Originally published as an e-book that became a controversial media phenomenon, No More Mr. Nice Guy! landed its author, a certified marriage and family therapist, on The O'Reilly Factor and the Rush Limbaugh radio show. Dr. Robert Glover has dubbed the "Nice Guy Syndrome" trying too hard to please others while neglecting one's own needs, thus causing unhappiness and resentfulness. It's no wonder that unfulfilled Nice Guys lash out in frustration at their loved ones, claims Dr. Glover. He explains how they can stop seeking approval and start getting what they want in life, by presenting the information and tools to help them ensure their needs are met, to express their emotions, to have a satisfying sex life, to embrace their masculinity and form meaningful relationships with other men, and to live up to their creative potential.

AMAZON REVIEWS

318 of 337 people found the following review helpful
A great book! Highly recommended!
By M. Young on January 9, 2007
Format: Hardcover Amazon Verified Purchase
No More Mr. Nice Guy is a GREAT book However, the title is misleading, the purpose of the book is to boost confidence and help men reclaim power in their lives, it does not make men jerks. The author points out that you are the only person on this planet responsible for your needs, wants, and happiness. By boosting a man's confidence and ensuring the man's needs are met, women are naturally more attractive to these men. The greatest aphrodisiac is self-confidence.

The characteristics of "Nice Guys" are men who have difficulty setting boundaries in relationships with women and become doormats. The men often feel as helpless victims and seeing another person as the cause of problems. Many nice guys live life trying to gain approval for others.

Many nice guys did not have their needs met as boys. As a coping mechanism to try to get their needs met, they try to be nice. Later in life, Nice Guys apply the skills learned as a boy in dealing with women - by being nice - it does not work. When being nice does not work, the Nice Guys try to be even nicer.

Men need to set healthy boundaries in relationships with women. Avoiding conflicts in relationships is problematic - Women do not feel safe with a man they know they can push around. A woman wants to know you will stand up to her. That is how she will feel secure in the relationship. There is a catch - she has to test to see if she can trust you. When you set a boundary, she may strongly test and push against the boundary. She will tell you that you are wrong for having the boundary and do her best to find out if the boundary is for real. Generally, when women feel secure, they feel loved. When a man stands up to a woman, she believes he will likely stand up for her. Setting boundaries creates respect and makes women feel secure and feel loved.

Around 50%+ of marriages end in divorce and usually the mother has primary custody. This places the boy in a subservient position to women and minimizes the father's influence. The mother has a profound influence in upbringing of the boy. Mothers teach their daughters to be more independent and teach their sons to be "nice boys" - dependent on women's approval. During the formative years (0-5 years), most of the boy's school teachers are women, so they learn to be subservient to women. The boy must be nice to gain the teacher's approval and earn good grades. In essence, most of the boy's power figures are women and he must be nice to win their approval. Nice guys learn that their needs are not important or having needs contrary to the women's needs is bad, so they try to please others and become miserable in the process. They become wimps, doormats, nice guys - whatever to avoid conflict in relationships and try to make their women happy.

During the formative years, when a boy set boundaries with either his mother or female teachers - he was taught that it was alright to have those boundaries violated. Later in life these boys grow to become men, but use the outdated strategy developed in childhood to deal with women - by being nice and trying to make women happy at any cost. Since Nice Guys learned to sacrifice themselves in order to survive, recovery must center on learning to put themselves first and making their needs a priority. That's what this book is about.

There were 27 reviews on the book; I read all of them before buying the book. I also read the 3 new reviews since receiving and reading the book. A book of this nature cannot please everyone - it will save some relationships and bury some relationships that have been long dead. Depending upon your life upbringing, the book will either apply to you or not. Since I started reading the book, I have been raving about it. Get this book. I bought a second copy to send to a friend. I even recommended friend who is a single mother raising a son to get this book.


163 of 175 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Life-changing, September 28, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy (Hardcover)
So far, reviewers aren't doing this book justice. I picked it up six months ago and was amazed at how well it described my plight as a "nice guy" (a.k.a. codependent). I've read stacks of self-help books, but this one stands above the rest. I mean it, it stands out, by far. And several guys I know who've read the book feel the same way.
This book fully described what I've been going through, told me how things got to be this way, and gave me concrete steps on how to change things. Since I've read it, my life has improved, I feel better, more powerful, and people are responding to me in a new way. If you're a guy walking through life feeling frustrated that you don't get the love, respect, and sex you deserve, you owe it to yourself to read this book.


44 of 49 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Sound psychology, August 15, 2005
By Richard O'Connor (author, Undoing Depression. Lakeville, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy (Hardcover)
A patient of mine found this book and raved about it, so I bought it for myself. The author has found and described a very common pattern of 21st century male behavior: the man who thinks that to reveal his own needs will drive others away. Glover minces no words in pointing out that this pattern makes you dishonest and manipulative (only telling others what they want to hear) and leaves you ultimately full of repressed rage. His advice about what to do is very straightforward, and the book well written. I'm recommending it to many of my depressed male patients.


40 of 45 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A good book, by any standard., March 4, 2004
By Arcaeris - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy (Hardcover)
No More Mr. Nice Guy was the perfect book for me. As a former Nice Guy who was depressed and suicidal for many years, this book changed (and possibly saved) my life.
A lot of it is not for everyone. The book very specifically it targets males who seek approval from others (mostly women) for all the wrong reasons, and seeks to help them overcome this unhealthy behavior. Part of the book describes common approval-seeking behaviors, part of it goes into the (mostly Freudian) psychology behind why the author thinks that some men behave this way, and part of the book gives exercises with which to help Nice Guys get over their problem and get what they want from life. There are plenty of real-men examples, too, to compare yourself against.

One of the fundamental premises behind being a Nice Guy is that you feel that something is inherently wrong with you and your life and there is something that you must do or find or something out there that will make your life work somehow. If that describes the way you think, by all means buy this book. If not, you can still get some good use out of the common approval-seeking behaviors and psychology stuff. It's interesting to see how many people out there really do things for approval.

The method to get over it works, if you can make yourself do it. It's not an easy thing to deal with. I know.


43 of 49 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Why Being a Nice Guy is not necessarily �nice.�, February 3, 2003
By Clifton (Belmont, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy (Hardcover)
I own both the PDF and the soft cover versions of the book. `Just glanced at the reviews as I was checking on the hard cover version. As is frequently the case when reading reviews of books you have read you wonder if some others have read the same book!
Some of the misunderstanding, I suspect, comes from the concepts and definitions of "Nice Guy." If you define, "Nice Guy" as Dr. Glover does (and/or notices how he defines his terms) then you may be more inclined to understand and/or accept his hypothesis. In the years prior to my becoming aware of and acquiring Dr. Glover's book I paid particular interest to the Internet Newsgroup discussions of the "Nice Guy" vs. "The Jerk" in social relations (singles in particular) . Through at the very least several hundred if not one or two thousand messages I could see that the various comments and exchanges (some shall we say "heated") were closing in on "something." That something was not very clear, but the concept of a "Good Guy" vs. the "Nice Guy" started to emerge. I think what the discussion groups were coming close to hitting on is what Dr. Glover calls the "Integrated Man."

Dr. Glover does not claim to have discovered some new psychological phenomenon as far as I can tell. Rather, he noticed, documented and analyzed the thoughts and behaviors of some the men in his practice. Having noticed a common thread of thoughts and behaviors which seem to be limiting the productivity and happiness of the men (and their families) he was dealing with he went about working on developing a means of describing the thought processes behind them and how to deal with them.

If you substituted, "Man or Person engaged in thoughts and behaviors which self limit personal happiness and productivity" for "Nice Guy..." You might have a more properly descriptive title for the book (and a greater challenge fitting it on the cover). Through example and explanation of various clients Dr. Glover discusses the various beliefs he thinks drive certain "Nice Guy" behaviors like excessive self-sacrifice; giving with the hidden agenda (covert contracts as he calls them) of getting something; not taking responsibility for fulfilling your own needs like a responsible adult, etc.

Some resistance to the book could very well be due to the title. After all, who would think "being nice" is not a good thing?? Perhaps another alternate title for the book could be "How to be an AUTHENTICALLY Nice Guy who is true to himself and the people around him."

Once the operating concepts (or paradigms) of "Nice Guys" and their respective outward manifestations are identified; he goes about explaining how such thoughts and behaviors could have come about. Then he leads you through a series of exercises, distributed throughout the book, to help you overcome those self-limiting beliefs and behaviors.

No More Mr. Nice Guy is not a perfect book. I quibble with some of the explanations or origins of some of the behaviors or beliefs he gives. The outward happiness and productivity limiting behaviors tend to be right on target however! At no point does he promise a "quick fix" or instant success. He does do an excellent job of providing insight and suggestions for improvement.

Many books can enhance your personal productivity and happiness. Which one or ones is/are right for you is almost totality dependent on your personal needs, experience, and current knowledge. Many books came before this one in my life. Another favorite is Play to Win by Wilson and Wilson. If a person (certainly not really limited to "guys") finds themselves searching for information to help understand their feeling and results in life (especially if you have been told many times you're a "Nice Guy") then No More Mr. Nice Guy is an EXCELLENT book to check out and compare to your own experience. I think you will find insight into parts of your life you may not have even thought to look into!


20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars I had some questions answered by this book, August 11, 2003
By Kenneth Collins (Overland Park, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy (Hardcover)
I have known for some time that many of the paradigms that I have grown up with and that I hold today weren't correct but never before have I found a book that offers such a complete explanation of why my ideas of how the world works are flawed. Dr. Glover offers a professional explanation of what is missing in so many men's lives today.


25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars MANY PSYCHOTHERAPY CLIENTS NEED THIS BOOK, February 7, 2003
By Anne S. Hastings "Anne Stirling Hastings" (Camarillo, California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy (Hardcover)
As a therapist, I have seen guilt ridden male clients open up and claim their change process after reading No More Mr. Nice. Guy. The level of guilt and shame imposed by our culture, which views men as bad and women as good, prevents many men from stepping into their lives, becoming successful, and not being manipulated by women. Therapists with such men as clients can find their work moving much faster once clients have read this book. I have had many who read it several times, with much underlining and high lighting.


21 of 24 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendously important book, April 26, 2005
By A reader "A reader" (San Bruno, California United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: No More Mr Nice Guy (Hardcover)
This book is not for everyone. But if you are one of the men it speaks to, it can change your life.

Our society, I believe, is tremendously hard on men. It teaches us that we are basically brutes, that we must have a woman if we are to be valid and complete, and for some of us, convinces us that the only real way to survive, and to get what you need, is to be a pleaser -- a harmless, obliging, degraded nice person. I live in a nice suburb of San Francisco, and it's amazing how many of the men here have been demasculinized -- it's like they've lost their spark, or their nerve, or something vital, and they labor endlessly to insure that everyone approves of them by being nice guys.

The answer to this is to understand the secret deals you've made with the world -- if I'm nice enough, you'll respond in kind, and I will not make my needs known clearly. Instead, I'll just kind of hope I get taken care of if you like me enough.

As just one example, there was a recent episode of Oprah featuring a bunch of mothers who clearly, and unashamedly, announced to the entire world, that they loved their children far more than their husbands, and that that was fine. And their husbands put up with this. Most men do. We accept what the book calls "table scraps" because we're so neutered, misled and filled with shame that we believe our needs aren't important. In some ways, this is even rewarded, viewed as heroic. It isn't. It's a disease. And this book shines a light on it. Which is the first, and most important, step towards a cure.

This book reveals all that, and for those of us who suffer from this tendency, makes all the difference in the world.