Confidence | Girls Chase

Confidence

How confidence affects results with women, and how to get your confidence, boldness, and "inner game" tightened up and running smoothly.

5 Steps that Let You Visualize Anything into Reality

Chase Amante's picture

If you're the kind of hard-nosed, stubborn-headed realist I am, things like visualization usually sound like some kind of hippie-ish New Age flimflam to you the first 10 or 12 times you hear about them. That's how it was for me anyway, and I'd always laugh a little and shake my head dismissively when I'd hear people talking about "the power of visualization."

how to visualize

But the more I studied successful people, the more I kept running into things like visualization, meditation, and taking time out of your day to focus on what you want. Cases in point:

  • Henry Ford would take time out of his day to clear his thoughts and imagine the kind of company he wanted to build and the benefits it would provide to people

  • Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla - both rivals and peerless inventors, and both professed visualizers who imagined their inventions succeeding

  • Tiger Woods visualizes how the golf ball will move and where it will stop before he ever hits it

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger, before he spent much time bodybuilding and again once he started, spent time visualizing what it would feel like to win Mr. Universe, and began acting like he'd won it already a few years before he actually did

  • Jim Carrey, feeling broken down and beaten by his lack of success in Tinseltown, wrote himself a check for $10 million for "acting services rendered," dated it for 10 years later, Thanksgiving 1995, and stuffed it in his wallet so he'd never forget it. 10 years later, just before Thanksgiving 1995, he was told he'd be paid $10 million for the film Dumb and Dumber, and he buried the check, now falling apart and in pieces, with his father - it had been both of their dreams that he'd find success

Even Albert Einstein first hit upon the theory of relativity while visualizing it, and Steve Jobs talks about blocking out the outside noise to focus on the inner voice in his 2005 Stanford commencement address.

I read about Olympic skiers and world class tennis players visualizing the slopes or the game. I read about martial artists visualizing a bout before it began. Business builders visualizing what their business would one day look like, years before it showed any signs of ever getting there back when everyone else thought they were crazy.

And I thought, this isn't just some hippie New Age junk. There's something to this, and I'm not doing it, which means I'm missing out on it.

Brain Hacks: Using Moral Superiority to Turn Arguments

Chase Amante's picture

One of the most annoying, horrible, and downright irritating situations you'll ever run into socially is someone suddenly inveighing against you with emotionally-charged, finger-pointing, judgmental arguments.

moral superiority

These attacks are usually unexpected when you run into them, and they'll frequently catch you off guard. They can be confusing to know how to respond to if you're more accustomed to calm, cool-headed debates about the merits and drawbacks of a specific subject - then suddenly here's someone sandblasting you with hatred and unadulterated emotion. I'm sure you've experienced it at some point or another:

“People like you are the lowest kinds of people there are! You think you can just take whatever you want and not have to suffer the consequences! You think of no one but yourself!”

Suddenly, you're so deeply on the defensive trying to prove these accusations levied against you are untrue, that you end up effectively putting your hands up and saying, "Whoa, hey, stop, that's not true at all!"

Morality attacks also usually have a powerful communal effect, with any bystanders to the argument usually feeling either a) swept up in the argument and equally enraged and emboldened, or b) so afraid of being castigated themselves that they either just agree out of fear, or they remain quiet and let things unfold, not wanting to get in the way of an onrushing freight train.

That means that when someone starts hitting you with moral superiority, you need to be quick on your feet to not get quickly cast out as whatever you're being labeled as - and the way to do that, of course, is fighting fire with fire: you must use moral superiority right back.

Fashion for Men: The Primer on Looking Amazing

Chase Amante's picture

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.

fashion for men

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."

The Purpose of Life from a Practical Point of View

Chase Amante's picture

Note before you starting reading: This article is almost 10,000 words in length, and dives into a lot of material that goes beyond dating, women, seduction, and relationships. So, you may not want to start in on this one until you're in a more reflective mood, or have a good chunk of time to spend reading.


When talking about getting good with women, or about starting businesses, or learning or mastering just about anything, really, you will frequently see me discuss the importance of purpose.

Purpose drives you; it gives you momentum and wings; it aids you in accomplishing things that men more skilled than you or with more raw natural talent than you or even greater imaginations or intellect or willpower than you could never hope to achieve.

Purpose is the great equalizer.

purpose of life

I don't like going to deep into what purpose is though, because that's a complex topic. Everyone is so certain that he has a - or the - "purpose of life" all figured out, and the people standing on high yelling about purpose can be both some of the most inspiring and some of the most maddeningly frustrating people you will ever see or hear.

It's my belief, though, that the major crisis of the West has been its loss of purpose. With the withdraw of religion back into the inky depths of history, the old religions coming to be viewed as no more than quaint relics of a bygone age, Western man has found himself wondering what it is, exactly, that he's working for.

Without purpose, the good times seem like hollow indulgences, and the bad times well nigh unbearable. With purpose, though, the good times are meaningful, and the bad times more so.

So, since we've had a number of readers on here request it, and since it is a topic that influences you intangibly in everything you do - whether that be dating, relationships, business, some sport or art or hobby, or any and all other endeavors - let's have a look at purpose, and see if we can't boil purpose in life down to a few essential elements, like we like to do with everything else.

Black and White Thinking: When It's Useful vs. Harmful

Chase Amante's picture

content="Black and white thinking is a potent tool for decision making and influencing – but it has a dark side you need to be aware of as well.">

In "Your Mental Model is Flawed," Lu asks a great question:

Chase, I like your analysis of how there is no black and white between what is good and what is evil, because both are seen in different lights by separate cultures, societies, and individuals.

However, do you think having this "black and white" mentality is good for other areas, such as leadership? I feel like in moving your interactions forward with women, or in business, you're either going to do something, or you aren't. A gray area when it comes to leading, I believe, would be a sign of indecisiveness.

A response on how you have become a leader, not just with women but in all areas would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work!

Black and white thinking's a fascinating topic. The psychological tool of black/white thinking is extremely powerful, though it rests normally on an incomplete view of the world. However, it's somewhat essential at some degree to progress and motivation in anyone.

black and white thinking

Understanding something like black and white thinking, the question really does become, "How deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go?"

Particularly if you really want to wrap your head around why people do it and why it has such a powerful hold on people's minds, you'll find the rabbit hole on this one goes rather deep.

And the truth with black and white thinking is, even the most fair-minded of individuals employes it to some degree to get anything in his life accomplished other than simply lie in bed.

Stop Being So Judgmental: It's All Actor-Observer Bias

Chase Amante's picture

how to be non-judgmentalI've been wanting and meaning to write an article on how to be non-judgmental on here for some time. However, I simply hadn't had quite the right angle to come at the piece with... hadn't, that was, until I did some digging into the depths of social psychology and came up with a gem.

Lots of people have asked for such an article; here was M, a little over a month ago, on the post on being a challenge to women:

One other question: could you please write a post sometime on how to be non-judgmental and more constructive and encouraging? Many times I find myself thinking during a conversation, "Hmm, your career path/school/etc. sounds pretty dismal...why are you so unambitious? Not really sure what I can say that would be both encouraging and true." The conversation of course shuts down pretty fast after that. But I know that there IS something both encouraging and true I could say, and if I didn't have that thought in the way, I would probably be able to relate to the person and think to say it.

Best,
M

Learning how to be non-judgmental is a powerful addition to the mental tools of any seducer - heck, any salesperson, business owner, employer, employee, teacher, student, parent, child, or friend. Being non-judgmental opens doors and unlocks verdant gardens of opportunity forever shut away and cordoned off from those less tolerant minds of the world.

Yet, it seems like such a painfully difficult thing to become... there are studies that show that even self-professed egalitarian individuals still have under-the-radar gut judgmental reactions (good or bad) to people of different races or creeds... which they then promptly rein back in.

So what is this whole non-judgmental thing really about? Can you ever truly be free of judgment... or is it all just self-delusion?

I have some interesting answers for you in this post; and a lot of it starts with a little thing called actor-observer bias.

How to Be More Aggressive with Women, Dating, and Life

Chase Amante's picture

content="In the modern West, many men have forgotten their traditions on how to be aggressive and bring the things they want into their lives.">

As a youth, I always used to envy those men around me who acted with such directness, certainty, and speed, without any hesitation or hint of self-doubt. Growing up, I found myself defined more by inaction - by being a watcher, an observer - than by any action I took. I think most people are defined like this... stuck watching from the bleachers and the sidelines while the aggressive go-getter action-takers dominate life.

how to be more aggressive

So I can understand and empathize when guys write in asking how to be more aggressive, like Wolf did in the article on being hard to please:

Hi Chase, how can I be more aggressive in my life? I think about just being extra ballsy but I think a lot about the consequences so I end up not being aggressive. How can I be more aggressive?

Some of this ties into what we discussed in "Threats and Opportunities;" the more focused on threats you are - when the focus is aligned in a certain way - the more you tend to retreat back from confrontation and aggressive action that might possibly end in rejection or worse.

But there's another side to this, too - and that's the inherent differences between those born aggressive, and those not so naturally inclined.

How to Take Your Self-Esteem to the Stratosphere

Chase Amante's picture

self-esteemA little while back, in "How to Find the Woman You Most Want: A 10-Step Process," Vaughn commented as follows:

Hey chase I've been looking around but I couldn't really find an article on self esteem. I have low self esteem and inferiority complex. I always compare myself to others like ALL the time and I mean all the time. With friends,family, and guys I see at bars, clubs, and guys with their girls. When I'm out I feel so lame seeing guys with girls and I don't have one, it makes me feel like something's wrong with me. Especially on Facebook when I see people showing off all the good things going on in their life and I'm just living my regular one. Then I keep thinking about bad moments in my past that replay in my head over and over making me think I'm really a loser. I don't mean to vent so much about it but I know your good with people and to be honest I trust your advice more than anyone else. Could you help me out with my self esteem, confidence, and getting rid of the inferiority complex and reliving past failures? Thanks Chase, all of this stuff will help me finally get my dream girl.

So, how to build self-esteem... it's the 10 million dollar question.

Everybody wants to know. And everybody else has got a solution.

This isn't one I normally tackle, because I'm a believer in action, and to hell with the words. Once you're taking action and improving your life, self-esteem, confidence, and all the rest naturally follows (see: "Does Confidence = Success? Actually... No.").

Cast aside the pump-up, roll up your sleeves, and go get your hands dirty; that's the secret to all the great feelings you could ever ask for.

Yet... the questions about self-esteem keep rolling in. And they are worthy questions... little else is worse in the world than being low in self-esteem.

And since those questions about self-esteem don't seem to show any sign of drying up any time soon, let's tackle them head on - and give you the plan you need to take your self-esteem into the stratosphere.

Make Judgmental People Stop Judging You Right Now

Ross Leon's picture

judgmental peopleWe’ve all faced judgments and judgmental people in the world, and it is something that people very rarely have a complete grasp of. When a man truly holds no prejudice, women will open up to him in a way that they could not imagine themselves opening up to any other guy. All of the sudden, women feel comfortable with you and communicate with you in a very warm and friendly way.

When you want to start a relationship right, you cannot judge women, of course; but, what happens when you are consciously aware of this, and despite that, the women are judging YOU?

Most people have judgments without even knowing it. Ask someone if they are judgmental, and you’ll get a “No, of course not!” Judgmental people are seen as bad, horrible humans who don’t have a soul and don’t deserve our time.

If a woman acts judgmental, you should righteously stop the seduction on the spot; or so you would think.

We all remember a time when we were judgmental of others, but would we say we were morally unjust humans because of it? No. Just because a woman is judgmental does not mean she isn’t worth your time.

Most people aren’t aware that they are doing it, and it is very simple to cut out of conversation. It’s just another barrier we need to overcome.

I Don’t Chase 'Em, I Replace 'Em

Chase Amante's picture

cut contactA couple of fellas have asked on here about cutting contact recently. Here's Matt's comment from the article entitled "Your Mental Model is Flawed":

Can you explain cut off marks (ie, cutting off contact with a girl... say if she doesn't sleep with you or is not responding well) in more detail? You've talked about that before in several posts, how now if a girl does not sleep with you on the first date, you usually end things with her and are not going to up forth the effort because you have many other options. Do you just delete her number? Richardus talks about keeping "bad" numbers and then firing off texts to all of them in the future and see who bites. What's your opinion?

Maybe a more nuanced guide of cut off marks for every level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) would be helpful. Also I'm a little confused about how persistance seems to contradict this. Hopefully I've made some sense!

Matt

Sure thing, Matt.

This is kind of a delicate issue. It's an issue that normally, you want to treat with tenderness, care, and kid gloves.

You kind of want to walk people through it... guide them, kindly and gradually, you might say... help them understand things without being too harsh, or abrasive.

You know... easy on the offensiveness.

Unfortunately, we're going to tackle this one how I want to tackle it: like gangbusters, with a sledgehammer and steel-tipped shoes.

So here we go.