4 Uncomfortable Lessons Every Nice Guy Needs to Learn (If He Wants to Grow Up) - This Is What Changed My Life (And Why Most Men Never Learn It) l EP. 40 l

Most men are doing the work — reading the books, listening to the podcasts, grinding away —
 But still feeling stuck.

In this episode, I share 4 of the most powerful (and confronting) lessons that transformed how I show up as a man — from insecure, anxious and reactive…
to calm, grounded, and clear in who I am and where I’m going.

This isn’t theoretical. These are the tools, frames and shifts I personally used to:

• Rebuild my confidence from the ground up
• Regulate my nervous system and stop blowing up over nothing
• Stop outsourcing validation and learn to lead myself first
• Start seeing conflict, discomfort, and life’s chaos as my greatest training ground

You’ll learn:

1. Why everything is your fault (and that’s the best news ever)
2. How to use your triggers as teachers instead of excuses
3. The one breathwork habit that changed how I handle stress and sleep
4. Why your actions create confidence — not affirmations or empty mantras

This episode will reframe how you see your problems — and give you a new way to move through life as a stronger, more grounded man.

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Or if you want more personalised help to step out of the nice guy & into the masculine presence you're capable of - faster,

Apply for 1:1 coaching HERE

Find me on Instagram @theelitefather

Transcript

Harrison Orr (00:01.854)
This is four fundamental lessons that have changed my life for...

These are four of the biggest lessons that have contributed to my over...

Harrison Orr (00:14.652)
Here are four of the biggest lessons that have changed my level of fulfillment, my mindset, and my overall growth in life.

Harrison Orr (00:28.104)
These are some of the biggest lessons that I've learned that have contributed to my fulfillment, my mindset, and my overall personal growth in life in the last five years.

Harrison Orr (00:38.802)
Welcome back to another episode of the Be Better podcast. I'm your host, Harrison Ohr. I've coached almost 500 men to have more energy, more presence, more power so that they can lead themselves, their families and their business with more clarity and direction. In this episode, I want to share a few of the biggest lessons that I've learned in the last few years that have massively contributed to me growing out of that nice guy stage, growing out of that

maybe immature, stressed, anxious, know, looking for external validation kind of space that I was in, always stressed, always anxious, always reactive. And the biggest changes that have got me to the point now where I can self-regulate, I can handle conflict, I can handle when things don't go my way. And it's allowing me to not only do this for myself and for my family, but also...

showing hundreds of other guys how to do this as well. And I had to reflect on some of these things as to what were the biggest changes, because some were physical changes, some were more mindset and perspective changes, like the way that I was seeing things, the way that I was reacting to things or seeing certain situations and ultimately changed my map of the world, right? If you're familiar with NLP, there's a presupposition that

It says like the map is not the terrain, right? Which basically means the map is not the same as the physical terrain. So my map of the world, the way that I view it is not fact, right? It's not a hundred percent fact. It's just my perception of the world in the same way that your map of the world is not a hundred percent true. It's true for you, but it's not reality because we have so many different biases that we see the world through. We have all these emotional biases. We have these filters that we run.

our brain subconsciously runs through the world as to what's worth remembering, what's worth deleting, what's worth distorting, what's worth generalizing, like all these different things, right? So many factors that come into this. And being able to slowly loosen my grip on what I thought was the reality or at least my map of the world has enabled me to expand that way of thinking and not be so narrow-minded in the way that I...

Harrison Orr (03:04.05)
respond to things, view things, think about things and has helped me to grow exponentially because of that. And so the first one, which some people are gonna get triggered by this and this is gonna upset some people. So let me explain the first one. Everything is my fault and it's my responsibility. This is coming from Jocko Willink. So if you haven't heard of him, go check him out.

phenomenal for discipline ex US special forces, Navy SEALs, I think it was. And he talks about discipline and ownership, extreme ownership. And where this comes from essentially is especially as nice guys, we like to blame other people. We like to place our blame. And when we think about blame, I also want you to add power to that as well. So whoever we blame, we give our power to.

So if I'm blaming this person, I'm giving them the power of my emotions of the situation. And so the frame of everything is my fault. Everything in my life is my fault. The way that I'm feeling, my fault. The financial situation, I'm in, my fault. The state of my relationship, my fault. Everything, my fault. Because everything in life, we have either...

intentionally orchestrated, like I've taken an intentional action to do or to not do something, or I've simply allowed it, right? I've allowed this standard to be in my life or I've allowed this person, this situation to unfold and I haven't done anything about it. And what we don't change, choose. When we see things in our life that we don't put a stop to, that we don't go out and actively change,

We are allowing. And so while some people might argue like, well, I didn't choose that. I didn't make that happen, but you allowed it. We didn't go and say like, no, I'm not standing for that. I'm not allowing that. Right? Some people like, an example, speaking to a lot of guys that resonate with the nice guy traits at the moment, and that's showing up in their relationship.

Harrison Orr (05:27.184)
some guys are just, it's kind of fizzling out. Other people have been cheated on or know, vice versa. And in that situation, you know, some people take the partner back. Some people don't. I'm not going to get into that right now. It's personal preference for you and your situation. But at the end of the day, if you stay with your partner, you've to own, you've allowed that to happen. You've allowed this to happen. Some people will say like, no, that's something I'm not standing for. I will not allow that. And they will

and the relationship, no matter how many kids, no matter what they've got tied together like, no cool, that's a boundary you do not cross, you crossed it, get out. Other people will allow that. Right? And so everything in your life, you have either orchestrated or you've allowed. And so the intent here is not to say, it's all my fault, I'm a piece of shit and you know, I'm going to do the self-deprecating route. It's my fault, I'm blaming myself.

And what was the phrase that we just said? Where we point blame, we give the power. So I'm taking back that power. Like I blame myself, it's my fault. You know what? Now I have the power to do something about it. Because if I'm the one that created this situation, I'm the one that can create the solution. I'm the one that can get out of it. Keeping in mind that the same level of thinking that created the problem won't be the same level of thinking that creates the solution, granted, but you have the power to

go and seek support, go and seek new information, go and seek a mentor, go and do something different to change that level of thinking so you can find the solution. And so this frame was massively about taking back that power of my confidence, of my self-worth, of my situation, and being able to then go and do something about it. there's, when we're nice guys,

very often we're also stuck in victimhood too. Like we're the nice guy, we do everything for everybody else, but we're the ones that suffer. well it's their fault that I'm not like this. They didn't do this for me. They didn't do that for me. It's like, well, fuck, go do it for yourself. Right? Cause we're expecting those things to come back to us because we're quote unquote nice guys. And so that's how that frame massively helped me in bringing back that confidence, that power.

Harrison Orr (07:55.89)
And so all these traits are gonna be related, relatable to nice guys, right? Because as nice guys, we have a lot of the same experiences. We lack that power because we give it away, because we're waiting for other people to validate us. We're waiting for other people to tell us we're a good boy or that we're worthy, that we deserve things. We often get triggered by certain things because we bottle our emotions until one thing kind of sets us off. We suppress everything. We don't express our emotions healthily. So there's not a lot of trust there in ourself or with other people.

and we lack confidence, right? Again, that's why we're seeking external validation and all these other things. So these frames are about bringing that back, right? Everything that we've pushed externally, it's like, I'm taking that power back. You know what? I'm determining my confidence and my self-worth. You know what? I'm doing this for me. I'm controlling my emotions. I'm not being the thermometer and going here, there and everywhere because of your state. I'm the-

that regulates my state and my emotions and then by consequence my space. And if you want to step into that, that's amazing, but I'm not shifting.

And so.

That's the first one. Probably the biggest one of, actually no, I'll let you decide that. So first of all, everything is my fault and it's my responsibility. So if you're in a state right now that you're not happy with, awesome. It's your fault, acknowledge that, fucking own it. And then now it's your responsibility to go do something about it. And that leads me into the second one because the reason a lot of people will get triggered by a statement like that or get triggered in general.

Harrison Orr (09:36.348)
is because there's something that we have not owned, right? There's something that there's a part of you, if you're getting triggered, that believes that it is true. Because think about it this way, if you have a wonderful hairstyle like I do, and someone says like, Harrison, you look like a fucking idiot with that blue mohawk.

I'm gonna be like, like it's not gonna affect me because I know that I don't have a blue mohawk. I'm like either you're on drugs, my friend and saying something pretty whack that I do not see or like there's something else going on. Cause I'm not saying this. when, and this is the second lesson. The trigger is the teacher. And this is a much higher level of consciousness and awareness because

It takes a high degree of self-regulation to be able to sit in a trigger, to be triggered and actually work through it and be able to process it without getting reactive, defensive. And especially as a nice guy, whenever I got triggered, that's what would happen. I would get reactive. I would take it personally. I would feel attacked. I would, well, yeah, but you, or I would deflect it or I would justify it or, you know, push it away.

there was no ownership, was no self-reflection, was no... actually questioning why is this creating that level of emotional response? Like, my wife saying this does not justify the amount of emotion I'm feeling right now, this level of frustration that's just evoked in my chest right now. And so when we look into that trigger,

as to what is it trying to teach me? I've been able to find a lot of parts of myself that I have not owned yet. Find a lot of traits that I have not owned yet that I have maybe not proud of. Or another big one is like incongruencies. So incongruencies between who I say I am and the identity that I align with and between maybe traits of me or actions that somebody else is calling out or

Harrison Orr (11:58.76)
things that I've said I've done, I would do, sorry, but have not done yet. So again, in congruency. And so instead of deflecting those things, be able to sit like, okay, is it true? First and foremost, this question, is whatever they're saying true? And if you run through the 142 traits, the list that I've got to own all these, you'll be able to find like, yes, it is true in some capacity.

Yes, it is true that I've been a narcissist. Yes, it is true that I've been an asshole. Yes, it is true that I've been aggressive, that I've been these things. And when you can own that like truly, and someone says that and just be like, yeah, I know.

Harrison Orr (12:48.338)
conversation takes a completely different turn. Especially if there's someone that's used to you getting defensive, reactive, defending it, justifying it, and you're like, yeah, you're right.

Harrison Orr (13:02.812)
that argument is dead. Now we can go into constructive territory of like, okay, where do we go from here? Right? And you get to lead rather than being reactive to this. Then after I've owned that, still feeling triggered. Sorry, it's true. What haven't I owned? Cause now I get to shine the spotlight onto something that maybe I haven't quite owned yet or

thing that I'm not acknowledging, something that I'm leaving in the dark that I don't want to look at as a part of me, as a trait, as an insecurity of mine. And again, I get to learn from it.

I have a mentor and one of his sayings is, you know, he's not on social media too much anymore, but he used to say, if someone triggered me on social media, he got to a point where he's like, I know I'm going to work with that person eventually. Like he would, he'd know that eventually he would go and do their course or seek mentoring from them or just work with them in some capacity. Cause he's like, they've got something to teach me. There's something about this person that fucking triggers me. That means this is a fucking big lesson there. I'm not saying that's a guide for everyone that you need to work with.

but it allows tying into the first one my emotion, my fault, my responsibility. So why am I feeling like this? And so a good frame that I really like about being triggered, if we use the analogy of like a gun, An event, a person, a word, something really pulls the trigger and sets us off is often what happens.

You know, it's often a bigger explosion if you're a nice guy, because you've been suppressing a whole lot of shit. And most people will try and remove the trigger, right? They will avoid that situation. They will ask that person, please don't say that to me. Please don't call me that, whatever it is. But if we're trying to remove the trigger, then again, we're focusing on external circumstances. It's like, well,

Harrison Orr (15:04.926)
As long as this person doesn't say this, long as my kids don't complain, as long as my wife doesn't call me this, as long as this person doesn't do that, again, we're giving our power away to external circumstances. Bringing it back, what else sets that off? Well, it's the ammunition in the chamber, right? If you can pull the trigger all you fucking like, but if there's nothing, there's no bullets in the chamber, there's nothing gonna go off. And so instead of focusing on the trigger,

take the ammo out of the cartridge. And then so what that looks like again is owning all those traits, looking at where is it true, which is almost the same and also regulating your nervous system so that we can actually hear what they're saying, respond and deal with it from a calm level head rather than just going into reactive mode and biting off the head going into attack mode.

Harrison Orr (16:04.446)
The is the teacher.

Harrison Orr (16:10.024)
So as a quick example, you can pause the episode if you like, if you want to have a bit of think about this. Think about the last time you were triggered or think about something that frequently triggers you. Maybe it's a situation with your kids. Maybe it's, you know, when they, scream and they cry and they get, they get frustrated. You know, why is that triggering you? Maybe you don't have control of the situation. Maybe it's representation of you because they can't control their emotions and you can't control yours either, especially when they're like that. So

That's just a perfect mirror as kids often are. Or something your partner says. Think about it now. You know, it's much easier to do this when you're not in the heat of the moment. Because when we're in the heat of the moment, it's quite hard, it can be quite hard without practice to control those emotions. Because as emotions go up, logic goes down. So we want to do this when we've got a bit more control. So think about it now. What was the last thing that triggered you?

Why did it trigger me? And don't blame someone else. Don't say, well, because she did this and she did this. I said, no, no, we're focusing on you right now. Why did it trigger you? Was it true?

was something that they said to you true? Was there an element of truth that you believe? Because if you don't believe it, then it shouldn't upset you, right?

Harrison Orr (19:02.297)
I testing, testing.

Harrison Orr (19:14.779)
Testing, testing.

Harrison Orr (19:27.825)
So we've got clear out there. so looking into that, because that'll help you identify parts of you that haven't, you haven't owned and will massively help your progress in your understanding of yourself and the world.

Harrison Orr (19:49.691)
All right, number three is a bit more physical. Not so much a mindset in this one, but again, ties into that regulation, but more in the physical system. The power of the breath, right? It's something that we all take for granted. It's something that most of us don't even do very well. That's why we have sleep apnea. That's why we're always stressed. We're stuck in the fight or flight mode. We're always anxious. It's because we don't know how to breathe. Like we do it.

automatically, because thank God it's part of our autonomic nervous system, not something that we have to actively think about doing. Otherwise, most of us, myself included, would be fucking dead by now. But the power of our breath in regulating our state, in controlling and shifting our state, right? Our breath will determine if we're in fight or flight mode, rest and digest mode. So if we're calm, neutral, relaxed, or if we're strung out, stressed,

high-end cortisol burnt out all the things. how we can do this, if you're not too familiar with any forms of breath work or haven't looked into this before, a simple, I'm not gonna go into it too much. I might go into it a later episode, but just to give you the lowdown, ideally we wanna be breathing through our nose into our diaphragm. So our mouth is not made for breathing. mouth is made for communicating, for eating and...

Maybe breathing if you're going sprinting or going hard out. But 99 % of the time, we should be breathing through our nose. Even when we're sleeping, during the day, everything. Most people breathe through their mouth. Breathing through our nose, couple reasons. A, we've got the little hairs in our nose, which act as filters. It helps to clear out any shit that we don't really wanna be breathing in. It helps to change the temperature of the air so it makes it easier for our lungs.

we can absorb, I think it's about 20 % more oxygen by breathing through our nose and by breathing through our nose and again down into our diaphragm, not into our chest, again signals to our nervous system to activate the parasympathetic side, which is again our rest and digest, calming things down. Even if you just like practice it now, breathe through your mouth and into your chest, short and shallow.

Harrison Orr (22:12.155)
Sounds like a fat kid walking up a hill, right? Or someone about to have an anxiety attack. One of the two. Either way, it's not good. So we wanna be breathing through our nose, deep into our diaphragm, and slower. So the more we can also focus on our exhale.

Harrison Orr (22:33.723)
making our exhale longer than our inhale, again, reinforcing that parasympathetic nervous system. So on a micro level, every inhale is up and stress, every exhale is down and relaxation. And so I never used to put any thought into that. Like I wasn't conscious of my breath. I wasn't conscious of how that was influencing my moods, my emotions, my level of reactivity. And think of it this way. If we're always breathing through

our mouth into our chest. We're always in that fight or flight response. That chance of reactivity when something doesn't go our way, when we get triggered is infinitely higher because we're already at a simmering level of stress. That's like going from simmering to boiling. it takes, it goes real fast. But if we're in that calm, controlled, and just to be clear, I used to think that that calm, relaxed state was lazy, was lethargic, was docile, was like things like that. Not at all.

I've come to learn the ideal state for me, least anyway, moving through my day is calm, focused and energized. And they might seem counterintuitive for some people. You're like calm, but energized. Focused, but calm. Like how can I be all of those at once? Again, coming back to the presence, coming back to in your body, calm and controlled. We can be.

through that breath, through proper oxygen, through regulating our state. And so when we're in situations where we feel things getting out of control, I feel like I'm getting a little bit emotional right now, like my anger or my frustration is rising. I feel like I'm getting triggered. Now I just remember to breathe.

and then I'm able to just bring myself back down, decide on again, through those triggers, ask myself those questions or actually communicate a lot more effectively and be in the moment. I'm being present with the person that I'm with, cause I'm actually able to, you know what? Take a breath.

Harrison Orr (24:42.031)
and then I can listen, not just hear them. I'm not just like hearing their words and then like waiting and formulating a response, waiting to talk back to them. I'm actually sitting there listening, absorbing what they're saying, not just the words, but also the feelings connected to them so that we can have a deeper understanding and a deeper connection and communication rather than just surface level, just noise shooting at each other's heads.

Harrison Orr (25:09.509)
And that's where I think that that breath is massively powerful. If you're someone that struggles with poor sleep, with poor stress, you're overthinking, you're overwhelmed, you're like all these things, literally just putting a five minute breath practice in your morning and your evening routine will change your life. It will change your mood, change your sleep, change your energy, change like fucking everything. Simple one that you can do for that five minutes is what's called a physiological sigh. So again, going through the nose, deep inhale as much as you can.

Once you've done that, one more inhale, just top up those lungs and then nice slow exhale as long as you can. And then once you've finished exhaling, just sit there for a second and then you probably feel a sense of peace before you inhale again. That's the only time when our diaphragm and our lungs are fully relaxed after that exhale and then go again. Long, deep, full.

Inhale through the nose and then top it up again and then exhale through your mouth. Have that on repeat for five minutes, morning and night. Guarantee you, you will feel your stress change. You will feel a difference in your body, in your mind and everything. And it's actually the only style of breath work so far that has been scientifically proven not only to lower your stress and calm your body and mind at the time of application,

Because realistically, most tiles of breath work or there's a lot of things that would actually do that whilst you're doing it. But for most of them, as soon as you then go back into the office or you go back to that situation that was triggering you, stressing you out, you then, cool, where were we? Right back to where we were. And then you just kick back off. And then you're really no better off. This has actually been shown to help keep that parasympathetic nervous system engaged in that calm, relaxed state for much longer throughout the day. And it's gonna help you get a deeper sleep.

Pro tip as well, nasal strips and a mouth tape can be really beneficial while you're trying to sleep to again, reinforce breathing through your nose so you can get more oxygen in so you can get a deeper sleep, more restful so you can actually wake up with clarity, with more energy, without the fog or anything like that.

Harrison Orr (27:31.761)
All right, we've got one more to get through. Sorry, my son was at the door. We've got one more to get through then we are done with this. Fuck your affirmations. Fuck trying to, you know, imposter your way into a new state. Especially as nice guys, a lot of the time we lack confidence, we lack the ability to lead, we lack all these things. And we think if we just, some people just say like, oh, just say the mantras, just tell yourself this, just fake it till you make it, all that stuff.

Just create fucking proof. Create proof that you are who you say you are, that you have the ability to do what you say you're do. And at first, that's not gonna feel comfortable, right? The frame that has massively helped me around this in creating this confidence, in creating all the traits that I have, that I'm building, that I want to have, is everything is an opportunity. When we think of the traits that we wanna have, as parents we...

probably like to have patience, that's pretty useful. We want to have probably flexibility too, in terms of the way that we handle our day because kids don't know how to read a calendar. Quite rude, to be honest, but it is what it is. We want to have strength. Maybe you want to have stoicism. Maybe you want to have grit or discipline, determination, whatever it is. If that's not something that you have in spades right now, think of life and the situations that you get faced with as opportunities to earn that trait.

I like the way that Alex Hormozi phrases this when he talks about this. He's like, if you were sitting with the creator, God, source, whoever you believe in, before you were born, and he was like, cool, what kind of man do want to be? And you get to choose. I want to be strong. Do you think he's going to give you an easy life? No. He's going to give you tasks and opportunities to prove that strength. I want to have patience. Awesome.

He's gonna give you a screaming kid after you've had one hour sleep and like you've got deadlines due that day and you've got shit to do. Awesome. He's gonna fucking test you.

Harrison Orr (29:41.935)
I wanna be controlled, regulated. Awesome. He's gonna fucking test you. He's gonna send people to trigger you, give you opportunities to prove that. And so again, this comes back to our self control and like, we have the power. Everything is an opportunity to prove you are who you say you are. If you want to have confidence, go do the things that would make you confident. Start little, right? When we think about it, confidence, the way I define it,

It's just your belief in the ability to do something, in your ability to do something, your ability to keep your word. Most guys have no confidence, rightfully so, because they are not impeccable with their word, because they say they're do something and they don't fucking do it. Little things around the house, yeah, I'll do that later. Like shit like washing up the mugs in the sink. Shit like getting the car serviced or doing that task within the business.

that they haven't done. yeah, I need to update that website. I need to do that. Yeah, yeah, I'll do that later. And it just never gets done. It's because you are creating cognitive dissonance between what you say you'll do and what you actually do. And so when it comes to bigger tasks, your mind has no confidence in you because it has no track record of you doing the shit that you said you were gonna do. So why would this be any different? So start with the little things. Do what you say you're gonna do at the time of doing them. And then that progresses into more self-confidence.

again that you'll be able to navigate life and be sure of yourself that you'll figure it out.

any trait that you do not have to the level that you would like at the moment. Look for the opportunities in life where you get to earn that, where you get to prove it. And especially in your relationship, if it's not where you want it to be, stop waiting for her to change and look at everything as an opportunity. Awesome. This is an opportunity for me to lead. This is an opportunity for me to stay grounded.

Harrison Orr (31:46.063)
not get reactive. This is an opportunity for me to do this. And seeing the world that way becomes much less stressful and much more exciting, right? Think about it this way. If you're in business, if you have a day of sales calls, for example, right? Potential clients and...

You're like, my God, I have to talk to all these people. They're so fucking idiots. They're this, they're that. It's a drain. I don't have time for this. I'd rather be doing this, whatever. Is that gonna be helpful for you? No. Like, does that serve anybody? What's the likelihood of you having a positive interaction with these people? With you helping these people, with these people signing up as clients or you creating a partnership or whatever the desired outcome is. Probably not very high. On the flip side,

These are all opportunities for me to get better at sales, me to positively impact someone's life, for me to grow my business, for me to make money, for me to earn this trait or this thing that I said I wanted.

everything is an opportunity if you choose to see it or so.

Harrison Orr (33:01.135)
And so even the shit times, opportunity. Have you ever had something quite bad happened that because of that scenario or that situation, something positive, great even, that you did not foresee happening, happened.

probably plenty of times. Like how many times has someone, have you been broken up with or maybe had a relationship that ended, felt like the worst thing ever and then you met someone who was your soulmate. You met the next person you met, you got married to.

Maybe you had a business that died. There was fraudulent behavior, you went bankrupt, shit happened. But then the next business you started took to the moon.

lessons and create opportunities. One door closes, another door opens. So many different frames around this. Again, it's the way that we choose to see the world. And so what is the opportunity in this allows us to go into it with a different level of thinking and a different level of energy, right? Because if you're going into something with like, fuck, I really don't want to do this. I hate this. You're going to do the bare minimum.

and probably learn nothing from it and gain nothing from it. But if you're like, cool, there's a lesson for me. What is the lesson for me from this? Let's go find that. go do that. there it is. That's how you level up 1 % every fucking day.

Harrison Orr (34:42.725)
And so there are four of the lessons that have massively transformed the way I think, the way that I handle myself, the way that I move through life that have massively contributed to my growth over the last five, seven years. And so I hope that is helpful for you. At least one of them is. And if they are, I'd love to hear which one resonated with you the most and which one you're actually gonna implement, which one you're going to change.

either maybe you implement some of the breath work stuff, maybe you just change the way that you think and by consequence change the way that you action things as well. Because think about it, even if your mindset changes, but your actions don't, we haven't really changed anything. Our reality will stay the same. It's the actions that follow as a result of the way that we see the world. So even if we change the way that we think, we might feel a little bit less stressed, but if it doesn't change our actions, then we're still in the same position. So we want to change both.

Harrison Orr (35:43.045)
And so with that, like always, if you found this helpful, then give this a like, subscribe to the podcast. Don't be sorry, be better. If you come into the Nice Guy Masterclass, I will see you in a couple of weeks. Otherwise, see you next episode.