Hey there,
As I'm sure I've talked about here, game changes as the seasons do.
In fact if you research this very blog, you'll find a horror trove of personal stories about Last Minute Resistance and near misses in between Thanksgiving and New Year's or as I like to call it the least wonderful time of the year.
If you don't understand why this happens I'll break it down succinctly.
During the holiday rush, not only are girls more likely to get Boyfriends to avoid being alone during the holidays, but they are less likely to go out and are more likely to be super busy with family and holiday obligations. If you want to dig deeper, you can find a lot of evidence to support the idea that humans have a mating season that begins in early spring. Or as the Guidos call it "Pool Season."
Now this shouldn't demotivate you, as much as it should teach you to focus more on your own family and holiday obligations rather than thinking you're going top go out and rack up a ton of lays around the holidays.
Word.
JS- The King Of Content
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving
Hey,
Hope you're all having a great Turkey day.
Be back next week, probably 10LBS heavier.
Word.
JS
Hope you're all having a great Turkey day.
Be back next week, probably 10LBS heavier.
Word.
JS
Thursday, November 18, 2010
If Only...
A lot of people live in a world of ifs.
If only they got that one special girl, then everything would be perfect in their lives.
If only they were rich, or famous, or tall, or whatever.
Often times people apply ifs in relationships. If only my baby's mom wasn't a porn performer, if this girl I like didn't have a boyfriend, if my new girlfriend wasn't a party girl that goes out 6 nights a week.
Ifs don't usually work out.
When students come to me with questions about ifs, I always reply the exact same way.
"That'd be nice, huh?
Ironically, this is the same thing I say to girls when they ask me to change or commit :)
It would be nice if things were different, and everything worked out the way you wanted it to all the time.
But unfortunately that only exists in Super-Happy-Funland.
Not reality.
In reality, part of being mature and taking personal responsibility for your actions is letting go of these if fantasies and looking at the World in a realistic manner.
Once you stop looking for ifs, then you can start focusing on finding solutions to the problems you're trying to wish away.
Best,
JS-The King Of Content
If only they got that one special girl, then everything would be perfect in their lives.
If only they were rich, or famous, or tall, or whatever.
Often times people apply ifs in relationships. If only my baby's mom wasn't a porn performer, if this girl I like didn't have a boyfriend, if my new girlfriend wasn't a party girl that goes out 6 nights a week.
Ifs don't usually work out.
When students come to me with questions about ifs, I always reply the exact same way.
"That'd be nice, huh?
Ironically, this is the same thing I say to girls when they ask me to change or commit :)
It would be nice if things were different, and everything worked out the way you wanted it to all the time.
But unfortunately that only exists in Super-Happy-Funland.
Not reality.
In reality, part of being mature and taking personal responsibility for your actions is letting go of these if fantasies and looking at the World in a realistic manner.
Once you stop looking for ifs, then you can start focusing on finding solutions to the problems you're trying to wish away.
Best,
JS-The King Of Content
Friday, November 12, 2010
Some Thoughts on The Social Network
"You are who you was when you got here."- Jay-Z
I finally succumbed and went to see The Social Network.
One of the reasons I wasn't particularly interested in seeing the movie is that I don't get Facebook. I don't have a personal one, I didn't have a Myspace, and I still don't really understand the desire to see what's going on with 200 people I barely know or went to school with.
Having said that...
The Social Network is really good. It raises some interesting questions about what "cool" is, social hierarchies, and the lengths to which guys will go to try to impress girls.
Let's address these issues one at a time:
What is cool?
Obviously as a dating coach/pua/amateur psychologist I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes someone or something "cool." This whole movie and Facebook's early business plan were based on the idea that if something is "cool" it can eventually become profitable.
The movie also addresses the relationship between something being "cool" and being exclusive. Initially access to Facebook was restricted to those with a Harvard.edu email address.
Which brings up a larger point. The vast majority of people cannot be cool. There's some study that says something like 1 out of every 6 people considers themselves to be "cool."
Which means there's something like a BILLION people who think they're cool. Generally if a billion people think they're all something, it's not going to be a good thing.
Mark Zuckerberg is not cool.
And throughout the movie this point is beaten home again and again. Starting with the amazing opening speech from the girl who inspired Facebook, and culminating in the scene where the twins finally decide they are going to sue him and the nicer one screams out " Let's gut the friggin nerd."
No matter how much he accomplishes, no matter how much money he makes, no matter how successful he becomes, the World will always see Mark Zuckerberg as a nerd.
To me this was an underrated factor in the business behind all of this as Zuckerberg was so focused on keeping Facebook "cool" that he made some questionable personal and professional decisions.
Social Hierarchies- Social Hierarchies are for lack of a better word pecking orders. There are people at the top, in the middle, and on the bottom. People on top are more valuable than those in the middle and so on and so forth.
In the movie the Winklevoss twins represent the "Haves" that group of people who have it all. They're tall, good looking, Harvard men, who row crew and come from a very wealthy and powerful family.
Mark Zuckerberg represents the "Have Nots". Zuckerberg is a nobody who desperately wants to get invited into a secret "Final club".
Director David Fincher does an excellent job of juxtaposing scenes from the first party at one of these secret clubs, with the night Zuckerberg gets drunk and puts up the site that would become Facebook. On one hand we see a bunch of young overpriviledged, popular kids partying it up with rapidly disrobing girls. While in the next scene we watch Zuckerberg describe how he hacks his way into various Harvard related sites.
In a way this idea of hierarchies is related to the idea of "cool." Mark is an outsider and in an attempt to both impress these secret clubs and show up a girl, he created Facebook, which made him rich and famous beyond his wildest dreams.
But he's still an outsider.
The most stunning scene to me happens late in the movie when Rashida Jones who plays an assistant lawyer on Mark's legal team tells him they're going to have to settle. She says something like when a jury looks at you and looks at the Winklevoss' there going to believe you stole their idea, so pay them and it becomes a speeding ticket on the way to where you're going.
While on one hand this can be interpreted as a win for Mark, he still had to pay out something like $65 million dollars because he doesn't look or come across the "right" way to a jury. Which if you strip away all the lawyer speak and drama basically means that juries tend to believe the better looking, more socially put together people over the socially awkward nerd who may happen to be right...
And lastly the lengths to which guys will go to impress girls. I kinda touched on this earlier so to re-cap briefly for those who aren't familiar with the story of the movie ( Not reality as I know many things were changed for the film). Mark creates the site that eventually becomes Facebook after his girlfriend at the time Erica dumps him. Fast forward through the movie and we come to the final scene where Mark sits alone at his computer after being told that he is going to have to settle both lawsuits, and sends a friend request to the same Erica girl.
Now whether or not this actually happened in reality, the point is a salient one. No amount of success, material objects, or sex can fill the holes inside of you. After the newness wears off, we are often left the same person we were when we started out.
While the social hierarchies of the US may not be as rigid as the Caste system of India, we are still trapped by the views, opinions and institutions around us, which more often than we'd like to admit, tell us who we are.
JS
I finally succumbed and went to see The Social Network.
One of the reasons I wasn't particularly interested in seeing the movie is that I don't get Facebook. I don't have a personal one, I didn't have a Myspace, and I still don't really understand the desire to see what's going on with 200 people I barely know or went to school with.
Having said that...
The Social Network is really good. It raises some interesting questions about what "cool" is, social hierarchies, and the lengths to which guys will go to try to impress girls.
Let's address these issues one at a time:
What is cool?
Obviously as a dating coach/pua/amateur psychologist I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes someone or something "cool." This whole movie and Facebook's early business plan were based on the idea that if something is "cool" it can eventually become profitable.
The movie also addresses the relationship between something being "cool" and being exclusive. Initially access to Facebook was restricted to those with a Harvard.edu email address.
Which brings up a larger point. The vast majority of people cannot be cool. There's some study that says something like 1 out of every 6 people considers themselves to be "cool."
Which means there's something like a BILLION people who think they're cool. Generally if a billion people think they're all something, it's not going to be a good thing.
Mark Zuckerberg is not cool.
And throughout the movie this point is beaten home again and again. Starting with the amazing opening speech from the girl who inspired Facebook, and culminating in the scene where the twins finally decide they are going to sue him and the nicer one screams out " Let's gut the friggin nerd."
No matter how much he accomplishes, no matter how much money he makes, no matter how successful he becomes, the World will always see Mark Zuckerberg as a nerd.
To me this was an underrated factor in the business behind all of this as Zuckerberg was so focused on keeping Facebook "cool" that he made some questionable personal and professional decisions.
Social Hierarchies- Social Hierarchies are for lack of a better word pecking orders. There are people at the top, in the middle, and on the bottom. People on top are more valuable than those in the middle and so on and so forth.
In the movie the Winklevoss twins represent the "Haves" that group of people who have it all. They're tall, good looking, Harvard men, who row crew and come from a very wealthy and powerful family.
Mark Zuckerberg represents the "Have Nots". Zuckerberg is a nobody who desperately wants to get invited into a secret "Final club".
Director David Fincher does an excellent job of juxtaposing scenes from the first party at one of these secret clubs, with the night Zuckerberg gets drunk and puts up the site that would become Facebook. On one hand we see a bunch of young overpriviledged, popular kids partying it up with rapidly disrobing girls. While in the next scene we watch Zuckerberg describe how he hacks his way into various Harvard related sites.
In a way this idea of hierarchies is related to the idea of "cool." Mark is an outsider and in an attempt to both impress these secret clubs and show up a girl, he created Facebook, which made him rich and famous beyond his wildest dreams.
But he's still an outsider.
The most stunning scene to me happens late in the movie when Rashida Jones who plays an assistant lawyer on Mark's legal team tells him they're going to have to settle. She says something like when a jury looks at you and looks at the Winklevoss' there going to believe you stole their idea, so pay them and it becomes a speeding ticket on the way to where you're going.
While on one hand this can be interpreted as a win for Mark, he still had to pay out something like $65 million dollars because he doesn't look or come across the "right" way to a jury. Which if you strip away all the lawyer speak and drama basically means that juries tend to believe the better looking, more socially put together people over the socially awkward nerd who may happen to be right...
And lastly the lengths to which guys will go to impress girls. I kinda touched on this earlier so to re-cap briefly for those who aren't familiar with the story of the movie ( Not reality as I know many things were changed for the film). Mark creates the site that eventually becomes Facebook after his girlfriend at the time Erica dumps him. Fast forward through the movie and we come to the final scene where Mark sits alone at his computer after being told that he is going to have to settle both lawsuits, and sends a friend request to the same Erica girl.
Now whether or not this actually happened in reality, the point is a salient one. No amount of success, material objects, or sex can fill the holes inside of you. After the newness wears off, we are often left the same person we were when we started out.
While the social hierarchies of the US may not be as rigid as the Caste system of India, we are still trapped by the views, opinions and institutions around us, which more often than we'd like to admit, tell us who we are.
JS
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Attraction Life Rafts
Hey there,
I got a lot of feedback on the last post on relationship patterns, I might post some more about that if there's interest in the upcoming weeks.
Today I want to talk about the concept of Attraction Life Rafts(ALR).
An Attraction Life Raft is a tactic, technique or routine you can use when things are not going well and you need to get back on the right track.
Here's a few of my favorite Attraction Life Rafts:
1. Tease. This is the best ALR, as it's pure emotional communication. Furthermore, you would be SHOCKED by how many guys don't tease girls at all when they are talking to them. When in doubt find something to make fun of about the girl.
2. Cold Reads. Cold Reads are great because they can create intrigue in a conversation. The next time, you're not doing well try saying " I have an intuition about you.." and following up with a cold or warm read.
3. Social Questions. These won't actually cause attraction, but they will buy you some time to come up with something attractive to say. Social Questions are pure placeholders like " Who are you shopping for today?"
4. Pumping Buying Temperature. Buying Temperature is simply emotional stimulation. The more you can pump the girls emotions, by making them laugh, giving them nicknames, singing, picking them up and spinning them around and other such nonsense the more emotional fluidity you get and that can be turned into attraction.
5. Switch it up. If the girl(s) are not going for your attraction game, try switching it up with comfort, qualification, rapport, vulnerability or ANYTHING else. One of the biggest issues guys have when they're talking to girls is an inability to adapt to what the girl is responding to.
So that gives you some ideas of things you can do when you're talking to a girl and you can tell you need to re-capture(or create) some attraction before moving on.
Best,
JS-The King Of Content
I got a lot of feedback on the last post on relationship patterns, I might post some more about that if there's interest in the upcoming weeks.
Today I want to talk about the concept of Attraction Life Rafts(ALR).
An Attraction Life Raft is a tactic, technique or routine you can use when things are not going well and you need to get back on the right track.
Here's a few of my favorite Attraction Life Rafts:
1. Tease. This is the best ALR, as it's pure emotional communication. Furthermore, you would be SHOCKED by how many guys don't tease girls at all when they are talking to them. When in doubt find something to make fun of about the girl.
2. Cold Reads. Cold Reads are great because they can create intrigue in a conversation. The next time, you're not doing well try saying " I have an intuition about you.." and following up with a cold or warm read.
3. Social Questions. These won't actually cause attraction, but they will buy you some time to come up with something attractive to say. Social Questions are pure placeholders like " Who are you shopping for today?"
4. Pumping Buying Temperature. Buying Temperature is simply emotional stimulation. The more you can pump the girls emotions, by making them laugh, giving them nicknames, singing, picking them up and spinning them around and other such nonsense the more emotional fluidity you get and that can be turned into attraction.
5. Switch it up. If the girl(s) are not going for your attraction game, try switching it up with comfort, qualification, rapport, vulnerability or ANYTHING else. One of the biggest issues guys have when they're talking to girls is an inability to adapt to what the girl is responding to.
So that gives you some ideas of things you can do when you're talking to a girl and you can tell you need to re-capture(or create) some attraction before moving on.
Best,
JS-The King Of Content
Monday, November 08, 2010
Relationship Patterns
Relationships tend to happen in patterns,and believe it or not we all have a pattern, whether or not we realize it.
Now I don't want to get all Dr Phil on you here and start talking about why we go through these patterns.
There's some evidence to suggest a lot of different reasons:
Some people would say that we go through a pattern until we realize what we're doing and correct the mistake. I call this the Groundhog day school of dating. Keep making the same mistake and hopefully eventually you fix it. Not the best answer.
The more fatalistic among us believe that we go through patterns because everything happens for a reason.
Optimists believe it's to bring you closer to the person you're supposed to end up with in the end. It's a nice sentiment, but it only applies if you actually do fix your pattern and end up with someone happily ever after...
Whatever the reason, you may find yourself going through a pattern you're not happy with. Most people whether they want to believe it or not go through dating patterns they're not happy about. Think about the girl who dates jerks or the rich guy who dates gold diggers.
You may find yourself dating the wrong kid of woman over and over again.
You may find yourself getting too serious too quickly and then resenting your committed relationship.
Hell, you may even find yourself getting into relationships and then cheating.
I'll give you some examples to further explain what I mean.
I used to have a friend who would get into REALLY intense relationships with girls, where the L word was being thrown around very quickly, his life turned into a co-dependent mess very quickly. When these relationships would inevitably end(because you MUST have separate lives to succeed in a relationship) he would be devastated before meeting a new girl and beginning the entire process all over again.
My best friend Raine has a pattern, she dates a girl she can control entirely. Whenever the girl attempts to stand up for herself or tries to change the relationship,Raine threatens to end the relationship, which leads said girl back to Raine in fear of being alone. Wash-Rinse-Repeat for the 10 years I've known Raine.
My other friend Nicole, has not been single for one day since we were Sophmores in High School. She meets a guy, dates him, makes him her boyfriend, and then cheats on him with a guy who becomes her next Boyfriend.
And it wouldn't be fair to put all these people I know on blast, without talking about my own pattern. I fall for extremely inappropriate and oftentimes emotionally unavailable women; Bitchy girls, Party Chicks, women who aren't sure if they're gay or straight. Somehow I win them over, and it's amazing until I remember that I work as a Pick Up Artist and that I don't want a girlfriend. I start intentionally pushing the girl away. Eventually the girl decides that she's not happy "being with you one day out of 6" and moves on. At which point if there really was a connection there, I decide that I really was in love with her, usually based off of very biased memories of the good times. Cue a usually half assed and self absorbed attempt to get back together, and I end up back where I started out.
The point of this post is to get YOU the reader to look at your own relationships, not as things that happen to you. But as things that we have a control over, both positively and negatively.
If anything this post should inspire you to look back on your past relationships, from a different perspective.
By stepping back and taking an objective look at your past with women, you will learn a lot about yourself. Most likely, it will be things you don't want to know. It might seem kind of masochistic, but it's only by understanding where we have gone wrong in the past, that we'll be able to make different and better choices going forward.
Don't be like one of my friends from the examples. One day I confronted this person about their pattern. I gave them a complete run down on what I had watched happen with a variety of people they'd had relationships with over a fairly long period of time. I was rational and non-judgemental with my analysis. I also stuck to the facts, the actual chaos brought into this person's life because of the kind of relationships they had.
Long story short, we're no longer friends and this person is still having the exact same kinds of relationships.
As Edmond Burke famously said, " Those who don't know history, are destined to repeat it."
JS-The King Of Content
Now I don't want to get all Dr Phil on you here and start talking about why we go through these patterns.
There's some evidence to suggest a lot of different reasons:
Some people would say that we go through a pattern until we realize what we're doing and correct the mistake. I call this the Groundhog day school of dating. Keep making the same mistake and hopefully eventually you fix it. Not the best answer.
The more fatalistic among us believe that we go through patterns because everything happens for a reason.
Optimists believe it's to bring you closer to the person you're supposed to end up with in the end. It's a nice sentiment, but it only applies if you actually do fix your pattern and end up with someone happily ever after...
Whatever the reason, you may find yourself going through a pattern you're not happy with. Most people whether they want to believe it or not go through dating patterns they're not happy about. Think about the girl who dates jerks or the rich guy who dates gold diggers.
You may find yourself dating the wrong kid of woman over and over again.
You may find yourself getting too serious too quickly and then resenting your committed relationship.
Hell, you may even find yourself getting into relationships and then cheating.
I'll give you some examples to further explain what I mean.
I used to have a friend who would get into REALLY intense relationships with girls, where the L word was being thrown around very quickly, his life turned into a co-dependent mess very quickly. When these relationships would inevitably end(because you MUST have separate lives to succeed in a relationship) he would be devastated before meeting a new girl and beginning the entire process all over again.
My best friend Raine has a pattern, she dates a girl she can control entirely. Whenever the girl attempts to stand up for herself or tries to change the relationship,Raine threatens to end the relationship, which leads said girl back to Raine in fear of being alone. Wash-Rinse-Repeat for the 10 years I've known Raine.
My other friend Nicole, has not been single for one day since we were Sophmores in High School. She meets a guy, dates him, makes him her boyfriend, and then cheats on him with a guy who becomes her next Boyfriend.
And it wouldn't be fair to put all these people I know on blast, without talking about my own pattern. I fall for extremely inappropriate and oftentimes emotionally unavailable women; Bitchy girls, Party Chicks, women who aren't sure if they're gay or straight. Somehow I win them over, and it's amazing until I remember that I work as a Pick Up Artist and that I don't want a girlfriend. I start intentionally pushing the girl away. Eventually the girl decides that she's not happy "being with you one day out of 6" and moves on. At which point if there really was a connection there, I decide that I really was in love with her, usually based off of very biased memories of the good times. Cue a usually half assed and self absorbed attempt to get back together, and I end up back where I started out.
The point of this post is to get YOU the reader to look at your own relationships, not as things that happen to you. But as things that we have a control over, both positively and negatively.
If anything this post should inspire you to look back on your past relationships, from a different perspective.
By stepping back and taking an objective look at your past with women, you will learn a lot about yourself. Most likely, it will be things you don't want to know. It might seem kind of masochistic, but it's only by understanding where we have gone wrong in the past, that we'll be able to make different and better choices going forward.
Don't be like one of my friends from the examples. One day I confronted this person about their pattern. I gave them a complete run down on what I had watched happen with a variety of people they'd had relationships with over a fairly long period of time. I was rational and non-judgemental with my analysis. I also stuck to the facts, the actual chaos brought into this person's life because of the kind of relationships they had.
Long story short, we're no longer friends and this person is still having the exact same kinds of relationships.
As Edmond Burke famously said, " Those who don't know history, are destined to repeat it."
JS-The King Of Content
Friday, November 05, 2010
Stop Focusing On What You're NOT...
Hey,
As the year is winding to a close and we take on a new group of coaching students, I'm always interested in the way guys think as they're just getting started with improving this part of their lives.
This year the thing that really stood out to me, was how much these guys are focused on what they are not.
They're not tall enough, or they're too technical, or introverted.
Everyone has their weak areas, but if that's all you focus on, all you're going to find is excuses. Part of the process of becoming a more attractive person, involves figuring out what your strong areas are.
I may not be 6'4 like some guys or sexy, or really rich like others, but I am funny, and observant, and I understand women really well.
Furthermore, I never focus on what I'm lacking. I don't worry about it, as for the most part it's out of my control.
You can't control your skin color, or your height, or the particular blend of neuroses you have. But you can control whether or not you allow your so called "limitations" to affect your relationships with women.
JS-The King Of Content
As the year is winding to a close and we take on a new group of coaching students, I'm always interested in the way guys think as they're just getting started with improving this part of their lives.
This year the thing that really stood out to me, was how much these guys are focused on what they are not.
They're not tall enough, or they're too technical, or introverted.
Everyone has their weak areas, but if that's all you focus on, all you're going to find is excuses. Part of the process of becoming a more attractive person, involves figuring out what your strong areas are.
I may not be 6'4 like some guys or sexy, or really rich like others, but I am funny, and observant, and I understand women really well.
Furthermore, I never focus on what I'm lacking. I don't worry about it, as for the most part it's out of my control.
You can't control your skin color, or your height, or the particular blend of neuroses you have. But you can control whether or not you allow your so called "limitations" to affect your relationships with women.
JS-The King Of Content
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
The Return to Blogging
Is coming Fri.
I have some really good new posts for you.
Until then I'll leave you with a quote from Eminem
" Everybody's in a rush to try to touch the throne, I just get on the mic and try to set the tone, I ain't trying to use nobody as a stepping stone, but don't compare me I'm better off just left alone..."
JS- The King Of Content
I have some really good new posts for you.
Until then I'll leave you with a quote from Eminem
" Everybody's in a rush to try to touch the throne, I just get on the mic and try to set the tone, I ain't trying to use nobody as a stepping stone, but don't compare me I'm better off just left alone..."
JS- The King Of Content
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