Social climb covert brag: Nal Eliason example
This from Nat Eliason subscriber's email.
On the importance of "rest", he says:
Anyone who exercises regularly knows that rest is when your body gets stronger.²
That footnote turns out to be a bit of a power move.
It says:
Assuming you actually exercise hard, of course
Think about the sub-communication.
It says:
- I exercise hard
- You may not
Albeit he may not even exercise hard, or he may not even want to brag, that still how it feels like.
Nothing huge, but it was annoying to me because I don't enjoy power moves.
It put me in a slight adversarial relationship with him and I liked and respected Nat less.
My mind went "oh yeah sure Nat, you so cool for pushing hard in the gym, you want a medal now".
So to avoid that, he should have power protected.
For example, remove the "you" and swap it for "one".
Or use a different structure, such as "at least with hypertrophy-trype of exercise".
Yeah, what I hear in my mind is this:
Assuming you exercised really hard, of course (you f#Çing lazy bastard).
So there is a kind of hidden aggressiveness to me here.
Yep, same and agree with that.
And thank you for the note BTW, it's always super helpful to know how others feel or if it was more a thing for me and a few more (such as, people who are both power aware and high power).
So if anyone else has any strong opinion on this, happy to read.
I feel it is a bit blunt, but in general it could be more of a personality than power move to me.
For example, it is well-known in the exercise community there are “aggressive” coaches (persona for marketing purposes) and some people respond well to that (with submissive complex potentially). Alternatively, this person could mean "I know it's hard to exercise hard, I have the same struggle" but without the context it comes out less of a "joking" tone. For example, when I go to gym classes, some coaches would demand pushing hard, but they regularly "power protect" by saying they struggle with not wanting to exercise and being tempted by junk food.
Also objectively it is not a wrong statement - push hard and then rest is the norm.
But yeah the way it was presented is still a bit of a “I work hard and I'm also smart (since I know this scientific fact), you are not there yet". I understand how it might annoy people.
Thank you for sharing, Emily, super helpful!
With the due exceptions, caveats and footnotes that go with most generalization, generally speaking, status climbing annoys men more than women.
That's for various reasons but women generally "lose less" when a guy one-ups or social climbs on them.
Also, your observation is perfect.
Just for the sake of clarity, this guy isn't a fitness coach.
He's more of a thinker / philosopher. So he already got that teacher's frame in his emails.
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on January 13, 2023, 4:12 pmThank you for sharing, Emily, super helpful!
With the due exceptions, caveats and footnotes that go with most generalization, generally speaking, status climbing annoys men more than women.
That's for various reasons but women generally "lose less" when a guy one-ups or social climbs on them.Also, your observation is perfect.
Just for the sake of clarity, this guy isn't a fitness coach.
He's more of a thinker / philosopher. So he already got that teacher's frame in his emails.
Yeah, I was thinking through the coaching perspective but the teacher frame is similar - “Hey I'm here to goad you to work hard on this, you better be!" - reminds me of the “bro attitude” you see a lot in strength-focused gyms.
Wow, I follow him too and had not paid attention to that. As always, this site/forum is a gold mine!
Quote from LorenzoE on January 13, 2023, 9:54 pmWow, I follow him too and had not paid attention to that. As always, this site/forum is a gold mine!
Yeah, he's good.
And just to be clear: overall, he seems like a good guy and free of any major scammer or taker's red flags.
He does have a bit of a "dispenser of truths" teacher frame that I find slightly off-putting though, but overall nothing too big -even this one, it wasn't too bad-.
Same guy on the next email:
I think the trend in general is towards more human connection and less of an ultra-manicured look. And if you can’t be interesting without the constant sound effects and B-reel, then, well…
Again, same game:
Nat is writing to explain how to succeed on TikTok based on his success.
So the natural comparison with "those who may not be able to succeed being natural" is with him.
So now he social scalps the audience once again to say "and if you can't be interesting without all that gimmicks, well... Then you're not good enough and not as cool as I am".
The "well..." is a smart-alecky power move, as in "can you catch my drift... ?".
It's OK in itself, it's when coupled with the one-up that it becomes more of a power move.
Again, same feeling in a high-power audience: alright, alright Nat, you so cool and smart and charming that you don't need any gimmicks to be interesting.
This other line in the email is much smaller but, given the trend, also tells you something:
Vibe marketing is back, baby.
To sub-communicate his long experience in marketing with a babying power move on the audience.