In this week’s episode, I am joined by Nick Pollard! People call Nick the People-DIS-Pleaser because he teaches thousands of people every week how to set boundaries and break free from people-pleasing. (And that can be displeasing to the people that love to walk all over you!)

You CAN live a life that is genuine to you, people-pleasing isn’t your forever.

As Nick says it, he has walked the road from people-pleaser to captain of his own life.

In the beginning People-pleasers are usually trained from childhood. The demand to  be quiet, push aside your own needs and be EXACTLY what everyone else expects is DRILLED IN to our brains.

Nick spent his whole childhood and the first few years of adulthood trying to please his dad.

He was constantly proving himself (and lying to himself about how miserable he was).

And then Everything came crashing down. HARD! His dad was hiding a terrible secret and when Nick found out how horribly his dad had betrayed the rest of his family his world imploded.

Nick turned to alcohol and spent almost every minute at the bar. He threw away his entire “perfect” life he’d built and he didn’t care. He was overweight, coming off a 3rd divorce and a business he had bankrupted.

Suddenly Nick realised he’d only been living for other people – This was the beginning of the changes. Doormat Nick, the one who would ask “how high” when anybody said jump, the Nick with zero boundaries – was OUT!

For the first time Nick felt awake and he was going to be HIM for the very first time.

 

Key Points

• People-pleasing can be selfish

• Genuine giving vs. pleasing giving

• The personal cost of people-pleasing

• Transactional relationships' toxicity

• Self-authenticity's role in fulfillment

Best Quotes

07:57 - 08:06

• "Right? And to me, when I thought of how I was living my life, it was always like, will this other person like me? That's why I'm doing it."

09:05 - 09:16

• "And it's this inauthentic way of being that causes us as humans, or, you know, as people-pleasing humans, to never also understand who we are."

11:32 - 11:42

• "And what I mean by transactional is like you give to get acceptance and love. So if your relationships feel like they're transactional, it's because you've made them transactional"

11:58 - 12:05

• "It's a really, really painful realization. Like, you've chosen your life to this point, right?"

12:21 - 12:28

• “At the end of the day, we are all accountable for how we've lived our lives. We are responsible for how this thing turns out."