approach anxiety

What Can a Date Coach Do For You?

This is something I came across that talks about why getting a dating coach is beneficial for ANYONE. I have been wanting to write about this for a while and thank goodness someone else beat me to it (and was able to nail it so that I didn't have to write it anyway). Credit goes to Eric Disco, the man over at Approach Anxiety for this great write up. I frequently read his blog because he and I share similar beliefs when it comes to personal development through dating.

A good coach can push you out of your comfort zone.

 No matter who you are, we all have a limited view of what’s possible, not only in others, but in ourselves.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”

A coach can push you beyond what you thought is possible, in ways you can’t push yourself.

Sometimes it takes seeing and hearing another person do what you thought was impossible before you believe it’s possible to do it yourself.

A coach can give you an outside look at yourself that you can’t see.

If only we could see ourselves as others see us.

Well, a good coach can honestly tell you what’s working and what’s not working with what you’re doing.

Sometimes you think it’s one thing, and you keep working to change that, when in reality, it’s something completely different that’s holding you back.

It can be difficult to see what that thing is because you don’t see yourself in the action.  You only see how she’s reacting.  A coach can see both.

A good coach can pick out what is working.

There are probably already a number of things you’re doing right, things that are working for you.  And in your trial-and-error search to improve, you may stop doing some of those things.

A good coach will not only tell you what needs to be fixed, he will build up what’s already working.  That may be completely different than what works for someone else.

A good coach helps you prioritize.

A good coach can also tell you what is the most important thing you should be working on now.  He can pick out the thing that will have the most effect on our game.

I see it all the time with guys.  They want to fix 20 different things.  And because they’re newbies, I could easily pick out 20 things they could be doing differently.

But I don’t.

I find that one thing that is holding them back the most and we work on that together.

Throwing multiple things at a guy to work on will just leave him thinking about too much stuff.  And, worse, he’ll feel like he’s doing so many things wrong.

A good coach can help you start things out the right way.

For some guys, doing things the wrong way can be harmful.

A coach knows how to take you through the process in a way that works, is enjoyable and gets good reactions from women.

You’ll never get 100% good reactions from women no matter what coach you’re with.

But if you are pushing yourself too hard, too fast or in the wrong way, and getting mostly negative reactions from women, you start to build a “psychological armor” around yourself.

You become self-protective.  Women then react even more negatively to you. This makes you even more self-protective. A vicious cycle.

And the worst part about this is that you begin to anchor negative feelings with meeting strangers.

Conversely a good coach can gently push you out of your shell in a way that starts to get positive reactions from women.

This in turn builds your confidence. And you start to associate positive feelings with meeting strangers.

A coach can hold you accountable.

One of the best things about getting long-term coaching is that that you are reporting back to someone regularly about your progress.

That helps  keep you motivated to work on this stuff.

You push yourself that much more in between the times you see your coach.

Not only that, but your coach can help you set up goals and work toward those goals.

Without specific goals it’s very difficult to make progress.

A coach can teach you something you would have never learned on your own.

You may know a lot already.  You may be brilliant at some things.

The beauty of coaching is that you are allowed to go back to square one and pretend you don’t know anything.

Even me.

I got to soak up John’s knowledge as if I’d never done pickup a day in my life.

And it only made me that much better.

The women I was meeting were hotter than ever.  I was getting more dates.

I had so much less approach anxiety.  My relationships were deeper and more fulfilling.

I even became a better coach because of it.

Coaching WILL change your life, in ways you can only dream of.

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Ask Out EVERY Hot Girl

This video comes from the inspiration of Gary Vaynerchuk and a comment he made during one of his keynotes. It's stuck in my mind and I want it to stick in yours as well.

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Do You Want to Empower Your Love Life?

If so, sign up for The State of the Wingman newsletter for free dating tips and exclusive content! Also receive my free eBook, The Other Twenty Percent - The Starter Guide for Instant Dating Success. One of the easiest and effective ways to see dating improvement.

Women, Why Won't You Approach Guys?

I came across this post a couple of days ago and I had to re-post it on my blog because it's so funny to think that after millions of years of socia interaction between a man and woman, things still stay the same - EVEN THOUGH it's has been proven time and time again that doings things differently can produce better results. What am I talking about here?

Women approaching guys. This post is from Single City Guy. Check out his blog.

The question of approaching a potential date has come up in a series of recent e-mail’s and conversations with friends. On Twitter I asked if women approach guys or do they prefer to be approached. Between the responses I received and the answers from my friends the answer is fairly unanimous, women prefer to be approached leaving the sole responsibility on the shoulders of us men. You would think after some several million years of evolution of hunting and finding what we want, the hetero-male-sapien (if that’s not a word, it is now), would have patented this process. We haven’t.

Men face a lot of doubt when approaching a woman, regardless of our level of toolamship. There’s a reason Mystery’s three second rule works really well. It gets us to stop thinking and just do. The more confident and sure a guy is, the more comfortable they are in approaching a woman. The other strategy is to let things “naturally” progress, gaging our approach through more social avenues. Regardless of the type of guy and his method of approaching, we love it when a woman approaches us.

In an honest conversation with a friend, I told her “The same way you MUST have that pair of shoes is the same way you must think of dating.” Stop window shopping your only going to drive yourself crazy. Grab what you want, walk up to the counter and pay for it. Like any purchase it may fit you for years or you may end up asking for a refund next week. If you like a guy, try talking to him and ask him out, making it known that you are interested in him.

Approaching a guy doesn’t make you a slut or overbearing. When we’re approached it signals that this woman is interested. If your afraid of coming on to strong or making him think you just want sex, you’re probably approaching the wrong guy. We do not think any different of you if you approach us or if you don’t. A guy who just wants to add you as another notch to his bedpost will think of you the same way regardless of you approaching him or he approaching you.

How should you approach a guy? Easy, ask him out for lunch, drinks, coffee. Get creative if you have to, women your a lot better at getting our attention than we are!

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Do You Want to Empower Your Love Life?

If so, sign up for The State of the Wingman newsletter for free dating tips and exclusive content! Also receive my free eBook, The Other Twenty Percent - The Starter Guide for Instant Dating Success. One of the easiest and effective ways to see dating improvement.

Two-Column Theory to Approaching Women

As I was sitting on the bus headed back to Boston after an amazing weekend, I figured I’d take the time to look back at some interesting points that were made over the weekend. After shooting a WingmanTV episode that I did in NYC, my guest and I were talking more about dating and meeting women. He brought up something interesting that I’d like to talk about.

He said that when it comes to approaching women, as an older guy and knowing what he wants, he’ll look at a girl and place her in one of two columns.

Column One – “You look like a fun time.” He carefully looks at her and decides if she can be someone he can have fun with. You have the kind of fun that can be just for that night. You also have the fun that can bring lots of energy and conversation for an extended period of time. Finally, you have the kind of fun that you’d want to be with for a VERY long time – potentially, the rest of your life. In this, he also included attributes such as low-maintenance, non-elitist attitude and friends. Yes, he does this just by checking her body language and how she’s carrying herself in the crowd.

Column Two – “You look like you require too much.” This column has women who look and act as though they are very high-maintenance. The kind of girl that would make you buy her a drink before talking to her or else she won’t give you the light of day. In the same column are women who are less mature and don’t carry themselves well in a social environment (they get wasted and make a fool of themselves). Once again, he will just look at body language, how she behaves with her friends and other subtle things.

This idea really intrigued me. It was almost like in the Terminator when he did a scan of people and their entire profile would come up and at the end, determine if they were dangerous or not. So I decided to adopt this for the day, just for fun, to see if you really can simplify things to the extent that allows you to determine if a woman is WORTH approaching.

That idea changes things a little bit because we’re not talking about the ability to approach attractive women. This goes beyond it in the sense that even though a woman can be a smokeshow, she still may not be worth you going up to her if there is a good chance she’s not going to rock your world.

So anyway, it started with walking down the street and looking at women and deciding if I would want to talk to them. This felt a little weird because it seemed as though I was harshly categorizing women and not really giving them a fair chance. I acknowledge this is something that should be frowned upon but I also see people do this everyday without remorse, especially when it comes to selecting a potential mate.

The problem that I see with this is that it’s not a perfect system. There will be times where you will put women in the wrong column. For example, a REALLY attractive woman who spent over an hour getting ready just so she can look incredible and may not get approached by any men, could have the “look” of a high-maintenance woman. The problem with that is her looks could be so intimidating that men are afraid to approach her, which makes her look untouchable when in fact, she would have LOVED for a guy to approach her.

If you remember my Wingman Unapproved post, you saw that the women we ended up talking to were happy that we talked with them because no one else had the “testicular fortitude” to do so. And they made a point to say that they are VERY friendly and would be open to talking to any guy just as long as they’re not creepy. But I digress…

In the end, this system can prove to be efficient for the kind of guy who is most likely older, is more sure of what he wants and has enough dating experience to be able to anticipate what he is getting himself into. I wonder how many of those guys exist?  It should be known that even with this mindset, there is still room for error with that theory. For someone who is younger and still searching for what he wants in a woman (and in life, in general), this may not be the best system. At all. But a fun one to joke around with.

Still interesting either way.

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Wingman Unapproved

Approach at MiniBar

Over lunch one day with Stuart and Carla, we were sharing stories of terrible attempts at talking to women and I heard a really bad one. My instinctive outburst was, “Wow, that’s ‘wingman unapproved.’” Stuart and Carla laughed, seemed to like what I said and said I should try to incorporate something in my blog that talks about “unapproved” actions that result in failed attempts to talk to women (or men for that matter).

I see them all the time and so why not talk about them? I can talk about what could have gone wrong and what he/she could have done to make things better. As a benefit, you get to read it and try to avoid these situations yourself. I will also do some “approved” posts too, if they are worth highlighting.

So let’s begin with the other night!

I was at MiniBar with my honorary wingman, Cort Johnson, and we saw three women across from us. Two of them looked like they were our age and the other one was visibly older. I had already come to the conclusion that they were two sisters with their mother but that’s not important. What’s important is what happened next. Cort and I were going to talk to them because they were by themselves and no one was trying to talk to them as if they had some type of disease. They were all attractive, even the mother and it wasn’t like the mother was giving signals like, “you better not come over here or I’ll bite your head off.” Anyway, right before Cort and I were going to break the ice with the group, a noticeably older man swoops in and starts talking to the group.

His back was turned and he was in front of the group so we couldn’t see what was going on or what he said. Within 15 seconds, he walked away. I glance over at the women and see them talking and giggling. I had a distinct feeling that his attempt went terribly.

Now out of sheer curiosity, I go over and ask them what he said to them. They told me that he left his friend, walked over to them and asked, “Can I ask you a question? Is it ok for me to smoke outside?” For a moment, I wasn’t even shocked. I was more confused. Why would he even ask that? And then, why would he leave his friend to ask them that? It just didn’t make any sense.

Listen, guys, let’s be clear here. Women are aware of everything – well, almost everything. When they are out, they know who’s close to them, who’s across the room, what you’re drinking, how much you’ve drank, what you’re wearing and how you’re acting. They know if you’re having a good time or not. They know if you’ve looked at them or not (yeah, I know). If they are making that kind of effort in hopes they may find someone to connect with and also avoid what I’ll call socially incompetent men, I think it would be fair to make the same effort to come up with a better approach.

Lesson: Don’t ask a question that doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to ask a question of relevance or better yet, something that you genuinely want to know. You’ll get a much better response than what this guy got.

While Cort and I were already over there talking with them, the guy came back, interrupted one of them and asked if they could watch his drink while he goes to the bathroom. For those who aren’t familiar with the layout of MiniBar, from where we were standing, he walked by about 4 tables and multiple surfaces before coming to where we were. Once again, women are aware of this.

Guys, if you are going to approach women, have some intent, be purposeful and don’t feel like you need an excuse. You don’t.

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