I had an older relative ask me “How do I look and be fit like you?”.
He and his wife were both just diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes. This prompted both of them to try to be healthier.
He’s a typical overweight vegetarian with a fat belly and zero muscle tone anywhere. Noodle arms.
His wife (my aunt) is in a similar bucket with tons of fat everywhere and flabby arms which you will see in most Indian aunts.
These types of people eat very low protein very high carb diets for years and years with little to no strenuous physical activity.
I told them they need to increase protein in their diet by a lot, cut out the carbs, and lift weights to build some muscle.
At first they agreed, but then when I told them they need to eat ~150-170g protein per day for their heights and keep carbs below 100g, they suddenly had an unexpected reaction.
Aunt: “Protein is a scam and you guys have all fallen for it.”
Me: What?
Aunt: “Protein is being promoted because it helps big companies sell products. No one ate protein before and they were all fine. We don’t need to eat protein either. We just need to eat less sugar.”
At this point it was fairly clear to me that I was wasting my time. These guys weren’t close relatives and I don’t really care what they do.
There’s this weird thing about humans. If someone is close to you, you tend to discount their expertise.
“What does he know.”
Even though people have paid me well over $500 to help them build a diet plan and a training program for them and I’ve helped them all lose kilos and kilos of fat and put on tons of muscle… there is nothing I could tell this distant aunt of mine to take my advice (which I was graciously giving to her for free).
The bible is right when it says “no prophet is accepted in his hometown“.
I just saved my time when I pretended to agree and told her that they need to take “doctor’s advice” and stop eating sugar.
I know fully what is going to happen next. They will switch wheat with millets and sugar with jaggery, even though it’s all basically the same thing as far as carb load is concerned.
They will “add exercise” which will be the occasional walk. They always pick walking because it’s easy and non-strenuous (they don’t want to push themselves).
Basically these guys will now commit slow motion suicide because they don’t want to make any real changes. Only cosmetic changes like swapping the grain they are eating. And doing easy stuff like walking instead of hard cardio and strength training.
Eh well. Such is life.
You cannot help people who do not trust you and will not take good advice.
Something I learned a long time ago from my many years in tax/law consulting. There are many people who are allergic to good advice, even when they paid for the said advice.
“You should declare this bank account you have in Singapore” -> Doesn’t do it -> Pays for it heavily 5 years down the line.
My personal rule has always been “Give them the best advice that money can buy and make sure to cash the cheque in case they don’t take the advice and complain about it later”.
In the case of my distant uncle and aunt, it’s the typical story. They don’t want to push themselves and they don’t want to stop eating their sweets and grains.
So they just delude themselves that protein and artificial sweeteners are “scams” and continue to kill themselves with non-wheat grains and jaggery (which is just sugar minus a few steps).
Sure “millets are healthier than wheat” and “jaggery is healthier than sugar” but they’re both trash for a diabetic (and overweight people in general).
But like I said earlier, you cannot help someone who does not want your help. Even if they ask for your help. Most people just want you to tell them what they already think as reaffirmation.
You see this on the internet all the time. The moment they don’t like you, you become “the anon scam overpriced course seller”.
Anyone with a large audience is smiling in agreement.
If you have a large audience, the law of numbers is such that a bunch of people are only following you because they want to hear their own opinions repeated back to them.
They aren’t trying to grow or learn anything or improve themselves. They just want re-affirmation of their previously held beliefs.
The moment you say something they don’t agree with, you go from someone they liked to “an overpriced course scam artist”.
Like what bro? You followed me for months and liked all my content, but when you don’t like something I said, I’m suddenly a scam artist?
Let’s break it down:
- If my products are overpriced, why do they have tens of thousands of sales?
- If the products are scams, why do they have tons and tons of 5 star reviews? Only verified buyers can leave reviews on Gumroad so I can’t make the reviews up.
- If the products are overpriced scams, how come you don’t see everyone asking for a refund… even when most of my products have long and generous refund policies?
Of course there’s no answer to these questions. Just silence.
Ok bro.
Being too “smart” for your own good.
Like my aunt who’s figured out that protein is a scam. Her logic sounds smart to her. Big companies use protein to sell products. Therefore protein is a scam and isn’t necessary.
Likewise the “smart” internet user knows that any online product is a scam.
He knows Live Intentionally will not help him wake up on time and lose fat.
He knows The Art of X will not help him build his own online business.
Of course it not relevant that my aunt for all her “smartness” is an overweight diabetic along with her husband.
And of course it is not relevant that the average “smart” internet user is a broke wage slave making $150k a year or less despite having an internet connection.
Advice for the successful man.
As you become more and more successful, you will learn 2 things:
- The only people who are happy for your success are other successful people. The unsuccessful people usually only pretend to be happy but they are secretly jealous.
- Everyone will come to you for advice. Very few will take it. Most will just waste your time.
The former teaches you to not publicly display your successes. Work hard in silence.
Public displays of success only creates silent enemies and sabotage. Of course the signs of success will show but you must make an attempt to keep it to a minimum and at least appear humble.
As the Arabs say: Only decorate the inside of your house.
For the latter, you will quickly learn that most people cannot be helped. Even if they act like they want help.
Just tell them some vague stuff related to what they want to hear. “Exercise and clean diet” type answers.
The exceptions are when they’re paying you or when they’re very close to you and you truly want to help them.
Otherwise 99% of the time your advice will not be taken. They will waste hours and hours of your time with 10,000 questions only to do whatever they originally planned to do in the first place.
Important note: The 10,000 questions guy is always NGMI.
The unsuccessful never understand it because no one is constantly asking them for help and advice. So they think it’s “okay” for them to keep asking you questions because “words don’t cost money”.
But you lose your most precious resource: Time.
You gotta understand – there are billions of people on the planet and most are NPCs who don’t have their own brains and only do what TV tells them.
They took multiple experimental injections of COVID “vaccine” because the media told them it’s “safe and 99% effective” even when you could clearly see the vaccinated still get COVID.
How exactly is a vaccine 99% effective if almost everyone who’s taking it is still getting COVID?
That makes no fucking sense but if you asked that question, the cattle class NPCs would try to destroy you and call you an anti-vaxxer.
Such is life.
You can’t save everyone and that’s ok. Just watch them dig their own graves in peace.
– Harsh Strongman
