A lot of us are still living our parents’ decisions and our parents’ wishes as we formulate our own—myself included. My father’s belief systems have plagued me my entire life.

What I’m about to admit to you is the hardest things I’ve ever written in my entire life.  But last night’s game should have been my fourth Super Bowl triumph.  See, my old man, he was the guy that would always thought it was funny to do the opposite.

So he was living in New York, I think, in the ’50s.  And of course the Giants were a good team in the ’50s; they were an NFL powerhouse before the AFL and the NFL became one league.  They were an NFL powerhouse.  They won a couple of championships.

The Jets were an expansion team.  So my father decided to root for the expansion team because he thought, “yeah, I’ll just go against everybody else” because he loved to argue with people.  That was his whole point.

When I was a little kid I always wore a football jersey and that jersey was the Titans. (Because the Jets used to be the called the Titans back then.)  And I’ve been a Jets fan, as all of you know, my entire life.  Pity me.  The Jets don’t win anything.

But my father was halfway cool.  He had sort of been a Giant fan.

This would have been my fourth Super Bowl win.  Yesterday, I would have been jumping up and down when Eli Manning won the game.  I would have been excited-yet-annoyed that Ahmad Bradshaw didn’t take the knee at the one and kill the clock, instead of giving Brady another chance.

But you know what, congratulations to the Giants.  It shows what good coaching will do and it shows what determination will do.  I don’t even want to begin to tell you about the other curse my dad gave me, the one that’s even worse than the Giants curse: I’m a Mets fan.  I don’t know, eight, nine World Series’ the Yankees have won in my lifetime compared to the Mets’ two measly World Series and mediocre play every single year.

It’s time to get rid of our parents’ programming.  It’s time to start living our own lives.  Go Giants.  Go Yankees.  See, the curse of my dad is now officially over, because as of now I’m a Giants fan.  And next baseball season, I’m all about A-Rod, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter.

Go Yankees.

Obsession is something that is not very healthy at all, especially when it comes to meeting the opposite sex. So many guys are so obsessed with the approach or so obsessed with trying to figure out what to say.

Women get obsessed with a lot of different things also. Some get obsessed and fixated when it comes to why the date went wrong and what the guy must be thinking and why the relationship is not working out and how it could not work out.

Today’s video is all about obsession. I think you’ll enjoy it because it’ll finally open up your eyes to what obsession is all about.

If you’re ready to stop obsessing and start having a healthy, productive, amazing dating life, I suggest you buy my book, Naked.

A lot of you have egos that do not even allow you to meet people at all. So many of you do not even realize how much your ego is stopping you from making changes so you can be happy in your life.

Your ego can be the sole reason why you are alone right now. So today on Columbus day 2011 lets talk about ego and dating.

In life, we tend to try to protect ourselves all of the time with our egos. We spend so much time worrying about everything – someone didn’t text me back quickly enough, someone didn’t email me back yet, someone hasn’t called me back!

Does Your Ego Ruin Your Dates

And then you meet someone who turns you on more than anyone you’ve met in a long time and they don’t respond to an email right away.

First of all, you have to start thinking to yourself, how many times have I gotten a lot of emails? And then you don’t check for a few hours and they just get buried. Or you read an email, you smile, but you’re in the middle of doing something else at work and can’t respond?

Shit happens. Stop standing on principle – you might miss a connection. Your ego gets in the way of so many great things.

If you meet someone and you have great chemistry, it’s worth it to lob in another text or email. You have to be willing to go the extra distance. If you don’t, you might miss out on something spectacular.

The reason why meeting people and dating is so difficult is because we make it that hard. Our egos get in the way all the time. We just don’t go the extra distance.

We say to ourselves, fuck her, man, she didn’t text me back, I’ll go find someone else!

Okay, great, go find someone else. But you thought she was spectacular before. Now you rationalize to yourself that she’s not that spectacular anymore – oh, I didn’t really like her that much anyway.

Yeah, you did! But you spend all of this time convincing yourself that you didn’t, just because she wounded you and you want to save face.

What are you saving face for? Lob in another email or text, or even call her up. She might say, “oh my god, I forgot to respond, I am so sorry, I got so busy at work.”

That ego kills you every time.

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.

My last few posts have had nothing to do with going out at night, and I promise we’ll get back on track with some nuggets for you to try out over the weekend soon:)

But for now I really want to share with you guys an incredible speech that was televised over the weekend.

Now anybody who knows me knows that I don’t talk sports. I can’t. I haven’t really known anything about sports since I was in 8th grade. I catch a baseball like a little girl, I can’t dribble to save the life of me, and my spiral even on a Nerf football looks like I may as well be flinging CD cases in the air, so pretty early in life what I did was I pretty much entirely gave up sports and anything sports-related.

But last Saturday, former Denver Broncos tight end Shannon Sharpe was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame and gave one of the best and most heartfelt speeches I’ve ever heard.

Listen to the energy in his voice. Listen to the passion. Here’s a guy who truly, truly owns his words. You know how we always tell you guys that that when you’re out meeting women, or you’re out on a date, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it? Well this is how you do it.

No teleprompter. All heart.

Was his grammar 100% correct? No. Did the words come out of his mouth exactly the same way he planned them ahead of time? No. But he delivered his message with absolute conviction all the same. You look at his eyes and hear the enthusiasm in his voice, and you can’t help but listen. You can’t help but be drawn in and feel the moment.

We talk a lot on the blog about what it means to be a good communicator to the opposite sex and to express yourself. We talk about what it means to open up and be vulnerable, to speak from the heart and command attention when you speak.

There’s a lot I learned from this speech, and it’s not just about being a powerful communicator.

There’s always a lot to learn, and there’s a lot to be thankful for. Here’s a woman who sacrificed to raise three children and nine grandchildren, for 66 years never once slept under a roof that didn’t leak, and remained strong enough through it all to be the inspiring force behind two of the greatest athletes in NFL history who otherwise would never have stood a fighting chance.

That’s something I’m going to remember once my excuses come creeping in. I don’t have excuses when it comes to women or my dating life, and that’s why I’m coaching you guys, but I’m certainly not perfect and I make plenty of excuses for myself in other areas of my life. And the next time I do, I’m going to push myself against those excuses because I’m going to remember Shannon Sharpe and how he pushed himself against all odds based on a promise he made to his grandmother.

So the next time you tell yourself how bad you have it because you’re too short, or you’re too fat, or too bald, or you’re not interesting enough, or your face is too acne-scarred to attracted a beautiful woman or a wonderful man, I would like you to remember Shannon Sharpe and the passion that his grandmother instilled in him to push himself forward. I want us to embrace how lucky some of us are to be sitting here in front of our computers, fortunate enough to bitch and complain about our looks or our lack of a girlfriend, or whatever.

Next time you’re out talking to people and working on your conversational skills, appreciate the fact that that you don’t have to sacrifice your entire life for the sake of 12 children, and that you have the luxury to take this time and opportunity to work on yourself.

I want you to delight in every conversation and every connection you have this week with the people around you, I want you to live in the moment, and really embrace the fact that you are able to take THIS time right now in your life to make yourself a better, more authentic, and more powerful person.

Let’s talk about marriage . . . kind of. Does anybody else feel like the standoff between the NFL and the NFL Players Association right now is like a bad marriage?

For those of you who have been married and are now divorced, do you remember what it was like to argue with your ex over money? Your spouse might have thought you were hiding money — that there was more money there and now there isn’t enough.

Then you went to a mediator, to whom you had to turn over all of your books and records to show proof about your finances, and to settle suspicions of whether one party was not paid all to which they were entitled for their time in the marriage.

I read and I listen to what everyone involved in this has been saying. I’ve listened to their B.S. (there’s no other way to put it), and I realize they are all so selfish.

First of all, if you own a business in which you are making all the money and you are very generous to the players (or, in the context of a marriage, if you supported your spouse), then there is no need for you to show your books. They don’t need to see where all of your money is going — especially money unrelated to the money in dispute. If you want to build a new house, or build a new stadium, they don’t need to know what they’re getting. They are already getting a lot out of it.

What I don’t like about this whole thing with the NFL players strike and the NFL owners, is that they forget about all the ‘little people’ and how it is them who are most affected by all of this.

I really don’t feel sorry for millionaires. Apparently, they are putting together a rookie fund for all the poor first year rookies from last year who only made the league minimum — which I think was around $320,000.00.

Really? You can’t make ends meet on $320,000.00? That’s insane. I mean, absolutely insane.

Then there is the NFL. All of this affects a lot of people outside of the owners and the players. What about all the people whose lives are being affected by this? There is an affect on people from the executive level all the way down to the average joe.

The ad execs who sell NFL advertisements get commissions based on the ad time they sell. If there are no games, they won’t earn any commissions. So they will be affected.

Outside of the executive level, there are a whole host of people who are affected. How about the guy who is hustling outside the stadium to sell those foam “#1″ fingers? He only has eight regular season and two exhibition home games a year to sell his stuff and earn enough to support his family. Without that income, he is going to have to stand outside U-Haul every single day hoping and praying that someone has an odd job for him to do.

How about the food vendors or the seat ushers who work for minimum wage? What about all of the ‘little people’ who are affected by what’s going on between the NFL and the players?

So we get a divorce. Nobody ever thinks about the repercussions of that on other people — and it often those “other people” who are affected by it the most.

The little guy who sells those foam fingers outside the stadium is like the kids during a divorce. While all the mudslinging is going on, the kids are affected by it — and affected by it more every day it continues.

Both sides realize that there’s plenty of money to go around, but right now feel like it’s easier to be apart than it is to be together. Is it really though? Is it really that difficult to come to an agreement so that other people are not affected long-term by this?

So I have a little message for both parties to this football marriage: Come on! Drop the egos NFL players! You get paid enough. Wise up NFL owners! You’re making money.

I’d love to have a job where I get paid $3 million a year for playing a game. That is a privilege.

Granted, there are repercussions for playing a game like NFL football like injuries and medical issues when your playing days are over. You knew all that, however, when you signed up for the job.

Come on folks. Think about all of the other people who are affected by your selfish ways. Sit down, come to an agreement, and allow other people to work and support their families.

I don’t feel sorry for the spoiled millionaires (or, in the case of the owners, the spoiled billionaires). The people I feel sorry for is the average guy — that foam finger selling kind of guy, or the hot cocoa vendor running all over the stands kind of guy — who are truly being affected by this egotistical standoff between the NFL and NFL Players Association.

So what does this have to do with dating.

Dating is all about being able to talk about everything that is going on.

I know most women will not care about this topic, but I think all of you can figure out how to twist and turn this to make it very conversational friendly.

So today I want to see how all of you would twist and turn this into a conversation, that you can speak about with the non football fans out there.

So many great tidbits here.

I can see a theme about our work ethic and entitlement society that we are in.

That’s just a hint.

What do you all see here?

I want all of you to know when I speak, I speak wisdom.

You want proof.

Back in September before the football season started, I made a prediction about Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.

Check out the last paragraph of this blog from September and you will see that David Wygant speaks wisdom. Click here for the wisdom.

Charles Woodsen WIll Get Laid Tonight

Dating is a process a lot of us really can live without. It’s an emotional roller coaster that can drive you to drink four year-old bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade from the back of your refrigerator. There are so many ups and downs of dating.

Here is my top 10 list of the most frustrating dating ups and downs and how to feel better about them:

1. We made out in the parking lot and they never called again. Making out is fun! You needed it. They needed it. Don’t beat yourself up that you did it, just realize you did it. You needed some tonsil hockey and to cop a feel. Be OK with it. It was a great date. You were in the moment, and you experienced something that you wanted to do.

2. I texted them the next morning to say “I had a great time last night,” and they never texted back. So what? You had a great time last night. So did they. They just woke up, and their post-date recap was different from yours. Yes, they probably had a good time but when they thought about it, the chemistry and the “it” factor wasn’t there. It’s not about you. At least you were honest. You lobbed in an honest text. So you did all you can do.

3. Stop the mental post-date recap abuse. You went out with somebody with whom you thought you had a connection, and it turns out you didn’t. So now you’re going to mentally torture yourself for the next four days trying to figure out what you said wrong. You’ll even torture all your friends asking them what you could have done differently to have a different outcome. There is nothing you can do differently after a date is over. It wasn’t the conversation about your drunken uncle that you now think made him think you’re a budding alcoholic. The post-date recap is a form of mental torture. You will never know what that other person is thinking unless they call you. If they don’t call, it really does mean that he or she is just not that into you (which is about the only good advice from that ridiculously stupid book).

4. Should I have said something different in my voicemail message? You left a voicemail message, and now you’re replaying it in your head a thousand times. “Was the way I said ‘Last night was fun’ not with enough enthusiasm? Is that what is making the person not call me back?” When it comes down to voicemail messages, the shorter the message the better it is. From an old sales technique, I always prefer to say “Last night was fun. I have something really funny to share with you the next time we speak.” That’s it . . . it creates a little bit of intrigue, a little bit of mystery and no mental torture.

5. Who cares what they think? You left the above voicemail message without knowing if you’ll ever see them again, and they don’t call you back. You start to think “Now they know that I like them … and they don’t like me.” So what? Is it better just not to do anything? Is it better to just sit there and hope and pray that they call? I always believe in being honest. If you’re the one who left the voicemail message and the other person doesn’t call back, again so what?? You’ve got to do what feels right for you.

6. Stop giving your power away to one person. If a two hour date can cause you to give away all your power and confidence, then you need to learn to embrace yourself and love yourself even more. This is just one person you went out with that you knew for two hours. They don’t know what an amazing person you are. The only thing they know is the person they sat across from at the table. Whether they choose to hang with you again isn’t the issue. The issue is that one person does not determine your worthiness. This is just a person that you went out with, and they’re not calling you back. You’ve got toughen your skin. Rejection is what dating is all about. You just can’t take it personally. If I go out with someone and I had a great time, but they never want to see me again, I’m still a great person the next day.

7. In order to feel better about dating, you need to think abundance. Just because you think you like somebody and they don’t call you back, this is not the last person in the world you’re going to meet. In order to be a successful dater, you need to practice abundance. The power of abundance is training your mind that if it doesn’t work out with one person (or ten people), that there are plenty of other people out there that want to meet you and hang out with a fantastic person like yourself.

So, forget about #8, #9 and #10. I think seven is a lucky number in Las Vegas and if you’re vacationing this summer in Las Vegas you want lucky sevens to come up. So these “lucky seven” are enough here too.

The next thing you need to do is repeat seven times “There really are plenty of fish in the sea.” You just need to be willing to put your pole out there every single day until you hook the one you’re supposed to be with.

Forget any football analogy, what Mike shares works in all areas of your life especially if you are single and searching for dates and connections.
mike westoff
Watch this and think how it applies to your everyday life.

Take a hard honest look at yourself today.

And I know all of you are on pins and needles awaiting my predictions.

Packers 17 Bears 13
Jets 23 Steelers 10

Dallas awaits the Jets!

I painfully watched each and every play and was in a state of horror throughout the game.

But being a lifelong Jets fan, I have seen this many times before.

The hype, the promise and then the big game meltdown.’

So how many of you meltdown when your right in the middle of the big game?

How many of you prep all week in your head and when your out meeting people you get out witted by the Brady’s of the world?

The Jets last night were in their heads and not on the field of play.

You could see it by the way they executed. They were tight and they were done the second the Patriots scored.

I see the same Jet Like mannerisms when I am out and about.

I see men look at women and I can see them churning there wheels and going through the whole process instead of just reacting to life and the situation that is at hand.

How many of you act like Rex Ryan and over prepare?

And all the woman readers, this Jet Like mindset pertains to you.

How many of you go out on dates and think non stop about what to say or how to play the date so the guy likes you?

How many of you have that perfect game plan in your head and then come date time you get thrown for a loop because it does not go as planned?

The best players in the world adapt and come game time make adjustments in the moment.

So whats today’s message?

Are you able to overcome your Jet Like game plan and make adjustments when it comes to dating and meeting?

Do you truly believe that no matter what you do, how many times you try, how many times you fail, that you will always succeed, in the end?

Last week, Sonja and I were watching the Jets beat Minnesota 29-20. I’m a huge Jet fan as all of you know, huge Brett Favre fan.

It was a boring game in the beginning, both teams slugging it out, really not much of anything going on. Jets should have been more up at the half than they were — they were up 9-0 at halftime — but they just couldn’t score, they couldn’t put the Vikings away. In the second half, Brett Favre — 41 years old, broken bones everywhere; he looks like a bag of bones when he’s back there — limping, elbow tendinitis… guy is a warrior — rallied the Vikings back to within a few points. He threw three touchdowns, and would not quit. So the Jets marched down the field and silenced the Vikings. They scored what looked like the game winning touchdown. They were up by a few points again. But Brett Favre never quits. He marched them right back down the field and came within a few points, again. The Jets couldn’t put the Vikings away, but what happened next? Brett Favre, with his don’t-quit attitude, threw an interception, the Jets ran it in, and the game was pretty much over at that point.

The bottom line is, in sports, two teams will fight to the end, the better team usually wins, and the one that never quits never ever looks at their mistakes. A quarterback throws an interception, and he thinks to himself, “Man, that was embarrassing — I just did that in front of 75,000 people… 75,000!” He goes back out the next series and doesn’t think anything of it. He leads his team down the field, and what happens; they get a touchdown and they win the game.

Do you ever feel like Fireman Ed is leading a cheer against you?

Let’s say, in life, you have a big sales presentation, and it doesn’t work. You don’t close the deal, you’re obsessed with it for three weeks; thinking about every mistake you made and what you could have done. Or, say you’re a man and you see a woman standing there in the supermarket, or in the elevator, and you want to talk to her, but instead you spit out some words and the woman doesn’t respond. You can get this in your head, and for the next few weeks, you end up thinking about all the things you could have done, or what you did wrong.

That’s not having a killer attitude in life. You go out on a date, and it’s not a great date and the person doesn’t call you back. What do you do next? You think about what you did wrong. You even call your friends, and they become the assistant coaches of your life, and you recap the entire date; could I have done this, should I have said that? Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. Athletes don’t do that, ever. Sports teams don’t do that, ever. But people do that all the time. And I know some of you are thinking right now – “But this is my emotional life. This is my livelihood.”

Hello! Is Brett Favre not emotionally invested in the game of football, is this not his livelihood? Is this not his passion, is this not who he is? Come on, folks! It’s just a date, it’s just an approach, it’s just a total stranger — get out there and start enjoying this process and start failing!

I remember I was coaching a woman a few years ago, and she says, “I really want to get married in the next year.” I said, “Do you have a date this week? If you have a date a week, 52 men a year, don’t you think you’ll meet somebody fantastic?” She says, Absolutely.” So what did she do? She went on 5.2 dates for the entire year because she was obsessed the other 49 weeks with what went wrong on the 5.2 dates.

Life is nothing more than a numbers game. You need to keep trying, and you need to develop that killer instinct. If you don’t develop the killer instinct, you’re not going to be able to find the person you want. Not only that, you’re just going to be obsessed with every little move you make… and that is not a method of success in business, in life or in sports.