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31
Archive for May, 2011
May
27
Hook!
Leave a Comment (9) » | Posted in Attraction, Communication & NLP, General, Openers & Routines, Outer Game |
Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.
-Richard Whately
Some of you may find opening frustrating, I’ve included an old article from my journal that helped me a while back, and will provide context for a discussion on hooking:
“On opening:
This has been driving me mad.
I have been getting blown off SO much while opening. I’ve been trying to avoid super direct or overly breaking rapport openers in the interest of building comfort first. It’s not working and it’s making me crazy. MUCH thinking and field testing has led me to something I’m calling…
Bum Theory.
Hot girls get hit on constantly.
And just like people dismiss bums and don’t think of them as human, hot girls treat guys of lower perceived social value the same way. Indirect game teaches that to avoid this, you don’t let her know you are hitting on her.
BUT…
Hot girls ALWAYS assume guys of lower PSV (perceived social value) are hitting on them.
As long as a girl does not decide she WON’T sleep with you, you are fine; the point of indirect game is to prevent her from making that decision.
BUT…
If your perceived social value isn’t high enough, they immediately make the assumption you want them, realize they find you repugnant; and blow you off as though you are garbage rather than a human being.
Thus defeating the purpose of indirect game.
So how can we get around getting blow off like a bum?
The same way bums do.
As I see it, there are two circumstances in which a bum can cause people to perceive him as human. The first is to be an empathy inducing bum archetype, the Santa Cllaus bum or the Morgan Freeman bum, basically the bum equivalent of having high enough perceived social value that you are the exception to the rule. The second is to stand out. To be differentiated from the heard. The easiest way to do this is to bring value. To make people laugh, for example.
In any situation, the best openers are the ones that hit that particular situation’s “sweet spot.”
They are intense enough to pull every one’s attention to them and be more interesting than anything else that’s going on; but they are close enough to the intensity level of the situation that they don’t make you seem socially awkward to the people you are delivering them to. “
Once I figured out how to hook, I wrote up how it worked, hope it helps some of you:
Some people have enough PSV that everyone is just nice to them. They start out getting some of the six behaviors girls give guy who are not yet perceived as human. Who they view as beneath them. For other guys, the set must be unlocked. This is what most people refer to as the hook point.
The hook point is where the girl relaxes, it’s also where she becomes willing to invest.
Before this point, any attempt to “pass her the ball,” to ask for contribution or investment, will result in the girl acting cold and disinterested. Before the set is unlocked, she will avert eye contact, use breaking rapport tonality, give one word answers, ect. And doing things such as asking open ended questions will actually exacerbate the situation, creating negative investment as the girl exerts energy to minimize interacting with you.
To hit the hook point and “unlock” the set or the girl, you must do something that differentiates you enough to make her interested in having an interaction with you. Being very attractive allows you to do this simply by walking up. Fame has the same effect. Let’s assume you have lower PSV.
There are two ways I know of to hook.
One is to deliver a very well calibrated “opener,” a single phrase, sentence, or question that has an intensity level that meshes with the sets current intensity level (reality) and brings value.
For two girls having a quiet conversation in a bar, a current event might be enough, for girls doing shots at a club something much harsher or provocative might be necessary.
If the opener isn’t intense enough, it’s value taking, and they will eschew your company.
If the opener is too intense, it will be outside their reality, and you’ll get the same result.
Going too far tends to be better, as getting blown out takes far less time than wasting time with girls who will sit politely but have no interest. Girls like this can waste literally hours, and often they have no interest even in being friends.
The other way is to draw the set into your rhythm.
Be the music.
To do this you need to talk for long enough that you sub-communicate various things such as being self amusing, being non needy, being chill, and ideally some level of irreverence to prepare them for leading and escalation.
Walking up with a single line is like a teaser for a movie, walking up and spewing a paragraph without ever waiting for a response or asking for investment is like seeing a trailer.
An example:
Bad: Hey, this place seems hopping, is it a good place to go on a friday night?
Why it’s bad: you’re walking up and taking value, immediately asking for investment.
Good: Hey, this place seems hopping, is it a good place to go on a Friday night? I’m not sure if you noticed but I’m not from around here, I’m actually from Australia, but I’m in town and I thought I’d go out and explore the New York City nightlife. People seem very friendly here. You guys seem cool, tell me tell me what you think about this conversation I’ve been having with a friend. By buddy Sam is a doctor, and he’s been dating this girl. She wants to be his girlfriend, and he likes her a lot… but his social circle is very affluent, and she works at waffle house. Do you guys think it’s ok to be shallow like that?
Why it’s good: you have the time to show your personality. How you talk, how you move, your face and eyes, your rhythm and your un-reactiveness. You’re also bringing value by asking about something interesting and by virtue of your expressiveness and ability to vibe.
This draws some sharp parallels to old school canned game.
Even then, material was supposed to function as training wheels, and was largely present to get guys past the hook point so they could have a “real” interaction.
When the transition to “natural” game took place, one of the principles that was lost was how to hook.
Transitions were suggested, but the issue was that students would learn a structure and an interaction would look like this:
Open/wait for response
Transition/wait for response
Opinion opener/wait for response
Request for commonalities/wait for response
And this was considered ideal.
What normally happened was:
Open/girls stare blankly
Transition/girls communicate awkwardness
OO/girls call you out for being “one of those guys”
Request commonalities/ girls say they don’t “do” anything
What’s the underlying issue?
In Adam’s formula, A=(C-R)+Q+SE, you cannot begin making headway until the girl is willing to invest in the interaction.
If you ask for investment before this point (the hook point) the girl simply refuses.
If you try and build commonalities she won’t give you anything, and if you try to break rapport she just uses it as an excuse to walk away.
What allows you to actually utilize the formula? The ability to hook a set. To build just enough curiosity that the girl is willing to act treat you like a person, rather than a non entity or someone she wants to get away from. In fact, asking questions before the girl wants to talk to you can have the opposite effect of asking them after she is interested. I call this negative investment.
Negative investment is where a girls distaste for you is exacerbated by you asking for investment from her. It creates space between her opinion of you and her opinion of people she doesn’t know. You’re getting further and further away from even being considered normal.
Let’s look at a set where the girl gets pulled in, taken from a set I ran at the Galleria in Houston:
Excuse me, so sorry to bother you, do you know where the nearest restroom is? I think I may have drank too much water, or perhaps my bladder just isn’t big enough. I wonder if I could get good parking for that. How often do you have to pee?
Uh… not TOO often…
You seem pretty comfortable at the moment. I may seem a bit off, but it’s just the caffeine. No hard drugs, I drive a lot, so I can’t be doing crack or heroin, as it wouldn’t be socially responsible. What’s your favorite recreational drug?
Um… alcohol?
Really? you look like a coke girl. All skinny and such. You must not be doing drinking too much, since you’re not a fattie. Unless you just burn it all off. Are you a triathlete? Or do you just get really randy when you’re drunk? No judgement.
haha, no, I just have a good metabolism
Have you tried alcoholic whip cream?
No but I really want to!
You have to come by, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?
phone… xxx-xxx-xxxx
Cool, what are you doing right now? I want Starbucks, walk with me.
I thought you had to go to the bathroom!
I just met you! I need trust, comfort, and connection before we can “go to the bathroom.”
giggles No! that’s not what I meant
Oh yeah, I must have forgotten about it talking to you. You have magical bladder expanding properties. We’ll hit one on the way to the coffee. I’m going to get something with chocolate…
So what happened here?
When I walked up the girl was not interested in talking to me, but she was pulled in because I had time to demonstrate more of my personality that simply delivering a line and waiting to see if she likes me. Often when the initial pattern of the interaction is question/response, it becomes apparent that the guy is actually interested in the girl very quickly, but he hasn’t shown her anything that would make her be interested in him, so consequently it’s “us vs them,” we’re trying to shatter the ‘ol bitch shield while they’re trying to get out of talking to us.
This rarely works.
Most of the time the sets that go well are the sets where the girl doesn’t have to think about your motivations until after you’ve shown her you’re a cool guy. In this interaction there’s enough initial talking so that rather than me vs her, it’s both of us working together.
Me and you VS the world, girl!
The other benefit of the ramble here is that is pulls her onto my rhythm rather than the other way around.
Most of the time when a guy talks to a girl the rhythm of the interaction looks like this:
guy: blah blah blah
girl: blahblahblah
guy: blah blah blah
girl: blahblahblah
guy: blah blah blah
girl: blahblahblah
guy: blahblahblah
Here the girl pulls the guy onto her rhythm. Not attractive. Every girl wants a guy with a stronger reality than themselves, and talking is like music, people speed up or slow down to it.
Beginning the set without space between your opener, qualifying statement, and transition helps you to pull her onto your rhythm, rather then the other way around. When guys say “be the music,” this is what they mean. Her reality is affected by yours, yours is NOT affected by hers.
Till next time guys,
If you don’t know what to say, just say something.
Love ya!
-The Braeden
May
26
How to use your time wisely and put your results on steroids
Leave a Comment (1) » | Posted in Inner Game | Tags: confidence, hypnomatt, Inner Game, matt kendall
Hey guys
I promise that this post will be shorter than the last one. I think I got RSI from writing the last post.
What I want to talk about today is the topic of wasting time and effort on girls and how you can turn that arround. When you waste time and effort, not only can you never make that time up again, but it also makes you feel crap, lowers your self esteem and makes you less likely to go after the girls who will actually be responsive to you.
Before I learnt about game, I was very much into marketing. I used to be a club and band promoter, this taught me how to make money and focus my efforts on the right people. I believe that a massive part of self esteem comes through getting results. If this is the case shouldn’t we be focused on going for the right types of people which will generate the best results, rather than just hoping for the best?
When I got into promoting bands in Manchester I learnt very quickly that the general population had absolutely no interest in going to see unsigned bands in a pub function room on a Wednesday night. I could have spent a lot of money advertising the gigs on the front of the local papers, but this would have had barely any impact at all. The only people who are interested in seeing unsigned bands (when they are starting out at least) and friends and family of the band members and a few music enthusiasts. I had a system where the bands had to purchase a certain amount of tickets in advance in order to play a gig. This method is also known as “pay to play”. It is hated by musicians as they have to now put in the effort of getting people there as they have a financial investment. However this also meant that every gig I did made money, plus there was always a decent crowd for the bands to play to. I promoted over 100 music events in Manchester and gained a good reputation. Although I used a system that bands didn’t initially like, I still had about a ratio of 3 bands per 1 slot available.
While I was a band promoter I got to meet a lot of interesting characters. One night I was out with a lead singer of a band, who lets say was “unconventional” looking. He was ugly. However he was amazingly successful with girls. He was a very charismatic singer and went to a lot of after parties, a simple yet effective system. One night I was out with him and I spotted a group of 4 girls. I dared him to go over and speak to them. He looked at me totally confused as to why he would do that. He explained that they have no idea who he is and therefore will not be successful. This is when I really started to understand about targeted marketing and going after low hanging fruit. You can take someone who is amazingly successful, but if he is approaching the wrong sort of people then even he will get poor results.
When I first became a hypnotherapist, like most others I decided to cover every single issue under the sun. I used to do everything from weight loss, to stop smoking, to fears and phobias and even such crap as past life regression. I was competing in a cut throat industry and spreading myself far too thinly. I was literally begging people to come and so sessions with me and I used to undercut my competitors on price. I used to work all hours of the day and night and do as the client requested rather than doing the sessions how I wanted to. Then one day I was speaking to a marketing expert, who just did stop smoking sessions. He told me that I had to specialise or I would always find making a living as a therapist hard and I was likely to go out of business. This really resonated with me and I decided to get into what I knew best, social anxiety and self esteem issues.
Once I knew my direction, it allowed me to focus my efforts. I went on every course I could, I read every book on the subject and I shadowed every therapist that would let me. I researched, tried and tested every technique related to anxiety. This is something that I continue to this day and always will. Once I got really good at this type of work I was then able to advertise my services to those people who were actually looking. When you focus your efforts and work with the right people, your results grow exponentially.
So how does this relate to game? Well I see game like marketing and once you break it down and analyse it you can start to improve each part to maximise the results. The product or service that you offer is yourself, the market is the girls you want to be with and then you use game techniques (opening, closing, escalation etc) as the selling process. Once you know your market and how to present yourself best, then your results will drastically improve. Most people have no idea what they are trying to achieve, who they are trying to attract or how to analyse their results. No wonder people feel lost and like giving up.
Ok let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Recently I was working with a client who was Muslim, based in London and was looking to find a girl who he could settle down with and start a family. The girl also had to be Muslim who also had similar life goals. He liked the homely and caring types who didn’t drink and were career focused. He liked girls who were classy, well educated and enjoyed talking about philosophy and religion. He himself was a successful businessman with great prospects. He was a very good catch for someone who wanted to settle down and start a family. He was currently getting really poor results from game, to the extent that he his family were on the brink of arranging a marriage for him.
So where was this guy going to meet his future wife? He currently spent his time going to student nights at crap hole nightclubs in the West End of London. One particular night he went to every week was famous for selling all drinks for £1. See this is where I have to sit back and see if the penny drops, in this case it didn’t so I had to spell it out for him.
I said to him, “So let me make sure I understand. You are looking to meet a Muslim girl who you can settle down with. You don’t like girls who drink, you like the homely type who are well educated and career focused. You also want them to be a good conversationalist who likes to talk about religion and philosophy. Let me ask you, how many of these girls do you think go to a £1 a drink night at a crap hole club during the week?”. He looked rather puzzled and after a few moment he said “probably not that many, but there are lots of girls there”.
Let’s look at this in detail. Say there are 1000 girls in the club, how many are first of all likely to be Muslim? Let’s say 15% (I am just using made up numbers for example’s sake). Out of that 150 how many are likely to be living in London and not a tourist, who don’t drink and are career focused and looking to start a family within the next couple of years. We are probably down to single figures by now. Not only does he have to go and find these girls but he is also facing such issues as loud music, her friends and lots and lots of other guys. No wonder he is getting poor results. As I explained all this to him, he started to understand what I was on about but then looked disheartened. “So you are saying it is a lost cause and I should just give up?” At the moment he was going out 2-3 times a week and opening approximately 15 girls per night. So he was efficient in his approach, however he was not being effective. “No my friend, I suggest you change what you are doing to get better results” was my answer.
We first of all gather some information about the girls he was attracted to and built a bit of a profile about them. We then consulted my best friend in the world, Google. Within minutes we had found a Muslim only dating site, and a Muslim philosophy discussion group that was held in his local area. Within a month of going to these focused events he got into a steady relationship with a great girl. They are still together 6 months later and look set for a great future together. He has not been to a £1 a drink night since and his self esteem is at an all time high.
When you don’t approach game with an analytical attitude then you end up just going out for the sake of it. Without a plan you will of course feel lost and have no idea where you are going wrong or right. Getting numbers will be something of chance and then converting those numbers to dates will be a difficult process. All this leads to wasted effort, poor results which of course turns into low self esteem and lack of motivation.
While in Manchester I became very friendly with a guy who ran a speed dating company. When I asked him why he started to do this, he said it was simple. He was single and he wanted to meet a lot of single girls who were looking to meet guys. He didn’t want to go to the events himself as this would put on the same level as the guys who attended. By organising the events, he not only had all the girls details and could speak to them about dating, but he was also of higher value at the events. To me this is a work of genius.
One common problem I see with guys is the whole “oneitus” AKA unrequited love. Basically when you really like a girl but it has not gone anywhere and is not very likely to happen anyway. People spend so much of their time investing into this one person, that they are now in what I like to call an investment trap. By giving up on this person and going after new people, they feel like all the time leading up to this has been a waste of time and therefore they have to continue. This makes no sense at all and just leads to investing more and more time and therefore strengthening the problem. A good pick up artist knows two things, what kind of girls to go for and when to call it quits.
If you are in an investment trap with a girl, you have to ask yourself “what I am doing, how is it working out so far?”. By continuing to the same things you are likely to get the same results. I advise to change your methods by going out and meeting different people. The one girl who you have invested so much in is actually more likely to be attracted to you if you are not chasing her, but instead dating other girls. You are also likely to meet girls who are even more suited to you once you change your focus.
Ok that is it for today. Think about how you are spending your time and how efficient and effective it is. Time is the one thing you can never get back, and if you are investing too much into one girl, go out and meet more people!
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Matt Kendall (Hypnomatt)