Powerful Connections

A few years ago as I was hanging in a black line, my head upside down, I couldn’t help myself. I had to start laughing as I realized how ridiculous I looked. People were standing on the ground looking at me, dangling completely helpless – surrendered to the situation. I got down, landed on my back, and life went on. I was proud.

5 minutes, or what felt like an eternity, before that the rope was secured around my waist. It was all or nothing. Move, or face the consequence of being proclaimed “chicken…” It was a company event during the spring and the weather was great. Every last one of the participants was in high spirit. And now, we had to stretch ourselves.

I realized that I could either go back in or move out over the edge, and no one would push me either way.  Life is like that, we often times come up with different stories on why we have not yet succeeded. “I can’t win because X” or “I cannot complete this course because my train leaves two hours before the scheduled agenda,” or whatever it is… The stories we tell ourselves are endless in number and incredibly disempowering. 

The fact of the matter is that we always have a choice, and it’s a lot easier for us to hallucinate about the opposite. If we had no choice, the decision to not live a fulfilling life was not ours, so we are not at fault for not achieving our dreams; the world is! Whether it is about the sucky job we have, the fact that we’re not with the woman of our dreams, or that we don’t have enough money in the bank account to lead the life we really want is not our fault. It’s because our bosses do not appreciate us, it’s because women are drawn to assholes, or it’s because the market is bad. It’s not OUR fault!

So, there I was, hanging upside down, laughing my ass off. I was feeling great, feeling alive knowing that when I faced the choice I may have hesitated at first but, in the end I played full out. I was proud.

My options were limited but, at least they were mine. And I was proud of choosing to expand my horizon instead of coming up with limiting excuses.

I hate to burst your bubble… It IS our fault, if we are not getting what we want. You see, you CAN get a new job in which you will feel challenged and in contribution, you CAN get the woman of your dreams without acting like someone you’re not, and it IS possible to short-trade stock in a downward market.

All you need to do is ask yourself the question you have not yet asked yourself – [… … …… …… ?] – Yeah, that’s the question!

Now, let’s go rappelling!

After our first night of a live event, Martin - our pick up coach for Aarhus - and I went out. Actually, we just went to get a beer at one of the bars in the nearby area so we could talk about our observations and plan a strategy for the next day. As usual, Martin was in a cool and calm state, almost obsessed with searching out people to interact with.

Martin led us through the bar, and before I knew it, we were talking with two cute blonde girls by a pool-table.

He had approached with a smile, locked in, and taken the hand of the cuter girl of the two in less than 5 seconds. I was just standing behind him, not even aware of the situation, as I was still thinking about the observations I had made during the evening. All the sudden he gave me the hand of the girl, and I moved in for a lot of fun.

However, it suddenly hit me. I felt one-it-is, the most dreaded disease in the seduction community. It crept in on me as I was standing there, talking with this smiling girl in a black party dress. Sure, she was having fun with the two of us taking turns to impersonate a poor palm-reader for some odd reason. The palm-reading was her idea to rationalize our holding hands, and it just carried from there. I was smiling, and I wasn’t at all mentally present. It quickly ebbed out after that.

One-it-is. When the girl you were with or are trying to be with is the person through which you filter the world. When you put a tasty apple into your mouth, only to notice that it turns to dust in your mouth, leaving you forever famished.

So, how does a pick up artist with going on 10 years of intensive experience with seduction and even quite extensive knowledge about relationship building get infected with that?

Well that’s just it –it’s a matter of choice. At some point I chose to build a part of my identity around my relationship. People that know me well will tell you that I take on far too much hardship and put faith in other people’s willingness to change that I fail to recognize when it’s time to walk away. This night, I realized what it would mean for me in the future if I kept reverting to my old dead-end beliefs about the external source of the infection.

The key question to ask yourself is: Do you really love who you are with, or do you love the memory of your best time together with that person. Sure, something inside you will convince you that these are equal, and you can rebuild for the future. It is hard to let go. It is hard to realize that nothing that great lasts forever, and to accept that you are beyond the point of no return.

To me, the question I keep asking myself now is: If you had just met her and the situation was like it is now, would you have invested the same amount of emotions that you do now?

So, Martin and I went to the next room and yet again he led the way by instantly chatting up two guys, and then bouncing off to a couple. I sat down in a remote corner, all alone, thinking about stuff and just enjoyed to watch him work the room.

After 2 minutes he needed my help. He had befriended the guy but, he wouldn’t go down without a fight. So, the guy kept touching the girl whenever Martin got too much of her verbal attention. I went in there, introduced myself and struck up conversation with Martin’s rival so he was occupied with me, not with her. With the guy off her back, Martin was free to build a connection without disturbance, and as I noticed that he was good, I decided to head for my car and the one-hour drive home.

The next day, Martin showed up with a phone number and a date with that same girl. I showed up with the answer to the last question in this blog post…

“Nobody’s perfect.”

No matter the previous experiences with women, almost every last one of the participants at our live events come to us with stories on why they could not approach in the past. I have heard a lot of different stories, most of which, when thought through, have made no logical sense.

Put in other words, most guys choose to not approach based on the fear of what will happen if they decide to actually do it. In the seduction community, this is known as Approach Anxiety, or AA. In my experience AA is an expression of relying on external validation. We are so hooked up on getting a positive feedback from getting positive input from others that we choose not to approach, in order to avoid dealing with the soon to follow brush-off. Even so, our outspoken excuses differ greatly.

Let me just say straight off the tee that when you are starting out your life as an aspiring pick up artist, you must honor the little kid inside you and approach whenever you feel it coming on. To my knowledge there is not one single PUA out there that has not felt that gritty feeling of AA in one way or the other. Once we get used to approaching the more ordinary girls, we fear not being accepted by the exceptional girls. I actually started out fearful of approaching ANYONE without at least 7 beers in the belly!

So, how do we move on? Well, we can sit there and think it through or we can go out and get new references: “I approached someone. I’m still alive. I approached someone else. I’m still alive. I approached another girl, and she told me to piss off. I’m still alive.”

Once you start confronting your fears, you will start re-defining them. To me, that notion, combined with deep respect for women, is what the lifestyle and the principles of the pick up artist is all about.

Which of these two statements feel more powerful to you?

“Dammit, I wish I would have just said something, she was SMILING at me!” - or: “Dammit, I am so glad I proved to myself that I could talk to that girl, even if it were only for a second!”

If the second sentence sounds more powerful to you, imagine what your approaches will look like when you follow the advice of our Powerful Attraction coaches:

In the next issue of our newsletter, we will be covering the 7 Steps of Powerful Approaches, so if you’re not signed up already, go ahead and do that on the main page now. I imagine you will want to benefit from this great opportunity to increase your approaching success, right?

Oh, and incidentally: As you were reading this post, some girl out there just got approached by a guy that may not respect her in the way that she deserves to be respected. I hope she wasn’t meant for you.