Nice is a very wonderful thing to be. Some people are just nice by nature and some are probably not. If you are more on the nicer side, then the challenge is to remain nice most of the time, if not all the time.
Let me narrate a story. Once, a Priest was crossing a river in a boat. He saw a Scorpion struggling to survive in the water, so he thought he should help. So, to save Scorpion’s life, the Priest tried to catch the Scorpion to prevent it from drowning. As we know, it’s Scorpion’s nature to bite. So whenever the Priest tried to catch it, the Scorpion would bite the priest. It happened a coupled of times and in that process, the priest got hurt too. The boatman was watching this incidence. He asked the priest, “Why are you trying to be so nice to someone who is hurting you?” The Priest replied, “It is its nature to bite and it is my nature to help. If the Scorpion can’t change itself even when it’s dying, why should I change myself?”
I know that it’s too idealistic to follow this kind of story in this dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself world where you can’t expect everyone to be a saint. Moreover, you don’t always need to get hurt to be nice to someone. But remember, life gives us enough opportunities to be nice without getting hurt. Grab as many as possible. For example, if you are driving a car and see someone trying to cross a road, just stop and allow that person to cross it. As you do so, simply smile at that person. I bet the smile that you get in return will surely make your day. And even if you don’t get that return smile, the satisfaction of being nice to someone will make it for it.
Being nice at work is even more crucial because we spend around 60% of our waking hours in a day at work. It always feels great if we are surrounded by nice people. And if you feel great, you produce great work. Niceness works wonders if you are working in an advertising agency, primarily because it’s a very subjective occupation. It involves creativity which is a personal expression which means that every time a piece of work is evaluated, it is unavoidably personal. Remember, being nice does not mean being a sugar-coated, people-pleaser person. Sometimes you just have to be a little sensitive to someone’s feelings. There are ways to deliver bad news or criticism that don’t make people feel worthless, especially when you are judging other’s work. Find glimmers of positive in the negative. It is easier to tell an accountant his numbers are wrong than to tell a creative person his idea is lame.
Moreover, it’s difficult to be genuinely warm in a cold-hearted ad-world because of the nature of our work. In your agency, you will always find talented people creating better work than you and you are bound to feel jealous. It’s challenging to work with so many talented, creative and even emotional people around you. Just imagine a place where all the great novelists, playwrights and painters work on the same floor. The atmosphere is bound to get competitive and it’s hard to be “nice” under these conditions. You tend to waste energy comparing your work to the work of the person sitting next to you, rather than wasting your energy on creating your next great ad. You can loose friends based on your inability to feel good about their success. Remind yourself that the goal is to do well for yourself, not for others to do badly.
Finally, I think that “nice guys finish last” is a misnomer. Unfortunately a lot of people have started believing that there is so much “not-so-niceness” around us and therefore to survive and to succeed we should also become one of those “not-so-nice” people. In fact, it’s just the opposite. In today’s world, “being nice” will cut through the clutter and “niceness” will stand out that much more. So, be nice and be happy.
