Meeting Heroes

So this weekend I have been hanging out with Soul at the London BC. I am doing a little approach coaching and I love it. When new guys just dive in and learn something, or have some success, it's really amazing. I feed off that energy. And I'll post more about that and my other FRs later on. What I want to talk about now is meeting guys that I have read about and created an image of in my mind.

I met Braddock, Savoy, a guy fromt the Streets and a ton of other pretty successful or well-known guys this weekend. As I have posted before I am a HUGE fan of Braddock's blog. I find his theory explanations really tight. Before I met him I thought he would be gingery with a beard. All of my expectations were wrong. Ha!
These guys are all so normal and down to earth.

I have discovered that as guys get better in game, they learn to avoid affirmation-seeking behavior. So instead of surrounding themselves with kissases, really good guys like to give out value. They throw around compliments and positive reinforcement from a place of simple honesty. I think sometimes we withold compliments for fear of giving the other person power, or even just making them feel higher than us. But really alpha guys don't have that fear. They can compliment, tease and joke from a very comfortable place. They will also say things that are totally honest.

When he first saw me Saturday night, Mr M was like wow you look amazing dude, but you need to lose more weight. I respect his honesty and I am working on that issue as you know. I have plateoud at 93kg, but I am going to breakthrough as I am newly motivated. Other guys have complimented specific areas of my game or just given me ideas to work on.

The irony in the community is that we expect the guys at the top to act the most like rockstars. We look up to them and their big names or reputations and expect them to need the same kind of groupie affirmation that normal rock stars need. But these guys aren't low self-esteem, so they don't act like that. I have to say that Braddock is one of the soundest guys I've met. I just talk to him like a normal dude and he talks to me the same way. A lot of guys see me out with Soul and can't believe that I'm friends with him, as I'm so new to the community. Some people miss that we are friends because we have so many non-community things in common.

So the next time you meet one of these dudes, don't talk up to them. Just talk to them like normal dudes. That is what they are famous for anyways.