Mindsets

Today’s article, on stress coping techniques, I wrote as an expanded and built-out version of the advice I had for a reader in the comments section of Chase’s article “Are You Smart? It Doesn’t Much Matter Either Way.” The reader in question was having problems coping with his emotions and the situation around a woman in his life:

“Chase what can I do to stop caring about people. And I don't mean it in a cold way but I care for this one girl a lot and it's messing up my head and making me very emotional. It's not like the article when you wrote "can't stop thinking about her", this girl has done a lot for me and she makes me happy but My feelings are strong for her and I hate having feelings. I feel weak and out of control, I'm not asking on how to get her I just want to get rid of my feelings and take control of my emotions. Also chase idk if you working on it or not but I asked for an article on self esteem/inferiority complex? I just want to know if you Remembered about it. Thank you”

I had the idea for this article for a while, but I left it alone for three main reasons:

1. Stress and emotions are often difficult to teach how to manage

2. It’s hard to go into lengthy detail and provide enough pragmatic steps to mold your coping mechanisms in a way that’s truly helpful

3. It’s not easy to simply cast away your emotions

I think this way from experience, because while I myself personally find it easy cope and move on, it can be incredibly hard to help someone else become that way. Really the only way I’ve found to fundamentally change people is by becoming a role model for them, and to help them over long periods of time.

However, I do have some good solid advice that I’d like to share with you today, and some steps you can follow when things go awry.

I had a conversation the other night over dinner with a friend of mine. He confessed to me that he'd had a moment in university where he'd failed a class, and it made him seriously question his smarts. Before that, he'd always had an easy time in classes, always been at the top of his class, and viewed himself as smarter than 99.9% of people. But after... he'd spent the next 10 years or so trying to figure out, if he isn't smarter than everybody else, then what's so special about him?

We talked some more, and he made some comment later about me being "smart." There it was again... this notion of "smarts." And I said this to my friend:

"You know, when people call me 'smart,' I actually find it mildly insulting."

"Well, I'm sorry for 'insulting' you, Chase!" he said, half in jest. And I took a moment to try and define why it is that I feel like "smart" is an insult - and then I realized it.

The feeling for me is that when someone calls me "smart," they're taking away all my credit for having worked hard. It's similar to someone calling you "lucky," or "handsome," or "naturally gifted," or anything else that serves to make it sound like you didn't actually DO anything to get whatever it is you got... you just happened into it by a roll of the dice, or a winning of the genetic jackpot.

I realized something else in that moment though, too - a lot of the things my friend was struggling with, that I didn't struggle with, these mindsets, these limiting beliefs - were coming from the fact that he saw some people as smarter than others, and some people not as smart, and that because of this, what they could accomplish was set in stone.

It's a totally different way of looking at the world from how I look at it, and other people who look first to "hard work," and not much at all to "smarts."

So we talked about this, him and I, and I explained why the answer to the question "Are you smart?" has a lot less to do with your results and success rates than you might think, and why thinking that smarts are essential places a ceiling on your accomplishments - regardless of whether you're brilliant, above average, or square in the middle.

Let's have a look at why.

We've talked a bit on here about threats and opportunities in the past already, but I wanted to take some time today and really dive into the differences between these two mentalities and how they affect your success in pickup, dating, seduction, and relationships, because they're of great importance.

On the article about anxiety in men, JFav comments:

“Hey chase! After reading thru a lot of these comments one theme I think keeps reoccurring is the guys who have improved have all embraced one thing. And I believe one of the many things you and some other guys have embraced is your "inexperience." More specifically you guys embrace mistakes not as bad things but as learning tools. I could almost see some of you doing things you KNOW were "wrong" just to CHECK if it could be right.

I've gotten that sense from a lot of your post Chase because I know you are a guy that likes to decode and really get to the core of things. So, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on my epiphany moment that "mistakes are just learning experiences."

I'd love to see a post where you talk about the time when you were learning pick up and seduction and how you questioned things asking yourself "could this really work" or "there's NO WAY that could work" And I'd love to hear some stories about how you said "F it I'm gonna try it anyways just in case he could be right"”

At the core of J's realization here is the opportunity he'd been missing in situations with women before, when he'd been blinded by the threat present in those situations. As he notes, I went through a similar transformation in my approach to women and dating, as have every guy who's reached a point where he's broken through to the site where learning is fun and no longer scary.

How do you break through, defeat timidity and apprehension, and free yourself from the feeling of "threats?" It's partly experience and exposure... but it's also partly something else.

There've been a handful of commenters recently asking about an article on anxiety in men, including this one, the first of these more recent requests:

“Hi Chase,

A slight digression from the post, hope you can add your two cents to this. You mentioned avoid being the guy who's "racked with anxiety". Throughout most of my life, I have been plagued with anxiety. My mother suffers from anxiety and I believe it has significantly influenced my development. In high school, though I was part of the cool crowd, i knew at the very core, I was extremely uncomfortable around other people. To hide my weakness, I would put on a facade that consisted of being a loud, obnoxious, "bad-ass" person.

I have matured from this and instead of living through a mask, i want to tackle my anxiety head-on. My belief is that, just like anything, gradual exposure will ultimately desensitize. I have been forcing myself to approach strangers and make conversations on a daily basis with this belief in mind. It's been a difficult journey though. Correct me if I'm wrong but through reading your ebook and blog posts, I take it you've gone through a phase of social anxiety/general anxiety yourself as well. If you could be so kind to share with me how you tackled your social anxiety, specific "exercises" that you found extremely helpful, anything you think is worth mentioning, it would truly be a boon to my development.

Many thanks,
Jack”

Jack, sure, I can go through this a bit. It's a little off topic from what we normally talk about, but I think it ties in well to being more successful with women and dating, so let's have a look.

This'll be a more personal post for me, similar to the one on how to overcome depression, simply because it's one I've had a lot of experience with and spent a long time stuck in. Anxiety and depression are quite often part-and-parcel to one another, so you might even think of this as the sequel to that post: defeating anxiety.

When I first began working in the self-help industry in earnest, I was, as most new to the industry are, overcome with a desire to help others. The pride I got when hearing I'd helped someone turn around his station in life with women, or turn around his life in general, was great. It's still wonderful to hear, but back then it was amazing.

It took me a while to recognize it, but there was another side of the coin to self-help too; it's the side I mentioned in "How to Master Anything" when talking about the "complainers" (as contrasted to the "fixers"), and it was the people you'd run into that you couldn't help. These were the ones who seemed like they wanted help, and they were there asking for it, but you just couldn't break through.

Eventually I did some research on it, and found out there was a distinct psychological term for this: it's called "victim mentality."

And it isn't the people you think who have it. It isn't some poor pathetic schmuck sitting around in his room moping about why life has to be so hard. Sure, that guy's got it too, but there are a lot of other people who have it:

• Parents
• Teachers
• Bosses
• Colleagues
• Models and actresses
• Jocks and playboys

... I've met people in almost every walk of life with victim mentalities. It's surprising when you encounter it, and you see it to different degrees... but it's there.

For me, recognizing my own victim mentality a long time ago was key to getting my life moving again in the right direction. And at the same time, I spent a decade in "neutral" because of my own refusal to see it and fight it, and I've met scores of people along the way similarly bogged down by this.

If you want to break free of it - if you really want the kind of life you want, with the kinds of things you want in it - this is another one of those situations where you'll find that the answer doesn't lie in the world changing to suit you... but rather, this answer lies within.

Does meeting women sometimes seem like rocket science to you? Do you get nervous with women and trip over your own two feet?

Wow… there is so much stuff to read, so many things to work on internally, so many things to consider at every step of the way when talking to girls…

And one single mistake can be fatal, and lose you a girl that was totally into you.

No, far be it from me to tell you that this skill is incredibly easy, and that you need to “just be yourself” and run “natural game”… if that worked, none of us would be here right now.

At the same time, there is also something that is worse than not knowing what to do… and that is “paralysis by analysis:” when the fear of doing the wrong thing leads you to do nothing at all, which is obviously also going to get you no results at all.

Or you think you need just a little bit more information before you can finally start going out and meeting women.

Or maybe all the information doesn’t paralyze you, but you do lose track of all the things you should be doing on a date and end up stuck in your head, or even more nervous and stiff because you’re thinking too hard about what to say next.

I’ve been there… I’m a pretty analytical person, and so I got stuck in that pattern too for a while.

And because I don’t want you stuck there for long too, here’s how to avoid it.

There's a question that I think not enough men ask themselves, and they end up being the worse for it: that is, what to look for in a girlfriend.

I have a habit of being very selective about the people I have around me. The old adage that "you are the average of your five closest friends" is one I put a lot of salt in. Where does this "averaging effect" come from, and how does it play out in real life?

The simplest way of putting it is that successful people believe successful things, and unsuccessful people believe unsuccessful things. Now, that's a very boiled down way of putting it, for you could have a guy who owns a large stake in a Fortune 500 company that's worth billions and think of him as successful, but a guy who owns six gas stations that bring him in $20,000 a month you might also think of as successful, to a different degree.

On a more personal level, you may have a friend who's dead broke, but strongly believes that buying condominiums is the road to riches. No matter how much you point out to that friend that so far his proclamations and prognostications have failed to work out for him, he'll keep harping on it again and again, and pushing you to put all your savings into buying a condo, and you'll either eventually come around to his way of seeing things (whether he's "right" or not), or get so annoyed by it that you exit the friendship.

The people around you influence you strongly for better or for worse. To become exceptional, or to remain the way you are, or to backslide.

And the person with the greatest measure of influence on you of all, with the greatest ability to steer and direct your thoughts and ideas and emotions, is, of course, the one you spend the most time with: your girlfriend.

And if you aren't being selective when selecting the most important, influential person around you, you're doing yourself a major disservice.