“When I’m not experience telling, I’m bullshitting. I’m making stuff up. I’m theorizing about something that I know nothing about.” – Everett Bogue¹

This post was meant to be about cheating. I’ve met several guys in recent months who seem to have no problem cheating on their girlfriends, and such behavior doesn’t sit right with me. I was going to get all high and mighty in this post, telling you how I’ve never cheated on a girlfriend, and giving reasons why I never would.

But then I realized, shit, I’ve never really been tested!

It’s not like I’ve had ladies chasing me my whole life, and I haven’t had all that many girlfriends. What if 21-year-old me had been in a relationship but out sans girlfriend at a bar one night. And what if a really hot stranger started flirting with me at that bar and offered up no-strings sport sex back at her place? Would I have been strong enough to say no?

As Mike Tyson once said, “Everybody has a plan ’til they get punched in the face.”

I’ve never been punched, so what do I really know?

As such and for now, I’ll hold back on sharing all my thoughts on cheating. I’m gradually getting to the point with romantic relationships where I do find myself with more options, where I expect I’d have ample opportunities to cheat when in a relationship. So let me see what that’s like for a while and then get back to you.

Experience Telling

Ev Bogue got me thinking about all this. He strives to only write about things that he has direct personal experience with. As quoted up top, anything written about that’s not from personal experience might as well be considered bullshit.

I’m going to disagree a little with that though, or perhaps I’m just elaborating. Regardless: I believe it’s important to distinguish between direct and indirect experience, and realize that both can be valuable.

For example, imagine a husband and wife going through a rough patch in their marriage. They figure it might help to talk things over with someone who has experience dealing with such issues. Who should they go to?

1. An elderly couple they know who have been happily married for forty years.
2. A local priest who has been doing marriage counseling for twenty years.

Not so long ago² I would have told you that #2 was a stupid idea. What would a priest know about romantic relationships? Assuming he was a good priest, he would never have had any direct experience with such, whereas the elderly couple would be able to speak from direct experience, and therefore their advice would be much more valuable.

Right?

Perhaps not. While the elderly couple could share their experience, it would only be one experience. Their strategy for maintaining a happy marriage probably wouldn’t work for a lot of other couples.

Meanwhile, the priest could draw on his twenty years of experience dealing with all kinds of people in all stages of marriage. He’d be able to recommend several strategies to resolve certain issues because he’d have seen countless other couples attempt to resolve similar. He’d know what’s likely to work, and what isn’t. His experience, while indirect, would still be very valuable.

Your take

So I could tell you what I think about cheating and why it sickens me, but I wouldn’t be writing from any kind of experience, direct nor indirect. I’m flying blind both ways, at least for now.

So this post isn’t really about cheating. Let’s not even tackle that issue in the comments. Instead, tell me what you think of experience telling. What do you do when someone asks for your advice in an area where you have neither direct nor indirect experience? Do you try offer a helpful response anyway? Do you think it’s possible to give good advice without ever having been through or exposed to relevant experiences yourself?

…

P.S. I just added footnote functionality to the blog (see below). Should help with reading flow while still providing additional info for whoever might be interested. Must give a shout out to Andrew Caldwell, since I stole the footnote idea from his blog

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

– via David Foster Wallace

Barney Trouble

A couple of years back I was friends with a guy not named Barney. He was a remarkably direct character, always speaking his mind and telling you in no uncertain terms what he thought of pretty much everything. I often found myself wincing in Barney’s presence, as he would regularly call me on some bullshit that I’d been believing, or some responsibility that I’d been neglecting.

I liked this about Barney. His unminced words helped keep me in check and identify issues I needed to work on. It was kind of like having my own personal Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, but with less references to my sexual inadequacies and resemblance to feces.

Eventually however, Barney’s friendship became too much to bear. I discovered that he didn’t much like it when I disagreed with some of his criticisms, or when I asked him to go a little easier on me so that I might properly address one issue before being informed of a half dozen more.

As it turned out, Barney so resented me standing up for myself that he called an end to our friendship altogether.

And at that moment, when I knew Barney was done with me and I wouldn’t be hearing from him again, a strange thing happened:

I felt free.

It hadn’t been obvious to me at all while we were friends, but now it quickly became apparent that Barney had been causing me a lot of stress. All that criticism combined with very little praise had been taking its toll. It was only afterwards that I could look back and realize that the tradeoff hadn’t been worth it.

For all the good Barney had done me with his helpful revelations, it was overshadowed by the negative impact his relentless criticism had had on my subconscious.

Now that he was out of my life, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. A weight I’d never even noticed before.

The Weight of Sexual Repression

This year I’ve been feeling the relief of another weight lifted, one I’d also been oblivious to for far too long. I guess you could call it the weight of sexual repression, and I suspect that far too many men are still carrying it around unknowingly.

This was the year in which I finally began to overcome my fear of attractive women and started interacting with them in a more fun and fulfilling way. I realize now that all those years of passing up such interactions had been taking a huge toll on me. Every time I saw an attractive woman and didn’t go talk to her, every time I gave into that irrational fear and added another tiny regret to my life, the weight grew larger.

And even though I wasn’t aware of this particular weight until recently, it’s obvious to me now how distracting it had become. Sexuality is massively important — humanity wouldn’t last long without it — and when it’s repressed repeatedly you’re left with a constant feeling of uneasiness, the impact of which doesn’t become fully apparent until you make it go away.

I’ve talked to many a chap in recent months about this kind of thing. And it’s depressing to hear so many of us making excuses about why we can’t just go strike up a conversation with a woman we find attractive, and let her know that we like the way the meat fits around her bones (preferably not using those words, obviously).

I used to be one of those guys. Full-time. And I also had myself convinced that it wasn’t plain old irrational fear that held me back. I would perform all sorts of mental hijinks to rationalize the bullshit my lizard brain was feeding me.

• I can’t go talk to her. That might be her boyfriend standing nearby.
• I can’t tell her I find her attractive. She’ll think I’m a pervert.
• I can’t go talk to her. I’m late for that thing that doesn’t matter.
• I can’t go flirt with her. It’s disrespectful to the girl from two weeks ago who never called me back.

It’s all fear in disguise, and every time we give into that fear the weight grows larger. We hate our cowardly selves a little more. The anxiety builds. We move one step closer to dying with dreams unfulfilled.

So here’s my advice to the guys reading…

If you’re not as good as you’d like to be with women, if your current sex life is not what you truly want it to be, if you regularly talk yourself out of interacting directly with the ladies you most want to interact with…

Get. It. Handled.

And by that I mean: Work on it.

Buddy up with other guys who’ve figured it out and learn from them. Read some books. Watch some videos. And above all: Get out there often and push yourself to interact with attractive women.

Trust me: This area of your life is really fucking important. Don’t ignore it. That weight will slowly crush you.

Weight Lifting

What other hidden weights might you be carrying? Which relationships are slowly draining you? What projects might be doing you more harm than good?

It can be hard to recognize these weights on your own, like a young fish who’s never known an alternative to water. You might want to get with a friend (preferably one better than Barney) and have them help you identify your blind spots.

Let me know how it goes.

Question everything, right? That’s one of the main messages I try to get across here at Disrupting the Rabblement. It doesn’t so much matter what everyone else is thinking, doing or believing. You need to figure out what thoughts, beliefs and actions work best for you.

One thing I often encourage people to question is their diet. Because if your eating habits have remained pretty constant all throughout your life, how can you be sure there’s not a better way of doing it? For all you know, your vehicle may well be running on inferior fuel. Test out some alternatives and in the end you might feel like you’ve upgraded from a Lada to a Lexus.

Many folks inevitably offer objections to such a suggestion. They just know that a vegetarian (or vegan, or raw food, or paleo, or whatever) diet isn’t for them. And I can’t help but respond…

Maybe, maybe not. But you’ll never know for sure until you try it.

I’ve always known though that there was a flaw with this response. It was open to a discomforting counter argument, one that I’d avoided thinking too much about. But I suspected that eventually someone would call me on it.

Well, eventually arrived earlier this week. I received an email from a reader. The gist of it…

Hey Niall,

I was thinking about how you do life experiments and how you are pretty open minded, and I have an interesting experiment for you:

Can you turn bisexual?

Are you straight simply because you’re not sexually attracted to guys, or is it because society has programmed you to only feel sexual attraction to women?

The easy answer to something like that would be to say, “Sorry, gay sex just ain’t my cup of tea.” But then you could turn my own prior words against me…

Maybe, maybe not. But you’ll never know for sure until you try it.

Damn you, integrity!

I’ve backed myself into a corner here. And so, in the name of leaving no stone unturned in this Question Everything philosophy, let’s go ahead and talk about gay things.

I’ll note first though that my thinking about all of this is still a work in progress. I haven’t come to any definite conclusions, and I’m in no hurry to do so. I’ll throw out what’s running through my mind, including a few contradictions, and I’d love to hear your take on it all in the comments.

Planet Swing

Imagine you were born on Planet Swing, located about a hundred billion light years from Earth in the Androgynous galaxy. On Planet Swing, humans are the dominant species. And those humans are just like you and me.

Except every single one of them is bisexual.

No matter your own gender, on Planet Swing you can choose to have sex with a man or a woman and it’s no big deal. Sex is sex. Orgasm is orgasm. Love is love.

Growing up on such a planet, do you think you’d be opposed to gay sex?

I suspect not. You’d be dating Harrys in between Sallys, just like everyone else.

Robot sex

I’ve been to gay bars before, mostly while in New Orleans. I’ve had guys hit on me. I even woke up that one time with a hairy hand down my pants.

That last one really freaked me out at the time. It just didn’t feel right.

But, I wonder, why didn’t it feel right? Was it because everything I identified with as a heterosexual man was suddenly being violated? What if I didn’t cling so closely to that identity? Maybe I could have had a good time that night if I’d been born on Planet Swing.

Some guys lock themselves in a room and use mechanical sex toys to get their rocks off. I can’t help but think: Isn’t it a little more strange doing it that way, getting your kicks from a robot, than it is from another human being, even if that human being has the same sexual organs as you?

I guess it’s all in the visualization.

Sorry, Brad

I’m comfortable admitting when a guy is good looking, but as yet I haven’t noticed any accompanying sexual urges when a tall, dark and handsome strides into the room.

I was hanging out with a random guy last Saturday in Budapest and he was like an Australian Brad Pitt. I found myself gravitating towards him, but not like I’d gravitate towards a beautiful woman. With Aussie Brad it was more like admiring a work of art. Besides his looks, I could also appreciate that he was a cool guy and had a strong sexual presence.

And yet he still failed to float my sexy boat. Not even a fathom.

The advantages of being bisexual

I have to admit though: I sometimes wish I was bisexual. As Billy Connolly once remarked, women need to feel loved to have sex, while men need to have sex to feel loved.

Something’s gotta give.

But if you’re a guy who’s into guys, then you’re already on the same page with the appropriate half of the population when it comes to sex. Same with girls who are into girls.

Barriers begone, let’s get it on!

Both of you are after the same thing. And you both know how to make each other feel good because you’ve been holed up with a same-sex brain and naughty bits since you hit your teens. I imagine it’s like tying someone else’s shoes.

And that’s just the advantage of being gay. Bisexual is even better because you always have more options. Whether it’s ladies night or a sausage fest at the local hot spot, you can go ahead and get your flirt on.

Nature vs. Nurture

The above begs the question: If you had the power to turn yourself bisexual, to just flip some hidden switch inside of you that would make you attracted to both sexes, would you do it?

Given the advantages, I’m pretty sure I would.

That said, I still find myself with a lot of resistance to trying anything sexual with men.

I’ve often joked that women are the number one reason I’m not gay. And that’s a pretty easy out for me here: Why would I ever want to have sex with a guy when there are women around?

But I wonder if this non-attraction to men is something hardwired within me, or is it just the result of growing up on a planet where same-sex couples are the norm? Is that heterosexual preference ingrained in my DNA, or just in my psyche?

As that reader/emailer suggested, I could probably find out for sure. I could experiment with flirting with guys, push through the initial discomfort of it all, and see if I eventually begin to feel any kind of sexual attraction to musk and stubble.

Maybe I will try an experiment like that some time, but at least for the foreseeable future I plan to keep my sexual focus on the female of the species.

And if I’m being completely honest, I have to admit that I’m leaning more towards the nature side of the argument. Methinks the resistance I feel towards dancing horizontally with another dude is less about fear and more about simply not having the genetic desire to do so.

The best comparable model I’ve come up with for this is introversion/extroversion. There’s a scale, just like there is with heterosexual/homosexual. And usually you’re stuck in the same place on that scale for life.

You might be shy when you’re a teenager but you can still be an extrovert underneath all that social anxiety. Likewise, you might only have heterosexual relationships until well into your twenties, before finally accepting that same sex relationships are more your thing. But your position on that scale would remain the same all along.

Two guys, one girl

One part of all this that really baffles me: I love the idea of having a threesome with two women, but I’m uncomfortable at the thought of having a threesome involving another guy. Even if the other guy would be completely heterosexual, the scenario still doesn’t appeal to me.

Why is that?

Is it a sense of inadequacy? Am I not confident enough in my own sexual prowess? Do I need to be the only guy in the room to perform?

(Jesus, I hope my mother doesn’t read all this. But in case she does, Happy Christmas!)

Your thoughts

I have more questions than answers above. And I’m okay with that. I’ve gotten comfortable with this whole uncertainty dealio, the shades of grey, the fuzzy nature of reality. It’s all good

Now I’m interested in your take. If you have anything to share related to these topics, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Let me start with this: Your typical guy in the online pick-up community likes to post “field reports,” describing in great detail how he fared while interacting with the opposite sex, rating girls based on their looks, and determining success or failure based on whether or not he got laid.

That’s not what this post is about. I’d rather keep it sleaze-free, and tell you more about what I learned than what I did.

I feel obliged though to give you an idea of how I got on during those two weeks, to at least provide some sort of answer to the question up there in the title. So…

First, a little backstory

I arrived in the Dutch capital on October 14th, one of the first stops on my round the world trip without flying. The plan for my stay in Amsterdam was to work on my flirting skills. I talked all about the motivation for this in a previous post, so go read that if you’re curious. Nutshell version: I don’t like those situations where I see someone attractive and I pass up the opportunity to connect with them because I don’t know what to say, or I don’t have the confidence to approach. That leads to countless little regrets, and I’d rather not sit back and accept them.

So my goal for the two weeks in Amsterdam was to go out and try flirt with at least five attractive women each day. It didn’t matter if I failed miserably. I just had to try.

To help with accountability, I made a deal with my Mastermind group: If I failed to make at least five approaches each day for the duration of those two weeks, I’d have to pay $40 to a charity of their choosing.

Now, $40 is a bit of a sting for me as I continue to work towards generating enough income to cover my expenses (see my latest finance report here). Even if the money would be going to charity, I didn’t want to fail the challenge and have to pay.

But there was also a second part to that deal with my Mastermind group. Because, really, approaching five attractive women a day isn’t that difficult. It takes only five minutes if you’re going for efficiency. But I didn’t just want to go piss off five attractive women each day. I actually wanted to get better at this flirting thing.

So the second part of the deal was that I had to get phone numbers from at least five attractive women over the course of the two weeks.

So, how did I do?

Well, that $40 is still mine. I easily hit my five-a-day target and in doing so I pretty much killed my approach anxiety. I found myself no longer caring what each girl thought of me, no longer trying to make an impression. I was just having fun with each interaction. Lots and lots of fun. As a result, in the final two days alone, I got phone numbers for five girls who I would have considered “out of my league” just two weeks earlier.

I remember one of my first approaches, when I stopped a girl to ask for directions before confessing that I really stopped her because I found her attractive. The words were like tar in my throat; they didn’t feel right and I was visibly uncomfortable saying them. The girl recoiled and quickly moved along. Fast-forward two weeks though and I had no problem getting such words out. They came packaged with a confident smile and strong eye contact, and the response was usually positive.

But enough bragging. I think you get the idea. What I’m saying is that, all in all, I’m well pleased with the progress I made.

Let me jump into a few lessons I’ve learned from all this experience…

The Pain Period

This is big, and it doesn’t just apply to flirting. If you want to become good at pretty much anything that’s far out of your comfort zone, far above your reach right now, you’re going to have to go through the pain period.

The pain period is that initial period of time where you really suck at what you’re doing, and every reptilian instinct is telling you to run away to some place safe and familiar.

“Retreat! Abandon the plan! It’s not worth it!”

Most people don’t live their dreams because they bow out during the pain period. They can’t see beyond it. The short term gratification and relief of quitting is more tempting to them than sticking it out and hopefully reaping the big rewards down the line.

But I have to tell you, as someone who pushes his comfort zone quite a bit and is no stranger to the pain period: Sticking it out is absolutely worth it. Even if you don’t end up getting exactly what you want, just growing familiar with that pain period and learning that you’ve got what it takes to make it through the gauntlet, that’s invaluable.

I went through the pain period in Amsterdam. Big time.

Out of those 100+ approaches, most of them were miserable, ugly, gut-wrenching affairs that I’d rather forget. Some girls shot me down right away. Others looked at me like I was something they’d just scraped from the heels of their new shoes. One night I was getting along great with a girl from Utrecht when a trio of beefy dudes cut in and took over for me. I felt completely powerless. There were nights where I really didn’t want to go out and try flirt, but I made myself do it anyway. I would make myself approach an attractive woman after getting blown out horribly by another just moments before.

Simply put, it was really fucking painful at times.

But you know what? I also had great moments. On four separate occasions I went directly from just meeting a girl to hanging out with her (and usually a friend or two) for a couple of hours. I started getting comfortable telling women that I found them attractive, making physical contact, and asking for numbers. I danced in the street with hot strangers just moments after meeting them. I made genuine connections with some really cool people.

And none of those highs would have been possible without the lows. To experience the payoff, I had to go through that pain period and keep my head held high.

Too many of us are hoping for the payoff without paying the price. We want that girl to like us without having to get rejected by dozens of others in advance. We want to know exactly how to approach a girl first time out, without being willing to screw it up a few times beforehand.

Those rare guys who are willing to endure the pain period? Methinks they’re the ones who win big in the end.

You’ll always have downs

Despite all the progress I made during those two weeks, I found it was still entirely possible for me to have terrible interactions, the kind that left me wondering if I’d actually made any progress at all. For example, my best night out was easily the final night of the experiment. But one of the first girls I approached that night shot me down within a split second. Not only that, but she started screaming for a friend to come over to her so I’d leave. As you can imagine, I felt like a complete asshole and quickly moved away.

But here’s the big difference: Two weeks earlier, such an incident would have ruined my whole night. I would have told myself that I was terrible with women and continued to have ugly interactions for the rest of the evening. But on that night, I found myself laughing off the incident within seconds, regaining my composure, and getting ready to approach someone else.

So here’s the takeaway from that: Even when you do get good at something, you’ll still have your moments of frustration, when you feel like you’re back to square one. But you’ll come to realize that such moments are exceptional. They’re not a reflection of who you truly are and how far you’ve come.

Accountability

I mentioned my Mastermind group already. If not for the goals I committed to with them, I doubt I would have pushed my edge so much during those two weeks, especially as regards asking for phone numbers. As noted, approaching attractive women is relatively easy. Not so easy to come away with their phone numbers though. That requires building rapport, actually flirting with the girl, showing genuine interest, and getting to a point where it’s not weird for her to give her number to a guy she just met.

And it’s so easy to not ask for that number. I can’t tell you how many times I left an interaction kicking myself because I chickened out and didn’t ask, even when I felt there was strong mutual interest. But with that goal set with my Mastermind group, and with that forfeit waiting if I didn’t deliver, I began forcing myself to ask. I didn’t really have a choice.

And it was hard at first. I sounded awkward and unsure of myself. I asked like I was apologizing, without any expectation of actually getting the girl’s number. But I kept asking. And then I got to the point where the asking became almost effortless, and I found myself with a bunch of new numbers in my phone.

It was only because I had some accountability that I made the extra effort. I knew I had to continuously push my edge, and doing so helped me take some big leaps.

Whatever it is that you’re working on, consider how you might add some accountability to the mix. Make the penalty sting a little bit, so there’s strong motivation for you to put in the extra effort and hit your targets. The consequence of failure shouldn’t just be, “Oh well, I’ll try again tomorrow.” That makes it way too tempting to back off and take it easy.

Get out of your own way

I thought when I got into this experiment that I might have to lie to women to a certain extent. What would they think of me if they knew I was going out trying to chat up women and work on my flirting skills? Well, as it turns out, in the majority of cases, it was no big deal. In fact, introducing that elephant led to some great discussions and deeper connections.

This reinforced my belief that if I’m comfortable addressing a certain topic, other people will generally be comfortable with it as well. The outside world is largely a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. If you’re cool with you, you’ll find that most other people will be, too.

When it came to flirting, I knew that my intentions were honorable. I didn’t have a sleazy agenda, I wasn’t trying to trick girls into sleeping with me. That made it much easier. My values and actions were in alignment. I didn’t have to adopt some fake persona to try impress anybody. I believed that the real me was enough. I just needed to get past the fear and anxiety and allow myself to connect.

My impression is that many guys who get into this pick-up stuff try to break it down to an exact science. They learn off lines and routines and rehearse proven responses to every possible situation they might find themselves in. Now I don’t believe that’s all bad. It helps to have some lines to fall back on when you get stuck for something to say. I personally have a few go-to routines I use when I feel the interaction is stalling a bit, or if I want to break the friendly rapport I’ve fallen into and ramp up the flirting.

I’ve found though that my best interactions usually involve the least amount of rehearsed material. They just flow naturally. There’s me being completely myself, immersed in the moment, not thinking about what to say next, not worried about her body language or where the interaction might lead.

So for any guys out there who might be having trouble connecting with the opposite sex, I’d encourage you to focus less on the external and more on the internal. Become your own best friend. Learn to enjoy your own company and trust yourself in social situations. Because, at the heart of it all, if you don’t believe that you’re a truly attractive person with good intentions, then you’re building on a foundation of rubble.

Going too far

I’ve written about having a fluid self concept before. I’m a big believer in allowing myself to go too far to see how far I can go.

As such, I got overly flirty with several women I approached, came on too strong and lost them immediately. I’m sure that if you folks heard a few of the things I said to girls during those two weeks, you’d probably think I was a sleazy pervert. And hey, maybe I was. But I was willing to play around with that, to don a different hat and see what the results were.

There were other times where I thought I was going too far, only to find that I could still push it further. The line wasn’t where I thought it was.

Consider whatever it is you’re working on. Where can you go overboard? Intentionally push it a little too far and see if that line is where you think it is.

There’s always another chance

Another lesson I drove home to myself with this experiment: You have an unlimited number of chances. If one girl rejects you, no worries, go talk to another. That first girl could have all kinds of shit going on. For all you know, her dad just died or her boyfriend just proposed. There are an endless amount of reasons she might not want to connect with you, and most of them are beyond your control.

Yes, some bad interactions will be your fault. Recognize them, learn from them, and try to do better in future. Forget about the others. Turn right around and go talk to someone else.

Immersion

If you want to make rapid progress at anything, immerse yourself. It’s painful, sure, just like ripping off a band-aid, but you improve soooo much faster.

I’ve often thought this with Toastmasters. Most clubs in Ireland only meet every two weeks and take a long break for the summer. Back in the Spring I met a guy who’d been in a Cork club for over a year, and he told me he’d completed only two speeches so far.

Two speeches in a year? How much are you really improving at that rate? By the time your next speech comes around, you’ll have forgotten everything you learned from the previous.

I much prefer going the immersion route. Mark off a few weeks or months where you can really dive into something. In the case of Toastmasters, that might mean joining multiple clubs so you can deliver a speech every week. In the case of flirting, it means going out every single day and interacting with attractive women. You build momentum and start to see patterns. It begins to click a lot faster.

Talk to everyone

Whenever I found myself struggling to make my first approach of the day (that was always the toughest one), I’d go and talk to somebody at random, like a group of guys or an elderly couple. I found that it didn’t really matter who I talked to; just interacting with another human being got me into a more social mindset. And that made it easier to then go talk with attractive women.

There were a couple of days where I met up with a friend in Amsterdam and we did the wingman thing. He was a nice guy, but also his own worst enemy in that he wouldn’t approach anyone who wasn’t an exquisitely gorgeous human of the female variety. And then when he did approach someone, he had it built up in his head as a really big deal. He’d just spent forty minutes walking around looking for that perfect girl, and now he had one shot to impress her. As you can imagine, his interactions didn’t go very well.

My advice to him was to be a people person, not just a hot-girl person. Every single person you see represents an opportunity to work on your social skills and develop a more outgoing frame of mind.

(P.S. I first heard this tip from my buddy Teodor, so a shout out to him.)

Know your ultimate goal

My ultimate goal with this flirting experiment wasn’t sex. I’m sure some pick-up gurus would scoff at my “success” over those two weeks. Where I got five phone numbers, they probably would have gotten laid five times. Good for them.

I simply wanted to get better at approaching and connecting with attractive women. Sometimes I found that I really wasn’t attracted to a girl after talking with her for a while. Personality wise, we just didn’t click. And so I’d bow out.

One evening I ended up hanging out with two shy Australian girls. And while I could have pushed it further with the one I found most attractive, I didn’t feel like it would have been a win-win. So I backed off, and focused more on chatting and connecting instead of flirting. It turned out to be one of my favorite interactions of the entire two weeks.

So if you’re a guy interested in doing this sort of thing, ask yourself what your goal is, and stay true to that. If you are just trying to get laid, good for you. But I’d still urge you to be upfront with your intentions and to strive for win-win.

Wrap up

I feel like I’m a different person after my few weeks in Amsterdam, after putting myself through that pain period. I’m now a lot less likely to see an attractive girl some day and pass up the opportunity to connect with her, staying put and cursing myself quietly for not having the confidence, for not knowing how to make that comfortable approach.

Yeah, I considered myself to be a fairly confident and self-assured guy before, but I left Amsterdam having leveled it up a few notches. I pushed my edge, learned a few important lessons, met some great people, and collected no regrets.

That’s living, right there.

Can’t see the video? Click here. Go on, I’ve got squirrels in this one.

This past Saturday in Wimbledon I met up with a guy named Greg. He regularly meets strangers for tea and a chat. We got talking about moments and connections, and how every single person you meet has the potential to change your life.

But most of us are terrified of talking to strangers, scared to open up. And it seems that the bigger the city, the bigger our fears and our walls become. Greg has left all that behind, by putting himself out there online, inviting strangers to meet for tea, having deep and meaningful conversations. He’s being the change he wants to see in the world.

One thing Greg said stuck with me.

I was telling him how I believed the whole “don’t talk to strangers” thing is good when you’re a kid, because it prevents weak and defenseless you from being taken advantage of. But Greg disagreed. His argument was that we should be teaching kids to talk to strangers effectively, helping them develop skills so they can judge for themselves who’s trustworthy and who’s not.

I like that idea. The ability to strike up a comfortable conversation with a stranger is a valuable skill, and one that the vast majority of us never work on. I believe that a few simple words, a brief and fleeting interaction, has the potential to change lives. In fact, many of us probably wouldn’t exist if not for people talking to strangers, as that’s likely how your parents or grandparents met, directly or indirectly, through someone taking a chance and extending that olive branch.

Working on it

This year, I’ve been consciously working at talking to strangers. As I’ve written about before, I used to be incredibly shy. I’ve overcome that to a large extent, able to talk to pretty much anyone about pretty much anything in social situations. But striking up a conversation with a stranger is another level altogether. That means spotting someone interesting, approaching them, and entering into easy conversation, without coming across like you have an agenda. It’s about building fast rapport and letting the other person know that you’re cool and trustworthy.

Getting better at this is all about practice. I try to talk to everybody. Young, old, black, white, doesn’t matter. This past weekend in London I must have struck up conversation with at least a dozen strangers. The beefy guy waiting outside the sushi place, the Indian lady at the smoothie stand, the three English girls on the train back from Wimbledon, the very angry man who didn’t like being asked for directions, two German girls outside a pub, several people at my hostel.

Sometimes I do well, sometimes I don’t. But I keep on trying. And I’ve gotten a lot better.

Flirting

This is a part of talking to strangers that I’m particularly interested in. For a long time I was the kind of guy who would see an attractive girl and not go talk to her. I didn’t have the skills or the confidence that I could strike up a comfortable conversation and give myself a solid chance to connect.

This has led to countless little regrets over the years.

Because every time you see someone attractive and decide not to go talk to them, you’re passing up what could be a great opportunity for you both, perhaps even the opportunity of a lifetime. For all you know, you could be a perfect match, but because you get scared and don’t know what to say or do to initiate conversation, the opportunity is lost and you’re left wondering what if.

After working consistently at talking to strangers for the past year, and regularly approaching girls I find attractive, I’ve gotten a lot better at it. I can now initiate conversation quite comfortably with most people, and I’m nowhere near as intimidated by physical beauty as I once was. The key for me has been to keep my mood light and playful, and not ask too many questions.

But I’m still at a sticking point with flirting. That’s something which doesn’t come at all naturally to me. I struggle to cross that line from friendly to flirty. Historically, a girl would have to make it very clear to me that she was interested before I’d make a move on her. I’ve never considered myself very assertive when it comes to making that move, and it’s something I’m working on.

Intention

There is an ever-growing “pick-up” community online, and books like The Game have inspired many young men to get out there and start talking to real women.

There is a sleazy side to it all, and I expect that, no matter what I write here, some people will paint me with the sleaze brush if I’m out and about trying to talk to girls. But for me, the key is in the intention. And my intention isn’t to sleep with as many girls as possible. I’m pretty open sexually and I’m not opposed to one night stands, but that’s not my motivation for experimenting with all this.

This is more about working on myself, another area of growth. Again, I don’t ever want to be in that situation where I see someone attractive and I pass up the opportunity to go talk to them because I don’t know what to say, or I don’t have the confidence to approach. I want to get to the point where I can easily go strike up a conversation with a woman without coming across any way creepy, build rapport and give the both of us a chance to see if we’re compatible, if we can have fun together and leave each other better off than before. Win-win, that’s my intention.

Instead of pick-up, I prefer to think of it as connection. I’m not trying to pick someone up. I’m trying to see if there’s the potential for deeper connection. I’m not trying to trick anyone. I’m not a big fan of pick up lines or acting completely different from how I normally would just to impress a girl.

This is about becoming a better, more attractive, more opportunistic version of myself.

The plan for Amsterdam

I have a few more days left in England, and should be in Amsterdam by the end of the week. I intend to stay there for a fortnight, hopefully get set up with an apartment. Methinks that will be the perfect city to work on my flirting skills, as I’ll be able to go out there pretty much every night. The goal will be to approach at least five attractive women (or groups of attractive women) each night, try to build some rapport and be flirtatious.

I’ll avoid approaching women standing in windows or on street corners

I’m willing to make mistakes and go a little too far with this to see how far I can go. It’s all about pushing my comfort zone and seeing what works. Remember, I believe in a fluid self-concept. “I’m just not a flirtatious person,” is a lame excuse in my book. I believe I can get good at flirting if I just work at it, and these two weeks in Amsterdam will be a good test for me.

Why I’m telling you this

Part of it is accountability (announcing my goals publicly has always worked well for me). But a bigger part is that I know there are some people reading this who know exactly what I mean when I mention “those countless little regrets.”

For too long I was the kind of guy who never really ended up with the girl he was most attracted to. I just didn’t know how to make that happen. But now I know that I can become that guy (I’ve already made made huge strides this year). And I want to put this out there for anyone else who is like that younger version of me. I don’t want you to pass up those opportunities either. I want you to be able to go talk to that hot girl in the park and come away with a date for the weekend.

And for the ladies reading this, I’d encourage you not to settle either. The same principle applies: If you see a guy you like, you should be able to go talk to him and give yourself a good chance to connect. You never know, he could be the love of your life, or just a good dude you have some really great sex with before going your separate ways.

Resources

I’ll leave you with a few bits and pieces I’ve come across online that I’ve found helpful…

1. Tynan was one of the guys featured in The Game, and I find his philosophy on this stuff fits well with my own. You can read all about how he became a famous pickup artist starting here.
2. Matt Ramos over at 30vanquish is on a mission to break free from social anxiety and regularly writes about his experiments striking up conversations with strangers, many of them of the attractive variety.
3. This is a lengthy video (almost two hours) of a chap named DJ Fuji, speaking all about “the core fundamentals of game.” I like him because he goes way beyond the shallow and gives advice on becoming a more attractive person, not just faking it to get your rocks off.
4. Finally, check out this channel over at YouTube. I like these guys because they demonstrate how much easier it is to connect with people when you go in with a playful attitude and forget about trying to impress them.

Your thoughts

I expect this post will get a mixed reaction, and I’ll probably lose a few readers. I’m cool with that. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and feel free to share any other non-sleazy resources that you’ve found helpful.

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My first romantic relationship happened back in 2004. I was 22 years old, spending six months working at a ski resort in Vermont, USA. I was just beginning to overcome my crippling shyness, and was delighted to find myself in a relationship with a beautiful Brazilian lady six years my senior. Let’s call her Izabel.

We both fell deep into the relationship and ended up living together for the final four of those six months. But there was trouble up ahead. Neither of us had an American green card. We couldn’t stay in Vermont forever. What would we do when May came and the ski resort shut down for the Summer? Would we figure out a way to stay together, or would we break up?

Long before May came, I had already made my decision. I wanted to go my own way after Vermont.

But I was scared to tell Izabel. She knew we needed to have that conversation, and even tried to start it a few times, but I resisted. I didn’t have the guts to tell her what would become of us. Neither did I flat-out lie to her or make any empty promises, but it was still a cowardly route I took.

Never having that conversation was very tough on Izabel. For her, there was no closure to the relationship. I returned to Ireland and started anew, diving back into college and getting on with my life. She stayed in the US and wondered if she still had a boyfriend. She would call me up every so often. I could hear the hurt and disappointment in her voice as she gradually came to accept that we were finished. She ended up resenting me and my cowardice for a while. I couldn’t blame her.

If I could do it all again

I was going to hurt Izabel either way. I didn’t want the relationship to continue beyond Vermont. We were destined to break up no matter what.

But I could have handled the whole situation much better. I could have lessened the hurt I caused.

If I could go back and live those final months again, I’d make myself sit down and tell her everything. We probably would have needed multiple sessions to talk everything out, and I know such conversations wouldn’t have been pretty. They would have been extremely uncomfortable and draining in the moment, but they would have been better for both of us in the long run.

I’m sure Izabel would have been pissed with me. It’s not like we would have had our talk and cleared the air and she would have accepted that our time together was coming to a close but said feck it, sure we’ll make the most of the time we have left.

No, there’s a good chance that she would have decided to end the relationship right then and there, months before I was due to leave, rather than risk getting even deeper into it and setting herself up for a harder fall.

I believe that’s the main reason why I avoided those conversations: I didn’t want her to leave me. I wanted to be the one leaving, when I was ready, on my terms. I realize now how cowardly and selfish I was. The right and courageous thing to do would have been to lay my cards on the table and let her make up her own mind about how to proceed. When to end the relationship was not my decision to make alone, a decision I made by avoiding those conversations. That was her decision as well. I had no right to take that away.

5 Tips for Courageous Conversations

If I could travel back in time and pull scared, 22-year-old me aside, I’d give him the following advice about courageous conversations…

1. Introduce that elephant

If there’s a topic of conversation that you’re avoiding because you’re scared of some awkwardness or pain or tears, know that you can’t run and hide from it. Instead, think of that resistance as a signpost. It points out the very thing you have to talk about.

Like all things that don’t put us in any physical danger or violate the rights of others, you should step towards your fear instead of away from it.

2. Remember it’s a two-way street

It’s important to remember that courageous conversations are a two-way street. You can’t talk about something if the other person isn’t also willing to talk about it. You can’t force people to have courageous conversations. Izabel tried in vain several times to have such a conversation with me, but I kept sidestepping. I wasn’t courageous enough for it. That was my shit, my problem, nothing more she could have done.

If you do find yourself in Izabel’s position, recognize that resistance as a red flag. If the other person isn’t willing to communicate, you either have to accept their silence and live with it respectfully, or you may want to consider taking drastic action. In Izabel’s case, I expect she would have better off in the long run is she had dumped my cowardly ass right then and there.

3. Seek first to understand

Know how to go about having such conversations. There are good and bad ways to broach subjects. Know how you’re going to get into it. If it’s something about a partner or housemate that especially grates on you, don’t open the conversation with loud accusations and finger-pointing. That’s not going to get you very far.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. A news reporter gave me a good lesson on this a few years back. She often had to get people talking about subjects they didn’t want to talk about. She wouldn’t run up to the congressman and ask him straight up, “How do you feel about your wife leaving you for a pool boy?” Instead, she’d ask something like, “Mr. Congressman, this must be a very difficult time for you, but I was hoping you could help me understand what you’re going through.” Effectively, what she was communicating was this: “Mr. Congressman, I want to know what it’s like to be you, to be in this situation. Let me walk in your shoes for a while, see the world through your eyes. I’d like to understand, to empathize.”

People open up when you introduce an elephant like that. They know you’re not looking to judge or poke fun, but simply to understand.

Tell the other person that you’d like to get their side of the story. Once you have that understanding, share how you’re feeling. You’ll have an easier time making yourself understood once you know where the other person is coming from.

4. Give it time

Courageous conversations are draining, and they’re rarely short. Don’t try to squeeze one in before the game comes on TV. You’re going to need some time and privacy so you and the other person can hash it out.

Take a break if you need one. Don’t expect to get everything resolved in one session. It often takes many conversations to get where you both need to go.

Don’t cling to an outcome of the other person hugging you and everything being resolved. You can’t force your way to that. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t. Don’t hold onto an image of you and your partner (romantic or otherwise) being all pally-pally by the time you’re done talking, a happy ending for all involved. Things may actually seem worse if you take the courageous path, at least in the short term. Judge the conversation on whether you spoke the truth and spoke it with the other person’s best interest at heart. That’s courage, even if the other person doesn’t immediately appreciate it or you feel down afterwards.

Remember, you’re aiming for long-term win-win, and your ego will likely have to suffer a few short-term blows to achieve that.

5. Stay caring

Even if some harsh words are spoken, try to keep the other person’s best interest at heart. Even if the other person attacks you or expresses resentment, be courageous. Don’t keep score. Let the petty things go. Absorb the blows and push caring back. Keep your heart open.

Yeah, I know this is very difficult. I’m certainly no master at it. Just because you know something in theory doesn’t make it easy in practice. That’s why we don’t all have chiseled physiques.

Just do the best you can. And next time, resolve to do even better.

…

To wrap this up, I should tell you that Izabel eventually moved on to another relationship and managed to forgive me my cowardice. We don’t keep in regular contact, but last I heard she was happily engaged to a legend of a man. I suspect he doesn’t shy away from those awkward conversations

Meanwhile, I’ve learned to be more courageous in my conversations over the years, with romantic partners and others. I still sometimes fail to introduce an elephant or two, but I keep taking small steps beyond my comfort zone and aiming for that long-term win-win. As a result, I find myself collecting less regrets.

…

A Course In Courage Update

If you checked out the behind-the-scenes report I posted a few weeks back, you’ll already know the backstory of A Course In Courage. I shut it down last month to do some restructuring, and I was hoping to have the newness launched today. That’s no longer happening, since I decided if I’m going to do this, I need to do it right, and that will require a little more time

The two big changes that I’m working on are a switch to a one-time payment system, and a public forum that even non-paying folks will have access to. The email series, challenge insights, courageous interviews, and other such goodies will be reserved for those who invest a few bucks.

Not to leave you hanging, I’ve decided to go ahead and have a pay-what-you-can presale. The launch price for the course will be $47, but for the next 48 hours you can go ahead and pay whatever you like via the button below. Once the course does launch later this month, I’ll email you with the info you need to access all the good stuff.

[UPDATE: The presale has ended. Yup yup.]

For those of you on the fence, head on over to this page to read a bit more about A Course In Courage and how it can rock your world.

Lastly, I’d really appreciate it if you could share this post via the buttons below.

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A friend once told me how she wanted nothing more out of life than to find a great partner and settle down. I asked her to tell me what her dream guy would be like. She listed off a few things. Among them: he’d have to be adventurous, and he’d have to believe in her.

When she was done, I asked her, as delicately as possible, why such a dreamboat would be interested in her?

She was kinda stumped by that.

I noted that my friend desired an adventurous man, but she wasn’t very adventurous herself. For the longest time she’d been longing to go to Africa and do some volunteer work but was terrified of leaving the cozy confines of her home town. She wanted a partner who believed in her, but it seemed she didn’t really believe in herself.

Call me crazy, but methinks my friend would have a much better chance of finding her dream guy if she stopped waiting for him to come along and save her from a mediocre life, and instead got busy chasing some adventure and building her character.

What do you look for in a partner?

List out a few things, then ask yourself if you’re worthy of such a person. Why would a guy or girl that fantastic be interested in you?

If you struggle with that question, I suggest you get busy living a bigger and better life. Then the answers come easy.

…

P.S. I wrote a lengthy article for the latest issue of Interesting Times Magazine, entitled 10 Ways to Obliterate Your Fears and Expand Your Comfort Zone. Download the mag for free and flip to page 42 to check it out.

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What defines the success of a romantic relationship? Does breaking up equate to failure?

I don’t think so. If you were to define a successful relationship as one that lasts forever and ever, until death do you and your other half part, then you’ll likely only have one successful relationship in your entire life. And that’s only if you get lucky.

To me, a successful relationship is one that both people get heaps of enjoyment from, and they both find themselves better off after than they were before. (Perhaps not immediately after, because break-ups are often rough. But that’s some of your best growth right there, confronting and dealing with that pain.)

In general, I think we humans have a better approach to business than we do to romance.

You can have many successful business ventures throughout your life. You can start a business, invest in it, work hard to build it up. You learn a bunch of valuable lessons and enjoy the journey. But maybe you get to a point where it’s no longer right for you. Perhaps it’s not generating enough revenue or you’re no longer finding fulfillment in the work. No big deal. You can decide to call it quits, before resentment sets in. You sever ties with the business, no hard feelings. Things had just run their course. Later, you move along to something more fulfilling.

Why can’t we do the same with romance?

You get into a relationship with someone, you both have great times together, but then you realize that it’s not meant to be forever, or your lives take you in different directions, you grow apart. No worries. You can both leave the relationship with mutual respect and best wishes.

It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, the end. You don’t have to hate each other’s guts before calling it quits. I’ve ended relationships before that had been going well. It just felt like the right thing to do, the right time to move on. I don’t consider those relationships failures. Far from it.

I believe failure only happens when we become attached to a specific outcome. Whether in business or romance, success shouldn’t be defined by the outcome, but rather by what we learn along the way, and the experiences/memories we’re left with.

Some people are out there waiting for the one perfect partner or the one perfect business opportunity, terrified of getting into something uncertain and risking failure. I say fuck that. It’s never going to be perfect, and it’s impossible to avoid that traditional definition of failure, no matter how picky you might be.

I say make the best of what’s presented to you, jump on those opportunities, and then aim to make the most of the experience. Learn all you can while you’re in it, then happily move along to whatever comes next.

That, to me, is success, whether in business or romance.

(Thanks to @StellaSzeto for the discussion that prompted this post. You should definitely follow her on the Tweet machine.)

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I realized something strange about myself a few months ago. At first I thought it was a bad thing, like I was missing a crucial part of my brain or something, but I’ve come to accept that it’s just who I am, and believe that it actually helps me be a happier person. Here it is…

I don’t miss people.

As in, when I’m away from friends and family, I don’t miss them. I’ve been in Spain now for almost two months, and except for a few brief moments of self-inflicted loneliness, I haven’t missed anyone from back home in Ireland, or from New Orleans (where I lived from 2007-2010).

This October I’ll be embarking on a three-year round-the-world trip without flying, and it’s likely I won’t see the majority of my family and friends for all that time. Will I miss them?

Nope, can’t imagine that I will.

Why do we miss people?

I believe we only miss people when we’re not enjoying the present moment. When we’re busy wishing someone else was around, we’re not exactly giving a vote of confidence to our current situation. It’s as if we’re saying, “Now sucks. It would be better if my buddy/sister/boyfriend was here.”

Funny thing is, when you’re busy missing people, you end up missing whatever’s happening right in front of you. And that usually includes a bunch of good stuff.

I choose not to fight the now. I choose not to resist the present moment. I do my best to focus on being fully present, enjoying new people and experiences, rather than pining for old ones.

If I find myself in a situation that truly does suck, I do what I can to change it. I see that as a vastly better course of action than wishing I was somewhere else.

Not missing people vs. not caring

Don’t confuse not missing people with not caring. Just because I don’t miss people doesn’t mean I don’t care about them. You can be my best friend and I won’t miss you while we’re apart, but next time we see each other I’ll be delighted. I’ll enjoy our time together as fully as I can.

And then I’ll move on to the next moment, with or without you.

I care about my parents, but I’m okay with the fact that I may not see them for three years while I’m off lapping the planet. As long as I know they’re happy and well, I’m all good.

But what if one of them died? Would I miss them then?

I think so. If I knew I’d never see a friend or family member again, that would upset me. But I’ve been lucky so far in that I’ve never had to deal with the sudden loss of a loved one. Nobody’s been taken away from me before old age.

Methinks it’s a whole different ballgame when it comes to death, because we never really know what comes after. I like to believe in an afterlife, in reincarnation (Deepak swayed me on that one), but there’s just no telling what happens when the blood stops, and I’m not willing to believe with any huge certainty that I’ll see people again on some other side.

So yeah, I would be upset if someone died and I never got a chance to see them again. But I see that as just another great reason why we should be living in the now and enjoying the present moments we have with people. Once those moments are over, move on and enjoy the next. Experience each now fully, leave nothing unsaid, collect no regrets.

Ebb and flow

People naturally come and go from your life, and that’s fine. It’s like that with one of my best friends. We drift in and out of each other’s lives, often going months at a time without contact. But when we are in each other’s company, we’re all there.

I’ve noticed though that we’ve grown more apart in recent years. Not because we don’t keep in regular contact, just naturally. That happens sometimes. I’m not going to fight it. Resistance is futile. Everything changes. That’s the transient nature of relationships. You can’t keep every relationship the same all the time. You have to accept the ebb and flow.

People will leave your life, new friends will come along, old friends will reappear… it’s all good. You roll with it.

That’s not to say you don’t make an effort to keep in contact with people. I touch base with certain friends every so often, make time to meet and catch up. But I only to do this when I want to, not because I feel obliged to.

Missing a romantic partner

I broke up with my most recent girlfriend a couple months ago. We got along brilliantly while we were together, but I was moving abroad, she was staying put, it was time to end it. I felt pretty low that last day. There were tears on both sides. Not much fun.

I allowed myself a little time to grieve, and then the next day I got right back to enjoying the present. I decided that the time me and my partner had had together was great, I enjoyed it all thoroughly while it lasted, but that time had now passed and it didn’t serve me to dwell on it.

I’ve thought about her many times since, but I can’t say that I’ve missed her.

This viewpoint can be tricky. I’m good with it personally, but try telling a girl that you’re not going to miss her when you’re apart. Not an easy thing for most people to hear.

If you take issue with this viewpoint, here’s a question for you: Do you really want your partner to be upset when you’re apart? Would it make you feel good if they were unhappy without you?

If your answer is yes, it sounds to me like your love for that person is totally conditional. You only want them to be happy in your presence. You only love them for what they can give to you, not for who they are.

The flip side

Since I don’t miss people and have come to believe it’s perfectly fine not to, I’d be a wee bit of a hypocrite to expect others to miss me when I’m not around. Luckily, I don’t. I want people to enjoy my company, sure, but I don’t want them to feel any sadness in my absence. Why would I wish that on anyone?

Yes, I love for people to remember me fondly when I’m away, but not at the expense of their present. I think of all the things they’re likely to miss out on if they’re busy missing me. No thanks.

Please be happy when I’m gone.

…

Methinks this is unlikely to be a popular viewpoint. That’s okay. I just wanted to write my truth. This is who I am. I’m a guy who doesn’t miss people. I enjoy experiences and moments, and I try to live in the present. I’ve accepted myself for that. I feel no urge to change it.

Not that I’m some master at living with present moment awareness. Not by a long shot. I still sometimes worry, still sometimes reminisce. That’s okay. I just keep trying my best to remain in the present. Methinks I’m getting better at it.

What’s your take?

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I’ve a confession to make: I’m a very selfish person. But then, so are you. And so is everyone else.

I’ll explain…

When you volunteer some Saturday evening to help feed the homeless, you’re being selfish. You come away feeling like you’re a good person, that you’ve helped others less fortunate than you. You love feeling like that.

When you give up your career to stay home and raise the kids, you’re being selfish. You want your niños to get the best start in life, because that will reflect nicely on you as a parent. You’ll feel good about yourself knowing the worthy sacrifices you made, and you expect your kids will someday appreciate all you’ve done for them.

When you choose freely to become a nun or a priest, you’re being selfish. You’re convinced that such a vocation is your best bet for living a joyous life. You enjoy the self-discipline, the giving of yourself to God, and being surrounded by other people who feel the same way.

Yup, ’tis true

Any time you do something that’s in line with your values, you’re being selfish. There’s no way around it. You might not get any instant gratification from doing these things — in fact, you’ll probably suffer a little — but in the long run, you expect you’ll be left reaping the rewards.

Smart selfish vs. stupid selfish

Given all of the above, you shouldn’t even waste your time trying to be unselfish. It’s an impossible goal. Instead, learn to distinguish between what M. Scott Peck (affiliate link) calls the path of smart selfishness and the path of stupid selfishness.

Peck describes it like so:

The path of stupid selfishness is trying to avoid all pain. The path of smart selfishness is trying to discern which pain or suffering, particularly emotional suffering, is constructive and which is unconstructive.

Stupid selfish me

I wrote in the Course In Courage email series about how I failed my first girlfriend. To make a long story short, I avoided all talk of our impending break-up and just let the relationship fade out. I was trying to avoid all pain, and it actually worked pretty good… at least for me. But my ex was left frustrated and heartbroken. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I realized what an ass I’d been.

Smart selfish in that situation would have been to sit down and talk things out. Sure, there would still have been tears and pain and hurt feelings to deal with, but it would have been the constructive thing to do. We both could have moved on a lot easier had I not been so stupid.

Getting smarter

I’m pretty selfish here in Spain right now.

I guard my time closely as I work hard to generate some sustainable income. Nobody here gets why I’m spending 50-60 hours per week in front of the computer, especially when I have no boss to answer to. I’m the strange Irish guy who goes to bed early and turns down party invites.

But I’m trying to do the smart thing here. I know what my goals are and what I’m working towards. There’s some pain and sacrifice involved, but it’s of the constructive variety, geared towards setting me up for my daring adventure.

How are you selfish?

Are you on the smart or stupid path? Think about your motivations for doing what you do. Are you trying to avoid all pain, or do you find yourself taking on some suffering for your long-term benefit?