The Art of Manliness - Episode #21： No More Mr. Nice Guy With Dr. Robert Glover

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00:00:51.560 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another episode of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:56.260 Now, we've all heard the phrase, nice guys finish last, right?

00:01:00.480 But why is that?

00:01:01.960 Why do men whose female friends tell him that he'd be a great catch for some gal 0.99

00:01:06.280 never get a date on Friday night?

00:01:08.540 Or why is it the guy that never rocks the boat at work and is pretty much Mr. Reliable

00:01:12.440 never get the raise or the promotion?

00:01:15.400 Well, our guest today has written a book about this topic,

00:01:18.920 and his name is Dr. Robert A. Glover,

00:01:20.760 and he's the author of the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy.

00:01:23.360 Dr. Glover is a psychotherapist with a PhD in marriage and family therapy,

00:01:27.840 and he says he's a recovering nice guy himself and has spent thousands of hours

00:01:31.680 helping other men recover from the nice guy syndrome.

00:01:34.520 Dr. Glover, welcome to the show.

00:01:36.980 Thanks, Brett.

00:01:37.440 Good to be here.

00:01:38.480 Well, Dr. Glover, tell us, who is Mr. Nice Guy?

00:01:41.860 What's he like?

00:01:43.820 Well, fundamentally, the nice guy doesn't believe he is okay just as he is.

00:01:48.700 Now, this might not even be a conscious thought process.

00:01:51.420 For some nice guys, it is.

00:01:53.300 But for many, it's much more of an unconscious process of thinking that in order to be liked

00:01:58.820 and loved and get their needs met, they have to find a way to become what they think other

00:02:03.280 people want them to be.

00:02:05.660 So he's basically a people pleaser.

00:02:08.520 That's probably one of the most fundamental ways to look at it is that they're people pleasers.

00:02:12.420 They often avoid conflict.

00:02:14.760 They have difficulty making decisions, making their needs a priority.

00:02:19.260 They tend to believe they have to give to other people first before their needs can get met.

00:02:25.920 And, you know, I guess maybe in common vernacular, we might say that, you know, he's the wimp, 1.00

00:02:31.160 the doormat, the spineless guy that wants to make everybody happy, but yet lets everybody

00:02:36.940 walk on him.

00:02:37.840 Now, that's probably the extreme caricature of a nice guy.

00:02:40.880 And nice guys fall everywhere in between seeking approval versus being total doormats.

00:02:46.580 Yeah.

00:02:46.900 And you talk in your book that, I thought it was really interesting, that nice guys really

00:02:51.640 aren't that nice.

00:02:53.080 They have some kind of ulterior motives sometimes.

00:02:55.740 And that is really the core fundamental issue.

00:02:58.520 Probably the two issues for nice guys is one is that they're not that nice, and two, trying

00:03:03.720 to make everybody else happy does not make them happy.

00:03:07.260 So there's two fundamental flaws in the paradigm of the nice guy.

00:03:12.820 But that part about not being so nice, there's a few reasons for that.

00:03:16.280 One of the first ones, if you are trying to please people, you are always going to be

00:03:21.660 fundamentally dishonest.

00:03:24.100 I tell the men I work with, there's only one way to be in integrity.

00:03:29.780 And that is to ask yourself what feels right, what seems right to you, and then do it.

00:03:35.420 And if you're trying to seek other people's approval, you never either ask yourself what

00:03:39.860 feels like the right thing, or if you do ask yourself, if you think it might upset somebody

00:03:45.160 or they may not like it or they may be mad at you about it, you won't do it.

00:03:49.200 So nice guys are, as long as you're trying to please anybody else, you're not going to

00:03:54.060 be a high-integrity kind of person.

00:03:56.520 Now, I don't know if you've ever been in a relationship with somebody that you couldn't

00:04:00.220 trust, you couldn't depend on their word, that something might be bothering them or

00:04:04.480 on their mind and they never told you or you found out later, or as with a lot of nice

00:04:10.320 guys, it comes out in indirect, passive-aggressive ways when you're not expecting it, which is

00:04:15.740 another reason why nice guys fundamentally aren't nice is because of their passive-aggressiveness.

00:04:21.260 Yeah, I thought that was interesting.

00:04:22.240 You talked about how, and I've seen this with a lot of, you know, not just men but a lot

00:04:26.960 of people, but a lot of times with the nice guys that they're keeping score, a score that

00:04:33.300 no one else is aware of except for them.

00:04:36.060 That's a great way to put it, Brett, and I see that a lot in relationship especially,

00:04:41.100 and I tell couples I work with, anytime you put a scoreboard up in your living room, the

00:04:45.920 relationship's in trouble.

00:04:47.700 But that's especially true with nice guys, and that scorekeeping often leads to what I

00:04:52.840 call a victim puke, and that is you kind of keep things in, keep things in, keep things

00:04:58.520 in, either all the things you believe you've done for other people that haven't been reciprocated

00:05:03.360 or all the things you keep in that other people you perceive have done to you and you feel

00:05:09.000 like a victim, and sooner or later that stuff is going to come out in not so very nice ways.

00:05:15.420 So how did this nice guy develop?

00:05:18.180 I mean, is this a recent phenomenon, or has it been with us for a while?

00:05:22.140 You know, I suspect there have always been milquetoast kind of guys and hen-pecked kind

00:05:29.300 of husbands.

00:05:29.840 I really believe it has really come to be much more prominent now for I think at least

00:05:38.120 a couple of reasons.

00:05:39.400 One is that at least the men I work with, I see a lot more men growing up in homes where

00:05:44.820 they were not connected to their fathers, either because dad was absent, he was gone,

00:05:49.680 he worked too much, or the boy was trying to be different from his father.

00:05:54.840 Either dad was angry, philandering, alcoholic, treated mom badly.

00:06:00.360 So I see a lot of young men that have grown up, and I'm in that category as well, trying

00:06:04.660 to please my mother, trying to get approval from women, not feeling real connected to my

00:06:10.000 father.

00:06:11.160 And I think a real core part of that is the dominance of young men having to please women 0.95

00:06:17.420 at an early age.

00:06:18.680 Whereas maybe 100, 150 years ago, young men would have spent a lot of time with their

00:06:24.460 dads or uncles or cousins or grandfathers, and not been trying to be different from their

00:06:29.540 fathers or trying to please women.

00:06:31.000 So I think that's a really big part of it.

00:06:33.740 And if you add to that, if you consider the typical school system, I'll often ask the men 1.00

00:06:39.520 I work with how many male teachers they had between kindergarten and junior high.

00:06:45.840 And the average is about 1 to 1.5 over, you know, all the guys I've asked.

00:06:51.620 So if you think about it, even getting from third grade to fourth grade, not only meant

00:06:56.160 you learning how to do your reading, writing, and arithmetic, but usually even how to please

00:07:00.140 a woman.

00:07:01.220 And what I found is that when men start trying to figure women out and start trying to figure

00:07:06.780 out how to make women happy, not only do they not make the women happy, as I've heard 0.97

00:07:11.800 countless times from countless women, but the men become passive, indirect, pleasing, and 0.69

00:07:19.080 is, again, passive-aggressive, and not particularly available to the woman they're actually trying

00:07:23.640 to please.

00:07:25.500 That's interesting.

00:07:26.840 So how do these nice guy traits, the nice guy syndrome, how does it get in the way of

00:07:32.860 living a full life for a man?

00:07:34.440 I mean, what areas do you see it?

00:07:35.980 Does it affect just the love life?

00:07:37.580 Does it affect work life?

00:07:38.460 Or is it very pervasive in all their life?

00:07:41.440 You know, I found with most nice guys, it tends to affect most areas of their life.

00:07:46.520 Occasionally, I'll talk with a guy that'll say, well, yeah, at work, I'm not a nice guy.

00:07:50.660 I kick ass.

00:07:51.500 But as soon as I get home, I'm a pussy.

00:07:54.060 I'm trying to make my wife happy.

00:07:56.720 But I found with most nice guys, because of their emotional roadmap, their emotional paradigm

00:08:03.820 of life, it really is, in most areas, trying to seek external validation through getting

00:08:09.520 the approval of other people.

00:08:11.440 It's in avoiding conflict, not having anybody upset or angry at them.

00:08:15.540 It's through what I call covert contracts, where they give to get, where they give to

00:08:20.920 other people, hoping to get something in return.

00:08:23.420 And usually, for nice guys, what they're hoping to get in return is praise and validation and

00:08:29.260 appreciation and recognition.

00:08:31.340 But in almost all ways, when it comes to getting their needs met, they're typically giving to

00:08:36.920 other people, hoping that other people then will give back to them without them having

00:08:40.520 to ask.

00:08:41.140 So if you look at it, if you have a person who's seeking external validation, trying

00:08:46.540 to please everybody he meets, not being fully honest and transparent, not letting people

00:08:51.220 know what he thinks or wants or what's on his mind or what's bothering him, if he avoids

00:08:57.100 conflict, if he's always trying to make sure everybody's happy and nobody's upset at him,

00:09:01.080 if he can't make his own needs a priority, if he can't be honest, if he can't face his

00:09:05.940 fears and his challenges, his anxiety is ruling him, take that whole package right there

00:09:10.480 and it usually is going to affect every area of his life.

00:09:14.080 And I found that the core areas where I tend to work with nice guys the most is around women

00:09:20.820 and relationships, around sexuality and around work and career and around having passion and

00:09:26.820 living up to their potential.

00:09:28.520 So those are usually the biggest areas that I see get manifested, where nice guys tend to

00:09:34.160 be frustrated in those areas, but because they assume that the roadmap they're following

00:09:39.840 of trying to be a good man, get everybody's approval, avoid rocking the boat, because they

00:09:44.700 think that's a legitimate roadmap to take them where they want to go.

00:09:48.900 When they get frustrated, they don't know what else to do, but just try harder doing more

00:09:52.820 of the same thing.

00:09:55.040 That never works.

00:09:56.160 That never, never works.

00:09:57.280 Well, it never works.

00:09:58.140 It's like, you know, say somebody gives you a map of Cleveland and plops you down in

00:10:02.180 Seattle and says, you know, find your way to, you know, the courthouse.

00:10:07.040 And if you believe that map should help you find a way to navigate a way to the courthouse,

00:10:12.420 but it doesn't seem to work.

00:10:13.860 But if you think that map is accurate, you're just going to keep trying harder, getting more

00:10:17.920 frustrated and not be particularly successful.

00:10:20.460 And that's what I see with nice guys.

00:10:22.680 They're following a roadmap they believe should take them where they want to go, but the roadmap

00:10:27.220 is completely inaccurate, outdated, and just totally flawed, but they just keep trying

00:10:33.660 harder anyway.

00:10:35.340 All right.

00:10:35.540 So Dr. Glover, a lot of men might be hearing this right now and might be thinking, you know,

00:10:39.420 this is me.

00:10:40.480 What you're saying describes me perfectly.

00:10:43.060 What can these men do to shed the nice guy syndrome?

00:10:46.500 That's a great question, and of course, there's not a single simple answer to that.

00:10:53.320 Now, typically when I talk with people about nice guy syndrome, whether I'm talking with

00:10:58.160 guys or talking with women that are curious about what I teach men, the question often

00:11:03.700 is, well, are you saying I should become a jerk?

00:11:05.980 You know, should I become an asshole and just start not caring what anybody thinks?

00:11:10.480 And this is a typical black and white thinking that maybe most humans fall prey to, but especially

00:11:16.100 nice guys.

00:11:16.840 Nice guys tend to see everything in black and white.

00:11:20.300 Now, the other thing that I'll hear is not only the question, well, do you have to become

00:11:24.620 a jerk?

00:11:25.640 I'll often hear nice guys say something like, well, you know, I realize that being, you

00:11:30.440 know, a passive pleaser isn't working to get what I want, and I realize I don't want

00:11:35.100 to become a jerk or be like my father, so I want to find a happy balance somewhere between

00:11:41.120 the two.

00:11:42.240 And what I often tell men is that I don't know where the tipping point is between two

00:11:47.160 dysfunctional extremes.

00:11:49.020 So actually what I teach men is how to understand what I call a third model of masculinity.

00:11:55.900 I look at both the asshole jerk and the pleasingly passive nice guy as what I call first order

00:12:03.540 men.

00:12:03.860 They're both just trying to manage their anxiety by controlling the people in situations

00:12:09.060 outside of them.

00:12:10.420 The asshole jerk tends to do it with threat and strength and bravado, whereas a passive

00:12:17.140 nice guy tries to manage people in situations with subtlety and indirectness.

00:12:22.560 Okay?

00:12:22.760 But they're both still trying to do the same thing.

00:12:24.580 So what I teach men fundamentally is where they have to begin is recognizing where their

00:12:30.000 roadmap is not working and begin to look at a different model to where they become a

00:12:36.900 second order person, a second order man.

00:12:38.940 And this second order man begins by living in integrity.

00:12:43.760 He's conscious of what he wants in life.

00:12:47.040 And a real core issue I found with the guys that work with them is that they have to learn

00:12:50.580 to soothe their anxiety, because nice guy syndrome is fundamentally an anxiety-based disorder.

00:12:57.180 Everything they do is trying to keep their anxiety in bay.

00:13:00.820 Well, if you're out there living a life, if you're challenging yourself, if you're putting

00:13:04.800 yourself in new situations, if you're dealing with people in conflictual situations, you're

00:13:10.380 going to feel anxious.

00:13:12.540 The key is not either intimidating people to get them to change or manipulating them.

00:13:18.240 The key is learning to hold on to yourself, and you soothe your anxiety from the inside.

00:13:24.460 So that is probably one of the most core fundamental issues that I work with recovering nice guys

00:13:29.000 around, is how to learn to soothe their anxiety so that they can lean into things that frighten

00:13:35.480 them and that are challenging.

00:13:37.480 And I imagine, though, that, say, there's a nice guy in a relationship who starts doing

00:13:42.860 this type of thing, who starts kind of setting boundaries for himself and not completely trying

00:13:49.580 to please his partner in every aspect.

00:13:52.660 There's going to be some pushback that their partner might not like this.

00:13:56.380 I mean, could this challenge the relationship?

00:13:58.760 I mean, could this end relationships that a nice guy might have?

00:14:01.760 Well, of course it could.

00:14:03.160 Because, as I said, my background and my doctorate is in marriage and family therapy.

00:14:09.040 So I'm a systems thinker.

00:14:11.400 I tend to look at the systems that people co-create with each other.

00:14:15.260 So I look at every relationship, say between two adults that are in an intimate relationship.

00:14:20.800 Those two people have unconsciously co-created a system that works for both of them at some

00:14:28.040 level and often in very dysfunctional ways.

00:14:31.260 That system is co-created by both people, usually to let them use the relationship technology

00:14:38.120 skills they learned when they were three years old in their family of origin.

00:14:43.080 So oftentimes, for example, if you have a person who one of his strongest relationship skills

00:14:48.740 is being a fixer and problem solver, what kind of person will he have to attract to himself

00:14:54.320 to do what he does best?

00:14:55.860 Yeah, that's obvious.

00:14:58.100 I'll let you answer that question.

00:14:59.520 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:15:00.920 Yeah, it's obvious.

00:15:01.760 He's going to have to attract somebody that has problems that need fixing.

00:15:05.540 And that person probably has spent all of their life being perceived as a problem that needs

00:15:10.380 fixed.

00:15:10.800 And so when they get with a nice guy, it feels normal to them, too.

00:15:14.420 Now, what I've found in talking, people say, well, for example, how do women react to 0.99

00:15:20.520 your book?

00:15:21.020 Or has there been a backlash against you teaching men to be not nice?

00:15:24.280 And you know, the truth is, I've got stacks, probably a foot high of emails at home that

00:15:29.480 I've printed out of email I've got from men and women all over the world in response to

00:15:33.900 my book.

00:15:34.480 And in that stack of email, I think I have two emails from women that were critical of 0.99

00:15:40.080 my book.

00:15:40.520 And it was obvious they hadn't even read the book.

00:15:42.480 So women like it. 1.00

00:15:44.200 They like that I'm teaching men to be honest, to have integrity, to tell them what's on their

00:15:49.100 mind, to be transparent, to set the tone and take the lead in a loving, integrated way in

00:15:54.280 their relationship and not burden the woman with having to make all the decisions.

00:15:58.380 By the way, guys, women hate it. 1.00

00:16:00.500 They hate it when you ask, what do you want to do tonight?

00:16:04.560 Now, we guys think we're being nice.

00:16:06.720 We think we're giving them the choice and the option.

00:16:09.220 And that's a kind thing to do.

00:16:11.480 But women hate it. 1.00

00:16:13.140 They feel burdened when we men say, what do you want to do tonight?

00:16:16.620 They want us to show up and say, hey, put on your dancing shoes.

00:16:19.780 Let's go dancing.

00:16:21.120 Now, they can always say, no, I don't feel like it, which is fine, but at least show up

00:16:25.440 with a plan.

00:16:26.220 So what I found is that when men start doing what I teach them to do, in general, their

00:16:33.220 partners like it.

00:16:34.380 Now, yes, it can cause their partner anxiety as well.

00:16:38.580 And that's one of the beauties of relationship that turns it into what I call a personal growth

00:16:43.360 machine, that if one person challenges themselves and grows and holds on to themselves and soothes

00:16:49.620 their anxiety, and their other person feels anxiety because of it, but if their partner

00:16:54.360 holds on to themselves and continues the path, that person then gets to hold on to themselves

00:16:58.920 and soothe their anxiety.

00:17:00.460 And together, the relationship helps both people grow.

00:17:04.640 Now, will it break apart some relationships if a man starts showing up, being honest, asking

00:17:09.300 for what he wants, setting boundaries, not tolerating bad behavior?

00:17:13.020 Yeah, it will.

00:17:14.840 All right.

00:17:15.100 Well, Dr. Glover, thank you for your time.

00:17:17.060 It's been a pleasure.

00:17:19.240 It's been great chatting with you.

00:17:21.100 And if any of your listeners want to find out more about my books or online classes, they

00:17:27.380 can just check out nomoremisterniceguy.com and get all the information there.

00:17:31.280 All right.

00:17:32.560 Our guest today was Dr. Robert Glover.

00:17:34.520 Dr. Glover is the author of the book No More Mr. Nice Guy.

00:17:37.480 And to find out more information about his book, check out nomoremisterniceguy.com.

00:17:44.140 That wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:17:48.220 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness podcast at

00:17:52.600 artofmanliness.com.

00:17:54.840 And until next time, stay manly.

00:18:07.480 Thank you.

00:18:08.320 Thank you.

00:18:37.480 Thank you.

00:18:38.320 Thank you.

00:19:07.480 Thank you.

00:19:08.320 Thank you.

00:19:37.480 Thank you.

00:19:38.320 Thank you.

00:20:07.480 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - April 03, 2014

Episode #21： No More Mr. Nice Guy With Dr. Robert Glover

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