The first problem is that, when a nice guy finds a girl he likes, who he would like to sleep with or date, he does everything under the sun to make her comfortable and to build a connection.  After all, he is a nice guy, and he wants to show her this, because he knows that all women complain about not being able to find a “nice guy.”  What he doesn’t know, however, is that he’s missing a valuable step, which inevitably earns him that illustrious title of “just friends.”

The truth is that a woman will put a guy into that category when there is no attraction.  She cannot see herself ever being with him, having sex with him, or anything in between.  Women still want nice guys, but not in the way that “nice guys” are led to believe.  When a nice guy allows himself to be put into this predicament, he portrays himself as someone who has nothing better to do than hang around with a girl who isn’t interested in him.

Women need to be attracted to a man, before he starts building a connection.  The inverse applies to this as well, where a guy will start with attraction and skip the connection, moving straight into seduction.  When a guy does this, the woman will feel buyer’s remorse, and feel like she made a mistake afterwards.

So what do you need to do to avoid the “just friends” axe?  You have to flirt with her.  You have to establish yourself as dating/sexual material, before you move into the comfort zone where you establish a good connection.  What dicks guys up in this critical attraction phase is that nice guys are uncomfortable talking about sex, flirting, or touching a woman because they think women may find it “dirty” or that she “is too classy” for any of that.  They come on too strong with the niceties and are afraid to be a challenge because they think a girl will lose interest.  They feel  a strong need to keep her interest at all times and invariably they never build any sexual tension.

If you want to stop being just friends with women, you have to start flirting with them.  You have to establish that you’re not uncomfortable with the topic of sex, touching them, kissing them.  They want to be led.  Show them that you’re a man that can rock her world.

If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of the LJBF line, the best thing to do is walk away.  Tell her you have plenty of friends.  By hanging around, you’re not doing yourself any favors.  By leaving, you are establishing that you are the type used to leading a relationship, you have plenty of other girls willing to be with you on your terms, and she is losing out.  This may be enough to turn things around; if you’re still interested, wait a few months — don’t have any contact with her — and start over from the beginning.  Establish that you’re a potential sexual partner.  If she is not putting forth any effort for you, take the hint and move on to someone else.  Don’t stay and make things worse for yourself. If this situation does occur, try to figure out why (how did she perceive you? What turned her off?).  Treat it as a learning experience.

The paradox goes something like this: a guy attempts to gain favor from someone or some group by capitulating to them — he thinks they will like him and thus, he will get their respect — only to find that nobody respects him.

I liken this to the animal kingdom, and it fits well because at our core, human beings are animals.  In the animal kingdom, predators will almost always attack the weakest of the herd, as it is almost always preferable to fighting tooth and nail for a meal.  They go after the old, the young, the maimed, and the slow.  Animals also have ways of posturing and displaying power in confrontations.  In these confrontations, animals will fight when threatened or if they sense weakness or see through any kind of posturing.  They sense weakness and pounce on it.

On the human side, we do the same thing.  What happens is people size each other up and either take advantage of the weaker person, or if they are not of this nature, they leave the weaker person alone out of virtue or kindness.

In the example above, what happens when a guy tries to gain favor by doing what others want in an effort to not make waves, get someone to like them, or be the “nice guy,” but people don’t see it that way.  What they see is that the guy inadvertently signaling that he does not respect himself, and therefore “gives them permission” to not respect him.  They subconsciously (or consciously, in some cases) think, “well if he doesn’t respect himself, then it must be okay if I don’t.”

The more you do this, the worse it gets.

The only way to avoid this situation is to have some respect for yourself first and foremost, and be able to stand up for yourself, say no when you do not want to do something, and communicate assertively so people understand that you cannot be taken advantage of.  This requires that you grow a set of balls, which then conspicuously advertises that you have self-respect and that you are not to be fucked with.  Once you set this kind of precedent and smack the pee-pees of people who are testing you, they will learn that they can’t get away with it and soon they will never do it again.  That’s right, they will stop trying to do it.  Like the predators in the animal kingdom, they will move on to easier prey.

Remember this next time you decide to just go along with something you don’t want to do.  Start standing up for yourself.

I’ve seen this paradox a lot in the workplace also.  If you notice that when a shitty job has to be done, there is always one or two guys people turn to consistently because they know these guys won’t say no.  Almost always these guys do it because they want to be reliable, want to make a good impression, think people will think less of them if they say no, whatever.  What they don’t realize is that people end up thinking less of them as a result of their acquiescence.  This is the nature of the Respect Paradox.  There is a difference between wanting to do a good job and letting others take advantage of you.  You can still demonstrate competence and say “no” when you need to.  Don’t be the guy who always picks up the shift for people who need you to cover for them, always takes the shitty taskings, or does what people want because you want their favor.  It is not to your advantage to do so.  Pay attention to how other guys who don’t get walked on conduct themselves.  Emulate them without violating your personal integrity.

Nice guys do this all the time with women.  They are afraid that if they don’t do everything the woman wants, she will no longer want him.  They place the woman at higher value than themselves, and don’t even realize that the woman is just using them until they grow tired.  Then the guy is left shattered and broken when she tosses him to the garbage.  Has this ever happened to you?  How about on multiple occasions?  Recall that I said that the problem worsens the more you do it.  If you keep doing the same thing, you keep getting the same results.  Women do not want guys who worship them hand and foot, because then you are no longer a challenge.  Any woman who wants to use you like this is not a good person.  Find a better one, there are billions out there.  Women need to know you are a man who can stand up for them.  They test your competence in this by seeing if you can stand up to them.  If you can stand up to them, you can stand up for them.  Make sense?  Women don’t have the energy or the desire to take care of a guy who can’t take care of himself.

If you don’t respect yourself, others won’t respect you.  It’s that simple.

How to Be as Badass as Possible: Part 1 (The Fonz)

How to Be as Badass as Possible: Part 2 (Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday)

Yeah, that’s what I thought.  Nobody likes talking to boring ass people.  Some conversations just ignite with some magical intensity and you can just go and go and go.  But how often does that happen?  Can you make every conversation like that?  Yes, you can.  You’ve just got to remember that sometimes, you get lucky.  Someone will say just the right thing and create instant rapport and suddenly the bull is let out of the chute.  Other times, you ain’t so fortunate and you have to use craft to pump that rapport to the surface.

Some of the most valuable skills to have in any situation are excellent communication skills.  Small talk is probably the most common method of initiating a lot of that communication, and it’s really great for transitioning to more meaningful interaction. If you’re no good at it, or you want to get better, you can use an easy method I call STRIPPing.

First, let’s kill off a few of the more cliche, stupid, and boring small talk commonalities.  Here are a few you hear time and time again:

• You: “Hello.  How’s it going?”  Them: “Fine.”  End of conversation.
• “So…how ’bout this weather?”
• “How was your weekend?”  or “How’s your day going?”
• “Do you come here often?” or “So…you from around here?”

These are poor ways of starting a conversation for several reasons.  One, they are boring and we’ve all heard them before.  Two, when you ask questions like these, it’s too easy to respond with a simple, one-word answer like fine, okay, yeah, no, huh-uh, whatever.  If you want people to be interested in talking with you, you have to be interesting.  You need to give them a reason to interact.  Compel them.  Two easy ways of doing this are: 1) offer something fresh, 2) ask questions that are more fun to answer (ones that require more than a one-word answer).

Before we get to that, let’s start from scratch — before anyone even parts their lips to utter a word.  From this moment until you part ways you can rely on my trusty 3-part method for keeping a conversation alive and popping.  Use it whenever the vibe starts to drop and you want to breath new life into the verbal party.  It’s called STRIPPing.

STRIPPing stands for “Small Talk Relationships — Initiate, Prospect, Play.”  Obviously, the three steps involved are

1. 1. Initiate
   2. Prospect
   3. Play

After step one, you simply repeat steps two and three until you have a natural conversation going.  Whenever the conversation starts to get stale or wane, go back to stripping and keep the fires going.

Here is what each step entails:

Initiate – opening the conversation.

Prospect – asking questions while actively listening for free information.

Play – following up on free information.

The idea is to prospect until you find a sweet spot of common ground where the conversation turns juicy, and use stripping to get back to that point should you see the fire start to die down.

Check out Small Talk Basics Part 2: Initiate…

Society advocates a million different ways of quitting different things, and nearly all of them heavily rely upon a huge support center, where everyone is accepting and comforting during the times you “slip” a little. There are hugs and consolations all around and you come out feeling great because it is, in fact, “ok” to screw up.

But here is the truth. It is okay to screw up. Everyone does it. So don’t beat yourself up over it. But what’s not okay is to make an excuse for the reason you screwed up, which is what most people do, which reinforces the fact that it’s totally acceptable to fudge on yourself whenever.

Here is where I give you the magical fucking formula that, if you combine this with a healthy dose of self-respect, integrity, and honesty, will work every time, no matter what.

Step 1: Be Aware that You’re Doing It.
Step 2: Choose Not to Do It.

I don’t give a damn what anybody says, the mind is the most powerful driving force on the planet. There is only ever two reasons why you would not have a choice in a matter: 1) you are not aware of your actions, or 2) you are under duress.

Think about that next time you come up with some lousy excuse as to why you didn’t hold yourself accountable. Run it through the choice test to see if you were under duress or unaware that you did something. If not, you have no excuse. Seriously guys, this is the only formula you will ever need. Get real. Real men take responsibility for their actions. If you want to quit something, notice yourself doing it and make a choice not to do it.

You own your life. The choice is yours.

I chose these guys not based solely on their ability to ram a fist down someone’s throat, but for their well-rounded display of all qualities badass.  These guys possess a high degree of charisma and charm.  Which means they also get the ladies.

8. Nick Mercer — The Wedding Date (Dermot Mulroney)

Mulroney plays a male escort who’s hired to attend a wedding to pose as Kat’s boyfriend (Debra Messing).  While this one may be too chick-flick for the tastes of some, everyone is swooning over Mulroney’s character because he is a) a fucking professional, and b) charming as all hell.

What you can learn from him: How to be interesting; how to say just the right thing at just the right time.

7. Patrick Verona — 10 Things I Hate About You (Heath Ledger)

Every single girl I know went gaga over Heath Ledger after this movie came out.  I started to wonder why, and the answer is obvious: he is your quintessential badboy in this film.  The mysterious new guy who doesn’t give a shit about anything.  This is a good one if you’re looking to catch some tips and spend time with a chick simultaneously.

What you can learn from him: How to be mysterious and not give a fuck about petty things.

6. Mike O’Donnell — 17 Again (Zac Efron)

Zac Efron revisits the classic “new guy” heartthrob in this upbeat comedy as Matthew Perry’s younger version.  Flashy looks aside, Efron pulls off the suave teen badass with ease.

What you can learn from him: How to exude confidence, how to live by the ! Principle, how to handle tricky situations, and how not to be a complete dick.

5. Marc Antony — Rome (James Purefoy)

With a penchant for killing, causing trouble, and watching naked chicks sword fight in his chambers, Marc Antony pretty much tops the list for interesting dudes who do whatever the hell they want.  He is nearly a perfect amalgamation of laissez-faire attitude, cockiness, sarcasm, alpha-ness, and pimp.

What you can learn from him: How to not give a fuck, how to flirt with women, how to be so cool it hurts others to watch.

4. Sir Walter Raleigh — Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Clive Owen)

Clive Owen plays Sir Walter Raleigh the explorer, who not only leads a daring life of relentless adventure, but also makes Queen Elizabeth’s loins tingle by virtue of sheer awesomeness.  He does a magnificent job of using cock-suredness to stand out, being mysterious and alluring to women of all status, and moving as little as humanly possible.

What you can learn from him: How to stop moving around all over the damn place, how to speak with confidence, how to be more interesting than anyone else.

3. Alex “Hitch” Hitchens — Hitch (Will Smith)

This one is a little more ambiguous because Will Smith plays a former geek who bootstrapped his way to the top of cooldom.  Knowing what’s possible, he then teaches other dudes how to get the women they’ve always wanted.  It’s nice to just watch Hitch in action.

What you can learn from him: That it is in fact possible to make such a transformation, how to interact with women, how to decorate your damn house (had to say it), and how to relax.

2. Chili Palmer — Be Cool (John Travolta)

Chili Palmer (Travolta) is an ex-mobster turned movie producer who decides to help the widow of a friend run a record company.  He runs into assloads of trouble all throughout this movie while still managing to keep his lid on tight, get everyone to do what he wants, and teach you how to be insanely awesome.

What you can learn from him: How not to freak out.  Ever.

1. Hawkeye/Nathaniel Poe — Last of the Mohicans (Daniel Day-Lewis)

This movie involves killing, another white guy brought up as an Indian, and an insane love triangle between Hawkeye, a hot chick, and a cheeky British officer.  What makes Hawkeye so badass is that the British officer tries everything in his power to get the hot chick while Hawkeye just doesn’t give a damn.

What you can learn from him: How to kick complete and total ass.

What you can learn from the British guy: How NOT to woo chicks.

But this is life.

Being honest with yourself is necessary if you’re to make any kind of progress.  Really what it boils down to is being able to recognize when you’re selling yourself short – trying to soften a reality so you don’t have to deal with it.  Badasses like to deal with things, however.  If there is a problem, a real man will meet it head on, instead of hiding.

You need to be able to call yourself out when you find yourself trying to “cover” for your actions by either eluding something that might be painful.  Call yourself out.  Being honest with yourself, sometimes brutally, may be a little painful, but it will ultimately make you stronger, which is what you’re going for, isn’t it?  Even if it’s just saying to yourself, “hey guy – you’re doing that thing again,” you’re practicing valuable self-awareness which will ultimately help you overcome a lot of things you want to take care of.  Does that mean you should beat yourself up over it?  No.  You shouldn’t be doing that.  Just be aware of it, which is the first step to overcoming anything you want to deal with.

Whether it’s recognizing that you made a mistake or admitting that you were wrong about something, being honest with yourself should be high on your list of things to do.  You have to live with yourself every second of every day.  It’s disrespectful to lie to other people, and no one likes it when people lie to them.  Have some self respect and quit lying to yourself.  If you don’t respect yourself then no one else will.

You can do this by changing your mindset until it manifests as truth and exudes from your every pore.

Let’s face it – most of us think negatively.  We think about things we don’t want, we focus on the things we hate about ourselves, and we project these things through our every action and end up fighting the same things over and over or bringing down the vibes of others along with ourselves.

This is no good.

The key to success — and confidence — is to keep a positive attitude at all times.  The subconscious mind cannot distinguish between negative and positive.  It only knows what you tell it, and over time it surfaces as reality.

I’m going to show you how to change your mindset with positive affirmations.  Positive affirmations are thoughts that you repeat over and over again until they become beliefs to the point where they penetrate the subconscious which in turn acts on them.  The fastest and most effective way to change actions that spring from our mindsets is to change those mindsets.

Think of a time when you were not confident at all.  What were you thinking at that moment?  Maybe it was something like, “I am not good enough,” or “She’s not going to like me,” or “I am not good-looking enough.”  Whatever it was, it was YOU who thought that way.  You are guessing at how other people are viewing you or how they will react.  In other words, it was all in your head.  You have no way of knowing how other people think or how they will react.

In order to combat this problem, you have to stop thinking that way.  You are defeating yourself and it doesn’t do any good in any situation.

What you need is to ambush your mind with a positive mindset so as to not leave any room for confusion in your subconscious.

An example: If you say to yourself, “I am terrified about speaking in public,” your subconscious only registers “terrified,” and therefore you will be terrified.  Instead of thinking that way, you should do yourself a favor and say to yourself, “I am confident about speaking in public”, then your mind will recognize “confident.”  Which would you rather have?

You’re going to change your entire mindset and the way you look at yourself through a combination of positive affirmations and the victories that come along the way, which serve as PROOF that your affirmations—the way you see yourself—are FACT.

Use positive affirmations all the time.  Over time, your brain will start changing and you will exchange the continuous cole slaw of negativity into more productive thinking, which WILL result in more confidence.  You will accomplish things you never thought possible!

Here are some considerations in devising affirmations:

1. Be as specific as possible and make the affirmations personal.  Use the word “I” in the affirmation.
2. Use them as often as possible, at the very least every morning first thing and every night before you go to bed.
3. Write them on a post-it note and place them where you can see them often.
4. Say them to yourself several times throughout the day.  Use them especially when you really need them.  For example, if you feel yourself getting nervous before a presentation, it will help to use the affirmation “I am confident about speaking in public.”

Some examples of positive affirmations you can use:

• I am a confident man.
• I deserve to have nice things.
• I deserve to get the things I want.
• I can speak to anyone.
• I am charismatic and fun to be around.
• It is easy for me to meet new people and make new friends.
• I fit in everywhere I go.
• I can accomplish ______.

Over time, you will see that these new mindsets will start to rocket your confidence to new heights.  If you find that you still have trouble, you can bridge your mindsets until you find that they are really coming to fruition.  Here are some examples:

• I am getting more confident.
• It is getting easier for me to approach new people and make new friends.
• I am starting to fit in everywhere I go.
• I am becoming more charismatic and fun to be around.
• I am becoming more interesting.

Do not focus on things you think you are not good at.  When you catch yourself doing this, focus ONLY on what you know you have to offer.  Instead of thinking, “I am too short to talk to this woman,” think about something you do have that’s of value.  Maybe you’re really funny or you have a great sense of style.  Think about those things instead.