The fitness game. The intelligence game. The money game. In general the following applies to most "games":
Keep it quiet - if found out keep it nonchalant.
Applying the above to the fitness game should be the most clear. No upside to people knowing you are either 1) On your fitness game hardcore or 2) don't really dabble in the fitness game at all. If you are working hard on your fitness game then the results should speak for themselves. When you find yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to reveal the fruits of your labor - you want it to be shock and awe - not "damn, this guy is always talking about going to the gym, working on his fitness etc etc and not really impressed." In fact, if people don't know you go to the gym at all, it can only be a positive surprise. You may realize that I have discussed this issue many times on the blog, but I just wanted to re-emphasize a point that is relevant for all of us preparing for a run of the mill pool party that you may be invited to by a co-worker, neighbor, or the team mom of your kid's soccer team. You want do apprehensively - and only after someone asking you to, or it become a necessity - go ahead and acquiesce.
But enough 'bout the fitness game because talking about it myself, you might get the wrong idea that I'm trying to work on it - I'm not. The intelligence game. No one likes a knowitall, no one likes an idiot. But if you focus on the title of this particular post, you want to be the guy who casually happens to have a knowledgbase that is borderline absurd. And this provides a nexus to the reading game. This isn't aimed at you wikipedia fiends, this is aimed at the more "long formed" bases of knowledge that provide nuances, tangential intelligence, and first and foremost the ability to say "I read a book about that and..." as opposed to "I read on wikipedia that..." The latter category is quite obvious because it either begins with "I heard that" or "I read that." You need to be able to drop the work "book" somewhere in there to show you are really into the intelligence game and the reading game.
Which (haha) brings me to a few interesting facts from my latest foray into accumulating knowledge.
"Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, Ivan the Great's expanding Russia, Songhay in the Sahel, Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, the cresting Otoman Empire, the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known) and any European state was the Ikan Empire."
This is both a) an interesting fact and b) something that is dangerous to know because if you ever force this into your office small talk/banter type situation you will immediately be viewed as a jerkoff. But that being said the Inca were tight and were pretty much doing the damn thing better than anyone at the time - then they got caught slippin and 95% of them got "zipped up"
Moral of the story, play the background. Let the other guy make all the noise and try to get all the shine while at the same time keep your eye on the prize: Pool parties, getting your intelligence game proper, and being known for having a mysterious, yet quietly intelligence poise to your day-to-day doings. If you do this, people will respect you and always have a hesitance to try to ever throw you under the bus or attempt any other type of slight towards you because you haven't put all your cards on the table. People are always nervous about what they don't know, and if when you opine you deliver with quality consistently - the silent man becomes a force. (Unless you are Incan and your immune system was mad weak and your entire people essentially got zipped up along with all other people in the hemisphere.)
Keep it quiet - if found out keep it nonchalant.
Applying the above to the fitness game should be the most clear. No upside to people knowing you are either 1) On your fitness game hardcore or 2) don't really dabble in the fitness game at all. If you are working hard on your fitness game then the results should speak for themselves. When you find yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to reveal the fruits of your labor - you want it to be shock and awe - not "damn, this guy is always talking about going to the gym, working on his fitness etc etc and not really impressed." In fact, if people don't know you go to the gym at all, it can only be a positive surprise. You may realize that I have discussed this issue many times on the blog, but I just wanted to re-emphasize a point that is relevant for all of us preparing for a run of the mill pool party that you may be invited to by a co-worker, neighbor, or the team mom of your kid's soccer team. You want do apprehensively - and only after someone asking you to, or it become a necessity - go ahead and acquiesce.
But enough 'bout the fitness game because talking about it myself, you might get the wrong idea that I'm trying to work on it - I'm not. The intelligence game. No one likes a knowitall, no one likes an idiot. But if you focus on the title of this particular post, you want to be the guy who casually happens to have a knowledgbase that is borderline absurd. And this provides a nexus to the reading game. This isn't aimed at you wikipedia fiends, this is aimed at the more "long formed" bases of knowledge that provide nuances, tangential intelligence, and first and foremost the ability to say "I read a book about that and..." as opposed to "I read on wikipedia that..." The latter category is quite obvious because it either begins with "I heard that" or "I read that." You need to be able to drop the work "book" somewhere in there to show you are really into the intelligence game and the reading game.
Which (haha) brings me to a few interesting facts from my latest foray into accumulating knowledge.
"Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, Ivan the Great's expanding Russia, Songhay in the Sahel, Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, the cresting Otoman Empire, the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known) and any European state was the Ikan Empire."
This is both a) an interesting fact and b) something that is dangerous to know because if you ever force this into your office small talk/banter type situation you will immediately be viewed as a jerkoff. But that being said the Inca were tight and were pretty much doing the damn thing better than anyone at the time - then they got caught slippin and 95% of them got "zipped up"
Moral of the story, play the background. Let the other guy make all the noise and try to get all the shine while at the same time keep your eye on the prize: Pool parties, getting your intelligence game proper, and being known for having a mysterious, yet quietly intelligence poise to your day-to-day doings. If you do this, people will respect you and always have a hesitance to try to ever throw you under the bus or attempt any other type of slight towards you because you haven't put all your cards on the table. People are always nervous about what they don't know, and if when you opine you deliver with quality consistently - the silent man becomes a force. (Unless you are Incan and your immune system was mad weak and your entire people essentially got zipped up along with all other people in the hemisphere.)
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