Copied from my blog, A Dark Heart
Confidence.
It seems to be the answer to all of life’s problems.
How do I get the girl(s) I want? Be confident.
How do I ace that interview? Be confident.
How do I stop people from taking advantage of me? Be confident.
How do I ___? Be confident.
And this is where generalizations crumble. The most common piece of advice given to guys, from both sexes, on how to get girls for any purpose (notch, girlfriend, wifey, etc) is to simply ‘be confident’. Surely you’ve heard it before. Hold you head up straight. Maintain eye contact. Relax, have fun. Approach. Put your chest out. Don’t take crap from anyone. Stop caring about what other people think. Just be yourself. I can go for days.
This is the shortcut, the ‘fake it til you make it’ approach that doesn’t last. It is merely a step, one that many have trouble rising above. Although a personality shift from beta to alpha does involve a certain period of behavioral modifications (stop looking at the ground, stop fidgeting), eventually you reach the apex of these bunny hills only to find a double diamond before you. And precisely because this confidence mindset works so well in the short term, it becomes an endless discussion of tips, tricks, techniques, and ‘inner game’, but because it doesn’t last, it leads to disenchantment. Some call this being jaded. Others look at themselves and find that it hasn’t brought satisfaction, that they have traded one distraction for another rather than pursuing the harder, but more rewarding path of true confidence.
So what’s the difference? Let me tell you a story.
Confidence as a Mindset
I was never a ladies’ man. I remember my first crush in grade school. She didn’t know I existed. Growing up I had no idea how to talk to girls, how to show my desire and reach a favorable outcome. I met my first girlfriend as a senior in high school, my ‘first love’. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I wrote her notes, carried her books, and spent every moment I could in her presence. Imagine the worst beta offenses, some too gut wrenching even for chick flicks – I did them all. And we didn’t even ****. It wasn’t until a year later when I was done feeling sorry for myself that my second girlfriend initiated me. What followed through most of college was serial monogamy. One girlfriend after another, repeating the same mistakes over and over, though a bit less each time. I once drove across 3 states to rendezvous, all for a kiss and a fantasy of consummating a ‘long distance relationship’. Sick yet?
I began to realize that something was off. Why was it this much work? Why did girls hold all the cards? What was this mystery? The answers all had one common denominator – me. It all began as I was waiting on a plane for another boring summer vacation, perusing the mini bookstore when I came across Neil Strauss’s ‘The Game’. It made me think. It wasn’t long before I devoured any and all material I could find on how to act, dress, talk, walk, flirt, approach, and break down interactions with women into mathematical formulas. Slowly but surely, it worked. I had a formless mentor and I was retracing his steps.
Over time I stopped talking softly. I started to care about presentation. I walked with my head up. I quit apologizing. I told myself in the mirror, ‘you are one bad son of a *****’. Some habits took years to break. All those nuances you read about – how to escalate kino, gauge interest, push-pull, became second nature. At times I’d surprise myself as I was running a ‘routine’ on auto pilot with predictable results.
I had internalized the basics. I became ‘confident’. With more successes in shorter time spans I could take a step back and search for root causes and a greater purpose. And in this search I found something amiss. I lacked true confidence. Not this ‘feel good’ garbage you recite every morning, but a deep understanding of self worth and direction verifiable by real world success.
Confidence Manifest
As it turns out a lot of these teachings, while great initially and situationally applicable (do 1, 2, 3, and if she does A, you do B), are merely bandaids. They don’t address the gooey center, the foundation which must be built for lasting success – confidence manifest.
I’ll use fitness as an example, as it’s a field in which I’ve spent the better part of a decade. I picked up weights near the end of high school as I got tired of being the scrawny kid no one would take seriously. I was fed up, tired of being bullied, and sexually pissed that girls didn’t like me ‘like that’, but I had no idea what I was doing. I joined a local rec, met some guys, and through trial and error and nature’s surge of testosterone packed on a few pounds. It wasn’t until several years later that I got serious, picked up books on basic barbell strength training, joined Bodybuilding, and began to dig deeper that I saw a real transformation. What followed was a mini obsession with perfection, from dieting, to custom routines, to every new fad I could find. Should I eat broccoli or cauliflower?
And through it all I got the body I wanted. I gained the strength, the size, the look, the know-how, the lifelong habit, and most importantly confidence manifest. I began to train others. I made up exercises. I became a trendsetter wherever I went. I’d do something wacky and a week later I’d see other guys attempting the same. Some would approach me and ask what I was doing because it ‘looked cool’. The girls would stop to watch. There was no grunting, no banging of dumbbells to garner attention. I simply was.
I know what to do to accomplish a goal, how long it will take, every step and every pitfall. I’m confident in my ability to achieve whatever physical feat I choose. I don’t need to debate 3-5 reps or 8-12, what days to train arms and when to hit legs, or what the ‘best’ exercise is for my biceps. Let the dogs bark. Become a wolf.
And so we come full circle to becoming a high value man, the underlying theme you’ll find at this abode. It takes time, effort, and sacrifice. The tips and tricks, the ‘confidence’ mindset is only the first step. Once internalized, it needs tangible backing. You can’t be confident in your body if you haven’t developed it to your liking and experienced the pain, the struggles, the sacrifices, and the rewards. You can’t be confident in your relationships if you haven’t done the same. You can’t be money confident if you haven’t experienced the basics of assets, liabilities, saving, living below your means, having a passion, generating value, and hustling.
Know this – no amount of game will make you more valuable beneath the surface. Sooner or later, the truth comes out. You will have to face yourself and ask ‘what do I have to offer? How valuable am I really?‘ This is exactly the problem most guys relying on bandaids face: they initially attract a woman through a series of behaviors, but quickly revert to their old ways given enough time in a relationship, then wonder why she leaves or why they’re unhappy.
So in your path of conquering whatever you choose, keep your eye on the prize, lest you wake up one day wishing you were back in college. As a mentor once told me, ‘build your empire and they will come’.
Confidence.
It seems to be the answer to all of life’s problems.
How do I get the girl(s) I want? Be confident.
How do I ace that interview? Be confident.
How do I stop people from taking advantage of me? Be confident.
How do I ___? Be confident.
And this is where generalizations crumble. The most common piece of advice given to guys, from both sexes, on how to get girls for any purpose (notch, girlfriend, wifey, etc) is to simply ‘be confident’. Surely you’ve heard it before. Hold you head up straight. Maintain eye contact. Relax, have fun. Approach. Put your chest out. Don’t take crap from anyone. Stop caring about what other people think. Just be yourself. I can go for days.
This is the shortcut, the ‘fake it til you make it’ approach that doesn’t last. It is merely a step, one that many have trouble rising above. Although a personality shift from beta to alpha does involve a certain period of behavioral modifications (stop looking at the ground, stop fidgeting), eventually you reach the apex of these bunny hills only to find a double diamond before you. And precisely because this confidence mindset works so well in the short term, it becomes an endless discussion of tips, tricks, techniques, and ‘inner game’, but because it doesn’t last, it leads to disenchantment. Some call this being jaded. Others look at themselves and find that it hasn’t brought satisfaction, that they have traded one distraction for another rather than pursuing the harder, but more rewarding path of true confidence.
So what’s the difference? Let me tell you a story.
Confidence as a Mindset
I was never a ladies’ man. I remember my first crush in grade school. She didn’t know I existed. Growing up I had no idea how to talk to girls, how to show my desire and reach a favorable outcome. I met my first girlfriend as a senior in high school, my ‘first love’. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I wrote her notes, carried her books, and spent every moment I could in her presence. Imagine the worst beta offenses, some too gut wrenching even for chick flicks – I did them all. And we didn’t even ****. It wasn’t until a year later when I was done feeling sorry for myself that my second girlfriend initiated me. What followed through most of college was serial monogamy. One girlfriend after another, repeating the same mistakes over and over, though a bit less each time. I once drove across 3 states to rendezvous, all for a kiss and a fantasy of consummating a ‘long distance relationship’. Sick yet?
I began to realize that something was off. Why was it this much work? Why did girls hold all the cards? What was this mystery? The answers all had one common denominator – me. It all began as I was waiting on a plane for another boring summer vacation, perusing the mini bookstore when I came across Neil Strauss’s ‘The Game’. It made me think. It wasn’t long before I devoured any and all material I could find on how to act, dress, talk, walk, flirt, approach, and break down interactions with women into mathematical formulas. Slowly but surely, it worked. I had a formless mentor and I was retracing his steps.
Over time I stopped talking softly. I started to care about presentation. I walked with my head up. I quit apologizing. I told myself in the mirror, ‘you are one bad son of a *****’. Some habits took years to break. All those nuances you read about – how to escalate kino, gauge interest, push-pull, became second nature. At times I’d surprise myself as I was running a ‘routine’ on auto pilot with predictable results.
I had internalized the basics. I became ‘confident’. With more successes in shorter time spans I could take a step back and search for root causes and a greater purpose. And in this search I found something amiss. I lacked true confidence. Not this ‘feel good’ garbage you recite every morning, but a deep understanding of self worth and direction verifiable by real world success.
Confidence Manifest
As it turns out a lot of these teachings, while great initially and situationally applicable (do 1, 2, 3, and if she does A, you do B), are merely bandaids. They don’t address the gooey center, the foundation which must be built for lasting success – confidence manifest.
I’ll use fitness as an example, as it’s a field in which I’ve spent the better part of a decade. I picked up weights near the end of high school as I got tired of being the scrawny kid no one would take seriously. I was fed up, tired of being bullied, and sexually pissed that girls didn’t like me ‘like that’, but I had no idea what I was doing. I joined a local rec, met some guys, and through trial and error and nature’s surge of testosterone packed on a few pounds. It wasn’t until several years later that I got serious, picked up books on basic barbell strength training, joined Bodybuilding, and began to dig deeper that I saw a real transformation. What followed was a mini obsession with perfection, from dieting, to custom routines, to every new fad I could find. Should I eat broccoli or cauliflower?
And through it all I got the body I wanted. I gained the strength, the size, the look, the know-how, the lifelong habit, and most importantly confidence manifest. I began to train others. I made up exercises. I became a trendsetter wherever I went. I’d do something wacky and a week later I’d see other guys attempting the same. Some would approach me and ask what I was doing because it ‘looked cool’. The girls would stop to watch. There was no grunting, no banging of dumbbells to garner attention. I simply was.
I know what to do to accomplish a goal, how long it will take, every step and every pitfall. I’m confident in my ability to achieve whatever physical feat I choose. I don’t need to debate 3-5 reps or 8-12, what days to train arms and when to hit legs, or what the ‘best’ exercise is for my biceps. Let the dogs bark. Become a wolf.
And so we come full circle to becoming a high value man, the underlying theme you’ll find at this abode. It takes time, effort, and sacrifice. The tips and tricks, the ‘confidence’ mindset is only the first step. Once internalized, it needs tangible backing. You can’t be confident in your body if you haven’t developed it to your liking and experienced the pain, the struggles, the sacrifices, and the rewards. You can’t be confident in your relationships if you haven’t done the same. You can’t be money confident if you haven’t experienced the basics of assets, liabilities, saving, living below your means, having a passion, generating value, and hustling.
Know this – no amount of game will make you more valuable beneath the surface. Sooner or later, the truth comes out. You will have to face yourself and ask ‘what do I have to offer? How valuable am I really?‘ This is exactly the problem most guys relying on bandaids face: they initially attract a woman through a series of behaviors, but quickly revert to their old ways given enough time in a relationship, then wonder why she leaves or why they’re unhappy.
So in your path of conquering whatever you choose, keep your eye on the prize, lest you wake up one day wishing you were back in college. As a mentor once told me, ‘build your empire and they will come’.
