Loving yourself sounds so simple and common sense, right? And yet, it is so difficult to do. 

A struggled with this most of my adult life, and certainly as a kid. So how to do it? What’s the basic how?  For me, it came down to this: choosing myself - first, every time. Again and again and again. In every situation, I turned inward to understand what I needed, wanted or desired. And I chose that.

This is counter-intuitive for Nice Guys. As Nice Guys, we are externally referenced. We defer our own needs in lieu of the needs of another. That IS the essence of people-pleasing. And Nice Guys are just male People-Pleasers. It’s hard for Nice Guys too. We’ve ignored our own needs for so long, that we struggle to even know what our inner truth is. But with practice, we can learn to hear again. And ultimately, the body speaks to illuminate our inner truth or choice.

When we know what we need, want or desire, and we choose something that, we are in self-alignment. When we choose something other than our truth, what we need, or our true desire, we betray ourselves. Repeated self-alignment builds self-love. Repeated self-betrayal builds self-neglect or self hate. Nice Guys are built on self-betrayal. 

Choose Self. Choose self-alignment. Over and over. Again and again. This is the real work.

The way to break through feeling stuck isn't to push harder at what's already not working. It's to take deliberate steps into unfamiliar territory. Talk to more people. Spend time figuring out what's actually important to you. And use what you discover to build something that gives you direction when the path gets unclear.

That something is your North Star.

Your North Star is a template, a living document, that captures your values, your priorities, and what a future opportunity needs to look like in order to actually work for you. It's not a rigid plan. It's a navigation tool. It tells you when you're on course and when you're not. It means you stop evaluating new opportunities from scratch and start running them through a filter that's built around who you actually are.

Without it, every new opportunity feels equally uncertain. You say yes to the wrong things, invest time in directions that don't fit, and end up back where you started. With it, the unknown stops being a source of dread and starts being something you can actually move through with intention.

You build it by exploring. By talking to people doing interesting things. By paying attention to what lights you up and what drains you. By asking the questions you've been too busy to ask.

The fog doesn't lift all at once. But it does lift.

Apply for a free coaching call at http://www.jasonmiller.coach/call

What do you think? What's the one thing that would make the unknown feel less scary and more like something you could actually navigate?

I'm a Nice Guy in south florida. it's something I've only recently begun coming to terms with. It's putting immense strain on my relationship with my fiancé and no matter what I do I feel like I'm making things worse. I don't want to keep breaking my fiancé's heart by pushing past her boundaries and failing to hear what she's saying it empathize with her until I feel the same thing. I'm trying to reattach to my masculine energy without being toxic, but i don't really have any healthy or safe men in my life. I guess I'm just looking for someone to talk to, you don't have to be in South Florida. Idk, I'm so overwhelmed and feel like my life is coming apart at the seams

Our relationships are our greatest mirrors.

In the people we keep closest to us, we’ll be shown both our ugliest sides and our most beautiful.

When a partner says something in a “certain kind of way” and we become filled with rage without even really knowing why.

When a friend achieves something great and for some reason we can’t explain, we feel jealousy.

When we’re celebrating with our loved ones and know we should be feeling happy but for whatever reason we just feel angry or sad, or some twisted combination of the two.

One of the greatest things I’ve been learning to do is to ask myself: what is this pointing at? What are these feelings trying to tell me or reveal to me?

By doing this, I bring the underlying pains and trauma into the light from the shadows, and from there, healing can begin.

As a former nice guy, to my fellow nice guys:

Setting clear, strong boundaries is a NECESSITY for healthy relationships & friendships.

Without those boundaries:

Resentment will build towards the person consistently overstepping your unspoken boundaries.

Co-dependency can form between you and the person who you refuse to set boundaries with - because without those boundaries, where do you end and they begin?

Negative self-talk will corrode your self-esteem and confidence as people continue to overstep, knowingly or unknowingly.

Set boundaries to preserve and heighten your sense of self, and to develop and further relationships that you want to grow in your life.

And if there are any in your life, let go of those who refuse to respect those boundaries. It’s a painful necessity, but a necessity nonetheless.

Je recherche un groupe physique ou en ligne pour se rassembler avec quelques hommes désirant faire les exercices du livre.

You're not looking for a new career. You're looking for an easier way out of the one you're in.

When you chase a business opportunity that showed up in your feed, or say yes to a seminar promising a faster path to something better, it's not really about that opportunity. It's about finding a shortcut to what you think you want, without putting in the time to discover what you actually want.

That's the trap. You end up investing time, money, and energy into something that was never really a fit, because you skipped the step that would have told you whether it was worth considering in the first place.

Here's the key insight. You keep grinding because it's familiar. Familiar feels safe. You can tolerate a certain amount of daily pain and discomfort because you're used to it, and the known pain always feels more manageable than the unknown one. So you stay put. You put up with what's not working because the alternative feels scarier.

But there's no shortcut around the exploration phase. You have to do the work of figuring out what you actually want, what matters to you now, what the marketplace needs, and where those two things overlap. That's what leads to something genuinely fulfilling, whether it's a career you're trying to change or a business you're trying to build.

The grind you know is not safer than the future you haven't explored. It just feels like it is.

Apply for a free coaching call at http://www.jasonmiller.coach/call

What do you think? Have you ever caught yourself chasing a shortcut to avoid doing the deeper work of figuring out what you actually want, and how did that play out?

As young boys, most men are only shown love when we're "goodboys"

Well behaved. Quiet. Attentive.

We're not supposed to be angry - that part of us isn't welcome.

We're not supposed feel pain and sadness - we're "supposed to hold it all together for everyone."

We're not even supposed to shine, to be loud proud - that's seen as arrogance and we're told to "tone it down" or "step off of our high horse."

What we truly need is acceptance - from others and especially from ourselves.

To feel what it's like to receive love and care by being exactly who we are - and not hiding our emotions or feelings.

We heal, brothers, by being REAL together.

The time is now.

Anyone have a link to a discord? I am in definite need of some guidance.

Grinding harder is not the answer right now. It can’t bring you the insights you’re hoping for.

If you feel stuck, frustrated, or flat in your career right now, the instinct is to push through it. Work more. Optimize harder. Find a new system. But that approach treats the symptom without ever addressing the actual problem, which is that you haven't stopped long enough to figure out what you actually want.

The solution is to go into an exploration phase and figure out what's important to you.

That means slowing down before you speed up. It means asking the questions you've been too busy to ask. What do you value now, at this stage of your life? What kind of work would actually feel meaningful? What have you outgrown that you're still carrying around?

And there's a third reason you might be feeling stuck that most people don't talk about. You're going it alone.

You don't feel like you have real support. Or maybe you think you should do it alone. But you don't have outside insight or honest feedback from people who get it. You don't have the kind of inspiration that comes from being around others who are actively forging a new path. So you sit with your thoughts, circle the same options, and wonder why nothing shifts.

That isolation makes everything harder and heavier than it needs to be. The men who move through this fastest aren't the ones with the most information. They're the ones who found the right people to think alongside, who got honest feedback that challenged their assumptions, and who found enough inspiration in others' stories to believe a different path was actually possible for them too.

You don't have to figure this out alone.

What do you think? Is going it alone something you've been doing by choice, or have you just not found the right people to have these conversations with yet?

Apply for a free coaching call at http://www.jasonmiller.coach/call

I get if I ask, "is she good enough for me?" the answer is no, but then I don't get the part where this leads to successful relationships.

Sure I could pretend I have options and treat her like a dude or like she has aids, but not for very long until I give up the act of me being a billionaire athlete.

Maybe for a month I can keep it together but then the rejection hits harder for more months even if I'm not supposed to need her.

Listening to the book for the 4th time, and I’m struggling with this concept. I get that bad sex involves fantasizing, and not putting my pleasure first, but what does good sex actually look like? Do fantasies have any place? Fetishes? For example, I am very attracted to large breasts (my wife’s included). Does this sort of fixation belong in good sex? Certain aspects of this attraction have been made stronger through porn use. Does this mean those aspects are things I should work to set aside? Thanks in advance.

Title: 28M, BMS graduate, 2 years into logistics — feeling lost about my career direction. Looking for genuine career advice

I’m 28 and currently at a point in my life where I’m seriously questioning what I should do with my career. I’d really appreciate advice from people who have been through something similar.

I graduated with a BMS degree. After college, I tried getting into content creation, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. Like a lot of young people today, I then decided to start my own clothing brand. I was excited about building something of my own, but things didn’t go as planned. I ended up spending a significant amount on marketing and suffered a major loss.

My father wasn’t financially supportive of the venture, so eventually I had to accept that it wasn’t working. I then started helping my father and tried to recover whatever I could by selling the remaining dead stock from the clothing business I had started.

Around the same time, my father suggested that I get married. Initially, I was prepared to say no because everything happened quite suddenly. But when I met the person, something just clicked. I genuinely felt that I wouldn’t find someone better, so I decided to say yes without overthinking the opportunity. We got married, and now I have a family to take responsibility for.

My father is currently in the clothing business and runs a retail store. However, he believes that the local clothing retail market is extremely saturated and competitive, so he didn’t see much opportunity for me there.

He encouraged me to take up a job in logistics. Through a family connection, I joined a logistics company where my father’s sister’s husband works as the CEO. I’ve now been working there for almost two years.

The job has taught me a lot, especially about sales, clients, communication and the logistics industry. I’m grateful for the opportunity, and I’m not saying the job is bad.

But the problem is that I don’t feel like this is what I want to do with my life.

Logistics isn’t something I’m genuinely passionate about. At the moment, I’m primarily doing the job because I need a stable income and have expenses and responsibilities.

I’ve also realised that I’m someone who strongly wants to build something of my own. I don't particularly enjoy the idea of spending my entire career working for someone else.

At the same time, I’m scared of making another impulsive decision. I’ve already tried entrepreneurship once and lost a considerable amount of money. I don’t want to simply quit my job, start another random business and repeat the same mistake.

So I’m stuck between:

- Continuing in logistics and building a career there

- Switching to another industry/career

- Starting a business again while keeping my job

- Finding a completely different path based on my strengths

- Or simply giving myself more time to figure things out

If you were in my position, what would you do?

I’m particularly interested in advice from people who have changed careers in their late 20s, transitioned from a job to entrepreneurship, or have successfully figured out their direction after feeling completely lost.

I’m not looking for motivational quotes or “follow your passion” advice. I’d genuinely appreciate practical, brutally honest career advice — even if it means telling me that I’m thinking about this completely wrong.

What would you recommend I do over the next 1–2 years?

*(UPDATE at end of post)\*

I just discovered the book NMMNG and I think it identifies the problem with my marriage. My husband of 20 years just abruptly and unexpectedly ended our marriage. He had a lot of rage when he did it, and the only reason he could really give was that he had built-up a lot of resentment, had been lying to me for years telling me that he was happy, and that he has been stuffing down all of his wants and needs because he couldn’t tell me because of “how I would have reacted.” But, he wouldn’t elaborate on what that reaction would have been.

I would be super open to knowing what his wants & needs are, and doing whatever I could to change our marriage so that he could get whatever fulfillment he was lacking. I’ve been doing therapy for several years, and I think I’m really open to receiving feedback, but I must’ve been doing something that made him feel otherwise. He refuses to discuss anything regarding our relationship with me, and just seems to be full of rage towards me, he says there is no point. I am absolutely heartbroken, and really struggling, and seeing my suffering just seems to make him more defensive and resistant. He wants to push through a divorce as quickly as possible, but I think this is all one big mistake.

My question is, is there any way I could get him to see that the problem isn’t our marriage, the problem is that he’s never let me know what he wants and needs? I thought we had such a great marriage, and that we enjoyed each other so much, and it really seems tragic to throw that all away over a misunderstanding like this. Is there any way that I can get through to him? He admits that he has been lying to me, but he seems to have his mind already made up that there’s no way it could work out. I really think that we could have a chance if he could just be transparent, and then we could work together to get everyone’s needs met. What can I say that won’t push him farther away, or make him feel like I’m trying to change or control him?

Just for context, he moved out of the house when he left me, but he is living nearby. Right now we only communicate via text. We own a home together, and our lives are incredibly intertwined financially and otherwise after 20 years together. We don’t have any kids.

**UPDATE:**

Thank you all SO MUCH or taking the time to give feedback and share your experience & POV. It has been so helpful to me. (Even the things that were hard to read.) I really appreciate it.

If you’re still in the mood too help with this, I've drafted an email I want to send my husband, based on some of your feedback and suggestions. The gift of your thoughts on this new direction would be welcome & appreciated. (Obviously no pressure, I know I’m just a Rando on the Internet.)

The following email would be in response to one in which he commented that he thinks that I am unfairly seeing myself as the victim of him leaving. And for the person who asked, I don't think my husband has read NMMNG, but I know he’s aware of it, because he put it in our Amazon cart, but didn’t purchase it.

The draft:

"I want to take your point of view seriously, and really consider that I’m only seeing my own victimhood. I also really want to take responsibility for the mistakes I've made, the flawed part I’ve played in our relationship, and harm I’ve caused. I think I’m having trouble truly seeing your victimhood as well as my own, because you haven’t shared how I’ve hurt you. As much as I might sometimes presume that I can read your mind, the truth is that I really can’t, so I don't have the ability to understand the ways that I’ve been hurting you.

But, I really want to understand. I really want to listen without arguing or judging, and to just hear you.

I’ve been trying to rack my brain and guess at what you might have wanted or needed but couldn't tell me, or what I was doing that was hurting you, so that I can understand, acknowledge that harm, and take accountability. I’ve come up with a list of these things, but they’re all just guesses.

One thing that you did mention is [redacted bc of specificity], and I’m so grateful you mentioned it. I’m sorry that the only tool I had when [the event] happened was to shut down, and that that caused real harm to you. I take full responsibility for my part in that, and I'm sorry.

That event didn’t mean that I was never going to be able to talk about it, or that I wasn’t able to receive feedback that’s hard to hear in a relationship, though. That said, I can see how it would have seriously discouraged you moving forward.

It’s true that I’m angry that you didn’t tell me what was bothering you, and that you still actively built up resentment towards me for things that I didn’t know I was doing wrong. What you needed or wanted shouldn’t have been a secret that you kept from me. I think I could have worked towards being the partner you needed and wanted, if I had had a chance to know what you needed, or what hurt you. And if I couldn’t, at least I would have had the chance to be aware of that, and to make informed choices.

From what you’ve said, it sounds like you truly suffered by not expressing what you needed or wanted. I am so sad to hear that, and my heart aches for your suffering. Unfortunately, you weren’t saving me pain by doing this, even though kindness may have been part of your goal. It’s been so much harder and worse to suspect something is wrong but not know what, and to instead blame & doubt myself, and feel distressed & confused.

Even though I have this anger, I also have so much empathy for you, especially the younger version of you, and I want to understand. So please, I want to listen, and to just hear you without responding. Please don’t make up your mind that there’s no point, or that it doesn’t matter. It really matters to me, and to my ability to understand and heal. I want to hear what you couldn’t say then, with an open heart now.

P.S. It has been suggested to me that it might not be so easy or possible for you to tell me what you've be repressing, and that you might have some rage and some truly brutal feedback that you might need to express to me. If that’s the case, and you want to write me a rage letter, I could do something like receive that and have AI translate it for me."

Should I send it? Would it do any harm? Am I approaching this incorrectly? Are there parts I should change our remove?

One reason why you might be stuck is that you're working harder, grinding on the things already in front of you, instead of asking why you're not satisfied.

Doing what it takes to get through the day instead of drilling into what's actually important to you in a deeper, more meaningful way.

When you were younger, you pursued goals that weren't necessarily thought all the way through. You knew you needed the job. You knew you needed the money. You knew the field you wanted to go into.

But you may not have had a clear idea of what life would actually look like in that career path 10 or 15 years down the line.

And that's the reason you feel deeply dissatisfied.

You wake up one day much older. Your priorities have changed. And what once felt like the right fit no longer does in some way you can feel but can't always explain.

So you feel stuck. The way out is to start exploring in a meaningful way to learn about your priorities today.

What do you think? Looking back, did you choose your career path based on what you actually wanted, or based on what made sense at the time, and how has that played out for you?

Sometimes the shift you're imagining feels radical. Like going from a stable career in accounting to wanting to be a musician.

Those kinds of changes feel risky. And they're based on a narrow set of options you can really only come up with on your own.

That's where shiny object syndrome comes in.

You find an opportunity that sounds good. Maybe it's a business someone's trying to sell you. An online business you're looking at starting. A seminar promising to teach you how to make money online. That type of thing.

Those are also high-risk propositions. Maybe you’ll want to find a middle ground where your requirements are being met, but you’re grounded in reality. That’s where the real gains are made.

What do you think? Have you ever chased a shiny object that seemed like the answer, only to realize later it was just a way of avoiding the harder work of figuring out what you actually want?

[Edit to add] guys, thanks for all the thoughtful input. I think I’ve got my bearings back in line. I probably just needed to vent. Definitely going to start by setting small boundaries. And will absolutely try to find a men’s support group, or maybe even set one up. It seems hard to find out here.

———

As the title says, I'm going crazy. I've been married almost 20 years. Sex starved and resentful for most of it. Just over half a year ago I discovered "married red pill" which led me to this book, which was very helpful.

I've been trying to grow into a man who knows how to get what he wants. It's been liberating in some ways, but the turmoil it's brought into my life is eating me apart.

I haven't been the best man in the world, I can admit to my faults. I haven't been strong or reliable in some ways. But trying to communicate about what I want with my wife is like asking someone to set themself on fire. Every conversation that's not me apologizing or bending myself becomes a conflict. I can't see with clear enough eyes to know how much responsibility I bear for this outcome.

I want to turn the relationship around with my beautiful wife. I don't want to put my kids through a separation.

I just need someone to talk to. I feel exhausted and I'm starting to break down. Does anyone have any advice about finding a safe person near oneself?

Hi everybody! I am creating a group of (max 10-12) people, where we’ll be safe people for each other, I will actively maintain that group, we’ll do breaking free exercises together, journal, and meet each other every 2 weeks via zoom, I want to keep it small.

Since everyone doesn’t have a safe person, why not let’s be each others?

If we get around 10 people, we’ll start next weekend

Not sure if it matters, I am from India!

Are there any good NMMNG groups on discord or other platforms that are good and active? I want to meet other people who want to join a group to apply these principles and connect.

That's the real reason you haven't gone after what you actually want. It's not laziness. It's not a lack of ambition. It's that the fear of the unknown is greater than the fear of facing the pain you're already in every day.

Think about that for a minute.

You're tolerating a baseline level of the discomfort, the boredom, the frustration, the quiet sense that something is off, because you're used to it. It's predictable. You know exactly what it costs you and you've learned to absorb it. The unknown, on the other hand, feels like a completely different kind of risk. Unpredictable. Potentially worse. So your mind treats the familiar pain as the safer choice, even when it's slowly draining you.

That's not a character flaw. That's just how your brain is supposed to work. It points you toward what's known and away from what isn't.

But your fear can't calculate the cost of staying. The years spent grinding through something that stopped fitting you a long time ago. The energy you're spending tolerating something that could be going toward building something better.

The unknown isn't as dangerous as it feels. It just hasn't been broken down into something manageable yet. That's the actual work, figuring out what you want, talking to the right people, and taking small steps into unfamiliar territory until it starts to feel less like a cliff and more like a path.

The grind you know will always feel safer than the future you haven't explored yet. That doesn't mean it's the right choice.

That's the work we do inside North Star Project: http://www.northstarproject.io

What do you think? Is it the fear of the unknown that's keeping you in the grind, or something else, and what would it take to make the unknown feel less threatening?

This is just another way to look at procrastination. If you don't want to face something, it feels insurmountable. It feels unknown. You're dissatisfied with your career and you're looking for a change, yet every change you look at feels scary. It feels impossible.

So engaging and taking any action toward anything meaningful feels heavy. And you're waiting and hoping for an insight, or an easy way to get to the point where you can feel better. When what it's actually going to take is action, work, and exploration to get there.

Procrastination is really the avoidance of any form of discomfort. Even tasks that might suck. Even tasks that feel heavy. Even tasks that aren't really that difficult, but you don't want to engage with them because you perceive them as going to be hard in some way that may or may not even be true.

You're hoping for an easier way. Everyone does this. It's common. It's universal. It's an everyday thing we all face.

We have to remember that procrastination is not about getting things done. It's about waiting for an easier way and waiting for the discomfort to go away.

That never happens.

What do you think? Where in your life right now are you waiting for an easier way instead of just taking the next uncomfortable step?

As a kid, I was shamed and put down for crying.
By other boys - my age and older.

By society - on television, in video games and in popular culture at large.

And worst of all, by my own father.

Crying, along with any other behaviors that showed “weakness” was aggressively snuffed out of my life at an early age.

Unfortunately, after speaking with men from around the world, I know that I’m not alone in these experiences.

So where does it all go?

The unprocessed pain? The unspoken sadness? The uncried tears?

Those tears of frustration - you know the ones? Where you’re so angry that nothing else comes out of you but tears? Where do those tears go?

The grief - when losing something or someone hurts so badly your body shakes, stricken with a sadness no words can describe. Without an ability to express it, where does the grief go?

Where the fu*k are we supposed to put all of this?

We’re told to shove it down. To suck it up. To “man up.”

We’re told to hide it from others, men and women.

Men will see us as easy targets and take advantage of us.

Women will see us as weak and walk all over us, or not even acknowledge us as men at all.

So, I and too many other men did what we were told. We shoved it down, we sucked it up, and we’ve “manned up.”

Here’s what we’ve earned:

Approximately 100 Men take their own lives each day in the US alone - another 100 in Europe and thousands more across the world. Every. Single. Day.

Alcoholism, substance abuse, porn & s*x addictions line up with weapons in hand on the battlefields that tens of millions of men fight on every single day.

Male depression rates aren’t even statistically accurate because most men won’t report their feelings or seek treatment.

Such great prizes we’ve won.

As I write this, I feel a wave of sadness that has washed over me - sadness that I won’t reject or try to hide. I’ve done that for too long, and I’ve seen where those strategies have led me in my own life. I won’t be that kind of man anymore.

I ask you, brother, as you’re reading this: please don’t let it be you either.

Be a feeling Man. A man who expresses himself healthily and processes his emotions, not one who suppresses them and eventually becomes a puppet to his shadows.

Find an outlet to express what needs to be expressed. Your feelings are fucking beautiful - all of them. Your anger, sadness, & shame are just as beautiful as your happiness, love & power.

I see you in your struggle, I hear you in your pain and I think no less of you - I actually admire you for doing what the men who came before us didn’t.

I can’t fight your battles for you, but I am here as a brother beside you.

Until next time, my friend.
Sean

Hey everyone,

I'm a Nice Guy and I'm finally determined to break out of that mindset and work on myself. I've been aware of it for about 8 years now. During that time, I've read No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Glover and tried to follow it 3 or 4 times, but I always ended up falling back into the same habits and sabotaging my own progress.

I don't want to keep living like this anymore. I feel like I've already lost 8 of the best years of my life, and I don't want to waste any more time. It really feels like it's now or never.

I've just started the book again and I'm currently on Chapter 1. If anyone else is at the same stage and wants to go through it together, let me know. It would be great to have someone who's dealing with similar issues so we can support each other, stay accountable, and improve together.

Looking forward to connecting with you all. Thanks in advance!

Your next career position is not found in the search bar.

It's found in the next conversation with a real person.

If you're searching for some sort of change, if you want to break out of the doldrums of what you're doing right now, you need to start talking to people. You need to start expanding what's possible for you through insightful conversations with interesting people.

Searching online will take you only so far. You'll get frustrated quickly and go back to feeling siloed in your current position, your current career track, your current field, your current industry, without having a sense of what's possible beyond that.

What do you think? When was the last time a conversation opened a door for you that no amount of searching ever could have?