Bantering on the Fly

So, since I’ve been dubbed the banter king by a bunch of my fellow instructors I tend to get a lot of coaching clients that want me to teach them banter. The good news is most of these guys come to me for the right reasons. They don’t ask me to teach them all of my own personal banter lines, but how they can get to a point where they can banter on their own and improv.

One of the very important things is building your intuition. A lot of people might refer to this as cold reading, but I think it’s different. I think the idea of a cold read and warm are misleading to guys just learning social dynamics.

The idea of a cold and a warm read implies that when you first met someone you don’t know anything about them. Then after speaking with them you “learn” thing s about them. I hate the terms and generally don’t use them because I think there is a different scale.

I think everyone had a natural intuition. Intuition seems like one of the hippy tree-hugger words, but I think it’s more legitimate then that. I think that we are able to learn a lot about someone by just looking at them.

What are they wearing, how do they stand, how do they walk? Where are they looking? Do they look up, straight ahead, or at their feet when they walk? When the encounter people around them, how do they react? When they talk what does their voice sound like? How articulate are they are? What type of slang vernacular, or accent do they have or use?

Whether or not you are consciously aware of these things, they have a huge impact on your assessment of someone. Developing your “intuition” is really honing your skills to read between the lines.

If I were to meet someone, I could have a conversation with them in about 20 seconds with absolutely NO real content and be able to guess a lot of things about: what type of person they are, what their life is life, how confident they are, where they grew up, what type of relationships they’ve had in the past, and what type of day they’re having right now. There literally millions of assessments that you could make about someone very quickly.

Now, most people might argue that Yes, you could make those assessments, but how many times would you be right? The secret is that, you don’t have to be. When you’re wrong people correct you and then tell you the real deal – TO PROVE that you’re wrong.
But, each time this happens your intuition gets better because you start building this database of experience with meeting people and making quick assessments of them. If you don’t believe you can do this, then go read the book “Blink” for a change of perspective on this subject,

Obviously these skills are great for rapport….But they’re also KILLER for banter.

So, lets say you see someone and you get an intuition about them. You banter is merely you expressing that in a fun and playful way. Please read again: FUN and PLAYFUL.

Example 1:

Intuition: You get the feeling that this high class woman that you met at the bar 5 minutes ago, is actually a big dork and not as sophisticated as she tries to come off.

Banter: “You’re cute because you try to come off as this powerful and sophisticated woman, but I get the feeling you’re really a big closest dork that likes to stay home and watch cartoons in your underwear.”

Example 2:

Intuition: You are in line a Starbucks and the college student looking chick in front of you is fumbling through her purse and can’t find something. She is obviously frazzled.

Banter: “Are you alright (with a big smile)? It’s one of “THOSE” days, huh? Yeah, but those are great days though because they always end up starting like crap and just ending with a couple rounds martini’s and then it gets significantly better.”

So in both cases you use your intuition to figure something out about someone. Once you have made some assumption about someone, you present that to them in a fun and playful way.

Stayed tuned for finding ways to present information people in fun ways that gets laughs.

A Secret to the Art of Rapport

I have taught at a couple of Art of Rapport classes and one of the things that we teach is that it is paramount to form an emotional connection with women.

One of the things that we teach is to go into what we call deep rapport. This is sharing emotionally relevant topics that tend to be somewhat persona; This is rather the surface and superficial topics that don’t really have any emotional content.

One of the things that we teach is to ask questions that get progressively deeper in content in regards to emotions. A silly, but common example would be to ask:
1. What’s your favorite ice cream?
2. Where did you grow up?
3. Have you ever been in love?

You’ll notice that the question might be silly, but they get progressively deeper in content. This is pretty obvious, but a lot of people have a hard time actually doing this. The main reason is that if you meet someone in a grocery store and talk to them for five minutes and ask questions like this girls sometimes react funny.

A lot of guys think that this is because this doesn’t work. That’s actually not the case at all. Whenever you want to think about what works and what doesn’t, take the time to stop and think about it you were a girl.

So, the scenario is that you’re a girl grocery shopping on a Wednesday evening and a guy walks up to you, he makes small talk, makes you laugh, but then asks you a question like: Have you ever been in love?

Most guys think that the drop from “where did you grow up” to “have you ever been in love” is just too quick. After talking to girls and testing a lot of things I came up with an analogy. A question that like is asking you to reveal a lot about yourself to someone you really don’t know.

Image a doorway with an open door. On the other side of that doorway is a pitch black room. You’re standing in the doorway looking into a black abyss with someone asking you to walk into the room. They want you to go first while they stand there a just watch. In your mind, something feels off and it doesn’t make sense for you to walk into this dark room. On some level fundamentally you don’t trust them and it feels wrong to walk into the room. Are they messing with you? Are they setting you up? Is something going to jump out and get me? Are the going to slam the door and lock me? Why would someone ask you to do that? So, like most people – you DECLINE the invitation.

But on the other hand, if that person walked through that doorway first, turned on the lights, and showed something really special, you would have no problem walking through that door.

So, to answer the question, most guys mess up because they ask a question with out revealing that answer about themselves FIRST. A girl will not tell you intimate details about herself until you reveal something first. She will not make an investment like that in someone new unless they give a little first. What happens though after you share something is that people tend to open and share back. This isn’t even a guy-girl thing – this is a people thing.

This is what friends do when they're having heart to hearts. This tends to be the really heavy stuff, but you can do this with any story of varying level of emotional meaning.

If she does open up without you sharing first I would challenge you that something was probably off. Every so often you meet a very healthy well-adjusted girl, but most people don’t go around telling intimate details of there life unless they have emotional baggage and issues.

People like this tend to be emotionally shallow, jaded, or needy people. These people tend to be pretty drama filled mostly because the girls aren’t totally emotionally stable. This is pretty common among strippers and coke head party girls. But, if you really want to date strippers you might be able to find that ONE emotional stable drug free healthy stripper in every million.

So, next time you’re getting to know someone, trying sharing a story first and I think you’ll be surprised that most people will share an equally emotionally relevant story back.

Pickup 101 History – Time to stop being humble…

So, I’ve run into a problem lately. I’m actually a pretty humble guy in a lot of ways. It’s not my style to brag about stuff or throw it up in people’s faces, but I feel like in ONE particular area I have done myself a disservice by being humble - my creditability as an instructor.

A lot of people don’t really know who I am within the Pickup 101 family relative to everyone else. I don’t want to take away from any of the guys as they’re all talented and I’m friends with all of them. The difference is that I personally work for Pickup 101 as a part-time instructor. A lot of the guys have made the conversion to the full-time level and taken on more responsibility. I might in time, but for now I have started a brand new job for a reputable company as my second promotion in two years and I just moved across the country to New York City. So it’s fair to say I have a full-plate right now.

But, what’s driving me nuts is that when I teach a lot of guys haven’t heard of me and think I’m a new coach – I’m definitely not new. Not that I am in a pissing contest with anyone else, but it annoying that I have to prove myself to new students every workshop because I have stayed out of the limelight for the most part.

In fact with the exception of Lance and Daniel I have been around the longest – albeit not in the same capacity as other instructors like Sean Newman. If you want to talk Pickup 101 history, I was one of the few guys still here that actually was taught by Lance and Wilder. For those of you who don’t know, Wilder was Lance’s original business partner.

Sean Newman and myself both attended Everything You Know About Women is Wrong Seminar together.

For those of you who remember Nate, Garrison, and Grant, I regularly went out with them. In fact, we formed a mastermind group called Bulletproof together where we worked intensely on our game for months meeting twice and week and drilling. We ran in-house workshops together and taught each other a lot.

Dennis and Derek of Social Savant are good friends of mine. Derek and myself attended AoA together and taught at both of Dennis’ workshops for Pickup101. Both have gone on to become very talented in their own right.

Anyways, my point is that all of the people above will more than vouch for my skills along with everyone within Pickup101. I have stayed out of the limelight, but that’s going to change if for nothing else to give myself some creditability with new students who come to take workshops.

(steps off soapbox)

I personally hate rants like that because it sounds like I’m whining (cause I am), but I just wanted to put it out there if people care to look. Charismatic Conversations will be coming out soon and I that will showcase some of my stuff. Stay tuned for hidden videos, because that it my goal for the next few months - that and getting back to my fighting weight. Too much partying lately.

Project New York or Playboy Mansion East?

Ok, ok, ok. I’ve been gone, but…Fck! I just moved to New York and I’m currently living in a studio apartment with 5 guys!

Ok, ok, ok it’s really not that bad. In fact it’s actually really good. I moved into a 2,500 sq ft duplex with a private additional 1,000sq ft roof deck overlooking the manhattan sky line with built in sound system and jaccuzi. It also is a totally custom place with blue iridium tile bathroom, feng shue wood panel walls, additional loft level, and a custom kictchen. Right now, they’re constructing the loft level to put two additional bedrooms for my roomies Sean, Ben, Dan, and Frank. Until then we're sort of confined to a 500 sq ft section of the house.

Now, that I’m sort of getting settled, I will continue as planned. Here are a few pics.