Confidence is a vital characteristic for all men.

As often as it’s talked about in seduction literature, I have yet to come across an article or post that breaks the concept of “confidence” down into a simple, easy-to-understand yet thoroughly explained model.

This article is my attempt to achieve the simplicity and usefulness that I’ve always found lacking.

What Is Confidence?
I personally believe that confidence is simply our belief in our own fundamental competence, value, and abilities.

Confidence is intrinsically sexy to women. They are naturally drawn to men who are more confident, since confidence — as opposed to arrogance or cockiness — is built on fact, not fabrication.

So where does confidence come from? In my view, confidence proceeds from four fundamental places:

1. Past success
2. Thorough preparation
3. Habits of confidence: How you sound, look, act, what you say and do
4. Mental attitude and physical state

I view these four as a sort of reverse-pyramid, building from #4 backwards. Let’s start at the end and work our way back:

Mental Attitude and Physical State
I personally believe that your physical health and wellbeing is the absolute bedrock of all your performance — whether it be in bed with women, or at work. If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything, and it’s for this reason that I believe that all guys should have, at absolute minimum, a basic cardio workout routine and some eating guidelines to help keep them on track.

(For a basic but totally solid all-around workout and diet plan, see 5 Factor Fitness).

Your mental attitude and physical health are fundamentally connected in a feedback loop: good health and a solid diet enable better mental acuity, quickness, memory, and sharper, faster social processing (the brain uses some 25% of the energy you consume in a given day, even though it only comprises 2-3% of your body weight).

At the same time, a positive mental environment will help bolster your immune system during times of intense stress — which, for most modern Westerners, is pretty much every day.

Which leads me to my next point: most of us Westerners, being chronically overstressed, underpaid, and short on time, have lax eating habits and less-than-ideal exercise routines (if indeed we have any at all).

Luckily for us, the body is a uniquely resilient instrument, and we can change and retrain our bodies into greater health. Changing our eating and activity habits can be extremely difficult, but like most major life changes, once the proper motivation is there, it will happen.

Proper exercise and nutrition lifts and sustains more positive affect; to say nothing of the concrete confidence benefits that come from gaining competence at a particular activity (especially if it happens to be a traditional “masculine” activity, such as a martial arts).

A final word on mental fitness as a distinct building block that rests on physical wellbeing; while the idea of “mental fitness” is ambiguous, I would break it down into four major subcategories, along these lines:

• the ability to re-frame, or see circumstances in complex ways
• frequency and power of positive self-talk, including affirmations and visualization
• emotional resiliency; including regulation of emotional states
• mental boundaries; understanding what (and who) one can and cannot influence

For more on mental health and the mental/physical exchange, check out the books Making a Good Brain Great and/or (for a more Eastern approach) Wheels of Life.

Habits of Confidence
By “habits of confidence” I am referring to the behaviors of confident people; how they walk, speak, and generally conduct themselves. Habits of confidence can be broken down further:

1. Body language (including vocal projection and tonality)
2. Behavior in social interactions; including social energy and value transactions
3. Behaviors of success; including actions that fall in line with expectations of success (i.e., taking better risks, thinking flexibly, engaging one’s creativity to surmount or tunnel around life’s inevitable obstacles)

Habits of confidence are the “externals” we often “fake” by copying the mannerisms, behaviors and body language of men we see as more confident than ourselves. This is essentially modeling, and it gets us far enough that eventually we stop modeling others and begin “modeling” ourselves; as we gain confidence and strike out on our own, our own mannerisms, behaviors and body language become totally spontaneous, flowing freely from within.

(As an aside, this is the difference between copying other people’s “cool” mannerisms, and generating your own “cool” mannerisms. Having the confidence in yourself to accept your own quirky behaviors and fully express them is what sets you apart, in a “cool” way, from others — often to the extent that others will begin to unquestioningly accept your behaviors as “cool” and begin to mimic them).

The point of all this is that habits of confidence, like mental and physical health, can be trained and re-trained over time.

Thorough Preparation
Preparation for a challenging task that will test our confidence (in this context, approaching and seducing women) is the key to successful completion of it. Preparation, in this context, can take many forms: reading, researching game theory, talking with other men about women and relationships, even (and especially) going out and socializing.

Every time you talk to a girl, you are engaging in “preparation” for the next girl you will talk to (perhaps in a more seductive context); as I cover in Why You Should Sarge, your results build on every interaction, so neglecting this “preparation” part of the equation may not hurt, but will certainly not help your confidence, in the long run.

Preparation, and especially building the habits of preparation into your everyday existence (a certain amount of time studying game, talking about it, and most importantly, doing it), is a process that needs to be trusted. Just as with a workout regime and diet change, or investing your money, there is great value in routinizing the process, and letting your results compound over time.

There is a great temptation in modern Wester society to be impatient, and expect instant or at least very quick results; but this is folly (a folly the mainstream seduction industry plays into, by promising to shave “years” off your learning curve for only $3500 and a weekend of your time) since the biggest and best changes in life are those that build momentum gradually, over time, until eventually you notice that your life is now fundamentally different — perhaps even unrecognizably so — than it used to be.

Remember, research has shown that it takes a minimum of about 30 days to build a new habit (or discontinue an old one). There are no quick fixes; trust this process.

(Moving past the limitations of our) Past Success
At last we end at the beginning.

In the context of women, if you don’t already have a string of successes behind you, it may be very difficult to imagine yourself being successful with a new (perhaps your first) partner.

In that case, the typical advice is to start “faking it til you make it”; because once you’ve made it ONCE, you can “fake it” a little less…and so on and so forth, until you do have the solid record of past success that emboldens you.

This is, ironically enough, the story of how I lost my virginity (and I am sure I am by no means alone in this); faking like I got laid enough to generate massive attraction from women, who proceeded to fuck me (and get very confused about why my performance sucked, but were too blinded by my “faked” expertise to even countenance the possibility that I was a virgin), which bolstered my confidence, and so on and so forth.

Some guys, however, have a lot of trouble with that idea of “faking it”; how can they act authentically from a place of confidence, and still follow the advice to “fake it”?

The answer is twofold; firstly, we really should lose the language of “fake it til you make it”; instead we ought to say “Model it until you master it”. Faking implies deception, and seduction should be emptied of major (inauthentic) deception.

Secondly, it’s important to remember that we are not only talking about guys with no experience, but guys with some experience who would like to advance their experience rapidly; i.e. more rapidly than a normal string of traditional, 6-month-to-2-year monogamous relationships (serial monogamy) would allow.

Put another way, if confidence is based so heavily on past experience, how are we supposed to “leapfrog” intermediate experiences and get access to higher levels of results in a shorter time frames than we would normally expect?

What mental structure can we put in place that will allow us to successfully fake it until we actually make it?

As it happens, I’ve got one for ya.

According to the American philosopher William James, having confidence beyond the evidence of your past success is a legitimate option if:

1. You can’t disprove that your goal is achievable.
2. By not committing to the belief, you risk what might be gained by having that confidence.
3. What’s at stake is valuable and important.

All of these are true in the case of attempting to improve your results; especially true if you are interested in “leapfrogging” your normal developmental trajectory, i.e., improving your results and interactions with women very rapidly in a short period of time.

This is why some bootcamps have had such a salutary effect on beginner guys; because seeing other guys “pulling” or running solid game in front of them “broke their reality”, i.e., demonstrated vividly that they cannot disprove that certain goals are achievable (same-night lays, threesomes, makeouts within 5 minutes, etc) …because said goals have just been achieved in front of them (albeit by others).

The point of all of this is to convince you logically of the importance of doing the things that will shore up your confidence; both externally (talking with women, working out, eating right, monitoring and improving body language, tonality and vocal projection, etc) and internally (self-talk, monitoring and changing your internal state, building emotional resilience).

If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.
- Horace Mann

In a recent article on How to Build Confidence, I identified positive self-talk as one of the core components of mental fitness that leads to high levels of confidence.

Today, I want to go into some more depth on how you can leverage self-talk to improve your confidence and interactions with women by using some specific, targeted tactics.

What is Self-Talk and Why Should I Care?
We all have a certain level of ‘internal monologue’ — an ‘inner voice’ that is always speaking to us about, well, everything. “Wow, this music is great. She’s soo fat. I can’t believe he thinks those shoes are cool. Is my nose shiny right now? When will this meeting end?” Etcetera.

Self-talk isn’t composed of just this mundane chatter, however; it also contains crucial statements about ourselves and the place in the world that reflect our self-worth. “You could never get a girl like that,” or “I’m out of her league” or “She was right to tell me off, I always make an ass of myself.”

Very few of us are aware of this inner monologue; and if we are aware of it, we typically don’t think about consciously changing it — but that is exactly what we must learn to do, if we are going to improve our lives and our interactions with women.

Our self-talk is the key to shaping and molding our perceptions of the world. It provides not only the clearest window into our inner mental life, but also the most accessible tool through which to change that life.

The power of self talk stems from its three main characteristics:

1. It is repetitive
2. It is unconscious
3. It is completely automatic

By “unconscious” I mean that self-talk, once accepted by the conscious mind, will also be accepted by the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind — which also plays a crucial role in visualization — has no powers of judgment and is therefore the perfect tool to harness in the service of our conscious goals and aims.

By automatic I mean that self-talk happens whether we want it to or not; our only decision is whether we want to have some input into the content of the messages that will be unconsciously accepted and repeated until they are part of the very fabric of our brain matter.

So, why should you care? Because if you are human, you have internalized pieces of self talk that you did not consciously decide on. This may be messages from your childhood or peer groups, ideas you have been given that you either accepted uncritically, or that were repeated to you until you accepted them, that may be harming you. In the Horace Mann quote that leads off this article, you are the “idiot” telling yourself the same story month in and year out — even if it was a story that was originally handed to you by someone else, someone who may not have had your best interests at heart.

In order to root out these poisonous pieces of self-talk, and replace them with more adaptive messages, you must take an active role in your inner monologue. You must take control of it, so that it will say what you want it to say. As you might imagine, there are some tactics and techniques that will help you accomplish this more quickly and effectively: we turn to those now.

Harnessing the Power of Self-Talk
The whole point of being aware of your self-talk, and how it impacts your effectiveness and quality of life, is to be able to design new messages that will replace those messages that are maladaptive.

Any new piece of self-talk you design should follow some general guidelines, which are based on the principles of the most impactful self-talk:

1. Consistency
2. Commitment
3. Emotional tagging
4. Active voice

Let’s take them one at a time.

Consistency
Repetition is absolutely crucial for turning new ideas into automatic self-talk. Expect to repeat a given new message to yourself at least 100 times before it starts to sink in. The more oppositional the message is to an existing piece of self talk, the more repetitions you will need.

Say your current self-talk bit is “I’m no good with women.” If you are trying to replace this with an extremely oppositional statement, such as “Women love me and I am very skilled at interacting with them,” you will not only need to structure that message in such a way that the mind will accept it without too much fuss — tactics for which we’ll examine in a moment — you will need to repeat the SHIT out of it.

Let your new pieces of positive self-talk become mantras. Anchor them to existing habits, such as brushing your teeth, passing through doorways, or driving your car. Repeat them as you are lying in bed each night, as you fall asleep (this last being especially effective).

Above all, have patience. Repetition may seem “boring”, but it is also incredibly powerful; some of the negative messages you are currently playing have been years in the making. Commit to the process and let your consistency do its work.

Commitment
Your commitment to implementing a new self-talk message is absolutely fundamental to whether or not it will “stick”. You must make your new message absolutely a fixture in your life. Engage all the modalities you can think of, including but not limited to:

• Writing your new self-talk on a 3×5 card and carrying it with you, to review during down time throughout the day
• Saying your new piece of self-talk out loud, engaging your sense of hearing
• Recording yourself saying your self-talk and playing it back to yourself
• Paint your self-talk, or draw it, in a creative way, and display your creation in your home
• Picture the words of your self-talk internally, as against a blank screen
• Write out your new pieces of self-talk physically each day, or at a certain time each week
• By bringing your self-talk into the “reality” of your life in these ways, you are increasing its impact on your unconscious mind.

You can improve your self-talk without this level of commitment, but your results won’t be as quick or deep.

Emotional Tagging
Statements carrying an emotional payload have a much, much greater impact on the subconscious mind than similar statements that are not so laden.

When you design a new piece of self-talk, then, keep in mind what emotions it will inspire in you, and when you repeat that statement — for example, “I am really good with women” — actually let yourself feel the emotions that such a statement triggers. Do this each time you repeat the mantra and you will be generating a positive emotional state, as well as re-wiring your brain.

Remember, we are emotional creatures, and — as much as we might like to deny it — our memory is emotionally cued and accessed, and most our decisions are emotionally based. Take advantage of this by training yourself to feel good with positive self-talk.

Active Voice
Whenever thinking of new affirmations or pieces of self-talk, use active voice.

There is a difference between saying “I persist through approach anxiety” or “I am good with women” (which the mind, being dualistic, will counter) and “I feel great knowing I persist through approach anxiety” (which the mind cannot logically counter). (For a more in-depth explanation of this phenomenon, see Identity-Level Beliefs and the Game).

Also good are “I intend to do this” and “I am going to allow myself to have (X,Y)”. Statements made in the present tense or with the strength of the word intention or will may have more impact than statements that focus on “wants”, “needs” or the vague, undefined “future”.

Now that we’ve examined the general principles you should be using to design new self-talk statements, let’s talk about how to use these statements in your life in the most powerful way possible.

Inner Vs. Outer Self-Talk
Working with your self-talk will bring to you a greater awareness of the difference between the Inner World — that is, your self-talk that happens internally and that you say to yourself out loud when others aren’t around — and the Outer World, or the world and words you share with your peers and colleagues.

Realize that Inner self-talk can be wildly and unabashedly congratulatory. You have to become your own #1 Biggest Fan. Think about it: If you are not your own best friend and biggest fan, why should anyone else be? (Paradoxically, if you wait around for someone else to recognize how awesome you are and become your Number One Fan, the position will never get filled; but once you fill it with your own self-promoting self-talk, your fan club will spring up virtually overnight).

So, when designing self-talk for your own inner ear only, or even self-talk that you will repeat out loud while you are alone, go wild. Tell yourself you feel like a Rockstar, King or Queen of the World because you Are Absolutely Without a Doubt Number One Ass-Kickin’ Name-Takin’ Card-Carryin’ Accept No Substitutes Stupendous Bad-Ass.

Outwardly, though, you need to be more moderate, and restrain yourself; you risk alienating others as being too full of yourself, cocky, arrogant or narcissistic if you allow that wild inner cheering voice out; it would be socially uncalibrated. When you are with others, carry yourself with a quiet confidence; rather than talking yourself up, when asked about your abilities simply say, “Yes, I can do that.” All the while knowing internally that you’re The Shit.

A lot of seduction literature contradicts this suggestion, saying instead you ought to be much more self-aggrandizing than usual with women, because it provokes curiosity and demonstrates positive self-regard and a strong frame; and this is true, to an extent, but as with all of this, it is possible to take it too far. Once the line is crossed from confidence into cockiness, and from positive self-image to narcissism, most healthy women will actually begin to lose attraction; there’s nothing sexy about a self-congratulatory blowhard.

This distinction goes deep to the root of the difference between the Inner World and the Outer World, and the power contained in both. I believe all of us possess a rich inner world that is the source of our power; if you show everyone else in the world everything that’s in the Inner World, you are an open book, and you have no power base hidden within you; but secret away your keys to energy, your most fundamental source of praise and adulation, and it will retain its power, since nobody else will be privy to what it is you are thinking that provokes that sly smile on your face. There is great power in restraint.

When you conserve your internal source of power and don’t give in to the temptation to bragging and hubris, others will be more likely to recognize and praise you, providing a source of power from the Outer World that will lead to social proof, and reinforce your existing positive self-talk.

There is much more that could be said on that topic, but it’s time to bring this article to a close. Hopefully you’ve gotten as much out of reading it as I’ve gotten out of writing it.

There’s an important question that I think is worth asking:

Why are you here?

I’m not asking why you are here at this specific website (I obviously believe you couldn’t be at a better place).

I’m asking, why are you reading about dating and seduction at all?

There are a couple obvious answers: “I was never taught growing up.” Or “I’m interested in a male perspective on women…” Or “I want to get laid more.” Or “There’s this one girl…” Or “Why is my girlfriend such a bitch?”

These are all great answers, but they don’t address the level at which I’m asking the question. They are surface-level answers. I am asking the question at an identity level.

I’m not asking “WHY are you here?” I’m asking, “Why are YOU here?”

That’s still cumbersome, but it’s the best way I can explain it in text.

The reason I ask is because a lot of guys are drawn into this field, just like any field, for reasons that will predispose them to failure.

For a lot of guys, learning about dating and seduction is like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound; and even if they get “good” with women, they will still be hemorrhaging from that wound.

This post can’t seal up that wound. But it might help you realize whether it’s there or not.

The Hole
I want to share a quote from a classic Western that just about perfectly sums up what I’m about to say:

A man like Ringo’s got a great empty hole right through the middle of him…and no matter what he does he can’t ever fill it. He can’t kill enough or steal enough or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
–Doc Holliday, Tombstone

Some people go through life just as Doc describes Ringo, with a big empty hole right through the middle of them.

Usually, this big empty hole is caused by wrong beliefs; things like, “I’m no good.” Sometimes it’s caused by trauma that happened in childhood; abuse, or maltreatment, or isolation. There can be a number of reasons for it. For some people, it’s depression; and sometimes depression is organically caused (genetically predisposed).

But whatever the cause, the outcome is the same: total, thorough, holistic emptiness.

Guys strive their entire lives trying to fill this void. They do it by going to Wall Street and killing themselves trying to make it as powerful wealthy brokers. They do it by spending hours in the gym to get a “perfect” physique. They use loads of cocaine. They get religion. They learn how to pick up women.

But no matter how many zeros in their salary, no matter how many square feet their house or how big their SUV, no matter how many inches on their biceps or how many girls they’ve bedded, these guys are, and always will be, essentially…..empty.

Unless something changes.

What’s wrong here is that these guys try to fix internal problems with external stuff. Although the Hole is an internal problem, a psychic wound, it is still a wound that can have very real implications for the body: some guys get ulcers, others get heart disease.

What causes the Hole is identity-level beliefs. And you can never fix identity-level internal problems with surface-level external aids. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Identity-Level Beliefs
We all have beliefs: about ourselves, about the world, about our place in the world.

We all have an “inner voice”: a still, small voice that speaks to us when no one else does, when no one else is listening. Our minds are always listening, and it is this inner voice that they are listening for.

If you don’t believe me, close your eyes quickly, and make your mind as blank as possible. Then listen.

Now open your eyes. What happened? You heard the inner voice. Maybe it said “I can’t hear anything.” Maybe it said “I’ll have a nap now.” Maybe it said, “Why did I just close my eyes because some guy on the internet told me to?”

The point is, it spoke to you. Your inner voice exists, and if you are not aware of what it’s saying, you will also be unaware of how it influences your behavior, your decisions, and ultimately your life.

(A lot of people in the self-help, self-improvement and psychiatry / psychology professions call this phenomenon of an inner voice “self talk”: the self, talking to itself. I use the two terms interchangeably.)

The Broken Record of Self Talk
Our inner voice is very good at parroting. It loves to repeat information. But it’s not very creative or original; unless it is specifically trained to do so, it doesn’t come up with genuinely new information very often.

Instead, it takes information from outside us, information and views that come from somebody else — our parents, siblings, schoolmates, teachers, coaches, rabbi or pastors — and turns them into little mantras that it then repeats for as long as we live.

Boy, we’re lucky if these external messages are good. If our parents told us we were special and worthy. If our rabbi or pastors told us that we would amount to something. If our teachers told us we could grow up to become whatever we want. If our peers told us we were “cool” and “funny”. If someone said “I really like you.”

But more often than not, these messages we get from other people are anything but good. “You’re lame,” say our peers in grade school. “You’ll never amount to anything,” from an older sibling. “I’m very disappointed in you,” from a pastor or parent. “You make me sick,” from a friend.

The inner voice takes these messages, good or bad, and latches onto them. It puts them on repeat. They came from other people, so they must be true, right? We can never see ourselves as other people see us, so we should trust what they say. They all seem to agree, so they must be right.

And, unbidden, the inner voice turns those small messages from other people, and turns them into the broken record of our self-talk. Whenever we face a challenge? “You’d better not try, you will just look stupid.” When we have a great opportunity? “You don’t really deserve it.” When we get accused of something in a relationship? “It is my fault. I make people sick.”

Over time, these messages become our unconscious mental habits. Over time, we come to absolutely believe them 100%, and we integrate them into our self-perception. They become ingrained in the actual physical matter of our brains. They quite literally become a part of us.

This is what I mean by identity-level beliefs. When your identity-level beliefs are positive, healthy, and realistic — such as “I am a good person, I am worthy, I bring something valuable to this world” and other such messages, this isn’t such a problem.

But when identity-level beliefs are negative, self-defeating, hurtful and wrong, BIG problem. These beliefs become “truths”, and those “truths” rule our lives with totalitarian authority. They shutter our perceptions, filter out positive interpretations, and trap us in endless cycles of fear, self-doubt, anger, and self-punishment.

They create The Hole.

If your identity-level beliefs are damaging and self-defeating, no amount of material or socially-approved success will fill The Hole. It will work just like the real black hole in cosmology, and suck in everything you throw at it.

Success and external validation may feel good for a while, maybe even years….But on your deathbed, the Hole will still be with you, and every day you are alive and do not address it, it will suck up psychic energy.

A Simple Test
What follows is a simple test that I recommend for anyone who wishes to examine their identity-level beliefs.

Close your eyes and clear your mind. Then ask yourself this one simple question: and listen carefully for the answer, the first, immediate answer, that springs to mind, for the following question:

“If I were just to sit, alone, in an empty room for the rest of my life….Without accomplishing anything, without earning any money, without fucking any women, without having kids, without receiving any awards or accolades, without even having another word of conversation for the rest of my days….would I still be a valuable, worthwhile human being?”

If the answer is Yes, congratulations.

If the answer is No, you may want to explore your identity-level beliefs further.

Retraining the Inner Voice
What follows are two facts about the mind that may be useful as a starting point to sealing The Hole.

As I noted above, this post is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any physical or psychological illness. I am not an M.D. or a practicing psychiatrist.

On the other hand, the two pieces of information below have been crucial in my own development, and have helped many others, according to anecdotal evidence.

So take from them (like anything on this blog) what you will.

1) The mind is good at following orders. Self-talk is just orders given by our inner voice, and once it gets those orders, the mind sets about directing the body in ways that confirm them.

If the self-talk message is “You suck at basketball,” the mind creates a pattern in the body that causes anxiety and clumsiness whenever you are called to perform on the basketball court; and hey presto, the body performs poorly at basketball. The order has been followed to the letter, the negative self-talk has been proven right, and the pattern is reinforced. “You suck at basketball” becomes not so much a suggestion as a rule.

Now, the particular piece of self-talk in the example really isn’t a huge problem for anyone but NBA players, but when the self-talk message becomes “You suck at life,” instead of “basketball”, it creates a HUGE problem.

The implication of all the above is that the mind will follow positive orders as well as negative ones. So saying “I am really good at basketball,” will cause the mind to engage the body in an attempt to prove that message true, just the same as if the message were negative.

Of course, if you’re not already good at basketball, the training process to actually produce the good results may take some time, and that fact speaks to the mind-body interaction that I will address more thoroughly in a moment.

2) The mind is dualistic. If you tell the mind, “Be good,” it will be bad. If you tell the mind “Whatever you do, don’t think about a pink elephant right now,” it will think of a pink elephant immediately.

So if you tell the mind, “I believe I can fly,” It will spit right back, “You idiot, you can’t fly”; if you say “I believe I am worthy,” the mind will spit back “No, you’re not worthy at all. Don’t kid yourself.”

Although you might not remember it, your mind furnished this token resistance to the negative messages you got early on; but their repetition took hold and overwhelmed that resistance.

To re-program your brain, you are going to have to not only flood your mind with positive messages that are oppositional to the negative self-talk that is habitual; you are also going to have to phrase those oppositional messages in a way that the brain can’t argue with.

So, instead of saying, “I am a good and worthy person,” (which the brain will instantly contradict)

Say, “I feel happy knowing I am a good and worthy person.” This will confuse the brain, since even if it contradicts the antecedent statement, it is still affirming the consequent (”No, you feel….sad?….knowing you are a good and worthy person….?”) and therefore tying itself into confused knots and failing to make sense.

This structure allows you to do an end-run around the mind’s automatic dualistic defenses, and slip positive messages through the negative defensive screen, interrupting the negative cycle that is in place, and creating enough mental space to start building the positive self-reinforcing cycles that will actually improve your life.

For a more in-depth discussion of self-talk, and how to organize it for your benefit, see How to use Self-Talk to Improve your Game.

Identity-Level Beliefs and The Game
Obviously our identity-level beliefs have roots in reality; if they were built by messages given to us by others, and can be re-programmed and overcome by messages we give to ourselves.

Returning to the basketball metaphor above: if you are not physically coordinated enough to be good at basketball, changing that belief itself won’t instantly change the reality of your lack of coordination.

What it will do is give your body the space necessary to learn the physical skill of coordination necessary to excel at basketball; an interruption from the disruptive patterns of anxiety and fear that previously de-railed all attempts to learn the physical skills.

It’s the same with interacting with women. Most men, especially in the West, are given messages not only about themselves, but about themselves in relation to women, that cause patterns of fear, doubt and shame when it comes to approaching or interacting with beautiful women: Men shouldn’t ask for sex, we shouldn’t approach strange women.

These patterns do need to be changed, mentally, before one can achieve success — but, on the other hand, forcing oneself to walk up to an unfamiliar beautiful woman will start the process of changing those patterns from the outside (assuming the outside reality isn’t a slap in the face or a thrown drink).

Ultimately, the best news of the day is that these are your internal beliefs, and therefore they are ultimately under your power. Every time someone offers you a nugget of analysis about your person or personality, you can choose to accept it or reject it. No matter how damaged or disastrous it may currently be, it is never too late to build, or re-build, your own identity.

And that is an encouraging thought.

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https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/why-be-a-man-is-the-worst-thing-you-can-say-to-a-121780965878.html

http://www.reddit.com/r/opentrackersdotorg/comments/1y7dq0/how_to_avoid_antipiracycopyright_trollsetc/

Liquor - Best Buy Liquors on Neptune in Brooklyn.

Thrifty Beverage Center on 2115 Coyle St, Brooklyn, NY 11229

Inexpensive sodas next to Thriftys in grocery store.

Jacked off http://www.bossology.co/

APRIL 02, 2015 IN FORCE MULTIPLIERS
I had just joined a new startup. The company was growing and the team expanding rapidly. We became cashflow positive ahead of schedule - an amazing feat for any company. Our future looked promising, from the outside.

At ground level, our team was dysfunctional. We weren't on the same page in terms of where we wanted to take the company. One person's goal was another persons's stepping stone. A unifying vision was not in sight. We were just guessing, starting fires, and putting them out, like kids would do in a game.

And I had known better because I had worked with some of the greatest hustlers in the past. I knew this was not how a legendary team should be made. Not with this foundation. Not like this.

Fortunately, the game we played worked, but it was sloppy. You never feel 100% satisfied for winning on accident, like when you shoot that billiards ball into the wrong pocket but it counts nonetheless.

So what? Maybe I was just being ungrateful and unreasonable. if the numbers looked great and on paper we were growing, I should have been happy, right?

But I wasn't. My performance was at an all-time low. I wasn't driven to go above and beyond with my duties. I fell into a slump, a rut, a depression. I couldn't pinpoint my source of unhappiness at the time.

The answer came to me one late evening at the office. As I was shuffling paperwork, my podcast radio was playing in the background, probably talking about leadership or something along those lines. The host had mentioned a quote I haven't heard in awhile.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” — Jim Rohn

"Oh, that's nice to hear, but you know that already, Evan," I said to myself. I've heard this quote countless times throughout my life. It should have been common sense.

I made a mistake. I uttered the 4 deadliest words in the realm of growth: "I know that already." But, I noticed my error in judgment and cut the ugly narrow mindedness from festering. Then, something compelled me go further. I reexamined and thought about the quote more deeply. Was I actually living, breathing, and practicing this mantra? Or was I just "knowing" it?

I grabbed a pen and paper and decided to write out the 5 people who I was spending the most time with. I was curious with no expectations from this little exercise.

"Holy $&#@ing #&*t..."

That was my reaction. Fear, shock, sadness, confusion, and anger stirred up inside me. It became absolutely obvious to me at that point why I felt stuck and going nowhere.

Prior to this role, I formerly ran a company with some of the most ambitious and driven hustlers in the world. Things were never easy, but we worked night and day on building our empire and impacting many lives. We had goals that were beyond moonshot, but we had fun and loved our grind.

Like a martial artist coming down from the mountains after high altitude training, I stepped down into a less intense and competitive space. I was no longer challenged to go for greatness, but mediocrity. The company grew, but it was being marginalized from all the negativity, lack of unity, and disorganization.

This written exercise cleaned my hazy lenses even further. The clues from the day to day operations became apparent. The ideas I pushed to my team were perceived as troublesome. I advocated for systematization, but my team saw that as a threat to their work style.

Softwares, apps, and technologies I sought to implement and lower operating costs were never adopted because the team thought, "This is how we've always done it. That's not who I am. That works for you, but not for me." I'd get a million reasons why an idea would fail rather than solutions to improve.

The emotional cost to get a buy-in from my colleagues was painfully taxing. I questioned my leadership. Confidence in my abilities was lost. Maybe I wasn't good enough I thought sometimes. In spite of the company growing steadily, I knew this culture was not helping me for my long game.

When the initial negative emotions subsided, I became overwhelmed with excitement. It was like night and day; I knew then what I had to do. Life responded to my problem, and I wasn't going to leave her unanswered.

Shortly after, I packed up my bags and went in search of excellence...

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounding yourself with assholes.”
— William Gibson

The people you hold closest to you will determine how you see the world, how you react to downturns, the quality of your 50,000+ thoughts per day, how you nurture your relationships, and how you live your life.

Imagine your roommates, coworkers, or friends, who you spend half your days with, to be some "successful" figures (bosses). For instance, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, the Dalai Lama, Bill Clinton, and Mother Theresa, and whatever Grade-A badasses you choose.

How would these 5 individuals shape your life? How would your level of thinking change? What about your daily habits and rituals? Your goals and life’s purpose?

Productivity, time management, and influence will evolve.

Your definition of risk and opportunity will be redefined.

You'll focus less on achieving personal success and more so on worldwide significance.

You'll quit playing checkers and start playing chess, in the game of life.

Best believe that your entire life would undergo an exponential growth, or what I call force multiplied.

“You cannot change the people around you, but you can change the people you choose to be around.”
— Unknown

Unfortunately, most of us won't have the luck to be in the same room with such high caliber individuals. Instead, what sort of reality are most of us facing?

We surround ourselves with coworkers who maintain the status quo. "That's how we've always done it" is their mission statement. Complaining is draining, and your energy are sapped daily rather than fueled by them. You're pushed to achieve mediocrity rather than greatness. You're ostracized for wanting more for the team because they see that as just more work.

We surround ourselves with friends who value only job titles, money, and the accumulation of physical goods. These are their main metrics of success. They buy things with money they don't have to impress people they don't even like. Helping people, communities, and the planet? Not on their radar. What is popular is seldom effective and what is effective is seldom popular. Over time, you'll be inclined to stop believing in doing what's right and start believing in doing what's popular.

We surround ourselves with roommates who are physically negligent. "Moderation! Live a little and stop being so serious" is their mantra. They drink in excess, refuse to exercise, and consume low-performance inducing foods all day. You try to optimize your decision-making for nutrition density, longevity, peak performance for you and your family. They optimize instead for instant gratification in taste, convenience, and price. You eventually forget the direct impact of health and nutrition on your performance, ultimately your success.

“Obsessed is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.”
— Anonymous

Around toxic people, your life becomes like a cold steel bucket filled with blue shell crabs. You're the crab trying to climb out, get an edge in life, and achieve peak performance. Meanwhile, the other crabs drag you back to their level. Misery wants company, right?

Would you be inspired to think and dream BIG on how to increase the welfare of the human race around 5 prideful and self-centered friends?

Would you feel innovative and bold if you’re surrounded by 5 friends who remind you all the damn time to be “realistic”, follow the rules, and play it safe.

Would you feel challenged to get in the best shape of your life with 5 gluttonous, obese friends around you all day?

No. No. No.

When you challenge the other crabs, you become a threat to their identities, their belief systems, their very existence. When animals in nature feel threatened, they will respond to you in one of two ways: fight or flight. Humans are exactly the same.

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambition. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great.”
— Mark Twain

Here's are my call-to-actions. I challenge you to...

Examine your inner circle, the 5 people who you spend the most time with.
Clarity comes from engagement, not thought. Grab a pen and paper and go through the same exercise I went through that changed my life. Like setting goals, writing down your thoughts will give drastically different visualization and results than just letting those thoughts aimlessly float in your head. You must be honest with yourself with this exercise. It doesn't matter what I or anyone thinks. Ask yourself if those 5 people are truly helping you achieve your life's mission.

Recognize that friends come into our lives for a reason, a season, and a lifetime.
Everyone is a lesson or a blessing. Be grateful for your supportive friends you have now and what your past friends have taught you. Toxic people aren't inherently bad, they're just heading in a different direction in life than you. Don't ever play the victim; you don't help anyone by victimizing yourself. That's just asking to disempower yourself. Though you can’t control the outcome of all relationships, but you can control how active you are in seeking high caliber individuals.

Understand compounding in relationships.
Do you want to invest in a savings account with 1.25% annual returns or a managed portfolio with 5% annual returns? Treat your inner circle like a portfolio. For every hour you surround yourself with healthy relationships based on shared values, goals, and morals, the returns on your 50,000+ thoughts, daily habits, and productivity will be astronomically higher compared to every hour you spend with toxic individuals. Time is of the essence. Don't waste another hour with fake friends, frenemies, or any source of negativity. You don't have time to deal with people who remind you to settle for less and "realistic".

Know that excellence begets excellence.
When you surround yourself with excellence, you will attract excellence. Of course, you must embody it yourself in order to sustain such a network. Without a strong foundation, your system will collapse. They may thank you for the connections, but will exclude you from their future engagements. Your A-player connections will want to play with other A-players. The same applies to B-players and C-players. You must work tirelessly to maintain your A-player game. Don't contaminate your network with B-players. Run like hell away from C-players.

Success is never accidental. It is always intentional. Do not let your life be determined by chance. Have urgency.

To force multiply your personal effectiveness and odds of success by all means, you must seek out excellence immediately.