I recently had someone who came in from Australia to work with me, and of course the conversation was all about how to meet women at the beach (since it’s the middle of summer there). Then there are other guys who will be traveling to Mexico, Florida or the Caribbean for vacation or spring break. All of these guys will be wondering how to meet people on the beach.

The beach is a blast. To me, it has all the best props you could possibly have.

One of the things we used to do in the Bootcamps is to go to the beach and build sand castles. I’d put the guys right near the water just like when you were a kid, and had them build sand castles.

Then when a woman would come over in our direction, I would turn to her and say “You know, we could use a woman’s finishing touch. We need a little help on the interior right now. I just don’t really know where to put the furniture.” We would just have fun and get the women to laugh.

Then I might say, “Come in here. Let me show you the master suite.” This is so they will actually bend down and look at the sand castle.

Most women will then say something like this: “Oh my God, that’s a beautiful master suite. I would put put this shell in the middle here, and put that pebble over there…I would also want to go with a different color palette – too much gray.” There are so many ways to have fun with this.

Another thing you can do to meet people at the beach is to say to someone standing near the water’s edge, “I’ll race you in.” Many women will respond and say something like, “No, it’s too cold.”

At that point, you want to challenge her. Say something like, “Are you a chicken? You’re afraid to go in the water? You are standing here in the hot sun, but you won’t go in the water? Come on, let’s go.” You make it a game. You have fun.

Another thing I always used to do to meet people at the beach is to bring a Frisbee and a ball. When a woman would walk towards me, I’d throw the ball in the air, look at them and say “Catch!”

She’ll catch the ball and then throw it back to you. Then you can say, “Why do you throw like a girl? Didn’t your father ever teach you not to throw like a girl? Come on, you can throw better than that!” Once again, challenge her and have fun.

That’s what it is all about when you’re at the beach. People go to the beach to have a good time, to relax and to swim.

So these are all great ways you can engage people in conversation and activities at the beach. If they’re having fun with you, the conversation immediately becomes a lot easier.

Then Jeff started telling me about a woman who works as one of the “meet and greeters” at Wells Fargo (the people who welcome you when you walk in the door). Jeff spent some time talking to her, but he wondered how he can ask this woman out without being noticed by everyone at the bank.

I’m sure this is a scenario to which many guys reading this blog can relate. How do you stay “under the radar” in front of a lot of people? Wrong question!

You have to adopt the mindset that everyone around you couldn’t care less about you or what you’re doing. So, really, it doesn’t matter what other people will say or think even if you get rejected in front of them.

Even if you ask someone out and they reject you in front of a room full of people, no one is going to go home and say, “Oh man, you wouldn’t believe what happened today. I was in Wells Fargo today, and there was this guy who asked out the “meet and greet” girl and got turned down.”

That just isn’t going to happen. People simply aren’t paying that much attention to you.

So you’ve got to put that out of your head. You’ve got to get that mindset out of your head completely, because that mindset is just an excuse that allows you to not go over and ask someone out. It’s just a different form of an excuse.

So once you’ve identified that you have no excuse for not asking this person out, how do you do it in this setting? It all comes down to what you know about her.

Have you talked to her a few times? Do you know what she likes and what she likes to do for fun?

If not, then you need to find out all these things. Then next time you see her, you can say something like, “Hey, did you get a chance to see that movie you were talking about the other day?”

If she says she never got a chance to see it, then it’s very easy from there. You can say something like, “You know what? Why don’t you and I catch that flick next weekend. Let me take you. That way you don’t have any excuses not to go see the movie.”

That’s how you do it. This is how you always ask out people like this (I call them “common area people”). You always ask them out based on things you already know about them. You already have a rapport with them, so they are a warm (and not a cold) lead.

So this skill of getting to know things about people before you ask them out is important. The mindset component and getting rid of this excuse, however, is what you need to get first.

The first thing to do when you walk into a room is to slow down. A lot of guys will walk into a room very quickly, hustling and making a beeline to the bar or the corner of a room. They somehow feel they need to get there really fast.

What I always tell guys to do is stop when they walk into a room. You frame whatever doorway there is, and if there’s not a doorway then you make a doorway around you.

You stop for two to three seconds, and you look around the room. You scan the room — look left, center, right, right, center, left — so you’re looking at the entire room. People naturally are always looking toward the entranceway of a party or bar to see who is walking in the room.

Not only do you do that, but when you walk in you also make sure you have really good posture. Make sure your shoulders are back and your chest is puffed out. Make sure you’re standing up straight and tall.

Body language is very important. So much of life is based on initial impressions.

So once you walk in a room and you command power (commanding power is standing upright and walking in), then you have to walk through that room slowly. You literally should strut through that room.

Walk through that room at a very slow pace, smile at a woman that you see – make that initial contact. Give her a look directly in her eyes, smile, and ask her “How are you doing tonight?” That’s it.

You can walk away right after you do that, because it is all about how you deliver that smile. If you deliver that smile very strongly — with conviction and with good body language — then she’s going to wonder who you are and will be very intrigued by you.

Next, go directly to your friends (or whoever else you are meeting) and have great body language when you talk to them. People noticed you when you walked into the room. You smiled at the woman and she smiled back at you, and you now have acknowledgment from all of the people who are around you.

When you go to talk to a friend, you make sure that you greet your friend in the same powerful way. Put your hand on his shoulder, shake his hand, look directly in his eyes, and have a very commanding presence.

So not only is body language important, but the speed of your walk is equally important. When you walk into a room slowly, you’re a commanding presence that people will notice. When you walk into a room quickly, you’re hustling into that room so fast that you’re basically just a blur.

You have to be a commanding presence. You may have the body language right, but you’ve got to get the walk right too.

Another important thing to remember is the right body language when you’re talking to a woman. When you are talking to a woman, you need to look directly at her. Your body needs to frame her body. This means that if you’re standing there in front of her, you have to face her directly so you’re mirroring each other.

It’s all in the way that you look at somebody. Once again, a strong, powerful man looks directly into someone’s eyes and shows them who the man is in that situation.

If you have any questions about body language, I suggest you go to YouTube and search for Bill Clinton videos. Bill Clinton has great body language when he speaks.

I know when I’m talking to a room of people, I’m talking to left, center, right. I’m looking directly into people’s eyes to make them feel like I’m connecting with them, which is what people are looking for every time.

There are a bunch of guys that go around and teach the “you’re beautiful” opener or the “you’re really cute” opener. This opener is being taught to guys who want to authentic and real, and these poor guys are forced to go out and approach 40 women a day saying the same “you’re beautiful” line.

What kind of strategy is this? You could almost just stand in the town square walking around in a circle saying to person after person, “You’re beautiful! You’re beautiful! No, really, you ARE beautiful!”

It is about the most ridiculous line I’ve ever heard in my life. Keep in mind that regardless of how nice sounding the sentence is, it is still a line.

Keep in mind, too, that by saying this line out of the blue to a total stranger you are putting the woman completely on the spot. She may be insecure or not want to hear it . . . but she definitely knows you are bullshitting her. She absolutely does.

Another flaw in this whole “you’re beautiful” routine, is that you have no good means of follow up. So you say “You’re beautiful!” to a woman and she responds “Thank you.” Now what? You have nothing else to say because “thank you” gives you nothing to go on to create a conversation.

Canned lines and routines in general are ridiculous, but this particular one is really bad because all it achieves is to leave you standing next to a woman feeling uncomfortable. I had a client once who had tried this routine, and when I asked him how he felt afterwards he told me, “The conversation didn’t go very far and I had no choice but to abruptly end it. It felt embarrassing – from the first moment and I still felt bad afterwards. It’s not natural.”

Of course starting the conversation with a woman with “You’re beautiful!” is going to feel not natural. It’s an awkward way to start a conversation with a complete stranger.

Also, telling a woman she is beautiful the first moment you meet her isn’t helping you connect with her in any way, and isn’t giving you any information (or potential to create a connection with her.

The only connection you create with a woman by this routine is with her physical appearance. Women already know you like their physical appearance if you walked up to them! They’re not stupid. They know if we’re talking to them it’s because we’re intereseted.

Now, don’t mistake what I’m saying. Of course you need an “opener” when you approach a woman. If you are observant of what a woman is doing, and you are 100% confident and authentic about who you are, then you don’t need to use a canned opener. You will have the right opener every time, and women will chase you all day long.

If you want to learn how to authentically approach and attract women, without using canned routines and pickup lines, be sure to check out my “20 Ways To Meet Hotter Women Without Pickup Lines” product.

So here’s something I said to a recent client who was very anxious about approaching women. He was also very nervous about what would happen if he did approach them, and about how they would react. Here’s what I said to him:

Think about this. Every time you approach a woman, it’s like you’re doing it as a child would do it. Do you remember when you were a child and your mother would say, “Alright, before I get home tonight you have to clean your room. If you don’t clean your room, you won’t be able to watch TV?”

So what did you do? You cleaned your room, because you knew that you’d be rewarded for it. You might have kicked all your clothes under the bed to get that job done, but the bottom line was you did whatever it took to earn that reward.
Now, because of that social conditioning, whenever you walk over to a woman you are still completely attached to the outcome of the encounter.

At work if you wanted to become a partner, there were certain conditions you had to meet. As you met all of those conditions, you would think, “Okay, check. I did it,” but then they would mind-f*^k you a little more by making you do more things before they would make you partner.

When you finally did make partner, though, do you remember how you felt? It was a reward, right? You thought, “Yay! I made partner!”

Here’s the thing: Our whole life is about rewards. At work if you bring in a lot of money, it means that you had a good month. Everyone has a different agenda.

Salesmen have sales quotas. Copywriters want their sales pages to make a lot of money. If these things don’t happen, people will think “What did I do wrong? Where is the reward?”

Everything is about the reward. If you eat well for a day and then get on the scale, what happens next? You might lose a pound. That’s a reward.

Everything in life is a reward EXCEPT interactions with people. We have to stop being so selfish.

When you see somebody you’re interested in, why don’t you pay them a nice compliment just for the sake of being nice? People always expect something back.

Men and women will stand there like a little kid waiting for something in return when they make a gesture to each other. So you walked over to somebody. Congratulations! So then you stand there, expecting to be rewarded with a phone number or a date . . . or with sex?

Sex is certainly not a reward. A lot of “nice guys” are conditioned to believe that if they do nice things (or do all the right things), that they will be rewarded with sex. It doesn’t work that way.

Here is the way life really works. You know what you know, and you have to be okay with that and with whatever sensations are going through your body and whatever ideas are going through your head.

Being in a situation where we don’t know about something brings us anxiety. We always like to be in control of the situation.

It is an anxious moment for a lot of guys to go over and approach a woman. It’s an anxious moment for a lot of guys to just walk up to a woman and pay her a nice compliment.

The truth is that many women get their validation from someone paying them those kind of compliments. If you think about it, when you give a woman a compliment you are actually giving her a reward. She wants to be noticed, so when someone appreciates her it is a reward.

Deepak Chopra wrote that every day you should commit one random act of kindness or pay one compliment to a total stranger, and expect nothing in return. When you expect nothing back, you get everything back.

Instead of seeking a reward, just walk up to somebody and compliment them. Say, “Wow, that is a great shirt on you” or “Wow, you have a great pair of legs.” Whatever it is – it doesn’t matter. Then continue on with your business.

Make it seem like you’ve always laid those compliments out there, so it doesn’t appear to be something that is totally new. This will help get over that anxiety.