Personal Interview
What if someone wanted to know who you really are? What would they ask you and what would you tell them? These questions are not easy to answer. You have to have a strong lock on who you are, and have to make some decisions about where you are at and where you want to go. These questions will cause you to have to think a LOT about your life; that is the point of this exercise. When you are able to confidently answer all of these questions you will start to see strong gains in confidence and a better self image.
1. What is your passion?
2. Tell me 5 interesting things about you?
3. What makes you really happy?
4. What is one character trait you have that you appreciate about yourself?
5. What are the important things you need in a partner?
6. Why are those things important to you?
7. If someone wrote a list of things about you that fit their needs in a partner, what would they be?
8. What are your dreams for the future?
9. What are 3 defining experiences in your life that have made you who you are?
10. Name 3-5 beliefs you have about yourself that hold you back, and you would like to change.
11. What are your weaknesses and how could each weakness be viewed as a strength?
12. What really scares you about meeting a partner to enter a long term relationship with?
13. What are your assumptions about most of the opposite sex out there and their attainability, worthiness of a relationship, and their thoughts about you?
Five Topics
Think of five different topics you would enjoy talking about, as well as someone of the opposite sex would enjoy talking about. Come up with an open ended question to start you off into that topic. Ex. “What is your relationship situation?” for getting into a talk about relationships.
Emotionally Relating
Make a list of every positive emotion you can think of. For each emotion write down a short headline to a story, moment, or experience, when you felt that emotion.
Story Telling
Write down a story from your experience. Headline it, add emotions, details, and tell it from the “I” perspective. Now take that story and add more emotions and details. Remove extraneous facts and explain how and why you felt those emotions during that time. Keep adding more details and emotions until the story is so expressive you know there isn’t anything else you felt that is not in the story.
Deal-Breakers
What are the things about the opposite sex that are deal-breakers for you? A deal-breaker is any character trait, action, or belief that makes them immediately disqualified from ever being your romantic partner. Here are a few I want you to add to your list
1. Physically abusive
2. Verbally abusive or insulting
3. Lies more than once about anything important. (Or lies frequently about anything)
Don’t list things you think you should; list what you feel strongly about. Remember a deal-breaker is something that if it is revealed, you don’t just walk, you run away. Any present or future romantic relationship with this person is over if a deal-breaker is found.
Also don’t feel bad about adding a deal-breaker that others might not agree with. If you don’t want kids, and you find out that kids are important to your partner, that is a deal-breaker. Don’t expect them to change, either you decide you are truly ok with having kids, or you find someone else.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Dan,
This stuff is gold. Looks like we did our interview a week too early! I guess you’ll have to come back at some point! You’re welcome any time amigo!
-Jordon
pickuppodcast.com
February 21st, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I can’t believe that you put up this post! This is exactly the type of thing that I just realized I needed to do, but needed a little bit of a push and guidance. Really great stuff. I can’t wait to sit down and really dedicate some serious time to figuring out my answers to these questions. Thanks so much.
T Square
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 am
OMG_
Best post ever.
questions:
“7. If someone wrote a list of things about you that fit their needs in a partner, what would they be?”
This isn’t clear to me, please explain what you mean.
Also what is headlining it exactly? Is it Wilder’s hook questions? You put the most exciting bit first to catch interest?
e.g.
Have you ever been eaten by a shark?
love
Goose__
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
#7 If a woman made a list of qualities you have that fits what they envision they need in a partner, what would those qualities of yours be?
A headline is exactly that. The main idea of the story you are about to tell.
As an alternative to that excercise instead of writing just the headline, practice telling the story in a tape recorder with the “I” perspective, details, and emotions.
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Awesome post. It’s really humbling to see how little I really know about myself. Well, I suppose in a sense I do know all the answers on some level, it just really hard to express them consciously.
If only this was like the daily crossword and we could expect to see the ‘right’ answers upside down in the blog tomorrow…
February 24th, 2007 at 7:24 am
This is the best post I have read about this topic in a long time and I got such an amazing insights about myself as a person and I can only imagine what more I will gain with this when I continue to do this exercise more.
I really appreciate the time and the effort you take with your blog and the commitment you have to help other people.
- Lauri
February 24th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
I really love this excercise! But I’m having some trouble about the “5 interesting things about you”. What sort of things would be applicable?
February 24th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Thanks Lauri and thanks for reading!
#5 I can’t help you with that. Personally i answer that with 5 things that i find interesting about myself not what someone else would find interesting about me per se.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:45 pm
This is a great exercise, it helped me look inside myself more than i wanted to before.
It took me about 3 days to finish this because i couldn’t come up with alot of answers.
I’m looking for some constructive criticism if anyone would like to (especially SHH) on my blog because i posted my exercise answers.
Fade
April 21st, 2007 at 4:21 am
[...] or identity exercise. For example, Dan “Social HitchHiker” from Charisma Arts has a great article that addresses just that. The StyleLife Academy has a Mission Statement mission that requires you [...]
June 25th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
[...] spent about an hour working on the questions raised in this post over at Charisma Tips. It is a series of great questions and exercises designed to help you get [...]
July 4th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Hi all!
Great book. I just want to say what a fantastic thing you are doing! Good luck!
G’night
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:17 am
Dan, and others in CA – thank you for free effort and commitment. Your company atitude towards pick up is different than others in comunity and it’s just what I was lookin’ for because of ethics. “Trick it till you stick IT” I leave others.
Fan from Poland
April 30th, 2008 at 5:58 am
so far the best guide for self exploration….id didnt i was sch a kind of person until i did the exercise honestly. it highlighted my skills and my potential skills