Category Archives: Congruence

The Best Girl Problem To Have

When You Come To A Fork In The Road - Take It!

Should You Stay Or Should You Go?

Most guys would love to find a happy attractive girl to call their own. And be the happy attractive guy the girl calls her own.

Yet many guys run into all kinds of trouble when figuring out how to make that happen.

From a structural level, it’s pretty simple. First, figure out what you’re looking for. Looks, personality, family background, religion, politics, etc. Make a list of deal-makers and deal-breakers.

Once you’ve got a reasonable list, start sorting. 

How do you sort? 

Talk to any girl you see who might fit your criteria. Of course, one of your criteria MUST be that she be attracted to you, or else what’s the point?

Otherwise it’d be like trying to buy something that you simply can’t afford.

Now, if you did this, a couple of interesting things would happen.

You may start off realizing that your game absolutely sucks. Meaning that every single girl you talk to looks like she’s about to call the cops.

Now, at this point, two things would happen. You COULD decide women are all bitches, join your local MGTOW group and start building models or something.

OR you could decide to improve your game.

How?

This is the beauty of human behavior. You don’t really need to know how. All you need to know is what you did didn’t work. So all you’ve got to do is do something different.

Start with different openers, or ice breakers. Change your clothes. Wear a different cologne. Anything.

And pretty soon you’ll start to notice small improvements. More and more girls will be interested in you. And some will begin to meet your criteria.

This is when something else pretty cool happens. The more skills you develop, the tighter your criteria will be.

A guy who’s never even kissed a girl will have completely different criteria than a guy that talks to and dates a whole range of women.

As your experience, confidence, and skill set grows, as will your criteria.

And pretty soon you’ll come to a very NICE problem to have.

Should you KEEP improving yourself, or should you pick ONE girl and stick with her?

Only you can answer that. But it’s certainly a nice problem to have.

But you’ll NEVER run into this problem if you remove yourself from the game completely.

How long should you spend going through this process?

Well, think about the benefits. A partner for life who will have your back through thick and thin, and you hers.

Don’t rush the process. Take your time. 

Enjoy your life, enjoy your skills. And enjoy the game.

Why You Shouldn’t Talk Like A Gangster

Don't Look At The Finger, Look Where It's Pointing

Don’t Copy The Finger

There’s all kinds of funny alien type movies that play off a common riff.

They have some kind of advanced technology, but all they know about Earth people is from one or two TV shows they’ve watched.

One episode of Star Trek, for example, they found a whole planet of people that modeled themselves after old gangster movies.

This is pretty funny when it’s put into a goofy alien sci-fi movie, but we do it all the time.

Not walk around talking like gangsters, but we completely miss the structure, and focus on the content.

Now, most people don’t even know the difference between structure and content, let alone know how to separate the two.

Let’s say you wanted to start a business. So you figured you’d “reverse engineer” the most successful business you could find.

Great idea, right?

So you head down to the mall, and ask the guy in charge who has the most successful shop.

And up you go, to find out everything you can about her shop, so you can do the same.

So far so good?

You see she’s got a yellow colored sign in front, so you get a yellow colored sign.

You see she’s next to an ice cream shop, so you figure you’ve got to set up next to an ice cream shop.

You notice she’s got some guy in front dressed like a panda, so you do the same.

The trouble with “reverse engineering” things like this is that most of what we see on the outside, are a RESULT of what’s on the inside.

We see the EFFECT, and not the CAUSE.

That person’s belief about themselves. That person’s ability to understand people’s needs and come up with a solution. That person’s ability to keep trying, accepting feedback, and adjusting her shop until it matches perfectly with the customer’s needs.

Not the color of her sign.

Wanna know the REAL secret of life?

That it’s an INSIDE game first, and then it manifests in the outer world.

If you start outside and work your way, you’ll have some rough going.

One of the most important qualities you can have is self confidence.

Without that, you won’t be able to talk to people to find out what they want.

You won’t be able to keep trying and “failing” until you get closer and closer.

But with self confidence, ANYTHING is possible.

Just start trying things. Improve on what works.

Not only will you be successful, but people will start copying YOU.

Choose Your Life’s Mission

Where Are You Headed?

The Road To Uncertainty

I remember when I was a kid, I would love going on vacations.

Most of the time, it was just us driving somewhere for a few hours, staying in a motel, and then driving back later in a couple days.

There was usually some kind of activity near the motel, but nothing that I can remember now.

I just remember the excitement of being in the car, and going somewhere new.

I also remember the HUGE difference between taking classes at a local community college, as an adult, compared to when I was studying University.

When it was at Uni, it sucked. Boring, if I failed I’d be in big trouble, etc.

But as an adult, I LOVED taking classes. I was studying what I wanted to, not to get some piece of paper. 

I was learning just because I wanted to LEARN something.

I took a few language classes, tons of self improvement stuff, public speaking, even Tai Chi.

Whenever we humans do ANYTHING, the reasons we’re doing it will have a HUGE impact on how we feel about it.

Being a kid, the vacations were always outside of my control, but it was still fun. I never chose where we went, but I always enjoyed going somewhere new.

Being an adult, and taking all those classes, I felt the same way. I chose where I was going, and enjoyed the journey.

What’s the common thread?

It seems that being excited about the unknown is a crucial factor. On it’s own, it CAN be enough.

Also, going somewhere or doing something when you KNOW what the outcome is going to be, can also get your juices flowing.

But what happens when you combine these two?

What happens if you not only EMBRACE the unknown, but also have total control in where you’re going?

Sounds paradoxical, right?

But when you choose your outcome, and leave the PATH up in the air, something to discover along the way, then you’ve discovered some REAL magic.

Not only do you KNOW you are going somewhere good (or doing something good or learning something good or creating something good), but when  you’re completely OPEN to HOW you’ll get there, that’s when life takes on a whole new meaning.

Every step you take will get you wonderful feedback that will get you closer.

Your Ultimate Journey of Life.

What path are you on?

Are you dreams BIG enough?

Are the compelling enough to pull you forward, no matter what?

When you’ve got a huge dream, AND you know, deep in your bones, that you can handle anything that life throws at you, you’ve got it made.

Only If You Want A Quality Relationship

The Myth Of The Quality Woman

Is The Market Terrible?

Where you can find a “quality woman”?

I hate to break it do you, but they don’t exist. No, I don’t mean like that. I don’t mean in the bitter, “poor me” sense that you’ll find bleeding all over the “manosphere” (whatever THAT means.)

I mean that you simply can’t put labels like “quality” on people without having a specific set of parameters.

One thing that Maltz taught in Psycho-Cybernetics is to NEVER compare yourself to others.

Take the next random dude you meet on the street, for example.  You’re going to be better at a bunch of stuff than he is. He’s going to be better at a bunch of stuff that you. At least today. Tomorrow? Maybe a different story completely.

Does this mean it’s hopeless finding what you might subjectively describe as a “quality woman?” Not at all. But first, you’ve got to ditch that label, because it’s pretty meaningless.

Reminds me of this movie called “Punching The Clown.” There was this guy who was a singer/comedian. He had this weird style of playing his guitar while spitting out ridiculous jokes, that “sort of” sounded like a song.

One day, a big Hollywood Exec came to see him in a studio.

“Show me your FUNNIEST gag!” The exec said. So the guy starts singing one of his deadpan, slow boiling type humor.

The exec interrupts him. “No, no. Show me one that’s FUNNY right off the bat!”

This went on for a while, until the exec gave up.

Of course, the meaning of the scene is that “funny” is not some objective thing like a law of mathematics. Even something that’s funny to one person may not be funny to somebody else.

So stop looking for some kind of magical “quality woman” to jump out of the shadows and magically solve all your girl problems.

Change the word “quality” for “a girl that satisfies most of my criteria, and for whom I satisfy most of hers.”

Now, this leaves most guys at a loss, because they don’t really HAVE any criteria, other than she’s got to be hot and not throw a drink in his face when he talks to her.

So the first step is to actually determine your own criteria. What do you want in a woman? Naturally, the more women you interact with, the more you’ll find tune your criteria.

And guess what? You’ll find plenty of women that satisfy YOUR criteria, but you don’t satisfy THEIRS.

Most guys don’t like to hear this.

Most guys think all they need to do is shave, shower, put on some expensive cologne and the “quality women” are supposed to beat a path to their door.

Doesn’t work like that.

Is it easy? Not in the least. 

Will you get rejected a lot? Absolutely. 

Will it take time? Yes. 

Will it happen like in the movies? Probably not.

But it is possible. Just not easy. But finding a woman that matches your criteria, and for whom you match hers, is something that you should aspire to as one of your life goals. (If building a relationship is indeed one of your plans in life).

Not something that just “happens” when you’re out with your buddies.

Now, let’s be honest. A lot of guys aren’t willing to put in the work. That’s fine. They’d rather spend their entire lives without a woman, or short term relationships, which for many guys is perfectly fine. 

Ultimately it’s up to you.

What do you want?

What will it take to get it?

Are you willing to put in the effort?

mindpersuasion.com

Do You Have Portable Skills?

Which Skills Should You Carry With You?

The Best Skill Of All

When I was a kid I got a Swiss Army Knife for Christmas.

All kinds of tools, knives, scissors, saw, magnifying glass. I was in boy scouts, so it came in pretty handy.

Later on, as an adult, when I was into backpacking, I got all kinds of cool gear.

Since backpacking requires you actually walk a long, long ways (usually 20+ miles over a couple days) with everything on your back, you’ve got to be pretty efficient.

So a lot of the equipment is built to not only be very light and portable, but also to serve many purposes.

Especially the food. Freeze dried. Easy to cook. (Not so tasty!)

Compared to “car camping,” where you drive your car right up to the campsite, and then just unload all the junk from the trunk. You can get away with a LOT more (and a lot more enjoyable) stuff.

Huge coolers filled with beer. Lawn chairs. Plenty of wood for a fire. Big thick juicy steaks to BBQ.

The skills you carry with you will have a huge impact on how well you do in life.

The more translatable they are, the easier you’ll be able to switch from job to job, or situation to situation, and still come out on top.

One of the biggest “presuppositions” in NLP is that the more flexibility you have, the better you’ll do.

While that freeze dried food isn’t something you’d consider “delicious” it allows you to get to places that very, very few people have ever seen.

Gorgeous valleys way up above the tree line. Huge meadows filled with beautiful flowers, and NO people. Only animals.

Car camping, on the other hand, only allows you to go where everybody else goes.

Your skills are similar. If you’ve got the same skills that everybody else has got,  then you’ll only be able to go where everybody else goes.

On the other hand, if you’ve got some very portable skills, that you can take with you anywhere, and aren’t tied to a specific situation, you’ll do much, much better.

What skills are these?

Mental skills. Learning skills. Communication skills. People skills.

But there’s one “meta” skill that will let you learn all other skills.

Being able to look into the unknown future, and think to yourself, “Yep, I can do this,” and then get busy learning.

Most people cower in fear, and wait for somebody to hold their hand.

Most people wait for step by step instructions. For somebody else to “go first,” so they know it’s safe.

What about you?

Are you willing to boldly go where you’ve never gone before? So you can continue to learn new things, gain new skills, and reach even higher levels of success?

This will help:

Self Confidence Generator

Mind Tricks To Kill Fear

Is This What Talking To Girls Feels Like?

Control Your Thoughts – Control Everything

Imagine if you tried swimming using the following method.

You stood there on the side of the pool, shaking from fear. All your buddies were swimming, but you weren’t sure if you could do it.

Maybe you looked at a point off in the distance, and imagined how cool it would be to swim over there. Then you imagined the cold hand of death grabbing your ankle and pulling you down to the lonely bottom.

You grit your teeth, and jump in. Only you don’t try and swim. You just kind of float there. Then suddenly your instincts kick in, and you start dog paddling. Everybody’s laughing. You paddle back to where you came from, and climb out.

Absolutely humiliated.

This is very similar to what most guys do when they approach girls. Especially when they’re nervous while approaching.

Now, if you’re nervous and you approach anyway, congratulations. Most guys can’t do this.

But when you approach, there’s some things you can do to make it a lot easier, and some things to do that will make it a lot harder.

The thoughts you hold in your head WHILE approaching are crucial. If you don’t purposely hold positive thoughts, your caveman brain will take over.

This is like you dog paddling in the pool. Running on instincts.

But if you approach with some positive thoughts, and HOLD those thoughts, it will be a lot easier.

This would be like swimming the crawl, based on conscious thinking, rather than dog paddling, based on instinct.

Every action you take, there’s a battle going on in your mind. Your conscious, rational self, vs. your caveman instincts.

Your caveman instincts are usually only good if you’re in a caveman environment. Like there’s some sort of horrible, life threatening danger, and you’ve got to take care of business.

But when talking to cute girls, your caveman brain is NOT your friend.

Your conscious mind is.

What thoughts should you think?

Firstly, you’ll need to FORCE them in the forefront of your brain. Like you might need to consciously remember how to swim.

Any thoughts of any positive EXPERIENCES with women will do. Ideally, you should have a positive experience in the recent past, and one in the near future. Which will take place AFTER you talk to the girl you’re about to talk to.

Any positive experience will work. A girl that smiled at you. A cute girl you talked to at Starbucks (whether she was working there or not.)

ANY experience will do.

This works for many reasons.

You won’t see the girl you’re about to talk to as a life or death situation. 

Which means you’ll significantly tone down any neediness or desperation. She’ll pick up on this, and this will increase her likelihood of being attracted to you.

Now, this can be tough to do if you don’t have ANY positive experiences with women. But you can certainly go and get some.

Just hit up some shops or restaurants around town where cute girls work. DO NOT try and pick them up. Just be friendly with them. Go in once a week or so. Learn their names, and tell them yours.

Remember, these are NOT girls you are picking up or number closing or getting advice from or anything. Just some girls to have a friendly, BRIEF, chit-chat with while you drink your coffee or whatever.

THEN, when you see some girls you’d like to talk to, for real, think of those “practice girls” while you do so.

Do this long enough, and you’ll be building up a HUGE amount of positive experiences with women.

Just remember that this ISN’T automatic, at least not at first. The first couple dozen times you talk to real girls, in the real world, you’ll need to FORCE your brain to think of those positive experiences, WHILE APPROACHING and WHILE TALKING.

But if you keep it up, that feeling of “good experiences with women” WILL become automatic.

And you’ll have suddenly turned into a natural.

How To Make Everything Easy

Develop Deep and Lasting Confidence

Non Situational Confidence

A lot of companies have these “team building” getaways.

Where they go do something outdoors, that’s pretty scary.

The theory is that when they work together, to overcome some kind of physical “danger,” it will strengthen their relationship, making them better workers.

I remember when I went skydiving the first time. (I’ve only been twice.) I was scared as hell driving out there, and right up to jumping out of the plane, but after that, it was pretty amazing.

Once the initial terror went away, it literally felt like flying. Then when I landed, I felt like I was on top of the world.

Like I could do anything.

However, that feeling was gone within an hour. Driving back home I felt the same after driving home from work, or driving home from the movies.

They say that you get the confidence after you do the thing.

While this is true, there’s a couple things they DON’T say about this.

One is the “confidence” that you get is generally attached to that particular thing.

Two is that “confidence” doesn’t usually last very long.

Another thing I noticed is that the people who go skydiving a lot, the kind of people who had their own gear, weren’t at all what I’d expected.

I figured since they’d conquered their fear, they would be ultra achievers who could do anything.

That wasn’t the case. Most of them were regular people, with regular jobs, who spent most of their extra income on their “hobby.”

(And interestingly enough, a lot of them smoked. A lot.)

Sure, it is possible to get confidence the “old fashioned way.” 

Just DO IT, like they say in the commercial, but that’s pretty tough. And it doesn’t last long. You’ve got to keep DOING IT or else you’ll slip back down to where you started.

Is there another way?

Why yes, there is!

Instead of relying on your cave man (or cave woman) programming to consider the possible outcome of what you’re thinking about doing, you can consciously build up the positive, while minimizing the negative.

The more you do this, the easier it will seem, and the more self confidence you’ll naturally have.

Now, this IS a skill, not a magic pill. It will take some practice.

But once you get into the habit of doing it, you’ll find there’s LOTS of things out there that aren’t NEARLY as terrifying as most people think.

What would YOU like to make easy?

Economic Myths and Seduction

Economics Is Everywhere

Perceived Value Is Everything

One of the biggest causes of human suffering is expectation beyond what the data suggests.

This happens to guys all the time. The claim is that they’ve been told (I don’t know by whom) or have been sold the idea (again, I don’t know by whom) that all they have to do is get a decent job, get in decent shape, and the women will somehow flock to them.

Then they show up, don’t get what they expected, and get angry.

This is a common misunderstanding, and it’s actually present in economics as well. Many producers, for example, rationalize their high prices by how much it costs to produce them. However, this isn’t how prices are determined.

Prices are ALWAYS determined by supply and demand. Producers make products that satisfy demands. But the demand only holds at a certain price.

In economics there’s something called “elasticity.” Meaning if the price changes, the demand will change. A supply-demand curve that’s highly elastic will show a significant demand change based on a slight change in price.

For example, if the price of beef were to suddenly go sky high, people would simply switch to pork or chicken, and the demand for beef would plummet.

The beef producers could argue until the cows come home (yuck yuck) about the water shortage, and how much it costs to raise a steer these days, etc.

But NONE of these “input costs” (what it costs to make the product) would get people to pay the price.

Now for some products, like gasoline, we’re pretty screwed. If the price doubles, we still have to buy it. We may drive a little less, but it’s not like we can switch to something else right away.

The bottom line is that input costs, what it cost to make something, have little effect on people’s desires to pay, ESPECIALLY if there are alternatives on the market.

Think of it this way. You’re standing at the supermarket, looking at the steaks, which are $50 a pound. Then you look at the pork chops, which are $2 a pound.

Is the cattle rancher standing there complaining how much it costs to make the steak going to affect your decision?

Nope.

How does this apply to dating?

Well, when you show up and expect women to suddenly fall in love with you simply because of the work you’ve done on yourself, you’ve got another thing coming.

The ONLY reason a woman is going to fall in love with you is if she wants you, based on how you interact with her.

And if you DEMAND a high price, meaning you expect her to be loyal and submissive and never look at another guy, JUST BECUASE of your high “input costs” (whatever work you’ve done on yourself), you’ll have about as much luck as the farmer trying to sell steaks at $50 a pound.

Ain’t gonna happen.

Just like in economics, the ONLY thing you can do to improve your odds is INCREASE YOUR VALUE.

And decrease the cost. Maybe demand a bit less from her, at least at the beginning.

Because in the world of dating, the supply demand curve is HIGHLY ELASTIC.

Meaning in the eyes of ALL WOMEN, there are many, many substitutions for YOU.

Harsh but true.

But guess what? The more you improve yourself, your confidence, your frame, your conversational skills, and everything else women find naturally attractive, there will be LESS SUBSTITUTIONS for you, and your value will soar.

Improve Your Life:


mindpersuasion.com

Is Your Life In A Repeating Loop?

Bust Out Of Your Rut

Try Something New

It’s easy to fall into a rut.

Get up at the same time every day, do the same things, watch the same TV shows, eat the same foods.

Some people get into a comfortable rhythm and never get out.

Now, if that’s all you want from life, that’s fine.

Some people are perfectly happy to stay safe, comfortable.

After all, if you’ve put in the work, and you’ve made your money, and have a healthy relationship with your family, that’s a pretty good place to be.

In fact, that’s where most of us would like to end up.

The great paradox of life, though, is to get to that place of relaxed comfort, we’ve got to go through a lot of situations that are the opposite.

Meaning before you get that awesome job that pays you what you’re worth for doing what you’re best at, you’ve got to live through a lot of crap.

To get to that great relationship, you’ve got to sort through a lot of nutjobs.

In fact, you may say that’s the whole purpose of life.

The journey where you find yourself, maximize your skills, and discover your true self.

To be sure, it ain’t easy. And it certainly ain’t quick.

A lot of people give up halfway, thinking they’ve made it when they’re really just “good enough.”

Are you ready to settle for “good enough” or do you want more?

Do you want to just “get by” or do you want to get a lot?

Do you want to just survive, or absolutely thrive?

Only you know the REAL answer to these questions, and only when you’re being brutally honest with yourself.

As it turns out, one of the easiest things we humans can do is deceive ourselves.

This is easy to see in others, but only the rare few can see it in themselves.

But those that do, and those who are not only honest with themselves generally do much, much better than those that don’t.

What about you? Are you willing to dream big, and then get busy?

Or are you willing to settle?

Nobody can answer that question for you.

But if you’re willing to move forward, this can help:

Self Confidence Generator

How To Be Like A Kid Again

Speak With Childlike Fearlessness

How To Speak Fearlessly

Little kids are amazing.

They are both fearless and adorable at the same time.

They speak without worrying about what people will say.

Now, if you’re a parent this isn’t so great. But if you’re like me, and you enjoy other people’s kids, this is pretty fun to watch.

They have ZERO problems standing up in the middle of a crowd and shouting whatever’s on their mind.

Again, this is pretty embarrassing for the parents sometimes, but this fearlessness is precisely why kids are so adorable.

We don’t have to try and guess what they mean, or interpret the multiple layers of body language and facial expressions.

They are just pure, open, fearless energy.

Maybe they remind us the way we used to be. Maybe they remind us when times were a lot simpler. Who knows.

But it’s pretty widely agreed upon that one (there are MANY) measures of the “quality” of the adult is whether or not they like kids.

When I was a kid, there was a old lady who lived next door who HATED kids. At least we thought so. We’d be playing outside, and she’d peek out through the window and scare the crap out of us.

Now, she may have loved kids, but didn’t know how to talk to them. Who knows.

This is a funny thing that happens to us as we get older.

Communication becomes harder. More complicated. There’s more risk, more at stake.

That natural outgoing “pureness” gets covered up by a layer of careful protection, anxiety, and sometimes fear.

The problem is that when people watch us, and they see us not being as outgoing as we’d like to be, they assume all kinds of things about us.

Maybe we don’t like them. Maybe we’re “stuck up.” Maybe we think we’re better than everybody.

To make matters worse, everybody’s standing around, inside their own protective bubble of “social safety” and waiting for somebody else to make the first move.

Why not you?

Why not be the person who walks over and starts the conversation?

Why not be the person who shows everybody else it’s still safe to be outgoing and expressive?

Of course, this won’t come as naturally as when you were a kid. But the benefits of being adult means you can decide HOW you think, instead of just relying on instincts.

And make no mistake, you CAN retrain your brain just as easily as you can learn anything else.

And you HAVE learned a lot in life already, right?

Learn how to program your brain, and express yourself.

This will show you how:

Self Confidence Generator