Category Archives: Personal Development

Television Conflicts With Self Improvement

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Spending any time watching TV is highly antithetical to self improvement. This is geared towards men. Yes it’s useless for both genders, but women aren’t society builders. Their worth is derived primarily from their sexiness, so if they want to waste all their free time not associated with becoming prettier on utterly worthless ‘entertainment’, they have my permission. Finding an attractive, feminine woman who reads books for example (50 Shades doesn’t count) is like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. Men – on the other hand – are ranked on aggregate achievement so time is exponentially more important.

The other night I was hanging out with my – well, by now it’s been a few months so we’ll say she’s my non-exclusive pseudo-girlfriend (#54 that is) – and we decided to have a night in as we both had a long day. The usual drinks in hand, we consumed, watched a movie, and then got to talking as she put on some dating show. This was my first time viewing anything on TV other than sports (my bar is a semi-sports pub) in over 5 years and I immediately wanted to break the set. It was that vapid. For kicks, we cycled through a few shows until I made her put some music on instead, but in those 10-20 minutes I realized exactly how mind-numbing TV is. At least video games force interaction and can (arguably) improve memorization and organizational skills. I told her then and there I’ll gladly spoon her to a good movie, but I will never watch a TV show.

Name one non-educational program – anything – where you walk away a little better than before. I felt completely empty afterwards. I literally learned nothing and felt the same way as when I’ve gone on a date and it flopped. In contrast, sitting there talking about our past, opening up, and throwing back a couple shots was incomparably more fruitful.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been out of the ‘TV scene’ for so long, but even when I watched it I felt restless. In general, if you’re a man – stop watching TV. Just stop it. Find something else. Almost anything is going to be more productive (and fun). And if you’re with a woman who spends hours every day in front of the flat screen, you may want to reconsider your relationship. A couple shows here and there is fine, but if it’s digging into your time together, you have a problem.

The only possible justifications for watching TV are:

  1. Truly educational shows – sparingly. You can watch these while you eat, but even then only for specific reasons or if it’s really that interesting. There are very few like this. Most still give you 5 minutes of knowledge, 15 minutes of commercials, and 40 minutes of fluff. You’ll learn more in that same 5 minutes scanning Wikipedia.
  2. Movies. Doesn’t really count as TV because more thought goes into them and some provide valuable life lessons. At the very least DVR it so you can skip commercials.
  3. Educational shows for children – sparingly. Again, use with extreme caution. It can be tempting to shut your kid up for some ‘you time’, but that’s how ADHD and other ‘disorders’ come about – kids are built to run around all day until the fuel runs out, stuff something down their throat, and go back outside. That’s how you grow up unmedicated normal.
  4. Niche reasons. When I came stateside as a little boy (I’m European for those who don’t know), I had to learn American. Batman, Spiderman, and X-Men were my teachers of choice.

Do yourself a favor and go cold turkey, pronto. If there’s a show you can’t detach from, wait until the season is over, download it, and watch the whole thing as a single movie. Doing so will save you time now and help you realize how little you actually missed. Go make some money, work out, or mack on cuties instead – they’re all more worthwhile.

Be A Self Made Man

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A few nights ago I was having a drink with my one of my buddies while talking business. He never went to college and barely graduated high school, yet here he is – roughly my age – making high 6 figures running his own multimillion dollar local cleaning business. A part of me is envious. He’s ‘made it’. He knows the hustle. Another part of me doesn’t want to trade in for his short stature, overweight frame, and ‘yes if drunk’ wife who’s entirely too high maintenance (quite literally a trophy wife, though she’s not much of a trophy), but that’s beside the point.

I can’t help but respect him. It takes balls to flip the bird to everything your parents, your friends, and society tells you and cut your own path. He said something so obvious, yet so succinct coming from someone who’s living it, that it stuck:

No one who ever worked hard and really cared didn’t succeed.

It really is that simple. Money, power, women, whatever you desire (happiness is a byproduct) – it’s a 2 step process.

  1. Find something you care about.
  2. Work hard at it.

There’s no need to complicate the purity of this maxim. What do you care about? Fuck what anyone says. What do you want?

We live in an unprecedented time of opportunity. There are tons of jobs everywhere. Some are less glorious than others and some pay more or less, but they’re available. A lot of businesses can be started with little to no up front expenses. Even more businesses are economies of scale. 99% of broke people are lazy and lack rudimentary financial discipline.

Women are everywhere and it’s easier than ever to connect with an unlimited supply. If you’re not ___ enough to get a date with her, work on getting into the next league while keeping your eyes open for a willing participant. If one crosses the line and disrespects you a little, remove yourself and let her come back after she’s had some time to think about it. If she doesn’t, so be it. If she really crosses the line, cut her off and find someone else. Relationships are give and take – just make sure it’s not you disproportionately giving.

If you’re out of shape you only have yourself to blame. Relatively healthy food is cheap. It’s only ‘too expensive to eat right’ if you compare Whole Foods to McDonald’s. Shopping at Costco is often cheaper per-calorie than any fast food joint. You can exercise for free. If you really don’t want to spend money on a gym membership (which is one of the best expenses there is), get some pushup handles, a pullup bar, and do a calisthenics routine.

Social prowess is a result of continuous practice. If you don’t know how to talk to women, go out there and start talking to them. If your job/lifestyle prevents it, change one (or both). Gaining status and becoming famous – to some degree – is a function of getting your name out there. People won’t just ‘know’ who you are unless you promote yourself.

In short, be a self made man. You don’t have to quit school or your job necessarily, but take the time to figure out what you like, what gives you energy and intensity and pursue that – the rest of the world be damned.

Self Improvement For The Big Ego Man

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As you may have noticed, I focus a lot on self improvement in the 5 main alpha characteristics – looks, wealth, status, fame, and game. Most resources tout game above all else, which I find more than a little disturbing. To be fair, for the majority of men game is the quickest path to getting the lay, but like all shortcuts it has severe limitations.

First, there are no shortcuts to lasting success. You can spend your entire life chasing skirts, but you’ll miss the fringe benefits of years of development into a successful man. Money can buy happiness and the people who say otherwise typically don’t have much. But how will you build any substantial wealth if you spend most of your time on women? Looks matter, but how many guys think that having a great body is unnecessary if your game is tight, then wonder why she’s drooling over the ‘douchebag’ with nice arms and abs. I’d rather (semi) retire 30 years early.

Second, game itself will only work so much and for so long. Past a certain age, a man is expected to have something to show for his time on this planet. My worst fear is growing fat and old and still driving a car that barely runs, with no hope of ever attracting even a semi cute, young girl – but look how common that is today. Of course I don’t know what these men have been through, but I’m willing to bet most of them didn’t have the full deck stacked against them.

As you get older and your SMV rises, you’ll need more compensatory traits. A 40 year old can’t expect to put on some fresh clothes, hit the town and pick up a 21 year old hard 9 with his charm alone – he’d better have some cash and status to seal the deal. Unfortunately, these things take time to build and there is such a thing as too late to start (or to reach a certain peak). Don’t let that be you.

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I say all this because I have a huge ego. Biologically higher value of egg vs. sperm be damned, I want women to come to me. Don’t we all? But like all wishful thinking, there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is that few men will briefly experience this, and most will never experience it at all. Why? Because they keep chasing T&A now to the exclusion of a bigger T&A payoff later. Instant gratification is easy to succumb to.

The good news is that it can – and does – happen. I’ve had a few glimpses through working in various fields where I’m the contextual alpha (personal training and bartending) and every now and then a girl will approach and in so many words tell you she’s yours whenever you’ll have her. You can see women the world over fantasizing about rock stars, movie stars, and sports figures. I realize few of us will attain these levels of celebrity, but even a fraction thereof is enough to never live a dry day again.

And because my ego is huge, my mindset is focused on the harder path, but one with greater rewards. I talk about game, tips, and post lay reports, but that’s not the primary goal. Women can come and go as they please – I have bigger fish to fry. In a twisted way I actually enjoy downtime from girls. I often go ghost just to see who contacts to me and how often, as it’s a good indicator of interest (and thus my relative value). If they all peaced out tomorrow, I’d work even harder to get a fresh batch ‘passively’.

Develop your game while focusing on the money. Exercise like you’re getting paid for it (you are actually). Do all of this thoroughly, passionately, and word will spread about your intensity in life. Women will pick up on this, don’t you worry.

There are so few men in this world who focus on the big buffet – most are content with scraps every few days – that when a woman sees one she can’t help but wet her panties. Look, this shit is simple. You’re judged as an aggregate success object and the higher you score the more bangin’ women will come to you. Rise past a certain point and they will approach you. Now wouldn’t that be something?

Get to it.

Your Primary Goal – Accelerated Returns

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Your main goal in any non-trivial undertaking should be accelerated returns, or getting more for less as time passes. If it doesn’t happen, you’re doing something wrong. This goes hand in hand with challenging yourself and aggressive goal setting. As it relates to women, it can be anything – from increasing the average hotness of the girls you bang each subsequent year, to minimizing the average time between ‘hello’ and ‘harder’, to making your wife love you with all her soul (if marriage is your thing).

On the way to becoming a better man, you will of course be improving in the 5 main categories – looks, wealth, status, fame, and game. Here’s how accelerated returns play out in each one:

Looks

By looks I’m referring primarily to non-genetic factors. Although you can do a little cosmetic surgery to fix whatever nature stuck you with (for example I had a slightly deviated septum I got taken care of), your physique and subsequent health is often a deal maker or breaker. No one likes fatties. Women are a bit more tolerant as their prerequisites for attraction go beyond just the physical presentation, but don’t think for a moment that having a bangin’ body won’t score you insta-lays.

Getting in shape and staying there (around 10% bodyfat, decent muscularity, and therefore nice arms and a 6 pack – and don’t forget the legs) takes time and effort, but it’s nothing that’s out of reach. Really, it’s not. Starting out always sucks, but along the way as you get more and more looks it’ll be all the motivation you need. Accelerated returns come after you’ve been doing it for a while and is often referred to as maintenance training.

You see, getting your body right is harder than keeping it there (the reverse is also true). You may have to train an hour a day 5x/week for years to make a permanent transformation, but once you’re there maintaining it won’t take more than 3x/week. Each rep you do will effectively give you more bang for your buck.

I’ve had more than one training hiatus before deciding to make it a lifestyle. I remember going a whole year without any gym time. Naturally I lost some size, got a little pouch, and generally felt like shit, but it only took 3 months to get back to where I was. About a year ago I stopped training legs altogether because they were getting too big for my tastes from all the squatting/deadlifting. I actually wanted to make them smaller. The only training they now get is running and they’ve gotten a little smaller, but they’re still substantial and well defined. They won’t be getting any smaller either unless I completely starve myself. That’s accelerated returns.

Wealth

Wealth generation is the easiest concept for anyone with elementary math skills to grasp. Compound interest is the name of the game. $1 at a 10% annual return will be $1.1 after the first year, $1.21 after the second year, and $2.6 after 10 years. You’re not adding 10%, but rather multiplying on top of the previous year’s total. In other words, each year your dollar is worth more (I’m avoiding inflation and taxes for illustration purposes). The boring secret of most millionaires is that they simply put away a little each paycheck and waited until compound interest worked its magic long enough.

Start saving now – it becomes addictive. Get an account at a mutual fund company of your choice, set up a lazy 3 fund portfolio (total U.S. stock market, total U.S. bond market, total international stock market) and start putting away every extra dollar, then laugh all the way to the bank as you make money while sleeping. One of the best feelings is checking in to see how much you made last month for doing nothing extra. That’s your reward for living below your means. That’s accelerated returns.

Status/Fame

I’m grouping these together because status is a subset of fame. As you gain a little celebrity (even if it’s just being a contextual alpha in your work field), people will talk to other people. And those people will eventually talk to other people. And if you’re a big enough deal, it’ll spider web out of control. With social media running rampant, even if you’re not a big deal but do something people find entertaining, you’ll get your limelight. How do you think Gangnam Style became the most watched Youtube video of all time? Get your name out there as much as possible and watch it snowball. That’s accelerated returns.

Game

At last we come to game, something that gets entirely too much attention out of the 5 because of its ability to temporarily shortcut the other metrics of higher value. However, as you’re getting better all around, so should your game. Once you’ve accumulated enough experience, things like kino, foreplay, date ideas, conversation topics, and sex that would make porn stars envious all become second nature. You begin to attract more (and more attractive) women with less and less time before you’re both naked. That’s accelerated returns.

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This is your modus operandi for everything repetitive in life. If you’re going after women, they had better be hotter and hotter with every new year. If you’re going after money, your nest egg should be growing by more than just your contribution. If you’re going after looks, you’re doing it wrong if you’re training just as hard 5 years from now to maintain the same physique. If you’re going after fame, put your best self promotion foot forward.

Social Media Distractions

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social-media

Time, time, time. That’s what this all comes down to. Every interaction with women can be cost-analyzed as a function of time, i.e. is she worth your time (and money, but time = money). People often cling to failed relationships and stay miserable for unnecessarily long periods after not because some part is ‘missing’, but because their ego is pissed at the waste of time.

Time is a very finite resource and how you spend yours is directly proportional to your success (or lack thereof) in other fields. I’ve already talked about efficiency and things like perpetual students, so today I’m going to tackle social media – arguably the most insidious time sink of all. Here are some reasons why:

  1. There are too many (unnecessary) platforms. At this point it’s a race of who can make up the next pointless site. The problem is overkill. Anything that’s not a ‘big 3′ (Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, with LinkedIn/Skype honorable mention) is just piling crap on top of more crap. The attention becomes diffused and although each type gets a sizable share, a global following is impossible. Of course the creators are ok with this (they get their money), but as a user it’s a waste to even install these apps.
  2. Managing multiple streams is time consuming. Are you really that attention hungry? Does it make you feel that much better knowing some internet ‘friends’ you’ll probably never meet (or if you do, have an awkward moment with) give you a thumbs up on something that’ll be forgotten 60 seconds later? And then to replicate it 24/7 across multiple channels? If you have that much time, I suggest you get a job and start building wealth.
  3. In most cases, there’s no benefit to multiple outlets. Because of the diffused user base across the lesser platforms, if you follow the 80-20 rule you’ll see that just having Facebook is sufficient for almost any purpose. The only exception is if your business model tangibly benefits from using a particular platform. For instance, if you’re a popular Youtuber with 6 figure followers, you’re probably making some decent money. Likewise if you’re a marketing professional, spending some time actively networking on LinkedIn would serve you well. Needless to say, these situations are rare.
  4. A minute here, a minute there, a day wasted. Back in the ‘old days’ email distractions were the equivalent. You start working on a project, a new email notification pops up, and you find yourself pausing your #1 task and diverting attention to something that’s most likely useless. Refocusing on your main task takes even more time and just as you get in the zone the cycle repeats. Now multiply by 100 and you begin to see how A.D.D. your day can become. This is what girls ‘deal’ with regularly, so it’s no surprise they don’t get anything else done. It’s too distracting.
  5. Only 3-4 are ‘beneficial’. A select few actually have a purpose. Facebook is a great catch-all for staying in contact with people (women!) over the years. They’ll move, get new phones, disappear/reappear, and so on, but Facebook is forever. It’s not for commenting on a livestream that updates faster than you can hit ‘like’. It can also be used – with some degree of success – as a pickup tool, though it’s not ideal and most guys screw up bad. Youtube is good for instructional videos or if you have a Vlog, nothing more. LinkedIn – for most people – is a set and forget platform where building professional contacts over the years can come in handy depending on your field. Skype is good for free international communication, but this applies to even less of the world. Everything else is useless. Please stay away from Twitter – it will suck the life right out of you.
  6. They’re the primary cause of lack of focus. People have terrible attention spans as is, and with checking your status/comments/friends/whatever just a couple clicks away this is disturbingly multiplied. I’d suggest setting aside a few minutes in the morning/at night to check in, but I doubt many would follow this advice. The allure of instant gratification by way of ignoring some uninteresting – but usually important – task is too strong. You’re in for a fight.

Let’s do some basic math centered around Facebook only. Assume you post something or get a message or just feel like mindlessly checking to see what’s going on a few times a day. You usually spend less than 5 minutes, except for the couple 15 minute blank stares and non-stop commenting you occasionally engage in. It’s not uncommon to spend at least an hour per day doing this. And that’s being very conservative, as this is targeted primarily at men. Halfway attractive female readers will have already checked their phone several times since the beginning of this post.

365 hours. Over 9 full time work weeks. So you waste 2 productive months every year on social media. At least. Double/triple/quadruple that for multiple platforms. Now add in TV and video games. Scary stuff, huh? I’m not anti-social media as I think it has limited uses – keyword limited – but if you don’t take heed you’ll ‘live’ your life as an unhappy, unproductive, mentally and physically handicapped shell of a man. Girls don’t get a free pass either, but leave them to their own devices and worry about yourself first.

Social media is a distraction from the real world. Use it very sparingly, and even then only if it improves your real life.