Why I'm Going Back to Being a Nice Guy

After seven years teaching men how to stop people pleasing, I've arrived somewhere I didn't expect.

After years of men's work.. years spent helping men escape "nice guy syndrome".. I'm going back to being a nice guy.

Let me explain. Because I know how that sounds.

The Canadian condition

If you grew up in Canada, you know that nice guy syndrome is practically a national export. We're polite to a fault. We apologise to furniture. We say sorry when someone else bumps into us.

And underneath a lot of that niceness is something less wholesome: people pleasing. Self-abandonment. Saying yes when we mean no. Shrinking ourselves so nobody around us feels uncomfortable.

I spent seven years teaching men's work: sitting with hundreds of men, helping them untangle exactly this. Helping them find their spine. Helping them stop performing agreeableness and start living from their actual truth.

That work matters. Deeply. I stand behind every hour of it.

But somewhere along the way, I noticed something in my own life.

My life is better when I'm a nice guy.

The distinction nobody makes

Here's where most of the conversation around masculinity gets it wrong.

It treats "nice" and "strong" as opposites. As if you have to choose. As if kindness is weakness and boundaries require you to be hard.

Don't get me wrong.. there's a real place for practising strong boundaries. For refusing to get pushed around. For breaking the chronic people-pleasing pattern that has so many good men quietly resentful and disconnected from themselves.

That practice was necessary for me. It probably is for you too, at some point.

But I've arrived somewhere on the other side of it.

I'm at a place in my life now where I know myself. Where I can uphold my boundaries and be a genuinely kind person at the same time, without contradiction.

Because those two things were never actually in conflict. I just needed to build the internal security to hold both.

What I actually found

The truth is, I'm more myself when I'm kind.

Even to strangers. Especially to strangers, sometimes.

I genuinely like helping people. It's not a performance. It's not me seeking approval or trying to be liked. It's just… who I am when I'm operating from a regulated, secure place instead of a fearful one.

The difference between people pleasing and genuine kindness isn't the action. It's the nervous system state underneath it.

People pleasing comes from fear.. I need you to like me so I feel safe.

Genuine kindness comes from security — I have plenty, and I want to share it with you.

Same smile. Same helpful gesture. Completely different origin.

My actual mission

I recently re-established my mission in life. And it clarified everything.

My purpose is to help the people I love accomplish difficult things.

That's it. That's the whole thing.

And when I got clear on that, I realised my "niceness" was never the problem. My niceness is actually the expression of my purpose. It was only ever a problem when it came from fear instead of from strength.

The most rewarding things I ever get to witness is when my clients, my family, my loved ones believe they can't do something..

And then, through some unlock, some piece of support, some shift in belief, some experience of being truly backed.. they discover that they can.

That they were always capable. They just needed someone to see it before they could see it themselves.

Being a coach, a father, a son, a brother, a husband.. every single day I get to see people in challenge. And I love it. I'm not being noble when I say that. I genuinely enjoy it.

Because challenge is where growth lives. And I'm a little obsessed with watching transformation take place in the humans I care about.

So here's where I've landed

That's not nice guy syndrome.

That's not self-abandonment or people pleasing or fear dressed up as virtue.

That's just who I am when I'm fully myself… boundaried, secure, and kind, all at once.

The goal was never to stop being nice.

The goal was to become the kind of man whose kindness comes from strength instead of fear.

And I think I'm finally there.

If you're ready to build that kind of internal security, book your retreat here. Follow us on Instagram @mens.adventure.retreats.