Nice Guys Finish First… Even at Work
A free chapter from Be Awesome & Happy Today by Rodrigo Camacho
Hello, nice guys. Thanks for showing up! Most of us have heard that proverbial “nice guys finish last.” Bull. What’s happened is that at some sad moment in time, nice got conflated with soft. It got tied up with being a coward. Often when people say nice, they mean weak, a pushover. It’s time to debunk that myth.
Let me come clean first: I’ve been a jerk sometimes (I’ll prove it in the next paragraphs). But I’ve learned my lesson, though, and nice is my default setting now. Being nice is an admirable quality. The word nice is defined as being pleasing, delightful, pleasant, and kind. Those are mighty good qualities to have. You can be nice and stand for yourself. You can be nice and live with passion. You can be nice and chat up a gorgeous stranger. You can be nice and incredibly interesting. You can be nice and funny. You can be nice and strong. Just don’t be a jerk like I was in the following story.
Many years ago, I walked into a café and sitting at the last table was a girl with the biggest dark green eyes I ever saw. She turned to me as I made my way in, so I smiled. She smiled back at me and her smile was captivating. I went over to talk to her but couldn’t stay long because I was with a group of friends and we were heading to another café. I got her number and a few days later she came to my place for dinner. We started to date. I liked her a lot.
Some weeks later things got difficult, though. Her life had some complications that she needed to sort out and which I didn’t want to be part of. I told her she should take care of her situation and later on maybe our paths would cross again. I think that’s not what she wanted to hear because it all got kind of ugly. She said and did a couple of things that got me really upset and I didn’t respond well to that (it would still take me some years to figure out how to handle such situations wisely).
I decided to go out to a friend’s club that night, still upset about the situation. I greeted the bouncer with our usual handshake and bro hug and went in. A cute girl was standing just inside the entrance. I was still in a very foul mood, but I decided to talk to her anyway. She was trying to joke around with me but my responses were jerkish. It surprised me that she continued talking to me despite my douchebag behavior.
She was in the middle of a sentence when I abruptly interrupted to tell her to go get me a drink or I wouldn’t kiss her. She left right away and came back a few minutes later with two spritzers. I kissed her. I honestly don’t remember how good the kiss was, but I do remember that after we kissed, she wanted to know a bit more about me. But I was still in full jerk mode and I kept making cold and cruel remarks. I was of course bound to cross a line and I surely did. I’m not going to go into the details of what I said but she started to cry. With tears rolling down her face, she asked me why I was so mean, which made me snap out of it instantly. There I was, standing in front of a cute girl who just wanted to have a good evening out. I looked at her; she was staring back at me with her mascara all over her face, waiting for whatever I would do next.
I left.
On my way out of the club, my friend the bouncer told me a couple of things about the girl. She had broken up with her boyfriend recently. Her now ex-boyfriend, who was also a jerk, was waiting outside to talk her into getting back together. The poor girl had the bad luck to run into jerk numero dos (moi) on her way out to see jerk numero uno.
I kept playing the scene in my head on my way back home. I wondered about this girl, why she had put up with me and why she was going back out there to talk to the other jerk. What made her do that? Maybe putting up with jerks was the only life she knew. I felt horrible. I had made that girl cry for no other reason than my foul mood. I had been in a foul mood for just one day and I had already managed to leave a painful memory for someone else. I never saw her again, but I made a promise to the man in the mirror to never ever do that again.
Today, even when I cross certain lines of conventionality, although I state my opinion confidently, without regard to the judgment of others, I am no jerk. I stay within the realm of nice.
You should be nice everywhere you go. And being nice at work, showing people you actually care about them, will make your workplace better instantly. If you’re a boss, be a nice boss. It pays off with dividends.
Part of my job in my corporate days was to manage people, and I made sure their work lives were as pleasant and fulfilling as humanly possible. I fought for their salaries, making sure they got paid what they deserved regardless of gender. I gave them trust and flexibility. I made sure they knew my door was always open and that my word meant something. I always distributed tasks according to skills and desires whenever possible. I didn’t let people stay late at work and never micromanaged their working hours. The result was that we always delivered top performance and I never had to worry about results. People went beyond their assigned responsibilities by choice. We worked as a team and had plenty of fun, which meant I could at least make sure the people who worked with me didn’t have to spend every Sunday in mournful anticipation of the dreadful Monday.
If you’re a boss, you have the power to change someone’s world by being nice. You can rule by fear or rule by kindness. Kindness will take you farther and it will be a much better ride for everyone.
Being nice to others doesn’t make you a pushover. You are no one’s slave and you are no one’s puppy. Don’t put up with abusive or manipulative behavior, be it from a friend, colleague, partner, boss, lover, wife, or husband. You care about yourself. You love yourself and you understand that setting boundaries is essential for your well-being. That’s why you can care about others. When those boundaries are crossed, have a dialogue and establish your expectations clearly and respectfully. If that doesn’t take you where you should be, then your place must be somewhere else. Have the courage to walk away. A man who loves himself takes a risk when his peace is at stake.
But be nice today and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Be nice to the person at the register at the grocery store. Be nice to the cab driver. Be nice to the lady at the bakery. Be nice to those closest to you even while you set boundaries. That’s manly. Manly, nice guys finish first.
That was a free chapter of my most recent book, Be Awesome & Happy Today.
Want to read to whole book? Get it from any major online bookstore here. Available in English, Spanish, and German.
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