If you haven’t heard me say this, then get used to it because you will continue to hear it if you continue to read my articles.  Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.  So if you are doing this, STOP IT!

Ponder these questions for yourself:

1.    How long have you been stuck with accomplishing a specific goal in your dating life?
2.    Have you ever mapped out exactly what you want and written it down?
3.    What are your normal course of actions when it comes to meeting members of the opposite sex?
4.    What is working?
5.    What isn’t working?
6.    What do you keep telling yourself to do over and over but are still not doing it?
7.    Where are you operating like an insane person?

I see this time and time again.  Guys are fed up with their situation with women and they just sit around and hope something will magically change.  The odds of that happening are slightly better then the poor guy who sits around all day and hopes to become a millionaire.  The only way that happens is if he wins the lottery.  See the correlation?

First off, if you are reading this and fall into the category I described above, don’t beat yourself up, because you are already taking action by simply reading this article.  The first step to change is consciousness.  If you can’t see what you are doing, then you can’t change it.  So as a practice, write down all the ways you are going about improving your relationships with women and really examine them.  If you are too lazy to do this, then at least think about it.  Next, write down exactly what you want.  For the first 3 guys that email me this assignment, I’ll give you a free 30 minute coaching call to get you on the right path.  Email me at Robbie@innerconfidence.com

Have you ever heard a woman say “I just want a guy that is grounded?” If you have, then that is a woman that knows what she is talking about. Recently, I’ve been doing a ton of work on grounding with my students and on myself. The changes I’ve seen have been incredible in a very short amount of time.

Yesterday I was with a client at 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. I didn’t tell him why I was taking him there but he assumed that I was going to make him do approaches and he was incredibly nervous. He couldn’t eat because he was so anxious about what I was going to make him do. Sending a guy like this to approach women is pretty much a complete waste of time. Chances are, he is going to start awkward conversations due to his nervousness and get rejected time after time. This will hurt his self esteem and make him even more scared or even worse, numb to the whole experience. If you are reading this and you identify with a guy like this then this is for you. STOP mindlessly approaching women to get over your approach anxiety. You need to start grounding!

So what is grounding? Here is my brilliant definition: Grounding is being connected to the ground! LOL wasn’t that profound?!

But here is the magic. To connect to the ground, you must be in your body. As you are reading this, can you feel the ground with your feet? Take a deep breath and breath the air all the way through your body, all the way down to your feet and feel the Earth’s support below you. The more grounded you can be in tense situations, like meeting women, the less nervous you will become. When you get nervous, take a deep breath and picture all that nervous energy shooting through your legs into the ground. I know, this may sound super cheeseballish and weird, but it works, TRUST ME!!! Look at a guy in uniform, is he grounded? He is like a rock, and women can trust him. How about a computer geek, how grounded is he? If you want a great exercise, go out to a shopping mall or somewhere there are lots of people. Watch people and notice how grounded they are. How are they moving? Are they jittery? Are they graceful? Are they masculine, feminine? Notice the couples and especially the guys with beautiful women. Notice how they move, and how they lead. You will notice that they may not be good looking, but they have a certain way about them. I bet they aren’t scared of confrontation. If you want more exercises or a free dating consultation, leave a comment below…

First off, if you’ve never head of banter, let me explain.  Banter is playful conversation.  The point of it is to have fun.  Even if you think you cannot banter, I assure you, everyone can in their most comfortable setting.  You probably constantly banter with your good buddies without even realizing it by giving them shit, teasing them and bullshitting.

The big misconception about banter is guys tend to give it more value as an attraction tool then its really worth. Banter does NOT generate attraction. Banter can amp up attraction but only if you are using it to increase tension while staying grounded. Banter will work for some guys and not for others because some guys use it as a tension release while others use it effectively to increase the tension and thus increasing sexual tension and attraction. If you have an approval seeking nice guy syndrome then banter can cause girls to see you as more of friend or boytoy at best rather then a guy who is solid and sexy. I could go on an on about this subject because I used to run more banter then anyone I ever met and I was good at it, but it only worked when I wasn’t seeking validation and releasing tension. Notice how often you are laughing nervously after delivering a banter line or give off nervous smiles. Try going out for a night and meeting women without bantering at all and see how it makes you feel. The other reason why your banter might be off is because you are constantly disconnecting. When you are disconnected and you banter you’ll either come across as a dancing monkey or asshole.

Here is the logical next question after understanding how banter works…

“How do you suggest I work on maintaining groundedness while bantering (e.g. not releasing tension, or seeking validation)?”

Well the first step to change is consciousness. So start to notice your reactions immediately after you use a banter line. Ask yourself “Am I nervous right now?” “Am I laughing genuinely or am I tension releasing?” “Am I seeking approval or just humoring myself and inviting her to join in?”

Then you want to work on staying grounding in tenser and tenser situations. Some guys can stay very grounded around their friends, but add a hot girl to the equation and it takes them out. I like to think of staying grounded in the midst of tension in 4 stages.

1. Can you stay grounded in a peaceful/harmonious environment (meditating in woods for example or sitting in your living room)
2. Can you stay grounded in a hectic environment (venice beach boardwalk/nightclub)
3. Can you stay grounded in a hectic environment with a huge spike of energy (hot girl testing you at a nightclub, car crash with injured people)
4. Can you stay grounded by creating tension and using it to your advantage (business negotiation, direct/sexual approach)

The key is to move through the stages and eventually be grounded in the most intense situations and then start using tension to your advantage by creating it. An example of this would be a super ballsy direct opener with a huge sexual undertone. If the idea of that scares the shit out of you, then you aren’t ready. Any exercise that increases tension will give you insights into how grounded you are and practice makes perfect.

I found this on the Onion, it is hilarious and if you are finding yourself in this situation, you need immediate help! You can also read it here.

Do you have a girl (friend) who sounds like this?

I really like you. I do. You’re so nice, and sweet, and you listen to all my problems and respond with the appropriate compliments. But, well, I don’t really see a relationship in our future. It would be terrible if we let sex destroy this great friendship we have where I get everything I want and you get nothing you want. Don’t you think?

I knew you would understand. You always do.

We’re so perfect as friends, you know? I can tell you anything, and you know you can always come to me anytime you need to hear me bitch about work or how ugly I feel. You wouldn’t want to ruin a friendship like that just so you could be my boyfriend, and have me look at you with desire and longing in my eyes, if only once—would you? Of course not. Well, if we started dating, it would only complicate this wonderful setup I’ve got going here.

It’s just…you’re like my best friend, and I would hate for something you desperately want to change that. I mean, sure, we could go on some dates, maybe mess around a little and finally validate the six years you’ve spent languishing in this platonic nightmare, but then what? How could we ever go back to the way we were, where I take advantage of your clear attraction to me so I can have someone at my beck and call? That part of our friendship means so much to me.

No. We are just destined to be really, really good friends who only hang out when I don’t have a boyfriend, but still need male attention to boost my fragile and all-consuming ego.

Anything can happen once you bring romance in. Think about how awful my last relationship was at the end, remember? The guy I’d call you crying about at 3 a.m. because he wouldn’t answer my texts? The guy I met at the birthday party you threw me? I had insanely passionate sex with him for four months and now we don’t even talk anymore. God, I would die if something like that happened to us.

Plus, ick, can you even imagine getting naked in front of each other? I’ve known you so long, you’re more like a brother that I’ve drunkenly made out with twice and never mentioned again. It’d be way too weird. And if we did, then whenever you’d come shopping with me, or go to one of my performances or charity events, or take me for ice cream when I’ve had a bad day at work, you’d be looking at me like, “I’ve seen her breasts.” God, I can’t think of anything more awkward that that.

Oh, before I forget, my mom says hi.

Anyway, you would totally hate me as your girlfriend. I’d be all needy and dramatic and slowly growing to love you. If I was your girlfriend, I would never be able to tell you all about the other asshole guys I date and pretend I don’t see how much it crushes you. Let’s never lose that. That’s what makes us us.

Don’t worry. You’re so funny and smart and amazing, any girl but me would be lucky to date you. You’ll find someone, I know it. And when you do, I’ll be right by your side to suddenly become all flirty and affectionate with you in front of her, until she grows jealous and won’t believe it when you say we’re just friends. But when she dumps you, that’s just what we’ll be.

Best friends. Friends forever.

I’de like to think that I have a pretty good understanding of this topic considering I spend hours a day working on it, but that may just be my ego talking! lol

I realized about a year and a half ago that all the things that I thought would make me happy were just ego boosters. All I cared about was making a shit a load of money, fucking hot women, playing really great golf and traveling. Now you might say “Whats wrong with that?” and truth is, there is nothing wrong with wanting those things. The problem didn’t lie with the wanting, but with my ego. The only reason I really wanted them wasn’t because I thought they would make me happy, but it was to get the validation from others that would make me happy. I just wanted to be envied by other men and I wanted everyone to tell me how great I am so I could feel validated. The point I am trying to make here, is that the real ego death comes when you stop seeking validation. When I realized that I became incredibly fascinated with personal growth. The Pickup community was my access to it. I’ve taken a shit load of personal growth seminars, read a ton of books and had hundreds of fascinating conversations on the subject. For me, it all comes down to loving yourself and finding true happiness. Easier said then done…

Regardless, the access for me was developing consciousness. I’m not just talking about mental consciousness but body consciousness. In fact, body consciousness is far more important IMO. Humans are the only species that we know of that are conscious of our feelings. That is why we have an ego and a dog does not. Because we are conscious of our feelings, we can use them to manipulate each other. So we learn at a young age to be inauthentic to get what we want and out of this we develop our ego. A dog is never inauthentic, what you see is what you get, which is why people love dogs and most animals for that reason. We are never worried about a dog fucking us over unless we are insane. So the access to consciousness is to see where we are being phony, inauthentic or manipulative, and start being real, all the time, no matter what. So the first step is being conscious of when we are doing these behaviors and the most powerful tool I have found is HD video. The video has no ego, it doesn’t lie and its pretty easy to see where you are being fake. The only problem is, your ego is so clever that it will not allow you to really see some of the big inauthenticities because your ego, is your ego and it doesn’t want itself to die. Haha I hope that made sense. So the next step is finding a committed group to call you out on your shit and hold you to be the best man you can be. Regardless, I hope these ramblings made sense.

Bottom Line: To kill off your ego, first you need to isolate it, and then take the necessary steps to STOP it from running your life so you can find and live your purpose. This is true consciousness.

This was posted in the IC Forums from a student in our Intensive program.  This story highlights some of the main components of vulnerability and grounding which we teach.  There is lots to learn from this, enjoy..

Ok most of you know that my exgirlfriend/now good friend just temporarily moved in with me this past weekend… what i expected to be a fun walk through the park has turned into a slightly weird, uncomfortable, tricky situation that im steadily starting to manage and steer back into a comfortable place..

this has really been a trial, man.. but its funny how when I grounded myself, became present and dealt with everything head on, everything seemed to just come together without much effort..  good weekend..

-G

I’ve known this for a long time, but I’ve never really written about it because I didn’t want to offend guys that really love the community.

Disclaimer: I am not writing this to bash the community or guys in it, my intention is for you to read this and ask yourself this question: “Am I really taking the necessary steps in the right direction or am I distracting myself?”  Ponder away…

If you don’t know what the dating community is, then you are probably better off if you actually want to be good with women.  The community or “local lairs” were designed back in the early 2000’s as a resource for guys to pool their “pickup” knowledge and help each other out.  The whole idea is to meet other guys who are interested in picking up women and coach each other through the process to become master pickup artists.  I guess it sounds good on paper but it just doesn’t work.  It didn’t work for me and it doesn’t work for 95% of guys that I’ve met.

Why not?

The community is like the blind leading the blind.  If you are a new guy joining, there are hundreds of guys who will jump at the opportunity to take you under their wing and teach you their method, but most of the time, these teachers are awful with women.  So you move from mini-guru to mini-guru and all the while you are getting more baffled by more and more information to cloud your analytical mind.  Now all of sudden you have these new friends “wings” who you go out with and rather then spend anytime talking to women, you are strategizing and trying to pump each other up in the corner of the venue.  The odds of any of you going home with a girl are slim to none and when someone actually accomplishes this feat, they are hailed as a king for a couple of days and pages and pages of commentary, breakdowns and ego stroking are written across the message boards and exchanged via email.  If you take a step back and really look at what is going on here is what you might find:

Your new best friends “wings” may not really be your friends.  Do you have anything in common with these guys other then the fact that you are both into getting laid?  Would you hang out with them to just hang out with the guys?  If the answer is NO, then something is off.

You are more excited about the idea of writing up a field report then you are about meeting women.  This can quickly turn into the keyboard jockey syndrome.

You know a SHITLOAD about meeting women but you aren’t actually getting the love, sex and intimacy you know you want deep down, which was probably the real reason you got into all of this.

You are stoked because you have now become a mini-guru and other guys look up to your advice.

All you can think about is “sarging” or going to pickup women and it is starting to consume your life.

These were all things that I personally experienced and when I look back, it was mostly a big waste of time.  But it wasn’t all for not, those experiences led me to where I am now and I really thankful for that.

Lets examine guys that are actually good with women and how they operate.  Most guys that suck with women are very jealous and envious of guys that are good because it seems like dating beautiful women is something that just happens to them.  First off, if you are angry and spiteful of these guys then you are telling the universe something and its not serving you.  You are basically saying “Fuck these guys, its not fair that they have it so easy, lucky bastards.”  and that is the same as saying “I don’t want to be like them so I better keep sucking with women.”  Its like poor people who hate the rich.  Do you think they will ever become rich?  No, because they would rather have their complaint then take the necessary steps to get rich.

Guys that are good with women learned it somewhere, they developed confidence at a young age.  Success breeds success.  Luckily, you can do the same thing, you just have to stop focusing on the tactics and tips to improve and actually make the change in your body.  For weekly tips and drills, sign up for our newsletter at www.innerconfidence.com

I could go on for days about this subject but remember, the point is to ask yourself this question: “Am I really taking the necessary steps in the right direction or am I distracting myself?”  If you are distracting yourself then CHANGE something, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

We added a couple new videos to the “About” page, check them out.