Welcome to the Masculine Psychology Podcast, where we answer key questions in dating, relationships, success, and fulfillment, and explore the psychology of masculinity. Now here's your host, world-renowned therapist and life coach, David Tian.
David: I’m David Tian, and for over the past 15 years, I’ve been helping hundreds of thousands of people in over 87 countries, attain success, happiness, and fulfillment in life and love. Welcome to another episode of the Masculine Psychology Podcast.
This episode is all about how to attract the right partner for you, how to attract the right women for you, and in the past two episodes, we've been building up to this idea. Two episodes ago, we started out with looking at how we needed to begin with the end in mind, because if you end up optimizing for the early stages of casual dating success, you often will end up sabotaging your long-term relationship success. [00:58.8]
We examined how common the “just settle down” myth is with the idea being most people just date as many people as they can and then hope to pick one of them to be in a relationship with, and how that often leads into the trap, the “just settle down” trap of optimizing for that first ending or that first at-bat, and then messing up the rest of the game or the season or your career because you started off on the wrong footing, because you were optimizing for the wrong metrics because you didn't begin with the end in mind.
That was two episodes ago, and in the last episode, we examined how to tell whether this person is the one. The reason that's so important is the main reason people end up approaching dating with the “just settle down” approach of date as many people as you can and then pick one of them to be in a relationship with, the reason they pick that is because they don't know what they want yet.
They don't know what they're looking for. They don't know how to sift or select for it, so they end up just dating as many as they can and hoping that one of them will just stand out at them and when they step back and finally in that place of like, I'm ready to settle down. They'll just pick the one that they happen to be dating with or the one that they like the most at that time, and that's an awful strategy, like I covered two episodes ago. [02:11.0]
The way out of it is to realize that if you know what to look for from the very beginning, you can start to select right before you get into a dating relationship with any of these people. You can select much earlier. That way you can avoid optimizing for the wrong stage, which is the casual-dating phase of things, which is the first inning or the first at-bat, and you can start with the end in mind. So, if what to look for, then it will solve all of those problems because you can just start to attract those people and not waste your time and get sucked into optimizing for just success at that first stage.
Then, in the last episode, I covered the necessary qualities for a successful relationship, a partner, and I went over the broader categories of -
the growth mindset;
the second category of compassion, empathy, and kindness; [03:01.0]
and the third being having a clear sense of moral values or following her conscience and living life as much as you can with integrity;
and then asking the question, how true are they for you? How true are these for you? Because if they're true for you, then you will naturally attract into your life people who are like that, and if they're not true for you in so far as they're not true for you, you'll attract people who are not those things.
If you find that in your life, it's really hard to find people who are moral, who follow their conscience, people of integrity, who will also are compassionate and have empathy and kindness, and are also open to growing and open to correcting their own faults, and are able to be responsible and independent and so forth, and physically attractive and have chemistry with you, if you can't find people like this or if you think they just do not exist, then very likely the issue is with you and you should have a long, hard look in that mirror. [03:56.8]
Now, that might seem harsh to some people. I think it's just a wakeup call and I think it's true for all of us. If we're not attracting the type of people that we want in our lives, then the first place to begin working on that is at home base with yourself, because like attracts like naturally and it'll be through your lifestyle, it'll be through your sub-communications. It will be through the type of things that you say that will repel those who aren't in line with your moral values or your ideals, or the way you see the world, and it will attract and magnetize those who are. That's just a natural part of how human beings attract each other.
Okay, so those were the past two episodes, and in this episode, we're going from looking at how to tell whether she's the right one to how to attract the right ones. That should pique the interest of everybody. Another way of putting it is, if you're in a relationship, how to attract your mate or your partner now. Either way, what you want to have is attraction because that's an essential part of a romantic or intimate relationship. [05:01.0]
Another way to approach it is, and you're going to see why this is maybe a better way to ask the question, when is it healthy to learn dating skills and mindsets? We started off a couple of episodes ago, looking at why dating skills and mindsets as they are normally taught are toxic or unhelpful or ineffective. In fact, it wasn't just two episodes ago. That's been a running theme through this whole podcast so far that dating tips generally don't work. The ones that you find online don't work, and the few that might be effective, actually, if you don't approach it in the right way, it can become toxic and it can make things worse. They can either be ineffective or they make things worse.
In this episode, I'm going to be looking at the exception. When is it actually healthy to learn dating skills and mindsets? Because that's what's going to be required to increase your attractiveness to the right ones. [05:59.3]
Now, caveat right off the bat is if you're doing the therapeutic route, which is what I’ve been recommending through this whole podcast, either through private therapy or a series of therapeutic processes like you'll find in my courses, my online coaching courses, you're already going to be a long way along that road of becoming attractive and attracting the right person, the right woman for you naturally.
If you're just doing the therapeutic route, just that in and of itself will take you like 80 percent of the way to being your most attractive self or most attractive version of you, sexually attractive version of you, okay? Raising your sexual mating value, which is from an evolutionary psychology perspective or a more empirically-grounded psychology perspective, where objectively speaking, you can rate yourself on how attractive you are to a greater number of women. You can raise that to give yourself a better chance of being sexually attractive to the woman that would be right for you. [06:57.6]
Even just trivially, you can see how this is true if you take a shower, right? You will be more sexually attractive, generally speaking, if you've groomed and have showered and are presentable than if you are stinky and you’ve got a booger hanging out of your nose and you've got horrible breath. Just on the surface of it, everyone can assent to that. It'll be challenging. It'll be a lot more challenging for the right woman for you to be attracted to you on the first glance, the first time you meet her, if you look like a slob and stink than if you have taken a shower and are clean and sanitary, right?
Just extend that to if you’ve got a haircut and if you’ve got a fresh tailored set of clothes, right? All of those things help. They're not the core of it. This is just like icing on the cake, so you can improve it, but then icing is still important, right? You're not just throwing somebody some flour and eggs, but you can actually make it better. [07:51.0]
Remember the 80-20 rule. We're now looking at that extra 20 percent that can make a big difference when you’re trying to attract somebody who has got a lot of suitors and has maybe been emotionally healthy for quite a while, so she has attracted plenty of emotionally healthy people or even just sexually desirable and sexually attractive men in her life already, so there's more competition in that sense and you want a little extra help …
… Or maybe you're on the therapeutic route. Maybe you've been there for six months or a couple of years, and you haven't maxed out that 80 percent. I'm allotting here to that therapeutic process and you're maybe at 40 or 60 out of that 80. You can get some more help on just being more presentable and being better at arousing sexual desire and so forth. I'm going to get to that. I’ve got three points on that. The question is how to attract the right woman for you, and another way of putting it is, I'm going to be introducing dating skills and mindsets, the good ones, the effective ones, and when is it healthy to learn those? When is it healthy to shift your focus to those rather than focusing entirely on the therapeutic process? Okay, so that's today's episode, super, super important. [08:58.8]
Now, just in case you don't realize it, you can make yourself more sexually attractive. Okay, so just in case this is maybe the first episode of the podcast you've listened to and this is a totally new idea for you, you can actually improve your attractiveness to people. You can actually improve how charismatic or charming you are to other people.
In fact, this is something that the business world knows well where they send people for soft skills training. Okay, so you can actually improve it. You might not be able to improve it a ton or to make up for the decades of your life where you were or socially awkward, but you can still improve it, right? You're maybe not going to be the best in the company at this, your soft skills, but you can definitely raise them. You can definitely improve them, get better at them.
Okay, so the same applies for dating skills and mindsets. I'm not going to claim as some of these overblown claims that you might find on the internet are that any man can become the most charming and suave man in the world, okay, so those are overblown claims. [10:00.6]
But every man can improve. Every man, if he applies himself with effort and time, can improve a great deal and will surprise himself and will exceed beyond his reasonable expectations. This I'm very confident of and I’ve done this as a big focus of my work for over 15 years, and in myself, of course, and all of my clients and students and members around the world.
Okay, so some of these dating skills and mindsets include conversation skills and, of course, there are conflicts skills. This is very well known and this is not controversial. There's a great book by Dale Carnegie called How to Win Friends and Influence People. There's an entire Institute, the Carnegie Institute, that specializes in this type of training, and at Stanford University, there's an institute there for teaching social skills training as well. This is pretty well-established that you can help people make friends and influence people better. This is also a big part of sales training or training people to be good salespeople, which is being likable and gaining rapport and all that, and these work. This is conversation. That's very basic. This is true, whether it's sexual attraction or just liking, whether people like you or not. [11:09.6]
Humor is another big one. Humor plays a big role in sexual attraction. At key parts of the interactions in relationship, you’ve got to keep it light and fun because otherwise it just feels heavy and like a chore, and a lot of guys who are heavily into the therapy route, they need some more of that light and fun approach because everything was just trauma and pain and hurt. A big part of that now, coming out of that modality of just focusing on your vulnerability and pain is you probably are way too serious.
A lot of the guys who aren't that great with women to begin with, a lot of them are way too uptight and serious and take things way too seriously and personally from the beginning. Almost every man can benefit from taking a more lighthearted and fun approach to flirting, dating, just interacting with people at parties and so on.
There are well-established resources and ways of improving and training humor. I mean, if you were a really good comic and you can train that, and you can get more experienced at it and get better and better and better at it, you can make millions of dollars filming Netflix specials, for example. [12:16.0]
Those are clearly the outliers. Those guys are awesome, but there's also just improv comedy or improv acting. Improv is a great way of training spontaneity of getting experience with thinking on your feet and improv comedy is a great way of training humor on the spot, reacting to your partners and reacting obviously to your date partner. These are all great things that you can get experienced at, train and learn from the pros of how to make things funny.
There is also a sexualized humor. I cover a lot of that in my courses, sexualized humor, how to use humor to turn women on or to introduce a more sexual vibe in a harmless, fun way, and so humor is another area that you can improve in. [13:00.6]
Forming deep connections with people, building rapport, these are things that you can get better at and there are a lot of resources for this as well, and I also have courses and modules in my courses dedicated to teaching men how to build deeper connections quickly with women on dates and when you first meet them, because so many men beat around the bush when they first meet women and they don't get to the point, and they have the shame and embarrassment and awkwardness that gets in the way of them getting real, getting authentic, being vulnerable in the right way, vulnerable with courage and forming these deeper connections rather than more surface level of flirting.
Another is sexual flirting and tension, how to sexualize an interaction more quickly instead of waiting for the fifth date or tenth date to feel like you then have the permission to do that, and learning how to play with that tension of increasing the tension or releasing it like a dance, sexual flirting and tension.
Another is physical arousal and foreplay, and it's not just the physical foreplay that I have in mind but also mental and emotional foreplay. I'm going to be getting into that later is one of the three points. [14:07.8]
Then, of course, there's dominance and leading a woman who wants to be swept off her feet. She doesn't want to have to plan the whole day. She wants to be able to relax and just have you lead, and that's a really pleasant experience for her as well. How good are you at that, at dominance and leading?
Then, of course, there are those areas that are much more obvious, like how good are you with fashion and dressing in ways that make you look good that fit your body and so forth? And fitness, that will help, too, and your lifestyle and your social circle. And are you leading a life of purpose and are you enjoying your life? Is your life already complete and with purpose without a woman in it, so that she'll feel like she wants to join your adventure rather than you making her the meaning and purpose of your life, so that she wants to come alongside you for the ride of your awesome life
These are all factors that play into how attractive you are. None of them are necessary. You don't have to score a 10 out of 10 on all of them or even any one of them, but the more of them that you are good at and have the right mindsets for, the more attractive you will be and the more sexually attractive you will be. [15:16.0]
Remember, two episodes ago, I was saying, don't optimize for casual dating success. If you spent all of your time and this phase without thinking about what moral values that you align with or ideals that you stand for, or what's really important in the type of woman you're looking for, then what happens is all of these different categories, conversation, humor, connection, sexual flirting and tension, physical arousal and foreplay, dominance and leading, lifestyle, fashion and fitness, you'll end up optimizing for the general women or women in general, and that's not good for finding a particular woman. [15:51.8]
So, when you have a better idea, a good idea of what type of woman you're looking for in terms of what we covered in the last episode—and I suggested those necessary qualities of somebody who's moral and compassionate, and has a growth mindset—then you can cater your conversation, humor, connection, etc., to attracting somebody who is like-minded in that way or who has similar values in that way or ideals. Then it's a lot more targeted, right?
Now, again, when is it healthy to learn and improve in these areas? When is it healthy to focus on these techniques, strategies and mindsets when it comes to dating? When is it important or when does it become crucial to be adding the icing to the cake? Obviously, when you have a cake, you don't want to be adding icing onto something if you don't have anything to add it to, right? That's the therapeutic route. That's the therapeutic approach. Doing the therapy and the therapeutic processes are the cake itself, and then the icing and all the good stuff on top of that, the extra 20 percent that makes that difference there to get you to the finish line, so to speak, are these other dating skills and mindsets. [16:57.4]
But once you're well on your way to building out your cakes, staying with that analogy, then you can start shifting your focus. You don't switch it all the way over to just learning and practicing conversation, connection, etc., but you can start to shift your time and effort and energy and focus onto those. You start to, just going from maybe just 20 percent of your time on the dating skills and mindsets to 30 to 40, to 50 to 60, etc., over time, you start to have that gradual shift over. Okay, and as I mentioned, I had three points along building of the context for these three points.
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That first point is when is it healthy to learn dating skills and mindsets? In other words, when is it healthy to start focusing on the attraction aspect of it or the attraction formula part of the formula, the sexual attraction? This is the first point. It's when you notice that your anxiety or insecurity or neediness when with a woman that you're attracted to is down to about three out of 10 at the maximum, ideally a one or two out of 10, or zero out of 10.
Zero out of 10 would be where you're fully calm and composed and confident, and you are really at ease and natural, no matter how attractive the woman is that you're with, because you're able to meet all of your own emotional and psychological needs and you are grounded. [18:58.2]
Now, this doesn't mean that you don't have excitement or nervousness or anything like that, but it's something that you enjoy. It's part of the process. It's sort of like the nerves that you get when you're about to go on a rollercoaster that you really enjoy, right? It’s part of the enjoyment of the whole honeymoon process and the getting-to-know-you process. I wouldn't include that as anxiety or neediness or anything. But if you're feeling that anxiety, insecurity or neediness at anything above a three out of 10, then most of your focus should still be on your therapy and your therapeutic processes. But when you're getting it down to a manageable level, then you can start shifting your attention to the dating skills and mindset and improving those.
Okay, that's the first point. The second is looking at dating skills and mindsets in terms of a language and that I’ve found to be the best analogy for what we're doing here. The language of flirting, the language of attraction, the language of romance and seduction, or maybe the culture, the culture of flirting and sexual attraction and so on, because it's like when you're learning a new language or a new culture. [19:59.8]
Let's say, you’re doing business with Japanese businessmen in Japan who don't know English and have not done a whole lot of business with the Western world. And you're a westerner, right? You're going to have to learn their culture and their cultural mannerisms, and what they mean and the rituals and so forth. You learn that the custom there is to bow instead of shake hands. You learn some of the language differences and phrases, and you learn their norms and rituals around negotiations and the negotiation process there, so that you learn about the culture and the language and the context, so that you can control how the communication is going, whether it's clear and whether it's getting across, and then you can understand it coming your way as well.
It's just like that when it comes to dating and the language of flirting and attraction, and romance and seduction. This doesn't come naturally to men who have spent decades immersed in the world of STEM, science, technology, engineering, math, or the world of logic and rationality, because when it comes to attraction, it's about emotions, and when it comes to flirting and romance, it's about sexualized emotions. [21:07.4]
If you haven't been in a world where that's normalized, it'll be quite an abrupt change for you, so it's natural that you would want to learn how to communicate in those cultures and languages, this unique subculture of sexual attraction. There's a whole separate language for that. It's not taught in school. It's not taught by most of our dads, and it's not taught by any institution or person that is suffering from the weight of sexual shame, which is all a whole lot of them.
When you're free from sexual shame, it's an amazing freedom. It's an amazing feeling and it frees you up to get really good at flirting and attraction, and romance and seduction and intimacy, and there's a whole language and culture around that that you can learn and improve in and master. I’ve got courses on. I’ve got modules devoted to those inside my courses, and it's a really important aspect of a successful relationship and especially of a successful dating interaction or dating relationship. [22:09.5]
That's the second point that there's a language, a language of flirting and attraction. The third point is that you can get better at and master foreplay emotionally, mentally, and physically.
Most of us understand what physical foreplay is, though a lot of dudes don't care much for it or engage in it, or aren't very good at it, but then there's emotional and mental foreplay for building that tension sexually that a lot of guys can’t even stand any tension whatsoever, let alone sexual attention. Many men don't even know what that means, what sexual tension is.
I've never felt it, and when or if I do, it feels icky because I have sexual shame, so I release the tension. I just want it to be straightforward—say these men with toxic shame—I want her to say what she thinks so that we are clear about our mutual attraction and there's no uncertainty whatsoever, and when we go out on a date, there's complete hundred percent certainty and security, and it's boring. [23:00.5]
This is the most boring thing for a woman. This is anti-seductive and there's no room for romance and there's no room for spontaneity and passion when a lot of these guys who are uptight and under the weight of sexual and toxic shame are demanding that the women play out their relationship in this way, and there's absolutely no foreplay emotionally and mentally. There's none of that sexual tension because the men can't even handle that, right?
This is why it's so important for the first 80 percent of the way that you're focusing on the therapeutic process and the private therapy, personal therapy work that you are doing. The therapeutic process lays the groundwork for that light and fun dynamic that is so important to learn later on to free up your dating experiences and to make you more sexually attractive to more women.
Okay, so you might be able to, and I'm going to get to this in the next point, you might be able to attract a woman who kind of just connects with you on a friendship level, maybe even, in a way, has this emotional connection with you out of pity, but that's not sexual attraction. [24:05.4]
Okay, so if you want to create sexual attraction and be able to ignite it whenever you want to be able to spark that attraction at will, because it is within your control because these are skills that you know, then you're going to have to learn it. It's just like self-defense martial arts, BJJ, bringing that back—I love these BJJ analogies—that a lot of people who've never heard of BJJ before have find it very difficult to imagine that a smaller opponent can put certain moves in a physically much bigger opponent and do these moves that seem like magic in a way to someone who has no idea what's happening.
But you can actually get better at BJJ. In fact, there are many, many levels of it, and there are many layers of complexity to it and it's the same when it comes to the culture and language. It's the same when it comes to emotional and mental control of yourself, of your own emotions, and being able to bring up that tension and being able to call upon—and this is more esoteric. This more advanced and I do cover this in my own coaching for my clients—being able to bring up those parts of you that are naturally talented and have a natural propensity for this seduction. [25:11.3]
Then the parts of you that already really enjoy flirting and are totally in flow when you enter into that, once they're out of the weight of toxic shame, once you've taken off those chains of sexual shame on them, then they can fly. Then they're free to go and they're awesome, and you can enjoy just surfing those waves of that tension, the sexual tension. Now it becomes enjoyable, enjoyable sexual tension. It's like a dance rather than something that you're afraid of or that you want to have it go away.
A big part of being good at sexual attraction is how much uncertainty you are comfortable with and how much uncertainty you enjoy even more, and a lot of people, a lot of guys, don't enjoy any uncertainty at all and that just kills the romance.
The therapeutic process and private therapy is so important to getting you there, so that you can actually be free to engage in those dating skills and mindsets that are supposed to be enjoyable. It’s supposed to be easy and relatively effortless in application because it's not like rocket science. [26:17.0]
All the men I’ve coached have done in their work and in school much more complex things and they’ve performed on stage and much more complex activities than in a dating context, where you're just sinking into that improv, that sweet zone of spontaneity and flirting and so on. That's relatively easy compared to what they do in their work, but it's because of all of these emotional blockages that come from toxic shame and the sexual shame and so on, and their unreleased burdens, that get in the way of that and get in the way of their parts, who would already naturally be talented and enjoy the flirting and attraction, and romance and seduction and intimacy. [26:57.0]
That third point is that there's foreplay that you can get better at and get more skilled at, and get more experience at and master, and it's not just obviously physical foreplay, but also mental and emotional where you're very good at just turning her on throughout the day. You're good at using barriers for sexual offenders. You're good at arousing her and you're good at building that sexual arousal over the span of hours or even days, and you know how to create a romantic time together, and all of that plays into it.
I have courses that are devoted to all of these segments. These are important skills and mindsets, but they really only should be focused on when you're well on your way in the therapeutic process. That's the note I wanted to bring in there, that fourth, I guess a sub-point. It’s not a full point in my notes here, but it's important that you realize how important the therapeutic process is.
In this episode, I'm focusing here and just bringing to your attention and highlights for you these dating skills and mindsets that are good to learn and improve on and master, but they should only be your focus after you are well on your way to maxing out that 80 out of 100 of the therapeutic process, what that the therapeutic process brings, so now we're looking at that extra 20, that extra 20 percent that makes a difference. [28:12.3]
Now, the other caveat is you might not want to learn any of these dating skills and mindsets, and that's totally cool. If you want to max it out 80 out of 100 on the therapeutic process and then just find a woman for you, that works, too. You can find somebody who really connects with you that finds you funny, your just natural parts that are out that enjoy dating and all that, and the natural the humor that you haven't trained or you haven't done an improv comedy class or anything like that, you're just the way you naturally are—and this is how a lot of people want to find a mate.
They don't want to have to change themselves or improve themselves. They want to just find that somebody who likes them the way they are because they like themselves the way they are, and that's totally cool. If you like yourself the way that you are, then that's great. Total power to you. The therapeutic route will get you there if you go all the way with it and keep it up, so you're continuing to improve, grow, develop, heal, unburden, and all of that good stuff, and that's maxing out your 80 out of 100 of what you could be in terms of sexual attraction and you're fine with that. Then I'm fine with that, too. If you're happy, I'm happy with that and you can find a woman who will like that. [29:17.2]
Now, I'm addressing those guys because I know that one of the reasons people find me is because they want to get somebody who is out of their league or something like that and that's often a sign, almost always a sign of core insecurities and they need therapy. But even as they're getting the therapy and doing the therapeutic process, they still want somebody who is physically attractive out of their league. That woman has so many other suitors or guys pursuing her that he's now in this sort of competitive space where he's going to have to step up his game. He's going to have to now be more presentable.
You can take somebody, imagine somebody who has gone through a decade of therapy, so in terms of their mental health, they're doing really well. They're very satisfied with themselves in a good way and they're able to meet all their emotional needs and all of that good stuff. but they look like a therapist, right? [30:03.5]
You can imagine the ideal therapist who is centered and grounded and all that good stuff that you might think stereotypically a therapist ought to be, and then they kind of look like a dowdy therapist. There are some women who get off on that. They might like that as a kind of fetish that they want a middle-aged man with glasses and a tweed jacket with arm patches or elbow patches, and I don't know, whatever your stereotypical therapist look is. But that guy isn't going to be somebody that you would see as just insanely physically attractive or sexually attractive to the majority of women, just as you might think of a woman therapist.
Now, I think a lot of guys don't have a picture of a woman therapist, so maybe think of your librarian. It's the closest common view for all men. You’ve all seen a librarian. You kind of know and have an idea of what a librarian looks like, so think of a librarian. Then think of a sexy librarian. Okay, that's very different, right, from the normal librarian that you would see, generally a middle-aged woman who is very kind and or just maybe mean. Then, kind of bookish, right? She's bookish. She likes books and there's a bookish look. Then you have somebody who's a sexy librarian, which is sort of a fetish thing. The picture that you have in your mind is already different. [31:16.8]
Now, which one would be easier to attract you? Which one would be easier to get a date with you? The middle-aged librarian who's bookish or the sexy librarian? Obviously the sexy librarian. I’ve kind of set it up because it's already in your mind. You pick the sexy librarian.
Now, it's the same thing. If you want to go from the mentally healthy guy who has gone through and done a lot of therapeutic work, and you want to find a woman who just is happy with that and maybe that's her thing. There are women out there who are like that. If your demands aren't to find a woman who is pursued by lots of men and you just want to find a woman for you, then the therapeutic process can get you there. You don't need to top it up, let's say. Top it up, that's a good phrase. You don't need to top it up with any other dating skills and mindsets. You can just be you. [31:58.7]
If however, you're looking to take it to that next level, because it's possible and you can, you can have a make-over and it can make a huge difference. You can learn how to be funnier, and be better at getting rapport and forming sexual connections and building sexual tension and so on. You can get better at all of these things, just as you can get a six-pack and it will make you more physically attractive than if you were obese.
All of those are just true, but you don't have to have those. They're just icing on the cake. You're topping it up. But I just want you to know that it's possible that you don't have to top it up and you can find a woman for you. I’ve had plenty of clients who, after they've gone through the therapeutic process, have lost all interest in training themselves in the dating skills mindsets, because they've already naturally just by going about their day-to-day life and their lifestyle found a woman that they really connected with and they're happy with. That's awesome and I applaud that. That's great and I consider that a great success.
If, however, you want to take it to the next level, or maybe you're not very far along your therapeutic process but you're still interested in learning the dating skills and mindsets, you can spend a minority of your time—we're still looking at the 80-20—there’s still that 20 percent of your time that you can spend studying up on didn't skills and mindsets. You can already start taking that improv class. You can already start getting a fashion makeover, right? All that good stuff. You can already start doing that. [33:16.7]
But that shouldn't be the bulk of your focus. Only when your therapeutic process as well on its way—and, again, remember the test is when you're in front of a woman that you're attracted to and she's looking at you in the eyes where your anxiety or your neediness level is less than a four or three out of 10—if it's that, then you're good to go on shifting your focus more to learning the dating skills and mindsets.
If, however, you're still frozen like a deer in headlights, then you should really focus more on continuing your path on the therapeutic process, or if you feel like you're not able to relax and be comfortable and get into flow easily, then therapeutic process, you're still space, okay? This is really only for those who have gone along that route of the therapeutic process and have done plenty of work in the therapeutic realm, and now they want to have that top up. They want to have that, add the icing onto their cake, and there is a ton of dating skills and mindsets that they can improve on and I have plenty of courses that help to do that. [34:16.4]
Just to review, the first point is when is it healthy to shift your focus more to learning dating skills and mindsets? It's when your anxiety, insecurities or neediness is down to below three out of 10.
The second point is it's like learning a language or culture, a foreign language or culture. There's a language of flirting, a language of attraction, romance, seduction, and intimacy, and that's what we're learning here.
Then the third point is there is a kind of emotional and mental control of the foreplay tension and that's a really important part of sexual attraction. Okay, and then the caveat of you may not need to learn any of these if you're happy with just doing the therapeutic process and getting to about 80 percent of how attractive you could possibly be, and then you're happy with that and attracting the right woman for you given that presentation of yourself, and if you're happy with that, that's awesome. But this is really for those who I want to go the extra mile there, that extra 20 percent. [35:11.8]
Okay, a quick illustration of this is a client of mine named Howard. When Howard came to us, he was really unpresentable. Physically, in terms of his physical attractiveness, he really needed a major makeover, the hair, everything.
Then his lifestyle was crap. He was in his thirties and working for a startup. He was living in a tiny dorm room with a bathroom down the hall in his thirties, and this was a startup that actually wasn’t a startup. It wasn't in the startup phase. There were quite a few employees, so it wasn't like they were gunning for some exit in the near future. This was his job and it was going to be his job for quite a while. He didn't have the lifestyle. He didn't have the fashion. He was really out of shape and he was really short. He had lots of things going against him in terms of the physical attractiveness. On top of that, he had tons of social anxiety and all kinds of trauma and burdens from his childhood. [36:09.8]
Now, the normal dating coach, and he had gone to see I think and had paid for three boot camps with three different coaching companies before he found us, and they had put them through the ringer. These boot camps, they take them out, they do approaches and all kinds of stuff, and he hated all of it. He just felt worse and worse after each one, but he couldn't think of anything else. He didn't know about us until then.
Then, when he came to us, we stopped. We didn't even do that 20 percent of dating skills and mindsets. We didn't even bother doing a makeover, because in that case, the make-over would have been so drastic that he would have looked in the mirror and just frozen because he would've been like, This isn't me, and he just wouldn't been shocked and we would have had backlash psychologically, so we went all the way into the therapeutic route. [36:55.0]
We spent three or four months in intensive therapy for him, and then we started to, at that point, when he was feeling a lot more light and fun because of all of the unburdening that he had been doing, he started to get a make-over. We got him some new clothes and a haircut, and I think in about a week or two of that, maybe after about four sessions of that or so, it was about a couple of hours of each session.
Then, when he came to meet us, he brought a girl he was dating and she was a fashion model, and then next thing I know he's getting all these models and he's in all of these VIP club photos. I was like, Whoa, what happened to you, Howard? Suddenly, your lifestyle completely changed. He quit that job and found a job with much better hours and a better pay, and a lot more freedom for him and time freedom, location freedom, and all that good stuff, and he was just living this life of his dreams already and we hardly did any work with him in terms of those dating skills and mindsets yet. We had literally just given him a make-over and covered some connection and human material. [38:01.1]
It’s because of all of that therapeutic processes, all those therapeutic work that he had done in the most before that he had become a complete 180, and there were women who were friends of his sister who knew him and then they met them after and they couldn't believe it, and we were meeting him with some of these women and they were telling us that they just couldn't believe it and that the work we were doing was incredible. We told them to keep it hush-hush because Howard was still making tons of progress and it was just skyrocketing, and that was just the beginning.
Then, we've been working with Howard and keeping in touch with him for years now and his life has completely changed and it has been amazing, because not only did he do all that therapeutic work, but he then trained the dating skills and mindsets that really had his dating results take off.
I just want to tell you, even Howard who was a virgin in his thirties and was less than five feet tall, he just was completely unpresentable, and just with the therapeutic work and then a little bit, a sprinkling of dating skills and mindsets, he was already getting these incredible dating results, where when you look at him with a girl he's going on a date with, you would think that he must have been paying her or something because there's no way she would be willingly go out on a date with this guy. [39:16.6]
The more we did the make-overs and the more fitness work he was doing over the months after that, the more he caught up to them in terms of his presentation. But just because of all of that therapeutic work, the lightness of his personality was infectious. Even just hanging out with him three months after we started working with him, he was making me and my team just smile and laugh all the time and it was such a huge change.
Then, of course, adding these dating skills and mindsets just supercharged the whole thing, and if he can do it—even when I'm looking at a hard case, I just remember Howard—if he can do it, y'all can do it. I’ve seen this over and over. I've been doing this for over 15 years. This process works. You’ve just got to trust it and work the program. [39:58.4]
In all of these areas, both the therapeutic process and the dating skills and mindsets—including conversation, humor, forming deep connections, sexual flirting, building sexual attention, physical arousal and foreplay, dominance and leading on the dates and in groups, your lifestyle and optimizing your lifestyle so it's one full of purpose and passion and fun, and even your fashion and style—in my catalog of courses, we have courses and modules devoted to all of these and we have multiple ones, multiple modules and courses at varying levels of complexity, advanced, intermediate, and beginner, we cover all of these.
You can get access to all of them through the all-access unlimited access Platinum Partnership. Okay, so if that's something you're interested in, check it out.
If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please share it with your friends or anyone that you think would benefit from it, and leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. We always appreciate that. I'd love to hear your feedback and I love it when you share.
Thanks so much for listening and thank you for your support and encouragement. I’ll see you in the next episode. David Tian, signing out. [41:06.4]
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