Archive for June, 2011

Hey guys

A lot of the pick up world seems to focus on getting rock star lifestyle. Rocking up to some high end club with 20 girls in tow, sitting at a private table, drinking champagne and having an after party until the wee hours at some penthouse apartment. This sounds lovely, but I have found that a lot of men, including myself, have absolutely no desire to live this kind of lifestyle.

So what happens to us regular dudes who just want to meet a nice girl and have a relationship? Are we boring? If so will learning game help or hinder our success with finding a girl whom we are compatible with?

The first question to ask yourself is what do you want? Some guys do want to go out and live the rock star life, and that is cool. Learning game is certainly going to help you to achieve this to some degree. I however take a different take on this. I don’t really like clubs, I don’t drink, I don’t like people who go to clubs, I don’t like staying out that late and I like to get up the next day and do things rather than feel like crap. I like more boring activities such as exploring London, spending time with friends, going to gigs and events, organising seminars and workshops, drinking nice coffee and eating out. Hardly rock ‘n’ roll, but I like it.

If you have recently got into game and are now thinking that you have to go out to bars and clubs to meet people, then rest assured that this is not the case. If you are looking to kiss and f close girls, then yes going out to these types of venues are your best bet. But if you are looking for a relationship, then I advise using the skills you learn in game and putting them to use in other places.

One thing you can not avoid is going out and talking to people. You do not learn social skills and game by sitting and home and reading articles like this. You learn it by going out and being with people, the right sort of people. I truly believe that inner game and confidence is built upon success rather than this weird notion that we have to go out and fail 99%. I don’t like failing at things and I try to avoid it when possible. I like to plan things then put them into action.

If you are looking to make a genuine connection with a girl then you are going to have patience. Love at first sight is very rare, instead love usually takes a while to develop through spending time with someone. I have found that the vast majority of people I know in relationships met their partners in one of 4 ways. Those ways of meeting were; educational facility (school, university, college etc), social circle (friends or friends of friends), at work or through a shared hobby or passion. I don’t know many people in relationships who met their partner in a bar or club.

If you are not in education, have exhausted your social circle and there is no one at work that suits you, then you need to look at taking up some new interests and hobbies. If you continue to spend your time with the same people then you are not likely to get any different results. You need to look at what you are doing, the results it is getting you and how you can make changes.

I worked with a client a few months ago who wanted to get back into a relationship. He is a rather quite guy, works in finance and enjoys nothing more than long country walks and cooking. He was rather disheartened with his pick up results as he was meeting loud and obnoxious women who weren’t his type. To be fair he was going to dingy crap clubs and meeting very drunk women. He doesn’t like clubbing, he should never have been in that environment.

When it comes to meeting people you are likely to have a connection with, you need to focus your efforts. My favourite resource is www.meetup.com. There are other similar websites such as City Socialising and Spice. These sites are like portals, a place where you can meet people with similar interests. You can also read your weekly entertainment listings as well as checking online directories.

My best advice is to get known within some sort of scene instead of just going to general events. One guy emailed me last week to say he is going out 4 times a week but unable to build a solid social circle. He is going to singles events and after work drinks type of stuff, so there is not much substance to hold the group together. To get the best results you need to think about a scene or something more substantial to get interested and involved in.

What is important is that whatever you decide to do, you should be doing it through interest and not just to meet women. If you current go to places you don’t really enjoy just to meet girls, than this will shine through. Guys who go to salsa classes are a classic example of this. If you have a genuine interest in something then this will shine through and real and genuine connections can be made, not only with potential partners but new guy friends too.

Some great activities that I have found to work really well with guys who I have monitored over the years include;

Classes and courses. Everything from learning a new language to self development seminars.  

Arts and crafts. Taking up photography, painting, dancing and other creative activities.    

Music. Either playing an instrument or going to see gigs. People bond effortlessly over music especially when it is a love of the same kind e.g. ska, rap, acoustic etc. The more niche the better.

Charity/volunteer work. Getting involved with some sort of charity activity or event. Sponsored runs and events always bring people together.

Sport. Getting involved with a sport or outdoor pursuit helps to unite people.

If you are not a fan of bars and clubs then I advise to stay out of them. Focus your attention on meeting people in places where you are going to have a real reason to talk and let the connection form more naturally over a longer period of time.

Please remember, you meet very few people at home. The girls and the life you desire are not going to come and find you.

Matt Kendall (hypnomatt)

It’s been a LONG time since I’ve written something on my very own blog right here.  I think this is important enough, and if I can convey my ideas on this subject well enough, I might be able to help a lot of guys along their path.  Over the years I’ve seen a lot of people get stuck .  Maybe they make it part of the way to a happy love life and then stall out or regress.  I’ve even seen guys who never really get off the starting blocks despite years of effort.  As a coach, it’s very important for me to understand what they are doing wrong, and now for the first time I can give you my take, and I hope it’ll help you either to avoid a similar fate or confirm that you are on the right track.

What are the 3 major mistakes that the guys who don’t win the game make?

1.  Wrong role models.

Sometimes I watch videos by other “gurus” or meet them face to face.  There are lots of guys that I respect, some are good teachers, some have a lot of great theoretical knowledge, and some have good game.  However there are a ton of guys who are buddies with the right people, are good marketers, and are basically guys who should NOT be listened to.  Sometimes on these videos you can see the guys in the audience furiously taking down notes.  Big mistake.  If you choose the wrong role model, the best you can hope for is to be as good as them.  In some cases these “gurus” have no skill at all with women and are total losers.

When I first started, my role models were the gurus who had qualities that I lacked and respected, not the ones who had the coolest stories, were the most famous, or who bragged the most.  Which ones could I imagine girls being attracted to?  Which ones had some charisma, presence, or other quality that I valued?  When I started getting better, my role models became guys like Steve and Alex. Guys who I noticed because they had amazing strengths in areas that I had weakness.

So the lesson?  Tune your radar correctly, find role models who are guys that have qualities that you don’t, guys you respect.  Not just guys that brag about bagging HB10s on message boards, or who do the circuit of PUA talks but have no real world skill.

Of course an average role model is better than a bad one.  Too many guys only hang around with guys on the same level as them and think that they can all get better together.  While that is possible, in most cases they will fail.  Being friends with someone 10x better than you is a surefire way to get better in that area of life, whether business, pick up, or anything else.  My role models are accountable for over 50% of my success.

Alex and I soon after we met in 2007.

2.  Wrong approach to feedback.

“What she says doesn’t matter”, “just do what you want and if people don’t like it it’s their problem”.  NO!  Feedback is the only way we get better.  Yes you shouldn’t take everything a girl says to heart, or take each rejection personally, but you should objectively look at all feedback and take on board lessons from every failed interaction/relationship.   If you keep telling stories and people get bored, or keep making certain types of jokes and people don’t laugh, or keep failing at the same points in a seduction, then you need to pay attention to the external feedback and make changes.   If you have someone who can harshly critique you, fantastic.  This could be a wing man, your natural friend, or a particularly honest girl who you try to seduce.

A lot of guys work on their inner game so much that they delude themselves into thinking they are good BEFORE they actually are.  Then if someone doesn’t like anything about them it’s obviously the other person’s fault.  This is a real limiter to making progress.  Don’t let your ego get in the way. Each time you either step up the difficulty of the girls you are going for, or try a new environment, you should expect to be bad to begin with.  Feedback and adjusting is the only way to improve.  Plowing through with a “what she says doesn’t matter” attitude is a recipe for disaster.

90% of the time this means you are doing something wrong and you need to figure out what it is and change it, 10% of the time she is having a bad day etc.  We can’t get better without negative feedback.

3.  Focusing on “game” and being a PUA.  The wrong goal.

Being a PUA is lame.  I said it.  Generally you are hanging around with guys who either are bad with women or were bad with women recently, you won’t have many “normal” friends and generally no female friends.  You are WEIRD…but it’s all for a purpose.  You have your wingman, you do your approaches, and you are going to be this weird guy for a short amount of time while you learn all the skills and catch up on all those years you missed out on.  Years when other guys were getting laid and talking to lots of girls.  You get the skills and then you get out.  You make normal friends – cool guys and (importantly) girls, your “game” becomes natural, just who you are.  You learn skills, travel, and do interesting things, become a man who women should be attracted to naturally.  Guys that think it’s cool to always be a PUA are never going to be in the places where all the hot girls are, are not going to be accepted by her friends and family, and are not going to have the huge benefits that being socially connected brings.

4. …and the obvious ones

Not taking action, not trying new things, not pushing yourself, not leaving the house, and all the things you already know.

I hope that helps guys, it took me a few years of watching guys succeed and fail to find the common threads.  Please comment below, I’ll be reading them all.

Everybody needs validation.There is no point in achieving without validation.What is validation? Validation is the notion of giving value to a particular quality.

Validation is about uncertainty. We need validation about things that we are not 100 % certain about. When we lack certainty, we look to others to guide us. Think about it; the things that we are certain of, we don’t need validation or evidence for.
We don’t need validation or proof that we are alive.
But for validation to occur, we have to have some certainty that it is true. That is the basis of compliments, and a large part of direct game.

For example,for those of you with a masochistic streak, try opening some fugly minger with “….I had to come meet you as I think you are really gorgeous, “ and watch as the interaction goes south. This is partly because, she would not have much certainty that the compliment was true and thus could not receive genuine validation from it. Also it is difficult to be congruent with the compliment.
Again, try giving the same compliment to the she-knows-she’s-smoking-hot chick who has squeezed herself into the two sizes too small low cut tee shirt with the miniskirt belt and perfect tights…..and gushing will ensue.This is because she probably has 90% certainty that the compliment is true and the extra 10% is the diamond validation that she needs.

Of course, in our social interactions we need to consider our own need for validation and that of others. We should not be seeking validation of course, but on some level we all receive some validation of sorts from the positive feedback of socialising. Think about what validates us. Anything from someone not walking away, to smiling back at us, to giving us their phone number, to having sex with us, is a form of validation. So it we don’t appreciate that we need validation, this kind of removes the point of an interaction.

The same goes for the recipient. By giving people validation, such as compliments, or empathic touch, we may encourage them to seek it from us, and often this comes in the form of qualification. By coming from a positon of giving value, a girl may qualify herself to us, attempting to impress us, so that we may give her validation back.

As a rule

VG>VT

The validation that you give (VG) should always be greater than the validation that you take (VT).
So if you validate everyone (VG), adding value to people’s lives, the net effect is that people will be drawn to you. It also has the effect that, your own need to take validation (VT) will begin to diminish. Try it. I guarantee it will improve your day, and ultimately, your results.

This creates yet another important effect. When people are drawn to you, others will become aware of this. This works on the biggest social uncertainty of all; the question of who hold the most social power. People are always looking to be drawn towards those with the highest social power or value, but they have perpetual uncertainty as to who this may be much of the time. However, this uncertainty is fulfilled when others give you attention and thus validation, as this creates the age old factor of influence…..Social Proof.

So by giving people validation, others become more drawn to you, creating social proof. This in turn, encourages others in the environment to seek validation from you.

And so it completes the circle. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you need some inspiration, check this out.

Stay classy,

Shamwow.