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
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.
Contents
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.
Girls teach you a lot when you try to talk to them, date them, or
pick
them up. They’re among the greatest teachers you’ll have, in fact.
In Drexel’s post yesterday on the top 3 reasons to pick up sober, he discussed pickup as a crucible through which you may purge demons and unlock total masculinity.
There are a few areas of life that shape and mold boys into men in their own unique ways:
None of these are guarantees. Plenty of men make it through any of these crucibles with gaping holes in their masculinity.
The talented seducer who sobs over yet another girlfriend who’s ditched him, or flies into a rage when some girl dares reject him.
The father who fails to discipline his children out of fear and instead raises dysfunctional adults.
The leader who’s a leader in name only, and never learns to look out for anyone more than himself.
The teacher who’s only in it for the paycheck, the power, or to
indoctrinate and inculcate, versus the instructor who exists to
challenge, spark curiosity, and open minds.
The business operator or owner who cuts corners and does anything for a buck, leaving a trail of burned contractors, employees, and customers in his wake.
However the man who takes his cultivation serious can grow enormously in any of these roles... Far more so than he can in any other way.
That’s because central to each of these roles are two elements as crucial to succeeding with women as they are to succeeding as a man: the social crucible, and responsibility for more than one’s self.
You’ve met a girl, it’s going fine, and then you just... Eject,
too soon. You leave too early. You beat yourself up about it later –
but what could you have done then?
Want a simple way to get more success out of your dates, courtships, pickups, etc.?
Here it is: don’t eject so fast.
Early ejection plagues beginners in seduction. And the wound is a self-inflicted one.
This sound at all familiar?:
You got up the nerve to approach a girl. She’s cute. Real cute. Your heart rate is going
200 beats per minute. And it’s going
okay. She smiled when you walked up, she said “hello”, and now she’s
responding to your questions and asking you some back. You make a light
joke and she laughs. Yet the pressure just builds and builds. Finally,
you excuse yourself: “All right, well, it was nice to meet you!” And
then you leave.
You didn’t ask her out; you didn’t take her phone number. Things were going okay, but then you bailed. You had to hit the eject button.
Why does this happen? Well, fear, mostly.
What can you do about it? Well, we’re going to talk about that.
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!”).
Content
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?
If you need to move things along on a date or in a pickup but
it’s too soon to take her home, often the next best option is to change
venues.
At times you’ll have things going well with a girl, but not well enough yet you’re ready to take her home. Even still, you reach one of those moments in the courtship where, like it or not, you’ve got to move her.
Moving her around in the same venue
won’t work at this point. It works terrific early on, but you’re too
far along for it now and it’ll feel like you’re treading water... or
even going backwards.
You need movement, but you can’t stay there. And you can’t take her home. So what can you do?
You change venues. One venue to another venue.
Content
The venue change is a handy tool in both dates and pickups. It’s a vital element of instant dates, structured dates, and often many guys’ one-night stand processes. But it’s also a tactic rife with potential to drop the ball.
Take her to the wrong place, and you kill the vibe.
Fail to handle the transition well, and you kill the vibe.
Misread her desires and change venues when she really wanted you to just take her home, and you risk missing the escalation window, and kill the vibe.
So let’s arm you with a few tools to let you read her right, take her to the right spot, and make your venue change as likely to lead to a pull home at the end of your date or pickup as anything else.
Make the wrong social move, and you’re a buzzkill no one wants to
be around. There are nine (9) such wrong moves, including bad topics,
zero confidence, and talking over the other party.
A reader asks:
“Chase, could you write about things that turn you into a buzzkill around people? I read your article on how to overcome depression and I’m currently working hard to get myself out that rut. But sometimes when I’m around people I turn into buzz killington without even knowing it. What are the things I can consciously do to hide my depression?”
It’s a great question.
Content
This site’s about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps,
self-improvement, and doing better. Various guys start out at various
places. Some guys start out dealing with depression or
saddled with victim mentality. Either of
these can make you a downer in conversation who sends others running in
the opposite direction.
Or even if these aren’t your particular afflictions and you’re content with life, you still may have behaviors you’ve picked up somewhere that inadvertently make you a total buzzkill to other people... Without even realizing you’re doing it.
So, to help you be a more pleasant interlocutor and allow you to rack up positive conversational reference points all the faster, I’ve compiled a list of nine (9) things that serve to kill the buzz any time you use them in a conversation with other people.
Stamp these behaviors out of your repartee repertoire, and you’ll notice people start to like you a whole lot more, more girls say “yes” when you ask them out, and more of the folks you meet want to see you again and include you in what they’re doing.
Here’s our list.
Some girls focus on appearance above all. Others focus on
bonding. Which girl you pick makes a big difference on the relationship
you enjoy.
One friend of mine had a girlfriend who attached herself to him when his career was strong, his reputation was great, and his money was solid... only for her to leave when he lost his career, his income took a big hit, and his self-confidence became shaken. A little while later, once everything was back in order and he was doing great again, the girl came back.
Another friend of mine had a girl he’d slept with (among many others) whom he contacted later on, only for her to threaten to “call some big guys” to come mess him up if he contacted her again. This was after a smear campaign against him to ruin him socially turned friends of his against him (while others stayed loyal to him and fought the rumors). The girl in question was obviously one of those swayed, and flipped from major fan of his to throwing him under the bus without hesitation.
Two different friends, with two different girls, in two different situations. Both had one thing in common though, and that one thing was the same thing I see guys who get burned by flashy foreign brides or sexy bombshell girlfriends or any kind of girl remotely like this: they picked the appearance-focused girl instead of the connection-focused one.
