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?

I am loving the comments I’ve been getting lately on my previous posts.  Thank you!  Reading about the reactions or thoughts you guys are having is always a pleasant and very personal experience for me.  From these comments, I stumbled upon a great post by Matt Savage.  He pondered if the lack of male role models gave rise to the Pick-Up Artists.  It really got me thinking, especially after I watched the video of Zan posted in that same article.

I think it’s true!  I look back and I look around me:  all the men (outside of the Seduction Community) who I consider to have healthy relationships with women have had some sort of personal male role model.  It could be their father, a close friend, their cousin, uncle or whoever… but they learned how to present themselves to women from them.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not implying that men who were raised primarily by their mothers aren’t successful with women, but they tend to have a less masculine demeanor to them (until they learn better).

I look at my own life experience and I can definitely relate.  I learned to be a social butterfly from both my Mom and Dad who were great in their own ways when interacting with people.  My Mom taught me the power of words.  She was more reserved and diplomatic.  My Dad taught me how to be interested in people and how to win debates.  He was more gung ho.  However, during my puberty years, the daily presence of my father was lacking as he was living in a different country for most of the year.  At the time, I was not comfortable or willing to talk girls with my Mom so I did not have any real guidance in that department.

Last week, my friend ”Pastiche“ of Houston sent me a video of of Alan Roger Currie being interviewed at the launch of his book “Mode One” in Chicago.  His directness towards women is a bit too extreme for my taste, but I definitely respect his approach of living unapologetically and setting the right expectations for people around you.  It really all comes down to this:  men need to learn to be “real” men.

When I read seduction related material, they call it:  being dominant, coming from a place of high value, not giving  yourself excuses for your sexual desires, being alpha, leading.  When I read business books, they talk about:  being a leader, being a motivator, having a plan, being decisive.  It’s all the same.  As a man, embrace your natural self.  What does that mean?

I feel that our world is becoming too politically correct.  Girls are taught to constantly express their independence and strength to prove they can be equal to men.  Boys are taught to suppress their natural competitive and more masculine urges out of tolerance for the other person and in order to avoid conflict.  I believe this is the real cause for the “terminal Nice Guy disease” that Eric “Disco” M. from PU101 wrote about. 

Suppressing your natural self is wrong.  Boys need to be taught how to control and use their masculinity with respect and care for others to create more meaning.  This is what Wayne “Juggler” Elise call “alpha nice.”  Look around you, the most amazing things are created out of tension and conflict.  The best sex comes from built-up sexual tension.  You don’t hear about great sex from the “Oh my God, he/she was so sweet” stories.  You want to see friction overcome in beautiful unison. 

We live in a world of contrast.  Without contrast, good means nothing, bad means nothing.  The best communicators use contrast in their speech (hint: use more contrast when talking about yourself or giving compliments).  Contrast is what makes things appealing.  Fashion revolves around how well we match contrast together.  World wars are when societies create their most lasting innovations. 

Is being masculine or feminine that important?

In terms of getting on with your life, not really.  Being masculine or feminine has no bearing on the kind of success you experience in life.  Being masculine or feminine is also very subjective to the individual.  However in dating, I have noticed that women respond better to a more masculine man, and men respond better to a more feminine woman.  I will proudly say it:  the more feminine a girl is, the more I am to notice her.  I love a girl who takes pride in being a woman (and yes, I am turned off by overly feministic and even overly submissive behavior).

I previously linked in my Random Tidbits post 2 articles on attractive walking patterns.  I can’t speak for all men but that’s really what I notice first in a woman.  I like to watch the way she carries herself.  No matter what shape, size or form, the more womanly she is with her demeanor, make-up (girls, please don’t go overboard with it.  Lipgloss is great though), fashion/clothing (yay to skirts!), hair… the more I am to take a double look on her.  And that’s even before I know anything about her!  Once I am interacting with her, I like it when she is cutesy.  I like it when she has a little bit of spunk to herself.  I like it when she allows me to lead and when she is responsive to my lead.

For guys:  how do I become more masculine?

According to Wikipedia’s article on masculinity, Janet Saltzman Chafetz describes 7 areas of traditional masculinity in Western culture:

1. Physical – virile, athletic, strong, brave. Unconcerned about appearance and aging;
2. Functional – breadwinner, provider;
3. Sexual – sexually aggressive, experienced. Single status acceptable;
4. Emotional – unemotional, stoic (think emotionally stable/strong);
5. Intellectual – logical, intellectual, rational, objective, practical,
6. Interpersonal – leader, dominating; disciplinarian; independent, individualistic (applies to western societies);
7. Other Personal Characteristics – success-oriented, ambitious; proud, egotistical (applies to some societies);  moral, trustworthy; decisive, competitive, uninhibited, adventurous.

So pick one… or two… or three from the list and work on them.  If you can display any of these traits, SOME women will feel attracted to you.  I personally feel that if your goal is to attract as many women as you can, you should be sexually and interpersonally masculine/dominant.

But if you have to blend all of these areas together, masculinity is best embodied by decisiveness.  I know it sounds very simple but decisiveness implies two things:  (1) knowing what you want and making a stand, AND (2)acting/following-through on your decision.

Hmmm… is there anything that I need to decide on today?