Building Equity

I'm going to take a bit of a tangent from the usual here to discuss the topic of time efficiency and ways that you can make your social life (and the rest of your life) much more efficient.

This article is in answer to K's comment here that asks:

“Hey Chase!

Thank you so much for this website. It is truthfully the only comprehensive "how to live life" site that takes a logical approach to everything. I especially enjoyed the "Are you smart post". The difference between hard working and smart is truly all important. It would be amazing if you could get a post up here about how to be incredibly time efficient, so that we can learn how to really maximize the effectiveness of our work.

Thanks again,

K”

K's referencing the article "Are You Smart? It Doesn't Much Matter Either Way," in which we examined some research done on children praised as "smart" compared to children praised as "hard working" from an early age. The findings were that the children praised as "smart" early on shied away from hard problems later in life out of fear of failing and proving themselves "not smart," while children praised as "hard working" early on dove into hard problems later in life in with zest to show how "hard working" they really were.

In this article, I want to turn the spotlight onto the topics of hard limits, autopilot, and also revisit some of what we discussed in the article on ego depletion - so we can talk about how one becomes truly time efficient.

Guys have been asking for a while on here for a piece on fashion for men. So I guess that makes this one a long time coming.

Fashion's important. How important? It's pretty important. It's not make or break always... but you know the saying: clothes make the man.

What you wear doesn't just define you as cool, sexy, or stylish. It also subconsciously affects how other people feel toward you.

Wear clothes that make you look amazing, and people will feel like you're amazing. Wear clothes that make you look different, and people will view you as different (good or bad as that may be).

Wear clothes that make you look ordinary, on the other hand, and people will view you as just that: ordinary. Boring. Not particularly noteworthy.

They'll hardly even notice you.

And thus, we have our focus on fashion: getting noticed, in a positive way. But not like what we discussed in the article on peacocking... the truly fashionable man picks clothes that fit him so well people don't even see the individual clothing items all that much.

Instead, they just look at the man himself and say "wow."

“Why don't people just give me money?”

That's what a friend of mine once lamented, frustrated at how hard a time he was having running business and making things work as well as he thought they should.

It stems from a mindset that most people have to some extent: X just happens to people. It's a focus on events.

Events are an easy thing for the human mind to seize on:

• Climbing Mt. Everest
• Diving in the Mediterranean
• Getting married on a hilltop
• Selling a business for millions of dollars
• Sleeping with some beautiful girl
• Becoming famous and getting on TV

Most people look at the people doing these things and say, “God, that person is lucky! Why can't I have that happen to ME?”

The hard thing to do though is the thing that's also the more correct thing, and the thing that actually works: focusing not on events, but on process, instead.

Note from Chase: this is our second article from Eric, who wrote last week's fantastic piece "Making Your Seductions EFFICIENT;" his article  this time around is on weight loss. I've shed some pounds myself, mainly by tracking every last calorie I ate and cutting caloric intakes and portion sizes, but Eric's got far more info on this subject than I've ever come across in one place, and he's pared himself down from a pretty substantial body weight, too. Second article straight Eric's mustered up some roundly impressive stuff. Without further ado, here he is.

As I’m laying here writing this article I’m really feeling one main thing: elation. I really love my life right now. The french use a phrase to describe this ethereal feeling; they call it joie de vivre (zhwä duh veev-ruh), and there’s really only a few things that make me feel this way:

• Women,
• Self-growth,
• Diet, and
• Exercise.

I didn’t used to be this way... in fact I used to be quite overweight. And I don’t mean just a little extra here or there, I genuinely was fat. My body mass index (BMI) was close to obese (28.5) and I hadn’t exercised in 2-3 years.

I just sat on my butt every day and played video games, eating potato chips and drinking sprite all day long.

What little social life I had was gone, or took place over the Internet. My life went to shit, and while I wasn’t necessarily depressed... I certainly wasn’t happy.

So one day, I decided to change.

Today’s article is all about weight loss for men, and how you can shave all the extra pounds you’re carrying around off (not just a few of them), whether it’s a lot (like me before) or even just a little too much around your waistline.

Because today, I want to tell you how I went from almost-obese to mean, lean, and trim instead, and why today I get women telling me how great my body is.

In the comment section of the article on how to have a sexy walk, Matt remarked:

“Excellent article, my brother! Would love to see a post about direct/indirect pick ups specifically at the gym. Seems like a great place for day game, girls at the gym are obviously some of the hottest you'll see out in the day cause they're fit and healthy... but it's a challenging proposition. Many are listening to iPods, plugged into their music and workout. Whenever I talk to a girl at the gym I feel like I'm "disrupting" her workout.

Matt”

One of the very first places I picked up from when I was brand new to cold approach was the gym. In that case, it was a girl who worked at the gym who I sort of knew from class (I was in university at the time), but hadn't spoken to before, and I took the gym as my opportunity to do so - and then to have her drive me to get some food, and set up a proper date.

You might think gym pickup is inordinately hard simply because there are so many big muscular guys there, or because the women look so good (and there are so few of them), or because it's so brightly lit and obvious, or because since everyone else is focused on putting weights in the air and treadmill tread behind them, and that you're really going to stick out when you approach.

But in fact, there are certain advantages to meeting girls in the gym for a socially savvy man, not the least of which is the fact that most of those guys who are working out so hard there are doing so because they have no idea how to get women.

So there's not actually as much competition as you think. And in certain ways, even the environment itself can work to your benefit.

In this post, we'll take a close look at the dos and don'ts of gym pickup, along with the how-tos for opening and game at the gym.

In the post on indirect game, Franco comments, in part:

“Maintaining a good personal Facebook or Social Networking appearance. I think this would require a blog post (or maybe even a series of blog posts), but interacting with women on Facebook (whether directly or indirectly through posts/pictures) is a big part of the way individuals connect and socialize with each other today. Do you have knowledge or advice in this area?”

If you're under 30 (or maybe even OVER 30, too) and you're living in the early 21st century, you've probably thought about how great it'd be if you could just meet girls on Facebook.

I mean... you can browse through profiles... pick the HOTTEST girls you see... send them a message... and then, if they write BACK - suddenly now you've got a new potential girlfriend or lover!

It's easy!

In a digital age, what better way is there to meet girls for the technically-inclined than to just find them on the Internet and send them a message? I've done it myself - and I'll be the first to tell you, I've met a few gorgeous women off of Facebook.

It works!

But there's one thing all the posts, articles, teachers, and guides that propose to teach you how to find girls on Facebook don't cover... and that is that it's way more work than meeting girls in real life, your odds of success are way lower, and it takes way more time.

Let me take you through my own personal adventures with Facebook - and why I ultimately decided to close my account and never log on again.

I have bad news today…

The path to success really sucks.   

Building a successful, thriving business is bloody tough… BUT there is one thing that sucks even more: being a slave in a cubicle or a factory for forty years and never having enough money to live the life of your dreams.

Eating healthy and hitting the gym every day is bloody tough too… BUT there is one thing that sucks even more: being out of shape, low on energy, unattractively chubby and unhealthy.

And becoming a master in your dating life is equally tough… there is nothing worse than going out there day after day, getting rejected by woman after woman and failing over and over.

Except for one thing: not having options in women, and either staying alone or settling for something less than your dream girl.

Chase recently dropped an absolute value nuke on this blog… a spectacular post about how to master anything. In that post, he discussed that in our group of friends, every single last one is “crazy.” We all deviate from the “norm” in some way… which is what drives us to create lives that go way beyond a picket fence and 1.7 kids.

But there is a second trait that every one of us has, some more than others (I think Chase has us all beat there)… and that trait is GRIT.

While the focus on here is normally pointed squarely at getting girls, I wanted to broaden that today to a topic that's of significant importance not only to pickup and seduction, but to anything and everything you will ever lay your hands on, set your mind to, and go about doing.

That topic, in case you only glanced over the title, is how to master... anything.

In case you're not so familiar with my "credentials" (background), I've effectively mastered:

• Sales
• Music Production
• Song Writing
• Picking Up Women
• Maintaining Relationships (completely different from pickup)
• Posture / Movement / Personal Charisma
  
• Motivational and Inspirational Speaking
• Teaching (everything from software to seduction to high school students)
  
• Copywriting
• Writing in General

I'm also pretty good at making crazy shots from anywhere on the basketball court, and I'm about halfway through my growth curve as an entrepreneur, Internet marketer, and business growth expert.

On several occasions, I've had people ask me how it is you stay motivated to learning something long enough to reach a pinnacle in it. Usually I brush this off, because I don't like to be seen patting my own back too much. Even in my rap days, where bravado and showing off plays a big part of the art (rap has its origins in the West African folk tradition of "men of words" talking up their successes and desirability), I never liked venturing too far into singing my own praises.

It's far better for others to sing your praises for you than for you to do it yourself. People respect this more... and you look like less of an ass.

But for the sake of this post, let's shelve the false modesty, and talk about how to master things, how to set aside the laziness that nags at us all, and how to keep yourself focused on getting something down that few people ever will.

I'm taking a week off from writing a Tactics Tuesdays post to write another post that is, I suspect, long overdue: a post on social proof. It isn't something we talk much about on here, nor one that I think you want to devote an inordinate amount of your time or attention to.

Yet, it is one that, used properly, can be an absolutely incredibly powerful tool for picking up girls and for changing the minds of the ones you already know.

I'll go into some example below of just what social proof is, how you can use it, and why you don't want to miss using this potent and effective tool, both for lifestyle design and for using in your own pick ups on the fly - whether you've got friends around or not.

Onward...

“How do I get motivated?”

It’s a question you run into at some point when you start tackling something you know you ought to do... but just can’t seem to get yourself to do. And getting better at dating and relationships - while certainly one of, if not the, most rewarding skills to get down - is quite possibly one of the most difficult things to get yourself motivated to work on.

One of the hardest things in this game – and in any endeavor in life, really – is to stay motivated when the going gets tough.

And it will.

In fact, many people argue that the most important part of Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich is Chapter 9 – the chapter on persistence.

Because if you think about it – if you just stick with ANYTHING long enough, you’re BOUND to get better at it… and eventually the results will come as a mere side effect of getting better and better at your craft.

But if that’s true, then the question is… why isn’t everybody doing this?

Why aren’t all people more persistent with their goals, if that’s really all it takes?