And whenever I move into a new place, I really like to re-decorate it with new things.

Every place has a different energy. Every place has a different feel to it. Every place has a different environment.

The sounds at night, the way the light shines through the windows, the way the sun wakes you up in the morning at different times—they all vary with each new place.

Every place is a blank canvas and whenever I move, I like to re-do the entire place.

And when I seek to redecorate, I only use a couple resources.

Firstly, I’m a master at Craigslist.

I will comb through Craigslist and I will find all the best deals. I truly believe that whatever you buy for a place is perfect for just that place and you should be able to re-sell it again and literally get all your money back when you move. It’s something I’ve been doing for a long time and I enjoy it.

Not only that, but along the way you tend to meet some really interesting people.

Lately, I’ve been looking for the perfect sofa for my office. I’m into the mid-century furniture and I like to throw in some modern pieces as well—some metals and everything else in there because I do like the kind of industrial-yet-classic look.

I look online and usually I’ll go from one link to the next until I find what I’m looking for. Recently, I found a really cool company in Los Angeles called apt2B.com. They’ve got amazing stuff: couches, bedroom furniture, bathroom items, kitchen stuff, home decor, everything; and the prices are ridiculous.

You guys are about to understand me a lot better. I really do geek out about certain things: dating/relationships, flipping cars, and business—good business.

What really impressed me about apartment2B is their customer service. I sent them an e-mail about a sofa, I described exactly what I was looking for and I got in touch with a gentleman named Alex.

Alex treats business like I do. When a customer e-mails, he gives them an answer. He tries to find something that’s perfect for them and tries to get as much information as possible.

I sent Alex pictures of one of my rooms and he actually found the perfect sofa to go with the room, a sofa that I really wasn’t going to even think about the first time around.

Customer service, it’s a dying breed nowadays.

Most companies don’t give a shit about customer service. They take you through a telephone robot tree; they don’t answer your e-mail; they just don’t care about you, they care about your money.

They want to make it simple and easy—for them—while forgetting about the human connection.

And you all know how much I preach about making real connections.

For over a week Alex and I have been e-mailing back and forth. We’ve gotten to know one another. He’s a good guy.

I know that he’s nice. I know that he moved here from New York. I got to know him and it made buying from them really amazing because, like me, the guys over at apartment2B are all about customer service.

For example, one guy e-mailed me about a bootcamp.  We got on the phone, we talked about it, and we got to know one another.

Have any of you guys e-mailed me about specific product?  I’ve e-mailed you back personally.  Customer service is everything in life.  It’s the beginnings of communication.

The reason why I bought the sofa from Apartment 2B was not only because of the great deal that they gave me, but also because of the customer service.  I was treated the exact way I’d like to be treated.  That’s the same reason why I fly American Airlines, and the same reason why, despite my desire for an iPhone, I stick with T-Mobile—their customer service is spot on.

Life is all about how you treat people.  And when you’re treated great, and when you treat other people great, people gravitate to you.  People want to do things for you.  People want to give you deals.

So if you’re looking for furniture for a new place, or you want to get some good design ideas, check out apt2B.com.  It’s a cool site: great people and a really great experience.

And this being extreme honesty month, I want to tell you something: most companies suck at customer service.  So if you work for a company, get on the ball, treat people great, and make your customers feel like friends.

. . .

Hopefully, all of you have learned something today. 

What was the worst customer service experience you’ve ever had?

How do you feel when you walk into your neighborhood store—do you feel like a friend or do you feel anonymous?

If you tell a woman you’re going to call her, then you call her.

If you have sex with a woman, you don’t become text dependent. You don’t text her for two days. You get on the phone and you call her. You don’t substitute text conversations thinking that they’re real conversations.

Real men are men of their word.  

Women crave it, women desire it, and women deserve it. It makes them feel secure. It makes them feel good about showing their body, their heart, their soul, and their everything-else with you.

When you tell a friend you’re going to help him move on Saturday, you show up and you do it no matter what.

When you tell somebody you’re going to pick them up from the airport and you don’t feel like it at the last minute, you either pick them up or you pay for their cab.

It’s about becoming a man of your word. What you say is what you do.

There are a lot of talkers out there. They talk the talk but when it comes down to walking the walk, they have absolutely no concept of how to do it.

If you break your word with somebody, the first thing you need to do is apologize and explain yourself and admit that you were wrong.

There are no excuses in life and we’re full of them.

I was going to call you, but time ran out.

I was thinking about you, I texted you.

No. You call when you say you’re going to call. Women crave it, women desire it, and women deserve it.

Become a man of your word. That’s what this month is all about: becoming extremely honest.

If you run into somebody and they confront you on something that hurt them in the past, instead of going into defense mode, man up.

Look at them straight in the eyes and say, “You know what, I was wrong, you were right.”

It’s going to throw them a bit. They’re going to look at you and say, “You don’t really need to explain yourself,” and that’s when you become an even better man.

You look at them and say, “Yes I do, you deserve it. You deserve an explanation, you deserve the truth. And I feel honored to be able to deliver it to you.”

No more white lies.

No more beating around the bush.

Ask for what you want. Make promises that you can keep and if you don’t keep the promises, admit your mistake and become a man of your word.

. . .

I hope everybody had a really good week.

Share with me some of your breakthroughs, some of your raw, honest moments.

And also please share with me if you broke down and weren’t 100% honest and why.

Craigslist is great; you can get bargains.

Wheels, tires, cars, children, furniture—you name it.

People post ads.

They post the ads and you can see the date that they posted it.

They don’t often give their phone number because they don’t want the phone ringing off the hook.

So the responses go to their e-mail.

But what is up with people and their crappy follow-up skills?

I saw a car that was posted last week—a beautiful Porsche Cayenne. You figure somebody wants to sell it, right?

So I e-mailed them immediately and asked if I could come check it out.

Guess what?

I haven’t gotten an e-mail back from them yet!

I’ve had this happen with other cars too. I’ve actually e-mailed people or texted them about their car and I’ll say, “Hi, is the car still for sale?”

Four days later they’ll write, “yes.”

Four days later.

And then you ask them if the price is negotiable and they write, “no.”

And all I keep thinking is that if you have really crappy sales skills, the price should be negotiable because at the rate that you get back to people, the person has already bought a car.

I even told that to somebody directly.

I said, “Hey, I’m looking to buy a car today, can we talk and deal?”

“Sure.”

And he never got back to me after that.  So I just made him an offer. It was pretty close to what he was asking, with a little added to it.

Nothing. Radio silence.

Then, four days later, he writes, “sounds good.”

I said, “Wow, it took you four days to say that? Sorry bud, but you just lost money.”

Here’s the deal, if you’re going to post an ad, be there to respond to the people that are looking.  Because the people who are looking and sending you messages about your ad want to buy something right away.

You see, they have money in their hands that they want to spend and they want to buy what you are putting up there.  And if you don’t get back to them quickly, they’ll go buy somebody else’s car; rent someone else’s apartment; go buy someone else’s bed—whatever it might be.

Don’t place classified ads unless you have the time to go get back to people, because it’s frustrating being on the other end.  It’s stressful.

When we’re looking to buy something, we want to buy it now.  There are other options and we may want yours but we don’t want to wait for you. So get with it.

Don’t put anything out there if you’re not ready for what’s going to come back to you.

Can you see how this relates to how you move through the world and what your dating life looks like?

Think about it.

I want to tell you about my car.

I sold it: a beautiful, silver Audi Q5.

I just bought this car last July for my birthday.

And now I’ve already sold it.

It was one of those impulse sells.

That’s right. There are things called “impulse buys”, but in life, there are also impulse sells. You get an idea in your head, and you just kind of roll with it.

And it’s important to trust those feelings. Roll with your feelings and you’re being true to what you really want.

So let’s roll with this right now, let’s talk about something I think is really important when it comes down to dating: it’s called being true to your word.

A lot of guys are not true to their word. A lot of guys will go out and say they want a relationship, even when they really don’t. They just think they need to say that they want a relationship in order to have sex.

The women they’re dating hear that this guy wants a relationship, so immediately what does she do? She looks at him as relationship material. And they have sex, of course, because that’s what people in a relationship do.

And then he ends up doing what most untrustworthy guys do in that situation: run, punt…whatever they can! They want to be a free agent all over again.

When it comes down to dating, being true to your word will actually get you better results than you’ve ever gotten.

When I was younger, I had to learn this the hard way.

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I used to always tell women all the time that I wanted a relationship, because I figured that’s what they wanted to hear.

By doing that, I was then able to meet multiple women, sleep with them when I wanted, and basically have relationships with the one that I was interested in and dump the others.

The problem with that is you’re not being honest, and you’re severely lacking in integrity. And what happens is you start building up bad karma, and bad energy all over the place.

When you’re true to your word, you actually can get a lot more out of life.

Follow me on this one.

When I started dating true to my word and being 100% authentic, I’d look at a woman and tell her exactly what I was looking for.

“I’m not looking for a relationship right now, I’m looking for a fling. I like you, I’d like to see what you’re all about, and I’d love to have sex with you, but I don’t want to give you that relationship right now because it’s not where I’m at in my life.”

By being honest and by being authentic, you know what happens? You start having better sex and creating better connections.

Not only that, you start getting all the things that you want in other parts of your life. Being 100% authentic and true to your word is not only the way you need to date, but a great recipe for life.

Try it.

Stop being so afraid of what you really want and what you really feel and go after what you really want and what you really feel.

The world is waiting.

. . .

I have two questions:

What do you really want the most right now?

And which car should I get next: a Porsche Cayenne or a BMW X5?

He asked me the same question over and over again.

It’s a question that a lot of guys ask me:

“What do you think of the women that just don’t want to talk to you?”

And…

“I don’t understand why they just don’t want to talk to me. Shouldn’t I be able to relate to them?”

Take a look at what I just wrote.

Shouldn’t I be able to relate to them?

Think about this for a second:

Do you get along with everybody at work? Are you friends with everybody at work, or is there one or two people that you just really don’t like?

You know, they walk into the office and you just want to avoid them. You could both be walking to the water cooler, and even though you’re thirsty, you’d turn and walk back to your desk.

You know, the person that traps you in the bathroom and talks your ear off or the person you don’t want to ride the elevator down with. They always just rub you the wrong way.

When you go out and meet a bunch of guys, like at a friend’s backyard BBQ, do you like every one of them? There’s that guy, with the breath, drinking his Natural Ice, and he starts talking to you nonstop and you’re just like, “Dude, you’re boring.”

When you go to the gym and work out, aren’t there just some people there that you just don’t ever want to talk to? There’s something about them that just turns you off. You’ve tried to have conversations with them, and they’re just not really fun to talk to. They’re boring.

Do you see what I’m getting at here?

How come, when it comes down to the same sex or coworkers, you don’t care? I never hear any of you whining, “Oh my God, I went to this party last night, and there was this dude there, man, and he just — he just — I don’t know. He just rejected me, didn’t want to talk to me. I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?”

I’ve never heard any guys say, “Man, I was at the gym tonight, and I was working out, and this guy walked into my set, and he just like — I don’t know, man. He just didn’t seem to like me at all. I don’t understand. Why didn’t he like me? I tried to talk to him while he was benching and he just didn’t want to talk to me at all. It’s like…I don’t get it. Why doesn’t he like me? What’s wrong? Is there anything wrong with me?”

You don’t say this, because you don’t care.

There are people in life that you just don’t get along with; people that you don’t have chemistry with; people that you have nothing in common with.

It’s the same way with women.

But yet, why are you so obsessed with women—trying to get all of them to like you, all of them to want to be with you? You think that there’s some magic that allows you to basically have chemistry with every woman you meet.

And why do you get so freaked out when a woman that you handpicked does not want to talk to you at all? Why does it bother you? She’s just another person.

If she were a dude, you wouldn’t care at all.

But because she’s a woman, you get all bent out of shape and then you think there’s something wrong with you.

You need to keep the same principles in line when communicating with either men or women.

I could care less if a woman doesn’t want to talk to me or a man doesn’t want to talk to me. I could care less. It means that just there’s nothing going on. We’ve got nothing in common. We have no chemistry. There’s no spark between us.

I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me, not even for a second.

I feel great when I walk away from somebody who I just don’t relate to. And that’s the key here: feeling really amazing about yourself. Being able to cultivate that feeling every single day is the most powerful thing you can do for yourself.

By doing this and becoming a powerful person, you’re going to walk around with a lot more self confidence and you’ll see yourself a lot higher in the pecking order of life.

Go out and have fun. Be amazing. Be awesome.

And don’t feel bad if everybody else can’t relate to your high level of awesomeness.

Happy Mardi Gras from Shogo!!

We’ve got a new format on the blog that I’m really excited about–every Tuesday we’ll be sharing a video of my latest piece of advice and inspiration to carry you through your week.

Hope you enjoy this week’s clip and I’m looking forward to reading your comments!

So let’s talk about dates and dating this Friday.  I’m sure a few of you have a an exciting date, a hookup, a potential partner, an online date–somebody–that you’re going to meet up and hang out with this weekend.  You may be nervous and wanting to make a good first impression, you may  really be hoping you’re going to get laid, you might just be going through the motions and waiting for your date to make the first move.

Whatever ends up going through your head this weekend, one of the biggest stumbling blocks when you’re out with a new person you barely know is running out of things to talk about.  Even worse if you’re the type of person who runs out of things to talk about so consistently on your past dates that you already fear it’s going to happen on your next date!

Now I’m not talking about having a moment of silence, looking at your date, and understanding how to enjoy that silence.  What I mean is when you go on a date with a new person, talk about some boring topic neither of you really cares about for 30 minutes, then, almost like clockwork,  you have  no idea what to talk about or what to do after that boring 30 minute discussion.

Nobody enjoys a night of sitting across from somebody, staring at their food thinking, “Oh my god, what can I talk about?  Is she bored right now?  Does she think I’m a boring person?  Is this a really awkward date?”  Before you know it, you’re in your head the whole night and this date ends up being just another one to chuck onto your pile of uninspired mediocre first dates.  That’s  a surefire date-killer, a surefire way to go home alone, and a surefire way to not get that second date.

"Does she think I'm boring?"

So what is it that’s causing this?  Are you a boring person?  Is it just really difficult for a guy like you to have chemistry with many different women?  Are you doomed to go on tons and tons of dead-end dates until you finally find that one (out of 100 maybe) who you finally have some sort of a connection and some fun with?

I don’t really believe in boring people.  If you’re reading this, to me you’re an interesting person.  I really believe that.  But you have to believe it also, because if deep down inside you think that you’re just another boring guy, then that’s exactly what you’re going to project for as long as you continue to believe it about yourself.

While I don’t believe in boring people, I do believe in boring lives.  I guarantee there are a lot of guys reading right now, when you look and reflect back at what your week looks like, what your 2012 has looked like up until now, what your 2011 looked like last year, you will see a whole lot of dullness, mediocrity, and forgettable moments.  And it’s not because you are dull or mediocre.  It’s because of what you’ve chosen to fill your life with every single day.

If you’re consistently running out of things to talk about on your dates, if you’re having a hard time connecting with a woman who you actually really like and you want to see again, it’s not because of who you are as a person, it’s because of what you do with your time, what you think about, and what you experience every single day.

Every time you go out on a date, every time you try to connect with a woman, all you can bring with you is what you have experienced up until this point and what you experience in your daily life.  If you live a life that you’d rather not remember, if you think thoughts that you’d rather not share, if you look back and think, “God, what a boring month I had,” the only thing you’re going to deliver to the woman sitting across from you is the energy of a lifestyle you’d rather not share.

If you can’t enjoy your week all by yourself in whatever you do, you’re bringing to the table a guy who doesn’t know how to enjoy himself in the things he does and the people he’s with.  If you’re not inspired by your own life every day leading up to this Friday night, what makes you think you’re suddenly going to be able to flip the switch and make this Friday night any more inspiring?  

But if you are engaged in the things you do, guess what?  You’re going to be engaging to the woman who you’ve brought on this date with you.

So you can sit around and wait for that one out of 100 women who you finally connect with, or you can do something about your lifestyle, start making some changes, and start connecting with women everywhere.  So tonight before you go out, I want you to do yourself a favor and sit for a while in a quiet place.  Maybe turn off the radio on your 30 minute commute home, maybe crack a beer and sit quietly on the couch,  sit still and meditate, get in the zone on the treadmill at the gym, just do something to give your mind a little rest.

Think about the way you live your life right now and how you feel about your connection to the world around you.  Are you perfectly content?  Are you bored?  Do you see yourself as a boring person?  Would somebody else think that your life is interesting?

Now envision the way that you would like your life to be.  What kinds of changes could you make to start moving in that direction? What are some things you’ve thought about doing but have just never gotten around to?   What new things would you learn about?  Have you always wanted to sky dive?  Would you pick up a cooking class or learn some new recipes?  Would you cut out a day of lifting weights and pick up some yoga?  Would you travel to South America for a week instead of another shitty trip to Vegas?  Would you watch less How I Met Your Mother reruns and go to read the new releases at Borders?

Write down three new things that you would enjoy seeing in your lifestyle.  Put yourself out there so that others can see and write them in the comments section.  Because you can talk about it all day long, but the key is that you have to start doing it.  So pick the most important one, the one that jumps out at you the most, AND START DOING IT.  Even if it’s something as simple as trying out one new restaurant a week instead of getting takeout 3 times a week.

You can’t just read a blog post, learn some pickup line, or post your dating questions on the internet.  You have to make that commitment when you wake up that day and actually add something new and inspiring to your life.

So you are out on a date with somebody, it goes fairly well. Pretty soon, you’re waiting for them to call you back and you become obsessed about that person. You call up all your friends to try to figure out what you did right, what may have gone wrong, when they might call you, or why didn’t they haven’t called you yet.

“How come they didn’t call! What did I do wrong?”

And then all of sudden it’s six weeks later, you’ve been talking about this person constantly, and you haven’t dated anybody else since that date. You basically just wasted six weeks of your dating life.

Here is the deal: if you go out on a date and your date never calls you back afterwards––it’s over. Once it’s over, there’s no reason to think about it ever again. That person was not your dream person, that person was not your soul mate, that person was not the person you really wanted them to be since you went out on that date.

What you need to do is realize that all of that time that you’re wasting being obsessed about somebody you once dated and who doesn’t feel the same way about you is really just time wasted not going out and meeting anybody else. It’s time wasted not living your life the way you want to; time wasted on somebody that doesn’t give a damn about you; time wasted on a person who won’t even give you the time to call you back.

That’s the reality of it. This person who you’re obsessing over did not care enough about you to call you back. So now what do you do with that? You stop thinking about that person, you stop obsessing over that person, and you start realizing that there are so many more people out there. The world is abundant. There is an inventory of amazing single people to date everywhere you look.

I’m tired of the complaining, I’m tired of the obsessions.

Now is the time for you to get real with yourself, and stop the complaining, the whining, and start reengaging with the people around you.

Look at your life right now. Look at the people you’ve dated that didn’t work out. Look at how many hours and how many days you’ve obsessed about those people and think to yourself, “Why did I do it? Why did I drive everybody crazy talking about it?”

Stop.

. . .

It’s 2012. You’re all growns up now. Let the past be the past. Look around you and be grateful for all the attractive people you’re going to be dating soon.

Now get out there and engage life. Stop obsessing and get into your best relationship yet.

You deserve it.

PS. Whatever you do, don’t be this guy.