There is a big difference between training at a real gym vs training at a casual gym.
I was staying with a friend recently and went down to train at their society gym.
The biggest dumbbells this gym has are 30kg (each). This is not heavy and will be your warm-up within 2 years of training.
I did 20 reps with it (chest press) because it was the most they had.
Since I was training in the morning, the society gym was crowded and the people in there could not believe what they were seeing.
They had never seen someone use the 30kg dumbbells, much less for reps.
A few of the guys in the gym congratulated me and even took photos with me.
In the meantime, if you go to a real gym, chest pressing 30 kg dumbbells is nothing. It’s so little that it would be the warmup before your warmup.
These people in casual gyms have a mental limit to how much strength is possible because they are surrounded by other weak people.
In a real gym, you see people pressing 60-65kg dumbbells and are inspired to lift more.
In a casual gym, people are losers and press 12kg all year round. The “strong” guy presses 20kg dumbbells and feels proud of himself like an idiot.
Your environment matters.
Your environment and the people you surround yourself with matter.
If you are around physically weak people who can only bench 60kg, then even a 70kg bench starts to feel good. You feel like you are “strong” and don’t have the motivation to progress (even though you are actually weak as hell).
If you are around people who can bench 140kg and your bench is 70kg, you are inspired to move the weights up and push yourself harder.
The same is true of everything. If you are around people who make $6000 a month, then suddenly $10k a month seems like a lot of money (even though it’s not).
On the other hand if you put yourself around people making $100k a month, you suddenly feel like you’re not doing enough and want to grow your business much more.
This is the power of surrounding yourself with winners. It inspires you to do more.
When you are around average people, above average feels like a pretty good place to be.
“Yeah I may be fat but at least I’m not obese like my friends.”
You want to be around people who are pushing themselves and trying to be excellent.
Of course no one just “randomly” finds himself around winners. It’s an environment that you have to create for yourself.
This could mean:
- Joining a real gym (not Planet Fitness)
- Joining masterminds and business groups (and befriend the winners)
- Studying at an elite university
- Being around startup culture
- Interacting with niche online communities (like the Fastlane Forum – not an affiliate link)
- Refusing to hang out with fat people (obesity is contagious)
- Following people who are rich, fit, and making it happen on social media
- etc.
If you do not intentionally put yourself around people who are winning, you will naturally underachieve your potential.
You could be better than the other average Joes around you, but like the guy in the casual gym pressing 20kg dumbbells and thinking he’s strong – you will have underachieved your potential. You aren’t really a winner like that guy lifting 20kg isn’t strong.
You would have done much more if you were not around average people but around winners just like the guy lifting 20kg dumbbells would quickly get much stronger if he was around people lifting 60kg dumbbells.
Here is simply a fact about human nature:
People want to be achievers relative to the people around them.
You want to exploit this tendency in yourself and be in places where there are many people doing much better than you are.
Not only do you get to learn a lot from the people doing much better than you, you also learn what is possible.
You are only smug about pressing 25kg dumbbells if you are in a gym where the weights only go up to 30kg and no one else lifts 25kg.
When you see someone press 80kg dumbbells you realize that lifting that weight is possible.
When you see someone you know making $100k a month, you realize that making good money is possible.
When you see someone run a 5 minute mile, you realize that being fast is possible.
It enters your realm of possibility.
YOU HAVE TO SEE IT TO KNOW YOU CAN DO IT.
You might not be able to do it now, but if all these other people can do it, so can you if you copy the way they did it.
That is the real dividend of being intentional with your environment and going out of your way to be around the pros and not the average Joes.
– Harsh Strongman
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