The more I study the Seduction Community, the more I realize how important it is for someone wanting to learn a method to meet an instructor or an accomplished practicioner of that method.  You can THINK you understand a method, but you won’t get it until you meet the person behind it live. 

This is why I was so excited to have the opportunity to finally meet Wayne “Juggler” Elise at the SoCal Lair meeting of 04/26/2007.  I have been a fan of Juggler for a long time.  My buddy from Tampa was one of his earliest student and was raving about him to me for months.  His enthusiasm sparked my curiosity which led me to read all his e-books, listened to all his Charisma Arts podcasts, and watched all the videos he has released (including the bootcamp DVD I borrowed from another friend of mine).  Intellectually, I knew everything there was to know about the Juggler Method but as I later found out, there was something else I needed to figure out: the Juggler VIBE!

On that evening, I headed with the “White Woman” to  K1 Speed in Irvine, CA where the meeting was being held.  If you were wondering:  yes, she drove.  She even brought me leftover Thai food from her work.  I know, I love her too.  She’s awesome like that.  You can’t ask more from a friend like her

As you can imagine, I was happy.  I was in good company and was about to meet another “pickup guru.”  Some of my posse would be there too (a couple VAC alumnis I had invited) but the cool part was that we had another woman with us.  She was a friend of “the White Woman” and sported colorful purple hair.  Oh yeah… she was white too but I guess I’ll just nickname her the “Purple Woman” for storytelling purposes.  It was the first time I met her but I liked her.  From the few conversations we exchanged in the car, I could tell she was confident and very intelligent… just the kind of woman I like to surround myself with.  As expected, they ended being the only 2 women in the room.  Maybe I should have put a wager because  I would have made some easy money there LOL

We didn’t have to wait long for Juggler to show up.  From his towering (estimated) 6′2 height, he looked very relaxed in front of the audience.  Unlike the majority of PUAs I have seen, his clothing was not flashy.  He wore simple jeans with a blue sweater.  If you were to believe the fashion advice of the Seduction Community, he would barely pass the “fashionably trendy” test, and would definitely fail the peacocking test.  His demeanor was casual without being overly alpha.  His scruffy looking face gave you the impression that he just woke up and didn’t have time to shave.  The “White Woman” turned to me and whispered in a disappointed tone: “Is that him?”  From appearance alone, I guess she was expecting a little bit more.

After the typical speaker introduction, Juggler leaned against the table, looked at us and said nothing, a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y nothing.  For a while, it seemed that he didn’t know how to begin his speech.  Maybe he was giving the audience time to settle down.  Maybe he was searching for words.  He finally pointed to someone and broke the silence with “So what do you want to talk about?” The guy quickly replied:  “The Juggler basics.”  Juggler smiled and said:  “The basics?  I will show you a juggler trick later.  Before I leave, I WILL show you a juggler trick.”  The audience laughed as Wayne Elise crafted his next response:  ”The Juggler METHOD basics… I don’t even know what those are.  What I have been thinking about lately is knowning how little I know.”

At that moment, I knew.  I knew my drive to Irvine was time well spent.  Within 2 minutes of his presentation, Juggler has just showed 2-3 applications of his method.  He vacuumed the audience, used playful misinterpretations, related to guys in the audience by disqualifying himself.

Juggler continued talking mostly about the importance of vibe and logistics.  Instead of summarizing his speech, I strongly recommend you download it instead (duration – 1 hr 32 min) and listen for yourself.  Some things are better experienced first hand and he definitely deserve all the honor and credit he can get:
- *.wav format (58.48 MB)
- *.mp3 format (84.28 MB)

Right click and hit “save as…” to download the file.

For people who are too lazy to actually listen, here are some sound bites that hopefully will entice you to listen to the speech in its entirity:

• Interaction is really about just showing up:  just being there, being there at the right place, the right time.  It’s logistics.
   
• (About compliments) Unfortunately, people don’t believe in truth. There’re a long ways from being truthful to making it believable.  In fact if you can make it believable, that’s so much better.  You can say to a girl “you know what?  I think you are hot” and she will like that and that will work… if she believes you.  She has to believe you [...]  It’s not even about her.  If you tell a girl that you are hot, it doesn’t matter if she believes if she’s hot or not.  She has to believe that you believe [...]  Our job is to convince them that we believe it.
   
• (Escalation is about) Owning it.  
   
• I want you to be Forces of Nature. I want you to know what you want, I want to know your opinions, I want to know the essence of “John” and I want to bring that out of you and kick somebody’s fucking ass [...] On your own authority.
   
• There’s only one reason things don’t work:  it’s because either your vibe is wrong… or your logistics are wrong.
   
• Two things make vibe: (1) how you handle yourself in the interaction and (2) if you really care about people.
   
• When a girl says:  “I don’t sleep with guys the first night.”  It’s not necessarily bad, that’s a limitation.  That means that she’s willing to commit within that limitation A LOT.  Guys hear that and they think:  “Oh, she doesn’t like me at all”.  No, that means she wants to go home, make out and get naked with you but no actual penetration.
   
• Two techniques for handling AMOG:  (1) making negative presumptions about the person and (2) making the audience decide.
   
• We hear it all the time in the Community:  “you are gonna be better in relationships because you have options.  Because you can pickup somebody else, that means when you commit to somebody, that means more.”  You know what?  They are wrong!  I don’t believe that’s the way to feel secure.   I believe the way to feel secure is to be okay with your aloneness.  Once you are okay with your aloneness, you realize you are never alone.
   
• The tendency for most people is to move that interaction off of themselves because most people are not comfortable with that.  One thing I teach is keeping that (conversation) centered, keeping that focused on the other person but at the same time focused on me.  So that’s the only thing I talk about:  myself and the other person.  The topics are just kind of ways to put our personality through that.

By the end of the presentation, I fell in love with the Juggler Method (or maybe just Juggler himself) all over again.  It was interesting for me to see the parallel between his take on “vibe & logistics” and theApproach’s “Sex = VAC + Logistics” formula.  I guess in the end, each guru explains the same thing in different manners.

What I liked about Juggler is how he embodied true warmth and genuine compassion in the way he interacted with people.  He was never condescending nor did he try to come across as the all-knowing guru when he answered the audience’s questions.  He was funny without being a clown, he was confident without being arrogant and he had this very zen-like internal emotional state.  If I had to make a comparison, I would describe his vibe to be closest to a Buddhist monk… but conversely more engaging than a Buddhist monk.  I guess he’d be one of the few gurus in the Community that I would feel comfortable introducing to my sister, my mother or grandparents.

In terms of his skill as a teacher, he had this innate ability to explain social interactions in simple terms without using Community technical jargon.  Just by watching him, I understood how and why his philosophy were so powerful and so well-regarded.  His open vibe is what I think was  missing in my application of the method.  As friendly and as social that I was, I realized that I was still fairly selective of the people I chose to interact with whereas he tried to make EVERYONE feel appreciated. 

However, as much as I enjoyed meeting Juggler in person, I was not prepared for the best comment of the night.  The “White Woman” later admitted to finding Juggler progressively more and more attractive as he kept talking.  Sigh… so much for a negative first impression!

Wayne “Juggler” Elise, I send you my regards

In the VAC model of attraction, the first concept that is taught in bootcamps is the idea of value.  Everything starts with value.  What I like about that concept is that value can be interpreted as broad or as narrow as I want.  As a person who wants to lead a happy and successful life, value can be translated as:  what do I have going on for myself?  As an individual who likes to charm others, what are the tangible and intangible qualities that make me attractive?  If I think in business terms and consider myself a product I am trying to promote, what are my features and functions?  In conversations, am I being interesting?

Technically speaking, you can differentiate universal value (think of general attractive traits such as ambition, passion, intelligence, leadership, dominance, sexuality, humor…) from specific value (think of wealth, being of a certain class/race/group, being of a certain physical shape…) but for our current purpose, it doesn’t matter.  Universal value allows you to attract the broadest range of people, whereas specific value only appeals to a certain group of people. 

Anyway, the most common “mistake” I see in the men that just entered the Community is that they do not recognize how much they have going for themselves.  Most of the guys I have met actually have a pretty interesting life, but they don’t see it.  Instead, they are stuck in noticing what they do NOT have and constantly compare themselves to their ideal self.  Rather than finding ways to display their already attractive traits in the best manner possible, they focus on what other things they need to do to become even more attractive.  I’ll be honest.  I was stuck in that place for a while.  Sebastian from theApproach had to remind me more than a few times to take a hard look at myself and realize that I am ALREADY attractive.

As such, it is only natural for me to ask new guys that I meet in the Community the most important question:  why would anyone be lucky to be with you?  It’s funny to see guys give me blank stares to that question.  I really don’t mean to make them feel uncomfortable, but really…  who are you?  What do you like about yourself?  Do you even like yourself?  What makes you unique?  These questions are not meant to be hard, but a little bit of introspection can definitely accelerate your gains in confidence.  Each seduction company of good reputation will have some sort of confidence or identity exercise.  For example, Dan “Social HitchHiker” from Charisma Arts has a great article that addresses just that.  Neil “Style” Strauss wrote a piece on “Who Are You And What Do You Want?” and asks his StyleLife Academy students to go through a Mission Statement mission that incorporates the following questions:

1. What are your current jobs, hobbies, and/or courses of study? Focus your answers on how you spend your time, not on what you think will please women.
2. Select one of the answers to the question above and write it down here.
3. Given the hobby, job or course of study, what are the most interesting, adventurous things you are or will be working on or studying that impact other people most? In what way does or will it affect them? List them all, whether they impact everyone in the world or just a small subset of people like elderly geography teachers in Cook County.
4. Now imagine that you are a recruiter for that job or hobby. And you want to prepare an advertisement to attract people to that position–people who are not involved in the field and know little or nothing about it. You want to do this by selling them on the importance of the job they will be doing. Keep in mind your answers to the question above, but state the impact in such a way that it will affect the broadest number of people possible. Make sure, however that the answer is truthful.
5. Now examine the sales line you wrote. Remove adjectives, adverbs, and other unnecessary hype words that appeal to emotion rather than stating fact (words such as “exciting”, “biggest”, “best”, “most powerful”, and so on). If possible, replace the hype words and the noun they modify with facts. Now examine the verb or verbs you use, and make sure that they are exciting and active (such as “create” or “launch” or “tour” rather than “have” or “do”). Now restate your sales line only as simply, factually, and powerfully as possible in under 10 words.
6. Now write down your answer to question 5 here. Then say it out loud preceded by the word “I”:
7. This is your identity statement. Say it out loud until you are comfortable with it. If you do not feel that it is both interesting and accurate, rework your sales line until you do.
8. Return to question #3. Select another item that you listed as an answer to question #2. Repeat this exercise until you have come up with an identity statement for up to four of the most interesting jobs, hobbies, or qualities you listed to question #2.
9. List your final identity statements here. Begin each with the word I, followed by the sales line.
10. YOUR IDENTITY:  Examine your identity statements from question #9. You should have from one to four statements there. 
    - Put a star next to the statement that is the most interesting to people outside of the field. 
    - Put a star next to the statement that is the most interesting to women in particular.
    - Put a star next to the statement that is the most accurate.
    - Put a star next to the statement that most reflects the way you spend your time each day.

I personally use a list that attempts to define both your identity and your self-perception:

1. List some of your qualities and uniqueness.
2. What ideals do you stand for?
3. What do you want to stand for?
4. How do you believe people, especially women, perceive you?
5. How would you like people to perceive you before interacting with you?
6. How would you like people to perceive you after interacting with you for the first time?
7. Do you have an archetypical character you’d like to be like – perhaps a celebrity or fictional character?  If so, who is it?
8. Notice the difference between your current self (question 2) and your ideal self (question 3). List a few behaviors you have to adopt, and note the behaviors you have to change or overcome.
9. Come up with 1-3 things/stories for which you are proud of yourself. You will be asked to share those during the bootcamp.

The interesting part is that I have some internet forum guys who doubt the usefulness of this type of inner game excercise.  They tell me that their ability to answer these types of questions do not guarantee an improvement to their confidence in approaching women.  They are right.  Answering these questions really doesn’t guarantee anything, but I think they are missing the point here.  These exercises are not so much meant to help them create a strong sense of identity or self-awareness as much as they are to get them to realize that their value is not based on what others think of them.  It is about self-determinism.  It is only one of the 3 facets of mastery (identity, beliefs and actions).  As David X would say: 

Who the fuck cares what they say?  The most important person in this relationship is ME.

Vin DiCarlo describes that as warm dominance:

Warm dominance means your livelihood and general feeling of well-being is independent of her behaviors and decisions.

This is the very core of natural and direct game.  Even though value is based on perception (in the sense that people sees you a certain way based on their own perception of reality), your inherent value as an individual does not change no matter the situation.  Once you can comfortably accept your strengths and weaknesses, there is no need to impress, entertain or convince others to like you.  As described by Charisma Arts, your mind becomes free to “assume attraction.”  People can choose to like you for who you are as you are now.  If you want to improve your attractiveness factor, all you need to do is communicate who you are well with the tools at your disposition (non-verbal communication – body language, tonality, fashion - and mastery of language – wit, humor, intelligence - etc).

Now, let’s stop a moment and consider another dilemma.  I have met guys who actually have a hard time answering these inner game questions.  It’s not because they are indecisive, but they truly don’t know what they like.  They were once either very sheltered, they are extremely introverted or they lack life experience.  To those people, all I have to say is:  get out of the house!  Put yourself out there.  Expose yourself to new things.  Get a life.  You will not learn about yourself by musing at home.

Here is  an example of my current week’s outing schedule:

• Tuesday:  Comedy show at the Hollywood Improv
• Wednesday:  Eating fire class with Fire Groove
• Thursday:  Asian Playboy seminar with the SoCal Lair, Yelp.com party, hang out with friends at the Four Seasons hotel then the Roosevelt hotel (I saw Lindsey Lohan!) in Hollywood
• Friday:  Histerica Dance Benefit Performance at the Open Fist Theatre
• Saturday:  Brewery Art Walk and Create Fixate
• Sunday:  Morning hike with Hike the Geek and… ?

Obviously, my week is not always this busy and fun.  I don’t necessarily attend all these functions either.  My plans are constantly subject to change but I try to always do something new.  I bet you’ll say:  “But this has nothing to do with meeting women!”  Sure it does.  I have the potential of meeting people all the time by going to the places I am curious about… and it always gives me something to talk about when I strike a conversation with women.  Can you see where my value comes from? 

[ Live an interesting life ] 
All the value you have derive from your past experience and achievements.

So after you can honestly answer ”who are you?”, the question becomes: 
do you like yourself?

Everytime I see my Dad, I love listening to him.  He can make any story come alive.  No matter the topic, I get completely captivated by him.  When I was a kid, I used to hear about fiery dragons and knights in shining armor.  Nowadays, I hear about the crazy people he had to deal with during his run-abouts.  All in all, he’s just a damn great storyteller.  The only bad thing is:  I hate talking to him!  I can’t seem to have decent conversations with him.  You see… the art of conversation is completely different from the art of storytelling.

• Conversation is the interchange of views, ideas, thoughts, feelings, facts and data by spoken words.  The goal is to share information.  When I am in a business meeting with senior executives, I want to “conversate” well.  I want to give them the facts as clearly and as concisely as possible so that they can make an informed decision.  A good conversation does not have a purposeful ending.  As long as I have something of value to exchange or add, a conversation can go on forever.
• Storytelling is the use of words, images and sound to depict real or imagined events.  Ideally, a good story can spark interest, add variety, and change the pace of a discussion.  The goal is to convey and stir up emotions or feelings.  When I am meeting people socially, I want to tell stories well.  I can choose to share information through my stories but it is less important for the person I am speaking with to know the correct facts to my story as it is for him/her to see the morale of my story.  A good story has a punch line or a message that the listener can root for.  It has a conclusion.

So why am I making this distinction?  Because I feel that any aspiring Pick-Up Artist (PUA) need to be skilled in both storytelling and conversation:  storytelling first, conversation second. 

Storytelling skills improve your attraction/seduction capabilities.  By learning to be a good storyteller, you can turn even the most mundane conversation into something exciting and fun.  Banter, flirting and role playing all fall under your storytelling skillset.  In the VAC model of attraction, storytelling skills would increase your perceived value (+V).

Conversational skills are about developing rapport with another person.  Friends typically can have hours long conversations because they are comfortable sharing all sorts of information tidbits about their life to each other.  In the VAC model of attraction, conversational skills would increase your value minimally but would increase your attainability significantly (+A).

When I fail to get into or stay in conversation with someone, I know that I am not talking enough.  I am probably trying too hard to look or sound cool; so instead of just talking, I lock up and become guarded.  When I run out of things to say, I know that I am not listening enough.  The other person surely is giving me something to talk about.  I just don’t recognize or know how to capitalize on the opportunities to respond back.

The way to become good at conversation is to always add value to the interaction (+V) and to not cling on the desire to being  always right.  I cannot stress this enough!!!  Conversation is about sharing information.  Open up and learn from new viewpoints without trying to judge too fast.

Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open.  You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment.
– Ralph Marston

To add value into the interaction, Charisma Arts fans will tell you to talk more in the “I-perspective” (first person perspective) because you want to give the other person enough material to relate to.  From there on, your interlocutor can pick and choose which direction to lead the conversation to.  In short, share more about yourself so that both parties can feel comfortable opening up.  Niels Hoven from PU101 has the following great example in his article describing conversation as a tree:

Her: Do you have any siblings?
Bad answer: Yes, I have a younger sister.
Good answer: Yes, I have a younger sister. We weren’t that close when we were young, but we’re really close now (+V). She came out to visit me in San Francisco last year (+V) and we spent all day at the zoo just talking (+V).

On the other hand, when I can talk comfortably with someone but I don’t sense any sparks of attraction, I probably am not making the interaction fun enough.  I am most likely just relating to the topics at hand without investing my own feelings into them.  That’s when I want to use my storytelling skills to stir up  and convey emotions so that I get the satisfaction of seeing him/her hang on my every word.  LOL, yes I know… I am vain like that .  To be a good storyteller, you want to master all aspects of your delivery.  Here are a few tips, starting with tone and pace:

1. If you are a man, speak with deeper tone.  There’s a certain sexiness to the resonance of a manly voice. 
2. More importantly, slow down.  Slowing down helps your listener process your story better.  At the same time, speaking slower gives you the opportunity to speed up if you want to give the sense that something exciting is about to happen. 
3. Use pauses.  Pausing allows the listener to stop you to comment or ask questions.  Getting the listener to participate in such ways get them emotionally invested in your story (+C).
4. Use interjections to convey emotions instead of describing them.  “Oh Mother of God, don’t let me hurt myself!” is a lot better than “I jumped down the cliff and felt so scared inside.”
5. Have a punch line or message.  A story is meant to prove or illustrate something.  By the end of your story, I shouldn’t ask:  what was that all about?  Even role playing and flirting/bantering need to follow this rule.  For example, if I role play a “lovers reunited” scenario, I’m illustrating that the woman and I have chemistry together.  This presumes that she and I developed a certain level of complicity with each other before I even start the role play.  If I did this with a complete stranger within 5 seconds of meeting her and my body language, eye contact or vibe didn’t project that complicity, the role play will fall flat.  Most girls will not get it.  It is not situationally relevant.
6. Be concise.  A story should be short and sweet to get your message and feelings across, so cut down the amount of words you use and get rid of any facts that are not relevant to the point you are trying to make.  You shouldn’t be describing the next novel you are writing.

Now, let me give you an example of how to tell a good story.  Last week, one of my friends asked me to review his DHV (Demonstration of Higher Value) story.  Just as a side note, I don’t believe anyone should ever have to demonstrate higher value to anyone.  You want to show that you have value in your life, but not necessarily HIGHER value… Anyway, that’s the topic for another post.  This is what he wrote:

I’m from L.A.  I never really got into winter sports. What I do love is water sports. I used to have a jet ski and every weekend during the summer, I’d be out at Lake Castaic with my friends. We’d usually stay the whole day, bar-b-que, and stop off for ice cream at the near-by Fosters Freeze on the way back. I also love white water rafting.  I went on a trip with my school a while back and we rafted through Yosemite.  I was on the first raft.  We went through a rapid called the Fluffy Bunny.  I laughed but the guide told me “Hey, don’t laugh, the bunny’ll get ya.”  We paddled hard and fast and missed a rock by INCHES!  I was pretty freaked out, I thought we were going to capsize… in which case, me being a good swimmer wouldn’t help me much.  I’d be more worried about hitting a rock.  However, we made it through fine.  We were celebrating our victory and I look back just in time to see the second raft completely capsize.  The guide told us not to panic or jump in after them but we rowed close and helped them get their raft upright and got them all in the raft. Good thing it was near the end anyway.

This is how I rewrote his story.  I kept the essential elements of his story and amplified the emotions where I could, all while cutting down on all unecessary facts.

I’m from L.A.  I never really got into winter sports. What I DO love is… water sports. I used to jet ski every weekend with my friends during summer.  It was great fun times!  However, my biggest adventure was going white water rafting.  Do you know how that FEELS? (pause/vacuum). Last time I went, it was in Yosemite to go down this river called Fluffy Bunny (she smiles/chuckles).  Hey… don’t laugh!  That’s what I did when I first heard of it, but I’m telling you… the bunny will get ya!  I thought the guide was exaggerating but wow, we really had to padde hard to make it through.  We missed a rock by INCHES!  All I could think off was:  Plllleeeaaaze let’s not capsize!  As scary as it was, it was the most exciting time EVER! The funniest part is that after we got through, we looked behind us just in time to see the 2nd raft capsize. OMG… classic!  I’m glad I wasn’t in THAT raft

Tell me:  which story do you prefer? 

Oh… and if you like short stories, I highly recommend reading The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  Depending on the edition you buy, it’s about 96 pages with lots of pictures.  There are so many things I learn from it every time I read it.  The last time I browsed through it, I noticed that a lot of the themes in the book referred to our inability to get in touch with our inner desires and inner self.  As adults, we think too much and I believe that many Pick-Up Artists in training would benefit from the read.  I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the story any further so make sure to check it out.  If needed, I’m sure you can find online versions of the book that you can flip through like here, here or here. 

P.S.:  If you liked my previous How to Be Happy and Chanve Your Life post, my friend Drew (a Visual Communication Technology major from Bowling Green State University in Ohio) just created this neat one-page summary that you can print out.  Grab it and have fun!