The common factor is YOU

I've been thinking a lot lately about the patterns we run over and over and how we always look to the external.

I used to be friends with a guy who has one of the worst patterns I'd ever seen. He'd jump from emotionally damaging relationship to emotionally damaging relationship. He'd spend all day telling you about how much he loved his GF then cheat on her. He'd talk about himself all the time in a manic way, reciting all the plans he had and all the things he was going to do, never stopping to ask what was up with you. Not suprisingly his life was often in utter disarray and chaos. And people (like me) stopped being friends with him abruptly.Yet when you brought these things to his attention he'd call you a prick or an asshole. Finally I decided I had to stop watching him destroy himself.

I bring this up because what he didn't realize was that the common factor in the swirling chaos he calls a life is him. There's that old cliche that goes something like if a thousand people say a stupid thing it's still stupid. The reality is if most people see the same things in you, they're probably right.

This was something that i struggled with for years. I'd sit there and pout and kick my feet and say I was right and everyone else was just being dicks. But the truth was I had a lot of growing up to do. The reason people didn't like me and only tolerated me because I had game, was because I was a caustic person. I had to learn how to mature and see the value in people who couldn't help me. That's part of becoming an attractive person, you make time and give value to everyone. I used to be a hardcore value taker. I'd only talk to pretty girls or students who were paying me. Fuck neighbors, roommates, etc... Don't even get me started on people who worked at Starbucks or Walmart. To me they were just vending machines with hands. In fact even when I started to mature last year, I still held onto some of this stuff. It wasn't until I read some Eckhart Tolle that I started to realize that this was just the ego in me. See the ego needs constant reassurance that we are better than others. It thrives on separation and looks for anything it can find to differentiate itself from others. Failing to grasp one of the fundamental truths about existance, which is that we are all more similar than we are different.

Finally I had to look in the mirror at myself and admit the things I didn't like. i didn't do this alone. I had great people(Like CJ,and TD) helping me along the way and I also had others as examples of what I didn't want to be. I realized that the reason I didn't like myself wasn't because there was some conspiracy formed against me( Like the one at my favorite bar where girls gang up on me) it was because I was creating these situations. The last year and a half has been a transformative series of events as I dealt with this. But I never could have gotten the psychological leverage on myself to do that if I hadn't taken responsibility for my life and who I was. And there was a lot of darkness. there was a lot of being disgusted by the ugly truths about myself. But I wouldn't trade that process for anything.

When I was in Hawaii with TD we noticed that both of us are constantly reframing reality to keep things positive. It was an amazing phenomena because we both know the value of positivity and have worked really hard to install it as a habit. This differs from a guy like AJax or Tim from their crew who wouldn't have to reframe things, because they just are naturally positive guys. At the time I thought I would love to never have to actually try to be positive. But looking back now, I'm glad things have happened the way they did. Because when I wake up feeling great every morning now(Whether or not I'm alone, which is a blog post in itself) I have a sense of pride. I know where I came from and how important my habits are. I had to learn this stuff which gives it more value to me. And the craziest thing about all of this, is that there is NOTHING special about me whatsoever. All I did was put in the work.

On bootcamp i always say that no matter what you learn something about yourself that weekend. You may just learn that you don't want it bad enough. And that's fine. I'm not here to tell you guys that my path is right for everyone. I'm here to share my story and hope that there's enough of you guys out there that are close to feeling hopeless and will do whatever it takes to learn this stuff. Do whatever it takes to try to self-actualize. And that I can be an inspiration to you guys.

That's why I'm calling my Love Systems Superconference talk "Out of the Darkness into the Light". I truly believe that I was in a world of darkness for 20 something years and it was only when I was able to admit that things weren't right and I needed to change, that I stepped into the warming light of self esteem. It's some deep shit you'll go through in this game. But if you're lucky, it ends up making you a better person.

None of that happens though if you aren't able to take a good long look at yourself and see where you are falling short. A lot of guys think falling short, or not being the person they want to be makes them a failure. I think that being able to admit that and work on it, is the only thing that makes you a success. Unfortunately my friend can't do that. He thinks he can, but really all he's looking at is the surface level stuff. He doesn't see that outer manifestations are just symptoms of inner problems. It's not that he needs to learn to manage his time better or quit drinking so he doesn't lose stuff, it's that he needs to take a fundamental look at his character, what he puts value on and why. The saddest part is that if he read this, he'd just send me a text or call telling me I'm an asshole, when I was actually trying to help.

The first step to me looking back on the road to massive success, is not doing approaches or reading about evolutionary psych. It's realizing that you've created this mess in your life and you're going to clean it up.

S