Applied Romance

Are you a skeptic? Do you think all this social dynamics and pickup stuff is a load of crap? If you truly believe it’s a load of crap, you’re right. As Henry Ford noted, What we believe shapes our behavior:

“Whether You Think You Can or Can’t, You’re Right”–Henry Ford

I have a fair number of friends and colleagues best described as skeptical about social dynamics. This includes men and women. While skepticism serves them very well within their occupations as scientists and engineers, it’s very difficult to communicate effectively the notion that belief structure plays an integral role in our personal interactions.

Creating positive feedback

I was skeptical too. I didn’t believe it was possible to systematically learn how to get better with women, or even with people in general. My opinion was that such talents were partially inborn, and if you hadn’t learned the rest in childhood, there was little hope. When I decided I wanted to change, I had to figure out what my beliefs actually were, then figure out a way to challenge these beliefs.

One way to test the limits of your belief system is to create a positive feedback loop, where you are able to test new behavior and measure results.

# The first step is to understand and have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish. The more detailed the better. Deal with congruency and viability later. That is, if you want to fly to the moon, visualize that and write it down. While this may not seem viable now, if you are under the age of 50, there is a remote possibility that technology will advance within the next 20 years to allow private space travel. Again, we’ll deal with viability later. The important thing is to get that stuff written down.
# Plan in detail the necessary steps to achieve your goal or vision. The details will certainly get murkier the further into the future.
# Execute on the plan.
# Regularly examine successes and failure to determine which actions are moving you closer to your goals, and which are moving you further away. Pay special attention to limiting beliefs which are holding you back.
# Recalibrate your plan to incorporate updated accomplishments and changes in your underlying belief system.

Viability

Viability in this context is defined by How realistic is it that I can achieve my goal?

Let’s take the example above: Fly to the moon.

Now, on the face of it that’s not very viable. That is, it ain’t gonna happen. At least not anytime soon.

But if space is your absolute passion, make a career in the space industry.

Social

I tell men who come to me with questions about women the following: “It’s easy to date an actress. Just move to Malibu.”

Think about that.

Really think about it.

If dating an actress is really, really important to you, then you need to move to a place where actresses hang out. Actresses do not hang out in Peoria. Actresses hang out in Malibu.

As it turns out, moving to Malibu is hard. You may be leaving behind friends and family. It’s expensive. There isn’t a lot of employment. If you have to work, you better be able to work at home or be willing to commute. Meeting actresses to date after all that should be the easiest thing in the world. Just go buy some groceries. Not hard at all.

Belief structure

It’s very difficult to change a person’s belief structure. Impossible really. Best you can do is provide them with evidence that their current structure is holding them back, and tools to help them change their beliefs to something more personally useful.

Succinctly, if you are a skeptical person, use your skepticism as a powerful tool for discernment of what works for you, instead of using it to dismiss something you don’t understand with contempt. Any time you “just know” something “won’t work,” and you haven’t actually tried it for yourself, take a closer look at why feel this way. Be honest, and you may surprise yourself.