Disclaimer: This post is about perceived SMV so there is no core TRP philosophy or deep stuff. Just superficial things.

As far as self improvement is concerned, the common consensus is to lift in gym, work on career, develop social skills, cultivate hobbies and learn game. My argument is that working on how you look: losing weight, gaining weight, getting ripped, dressing well, grooming should be given an overwhelming priority in the initial days/weeks to see maximum gains in overall SMV.

Consider other gains and their impact on SMV. Take intellectual gains. Say you have been reading lots of philosophy, psychology and economics. You are very well versed with those topics and you can talk about them for hours. But how many situations warrant that? Will you come across as know-it-all arrogant individual? Essentially the number of people who are impressed with those gains is on the lower side. Also if done incorrectly, it looks as if you are showing off and looking for validation. This is because you have to actively do something for people to see that you have high value in that department.

Now think about gains in your career. You are climbing up the corporate ladder or may be increasing revenues in your own start up. That's great. But how many people actually notice it. Almost as a rule nobody reveals how much they are making. You have to save a lot of money for early retirement and for your own security so you cant really show off your money by buying expensive cars or uploading pics of expensive vacations at exotic destinations. Yes some people will know. Your co-workers, your friends, your relatives will have a pretty good idea about it but the number of people is still low.

Now consider looks part, not just facial aesthetics but the whole package of body, muscles, grooming, fashion, posture etc.

You are a walking bill board.

Everyone whom you meet, the people in the room, hell even the people who look at you in passing can instantly see the value. Your perceived SMV raises instantly.

This is huge.

You don't have to open your mouth and talk about the string theory or how awesome your start up is performing this quarter and come off as a self validating insecure person who is doing all this to make up for something else.

People will notice.

Jawline will be more noticeable, features become prominent, glow in the eyes, the tapered V shape of the shirt.

Just a single glance will tell them:

how good looking you are,

how responsible you are for taking care of your body,

what a great fashion sense you have,

how disciplined you are to eat clean,

how well groomed you are,

how genetically endowed you are.

So at least for me the takeaway was to give overwhelming priority to things like lifting, eating clean, saving up to buy well fitting clothes, grooming daily. I emphasized heavily on eating clean.

If you have say 25% body fat, instead of dealing with that for months. Just set up very short term goals like 1 week, 1 month, 3 months goals. Channel most of your will power into getting rid of that body fat. Have a wager with a friend that if you don't get to your waistline to xx inches you will pay him 200$. Do anything and get that thing off your list of things to improve upon.

All the while, don't ignore the other aspects of your life but if you want your perceived SMV to sky rocket put them on maintenance mode. To be honest I feel for us TRP bros even maintenance mode in career, social skills should be equivalent to beast mode of others. The key is to get the looks part out of the way. Once you are down to 15% body fat you can turn your focus back to career and proceed to kill that aspect.

The gains in looks aspect will be many-fold, they will spill on your social life, your career and your overall happiness.

What do you guys think?

Edit : Formatting