It's the whole thing. It'll come back in somewhere and other. The core to the kind of the really interesting thing about beliefs is that they have to be reinforced somehow. So you have, you know, an experience which is the feeling you're having and then you have to reinforce it. So you're the only one that can reinforce it. It has to be reinforced by somebody in a position of authority. So if you're biased by yourself and you are that authority. So you have to ask yourself the next question, question number two, which is, how am I reinforcing this belief system?

1:00:54Like, what am I doing or not doing? That's making me feel that I am not enough. And you'll get an answer to that. Right? What am I doing or not doing? Question number three is, what would I prefer to believe? Like, what is that preference? You know, rather than what should I believe, what would I prefer to believe? And in my vocabulary at that point was I would prefer to believe that I got this. It's good. It's going to be fine. He's probably not going to murder me. I don't think he has a missile that hit me out. So I think we're going to be okay. And then what do I need to do to reinforce this new idea, this new belief system?

1:01:39So when you go back to question number two, we ask like, what am I doing we're not doing very often the answer to question number four, which is, you know, what do I need to do to reinforce this new belief system? It's usually the opposite of whatever it was in question two. So it's like, I'm a, I'm timid about the show. It's just to admit that I'm timid about the show.

1:01:59And it's a powerful exercise. I mean, I get to connect with you over it, which, and to tell you, like this is, this has been like my, I'm been excited all week. And, but when you have this idea in your head that you're not enough, that excitement very quickly can turn on you in anxiety. Yeah, dude, so fascinating. I really appreciate that. You mentioned a couple of times already today boundaries, setting boundaries.

1:02:27How do you come to think about that? What is it that people are getting wrong when it comes to it? How can they be useful? What's the, what's the process? Give me the, give me boundaries, one, I won the, the best in the worst. Okay, so the first misconception about batteries is that they're about other people. So boundaries are about how you show up in the world. They have nothing to do with anyone else. They are delineators for what you accept and not accept what you'll tolerate and not tolerate. And so a boundary doesn't sound like, hey, don't say that to me, it makes me mad. A boundary sounds like I have a value system that is around this.

1:03:07then how you communicate that is different. So for instance, I tend to spend my time only with people that value kindness. If you are an unkind person, you have no space in my life. So when someone is being unkind, I would generally say, hey, I don't appreciate the way that this is happening right now. I'm gonna leave the situation. That's how you enforce a boundary, right? So your boundaries are actually based on your value systems. That's kind of the most important misconceptions that like it's a rule book, boundaries are not a rule book. The other one I hear a lot of is boundaries are about putting yourself first.

1:03:45And that's for shit. Boundaries are about making your needs equal to everyone around you. So rather than saying, I'm putting myself first, I have to be selfish. Well, no. You don't have to do any of that. you have to define yourself in equality, which is, okay, my needs are as important as everyone else is. And then you can make decisions based on that data, right? So if, for instance, you want to go out for tacos and somebody else wants to go out for pizza, this is not a boundary. Right? But if, you know, one of the things I see a lot with people who've gotten sober is, you know, you'll get a phone call and it's my least favorite question of all time.

1:04:29Well, there's going to be drinking at the party, is it okay if I drink? Why am I in charge of that? So my boundary around this is I am not in charge of other adults, you know, or other adults decisions. That's a boundary. I am not in charge of other adults decisions. That doesn't sound like anybody's got a rule to ban, does it? That's me. I am not in charge of that. So when they call me and say, is it okay if I drink, I say, I am not in charge of other adults decisions. what you choose to do, you choose to do. If what you are choosing to do, who makes you feel uncomfortable, I would suggest you not do that.

1:05:10But I'm not in charge of that decision. Right? Boundaries at work are very, very often something, you know, I get this brought up a lot. I was like, well, how do I tell my boss I'm not going to do that? we just say no and then that's it. Unfortunately my workload is such and I have a boundary around personal time with my family so we won't be able to come in this week or this weekend, whatever the thing is right. So those are the two most common misconceptions. When you start to understand that you start to develop what it looks like more like a bill of rights than a list of boundaries. for the Angusphere people explained what the Bill of Rights is in this context.

1:05:56So a Bill of Rights is a list. How do I explain this? I actually do this in Boundary Boot Camp, which is funny because I explain it like shit every single time. But a Bill of Rights is a list of values and priorities that you hold yourself to. So for instance, I'm allowed to ask for what I want is within my Bill of Rights. I'm allowed to have conversations during sex is in my Bill of Rights. I'm allowed to laugh at inappropriate jokes. I'm allowed to make inappropriate jokes. I'm allowed to have an opinion. I'm allowed to, like, pizza. It's a weird one, but it's in there for me. Because at some point in my life, I was married to a woman who was gluten -free and for some reason or not, or I was not allowed to like the things that I like.

1:06:55I'm allowed to, so when you think of the Bill of Rights, you can also put in there things you don't have to do. I do not have to tolerate unkindness, right? I have a boundary around yelling. I don't believe that that's a proper way to communicate. So, in my bill of rights is, I do not tolerate yelling in conversation. And how does that show up if I enforce it, which is I would just simply say, hey, raising your voice with me is not an option. So, we're going to take a break from this. I'll come back to it in 15 minutes with both of us have calmed down. And that's it. Like, it's not like it's just this is what's going to happen.

1:07:35So that Bill of Rights really shows up and it's unfortunate because it sounds a lot like affirmations. And one of your good friends who is a coach to me that doesn't know he's a coach to me is Alex Mosey. The sphere of personal growth has been so awesome because I have coaches that don't other my coaches. And he mentioned at one point, I think it was on your show, he said, you know, confidence is not about shouting affirmations at yourself in the mirror. And so this is sort of in that vein. So it's going against one of my own heroes. But it feels much more operational though. You know, most of these, these aren't things that you're saying in the whimsical hope that somehow going to manifest one day, the guidelines, lines, the guidelines that you've put on the floor.

1:08:29And you say, hey, if you kick one of these tripwires, then if I don't know where the tripwires are, if I don't know what they are, and if I haven't sort of made a commitment in advance, then I'm always going to negotiate with myself about whether or not that is a tripwire or not. And, you know, in the moment trying to come up with any sort of a solution, I used to have this thing, fuck, this is old, because this might be 10 years old now. I used to have this thing about how it's basically impossible to come up with a solution when you're in the midst of the crisis. And if I told you, if I told you in a week's time, that I was gonna push you into some quicksand, you could spend the next week on chat GPT, looking at the best strategy and what shoes you'd need to wear.

1:09:13And I'm supposed to move. I do this lateral like sort of shaking thing. It's called like, you know, the Hoffler movement are some shit for getting out of a quicksand. But if I just push you in some quicksand and I'm like, hey, fucking try and get chat GPT out now It's not gonna happen you can't think literally and um yeah Another homosism you say 20 minutes of preparation adds 20 IQ points I get the sense that with this it's a much more protracted version You're much further out in advance. You're creating these operating principles and yeah, maybe it is kind of Lame in a way to be like oh my god like you need to write out this list of rules about how to do things and you go, yeah, yeah, I'm in many ways phenomenal and fantastic and competent and in a ton of other ways kind of useless.

1:09:59And this is me compensating for my uselessness. This is a solution for me to work around that. And it helps me to mitigate the parts of me that I don't want to keep manifesting that these, you know, like if you thought about how you wanted to redirect a river, you have a river and it's moving and it's sort of carving and it's eating away at the outer edge of each turn. It's like chopping away at this thing. You know, I need to redirect it in this way. It's going to take a fucking ton of effort when you first start and take an absolute ton of effort. But when it begins to find that thing easier than the other thing, that's when you move from system two to system one thinking, right?

1:10:35And that's the whole process. You start off in the deliberate and then you move into the automatic. So yeah, I explain that really in detail to a lot of people, which is, you know, there's four levels of learning, which is a start out as unconsciously incompetent. You don't know what you don't know. You move into the conscious competence realm where you do know now what you don't know. And at that point, you have to make a choice. Do I give a shit to learn how to do what I don't know how to do? And you then become consciously competent, where you go, okay, I have to practice this until it's a thing.

1:11:07And at one point you become unconsciously competent where it's we call those people naturals. Like for instance, you are a natural podcaster. I watched your very first stuff. It was good. It's not this good, right? If you go back to my original videos, I looked like a monkey fucking a football. It was terrified. I was shirtless in Panama. I thought it was going to be in men's work. The captions were all wrong. It was film sideways. Like, Does that start? Everybody's, everyone's got an origin story. Right. I came across this quote the other day that I thought was really interesting. I wanted to bring up to you to do with boundaries.

1:11:45Says, don't try to fix people, just set boundaries. I've been kind of transfixed by that idea for quite a while. I, it is a damning indictment about how poorly most people can change. and some people can, some people can make genuine, like, hard left turns or right turns in their life. But I think kind of meeting people where they're at and just assuming that the person that's showing up in front of you right now is the person that they are. Sure, maybe they're drunk or whatever. Maybe this is a, they had a really, really hard day or they're dog died yesterday or something like that. Okay, like people have over, you know, a couple of sample points, you two, three sample points, you go, okay, I know who you are.

1:12:32And is it really realistic for you to expect this person who, you know, you just, you can't stop thinking about the shape of their eyes or the smell of their hair or the way that they walk or whatever it is. And you're not falling in love with that person. You're falling in love with the idea of what you could craft them into if only they were able to be sufficiently malleable. And I think don't try to fix people just set boundaries is a really lovely redress to those of us that are maybe like hopeful romantics in that way. All hopeless, hopeless romantics. And this happens with friendships, this happens with family too.

1:13:14And I imagine don't try to fix people just set boundaries, probably resonates at least a bit with some of the work you do. I think so. The other thing I tend to say is that when somebody shows you who they are, just believe them. Oh, that's great. It's really simple. Like somebody shows you they are, believe them. It's the easiest way to, you know, we, it's the easiest way to indicate narcissism. If somebody shows up and we talk a lot of, in the personal growth world, or not even personal growth, but just TikTok and Instagram and all the places that I admire myself tend to get all the red flag commentary right.

1:13:53Well, this is a red flag and that's a red flag. I'll tell you what a real red flag is, the fact that you ignore red flags. And if you are boundary enough, if you understand your bill of rights, if you understand who you are, then when somebody shows up in the world violates them. Despite how manipulative they can be or whether they have narcissistic personality disorder or whether they have sociopathy or whatever, you won't tolerate it.

1:14:24So yeah, I do agree with that statement. I agree with that a lot. I just think there's go ahead. No, I'm just, I'm really interested in, you have this sort of moment where you've maybe got your operating principles, your bill of rights. I imagine that this is a task that you should sit down, really focus on writing it out physically. What I'm interested in is the habits or routines that you recommend for maintaining those boundaries because it's all well and good saying, you know, it's the equivalent of the first of January the day after you've written the bill of, my diet's going to be on point.

1:15:00I'm going to sleep eight hours a night and Sam Harris is waking up, perhaps just going to get fist fucked into oblivion. I'm going to do it every hour of the day. But I've got an alarm for everything. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Talk to me about the way that people can stay resilient in their boundary setting, the habits, the routines for sort of maintaining that over time, and forgetting back to it, if they feel like they've sort of fallen off. So I do that in a variety of ways. I hesitate to answer it because there's so many prescriptive ways of living these days that everybody's telling me I have to be up and four in the morning and I've got a bathe my nuts and olive oil and then I've got a sun my asshole and then I got to get into an ice bath and then after that I have to get to the sauna.

1:15:51Right, I've got to go to a sauna after this and then once I do that, then I could start my day. But I think put it somewhere you see it. One of the things I do with people is just say, take your top three that you want to make sure you focus on, put them on a business card, like go get a blank business card, put it on that business card, handwrite it, then take it, and then you have it. And it's just kind of a reminder. or it's in your wallet, it's in your pocket. It's about, you know, another hermoseism is, you know, most people don't need to be taught, they need to be reminded. So once I've taught you, I've taught you.

1:16:31The other way you can do this is it is getting involved with other people that are doing this. So, you know, my community's a great example of this. I have an incredible group of humans that are all in there and you know, they get a text message for me like every other day, they say, stop that. Whatever you're doing that you know, you shouldn't be doing. stop doing that or do that. But the most important thing I think Chris is just is just read it. You know, if you read every day or you get up and you have kind of a morning routine, it doesn't have to be, you know, you don't need to spend 25 minutes meditating on it.

1:17:00You don't need you know, have a long conversation with yourself in the mirror. You don't need to write. I love you in lipstick and then a harder under head and you know, all that nonsense. You just read it once a day as you go. And I learned that actually one of my favorite stories about myself, about the speaking of relating myself is I was fortunate enough to be coached one on one by Zig Ziglar at one point in my life, which if you don't know who he is, you seemingly do. He's probably the first most important sales trainer ever. And I had called him in a sales slump when I was 19 years old. I would, I just called him on the phone and never thought I'd hear from him, but six weeks later he called me back.

1:17:45And he sent me this little thing on his website and it was this, it's like this one paragraph and it was like, here's what I'm going to do today. And it wasn't like affirming. It wasn't like, I'm good enough and I'm smart enough. I gosh darn it. People like, it was, you know, here's how I intend to show up. And he said at the bottom, I'll never forget the quote, the guys are the windows to the soul, so be careful what you look at. And that's was the first thing I read every day for like four years. And my sales kept climbing and he checked in on me about every six months and really kind dude. I'd love to tell you that story some other time.

1:18:24That's really where I figured that out. It's that I just read it. I read mine every day. And I revamp mind about every six months. So I go back and revisit it, make sure that the, you know, the things I'm working on are, or, you know, that I haven't mastered them. You know, it's kind of, it's this mindfulness moment that why would I need to continue doing mindful about something that I've already mastered that doesn't make a lot of sense to me? So I just, I'll take things off that list. And that's another concept is that, you know, boundaries aren't static, they're evolving, just like you, you know, who you are is not a fixed concept.

1:18:57It's ever evolving. It's always changing and that means your needs will change. It means your boundaries will change. What you'll tolerate. What you're willing to tolerate will change. And I think if you give yourself time enough to grow into that and you can really experience some very cool life. So that's how I would say to do that in terms of, you know, tapably speaking is just read it every day. Once you do it, read it every day. I've been a huge fan of post -it notes over the last like the most 1930s fucking technology to fix things that I need to remember. Just little bits, you know, I'm a big fan of mantras because I think they're sort of like the wind zip, you know, file sort of compression of entire ideas and just popping things around is a really nice way to do it.

1:19:39So I'm all in for the, the, the laminating of the business card. Getting into the, I guess what I think we maybe haven't fully covered yet that's probably one of the biggest sticking points is the felt sense when you need to do a thing, when you need to say, when you need to enforce a boundary, when you need to say no, when you need to sit in that moment, it's happening, the discussion is occurring, whatever is about to go on, how can sensitive people become more assertive? There's two things on that. I was actually going to bring this up way early in the call and I forgot about it, so I'm I'm really glad you came back to this.

1:20:23The first thing is, very often, boundary conversations don't need to happen in the moment.

1:20:36There seems to be this concept that you have to immediately defend yourself, but acids and bases mix about as well as emotions and logic. So if you are in a potentially emotional situation, it's best to buy time. Now that's not to say to be conflict avoidant because that is kind of a core competency of the people pleasers to just avoid conflict until it goes away. But it's about conflict deferment. So, and maybe that's an hour, maybe that's a day, maybe it's after Thanksgiving giving dinner, maybe drunk on coletti needs to go home, like whatever. But so that's the first thing. It's like if you are somebody that's highly sensitive, don't hold yourself to the standard that you're gonna be, you know, Johnny, I'm a spot with your boundaries, especially in the beginning.

1:21:31You have to give yourself time to adjust to this new way of being. So, and the way you do that is you just say, okay, hey, I'm getting uncomfortable. I'm gonna take a break for this conversation. It's a great way to do that. or I've asked that we don't talk about that, so I'm just gonna step away or whatever. Usually, especially in family situations, it's generally your own conversation. The second thing you can do is when you notice your feeling that hunched feeling is just to breathe. Oh, when you get that sense that you're being overcome, I take it, I'm a martial artist most of my life. You're probably familiar with the term ki, which means spirit.

1:22:14Yeah, well, I can't just scream, yeah, in the middle of the family dinner. But what I can do is take a very, very deep breath in and hard out and that generally will help me reset my nervous system. So it's like in all the way and then like really hard through. So I get all that carbon out of my body and just let that out. And then that will actually cause my skin to heat up. And you can see it. I actually got flush when I did it. So that will cause my skin to heat up, cause the emotion of my body to kind of dissipate, go other places and to balance out. And then I could say, okay, hey, that's not okay.

1:22:49I'm an extremely sensitive person. It may not show up that way online because I'm sort of a fire branded preacher of everything that says, you can do it, you just don't believe you can. But in genuinely speaking, I'm pretty impacted by other people. or I wouldn't do this. So that's how I do it is one good, solid breath that nobody even has to know I had will help me reset and I can then decide kind of make the idea of what I do I want to even address this now. Yeah, what about just to add a additional layer of complexity to certain times where you You just don't have any other choice. You need to address this situation in the moment.

1:23:36This isn't necessarily about a boundary. This is somebody asking you a decision, are we going to do this or are we going to do this? And you have to have that moment of self inquiry. You need to try and tap into your desires. You need to be able to advocate for your needs. I'm going to guess that this mindfulness gap facilitated by what's contemporarily known as the cubum and breath is a good stop. Is there any other tools for assertiveness when kind of under pressure like that? There are, but you know, I will not allow Andrew Huberman to take over the key. Okay. Okay. You can tell him I said so.

1:24:15You can take the breath name back if you give us some more tactics. Right. Sure. So if you're truly in a moment, so number one, And speaking of another person that's a coach that doesn't know that my coach Tim Ferris says that there's no such thing as an emergency. And I fully agree with that sentiment. There is almost no reason we need a decision right now unless it's life or death.

1:24:43So if somebody's pushing on something and you're uncomfortable, the answer is it needs to be a default of no. Now, that's really hard.

1:24:57So there's two things that you have to remember in those moments. The first thing is no feeling is permanent, and they're almost never fatal. So no feeling is fatal, no feeling is permanent. So if it's not fatal and it's not forever, you can get past it. This is where I was really challenged. I used to believe that I wasn't courageous, and I used to believe that I wasn't brave. And I believed those things because I was afraid. Those two things can't exist without me being afraid.

1:25:40That's just a Tuesday. day. You become courageous through action. You become brave through action. And bravery is defined as going anyway, right? So at some point, you have to realize that it's okay that you're afraid. It's okay that your shoulders hunch forward. It's okay that your eyes well up and you don't know what to do. It's okay that you're overwhelmed. It's okay you have butterflies in your stomach. It's okay that your jaw is clenched up and you just want to fight. That's all okay. And if you can just remember that it's okay and without it you cannot be courageous. You can never call yourself brave if you're not afraid.

1:26:35Then you can immediately start to rewire the thought in your head. It's like, first, when do I feel afraid? What does it mean? I'm afraid. That's all it means. It doesn't mean anything. It just means I'm afraid. Am I going to die? Probably not.

1:26:51The two seconds between a decision and the words make a big difference. So in the game of know that we talked about earlier, say you have 90 seconds, like you have 90 seconds, you only really need to. Really, you only need to. So if somebody is really pressuring you or somebody is really pushing on a boundary, give yourself two seconds, two seconds, one, two, and then speak whatever comes out. Whatever comes out, it can be anger, it can be vitriol, it can be sunshine and rainbows, it can be an I love you. It's a great way to diffuse a boundary conversation by the way, just I love you. Try that if you want a good one, just I love you.

1:27:45Just screws up the whole room, right?

1:27:51So that's what I would say. Give yourself two seconds and then speak whatever comes it comes to your mouth. And it's going to be scary and you're going to feel it, right? And so I think what I heard you ask me and tell me if it's true, it's like how do I get over the feeling? You don't. You don't. You go anyway. What about the guilt that people will feel when choosing themselves over others? The fact that does this person there and I have this sense of obligation, this sort of, I'm so used to subjugating me below everybody else, I'm going to feel like I need to deal with being disliked, maybe they're not going to like me, what if they don't like me?

1:28:32I feel guilty, I've chosen myself over this other person. I think that's probably quite a visceral emotion that people please just feel. Yeah, I mentioned it earlier, like if you think of the first time you were going to kiss your wife, you're married, right? No. No, that's not too married for some reason. If you think of the first time you're going to kiss your girlfriend or anybody, and then you think of the first time you thought you were going to die, the feelings are identical, right? So the question is, are you guilty or are you excited? Are you feeling guilty because you're not choosing them or are you feeling excited because you finally chose you?

1:29:05So there's a big reframe there that can have.

1:29:11Without getting into the platitudes of like, you know, feelings and all that crap that you can say about, you know, you'll get over it.

1:29:24Actually, no, I fucking, let's just do the platitudes. You're going to get over it. I mean, fine. Yeah, you're going to feel guilty, man. It's like you weren't good at tying your shoes in the beginning either. For the first three years of your life, you shit your pants, but you're able to get over the discomfort of learning how to not shit your pants and how to tire shoes. So if you can get over the discomfort of not shooting your pants and learning how to tire shoes, and there's a good to fair chance you can get over the discomfort of saying no. And so it's this immersion in the idea that you are not for everyone.

1:29:58And I lived my life the opposite forever. So I think it's something I'm really passionate about is yeah, you're gonna feel guilty. You're gonna feel uncomfortable, right? Is it guilt or is it just discomfort? That's the next question. It's like, are you guilty? Like are you sitting there going on really? This person's really gonna be sad, probably not. So if they are, if you're truly believing that or you engaged in a form of fubrist, that would be my next question is like, how important do you think your know is? And I ask people that all the time and they exactly the same way. It's like, how important really are you?

1:30:34Like, we really, that important that if you say no, I don't want to go to lunch with you, they're going to go outside and, you know, stick a fire hose from the tailpipe into the window. Probably not. I think they're going to be okay. They'll have them arguing by themselves. Right? And so I think there's a self -importance. This is where people pleasing and narcissism tend to bump up against each other a lot. Like, your know is about as meaningless as your yes, because you never say no. So when you say no, nobody believes you. And when you say yes, less and less people are believing you because you're so over committed, you can't show up.

1:31:12It's this weird, I don't know, it's this weird paradox where like, When you've said yes to everything, your know becomes meaningless, and your yes becomes less than meaningless.

1:31:29So when you start saying no to things, you're going to be uncomfortable, everyone else is probably just going to be surprised.

1:31:39And let them be surprised. Does life get easier or harder when you stop people pleasing? Yes. Yes. Initially, it gets... and it's not... I suppose it depends on how you do it. But if you do it, the way I did it, it was initially much harder because he go through... People pleasing is a very lonely way to live. It's a very lonely way to live. Because you constantly feel like you're in a transaction with everybody around you. And you never really know what your value is to other people. And you start to think, okay, I really don't have any friends. So you kind of feel lonely. But then when you start to prioritize yourself as equal to other people, those people start to leave your life.

1:32:37and then you're like, well, now I'm so lonely. Well, you were lonely anyway. I don't even have my fake friends anymore. Right. No, I don't even have the bartender that said that they liked me, right? It's the same thing when I quit drinking. I had all these friends. But when you drank the way that I did, you start to realize that those friends were, you were just a joke, you were a paycheck and a joke. and very often the people that will exit your life when you start to do this work, two things will happen either they'll go and they'll stay gone, but more often they circle back. You know, I had a friend, we were watching football the other day and he said, I really liked this first review better.

1:33:21And he was the first one that ever said that to me. And I hadn't seen him in years. And it was just a really cool moment for me where I really felt something like, he likes this version of me better. And it was when I told him, no, I don't want a shot. They don't want to do that. I'm a recovered alcohol, I can have a beer from here, near time to time, but I don't want to sit into shots with you. That's a dangerous road for me. And I said, now I'm good, and I don't do that anymore, he goes, man, I really like this version of you better. What a cool thing. But that's been a five -year timeline. Right?

1:34:00So it's not unlike starting business. You go through this. From the moment you change to what one might consider to be the end result, you're going to experience a pretty high level of loneliness in between those two points because you're not healthy enough for the new folks and you're in your way too healthy. Like, so even having one boundary can make you too healthy for everyone around you. That profound when you're like deep in that people pleasing well is, you know, one boundary will make people start to turn on you. Like, hey, I don't want to go to your birthday party. Why? Because I don't want to.

1:34:46It's it. I don't want to. because I value my time and I spend it with my family on Sundays. It could be any number of damn things, right? But that one boundary can really like set the tone. It's like in the fighting, in the, in the parlance of fighting, like by jab you in the face, I've now set the tone. We know who's in control, right? And when you take control, other people aren't going to like it. So you immediately start to see people exit stage left. And you're like, you're looking ahead, you don't see a lot, right? You see an empty wilderness. and the encouragement I would give people, some of the most beautiful, growth -filled, exciting times of my life was when I was the most lonely.

1:35:35Because loneliness presents with it a massive amount of freedom. Like, I could do what I wanted, when I wanted to answer to nobody. Nobody had nowhere to be, nothing to do. My options were limitless. I ate when I wanted, I shit when I wanted, I went to movies by myself. And so initially it will get worse. Worse is a weird way of saying it. I think initially it will get different and uncomfortable. But you're already uncomfortable. Right? I get a lot of people that, you know, whether it's on my channel or in my groups or whatever, they'll say, well, you know, if I do this, then, you know, let's pretend you have a narcissistic person.

1:36:26By the way, I hate that term. I also hate the term manifestation. We can do that on another time. But let's pretend. Well, my narcissistic, whatever, is not going to like that. Okay. Well, they're mad at you anyway. So it gives a shit. Like, If they're going to be mad, whether you do or whether you don't, you may as well do. So if your life is going to suck, whether you do or whether you don't, you may as well do. And if it has to be done sooner or later, it may as well be done sooner. So let's just do the thing and feel better about ourselves. And will it initially suck? Yes. Will you immediately feel better without sounding like a guarantee?

1:37:11mostly yes because you know your confidence for me my confidence was shot until I started making commitments to myself and showing up for those. It didn't matter how much money I made. It didn't matter. It didn't matter who my friends were and I I thought it did. And it didn't matter how what car I drove and it didn't matter on what floor of the high rise I lived on. What mattered was, the minute I started saying, I'm gonna show up for me and I would delineate exactly how I was gonna do that. And then I would do it. I started to think, okay, well, maybe I'm okay. And when I start to think, okay, well, maybe if I'm okay, maybe I'm better than okay.

1:38:03Maybe I am kind of smart. Maybe I'm not a fucking idiot. Maybe I can start a business. Maybe I can travel the world for two and a half years. I did that like a crazy person. And you know, at 40. By the way, don't ever do that at 40. It's really, it's fun, but it's... I aged myself a lot. And maybe I can't ask that girl out. Maybe I can ask that guy out. Maybe I... Maybe I... Maybe I can, you know. And I think that's what shows up when you... when, you know, kind of in the in the medium term is like, maybe I can. And then so it goes from like, oh, fuck them lonely to like, maybe I can. And then it's like, oh, shit, I really can.

1:38:44And then your life just starts to, you know, skyrocket and you start to feel good about yourself and you start to wonder. And then you hit a wall and that'll happen, you know, because you'll make a new friend or you'll make a new ally and they'll turn out to be a piece of shit. That's a common along this journey because you start to get a little full of yourself. And then you'd get knocked back down a little bit and make a course correction and then you know, slowly but surely you start to find out People love you for you not because of what you do Yeah, James My business partner in eutonic sat on a rock took a ton of psilocybin in Australia and asked himself the question to people love me for who I am or for what I do and It was a I think a difficult question from to answer because you know the tougher question that he didn't actually get around to asking but a friend gave me was, well, just the world love me for who I am or for what I do.

1:39:34What about you? Do you love you for who you are or for what you do? And then you realize, yeah, you realize that you're asking the world to love you for who you are. Meanwhile, your love is contingent on how you've shown up that day. You're asking the world to treat you in a manner that you're not even prepared to treat yourself in. And this is a good part of the foundation of self -worth, that if, imagine that you had a friend and every time that you invited them out to lunch or to a party or something, they said that they were going to come, but they arrived an hour late or they didn't show up at all, after a while you'd stop trusting that we're going to do anything.

1:40:12Well, you are that friend to yourself. You sort of have an intention and then your ability to deliver on that is your self -trust. And if you always say that you're going to get up on time, but you hit this news button three times you say that you're not going to eat the cookie or break your diet, but you continually do, you say you're going to go to the gym, you say you're not going to lie to your partner, and all of these things continue to be broken. It's like, well, where? Where is the faith that you should be drawing for? What's the well of evidence that you should be drawing from to have any proof that you can do this?

1:40:46There isn't any. So one of the other words that sort of we've done throughout a little bit today are triggers and the role of triggers. What is that? How do they sort of factor into this?

1:41:03This will probably get me canceled. I know, it's a safe space. I want to answer that, but I want to also say your business partner is also one of those coaches that doesn't know he's my coach. In fact, you can thank him. You can thank him for my sound quality today because I went and bought this just for you. He's got a racist accent, don't listen to him. A racist accent.

1:41:30Your triggers are your responsibility. What does that mean? What are triggers to find them for me?

1:41:38So I struggle with this because I think I'm not, I tend to not be great in psychological terminology and I'm going to get shit on for it, but whatever. So in my experience, I come from a lot of childhood trauma and when I was triggered, I would have a visceral emotional reaction within my body. It would bring me back to a state of deep fear and anxiety.

1:42:13That is what a post -traumatic stress disorder figure sounds like. So, and it could be auditory, it could be hallucinogenic, it can be like, it can really be an experience where somebody will say something, you'll have a smell, you'll feel a feeling, something will occur, somebody will yell at me, and it will just, it could fire my mind off. Now, I've done a ton of work, you know, on post -traumatic stress disorder within myself. I'm not an expert in the field. but I think where we've gotten is the conflation between triggers and negative emotion. And that's what I mean by that. It's like, somebody who's legitimately triggered, if that's a thing for you, you need to speak to somebody in the psychological field.

1:42:56If you were having a visceral, like, overwhelming reaction to external stimuli, then that's a bigger problem than I'm prepared to address. It's the conflation between, there's two things. There's a conflation between triggers and negative emotion, and the other conflation is between trauma and adversity. When I say your triggers are your responsibility, I mean, just somebody making you feel uncomfortable is not you being triggered and if it is, that is your responsibility. Even in the sense that I was talking about with my own post -traumatic stress disorder, that was still my responsibility. So dealing with that level of trigger is different.

1:43:41Dealing with the I'm uncomfortable trigger or you know I don't like it when you do that thing trigger. How do you deal with it is you grow up.

1:43:57Life is not required to tip toe around you. And and I think we I think we've I think we've beaten that horse to death and manifested our way into this idea of that everybody is supposed to be everything to us all the time. And it's not sustainable and it's not realistic. So I'm not sure I answered your question there so much as I give you a sound bite that's probably going to get me punched in the face on the streets of Denver. But yeah, whatever. I got me interested. I'm interested in the capacity to give up on people that working out when you should actually give up, how you know when someone has gone too far.

1:44:50You know, you mentioned earlier on, it once somebody shows themselves to you, believe them. I think the noble part of some people pleasing is you will maybe give somebody a chance when nobody else would. And that's like very up with aiming every underdog movie in history has got some young street urchin that gets the coach sees in him the fire that nobody else can and gives him a chance, even though he's going to throw in his face a couple of times, blah, blah. But some people take it too far. So how have you come to think about this capacity to give up on people?

1:45:37I think there's almost an epidemic of no contact in the world right now. So I think giving up on people is happening a little too quickly. So I'm really glad you asked that. I think the no contact narrative is... So first, not everybody that bumps up against a boundary is a narcissist. Not everybody who doesn't understand this new way of you showing up is toxic. So I want to just start by saying that.

1:46:09When somebody, it's really, I mean, it's so nuanced and I hate that word too, because because it's the new excuse for, you know, I don't want to hear what you have to say. You set it on another one of these new answers, the new N word. I almost passed out, I laughed so hard. So I was driving, I almost locked up the brakes in my car. But the, I've only gone to no contact or cut three people out of my life. And they weren't small people. So one of which was my father, I talked to him once in nine years and then once on his deathbed. That was it. I've not talked to my sister since 2015. Or no, I'm sorry, 2009.

1:46:59I have not spoken to her and I probably will never again. And then one other person was an ex.

1:47:15Malevolence is unmistakable.

1:47:23And I think that's all I have to say about that. That malevolence is unmistakable. when you see it, run, don't walk. Thinking about, again, not just where people are when they're at the beginning of their journey, but as they sort of continue to go on, continuing to hold boundaries, continuing to make progress, managing that lonely chapter thing in the middle, managing the pullbacks, the price corrections that bring them back down and then put them back up. I'm interested about What happens when people are a little bit further along in life? You mentioned, I think, the sort of avatar client that you work with is sort of like a 48 -year -old guy who's very successful at whatever it is that he does, but has been wildly unsuccessful at ever advocating for himself.

1:48:20What additional complications come along for somebody who's trying to do this, who's trying to sort of enter into this world when they've got financial resources or when they've got some reputation or some status or some acclaim Does that make it easier or does it make it harder? I don't know I don't know if it's more or less I think it's

1:48:48Might have been Mark Manson that said it that you know a homeless person and Elon Musk both have money problems

1:48:57The challenges it presents when you've become a highly successful people pleaser are probably more challenging to overcome because there's more at stake. And your belief systems, as I mentioned this earlier, is belief -drive behavior, behavior spent 20 years reinforcing this people pleasing as a way of living and you then have convinced yourself that if I don't make everyone happy, I'm going to go broke. If I don't, you know, and so in the highly successful people pleasers, that's where we start to see that burnout component is, well, fuck, you know, I'm just, I'm just an ATM machine. And I think it's more challenging in the way that you have to literally redefine your relationship with probably the two highest value things in your life, which are your family and money.

1:50:10And to devalue money is probably the top priority. And that's really hard. You know, I really like money. I like making lots of money. I like spending money. I like going out to nice dinners. I'm a dude who likes stuff and I don't like stuff, but I like experiences and they're usually not cheap. And, you know, so that's the benefit in it. Of course, is that you can then prioritize things that you actually like, but your relationship with money has to change. And I think it was on your show that Jordan Peterson said, you know, about getting sober, that you have to change everything. You have to change who you hang out with.

1:50:51You have to change, you know, your entire social strategy. You have, like, all of it has to change. And that's very true with the people. Please, you know, and now I think that's probably more challenging. It requires a lot, it requires a lot more resources and a lot more time because you have The cool thing though, with the highly successful variety, so my clients between 35 and 55, you know, making a quarter million plus a year, when the habit breaks, it usually breaks for good. And it's like a moment, it's a moment of clarity. So like, with people that are not quite at that level that are kind of moving up my 28 -year -olds that are doing okay, but they're not where they want to be yet, right?

1:51:46They tend to take a little longer for some reason or another, but like with a 35 to 55, 65, whatever -year -old, when they recognize the pattern, it's like it's always one little thing, it'll be a technique that I show them or learning how to say no, and it's just over. And then everything changes all at once. And it's not, and it's not a change that it's not like a toxic variety of it either. I never really thought about that, Chris, but it's really not. It's usually just, okay, what I'm going to do this now. And everybody around him goes, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, there's a self, there's a self -assuredness that prestige brings along with it.

1:52:32It's weird, because I suppose people that have managed to reach some type of acclaim or renown or whatever reputation within their family, within their industry, whatever it is, people kind of have faith that they know what they're doing. So say, like, you managed to get us here so far, you're the captain of the ship or the sous chef or whatever, like let's continue to follow you. And that faith is even if it's come from a place that's been compelled and not well balanced and not fully integrated and not alchemized and all the rest of the stuff, but it's been effective. And you go, well look, we followed Nick into battle a good bit and he sort of didn't really steer us wrong there.

1:53:14So I reckon we just kind of follow. So you know, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. And if Nick thinks that the new direction is to take a hard right, then so be it. I'm, I'm, we'll go and do it. So I wonder whether, yeah, there is a, there are more ingrained habits for you to overcome and there's maybe a little bit more to risk, but also you've got more ballast on the ship Like you've got more status. You've got more financial resources. Yeah. I think that that's a great way of saying is you got more ballast on the ship You know, which is a short way of saying that you've got more support.

1:53:46You know

1:53:51Something I would really want people to know listening to this People do love you. They do. They just don't know how. And so when you change, especially if you're in that kind of higher status, or if I'm going to be your James status position, look at me, I'm learning.

1:54:19They have more to lose than you do.

1:54:24So I think there's a component to that of selfishness within your social strat as well. It's like people need to keep you happy. Right, like, you know, if you're miserable and you know, I had a really great CEO that was in London, we never did work end up working together, but I really love him and I hope we get a chance to someday, but he has that kind of really big persona that really big social stratum. I don't think he knows how easy this is gonna be. Because everybody loves him, right? And he's, you know, he's everything to everybody. Most people in your life that love you don't want you to live like this.

1:55:05They really don't. They benefit from it. You know, everybody in your life, if you're really in that people, please remind, and if you really do live that way, everybody in your life either benefits directly or indirectly from behavior, products, right? But,

1:55:23If you believe like I do, that the meaning of life is love and adventure.

1:55:30An honesty is what adventure is. If you want to have an adventurous life, just be honest. Then being honest with the people that you love will only make them love you more.

1:55:50And the reason, you know, it's like this, I heard this analogy about Velcro, that the only reason Velcro works is because it's imperfect. And because that's what catches the Velcro, that's what catches the loops is the imperfections. and if you really want people to love you, be you, and watch how they change and be grateful for who they are and love them even when they're afraid of you. And don't back down.

1:56:29Life is so much better than we make it. It's like I have never been in a position that I am more grateful for who I am than I am now. And it's not because of status and it's not because of wealth and it's not because of any of the, you know, extrinsic motivators that people might have. It's I fell in love with the person I am And I just kind of let people come and go as they need to And because I get to do that I get to do that I get to have things like boundaries But I also get to have great sex. I also get to have amazing dinners I also get to laugh people like you, you know, I get to meet friends and they never thought I'd meet I have so one of my coaches his name is Stone.

1:57:25I told him I'd mentioned his name on this podcast He was 17 when I hired him to teach me how to do TikTok. He was 32 bucks. At about a year ago, I had posted on my wall that I wanted to come on your show and I told all my following to tag you. And I don't know if they did or not. But I was like, I really want to go on this show. I really want to meet this guy. And he texted me because if you can on that fucking show, I swear to God, I won't make another piece of content.

1:58:02So, but why do I get to do this? It's because I show up as me online. I'm not a persona. I'm not, I'm not blowing smoke up anyone's ass. I just, I get out there and I do it. And then I saw you say it. And I said what I'd say. It wasn't like, so I didn't sit and obsess about it. I was like, all right, I was just going to say this and, you know, he's probably never going to see it, whatever. in the next thing I know here I am, right? And is it harder when you're a fluid, maybe, I don't know, I don't know if it matters. I think the journey is worth it anyway.

1:58:37Dude, I love it. I love it. I really appreciate your energy. I really appreciate the vibe. I think that it is a unseen epidemic that a lot of people are dealing with and being able to do it from a frame that makes you feel proud to be able to sort of step up to do this. The kind of, in a very, actually a very British way, admits self -deprecatingly that this is both maybe one of the most difficult challenges and like some sort of weird mortal quest and also a totally internal battle that no one's ever going to give you any glory for completing. It's sort of this the most boring and magnificent thing that you're ever going to do both at the same time You know champagne problem that only you are ever really going to be able to pat yourself on the back for Even if it affects the world and the rest of the people around you.

1:59:28I really love it You've mentioned a couple of times. I'm curious before we finish up You mentioned a few times different books that were really impactful on you Scott Peck was one of them Yeah, the road was traveled Yeah, if you were to sort of think about I know know, a couple of bucks that you gift the most or that you've read the most or the ones that sort of from an accessibility perspective really really made a big impact on you. What would they be?

1:59:56First one is not nice by Z's Gus Burry. That was really the, I think that was the first book I ever read that really addressed this kind of people pleasing behavior. Really put, help me put a tag on it. That's, oh, I see that. right? So that book is called Not Nice. You know, the quarterstone text of course is going to be Dr. Robert Glover, you know, no more Mr. Nice guy. Like, doc, you're the king, you know, you're the king. Shut up about it. And I would say that probably Scott Peck is, is, I mean, it was one of the number Number one selling personal growth books of all time, which the road less traveled, really a direct punch in the face for making excuses.

2:00:53And you know, some of the other greats of course, Mark Manson did a marvelous job with, you know, subtle art, you know, atomic addicts. And obviously James Clear and Tim Ferriss and all those guys. but probably those are my top three. It's not nice by Gisbury Glover, Snowmer, Mr. Nice Guy, and Scott Peck, I believe, is no longer on the planet, but the roadless travel does. And it's probably the book that will change your life the fastest. If you really sit to and just absorb it, it'll break you. And it's one of my favorites. It's one of my favorites. I think we're learn to speak though. If I can give you one more, my favorite fictional author is Kurt Vonnegut.

2:01:34Which book? It's letter house five is probably the one that everybody says, but sirens of Titans is my favorite. I just love him as an author. I've read his entire library. Whenever I'm in a mood that I don't want to read personal growth, which is starting to happen more and more as I write a book around this, I just kind of burned out on it. I don't want to read anymore about how I have to have habits. I don't care. I know, I'm gonna think positive, it's fine, I'm gonna be fine. You know, I think I probably absorbed 10 ,000 hours of the shit, so if I don't know by now, I'm not gonna know. Nick Paula, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the hell out of you.

2:02:17I really love your energy, I love your vibe, I love what you're talking about. Where should people go? They want to check out courses, social media, all of that stuff. Easiest place to find me is the peopledispleaser .com And on Instagram is, you know, the people Displeaser. I monitor that I love and would hope to get rid of something. It's good for now. It's good for now. Sure. I'll take it for now. But the people Displeaser .com is the easiest way to find my stuff. And follow me on Instagram. And if you really want to do me the favor, follow me on YouTube, because that channel needs some love.

2:02:49That's the same. Yeah. The people Displeaser. Now, dude, it's... I love it. I love being here. Thank you so much for this. It's been a dream of mine for a couple of years now. You made it come true, so I appreciate you. Well, you deserve it. Thank you, man. Until next time