On Improving When Your Friends Aren’t

http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/on-improving-when-your-friends-arent

by acangiano • 16 years ago

82 70 16 years ago

lsc5• 16 years ago

>In a way, to put it bluntly, they’re not usefull to me.

(yes, I know this was the author quoting /someone else/ but I think the rest of the article was saying something very similar, albeit in a much more tactful way.)

Huh. I guess I have a similar exploitive attitude, but it drives me in the opposite direction. Having poor friends is /incredibly useful/ - need help moving but don't want to reciprocate? call up your highschool buddy who works at home depot. He'll be happy to help you out for a few bucks. It's only weird if you make it weird.

I've always kind of gravitated towards people who are smarter than I am, so my highschool buddies were an awesome recruiting ground. People who are smart but work cr-p jobs because they lack the social skills or confidence to advance make great employees for your small side businesses. And the great thing about that is I'm helping my friend while I'm exploiting him or her. Most of the people I've hired in this manner have gone on to get "real jobs" after gaining experience working for me.

Of course, all this is predicated on your ability to live a different lifestyle from your friends, and being willing to fire a friend. Never hire anyone you can't fire. On the other hand, if you loose a friend every time you fire someone, you are doing it wrong.

alnayyir14• 16 years ago

How incredibly self-obsessed and shallow.

I guess this is usual for the kind of material that comes from Sebastian.

There need be no mystery why the poor have such irrational loathing for the middle and middle-upper class when you witness this kind of attitude.

Part of being better person and an exemplar is to improve without an attendant increase in ego.

Humility and sincerity are critical virtues to have as a whole person.

lsc5• 16 years ago

so... it is better to watch your friends continue to work in the sandwich shop than to hire them to work on a tech project at below market (but above sandwich shop) wages?

I dono about you, but I'd rather be "used" and get the job with opportunities for advancement (and higher wages) I can count several people who were in this position who now make a good bit more money than I do.

edit: to be clear, I don't think I'm better than people I've hired. I am more confident, to be sure, but that's something other people value. I don't value confidence very much at all ( I have perhaps more of that than I'd like. But other people eat it up, so why not?)

Nearly all my friends are smarter than I am. (I'm not saying that people who are more intelligent are /better people,/ but it's a better standard than money.) and besides that, no competent manager hires people who are not better than he is (or who can not shortly be made better than he is.)

Hell, even if you keep score with money, several of the people who have worked for me in the past now make more than I do, and a few make more money than I would be able to make if I was working for someone else.

akamaka• 16 years ago

Your comment is an incredibly offensive and judgemental thing to say to someone that you told don't know.

Just because he has different goals than his friends and is honest about the fact that they are helping him achieve doesn't mean he is "self-obsessed and shallow" and lacking in "humility and sincerity".

His friends who know him in person can and will judge him for the person he is.

Did you write this because you have some kind of preconceptions based on people you know?

lionhearted3• 16 years ago

Just seeing this thread now. It's off the main page, so maybe no one's reading it any more, but -

> How incredibly self-obsessed and shallow. I guess this is usual for the kind of material that comes from Sebastian.

Man, you responded 14 times to this thread, mostly all with really nasty stuff like this. I appreciate that a few people replied to you, but I gotta say - man, this can't possibly be the best use of your time, can it?

Okay, you don't like me/my writings. I mean, that's fine, that's your prerogative. But 14 replies? Jeez dude...

BenSchaechter2• 16 years ago

I can really relate to this post a lot. While I have feelings of being sort of a dick when I come to terms with this, it is completely true.

I don't really hang out with a lot of startup people (perhaps I need to). But mostly it is because I really need a break from the scene sometimes. However, my only friends in the area are the same friends I had in high school who aren't doing a whole lot with their lives. It is frustrating to say the least.

Just tonight I got text messages from my friends telling me they drunkenly ran in my ex-girlfriend and are all having a great time out at the bars. Meanwhile, I'm sitting programming stuff into the night trying to make a business that could ultimately fail. But I'm learning a lot. Sure, I'm living in near-poverty. But I'm overall really enjoying myself -- even if it is quite lonely.

In a way, it is motivating. On the other hand, it bums me out quite a bit.

alnayyir14• 16 years ago

This is a better attitude to take to the matter.

Just keep working, don't blog about how great you are on the blog whose main purpose is to tell other people about how great you are.

What kind of stuff do you work on? (I'm a programmer as well)

BenSchaechter2• 16 years ago

http://gopollgo.com

I'm creating a consumer/social polling website set to launch in about a week or so. On a consumer level it is basic. But we're going to offer advanced reporting, etc for bigger brands to connect with Twitter followers / Facebook friends, website visitors, etc.

If anyone would like beta access, feel free to shoot me an email in my profile.

/shameless-promo

zuckerborg• 16 years ago

Dude, this is Sebastian Marshall, one of the great strategists of our time. He specializes in winning and communicating the art of winning through his blog.

Now to the untrained eye, his posts may come across as the work of a delusional, narcissistic windbag, but if you look deeper, you'll find that with his hectic schedule it's amazing that he has time to write at all. Between fighting off Asian gangsters with high-powered kung fu kicks and hosting charity events for hospitals whose name he misremembers, he still finds the energy to offer priceless career guidance and moral support to patio11. Soak up his wisdom, so that you too may learn the entrepreneur strategies of the winning scientist.

As an aside, I would love to read more about his science. I've learned so much about strategy and entrepreneurship and winning from him, but not much yet about science. Please write about your science, Scientist Sebastian, so that I may seek to improve my own science, which has hitherto proven most unfruitful.

colbyolson• 16 years ago

I can sympathize. Right there with you buddy.

PStamatiou• 16 years ago

I have a very close group of 3 friends that I have known for at least 6 years each. We all come from immigrant families, went to a competitive, top 100 high school and all did well and went to good schools. We're all 24 now and two of them are busy hopping from job to job to find the biggest paycheck, bragging about their $160k base salaries (consulting/private equity) not including bonuses and how they quadrupled their savings with margins trading. Then there's me and my other friend in this group.

I've only ever done startups and the closest I've been to a BigCorp job was a yahoo internship. The aforementioned two friends just don't understand the world of startups and think I'm wasting my time and setting myself up for financial disaster. The other friend is on his 7th year of college. He picked majors because they were highly regarded and he saw that we were doing similar things, but did not interest him. Over the years he looked at our relative career success, did not think he possessed any real skills for the workforce and became suicidal, attempting to kill himself twice. Saved the first time because of a malfunctioning old handgun and the second because of a goodbye email he sent to the 3 of us. I check my email way too often and saw the email first and called 911 and then kept him on the phone.

I'm not quite sure what the moral is, but it seemed relevant and I wanted to share. I wish my friends did what they loved and not what their peers thought was cool or society deemed worthy. None of them love what they do.

shrikant• 16 years ago

I wish my friends did what they loved and not what their peers thought was cool or society deemed worthy.

I wish this for me too, retroactively. I would have had a lot more to show for the 5+ years spent 'conforming to society/peers'.

swombat• 16 years ago

The aforementioned two friends just don't understand the world of startups and think I'm wasting my time and setting myself up for financial disaster.

Who knows, they might even be right...

ct2• 16 years ago

Or wrong...

If you don't love what you do it's probably not worth it in the long run. Doing a startup isn't necessarily going to put you in a financial disaster. It just makes the end result more volatile.

The way I look at it is with life there's a bell curve (maybe not normally distributed but still a curve distribution). Those with a steady consulting job will fall into the "average" middle area of the curve and be "safe" financially and might not ever be poor OR rich for that matter.

Those taking risks like in a startup would more invariably end up on one side of the curve (either on the side that makes you poor due to debt etc, or extremely rich but most likely you won't end up as an "average" middle area where everyone else is and regret not taking any chances in your life).

ct2• 16 years ago

" I wish my friends did what they loved and not what their peers thought was cool or society deemed worthy. None of them love what they do."

I think that's the money quote here. I think Steve Jobs said it best in a commencement speech:

...I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

niyazpk2• 16 years ago

After all the books I've read, after all the time I've spent on learning, solving problems and exercising my brain, after all the self-help/marketing/how-to blogs I've gone through, after all the effort I've taken on becoming a better person, after all the sacrifices I've made by going out of my way to help other people to make their lives better, I have found that there are many people who are better than me in many ways I cannot even begin to imagine, not because they try to be, not because they are more intelligent than me, not because they have any incentive to be, not because they are better educated, but probably because they just are, probably because they grasp the beauty of life better than me on a scale that I am not able to comprehend, probably because there is more to life than being successful and being better, whatever that means, or probably because of some other reasons I will never understand.

wahnfrieden• 16 years ago

It seems like being depressed over that conclusion is just a form of vanity. It's a fine line between comparing yourself to others in order to learn from them and reevaluate your direction, and comparing to satisfy or starve your ego.

niyazpk2• 16 years ago

Exactly my point. :)

mbubb3• 16 years ago

yes excellent restatement

Tycho• 16 years ago

Maybe they're better looking than you?

(but seriously, I don't think making sacrifices is particularly good for your character)

mbubb3• 16 years ago

I liked your post, niyazpk, because it moves from the implicit comparison to looking internally for the reasons one is stuck in such and such a place.

Friends are not bad/good people as much as certain relationships are destructive while others are healthy. But this is not a permanent state - and ultimately says more about oneself than one's friends.

This pruning off of friends is perhaps a necessary step in some cases - reminds me of the '12-step program' idea of not associating with the people you drank/smoked/particpated in unsafe sex with/etc. But ultimately it says more about the person themselves than it does about the goodness/badness of those friends. There are people who can drink and not have it ruin their lives... If you are not one of them but you are hanging around people who can socially drink - they are not the problematic ones.

When we are stuck we tend to look outwards for reasons that we are stuck and place blame externally.

There is one of Montaigne's essays that I enjoyed since school days, #4 in book 1 called something like "the soul discharges its passions on false objects when the true ones are wanting". There are some very funny anecdotes - some classical and some more contemporary of people essentially finding external causes for their griefs or gouts. The essay builds to a climax with an example of Ceasar defying Neptune after being shipwrecked and the author ends with a brilliant single sentence paragraph:

"But we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds."

This is one example in literature of a remarkable turn from external to internal - a moment of crushing realization that you create most of your own pain and discomfort and the first step to freedom from this is this realization. Whether is it Buddha's Fire Sermon, Eliot's "Waste Land", Rilke's "Headless Torso of Apollo" - this is the answer. Not ditching friends.

We move to Portland because we are not doing well in New York (or vice versa). The change in scenery will do us well for 6 months and that might be enough to set on a new track. But more likely you find out you are still the same person internally - that will creep back in.

I have had moments in my life where I have been in a magnificent place and yet for whatever reason i happened to be miserable that day. Firenze, Mongolia, Cat Ba Islands in Vietnam. Beautiful striking places and on those days struck with deep blueness (i will not use that oft-misused word depression here). And being in those places intensified the self loathing:

"... you asshole - how could you be miserable here!..."

And the answer is always the same - because I am miserable. Not because my girlfriend is 8000 miles away (and p'raps not so faithful :-0 ); not because of friends or lack of friends or type of friends.

bluekite2000• 16 years ago

Did you rent a scooter and rider around Cat ba island? Good times...

kristofferR• 16 years ago

I think you need to realize that life is not a competition in any way, life is not about being best.

Life is not like a RPG where you gain experience(points) in skills to increase your overall level. It doesn't matter how much you improve your external life, it's how you think that really matters. A poor person can be much happier than a rich and externally successful person, it's how the person is thinking about the beauty of life that really counts.

"Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within." - Helen Keller

"The person who lives life fully, glowing with life's energy, is the person who lives a successful life." - Daisaku Ikeda

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. - Unknown

No man is happy who does not think himself so. - Publilius Syrus

Look inward and find the peace within. As you do so, the outer world will reflect the peace you feel - Unknown

You might be seeking external validation from other people. I've been there myself, I've improved greatly on certain things and when finally been awesome at it realized that it didn't really matter and that there were more important and way more simpler things I should have focused on to improve my life instead.

Improving your mind can be really hard even though it's damn simple in theory. The best way to be happy is to be happy. How do you gain happiness? By being happy.

You'll have to find a way to realize that you're happy in order to be happy. You can't say "I'm happy" without truly believing it with all your heart, it won't work. You have to KNOW that you're happy in order to be happy.

Granted, archiving external goals (being successful with women, socializing or work/business for example) is a great way to to convince yourself that you have everything you need in order to become happy - and happiness follows.

However, you must realize that happiness can not be gained be archiving goal after goal, it must come from within.

Confusion• 16 years ago

I'm not sure what the point of your post is. Even if you're in the top 0.1% of the country, based on whatever combination of criteria you prefer, there will still be hundreds of thousands people that are better than you. It's a statistical fact that should have no bearing on your happiness.

dustyreagan• 16 years ago

What does "improving" even mean when it comes to life? Sometimes friends drift apart when their common interests change. The end. Put the ego aside.

matwood2• 16 years ago

It's not that simple. What the article describes is a very common problem with people who get healthy and lose a lot of weight. Their 'friends' often end up hindering their goals though often not on purpose.

When I talked to a friend of mine about her weight loss the hardest part for her was losing all her other overweight friends. They would constantly ask her why she was getting up at 5am or eating healthy or training for a marathon and then would make comments that it's pointless. They didn't drift apart because their interests changed, she had to cut them out because they were holding her back.

ryanwaggoner3• 16 years ago

I want this to be true, but I don't think it is. I really do think a lot of people just kind of drift through life, being reactive rather than proactive, with little in the way of goals or ambition. I don't necessarily know if there's anything wrong with that (topic for another day), but it does seem valid to say that they're not interested in "improving". Maybe that's the wrong word; maybe "optimizing" captures it better. Regardless, some of my best friends are those who I share surprisingly little in terms of common interests. But what we do share is that we don't want a life adrift, and we're working hard to achieve the things we care about. To me, that's what "improving at life" means.

antareus• 16 years ago

Reactive versus proactive captures the notion perfectly. I'm not content to be reactive. I was that way for too long, but I realized it was a cover for fear. It is hard for me to relate to the reactive mindset now. I feel like codependent-prone individuals smell the change and try to follow you around.

I want to be able to relate to everyone well, but there's a point at which the mismatch emerges, and it is unfortunate. It just means my interests are changing.

VMG• 16 years ago

I suddenly had the desire to smoke some weed and play tekken my buddies after I read his post

michaelty• 16 years ago

Same here.

ryandvm• 16 years ago

Gads, what obnoxious, egotistical drivel.

Is there any way we can get a Sebastian Marshall / Tim Ferris filter on Hacker News?

JVerstry• 16 years ago

I split from some friends about 20 years ago...

We were a group of 5 top friends at high school. We were popular, entertaining, going on vacation together, you name it.... At college, we carried on meeting, going to parties, but something became odd for me. It was obvious they were willing to carry on with immature/teenager activities and I wasn't...

I just did not enjoy it anymore. It was not in me. I had grown up. I told 3 of them I was not willing to participate to this anymore. The 5th one did not care, we always got along well. In fact, he was participating in those juvenile activities less and less too and developed his own branch of friends.

Two really take it badly, as if it was some kind of betrayal. They adopted a dogma attitude. I knew them since I was 5 years old. They reacted emotionally and would not address the maturity issues. It was a one-sided conversation. They carried on their juveniles games until their early thirties.

I was even replaced by another guy to fill the gap. When #4 got married, my replacement was invited to the full ceremony and I was only invited to the cocktail. He knew my replacement for a couple of years then, I knew him for more than 20. It was a bit of a shock, but not a real surprise.

I knew they were acting juvenile beyond their 20's to cover for their insecurities and lack of will to become mature and responsible. Today, we are connected on Facebook and exchange messages from time to time. I do not regret the split 20 years ago. I got to meet different people and developed new fulfilling relationships.

matwood2• 16 years ago

I think overall his post was spot on. There is an old saying that goes along the lines that 'you are the average of the 5 closest people to you.' This means if all your closest friends are losers you'll likely be a loser too. It's not mean or egotistical to recognize that people you spend the most time with do in fact influence you.

It's also a good thing to remove friends that are holding you back. Sports stars probably need to do more of this. They become famous, make a lot of money, but keep hanging out with the friends from 'the hood' and end up all sorts of trouble.

Another good example are people who lose a lot of weight. Whether on purpose or not their friends often hold them back. Losing all her friends was the hardest thing a friend of mine had to deal with when she finally decided to lose weight and get in shape.

dools• 16 years ago

Your friends don't have to be "useful to you". Real friends are waiting there for you when you take a break from work to have fun, relax and shoot the breeze.

I've worked maniacally for the past 4 or 5 years and declined many many social invitations because I was focused on building my business. I would never EVER express that as "improving when my friends aren't" and I find this attitude deplorable.

They're just living life differently to me. They don't get in the way of the way I want to live my life at all and when I take a break I go hang out with them and we have fun - it's just that I don't do that very often.

There is no difference between focusing on a business, focusing on education, focusing on raising a child or on a new relationship.

It seems like such a cliche that you "improve" somehow and leave everyone else behind and then see them later in the street with your new friends and ignore them as you walk by and make them all jealous with how much better you've become.

Life just doesn't have to be like that. True friends are friends forever regardless of whatever life projects you're working on and if you're incapable of maintaining friendships with people who aren't living exactly the same life as you then there is something wrong with you.

The whole "I want to win so I surround myself with winners" approach is just admitting that you're so susceptible to peer pressure that the only way you can succeed in life is to set yourself up with a bunch of friends who will force you to succeed. That's a strategy for addicts, not winners.

On Improving When Your Friends Aren’t

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