Quote from John Freeman on July 21, 2022, 12:16 pm

Hello everyone,

After some thoughts I now understand better the dynamics and my mistake.

My mistake

It was to think that I could leverage my professional status in my social group in a 1:1 fashion.  Well, it's not the case.

I would say (empirical, subjective, general idea) that 50-70% of your status translates in your social group.

I thought about that 1:1 translation because of a bias. As I worked so hard to achieve what I have, I thought: "I should get the rewards in terms of social status!". This was entitlement thinking. We are judged on what we do, how we make people feel and what we provide.

Example: your friend is a surgeon bilionaire navy seal marine playboy. Well, if he does not pay you a beer, he's always in a bad mood and makes fun of you, what good is it for you? You just get the bragging rights to say: "I have this friend who's a surgeon bilionaire navy seal marine playboy who...." which is not much and brings little value outside of the entertaining factor.

So it's the value you bring to the group and its individuals and the power you have within this group.

When you're being a high-powered lawyer at work, your friend don't get to witness your skill and be amazed.

That is why people compete hard within social circles: you can make up for your lack of professional success in your social circle.

Let's get to the practical part now that the problem is well-defined.

Mindset

I want to acquire a high status within my social group

Strategy

Bring value to individuals and to the group (organize events, provide listening, connection, support, leadership, social connections, experiences, material goods, etc.)

Be generally high power as much as possible but less than in a work environment

Be warm as much as possible (Warm+++, Power+)

WIN at the competitions within the group.  That is the purpose of this thread. That means ideally do activities with them that you're good at or want to be good at (Machiavellian).

Techniques

To be good at anything means to have good skills. To acquire good skills you need practice. That means it's about training in-between the sessions of the given activity.

You guys go rock-climbing together? You rock climb in-between. You guys do karting together? You watch videos of techniques about karting and train at karting in-between.

Conclusion

That is why when people do a sport/activity, the general joke is: "So you've been training every day since last time?"

That's a preventive joke because we want to make sure they don't become better than us. It's preventive Schadenfreude.

So let's be Machiavellian and train. It's investment but it's worth it. Even if it's only one hour.

The reward: you get to be better at a thing, improve your skills and get a higher status.