STOP BEING SO NICE
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What People-Pleasing Is Really Costing You with Alicia Pieterse
What if being “nice” isn't always kindness?
What if sometimes it's fear? The fear of disappointing people. Of not being liked. Of not being needed. Of discovering what might happen if you finally put yourself first.
In the first episode of Season 2 of Amandla: The Power Within, Mpeo Nkosi reconnects with Alicia Pieterse — executive coach, author, and the resident coach from Season 1 — for a conversation about people-pleasing, self-abandonment, self-worth, boundaries, purpose, and freedom.
A lot has changed since they last spoke. Alicia has written Patches: Coaching Stories of Overcoming and Possibility. Mpeo has moved through grief and a period of creative disconnection. And their reunion opens up a much bigger conversation about what it means to come back to yourself.
Alicia explores the childhood strategies many of us develop to get our needs met — and how those strategies can follow us into adulthood, often without us even recognising them.
Together, Mpeo and Alicia ask:
When does kindness become people-pleasing?
What are you giving up to be liked?
What relationships require you to abandon yourself to keep them alive?
And what happens when you become still enough to hear what is really going on underneath the performance?
The conversation moves from people-pleasing into innate freedom, Alicia's exploration of Sankalpa — a commitment to living from your highest purpose — and the difference between achieving what you want and becoming who you want to be.
This isn't about becoming less caring. It's about learning that you can care for other people without abandoning yourself. A conversation about the courage to notice, the freedom to choose differently, and the ongoing work of becoming.
Welcome back to Amandla. The power is already within you.
What if being “nice” isn't always kindness?
What if sometimes it's fear? The fear of disappointing people. Of not being liked. Of not being needed. Of discovering what might happen if you finally put yourself first.
In the first episode of Season 2 of Amandla: The Power Within, Mpeo Nkosi reconnects with Alicia Pieterse — executive coach, author, and the resident coach from Season 1 — for a conversation about people-pleasing, self-abandonment, self-worth, boundaries, purpose, and freedom.
A lot has changed since they last spoke. Alicia has written Patches: Coaching Stories of Overcoming and Possibility. Mpeo has moved through grief and a period of creative disconnection. And their reunion opens up a much bigger conversation about what it means to come back to yourself.
Alicia explores the childhood strategies many of us develop to get our needs met — and how those strategies can follow us into adulthood, often without us even recognising them.
Together, Mpeo and Alicia ask:
When does kindness become people-pleasing?
What are you giving up to be liked?
What relationships require you to abandon yourself to keep them alive?
And what happens when you become still enough to hear what is really going on underneath the performance?
The conversation moves from people-pleasing into innate freedom, Alicia's exploration of Sankalpa — a commitment to living from your highest purpose — and the difference between achieving what you want and becoming who you want to be.
This isn't about becoming less caring. It's about learning that you can care for other people without abandoning yourself. A conversation about the courage to notice, the freedom to choose differently, and the ongoing work of becoming.
Welcome back to Amandla. The power is already within you.
Chapters
- 00:00 Welcome Back and Season 2 Opens
- 03:10 Alicia's Year: Book, Certification, and New Projects
- 05:35 Patches: The Book and Why It Had to Exist
- 09:40 Vulnerability, Healing, and the Hardest Chapter
- 12:55 Defining People-Pleasing as a Survival Strategy
- 18:20 Kindness vs People-Pleasing: Key Differences
- 21:10 Resentment, Exhaustion, and the Cost of Self-Abandonment
- 24:50 Awareness as the Starting Point for Change
- 27:00 Sankalpa: A Promise to Live from Your Highest Purpose
- 33:30 Soul Questions vs External Success
- 40:50 Freedom: Changing Circumstances or Changing Your Relationship to Them
- 45:45 The Scarcity Mindset and the Leadership Identity Gap
- 48:10 Positional Rank vs Internal Identity in Black Women Leaders
- 53:00 Forgiveness as a Current Practice
- 57:40 What Feels Newly Possible: The Elite Accelerator Programme
- 58:10 Closing Wisdom: Impermanence and Presence
