In this episode, you’ll learn why your desire to people please could be the reason your business isn’t growing and what you can do to overcome it.

I’ve had a history of trying to make others happy at the expense of good business decisions and my own happiness. By the end of the episode you’ll have the tools to break free from people pleasing to unlock your business’ growth.

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Video Transcript:

This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.

Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy NEARY and this is episode 262.

Today, we’re going to talk about your people pleasing and how your desire to make everybody else happy is the thing that is keeping your business from growing. Listen, this is a topic I can expect I can speak to from experience. People pleasing has been something that has impacted most of my life. I was raised by a father who is probably one of the nicest human beings on this planet and people pleasing is embedded in his DNA.

And I think I was given that gene as well. So if you’re sitting there listening to this right now and you could admit you probably people please a little too much, you have that feeling inside sometimes that seeks validation because you want everybody to be happy. This is going to be a good episode for you. And I’m going to share with you how people pleasing has cost me business in the past, how people pleasing impacted me.

When I started complete game consulting. But what I’m doing about it today that I think could be very, very helpful for you. So it’s been a long journey for me of trials and tribulations along the path of people pleasing. It is something I still deal with today. Just ask Amy my better half. She’ll definitely tell you about that.

And so I think this episode is going to be really helpful. Now, a little content hack that I want to share with you. One thing I do here with our podcast to drive our future episodes is take some of our content that is the most popular content we have on LinkedIn and we turn it in the podcast episode.

So if you go back a couple of weeks and look at a post I made on LinkedIn about people pleasing, it got a lot of engagement. So I said, Hey, figure we might as well turn this into a podcast episode. Little contact content hack for you If you’re listening in on how to leverage certain pieces of content you put out there and repurpose it into something else.

So I digress. Let’s get back into the topic of people pleasing, Signs that you are a people pleaser. Number one, you are constantly trying to make everybody around you happy. That is something that I know I have struggled with in the past. When I am in a group setting and you’re trying to make a decision for the group and you know that the decision is not going to benefit everybody in the group, That’s something I struggle with because I constantly want to make everybody happy.

Number two, I don’t want anybody to feel left out. I don’t know if that’s something you struggle with, but growing up, I was always that kid that looked at to help the one student or the one classmate that was kind of off by himself or herself. And I wanted to make sure everybody felt included and a third trait you might have that no, definitely symbolizes your ability or your desire to want to please other people is you are you find yourself kind of seeking validation.

I know I have before I’ve found this to be true sometimes in my coaching business where I work with somebody and then I kind of want that instant feedback that what I’m teaching them is working for them or it’s helping them. Well, me asking that to them is actually another form of people pleasing. I am seeking that validation that what I’m teaching them is helping them, because then that tells me I’m making them happy.

So all good traits sometimes, but more often than not, these are the things that are keeping you and your business from growing. So when I go back to my early insurance career, I can share story after story where people pleasing actually cost me business. There’s two specific situations I can remember that happened 15 years ago that cost us clients, and the first situation was avoiding the tough conversation I would have to have with a client when I knew they were receiving a larger than expected rate increase on their health insurance instead of just coming out immediately and letting them know what it was, how it looked.

No matter how ugly that conversation was going to be, I would hold off. I would avoid the conversation because I didn’t want to have it. I didn’t want that discomfort. And so I would wait and I would wait and I would wait. And then I would deliver the bad news. Too late. And now I have a client who’s very frustrated, left without much time to make a decision.

And that often led to a client very unhappy with me. The second situation, I can remember specifically was a client I lost in 2011, and it was when I was working as an account executive and I remember I discovered an error I had made in moving plans at renewal time. So they had made some decisions to make changes at renewal time.

I had made a mistake. I discovered the mistake about a week or two into the new plan. And again, instead of just coming out and letting them know what happened and tell them, letting them know we’re working on it and we’re going to work to do everything we can to fix it. I didn’t say anything, and what I tried to try to do was fix it without telling them about it.

And the only thing that happened was as time went on and as I continued to seek one solution that didn’t work after another, one fixed that didn’t work after another, the situation only got worse. And then by the time I had to admit that there really was no resolution right now to this mistake, they were very, very upset, especially at me, deservedly so.

And they ultimately fired us and moved to another advisor. And so these are situations that have cost me business in the past, and it’s all come back to my people pleasing. I don’t want to make people unhappy. And that was something that definitely impacted the early half of my insurance career. And when you’re an account exec, especially in the health insurance industry, you know that you have to develop some thick skin.

You’re going to be delivering bad news, especially when it comes to rate increases. And so you just have to be able to deliver that kind of news early and often, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation is going to be. I did not do a good job of that and it cost me business, but probably also cost me a little respect if I’m being honest with you.

And so when I look at my past, man, those those moments are cringe worthy and they bring back bad memories of how bad my people pleasing used to be. Now, let’s fast forward more recently, when I decided to build complete game consulting a few years ago, I can definitely tell you that people pleasing had a big impact on the early phases of the business.

And even though we have been blessed to experience some pretty good growth over the last two years, I know we could have grown a lot faster had it not been for some of the decisions I made when it came to growing the business, serving other serving clients, and some of these bad decisions were a result of my desire to please.

And when I look at three key mistakes I made in allowing people pleasing to impact the early growth of my business, it was very clear what they were. Number one, chasing too many shiny metal objects. I think a form of people pleasing is when you have all these opportunities presenting themselves to you, especially early in your business. You want to make the people happy that are presenting you with these opportunities, right?

It makes you feel good, number one. But number two, you feel like you’re helping somebody else. And you know, when you start a business, people are going to see what you’re doing and they’re going to latch on and they’re going to want to collaborate with you. And at the end of the day, you have to be very honest with yourself.

What is the reason they are trying to present all these new ideas and opportunities for you? Nine times out of ten, it is for their own benefit, not yours. But if when you’re a people pleaser, this is a slippery slope because you it is so easy to say yes to all these opportunities because you see new revenue opportunities.

At the end of the day, I can tell you from past experience, somebody who has made the bad mistake in going after too many shiny metal objects, it is going to be more of a waste of time than it will a revenue generating opportunity. The second mistake I made is allowing people to own my calendar. Hi, it’s Andy NEARY and thank you for listening to the Bullpen SESSIONS podcast. Did you know the ideas shared on this show are things we actually specialize in helping to implement? If you’re an insurance professional and you want to turn your credibility into consistent client acquisition, visit complete game consulting dot com and schedule a free strategy call. Again, that’s complete game consulting dot com to request your free strategy call.

All right let’s jump back in to today’s podcast episode might say you know time management, something that I have always harped on, but I had to be honest, sometimes early, especially early in this growing this business, I was not good managing my calendar because I was letting people manage it for me. What do I mean? Well, my people pleasing would allow me to take calls with people that I knew were not going to be able to help my business any way and vice versa.

Yet I wanted to make them happy so I would take the call with them and allow them to put themselves on my calendar. And early in this business, if you looked at my weekly calendar, you would see a lot of calls that, quite frankly, were a complete waste of time. But it felt good because it felt good to see a full calendar.

But the reality was, it was my people pleasing that allowed too many bad conversations to get on my calendar, which wasted my time. It capped my productivity. It prevented us from growing and then the third mistake was saying yes to clients that were not a good fit for us. Early on in this business. I know we took on some business.

We should not have, and I don’t say bad business by means of who these people were. These were just people we probably really couldn’t help given what they were looking for. But I said yes, and I said we could help. And quite frankly, it probably impacted the ROI we gave them and it just wasn’t a good use of my time because I was coaching people who I really could not help.

And so when I look back, especially at those first 12, 12 months of complete game consulting, man, my people pleasing was definitely an inhibitor to my own growth. So as you look at your business, especially here as this podcast airs in the fourth quarter with an insurance industry where this is the busiest time of the year, take a look at your calendar and take a look at your decision tree and figure out if and where people pleasing could be impacting you right now.

Are you allowing your clients to control your calendar? I know it is easy to do right now because it’s renewal season and you’re going to fight tooth and claw to try to retain all the business you have. But it’s easy to let your clients completely control all your time because you’re just trying to keep them happy too. Putting things on your calendar right now that have nothing to do with renewing your business or growing your business.

It’s easy to seek collaboration opportunities because somebody out there is selling you the benefits of what this could do for you. But you know what your objectives are right now. If something does not meet your objectives, it’s got to be a hard no. Don’t let people pleasing put calls on your calendar that have no purpose being there, especially right now in the fourth quarter.

And this also goes for what type of prospect you’re going after as you’re trying to grow your agency, your book of business. It’s so easy to want to go after everything because you believe you can help everybody. That is actually a form of people pleasing. But what happens is you end up chasing too many bad opportunities, having too many conversations that are really destined to go nowhere.

And instead of growing a thriving practice, you’re stuck because you’re too busy making everybody happy except your bottom line. So with that being said, let’s talk about some three tips that I want to share with you today that I am leveraging myself to help me and my team stay focused, help our business grow by being by pleasing less.

And these are three simple but very impactful tips that have have a profile profound impact on my own personal development and my ability as a business operator, and I wanted to share them with you. Now, again, if you could admit you are caught pleasing people right now, you’re caught maybe seeking validation and you’re focused on making everybody else happy except yourself.

This is going to be very, very impactful for you. Now, the tips I share here, I did not come up with myself. It’s come through my own personal development, following other mentors who have shared these insights with me and I just wanted to pass them on to you because I think they’re going to be super helpful for you.

So tip number one, you can’t help everybody. I think as simple as that sounds, the belief we can help everybody start stunts our growth more than anything else. You have to understand that you cannot help everybody. This goes for clients, this goes for prospects. This goes for people who are bidding for time on your calendar. You know, there are clients who, at the end of the day, you may have to determine are not good fits for your business because given the amount of time they take compared to the amount of revenue you make, they just don’t make sense anymore.

And I know it’s easy to retain that client for as long as you can because you have this desire to please them when the reality is they’re never going to be pleased by what you do. Now, on the prospecting side, your chase for revenue, your belief is going to lead to your belief that you can help everybody. So you believe that all prospects are good prospects and therefore you’re going to chase business.

That is not a good opportunity and chase business going and going and looking for prospects who have no desire to do business with you. You’re going to bring prospects in the pipeline that are going to waste your time. You just got to understand, you can’t help everybody. When I realized that, it really helped lock in our focus of what we are trying to accomplish.

And before this episode over, I’m going to share with you how focused we have gotten and how it’s helped us overcome our people pleasing. So tip number one, you can’t help everybody. Tip number two, this is a tough one. If you’re a people pleaser, not everybody’s going to like you. Yeah, not everybody is going to like you. I know this is a tough one to hear.

It was for me, remember? I used to catch myself all the time seeking validation. I wanted everybody to like me. I wanted to be in the in-crowd. I wanted to make everybody happy. I avoided tough conversations that I knew I had to have with clients, teammates, family because I was so afraid to make of making somebody upset with me.

I just wanted everybody to like me. And as you know by now, that is not a good character trait of a leader, especially if you’re leading your organization. You’ve got to be able to have tough conversations, whether it be with clients, peers or friends. That’s number one, because bye, by having those conversations, those tough conversations, early and often, you’re going to feel a lot better.

But number two, you’re probably going to garner a lot more respect from the people on the other end, no matter how uncomfortable and negative that conversation might be. So you have to remember, not everybody is going to like you. This impacted me early when I started creating LinkedIn content, right? I would hit that post button and I was so desiring of that validation, those likes in those comments, and I didn’t want anybody to.

I had the fear that somebody was going to leave a bad comment. I can remember early on I’d make these tough, opinionated posts out there and I’d get these messages from brokers who were very sharp and very direct at me, and it would greatly impact me because I sought validation. I wanted to be liked by everybody. I can tell you now as a coach, you got to understand, nobody can like not everybody’s going to like you.

That I might say nobody likes you, but not everybody likes you. Not everybody we work with is going to like what we do. Not everybody who reads my social media content is going to like what I put out there. Not everybody who is in the audience on a of a of a stage I am speaking on is going to like what I have to hear or have to say.

It’s okay. Not everybody is going to like you, you know, when you create social media. One of the keys to creating effective social media is you’ve got to place your opinion in some of the posts you make. With opinions come objections, and you got to be okay with people who may take those and making us a subjective opinion of you.

They may not like you. It’s okay. I know when I make my social media posts every week, I know there are people in this industry that do not like me and I’m okay with that. It makes a lot makes life a lot easier, makes it easier to grow this business. And most importantly, it takes away the stress and anxiety.

So tip number two, just know you’re not going to make everybody happy and not everybody’s going to like you. And the final tip, I think, is it’s been very useful for me and this is where our laser focus has come in. I was that insurance advisor business operator who used to go seek every opportunity because it felt good.

I was going to make others happy. They’d be happy with me. I bring in all this new revenue, but at the end of the day, as I said earlier, it did nothing. What I was really doing was helping that individual grow their revenue, but I was wasting my time. I was saying yes to too many opportunities. Now the fix was the day I heard Matthew McConaughey of all mentors Matthew McConaughey say it’s a no until it’s a yes.

And that’s a rule I have adopted in my own business, in my life. It is a no until it’s a yes, no matter what opportunity you are presented with, say no and then give it time. Think about it. Maybe it becomes a yes. What to many people do is they say yes at the opportunity right away and then right towards the start of that opportunity, they back out and they say no.

Worse yet, you say yes, you involve yourself and it’s a waste of time. Easy fix. Just make it a rule. Whenever you are presented with an opportunity, you say no until it’s a yes. How is that helped us? Well, I’ll give you a very micro example. When I spend time growing our business on LinkedIn, I get mulled to pull LinkedIn connections every single day.

Some of them are opportunities that I will be presented with a new shiny metal object. I say no. Today I probably decline seven out of ten LinkedIn connection requests. So no, I’ll take a look at it. A pause maybe. Maybe it becomes a yes. But at the beginning. I’m sorry. No, I can’t. I can’t take your connection request if I don’t think I can help you or I don’t think you can help me.

Another bigger example is when we get offers to collaborate with other partners in this industry, I field a lot of opportunity to collaborate with an industry solution or some partner in the industry where they at the end of the day, what they’re really trying to do is grab on to our audience. They know they have a big we have a big audience following in this industry, and so they really want the opportunity to collaborate and get a hold of our audience.

I had to come to tell them. At the end of the day, we only collaborate and promote with our clients. It’s a decision I had to make. If I’m going to collaborate with anybody, if I’m going to promote somebody’s product, it’s somebody we actually do business with, somebody we coach. It’s a no decision I had to make so that I didn’t catch myself going after all these opportunities that really weren’t good opportunities.

The final area where this has had a massive impact on our business is saying no. Instead, it’s a yes is we have adopted a rule here at complete game consulting that if an opportunity, if a task does not fall under our four core C’s, it’s a no. What are those four courses? Number one clients is this opportunity or this task or this investment going to enhance the value we bring to our clients?

If it is, it’s a yes. If it doesn’t, it’s a No. Number two concept is this investment, this opportunity going to help us enhance our content, enhance the reach of our content. If it’s a yes, we do it. If it’s a no, we don’t capture is this investment or is this task or this opportunity going to help us capture more business, more prospects, more clients?

Yes, we do it. If it’s a no, we don’t. And then we have community, which is our focus right now on Complete Game University, which is our membership site coming out on January 1st. Is this investment or this opportunity going to help us promote or grow complete game university? If it is, we do it, it doesn’t we don’t sell right now.

If we are investing our time, our money in anything, it’s got to be to enhance the value we bring our clients, the value we’re going to bring complete game university, the reach we are creating with our content and improve our ability to capture more clients. If it’s not, I’m sorry, it’s a no. So I hope these tips help you as much as they helped me.

Again, you’re hearing this from a business operator who still finds himself people pleasing from time to time, but I’m happy to say it has gotten a lot better. I’m more able to have tougher conversations today because one of the most important things I’ve ever heard from a business operator that I truly look up to is your ability to scale.

Your business is going to come down to your ability to have tough conversations. And if you’re a people pleaser, those conversations are tough. They’re easy to avoid, They’re easy to avoid until it’s too late. And when it’s too late, you lose credibility, you lose respect. You might lose business. So do yourself a favor. If you are a people pleaser like me, use these three tips to overcome your people pleasing desires.

Just know you can’t help everybody. Not everybody’s going to like you. And it’s a no before two. Yes. Take these three tips. Grow your business. Know knowing the way you know you should. Don’t let people pleasing impact you anymore. Be good. Thank you for taking the time to listen to today’s podcast episode. Remember, if you find value in this episode, do me a favor.

Give it a like, share it, post about it. Go subscribe to make sure you get every episode from us every single week. And my only ask from you is that if you have anybody in your life, whether it be a teammate, a peer, family member or a friend, please share this podcast with them. That’s how we grow. We only grow through word of mouth and I would be forever grateful if you take the time to do that.

All right, now it’s time for you to take what you learned, and it’s time for you to go out, Share your message with the world. Execution, Clarity and consistency is everything. Be well.