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.
