Ozzie's Blog

(Fair warning: probably my corniest article to date. Meaning I don’t expect you to relate much to what I say here. But hey, it is free. Enjoy!)

It all started small. People would compliment me and I would feel awkward and tense. At first I didn’t pay much attention. Then it grew up and it became almost a default reaction to compliments. It was simple. I couldn’t take compliments. I was perpetually discontent with who I was. Actually compliments brought up the worst in me. “Am I worth it? Is that really me? I know I suck sometimes”, so went my selftalk.



If it was my girlfriend who gave me the compliment, it was not valid because I was banging her. If it was a student it was not serious because the student was on a BC high and just super excited. If it was my company, they are just doing their jobs, it cannot be real.



Bottom Line

I didn’t like myself no matter what I did. Discontent was permanent. It all came down to lower self esteem- I needed to do something, achieve something, win something, be the best at whatever. Horse crap. And the joy of achievement is short lived. It is so fleeting it barely lasts longer than 20 minutes. I might as well get high on alcohol. It is the same shit. I got tired of chasing futile dreams that won’t bring long lasting joy.

Fear Of Non Achievement And Paralysis

Well without achievement what am I? A big nothing. Undependable, untrustworthy, a big none. How can I reconcile my need for achievement with the need to truly feel lasting joy?

The Myth Of Permanence



Actually deep down I believed that positive things could be permanent. It was a big head fuck. I thought that I could be good all the time, do right all the time, feel good all the time, etc...And that in itself is misery.

Nothing is permanent. It is against nature. With achievement I was just trying to perpetuate good feelings. But it is the nature of feelings to not stay with you, no matter what. You can not feel truly miserable more than 20 minutes. Try and time yourself. Same applies to jolly feelings.

I was not after real achievement. I was after good feelings. I was after a mirage.

Hey, I Am A Good Guy

It all came down to admitting I am a good person and that I have something to offer to the world. Something unique. My contribution. However small it was mine. Good guys do that. I need to admit that even though I might screw up big here and there I am still good. Nothing is wasted. Even one hour in the tube, where the train stops for no reason, it is a good hour. I don’t have to do anything in particular.

Pick Up And Permanence

Most guys want to extend their good performance to all their actions in the field. This in turn sabotages them. Why? Their state is defined by whether they succeed or fail in the approach. Their state goes up and down because good/bad performances in a club scenario largely depend on a variety of factors not under your control.

Try To Fuck Up



Pay attention to where Kasparov says that in every successful game there were a number of mistakes.

I send the students all the time into “failed missions”-chances of succeeding are none. I want them to get resilient at making mistakes. It turns guys on to feel they can fail and nothing happens. They always come back to me and say “It went well”. What? It means they are ok with making mistakes. Their state is not affected by failure no more. Performance doesn’t define who they are. They go on to achieve things for real without the strain of “having to be perfect every time”

What Is Your Contribution To The World However Small?

What is that you offer that it is unique to you and you give to the world without effort. No matter how small you can bring something which is usually under your awareness level. “Hey, I can touch my nose with my tongue”. Open like that. “This morning I made a fantastic bowl of oatmeal, then I put some raisins in it and I made the perfect breakfast”. Open like that.

Don’t care about the consequences. Let the chips fall where they may.

Not in the physical world because resources are finite. Skills, just like oil, are finite.



They had to put a cap on the salary of the banker fat cats because they were destroying the financial system. Their greed is infinite but resources are finite.

However, growth can go on forever in the inner world. Knowing what to do, on the outside, is comparably finite-most guys operate with a handful of tactics. As you grow in the game those few tactics might change as dictated by many factors. However, those outer game moves are forced to be few because you can’t get good at 100 things. For some, it is just physical game and isolation. I used to be like that for a long time.

Goran is like that too. Zero or no emphasis on verbal communication.



He gets slapped in the face and grabs the girl’s hand and spins her around and goes for make out; or picks up a chick from the floor in the middle of the street and runs away with her in his arms, girl screaming- I shake my head in disapproval because I just lost my camera man for the night to a chick. There goes the neighbourhood.

For other guys, they rely more on verbal skills-cockiness, vibe, push/pull, etc. Point being those skills are just a fraction of what needs to happen internally.

The Internals

Just like electricity, they are there but we don’t see them. They are not so obvious to the naked eye. It is the inner core of beliefs, assumptions and emotions going through the player’s head. It is fascinating to me that some pitchers at major league level can make a career based on a fast ball....and a dubious slider. They make millions based on an otherwise considered “poor” set of skills. Cuban Defector baseball player Aroldis Chapman will sign a multimillion contract this winter based on the fact he can throw a 103 mph fast ball. No other pitch of much value in his arsenal....a dubious slider, may be. That’s all he needs to get the big bucks. Just one outer thing.

So is the case of many pick up players. They got a couple of moves down and they thrive. They get laid. They figure out the rest of the game through those key moves. I have made a student approach an entire night with the claw as his only weapon to the point he got a bruise in his forearm at the end of the night. That was some extreme shit. He learned more from that key move than if I had taught him a variety of physical game moves.

Spending Time on the Unnecessary

Salsa dancers spend lots of time in class when it is not needed anymore. After you learn a couple of moves and you can do the basics it is time to develop your personal style. No need to take more classes may be, sparingly. I know girls in my former class who can’t still dance after 3 years. It is a pain to dance with them. Why? Too much time in class, little dance floor time. As you grow, more time should be spent practicing and less on class-read theory for pick up. Most dancing knowledge will figure itself out.

Guys in the game tend to have it backwards. It is a redundancy for me to find that 90 percent of bc students fall in this category prior to program. I always hear “I have spent 2 years reading this thing, but I have done zero or almost no approaching”. Then after a night of approaching on program, they say, “I never thought it was so simple”. It is simple but not easy. The moves are simple if you know what you are doing.

It is what you don’t see that is more important.

List of things in the world you don’t see but are essential.
. Electricity
. Heart pumping
. Heat
. Air

Just to name a few.

Internals for the game are like oxygen. You can’t survive long without it. At some point you will crack. Foundations are not in place. 90-10 rule at work: 10 percent of communication is the actual words, the rest like tonality, body language, etc., are more important. They all come from inside, how comfortable you are, how happy you feel. A comfortable dude will be naturally loud since he can’t see potential threats in the environment. He is not afraid to draw attention onto himself.

4 or 5 years ago as teachers we assumed students had a solid inner system down so we focused more on the outer side of the game. That was a bad assumption-how can you be loud without being truly confident. We rectified a long time ago. Results soared when we switch focus to the necessary, not the urgent.

Why is it so neglected?

Well, you don’t see it. It is not tangible so it calls no attention on to it. Fear cannot be seen. You cannot even tell from the look of a guy’s face if he is afraid. It is hard to say. The naked eye deceives you. Need to trust instinct.



“You don’t need to know when you got instinct”, Reservoir Dogs. You can say that again.

We are not used to listen to that little voice in our heads otherwise called “instinct”. It is our wiser self speaking to us. That’s a skill you need to develop. A very important one.

Involutions

In the pre historic times of pick up, teaching was reduced to pure NLP and incantations to a bunch of guys in a closed room.





This being so gay we swung the pendulum all the way to outer game-tactics, lines, routines, etc. Welcome to the world of the trickster. A charlatan armoured with props and pick up arsenal of lines and “tool box”.



Just 2 or 3 years ago the pendulum swung again, this time back to the centre. This is where we are at right now. Where do we go from here?

Refrigerator?

I found this and thought about sharing it with the board.
“H.R. executives of major corporations were asked for stories of unusual behaviour by job applicants. The responses were:



1. "...stretched out on the floor to fill out the job application."
2. "She wore a Walkman and said she could listen to me and the music at the same time."
3. "A balding candidate abruptly excused himself. Returned to the office a few minutes later, wearing a hairpiece."
4. "...asked to see interviewer's resume to see if the executive was qualified to judge the candidate."
5. "...announced she hadn't had lunch and proceeded to eat a hamburger and French fries in the interviewer's office - wiping the ketchup on her sleeve."
6. "Stated that, if he were hired, he would demonstrate his loyalty by having the corporate logo tattooed on his forearm."
7. "Interrupted to phone his therapist for advice on answering specific interview questions."
8. "When I asked him about his hobbies, he stood up and started tap dancing around my office."
9. "At the end of the interview, while I stood there dumb-struck, went through my purse, took out a brush, brushed his hair, and left."
10. "... Pulled out a Polaroid camera and snapped a flash picture of me. Said he collected photos of everyone who interviewed him."
11. "Said he wasn't interested because the position paid too much."
12. "During the interview, an alarm clock went off from the candidate's brief case. He took it out, shut it off, apologized, and said he had to leave for another interview."
13. "A telephone call came in for the job applicant. It was from his wife. His side of the conversation went like this: 'Which company? When do I start? What's the salary?' I said, 'I assume you're not interested in conducting the interview any further.' He promptly responded, 'I am, as long as you'll pay me more.' I didn't hire him, but later found out there was no other job offer. It was a scam to get a higher offer."
14. "Candidate said he really didn't want to get a job, but the unemployment office needed proof that he was looking for one."
15.



Fun and Bootcamp

At first, I didn’t quite understand the concept that Tim was introducing. I have to admit to be even critical of it. He proposed “have a party” when you go to a club. It was hard for me to remove the outcome orientation of “getting laid” from the pickup equation. I thought I was cheating myself.

However, the evidence is overwhelming. People are more productive when they are enjoying what they are doing. Work and play should go together.

Side note: excessive orientation to work or a specific outcome will render you unproductive.

One night on BC, I spent the whole night monitoring and maintaining my student’s state. Next day I asked them to draw a chart of their state throughout the night. Coincidentally, they did their best job when the chart hit peak or “functional” state.

The Way of the Master

“My father actually moved out from Chicago just so he could play tennis 365 days a year, so it was - it was a place we played every day. We played before school. We played after school. We woke up. We played tennis. We brushed our teeth in that order.” (Andre Agassi)

Enjoying the process is not new. There is no outcome dependence in Agassi’s quote.

Having a vacation when you go to a club is where you are going to find the meat of your practice. Take a holiday in the club, relax, shoot the shit with a girl, take it easy and find your party in the party.

You won’t find a master at anything that doesn’t enjoy what he does for the sake of it. Find a way to like going to clubs and talking to chicks. Outcome dependence takes the fun out of it. I am likely to have more fun on the dance floor when I don’t have any real outcome except for dancing.

Have Small and Achievable Goals

This works for me. If I am able to chunk down anything that I am doing into something smaller and seemingly attainable, it is likely to get me going faster than having impressive outcomes to get. If I dance, I am going to focus on doing one move the entire night until I have it down. I don’t care if I don’t get it right half the time. But one simple move. No more.

Can I read a chapter of a book at a time? I focus on reading a chapter only. I don’t care about the rest of the book.

This is applicable to approaching women too.

You need to find the process that works for you.

Typewriters

Some writers stick to their old typewriters for a reason. I thought it was stupid but I found the reason why they do this. They don’t want to be distracted with internet or anything at their fingertips. Readily available information can be a huge distraction and production will go down. Too bad we are hooked on the internet as a source of entertainment.



.....when asked how he writes, Frederick Forsyth has a simple answer. "With a typewriter." He admits this is to avoid the more difficult business of describing his creative process, but it also means he can celebrate old friends. There was the steel-cased portable he used as a foreign correspondent in the 1960s. "It had a crease across the lid which was done by a bullet in Biafra. It just kept tapping away. It didn't need power, it didn't need batteries, it didn't need recharging. One ribbon went back and forward and back until it was a rag, almost, and out came the dispatches."

There you go. Minimalistic but effective. This guy has written plenty of bestsellers using this old fashioned tool.

I am used to my first approach of the night opening well and getting comfortable socially right off the bat.



I guess this is a bad habit too.

Last weekend on my first day of program, as I lead off the charge into a crowded night club, my first didn’t go as swimmingly. I approached a 1girl-2guy group and of all things, the girl is the one that is trying to get rid of me. The guys are cool and extremely friendly, re-engaging me but the girl keeps saying for me to fuck off because she was talking to the guys first - what?. Exactly. I hung in there as long as I could, grabbing the girl, holding her hand as I talked to the guys and continually trying to turn it around to no avail. I guess it was my “pickup” ego dictating “you must perform in all situations”, “you must be perfect”, etc. I hung in there for as long as I could, until I proceeded to open an adjacent set that blew right open. It is important to notice how after you have been through some severe plowing, every other set looks easy.

Fast forward to next day. I lead the charge again into a different, but highly challenging night club - way hotter girls, sky high energy, all dance floor, etc. I open my first couple set - guy and girl - despite Goran’s remarks “not to open that set”. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about - I fade in and out. Well, I found out very quickly what Goran was talking about. The girl was crying and the guy looked extremely sad. I walked into this. Right off the bat, they are extremely emotional both of them like somebody has delivered bad news to them, like a dead relative or something. My guess it was a couple breaking up. Anyway, I plowed on and grabbed the guy, tried to talk to the girl, she can’t talk due to the fact she is crying and shit. Guy is extremely apologetic and politely asks me to give them a minute. I immediately open a 3 girl set sitting down next to them, which blew open right away. I guess it only takes a worst case scenario to kill all your fears and make your next set easier.

I have made a habit of walking into seemingly impossible situations as a cure for all my fears. Later on that night, I walked into a 2 set, again super hot blonde engaged by huge bodybuilding type of dude.



I ignored guy, kept engaging blonde and grabbing her. As the set starts to take off, the guy, sick of being ignored, introduces himself to me. As I say my name to him he blurts out “You are Ozzie from RSD, you are trying to blow me off. That’s so cool!” The guy is a community guy and we start chatting as the blond stands there listening to us talk about RSD and the community and what have you. I give him props for approaching one of the hottest girls in the club that night, etc. This was the last thing in my mind coming in, that I will be “identified”.

The Unexpected

Expect the unexpected and keep going. There is a video in your head about how things must go. If reality doesn’t fit the script, there is a huge breakdown mentally. In social situations, there is no script. One thing I can almost guarantee whatever your script is about how things must go it will be challenged, mostly destroyed by the weight of gravity - the reality of the game. In the same way, reality can exceed your expectations. Things in general go better than expected. Your script might be surpassed by what happens to you. The map is never the territory.

Too many variables to control to even care. As Steven Covey says you must only be concerned with those things that are under your control. This is the essence of “proactiveness” vs. “reactiveness”. Peoples' reactions to you fall under the realm of “out of your control” so why focus on them.

Once Bitten, Twice....

It doesn’t matter how long you are in the field, you are likely to “relearn” your lessons almost every other night. I encourage my students to constantly “recycle” their knowledge by helping others on the forum. I used to do that before I became an instructor for free. It paid for me to help others by constantly recycling things I had learned before. No question in a forum is “retarded” per se; you need to establish where the poster is coming from. That would recycle your knowledge about the situation, I don’t care how newbie the question is. Ignore the negative threads though because there is hardly any value in them.

Also in the field, keep doing those little things that made you successful in the beginning but you don’t want to do anymore because you are “over” them. It is important to remember you are not over anything. Things will come back to you that you thought you had passed, over and over.

Can’t Resist Chocolate

Due to my low carb diet I have huge cravings for sweets during the week. Can’t wait for my carb days which are Friday and Saturday. The other day, I came home and ate all the bonbons my girlfriend was saving for friends. She was pissed. She hides them now.



You can’t resist performing well all the time. It is a drug. Just like chocolate, it gives you a quick high. Keep reminding yourself “You don’t need chocolate”. You can live without it and healthier. Same with perfection, there is no need for it but you crave it.

They got no talent according to the bullying jury of X factor but they will win one of the world’s famous talent competitions. If you see the fearless twins perform, you can’t really blame the sour-souled judges for being so critical - harsh criticsm that appears to make no dent in the young brothers' good spirits. However, despite it all, not only will they win the competition, they are likely to get a juicy record deal after the program is over. Apparently you can suck and still make it.



I Have Zero Interest in Pickup

After all these years the more I talk about pickup, the more I lose interest in the topic. I don’t do pickup anymore. I got zero openers, no tactics to speak of, no general strategy, no phone text tips to give you, no pull grand plan or whatever. No attraction switches, buying temperature spikes, or rapport to build. I got nothing.



I also have no interest in teaching it to guys.

I found the more I stay away from the topic of pickup the better. I forbid pickup language in my programs because I am repulsed by it. I have a general dislike of talking of pickup for the sake of talking about something.

There is a general sense of dislike when you talk about pickup. The mood goes down, people turn logical, and black holes in the form of “sticking points” start to show their ugly head.

Maybe it is a projection of mine. I used to be all about that crap. That’s all I would talk about. As years went by, I learned to hate this jargon crap. All it did was put me in my head.

What’s the Game Today?

I think Jeffy said it is a “whoosh!” or something along those lines. I tend to agree with that type of talk devoid of anything logical.

I also think it is about the killing, subduing and managing of fear. Fear to do all the things you don’t dare to do today or don't allow yourself to do. It has nothing to do with “game”. There is no safe way of doing those things, no matter how much pickup theory you read. There is no way to tip-toe around rejection. It has to be dealt with. Trying to learn the game “safely” is as useless as trying to learn to swim without getting wet. A contradiction in itself.

“Tell Them, Boss”

You think you are weird - walk up to the hottest girl in the club and tell her “I want you to know that girls think I am weird”. You think you can’t get girls - walk up to the hottest group in the club and tell them “Guys, I don’t think I can get a girl. I am so weird”. Make a pause after you say that. Breathe in the fear.

The Onion Theory



Many layers of fear are peeled over a weekend program. Still there is much work to be done after program in terms of skinning, digging and consistent destruction of fear. These days I sit with guys for over an hour and discuss a game plan for the next 3 months where we agree on goals and levels of commitment, etc.

These layers have been built over the years to protect yourself from rejection, fear of disapproval, failure, etc. These layers need to be removed for the true self to come through. Your most confident and comfortable self. Being content under your own skin. No need for add-ons. We all have that core. We all go through the peeling process to reach it.

The Ugly Old Onion

Let’s see this poem I found randomly in the net.

Poem: The Onion

I was an onion before Christ set me free.
Layers upon layers of iniquity.
An ugly old onion whose fragrance was strong;
That my Jesus bought and loved all along.

Unknown to me what He was going to do.
Of what He was planning, I had not a clue.
Pulling each layer off one by one.
In order to make me more like Jesus the Son.

Not really. I disagree.

“An ugly old onion”: this is how most guys look at themselves. They figure they don’t have any attractive qualities that a female would like. Au contraire! Pardon my French.

Talking about strong fragrance, I ordered a BC student to open groups by talking about his armpit sweat which by the way was a cause of concern for him. He found out plenty of hot girls told him they have similar concerns about their bodily functions. They stroke conversations about stinking and they found common ground.



Nice. Hot women are human beings too: they smell, shit, fart and feel awkward too in social situations.

 

The fox is the animal used in mythology to represent trickery. Taking shortcuts.

Other symbols were used like the following.



The myth of the trickster is so commonly represented that it has lost somewhat of its negative meaning. Even Pinocchio runs into a couple of tricksters who convinced him about doing certain things, which threw Pinocchio off his course.

Basically that’s the function of trickery. It throws you off the course of real learning. I have used trickery until it was too late to realize what I was doing. No such a thing as too late.



“Real growth cannot be faked. You must pay the price.” Steven Covey

That applies to everything and anything. For example, plenty of dating companies have gone down the toilet or are semi-active today. The reasons are many: no foundations whatsoever, no business model to stick to in hard times, no solid teaching fundamentals. They just grew at a time where you could sell anything because consumers had money to burn. It was not real growth. When the market boiled down, they ended up where they started.

Growth is a slow maturation process, emphasis on slow. There are really no shortcuts. I remember almost 5 years ago trying to emulate Tim, Tyler and Jeffy’s programs and not measuring up every time. I couldn’t bring what they brought to the table because they have walked the path of growth in teaching this thing. I was way too anxious about results. As a consequence, I was always trailing and taking whatever they gave me to improve my program. Years later, I realized I couldn’t force growth; it had to happen on its own. Pay the price.

Modern Trickery

Today we got planes, cars, internet, iphones which all give you the impressions that distances are shorter, time is not a problem, etc.

That still applies to the outer world. We can all say that we have more time because we have machines that do what 20 servants would do for you in the middle ages. Computers, washing machines, internet shopping, microwaves, vacuums, etc.

This trickery to cheat time is ok as long as we see it for what it is. Just trickery to cheat time and space. Get a job done.

Trickery and Skill Learning

There is a self-discovery process when you learn a skill. When Zen Buddhists learn the art of archery they are not learning how to shoot an arrow. They are learning about themselves. They use it as a form of meditation. It is a process by which you learn about yourself, your inner tendencies, how you deal with your frustration, with your internal chaos, etc.

This process cannot be accelerated more than it should. In fact, trying to accelerate this self-discovery can be counterproductive. You are only going as fast as you can.

It is mind boggling to me the tremendous progress a student can make in one night compared to 5 years ago and still you hear “can I go any faster?”. Yes, you could. But would you really want to?

You are already going faster than any chode out there. You are probably driving at 100 mph compared to the 25 mph you were doing yesterday.

In the back of your head, “modern trickery” rears its ugly head. We don’t even see it, but it is there. It makes us anxious, tense and self-conscious - all negative things to learn a skill which requires presence of mind, relaxation and a learning disposition.

Modern Trickery as Applied to Pick Up

Faking state, using opening lines, cleverly crafted jokes, drug and alcohol induced pick up, reaction seeking material, etc., are part of the modern trickery to fake real growth, namely, bringing your best self to people.

I hear my students say “I used to drink alcohol to approach before this program. I realized I don’t need it anymore”. Modern trickery at work.

Being yourself doesn’t cost anything

Yes, but it is hard as fuck. Talking to people from a place of honesty, discarding their liking you or not as a way to get confident, being out there with your naked self is not easy. Reason why few guys get laid.

We all want to be liked and avoid disapproval as much as possible even if it doesn’t mean anything in the middle of a crowded club. Approval is like candy, we all want it.

This is the reason people thrive on shortcuts. They want the modern trickery. If they can’t find it, they will search the earth for something that resembles it.

Things Get Worse Before They Get Better

Everything looks bad in the middle. If you look at a pie in the oven while it is half baked it doesn’t look good at all. It takes a while before they get their golden colour and tasty looks.

So will your skills in the middle. Nothing would look remotely successful. Blowouts, awkwardness, half-finished interactions, girls taking over your conversation and tooling you, etc. - a work in progress. If you keep your eyes on the growth process of it, you will have no problem. However, if you start thinking of modern trickery, you will delay rather than speed up your growth.

All of us are biased. It is not what we see but what we want to see. This is a fact. There is no discussion about it. Proof is that most people will have different reads for the same situation based on the colouring of their own personalities.

The Sugar Coat



Once I met this guy who annoyed me. I was curious as to why he had such power over me. I couldn’t control myself. This guy would see everything as a plus. He would talk positive all the time and seemed to be happy all the time like T.R. on steroids. It repulsed me. If he missed his plane, he would say: “I will find something to do while I wait for the next. I will answer my mail”. If I missed a plane, I created all kinds of drama and felt miserable until the next plane arrived.

I couldn’t do what he did because we had different reads on a situation. In my case, I couldn’t see the positive in a negative situation. He could or wanted to see only the positive in a negative situation.

We were bound to clash.

I avoided him on purpose. I couldn’t take his unflinching enthusiasm. I thought he was a retard.

Why This Happens

People biased towards problem-solving (logical) spot problems everywhere. They rarely see opportunity.

I was a problem solver, a realist. My annoying friend was opportunity-minded.

It is 2 entirely different mindsets. One – the problem solver- walks around with the world on his shoulders trying to find a fix for all things crooked, while the opportunity-oriented guy walks calmly with no burdens to carry. He just travels through life effortlessly bent on the positive, never on the negative.

We are toilet-trained to find loopholes and fix them from the day we are born. It is hard to shed this “fixer upper” mentality. It actually turns into a drag as we grow up. Why? Because there is always something to fix. The old “whack-a-mole” game is a good metaphor to describe this state of mind.



No matter how many mole heads you hit, there are more coming up and sooner rather than later you will be sent into a frenzy trying to hit mole heads that keep popping up.

Growing Problems

The more you bend yourself on fixing a problem in your personality, the more it grows and becomes bigger.

You play to your strengths, never to your weaknesses. When you are in the middle of the action, there is no time for fixing. You got to play. I remember this little short stop, David Eckstein, who used to play for the Anaheim Angels. He was short and kind of weak for a steroid filled game. I think he got some kind of record for being hit by pitches. He would crowd the plate and let himself be hit by the pitcher and so he gained lots of bases in this fashion - he was not a good hitter. He found his strength in the middle of his weakness. Opportunity-minded. How can you fix the problem of “being small”? You can’t really. He was a crucial part of his team’s 2002 World Series success. Watch him in action.



His bunts sacrifices and hit-by-pitches were instrumental in his team’s success.

It is not what you got but what you do with it.

DAVID ECKSTEIN’S CREDO

1. Take whatever you can out there and turn it into an opportunity even being hit in the head by 95 mile-an-hour fast ball.
2. Use body to crowd plate.
3. Squat as much as possible so strike zone gets smaller for pitcher.
4. Being small is an advantage, not a disadvantage

As a result of his hardcore credo, here are his credentials:

Career highlights

• 2006 Holiday Inn Look Again Player of the Year
• 2-time World Series Champion (2002 Anaheim Angels, 2006 St. Louis Cardinals)
• 2006 World Series MVP
• 2-time All-Star (2005, 2006)
• Babe Ruth Award winner (2006)
• Inaugural winner of the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association's Heart & Hustle Award in 2005.

Not bad for a midget player. Many guys including Barry Fucking Bonds don’t have a World Series Ring on their finger.

In What Ways You Are Like David Eckstein. In What Ways You Are Not

I ask you: “Can you learn from bad nights too?” Your true colours will be revealed by adversity, not by success. Can you go back in your head and find the good things you did on a so-called “bad night” in a club? I am sure you can. It is going to be hard because all you want to do is go back and “fix it” but you can’t. Night is over. Can you remember the things you did well? Can you focus on opportunity?

But how can I improve if I don’t correct myself? How can I fix my problems if I don’t spot them?

Remember that there is a difference between fixing a problem and “fixing” yourself. Don’t be problem-minded, be opportunity-minded. You will travel lighter and better.

“The body is just a convenient carrier for the mind” or “I think, therefore I exist”, “the mind controls the body” etc., are some of the axioms upon which our western culture have been built. All this has done over time is give priority to mind over matter, body, that is. Through the all mighty brain the body can be controlled, subdued, made to act like a puppet on a theatre show.

All they are saying is that logic is king and that emotions, those feelings coming from your body should be ignored - especially gut feelings. We have been indoctrinated over and over by this.

School

Sit up straight, don’t fidget, memorize, accumulate, dissect, pigeon hole, classify, name etc...Conform to logic, ignore impulses, etc.

School is probably the number one Crusader for logic and no surprise, the number 1 killer of emotional life. From the moment you enter a classroom and you have to sit quietly and repeat things and conform to the status quo for 5 to 8 hours to systematic emphasis on intelligence-logical thinking- over emotions. Various tests, drills, and evaluations are doled out to you to see how good you are “at problem solving”, another word for logic.



It is not surprising that many find solace in logic as they grow up. “Because my daddy was poor, it is natural that I am poor too”, “because I am not good looking I cannot be a success with the girls”, “I was never good with women so that’s why I am stuck today”... etc. All of these rationalizations come from logic. It is comfortable to know things have a reason to be or to happen. That’s why it doesn’t make sense when you see an ugly, somehow fucked up looking dude walking out of the club with a beautiful girl. Your mind goes “how did that happen?” meaning there is no logic behind it.

Magazines or the Business of Making You Feel Inadequate



They tell you if you don’t look perfect or have a great body you have no reason to exist in this planet. You are garbage.

Also if you are not rich or famous like those dudes there, you are a lower specimen of a human being. This is all logic by the way. If you were a success you will be in the magazines. Society is forcing this hate logic down your throat. If you are not rich or famous or infamous you have no right to be happy. Die in hell.

At Work

You have to give the appearance of being in control. To do that you learn over the years-you started doing this at school so it is natural- to block your emotions from showing up. To do that you shut down all your body sensations and let the mind take over.

No matter how pissed off you are at your boss, you have to shut that anger down or it would cost you your job. You simply have to disconnect from your body to do that. You do that often-if you have a 24/7 asshole for a boss- and you get good at it... at the expense of your body. You start hating any sensation of feeling coming from the body. People disconnect from their body so much they become robots. “I don’t know how to feel or have an opinion on anything”. Apathy. Thought police hard at work.

Logic and Body Language

You realize why it is so hard to get in state to approach girls because you don’t find a single reason to be happy right now. There is no logic behind it. You can force yourself to get into that mega state but it will quickly fade away because there is no real reason for it: you haven’t won the lottery; you haven’t had an amazing success at anything, etc...Your mind is ruling your body right now.

Sooner rather than later your mind will start sending your body instructions like “you are a loser” “you suck at this” “not going to happen tonight so you better go home”. Your body will reflect these thoughts by slumping down, dragging your feet, no smile on your face, walking aimlessly “looking for a set”, “better talk to friends or get drunk because I will look awkward here”, etc.

By the time you approach a girl –you have to do your approaches according to the pua bible- your body language is so poor you immediately communicate to the girl “I don’t deserve you” and the girl brushes you off. A man would tell you off too. You are reeking of failure and logic.

Emotions and Pick Up

By the time you grow up and come to the game, chances are you have no connection with your body and you are not in the habit of using gut feelings or improvise based on emotions. Actually you are in the habit of shutting your body down because emotions are not welcome in the logical world.

Once you lose touch with your emotion due to excess logic it is like trying to find something in the dark. You cannot see. Since the only way to be emotional-happy, excited, uplifting, funny, playful- is by and through feeling those feelings in your body-not your head-, you are handicapped in the field. You cannot excite or talk to anybody properly. Kind of having no heart, not knowing even where it is.

But people relate to emotions in a club, not to logic. Not being able to feel anything hinders your capacity to talk to people and engage them positively. You might strike short conversations but as soon as logic rears its ugly head you find yourself swimming for attention. People simply don’t want to talk to you.

Unlocking The Power Inside

I ask my students “what are the chances of telling a girl you are a janitor in the first 5 minutes of the interaction?” Suppose you really were a janitor. None. May be 2 out of 10... Those are the usual answers. Logic at work.

Then I go “what are the chances of telling a girl that you wear a yellow night gown around the house because it is silky and comfy in the first 5 minutes of meeting her?” Suppose you really do wear such a gown. No chance. May be 2 out of 10, etc...Those are the usual answers. “Why not?” I ask. The answers usually go along the lines “that would not impress her”.



Then I make them approach a girl by saying “I want you to know I wear a yellow night gown around the house because I find it silky and smooth and slightly tingly”.

Bam! Girl is giggling. They do their best interaction for the night.

Saying What You Feel Like Saying or the Road to Congruency

This goes a long way in pick up. Once we depart from scripted game we get into uncharted territory. We have no means or “tools” to impress anymore. We need to dig and find our own resources to talk to people. Once we declare independence from lines and scripts we are on our own. The first step is to reconnect with our emotions, feelings. But we are cut off from them so by doing things like the one above we get one step closer to our real self.

Last week on program, as I opened the hottest group in my vicinity,



and by far the hottest girl in the club that night - I open the sets nobody wants to open - I got some unlikely hardcore rejection coming in. The not-so-hot girl in the set put her hand in front of my face in a “Stop now” motion.



It is very unlikely for this to happen but when it does it never ceases to amaze me how much of a hard on I get -  I love the challenge. Why? I know this from experience: if I am able to turn this rejection around coming in, the girls in the set want to sleep with me. They get mesmerized by how easy I handle rejection.

Anyway, I stuck in, plowed and it turned out the not-hot girl was half drunk and her boyfriend too. Cool. Immediately the hottest girl want to talk to me and we initiate a chat and it turns out she speaks a bit of Spanish and we talk and get physical very quickly as she is leaning into me like a motherfucker. I can breathe her hottie smell. She is supper friendly as all truly hot girls are with no hang ups or inferiority complexes. Sooner rather than later her not-hot friend and boyfriend disappear leaving us alone. I introduced the hot girl to my student who is standing there watching me. He gets excited and goes kino on her ass.

Now, most guys would have walked away when they get this type of rejection coming in.



Unfortunately they don’t see the silver lining whatsoever. Rejection as an opportunity to show how strong you are internally.

I literally make guys provoke rejection in women in order for them to be able to survive a bad first impression. I give them all kinds of retarded openers, make them approach on one leg, make them open with embarrassing statements about themselves, make them approach women in “impossible” scenarios etc. All this to make them fail, get up, get over and keep walking. Just like a kid would do with no self-consciousness whatsoever.

Little children fall all the time, cry, get up and keep playing. That’s my ultimate goal with guys on program. No matter how many times they fall they must go back in time and become like a kid again: egoless, spotless, impervious to bullets.

Create Opportunities for Rejection

Most fear of rejection is killed when you realized it is not life or death. You won’t die from a rejection. Chances are you are likely to get excited because you dared to do something brave like opening the toughest set in the club etc.

Opportunities for rejection are plenty in a club. However, you can create them. Expose yourself to being blown out and you will grow faster in the game. The goal is not to avoid rejection but to lose our fear of it.

What I found in my own practice is the hotter the girl, the better. So if I get rejected by a hot girl it really turns me on to try it again. The bummer is that most hot girls are friendly and rarely have an attitude. It is just the skunks, midgets and fatties who are defensive. It doesn’t turn me on as much being rejected by a fattie since I have no vested interest in her talking to me.

“I Made A Fool Of Myself”

Most guys dread this. However, there is a major therapeutic value in looking like a fool sometimes. You won’t take yourself so seriously and approaching would not seem like a burden to you. “Now, I have to approach, puffff..”: most guys don’t want to look bad.

Read Mastery by George Leonard and you will find that a key to mastery is to risk looking like a fool, taking chances, risking being rejected etc.

I made a habit of looking bad in front of others. I do it so much I don’t even notice it anymore. I clown so much in public places with my students that I think I embarrass them half the time. Because I do this embarrassing things, my students are not afraid to look bad anymore. Most times we both do embarrassing things together while I film people’s reactions etc. after students see the film they get excited to find out how people don’t give a damn about what you are doing.

Making a fool of yourself should be your credo.

Guide to Look Bad

1. Write down your top 2 fears in a club
2. Put yourself in a situation likely to cause your top 2 fears
3. Repeat

Let’s say your top fear is “rejection by a hot girl”. So you must approach hot girls in order to elicit those fears in you. You will be surprised how those feared scenarios rarely happen. You will kill your fear.

Don’t Entertain Yourself with Your Dark Side

Refuse to evaluate those situations after you have dared to look bad. Don’t curse, criticize or otherwise flagellate yourself for looking bad. Your only goal was to look like an idiot. You did. Mission accomplished. You are golden. Keep doing it and you will eventually not even think about what you have just done. Get negative evaluations about yourself out of your system. You are a champ because you dared. You tried. Make this your only philosophy.






He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
Groucho Marx

“Winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing”, Coach Vince Lombardi.

According to sport history, one of the winningest coaches in History who regaled the world with popular quotes about winning. This take no prisoners attitude gained him praise and games.

Let’s look at his resume:

Honors

• In 1967, Highland Avenue in Green Bay, home to the Packers' Lambeau Field, was renamed for Lombardi.
• As part of the Lambeau Field renovation, a statue of Lombardi now stands on a plaza outside the stadium, in an overcoat grasping a program, as he did often on the sideline.
• In 1972, the Green Bay School District named its new junior high school (later a middle school) "Vincent T. Lombardi Junior High (Middle) School." It is located on Green Bay's southwest side.
• The football field at Old Bridge High School in Old Bridge, New Jersey, is called "Vince Lombardi Field." It has been called this since the 1970s, the field in Palisades Park is also known as "Vince Lombardi Field." His brother Joe attended the rededication ceremony in the 1990s.
• There is a Vince Lombardi Square (with a plaque dedication in the sidewalk on the square) near Sheepshead Bay Road and East 14th Street in Brooklyn, New York.
• Also in Brooklyn, there are two places in the Bensonhurst area, which are dedicated or rehonored in Vince Lombardi's honor: P.S. 204 on 15th Avenue and 81st Street is unofficially named the Vince Lombardi Public School, and the entire Bensonhurst stretch of 16th Avenue is dedicated by the City of New York as "Vince Lombardi Boulevard."
• The Vince Lombardi Service Area and park-and-ride is the northernmost rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike, at mileposts 116E on the Eastern Spur and 115.5W on the Western Spur. Outside the gift shop is a plaque about his life, which notes that he is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Middletown, New Jersey.
• The Vincent T. Lombardi Council, No. 6552, Knights of Columbus, in Middletown, New Jersey, is named for him.
• The Vince Lombardi Cancer clinic at Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay is named after him.
• The Vincent T. Lombardi Center at Fordham University was named for the coach.
• The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University is named in his honor.
• The Rotary Lombardi Award is given annually to the best college football lineman or linebacker.
• In 1969, Lombardi received the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America.
• Immediately following his death in September 1970, the NFL's "World Championship Game Trophy" (first awarded in January 1967) was renamed the Vince Lombardi Trophy. It is given annually to the winner of the Super Bowl.
• Lombardi was enshrined in the NFL's Pro Football Hall of Fame, in Canton, Ohio, at its next induction ceremony in 1971.

Not bad. So far for the good stuff.

Other Coach Lombardi Qualities That Won’t Go Into History Books

He was famous for yelling and publicly embarrassing his players when mistakes were made. Players walked the tight rope when they were around him and some mistakes can be attributed to the high pressure to succeed he put on players.



He also rewarded them profusely in Pavlovian fashion when they won titles.

In his case, the million dollars those players were paid kind of ease the blow of harsh criticism. Business is business. But let’s look at this closely.

The Self Critic

How many of you would like to live with Coach Lombardi? How many would like to share 24 hours of their life with an outcome-dependent success freak. Yeah, I am sure some of the guys who praised him would not talk so highly of him if they were forced to live with him.

However, we would never want to share our lives with this guy but some of us live with a coach Lombardi in our heads. It is called the Self Critic. Every time you make a mistake it whips at you thoughts like “that was stupid”, “you sucked there” even for little things like dropping sugar on the floor of the kitchen. How many times have you told yourself “stupid” in your life time for little things like that, not to mention the big ones?

How many of you would give their kid to coach Lombardi to train even if you wanted him to succeed as a player?

The “Do-Or-Die” Thinking



This is a failure of the mind so as such it must be treated as a mistake in the way you see the world. When you suffer from “Do-or-Die” thinking you view a challenge as having only two distinct categories. Things are seen as black or white, without any shades of colour in between.

“Either I get the girl, or I am a loser”, “Either they like me right away or I get the hell out of there”, “Either I make out in the first 20 minutes of approaching or my night sucks-or I suck”...etc. you get my drift.

As you notice here in those thoughts, they are either/or. But the criteria for success are so narrow that guys are guaranteed to always fail. They are doomed to negative outcomes because the margin for error is so wide-getting the girl or suck-, they will fail hopelessly most of the time. Then Coach Lombardi appears in their heads and starts the public humiliation or self lashing. Those guys don’t survive long in this game because only perfect is good enough.

Others imagine to succeed with good looking women they must be good looking. In their heads “good looking” is Brad Pitt good looking or model types. As you can see not many people are movie star good looking. So the bar for success with women is so high it prevents them from trying. “Why try? They will reject me. I am not Brad Pitt”.

Not until you address this flaw in your thinking process you won’t get rid of your private coach Lombardi.

It doesn’t mean we will become under achievers-that’s what Coach Lombardi will tell you-, but we will be able to tolerate the trial and error necessary to improve our game.

Coach Lombardi Times

I will enumerate the most common times where Coach Lombardi rears its ugly head during your night out.

1. At the beginning of the night: we are not warmed yet and we are more likely to make calibration mistakes, etc.
2. When we lose a girl, after a long interaction and we thought we had her.
3. When the end of the night is coming and we didn’t get anything yet. It is common for guys to try and do at this time what they should have done before. Kind of procrastination.
4. We have a long string of rejection, for example, three bad sets in a row might trigger criticism inside your head.

So next time out, watch for the bad coach yelling at you inside your head and shut his voice down. It is more fun that way.

The Middle Ground

Doing well but not perfectly. Doing it poorly but getting it done. Those are some of things that would help you put some shades of grey in your performance.

Create a mindset where good enough is good enough. Sometimes you don’t create a first good impression on your girls but think you can fix it down the road: you can succeed despite a bad first impression.

When the set seems to be going nowhere this is when I lay back and not panic. I don’t flagellate myself for it and just lean back and re-engage them. This persistence pays dividends down the road. Interactions never go in a straight line. Allow room for temporary setbacks.

Low points, awkward silences, shit tests are all part of human conversations. You must welcome them as natural parts of the game. You might find that the girl that rejected you at the beginning of the night finds you attractive 2 hours later and goes home with you. Even the same girl can change her moods towards you 5 minutes later of being rude to you.

Allow enough middle ground for success in your interactions and you will find yourself happier, and your interactions getting longer. I don’t worry when half of the girls in a group like me and the other half hate me. I know it will balance out somewhere down the line. Some of the pissed off ones want you bad.