Grow Your Game

You never, ever want to be a “background guy.” Do you ever walk into a store or into a party, and your friend is always the lead guy?

Your friend start talking to some people or to a woman, and there you are in the background. That leaves you hovering ten or fifteen feet away from the conversation.

You don’t join in the conversation because your ego won’t let you do it. You say to yourself, “Well my buddy is talking to first and I didn’t get to talk to her, so I am just going to stand in the background and look like a deaf mute.”

You don’t want to ever be ‘background guy.’ If your buddy walks over and starts talking to one person or to a group, then you go and hang out with him.

Just because you’re not talking or didn’t make the first approach, doesn’t mean that you can’t be actively listening to the conversation. When you actively listen to a conversation, you can join in when something intrigues you.

If you’re in the background, though, you don’t hear any of that conversation. So there is no way for you to easily join in that conversation at any point because you are a ‘background guy.’

Don’t ever be a ‘background guy,’ because background guys are forgotten. You literally are the background, like when you look at a scene in a movie with tons of extras in the background.

Those extras never get to speak. Do you know why? It’s because they are just background people.

There is no need for this to be you. So don’t ever be ‘background guy.’

Public displays of affection are one of my favorite things in the world. If you have chemistry with a person, why should you keep your hands off them? Why should you be so aware of other people?

I’m not talking about you should be gyrating each other in public, making out, making out in the middle of the supermarket, but why not hold someone’s hand, put your arm around them, whisper something in their ear, give them a kiss.

I’m all for that. In supermarkets, it’s great.

Sometimes, I’ll walk through the market with my arm around my girlfriend. I’ll give her a nice little kiss on the lips, and you know what, I don’t care what other people think because people that make determinations like that are basically jealous.

They’re jealous because they don’t have that in their lives. Now granted, I’m not going to grope her. I’m not going to touch her private parts in the market, nor am I going to try to hump her in the middle of the supermarket. As for bars, I believe in bars, anything goes when there’s alcohol in there. People can go and they can gyrate, hump each other, make out like crazy.

That’s a bar atmosphere. But I find that people who are judgmental about PDA or public display of affection, I find them jealous. I find that the jealous people t need more love in their life, need more affection in their life, and really need to be able to comment on things, because they are the types of people that because they don’t have PDA in their lives, they’re the type of people that actually need it the most.

But, I’m all for it. If you’re a couple and you have this great chemistry. I mean, if you can’t keep your hands off of somebody, who doesn’t want that. That’s the relationships we’re all looking for.

We’re all looking where you can’t keep your hands off of somebody, where you don’t want to keep your hands off of somebody, where you just want to be next to them at all times. That’s what really love is all about. That’s what life is all about. That’s my thoughts on PDA.

One of the biggest problems people have when it comes to approaching someone they’re attracted to is actually overcoming the fear of the initial approach. I suspect every single man on the planet with very few exceptions has at some time felt the familiar fear associated with the idea of approaching a girl they’re attracted to.

Perhaps they’ve spotted her on a train, perhaps it was simply in passing down the street like the girl in the red dress in the movie Matrix. Whatever the situation was the symptoms were the same. Sweating, blushing, the fear of being judged negatively some people will actively search for signs of disapproval in others convincing them that they shouldn’t bother speaking at all, either way most people end up deciding to avoid the situation altogether and move on with their life. They leave the situation as a chance meeting that was never meant to happen. It registered as a blip on their life a small fraction of time, an event that has passed with no more meaning than the next one or the one after that. Each of which of course will be treated in exactly the same way.

These symptoms are what many people within the field of dating refer to as “ Approach Anxiety”, though they were not defined by dating and seduction experts. The roots of Anxiety and it’s symptoms where defined a lot earlier in our history by the psychological community at large including such greats as Sigmund Freud himself.

What we’re going to look at is the symptoms of Approach anxiety and then hopefully the possible solutions enabling you to approach anyone you want at any time.

Anxiety is a state which affects us on a psychological and physiological level. It’s symptoms include a number of different components including perceptual or cognitive components, physical components and even behavioural components. What this means is that we can not only use proven psychological methods to identify the state of anxiety but we can also use the proven solutions to remove it as well, enabling us the confidence to approach anyone we want at any time.

First, lets look a little bit more at anxiety itself. Anxiety is far from an unusual state to us as humans. In fact anxiety is a very normal reaction to stress it is designed to help us observe and deal with difficult situations. Amongst other things the state sends a burst of adrenaline to us to help us cope with the problems. However anxiety often becomes excessive, and rather than giving us the skills to handle the problem it can instead prevent us from even attempting to solve the problem. As soon as an anxiety affects our ability to make action. It becomes known as a phobia. In the case we are specifically looking at, if it were to prevent us from actually approaching someone we were attracted to then it would fall in the category of being a phobia.

Anxiety over meeting or interacting with people whom we do not yet know is a very common stage of development in humans. In fact in infants it is a very normal part of growth and is known as stranger anxiety, symptoms vary but a typical part of growing up. Sometimes this fear can persist into adulthood and then it can develop into social anxiety or even a social phobia. In adults excessive fear of others which inhibits the ability to interact with strangers is called social anxiety.

Social anxiety disorder or social phobia as it is often referred to is an fear of negative public opinion about oneself or a fear of public embarrassment. The fear is often associated with all social interactions however in a good deal of cases it can be specific to certain situations for example the idea of approaching someone you’re attracted to in the street. The experience of social anxiety is characterized by physical components such as sweating or blushing, perceptual components such as the belief that one might be judged in a negative way or perceiving signs of disapproval and finally behavioral components by simply avoiding a situation.

Clinical psychologists and researchers continue to this day to define the problems and definitions of shyness, social anxiety and it’s related assortment of phobias and problems. Many share similarities though also have distinct differences which causes difficulties in defining them. Esspecially the difference between anxiety and the positive feeling of anticipation. However for our purposes thankfully we don’t have to look too deeply into the categorization, what we’ve been concerned with is identifying whether we are suffering from “approach anxiety” the fear of approaching and then looking at the possible remedy’s to remove it and enable us to approach people we’re attracted to at any time.

So if you’ve been reading this and the symptoms do sound similar to those listed above and you have decided that when you see someone you’re attracted to you often do feel unable to approach whatever the reason may be, it may be useful to look at the possible solutions to social anxiety as a means to overcome the problem.

There are a number of different methods to remove anxieties. These range from exposing the subject to their fear directly right through to some more experimental methods of hypnosis. Many psychologists agree, that one of the best ways to remove an anxiety or phobia is by a type of behavioural therapy known as Systematic Desensitization. This type of therapy has its roots in pavlovian therapy or classical conditioning and was developed by a South African psychiatrist by the name of Joseph Wolpe.

This method is essentially a two part therapy. The first part involves teaching the subject relaxation skills so that they can control their fear and anxiety responses. These Can take the part of breathing excersises or focus games. Something you can try is to simply regulate your breathing to match a slow count of ten. By taking slow concentrated breaths and monitoring your own breathing patterns whilst exposing yourself to a fearful situation you can begin to slowly relax, even in the midst of a phobia.

However this technique does only work for mild exposure to a fearful stimulus. This is where the clever part comes in.

The second half of the therapy involves exposing the subject to fearful situations with an ever increasing hierarchy of fear. Starting by exposing them to the smallest fear stimulus and then slowly escalating it until they are ready to face their fear in full! The question still remains however, how can you use this method to help you overcome your fear of speaking to someone you’re attracted to?

There’s a simple five step method I’ve identified to guide you through the process:

Accept
Exercise
Identify
Overcome
Understand

Accept

Accept you have a fear. You realise that you want to improve yourself and do something to help you meet your ideal partner. You have a fear whatever it is and you’re looking to get over it. Buying this book is the first step towards wanting to do something, but it doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t willing to action the processes you’re learning. In this way Accept could also translate into action. As you need to actually do the things you accept you want to change.

Exercise

Develop an exercise to help you get over your fears. Focus your mind on your breathing, take a long slow count of ten while slowly and steadily breathing in and out. Concentrate on your own breathing, he sounds of your breath and the motion of your lungs instead of the fearful situation to hand. This will give you something to help you focus when you’re exposed to a fearful situation.

Identify

Identify your specific phobia or anxiety. What situation scares you the most? Meeting a stranger online? Talking to someone in your current social life? Whatever scares you the most identify the problem and then take steps to designing the best way to gently expose yourself to the fearful situations. For example lets say your fear is approaching in a coffee shop. You want to start by choosing the least fearful situation imaginable.

So perhaps begin by triggering a longer conversation with the shop worker. After this you can move on to perhaps talking to an older person in the same line as you. Then you can move on to talking to someone of the same sex. Eventualy you will move on to someone who you’re not attracted to of the same sex, until finally you’re speaking to someone you are attracted to of the opposite sex. Even if initially the entire conversation only lasts 10 seconds. Eventaully you will work it up until you’re incredibly comfortable talking to people in any coffee shop anytime.

Overcome

Once you’ve managed to build up the fearful situations to a point where you feel you can’t take it much further simple rely on focusing on your breathing instead of the situation at hand, until you realise that you actually can’t be hurt in the situation. Once you make this realisation you should find yourself calming down. Then you can begin to push things further again. You should be able to repeat this process for any of your fears to be able to overcome all of them.

Understand

Finally you should come to the realisation that fears truly are just that. Fears. None of them are actually dangerous enough to hurt you. And beside the odd bruised ego. You should come through every situation completely fine. Esspecially if you follow the advice in this book on how to approach someone you’ve never met before in the correct way. Eventually you should come to the understanding that situations similar to those you’ve already encountered aren’t to be feared and your phobias and anxietys will be a thing of the past allowing you to continue developing your social skills.

The second approach to remove anxiety is a little more drastic.

It is commonly known as flooding, the best way to explain it would be a comparison to the previous method. If you were attempting to overcome a fear of spiders then systematic desensitization would take the form of slow exposure to pictures of spiders, then eventually moving images until eventually you became so comfortable around the images that you were capable of holding a real spider and eventually you would get over your fear.

Flooding would involve throwing you into a bathtub full of spiders, and when you eventually calmed down due to your body becoming exhausted from the fear you would find that the fear disappeared as you observed that mere exposure to the spiders hadn’t actually caused you any permanent harm.

Right now I’m sure you’re thinking that being thrown into a bathtub full of members of the opposite sex doesn’t sound that bad. However unfortunately for the majority of you reading this you don’t actually have a fear of the opposite sex. Your fear is rather one of approaching them. So in that case the “flooding” solution would in fact be to make the approach so unbelievably uncomfortable that once you did it and realised nothing bad happened, doing it normally would be a walk in the park.

In the past I’ve made students wear funny costumes, speak in funny accents, and even begin the conversation using expletives. Though I’ve found the best way is to just wander up to someone and ask for their hand in marriage. It’s a scary situation enough, incredibly awkward but socially acceptable enough to not give you too much trouble with passers by who may over hear. The other benefit of doing this is that if the person says yes, you’ve saved yourself the trouble of having to move on to the next person, and you can finish your quest there after the one approach!

Whichever method you choose to use remember that your chances of success are zero unless you actually begin the conversation, so get over that fear, go out there and start getting the girls you want!

In order to grab the woman that you want, you need to learn the art of walking away. Most men will not walk away.

What happens to most men is that they’ll go to a party, find a woman they want to talk to, smother her, and they won’t leave…this results in the woman’s attraction level dropping each minute this continues. The opposite result occurs, i.e., the attraction increases, when you walk away from a woman to whom you’re most attracted.

Take this example. You walk up to talk to a woman you’re really attracted to, you connect and have a good conversation with her for a couple of minutes, and then…you walk away. When you walk away, it gives her a moment to reflect and to think “That guy just walked away. No one just walks away. Most men smother me. How come this guy just walked away?”

It creates powerful intrigue in her mind. She’s wondering who you are, what you’re all about, and how you could walk away from her. It creates incredible attraction on her part.

So then what will happen is she will find a way to find you again at the party. Or, you’ll walk around that party and the minute she sees you, she’ll plant a very seductive, sexy smile on you so you stop. Or, she’ll talk to you about something going on at the moment or ask you a question to reignite the conversation that she was having with you before.

Most guys are afraid to walk away from a woman they’re really attracted to, because it took a lot of nerve to talk to her in the first place. What you learn when you practice speaking to a lot of different women, however, is that walking away from a woman you’re interested in is the only way to see whether or not you’ve connected with her. When you’re in Smotherville – smothering a woman with conversation that may or may not be going anywhere – you’re just talking to her in random thoughts and thus not really knowing if you connect with her or not.

Why do women always go for the “bad boy?” Why do women always go for the guy who doesn’t like them or doesn’t pay them any attention? Because that man has learned the art of “the walk away.”

You need to learn and perfect the art of the walk away, and you need to use it the next time you see a beautiful woman and you talk to her. This is what you’ll do:

After you’ve been talking to her for a few minutes, you need to walk away, let her simmer for five or six minutes or…twenty minutes, and let her see you talking to other people. It’s going to bring out an incredible competitive fire in her, especially if you’re speaking with other women. It doesn’t matter what the women look like, it’s sufficient that they’re just other women. Or, if you’re speaking to men, it also works if everyone is laughing because you’re giving them the best of you. All of the sudden that woman is simmering so much, that she’s going to come back because you have the power of the walk away.

You have to master the power of the walk away in order to attract beautiful women everywhere you go. This is because women love a leader, and women love men who can walk away from something right at the height of the conversation. It’s going to make them want more…and that’s what you need to create. You need to create desire in women, so they want you more.

What I’m about to reveal to you may change the way you structure your day entirely, so be prepared to have your mind blown. There is one place, one environment, one setup that is fricking custom made for any kind of confident approach (direct, indirect, opinion, storytelling, situational, etc.) that you’ve probably been missing for years… and I’m about to lose my advantage by sharing, but that’s just me. I’m a giver.

Ready? There is a place to meet healthy, normal, beautiful girls every single day and change your life for the better. Any guesses?

I’ll give you a big hint. It’s not a bar.

The gym.

You cannot find a better setup for creating quick connections with the best possible chance of success. Here’s how I do it.

First, pick a gym that has hotties. Find out when they go. You don’t need to pick the most expensive place (remember, hot single girls do not tend to be rich… they tend to find the gyms with the best classes and nicest stuff that they can afford).

Preferably a slightly off-peak time. You will be doing this for results, not for reps (don’t give yourself a 50 set challenge in the gym). This is all about working efficiently.

Walk in and warm-up by chatting to anyone you see on the way in. Joke with whoever is working the desk. If it’s a girl, flirt your a*s off. Get social on your way in. While walking in, use your peripheral vision to scope the cardio machines on your way to the locker room. Be sly and note where the cutest girls are.

Change and come out. Dress appropriately, but a little colorful (and make sure you smell good… good time to use a cheap ass scent like Axe). You don’t have to be totally studly, but it helps if you have a little tan, and if your arms are in shape, go sleeveless. Look like you mean business. Walk into cardio room and find an open machine next to a cute girl. If there are none, wander around and do some other workout while waiting. You can lift, stretch, whatever.

Keep your eye on the cardio room. This is all about being opportunistic. When you see a spot open next to a cute girl, stroll up and start your workout there. The next step is critical.

Start the machine (it can be anything… bike, treadmill, whatever) and start a light workout.

Turn to the girl next to you, and lightly tap her arm while you look at her with agentle smile on your face, and motion for her to take her headphones off (she will almost always be wearing headphones, which prevents 99.999999% of the known universe of dudes from talking to her, which is what makes you such a stud for being able to do this).

Now smile. Really smile and look as friendly and normal as you can. One technical note… if she’s running flat out on a treadmill, wait till she slows down. You want to be able to do this when she can converse.

Then go into your opener. It can be anything. I’ve used sincere (you are super-cute), pussified indirect (i’m taking a storytelling class and need some feedback), and in-between. Just make sure you get her attention soon with something interesting. I actually like to be playful, then banter and do some storytelling here, because it gives you something interesting to discuss.

Remember, working out, especially on cardio machines, is deathly, deathly dull. If you can make the time go faster by talking, she’ll love you for it (why do you think women walk and jog in groups when they exercise outside? socializing alleviates boredom for them).

Tell your story and start vibing. Get real comfortable. Use light kino where possible (a slow handshake when you get her name, light shoulder taps in stories, high fives at high points). Don’t play games. Introduce yourself early. Get her name and use it in conversation. Go real basic with the small talk (where you from? do you live around here now?) and share interesting stories about yourself. If it’s on at all, she will keep talking. Just make it like a chat between friends… you can game, but keep it light and friendly (i.e., don’t spank her a*s while she’s trying to jog).

Examples of things I say right at the start, all with big big smiles and making things sound as fun as I can. Serious will get you killed in the gym.

“is this machine taken? cool… but if anyone comes back to claim it, i’m telling ‘em you said i could have it, so you better be prepared to protect me.”

“this thing isn’t hard to use, right? i just want to watch tv and have it look like i’m working out. my god, tell me that’s not sweat, you just dumped water on yourself to look cool, right?”

“do me a favor, watch my stuff for a second? if anyone comes and takes it, run them down and kick ‘em in the shins. use your kickboxing skills to protect me, and you can be my new girlfriend.”

“is this tv set to espn? crap. i gotta find the one with the soap operas, or a telenovela. now that’s some good fricking distraction right there… nothing but hot people hooking up with really badly behaved other hot people… girl, can’t you see he’s a dog?!? Not like me. I’m a perfect gentleman, and would never do things like flirt with a cute girl at the gym.”

Anything, really. There’s a basic structure to opening in the gym. For those of you who have taken one of those “outdated” pickup workshops , you may notice that these openers all follow the 1-2-3 structure. You get her attention, then say something that is relevant to what is going on around you, then quickly change gears to playful flirting.

Once you open this way, just start vibing. Here is the practice part. Half the time I go to the gym now, I just get this far… and then slide into some wide rapport.

Try to get in a good 20 minute conversation. If it’s going well, you’ll have good rapport and time will fly by (side benefit… it makes this workout way more fun). When you get to a point where you feel you’ve gotten comfortable and she’s smiling and asking you questions, make your closing pitch. Something like I really have to go and get my real workout in… but I really like talking to you. We should hang out this week. What are you up to Tuesday?

Try to keep your day2 suggestion something very soon so she can try to answer. If she says anything other than an outright rejection, just say, Awesome. Let’s get a drink Tuesday at 7 at (insert standard day2 place here). Give me your number.

Now you can show off a bit. You won’t have your phone with you, and no one will have a pen and paper. So just have her tell you her number, and say “of course I’ll remember. This is destined to be.”

Give her a big smile, and tell her you’ll send her a text later today. Then make your exit and work out for real. You want her to see that you aren’t just there to pickup chicks. If I’m on a treadmill, I like to crank up the incline and speed and start running intervals. Or you can go lift. Pick something basic that you can focus on. And then… well, that’s it.

The cardio approach gives you a captive audience, and once you break the headphone barrier, you have the chance to demonstrate amazing confidence, charisma, and authority. It will be very weird at first, but if you can start doing it, it will change your whole approach to daygame. I now have this planned in my daily workouts, like today I’m doing deadlifts, plyometrics, 20 minutes interval running, and 15 minutes of banter.

Try it out, and let me know your results. If this works, I’m thinking a cross-promotion with 24-Hour Fitness is in order…

As a veteran pickup coach, I’ve seen it all…

I’ve seen guys who were short, scrawny, and nerdy-looking walk into a club and leave with the best looking girl in the place.  I’ve seen good-looking, confident guys freeze up when I told them to approach, and then hide from me the rest of the night!

What I want to talk about today are the common mistakes I see when guys approach women.

Those first thirty seconds of conversation with a woman are crucial, and one mistake can ruin your chances of getting anywhere with her.

Now not every approach is going to be perfect – in fact NO approach will ever be, so give up on trying to be perfect.  One thing I always tell guys is that I’m not the most fancy pickup artist, but I do the basics EXTREMELY well.

But what are these basics?

I know how confusing it can be when you read all the material out there – from books, to forum posts, to seminars…

Sometimes I think average guys have it easy because they don’t know how ignorant they are!

Guys who are trying to get better with women often suffer from paralysis of analysis – they have TOO MUCH
information. This can lead to all sorts of problems – the main one being that they don’t take action.

I know how that feels, believe me.  I struggled for a long time with too much information. And then I let it all go, and had to start my journey all over again, learning completely on my own. But you know what? I’m glad I did.

And now I feel it’s not only a great way to make a living, it’s my RESPONSIBILITY to share what I’ve learned with guys who are struggling in this arena. So let me give you a rundown of the 10 most common mistakes I see guys making when they first approach a woman – and this isn’t just students – this applies to regular guys I observe when I go out.

1. He gives her a lame compliment

This is how most guys open – they say something typical, generic, and overly-approving, like

“You’re hot” or “you’re so beautiful” or “you’re fucking hot”

Now don’t get me wrong, I like to be direct, and I like giving women compliments.

But I make it specific, and I talk more about myself and what I think, rather than “what she is.”

For example, “that’s some laugh you got there…I heard you from across the bar.”

2. He does her a favor, like buying her a drink

The most common thing guys do is offer to buy a woman a drink.

The only time I’ll do this is if I’m getting a round for my buddies, and there’s a woman I want to meet close by – I’ll get her one too.

This is fun, social, and is not too approval-seeking, since I’m already spending money on my friends.

Guys will usually do some kind of favor for a woman, like giving up their chair, or buying her a drink, taking a picture of her.

I REFUSE to take pictures, unless I’m in them.

You don’t want to be serving and appeasing her, EVER. Especially in the first 30 seconds.

3. He approaches from a bad angle, or speaking too quietly

These two might seem different, but they are really flip-sides of the same coing:

You are afraid of making your presence felt.

What kind of message do you think that sends to a woman?

The WRONG one – primarily that you lack self-esteem and you probably suck in bed.

Walk right up to her and speak loudly – make her feel you!

4. He has bad eye contact

Some guys really struggle with eye contact, but it’s one of the main things women look for. A man who can look her in the eye and not flinch is essentially saying,

“I’m not afraid of you – I’m interested in you. I am offering something wonderful to you, and I fully intend on
giving it to you if you want it.”

5. He’s drunk and sloppy

There’s kind of a double standard here. Women often get really drunk and sloppy when they go out.

But if a drunk guy approaches them, he’s toaster strudel.  It just looks bad when a man is out of control of himself – and this is exactly the main purpose alcohol serves – to make you lose self-control.

6. He doesn’t own his space

This is a really subtle sticking but a LOT of guys have it. When you stand or sit, you want to own your space, meaning you don’t want to confine your body to accommodate others. Acquiescing to others physically is a
sure-fire way to show a woman that you  are scared, weak, and insecure.

You don’t have to sit with your arms spread out, or stand like a military sergeant.

You should be physically comfortable, and not hold your body in to accommodate other people – especially other guys.

7. He stalls out because he’s trying to say the right thing

This is HUGE – the most common mistake guys make. I harp on this in just about every newsletter, but I can’t say it enough…

Women are screening for one thing – are you trying to say the right thing to GET something from her?

They can tell so easily, because it’s the main thing they are looking for. And guess what – this focus does NOT serve you. Not only does it make you look like you’re trying to get something (sex) from her, it also stops your mind from flowing.

Here’s why.

You can’t ever guess what another person is thinking. So when you try to say the right thing, you’re second-guessing what that person wants to hear.

It’s almost always impossible, and will only stump you.

Stop trying to be smooth and say the right thing!

8. He doesn’t address her friends

A woman’s friends take top priority, at first.  Woman usually have lots of very fickle, short-lived friendships.

One second they’ll declare “this is my GIRL! I LOVE her!”

The next day,  it’s “oh my god she’s such a bitch, I’m over it.”

But in front of a guy she’s just met, she has to put her friends first. And if you try to talk to her without at
least acknowledging her friends and being friendly to them, you’ll look anti-social, and uncalibrated.

The whole thing will be awkward, and her friends will most likely drag her away.

9. He asks for her number too soon

A lot of times, guys will want to eject from the conversation because they don’t what else to talk about.

So they will just go for the number before it’s really appropriate.  I think of a phone number as a reward I GIVE TO HER.

If she impresses me, I’ll decide that I like her enough to give her a call.

But you have to give her time to impress you – at least get her to express herself in some way that you can approve her for.

There’s one more piece here…

Don’t walk off right after she gives you her number – it makes you look like a player.

Talk about something you could do together, or just shoot the shit a little longer, then go back to your friends, or leave the venue.

10. He doesn’t touch her

What do you want with this woman?  A sexual relationship!

So move in that direction from the VERY START. I cannot stress this point enough.  Most guys who end up in the “Friend Zone” do so because they had FEAR of escalation and “played it safe”

It doesn’t mean that you need to take big risks, in fact, the DiCarlo Escalation Ladder shows you how to escalate in a smooth, safe manner…

…meanwhile making solid progress in your physical escalation.