This week has been really hectic, I’ve been on a lot of coaching calls with clients, and few calls with some of you blog readers from all over the world as well. Just a lot of guys I’ve talked to this week.

There’s one common thread that runs through almost everybody. And that fear is what’s commonly called APPROACH ANXIETY. The moment you see somebody who you’re attracted to, you make a determination that you’ll go talk to them. But then the fear kicks in. Well, now you’re stuck in a situation where you CAN go up and talk to them, you’ve got no excuse not to, but you’re afraid of what might happen. Actually, you have no idea what might happen, and that’s what makes it so scary.

It’s like you get this crazy sensation in your stomach, your mind starts racing thinking all sorts of ridiculous thoughts, thinking of any excuse in the book why you should not go up and start talking to this person or just say “Hi, how are you today?”

So how about this for an invention: Anti-Rejection Specs.

Just like those cardboard X-ray Specs you used to get in the old comic books, you could put on these magic Approach Sunglasses when you enter the bar, or browse the supermarket, or you’re at the gym, and just like an X-ray, the Anti-Rejection glasses would tell you exactly who is going to be interested in you and who isn’t. Wouldn’t that be great? You would know exactly who to approach. You would never ever get rejected again. Wouldn’t that solve all your problems putting yourself out there trying to make a connection and meeting women?

But the fact is glasses like that don’t exist. In fact, it’s actually quite a scary thought if they did. Men everywhere would be running rampant like the lock to the chimpanzee cage just got cracked.

So many guys have this fear of the unknown, fear of getting rejected, fear of putting themselves out there and getting shot down. So many guys think their entire manhood is on the line if they get blown out and the woman he wants to talk to decides she doesn’t want to talk to him. “What if I approach her and she doesn’t like me? What if I get rejected? She’s really cute and I don’t want to look like a fool.”

But guess what? You’ll never know unless you try. There’s no such thing as Anti-Rejection Sunglasses, and yes, every woman will not be interested in you all of the time. That’s life. But there are plenty of great single women out there who WILL be interested in you. It’s up to you to put yourself out there and find them.

You’ll never find out if she’s interested in you unless you drop the games, stop trying to act cool and standoffish, and just be open and receptive and introduce yourself without putting on a front.

I understand the games. The games are there for a reason. You tiptoe around, you pretend not to be interested in her, so that way if you find out that she’s not interested in you—well, you never had to put yourself out there now you don’t look foolish.

But that’s not going to get you the girl you want. To really grow, to radiate confidence, to be with the kind of woman you really desire, the fact is you have to make yourself vulnerable. You have to drop the games and the gimmicks. You have to go out and approach women even if you don’t know what the outcome is going to be. And yes, you have to experience rejection.

You’ll never know unless you try, and that’s the hardest part. But it’s also the best part. Because when you do approach, and you are successful, and you do get the digits, or the date, or the lay, or the girlfriend, or whatever, you’ll know that you had the guts to approach her just the way you are, without any silly games—and without any Anti-Rejection Specs telling you every time it was safe to approach.

If another person doesn’t choose to be with you, they are not rejecting you. They are choosing to go in another direction.

There may not be enough chemistry between the two of you. There may not be that connection there. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t mean that you are not a fantastic, wonderful and incredible person.

Here’s an email a client of mine recently sent me talking about how he’s been feeling a lot of rejection lately:

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Client Email
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“David, This is something I’ve been dealing with recently (and very poorly, since I’m overwhelmed and miserable from getting turned down by someone who I thought was showing me a lot of signs of romantic interest [buying me a couple little gifts, taking me on a scenic drive around town, asking my advice on a couple personal topics].) But it turned out, when I tried to kiss her after a great night out of dinner and dancing, that she had none of these romantic/sexual intentions in mind. There could be dozens of reasons why she dissed me (bad approach? too slow? not showing enough confidence in my pursuit of her? is she being fickle?), but after spending the last six weeks obsessing over her in my own mind and pretty much falling in love with her (as crazy as that seems), I’m inconsolable. How do you suggest rebounding from this sort of disappointment when you’ve thrown so much of your heart and your emotions at someone, only to see it fall flat?”

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My Response To Client’s Email
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“Think about this. What was happening is that you fell in love with the fantasy of this woman. When you get to know a woman in the first week or you’ve gone out with her maybe once or twice, you are falling in love with the idea of her. The question is when are you going to go in, and are you going in with the intention of kissing her? If she does not want to kiss you, it is not the way you kiss or the way you went in. It is that she just is not feeling the chemistry, and you were not reading it because you were so in your head. David”

Just like with my client, a lot of guys that I have met are just so in their head it’s incredible. They are in their heads in such a ridiculous way, that what they are perceiving as chemistry is not chemistry at all.

Rejection is something that a lot of people take really hard. Rejection is a lot of things to a lot of different people.

I have decided in my life that I don’t believe in rejection. I don’t buy into rejection, nor do I believe that it even exists.

If someone chooses not to be with me, they are not rejecting me. They are just not feeling the chemistry with me. They are just not feeling the same things I think I may be feeling.

Ever since I’ve adopted this mindset in my life and really explored this part of my life, I have found that I live a rejection-free life because I am really happy with who I am as a person. I am really content with who I am. I think I am an amazing person.

If someone chooses not to participate in a friendship or a love relationship with me, that’s fine because I will keep moving forward and find the person with whom I’m meant to be.

As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’ve done in my own personal life. That’s why I now have such a great, loving, and amazing relationship with my girlfriend.

This is something you need to think about. Think outside the box a little bit, and stop taking what you think of as “rejection” so personally. Start realizing that chemistry has a great deal to do with whether you will connect with someone, and consider taking “rejection” out of your dating vocabulary.

I am going to end this with another great email from a past client.

Hey Dave,

“An invaluable lesson i picked up from that weekend with you and Kheim last March was letting go of myself and allowing myself to not only appreciate, but help create the present for all its beauty. Whenever I get caught up with the “imminent concerns” confronting me and catch myself preoccupying myself with internal thoughts, I read this. Maybe it will help one of your students some day.”

-Mike

As we grow up, we learn that the one person that wasn’t supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it’s harder every time. You will break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You’ll fight with your best friend. You’ll blame a new love for things an old one did. You’ll cry because time is passing too fast, and you’ll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you’ve never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you’ll never get back.

In today’s podcast, I go more in depth into the subject of rejection and tell you more about how to cope with rejection. If you thought my statement that rejection doesn’t exist was incredible, then you don’t want to miss what else I have to say on this subject:

The following is a conversation we had at a recent bootcamp about bullying yourself. This will give you some sort of an idea of what we do during bootcamps.

David: Are you a bully?

Do you enjoy constantly teasing people? Do you like to sit there and push people through the cootie door?

You remember the cootie door from grade school – you picked a door and if someone walked through it, they had cooties for the whole day.

Do you remember cootie shots? The only form of immunization…

But the question remains: are you a bully?

Most of us adults are no longer bullies to other people. We stopped being bullies to others a long time ago, except many of us are still bullies with one specific person. And I’m not talking about your younger sibling.

Many of us are bullies to ourselves. We are own worst enemies.

Do you tend to look only at the negative things about yourself and are you constantly making fun of yourself cruelly and making excuses? You’re being a bully.

I bully myself about my chicken legs, and I constantly use them as an excuse: “man, I don’t want to put those pants on, they’ll make my legs look too skinny. I’m not wearing those.”

We are always our own worst enemies. We love to make fun of ourselves.

You’re sitting here laughing, what are some ways that you bully yourself?

Client: Well, I take myself way too seriously. In my line of work, it’s important to anticipate what people are going to say, so I always expect big things out of myself when I’m in a conversation with a woman.

I’m never listening to what the other person is saying, but more trying to out-do that person. Then I wind up not listening to them at all, and they lose interest. That’s what I bully myself about.

David: Rey, how do you bully yourself?

Rey: I bully myself about everything! “You’re not good enough, you’re not being loud enough, you’re not being interesting enough, you don’t have your personality out,” everything like that. “You’re not letting yourself out, you’re too stiff!”

David: And by doing that, Rey, you don’t ever let yourself out because you’re constantly thinking about it.

Every time you approach a woman, you’ve got that mindset, and then of course, you become that.

What about you?

Daniel: I guess I bully myself when I don’t meet the expectations I have for myself.

David: Like how?

Daniel: I bully myself with the typical monkey chatter: “I’m not going to be able to escalate intimacy in a conversation!” I’m also always thinking about the end result and having that fear of what to say next or how to transition to the next topic.

David: It’s interesting. You think so much that your monkey chatter is saying, “you can’t escalate, Daniel, you can’t escalate,” and then, because you worried so much about it, you can’t.

The only escalating we should think about is the escalators we ride on in the stores. Women will get sexually turned on to you by you being charming, real and in the moment. She’ll start to connect with you.

‘Sexual escalation’ is a term that men think they need to be so aware of, but in reality, it will just happen naturally if you’re strong, powerful, and you don’t think. The real sexy side of you is the side that isn’t thinking about everything. It’s the side of you that just lives and responds to things in life. The side of you that goes with the moment, and goes with the flow.

Our bully is unbelievable. We love to bully ourselves constantly. We are constantly ripping ourselves apart. We’re trying so hard to be perfect and say the ‘right thing.’

In reality, nothing in life is perfect. Your imperfections are the things you need to embrace and learn to love. If you don’t embrace and love your own imperfections, nobody else ever will.

I’m an OCDer. I’m looking to buy a house right now, which you all know, and I am having so much trouble. I just cannot pull the plug. I bully myself in so many different decisions that I can’t even think of, yet everything else I do in life is very simple and easy.

We all have our things that we need to work on. You need to embrace those imperfections, make fun of yourself and have fun with it.

We did that exercise last night where we made fun of ourselves and it was a blast. We all made fun of our dumb little faults.

You got dressed up in clothes you thought looked great, and then you made fun of yourself for being some big metrosexual.

But in reality, you look like a guy that is nicely dressed and that women would notice. You’re thinking, oh man, I can’t pull this off, I can’t look sexy – but you do.

That’s how we stop bullying ourselves.
Todays video is perfect for the weekend.

How do you overcome rejection?

One of the things we will be going over is rejection and how to overcome the fear of approaching. Here is a quick mindset tip for all of you to use this weekend.

Have a great Friday!!

David: Did you see me on the front page of the LA Times today? If you didn’t, too bad – you really would have been amazed at the article.

There was a big picture of me on the front page, and then this article about how I had approached some woman in Coffee Bean or something, and totally got rejected. On the front page! It’s unbelievable.

Just last week I was on the cover of People – I’m not sure where it was I was rejected last week – where was it that I was rejected and made the cover of People magazine? God, I don’t even remember.

And did you see that annoying supermarket flyer that comes in your mailbox? Did you see the one from Whole Foods this week? There’s a big picture of me, getting rejected on aisle seven. I can’t believe they actually took a picture of that!

Client: Alright, I hear what you are saying. But it’s kind of awkward if you run into them again or the people that were around, you know?

David: No. That’s the mindset. You’re NOT front page news. Nobody gives a shit and no one even noticed.

Like the guy next to us in Whole Foods just now? He knew I was flirting with the woman in front of me and he didn’t give a shit. He’s not going to say, “so you know that tall guy that comes in a lot and always orders food? Aw, he got rejected so badly today!” He’ll just look at me and think, at least this guy had the fucking balls to talk to her! He’s not even going to remember.

People are caught up in their own lives, so they are not going to remember that you got the heave-ho next to the salad bar.

Rey: How much you care about them is exactly how much they care about you.

Client: I don’t give a shit about them.

David: Exactly, and they feel the same way about you.

You see people get rejected all the time. When you go out at night, how many guys do you see get flamed?

And then when you go to bed at night, you’re not thinking about them getting rejected, you’re thinking about your own rejections!

So do you get the whole mindset about it? Your rejections are never going to be front page news!
Todays video is all about how to get a deeper understanding of how women think.

Today we learn all about why they do not approach guys.

To learn more about the way women think check out my Girls Tell All audio series.

I looked at her and I said, “man, these don’t really smell,” and she said absolutely nothing. She went into total mute mode.

And so what did I do?

Absolutely nothing!

I didn’t really care. It didn’t really make much of a difference. What does it matter to me? The guys asked me, “well what could you have done differently? What happened?”

But, who cares? Let it go. She just didn’t respond. I approached her well – on an observation – and she just didn’t respond. Do you really want to hang out with somebody who doesn’t talk to you? Do you want to hang out with a mute?

It doesn’t make much of a difference. And in the time that the guys were analyzing this woman and why she didn’t respond, there were four other cute women hanging out around the salad bar checking us out.

Chris and Josh were busy saying, “well, what could we have done differently?” and they missed the next opportunity.

Who cares? Stop with the attitude of wanting to get them all. Why would you want to get them all? Do you really have that much time to date them all?

You want to get the gems. You want to go for the woman that responds to you – not the one that ignores you.

So she ignored me. I don’t care. Ask me now what she even looked like and I probably couldn’t tell you. Life moves on. Life is a marathon.

This is how we ended the bootcamp. WHO CARES? – that is the phrase that every guy needs to remember from this point forward. If a woman does not respond to you when you’ve done everything correctly (which we all did!) then look at the situation and say, WHO CARES? There are plenty of other women out there.

Life starts from the second that she blows you off. That gives you the opportunity to see all of the rest of them!

Now that you have this mindset check out todays video on how to meet women in the mall. This is live footage from actual approaches in a Seattle Mall.

Enjoy and have a great Friday!!