We went to the movies last night, and I’m glad we got the tickets for free. We saw the movie Paper Heart. It stars a woman who is probably the most unappealing actress I’ve ever seen. Her name is Charlyne Yi.
She wines when she speaks, has the worst posture I’ve ever seen, and looks like she has neither showered nor washed her hair in months. She looks like she would smell.
So how she got a movie about love, I’ll never figure out. Of course she doesn’t know what love is (which is the basic premise of the movie), since the way she dresses and carries herself makes her reak of insecurity.
What a complete and utter waste of time. The worst part of the movie was that we brought a picnic to eat during it and never got to eat it because of the “Men In Black.” No it wasn’t Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones . . . but two men who stood in black suits at each side of the theater for the entire movie staring at the people in the seats. Their suits looked like those ones you can buy three for $149.00.
Then, at the end of the movie, they just left. I’ve never been to a movie where there were security guards wearing black suits.
Why were they there? Did they know the movie was this bad, and worried that we might attack the movie screen? Were they there to wake us up when we fell asleep during this awful movie . . . or was this just another oddity about living in La La Land. I’ll never know the answer since the “Men In Black” disappeared before we could find out who they were.
Enough about bad movies, Men In Black and picnics that can’t be eaten. On to today’s main event . . .
So, what do you do when the conversation stalls with someone?
You have to think to yourself, what do I know about this person? What have I learned about this person?
A conversation should never stall. There might be no chemistry, and you might not have “it” with that person, but you can always reignite a conversation and give it another shot. How? Well, what have you already learned about them?
So she’s from Japan – you’ve learned that. You’re currently in Seattle studying. If the conversation stalls, you can just look at her and say, “so what do you miss the most about Japan? Is there one thing that you really miss about home?”
Get her to talk more emotionally; get her to talk about her feelings and about what is going on. In this way you can re-engage her and she can answer, “you know what I miss the most about Japan? I miss the food; I miss the culture…” whatever it is.
“What is it about the food you miss?” Ask her like you’re talking to a child. When you look at any kid and you ask, “what’s bugging you today?” They always answer, “nothing,” and you have to prod them a bit. You say, “alright, come on and tell me what’s bothering you.” Then the kid will say, “well, I didn’t like dinner.” You ask, “alright, what didn’t you like about dinner?” – do you see how you are paraphrasing the child’s words to get them to open up a little bit?
Sometimes talking to women is like talking to a five-year-old. You have to paraphrase her a little bit – but don’t talk in that same little kid voice! But you do have to get her to open up a little bit.
Another reason that was a fantastic example is that you opened up what I consider to be the hardest culture of women to open. Japanese women – oh man. Chinese women are tough, Filipino women are very shy and hard to open up, but Japanese women are just about the most difficult to open – because of their culture.
What is Japanese culture like? If you ever go to Honolulu, the men are walking and the women they are with are like five or ten feet behind them. The younger Japanese women still have that as their parental example even if they are a lot more modern, progressive and hipper than their parents.
The culture is different now, but still, Japanese women are tough to open. But once you open them up, they start laughing and smiling. So that interaction all together was really fantastic.
To get the conversation back on track, instead of thinking to yourself, oh my god, what do I do here? How do I save this conversation? Think to yourself: what do I know about her? I can ask her a question based on something we’ve already talked about and I can take the conversation deeper.
That is, are you somebody who won’t talk to people to their face – so you talk shit about them behind their back?
There is nothing I disrespect more than back talking. I don’t respect someone who can’t look me in the eyes and talk to me directly – someone who badmouths me behind my back. I find that to be the most disgraceful way of addressing something.
I don’t honor people who talk behind other people’s backs. I don’t honor people who don’t look me in the eyes and tell me what is on their mind. I don’t respect somebody who can’t talk to me face-to-face.
If anyone has an issue with me, I want to hear about it. I want to discuss it, because that is what a real friend would do.
Do you know anyone who is a real back talker? Or are you somebody that has been a chicken in life and decided to talk behind people’s backs?
Really, I think that back talking shows something important about your personality. I think it shows something about your development and your confidence level. A genuinely confident person will talk to somebody about the things that bother him or her. They won’t talk shit about somebody.
Shit talkers and back talkers are people who are really insecure. These are people who don’t really know themselves.
Do you know of any back talkers in your life? Or have you been one at times?
We’ve all talked shit about people behind their backs before. We’ve all done it. But hopefully most of us have stopped doing it – it really is one of the ugliest traits anyone can have.
Saturday and i thought this quick thought I had would be a great mindset for the weekend.
Enjoy your day!!!
We all want something. We want the end result.
You’re dating a woman, and you want to get her to fall in love with you. Or maybe you’re dating somebody, and you want him or her to move in with you. Or you see her two days a week, but you really want to see her four days a week.
So instead of being present and enjoying that moment, you’re thinking about what you want to get out of it. And you’re not really there.
My favorite times are with my girlfriend – and every single day with her is amazing because I’m always learning something new – but one of the best times we had together was in the beginning of our relationship when we stayed on the phone all night long. We’d get on the phone at 11 p.m. intending to talk for a few minutes, but we’d still be on the phone together five or six hours later. (more…)
So you’re in a conversation with some people, and the conversation is not going in your direction. Perhaps it’s about something that you don’t know much about, or something that you don’t understand – or it’s just about something that you’re not passionate about.
When you’re in this situation, you get frustrated. As the conversation progresses and gets more and more heated, you start to panic. You feel the need to somehow swing the conversation in your direction.
So you either change the topic – which is a mistake, because you just needlessly killed a great conversation – or you feel driven to say something totally stupid.
Here’s what I tell guys who find themselves in that situation: it’s a great time to shut up and learn. (more…)
It’s funny – my life is really interesting, and it’s a blast. I work a lot – I would definitely be considered a workaholic – a lot of these blogs are written at two o’clock in the morning.
I’m sitting here with Rey, and we were talking a little bit. Four years ago, Rey came to the United States from Taiwan, and as he calls it, he had to speak “Engrish” for a few years before he really learned the language.
We’re just sitting here, doing some work, and I told him that patience is everything. I told him that the reason why I am successful in life is that I’ve been patient.
I was successful business-wise when I was younger, but I was so impatient that I kept sabotaging myself along the way. When you are impatient you begin to sabotage everything you do – instead of letting things play out naturally and happen the way that they are supposed to, you force things. When you force something, you turn other people off – in both business and your personal life. (more…)
The following is a talk I gave to a client at a weekend bootcamp. This is a great example of my direct one-on-one coaching during bootcamps.
Whenever you try too hard in life to get people to like you, you push everybody away.
When you do this, you’re too over the top and you’re generally not listening to people. You’re actually overwhelming them.
It’s like a Golden Retriever: have you ever gone over to someone’s house and they have a Golden Retriever, and you’ve never met this dog before, but the dog will just not leave you alone? It just keeps running over to you, bringing you its ball, and all of its toys and everything?
In a dog, this is a great quality. In a human – well, you don’t want to be a human Golden Retriever.
Both men and women do it. When people try too hard, it’s just too much. You get in somebody’s face, and they automatically want to back down. I watch when a guy will go out there and be a human Golden Retriever – and I watch the way women react. At first, they will find him attractive, because he has great energy, but then after two minutes, she’ll just try to shoo him away.
She hasn’t gotten to know the guy in those two minutes, because generally the human Golden Retriever is just spitting out hyperactive words the whole time instead of connecting.
By tuning yourself down a little bit, and by listening and being intriguing, you’re no longer going to be a human Golden Retriever – you’ll be a person. And that’s all that it is about. It’s about connecting with people in a genuine way.
After this weekend, some of you guys will keep in touch with some of the guys here a little bit longer than you might keep in touch with some of the other guys – that’s just life. That’s chemistry.
So stop trying so hard. You’re such a deep and genuine soul. You’re a good person all around. You don’t need to try so hard to prove yourself to other people. So stop overtrying
Todays video dives even deeper into life and how to present yourself to a total stranger with confidence.
In order to become more observant, your mindset needs to be this: everything you see you need to look at with a child-like curiosity. Look at everything like you’ve never seen it before.
The way you need to live life is to walk through a neighborhood every single day like you’ve never been there before. Every day you walk through that neighborhood, notice new things. Notice new buildings. Notice the color of the sky. Notice the new trees in springtime. Notice the new buds coming up. Notice everything you can possibly notice.
What happens is that this is tuning you to your environment. You can even do this on your way to work. If you walk to work, you can do this then. You can notice the cars, notice the way people walk, notice the way people are dressed. What happens is that you start training your mind.
What comes next is going into stores: let’s say you go into a Starbucks and you see someone you are attracted to. Have that same child-like curiosity. There’s someone standing next to you that you’re attracted to and you want to talk to them. You can look at the big menu board up there, the caramel machi-frattos and all that other junk, and you stand there and it’s called ‘throwing words to the wind.’ You project your voice so that the other person can hear it.
You never want to speak low or softly; you want to project your voice. When you project your voice, you can basically look up, throw those words out, and say, “god I was wondering, what’s good here?”
Immediately the person standing next to you will answer – everybody likes to pretend that they know it all. So she’ll answer, and there’s a conversation starter for you.
Everywhere you go, you can use the “I am wondering” or “I’m curious” method of reading people.
Let’s say you’re at a gas station, and you’re pumping gas into your car. Someone is standing next to you, and they’ve got this great Audi. “I’m curious, do you like your car? I was thinking of maybe getting one of those one day.” Whether or not you just bought your car or you didn’t – it doesn’t matter, you can still say that.
So be curious about everything. If you go to the Apple store – which is a place that a lot of people go – you’re looking at the iPods. You pick up the 70 GB iPod and say, “god, I’m wondering: do you think anybody ever fills up this thing with music?” The person will answer, “well, yeah, I have all this music…”
The most important thing you need to do is to look at everything in the world just like a child. You have the wonderment of a child, and you look at the world as if it was the first time you’ve ever been there.
Become and embrace that inner child.
Todays video is all about how to embrace who you are. How to love yourself and your insecurities.
You will learn all about my insecurity and how i deal with it!
