Feel free to ignore this post at your own risk. We won’t argue with you. You’ll see why in the post. If you’ve lived long enough to see hundreds of irrational and illogical decisions made by people, you’ll build a new framework for how they tick. If you want the summary, everything you learned about economics can be tossed if the phrase starts with “assuming humans are rational…”. They are not. So we’ll jump straight into some long-term expectations as it relates to people.
Do They Dislike You? If someone dislikes you, they won’t believe you regardless of factual evidence. Even in extreme situations where it is blatant. If you’re able to successfully dunk a basketball and you are 6 feet tall while the other person is also 6 feet tall, he’ll think you cheated somehow. Or that if he trained harder he could be just like you. No we are not kidding. Also. If you played XYZ sport at a high intensity college, where it can easily be looked up online, they will rationalize and say “it’s probably his twin brother”. No, again, we are not kidding.
If someone really doesn’t like you, they will go to great lengths to try and believe you are not good at anything. Even if the facts can easily be found, they will claim that you’re a liar. This is just how it is. In public settings they may tone it down a bit and try to claim they are better than you at something “more important”. If you understand this concept, you’ll easily flush out who dislikes you and likes you based on what they say about your verifiable accomplishments (to your face or behind your back).
You’re Always the “Dumb One”: This one is extremely intense if you go up the income/net worth ladder. While the vast majority of rich people are first generation millionaires (something around 80%), there are still some people who got rich by luck or inheritance. Again. Vast majority are *not* like this. That said they do exist.
So if you ever meet someone who went to a top school like Harvard, people will assume they are smart. They might be dumb because they simply went to the best private schools their whole life and mom/dad made a generous donation. So on and so forth.
The important concept here is that you’re always the dumb one. So if you ever try to explain something you better be *sure* that even an idiot can get it. If an idiot cannot understand it then you shouldn’t talk about the topic. Why? When you try to explain it in basic terms and they don’t understand, they will assume that you’re the stupid one. We are not kidding. So you better be *sure* that you’re explaining things in obvious/simple terms. (Hint: now you know why our writing is non-nonsense straight to the point, it reduces confusion for everyone – smart or not smart).
Arguments Are a Waste: If you end up getting into a heated argument with someone, that relationship is officially over. Just give up on it. While there are rare exceptions to the rule, you’re never going to change someone’s opinion on highly emotional topics for example. So you’re better off just deleting their contact information. Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone and they say “yeah you’re totally right, i am totally wrong”. Neither have we.
The other problem with arguments is that other people may be watching. And. To them you just look like two idiots yelling at each other. So you’ve not only wasted your time with someone who thinks they are right but you’ve also diluted your own worth in front of anyone who saw the interaction. There is a zero percent shot that you’ll remove all argument from your life, but, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
Lack of Self Awareness: This is another human condition that is common amongst 99% of people. This is NOT common among the 1%. The 1% are the 1% because they do have self awareness despite the average person thinking they have big egos. Big ego people are unable to see what they are good at, what they are not as good at *relative scale* and what they need to improve upon.
Take sports for example, if you can jump 40 inches in the air and your one mile time is a horrific 5:00 in high school, you probably shouldn’t be a long distance runner and you probably shouldn’t waste your time trying to play soccer. Instead you should probably play volley ball, basketball or compete in the high jump/long-jump. So on and so forth. We’re not saying you *can’t* get better at running a mile, we’re saying that you’re a fool for spending your time there. Just because you can get better at something doesn’t mean it should be a focus point. This is an extremely common mistake. Just because you like something doesn’t mean you’re good at it (no matter what mom and dad say).
If Successful You Will Lose Friends: “You changed man”… “Of course, I didn’t work this hard to be the same”. This is another reality of humans. While your close friends will actually be happy to see you succeed the vast majority will not be happy about it. Think about the average person, does he enjoy seeing someone the same age as him vastly surpass him in terms of life success? No. Why? See point #2 where they always think you’re the dumb one and they are better than you despite all of the verifiable data points.
You shouldn’t let this deter you. As you become more successful, you find out who your real friends are. You’ll be surprised at which ones stick around and which ones drop off entirely. Some of your contacts end up being around for 10, 20 or 30 years and you would have never guessed that they would still be around.
Rationalization: While many internet intellectuals will argue that women rationalize more than men. Our experience suggests that both of them rationalize. We are not kidding. For example, if a guy shorts a stock like Tesla and it goes from $40 to ~$1,800 today, he will seriously believe he was right “but the timing is off”. Well if you lose everything there is no way you were right because you have no time to recoup the money.
This happens a lot. Look at CEOs who claim they made the right decisions despite running their companies into the ground. Or guys who leave from Company A to Company B only to see Company A thrive and Company B go bankrupt “It was the right risk reward decision” is a common saying. The real answer, the mature one, is to simply say “got this one wrong”. At least have some self reflection.
Ignore What People Say: While you can *remember* what people say, try to focus on the tangible part of “what they do”. If someone says they want to improve at something but don’t show any results and don’t show any resolve to go out of their way to fix the issue… It means they don’t actually want to get better. They can continue to tell you “I want/am going to get better at XYZ” but what they are really saying is they “wish they could get better without any effort”. For those that have been involved with affiliate marketing, you know why diet pills are so attractive. A quick fix with no real effort beyond popping a couple of pills. This is only accelerating in our society where everyone wants to know exactly what is going on in just 2-3 sentences and they get upset if you can’t explain it to them in fractions of seconds. Focus on actions not words.
Incentives Rule: Unless you are related (family member) or perhaps a friend for 10-30+ years… Assume that you have to align incentives. If you put two people in a room who are “friends” but then incentivize them to compete and fight one another, they will fight eventually. This isn’t a bad part of the human condition, it is actually quite natural. Assuming that people are going to do the “right thing” all of the time when you’re constantly tempting them to do the wrong thing is going to net a lot of bad results/outcomes. For your regular life and your work life, try to align incentives so everyone wins. This is not easy but the headache will be worth it. Friendly reminder: your co-workers are never your friends. Don’t be a fool.
Set and Forget: One final one we’d leave with is your average person is entitled. If you’ve run a product business you know that even if you tell the customer something is delayed they will ask that you give it to them for free (seriously). This isn’t something you should do unless there was an issue with the product of course. Instead recognize that everyone expects a free hand out. On your side, never expect more from someone. If you sell something for $8 and it generates $800 for them, don’t expect them to come back and give you a $20 tip. Hell. People don’t even tip properly at high-end restaurants since they view the servers as “lower than them”.
Newer Readers: For those that are unfamiliar with our blog we have three high quality products in order: 1) Efficiency, 2) Triangle Investing and 3) Spending for Maximum Return. In order, you learn how to make a good amount of money (a million liquid within 10 years or so), how to correctly invest it and finally how we’d avoid blowing it all with intelligent spending and PED use to improve quality of life. We hold Q&As 1x a month for purchasers only.
Glad to see a lot of these very practical application type of articles recently.
Keep them coming.
One question…
Just kidding, it ain’t Q&A time.
Other stuff that I have learned (some of it the hard way). Some of these go hand in hand with stuff you’ve just said in addition to stuff you’ve said in the past:
1. Most people do not follow through with anything that they say they’ll do. There have been so many times in my life where I did something out of caution after a person said he’ll do xyz or I congratulated someone on a certain decision… Only to find out that they were just trying to blow off some steam or get a dopamine rush by saying they would do it.
2. If given the opportunity, people will go out of their way to ruin your life if they find out you have something that they want. Women usually do it by gossiping which is not so bad actually. But I actively avoid sharing personal information with 99.9% of people because if a guy finds something out he may try to go even further to stall or take from your success. The worst part about this is that it’s usually someone on friendly terms with you who screws you over when things go sour (example: as you said if someone “changes”).
3. So many people have been learning a language for years. Or trying to play guitar for years.Been going to the gym for 5 years. And they are still terrible. They keep doing the same thing wrong for years on end. They don’t take the time to strategize or come up with a solution which allows them to actually get better. Some people are so invested in their “crossfit” or their “meat only diet” that if you give them advice or even if a doctor were to point out how these things destroyed their health they will lash out. They’ve invested so much time into it they can’t possibly be wrong.
All true!
1. That makes it extremely powerful if *you* say something and follow through.
2. Everyone thinks they are better than you, they’ll try to ruin you because it’s not “fair” you have it and they don’t, they’ll rationalize you didn’t deserved it, so probably cheated to get it, thus ruining it is “justice”.
3. They are **never** wrong, so why change strategy if they are always right?
A lot of this stuff is so true. In my experience, co-workers are only ever nice to your face but almost all of them are willing to throw you under the bus when the time comes.
Of course because they are incentivized to do so, can’t blame them only blame yourself if it happens
Your level of consciousness creates your own reality. I don’t know where you people keep constantly finding these “evil, backstabbing people” or the dreaded “average” person that is constantly mentioned in this blog. From my experience people react with indifference or support when they see success. Sure there are bad apples and neurotic people will act in a shitty way if their fear is triggered but if you keep seeing evil in others and feel negative emotions on the daily basis you probably need to work on your subcoscious fears because they’re colouring the way you see the world.
It’s interesting you say this as we don’t know a single wealthy person who hasn’t experienced the items in this post.
Hell even Felix Dennis talked about this at length and that was before competition ramped up significantly more
In my experience Playboy is right. I’ve stopped telling people I’m retired because they react with anger. Not right away. It might take months. And you have to be skilled at reading subtle hints.
Typically it’s snarky comments that imply your lazy for not having a job that you hate, got lucky, must by lying.
People are extremely jealous and competitive, which is why vanity products work.
Lol accurate.
If Successful You Will Lose Friends:
Them: “You changed man”…
Me: Of course, I didn’t work this hard to be the same
Oddly looking forward to using this line. Back to the grind, building 3 multiple streams of income.
Horrific 5 minute mile?
Jeez, I’m finally just under 6 minutes and I thought I was fit LOL
5mins is embarrassingly slow for competitive running vs a 40” vertical that was the point
If the guy ran a 400M in 50 seconds but had a vertical of 25” then obviously he should run
LOL, proves your point about self awareness.
I can tell you guys have been reading some Robert Greene, big fan of his work.
Went from small city Georgia growing up in a community of immigrants whose mentality was to be a doctor to be successful in life. “Friends” were dorky Asian kids who saw grades as above all else and were subtly disrespectful. Everyone went their college and med school route, I dropped away from that. Worked in the dreaded and disrespected profession of sales, was the laughing stock of the crowd, and moved to NYC in my mid-twenties. Learned and grown more than ever while also avoiding debt, got news a few weeks ago that my Credit Score was finally above 750.
Made better friends who are going places, been with some beautiful women, and slowly getting my side business set up (has not been easy). Two things I have learned to go with what you have said:
1. The passionate hatred of something is often envy for not having that very thing.
Your typical 1% rally people and everyone dissing the rich for only valuing money are often the greediest and most materialistic people out there. The typical goody two shoe who passionately hates successful and attractive guys for getting with different beautiful women every week, calls them immoral, and swears by The Bible (oh man did we have a lot of those in Georgia) will be the first guy to pounce on a decent looking woman who gives him any interest. I have been surprised to see how many feminists who get mad at others for body shaming are often crushing on the hottest celebrities. Then you have AOC who is all about how terrible the white patriarchy is but is dating the whitest looking guy.
2. Coworkers can be friends as long as you are not competing, they can be really good friends once they are former coworkers.
My best friends have been former coworkers who moved on from a company. While actively coworkers, you are never really friends. You have to watch your back and what you say. When you are no longer coworkers and have parted ways, there is potential for friendship.
I find that coworkers can be friends when they work on different teams than you. Example is an engineer and salesperson at a company, they do not compete but work for the same company. Two salespeople at the same company are very rarely friends.
Good stuff though, I love it when you guys post these sorts of things.
“Friendly reminder: your co-workers are never your friends. Don’t be a fool.” is such a tough truth to swallow. I _think_ you’re right about it, and I remember distinctly telling someone at my going away “party” from my last job that I was “looking forward to being friends with them again”. It’s just such an easy trap to fall in to though – you naturally bond with people that you spend a lot of time with. Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt, but more often it breeds empathy and connection (which is part of friendship). Any recommended reading on this topic? I feel like I’ve been burned by this enough times in life that I really need to be introspective about it and find some tactics to avoid it in the future.
Good post. Thanks.
You need to understand what an employee is. An employee works in a different industry from this employer. Employer sells services in industry X. Employees sells services in industry Y (to his employer).
Consider the absurdity: Google and Facebook both sell services in industry X, therefore they are co-workers, right?
There is no such thing as a co-worker. It’s corporate propaganda intended to trick you into working against your own best interests.
Almost got excited for that Q&A coming up….
That said, I’m finding “smiling and nodding” extremely difficult to master when associates or whomever start talking non-sense. No way in hell I’m going to change anyones mind on anything even when facts presented are correct, but in the moment I just get caught up and sucked in… Always something to work on!
Keep trying, even if it’s obvious that you’re faking it. It’ll become second-nature over time.
Yet another great “if only i’d known this earlier” post from WSP.
Adding a few I picked up this year (the hard way of course; the ONLY way):
1. Play dumb when someone outs themselves as clueless and talking out of their ass. Best argument-preventing/relationship-saving phrase: “how do you know that? yeah i dunno i’m not sure i get all that…seems hard”
2. Advice does not work. Anyone who has to ask “how do i do X/what’s the right way to do X” has not yet reached the point where they are actually serious about doing X. Think about what this means if you are in an advice-giving position or even about your own business/projects
“For example, if a guy shorts a stock like Tesla and it goes from $40 to ~$1,800 today, he will seriously believe he was right “but the timing is off’.”
I get a kick out of dweeb “intellectuals” and other quacks disparaging bitcoin at 2k, then gloating when it “crashes” all the way down to 10k.
Yep same concept
Agree. You can see this clearly when reading comments on profiles of Financially independent people. in Marketwatch, Yahoo Finance etc.
I always tell former coworkers or acquaintances that I’m still looking for a job or working from home. Less hate generated.
Converse is also true, yes? If someone likes you, they will cover for you, give you a pass, etc. Therefore, incentivize people to like you.