A client of mine was trying to sell his car and so he took the person he was selling it to for a test drive.

This person just talked his ear off the whole time, she wouldn't respect him or reciprocate or anything like that. Just blasted him with noise the whole time.

And he kind of sat there and took it, mostly because he wanted to sell the car and he didn't want to offend her.

So he's asked me, how do you get to a point where you can get what you want, but not people-please the other person?

That's the dilemma.

If you want to quit people pleasing, you have to give up trying to get the outcome you want - in this case selling the car.

You can either do the thing that pleases the person and makes it seem more likely to sell the car, or you can be honest with them and risk losing the car sale.

Now, what's interesting in this case is he eventually was honest and confronted her and still sold the car!

People pleasing isn’t even effective in getting outcomes anyway! I’ve been much more successful in all areas of life being honest than I ever was as a nice guy.

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