When your business or personality is described as “nice”, the person is indirectly telling you that you are lacking in punch or vigor. “Nice” is the word that is resorted to when nothing certain or unique comes to mind. A remarkable product will not be called “nice” by its users, or even by the people that don’t use it. The attitude that you present to others determines whether you or your business is labeled as “nice”, and changing the way you present yourself clears off any chance of being labeled as such.
Start From The Ground Up
A key point is to look to bring about changes in how people perceive you by focusing on your external actions and communications. You should not be looking to change people’s responses directly, as that is dealing with the effects, as opposed to the causes. You have got to bring enthusiasm and force, in order for people to get a sense that you aren’t willing to deal with inconsiderateness. When people realize that you have loads of energy behind your actions, they will not describe you in a generic way, because they will feel the pressure of competition that you are providing.
Take It As A Signal
When someone describes some aspect of your actions as “nice”, it is up to you to use that as a signal that you need to change what you are doing. It is a wake-up call that you are not presenting yourself with enough force to be memorable or listened to. You can see it as a favor that someone pulls out this N-word, because they are giving you instant insight into what you are lacking
Only You Can Make The Switch
A large part of making the switch from being nice to being remarkable, noticed, or relevant, is understanding how others are viewing your efforts. In the competitive domain, someone that is being careful, watching what they say, trying to not intimidate other people, taking less risk to not overshadow others, and items of this nature, is a person that can be forgotten about, because they don’t present a threat. They are to be labeled as “nice”. While some of the more competitive people will feel some sympathy for the nice person that isn’t succeeding in his actions, they will quickly switch back to forgetting about them when the other competitive individuals come into their mind again. This is why you can’t expect anyone else to take you out of the “nice” category but yourself.
How?
You might now be thinking “how can I switch from my current state to a more remarkable state?”. The most powerful way is to educate yourself by thinking in detail about how others are viewing you. Notice their communications, and think about the type of messages they are sending. A powerful tool is to repeat the words and actions of others, who are successful/remarkable, in your own words and actions, to get a feel for what they are thinking. Read what they wrote as though you are presenting it to an audience as your own words. Say what they said to you as though you are saying it to them, and see if you feel more empowered by their behavior than your own usual behavior. After you get a much better sense of the competitive field, as well as what people are thinking, you will have a sense of why you are being called “nice”, or a similar generic word, and will then be bursting with energy to change the way you are perceived by others. This way is most effective because it comes from your foundation, as opposed to from a partial desire that you will then cancel effort on.
Sooner Is Better
The sooner you stop being “nice”, the sooner people will forget that you weren’t remarkable at some time. People will use the fact that you weren’t remarkable before to make the case that your newly remarkable self is a facade, so you need to build up some time as a remarkable individual, in order to leave them less options to use against you. Also, the sooner your become remarkable, the sooner your mindset will be cleared of all the nonsense that you start to think of when you feel like you should be doing something more. All that extraneous thinking and worrying floats away when you feel like you are doing something that has impact and matches your capabilities.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I like this one Armen. I would consider ‘nice’ to be OK for description of some action or part of a description but I see your point about it. I think it depends on how the word is emphasized as well. It’s quite easy to make the word ‘nice’ sound impressive if it is heavily emphasized or exaggerated.
Thanks for that Mike. It sure can be decent in some instances, but could also be replaced by a more specific word. An exaggerated ‘nice’ can be alright if not used often. Specificity is where a lot of enjoyment comes from as well. When something is described as ‘resplendent’, instead of ‘nice’, people can get a much better sense of what about it is valuable. People can talk for days about certain descriptive terms someone used, but they won’t do so when something is described as ‘nice’ or ‘good’ or ‘okay’.