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One of the issues I enjoy discussing, one which sets this blog apart from its rivals, is the transition between the internal and the external.  I’ve dubbed it the Innergame-Outergame bridge.   It’s understanding how you feel about yourself internally exudes and manifests itself externally

This is key to recognizing how you come across right now and how you may come across with more confidence.

When you interact with women in general, most of them will be able to quickly decipher how confident you are with women.  Most guys are oblivious of this because most men get caught in macho bravado of “big talk.”  Everyone can talk a big game but then, and it’s easy to get lost in stories of people, but then there is a time for action.

It’s no different than sports.  You’ve met guys in your life who will brag how good they are at playing basketball, or that they have a black belt in some form of karate.  Well, put them on a basketball court or on the mat, and it’s a different story.

So let’s take a casual and nonthreatening environment such as a house party.  It’s a good mix crowd of people and has a decent number of attractive women as well.

You’re socializing with various folk, and you’re talking to  various girls.  How will they know? How do they distinguish if you’re confident or not?

• One of the biggest factors in determining confidence is your level of comfort.

They discern confidence usually from comfort.  So here are some indicators of comfort that are constantly signaling your level of confidence at every given moment.

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• Body language:

OK, I spend an entire article on this one alone. Do you stand up tall, move with ease? Or are nervous, fidgety, twitching, shifting back and forth while slouched?  In my ebook, there is a partial chapter dedicated to this along with photographs. You may want to get a copy of it.

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• Eye contact:

while engaged in conversation, are you able to engage in eye contact in a relaxed manner? Not looking away, nor staring with that dear in the headlights gaze.

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• Proximity-

This is huge, and now that I’ve mentioned it, you’ll start perhaps noticing it too.  Take a look around at the next party.  Guys who are comfortable with women have no issues with an attractive girl (or any girl) standing close to them.

Scenario: You’re in the kitchen chatting, and you observe two people,  a guy and a girl.  Notice as that she gets closer, he becomes more uncomfortable.  Suddenly their shoulders  are 10 inches apart (25 centimeters) and his behavior changes.  He may back up, he may become herky-jerky, more excited, but it will change somehow.  You will pick up the vibe that he is becoming less uncomfortable as she is inching closer.

The confident dude who is comfortable will maintain same relax posture he had if she were across the room.  Women can sense this.

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• Smile:

Smiling in a friendly casual manner is also an indicator.  It need not be an ear to ear grin with all of your veneers out on display.  It could even be a smirk.  Smiling is an important element. In and of itself, it may not be a clear factor but combined with the various elements I’ve described thus far, it can definitely sway the vote.

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• Touch:

Another huge giveaway.   Guys who are not comfortable with women are not comfortable with touching them.  (not talking about groping or ass grabbing here).  It can be hand on hand, hand on her back, or something simple as a putting your hand on her triceps muscles.

Ever watch those old Michael Jackson videos?  Yes, they’re fantastic music videos, and at the same time, the biggest tell-tale signs that a grown man who is perhaps the most famous man in the planet, is supremely uncomfortable with the touch of a woman.  Granted, he was an extreme case, and he couldn’t fake it in his own videos, but that’s fodder for another article.

Needless to say, being comfortable with casual touching can determine how experienced & confident a guy is with girls.

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• Voice tone:

Not often mentioned, but it’s also huge. For our purposes, we’ll put this in 3 categories:

1. Uncomfortable,
2. Casual,
3. Flirtatious.

 Uncomfortable can vary from nervous/shaky to mild discomfort.   Casual is the same tone you’d have with pals, and coworkers.  You’d have this tone in work situations or professional environments.  Flirtatious is taking the next step up.  It’s more playful, teasing, and it changes as the context of the environment changes.

Some people (and those who teach dating advic) are under the misconception that you must speak with a deep Dracula trance-inducing deep voice at all times.  These are usually creepy nlp guys who have no friends.

 Voice tone changes as does the relationship.  Let’s go to the same house party that we started with and revisit the guy and girl in the kitchen.  In the beginning voice tone is more teasing, playful, and for lack of a better word (cute), where as later on during a quite conversation by the fireplace, it’s deeper, richer and more soothing.

 Let’s say you’re a guy who is naturally good at attracting women, and for some inexplicable reason you ended up on my blog reading this article. You may think that this is really breaking down the obvious, or perhaps it’s really over-analyzing it.  Rest assured, these are things you already DO naturally.  Think about it and you’ll notice your  own patterns.

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What Confident Behavior Looks Like

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For lack of a better word, we can call the above list “Symptoms” of Confidence.  They’re basically like radar-signatures that we are all transmitting at any given time.

This seems like a whole lot to remember, but if you’re trying to remember all of this s hit, you’re not doing yourself a favor. I only mention these so that you are MILDLY  aware of them.  Then let it go.  These things happen naturally.  My aim is to just introduce some of these variances to you if you are someone who struggles a bit in the dating arena.

A guy who is good at engaging women will  create fun banter while another guy will discuss some topic (like the occupation they both happen to share) and discuss it endlessly until there is nothing to be said.  I’ve witnessed this more times than I care to remember.

I’ve seen it at gatherings where an acquaintance who likes a girl is talking to her about some common interest (let’s say it’s about fitness, and all I hear is “yea, I do this and that.  You run? Cool, what kind of running?  I started doing this run and then I went to that…”

There is nothing wrong with a little bit of this, but over a 10 minute span, that is ALL they’ve talked about, and I know that my buddy likes this girl, and I am going crazy in mind wanting to scream at him “Get off this fucking topic!”

Here is the miscue: He is thinking, “oh, cool, I’m exploring a common interest.”
She is thinking: OK, random conversation about running and fitness. Seems cool.

Yet there is no playful banter, no real idea of learning something personal about the other person, or any sort of connection being established. 

Anyhow, that was a complete tangent on the conversational topics.  It’s not the primary focus of this article.  IF you’re interested in conversational skills/topics, get a copy of my ebook, Building Attraction Secrets. (yes, it really is THAT good! I wrote it, I should know)

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• Back to signs of comfort:

Body language, proximity, voice tone, and touch (or reaction to touch), and a smile determine how comfortable a guy around a woman.  This comfort communicates subconsciously how confident he is with women.

So two questions:

1. Do you have to a confident/suave type?
2. How can you use this information?

I’ll answer the two above questions to clear any misconceptions.

1.  Do you have to be a suave/player type?

No!  Most guys are not, and they’re able to get dates/girlfriends and such.  It’s not necessary to be mr. super smooth and every once in a great while, it may be even work against you.  Sometimes a girl who is looking for a boyfriend will write you off when you’re super-smooth because in the back of her mind, she’ll reason: “Man, that guy is too smooth. Player, looking for a piece of ass.”  (and most of the time, she is right on that one.)

How can you use this information?  Well, you can use it as a yard-stick  or a barometer to gauge and ascertain where you need to make improvements on.

Almost exactly, two years ago, I wrote an article about pushing your comfort zone versus being comfortable which I still get emails about to this day. You can read that here:

Pushing Your Comfort Zone VS. Being Comfortable.  What to do!

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Determine your major sticking points and work on them.  As you work to gain more confidence internally, you can have a few goals externally.  Keep them extremely simple: For example, if you’re nervous in touching women, you can make that a priority for yourself.  What if a woman you just met puts her hands on you?  Are you comfortable with that?  Are you comfortable putting your hand on her shoulder for about  two seconds?

Having read this article, you now are more aware of some of your sticking points which serve as areas of improvement.  I’ll reitterate: the point of this article is not to have a check list to remember the next time you’re at a party.  Pick where you want to push your comfort zone.

If from a level of 1 to 10 (and 10 being the most comfortable), you’re at level 3 in touching women, then work on being on level 4.  When comfy with that, push to level 5 and so forth.

This ensures long term success which comes gradually and progressively as opposed to overnight gimmicks you’re being sold everyday.

Cameron

PS. Remember these articles are meant to be used as a resource with my Ebook:  Building Attraction Secrets.

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Question from Steve:

Hi Cameron

I really enjoy your articles and posts on your website- unlike most everyone else is the “industry” you write very well, without a lot of hype, hooks buzzwords and catchwords, you are the most common sense straightforward “normal behavior” guy I have come across.

I have a question (suggestion perhaps for one of your articles)- in the movie “The Professional”  (Natalie Portman/Jean Reno) Gary Oldman plays Stansfield, a psycho DEA agent.  His character has this incredible screen presence and power over everyone he comes into contact with, like he can just totally dominate anyone or any situation no matter how charged.  It seems to me like Stansfield knows he has this power and is aware when he uses it.

Could you explain what this is, where it comes from, and how does a man develop this for himself (to use in a positive way)?

Regards,

Steve

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Hey Steve,

Thanks for the good words

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen “The Professional”, but I do remember the character played by Gary Oldman.

Stansfield

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Much of The “Stansfield” character ‘s influence comes through physical intimidation.  It’s not something that’s applicable.  Ever seen Joe Pesci in Goodfellas or Casino?  Why he is character influential?  Because he intimidates them with physical harm.  I wish there was something fantastical or spiritual about it, but there really isn’t.

Now, a person can possess a certain charisma that influence those around him.  I wrote an extensive article on that.  You can read it here: How to develop Charisma.

Clearly that is different than intimidating physical harm.  Now, the type of presence of power you’re seeking  comes from Strength.  Well, I wrote an article on that as well:

What is Strength? How do you develop it?

(I get to boast here: Isn’t this blog awesome?? It actually ties together.)

If you combine the information contained in those two articles, you have your answer.  But to review a few things without rewriting the entire articles again, I’d say, to have that sort of power:

You need inner strength which stems from having a strong identity and strong beliefs.  More so, you ought to have a sense of purpose that is usually well defined through tangible and measurable goals.

So let’s here is an analogy and role-play with me for a minute.  Humor me please:

Let’s say you’re in Los Angeles and someone told you if you were able to make it to San Francisco within 14 hours, and not a minute late, you’d get a suitcase filled with a 2 million dollars cash. (Tax free.  They cleared it with the IRS apparently.)

Now given that it’s a 6 to 7 hour drive without traffic, you have plenty of time to make it there, even if you hit a couple of bumps on the road.  Got all that?

Now you have a tangible goal and a sense of purpose.  You are focused on the task, and can’t allow for distractions.   You won’t allow distractions because you can’t afford to.  How would your behavior be different?

Think about the details of it.  This is important.  In those instances, your behavior would be somewhat representative of the character you mentioned in your question.

As an example, let’s say someone you know, a friend of a friend, requires 30 minute of your time to tell you about his latest greatest “Multi-level marketing” venture.  You know the pyramid schemes, where you gotta find 5 victims to sell something to, and then they each have to find 5 other dickheads and pretty soon, you’ll all be rolling in the money.

(Yes, I’ve been duped into going to these meetings where they tied to convince me what a grand opportunity I’d been presented.)

But the question is: How do you deal with that dude knowing you can’t be a minute late to SF to get that briefcase.

Here is the kicker:

Many  people you and I casually know wouldn’t make it during that 14-hour window.  I Know that sounds weird, but I firmly believe this.  It’s a seemingly simple task.  Get in the friggin’ car and start driving.  How hard can that be? If you need to borrow a car, do so.  Ditch work, or quit if you have to.

Simple, isn’t it?

But lack of car or having to work won’t be the reasons people don’t make it.  It’ll be a myriad of excuses that would boggle the mind and I’d be wasting my time sitting here trying to think of them.

Now, you may say it’s unrealistic to have that laser focus every single day,.

What you can have are big goals, and smaller goals on the way to achieving the bigger ones.

This doesn’t have to do with specific dating tactics, but your question regarding presence.

By the way, this answer seems so easy, and it is when you look at it from the right context.  Implementation of it takes time, and has to be accomplished gradually in steps.  One weekend at any seminar will not do it, I don’t care whose seminar, Tony Robbins, guru zorcna, or whoever.

That brings me to another aspect of self-help.  There is only so much advice you can take.  In the scenario I presented above,  would you spend 2 hours first reading some Eckhart Tolle before you started driving SF? Seriously, would ya?

You probably arrange for reliable transportation, (1972 Ford Pinto is out),  get a stack of maps, and a GPS system to top it off, maybe pick the brains of a few pals who have made the trip before and then hit the road.

There is a lesson to be learned there:

Get the info you need to start, and hit the road.  Start doing it.

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So many times we get lost in the bullshit.  Distractions come from all sorts of angles and you waste time, seemingly unconcerned, indifferent, and lackadaisical.  If you could somewhat focus on where you’re going, then imagine the possibilities of discoveries along the way.  And on the way there, you just might develop the passion and presence of Stansfield-character you sought.

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 Like you, I’ve read my fair share of self-help advice.  I’ve listened to enough people, and have taken from it what I can.  It can be a slippery slope however.  Too often, self-help becomes sort of a religion where people become void of independent thought, and depended upon their guru of choice.  Phrases such as “Keep Your Power” and “Don’t give you power away” become common place cliches.

How do you create that power?  Some say power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.   If so how do you get it?  There are all sorts of techniques out there as to how to create the illusion that you’re powerful, and there is much advice to the tune of “Don’t give your power away” or “Keep your power” in the dating realm and interpersonal relationships between human beings in general.  (Be it lovers, coworkers, your boss, and so forth.)

But then, you have to wonder, is power merely a position?  Do you have to be appointed to some sort of a higher position to have power?   Certainly, someone can point to a dictator and say he has power.  He can order executions at will, and controls the army.  But that’s really not the kind of power we are after, (And if that’s what you seek, you’re reading the wrong blog.)

So perhaps power is the wrong word to use here.  Dating-coaches specially talk about “Hey, keep your power.  Don’t give it away.”  Certainly, it’s well intentioned, but power is not about control over other people.  Really, what it comes down to is personal power.  The personal power you have over your own actions, and you don’t need to attend 25 Tony Robbins seminars to gain control of it.  It’s power over things YOU Can control, your decisions, ideals, emotions, and actions.

I’d say what we’re really talking about is Strength.

Strength is what we’re after in this realm.  Not physical strength, but rather,  mental strength.  Mental strength is what separates many phenomenal athletes from just the good ones.  Personal strength is respected, whereas power often times enforced.

So how do we build that strength?  I believe that strength is built through accomplishing goals. To be more specific, setting up small tasks and accomplishing them.  Much like physical strength, it’s built in increments.  If you were going to make it a goal to lift 200 pounds (or whatever,) and all you can lift right now is 50, then you would need to build that strength.  You’re not jumping from 50 to 200 overnight.  But you can build the strength gradually.

Same comes with mental strength.  It’s built over a period of time, but it’s stuff no one teaches you in school. They teach you everything else but there is no class on how to create resolve and what you want.

Strength is about resolve, it’s about not compromising, and it’s about keeping and acting in line with your ideals and values.

A good example of Strength is action is the popular movie “Gladiator” starring Russell Crowe.  In watching the film we find 2 central characters:   We have Caesar’s replacement played by Juaqin Phoenix; and we have Russell’s character Maximus.

We love Maximus, but can’t stand the new Caesar.   Maximus has strength, the Caesar has power.  Maximus’s strength comes from within, where as Caesar’s power was given to him by the position he was awarded.  Nobody watches that movie and likes Caesar, though clearly he rules the entire land.  With the pointing of his thumb, he can decide the fate of a man, and yet he fights to have any sort of respect through his reign.  Yet, no one walks away from that film wishing he were that Caesar character.  People walk away wanting to be similar to the Maximus character for he represents all of the things we wish we were.

Maximus stands for ideas and virtues that we respect, or wish we could have:  The ability to stand for what we believe in, loyalty, valor, courage, and follow-through.   He stands for strength and honor, and it’s the reason why such characters throughout the history of cinema as well as literature have been revered.

All of that seems great and flowery perhaps, but where does it leave you?  A lot of men who seek advice online are seeking that strength in their relationships.  It may be in approaching women, feeling better about themselves, or maintaining a better relationship with their girlfriend/wives.

Sometimes this issue is compounded by a philosophy of “Get laid at any cost” which certain people tend to possess and pass down.  Walking away from a situation as an option, because then you didn’t get laid with that particular girl, and hence you lost.  That certainly is one perspective, but keep in mind that it’s just one perspective, and if you were to observe men who are most successful in attracting women, you’d find that those who do display personal strength are far ahead of those who do not.

Yes, in other words, our character Maximus would do far better in attracting women, and the friendship of other men than would your average “Compromise yourself to brag that you got laid at any cost” person.

Here is what it all comes down to: A person possess certain ideals and values which he is not willing to compromise, be it in dating or whatever the scenario may be.  Here is a quick dating example just for kicks:   An attractive girl you’re talking with (or dating) talks negatively about a friend of yours whom you hold in high regard.  What do you do?

Do you tell her that you hold that person in high regard, and while she is certainly entitled to her opinion, you’re not going to stand for your friend being slandered?  Or Do you say nothing  hoping that your silence will enhance your chances of getting laid?

There is difference in strength and intestinal fortitude.  Again, to hammer the point home, it’s the reason we admire Maximus.  We know beyond any doubt that if he were our friend, he’d speak up in that situation.

It’s that he will stand for his ideals.  It’s why the following photograph is one that is infinitely powerful and timeless:

Man vs. Tank

A man versus tank is the equivalent of a mouse challenging an elephant.  Yet, that guy is willing to stand there and face the consequences, while standing up for his values and his ideals.

Strength comes from within.  It’s easy to be the guy in the tank.  It’s not easy to stand up knowing you may get flattened into a pancake by that tank.  That’s the difference in strength.  The guy inside the tank has power.   The guy standing in front of it has strength!!

“All of this Strength-talk is great, Cameron!  How do you build it?”

Strength is built by setting up small goals, and then, accomplishing those small goals. Every single time you accomplish one such goal, you build strength.  You build resolve. Some people call it character.

Lacking resolve and strength of character, people turn to all sorts of mythical creatures, invisible genie in the universe who brings you things while you sit on your behind making demands.  But you and I know better than that.

You know best where you’re at in life. You know your own strength level and different people are at different points.  It’s not a judgment on who is better or stronger.  It’s simply knowing where you are and where you want to go.  If you need more strength to get where you’re going, then you need to start by making small changes, taking those incremental steps.

It’s really the only way to do it.  Don’t take my word for it, however.  Study the lives of historical figures and you shall find the same pattern.   Whether your goal is to achieve great things, get a new job, or simply lose 50 pounds of fat, it starts with setting up small goals and knocking them down.

You may say to me, “This is a dating blog and this advice doesn’t help me immediately.  If I attend a house party, I still don’t know what to say to a girl standing nearby.  I don’t know how to make proper conversation and flirt, and etc, etc, etc………..“

That’s a fair point. This article is not about approaching, what to say, how to flirt, obviously.  Those are skills you learn as you go along (and yes my 16 CD audio course is a great resource for this), and yet, you have to still realize that there is a balance to be struck.

As for me personally, I’ve learned that you have to take steps to build strength, and to put it in layman’s terms, you don’t jump from lifting 50 pounds to 500.  The guy who wins the most Valuable player award in professional sports didn’t get there in one giant leap either.  It took guts and it took courage and along the way, he also built strength.

You have to find ways to bolster your identity, who you are, what you stand for, and what you project on to the world.  Since this blog is dedicated to the dating, then it ought to be mentioned that those things [Identity & Values] cannot be determined by the validation of women in a nightclub.  Just as similar, if you’re a woman, that identity can’t be determined by what sort of a man you date or how wealthy of a man you land.

Strength comes from within.

It’s that simple.

Again, how do you build strength? One inch at a time.  It’s the inches around us that add up.

In fact, who is better at giving long motivational speeches than Al Pacino?  Pretty much, No one.  And let’s be honest, when you have Oliver Stone as Director and Pacino as lead actor, you have the movie making equivalent of an orgasm.   So with all of that mind, sit back, blast that volume high, and watch the Inch by Inch Speech from the end of “Any Given Sunday”:

“Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing.”

 Cameron

PS.  The article  that you’ve just read will significantly impact your dating life..  Please realize that it is supporting material to what I discuss in my expanded work. Get a copy here:   Building Attraction Audio Course

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The importance of self-image is often neglected in the dating-advice arena and too often even those who preach confidence do so with the false bravado of the blissfully ignorant.

 To understand yourself and your own psyche is the first step in enabling yourself to start moving forward to a better tomorrow, today.   I started to write an article entitled “Why they disdain your good deeds” and as I started writing it, things took a vastly different turn.  So I’ll post that article in the next Blog post entry. 

 If you’re seeking answers regarding your dating life on the Internet, you’re going to run into all sorts of various systems, methods, and styles.  There will be no shortage of “Gurus” who’d like you to worship them as entities sent from dimensions beyond our reach who have all the answers.  They’ll offer you all sort of strategies and tactics in order to try to “Game girls.”  Alleged wise-men will attempt to erase all of the baggage of your past with a little swish pattern from their NLP bag of tricks.  Oh, they will have all sorts of answers….

Sometimes, the answers are within you. 

 As I said, I started to write this article regarding the disdain some show towards kind deeds and it took a life of its own.  It’s important to look at yourself first.  You gain a better understanding of the world around you by having a better understanding of yourself. 

 A quick crash course in practical Hypnosis. (please do not mistake this with creepy guys trying to use NLP patterns attempting to lay women.)  I am not interested in that at all, and if you are, you should not be reading my blog.  Go and study Bandler or RJ and learn to pattern.

 I am more interested in the science of the human brain and how it produces results.

 So let’s have a quick crash course on the basics:  

•  Conscious brain:  Makes logical decisions.  Has the ability to reason, ability to do logic, solve complex math & physics problems, or simple ones such as if you should close the window because it’s too hot or cold outside.  It’s not emotional, and has more of a short-term memory.
   
•  Subconscious brain:  Long term memory, has stored everything that’s ever happened to you since you were born.  An example of this would be the sudden recollection of some kid who sat next to you in the first grade.  You may not have thought about that kid in 20, 30, 40, or 50 years.  Suddenly, some event has that particular kid popping in your memory and you even remember his name.  “I remember when that little fucker Jimmy borrowed my eraser and then swallowed it…” 

 Well, you hadn’t thought about that particular individual or incident in 20 years but it was always in your memory.  That’s how the subconscious works.  It’s YOUR life experience that it records.  It’s also the EMOTIONAL Mind.  It’s the one that acts based out of feelings and emotions.  If you’re feeling insecure, alone, or hurt, this is the part of your mind that says things or has you doing things that you may later not look back so fondly of.  It’s the one that has you saying something so insulting to someone you may even like during an argument just to make you feel better in that moment.  There is no real logic, and you may regret having said that to your girlfriend/boyfriend later, but at the time, it FELT good.  

 Hence, the subconscious mind acts out of emotion and those emotions vary greatly based on the individual.  Based on one’s self-image, beliefs, and fears, a person’s behavior can also vary from another individual given the exact same circumstances.  

•  Simple Example:  Two guys ask a girl for her phone number (Not at the same exact time.)  She gives the exact same reply (same words & Tonality) to both of them: “Sorry, I can’t give my number out.”

 One guy assumes that he screwed it up.  He is not charming or smooth enough.  He thinks he has trouble attracting women.  He fears that it might happen again with the next girl.  He fears that maybe he is not attractive and so forth.

 The Other guy assumes that it was just bad timing.  She probably had a bad experience, or maybe has a stalker ex-boyfriend… She probably just needs more time to feel comfortable. Ahh…. She’ll come around sooner or later.   No big deal either way.  Maybe she lives with her parents and is embarrassed about receiving phone calls at the house.

 In reality, neither guy really knows the exact reason as to why she uttered the words, “Sorry, I can’t give my number out” even though she seemed friendly and interested during the interaction. 

 They’re both left to speculate and in this case, one guy assumes the negative and one guy assumes the positive.  A negative self-image often results in taking things more personally, and when fear show its ugly head, things really get out of hand.  That fear has to be dealt with, but first it must be recognized.  It’s not a universal fear.  Human beings in general (male or female) may have various fears, (fear of success, fear of failure, fear of not being loved, fear of actually being loved, fear of lack of respect, fear of responsibility, and so forth.)

 Wait, what the f*ck?  Did you just write “Fear of BEING loved?”  Yes, I did.  As I said, the subconscious mind is NOT rational.     It draws on experience and self-image.  A woman may conclude, “Uncle Bob told me he loved me, and he molested me.  My ex-husband swore he loved and repeatedly beat me physically.”  Hence her subconscious mind concludes that being loved equals negative consequence. 

 Again, you and I consciously know that this is faulty reasoning and it’s rather absurd.  That’s irrelevant.  It only matters what the emotional part of the brain thinks and if it thinks that, then that’s how that person’s behavior is determined.  To take the quote from Tom Cruise’s character in the classic film, ”A Few Good Men,”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.  It only matters what I can prove.”

 The same dynamic applies here.  It does not matter what your conscious mind knows.  It only matters what your subconscious/emotional mind believes.  If you can believe you’re someone of value on a deep-rooted subconscious level, then you will have gained a higher self-image. 

The same principle of “logic vs. Emotion” holds true in the same manner in that approach-anxiety is not eradicated through logic.  It’s no secret that a lot of guys become extremely nervous in attempting to ask out a woman.   Someone could logically explain that there is no physical harm in it, and in fact, no one will ever know.  Logically, it makes perfect sense to approach her, but emotionally, it can be a train wreck. 

 Sometimes you hear a person say that they have experienced a “Moment of realization” or an “Epiphany.”  Many times, that simply amounts to self-awareness, a proverbial “Aha!!!!” moment, the moment where the individual becomes aware of his or her subconscious beliefs.  Something like, “OH WOW!  All of these years I’ve been doing this or that, and it was always because I was afraid of………”

  So you meet random people in life and they go their separate ways.  Like the girl I met (friend of a friend of a friend type of thing) who kept boasting about her lifestyle of having nothing.  She owns nothing, can’t hold down a job for more than 3 months, and is perpetually broke.  Sometimes she finds herself bouncing on people’s sofas and sometimes she needs to “Borrow” money for food from friends.  Yet, she is quick to brag about the fact that she is a “Gypsy” and has a gypsy lifestyle, and how somehow she has some sort of freedom that she can do anything and etc, etc, etc…

 How long do you listen to, and how long do you observe someone like that before you think… “Fear of responsibility.”  Why does that person have that fear?  We could only speculate.  Only she knows the answer wedged deep in her own psyche. 

 Hence, as you go through this journey of learning dating advice, in your quest to become better at attracting women, understand the importance of improving your self-image and eradicating your fears.  You may or may not know what those fears are at this point, but you’ll face them one day and that’s a good thing.  Recognizing those fears is the first step in dealing with them, overcoming them, and then moving forward.

 Keep it in perspective:

 The proverbial “Inner-game” or self-confidence cannot teach you social skills.  It can’t teach how to be a better story-teller or conversationalist, not can it suddenly increase your social intelligence.  It can, however, free you from the fears that prevent you from taking action in whatever endeavors you’ve been refraining from.

 Work on yourself, learn the proper skills, and be weary of those who offer you quick-fixes and be weary of those who have ALL of the answers.  If you feel that that you have a string of negative experiences in dating women (or men if you’re a female), you’re not the only one.  You can turn that around, but it starts with enrolling yourself in the process, the process of self-discovery and the process of learning better social skills. 

 It’s not going to happen overnight as much as savvy marketers will promise you that.  It’s no different than trying to shed fat and developing a fit body.  It takes time, and you make progress.  Beware of self-proclaimed gurus, and beware of snake-oil salesmen reminiscent of a night-stalker waiting for you at every turn.

 Keep focused on the task at hand.  In 3 broad steps, those amount to, 

• Discover the root of your fears
• Work on improving your self-image one step at a time
• Learn better social skills.  Be more engaging/appealing

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  Stay tuned for the next blog article where I finally will discuss “Why they Disdain your good deeds.”

Cameron

PS.  The article that you’ve just read will significantly impact your dating life..  Please realize that it is supporting material to what I discuss in my expanded work.  Building Attraction Ebook

The Cemented Vagina

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  A couple of weeks ago, a friend was in town.  He is preparing to move to Los Angeles, and someone I met through my late friend Seth.  This guy knows about the type of work that I do in the dating-field and so he asked me questions regarding a couple of girls he is interested in. 

 There was one in particular that he really wanted to get out on a date.  Upon whipping out his iPhone, he showed me a lengthy chain series of SMS Text exchanges.  This texting must have gone on for a couple of weeks with no real substance to the conversation.  At the end of this exchange, he was not too much closer to getting the girl to come out for a date than he was in the beginning.

 I first corrected his obvious mistakes in his texts.  Quite a few texts exhibited approval seeking behavior and some were way too long.  You can’t constantly write paragraphs of texts when the other person’s replies are just one liners.  It’s an uneven flow.  It’s too much investment on your part, and not enough investment on her part.  She is not committed enough to whatever relationship you have, while you’re really going above and beyond the call of duty. 

 Having corrected his obvious texting mistakes, I took it one step further.  I gave him the Cemented-Vagina test.  I told him I’d thought about posting it on my blog quite sometime ago, but I never did.  He insisted that I must do so, as I owe it to all men, as it had given him a new perspective and clarity.

 This is by no means a pessimistic view of women.  It’s not about cruelty, castration, or objectification.  Rather, it’s about realization.  Realization of how you live your life and the decisions you make. 

It’s an exercise of the mind.  Here is how it goes:

 So the next time you’re talking to a girl, in her 20s, imagine that for some odd reason she poured concrete in her vagina.  Maybe she watched one of those boring French movies and couldn’t take it anymore.  It doesn’t matter.  There is cement in the vagina.  If asphalt helps you with the imagery, use that. Once cement solidifies, there is nothing going in, nothing going out. 

  So you have a Cemented Vagina.  It’s solid!  Tough with density of a brick wall, it’d break your hands if you hit hard enough.  Point being: your penis is never, ever, ever, going inside it. 

 So here are a series of questions for you to answer:

• Would you continue talking to her? 
• Would you continue texting her?
• Would you wonder why she hasn’t returned your most recent texts? 
• She promised to meet you on Wednesday night but flaked, do you care? 

Now, that you know it to be a physical impossibility for your penis to enter her vagina, do you care anymore?

 Take a moment and run this exercise on all the girls you currently know!  Yes, all the ones on your networks, all the girls on your cell phone, and this also includes all of the ones in your precious facebook account.  Do so and you shall be amazed.  Or maybe you’d cry!  You’ll realize that all of the stuff you’ve put up with was for chance to line up a landing formation for your penis into the tunnel of love. 

 I’d speculate that 8 out of 10 girls you associate with would immediately fall off your radar if you applied the cemented vagina imagery exercise.  2 out of 10 may fall into the category of, “Yes, I’d still talk to her!  She is a cool person.”

 Look, there are going to be girls/women that you like, and women whose company you enjoy.  Ones you engage with in interested discussions, ones who share common interests, and hold similar values, the ones you laugh with, and you two share a ton of inside jokes that only make sense to the two of you.  Romantic relationship or not, you like them as individual people.  You actually like them as human beings. 

 The real question is, how many?  Perhaps what percent fall into that category? 

 Now, look at your phone and look at the unreturned text you were thinking about emailing someone like me about.  Apply the Cemented-Vagina exercise.  You couldn’t have sex her with a rod made out of solid steel, let alone your penis.  Ahhh, you feel silly, don’t ya.  It happens to all of us.    All of that effort was to make a precision strike on what my friend Steve P. calls “A small piece of real estate.”

 You probably have met your fair share of douchebags, idiots, and the like in the male population.  You probably didn’t dwell on why they didn’t return your texts or phone call.  Sure, maybe it was annoying at first, because you were trying to arrange a meeting or had something to talk about…..  Nevertheless, shortly after, you forgot about it and moved on quickly.   Why?  Well, no piece of real estate between their legs that you were interested in.  Let’s be honest here.  We are not talk about friends or people whom you had an emotional investment in.  For the most part they were acquaintances.  “Stranger” is a better adjective for it.  The “Strangers” who didn’t have the desrired piece of Real Estate, you estranged rather quickly….

 So where does that leave the average guy?  Am I advocating that from now on, you should only associate with women you like beyond sexual attractions?  That would be nice, but I am not going to take that much of leap into an idealistic scenario.  Plus it’d be hypocritical of me.  I don’t even do that myself!!!  I’d like to tell you that I approach every girl with the noble intention of pursuing a relationship, but it’s not the case.  While I am open to the possibility, I quickly discover after 90 seconds of conversation that she is not ever going to be someone I am interested in dating long term.  Yet, I continue to converse with her.

  I flirt with lots of girls where my only intent is sexual and nothing else.   When Mr. Testosterone takes over, there is little rhyme, little reason, no room for logic, and your mind is subject to treason. 

 So what’s the take away lesson thus far?  It’s that we should NOT take this stuff too seriously.  Sure, part of our ego, and self-pride gets involved and there is the element of validation that comes from that ?ber hot professional model liking us.  At the same time, apply the cemented vagina test to the hot model and again, you’re sort of left pontificating your actions, and time spent.

 Hey, if you did that, you sort of would be behaving like an attractive high status girl.  How is that?  In my experience and observation, women are more choosy in selecting sexual partners than men are.  We pretend to be selective, but let’s be honest, when there is vagina thrown at us and we’re single, we take it.  (And sometimes even when married, but that’s a different story.)

 If I told you, I’ve known female friends who during a private conversation complained they had not been laid in months, you [the male reader] would immediately reply, “Why, they must be ugly dogs!  Surely a half-way decent woman could get laid extremely easily.”   And I’d tell you that they are physically very attractive, and no, they’re not fat either!  (I Know that’s your next thought.)  We’re talking very flat stomachs.    If you’re female and reading this, you probably understand it.

  Women are just as sexual as men, but for some reason, they seem to exercise better self-control when it comes to engaging in sexual activity.  Part of it is that they have offers of sex thrown at them all the time.  Now, you can get to all the evolutionary psychology and sit here to mentally masturbate about how men are genetically geared to spread their seeds while women must be careful because they can only bear one child every 9 months, and yada, yada, yada…  It is what it is.  The point is if you were to engage in that similar of behavior, you’d be in essence emulating the behavioral pattern of the proverbial “Hot chick” with high self-esteem. 

 Actually, doing so, is a lot more difficult.  Why would even want to try pal?  After all, you’re not a hot chick and you’re looking to clean up any vagina thrown at you.  Well, it’s that if you could successfully accomplish this exercise, even for a short period, you’d notice a huge difference in your interactions. 

 Essentially, if you could even for just 1 week, put away any expectations of sex on the interactions, it would effectively eradicate any neediness.  In layman’s terms: When you don’t expect pussy, you can’t possibly be needy.  Unless you’re one of those annoying multi-level marketing people who wants to sell your dumb schemes, you’d have no need to keep a conversation going, no need to get a phone number, no need to have her return your last SMS text, no need to push for a date, no need to impress your male friends with a girl you just laid.  The cemented vagina has halted of that.

  That’s part of the point of this post.  

   What if you’re in college right now and confused?  You’re the university student who is trying to figure out how to infiltrate that particular sorority that houses the really attractive and really snobby girls.  Maybe you know one or two of them from one of your classes.  Apply the Cemented-Vagina test.  Suddenly that entire sorority has come down with the cemented-vagina epidemic.  You can’t have sex with that girl or any of her sorority sisters, ever!  No one can!  It’s physically impossible. The laws of physics prevent it.  How much value do you put on trying to socialize with the girls of that sorority now?

 It’s Damn Frightening, isn’t it?? 

  What’s the greater point of all of this?  What if you could zoom out and see the bigger picture?  If you could step back, or rather step up a couple of hundred miles into outer space, right about the orbit of satellite and look down from the satellite-view perspective?

 Again,  don’t take this stuff so seriously.  You approach girls and date various ones.  You have sex with some, and others won’t be interested.  But if you’re approaching them just to have sex, then it isn’t that big of a deal if they’re not interested.  And if you’re looking for a girlfriend or relationship, you interact with enough girls until you find the ones that DO PASS The test of the cemented vagina.  If you still enjoy her as a person even without the sex, then you have something.  Then the sex is the proverbial icing on the cake as the American cliché goes.  It creates the complete package. 

 I’ll share my experience.  You may have sex with a lot of girls/women in your lifetime but the truth is you’re only going to remember a small percentage of those women….   And the ones that you do remember, well, it will NOT be because of the sex.  It’ll be of the times spent together, the silly stuff you did, goofy moments you shared together, fun activity you engaged in or moments that moved you emotionally.

  So my friends, if you’re confused and feeling dejected, if you’re knee deep in game-theory, and caught in a whirlwind of tactics of how to reply to that last text or say on that next phone call, Pause, take a moment, take a deep breath and apply the cemented vagina test.   It may alleviate all that self-imposed pressure you’ve put on yourself and it may just give you a new perspective.   It just may change your life for the better.

Cameron

Get it now:  Building Attraction Ebook

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Swingers, A Film Written by Jon Favreau

Movie time!  If you read the Blog on a regular basis, you probably have figured out by now that I am somewhat of a movie buff.  Aside from their entertainment value, sometimes they’re reflections of our times, circumstances and emotions.   They can be thought provoking and emotionally riveting.  They also can serve as visual references that help provide a concrete depiction of what we’d like to see.

If you’re seeking dating advice, or are just fascinated by male/female relationships, and human social interaction, then “Swingers” is a must see film.  Depending on your perspective, you can definitely look at Swingers through various Filters.  Which lens you watch Swingers with can really impact your perception of this film.

• You can certainly look at from a perspective of cultural depiction. Late night Diners, 5 guys driving to the same destination in 5 different cars, and road trips to Vegas… all familiar experiences to most people in their 20s living in Los Angeles.
• You can view “Swingers” as a piece on the life of people struggling to make it in show business.  After all, the movie was written by Jon Favreau based on his and Vince Vaughn’s personal experiences before they became famous in the movie business.  You could even view it as a commentary on the experiences and mindset of struggling artists.
• Perhaps you could jus t look at as a story of friendship and growth.  The story of 4 friends, (Main two revolving around Trent and Mike) who go through a period of growth and youth.

For our purposes today, we are going to look at Swingers from the filter of Dating and Attraction between men and women.  The title of this film can be a bit misleading.  It’s not about people who like to swap/bang each other’s wives and girlfriends.   Rather, it’s a great study of contrasting attitudes and behaviors, all of which have a direct impact on how interpersonal relationships.  You’ll also see Ron Livingston, of “Office Space” fame,  in this film.

Without further ado, let’s get to our two main characters

• We have “Mike” played by Jon Favreau who also wrote the screenplay for this film.

Mike has broken up with his girlfriend and moved to L.A from NYC.  Depressed, and discouraged,  he is still mourning the breakup with his girlfriend in New York.  He is quite a bit negative, too self-conscious, and has the need to impress others.

• We have “Trent”, played by Vince Vaughn in the original role that put him on the map.

Trent is what guys would call a “Natural” in the realm of dating and attraction.  He is one version of it, as even “Naturals” come in different variations.  Yes, even naturals come in different categories and archetypes!   Trent likes to have fun, doesn’t really care all that much what people think of his actions and makes a concerted effort to cheer up Mikey throughout the movie.

Much like the movie Sideways, this film is also a great study in two friends who exhibit vastly different behaviors driven from polar opposite belief system regarding Dating and Attraction.  In many cases Mike assumes the worst and expects negative reactions, and not surprisingly, that’s often what he gets.  He also lacks social charm and “Smoothness” of Trent.  Lack of confidence and social charm is a bad combination and Mike displays that very well.

Instead of going through the whole film, I am going to focus on specific scenes.  I realize this is a bit choppy, but this is meant to be more of an educational article rather than a mere film review.   Below are the list of Scenes for reference.   I’ll break each one down:

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The Vegas Trip, the Casino:

Throughout the entire movie Mikey is besieged by his needy behavior and his attempts to impress everyone around him.  It starts in the Casino.  From him trying to bet big with money he can’t afford to ordering his “Single Malt” Scotch, his behavior is an attempt to impress the people around him (especially the women.)

He wants the attention but he goes about it getting the wrong way, at the wrong time.  Trent’s actions, on the other hand, are congruent with his demeanor.  Note the interaction with the cocktail waitress at the Casino.  He has that the fun vibe persona.  He doesn’t care all that much, and he THINKS he is going to get the girl. It doesn’t matter if he is rejected.  He is undeterred.

Trent also has a playful persona that could be considered cocky.  Yet, he is very likable.  People know he is joking.  They are not offended him by him.  This is the difference between a guy who is actually likeable and one who learns Cocky/funny on the Internet.  The ladder often comes across as an a**hole because he learned cocky/funny from a guy who is socially awkward himself.

Trent’s unique ability on the other hand, is to say things and get away with them.  It’s the secret to his charm.  He may be “talking smack” but he is winking at you at the same time.  He is having fun and he is involving you in it.  You can’t be mad at a guy like that.

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Vegas Trip Trailer scene:

For those of you who have gotten a copy my audio course, you already know that I reference this scene in the Story-Telling CD. I spend about 50 minutes breaking down individual guidelines for Story -telling and many of those  be witnessed in action in this scene.

Trent likes to entertain and he is a masterful storyteller.  I always suspected that this was basically Vince Vaughn being himself, and it proved to be true.  On a behind the scenes look at the movie, it turns out that original story of “Big Brother” in the trailer was only about a minute long pm the original screenplay.  When Vince Vaughn got a hold of it, it became a 3-minute story after he added his improvisations and adlibbing.

This is one of the single best depictions of storytelling in a movie scene.  Also, noteworthy is Mikey’s display of poor social intelligence.  Watch his attempt to get attention by abruptly cutting off Trent in the middle of his story to come in with a “Double Down” joke that is completely unnecessary.  The timing is terrible and somehow Trent is able to roll with Mikey’s miscalibrated attempt at interjecting his own flavor.

This is a great scene to watch to see a masterful Story Teller at work.  It’s also a great depiction of how to get attention the right way versus the wrong way.  It’s having the social intelligence to know what to say at the right time.  Perhaps nowhere in this scene is that dynamic depicted more than Mikey’s comeback of “Well, we all got stories” which leads to an awkward silence.  These are the subtle (and sometimes, not so subtle) differences that make or break interactions.

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The Bar scene with Martini drinking girl:

Mikey meets “Nicky” accidentally while trying to order a drink at the bar.  The interaction actually starts out pretty well, and Mikey is hanging there.  Falling back on his usual bad habits, driven by his insecurities, he resorts to his need to impress by overt bragging.  The interaction heads South at that point.  This insecure behavior compounded by his apologetic behavior is the root of his failures with women.

What to watch for in this scene:  For starters, Mikey’s Poor tonality is screaming at you.  His stumbling over words while trying to cover his track combined with his unsure/nervous behavior and the need to justify himself make him look like a fool.  Add to that his fidgety movement and his inability to create a pleasant social vibe.

The ability to VIBE. A lot of guys have heard that sentence before but don’t really have an idea of what it means, or at least, what it looks like.  Mikey does a good job of showing bad vibing.  You can feel the discomfort in the scene. He lacks the ability to VIBE.  In this case, she is very flirtatious in her mannerisms, (her laughter, the way she is sucking on the olives) and yet Mikey is serious enough to be conducting a court room hearing.  That mismatch in emotional energy leads to bad vibing.

Nevertheless, Trent and his other friend encourage Mikey to go and get her number.

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“Grrrrr….. She is a little bunny and you’re this big fucking bear and you don’t know what to do….” Giving Mikey a bit of balls to believe in himself and act like a man.  The attitude and mindset Trent lays out is right on the money.   If everyone had a friend like Trent, I’d be out of a job……

Of course, this leads to the phone call scene which you’ll just have to see for yourself. I don’t want to ruin it.  It’s another classic scene, and Mikey shows why despite having a friend like Trent, he still needs some dating advice.

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The Swing Dancing Club, Mike Meets Maureen:

This scene isn’t as important as what follows directly after it.  Mike meets Maureen.  Unfortunately, the interaction looks as though Maureen is a high priced prostitute  who has been paid a 1000 dollars to Flirt with Mike.  She is completely overly flirtatious without reason and way too eager.  The unforgettable visual shot in this scene, however, is Trent [Vince Vaughn] sitting with his buddy, rooting for Mikey to succeed while completely ignoring an attractive girl sitting at his table.

This is something you’ll never see amongst most guys (and definitely more rare than a flying unicorn within the Seduction Community or amongst Pickup Artists.)  It’s the notion of not putting too much stock in strangers you meet at clubs.

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The Next Scene directly following Swing Dancing Club.

Mike escorts Maureen to her car outside the club.  This scene is very revealing.

In the end there is salvation for Mikey.  He has learned something invaluable from Trent.  He has learned to be congruent with who he is, and he has started to care less about what other people think.  He has learned to be a bit more assertive in asking for what he wants ["That's not going to be good enough.  I want to make plans."]

He stops trying to impress people all the time.  This is reflected in him talking to Maureen outside the club regarding his career and when she asks about his car, he points to it and casually/jokingly says,

“It’s that Red Piece of Shit over there.”

He even has the cool guy tonality as he says it.  He doesn’t give a damn!  It’s not insecure, and nor is it needy.  It’s not hostile and it’s NOT self-loathing.   It is what it is! “It’s a red piece of shit and it’s my transportation for now,” he declares through his tone of voice.

Mikey has STOPPED seeking constant approval!  This is the take-away lesson you can apply to your dating life.

The movie ends nicely with a scene at a diner where Mikey has finally been able to let go of his ex, to which, even Trent is surprised.  There is one more gem in this scene:  It’s Trent’s “Baby talk” flirting with a woman sitting at the end of the diner.  You’ll just have to see the scene.  I don’t want to give it away if you haven’t.

When the flirting goes awry, Trent covers his head and walks out in a moment of temporary shame.  Guess what?  5 Minutes later, he’ll probably forget about it.  There are 2 keys to this failed interaction:

1. At the diner, he just assumes that she is overtly flirting with him.  He believes it. What else could be the reason for it?  This is what makes him a natural . 90% of other men would look for every other possibility except that it may be them she is engaging.
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2. When the interaction crashes, he moves on!  He’ll do it again!  It’s not a big deal.

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Swingers is a solid film and an ode to making a good movie revolving around various characters and their personal stories.  Being produced on a low budget does not hinder it from telling us a story, making us relate to the characters and their struggles while reflecting back at us, a piece of a cross section of our culture.   In the process, it also is fun to watch and you’ll learn a thing or two about how to attract women and such, specially if you reference this Blog to the aforementioned scenes.

While there are cultural reference that are relevant to the mid 1990s, “Swingers” is a film that will stand the test of time.  Jon Favreau’s multi layered story of deep-rooted friendships, hardships of struggling artists, and heartaches of dating/relationships will be relevant 10 or 50 years from the time of the film’s creeation.  For that reason, it will always remain a masterpiece.

Cameron

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PS.  The articles on this blog will have a profound impact on your dating life.  Please realize that they are supplementary and supporting material to what I discuss in my expanded work.  Get a copy of my Ebook here: Building Attraction with Women

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The last Blog entry evoked certain emotions from people regarding “Being Fine the way you are.”  Certainly, many people need to improve social skills, but then there are those whose greater problem is a poor self-image. I am going to get back to that shortly.

It’s a common experience that the more you study a subject in depth, there more details and nuances you begin to grasp.  It’s my experience that as you realize the fine details, you also see an overlying theme of simplicity that runs rampant throughout the entire theme.

This does not apply just to established sciences.  We can take sports as an example.  I consider myself a bit of a basketball snob.  I love the game and am arrogant enough to believe I understand it better than a lot of people who play it at far higher levels.  (Which may not be saying all that much once you see interviews with some pro athletes who can’t speak 3 proper sentences.)   The point is this: The more details you learn, the more fascinated you become to know more, and yet you see an underlying simplicity to the game.

So, in basketball, as you learn about playing post defense, whether to play fully behind someone, play  3/4^th coverage, or full denial in front of someone while depending on weak-side help to cover the lob pass to the baseline…… you also begin to see that elegant simplicity that ties it all together: Don’t allow the guy you’re guarding to catch the ball in his favorite spot.

The same concept applies to learning more about the topic of attraction and dating.  There are a lot of fine nuances to it, and you can delve into fascinating details regarding social interactions between human beings, but there is a simplicity that ties it all together.

When I began to study all of this stuff, I didn’t care about the details.  I just wanted to know what to say to girls upon approaching them.  That’s all I cared about.  Somehow, on the way to learning that, I became really involved in learning far more than I had set out to do.  I delved deep into understanding nuances of social interactions and the psychology of people’s behaviors.  I even became a certified hypnotherapist in the process, and had you told me that 10 years ago, I would have completely laughed at you.

One of those common themes is “Don’t be a pussy.“  You can get knee deep in theory, and I am happy to indulge the intellectual side of you, but really, a common theme that encapsulates the idea brilliantly is, “Don’t be a Pussy.”  I could expand on that, but that’s a topic for another day.

Another coming trend is “Logic Vs. Emotion.”  That’s the topic for today.  Those of you who have listened to my audio product are aware of this dynamic, as I make it a blatant point to deliver this message.  A little reminder, however, never hurt anyone so let’s delve more into that.

So let’s get back to my last Blog entry regarding “Being Fine the Way You Are,” self-acceptance, and improving confidence.

It’s a matter of how you look at it.   You may be well dressed, well groomed and have pleasant to interact with socially, but your self-image of your own person may be rather poor.  So really, you are not “Fine just the way you are” in a metaphoric sense.  You must work on improving your self-image.   This takes a bit of effort, but it’s also the most rewarding part of the experience that pays the biggest dividends.

In that regard, a Blog commenter responded to my last Blog Article:

“Knowing how to think is good but this doesnt change our feelings much. Pick up is in most part about us feeling confident.”

I see where he is coming from, but the mistake in his approach is that he is approaching the situation logically.  He is applying a logical translation to something that must recognized intuitively.  Knowing something logically does not always influence behavior.

His error lies in that he is trying to take logical knowledge and apply it in order to change his feelings.

• Remember that the subconscious mind is responsible for emotions and that the emotion of fear is driven from subconscious beliefs.

Example:

Let’s take a person who has a horrid phobia of snakes.  Give him/her a snake and you can watch that person have a nervous breakdown.  The feeling of fear is very real. The emotion is real.  The reason is illogical.

Now, explain logically to that person that the species of snake she is holding is completely harmless to human beings.  Hold the snake yourself, pull out an encyclapedia on snakes and show her that specific specie of snake to be non-poisonous and explain with perfect reason that there is no possible harm.

Cover all of the logical angles.  By all accounts of logic and reason, there is NO HARM to any human holding this particular snake.

Will that work?  NOPE!   Of course not!   IF you have ever come across someone who has a phobia of anything (Spiders, open spaces, etc..), you know that logical explanations do not make a bit of damn difference.

That’s because the logical mind does not control your emotions.  The emotions arise out of your subconscious mind. They are your internal beliefs and reactions.  Granted, if you are sitting in Arizona desert, and there is a rattle snake a short distance away rattling its tail, you have a logical cause for concern.  This is a real perceived threat. We are not talking about that in this article.

Most things people worry about are not present and clear dangers.  They’re fears based on beliefs they have inside their own heads.  The competence you acquire has to become subconscious at some point.  You have to DO, not think, but there is a process that takes a person from one to the other.

A lot of the stuff you read from me is designed to take one level closer to that subconscious competence.   In the attempt to gain that positive self-image, you have to be willing to keep moving forward.  You must be willing to apply yourself.

That means when you chat with a girl, you don’t consciously think about what to say.  You instinctively KNOW what to say.  You don’t worry about if she may like you or not, but you learn to not really put too much emphasis on it either way.  These things all make sense logically, but their full impact will not be felt until they are believed on a deeper level.

Cameron

PS.  The articles on this blog will have a profound impact on your dating life.  Please realize that they are supplementary and supporting material to what I discuss in my expanded work.  Get a copy of my Ebook here: Building Attraction with Women

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Gaining Confidence is a gradual process that takes time.  Similar to building muscles, it’s a process of constantly making gains.  On one hand, it may seem frustrating that it’s a seemingly lengthy process, but on the other, its effects are much more longer lasting.

Again, if you’ve spent the last 10 years weightlifting, those muscles are permanent.  Even if you abandoned weightlifting, for an entire year, you still could get back to where you were in a matter of a few months.  It won’t take years to get back what you took time to build.  That’s the beauty of it.  They call it muscle memory.

A high self-image built on a solid foundation is also long lasting, and tough to abandon.  Keeping with our theme, it starts with taking those steps forward.

In parts 1 and 2, we went over a rough outline of how you start taking your foot out of the trench to provide that wiggle room to keep moving forward.  In this part, we are going to focus on the pitfalls of quick-fix solutions.

If you’re enamored with quick-fix solutions that’ll solve your issues within 2-3 days, then please go ahead and try them now.  Stop reading my Blog.  When you fail miserably, then come back and reread what I have been writing.

There are two kinds of magic-bullet schools of thought:

1. Innergame  Magic Bullet
2. Outergame Magic Bullet

• Let’s examine group 1:

The Innergame magic-bullet schools are those who sell and buy into the idea that sheer meditation at home can magically produce results one day.  This very well may be true, but I have yet to see one case of it.

If I told you about a performer who’d never been on stage in his life and was about to walk in front of a live audience, you’d expect him to have a bit of nervous energy.  Depending on the individual makeup of the person, there would more or less of it.  For some, it would even be combined with excitement.  But then what if I told that the performer who has never been on stage expects to meditate at home until one day he feels absolutely no nervousness at all and he can finally walk onto the stage in front of that live audience?

Most of you would laugh and think it to be obvious and absurd, and you’d be right.  Heck, some of you would even think that I was f*cking with you.  Yet, there are people convinced that they can meditate, or channel cosmic forces of the universe only understood by comic book heroes, that will enable them to “Cold-Approach” a woman they’ve never met before with zero nervousness, and with the comfort rivaling that of walking out of your bedroom in the morning into the kitchen.

This is the same group who thinks sitting home and reading Eckhart Tolle and/or (Insert self-help guru name here)  all day will suddenly solve all of their problems.

It doesn’t work that way.  At least, not in my experience and observation.  Sometimes, you gotta suck it up, take the hits, and we’re back to the words of the great philosopher Rocky Balboa: You Keep Moving Forward.

• Let’s examine group 2:

The Outergame-magic bullet schools teache a set of skills that are predicated on the ability to learn a memorized script of routines and spit them back out verbatim.  Then they pile on top of that with strategies and tactics for everything.  They start talking about micro-loops, big-loops, loose loops, and they have so many acronyms and code words, they’d leave a spy in the intelligence business envious.  They keep working on their script and they keep trying to polish their loops, and start trying to run a military operations with steps C4, E2, and X55.

This group has an edge over group 1 in that they ARE actually gaining experience talking to live women.  Where they fail is that they neglect their core skills of developing a personality or solid communications skills. Most of the people in this group are good for about 10-15 minutes before they “Run out of Material” and have nothing left to say.  This is the same group of people that you cannot introduce to your friends, the same group that you cannot invite to a house party, because they don’t “act normal.”  (And we’re talking a wide range of normal.)

Let’s be clear on one thing: It’s not that the routines mentioned above are evil.  For some guys, it’s a good training wheel, but they are NOT a substitute for a personality.  Reading other people’s anecdotes and presenting them is not personality.   As a rule of thumb, The Routine-dependent guys are normally easy to spot at a house party because they can’t seem to blend with the other guys.  They can’t engage the group and assimilate as one of the guys who is bullshitting around, having fun and sharing a few laughs.

Sometimes, the members of this second category do experience success in dating women, because they are interesting guys with interesting personalities,  but they still categorically deny any effort to get over their emotional baggage.  As a result, they still can’t figure out why their increased success has not been fruitful in bringing them happiness.

If you feel like you’re not very good with women and feel like it’s always been that way, then start working on both parts of your life.  You have to make an effort to talk to more women in various circumstances.  The more you do it, the more you’ll feel comfortable around women in general.  You have to work on the emotional baggage and poor-self esteem.  You also need to work on developing and/or enhancing “Attributes” and traits that are attractive.  (Demeanor, Flirting, teasing, being sexual, being interesting, being fun, being comfortable with who you are, being masculine, etc…..)

That’s the way to salvation……. (proverbially speaking.)

Cameron

PS.  The articles on this blog will have a profound impact on your dating life.  Please realize that they are supplementary and supporting material to what I discuss in my expanded work.  Get a copy of my Ebook here: Building Attraction with Women

In that post, I mentioned hypnosis as one possible (and very effective) way of handling “emotional baggage.”  I received a lot of replies by email about this and one guy even wrote to my Facebook about how he has tried Self-Hypnosis but hasn’t helped him in overcoming his approach anxiety.

I realize there is a vast amount of confusion about what Hypnosis actually is and what its applications are.  I didn’t know it myself until a few years ago either.  Most people’s impression of Hypnosis has been formed by watching Stage shows, where participants were seemingly forced to do silly things on stage.  While stage-hypnosis is entertaining, its true application is still misunderstood.

So here is the goal of this Blog post:

To explain to you clearly, once and for all, HOW Hypnosis works, what it’s designed to do, how it can help you, and also explain the things it cannot do for you. I am not here to sell you on it.  I just want the readers of this Blog to have an understanding of what it is so that if you ARE interested, you can avoid the charlatans in the future.

It’s an attempt to help you assess your current situation if you feel that you’re down in the dumps.  Most people, including professional medical staff don’t really understand its true applications.  A few (probably a fraction of 1 percent) do and some actually apply its principles, which in turn enhances their ability to practice medicine.  (And as always, this blog is not providing medical advice.  If you have a medical issue, go see a doctor.)

Hypnosis, in essence, is a vehicle to bypass “Critical Factor” and the conscious mind, in order to access the subconscious mind.  What’s the purpose for doing this?  Because the subconscious mind is where your permanent long-term memory is stored, (including events that may have happened to you even as a 3 year old which you have no conscious memory of at the moment) and it’s also responsible for your emotions.  It’s the emotional mind, per se.

In order to illustrate this in proper context, let’s use a concrete real life example that has nothing to do with dating, seduction or “Pick Up.”  This is a case that a longtime Hypnotherapist (currently in his late 60s) was telling me about and I think you’ll enjoy it due to its straightforward nature.  I’ll shorten the story a bit so we can get to the gist of it.

• Case of the client with fear of bridges

A client came to him because he had developed a sudden phobia of bridges.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, he was terrified of setting foot or driving on any sort of bridge.  The fact that there were plenty of bridges in the region he in which he resided didn’t help matters.  In traditional therapy, this would be a 6-8 month process, where they’d discuss the bridge, talking about his feelings towards it. Then show him a photo of it, and then maybe take a drive to see one from distance. Then one day, perhaps set 1 foot, and then go back again the next day and set 2 feet on it.  It’s a time consuming grueling process of trying to push him on that bridge.

Again, this can work but you’re looking at a 6 to 8 month process.  So what happened in the hypnosis session?  It was discovered that when he was 9 years old, he fell off the roof of his house and hurt himself.  Nothing permanent or severe, but the event of the fall was traumatizing enough for the kid.  As he was falling, he was staring at a puddle of water, and that’s the last image in his mind before he hit he ground.  That event passed and nothing became of it.  Fast forward to 20 years later: While driving on a rainy day, he saw a puddle of water that was very reminiscent of that day he fell of the roof.  (I am cutting out the details. He may have lost control on the road, etc,) That flashback to that event at the age of 9 horrified him again, and suddenly there is that phobia of that bridge.

So, again, the bridge is not the problem.  The problem is an event (or series of events & experiences in the past) that can haunt people. In that case of an alcoholic, the alcohol is not the problem.  It never has been.  It’s events in that person’s past that haunt him/her, which he is trying to escape from.

Past events at a young age affect different individuals very differently.

Hypnosis allows us to talk to the subconscious mind, recall these events and deal with them so that they no longer haunt us.  The bridge-phobia man had that particular anxiety resolved in about 5 sessions.  (As opposed to 6-8 months of therapy.)

• So how does this apply to Dating?

Many people, Men as well as WOMEN, experience social anxieties.  Yes, this applies to women too.  I’ve had girls I was dating tell me that they experience certain anxieties in big crowds, or even at a dinner parties, or event sitting at a table in a restaurant with 4 or 5 people.  These anxieties are all rooted in fear.  Different people, obviously, experience different fears based on the life experience.

As human beings, our contrast may be that we have different life experiences, and yet our commonality is that we all experience similar emotions based on those experiences.  The power of hypnosis is to help deal with those fears and overcome the obstacles they’ve presented to us.

• Enter the Seduction Community:

Somehow, they took what is a benevolent and effective process to help people, and they turned into a sleazy marketing gimmick promising men that they could, in essence, hypnotize women into liking them.  This appeals to megalomaniac characters that want more control over others and this where suddenly NLP surfaces its head in the community.  It’s sold as an “Effective” way to communicate, but really, its promise is to sell “Control.”  Its application may be different in other places but in “The Community” it’s sold as a vehicle of control.

the NLP Master

The sad thing is that people are not looking at the deep structure of their logic.  Anyone who has resorted to this line of thinking has essentially given up. They’ve given up that they can be liked be as a genuinely “Cool” and Interesting human being.  So the alternative is the villainous James Bond type character that now wants to control. When a person seeks mind-control of other human beings, he/she has crossed the Rubicon of self-actualization.  It reminds one of the Seinfeld Episode where George starts walking around town in sweatpants, to which Jerry replies: “You realize what you’re saying right? You realize what this says?  You’re saying that’s it!  You’re giving up! It’s officially over.”

George Costanza

• Back to the Hypnosis and its potential benefit to you:

It can help reduce social anxieties.  A few sessions of hypnosis is not going to cure all approach anxiety.  In my experience, there are two things main components that help eradicate the bulk of approach anxiety. (This is a very general list).  Those are:

1. Constant Exposure
2. Developing A Strong & Positive Self-Image.

Hypnosis can help with the latter.  It can help you start the movement towards a better self-image.  A couple of sessions of therapy, however, do not magically transform a self-loathing shameful person to a charming confident person with a high self-image.  A couple of sessions do not transform a George Costanza into a George Clooney. That takes a bit of time and work.  Just a little bit….

George Clooney

Look at it this way:  Let’s say you are overweight and want to lose weight 50 pounds of fat (Roughly about 25 Kilograms for my international Audience.)  Let’s also say that you have not done any proper physical activity in years and you easily become fatigued.

Hypnosis, in essence, is that workout buddy who goes to the fitness gym WITH YOU 3 or 4 times a week, for the first 3 weeks. He helps you create and maintain that momentum.  That is the key concept here: MOMENTUM.  If you’ve been hitting the fitness gym for 12 sessions in the past 3-4 weeks, then it’s rather easy to keep going.  In fact, it may be easier to keep going, than to stop going at that point.

Are you going to lose that 50 pounds of fat in those 3 weeks?  NO!  It may take 6-8 months depending on how hard you workout and how closely you monitor your nutrition.  Still, you have started the process.  You are now able to make progress.

So you feel like you’re in the trenches, stuck knee deep in the thick mud where it’s cold and it feels lonely.  A therapy like hypnosis can help you take those first few steps to start your momentum to walk OUT of the muddy trenches towards better conditions.  You still have to walk!  Back to our Rocky Story: You still have to keep Moving Forward.

There are two kinds of people who become entangled in the community’s “Easy-answers” and I am going to discuss that in part 3.  For the moment, let’s talk about more analogies as to what Hypnosis can do and cannot do.  Again, let’s start with non-dating related so you can see it from third person perspective.

If you’re a Mixed Martial Artist or a boxer and experience anxiety, hypnosis can help lessen that anxiety before stepping into the ring.  It helps you move forward.  It cannot, however, teach you HOW to kickbox or grapple on the ground.

Similarly, if you cannot play basketball, hypnosis cannot teach you basketball.  This is not the Matrix movie where they can stick a giant USB port in the back of your neck and upload a program into your brain.   However, IF you are a basketball player who chokes in big games and clutch situations because you’re nervous, hypnosis can help with that.  It can help the basketball player become better indirectly by removing his mental blocks and emotional anxieties.  It cannot teach him the game of basketball.

Is this starting to make sense?

If you decide to get any sort of therapy, be it Hypnosis, see a shrink, whatever, then it’s important to realize that these are not cure-alls.  They are steps in creating momentum.  They are steps to enable you, to provide you that wiggle room to take your foot out of the trench.

They are steps to allow you to start the process of “KEEP MOVING FORWARD.” You still have to work on certain skills.  The basketball player still has to work on shooting the ball, dribbling, passing, rebounding, increasing his basketball IQ, and playing defense.

The guy who wants to attract women still has to work on his skills to understand and read subtext and sub-communication from women, his skills to be interesting in conversation, his prowess in story-telling skills to capture her imagination, and his ability to FLIRT with women.

If you think you could use development in those skills, then I highly recommend my Audio Course:  http://www.attractwomenanywhere.com/audiocourse.shtml

Stay tuned for part 3 of Strengthening Your InnerGame

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Let’s talk Innergame.

Firstly, the word “Innergame”, what the f*ck does that mean?

What if you stumbled upon my blog from some walk of life and saw the phrase “Inner-game?” Would you know what it is?  Maybe you don’t and so let’s spend a minute defining what it is.

Inner-game refers to self-confidence. What is having confidence mean and where does it stem from?  Ultimately, (and to spare you pages of pseudo-analysis,] it stems form a Strong Self Image.  The core of confidence is a very high noteworthy perception of one’s self-image.  Building a strong self image for a man/woman who suffers from a low one takes time.  It’s a gradual process and there are sometimes obstacles to overcome and experiences to let go.

When it comes to “Inner-game”, I am not going to pretend to be some know-it-all sitting on top of the mountain prophesizing.  I am also not some guy interested in taking photos of myself with skimpy clad women and spreading them over the Internet to show how much better I am than the next guy.  I am just going to share things that have helped me out through the years and maybe you’ll find them useful.  Maybe you’ll find some value in it as well.  So without further delay, here are some bullet points of I’ve personally found helpful to me:

• Doing things I am passionate about, (or pursuing goals in accordance.)
• Keeping true and honest with my own self-expectations of myself.  (This is different for everyone.  You know your own expectations best.)
• Living my life in a way that resonates with my core-values.
• Spending time with people who share my core-values,

Also, as a therapy tool, I am a big proponent of hypnotherapy.  By the way, it should be mentioned that I am NOT giving anyone medical advice.  I am just sharing my opinions and personal experiences.  So back to the topic: When I say hypnotherapy, I mean Traditional Hypnotherapy that applies “Back to the Cause” and “Regression.”

I am not talking about NLP.  At some point, I’ll blog about Hypnotherapy and how it helps in the process of enhancing one’s self-image.

The shame of the seduction-community is that it took elements of Hypnosis and tried to sell it as a device to get “Women into bed.”  It’s sleazy, irresponsible, and it doesn’t really even work.  More than that, as Eddie Murphy blurted out in Beverly Hills Cop, “they fucked it up for everybody.”  Instead of a therapy tool, it’s now viewed upon as a sleazy person’s attempt to bed women.

Why do I not endorse NLP?  Because I have never found it helpful to ME personally.  If you’re a fan, that’s great.  Don’t write me lengthy emails with your arguments about how great it is.  It did not work for me, nor did it work for anyone else I know. Some guy/girl has had an issue for 20 years and the NLP crowd thinks they can solve it in 5 minutes?  That’s great.  I wish they could.  However, having someone shrink one image, make it black and white, enlarge another image, make it vibrant and colorful does not suddenly make the issue disappear.

Essentially, I’ve had the same experience other people have had:  Someone sat you in a chair, told you to play a picture like a movie, forwards/backwards, scratch it, make it black and white, give it color, etc, etc, etc…..  And it felt good for about a good 20 minutes. Heck sometimes even an hour or two.  The same concerns or anxieties returned shortly after.  (Maybe you’re supposed to this activity every single day, but it’s never communicated that way.)  Important note: I am not saying there is no value in NLP.  I am merely stating that trying to fix one’s issues through a 10 minute (or an hour or two even) shifting of imagery has a quick temporary effect.  It’s not a solution.

So you could NLP all you want, and you could have wannabe spiritual quacks tell you that all you have to is “Let go of ego” and all of your problems are solved.  It’d also be great if the tooth fairy put a few hundred dollars a day underneath your pillow for all the back pay cumulated through the loss of billions of teeth every year on the planet.

However, you probably live in the real world, and real world people ought to have a real world game plan.  Figure out what you gotta do to drop the baggage your carry from the past, and start motivating yourself to go after what you want.  Find your source of inspiration.  In fact, I like to find what I call “Little bits of inspiration.” They come from all over the place, and they’re all around us.  It could be a feature on TV about a professional athlete or the story of a guy being able to walk again after doctors had told him he’d never walk again.

I find that these stories of people rising above their conditions to be inspirational.

In fact, the following clip below has helped inspire me far more than all of the NLP persons I’ve ever come across combined.  The great philosopher Rocky Balboa is inspirational as usual and Sly Stallone shows us again that he really can act despite his bad reputation earned for doing a lifetime of action-adventure movies.

I find that watching this scene lights a fire under your ass that serves as a call to action. Every step forward is taking us one step closer to where we want to be, and taking us away from undesirable conditions.

My friend who is battling cancer finds this clip inspirational and if it helps him, it can help anyone.  It’s probably worth watching once or twice a week and it only take a few minutes of your time……..  (And best of all, unlike too much NLP, it will not make you creepy.)

Quick set up: In case you have not seen the movie, (You really should watch the film. There really is no excuse for not having seen it, unless you live in some war-torn village.  Rocky’s son is complaining that he has no one’s respect in life, and that everything he has achieved is due to his famous legendary father.  Below is Rocky’s reply.  Watch it a couple of times, and then, go do something you’ve been putting off as of late.

You may feel like you’re in the trenches right now, and maybe you’re not where you want to be.  You feel like you’re in the muddy trenches, suffering the freezing cold brutal weather conditions, while fighting nagging painful mosquito bites, but you keep moving forward; One Step at a time.  That’s how real change takes place.  It may be painful now, but you Keep Moving Forward……

Enjoy the clip,  (and Keep Moving Forward.)

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PS.  The articles on this blog will have a profound impact on your dating life.  Please realize that they are supplementary and supporting material to what I discuss in my expanded work.  Get a copy of my Ebook here: Building Attraction with Women