This Friday’s blog was going to be another tip from me on navigating the bar scene. I was going to talk about cockblocking, but I’ve been reading some of the recent comments on the blog, and instead I want to write today’s blog in response to some of the comments. We’ll talk about cockblocks next week.

So you’re on the blog reading all this great advice about how to meet women, how to date, and how to get yourself into a relationship. Problem is, when you go out there in real life, you can’t put any of the information we give you to use because you’re not actually meeting anyone. There’s no women around when you go out. Or you can’t approach. Or you do approach but you keep getting No-Thank-Yous.

Why is this happening to you? Maybe you think you’re ugly. Maybe you’re short. Maybe you drive a shitty, beat-up car. So you tell yourself that women are turned off by all of this. They’re so turned off by you. What women are really attracted to is a guy with a full head of hair, 6’2”, and a vacation house in Miami.

Do you have what it takes to get the woman you desire?

And you just can’t compete with a guy like that. You’ve been dealt a shitty hand in life, and all the dating advice in the world isn’t going to change the fact that you’re just not attractive to women.

So you come on the blog and you say, “Screw you David, screw you Shogo, screw Intern Dan, whoever, you give us all this esoteric mindset advice on how to be confident, but all the confidence in the world is not going to make up for the fact that I’m short, fat, bald, and broke, and the cold hard truth is that women are turned off by that.”

You want to attract a lot of women? You want to be a lady’s man? If that’s what you want, here’s the news:

Looks matter. Height matters. Money in the bank matters.

That’s right, all these things–and much much more–do in fact make a difference when it comes down to attracting women. But there’s only so much you can do about any of that. You can’t change it, so why on earth spend another minute dwelling on it?

(And more importantly, all the looks and money in the world will only get you so far in your success with women, but that’s another blog for another day.)

What you need to do is take action and do something about the things that you can actually improve on. And more importantly, you need to let go of the things you can never change about yourself.

You really need to let it go.

You hate your height and you’re bitching about?

Fine. You’re short. I get it.

What do you want from people? Unless you’re willing to go to China to have metal rods implanted into your shins, there is nothing anybody in the world can do about that. There is absolutely no use in you dwelling on the things you don’t like about yourself and beating yourself up over the fact that some woman out there who you don’t even know isn’t going to date you for it.

Is it true that if you’re 5’6”, you will never have a girlfriend who only dates men over 5’10″?

Yes, if that is an absolute requirement for her, that is true. You will never date a woman like that.

Is it true that I, Shogo, will never date a woman who will not go out with an Asian man?

Yes, that is also true. I am Asian. I will never be able to date a woman like that, not for the rest of my life.

The difference with me is that you will never see me sitting around, bitching and moaning about it. I don’t dwell on that for a single moment. I don’t want to be with a woman who doesn’t want me. It doesn’t upset me in the least.

And simply having that mindset automatically makes me more attractive to more women.

Here’s an exercise I want everybody to do:

Get out three sheets of paper. On one sheet, write down all the things about yourself that you don’t like. Take your time with it. And be specific. Don’t just write, “I’m ugly.” Write, “I don’t like the acne scars on my cheekbones.” Write things like, “I don’t like the extra flab on my belly.” “I am 4 inches shorter than I’d like to be.” “My penis is 2 inches shorter than I’d like it to be.” “I don’t like the fact that I have few friends.” “I don’t like my disheveled haircut and dandruff.” “I don’t like my glasses and my dorky wardrobe.”

Write all of that stuff out. Make the list as long as you want and take your time doing it.

Now review that list. Read through each item. On the second sheet, I want you to rewrite each thing that, with some work, you could actually take steps to change about yourself. On the third sheet, rewrite each thing that is a permanent part of you and that YOU CANNOT EVER CHANGE ABOUT YOURSELF.

Review that third sheet. Look at it and internalize it. This is who you are. This is who you are for the rest of your life and THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO CHANGE THAT.

You need to embrace it. You need to love every single thing you wrote about yourself on that third sheet. This is who you are.  These are the things that will never change about you, so fuck anyone who is unwilling to accept you for that. But the first step starts with you accepting yourself and accepting all of your little ugly bits.

You are who you are, guys. We all have things we don’t like about ourselves. Change the things about yourself that you can change, and embrace the things about yourself that you cannot change.

I will be here for one week so if anyone wants to do some private coaching next week email me and we can set it up!

I was thinking about something on the plane that I wanted to share with all of you.
There is a certain exercise that I have all of the men and women I coach do. It’s in both my Men’s and Women’s Mastery Series.

It is: what image do you outwardly project to the world? What do other people think of you?

Ask five people what they think about you. What type of energy do you convey? What type of confidence do you convey? What do you look like? How do you dress? Ask five people all of these things.

I have a client named Rob who is a great guy. Rob took a bootcamp with me recently, and the other night we were out to dinner having a long talk. He’s a great-looking guy, he’s got a great image, he has lots of confidence – but it’s all an optical illusion.

He projects these things to everyone who sees him but deep inside he doesn’t really believe it. This is his fundamental issue. He doesn’t believe that he’s good-looking. Rob is 5’7”, but if you sat with him at a table you’d think he was 6’2”. He has this incredibly large persona.

But the problem is that he just doesn’t believe it. Everyone sees it except for him.

Rob is what I call an optical illusion. This is why many men (and women) come to me for coaching – what I can do with them is really work on the inside. It’s great that you’re able to exude these qualities, but if you don’t actually believe it, other people won’t either.

When you first glance at Rob, you believe it. When you hear him talk, you still believe it. But if Rob doesn’t believe it himself, he will never be able to go up to a woman – even though she’s feeling the heat and the energy – and close her. He won’t be able to get her phone number and go out with her.

Rob needs to believe it. And those of you who can relate to Rob – those of you who live in a life of optical illusions – you need to do something to make yourself believe it.

Rob was telling me about some of his friends who are fascinated by what Rob did at the bootcamp. They desperately want to do the same thing but they are terrified. They keep making excuses – about the money. “Oh, it’s $2495, there is no way we could do that,” they say, yet both of these guys are going to grad school. They’re trying to get advanced degrees so they can get a better job and make more money.

They are willing to invest in a degree that will help them to become more successful and make more money in the business world, but they are not willing to invest in themselves!

That’s what you need to do. If you are an optical illusion, you need to invest your time and money in personal development. You need to invest in YOU. You are your own corporation, and you need to invest in yourself.

This is not a sales letter for one of my bootcamps – either you’re going to do it or you won’t. But that’s the thing about life: what are you waiting for to change yourself?

If everyone thinks that you are confident on the outside and you don’t feel it on the inside – if you are an optical illusion – guess what? Your life is never going to change unless you start doing internal work.

So here is a suggestion – and a challenge – I have for all of you: I want you to go out there and find out if you are an optical illusion. I want you to ask five friends what they think of you.

What type of image do you project? What type of confidence do you convey?

I want you to go out there and do this today. And I want you to find out if you are an optical illusion. If you are, we really need to get you started doing some inner work on your brain. It won’t change by itself. If it could, you already would have been able to self-motivate and make it happen.

Consider this the first step – the first kick in the ass – to getting rid of that optical illusion that you may be conveying to the world.