Most best-selling personal development books suck.
Robert Ringer’s Winning Through Intimidation is NOT one of them.
It’s a terrific self-improvement book.
Ringer has lots of hard-earned lessons to teach you.
The title of the book is somewhat misleading. He doesn’t advise you to intimidate other people. Rather, it’s a guide to defending yourself against intimidating people.
The book tells the story of Robert Ringer’s years as a real estate broker.
In his first years in the business, he goes through a lot of intimidation, humiliation, and failure until he manages to earn $850,000 a year in gross commissions in 1960s dollars.
His story is a fascinating read, full of valuable life lessons.
Your Posture Is More Important Than You Think
During his first years as a real estate broker, Robert Ringer gets walked over by the people he works with.
Although he works hard, he is not able to make much money.
After leaving a lot of money on the table, he vows to never go through that humiliation again.
He does a lot of thinking and decides that his failure to make money had nothing to do with a lack of hard work, knowledge, or experience.
The problem was his posture.
People didn’t hesitate to walk over him because of his weak posture.
He even developed a theory about it which he called posture theory:
Based on firsthand experience, it was apparent to me that the most relevant factor in my ongoing dilemma was my posture, a conclusion that produced the Posture Theory, which states: It’s not what you say or do that counts, but what your posture is when you say or do it.
He took measures to strengthen his posture and the rest is history.
Most People Have Weak Posture
Humans are social creatures.
Unless you live on an isolated island, you have to deal with other people.
Other people’s perception of you will play an important role in your life.
Perception often overrides reality.
You may be strong and confident but if your posture is weak, you will be perceived as weak.
Go out for people watching and you will notice that most men have weak posture-slouched shoulders and hunched backs.
A weak posture signals weakness to the outer world.
You don’t want to signal weakness to the outer world. You want to signal strength.
It’s better to start your interactions from a position of strength.
Benefits Of A Strong Posture
Besides its numerous health benefits, a strong posture
- is your best armor from the predators of the world
- makes you sexually more attractive
- gets you more respect from others
- screams self-confidence
Your posture matters even during your interactions with people where they don’t see you.
A weak posture will seep into the tone of your voice when you are talking on the phone or your words when you are texting.
Life is brutal.
The weak lose and the strong win.
Winning revolves around strength. Nature rewards the strong punishes the weak.
Having a strong posture will dramatically increase your odds for success.
The Easiest Way To Improve Your Posture
Building strong muscles is the easiest way to build a strong posture.
When you have strong muscles, it’s impossible to have a weak posture because your muscles will wrap around your bones and hold them against gravity.
The most efficient way to build strong muscles is resistance training.
Either bodyweight training or weightlifting will do wonders for your posture.
Bodyweight training can be done anywhere, with no equipment other than your own body. Do some burpees, work your abs, do some pushups.
Weightlifting doesn’t need to be complicated either. There’s a lazy way to build muscle.
Your posture might be holding you back in life.
Start building your muscles today.
Build a strong posture and additionally, reap all the other great benefits of strong muscles.