People pleaser

I actually hate this term, so I’m using it ironically. I am one (although my kids might dispute this) and I think it’s what made me pretty successful in my corporate jobs and on the whole it makes me pretty well liked.

Life would be a lot more miserable if everyone went around only pleasing themselves. I get pleasure from pleasing people.

But, of course, only pleasing other people and hurting yourself in the process, is damaging and debilitating. And it can require therapy to recover.

Someone I know just this week bravely quit their job because they refused to people please by turning a blind eye to falsified performance data. Not people pleasing has consequences.

Claire Perry-Louise is my latest guest on the Corporate Escapology podcast (find it here or here). 10+ years as a solicitor after years studying and training, Claire followed a path to please her father, even though it brought her little joy.

She’s a good example of someone who seems to be a recovering People Pleaser, confounding her friends and family by giving up the stability and status of the law to follow the then, emerging, but poorly understood, field of community marketing.

I asked her on the podcast whether they thought she was having a breakdown or a midlife crisis. It must have seemed so at the time.

Because Claire put pleasing herself first. For maybe the first time.

I’ve known Claire a few years now – she runs a community for entrepreneurs called Like Hearted Leaders – and she spends her time harnessing the power of community to reduce the loneliness of leadership. If you’re starting out on your own building a business, LHL might be the place for you.

Claire makes a lot of people very happy - but it’s now on her own terms. Through choice, through purpose and through independence from others.

There’s a hilarious bit in the podcast where Claire reveals that ten years after she broke from the law, her dad told her she was the most disappointing of all his children – because she had ‘everything’ and gave it all up.

But that was his dream (for her – and maybe for him). It wasn’t hers.

It made me reflect whether pleasing my family was one of my motivations for taking a corporate job. I’m not sure it was. I suspect they were relieved I’d landed somewhere safe and stable and that I didn’t talk about it too much.

Leaving it, however, didn’t please some people: My wife feared the worst, her parents were concerned, some people at work thought I was “brave” (code for stupid), friends tentatively enquired if I was going through a midlife crisis, my children wondered where the money (for them) would be coming from.

Once I’d proven that the risk was low (to myself and my wife) I just did it. I didn’t really think about anyone else.

I pleased myself.

And over time leaving and building a new life seems to have pleased others more, which I admit makes me happier than going out on the proverbial limb. I don’t want my friends thinking I’m a failure, or my parents-in-law’s disapproval, or the kids worrying whether I’ll have to sell one of them.

As part of the research for Corporate Escapology (available for pre-order), I talked to a woman in the US (we’ll call her Anne-Marie). She was stuck in a job she absolutely hated, because the coaching she had trained to do made her family so nervous they wouldn’t let her pursue it. She sacrificed her own pleasure, fulfilment and purpose because it made them uncomfortable. Vocally so.

After a few years Anne-Marie had become extremely resentful of the time she’d wasted. She told me she’d begun to feel like her confidence had decreased and she feared she wouldn’t make a success of the business.

However, one of the good things about the pandemic was that more people began to work remotely – which meant that not only could Anne-Marie, but also could many of her potential clients. This enabled her to create a side-hustle coaching business - initially without her family even knowing.

I checked in with her the other week and she was a different person. She’d even told her family. And they were supportive. Vocally so. She thinks next year she will be able to ditch the day job.

It’s often a question of ‘Not yet’ rather than ‘Never’.

The people you want or need to please are often your most important stakeholders. Or at least they should be. You can’t ignore them.

But you matter too. Life is short. And you (probably) only get once chance.

Be selective which people you please and when. Like Claire, like Anne-Marie – and like me.

Take a listen to the podcast on Spotify or watch it on YouTube.

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