Most of my life, I stayed quiet to keep things calm.
I thought that made me a good person.
It actually made me feel anxious, lonely and, to be honest, a bit of a wimp.
But something happened a while ago that showed me how far I’ve come.
A close friend of mine, Maria, cheated on her boyfriend.
She isn’t a bad person. But she can be emotionally volatile.
The kind of person people walk on eggshells around.
When she told me, something felt deeply wrong.
She wasn’t owning it. She was justifying it. And there was almost no remorse.
“My boyfriend knew this was the kind of person I am.”
“It didn’t mean anything anyway.”
“I had an itch to scratch.”
I was horrified.
And can you imagine if a man tried to use these kinds of justifications for cheating?
The double standards slap you in the face sometimes.
The old “pleaser” Ollie from five years ago would have swallowed his reaction to keep the peace, afraid of her retaliation.
But I didn’t. Not this time.
I told her I was disappointed.
I told her her actions made me trust her less.
And I told her I was disturbed by how casually she was brushing it off.
Yep. She exploded.
She called me a bad friend.
She accused me of judging her and acting “high and mighty.”
She played the victim and called me insensitive.
She made it very uncomfortable.
And while I looked calm on the outside, my inner people pleaser was absolutely freaking out.
Heart racing. Body tense.
Every instinct screaming, “Back down. Smooth it over. Make her happy with you again.”
But I stayed with the truth.
I told her:
“I hear you. But I’m not walking this back, Maria. You fucked up. That doesn’t mean you are a fuck up. We all make mistakes, but it’s how we deal with them. And right now, I don’t like how you’re handling this. I’m walking away from this conversation until we cool down.”
Here’s what most men misunderstand.
A confident man isn’t a man who acts only when he feels calm on the inside.
In fact, I teach my clients to prioritise being courageous over being confident.
Being more courageous will change your life.
But to act courageously isn’t comfortable.
It feels shaky, risky, and like you might lose connection or approval.
I don’t say this from a place of superiority. I say it because I was one.
Most men I work with are not weak.
They were taught to be obedient.
Doing what their boss, their partner, their parents, or their friends expect of them.
They exist to make others comfortable and are told this is what a good man does.
Put up. Shut up. Keep the peace. Do not step out of line. If you do not like it, stuff it down.
But that is not being a good man.
That’s being a pleaser.
Pleasers rarely speak the truth if it might upset someone.
Leaders speak the truth before it is safe.
Not cruelly or explosively.
But calmly and clearly, without self betrayal.
And here’s the paradox.
When you consistently tell the necessary truth, people trust you more.
Even when they don’t like it in the moment.
More importantly, you start to trust yourself.
That’s how you become a man with weight.
A man with boundaries.
A man you actually respect when you look in the mirror.
Maria and I spoke again a few days later.
She acknowledged her mistakes and apologised for how she reacted.
Despite my inner people pleaser panicking at the time, everything was fine.
We were better friends than we were before the argument.
I could tell she respected me more.
And honestly, I felt genuinely proud of how I showed up.
If you know there is a conversation you have been avoiding,
A boundary you haven’t set,
Or a truth you’ve been swallowing to keep the peace,
This is your reminder.
There is no perfect time.
Courage is telling the truth, even when your voice shakes.
If this hit home, buy yourself this book for Christmas and read it.
It will change your life.
Stay courageous,
Oliver