Fantasy football season is around the corner. Although not for Shogo, because we learned from the Shannon Sharpe blog that Shogo throws like a girl and now I’m never going to ever, ever let him live that down.

Anyway, today’s blog is not about why Shogo can’t throw a football. What this is about is whether or not this summer was the magic summer for you. Man, fall is right around the corner. Did summer happen the way you thought it was going to happen? Did you have that summer magic that you thought or you were hoping for? Did the summer time share, the house on the lake, the house on the beach, the parties and the barbeques, the things that you planned out, did the magic happen on those summer nights? Were they your rescue from the year? Or, as you’re sitting here right now reading this blog, are you realizing that you still lack some of the social skills you need to really make the magic happen?

My mom is funny, she always wants to move. She always says to herself, I’m going to move, and things are going to be different when I move. When she would say that I used to say to her, “No Mom, you’re still bringing yourself there with you.” And she would laugh. But it’s the truth.

Who Throws A Better Football; Kardashian or Shogo?

So when you showed up to all the barbeques, while you’re planning your big Labor Day weekend—remember that you’re still bringing yourself. You may be going to some amazing events and doing some really fun activities, but you’re still bringing the fears, the excuses, you’re still bringing that old person with you. To me, when you have great social skills that you really work hard on, you can have fun standing at a bus stop. You don’t need the magic of summer. Every day can be magic for you. Every day can be this amazing day that yields great results. Every night can be that magic summer night. So if you’re right now staring at your summer and realizing that it’s gone by and it didn’t deliver the goods that you thought, then I strongly suggest that you craft a plan, and make a commitment, to make these changes this fall.

You’ve got to work on yourself, you’ve got to be in touch everything that’s around you, you’ve got to get rid of the monkey chatter. Keep up with the blog, take the messages to heart and use them every day. And if that’s not enough and you can’t do it on your own, come to one of my events that are coming up. We’ve got a Communication Seminar in Chicago the week of September 10th, and I’ve got an intensive live-with-me program and a boot camp in London at the end of October. Shogo will make sure you don’t have to throw a football if you don’t want to.

But it’s time you made these changes.

Because let me tell you something, fall is coming up. Then the holiday season. New Year’s resolutions are right around the corner, and guess what you’re going to be saying? The same thing you said about where you were going to be this summer. Only now you’re going to change it to January 1, 2012.

You had all these big plans for summer, whether you were a young kid looking forward to day camp or whether you were a teenager looking forward to summer camp or to college. Whether you were going to work as a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool or you were just going have so much fun hanging out with your friends, you just couldn’t wait for that three-and-a-half-month summer vacation.

Summer used to be such magic. The anticipation and the feeling that you felt every day was special. No school. Going to bed later. All of it.

When I was in the third grade, we spent the summer out in The Hamptons. It was beautiful. I remember Gregory Seltzer and I running around and swimming all day long. We used to go deep into the ocean. I remember what it felt like deep into the ocean at that stage in my life.

I remember swimming out there, and then running back on the beach to make a beard in the sand. Then I’d shave my sand beard with a clamshell. Now, as an adult, I can’t stand shaving. I wish I never had to shave.

I remember all the magic. I remember all the traditions we had.

I would also go away to summer camp and spend almost the whole summer with friends there. It was so much fun. Then I’d come back, and we’d spend time as a family in The Hamptons.

My Grandmother had a house out in Hamptons Bay. It was on the water and absolutely beautiful. At the end of the summer, we used to go to go there.

The very last night we would have a lobster dinner. I remember picking up the lobsters at Tully’s, a seafood store in Hampton Bays, and all the anticipation about that dinner — cracking them open and sitting down to that last big dinner before going back to school.

I would sit there and wonder (now, please don’t laugh) if I would be the tannest or blondest kid in school on the first day. I was always working on my tan or letting my hair bleach out from the sun.

Summers used to be so carefree. Now as adults, what do we do?

We take a week off — maybe two — and that’s it. The rest of the time, we work.

Summer nights aren’t magic anymore. We need to recapture that feeling that we had as a kid.

What is your favorite summer memory? What is your most incredible summer memory? How can you get back that magic?

Wouldn’t it be great if your boss let you out of work every single day at 3:00pm just because it was summertime? What if everyone’s boss let them out of work at 3:00pm every day of summer, and everyone could go out and play tag? Maybe you could go out and have a color war like you did at camp, or go to the neighborhood pool and play Marco Polo.

Maybe we should institute that. Maybe I should ask President Obama and Congress to make that a law, i.e., that in July and August all businesses must close at 3:00 pm so that all adults can act like kids again.

Why do we need to be so old? Why do we need to act like adults? Why can’t summer be magical like it once was?

As I’m writing this blog on a Monday sitting with my wife in Palm Springs, I am realizing how amazing summer truly is. I want to have that amazing summer feeling back that I had when I was a kid. So I think if we all get together and maybe sign some type of petition to enact that 3:00pm summer rule, that we can get that magical summer feeling back.

For those of you who are single, imagine all the great dates you can go on if we get this 3:00pm summer law passed. Imagine all the amazing people you can meet when go to the adult summer camp at 3:00pm after work, and get to go on a “social.”

I remember socials at summer camp. They were so much fun. Boys on one side and girls on the other. It was so much easier than speed dating.

Anyway, I think we should pass this blog on to President Obama and see what he can do to make this 3:00pm summer law happen. I think this could be something that could really work!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic Labor Day weekend! I can’t believe the summer is coming to an end. Today’s blog is great, as it is the best adventure you can have on this Labor Day.

One of the best things to do is to play tourist in your own town. Walk around your town on a Saturday and pretend that you’ve never been there before. Why? It will force you to ask for directions and recommendations and to converse with people that you haven’t talked to before.

Maybe you can make this an adventure with somebody. Pretend like you’ve never been there before. Not only will you meet interesting people, but you will also learn things about your town that you probably didn’t already know.

Just because you have lived somewhere your whole life does not mean that you know every restaurant! It doesn’t mean you’ve been to every little shop, or explored every nook and cranny.

By acting like a curious, lost tourist, you will be able to meet more people all day long. This builds your social network.

If you start connecting with a woman who lives in your town and you want to ask her out, you can say, “Give me your number. I’d love to get together with you. I live here, but I made a pact with myself today that I was going to re-explore my town. I’ve lived here my entire life and I wanted to feel like a tourist again. And since you were nice enough to share all of your information, I would like to take you out and show you one of MY favorite places.”

She’ll ask you which place is your favorite, and you can say “It’s a surprise! Give me your number and we’ll get together next week.” That is how you do it. Turn it into a game while still being honest.

At a recent Bootcamp a client asked me if I’d ever done this. I told him “Absolutely! It works really well.”

You’re not lying to them. You’re doing a social experiment on yourself. Also, it tells a woman that you are self-evolved.

You are showing her that you are a man that actually thinks outside the box. It takes a lot of guts to pretend to be a tourist.

How many times have you been with a woman who has complained that she hasn’t seen your vulnerable side? Pretending to be a tourist is a way to show a woman your vulnerability.

All right, let’s go take a walk! Enjoy your Labor Day!

On to today’s blog. Have an amazing Labor Day weekend!

The other day something interesting happened. This probably happens every single day . . . on an elevator, in a restaurant and on the subway.

There seems to be a disease going around. I call the people with this disease “barrel inners and barrel outers.” The barrel inners are the people who, when you’re walking out of a restaurant or out of a subway train, have to get in before you get out (or vice versa).

They’ll actually physically push you as they do it too. I’ve been physically pushed in New York City by people wanting so badly to get on a train before the people exiting get off, that they push all the people trying to exit the train as they do it.

So the other day we were in an elevator on the way to an appointment, and there were some barrel outers behind us. It was amazing. When we get to our floor, we are standing in front of the elevator doors waiting for them to open when we feel this pushing from behind us.

These barrel outer women standing behind us apparently couldn’t wait to get out of the elevator or just wanted to get out ahead of us. So I turned around and told the barrel outer women that we were also getting off at that floor, but they didn’t care. Barrel outers will physically push and elbow their way ahead of you.

The barrel inners are just as bad though. After I had lunch recently, I was at the door to the restaurant on my way to leave when a whole group of barrel inners just started barreling right in the door. Did they think I was a doorman just waiting to hold the door to let them in? It’s amazing how many times you open the door to leave a place, and the barrel inners charge right in.  

I’m sure every single day you see your share of barrel inners and barrel outers. I’m sure some of you are notorious barrel inners and barrel outers.  

Have you ever been to Italy? They’re the worst in terms of being barrel inners and barrel outers. You could be the next one in line at a museum to pay, and the next thing you know there will be ten Italians all around you in a circle. You think, “Did I just inherit some big Italian family? Sure…get right in!”

That’s it for the barrels. I wondered where they got that song “Roll Out The Barrel…” In today’s video, find out how to be the opposite of barrel inners and outers — someone who women WANT to be around all the time…