How being nasty can improve your life

Lena Corner in The Independent:

Screenhunter_02_mar_21_1049My raison d’être,” says American psychotherapist Jo Ellen Gryzb, “is simply to make people a little less nice.” It’s been her mission ever since she found herself huddled in her bedroom with her husband one Christmas, whispering about how on earth they were going to get rid of their house guests. “I had no idea how to tell them they had overstayed,” she says. “I was a complete walkover.”

Gryzb returned to work at Impact Factory, a personal-development agency, and found herself in conversation with colleague Robin Chandler, who had similarly spent his holiday tiptoeing round friends and family. “I know what our problem is,” declared Gryzb. “We’re suffering from the nice factor.”

The pair set about devising a workshop designed to harden us up and cut back on excessive manners; an etiquette class in reverse, if you like. It has been so successful that they are now bringing out a book entitled The Nice Factor: The Art of Saying No.

More here.  [Thanks to Ruchira Paul.]