On Being a good ender

This summer I’ve been re-reading, reconsidering, and refreshing a book.  More than a book it’s a body of knowledge.  There are a few of these that I return to because they resonate with me.  They apply nicely to my particular pain points. 

I return to them at points in my life where I have stresses that are keeping me from showing up. From being my best self.

That’s important. 

Everything you know, everything you’ve learned, all of your energy and relationships, mean nothing if you don’t have the mental energy to get in the game and apply them. 

I find I have ebbs and flows of energy across my life.  I’ve gotten better at recognizing and managing the lows and highs as I get older.  When I feel a low coming on I can return to one of these tried and true methodologies, that work for me, to mitigate it. 

Usually these low ebbs happen when one or more of my major life areas sees a negative or challenging change at the same time.  It’s a stacking up of external stressors.  It gets harder to show up.  That’s when I have to return to the internal focus to make sure I’m right in my attitude and approach. 

Physician heal thyself.  Simplify.  Don’t look outwards.  Look inwards.  Build the strength to engage the world in a wonderful way.

It was that way earlier this year when I was having challenges at work, I was not able to run and I just felt a bit like a hamster on a wheel slowly roasting over a fire. 

At these times in my life, and in yours, you have to keep your attention open.  Because I’ve found that the teacher appears when the student is ready. 

When I bailed out on the RunRunLive podcast 4.0 I was in this spot. 

The teacher that arrived was a video course from a guy who I’ve done courses with before.  Dr. Glover, who wrote the book “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”  This particular course is around how being a ‘nice guy’ gives you certain tendencies that can hamper you in your career. 

For example, you will tend to hide from the job instead of doing it.  You will be afraid to ask the hard questions for fear of offending someone.  You may self-sabotage. You don’t show up as your best self.  You feel like you are being taking advantage of.  You make up narratives around the job that basically make you miserable.

This training course hit me a just the right time.  I was able to re-engage in my job very successfully while at the same time not taking it so personally. 

But that’s not the only realization I had. 

I also was very much impressed with the concept of ‘being a good ender’.

Which I will get to, but first let me give you some context.

The basic Nice Guy premise is that for a large percentage of men, and this, I would think applies doubly for women – for this large block of men – they spend so much time trying to be nice that they never get what they want.

That sounds a bit icky and grasping, but the part where it resonated with me, and why I picked it up again, is that Nice Guys have the tendency to want everyone to like them.  To get everyone to like them, women, family, bosses, co-workers they hide their own wants in a way that makes them inherently dishonest. 

This is the crux of it.  By trying to please everyone, we bury our own value, and we represent ourselves in a dishonest way.  This inherently dishonest approach to everyone makes you, ironically, dislikeable.

What’s an example?  Let’s say you feel like you’ve been working hard and adding value at your job.  A new opportunity comes up that you think you should get.  But, because you don’t want to offend anyone you don’t ask for the opportunity.  Then when you get passed over you get mad because they violated a ‘covert contract’ that only existed in your head. 

It ends up being mostly fear-based behavior.  Because you’re afraid of offending anyone you make dishonest choices that don’t serve you.  Because you are afraid of the consequences if you fail, you don’t try.  Because you don’t ever tell anyone how you feel, you get runover all the time and then get mad about that. 

Obviously, this tendency extends to relationships.  You can’t be mad at your partner for not fulfilling your wants if you are dishonest about what you want because you don’t want to offend them. 

The incredible thing about this realization is that if you stop being Mr. Nice Guy, those people that you were trying so hard to please suddenly want to spend time with you. Why?  Because they see you as a leader.  You now are the only person in the room who has a clear vision of what you want – and that is refreshing – and attractive – and in the business context – powerful. 

It’s unambiguous. 

Why?  Because this is an honest approach to living.  Not being afraid to say ‘no’.  Not being afraid to say what you mean.  Not being afraid to have your own opinion gives you power. 

Power is attractive. 

It’s just common sense. 

“You can’t get what you want unless you ask for it.”

“Be yourself, because there is only oneyou and no one else can be you.”

That’s the context.  Now let’s apply this to being a ‘good ender’. 

We get involved in many things in our lives.  Personally, I’m always doing 5-6 different things at time.  It’s just how my brain works.  I suppose these days I’d probably be diagnosed with something and given pills, but lucky for me I discovered running 20+ years ago!  

But, you cannot do everything.  This is the risk of being an inveterate dabbler.  Eventually the dabbling turns into a hobby and then into a habit and then into an obligation. 

This is how the RunRunLive 4.0 podcast got for me over the last 2-3 years. 

When you’re a nice person you let things go on too long. 

Long after they have ceased to serve you, because you don’t want to offend anyone. 

Because you keep going with the relationship after it ceases to serve you it becomes dishonest.  And that is the cognitive dissonance I was feeling.  Every time I produced a show I was being dishonest with you. 

The other thing nice people will do, instead of realizing that the relationship has run its course and ending it well, they will keep going but unconsciously try to sabotage.  Starve that relationship.  Put less energy into it. Hoping that it will somehow just magically go away without the nice guy having to be responsible for ending it.

This is the passive aggressive way that nice guys deal with relationships.  Which is unhealthy and inevitably leads to an incredibly unhealthy ending.

I’m going to share the short section from the book No More Mr. Nice Guy. 

In this section it is talking specifically about romantic relationships, but I think it is as powerful when applied to jobs, or clubs or anything else that you are invested in.

Being Bad Enders Prevents Nice Guys From Getting The Love They Want

Finally, Nice Guys have difficulty getting the love they want because they spend too much time trying to make bad relationships work. Basically, Nice Guys suffer from the age-old problem of looking for love in all the wrong places. If a Nice Guy spends all of his time stuck in a bad relationship, it pretty much guarantees he won’t find one that might work better. When healthy individuals recognize that they have created a relationship that is not a good fit, or that a partner they have chosen lacks the basic qualities they desire, they move on. Not Nice Guys. Due to their conditioning, Nice Guys just keep trying harder to get a non-workable situation to work or get someone to be something they are not. This tendency frustrates everybody involved. Even when Nice Guys do try to end a relationship, they are not very good at it. They frequently do it too late and in indirect, blaming, or deceitful ways. They typically have to do it several times before it sticks. I often joke that, on average, it takes Nice Guys about nine attempts to end a relationship. (Unfortunately, this isn’t far from the truth)

End Quote

What’s worse is that instead of having the honest discussion around how the job, or relationship has ceased to serve you, you try to passive aggressively let it fail.

The point is not whether the relationship is good or bad. 

The point is that you need to have the courage to end it – and end it well. 

This is the honest outcome.  

And you may have heard that honesty is the best practice. 

By being a good ender – and a clean ender, you can move on to something that serves you better.  You win and the people you were passive aggressively being dishonest with win too.  Because, whether they knew it or not, the relationship was not serving them either. 

That’s the importance of being a good ender. 

That’s the importance of being an honest ender.

There are obviously shades of good and bad here.  Nothing is ever clean when you’re talking about relationships of any kind. 

But the thing to look for is the honesty.  Or rather the dishonesty. 

Are there taboo topics that you’re afraid to bring up with your manager because you are afraid of the how they will ract? or are afraid of the hard conversation that will ensue? 

That’s a sign. 

Are you hiding things, or not being 100% open with certain people? 

Do you find yourself procrastinating or doing anything but that thing in that relationship to avoid that conversation?

Is there dread or joy in your heart when you think of that next interaction with that group or person?

Maybe it’s time for some honesty. 

Maybe it’s time to be a good ender.

Or to evolve into your next season.