People Pleasing Is Slowly Destroying Your Life || Masterminds Podcast EP74

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You didn't choose to become a people pleaser. It was trained into you before you were old enough to know what was happening — and it has been quietly costing you ever since.

In this solo episode of the Masterminds Podcast, Richie Mensah breaks down one of the most common and most destructive patterns holding people back: people pleasing. Where it starts, what it costs, and exactly how to break free from it. This is not about being selfish. This is about understanding that you cannot pour from an empty cup — and that the real way to show up for the people you love is to take care of yourself first.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why people pleasing is a childhood survival strategy — and how it follows you into adulthood
• The five real costs of people pleasing: identity, opinions, opportunities, relationships and peace
• Why the people pleaser rejects themselves before the world ever gets the chance
• Why external validation is inconsistent, conditional and will never be enough
• How to identify whether you are making decisions for yourself or for someone else
• Why every yes you say to someone else is a no you are saying to yourself
• Why people pleasing is not kindness — it is actually a form of wickedness
• How to put yourself first without becoming selfish

Chapters

00:00 – People Pleasing Is a Survival Strategy
 00:45 – Where It All Starts: Childhood and Conditioning
 01:35 – The Fear of Rejection
 03:35 – The Constant Need for External Validation
 05:47 – True Art Is Loved by Some and Hated by Some
 07:07 – The Five Real Costs of People Pleasing
 09:43 – How to Stop: Step One and Two
 10:07 – Every Yes to Someone Else Is a No to Yourself
 11:28 – Put On Your Oxygen Mask First
 14:55 – People Pleasing Is Actually Wicked

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People pleasing is a survival strategy, one that most of us learned in our early childhood. It all began when people didn't allow us to be who we were. When you are made to feel like as a child, your opinion does not matter unless the adults agree. When you are made to feel like love and belonging is conditional on your behavior, on your temperament, on doing exactly what people want. So we are trained at an early age that people pleasing, that becoming who people expect us to be is the only way to be safe. And then we grow with this into adulthood and it starts to destroy everything. Let's dive deeper into where it all starts from. So people pleasing is rooted in childhood trauma. Now, trauma doesn't always have to be dramatic, sometimes it can be silent and slow. What happens to most of us is that very, very young, we are taught and trained by our parents, by our schools, by religion, by the community. We are made to feel that behaving a certain way is the only way we can get rewards, is the only way we can feel safe. From parents who only show approval when the child performs well. From the culture that tells you what to believe and what not to believe, to religion who makes you feel shame for your natural desires and wants. And then to a community that rewards conformity and punishes individuality. So the child does not actually choose this, the child just adapts. And adaptation is intelligence. The problem is when the child grows up like this. Now that adult is still making decisions like a child, not understanding how it affects them. Now let's look at the costs of becoming a people pleaser. The first one is a fear of rejection. Now most people are walking around being afraid of being rejected by the one they love, by their community, by their bosses, by their employees, by their colleagues, by the people walking around on the street, by the fans or their followers on social media. So many people are afraid of being who they are because they are afraid of losing relationships, afraid of losing status, afraid of losing reputation, things that don't actually matter because they are living their lives through the lens of other people. They have been trained that by being who they are, other people are not going to want to be around them. They've been trained that being who they are is no longer safe. So they are in a constant fear of being rejected. So this leads them to make a lot of mistakes. They are not strong enough to make a bold move. They are not strong enough to go after what they truly want, the job that they want, the partner that they want. They end up staying too long in wrong relationships, staying too long in the wrong jobs, staying too long in the wrong community, staying too long with bad friends, bad influence, just because they are afraid of rejection. Just because they are afraid of actually being authentic. And the worst part about a fear of rejection is a people pleaser negotiates themselves into submission before the world can negotiate for them. They reject themselves before anyone else can reject them. They do away with the things that they care about, the things that they love, before anybody else can tell them it's bad. So the worst part is a people pleaser is not even being rejected by the world. They are being rejected by themselves for what they think the world would reject. The second cost of people pleasing is a constant need for validation. The truth is, the only person who should be able to validate you is you. But we have been trained into thinking that validation is an external thing. We look for validation from our parents, from our friends, from our siblings, from our teachers, from our bosses, from people on Instagram and YouTube and TikTok, likes and comments. We feel too insecure to move without validation from other people. But nobody can live your life for you. Nobody understands you. Nobody's been through what you've been through. Nobody sees the world through your lenses. So when you look for external validation to move, your movements will never be sharp. You will never do what you are supposed to do. You will do what you think people expect you to do. You do a great artwork. You post it on Instagram and some people don't like it. So you take it down because it means they don't like you. You post a picture in your favorite outfit, your brown art idea. You post a picture and it doesn't get enough likes and comments. So you feel sad and you are depressed because people don't like you. You cannot live your life by looking for external validation. The only person whose opinion matters in your life is yours. Will you get things right all the time? No. Does it matter? No, because only your opinion matters. You need to validate yourself. True confidence comes from believing in who you are and always being your authentic self, regardless of how other people feel about it. And the worst part about looking for external validation is external validation is inconsistent and it's conditional. So now it makes you live your life for other people. When everybody take it like you're a musician, everybody wants I'm a piano now, so it's only I'm a piano you are going to do. Then they switch, everybody wants jamma, so now it's jamma, you are going to do. It's inconsistent. You are consistently moving based on how people feel, which means you have no control over your own life. You are wishy-washy because you are moving with the crowd. But the true way of being creative, the true way of living is to be authentic and put out what you want, and the right people will find you. You know, one of the most profound statements about art is that true art is loved by some and hated by some. Your job is to be your authentic self and trust that the universe will place you in front of those people. But when you people please and try and get external validation from people by doing what they want, you will never find your community. You will always just be a shadow of what you could actually become. Now, most people pleasers think there's no cost in people pleasing because they are safe. So they feel, oh yes, it's okay to be like this. But there are real costs to it because it costs you your identity. You don't know who you are, and people don't even know who you are. It costs you your opinions. Instead of being bold and vocal about what you believe, you now have to cower and always just talk in a way people expect you to talk, say the things they expect you to say. So you don't have true opinions. It costs you opportunities because there are opportunities that are meant just for you. But those opportunities can't find you because even you can't find you. It costs you true relationships. People pleasers tend to have a lot of acquaintances, but they lack true relationships because people can't bond with you when they don't know who you are. It costs you so much potential because you are unique. You were made unique. This entire world, whether it is 300,000 years we've been here, or 6,000 years, whichever you believe, you are unique and you have the potential to live to the fullest. But when you are people pleasing, you will always conform and you will never live to your potential. The worst part is it costs you your peace because true peace is about accepting yourself inside. When you are doing things the way people want you to be, you will be conflicted, you will be going against your nature, and you will never truly know peace. So if you're ready to stop people pleasing today, let me give you some solutions. The first step in solving any problem is accepting you have a problem. You have to look at your life, look at all the things that you say, all the things you say yes to, all the places you agree to go to that don't actually match what you want to do. And realize the fact that you are people pleasing. When you realize this, the second step is to figure out the cause. Figure out the root cause of your problem. Go back to your childhood. Think about those days that you wanted to do something and your parents wouldn't let you, or when you went to this new school and the kids expected you to behave a certain type of way and you just went along with it just to be popular, or when you were bullied into submission. Think about what caused you to become like this. And now start analyzing your life. If you had decided to go against them, if you had decided to just live for you, how much happier you would be, how much more at peace you would be with yourself. It's better to be a first-rate version of yourself than a second rate version of someone else. And then now when you come into the present, anytime before you make a decision, before you say yes to someone, before you do something the way somebody wants, ask yourself Am I doing this for me or am I doing this for someone else? One important thing to keep in your head is every yes you say to someone else is a no that you've said to yourself. Every time you put somebody's needs or somebody's happiness above yours is a time that you have told yourself you are not important. And you were born with one human to love and take care of, and that is you. So you need to prioritize you. Every decision you need to make. Ask yourself, do I want to do this for me or for someone else? And now I know that one of the biggest problems most people pleasers have is they think if they start to do things for themselves, they will be selfish or they are not being there for those they love. But that's not the truth. The truth is you can only pour out when your cup is full. And to fill your cup, you need to take care of yourself. You know, if you've been in an airplane before, one of the instructions they give you is a very wise life lesson where they say, in case you need to use your oxygen mask, put on your oxygen mask first before putting helping someone else with their oxygen mask. Because if you help someone with their oxygen mask and you pass out because you're lacking oxygen, both of you will die. So make sure you are strong enough to help the other person. So the real way to help the people you love is to take care of you. It's to make sure you are strong enough. Whether it's your child, whether it's your partner, whether it's your parents, whether it's the community, you cannot give anything back unless you yourself are strong. Why do you think rich and wealthy people are always donating to charity, always giving to people, helping people out? Because they took care of themselves enough to amass enough wealth to now share. But if they hadn't amassed wealth, and there are times that they were gaining money, they gave out all the money that they had, they wouldn't be where they are right now to help people. Somebody has worked out so that they become super strong. And now when there's a crisis, they can lift somebody else up. You need to take care of you to take care of other people. You're a young man. You are so appreciative of what your parents have done for you. The sacrifice that your parents did, the sacrifices they made, all they invested in you as a child. And you want to be able to take care of your parents when you grow up. So right now, you are people pleasing and you are doing the job they want you to do, and you are marrying the person they want you to marry and going to the places they want you to go, which is making you unhappy, and you will never become great enough to support them in their old age. Your responsibility to your parents is to succeed so that when they are weak and unable, you will be so successful that you can pour out into them. Your responsibility is not to do what they want, your responsibility is to give them what they need, and you can only do that when you take care of you first. So anytime you feel like people pleasing, remember the true way to please people is to take care of yourself. I've seen a lot of bosses who suffer to make the right decisions for their people, who suffer to be able to lead their people because they want to make sure everybody is okay. But sometimes you need to give your employees what they need. Sometimes you need to cut back on salaries so that the company can make enough money for you to increase salaries. Sometimes you need to overwork your employees so that you can build a strong enough company and grow people. And not that, oh, it's five o'clock, oh, my employees are tired, let them go home and sleep. Because when you think like that and you are people pleasing, then the company doesn't grow, your community doesn't grow, and you all stay mediocre. So put yourself first so that there is enough of you to give to other people. And one last thing when you are people pleasing, understand that it actually makes you a wicked person. The reason I say it makes you a wicked person because people pleasing feels like you are being nice. But in actual fact, you are ridding people of the opportunity of getting to know who you really are. You are telling all your friends, all your loved ones that you don't think they have the capacity to accept you for who you are. You are in fact telling them that you believe they are bad people, so they will not accept you for who you are. So you are actually projecting wicked thoughts into their mind. That if I don't go to the club with my friends, they won't want to hang out with me. If I don't give my friend my last 10 CDs because they asked for it, they will no longer want to be my friend. You are actually projecting negative thoughts into their mind, which makes you wicked for thinking so little of your people. Believe in the people around you that they will accept you for who you are. And guess what? If they won't, then they are not the people for you. And you are just filling a space with the wrong people when the right people are out there for you. I hope this conversation has brought you two steps closer to being the mastermind you deserve to be, and no longer a people pleaser.