Mindsets

Every man who isn't it yet wants to know how to be a confident man.

Men build lives around confidence. They want to find it, get it, hold onto it.

They want to be around people who already have it. They want others to recognize them as in possession of it themselves.

There are different kinds of confidence. There are:

• Men who are confident they can excel at school/work

• Men who are confident they can win fist fights

• Men who are confident they can sing a song well

• Men who are confident in how they walk, talk, or dress

Each kind of confidence is a different confidence. Each is good. Having one does not mean you have the rest. If you're confident you can win a spelling bee that does not mean you are also confident you can survive being stranded in the desert. These are two different kinds of confidence.

One kind of confidence stems from a key belief every man successful with women holds.

Women call this belief 'confidence', and refer to men who have it as 'confident men'.

Yet at its heart it is a belief. One key belief.

The belief underlies a man's actions with women. You can see it in his reactions to what women say and do. The belief emanates from him when he discusses women. It drives all his decisions regarding them.

No man enters the world with this belief. And you can't so much teach it as progress toward it.

As with any belief, it is acquired gradually, with experience. Sometimes that experience is conscious; sometimes not.

Once a man has this belief, it is tremendously helpful in a great many regards. It gives him wings with women; it allows him to achieve things men who lack the belief (confidence) cannot. It makes him a mystery to other men around him: they see him pull off things with women they cannot understand. Women behave in ways around him others think women don't or shouldn't behave. The belief-holding man violates everything other people think they know about how women interact with people and men.

Different men have different degrees of this key underlying belief. Highly confident men have it a lot; lesser confident men have it a bit. Whether a man claims to hold the belief or not is not the key to his confidence. It is what the man believes, deep down, in that core place inside himself, that determines how the belief manifests itself outside, actively, as a confident man in the world with real women.

If a man has this true confidence, from this one key belief, you can see it. Women can see it too -- and women respond to it.

When life is a mirage, the only way to see your way through is to move forward. Depression can obscure anything until you accept what is real and prove what is not.

Our brains are super good at talking us out of doing stuff, even good stuff. Here’s how to switch roles and talk your brain into shutting up and getting laid.

We’ve all been there. You see that sexy creature and you want to approach her, but that little voice starts chirping, “All these people will see you. You don't want to come off as creepy, do you? You can try again tomorrow when you're in a better state. She’s on her phone, you don’t want to be annoying. Yeah, let’s try later.”

Excuses, justifications, and avoidance. The more you think, the less you do. The less you do, the more you think. It’s frustrating. It feels like you’re a broken man, especially after watching all those infield vids on YouTube and reading all those Girls Chase articles that make it sound like common sense, like it’s so easy. But it’s not, is it?

When guys ask me what I think about when I approach, I tell them “Nothing.” And it’s true. I try to do all my approaches and everything that happens after as close to “the moment” as possible. And I’m pretty successful at it. But I wasn’t always so awesome.

The first time I went to a bar alone for the sole purpose of pickup – 11 years ago – I completely froze. I was in a room full of sexy women, completely packed, shoulder to shoulder. The longer I stood there, the deeper I went into my head. The excuses just piled on top of each other.

• “Everyone is here with someone, except me.”

• “They all know each other, and I don’t know anyone.”

• “They’re all looking at me.”

• “They know I’m alone – and terrified.”

Blah, blah, blah, excuses, fear, etc.

And even worse, I’d spent all night memorizing pickup routines. But as soon as that adrenaline spiked, approach anxiety overwhelmed me, and I either forgot all of them or convinced myself that I had because I was too terrified to try.

It’s amazing how great your ego is at talking you out of improving your life. It makes you think that by approaching women, you’re going to somehow die – a social death at least.

That summer night, I pedaled home through the humid Montreal streets on my bike, and I told myself, “Never again will I go out and not at least try.” But things didn’t really get better until I met a guy named Steve Piccus at a local seduction lair meeting, who claimed to be a master hypnotist. He was famous for being featured in the book The Game.

Steve showed us a simple meditation meant to clear our minds of chatter. He called it “silence the tongue”, the tongue being the voice that goes “Blah, blah, blah,” keeping us from achieving our goals. That short lesson, delivered to a room full of lonely, horny men, changed my life.

At times you will go out to meet girls and not meet any, or encounter other similar situations. And doubt takes you. How do you deal with this kind of doubt?

Several times throughout my seduction career, I've found myself in a curious place. I'd have had a little time off, where I'd focused on work or girlfriends and not approached new women. But then came the time to go chat up new girls again.

I'd go out, go somewhere social like a bar or a networking event, approach anxiety would hit, and I wouldn't talk to anyone. At the end of it, I'd head back home.

And then, I'd wrestle with doubt. Do I really want to do this? I'd ask myself. Go out and talk to strangers and try to find women to bed? Isn't it kind of embarrassing, just putting yourself out there to get shot down? Isn't it sometimes so much grinding?

And for a while the self-doubt would be strong. I'd think about all the other things I could be doing other than approach girls. I already have a beautiful girlfriend, I'd tell myself. She'd love to be shagging my brains out right now. Instead I am standing around not talking to anyone trying to get myself meeting chicks again? Or I might think I could've been at the putting on muscle or getting into work early and staying late to get ahead. Instead I just went out and failed to talk to women.

This crushing sense of am I really doing the right thing with my life? would soak through my bones.

Then, all at once, I'd realize something: "This is the gayest thought process ever. I didn't even talk to any women and got zero new information about anything. Why the heck am I suddenly trying to make a major life decision based on zero new information?"

After I experienced the 'self-doubt, then realization' process enough times, I've become almost immune to doubt... once I realized that, at least for me, almost all the doubt I experience comes as a result of inaction, rather than action.

Do you need a girlfriend? Maybe. But perhaps you’d be better off without one right now. These considerations will help you decide.

What I’ve learned over many years of teaching, mentoring, and coaching, is that my desires have not always matched those of my students and clients.

One of my most common recommendations for guys at all levels is to sleep with a few women before settling down with one.

I know – from both ends of experience – why this can be helpful for men. My first serious girlfriend was the girl I lost my virginity to. Then, a few months into dating, we had to shift to a long-distance relationship when I went off to college.

The relationship itself wasn’t bad, and I learned a lot. Additionally, my life has led me to where I am, so I have no regrets. But regarding that long-term relationship, there were many better paths I could have taken, given how many chances I had with hot, thirsty girls at college.

It’s tough to judge the past from the future, since it is self-evident that the past – every detail and crease – led to this future.

As for girlfriends, something that takes time and focus on your part... that’s a tricky subject.

When should you have a girlfriend?

The question “Do I need a girlfriend?” comes to mind, as a teacher of the romantic arts. But for many guys out there, it takes the form of “I need a girlfriend.” Two different sentiments, but both lead to the same inquiry if one is calm and introspective.

There are times in your life when a girlfriend is nice but not necessary. There are also times when you really shouldn’t have a girlfriend, and there are times when you really need one.

Information is good to have, and plans can be useful. Nevertheless, sometimes it goes too far – into the realm of mental masturbation.

There's a term from the mid-2000-naughts, somewhat less popular now, called 'mental masturbation'. Mental masturbation is any line of thought people spend time on that is, for all intents and purposes, useless. It doesn't help achieve any goals or shed any worthwhile insight. The mind is engaged, but its output is worthless.

I never much liked the term. It's crude, and often dismissive. Most things, at some level, are worth thinking about. When the 'mental masturbation' meme took over mASF (the now-defunct pick up artist community forum) years back, it fast became overused to the point of inanity. New, shy guys would ask some question or other, and veterans would tell them "That question is just mental masturbation!" Which to me always sounded like the natural's retort: "Who cares about those details. Just talk to girls!" Useful for some, but a door shut in the face of others.

Yet there's certainly something to the 'mental masturbation' concept... because there absolutely is a limit beyond which continued focus on the details is pointless:

• You're worried about getting a girl pregnant, but you haven't been laid in four months? Mental masturbation.

• You're trying to dream up a new way to hook up with sorority girls, yet you've never hooked up with a sorority girl before? Mental masturbation.

• You're thinking about how cool it'd be to have a playboy lifestyle, when you mostly stay at home with no social or romantic life? Mental masturbation.

It's important to realize when you've slid into mental masturbation... if only to stop wasting your time (and perhaps others') with go-nowhere fantasies and lines of inquiry.

This fun, simple game is designed to banish anxiety and work out the kinks in your approaches. All you need is a wingman, a clock, and a woman-laden environment.

Very early in my seduction journey, right after deciding I (finally) wanted to get better with women and (finally) learn how to sleep with them effortlessly, I faced the biggest hurdle of all – getting started. After all, every resource, coach, and seminar I checked out mentioned cold approach as the best skill to learn and improve with women.

It was suggested that I set aside several hours a day several times a week to learn how to approach women, just to get started. However, therein lay the rub – approaching women.

What a scary proposition! After having lost my virginity in my early twenties, then finally having my first girlfriend at 22, I still had no confidence or understanding of what women wanted or how they wanted to be approached.

I felt nervous, afraid; and each time, fear ran through my veins. This is a woman. What if she rejects me? What if she doesn’t like me? How will she feel about me? How will she perceive me? How will I feel about myself if she rejects me?

I started by walking through the streets of my newest home – New York City – where day game opportunities were plentiful and hot women wandered the streets alone every single day. And yet, each time I passed a hot woman that I fancied, I talked myself out of an approach.