My friends are dumb

Life's too short. Get new friends

My first advice would be please don't call your friends dumb. Understand that the definition of "success" is very subjective. The thing which is success for you, may be a misery for somebody else. Some people are just not interested in finance. Some prefer relatively lower paying job for the sake of normal hours. For someone success is money, prestige, for another one it may be health, family, and for some it may be just inner peace. Yes, I have many friends who are not-ambitious but most of them are very smart and interesting people. I don't judge them for being "not ambitious".

There is usually a trade-off between happiness and ambition (not always). Some achieve less but are happy with what they have. Some achieve a lot but push happiness away from themselves.

There is a saying in Russian which translates to "Friendship is friendship, and work is work". Keep them separate and don't mix. Additionally, your childhood friends are the ones which are with you no matter of your level of "success, money and status". It is very rare thing to have.

What's an example of advice you give them?

If it's "stop getting drunk every day and find a job" then yeah, you might need some new friends.

If it's "why not go search for jobs at another place?  I hear XXX is hiring." then maybe they're stuck in their comfort zone

Hang out with 5 dumb friends, you’re bound to become the 6th...

Analyst 1 in AM - Equities

Aight the title was kind of a clickbait. But here goes. I'm someone who was pretty cogent early on in life and always got pretty good (but not excellent) grades. I've also always seemed to be pretty focused on trying to make intermediate term plans on how to progress in life and I've been able to deliver on many of my goals by putting in the work and following the plans I've devised for myself.

When friends talk to me about their life and potential issues and obstacles they're experiencing I used to have the urge to suggest solutions to them. At the end of the day my suggestions may be wrong, but I always tried to help them to the best of my intentions. I'm now at a point where I feel like some of my (mainly childhood) friends are either too "dumb" to understand the suggestions I'm making or are just entirely lacking the motivation to implement a solution that may take some time to show some payoff. Especially those outside of finance, working a wide variety of other corporate jobs, just seem to be content coasting by and don't have any long term plans.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not the smartest cookie in the cookie jar and I can only imagine that some of my smarter friends may think similarly about me. But I really just can't be bothered to try my best to "help" them. Has anyone been feeling the same? Maybe more broadly, how has your experience been like staying in touch with your old circle of friends who may be less ambitious and less hard-working (especially those who don't work in finance)? How have you been able to switch-off your mindset of being a goal-getter and continued on whatever shared basis you still have with the people you like?

Careful that you don't break your neck sucking yourself off buddy boy.

Instead of back-biting your friends on an online forum go make some new ones or take action or something lol 

There are plenty of people in "less prestigious" corporate roles that are infinitely happier than the average PE Associate lol. By the standards of this forum, UX Design shouldn't be held in high regard since people only crack $200k comp around 32. But they get to do meaningful work (such as designing the next iPhone, or pushing forward new ideas at YouTube), and put in 40-45 hours a week. Are those people "dumb" or stupid in your eyes? 

I think prospects on this forum take-on an incredibly myopic view of the world and cannot comprehend that the path to making the most money isn't always the smartest and oftentimes will not produce the fulfillment that you expect. 

I agree with you because my friends are dumb as well. not sure why people are saying success is subjective - they don't know what your friends value lol my friends do value being successful in monetary terms but are too stupid and lazy to put in the effort to achieve anything and would rather be depressed about not being paid highly than actually putting effort in to get to that level. they all work manual jobs, get supported by their parents even though they are adults, and constantly talk about get rich quick schemes.