The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - Being Nice Won’t Save You in Difficult Conversations

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Being nice won’t save you — especially in conflict. Too often, we think if we’re agreeable enough, people will treat us better or listen more. But that’s not how it works. In this episode, I talk about why “nice” people often get steamrolled in difficult conversations, the difference between being nice and being respectful, and how respectful firmness is actually the real power move. Thank you to our sponsors: Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 40% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. Monarch Money. 50% off your first year at https://monarchmoney.com/jefferson  BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Order my new book, The Next Conversation, or listen to the full audiobook today. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show!  Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter.  Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube  Follow me on Instagram  Follow me on TikTok Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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My wife is in a living room. And it is Jefferson After Dark, ladies and gentlemen. And I am about to go on a topic I'm very excited about. And that is to stop playing nice. You ready? Let's go. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast. where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything.

If you enjoy learning tips to improve your communication, I'm going to ask you to please find the button that says subscribe, wherever you're listening to, and click it. And it is a promise by me in exchange for that. And that promise is that I'm going to make you a better communicator. And if you subscribe to this podcast and listen to these episodes, I promise to make you a better communicator. Thank you.

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. My favorite thing that I have, probably in my house, without a doubt right now, are my bed sheets. Like, after this episode, I'm going to be going to bed and you know what sheets are on my bed? That's right. Cozy Earth. And I know you might be saying, well, Jefferson, they're a sponsor. Let me tell you, I liked them before they were a sponsor. That's why they are a sponsor, because these things keep me nice and cool. and I did not know at this age of my life

that bedsheets were going to mean that much to me. Now, Cozy Earth has lots of awesome things. They have lots of pretty much anything you can think of soft. They're bath towels, their sweatshirts, their hoodies, their pants. There's all kinds of stuff. That's fantastic. But I right now really are, I'm digging the bedsheets. You can go to CozyEarth.com slash Jefferson.

Used to go Jefferson and get 40% off. That's CozyEarth.com slash Jefferson. you stick to go Jefferson to get 40% off their trial period their money back guarantee fantastic you need to go try it goes the earth dot com I get so worked up really I get I get worked up when I think of how many people just play nice in this episode I'm going to go into three main boxes for you one we're going to talk about why nice gets steamrolled why you you might be somebody right now going you know I feel like I'm a nice person and yet you feel like you're giving everything away.

We're going to talk about that. And if that hasn't connected with you yet, I'm going to talk about some things that you're going to go, yep, that's me. Two, I'm going to go into the differences of nice versus kind. Nice versus kind. There are major differences that you probably never thought about that after listening, you're going to know about.

And number three, I'm going to give you some tools as to how to at the same time stand your ground while being nice and being kind and meshing these together rather than feeling like you one is a zero-sum game where you're always giving one over the other. You ready? Playing nice gets you steamrolled. What am I mean by that? You know what it's like to be the person that goes, oh, no, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. No, no, really. No, it's just fine. Don't worry. when somebody gives you an extra assignment your boss gives you something that you did not want to do or somebody says oh hey can you grab that and you're like oh yeah sure i guess that's fine oh hey do you have

time to go pick up my whatever and you really don't but you go um yeah yeah why not you know i i can definitely do that and you just what you people please constantly you are just being nice to everybody and everybody says you know what that's so-and-so they're so nice they're just so nice and then they go on about their day and you know what they do they use you whether you love them whether you find them to be a stranger they still in some sense you're giving a part of yourself away i'm not saying don't be of service i'm absolutely saying have a servant's heart i'm not saying that you should be less of yourself not at all what we're going to be doing and what you're going to learn at the end of today's episode is how to feel more of yourself all the more there's a there's a way to be able to

blend these, to understand these, to make sure that you're not in this, sitting in this driver's seat and all you see out the front windshield is just you have to play nice wherever you go because in reality you're not going to feel safe. Nice gets you steamrolled. Have you ever been the person who always goes out of their way? Always the one that seems to go the extra mile. you always are the person that what inconveniences yourself you inconvenience yourself to where people go you know what i don't really want to do it ask so-and-so they'll do it they always say yes are you nodding your head right now might be or maybe you know somebody who is nice gets you steamrolled why because nice is surface that leads us to number two i want to talk about nice versus kind you might be saying jefferson they seem

a lot like the same thing i understand that and i get that so i don't you feel like that's a bad thought it's it's not whatsoever let me clarify some things nice right is a word that originally meant to be ignorant all right from its latin roots and how it was used somebody who was just naive and then it began to be used as somebody who was pleasant or polite right that's where we get the people pleasing somebody who's polite it's socially acceptable they have custom usage that is kind not kind but somebody is oh yeah I mean kind is a synonym synonym synonym of nice so there is certainly a tie there that nice is very different nice is surface there's no depth nice is concerned about appearance

is concerned about appearance. It is surface. There is not depth. If you want to describe somebody who you loved a lot or meant the world to you, would you use the word nice? No. No, there are so many deeper, meaningful words to use for somebody that matters a lot to you. Nice is reserved for those people that pass you at the workplace, the acquaintances, the smaller level of friends, that friend group that's, you know, they're nice. He's a nice person. She's nice. He's nice.

They say nice things to me. That's really what I mean. But you wouldn't use the word nice to describe a loved one, your parents, a sibling, your spouse, your kids. yeah of my son he's nice you wouldn't say that why nice is not for depth it is for surface it is concerned about appearance kind very different kind is all about depth it is intentional kindness originally came from kin. That is to be someone who's family or of the same type. In other words, we will be as one.

There is connection with the word kind. Let me give you an example. Quick example. Somebody who is nice says, you know what? I really like the pair of socks that you have on. I think those are so great. And you go, you know what, they're a really nice person. They said something.

very polite and pleasing to my ears. Kind says, I need to tell you something because it's really been on my heart. And they deliver some type of bad news. That's kind. Even if it's not termed as nice, it is kind. And you hear that there's connection in that. There's something I need to tell you. It's really been on my heart.

It's been weighing on me. I can't do this any longer. This is something that doesn't work for me. This is something I have to do. This is something that is right for me. You hear how there is connection in kindness. So what is that? Stop playing nice at the expense of playing real.

Nice is harmony. Kindness is honesty. There is, and I don't want to say that as in you can't be nice and honest. mean a deeper level and i know you can hear that that nice is concerned by keeping the harmony that's that's really what i mean nice is not necessarily mean keeping the honesty because most of the time people don't say what is true because it doesn't feel nice i don't want to say that to them that's not nice ever thought that i have i don't want to say that that that didn't that wouldn't be nice but is it honest yes is it real yes then say that thing because it will eventually make you hollow it'll be it'll make you

hollow there in my part of texas we have trees and of course if you listen to this podcast you know i love trees and what they do as they die over time is they most mostly they die from the inside out you would never know you'd never know it looks like a fine tree for years and all of a sudden pieces of it we just start to fall off, limb after limb after limb, and then slowly just starts to cut down because the inside is hollow. How many of you listening right now, truly, just take a breath with me for a second and just ask yourself, examine yourself, do you feel hollow inside? Because you are using words that sound nice but are not sustaining you inside because you're not being real with yourself. You're not being authentic. You're playing nice at the expense of being real.

This is where you stop it. This is where you stop it. And I'm going to help you. Before we keep going, I want to take a second to tell you about monarch money. Now, there are a lot of us out there that if I were to ask you how much money do you have in your account or how many accounts do you have or what all their amounts are at any given time you might just shrug I mean you might have a savings account here maybe some retirement maybe some checking account but everything's kind of just a mess well that's why I really like monarch money it keeps everything all together in one place no messy spreadsheets it looks good it's something that just at one glance you can see everything, making it way easier to manage your money just in one place rather than trying

to use five different apps. It always keeps everything up to date in sync and in fact gives you even more in sync piece of mine. So don't let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Go into your browser type monarchmoney.com used to go Jefferson and get half off your first year. That's monarchmoney.com used to go Jefferson for 50% off your first year. And now back to the episode. Number three, I'm going to give you some phrases that are going to help you communicate past this playing nice. That doesn't mean it doesn't have to sound nice. In fact, you know what? Sometimes it doesn't sound nice and that's okay. Listen, I can be nice and still disagree with you.

Man, I don't know what it is about nighttime guys, but I am, I'm feeling it. I'm feeling over now. I feel very passionate about this topic. I can be nice to you and disagree. I can be nice to you and not do anything of what you want me to do. I can be nice and sound nice and do exactly what I want. I can sound nice and still stay in my ground. In fact, sometimes I may not want to sound nice. Maybe it needs to sound assertive to a point of knowing,

I am not somebody who is going to be pushed around or messed with. nice is something that usually has to do with tone tone it's a nice tone so what do we know you know from the many episodes i've had of when you want to sound calm assertive control the same thing we talk about in the whole first section of my book the next conversation say it with control we talk about tone well nice is a tone it's surface right it's concerned about appearance how things sound look taste smell so if i want to be assertive and say something strong i can still say no i can still be nice and sound nice and say no i can sound nice and say that doesn't work for me i can still say nice and say nope i prefer not i can still sound nice and say if you continue

to talk to me that way this is the end of the conversation i can still sound nice and say, that's not something I'm comfortable with. Don't be afraid of other people's emotions. They are just emotions like yours. You think they're afraid of your emotions? They're not. So don't be afraid of theirs. Nice versus kind. Kindness is always so much deeper. So what are the phrases that we just talked about? Here it is. This understanding of, I hear you, something different comes up for me or I understand that's hopeful to know thank you for sharing that with me I see things differently I can see that I have a different take on it you hear how I am still sounding kind and still sounding nice and still standing my ground I'm not trying to

people please in some sense so when somebody asked you to do something and you are on the edge of going I feel like I really don't want to I don't want to go but I feel like I don't want to people please and you're in this tough spot of how do I how do I balance that the first is to understand your guts already telling you the answer and that gut says no if you're listening to this and you already have something you're thinking about and you're like, I really want to say no to this and I don't know how. That's your gut telling you no. Do not do it. Whatever you're thinking of right now, listen to me or watch me. Do not do it. Just take a breath and understand that decision has already been decided. It's there. Now we're going to simply control how we say it, how we talk about it.

so when it comes to saying no with people and we've talked about this in other episodes as well the no or no thank you is the first thing that needs to come out of your mouth and i'd say oh i really wish i could or you know i i'm just so busy and you know things are just so stressful now you see that's sounding nice you're just that surface you're only trying to sound nice stop doing it no needs to have no excuses, no justifications. Not, no, because, you know, I've just been doing this thing and, you know, I'm really, really working, you know, hard on my, you hear how that's sounding nice. Stop. You've already made the decision. You and I've already talked about that. No is going to be the first thing that's going to be out of your mouth. No, thank you. I can't make it. I can't do it.

not this time whatever it is the no the decline needs to occur first needs to occur first there's not going to be I'm not going to allow you to have some kind of justification

to it justifications typically are over nice I'm not saying that if this person is somebody that you have an actual relationship with that you can't give them a I can't I got to go pick up the kids you know what I mean I can't

you have a legitimate reason that's short and this is a friend who understands but if this is somebody at work you're like ah you know i really wish i could i would love to but you know i'm just so busy lately it's sounding nice so every time you start coming up with these things that you're wanting to go down that line just remember what i'm telling you that is just for sounding nice that is surface level that is playing nice at the expense of being real. So I would much rather you say, I'm going to, like, this is me, enter new paragraph tab, all right? I'd much rather you say, I need to be real with you. That's not something I can do.

I need to be real with you. I need to be real with you. This is me. I know you can't, if you're listening to me, you don't know. I'm using my hands to show like you. insert the sentence. Begin your sentence with, I'm going to be real with you. I need to be real with you. I'm going to be real with you. I need to be real with you. I need to be transparent with you. I'm going to be honest with you. Those are much stronger, much stronger than trying to just sound nice for the sake of sounding nice. Please stop people pleasing. What I say is it's okay to please people as long as you're one of them. as long as you're one of them. Nice gets you steamrolled.

Stop playing nice. Stop being nice at the expense of being real. It's not authentic and it's corrosive. It will deaden you from the inside out. So begin with the no, the negative first. It makes everything else easier. Don't give the justifications unless they ask for them and it's somebody who actually matters to you.

If it's not somebody, then they don't need to have a reason. If they ask you and go, oh, well, why can't you? You say, I'm not. Not this time. Or here's another one I like is I'm making a promise to myself for my priorities. That's it. That's all you have to say. Find these things.

I have tons of resources out there on what's going to best help mold you to your specific context. A lot of people use my AI for that, how they can apply this to their particular need and that's how we we build these sentences to help you once you agree that you're going to have the feeling and make the decision i am not going to do this or i am going to do this once that decision is made do not move it it is now it is now creating the how how are you going to deliver that statement we're not going to do it in a way that just sounds nice for the sake of sounding nice because you and i both know that ends up making you feel empty um jefferson after dark. Who would have thought? All right. Today we talked about how being nice is eating you

alive. How nice is different from being kind, very different, though at the same time can be related. And three, we talked about some tools and some ways to think about wording sentences that say, I'm going to be honest with you. That's not going to work for me. I'm going to be real with you. That's not going to work for me. Those are just easy, easy, like begin. inner level ways of starting your sentences that's going to make it stronger because you can be nice and sound nice and absolutely still stand your ground all right go out there use your words for good as always you can try that and follow me