Many books tell men that to be successful, you have to be confident. Some will describe how to act more confident. This books tells you HOW to become confident.
This book is about getting what you want by making changes in how you think and project. It is about being attractive, charismatic and influential. It is about moving your agenda forward by being an excellent player of the social game. Following the program I describe, you will develop specific social skills, attitudes, thinking patterns and possibly values. Think of this as a training manual with some theory, and lots of specific suggestions. Use these to build a program tailored for yourself. You can base your program on the program I describe at the end of this book.
Table of Contents
- Overview – Why I wrote this book, Getting Started, Effective vs Ineffective paths, Almost no one does the work
- Inner Game – Goals for your Psychological State, Confidence, Openness, Staying Cool, Your Values and Your Story, Exactly what your Inner Game Should Look Like, Things That Can Screw You Up
- Outer Game – Concept of Social Value, Characteristics to Project, How to be an Engaging Conversationalist, Entering, The Conversation, Gamesmanship, Leadership, Leaving, Mistakes to Avoid, Stack it in Your Favor, How to Handle Rough Situations, Misc Tips
- The Program – Do this Almost Every Day, Expanding Your Program, When Things Get Tough
- Exercises – Building Inner Game Story and Values, Build Your Inner Confidence, Honing Your Outer Game
Quotes from the Book
Feel and project happiness and contentment and people will feel energized and motivated and just plain happy when around you. Joke and tease. You are making the space around you a good place to be.
You want to move quickly from the thought “I’m trying to be” to “I am”. The mindset does not happen without the behavior change and vice versa. Push.
Unless you run with a very successful, cool crowd, few people you meet will seek, understand, and be capable of sustaining the mental state, and behavior I’m describing. They may have read the book but they don’t do the work. You will love the moment when you realize “holy shit I’m only half way toward my goal and I’m out performing almost any man I come in contact with.”
Get used to generating a sense of accomplishment by your own yardstick and rules.
Having coordination, health, intelligence, and natural talent makes any athletic or artistic feat easier. They make it easier because you will reach a higher level of proficiency faster and that is motivating in itself. But even if we are born with some natural gifts those will likely fade with age. A great deal of enjoyment and income can be had without being the best at something. The best way to compete and win is to compete with your past self – “how much better am I than I was yesterday.”
It is very difficult to make a lasting change to the way we think, feel and behave. It will require lifelong practice because our current patterns are the result of deeply ingrained habits, forceful experiences, and genetics. Completely undoing the damage of say a shameful experience you had as a child is not possible. Experiences that evoked very strong emotions, particularly if they occurred over and over, or happened during your formative years, are part of you. However new patterns of thinking and feeling, can be learned and become habitual. But they must be constantly practiced and re-enforced throughout your life. Fortunately as you make progress your life will improve and you will be rewarded by the results you get. The rewards will re-enforce your new ways of thinking and behaving.
People’s behavior is to a large degree predictable. When they evaluate you, they are looking for clues that they can match to a pattern they recognize. For example, if you dress in a suit and maintain a strong posture and voice and you will get respect unless you do or say something completely out of character. Wear ill fitting cloths hold your head down and mumble and you will be ignored.
A lot of the “wisdom” that floats in common culture is useless because it sounds nice but ignores that we, like all creatures, are more or less in constant competition. Some people are more powerful than others and exercise that power easily regardless of how worthy we judge their purposes.
Life is hard because life is hard – not because you make mistakes – not because you didn’t try hard enough – not because of you. You’d be an arrogant bastard to think so. People don’t do what you want them to do. Situations don’t go like you want them to go. These are basic facts of life. You are not responsible for outcomes. You responsibility is to be brave and to put forth effort – what happens happens.
The vast majority of people lack the will and self discipline to make significant accomplishments. How many people do you see at a beginners dance lesson do you see on the dance floor a month later? (almost none if dance isn’t in your thing) The situation is the same for would be body builders, black belts, guitarists, athletes, performers, authors and scholars. Personally, I don’t consider taking classes, or even getting a college degree from most schools a huge accomplishment. School is spoon fed to us by our social institutions and part of what is learned is pleasing teachers and exam makers. Most of the decisions of most people’s lives are made by other people. There is little formal training to counter this. You must earn your freedom on your own.
You may also find yourself pushed to take leadership roles, even if just socially. This will happen because so few men have confidence and solid internal stasis and people abhor that vacuum. When you project confidence you project power. Notice how easy it is to identify who is the boss in a meeting even before it starts – The leader projects confidence and other people treat them with deference. That will be you. Some people will accept you in that role only after you are tested.
Socially skilled people can function at a high level regardless of what they are feeling at the moment. But life becomes much easier when your inner emotional state is in synch with your outward projection.
Mastery of your inner game will manifest in your attitude, and project in your actions and words. The words “Calm, collected, steady, light hearted, assertive, confident, level headed, un-reactive, open, and flexible” describe you.
To change your inner game, you must experience successes, recognize the feeling of success, remember that feeling, and choose that as your default “go-to” state.
The inner game is all about maintaining self confidence. Confidence is the main source of a man’s power. Since you are a man it is a feeling that is natural to you. You want that feeling most or all of the time. It should become so familiar to you that you can recall the felling on demand. Basically you are shooting for being a guy’s guy – Everyone likes hanging with you because you are fun to be with and strong.
From experience as a counselor and personal conversations with successful people, I find that everyone suffers some concern about whether they are liked. The trick here is to not stake your self worth on the acceptance of the person you happen to be talking with at the moment. You have confidence you can make all the friends and contacts you need. Whether the individual you happen to be talking too likes or dislikes you is not very important.
Having an open, non-judgmental attitude allows you to connect with a wide variety of people. Being open and receptive to people reduces anxiety in yourself and others. Being able to relax others is a powerful thing. Being accepting of people and their ideas gives you more options. Another word for more options is freedom.
Anytime you start to feel heated calm yourself down. Demonstrate emotional control and a mind that is not easily sidetracked. When you are cool you can think strategically. You can rationally decide if it is in your best interest to stay quiet, answer, or retaliate, and if so, when and in what manner.
Your values are a product of your culture, upbringing and experience. They are not sacred to other people. They are not, and you should not think of them as immutable. You should be clear and committed to your values. But you must not be rigid.
People want predictability and to be able to relate to your values. They want to see actions in accordance with your values. You want to identify values you share with people you talk with and communicate them. Do not point out differences in values. The most effective persuasive arguments are appeals to values. One value you must have if you are to be successful with people is to value diversity of opinion.
People understand the world through stories. You want to be able to communicate your world view in terms of your story.
Successful people don’t criticize themselves – they occasionally evaluate. They don’t ponder long or need certainty or guarantees. They act quickly. They rarely look back. If they do, they overestimate their performance.
People will tend to see you as you see yourself. Reject treatment from others that is not in accordance with your self image.
When there are two or more plausible ways of interpreting what happened in a situation (and there always is), choose the interpretation that gives you the most options – the one that is most empowering.
Your physical pose, movement and voice re-enforce your internal game. Take up space by taking an open stance, arms not crossed. Move with certainty and in an unhurried manner.
People think about themselves most of the time. Usually they are telling themselves a story to support their ego. You must not be thinking of yourself while you are talking. You should be listening and thinking about the state of your audience, what you want them to think and feel. Is your posture, gestures and tone of voice supporting what you are saying?
You will be doing this program mostly alone. You will need to structure your time and accomplish to-do items. Sometimes you will have little support and sometimes you will work in the face of criticism and failure.
Remind the little critical man in your head of celebrities and politicians who have made huge, embarrassing public mistakes and recovered – Of the things recovered alcoholics put behind them – of the animated social person who sometimes says stupid things or just makes things up yet people love having them around because they are fun. You probably can’t completely kill the critical little man but remind him that on game day he needs to shut the fk up.
You do not want to tell lies to yourself or others about what you really want. Who doesn’t want a great partner, great sex, accolades, exotic vacations, and a beautiful home. Often taking the spiritual high road is obviously self serving BS. You need to know what you really want. You want to be direct and authentic in all your communications, including what you want.
The most effective process for raising self esteem is setting goals, reaching them and congratulating yourself. Accept complements you get for success. Enjoy and become familiar with that pleasant, enabling, feeling.
You can think of social interactions like economics: an exchange of value. Value is not an intrinsic trait. It is merely a perception. It is social currency. For yourself you want the value of a well adjusted, skillful, masculine leader. You lose value by showing self consciousness, insecurity, and lack of will and purpose. You want people to feel happy but never by trading yourself down by placating, appeasing, apologizing, or trying too hard. Yeah some people will like it if you placate and apologize but then your currency is spent and you are broke.
Demonstrate skill. Let people see you play a sport, playing an instrument, art, handiwork – whatever you are good at. If you must show something where your skill level is not all that high, do not apologize. They may not recognize it, and even if they do you will likely get some points for being a doer anyway.
Be direct (but tactful). Confident people are not afraid of other people’s reactions so risk nothing by being authentic. Being direct also builds trust.
Either you are, or you are not, doing something. Do not say or think “I am trying to organize a softball team.”. You should say “I AM organizing a softball team.” Likewise do not say “I am organizing a softball team but I don’t have enough people.” You say “I am organizing a softball team AND I don’t have enough people.(yet)” Using the words “trying” and “but” imply that you expect to fail.
Be direct in your requests. When you are at a restaurant for example, the waitress or waiter expects to take your order. You should not say “I would like to order a sandwich…” You simply order. “I’ll have a sandwich.”
Use strong adjectives like “fantastic” “amazing” “beautiful” “mesmerizing”. Be positive. Paint an exciting picture by describing how great it is going to be.
The most difficult situation is entering when you know no one and everyone else has friends. In that situation, stand near a group of people who are talking and wait till you’re acknowledged. If they make you stand long they are self involved nit wits and have nothing to offer you – move on. If someone acknowledges you by looking at you, start with “hi my name is xxx”. Don’t change the subject they are talking about. Try something along the lines of: “I heard what you’re saying. I’ve seen the same thing.” You have to discern their values and find a way to connect. Remember the format for blending into a conversation is saying “Yes and…”
To start a conversation, ask their opinion on something. “You look like an intelligent person, I’m wondering what you think about, blah blah. Don’t ask yes/no questions unless you follow up with “why?”
Be cocky. Set the frame that you are successful and fun and well liked. People forgive almost anything if done with confidence and humor.
Punish behavior you don’t want – Drop your attention. Just moving your eyes off to the side is usually enough. An open, ready to walk away, posture reinforces this. The extreme example is to completely ignore a person.
Women, and sometimes guys, will neg a man to test his confidence and cool. It’s normal so expect it. The way you respond is important. Respond self consciously or defensively then you are “sensitive” and failed the test (perceiving a slight when none was intended) . It is best to respond with an equally challenging statement. If the test was in the form of a question, don’t answer it. Respond in a kidding way, assuming the best, by asking a playful question back with a big smile
Looking up as you are talking will communicate you are not taking the person seriously. Looking down can look like you are carefully considering what they are saying. Looking to the side can challenge them to keep your attention. If they work to keep your attention that helps establish your value and status.
Introduce people you know to other people. It takes effort to find common interests between disparate people and people appreciate the effort and respect your breadth of friends and helping them connect.
Try not to break conversations because you run out of steam or get self conscious. If you sense this push yourself. The other party needs to carry their end of the conversation and if they are not, you should initiate the ending. Don’t put too much effort in getting someone rolling. If the other person seems to be getting bored of the conversation, end it. Ideally with an upbeat statement.
Don’t “Spill your guts” or “let it all hang out” or show “warts and all”. Doing that is a weird masochistic thing.
Don’t make self deprecating remarks with one exception: If you have so much perceived value that you are scaring the other person. If you do take a knock at yourself, do it as an inside joke, or by sharing a possibly charming quirk you have. The worst is bragging followed by compensating self deprecating remarks. It’s called false modesty. Don’t do that.
If you are asked a question that seems pointed, answer it as though the questioner were simply curious and interested in you (which may be the case). You answer should be short – just a Yes or No is best. Do not explain or justify yourself. Then ask the other person a similar question without escalating.
Walt Whitman the poet, under the pen name Mose Velsor wrote a regular column called “Manly Health and Training”. He talks about regular training, athleticism, boxing, the dangers of a soft life, and living too much in your head, and the need to be tough. One reason that exercise has a profound positive effect on your mood and mental health is that you can see the results in the mirror, and measure them with a scale.