However don’t let the topic fool you there are some great tips for understanding how to increase your charisma!

Just a few of the concepts we cover:

• The 3 main motivations of both men and women
• The Core concept of developing Charisma
• How to use your Charisma to develop relationships with clients and customers
• How to start the process of building a coaching business

Check it out at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CharismaLive/2009/11/04/The-Business-of-Charisma

The biggest difference I have seen in the effect of arrogance thrown in with confidence really depends on the confidence of the woman you are pursuing. We always are attracted to someone more confident than we are. If the women you set your sights on tend to be insecure, the translation of arrogance is often not that different from confidence. The more confident the women you set your sights on, the more easily they will see the insecurity or self delusion of arrogance in your words and actions.

I see it often in my clients that have been using some of the dating advice out there that advocates a “cocky” approach. In an effort to seem more confident they act like the arrogant assholes they had always previously despised. The false confidence comes off as insecurity shielded by arrogance.

The most confident men I have known also happened to be good with women. The two go hand in hand; the interesting thing is that what shows the most confidence is the ability to be ok with our own weakness. Arrogant men try not to show any flaws and flout their positive attributes. Confident men have no problem expressing that they are not perfect yet show no insecurity either.

The key in doing that is when you express a weakness of yours to do it in a confident tone of voice. Communicate through your tone and body language that you are not ashamed of your weakness and you see the positive side of it, or at least see the light at the end of the tunnel. End it on a positive note and don’t be self deprecating. Doing this shows more confidence than any cocky line or attitude.

Also check out an old podcast I did when I worked for Charisma Arts that talks all about how to use a technique called Disqualification to express your weaknesses in a confident way.

On road to true confidence you are bound to make the mistake of being too overtly confident. Even that take it in stride and admit “maybe I’m trying to seem a bit more confident than I am, but you didn’t hear that from me ”

Check out this video to hone this power of listening for good rather than evil:

Confidence, Assertiveness, and Genuine Interest.

Look at Obama, our president for an example. He projects an amazing amount of Charisma. Not only is he confident and willing to take a risk to make change, it feels like he actually cares to listen. What an
“American public valued most was a leader whose strength lies in listening.”

Having a genuine interest in who people are and what is interesting about them to me is the most important aspect of charisma.

On a live recording from one of my favorite musicians I remember when he got up and said something to the affect of:

“I really don’t want to just get up here and say ‘How is everyone tonight?’ and get a bunch of applause for nothing. I actually care and really would love to find out how each and every one of you are doing. Of course that would take all night, but I sincerely hope all of you are well and I get to meet some of you later and take a moment to truly find out how you are doing. Thank you for coming to listen to my show, I hope you enjoy my music”

The simple act of showing you care to listen to someone and are interested in who they are as a person, is one of the most powerful qualities of charisma that you can project

“I like your statement of appreciation concept: I, you, trait. But how do you avoid feeling formulaic internally after you have just used the same framework with someone else earlier that evening or last night, etc? ”

The framework is there to help make your compliments more effective. Once you get the idea you can say it in a thousand ways.

Here are just a few examples:

I like that you are so creative
I think you have a really amazing sense of style
You are so smart, I find that enthralling about you
You know that is so incredible to me that you are like that

Mix it up and don’t worry about making it too perfect. The most important part is complimenting the character trait. The I, and You, part is to focus it a bit more.

Missing the “you”:

I love women who are adventurous

Missing the “I”

That’s cool you are so adventurous

The first is worse than the second but both lump her into a group. Missing the “you” lumps her into a group with all women you like. Missing the “I” puts her in a group where everyone would think that, not you specifically.

“I am not a virgin but I am really inexperienced sexually, I have only been with a woman once. I am really nervous that the next time I get ready to have sex that she’ll be able to tell since I am not experienced. Should I just tell her upfront, and if I do won’t that be a turn off for her?”

Sexpert Kelly answers:

Women often can’t tell if a man is inexperienced. It usually comes off as being awkward or shy and that is not necessarily something that ends with experience. Just because a man has had several lovers, does not mean that he is good in bed or that they were pleasurable experiences. You need to think in terms of quality, not quantity.

If you are currently seeing someone, what makes you think she has any more experience than you have? She may be feeling just as nervous as you are. Are you just planning on jumping right into sex with her or is it something you are working up to? If you take your time and work up to actual intercourse you will learn a lot about what pleases her sexually and build your own confidence at the same time.

Communication is the key to any relationship. If this is something that really concerns you, then I would recommend talking to her about it. But phrase it in a positive way. Start by telling her that you really like her and that you are very attracted to her (hopefully the truth). Then simply tell her you would like to take your relationship to the next level when it comes to sex but that you want her to know you do not have a lot of experience with sex and you hope that you will be able to learn together what you both like. Tell her you are open to her telling you what pleases her. A lot of men think they know it all; women often find it more appealing to be with a man who is actually open to instruction and feedback.

If you feel comfortable enough to get naked with someone and engage in such a deep level of intimacy, you should feel comfortable talking about it with each other. Sex is something that can always be improved when both partners are willing to work at it. A lot of people do not start their sex lives together feeling the earth move but they get there with practice and patience.

Thanks for your patience through this change and see you on the other side!

Dan
Charisma Coaching

Hi could you tell me what is the best way to sweep a lady off her feet?

Hey John,

The whole idea of sweeping a woman off her feet is the at the very core of why men are unsuccessful with women. It implies that the woman is worth everything and a man should do everything in his power to get her. The only time this works is if she is already in love with you. If she is not sure then all of the attention is overwhelming and comes off needy.

A strong confident man has his choice of women and doesn’t need to obsess over one woman. He doesn’t decide a woman is perfect for him and instead tries to find out if she is right for him. He finds out who she is and based on what he finds out about her he starts to show more interest.

Men successful with women never sweep women off their feet, that is reserved for the movies. A man seduces a woman’s heart with strength and confidence in who he is and finding out if she is attractive to him on many levels and up to his standards.

Dan

If you have questions you’d like answered please email me at qna@charismatips.com

If you are interested please email me at dan@charismatips.com

With the following info:

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Occupation:
Location:

Survey for Guys is complete: Thank you for all your responses and help! I am still accepting female surveys so please encourage any women you know who are single to contact me! Actually whether I am doing a survey or not I’d still encourage that Seriously though, if you are interested in coaching or help of any kind I am still doing a free 20min phone consult to explore how I can best set up a program to help you.

In many respects I have hit a wall. I feel very much like when I originally started looking for dating advice, unfulfilled and accepting that I didn’t have the skills to succeed. This is far different from failing to me. The moment I realize I need help is when I make the most progress. I swear though, my damn ego thinking I can do anything and I don’t need help is what always slows me down. So here is an outline of a thought progression I have that is applicable to any situation:

Goal: Create a financially successful business where I can positively impact the lives of others or this planet in general.

Assets: Strong teaching skills, Good speaking presence, Articulate, Experience in many different fields.

Hindrances: Large Ego, Unwilling to ask for help, Cheap, Lack of financial resources, Laziness, Overloaded with conflicting information, Little to no marketing experience

Problem: Slow business growth

Solution Brainstorming:

Hire a marketing person.
Pros: They do the work for me.
Cons: Expensive and hard to find someone who has a proven track record of success with my industry

Hire a Life Coach.
Pros: Affordable, Will keep me motivated, good for brainstorming, Will keep me accountable for progress.
Cons: Limited Marketing Experience,

Find someone with a successful business similar to mine and inquire about mentorship
Pros: Learn from someone experienced and is successful
Cons: They may not know how to help me become a success or be able to explain teach it. Hard to find

Join a group of other entrepreneurs to brainstorm solutions
Pros: Free or low cost. Easy to find in San Francisco (meetup.com)
Cons: Possibility of being overwhelmed by ideas and directions

What do all the solutions have in common:

Ask for help.

My next step I believe is going to be hiring a consultant to help me achieve my goals as well as get involved in the online entrepreneur community. Also as I learn what mistakes I made and am making I need to learn to ask for help when I need it. So first I’d like to ask you my loyal clients and readers for help. Please help me by answering these quick questions in a comment

1. What are your goals with dating?
2. What products or services would you like to see Charisma Coaching Offer? (paid or free)
3. What other dating websites/blogs do you read?
4. What do you think I could do or not do to reach more people?

So what do you need help with? Try using my outline to go through the process to help you figure out what you need. Maybe that will be just getting a group together to motivate you to do what you already know you should be doing. Or possibly you are ready to receive some help from someone who can help you just as I decided to get help. If I can help you be that person you want to be and achieve your goals go check out the services I offer.

Name: (first only is fine if you want to remain somewhat anonymous)
Age:
Brief Relationship History:
3 questions you have:
What the main point you would like to work on with coaching is:

By doing this coaching you are consenting for me to use this recording for public broadcast and promotion of Charisma Coaching. You will have full review of the final edit before it is posted.

If you don’t get chosen your questions may appear in a future QnA podcast I have.

Both Men and Women are encouraged to apply for this free coaching. Deadline for submission is 12/12/08 12noon PST

Please note by submitting an application your email will not be added to any marketing lists nor will you be marketed to for future paid coaching.

Despite an inward look into myself I have been exploring and experimenting with online dating as a learning experience. A post will soon be coming on my techniques and experiences. One girl I met online is keeping my attention but is giving me a lot to think about. I don’t think I have ever progressed so slow, yet I feel I am taking the right track with her. The title of her profile was “Friends First?” so I already knew there was likely something holding her back a bit. On our first date I found out she was separated from her husband of 8 years. She was a little scared of my reaction to that but honestly I don’t think of that as anything to worry about in the slightest. However one thing I do realize is that this girl has absolutely zero dating experience. She is pretty shy when it comes to dating and doesn’t drink nor do the bar/club scene. In fact to give you a better picture of the situation after our first date (set up over email), when I asked for her number she was extremely reluctant to give it to me.

I am enjoying dating her though. She has what I look for in a woman, an adventurous side, intelligent, and passionate about life. I think in this case moving slowly is the best option, I’m definitely not worried about her losing interest due to me escalating too slowly as happens with women with more dating experience. Not to mention it is fun dating someone where the normal roadmap doesn’t really apply. I am enjoying having the experience not “going forward on schedule”.

One thing that occurred to me last night as I was talking about re-centering my own life now is I want to create a 30 day “Do something that scares you everyday!” action plan. I am going to try to create a 30day plan that anyone anywhere can do that will have something scary to try each day. I’m not sure it will work for everyone as people are scared of different things but I want to create something nonetheless. So please post your ideas in the comments section. For example one thing I want to include that is from The Four Hour Work Week. Go to a public place and lay down on the floor on your back for thirty seconds. Then get up and continue about your business. Don’t explain unless you have to, and say it’s a social experiment. So what ideas do you have? If I get this made I’ll make it as a 30 day subscription course.

The last few months of my life have been rocky.. From my split with Charisma Arts to starting this new venture has had some interesting ups and downs. I feel a little like a manic depressive, I had days where I work 14 hours straight on developing Charisma Coaching, and I have had days where I have sat on the couch and done nothing but play video games and watch movies while drowning my blues in alcohol. Being unemployed has had an interesting effect on my self image and happiness as well. When I am getting phone coaching and private clients I am on top of the world. Sitting in an empty room hoping people show up to my talks has driven me to drink on more than one occasion. The main thing that I have stumbled upon this morning with the help of my dear friend Jonah, is that I have been going about this all wrong.

I love teaching men and women how to flirt, date, and communicate. In learning it myself it opened up the doors to a huge amount of success in my life. I realized that communicating better improved my relationships, my sex life, my work life, and generally made me so much happier. However I realize inside of me there is this shame. I was ashamed of what I did for a living when I was working with Charisma Arts. I loved the teaching and changing peoples lives. I openly told people what I did for a living and was proud of it. What I was ashamed of is what people thought when they went to the website and saw all over it “Succeed with women”, “Be Amazing with Women!”, “Learn the art of Seduction!”. It made me cringe to think people saw me as an instructor of that.

My shame in that is what shaped my vision of my current venture. The problem is that I became too generalized in an attempt to legitimize what I teach. Everyone can use what I teach but it is too difficult to see how it can solve the symptoms of what makes people unhappy. Marketing my workshops has been insanely difficult. I feel like I am selling ice to eskimos. No one thinks like “The reason I am unable to meet the man/woman of my dreams is because I don’t know how to communicate well.” I was selling the cure and forgetting to talk about the symptoms. By being ashamed of coming off as a “Pick Up Artist”, I went in a direction that was a marketing disaster.

Well I still don’t and never will claim I am a “Pick Up Artist”. I am having a new vision of where this company is going to go. I still have a vision to teach communication skills to people for all aspects of their lives, but I realize I need to attack it from a different angle. I am turning my focus back to dating exclusively. The thing that will differentiate me is that I am not going to exclusively just teach men, or just teach women. I am in the market for a vivacious passionate female instructor to co-teach with me and help develop content for Charisma Coaching. If anyone knows of anyone please send them my way. I am going to cut back on workshops and instead focus on this blog more, start doing regular podcasts and develop an audio product and a book. Of course I will still be offering private in-person and phone coaching. Once we get a stronger following and larger market we will open up the workshops again.

So what does that mean to you as a reader? MORE! You are going to get more blog posts, more content, and more podcasts. The name of things may change, but the vision I have is still strong and will slowly evolve. Also I am going to start blogging about my personal life and things about me. I am hoping to bring in more bloggers so there should be a lot more content as well.

Bear with me as these changes are going to be interesting but I think everyone will benefit from being more focused on building my business around good content.

Thanks for reading!

9/30 – Meeting people in your daily routine
Start a conversation with anyone anywhere! Learn how to meet friends, dates, and business contacts anywhere in your daily routine. The art of conversation is a skill that can help in all aspects of our life. Being more social is a skill anyone can learn and get immediate benefits from.

10/21 – Online Dating
Learn how to make a profile that will get you the results you are looking for! From the first email to several dates we will help you understand the skills to be successful in online dating! Learning how to distinguish yourself from the thousands of people online while still being true to who you are is an art. Using the skills we teach you will help you get more quality responses and help you stand out from the crowd.

11/11 – Business Networking
Master the art of networking anywhere! Learn to be more effective in getting new business contacts in even the most delicate social situations. Making connections anywhere you go can be the key to making you more successful no matter what kind of business you are in.

All classes $10 6:30pm
at the Ambassador
673 Geary San Francisco CA 94129
For more info: http://www.charismacoaching.org
info@charismacoaching.org

We look forward to producing many more podcasts in the future and hope you enjoy them.

I invite you to come and learn how we can inspire you to accomplish your goals! Hone your communication and people skills further with one of our three workshops in San Francisco or personal coaching.

Charismatic Communication – Learn the art of being good with people!
-Refine your skills in the conversational arts! See how being good with people
can change the direction of your path to success. Oct 11th-12th $299

Charismatic Connection – Learn the art of undeniable connection and attraction!
-Learn alongside men and women in a collaborative workshop to finally unlock
the secrets of communicating with the opposite sex. Oct 18th-19th $299

Productive Communication – Conflict Management, Morale, Leadership & Networking
-Reveal valuable communication skills to improve leadership, manage and diffuse conflict,
and improve motivation and morale. Also understand the keys to powerful networking.
Oct 25th $199

Special Offer: Oct Workshops only $100each if you have
previously done any in person coaching with Dan or Jonah.
Sign up by 9/25 for this special offer.

Come learn more about what we can do for your success and happiness! http://www.charismacoaching.org

Dan M. (SocialHitchhiker)
dan@charismacoaching.org

Jonah L.
jonah@charismacoaching.org

info@charismacoaching.org

Share in Our Success!
I want to sincerely thank everyone who I have worked with or have in some way found success through the writing and teaching I have done. Your success inspires me to do so much more and is all the thanks I could ever ask for. However, if you want to share your success with others I urge you to take a few moments and write a quick review or quote or even just add us as a friend/fan in one of the various social networking sites.

We also would like to reward you for supporting us. How does making 20% of our sales sound? A simple referral to a workshop and we give you $60 for it! Tell someone about our program, grab their email, and after they click your link, if they sign up you make money. Have a website? Put a simple link up and start making money for every sale you send our way.

Earn money with our affiliate program.
Sign up at http://www.charismacoaching.org/affiliate/affsignup.php

Reviews:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/charisma-coaching-san-francisco

Social Networking:

Facebook:
http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/San-Francisco-CA/Charisma-Coaching/24265213079

Linked In:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/charismacoaching

Thank you so much for being part of our vision for Charisma Coaching!

Anyone can learn to be charismatic with a bit of help and guidance. What I do in my workshops is not try to change anyone; instead I try to help people reveal the confident, interesting, and expressive sides to their personality while helping them understand how to do that in a balanced way.

Some Do’s and Don’ts:

Do make a strong introduction.
– A warm friendly confident smile and eye contact in the first moments of meeting make all the difference.

Do take a genuine interest in other people.
– We all want to be validated and liked. Giving that to others is a sure way to get it in return.

Do express some personality.
– Be an individual with positive confident views.

Don’t talk facts.
– They can read that in the brochure. What is your experience with [person, place, thing, etc.]

Don’t try to make them like you.
– Learn what it is about them that you like and that interest will be returned.

Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t do all the talking.
– Balance asking questions with making statements about your experiences and relating to them.

Seeing the feeling of entitlement begin is a huge red flag and needs to be dealt with swiftly. In myself I started to see it start I began to identify the reasons for why it happens.

• Feeling unappreciated
• Creativity and ambition that becomes stifled
• Peers being promoted or recognized
• Negative motivation used instead of positive motivation
• Lack of communication

The basic issue is that as people we all see our own strengths and want to feel like we are contributing to progress in the company we work for. If we feel the work we are doing is not recognized, not appreciated, and even see our peers being promoted over us (in our minds unjustly), the longer we are working the more we feel we are “owed”. Employees that feel entitled are less likely to work as hard, care enough, and can even bring the morale down as they communicate within the company.

The most interesting thing about entitlement is that the solution is rarely about money. In our courses we teach how to short-circuit this before it begins by creating communication that makes people feel not only verbally appreciated, but shown they are valuable. On a deeper level it gives them room to feel fulfilled because they can utilize their creativity and ambition.

In the end we all need to feel good about the work we do. We are not automatons, we have to feel like we are making progress, utilizing our creativity, and that we are recognized for that work. Some people’s strengths are diligence, predictability, and slow but methodical completion of their work. Some are fast paced, ambitious, creative, and inspired. Learning about styles of people and the way they communicate their needs, goals and work styles, is very important to keeping employees happy and motivated.

Charisma Arts and I have officially parted ways.

It has been an interesting journey with CA. I think they offer an amazing path for men to learn to be more social and better with women. I still highly recommend them. Unfortunately we had some internal communication failings. None of this affects their past present or future clients. I still recommend people take their workshops. (IMHO Greg, their LA instructor is the best active instructor they have)

I have always wanted to expand what i learned beyond “pick-up” and teach more. In the last six months it really looked like CA was expanding in that direction. They had even changed their tagline to “Teaching People Stuff to People”. However waiting for it made me a bit apathetic and honestly i was getting burnt out. You can obviously see from my lack of posting that i was not passionate about creating new content. This was eventually what made CA justifiably think about focusing on other instructors. Younger less-experienced instructors are hungry for work. They are passionate about writing and bringing in clients. So in essence my fresh apprentice became my replacement.

The hardest thing I found about the end of my working with Charisma Arts was the way in which it came about. While the company is fantastic with working with their clients in their workshops, communication on an internal business level was where things broke down between me and them. I was taken off the schedule for two months and all of my workshops were changed to my apprentice who was the newest instructor on the team. I was not told of this change and I only found out about this because a client emailed me asking when my next workshop was because they wanted to work with me. I checked the schedule and to my surprise two months of workshops that i was scheduled for were no longer being taught by me. My full time employment for two years had come to a close without so much as a whisper.

What i took from working with CA was a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience. I also through my experiences both good and bad, saw what I want to create in my next business venture.

I see this only as an end to a path that was only limiting me. I am excited and optimistic about the future. Welcome to the next chapter!

I want to be so much more than i ever have been. Now I am free to create that. This is my future and i welcome you to join me along this path.

I am a man who lives in confidence of my abilities to communicate who i am at all times.

I am a man who strives to inspire those around him to reach for everything they can become.

I am a student of all people around me.

I am a leader that pushes those around him to be the best leaders they can be.

I am an innovator that collaborates and strives for others to be more innovative.

I am a friend that is compassionate and supportive yet honest

I am a lover that is freely vulnerable and open.

My vision of the future is a company that teaches ALL people how to have better people skills and communicate in a charismatic open way. What are your goals? Communication is the means to that end. I can help you and many others get there.

Things are going to be changing here on this blog and over at charismacoaching.org Feel free to keep an eye on the changes and drop me a line at dan@charismatips.com

Good luck on your journeys and being the best you can be. I am excited for all of our futures.

This video is all about the idea of Balanced Exchange in an interaction

Video: Balanced Exchange

This video is just a fun promotional video Charisma Arts put out for me:

Video:Dan Having Fun

The moment was upon him. He stood armed only with that feeble line brainstormed one minute earlier! He made a mental note to get a refund if this didn’t go well. Surprisingly, the words left his lips with a surprising amount of ease given the growing panic in his chest.

“Hey, just let me know if your arm gets tired up there, you’re welcome to use my head as an armrest!” He forced the biggest grin he could muster and waited for the reaction. Both of the men looked at each other and laughed hard; the three of them fell naturally into conversation. Within about five minutes he came back to us with a look of panic in his eyes.

“What should I do, they offered to buy me a drink?”

Our hero did what every charismatic confident guy DOES, he opened with his personality and people could not help but like him

When I approach a stranger I usually don’t come up with any witty openers. I wish I were more creative but usually I just start with a simple introduction. It’s in the first few moments that I capture people’s attention and start the conversation off right. Those first few moments rest on my opening statement.

“I’m actually from Oregon, but I’ll tell you, I love San Francisco, though it was a really hard decision for me to move here. See, don’t tell anyone, but I am a bit of a hippy. I need to have my nature fix; so I moved to the Presidio. I just love all the trees around; I even have a cute little fluffy skunk that lives under my deck. Luckily he stays on his side of the glass sliding door. What’s your refuge in the city?”

Here is another example a client of mine used:

“So I’ve had a unique opportunity to learn about people in this city, I feel like a fly on the wall sometimes. People see me as just a novel means to get from point A to point B, however they don’t often ask who I really am. Those who do, often learn I am only paying the bills to feed my passion as a writer, those who don’t inquire, I love because I get to hear the interesting stories they tell to someone they feel is non-threatening and honestly a bit below them. As a bike taxi driver I get to discover a lot about human nature.”

By expressing how he actually feels about his work and how people act when they’re around him, we learn a lot about his personality. This is at the heart of what makes him interesting to talk to.

Show who you are in your openers or first statements and you will be the person you always wanted to be, and attract people to you.

As always it is FREE! Enjoy. The QnA portion of the talk is soon to follow.

What a lot of people do when relating is this:

“Wow, I really like that about you that you can just be so care free and spontaneous. I wish I could be like that but I always feel so stuck, and can’t take that time off from work.”

This statement is the opposite of what we want to do. The start is good by appreciating well, but when it is time to relate, a statement on how you are like that is more effective.

“Wow, I really like that about you that you can just be so care free and spontaneous. I remember when I took a year off before college and did a lot of travel I just felt so free and alive, that’s it lets hitchhike to South America right now ”

My whole goal when talking to someone is point out all the ways we are alike, I try not to point out how we are different. This does not conflict with the idea of disqualification either. Remember disqualification includes both how you are the same and how you are different. Agree and or say thank you to show you are the same, but then you put out a difference as well. This adds depth and shows confidence. The first example in the beginning of this article is just saying that you are not like her, and more so, not close to what you most like about her.

Of course we also don’t want to just say that we are alike without backing it up either.

“I like that you are so into nature, I’m like that too.”

Rather tell them how with specifics.

“I like that you have a such a great appreciation for nature. I just love spending the day out on the bay kiteboarding and really being out on the water and the ocean. I not only do it for the adrenaline, it is also just to get out and be closer to the water, the wind, and even the occasional sea lion I get to see.”

In this world there are so many differences between people, be the person that sees how we are all alike and can understand others, and you will find a very important element of charisma.

Step 1 – Text her the night you meet her or the next day like this:

Hey Judy, it was fun meeting
you the other night. The
librarian thing is very sexy.
I’ll call you Sunday evening.

I remind her about something we talked about and may even SOI in text, then I tell her when I am going to call roughly. Sign your name if you didn’t get your name in her phone (a very important step).

Women hate wondering if you are going to call or not. If they like you waiting, two days or more will only make them like you less. Calling the next day is not needy. For a definition of a needy phone call watch the movie “Swingers”. You can avoid being needy by simply showing your interest when she earns it, not because you want something from her. By texting her when I’ll call her she now knows I’ll call and roughly when. If I am busy and can’t call for a few days it no longer makes her write me off.

The other rule is if at any time she texts back, call her right then. She will likely answer right then.

Step 2 – Call #1 (voicemail)

“Hey Judy, It’s Dan. Just wanted to give a quick call to see what your up to. We should grab coffee or a drink sometime soon. Give me a call back when you get a chance. If I don’t catch you I’ll give you a call later in the week.”

The “If I don’t catch you” is a very important part of that. The reason in the CA phone game that you tell her you will call her back at a certain time, is to not be left waiting for her phone call. If you ask her to call you back and she doesn’t, calling again is just a touch needy. The “If I don’t catch you” implies she might call and you will be busy. It also leaves it open that if she doesn’t get a chance to call you or gets busy she won’t be left with that uncomfortable feeling whether it has been too long to call you back now, you will call her.

Step 3 – Text #2-3

During the time you are waiting to call her again text her a couple times. I usually wait three or four days to call back and send one or two texts between that time. This helps remind her to call you back as well as contact you in a way that requires a little less commitment. I never ask questions I just make a statement. Likely she will text you back and then you can call right there.

I just made the most amazing omelet.
My days of burnt toast are over!

Or

Damn, it is way too sunny out. I’m going to make a break for it.
I just had the most amazing omelet; all omelets from here out will never be as good.

Step 4 – Call #2

At this point 3-4 days have passed since my first phone call. There has been a lot of opportunity for her to contact you back or to get in touch with her. This is usually my last phone call. However I am not above letting another week go by and trying one more time. Remember people do get busy, it has happened more than once that she called me back a week or so after this call.

I usually say something with a touch of finality but not in any way upset or provoking her.

“Hey Judy, wanted to give a quick call to say hello. I would love to grab a quick drink or a coffee sometime. Drop me a line back. If not I’ll catch you around sometime.”

Here I lay it on the line with what I want, I don’t beat around the bush and I also let her know if she doesn’t want to call me back I won’t likely make another effort. There are a lot of other ways to do this phone call depending on how you want to handle it, but I usually leave it up to her in the end and don’t invest any more effort. This phone message should be nonchalant though. If you have an undertone of you not expecting her to call, she won’t.

Hell I’m a guy, and despite my moralistic pedestal I put myself on, I like to get laid just as much as any other guy. It is easy for me to muse on about how I want a quality woman I appreciate before I want to have sex with her, however that is because I am getting laid. I know a lot of guys out there aren’t getting laid and are at the point of pretty much wanting to fuck anything on two legs. That is because of a scarcity mentality. Of course it is a lot easier to break that once abundance comes. So bare with me as I now return to being a guy with abundance telling you guys without it how you shouldn’t have an agenda. However, I am going to do it with a twist.

Let’s figure out what is so wrong with having an agenda.

Hidden agenda invokes mistrust.

If I lay it all on the line and tell her I want to sleep with her, but put it in the form of a sexual barrier, my agenda is clear and easy for her to see and negotiate her wants, needs, and desires around. However if my agenda is hidden, she never knows when I am going to pounce on her or how I am going to get what I want.

Hidden agenda shows you are not comfortable revealing what you want.

One of the complaints about “nice guys” is that they pussyfoot around with making things sexual. She then wonders why they are talking to her. Is he actually attracted to her or is he just friendly, what is it that he wants? Does he know what he wants?

Hidden agenda displaces the existence of other beneficial agendas.

If she senses what you are really after is sex, in her mind it degrades and negates the possibility of simultaneous goals like finding out whom she is as a person. Not only does it do that for her but it does it to you as well. When you are focused only on getting her in bed it is a lot harder to see there are other benefits and goals along the way.

Think how much easier it would be just to tell a girl up front you want to sleep with her then get to enjoy the process of getting to know her, flirt with her, and having fun. I remember I was so afraid to tell a girl these things when I first started out; I was always worried how to get what I wanted, which was sex. I felt like I had to convince her that was not what I wanted to get it. Weird logic, but admit it, many of you out there still think this way.

So let’s turn this idea of not having an agenda around. Having no agenda does mean live in the moment, you may very well find out you don’t want to sleep with her later. Perhaps she is mean to puppies. However now you are attracted to her and that is ok. After she knows you like her for her uniqueness, a prerequisite for showing your sexual interest, then lay it on the line and tell her your agenda in the form of an SOI or Sexual Barrier. This makes your agenda no longer hidden, and also not so hard to get to. We have a metaphor that a woman won’t get into your car if you are blindfolded. Interactions are the same, she won’t go anywhere with you if you don’t know how to negotiate around obstacles (like relationship status, protective friends, and other logistics). However make it easier on yourself by telling her where you are going and let her help you get there.

The way to a woman’s heart, or at least into her pants, is a joint effort. Let her give you the treasure map. She won’t do that if she doesn’t know you want to get there.

Topics:
Why qualification ruins long term relationships
How DQ makes a woman so comfortable she will tell you how to pick her up!
By DQ’ing you will monumentally increase your confidence!
Inner Game issues are radically affected by learning the process of DQ
Why the woman you think is perfect is so scared to like you back.

Just imagine if there is this much to such a simple technique like DQ how much could you learn in one of Charisma Arts Bootcamps? I know my first impression was that these techniques are simple. However when I was coached through them, the the depth and complexity of actually putting them into practice was overwhelming. Knowing something and doing something are two very different things. The expansion of DQ that I talk about in this podcast was gained by doing it, not theorizing about it.

I encourage everyone re-visit some of the techniques you know, such as “I” perspective, or the SOI and see just how much further you can explore it.

I’ve struggled a lot over my life with this and its effect on my social interactions. I still struggle with it. However over the last year of being an instructor I found that I started doing a lot of disqualification and it had an interesting effect on my tolerance of other people and ideas. Always practicing seeing an opposite point of view so that I could disqualify gave me the skills to start being a much less overbearing personality yet still retaining my confidence.

There becomes a choice of paths to go down when you encounter an opposing idea. You can agree with it, however if you truly disagree then you are being false and will come off weak if you are always doing that. Another option is that you can disagree and assert your opinion (which you obviously feel is correct and superior). Of course the trouble with this is that it causes a conflict. It really doesn’t matter who is right; if you are dominant in explaining or debating, the other person will feel defensive, and if proven wrong may even feel anger, and be indignant. Neither choice leaves both people feeling good.

Another option is available. People want to be heard and acknowledged no matter the validity of their words. Sometimes it is more important than even being right. I try to verbalize that I understand and hear someone’s point of view before I assert my own. Then I put my opinion in a non-contradictory way. I can also proactively do this by stating my opinions and always put out an example of when I have been wrong as well.

Some Examples.

Them: I like Hitler
Me: I can totally see your point of view; he most certainly was an incredibly charismatic riveting leader that united his people. Although I disagree with his tactics I can see why you feel that way.

Them: I like to tease midgets and disabled people
Me: I have to admit I’ve definitely giggled a bit when that little guy with a hat full of nachos walked around when I was in Mexico. Of course I try not to because I realize they are people too, but I definitely understand where you are coming from.

Me: Personally I just can’t stand when people are so intolerant of other people. I have to admit I am completely intolerant to intolerance [playful grin]. I mean I always try to see people as who they are and not judge them, however sometimes I do jump to making presumptions about people as once in a while.

These examples are drastic. However I did have an experience where I was really interested in a girl and then all of a sudden she says about an overweight woman walking by, “Whoa, look at that whale!”

I let slip “That’s awful!” Recovering I followed with, “But I definitely have thought the same thing at times.” This immediately showed me this is not the kind of woman I want to be with, however I didn’t want to make her feel bad for her comments. I just changed the subject at that point and moved on. Suffice it to say I didn’t call her though.

It is not my place to change someone else. For those of you who have read my articles The art of not qualifying and To Qualify, or not to Qualify; DQ is the Question, understand I want someone to feel so comfortable around me they show their true nature instead of what they think I want to see.

If I take their point of view I am not necessarily agreeing with it, I am only validating that that is indeed their point of view and I hear it. I can state my point of view and be heard much better when they don’t feel defensive or in conflict with mine. Learning disqualification allowed me to learn to be a lot more tolerant of all people and ideas, although sometimes I am still an overbearing tyrant in a conversation

Learn one of the most powerful techniques in the Charisma Arts method. Learn how disqualification can create intense attraction, make you extremely confident, and make people feel so comfortable around you they will literally tell you the their deepest secrets. Come join Dan (Socialhitchhiker) at the Ambassador near Geary and Leavenworth in downtown San Francisco 5/21 at 6:00. As always there will be a QnA session afterwards.

This is a free talk, please support our ability to do future talks at the Ambassador by supporting them when you come.

Below is a podcast of the last talk.

Check out Rob’s blog at: http://robertoverman.blogspot.com

To sign up for this weekend’s bootcamp in Seattle go here

Read what one of my clients in a recent Seattle workshop wrote about the workshop:

Feedback from Charm School posted on Wednesday, April 04, 2007

1) Your Name – *** *******
2) Your event type – Charm School Bootcamp
3) Date and City of your event – March 23-25th, Seattle
4) Overall how satisfied are you with your event – 10 the best!
5) How well did we explaning the method? – 10 the best!
6) How would you rate the organization of the event? – 10 the best!
7) Who were your instructors and 1-10 how would you rate each?
Dan should audition for Spinal Tap, he goes to 11!

Testimonial
I approached the boot camp with some trepidation, but figured the chance to unleash the inner rock star from the Clark Kent exterior was worth the risk. After meeting Dan – a great blend of naughty (think Tom Cruise from Risky Business) and nice (the suave, good-looking guy you would actually let your sister date), I knew I was in the right place. Following an afternoon of instruction, dinner and a power nap, we hit the clubs. I ma de a connection with the second set we opened and am hooking up later in the week. The second night wasn’t as easy, but hell, I’ve never made two strangers spit up their drink in the same night, either! I improved my conversational skills, learned how to make a good connection and have a real shot at picking up a girl I am interested in, but would never have actually done it without the right instructor. Thanks Dan and CA! -J

9) Additional comments to Charisma Arts
I enjoyed working with and learning from Dan over the weekend in Seattle. Any doubt I had about the method was erased after seeing him work the club and kiss close within 15 minutes! After decompressing from this weekend’s activities, I feel more creative, flirty and better able to express who I truly am. Plus, I already have a hot date set up for Thursday!

From
http://www.charismaarts.com/blog/Juggler/172

One technique for gaining attraction is a Demonstration of High Value (DHV), an action or story, which increases your perceived value. The problem with this is it usually is done in a way that lowers her attraction for you. Men and women think differently and value different things in each other. Men see value in other men by what they know, have done, can do, etc. We think women view us in the same way, they really don’t. Yes there is the idea of being a fit provider, however it is not even the things you have or do that show how fit you are. We as men have been trying to impress women since the beginning of time to get them to like us. It doesn’t work when we “try” to do it. While the idea of demonstrating value is good, it is the execution of it that has been flawed.

I grew up an only child, and the way I got people to like me, mainly adults, was to try to impress them by being precocious. I quickly learned the more I knew the more of an affect I had on other people. This even worked to a lesser degree with other kids. However as I got older this being my main form of attracting people into my life began to be a destructive force in my relationships. My value was based on what I knew, or adventures I had, or what I could do. If someone didn’t immediately see my value I worked hard to tell them or show them that. This came off very approval seeking. I had become a confident person with a lot going on in my life, however it was all to gain the attraction and friendship of others. This turns people off in a big way. No one likes people who brag or try to prove themselves to others.

The change that I went through after going through a workshop, was that now I used my experiences and knowledge to relate to other people in the way those things and knowledge made me feel, and how they shaped who I was. The impressive “things” about me just naturally came out when I was relating who I was, which in itself is what really made me attractive to people.

Attraction can’t be attained by manipulation, at least not for long. Learning confidence and how to relate to people in a confident way is why people will be attracted to you. Then it is your authentic genuine personality actively expressed that people will see and be attracted to.

If you want to learn to gain strong attraction by being who you are come join us at Charisma Coaching on a workshop, and we can help you learn to converse in a more charismatic way. Also check out the companion podcast to this blog coming soon.

If you notice there are a lot of interesting changes to this blog. Now there are most popular posts on the sidebar as well as an RSS feed just for comments so you can see all the comments to any of the posts even if it was from a post over a year ago. If you look up there is a tab for both men and women. This main blog will now be for BOTH and i will be adding blogs for women’s topics as I launch my Coaching business for women. If you prefer to read one or the other just hit the appropriate tab and that is all you will get.

Enjoy! This new hosting and blogging software should allow for a lot more ease of navigating and some cool new features. Expect a new set of posts VERY soon!

This is where you begin, as with any interaction, with the method. The six steps remember of Charisma Arts method are: Open, Get Commitment, Establish Rapport, Get Info, SOI, and Close.

Open

Whoever answers greet them with her name, “Hi Susan!”

No need to say who you are because her phone has your name in it and already told her what your name is. If it is a guy that answers do the same thing. This creates a sense of familiarity. He will likely just hand the phone to her thinking you are a close friend who expected her to answer her own phone. If you ask if she is there, then he may just ask her like this, “Uh hold on I’ll see if she is around. Who is this? Hey Susan, some guy named Dan is on the phone, do you want to take it or should I tell him you are busy?”

Not the best impression eh? Also if she answers and you ask her if Susan is there, it sets up the feeling of being strangers.

Get Commitment

Once you get her on the phone it is time to get commitment to the interaction. Start off asking, “What are you doing right now?”

If she tells you something like watching her kid brother, tell her you will call her back when she is done. This shows you expect her full attention and is very high value. I don’t like to talk to people while they are distracted and in turn I try not to be doing anything but talking if I am on the phone. No checking email or watching TV when I am having a conversation. If she says she is just watching TV then say, “Can you turn it off or put it aside for five minutes?”

I expect someone’s full attention when I talk to them; I don’t want to waste my time talking to someone who is distracted. This is how I get commitment.

Establish Rapport

Whether you are a phone person or not it is good to chat just a bit to remind her just how different your conversational style is. Relating and Appreciating her a bit will do just that. If you are not good on the phone you can keep this to a minimum, but you should do a bit.

Get Info

Ask her, “So what’s happened since the last time we’ve talked?”

This is an important step because you don’t know if she got back together with her ex, or her mom died, she’s going in for surgery, or something else that would affect how you interact with her. It would be a shame to go out with her and then at the end of the date she finally gets the nerve up to tell you she just got back together with her ex. Depending on the answer you will know whether you need to take it slower and schedule things around her moms funeral, or whether you can slide a date in the next couple days.

SOI

Time to make sure she knows why you are asking her out. Promise me you won’t skip this step otherwise you will likely be stuck dog sitting for her poodle on a Saturday night instead of going out with her. The word is Sexy and there is no other word. If you are having trouble SOI’ng her in your conversation, then try doing it in a more playful way. Say, “So what are you wearing right now?”

Guaranteed she will say something un-sexy like a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. You then say, “Ooooh I can definitely use my imagination there, very sexy.”

This is a fun way to do it because it is goofy and so cheesy it comes off well.

Close

Time to set a date. Offer her up a time and day; don’t ask. She will let you know if it won’t work. For example:

You: Ok I think we should get together, you are too much fun. Thursday at 9pm I’ll meet you down at the 3rd street pub and we’ll grab a beer.

Her: I actually can’t that day.

You: That’s cool, well that means it is your turn to propose a day and time. I don’t know you well enough to give you a weekend night, you are going to have to ask really nicely if you want me to yourself on a Friday or Saturday.

Her: Well then, I’d be honored if you joined me for a drink on Sunday night at 8pm. Hopefully that will fit into your busy schedule Mr. Popular.

Me: Sounds good. I’ll see you then.

Want to hear more on dating and what to do on dates, as well as a bit more on phone game? Listen to the accompanying podcast on Phone Game and Dating. Coming Soon!

So I usually don’t write field reports because I find them more an exercise in self-aggrandizing than actually any help to people. However this is an experience that I found really fun and has led me to someone I am really interested in yet could have never attracted in the past. Hopefully you can see how I implement the Charisma Arts method in this interaction.

My clients this last weekend opened up a group of four girls and in very little time were connecting and having a lot of fun talking to all of them. I in my usual fashion look most of the time like a complete loser standing on the outskirts being anti-social. Of course that is mainly because I am observing and want to give my whole attention to my clients rather than get into conversations with people that will just distract me from my job at hand.

After about one or two hours of talking to them, the most confident beautiful girl of the group, asks my clients why I am sitting all the way over there and not talking with them. She had already figured out I was connected to the guys in some way. She with an enticing come hither hand gesture, motions me to join them. I look at her for a second and ignore her and turn back to one of the alumni that was out with us that night. She now decides to rectify the situation by marching directly over and asking us why we weren’t joining our friends and her group, and why we were just sitting here alone. I immediately Disqualify and say with a sly grin and a tone that says I’m full of it, “Ya, I enjoy being kind of a loser like that, I’m not a very social guy.”

In a way it was actually true because I didn’t want to have her trying to win me over and ignore my clients; too late. She laughs and starts talking to us. She comes off very confident and starts giving me shit. I throw it right back at her with a push pull, “You certainly are overconfident, [pause] I kind of like that though.”

She says with a smile “you are pretty funny.” I of course disqualify “Thanks, but you should catch me on a Thursday, not so funny on weekdays.”

At this point my friend from that city joins us. He is a complete natural and is immediately being charming and flirting with her. One of my other clients who was not interested in her but was enjoying the banter joins in as well. So here there are three guys including myself teasing and flirting with her and she is just eating up the attention. My competitive streak comes out against my buddy the natural, and I knew we were all being entertaining and charming and she could be attracted to any one of us at this point. I pull out the big guns and connect on a deeper level.

I spread my hands like I am pushing my way through a crowd and say, “While this is all fun and good, its all fluff. I want to know something real about you. What is something that you are passionate about?”

A bit taken aback by the change in conversation, she pauses for a second but without missing a beat says, “traveling, I just got back from Europe after four months there.”

I say, “That’s really cool, I can definitely see how passionate you are about it. I like that about you. Ok, so in every trip there is always a defining moment that sticks with me and is the most intense memorable moment in my trip. What is yours?”

She tells me a great story about her trip in Italy and how incredible she felt there. Then she gets distracted by our group and is about to walk back over to her friends for a moment. I simply say as she is about to walk away “don’t forget I still owe you mine.”

I sit where I was, I knew she’d be back; after a few moments she comes right over to our group ignoring everyone else. She puts her elbows on the high bar table and leans in toward me. “Ok your turn.”

“Mine is sitting in the hammock looking out over the sand in Costa Rica. As each wave comes rolling in, the sound of white noise washes over me and reminds me of the pure bliss I was experiencing. My muscles ached from too much surfing and all I could do was just sit in the hammock and relax, taking it all in.”

Walking over to my side of the table she says “Ok I’ve GOTTA get your email”

I of course use this as a chance to get her phone number as well and we exchange information. Seeing that she closed me I hadn’t even had time to SOI her, after she got my number and we speak a bit I say, “You know your confidence and passion is really quite sexy, I like that about you.”

The real funny thing is that she had been SOI’d by one of my clients just a bit before and she comments how funny that she hears that twice in one night.

She goes back to being a social butterfly and one of my clients suggests we go to another bar. It is getting late and we are close to wrapping up. The clients invite the girls to the next bar as well. When we get to the other bar one of my clients decides to call it a night just a bit early. I spend about fifteen minutes talking with him outside after everyone went in. Who of course shows up to check on me? Miss Confidence is there, checking to see if I am coming in. I bid my client a goodnight and head down into the bar with her.

When we get down to where the others are, I of course see my other client in the group having a great time. She tells me to sit in her seat and she go grabs another chair and puts it on my left just a bit outside of the group and starts talking to me.

We chat a bit and somehow it comes up that I love to cuddle. She playfully asks me how good of a cuddler I am. I tell her “I am way too boney to be a good cuddler. My shoulder is like sleeping on a pointy rock.”

She puts her head on my shoulder and wraps herself around me, “yup feels good to me, I bet you are a good cuddler.”

After a moment she stands up and leads me to a bench seat in the bar a bit away from the group. She starts getting very interested in me and we touching and caressing each other’s hands. Earlier in the night when we were all flirting with her she kept saying she has a rule that she doesn’t kiss people in bars, also that she doesn’t sleep with people until she knows them very well. She again brings this kissing rule up and I decide to have a little fun with it. I say, “ya it’s really too bad you have this kissing rule I guess I’ll only be able to do this to you” as I push her hair aside and lightly bite her on the neck.

As I pull back I say “but that might be way too close to kissing so I don’t think I should do that either.” I return the conversation to finding things interesting about her and appreciating how uniquely confident and assertive she is.

Later I say, “ya, I’m really getting turned on by you and this whole kissing rule is definitely problematic”

She starts talking about her rule again and I stop her in mid sentence. “I’ve got a rule too!” I look her straight in the eyes and pause. She looks at me a bit shocked and apprehensive.

I tell her “See I would love to kiss you right now but I can’t because the bartender is watching.”

As I glance over at the bartender who is clearly not looking over at us, she starts to say something and I turn back to her look deeply in her eyes and tilt my head a bit just inches away from her lips. Then I pull away and look down as I say, “I just can’t, I think the bartender is looking again, it’s my rule.”

She starts to try to point out the bartender isn’t watching again, when I just start kissing her.

After kissing for a while I start to gather information on who is driving who and after a bit of a challenging set of logistics I just am blunt, “So you are either going to come over to my hotel or I’m coming to your house, how are we going to make this happen?”

After a bit of discussion we decide I’m going to drive with her to drop her friends and roommate off at her place, grab her snowboard and come back with me to my hotel.

The rest is history. No she didn’t have sex with me that night but we definitely had some fun until five in the morning when we finally fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Getting the Number

Remember never to ask, make a statement. “Hey, I’ve had a really nice time talking with you, here’s my phone. Put your number in.”

Then the most important part is to call her immediately and get her to put your name in her phone. “Here now I’ll call you so you have my number, my name is spelled D-A-N.”

Texting That Night

So here is another tip. Text her that you enjoyed talking with her about ______, and you will call her at a specific time and date a day or two from then; text this after you get home or the next morning. Almost without fail you will get a text back from her before that time. Call her immediately, she will probably answer right there. If not continue on to phone game.

Four Calls to Flake

First call early evening, “Hey Susan, it’s Dan. I really enjoyed meeting you on Friday and talking about [whatever you talked about with her], I’ll try you back at 9:30pm [or any time later that night].

Second call (not at 9:30 to the second, give or take 5 min), “Hey Susan, it’s Dan. I guess I missed you tonight; I’ll try you later in the week. Talk to you then.”

Third call about two days later, “Hey Susan, it’s Dan. Just wanted to give a quick call and see what you are up to. I’ll try you back tonight at 9:00. Catch you then.”

Fourth and final call, “Hey Susan, it’s Dan. Well it looks like I keep missing you. If you ever want to hang out some time give me a call [with a tone of finality], my number is 555-555-55555. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

So there it is, the first part of phone game. Next installment is what to do when she answers.

Want to understand Men and Dating better? Join our group!

• Ever wonder what men are thinking?
• Wish you had someone who could really tell you what was going on with that guy who confused the hell out of you?
• Ever wished you could know the secret techniques Pickup Artists use on you so you don’t get taken advantage of?
• Are you an extremely successful woman at dating and would like to share the secret of your success with other women?
• How about having a personal dating coach to help you be able to meet and attract men that you are really interested in?

We would like to invite you to a revolutionary women’s group led by a man. Learn about how men think from a man who has worked with hundreds of men teaching them how to date women. What does a straight man know about dating men? He knows how men think, why they do what they do, and what makes them attracted to women. He also knows the secret techniques men use to manipulate women.

Group Goals:

1. Learn specific conversational skills to make you more charismatic with anyone, not just men.
2. Explore your dating potential in a group setting with support and feedback from a professional dating coach and other women working at the same thing.
3. Understand men better so you can understand how to make it work with the guys you are really interested in.
4. Learn experientially how to be more successful instead of just discussing it, by going out to social environments with a supportive group.

The best part, is this group is not a money making venture! This is a focus group intended to explore the ways to make all women more successful in their social lives and dating. Senior Instructor from Charisma Arts (charismaarts dot com) Dan, is running this group as an independent focus group that will eventually become a course to help many other women become more successful. This course has no cost associated with it. Donations will be accepted with no recommended amount. Nor is it mandatory to donate. This is not about the money; it is about you becoming successful. Your success will pave the way for future courses to teach other women to create successful social lives and have the skills to be successful in their romantic lives. In fact, women who join this group will be considered for future instructors.

There are limited spaces for this group to ensure personalized help. If you are interested contact Dan at dan@charismaarts.com with answers to the following questions:

1. Briefly (yes I mean a couple paragraphs) your dating and relationship history.
2. Tell me about dating and social skills you are good at.
3. Tell me something interesting about yourself.
4. What would you like to get out of a group like this?
5. Are Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings free for you?

San Francisco residents only please!

Oh and btw for community guys reading this yes i will be telling these women about all the techniques out there. Get over it. If you don’t like it try a method that doesn’t involve routines or manipulative techniques.

Face it conversations when you first meet are a bit like interviews. She is asking what is your favorite coffee yet what she means is what does your taste in coffee reveal to her about who you are. When she asks what you do for a living she really could care less, she is really asking you to tell her about who you are.

Us as guys on the other hand feel we can get to know who she is by the kind of stuff she does, what she knows, and what we have in common. This creates quite the impasse. She is thinking about what kind of man you are by the coffee you drink and you are trying to find out what her favorite football team is. It is a wonder a man and woman can hold down a conversation for longer than ten minutes. We are speaking a different language.

So here is how to speak a woman’s language. She wants to know who you are, even when she asks you what that sprocket on your mountain bike does. The first step in speaking a woman’s language is to speak in a way that she can relate to. After talking an hour about our mountain bikes if she knows nothing more about your character she will be bored and move on. However if in describing that sprocket we display the person we are, how we think and feel, she will be fascinated with us.

The reason we get into books and movies in part is about character development. We have to know a character to like them. So for a woman to like you she has to know who you are. If you can remember throughout the entire conversation that the goal is to learn as much about her as you can while simultaneously speaking about everything you want to talk about in a way that she can get to know you, then you will start making a strong connection.

The first step is speaking in the I perspective. The importance of this should not be underestimated. Until I had someone point out to me just how much I was using the “you” perspective or god perspective, I would not have believed it. Even now as instructor I am constantly vigilant about teaching in the I perspective and having conversations using the I perspective. Here is an example.

“You know how it feels when you are out on the water enjoying the peaceful surroundings and just taking that serenity in, that is what I love about being out on the ocean.”

Or

“I love how it feels when I am out on the ocean. I just love how peaceful and serene I feel when I am all alone bobbing up and down on the waves.”

I personally feel that the statement about being on the ocean using the I perspective is more relatable. Hopefully you will agree as well. When someone hears the I perspective they start identifying with me and they put themselves in my shoes a bit. When you use the you perspective, they just imagine themselves in that space, yet if they can’t relate they won’t connect with you. The I perspective allows them to understand me even if they haven’t had a similar experience because they don’t have to accept that that situation would make them feel a certain way, just that I felt that way. They can then relate to those emotions based on their previous life experience.

The other key to this is that you are speaking about emotions. To be relatable I speak about how events and situations make me feel. This is so people can understand me and relate to me. If I don’t explain how I feel when I am speaking about an experience for example, then they have to imagine how they themselves would feel in that situation. When I describe exactly how I did feel, they don’t have to make the leap, they can relate to how I felt because they have situations in their life that made them feel similarly. Who knows, what might make me feel one way would make them feel completely different. That is why it is important to clearly speak about how I felt or thought in a situation.

The last part is I use details. Books are a great example; I can’t get through a single page on a book without learning about the details of the situation that really have no pertinence on the story. From the feel of the air to the texture of a railing as the character glides down the cold hardwood steps in her bare feet. Details evoke emotion as well as the ability to understand and to relate to the speaker.

By speaking in the I perspective with emotions and details, I find I not only display who I am and what I feel much quicker than I did previously, it also encourages people around me to open up and speak in a similar way. This allows for a really strong connection in my conversations to be developed faster than most people are use to. Not only do I genuinely create a connection but I differentiate myself from everyone else in the way I communicate. The key to all of this is being relatable; use emotions, details, and the I perspective.

Wayne often mentions that the key thing he looks for in an interaction between a man and a woman is if the guy is laughing. That tells him that the guy is having a good time and is comfortable. That is when Wayne knows it is going well. What I look for is how well a man is listening to a woman. If he is intently listening he has done everything right. He opened up about himself enough to make her feel comfortable talking about herself. He also asked good open-ended questions that were substantial. However, it all hangs on how he listens.

Listening can be one of the greatest statements of appreciation we can give. In fact if you ask many women what they want in a man “a good listener” would for sure make the list. Why? It is because we all as people want to feel heard and understood. When people listen to what I say it is all of the validation I need. Then it is my turn to return the favor. The easiest way to get approval or validation is not to seek it; instead it is better to give it away because it will always return in abundance. Simply listening to someone is also a great way to show them you appreciate what they have to say and who they are.

So next time you ask a question, be sure and wait for an answer, then listen to that answer completely without worrying about what to say next. In fact after they are done speaking listen for just a bit longer to see if the speaker is completely done speaking. You will know what to respond to when you have listened intently, as well as she will feel heard and understood. That to me, is a key to Charisma.

1) I just recently submitted a proposal for a Charisma Arts Expanded course which is essentially an advanced course for clients who have already taken the bootcamp. Can’t divulge too many details but it is geared to clients who are looking to be better with groups of people, escalate faster, have more fun with humor and flirting, and work on their day game.

2) Style consults. Wish there was more fashion advice, or someone who would come shopping with you? I’ve been doing informal style consults for a while but soon will be available to go out on the town in San Francisco and help you upgrade your image.

3) Know any women who could use this training? I am setting up a informal group of women to teach and learn how they can date and attract men more effectively. This will be a pilot group that will probably be developed into a course for women. Email me if you are a woman and would like to be a part of this group in SF.

Socialhitchhiker is coming to San Francisco, watch out!

Lastly I want to offer a free one or two day private for anyone in the bay area in trade for helping re-do my blog. Details of what i want can be discussed. One question I have to all of my readers which i would love your feedback, is: Would you be interested in a members only access to more blogs, podcasts, and special free video lectures? While I still want to continue writing free articles for this blog, a subscription to a members only area with a guaranteed # of blogs and podcasts a month would keep me motivated to posting more and delivering more top notch content. I’m guessing the membership would only be $5 or $10 a month.

So let me hear your feedback! Comment or privately email me what you think about these ideas and coming events.

Dan

Last week we told you to go out and man hug a stranger. How did it go? Not that hard, was it? That is the level of commitment you should have with every person you talk to. Put yourself out there 100%. We have a saying at CA, “Loud people don’t scare people, quiet people do.” Quiet people are tentative and reserved, loud people we know whether we can trust them or like them immediately. Quiet people are too reserved for us to make a judgment about so we are forced to invest a lot of effort to know them. Why invest that much into a stranger? Be 100% committed to putting yourself out there with confidence. If you had the confidence to hug a random guy on the street, everything else will come easy!

Q&A

What kind of mindset do you need to be successful with the Charisma Arts Method?

Charisma Arts will give you the tools to transform your life for the better. So many of our techniques will force you to be confident. Confidence is the most attractive trait in a man. You can’t fake it; it takes confidence to be successful with women. Ironic isn’t it, how can we gain confidence when it already takes confidence to be successful? Disqualification screams confidence. Coming in with a warm committed vibe displays huge value and confidence. By doing things like trying to find out what makes a woman interesting, it shows a lot of value. Confidence comes through practice and being reminded that each of us is innately an incredible person. We are approval giving because we are so confident, not approval seeking. Whatever mindset you come in with, develop, or have, we assume attraction because we like ourselves and know as soon as a woman sees who we are they will like us too. Yet we never bother trying to impress because we want to find out if we like her first. Whether you are extremely confident already, or extremely shy and insecure, the techniques from CA will start you on the path to being able to show the real you, confidently to anyone you meet.

Is Charisma Arts against routines?

We get this question a lot. We prefer a less scripted form of interaction because we feel it will teach you to more dynamically and artistically interact with people. Sometimes the learning curve is a bit steeper for some, but in the long run we feel you will be much more genuine and appealing to women without routines. Remember one of our main points is genuine interest is a powerful attractive trait. Also the more confidently authentic you are, the stronger the connection with the people you meet will be.

Do you still advocate the 90/10 rule?

The 90/10 rule was an older idea Wayne had when he was first developing the method. It was based on him being a good entertainer and holding her attention. When he found out how to make the interaction a 50/50 balance and flow of conversation and energy, he discovered it was much more powerful. The idea is to use open-ended questions, the vacuum, and relating and rewarding to elicit her to make more of an effort in an interaction. You want to encourage her to want to gain your interest in her, and work for it.

What was your biggest breakthrough with the Charisma Arts Method?

A client in San Francisco asked me this recently; he found the answer very helpful so I thought I would share it with you.

I am not only an instructor but I was also a client. I was in the same place many of you are, when I was considering taking a boot camp. I related to women from a place of ego. I liked who I was, and wanted women to see what I saw in myself that was impressive. So I told a lot of stories about my adventures and spoke in a way that made sure she knew I was intelligent. The irony is, the more you brag about yourself or try to impress someone, the less you actually do. So I needed a whole new way to relate. Charisma Arts taught me that instead of telling stories and anecdotes to impress people that I need to use those same stories to connect and relate to people. If the reason I told a story was to show the person I was talking to that I had a similar experience (that elicited a similar emotion), I could understand who they were and where they were coming from.

An interesting thing started to happen. As I began listening more for the emotional content in other people’s stories, I began to become very interested in what they had to say. I no longer was just waiting for my turn to tell a cool story. Then when I related I found that my stories were far more well received. The added bonus was that I got to tell all my cool stories but I was using them to relate, not impress.

We all want people to see who we are as unique impressive individuals. The key is not telling someone how unique you are, instead find out how unique they are. You in turn will be one of the few people they meet that they feel truly understands them. Isn’t that what we wanted in the first place for ourselves? There is a saying, “Give to others what you want for yourself.”

“Seduction is the art of setting the stage for two people to choose to reveal themselves to each other.” Juggler p118 The Game

TECHNIQUE

That moment has arrived when you are talking to a beautiful woman and you are getting along great. You can tell she is into you and you are into her. The nagging thought has been in your head for a while, “is it time to kiss her?” If you have to ask, the answer is YES! So here is Kory’s patented kiss close technique (Although I don’t know when Wayne’s patent ran out, I think this was his idea, just don’t tell Kory I told you that.)

When you think it is time to kiss her, it has probably already been time long since past. Amp up the kino a bit, then tell her to close her eyes. She knows damn well what is coming. Then kiss her. If she doesn’t kiss you back she will nonetheless think you are ballsy and respect you for it. If you do get denied don’t worry about it, let it roll and be unperturbed. You can always say something like “Well I was going to kiss you, but now you are just going to have to wait until I find you as sexy as I did just a moment ago.” Make sure you deliver that with a sly grin.

My personal favorite is turning it into a sexual barrier. I say “Well I have been thinking about kissing you for the last ten minutes, but honestly I can’t tell you that because I just met you.” Almost every time she will kiss you at that moment.

Well that wraps up this edition of the Charisma Arts newsletter. We’ll talk to you soon!

Charismatically yours,

Dan (Social HitchHiker)

Are you looking to make more progress? Our resources are at your fingertips. http://www.charismaarts.com has lots of different tools for you to become an incredibly charismatic individual. Download our E-Book and see just how simple conversation can turn from platonic to personal to sexual. Still can’t seem to integrate some of the tools we teach? Try a phone consultation! What a great way to get solid advice personalized to your situation and personality. For those of you ready to have your life completely altered, say goodbye to free evenings and sleep. Our boot-camp will make you so charming, women will be clamoring for your attention and keeping you up all night hogging all the covers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

So enjoy!

Welcome to the very first Charisma Arts newsletter!!!

Great things are happening here at Charisma Arts. By the time you read this Wayne and Johnny will be internationally known in the world of social interaction. Seduction School, a reality tv show, will have aired in the UK and is probably filtering onto the internet for download as we speak. Hopefully I’ll get to see it soon!

There have been a lot of great new trainers coming on board as of late. These guys are AMAZING! Seeing Judson get the number of a bartender that every guy in the bar had already tried for was a work of art! Matt and Jayson have been on quite some time now, and as soon as we get them to stop hiding from the camera we’ll have their bios up soon. Many of you will recognize Matt’s skill as being somewhat familiar, he’s Johnny’s older brother. Definitely not to be overshadowed though, he is one of our smoothest instructors. Jayson the eternal goofball, has a fun flirty style that disarms every woman he meets. I swear that guy can talk any woman on the planet into sending him naughty texts and pics on his phone. Our international trainers include Eric in Canada, and Locky in the UK. Locky that little devil I have yet to meet, but his stories of unbuttoning a girls shirt right in the bar because he is so un-intimidating are now legendary. Eric our man in the great white north I am flying to hang out with as we speak. I’ll report back what crazy hijinks we get into in the wonderful city of Montreal.

Each newsletter we are going to answer your questions and give you some fun tips, Q&A, anecdotes, stories, and even exercises. We know you don’t want any spam! So it’s all content coming at you. This is Dan (SocialHitchHiker) coming at you from 25,000 feet trying to outrun jetlag.

Q & A

I seem to talk to a lot of women but I never seem to build attraction, any tips?

Attraction is built when you self confidently show who you are and are genuinely interested in who she is. If you are trying to do something to build attraction it will almost always fail. Disqualification, rewarding, and making her interesting, are among your best tools to allow attraction to grow. Remember it is already there. She is attracted to you the moment you walk up; she just doesn’t know it yet.

So I feel phony when I give rewards like “you’re a really great conversationalist”.

Then don’t use that particular reward. Be genuine. Make sure whatever reward you give her it is commensurate to the effort she gave you as well as being genuine. If she says she likes burritos, and you say you are so impressed by her great choice of cuisine, you’re done. Try rewarding on personality traits either explicit or implied. She says she tells you she is a nurse and loves helping people try; “I like that, you have a really big heart. I don’t know if I would ever have courage to do that. Honestly I faint when I see some blood from a paper-cut.” If you are having trouble rewarding, when she tells you something interesting try saying “I like that.” Then telling her why.
I just can’t seem to escalate! Help me!

As one of our clients said “Sexy is the $1600 word”. Tell her how something unique about her is really sexy. Then tell her “Stop it, you’re turning me on.” Continue that game whenever she does something or tells you something unique. “I told you to stop that, I mean we are surrounded by people, you really have to stop turning me on.” Just remember to never use these SOI’s to seek feedback from her. Tell her a SOI then let it go and move on, don’t wait for her reaction. Positive, neutral, or negative, move on to more flirting or more rapport. The key is once you SOI, interpret everything she does (within reason) as sexual. Throwing in some sexual barriers and push pull is also really helpful at this point. Not sure how to do that? Come to a boot-camp or read Wayne’s E-book, it will be the best investment you have ever made in changing your life.

Thanks for reading this first edition of the Charisma Arts newsletter. Here is an exercise for you to try until we hit you up with our next installment.

Exercise: Man Hug a Stranger
Object: Create a committed vibe

Go up to a complete stranger somewhere and with the vibe like you have known them for years and have just run into them. Extend your hand and give an interlocking hand shake (the manly handshake where you basically grab each others thumb and palm) and pull them in while you reach around and pat them on the back with your free hand. Say something like “Hey, good to see you! [man hug now]” When they say something about not knowing you, just say you must have been mistaken and introduce yourself. See how long you can keep talking to them.

Charismatically yours,

Dan (Social HitchHiker)

Are you looking to make more progress? Our resources are at your fingertips. http://www.charismaarts.com has lots of different tools for you to become an incredibly charismatic individual. Download our E-Book and see just how simple conversation can turn from platonic to personal to sexual. Still can’t seem to integrate some of the tools we teach? Try a phone consultation! What a great way to get solid advice personalized to your situation and personality. For those of you ready to have your life completely altered, say goodbye to free evenings and sleep. Our boot-camp will make you so charming, women will be clamoring for your attention and keeping you up all night hogging all the covers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I do remember one time at camp when I forgot to be self conscious and I spent an entire camp dance having fun running around like an idiot and dancing up a storm. That next day I was informed of all the girls who had crushes on me after that. I wished I had put it together that when I am myself genuinely, I am more attractive.

Women can sense when you are being genuine and when you are not. You may be able to fool them for a short time but not in the long run. However when the opposite happens and you are confidently yourself , it is amazing how quickly all people are more attracted to you.

I imagine back when some of the other schools started there was someone trying to be the cool guy and whenever he was himself it went badly. So they all began to come to the conclusion that being yourself was counterproductive and you should change and hide who you are in a way. The problem is that when people try to “be” themselves they are really not being themselves either. They are insecure and scared to put themselves all the way out there.

What I learned from Charisma Arts was that if I confidently was me, whoever that was, that people liked me more. While what we promote is actively being you, we do have some guidelines and techniques on how to do that well. The real you needs to come out and you need to be confident about it. Our method is about being 100% committed to an interaction and that means being 100% you.

It is really quite astonishing when someone is genuine how much more attractive that makes them. I recently met a guy who really wanted to be a Charisma Arts instructor. He was very good at approaching women and engaging them. Hell, he is probably better than I am at it. But I didn’t get a sense of whom he was. He used a lot of humor and while he was genuine and being himself, it also seemed like he was hiding behind humor and afraid to put who he was out on the line for us to see. Finally one night at dinner he told us the first real story about who he was and some of his personal struggles. It was at that moment that I really began to like him. When he confidently took the risk to tell something about him to us that was personal, he became real and much more human. I could finally relate to him.

I see it in our bootcamps sometimes when guys are in sets. They screw up and instead of trying to say the right thing or make a recovery they just point out how much they just put their foot in their mouth. That is the moment when they become real and relateable. Being good with people is not about always knowing what to say and being smooth. In fact it is almost the opposite. The more mistakes you make and show you are confident and un-phased by them, the more people enjoy being around you because you are more human to them.

Don’t change when you get into the game, you are perfect just who you are. Instead become better at being you, more confident in putting yourself out there, and more committed to expressing your personality. If you are not getting the response you are seeking ask yourself if what you did was to seek someone’s approval, or because that is just who you are.

Genuine people not afraid to be themselves is what being charismatic is all about.

I am so wary of techniques because they remove the genuine you from the equation. Being formulaic is a quick way to display low value, a strong un-attractive agenda, and a lack of genuineness. While even here at charisma coaching at times we break things down into methods and frameworks to work with, in all honesty all of these things should be abandoned when you internalize the process.

There is a Buddhist saying, “If you meet the Buddha on the path, kill him!” My interpretation of this saying is, if you progress along the path of the discipline far enough that you achieve a mastery of it, then abandon the path that got you there.

In the community it is like people collect routines, tricks, lines, and techniques. This fills peoples head with too much information and it is almost crippling when you can’t actually put all of this information into play in an effective manner.

I think the thing I love about Charisma Coaching so much is that all of our teachings are simply a framework for you to actively present the confidant, genuine you. “We don’t make the words you say, we make the words you say better.”

While techniques that promise consistent, predictable results are awfully seductive, they won’t help you in the long run to become the person you want to be. In fact the phrase “social robot” comes to mind a lot when I see people expressing themselves in such a strict contrived manner. Techniques are training wheels, they are not the answer in and of themselves.

Usually when this sort of thing happens whoever opened the set was in entertainer role and is keeping the attention of the entire group so our clients can come in and individually connect with women in the set. If I join in, that is usually what I do, since there is no reason to have two entertainers in a group. After a few moments of connecting a strong bond is created that is different than if I was just a fun, interesting, entertaining guy.

On the flip side of this equation I find I do drop into an entertainer role when I am in set with a client. I am the distraction and as Judson so fondly puts it, we play the role of “the clapping monkey”. We keep the attention of the entire group so our client can connect one on one with the person they choose to. After a set like this I find I don’t have as strong of a bond with the people I am talking to. I can usually get just about any phone number in the group if I choose, but rarely have I created as much of an attraction with any one person as when I connect one on one.

I see this example profoundly when I work with Chad. He is a very quiet person, and rarely tries to be entertaining. However he connects so strongly and uses a lot of disqualification. It is amazing to see the reaction women have to him. They begin to forget anyone is even in the bar with them and their attention is solely focused on Chad. I don’t care if David Copperfield himself came in and started lighting himself on fire while levitating through hoops, her attention would only briefly wander.

It is so rare for people to connect in a way that creates a deep understanding of who we are and how we feel. Entertaining people are a common commodity. So while I don’t advocate trying to have a deep philosophical conversation with a party girl in a club, speaking about what her passions are, and relating and appreciating her, in a fun upbeat way will create a stronger bond than just being entertaining.

Connection is paramount. This whole method can be summed up as simply as making her interesting, and appreciating what is interesting and unique about her.

I am an interesting person; people want to talk with and be around me!

The mindset when you are going up to talk to new people is that they will WANT to talk to you once they get to know you a bit. Besides you wanting to find out about someone else, you just assume that people will want to talk to you and are attracted to being around you. If you can’t internalize this, then start doing more things in your life that interest you. Then realize you are an interesting person!

All people are interesting, and it is my aspiration to uncover that uniqueness in every person I talk to!

Being genuinely interested is not just a naïve idealism that all people are wonderful and worth talking to. It has real applicable benefits to you personally. Despite being a pillar of charisma, you begin to realize everyone has a different view on the world and has very different areas of knowledge and expertise. However it is not these things that are interesting about them, it is their understandings and views on them that can shape and change your understandings and views on the things you are interested in. For example ever notice a musician when listening to the radio hears so much more than we do? They hear the harmonies, the structure, the mistakes, and the character of the music in so much more detail. I don’t really care about the structure of music that much however the way they listen to music is a totally different approach than mine. I can appreciate and learn from a musician so much about active listening and discernment. That is something that does interest me and can be a great value to me in my life. One side note; you don’t have to like a person to be interested in them. I definitely don’t like everyone I meet, however I am interested in talking with him or her.

I will not take negativity and bad reactions around me personally!

Remember that people’s reactions to anything are conditioned. A negative reaction to a warm friendly approach is due to their conditioning and the response is really a response to their past experiences, not you. If someone reacts negatively to you the worst thing is to get defensive and take it personally. They don’t even know you, why would they NOT want to talk to such a fun and interesting person? Agree and use disqualifications instead of defensiveness.

I will decide if a woman is worth my sexual interest based on whom she is, not how she looks!
Just last night a buddy of mine got to talk to a gorgeous woman from LA in our very small town. Every guy in the bar was queuing up to talk to her, yet after just two minutes of talking to her he found her an un-attractive person to be around because she thought she was better than everyone in our town. The reason a natural method works like Charisma Arts is because you aren’t interested in her sexually until she shows you she is worth that interest. You don’t hold off your interest like in an indirect method, you realize deeply that she hasn’t earned your interest yet and besides being aesthetically pleasing hasn’t offered you any reason to show your interest yet. You don’t know that hot woman yet! How can you put her on a pedestal above you before you even know her?

So these are some of the things that I try to exemplify when I live my life and am out talking to people. I know the idea of using affirmations is kind of corny, but they really do work to change your internal picture of yourself. Think of them as stepping-stones on the path to a more confident mindset that will increase your success.

Hmm is being a secret agent that much different than what we are trying to do? I mean most of the guys certainly talk like secret agents, with all this disarming obstacles and observing the target’s IOIs. It really shouldn’t be this difficult. Luckily it is not. You will always find that if you are looking out for a negative, it will come find you. These are people we are talking with. Let’s not objectify them with fancy acronyms and community-speak. We are people trying to relate and experience interactions with other people. Personally I think that much of the community’s lingo dehumanizes people and encourages objectification of women. These are real people you are talking to, not targets, obstacles, and AMOGs. When you view everyone as an adversary that is exactly what you will get. Every woman will have her bitch shield at full power, with her shit tests fully armed and ready to fire. Obstacles will swoop in and cock-block your attempts. This will attract AMOGs to destroy your game and you will be left a sniveling AFC.

So now that I have given up my secret agent days I see the bar as a whole new environment. Every smile that is returned to me is an opportunity to experience a new friendship in the making. Married women and boyfriends are people with interesting experiences that I can relate to, and even sometimes widen my entire social circle by befriending them. That awkward guy lurking near the group I am talking to becomes an invited friend, and displays my genuine ability to be social with everyone.

Charisma Arts teaches only one technique to “AMOG” someone, that is a negative presumption. I get to that spot in my notes every Sunday and I tell stories from other instructors who have had experiences using that. I almost feel false because I don’t have any personal experience with using that technique. I have never had to even once. I’ve never been AMOGed in a bar while working. I guess what they say is true that “you attract to you what you fear most.”

Group dynamics are really not hard; they don’t have to be drawn out into a schematic. Simply put, approach those closest to you, and include the entire group in your introduction, if even just a wave to those you can’t reach. Be sure to be warm and friendly, especially to guys in a group. Then choose a friendly person to talk to and start a conversation. Converse with whomever you want to in a group. Be friendly to all and include those around you in the group. If someone approaches immediately introduce yourself and project a warm vibe.

If someone is not friendly to you the easiest thing is to be extra friendly to him or her, and continue to engage him or her. If they ignore you or is mean, it really makes them look bad. If they something negative it makes them look worse. Just never let it bother you and everyone will know whom the true alpha male is.

So be alpha nice, not alpha. Include people, and have conversations to find out interesting things about people. Leave your secret agent mentality at home locked up and sealed in your exploding safe.

Charm School Boot Camp instructor Dan Williams — or the Social Hitchhiker, as he’s known in the pickup community, is offering the lesson of the day to a table of men at the Bamboo Hut in North Beach on a recent Friday night.

“OK guys,” he says, “I don’t want to see you alone. You know what we call that — lonesome row. I don’t want to see you standing alone, ever.

[Podcast: Reyhan Harmanci talks to two pickup artists.]

“Also, don’t end a conversation too early. Don’t end a conversation before someone, like, pushes you away and says, ‘Go away,’ ” he says, grinning. “Seriously, you can talk to someone for much longer than you think.”

The five students, ranging in age from 22 to late 40s, and ranging in career from college student to financier, nod. Their faces are tight. Each has paid $1,600 to spend two and half days learning the art of the pickup from Charisma Arts, a company founded by one of the best-known names in the pickup world, Wayne Elise, a.k.a. Juggler. They have spent most of Friday afternoon in a small room in the Westin St. Francis Hotel, getting to know each other, their instructors and the basic tenets of the Juggler method. They’ve learned some new words — “kino” means touching, “PUA” means “pickup artist,” “SOI” means “statement of interest,” “the vacuum” is the space in conversation that happens after you ask a question. They’re role-played and checked in about their feelings. They’ve asked many, many questions. Some have taken notes.

But now it’s time to take those lessons into the field.

While the venue’s atmosphere screams “party” with red lights, tiki torches and dance music, the feeling at the table is icy. The increasingly crowded bar seems miles away and a hundred feet tall from the point of view of the seated apprentices.

“OK, guys,” says Chad de la Vega, another instructor, sounding like a coach firing up his team of second-stringers heading onto the field for a maiden scrimmage. “Go out there! Go!”

One by one, the men, who asked not to be identified, push themselves out of the round booth and toward the bar. Two of the students pair off and talk to each other while eyeing the crowd. One of the younger students lingers a moment alone at the end of the bar before he takes a few tentative steps toward a woman sitting alone. He straightens his shirt and then leans in toward her.

The two instructors sit back in the booth and nod approvingly. He looks awkward, fidgeting, eyes clearly focused on a spot behind the bar rather than the woman’s face, but it’s still a success. He’s approached a stranger and started talking. He’s on his way.

But as the weekend unfolds, something strange happens: The men stop talking about women. They become focused on a more distant goal, secondary to the immediate rewards of simple socializing. For these five students and countless other men who have been drawn into the “seduction community” by reading Neil Strauss’ bestselling book, “The Game,” social anxiety hinders more than their dating life. They have come together because, in the words of a 26-year-old seminar participant, they “suck at communication.”

And at the end of the weekend, the tally of phone numbers (for the record, the group of five collected a total of three numbers and one impromptu coffee date) doesn’t even figure in the final analysis, as the men go around in a circle and talk about their expectations at the start of the weekend and what they feel they accomplished. “I’m not a virgin anymore when it comes to socializing,” said one happy student.

There was a lot of talk about “feeling good” and “opening up” and “learning about myself.” One man spoke at length about his tendency to be selfish in his interactions, and how he needs to become more empathetic with others. Hugs abounded. The weekend’s mascot seemed to be more Robert Bly than Don Juan.

The response of the students doesn’t surprise the instructors. “We tell people, it’s a little bit of a trick,” says Williams. “They come in here to learn how to talk to women and we teach them how to talk to everyone.”

Charisma Arts is more demure than most of the schools of the seduction community, or as it’s known, the Community. As chronicled in “The Game,” the Community got its start in the late ’80s with posts on online message boards by a man named Ross Jeffries, who adopted hypnotic techniques called “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” to develop a pickup method he named “Speed Seduction.” As other message boards sprung up, other names emerged over the past six years — Mystery, Juggler, Papa, Tyler Durden — who wrote to each other, met each other, and tried to find fail-safe ways to have success with women — often narrowly defined as having sex with them. Strauss, a New York Times writer who abandoned his identity as Neil Strauss, taking on the moniker “Style,” brought that world to the mainstream with his Times article and book, which has been optioned as a movie.

Unlike the routine-heavy Mystery method, the aggressive cocky-funny David D’Angelo method, the hypnotic Speed Seduction technique or any number of copy-cat sites, Charm School focuses on the elusive goal of “being yourself.”

On the first afternoon, de la Vega laid out the fundamental rule of the Juggler method: Everyone is interesting. “It’s your job to find out what’s unique and special about everyone you talk to,” de la Vega says, as the group stares at him. “We don’t teach routines. And we don’t want you to be performing all the time — the conversation should be 50-50. You can have girls laughing and laughing but if they don’t put in any effort, they’re not committed. It’s like a TV show — you can always turn it off.”

Once the “set” is opened, the name of the game is reward and escalate; with every step forward conversationally, there should be steps forward physically (kino!). But the emphasis remained on conversational skills that would pertain equally to men and women. It wasn’t until the third and final day that flirting techniques were put forth — the “push and pull,” where positive statements are couched as negative to create humor or tension, and “sexual barriers” are introduced, as in “I want to kiss you but I’m afraid too many people are watching.”

“I’m not going to lie,” Williams said. “I’m a man and I want sex and I’m probably going to want it faster than the woman. But this is a respectful way of making my intentions known.”

After a long Friday in the classroom, and Friday night in the field, where the group hopped to the Velvet Lounge after spending time at the Bamboo Hut, Saturday brought no relief for the guys. This is Boot Camp, after all. After the events of the night were parsed through at a coffee shop (no one did more than converse with their quarry, although all the men reported increased confidence after being forced to interact with strangers for three hours), it was time for a new lesson: daytime pickups. The troop headed over to Borders off Union Square to start chatting up book lovers.

With its structured rules, tight hierarchy and reliance on code words, the seduction game reeks of adolescent male bonding rituals. As Strauss notes in “The Game,” “There is nothing more bonding than picking up girls together. It is the basis for great friendship. Because afterward, when the girls are gone, you can finally give each other the high-five you’ve been holding out since you met them … It’s not just the sound of skin hitting skin; it’s the sound of brotherhood.”

The successful professional PUAs, such as Juggler, recognize this and to some degree exploit it: all three instructors of Charm School Boot Camp were at one time customers of Charm School Boot Camp. Graduates of Boot Camp have access to private message boards where they can ask questions and tell stories of life post Boot Camp as well as a one-hour phone call with an instructor. The instructors say it’s common for graduates to keep in touch and to hang out long after the seminar is over.

As for this group, it seems unlikely that any PUAs will emerge. All the participants said that the lack of routines or complicated manipulations were what attracted them to the Juggler method in the first place. But it’s easy to see how one could get seduced by the seduction game. In an e-mail sent a week after the course, the 26-year-old student raves, “I went from a guy who was scared to talk to a stranger because I didn’t know what to say, to a guy who is scared to talk to a stranger because the stranger is gonna start opening up and it’s just so odd to me since I have never in my life had people open up to me,” but ends the e-mail on a darker note.

“The only thing I’m scared of every minute of my life after the workshop, is that I will go back to being my old self,” he says. The solution to that problem? He will “keep working on the method.”

E-mail Reyhan Harmanci at rharmanci@sfchronicle.com.

It is your responsibility to drive the interaction. However if you are blindfolded no one is going to get into your car. I certainly wouldn’t get in a car with someone driving blindfolded. This manifests in interactions all the time. Her boyfriend is nearby, she is driving everyone home tonight, she is still living with her ex, etc. If you don’t find out about all of these things, she will not feel comfortable with you driving the interaction either.

“How do you all know each other?”, “Who are you here with?” and “What’s your relationship status?” are all important questions you can start with to gather information.

I see so many guys wonder why a woman is not committing to an interaction, to have him turn around and see her walk over to her boyfriend. You have to get information if you want to escalate an interaction anywhere. Don’t wait. Bring it up fairly quickly in the interaction and put no weight on either the question or the answer. It is just another topic. Remember there is no bad response. Information though, is power.

Drive the interaction with your eyes open. Know where you are going with the interaction and you will be able to avoid the monster potholes.

We grow up seeking appreciation and approval from our parents, siblings, teachers, friends, etc. Some of us even develop major issues in our life surrounding this very thing. We crave appreciation, approval, and attention and seek it out in everything we do. When someone genuinely appreciates us we can’t help but to feel good about ourselves, and feel good about the person who is giving us that.

Showing appreciation is at the heart of being charismatic. It is a reward like no other. I give my appreciation and approval out freely. I actively seek to appreciate people. It always pays me back tenfold. For example I was checking into the Hotel Max in Seattle; one of my favorite hotels I have been to. I started saying some kind appreciative words to the woman behind the desk, who had made my last stay so enjoyable, when the general manager overheard and gave me a free $25 sushi lunch! This happens to me all the time; from free desserts to hotel upgrades.

When you give your appreciation freely people will crave to be around you because you make them feel so good about themselves. It is such a powerful thing and will make you a very charismatic person.

Approval giving is very simple to do in theory, a little harder in practice. You have to rid yourself of approval seeking tendencies before you can be the opposite. Disqualification is a great technique to be able to show you are not approval seeking. Learning to agree and not be defensive is another technique. The most important thing though, is having a genuine interest in people. When you are looking to find interesting things out about others, you are no longer focusing on yourself. You can be authentic and confident; appreciating the people around you and making them feel comfortable.

Appreciating people is such a huge way to show you are approval giving. Do it for no other reason than that you genuinely enjoy something about them, or something they do. I can’t tell you how much free stuff this has gotten me. From hotel upgrades and perks, to free drinks and desserts; I love telling people how much I appreciate them because it makes them feel so good.

I feel like I am doing humanitarian work at times, making people happy wherever I go; brightening their day when their down. It is a really powerful tool to develop your charisma. People in our culture get too little appreciation and too few people recognizing and rewarding them for who they are. We need to be appreciated, so be the one giving the appreciation and people will start flocking to your side because you make them feel so good. You can’t be approval seeking when you are giving honest genuine appreciation to others.

A client in San Francisco asked me this recently; he found the answer very helpful so I thought I would share it with you.

I am not only an instructor but I was also a client. I was in the same place many of you are, when I was considering taking a boot camp. I related to women from a place of ego. I liked who I was, and wanted women to see what I saw in myself that was impressive. So I told a lot of stories about my adventures and spoke in a way that made sure she knew I was intelligent. The irony is, the more you brag about yourself or try to impress someone, the less you actually do. So I needed a whole new way to relate. Charisma Arts taught me that instead of telling stories and anecdotes to impress people that I need to use those same stories to connect and relate to people. If the reason I told a story was to show the person I was talking to that I had a similar experience (that elicited a similar emotion), I could understand who they were and where they were coming from.

An interesting thing started to happen. As I began listening more for the emotional content in other people’s stories, I began to become very interested in what they had to say. I no longer was just waiting for my turn to tell a cool story. Then when I related I found that my stories were far more well received. The added bonus was that I got to tell all my cool stories but I was using them to relate, not impress.

We all want people to see who we are as unique impressive individuals. The key is not telling someone how unique you are, instead find out how unique they are. You in turn will be one of the few people they meet that they feel truly understands them. Isn’t that what we wanted in the first place for ourselves? There is a saying, “Give to others what you want for yourself.”

“Seduction is the art of setting the stage for two people to choose to reveal themselves to each other.” Juggler p118 The Game