Friends in Low Places

[Cleave]

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that, but the really great make you
feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain

Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent.
("They who lie with dogs will rise with fleas.")

Tell me what company you keep and I'll tell you who you are.
Cervantes, Don Quixote

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those
who are doing it.

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn
something from him.
Galileo Galilei


When you stumbled upon StrongLifts you were looking for something; it wasn’t just to get stronger, it was something more. You were looking for a change. You’re here to transform yourself. Strength is merely a means to an end. If you spend enough time in the StrongLift community you see a pattern. Whether fat or skinny, young or old, tall or short; what brought you here was the search to make a change in your life. For whatever reason, you’re not the person you want to be and it’s time to change.

So you’re lifting, good. Changed your diet too, good. What else are you doing? Take a look at some of the more active sections in the StrongLift forums outside of lifting: Money & Career, Social & Relationships, Health, Looks and Style. You’re looking to transform yourself and be a better man.

Now, take a look at your friends. Write down your five best friends on a sheet of paper. Out to the side write down whether they are fit, successful in business, successful socially. Now throw the paper away before someone sees it. The point of this is to discover if your friends are promoting your goals or are they bringing you down. I’m not going to tell you to ditch your friends, but you may need to reassess the amount of time you spend with some of them.

My best friend is a big guy, well over 300lbs, and over the last 10 years or so our activity was to get together in sports bars and drink. We also went to a lot of ball games, NASCAR races, etc…. He’s a great guy and a very successful salesman. But hanging out with him contributed to me gaining a lot of weight. Even at my largest I was still smaller, so subconsciously I was comparing myself to him, making me feel better about myself. Ever see a chunky girl out with a bigger girl? The chunky girl is friends with the bigger girl to make her feel better. She is still the hot one of the two, or at least she thinks so.

How to change your friends? The easiest thing is to bring them along on your journey. Invite them to the gym and make them a part of the new you. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready to change. The best thing however is to lead by example and incorporate your new lifestyle into the old. I love to play poker and I have a regular game that I play in every Wednesday after work. The problem is sitting at a table drinking 10 beers in a smoke filled room for 5 hours is not conducive to my health goals. The poker game is actually good networking, filled with local business men and community leaders. So I’m not ready to throw it away. Now I go to the gym right after work, finish with a good post workout meal, and then head to the club. Instead of 10 beers I may have 3 and I’ve had a good workout and meal which help my metabolism throughout the night. My friends at the club ask where I’ve been and I tell them the gym. They see the changes in me and hopefully some of my enthusiasm will rub off on them.

Years ago I read “Running” by Jim Fixx. He tells about a psychologist working with alcoholics using running as part of his therapy and rehab. You see an alcoholic can quit drinking, but what do you do with all that time? They would sit on a barstool for hours on end. It was their social time. It’ not just drinking, it’s an activity. You just can’t take that away without replacing it with something. Running was his way of replacing that time with his patients. It’s really the same for us. We have lots of time. Are we sitting in front to the TV, playing video games, drinking, etc….We’ve got to replace wasted time with productive time. If you’re the skinny skater guy looking to be better with girls and your plans this Saturday night is to go to your buddies and play video games. Then it’s time to call and cancel. It’s time for a new plan.

Without getting too off track, back to your friends. Who is punching a clock working a dead end job in a cubicle and who is educating themselves to be better, or working to open their own business? Who in your circle is successful and has a positive outlook on life? Is one of your friends always bitching and complaining rather than doing. That kind of negativism is contagious. You need to get away from it before it rubs off on you.

How about new friends? Have you met new people at the gym? My new friend at my gym is a 57 year old black man that does deep Olympic ass to grass squats at 285lbs for 10 reps.

Who's your new friend?
Cleave

[Mehdi]

Great stuff Cleave. I had this lying around on my pc, old stuff from sosuave.net

The real issue with friends is that most people hold onto their idealized definition of friendship from adolescence. It's kind of like the AFC holds onto idealized, romantic notions of love. Let me explain...

Friendship is nothing more than the bond shared between people which similar life situations. In early childhood, there's not much differentiation yet, so the similar life situation is simply "they live nearby." Around puberty, economic realities, as well as physical changes, begin to stratify kids into social groups. In adulthood, people's life situations differentiate dramatically. The only true metric of friendship at this point is your attitudes toward life.

If you've chosen to evolve, it can be a painful lesson to learn that the friends of your youth who have chosen to stagnate, who were your "bros for life," no longer care for you or are bringing you down. It's akin to having your young heart ripped out by the chick you had oneitis for.

I've posted the following idea before, but it bears repeating. Sales guru Joe Girard places the people he meets into 3 different categories, simply titled 1's, 2's, and 3's. It works really well for judging character.

1's are the winners in life. They're people who continually work to improve themselves. They bring everyone around them up. They associate most closely with other 1's. Everyone loves them and respects them, or is envious of them. Look to associate with as many 1's as possible.

2's are the crabs, as they're called here now (credit to tits for that). They whine and have an excuse for everything. They believe in luck, and hate change. They're always looking to shoot the 1's down, or in the crab analogy, pull them back into the barrel. Ignore the 2's.

3's are the fukking losers of the world. They blame everything on others, and on "the man." They have the Brown Touch - everything they touch turns to sh!t. Avoid the 3's like the plague.

------------------------

Threads like this remind me of a few life lessons I've learned, among them that as a grown man with adult social skills, you live much more of a solitary lifestyle than when you were younger. You don't "run with a crew" like you did in high school or college. You aren't hanging out with your friends 5 nights a week.

Along with adolescent notions of friendship come adolescent notions of social status. Nothing spells out immaturity quite like people, both male and female, who think that social status is "how many high-end clubs and party scenes am I known at?" Or better yet, "How many people are linked to my MySpace page?" Grown-up social status is how influential and respected you are.

So for anyone who posted on this thread whining about their lame AFC friends, man up and stop associating with these people. There's a recurring theme on this board about crappy friends, haters, cahk-blocks, and it gets old after awhile, doesn't it? Go seek out the 1's, ignore the 2's, and shun the 3's. There's nothing shameful about retooling your social alliances, even if that means you’re alone quite a bit. Don't ever let anyone, especially the little GIRLS you meet, shame you into thinking otherwise.

RedPill

I rebuilt a new social group from scratch when I got into lifting, age 18. I've done this for the 2nd time during the last months. Relationships (male/female) can get hard from my experience if you're very growth oriented.

[Rob_M.]

This interests me. I've realised more and more over the last few months a lot of my friends have the 'crab' attitude, but I don't really know how to get them to change their opinions/behaviour to be more open to change, and I also find meeting new people somewhat difficult.

[Mehdi]

This interests me. I've realised more and more over the last few months a lot of my friends have the 'crab' attitude, but I don't really know how to get them to change their opinions/behaviour to be more open to change, and I also find meeting new people somewhat difficult.

Famous quote from Anti-Dump: "You don't build a relationship, you buy one".

You can't change people. You need to accept them the way they are. If that's a problem (and the problem is usually that you expect certain things from them, which you shouldn't) then you should make new friends.

Another quote

It's important to accept the true nature of human relationships. All of them are guaranteed to be temporary. No matter how strong your bonds are, they'll eventually end in separation or loss. No relationship can possibly endure, at least not in physical form. Allow your awareness of this truth to give you a deeper appreciation of the people in your life. When you accept that your relationships are temporary, they'll become more precious to you, and you'll be less likely to take other people for granted.

[DJJ]

It took some hard lessons for me to realize this. Great post! But since like minded people are like needles in a haystack, it doesn't hurt to keep some old friends around, as long as they respect your choices and don't effect you negatively.

[mackanno]

I feel the worst crab of all is oneself. Yes, others tell you not to go this day to the gym, instead go a bar or whatever, BUT the decision to skip your WO or not is done by YOU.

I have a pretty small social circle (way too small) for whatever reasons, but I can still make up for good excuses every now and then to skip a day. When I "succed", I get upset for anything, and that's how I recognize that I am cheating to myself. Not one person can force me to do anything, they can entice me, but again, the final word comes from my own self.

[bluestreak]

Cleave, Mehdi - great posts guys, a pleasure to read this.

[DaveT]

I've posted the following idea before, but it bears repeating. Sales guru Joe Girard places the people he meets into 3 different categories, simply titled 1's, 2's, and 3's. It works really well for judging character.

1's are the winners in life. They're people who continually work to improve themselves. They bring everyone around them up. They associate most closely with other 1's. Everyone loves them and respects them, or is envious of them. Look to associate with as many 1's as possible.

2's are the crabs, as they're called here now (credit to tits for that). They whine and have an excuse for everything. They believe in luck, and hate change. They're always looking to shoot the 1's down, or in the crab analogy, pull them back into the barrel. Ignore the 2's.

3's are the fukking losers of the world. They blame everything on others, and on "the man." They have the Brown Touch - everything they touch turns to sh!t. Avoid the 3's like the plague.

My gf has always said that I'm pretty critical when choosing my friends, and I agree. I've often felt that I'd rather have less friends than know this or that person. This doesn't mean I'm unsociable, and I won't make a decision on a first encounter, but generally I find that I subconciously ensure that some people drift out of my immediate circle. I never really realised why before, but having read this and looking at the people that drift away quite quickly, I see that I'm ensuring that i have positive minded people around me.
Thanks Mehdi for that!

[AD69]

The weightlifting club that I've joined is in the East End of London, which despite being near The City (financial centre) is one of the most deprived areas of London with a large immigrant population. The course is run as adult education and a lot of people there are from lower income backgrounds with lower levels of education.

But what I love about lifting is that you get to meet people that you wouldn't normally. I feel a bit out of place, but they don't make me feel unwelcome, quite the opposite.

A few years ago when I was hammer throwing, I trained at the athletics club's old clubhouse in the east end of Glasgow, again in a lower income area. The guy who ran it had his sons and their friends lifting. One guy was what we would call a bampot - he loved getting drunk, probably liked a fight, but through lifting he started to clean up his act and stopped drinking. He had a poor start to life, as he was born with a cleft palate that was still being operated on (he was early 20s) and obviously hadn't received a good education.

Again, I felt like an outsider coming from a relatively wealthy family, good education (and a Celtic fan among all Rangers fans!), but we all got on and had a laugh.

It was a real spit and sawdust style place, and my time there gave me an understanding that you had to squat and clean to gain power and strength (I didn't deadlift at that stage) and that the corporate gyms were full of glove-wearing poseurs.

The new gym is similar to my old club, and I'd rather go there than some fancy, flash gym with one squat rack and a jacuzzi/pool. Its a real eye opener and reminder that not everyone is as lucky in life and you should be grateful for what you have got.

And I wouldn't have found it if I hadn't found and started Stronglifts.

[taifun]

Just want to add one thing. Don't mistake being financially above-well-off as a necessity for being a "winner in life" (A fallacy I've observed a lot from the Pavlina people) . Plenty of winners among middle and lower income levels, they just have different goals. Similarly plenty of losers among the rich.

[DaveT]

Just want to add one thing. Don't mistake being financially above-well-off as a necessity for being a "winner in life" (A fallacy I've observed a lot from the Pavlina people) . Plenty of winners among middle and lower income levels, they just have different goals. Similarly plenty of losers among the rich.

I lived in India for three years, and a large part of their life is taken up with spiritual learning. There seemed to be a lot more content and happy people there than the in the rich west.

Success is the attainment of your Definite Chief Aim without violating the rights of other people.

As taifun said, everyone's Chief Aim is different...

[Mehdi]

Just want to add one thing. Don't mistake being financially above-well-off as a necessity for being a "winner in life" (A fallacy I've observed a lot from the Pavlina people) . Plenty of winners among middle and lower income levels, they just have different goals. Similarly plenty of losers among the rich.

I lived in India for three years, and a large part of their life is taken up with spiritual learning. There seemed to be a lot more content and happy people there than the in the rich west.

Success is the attainment of your Definite Chief Aim without violating the rights of other people.

As taifun said, everyone's Chief Aim is different...

I agree with this. Lots of people think that money brings happiness, but from my experience money usually brings unhappiness. Just listen to all those people doing jobs they don't like just because it pays well.

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives.

We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." - Fight Club


"You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world." - Fight Club

Pavlina is clear about it by the way that putting money as a goal is a bad way to do things. You should put as goal what you want to get with that money, instead of the money itself. Check his book, he has whole chapter on money.

[taifun]

Pavlina is clear about it by the way that putting money as a goal is a bad way to do things. You should put as goal what you want to get with that money, instead of the money itself. Check his book, he has whole chapter on money.

That sounds a lot better. My remark on Pavlina came from a discussion on his forum where he and a number of people essentially measured your worth to society by the paycheck you brought home. It's quite long ago, and I've not bothered to follow that forum since, but I could probably dig up the link if necessary.