Archive for the ‘Communication & NLP’ Category

A Happy New Year to all, and thanks to everyone for supporting me over the last one.
Thought I’d start 2012 with a bit of a hot potato. What stops a guy from approaching? The more astute readers will notice that I didn’t categorize it immediately as approach anxiety as I do not believe that it is as simple as that.

You see, I see many students who are quick to say, “I do not get approach anxiety,” but then don’t approach anyway, citing some other excuse to not go and open. Common ones are “I’m tired”, “She’s walking too fast,”and my favourite, “She’s not hot enough.””She’s too young” also comes up but that’s an entirely different blog.
Therein lies the age old philosophical argument between instructors of, is this a legitimate excuse, or AA in disguise?

Because when guys start off practising game, it feels normal and acceptable to have a modicum of approach anxiety. Which is a feeling of tension or apprehension which kicks in just before an approach which irrationally rationalises the possibility of being rejected.Obviously.
This is fascinating when you think about it. Millions of years of evolution and we as a species have had to endure hostile conditions, predators and disease, and have have developed the feeling of anxiety, to warn us and help us to survive.Yet, the very same feeling of threat and danger kicks in before we go and talk to a girl.

What the hell is at threat here?I mean, logically, surely we all know that the vast majority of girls are not going to kill, maim, infect or devour us (in a bad way), so what is the anxiety set to serve?
Well it protects against a threat to the ego. The Male Ego.

The Male Ego works, on the most basic level, if I do X, then this makes me more of a man; if I fail, I am less of a man.So rejection tarnishes the ego. Not really cutting edge news.
But we are willing to accept a little tarnishing in the acquisition of skills and call it a learning curve. So when we start out, it is much easier to accept the odd knock of the ego.

The problem emerges when the skills become more solid and we start to look for markers of success.Then negative outcomes or rejections seem to hit harder as we adopt an ethos of “I have the skills so I should have succeeded” blah, blah, blah less of a man.

The natural reaction to this is to establish comfort zones, that is people will game or interact only in ways or environments which they are completely confident in their abilities, unwilling to risk rejection. This is terribly inhibiting to personal growth and indeed evolving one’s game.

It also results in the aforementioned resistance to approaching whilst denying approach anxiety. Call it Approach Apathy if you will. It’s just another way of protecting the ego. Incidentally the most extreme example of this that I have heard is, “I know that I can get any girl I like so I won’t even bother to approach.”That doesn’t even make any sense.
There are wider implications to this. There is an infectious state that occurs especially when you are with a group of people who are collectively not approaching. It becomes more difficult to approach when your friends around you have the reluctance to approach (or push their game), and it seems that the common denominator is to not be rejected. The idea of “not being rejected” becomes more important than the possible benefits of approaching and hooking up. Conversely, it seems easier to approach if those around you are also approaching and indeed getting success and rejections, as the concept of rejection seems less potent. Socially Proofed Rejection as it were.

We end up catching a cheeky dose of outcome dependence where we avoid approaching challenging sets to avoid rejection and/or only approach “sure things”or DTFs (you know the people who would go home with a garden tool and thus require very little game to close), to garner the evidence that we are indeed, pimp. Afraid to find out that it may not be true. We need to accept that as humans we are imperfect, and at every stage are capable of having swag-tastic awesome interactions, as well as epic blowouts of mass destruction.

So how do you become an Approach Machine? What do the best approachers have in common?

COMPLETE INDIFFERENCE TO REJECTION!!!

In fact the word “rejection! should not exist in our vocabulary. Learn to love getting blown out. Appreciate that experiences that go spectacularly wrong are more valuable (and arguably fun) than those that go spectacularly right. Hell, reprogram your markers of success in terms of the number of spectacular blow outs that you get. Try and get blown out deliberately; it’s actually quite hard. Even if you are quite advanced in the game, just like trying to lift a heavier weight to grow more muscle, you need to challenge yourself and risk losing to grow more.Your strength is not just about your awesome outcomes, it is about your tenacity to keep going through bad ones.
Here’s a little inspiration that sums it up quite well.

Until the next one.

Stay classy,

Shamwow.

It’s been a while since the last one. Today I want to talk about calibration, a topic constantly referred to in pickup, but never really properly addressed. More specifically, social calibration. This is effectively the skill of being attuned to your social environment to judge how others feel and react to the situation, and thus enables you to make the most appropriate decisions to maximise your outcomes.

Now social calibration is extremely hard to teach. Most people have varying degrees of social calibration and individually it may vary from situation to situation. The amount it varies would depend on many factors including social experience, lifestyle and personality. It should be said that we feel more confident when we receive more evidence of our own social calibration to a particular environment. This is why people tend to have venues of preference; one guy may feel more calibrated in coffee shops, whereas someone else may be more at home in a club. We tend to gravitate towards environments where our sense of social calibration is highest.

Now for the most part, when people talk about social calibration in pickup, the knee-jerk solution is………..anyone….Bueller……

SPEND MORE TIME IN THE FIELD!!!!!

And as much as that is a fair comment, it is not entirely helpful. What do you do in the field? How do you know if you are uncalibrated? How do you know if you are improving?

Now a lot of people gauge socially uncalibrated responses as those which are weird, awkward or creepy. As a result, many people see social calibration as an absence of weird, awkward or creepy responses.

This then creates an altogether different and more hideous beast from within. There is a middle ground, a Calibration Purgatory if you will, which exists somewhere between the darkest depths of social retardedness and actual social calibration, where many reside comfortably. And this is the Competition for Social Status.

The most subtle uncalibrated behaviours tend to exist because individuals are competing for a place in the hierarchy of social status. For example, AMOGging, putting others down to try and increase status or NEGging, flat out being rude (because they think it’s being cool), bitchiness and trying to force rapport. Aggressive and competitive behaviours also fall into this category, and also project neediness and dependence on the outcome. These are uncalibrated because they all refuse to take into account what others are feeling and/or create negativity largely to fulfill self-centered needs.

So what are we aiming for to reach Actual Social Calibration? Well if you study individuals who are successful professionally and socially, a number of qualities tend to stand out. They are non-competitive, non-judgemental, have no agenda and seem to add value to everyone. It has been suggested that selfless generosity is the key.

So here are a few things that you can do to avoid getting stuck in Calibration Purgatory.

1. Social Versatility.
Aim to immerse yourself in as many different social situations as you can. One thing I see is that some students only hang out with their Pick-Up wings (mmm wings..) and as a result “the community” defines their social behaviour, resulting in interactions and self-esteem defined by “closes” and the slow descent into narcissism. Expanding one’s repertoire gives us a more broad experience with which to base our experiences of people’s behaviour.It’s also more fun.

2.Treat everyone as equals.

Look, we want to be the high value men that we are, but that’s no excuse to belittle people with it. The goal here is to ADD VALUE (the old chestnut), and make everyone around you feel good. If anyone is down, bring them up. This also enables you to connect with everyone. Make others interact and get involved with your conversation, instead of making it just about yourself.

3.Be non-discriminatory.

A massive potential politically incorrect hot potato.However, many people discriminate to some extent, and it takes a big man to know how he does, and a bigger man to do something about it.Here’s one.Would you treat a hot girl differently to her more overweight friend?Discrimination leads to judgement. Judgement leads to competition. And competition seeks hierarchy.

4. Aim to make everyone feel at ease.

This is where weird, awkward and creepy, those ubiquitous pantomime characters, can be stamped out. Firstly, avoid the Calibration Purgatory option, where the situation becomes weird and you carry on regardless. This just makes it worse, but hey if your’re gonna go down, go down in a Blaze of Glory. Well no.

If your aim is to make everyone feel at ease, the odd challenging situation will come up anyway (which is part of the point) and you learn to deal with them. This will be minimised if everyone is already upbeat, having a good time and already connecting.

Ultimately, a Socially Calibrated person is highly attractive, and projects a potent marker of social success.

Well that’s my take on it . Any Qs E me.

Stay classy.

Shamwow.

Hey guys,

Now this blog originated following a recent session with a student, who wanted to know how to game the pretty young thing at the front of house of a trendy London bar. The Door Whore if you will. It seemed that there are many misconceptions about the approach to attracting such a lady and so I set myself the arduous task to try to set the record straight.

The Door Whore is known as a “Hired Gun” in the words of the ancients, that is a woman who is employed in such a role because of her beauty/hotness, who much like the sirens of Greek mythology, use their looks to lure men in (usually to spend cash as opposed to their deaths).

This invites a number of important considerations in the approach to attract such a girl.

By the way, the following principles of “Hired Gun Game” can also be used to attract shot girls, hostesses or even dancers in Strip Clubs if one is so inclined to frequent such a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

1. Initial disqualification.

Firstly always remember that a hired gun is hit on all the time every day, to the extent that sadly, it is part of the job. So in order that you are not just another horny punter, we should start by not being another horny punter. In her environment, she will always have higher value than you (unless you are a big movie star) so hitting on her initially will put you in the same category as everyone else. And because she will have higher value than you, an indirect approach will work better than direct. So have a justification for being there other than the usual one, perhaps one which also gives you more value than everyone else; so be a friend of the DJ, be scouting the place to hold an event etc.

This has two purposes: it shows that you are not a threat, and it demonstrates that her usual “powers” will not work on you and so disarms her.

2. Reward and punishment.

Now you have established you are not a threat, she can let her guard down. What we need to do here is to get to know her as a “regular girl.” I say “regular” because in some hired gun situations such as strippers, girls have their alter egos with stage names (Candy anyone?) and a fake sexy personality to interact with sleazy guys.(Really, I thought she was really into me??).

So we use a principle known in psychology as operant conditioning, which is that people are more likely to do things that they are rewarded for and less likely to do things they are punished for, and thus involves the modification of voluntary or operant behaviour.

So in addition to the usual social interaction, you reward her for “regular girl” behaviour such as telling you her real name (maybe some light kino or validation) and punish alter ego behaviour (such as not taking her seriously). By the way, it should be noted while we are on the subject, that kino from a hired gun is an unreliable indicator of interest. It should be punished.

3. Establish one time only.

Once you have broken down the shell of the hired gun, you should be having a normal fun conversation with a normal fun girl. As the conversation begins to flow, you can begin to introduce some light “meaningful” kino which can be escalated appropriately. It is helpful to try to establish a connection especially with commonalities (subjective and emotional) to demonstrate to the girl that this is a “one time only” deal. She will still logically be influenced by the implications of hooking up with someone through work and so she needs to be able to justify making an exception.

4. Demonstrate socially intelligent value (including the close).

When the interaction is moving towards the possibility of exchanging contact details or even going home together, it is important at this point to demonstrate social intelligence towards her situation i.e. it would be a big risk to her if she is caught being picked up at work and SHE MAY LOSE HER JOB. And no hook up is worth losing your job over. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. Sorry.

Talk to her about this. Point out that you don’t want to stop her doing her job. Calibrate the close. Figure out a fun, romantic way to exchange details. Get her to give you her name…I mean Facebook close her.(The other F close). Lead her into meeting you after her shift. Better yet, stay talking until she can get away and continue in a neutral venue.

This incidentally demonstrates your value, that you have experience with beautiful women who work for a living and that you are considerate to her needs.Not the drunk leery fuck who asks for her number in front of his mates.

That dear friends is just the tip of the iceberg. I have obviously skipped through much of the minutiae of regular game and stuck to the outline of the differences for this kind of interaction.

Email me with any Qs.

shamwow@puatraining.com

Stay classy,

Shamwow.