Reggae Tune of the Day!

I can't decide which version I like better. The Wailer tune is slightly faster and has a busier feel with the horns, but the Phyllis Dillion has a beautiful voice. Great tune in any case.

The Wailers - Picture On The Wall


Phyllis Dillon - Picture On The Wall

Blog Re-Vamped...

So, I haven't been involved in the "Pick-up" community for sometime now, but I would like to start blogging again. Although I will be addressing select "relationship" topics, the main focus of this blog will be whatever my main focus is at the time.

Just to address what happened in brief...

I was part of Pickup101 and moved with a handful of guys to the east coast to establish operations on this side of the country. Soon after the move, the company became too big and I eventually amicably parted ways. In attempt to keep teaching (and because I lived with all the guys), I was part of LVO3 when it was starting up. However, I did not agree where the company was going for many reasons. Sean's a well intentioned person, but I do not agree with his advice. His contribution is to inspire people and play an authority figure to motivate people into action, but he has no consistency in either his personal life or teachings and I really couldn't support that - not to mention I busy involved in my own life and didn't have time.

If people have questions, I'd be happy to address them, but otherwise I'm not going to make this my focus.

Stay tuned for more.

Women and Drama

Guys don’t get drama – which means they also don’t get women.

Some women are dramatic. Like screw loose day time telenueve f*cked three ways to the weekend crazy. You should avoid these women. Really. I’m totally serious. These women will put you in a grave years before you should be. Read this if you don’t believe me.

But many other girls are fairly normal happy women who at times do get dramatic. Drama is always intensely emotional – by definition, but what guys don’t realize what is at the root of drama.

Close relationships with women entail a few really important elements. Those elements involve being emotional insynch and attuned with each other.

Something that happens in a healthy relationship is that it creates a safe and secure base for both people in the relationship. From the safety, comfort, and connection of the relationship you feel free to explore the world in confidence. This is a fundamental element to ALL human relationships. This is the foundation of parenting that is extended into intimate romantic relationships.

In a significant relationship, you need to be able to quickly assess the emotional state of the other person. This emotional state gives context to their behavior. This is how couples or best friends can read each other so well.

When you become out of synch and out of emotional attunement you are either unable or less able to read the other persons emotional state.

This is the root cause of drama.

Women intentionally, albeit not consciously, create drama to re-attune and get back into synch with you.

Let that sink in…

Women use drama to FORCE an emotional reaction so that they can understand how you REALLY feel. Dramatic events are always emotionally intense. When women can’t read you and know what you’re thinking and feeling, they won’t be able to understand the context of your behavior.

They can’t tell if a snide comment was because you had a bad day, or because there’s a problem with the relationship.

This problem compounds itself overtime. Every time you have a misunderstanding or tiff that goes unresolved, it puts a small divide in between both people that puts you out of synch.

It builds and builds if you don't resolve it in some way. This can grow to the point that you are completely OUT of touch with the other person in the relationship to the point where you don’t know how they feel anymore.

Drama is an attempt to cross that barrier between two people so that they re-synch and attune to each other. Often times, this means resolving those little issues that were never resolved.

Most guys aren't expressive enough of their emotions. That's what drama is about. When your girl can't read you, she forces an emotional response through her drama.

She gives you NO choice except to react emotionally one way or the other. From that reaction she can gauge how you feel about her. Drama forces an emotional reality check.

A lot of drama is displayed through anger and frustration. In a certain way, this venting is better then no venting at all because you give her the opportunity to become in synch with you again. All she wants is to know what you're feeling and for you to feel what she's feeling.

So the big question is…

How do you avoid drama?

Well, it’s about staying emotionally attuned and in synch in the relationship. Reading her micro-emotions and feeding them back to her communicates that you understand her. If you pick up on the nuances of her mood and let her know you feel her, you ever her a girl tell you that you just don’t understand her.

The other half of that is you need to express yourself and your micro-emotions. Guys think they can mask or down play emotions in relationships. In reality you can’t.

Even if you think you’re being sly, women are more intuitive then men and will always pick up those signals. And when you try to hide them she knows and resents you for lying about how you really feel.

So, the key is really to staying present and in synch with each other. The drama stems from someone NOT being understood and taking a moment to empathize saves you from drama and heart attacks.

Sneak preview into new stuff...

So, I want to lay down some new ideas I’ve had. These ideas are a sneak preview into the direction that I plan on steering the company. Having taught through Pickup101 for the last 2 years, I’ve had plenty experience with helping guys. In that time I have picked up on some key processes that are necessary for guys to get to the next level.

At the foundation there is an overall change of perspective. It’s important for guys to look at the world and the women in it differently then they have. At its core, it’s about realizing that your success with women is reflective of your behaviors with women and not a measure of your intrinsic worth. It may seem obvious when said aloud, but it's the very first issue most guys have. Lots of guys who aren’t confident with women constantly struggle with self-esteem issues, but the first step in that struggle is realizing it’s not YOU, it’s what YOU DO.

After getting past that first step, it’s time to take inventory of your current behaviors. This part is tough to go through. You have to open yourself up to criticism and push your comfort zone by trying new behaviors. This is really at the core of what we used to focus on at Pickup101 during the Art of Attraction program. This is where we worked hard to fix body language, facial expressions, vocal delivery, witty banter, and other physical tics. This is where we focused on creating a better first impression.

When students graduated to Art of Rapport, we taught the same thing except geared towards being in NON-social situations. That was also combined with teaching how to move into light and deep rapport. The class evolved in to really helping guys tap into their own emotions, so that they COULD actually connect with women. After practicing that in the safe environment it was much easier for guys to open up to women and have deeper relationships.

Art of Rapport fundamentally changed our goals in the end and was a main difference in our philosophy from Pickup101. Every time, as instructors, we taught it, we tapped into our own emotions. We eventually came to realize a bigger and more meaningful picture both through teaching the class and living out our personal lives.

We realized that a lot of guys got caught up in the “conquer and conquest” attitude. Some think that’s what they want, and others think that’s what they’re supposed to want. I don’t think going through periods of your life like that are bad. I have done it and feel like I am better for it.

I know that for a guy who has had little success he also has some catching up to do. I know that he actually does need to date around to prove to himself he’s worthy enough. It’s a silly exercise in validation, but those experiences really cement confidence with women deep inside of you. There’s a very real, visceral, and lasting confidence that comes from the experience of dating around. As much as the can be beneficial for some, it tends to derail more guys then not. When they’re not dating three or four women they feel unsuccessful. Or they get so caught up in the validation aspect that they lose themselves and women merely become a vehicle for validation and self-worth.

I can see this in guys because I have fallen victim to both of those.

So, in the new company we want to keep a healthy perspective on dating and what counts as success. I think 99% of guys want to eventually settle down in monogamous relationship. So, I don’t want to sabotage guy’s long term goals by accomplishing short term goals at the expense of bad habits.

The last piece of the puzzle is the most elusive. We can teach you the mechanics and we can guide you down a safe path, but the last piece isn’t so tangible. In my experience, some guys get it, and some guys don’t. I can always tell the difference between guys who will improve quickly and guys who will flounder. These guys have this final piece already and just needed some mechanics and a guide down the path. Looking at myself, I definitely already had this piece and always attributed it to my strong skills with women.

The final piece is the art of human interaction.

The community talks about social “calibration.” I don’t believe I’ve read anything extensive on the subject because it is so hard to describe. The mechanical part we teach in Art of Attraction helps with the fundamentals of it, but it’s much harder to address the nuances. And nuances are where it matters the most.

If you ask my room-mates they will all conclusively agree that I’m a researcher and analyst at heart. When I start talking about certain subjects they almost can’t comprehend what I am talking about half the time. And this particular subject really piqued my interest.

So, I started readin up on the subject and found some really interesting ideas that revolved around intuition, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, tacit learning, tacit communication, non-verbal cues, pacing, empathetic accuracy, emotional attunement, synchrony, etc.

This research I have been reading isn’t written by some self proclaimed guru (like myself), but written by psychologists and published in professional journals. I’m excited because right now I am piecing a road map based on my experience in teaching and their research that will eventually go into a curriculum.

The stuff is extremely cool, because it is validating my experience with teaching.

Some guys get the subtly and some don’t.

Interacting with women is as much about reading the other person as it is about creating a better self. This skill has such far reaching benefits to every guy’s life in general that I think it’s going to a big impact.

I’m going to start diving into some new arenas in my writing over the next few months as I continue to synthesize my ideas with what is on the forefront of science right now.

Over and out.

Joe

My Long Bio...

So, I just want to mention I really hate writing f*cking bios. Writing about yourself is always a pain in the ass and these things usually end up being the biggest bullsh*t stories in the world.

Typically what happens is that, I’m supposed to make some shit up about myself, make it sound way cooler then it actually was, and then give you my credentials. Then in an act of worship you’re supposed get down on your knees and fellate my cock.

And to be honest that sounds like too much work.

To quote the Big Lebowski – I’m just a dude. And the dude abides.

I’ve always considered myself a late bloomer, which makes me laugh when I think about this profession. I wasn’t a casanova in high-school, but I did hang out with a lot of those guys. I was always the meathead friend of the guy who got laid. Yet somehow, I remained pathetically naive.

You’d think by sheer luck between playing football and wrestling, professional swing dancing, playing in bands, and having stud friends I would have no problems with girls.

Yet that was not the case, which only started to rectify itself during my senior year in high-school.

College on the other hand was completely different. I had college by the balls. For the first time in my life I felt like everything was falling into place. I became confident in my own skin and started acting in ways around girls that even surprised myself. It was one of the most empowering feelings that I have ever had.

I swept over my college campus like a hurricane – literally. I got the nickname Hurricane Joe right away.

And why wouldn’t I?! I was making up for lost time. The amount of alcohol I drank in college is probably was more then most people drink in a lifetime. I was attempting to obtain the legendary Van Wilder status.

You guys have seen Van Wilder right? There is much to learn from it if you haven’t seen it. Some of my most basic philosophies in life were born out of the silliness of that movie.

“Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere.” – Van Wilder

“You shouldn't take life to seriously. You'll never get out alive.” – Van Wilder
Call me crazy, but having a sense of humor about life is one of the most important traits that I have found to being happy…but I digress.

Back to my point, Van Wilder status was in reference to being in college for the better part of a decade. I only managed six years, but I had a good run.

But when you think about it, why would I want to leave college?! I went to a beautiful school on the coast of southern California that was filled with beautiful women. I met them by merely by going to school. Beautiful women were practically handed to me on a silver plate.

From purely a dating perspective I was crazy to leave.

Besides the women, I only actually went to class 10 hours a week, I was smart enough not to have to study, and everyone was the cool laid back Californian who enjoyed the better things in life – bonfires at the beach, Sunday afternoon BBQ’s, lazy afternoon naps in the warm sun shine, wild parties on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, fine dining, good wine, awesome surf…

…the list goes on. In a lot of ways I think the students in my college had their priorities way straighter then most of the working world in my opinion. Carpe Diem!

So I lived it up and have no regrets.

At some point in college the “seduction community” began to emerge and while I had remained a quiet spectator since the beginning, I was too busy having a life to care about it. I was content with life, but I found it fascinating.

My post-college life was like night and day though.

Hello corporate America - Good-bye sweet sweet college life!

Actually having to work 40 hours a week put a major damper on my mood. Combine that with losing all of my social networks from college and you have one unhappy dude. And when the dude is unhappy, the dude does not abide.

I quickly came to realize that the rest of the world wasn’t like a college campus. I was in territory were people worked to the point of complete mental breakdown at jobs they hated and were too tired to enjoy too much more then a Saturday night out on the town.

Although, I had learned a great deal about women, I wasn’t meeting beautiful women on daily basis by merely going to work. It seemed like a lot more effort was required. At this point I circled back to the “seduction community” to see what it had to offer and found quite a bit of information.

At its heart it was about creating “better men and happier women”, but at its worst it was a bunch of guys on internet forums nitpicking at each other. Even scarier, I quickly came to realize it was the blind leading the blind in a lot of circumstances.

I always thought that at least the insight offered contained some significance, but never took it at face value. There was something “off” with most of it. It seemed to superficially make sense, but fundamentally come from an unhealthy perspective.

I always told my friends that I kept one foot in the door and one foot outside the door. Meaning I always tried to keep a foot in reality and the experiences that I had already had before going off the deep end and believing everything to be infallible truth.

Because in reality, I had always been around guys who had hot chicks around and they never needed anything from the community. My own experiences confirmed this for me as well. So I never saw this as a requirement for getting girls – I had managed on my own just fine.

I like to compare my experience to a pendulum effect.

When I first discovered all of this new information, I felt mildly retarded. Mostly because intuitively I understood it all, but I was shocked that I had never just figured it out so explicitly.

So realizing there was a whole different way of looking at this, I swung towards all of these new ideas and “tactics.” After reaching the peak of the arch – or the digging through all of the information in the community – you start to swing back to the middle realizing that your experiences before are just as valid as anything else.

So, the pendulum eventually rest in the middle. Meaning that I took what I new before and I took what I had learned and move forward with both my experience and relevant knowledge.

I spent my time living a successful life before the community enjoying and dating lots of girls. I went into the depths of the community and absorbed a lot of knowledge and spent enormous amounts of time working on myself in that realm. I have since come out on the other-side and wound up somewhere in the middle.

I don’t deny my past, because it brought me to where I am today. However, I do think there is so much lacking and that I needed to move on and do something new.

That’s how I fit into this puzzle with Sean and the other guys. We all had success before the community, learned what we could from it, and have since started the next evolution.

The next evolution is about passion, integrity, fun, and happiness. The next evolution is realizing that dating tons of women and threesomes are awesome and an important stepping stone, but so is a monogamous relationship.

I mentioned before the community was always about “Better Men, and Happier Women” but at some point that message got lost.

That’s where we come in. We’re here to change that by making this a healthy process that spends more time helping guys get what they want out of their relationships and teach and bigger view then the limited scope of what we have been. We want to teach all the things that we never could, because they were never part of our old syllabus.

So, yeah….

Sean wanted me to list my super power. I think most guys who know me would say that my ability to banter is extremely strong. Lance in reference to my banter skills is quoted:

“Joe is actually too good!” – Lance Mason, Founder Pickup101

Many other of my counterparts with other companies and my students as whole like to describe a strong charismatic quality that I have.

“Joe eats, shits, and breathes charisma” – Mark, Student

If you asked me though, my skills truly lie in being able to read and interpret women’s behavior, often better then even highly self aware women. Some people call it emotional intelligence, some people call it social intelligence, and some people call it intuition, but it’s all in the same vein.

I believe I am charismatic because I have a genuine curiosity about people and enjoy being social. This has driven me to become talented at this skill.

Because of being so fine-tuned with it, my abilities in other areas such as body language, kino, calling “the elephant in the room” out, and banter are significantly stronger because of it. I’ve spent as much time at bars meeting sorority girls as I have in committed happy functional relationships.

So, that’s my story. Hopefully it reflects a lot on my personality and you guys have a much better idea what I’m about. I don’t know if it captures everything, but it’s a good start. I’ve been busy lately, but in the coming months as our company starts to ramp up, you’ll be hearing more from me and perspectives on things.

Later,
Joe

Empathy & Women

One of the reasons we started this new company is because we see things much differently then the rest of community. We feel at best it’s short-sighted for so many reasons.

I have many different perspectives, but one stands out as extremely key in meeting, attracting and having relationships with women. Sure there are certain skills and mindsets that revolve around witty banter and confident body language, and rapport, but those skills are myopic. They focus all attention inwardly.

Well, what about the girl? You can't always just be looking inwardly and keeping your focus there. Your attention needs to be on the woman as much as it needs to be on yourself. We're shooting for interactions here...

Just like no one talks about relationships in the community, no one talks about another HUGE piece.

Reading women.

Whenever you’re with a woman, the interaction is like a dance. The saying “it takes two to tango” is quite relevant.

A problem that I see with guys is that they’re so internally focused that they can’t be present. They forget to be in the moment and mess up the "dance" taking place. They’re so focused on their own footwork that they don’t notice they’re stepping on the girl’s feet.

But, even when they become more present they still don’t pick up on the subtly of the communication.

Reading people is such an invaluable skill set in general. Statistically, people who can do this are more successful and make more money then people who have higher IQ’s and SAT scores. When it comes to success in relationships these people are also exponentially better with people.

Reading people, is at best, extremely complex in nature. There are many skills sets and sub skill sets that go into it, according to leading psychologists.

The one key aspect, agreed upon, is the ability to empathize.

Empathy is identifying with the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. The process of identifying emotions gives you insight to how someone feels, which in turn gives you clues to why they might be that way, what it takes to maintain or change that feeling, and how to proceed with them.

Can you read how a woman feels at any moment in a conversation? And even if you think you can, are you really picking up on the most important feeling?

Feelings are extremely complex. Ask a woman who has just broke up with a boyfriend how she feels? Then listen to her talk about her feelings…

What you’ll realize is that it’s not as simple as JUST feeling sad, or just feeling depressed. That’s a blanket generalization that doesn’t capture nuances.

It’s closer to a feeling of loss, with some sadness, regret, loneliness, anger, relief, anxiety, and hope mixed together in varying degrees. That subtly and distinction are extremely important to pick up on. It’s the difference between:

Understanding there is a problem
and
Understanding the problem

The interesting part is that empathizing starts internally. In order to identify with someone else’s emotions, you have to have had that emotion. Someone who’s NEVER experienced loss won’t be able to identify with a feeling of loss. This means that they will completely miss this emotion and everything that goes along with it.

Now, my example was pretty extreme. Most people have felt a sense of loss. In fact most people have most emotions as that is the human experience. Where people screw up is that they don’t recognize it in themselves or other people.

When I say recognize, I mean without someone having to say it.

Let me give an example.

You go over to meet your new girlfriend at her house because you’re going out to dinner with your good friends whom she hasn’t met. When you arrive, she opens the doorwith no makeup on and annoyed look on her face. She gives you a quick kiss and then disappears into her room to continue fixing her hair and putting on her makeup. She’s obviously agitated for some reason, so you plop on the couch and watch TV waiting patiently giving her some space. While you’re waiting she starts shouting orders at you from her room, to bring her the blow dryer and her liquid cover-up. You really don’t mind except for the fact that she ORDERED you and said it with a lot of attitude. You don’t even know what the hell liquid cover up looks like and bring in everything. You set it right next to her. Being that you were more then slightly annoyed with her tone earlier you respond to her “rudeness” with an abrupt, “you’re welcome.”

At this point, she starts shooting daggers from her eyes. When she looks down she realizes you brought all of her makeup because you didn't know what to bring. She then erupts into a diatribe about how you NEVER listen to her. You retort back defending the the false comment which only pisses her off even more. She then pulls out all the stops on every single little thing that you have ever done: from drinking too much to being cheap. She finishes off telling you how it's not working out between you…

Does this sound familiar?

I remember incidents like this vividly and thinking that women were crazy – literally. For a long time I assumed that this was normal. And the sad part is for a lot of people it is normal.

So here’s where story changes…

Had you sensed the subtle abruptness right away AND tried to empathize with her, it could have been different. If you had taken a moment to try and see things from her perspective you might have avoided the drama. You would have realized that as fun as getting dinner with friends SHOULD be, that was not necessarily the case for her. You might have considered that she was probably feeling rushed and anxious over meeting your good friends. Since you were still a new couple you might have sensed that she was anxious because she knew it would be important for YOUR friends to like her because if they didn’t like her, you would probably end up leaving her. If she get’s rejected then she has to deal with feelings of worthlessness and loneliness. Had you taken the time right away to calm her anxiety over the situation you would have avoided the emotional outburst.

Even worse I consistently hear about guys who sort of get this and miss the point. These guys actually engage in the arguement over not listening, drinking too much, and being cheap. These guys don't understand that you need to deal with the issue driving the emotion. The real emotion was that she was anxious, nervous, excited, and worried about meeting your friends. Taking a second to empathize with her, would have given anyone great insight to the real motivation.

Understanding women, is understanding the emotions that drive them. Women don’t make all of their decisions based on emotion. However, they do make all of their relationship decisions that way.

My point is really to highlight that, becoming better with women means empathizing with women. Most guys focus too much on the steps of meeting women. They're so focused internally that they miss all the clues that women give back to them and remain unsuccessful. It means taking the time to actually understand women, rather then just knowing a sequence that gets them to sleep with you.

Joe

New Company

Drum roll please...

It's on like Donkey Kong! We're doing it. Yup, that's right. I want to change the world MY way. Sean Messenger (Newman), Dan Mangano, Ben P, and myself have decided to start our own business.

I'm excited about it too. We basically get to teach all the things that didn't make it in the Pickup101 curriculum. We want to advance things too the next level. The community has always been about making "better men and happier women."

That message has been lost though and we're here to change that.

More to come....

Joe