Confidence

Howdy! I’m happy to bring you a special podcast I did directly myself with Glenn Pearce. Glenn’s one of the coaches I have the most respect for in the men’s dating advice industry – he’s even a guy I got coaching from myself a good 9 years back.

Our society trains men to be helpless, for several of its own reasons. But it’s important you know helplessness is learned... not inborn.

Learned helplessness is the behavior shift that occurs when an animal or individual decides its situation is impossible to change. At this point, the individual decides he is helpless to affect the outcome, and simply gives up trying.

Some of the most tragic stories of crushed spirits come when you discuss learned helplessness. Animals who’ve been caged so long they won’t try to leave even if you leave their cage doors open. Prisoners who aren’t able to operate outside the penal system, so commit crimes to go back to the familiar comfort of the prison yard. And men who’ve been unsuccessful with women so long they don’t even try to meet them.

In a recent popular thread on our Beginners’ Forum, a forum member starts off by asking why women like dominant men and men who take the lead. But it quickly becomes clear his real issue is not a philosophical question of why women prefer dominant men, but an exploration of his desire for women, yet lack of motivation to take steps to meet, date, and sleep with them.

This article will not be about why girls desire dominance and leadership, per se. If you’d like more on those topics, see these articles:

• How to Be a Dominant Man: What You Didn’t Know About the ‘Winner Effect’

• A Failed Relationship is a Failure of Leadership

• Why Leadership is so Key to Seducing Women

• The Real Reason Many Men Can’t Get a Girl

Rather, this article will be about the phenomenon of learned helplessness in the modern male – where it comes from, who’s responsible for it, and what you can do to shake it off.

Donald Trump used masterful persuasion in his dark horse candidacy for U.S. President. Six (6) powerful persuasion tactics underpin his success.

A reader asks:

“it’s been a year now since donald trump has been succesfully running his campaign.

Love him or hate him, the guy is a master persuader, really alpha, entertaining and never boring. He’s also extremely concise and repetitive in the way he speaks.

Exactly what robert greene would define as charismatic in his art of seduction

The funny thing though is I’ve noticed that he does a lot of things that you advocate not too do. ( explicit qualifying is the bread and butter of his persuasive effectiveness and constant repetition is another one. Plus, he’s got this essential quality of being brutal and effective when being under attack – an approach that is probably going to revolutionize politics world forever. )

Love him or not, what’s obvious is that he CAN persuade

Can u deconstruct his main strenghts and maybe reccomend some sources to how one can master verbal attack and , mainly, DEFENSE, like he does? I guess you could call that frame control. ”

Donald Trump is a persuasion phenomenon the likes of which the U.S. presidential election has not seen before. There are Donald Trump parallels in other civilizations and other eras; for instance, quite possibly ancient Rome’s Cato the Elder. But we haven’t seen a Donald Trump in the American presidential elections before.

In this article, I’m going to break down some of Donald Trump’s most oft-used persuasion techniques. I’ll point out what they are to you, show you how to use them, and give you plenty of examples.

If you’re reading this and you’re already bristling for political bias, I should note that I won’t be voting in this election (because I’m outside the U.S. with a Nevada citizenship, a Pennsylvania address, and a California driver license; I have no way to receive a mail-in ballot). I do not agree with all of any of the candidates’ policies, although I am a white male small business owner high in what psychologists call Traditional Masculinity Ideology, so that will necessarily bias me toward candidates offering some solutions over others. This article will be about tactics and strategies, not politics, but we’re all men and all men are inherently biased, so take that as you may. If any of my own bias leaks through, my apologies in advance; I am a (flawed) human, like you.

Disclaimers aside, let’s peel back the skin on Donald Trump-style persuasion... and see what we’ve got underneath.

Check the nightlife, and you’ll see almost every guy out to pick up girls is drunk or high. If you can do it sober, you give yourself a major competitive advantage.

Do you blaze, drink, or do lines when you go out and hit the club to chat up girls?

One year ago, William Gupta talked about the truth about taking drugs and hooking up.

After a decade in the Game, I've noticed something striking - almost nobody is sober. When guys learn and practice pick-up, they tend to be drunk, stoned, or both... and a lot of the guys gaming in clubs are, to put it bluntly, doing coke in the bathrooms in order to keep themselves "up" for the long haul of partying and hitting on women until 2 in the morning.

Before you think I'm just being some prude who can't have a good time, let me preface what I'm about to say by mentioning that I struggled with various forms of addiction for a full decade. I've been through the depths of that hell, I know what the demons look and sound like in your head, and I know precisely what kind of blade a man needs to sever them in half and regain his life from the abyss.

Now, before I get into my top 3 reasons to practice pick-up sober, I'll briefly explain why I think so many guys can't seem to perform this art without a little "chemical help" of some type. I believe that the primary reason so many guys do pick-up stoned or drunk... which REALLY became clear once I cleaned up my act and started living the sober life... is that pick-up is scary as hell.

Congruence is a term in psychology that refers to a state where your self and your behavior align. This leads to crazy success in dating.

How many “techniques” have guys ever used to get women?

Some guys take a very smooth, suave approach – a little James Bond mixed with Danny Ocean.

Others take a “Van Wilder” approach and try to amp up a girl’s emotions, making her have so much fun that her logical, self-judging mind turns off, and sex just happens.

Others, me included, like to take a “gorilla game” approach, and just approach every girl as decisively and directly as possible, initiating physical contact as early as is appropriate.

There are a ton of different strategies when it comes to getting girls, and those are just a few. But which one is the best? Some would argue the merits of push-pull game, others claim that providing a witty and charming conversation takes the cake, while others insist that confidence is key. What I would say is this: these are all very good approaches to getting women, and they all have their merits. Some strategies will work better than others – depending on the situation.

If you’re at that posh new nightclub in LA, or at Surrender in Las Vegas for your yearly bachelor’s trip, using “James Bond” game might not be the best idea. If you’re at a high-end business networking meeting, emulating “Van Wilder” might network your ass right to the curb. But regardless of the location and style of game you prefer, there is one underlying principle that is more important than ANY strategy or technique.

That principle, of course, is congruence.

Race is a touchy subject in dating and attraction. How much does it really impact your desirability? Anywhere from +19% to -30%, it turns out.

We’ve talked about race off and on at Girls Chase. My usual advice is to not worry about it too much, because you can’t change it; there are so many attraction factors you can focus on that it’s effectively not that relevant most of the time. And if you get your fundamentals tight enough, you transcend race (or negative racial effects become bonuses – “Oh! I didn’t know X race guys could be like him!”).

William talked about race here: “Everything I Know About Race and Dating Girls”, and Jerome discussed it (with a few thoughts by me) here: “Asian Guys and White Girls: The Secret to Success.” And I called out guys who focus on race (or other subjects) to the exclusion of all else here: “I Can’t Get Girls Because Girls Only Want [BLANK].”

At the risk of opening up a can of worms (i.e., the “my race has a negative impact, therefore I shouldn’t even try” worm can), I’d like to look at some of the actual data on racial preferences... As well as how these change with time.

A man’s ability to penetrate defines him, just as a woman’s capacity to receive defines her. But it isn’t just physical penetration: it’s mental and emotional too.

What is different between woman and man?

In 1908, Sigmund Freud introduced the concept of ‘penis envy’ in his article “On the Sexual Theories of Children.” The (rather circuitous) thought process Freud believed little girls went through included wanting to have sex with their mothers, realizing they lacked the equipment for this, then blaming their mothers for their ‘castration’ and turning their affections toward their fathers.

Freud himself admitted not really ‘getting’ women, and his attempts to psychoanalyze them seem to make clear he never really did ‘get’ them.

Yet ‘penis envy’ is a real phenomenon (even if it may not come about quite as Freud imagined). More or less every woman experiences, at some point, the desire to be the penetrator herself. To know what it feels like to thrust the reproductive part of her body into the body of another. Even women, who cannot penetrate, recognize the power of the role.

Men who struggle with masculinity invariably are men who have lost sight of this uniquely masculine role – the role of the penetrator. And they have forgotten women’s uniquely feminine one – the role of recipient. Unlocking masculinity in yourself, and unlocking femininity in the women around you, comes down, to large extent, to this question: can you penetrate, and will she receive?