Muscle and Brawn Forums - Dave Tate on Negative People

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Dave Tate on Negative People

Dave Tate on negative people:

Quote:

Negative people are too much of a pain in the ass to spend much time with. If you can’t avoid them, then only communicate when you have to.

These people do not have the power to bring you down or ruin your day. Only you have the power to do this and the sooner you realize this, the better off you will be.

Negative people are also the one’s who believe they are experts in everything and go out of their way to offer unsolicited advice on just about every topic under the sun to prove how smart they are. Remember this, those who really know don’t need to show. Their results do the speaking for them.

Surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you and know how to keep their head up and look for solutions are the ones you want to spend most your time with. Find people who are “solution” oriented not “excuse oriented”. If you put yourself with those who are better than you at a specific subject or skill you WILL increase your game – you will get better. I do agree with something Tony Robbins said many times, “Love your family and friends, but choose your peer groups. You can’t pick your family and friendship can run deep. You can and should develop peer groups who hold high expectations of themselves and YOU.”

If you begin to become negative, you need people around you to pull your head out of your ass. These people are not easy to find but they’re out there.

Great quote.

I try to stress the fact that you should do things with people better than you as an example to how good you should strive to be. One of the things I like about this forum is I am so weak compared to you monsters. That gives me the extra push and goals I need to be setting if I have intentions of being one of the big boys on here.

I mention that to other people that lift weights and think benching 225, squatting 250 is phenomenal strength. They lift weights with bean poles and they will always strive to be the strongest bean pole. Most people that live around me don't want to lift with me because I am stronger than them. I am not strong at all, but since they choose to lift with wannabes they end up becoming part of the bro science.

No matter what I do, I always find the person I know who is the best at it and ask tons of unnecessary and often necessary questions about it. I want to learn everything there is to know, because the more I know, the better I can be.

What he is saying sounds perilously close to:

'Someone who says you can achieve something is smart and knows what they're talking about'

and

'Someone who says you can't do something is a self-appointed know-it-all.'

Lets say a 30 year old 150lb guy with little training experience gives up his job, moves to LA, convinced that he will be Mr. Olympia within two years. Are the people who tell him that this is unrealistic being 'negative'? Are they just trying to prove how smart they are? Do they need to be bodybuilders themselves to tell him this - or could the advice equally come from anyone with a cool head and a fair appraisal of the situation?

I like Dave Tate, but I can't agree with the whole tone of this. It's nice to have encouragement, and some positivity, but sometimes a critic is your best friend. If one only surround one's self with yes-men, I don't think that speaks highly of one's inner resources.

Negative people need to find something positive to do that surrounds them with positive people who wont deal with the bitching and moaning......like a good group of serious powerlifters......:biglifter: that aught to help them be a little more positive.