I like to get out to watch a lot of movies … if it’s a superhero flick or one with four teenagers being chased in the woods by a deranged killer with an axe, then I’m there.  If it’s a Star Wars movie, even better.

We have a series of commercials that play during the trailers before every movie (here in Canada, at least) where characters warn us about things we shouldn’t be doing once the lights go down.  So Suzie Seat Kicker, Tommy Texter, Harvey Hogger and Sally Soundtrack teach us all about theatre etiquette. We still have our share of people who break those theatre rules, but how bad would it be without these warnings?  Thanks guys.

If this method were carried over to the coaching industry, my vote for the first characters to feature would be Peter and Paula People-Pleaser.  This PSA is desperately needed for coaches. Most people get into coaching because they want to help people.  Most coaches (not all, but a large majority) are nice people, and they want people to like them, and to hire them to help transform their lives.  In a perfect world, they work with the client, everything is rosy and goes smoothly, and they ride off into the sunset together.  Roll credits.

But the real world isn’t like that.  As hard as you try, you’re going to connect with people that just don’t like you (they may not like anybody at all).  And you’re going to run into people who are plain nuts – there’s no avoiding that.

I have a client who is a coach and one of the nicest guys that you’ll ever meet.  A while back he had someone crap all over him and really cross the line with what she was doing to him.  She sent nasty messages, threatened and harassed him and made his life a living hell when she had no right to do that.

He asked me what to do and I told him to stop communicating with her.  Delete her, block her, wipe her out of existence in his life.  She was occupying too much space in his mind and I needed her out of there to keep our momentum going.  The more he tried to make her happy, the crazier she got.  Some people sense weakness, just like animals in the wild do, and she kept pouncing on him.  Since he’s a nice guy, he tried to smooth over the situation but there was nothing he could have done with her.

I suspect that this woman’s actions were similar to other people that she’s dealt with in her life.  If she acted this way with my client, it’s not a stretch to see her flipping out at the dry cleaner for that spot that he couldn’t get out, throwing a fit at a restaurant when the soup is only lukewarm and screaming at the gas attendant for filling up with the wrong type of fuel.

You can’t fix crazy.  So don’t even try.

It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to like you, so you’ll waste a lot of valuable energy even attempting to swing them around.

Take a good, hard look at yourself.  If you’re a people-pleaser, here are a few tips to help with that:

1)Have Firm Standards For Who You’ll Work With

Earlier this year I got into a heated debate in a Facebook group that I’m in after I posted an experience that I had with a potential client.  The potential client that I was speaking with told me that she hadn’t read a book in many years and had no desire to start reading.  I get that some people aren’t readers, and there could be very valid reasons for that, but it’s 2015 and there are such things as audiobooks that can be delivered to your phone in five seconds.  There’s no excuse to not read, and it’s an issue for me since I often recommend books to clients that will help them when we’re working together.

So I decided not to work with her.  If you aren’t willing to make an effort to improve your life, you’re not my ideal client and I’m not going to spend the time that could be better spent with more motivated clients.  When I recounted my thoughts to the Facebook group, most coaches (I’d say about 90%) were supportive and agreed with my position.  However, a handful of coaches took the opportunity to attack me for it.  They called me heartless, judgemental and a bad guy for not wanting to take on this client.  You’d swear that I said “I hate baby kittens”!

I suspect that the coaches who disagreed with me are people-pleasers, who will take on any client that enters into their orbit.  If I were a people-pleaser, I would have worked with that person – but if she’s not the right fit for me, it would have been a bad experience (for both her and I).

2)Be Yourself – Don’t Change Who You Are For Other People

You can still be a people-pleaser while pissing others off.  I interviewed coach Marci Lock on my podcast earlier this year.   Marci is a people-pleaser, but not in the way you’d expect. She’s done very well and has a lot of clients who are pleased with what she’s done to transform their lives.  But Marci doesn’t pander to people or operate in an inauthentic way.

For example, Marci likes to curse.  Her social media posts are filled with F-bombs and a lot of words that offend some people.  Before I hit “record” on the podcast, I asked that she tone it down so she wouldn’t make it difficult for my editor to bleep out all the swearing. She agreed.

So we did the interview, and it went great.  But Marci still cursed about 15 times in a 30 minute interview. After we finish recording, she said to me; “There, are you happy? I kept it clean for you”.  Marci’s version of “clean” is cursing just 15 times instead of 50 times!  But that’s ok – that’s who she is.  So while she’s a little too bold for some people (and she told me she gets her share of haters who don’t appreciate her language), she has a ton of raving fans who love and support her.

Brandon Marshall is another coach who curses all the time.  And he takes controversial positions.  He isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (he’s also shared some of the hate that he gets), but he’s just being himself, and if people don’t like it then he isn’t going to lose any sleep. Why not be yourself and attract the clients who are the right fit for you?

Coaches like Marci and Brandon use authenticity to have more fun while building their businesses and to separate themselves from the pack.

3)Don’t Be a Doormat 

Clients (or anyone that you do business with, for that matter) should treat you with the respect that they want to be treated with. Rants, attacks and rude behaviour shouldn’t be tolerated.

If you take on a problem client, you’re hurting your other clients too.  If you have a terrible session with this client and then you have to hop over to your next one, do you really think you’ll be in the right head space to give 100% to the next client?  No – you’ll be stewing over how you were treated by that person.

How should my client that I mentioned earlier have handled things?  After outburst #1, he should have told that client that her behaviour was unacceptable, and either ended the relationship or given her one warning. That’s it, one warning and then be firm and enforce it.

Take a good look at your business and your life, and ask yourself; “Am I being a people-pleaser?”. Remember that you can still make a lot of people happy while pissing a lot of other people off.  There are over 7 billion people in the world, and you don’t need very many of them to have a business that’s rockin’ and rollin’.

Stop trying to please everyone, life’s too damn short.