Do you think about laying in bed all alone, candles lit, romantic music playing in the background, with a bottle of KY lotion next to you, as you slowly explore your organ for probably the thousandth time this year? Is that self-love?

How about when you look in the mirror and you actually admire everything about yourself, when you stare directly into your eyes and embrace everything about who you are. Is that self-love?

Or when you actually write down all the amazing things about how you are, the type of friend that you are, the type of lover that you are, the type of boyfriend that you are, the type of man that you’ve become, and more importantly, through all those experiences, how you look at yourself. Is that self-love?

Self-love is by far the most powerful lesson when it comes down to dating. Without it, you are doomed. You really are. There is no chance in hell you are ever going to meet somebody great unless you love yourself.

So how do you go about loving yourself? Pretty simple. You’ve got to start looking at the good points of you, instead of the bad points. And this is usually where I get the “Yeah, But David” from my clients.

“Yeah, but David, I really, really don’t like the way my body looks right now and I’d do much better meeting the opposite sex as soon as I like my body.”

Do you hear the way that you are talking? Listen to what you are saying “when I like my body.” You’ve got to love your body.

Here is the deal: your body can always be better. Whose body can’t be better? All of us could lose a few pounds; all of us could gain a few more pounds of muscle; all of us could fix our hair, fix a tooth, or whatever it might be. But self-love starts every day because every single day you have an opportunity to meet the opposite sex; you have the opportunity to meet a great woman and if you are feeling down about yourself, there is no way in the world you are going to be able to meet that awesome woman.

Self-love is one of the most powerful journeys you can take and everybody needs to take that journey every single day. Otherwise, you might end up like this person:

“I am really waiting until the spring time to date because I figure by then, I will have the job that I want because right now I just don’t really like my job that much. And I know I am going to have a better job even though I haven’t sent my resume out yet but I know someone is going to want me once I send my resume out. Not only that but spring time, I am going to lose the 20 pounds that I have put on over the course of the holidays and the wintertime and I am going to start hitting the gym come March and I will look a lot better and…”

It doesn’t start in the future! Self-love starts in the present. It starts right now.

Self-love.

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.

It makes me think about an email I get from so many people. An email that says, “There’s nothing abou tme that people find attractive.”

Let me tell you something. There is everything attractive about you.

We all have attributes and things that are uniquely “you” that are fantastic and amazing. The problem is, though, that people are not satisfied with who they are.

There are things about myself that I don’t like. So what do I do? I make sure the things I like about myself look fantastic. That’s what everyone needs to do.

Maybe you don’t like your body, but there is something about your body that is amazing, fantastic, sexy and uniquely “you.” Maybe you have amazing eyes, or maybe your hair is great.

Whatever your strong points are, you need to emphasize them and not focus on the things you don’t like. By emphasizing your strong points, other people around you are going to notice those great things about you.

So I don’t want to hear any of you saying that you don’t like yourself. All I want to hear is what you love about yourself. What you love about yourself is all about how you project yourself to others.

Here is my advice on this. Get on your hands and knees, look up at them and beg them. Stare right into their eyes and say, “Please like me more. Please, oh superior being, like me more. Please tell me how to get you to like me more. What do I need to do? How do I need to change? What do I need to do in order for you to like me more? And, if you like me more when I become this person you want me to become, will you love me? Will you love me so much? Will you never abandon me?”

How does all that sound to you? Desperate? Disgusting? Despicable?

Aren’t you good enough as you are? Aren’t you an amazing person right now? Don’t you deserve to have people like you for who you are because you’re a great person?

Also, if that person doesn’t like you then there is nothing you can do to make them like you. Why would you want to make someone like you anyway? Why would you want to beg someone to like you?

Don’t you want somebody to like you for who you are? If they don’t, there is no relationship there. They are basically in a position of power, and you’re in the weak position.

I really hate when I get this email from people. Please like me more. Please love me. No!

You need to love yourself. You need to like yourself. You need to respect yourself.

A person who respects himself will never beg and will never ask how to get someone to like him more. A person who respects himself already knows that he is an amazing person, and if someone doesn’t like him then there will be other people who will like him.

So stop that behavior. Start loving yourself.

None of us are perfect, and that is what makes life so interesting. It’s our imperfections — the way we conduct ourselves and who we are — that make life really interesting.

There is no perfect person in life. There is no perfection person for you in dating.

The person you end up with is not going to be perfect. They are going to have flaws. They are going to do things that irritate you. There are going to be things that you battle about together.

The best way to attract a great person, is to work on yourself first. Fall in love with yourself.

Accept who you are. Accept your flaws.

Accentuate the positive things in your life, and believe in abundance. If you truly believe there are a lot of great people to meet out there, then eventually you will meet that perfect person for you — that perfect person who is imperfect in every way.

It’s all about you first though. What have you done to work on yourself today? What have you done to embrace yourself?

Did you wake up this morning and think about negative things first? Life is about attitude and mindset. The more positive your attitude is, the more positive people you’re going to attract.

The problem is that people do not embrace the positive, and they harp on the negative.

So in today’s podcast, I talk all about how amazing you all are.

Click here to listen now:

Click Here To Download The Podcast Now!

I must admit, though, that most of my life I wanted to be perfect and I hated my legs. I called them chicken legs – or I’d make the clucking noise and call them “bock bocks.”

I remember in my 20′s when I used to lift weights. I would lift very heavy on my upper body, and I became very big up top.

I used to walk around looking like a funky chicken hating my legs. I would look at my legs and say, “I hate my legs. They’re chicken legs. They’re bird legs. They’re gross.”

Did I do anything to change my legs? Did I spend any time lifting legs in the gym? No.

I was always making fun of myself because I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to be perfect, but yet I didn’t do anything to become perfect.

The truth is, though, that trying to be perfect is exhausting. It’s exhausting because there is no such thing as perfect.

Monitoring yourself all day long and in every conversation you have is exhausting and stressful. When you talk to someone and you try to be perfect so they’ll like you, you end up being tired after only a five minute conversation. You’re so in your head and so stressed out, you just want to take a nap when that conversation is finished.

Stress causes exhaustion. So, really embrace yourself and your imperfections.

Here is how you’re going to do that. I want you to get naked and stand in front of a mirror. Look at your fat belly, your balding head, your lazy eye, your bird legs or whatever you see as your imperfections.

We all have at least one imperfection. We may have a big belly or a funny mole or a receding hairline. Whatever your imperfections are, you need to look at them and say “That’s me. That’s cool. I love me.”

Stop trying to be perfect. There’s no such thing as someone who is perfect. There is nothing in life that is perfect.

Even when you go for the perfect meal, there is always something wrong with it. Maybe the service was bad. You can order what you think is the perfect drink, and then the ice melts and it gets diluted after a few minutes. The perfect flight was great until you realized that the airline bumped you from business class to coach. You go on an amazing Hawaiian vacation and there ends up being a hurricane.

There is nothing perfect except you. As imperfect as you are, that is what perfection really is. We‘re such perfect people the way we are. We just need to love ourselves a little bit more.

I talk more about and go deep into my own journey to self love in my “Self Love” audio. CLICK HERE if you are a man or CLICK HERE if you are a woman to hear my whole personal story and how to create your own journey to total confidence and self love.

We only know what we know. We only know answers when we have the experience to know them. So if you are trying take the fast track working through something, working through it more quickly than you have the knowledge and life experience to do it, then you are never going to be able to accept yourself.

Every moment you experience in life is there to teach you something. Every moment is a lesson for you to learn. Some lessons take months to learn. Some take years to learn. Some only take hours to learn.

Regardless of how long it takes, you need to understand this concept and allow yourself the time to go through that process. The time it takes you to learn and the time to accept is exactly the time frame in which it needed to happen in the first place.

Don’t rush it, because there are no shortcuts in life. There is no shortcut to meeting women, to loving yourself, to accepting yourself, to making money or to anything else you want in life.

If there were such a shortcut to any of these things, everyone would be happy, with the person of their dreams and rich. There are no shortcuts.

So instead of beating yourself up and thinking how you failed at the end of each day, take a different perspective. Write down all the things you learned that day. Do that, and you will all of a sudden start to feel better.

You learned one thing or two things today? Well then you had a great day!

Every day you learn something. You learn how to deal with something better or how to meet women better or how to deal with yourself better.

There is always something you learn how to do better each day. If you’re not learning something each day (or think you’re not), then you need to listen better both to yourself and to the people you’ve chosen to mentor you along the way.

It is an honor for me to be able to mentor you in your dating life. You need to understand that this mentoring relationship we have is two-fold. By me mentoring your, I am really listening to you. The other part of that relationship is that you also need to listen to me.

If you want me to walk you through this journey to self-acceptance, then check out my “Self Love” Audio that is in my Men’s What’s Your Excuse? and Women’s No Excuses programs. In it, I take you through my personal journey to self-acceptance and self love.

Well, first of all I have a program called “What’s Your Excuse?” (and called “No Excuses” for women) that contains an entire audio volume on self love. It talks about how to go on the journey to self love and I also tell my own story and journey to self love.

As to the question of how to practice self love, there are a number of ways to do this. You should start writing down everything about who you are as a person.

Answer these questions when you are writing this all down. What are your strong points? What are your weak points? Do you respect who you are as a person? Do you respect your choices?

Do you look at every single day as a gift or as a challenge? If you look at it as a challenge, do you accept that challenge as your gift or do you see that challenge as something that means you’re lacking?

Self love means being able to look in the mirror every single day and admire your strengths and your weaknesses. If you embrace your strengths and accept your weaknesses as a challenge, it means that you are accepting of who you really are as a person.

We’re not perfect. We’re all flawed, but every time you accept yourself you fall more in love with yourself.

When you really start accepting yourself, you will run into people who drive you up the wall. Do you know why they do that?

It is because life is a mirror. It is because they are teaching you things you need to learn about yourself. That is why they drive you crazy.

So life should be a daily occurrence of falling in love with yourself. Meet every challenge head on and accept when you fail, because failure is just a temporary thing.

Remember that if you fail at something today, that does not mean you are going to fail at it per

manently. It just means that at this point in time, today, you didn’t get it right. The next day, go out and embrace that challenge all over again.

For those of you who want to dive deeper into this, my Men’s What’s Your Excuse? and Women’s No Excuses programs have a volume on self love that will get you not only to fall in love with yourself but also to accept yourself.

I was at the dentist recently. Actually, I feel like I actually live at my dentist’s office. It’s not really a fun place to live, to tell you the truth. After undergoing two root canals, I feel like I’ve paid half of my dentist’s mortgage payments in the last year.

When you’re forced to sit with your mouth propped open for four hours, and as you are trying to ignore the sound of the drill and the taste of Novocaine, you start to wonder “How did I get here?” The simple answer is too much sugar and not enough flossing as a kid.

The really deep answer is when you ask the bigger question, “How did my life get to be where it is now?” That is the better question to ask yourself.

When you stand in front of the mirror and really look at yourself, what do you see? Who do you see? Are you accepting of yourself?

Do you have an extra line on your face? Do you have a smile line that you don’t like? Are you five or ten pounds overweight? Is your hair turning gray? Do you break out?

Are you accepting of yourself? Can you look past your flaws and absolutely love yourself? Can you accept the things that go wrong in your life, or when you don’t like something does it always become a crisis?

What is the meaning of your life? What do you want your life to be? Who do you want to become? What do you want to experience?

We talk too much about how to meet the opposite sex. When I throw in blogs about other things like relationships and things like this, I do it to get you guys thinking.

Life is not just about meeting the opposite sex. As we all know, loving yourself is the best gift you can give yourself every day. Accept who you are, where you are at and what you are feeling.

There are people who look in the mirror, don’t like what they see and will proceed to rip themselves apart. Stop beating yourself up.

So ask yourself where you want to be and how you want to define yourself. Do you love yourself? Full acceptance and love of who you are and where you’re at at this time in your life is really how you need to live.

I tell my personal story and journey to self-love, and tell how to go on this journey in your own life in my “Self Love Audio.” To start your own journey to self-love now, CLICK HERE for men and CLICK HERE for women.