Confidence

It is late at night, your hands wrap around the wheel, the car eases out onto an endless stretch of highway. The road hums beneath you. Your breath is slow... In... And out... Your eyes are clear and steady as things come and go. You tune out the need to "get where you are going" and you just drive.

Life in that moment is just a sequence of breaths and subtle adjustments, and you never feel out of place or "off the mark". Your mind extends out into the horizon, and you lie in wait, perfectly ready.

Sometimes when we talk about women we get too focused on what is supposed to be happening that we forget how good it feels to not have to do a thing and just remain on target.

The other day I was sitting in the car with my mom, discussing a recent traumatic experience and its effects on my psyche. At some point in the conversation, I lost my calm and hit the car door in my rage. I immediately recognized my mistake and soothed my mind with some quick meditation. After swallowing my chill pill, we discussed my life-long struggle with aversion.

She conjured many anecdotes of my angst, whether it was yelling at kids over Xbox Live or getting 2nd place in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. Of all destructive emotions, anger is my closest and most poisonous friend.

To rid myself of this friend, we then brainstormed the cause of my anger and my mother proposed a theory, saying to me, “Hector, anger is a sign that you’re afraid. Animals only lash out in anger when they’re afraid of something....”

As my mind reeled, she followed with a question, “Hector, what are you afraid of?”

Note from Chase: this is a guest post from John Turner, one of our senior discussion board members who posts under the handle TheDoctor. In this post on the “seduction triangle”, John applies a sales tool called the “sales triangle” to the world of dating and seduction. Here’s John.

When I was starting out in sales, I knew a few of the various sales techniques, had read a lot of theory, and I was pretty confident that I would be able to adapt at an excelled rate. So it wasn’t long before I knew my product in and out and was able to overcome objections quickly and efficiently.

I was sure I’d be a selling machine, but the truth is, I performed very… OK. That was it. Just “OK”. A lot of my prospects would vanish, deals would fall through, and I had an impossible time hitting my budgeted numbers.

What was I doing wrong?

I analyzed absolutely every part of my “sales game” and came up short as to the missing link. I knew it was not my lack of knowledge about the product, nor was it that I was unfamiliar with the tactics of the sales process.

I went crazy trying to figure it out, and I knew I was over-complicating it. It was then that I came upon a sales idea I had not heard of before:

A girl once said the following about me to a mutual friend:

“You know, the best things about Darius are his deep cuts and his charisma.”

I must say, I was a little surprised. Not about the deep cuts part – since college I was known to wear buttoned shirts with an extra open button and I’ve always preferred V-necks over crew necks on tees.

Quick off topic tip: It works and it’s hot. If you’re of shorter stature be careful though, as it might mess up your upper body proportions and visually make you look shorter.

The part that I was surprised about was that she called me charismatic. You see, I’ve never been the talkative, outgoing, life of a party kind of guy, and back when it was said it was even more obvious than it is now.

Nonetheless, in her eyes I was charismatic.

What’s interesting is that after that conversation I did indeed start working, at first indirectly, on further developing this quality – though “quality” might not be the best word to describe charisma. As you’ll see in this article, it would be more appropriate to call it a skill than a quality of your character.

As I got better at managing charisma, interesting things started to happen:

• I would relatively easily find new groups and friends during my nights out (it’s not uncommon by the end of the night to realize that the group I’m currently having fun with, who are inviting me to after parties and the like, consist only of people I don’t really know)

• Guys often will buy me shots and ask to drink with them (happens less frequently with women, but that’s expected)

• And people in general seem eager to open up and share their stories.

For example, last time I was out, after ordering my drink, an unknown guy walked up and asked me to join his company of four ladies on the dance floor.

I’m sure I don’t need to explain that, not only does this makes nights out more pleasurable in general and puts you in a very positive state of mind, it also makes the subsequent steps of seduction easier (but don’t be fooled, you still need to make things happen).

With this introduction I first would like to refer you to another article, written by Ricardus, The 3 Things to Know If You Want to Be Charismatic, in which he brilliantly covers the core parts of what makes a man charismatic and how to be one.

I would like to urge you to read that piece first and then come back here, as in my article I would like to focus more on the specifics and strategies you can employ to develop your charisma and do this, even if you’re not a particularly outgoing guy.

“So, you’re still single?”

“Yeah, you know, I just haven’t found the one yet…”

This is an excerpt from an exchange that happened years ago with a girl I somewhat had a crush on. This happened before I learned that there was such a thing as seduction and started out on the path of improvement.

The funny thing is, even though now I can imagine her rolling her eyes at this answer and thinking “yeah, right, that’s why you’re single…” at the time, in my mind it made perfect sense – I had a socially acceptable explanation; an excuse that made my non-existent romantic life “okay”.

And the saddest part was that I truly believed that if only I found “the right girl”, I wouldn’t need to put in any effort, better myself, become attractive, and everything would just happen naturally and I’d live happily ever after.

As romantic as it sounds, this pervasive fairytale-like fantasy was actually a limiting belief in disguise, and a common one at that.

But limiting beliefs are in effect not only in relationships and seduction – tell me what you’re struggling with and I’ll tell you in which life area you have the most limiting beliefs.

With this article, I’d like to discuss some of the more common limiting beliefs that are haunting an area very closely related to seduction – your appearance.

The reason why I’m focusing on this area in particular is that, even though all of us know that it’s a great freaking idea to work on becoming better with women – approaching, isolating, escalating, closing, managing relationships, etc. – many men, especially those who struggle and seem to have very little real success with women, still have trouble grasping the role of appearance in seduction and how to work on it.

Just like I did with my “I just haven’t found the one yet” excuse, they are telling themselves socially acceptable stories why they are not sexy men but expect sexy women to fall head over heels for them.

And so, let’s discuss some of those stories.

Good day, gentlemen. Today, I’m here to tell you about something profoundly simple yet tortuously difficult for some. Let me ask you something… what if I told you there’s one particular word in the English language that will get you more of what you want than entire essays of other words?

That with this one magical word, you can assert your boundaries, display your standards, and become a stronger man all at the same time?

You would probably think that I’m crazy… and most likely also want to know more! First I will tell you the word, and then we will delve into its dynamics.

The Magic Word is…

NO.

If you want to move to the next level with women, you need to know a lot about them.

You need to know what piques their interest, what makes them comfortable, what turns them on, and what keeps them coming back for more.

But it’s not enough to know women. You need to know yourself.

This article is the first of two articles that focus on knowing yourself. In this article, I’m going to convince you that self-knowledge is a powerful tool for attracting women, both in the short term and the long term.

Then I’m going to point out a couple of areas where you might be neglecting your pursuit of self-knowledge.

It’s certainly not all abstract, philosophical, and ivory-tower. You could be neglecting something that has huge consequences for your romantic prospects.