December 23, 2019

The Importance of Online Friendships, Strength Training, and Advice for Men – Alexander Cortes on The Bobby Dino Podcast

The internet enables you to make friends with people from all corners of the world (and if you take it seriously, you can develop meaningful connections for life)
If you have a personal/online brand, you can’t take every comment to heart
- “You have to love people and appreciate the people that look up to you, but also, at the same time, you have to almost hate people and not give a f**k about any of them” – Alexander Cortes
A great quote from Clarence Thomas: “Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot”
- Learn social skills and manners so you know how to interact properly with people (when people like you, they’ll go out of their way to help you)
When it comes to bench pressing: Incline bench >>> flat/decline bench

Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes (@AJA_Cortes) is a personal trainer and health writer
- Check out his website
- For more Alex, check out the Podcast Notes from his appearance on the Modern Wisdom podcast
Host – Bobby Dino (@RealBobbyDino)

Gorilla Mindset by Mike Cernovich
The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football by Bill Starr

For most of human history, your friends were limited to your geographical location
- Now, the internet enables you to make friends with people from all corners of the world (and if you take it seriously, you can develop meaningful connections for life)
There are two types of friendships: Ascending and descending
- Ascending friendships are friends who push you and make your life better
- Descending friendships are friends who drag you down and make your life worse
“You’re never going to beat your environment” – Alexander Cortes
- That’s why it’s so important to change your environment for the better, and carefully choose the people you spend your time with
No matter who you are, eventually you’ll hit your level of competence and be forced to meet/learn from new people to get to the next level in life

Being an entrepreneur will force you to learn dozens of important skills:
- How to gauge website traffic
- How to write
- How to sell
- How to speak in front of large groups
- How to tell stories
- Social media
- SEO
- And the list goes on…
If you want to become more ambitious, become dissatisfied with your current life
- “If you’re one of those people who can be comfortable anywhere, that kills your sense of vision. It kills your sense of desire to go after anything.” – Alexander Cortes

Alexander has been mobbed (online) by social justice warriors several times
- Once you hit a certain threshold of followers, it’s almost certain you’ll have people who disagree with you and/or hate you
- It’s a shock at first, but if you’ve been attacked more than once and you’re still around, you become bulletproof
  - “There’s nothing you can say to me now online that I’m going to get upset about” – Alexander Cortes
    - Alexander estimates he’s gotten over a thousand messages telling him to kill himself
- The takeaway: All publicity is good publicity
  - Getting attacked online just leads to more followers for Alexander
If you have a personal/online brand, you can’t take every comment to heart
- “You have to love people and appreciate the people that look up to you, but also, at the same time, you have to almost hate people and not give a f**k about any of them” – Alexander Cortes
- You need to have a solid foundation of self-confidence if you’re going to have an online brand

It’s okay to show weakness to a close friend or your partner, but don’t show it outwardly to the world
A great quote from Clarence Thomas: “Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot”
- Learn social skills and manners so you know how to interact properly with people (when people like you, they’ll go out of their way to help you)
  - Going further: “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you… You need other people to get to the next level.” – Bobby Dino
Today is both the best and worst time to be a man
- Every market (job, dating, etc.) is now a global competition
  - If you’re competent, you will be greatly rewarded
  - If you’re unskilled, you will face tough times
- “You have to hold yourself to high standards and embody those standards. You are not going to have a high standard of life with low standard living.” – Alexander Cortes
  - “You are not going to tame greatness by being average” – Bobby Dino

When it comes to bench pressing: Incline bench > flat/decline bench
- Tall individuals should avoid the flat bench because it hyper-extends their shoulders, which may result in injury
- In general, most everyone should avoid the decline bench – the downward slope pushes your shoulders back, which can also lead to shoulder injuries
  - If you want to train your lower chest, just do dips or push-ups
You should be able to do bodyweight exercises with ease
- If you can’t move your own skeleton, that’s an issue

Brutal consistency with work
Being able to write
Being confident
- Confidence = Victories x Time
  - Building your body is an excellent way to gain victory (and thus confidence) – Stronger people are tougher, more resilient, harder to kill, and more useful in general

Eastern European countries are nice places, but don’t expect special treatment there just because you’re American
- Women in Eastern Europe tend to prefer masculine men
Alexander’s plan for 2020 is to live in South America and learn Spanish