You know what, on
average, people are most afraid of? It’s not death. It’s public
speaking. As Seinfeld once said, most people would rather be in the
coffin than giving the eulogy.
That doesn’t make
much sense, does it?
By now you should be
getting used to humans not making much sense.
This all comes from
social pressure. No one wants to look stupid. Everyone wants to be the
coolest guy in the room. And when you stand up in front of people, you
give yourself the chance to FAIL.
Winston Churchill
once said something like “I’d rather keep my mouth shut and be thought
a fool than open it and remove all doubt.”
He also said “Madam,
I may be drunk, but I’ll be sober tomorrow, and you’ll still be ugly.”
Feel free to use that one.
Anyway, most people
feel like Winston. When it comes to the fool quote, I mean. Almost
everyone is so scared of doing something dumb that they end up doing
nothing. When opportunity arises they flash back to a bad experience
from junior high, all these negative emotions come flooding, and they
freeze.
It’s understandable.
I mean, the emotional pain of embarrassment
and – worse – rejection is very real. Most guys prefer physical
discomfort to social awkwardness. So eventually you just avoid
situations where things can get awkward or embarrassing or – worse –
rejecting.
STOP THAT!
Time for some tough love.
When you’re on your death bed – should you be so lucky to have a bed –
it isn’t going to be the things you tried and failed that you regret.
It’s the things you
HAVEN’T TRIED. Always. Because you never know what might have been.
I remember once when I
was a young kid – maybe 14 – on the beach and some girls walked by me
and said “Hi” with these salacious smiles.
I froze.
And I REMEMBER THIS!
I rue that moment. I’ve approached thousands of women since, and
especially in the early going, I wasn’t always successful. I got shot
down my fair share of times.
And I don’t remember
them much at all. Certainly not in a painful way. At the time it might
have hurt, but with practice you can learn to deal with that pretty
easily.
It’s like breaking
through the burn in a serious exercise regimen. It sucks while it
happens, but once you’ve made it through it doesn’t seem so bad – in
fact, you get to kind of enjoy it. Why? Because instead of avoiding the
burn with fear, you push yourself towards it, and you get great results.
You wind up feeling good, and pride comes that you pushed yourself
through to the reward.
Guess what?
Approaching women much like that. It is EXACTLY like that.
When you see a
beautiful woman and those nerves come, that’s normal. Everyone gets
that. Even the best of the best still get that occasionally, and those
are guys with AMAZING success rates.
EVERYONE is scared of
looking like a fool, and a beautiful woman can do that to you better
than most. Hence, approach anxiety.
DEAL with it.
Most men don’t fail
with women because of some fatal flaw in their being. It’s because they
never put themselves into a position where they can succeed. And when
by luck they find themselves in that position they don’t know what to
do because they’ve rarely been there!
Thus, they screw it
up, receive more negative feedback, and avoid such situations even MORE
in the future. This is what psychologists call a negative feedback
loop, and it’s an ugly thing. Tough to deal with too.
So what’s a guy to
do?
BREAK THE LOOP.
I’m not going to lie
to you. When you approach women – especially to start – you’ll have
some negative interactions. You’ll be nervous, and although most women
will be much nicer than your dark fantasies, they probably won’t
respond the way you want them to.
Even a nice brush-off
is a brush-off, and it still stings.
Plus, there will be
some women who WON’T be nice, WON’T humor your awkward attempts, and
will blow you out of the water.
Ouch.
Of course, after your
first good workouts, you shouldn’t be able to lift your arms above your
shoulders.
Ouch.
The point is that you
are BUILDING to something. The more practice you get, the less nervous
you’ll be, or at least the less nervous you’ll act (which is just as
important). As you gain confidence, you won’t have that fear ruining
everything.
The butterflies will
remain, but YOU will have control of them. One day you’ll get a cold
response, and you’ll stay so inside yourself and confident through it
that you’ll actually TURN the tables and have women respect and LIKE
you for it.
You’ll have passed a
test, and you’ll get great reactions. This is when you start to – wait
for it – ENJOY these socially charged moments. There will come a point
where you SEEK THEM OUT because you end up having POSITIVE responses.
Either from the get-go or, more powerfully, when you deftly deal with a
situation most men RUN from.
Break the negative
loop, and you find yourself in a win-win place. That’s not to say ALL
women you approach will fall all over you – they have their own lives
and issues to deal with – but you won’t ever feel that it was YOUR
fault.
If you’re friendly,
open, and confident, either she will open up to you or she will have a
personal reason why she doesn’t.
You don’t have to
have that naked-in-the-locker-room junior high feel.
How do you get there?
Start with these exercises.
Tomorrow, go out and
talk to 10 people. Any 10 – men, women, children, grandmas – just get
used to TALKING with strangers. Get comfortable doing it. Talk about
books in the bookstore, music in the CD shop, Columbia in Starbucks – anything, so
long as you try to do it NATURALLY.
More than likely some
of the people you talk to will be women, and more than likely some will
be hot. Great. Treat them the SAME as everyone else. Remember, you’re
just practicing the natural connection with humanity, something most
people can’t do around strangers.
Got it? Good. Now do
the same thing for 10 days. That’s right, 100 people.
Just do it. Don’t
tell Phil Knight I said that.
At the end of those
10 days you should feel a lot more relaxed approaching strangers and
conversing with them. So the NEXT 10 days you are going to talk to
beautiful women.
This doesn’t mean to
ignore everyone else, but if you see a woman that you’re attracted to,
MAKE yourself talk to her. Ok, if she’s at a restaurant spoon-feeding
her grandparents, you’re excused, but if the situation is REMOTELY
acceptable, you’ve gotta talk to her. Period.
If you want, you can
simply say “I usually get nervous talking to beautiful women, so I’m
practicing talking to them in a relaxed way, staying in myself. Thanks
for the help.” Most of the time the response will be better than you
think – she’ll be flattered, and you might provoke a little nurturing
instinct.
Don’t stop there, of
course. Try to talk for around 5 minutes without getting flustered.
After 10 days, odds are you’ll be pretty good. Some women might even
volunteer their numbers.
But we’re not
finished. The NEXT 10 days you are going to go out and ask 10 women a
day for their numbers, emails, even instant dates (like moving on to a
coffee shop). Remember to stay relaxed and talk to them as you talked
to everyone else. DO NOT change your approach – she’ll know if you do.
Keep cool and confident – the rest will come.
At the end of this
month, you’ll be a new man. A more confident man. And, likely, a man
with enough numbers to keep you busy for the next month.
You’ll be starting to
ENJOY those social pressure moments, because you know that good
connections come out of them. You’ll have a positive feedback loop.
You’ll be ready for the next step.
Getting numbers is,
after all, only the first step. There’s plenty more to know if you are
going to have full success and find yourself satiated at the end of the
night. If you want to learn more about the REST of the game and the
knowledge and tools that can take you bliss, check out my site, Seduction
Science . On it you’ll find
all sorts of resources about each step of the way and what you need to
know to be successful.
Until next time.
Regards,
Derek Vitalio
http://www.seductionscience.com
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