The 10 Reasons Why Every Nice Guy Needs a Nice Guy Coach to Win in Life
Why do Nice Guys finish last? And what’s the problem with being nice?
Have you ever wondered why you feel stuck and that your life hasn’t turned out the way you wanted?
Have you found yourself getting friend zoned and rejected? And when you do end up stuck in a relationship with a woman, she ends up being difficult or dysfunctional? Or worse yet, you weren’t that interested in her to begin with?
Have you found yourself bored and uninspired in your career? And do you hide from the spotlight for fear of taking on too much responsibility?
As you reflect on your life, how many times did fear, anxiety, procrastination, and insecurity hold you back? And how many times did you beat yourself up for it?
It’s not easy being a Nice Guy. As a recovering Nice Guy myself, I feel your pain.
Dr. Robert Glover wrote in his groundbreaking book, No More Mr. Nice Guy, “...Nice Guys believe that if they are good, giving, and caring, they will in return be happy, loved, and fulfilled.”
I used to hold this belief. Are you believing it right now? How is that working for you?
When you were young, you wondered about all the cool things you’d get to do when you were older. What were your hopes and dreams?
You desperately wanted to…
Date the amazing women you’ve had crushes on, but instead you’ve landed in the friend zone, or been stuck in a bad relationship, or been rejected outright.
Marry and settle down with a great woman so you could finally relax and enjoy your life, but instead you discover how incompatible you are and how difficult the relationship is.
Establish a comfortable and predictable career only to find out that you’re getting passed over for promotions as you watch other aggressive overachievers leapfrog you and land on their feet. And maybe you were afraid of getting laid off!
Feel good about yourself and let go of negative emotions. But instead, you find yourself avoiding discomfort and anxiety while everyone walks all over you.
You feel like you’ve done everything right in order to have a great life, but instead here you are: bored, unfulfilled, and stuck in the same old routine.
Wake up, go to work, suffer through your job, come home, sleep, and do it all over again.
We Nice Guys have lost touch with who we are, our passions, and our contribution to the world!
We get frustrated and angry. Then retreat to our bedrooms to play games and watch porn. We medicate ourselves with alcohol and drugs. We suffer from depression and anxiety.
Check out these disturbing statistics:
According to the American Sociological Association, women initiate almost 70% of all divorces.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, labor participation rates for men are falling drastically. ”...Prime-age labor participation rates for men in the United States ranked 23rd out of 33 countries in 1996, and fell to 31st in 2016…. Employment rates fared no better, with men falling from 15th to 22nd…”
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, in 2017, men died by suicide 3.54x more often than women.
All men are suffering. I’m sure you know a guy who’s wife divorced him or got laid off. Maybe one of those things happened to you. Or even worse, maybe someone you know succumbed to suicide.
How did we get here? Where are our role models? Where is our owner’s manual?
Here’s the mind trap that keeps us stuck and turns us into another one of these depressing statistics.
Nice Guys believe they should be able to recover and succeed on their own.
I see it all the time. Nice Guys beat themselves up for procrastinating and not getting things right the first time. They read endless streams of information on how to fix their problems and shortcomings. They keep looking for that one simple and easy solution to achieving a “smooth, problem-free life,” as Dr. Glover says.
And then they don’t seek help or support from other people! They falsely believe that if they get help, then that means they have failed in some way. And once we Nice Guys feel like we’ve failed, then we just beat ourselves up even more. No wonder we’re depressed!
“Ask someone to encourage and support you. Don't try to do it alone.” -- Dr. Robert Glover
Finding someone to coach you doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’re committed to your success!
Think of all the famous athletes or actors you know. They all have coaches for the entire duration of their careers. Every single one of them. They need to keep their edge to maintain their success.
Tiger Woods has never been without a coach.
Steve Jobs mentored Mark Zuckerberg.
Tony Robbins coached Bill Clinton.
Bill Gates got help from Warren Buffett.
Successful people know they can’t do it alone. So what makes you think you can?
Nice Guys need coaching more than ever to overcome their obstacles and break free! It’s time you stepped into your greatness both in your relationships and your endeavours!
With that, here are the 10 reasons why a Nice Guy coach can be the key to understanding yourself and achieving the goals you never thought possible.
1. You believe that being super agreeable (or being a total jerk) is the way to a woman’s heart.
Nice Guys believe that if they do nice things for women and don’t rock the boat, then women should find them attractive and want to have sex with them. When that doesn’t work, Nice Guys get frustrated quickly. It’s as if everyone else knows what to do and you don’t.
When you do get into a relationship, you work hard to make her happy and do what she wants. And after a while you realize that your relationship is falling apart. Sex is less frequent and there doesn't seem to be any spark anymore.
What Nice Guys don't realize is that women don't bond the same way you do. You need to create tension. And that tension is created when you hold your ground, take the lead, and become more playful. All of that creates risk and anxiety for the Nice Guy so he avoids it.
A great Nice Guy coach can train you to get clear on what you need in a relationship, ask for it, and be OK with your anxiety when you do. Saying no to a woman is even harder. A great coach will help you move through those obstacles by getting clear and learning to become detached from outcome.
Nice Guys have to go the counterintuitive route in order to get better at attracting great women and inviting them to join them in great relationships. A great Nice Guy coach will show where you need to take risks to get what you want from your relationships with women and let go of the relationships that aren't working for you.
Nice Guys hate tension. It's scary. Yet emotional tension is what women need to bond and feel attraction toward a man. A great coach can give you the skills to flirt, build that tension, learn to take the lead, discover the best characteristics you need in order to commit to a worthy woman.
2. Taking on more responsibility in your career is scary, yet you know that’s what you need to get more of what you want in life.
As Dr. Glover said, “Nice guys don't finish last, they rot in middle management.”
So you stay under the radar at work to avoid the anxiety of responsibility.
I can recall in my career wanting desperately not to be seen. I didn’t want to lead anyone. The responsibility scared me to death.
Who would want to be on conference calls all day and lead pointless initiatives? I sure didn’t.
I was lost in a sea of cubicles not seeing any point to what I was working on. I was disconnected from the impact of my work.
As I lived for the weekends and brief vacations, I wondered if this was all there was to my working life.
I was somewhat comfortable, but I always had a background anxiety that something was going to go wrong and I was going to lose it all.
Once I finally got laid off for not standing out in any particular way, I hit rock bottom.
I began to realize that returning to corporate life would be a fate worse than death.
In my mind I burned that bridge. I struggled for years and eventually found my purpose in life. That’s how I became a coach for Nice Guys.
I found my purpose and my contribution to the world. And that made all the difference.
Nice Guys are disconnected from themselves, their sense of contribution, and their purpose.
Maybe you have a dream of leaving your boring job and starting your own business. Maybe you want to travel and meet interesting people.
You need freedom, purpose, and meaning to feel alive.
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ― Pablo Picasso
A great coach can help Nice Guys clear their minds and free themselves up for greater pursuits. Your natural desire to lead and contribute will appear.
Your adventure awaits.
3. There is no definition of what it means to be a man in modern society.
What is your definition of masculinity?
Not only is the concept of modern masculinity vague and confusing, it’s come under fire in the last few years. It’s a minefield for Nice Guys.
You don’t want to be a jerk and engage in toxic masculinity. But you don’t want to be weak and feminized either.
So you try to find the perfect model for masculinity by inhaling huge quantities of information from the internet. So many different interpretations, too little time. Which one should you choose?
And when you find one model of masculinity you like, you try to become the perfect version of that model in one step.
You try to fake it till you make it, but it’s not that simple. It’s not authentic for you.
And as soon as the going gets tough, you feel stuck, discouraged, and inadequate. So you quit that model after one or two tries. Maybe it wasn’t the perfect one after all.
And then the cycle starts all over again when you look for that next key piece of information you think you need to achieve perfect masculinity.
You don’t need someone else’s version of perfect masculinity! You need to develop your own version of masculinity!
A Nice Guy coach can help you find your authentic self so that your natural masculinity can emerge organically.
You’re already a man. You don’t need to strive to become more masculine. You just need to relax into your own sense of identity and responsibility.
That’s the secret to unleashing your natural masculine vibe.
4. Your perfectionism kills your progress, drives you into procrastination, and makes you feel terrible about yourself.
Covert Contract #3
“If I do everything right, then I will have a smooth, problem-free life.”
--Dr. Robert Glover
Human beings procrastinate. Nice Guys procrastinate even more. And then they beat themselves up for not getting things right the first time.
Raise your hand if you require yourself to get difficult things done perfectly the first time.
How many times have you given up too quickly on big goals because the learning curve was too painful?
And how many times have you quit early and immediately searched for the next big thing?
You’re always looking for the holy grail of secrets that will lead to that smooth, problem-free life.
I’ve done it many, many times, so I get it. It feels like a treadmill of misery you can’t get off of.
Nice Guys set themselves up for failure and mediocrity because of these unrealistic and even harmful expectations.
It takes a specific two-pronged approach to snap Nice Guys out of this mind trap.
First, you need to realize that you’re almost never going to get it right the first time. You need to keep practicing. It will take time and effort to get up that learning curve.
Second, your need to get it right is not based in reality. You just want to get it right the first time because you falsely believe people will like you and it will lead to success.
The disappointment of failure is not an option. It’s too painful to think about.
But there is no absolute definition of “right” either, so you’re actually setting yourself up to miss the mark. Every. Single. Time.
And then you get to beat yourself up for the millionth time when you don’t get the outcome you want.
So much for that “smooth, problem-free life.”
A great coach can help you break free from that trap forever. He can help you see the value in “getting it wrong” so you can start to see your “failures” simply as feedback.
Gather enough feedback, make small incremental changes, and over time you’ll feel more confident than ever!
Successful people embrace failure and never give up. They know that as long as they keep refining their approach and learn from the result, they will eventually reach their goals.
5. You need someone to listen to you, hold you accountable, and teach you meaningful skills.
My father rarely listened to me when I disagreed with him, but he did try to hold me accountable. Unfortunately, he was a complete jerk most of the time. At least he taught me a few useful skills along the way.
But he fell short in so many ways. He was narcissistic and psychologically abusive. I found myself adrift in life trying to find ways to NOT be like him. If he was rude, unsympathetic and abusive, I would become nice, empathetic, and kind. To a fault. But this strategy failed. I emerged from my family unit as a Nice Guy. My relationships and well-being suffered for it.
As an adult, I still needed someone to lead me like a great father would have. I needed the support my father couldn’t give me.
Therapists couldn’t really fill this role for me, but more than one of my coaches and mentors did. I’m grateful for them. They were the ones that pushed me to a level of performance I never thought possible.
Nice Guys need Safe People to share their life experiences with. Nice Guys need accountability to stay on track and get things done. And Nice Guys need new skills to master their emotions so they can feel better about themselves.
A great coach can fill this role for you even if your father wasn’t able to.
6. You believe that you should be able to solve your problems on your own. And you beat yourself up when you can’t.
Most men think that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Nice Guys take this a step further. We falsely believe that most men succeed by doing it alone. Therefore, we should be able to do it too.
And then when we can’t do it alone and fail, guess what. We beat ourselves up relentlessly for it which plunges us even deeper into procrastination, mediocrity, and painful frustration.
It’s no wonder so many of us are depressed.
Great things are not accomplished in the comfort of your own home hiding behind your computer screen.
Successful people rely on strong relationships with other successful people to help them reach their goals. Leaders have partners and teams to help them achieve big goals. They have strong networks of friends and family to support them along the way.
What makes you any different? How’s your isolation and solitude working for you?
Nice Guys are notorious for doubling down even when a false belief isn’t working for them.
Maybe you don’t even realize how much your current relationships support you already.
What if you welcomed the help and new connections you need? What would your life look like then?
What opportunities could you have access to if you were willing to have more conversations with more people?
A great coach will push you to make as many connections as possible to create the future you’re committed to.
Your future allies and friends need your help as much as you need theirs!
7. Other people don’t have it better than you do, yet you still believe they do.
Social media makes everyone look better than you. That’s because no one posts anything about their lives that’s negative or challenging.
That’s why social media causes anxiety and depression for so many users.
Nice Guys like to take this a step further. We like to believe that other people don’t suffer as much as we do. We think everyone else is happy all the time. Nobody struggles as much as we do, right?
And then the anger and envy set in.
Why do the jerks get all the women?
Why do the shallow extraverts get all the promotions at work?
Why are the neighbors happily married and I’m not?
Why does everyone seem happy and care-free when I suffer in frustration all the time?
What’s their secret and why can’t I figure it out?
Why is everyone else totally happy and I’m miserable?
The reality is that all humans deal with the same struggles and challenges. Think that celebrity has it made and is happy 100% of the time? What happens when they don’t get what they want or get a bad outcome? Don’t they suffer just like you?
We all know that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to anyone else, but Nice Guys insist on doing it anyway. We make it worse on ourselves because we set unrealistic metrics for success based on criteria we can’t measure. And then we assume everyone else has it easier than we do.
Just another way we try in vain to achieve a smooth, problem-free life. And then we beat ourselves up when we don’t achieve it.
All of your cognitive biases conspire against you and make you miserable. An impartial, non-judgmental coach can help you see these biases and give you a stark choice:
Will you continue to buy into those biases?
OR
Will you commit to taking action that will have a positive impact on your reality?
Let’s start putting those biases on the back shelf of your mind and get to the good stuff that will change your life for the better!
8. Here’s the real secret to feeling better and getting more out of life: emotional self-mastery.
Nice Guys endure life with a baseline level of anxiety. When you’re always trying to get things right and trying to get people to like you, it’s no wonder you can’t relax.
Part of the problem with being a Nice Guy is that you probably carry the false belief that negative emotions like anxiety, fear, shame, sadness and anger should be eliminated.
And then, like always, you beat yourself up for not being perfect at eliminating them.
To add insult to injury, you harbor the belief that other people somehow have this mastered and they never suffer from negative emotions like you do.
In other words, you’re making the emotions the problem to solve instead of facing the real problem:
You have a bad relationship with your emotions.
You’re making them the enemy when you should be following them to the truth.
I used to believe that my emotional suffering was the biggest problem for me to solve in my life.
If I could get the girl/job/whatever I’d be happy. And I believed that happiness would be permanent! What a fantasy, right?
It took me years to realize that anxiety itself wasn’t the cause of my problems. It was the symptom of all my care-taking and covert contracts.
It was my Nice Guy neediness that was making me anxious all the time!
It wasn’t until I got some serious coaching that I made progress in this front. One of my first coaches had me run a gauntlet of anxiety-inducing experiences to train me not to fear anxiety anymore.
Imagine walking up to strangers in a mall, asking them what their first impression of you is, and then taking notes.
My coach made me do that!
After only a few minutes of this harrowing task, my ego was shattered and I was swimming in a sea of anxiety and embarrassment.
Through this experience, my coach had finally taught me that these emotions don’t kill me. In fact, they don’t even last that long, maybe a few minutes.
I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my coach holding me accountable while holding my hand every step of the way.
My life was forever changed for the better.
9. You want more meaning and direction in your life.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation... A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
It’s no surprise that Nice Guys lead lives of quiet desperation.
I recall how depressed I was for years before I realized I was a Nice Guy. I bounced around a lot in my career and relationships hoping to find the one or two that would simply make me “happy.”
I didn’t know what “happy” meant at the time, but in retrospect it had everything to do with fun and comfort. I was trying to get away from my existential angst by chasing what I believed at the time would give me permanent fulfillment.
The problem with pursuing fun and comfort is that you can’t hold onto them for very long. They have no inherent meaning. And they’re over before you know it.
Eventually I became disillusioned. I was stuck in a boring, but comfortable career. Because I was unwilling to take a chance on working anywhere else, I stayed there too long.
And then I got laid off. And my neediness and anxiety went off the charts.
And then my girlfriend dumped me.
And then I was hit by a car requiring multiple surgeries.
And then I got depressed.
This was a new low for me. I felt helpless to reclaim the level of “comfort” I’d just lost. And I saw no pathway to real fulfillment or meaning in my life.
I kept waiting for meaning and fulfillment to appear but they never did UNTIL…
I started to take bold action.
I knew that I could never go back to what I was doing before.
And I learned a key lesson: Meaning is not something you passively wait for. Meaning is something you create through taking action!
I had been coaching since 2009. Back then I didn’t have the courage to put myself out there as a Nice Guy coach. After discovering the book No More Mr. Nice Guy and going through Dr. Glover’s certification program, I found my calling.
Coaching guys just like me is what gives me the most meaning. I wouldn’t have known that if I didn’t put in the time and effort into this endeavor.
Every time I’m fortunate to help another Nice Guy, I’m grateful for the opportunity.
And I’m humbled by their courage.
What could be more meaningful than that?
What are some courageous actions you could take to create more meaning in your life?
What’s important to you?
How can you contribute to the world?
10. You deserve to feel free, powerful and alive.
I’m betting you’re a bit like I used to be. I used to believe that my life was a big mess. I had 100 different problems to solve in all areas of my life.
I never thought I’d ever fix them all.
I had my dark times where I thought things would never get better.
But I never gave up.
Even though it felt like progress was slow sometimes, I kept going.
I got help from people when I needed it.
I found the key pieces of information, the teachers, the coaches, the books, and the relationships I needed to get better.
I’m eternally grateful for them all.
I always knew I’d find a way to fulfillment if I just kept at it.
Once I learned to embrace the totality of my experiences, even if they sucked, I began to feel alive.
I realized that emotions wouldn’t kill me. They were often pointing me to where I needed to do some work so I could grow.
I got out of the negative feedback loop and started to create a positive feedback loop for myself.
And that’s when things really started to take off.
If I can do it, so can you. As the wise man once said, “What one man can do, another man can do.”
It is your birthright to feel free, powerful and alive. It’s possible and it’s closer than you think.
It’s all on the other side of that thin paper wall of resistance.
If you don’t push through that wall every single day and get the important things done, how will you reach freedom and abundance?
How many days have gone by where you stayed on the safe side of that thin paper wall because you were mired in procrastination and perfectionism?
How many days have you pushed down the frustration and anxiety of daily life just to get by?
It’s time for that to stop.
Having someone help you and hold you accountable as you practice punching through that thin paper wall is priceless. It makes all the difference.
It makes your dreams become reality. And it makes you feel alive.
That’s why I have a coach. And that’s why you should have one too.
It’s your call. What will you do next?
The Hero’s Journey is a metaphor that resonates with all of us. It’s everywhere in literature, movies and history.
When Gandalf told Frodo that he must destroy the ring, Frodo resisted. He wanted to stay in the comfort of The Shire instead of face the perils of his quest.
Peter Parker was afraid to use his spider powers for anything more that wrestling matches until his Uncle Ben told him, “With great power must also come great responsibility.”
When Obi Wan Kenobi first asked Luke Skywalker to accompany him to Alderaan, Luke said no. He didn’t want to upset Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru because he promised to help them with the next harvest.
Even Harry Potter didn’t think he could become a wizard until Hagrid coached him.
All of these classic hero’s journeys began with resistance to the call.
If it weren’t for their fabled coaches, these characters would never have become heroes to begin with.
Frodo would have given up the ring to evil and chaotic forces. Spiderman would have been nothing more than a sideshow freak. Luke Skywalker would have been killed alongside his aunt and uncle. And if Harry Potter had stayed hidden under those stairs forever, Voldemort would have won control of the Wizarding World and the Muggles.
We love these stories for a reason. They move and inspire us.
Do you see yourself in those characters?
What is your quest? What kind of life do you want for yourself?
There’s an old Chinese proverb. "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
This is your call to action.
Are you ready to become the powerful, confident man you always wanted to be?