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Lucio Buffalmano is a sociologist and global authority on power dynamics and men’s self-development.
He founded ThePowerMoves in 2016 to help good men win—without becoming as*holes.
Today, TPM is the #1 site for mastering power, strategies, and winning at life.
https://thepowermoves.com/
Lucio Buffalmano is a sociologist and global authority on power dynamics and men’s self-development.
He founded ThePowerMoves in 2016 to help good men win—without becoming as*holes.
Today, TPM is the #1 site for mastering power, strategies, and winning at life.
https://thepowermoves.com/
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LearningTranscript
00:00Self-help is destroying your confidence. This is how, and this is how you fix it.
00:05There is a brand of self-help that focuses on mantras, breaking negative beliefs,
00:10and supposedly replacing them with empowering incantations of limitless potential,
00:17extreme ownership, achieving anything you set your mind to, etc, etc. Some examples here.
00:24The thing that I probably repeat to myself the most is you can do anything you set your mind to.
00:30I have to say, you know, this proves once again that all the limitations are just here. They're
00:34not physical. They are in our hands. If people said gravity is what it is,
00:39we never would have reached escape velocity. And yet, as a species, we have been able to
00:43hurl a fucking rocket into space. That is real. Only because somebody said,
00:47I refuse to be held down by the most obvious rule that we have.
00:51The one that everybody says is beyond reproach. And that is gravity.
00:55My mindset is this. My wife is British. That's true. Let's say she goes to England.
00:59She's staying at home with her mom. She's in her bedroom, safe and sound.
01:02The doors are locked. The alarm is on. At that moment, a meteorite comes screaming
01:06through the atmosphere, crashes into the bedroom and kills her. Whose fault is that? Mine.
01:10First off, this is no dig to the people in the examples. They are great guys.
01:16They have good intentions. I think they are also adding value to their audiences,
01:20so much respect to them. Second, that approach may be valid for some.
01:25As a matter of fact, probably it is valid for many people. In my opinion, it's mostly valid
01:32for beginners, but you know better what's good for you. People who subscribe here and who watch
01:38my videos tend to be smart, cool guys. So if you know that it works for you,
01:44you know better. Keep doing it. Third, this is just my way of seeing things
01:51and doing things. It worked for me, so I'm going to share it. And from my point of view,
01:57that type of self-help feels fake, childish, illogical, and frankly, I look down on it.
02:06I cannot respect it. To begin with, it's illogical and I do not respect anything that's illogical.
02:14The way my mind works, I cannot even consider it, in part because I respect logic, critical thinking,
02:23and what makes sense. I do not respect what makes no sense. So from the moment that somebody says
02:30you can do anything you set your mind to, it's like, bro, who are you lying to? Me or yourself?
02:37And the second reason is that to me, it's not even a matter of opinions or how you see things,
02:44but having a logical mind and looking at reality the way it is, and then developing strategies
02:51and actions that are based on reality, it's simply more effective. Just imagine as an example,
02:58you're a white guy and you enjoy sports and you're very good at it. You enjoy equally running,
03:05like fast track running, 100 meters, let's say, and you enjoy swimming. Now, if you think I can do
03:12anything I set my mind to, you may go for running. But to me, that's fucking stupid,
03:18because as a white person, you have more chances in swimming where white people dominate rather
03:24than running where usually black people dominate. It's just how things are. That's a silly example.
03:31Unluckily, I came up with an example that's about races and it's a poor example because it's not
03:37even the main differentiator among people. Most of the times it's not about your racial background,
03:43but it's about your personal proclivities and talents. So the reality based person doesn't
03:49only think about what he could do in this imaginative world of I can do anything I set
03:57my mind to, but instead he looks at what he's already good at and he enjoys and he keeps
04:03pursuing that. And that gives him much higher odds and chances of achieving his goals and become
04:09a happy life winner. Reason number two why I really don't like this approach. It's that to me
04:16it feels very unmasculine. Personally, I'm not even a huge proponent and advocate of masculinity.
04:23However, as for everything, balance. And to me, this approach feels like going to the extreme of
04:32unmasculine. For example, could you imagine Julius Caesar standing in front of his legions
04:38and repeating to himself, I can do anything I set my mind to? Yeah, exactly. I cannot imagine that.
04:46I don't think it did. And if it did, I will lose a little bit of respect for him, actually.
04:52But I don't think it did. Finally, even more important, this is not even mentally powerful.
04:58It's not mentally empowering. It's not resilient. To me, it doesn't even help you move forward
05:05because there are better alternatives. If you think about it, who needs to repeat to himself
05:12that he's responsible for anything, that he can do anything he set his mind to, and that he has
05:18no limits? It's only the individual. It's only the man who actually had doubts in the first place.
05:27The simple mantra that you are limitless confirms the existence of your limits. So it is not
05:35effective because by repeating those limitless mantras, you are actually reminding yourself
05:43about the limits. The opposite of the spectrum reminds you of the existence of the spectrum.
05:51The limitlessness reminds you of the limits. To make a comparison, to me, it's a little bit like,
05:59you know, those teenagers groups who worship the devil. Well, one, again, it's a good comparison
06:05because that's fucking childish. And two, what they are trying to do with their opposition to
06:10Christianity actually confirms religion. Worshipping the devil confirms the existence of God
06:19and the fact that God is actually more powerful. You are rebelling to God. You are still within the
06:26frame. Real badasses do not worship the devil. They're just badasses, including the believers
06:35in God, by the way. So my very different approach is that beliefs do not even enter the computation.
06:43Just think about this. For any goal that I achieved, I never thought that I could do them.
06:50Does that sound crazy? Well, that's only because I also never doubted myself. I simply never stopped
06:59thinking on whether I could do it or I could not do it. I just focused on the actions. I focused
07:06on what I wanted and the steps to get there, the strategies and the shortcuts, which, by the way,
07:12quick parenthesis for me, for my life, for achieving my goals, strategies and shortcuts
07:18were the real secret weapon. A good topic for the next video, maybe. Now, to stay on topic,
07:26my foundational belief was indeed that, yes, it's possible, but I just never entertained
07:35that thought because I focused on the actions. So to give you an example, when I started The
07:42Power Moves, I never stopped thinking if this new brand of self-development could become a thing
07:50or if it could sustain my life or become a financially viable business. If somebody had
07:56asked me, do you think The Power Moves could become a viable business? I would have replied,
08:02yeah, of course it can. But my mindset would be it's not about whether it can or cannot. Of course
08:09it can. The question is whether it will. And to increase the odds of making it possible, I focus
08:18on actions. So when I started, I never thought, yes, I can do it or I can make anything happen.
08:26Instead, I focused on writing the first article, then the second article, then improving my writing
08:32skills, then experiencing more in life so that I could share it, how to explain things better,
08:38step by step, little improvement by little improvement, then the first crappy video,
08:43then some more crappy videos with a green background. But hopefully even those will
08:48improve. And little by little, eventually this novel approach based on power and strategies
08:54did become a thing. And The Power Moves eventually became a viable business.
08:58Same thing. If somebody were to ask me today, do you think you can 10x The Power Moves or about
09:05this channel? Do you think it could reach 100,000 subscribers? That question by itself wouldn't
09:13annoy me. My answer would be shrug like, yeah, of course it can. So again, you see the basis
09:20of the belief you can is there, but it's not the focus. Because for me, the way I think,
09:26it opens a frame that for me is disempowering, that doesn't even have a reason to exist.
09:33Of course, everything is possible. It could be 100,000, 1 million, anything is within the realms
09:40of possibilities. But who cares about that? My focus is on the daily actions and on the
09:46improvement. Step by step, improve the articles, make Power University, our flagship course,
09:54better and better. So much so that people eventually refer their friends so that you
09:59don't even need to advertise it. Read more, live more, learn more, learn how to share better.
10:05Keep doing it. Rinse and repeat. And then step by step, we will see where it goes.
10:13Maybe it doesn't go anywhere. Maybe 10x is it. Maybe it doesn't. And the point is, I will still
10:20do it anyway. I still enjoy doing it. I still love my life. And importantly, I also still think well
10:28of myself. That is mental power to me. Focus on actions, focus on moving forward, focus on
10:35improving step by step and be cool with yourself anyway. The beauty of an approach focused on goals
10:44and actions to get there is that it renders beliefs irrelevant. As long as you take action
10:53and you adjust along the way, what you believe does not matter. So why would you waste time
11:00repeating mantras? Focus on actions. Take this mantra instead. Time wasters opine, doers act.
11:11So there you are. Take it away for you. If you are repeating these mantras, I can do anything,
11:17I set my mind to and blah, blah, blah. Maybe it can be helpful for you to break the pattern of
11:22very negative mantras that you have. However, as you progress, I would advise stop thinking about
11:30what you can or cannot do anyway. Yes, you probably can do a lot of things, but focus on the actions.
11:37That's my take on it. If you liked it, like and subscribe and I'll see you the next time.
11:42See you guys. Ciao, ciao.