Robbie Kramer

87: Gordon Cowie (Meditation)

On this episode I have a conversation with Gordon Cowie, a movie director, experienced meditator, and men’s coach, who discusses his personal transformation through meditation and how you can recreate breakthroughs just like his. He shares his own personal journey of how he overcoming childhood trauma, developed abundance with women, and success in his professional life as a movie director.

Show Notes:

How Gordon was exposed to early childhood trauma, including [01:30]
His slow but steady journey into personal growth begins [5:25]
Why Gordon did something everyone advises against, and cashed out his 401k [08:10]
How Robbie’s best friend’s experience on his deathbed brought him to meditation [12:55]
The crazy experience he had on his first 10 day of silence Vipassana meditation retreat [16:50]
How you carry pain from past traumas in your body [19:00]
How he woke up with the sensation of someone cutting off his leg with a chainsaw then realized that his pain of fear of women was gone [21:20]
The transformation he experienced after his first meditation retreat, including how it changed his interactions with women [31:51]
Gordon’s daily meditation practice [35:39]
What he would say to someone who’s skeptical of meditation [45:46]
Robbie’s struggle with meditation [49:36]
His experience with girls who aren’t into personal development [52:50]
How he shot his first feature film [55:21]
The biggest leverage points he’s identified in life [60:35. 64:56]
And much more…

Significant quotes:

“Vipassana was the one thing I found where it just felt like it was endless and limitless.” [11:44]

“Life’s still gonna life. Good shit’s gonna happen; bad shit’s gonna happen.” [12:30]

Links Mentioned:

Gordon Cowie website

Seven Devils movie trailer

Vipassana Meditation

86: James Whittet

by Robbie Leave a Comment

On this episode I have a conversation with James Whittet, a professional mindset coach, former poker professional and digital nomad, who shares his secrets on getting past your negative internal dialogue and adopting a healthy, positive, mindset.

Show Notes:

Expected Value and ICM poker terms that relate to life > [05:30]
How James taught himself how to focus without drugs [20:43]
The best meditation app [22:00]
James’s favorite book [28:00]
The bet that changed his life [40:24]
How James was able to work 14 hour days for 68/73 days [51:14]
How to avoid the egoic self-image around money and women [53:14]
Building your castle before you find your queen [1:01:04]
His experience with Ayahuasca [1:04:03]
The four targets that your career must hit [1:07:05]
The important of choosing a legit Ayahuasca Center [1:13:00]
The “Stoned Ape Theory”[1:16:03]
Problems Underneath It All: The voice in head is a dickhead, you don’t love yourself, and you don’t feel like you’re good enough [1:17:40]
“But is it true” – Stop asking yourself if things are true and instead ask if it useful [1:20:15]
And much more…

Significant quotes:

“It’s not our darkness that scares us, it’s our light.” [1:02:00]

“The one thing you want to turn away from is what you turn toward because that’s the thing that will make you better” [1:19:10]

“You can be right or you can be happy – Chris Rock” [1:20:46]

“We’re in an era now where the strange and unique is accepted and interesting” [44:45]

Links Mentioned:

Instagram.com/jameswhittet
me@jameswhittet.net

What Women Really Think About Your Beard

by Robbie 1 Comment

My friend Wesley, over at iManscape. wrote an article around that subject that focuses on what women really think of men with beards. He broke down information from many studies into an easy to read article covering the topic and threw in some tips for the men.

Some of the data might surprise you…

https://imanscape.com/what-women-think-about-beards/

85: Jason Hartman

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On this episode I have a wide-ranging conversation with Jason Hartman where we discuss everything from traveling around the world, to modern dating cultures, to the recent Hugh Hefner documentary.

84: Sasha (Lifestyle)

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On this episode we have Sasha, one of the moderators from the Leverage Program. Sasha is one of the best guys I know with women. He’s a former professional poker player and startup founder who’s been a digital nomad for nearly a decade. We go in depth into how his eccentric upbringing and life formed the foundation of who he is today, and how underrated skills like pattern recognition and body language make him amazing with women.

Meeting women through nightlife

by Robbie Leave a Comment

My buddy Drew is on the short list of people I respect in the world of nightclub promoting. He’s the newest moderator in the Leverage Program, and he has a great story of how he stumbled on club promoting and became wildly successful at it.

Last week I had him on the podcast where we talked about his story. He shares his tips of how normal guys can be successful in the nightlife scene. Check out the episode here.

This week, I’m bringing him back to discuss how you can use nightlife networking skills to meet women and have fun when you go out. Meeting women through nightlife can be easy when you’re using the right skills.

Enter Drew.

Guys often ask me how they can get started in promoting. They know that it’s probably the easiest way in the world to meet hot girls, and that you can even get paid doing it.

The fact is, it’s a lot more straightforward than most guys think. You can start doing it without even having any connections. What you need to do is make sure you have at least 5 hot girls that will go out with you consistently. If you don’t have girls your first night, or you do and they’re not up to par, you’ll have a tough time.

But that’s not as hard as it sounds, because getting your first 5 girls is a great way to practice casual conversation as your opener instead of “hitting on” them. Create a friendly back and forth and if you think they fit the bill, end with “Some friends and I got a table tonight at so and so club, you should join us. Feel free to invite a friend.”

Having her invite out one friend creates a non-threatening hang out scenario since it isn’t one-on-one. If she has fun time with you maybe you even get laid, but I don’t recommend this if you can’t constantly pull in new groups of girls because if anything goes wrong she stops coming out with you and so do her friends.

Be careful with asking her to invite more than one friend because almost every group of girls has a DUFF: the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. But most likely a hot girl has a hot best friend, so it’s cool to ask for one friend. In a nightclub scenario, if she brings an ugly friend she might not get in and she probably knows that if she’s hot and been to any nice club before.

Once you have a solid group, it’s really as simple as going to the club. Nine out of ten times even just a decent looking dude with a few hot girls will get in with no problems.

From there, find a promoter table. Promoter tables are easy to find. Look for tables that have the most girls and the cheapest liquor, and a guy who looks like he is auditioning for an H&M campaign (even I was guilty of this). That guys is probably the promoter in charge.

Politely introduce yourself and say you have a group of girls and you were just looking to join a table. If he’s not a douche, he will invite you to join. Promoters always love more girls at their table, and will always try to flex on other promoters based on quality and quantity.

Now, if promoting for you is strictly for your social circle, you don’t even have to mention to the guy that you want to promote. Just say something like “dude, I always have girls with me looking to go out. I’m not looking to get paid, but would definitely like a consistent group to go out and hang with.” If he knows anything about promoting as a business he’ll bring you in. We call them “key guys”. It gives the girls another guy to talk to at the table who isn’t a creep and it frees up the promoter to stop babysitting, roam the club, and grab more girls/shake hands/bullshit with staff, and everything else he’s expected to do.

If you are looking to get paid for some side income, just ask. “Hey man, I’ve been looking to get into this and I always have girls that want to go out. Any chance I can work with you”? Again, promoters love this. Sub-promoters allow the main promoter to do half the work and they only have to pay you on what you agree to.

Most importantly, after you’ve done all of this, don’t get to wrapped up in the party. Remember, this is for your social circle. Talk to everyone, shake hands, suck up to the client next to you and always be looking to make new associates. They’ll invite you to other events and parties, and each time they do so you level up, since you’re constantly meeting new people. Most of the time they have lucrative careers which helps social validation to a girl you’re talking to (because how many rich guys hang out with broke dudes that don’t work for them in some capacity lol).

And also a PS for if and when you’re invited in to the table- always remember you’re a guest at that table. Don’t double pour your drinks, don’t hit on the girls you don’t know, don’t be rambunctious. 99% of girls will tell you they prefer a guy who keeps their cool in party situation: somewhere between having a great time and you couldn’t care less about being there. And finally, you don’t want to drink too much and embarrass yourself because that limits your access to the table in the future.

I hope you enjoyed that writeup from Drew. For more on how to optimize your experience at clubs, check out this article I wrote on the Unspoken Rules of Bottle Service.

83: The Digital Nomad Lifestyle

by Robbie 1 Comment

In this episode, we discuss the myth of the digital nomad lifestyle, and how time management skills are still crucial even when you have freedom and full-time travel.

We bring on two full-time digital nomads who talk about their lessons learned, and why most digital nomads have bad dating lives.

We also go in depth about how to leverage your skill in a way you’re passionate about and use it to create a side hustle or a new career.

How to get more dates

by Robbie Leave a Comment

As you know, the best way to get the dating life you want is to optimize your strategy as much as you can based on your lifestyle and personality. But just because you’re being efficient and optimal doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also be exhausting as many funnels as you can to meet chicks and other cool dudes.

This was inspired by one of my students, Jeff. Jeff is in his mid 20s and he’s a solid likable guy who’s got his life together and is fun to be around. The problem is that he’s not getting nearly the amount of dates a guy in his shoes should be getting. I have reason to believe that this is because he’s not exhausting his resources enough.

In a perfect world if you wanted to maximize your exposure you should be using these avenues, in this order of relevance:

1. Social Circle. The honest truth is that if your social circle sucks, it’s a reflection of you. Either you aren’t that fun, cool, interesting or valuable to be around.

2. Day Game. This is the easiest, cheapest and most efficient way to meet girls. It takes almost no time and you grow as a person every time you approach. If you suck at this, it’s because you haven’t done it enough and you’re scared. Face your fear, or sit around and get old and die with regrets 🙂

3. Social Events. Go to any environment where people are expected to be social, like festivals, bars, clubs, happy hours, or classes. If you’re doing poorly in these situations then just like Social Circle you aren’t that fun, cool, interesting or valuable to be around, OR you are too scared to talk to randoms and you need to approach more to get over your fear.

4. Hosting Sites. An awesome way to meet people is to host them in your city. Airbnb for your house, Turo for your car, ShowAround if you want to give tours and Couchsurfing if you can’t Airbnb. DogVacay if you have a dog or want to make extra money watching them. They make good wingmen too. These will also generate cash so you get paid to be social.

5. Dating Sites. You should have profiles on all of the relevant sites. Tinder, Bumble, Happn are obvious apps, but you should also be on Match, OkCupid and Plenty of Fish. If you’re older really want a relationship you can use eHarmony. If you’re religious use a niche site like JDate or Christian Mingle. Seeking Arrangements if you like sugar babies, models and girls who want to travel and have some money in the bank. And lastly, Lifestyle Lounge and SDC if you’re into group sex.

I guarantee that one site will be a lot more fruitful to you than others, so it’s important you get multiple profiles out there and measure which site gets the most responses. Otherwise you may be wasting your time on a site that doesn’t fit you best.

Profile Tips:

The pictures hold the key to whether a girl is going to read the rest of your profile. While women like to go off on a laundry list of qualities that include “sense of humor” and “kindness to animals,” they are almost as shallow as men when it comes to online dating. They sit back and watch the dozens of responses that come in and take their pick of the guys who look the best.

If you’re not a great looking dude then make sure you have some pictures that show your other qualities that women find attractive:

Travel
Social Proof (having a picture or two with hot girls, but make sure it doesn’t look like you’re trying too hard to show them off)
Lifestyle (partying in exclusive places)

Make sure you’re swiping and sending messages. My favorite line to use in America on any app where you have to match with someone is “So does this mean we’re exclusive?” followed by the Tinder Marriage Roleplay (which we discuss in the Leverage Program). If she doesn’t think it’s funny, she’s probably not worth talking to. If you’re outside the U.S., she might not understand the humor.

Be cocky and funny in your profile to give off the vibe that you’re not taking online dating too seriously. Women want guys who other women want. You need to have the mindset of a guy who is already successful. Successful guys don’t take online dating seriously because they meet women offline.

82: Travel:Career:Dating

by Robbie Leave a Comment

In this episode, we discuss the importance of doing cool things in order to build yourself as a complete man. Following your passions as a career, traveling, and conveying you are an interesting guy to women are covered.

Takeaways:

Your “resume” doesn’t matter to girls as much as the IDGAF cool factor… Other guys way less impressive than you can be banging much hotter chicks than you because they have this attitude.

Your ability to make the girl feel a range of emotions is extremely important

Traveling is important because it puts you out of your comfort zone and makes you a more interesting person

The social circles you can build while abroad are often much stronger and better than those you build at home because people who travel tend to be significantly cooler than average.

When traveling for longer periods of time, try to work on leverageable skills that you enjoy

Have some interesting value you can provide that wealthy or interesting guys would want in their lives

The more creative and interesting you are, the more likely you are to be hanging out at the best parties, meeting the coolest girls, and leading a fun life.

It’s important to understand the basics of marketing your skill or product, but if you’re not doing anything creative, you’ll get lost in the noise of everyone else doing the same thing.

81: Drew Gatsby (The Nightlife Industry)

by Robbie 1 Comment

Drew started out unconfident with women and worked his way up to becoming a successful club promoter and now a general manager of a popular bar in New York City. Listen to him share his story and the lessons he picked up along the way.

No one knows Drew’s last name but he does a bunch of cool shit, and hangs out with a lot of girls/celebrities, so they call him Drew Gatsby. Back in high school, when he was struggling socially, he decided “I just don’t want to be that guy anymore”. He started throwing parties at his house and that’s when he realized that people saw him as the guy in charge. People looked to him when there’s a problem. It helped build up his confidence.

He says when doing this stuff just be an NFL quarterback, if something goes wrong, just forget about the last snap. Everyone has their own game, their own style. Drew’s style is talking to girls, instead of directly hitting on them. Most guys just try to hit on girls immediately and he brings something different to the table. He likes to offer a girl a shot and if she says no, he drinks it in front of her to show he doesn’t give a fuck.

When it comes to promoting, just act like you belong there. Build as many relationships as you can and leverage them as much as possible. Even though he’s not in the industry anymore, he pops in every couple weeks to stay relevant. “It’s not about the money you make, it’s about the hands you shake.”