We shot some really cool videos around Munich today, you’re going to love them. I even spoke German in some of them. Well, my version of German, at least! It was absolutely a blast, Shogo acted as my coach and basically forced me to speak German to people around the streets of Munich. Shogo is fluent in German, so we made observations around us, and he basically told me what to say in German and how to pronounce it. And we practiced intonation and how to own the words and speak them with real conviction, just the way I always teach you guys. It was fun to have the roles reversed!

The only problem was, I had absolutely no clue what they said back to me, so I was stuck not knowing how to respond. Shogo had to jump in and rescue me quite a bit, and we got some great laughs out of it! But it really made me think about the observation exercises that we do at boot camps. It was really eye-opening and put me in the shoes of my clients, reminded me of how I used to think in my younger years, about not knowing what to say next, not fully understanding how to engage a person like they may as well be speaking a foreign language—and they were speaking a foreign language!

It was a lot of fun having that role reversal, having Shogo act as my coach and me being on the spot not knowing what to say. Shogo’s a terrific coach, and we really practice constructive criticism to give our clients the motivation they need to trust themselves inside and out and move forward on their own with real confidence. We don’t handle you with kid gloves, we give you tough love when we think you need it, but we’re also not the police who are here to criticize you for every little mistake that you may make. We don’t care about that. We all make mistakes, and none of us are perfect. Most of the time it’s good for us to make those mistakes.

I write for a lot of different sites, as some of you know. I blog almost every day on my site. I also write regularly for the Huffington Post and Askmen.com. And I get e-mails from readers all day long. A lot of these emails, and a lot of commenters, I call them the police. Obviously they are not the real police. They don’t wear black and white uniforms, though these people probably wish that they did. Because they sure act like the real police.

Bad Spellers Beware

There are a few types of police that I have found commenting and emailing me about my writings and the different sites that I write for. First, of course there’s the spelling police. Oh man, do they ever find those spelling mistakes! They will read an entire piece over with a fine tooth comb, skip the overall message of the piece, then they will send the one word that they believe to be misspelled. Now granted, I’m far from a good speller. Never have been, and I don’t claim to be. But a lot of these guys are even angry about it. They will usually write an e-mail that will say, “I can’t believe that your editors or you even published this piece—you call yourself a so-called expert and you misspelled a word!” So there’s the spelling police.

Then there’s the grammar police. These guys are my favorite. As you know, I write in a very casual conversational style. It’s not perfect grammar. But then again, I don’t want it to be perfect grammar. I want to convey to you guys the way I speak, and who I am. Perfect grammar is not who I am, it’s just not the tone that I take. But yet the grammar police will come and they will recite a few sentences that I wrote, then they will re-work it for me to show me how wrong I was and that this is the correct and proper way to write it.

I always found that when they do it the correct and proper way, it reads so boring. So stiff and formal. Formalities are great, but there’s a time and a place for that and it’s just not what I teach. But that’s okay, it makes the grammar police are very happy because that’s what they do, spending their days reading articles to spot the grammar mistakes, basically becoming grammar police.

The other thing I love is the “I want more” police. Now seriously, who are those people? Those are the people that go to YouTube, they get your newsletters, but they will never ever buy a single product from you. And then they tell you that you have no right to be making money off of what you do for a living, and you should be giving away everything for free. The free stuff I already give out just isn’t enough for them. 300 videos on YouTube, a daily blog, a weekly podcast, dating advice on Askmen, pieces on the Huffington Post, and probably another 100 sites where you can read more of my content for free. But it’s not enough for them. They want more. And they actually have the audacity to e-mail and tell me they’ve never bought a product and to give them more free stuff. The “I Want More” police. Ridiculous.

Then my final favorite ones are the cursing police. Yes, the cursing police. The people who, the minute you throw an F bomb out there or an S word, they bring some religious stuff and tell you that no way and no how would a God-fearing man curse like this. Or what Jesus would do me. Oh, I’m afraid of Jesus, because Jesus really cares, Jesus has nothing else to worry about than whether or not I choose to curse here and there. They tell me that I need to change my wicked and evil ways because a curse word flew off the lips.

The police are very funny. Instead of just reading and enjoying my articles, they have to find all the mistakes and critique them. That’s the only way they can be satisfied. Just like a lot of frustrated daters out there. They have to size up everybody around them to makes themselves feel better. They have to rank every woman they see based on her looks and see how she compares to them. They have to basically find all the flaws in people, find where they are better, and really judge the people around them based on their flaws.