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The right way to approach an attractive stranger (and anything else!)

Become a man of integrity with my 3X Confidence Masterclass

One of the most difficult challenges in life is trying to figure out if you’re doing something the right way when you’re just getting started and aren’t seeing many good results yet. Sometimes, you are doing it right but need more practice and time, and sometimes you’re doing it wrong but you can’t see how exactly.

Using the example of approaching attractive strangers, we will explore the 4 stages of doing something right, so that you can analyze your attempts and figure out what you’re doing well and where you’re making mistakes.

Dan’s Top Resources

Books

Dan has 3 bestselling non-fiction books available in both written and audio form:

  • The Naked Truth, his latest release, shows you how radical honesty builds self-confidence and relationships
  • Nothing to Lose explores how to build confidence from the inside by correcting the programming in your brain
  • The Legendary Life is a very practical, action-focused guide on how to plan and execute a life plan that brings you your ideal lifestyle

Online courses

Dan continues to put out high quality online self-paced courses through the Udemy platform

Full transcript (unedited)

One of the most difficult things to do in life is to know whether or not you’re doing something right. Particularly when you’re starting something new, and it’s something where the results aren’t likely to come in the immediate future, for example, trying to get healthy, trying to build a good social circle or starting a business. So these are things where there’s a delayed gratification, you’re working on it hard for days, weeks, months, seems like nothing’s happening. But even if you’re doing it right, you have to build up this kind of critical mass before it all clicks together, you know, you have to eat healthy for months before your body starts burning fat, you have to work on your business and reach out to create clients for many months before you turn a profit. And you have to approach lots of people and start lots of connections before you start seeing reciprocal relationships build. And so in that early period, we are trying all the stuff, it’s really hard to know if it works, because something that doesn’t work. And something that does looks the same in the beginning. So what I’m going to try and do in this video has helped you figure out if you’re doing it right in those early stages, as we go through, I’m going to just use one example. And that is learning how to approach people that you’re attracted to, and meet them. It’s an excellent example of doing something where you really have no idea if you’re making progress or doing it right, so to speak. Or when it goes wrong, you’re not sure why it went wrong, you might have done everything right, and this person is just not right for you. Or this person might have been right for you, if you haven’t done this step wrong. And you just don’t know the difference. So I’m going to use that as an example. But the principles I’m talking about apply to basically anything, think of it as four steps. One, you’ve got to have a healthy motive, a healthy reason for doing it, too is you have to have a an effective method and effective execution. So you have to be doing in a way that works. And you have to do it right. Three is right context. And this is about being at the right place at the right time. Okay, getting your timing right, getting the location, right getting the situation right to be trying this behavior. In fourth is gaining helpful, accurate feedback, because being able to measure what you have done to learn from it in the way that actually helps you. Let’s start with step one having a healthy motive. Now, in my experience, as a confidence coach, this is the step everyone gets wrong. Most of the time when sure it’s just not working out for you in any one particular area of your life. There’s most simplest way I can put it as you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. If you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, everything else afterward is affected. And it simply is not going to work out well for you. And most of the time, or if it does work, it’s going to be a strenuous effort, it’s going to take this huge amount of work from you, because you’re fighting against a bad reason. Doing something for the right reasons is really about integrity. It’s about aligning with your core values, knowing what they are, and doing it for those reasons doing it to live by your principles, as opposed to trying to get outcomes trying to impress people or trying to create some sort of control over the external world, which is obviously going to be an unhealthy motive. Because a it only creates more neediness inside you and attaches you to things that you can’t control. And B puts your Locus of Control outside yourself. So the results are really up to other people and other situations rather than up to you. So if we use the example of going up to people you’re attracted to to start a conversation, you might think a good reason is to get a partner or even to get laid. Those are bad reasons. good reasons. To practice bravery. Good reasons would be to invite people to connect with you to bring that connection into their life, to improve the quality of someone else’s day to practice your own altruism, to have fun and enjoy life. These are good reasons to do it. Can you hear in those motors, how much better your behavior is likely to be if that’s why you’re doing it, if you’re trying to be brave and have fun, imagine how much more enjoyable your approach is going to be compared to someone trying to get your pants off. Right? Thinking about how different they will feel to the person receiving it. So if you’re doing it for the right reasons, you’re actually giving yourself the best possible chance. But the right reason isn’t about getting some superficial result. So the wrong reasons when it comes to like approaching someone will be trying to get something from them trying to take from them to fill that hole inside yourself. And we’re sure that can work that motive if you’re dealing with people who have severe confidence issues themselves, but you’re not going to get into healthy fulfilling relationships that way. Okay, convincing some drunk girl at a bar who’s got mad trauma to like you is not exactly going to lead to a happy outcome for you in the long run superficial rewards and validation like if you’re doing it to look good in front of your friends. So you’re doing it to get some sort of approval from the people that you do it with, you know, these are short term highs that act like drug taking, essentially, you’re going to have withdrawal, and you’re going to need to take more and more, and you’ll never be satisfied. Or a classic, one classic bad reason to do something is no reason at all, is to not really know why you do something. I really think a lot of people are pottering around in their life engaging in various activities without really going, why am I doing this? They might have some superficial answer. So I, you know, I’m just, I go to this job because I need the money for them. Like, really? Why this job though? Why do I spend 40 hours a week here? When I could be somewhere else? Why is this the top choice? People don’t ask these questions. And people do the same thing when they’re, say, online dating, which I totally think is a waste of time. They’re swiping away. And they don’t really know why, like, what are you trying to achieve here? How is this supposed to improve your quality of life? To bring someone else anyone else into it that you’re attracted to? Why? Why do you want that, and people just often don’t know, they’re just running on impulses running on autopilot. And that I see leads people into disaster, that’s where you have this kind of unconscious life, and you end up with this mess at the end. And you feel like a victim, like it happened to you a reason you feel like that is because you weren’t consciously making decisions about why you’re doing something. So first and foremost, at least know why you’re doing something, right, at least have a clear reason. Like, this is my motivation. And that is not some outcome that you wish to achieve. But a kind of person you want to be you want to be a confident person, a brave person, a connected person, a responsible person, if you can think of it like I want to be this kind of person all day, every day, then you can attach that to why I’m doing this, like why am I going to work out? Because I’m a healthy person? Why am I gonna go approach that girl I’m attracted to because I’m a brave person. That kind of motivation can sustain you over and over no matter what the outcome is. Number two, effective method and execution. Now, this is the probably the point where most people focus on how to do it, right. And while this is very important, it’s not the most important step. In fact, if you get the first step, right, the reason why the how is a lot simpler and a lot more effective. So your how has to match your why. And one of the classic mismatches I see is quantity versus quality. So let’s say you have a quality, why you’re doing this. So your motivation is to be a brave person. But then you have a quantity how like, I must approach 10 people, that doesn’t line up, that’s not a quality measurement. 10 people could be a waste of your time, it depends on the quality of those 10. Now, if you want to be a brave person, a quality method would be I have to do something that scares me, I have to do something that’s uncomfortable, that would line up with bravery, that would be a method that lines up a practical manifestation of bravery. So once you’ve got your y sorted, and you look at your house, you have to ask yourself, does the house match the Y? Is it a natural extension is that a practical behavioral version of this kind of dream that I have of this thing I want to be. Now on top of that, you can stand on the shoulders of giants, there are people who have done this before you and they’ve done it well. But first, you have to find people did it for the right reasons, the same reasons that you’re doing it and then find out how they did it. So there’s a lot of house, let’s say you want to make a lot of money. There’s all different ways to make money from outright criminal behavior that’s absolutely psychopathic, and devastating to other people through to being fully pure and full of service and making the world a better place and people rewarding you financially for doing that. And everything in between. Now, in this scene, we have acts of integrity. So I’m really I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do. But I’m also going to be business savvy and charge money for it because I got to eat. And on the scene is like, I don’t care if people die, I gotta get paid. Now they’re all going to have different house. Okay, let’s see. And you’re going to have the kind of nasty scammy marketing type thing. And on this end, you’re just going to have powerful service, very high quality work that does what it says it will and more and just blows people’s minds. Now if we use the example of say, approaching someone, there’s lots of different ways to do it. You could use the pickup artists indirect way where you go and kind of tried to slide into the mind with all the psychological gambits and tricks and various cons. Or if your motive is to be a confident person and honest person, a brave person, your method would just be to go off and be direct. You know, I saw you from across the street for You’re so gorgeous. I just, I wanted to come and say hi, because it makes me nervous. Something like that, which, if it’s genuine, they will Feel it. They’ll be like, this isn’t some scheme. Whereas if a guy comes up, he’s like, do you have the time? Oh, that’s a lovely dress, by the way. Yeah, no, I think my sister bought one. And it’s awesome script that he’s come up with, designed to like weasel its way into your mind, you know, they’ll feel that and only a very damaged person is going to respond positively to it. And there’s also the basics. There’s there’s lots of ways of doing things, and you got to give yourself the best possible chance without breaching your integrity. It doesn’t breach your integrity to maintain eye contact, to speak with a bold, loud voice and to hold your posture proudly, you can do these things, no matter what your approaches. So you can give yourself the best possible chance by learning from the best what is the best methodology was the best practice here. Same would apply. If I’m running a business, now I can be fully authentic and full of service. But I can make sure I charge what I’m worth, I can make sure that everybody feels like they’re getting more than what they paid for, but that I’m still getting paid. Or I can be totally naive and just give away everything for free and then wonder why I can’t feed my family. So there’s lots of ways to do it. And there’s better ways than others. So you should learn the better ways. But find the ones that align with your principles and get it all together get a win win win type situation where everybody involved feels like their life has increased in value. If you mumble if you creep in if you’re indirect manipulative. It’s probably because step one is off your reason why is some needy, greedy thing that can only be implemented with needy greedy behaviors. And so you’re only going to get the kind of results that needy greedy people get, generally those not satisfying in the long term. There’s even studies that show that promiscuous psychopaths are disappointed and dissatisfied with their relationships as they get older. So even getting laid a lot loses its shine after a while. Step three is right context. I think one of the most painful things ever, is to do it all right, but at the wrong time. And to not know that that was the problem. I’ve learned this approaching people that I’m attracted to, there’ll be times where I’ve actually done everything right. I’ve been totally bold, I’m doing it for all the good reasons. I said what was on my mind, I made sure that everything was okay for them and got really bad reaction. I’m sitting there thinking like, Did I do something wrong with some neediness that came through? Or was I offensive or something? And I remember this one time story often tell where I did this, and the girl reacted very badly. And I sort of apologized as I do. If I try and ruin your day. I thought I was just being genuine. Didn’t mean to upset you. And she said, No, I’ve just come from my father’s funeral. And like, Well, that was never gonna go well, was it? There’s no way there’s no, no methodology and no rhyme or reason, that would have got a good result. In that context, that context was very poorly thought out. So in the example of approaching strangers, bad contexts might be backing them into a corner where they feel unsafe, you know, especially when it’s a male approaching a female, like, if you catch up to her in a dark alley, and no one else is around. Yeah, that’s not going to go well. I mean, once I surprised the girl as she came out of a shop, and she was just in shock. I was like, Okay, well, surprising people doesn’t really help or a situation where they might be embarrassed, like, they’re with their friends, and they are shy person and you put them on the spot. You know, somebody’s like, absolute worst fear is to be standing out in in the spotlight, or simply too noisy, they can hear you, so on, so forth. And this, this applies to all different contexts as well. You can do everything right in business, but with the wrong audience, and you don’t realize the audience’s the problem, or your timing is the problem. If you can do great YouTube videos, but you release them at midnight, no one’s watching them, for example. So in terms of getting the context, right, you’ve got to know that like, even if you’re doing everything for the right reason, you’re not outcome focused, but an outcome would be good. And using the right methodology, you got to ask yourself, or what’s the right time? What’s the best time to do this? Who are the right people to do this with? What’s the right place to do this? And this is where you learn from others. You learn from coaches, maybe like myself, or experts in various fields, and you go, what’s the best time, place location, whatever was the best time to do this. And then give yourself the best chance and that way, especially if you know, you get this part, right. If you like, this is exactly when and where and who. And it doesn’t work, then you know, then maybe the methodology is wrong. Well, the reasoning is wrong. But if you get the context wrong, and it doesn’t go right, you might think that you’re doing it wrong when you’re not. So number three, I mean, they’re all important. I can’t keep saying that each one is more important than the last but if number one is the most important Number three’s a second most important probably get the time place in person right? And learn from the experts. What that is that beautiful magic point of opportunity. So that way, you know, that’s not the problem. Finally, step four, look, learning something means getting it wrong over and over again. And calibrating. That’s learning. We’ve got to stop shaming, getting things wrong, just stop shaming, failure. Failure is not bad, it’s good. There is no success without many, many failures, they are the stepping stones of success in any area. So failures should be welcomed, they should be sought out. Think of it like, you want to learn how to lose every possible way so that you never lose again, this is the step that most people skip. They don’t reflect they don’t measure very few people journal in any sort of effective way. Very few people sit down and think about what they did, and try to figure out what went right, what went wrong, what they learned from it. Most people just plow from action to action to action, or they just overthink. But very rarely do they think take action and reflect, which is known as my 3x model. You’re going to measure fairly, and you got to learn from it. You know, what did I do? Exactly? How did they react? Why do I think they reacted that way? What’s the most likely explanation? Or maybe I can get that information from? What should I do? Right? Or should I keep doing what’s what’s on track? And what do I need to work on? Stop change? What isn’t helping me? You know, is my focus in the right place? What was I focused on? Does that help me going through the steps? Did I have a healthy motive? Did I execute this properly? Was the context correct? And one of the most important questions, you got to always ask yourself, What did I gain from the experience? So that way, no matter how it goes, it feels like a win for you. This is one of the keys to motivation is no matter what the experience should be framed as a win. Because it always is, if you want it to be, you always learned something. Right? There are some situations where it looks like nothing can be learned until you reflect on it. I remember I went up to really tall African girl really beautiful, dark ebony girls. Oh my gosh, she’s so hot. And I went up to her and I maybe got four words out of my mouth. If I’m lucky, before she was just not interested in that like classic way, you know. And there’s not much go on, there’s not much information there for me to work on. You know, she can’t tell me anything. She’s already halfway down the street still enough. But if I asked myself, What did I gain from that situation, it’s one more rejection under my belt, it’s realizing that someone can say no, and I don’t die. It’s realizing that some people won’t even give me a chance to get it wrong myself, they’ll just reject me right out of sight. And there’s nothing I can do about that, that a lot of this is out of my control. Those are all really good lessons. It’s actually a very helpful experience. I kind of laughed it off. And then the next time it happened, I just kind of found it funny. And it’s one of those ones, not much I can do about that. Moving on. Generally, when people do reflect, they do it in a very unhelpful and unhealthy way. They start with blame, you know what’s wrong with me. She’s such a bitch. I’m a bad person. Life, some fear, this kind of idea. Like because it didn’t get the outcome I wanted, which is a problem at step one, you didn’t do it for the right reason. Somebody’s to blame on being punished in some way. This is unfairness or it’s fear, but I deserve bad treatment. And, you know, this kind of story to talk yourself out of ever doing it again, because it wasn’t totally pleasant and wasn’t exactly what you hoped for and wasn’t ideal. Well, that classic idea of I didn’t get what I want, and therefore this was a bad experience. Again, that’s a problem was step one. So when you’re reflecting, if you find that you’re reflecting is full of negativity, then you gotta go back, like, did I fuck this up with step 1am? I doing this for the wrong reasons. Because if you’re doing something for the right reasons, there is no negative outcomes. Everything has been official to you. If for example, you’re approaching strangers for the right reasons, any responses helpful? See, a great reason to approach people is to learn more about human psychology and learn how to connect with people. Now that reason means that any response is a good lesson. Even if someone’s like, get the fuck away from me to be like, Whoa, okay. Some people react like man. Why did they react like that? What did I do? Was it me was a theme was a bit of both. And you learn more about social dynamics. So it doesn’t matter how it goes. You know, I’ve had people just walk away from me. I’m like, Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t even say a word about others where I’m like, I feel like it’s going really well. We’re talking for like, 1015 minutes, and they never takes me back. Well, it’s interesting. It teaches me about the sort of high you get when you meet someone and the half life of that high as you leave them, they start to question what really happened and doubt themselves and so on. So you get to learn from every experience if you want to, if that’s your reason for doing this. The key thing to keep in mind is doing something right. You got to do all four of these correctly, not perfectly but correctly. If any one of them is out, the whole system’s fact is very hard to recover from doing one of these steps wrong. Like I said, the most important is getting a reason why correct, if you don’t do that correctly, the rest is going to really struggle. But any one of these steps can fuck it up. If the method is incorrect or ineffective, then obviously that’s not going to work out if you do it at the wrong time, the wrong place with the wrong person, of course, that’s not going to work out. If you don’t measure and learn from what you’ve done, you’re not going to make progress. But you get them all right, and you almost can’t lose in the long run, you’ll know that you’re making progress. And to come to the point of this video, most importantly, you’ll know that you’re doing it right before the results happen. Okay, if you know that you’ve got a healthy motive, you know that you’ve got like an expert certified methodology, you know, you’ve chosen the right place and the right time and the right people, and you’re measuring and learning as you go, you can still feel secure even before the results start to happen. If I’m going to the gym to be healthy, and I’m following a plan put together by an expert, personal trainer, and I’m going to a good gym at a time where my energy is at its best. And I’m working with a gym buddy who really helps me. And afterwards I measure how much I’ve been lifting how tired I feel or how much energy I’ve got how much effort I put into the gym, what I learned from it, tracking my injuries, making sure they don’t happen so on. Then, before I get abs, I know I’m on track, be the same for a business of starting a business to serve the world and make it a better place and provide something that nobody else is providing. That’s good reason, right. And if I’m following proven business methodology from people in my field, who have succeeded in the way that I want to succeed, for the reasons that I want to do it, and that works for them, and it works for a lot of them, and I’m doing what they do. So I know the methodology is right. And I found a niche that I serve and suits what I’m selling, and I find them at the time and place in their life where they really need me. And then I’m constantly measuring how they react to me how things go with clients, where my money really comes from who’s best to work with who I shouldn’t work with, so on. Then before you become profitable, you know you’re on track. So hopefully that helps you. And what I’d suggest you do with this video, as you look at something that’s not working in your life, run through these four steps and go, which one or more of these, am I not doing right? And that should help you clear the year on your results. If you want more help with that get in touch dan@brojo.org I’ll see you guys next time. Cheers.

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