Go to www.yelp.com. It has reviews on restaurants. When you’re on that third or fourth date trying to impress that date, you want to find a cute cafe or a great restaurant. So look at the reviews. Look not only at the reviews about the food, but also the reviews about the service.

The reason to do this is something I realized while I was in France. Waiters in France and the United Kingdom (and actually all throughout Europe) are professional waiters. In Los Angeles and New York waiters are struggling actors, so you are not getting great service a lot of times.

In Europe, however, you are getting waiters whose career is being a waiter. Also, in Europe they pay their waiter a respectable wage. It’s a career, not just a job. They even get health benefits and so forth.  Restaurants here barely pay you, and they expect the customers to tip you 30% so you can earn respectable wages.

We’ve already talked about tipping in a previous blog, so that’s not what we’re going to talk about today. What is really important about this, though, is to avoid having bad service when you’re on a date.

You don’t want bad service when you’re on a date because, if you think about it, you are not your nicest self when you’re faced with bad service at a restaurant.
Things may come out of your mouth that wouldn’t otherwise say, and on a date you are always trying to make a good impression.

Your surroundings are really important on a date. So the next time you’re planning a date, check out yelp.com and the restaurant reviews on there . . . especially the reviews of the service at each place. When you’re out there, you better make sure that everything is in your favor, and bad service can quickly turn a good date into a bad one.

This week I predict the Texans will win over the Bills. The Bears will beat the Browns. The Lions will win over the Rams. The Jets will defeat the Dolphins. The Chargers will win over the Raiders. The Cardinals will beat the Panthers.

The Saint and the Colts will remain unbeaten, but the Broncos will fall to the Ravens. As for the two “big games” today, I am predicting the Giants will win over the Eagles and Favre will gome home crying in defeat.

Have a great Sunday, and let’s get to today’s blog!

At a recent Bootcamp, I had a conversation with the guys about what I call window shopping your life. I had a conversation about challenging yourself. (This, by the way, is a great example of what we work on during my Bootcamp weekends!)

Most of us window shop in our own lives. Many of us have had tragedies in our lives. As humans, it’s natural to want to change our lives after we survive a catastrophe, but it’s also human that we rarely stick with that plan to change.

We always sweep things under the rug. We all do this. It’s just the way things work. We get shocked into doing something or making a change, but we can’t help continuing to window shop.

So what do I mean when I say that we window shop our lives? It means that we fail to take action and really lead the kind of life we map out for ourselves. We go back to not being fully alive, and just wishing and wanting for the life we want to live.

The term window shopping is a good description, because it is as if we have a glass barrier between our life and the life we want. We can see it, but there is something in our way from actually living it.

A lot of people see this barrier as something that keeps them from having the life they want. In reality, though, we are capable of having that life right now if we take the steps to get it.

Why do we think we can’t have this life? We buy into false limitations. We don’t want to face that we need to take more action.

I often call people who just wait for things to happen in life “waiters.” They want things to change, and they keep hoping things will change on their own without them having to take any action on their part.

Once you begin to stop window shopping and to stop waiting, you will see how much time you’ve been wasting kicking back that you could have been spending living the life you want.

Life is too short, and you only get one! If you don’t take the opportunities now, when are you going to take them? So stop window shopping. Stop waiting. Take action today and start to really live the life you want.

I have never written a blog about how to meet women in an airport? It’s very simple.

First of all, airports are places that women go to connect to other places, right? If you think about the psychology of the airport, about half the time you’re traveling for business, and the other half you’re traveling for pleasure. But 100% of the time you want it to be pleasure.

So if I see a woman standing in line at Starbucks – because there is basically a Starbucks in every single airport – I would just say to her, “so, where are you heading to?”

She might respond, “well, I’m heading to San Francisco.” I can ask, “really, do you live there?” She says, “no, I’m just going on business.”

Then you can say, “alright, so we’re in an airport. If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be?” If someone is just going for a business trip, it’s not that big of a deal. They might be going to a great city, but if they are there on business, they probably won’t be able to see much of it.

But if you can get someone to talk in fantasy-mode – if you can get them to talk about where they really want to go – then the conversation can be more fun.

For instance, if the woman says, “oh, I’d much rather go to Italy,” you can ask, “why Italy? What about Italy? Where in Italy?” If you’ve been to Italy, you can contribute something to the conversation and you can have a conversation about where you want to visit and where you’ve been.

It’s fun. You’re also getting someone out of that whole “oh my god, I can’t believe…” zone. “I can’t believe I have to go on this business trip.” You’re getting her to think about things and talk about things that are pleasurable. You’re talking about things that are fun.

If you’re looking up at the flight departures/arrivals board you can do the same thing. Look at her and say, “where are you heading to?” She answers, “oh, I’m heading to Iowa.” You ask, “okay, if you had to pick any place on this whole board, where would you go and why?” And you say it with a really big smile.

That’s how you start conversations in the airport. Make it fun, make it quick, and just be different! You can find out so much about someone when you do it in this way. Not only that, you’ll be able to find out where they live, where they are going – and who knows? Maybe they are from your hometown but are heading off for vacation, and you can have dinner with them when they return

Or maybe they are heading to the same place you are, and you have a date as soon as the plane touches down!
So what about on the plane? Particularly if you’re not sitting next to them?
It’s really the same thing on the plane. You take an inventory of where they are sitting, and then when you get up to use the restroom, you smile at them as you walk by. She’s probably totally bored on the plane, and she sees you smiling at her, and then the next time you pass by to go to the bathroom, just smile at her again and ask, “how’s the flight?” Or you could say, “oh man, you are so lucky you’re sitting back here right now, I’ve got the kid kickers behind me! You wanna switch?”

I’ve done that. Or sometimes I’ll walk over and I’ll look at her and say, “are the flight attendants treating you as well as they’re treating me? Because I’m sitting up front.” I’ll play around with it, and have a good time.

Those things work every single time on an airplane. You don’t need any more. Those are just simple ways to approach.

Now what if you see people in the concierge part of the airport – not near the gates, would you still just approach them and say, “where are you heading to?”

Why not? “Where are you heading to?” Let’s say you’re sitting in the lounge, waiting to take off and the woman in there is cute. You can stand next to her and say, “going home, or going on vacation?” If she’s on your flight, you’ve already made contact ahead of time. “Going home, or going on vacation?” That’s how you do that.

Let’s say you’re walking around, killing two hours in the airport between connecting flights. You see a woman sitting in an area that implies she’s going to San Francisco, and you’re going to Los Angeles. You go over there and sit down next to her and ask, “wait, is this the flight to LA?” She’ll say, “no, it’s to San Francisco,” and then you can say, “oh man, I am so tired from traveling,” and then share your story with her.

“Man, I’m so tired right now, I’ve been on business trips all week long, and you know what? San Francisco sounds much better than going to LA on business anyway! Are you from San Fran?” You have her laughing and you’ve shared a little bit of a story. What happens next? You start communicating with her.

If you’re in a bookstore – I’ve done this a lot as well – and you see a woman with magazines, you can say, “oh, People magazine – you must have a long flight! Where are you heading to?” That’s it. You don’t have to be so funny.

As I am writing this I am being chatted up by Alan a business traveler who has been making me read this whole thing to him and he has a question.
Go ahead Alan ask away.

Alan…… Right, you can get in a funny line a couple of minutes down the road, but I like to have a good, funny line to open, and that’s where I’m thinking and not acting. And it’s like the three-second rule – I’m sitting there waiting, and then it’s almost creepy when you wait too long!

David: Yeah, you’ve waited way too long and things are not going well. And the fact is, once again, this should all be based on observations. You’re not doing anything that is so earth shattering; you’re just getting inside her head. It goes to the whole theory of becoming a natural at doing this.

You’re not walking over there saying, “let me ask your opinion, do you like 747s better or 767s?” You’re not breaking her train of thought. The reason why so many guys mess up, when it comes down to it, is that you’re pulling her out of her train of thought. You don’t want to do this.

When you pull someone out of their train of thought, you’re inevitably going to crash and burn. She’s not going to be thinking about what you just said. You’re trying to make her think on an entirely different wavelength.

By opening her with observations, you’re getting her to think on the same wavelength of what she’s already thinking about.

So there you have it in airports!

And Alan as you asked me what I was working on to strike up this last part of my blog, you can do the same with women!!