NICE GUYS FINISH LAST
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NICE GUYS FINISH LAST
by Matthew Toffolo
It's better to be honest than nice!
My WILDsound partner, Jen Frankel, once said to me, "You're a good man Matthew Toffolo, but you're most certainly not a nice guy."
Of course I took exception to that, but in hindsight she's right, I'm not a nice guy. And what I've learned the most in 2008 is WHO WANTS TO BE A NICE GUY?
Being nice is by far the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is agree with someone. It's that simple.
Meet someone for the first time and agree with everything they say for 10-15 minutes, then walk away. Go back to them in a week and they will think you're the nicest person in the history of mankind. We humans are that simple. Everyone wants their own yesman in their world and when you are that for them, they think you're nice.
But being nice really doesn't evolve the world does it!
I always remember in grade school when I went back for the new year and worrying who my teacher was going to be. Schools always have those really nice teachers and those really good teachers who don't take any crap from you. Of course, growing up I wanted to get that nice teacher. But of course in reality, my life would of been a whole lot better if I got the good teacher who kicked my ass (not literally) and made sure I did what I was suppose to do every single year.
I now realize what my gifts are in life. When I got the nice teacher, it would take me just the month of September to completely control the room and environment to my benefit. The nice teacher didn't know what hit them because they were alway aiming to please. And when you always aim to please, you fail miserably because someone like me will always take advantage of it.
Even in my own life, I get caught in the madness of people who are trying to please me. When I hire someone, I know I'm looking for that firecracker who likes to question certain things I do. Someone who is willing to stand up for their own beliefs and values. That is the best employee and person someone can find.
And I guess that's the trick of life. As soon as you know your own beliefs and values, and I mean really know them, then you don't care if you're nice to people or not. You want to be honest! And when you're honest, it's when you're a good person.
I learn a lot on Sundays when I watch football. And the #1 thing I learn is that the teams with the coach and quarterback who are the biggest assholes from the fans point of view, are the coaches who win the most.
Take a look at the Dallas Cowboys. A team with by far the most talent in the NFL who did not make the playoffs this year. There are two problems this team has and there's a lot of life lessons in it to what not to do:
1) They have an offensive system and a quarterback who is aiming to please
When you are running anything in life. An office, a film set, you need to have a system in place. And that system runs the show over anything else. Of course people will become upset because some of them won't be able to get the best out of themselves. So what! Tell them to move on then. You must keep your system intact in order to succeed. And not one person can't be bigger than the system.
Dallas has a talented quarterback in Tony Romo who is trying to please all of his skill players, especially Terrell Owens. Terrell Owens is a cancer who is probably the most talented wide receiver ever to play the game. But he takes over a system and makes it his own. So Romo is trying to please Terrell and get the ball to him more, instead of working within the system that's in place. This happens on film sets with actors and directors all the time. The director has a vision and then the successful actor takes over the set. Then the director is aiming to please more than working within the system he designed. He's being too nice.
2) The Cowboys have an owner who hires YESMAN, not people who tell him like it is
A lot of successful people in one field move to another field because they've mastered it and want a new challenge. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has done that. He was brilliant in the oil industry but is not so brilliant in the football industry. Because he wants people to think he's a nice guy, so he hires people who tell him how great he is. Jones doesn't want anyone to challenge him, and if they do, then they're gone.
When the Cowboys won in the 90s, they had Jimmy Johnson and his team running the show. Jones was new in the football world and hired Johnson to run his ship. Then after 5 years and a few championships, Jones wanted control and fired Johnson. Then he hired people who did what he said instead of telling them what was right. The Cowboys now are a team without an identity because Jones wants everyone to be nice to him.
I learned a lot in 2008 and I realized that being nice harms me and the world. You just can't become a better person. And it goes both ways. I want people telling me the truth while I tell them the truth. I'm not saying to be an asshole about it, but to really say what your instincts feel. We all need that disciplined teacher. The one who forces us to do the right things and get the right things done. Those are the people looking back you respect the most. You never respect the nice boss or teacher at the end of the day, do you? Because they aren't teaching you anything that you don't already know.
In mid-2007, I hired a nice guy who turned out to be a poor man. I didn't know what I know now and I thought his niceness and dedication would help out our company. It turned out that he ruined everything he touched.
On the surface and to everyone else, he was the nicest guy in the world. But his actions told you otherwise. He did things that effected others in the worst possible ways. If there was a moral jail, he would be in prison for years. But because he had that smile and was so nice to people, everyone thought he was great.
Those people are the dangerous people of our world. The ones who appear to be such good people but the more you dig, the more you see evil. They are usually narcissists. People who observe the world only inwardly and do things solely for their own benefit. So every action they take is selfish and only serves themselves. But they're NICE people aren't they!
It took my a full year to realize that this guy needed to go. And even when I did, I questioned myself. I had doubt. That's because this guy was so good at fooling you. When you met him in person, he was like a little puppy that you wanted to pet and you kept forgetting that he had a large and forceful bite that could take your arm off. And the closer you got to him, the more likely he would bite.But I learned this year. Nice guys (and girls) finish last in so many ways. The more honest you are, the more good you are. And if you are honest and someone doesn't like you for it, then fuck them, you're better off without them in the long run.
So my partner Jen Frankel was right. I'm not a nice guy. And who wants to be anyway.
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