| Original Message |
Anonymous (no login)
Posted Jun 29, 2008 10:31 PM
"Who needs to win the war once you've had the spoils? And I'm not trying to be clever, I'm being serious."
If all you care about in life is sleeping with young women and winning chest-beating contests when they crop up, then alpha behavior does make sense. If you want to be respected professionally, retain real friends who would stick up for you when it really mattered, and not make hordes of enemies who spend every day wishing you would fail, then alpha behavior is counterproductive and reckless.
"But not to thier faces, I'll bet.
You know, if I have to make a decision and I'm not sure which way to go... I'd rather err on the side of masculine than on the side of pussy any day of the week.
Alphas only get called names behind their back by weak people. I'd be willing to bet that any lawyer who considers those two his or her equal (or lesser) doesn't feel the need to be subversive."
They probably wouldn't call them Jackass or Asshole to their faces, because they're professionals (despite the retaliation, which I don't engage in) and maybe a little intimidated as well, who knows. But that's exactly what I'm talking about. You can win the face to face battle, but you can't win the war because it happens behind closed doors when you aren't there to defend yourself and beat them down again. Once people see that they can't beat you in a mental chest-beating contest, they'll just use guerrilla tactics to socially sabotage you with others.
Think about it. You are a hiring manager conducting interviews for an important new management position in your company. After interviewing a very extroverted and reassuring guy, you talk with your coworker and he tells you that that guy is the biggest asshole in the world and would sell out the company in a second if it suited him. Another long-standing member of your staff overhears and agrees. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, and it makes no difference whether the interviewee or your coworker friend would win an alpha contest. All that matters is that he has been sabotaged behind the scenes because, for whatever reason, right or wrong, he made somebody resentful of him. I see this kind of thing happen all the time. I've seen it happen with students, teachers, engineers, lawyers, professors, you name it. It used to happen to me all the time too (no longer, since I stopped that kind of behavior).
The ideal number of enemies in professional life is zero. How to Win Friends and Influence People can make that happen, or come damn close trying. Alpha behavior, by contrast, will always win you at least as many enemies as you win friends, if not more. The popular position is to say, "Who cares, you'll always have people who don't like you because they are ___________ (weak, irrational, rude, abrasive). I don't need people like that. They'll never be of consequence." And the popular position usually gets people into severe trouble about which they haven't the foggiest idea as to how or why they are in it, other than bad luck or the supposed irrationality, weakness, or malcontentedness of others. Most people never make it to the big time socially or professionally, and that's exactly why. Or if alpha behavior does get anyone recognition (this is rare), it's usually the kind Mystery and even the congenial and more subtle Style get, complete with many enemies and rivals working against them and badmouthing them at every turn to anyone who will listen. Look at all of these pickup artists, they're all fighting with each other all the time, calling each other hacks, sabotaging each other. That's what being an alpha always leads to.
Handling something like a professional, likable person is not being a pussy, it's being smart. America is the alpha of the world, going around insulting people and beating people down...look at where that got us. The Swiss, by contrast, will deal with anyone and do it with a smile. How many wars have they gotten into lately and what's their standard of living like? Zero, the best in the world, respectively. I think they'd probably have a good chuckle from behind the wheel of their Mercedes Benz if an American career soldier in full fatgues called them pussies from a barracks computer in between drills. |
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