I’m sitting on a bumpy train watching the sun disappear into the horizon, having just finished training with a client. Working with him made me realize that success truly is “reserved for those willing to pay its price.” (So says Sun Tzu). I get a lot of clients who are trying to stack a few routines on top of a bland, humorless personality, a generic lifestyle, and little to no experience or confidence with the opposite sex. Worse yet, they are trying to do this on a part time basis, sometimes opening only a few sets per week. This is not the formula for achieving success in your social and romantic life. In fact, it’s not the formula for achieving success in ANY part of your life.
It’s interesting that most of us get into this with dreams of grandeur and delusions of infallible gurus who never get blown out. I know I did. I didn’t join the community to improve my conversational skills, or to realize self actualization, or even to become a more attractive man. I joined for a much simpler reason:
To Not Be Lonely.
Being lonely sucks because most of the time it’s a pain that you keep a secret. It’s embarrassing and you can’t talk about it. I couldn’t tell my family and friends that I was lonely. Well, I suppose I could, but it would have humiliated me. I couldn’t even really tell MYSELF that I was lonely because I didn’t want to face the facts that I was. So I ignored the problem, hoping it’d go away. But every Friday or Saturday night, when all my friends were out on dates or hanging out with girlfriends or wives, I was home trying to distract myself from this miserable reality I lived in. Trying to convince myself that I didn’t need women in my life, that I was just going to “focus on my career.”
Right.
So despite the fact that my life is very, very different today, I haven’t forgotten what that felt like. That’s what kept me going when I encountered resistance, plateaus, or roadblocks along the way in my journey. Every time I felt that gripping fear which feels like a vice has been placed on your chest, I thought back to what loneliness felt like. And I never wanted to feel that feeling again.
Somewhere along the way, nearly everyone who’s gotten good at this realizes that even though we may have begun this journey in order to not be lonely, or to get more girls, or to lose our virginity, or whatever the specific reason, what actually brings us success is becoming attractive through self improvement.
In order to GET attraction from women, you must BE attractive. Ahh, the illusive obvious.
But what does that really mean? What does ‘be attractive’ mean?
It means that you must possess the qualities, traits, beliefs, and characteristics that people (and especially women) find attractive. It does NOT mean learning to “trick” women into thinking you are attractive when it’s really all an illusion. Even if you manage to make that work, you won’t keep women around once they realize who you really are.
Thus, we want to become more attractive through self improvement. Self improvement is more than just watching Tony Robbins and reading The Power of Now. It’s improving all aspects of yourself. It’s being well rounded. It’s being attractive. At first we do this to attract women. But midway through the process, we start to realize that we are actually doing this for OURSELVES. We are becoming better men, and attraction from women is merely a bonus to that.
An esteemed colleague and former mentor of mine once taught me that being well rounded in terms of attraction comes down to three core elements: Tactical Game, Inner Game, and Lifestyle.
Tactical game is knowing what to do, what to say, and how, when, and where to say or do it.
Inner game is your internal beliefs, your inner dialogue, your confidence, your sense of self esteem.
Lifestyle is how you live your life, what you do with your time, the company that you keep, the dreams and goals you have, and the interests and hobbies you pursue.
Together, these elements make up the attraction trifecta. Put together correctly, it also makes you well-rounded.
Being well rounded is important because it inherently limits your weaknesses and synergistically enhances your strengths. Just like in MMA, the “one trick pony” individual will always lose to the well-rounded fighter.
But what does that mean??
It means that an extremely important and overlooked part of this journey is continually working on YOURSELF. Constantly pushing your comfort zones. Always looking for new challenges. Setting new goals all the time.
It means that you do more than go to nightclubs every weekend and read pick up forums at work. As Mystery always says, “this is about building a life.” It is about surrounding yourself with good, positive people who are also working on themselves. It is about trying new things and expanding your horizons. It is about facing your fears and learning new skils. It is about making connections with people and forming both sexual and non-sexual relationships. And it is about becoming a better person.
Carpe Diem (Seize the day).
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Big thanks to everyone who attended the first annual Global Pickup Conference last week. It was a packed house and the other coaches and I volunteered two free infield sessions on Friday and Monday. It was a crazy event. I spoke on Sunday on “Dominance” and why it’s important in pickup and in life. Look for it on the DVDs when they are released.
Routines, scripts, lines, things to say. Some love ‘em, some hate ‘em, nearly everyone misunderstands them.
What you’re watching is a ‘teaser’ trailer to the documentary that’s being produced by 
Hey guys,
The other day I got a really good question from “Mike” who commented on