One of the unfortunate downsides of starting to make positive changes in your own life
is that as you do that, people around you sometimes get negative, and unfortunately,
it can be the people who are closest to you.
It doesn't matter what it is. I've seen it in the fitness run, whether you're starting
a new fitness regimen. I've seen it with people beginning new businesses, and I've certainly seen
it with people who follow tips on this channel to become more charismatic. Sometimes, the
people closest to you just do not like it, and, now, it seems like you've started to
invite this negativity into your life.
So, in this video, what I want to do is give you 6 things that have helped me to deal with
this and it's across the board, whether it's been fitness, entrepreneurship, getting better
at being more charismatic, being more social.
If you're starting to get negativity for the choices that you've made, particularly, ones
with the growth-related subject, I want to help you to deal with that in the future.
So here's the first tip. I call it the "Toddler Technique" and the reason is this. If you've
ever seen a toddler run around and fall, which they do all the time, when they get back up,
the first thing they do isn't just burst into tears. The first thing a toddler does when
they fall and they scraped their knee, is they get up and they look around, and they
see who is looking at them, and how are they reacting.
And when you have a mom who comes screaming across the room, screaming at the toddler,
"Oh, my god, are you okay?" That kid goes, "Ahhh," and you just see the waterworks explode.
But I've also seen the same thing, I've seen kids go down hard, and the parent just goes,
"Hoopsie Daisy, there you go." And they keep running and playing.
I bring this up because people don't actually change much when they grow up, right? These
ambiguous situations when we don't know how to behave, we look for the people around us
to tell us what we should do. And what this means is that when people are being negative
to you, they're actually looking to you to tell them, "Should I continue or should I
shut up?"
So one of the best things to do when people start being negative and kind of in an oblique,
passive-aggressive way is to simply ignore it. Take the wind right out of their sails.
So, if somebody makes a comment, say that you start going to the gym, and they say,
"Oh, Brian is like super obsessed with the gym now." A really easy thing to do is shoot
him a glance, go back, if there's someone else, talk to them and bring up a completely
different subject. And if they say that, you can look at them or continue on with whatever
it is you're doing, whether you're walking. Ignore that thread.
Now one of the things that you might be tempted to do is realize that there's an attack underneath
it. Don't engage it yet, right? We'll talk about what to do if you do get into a back
and forth, but for now, 50% of the negative comments that you get can be dealt with by
simply ignoring them. People are hyper aware when they say something and it just goes over
on dead air; a very, very powerful technique.
So, say that they do continue, right? Say you ignore it once and they start to get passive-aggressive
in their line of questioning, and I can think of one that is very, very particular to me.
I was a Philosophy major, which meant that in college I got this question all the time,
"What are you going to do after college?" In fact, some people would be very passive-aggressive
about it and they'd say, "What are you gonna do after school? You're gonna open up a Philosophy
store?" And I swear to God I got that dozens and dozens of times, and I would see that underneath
that question there was this attack. I would see they're saying Philosophy is dumb. It's
not economically viable. You shouldn't be doing it. And I would begin to address all
of those questions, "Well it's good for this reason," and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And we get into a back and forth, and eventually, they just think it was dumb.
The fastest, easiest way that I found to deal with it was by purposely misinterpreting passive
aggressive questions as if they were literal. So what that means--I know it's a lot of like
complicated words--is this; they say, "What do you do, open up a Philosophy store?" And
I'd go, "No, I don't think that's a good idea." And then, talk about anything else. The same
sort of principle as the "Ignore Technique."
What you'd do right here is you'd take the wind out of their sails. They're trying to
go down a path of being passive aggressive, getting you to bite, engage, get riled up.
Don't do it. Treat it as a literal question, which brings me to the third thing.
If you have done this kind of stuff, what you're going to see is that people, now, are
either going to be direct or they're going to back off. If they back off, great. What
you might have done now is invite them to a direct conversation about why they think
you're vain for doing fitness, or why they think a Philosophy degree is stupid, or why
do they think your business is going to fall flat on its face.
Great. Now at least we're having an honest conversation. There's not this weird passive
aggressive attacks. What I find, when somebody finally does ask the question, "Hey,
man, I don't know Philosophy majors don't make a ton of money," or "I feel like it's
kind of vain to go to the gym all the time," or "Don't you know that businesses, like,
99% of them fail?"
Now you can have an honest conversation. What I recommend here is a little bit backwards,
because a lot of people often times try to be really strong and they'll be having a ton
of conviction here, which is good. Conviction is great, but I want to add a nuance to that,
and that is to be vulnerable.
Let them know the reasons that you chose the things you do--the emotional reasons. So,
for Philosophy majors, I think back on this in my own life. People finally say, "So why
did you do Philosophy, man?" like, "Okay, you're not gonna start a Philosophy store,
I get it, but why did you pick Philosophy?"
And I'd say, "So, man, I got to college and I know how you felt, but I had a ton of questions
and I thought college was just gonna teach me that," like how should I live? What does
a good person do? What does it mean to do the right thing? What is a good life? And
I was, all of a sudden, I'm in Statistics and none of these classes were addressing
it. Philosophy seemed to be the only class that I had that was even concerned with those
questions. And I stuck with it because it was the only one that was asking them.
I don't know if I'll have an answer by the end of this, but, at least, it's starting
at the foundation, and I hope that serves me for the rest of my life. Maybe it will,
maybe it won't. Being vulnerable about the fact that I was confused; the fact that I
didn't know what to do. I mean, those are very relatable things. If you were for one
second, when people ask you these things, drop the certainty that it's gonna work out.
Because if you're taking an unconventional life path, it's not necessarily going to go
great. If you're trying to be an actor or actress, you're not guaranteed to be Brad
Pitt or Angelina Jolie, but if you express that you know what? I love the craft and there's
something about it that makes me feel alive. Even if I'm not getting paid a ton of money,
it does something for me that lights me up, and that's worth it to me. That will oftentimes
get people to just back off. So be vulnerable in those situations where you do get direct
questioning.
Now, the fourth tip. These are kind of chronological, so people, sometimes, a lot of people at this
point, will have accepted it and backed off. But one of the things I see is if you start
to get this line. I could never do that. I could never live with the uncertainty of acting
and not knowing where my next paycheck was coming from. Or I could never just travel
like you do. Or I could never go without eating donuts. I just like food too much. How do
you handle this when people say that?
There is one rebuttal that I love to all of these and it's this. If somebody said something
to that degree, I could never, you know, I could never not eat donuts. You say, "Well,
you know, it's a good thing that you make decisions for you and I get to make decisions
for my life because if the roles were reversed, it sounds like we'd both will be really unhappy."
And that is like, that is a drop, explosive conversation that will just go, "Oh, okay."
And that's it. That is often times the absolute end of it.
Because what you've communicated in that is that one, I don't need you to approve of it
and I don't need to approve your life. And, secondly, I'm honestly not really impressed
with the thing that you're doing but I don't shove it down your throat that you should
do it a different way. Often times you follow these 4 things, you're gonna be done with
this negativity. If people bring it back up, run through the 4 steps and sometimes you
might just have to end that relationship. But those 4 things will oftentimes end any
sort of negative attack that you receive.
But there are six things that I want to cover today, and that's because I was doing some
things wrong. These are things that you shouldn't and should be doing. The first one is DON'T
RECRUIT. Number 5, first one of do not do. Don't recruit people. I remember, I went and
I read the 4-Hour Workweek when I was about 23 years old. And I was evangelical. Everyone
has to read this book. Everyone had to start a business. They all needed muses. They all
need to quit their jobs. Everyone had to read the whole thing, and I would get into arguments
with people, about whether or not it could work; about whether or not Tim Ferriss was
just making shit up, if he'd actually done it, if the cases studies were real. And I
debated for hours and hours, and at the end of it, we never agreed because I hadn't proved anything.
When I finally shut up and worked on my business, and built it, ironically, now that I stopped
telling people that they need to read the 4-Hour Workweek, I get asked more often, "Hey
man, what book should I read to change my life, to start doing the things that you're
doing," and I tell them, "Go, read the 4-Hour Workweek." So, you can't be a recruiter. When
you find your path, if you found it, I know that there's this temptation that you want to take
your friends, your family, the whole damn world along with you into this new wonderful
thing. But you cannot shove it down people's throats. They will not come and you just invite
more negativity into your own life if you do that. So, 5. Don't recruit.
The sixth one is something that you should do, and this is to make up for the fact that
if you don't recruit people, you might feel rather lonely. I was very lucky. My best friend
was into this stuff with me, but you might not have that good fortune. So if this is
the case, you need to find at least one other person that has got your back; that's gonna
take this journey with you.
It is so hard to be the only one in your town or friend group that is trying to do the right
thing, and maybe if you're experiencing, you can sympathize with this. So what I recommend
is use the wonder of the internet. Get on the subject that is related to your thing.
Go out and in your town, or even better, go to a meetup for whatever it is, because just
simply surrounding yourself with other people that share the interest, that want to grow
in the way that you do, is life-changing.
I remember, we moved to Brazil after I quit my job. I had no money. I was sleeping on
the floor, but we managed as we talked to people, there were a couple of guys who were
interested and four of them joined us. And one of them said, it's like, "Dude, this feels
incredible because it feels like personal development has been my dirty little secret
for so long. And if that's how you feel, I just want to tell you, that there are tons
and tons of communities out there for you to get involved in, to be a part of. And the
most powerful thing is not just to have online friends, but to go to the meetup. Participate in it.
We actually started a New York personal development meetup out in New York City. If you want to
go and do that, I think it still exists and you can do it there. So, go find your tribe.
One other person is gonna make you feel like you're not crazy and that could mean
all the difference.
So, I hope that you found these tips helpful. I know that at the time when I was starting,
I would have appreciated these myself, and if you do find yourself in that situation,
you're the only person out there who's trying to get fit while your friends smoke weed.
You're trying to start a business while everyone else thinks you need to be a corporate drone.
Know this. You are on a solid path. Other people have done it. There are people out
there that will help you and you're not alone. So I hope this helps and I'll see you in the next video.