One Way To Go • Natural Attractiveness.

You poor thing! Life doesn’t go your way, does it? Stupid final exam overlaps your birthday, friends dragged you to a stinky pub, you had to wait for the bus for half an hour. In the rain. You’re frustrated, angry and you bitch to everybody you see. At least that makes it easier to bear! Or… perhaps not?! Hang on! Breaking news! Your victim mentality f*cks with your happiness. Even worse, if you take it too far, it will lead you down a vicious circle of self-destruction. So, are you playing the victim? Think about it.

What happens inside you is yours to control.

Great personalities decide to be the change they want to see in the world. Realize this: any gloomy emotions you carry are yours, and yours alone. You may not have control over pressure, hardships, crises, challenges. But you are the one who responds. If you hang your head in anger and frustration, you amplify your misery! A math challenge for you: if you have sh*t in your life, what do you get when you add more sh*t?! Yeah. It’s insane.

Complaining leads to isolation.

Unfair as it is, people don’t judge you by the troubles you face, but by how you deal with them. The good news: when friends see you suffer under your circumstances, they will offer you their shoulder and a helping hand. The bad news: misery only likes company for so long. If you don’t use the support you get to improve your attitude, friends will stop investing in you. Nobody likes an energy vampire. This is a fact of life.

The first thing you need to stop doing is complaining. It alienates people. They don’t want to hear how crappy things are and how much you loathe your situation! They want to hear that things are crappy and what you’re gonna do about it. They don’t want to hear how messed up your weekend was: tell them instead how messed-up it was and how you still enjoyed its few good sides!

Learn to bear anything with a smile and confidence. You’ll improve your situation just by doing that, and as an added bonus, earn the appreciation of your social surroundings.

Happiness does not bloom from complaint, discomfort and resentment. We agree that life can get really tough. The more troubles you face, the more important it is for you to be positive, joyful and welcoming towards everything and everybody in your life. So, are you playing the victim? Watch yourself and transform your mentality. Make the change you want. Spread some love for your own sake.

When I was younger, one thing had me simply stupefied: why was it that some guys seemed to have an endless stream of women pouring into their lives? I looked at my social circle and thought: “Where the heck does this fella get them?” It took many years for me to understand one thing: the real question is not “where to meet women”. There are ways to meet women anywhere you please! Let me give you some examples.

FURTHER READING.

• Full article by The Bright Side: read it here!
• Originally published on Art of Seduction.

Look up 20 personal ads and you’ll know what women want a man to be. Funny! Charismatic! Stable! Sensual! Passionate! Mature! Smart! Ring a bell? But when you become funny around women, they only like you as the dorky best friend! You try to be sensual, they get creeped out. You tell them all about your stable job, they turn their backs. What do women want, then?! Here’s the answer: they want a man who knows what he wants – and gets it. Does this contradict the attributes I mentioned above? No! And I’ll tell you why – after this.

FURTHER READING.

• Full article by The Bright Side: read it here!
• Originally published on Art of Seduction.

Do you remember the last time you turned down an invitation? Whether it’s a friend inviting you for a social outing or just a colleague asking you to take a break together, there’s a good chance you said “no” to something very recently, perhaps even today. Now, you may have had any number of reasons, and they may be really good reasons for you, but here’s one thing I realized: each invitation you turn down is a missed chance for a beautiful experience. Moreover, if you turn down a couple of them, they will stop coming. This is why today, I’d like to talk to you about the power of saying yes.

Unexpected opportunities.

In these days of modern information technology, it seems like we get flooded with options like never before. For me, hardly a day passes without some sort of invitation to outings: they come as digital newsletters, on social networking sites, or through communities I signed up for. There’s a good chance it’s similar for you. Do you often find yourself turning them down because

a) They’re impersonal
b) You don’t know anybody at that event
c) You’re not really interested
d) You “don’t have time”?

Well, the fact is: often enough, you actually do have time, even if it’s just an hour. Who knows what kind of surprise awaits you, for instance, at that artist gathering? You may just run into a future business partner… Or an amazing woman.

Loosening personal ties.

Now, the greater danger lies in turning down people from your immediate or remote social circle. Everytime you reject somebody’s approach, you thwart their intention to spend time with you and socialize. Assume that anybody who invites you does so because they are truly interested in being around you: how long will they keep asking before they give up on you and move on to someone else? “Losing touch” is a process that happens in the background, often barely perceptible, but it actually happens quickly and soon enough, you’ll have a hard time catching up. By not joining one social gathering, you won’t even hear about subsequent gatherings that people set up on the spur while they’re there.

You’re out of the loop in no time.

Don’t let that happen. When people invite you to spend time with them, think of the power of saying “yes”: you’re affirming and validating the person’s approach, and you’ll open yourself up for some quality time with another person that otherwise, you may actually spend at home by yourself in the misguided idea of “having more important things to do”. Beauty lies in the people around you. Keep them close.

One day back when I was in school, a friend said to me: “Time is the most precious gift. You can never take it back.” That was in the mid- to late 1990s: the internet was just slowly making its way into households, and my generation was largely unaware of its very existence, let alone the idea of online chatting, e-mail or cell phones. It was long years before the very inception of facebook, twitter or myspace. In these days, the very lack of time-saving technology forced us to do one thing: invest time into each other. So much has changed in merely one and a half decades, but meaningful relationships in today’s society still work according to the same rules.

The social window-shopper

Living in big cities, where millions of faces and stimuli impact on us every day, with the technology to effortlessly reach large numbers of people at our fingertips, we have turned into social window-shoppers. The myriad options we have keep us on our toes nonstop, looking for the best matches to be acquaintances, friends or lovers with. Along the way, we stop building real connections: our self-induced ADD calls us to move on at the first few hints of incompatibility.

Setting up a social event is now a matter of minutes: write your invitation, add all your friends to your recipient list and send off the e-mail. Dates can be arranged via text messages, get-togethers planned on facebook. Yet, do you ever find yourself inviting a large number of people over to your house just to have a mere five or six turn up? What is happening here?

Investing time in another person

Put yourself on the receiving end. Me, I get about 1-3 event invitations each day via e-mail, facebook or text message, and I turn down about 90 per cent of them. Most are from people that I have barely talked to, they just have a virtual online connection with me. I’m sure you can relate.

Living on the countryside throughout the 1990s, inviting people to spend time with was done in two ways: in person, or over the phone. Both involved actually talking to the person, investing effort into a personal interaction during which both parties would exchange stories, catch up, laugh and connect.

Can we find our way back to that? We not only can, we have to. Instead of amassing numbers upon numbers, more and more facebook “friends”, focus more on finding a handful of people that you stick with, and invest in them. Connect, make them feel good, invite them into your life and allow them to share your reality.

And from now on, when you invite somebody, call them up. Schedule five to ten minutes for it. You will see the difference! Meaningful relationships in today’s society can only flourish if we get back in touch with their essence: it’s human interaction, and it will remain cursory without the right amount of attention.

If you’ve been researching how to have great conversations, you will have come across this piece of advice: “it doesn’t matter what you say, it’s how you say it.” While there is truth to it – your energy and delivery make or break your successful interaction, nonetheless, I am convinced that if you have nothing substantial to say to begin with, your interactions are going to lead nowhere. Agree? Lame platitudes like “where do you work”, “I like movies” or “I’m an accountant” only get you so far. I say: you should skip that stuff altogether and learn right away how to have an intriguing conversation and never run out of things to say.

FURTHER READING.

• Full article by The Bright Side: read it here!
• Originally published on Art of Seduction.

Ever get the impression that somebody is “trying too hard”? I’ve seen lots of people display all their feathers to strangers first chance they got, and most times, they crashed and burned in their quest for admiration. A clever conversationalist won’t make that mistake: he will reveal himself carefully and slowly to impress listeners, not alienate them. There are two variables you need to handle so you can talk about yourself without appearing needy: the When, and the How. We’ll look at both of them.

Revealing yourself in a conversation: when.

Only after you’ve established some rapport! When I used to talk to people at parties, I would talk about myself and the way I perceived things as soon as I could, and without being asked. Big mistake! When you start a conversation, your major focus should be on the other person, not you. Get them to open up, and show your genuine interest in their world, perceptions and feelings. Soon enough, they will ask about you, and this is when you can start revealing bits and pieces – but even then, you want to be careful and sparing. This leads us to the second variable, the “how”.

Revealing yourself in a conversation: how.

This is the most important part, and I’ll give you a clear answer in a minute. Before, though, I’ll tell you how I used to lead conversations at parties. The minute somebody asked about me, I would go: “I’m a photographer, actor, writer, journalist, and I studied…” It took me a long time to realize the unspoken message I was sending: “I think that my personality sucks, so I will rub my achievements in your face in an attempt to make you appreciate me.” Today, I use better techniques to generate intrigue. Even when somebody flat-out asks me what I do, I prefer one of the following answers to the boring truth:

- I’m an ass double.
- I’m a can opener. I can open anything.
- I’m a male stripper.
- I test massage patients.
- Take a guess!

Same goes for my age, nationality, why I came to this city, and so on. I’m 65, Japanese and came to this city to kill my nemesis, The Joker. Answers like these are both entertaining and mysterious.

So how do you reveal the truth, damn it?

Okay, here’s my answer: weave it in when it’s appropriate. Once the conversation flows, situations will arise naturally for you to talk about your everyday activities, hobbies, passions and values. Seek a connection on an emotional level, and once the right vibe is there and the right subject comes up, tell your story: “Funny, I said the same thing to my colleague the other day! See, we test video games, and he…” Or: “Salsa, really? When I started dancing, my classes incorporated all kinds of dances, like Waltz, Cha Cha, Jive, Foxtrot, Tango. My favourite has to be the Rumba…”

Now, if you can throw these things into a conversation lightly, how much more do you have up your sleeve? This is how you talk about yourself without appearing needy. You are in no rush to advertise your virtues, and when you do mention them, you don’t put them in a spotlight. You let them flow in naturally and smoothly. Once you stop “needing” somebody’s admiration, you will get it.

FURTHER READING.

Sep 3rd 2009: Keeping a Conversation alive.

Today’s article is about a simple, yet immensely effective practice for boosting your success with women and people in general: I lovingly call it “get the bleep out of your house”. It may sound like I’m stating the bleeding obvious here, but from my own experience, I cannot stress enough how going outside really is a major step towards success with women. In this article, I would like to address some ideas that keep us from actually doing it: the misconceptions are that it needs to be set up properly, you need to set enough time aside for it, and it’s a special event.

FURTHER READING.

• Full article by The Bright Side: read it here!
• Originally published on Art of Seduction.

You know that nagging feeling you get when a conversation goes downhill, when both you and your partner tacitly acknowledge its bleakness and lack of substance, and you’re left to watch it fizzle and grind to a halt? “I’ll go get a drink”, that phrase is one of its mostly-used epitaphs as your partner leaves and you stand there like a moron, wondering what the hell went wrong. Well, I can tell you what went wrong: you failed horribly at keeping the conversation alive. You can’t expect somebody else to do that for you, you know – most people have no idea how to make a conversation exciting, they just know when it’s drab and stale. It’s time you took the interaction into your own hands and made it a memorable experience. I’ll give you some basic rules and three hands-on techniques.

Interesting conversation: some basic features.

Mark these ideas down as guidelines for yourself. They’re straightforward, but we will probably elaborate on some of them in future articles, too.

- Don’t ask questions, make statements.
- Avoid filler words like “uh”, “erm”, “like”, “you know”.
- Don’t force a constant smile. Let your face mirror your emotions.
- Never laugh at your own jokes.
- Have some personal stories ready.
- Be energetic.
- Lean back.
- Listen.
- Breathe.

1. Go with the flow.

The most severe mistake you can make is leading the conversation interview-style. “What do you do?”, you ask, and your partner says: “I repair motorcycles.” Then you say: “Oh… Cool. So, uh… Where do you live?” WRONG!!!! You just interrupted the flow of the conversation by changing the subject, and even worse, you did so before it even started. Whatever you say next should be relevant to what’s already established, so stick with the information you have and drive the conversation forward from there. This is about motorcycles! The person must love working on them! A good way to maintain a natural flow is to…

2. Listen for key phrases.

“Key phrases” are bits of information that you can pick up and move forward from. “My sister used to have a motorbike”, the person says: now you know that there’s a sister and the person is thinking about her, hence, she must have some relevance in their life. This information is an offer, out there for you to accept.

3. Be positive.

“You have a sister?”, you answer. “That’s wonderful!” And even if you don’t know why that is yet, simply by establishing the fact, a reason will come to you. “It’s great growing up with siblings, they enrich your life. Where is your sister now?” Your positive, appreciative attitude will spark good vibes, and these will grow for both of you to feed off of. Just remember to remain genuine: if you don’t truly appreciate something, don’t pretend you do.

These are some basic features of a naturally flowing, engaging conversation. If you practice this, you’ll find that keeping a conversation alive becomes an easier task, and it will help you make new friends. One last thing: you want to keep a healthy balance between listening to your partner and contributing your own input. At the beginning of the conversation, the focus should be on listening because, trite as it sounds, people like to talk about themselves. They will appreciate you for appreciating them. Once they ask you questions, you can start talking about yourself: and there are ways to do that without appearing like you’re trying to sell yourself. That will be the subject of our next article: “Talk about yourself without appearing needy”. Watch this space.

Have you ever left a conversation feeling deprived of your energy, or mentally inferior to someone, as if they hijacked your mind, pushing it out of focus, making you unable to think clearly? There is a reason for that: some people are competitive and fight for power, because it never feels good to be weak. When two people leave a conversation, one almost always feels more drained or more powerful than the other. This, of course, only happens when unconscious manipulation takes place. The more you become conscious of the energetic interplay between two or more people interacting, the easier it will be to retain your energy in social situations.

How people struggle for power.

Oftentimes, a technique people will use unconsciously to get power over you is to make you feel like they are your friend, then make you feel like you are wrong or off-track about something, and then try to make you follow their track. This small technique morphs self-assurance into self-doubt in a second, and that’s when you start losing your energy and personal power. They aren’t even to blame for it: people may develop this technique in their childhood, or rather adopt it, when parents try and control their children on a mental level to feel superior (1). The child will adopt this method as his/her own way of feeling powerful, or what he/she might refer to as “better”.

When somebody tries to gain power over you.

First of all, don’t put on the black and white glasses: all people are not manipulators. However, when you start feeling like someone is trying to make you wrong, or crossing your boundaries, as we discussed in our article “How to stand your ground”, it’s time to take action.

The thing we tend to do is to follow another’s trail instead of questioning what they say. Don’t step into that trap out of courtesy! You are not trying to make your conversation partner wrong, but trying to understand what they mean. Think for yourself, then tell them that you disagree. Of course, if someone is trying to make you look socially weak by asking piercing questions publicly, e.g. about your sexual habits, where no matter how you answer, it will make you look weaker, you simply don’t answer the question. Don’t give in to that kind of manipulation: express yourself authentically, e.g. by saying “to be honest, I don’t feel like answering that question because I don’t think you care. If you were interested in getting to know me, you would not be asking me those kinds of questions.” Getting frustrated and furious won’t get you anywhere. Honesty, clear thinking and assertiveness are the qualities that will get you far.

Finding energy from another source – within yourself.

At last, stop seeking energy through approval from other people. When you become yourself, you will discover that energy resides within yourself. So you don’t need to go looking for it in others.   Suddenly you will discover how effortless conversation becomes, and that’s when you hit the sweet spot. When you listen to your own body, and you don’t let people cross your boundaries, you will easily retain your energy in social situations: you will not leave a conversation drained, nor will you drain anyone else.

REFERENCES.

(1) Redfield, James: The Celestine Prophecy

Did you ever notice how people with controversial stances draw the most interest and attention? Take the online blog “Violent Acres“: the (allegedly) female blogger “V” comments on everyday events and her observations, and the only regards she has are for her personal convictions. She’s gritty, loud-mouthed and controversial, but highly popular. In your life, if you act in accordance with your own convictions, people will challenge and question you: some will go to great lengths to draw you into a discussion about what you stand for, do and say. You can listen to their arguments, evaluate and conclude, but if you know how to stand your ground, there’s one thing you won’t do: give in and discuss. In most everyday situations, when your actions meet resistance or somebody challenges you, remember these two rules about confidence:

1. Do not apologize.

Face it: most of the time, you’re not sorry at all. You act in accordance with your feelings and personality, and then you say “sorry” to appease and please others. Well you shouldn’t. Next time, tease! Someone says: “boy, that was mean”, say: “thanks for noticing!” There’s a lot you can do within social convention, and a bit of tongue-in-cheek audacity is quite refreshing. If you did behave rudely, you may say: “You’re right” and be serious about it. You don’t exactly apologize here, but you do acknowledge your misstep. If you really mess up badly and an apology is in order, deliver it with tenure and confidence. Say “I apologize.” Notice how different that sounds from “I’m so sorry”? Stand upright, look the person in the eye and say it with a steady voice. Explain your reasons. It’s up to them to react then.

2. Do not defend yourself.

There’s no need for it. The defensive is not a good position to be in – and that’s why many people want you there. Everybody is entitled to their opinion! When you defend yourself, it implies three things:

• You perceive somebody’s objection as a personal attack (otherwise, you wouldn’t defend yourself).
• You depend on somebody else’s approval to validate your personality (otherwise, you wouldn’t care).
• You dismiss the other person’s point of view (otherwise, you wouldn’t try to hammer yours home).

You’re not on a mission to convert anybody to your belief, and you shouldn’t give in to others who try to convert and “rectify” you. Now let me get this straight: not defending yourself does NOT mean surrendering your point. If anything, it means acknowledging the other person’s! In fact, you should reflect on their arguments and, if you conclude that they’re valid, actually adjust. But as you learn how to stand your ground, learn to say this one thing: “We’re not discussing this.” Your best message to anyone is: “I value and encourage your opinion, but I see things my way. My way needs neither justification nor explanation, and least of all your approval – just like you don’t need mine.”

Standing in line? Waiting for the bus? Sitting on the train on the way to work? Most people will listen to music on their iPod, go through their schedule for the day, text or call somebody on their cell, read a book or play games on a console. Here are 10 worthwhile things you can do instead:

1. Talk to the person next to you.
2. Compose a poem.
3. Meditate.
4. Watch people.
5. Stretch your limbs. (careful, you might want to warm up first if you’re in cold surroundings)
6. Hum, whistle or sing a beautiful tune.
7. Decide to start your own business.
8. Sell your jacket.
9. Tell a joke.
10. Play games with people around you.

FURTHER READING:

Waiting for life to happen? Take action right now. (Jul 9th, 2009)