No More Mr. Nice Guy! (23 page)

Finally, after years of frustration, I had a breakthrough. A very wise person suggested that I give myself permission to never publish the book. I felt an immediate sense of relief.

I realized that I had gotten away from my original goal — to write a few insights that would help a few men live better lives. Once I let go of the burden of having to get published, be a best-selling author, and appear on Oprah, everything changed. I went back to my original agenda. From then on when I wrote, I only asked myself one thing: "Will this help my clients find answers to their problems?" I also kept reminding myself that my clients would never get a chance to benefit from my insight if I never finished the book.

Once I gave up the belief that
No More Mr. Nice Guy!
had to be perfect, things began to fall into place. I completed the book. Clients reported that it was changing their lives. Therapists began to request copies for their clients. Radio talk show hosts and newspaper and magazine writers began contacting me for interviews. I hired an agent. Publishers began pursuing me.

Trying to do it right
only sucked the life out of
No More Mr. Nice Guy!
Letting go and letting it just be

"good enough" set me free to embrace my passion and create something of lasting value. This same principle applies to every area of the recovering Nice Guy's life.

Breaking Free Activity #42

How does your perfectionism or need to do it right get in the way of realizing your passion and
potential? Pick one thing that you have always wanted to do: Write a book, turn your hobby into a
business, move, go back to school, fully embrace a talent.

Now, ask yourself the question: If you knew ahead of time that this endeavor would be a success,
would you hesitate to do it? Would this knowledge set you free from the belief that you have to do
it perfectly? Would this knowledge motivate you to get started or complete what you have already
begun? What risks would you be willing to take if you knew ahead of time that there was no way
for you to fail?

What are you waiting for? Let go of the need to do it perfectly and just do it!

Learning To Ask For Help Allows Nice Guys To Get the Life They Want
A major reason Nice Guys frequently fail to live up to their potential is that they believe they have to do everything themselves. Phil is a good example.

Phil's goal in life was to be rich. He seemed to have a lot of things going for him: He was good looking, intelligent, outgoing, and funny. Yet Phil always seemed to fall way short of achieving his lofty goals and dreams. A number of things got in the way — taking shortcuts, procrastination, and insecurities about whether he deserved to get what he really wanted.

Perhaps Phil's greatest roadblock was his difficulty asking people for help. Phil had a number of faulty core beliefs about people helping him. He didn't believe he deserved to get what he wanted. He didn't believe his needs were important to other people. He believed the surest way
not
to get his needs met was to ask in clear and direct ways.

One day in his No More Mr. Nice Guy! men's group, Phil was lamenting about the lack of sex in his relationship with his wife. I asked Phil if he asked his wife to have sex with him. He said "no." I asked him if he believed his wife wanted to have sex with him. To this he also replied in the negative.

I told Phil that I thought his lack of sex was symptomatic of a bigger problem in his life — him not thinking his needs were important and not believing that other people wanted to help him meet his needs. I suggested that changing his beliefs about his sexual needs might be the place to begin changing core beliefs that prevented him from having other things he wanted in life.

The next week, Phil was grinning from ear to ear. "My wife and I had sex," he beamed. The group shared in his enthusiasm. They wanted to know how it happened. "I asked," was Phil's simple reply.

I questioned Phil how his wife felt about having sex with him. "She was fine about it," he replied. "She said she likes having sex with me, but that I hadn't asked in a long time so she didn't think I was interested."

A week later, Phil told the group he was dreading asking his father-in-law to borrow money to get the old single-pane windows replaced on his house. Some of the group members began asking questions about the cost. Some shared that they had done that kind of project before. I suggested that Phil ask the group to help him. It was like pulling teeth, but Phil asked the men if they would help him replace his windows. The members of the group responded unanimously that they would be glad to. About a month later the men got together at Phil's house and had the equivalent of an old fashion barn-raising.

These two experiences had a tremendous impact on Phil. He began to see that his needs were important, that people wanted to help him meet his needs, and that the surest way of getting people to help was to ask.

Phil began to build on this new paradigm. Within a few weeks he shared a plan with the group to start his own business. A friend of the family had offered to help him get started in his own landscaping business. This prospect especially excited him because the seasonal work would allow him to teach snowboarding during the winter — a life long dream.

An old friend offered to be his financial backer. His wife volunteered to look for a job that paid health insurance benefits. Men in the group offered to help him write a business plan and set up his bookkeeping.

As long as Phil tried to do everything himself, he struggled to get what he wanted. Once he started asking for help and letting people be there for him, his life began to turn around. He is now headed in the direction of creating the kind of life and vocation he has always dreamed of.

Breaking Free Activity #43

Do you believe your needs are important? Do you believe other people want to help you meet your
needs?

On a sheet of paper, make a list of helpers you have in your life right now. These can be friends
and family members. They can be professionals such as doctors, lawyers, therapists, and CPAs.

After making the list, answer the following questions:

●
What kind of helpers do you still need?

●
How can you use these helpers more effectively?

●
How do you prevent these people from helping you?

Start looking for opportunities to ask these people for help. Build networks. Before asking for
help, repeat the affirmation:
This person wants to help me get my needs met.

Identifying Self-Sabotaging Behaviors Allows Nice Guys To Get the Life They Want
As mentioned earlier in the chapter, Nice Guys find numerous creative ways to sabotage their success in life. They waste time, they procrastinate, they start things but don't finish, they spend too much time fixing other people's problems, they distract themselves with trivial pursuits, they create chaos, they make excuses.

Sal is a good example of this. Sal was raised by a passive father and a schizophrenic mother. Neither parent was available to pay attention to him or meet his needs. At a young age he had to take responsibility for the welfare of his younger brother. Sal had virtually no options as a child. When he felt frightened or overwhelmed, he would just hunker down and trudge ahead with dogged determination.

As an adult, Sal ran a body shop for his uncle. His uncle was a cheap, shortsighted, marginally involved business owner. It was Sal's job to create a profitable business with the limited resources and dissatisfied employees his uncle provided. (Sal actually operated on the assumption that this feat could be successfully accomplished!)

Every week when Sal came to men's group, his first order of business was to pop a couple of Tylenol to quiet the stress headache created by trying to negotiate an impossible situation at work. On one occasion I asked Sal if he wanted to explore options for his work situation. "What's the use?" he replied. "There's nothing that can be done."

For about fifteen minutes, group members asked questions and proposed options. Sal looked like a man undergoing a root canal with no anesthetic.

"Could you talk with your uncle and let him know how difficult your job is with the resources he gives you?"

"I've tried that. He doesn't care."

"Could you offer profit sharing to motivate your employees?"

"My uncle is too cheap. He would never go for it."

"Could you hire an assistant to help with the work load?"

"We tried that once and it didn't work out."

"Could you get out of management and go back to painting cars?"

"I would make more money but it is too toxic."

"Could you get out of the auto body business and do something else?"

"Like what? I've got a mortgage, a wife, and two kids. How am I supposed to start over now?"

"What is your passion, your dream job?"

This time, Sal paused for a moment before answering. "I've always wanted to teach martial arts. There is no way it could ever happen though. I'd have to work evenings and weekends. My wife just wouldn't go for that and I'd be away from the kids too much."

With each question asked and each option proposed, Sal grew noticeably tenser. His eyes reflected a terror as if he was being interrogated by Gestapo agents with cattle prods and ice picks. When it became apparent that exploring possible options only aggravated his fear and caused him to shut down further, the group members mercifully backed off. Later, Sal referred to the experience as "being reamed by the group."

In most situations, Nice Guys aren't victims to others,
they victimize themselves.
By his attitudes and actions, Sal all but guaranteed that he would never experience any kind of success or satisfaction in his job. It was much more familiar and comfortable to stay stuck in a stressful, no-win situation.

Every Nice Guy with whom I have worked has at some point had to make a conscious decision to stop sabotaging himself. This is a crucial aspect in recovery from the Nice Guy Syndrome. In order to start getting what they want in life, work, and career, recovering Nice Guys have to make the conscious decision to get out of their own way.

One way of doing this is by changing the way they think about change. This begins with Nice Guys becoming aware of why they unconsciously create so many barriers that keep them feeling stuck. A mortgage, a wife, a lack of a degree, debt, children — are all just excuses. Making significant life changes doesn't require chucking all these things. It means seeing them for what they really are —

excuses — and taking small steps in the direction one wants to be going.

For example, Sal could begin teaching martial arts one evening per week. He could begin working at paying down personal debt to enable him to change jobs in the future. He could refocus time spent on trivial, unsatisfying activities.

Breaking Free Activity #44

Identify how you sabotage yourself. Once you have identified your patterns, determine what you
have to do differently to get what you really want. Review each item below and identify specific
behaviors that will help you stop sabotaging yourself and achieve your goals.

Focus

Do it now

Accept "good enough" rather than "perfect"

Finish what you start

Don't start new projects until the old ones are completely finished
Don't make excuses

Detach from other people's problems

Share your strategy with a safe person. Check in with them on a regular basis to monitor how you
are doing (failing to do this part would be an effective way to sabotage yourself).

Developing A More Accurate View Of The World Allows Nice Guys To Get the Life They
Want

Ever wonder why other people seem to have so much more than you — more money, a better job, a nice car, a prettier wife? Do you envy these people? Do you resent them for having what you don't? Do you wonder when it will be your turn?

Due to their early life experiences, Nice Guys tend to be ruled by deprivation thinking. They believe there is only so much to go around, and if someone else already has a lot, there is less for them.

Nice Guys have a difficult time comprehending that we live in an abundant, ever-expanding universe.

They tend to see the goodies as being in short supply. They hang on tightly to what they've got, fearing there won't be more when it is gone. They believe they have to control and manipulate to ensure that what little is out there won't go away. They play it safe, not trusting that their needs will always be abundantly met.

This paradigm of scarcity can be illustrated by a Nice Guy named Russell. As a successful salesman, Russell earned a comfortable six-figure income. He religiously put forty percent of his take home pay into savings and investments. He kept a minimum balance of $30,000 in his checking account. In spite of his ability to create financial wealth, Russell was controlled by his deprivation thinking. Russell was so afraid of financial ruin that he would not allow his wife to buy a $9.00 video for his children at Costco if it wasn't in the budget.

Russell's deprivation thinking in regard to money was a reflection of his view of the world in general.

His father was miserly and rigid. He seemed to single Russell out for critical treatment, while heaping praise and favor on his two brothers. Later, before he died, his father cut Russell out of his will and gave Russell's share to the church. It is no wonder that Russell viewed the world through lenses clouded by deprivation.

When we come to see the world as a place of abundance we come to realize that there is plenty for everyone. Everything we need is flowing by us — all we have to do is get out of the way of our own small thinking and let it come.

Look around at the wealth — the cars people drive, the houses they live in, the trips they take. You can't argue with the sheer material abundance that can be created in our world. If other people are living full, abundant lives, why not you? Remember,
what one man can do another man can do.