Break Free from Toxic Niceness & Thrive

Discover the radical truth that's holding back your leadership potential: niceness is merely fear dressed up in lipstick. In this provocative deep dive, we explore why your pattern of people-pleasing, though well-intended, is secretly sabotaging your growth.

Ever wondered why you're exhausted, resentful, or hitting a ceiling in your business growth? The answer may lie in your inability to disappoint others. Through powerful distinctions between being "nice" versus being "kind," this episode unpacks how overgiving and excessive agreeableness are draining your energy and limiting your impact. When you're constantly saying "yes" to everyone else, you're saying "no" to yourself and your potential.

Leadership requires courage to rock the boat, to express your full essence without dimming your light. True kindness begins with self-honoring—filling your own cup first so you can give from overflow rather than depletion. We explore why setting boundaries, though uncomfortable, is the gateway to earning respect as a leader rather than being seen as merely "agreeable."

For high-achieving entrepreneurs and professionals struggling with burnout and stagnation, this message offers a liberating pathway forward. Breaking the niceness addiction isn't easy—some relationships may shift as you change your patterns—but the rewards are transformative. By redirecting your energy inward first, you'll discover reserves of creativity and leadership capacity you never knew existed.

Ready to stop being nice and start being kind? Subscribe, leave a comment about which boundary you're setting first, or apply for the Magnetic Leadership Accelerator if you're ready to transform this pattern for good. Your leadership journey begins with kindness to yourself.

Chapters

• 0:00 Niceness vs. Leadership
• 3:10 Defining Nice vs. Kind
• 6:24 Breaking the Pattern of Niceness
• 10:14 The Leadership Cost of Being Nice
• 14:47 Leading with Kindness Starts Within
• 17:33 Closing and Program Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You were not born to be nice. You were born to lead. Niceness is fear dressed up in lipstick. Welcome to the show leaders.

Speaker 1: 0:16

Today we are talking about stop being nice. I want you to stop being nice. There comes a point where we have to stop being nice and we have to change that to kindness, to change that to kindness, and, ideally, we need to start with being kind to ourselves. This is what we are talking about today. If this resonates with you, give me a hand up, even though I can't see you Put your hand up. I know this is going to resonate with a lot of people because the clients that I attract are some of the most brilliant clients on the planet, some of the most brilliant creators, leaders, professionals, and yet many of them struggle with being nice because, again, that's what they needed to be at a certain point in their life.

Speaker 1: 1:50

But that pattern is going to hinder your growth. One way it's going to hinder your growth is often, when we have a need to be nice, we have a lack of boundaries, which means we say yes to a lot of things that we don't want to say yes to, that we do not have the time for. That is not beneficial for us to say yes to. Let me remind you that if it's not beneficial for you, it's not really going to be beneficial for the other person, even though it seems like it will. Because what happens when we keep saying yes, when we don't want to say yes, is resentment. Resentment starts to build and resentment is like a parasite to relationships.

Speaker 1: 2:46

I want to read you the definition of nice and I want to read you the definition of kind, which is what we want to move into. We want to move into kindness. The definition, based on what we looked at in the dictionary, is nice pleasant, agreeable, satisfactory, good-natured, polite, socially acceptable or pleasing in manner. This is what the energy of niceness, the definition of kind, is having or showing a friendly, generous and considerate nature, of a helpful nature marked by benevolence or compassion. Kind is about inner character, it's about values, it's about who you are and who you're choosing to be moment to moment. Moment to moment, niceness is wanting something. It is doing something in hopes of getting something back, even if it's simply acknowledgement. Kindness comes from a deep, intrinsic human place that I believe the majority of human beings on this planet have. Niceness comes in a performance. The problem with this is when we have a pattern of being nice, going against what we truly want being agreeable for the sake of agreement or not wanting conflict we start to build up resentment and imagine how the energy, the emotion of resentment is going to hinder your growth in your business and in your career. We do not want to continue the pattern of being nice. It's okay if you've been in a pattern of niceness for a long time. Some people have been in it for decades.

Speaker 1: 5:16

When I was a teenager, I had this pattern of always wanting to say okay to people, not wanting to say no and disappoint a person. There was a part of me that feared if I said no, the person would leave. I kept saying yes to doing certain things or being a part of certain things. I didn't want to be a part of it. A lot of those times what I did was I completely ghosted the person. I'd say yes to an opportunity and then, when it was time to go, I wouldn't answer my phone. This was long before texting came in. This is rotary phone days. There was no texting. I would not answer the phone and sometimes I would even take the phone off the hook and it would. The person thought that something happened, they would have to go to the voicemail. This is not a healthy pattern. This is not a pattern we want to be in.

Speaker 1: 6:17

Part of my journey shifting this was to really acknowledge how do I want to show up as a human being. I know that I cannot continue being agreeable, going with the flow, being the one who's easygoing. I started to feel inside of me that I am not expressing anything that I need. I'm not asking for what I need. I'm not telling people what I need, I'm being the nice one, going along with whatever. What does this build? This builds resentment. It also in our business or in our career, in our work.

Speaker 1: 7:06

If we keep playing the nice person, the yes person. One, we're not acknowledging our boundaries. That can lead to resentment. It can also lead to burnout. Two, if we are not fully expressing ourselves because we are scared of rocking the boat or offending someone, we are keeping our essence from the world. The world needs what we have to give, and when you are addicted to niceness, you will dim your light. You cannot lead if you are afraid to disappoint. You're a leader. You are meant to rock the boat. The boat is supposed to rockine for yourself what it means to be nice Because you have a definition that is somehow benefiting you, or else you wouldn't keep doing it. There is a part of you that is continuing the pattern because there is a part of you that is benefiting from it.

Speaker 1: 8:46

For me, what continued this pattern of niceness and over giving what is happening is you are benefiting from being nice. For me, the way that I was benefiting from being nice was the part of me, my inner child, who wanted to be loved and accepted and a part of a group. I kept going along with the motions not asking for much being nice, not asking for much being nice and Tala got to the place where I realized this is not sustainable. Yes, this is giving my inner child a sense of belonging, but it's not a real sense of belonging Because, in a lot of those cases, as soon as I started asking for something, as soon as I started to speak up and say what I wanted, a lot of those people left. A lot of those people didn't want to give me anything. They were benefiting from my niceness. They were benefiting from me being super agreeable. Have you ever had this? Hands up Again. I can't see you. If you're putting your hands up, put it up, acknowledge it for yourself. If you're ready to end this pattern, give me a yes, give me a yes, yes, yes, lisa, I am ready to end this pattern because it is not serving me. It's exhausting. I am also not benefiting from it financially, career-wise. My business is not growing. I am stalling everything in my life because of being overly agreeable by being the nice one.

Speaker 1: 10:37

You know what else changed when I stopped being nice and I started being kind, got a lot more respect, people respected me a lot more. They looked at me as a leader. When you are being overly nice and agreeable, you are seen as someone who is nice and agreeable. You are not seen as a leader. Leaders are kind, good leaders, kind and compassionate and generous. If you are overgiving, being over agreeable, saying yes to everything that you don't want to do, saying yes to everything that you don't want to do, how can you be in a place of overflow to be generous and compassionate and kind? You won't be, you won't be or be tired, you'll be resentful, you'll be burnt out. It is not sustainable. It is not what we want. We got to cut that out. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. We want to be kind. We want to change our narrative.

Speaker 1: 11:46

I work with leaders, entrepreneurs, artists. A lot of them are six, seven figure business owners and they still have the challenge of being over agreeable and over nice. When we change the narrative to be kind, what happens is they start getting all this energy back. Because before we can change and be nice to other people, before we can change and be kind to other people, we first need to start being kind to us. That's where the change starts. And when we are being nice to everyone in our phone book I just aged myself because I don't even think people have phone books anymore If you're being nice to everyone in your contact list, you don't have the time and space to be kind to yourself. You don't have the bandwidth to be kind to yourself. But to change this pattern, that's where it needs to begin.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Let me tell you if you think you've achieved a certain level of success, wait, wait until you start taking that energy back. You start pouring that energy into you. You have an overflow. Everything changes from that place because you now have the energy, the flow, the bandwidth to be kind, to be generous, to give, because you have already filled your cup and your cup is overflowing. We cannot give from a cup that dried out years ago. There is nothing more to give. You are running on fumes. This is why everything is capped. This is why you feel exhausted. This is why you don't want to answer the phone or you don't want to go out with certain people or tell people certain things, because you're afraid they're going to ask for something and you are going to have to say yes, we need to turn the energy back on ourselves.

Speaker 1: 14:09

One of the things I want you to be aware of when we start turning the energy on ourselves and being kind, is you will have people in your life who say things like you've changed, and I want you to look at them and say back. That is the point. We are here to change and expand and learn and grow and feed ourselves so we can feed others. We are not here to deplete ourselves and give, give, give, give, give. I know there's a lot of people online who get offended when someone says they're taking time off to tamper themselves and give to themselves. There are people who get offended when you sell your services, when you don't give everything away for free. These are not the people you are here to impact. You are here to impact people that are meant to be guided by your leadership.

Speaker 1: 15:25

Whatever that looks like, when you turn the energy back on yourself to change these patterns, you are going to get some people that don't like it, because they've been benefiting from you and your niceness. That's okay. It's part of the journey. It's part of shifting the narrative and letting go of the identity of I'm the nice girl or I'm the nice guy or I'm the nice leader to I'm the leader and I'm pouring into myself. Right now, I'm in a season of saying no. I'm in a season of setting boundaries so I can be at a place where I start giving from overflow. This is the work we're doing. Let me know if this resonates. Send me a message on Instagram. Let me know the boundary that you're put in place. Let me know the first step you're due to start being kind to yourself.

Speaker 1: 16:33

If you are interested in going deeper in this, head on over to my website or go into the description. If you're watching this on YouTube and book a Power Play. Call If you are interested in joining us in the Magnetic Leadership Accelerator, where we talk a lot about boundaries and we talk a lot about self-honoring and pouring into ourselves so we can then express ourselves fully into the world and the world can benefit from you being in the full expression of you, sharing and giving from overflow. Applications are open. You can head on over to the description and apply. Leader, I love you, as always. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. If you're listening or you're watching this on YouTube, I would love for you to subscribe. I love you, I appreciate you and, as always, let's stay connected.