# 294. Why 'Must Be Nice' Is the Most Dangerous Thing You Can Say to Yourself

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/on-your-terms-4083141/294-why-must-be-nice-is-the-most-dangerous-thing-you-can-say-to-yourself
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/on-your-terms-4083141/294-why-must-be-nice-is-the-most-dangerous-thing-you-can-say-to-yourself.md
Podcast: [On Your Terms®](https://stenobird.com/podcast/on-your-terms-4083141)
Published: 2026-06-22T09:30:00+00:00
Episode link: https://samvanderwielen.com
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/bc1129ed-94e2-4efb-82b5-25c08075bed7.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/on-your-terms-4083141/episodes/294-why-must-be-nice-is-the-most-dangerous-thing-you-can-say-to-yourself
Duration seconds: 1565

## Resource

“Must be nice.” It sounds harmless. Like a throwaway comment, a passing thought, something you mutter when you see someone doing something you wish you could do. But I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think that little phrase is one of the most dangerous things you can say to yourself as a business owner. Because here’s what it’s actually doing: it’s letting you off the hook. It’s a quiet way of deciding something doesn’t apply to you before you’ve even given yourself the chance to find out if it could. And I’ve been getting a lot of these comments lately, in my DMs, in the comments, in the tone behind the questions I get, and I finally needed to say something about it. Not to call anyone out. I’ve thought it too. But because I think the story underneath “must be nice” is costing you more than you realize, and I don’t think it’s actually true. In this episode, I’m getting honest about what people don’t see: why the nos and the boundaries came before the revenue, what really shifted the way I run my business (hint: it wasn’t hitting a certain income number), and what it looks like to start building a business on your own terms right now, wherever you are. In this episode, you'll hear… Why “must be nice” is actually one of the most dangerous things you can say to yourself as a business owner The truth about what actually came first in my business: the permission, the nos, and the boundaries, before the money and the team How grief completely changed my relationship to what felt urgent in my business and what that meant for everything that came after Why saying yes to everything is not the path to making more money (and what to do instead) What the “arrival fallacy” has to do with building a business and why hitting a revenue milestone won’t be the thing th…

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## Transcript

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