Inhalt

How to Talk to Anyone (Junior Talker #3)

by DeYtH Banger

Open

1) I just started watching stand up comedians... you see them on stage and they say all type of shit and they never give a fuck.

2) Michael from Vsauce is really fucked up guy... not from a bad aspect... but from a good one... he say all type of shit and he makes it a big deal... how much cool is that?

You read books and you read all type of shit and you never give it a chance to go and start blooming and gloosiming out of content.
You live in depression!?

(If You want better life... come and join us here...)

Quotes

“Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.”
― William Faulkner, Mosquitoes

“I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It’s moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest.”
― David Levithan, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Almost nothing need be said when you have eyes.”
― Tarjei Vesaas, The Boat in the Evening

“There is no greater plague to an introvert than the extroverted.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“Nothing is as irritating to a shy man as a confident girl.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“An extrovert looks at a stack of books and sees a stack of papers, while an introvert looks at the same stack and sees a soothing source of escape.”
― Eric Samuel Timm

Content

Open
Quotes

Part 1

Chapter 1 - Rejection
Chapter 1.1 - Rejection (Part 2)
Chapter 2 - Rejection (Part 3)
Chapter 3 - Books
Chapter 4 - Secrets
Chapter 5 - Insights (Part 1) (Porn)
Chapter 5.1 - Insights (Part 2) (Porn)
Chapter 5.2 - Insights (Part 3) (Porn)
Chapter 6 - LeT's TaLk
Chapter 7 - Need (Part 1)
Chapter 8 - More
Chapter 8.1. - More (Part 2)
Chapter 9 - Women
Chapter 9.1. - Women
Chapter 9.2. - Women
Chapter 10 - Tips
Chapter 10.1. - It's Not Rejection
Chapter 10.2. - Spot LIGHT
Chapter 11 - Roger
Chapter 12 - My Style (Aka Provacative)
Chapter 13 - Extra Material
Chapter 14 - Secrets (MAGIC)
Chapter 15 - Secret (Magic) (Part 2)
Chapter 16 - Rape Method (Part 1)
Chapter 17 - Rape Method (Part 2)
Chapter 18 - Rape Method (Part 3)

Part 2

Chapter 1 - Those Days
Chapter 2 - Bright Light

Part 3

Chapter 1 - N o N e e D F o r M o r E (Part 1)
Chapter 1.1. - N o N e e D F o r M o r E (Part 2)
Chapter 1.2. - N o N e e D F o r M o r E (Part 3)
Chapter 2 - OFFENDED
Chapter 3 - BE OFFENDED
Chapter 4 - Secrets
Chapter 5 - Secrets (Part 2)
Chapter 6 - Secrets (Part 3)
Chapter 7 - Secrets (Part 4)
Chapter 8 - Bill Maher (WORLD OF JOKES) (Part 1)
Chapter 8.1 - Bill Maher (WORLD OF JOKES) (Part 2)
Chapter 9 - ReVeAL (George Carlin Style)
Chapter 10 - Talk
Chapter 11 - Forward
Chapter 12 - God (Truth)
Chapter 13 - Suppress Sexual Thoughts

Part 1

1. How is a woman like a condom?

Both spend more time in your wallet than on your dick.

2. What was David Bowie’s last hit?

Probably heroin.

3. What’s the difference between a joke and two dicks?

You can’t take a joke.

4. What do you call a deaf gynecologist?

A lip reader.

5. I hope Death is a woman.

That way it will never come for me.

6. What did the elephant say to the naked man?

How do you breathe through that tiny thing?

7. Why do women always have sex with the lights off?

Because they never like to see a man having a good time.

8. What do you call a cheap circumcision?

A rip off.

9. What does a woman’s pussy and a chainsaw have in common?

Miss by few inches and you’re in deep shit.

10. Did you hear about the blind prostitute?

Well, you got to hand it to her.

11. Men vacuum in the same way that they have sex.

They just put it in and make some noise for 3 minutes before they collapse on the couch and think that their wife should be really happy.

12. A daughter asked her mother, “Mom, how do you spell ‘scrotum’?”

Her mom replied, “Honey, you should have asked me last night—it was on the tip of my tongue.”

Chapter 1 - Rejection

Been Rejected? You May Be a Better Judge of Genuineness

Who knew that rejection might have an upside? After being dumped by a boyfriend or girlfriend, the only things we feel good at is, well, being rejected.

But in a strange twist of evolutionary fate, apparently that rejection may sensitize us to genuineness in others and being better able to spot fake or artificial emotions. The researchers tested their hypothesis on undergraduates and smiles:

The research found that subjects who were manipulated to feel rejection were able to distinguish a fake smile from a real one nearly 80 percent of the time. Researchers studied 32 subjects, 17 women and 15 men. […]

“Some thought the subjects who had been rejected would latch on to any sign of positivity and accept the insincere smiles as genuine,” Bernstein said. “But it’s clear we’re equipped with radar for identifying who is open to affiliation and who is not.”

It may not work with other displays of emotion, however. For instance, can we tell if someone is being genuine if they say, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear you two broke up”? After all, that would seem to be something of more use to a person who just faced rejection, rather than a smile.

It’s a very small study, done with undergraduates, who were manipulated into feeling something (versus a feeling resulting from a genuine life situation), so the results must be taken with a grain of salt. Still, it’s an intriguing discovery and it’ll be interesting to see if future research confirms this finding.

Deconstructing the Fear of Rejection: What Are We Really Afraid Of?

The fear of rejection is one of our deepest human fears. Biologically wired with a longing to belong, we fear being seen in a critical way. We’re anxious about the prospect of being cut off, demeaned, or isolated. We fear being alone. We dread change.

The depth and flavor of fear varies for each individual, although there are common elements at play. If we’re willing to look, what is our actual felt experience of rejection? What are we really afraid of?

On a cognitive level, we may be afraid that rejection confirms our worst fear — perhaps that we’re unlovable, or that we’re destined to be alone, or that we have little worth or value. When these fear-based thoughts keep spinning in our mind, we may become agitated, anxious, or depressed. Cognitively-based therapies can help us identify our catastrophic thoughts, question them, and replace them with more healthy, realistic thinking. For example, if a relationship fails, this doesn’t mean that we are a failure.

From an experiential or existential viewpoint (such as Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing), working with our fear of rejection or actual rejection involves opening to our felt experience. If we can have a more friendly, accepting relationship with the feelings that arise within us as a result of being rejected, then we can heal more readily and move on with our lives.

A big part of our fear of rejection may be our fear of experiencing hurt and pain. Our aversion to unpleasant experiences prompts behaviors that don’t serve us. We withdraw from people rather than risk reaching out. We hold back from expressing our authentic feelings. We abandon others before they have a chance to reject us.

Being human, we long to be accepted and wanted. It hurts to be rejected and to experience loss. If our worst fear materializes — if our catastrophic fantasy becomes a reality and we’re rejected — our organism has a way of healing if we can trust our natural healing process. It’s called grieving. Life has a way of humbling us and reminding us that we’re part of the human condition.

If we can notice our self-criticisms and tendency to sink into the shame of being a failure and accept our pain just as it is, we move toward healing. Our suffering is intensified when not only do we feel hurt, but we think something’s wrong with us for feeling it.

If we risk opening our heart to someone who rejects us, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. We can allow ourselves to feel sorrow, loss, fear, loneliness, anger, or whatever feelings arise that are part of our grieving. Just as we grieve and gradually heal when someone close to us dies (often with the support of friends), we can heal when faced with rejection. We can also learn from our experience, which allows us to move forward in a more empowered way.

I hope I’m not making this sound easy. I’ve often been in the room with clients who have experienced a devastating loss when their hopes and expectations were rudely dashed, especially when old traumas were being reactivated. We may benefit by processing our feelings with a caring, empathic therapist, as well as availing ourselves of trusted friends who know how to listen rather than dispense unwanted advice.

The term “personal growth” is often used loosely, but perhaps one meaning is to cultivate inner resilience by acknowledging and even welcoming whatever we’re experiencing. It takes courage and creativity to bring a gentle awareness to what we may like to push away.

As we become more confident that we can be with whatever experience arises as a result of connecting with people, we can initiate, deepen, and enjoy relationships in a more relaxed and fulfilling way. As we become less afraid of what we’re experiencing inside — that is, less afraid of ourselves — we become less intimidated by rejection and more empowered to love and be loved.

What to Do When a Girl is Playing Hard to Get!

Is she playing hard to get?

Dating is complicated. It’s more or less like a game, no matter how much we want to romanticize it.

At times, even if you feel well prepared, thinking you’ve got all the best advice under your sleeves to ensure a smooth date, you might just come across a woman that seems a bit too hard to get.

You know what I’m talking about. You’re into a girl who clearly shows interest in you, but somehow she’s making it quite a challenge for you to win over her over.

When this happens, it’s easy to feel like giving up for fear of rejection. But there’s no need to feel negative. Here’s what you should do when a girl is playing hard to get.

1. Make sure she’s genuinely playing hard to get, not just really busy

This might sound like a no-brainer advice. However, it’s easy to mistake being busy for “playing hard to get”.

If the girl of your attention is working 12 hours a day, you’ll have a hard time making dinner plans with her.

Not to mention, if she’s a career-oriented type, there’s a good chance that she’s into her job more than her romantic relationship.

2. Start giving some more effort

Want to take her out this weekend? Don’t wait until Friday morning to send her a text.

Though surprises or last-minute events can be fun, girls usually need a bit of time to buffer. Plus, if she’s really playing hard to get, she won’t accept a last-minute invitation.

You’re in the beginning stage of dating, show some effort. Women want to be courted and to feel special. Sincere effort and a little extra planning can go a long way.

3. Play hard to get too!

Let me reiterate: dating is a game. So why not play her game?

Sometimes the only solution a woman who plays hard to get is to play her back a little. As if you’re in a basketball game, keep the ball bouncing and forth.

Give her all the attention: the likes, the calls, the smiley texts. Then little by little reduce the attention.

This makes her feel like losing you and the next thing you know, she’ll start giving you all the attention you deserve.

4. If all else fails, confront her with grace

Sometimes the best thing to do is to be honest and open. If you’ve been dating for a few months and you still receive the “playing hard to get” treatment, it’s time to have a sincere conversation about where your relationship is heading.

Keep in mind that timing is crucial. Be careful not to spoil the mood and give her the wrong idea about your intention.

This might sound like a daunting task, but it’s worth the try. Be confident and sincere — she’ll appreciate it.

The Bottom Line

There’s no one right answer when it comes to unpacking the mystery of dating. Dating is not black or white — it’s the gray area in-between.

So while you are at it, why not try to have a little fun. Even if things don’t work out between you two, at least you get to the experience the joy and thrill of dating.

For more advice on dating and personal development, contact us today!

6 Questions to Ask Yourself When Fear Starts Peeking Around the Corner

By Eve Hogan

Most of us have a “fight or flight” response to fear. We either get reactive about a perceived potential threat, or we want to retreat as far away from the potential danger as we can. The challenge is that fear is usually over a situation that isn’t actually happening at the time. Consequently, we start fighting, disengage, get anxious or run away over something that we think might happen, but isn’t.

In other words, we either leap headfirst into drama or run the other way over a story we are potentially making up. We end up damaging our relationships by aligning our behavior with our illusions.

Most of us are not trained to look at fear as a helpful thing, but fear actually flags awareness about what truly matters to us. Imagine fear as a giant boulder marking the spot where the treasure is buried. Underneath the fear of public speaking is the desire to be accepted. Underneath the fear of dying is likely the love of life or health.

This is really important to look at because if we only know the fear that exists, we can only honor the fear through our behavior. Fear-motivated behavior is not usually based in wisdom and forethought. Therefore, when we honor the fear instead of the treasure, we risk creating the very thing we are trying to avoid. The problem then becomes our behavior.

Let me give you an example: If someone is afraid that her partner is going to cheat on her, the treasure that is hiding underneath that fear is that she cherishes their loving, monogamous relationship.

If she aligns her behavior with her fear, she’s likely to be snoopy, suspicious, distrusting, possessive, withdrawn, anxious, depressed, and sarcastic, to name a few. These behaviors are not likely to bode well for the harmony in the relationship and may actually encourage the husband to withdrawal.

If, instead, she aligns her behavior with her target of creating a healthy, harmonious relationship, she is likely to be more loving, understanding, intimate, clear, fun, and trusting. These behaviors are likely to encourage a deeper, more intimate relationship with her partner.

When a fear moves beyond the “fantasized experience” into a more probable or actual scenario, it turns from fear into a call to action; it becomes time to do something differently. Then, the inquiry becomes, “What do I need to do?” Action either annihilates the fear or manages the situation fueling the fear.

Here are some questions to explore when fear raises its head:

Is anything actually happening to me now? Or — as Byron Katie invites us to investigate: Is this (fear) true?
Is my fear based on real evidence or an imagined scenario?
What is the treasure that my fear is marking? What matters to me that I perceive is threatened?
What would my behavior be if I aligned with my fear?
What would my behavior be if I aligned with what I treasure?
What (wise) actions do I need to take?

Rather than “fight or flight,” I invite you to “inquire” — look deeper — look beneath your fear to see what you cherish and then strategize for more appropriate and effective responses of protection.

She Doesn’t Want a Womanizer: Avoid This Stuff

She Doesn’t Want a Womanizer

Women would rather be single than to date a womanizer.

If they feel like you may be playing several women at once, they will lose interest fast.

You might think that being a womanizer sounds fun, or that it attracts dates. But you will soon learn, this is far from the truth.

There are some dating tips that every man should know so they won’t get labeled as “that guy”.

Here is our advice to help you avoid making mistakes of wooing women the wrong way.

Don’t Be a Womanizer! Dating Tips Every Man Should Know

You might be wondering who exactly is a womanizer? What kind of manmakes his dates run?

Here are the top five examples of who you don’t want to be.

The Smooth Talker

This is the guy who calls her baby, darling or sweetheart. Then again, he calls everyone baby, darling or sweetheart.

He knows all the best pick up lines. After all, he’s had plenty of practice. He uses them all the time.

He tells her he’s falling in love on the first date. He’s charming, witty, funny and spits out romantic lines that sound like they have been plucked straight out of a box-office love story.

He compliments her eyes, her hair, her outfit, her shoes, her family and her physique. In fact, he compliments her so much, that nothing he says sounds sincere.

Women want an authentic man, who reserves special lines just for her. If she feels like you are a phony, she most likely won’t be around for long.

It has been said that men like what they see and women like what they hear. But they won’t like hearing empty and insincere words.

The Ladies Man

His Rolodex is full of potential dates. His Facebook page shows likes by hundreds of women, features photos of him with a different lady at every other event and has long threads filled with flirty comments.

He flirts with everyone he meets. He has a list of girls that he’s “seeing”. He is reluctant to remove his “single status”.

If you have lots of women who are flirty, friendly and interested. If you aren’t willing to draw boundaries for your girlfriend when it comes to other girls, then she is probably on her way out the door.

The Fast Mover

If you lean in for a kiss on the first date before pulling out of her driveway, don’t be surprised if she balks.

When you go to walk her in from your date, you reach in the backseat to grab your duffel bag with a change of clothes and toothbrush. She might not let you through the door.

While women crave affection, they don’t want too much too soon. If you behave this way on the first few dates, women will assume that this is how you act on all of your dates.

She won’t feel special and it is likely to make her feel used, an emotion that women hate.

If you want to make it to the second date, don’t attempt a home run on the first. Besides, intimacy is best when both partners feel connected and confident with one another.

The Secret Agent

This guy is a master of disguise and keeper of secrets. He doesn’t give anything away and likes being an enigma.

When the phone rings, he won’t tell her who called. If he’s busy next weekend, he won’t tell her his plans. He answers her questions as vaguely as possible.

While there is no need to divulge everything, keeping too many secrets can raise suspicions quick.

You can reassure her by offering a few details here and there. If your mom calls every Tuesday at 8, or you have a golf tournament with your buddies planned, you might be doing more harm than good by withholding such tidbits of information.

If she feels like you are hesitant to let her in, she may be hesitant to hang around.

The Wandering Eye

If you want her to believe that you only have eyes for her, then your eyes shouldn’t wander to every attractive woman that passes.

Women are intuitive. And they notice everything, it seems. This is especially true in the early phases of the relationship.

You may not think she noticed when you winked at the waitress, or made eyes at the girl in line behind you at the ticket box, or stared a little longer than you should have at the hot blonde sitting next to you. But trust us. She noticed.

If you don’t want her to lose your number, keep your eyes on the prize. Give her your undivided attention when you’re out with her. Make her feel special by staying focused on her all night long.

Do These Six Things Instead

Now that you know what not to do, here are a few things that you should be doing if you want to keep her.

Mind your manners. Being polite goes a long way.
Ask her questions about herself and listen to her answers.
Be on time for your dates.
Kiss her goodnight.
Call her tomorrow.
Insist on paying when you take her out, especially on the first date and any dates that you initiate and plan.

It’s not difficult to give women respect that they will appreciate. Hold open doors, ask her about her family, call when you say you will call. These are the type of things that she will find meaningful and attractive.

Conclusion

Although it may seem like the female is the one who gets hurt the most when dating a womanizer, this is not necessarily the case.

The womanizer may ultimately be the one who ends up brokenhearted and alone.

Women won’t want to date a man like this, and even if they do, they won’t last long when they see these character traits.

It also affects a man’s self-esteem when they treat women with a lack of respect, are dishonest, or hurt a girl that they care about. Think about it. If you do these things time and again, it’s impossible to feel good about yourself.

Chapter 1.1 - Rejection (Part 2)

10 Foolproof Tips on How To Attract Women Easily

If it does, or even if you just want to improve your game, I have good news, it’s not impossible at all.

Any man can learn how to attract women with a healthy dose of self-awareness and these ten great tips.

Read on to find out foolproof ways to improve your chances with women.

10 Tips on How to Attract Women Easily

While you can’t control a woman’s opinion, you can take these ten steps to make yourself most attractive to them.

1. Body Language

It’s no secret that body language is a huge part of the way we communicate.

Portray confidence in your body language by standing up straight, keeping your arms uncrossed and your hands out of your pockets.

Stand with your feet hip-width apart and face your body towards hers.

If you’re sitting, keep your body language open in her direction as well. It’s important to keep any bad habits in check, like fidgeting, biting nails, pulling at your beard, etc.

2. Eye Contact

Eye contact is a key factor of how to attract women. Too little makes you seem aloof or lacking confidence. Too much makes you seem creepy.

Maintain eye contact during conversation, but not to the extent that it feels unnatural or forced.

Keep your phone in your pocket and never check out another woman once you have a beautiful girl’s attention.

One of the keys to attracting a woman is making them feel special and like they are the most important thing in the room to you.

3. Don’t Just Assume She’s Into You

Let’s be clear here- of course, it never hurts to be confident. In fact, the opposite, confidence is a huge part of how to attract women.

That being said, cockiness is a huge turn off for women.

You want to approach her in a way that shows her your recognize her worth.

Rather than making her feel like she’s lucky to have your attention because you’re God’s gift to earth, be confident in yourself and show her that you recognize how special she is.

If you assume a woman wants to sleep with you, you risk sending her packing for making her feel cheap or easy.

4. Take Care of Your Health

While not every woman wants to date someone in Olympic shape, most women find it a turn off if men don’t care about their health at all.

Make an effort to stay physically active, eat right, and don’t go too crazy with the booze. Take care of yourself and you’ll find that it’s a whole lot easier to be confident.

This is especially true if you’re attracted to women who stay fit. How do you expect them to put in all that effort on their own bodies and want to date someone who puts in no effort at all?

Plus, healthy people just look better. You can see it in someone’s skin, hair, eyes and body.

5. Smell Good

Healthy people with good hygiene smell better and have better breath, two majorly important factors of attraction.

Even the most confident, attractive looking guy in the world would have trouble sealing the deal if he doesn’t smell good.

Cologne works for a lot of guys, so find your personal scent. Avoid applying too much, less is more.

It’s also just about being well groomed. Get regular haircuts and don’t be afraid to try a new style that women may find more attractive.

Perhaps most importantly, take oral hygiene seriously. Would you want to kiss a woman with bad breath or gross teeth?

Probably not. Brush, floss, brush your tongue and keep mints handy on a date or night out.

6. Dress Well

If you’re having trouble attracting women, take a look in the mirror.

No matter what your style is, you must wear clean clothes that fit you right. Sloppy, stained clothes that are too big or too small will not attract a woman.

If you don’t know where to start, think of the clothes that make you feel confident and attractive.

Are there particular colors that look good on you? Do you get compliments when you wear them?

Ditch styles that may be out of date, anything that is too flashy, or anything that is damaged and doesn’t fit you right. This goes for your underwear and socks too!

Check out these style tips for attracting women.

7. Create a Life You’re Proud Of

How do you expect other people to like you if you don’t like yourself?

If you haven’t already, find a job that you feel proud of.

A woman wants a man with passion and drive, not someone who works a dead end job and sits on the couch eating fast food all day.

Embrace the things you love, and don’t ever think you’ve got nothing left to learn.

Read books, stay up to date on current events, and participate in hobbies that you love in addition to building a career.

8. Be a Gentleman

Chivalry is not dead. Avoid vulgar language or “locker room talk.” Be polite, respectful, and engaging. This is a great time to show your wit, intelligence and sense of humor in conversation.

Just be sure to not monopolize the conversation.

Open doors for her, ask her questions about herself, buy her (and her friends if you really want to impress) the next round of drinks.

9. Be Original

Don’t use cheesy pickup lines. Every woman will shut down if you open with a line they’ve heard a hundred times before.

Give a genuine compliment as an opener. Women can pick up on if you’re being honest or just going through the motions to get laid.

10. If She’s Not Into You, Take a Hint

This is very important so listen up! Don’t let your ego get bruised too easily. Sometimes, rejection is just circumstantial and out of your control.

Women will tell you that there’s nothing worse than a “creeper” that won’t leave them alone. If a woman has told you she’s not into you or is clearly trying to end the communication or interaction, take the hint.

You can’t control outside factors, such as her physical type, sexual orientation, or relationship status. If she’s just not that into you for whatever reason, take no for an answer.

Telling a girl off for rejecting you will get you nowhere. Maybe she’s taken but has a single friend, or maybe someone else in the bar has their eye on you.

Always keep your behavior gentlemanly, even in the face of rejection. You never want to appear desperate or overly aggressive.

Now You Know

Confidence in yourself is key if you want to learn how to attract women.

Make any necessary changes to take pride in who you are. Present yourself well physically and conversationally, and don’t forget to make it about her.

With these tips, you’ll be attracting more women in no time.

Socially Rejected Are Better Judges of Sincerity

By Rick Nauert PhD

A new study suggests being rejected by peers, friends and even family members may enable an individual to spot a “fake” when they encounter someone who isn’t being genuine.

A Miami University study published in the October issue of the journal Psychological Science shows people who have faced rejection have an enhanced ability to determine whether the “happy” face before them is genuine.

“This seems to be a skill we’ve acquired through evolution,” said Michael Bernstein, a Miami doctoral student in social psychology and one of the researchers.

“Living in groups several hundreds of years ago was extremely important to survival. Being kicked out of the group was like death, so they became very good at reading facial expressions and social cues. People these days who are rejected are in a dangerous place because of evolutional pressure to find their way back into a group.”

Bernstein, three other Miami graduate students and Heather Claypool, assistant professor of psychology, conducted the study. Some in the group initially thought the outcome would be just the opposite.

According to Bernstein, real smiles are incredibly difficult to fake because a real smile is an automatic response to a positive feeling. He says if you can tell the difference between a real and fake smile, you can identify a good person who you can relate with, and weed out the others.

What Do Girls Look for in a Guy? (Hint: Not Looks!)

You’ve heard it a million times before, looks matter. But it turns out, if you’re answering the question “What do girls look for in a guy?” with comments solely about physical appearance, you’re answering wrong.

What Do Girls Look For In A Guy?

The answer is far less shallow than you think.

A Sense of Humor

What do girls look for in a guy? Above all, one who can make her laugh.

Not only does being the funny guy project a sense of confidence, it can also make a woman feel more relaxed – always an added bonus when battling first date jitters.

Plus, laughter releases endorphins, meaning that you’ll both be able to enjoy the moment even more – they’re like a natural high.

A Big, Fat…Wallet? Nope, Not That Either.

Sorry guys, but you knew this was coming.

Still, we see proof of this in the streets every day. What’s really crazy, though, is that the way in which you display your wealth (or hey, at least your perceived wealth) is what makes a big difference in attraction factors.

Studies have shown that it’s not a nice suit, a huge house, or even an Instagram picture of your latest purchase that makes a woman tick – nope, it’s your car that makes the difference!

Offer to take her for a spin, or simply show her a quick snap on your phone of you posing by your ride.

A Little Salt And Pepper

Research has also answered the question “What do girls look for in a guy?” with the Clooney Factor.

This is awesome news for those of us who thought our dating life would die when our first gray hair popped up.

According to a recent study, 50% of women would be willing to date men even 30 years their senior. Why? For many women, age is a sign of wisdom and experience – not to mention stability.

The lesson: don’t pluck out that gray hair before you hit the bar next time.

Guys That Have A Relaxed Vibe

Maybe it’s because meditation is all the rage lately, but women still prioritize a man they see as spiritually connected in some way above one with good looks.

So, if you’re looking for an in on how to talk to the crazy hot chick at the other end of the bar, don’t be afraid to mention any New Age-style books you just read, or a company, team-building retreat you recently went on.

Why is this attractive to women? Men that are in touch with the unexplained side of life are seen as more supportive, less judgemental and pretentious, and yes – more willing to try new things in bed.

What Else Do Girls Look For In A Guy?

No matter your age or experience level, we all still have a lot to learn about what women want – and how to give it to them.

Image result for Tom Papa

Image result for Analyze That

Note: There is so much information about this whole thing... we need to go as much deeper as possible... we are not just talking about the simple

Talking: Bla, bla, bla... shit... we are talking about random bla... blah shit... which is a shit with a game....

Note: And now... let's face it... ego is stopping us... because we are challenging it... we can't should without hiding... behind the corners...

...

Anxiety comes when you excuse yourself

So: I can't do it... because (INSERT#)
...

Anxiety attack!

Note:

Here are the 7 most common ways I see guys doing this:

1. Leaning in to talk to a girl, while she stays put and doesn't move. You're trying too hard - a big turn off. It's subtle, but painfully obvious to women.

2. Complimenting a girl right away, before you even know her - for example, telling her she's gorgeous, or you like her dress, or she has nice style, or she's a cool, fun person, etc... all super needy.

3. Buying her gifts - this could be anything from flowers, to buying her dinner and drinks, to getting her jewelry... it looks like you're trying to "buy" her affection.

4. The "I'm here when you need me" vibe - this is when you're super available for a girl whenever she wants to talk to you. Don't be the guy who jumps whenever she says "jump", dude!

5. Texting too much - if your texts are way longer than hers, or more frequent than hers, or using a lot more smileys than hers... then you look super needy.

6. Being too sensitive and taking things she says too personally (also called "being a little bytch"). This is super insecure... women hate this!

7. Agreeing with everything she says. This is what guys do when they're trying to "force a connection," and it's super wussy. Instead, express your own opinions and have a backbone, it's way more attractive.

- So does it mean... I am making a mistake ... by doing (1)... and all other 6 things about needy stuff I ain't doing!?

Note: ANd why it's needy... come on... why so?
What's needy about giving a compliment.... right a way... just one and then say something... introduce yourself and go on!?

Chapter 2 - Rejection (Part 3)

“NO” IS A COMPLETE SENTENCE?

Do you have trouble saying “no?” How many invitations do you answer “yes” to because you are afraid to say “no”? Afterward, do you use the word “should” to justify your response? “I should stop by that cocktail party for twenty minutes.” Why didn’t you give a clean “no”?

I heard in an Al-Anon meeting years ago that the word “no” is a complete sentence. It was a breakthrough moment for me, and all the times early on in my sobriety when my AA sponsor said that I over-explained and gave away my power came rushing back. The woman speaking added that you could even say, “…thank you”afterward if “no” alone sounded too sparse. “No” does not need to be followed up by an excuse or dressed in elaborate details. Fear and guilt do not need to accompany a “no”.

As I have grown, so has my relationship with “no”. After years of saying “No thank you” without further explanation, I added another line when I was responding to people or organizations that matter to me. I now create an opening for a “yes” to exist. For example, when invited to a cocktail party (I don’t drink, and dislike standing around and small talking), I say “no thank you” to that invitation and suggest a walk in the park instead.

I have noticed that women have more trouble with “no” than men do. Does it reflect our societal views on femininity and the proper way for a woman to behave? Does a clear, female “no” transmit a vibration of conflict or disruption because of its rarity? Or do women intrinsically care more about being accepted and loved? “No” definitely threatens our need to belong.

I said “no” the other day, and it took two hours for the conversation that followed to exit my brain. It was surprising to me because I had gone through phases when “no” was as easy as “yes”. I was asked to participate on a committee at one of my children’s schools. It was a time-consuming endeavor that held zero appeal. I re-read the email three times and played out various scenarios. I was flattered by the kind reasons they gave in asking me to perform the role, but I knew that was not a reason to say “yes”. Saying “yes” to potentially boost my child’s standing or curry favor in the school community equally inauthentic motivations. Both of those reasons tie back to my ego and need for significance. The only way to arrive at a “yes” in this scenario is if volunteering at the school occurred to me as an act of love.

There was a cc list on the email, and I debated whether to hit “reply” or “reply all”. Would the committee discuss my “no” and create a narrative about me? Would I become a bitch or become difficult to deal with, or just be regarded as plain old selfish? The good news is that people already have set opinions of us and it takes a lot more than one volunteer role to alter the way someone sees us long-term.

Too many small and seemingly benign “yesses” separate us from self, from our WHY. I love the Derek Sivers philosophy—it’s either “Hell yeah” or “No”.

There is no middle ground. Being aligned with self-gives us access to power. After doing work to identify my values clearly, decision-making became a breeze. I will write a post about a process I went through to determine my values soon.

Another waste of time is rehashing a “yes” response. If you think carefully about your reasons for a “yes” or ”no” in advance, then once you say it, the internal conversation must be over. The amount of mental space I used to spend questioning my ”yes” and “no” decisions wasted more time than actually showing up at something for a few hours.

Take notice of your first response to a yes-or-no question. The yes or no is always present in our body before our brain starts computing all the reasons why or why not. Whenever we talk to ourselves using “should”, we are in “no” territory. If the cellular response is “no”, stay present to the way your mind handles the “no”. Look through all the smart reasons it produces to change the “no” into a “yes”: it’s just this one time and if I don’t say “yes” I may not be invited again. What will a “no” cost you? Get in touch with that fear and see where else it dictates your life.

“Nos” open up the space to fill your life with “yes” experiences. If you are feeling blah or lukewarm, take a look at your “yesses.” Too many seemingly benign “yesses” will lead us to an internal dead zone. The “Hell yeah” trail always leads to exhilaration and growth.

Boundaries: What are you Afraid of?

Boundaries: What are you afraid of?

What comes to mind when you hear the word boundary? Do you ever use this word? If so, in what context? What does it mean to you?

The word “boundary” is trendier than ever. It’s been popular for a while in the 12 Step, and Manhattan shrink circuit, but now it’s falling out of mouths at afternoon coffees and cocktail parties. It’s jargon at its best; the concept accessible to people who have never sat through a therapy session. The boundary conversation passes from person to person like a flu virus; the strain mutates the farther away it gets from Patient Zero. “She just doesn’t respect my boundaries.” “Their family has tons of boundary issues.”

Hell, I am guilty of throwing boundary around in a self-righteous tone. Making someone else wrong is a smart way to gossip without feeling like a mean girl.

Here is the definition of a boundary as I am writing about it:

Here is the definition of the word from a dictionary: a line that marks the limits of an area/ a limit of a subject or sphere of activity.

The word limit comes up twice which begs the question- why am I using language to create structures that coddle my limitations? What exactly are these limitations that I don’t want to push into?

My thoughts on boundaries have evolved with me. Year one and two into my sober journey I employed boundaries to rope off the area of grass where I had planted myself. I couldn’t grow and get trampled simultaneously. After I developed a sober sense of self, my rigid boundaries held me back from connecting more deeply in personal relationships. I didn’t realize that the boundaries that once served my growth were now hindering it and costing me the closeness I craved. An annual inventory is now part of my process because qualities and tools that outlive their purpose become unconscious habits that often stunt growth.

Once in a while, I come across someone who confronts me about something in an unnecessarily aggressive way. “Why can’t you come to my birthday?” When I respond honestly, unless they are missing some marbles, they drop it. People sense when they are at the receiving end of a lie, and white lies erode relationships in the same way as the big ones. For more on this read Sam Harris’s book Lying- I just listened to it on audible. It’s an easy to digest book with many great distinctions:

I guarantee if you take a risk and kindly word your response- “thanks so much for inviting me and I can’t make it then the conversation will close, and you won’t be complaining about someone else’s boundary issues later in the day.

People who have trouble with no, love the boundary conversation- instead of looking at their struggle with no, they blame others for their bad boundaries. Taking a closer look at your relationship with No will help resolve your boundary issues. Here is my article No is a

Complete Sentence:

Have you ever heard any man ever talk about his boundaries? It cracks me up to imagine my husband telling a friend over a round of golf that a co-worker violated his boundaries. Men don’t have a use for the concept because they are super clear in their communication style.

As our culture continues to develop an ever more cautious relationship with direct communication, the boundary conversation gathers strength. It’s hard to stay close to your truth, let alone speak it when we all walk around worried about offending each other. Like good posture, honest communication immediately hooks us into power.

Here’s a great clip about being offended. I often hear people talk about being offended like they just got smacked across the face when nothing actually happened.

If a boundary makes us feel safe, then what are we afraid of to begin with? Is there a truth we want to avoid hearing?

Is the conjuring up of a boundary just another way to gain control in a passive-aggressive manner?

I now seek people out who can say it all, hear it all. Relationships founded on the permission to be authentic have an endless capacity. The more boundaries you have, the more you cap growth potential in all areas of your life.

One of my favorite people will tell me when my writing is off track. She’s a great writer, so it’s helpful. When she emails a comment in one sentence, I get a charge from the bluntness. Truth is not harmful; it’s clean and useful when it’s coming from a qualified source.

Use the concept of boundaries to expose your limitations before analyzing others.

Note: It Starts from scars... and let's choose to heal.

How to Overcome Your Scars

Scars are an inevitable part of the human experience.

Some are physical, incurred as a result of an inopportune fall off of a bike. Some are emotional, formed as a result of losing a loved one. Sometimes, they both exist in tandem, seemingly feeding off each other until it becomes impossible to judge which came first – the chicken or the egg?

If you could see my face right now as I write this, your eyes would be drawn to the large, red scar encompassing the right side of my upper lip. Or any of the other scars found on my chin, neck, and arms. All formed after coming into contact with a dangerous liquid substance (sulfuric acid), precariously stored in a box housed within a shed. The result? Spending my late teenage years recovering from second and third degree burns, a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

As doctors did their best to sculpt my face, I soon discovered a simple truth. The invisible, emotional scars incurred as a result of this physical injury in some ways outweighed the scars I carry on my face. The marks I carry on the inside are hidden from public view; but, this reality does nothing to make them any less real. Medical professionals, eager to improve my physical appearance, spoke only of the damage to my face. Yet Isoon learned of the invisible changes doing much to chip away at both my emotional and spiritual health.

Choosing to Heal

We all incur both emotional and physical scars during our lifetimes, formed as a result of living in an imperfect world. These experiences leave small lacerations around our hearts, burdens we carry with us as we travel through life.

As a result, we have a choice to make. We can wallow in self-pity, allowing our scars to rule our very existence. We can avoid reminders of these marks, doing our best to ignore the pain inherent in our pasts. Or we can choose to heal by acknowledging the ways in which we were hurt, while working towards experiencing the freedom of a life lived in the present.

As my own journey unfolded, I soon realized the ways in which my scars dictated my existence. The ugly, red lines covering my face made me feel small. I focused on the ways in which I was less because of the accident endured. Feeling completely worthless, I started to wonder whether live was even worth living.

Until I made the choice to see myself outside of my scars. I started seeing life as an opportunity instead of a burden. I let go of the guilt experienced whenever I failed to live up to my own expectations and saw failure as an opportunity to grow.

“I should have gone to bed earlier,” became “I could have gone to bed earlier.”Simply refraining from using the word should helped imbue me with a sense of confidence. Instead of provoking a sense of guilt, missteps led to a sense of an opportunity lost. I could resolve to react differently the next time an opportunity presented itself to reach my goals.

You, too can Choose to Heal

We all have scars. Parts of ourselves we wish looked different, elements of our experience we wish could be erased. Yet the scars we carry offer an opportunity for victory, the spoils of which can truly last a lifetime.

When I graduated from high school, a family friend gave me a card in which she lauded the way I handled the injuries sustained on that fateful September day. I have never forgotten her closing line.

“You triumphed.”

Suddenly, my perspective shifted. Instead of focusing on the things adversity stole, I could shift my focus towards the ways in which I had gained.

None of this is to suggest that overcoming scars is ever easy. It takes hard work, dedication, and a willingness to get back up after falling down. My recovery is littered with plenty of mistakes, missteps, false victories – even searing loss. The journey ahead is a long one, with plenty of heartbreak along the way.

In spite of this stark reality, victory is within reach. The scars you carry may never disappear; but, they can recede, allowing you to catch a breath from the suffocating presence these marks often exude. Adversity presents the chance to indulge in moments of self-discovery. While it may seem hopeless, the manner in which adversity is handled will serve to inform the way the future unfolds. Your new life begins the moment you choose to heal. It starts with you.

6 Simple Tips Will Never Let You Down in Life

The art of living is a difficult skill to master. That’s why most of us turn to self-help books, spirituality, and self-enhancement practices to help guides through life. But what if you simplify your life by following bits of advice that are proven to be universally true? To help you out, we’ve collected 6 simple life-skill tips that everyone can use in their day-to-day living, and that definitely won’t result in disappointment. Make sure to consider each one and see the changes taking place.

1. Live a life true to yourself

Have you ever asked yourself what it means to become a mature person? Paying your bills and taking responsibility for your actions seems to be the universal answer to this question. However, true maturity comes when you finally start owning your life or, in other words, living a life true to yourself and not the one others expect that you should live. To do this, you first need to discover who you truly are. Once this happens, you’ll truly be able to live a life of authenticity. But remember, this type of growth takes a whole lifetime to master as explained by Diane Mottl, MSW in Psych Central.

2. Health should be your priority

Let’s face it, the stress of daily living means that most of us have compromised our health time and time again. From losing sleep, binge eating, chain smoking, to skipping doctor’s appointments, life stresses can make us do things that, over time, lead to poor health. Luckily, with most people, today having easy access tohealthy lifestyle information, Managing your health has never been easier. Take for instance these guidelines published in the Journal of Midwifery and Woman’s Health that emphasizes the importance of unsaturated fats, whole grains, taking multivitamin, folic acid and vitamin D supplements, and similar things as principles that are considered healthy for anyone and all life stages.

3. Learn how to forgive truly

Bearing grudges is bad for your health and destructive for your relationships. Furthermore, being unforgiving towards your shortcomings can suck the life out of you. Instead, learn how to accept yours and others’ shortcomings and your life will take on a whole new meaning. You’ll become more emphatic, and you’ll learn to love and accept yourself and others for who they are. This was proven to be true in a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study found that forgiveness learning and accepting increased empathy for the offender and prevented unhealthy behavior such as avoidance and hostility.

4. Don’t take other’s opinions personally

This one is strongly linked to the first advice on authentic living as it requires a great deal of self-awareness to master. Most of us are guilty of building our self-esteem on others’ opinions, and this was even confirmed in a survey studypublished in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. The problem with this type of behavior is that other’s opinions of you are based on their internal values and views of how the world should be. If you base your self-esteem on what others think of you, your self-esteem will be at the mercy of those around you, and you’ll be less likely to get to know your true self – that part of you that you only have access to.

5. Don’t let money govern your life

In our modern-day capitalist societies, everyone gets caught up easily in the web of materialism. What is even worse is the fact that we’re all conditioned to believe that earning and spending more is somehow the goal of our existence. But once you snap out of this belief, you’ll be able to govern your money instead of the other way around. Just think about how you’ve based your life choices on money and how much stress thinking about money causes you. Truth be told, we need money to survive, but money is not all there is to life.

6. Know that happiness is a choice

Life is not easy for most of us, but that doesn’t mean that we should wallow in our misery. If you think about it, being happy doesn’t have anything to do with your life circumstances. Many well-off and privileged people are deeply unhappy while some less fortunate folks seem to enjoy life to the fullest. Happiness, after all, depends on your views and decisions. Make happiness your choice, and you’ll see it become a reality.

Conclusion

We all want to live a meaningful and joyous life, but this simple wish doesn’t come easily to most people. It takes a bit of effort and introspection to learn how to live a life of authenticity, meaning, and happiness. These 6 guides are rough outlines of some universal truths that we’re sure you’ll find useful in creating the life you want.

5 Techniques For Overcoming Procrastination

Do you want to know how to stop procrastinating? Well, for starters, you can stop reading this article right now and get back to work.

But since that’s probably not going to happen, let’s take a closer look at some strategies for overcoming procrastination.

There is no single “best way” to overcome procrastination

Personally, I’ve come to embrace my procrastinating nature to a certain degree. When my to-do list gets too long, I simply start a new one. And you know what? Most of the time, the tasks I thought I had to do turned out to be not so important after all.

Sometimes, procrastination can be a sign that what we’re working on the wrong thing. It can also be a sign that maybe we need to step back, take a deep breath, and recharge before tackling the task again tomorrow.

Of course, sometimes procrastination is a product of laziness. If you have an exam to study for, a paper to write, if you have a presentation to make, or a boss/client to appease, then the work will have to get done, whether you start today or put it off until tomorrow.

Only Do Work You’re Really Passionate About

Maybe you don’t have a procrastination problem as much as you have a work problem. If you find yourself procrastinating day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after year, maybe you’re not doing what you’re meant to do. Maybe its time to get a new job, switch careers, or drop out of school and pursue your passion.

Of course, there’s also a good chance you’re faced with a painful, unpleasant task and you simply need to power through to get to where you want to be in life. If that’s the case, then read on (or better yet, stop reading now and go do what you need to do).

If there’s work you need to get done, here are some effective ways you can try overcoming procrastination:

1. The First 30 Minutes Of The Day Is Always For Work

Does this sound familiar: you start the work day/study session by telling yourself you’re “just going to check email/facebook/twitter/reddit for 5 minutes, then I’m going to get to work”. Before you know it, 5 minutes has dragged into 2 hours, and 2 hours has dragged into 4 hours, and you realize you’ve spent half your day sucked into a never-ending loop of checking email, social media, youtube, and your favorite viral news sites?

The first 30 minutes of your day/work day/study session should be spent doing work. If you need to check email or your social news sites, do it once you’ve established a good work groove and you’ll find it much easier to shut it off. Or better yet, block distractions out completely until you’re done.

Having trouble jumping into those first 30 minutes? Tell yourself that you’re just going to get 10 minutes of work done and if its just too painful, you’ll give yourself a break. That first 10 minutes is usually all you need to start getting focused.

2. Become More Self Aware

Procrastination usually comes in two forms. There’s:

Difficulty in starting a task
Getting distracted while working on a task

They both follow a similar pattern of self rationalization.

You tell yourself “I really need to get started on this.”
You feel stressed.
You feel an urge to do something else, so you tell yourself “I’ll get started soon, but I can afford another 5 minutes doing this one other thing.”

Giving yourself this little reprieve relieves the stress temporarily and reinforces the neural pathways associated with procrastination, making it just a bit easier to fall victim to procrastination again, 5 minutes later.

Try this next time you find yourself facing this never-ending cycle. Next time you’re about to start a task and you feel a voice in your head telling you to “check your email, it might be important!”, or “I wonder if anyone commented on my Facebook status”, resist the urge. Tell yourself you’ll just resist it this one time.

You’ll find that the urge does pass once you acknowledge it for what it is – a sudden impulse driven by your reptilian brain.

3. Block Out Distractions

Did you know that willpower is a limited resource that can be depleted like any other form of energy? Much like going on a morning jog tires you out for your evening work out, the more energy you spend resisting temptation, the less energy you’ll have for resisting temptation later on. This has been confirmed by real studies.

What does this mean for someone trying to get rid of procrastination? It means that just knowing that Facebook or Reddit is one click away can make it more likely that you’ll get distracted and start procrastinating. While you might be able to resist the temptation during the first half of your work day, as you expend energy focusing, you’ll become more and more likely to give into temptation and start procrastinating.

To avoid this, use software like Rescuetime, StayFocusd or Freedom to block distracting websites, or block the internet out altogether. Not having to deal with the temptation of constant distractions will not only make it less likely that you’ll succumb to momentary temptation, but it will actually give you more energy to focus on your work and avoid procrastinating when you’re tired.

4. Embrace Imperfection

One of the reasons we procrastinate is to avoid having to make tough decisions and deal with a difficult task. If you’re trying to write the perfect paper, coming up with the perfect thesis can be so intimidating that you don’t even want to get started.

Instead of always aiming for perfection, start intimidating projects by just getting started. Can’t come up with a perfect first line for your essay? Just start writing anything that comes to mind on the topic. Can’t think of a topic? Just start writing down anything vaguely related to the subject matter.

The same can be applied to studying. Is the thought of reading that thick textbook too intimidating? Just start by reading the table of contents, or the first page. Too tired to take notes or really process the concepts? Just skim through what you need to get through and come back tomorrow to re-examine the material when you’re refreshed. Getting something done is better than doing nothing, and once you get started, you’ll often find you have more energy than you thought you did.

5. Make Yourself A Date

Human beings can be strange – if we’re meeting a friend, we’ll set a fixed time to do so, and we show up. Most of us would never make an appointment with a friend and simply avoid showing up for no reason. Yet when it comes to important tasks like going to the gym, or getting another chapter written for your novel, we’ll just set vague goals and feel perfectly comfortable pushing back our self-imposed deadlines.

Start scheduling your important tasks and showing up every time, no matter what. You wouldn’t bail on a meeting with a friend just because you feel a little tired, would you? So why do you do it with the gym? If you want to go to the gym 3 times a week, instead of just telling yourself you’ll go 3 times this wekk, pick 3 days and 3 times that you’re going to show up, and don’t miss those appointments no matter what.

Find Your Motivation To Study (Even If You Don’t Have An Exam)

Let’s face it.

Being a student sucks. It’s like having a job, but not getting paid.

Yes, you’re getting an education, which is great…

But finding the motivation to study can be a challenge.

The definition of motivation is:

The general desire or willingness to do something.

So the trick to increase your motivation to study is to increase your desire to study in the first place.

That’s why we’ve come up with this kick-ass list to help you boost your motivation to study (even if you don’t have an exam)…

1. Cut your study time in half (that’s motivation in itself!)

Motivation To Study

For those procrastinators out there, you’re going to love this…

Parkinson’s law is the theory that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion“.

For example, if you give yourself 10 hours to study, you’ll take 10 hours to study.

The next time you have a project, paper, or exam, cut the time you think it’ll take to prepare in half to increase your focus and productivity and maximize results.

For example, if you think it’ll take you 10 hours to study for an exam. Only give yourself 5 hours.

WARNING: This is a risky approach, but if done properly, it can have great results.

2. Make studying fun with mnemonics

Motivation To Study

Mnemonics (sounds like new-monics) is when you use systems for improving your memory. It can be a fun way to boost your study skills and improve your memory.

Here’s an mnemonic you may already know: Never, Eat, Shredded, Wheat

This is used to memorize the directions of North, East, South, West (listed clockwise)

There are tons of articles online that’ll help you get started with mnemonics.

3. Get a study buddy or study group

One of the best ways to motivate yourself to study is to get a study buddy (or study group) because not only will you be relying on them, they’ll be relying on you. Studying with others is fun, productive, and more effective because if you have questions on the material your study buddy can help.

Here’s what you need to do:

Find a study buddy (or study group). The best place to find a study buddy is someone in the same class. Or you can ask multiple people to set up a group.
Set a schedule for your study sessions. It helps to schedule it at the same time every week so you don’t have to think about when it is and it becomes a habit.
Find a location to meet that has WIFI such as the library, coffee shop, or a fast food joint.

4. Set goals

Motivation To Study

If you want to be a successful student, you need to set goals. Because if you don’t have goals, then it’s like shooting in the dark.

An easy place to start is to:

Talk to a counselor to determine the classes you need to take to get your degree. Then…
List which classes you need to take each year. Then…
List which classes you need to take each semester/quarter. Then..
List off what grades you want to achieve for each class.

Just having this type of list and being able to check it off is a HUGE boost to your confidence and internal reward system.

It’s like running a race and seeing the mile markers fly by!

5. Treat yourself, don’t cheat yourself

Motivation To Study

To enhance your motivation to study, reward yourself for a job well done.

Whether it’s buying a cup of your favorite coffee, going on a nice long hike, or snarffing down a bag of potato chips, reward yourself for a good, long study session. This reward system, will help motivate you to study more often.

WARNING: Only reward yourself AFTER you study. Treating yourself before you do the work defeats the purpose.

Alright students!

Enough reading… It’s time to hit the books, study, and kick-ass!

Best of luck.

Chapter 3 - Books

P.S. - When is time for books... it's time to read

The SoSuave Guide to Women and Dating - Book
How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication by Larry King, Bill Gilbert - Book
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, Stephen R. Covey (Foreword) - Book

Chapter 4 - Secrets

10x Life: How to Pinpoint and prioritize your goals

Let me be frank: this article will be the most fun you could have with your underpants on.

You’ll discover:

The EXACT questions that reveal your true desires.
A simple process to map out your entire life, including your dreams, goals, and bottlenecks.
A free tool you can use right away to keep yourself accountable.

Ready to roll? Then let’s start with…

Why you MUST write down your goals

Fifteen years ago, I’d (barely) graduated from college, and went to Yosemite for the summer to work as a cook—and to figure out what the hell to do with my life.

You see, I’d “invested” four glorious, debaucherous years in college and had no idea what to do next. Sure, I had an idea about what I wanted to do, but that didn’t fit in with the whole “Purpose in Life” thing.

Oddly, though, the answer was waiting for me. Filed away. In my dad’s closet.

Here’s what happened: After my summer gig in Yosemite, I returned home, and my dad asked me to help him move.

And if there’s one universal truism, it’s this: When you have a massive hangover, someone will ask you to help them move. I have no idea why, but it’s true.

So, naturally, I woke up that morning with a hangover the size of Texas. A temple-throbbing, gut-wrenching, oh-I-wish-the-lord-would-take-me-now hangover.

I didn’t want to help him move. But I’m a good son (even if I’m a crappy mover). So there I was, helping my dad move piles of storage boxes into his new apartment.

While shuffling through stuff in his closet, I saw it: the box that contained all my worldly possessions. After school, I had sold, burned, or thrown away everything I owned except for a few choice items; I dumped these items, haphazardly, into a medium-sized cardboard box, sealed it shut, and promptly forgot all about it for the past four months.

In that box was the usual memorabilia: postcards from friends, newspaper clippings, essays I’d written, etc.

But one item stood out: a single sheet of paper, featuring a drawing with three long, spindly trees.

The trees were labeled: personal, financial, and travel. Each tree had several branches, and each branch listed something I wanted to do, like, “Hike in Nepal,” “Become a cook,” and “Live in Yosemite.”

Here’s the astonishing thing: I wrote that list four years ago, and—even though I’d completely forgotten about it—I’d done nearly everything on that list.

In the words of Keanu Reeves: Whoa.

So what the hell happened? How did I—a guy who can barely remember where he put his underpants—manage to retain this information, and act on it, over several years? What sort of devilry was at work here?

The answer is obvious.

By writing down my goals, I:

consciously defined what I wanted to do, and
sub-consciously acted in accordance with them.

You see, it’s all about…

The science behind goal setting

Here are two scientifically proven reasons to set your goals.

First, setting goals increases motivation. A 1967 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that having a specific goal—rather than just being told to “try your best”—increases your motivation. (Next time you see a parent tell their kid to try their best, you can snicker quietly to yourself—because that kid ain’t gonna do shit.)

Second, setting goals increases achievement by up to 30%. You are more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down. Sounds crazy, right? A team of researchers thought so, too. So they asked struggling students to complete an online goal-setting program. As reported in the American Psychological Association: after a four-month period, students in the goal-setting program enjoyed an average 30% increase in academic performance over the control group.

Key point: write your goals down. If you don’t, both your motivation and achievement will deflate into a limp-wristed sissy pants.

Answer these 10 questions to discover EXACTLY what you want in life

OK, time to get real. An unaimed arrow never misses its target—but an unaimed life misses every time.

So let’s take aim first…

The following ten questions will reveal exactly what you want from life:

What do I want to do?
What do I want to be?
What do I want to see?
Where do I want to go?
What do I want to have?
Who do I want to spend more time with?
What would be the most fun thing to do?
What activity do I want to stop doing?
What is missing in my life?
What’s stopping me from achieving everything in this list?

(Note: I’ve also included these—along with boatloads of other bonuses—at www.10xtoday.com/life-resources.)

Answer the above questions as honestly as you can. Dream your dream, not someone else’s. Go absolutely buck-wild, and write down as many ideas as you can. And most importantly, make your goals BIG, BOLD, and BALLSY.

Need a little help? Here are my answers:

What do I want to do? (Hike the Appalachian Trail, run a 50-mile ultramarathon, learn to surf, etc.)
What do I want to be? (Kind, smart, loving, helpful, respected, etc.)
What do I want to see? (Sunset over the Sahara, a dolphin in the wild, two monkeys playing pool, etc.)
Where do I want to go? (Tibet, Antarctica, space, etc.)
What do I want to have? ($100K in monthly passive income, a bestselling book on Amazon, my own restaurant, etc.)
Who do I want to spend more time with? (Parents, Jim Rogers, Fabio, etc.)
What would be the most fun thing to do? (Take a hot air balloon to the upper atmosphere, run with the bulls in Pamplona, ski naked, etc.)
What activity do I want to stop doing? (Answering emails, wallowing in self-doubt, giving in to others’ demands when I know I shouldn’t, etc.)
What is missing in my life? (Time with friends, my own cats, a super-sweet 30-inch computer monitor with standing desk, etc.)
What’s stopping me from achieving everything in this list? (Note: be specific. Say “$1,337 to buy a plane ticket to Spain” instead of, “money.”)

Now, let’s discuss…

How to really win at the game of life

Did you ever play the board game “The Game of Life”? (It’s also known as simply “Life.”) The game simulates a person’s journey through life, from college to retirement, with jobs, marriage, and children along the way.

Let me tell you: I. Hate. That. Game.

Here’s why: according to the rules, “winners”—and I slather that term with sarcasm—would cruise through life, buy a car, get married, have two kids, and retire.

And the “losers”? They ended up childless philosophers.

Now, as someone who (i) studied philosophy in college, and (ii) doesn’t want kids, this doesn’t seem like a game I’d dig.

Don’t get me wrong. I hate most philosophers. I like (some) kids. I’m not attached to either label, for good or evil, and frankly, neither should you.

But what drives me to drink—among a litany of other reasons—is the notion of one-life-fits-all. As if there’s one great cosmic roadmap that works for everyone. Which—in the words of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park—is “one big pile of shit.”

Look, if you want to be a big-time corporate executive, good for you.

If you want to make minimum wage doing something you enjoy, good for you.

If you want 17 children, and to spend the next few years cleaning up spit, excrement, and chicken fingers—good for you.

If you want to read my book 10x Life and leave a glowing on Amazon—good for me

You see, happiness is a simple equation: Knowing what you want + Doing what you want = Happy

And that’s what cheeses me off so much about “The Game of Life.” The end result is ludicrously out of touch with what we really want.

But games are fun, right?

So here’s what I propose: together, you and I’ll create our Board Game of Life, right now. And the best part is, we can decide what a winner really looks like.

Creating your “Board Game of Life” with Trello

Remember those ten questions? Did you answer them?

I hope so—because we’re gonna put them into your personal Board Game of Life.

How to Make Small Talk with Strangers: My 21-Day Happiness Experiment

One of the more unexpected changes I discovered upon becoming a parent is how much more you end up talking with strangers. This is in part because strangers are more likely to approach you when you have a youngster with you, and in part because kids are great icebreakers.

My 3-year-old son, Mason, has zero trepidation about approaching and chatting up strangers. If we didn’t stop him, he would probably happily walk off with another family.

In fact, recent social science research suggests we might all be happier if we had a toddler to break the ice with more strangers. Two Chicago behavioral scientists, Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, have found that people who talk with strangers are actually happier than those who keep to themselves.

The researchers approached commuters in a Chicago area train station and asked them to break the usual “rules” of communication in public places. One group of commuters was asked to talk to the stranger who sat down next to them on the train that morning. A second group was told to follow standard commuter norms, keeping to themselves. A third group received no instructions.

At the end of the train ride, the researchers asked the sets of commuters a simple question: were they happier, or less happy, when they had to chat up their seatmates?

Perhaps surprisingly, the group of commuters who talked to a stranger turned out to report greater happiness than the other groups.

The interesting discovery is how the reality was so out of sync with the commuters’ own predictions. When Epley and Schroeder asked the commuters in advance to predict how they would feel after talking to a stranger, the commuters thought they would be happier if they remained silent. The opposite proved true.

“Our daily lives are guided by inferences about what others think, believe, feel and want,” writes Epley in Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel and Want. The problem is, our inferences are often wrong. And it turns out we’d all be happier if we just talked to one another. The reason? When we talk to strangers, we’re motivated to show them a happy, friendly version of ourselves. As the Art of Manliness has hit home before, the way you act changes how you feel — by acting you become! In other words, if you’re in a grumpy mood, but turn on the warmth while talking to a stranger, you’ll start actually feeling a lot better. Interacting with strangers is a great way to lift your mood.

AoM has previously written about why you should talk with strangers, as well as offered a detailed guide on how to make small talk with them. I took this advice to heart, and in this post, I decided to test out the theory that talking to strangers will make you happier.

Over the course of 21 days, I made an effort to chat up strangers at every opportunity I could.

My 21-Day Experiment with Talking to Strangers

vintage men on skis talking smiling small talk

The rules of my experiment were simple: for 21 days, I would seek out opportunities to chat up strangers in public places. I didn’t roam around public parks and Greyhound bus stations accosting every stranger I met, but I determined I would try to set the stage for more interactions with new people. For example, when given the chance to sit in a public place either by myself or in shared seating, I would opt for shared seating and look for opportunities to speak to my seatmate.

I won’t bore you with a detailed rundown of every interaction during the 21 days, but I will share below a few examples of typical experiences during the time I served as a human guinea pig, along with my commentary/reflection on each interaction.

I also share a few things I learned from my 21-day experiment which you can use to become more proficient at talking with strangers.

Friday, May 9th, a hotel pool, Calabasas, CA. While visiting my family hometown for a wedding, I encounter a man sitting on the side of the hotel pool as I am about to go swimming with my son. He has a small white dog that my son pets and we start talking. It turns out he’s just moved to the area with his family from Chicago. I tell him what I know about the community, the schools, and particular neighborhoods where he’s looking to buy a home.

He’s appreciative for my advice on the local high school, the same school I graduated from.

How I Felt: The interaction makes me feel useful and valuable. His daughter is about to enter my old high school and he seems relieved when I tell him it was a good school.

Monday, May 12th, a rest stop on I-5 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. While driving back home to the San Francisco Bay Area from Los Angeles on the I-5 freeway, we stop at a rest stop for lunch. A man is wearing a t-shirt that says “Coastal Maine Botanical Garden.” I consider commenting on it, as we have family in Maine and have vacationed there in the summers. But I don’t say anything.

How I Felt: Afterwards, I regret I didn’t speak up. I love Maine and remain curious if the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden is close to where we have vacationed in the summers. Sure, I can Google it, but I would have liked to chat with the man about the area.

Tuesday, May 20th, my house. We have three men from a tree trimming company visiting our house to cut back our trees. Normally, I would let them work outside without engaging them in conversation. In this case, my son Mason is excited to watch the men do their work, so we open a side door so we can watch more closely. We watch as three men scale the trees almost as nimbly as monkeys and climb straight to the top.

I ask one of the tree trimmers, only half-joking, if they fall out of trees frequently. Incredibly, he says, “Almost never.” One of the tree trimmers says, “I’ve been climbing trees for 27 years,” and reports he fell out of a tree once and shattered his knee.

How I Felt: I loved this conversation. It’s not every day I talk to someone whose job is to climb up trees, and it was interesting learning about how they do it. I also feel like I learned something new.

Thursday, May 29th, on the ferry. I normally commute by car to my office, but on this day, I have to take the ferry from my home in Marin County to a meeting in San Francisco. I decide to use this opportunity to try to make small talk under the most difficult of conditions – during a regular commute, with other commuters.

I deliberately sit at communal tables during each leg of the trip, out of hopes of making conversation. While I did exchange a few pleasantries, however, I did not have any meaningful conversations.

At one point, I chat with a woman about the amount of spray being thrown up by the ferry. Eventually the conversation dies, and she returns to reading her book and I retreat to buy a cup of coffee.

How I Felt: Frankly, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t engage in more conversations on the ferry. I’m not sure why it seemed so difficult. Perhaps I should have tried harder, but I also recognize that digital devices often got in the way. The important lesson learned from this experience is you have to act quickly by striking up a conversation when people sit down, before they settle in and put on headphones or start reading a book.

Friday, May 30th, Main Street, my hometown. I go to an outdoor block party on Friday night, along with my wife and our 3-month-old. The baby proves to be a great conversation starter, especially because he’s wearing oversized noise-cancelling headphones that frankly look pretty ridiculous on a baby.

How I Felt: It’s almost too easy to start talking with people when you have a baby with you, because strangers will come up and engage with you. On the other hand, I do enjoy the opportunity to meet more people when I am out and about with the baby.

Takeaways From My 21-Day Experiment

vintage african american black barbershop men getting haircut

Overall, I felt great about most of my interactions with strangers. Almost every interaction left me feeling a little happier. I also felt like I learned new things by talking to people from different walks of life who I wouldn’t normally meet.

I didn’t have a single experience where I felt awkward, or where I felt like I bothered someone by engaging in conversation.

However, I will report a few disappointments:

Even for an extrovert like me, it’s not always easy to make conversation. I consider myself to be pretty extroverted. In spite of that fact, there were plenty of times when I hesitated or missed an opportunity to make conversation because I was unsure of what to say. This may come as bad news to introverts who have a hard time making conversation with strangers to begin with, but the truth is, it’s not easy.
Phones and digital devices are major barriers. The number one barrier I see to connecting with strangers is digital devices. There were occasions where I wanted to make conversation but I looked around and nearly every person around me was on a phone or other digital device. I felt like speaking up would have been interrupting.
I did not make any long-term connections. I would love to report that as the result of my 21-day experiment, I walked away with new life-long friends, met new neighbors, set up playdates for my son, and landed new clients. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I found that making casual conversation with strangers isn’t hard, but turning those casual conversations into a long-lasting relationship is more difficult.

Here’s the good news – there is hope. Based off my experiments, I walked away with four simple and specific tips you can use if you’ve been convinced by now that you should make more of an effort to engage in conversation with strangers.

4 Tips for Improving Your Happiness by Making Conversation with Strangers

vintage men in suits riding subway talking laughing

1. Put Down Your iPhone and Other Devices

As I mentioned, phones, tablets, and e-readers were a major barrier to making conversation. So the best thing you can do is put down your own digital device to make sure you aren’t preventing others from talking to you.

Of course, I’m as guilty as anyone of whipping out my phone whenever I have to wait in line at a store, or if I’m waiting to meet a friend. But I wonder now if always being connected to our digital devices means we’re all sacrificing those chance conversations and fortuitous encounters that can make life a little more interesting. At a minimum, it’s a strong argument for taking a tech Sabbath every once in awhile.

My wife’s parents, for example, met while waiting in line to apply for a job. They are both rather introverted and I wonder if they would have even met if smartphones were in existence back then.

2. Wear a Conversation Starter

A great way to start conversations almost anywhere is to wear a piece of jewelry, pin, or article of clothing which invites conversation. This might include a particularly attractive tie, a large necklace, or an eye-grabbing bracelet or watch.

When I was younger, my dad would frequently wear colorful ties designed by Jerry Garcia on which were reproductions of famous paintings. While I thought at the time that these ties were intended solely to embarrass me, inevitably people would comment on his ties and soon he’d be in the midst of a conversation with them. I now appreciate their value.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was famous for wearing brooches on her lapel that served as a way to break the ice. This was particularly important for Albright, who, as the first-ever female Secretary of State, often had to negotiate with male counterparts in a very masculine culture of international diplomacy.

The brooches were “an icebreaker, an opener,” says Albright. “It helps to have a little bit of humor.”

After my experiment, I appreciate the importance of wearing an icebreaker (or toting along a baby!) to help start conversations.

3. Offer a Compliment

One of the easiest openings to begin a conversation is by making a compliment. You can compliment someone on something they’re wearing, on a piece of jewelry, or on their handbag or briefcase.

After you’ve done this, you can then transition into a deeper conversation. Dr. Carol Fleming’s “Anchor, Reveal, Encourage” framework is a great way to turn a light pleasantry into a deeper conversation, as explained in AoM’s “How to Make Small Talk.”

A number of my conversations with strangers during the 21-day experiment began because I complimented someone on their dog or an article of clothing, and in each case, it served as a nice opening to a casual conversation, without making me feel awkward.

4. Seize Your Conversation Opportunities Immediately

One final takeway I learned is if you see an opportunity to start a conversation, you need to jump on it immediately. If you don’t, you may not get another opportunity.

During my ferry commutes, I noticed that there was a short window of opportunity to start a conversation with other commuters as they were getting settled in to their seats, before they had taken out an e-reader or put in headphones to listen to music. You have to jump on these opportunities immediately, because they’ll be gone before you know it.

Go Out and Talk with Strangers

The last piece of advice I’ll share is to just go out and try talking with strangers. What’s the worst that can happen? If you try to start up a conversation and the other person is not interested, you will likely never see them again.

The more likely result is you won’t only improve your own day, but you’ll make the person you talk to happier as well. Epley and Schroeder’s research also found that “when one person took the initiative to speak to another in a waiting room, both people reported having a more positive experience,” wrote Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Dunn in The New York Times.

Now that’s a waiting room I wouldn’t mind waiting in.

Chapter 5 - Insights (Part 1) (Porn)

"However, in the forums I monitor ex-porn users regularly report withdrawal symptoms that are reminiscent of drug withdrawals: insomnia, anxiety, irritability, mood swings, headaches, restlessness, fatigue, poor concentration, depression, social paralysis and cravings. Some also report more startling symptoms, such as shaking, flu-like symptoms, muscle cramps or the mysterious sudden loss of libido that guys call the flatline (apparently unique to porn withdrawal)."

"Not everyone who stops using pornography will suffer withdrawal symptoms, but some do:
My symptoms after quitting: extreme exhaustion, restless sleep, muscle aches, joint pains and fever, mild disorientation, tension in the chest/tight breathing and anxiousness."

"Click, click, click, masturbate, click, click, click, masturbate, click, click, click. Sessions can last for hours, day in and day out, sometimes kicking the viewer's evolved ‘binge mechanism’ into overdrive. Evolution has not prepared the brain for this kind of nonstop stimulation. Experts Riemersma and Sytsma warn that today's porn may cause ‘rapid onset’ addiction in some chronic users.[122]"

"A powerful distraction like internet porn can be a form of self-medication for boredom, frustration, stress or loneliness. But if you're reading this book you probably realize that chronic use of a supernormally stimulating distraction is a Faustian bargain. Eventually, it can take a toll on your goals and wellbeing."

"Be gentle with yourself
Those who reboot with relative ease keep a sense of humour, accept their humanness, love sex but respect their sexuality, and gradually steer themselves into a new groove. They don't bludgeon themselves, or threaten themselves with doom."

Chapter 5.1 - Insights (Part 2) (Porn)

"Rebooting can be a mighty challenge, and it helps to find a well of inspiration to draw from on a regular, even daily, basis. Maybe you frequent an online forum where there is lots of encouragement. Maybe you have a favourite philosopher or spiritual book you find soothing and uplifting:"

"As explained, our brains evolved to strive for neurochemical balance. If we chronically bombard them with intense stimulation, they mute neural signals by reducing sensitivity to neurochemicals like dopamine. Chronic overstimulation can thus lead to a zombie-like numbness to pleasure and emotion. Daily life can seem dull and pointless.
Yet when we remove the exaggerated stimulation, numbness gradually reverses itself. Mood swings are often the first sign that something is shifting."

"Gradually, colours return, enthusiasm increases and stability reigns. In his TEDx talk: "The Pleasure Trap", psychologist Doug Lisle gives examples of how overeaters can reverse food cravings with periods of fasting or juice-only. The same principle of increasing sensitivity by removing overstimulation applies to all natural rewards, including masturbation to internet porn."

"The first week I had the worst type of insomnia imaginable. I don’t remember falling asleep at all the first 6 days. In my mind, it made Hell Week of Navy SEAL training look easy.
During the weeks that followed, things started turning around a bit but really became noticeable after about 3 months. I actually started getting energy to do things.
Some people had no reason to suspect withdrawal would be so agonizing:
Not having had a major porn problem, I assumed the benefits would be marginal. But if you think you don't have an addiction, try stopping and see what happens. In my case, a period of quite punishing withdrawal symptoms. They lasted for at least a month. Something was clearly profoundly affecting me neurochemically, as within a 24hr period I might experience the extremes of a kind of shimmering, exultant."

"Less common, but not unusual, symptoms include: frequent urination, shakes, nausea, tension in the chest creating difficulty breathing, despair, hot flashes or feeling cold even in front of a fire, overeating or loss of appetite, unaccustomed wet dreams, semen leakage when using the toilet, and fullness, pressure or aching in the testicles (cold water helps)."

"Whatever its origins, the flatline is definitely weird. Prior to high-speed porn, cutting out porn use was not associated with a severe, temporary drop in libido.
If you're having porn-related sexual performance problems, should you tell your partner? Many guys report that it really helps to educate a partner about the flatline and its causes. Here's a 23-year old woman whose boyfriend of the same age needed 130 days to return to normal..."

"But states of mind can also be triggers: boredom, anxiety, stress, depression, loneliness, rejection, fatigue, frustration, anger, failure, feeling sorry for yourself, desire to reward yourself for an accomplishment, overconfidence, jealousy, and being hung-over.
Procrastination also triggers many a relapse. The result has been dubbed ‘procrasturbation’. Keep a list of things you want to accomplish as well as a list of risk-free activities for those moments when you just don't have the motivation to do something productive."

"The bad news is that trigger-pathways sometimes stay around for a long time, even after you are otherwise fully rebooted. They do weaken. For example, an alcoholic who has been sober for 20 years may no longer be triggered by beer commercials. Yet if he drank a beer his sensitized pathways might light up causing him to lose control. Similar things happen to former porn users. They become immune to cues that were formerly risky, but if they use porn again they may binge."

Image result for striptease girls

Chapter 5.2 - Insights (Part 3) (Porn)

"My biggest problem was always lying in bed with my iPhone. Definitely an easy access trigger. I also used porn almost exclusively at night. What I do now is at 11 pm, I shut down all electronics. I put my laptop in my closet, set my alarm on my phone and put it far away from my bed. Then I go wash my face, brush teeth, etc. I then journal or read until I'm tired. This takes away all triggers and temptations. Instead of leaving my mind to wander I am engrossed in a book.
When you feel The Urge, ask yourself:
- What emotions I am feeling?
- What time is it?"

"In the end, such a focus will also serve porn users. Like smokers, they will be able to make informed choices about.

pornography use with full knowledge of its risks for plastic brains like ours.

We are what we repeatedly do.
Aristotle"

P.S. - I just need little time just to see what really happen, I had fun... I was using some cool tricks but in the end I didn't got new phone numbers of girls + few girls... even rejected me of not giving me their phone numbers... I just need time to comprehend the whole shitty thing.

Chapter 6 - LeT's TaLk

Note: I study shit like... "Why one good going conversation... get trashed?"
...

We have been talking about conversation in whole 3 volumes... and the game continues new... rules... and I still don't get it... how some guy screw me up with a phone call!?

...

Friday Night Inspiration – The Spirit of Discipline

Ok, it’s Friday night again and time for some inspiration. This one is simple but incredibly profound.

A few weeks ago, I heard from a friend who is an absolute monster when it comes to many aspects of his life. This guy is an athlete, runs a successful business, eats a very disciplined diet and still has enough energy to have a pretty wild social life.

And I wondered, how does he manage to achieve all those things at once?

And he told me:

“The secret to my success is discipline. And the secret of discipline is that, I’m thankful for the discipline that I exercise every day..”

“It’s like there’s a spirit of self-discipline inside of me, and I believe I strengthen it by thanking it when it leads me towards my higher purpose”.

That kind of blew my mind….

I’ve always believed that if you want more of something, the first step is to show gratitude for what you already have, but I never really applied that approach to discipline.

After all, I think most people think that discipline is something outside ourselves, something we can’t quite control. It’s certainly not something that we can increase simply by something simple like giving gratitude.

But when you think about it, it makes sense.

Imagine you’re with a personal trainer.

At the end of a particularly tough workout, do you say “That workout was exhausting. Thank you so much for doing a good job! That’s what I hired you for!”

Or would you be more likely to say something like “That workout was exhausting… maybe we should take it easy next time”.

If you say the first thing to your trainer, next week you’ll get another tough workout.

And if you ask your trainer to take it easy on you, you’ll probably get an easier workout next time. A less disciplined workout.

So a personal trainer would respond to gratitude by giving you more discipline – why wouldn’t your own mind respond the same way? Why wouldn’t the spirit of discipline, the part of you that wants you to grow and get better and contribute more to the world, respond the same way to the same sort of talk?

So go out this weekend, experience some adversity, exercise some discipline, and be grateful for it.

And see if that strengthens that spirit inside of you.

What To Do When She Says “I Don’t Give Out My Phone Number”

Tell me if you’ve ever had this one happen to you.

You meet someone, it’s going great. You are having a nice conversation. There is chemistry.

And then you ask for her phone number.

And she says “I don’t give out my phone number“.

Really? REALLY?

Who doesn’t give out their phone number?

I mean, what is a phone number FOR if not to give out? You know, so people can call you…

Now, strictly speaking, “I don’t give out my phone number” is often not really a congruence test. But it is an obstacle that you can overcome if you handle it right.

First, let’s talk about why women might say this to you .

There are a few reasons.

First, she might be saying it because she really has some rule about giving her phone number out at bars for some reason.

Second, she might be saying it because she likes you but feels awkward giving out her number for some reason.

Third, she might be saying it because she actually just doesn’t like you and is trying to blow you off politely.

So, what do you do?

Well, don’t just jump to reason number three and give up.

Some women actually do have a rule about giving out their numbers at bars. They usually made that rule after accidentally giving their number out to some random guy who called her 18 times the next day.

If you establish that you’re not that kind of guy, you might get her to change her rule.

And a lot of women feel awkward about giving out their number, even if they like you. In that case, you want to take the pressure off while still making it clear to her that she would probably have a great time if she gave her number out.

So here are a few lines to chose from – which one sounds like something you would say?

A) Wait… Are you single? Don’t you think that maybe stuff like this has something to do with that?

B) I’ll take your email address, but I’m kind of offended.

C) Well, how do we arrange to see one another again?

D) I’m going to give you a bit of time to think about your decision there, and get back to you.

How Can The Average Guy Compete?

“How can the average guy compete?”

If you have one of those little voices in your head that is full of doubt, chances are this thought has gone through your head at some point.

It’s a seductive thought.

After all, the average guy doesn’t have a lot going for him. If you look at the statistics, the average guy in the USA has been getting less healthy, less wealthy and less happy every year.

It looks like things are bad for average guys everywhere.

But I have some good news.

Nobody who reads this blog post is an average guy (even if you think you are).

Let me explain…

Average guys don’t really exist.

After all, the average person is a statistic. And a statistic has no control over it’s destiny.

A real person is not a statistic. And that is why they are anything but average.

Let me put this anther way. The average man’s income in the USA is stagnant. Does that affect your income? The average weight is going up. Does that affect your weight?? If I told you the average guy is a complete weenie who has absolutely zero interesting about him and is detested by women, does that mean you are a weenie?

Only if you accept average as a badge of your identity.

When that nagging doubt in the back of your head says “how can the average guy compete?”, what it’s really saying is – you are average, that is the best you can do.

The average person has one testicle and one ovary. The average person has no talents or things that make them special, precisely because they are the average. The average person does not even have the potential to stand out from the pack.

But real people do. No matter how average they think they are.

This spring, I’m going to teach a bunch of men, who might think they are average, how to be extraordinary.

These men will never be seen as average again.

If you are tired of being an average guy, the Art of Attraction pilot program is launching soon.

Just click the link to start your journey…

How To Stop Feeling Lacking and Worried About Being Single

How to stop feeling incomplete and worried because you don’t have someone to love you:

Throughout our entire childhood and upbringing, we were taught that we are supposed to look for love and marriage. We were taught that we should get married. We were taught that love and/or marriage would make us happy… or even that love and marriage are needed in order to be happy. This is ingrained in us by our parents, our teachers, the movies, TV shows and everything else most of us were exposed to. This is normal. And at first glance, this doesn’t seem like a problem at all. So what’s the issue?

The big issue with our pursuit of love… it makes us unhappy

If we believe that we need to find love and get married in order to be happy, this naturally makes us believe our life isn’t good enough the way it is. This subtle and often unconscious belief that “life isn’t good enough the way it is” creates a sense of lack, a sense of incompleteness, or a sense that something is missing from our lives. For some of us, this sense is very subtle and can only be noticed through continuous efforting to find someone to love us… but for others, this sense of lack is very apparent and strong.

In addition, once we believe that love and marriage are required to be happy, we naturally believe that we can’t be as happy if we don’t find love and get married. This is automatic. If we believe it is “best” to get married, of course we are going to believe that it would be “worse” if we never get married. Once we believe that it would be “bad” if we never find love and get married, we being to fear that outcome and experience stress and anxiety about it.

As long as you believe that love and marriage can make you happy, you will have this sense of lack and fear that you won’t find love

So, if you would like to feel complete now, if you would like to feel relaxed and anxiety-free now, there is a simple way to do it. Discover that another human being does not have the ability to fulfill you. If you can discover that love and marriage can’t make you happy, then you will no longer feel like you are missing something in your life, and you will no longer fear not getting love and marriage.

Let’s examine whether love and marriage can fulfill you:

All of our unwanted emotions are created by thoughts. To believe that someone else can make you happy, means that you believe another person can eliminate all of your negative thoughts. Of course, we don’t recognize this is what we are believing, but nonetheless, that is the underlying assumption. The only way we can be happy is if we don’t have thoughts that make us unhappy. If we believe that love and marriage will make us happy, we are inherently believing that love and marriage will somehow eliminate all of the different types of negative thoughts that currently create our unwanted emotions and prevent us from feeling fulfilled. But is that true? Let’s look at 7 different types of thoughts that love and marriage can’t eliminate.

1) Do you have any insecurities or judgments about yourself?

Are there parts of your personality or your appearance that you don’t like? Do these thoughts sometimes make you feel ashamed, embarrassed, lacking, or worried about others’ opinions? Nobody else can get rid of these thoughts for you.

2) Do you have aspects of your life that you think aren’t good enough?

Maybe your job isn’t good enough, your apartment isn’t good enough, or you don’t make enough money. These thoughts make you feeling lacking and insufficient, and create anxiety. Nobody else can get rid of these thoughts for you.

3) Are there people in your life which you think aren’t good enough?

Do you judge people that you come across? Do you sometimes get angry at co-workers? Do you have issues with your parents? Do you think your friends don’t always do the right thing? Do you think people should treat you better? Nobody else can get rid of these thoughts for you.

4) Do you worry about what other people think?

Do you worry about whether you have your parents’ approval? Do you worry about whether your boss will like your work? Do you worry about what others will think of your appearance and clothes? Do you sometimes not do what you want because you are afraid of what other people will think (i.e. dancing etc)? Nobody else can get rid of these thoughts for you.

5) Do you sometimes feel guilty or ashamed about your actions?

Do you sometimes do things you don’t want to do? Are you sometimes unable to do things that you really want to do? Do you still have habits that you think are bad, but can’t stop them? Nobody else can get rid of these thoughts for you.

6) Do you sometimes feel restless and bored?

When you are just sitting or lying down and your mind is constantly thinking, this creates the feeling of being restless or bored. Nobody else can get rid of these thoughts for you.

7) Do outcomes and events sometimes occur that you don’t like?

When you have negative thoughts about a particular outcome or event, doesn’t this sometimes create sadness or anger? Nobody else can get rid of these thoughts for you.

Relationships can eliminate a few negative thoughts, but they will almost certainly be replaced by new ones

Getting into a relationship will likely help you get rid of the thought “my life isn’t good enough because I don’t have a partner or someone to love me”. This will likely eliminate part of the sense of lack and shame that you had. But, it is likely to be replaced with new thoughts about how “my relationship isn’t good enough”, “they don’t love me enough”, “they don’t appreciate me enough”, “our relationship isn’t as good as their relationship” and these types of thoughts which will create more lack and shame

If you get married, you will almost certainly lose the thought “it would be if I never get married or find someone to love me”. Since this thought created some anxiety, whatever anxiety it created will likely be gone. That will feel really nice in the beginning. However, this thought is likely to be replaced with a new worries about whether they will stop loving you, worries about whether they still love you, worries about what you need to do to keep their love, worries about whether they will cheat on you, and possibly others. These new thoughts will continue to create anxiety and worry. It makes us fear that we will lose their love and constantly seek reassurances that they love us.

If you are seeking love and marriage to make yourself feel happy and whole, you are looking for someone to use

Let me ask you a question: Why do you want to find love and marriage? Really, take a moment to answer that. If you knew with absolute certainty that getting someone to love you and marry you would make you unhappy, worried, and angry all the time… would you still want to pursue love and marriage? Almost certainly not. Why would you pursue love and marriage if you knew it would make you unhappy?

You likely wouldn’t. If you would want to pursue love and marriage when you believe it would make you happy… and you wouldn’t want to pursue love and marriage if you believe it would make you unhappy… then it makes it pretty clear that you are just pursuing love and marriage because you believe it will make you happy. In other words, you don’t want love and marriage… you want to be happy, and you just happen to think that love and marriage will make you happy. Love and marriage is the means, not the goal.

But, here is the reason why I bring that up. If we are seeking love and approval to be happy, then we are actually seeking someone to make us happy. In other words, if we are seeking someone to make us happy, we are actually looking for someone who we can use to make us happy. This is why we tend to think that receiving love means having someone to fill our needs (or wants).

If we are using someone to make us happy, then we aren’t really loving them. We just love how they help make us feel. That’s fine, there’s no problem with that. It’s just not based on love. If we pursue someone to make us happy, then we will “love” them when they seem to make us feel good and we will hate them when they seem to make us feel “bad”. This type of “love” is completely conditional. The bottom line is that if we don’t truly love someone, then we don’t feel this love or the fulfillment that comes with truly loving… unconditionally and selflessly. By pursuing love to make us happy, we are setting ourselves up for a relationship that’s not actually based on love.

When you discover that love and marriage can’t make you happy, you can be much happier right now

When we believe that love and marriage will make us happy, it creates a whole lot of suffering. And this suffering absolutely doesn’t end when we find someone to love us.

But, if you are able to see that love and approval can’t make you happy and fulfilled, then you can stop feeling like something is missing from your life and stop worrying about whether you will ever get it. Then, you will be left feeling much more free and happy right now.

If you want to feel whole and happy, you need to identify and address the thoughts that make you feel this way

Since other people cannot change all of our negative thoughts to positive ones, we need to question the truth of our negative thoughts if we want to be happy. If we don’t believe the thoughts which make us feel unappreciated, insufficient, or unlovable, then we will be completely happy regardless of whether or not others love us.

In addition, once you are already happy, then you can enter into a relationship without wanting anything from the other person. When you are fulfilled, you can enter into a relationship without an ulterior motive… without using them. Then, any relationship will be much more enjoyable. It will be based on love.

Therefore, somewhat paradoxically, discovering that a relationship can’t make you happy will make it much more likely that you will end up in a happy relationship.

Now, I would like you to ask yourself a few questions:

Can love and marriage eliminate all the thoughts that create my unwanted emotions and make me feeling lacking and unfulfilled?
If love and marriage can’t eliminate all (or even many) of the thoughts that make me unhappy, is it true that love and marriage can give me the happiness, wholeness, and fulfillment I want?
If love and marriage don’t have the ability to fulfill me (or anyone else), then is it true that my life isn’t “good enough” just because I don’t have love and marriage?
If love and marriage can’t fulfill me, am I sure that I would be happiest if I got married?
If all of my unwanted emotions and sense of lack are created by thoughts, then is it true that I need to get love and marriage in order to be happy?
Is it possible for me to feel completely whole, happy, and fulfilled without getting married (by addressing my thoughts)?
If I can be fulfilled without getting love and marriage (by addressing my thoughts)… and love and marriage don’t have the ability to fulfill me… then can I admit that it wouldn’t necessarily be “bad” for my life or my happiness if I never get love and marriage?

Hey Don Juan,

Do you know the magic "F-word" that makes a woman chase you?

It's completely innocent and rejection-proof.

And when you sneak it into a conversation with any woman you want...

You're going to at least triple the chances of her chasing you.

She'll be 3X as likely to start hitting on you, out of nowhere.

3X as likely to ask for your number.

And 3X as likely to make the first sexual move on you... and sleep with you that same night.

Click Here to Discover the Secret to Making Her Chase You

So what is this magic "F Word"?

It's not that vulgar word you might be thinking about.

The magic word is "friend."

Here's what to do:

Next time you're flirting with a woman you want, call her your "friend" as much as possible.

For example, if she says something nice to you, you might respond with:

"Awww, thanks for saying that Annie, you're such a good friend."

Or if you're at a party you could say, "Hey friend, what are you up to?"

This word will really screw with her mind.

Because look, a "friend" is a good thing. It's a positive attribute.

You're not dissing her or being mean.

But it also implies a platonic relationship, not a sexual or romantic one.

And if she's attractive, she's not used to a guy putting her in the friend zone like that.

She's used to being in control and having power over men.

But not anymore...

Using this "F-word" will instantly set you apart from other guys and set the stage for her to start chasing you.

Because you are a CHALLENGE.

It works like magic... and it starts the psychological process of her wanting to chase you.

And that's just 1 way to make her chase you, out of hundreds!

My friend Mike actually coined a term for these techniques.

He calls them Chase Triggers.

Just one chase trigger is powerful enough to make her start flirting with you.

But when you stack them together, the effect is ridiculous.

She'll be begging for your attention, making every sexual move on you, and even begging you for sex.

And she won't even know why she's doing it... she'll just know she has to have you.

Here's a video from Mike explaining how these Chase Triggers work, and how to use them on that girl you've been thinking about:

Chapter 7 - Need (Part 1)

CareFree Installation by Jason Capital

What you need in dating world or what you need to know is to be carefree... to start giving less value to things. People most cases attach to people who they know very well and people who they don't know... the attachment goes like.

With what "if's"

What if she get angry?
What if she start hating me?
What if she get upset?
What if she has a boyfriend?
What if she see me as a freak?
What if she see me as a creep
What if she doesn't get my joke?
What to do if this is her brother?
What to do if she reject me?

or it could be

I am

Note: "I" is the ego... that's the word which we use for ego.

I am pretty bussy
I can't do it now... lets put it for other day
I now need to do something else
I don't feel in the state
Okay... she is okay... but ... naah... I can't now
Okay... I will do it but after few minutes
Okay... but lets my stop come and I will do it... when I get out of the train
Okay... I will say it fast... and "Bye"
Okay... I will say that... but nothing more

It could be a simple excuse... or theory and theory going in your brain like a strain... but it never goes to action....

So you have a virus in yourself... but you don't know how to put in action!

Date Against the Machine

This here is what I can say about the whole dating advice

Is a program which tells you how to do it... how to step out and take action. Rejection is good... it means that you have made a progress so:

1) Rejection - As I said... rejection is good... if you have tried to improve somebody's day.

2) Prize - You are out there... to have fun... you are out there to show that you are the reward... no need to put somebody in more value than yourself.

3) Have Higher Value - As for you... put yourself in higher position and others put them in lower value

4) Stop Going OUt With B.C. - BC - Is a word used for people who are with no targets... and going outside just to lose time... time outside is not for to lose... not be some kinda a asshole and to start wasting time... don't go with such people out.

5) Belief - If you gonna do something... at least believe in that shit... nor ever doubt yourself

Chapter 8 - More

Ten Essential Flirting Moves You Must Know

by Ron Louis & David Copeland

There are 10 essential flirting moves that you must know:

1) Smiling

You must smile. You probably think you smile now, but you don't, really. You should practice your smile in the mirror. To be big enough to be noticed, your smile will probably have to be bigger than you are used to.

2) Getting Caught Looking

Most people look away when the object of their desire looks at them. If you want to let that person know you are interested, when they catch you looking, smile, hold eye contact a moment longer, then look away.

3) Waving

A little wave to someone who caught you looking, along with a smile, is a non-intrusive, very flirty way to say "hello."

4) Winking

You can wink at someone from across the room, or wink at someone during a conversation. If he or she says something funny, or someone else does something silly, you can give a wink as a way of sharing a little moment for just the two of you, as if the two of you are in on some private joke no one else is aware of.

5) Asking "What's the Story Behind That?"

You can ask "what's the story behind that?" about any special or unusual thing your quarry is wearing or carrying. Examples: "That's a really neat bracelet you are wearing. What's the story behind that?" or "That's a really great briefcase. What's the story behind that?" Even if there isn't much of one, it's given you some conversation.

6) Holding Eye Contact

While you are conversing with your new friend, you want to be sure to have eye contact at least some of the time. At least once it's a good idea to hold the eye contact a little "too long," just a fraction too long, so there's a brief, more intimate moment between you.

7) Non-Intrusive Touching

This can be as simple as placing your hand lightly on his or her hand for a moment, or touching his or her back for a moment as you walk to a table to sit down. Just do this a couple of times on the first flirting interaction -- if the person pulls away, don't do it again.

8) Checking Him/Her Out

Checking out someone's body must be done properly, especially if you are checking out a woman. The goal is for your new friend to feel complimented that you noticed his or her body, not objectified like some piece of meat. You do this by making eye contact, then quickly, in less than a second, passing your eyes down and then up over his or her body, then back to looking in the eyes. It should happen quickly, and you should be unashamed of taking a glance. Just don't do it too often.

9) Using the "Good-bye Compliment"

If you are shy, flirting with the "good-bye compliment" may be just the thing you need. On your way out, you simply go up to the person you want to flirt with, and say something like, "Hi, I have to go now, but before I did, I really wanted to let you know that you have a really great sense of style, and that I noticed it. I wish I had more time to spend with you, but I have to go." Then leave. This allows you to build your confidence in approaching people, without having to take the risk of rejection -- after all, you have to leave, you couldn't stay even if they wanted you to! (Some people also ask for phone numbers at this point.)

10) Stopping While It's Still Fun

Remember, flirting should be fun, and you should leave the flirting interaction feeling victorious. Most people leave their flirting interactions feeling like failures because they don't stop until it stops being fun. If you stop flirting on a high point, while it's still fun, your new friend will feel good when thinking of you, and want to see you again.

Something Single Women Hate — Don't Do It

by David DeAngelo

"You can't bore a woman into feeling attracted to you..."

I realize that this may sound like an obvious statement, but judging by the emails that I get week in and week out, maybe it's not as obvious as it might seem to some guys.

In fact, when I think back on my own experiences with women, I am DEFINITELY guilty of trying to bore women into feeling attracted to me...

So what do I mean by this silly sounding statement?

Well, let's start with some ideas that I hear in one form or another all the time.

"I was a perfect gentleman on our date, but she didn't call me back, and I can't reach her..."
"I don't want to use any 'techniques' with women because I feel like that would be 'manipulating' her..."
"I want a girl who will like me for who I am..."
"I give her everything she wants, take her out, buy her things, and I don't understand why she doesn't feel the same way towards me that I feel towards her..."
"She tells me that she only likes me as a friend, then she goes out with these guys who treat her like crap instead of going out with a guy like me that would treat her wonderfully and give her everything she wants..."

And the list goes on and on...

Now, I realize that these statements are actually different from each other, and deal with different issues. But the common denominator in each of them is:

You're not behaving in a way that is pushing her attraction buttons. In most of these cases, you're guilty of trying to bore her into feeling attracted to you.

I got one letter recently where a guy was telling me that he had taken a girl out on a date, but that there wasn't any "spark"... but he still felt attracted to the girl. He seemed to think that just because nothing obvious was BAD about the date, that this girl should also feel attracted to him. (Maybe he thought that a few more uninteresting, boring dates would cause her to open her eyes and see the light.)

Here are a few common problems that lead to "BORING DATE-ITIS":

Playing it "safe", following her lead, not saying anything you think will upset her, and making sure that you're "proper".
Talking about BORING things like jobs, family, weather, etc. because it's "what people talk about to get to know each other."
Being boring.

Playing It Safe

I can remember when I thought that the proper way to act on a date was to talk about socially acceptable topics, act sterile and quiet, and generally try to make sure that she got whatever she wanted.

Oh, was this a huge mistake.

Generally speaking, women are BORED TO DEATH BY THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR.

When you meet a girl for a cup of tea or go out to dinner, it's time to have FUN, not to be her personal ass kisser!

Playing it safe and kissing up to her is a sure way to get either an expensive relationship or a woman who won't call you back.

Talking About Boring Things

Don't talk about your job and your family!

BORING!

Guys who are trying to convince women that they're "nice" talk about their families. (If you really want to be a loser, carry pictures around with you and show them off.)

Talking about families is "courtship" behavior, and it will put her into the old "this guy is boring" frame of mind. Unless you're related to John F. Kennedy or someone even more interesting, keep the family history to yourself!

Being Boring

So what does a "boring" guy act like?

Well, for starters he acts like he's NOT COMFORTABLE in the situation...

Nervous smiles. Apologizing. Agreeing with her opinions all the time. Asking her what she'd like to do. Holding your body in an unsure, insecure way.

That's a good start.

Mix in a few uncomfortable silences and you've got the makings for her running as fast as she can and changing her phone number to save herself from another one of your boring calls!

So what's the answer? What's the secret to making her feel attracted to you, and not BORED OUT OF HER SKULL?

I thought you'd never ask.

Here are a few ideas for starters:

1) Take her somewhere that has a lot going on...

somewhere that has interesting conversation built in. I like funky areas that have lots of eclectic, artsy, trendy shops. You can't walk through one of these areas without having an interesting conversation.

There are all kinds of interesting things from tattoo artists to funky hat shops to ultra-trendy clothing stores. Most cities have an area like this, and I'd suggest you go check it out.

2) Talk about something that isn't BORING.

One of my favorite things to do is get her to talk about her life, then find things to make fun of. This is a great opportunity for cocky and funny...

YOU: "So, tell me something interesting."

HER: "Like what?"

YOU: "What, you can't think of even ONE interesting think about yourself or your life? I think I need to go before this gets any worse..."

You get the idea...

3) If there is a silence, NEVER let it be uncomfortable.

I think that it's great to stop talking when you're first getting to know a woman. But don't do it in a way that sends chills up her spine.

If the conversation goes cold for a few moments, just pay attention to something else for a minute. Think about something funny to say and laugh to yourself. She'll say "What? What are you laughing about?"... which is a great lead in for about 1,000 different cocky/funny answers.

If the conversation stops, be cool. Just act like you're with a friend, act totally casual, and pick it back up later. Just don't ACT nervous and uncomfortable!

4) Don't be predictable.

There is an area of the human brain called "Broca's Region" that is constantly anticipating what is about to happen, then discounting the predictable. In other words, the more predicable you are, the faster you will be considered BORING.

Learn to say random things. Disagree with her... (without sounding like a whiny little girl). Tell her that you think Britney Spears looks like a dog...

If you're boring, read a couple of books on how to tell stories… or get a book on comedy to learn how to be funny and tell jokes.

JUST DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO DO TO AVOID BEING PREDICTABLE! And do whatever you have to do to learn how to make women feel ATTRACTION.

OK, I think you're getting the idea.

Women don't want BORING. A woman would rather be with an interesting, fun guy than with a RICH, HANDSOME, PREDICTABLE, BORING one (and the women who want the rich boring guy are often boring themselves...).

Once a woman starts to feel that magical emotional and physical response called ATTRACTION, the entire situation changes, and you start having the kinds of success with women that most men only dream about.

And most women go through life WISHING, HOPING, AND DREAMING that they will someday find a man that can make them feel this amazing feeling...

So what's the best way to learn how to make a woman feel ATTRACTION for you?

In fact, what's the ONE system in the world that is designed SPECIFICALLY to teach you how to make women feel a powerful ATTRACTION for you?

Confidence 101: How I Built My Confidence (And How You Can Too!)

Confession: I used to have virtually no confidence.

I’ll never forget back when my knees would jiggle-like-jello when I’d “try” to talk to a cute woman. It was like torture! Every second felt like an hour long!

My palms would sweat…
I couldn’t even speak clearly…
My heart would beat way too damned fast…

And girls would “excuse themselves” from my presence 99% of the time…

I HATED IT.

Here’s a picture of me back then…

Since I was so fed up, I decided to do something about lacking confidence.

So, I went on a mission: to build up my confidence.

I did everything. Read every book. Dove in head first to my academic psychology courses. And most of all? Being a college student at the time? I used the fact that I was on a university campus in sunny southern California each day to talk to the women that were there too!!

Oh yes… During about a 9 month period, I easily chatted up SEVERAL THOUSAND college women on my campus.

It got to the point that I accidentally hit on the same girl multiple times.

(This admittedly happened at least 3 times — once inside the student library, once in the on-campus Jamba Juice, and once outside our college basketball stadium — LOL).

As you can probably see, the way I “came up” came with consequences. For example, I was eventually known as the “that pickup guy” on my university, amongst my peers…

How to Break the Ice with Women! Hint: Start Flirting Instantly

It’s why I now recommend guys find a bigger “pond to practice fishing in” if they wanna go on a pickup rampage like I did, to both get more dates and build more confidence.

To be honest, getting the momentum to confidently approach women didn’t come fast or easily.

Probably took three months of intense internal pain and struggle until I simply got over my approach anxiety.

If only I had known then, what I do now…

Side note: since I know what it’s like to have no confidence, I can help you get way more confident really quickly. So, if you want more confidence with women, definitely check out this free training:

Now look, there’s lots of things you can do to boost your confidence. You can work on your body language, your eye contact, your sense of humor, and your ability to embrace silence in conversations.

And working on those things will help you improve your confidence. But those things are like the “extra toppings” you put on your ice cream…

Here’s what helped my catapult my confidence (and my dating results) the most:

Learning to pat myself on the back after each approach — and giving myself uplifting self talk — regardless of the “result” my actions just produced (or didn’t produce). Learning this is how I got rid of my anxiety. This one insight changed my life.

So please, steal this from me and use it in your life when you push your comfort zones and work towards becoming more confident.

After you take action, say to yourself, “Nice job, way to take action! Good work.”

The secret is to VALIDATE YOURSELF with POSITIVE SELF TALK each time you approach a girl, make a sales call, give a speech, or do an interview — regardless of what external result your action(s) deliver you.

Validating yourself with positive self talk IS the secret to ensuring you ALWAYS feel more confident each time you push your comfort zones and take bold actions.

Here’s what my former client has to say about this system I teach men to build their confidence…

“With Jason, anything is possible.

He understands the challenges one experiences in life through a series of disappointments and hardships. However, he also knows how to turn this around. He believes one can make a transformation as long as the individual also takes the initiative to do so.

As a mentor, Jason is always dedicated in helping you stay on track to achieving success. Clearly, he wants you to succeed and learn how to develop the techniques needed to transform your life/situation for the better.

Through his Confidence Building Sequence, he provides you with a strategy to deal with any fear you have, whether it is public speaking or meeting new people. Jason reaffirms this over and over until it is part of your philosophy.

Thank you, Jason for making a difference in my life!”

-Manny M., BS/MS Public Administration

For you, if you’re looking for more confidence, the secret is learning to trust the process. Remember this: the only way you’ll replace your anxiety with confidence (and the results that’ll follow) is by taking consistent action! We know this from research.

But if you’re always beating yourself up along the way? Then you’ll kill your momentum! And you’ll never build yourself into the confident guy you know is deep inside of you!

So, pat yourself on the back — and speak to yourself like the champ that you are — each and every time you push your comfort zones!

Talk to yourself like the champ you’re becoming after taking action. Then? Once the little “positive self talk sesh” is over? Get back to work! Take more action!

This is how YOU will build the confidence to…

approach women
.
deliver public speeches
.
make sales calls and presentations
.
talk to anyone, anywhere, at anytime

So what are you waiting for? Get to work, my good man!

You now have the keys to the castle that is more confidence…

To your peak,

Jason Rogers

Chapter 8.1. - More (Part 2)

As a Man, Your Whole Life Will Improve When You…

As a man, what can you do to radically improve your life? There’s lots of different advice you’ll find on the internet…

What I’ve found is that specifically for men, the #1 change you’d be wise to focus on making first is this:

Finding (and then dominating) your mission — aka your purpose.

As David Deida discusses in his book, The Way of the Superior Man, a man without a mission is like a boat without a rudder.

But when you DO uncover your mission as a man? You tap into the full capacity of your masculine potential. You’re like a top secret agent — totally zoned in on his life-or-death operation.

By uncovering your mission, you WILL become more focused, driven, fulfilled, and excited about life. With a clear mission, and a strong purpose, you’ll find you become more attractive, less needy, and far more confident, too.

It’s simple. If you want to truly dominate and reach your peak as a man, a clear mission as a man should be at the center of your world. It should be THE thing your life is oriented around.

But how? How do you “find” your legit mission as a man?

That’s what I discussed in a recent article I wrote for you — how to find your mission. You can check it out right here. And I recommend you do so if you’re not 100% clear on what your mission as a man is!

In the article linked above, you’ll uncover the two ways to find your mission as a man…

You’ll then be guided through an interactive process — that’ll help you finally find your mission as a man — so that you can FINALLY wake up each day with purpose, drive, excitement, and focus.

To your peak,

Jason Rogers

How to Find Your Mission as a Man (the two paths revealed)

Struggling with what you’re meant to do with your life? Unsure of what you’re purpose on this planet is?

If you’re uncertain what your mission as a man should be, then this is for you…

What follows are the two paths you can take to quickly uncover your mission as a man.

Upon finishing this quick article, you’ll feel far more confident and clear about your purpose in life.

Taking action along either of these two paths will quickly re-energize you with more confidence, clarity, and certainty.

Here are the two paths for uncovering your purpose, or your mission, as a man…

1) Make FINDING your long-term MISSION, your current mission as a man.

Why Lacking Clarity Equals Lame Dating Life (powerful exercise revealed)

Here, you’re essentially taking action daily as you search for an ideal career you can commit yourself to that 1) pays, 2) makes a positive impact, and 3) invigorates you.

This first path requires you to search, meet new people, try different activities and lines of work, all while asking yourself, “Is this something I could do for a long time to 1) make money, 2) make an impact, and 3) feel energized as a man?”

Path number one is simply about uncovering “that thing” you can excitedly dig your teeth into for a long, long time.

Now, let’s discuss the second path for finding you mission as a man…

2) Make GROWING YOURSELF, your current mission as a man.

Exercise, Meditation, Cold Showers

Along this path you’re basically searching for 1) knowledge, 2) mentors, all while 3) taking actions necessary to grow yourself.

This second path could include taking on a 30 day challenge, changing your routines, optimizing your health, finally approaching women every day, investing in an online training program, and spending an hour a day reading.

There you have it. Those are the two paths for quickly unlocking your mission as a man. Ultimately, neither path is better than the other. Though I do recommend you find a long-term purpose as a man eventually (path one). But if you currently feel lost, what’s more important is that you dig your teeth into something ASAP. Therefore, I recommend taking action on whichever path feels more easy to begin — starting tomorrow morning!

Ultimately, taking action along either of these two paths will strengthen both your confidence and your fulfillment you generate from life.

If you want more clarity on which of these two paths is better for you, watch this video below.

What’s important isn’t so much which path you take, but that you choose a path — and finally unlock your mission as a man!

From a psychological background (I studied psychology at U.C.L.A. and involved myself with researching the same field at Stanford), I can assure you that unlocking your mission as a man will help you feel more confident and fulfilled.

And deep down…

You absolutely want to be both confident and fulfilled.

Social awkwardness to social freedom

Trust me.

Cuz unlike being confident, while “fulfillment” may not sound all that sexy, in truth — being both a confident and a fulfilled man will bring you a life abundant of sexual thrill, real world impact, and income.

But again — as I shared in the video below about becoming more confident — none of this is possible if you do not ACT.

So go make it happen. You’ve been given the blueprint.

Now?

Go take action along one of these two paths starting first thing tomorrow morning! It’s your time to finally re-connect with your mission as a man — so you can act each day with purpose!

To your peak,

Jason Rogers

10X Your Texting Game By Simply Doing THIS (works like magic)

Note: The secret starts... when you stop obsessing over her... and start living your life... she is just someone who you see once-twice a week.... and when you see her.... you should show that you have decided to make yourself free... "That day"... and you are pretty "Busy" man... .This is very important image... you don't need to show up as... always free... if always free... your options are closed... - I know this from my experience.

Yesterday, one of the champs inside of my membership — Dominate as a Single Man — told me about an awesome girl he hooked up with at a concert over the prior weekend.

Fast forward to two days after the concert, and he wanted my advice on his texting game.

He wrote to me that, “Shes actually a pretty cool girl, so my goal here is to turn it into a friends with benefits/fuck buddy type of gig.”

After reading his email, I wrote back to him. And I shared exactly what I’d text her — and whenI’d text her — if I were in his shoes.

My response shocked him.

See, while the champ inside the membership was looking for a text to send her within the next few hours, I gave him some *different* advice…

I told him to wait another two or three days before texting her. As you’ll see, this is the secret to 10X’ing your texting game…

#1 Mistake Guys Make with Her Phone Number

He wrote back, “Really, wait that long? I’ll be totally honest, I’m worried she’ll somehow become disinterested, turned off, etc. if I wait until Wednesday or Thursday to respond during such simple texts/conversation. This is definitely going to be pretty hard for me. I’m used to responding damn near immediately. ”

Here was my next response regarding his texting game…

“Here’s why I recommend a few days:

1) She said she’s down to see you next week. So what’s the rush?

2) Giving her space shows you’re A) not needy, B) busy, C) perhaps dating somebody else, and thus D) a high value guy.

3) Not responding right away will increase the odds she thinks about you (by a lot).

At the end of the day, it’s your call my friend. Do as you will.

Social Media has the “Exact Same Negative Effect on Depression” as Eating Potatoes

It feels impossible to tell if the technology our kids use should be celebrated or feared. A few years ago I wrote a book, Hooked, about how technology can be used to change our habits. I intended the book to teach startups how to build healthy habits, but now I’m not so sure. With headlines telling us technology is hijacking our brains, I started second guessing the impact of our devices, especially when it comes to our kids.

How alarmed should we be? Is this a crisis or a fear frenzy? I wanted to understand what the studies really tell us about the effect personal technology is having on our children.

One side clearly believes the kids are not okay. “It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades,” wrote Dr. Jean Twenge, a professor of Psychology at San Diego State University in an article in The Atlantic.1 “Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.”

According to the tech critics like Twenge, this generation can’t look each other in the eye, isn’t comfortable in conversation, and therefore can’t form deep relationships. They are cyberbullied, like-obsessed, and more prone to killing themselves, she says. According to Twenge’s article, the teen suicide rate is now higher than the teen homicide rate, with three times as many 12-to-14-year-old girls and twice as many boys killing themselves in 2015 as in 2007.

Jan Odiaga, Program Director of the Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Rush University College of Nursing, says she now asks kids questions about technology use at their annual physicals. Odiaga is a mother of two daughters, ages 14 and 16. “It is an epidemic. I think the thing that scares me the most is that there’s so many mental health issues, depression and anxiety,” Odiaga says. “People are tracking it back to social pressures and social media. That frightens me. I think it’s going to escalate and get worse… What’s going to happen next?”

As a father of a pre-teen myself, I worry. It’s easy to get worked up about what technology might be doing to kids’ brains. However, there is also an argument to be made that it’s the adults, and not the teens, being overly dramatic.

Note: And the answer of all prayers ... questions!

What the Studies Really Say

Studies like Twenge’s work like this: researchers look for correlations between various things to try and make connections. If thing A and thing B go up over the same period of time, researchers conclude there may be something there.

For example, if Ivan the ice cream man opens a new ice cream shop and subsequently sales of ice cream in the town rise, one might conclude that the store opening was correlated with more ice cream consumption. Taking this one step further, some might believe the store caused people to eat more ice cream.

However, there might be other factors at play that account for the change in the town’s ice cream eating. If Ivan opened his ice cream shop in the heat of June, rather than cold of December, then we might wonder whether the weather had something to do with the rise in sales. Variables, like the weather, could affect the rise in sales of ice cream as might the opening of Ivan’s shop. Ivan’s shop could havedriven more ice cream consumption, but we wouldn’t know how much Ivan’s ice cream shop accounted for the change unless we excluded other variables, such as the temperature outdoors.

It’s true that in Twenge’s study, social media exposure was correlated with depressive symptoms in some adolescents. But there’s much, much more to the story than Twenge and most journalists who covered the study let on.

Firstly, there are many potential variables that correlate with adolescent depression. Household income, parental education, and family history all play a role, just as the weather plays a role in ice cream consumption. If you were to guess how much social media use accounted for an increase in depression in Twenge’s study, what would you expect? The study was cited hundreds of times in news outlets around the world, which ran headlines like, “The Risk Of Teen Depression And Suicide Is Linked To Smartphone Use, Study Says.2” What would you guess? 80 percent of the correlation? 70 percent? Not even close.

According to an article in Wired, in Twenge’s study, “Social media exposure could explain 0.36 percent of the covariance for depressive symptoms.”3

That’s not 36 percent. It’s not even one percent. That’s 0.36 percent.

The Wired article continues, “That 0.36 percent means that 99.64 percent of the group’s depressive symptoms had nothing to do with social media use.” The article quotes Dr. Andrew Przybylski, who the author describes as, “a psychologist at the Oxford Internet Institute with more than a decade’s experience studying the impact of technology.” He told Wired, “I have the data set they used open in front of me and I submit to you that, based on that same data set, eating potatoes has the exact same negative effect on depression.”

Furthermore, even that weak correlation “didn’t hold for the boys in the dataset,” only the girls. Why not? Nobody knows. “In datasets as large as these, it’s easy for weak correlation signals to emerge from the noise,” the Wired article author concluded.

In a rebuttal to The Atlantic article that said kids are on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades, Dr. Sarah Rose Cavanagh, a PhD and associate professor at Assumption College in Boston, wrote in Psychology Today that “the data the author chooses to present are cherry-picked, by which I mean she reviews only those studies that support her idea and ignores studies that suggest that screen use is NOT associated with outcomes like depression and loneliness.”4

One of many studies56 not cherry-picked was conducted by Christopher Ferguson of Stetson University and published in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly. Ferguson’s study found only a negligible relationship between screen time and depression. Ferguson said in an article in Science Daily, “Although an ‘everything in moderation’ message when discussing screen time with parents may be most productive, our results do not support a strong focus on screen time as a preventative measure for youth problem behaviors.”7

Tech critics like Twenge tend not to discuss the nuances of what their own studies reveal about how time spent online affects teens. But as so often is the case, the devil is in the digital details. A closer read finds the correlation only with extreme amounts of time spent online. The Twenge study shows teenage girls who spent over five hours per day tended to have more depressive or suicidal thoughts. But common sense would have us ask whether it’s just as likely that kids who have a propensity to spend that much time online have other issues in their lives. Isn’t five hours a day on any form of media a symptom of a larger problem? In fact, the Twenge study found that kids who spent two hours or less online per day did not have higher rates of depression and anxiety compared to controls.

A study conducted by Przybylski found mental well-being actually increased with moderate amounts of screen time before declining for excessive users.8 However, “Even at exceptional levels, we’re talking about a very small impact,” Przybylski told BuzzFeed.9 “It’s about a third as bad as [the effect on well-being of] missing breakfast or not getting eight hours’ sleep.”

More Tech, Less Death

Even if we give Twenge’s study the benefit of the doubt and believe there is something happening to adolescents as a result of excessive social media use, there are still some important unanswered questions. For one, if we’re going to draw correlations between social media and bad things like depressive symptoms and suicide, shouldn’t we also look at the positive trends as well? In the same period of time that personal tech use has increased, many of the hallmarks of self-destructive teenage rebelliousness have decreased precipitously.

Nationwide, juvenile arrest rate for vandalism fell 75 percent between 1994 and 2015.10 The past-year use of illicit drugs other than marijuana for eighth, 10th, and 12th graders came in at the lowest level in the 40 years of the survey.11 Teen pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates in the United States all reached historic lows.12

The fact that teen suicide rates are now higher than the teen homicide rates is largely due to the remarkable drop in homicides, which have fallen far faster than suicides have risen. In California for example, “Social trends among California youth have been spectacular,” gushed the The Sacramento Bee recently.13 “Over the last generation, rates of arrests of Californians under age 20 have fallen by 80 percent, murder arrest by 85 percent, gun killings by 75 percent, imprisonments by 88 percent… Back in 1980, teenagers comprised 27 percent of California’s criminal arrests. Today, 9 percent. Anecdotes of kids gone wrong remain, but they’re rarer than ever.”

Of course, like depression, these are correlated factors and it’s difficult to draw conclusions about causation. There are certainly other factors at play keeping kids safe. But it’s worth considering whether tech use may be curtailing all sorts of dangerous behaviors as kids find less harmful ways to spend their time. A healthy amount of tech use may provide kids a way to socialize and blow off steam online instead of doing destructive things offline. Furthermore, perhaps knowing friends have cameras in their pockets reduces the likelihood kids do things in the real world they wouldn’t want posted on Instagram?

Critics blaming technology for kids’ ills also gloss over what exactly kids do online. Studies like Twenge’s classify all time spent on social media together, denying the reality that people do all sorts of things on the web, some healthy and some not so healthy. Is a teenager spending time online being bullied or looking up ways to empower themselves and building confidence on a forum for people being bullied? Twenge’s study lumps both activities together.

How you feel after using the web depends on how you use it. Facebook admits that spending time on its site can decrease feelings of well-being when the service is used passively.14 Scrolling mindlessly past pictures of your friends having fun without you doesn’t make you feel good. However, when you interact with others’ posts — commenting, posting, and liking — studies have found your well-being increases and you feel more connected to people you care about.15

“I think there’s lot of good stuff,” admits Odiaga, the nurse practitioner and concerned mother who asks kids about tech use at their annual physicals. “Good can come out of it. It’s not all bad,” Odiaga admits. Although positive stories don’t make headlines and stoke fears the way those about depression and suicides do, the majority of teens use technology in positive ways. Some write music, create blogs, and use social media to stand up for social causes they believe in or stick up for those being bullied. Tech can open up new worlds for kids and give them skills they couldn’t learn otherwise

Why Do Things Feel So Scary?

“I think we need to keep some historical perspective, and to think, ‘What is our future going to be?’” Odiaga says. Although thinking “this time is different” is a common reaction to rapid technological change, history tells another story.

Swiss scientist Conrad Gessner worried about hand-held information device causing “confusing and harmful” consequences.16 That was 1565. He was talking about books.

In 1883, a New York medical journal predicted a new norm would “exhaust the children’s brains and nervous systems with complex and multiple studies, and ruin their bodies by protracted imprisonment.” He was referring to public education.

In 1936, kids were said to “have developed the habit of dividing attention between the humdrum preparation of their school assignments and the compelling excitement of the loudspeaker,” from the radio, according to the music magazine Gramophone. “At night the children often lie awake in bed restless and fearful, or wake up screaming as a result of nightmares brought on by mystery stories.”

It seems outlandish now, but leaps in technological innovation are often followed by moral panics. “Each successive historical age has ardently believed that an unprecedented ‘crisis’ in youth behavior is taking place,” wrote Dr. Abigail Wills, an Oxford historian writing about youth culture and crime in Slate.17 “We are not unique; our fears do not differ significantly from those of our predecessors.”

It could well be that today’s technology does have negative consequences. However, it’s hard to know if the current technology backlash is simply society’s way of adjusting to some of the particularly bad elements of tech overuse and misuse. If fear turns in to action, we can adjust our tech use to moderate the harmful aspects while taking advantage of the benefits, just as we did with previous technologies. We can also adapt our technology use with new tech tools that help our kids moderate overuse.

However, if we’re paralyzed by our fears and try to ban our kids from using their technology instead of helping them (and us) learn to use it responsibly, we may be doing more harm than good. Tech is powerful, and now is the time to teach kids to use that power rather than pretend we can keep them from it.

A research overview conducted by UNICEF found that the middle way is the best way.18 “In terms of impact on children’s mental well-being, the most robust studies suggest that the relationship [with technology] is U-shaped,” the study says, “where no use and excessive use can have a small negative impact on mental well-being, while moderate use can have a small positive impact.” Instead of headline-grabbing hysterics, moderation and adaptation seem to be the answer after all.

Chapter 9 - Women

Note: Women love to say shit to man... they want man to feel like shit...

...

When man wants woman to put him as first place... in her list she gets needy.

The moment when woman wants to put him in first place in her list... that's the moment when she controls the frame

...

Both paths are fucked up!

Note: Women should see you as a prize... if that frame is put correctly they are going to chase you.

Image result for hot Women

P.S. - So

- I got rejected few times (Today)

- I got some new friends (Today... and before few days)

- I got some painful rejects (But this shouldn't be a reason to stop my daygame... there is a way to calm that shit and continue dominating my path)

"Endless Conversations

Hey there, think you’ll like this.

It’s some of my best “conversation” tips. Watch, take notes, internalize. Rinse, repeat. I promise – you get this, and you’ll NEVER run out of things to say ever again :)

This is the foundation of it all. In fact, topical-personal-interpersonal (TPI) is the foundation of every single conversation course I create. Why? Well, this is the natural structure that all good, flirty conversations have. It’s not something that I made up or engineered or pulled out of my rear end. It’s simply how good conversations happen between people who are getting to know each other.

Once I figured this out and trained myself to drive conversations in this direction, it was INCREDIBLE. All of a sudden is was so much easier to connect with people. I wasn’t running out of things to say, I was finding it easy to ask questions and get people to open up… and that freed up my mind to become witty and charming. Needless to say, I’d love for you to have the same revelations, and I know you can with just a little effort. Let’s dive in.

TOPICAL

A topic is anything outside of you and the person you’re talking to. For example – iPhones, camping, where you live, what everyone is drinking, a celebrity… anything that puts the focus of the conversation outside of you and the person/people you’re talking to.

PERSONAL

Personal conversations are about YOU or about HER. They tell us about the personality of the person we’re talking to. Why did they buy an iPhone? (they like simplicity rather than customizability). What about them enjoys camping? (they like to be active and be outdoors). What made you decide to live where you do? (you want to live somewhere crazy before you raise a family). Why are they drinking girly drinks tonight? (they have dainty taste buds). What do they think about that bratty drunk musician? (they think everyone should just respect his damn privacy, thank you very much!).

Getting it? Personal conversations reveal the thoughts, opinions, motivations, beliefs and personality of the person behind the topic. They answer the question who IS this person?

INTERPERSONAL

Interpersonal conversations are about you AND her. They tell the other person how we feel about them, and are used to direct the course of the evolving relationship between you and her. Could you be iPhone twins because you both have the same wallpaper? Would you love to take a camping trip with her because you’ve always wanted to try that? Could you never take her to your place because she’d get it all dirty? Do you maybe have to keep your eye on the girls who are getting girly drink drunk? Do you appreciate a person who appreciates privacy because you have a pretty crazy private life of your own? And most importantly, do you think she’s a cool/fun/sexy/awesome girl because of all the things she’s revealed about herself? Compliments are merely interpersonal escalation, but interpersonal conversations aren’t just about pushing things forward. Notice that we were able to tease her, create some barriers, and even future project to doing things together with her.

IN PERSPECTIVE

Interactions don’t escalate if they stay topical. You’ll never do the no-pants dance, let alone walk down the aisle with your soulmate, if you don’t get to know who she really is. Heck, you might even discover that personality wise, you’re both truth-seekers and almost perfectly matched, but she’s a Christian Fundamentalist and you’re a Universal Taoist – talk about a disagreement on the topic of truth.

As you get more comfortable with people, you’ll notice that you can get personal much more quickly. For example, approaching two girls and quickly telling them that they look like “trouble” is Personal – now you’ve got to back up your statement! And anytime you playfully frame a person (see Unbreakable) that’s getting personal. Eventually, you will be escalating things nonverbally. For example, a knowing look at a girl that says “you’re trouble” is Personal. And what is physical escalation but a nonverbal compliment about her sexiness?"

"Hey, Angel here…

Congrats again on taking and completing the quiz.

And based on everything you told me about your situation…

Your #1 issue to solve right now is meeting more women and overcoming your social anxiety.

I want you to understand you're not alone in this. This is one of the top 3 issues guys tell me they're struggling with.

And no matter how severe the problem is for you right now... even if it feels lonely and hopeless... it IS possible to fix, and that's what I'm going to help you do.

I'll be sending you daily emails with tips, stories, special deals and practical takeaways you can use to meet more women and take control of your anxiety.

If for some reason you don't want to receive these emails from me anymore, simply unsubscribe by clicking this link here

Now, let me give you 3 practical things you can do right away to start meeting more women.

If you commit to doing these 3 things, I promise you'll see big changes in your life. Even though they don't sound fancy or special, real success is built upon getting the foundations right.

Tip #1: Get Outta Your Comfort Zone

Staying safe in your comfort zone is responsible for more wasted lives than anything else. Millions of people never follow their dreams or achieve their goals because they're afraid to take risks.

The same applies to meeting women and feeling confident in social situations.

If you're not getting the results you want, you need to change something in the actions you're taking.

Here's the key thing though:

Trying to dramatically change your actions all at once rarely works. You'll feel a lot of resistance and it's tough to keep it up long term.

Instead, start making small changes. Even if it's just saying hello to one new person each day, pretty soon your comfort zone will expand and you'll be confident taking more and more advanced actions over time.

And if it feels too scary to say hello to someone, then start by making eye contact and smiling at random people. You'll likely find that they smile back at you.

The key is to find the edge of what makes you slightly uncomfortable but doesn't completely terrify you, and go out and do that.

Tip #2: Forget About Bars And Clubs

A lot of guys think these are the only places to meet women.

There's nothing wrong with bars and clubs, but there are better places for you to meet and talk to women. Places where you won't have to deal with loud music, alcohol, and tons of guys competing for her attention.

It's actually easier to strike up conversations with women during the daytime while going about your life e.g. at the coffee shop, supermarket, public transport etc.

Another option I'd suggest for you is social events and groups focused around your hobbies and interests. A great site to find these is meetup.com, and they have groups in just about every city all over the world.

Not only is it easier to meet women at these events who you'll share common interests with, but you'll make new friends and greatly improve your social life.

Tip #3: Use Social Capital To Your Advantage

Here's where a lot of men go wrong:

They view every woman they meet as either someone they want to sleep with, or nothing at all. The problem with that thinking is not every woman will be available, and you're missing opportunities to add great women to your life as friends.

Even though she already has a boyfriend or husband, you can still add her to your social circle.

And I guarantee she'll have some attractive single friends she'd love to play matchmaker for.

The same also applies to guys. When you befriend other men they'll often help set you up with single women that they know.

What you're doing is creating social capital, where other people are vouching for you to their single friends. Rather than being a complete stranger, you come with pre-approval from someone they know and trust.

Ok, those are the 3 simple tips that I want you to start applying.

When you do, it'll make a tremendous difference to your dating and social life.

And if you'd like to see the top program I recommend to get good at meeting women if you struggle with social anxiety...

I suggest you check out Say Hello by Christian Hudson. It's the top-rated program on all of Dating Skills Review and it'll give you a detailed road map of what to say and do, and how to build up your confidence and inner game.

Christian used to suffer from social anxiety in a major way and the system he developed is how he overcame it to approach and date beautiful women."

Chapter 9.1 - Women

Note: This very playful strategy and it's very useful if you want to stand up from a crowd.

"How Sexual Is She?

It’s always a pleasant turn when you discover a woman’s sexual side. And it’s really fun when you can get it going over text messaging. You might be surprised to learn just how easy it is, and how many women want it to happen. I regularly monitor Google search terms, and discovered something fascinating.

“dirty texts to send to a girl”: 320 monthly searches

“dirty texts to send to a guy”: 720 monthly searches

Yep, more women are searching for dirty text messages than men. Pretty cool, huh? There’s something very private and intimate about text messaging that makes it the perfect conduit for sexual messages, and once you get into Phases 3 and 4, you can make some pretty cool stuff happen.

Sexual texting is almost always preceded by some degree of sexuality in person. I find that it’s much easier to start getting sexual with a girl over text after we’ve kissed each other. Getting “greedy” and trying to push sexuality too soon is risky, and in my experience, it’s more likely to mess things up than it is to move things forward.

The one caveat is that there are occasionally girls who – for whatever reason – you just don’t have the opportunity to see much. For example, I met a girl online who lived in California, and was moving to New York (where I live) about two months later. We had a great connection, and things quickly moved from online to text to phone. After a few conversations, we started talking sexual, and before I knew it, dirty pictures started showing up in my inbox. This can also happen with girls you meet when you’re traveling.

But – in general – sexuality is something that happens in person first, and on text second. The easiest way to start with with sexual nicknames: sexyface, cutie bootie, sugarlips, delicious – those are all great names I’ve used once we started talking sexual.

hey sexyface, get a good night’s sleep?

Once you’ve kissed her, you can start to turn up the heat considerably. Let’s say you were eating a watermelon, and sent her a photo of it. Your caption to the MMS might read.

yummmmm so delicious… just like ur lips

Accusations and insinuations are where you can really start getting sexual.

hey I was just checking my website’s stats today and found that someone was searching for [your name] naked photos… you know, you coulda just asked me…

ok nighty night, and remember… you better keep my clothes on in your dreams

The biggest problem I see with guys using this stuff is when they are trying to create, rather than grow, the sexuality that is already there. These texts go over GREAT if you have already established a sexual dynamic, but don’t write to me and tell me they didn’t work if you don’t already have a flirty, sexy vibe established!
Damn You AutoCorrect

Who hasn’t had a problem with autocorrect? Heck, there’s even a hilarious website that sprang up with funny autocorrects. Here are two examples of autocorrect that worked out well. Example 1 – In this case, a client had already had sex with a girl, and wanted to end a subsequent evening of texting on a sexual note.

client: ok bed time nighty night x

her: night night!x

client: i wanna fuck you in your bed and read you a story ;)

client: oops! damn! predictive text!…*TUCK you into bed*

her: hahahaaha! perhaps i’d prefer the 1st one ;)

client: if you’re lucky;)

Example 2 – this is great for when a girl is about to show up for a second or third date, there’s already some sexual chemistry established. In this example, she was actually texting me to tell me she’d was on her way – once she told me she saw it, I knew it’d be about two minutes before she arrived.

her: remind me where it is again?

me: upstairs bar, corner of w bway and houston next to dos caminos

her: ok I see it

me: ok see u in about 63 sex

me: errrr 63 secs

her: lol thought you’d invented a new move

me: maybe i have maybe i haven’t… but either way autocorrect isn’t getting credit for it ;)

It also adapts nicely for when she beats you to your date spot… you tell her that you’re waiting at the bar and she tells you she’ll be there soon.

her: I’m here at the bar

me: k super close, see u in about 63 sex

me: errrr 63 secs
Fun Games

These two games both came from clients. Very fun if things have already gotten sexual between the two of you.

client: wanna play line by line

her: Whats that?

client: Well we make a story but you can only send one sentence at a time

her: ahh ok

client: ill start, you walk into my room wearing nothing but that little black nighty

her: slowly walk over to the bed and start to kiss you

You can probably see where, if you were in a relationship with a girl and wanted to turn up the heat or just spark a great night, this would really light it up.

me: ok let’s play a game… I’ll send you one word and you have to think of a word that matches it, and vice versa

her: ok…

me: spank…

her: bondage

me: oral…

her: pleasure

me: deep…

her: hard

me: swallow…

her: wet

me: dripping…

her: orgasm

me: doggy…

her: style

me: hardcore…

her: omg , so turned on right now…

This takes advantage of the psychological effect of priming – if you have people reading certain words and saying certain words it primes them for certain activities. Here you are priming sexual urges with the girl. If you’ve already had a few dates that have turned into sex (2 or more), this one is a great way to precede the next date.
Getting Naked Pics

Sure, there’s a technique here, but more important than the technique is her comfort level with you – and comfort is something that’s established over time. If you follow the principles in the Girlfriend Activation System, you’ll find that girls will start sending you naked photos without much prompting.

The #1, gotta-have-it, most-important-thing that precedes her sending you naked photos is that she’s comfortable with you and your judgment, and she knows that you have a “trusted private space” with her. This originates in your values, and it’s not really something you can fake. There is some stuff in the Girlfriend Activation System that will help you communicate these values, but if it’s not where your heart is, she’ll know.

A few other important points: she already knows that you think she’s sexy. She also knows that you’re sexually mature – you’re not just some man-child who is going to show off her pics to your friends. It starts with an MMS exchange – this is something that should be “woven” into your communications with her, starting much earlier in your texting relationship. Sexuality will become a part of your relationship as you get to know her, date her and use some of the other material in this section. At some point, the two of these things (MMS and sexuality) will begin to intersect.

Some girls will take it upon themselves to send you photos of clothes they’re trying on, sexy (but not naked) photos, or pics of themselves at the beach, the pool, or other spots where they’re not wearing many clothes. Other girls will need a little bit of “priming.” You can start by sending her a pic of you in something that you look really good in… an awesome suit, new shirt… DON’T be cliche and send a shirtless pic at the get-go.

Go clothed first and ease your way into things. Once she replies to you, (usually it’ll be something complimentary), respond with “haha thanks… your turn now.” Once she starts sending you pictures, it is absolutely critical that you are complimentary. In the language of social dynamics, you’re “giving her approval” for sending you pics, and making her feel great about it. A few examples:

wow, that looks like the designer made it for your body

you are gonna make all the girls jealous in that bikini… that thing is ridic hot

wow what an amazing dress… lemme see the back, I bet there’s something awesome going on back there

Notice that nowhere in those is there a tease or a “neg” or anything else that would take away her value. It’s all about giving love and making her feel good. And critically, there’s nothing overly sexual in those messages. One time I had a client who sent a text that read “you’re gonna give at least thirty guys boners tonight in that outfit“. He wasn’t trying to be a bumbling fool, but that text was the sort of childish, locker-room sexuality that should be reserved for guy talk. Send a few texts like that, and you’ll be surprised at what girls will start sending you.

For those who don’t outright offer to start sending you pics, you can gently hint at how much you’d like to see her naked. Please note: you can’t just drop this stuff into the middle of a text conversation! That’d be like trying to have sex with a girl in the middle of the bar while you’re talking about some neutral conversation topic. You’ve got to get her warmed up with the stuff we’ve already covered.

me: hmmm my phone just got like ten degrees warmer when I opened that pic… super hot but if this keeps up you might cause it to melt

her: well then I hope you have insurance ;) [pic attached]

me: All these pics are amazing, but there’s one thing keeping them from being perfect…

her: Oh really, and what’s that?

me: Too much clothing. If only there was an easy way to fix that…

her: hmmm, how about this [photo attached]

me: Truly your body is a work of art

her: haha thank you ;) You’re not too bad yourself.

me: Thanks. But you know that some of DaVinci’s finest works were nudes, right?

her: I think I heard that somewhere, perhaps

me: I wonder how you would pose if he were to paint you

her: Do you think he would like this pose ;) ? [photo attached]

Note one thing that all of these texts have in common: I’m having fun with them. Rather than begging or pleading or evenasking her to send naked photos, I’m using funny insinuations. When you look at sexuality as a fun dance, or a game that is played with finesse, you’ll find that women become much more receptive to your advances. And if you’re creative with your praise and your requests, they has a lot of fun playing along and doing their part.

A final note on the subject of naked photos: there are some girls who just won’t send them to you, no matter what. It could be privacy concerns (smart girl), modesty, or otherwise. So if you’ve tried some of the above and she’s not biting, don’t push it further! It’s not worth pushing a great girl away just so you can get a naked picture of her."

P.S. - All convos are made to create an impact...

...

If you don't create an impact... no reason to start the discussion at first place.

...

"She has an iPhone, and so do you!
She likes how simple it is to use the
phone, (and for the sake of this
example, so do you).

This would never work out, because
you two would always be fighting over
who got to use the one charger next to
the bed at night. (BARRIER)

She likes to go hiking and camping. On
the other hand, you’ve only ever been
on vacations to beaches and big
touristy cities.
She loves being outdoors, and
challenging new adventures. You’ve
always wanted to experience the spirit
of the wild.

You’re going to take a hiking trip
together where she can show you how
to kill a bear with her bare hands and
avoid wiping with poison oak (TEASE).

Additional Thoughts: What does the fact that she likes “simple technology” and Apple tell you about her? How could you tease her or
build a connection with that? If you’re both huge Apple fans, you could FUTURE PROJECT about camping out for the next iPhone.

You could
add a BARRIER like “but I’m only sharing a sleeping bag if it gets really cold.” Or maybe the two of you could stay topical for awhile and talk
about your favorite apps. If you’re a “PC Person,” you have all sorts of teasing opportunities.

Additional Thoughts: A girl who likes to go hiking is pretty awesome! When she tells you that, you could give her a COMPLIMENTARY
TEASE like “oh, an outdoors-y type! have you ever killed a bear with your hands?” After the interpersonal TEASE above, you could jump back
into the Topic of camping (what do you eat, how does such a little girl carry a big backpack?) or you could go Personal and ask her how she
got into camping (maybe it was a Daddy-Daughter thing, and now you can ask about her relationship with her Dad).

They’re drinking girly drinks, and you’re
still deciding on what to have... or if you
even want to drink tonight.

They must be celebrating something if
they’re getting “girly drink drunk”
tonight - or they’re trying to get the
attention of all the guys in the room!
You might just have to keep your eye
on them. Out of concern, of course, as
the last time you got girly drink drunk
you swam to Scotland (SILLINESS)

Additional Thoughts: Swimming to Scotland was something silly that came to mind, and in this case, we framed it as concern for them.

But you could easily give them a FRAMING TEASE like “I better keep my eye on you guys - five blondes getting girly drink drunk is a recipe
for trouble. which one of you is the instigator?” Or if you want to make that funnier, add a silly metaphor - “I better keep my eye on you guys
- five blondes getting girly drink drunk is a more trouble than feeding chocolate to puppies. So which one of you is the instigator?”
Something outside of you and her
“Stuff”
Something inside of you and/or her
Beliefs, Opinions, Thoughts, “Why?”
Something about you AND her
Feelings, Vibe, Relationship, Plans"

Via Endlessconv_topicalpersonalinterpersonal (Desire System)"

Chapter 9.2 - Women

Note: If you want to learn something... first you need to start from the ground and start building... buildings... each building at first it's going to be

Level 1
...

then

Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5.... Level 10, Level 11, Level 12,... Level 13... and the numbers continues...

P.S. - So here is some field material

If she has a boyfriend:

- Make a Fun of that shit by saying something like

Wow... it's too fast... I have bondaries yo...
Sounds great... after all there will be a person who will bring a coffe while I am in bed
Oh great... I love that movie
Oh shit... me too... how long have you been in relationship?

...

Everything should be fun... what your main goal is to create impact... once that done... ask for a way to keep in touch... then... start again having fun and then ask for the phone number... - This is how you close...

...

Note: Models are not such a big challange... what you need i s to be playful, fun and charasmatic.

Note: The problem in us is that we alwahe care about somebody else... Too Much from that ingredient it causes damage in our body.

It could start from ingredient too much "fuck" to give... this means we always come with a good excuse of not doing some kinda action like if we want to talk to someone:

"Now it's not the right... time."
"My opinion is not good enough..."

- It starts from not being the right time up to my opinion not being good enough which means we lower the value of our opinion and by doing that action we lower and our self-esteem.

Note: This thing goes hand in hand...

...

It can be talking to a girl... aka approaching a girl.

"Now isn't the right time.."
"I am pretty busy..."
"Another day..."
"Tomorrow..."
"She is sexy... but I have work..."
"I can't do it alone..."
"I can't do it with this guy."

And plenty of people are having that kinda a frame .... mindset which ruins the whole game.

Note: Everything is bunch of illusions which we leave to control our life and our mood.

Note: What "Doubt" creates ... is false evidence... Appearing real.

P.S.: You can also pull it off... I did it... so do you!

How To Attract The Girl Of Your Dreams

You’re walking down a street in your city and you see her. The most beautiful woman you’ve seen all week. Those legs. That body. Her face. She’s stunning.

She is your dream girl.

She’s walking in YOUR direction.

You find yourself feeling nervous. Your mind begins to fantasize about what a life with her would be like…

What it would be like to have a girl this beautiful be your girlfriend…

What it would be like to go on adventures with her…

To have her hugging and kissing you excitedly when you come home after work…

And then she walks straight past you. You never see her again. You spend the rest of the day fantasizing about her. Then you get back to your every day life.

What if it didn’t have to be like this?

What if when you saw your dream girl, you knew EXACTLY what to say to get her attention, get her laughing, get her to come on a date with you, fall in love with YOU and become your girlfriend?

For the past 10 years, I’ve been helping men like you achieve just that. How? Using what I call, “Daygame”.

What is Daygame?

Daygame is the art of meeting and attracting amazing women without going to nightclubs. It could be while you’re walking down the street, in a clothing store, at the train station. It usually happens during the day, hence why it’s called Daygame.

The reason Daygame works so well is because it bypasses the negative response a beautiful woman would usually have if you tried to talk to her in a nightclub.

Here’s why…

Women Fantasize about Meeting a Great Guy During The Day

When women go to nightclubs, they expect to be hit on. They get approached by drunk guys all night so they’ve had to learn to put up a shield.

This shield makes it really difficult to get a great girl to like you.

Besides, no girl wants to admit to her friends and family that she met her boyfriend on a night out.

However, when you strike up a conversation with a woman during the day, you create a situation she’s been fantasizing about her entire life.

The reason women watch romantic comedies and read romantic fiction novels is because it plays into their fantasy of how they’ll meet the guy of their dreams.

In any classic romance story, the woman meets the man by some spontaneous moment and it’s almost always during the day.

Yet no one ever approaches a beautiful woman when she’s going about her day, apart from the occasional wolf whistle from a construction worker.

Once you learn how to strike up a conversation with a beautiful woman during the day, you’ll play into her fantasy of randomly meeting the guy of her dreams just like in the movies.

She’ll believe that YOU are the guy of her dreams.

This is the secret to getting the kind of women that usually wouldn’t even give you a second glance in a nightclub.

I want to show you exactly how. When you enter your email address below, I’m going to send you the exact techniques I use to attract the most beautiful women, despite not being a great looking guy.

I’ll tell you the 7 word sentence that stop models in their tracks every time and gets them intrigued by you.

I’ll also show you a simple trick for never running out of conversation when talking to a beautiful woman.

Why Direct IS NOT Always The Way Foward

I have come to detest the concepts of direct and indirect. Having taught daygame for 10 years now, I am convinced there are only 2 ways of approaching a girl, clever and socially congruent and not so clever and socially incongruent. For example it’s clever to go and directly compliment a walking girl on the street but for the myriad other situations a direct compliment is simply not socially congruent.

Imagine the amount of times a hot girl has been waiting for her friend, and a guy has gone up to her and paid her some sleazy compliment, mainly because she is a sitting duck. Over time, these girls have built up a Pavlovian reaction, reacting defensive and weary every time a guy pitches up in that sort of situation. Whereas an average guy simply has no clue about the Yad stop and therefore that situation remains romantic and beautiful to many girls out there. Perhaps not those that walk around Oxford street in London regularly and in other Daygame hotspots, but generally speaking.

In order not to trigger these latent bad vibes within these more stationary girls, you’re better off asking an easy-going and cheeky question and then only after a couple of minutes paying her a direct compliment.

Picture the scene, a beautiful girl has just ordered coffee and takes a seat. She is looking forward to some down time checking out the many likes she has received on social media for flaunting her juicy buttocks. Suddenly there is a knock at the figurative door, a guy is looming over her and going in with a very direct compliment, making her the centre of attention. Unfortunately the first thing in her mind is a Pavlovian reaction towards your beautiful direct compliment, flashbacks to all the other times she has been accosted when she is stationary and the guy has turned out to be a sleazeball. She therefore goes into defence/freak mode about the situation and starts looking forward to being left alone again. Herein lies the problem with going direct in this particular set of circumstances.

It would have been much cleverer to go over and ask her with a cheeky smile “Hi sorry to interrupt (showing a degree of social awareness is important here in calming her nerves) but do you know the best vibe around here for laptop work?” Now she becomes engaged in an easy going manner, she will talk about the best place she has come across in answer to your question, most importantly her mode isn’t defensive and you’ve shown her self-awareness as well as a bit of your good vibes.

Then you can say anything like “by the way, I like your tan, have you been on a beach holiday?” or simply carry on with easy going chat like “so you study around here?” “what subject?” she says “chemistry” you say “interesting, cracked any major discoveries yet?” And so on until 5 minutes later you can compliment her beautiful skin. The point is you’re not triggering her defence mechanism. This situation is entirely different from the classic Yad stop scenario, where you simply must go with a direct compliment, as it’s the only congruent thing to do.

Picture another situation, a beautiful young girl is ambling around in a shop, rummaging through the latest fashion gear. You go up to her and say “Hey I know this is a little random but i just saw you over there and i thought you looked really nice” you say it with a good vibe and she smiles. The only thing is she is a millennial with a large dose of social anxiety for anything like a direct compliment in a confined situation, she would prefer you followed her on Instagram and gave her pictures a like. So she slips away with a bit of anxiety about the whole situation, unprepared for your direct vibes in a tight situation. Now you feel like a weirdo and she feels awkward, yet you did everything right. What would have been much cleverer is to go over to her and say “Hey is this the best place to buy a girl a present?” again you wouldn’t trigger any social anxiety and after a few minutes of chit chat you can slowly sneak in a direct compliment. I am now convinced that this is the way forward for stationary girls vs moving girls.

It’s important that you strike a happy and cheeky tone when you ask the question, otherwise if you have a serious tone then you’re missing the point entirely, same actually goes for being direct, but here it’s even more imperative. It’s also important that the question is on the right side of easy-going, because if it’s too serious then you’ll get a serious vibe back. So for example “Excuse me do you know where I can get the best hipster coffee?” Is great, whereas “Excuse me do you know where X train station is around here?” Is way too serious and normal sounding. Basically you’re sub-communicating attraction and social awareness so she knows you’re asking because she is attractive. Trust me, when you go in with an easy going question and a cheeky sexy smile and vibe, she can easily deduce that you don’t really mean that question especially when the question is as silly as “where is the best coffee shop”. What you really mean is I think you’re cute and I wanna come over to speak to you but I didn’t want to put you on the spot in this tight situation.

I would also ass that girls over 30 this rule doesn’t apply to as much, as by that age they can take a good old direct compliments anywhere, any time, they are much more at ease with who they are by that point.

To sum it up: go clever and direct when she is moving and go clever and indirect if she is more stationary.

How To Be Happy In Life

How To Be Happy In Life & Why You Aren’t Already Happy

Hello, my name is Noah Elkrief. And in this video I’m going to answer the question – how to be happy in life? Before I get to how to be happy, I’m going to explain why the most common ways to make yourself happy won’t work, and will often create a lot of suffering. This video is going to save you a lot of time and energy in your life pursuing happiness from things that can’t make you happy.

What we are really saying when we answer the question “how to be happy?”

Commonly, we think of happiness as: If I get everything to be good enough out there, then I will be happy. But that neglects the most fundamental question, which is, what makes me unhappy? If you think a relationship will make you happy, you’re saying the cause of my unhappiness is being single. If you think success will make you happy, then you’re saying the cause of my unhappiness is not having success. If you think having a big house will make you happy, then you’re saying the cause of your unhappiness is not having a big enough house.

What really makes you unhappy… thoughts

But let’s take a moment and really ask the question – what makes you unhappy? You may think it’s very complicated, there are all different types of things that make you unhappy. However, it’s very simple, very, very simple. And the answer is – thoughts.

Thoughts create your worries about others’ opinions. When you’re not thinking are you worried about others’ opinions? No. Thoughts create anxiety about the future. When you’re distracted from your thoughts, is there any anxiety about the future? No. Thoughts create guilt about the past. When you’re not thinking about the past, is there any guilt? No. Thoughts create anger towards others, thoughts create resentment towards others, thoughts create arguments, thoughts create sadness about the past, disappointment, thoughts create your insecurities, your feeling of shame, thoughts create every piece of suffering you have in life. There is no bit of suffering not created by thoughts.

When you are distracted from thoughts, you are already happy

The proof is simply, when you’re distracted from thoughts, you’re already happy. Even if you’re, you may think your job is creating your unhappiness in life, but when you’re distracted from your thoughts at work, someone sends you a funny email or makes a joke, you’re fine. You’re still in the same job, the facts are still the same, but when you’re distracted from your thoughts, you’re already happy, right? So what that proves to you is it’s only thoughts that create your unhappiness.

No achievement can make you happy if it doesn’t delete your thoughts

So therefore when you’re pursuing a change out there, to make you happy, success, power, appreciation, purpose, meaning, love, kids, any of those things, what you’re essentially saying is getting that will eliminate all the thoughts from my head, or at least a large chunk of them. But can that really work? Take a moment and look. Will success eliminate my anxiety about the future? Will I no longer worry about what my boss thinks? Will I no longer worry about losing my job? Will I know longer have problems in my relationship? Will I no longer have insecurities about my personality, my appearance, my anything, my intelligence.

Every bit of suffering you have now, you will have then, except minus one thought that says my life isn’t good enough because I don’t have success. But you’ll have a bunch of new thoughts that creates suffering. Take a moment and really let that sink in. The only thing that creates your suffering, your unhappiness, is thoughts.

No activity will make you happy if it doesn’t delete your thoughts

So how to be happy? What will make you happy? Well, something that will get rid of your thoughts, right? Often times, when other people speak on how to be happy – they say you have to have hobbies, you need to have a passion, you need to have whatever. You have a hobby, it’ll distract you from thoughts a little bit, but then you go back to the same old thoughts that create your loneliness, your shame, your sense of lack, your everything else. So that can’t be the answer. Getting a relationship, will that be the answer? Well is everyone in a relationship happy? No. You have resentment, you worry about whether they’re going to continue to love you, you have jealousy, you have everything else that’s already in your life.

How to be happy? Stop trying to change external circumstances that aren’t creating your suffering

So what will make you happy? The real question is, how do I get rid of the thoughts that make me unhappy? That’s the question. And the first thing you need to do is, every time you experience any type of unwanted emotion, like anxiety, sadness, disappointment, any emotion. Our automatic reaction is something out there is to blame. If we’re stressed – I need to change my job, I need to change them, why is it like this? If we’re angry – they need to change, why do they do this? So the first step is, when you experience any type of suffering, any unwanted emotion, stop. What is the real cause of this emotion? Is it really something out there? Or is it a thought in my head? When I’m distracted from this thought, am I suffering? No. When I don’t think about it, am I suffering? No. As soon as I start thinking about it, what happens? Suffering.

How to be happy? Address the cause of your suffering

The only cause of your suffering is thought. So every time that you suffer and you try to change something out there, you’re not addressing the cause of your suffering. So instead, when you experience some sort of emotion that you don’t like, look, what stories am I telling myself? What thoughts am I saying? So if I have a job interview coming up and I have anxiety, I don’t say “Well I hope this goes right. Once the interview’s done, I’ll be fine.” You look, what story am I telling? The story is, it would be bad if I don’t get the job, right?

How to address the thoughts that make you unhappy

Once you’ve identified your unwanted emotion, the first step is to identify the thought, or story that’s creating your unwanted emotion. Once you identify that thought, then you need to question it, investigate it. Is it true? Because when you discover a thought in your head isn’t true, the suffering goes. Instantly, immediately. Not something you have to practice and master, or anything – instantly it goes.

An example to show you how to eliminate an unwanted emotion

If you have a job interview coming up, and you think it would be bad if you don’t get the job, that thought will create stress. If you want to lose that stress, you simply ask – am I sure? Do I know it would be bad for my life? I never had the job, how do I know I’ll like it? How do I know I’ll like my co-workers? How do I know I won’t get fired next week because I can’t do the job? How do I know I won’t be on my way to work one day and get hit by a car? I’m just saying, how do I know?

Or you can ask a different set of questions to disbelieve the idea that it would be bad if I don’t get the job. Well maybe if you don’t get the job, you’ll get another one next week that pays more and is a better fit for you. Or maybe by not working you’ll meet someone that changes your life. Or maybe you’ll read a book that makes you happy. I don’t know, but you don’t either.

Suffering is created by believing you KNOW what is bad

Any time you decide something is bad, that thought will create suffering. But, if you believe that anything is bad, it is because you haven’t investigated whether it’s really true, whether you know it to be true. When you discover that you don’t know whether something is good or bad, there can be no suffering. So looking at the job interview for example, if you don’t know whether it’s best or worst for your life to get the job, then there’s nothing to fear.

Facts can’t create emotions

If you’re angry at someone, or sad about something that happened, you look. It’s not created by what happened, because if something happened that was really bad, let’s say somebody got hurt or somebody cheated on you. If you didn’t know about it, would you suffer? No. It happened, but you wouldn’t suffer. Why, because you didn’t have any thoughts about it. But as soon as you start to think about it and you suffer and you think, “Oh, my sadness and anger is created by that.” No, it’s not. It’s created by the thoughts in your head.

Do you know what is bad?

If you want to stop feeling sad and angry, you just need to investigate whether the thoughts in your head are true. When you have sadness or anger, you’re saying something that happened was bad. But how do you know? Do you know all the future effects of that outcome? Do you know that there won’t be any good effects that come from it? When you’re saying something is bad, you’re saying it’s bad for my happiness. But what makes you happy?

If the relationship ends, you think that’s so bad. But the relationship couldn’t make you happy, couldn’t get rid of your worries, your anxiety, your shame, your insecurities, anything. So how do I know this will be bad for my happiness if it didn’t make me happy? It gave me moments of pleasure, but everything gives you moments of pleasure. Ice cream, TV, music, anything, a hobby. Anything can give you a moment of pleasure, but you don’t want moments of pleasure, you want to live with happiness. This is how to live with peace, live with happiness in every moment. You see?

How to be happy all the time

Any time you are suffering, the way to be happy is to simply identify the story or thought that’s creating your emotion, and then investigate whether it’s true. And in order to help your investigation, here is a link to a free web app that takes you through 5 steps that helps you to investigate whatever emotion that you have. You’re also welcome to look at my other videos to see how to address each type of emotion.

But just summarizing what we spoke about here, if you want to be happy, the first natural question you have to ask is, “What makes me unhappy?” Which is thoughts. Then if you want to know whether there is something that can make you happy – can success make me happy, can wealth make me happy, can purpose make me happy? Well, can it get rid of the thoughts in my head? Can a hobby make me happy? Can a passion make me happy? Well, I might enjoy it while I do it, but am I going to do it in every moment? Am I going to have anxiety when I’m doing it? Worries? Sadness? Any of that? Insecurities? Stop. If you want to be happy, you need identify and address the cause of your unhappiness, which is thoughts. That’s it.

Thank you for reading this blog post about how to be happy

I hope you enjoyed this video on how to be happy, or more importantly you recognize the obviousness of the truth. That simply, you want to be happy and thoughts create unhappiness. So you have to address thoughts – there’s no way around that.

Chapter 10 - Tips

If you have problems with pornography here is what will help 99% guarantee...

1) Open one set of window and load porn (Turn it on) - Start watching it (Let it make you horny... let it make you feel the feeling of wanting to masturbate)

2) Open 2-3... sets of windows load more porn (Turn it on) - Start watching it (Let it make you horny... let it make you feel the feeling of wanting to masturbate)

3) Don't do anything put your hands on your desk or whatever place... but away from your dick

This here are tips for guys

4) The moment you can't hold yourself and you want to play with your dick... now it's the time to start making yourself...

5) More tired..

...

Exercise... exercise... exercise... until you get tired

push-ups

pull-ups

...

ANd whatever comes to your mind or Parkour exercise... practice and practice

.....................

Be Observant... observe and observe... what is she wearing... what is he wearing ask them about it... ask them if's and why's...

...

Don't be like others be different... try to leave the whole conversation with a positive impact....

Chapter 10.1. - It's Not Rejection

It's not rejection if you are having fun and the person who rejected had fun with you... your goal is to leave an impact. If you are having fun with the crew with which you are doing the pick up thing is great... but if you are working with a crew which has no idea about Mr. Nice Guy (Aka Needy) and Mr. BadBoy (Who is he and how he gets there)... and they are more like nice with girls and do nice stuff and expect stuff from girls this crew is going dump you in the trash.

First because they have no idea about how everything works, they don't know how to make sombody to invest in something, they don't have the same goals and what could happen.... and people like this type are having obsession... because they know that they can't pull out the same trick to other girl... it's just not possible for them... it's just happen like a miracle.

MORE

P.S. - So go outside and apply theory... practice and practice and then go home after all this field and analysis.

Note: It's awesome to be weird... that's what is going to push you.... along the way.

Note: Always it's time for constant action... get somebody who is going to put you in pressure... you don't want the best seducer the best in dating world... you need somebody who isn't stopped from anything... I mean... somebody who doesn't care if he does get rejected... he likes to try... that's who you need.

Chapter 10.2 - Spot LIGHT

Conversation Skills For Rebels

Its time for a revolution in conversation skills advice. We’ve been misled by the existing “regime” and I’m here to set you all straight.

“People will never forgive you (if they even notice you) for being boring.”-Fredrik EklundA Rundown of Conventional Conversation Advice

As a verbal skills coach, I get numerous e-mails and messages every month from readers and subscribers asking me how to improve their conversation skills.

It seems like many people are struggling with this area of verbal skills. And, yet we wonder why?

The conventional wisdom about conversation advice and conversation skills is just flat out incorrect.

Everywhere you look, Reader’s Digest, Time Magazine, AskMen, Fast Company, you will find half-baked, virtually useless advice.

So, let me recap for you the conventional conversation advice that is out there, tips that I’m sure most of you have heard before (and maybe even tried):

1. Be interested in others.

2. Be a good listener.

3. Ask lots of questions.

4. Know and use interesting conversation topics and conversation starters.

5. Talk about and share your passions and interests.

6. Tell stories.

7. Be polite and inoffensive.

8. Have “deep conversations”.

I’m sure you’ve seen and read these bits of advice many times, right?

And, I bet you even tried quite a few of these tips in your real life conversations.

Now, after you used these tips, did your conversational skills actually improve? Most importantly, did your conversations themselves get better?

Probably not, right?

Conventional conversation advice is fine and dandy…IF you want to be a MEDIOCRE conversationalist and have SUBPAR conversation skills.

I sure don’t and I bet neither do you. We don’t do mediocre around here.

Why Conventional Conversation Advice Sucks

Let me debunk for you each of the eight common conversation tips that I laid out above:

1. Be interested in others

While it is not wrong to be interested in other people and their lives, how does this advice actually improve your own conversation skills?

The reality: What this advice does is transform you into a passive participant in a conversation, but it sure doesn’t make you into a better conversationalist.

2. Be a good listener.

Similar to the first tip, this advice does not make you a better conversationalist and it also makes you a passive participant. I hate these first two tips the most because they are probably the two most well known conversation “tips”, yet all they do is to make you into someone who places the burden of making conversation on other people.

Don’t ever put the burden of making conversation on others.

You need to start taking OWNERSHIP of every conversation that you get in from here on out, and that means going far beyond mere listening.

3. Ask lots of questions.

Somebody who asks lots of questions in conversation is most likely somebody who has nothing to say, no value to give, and again, burdens others with the responsibility of leading the conversation.

You may think that by asking aimless questions, you are leading a conversation. You may think that by asking lots of questions, that you are showing that you care about other people’s opinions, interests, and lives.

But, this is not the case.

4. Know and use interesting conversation topics and conversation starters.

While this is not terrible advice, the problem with memorizing “good” conversation topics and conversation starters is that it lacks flexibility.

There is no such thing as a bulletproof conversation topic or conversation starter.

A topic that seems interesting to you could be like a sleeping pill to someone else. A conversation starter may work well in one situation, but be completely useless in another.

Knowing “good” topics and starters is not the panacea you may think it is.

Instead, you need to know how to take any topic, even the most mundane topic, and weave it into an interesting, fun, and exciting conversation.

5. Talk about and share your passions and interests.

Just like “good” conversation topics, sharing your passions and interests have the same fundamental problem. Your interests may not be other people’s interests.

Even more egregious than that, when you talk too much about your passions and interests, especially in an aimless way, the conversation becomes a one-way street and not a two-way exchange.

The greatest conversationalists can conjure up a great conversation without talking about themselves or any “good” conversation topic.

Great conversationalists can make something (great) out of nothing.

Great conversationalists can make something (great) out of nothing.

6. Tell stories.

It is all the rage right now to hear advice about how you “should tell stories”.

Yes, stories can be quite fascinating and interesting.

However, as with anything else, most people take things to extremes and they will tell stories aimlessly or go so far with their storytelling that it becomes a one-way street (just like people talking about their passions and interests).

It is okay to tell stories, but only when stories serve a specific purpose within the context of a conversation, and not just for the sake of telling stories.

7. Be polite and inoffensive.

Being too polite, politically correct, and inoffensive is the biggest killer of a dynamic conversation.

I can’t think of a type of conversation I dislike more than one where all the participants are afraid to say anything even remotely edgy.

I think I’d rather listen to someone’s rambling, pointless story than to participate in a conversation where nobody is willing to take any risk and is content to have a completely vanilla conversation.

8. Have “deep conversations”.

Some people like to think “deep conversations” are the best and only kind of conversations that people should have.

I completely disagree.

At least 95% of the time, I prefer to have a different type of conversation than a “deep conversation”, which you will learn about now.

Eight Principles For Conversation Revolutionaries

Conversation Skills For Rebels

I don’t know about you, but I’m so done with conventional conversation advice.

Go ahead and cling to this gospel if you think this advice helps you. It never helped me at all.

My conversation skills never improved when I followed this advice. All it led me to have was mundane, uninteresting conversations with people, including those with girls.

Look: If you want to actually have interesting, fun, and exciting conversations with other people, its not actually that difficult. But you have to discard the nonsense about conversation skills that other people feed you.

It’s time for a revolution in conversational skills!

Let’s talk about how we can overthrow the conventional wisdom on conversation skills. Instead of conforming the existing “regime”, it’s time to rebel and create a new paradigm for conversations.

Damn you Dale Carnegie!

So, here are the eight principles for conversation revolutionaries that I want you to memorize if you want to EXCEL at conversation skills and become someone that EVERYBODY wants to talk to and have conversations with:

1. Instead of being so damn interested in others, focus on being interesting YOURSELF.

2. Instead of trying so hard to be a good listener, focus on HAVING SOMETHING TO SAY.

3. Instead of asking lots of questions, use questions INFREQUENTLY and only in certain specific situations.

4. Instead of worrying about knowing good conversation topics and starters, learn HOW TO TALK ABOUT ANYTHING IN AN INTERESTING WAY and HOW TO CREATE A SPECIAL CONVERSATION OUT OF NOTHING.

The truth is that it is not certain TOPICS that matter, but it is certain TYPES of conversations that light up everybody’s eyes in a conversation and make them want to take part.

The truth is that it is not certain TOPICS that matter, but it is certain TYPES of conversations that light up everybody’s eyes in a conversation and make them want to take part.

5. Instead of sharing your passions and interests in a monologue-type of conversation, learn to CREATE TWO-WAY CONVERSATIONS that get everybody else involved.

6. Instead of telling aimless, pointless stories, tell stories in a PURPOSEFUL FASHION.

7. Instead of worrying about being polite and inoffensive, you need to GET A BIT EDGY with your conversations going forward.

8. Instead of focusing on having “deep conversations”, focus on having FUN, EXCITING, AND EDGY conversations.

How To Increase Your Verbal Fluency

Note: This guy is total genius

...

So it's time to deal with misconceptions!

Have you ever wished that you could come up with the right words to say on command, but you rarely can? Don’t you hate it when the right words don’t seem to come to you when you need them most? If so, you will want to learn how to increase your “verbal fluency” so that you can become more eloquent and never face these issues again.

At The Art of Verbal War, we are all about helping people EXCEL in verbal skills. If verbal skills were an automobile, instead of driving the car around (i.e. talking about WHAT to say/HOW to say it) like we usually do on this blog, in this article we are going to look under the hood.

By “looking under the hood”, what I mean is that we will explore the “engine” behind excellent verbal skills, i.e. the brain, where words are produced and then uttered through your mouth.

And in this article, more specifically, we will discuss the “horsepower” behind the brain, which is the concept of “verbal fluency”.

Knowing what to say or how to say it is useless if our brain fails to rev up the engine when you step on the gas pedal. This is where verbal fluency comes into play.

What Is Verbal Fluency?

Before we get to how to increase your verbal fluency, let’s first get definitions out of the way.

“Verbal fluency” is a cognitive function that facilitates information retrieval from memory.

In the field of speech-language pathology, they will describe people who stutter as being “verbally dysfluent” or as having a “verbal fluency disorder”.

In the realm of neurology, they find that patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s as having low or impaired verbal fluency.

We’re getting way too technical already, and here at The Art of Verbal War, we are all about making things simpler and less complicated, so let’s do that.

Verbal fluency, simply put, is the ability to find the right words at the right time or in the right situation. And, it’s a great thing to have in abundance.

The more horsepower a car has, the faster it can go 0 to 60. So, just like a car, the more verbally fluent you are, the faster your brain can find the right words to speak.

A few examples of the types of situations you need high verbal fluency in would be answering job interview questions, flirting smoothly with a girl, sitting up on stage in a press conference and answering questions from the press, or standing in front of a jury and cross-examining a hostile witness.

A person in any of these situations, and many other situations, will need to call on his/her verbal fluency in order to succeed in them. If your verbal fluency is not up to par, you will not kick ass in these situations.

Even More On Verbal Fluency

Verbal fluency is a collection of various cognitive processes, and not just one discrete process.

Various studies have shown verbal fluency to be connected to working memory, switching ability, response suppression, and fluid intelligence, among other cognitive processes. It makes intuitive sense that many different cognitive processes are involved in helping you be verbally fluent.

Again, let’s look at this at a more layperson level:

When you have a high level of verbal fluency, you will have an easier time translating your thoughts into spoken words. So, if you want to become more eloquent and verbally skilled, among other things, it is vitally important that you learn how to maximize your verbal fluency.

A Framework For Increasing Verbal Fluency

Now, let’s get this out of the way. I am not a medical professional or scientist, so everything you will learn in this article should be read with that in mind. Please seek professional advice as you deem necessary.

Having said that, now let me share with you the framework/thinking behind the tips I am about to share with you which have worked for me to develop and enhance my own verbal fluency. Here’sthe framework:

From a neurological standpoint, you are looking for ways to decrease your cognitive load and to increase your working memory. Anything that helps support these two goals should, in theory, enhance your verbal fluency.

Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory.

In other words, “cognitive load” is the total amount of mental activity imposed on working memory in any one instant.

And, “working memory” is the part of short-term memory that is concerned with immediate conscious perceptual and linguistic processing.

In other words, the ability to remember and use relevant information while in the middle of an activity…like speaking.

Distractions, age, level of knowledge about a subject, difficulty/complexity of a subject, the way information is conveyed, the sheer amount of information being conveyed, and other things (many of which we don’t even know yet) affect the amount of cognitive load that is put on the working memory. For example, an audio-visual presentation format imposes a lower cognitive load than a visual plus text format, because in the former case, working memory has less information to process.

Now that you understand the framework and the goals we are trying to achieve, let’s move on to my ideas that you can try to enhance your own verbal fluency.

Ideas To Increase Verbal Fluency

When I was in my third year of law school, I took a trial advocacy class. I was extremely excited to conduct my first mock trial ever. Visions of becoming the next Johnny Cochran filled my mind.

I didn’t prepare as well as I should have so when I was in the middle of that first trial, I encountered some difficulties with the cross-examination and I panicked. I stumbled my way to the end of the trial and the verdict was delivered. I had lost my first “trial”.

That day, I learned that that in the heat of the moment, the right words eluded me in a way that they didn’t when I was merely practicing.

This revelation led me to consciously work on this weakness of mine, and after many years of trying to improve on this weakness, here are some ideas for you to try if you want to increase your verbal fluency:

1. Control Your Emotions

As I found out in my mock trial back in law school, I let my emotions get the better of me. What I have found out is that when I get emotional, my verbal fluency decreases.

Remember back to last time you were verbally insulted. It probably made you extremely upset, and then you couldn’t come up with a comeback at all, right? Let me tell you why. It was because your emotions completely took over, and as a result, your verbal fluency went to zero.

After you’ve calmed down, but way after the person who insulted you was no longer there, you had no problem coming up with a zippy comeback.

Does that sound vaguely familiar?

This makes sense because emotions cause an increase in cognitive load on your brain, and so there is less horsepower available to use for verbal tasks.

In fact, a 2014 study by Buchanan showed that high stress can negatively impact word retrieval, leading to less fluent speech.

Another 2005 study by Gardner showed that “communication apprehension” (also known as communication anxiety) also has an impact on verbal fluency.

So, anything that you can do to train yourself to stay calm and detached, such as meditation or heart rate variability training, will help with verbal fluency. Of course, these two methods are a longer-term plan for helping your verbal fluency.

Heartmath emWave2 - Heartrate Variability Trainer

Heartmath emWave2 – Heart Rate Variability Trainer

In a specific, short-term situation, anything you can do to limit negative emotions and putting yourself into a relaxed state will help with verbal fluency in that particular situation. Removing, eliminating, reducing, or managing acute stressors in these situations will also help with your verbal fluency in the moment.

2. Eliminate Multi-tasking

Even though a lot of people love to multi-task, researchers have found that multi-tasking behaviors increase cognitive load and can affect your verbal fluency.

Again, this makes a lot of sense intuitively. It’s much more complex to perform more than one task at a time, so the cognitive load is greater on your brain.

3. Check For Underlying Conditions

A number of medical or psychological conditions may adversely affect your cognitive functioning (and therefore your verbal fluency), such as depression, low testosterone, ADD/ADHD, among others. If you think you suffer from any of these conditions, I strongly encourage you to get them checked and managed, and you may find your verbal fluency improving along with the underlying condition.

It may also be possible for you to work with a psychologist to get your verbal fluency tested directly if you think you are suffering from abnormal levels of verbal fluency.

A book I recommend to help you assess (and potentially even self-help) yourself brain function before going to a doctor is Younger Brain, Sharper Mind: A 6-Step Plan for Preserving and Improving Memory and Attention at Any Age from America’s Brain Doctor by Dr. Eric Braverman.

Another great resource is Dr. Daniel Amen’s Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.

Again, please seek professional help and advice before performing any self-help or self-treatment.

4. “Know Your Shit”

This may seem quite obvious. I alluded to it earlier.

When talking about a specific subject, you have to “know your shit”. The less knowledge you have about a subject, the more cognitive load there is on your brain when you’re talking about that subject.

Let’s say you are going to give a talk about turtles. If you don’t know much about turtles, how verbally fluent can you hope to be in your talk? Probably not very much!

The more you know about a topic, the more verbally fluent you will be when talking about that topic. Simple, but of course, not easy.

5. Beat Gestures

A 2007 study by Hostetter and Alibali found that the use of “beat gestures” is correlated with higher verbal fluency.

“Beat gestures” are small, rhythmic movements that emphasize certain words or phrases without conveying specific information about the meaning of those words or phrases.

A 1996 study by Rauscher, Krauss, and Chen showed that hand gestures “facilitate access to the mental lexicon”. These two studies were not the only studies in the literature that showed the same thing.

In other words, using hand gestures (especially rhythmic ones, i.e. beat gestures) when you speak should increase your verbal fluency.

6. Working Memory Enhancement

If verbal fluency is the “engine” behind verbal skills, then working memory is like the spark plugs. Of course, verbal fluency is the collection of all the engine elements, but without the spark plugs, the entire engine is useless and will not run.

As such, it stands to reason that if we improve our working memory, then verbal fluency should increase. The main way to train working memory is using brain training/brain games. I use them daily in order to maintain and hopefully enhance my working memory.

FOR A LIST OF SUPPLEMENTS, BRAIN GAMES, AND OTHER IDEAS TO HELP YOU INCREASE YOUR VERBAL FLUENCY

Conclusion

Again, I am not a scientist and in this article, I am merely sharing ideas based on what has worked for me. These are only ideas and concepts, and I will be updating this article as I learn even more about this mysterious area of verbal fluency. I hope I gave you enough to help you started on your journey towards enhancing your own verbal fluency!

Chapter 11 - Roger

Note: I have found some good shit... now yet is the time to decipher it.

1) Fake the state
2) Write Down each day your little wins in a journal
3) Start A Journal
4) Some of things which you know or you have learn from other books or videos or audio books could be wrong..

...

And the way you dress doesn't matter just put few things which make you unique...

My Style provocative
...

Also go carefree mode stop caring just do shit!

Chapter 12 - My Style (Aka Provacative)

So enough bullshit

Image result for Blazer

Note: Oh... god the last two girls look super-hot I would like to fuck them.

- This also sucks

...

The whole thing could cost something like

$100321 and for what so much money?

...

So here are few things buy:

A Watch

1) Which looks expensive

2) Which is suitable

3) Which is cool

4) And it's cheap

A Ring

1) Which looks cool

2) It's suitable

3) It's going to make you way more cooler

4) It's cheap

As for what to wear and what to have as a shoes and so on and so on

Image result for Provocative T-Shirts

I CAME HERE TO DRINK AND FUCK AND I'M ALMOST DONE DRINKING RUDE CRUDE TSHIRT

WIFE WASHING IRONING FUCKING * OFFENSIVE TSHIRT RUDE T's

DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING PEOPLE PERSON OFFENSIVE RUDE TSHIRT

I DIRECT MIDGET PORN FUNNY RUDE TSHIRT

YOU'LL DESERVE IT EVENTUALLY MIDDLE FINGER RUDE GESTURE TSHIRT

INNER CHILD MEAN LITTLE FUCKER OFFENSIVE TSHIRT

HEY KIDS THERE IS NO SANTA RUDE TSHIRT OFFENSIVE CHRISTMAS T-SHIRT

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, FUCK ME OFFENSIVE TSHIRT

Such T-Shirts Cost from 20$ Up to 30-40$, my style is wearing provocative T-Shirts... it could be something from a Metal Band Or Punk or Gothic Style.... but it looks cool and makes you look as a interesting person.

Most people wear clean T-Shirts... like only white or only black or only yellow and so on and so on ... that's not my style such people I have seen and they look in my opinion as people who do not understand T-Shirt style... do not understand fashion... come on... to be clean looks like typical GreyMan (Grey Man Are people who are wearing what others are wearing and trying to be like others so do not look outstanding as persona.

As for jeans something like

Image result for jeans

Related image

Image result for jeans

Image result for man jeans

Such shit is more likely official clothes

Image result for Shoes

Note: THis shit sucks... such shoes suck!

Image result for Shoes

P.S. - Such shoes like this are cool... and with all this shit... are going to close the topic.

BONUS

Note: There are stores which sell such watches like this one for 25-35$ or something like 50$ ... the original price of this shit is something like 200$.

Chapter 13 - Extra Material

F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way by John C. Parkin (Stop giving a fuck... no need for this shitty ability...)
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray (I really didn't get the idea in this book... but whatever....)
The Porn Myth: Exposing the Reality Behind the Fantasy of Pornography by Matt Fradd (Porn could be a leading factor of not getting progress in life... if you want help with this area... go and check out also and Brain On Porn (Social #1) and (Social #2)... this are books written by me... and what you can find there is material from articles and other books put aside in two books...)

Note: At first I wasn't sure for this area to go and start showing how people to do deal with this problem... because I was in the same state.... I was a junkie... watching pornography monthly like 5 times or in a week I go in a row like 3-4 times... one day max can get up to 2 masturbations... I was going around such material watching Porn Documentaries up to porn studies and reading a lot to find a way to fix this problem so after all I fixed this problem... now in a month I can up to once or few months to be off the road and then to do it once.... or let's say there is a chance if you do what I have suggested aka building healthy habbits and replacing the bad habbits... you could get rid of this masturbation problem as long as forever....

Your Brain On Porn by Gary Wilson
The SoSuave Guide to Women and Dating by Dating Expert
Conversation Crack by Jason Capital
Zero Limits: Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone by Craig Beck
Real World Seduction by Swinggcat

Note: Each here book has effected me in a way to focus in different areas in my life up to the style of writting this books like (Junior Talker #) - Book Series, I won't stop you from reading and all other books... probably I have miss some aspects in other books... or while going throw some material I have miss understand some conceps....

Also and Youtube Channels like:

Sasha DayGame
Tom Torero
Sol Dating And Lifestyle
RSD Luke
RSD Tyler
RSD Max
RSD Jeffy
rsdtour
RSD: Jullien

- In those channels you can find some good material around the pick up world and also how to get and more socialble.

Chapter 14 - Secret (MAGIC)

Note: YOu need future projections... if you gonna speak with girl and want more from her...

Note: Shoove off ... fuck off and go on your ride.

Chapter 15 - Secret (MAGIC) (Part 2)

P.S. - I study "How to seduce man...", It doesn't mean that I am gay... but I study the pull strings and things which people do unconsciously...

Avoid These Words In Conversation

By Min Liu | Verbal Skills

If you want to become a better conversationalist, you need to avoid certain words in conversation unless you want to become known as a “conversation killer”. Learn what those words are in this article and never use them again! More importantly, you will also learn five conversation techniques you can use instead of these conversation murdering words.

How Conversation Is Like Football

It’s September and football season just started (American football, for those of you who live outside North America) and I’m sure many of you reading this are quite excited about that.

Now, the one thing that’s not exciting about football is when referees keep throwing frequent flags for phantom violations.

The game is flowing and moving at a nice pace, but every time a referee throws a flag, the flow of the game comes to a complete stop while the referees figure out what happened.

After a few more times of this nonsense, you feel like changing the channel.

The game becomes unwatchable and you just want to throw something at the referees on the screen.

When you use certain words in conversation, you are just like an overzealous football referee throwing a flag and disturbing the flow of the conversation. Not just disturbing it, but completely murdering the vibe and flow of the conversation.

Trust me, when you use these words in conversation, your conversation partners will want to tune you out like a football game that’s been dominated by too much referee screen time.

When you do this, you will become known as a “conversation killer”, and trust me, that’s a reputation you don’t want to have.

“Dead End Words”

The words that I’m talking about are what I call “dead end words“.

You may not realize it, but most people (including myself) are guilty of using way too many dead end words in conversation.

Dead end words completely make whatever conversation you’re having hit a wall. As soon as the dead end word is muttered, the conversation loses all momentum.

Okay, so here is the list of the most frequently used dead end words:

1. “Cool.”

2. “Nice.”

3. “I see.”

4. “Interesting.”

5. “That’s funny.”

6. “That’s cool.”

7. “Wow.”

8. “Oh.”

9. “Okay.”

10. “Mmm.”

These words do nothing to advance a conversation.

Instead, the conversation dies not a slow, torturous death, but an immediate, bullet-in-the-brain gory death.

Dead end words are not even words that are used because you have an honest feeling to convey, but merely because you don’t know what to say next or because you’ve gotten accustomed to using them out of reflex.

These words give your conversation partner nothing to respond to and place the burden of making further conversation on them, which ultimately makes you an inconsiderate conversation partner.

Even when you don’t mean to be inconsiderate, you are at a minimum being an ineffectual, limp conversation partner.

So, starting today I want you to start eliminating this habit of using dead end words.

An Example of Dead End Words

Here’s an example of how dead end words destroy the vibe and flow of a conversation:

You: “What did you do last weekend?”

Your Friend: “I went to Los Angeles last weekend.”

You: “Oh cool.”

Your Friend (feeling a bit frustrated): “I was there to attend a wedding.”

You: “Wow.”

(Now, your friend is really frustrated. What do you think happens next?)

Your Friend: “Okay buddy, I gotta go. Talk to you later.”

Do you see how when you use these dead end words, the conversation completely dies?

Every single person in a conversation bears the responsibility for not letting the conversation die, but in this case, you failed in your responsibility.

What To Do Instead: Five Ways To Keep A Conversation Going

Now, you’re probably asking: “Well, what should I do/say instead of dead end words?”

Well, I’m going to tell you right now. Pay attention!

Instead of allowing a conversation to come to a dead stop with a dead end word or dead end phrase, you need to have techniques to keep it going, so here are five ideas for you for how to keep a conversation going (using the Los Angeles example you just saw above):

Technique #1: Relate

You can just relate to what the other person is saying:

Your Friend: “I went to Los Angeles last weekend.”

You: “Oh, I went to L.A. last month too and had a fantastic time!”

Technique #2: Connect The Dots

You can “connect the dots”, which means connecting what the other person said to something else that is related to what they said:

Your Friend: “I went to Los Angeles last weekend.”

You: “You did? Talking about L.A., the Dodgers are doing terrible!”

Technique #3: Make A Statement

You can make a statement, in this case, you would just make a statement about Los Angeles.

Your Friend: “I went to Los Angeles last weekend.”

You: “You did? L.A. is just awesome, especially the weather. I’m totally jealous.”

Technique #4: Go Macro

“Going macro” means taking the subject of the conversation and getting broader with it. Here’s an example:

Your Friend: “I went to Los Angeles last weekend.”

You: “You did? Vacation time is just the best time of the year. I can’t wait to go on vacation myself.”

Technique #5: Go Micro

“Going micro” is the opposite of “going macro”. Instead of getting broader with the subject, you “drill down” into the subject itself. Here’s an example:

Your Friend: “I went to Los Angeles last weekend.”

You: “You did? Where in L.A. did you stay? Beverly Hills, Hollywood, or some awesome beach city?”

If you want to learn about “going macro” and “going micro”

So, there you go! There are five time-tested, effective ways to keep ANY conversation going.

Simple right?!

Chapter 16 - Rape Method (Part 1) (WOW)

Note: I hate people who say "Wow"... as the privious chapter was said... "Wow"... "cool" are deadly conversation words which kill conversation...

What more can kill conversation is repeation of data and stories... it doesn't feel cool... once okay... twice okay... but too much investing and living a privious moment and not living in "Now"... soon is going to fuck you over....

- Look it happen...!? Okay!?

...

Now let's go for the next ride... don't invest in past events... no active money you can get from there... or

CAN YAAAAAAAA!?

Note: Little off the bridge... but what happens if escalation goes so far that you become a rapist?

....

Talking about Dating Advice

Police Interview Shows How Rapists Think

“I am not a rapist. I am a good guy."

Raymond Gates, an Ohio man who was sentenced to nine years in prison for the rape of a 17-year-old, tried to explain his crime away by blaming everything but himself.

Raymond’s police testimony highlights common ways that perpetrators try to shed blame for their crimes. A Periscope video, livestreamed by 18-year-old Marina Lonina, showed the young woman yelling “no, it hurts so much,” “please stop,” and “please no,” according to police documents provided to Teen Vogue. Lonina was sentenced to nine months in prison for obstructing justice.

“It was consensual,” Raymond told Columbus, Ohio Police Detective Brent Close, according to a police interview summary.

“She tells me, 'Yes, everything's cool.' She's cool with making out. She's cool with us getting naked. She's cool with us being there, Then all of a sudden, you know, a couple of seconds before... I mean, I'm sure. That's what happens, girls are like 'Oh. It's just going to hurt' and stuff like that,” Raymond said.

He added: “She just got, like, last second. Like, 'I don't want to do this.' Then we started doing it and everything was cool.”

“This girl came back to my house, she's eighteen, she's a virgin. She's telling me she wants to lose her virginity, man, like that she's ready to do it and everything. And then right a couple seconds before, and she's like 'I don't know,' and stuff like that. I mean, that's how girls get when they lose their virginity,” Raymond said, according to the interview summary.

“I am not a rapist. I am a good guy. I have only been with a few women. I am not a rapist,” he said in a police interrogation video.

“After I’m inside of her she’s like stop. I’m already inside of her at that point, man,” he continues. “It hurts when a girl gets her virginity taken… [this accusation] is news to me, buddy.”

For anti-rape activists, there is no valid excuse Raymond could have provided. “You can say no, and no means no, and it’s over. You’re breaking the law by continuing when someone says no,” said Alison Berke Morano, a co-founder of The Affirmative Consent Project.

“When it came down to it, she said no,” said Brian Pinero, vice president of victim services at RAINN, an anti-sexual assault organization. “No matter what was going on before, the response to having intercourse was no.”

The victim told police that after the rape, she cried as Raymond spooned her. Before she left, she asked him why he had assaulted her. He told her that “he did not know what taking a girl’s virginity was like and he thought she was okay with it,” according to the police document.

By bringing up the woman’s sexual inexperience, Raymond was blaming the victim, Pinero said.

“That’s just a poor excuse to justify actions and it’s not it does not matter what level of experience someone has sexually. It doesn’t matter if it’s their first time or their 20th time having sex, no is no,” he said.

“They’re super common excuses,” writer and activist Jaclyn Friedman said of Raymond’s statements to the police. “What they tell me is he really does not care about her. He wants to find excuses to wipe it away.”

The victim described herself as “very intoxicated” — at one point, she was sitting on the bed, talking to Raymond. She tried to stand but stumbled back. That’s when he got on top of her and began kissing her, according to the police document.

“In general, someone who is slurring their words, stumbling, unable to be coherent, or obviously passed out, is too drunk to consent. Additionally, we often mistake issues of alcohol and consent for being about not knowing how drunk someone is. The reality is that people can use alcohol like a date rape drug,” sex educator Lena Solow wrote in Teen Vogue.

“Most of the time the perpetrators know, they just don’t take it seriously. You hear in this guy’s narrative, he hears her say she doesn’t want to, and he just blows right past it,” Friedman said.

“It’s victim blaming,” Pinero said. “To me it doesn’t matter what’s involved. If the word no is given, it’s over.”

Note: Comedians... get rid of pain... by talking about it and joking about it... Normal people... who are out of comedy are like others... try to forget about it... and actors... just continue rolling... it's life the film tape won't stop because of a piece of shit like you.

Note: Good Adevice for people who over-do stuff... come on you suckers.

A woman interviewed 100 convicted rapists in India. This is what she learned.

NEW DELHI — In India, many consider them “monsters.”

Madhumita Pandey was only 22 when she first went to Tihar Jail in New Delhi to meet and interview convicted rapists in India. Over the past three years, she has interviewed 100 of them for her doctoral thesis at the criminology department of Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom.

It all started in 2013, first as a pilot project, months after the highly publicized gang rape and murder of a woman now known as “Nirbhaya” meaning “Fearless One.” The details of the case — a young, aspirational medical student who was attacked on the way home with a friend after watching the movie “Life of Pi” — struck a chord in India, where according to the National Crime Records Bureau, 34,651 women reported being raped in 2015, the most recent year on record.

Nirbhaya brought thousands of Indians to the streets to protest the widespread culture of rape and violence against women in 2012. That year, gender specialists ranked India the worst place among G-20 countries to be a woman, worse even than Saudi Arabia where women have to live under the supervision of a male guardian.

[An Indian teen was raped by her father. Village elders had her whipped.]

“Everyone was thinking the same thing,” said Pandey, who at the time was on the other side of the world, in England, finishing off her master’s. “Why do these men do what they do? We think of them as monsters, we think no human being could do something like that.”

The protests forced a national conversation about rape, a topic which still carries huge stigma in India. Pandey, who grew up in New Delhi, and saw her city in a new light after the Nirbhaya case, said: “I thought, what prompts these men? What are the circumstances which produce men like this? I thought, ask the source.”

Since then, she has spent weeks talking to rapists in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. Most of the men she met there were uneducated, only a handful had graduated high school. Many were third- or fourth-grade dropouts. “When I went to research, I was convinced these men are monsters. But when you talk to them, you realize these are not extraordinary men, they are really ordinary. What they’ve done is because of upbringing and thought process.”

[Why an Indian judge thinks rapists should marry their victims]

In Indian households, even in more educated families, women are often bound to traditional roles, Pandey said. Many women won’t even use their husbands’ first names, she pointed out. “As an experiment, I phoned a few friends and asked: what does your mom call your dad? The answers I got were things like ‘are you listening,’ ‘listen,’ or ‘father of Ronak’ (the child’s name).’”

“Men are learning to have false ideas about masculinity, and women are also learning to be submissive. It is happening in the same household, Pandey said. “Everyone’s out to make it look like there’s something inherently wrong with [rapists]. But they are a part of our own society. They are not aliens who’ve been brought in from another world.”

P.S.- Wait... wait... I hate indians... they are the most disgusting race ever existed on this planet... no insult further on (just move on if you don't get the joke...)

Pandey said that hearing some of the rapists talk reminded her of commonly held beliefs that were often parroted even in her own household. “After you speak to [the rapists], it shocks you — these men have the power to make you feel sorry for them. As a woman that’s not how you expect to feel. I would almost forget that these men have been convicted of raping a woman. In my experience a lot of these men don’t realize that what they've done is rape. They don't understand what consent is.”

[She was raped at 13. Her case has been in India’s courts for 11 years — and counting]

“Then you ask yourself, is it just these men? Or is the vast majority of men?” she said.

In India, social attitudes are highly conservative. Sex education is left out of most school curriculums; legislators feel such topics could “corrupt” youth and offend traditional values. “Parents won't even say the words like penis, vagina, rape or sex. If they can't get over that, how can they educate young boys?” Pandey asked.

In the interviews, many men made excuses or gave justifications for their actions. Many denied rape happened at all. “There were only three or four who said we are repenting. Others had found a way to put their actions into some justification, neutralize, or blame action onto the victim.”

One case in particular, participant 49, sent Pandey on an unexpected journey. He expressed remorse for raping a 5-year-old girl. “He said ‘yes I feel bad, I ruined her life.’ Now she is no longer a virgin, no one would marry her. Then he said, ‘I would accept her, I will marry her when I come out of jail.’”

The response shocked Pandey so much that she felt compelled to find out about the victim. The man had revealed details of the girl’s whereabouts in the interview. When she found the girl's mother, she learned that the family had not even been told that their daughter’s rapist was in jail.

Pandey hopes to publish her research in the coming months but said she faces hostility for her work. “They think, here comes another feminist. They assume a woman doing research like this will misrepresent men’s ideas. Where do you begin with someone like that?” she said.

Chapter 17 - Rape Method (Part 2)

Note: Sometimes... the advice on the internet... sounds like a typical rape guide for how a beta male to fuck alpha chicks... or in our case alpha fucks....

- Look escalation is good stuff and girls can do it... it builds comfort and boys can do it... it get go in a direction friendly or something more there are different paths.... but if they don't want and if it doesn't go by the book ... what then?
...

ARE YOU ARE RAPIST!?

Why I became a sex offender and started raping women

When it comes to rape, much of the focus is still on the victim’s behaviour - but what we should be asking is, why do sex offenders do it? A convicted rapist tells his story.

John's story*

I’ve got a rape conviction and two indecent exposure convictions. The rape happened first, in 2001. But, if I'm honest, I think I’d already started offending when I was 15. I’m 46 now.

I didn’t have much of a conscience about it when I was younger. No conscience at all. I was just out to get what I wanted, damn everybody else. It wasn’t about them, it was about me. Obviously I don’t feel like that anymore, but it's taken me a long time to leave that mentality behind. It took me going to prison and doing six years of treatment programs and counselling afterwards to feel different.

I got three years for the rape. I did 18 months, came out for about two weeks, got recalled for indecent exposure, spent another year in prison, came out, started to offend again - it was indecent exposure again - and got put back in. I spent three years in prison in total. I’ve been out for six years now.

I grew up in a little town in Oxfordshire. I was part of a rebellious crowd. We did drugs and weren't very serious about school.

I had lots of relationships, but I wouldn’t describe any of them as romantic. I was looking for one thing: sex. That’s what my life was about when I was that age, chasing girls.

I became very preoccupied with pornography and sex. I was very promiscuous. I’m not as promiscuous now as when I was younger - after all the courses I’ve done I’m a bit wiser about it. But when I was younger, oh, anybody. Whoever I could latch on to.

I was already offending back then. I did it because it was exciting. It was a buzz. It gave me a certain feeling of power over that person. I wouldn’t have said it then, but it’s obvious to me looking back that I was lost and out of control.

I’d had some very bad experiences as a child and I was trying to make myself feel good again. I wanted to feel in control. But it didn’t work. It didn’t make me feel any better.

AT A GLANCE

Common drivers of sex offendingDominic Williams is a Senior Co-ordinator at Circles, a service for convicted sex offenders returning to the community.

Rapists tend to have very low self-worth. They usually have one of two, if not both, of the following major issues:

A deep unresolved anger towards women

Usually rooted in childhood experiences such as domestic violence. It’s counter-intuitive, but boys often blame their mothers for allowing domestic violence to happen. Their offending is about power, more than sexual gratification, and comes from a desire to humiliate the entire gender. This is sometimes called “anger rape”. They’re often the ones who will murder women as well as rape them

Great difficulty establishing relationships

Due to having been abused, neglected or abandoned as children. They often suffer from bottomless need, coupled with the fear that if you love someone they’ll leave you. These men will abuse women in an act of distorted intimacy. They'll say they just wanted to hold her, and you have to point out they had of pair of scissors to her throat.

In 2001, I raped my girlfriend. We’d been arguing and she’d left the house for a while and when she came back… I was very drunk. I forced her into the bedroom. I didn’t plan it. I still don’t completely understand why I did it. But I have a better sense of what triggers this behaviour in me now. I was under a lot of financial stress at the time. I wasn’t feeling good about myself. And I was drinking too much, which didn’t help. Now, I try not to drink at all.

I wasn’t shocked that I’d raped my girlfriend. I’d done it already in my past. I did feel bad, but more about the fact that I’d been physically rough with her than about the rape. It wasn’t until I’d spent about a year in prison that I started to understand how much I’d hurt her. Not just physically - really hurt her. Knowing that is going to affect me for the rest of my life.

When I woke up the next day, my girlfriend was gone. And, about a week later, I got arrested. The police just walked in and arrested me. I was in my underpants and slippers at the time.

I decided to plead guilty. Because it happened, and, for all my faults, I’ve never been much of a liar.

They’ve got a special wing for sex offenders in the prison I went to. I met all sorts of men in there: doctors, vicars, airline pilots. The sex offenders come from more varied backgrounds than the other offenders. They tend to be a bit older and more educated.

While I was in therapy in prison, I talked for the first time about what happened to me in my childhood. I was sexually abused for about two years, from when I was seven. I was abused by people who were friends of my family, a man and a woman, and I suspect that my family might have been aware of that.

And I do think it played a part in my later offending. Because I felt powerless for a long time after that, and my offending was always more about power and control than anything else. But that’s just me. That’s just one person. Other men I met in prison had very different stories.

A lot of people were in denial, not taking responsibility for their actions. Some people would say the woman had led them on, things like that. It’s easy to say it was her fault. But I realised the problem was me. It’s me. It’s not other people around me. The problem is me.

Nobody knows what the other inmates have done, except for the people you’re in group therapy with. I met a few men in my groups who were very ashamed of what they’d done. But I also met lots of men who had no guilt about their offences whatsoever. And, probably, when they’re released, they’ll go out and do it again.

It’s an attitude that, if I’m honest with you, I grew up seeing around me. I think some men like to boast and get away with things. It makes them feel like the big guy. And some men just think they’re superior to women, don’t they? They think women belong in the kitchen or in the bedroom. That’s pretty much the message I got from my father. And I suspect there´s countless men out there that feel the same way.

As I got near the end of my 18 months I realised I didn’t want to be released. I felt daunted by the thought of going back into the community. I was worried about keeping my behaviour under control. And I knew I’d have to disclose my offences to future employers if I applied for certain jobs. It puts me off trying. But that’s no excuse. I have to get a job. I’m unemployed and living in a homeless hostel at the moment.

When I committed the indecent exposure, I was only two weeks out of prison. And, honestly, part of me just felt, "please put me back in". There was an element of trying to shock people, too. I wanted to be noticed. I was trying to get attention. It was a bad way to go about it obviously. But my whole attitude to intimacy, to relationships, wasn’t normal.

As soon as I was released the last time, I made contact with Circles, a treatment program for sex offenders returning to the community. I was told: "If you’ve got any issues, if you’re thinking of reoffending, you can ring these people up and talk to them."

AT A GLANCE

Sex offender treatment programmesDr Jackie Craissati, Clinical Director and Head of Forensic Psychology at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

The majority of sex offenders leave prison and we need to make sure the community is safe when they do. Sex offender treatment programs (SOTPs) halve the reconviction rate among high risk sex offenders. The following programs are available in UK prisons:

Core SOTP: Focusses on the decisions which led to the offences, and their impact on othersExtended SOTP: For higher risk offenders.

Examines how the path to offending developed, in the context of deeper personal problemsBooster: Guidance on managing or avoiding risky situations in future.

Taken after Core or ExtendedAnti-libidinal medication, or “chemical castration”: Now being trialled at Europe’s biggest sex offender prison, HMP Whatton in Nottinghamshire. Research suggests very low reoffending ratesOffenders won’t get treatment if:They deny their offencesbecause they have to be prepared to talk about itTheir sentence is less than 3 yearsThey’ll generally serve 18 months, of which 12 will be spent on a waiting list, leaving insufficient time to complete treatment, which lasts around 9 months

They’re all volunteers at Circles. They’re given special training, but they’re just ordinary people. To be honest, I wondered why on earth people would volunteer to do this. But they've made me realise there are people out there who want to help. And that makes me feel better, because sex offending is very stigmatised, obviously. It's a very difficult thing to open up to people about.

I saw them weekly for the first few months. And pretty much every time, I went home feeling I’d been enlightened in some way. They challenged my thinking.

For example, I met my last girlfriend when she was in rehab for drug and alcohol abuse. When I told them about our relationship, they said, “Oh, that’s nice. She’s probably a bit vulnerable, isn’t she? She’s been in rehab. And you’re a bit vulnerable, rebuilding your life right now.” It made me stop and think, “what am I doing? Am I taking advantage?” It’s things like that.

They also made me ask myself why I was thinking about sex all the time. I constantly have to work at that, at shifting my mind on to other things. It isn’t healthy. But - maybe it´s just getting older - I think I’m finally growing out of it.

Also, I avoid certain things. I only watch news and documentaries on TV. There’s too much sex in other programs and it was beginning to drive me mad. And I avoid pornography. I was saturated with the stuff as a kid, it was too much. Now I don’t watch it at all.

It’s also important for me to avoid stress. If things get stressful I have to work especially hard to think about something other than sex and offending. I don’t want to be thinking about that. It’s taken me a long time to break out of those patterns.

Circles has helped me tremendously. I think if I hadn’t had them I’d be back in prison again, for the same crimes, because I wouldn’t have dealt with my problems. I still meet them whenever I need to - about once a month. It makes me feel stronger knowing I have someone I can check in with and talk to instead of just going mad at home. It’s important to me to have that.

I decided to tell my last partner about my offences. Bloody hell, I was nervous. It was like dropping a bombshell. I said, “I need to tell you something.” She let me talk and then she said, “Thank you for telling me.” I think she was shocked, but she dealt with it really well, much better than I expected. We talked about it. But we’re not together anymore.

I’ve thought about getting in touch with my ex-partner, my victim, but I think it would probably be damaging for her. I did remain in contact with her for a long time after I was in jail and I think we said all we had to say. I got to tell her I was sorry.

The thing that stops me from reoffending now is that I don’t want to be that person that hurts people anymore. I’ve done a lot of hurting people, and it doesn’t feel good. I’m a different person now.

*not his real name

Why Do Men Rape?

Note: I enjoy misery of others
...

And when you feel bored:

"A decent girl won't roam around at nine o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy," - A Rapist

A 14-year-old girl and her mother are raped by a group of eight men for three hours; a 16-year-old gang-rape victim sets herself on fire in Morocco after the rapists threatened to publish photographs of the ordeal; a 20-year-old girl is gang-raped in Haryana by the same five men who had raped her three years ago and were out on bail...I could go on and on about the rape cases that have made headlines in the past six months alone; and research shows 67-84% of rape cases are never even reported.

The rape of women by men has occurred throughout recorded history and across cultures. In India, brutal rapes and gang-rapes have become daily news. Each time we feel things cannot get any worse, men across this country, as if taking that up as a challenge, shock us with another brutal incident.

While we get angry, join protests, and demand that rapists be hanged to effectively fight this age-old evil, we need to spend more time understanding it so that we can fight the cause and not the symptom.

So why do men or groups of men rape?

1) Because they can

In a study done in South Africa, when rapists were asked about motivations, men indicated that rape most commonly stemmed from a sense of sexual entitlement. Professor Jacqueline Bhabha says, "Once the sense that women are less important in some way is endemic and accepted, as it is, once large sections of Indian society accept that women are there to service men, that men are justified in hitting their wives, then pervasive gender violence comes as no great surprise."

2) Because she deserves it

A 2012 report by UNICEF found that 57% of Indian boys and 53% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 think wife-beating is justified. A recent national family-health survey also reported that a sizable percentage of women blame themselves for beatings by their husbands. And if violence is okay, then what's to stop them from sexual violence?

A research also showed that rape is often seen as a punishment directed against other women.

3) They were just having fun

In the South African study, after interviewing thousands of convicted rapists it was found that it was often an act of bored men (alone or in groups) seeking entertainment. At home, our leaders and top officials have time and again made rape sound like nothing more than a game. Take a look for yourself:

Ranjit Sinha, head of Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI): “If you can’t prevent rape, enjoy it.”

Om Prakash Chautala, former chief minister, Haryana: “Girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don’t need to go elsewhere. This way rapes will not occur.”

4) Because they will get away with it

Three words - police reforms, police reforms, police reforms! The Justice Verma committee, formed after the Nirbhaya rape case, had highlighted the police and judiciary reforms that are desperately needed in the country in order to prevent and deal with rape cases. None of these have been implemented.

The rapist is highly likely to get away with his crime. Even if he is caught, India's court system is painfully slow, in part because of a shortage of judges. A Delhi high court judge once estimated it would take 466 years to get through the backlog in the capital alone.

5) One of them start it, the rest just follow

Psychologist David Lisak, an expert in violent crimes says,"Groups of individuals can be far more positive or far more negative, that’s the nature of group dynamics. If you have a group of men, all of whom have various levels of frustration in their lives, and who feel powerless and angry for the things that are not going well in their lives — if you have one person in that group who begins to provide the group with an outlet and a target, then that can lead to violence. If they’re in a culture where there are a lot of messages about the entitled role of men, the culture can provide some very ready scripts for violence."

6) Because they are men, real men

Sociologist Beth Quinn argues that other men are often the intended audience and that harassment has much more to do with keeping women in their place than with sexual attraction. Logically, gang rape is explained more by men’s “need” to perform gender control for other men than it is explained by any kind of “irresistible” sexual desire. The psychology of gang rape is aided by numbers, by underlying aggression, anger, and misogyny, by “cult of masculinity”.

7) Because physically brutalising her makes men feel better about themselves

Psychologist David Lisak says, "There is nothing new about human beings targeting a vulnerable group. Not so long ago it happened in Nazi Germany where Jewish groups were targeted by an angry population. Rape is a particular form of violence."

If a culture provides a lot of messages like - “If you’re a successful man, women will fall all over you” - men that grow up there may feel emasculated, or angry, when that doesn’t happen. Hence violating another person makes them feel better about themselves. What is needed to address this problem is a wide range of systemic and far-reaching measures. Just wreaking vengeance by issuing death penalties is not the solution. It satisfies a lust for biblical retaliation without opening up a space for much-needed rational, national soul-searching.

Chapter 18 - Rape Method (Part 3)

Note: Don't over do happiness....

...

Rape-Method

...

Rape-Method is the method when everything which knows... sounds like a knowledge of total rapist....

P.S.: I call this brag out bitch

Won’t Someone Think of the Rapists?

Being interviewed for The Evening Standard self-confessed rapist Tom Stranger, who shot to fame when sharing a stage with the woman he raped for a T.E.D talk said, “In South of Forgiveness we speak about the ‘monster myth’ and how rape is seen as an inhuman act. I see it as part of a specific problem. It’s almost like escapism.”

I find myself constantly returning to Tom Stranger and Elva Thordis’s talk and interviews (I have not yet been able to bring myself to read the book). I find so much of it problematic as I have explored in various pieces here, here and here. I suppose as someone who has been raped twice, both times by men I thought were my friends and both times after I had been drinking — Elva’s story strikes a cord with me. Also like Elva I’ve spent much of my adult life working to end sexual and (in my case) domestic abuse. Each time I read something new about Stranger and Elva I feel the urge to dissect it, to explore what they are really saying. And I think that is of value, given how many millions of people have been exposed to their story and the effect it is having on how we collectively think about and approach rape and rapists.

I would argue that while most people abstractly think of rape as an inhuman act — these values aren’t backed up in action. In values that play out in actuality most people actively attempt to nullify the existence of rape, by victim shaming and blaming and allowing perpetrators off the hook so readily. The essence and goal of rape culture is to normalise sexual assault against women, so in acted — upon values rape is not seen as an inhuman act and therein lies the problem. In fact rape is so normalised that it took Stranger himself 9 years and a confrontational email from his victim for him to realise he had raped someone. Rape has become so distressingly common that worldwide 1 in 3 women will be victims of male perpetrated sexual violence. Which leads us to ask the question how many men in 3 are rapists? Or men in 5? Or men in 10? We don’t know those figures, because no one is researching how many men are rapists. Rape is framed statistically through how many women will be victims — not how many men will rape.

It is hard to know exactly what Stranger means by “It’s almost like escapism.”, is he referring to rape? the term ‘rapist’? When asked by the interviewer Stefanie Marsh what did he mean by that he continued,“I think the term ‘rapist’ disallows any further analysis because it is a branding of someone as opposed to a behaviour.”

Yet ‘rapist’ does not require further analysis — it is the term we use for someone who has raped someone. That a rapist is arguing to not be branded a rapist is a bit rich. Stranger then says, “If you Google ‘Tom Stranger’ a lot of the headlines include the word ‘rapist’. I don’t know if it’s my place to question that term — it is factually correct and I’m not looking to refute it. But it’s a weaponised term. The semantics of it — it’s the grandest of sins. No one in their right mind would ever want to call themselves a rapist. I understand that. The discourse around that word almost isolates it. It is reductive to the point where it doesn’t get past the labelling. Being a rapist is unforgiveable — something beyond any kind of redemption or understanding.”

Stranger seems confused about what a weapon is, one thing a weapon is is using your strength, privilege or status to insert parts of your body into someone without their consent. Rape is a weapon, not the term rapist. Rapist in this case is simply a statement of fact. The truth cannot be weaponised when it is freely and openly admitted by the man himself. Furthermore rape is not in actuality seen as the ‘grandest of sins’ in terms how we treat men accused of or convicted of this crime. Far from it. Men routinely get away with raping women, with even those that are found out often forgiven and welcomed back into their jobs, sports clubs and communities with open arms. Some of them even receive standing ovations and awards or have dozens of people lining up to shake their hand. Even legally, rape is not seen as the ‘grandest of sins’ with only 5.7% of rapes reported to the U.K police resulting in a conviction,(and with only 15% of rapes reported that is a lot of rapists in our communities). And like Stranger himself, in some cases even self confessed rapists will serve no time in prison .

This brings us to the last of stranger’s quotes from the Standard interview, “Being a rapist is unforgiveable — something beyond any kind of redemption or understanding.”

The idea that families, friends and communities do not regularly forgive rapists couldn’t be further from the truth. In the T.E.D Q&A Stranger tells us how his own family responded to the news that he was a rapist.

“I am blessed with a loving, understanding and supportive network of friends and family, who have, for the most part, seen me as more than my actions. Primarily, the reactions I’ve received have been receptive, quiet and thoughtful.”

Stranger’s family and friends were “loving, understanding and supportive.” And that is the real problem we should all be talking about. That rapists are so readily forgiven, without having to be accountable or make reparations of any kind, rapists are accepted and shown love and support. I have worked with dozens of women who were victims of sexual and or domestic violence and I cannot think of one case where the perpetrators family and friends did not rally around them and attempt to discredit the victim. The most common societal response to men who perpetrate violence against women is to victim blame and keep on supporting the abusive man.

Imagine if the response from the family and friends of a perpetrator was to be disgusted and appalled? What if they wholeheartedly supported the victim instead of the rapist? What about the if the rapist was not allowed back into the lives of his friends and family until he had shown that he fully understood and realised the severity of what he had done and had dedicated his life to repairing the damage he had done to the woman? That would be a TRUE consequence for men to feel, that there would actually be serious repercussions from their friends and family if they hurt women. How many men do you think would rape women if they knew everyone, even their family and friends would rally around their victim?

We all have a part to play in rape culture. My bold idea is to start holding men to a higher standard. I have to wonder would Tom Stranger have raped Thordis Elva if his family and friends had done the same.

Part 2

Suicidal....

Chapter 1 - Those days

Do you remember those days... when people come to you and you are happy to see them... to know them... but one moment they are gone... their promises are gone and you are fucking confused... it happens once... then twice... tripple... and it continues... it could be not in the same year it could be after a period like after a year... or it could be after a month... and once this happens.. .twice and tripple... you are mentally fucked up...

It's fucked up when you read a book like this one or you watch comedy and use what you have learn into life and you are screw up... and you ask yourself "WHY?"... "WHY?"... "Why me?"... but this people are gone... probably they have blocked your phone number... and even removed you from friends... why and what has happen is a mystery... so much mystery it starts to wonder your mind.

Note: Special thanks To Jordan Peterson for making my life more organized.. . (Videos, pists and Lectures)
... This guy is great the moment when you start suffering... he can help you to go throw it.

P.S. - Suicidal thoughts are normal the moment when your discussions go to extreme level.... people just start to can't understand you... and this part missing it's whole level of suffering.... most people end their life's because there wasn't person for them to help them... to improve their state.

P.S. - Suicide is narrow way... as near you get as less space you get.

Note: What one suicidal person needs is people who feel the same way like him... once connection made and with the person with who the connection has been made his life has improved.... life gets easy.

Tip: Stop the boring topics and discussions try something unique as beginning.

Related image

Image result for Suicidal

- Suicidal is a state like... stress and depression both controling your life... it sucks...

Food is no longer tasteful

Life feels meaningless

You are bored

You feel confused

You feel like you don't have any other choices

...

I know that's kinda fucked up... I am writting this book and now I am telling you all folks that I wanted to kill myself... how fucked up is that? (I am over that... or kinda as for now as for the next few years like 3-4 years... I won't be so interested in suicidal... but this doesn't mean for the long run I won't go and kill myself...)

I should be the expert here... but how fucked up is when somebody promises you that you gonna see him... tomorrow or after few weeks and now he is gone from your facebook friends and has blocked you... so when you try to dial his number... it says "It's busy"... in our world means "HE HAS BLOCKED YOU"... and what now do you do... this is not like a book getting a feedback... or a movie and in the end the people who watch movie get what's the lesson... here it's life and in most cases silence... so there are days when life fucks you over... somebody beats you up for no reason... somebody doesn't get your joke and he gets angry or even going to talk to two girls and they say "GO AWAY"... this is not written in most dating books as option which could happen... in dating world it doesn't exist.

Chapter 2 - Bright Light

Yeah... yeah ... I stopped

Image result for nails job porn

I am over that shit... if I was watching porn.. I won't have written Brain on Porn... or even this book here... I won't be here.... So look when in life you don't get lucky you get mentally fucked up... so I kinda get fucked up... because people to gone from your life for no reason and even... stopping porn and again feeling that state in life when you feel like miserable like you don't have what to give to the world... oh god... I mess it up...

It's not really like porn... because if you are constantly watching you feel like junkie... when you don't watch it you feel great about yourself... but you ask yourself is there a way to give more value in life... is there a way to change more people is there a way to improve other people... because it's fucked up when you are with a group which is not serious and start judging you... as on being serious...

...

I had a chat with a guy who was so fucked up that in the end of the day.. .I felt worthless..

...

It was like... it was wrong to want at my age - 19 Years old... to party and to improve my social circle in his perspective it was damn wrong...

...

ANd in the end of the day...

I was like biatch crying and thinking about suicide... it wasn't at that time very funny or joky... I was like a guy who was jerking off a whole year...

...

Before you shoot yourself, read this book! by Jan Van Helsing (I am reading this book and it's kinda helping me to go throw the days in which I feel worthless... I saw light... deep down...)

P.S.: I am not sure is there a English or American Version of this book... but this book is originally made in a German Language.

Part 3

Way Out

Chapter 1 - N o N e e D F o r M o r E (Part 1)

There isn't a real reason for we to go deeper into the suicide topic... I just wanted to share this topic and to recommend the Jan Van Helsing book and also to tell a story about how life looks like if you can talk with people...

...

There are people who leave you for no reason and you feel fucked up... but the real truth you should move on.

There are people who aren't serious and in the end of the day you don't feel like you have done anything ... but the real truth you should move on.

There are people who don't keep their promises

and

There are people who don't say any promises

and

again the same story here ... but the real truth you should move on.

Look I can talk... I have read 710 books for the frame of 3 years and now I am reading 40 more books along the way... and still I try to apply what I have learn but it's fucked up when people don't get your jokes... I once got advice like

(Just act it... (you are now something like amateur actor who doesn't have any type of role in the movie... no any speech or anything to say... he is something like people in the movie... which makes the movie more realistic... I) - that was the main reason for my friend saying to me to act it... then he said to watch more comedy...)

- I am acting it and watching more comedy and I feel the improvement... but stilll when people leave you or things don't go the wanted way for example having a meet up with few guys one day like today you have to meet 5 guys at different time... and in the end of the day... you don't go and hangout with anybody... the problem isn't in you... but in the people who promised that they are going to hangout with you.

But in the end of the day 3 guys don't answer their phone... 2 others are saying we will see... time will tell... and few more guys say that somewhere for other period in this month we are going to meet... - AND ONCE THAT HAPPEN YOU ARE SOCIALLY FUCKED UP...

IT's like watching constant pornography... but the same content +10000 times.... and always you got the same problem and you don't know how to solve it... first it's okay... but on the long run... it fucks you up.

...

It's fucked up when somebody promises you that you are going to go out and now he doesn't answering your calls or let's say that you try to do what they have said and they don't do what you have suggested - How fucked up is that!?
...

All people want fresh new stuff... but they never apply the old-school shit...

NO NEED TO READ THIS MORE... IF YOU ARE WAITING FOR NEW WAYS AND STRATEGIES!

Chapter 1.1. - N o N e e D F o r M o r E (Part 2)

I feel guilty!

Image result for Pleasure

It's fucked up when you got problems like you don't know how to close a conversation!? Or you don't know what to say next!? Or you don't know how somebody to don't flake!?
...

Hey come on... somebody on a video saying stop reading and watching more content about dating... go and do it... and also says that on the long run you are going to get more success... and come on... how tha fuck am I going to get more success when now... I am not getting any type of sucess with women... they are flaking and flaking.. .and on the long run they gonna get attach!?

...

FROM WHERE DID YOU GOTTT THAT DICTIONARY, AIN'T COMEDIAN ... BUT YOU ARE LIEING LIKE PIECE OF PILE!

Chapter 1.2. - N o N e e D F o r M o r E (Part 3)

With porn the problem is fix... but with talking there is a big problem.. I am writting this book because along this long way I hope to find answer to my questions and to share with you...

...

So far I can help you with

1) Starting the conversation

2) Middle it

3) Being Funny

4) Being confident

5) Being care-free character

6) To be unique

7) To don't give a fuck

8) and etc

...

But I can't help you with some other parts with the conversation... I have got few successful phones and facebooks... and what's next... when you got that!?

- This question, bothers my mind!

Chapter 2 - OFFENDED

The Rape Culture Myth

The rapist isn't guilty for raping them
... they just had the clothes of a victim which is seeking somebody to rape her.

Introductory Note: In April 2015, I was one of the presenters at a symposium called “Rape: Challenging the Orthodoxy” at the University of Nottingham, organized by Prof. Candida Saunders of the University of Nottingham and Prof. Helen Reece of the London School of Economics (who tragically passed away from cancer at the age of 48 last October). After the symposium, Dr. Reece and Dr. Saunders asked the participants to contribute to a book based on the symposium. Unfortunately, publication plans fell through. I’ve been meaning to publish my essay, though, and it occurred to me that this is the perfect place to do that.

This is written in an academic format, with end notes and no links embedded in the text.

The critique and rebuttal of “rape myths” is a staple of feminist literature on rape. The catalogues of these “myths” — presumably false beliefs about sexual violence — are themselves debatable; they often include statements that are at least somewhat true (e.g., “women ‘cry’ rape”) as well as beliefs that have no cultural currency in modern Western societies (“men can’t be raped,” “most rapes involve black men and white women”). Nonetheless, it is certainly true that as recently as half a century ago, certain stereotypical beliefs about rape — for instance, that claims of rape often stem from women’s hysterical sexual fantasies, that women incite rape with provocative behavior or dress, or that a “real” victim will fight back to the most of her physical ability — often hindered justice in rape cases.

Yet in challenging the old rape myths, the feminist movement has created a set of new ones. For instance, as contrarian feminist Wendy Kaminer wrote in a 1993 essay, “It is a primary article of faith among many feminists that women don’t lie about rape, ever; they lack the dishonesty gene.” On a somewhat less extreme note, much feminist literature, including “rape myth” explainers, assert that only 2 percent of rape reports are false, same as for any other crime.As Massachusetts-based attorney Edward Greer demonstrated in an exhaustive analysis in 2000, this claim has no basis in fact and appears to be a “fictoid” circulating among various ideologically aligned sources.A more modest assertion is that 2 to 8 percent of rape reports are false.But even this claim is based on fuzzy data and rooted in an almost literal presumption of guilt: the belief that in every case in which the truth or falsehood of the accusation cannot be established with full certainty, the accused — even if tried acquitted in court — is guilty.

There are other feminist rape myths — for instance, that only one to three percent of rapists are ever punished. The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” hardly an anti-feminist source, rated this claim as mostly false (with “three Pinocchios” out of a maximum of four). It is based on faulty statistics that not only lump together rape and other forms of sexual assault including threats of sexual violence but disregard the fact that one assailant may have multiple victims.

But the overarching feminist rape myth is the myth of “the rape culture,” at least insofar as this term is applied to contemporary liberal democracies in North America and Western Europe.

Feminist scholars and authors have offered a variety of definitions of “rape culture.” The foreword to the 1993 volume of essays, Transforming a Rape Culture, offers the following:

[Rape culture] is a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

As one can see, this definition is quite broad, ambiguous, and debatable. Does “male sexual aggression” refer to violent and coercive actions, or to sexual pursuit and initiation? Can modern Western societies be said to support violence against women? Does all sexualization of violence, including consensual rough sex and BDSM (bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism), amount to “rape culture”? Do most women see sexual remarks as part of a “continuum of threatened violence” (and how can rape itself, which is not threatened but actual violence, be considered part of such a continuum)? What is “emotional terrorism”?

The concept of “rape culture” goes back to the mid-1970s. Susan Brownmiller’s 1975 book, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape portrayed rape as the ultimate act of male terror against women. Brownmiller argued that rape had played a “critical function” in patriarchal history as a form of deliberate terrorism: “It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.”

The same year, Cambridge Documentary Films, a small outfit run by activist filmmakers Margaret Lazarus and Renner Wunderlich, released a 35-minute film titled Rape Culture. One of its stars was radical feminist theologian and philosopher Mary Daly, who discussed discussing America’s “rapism,” “phallocentric society,” and “unholy trinity of rape, genocide and war.” (In later years, Daly explicitly stated that she is entirely uninterested in men, that she sees males as inherently deadly and destructive in contrast to life-loving women, and that the only hope for the planet’s survival lies in its “decontamination” by means of a “drastic reduction of the population of males.” She also chose to retire from her post at Boston College rather than admit male students to her classes.)

Reviewing the documentary for the journal Women & Health, Judy Norsigian of the Boston Women’s Health Collective summed up its message as follows:

In a society where men are taught to be sexually active and aggressive, while women are taught to be sexually passive, it comes as no surprise that rape is a problem. Rape is almost the logical consequence of the extreme acting out of these split sexual roles. We need to learn and re-learn that rape is not primarily the act of an aberrant individual who is behaving in conflict with the predominant values of society. Rape is a pervasive cultural problem, a social ideology regularly sustained and perpetuated by the TV-movie-radio-newspaper-popular culture network.

The feminist critique of attitudes toward rape had some resonance in part because there is no question that the abhorrence of rape in Western society coexisted, for a very long time, with undeniably ugly attitudes. We react with horror today to stories of young women in Third World countries being pressured or even forced to marry their rapists; but similar practices once existed across Europe, and survived into the 1970s in Italy. In the United States, as recently as forty years ago, juries could be formally instructed to consider evidence of a woman’s “unchaste character” — from extramarital liaisons to the use of birth control — as detracting from her credibility as the complainant in a rape case, and the failure to fight back in a demonstrably threatening situation was not uncommonly treated as consent. Some of these practices were related to the legitimate difficulties of sorting out the facts in cases based on conflicting accounts, with little or no physical evidence of force; but they also reflected prejudice against women who were seen as less worthy victims.

Feminist claims about rape culture have been further fueled by cultural tropes that sometimes legitimized or romanticized coercive sex, blurring the lines between male sexual conquest/female “token resistance” and forcible violation. It is worth noting, however, that the most prominent examples of romanticized sexual violence in fiction — from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and its famous film version to pulp romances such as the 1974 best-seller Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers — come from female authors and, in many cases, have been popularized largely by female audiences.This suggests that these scenes represented, more than anything else, a female ravishment fantasy that allows women raised with traditional moral codes to imagine illicit sex without guilt and to feel “swept off their feet” in a safe setting.

In any case, even in less enlightened times, the idea that rape was “a social ideology” in Western culture is absurdly exaggerated and oversimplified. One reason evidentiary standards for rape were so high was that rape carried extremely harsh penalties (for most of American history, it was a capital crime).

In popular culture, depictions of rape — including acquaintance rape — as a despicable crime certainly predate modern feminism; acclaimed films such as Johnny Belinda”(1948) and Peyton Place (1957) are among the examples. In the 1959 film Compulsion, a young man’s attempt to force himself on a female friend on a picnic date is unequivocally treated as an assault that he himself knows is wrong and criminal.

As for 21st Century civilization, arguments intended to demonstrate a pervasive rape culture in modern Western societies typically rely on dubious assertions and badly distorted or out-of-context facts.

Thus, the Vancouver, Canada rape crisis center Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW) lists “kids who call losing a sports game ‘getting totally raped’” as evidence of “rape culture.” Of course, kids also call losing a sports game “getting slaughtered” or “getting murdered,” and the words “kill” and “torture” are routinely used in a metaphorical sense. Few would argue that this means society condones torture and murder.

In a January 2013 column on the website of the American left-wing magazine, The Nation, feminist pundit Jessica Valenti rattles off a catalogue of examples purporting to show that “rape is as American as apple pie.”Among them:

“We live in a country where politicians call rape ‘a gift from God.’” This refers to a notorious comment by 2012 United States Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who said in explaining his opposition to abortion even in rape cases that “life is [a] gift from God … even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape.” Besides misrepresenting Mourdock’s remark, Valenti also fails to mention that it sparked widespread outrage and likely cost him the election in a strongly Republican district.
“[Y] oung men in high school think so little of sexual assault that they thought it was fine — hilarious, even — to post pictures online of a passed out rape victim, and to live-tweet the rape, joking about the victim being urinated on.” Valenti is referring to the notorious 2013 rape case in Steubenville, Ohio, in which two teenage boys were found guilty of digitally penetrating an unconscious or near-unconscious girl at a drunken party. Yet, aside from the fact that her summary is based on highly sensationalized and unreliable accounts, there is nothing new about adolescents flaunting socially unacceptable behavior. Thus, teenage girls have made videos beating up other girls to post them on the Internet.Even as the Steubenville case grabbed headlines, an incident in Homer, Alaska in which a passed-out teenage boy at an alcohol-soaked party was sodomized with a beer bottle while other teens of both sexes watched (and some took pictures) received only scant media attention, perhaps because a case with a male victim does not fit easily into the “rape culture” paradigm.
“[A] woman’s rape case falls flat because she isn’t married.” That sounds positively medieval — but a look at the story Valenti cites shows a peculiar case hindered by an outdated law and prosecutorial error. The victim, an 18-year-old California woman, fell asleep next to her boyfriend while there were guests at her house; after her boyfriend left, the defendant came in, got in bed with her and initiated sex while she was asleep. Half-awake, the young woman initially responded positively, mistaking the defendant for her boyfriend, then realized that it was another man and tried to resist. Prosecutors charged the defendant with rape by fraud based on his impersonation of the victim’s boyfriend; however, the law on the books at the time, originally crafted in 1872, applied only to impersonating a husband. Because of this, the California Supreme Court reversed the conviction; however, it sent the case back for a retrial, recommending that the defendant be charged with rape based on lack of consent due to unconsciousness. The court also recommended that the statute be revised to include impersonation of a lover, not just a spouse. (The defendant was eventually convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. The law was changed.)

Another writer and activist, Soraya Chemaly, sees evidence of rape culture in the alleged fact that 31 states allow rapists who impregnate their victims to sue for custody or visitation if she carries the pregnancy to term.But in reality, these states simply don’t have laws on the books explicitly barring such suits. Even attorney Shauna Pruitt, an activist fighting for such legislation, has written that the problem is not a belief that rapists should have parental rights to children born from the rape, but lack of awareness that this is an issue. Ironically, this is in part due to the assumption that rape victims who conceive will terminate the pregnancy.

Finally, consider some examples offered by feminist writer and activist Zerlina Maxwell in a Time column responding to the argument that rape culture is a mythical moral panic.Rape culture is when survivors who come forward are asked, “Were you drinking?”

Crime victims who are intoxicated may be viewed as partially responsible for putting themselves in harm’s way. However, far more prominent recently has been the reverse tendency: “rape-culture feminists” seeking to redefine consensual drunk sex as rape. Thus, in the fall of 2013, activists at the University of Ohio-Athens rallied in support of a female student who accused a male student of rape after the two were caught on camera engaged in a late-night drunken public sex act (the man performed oral sex on the woman and penetrated her with his fingers while she sat on the ledge of a bank window).Both the video and eyewitness testimony showed that, while both students were inebriated, the woman was fully conscious and willing, at one point apparently encouraging the man to continue when he asked if she wanted to stop they were drawing a crowd of onlookers. She also walked away with the man, unassisted, after the act. In view of these facts, the grand jury brought no indictment.

Nonetheless, letters to the campus newspaper cited the incident as evidence of “rape culture,” “glamorization of sexual violence,” “survivor-blaming,” and “refusal to take rape accusations seriously.”

Rape culture is when people say, “she was asking for it.”

Maxwell does not offer a single example of anyone in recent memory saying such a thing about a rape victim.

Rape culture is when we teach women how to not get raped, instead of teaching men not to rape.

This is a bizarre argument. We also encourage people to avoid pickpockets and to install burglar alarms instead of teaching thieves and burglars not to steal or break into homes. There is a general assumption that crimes are committed by bad people who are not receptive to society’s messages that they should not steal, rob, burgle, or rape — messages that are conveyed, among other things, by penalties for these crimes.

Rape culture is when the lyrics of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” mirror the words of actual rapists and is still the number one song in the country.

This claim comes from a popular blogpost on the Pacific Standard website comparing the lyrics of the controversial song to words reportedly used by rapists — such as “I know you want it.” But by that standard, “I love you” and “Give me a kiss” can also be considered hallmarks of a rape song: one woman’s account mentions her rapist saying both, and a 2014 post on the website XOJane was titled “My Rapist Said ‘I Love You.’”As National Public Radio critic Ann Powers has pointed out, Thicke’s offending line is no different from lyrics used by a number of female pop stars, including feminist icon Beyoncé Knowles.

And some of the other comparisons in the post are dubious at best: thus, “The way you grab me,/Must wanna get nasty” is equated with, “It wasn’t rape. You were being such a tease.”

Rape culture is when the mainstream media mourns the end of the convicted Steubenville rapists’ football careers and does not mention the young girl who was victimized.

This is an egregious, and widespread, misrepresentation of a CNN segment on the sentencing of the Steubenville perpetrators in March 2013. The segment sparked a storm of social media outrage because correspondent Poppy Harlow, host Candy Crowley, and legal expert Paul Callan were seen as too sympathetic to the offenders in discussing their reaction to the sentence and the effects of the conviction on their lives.The backlash included widely repeated claims that there was “not one word about the victim” from any of the participants — an assertion that also found its way into a petition demanding an apology from CNN.

But in fact, a look at the transcript shows that the segment had extensive references to the victim. After describing one of the young men’s emotional reaction to the sentence, Harlow said, “Very serious crime here. Both found guilty of raping this 16-year-old girl at a series of parties back in August, alcohol-fueled parties.” Crowley then pointed out how young both the perpetrators and the victim were. After Callan discussed the impact on the offenders, Crowley turned back to Harlow with a reminder about “the 16-year-old victim, her life, never the same again.” Harlow agreed and added, “The last thing she wanted to do was sit on that stand and testify. She didn’t want to bring these charges. She said it was up to her parents.” The segment ended with Harlow relaying her conversation with the girl’s mother who said that she felt “pity” for the two young men.

In her effort to prove that rape culture is real, Maxwell also invokes dire statistics: “Is 1 in 5 American women surviving rape or attempted rape a cultural norm?” But that figure is based on a Centers for Disease Control survey loaded with leading questions so shoddily worded that they are very likely to elicit responses based on consensual drunk sex. Ironically, based on the same questions, men report being “forced to penetrate” a woman during the past twelve months as frequently as women report being raped by a man. Either the CDC numbers considerably overstate sexual violence, or “rape culture” is a two-way street.

The issue of male victims highlights another problem with rape-culture theory. Early feminist polemics against “rape culture” tended to argue that child sexual abuse was another form of patriarchal violence targeting female victims. Thus, in the introduction to the 1982 collection, “Voices in the Night: Women Speaking About Incest,” editors Toni McNaron and Yarrow Morgan asserted that “approximately one out of three girl children experiences sexual abuse in her family” and that “approximately 97% of all victims of sexual abuse are girls and not boys,” which they concluded must “place incest within the context of a sexist culture.”Such a claim cannot be sustained today when sexual victimization of boys has been studied far more extensively. Maxwell states that one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. But if such abuse is also part of “the rape culture,” this raises confusing questions about the feminist analysis: why would a misogynistic and homophobic patriarchy condone the sexual abuse of male children, mostly by other males?

While the existence of a “rape culture” in modern liberal democracies is a myth sustained by misinformation, this myth has real and dangerous consequences.

For one, the rape culture myth is highly damaging to the basic principles of fairness to the accused, since these principles themselves — such as according the accused the presumption of innocence instead of “believing the survivor,” or using the accuser’s conduct to assess her credibility or her consent — are viewed as a part of “rape culture.” According to Maxwell, “We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says.” On a similar note, writer and Humanist Society activist Ashley Jordan writes that in order to end rape culture, we must “stop wondering if a victim is telling the truth or not.” (“Victim,” of course, is anyone claiming to have been raped.)

The National Organization for Women, America’s premier feminist group, seems willing to extend the benefit of the doubt even to a proven liar such as “Jackie,” the young woman whose story of a brutal fraternity gang rape at the University of Virginia was exposed as a hoax shortly after being published in Rolling Stone magazine in 2014. In early 2016, the organization publicly deplored the fact that UVA dean Nicole Eramo, who had sued Rolling Stone for defamation over her portrayal as a callous bureaucrat, wanted Jackie to turn over her communications with the magazine and with others related to her claim of rape. In an open letter to UVA president Teresa Sullivan, NOW wrote, “It is exactly this kind of victim blaming and shaming that fosters rape culture, re-victimizes those brave enough to have come forward, and silences countless other victims.”

While there no rape suspects in the UVA case, the same mentality can certainly affect cases in which specific men are accused.

In 2013, Columbia University student Paul Nungesser was accused by fellow student Emma Sulkowicz of brutally attacking her in the midst of an encounter that had begun as consensual; Sulkowicz claimed that Nungesser hit her in the face, choked her, and anally penetrated her against her will. Nungesser was cleared by a college hearing despite procedural rules heavily favoring the complainant. Sulkowicz then went public, taking her grievance to the media, and eventually garnered notoriety by carrying a mattress around campus as a symbol of her victimization. Nungesser, named as a rapist in bathroom graffiti and increasingly ostracized on campus, eventually spoke to the press as well. An article by the present author revealed that Sulkowicz remained friendly with him for weeks after the alleged rape, as shown by Facebook messages in which she accepted his invitation to a party (even agreeing to bring other young women with her), invited him to “hang out” and have a “chill sesh,” and responded to his birthday wishes with, “I love you Paul!”

In the legal system, this would have been seen as extremely strong exculpatory evidence — almost certainly leading to an acquittal or, more likely, a dismissal of the charges without trial. (Interestingly, the campus panel that exonerated Nungesser did not see these messages, excluded from evidence under the rules of the disciplinary proceedings.) Yet feminists overwhelmingly rallied to Sulkowicz’s defense, arguing that her behavior should not be seen as evidence in Nungesser’s favor since women usually don’t act like “perfect victims” after a rape.

More recently, after pornographic film actor James Deen was accused of rape by a former girlfriend, a fellow adult performer known as Stoya, feminist comedian and activist Gaby Dunn told several people in private communications that were later leaked that she had strong reasons to think Stoya was lying. Yet she would not say so publicly, despite the fact that Deen was a friend. Dunn explained her motives thus:

I think women should be believed when they make accusations. I just happen to know this is the rare 1 percent of situations in which this is false. But more than that, I don’t want to contribute to a culture where people accuse women of lying about sexual assault. I understand why people believe Stoya and they should believe sex workers can be raped. They should believe women. It has a larger impact on all victims to say she is lying so I won’t do it publicly. The damage is done to him. But I don’t want there to be more damage to real victims by disparaging Stoya.[55]

Whether Dunn actually knows something that undercuts Stoya’s claim is impossible to tell. (Deen was later accused of sexual assault or misconduct by several other women; however, none of them filed a formal complaint, and a look at those claims reveals serious credibility problems for at least some accusers.)[56] But the mere fact that someone believes she has information that exonerates a person accused of a repugnant crime yet chooses to withhold that information for ideological reasons illustrates the dangerous zealotry of rape-culture feminism.

For now, this ideology has had limited impact on the judicial system, though it has strongly affected college disciplinary proceedings. But its potential cultural impact goes beyond that. Since films, songs, and other forms of art and entertainment are seen as perpetuating “rape culture,” this zealotry is a powerful call for ideological culture-policing. The backlash against “Blurred Lines,” banned from many college campuses, is one clear example of this.[57]Films such as Say Anything, American Pie, and The Notebook have been denounced as rape-culture vehicles because they show men romantically pursuing women after a rejection, or show a “nerdy” unattractive man winning the love of a gorgeous woman (which supposedly feeds a mentality of “male entitlement”), or portray men “drinking and finding a girl to hook up with.”[58]

Outside entertainment, too, the rape culture myth has a pernicious effect on freedom of speech — particularly on campus. One of the tenets of rape-culture ideology, after all, is that the denial of rape culture it itself contributes to rape culture. Thus, in the aftermath of the Ohio University “rape” in October 2013, a letter in the student newspaper from journalism major Tom Pernecker questioned the existence of a pervasive “culture of rape” and suggested that a drunken sexual encounter should not be equated with rape.[59] A response from another student promptly accused Pernecker himself of “perpetuating” rape culture in his letter.[60]

Around the same time, The Badger Herald, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, published a letter by junior David Hookstead titled, “‘Rape Culture’ Does Not Exist.” Among its arguments: rape happens because “bad people exist,” not because our culture condones it; song lyrics that sexually degrade women do not prove the existence of a “rape culture” in America any more than song lyrics glorifying killers prove the existence of a “murder culture”; slogans such as “we must teach our sons not to rape” disregard the fact that everyone knows rape is illegal and that people also rob and steal despite being taught not to; sometimes, women who regret having drunk sex claim they were too drunk to remember what happened.

The outrage that followed was so strong that the next day, the paper’s editor-in-chief Katherine Krueger penned a column explaining her decision to run the letter. Krueger described Hookstead’s opinions as “morally repugnant,” “offensive,” “horrifically misguided,” “repellent,” “hateful,” “ugly,” and “reprehensible.” She also assured readers that the letter was published “after careful deliberation and debate” with other editors, in order to shine the light of day on such hideous ideas and allow them to be “torn limb from limb.” Indeed, Krueger asserted that the letter itself was evidence that “rape culture is alive, well and thriving on the University of Wisconsin campus.”

In this atmosphere, it’s hardly surprising that a debate held at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) in November 2014 between feminist author Jessica Valenti and individualist feminist Wendy McElroy, who is critical of the concept of “rape culture,” drew impassioned protests from students upset that McElroy would be allowed to present her point of view. While the school scheduled an alternative lecture on “the rape culture” in the same time slot and provided a “safe space” counseling session for students traumatized by the debate, many activists were still unhappy that the event was taking place: according to Undergraduate Council of Students president Maahika Srinivasan, it meant “backtracking from the forward direction that we’ve been moving in.”

At least on that occasion, the campus newspaper, The Brown Daily Herald, backed free speech.In April 2015, when Georgetown University College Republicans in Washington, DC invited contrarian feminist author Christina Hoff Sommers — a critic of the concept of “rape culture” — to speak, the campus daily, The Hoya, published an editorial asserting that “[b]y giving Sommers a platform, GUCR has knowingly endorsed a harmful conversation on the serious topic of sexual assault.” According to the editorial, “Rape culture is a system that thrives on silence. Students cannot allow Georgetown’s sexual assault discourse to be subdued by those who would downplay the problem at hand.”

Of course, discourse can hardly be “subdued” by a speaker with a differing viewpoint. But given how much “rape culture” rhetoric relies on misinformation and distortion, it is hardly surprising that its proponents would seek to silence debate. It is all the more imperative for those with a commitment to facts and freedom to challenge this narrative.

How To Never Run Out Of Things To Say In Conversation

You’re talking, conversation is flowing nicely, and you feel like you’re really starting to form a connection with this person…

But what happens when after 10 minutes, that dreaded moment rears it’s head?

The awkward silence!

What should you do when you feel like a particular conversational topic has expired? And how do you never run out of things to say so you keep people engaged and interested?

Well, let’s take a step back to understand the awkward silence…

Who does the awkward silence seem to occur most with: strangers or friends? Undoubtedly, strangers. But why? You’d think there would be so much more interesting ground to cover with strangers. With friends, you know how they feel about the most important topics. You’re left with just random stuff that pops into your head. Yet you still can find yourselves talking for hours in a stream of unrelated randomness. Without any sort of agenda, conversation just flows.

This is exactly the point. When you feel like you’ve run out of things to say with strangers, you haven’t actually run out of things to say. You’ve simply run out of things that have passed your internal filter of “good enough to say to a stranger!”

This is why you can talk for hours nothing with people you know well. Why you can turn a conversation about “nothing” into something you both really cherish. It’s not just because you have common interests. It is because neither of you has a very high threshold for what is “good enough” to say. If something pops into your head, you blurt it out.

This is also why it is much easier to speak to people when you’ve had a few drinks. It’s not that you’ve suddenly become more clever or interesting (sorry to burst your bubble!) It’s that you’ve lowered your inhibitions. You say what comes to your mind without thinking if it is “good enough” to vocalize.

The key here is that you are not anticipating too far ahead. You need to trust yourself to adapt on the fly. You need to remove the filter.

Here is an example of “removing the filter” to apply in your own life

I was working with a client who was also working with a personal trainer. She recounted a story from the day she met him.

“He asked me, ‘So what’s your story?’ and I was just so taken aback. It’s such a big question. I didn’t even know where to start. So I just mumbled something awkwardly and then got quiet.”

“Well what was going through your head?”

“Nothing.”

“No that’s not true. Something was going through your head. You just didn’t think it was good enough to say. So what was your thought process?”

“I guess, ‘Oh wow this is awkward. I can’t even answer a simple question about my life! Now he probably thinks I am a weirdo…’”

“Great! Use that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean imagine what would have happened if you’d dropped the filter and said that to him. What would it have gone like?”

“Well I suppose I would have said, ‘Oh wow this is awkward. I can’t even answer a simple question about my life! Now you probably think I am a weirdo…”

“And what would he have done?”

“Laughed probably. And clarified his question.”

“Exactly! The point is that what you are thinking is always good enough – at least better than saying nothing because you only want to sound super clever all the time.”

The difficulty for everyone—my client, you, the best conversationalist on the planet—is not in coming up with something to say. It is in getting in touch with your thoughts and trusting yourself enough to simply state them. Will they always paint you as a genius? Certainly not! But by speaking, you’ve given both you and the person with whom you’re speaking a starting point. Now you have some Velcro hooks which either of you can latch onto.

So for example, the other day I was out speaking with a girl at a club. I didn’t have anything to say, but I noticed that she had a very genuine smile whenever she spoke to people. So I told her what was going through my head:

“You know you have such a genuine smile? It makes you look like a first grade teacher. I feel like I just want you to read me a picture book.”

When you remove the filter, what you say will rarely be brilliant. But it will provide you with enough “hooks” to start to restart conversation.

Note: if you’re absolutely stumped, I find a great way to start or restart a halting conversation is to simply say, “So what’s your story?”

Play “Reminds me of…” to re-spark dying conversation

So once you’ve cleared the filter, the goal is to drive conversation back to something that is fun or fascinating to both of you.

You don’t want to be trapped with just sticking to the literal words at hand. So if we’re talking about the weather today, I shouldn’t be limited to just talking about the weather this week. I want to be able to make conversational leaps.

One of the best tools to do this is, “Reminds me of.”

“Reminds me of” consists of thinking not just linearly (i.e. weather today > weather this week) but in larger leaps (i.e. weather today > gorgeous weather > the vacation I took last year to Costa Rica when it was sunny and then poured on us as we hiked up a mountain.)

“Reminds me of” can also be used to re-spark conversation with someone to whom you’ve already spoken. For instance, last night I was out at a bar with an extended group of friends. I was standing watching a drummer play a solo. We’d already exchanged pleasantries so I didn’t have any questions to ask many of the people. Still, to re-spark conversation, all I had to say was:

“This guy is amazing. He reminds me of Travis Barker from 182.”

Or:

“This club is so cool. It reminds me of a 1920’s speakeasy mixed with a rave.”

Use “reminds me of” in conjunction with the fun and values modes of conversation to rekindle any conversation and move it in a direction that will keep people captivated. It’s also a fantastic tool for connecting with someone with whom you may not have much in common because it allows you to trade stories based on whatever is happening around you.

A Hidden Cause Of Suffering

I just got back from lunch with my brother.

We haven’t spoken for a while, so we played a lot of catch up. “How’s so-and-so doing?” we asked about a dozen times.

He told me the story of one of those so-and-so’s…

A friend of his who wanted to take his girlfriend out for her birthday. So he set up a nice trip to ski in California.

My brother was under the impression it was an amazing trip. All the Snapchat’s were full of smiles on the slopes and glasses of red wine at fancy restaurants.

When his friend got back, my brother asked about the trip.

His friend replied, “It was so hard man…”

“She nearly made me cry. She couldn’t believe I took her away from home on her birthday. She said it was the worst birthday she ever had.”

The friend kept talking and telling how they fight all the time, despite what social media would lead you to believe. My brother asked if they’d break up. And that’s when he got the real kicker:

“Actually we’re planning on moving in together next month.”

When I hear stories like this, one word rings in my head. One word that I believe describes the number one reason for anguish in modern America.

Addiction.

And I don’t just mean addiction to drugs or alcohol, which is how we tend to think of addiction…

I mean the girl so addicted to social validation that she fakes a happier lifestyle than she lives…

I mean the friend so addicted to his relationship that he would rather move in with someone who treats him badly than be alone…

Both of them addicted to a compulsive behavior that THEY KNOW makes them unhappy. Yet they don’t stop.

Can you think of anything in your own life that follows that pattern? Here’s a few examples:

Addiction to status keeping you in a job that you hate

Addiction to outrage keeping you watching the news and complaining about it, while taking no action to actually change things

Addiction to a relationship keeping you with someone that you know isn’t right for you

Addiction to social media keeping you in a constant state of FOMO

Note: Enough of filtering words in conversation and enough of being nice.... it's time for to be carefree.

Chapter 3 - BE OFFENDED

How to Make Everything Funny – Robin Williams Charisma on Command

“Playing a Character” is a technique that is fantastic for comedy. It’s telling a joke or story and imitating someone that you are not. This can be a person who is in the room or it can be a type of person that maybe you have only met before.

The point of this is that it’s not just about what you say but it’s about how you say it. It’s putting on the accent, it’s speaking with the same dialect that someone speaks with, it’s moving like that person, it’s walking around saying the types of things that they would say, and it’s also imitating the gestures that they would make.

The more that you put this together and you commit to actually playing a character, the easier it is to make any sort of joke very funny.

Note: Just stop giving a fuck... stop caring... all what they say like:

You suck
You are disgusting
You are awful
You are badass biatch
You are whinny biatch

or even

Tosser – Supreme Asshole or jerk.
Wanker – Idiot
Slag – Whore, the worst kind
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys – The French
Lost the plot – Gone crazy or completely stupid.
Daft Cow – Dumb, large woman
Arsehole – Asshole
Barmy – Stupid or crazy.
Chav – White Trash / Low Class
Dodgy – Shady character
Git – Moron, Idiot
Gormless – Complete lack of common sense
Manky – Disgusting
Minger – Very unattractive woman
Muppet – Dimwit (not the puppet variety)
Naff – Tacky
Nutter – Someone’s who’s clearly crazy
Pikey – White trash – also used to slight Gypsies or Irish Travellers
Pillock – Idiot
Plonker – Idiot
Prat – Idiot, asshole
Scrubber – A nicer way to say slag
Trollop – A lady of questionable morals
Uphill Gardener – Another way of saying homosexual
Twit – Idiot
Knob Head – Dickhead
Piss Off – Go Away
Bell End – Dick Head (bell end also means penis)
Lazy Sod – Useless idiot
Skiver – Lazy sod
Knob – Dick
Wazzock – Someone so dumb they can only do manual labor (from Yorkshire)
Ninny – Brilliant but inferior
Berk – Idiot
Airy-fairy – Not strong, weak.
Ankle-biters – Children
Arse-licker – A sycophant
Arsemonger – A person that generate contempt.
Chuffer – An annoying perfusion
Daft as a bush – Silly, Crazy
Dead from the neck up – Stupid.
Gannet – Greedy person.
Gone to the dogs – rotten, deteriorated
Ligger – freeloader
Like a dog with two dicks – Man whore
Mad as a bag of ferrets – Crazy
Maggot – A despicable person
Mingebag – A bad person, an asshole who might be cheap.
Not batting on a full wicket – Eccentric person a little crazy or odd.
Plug-Ugly – Very Ugly person

- Ugly

- Fat

- Dumb

- Idiot

...

All this is not true... no proper argument can secure this whole point....

...

And even it's true... go and throw a laugh... don't get insulted!

P.S. - To get somewhere you need to be carefree... to give less fuck... bold and confident... and once in that path try to stick on it.

How To Be Persuasive (When You NEED People to Change) – Barack Obama Charisma Breakdown

How to Be Persuasive When You Need People to Change

This video shows you how to be persuasive when you need people to change.

The truth is there are situations in our lives, like our social lives where you don’t have to be persuasive. If you don’t get along with someone, guess what? You can filter the people in your life and keep the people that are positive and lift you up.

But, in certain situations (particularly the working world) you are going to have work with people who disagree with you. And you can’t just filter them out so you need to know how to be persuasive against obstinacy. This video will show you how.

In the wake of the tragedy at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, Barack Obama demonstrates a 5 step process on how to be persuasive in those situations where you absolutely must convince people to change their behavior. Great for being more persuasive in the workplace!

Step 1 : Introduce the problem

Step 2: Handle objections before people actually bring them up

Step 3: Show them how their values are in line with your new plan

Step 4: Outline how great things could be with your new plan

Step 5: Ask at the end

At the end of the day, you cannot make anyone do anything. Persuasion means getting them to want to do things on their own and take ownership over an idea that may have started in your head is cultivated in theirs.

TIP: Focus on Baseline

TIP: Try now to say everything which comes to your mind... and also use 3 Second rule - For approach (Which means when afte 3 seconds... you approach your "TARGET")

Body Language in Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication is the message that is transferred between persons by our body language such as facial expressions, head movements, body posture and actions, clothing, mannerism, personality behaviour, etc.

You probably heard that 55% of the total impact of our personal communication is determined by our body language (nonverbal communication). Another 38% is determines by the tone of our voice. And only 7% is determined by the words we use (verbal communication).

Researchers have found that some specific acts in our body language have specific meanings.

For instance, head, facial movements and gestures give information about the type of emotion being expressed; body position and tension reveal the intensity of the feeling.

One body language I notice a lot in people is the facial grimace when they listen to someone labouring to express or explain something.

This is quite rude actually, it is as if they are saying, "Come on can't you tell it fluently", "Why are you having such a hard time to talk", rather than just patiently waiting and listening for the person to speak in the best way he/she can.

Another type of body language example is someone dozing off during a seminar presentation; this says something about the feelings of that participant toward the seminar, the speaker or the company -- either the presenter is boring, or the participant is totally disinterested and disrespectful.

In all of this body language analysis, caution is necessary. Too many people will read a book or study a course in body language and begin a post-study exaggerated scrutiny of others.

Just because a book says that "crossing the arms over the chest" is a sign of domineering or uncooperation, it does not mean that everyone taking that posture is expressing that message. Not at all.

How many times have you done it and you were not being uncooperative. Often, this posture is simply because one is tired of having his/her arms hang down the sides during someone's long, drawn out speech! It is a comfortable position. I do it often without any negative meaning whatsoever.

I have seen in meetings, some of the most positively responding people, listening intently to a presenter, being most cooperating and happy about what the presenter was saying or doing -- all with arms crossed over the chest!

Another common body language topic is about the speaker's eyes intermittently moving around the room while talking. This is construed to mean several things. I've even seen listeners look up to the ceiling because the speaker's eyes were focused there momentarily.

Some studies have gone to the extent of saying that the direction of the eyes even tells what information they are "fetching" where in the brain (i.e. eyes to the left, searching in the right brain, eyes to the right, searching in the left, etc.).

I've seen people looking toward one corner of a room while speaking simply because there happened to be a distraction there!

The right-brain/left-brain mechanism has a lot of truth to it, but sometimes "experts" can get too carried away. Nobody understands everything about the brain yet.

Most times, people are just "searching" for their thoughts. Actually if you observe carefully, you will notice that people disconnect eye contact intermittently while talking, but focus steadfastly while listening. Most of us do that.

Neither does disconnecting eye contact with the listener necessarily mean the individual is hiding something from his listener -- or lying as some "expert" will tell you. They may sometimes do that, but more often they don't. These conclusions are study results of behavioural extremes.

Rather than saying that the movement or disconnect of the eyes in a certain way while speaking to another represents deception, teachers should say, "... it could mean deceiving or lying, but it usually means the person is searching for words, may be shy or uncomfortable in the presence of authority or a stranger, or simply is not aware of a bad habit.

And there could be a whole list of other reasons. Shyness is often the cause of such behaviour. My sweet little seventy-five year old mother is so shy that she can't even look in the eyes of the cashier at the grocery store!

Someone may have never been taught how to communicate. Indeed, this habit is eliminated after a person has been made aware of it and has worked at correcting it -- in other words after conscientiously reconditioning him/herself.

Politicians or public relations people learn communication and body language as part of their experience or training. I watch this all the time and find it most amazing how some can stay the course of their eyes constant on the listener even while speaking. Some are born or raised to be able to do it -- it's part of their personality type.

But someone who does not work in a public environment, has not been taught about it, is not as skilled and may even never have heard of it! Make it a point to begin to observe this, and then begin to train yourself. It's not easy. Or you might find that you are doing quite well as you are. Then appreciate that fact and feel good about yourself.

3 V's of Communication

by Samira Gupta

As an Image Consultant and a life Coach, I like to say that the most essential elements of good communication are three - V's.

Visual Communication

Vocal Communication

Verbal Communication

Visual Communication:

Visual Communication is all about what you communicate through your body language, dressing, grooming, hygiene eye contact, hand gestures, tone and everything else that you are not speaking or saying. In other words, we communicate a lot without having to speak.

Knowing well about Visual Communication, not only helps you to maintain a relaxed, open stance like arms open, legs relaxed and a friendly tone, it also helps you read other people's mind through their visual communication.

Remember, at all times keep a smile on your face and keep a healthy eye contact through out your conversation. It will make the other person sure that you are focused on the conversation, however, be sure not staring at the person, which can make him or her uncomfortable.

Often, nonverbal signals do convey how a person is feels. For example, if the person is not looking you in the eye, he or she might be uncomfortable or hiding the truth.

For your upcoming important meeting, dress well, be well groomed - your hair should be made up well, beard trimmed (for men, clean shaven look is the best otherwise), clean and well trimmed nails, make sure you are smelling good, maintain a smile and a good eye contact. It will surely increase the chances of success of that meeting by creating a good and a powerful first impression.

Vocal Communication:

Vocal Communication is all about what we speak - the tone and how much. The right vocal means saying just enough - don't talk too much or too little. You must convey the message in as few words as possible. Say what you want as clearly and directly as possible, whether you're speaking to someone in person, on the phone, or via email. If you are not able to do that, your listener will either tune you out or will be unsure of exactly want you want to communicate.

Always be polite in all of your professional or workplace communication. If you do so, you will encourage your colleagues to engage in an honest communication with you.

At all times, be confident in your communication with others. Confidence shows your personal as well as your coworkers that you believe in what you're communicating and will follow through. A firm, yet friendly tone is always advisable.

Verbal Communication:

Effective verbal communication skill is much more than just talking. It is highly ranked on the candidate evaluation parameters used by many corporate job interviewers.

Verbal communication is a two way street, in other words both, how you deliver messages and how you receive them.

What constitutes effective verbal communication on the job depends on the relationship between communication partners and reference of their communication. If it is a personal communication the communication partners are family and friends and at workplace the communication partners are different individuals and groups such as co-workers, bosses and subordinates, employees, customers, teachers and students, and speakers and their audiences.

Verbal communication occurs in many different contexts including training sessions, presentations, group meetings, performance appraisals, one-on-one discussions, interviews, disciplinary sessions, sales pitches and consulting engagements.

A few examples of effective verbal communication skills are:

• Advising others about an appropriate action.
• Selecting language appropriate and suitable to the audience
• Speaking at a moderate pace, neither too fast nor too slowly
• Communicating confidently but with modesty
• Using affirmative sounds and words like yes, I understand, for sure, yes off course, I see etc. to demonstrate understanding
• Using humor to engage an audience
• Utilizing self-disclosure to encourage sharing

Source: Ezine Articles is brilliant

Cultural Values and Respect, Do They Still Exist?

By Adebusoye Adeleke Ayo

What is happening to simple but graciously, self-defining magical expressions that made the society graceful and fun to live in? Should we blame the degradation of cultural values on the internet? Growing up with an unequivocal understanding of the essence of expressing simple acts of courtesy, gesture and respect, particularly when requests were to be responded to either in the affirmative or in disagreement; translating from the smaller family groups into the larger society was pretty easy and smooth, considering the fact that every child would want to be treated with love and respect.

The crop of parents that existed about five to six decades ago, paid very careful attention to inculcating cultural and societal values into their children, grooming them to face the harsh realities of the outside world. In spite of family challenges, high levelled marginalization at the workplace, societal instabilities coupled with unending technologies and scientific breakthroughs, there was no comprising ethics, morals and values.

There was high sensitivity to respect and cultures, regardless of race, religion or nationality. Emphasis was placed on courtesy and respect. There were well defined forms of addressing a person with regard for age, gender, relationship status and societal influence.

The contemporary society is characterized by attitudinal influx of technology driven activities. Virtually everything we do is hi-tech; from coffee making to documentation; musical productions to diverse services; the place of technological advancement, which has helped in improving our lives tremendously, is gradually taking us off the regular deployment of our kinetics for daily activities.

Hence, to a large extent, we concentrate more on how to set things right, ensure better ways of generating income, fashion out improved ways of getting our kids to school and fixing official chores in the most sophisticated manner; whereas, we silently grapple with the gradual erosion of simple but gracious, self-defining forms of courtesy and respect.

Values are not culture bound. Just as acts of respect are culturally universal, each culture has its own specific forms of respect, well defined to suit definitive contexts, bearing in mind the plausibility of such values being transmitted across other cultures. For instance, greetings are culturally universal but accompanying expressions of greetings could differ from culture to culture.

In the Philippines, elders are greeted by young ones taking one of their hands gently and pressing it on the foreheads. In Japan, people greet one another with a bow, with slight variations in angle and duration, depending on the person being greeted. Firm handshakes are expressive forms of people in British Culture. The Yoruba men of West Africa prostrate while the women genuflect, with a reflection of respect in their use of language. Hello, How do you do? Thank you, Yes please etc are verbal expressions that are supposed to be learned and imbibed over the years.

To make the society a better place, it is expedient for all and sundry to revert to those days, where cultural values were of paramount importance. Simple acts of gesture will not only present an individual as being cultured, but will go a long way in helping the youths to understand the essence of cultures, societal stability and respect for individuals, values and governance.

How to Express Your Feelings Without Worrying What Others Think

Sometimes you may vent with a friend to get something off your chest however, if you want to really change the way your relationships move forward and help YOU become a better version of yourself, this article shares a simple how-to formula to get over the basic fears all humans have when sharing their feelings in relationships.

This post is not a permission to blab and just say what's on your mind. A lot of people are doing that on social media and off-line to your face, these days - and we're not seeing a lot of benefit from that.

When we consider how much random emotion is being expressed in the world, you may start to wonder if emotion has been so hidden by our cultural socialisation for such a long time - and now we are just starting to take the lid off of it - so that it now gets expressed in random situations and in ways that doesn't have any regulation or a stop button.

It's also not just negative emotions that we struggle to express.

How many of you may find it difficult to say how you feel about someone you love?

Or find it squeamish to give a compliment to someone just because you feel authentically inspired by them.

Somehow, in the socialisation of young children we have made the expression of emotions conditional; OK sometimes, OK not other times. And in terms of positive emotions we also have become really tainted and boring about celebrating them.

What once was natural for us as children to express glee, joy and laughter becomes awkward and uncalled for when we are an adult or a teenager.

So it got me thinking about why, when and how do we transition from easily expressing joy or sadness to struggling with that.

It's natural that we want to be accepted and liked, but why choose to prefer someone else's opinion and liking of you over what makes you happy?

For each of us there is the point or an age or event or a series of accumulated events where a growing child stops enjoying who they are and become more worried about how they are perceived and received by others. The tipping point, where you focus more on who you think you should be - to be acceptable - is unique for every individual.

Why we want someone to accept us is very much about survival. The more someone likes you, the more likely you will be accepted as part of the tribe that looks after you.

However, if you can't be honest with your feelings, subconsciously you feel the cost. And the cost is: you can't be your authentic self. But you're prepared to lose your authenticity or explain your needs or your point of view in order to "keep" the perceived status quo, not rock the boat and go along with the tribe - and your perception of what the tribe believes.

If you grew up in a traditional family structure, you know what that means: you have to turn up for family dinners, you don't talk about certain topics with certain family members, you never talk about that really hot topic because it's taboo. In personal relationships, some of the have to's include: I must reply to texts immediately, I have to like what my loved one does or who they hang with etc.

What I've learnt working with people is that a person will invest more energy in hiding their authentic self and feelings than risking speaking up for many diverse fears such as:

someone they care about feeling left out or not important

being perceived as impinging on someone else's needs

fear of upsetting someone with a touchy topic (politics, trauma, bad experience in past)

being seen as weak, not self-sufficient and not competent

not being like "everyone else" (the tribe)

fear of pushing back because you may create conflict

fear of being seen as contrary to the group

fear of being too independent or seen as selfish, putting your needs before others

fear of asking too much.

People create great stories about why others may not be able to handle their feelings. And this is always influenced by the culture's interpretations of what's appropriate.

On the personal level, we put a lot of energy into sustaining the cultural story about what is appropriate in our own heads, rather than actually talking with people to share what is authentically going on for us.

Part of the struggle in modern society, is that cultural norms are changing and while we wish to measure our expression of feelings by the past cultural norms - they have shifted to a degree where we are no longer sure of how to be "respectful" of others while also being authentic and expressing our individual needs. In the past, people's roles were pretty clear, but now there's so much more freedom about how you can behave. That makes people a little crazy because they actually don't know what to do with all the new found freedom. And then sometimes revert back to past cultural norms where you "should" do what the tribe said.

So if you are looking to be authentic and respectful in expressing your feelings here is a basic formula.

This is best done face-to-face. If you're not good at face to face - you can try this through text, however your body will feel more relaxed if you are face to face.

Start your conversation with the intent to connect with the person and have the best outcome for both of you.
Begin your expression by foregrounding something you appreciate about the person like "hey I really think about you when I hear that song x" recall a memory you have together, recall something that connects the two of you in a good way or something fun that they will connect with.
Ask yourself, what am I afraid of happening if I tell them how I feel or what I want? Consider telling the person "look I am concerned about x, but I want to share something with you". Don't hide your fear, but don't make it a sob story. Tell them simply what you're concern is and then go straight to sharing. Don't use the word fear, use a word like "I'm concerned" or make it even more vague like "I was thinking x".
Tell them what you want in the simplest shortest way possible (without a story) and then be quiet. Wait for them to respond, check out their face, breathing, body language. The longer you wait - they will talk. And you will be far better off staying quite - because that gives them the signal that you want them to speak.
If they don't speak after a long time, prompt them - what do you think? or what are you feeling?

Each relationship will have its own quirks.

So not everyone is going to be civil, sit down and listen. And you may need to tweak the words to suit that person's language style.

However, what I've learnt from step 1 - just focussing on the intent of the best outcome for the relationship has made people who normally wouldn't chat - soften and also be natural and responsive.

From Step 2, foregrounding something you like about the connection has also had huge results. It has made people soften, opened up conversations to flow in way that was completely unexpected, got the other person to start telling stories they never shared and resulted in family outings that never would have happened... and so on.

So for the touch cases, focus on Steps 1 and 2... and wait til the moment arises for you to air the rest. Sometimes, you may not have to, sometimes steps 1 and 2 have allowed something to shift in the 'attitude' between the two people where things fall into a better rhythm so your perceived fear - is actually not real - and you see that you just needed to connect with the person.

We often forget that focusing on what's good about a relationship actually makes the relationship happen at all.

What you once were so easily able to jump and celebrate when you were a kid - is also what makes a relationship easy to jump up and down about as an adult.

People respond the best when we connect them to what makes us feel good about them.

Angela Ambrosia is a Love and Relationship Coach based in Australia and France. As a performer she discovered dance as a vital way to connect to the joy of life and overcome low self esteem and lack of self love. Her coaching and teaching connects women and men to the communication of love with yourself and in your relationships. She offers the coaching program "Transformed Relationships" for women to create modern relationships that create the love you have only dreamed of.

The Absolute Guide To Read Women Body Language - Don't Approach Women Without Reading This

Normally, there is a special dynamic operating in male-female relationships. While females tend to adopt a passive, receptive demeanor, males are more active and initiative. A typical example at a club is: Girls expect to be approached, while guys are expected to approach girls. A girl can do two things to improve her success: She can look her best, dress in high heels, push-up bras, etc., and she can also give inviting signs for a guy to approach her. A guy will be more likely to approach a girl who looks good in his eyes, but he will also go for a less hot one if she shows signs of interest and he sees the green light.

Thus, in a typical male-female interaction, the female will signal with her body language and behavior that she is ready to proceed, while the male will respond to her signs, calibrate and advance accordingly. He will have to go through the steps and initiate, as she expects him to. Once again, this is about leading. No matter how good a conversationalist you are and no matter how attracted to you she is, you will always have to be the one initiating. Some aggressive and horny women will do it for you, but that's the exception and not the rule.

There are two kinds of female signals: conscious and subconscious ones. A girl will give conscious signals when she wants you to make your move. Subconscious signals are subtler and will be an automatic response to her feeling good in your company. It is very important to learn these signs. I'm sure you've laughed just as many times as I have at the typical scene in Hollywood movies: The girl is attracted to a guy; the guy is attracted to the girl, but the guy doesn't recognize the signs of interest she's sending him, which leads to a great deal of farce. Just by learning to recognize the signs women are sending, you will improve your success exponentially. In a club or in typical everyday situations, there will always be a few girls around you showing signs of interest and inviting you to approach them using body language. If you recognize these girls and make your move, you will be likely to succeed.

You will see that sometimes certain signs can be misleading, and it's necessary to develop your intuition for such situations. For example, a waitress has to smile at everyone to get tips, and by accident, she could mislead you into thinking that she's attracted to you. To avoid this, you will need to fine-tune your intuition with experience and learn to "feel" whether she is really attracted to you or not. A professional table tennis player doesn't see the ball. He feels it. His hands move automatically while he is in a trance. A lot of practice will make you better at "feeling" the signs that women are giving, just as the table tennis player does with the ball.

So let's look at the most general conscious and subconscious signs that show she is attracted to you:

1. She's relaxed while sitting or standing and talking with you. Her arms are open and not closed; her legs are either wide apart or crossed with her feet pointing toward you.

2. She's comfortable in your company. When you lean closer to her, she stays in the same position and doesn't pull away.

3. She leans closer while talking with you or sits closer when you're sitting next to each other.

4. She smiles a lot, even laughing at your lamest jokes, or she compliments you on something unremarkable.

5. She touches you sometimes on your arms or shoulder when talking with you.

6. She fixes her clothes, applies more makeup in the restroom or exposes parts of her body, revealing skin and showing erotic body parts.

7. She rubs her wrists up and down, and she rubs, touches or strokes her cheek.

8. She plays with her hair, pushing her fingers through it or twirling a few curls in a slow, sensual motion.

9. She looks deep into your eyes while smiling, her pupils dilated. She blinks faster than usual or keeps looking into your eyes in a longing way, like your dog when you're about to feed him.

10. When you touch her or put your arms around her, she's comfortable with it; she might even snuggle closer to you.

11. When you extend your hand to her, she takes it and keeps holding it as if you are already a couple.

12. She bites her lips and licks them, showing her tongue, or she moistens her lips with lipstick. She puts a finger or nail into her mouth or over it in a sexual way - these are signs of sexual thoughts, and they are usually signs of arousal.

13. She rubs her legs together and presses them to the legs of the table or to your legs under the table - another sign of sexual arousal.

14. She plays with her wine glass, her jewelry or another object with a rubbing, stroking, sensual motion.

15. The way she sits or stands reflects your body language; she is mirroring you.

Of course, she can't be doing everything at the same time. But, if you encounter more than two or three of them (especially the more serious ones), she is likely to be heavily attracted to you and wanting you. A word of warning: Just as there are shy guys, there are also shy girls. They might have a harder time showing signs of interest and flirting with you. They might also try to hide these signs. You will recognize them from their girlish confusion.

And now let's see some negative body language, showing disinterest and less attraction to you:

1. She breaks eye contact and looks away when you try to look into her eyes.

2. She grimaces, showing that she is simply bored. She never smiles.

3. When you ask a question, she responds after a pause: "What did you say?" and it's obvious that she is thinking about something else or is somewhere else mentally.

4. There are long, awkward silences in your conversation, and she doesn't show any interest in breaking the silence or bringing up any new topics.

5. Her legs and arms are crossed; she is sitting at a distance, or she turns away from you. She leans back, and when you lean closer, she moves away or just acts as if she's uncomfortable.

6. She doesn't react to your jokes and doesn't laugh with you; she may express polite surprise.

And the list goes on. Although persistence is a good trait to have and sometimes by being persistent, you can recover from the most hopeless situations, the negative signs described above show that you've done something wrong, and it might be time to move on and search for another girl. Never be disappointed; success will come with determination and time.

Note: The problem in the world is that we constant worry and we awalys think
...

What this book now should go over is to help you and fix your congnitive limits... people don't do some stuff because they care... but this "care" or also define as "FUCK"... doesn't give us a lot of ground to play on... what we need to do is to go deeper as much... and fuck over all minds...

Chapter 4 - Secrets

Note: So the idea is just don't get offended... that's the whole idea...

SOMETHING WHICH CAN HELP YOU TO COPE WITH THIS PAINTFUL SHIT IS:

- Please be Offended by Jim Norton

- Carlos Mencia: Not for the Easily Offended

- Jim Norton: Mouthful of Shame

(Such comedian ... can help you to deal with harsh truth...... once you get it... you gonna get a such a great state...)

Note: Thinking is great... you can go home for 1 week or for few days... and start feeling your mind with material and try to thinking upon it... it's good stuff... but don't think too much...

Note: One moment... all possible moves look pretty alien
...

It just one thought pop up... then another... then another

...

It's self-destrucive behavior...

P.S. - We live in times in which we can trust hackers... but can't trust media... journalism... and all other fucked up stuff...

...

Now I question my authenticity!?

Note: In the end of the day... we question our values... we end up in depriving... devouring behaviors which make us do things for which aren't very proud to talk around people.

Note: Isolation is bad stuff... but the same goes for and wanting more... from what you have... this whole craving pr ocess.. it wants too much energy and in the end of the day... you know where you end up...

Books:

- Overcoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and Behaviors: New Directions for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy by Albert Ellis

- Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourselfby Aziz Gazipura

- Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate by Sue Scheff

Note: This book is here to help people.... so in other words you should find value in this whole book.

Note: You go to a club or a bar or a place which is has be meant to be social.... if so... try to go with a mindset like

- "I am interesting person...does the same goes and for you?"
- "I am fucking badass a guy..."
- "I am perfect enough... but as for you... you ain't."

- Just keep this thoughts in mind... helps to deal with pressure in such places.

Chapter 5 - Secrets (Part 2)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Note: Look the world is sick... I got some material... now reading and ... a thought pop out...

...

What if depression and stress... are factors build upon the nation so to make them easily controllable?

- This is a good thought to play with it!

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be used to treat people with a wide range of mental health problems.

CBT is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion) and how we act (behavior) all interact together. Specifically, our thoughts determine our feelings and our behavior.

cbt

Therefore, negative and unrealistic thoughts can cause us distress and result in problems. When a person suffers with psychological distress, the way in which they interpret situations becomes skewed, which in turn has a negative impact on the actions they take.

CBT aims to help people become aware of when they make negative interpretations, and of behavioral patterns which reinforce the distorted thinking. Cognitive therapy helps people to develop alternative ways of thinking and behaving which aims to reduce their psychological distress.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is, in fact, an umbrella term for many different therapies that share some common elements. Two of the earliest forms of Cognitive behavioral Therapy were Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), developed by Albert Ellis in the 1950s, and Cognitive Therapy, developed by Aaron T. Beck in the 1960s.

See Dobson and Block (1988) for a review of the historical basis of cognitive behavioral therapy

General CBT Assumptions:

• The cognitive approach believes that abnormality stems from faulty cognitions about others, our world and us. This faulty thinking may be through cognitive deficiencies (lack of planning) or cognitive distortions (processing information inaccurately).

• These cognitions cause distortions in the way we see things; Ellis suggested it is through irrational thinking, while Beck proposed the cognitive triad.

• We interact with the world through our mental representation of it. If our mental representations are inaccurate or our ways of reasoning are inadequate then our emotions and behavior may become disordered.

The cognitive therapist teaches clients how to identify distorted cognitions through a process of evaluation. The clients learn to discriminate between their own thoughts and reality. They learn the influence that cognition has on their feelings, and they are taught to recognize observe and monitor their own thoughts.

The behavior part of the therapy involves setting homework for the clientto do (e.g. keeping a diary of thoughts). The therapist gives the client tasks that will help them challenge their own irrational beliefs.

The idea is that the client identifies their own unhelpful beliefs and them proves them wrong. As a result, their beliefs begin to change. For example, someone who is anxious in social situations may be set a homework assignment to meet a friend at the pub for a drink.

Albert Ellis - REBT

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a type cognitive therapy first used by Albert Ellis which focuses on resolving emotional and behavioral problems. The goal of the therapy is to change irrational beliefs to more rational ones.

REBT encourages a person to identify their general and irrational beliefs (e.g. I must be perfect") and subsequently persuades the person challenge these false beliefs through reality testing.

Albert Ellis (1957, 1962) proposes that each of us hold a unique set of assumptions about ourselves and our world that serve to guide us through life and determine our reactions to the various situations we encounter.

Unfortunately, some people’s assumptions are largely irrational, guiding them to act and react in ways that are inappropriate and that prejudice their chances of happiness and success. Albert Ellis calls these basic irrational assumptions.

Some people irrationally assume that they are failures if they are not loved by everyone they know - they constantly seek approval and repeatedly feel rejected. All their interactions are affected by this assumption, so that a great party can leave them dissatisfied because they don’t get enough compliments.

According to Ellis, these are other common irrational assumptions:

• The idea that one should be thoroughly competent at everything.

• The idea that is it catastrophic when things are not the way you want them to be.

• The idea that people have no control over their happiness.

• The idea that you need someone stronger than yourself to be dependent on.

• The idea that your past history greatly influences your present life.

• The idea that there is a perfect solution to human problems, and it’s a disaster if you don’t find it.

Ellis believes that people often forcefully hold on to this illogical way of thinking, and therefore employs highly emotive techniques to help them vigorously and forcefully change this irrational thinking.

The ABC Model

A major aid in cognitive therapy is what Albert Ellis (1957) called the ABC Technique of Irrational Beliefs.

The first three steps analyze the process by which a person has developed irrational beliefs and may be recorded in a three-column table.

ABC model of cognitive therapy

* A - Activating Event or objective situation. The first column records the objective situation, that is, an event that ultimately leads to some type of high emotional response or negative dysfunctional thinking.

* B - Beliefs. In the second column, the client writes down the negative thoughts that occurred to them.

* C - Consequence. The third column is for the negative feelings and dysfunctional behaviors that ensued. The negative thoughts of the second column are seen as a connecting bridge between the situation and the distressing feelings. The third column C is next explained by describing emotions or negative thoughts that the client thinks are caused by A. This could be anger, sorrow, anxiety, etc.

Ellis believes that it is not the activating event (A) that causes negative emotional and behavioral consequences (C), but rather that a person interpret these events unrealistically and therefore has a irrational belief system (B) that helps cause the consequences (C).

Ellis ABC model of therapy example

REBT Example

Gina is upset because she got a low mark on a math test. The Activating event, A, is that she failed her test. The Belief, B, is that she must have good grades or she is worthless. The Consequence, C, is that Gina feels depressed.

After irrational beliefs have been identified, the therapist will often work with the client in challenging the negative thoughts on the basis of evidence from the client's experience by reframing it, meaning to re-interpret it in a more realistic light. This helps the client to develop more rational beliefs and healthy coping strategies.

A therapist would help Gina realize that there is no evidence that she must have good grades to be worthwhile, or that getting bad grades is awful. She desires good grades, and it would be good to have them, but it hardly makes her worthless.

If she realizes that getting bad grades is disappointing, but not awful, and that it means she is currently bad at math or at studying, but not as a person, she will feel sad or frustrated, but not depressed. The sadness and frustration are likely healthy negative emotions and may lead her to study harder from then on.

Critical Evaluation

Rational emotive behavior therapists have cited many studies in support of this approach. Most early studies were conducted on people with experimentally induced anxieties or non clinical problems such as mild fear of snakes (Kendall & Kriss, 1983).

However, a number of recent studies have been done on actual clinical subjects and have also found that rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) is often helpful (Lyons & Woods 1991).

Aaron Beck - Cognitive Therapy

Beck’s (1967) system of therapy is similar to Ellis’s, but has been most widely used in cases of depression. Cognitive therapists help clients to recognize the negative thoughts and errors in logic that cause them to be depressed.

The therapist also guides clients to question and challenge their dysfunctional thoughts, try out new interpretations, and ultimately apply alternative ways of thinking in their daily lives.

Aaron Beck believes that a person’s reaction to specific upsetting thoughts may contribute to abnormality. As we confront the many situations that arise in life, both comforting and upsetting thoughts come into our heads. Beck calls these unbidden cognition’s automatic thoughts.

When a person’s stream of automatic thoughts is very negative you would expect a person to become depressed (I’m never going to get this essay finished, my girlfriend fancies my best friend, I’m getting fat, I have no money, my parents hate me - have you ever felt like this?). Quite often these negative thoughts will persist even in the face of contrary evidence.

Beck (1967) identified three mechanisms that he thought were responsible for depression:

The cognitive triad (of negative automatic thinking
Negative self schemas
Errors in Logic (i.e. faulty information processing)

The Cognitive Triad

The cognitive triad are three forms of negative (i.e helpless and critical) thinking that are typical of individuals with depression: namely negative thoughts about the self, the world and the future. These thoughts tended to be automatic in depressed people as they occurred spontaneously.

Beck's cognitive triad

As these three components interact, they interfere with normal cognitive processing, leading to impairments in perception, memory and problem solving with the person becoming obsessed with negative thoughts.

Beck's cognitive triad

Negative Self-Schemas

Beck believed that depression prone individuals develop a negative self-schema. They possess a set of beliefs and expectations about themselves that are essentially negative and pessimistic.

Beck claimed that negative schemas may be acquired in childhood as a result of a traumatic event. Experiences that might contribute to negative schemas include:

Death of a parent or sibling.
Parental rejection, criticism, overprotection, neglect or abuse.
Bullying at school or exclusion from peer group.

People with negative self schemas become prone to making logical errors in their thinking and they tend to focus selectively on certain aspects of a situation while ignoring equally relevant information.

Cognitive Distortions

Beck (1967) identifies a number of illogical thinking processes (i.e. distortions of thought processes). These illogical thought patterns are self-defeating, and can cause great anxiety or depression for the individual.

• Arbitrary interference: Drawing conclusions on the basis of sufficient or irrelevant evidence: for example, thinking you are worthless because an open air concert you were going to see has been rained off.

• Selective abstraction: Focusing on a single aspect of a situation and ignoring others: E.g., you feel responsible for your team losing a football match even though you are just one of the players on the field.

• Magnification: exaggerating the importance of undesirable events. E.g., if you scrape a bit of paint work on your car and, therefore, see yourself as totally awful driver.

• Minimisation: underplaying the significance of an event. E.g., you get praised by your teachers for an excellent term’s work, but you see this as trivial.

• Overgeneralization: drawing broad negative conclusions on the basis of a single insignificant event. E.g., you get a D for an exam when you normally get straight As and you, therefore, think you are stupid.

• Personalisation: Attributing the negative feelings of others to yourself. E.g., your teacher looks really cross when he comes into the room, so he must be cross with you.

Critical Evaluation

Butler and Beck (2000) reviewed 14 meta-analyses investigating the effectiveness of Beck’s cognitive therapy and concluded that about 80% of adults benefited from the therapy.

It was also found that the therapy was more successful than drug therapy and had a lower relapse rate, supporting the proposition that depression has a cognitive basis.

This suggests that knowledge of the cognitive explanation can improve the quality of people’s lives.

Differences between REBT & Cognitive Therapy

• Albert Ellis views the therapist as a teacher and does not think that a warm personal relationship with a client is essential. In contrast, Beck stresses the quality of the therapeutic relationship.

• REBT is often highly directive, persuasive and confrontive. Beck places more emphasis on the client discovering misconceptions for themselves.

• REBT uses different methods depending on the personality of the client, in Beck’s cognitive therapy, the method is based upon the particular disorder.

Strengths of CBT

1. Model has great appeal because it focuses on human thought. Human cognitive abilities has been responsible for our many accomplishments so may also be responsible for our problems.

2. Cognitive theories lend themselves to testing. When experimental subjects are manipulated into adopting unpleasant assumptions or thought they became more anxious and depressed (Rimm & Litvak, 1969).

3. Many people with psychological disorders, particularly depressive , anxiety , and sexual disorders have been found to display maladaptive assumptions and thoughts (Beck et al., 1983).

4. Cognitive therapy has been very effective for treating depression (Hollon & Beck, 1994), and moderately effective for anxiety problems (Beck, 1993).

Limitations of CBT

1. The precise role of cognitive processes is yet to be determined. It is not clear whether faulty cognitions are a cause of the psychopathology or a consequence of it.

Lewinsohn (1981) studied a group of participants before any of them became depressed, and found that those who later became depressed were no more likely to have negative thoughts than those who did not develop depression. This suggests that hopeless and negative thinking may be the result of depression, rather than the cause of it.

2. The cognitive model is narrow in scope - thinking is just one part of human functioning, broader issues need to be addressed.

3. Ethical issues: RET is a directive therapy aimed at changing cognitions sometimes quite forcefully. For some, this may be considered an unethical approach.

Psychological Theories of Depression

Depression is a mood disorder which prevents individuals from leading a normal life, at work socially or within their family. Seligman (1973) referred to depression as the ‘common cold’ of psychiatry because of its frequency of diagnosis.

Depending on how data are gathered and how diagnoses are made, as many as 27% of some population groups may be suffering from depression at any one time (NIMH, 2001; data for older adults).

DSM & ICD symtoms of depression

Behaviorist Theory

Behaviorism emphasizes the importance of the environment in shaping behavior. The focus is on observable behavior and the conditions through which individuals' learn behavior, namely classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning theory.

Therefore depression is the result of a person's interaction with their environment.

For example, classical conditioning proposes depression is learned through associating certain stimuli with negative emotional states. Social learning theory states behavior is learned through observation, imitation and reinforcement.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning states that depression is caused by the removal of positive reinforcement from the environment (Lewinsohn, 1974). Certain events, such as losing your job, induce depression because they reduce positive reinforcement from others (e.g. being around people who like you).

Depressed people usually become much less socially active. In addition depression can also be caused through inadvertent reinforcement of depressed behavior by others.

For example, when a loved one is lost, an important source of positive reinforcement has lost as well. This leads to inactivity. The main source of reinforcement is now the sympathy and attention of friends and relatives.

However this tends to reinforce maladaptive behavior i.e. weeping, complaining, talking of suicide. This eventually alienates even close friends leading to even less reinforcement, increasing social isolation and unhappiness. In other words depression is a vicious cycle in which the person is driven further and further down.

Also if the person lacks social skills or has a very rigid personality structure they may find it difficult to make the adjustments needed to look for new and alternative sources of reinforcement (Lewinsohn, 1974). So they get locked into a negative downward spiral.

Critical Evaluation

Behavioral/learning theories makes sense in terms of reactive depression, where there is a clearly identifiable cause of depression. However, one of the biggest problems for the theory is that of endogenous depression. This is depression that has no apparent cause (i.e. nothing bad has happened to the person).

An additional problem of the behaviorist approach is that it fails to take into account cognitions (thoughts) influence on mood.

Psychodynamic Theory

During the 1960's psychodynamic theories dominated psychology and psychiatry. Depression was understood in terms of:

inwardly directed anger (Freud, 1917),
introjection of love object loss,
severe super-ego demands (Freud, 1917),
excessive narcissistic, oral and/or anal personality need (Chodoff, 1972),
loss of self-esteem (Bibring, 1953; Fenichel, 1968), and
deprivation in the mother child relationship during the first year (Kleine, 1934).

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is an example of the psychodynamic approach. Freud (1917) prosed that many cases of depression were due to biological factors. However, Freud also argued that some cases of depression could be linked to loss or rejection by a parent. Depression is like grief, in that it often occurs as a reaction to the loss of an important relationship.

However, there is an important difference, because depressed people regard themselves as worthless. What happens is that the individual identifies with the lost person, so that repressed anger towards the lost person is directed inwards towards the self. The inner directed anger reduces the individual’s self-esteem, and makes him/her vulnerable to experiencing depression in the future.

Freud distinguished between actual losses (e.g. death of a loved one) and symbolic losses (e.g. loss of a job). Both kinds of losses can produce depression by causing the individual to re-experience childhood episodes when they experienced loss of affection from some significant person (e.g. a parent).

Later, Freud modified his theory stating that the tendency to internalize loss objects is normal, and that depression is simply due to an excessively severe super-ego. Thus, the depressive phase occurs when the individual’s super-ego or conscience is dominant. In contrast, the manic phase occurs when the individual’s ego or rational mind asserts itself, and s/he feels control.

In order to avoid loss turning into depression, the individual needs to engage in a period of mourning work, during which s/he recalls memories of the lost one. This allows the individual to separate him/herself from the lost person, and so reduce the inner-directed anger. However, individuals very dependent on others for their sense of self-esteem may be unable to do this, and so remain extremely depressed.

Critical Evaluation

Psychoanalytic theories of depression have had a profound impact on contemporary theories of depressions. For example, Beck's (1983) model of depression was influenced by psychoanalytic ideas such as the loss of self-esteem (re: Beck's negative view of self), object loss (re: the importance of loss events), external narcissistic deprivation (re: hypersensitivity to loss of social resources) and oral personality (re: sociotropic personality).

However, although being highly influential, psychoanalytic theories are difficult to test scientifically. For example, many of its central features cannot be operationally defined with sufficient precision to allow empirical investigation. Mendelson (1990) concluded his review of psychoanalytic theories of depression by stating:

'A striking feature of the impressionistic pictures of depression painted by many writers is that they have the flavor of art rather than of science and may well represent profound personal intuitions as much as they depict they raw clinical data' (p. 31).

Another criticism concerns the psychanalytic emphasis on unconscious, intrapsychic processes and early childhood experience as being limiting in that they cause clinicians to overlook additional aspects of depression. For example, conscious negative self-verbalisation (Beck, 1967), or ongoing distressing life events (Brown & Harris, 1978).

Cognitive Approach

This approach focuses on people’s beliefs rather than their behavior. Depression results from systematic negative bias in thinking processes.

Emotional, behavioral (and possibly physical) symptoms result from cognitive abnormality. This means that depressed patients think differently to clinically normal people. The cognitive approach also assumes changes in thinking precede (i.e. come before) the onset of depressed mood.

Beck's (1967) Theory

One major cognitive theorist is Aaron Beck. He studied people suffering from depression and found that they appraised events in a negative way.

Beck (1967) identified three mechanisms that he thought were responsible for depression:

The cognitive triad (of negative automatic thinking)
Negative self schemas
Errors in Logic (i.e. faulty information processing)

The cognitive triad are three forms of negative (i.e. helpless and critical) thinking that are typical of individuals with depression: namely negative thoughts about the self, the world and the future. These thoughts tended to be automatic in depressed people as they occurred spontaneously.

For example, depressed individuals tend to view themselves as helpless, worthless, and inadequate. They interpret events in the world in a unrealistically negative and defeatist way, and they see the world as posing obstacles that can’t be handled. Finally, they see the future as totally hopeless because their worthlessness will prevent their situation improving.

Beck's cognitive triad

Beck believed that depression prone individuals develop a negative self-schema. They possess a set of beliefs and expectations about themselves that are essentially negative and pessimistic. Beck claimed that negative schemas may be acquired in childhood as a result of a traumatic event. Experiences that might contribute to negative schemas include:

Death of a parent or sibling.
Parental rejection, criticism, overprotection, neglect or abuse.
Bullying at school or exclusion from peer group.

However, a negative self-schema predisposes the individual to depression, and therefore someone who has acquired a cognitive triad will not necessarily develop depression. Some kind of stressful life event is required to activate this negative schema later in life. Once the negative schema are activated a number of illogical thoughts or cognitive biases seem to dominate thinking.

People with negative self schemas become prone to making logical errorsin their thinking and they tend to focus selectively on certain aspects of a situation while ignoring equally relevant information.

Beck (1967) identified a number of systematic negative bias' in information processing known as logical errors or faulty thinking. These illogical thought patterns are self-defeating, and can cause great anxiety or depression for the individual. For example:

Arbitrary Inference. Drawing a negative conclusion in the absence of supporting data.
Selective Abstraction. Focusing on the worst aspects of any situation.
Magnification and Minimisation. If they have a problem they make it appear bigger than it is. If they have a solution they make it smaller.
Personalization. Negative events are interpreted as their fault.
Dichotomous Thinking. Everything is seen as black and white. There is no in between.

Such thoughts exacerbate, and are exacerbated by the cognitive triad. Beck believed these thoughts or this way of thinking become automatic. When a person’s stream of automatic thoughts is very negative you would expect a person to become depressed. Quite often these negative thoughts will persist even in the face of contrary evidence.

Critical Evaluation

Alloy et al. (1999) followed the thinking styles of young Americans in their early 20’s for 6 years. Their thinking style was tested and they were placed in either the ‘positive thinking group’ or ‘negative thinking group’. After 6 years the researchers found that only 1% of the positive group developed depression compared to 17% of the ‘negative’ group. These results indicate there may be a link between cognitive style and development of depression.

However such a study may suffer from demand characteristics. The results are also correlational. It is important to remember that the precise role of cognitive processes is yet to be determined. The maladaptive cognitions seen in depressed people may be a consequence rather than a cause of depression.

Learned Helplessness

Martin Seligman (1974) proposed a cognitive explanation of depression called learned helplessness. According to Seligman’s learned helplessness theory, depression occurs when a person learns that their attempts to escape negative situations make no difference.

As a consequence they become passive and will endure aversive stimuli or environments even when escape is possible.

Seligman based his theory on research using dogs.

Learned Helplessness

A dog put into a partitioned cage learns to escape when the floor is electrified. If the dog is restrained whilst being shocked it eventually stops trying to escape.

Dogs subjected to inescapable electric shocks later failed to escape from shocks even when it was possible to do so. Moreover, they exhibited some of the symptoms of depression found in humans (lethargy, sluggishness, passive in the face of stress and appetite loss).

This led Seligman (1974) to explain depression in humans in terms of learned helplessness, whereby the individual gives up trying to influence their environment because they have learned that they are helpless as a consequence of having no control over what happens to them.

Although Seligman’s account may explain depression to a certain extent, it fails to take into account cognitions (thoughts). Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale (1978) consequently introduced a cognitive version of the theory by reformulating learned helplessness in term of attributional processes (i.e. how people explain the cause of an event).

The depression attributional style is based on three dimensions, namely locus (whether the cause is internal - to do with a person themselves, or external - to do with some aspect of the situation), stability (whether the cause is stable and permanent or unstable and transient) and global or specific (whether the cause relates to the 'whole' person or just some particular feature characteristic).

In this new version of the theory, the mere presence of a negative event was not considered sufficient to produce a helpless or depressive state. Instead, Abramson et al. argued that people who attribute failure to internal, stable, and global causes are more likely to become depressed than those who attribute failure to external, unstable and specific causes. This is because the former attributional style leads people to the conclusion that they are unable to change things for the better.

Critical Evaluation

Gotlib and Colby (1987) found that people who were formerly depressed are actually no different from people who have never been depressed in terms of their tendencies to view negative events with an attitude of helpless resignation.

This suggests that helplessness could be a symptom rather than a cause of depression. Moreover, it may be that negative thinking generally is also an effect rather than a cause of depression.

Humanist Approach

Humanists believe that there are needs that are unique to the human species. According to Maslow (1962) the most important of these is the need for self-actualization (achieving out potential). The self actualizing human being has a meaningful life. Anything that blocks our striving to fulfil this need can be a cause of depression. What could cause this?

Parents imposing conditions of worth on their children. I.e. rather than accepting the child for who s/he is and giving unconditional love, parents make love conditional on good behavior. E.g. a child may be blamed for not doing well at school, develop a negative self-image and feel depressed because of a failure to live up to parentally imposed standards.

Some children may seek to avoid this by denying their true self and projecting an image of the kind of person they want to be. This façade or false self is an effort to please others. However the splitting off of the real self from the person you are pretending to be causes hatred of the self. The person then comes to despise themselves for living a lie.

As adults self actualization can be undermined by unhappy relationships and unfulfilling jobs. An empty shell marriage means the person is unable to give and receive love from their partner. An alienating job means the person is denied the opportunity to be creative at work.

Chapter 6 - Secrets (Part 3)

Albert Ellis: Confident and Kicking

Albert Ellis is a stoic philosopher with a sailor's mouth. A half-century ago, Ellis drew from Seneca and Epictetus in devising rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), a way of thinking about thinking that ushered in psychology's cognitive revolution. Now 93 years old, Ellis has challenged and cursed the irrational beliefs of multiple generations. Ellis famously overcame his own timidity by forcing himself to approach women. Today he battles illness and ignominy with equal pluck: He was kicked off the board of his own institute in 2005 (a judge reinstated him last year, though the dispute continues). Ellis has authored more than 75 books, including a forthcoming one about love. Arguably America's most eminent living psychologist, Ellis steadfastly maintains that we're all "out of our f***ing minds."

NP: Who is the most socially confident person you've met?

AE: I am.

Did your confidence help you cope with initial opposition to REBT?

Yes. I encountered opposition from practically everybody, including psychologists. But I never considered giving up because I thought there was no other way.

How are you handling the dispute with your institute?

I use REBT to see only what is really there and not exaggerate it. Still, it is the hardest thing I've ever dealt with. This has confirmed my belief that human nature is very irrational.

You're no stranger to controversy. Some might say that the conflict with the institute is par for the course.

I fight injustice wherever it is.

One tenet of REBT is stoicism. How do you use it to cope with seemingly horrible events?

Some things are bad, a few things are exceptionally bad but not awful, and no matter how bad it is, you can stand it.

Will a person who simply behaves in a self-confident manner feel more confident?

Yes. Keep moving, moving, moving. I encourage people to try scary things and not to give a s**t when they're rejected.

What's it like to be a newlywed in your 90s?

It's great. Debbie [Joffe Ellis] is the woman I really, really love. She's made me more other-directed than I used to be.

What constitutes a meaningful, happy existence?

Having goals but not rigidly following them.

What is your most satisfying accomplishment?

The fact that I live my own philosophy.

Behaviorist Approach

Behaviorism refers to a psychological approach which emphasizes scientific and objective methods of investigation. The approach is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviors, and states all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment.

The behaviorist movement began in 1913 when John Watson wrote an article entitled 'Psychology as the behaviorist views it,' which set out a number of underlying assumptions regarding methodology and behavioral analysis:

Basic Assumptions

All behavior is learned from the environment:

Behaviorism emphasizes the role of environmental factors in influencing behavior, to the near exclusion of innate or inherited factors. This amounts essentially to a focus on learning.

We learn new behavior through classical or operant conditioning (collectively known as 'learning theory').

Therefore, when born our mind is 'tabula rasa' (a blank slate).

Psychology should be seen as a science:

Theories need to be supported by empirical data obtained through careful and controlled observation and measurement of behavior. Watson (1913) stated that:

'Psychology as a behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is … prediction and control.' (p. 158).

The components of a theory should be as simple as possible. Behaviorists propose the use of operational definitions (defining variables in terms of observable, measurable events).

Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion:

While behaviorists often accept the existence of cognitions and emotions, they prefer not to study them as only observable (i.e., external) behavior can be objectively and scientifically measured.

Therefore, internal events, such as thinking should be explained through behavioral terms (or eliminated altogether).

There is little difference between the learning that takes place in humans and that in other animals:

There's no fundamental (qualitative) distinction between human and animal behavior. Therefore, research can be carried out on animals as well as humans (i.e., comparative psychology).

Consequently, rats and pigeons became the primary source of data for behaviorists, as their environments could be easily controlled.

Behavior is the result of stimulus-response:

All behavior, no matter how complex, can be reduced to a simple stimulus-response association). Watson described the purpose of psychology as:

'To predict, given the stimulus, what reaction will take place; or, given the reaction, state what the situation or stimulus is that has caused the reaction.' (1930, p. 11).

Types of Behaviorism

Historically, the most significant distinction between versions of behaviorism is that between Watson's original 'methodological behaviorism,' and forms of behaviorism later inspired by his work, known collectively as neobehaviorism (e.g., radical behaviorism).

Methodological Behaviorism

Watson's article 'Psychology as the behaviorist views it' is often referred to as the 'behaviorist manifesto,' in which Watson (1913, p. 158) outlines the principles of all behaviorists:

'Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness.

The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation'.

Radical Behaviorism

Radical behaviorism was founded by B.F Skinner and agreed with the assumption of methodological behaviorism that the goal of psychology should be to predict and control behavior.

Skinner, like Watson, also recognized the role of internal mental events, and while he agreed such private events could not be used to explain behavior, he proposed they should be explained in the analysis of behavior.

Another important distinction between methodological and radical behaviorism concerns the extent to which environmental factors influence behavior. Watson's (1913) methodological behaviorism asserts the mind is tabula rasa (a blank slate) at birth. In contrast, radical behaviorism accepts the view that organisms are born with innate behaviors, and thus recognizes the role of genes and biological components in behavior.

Critical Evaluation

An obvious advantage of behaviorism is its ability to define behavior clearly and to measure changes in behavior. According to the law of parsimony, the fewer assumptions a theory makes, the better and the more credible it is. Behaviorism, therefore, looks for simple explanations of human behavior from a very scientific standpoint.

However, behaviorism only provides a partial account of human behavior, that which can be objectively viewed. Important factors like emotions, expectations, higher-level motivation are not considered or explained. Accepting a behaviorist explanation could prevent further research from other perspective that could uncover important factors.

In addition, humanism (e.g., Carl Rogers) rejects the scientific method of using experiments to measure and control variables because it creates an artificial environment and has low ecological validity.

Humanistic psychology also assumes that humans have free will (personal agency) to make their own decisions in life and do not follow the deterministic laws of science. Humanism also rejects the nomothetic approach of behaviorism as they view humans as being unique and believe humans cannot be compared with animals (who aren’t susceptible to demand characteristics). This is known as an idiographic approach.

The psychodynamic approach (Freud) criticizes behaviorism as it does not take into account the unconscious mind’s influence on behavior, and instead focuses on externally observable behavior. Freud also rejects the idea that people are born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and states that people are born with instincts (e.g., eros and thanatos).

Biological psychology states that all behavior has a physical/organic cause. They emphasize the role of nature over nurture. For example, chromosomesand hormones (testosterone) influence our behavior too, in addition to the environment.

Cognitive psychology states that mediational processes occur between stimulus and response, such as memory, thinking, problem-solving, etc.

Despite these criticisms, behaviorism has made significant contributions to psychology. These include insights into learning, language development, and moral and gender development, which have all been explained in terms of conditioning.

The contribution of behaviorism can be seen in some of its practical applications. Behavior therapy and behavior modification represent one of the major approaches to the treatment of abnormal behavior and are readily used in clinical psychology.

Psychodynamic Approach

The psychodynamic approach includes all the theories in psychology that see human functioning based upon the interaction of drives and forces within the person, particularly unconscious, and between the different structures of the personality.

Freud’s psychoanalysis was the original psychodynamic theory, but the psychodynamic approach as a whole includes all theories that were based on his ideas, e.g., Jung (1964), Adler (1927) and Erikson (1950).

The words psychodynamic and psychoanalytic are often confused. Remember that Freud’s theories were psychoanalytic, whereas the term ‘psychodynamic’ refers to both his theories and those of his followers. Freud’s psychoanalysis is both a theory and therapy.

Sigmund Freud (writing between the 1890s and the 1930s) developed a collection of theories which have formed the basis of the psychodynamic approach to psychology. His theories are clinically derived - i.e., based on what his patients told him during therapy. The psychodynamic therapist would usually be treating the patient for depression or anxiety related disorders.

Basic Assumptions

Our behavior and feelings are powerfully affected by unconscious motives:

The unconscious mind comprises mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgments, feelings, or behavior (Wilson, 2002).

According to Freud (1915), the unconscious mind is the primary source of human behavior. Like an iceberg, the most important part of the mind is the part you cannot see.

Our feelings, motives, and decisions are actually powerfully influenced by our past experiences, and stored in the unconscious.

Our behavior and feelings as adults (including psychological problems) are rooted in our childhood experiences:

Psychodynamic theory states that events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult lives, shaping our personality. Events that occur in childhood can remain in the unconscious, and cause problems as adults.

Personality is shaped as the drives are modified by different conflicts at different times in childhood (during psychosexual development).

All behavior has a cause (usually unconscious), even slips of the tongue. Therefore all behavior is determined:

Psychodynamic theory is strongly determinist as it views our behavior as caused entirely by unconscious factors over which we have no control.

Unconscious thoughts and feelings can transfer to the conscious mind in the form of parapraxes, popularly known as Freudian slips or slips of the tongue. We reveal what is really on our mind by saying something we didn't mean to.

Freud believed that slips of the tongue provided an insight into the unconscious mind and that there were no accidents, every behavior (including slips of the tongue) was significant (i.e., all behavior is determined).

Personality is made up of three parts (i.e., tripartite): the id, ego, and super-ego:

The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality. It consists of all the inherited (i.e., biological) components of personality present at birth, including the sex (life) instinct – Eros (which contains the libido), and the aggressive (death) instinct - Thanatos.

The ego develops in order to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external real world. It is the decision making component of personality.

The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one's parents and others.

Parts of the unconscious mind (the id and superego) are in constant conflict with the conscious part of the mind (the ego). This conflict creates anxiety, which could be dealt with by the ego’s use of defense mechanisms.

Critical Evaluation

The greatest criticism of the psychodynamic approach is that it is unscientific in its analysis of human behavior. Many of the concepts central to Freud's theories are subjective, and as such, difficult to test scientifically.

For example, how is it possible to scientifically study concepts like the unconscious mind or the tripartite personality? In this respect, it could be argued that the psychodynamic perspective is unfalsifiable as its theories cannot be empirically investigated.

However, cognitive psychology has identified unconscious processes, such as procedural memory (Tulving, 1972), automatic processing (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Stroop, 1935), and social psychology have shown the importance of implicit processing (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Such empirical findings have demonstrated the role of unconscious processes in human behavior.

Kline (1989) argues that psychodynamic theory comprises a series of hypotheses, some of which are more easily tested than others, and some with more supporting evidence than others. Also, while the theories of the psychodynamic approach may not be easily tested, this does not mean that it does not have strong explanatory power.

Nevertheless, most of the evidence for psychodynamic theories is taken from Freud's case studies (e.g., Little Hans, Anna O). The main problem here is that the case studies are based on studying one person in detail, and with reference to Freud, the individuals in question are most often middle-aged women from Vienna (i.e., his patients). This makes generalizations to the wider population (e.g., the whole world) difficult.

Another problem with the case study method is that it is susceptible to researcher bias. Reexamination of Freud's own clinical work suggests that he sometimes distorted his patients' case histories to 'fit' with his theory (Sulloway, 1991).

The humanistic approach makes the criticism that the psychodynamic perspective is too deterministic. Freud suggests that all thoughts, behaviors and emotions are determined by our childhood experiences and unconscious mental processes. This is a weakness because it suggests we have no conscious free will over our behavior, leaving little room for the idea of personal agency (i.e., free will).

Finally, the psychodynamic approach can be criticized for being sexist against women. For example, Freud believed that females' penis envy made them inferior to males. He also thought that females tended to develop weaker superegos and to be more prone to anxiety than males.

Chapter 7 - Secrets (Part 4)

Id, Ego and Superego

Freud Personality Theory

Perhaps Freud's single most enduring and important idea was that the human psyche (personality) has more than one aspect. Freud (1923) saw the psyche structured into three parts (i.e., tripartite), the id, ego and superego, all developing at different stages in our lives. These are systems, not parts of the brain, or in any way physical.

According to Freud's model of the psyche, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.

Although each part of the personality comprises unique features, they interact to form a whole, and each part makes a relative contribution to an individual's behavior.

What is the id?

The id is the impulsive (and unconscious) part of our psyche which responds directly and immediately to the instincts. The personality of the newborn child is all id and only later does it develop an ego and super-ego.

The id remains infantile in its function throughout a persons life and does not change with time or experience, as it is not in touch with the external world. The id is not affected by reality, logic or the everyday world, as it operates within the unconscious part of the mind.

The id operates on the pleasure principle (Freud, 1920) which is the idea that every wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences. When the id achieves its demands, we experience pleasure when it is denied we experience ‘unpleasure’ or tension.

freud tripartite personality theory

The id engages in primary process thinking, which is primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented. This form of process thinking has no comprehension of objective reality, and is selfish and wishful in nature.

What is the ego?

The ego is 'that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world.'

(Freud, 1923, p. 25)

The ego develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external real world. It is the decision-making component of personality. Ideally, the ego works by reason, whereas the id is chaotic and unreasonable.

The ego operates according to the reality principle, working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands, often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid negative consequences of society. The ego considers social realities and norms, etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave.

Like the id, the ego seeks pleasure (i.e., tension reduction) and avoids pain, but unlike the id, the ego is concerned with devising a realistic strategy to obtain pleasure. The ego has no concept of right or wrong; something is good simply if it achieves its end of satisfying without causing harm to itself or the id.

Often the ego is weak relative to the headstrong id, and the best the ego can do is stay on, pointing the id in the right direction and claiming some credit at the end as if the action were its own.

Freud made the analogy of the id being a horse while the ego is the rider. The ego is 'like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse.'

(Freud, 1923, p.15)

If the ego fails in its attempt to use the reality principle, and anxiety is experienced, unconscious defense mechanisms are employed, to help ward off unpleasant feelings (i.e., anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual.

The ego engages in secondary process thinking, which is rational, realistic, and orientated towards problem-solving. If a plan of action does not work, then it is thought through again until a solution is found. This is known as reality testing and enables the person to control their impulses and demonstrate self-control, via mastery of the ego.

An important feature of clinical and social work is to enhance ego functioning and help the client test reality through assisting the client to think through their options.

What is the superego?

The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one's parents and others. It develops around the age of 3 – 5 during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.

The superego's function is to control the id's impulses, especially those which society forbids, such as sex and aggression. It also has the function of persuading the ego to turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and to strive for perfection.

The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the id's demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt. The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.

Behavior which falls short of the ideal self may be punished by the superego through guilt. The super-ego can also reward us through the ideal self when we behave ‘properly’ by making us feel proud.

If a person’s ideal self is too high a standard, then whatever the person does will represent failure. The ideal self and conscience are largely determined in childhood from parental values and how you were brought up.

Humanism

Humanistic, humanism and humanist are terms in psychology relating to an approach which studies the whole person, and the uniqueness of each individual. Essentially, these terms refer the same approach in psychology.

The humanistic approach in psychology developed as a rebellion against what some psychologists saw as the limitations of the behaviorist and psychodynamic psychology. The humanistic approach is thus often called the “third force” in psychology after psychoanalysis and behaviorism (Maslow, 1968).

Humanism rejected the assumptions of the behaviorist perspective which is characterized as deterministic, focused on reinforcement of stimulus-response behavior and heavily dependent on animal research.

Humanistic psychology also rejected the psychodynamic approach because it is also deterministic, with unconscious irrational and instinctive forces determining human thought and behavior. Both behaviorism and psychoanalysis are regarded as dehumanizing by humanistic psychologists.

Humanistic psychology expanded its influence throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. Its impact can be understood in terms of three major areas:

1) It offered a new set of values for approaching an understanding of human nature and the human condition.

2) It offered an expanded horizon of methods of inquiry in the study of human behavior.

3) It offered a broader range of more effective methods in the professional practice of psychotherapy.

Basic Assumptions

Humanistic psychology begins with the existential assumptions that people have free will:

Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free will. Personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths we go down and their consequences.

People are basically good, and have an innate need to make themselves and the world better:

The humanistic approach emphasizes the personal worth of the individual, the centrality of human values, and the creative, active nature of human beings.

The approach is optimistic and focuses on noble human capacity to overcome hardship, pain and despair.

People are motivated to self-actualize:

Self-actualization concerns psychological growth, fulfillment and satisfaction in life.

Both Rogers and Maslow regarded personal growth and fulfillment in life as a basic human motive. This means that each person, in different ways, seeks to grow psychologically and continuously enhance themselves.

However, Rogers and Maslow both describe different ways of how self-actualization can be achieved.

The subjective, conscious experiences of the individual is most important:

Humanistic psychologists argue that objective reality is less important than a person's subjective perception and understanding of the world.

Sometimes the humanistic approach is called phenomenological. This means that personality is studied from the point of view of the individual’s subjective experience.

For Rogers the focus of psychology is not behavior (Skinner), the unconscious (Freud), thinking (Wundt) or the human brain but how individuals perceive and interpret events. Rogers is therefore important because he redirected psychology towards the study of the self.

Humanism rejects scientific methodology:

Rogers and Maslow placed little value on scientific psychology, especially the use of the psychology laboratory to investigate both human and animal behavior.

Humanism rejects scientific methodology like experiments and typically uses qualitative research methods. For example, diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations.

Qualitative research is useful for studies at the individual level, and to find out, in depth, the ways in which people think or feel (e.g. case studies).

The way to really understand other people is to sit down and talk with them, share their experiences and be open to their feelings.

Humanism rejected comparative psychology (the study of animals) because it does not tell us anything about the unique properties of human beings:

Humanism views human beings as fundamentally different from other animals, mainly because humans are conscious beings capable of thought, reason and language.

For humanistic psychologists’ research on animals, such as rats, pigeons, or monkeys held little value.

Research on such animals can tell us, so they argued, very little about human thought, behavior and experience.

methods of study.

Critical Evaluation

The humanistic approach has been applied to relatively few areas of psychology compared to the other approaches. Therefore, its contributions are limited to areas such as therapy, abnormality, motivation and personality.

A possible reasons for this lack of impact on academic psychology perhaps lies with the fact that humanism deliberately adopts a non-scientific approach to studying humans. Humanistic psychologists rejected a rigorous scientific approach to psychology because they saw it as dehumanizing and unable to capture the richness of conscious experience. In many ways the rejection of scientific psychology in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was a backlash to the dominance of the behaviorist approach in North American psychology. For example their belief in free-will is in direct opposition to the deterministic laws of science.

Also, the areas investigated by humanism, such as consciousness and emotion are very difficult to scientifically study. The outcome of such scientific limitations means that there is a lack of empirical evidence to support the key theories of the approach.

However, the flip side to this is that humanism can gain a better insight into an individual's behavior through the use of qualitative methods, such as unstructured interviews. The approach also helped to provide a more holistic view of human behavior, in contrast to the reductionist position of science.

Chapter 8 - Bill Maher (WORLD OF JOKES) (Part 1)

New Rule: You’re never going to pick up women at a coffee shop pretending to be working on your laptop. You don’t look like you’re sensitive; you look like you’re homeless. The last guy to pick up a chick with an Apple was Adam. And when you sit across from another dateless loser with a laptop, it still doesn’t look like you’re working—it looks like you’re playing Battleship.

New Rule: Stop bringing me the phone book. The last time anyone even needed a phone book was 1988. And that was a cop using it to beat a suspect.

New Rule: If your doctor pulls on rubber gloves and then a condom, there’s something wrong. An Oregon woman is suing her doctor, claiming he had intercourse with her as “treatment” for her lower-back pain. Call me a traditionalist, but I prefer when doctors screw their patients the old-fashioned way—by giving them the bill.

New Rule: Anyone who whines about America losing its freedoms must watch any Jackass movie. This is a country where you can still Super Glue a midget to a fat guy and set off fireworks inside your ass. If that’s cramping your style, Tea Baggers, then move to Holland.

New Rule: Stop calling bagpipes a musical instrument. They’re actually a Scottish Breathalyzer test. You blow into one end, and if the sound that comes out the other end doesn’t make you want to kill yourself—you’re not drunk enough.

New Rule: If you get to bring your baby into the public swimming pool, I get to follow you home and piss in his bathwater.

New Rule: Just because you’re drunk and it’s October, it doesn’t make it Octoberfest. When you drink in November, it’s not Novemberfest. It’s just Thanksgiving, and you hate your relatives. Besides, we already know what happens when people get drunk and start acting like Germans.

Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year-old kids in this country who can’t spell the name of the teacher they’re having sex with?
America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We’re not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson’s nipple is on their flag.
And sadly, we’re no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn’t get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail.

DEATH TO POOCHY

New Rule: Don’t feel bad that the Taco Bell Chihuahua died. Yes, the Taco Bell Chihuahua has gone to his great reward in the ground. Oddly enough, the cause of death? Taco Bell. But don’t worry, fans. If you would like to visit the dog’s remains, just order a Burrito Grande.

ORWELL THAT ENDS WELL

New Rule: Liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn’t asked Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror. On the contrary, he’s asked us to sacrifice something enormous: our civil rights. When I heard George Bush was reading my e-mails, I probably had the same reaction you did: “George Bush can read?” Yes, he can, and this administration has read your phone records, credit-card statements, mail, Internet logs—I can’t tell if they’re fighting a war on terror or producing the next season of Cheaters. I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning just on the hope they’ll open it and see what it says.
So when it comes to sacrifice, don’t kid yourself: You have given up a lot. You’ve given up faith in your government’s honesty, the goodwill of people overseas, and six-tenths of the Bill of Rights. Here’s what you’ve sacrificed: search and seizure, warrants, self-incrimination, trial by jury, cruel and unusual punishment; here’s what you have left: handguns, religion, and they can’t make you quarter a British soldier. If Prince Harry invades the Inland Empire, he has to bring a tent.
In previous wars, Americans on the home front made a very different kind of sacrifice. During World War II, we endured rationing, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds. In the interest of national unity, people even pretended Bob Hope was funny. Women donated their silk undergarments so they could be sewn into parachutes—can you.

imagine nowadays a Britney Spears or a Lindsay Lohan going without underwear? Okay, bad example.
George Bush has never been too bright about furreners, but he does know Americans. He asked this generation to sacrifice the things he knew we wouldn’t miss: our privacy and our morality. He let us keep the money. But he made a cynical bet that we wouldn’t much care if we became a “big brother” country that has now tortured a lot of random people. And yet no one asks the tough questions, like: “Is torture necessary?” “Who will watch the watchers?” and “When does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom?” It’s been five years; is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?
After 9/11, President Bush told us Osama bin Laden could run but he couldn’t hide. But then he ran, and hid, so Bush went to plan B: pissing on the Constitution.

Conservatives always say the great thing Reagan did was make us feel good about America again. Do you feel good about America now? I’ll give you my answer, and to get it out of me, you don’t even have to hold my head under water and have a snarling guard dog rip my nuts off. No, I don’t feel very good about that. They say that evil happens when good men do nothing. And the Democrats prove it also happens when mediocre people do nothing.

Chapter 8.1. - Bill Maher (WORLD OF JOKES) (Part 2)

So enjoy these New New Rules now, while they’re fresh. Because I find the world is changing much more quickly than I can bitch about it.

New Rule: If you tweet neat stuff about your life for your friends to read more than ten times a day, I can tell you a neat fact about your friends: They hate you!

New Rule: Waiters must stop saying, “Did you save room for dessert?” This is America. We don’t save room for dessert, we make room for dessert. Dessert isn’t a delightful way to cap off a meal, it’s a challenge. In Russia they swim in subzero temperatures, in Spain they run with the bulls, and here we eat forty pounds of goo from a place called The Cheesecake Factory.

New Rule: The kid behind me on the plane who’s kicking my seat must put that energy to good use and beat the shit out of the kid in front of me on the plane who’s playing peekaboo.

New Rule: Halloween must replace July Fourth as our National Holiday. Forget fireworks. Any day that combines spoiling children, corrosive food, and superstition says everything about this country anyone needs to know.

New Rule: You have to wear socks to the airport so the rest of us don’t have to look at your stanky-ass feet in the security line. Seriously, between your stinky piggies and the obese lady in the stretch pants, how am I supposed to stay erect during my security pat-down.

New Rule: There are double entendres, there are single entendres, and then there’s Britney Spears’s single “Hold It Against Me.” What’s her next song, “Put Your Penis in My Mouth”? She’s a regular Cole Porter . . . and by that I mean, a long time ago, gay men liked her.

New Rule: No more pictures of dead people in their coffins. It’s a funeral, not a “Kodak moment.” I don’t want to remember Boris Yeltsin on his back, eyes closed and lifeless. I want to remember Boris Yeltsin how he lived: on his back, eyes closed and lifeless.

New Rule: Now that the army is letting in gays and lesbians, Glee has to add at least one character who’s straight. Just for variety. My memories of high school are kind of fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure not every single human being in the building was gay. Television has an obligation to present America as it really is: ten percent gay. Ten percent real housewife. And seventy percent vampires.

CHUBBY CHECKER

New Rule: Before telling me all about your Let’s Move healthy-schools program, you have to explain why the kid in your poster has an erection

New Rule: You can’t call it coming out of the closet when the door was wide open, the closet was made of glass, and everyone could see you in there having gay sex. Clay Aiken says he came out because he didn’t want to lie to his infant son. Dude, even the baby knew you were gay. I can’t wait to see next week’s issue of People.

New Rule: Condoms are not sex toys. Trojan has released a new line of condoms that vibrate and heat up. Look, condoms keep people from getting AIDS and the clap. Haven’t they done enough? You want to improve condoms? Invent a wrapper guys can open before they lose their hard-on.

New Rule: Instead of getting me the new steering-wheel desk for my birthday, save the $19.99 and just write “I hope you die” on a card.

New Rule: Don’t bring wine to my dinner party. Because then if you drink it, it’s not really a gift, is it? But if I choose a different wine, you’re thinking, “What the hell’s wrong with the bottle I brought?” And when you bring wine and then say, “I don’t drink,” what kind of condescending crap is that? Your cute little gift is such a minefield of potential awkwardness; thank God I’m already high.

Chapter 9 - ReVeAL (George Carlin Style)

The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television

by George Carlin

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.

I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.

They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion.

Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid, y'know like, woo woo woo woo, POP! Then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for that thought, so be careful with words.

I like to think that yeah, the same words that hurt can heal, it's a matter of how you pick them.

There are some people that aren't into all the words.

There are some that would have you not use certain words.

Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7 of them that you can't say on television. What a ratio that is!

399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large.

All of you over here, you 7, baaad words!

That's what they told us they were, remember? "That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions, and words!

You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?
"Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits."

Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.

"Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits," wow!

And "tits" doesn't even belong on the list, y'know? Man!

That's such a friendly sounding word.

It sounds like a nickname, right? "Hey, Tits, come here, man. Hey! Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots."

It sounds like a snack, doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. But I don't mean your sexist snack! I mean New Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits, Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. "Betcha Can't Eat Just One!"

That's true. I usually switch off.

But I mean, that word does not belong on the list. Actually none of the words belong on the list, but you can understand why some of them are there.

I'm not completely insensitive to people's feelings. I can understand why some of those words got on the list, like cocksucker and motherfucker. Those are heavyweight words. There's a lot going on there. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling. I mean, they're just busy words. There's a lot of syllables to contend with.

And those Ks, those are aggressive sounds. They just jump out at you like "coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer. coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer."

It's like an assaualt on you. So I can dig that. We mentioned shit earlier, and 2 of the other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are piss and cunt, which go together of course. A little accidental humor there. The reason that piss and cunt are on the list is because a long time ago, there were certain ladies that said "Those are the two I am not going to say. I don't mind fuck and shit but 'P' and 'C' are out."Which led to such stupid sentences as "Okay you fuckers, I'm going to tinkle now."

And, of course, the word fuck. I don't really, well that's more accidental humor, I don't wanna get into that now because I think it takes too long. But I do mean that. I think the word fuck is a very important word. It's the beginning of life, yet it is a word we use to hurt one another quite often. People much wiser than I am have said, "I'd rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one another." I, of course, can agree. It is a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but I like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with.

"Okay, Sheriff, we're gonna fuck you now, but we're gonna fuck you slow."

So maybe next year I'll have a whole fuckin' ramp on the N word.
I hope so. Those are the 7 you can never say on television, under any circumstances. You just cannot say them ever ever ever. Not even clinically. You cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc, and Ed, and Johnny. I mean, it is just impossible. Forget those 7. They're out.

But there are some 2-way words, those double-meaning words. Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? "...And the cock crowed three times." "Hey, the cock crowed 3 times. Ha ha ha ha. Hey, it's in the Bible. Ha ha ha ha." There are some 2-way words, like it's okay for Curt Gowdy to say "Roberto Clemente has 2 balls on him," but he can't say, "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony. Don't you? He's holding them. He must've hurt them, by God." And the other 2-way word that goes with that one is prick. It's okay if it happens to your finger. You can prick your finger but don't finger your prick. No, no.

Stupid Bullshit on the Phone

by George Carlin

Now, you wouldn't know it, for some of the things I've said over the years...but I like people. I do. I like people, but I like them in short bursts. I don't like people for extended periods of time. I'm all right with them for a little while...but once you get up past, around, minute, minute and a half...I gotta get the fuck outta there.

And my reason for this...my reason is for one that you may share, possibly: I have a very low tolerance level for stupid bullshit. That's all. Stupid bullshit, you know? And everyonewants to tell you their stupid bullshit. And a lot of them don't know when to stop talking; you ever run into that guy? Doesn't know when to stop talking; just continues running at the mouth, like verbal diarrhea. Don't know when the conversation's over; stupid trivial shit you don't care anything about, things you're not even remotely interested in.

"Did I tell you about my mom and dad? Well, my mom and dad went on vacation down at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. This was about...six years ago, I think. Seems like it was six, about six years ago...six or seven, possibly seven, could be. Somewhere in there, six, seven: more than six, less than seven. Let's call it six and a half. So my mom and dad went on vacation at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and my dad found a big rock. ...What he thought was a big rock; turns out it was a dinosaur turd. A petrified dinosaur turd, twenty-seven-pounder."

"You know, now that I think of it, it might have been eight years ago. That would've been close to Y2K, wouldn't it? Remember Y2K? Whatever happened? Everybody was all worried about that; nothin' ever happened. Hahahahahaha. Big fuss...nothin' ever happened! You know? God, that's strange, you know? So let's say...we'll say it's eight years ago, it was either eight or five."

"So my dad gave my mom this big turd; he said, 'Here, Mom, this is a big dinosaur turd; put it in your purse and take that home.' My mom said, 'Dad, I don't think this is a dinosaur turd; this thing is still warm. Whoever dropped this thing is still walking around in here, and we better get the fuck outta this cave!'"

"Nine years ago! Nine. I know it was nine because my wife was pregnant with our first boy, Mak Mudi Ben'el Said ben Salaam. And he's ten now. ...Or is he? He's eleven, maybe he's eleven. He's either eleven or five."

And while all this is going on, you're searching through your mind for something diplomatic and tactical and graceful that you can say to help end the conversation. And all I can ever come up with is, "BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS!" ...You know?

But you can't say that. You...good manners don't permit it. You have to find another way, and I go to body language. I try to use my body language to show that the conversation's over. I find myself leaning at a forty-five degree angle...trying to indicate the direction I'd like to go...if this person would just shut the fuck up. And then I might even give them a verbal cue: "Surgery! Surgery, I'm late for surgery! I'm having my ears sewn shut!" ...You know? Yeah!

Same people on the phone, same people on the phone. Don't know when to hang up, don't know when the conversation's over. Dumb, trivial shit. Dumb questions: "So what are you guys gonna do five summers from now? We haven't made any plans; Marge wants to go to the beach, the kids kinda like it at the lake, and I wanna go to the mountains. Grandma wants to visit her sister in Frog Balls, Arkansas. How 'bout you, you made any plans? It's never too early to make plans. We're going to Norway in 2025. Did you know that up until the 1950s, Norway's economy was based largely on fishing? But now, thanks to the expansion of the world economy and increased...improved drilling tech..."

...And once again, you're searching through your mind for the right thing to say to help end the conversation: "shut the fuck up" comes to mind. Uh, or: "blow it out your..." uh, how 'bout "shut your fuckin' pie hole" might be good. Or, if he prefers cake, "shut your fuckin' cake hole". But these things...you don't wanna, you can't say those things, and you can't use body language on the phone. Well, you can always amuse yourself, you know [George pretends to jack off] ...or, if it's your mother, you show your mother respect, you put her on speakerphone [George pretends to jack off with both hands].

But that doesn't move the conversation along; you have to find another trick, and I go to tone of voice. You ever use your tone of voice to try to talk them into a soft landing? You try to coax the person toward the end: "Right. Good. Okay. Good. Alright then. Good. Right. Okay. Good, okay, okay, alright, al...aw, fuck, there he goes again! That cocksucker..."

"You remember my neighbor with the burns on 90% of her body? Well, she burned the other 10% now. She was lighting a fart and her bush caught fire."

"Listen...l-listen, Reverend...R-Reverend, Reverend, I-I hate to be rude, but...I just took a three and a half hour shit. And I'm bleeding from the asshole. Well, I don't have any Mercurochrome. Yes, I'll-yeah, I'll put a Snoopy Band-Aid on it, thank you. Yeah-yeah, thank you, you do that for me, yeah, say a prayer for my asshole, thank you very much."

1996 HBO Special on Pro-Lifers and Abortion

by George Carlin

Why, why, why, why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place, huh? Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.

Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach "military age". Then they think you are just fine. Just what they've been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life... pro-life... These people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors! What kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do anything they can to save a fetus but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it. They're not pro-life. You know what they are? They're anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don't like them. They don't like women. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state.

Pro-life... You don't see many of these white anti-abortion women volunteering to have any black fetuses transplanted into their uteruses, do you? No, you don't see them adopting a whole lot of crack babies, do you? No, that might be something Christ would do. And, you won't see a lot of these pro-life people dousing themselves in kerosene and lighting themselves on fire. You know, morally committed religious people in South Vietnam knew how to stage a goddamn demonstration, didn't they?! They knew how to put on a fucking protest. Light yourself on FIRE!! C'mon, you moral crusaders, let's see a little smoke. To match that fire in your belly.

Here's another question I have: how come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelette? Are we so much better than chickens all of a sudden? When did this happen, that we passed chickens in goodness? Name six ways we're better than chickens... See, nobody can do it! You know why? 'Cuz chickens are decent people. You don't see chickens hanging around in drug gangs, do you? No, you don't see a chicken strapping some guy to a chair and hooking up his nuts to a car battery, do you? When's the last chicken you heard about came home from work and beat the shit out of his hen, huh? Doesn't happen. 'Cuz chickens are decent people.

But let's get back to this abortion shit. Now, is a fetus a human being? This seems to be the central question. Well, if a fetus is a human being, how come the census doesn't count them? If a fetus is a human being, how come when there's a miscarriage they don't have a funeral? If a fetus is a human being, how come people say "we have two children and one on the way" instead of saying "we have three children?" People say life begins at conception, I say life began about a billion years agoand it's a continuous process. Continuous, just keeps rolling along. Rolling, rolling, rolling along.

And say you know something? Listen, you can go back further than that. What about the carbon atoms? Hah? Human life could not exist without carbon. So is it just possible that maybe we shouldn't be burning all this coal? Just looking for a little consistency here in these anti-abortion arguments. See the really hardcore people will tell you life begins at fertilization. Fertilization, when the sperm fertilizes the egg. Which is usually a few moments after the man says "Gee, honey, I was going to pull out but the phone rang and it startled me." Fertilization.

But even after the egg is fertilized, it's still six or seven days before it reaches the uterus and pregnancy begins, and not every egg makes it that far. Eighty percent of a woman's fertilized eggs are rinsed and flushed out of her body once a month during those delightful few days she has. They wind up on sanitary napkins, and yet they are fertilized eggs. So basically what these anti-abortion people are telling us is that any woman who's had more than more than one period is a serial killer! Consistency. Consistency. Hey, hey, if they really want to get serious, what about all the sperm that are wasted when the state executes a condemned man, one of these pro-life guys who's watching cums in his pants, huh? Here's a guy standing over there with his jockey shorts full of little Vinnies and Debbies, and nobody's saying a word to the guy. Not every ejaculation deserves a name.

Now, speaking of consistency, Catholics, which I was until I reached the age of reason, Catholics and other Christians are against abortions, and they're against homosexuals. Well who has less abortions than homosexuals?! Leave these fucking people alone, for Christ sake! Here is an entire class of people guaranteed never to have an abortion! And the Catholics and Christians are just tossing them aside! You'd think they'd make natural allies. Go look for consistency in religion. And speaking of my friends the Catholics, when John Cardinal O'Connor of New York and some of these other Cardinals and Bishops have experienced their first pregnancies and their first labor pains and they've raised a couple of children on minimum wage, then I'll be glad to hear what they have to say about abortion. I'm sure it'll be interesting. Enlightening, too. But, in the meantime what they ought to be doing is telling these priests who took a vow of chastity to keep their hands off the altar boys! Keep your hands to yourself, Father! You know? When Jesus said "Suffer the little children come unto me", that's not what he was talking about!

So you know what I tell these anti-abortion people? I say "Hey. Hey. If you think a fetus is more important that a woman, try getting a fetus to wash the shit stains out of your underwear. For no pay and no pension." I tell them "Think of an abortion as term limits. That's all it is. Biological term limits.

The Ten Commandments

by George Carlin

I have a problem with the Ten Commandments. Here it is: Why are there ten? We don't need that many. I think the list of commandments was deliberately and artificially inflated to get it up to ten. It's clearly a padded list.

Here's how it happened: About five thousand years ago, a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to figure out how they could control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so these guys announced that God— God personally—had given one of them a list of Ten Commandments that he wanted everyone to follow. They claimed the whole thing took place on a mountaintop, when no one else was around.

But let me ask you something: When these guys were sittin' around the tent makin' all this up, why did they pick ten? Why ten? Why not nine, or eleven? I'll tell you why. Because ten sounds important. Ten sounds official. They knew if they tried eleven, people wouldn't take them seriously. People would say, "What're you kiddin' me? The Eleven Commandments? Get the fuck outta here!"

But ten! Ten sounds important. Ten is the basis for the decimal system; it's a decade. It's a psychologically satisfying number: the top ten; the ten most wanted; the ten best-dressed. So deciding on Ten Commandments was clearly a marketing decision. And it's obviously a bullshit list. In truth, it's a politic; document, artificially inflated to sell better.

I'm going to show you how you can reduce the number of commandments and come up with a list that's a bit more logical and realistic. We'll start with the first three, and I'll use the Roman Catholic version because those are the ones I was fed as a little boy.

• I AM THE LORD THY GOD, THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE
GODS BEFORE ME.

• THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN
VAIN.

• THOU SHALT KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH.

Okay, right off the bat, the first three commandments—pure bullshit "Sabbath day," "Lord's name," "strange gods." Spooky language. Spooky language designed to scare and control primitive people. In no way does superstitious mumbo jumbo like this apply to the lives of intelligent, civilized human in the twenty-first century. You throw out the first three commandments, am you're down to seven.

•HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER.

This commandment is about obedience and respect for authority; in other words it's simply a device for controlling people. The truth is, obedience and respect should not be granted automatically. They should be earned. They should be based on the parents' performance. Some parents deserve respect. Most of them don't. Period. We're down to six.

Now, in the interest of logic—something religion has a really hard time with—I'm going to skip around the list a little bit:

• THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.

• THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS.

Stealing and lying. Actually, when you think about it, these two commandments cover the same sort of behavior: dishonesty. Stealing and lying. So we don't need two of them. Instead, we combine these two and call it "Thou shalt not be dishonest." Suddenly we're down to five.

And as long as we're combining commandments I have two others that belong together:

• THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.

• THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE.

Once again, these two prohibit the same sort of behavior; in this case, marital infidelity. The difference between them is that coveting takes place in the mind. And I don't think you should outlaw fantasizing about someone else's wife, otherwise what's a guy gonna think about when he's waxing his carrot?

But marital fidelity is a good idea, so I suggest we keep the idea and call this commandment "Thou shalt not be unfaithful." Suddenly we're down to four.

And when you think about it further, honesty and fidelity are actually parts of the same overall value. So, in truth, we could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity commandments, and, using positive language instead of negative, call the whole thing "Thou shalt always be honest and faithful." And now we're down to three.

•THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S GOODS.

This one is just plain stupid. Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going: Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays "O Come All Ye Faithful," you want to get one, too. Coveting creates jobs. Leave it alone.

You throw out coveting and you're down to two now: the big, combined honesty/fidelity commandment, and the one we haven't mentioned yet:

•THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

Murder. The Fifth Commandment. But, if you give it a little thought, you realize that religion has never really had a problem with murder. Not really. More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason.

To cite a few examples, just think about Northern Ireland, the Middle East, the Crusades, the Inquisition, our own abortion-doctor killings and, yes, the World Trade Center to see how seriously religious people take Thou Shalt Not Kill. Apparently, to religious folks—especially the truly devout—murder is negotiable. It just depends on who's doing the killing and who's getting killed.

And so, with all of this in mind, folks, I offer you my revised list of the Two Commandments:

First:

•THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE HONEST AND FAITHFUL, ESPECIALLY
TO THE PROVIDER OF THY NOOKIE.

And second:

•THOU SHALT TRY REAL HARD NOT TO KILL ANYONE, UNLESS,
OF COURSE, THEY PRAY TO A DIFFERENT INVISIBLE MAN
THAN THE ONE YOU PRAY TO.

Two is all you need, folks. Moses could have carried them down the hill in his pocket. And if we had a list like that, I wouldn't mind that brilliant judge in Alabama displaying it prominently in the courthouse wall. As long he included one additional commandment:

•THOU SHALT KEEP THY RELIGION TO THYSELF!

Chapter 10 - Talk

Note: Look RSD Julien "Be the best version of yourself."... I don't have such version of myself.

The Truth About Lying

Are you an honest person?

Seriously, ask yourself: are you honest? Wait til you have your answer before reading on.

Do you have it? Cool.

Now ask yourself: Do you lie sometimes?

I’m willing to bet that you’d say you’re an honest person. I’m also willing to bet that you lie sometimes. So you’re honest…except when you’re not.

Now for the real question: can someone who lies sometimes qualify as an honest person?

Or are we all really just liars in denial?

When lying is the right thing to do

I can hear you now.

“Of course I’m still an honest person! It’s impossible to be honest ALL the time and I am honest most of the time.”

That justification seems to make sense. After all, there are certainly times where lying is more than justified.

Take the classic moral case. An axe murderer shows up at your door looking for your roommate. You know your roommate is upstairs. If the axe murder finds him, he’s totally finished. So the axe murderer says, “Could you kindly tell me if your roommate is home?” Should you tell him?

No. Duh. You lie. Because you had to, right?

Wrong.

You didn’t have to lie. You could have said, “Right this way, Tommy is upstairs!” Your buddy would be in a pretty terrible spot, but you could have told the truth.

Now let me go on record as a big proponent of lying to axe murderers. I think that is the right thing to do. But here is my point: You never have to lie. You always have a choice. You have complete freedom of response, even if you don’t like the outcome. Don’t hide that from yourself.

The question you have to ask yourself is not “Do I have a choice?” (you always do). The question is: “Is this lie worth it?”

Axe murderers and roommates with lives on the line? Worth it.

But what about lying to your boss about why you took the day off? Or a friend about having already left the house to meet him, when you’re actually still getting dressed? Or a girlfriend who will get mad if you tell her you were out partying with friends and flirting with other girls?

These are the lies supposedly honest people tell day in and day out. And be honest. You tell them too.

Why do we lie?

Axe murderers aren’t banging down your door. I’m willing to bet no lives are on the line when you decide to lie.

So if you don’t have to, what justifies your lies?

Convenience. You lie because it is advantageous to you.

Lying to your boss spares your job (or at least a verbal lashing)
Lying to your girlfriend keeps her off your back
Lying to your friend about being late spares you their righteous indignation

We tell ourselves about the noble white lie to protect others. But 99% of the time that we lie, we are benefiting ourselves by tricking other people into believing something that is untrue.

The moral justification for lying is only at the extremes. Almost all of the moral excuses we give ourselves for lying are just a veiled way to get what we want while still feeling like good, honest human beings.

So let’s not pretend we are lying because we HAVE to. We lie because it helps our interests.

Okay, but I like the advantages I get from lying and no one is getting hurt. Why be honest at all?

Well, there are plenty of reasons. Some you might find more compelling than others. Here’s a rundown:

HONESTY CREATES LESS PAIN IN THE LONG TERM

You wake up with 5 million dollars in your bank account. Are you pleased?

Seems obvious, right? Of course you are! Five million bucks – you’re over the moon. But it’s a trick question.

Because if you went to bed with $10 million and you wake up with $5 million, you are not pleased at all. You are one pissed off camper.

Why is that? After all, it’s the same $5 million dollars!

Because reality did not match your expectations. Memorize this: circumstances do not upset people. Dashed expectations do.

This clip from 500 days of summer illustrates the point beautifully:

It’s not simply the things you do that upset or excite people. It’s the gulf between the things you do and what they expect from you. It is not the honesty that causes pain. The pain comes from when you created a rift between expectations and reality.

I repeat: you don’t upset people by telling them the truth. You upset people by lying in the first place. The moment of honesty is just when you pay your debts.

People associate honesty with pain because it is in the moment of honesty that pain occurs. That’s like associating your monthly credit card payment with pain. The debt was incurred when you bought something. The monthly payment is just clearing the account.

So if you’ve been living a life that includes lies, you have some debt to clear. And it doesn’t matter if those lies are implicit (Your boss thinking you’re planning on staying at your job when really you’re interviewing elsewhere) or explicit (You tell your parents you believe in God when you don’t). You’re still going to have to reckon with dashing people’s expectations.

The consolation is that you never have to incur that debt again.

HONESTY IS A PILLAR OF SELF ESTEEM

Your self-esteem is your reputation with yourself. It is the feelings you have towards the person you have become. And it is an absolute prerequisite for true happiness.

Think about it: if you don’t live up to your own standards, how can you feel good about yourself? Sure, you can experience pleasure. But how can you feel worthy of true happiness if you don’t respect yourself?

So if you think lying is wrong, and you continue to lie, your self esteem plummets. No matter what mental booby traps you set up to rationalize, your self-esteem KNOWS. You are a liar. You cannot pretend otherwise. Even if no one discovers you, YOU are always there.

You can try. You can justify, and rationalize, and come up with exceptions for yourself. But in the end you know. And it will eat away at you.

HONESTY FORCES YOU TO DO BETTER

A few weeks back, I reached out to my friend, Chris, who is a badass trainer. I wanted some fitness advice. He came back with a detailed, day by day, meal by meal, exercise by exercise training program. It was specified to my current diet, training routine and fitness goals.

And it was no fun at all.

While I agonizing through one of my sets on the first day I thought, “This can’t be worth it. I’m quitting.”

Except if I did I would have had to tell Chris the truth. I couldn’t just invent some excuse about not having the time. I would have to say, “I quit because it was too hard.”

The only way I could avoid saying that would be to actually stick with it.

So I did. For a week. And then two. And then through a grueling week of travel.

And now I’m hooked on the feeling of improving in that area. Because I had to be honest, I felt compelled to do the tough, right thing. My life is better for it.

Imagine if you had to tell the truth about everything you did. What bad habits would you cut out? (I know my grandma would have to stop sneaking cigarettes!) What good habits would you pick up? What people would you alienate? What people would you attract?

Yes, there would be an adjustment period. Coming clean is never easy. But once you’ve cleared your lie debts, life gets better in every way.

SITUATIONS REVERSED, HONESTY IS WHAT YOU’D WANT

Morality is a tough topic to tackle in a single blog post. So let’s keep it simple. We’ll go Golden Rule on this one:

Should your significant other lie to you about where they have been?
Should your employees lie to you about why they are late?
Should your friend lie to you and say you’re really well liked when your group of friends talks bad about you behind your back?

No. You want the truth! You want to dump your cheating girlfriend, chew out your late employee, and know if your friends are secretly talking crap on you.

So give other people the same respect. Don’t manipulate them. Give them the truth and let them make informed decisions, even if it isn’t to your benefit.

How to be honest: the nitty gritty no one ever talks about

Okay so hopefully you’re convinced to start being a whole lot more honest.

But how do you start? It’s not just by saying whatever pops into your head. That’s just abrasive and it’s not even strictly honest.

You need practical honesty.

WHAT IS PRACTICAL HONESTY?

Practical honesty is NOT always saying the literal truth. That would kill all forms of joking.

Practical honesty is NOT saying every thought that comes into your head. That is unproductive and occasionally dishonest because the truth shifts as we consider it.

Practical honesty means communicating all meaningful truths in the most productive way possible.

This requires empathy. You need to be able to distinguish what is meaningful to other people. You also have to recognize that “meaningful” is not static. It shifts over the course of the interaction.

So if I am out at a bar and I jokingly tell a girl that I am a renegade CIA agent, I don’t consider it a lie. But if I were to form a relationship with her and insist that I truly was a renegade CIA agent…I’d be a nuts and she’d be nuts for believing me.

More to the point, it would be a lie.

My work status isn’t meaningful in the first 15 minutes of interaction. It is something that would be important if we continued to have a relationship.

Similarly, I don’t need to tell someone I interact with for 30 seconds that they made a bad first impression. My opinion of our relationship is not yet meaningful. But if a close friend consistently does things that upset me, I should tell them. Because the way their actions impact our relationship is very meaningful.

It’s not a hard science. You constantly have to be on the lookout for what is meaningful in a given context. You have to empathize.

If you need a rule of thumb: move towards more transparent communication. Move away from lies of convenience. If you want people to perceive you differently, make a real change; don’t just manipulate their access to the truth.

How to start being practically honest today1) CUT OUT THE CONVENIENT WHITE LIES

That’s right. For the next 7 days don’t tell ANY white lies.

Don’t text, “I’m on the way,” when you’re running late and still getting dressed.
Don’t tell the homeless person “I don’t have any change,” when you just don’t want to give
Don’t say “I can’t make it,” to a party when the truth is you’d just rather not go (say, “I appreciate the invite, but I am not going to make it.”)

If it isn’t true, don’t say it! No matter how expedient it might be. You can even use a rubber band on the wrist as a reminder (like in the 21 day no-complaint challenge)

This will train you to screen your words for veracity before speaking. Easy lies will escape your lips less and less often.

And if they do by accident, no sweat. Just say something like, “Woops, that’s not true. I don’t know why I said that. What I should have said was……” and then say the truth.

1a) GET USED TO ELABORATING

How do you handle these questions when honesty is likely to hurt someone you care about?

Realize your only options aren’t “yes” or “no.” Real practical honesty requires more. It requires serious thought and explanation. Do not let anyone box you into yes/no responses.

So if your girlfriend asks you if think this dress looks good on her and it doesn’t: “I’m not the biggest fan of that dress. I like the other one better. You look great in that one” (Say so in a kind way that provides a solution.)

Or your friend asks if you like his artwork that isn’t so great: “It’s not my favorite, but I can tell you put a lot of work into it. You’ve improved a lot since the first one.” (Encourage his overall goal to improve while maintaining the value of your opinion for the next piece he creates.)

Or grandma asks if you like her cookies – which are no bueno: “These cookies were cooked more than I like them cooked. It’s super sweet of you though and always appreciate when you make food for me!” (Recognize her effort, express love, and give constructive feedback so you can be honest in your praise next time.)

If a yes/no answer would lead to hurt feelings, your job is to reframe your answer to be as considerate as possible. While still being honest, of course.

2) ELIMINATE LIES OF OMISSION

I was speaking to a close friend’s mother over dinner. She’s an awesome lady. She was telling me about a psychic experience she had. Apparently, her hairdresser (the psychic) had given critical information to a man that saved his daughter’s life.

I have no idea if the facts of the story were coincidentally true, but I know I don’t believe in psychics. If she had mentioned it in passing, I wouldn’t have told her I thought it sounded like baloney.

But she was speaking to me one on one. If I didn’t say anything it would be a tacit acceptance of the story. I didn’t want to upset her. But after several minutes of storytelling, I felt like it had crossed the line into meaningful omission.

So I told her:

“Yeah, to me it sounds too good to be true. I don’t believe in psychics and I don’t believe she is one. But it’s a good story.”

And we moved on.

You need to stop biting your tongue when you have unpopular opinions. You don’t need to be an evangelist. I don’t run around shouting people down every time I hear the word “psychic.” But if it becomes clear someone has a meaningful and mistaken interpretation of your beliefs….well, then you need to clear things up.

So as kindly as you can, speaking in “I statements,” let them know how you really feel. Remember: your goal here is not to persuade or bully. It is to avoid lying by omission.

Even though disagreeing can feel like it’s damaging the relationship, you actually build respect when people know they can trust you to speak up when you disagree.

3) CHANGE YOUR LIFE TO REMOVE THE BIG LIES

Ugh. These are the hardest. These lies can form the basis of some of our most important relationships. Revealing the truth could have serious consequences.

Maybe you’re parents think you’re religious and you’re not
Maybe your friends think you like it when they tease you, but it really upsets you
Maybe your work thinks you are management material and you’re secretly planning your escape
Maybe you cheated on your partner and they don’t know

In all of these situations telling the truth could end relationships. It may threaten your livelihood.

I understand if you need to take your time in getting out of these. I felt the same way about my first and only real job.

My colleagues were thoughtful and smart. My bosses were great (and downright cool). I was “successful” by so many people’s standards. There were plenty of reasons I “should have” been content….but I felt like I was misrepresenting myself on a daily basis.

Like throughout the day I was pretending that I was fulfilled. That ate away at me.

Unfortunately, leaving wasn’t so easy. With $100,000 in student debt, I needed some sort of income.

I spent months saving and weeks planning before I left to become a writer and coach. And when I did, I had never felt so myself.

Sure, I was poor and sleeping on a twin-sized mattress on Ben’s bedroom floor. But my ledger was clear. No more pretending my future was moving up in consulting. I could be honest with everyone about everything

So I understand it might take some time to put the pieces in place before removing all the implicit lies from your life.

But please. For the sake of your self-esteem. You MUST start extricating yourself from these situations. Today. It’s going to suck and hurt. You may be worse off than before you told the truth.

The upside is that you never have to go into debt again. Once you clear the ledger, you can be totally honest without upsetting people’s expectations.

You can go into a job interview like I did and when they ask your 5 year plan, tell them:

“I’d like to be a literal rock star. Or Tony Robbins’ apprentice. I definitely don’t see myself in corporate America.”

And people will be cool with it! Because you’re setting expectations in line with your reality. You won’t get every single outcome you might desire (**cough** like that job **cough**).

But if you tell your truth loud enough and long enough, eventually you’ll arrive in a place where you’re rewarded for being your unadulterated self.

For me that place is Charisma on Command. Thanks for supporting me being me

So don’t put it off. Clear the ledger. Tell the truth. To your partner, your parents, your boss. There is no better time and there will always be reasons to wait. But I promise, if you go through the pain period, when you come out the other side, your world will be a better place.

I know this has been a long, dense read. I appreciate you coming this far. So I’ll leave you with this kick in the butt.

It doesn’t matter if you are honest MOST of the time. Most of the time is easy.

It’s at the edges that your integrity is tested. When it hurts. All those times when you “can’t” tell the truth. Your boss would fire you or your girlfriend would get mad or you family would disown you. When the easy lie is on the tip of your tongue. Those are the times where you decide what kind of person you are.

Like so many things in life, you have a choice between the easy way and the right way.

So what’s it going to be?

6 Ways To Stop Overthinking Everything

P.S.: I don't suggest meditation...

We all do our best to stay positive, but occasionally we can slip into negative thinking patterns that can wreak havoc on our lives. We might worry about our past mistakes or current stresses, and how these could lead to negative outcomes in the future. We might obsess about or over-analyze regular experiences and interactions, reading into them things that aren’t actually there. We might find that as soon as one bad thing happens, we associate it with all the other bad things that have happened in our lives and begin to feel miserable. We might feel anxious in the present, having a hard time getting out of our own heads as we worry and obsess about the things that could go wrong.

These are 6 ways to stop overthinking everything and find inner peace:

1. Recognize you have a problem

Can’t stop overthinking everything? Recognizing you have a problem is the first step in solving a problem, right? Acknowledge that you have this problem and consider some of these tips.

2. Don’t hate yourself for it

The brain is actually hardwired to think out all the possible outcomes at any given moment. If you look at the brain of the frog, its frontal lobe isn’t particularly beefy like ours is. Its survival depends on snap fight or flight decisions. But for us, we’ve evolved to think about our problems. So overthinking is natural.

3. Breathe deeply

When you’re thinking a little too much, take some deep breaths and really break down what you’re thinking about. It’ll help center you. You can even jot down your thoughts in list form and see if that helps you make a choice.

4. Talk less

When we’re racked with too many thoughts, we tend to want to talk it out. This might not work out as well as you’d like. Some research shows that talking about things you’re overthinking releases cortisol, the stress hormone, that can get you even more worked up.

5. Practice meditation

Meditation is often misunderstood as a strict practice of clearing your mind completely. You can try it that way, there’s nothing wrong with that, but the best type of meditation for overthinking is meditation that allows your thoughts to roll pleasantly through your mind.

6. Get outside

Nothing makes you shut up and clear your thoughts like a hike through the forest or a bike ride through the city. Get out, get the heart pumping a little bit. Treat it like meditation. You’re not trying to clear your mind, but let your thoughts roll through your head at their own pace. Don’t force anything.

Why Face Everything Is The Only Skill You Really Need

Those who will face everything, in this article will gain incredible knowledge yet simple but effective. Are you ready?

I must admit, I’m flattered how almost all the people avoid to face everything challenging and just put it on the side for later times. We are machines for avoiding difficult things. Most of the times we are not even aware that we fail to face everything. We just skip on thinking about something else less important.

Even right now while you will reading this article your mind will try to avoid the tricky part where you’ll find yourself fitting in. And you don’t want to admit it.

Now let’s see what other difficulties you are avoiding:

We all have tasks at work, but we already assumed them as “difficult” and start to check news feed on our Facebook profiles, messages and notification.
When we face with some difficulty, we usually advise ourselves “It’s OK, I’ll do it later when I am more in the mood.” And we’ll take the break and go for a beer or two with our friends because we need to chill out, right?
When a problem comes out, our instant reaction is to put it aside; to handle it later.
We put off reading long emails for later, paying bills and taxes for until the deadline comes and so on, again, just because we assumed them as complicated or huge time-consumers.
We skip the gym because is challenging and the results do not show after few days.

face-everything

Tell me something, am I right? Are you avoiding difficulties at this moment? I want you to this, think for a minute what important you are avoiding right now. It is interesting, but you will notice something, and that’s beginning of my “face everything” method.

First let’s agree on this and see why it is just the way that it is: Avoidance won’t work in the long run!

It’s in our human nature to avoid pain instead of facing everything. Our defense mechanism will put it aside and mark as “do it later activity.” There is a result when you avoid facing everything, temporary relief.

By relegating important and “difficult” tasks, we are making the situation much worse than it is. Just think of one work that you’ve assigned and waited until the deadline. What you’ve met there, chaos, rush and a lot of stress because then you were in doubts if you were going to finish it on time. This happened to you, right?

Now let’s bring “Face Everything technique” on the table:

1. Ask yourself this question: What the hell I’m doing now?

Make this issue be your daily reminder which will put you schedule each time when you’ll think to put some tasks under the carpet. Simply by asking this question, you’ll see what you are doing. Either scrolling on Instagram or checking your Facebook groups, but it’s not what you are supposed to do.

2. The second question from face everything technique: What I’m avoiding or what I’m trying to avoid?

Think about a task you’ve abandoned and started doing something else. Yeah, dig deeper, and you’ll find it. What happened, what made you leave the task? It’s beginning to become challenging and the discomfort started to grow isn’t it? Now, get back on the same task and face everything in between and you’ll see there is nothing to fear. Only name it!

3. Face everything for that particular task or thing!

What is preventing you from doing it? Fear, pain or discomfort, what’s that? Be honest with you and admit why you want to relegate it. No, be more observant and don’t listen to your body what is telling you. Don’t pay attention to the feelings attached to that thing. Confront it, face everything and you’ll see there is no room for fear. It cannot bite you (of course,if your task isn’t showering lions).

4. You face everything, and now you are ready to take massive action!

You’ve observed, you found why and you are ready for the next step – Plan how to do it! Forget about fear. You are an adult, and you cannot allow yourself to behave like a scared child. You felt fear, a BIG deal, erase that word from your vocabulary and with massive action start moving forward, never backward. If you still have doubts about your plan how to do it just talk to someone. Exhaust all the options and then, action!

Face everything method can be very effective unless the difficulty is not something else and you cannot apply it. I can promise you this if you start to face everything, but wisely, you will see that your limitation will just evaporate and you’ll become more productive and more self-confident than ever.

If you are on managerial position, teach your assistants how to handle things according to this face everything method, and you will see how the organization you are working will improve. Your employees won’t avoid the arduous task. Also teach your kids on this approach, at later ages, they will be very grateful.

There are other interesting phenomena. It will occur right after you finish with reading. It is because you will start thinking how to face everything you’ve abandoned. But you’ll see how an excuse will arise, telling you to avoid this article “what they know about complicated things.”

Believe me; that’s avoidance. Your mind is making an excuse in an attempt to skip facing things from under the carpet.

We hope that we are helping with our articles. Stay strong and don’t forget to share your opinion on our method. Also tell us if you are using different techniques for facing difficult task or things. We would be grateful to hear your story.

If you like this article, share it with your friends. Check out our blog to accelerate your growth.

Change Your Mindset by Asking the Right Questions

When I finally arrived in the U.S. for my Olympic training, I saw a beautiful stadium in front of me. I was ready and excited to start my warmup. Then suddenly I got confused, wondering how many laps I was supposed to run. I froze from the realization that I was one of the top javelin throwers in the world but had no idea how to do a warmup. I was good at taking direction, but now I was half a world away from my coach.

The immersion into a new country, outside of my comfort zone and away from my coach prompted a lifelong interest in how the brain works. It eventually led me to launch an online training course that asks you questions every day for 30 days—each answer representing a certain mindset to help people achieve their goals.

change-your-mindset-by-asking-the-right-questions2

I believe it’s asking people the right questions, instead of telling them what to do, that creates success, that pushes people to be successful. Questions push people to figure out the answers on their own. The question system has been used by coaches of elite athletes and almost all therapists. It’s helpful in discovering a person’s individual way of thinking and their mental blocks, and in applying specific mindsets to help them achieve their goals.

The philosophy is simple: Asking the right questions gives people the answers they need to move forward in life. We need to start looking at our dreams practically. Simply put, our dreams are the problems we have to learn to solve. Dreams are called “dreams” for a reason—it is something better than what we have now. And to achieve what’s better, we have to start finding new solutions; we have to learn new ways to think.

Dan Lange, one of my coaches, trained based on questions. Every day he asked everybody how they felt. Answering “fine” was not going to do it. We had to be precise with this question to understand how we felt physically, mentally and emotionally. Depending on the answers we provided, the training for the day was designed for us to reach our optimal results. With this method, Lange’s athletes learned how much their mental and emotional states affected results and how to improve. We were building ourselves from the core.

Here are the benefits of asking questions that you can start asking today:

1. We learn about life through questions

It is scientifically proven that we learn about life by asking questions. Children naturally start learning about the world by observing, testing and asking “why.” Through questions, children learn the cause-and-effect relationship and, most important, the meaning of words.

2. The more information we have, the easier we will ask the right questions

Unfortunately, with age and responsibilities, the questioning stops and we settle for the few options that we have learned. The minute those options don’t work, we get stuck. Whenever we experience an obstacle, our brain goes to the fastest pattern it can find from our experiences similar to the current situation. This is why we sometimes have illogical reactions: We do not give time for the brain to find a better solution. The more information and experiences we have, the more options we have to solve our problems.

3. The quality of our lives depends on questions that we ask

The quality of our lives is directly related to the quality of our thinking. “The quality of our thinking, in turn, is determined by the quality of our questions, for questions are the engine, the driving force behind thinking.” — The Miniature Guide to the Art of Asking Essential Questions

4. Questioning makes you smarter

Questioning forms new patterns in the brain. The more patterns it forms, the more flexible it becomes. With flexibility, it can access more information already stored in your brain instead of reverting to the old patterns.

5. Questioning makes you more open

With flexible brain you become more open, more perceptive of many different perspectives and less biased in your decisions.

6. Asking the right questions creates happiness

We all know how peace and harmony feels, but not many of us take a minute to understand what causes these feelings. When we entertain this deep question, we start understanding how to feel at peace more often. We realize we are the creators of our feelings; they don’t just happen to us.

Chapter 11 - Forward

Let's go forward... how does it sound... when you are left abandoned... and feel depression and stress if you have this kinda of doze it's normal to be masturbating at porn... porn is always here goes hands in hands and poeple on the phone ... always leave you alone. I am not saying it's a good habbit, it has never been and it will never be. But it happens such stuff...

1 - Level - Is Addiction (Just doing it... because of pleasure)

2 - Level - Is Recovery (It's kinda of recovery... but not really one... in the end of few weeks or after few days or after a month you just come back...)

- It's normal to come back because of the reality... reality it's screw up... people promise that this is going to happen... life is going to be better... life won't be so paintful, life will be incredible. I decided to stop so much horror stories and to focus on self-help books... I have problems... I have to fix my life... no need after a erotic comic or after a pornographic content to crave for fucked up content.

NO NEED FOR THAT

....

We just need to push forward!

Stress, Illness and the Immune System

The immune system is a collection of billions of cells that travel through the bloodstream. They move in and out of tissues and organs, defending the body against foreign bodies (antigens), such as bacteria, viruses and cancerous cells.

There are two types of lymphocytes:

B cells- produce antibodies which are released into the fluid surrounding the body’s cells to destroy the invading viruses and bacteria.

T cells (see picture opposite) - if the invader gets inside a cell, these (T cells) lock on to the infected cell, multiply and destroy it.

immune system

The main types of immune cells are white blood cells. There are two types of white blood cells – lymphocytes and phagocytes.

When we’re stressed, the immune system’s ability to fight off antigens is reduced. That is why we are more susceptible to infections.

The stress hormone corticosteroid can suppress the effectiveness of the immune system (e.g. lowers the number of lymphocytes).

Stress can also have an indirect effect on the immune system as a person may use unhealthy behavioral coping strategies to reduce their stress, such as drinking and smoking.

Stress is linked to: headaches; infectious illness (e.g. ‘flu); cardiovascular disease; diabetes, asthma and gastric ulcers.

Stress and Illness

gastric ulcer stress

Stress responses have an effect on digestive system. During stress digestion is inhibited. After stress digestive activity increases. This may affect the health of digestive system and cause ulcers. Adrenaline released during a stress response may also cause ulcers.

Stress responses increase strain upon circulatory system due to increased heart rate etc. Stress can also affect the immune system by raising blood pressure.

Hypertension (consistently raised blood pressure over several weeks) is a major risk factor in coronary heart disease (CHD) However, CHD may be caused by eating too much salt, drinking too much coffee or alcohol.

Stress also produces an increase in blood cholesterol levels, through the action of adrenaline and noradrenaline on the release of free fatty acids. This produces a clumping together of cholesterol particles, leading to clots in the blood and in the artery walls and occlusion of the arteries.

In turn, raised heart rate is related to a more rapid build-up of cholesterol on artery walls. High blood pressure results in small lesions on the artery walls, and cholesterol tends to get trapped in these lesions (Holmes, 1994).

stress illness

Stress can also have an indirect effect on illness as it is associated with all manner of bad habits (coping strategies), for example smoking, drinking alcohol to excess, poor diet due to lack of time, lack of exercise for the same reason, lack of sleep etc.

All of these are likely to have an adverse effect on a person’s health so could cause some of the ill-effects attributed to stress per se.

Stress and Immune Function

immune system graph

Short term suppression of the immune system is not dangerous. However, chronic suppression leaves the body vulnerable to infection and disease.

A current example of this is AIDS - Acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Here the immune system is suppressed leaving the vulnerable to illness. Stress would just lead to frequent illness and infections.

Stress responses increase strain upon circulatory system due to increased heart rate etc. This may increase a person’s risk of developing disorders of the heart and circulation e.g. coronary heart disease (CHD). Individuals with type A personality have a greater risk of developing CHD.

Stress responses have an effect on digestive system. During stress digestion is inhibited. After stress digestive activity increases. This may affect the health of digestive system and cause gastric ulcers

The executive monkey study by Brady (1958) seems to support this theory.

Kiecolt-Glaser et al., (1984)

Aim: To investigate whether stress of important examinations has an effect on the functioning of the immune system

Procedure:

exam

This was a natural experiment. The researchers took blood samples from 75 first year medical students (49 males and 26 females), all of whom were volunteers.
Blood samples were taken: (a) one month before their final examinations (relatively low stress), and (b) during the examinations (high stress)
Immune functioning was assessed by measuring T cell activity in the blood samples.
The students were also given questionnaires to assess psychological variables such as life events and loneliness.

Findings: The blood sample taken from the first group (before the exam) contained more t-cells compared with blood samples taken during the exams.

t-cell

The volunteers were also assessed using behavioral measures. On both occasions they were given questionnaires to assess psychiatric symptoms, loneliness and life events. This was because there are theories which suggest that all 3 are associated with increased levels of stress.

Kiecolt-Glaser et al found that immune responses were especially weak in those students who reported feeling most lonely, as well as those who were experiencing other stressful life events and psychiatric symptoms such as depression or anxiety.

Conclusion: Stress (of the exam) reduced the effectiveness of the immune system

Evaluation: Difficult to unravel the relationship for certain. Does stress cause illness or does being ill make you more prone to stress?

Also many of the studies do not take into account for the other factors which affect people’s lives. These can be drugs, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, general health, diet, physical activity, sleep patterns, age and medication. Although many studies try to control these factors it is very unlikely to gain complete control.

What is the Stress Response?

by Saul McLeod

Stress is a biological and psychological response experienced on encountering a threat that we feel we do not have the resources to deal with.

A stressor is the stimulus (or threat) that causes stress, e.g. exam, divorce, death of loved one, moving house, loss of job.

Sudden and severe stress generally produces:

Increase in heart rate
Increase in breathing (lungs dilate)
Decrease in digestive activity (don’t feel hungry)
Liver released glucose for energy

Firstly, our body judges a situation and decides whether or not it is stressful. This decision is made based on sensory input and processing (i.e. the things we see and hear in the situation) and also on stored memories (i.e. what happened the last time we were in a similar situation).

If the situation is judged as being stressful, the hypothalamus (at the base of the brain) is activated.

The hypothalamus in the brain is in charge of the stress response. When a stress response is triggered, it sends signals to two other structures: the pituitary gland, and the adrenal medulla.

These short term responses are produced by The Fight or Flight Response via the Sympathomedullary Pathway (SAM). Long term stress is regulated by the Hypothalamic Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) system.

The Hypothalamic Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) System

The Pituitary-Adrenal System

The stressor activates the Hypothalamic Pituitary Axis
The hypothalamus stimulates the pituitary gland
The pituitary gland secretes adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)
ACTH stimulates the adrenal glands to produce the hormone corticosteroid
Cortisol enables the body to maintain steady supplies of blood sugar
Adequate and steady blood sugar levels help person to cope with prolonged stressor, and helps the body to return to normal

The adrenal cortex releases stress hormones called cortisol. This have a number of functions including releasing stored glucose from the liver (for energy) and controlling swelling after injury. The immune system is suppressed while this happens.

Sympathomedullary Pathway (SAM)

Fight or Flight Response

The hypothalamus also activates the adrenal medulla. The adrenal medulla is part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS).

The ANS is the part of the peripheral nervous system that acts as a control system, maintaining homeostasis in the body. These activities are generally performed without conscious control.

The adrenal medulla secretes the hormone adrenaline. This hormone gets the body ready for a fight or flight response. Physiological reaction includes increased heart rate.

Adrenaline lead to the arousal of the sympathetic nervous system and reduced activity in the parasympathetic nervous system.

Adrenaline creates changes in the body such as decreases (in digestion) and increases (sweating, increased pulse and blood pressure).

Once the ‘threat’ is over the parasympathetic branch takes control and brings the body back into a balanced state.

No ill effects are experienced from the short-term response to stress and it further has survival value in an evolutionary context.

Evaluation

Strengths

Measuring stress hormones gives an objective measure of stress.
Fight/flight response can be seen in all mammals in response to threats.

Weakness

There is considerable variation in level and type of hormones released by different people and in response to different stressors – not a simple physiological process.
People without adrenal glands need hormonal supplements to survive stress.
Symington (1955) found that conscious dying patients showed different stress reactions to unconscious ones. Suggests that psychological factors play a role.

Note: This explains why my behavior is weak...

Critical thinking suppressed in brains of people who believe in the supernatural

The opposition between religious beliefs and scientific evidence can be explained by difference in brain structures and cognitive activity. Scientists have found critical thinking is suppressed in the brains of people who believe in the supernatural.

Published in PLOS One, their study examines how the parts of the brain responsible for empathy and analytical reasoning are linked to faith and spiritual thinking. It suggests religious beliefs and scientific thinking clash because different brain areas are involved in both cognitive processes. People who believe in the supernatural appear to suppress areas associated with critical thinking.

"From what we understand about the brain, the leap of faith to belief in the supernatural amounts to pushing aside the critical/analytical way of thinking...", says lead author Tony Jack, a professor of philosophy at Case Western Reserve.

More empathy, more religion

In previous research, Jack and colleagues had identified, thanks to fMRI scans, two networks of neurones that competed with each other to let individuals see the the world either in religious or in scientific terms. They say the brain has an analytical network of neurons which triggered critical thinking and a social network which enabled empathy towards other and spiritual thinking.

Participants who went through the scans were presented with a physical or ethical problem. To solve it, the brain appeared to boost activity in one of the two networks, while suppressing the other.

For the latest study, the scientists conducted a series of eight experiments, involving between 159 and 527 adults. Their purpose was to compare belief in God with measures of analytic thinking and moral concern.

In each experiment, the researchers found that both spiritual belief and empathic concern were positively associated with frequent religious practice. The more a person was religious, the more he or she is likely to suppress the analytical network in the brain, and to show empathy.

Scientists say that when an individual is conflicted between a scientific or religious view of the world, his brain structures will determine how he will address this opposition between beliefs and science.

Engaging with both networks

The study also points out that some of the great scientists of our times were also very spiritual men. "Far from always conflicting with science, under the right circumstances religious belief may positively promote scientific creativity and insight," says Jack "Many of history's most famous scientists were spiritual or religious. Those noted individuals were intellectually sophisticated enough to see that there is no need for religion and science to come into conflict."

According to the scientists, the individuals who manage to use both networks and avoid suppression of one or the other are better equipped to understand the world and come up with scientific discoveries.

Chapter 12 - God (Truth)

What believing in God does to your brain

Humans suppress areas of the brain used for analytical thinking and engage the parts responsible for empathy in order to believe in god, research suggests.

They do the opposite when thinking about the physical world, according to the study.

"When there's a question of faith, from the analytic point of view, it may seem absurd," said Professor Tony Jack, who led the research.

"But, from what we understand about the brain, the leap of faith to belief in the supernatural amounts to pushing aside the critical/analytical way of thinking to help us achieve greater social and emotional insight."

In an analysis of eight experiments, published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers also found people with faith were more empathetic than those without.

The researchers examined the relationship between the belief in god and measures of analytic thinking and moral concern in eight experiments, each using between 159 and 527 adult participants.

Although both spiritual belief and empathic concern were positively associated with frequency of prayer or meditation, neither were predicted by social contact - such as church dinners - associated with religious affilation.

Note: Probably behaving a specific way... or behavior which religion has put you in ... could be ruining your life... HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT?

In earlier research, Professor Jack's Brain, Mind & Consciousness laboratory used an fMRI machine to show the brain has an analytical network of neurons that enables humans think critically and a social network to empathise.

"Because of the tension between networks, pushing aside a naturalistic world view enables you to delve deeper into the social/emotional side," Professor Jack explained. "And that may be the key to why beliefs in the supernatural exist throughout the history of cultures. It appeals to an essentially nonmaterial way of understanding the world and our place in it."

The researchers said the human brain explores the world using both networks. When presented with a physics problem or ethical dilemma, a healthy brain activates the appropriate network while suppressing the other.

Such suppression may lead to the conflict between science and religion, the researchers added.

"Because the networks suppress each other, they may create two extremes," said Richard Boyatzis, professor of organisational behavior at Case Western Reserve University.

"Recognising that this is how the brain operates, maybe we can create more reason and balance in the national conversations involving science and religion."

Chapter 13 - Suppress Sexual Thoughts

New research suggests that the suppression of sexual thoughts among religious people only begets a greater preoccupation with sexual thoughts and fantasies.

The study, published in The Journal of Sex Research, compared Jewish Orthodox teens to secular teens in Israel.

“I grew up in a religious community and today I define myself as religious,” said study author Yaniv Efrati of Beit Berl College. “I have noticed over the years that the subject of sexuality in the religious public is more complex than the secular public. I also noticed that many religious people are busy with the question of whether their sexual behavior is normal or not.”

A survey of 661 teens found that religious adolescents reported greater preoccupation with unwanted sexual thoughts and fantasies than secular adolescents.

A second survey of 522 teens found that religious adolescents tended to report lower well-being, which was linked to their preoccupation with unwanted sexual thoughts.

Another survey of 317 teens found that religious adolescents were more likely to report suppressing sexual thoughts and fantasies, which in turn was associated with more self-report compulsive sexual behavior and lower well-being.

“The study reflects, in my opinion, the complex reality among religious adolescents. It seems that the religious public should examine its ways regarding the importance of discourse and the ability to engage in sexuality and sexual education even in the early stages of adolescence,” Efrati told PsyPost.

“It is very important that religious society discuss sexuality and deal with sexuality in the right manner at the beginning of adolescence and even at the elementary age in order to prevent the development of compulsive sexual behavior,” he added.

“In my studies and work with sexual compulsive behavior in adults, I find that parental responses to child sexual behavior (masturbation, pornography viewing) are very significant in compulsive sexual development. Comments regarding sexuality as being a ‘dirty thing’ or ‘forbidden’ only cause the development of compulsive sexual behavior.”

“Longitudinal research will provide a more accurate response to the questions raised in the study and will try to give a broader view of the suppression of sexual thoughts and their implications in adulthood.”

Efrati noted that religious people tend to overestimate their compulsive sexual behavior. Previous research has found, for instance, that religious people were more likely to have a perceived pornography addiction, regardless of how much porn they actually consumed.

“It would not be prudent to say that religious people have a higher compulsive sexual behavior than secular people,” Efrati said. “In the field of therapy, I see that religious people in self-reporting will indeed report that they have a compulsive sexual behavior when in practice they do not have a compulsive sexual behavior. They define themselves as such because of the negative feelings (shame and guilt) of the conflict in which they live — sexuality versus religion.”

Note: Religion wants you to supress this sinister thoughts... but once this happen... how far are going?

Is it possible... rape is to be the equation of too much supressing thoughts?

...

Once

Twice

Tripple

...

And one moment a normal person... explodes... and goes on the rampage!

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 20.08.2018

Widmung:
To my new job

Nächste Seite

Seite 1 /