by Neil Strauss

Many discussions with colleagues on the SWITCHES that must be flipped in a woman in order for her to feel attraction resulted in a really long list. From it, I boiled it down to just a few main switches.

There is no order to them. They should just each be consciously flipped at some point. I’d love to hear thoughts and contributions:

1. You must show her that you’re safe. Trust is an important issue for most women. This must be demonstrated. So switch #1: in order to proceed, you need SAFETY and TRUST.

2. You must show her that you have either job security, motivation, or ambition. In other words, you must have a life and goals. So switch #2 is demonstrating to her that you have STABILITY and AMBITION. You don’t have to be successful, you just have to show the potential to be successful.

3. You must show her that you’re different than the other guys, that you are not generic or boring, that she can learn something from you or grow with you, that you have a sense of adventure or creativity or spirituality. So switch #3 is showing her that you have something to offer, even if you don’t give it to her in the moment. This is where DHVs are useful.

4. You must be the prize of the room. She wants a guy others will envy her for, that she can brag about to her friends.

This is where social proof comes in, where story- telling comes in. It’s also where alpha qualities come in, and not supplicating. So switch #4 is demonstrating all of the many qualities of:

CONFIDENCE, LEADERSHIP, AUTHORITY, and POPULARITY

5. It’s a big world and we all feel alone in it, so if you can demonstrate that you UNDERSTAND her and where she comes from, she will feel chemistry.

This can largely be done through demonstrating either cultural, mental, emotional, world view, humor, or life/background commonalities. The more obscure and rare a trait that you connect on,the more chemistry you create. So Switch #5 is demonstrating COMMONALITIES in order to trigger CHEMISTRY.

6. You need an aura of depth and mystery. You must maybe show a vulnerable or wounded side of yourself, you must not give away everything for free, you must be a puzzle she wants to figure out and maybe even have a wound she can heal. Switch #6 then is hooking her with your DEPTH and MYSTERY.

7. You must show her that you are NOT horny, but sexual. This is where social proof comes in too, also demonstrating an understanding of her world (liking her for who SHE is). So switch #7 is demonstrating your own LACK OF DESPERATION while showing her that you recognize something SPECIAL in her that attracts you to her. This is where QUALIFYING is useful, in other words demonstrating that you like her for who she is– even if you are a player.

Be careful with such power. If you can flip these, she’s going to be really into you.

This post was from Evolve, at the Stylelife Academy.

Many people find themselves having trouble communicating over the loud, repetitive sounds of the night club. If you’re not used to the noise it can be hard to think, let alone communicate!

This exercise is an easy way for any guy and his wing to overcome the deafening noise of the nightclub.

Level 1: Get Comfortable in the Noise

First you’ll need a stereo that can really blast some music (the stereo in your car will work for the Level 1 exercise.) Put on something loud, anything from bumping club music to grinding death metal will do. Blast the music. Stand about 10 ft away from a friend and simply talk about anything for 5 to 10 minutes.

Get comfortable with thinking and speaking over loud music. It doesn’t matter at this point if the other person understands what you are saying. What matters is that you can keep on track and tell a story all the way through, over the music.

Repeat this exercise 4 times over the course of a week and you will find yourself to be much more comfortable around loud music.

Level 2: Storytelling and Listening

Write up, find, or memorize a story that your partner has never heard before. Stand across from each other and crank the music up. One of you will be the storyteller and the other will be the listener. The storyteller will try to communicate his story over the blasting music. The listener will try to figure out what the story is all about.

Once the storyteller is finished telling his tale, turn the music down. Now, the listener will explain what he believes the story was all about. If his version of the story is way off, then the storyteller needs to change how he expresses his story.

The storyteller and listener should discuss ways that you could use your body language and tonality to more accurately tell the story. Use your hands, make gestures, or change your facial expressions to match feelings or events in the story. Emphasize specific words that are important to the meaning of the story. Find parts of the story where you can throw in some kino. Tell the story again. Then change roles.

There are two lessons for this exercise. The first lesson is how to communicate an entire story to a group of people in a loud night club so that the listeners get the point.

The second lesson is how to listen to and interpret a story in a loud environment. This is especially important when a girl is telling you a story. The more you can hear, the better your response could be.

One of the worst things you can do in a noisy club is to “peck” when you can’t hear what someone is saying. When you can’t hear someone, most guys will lean in closer to the speaker.

Some men even think this is a positive form of kino because they can use the noise as an excuse to get close to the lady. However, by repeatedly leaning in, you resemble a ravenous chicken, pecking at feed in the chicken coop. It looks bad and it conveys lower value.

Resist the urge to peck. If you can’t hear what someone says, stand tall and simply ask them to repeat it. Do not lean forward. Stylelife Executive Coach Bravo is an expert on this maneuver.

“I lost the hearing in one of my ears as a result of firearms training,” he says. “I just point to my ear, explain that I have difficulty hearing, and ask the woman to speak up. But my posture never changes. I remain in a confident, upright, and powerful posture.”

In the last week, two more prime-time scripted television shows ripped off The Game and Mystery’s techniques. And of course perverted the message of the whole thing.

For those who haven’t been keeping score, last year, CSI Miami aired an episode about pickup artists with rival workshops, an undercover reporter infiltrating them, and murderous results.

Then there was Twins (the Sara Gilbert show), in which Gilbert’s nerdy high school friend returns transformed after having written a book about picking up women using techniques like negs.

And on a recent Ugly Betty episode, she interviews the writer of a book called Tap That: How to Score With Hot Bitches, which advocates the A.S.S. approach to meeting women (Approach, Subdue, Score).

TV writers seem especially fond of using use pua jargon like neg and peacocking, which one of us should probably get the Oxford English dictionary to include.

Anyway, I thought TV writers had their fill of The Game after these shows.

But then, the other week, on Big Bang Theory, one of the nerds, Howard, decides to try peacocking and negs, and strikes out miserably.

And then last week, on Criminal Minds, investigators chase after a man who’s taken a pickup workshop with a Mystery clone named Raven, and is now seducing and murdering innocent clubgoing women.

Do you sense a theme here?

It’s that the game is for creeps, losers, and killers.

And this kinda pisses me off.

Why?

Because it shames men out of seeking help for their issues. Help that could bring them out out of their social shells. Help that could make them much happier with themselves. Help that will, for most of them, lead at some point to marriage and children – and, in the meantime, lead to new experiences and friendships, not to mention some fun, consensual late nights.

The truth is, from the thousands upon thousands of successful AND botched pickups I’ve witnessed: The game poses a far greater threat to the guy than to the girl. And not one TV show has captured this. The real victims of the game are the guys who get so into it, they lose themselves. They lose the things that are special about them as individuals, they lose their direction in life, they lose their ability to relate normally to people.

And that is a minority of guys. Most are smart enough to get it, and blossom into amazingly cool, fun, successful guys. When it comes to violence in society, which these shows love to attribute to PUAs as an exciting plot twist, if you read the news, some of the most shocking crimes in society have been caused by men who have pent-up sexual desires but have either been rejected or just have no way to attain them. So they grow dark and bitter and hateful, and eventually lash out. Other instances of violence
(like school shootings and suicides) have been caused by people who felt like social outcasts. And other instances (like domestic abuse) stem from an attempt to take control over the victim.

(Of course, some people are just crazy, fucked-up sociopaths.)

The point is: when taught and learned correctly, the game socializes men.

And the more socialized people we have in this world, the less anti-social behavior we’ll see.

If fewer people feel powerless around and invalidated by others, than fewer people will resort to trying to get what they believe to be the upper hand through violence. So, rather than leading to more violence in the world, the game is at least a step toward leading guys to seek help with their issues and pointing to other attainable solutions.

Because the game is not about wearing a funny hat and insulting women.

It’s about becoming your best self and making the best possible first impression you can. It’s about understanding the rules that people use to make social and sexual and professional choices and alliances, and working effectively within that system. It’s about attracting others by learning to master yourself, rather than trying to control them. And it’s also about having fun when you go out, rather than cowering timidly in the corner.

Though the seduction community has its faults and shortcomings, I often think about what my life would have been like if I never discovered it. And I would have died having missed out on so much
of life, because I was so scared and timid and uncomfortable and mute around women and strangers.

And what worries me about these shows is that, psychologically, they make guys who feel socially ostracized feel even MORE ostracized and ashamed for trying to do something to change it.

So, in conclusion, we’re all going to have to band together and change the tide on this in television dramas and sitcoms. (Thanks to VH1, at least this is getting a better depiction on the reality show front.) Maybe we can make a show about a crime-solving team of pickup artists, who use their social skills to make connections and get information from people. Or maybe not.

But at least we can all do our part in encouraging anyone – male or female – to take whatever positive steps are necessary towards becoming a better, more attractive, more successful person who’s fully and fearlessly engaged in life.

Thanks for listening,
Neil Strauss

Neil Strauss saying the same old stuff, but this is weirder… Who has been on Second Life? It’s so foreign to me.

Neil Strauss made an guest appearance on the Tom Green Show back earlier this year. Skip to about the last 10 minutes.

From Neil Strauss:

First of all, there wasn’t time to organize all the events, contests, and performances I would have wanted for the Pick Up Artists Ball. So that will happen at some point in the future.

Instead, because I was so busy with the book tour and writing the new book this month, I neglected to celebrate two important events:

The first being my birthday, the second being the first anniversary of the opening of the Stylelife Academy.

And the Vegas club Tao has been kind enough to offer to throw a party in honor of the above.

So I figure that after all we’ve been through here – the Stylelife Challenge, the Finnegans Wake Book Club, the Dr. Phil debacle, the Google ranking rescue, book releases, MySpace videos, the Tolstoy book club, kitesurfing, seminars, contests, TV tapings, reality shows, giveaways, dirty laundry – I would be remiss not to invite you.

Here’s the deal: I have a limited amount of free spaces on the guest list. And I’ll fill them up on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you want to come, just make absolutely sure that you’re free to show up this Friday, April 4th (so that you don’t take the spot of someone who could have come). And, secondly, you’ll be on the list plus one guest – so one of the people in your party must be female.
After all, this is Vegas.

If both of the above criteria sound good to you, then send an email right now to: manofstyle@gmail.com with the headline GO SHAWTY, IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY. Along with your request, include your full name. The guest list will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you respond in time, you’ll receive an email by the end of the day on Wednesday letting you know you’re on the list, and explaining further details.

If you don’t receive an email by then, it means you were too late.
That said, Tao will still be letting people in the club that night, but I can’t guarantee you’ll get in or the club won’t be full.

Another option, for those of you who fit the description of baller, is to reserve a table. I’m not involved with that part of the night, but my good friend and ace promoter Brett is. You can email him at vip@nightvisionent.com or call 323.512.8400 for details on securing a VIP table.

Neil Strauss recently said this and it goes along with my post about peacocking done right.

I recently saw a heavily peacocked guy at a bar who thought he was a ladies man. Women laughed at his jokes and allowed him to have his hands all over them. However, what he didn’t realize was that these women were humoring him. They were being nice because they felt sorry for him, then they’d quickly and politely extricate themselves.

What he was missing was something called calibration, which most of you read about on Day 28 of Rules of The Game. However, there’s something I’d like to add to that: measure yourself by your RESULTS. If you go out and you’re surrounded by women, yet you still sleep alone every night, it’s time to examine your behavior and figure out what you’re doing wrong.

Maybe you come across as the party guy, and no one takes you seriously. Maybe you’re too touchy-feely and creeping them out.
Maybe they see you as a safe friend or someone to be used. Maybe you come off as lonely or weird, and they’re trying not to be rude. Or maybe they even see you as a player, but to such a degree that they just don’t trust you.

Think about it. Ask your friends. And don’t be afraid to ask the women. Make sure you evaluate everything they say, and don’t take it personally. If everyone is saying the same thing, don’t disregard it – give it serious consideration.

This probably only applies to about one percent of you reading this – but you all definitely know someone like this. So help him out with a serious, non-judgmental, constructive talk and in-field lesson. What I did with this guy, when he didn’t believe me, was approach the women he thought he had attracted, and convince them to tell him the truth for his own good – telling them things like, “He’s going to be single for the rest of his life if you don’t help him out right now. You can be like the Millionaire Matchmaker.”

David met women wearing a dildo on his head. He met girls with his hands tied and mouth duct-taped. It seemed like no challenge was too great. So we called in their extremely talented and smart neighbor, Dave Navarro, to raise the bar for the Rules Of The Game finale. And he did. In this episode of the Neil Strauss series, we move out of the realm of seduction and into the zone of social experiment. And we learn that even if you’re wearing a ski mask and driving a windowless white van, there are women out there for you. This episode is not funny – it’s horrifying. Somewhere, a line has been crossed…

We’ve learned by now that it’s too easy to meet girls with a dildo strapped to your head or dressed like a creepy fitness instructor in a pink half-shirt. How about a real challenge? In this week’s episode of Neil Strauss’ Rules Of The Game extreme pickup battle throwdown shenanigans, David attempts the impossible: hands tied and duct tape over his mouth. You’ll also learn how the concept of “social proof” can overcome weak game. Note: Due to circumstances that will be clear at the end of the episode, Corin will not ALSO noserape a cop. Man, if only you knew what we had to do behind the scenes after this one…

The two roommates compete in extreme mini pickup battles when David takes Corin, on the brink of suicide, to meet the man in the guru jacket. They fight in an opener competition, an attraction face-off, and a trust contest to win this episode of Neil Strauss’s Rules Of The Game. In the process, they learn just how easy it is for a stranger to lead a dark woman into an alley at night. Ladies, be more careful, please.