It’s tempting to believe that there is a formula to the heart of every woman. Sure, tastes differ and what’s attractive to one woman might be offputting to another, but what if you knew what she is into?
Everyone always talks about tips for the first date once you’re already there. Maybe they even give you a few cheesy ideas for what to do, but one crucial aspect of dating is usually missed: preparing beforehand and getting into a good mindset.
Why is that so important? If you’re not feeling confident, then you won’t present your best self. And as we all know, you have precious minutes to make a strong first impression.
Once someone has an image of you, it becomes so much harder to change that. This applies universally to men and women. So, every time you have a date, you want to take steps to go in with high energy and be at your best from the first minute.
My coach that I worked with back in the day opened my eyes to the huge benefits that preparation provides and I’ve had great success with it ever since. Nowadays I don’t have bad dates anymore. Sure, I meet people that aren’t a good fit and that I do not want to continue seeing (or vice versa) but I always have a good time on the date and so do the women I meet.
Applying these tips, you too will develop a pre-date routine that will guarantee you look your best, feel your best, and design an unforgettable experience that you’ll both love.
In this video, I talk about the three different kinds of confidence and give you some tips on how to build each of them.
In this short video I introduce the concept of emotional exposure, a key element that allows others to fall in love with you by showing them hints of your personality and, thus, allow others to create their own mental movie of the two of you together.
Everyone has sometimes a hard time leading a deep meaningful conversation and coming up with ways to get to know the person they’re talking to.
I’ve collected the most interesting questions for you, and the list will be updated constantly, so you will never run out of things to say on a date or in your social circle – you could make an evening out of it and get to know your existing friends better over a few glasses of wine.
I advise you to go through them yourself and find great answers in advance.
Compliments are a box of confusion. On the one hand, every guy knows that women supposedly like compliments, but on the other hand, how to give them so you don’t come across as a weirdo is a totally different story.
Luckily for you, I came up with a simple formula that makes it a breeze giving memorable compliments that will make you immediately stand out to her.
The first principle of a good compliment is that you can never make a mistake if you pay a genuine compliment. And I can’t emphasize enough how important this is.
I realized how much difference it makes years ago when I wanted to show a client at our Conquer Confidence Retreat in Lisbon how easy it can be to compliment the barkeeper he liked. To show him that even the most overused compliment can work, I told him I’m going to compliment her on her eyes.
I felt awkward knowing in a couple of seconds I was about to compliment her on the eyes and at that moment I didn’t realize why. It didn’t feel right but I pushed myself for the sake of the demonstration and to show him how easy it can be. She started mixing our cocktails, we talked for a bit and she smiled at me. Then I felt the urge to say “By the way, you have an incredible smile, so pretty! It charges the whole room with a powerful positivity!”
I explained to my client that the moment she turned to me and smiled, I completely forgot about wanting to compliment her eyes and felt compelled to share with her my thoughts about her radiant smile. And as I was talking about her smile, the awkwardness from before disappeared because I was authentic and could connect to my emotions towards her.
The easiest way to be genuine with your compliments is to do no planning, express your thoughts at the moment whenever you feel almost compelled to do it. That”s the first key to successful compliments.
Look at her. What is this one thing that makes her looks so interesting to you? Does your heart skip a beat when she looks at you with her warm beautiful eyes? Or do you feel like all your problems are gone when she smiles at you?
“You have such pretty eyes,” is a classic example of an overused impersonal compliment. But some women you meet have such incredible eyes that you’ll genuinely want to tell them. This leads me to my second point:
The second principle of a good compliment is that you explain the “Why?”, i.e. the reason behind why you like the thing you just complimented her on.
Trying to come up with a great thing to say means that it won’t be related to her and moreover, you’re trying to impress her, which doesn’t represent confidence.
As I demonstrated above with the compliment I gave the barkeeper “Btw, you have an incredible smile, so pretty! it charges the whole room with a powerful positivity!”
“It charges the whole room with a powerful positivity!”, is the why.
Let’s give it another try with the pretty eyes compliment.
“You have such pretty eyes. I have never seen anyone with sprinkles of gold and green around their iris. It’s mesmerizing.”
Isn’t that a big improvement?
As you see in the example above, it’s not simply about being genuine and giving a simple reason why. Moreover, the “why” should be related specifically to her.
Women constantly try to figure out if a man is honest and cares about her and not just her body. And a brief explanation of why you like what you like will make her feel more secure about your intentions and will prove that you’re not using the same lines for every girl you talk to.
Here is the formula again: Genuine Compliment + Reason Why = Great Compliment
If you apply it then you can turn anything into a great compliment.
You see, giving compliments is easy as can be. Just get some practice in and adding the “Why?” will become second nature.
Try it out and I’d like to know what happened, so feel free to send me an email. I’m fully excited to read about your experiences!
Once the big hurdle of starting a conversation is taken, the second big hurdle for most men is showing intent, i.e. making it clear to her that you want to be more than just friends.
Lately, a friend told me a real story of an old couple, that he had read in the newspaper.
The two oldies had been married for over 50 years and every morning they had breakfast together.
They always shared one bun. He’d take the top and she the bottom.
For 50 years, the husband always took the top because he was convinced his wife wanted to eat the bottom. He secretly also wanted the bottom but he refrained from telling her. He saw it as a good deed.
For the same five decades, his wife always ate the bottom because she thought her husband always wanted to eat the top, even though in reality she preferred the top.
A simple sentence would have resolved the misunderstanding and given both partners a better result. But they didn’t talk about it for 50+ years!
Welcome to the bad shit crazy world of mind reading, where both parties always walk away unhappy.
The phenomenon of mind reading occurs whenever you try to guess, assume, or predict what others think or how they might react.
Sure, we humans have the ability to size people up by reading body language and subconsciously sensing micro-cues like pupil dilation. However, these abilities can trick us into false assumptions when mixed with insecurities, shame and anxiety.
Maybe some of the following mind reading examples sound familiar to you:
Many of these examples sound familiar to me because I was guilty of mind reading myself.
That’s why I know from personal experience that the main difference between a man who is romantically successful and one who is unsuccessful is their tendency to mind read – or not.
I went through the process of reducing my own mind reading and luckily emerged a more attractive man. But it almost broke me in the process.
Mind reading is quite insidious because most people never know they do it and even if, one wouldn’t think it’s so devastating.
Here are some classic symptoms of mind reading:
You just got a little sneak peek into the results of mind reading. But I think another story will make its effects – especially in dating – even clearer.
A while back, a friend told me he was interested in a woman he knew from disc golf (that’s a sport).
This is a disc golf. The aim is to throw a frisbee-like plastic disc into a metal basket in as few shots as possible. Kristina and I are crazy about it!
The two of them got along great and always hung out after tournaments to have a beer and chat. They shared a lot of laughs and, to an outside observer, it was clear they were into each other.
But my friend never did anything more because he thought it would make things awkward at disc golf tournaments and she probably wasn’t interested anyway.
What he really wanted was clear: He wanted to tell her he liked her, have a romantic date with her and take it to the next level.
Too bad he never told her.
Too bad, because she ended up with a different guy – that she met through disc golf.
Now, every time my friend plays a tournament he gets the emotional equivalent of a gut punch when he sees them together.
He’s still friendly when he meets her. And she still has no clue he was interested in her.
What do you think is going to happen to my friend if he never becomes aware of the monkey on his back that is mind reading and subsequently never does anything about it?
For starters, he is going to ask himself why the hell no one wants him romantically even though everyone seems to like him.
In search of an answer, he’ll scan every nook and cranny of his body as well as his personality in search of why women don’t want him.
And in all likelihood, he’s gonna find something like an ugly toe, or approaching baldness, or patchy beard growth and will declare it the reason women aren’t into him.
Then he’s going to hate himself for being born that way.
His brain will whisper, “Other guys don’t have these issues. Why is the world so unfair?”
Eventually, after much suffering, he’ll come to terms with the heavy fate that he was born faulty and no one will ever love him for who he is.
And so the story often goes on until any hope and self-love have been washed away.
Isn’t it crazy how far one can go down the rabbit hole because of this mostly unknown phenomenon?
I didn’t tell the story to put any blame on my friend. He is not the only mind reader out there by a longshot, and as stated earlier, I used to be a AAA-rated mind reader myself.
Luckily, ending the bad habit of mind reading is simple, free, and you can get started with it immediately.
All you have to do is develop a new habit of taking responsibility for your emotions by vulnerably stating what you want. And that starts by asking yourself, “What do I want?”
Don’t worry, you won’t turn into an egotistical asshole from this. On the opposite, everyone you interact with will appreciate it: Women will think you are mature and sexy. You’ll get along better with your family than ever before. And your friends will respect you ten times more.
This is the process of how you can reduce mind reading:
I’ll give you some examples of how the shift from mind reader to emotionally mature and assertive man works in practice.
| Mind Reader | Cured Mind Reader | |
|---|---|---|
| Situation | A guy is saying goodbye to a woman he just had a great date with. | A guy is saying goodbye to a woman he just had a great date with. |
| What he wants | To see her again. Going on another date together. | To see her again. Going on another date together. |
| What he thinks | Assumes she might not want to see him again. | Assumes she might not want to see him again but upon catching that thought immediately reminds himself that he can’t know that and instead should just state what he wants. |
| What he says | “It was really nice talking to you. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.” | “I know we haven’t even really finished this date yet, but what are you doing on Thursday? I’d love to hang out some more and talk over drinks. This little place with the fanciest most creative cocktails you’ve ever seen just opened up in the area I live in.” |
| Her reaction | Thinks he doesn’t want to see her again and plays it cool as well even though she’d love another date. | Is excited he wants to see her again and agrees to go out with him again. |
Maybe another non-dating example to hit the point home.
| Mind Reader | Cured Mind Reader | |
|---|---|---|
| Situation | A guy has a few friends over and they trying to decide what to do next. | A guy has a few friends over and they trying to decide what to do next. |
| What he wants | Go to a VR cafe and dive into the virtual reality alongside some baked goods. | Go to a VR cafe and dive into the virtual reality alongside some baked goods. |
| What he thinks | Assumes his friends aren’t in the mood to go to the VR cafe. | Assumes his friends aren’t in the mood to go to the VR cafe but upon catching that thought immediately reminds himself that he can’t know that and instead should just state what he wants. |
| What he says | “What are you guys in the mood for? Maybe the new VR cafe? But I’m open to anything. We can stay here as well.” | “I walked by a Virtual Reality cafe on my way home, today. I’ve never tried VR goggles but everyone keeps telling me it’s sick. How about we get some baked goods and check it out?” |
| Their reaction | Can’t decide on anything and just stay home. | Welcome his proposal with open arms because finally someone wants to be more active and even comes up with an interesting activity, which is valuable to the whole group. As a result they respect him more. |
We have come to the end of this article and I sincerely hope I raised some awareness for how detrimental the habit of mind reading can become.
Remember: Only when you clearly state what YOU want without any considerations of what you think others want to hear, only then will you feel like you are living true to yourself, only then will others feel comfortable around you, only then will you be able to lead, and only then will others be able to state what they want without playing the same game.
Life feels just so much simpler as soon as you let go of the constant guesswork. Give it a try!
A problem that I encounter often in my coaching is that clients tell me they want to have all those wild sexual experiences but later I find out that they aren’t ready for them to happen.
For some reason, people get really pissed when you are mentally absent.