A testimonial from a once-introvert

Here’s a testimonial from a guy I coached a couple months ago. He started nervous, but we kept focused and he made some great progress, making tons of approaches. If I hadn’t seen the change, I wouldn’t have guessed the guy at the end of the session was the same guy at the beginning, at least not by his fearless approaches. Except that as a coach you see progress like this.

I came to the Doc as an introverted guy who loves women but never learned the ways of attraction. Consequently, many a lonely night was spent wondering what I was doing wrong and if things were going to change. Things finally are changing. It takes action, there is no magic – just real learning by doing, and by failing, then doing again.

I was isolated in my endeavor to shed my inhibitions and start expressing the lover within. I started searching for some expert guidance to help me out, and perhaps give me a kick in the ass towards the right direction. The Doc helped me out big time. He is a cool guy, with style and confidence. He is patient and listens to what you have to say. He can teach.

By the end of the weekend, I had approached more women than in my entire life up to that point. I had several phone numbers, and nearly went home with three different beautiful women.

At the beginning of my coaching session with Doc, we sat in a busy square in New York, surrounded by people and activity. As we sat there and began discussing my current situation with girls, I suddenly began feeling extremely socially anxious. I felt like the people next to us were listening in and I did not want anybody to hear because I was embarrassed. I felt uncomfortable sitting with all those people around. That was where I was coming from, and the Doc helped me to face my social anxiety and bust through it. We did this by doing many approaches. We decided that would be the focus of our session – approaching and beginning conversation.

Having a coach there helps a great deal because now there is no excuse, you have to do the exercise. Soon, I was approaching girls that I found attractive without hesitation, and, most importantly – it was fun. Even when I got blown out, which happened several times, or rejected, which happened most of the time, it didn’t matter. The act of approaching itself is an attractive act to women, and shows some measure of ballsiness. I remember one girl I approached, she was walking with earphones and I motioned for her to take them off so I could talk to her. She just flatly said “No!” and kept on walking. Totally rejected. But I realized something that is so obvious: Who knows what was going on in her world, she could have been having a rough day and did not want to talk to anybody. Yes, it is possible to cheer people up but the point is that I had to get out of my own head and realize that there are many other heads out there – each with their own struggles, dreams, and aspirations. Knowing this, it is ridiculous to take rejection personally. We can only put ourselves out there to see if a connection can be made, and to be secure enough in ourselves if it doesn’t happen. In other words, outcome independence is key.

I did not get any phone numbers or anything like that from those first approaches, my body language sucked, and I didn’t touch at all I don’t think. Yet I learned so much, and I felt emboldened. I started not to care so much about what other people thought of me. I felt much less self-conscious. With each approach, I could feel the anxiety drifting away.

I had several interactions that left me really feeling alive. Everybody was having fun and enjoying the moment. When someone is truly in the moment and focusing on another human being, a bubble forms around those individuals, and everything outside goes away and ceases to matter. It was interesting to contrast the ‘me’ from just an hour earlier – sitting anxious on a bench, wanting to seek solitude, to the ‘me’ standing in the midst of all those people, flirting with two girls without a care in the world.

By the end of the coaching session, I had already noticed a change. I was approaching whenever I wanted to, and had no qualms about it. As the allotted coaching time ended and the Doc and I parted ways, I ended up spending the rest of the night with two girls I had approached in a crepe shop. We went out to the bars together, danced, and had a great time. Yes, that night I would spend alone again, but this time I was not left wondering, but knowing that I was well on my way to getting this part of my life handled. Get it done.

A mindset that will destroy your progress and your game

A guy I was coaching recently told me a mindset I remembered from painful experience from when before I started learning to attract girls. And this guy has been studying game for years. You can develop this mindset for yourself and not challenge it for years or even a lifetime.

I see the mindset a lot. It’s painful for several reasons.

Exposing problems like it are one of the reasons coaches are so valuable. we’ve seen so many problems before (and in many cases lived them before challenging and overcoming them) that we help clients expose them. As I’ll describe, this guy, who made so much progress in so many other areas (appearance, going out, learning theory, great mindsets in other areas, etc) crippled himself in one of the most important areas you have to work on to improve.

It keeps you from progressing.

It keeps you from approaching.

It fools you into thinking you’re doing well when you’re not.

But the biggest problem with it is that it gets you to lie to yourself. Once you lie to yourself and accept the lie, you create for yourself a world where you stay comfortable despite going home alone, having dates that don’t end in your bedroom, and think you’re doing great.

The mindset

Like many guys, he has a physical type he finds most attractive. Here’s what he does:

Girls who don’t fit his type he says he’s not interested in and can’t fake attraction so approaching isn’t worth it anyway, so he doesn’t approach them.

Girls who do fit his type he finds so beautiful, he has to take time to work up incredible amounts of motivation to approach. Sometimes he’ll spend thirty minutes preparing, deciding if they’re worth it, even considering if they’re long-term dating (even marriage) material. Often he never approaches.

This mindset sets him up to fail while feeling successful.

He feels successful because he turns down so many girls that he considers below his standards. He feels exclusive and high status and he expects people will recognize his rarefied standards. He also feels successful because when he does approach, he’s proud at having approached only the best women, never mind that his inexperience leads him to lose these girls. He’s only had one relationship with such a girl, which came before he started learning attraction and she broke his heart, probably because he put her on a pedestal.

He fails because he hardly ever approaches!

When he approaches, he’s so nervous about this girl on a pedestal he freezes up.

He also fails because he’s not getting experience with girls to make him feel comfortable.

The cause

This mindset is an incredibly effective protection against feelings of failure, insecurity, and desperation. I recommend it to anyone who doesn’t want to feel bad and also doesn’t mind not having sex with women. If you don’t mind sacrificing sex with women, it’s a great strategy for a great life. Oh, and also people who recognize the dreamworld you’ve created won’t respect you.

It comes from convincing yourself that you have good and valid reasons for your behavior without accepting your fear. I’m no psychologist, but I’m confident in that assessment. Not that the cause matters so much because there’s a cure that works independent of the cause.

The cure

The biggest step forward from this mindset is awareness. Almost necessarily it has to come from someone else since people suffering from it think they’re awesome and doing great. You could diagnose it yourself by looking at the ratio of how many women you have (in rotation, sleeping with regularly, had sex with at all, or any similar number) to how good you think your game is. If you have no women in rotation and think you’ve got mad game, you might have this problem.

Third parties will recognize the pattern best. A good coach who gives you good exercises will expose it. Friends can help too.

Step two, after awareness, is to develop skills approaching, generally by approaching more girls.

But what if you don’t find those other girls attractive and can’t fake it, as my client asked me?

Learn to approach for other reasons than fucking a girl. Approach to have fun. Approach to get her attracted in you. Approach to build your social circle. I have the same issue of having a very specific type. But even a girl I’m not into I like being pursued by, so I like getting her excited in me. Then we can have a great relationship, even if only having fun at the bar or bookstore until a girl I’m more into arrives. Then I graciously thank her for her time, wish her well, and move over to the girl I’m into. Or bring her over to meet the new girl together.

Occasionally that other girl has great game and takes me home and I have a great time with her even though I’m not into her.

The point of pickup is not solely to get laid. It’s also to have fun in the process of getting laid, as well as increasing your social skills, social circle, and so on. Those other girls who aren’t your type can help a lot with these other goals.

Third, learn humility.

You can’t learn new skills if you think you’re awesome at them. Once I pointed out his pattern and how self-defeating it was, my client realized he had been lying to himself and suddenly had new enthusiasm for approaching girls he never had before. Sure, he still only wanted to end up with his perfect type, but he realized the path to them was to learn overall skills, which meant approaching, which meant learning to enjoy approaching, even girls not his type.

If you think you’re too good for every girl except perfect tens, you’re rarely going to approach at all and when you do you’ll only do as well as your limited experience, compounded with anxiety, meaning you won’t do well, meaning you’ll go home alone. Feeling proud you approached at all won’t get you intimacy with a girl.

Handling requests and demands from girls

I recently did what I consider a good job handling a challenging request from a girl so I thought I’d share. I would categorize this under relationship management. Girls want a guy who has his shit together. This was an example of how you have your shit together, even when she makes a demand you don’t like.

Think of all the times a girl makes a demand on you — do this, don’t do that, I want to go here, can we postpone, can my friend come along, …

It ended up long (sorry!), so I’ll summarize.

• Trying to change someone’s mind through discussion and debate doesn’t work well, especially around intimacy and sex.
• Demonstrating the value of your point through experience influences better.
• Instead of rational discussion, try showing what you mean.

The rest illustrates the points. Instances like this come up a lot. The more you can generalize what happened, the more you can apply it. The post is about pictures, but it’s really about a lot more.

The demand

I was sitting having a slice of pizza with a girl I’ve been seeing for a few months. We’re close. We like each other. Out of the blue she asked to see her pictures on my phone. She knows I have about a hundred naked pictures and videos of her on it. I like the idea of looking at them with her in public, so I got it out.

When I did she said “Okay, now you have to delete them.”

This threw me at first. I like the pictures and videos. I don’t want to delete them. More importantly, I don’t want to set a precedent of her telling me what I can have on my phone or easily complying with random requests.

Years ago I might have argued. This time before reacting I realized I didn’t understand her motivation. I thought of what I knew. She gave no signs of disliking me having the pictures and videos. She didn’t seem angry. She didn’t want to make unilateral decisions, but had. I concluded it wasn’t that she wanted me not to see the pictures, but I still needed to understand her motivation to know how to respond.

By the way, I also have them on my computer, so I could have deleted them without loss, but that doesn’t achieve my goals either. I don’t just want naked pictures. I can find naked pictures of models on the web. Nor do I want to do things behind her back. I want to look at the pictures knowing that she wants me to have them. They are to build the relationship.

An effective response of showing her, not telling her

First I had to understand her demand. Her initial request could mean a million different things. Assuming the wrong one would lead me to solving the wrong problem, potentially making it worse.

So I said, “I like having your pictures. Why would I delete them?”

We talked a bit. As I expected, she liked me having them. She was just worried about not having control of them. She generally trusted me, but my having pictures and videos of her was a new experience. One post could ruin a lot for her. I know I wouldn’t share them without permission, but she can’t know for sure.

Years ago at this point I would discuss with her why she shouldn’t be concerned. This time I didn’t do that. Why not? Discussion doesn’t build emotions like trust. It gets you thinking. Rationally, she has a point since she can never know my mind like I do. Rational discussion and debate achieves some things, but rarely changing minds.

I realized what to do. I suggested thinking about it and coming back later.

That night we had amazing sex. In particular, I made a point of exploring fantasies and hidden desires, both exploring things that turned us on but we normally protect. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable gives you access to deep emotional joy, pleasure, passion, etc. I know this community normally talks about picking up girls and the first few minutes, but I really like the feelings you get when you open up with a girl.

Do you see where I was going? … that I gave her a very joyful experience that resulted from her trusting me, a way I wanted to her feel about the pictures. I clarified the point verbally with her.

As we relaxed afterward, I said “That was great, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was.”

“Doesn’t it feel great to explore parts you normally protect?”

“Yes”

“If we don’t let ourselves be vulnerable, we don’t get those joys. When we do, we get the best times of our lives.”

“Totally”

I paused to give the next sentence extra gravity.

“Now you want me to have those pictures on my phone, don’t you?”

I had just made a big leap so I let her process it. Do you see her perspective? She just got one of the best experiences of her life by trusting me and I was suggesting she trust me in another area too. I could have tried telling her this potential at the pizza place, but even if I could have had her intellectually agree, her emotions would have been cold and rational. She would associate pictures with cold rationality. Not a turn-on.

Talking about emotions is no substitute for feeling them. Only at a peak moment do you realize the value of peak moments.

She eventually responded, “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

She then agreed not only that I should have the pictures but that she wants me to have them. I don’t think she could have reached that point from rational discussion. Since then we’ve taken more pictures and video. And I’ve made a point of making sure she enjoys having them taken and my having them. For example, I took videos of her saying she wants me to take more pictures of her.

Things like this come up all the time, not just about pictures. About everything. Rational discussion rarely helps as much as emotional understanding and leadership.