THE SOVEREIGN

MAN

James Maverick
First Electronic Edition, October 2014

Copyright 2014 James Maverick

All rights reserved.

http://www.mavericktraveler.com
 CONTENTS

Introduction
I - Value
II - Time
III - Standards
IV - Interviewer
V - Entitlement
VI - Confidence
VII - Confrontation
VIII - Presence
IX - Nonchalant
X - Kingdom
Conclusion
 INTRODUCTION

The year 2011 was a pivotal year in my

life. I had just finished a blitzkrieg through
Europe, visiting over 20 countries in a span
of several months. It was a nice introduction
to a new continent, one that I wanted to dis-
cover and explore for a very long time. The
timing also couldnt have been better: after
five years of living in Latin America, I was
burned out and ready for a change.
As I was wrapping up my European ad-
ventures in Ukraine, I ended up chatting
with a very cute and friendly girl on an
overnight train. Before we parted ways, I got
her number and we made plans to see each
other again. I called her a couple of days
later. We met up and walked around the city.
The next day I flew to Croatia to meet an old
 6/411

friend, where I planned to spend few weeks

before returning to Ukraine. While I was
traveling, the girl and I kept in close touch.
We constantly emailed each other, with her
sending me pictures from her trip to Turkey,
and me sending her pictures from the beauti-
ful colonial Croatian towns. She truly seemed
enthusiastic to see me, and the feeling was
mutual. In fact, we made plans to meet up on
the day of my return. Once I landed in
Ukraine, I could sense her excitement from
the number of smileys in her reply to my
hello text. Assuming that her enthusiasm
would translate into a quick date, I asked her
to get a drink later that night. After several
minutes of thinking, she replied that she was
busy that evening but would be free in a
couple of days, on Thursday. The long reply
coupled with her inability to meet me the
same night naturally raised a couple of red
flags in my mind, but I shrugged them all off.
I agreed to reschedule, and eagerly waited
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for Thursday to arrive. On Thursday she in-

formed that she was busy and couldnt meet.
We rescheduled for Saturday. Saturday came
and she was still busy. This happened again
on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Although I was naturally frustrated, I
was even more stumped because unlike the
previous situations where a girl either out-
right rejected me or readily wanted to see
me, things with this girl werent as black and
white. She was responsive, always answering
my emails and texts in a speedy manner. Th-
ings always seemed very promising, but
every time we were set to meet, she was un-
available for one flimsy reason or another.
Something was definitely off, but I just
couldnt put my finger on it. All I knew was
that I was putting in more energy into the in-
teraction than she was. I was initiating con-
tact. I was arranging dates. After she flaked
once more, I stopped contacting her. And
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just like that she completely disappeared

from my life.
I moved on but kept the experience in
the back of my mind. I wanted to understand
what exactly had happened so I could pre-
vent it in the future. I was frustrated that it
didnt work out, but what really kept me up
at night was my inability to persuade her to
see me. I felt completely powerless and des-
perate. Even though she was energetically
replying to my messages and communicating
with me, no amount of convincing could get
her out of the house and into the bar.

I returned to America for the winter but

flew back to Europe in the spring. This time I
moved to the beautiful city of Barcelona,
Spain, where I decided to set up camp and
work on my startup. For several months pre-
viously I had been thinking building a specif-
ic web application, and since I had the pro-
gramming knowledge, I was able to build it
relatively quickly. Six weeks later the app
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was finished. All I now needed were visitors

and customers, but since I was a firm believ-
er in the if you build it, they will come
methodology, I wasnt worried at all. Expect-
ing a barrage of customers to begin using my
service, I enthusiastically launched the app
to the world.
Nothing happened. My launch was
greeted with a silence so deafening that I
even checked multiple times if my website
was available and accessible to the world.
Refusing to give up, I tried all kinds of mar-
keting and advertising. I received a trickle of
customers and made a bit of money, but the
amount I earned was a cruel joke compared
to the amount of time I had worked on the
project day in and day out. Although it was a
brutal disappointment, I refused to give up. I
kept adding features and refining the app,
but none of that seemed to make much of a
difference. In fact, nothing I did seemed to
work at all. It soon became obvious that
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continuing to work on the application was a

complete waste of my time. It was a tough
break because I had spent so much time
building something and wasnt rewarded for
it. Once again, I felt not only frustrated but
also confused.
At first glance, both of these situ-
ationsthe girl flaking and the business fail-
ingseemed completely unrelated. The only
connection between them was that I couldnt
figure out why both of these things, which
were destined to succeed and seemed so
close at hand, had failed. I couldnt figure out
why a project with a great idea flopped. Sim-
ilarly, I couldnt fathom why a girl who was
being super responsive, an obvious sign of
attraction, just couldnt make the seemingly
minor step and meet me in the bar that was
only fifteen minutes from her house. None of
these things made any sense.
Another common factor was that in both
situations I was expending increasingly more
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energy as time went on without being rewar-

ded for it. I worked hard on the project and
spent lots of time attracting customers, but
when I launched it, no one came. I spent lots
of energy trying to arrange the dates with the
girl by yielding to her schedule and rearran-
ging mine, but she kept declining. In both
cases, I put in 90% of the work while the oth-
er party contributed only about 10%. So-
mething was definitely wrong.
I discovered an important clue six
months later during one of my trips back to
New York. One of my good friends whom I
hadn't seen for a long time invited me out for
a drink. We sat down and after quickly catch-
ing up, I started telling him about my two
major failures that had recently taken place,
and how it was a riddle that my brain had
worked cathartically to solve in the back-
ground for the entire time since. My friend
listened patiently. After I finished, he took a
slow sip of his beer and stared out the
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window. I followed his gaze by admiring the

beautiful spring day outside. Maybe no one
wanted your product, my friend shrugged,
still looking out the window. "I'm talking
about the business side. I really don't know
why that girl didn't want to meet you," he
clarified his explanation.
Nobody wanted my product. There was
no demand. I thought to myself as I sipped
my beer. I mulled over that thought for a few
moments, letting it sink in.
Over the ensuing weeks and months, I
gradually realized that my friend was abso-
lutely right. And he wasn't just right about
the product I builtnobody did want itbut
it also explained why the girl continuously
refused to see me. The problem was demand,
or, more accurately, the lack of it. My project
failed because there was absolutely no mar-
ket for what I was selling. Similarly, the girl
didnt want to meet me because she just
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wasnt interested in me enough to leave her

house and meet me in a bar.
As I kept thinking more about what de-
mand really meant, I immediately pictured
one of those hole in the wall restaurants.
Such a restaurant doesnt have a glitzy store-
front or an aesthetically designed interior,
but for one reason or another its always
filled with hungry people. Its not even un-
usual to find a line of customers stretching
around the block. The reasons for the res-
taurants success arent hard to understand:
when people are hungry, they go to the res-
taurant. They like the tasty food. They tell
their friends about it. Then when their
friends are hungry, they also go to the res-
taurant. This model works in complete con-
trast to other restaurants that go out of busi-
ness despite spending lots of money on
flashy fliers and other advertising.
The more I thought about it, the more I
began focusing on what the restaurant didn't
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do. They didnt buy expensive advertising.

They didnt bribe customers with discounts
and coupons. They didnt hire a guy with a
big sign to stand outside and lure people into
entering. They didnt build a huge and spa-
cious interior. They didnt hire a gorgeous
hostess or cute waitresses. Even though the
restaurant lacked all these things, people still
came in and surrendered their money in ex-
change for food, time after time. I found that
to be nothing short of fascinating. Why did
people voluntarily surrender their hard-
earned money without any prodding? Why
were the customers actually doing
something, while the owners of the restaur-
ant didnt do anything (except provide tasty
food)? I wrestled with that problem for sev-
eral months before finally being hit by an
epiphany: if what youre selling is in de-
mand, you dont have to do much at all:
people will always find a way to obtain it.
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Although that certainly explained my

current dilemmas, I was wondering if thats
how things had been in the past as well. For
that I needed to study my previous relation-
ships. And the more I studied them, the
more I noticed a pattern forming: every rela-
tionship that I ever had seemed to fall in one
of two groups.
The first group consisted of the relation-
ships that worked out for one reason or an-
other, regardless of how the initial approach
and follow-up went. They worked out even if
I screwed up a couple of times (provided my
errors werent catastrophic). The women
would initiate contact if I didnt contact them
for some time. They were always ready to
hang out. The women from out of town
would even visit me, and those that couldnt
would anxiously wait for me in the airport.
In this group, it was obvious that the girls
really liked me and wanted to spend time
with me.
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Then there were the relationships that

always failed, regardless of how much I
wanted them to succeed. On the one ex-
treme, there were the girls who would simply
flake. I would get their numbers but, no mat-
ter how many times I contacted them, I
would never see them again. On the other ex-
treme, there were the girls who were super
responsive and even willing to meet up a
couple of times. They would have no prob-
lems initiating contact and we would
promptly schedule a date. But then they
would suddenly flake while providing fishy
excuses. The Ukrainian girl was one of those.
Even after the initial couple of broken dates
we still communicated as frequently as be-
fore, but at some point she wouldnt meet me
for any reason. I can understand a girl never
responding to your calls, but what drove me
absolutely crazy was when a girl was ex-
tremely responsive but kept making endless
excuses when it was time to actually meet.
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This dichotomy wasnt limited only to

women, since I could recall similar experi-
ences with my male friends and acquaint-
ances. The first type were the guys who were
always ready to do something, whether it
was going out to a club on a Friday night or
traveling to Brazil for a month. They didnt
require any convincing. Then there were the
guys who would make all kinds of excuses
when asked to do the most trivial things.
They initially seemed highly interested, but
when the time came to actually commit to
and proceed with the action, they would back
down, all while mumbling a series of pathetic
excuses.
That theory of demand continued to val-
idate itself in the future, after both of my
previous dismal failures turned into runaway
successes. For my next project, I spent lots of
time carefully designing and building a
product that people actually needed and
wanted. As a result, on launch day people
 18/411

were beating down my door to buy it. Later

on, I also met women that were willing to see
me and make time for me with very little
convincing on my side; in fact, most of the
time they were persuading me to see them,
instead of the other way around.
The realization that there existed this
powerful effect of desire was a watershed
moment in my life, forcing me to relentlessly
scrutinize and restructure everything I
thought I knew about life and relationships. I
realized that a lot of my energy was being
spent on useless things, things that wouldnt
make any difference whatsoever in anyones
life. Despite spending a good chunk of my
life working on my first product, I couldnt
even physically force people to use it. In the
case of that Ukrainian girl, I was the product
and she simply wasnt buying.
But when there's interest and desire,
everything changes. I once met a nice girl
during a trip to San Diego. After returning to
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New York, there was rarely a period of two

days where she didnt contact me and ask
when I was coming back. Then there was a
girl I met in Mexico, who was anxiously wait-
ing for me at the airport when I returned for
the second time six months later. These girls
behaved very differently from the flaky
Ukrainian girl. They were always available to
hang out at a moments notice. All I had to
do was ask. In fact, one day, while I was sit-
ting in my New York apartment, I remember
joking with the Mexican girl over Skype that
we should get drunk in her favorite bar in
Mexico City that night. She smiled and
replied, Ill see you there. Thats how easy
it was. I didn't have to beg, plead or cajole
the California girl to see me. I didn't have to
ask the Mexican girl to meet me at the air-
port. Both of them wanted to see me, so they
made it happen. They spoke with their ac-
tions instead of muttering flimsy promises
and excuses. There were no games
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whatsoever. All I had to do was state a time

and place and they would eagerly show up.
This principle reminds me of the time I
was helping a friend set up a website. One of
the last things my friend wanted to do was
place a Twitter link on his page so that oth-
ers could subscribe to his feed. He asked me
where I thought he should put it, and I
replied, I think you can put it anywhere, but
you can also leave it out. If people like what
you write, they'll search for it and find it. Or,
failing that, theyll just email you and ask you
personally. Thats precisely what I would do
and have done many times in my past: if I
wanted to know something, I searched for it.
I expended inordinate amounts of energy to
follow my interests and passions. Interest
forced me to do it. Desire makes things easy.
Interest and desire are the driving forces be-
hind every successful human interaction.
When there's desire, people will go the extra
step to satisfy their wants and needs. But
 21/411

when youre trying to prod someone to do

something and theyre just not interested,
frustration ensues.
That led me to make two of my lifes
most crucial realizations. First, I realized
that I couldnt convince people to do
something that they didn't want to do in the
first place. I cannot seduce a woman if she
refuses to meet me at a bar. I cannot per-
suade my friend to go with me to Brazil if he
would hate giving up his safe and predictable
life in America for two weeks.
That presented me with another puzzle:
if I cant convince someone to do something,
then how can I get what I want? How can I
seduce that beautiful girl? Since I cant make
a girl do something that she doesnt want to
do, my only option would be to find the ones
who were already interested in who I was as
a man. But for them to be interested, I
needed to be interesting. I needed to provide
value. My second realization was that I
 22/411

needed to be desirable. That didnt mean be-

ing desirable to a specific girl. Actually, I
needed to forget about women altogether
and become desirable as a manindepend-
ent of some specific girls whims and in-
terests. I knew that becoming a more desir-
able man would translate to greater attrac-
tion from a wider array of women. Thats a
much more optimal solution than trying to
win a specific girls approval.
Seduction isnt so much about tricking
women who dont care about me into meet-
ing me in bars; seduction is about following
up with those women whove already demon-
strated some interest. Its only when theres
an initial spark that you can really seduce a
woman, since it is a method of communica-
tion and communicating with an unwilling
partner is impossible. Theres an enormous
difference when someone is interested in you
initially, even vaguely, compared to when
someone couldnt care less about you. The
 23/411

key to generating that interest is to be

desirable.
But this line of thought gave rise to yet
another question: just how does one become
more desirable? I wasnt exactly sure, but I
knew that instead of trying to figure this out
myself, which was all but an impossible task,
I needed to learn these skills from men who
were already desirable. I knew that they exis-
ted, and all I had to do was find them and
learn the secrets to their success.

Naturals
Fortunately, I didnt have to look very
far. Ever since I had left America to travel
and live, I had been surrounded by such
men. During my travels, Ive met many high
value men such as businessmen, executives,
writers, artists, expats, marketers, club own-
ers, etc. They came from all corners of the
globe: Mexico, Argentina, Italy, Sweden,
Russia and Iran. Unlike my friends back
home, who all possessed ordinary 9-5 lives
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and thought and acted the same, these new

people I met were from diverse backgrounds
and experiences. We lived together. We hung
out. We went out. I picked their brains about
various topics. They taught me about life and
deeply influenced my understanding of the
world.
What made them stand out is that these
men had the confidence and balls to go and
get what they wanted. To them, the world
was like a huge tree with lots of ripe fruit just
ready for the taking. They had the determin-
ation to travel, start various businesses, and
craft their lifestyles to their own specifica-
tions, instead of relying on what was
normal to everyone else. Its no secret
which men I admired and respected. Its also
no secret which men I began to model my
life after. In Brazil, I moved in with a young
Mexican expat who took a great job oppor-
tunity to leave his homeland and start a new
life in Brazil. It was his fifth year in the
 25/411

country and he took me under his wing,

showing me the way of life in this tropical
land. Through him, I met other expats, guys
from all over the world. Some of them moved
because their companies opened new offices,
while others quit their jobs and started new
businesses. There was also an array of great
men whom I met via the blog. They deeply
connected with my writing and reached out
to me to share their experience and get ad-
vice on some of the things I had been doing.
Seeing them achieve greatness motivated me
to also reach new heights.
Being surrounded by all these remark-
able men made me feel like I suddenly dis-
covered a brave new world, a parallel uni-
verse where men made their money as a res-
ult of their own labor, traveled the world,
and lived life on their own terms. They
shattered pre-existing stereotypes of the typ-
ical go to school, go to university to get a de-
gree, get a job, marry, start a family
 26/411

lifestyle. This truly opened my eyes to a

world of seemingly limitless opportunities.
Of course, not all of these men were road
junkies who permanently roamed the world;
many of them were highly educated with ad-
vanced degrees. Some were even married
and had kids. But none of them embraced
some cookie-cutter lifestyle propagated by
their mindless peers. What made them dif-
ferent was their independent way of thinking
and living. They questioned everything and
believed nothing until theyd seen it,
touched, heard it, smelled it, or tasted it
themselves. Being so open minded allowed
them to go to places and see things that few
other men ever dared to do.
During all this time I was also rounding
out my knowledge by constantly reading and
rereading inspiring biographies and autobio-
graphies of great men. These men dedicated
their lives to all kinds of major causes: polit-
ical ambitions, business leadership, and
 27/411

pretty much everything in between. I needed

to get inside the heads of these great men to
understand what they valued most in life. I
wanted to know the secrets to their success.
Life is what you make of it, an Italian expat
in Colombia once told me while we were hav-
ing a beer in one of Bogots open bars. He
was more right than he ever knew.
What did all these guys have in com-
mon? They were all confident and high value
men. They had charisma. They were ex-
tremely persistent in getting what they
wanted. They valued their time and used it to
their advantage. They didnt wait for things
to come to them, and instead went and
grabbed what they wanted, never hesitating
to carve out their piece of the pie (in fact, as
you will see later, one of my good friends fa-
vorite expressions was to take whats
mine). They had a certain swagger when
they walked around town and interacted
with others. Most of these actions were
 28/411

purely on a subconscious level, since the men

were true naturals. And the women? For
these guys, the women were never the ulti-
mate goal. Sure they enjoyed going out and
getting laid, but these were mere distractions
on the periphery to their grandiose dreams
and ambitions. The women naturally knew
this and gravitated to them. And if they
didnt, it was their loss. I doubt any of these
guys would shed a tear if they were rejected.
As far as they were concerned, when
someone flaked and didnt honor a
previously agreed-upon arrangement, it was
always someone else who had missed an op-
portunity to bask in the company of someone
great.
I greatly admired and respected these
men. But I also wanted to understand how
they had become this way. I wanted to un-
derstand what made them tick. I wanted to
understand what gave them the seemingly
omnipotent confidence and self-assurance. I
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wanted to learn this so that I could mimic

them and apply their knowledge and experi-
ence into improving myself.
As I sat in the living room of my tiny
apartment in Vilnius, Lithuania and began
thinking about all of my experience living,
hanging out, and going out with these sover-
eign men, it seemed like an insurmountable
task. How would I be able to take all the ex-
perience and memories, break them down
into easily digestible chunks, and put them
on paper? It was at that moment that I felt
completely overwhelmed and even recon-
sidered embarking on this overambitious
task. I took a deep breath and looked out the
window. It was a typical cloudy day in this
Baltic capital. Suddenly, a bunch of memor-
ies began rushing in. I turned back to my
laptops screen and began writing the first
sentence. Gradually, things started to come
together and a clearer picture took form.
James Maverick, October 2014
 I

VALUE

Try not to become a man of success.

Rather become a man of value.
Albert Einstein

When I lived in Rio de Janeiro, my

roommates and I had a weekly poker game
every Thursday. Since I knew more foreign-
ers than my other roommates, I invited most
of the players. When I thought of people to
invite, the first ones that always came to
mind were cool and interesting people.
People with stories. People with experience.
People who added something to the game
besides their buy-in fee.
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My weekends were mostly spent at the

bars and clubs trying my luck with the gor-
geous and sexy Brazilian women. While I
didn't mind going out alone, I usually pre-
ferred to go out with a friend or two. My best
wingmen ended up being a Brazilian busi-
nessman, an Argentinian artist, and an Itali-
an expat. Choosing these partners in crime
wasnt an accident. These guys were cool, in-
teresting, fun, and confident. I knew that
their presence meant my night would always
be a blast. Oh, and there would be never a
problem attracting a cute girl or two.
As humans, we are social beings, and, in
order to survive, we must constantly interact
with others as opposed to being in perpetual
isolation. Usually we do this because we
want or need something from them. We
could be seeking vital knowledge or informa-
tion, trying to sell them something we have,
or attempting to buy something of theirs. Al-
though we must interact with others, we
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dont approach people in a random fashion;

we only approach those that have something
we need. We approach those people who
have value. Although you may not be con-
sciously aware of it, thats the main reason
you might call your super outgoing friend
Jake to hang out with you on a Friday night
and not Michael, whos mostly a hermit and
never leaves the house to talk to women.
Thats also the reason why you might cancel
on Jake and spend an evening with Bruce
studying physics when you have a physics ex-
am the following week.
Think of value as the price of your per-
sonal share in the human stock market. Just
like theres a stock market with shares of dif-
ferent companies that go up or down based
on the supply and demand, the same applies
to different people. The higher someones
value, the more you need that person to help
you achieve a particular objective. When
someone has value that person is in demand
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by others. He can influence others. He knows

people. He has traveled to distant places. He
has access to important information. He has
done cool and interesting things. Ultimately,
he or she can provide to you what you want.
These people can help you either directly or
indirectly by pointing you to one of their
contacts, someone of similar value who can
help you to achieve your goal. Even if you
were busy doing something important, you
would be hard-pressed to skip a meeting if a
person whom you find valuable suddenly
gave you a call and invited you to lunch. As
to what kind of value, that purely depends on
whats valuable to you. If you were looking to
meet women, then a guy who can introduce
you to beautiful women is valuable. If you
were looking to get a job, then a guy whos
hiring for a well-paying position is valuable.
If you were looking to start a business, then a
business advisor or an investor who could
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furnish the startup funds would be un-

doubtedly valuable.
Many adjectives can be used to describe
people who possess value, but there are two
adjectives that always first come to mind:
cool and interesting. Theyre cool and inter-
esting because they take risk and do things
that others wouldnt dare, things that are
usually terrifying and fraught with risk for
the average man. These may include travel-
ing to exotic destinations, starting busi-
nesses, approaching women, or anything else
that sets them apart from others who only
follow the herd. Maybe they like the out-
doors so they spend their time hiking the
tallest mountains. Maybe they like extreme
sports, so they spend their time skydiving or
doing triathlons. Maybe they work as war
journalists, traveling the globe and reporting
from conflict-ridden areas. This sets these
men apart from their peers who have ordin-
ary lives by working for the man 9-5, five
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days a week. And when they meet others and

offer a peek into their lives, people naturally
find them cool and interesting. Since these
people have value, they naturally pull others
to them because people with less exciting
lives are drawn to others with more exciting
lives and experience.
The people who I invited for our weekly
poker game in Brazil exhibited these qualit-
ies. There was Sam, a fun guy who was born
in Iran but had grown up in Sweden. There
was Doug, a BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) black
belt from Scotland with a million stories
from his world travels. There was Cesar, a
cool Brazilian guy who had built several
businesses in the US before moving back to
Brazil. There was also Carlos, my Mexican
roommate and confidant. And in exchange
for coming to our house and playing poker,
they rewarded us with interesting stories and
experiences. We enjoyed each others com-
pany in a way that wouldnt be possible if
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these people spent most of their time in isol-

ation, living in their parents attics instead of
building valuable real-world experiences.
The complete opposite happens when a
person doesn't have much value. The person
isn't cool or interesting because he hasn't
done anything out of ordinary that requires
any kind of risk. Essentially, he is an average
guy who doesn't contribute much (or any-
thing) to the interaction. If you had to de-
scribe such a person, you would probably use
the following adjectives: boring, average,
bland, dull, lackluster, tiresome, etc.
Theres nothing inherently wrong with
being a regular guy who hasnt done much,
except there's just one problem: people don't
live in isolation. People interact with others,
trading ideas and sharing thoughts. A person
of relatively lower value will find himself lost
in a group of people of higher value. Instead
of actually contributing to others by sharing
his knowledge and experience, he's going to
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take value by asking lots of questions. In that

case, what would really happen wouldnt be a
conversation at all, but rather a one-sided in-
terview. And unless its useful for one person
to respond to a series of questions (i.e., hes
being interviewed by a newspaper), the other
person will quickly get annoyed with the
one-sided interaction.
Having no value often turns into a situ-
ation where the person begins taking value
instead of contributing it. Imagine going to a
Sunday picnic on a beautiful summer after-
noon. Everyone brings something to eat. One
guy has his own vineyards so he brings
bottles of great local wine. Another guy is an
amazing baker, so he brings his freshly
baked cake. Another guy who loves Italian
cooking brings his tasty risotto. Now imagine
that someone comes without bringing any-
thing. Not only does he come empty-handed,
but because hes hungry, he starts eating oth-
er peoples food. Furthermore, after eating,
 38/411

he takes a few dishes home. If it was your

picnic, what would you think of such a per-
son? Would you keep inviting him? If youre
like most people, then you probably
wouldnt.
The amount of value shared between two
people determines how close of a relation-
ship they will form. The more value the one
person has, the stronger the ensuing rela-
tionship will be; the less value that one per-
son has, the weaker the ensuing relationship
will be. If someones value is too low or non-
existent, then no relationship will be formed.
Recently, I received an email from a reader.
He asked me a bunch of questions about
traveling to Brazil and Colombia. I replied. A
few hours later, he emailed me again with
more questions. I replied. The next day he
emailed me again with a few comments and
a couple of questions deeply hidden within
the comments. Again, I replied. Since he
wasn't contributing back with his own
 39/411

knowledge and experience, the interaction

began to feel like a pure interview instead of
a healthy conversation where two people
were contributing equally. Naturally, I was
starting to get tired of answering a seemingly
endless list of questions.
But then something else happened.
While replying to his most recent email, I no-
ticed that he had mentioned something
about a random trip to Asia. Since I havent
really spent much time there, I became in-
trigued. I asked him about it. He replied with
a huge email, describing his time living in Vi-
etnam and his subsequent move to China.
His story had many parallels with my experi-
ences in Latin America. Now I was inter-
ested. I followed up, asking him more ques-
tions. The exchange turned into a healthy
conversation shared by two people with their
own unique experiences. By showing me that
he had some value to exchange with me, he
became more interesting and cool in my
 40/411

book. Furthermore, I was even more eager to

respond to his questions because I knew he
would be more helpful in responding to
mine. There was mutual respect because
each of us knew that taking such risks and
living in a foreign countries isn't easy. Most
importantly, because our value was relatively
equal, neither of us felt like his valuable time
was being wasted. It was just the opposite.
People with value attract other people with
value.
Its incredible to see peoples attitudes
change when they feel theyre being rewar-
ded with value. One sunny afternoon, I was
sitting with a good Brazilian friend on a
beach in Rio de Janeiro. He commented that
he didnt like foreigners because they were
loud and arrogant, and only travel to foreign
countries to pick up women and get drunk.
Just to prove his point, he made a disgusted
face and pointed in the direction of a large
group of noisy Europeans not far away (In
 41/411

case you missed the irony, notice that my

friend said that he hates foreigners, yet here
he was sitting and enjoying an afternoon
with a foreignerme). Sensing that there
was something more to the story, I conduc-
ted an experiment. I switched topics and
began telling him about how I had recently
met a cool British expat, who worked at a
hotel and knew many cute women. The expat
also loved to hold extravagant parties in his
enormous flat. I mentioned that at the last
party there had been many more single wo-
men than men. I also told my friend that if
he was interested in coming to the next
party, I would invite him. Not surprisingly,
my friends eyes lit up. He was interested.
Suddenly my friend didnt have a problem
with foreigners. Why was this case? Because,
unlike the foreigners that came to his coun-
try, got drunk, pissed off the locals, and then
flew back home, the British friend actually
had awesome parties with many cute girls.
 42/411

The British expat actually added value, in-

stead of merely taking value like other for-
eigners. Ultimately, my friend didnt hate
foreigners. Just like everyone else on the
planet, he hated people who take value in-
stead of giving it. Thats just human nature.
And that's not going to change anytime soon.
While it's nice to be able to meet
someone with whom you can make a connec-
tion due to having equal value, sometimes
things dont work out this way. Imagine if
someone like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise meets
Average Jane from Middle America whos
just an average girl with an average job, aver-
age hobbies, and an average life. She works
at McDonalds by day and hangs out with her
friends at Starbucks by night. Now, assuming
Average Jane actually likes Brad Pitt and has
watched most of his movies, what kind of
conversation will these two have? Average
Jane will probably ask the actor tons and
tons of questions. Since Brad loves his fans,
 43/411

he'll patiently answer. Out of politeness,

Brad might ask a question or two. Who will
provide more value? Obviously thatll be
Brad. By a mile.
A man will experience this interview
mode when trying to seduce a woman whos
not interested in him. He might think shes
interested because she hasn't physically got-
ten up and left, and he uses that as a sign to
begin asking her tons of questions (mostly
personal). Since she doesnt care about the
guy, the woman wont ask him guy anything
in return. Having been in such situations nu-
merous timeson both sides of the fenceI
can tell you that theres nothing more annoy-
ing than being interviewed against your will.
In order to avoid the interview trap, you
must realize that a healthy conversation is al-
ways an exchange of value. That means that
while I can ask the other person lots of ques-
tions pertaining to their value or expertise,
they should ask me about something in an
 44/411

area where I can also provide some kind of

value in return.
Value strongly dictates human interac-
tions. During my travels and life abroad, I
got to know many diverse people from nu-
merous backgrounds and experiences. Most
of them were foreigners, so when they re-
turned to their homelands, we simply said
farewell and never saw each other again.
However, with others I made an effort to get
their contact information so that we could
meet again. The reason I acted differently
with certain people was because certain
people had more value than others. Certain
people were more useful to me than others.
For instance, one of the friends I made in
Brazil was a Spanish guy from Barcelona.
Since I had plans to visit Barcelona later on,
I got his contact information so I could touch
base when I arrived. He was useful to me be-
cause he was a local and could help me with
any issues that might arise. I also got the
 45/411

contact information of a guy who lives in

New York because he was someone I would
be able to contact when I returned to the Big
Apple.
Being able to recognize and remember
someone is also a very powerful demonstra-
tion of value. In one of the coffee shops I fre-
quented in Medellin, Colombia, I made good
friends with the barista. Every time I went
there, we exchanged a few words and even
had a little chat. One day, while I was walk-
ing home, I noticed her standing with a
friend at the bus stop. Nonetheless, I wasn't
motivated to go over and chat with her. But I
could tell she noticed me. After several
minutes, she came over and said Hi. I
looked at her and said, Ah, I knew you
looked very familiar, I just couldnt figure
out where Ive seen you before. Thats clas-
sic behavior when someone with higher
value meets someone with lower value.
Someone noticed you, recognized you, and
 46/411

came over to talk to you, while all this time

you have no idea who they are. Had I not
cared about her completely, then the next
step wouldve been to deny that I even knew
her, something Id done on several occasions
in the past. As my barista, she has value in
the coffee shop because she makes my coffee.
But on the street, she's just an average girl. It
wouldve been a different story if she had a
higher quality job like a CEO of a big com-
pany. That would warrant me to approach
and have a longer conversation.
One night in Brazil, I went out to a nice
bar that had unlimited beers until 2am. As
expected, I got completely drunk and ended
up making out with a girl. The girl was pretty
cute, or at least that's what I remembered in
my highly intoxicated state. Before I left the
bar, I got her number and told her I would
call her. A week later I went back to the same
bar, and, after twenty minutes of talking to
my friend and surveying the scene, a girl
 47/411

approached me and called me by my name.

Confused, I looked over and asked how she
knew me. As she began explaining, I sud-
denly recognized her as the girl from that
night. Unfortunately, the girl who I was talk-
ing to looked completely different from the
one I thought I had hooked up with a week
before. I even felt a bit embarrassed talking
to her. Let's just say that she wasn't as gor-
geous as I remembered her. I replied, pre-
tending not to recognize her, Im sorry, but
I think youve mistaken me for someone else.
I have no idea who you are. She kept insist-
ing, completely adamant that I was the per-
son she had met that other night. I acted as
though she was confused and mistook me for
someone else. The truth was that she was be-
low my value and standards, so it would have
been a waste of my time to talk to her given
the other options in the club.
When someone's value is high, I would
make the effort to talk to them even if they
 48/411

didnt know who I am. If I see a Bill Gates at

the bus stop, I will probably approach and
attempt to start a conversation. If I see Rick
Springfield sitting in the park, I'd probably
come over and shake his hand. If I see a
powerful CEO or President of an important
company, I would make every effort to get to
know them and form some kind of
connection.
Since value is the glue that binds human
relationships together, it's also responsible
for tearing them apart. For any relationship
to be worth it, people need to be valuable to
each other. As soon as one party feels that
they're being cheated out of their time be-
cause the other person's value is relatively
low, they will substitute that time with
someone else. It won't be long before the re-
lationship will be completely shattered.
Value imbalance is the reason why business
partnerships fail, people divorce, and friend-
ships end.
 49/411

Value is highly relative and contextual.

For someone to be valuable to you, he or she
must be able to do what you need or want.
You may have a friend who's very awkward
with women but is an avid stamp collector in
his spare time, having amassed thousands of
rare and expensive stamps. Chances are you
wouldnt call this guy when you need a wing-
man to your favorite club thats filled with
gorgeous women. His massive stamp collec-
tion can be very valuable in a weekly stamp
club meeting, but he would be of no help to
you at a posh nightclub where youre trying
to take a woman home. The same would ap-
ply to a guy who speaks fluent Spanish when
you happen to be in Russia. His knowledge
of Spanish would offer you absolutely no
value if you were lost in some small city in
Siberia. But his value would be massive if
you happened to be in rural Argentina and
dont know a word of Spanish.
 50/411

Value is relative because it's simply im-

possible for a person to excel in all areas.
Someone can have zero value in one particu-
lar environment, but can have sky-high value
in a different environment. I can be a great
dentist but know nothing about sports cars
or traveling. I can have a black belt in BJJ
but know nothing about building mobile ap-
plications. In Romania, I joined a local BJJ
school and ended up showing some of my
techniques to a white belt who had recently
started training. It was only his second week,
so he had a lot of questions and needed me
to repeat many of the moves. He was ex-
tremely thankful and even gave me a lift
home at the end of the day. As someone
whos been training for more than five
yearsespecially in Brazil, a country where
the martial art had originatedI had much
more value than someone who had just star-
ted few months prior. The following week-
end, I decided to go to a bar downtown. I was
 51/411

ordering a beer when a familiar person

waved at me from the corner of a bar. I
looked over and it was the white belt student
from the BJJ class. He came over, greeted
me, and invited me over to join his friends.
He acted confident and cool, as though he
owned the bar. While I pondered joining his
group, he whispered something to the cute
bartender. She smiled, fixed me a stiff drink
and then declined to take my money. I joined
my friends group and ended up getting to
know cool guys and cute women.
That night I had absolutely zero value. I
was just some foreigner in a country where I
didnt know anyone. I had no relatives or
friends. I didnt speak the language. I didn't
know the culture. I was all alone in the bar
trying to get laid. However, my friend was
the king, and thats not an understatement.
His value was sky-high because as a result of
spending many nights in that bar, he knew
all the regulars. He had a deep social circle.
 52/411

He even personally knew the bars owner. By

introducing me to his friends, he traded his
value for the time I had used to help him in
class. This exchange of value is precisely
what happens when two people of relatively
close value meet each other.
I have also experienced the same situ-
ation in reverse. Several weeks later, at a dif-
ferent BJJ class, an instructor visited us
from another country. He was higher ranked
than all of us, so we naturally gave him com-
mand of the class while he taught us some of
the advanced techniques. The guy had in-
stant authority and value. He was confident
and relaxed, and ran the class as though he
had known each of us for a long time. I
couldnt help but notice that even some of
the girls appeared interested in his omnipo-
tent presence and self-assurance. I respected
his authority and asked him some questions
to clarify. He answered them without asking
any questions in return. After the class
 53/411

ended, one of the local guys gave us both a

lift home. As we switched from wearing a gi
(kimono) into local clothes, the tables in-
stantly turned. His authority and value van-
ished into thin air. We began talking about
the current country and then about general
travel. I used that opportunity to spring-
board to a new topic: BJJ training in Brazil,
during my two-year sojourn there. That con-
versation led to my other travels, which fur-
ther led to a discussion as to why I travel,
and that ultimately led to my sovereign man
lifestyle. It was a huge difference from just
moments prior when he was confidently dir-
ecting the class. Suddenly he became an av-
erage guy. He was just a guy off the street
who was talking to a world traveler who had
been to many places and seen many things.
Now it was him who was asking me ques-
tions. And now it was me who was answering
his questions without asking anything in
return.
 54/411

The principle of contextual value also ap-

plies to women. A woman can be simply un-
touchable in a particular environment, such
as in her home city and country. She knows
the language and culture. She has lots of
friends. Shes popular. Guys find her attract-
ive. But that can all change if she changes en-
vironments. She may no longer have a big
social circle. She may no longer be deemed
physically attractive because of the increased
competition from more attractive local wo-
men. This explains why the hottest woman
can be shy and self-conscious when trying to
flirt in a foreign language. Her value is lower
because of lack of experience and
confidence.
A few years ago, I was at another BJJ
class in Spain. I had gotten to know one of
the guys because we had both lived in Brazil
at one point in our lives. During the next
training session, he came to class with his
girlfriend. She was wearing a kimono and
 55/411

sporting a white belt (she had only recently

had started training). My first impression
was that she was a pleasant girl, but nothing
really beyond that; she certainly didn't strike
me as gorgeous. We chatted a bit and left it
at that. The following weekend I surfed over
to the clubs Facebook page to find out
whether the school would be open on an up-
coming government holiday. As always, I no-
ticed my friends profile tagged in one of
photos. I browsed over to his profile. On the
profile, I noticed a comment left by his girl-
friend. Feeling voyeuristic, I browsed over to
it. It took me few seconds to mentally pro-
cess whether it was indeed the profile of the
girl I met several days before. My jaw
dropped. On the profile, I discovered photos
of an absolutely gorgeous woman. There
were various photos of her wearing amaz-
ingly sexy dresses while she was at various
bars and clubs. There was even a photo
where she appeared to walk the catwalk at
 56/411

some fashion event. In other photos she was

surrounded by equally gorgeous women.
Most looked to be professionally photo-
graphed. What was going on? Was she a
model? The same introverted girl I had just
met few days ago? It couldnt be! No way.
Are my own eyes deceiving me? No, this
wasnt a dream. It was really her.
Had I actually met such a girl on the
street, I wouldve thought twice before ap-
proaching her because of her level of beauty.
Thats strange considering that I easily chat-
ted with her during the training session. Of
course, now that Ive seen her in a situation
where she had little value (BJJ training), I
would have no trouble approaching her. For-
tunately, its possible to use value as a cur-
rency by trading one set of value in one area
(e.g., BJJ skills) for another area (e.g., intro-
duction into an exclusive social circle with
cute girls). Its great for both parties because
each person gets exactly what he or she
 57/411

wants. It works in all cases where you have

something (information, knowledge, skills,
connections) that another person wants. Life
is a barter.
High value people also realize that value
depends on the context and have no problem
letting others dominate situations where
they have strong value. They dont need to
prove anything. Theyre not jealous of others.
They are at ease because they know that their
domain of expertise resides somewhere else.
Low-value people, however, dont realize
that. Since they dont have strong value in
any single area, theyre constantly jealous of
others success and resort to endless brag-
ging to compensate for their utter lack of
value. Essentially, they end up sucking away
value and contributing nothing back.
Often times more than one person can
possess high value in the same domain. A
couple of years ago, I was at a Couch Surfing
meeting at a bar in Barcelona, Spain. I was
 58/411

part of a group of international students

from all over the world. One of the guys was
an Australian backpacker who had recently
finished a trip around the world. He was an
interesting and cool guy, so there was no sur-
prise that the whole group surrounded him
while he was excitedly recounting his travels.
Naturally, the people at the meeting found
him highly valuable because many of them
later planned to do what he had done. By
sharing his experiences with others, he was
providing value instead of taking it. Many of
the people in our group were very interested
to hear someones firsthand experiences in
exotic locales such as Iran, Zimbabwe, and
Kenya. There was also another guy at the
meeting who, unlike the first guy, didn't
travel so much. But what made him as inter-
esting was the fact that he had lived for many
years in interesting countries such as China,
Turkey, and Angola. Out of both of these
guys, I found the latter guy more interesting.
 59/411

I'd rather talk to someone who has lived in

countries and has become a local, as opposed
to someone who barely scratched the surface
by spending only few days in each country.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not against the
backpacker lifestyle. I've been a backpacker
myself and have high respect for people who
backpack. But I've always been more inter-
ested in living in foreign countries for a long
time rather than spending merely few days
there. This is why I found the second guy
more valuable.
As you can see, value depends on what
the person needs or wants. If a cute girl
wants to go and live in Brazil, she would find
it valuable to talk to someone from Brazil.
But if such a person is not available, shell be
interested in talking to someone who at least
lived there. That certainly wouldnt be the
case if the girl had no interest in travel and
instead wanted to go into politics or law.

Building value
 60/411

When you build and improve your value,

you grow globally. That means that instead
of becoming cooler and more interesting in
the eyes of just one person, you become cool-
er and more interesting to a larger group of
people. Building value is like blowing up a
balloon that expands in all directions. The
size of the group depends on how high your
value is; the higher your value, the larger the
group of people who find you interesting and
attractive. As celebrities and movie stars be-
come more and more popular, they dont be-
come admired by a specific person: they be-
come admired by hundreds or thousands or
even millions of additional people. In fact,
it's virtually impossible to grow your value in
order to impress a specific person. My
friends girlfriend didnt build out her Face-
book page because she wanted to impress a
specific guy. She did it in order to demon-
strate to the world what she was all about.
Shes advertising herself to the world. In the
 61/411

process of building her value, she becomes

more desirable to the world: to all men, all
women, to everyone. A high school student
who wants to get into the best university
doesn't do it because he wants to get hired by
a specific company. He's doing it because go-
ing to a prestigious university makes him
more desirable to all corporations. It makes
him all-around more valuable to everyone. I
don't study foreign languages, read tons of
interesting books, and travel and live in all
kinds of foreign countries because I want to
impress a particular girl or guy; I do it be-
cause it's something I want to do and it im-
proves me as a man. When I learned Por-
tuguese in Brazil, I didnt merely improve my
value in the eyes of a specific girlI in-
creased my value in the eyes of all women all
over Brazil because I was able to communic-
ate and express myself with many more
people, not just the ones who happened to
also speak English.
 62/411

Think of growing your value as swapping

out your cars gas tank with a bigger one. As
a result of having a bigger gas tank, the car
can cover more distance. If before you could
only travel 100 miles, now you can travel
200 miles. But here's the beautiful thing: in-
stead of being able to reach a specific town,
you can now reach all towns as long as
theyre within your newly increased
200-mile radius.
While I can swap out my cars gas tank
for a bigger one than provides me with more
range, Im never actually changing the car it-
self. Building value doesnt enable me to be-
come someone new altogether. Improving
yourself and becoming someone else are two
radically different things. This is a key point
because knowing that you cannot outright
become someone else will enable you to fo-
cus on self-improvement, instead of trying to
please people who are attracted to com-
pletely different types of people. Lets say we
 63/411

meet right now. Let me start out by listing

some of the things that Im not: Im not a
CEO of a large company; I do not possess
model looks; Im not a billionaire; I dont
drive a classic 1988 Corvette; Im not French;
and Im not a Hollywood star or director.
Thats just a quick list; I can keep going on
and on about other things that have nothing
to do with me and likely never will. The reas-
on I listed all these characteristics is because
they can all be valuable to various people.
Someone might find model looks attractive,
someone else might find it cool that I have a
1988 Corvette, and yet someone else might
only be interested in hanging out with a Hol-
lywood star. On the other hand, heres some
of the things that I do possess: Ive traveled
and lived all over the world (including long
stints in Latin America and Europe), speak
four languages (learning several more now),
have intermediate knowledge of BJJ,
 64/411

understand human psychology, understand

what generates attraction in women, etc.
As you can see, I have value, but only in
certain areas and not others. Should I meet
someone who has interest in what I've done,
they will find me valuable. We'll easily estab-
lish rapport and have something to talk
about. Conversely, if I meet someone who is
interested in the things I havent done and
dont know much about, then we'll probably
not build rapport so easily. This happens of-
ten when the person youre talking to is not
asking you any questions.
Ive also been in many situations where I
knew I was cooler and more interesting than
the other person in all areas, but the other
person simply wasnt interested in my
achievements. They didnt view me as
someone who could add value in their lives.
In this case, the interaction also becomes
one-sided, but instead of someone inter-
viewing the other person by asking them
 65/411

endless questions, the person simply tells

you about their life and their achievements,
and youre left politely nodding your head
while you look for an escape. Theyre not in-
terested in you personally and are just using
you to vent their thoughts out loud.
In both cases, the conversation is always
one-sided instead of being a healthy ex-
change of interesting questions and friendly
vibing, which is what happens when my
value is actually useful to people who are in-
terested in the things I've personally done
and represent, and vice versa.
Building value is about becoming a bet-
ter version of yourself. This results in you be-
ing more desirable to a bigger pool of people.
And a major part of your value is your ability
to manage your personal resources, such as
time.
 II

TIME

This is your life and

it's ending one minute at a time.
Tyler Durden

Not all men are equal. Some are wealthi-

er than others. Some drive nice cars; others
take the city bus. Some live in nice neighbor-
hoods; others live in poor ones. Neverthe-
less, theres one commodity that all men, re-
gardless of who they are, have exactly the
same amount: time. All of us have at our dis-
posal 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and
52 weeks in a year. Its actually the only com-
modity thats guaranteed to be exactly the
same among all the people in the world,
 67/411

regardless of your economic, racial, religious,

or national background. Time is a valuable
currency, and, in many ways, is even more
powerful than money. You can always re-
place money that youve wasted by earning
new money, but you can never replenish
wasted time. Since they know they can never
get it back, high value people inherently
guard their time cautiously and dont make
themselves available to just anyone. They
also do not wait for others to make things
happen for them; in fact, the verb to wait
doesnt exist in their vocabulary. They duly
utilize time to its full potential.
By itself, time doesnt represent value:
it's not an asset. It simply exists, has existed
in the past, and will exist in the future, inde-
pendently of anything you do. A day has
twenty-four hours whether you do
something productive or do absolutely noth-
ing. The day will go on whether you dedicate
the next few hours to completing an
 68/411

important project, or you waste them watch-

ing the grass grow. Time represents poten-
tial. It represents opportunity. It's a re-
source, and just like the case with any re-
source, it only becomes useful when you
mine it and turn it into something useful.
When oil was first discovered gushing from
the ground, people didnt know what it was,
nor what to do with a useless black liquid.
Nowadays, oil powers the world. It only be-
came useful after people figured out how to
turn it into a wealth-generating asset.
Similarly, time only becomes useful once
you turn it into something else, namely at-
tention and action. Attention is when you
spend it with other people, such as by help-
ing a family member or seducing a beautiful
girl. Action is stronger. Action is when you
go further than just talking to someone; its
when you actually do things that end up af-
fecting more than one person. An example of
turning time into action would be starting a
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company with the goal of selling a product or

service to hundreds, thousands, or even mil-
lions of people. It can also mean running for
political office, where your constituency
would also consist of thousands or millions
of people. Attention and action are the end
results of mining and transforming time into
an asset that ultimately benefits yourself as
well as others.
Assuming all other things stay constant,
time is the single best indicator of a persons
value. In order to demonstrate why, imagine
the following scenario. Two former acquaint-
ances run into each other on the street. They
immediately recognize one another because
they worked at the same company, and are
both excited to see each other. After greeting
each other and having a quick chat, theres
the inevitable question of what theyre going
to do next. If theyre both free for the next
hour or so, they might head over to a nearby
coffee shop and have a drink. However, its
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more likely that one person will be unwilling

to sit down for coffee because something
more pressing needs to be done. Maybe hes
running back to work because his boss is
waiting for him to do an important presenta-
tion. Maybe hes self-employed, and is head-
ing to a client to close a crucial deal. Its very
likely that one person will decline because he
or she will have something more important
to do than sitting and drinking coffee.

Time is dictated by priorities

In order to understand how priorities
dictate time, it helps to think of a persons
time as divided into a series of tasks that
must be completed, with each task having a
particular priority. That priority depends on
the individual needs of the task. The higher
the priority, the sooner it needs to be done,
and the sooner your time will be allocated to
it; the lower the priority, the later your time
will be allocated to it. If something isnt
pressing at all, then you might never even get
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around to doing it. Since there are only 24

hours in a day, you simply cannot do
everything you want to do. You cannot do a
task that requires 5 hours if you have only
one hour free. You cannot drink beers with
your friends at 8pm if youre also working on
an important project for the next morning.
Because you cannot be in two places at once,
you need to prioritize your tasks based on
their necessity.
Lets say Im faced with a chance to have
sex with the most gorgeous girl in the world,
or drink a glass of water. While at first it
sounds like the easiest decision in the world,
the answer will depend on a host of other
factors. Under normal circumstances, any
sane guy will most likely choose to have sex
with a gorgeous girl. But lets imagine youve
just spent many months fighting in the Saha-
ra desert as part of the French Foreign Le-
gion. Youre completely dehydrated. On your
left theres an oasis, and on your right theres
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a gorgeous girl whos smiling and motioning

for you to come over. Would you go left or
right? Given the grave circumstances, you
will go left and have a drink of water because
it is vital to your survival. Getting the water
is much higher priority than having
sexeven with the most gorgeous girl in the
world; surviving is always more important
than reproduction. While this is a rather
drastic example, it helps to demonstrate that
priorities are always determined by ones un-
derlying needs.
Priorities determine how we spend our
finite time. A person whos faced with an
hour of time will always devote that hour to
the highest priority task that he deems im-
portant. In the previous example, if two ac-
quaintances meet, and the first person is able
to dedicate an hour to having coffee with an-
other person, but the second person cannot
do that because he needs to get on a plane
and meet his multimillion dollar client, then
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which person has more value? When

someone chooses to have coffee, hes impli-
citly demonstrating that in the next hour he
doesnt have anything more important to do.
The key point here is more important. The
person who has the most value is always the
one who needs the other the least.
A reliable indicator of someones priorit-
ies is their willingness to do something for
someone else on very short notice. Not long
ago, a friend and I were planning to grab a
drink, but we could never settle on a time
that worked for both of us. One weekend I
wasnt available; the next weekend he wasnt
available. After months of going back and
forth, my friend told me that we should meet
up in two weeks after he returned from a trip
to another country. I tentatively agreed. I
didn't hear from him after two weeks. Fin-
ally, three or four months later, he emailed
me out of the blue and told me that he was
going out with his friends and that I should
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also join. Although I didnt have anything ur-

gent to do that night, I had already mentally
prepared myself for a quiet evening of relax-
ation and writing. I didnt want to suddenly
rearrange my life and head to the bar be-
cause my friend just happened to be avail-
able. I needed to be told in advance. It also
didnt help that he was going to a bar about
an hour away from my place. When debating
whether to go, I posed a question that comes
up frequently in these situations: If he were
in my position, would he do the same? That
is, would he agree to drop everything and
meet me the same night? And it didnt take
me long to come up with an answer: prob-
ably not. In his life, there were many priorit-
ies that were understandably higher than
hanging out with me. He had a demanding
job. He was living with a girlfriend. He had a
busy social life. There was no way I could see
him agreeing to do something the very same
day. I considered him a great friend, but I
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wasnt willing to drop everything because he

was suddenly available that particular night,
so I declined.
Girls love using this technique on men.
At night, a girl might text a guy and say, I'm
at some bar. Come and meet me. If you
were in constant contact with her for weeks
leading up to this invitation, then its fine to
meet her. But its a completely different
scenario if she was unresponsive or unwilling
to meet you on your own terms and then all
of a sudden wants to meet with you the same
night. If you do what she says and meet her,
then youre pretty much admitting that you
didnt have anything more important in your
life than meeting someone who didnt want
to do anything on your terms. Its a sign of
weakness. It means you werent spending
that night working on an important money-
making project, or hanging out with your
crew, or even gaming (or fucking) another
girl. The girl will undoubtedly pay attention
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to how you reply and whether you actually

show up or not.
Agreeing to meet someone with very
short notice means that you value spending
your time with that person more highly than
anything else going on in your life. Out of the
people I know personally, I cant list a single
friend who would agree to hang out in the
evening if I texted him earlier in the day.
People are typically busy. Theyre doing stuff.
Thats why its helpful and necessary to plan
activities several days (or even a week) in ad-
vance. On the other hand, if youre curious
about who highly values you above whatever
else is going on their own life, just send out a
bunch of same-day invitations and see who
eagerly responds and shows up.
The important point is that by choosing
how we manage our time, we communicate
our value relative to someone elses. The per-
son who declined to have coffee is implicitly
saying that he has a relatively higher-priority
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task to complete. Just like in the water ex-

ample, a man chose something because he
has something better to do during that par-
ticular hour. Thus, all else being equal, the
person whose schedule is freer than the oth-
er person is also the person who has lower
value than the other, much busier person.
By utilizing their time on achieving high-
er priority tasks, high value men are inevit-
ably busy. But what does busy really mean?
It means that theyre converting and invest-
ing their time into activities that generate
wealth. One doesnt become high value by
spending lots of time doing useless tasks, like
watching the sky change colors or waiting for
the paint on the walls to dry. They regard
time as extremely sacred and dont just de-
vote it to anyone or to anything. In fact, like
the money in your pocket, time is also a cur-
rency that can be either wasted by buying
something useless, or used wisely by invest-
ing it into something that might bring
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dividends down the road. Everyone can tell

the difference between someone whos busily
working on a project without paying atten-
tion to the slightest distraction, as opposed
to the person whos idling around. Thats be-
cause people instinctively want to be associ-
ated with people who are working on
something great and important.
The level at which someone gets distrac-
ted is a good indicator of his or her priorities.
If Im sitting in a coffee shop and frantically
working on something very important, ignor-
ing every distraction, that means that what
Im working on is relatively more important
than all the external events that are fighting
for my attention. That includes paying less
attention to the cute girls who enter and exit
the coffee shop. Thats in stark contrast to a
guy who is sitting at the next table and is get-
ting distracted by every little thing. What
does it mean when were both witnessing the
same external events, but Im ignoring
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everything and busily working on something,

while he is easily getting distracted? It means
that Im working on something of higher pri-
ority than those other events. And that
means that my time is scarcer than the other
guys. It follows that if my time is scarce,
people will compete with others for this time.
In a market system, the less supply there is
of something, the higher the corresponding
demand becomes. If Im not easily distracted
by something, people will try harder to inter-
rupt me in order to be heard and satisfied.
Others would naturally want me to pay at-
tention to them and not to something else.
They wouldnt try so hard if they know you're
always available.
One of my most memorable episodes of
seeing someone fully concentrated on his
time occurred when I was visiting a friends
office. He had recently started a tech com-
pany and hired a couple of programmers.
While we were talking, his phone rang
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several times and he picked it up. It was his

girlfriend. Having met her only a week be-
fore, I was impressed by her intelligence and
wittiness. She was also gorgeous and sexy.
My friend was a very lucky man. She was in
another part of town and, because of the re-
cent snowstorm, had trouble getting back to
their place due to public transportation
barely running. She asked him to come and
pick her up, and without skipping a beat, he
immediately declined. He said that he still
needed to complete many things for work
that night. She pleaded with him, explaining
that it was very difficult to get around be-
cause of the poor weather. He remained un-
moved. He reiterated that he was busy, and
told her that she should call a taxi and get
home. At that point he told her that hed see
her home later that evening and hung up. I
couldnt believe it. My friend outright rejec-
ted his own girlfriend, a quality girl most
men would be jealous of. In my opinion, she
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had asked him something very reasonable;

its not like she had asked him to drop
everything and fly to Paris with her for a
weekend.
It was only many years later that it fi-
nally sunk in: there are more important
tasks that a man can do than picking up his
girlfriend from somewhere because she was
too lazy to wait for a bus or call a taxi. It's not
always necessary to say yes to people even if
they happen to be gorgeous women. My
friend rejected her because he had higher
priorities. More importantly, Im completely
certain that she respected his decision to
work late on the business. The business is
what pays the bills. Her respect for her boy-
friend only went up, likely because she
wanted to be part of something big and im-
portant that my friend was working on. No
one wants to be associated with losers who
don't have anything worthy to do.
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Another trait associated with high-qual-

ity men is that they rarely, if ever, suspend
their lives and wait for something to happen.
They do not wait for happiness to fall into
their lap. They don't wait for money to ma-
gically appear in their bank accounts. They
dont wait for women to approach them.
They dont wait for things because, when you
wait, you give up control and surrender your
destiny to someone else. Youre allowing an-
other person to indirectly dominate your
time, not by telling you how to spend it, but
rather by forcing you to become effectively
paralyzed until the other person has respon-
ded. A guy whos waiting for a girl to call him
back is not utilizing his time for his own be-
nefit and pursuing other women, but is ef-
fectively spending his time by waiting for a
return call. Its the same thing when a guy,
who had just interviewed at a company, is
sitting and waiting for the recruiter to call
him back instead of busily sending his
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rsum to other companies. His cardinal

mistake is valuing one girl or one company
much higher than all the other girls or com-
panies. That's the wrong way of looking at
things because there's a whole sea of women
and companies instead of that special one.
For these crucial reasons, you must be
completely aware of when youre in control
of your time and when you arent. Remember
the objective is to always transform your
time into attention and action, but you cant
do that if youre waiting on someone. Wait-
ing is even worse than not doing anything,
because youre effectively donating your time
to someone else and letting them mine it as
their resource, to achieve something that
theynot youwant.

Your very own crystal ball

Since everyone automatically arranges
their tasks based on their corresponding pri-
orities, you can learn where you fit by ob-
serving how others react when you ask them
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to do something. Its like having your very

own crystal ball. Lets say you text a girl and
ask her out. You send her a text, but she
doesnt immediately reply. Four days later
she finally replies. Assuming that she re-
ceived your text on time (i.e., she had her
phone and was in an area with cellular ser-
vice), but could only dedicate few seconds to
reply after four whole days, then its obvious
she had more important things to do with
her time than to talk to you. One might say,
Well, she just wasnt interested. But what
does she wasn't interested really mean? In-
terest is relative. We all do things in a certain
order because they are either more pressing
or interesting than other things. There are
times during the day when I need to work,
but instead Im watching clips on YouTube
or surfing random websites. I still need to do
the work and will probably do it later. It's
just that my work is not urgent and can be
done later. Theres no one standing over my
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shoulder or putting a gun to my head and

forcing me to complete it.
Thats why a girl doesnt reply right away
to your invitation to hang out: she has other,
more pressing or interesting things to do
than to spend time with you. Other, higher
priority things occupy her mind: school,
work, colleagues, husband, boyfriend, etc.
She can also be genuinely busy because, for
example, she had back-to-back meetings on
four continents. If shes the Secretary of the
US Department of State, then, of course, it
makes sense that shes too busy to reply in a
timely fashion to a call from a mere mortal
like you. But if shes a mere mortal herself,
with a regular job that doesnt involve meet-
ing with heads of state around the world,
then its safe to assume that she had plenty
of time to answer your call but simply de-
cided not to.
Many women have successfully learned
to use this concept to fake themselves into
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high value. Its called playing hard to get.

They do that because they want others to
think that theyre working on something im-
portant or have a sea of other guys asking
them out. And, seeing how well some of
them have mastered it, it seems to work
rather well. If youre wondering if shes really
busy or if she just doesnt want to see you, do
a simple thought experiment and replace
yourself with someone who has higher value.
If a famous celebrity gives the girl a call and
asks her out to lunch, would she wait four
whole days to return his call? Probably not.
The celebritys value is higher than the aver-
age guys. The celebritys time is more im-
portant. And the very fact that he used his
scarce time to call her makes her feel like
shed just won a lottery. Shed probably agree
to meet up with him promptly. That means
the girl wasnt genuinely busy, its just that
her interest in you was low.

The mirror
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The way that a person spends their time

represents much more than values or priorit-
ies: it's a mirror of themselves. Thats be-
cause throughout our life we continuously
make decisions about what to do and what
not to do. I know men that are constantly
working on important projects. They're al-
ways busy, working hard for many hours of
the day. Then there are men that, for a lack
of a better term, aren't too busy. They are
constantly chilling, watching TV, or just
hanging out. They're not striving to achieve
something great and, as a result, probably
wont achieve anything great.
I remember meeting someone like that
when I visited a good friend in Miami. After
picking me up from the airport, my friend
picked up another friend on the way to sushi.
We sat down at the restaurant and ordered
food. Since it was Friday, we began wonder-
ing where to go out. I hadnt been in Miami
for a long time and was itching to flirt with
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some women. My friend suggested a salsa

bar in Miami Beach. I agreed. But the new
guy had other plans.
Sorry, I cant come, the other guy said.
Why not?
Im meeting some guys online to play a
network game.
Not being too familiar with network
video games, it took me a while to under-
stand that he was going to play a video game
online with several people who lived in other
cities. Apparently this is what he had been
doing every night, right after coming home
from work, for several years. To me, that
didnt seem like the absolute best use of
ones time. Surely, there must be more pro-
ductive things that one could channel his en-
ergies into. Theres nothing inherently wrong
with playing video games, but if someone is
playing video games every day, day-in and
day-out, then a certain picture of him begins
to form in my mind. If this is the best use
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that he can find for his time out of all pos-

sible things that can be done, then this is
who he really is: a serial video game player.
And not a man of action who is striving to
achieve important goals.
Then there was a time I lived with a
roommate in Russia. He had quit his job and
told me that he would start working on his
own business. I remember passing by his
room and noticing all kinds of intricate plans
drawn up on his whiteboard. He was also
spending lots of time on his computer, which
I assumed was because he writing a business
plan and trying to make money. But these
impressions were inaccurate. When I look
back at the experience, what I remember is a
guy who would go out every night, come
home in the early morning, and sleep until
the afternoon. I remember a guy who valued
having fun and drinking more than having
structured discipline. I remember a guy who
didnt have concrete plans to do something
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productive. He couldve been telling every-

one that he was trying to achieve something,
but thats certainly not what I witnessed dur-
ing our time living together. His carefree life-
style and my notion of hard work were like
oil and water, completely incompatible in all
ways. It was physically impossible for
someone who lived such a carefree life to
achieve something important and
monumental.
Actions always paint a truer picture than
any words. Actions are much more accurate
than excuses, justifications, or rationaliza-
tions. Thus, how you spend your time is
more than just about value. It truly repres-
ents your ambitions and goals. It represents
you. Tell me what youve done today (or yes-
terday, last week, or last year), and Ill tell
you what kind of a man you are, and what
youll achieve tomorrow.
Learning to properly manage your time
is like killing two birds with one stone. First,
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you become more productive because your

efforts are now concentrated on higher prior-
ity tasks. Secondand more import-
antlypeople begin to perceive you differ-
ently. This shifts the social dynamic. While
previously others felt that your time and at-
tention were infinite, they now realize that
you have more important things to do and
cant indefinitely be at someone elses dis-
posal. People notice that youve got more im-
portant things to do. They see that you dont
get involved in petty intrigues. They see that
youre always busy, cutting people out by
moving your attention elsewhere. They no-
tice that you abruptly leave social events as
soon as theyre finished and dont stick
around for small chat. They might not know
what exactly it is that youre occupied with,
but they sense that it must be something
more important than them. This behavior
earns you more respect from others. If you
tell someone that you only have fifteen
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minutes to meet with them, they will prepare

their questions in advance instead of wasting
that precious time making small talk and
babbling about the weather.
When a man has more important things
to do with his time, hes not spending it bull-
shitting with random people. He comes in
with a purpose, does what he needs to do,
then moves on to other things. He dictates
the pace by dictating his time. High value
people all act this way. Presidents and CEOs
allocate finely tuned chunks of time to vari-
ous key people. The amount of time depends
on the priority of the issue. The more press-
ing the issue, the more time is allocated. The
more time allocated, the higher the value of
the person whos receiving it. Conversely, the
less pressing the issue, the less time is alloc-
ated. The less time allocated, the lower the
value of the person on the other end.

Taking ownership of your time

 93/411

Time is the only asset over which you

have complete control. How you shape it and
what you do with it represents you more ac-
curately than pretty much anything else.
Therefore, it's crucial to take ownership of it.
Without taking control of your time, you
won't be able to properly funnel your energy
to the right action, and, consequently, won't
be able to achieve the things you want. I once
had lunch with a good friend who quit his of-
fice job and started a business out of his gar-
age selling auto parts and accessories. Here's
how my friend recounted his experience:

It wasnt an easy journey by any

means. I had to completely re-prioritize
whats important in my life and spend my
precious time doing just that. We think
that since we have 24 hours a day, we can
achieve pretty much anything, but once
you get going, you quickly realize that its
just not enough to complete the things
you need to complete. I basically had to
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look at whats important and relentlessly

focus on thateverything else had to go.
I began by cutting out everything that
wasnt directly or indirectly putting cash
into my bank account. I cut out all the
distractions, the Facebook, the Twitters,
the baseball games, the random lunches
and happy hours with friends and the
like. Essentially, I cut out all the crap in
my life.
I also stopped chasing and spending
time with women. I stopped chasing wo-
men who were playing hard to get, and I
also stopped spending time with women
who wanted to see me. I stopped going
out. I stopped all enjoyable activities. I
stopped doing everything that wasnt
generating money.
The most important thing is that I
had to convince myself that there was no
easy way out. There really wasn't! Just
like how I couldn't physically be in two
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places at once, I also couldn't work on

two things at once. I could either watch a
movie or work on my business. But I
couldn't do both.
Essentially, I needed to invest my
time instead of wasting it. And I gradu-
ally learned to do just that.

Hearing my friend recount this story was

hugely inspirational. He was actually
someone who I didnt consider hard-working
at all. The side that I was acquainted with
was someone who enjoyed life to the fullest,
not some workaholic who constantly toiled
in his room. He was always traveling to ran-
dom countries, going out to restaurants and
bars, and chasing women. But here was a guy
who sacrificed pretty much everything in or-
der to build a business and live life on his
own terms. I remember him assiduously ig-
noring all outside distractions as he locked
himself in his apartment while trying to
build an online business. Initially, things
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looked bleak. There were many instances

where he just wanted to quit. Nevertheless,
he kept trying. Gradually, he began to see a
flicker of flight at the end of the dark tunnel
when some of his projects began making
money. Although initial success was meager,
it was consistent, gradually increasing over
time. After a couple of years, his business
was making a decent profit. But he still
wanted more. He kept working harder and
harder. Fast forward today and hes a hugely
successful guy with a whole Internet empire
consisting of several businesses. And hes
still hungry for more.
His story and his eventual triumph made
me appreciate an important aspect of time:
time is finite; time is limited. It forced me to
thoroughly grasp the fact that if I didnt
take ownership of my time, then I simply
couldnt take ownership of myself. And if I
couldnt take ownership of myself, then how
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the heck would I achieve anything worth-

while in life?
The challenge of taking full ownership of
my time was something I dealt with last
summer after settling in Bulgaria. I rented a
small apartment in a small coastal city. The
apartments owner was a tall, 30-year-old
Bulgarian guy with a shaved head. He sold
real estate by day and bartended at night. He
knew all the cool and hidden bars and
lounges in the city. On Friday night he called
me and invited me out. The plan was to meet
up with his friends in a neighborhood bar,
have a few beers, and then head to one of the
other bars or lounges. I was up for it except
for one nagging problem: I absolutely had to
finish an important project that I had already
planned to complete back in the spring. The
project was equally important both from a
financial and a psychological perspective.
First, launching that project would result in
additional income in my pocket, which is
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especially important to someone who's con-

stantly on the road with variable and unpre-
dictable expenses. Second, and more import-
antly, completing that project was proof to
myself that I could commit to something and
get it done, a difficult task for a life-long pro-
crastinator like myself. But it was already
mid-July, and I hadnt even started. I was so
disgusted with my lack of self-discipline that
I couldnt even look at myself in the mirror.
Even though I very much wanted to go out
and meet cute Bulgarian girlsa much easier
task as a result of my friend's social circleI
was forced to decline. So, I imprisoned my-
self in the house and worked through that
weekend and the next. I worked every day,
only coming outside to buy groceries. I be-
came addicted to work. I became focused on
the day when the project would be complete.
My vision narrowed and nothing else
mattered. My friend kept prodding me to go
out, but my answer to him remained the
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same: Bulgaria was strictly a working vaca-

tion and nothing else.
Several weeks later, thanks to my austere
schedule, the project was finally completed. I
presented the first version of the product to
the beta customers. Two weeks after that it
was launched to the public. Launching the
project was an important milestone, but the
lessons learned while I was working on it
ended up being much more important than
the end result. During those weeks that I was
cooped up inside a small Bulgarian apart-
ment, I learned something much greater: the
importance of priorities, self-control, and
ownership of your time. Soon after, I packed
up and took a bus to Turkey. To say that I
was more relaxed in Turkey would be an un-
derstatement. It was great to finally enjoy life
knowing that I had set my goals, worked
hard, and actually completed something that
had been hanging over my head for a long
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time. As they rightly say, the more bitter the

struggle, the sweeter the reward.
Since nothing can be obtained for free
and doing one thing prevents you from doing
something else, youre forced to make com-
promises. That means that, depending on
your current priorities, you might need to
lock yourself in the house and work on
something instead of partying with friends
and cute girls. In Bulgaria, I had to re-
peatedly say no to my friend regardless of
how much I wanted to go out. I had to
choose between two competing interests,
and the victim was either going to be my
time or his. Right now Im sitting in a coffee
shop and writing the book youre reading.
That is something Ive been doing for the
past several months, Monday through
Saturday, for most of the day. If my friend
had happened to call me and ask me to hang
out, I wouldve probably declined. Is it be-
cause I dont like my friend? No, not at all. I
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like my friends. Its an issue of priorities.

Finishing this book is currently one of the
highest priorities in my life. Its higher than
hanging out with friends. Its higher than
traveling. And its even higher than chasing
random women. But is there anyone that will
motivate me to stop what Im doing and do
something else? That would be anyone that
offers more value to me than finishing and
presenting this book to the world. If a cute
girl calls me, then I would decline. Cute girls
are a dime a dozen. But if Bill Gates calls me
out of the blue and invites me out to lunch,
Ill probably accept. On a scale of 1-10, where
1 is a very low-priority task, and 10 is a very
high-priority task, working on this book is a
9, but meeting Bill Gates is a 10. However,
after I finish the book, Ill be more willing to
do lower priority tasks like hanging out with
a friend and chasing random girls.

Structuring your time

 102/411

When it comes to structuring ones time,

Ive developed a system that has worked well
for a long time. Generally, there are two
types of things that one should be focusing
on. The first type is the producer tasks.
These tasks are of medium or long-term
nature, and their purpose is to furnish you
with massive value. Examples of such goals
are mastering a foreign language, reading an
important book, writing your own book,
building a successful business, etc. The
second type is the consumer tasks. These
tasks are relatively short in duration, such as
watching a 30-minute TV episode, enjoying a
90-minute World Cup match, checking news
on a website, checking email, browsing Face-
book, and approaching a girl in a park.
There are key differences between these
two types of tasks. The producer tasks are
where youre actually producing something
that will be consumed by others. The pur-
pose of writing a software application or a
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video game is for it to be consumed when

others use it or play it. The same goes for
writing a book that will be read (consumed)
by others. On the other hand, when youre
consuming something, youre utilizing what
someone else has produced. Watching a sit-
com or a soccer game is an example of con-
sumption because they are both created by
someone else.
The second difference between the pro-
ducer and consumer tasks is the duration.
The producer tasks are mostly medium to
long-term in nature. These tasks are not
something that can be done in minutes or
hours; it takes months and years to achieve
them. I cant write a book in a week. I also
cant master a foreign language in a week. On
the other hand, consumer tasks last a very
short duration; they can take anywhere from
seconds (checking email) to hours (watching
a sitcom or a game). Here are examples of
worthy long-term projects and goals: writing
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a book, getting a BJJ black belt, writing a

Ph.D. dissertation, building a popular blog
that has 10,000+ readers, building a com-
pany that has a six-figure revenue, building a
yacht, learning to speak fluent French, etc.
And here are examples of distractions: taking
a week long vacation to Mexico, going to
your friend's wedding, going to a bar on Fri-
day night, going skiing for a weekend, ap-
proaching a cute girl at a bus stop, etc.
Did you notice in which category I placed
chasing women? If you havent, then let me
be clear so that there's no misunderstanding:
its firmly in the distraction category. That
means its something that happens in
between your projects, but never as the pro-
ject or goal. I can make slow and constant
progress on my life-long goals. I can improve
my business by making it more efficient and
profitable, I can learn some new words and
phrases in a foreign language, and I can
write several pages or chapters for my new
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book. These are all forms of slow and im-

portant progress towards a particular goal.
But I cannot make slow and consistent pro-
gress on distractions that only take seconds
to minutes to complete. I dont get closer to
my goals after watching an episode of The
Sopranos. I dont get closer to my goals after
watching a sports match. Similarly, I dont
make any progress on my objectives after I
check my email or navigate to my Facebook
page. All of these are distractions.
Ive read lots of biographies of great
men, such as generals, presidents, politi-
cians, and business leaders. And the com-
mon theme in nearly all of them is that the
man was extremely ambitious and was al-
ways working to achieve something import-
ant. A persons reasons for this ambition
vary, but whats certain is that it must be
something big that affects many people.
These men tirelessly worked for many hours
in order to realize their dreams. Every now
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and then they took breaks and engaged in

fun activities, but that was always on the
periphery. They never took their eyes off the
ball. They never forgot about the main prize.
They always remembered that their goals in
life were larger than life. Thats what made
them different from the average guy.
The producer and consumer system is
essentially a series of projects and distrac-
tions. Theyre not done in parallel, but rather
in sequence. They're weaved together like
threads in a fabric. Picture your life as com-
posed of a series of projects on which youre
constantly working. In between those pro-
jects, you take various short breaks in the
form of distractions. After you finish doing
the producer task, you stop and begin doing
a consumer task. Following that short break,
you return to the producer task. I can spend
several hours writing a book, take a small
break by surfing to a news website, and then
return to writing for the next several hours.
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The beauty of this system is that you get to

have your cake and eat too. Each day you're
slowly working on your major, long-term
goals. Instead of losing your sanity, youre al-
lowed to indulge in minor distractions by do-
ing random things every once in a while.
Of course, knowing what you must do
and actually rolling up your sleeves and do-
ing it are two entirely different things. While
Im working, I sometimes find it difficult to
concentrate, instead feeling compelled to
surf a random site or check emails every sev-
eral minutes. One time when I caught myself
in this behavior, I knew that I was wasting
time that could be used to complete projects
faster. I began brainstorming how I could
make my time scarce, so I would feel pres-
sured to put it to good use only. One morn-
ing I came up with a great idea: I would fully
charge up my laptop, and when leaving the
house, I would leave the charger at home. Al-
though my laptop is old and the battery
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rarely lasts more than four hours, its enough

to get serious work done. The work I've been
doing lately (writing) is not very energy-in-
tensive, but if I began web surfing and
watching videos, it would drain my battery
much quicker. I decided that if I finished my
work and still had time left, then I would use
the remainder of my battery to surf the web.
But if I started to surf the web before finish-
ing my time, I risked running out of juice be-
fore finishing my work.
This trick forced me to actually treat
time as a limited and exhaustible commodity
like cash in my pocket. If I know that I need
to complete a project on my laptop, and I
also know that my laptop will work for four
hours and then shut off, then I will work on
the project, and the project only, until I
either complete the project or the four hours
expires. The four hours is a hard deadline.
Theres no way to extend this time, short of
physically going back home, grabbing the
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charger and recharging the battery. If I finish

the project in a timely fashion, though, I'm
rewarded with the remainder of the time that
I can use as I wish. Making time scarce auto-
matically forces me to work on higher prior-
ities tasks first, followed by any other ones
later.
This strategy worked really well. Not
only did I no longer need to carry the heavy
charger, but it also made me much more
time-efficient. Making time scarce is always
a solid time-management strategy. If you
know that you only have a certain amount of
timeand not a second moreto do
something, you will only dedicate that time
on the most pressing and highest priority
tasks.
This is closely related to a well-known
principle called Parkinsons Law, which
states that work expands so as to fill the time
available to its completion. That means that
if you decide that a task needs a week to
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complete, then thats how much time youll

need to complete the task, regardless of the
tasks true difficulty. The task will grow in
complexity so that it actually fills up that
week. On the other hand, if you only allocate
five minutes to a task, then the same task
will suddenly become simple enough so that
you can complete it in those five minutes.
This principle exposes a persons inability to
correctly estimate the amount of time
needed to complete a task. And because
people cannot accurately predict the amount
of time needed to do something, they end up
always padding it with extra buffers and leg
room so that doing the task doesnt seem as
daunting and stressful.

Using time as a weapon

Once you understand how to skillfully
use and manage your own time, you can be-
gin to use it as a weapon to influence others.
When you use your time as a weapon, you
use it to reward or punish people. The more
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high value and desirable a person you are,

the more potently you can leverage your
time. Lets say that one afternoon you receive
a call from the President of the United
States. He talks to you for a few minutes and
then invites you out to dinner. From your
point of view, its a pure reward because a
very high value individual is using his valu-
able time to dial your number, talk to you,
and then offer to spend yet more time with
you. Or, imagine for a moment that Bill
Gates calls you out of the blue. He chats with
you and then invites you for coffee. If you
were like most people, you would be very
flexible and would be willing to meet him
anytime. You would probably also tell all
your friends about it. It suffices to say that
spending time with people such as the Pres-
ident or Bill Gates would be something you
would be constantly thinking about leading
up to the event. In fact, it might even feel like
youve won the lottery.
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The reason you would feel so excited is

because a high value person rewarded you
with his time. Men of high value exclusively
spend their time with people of equally high
value, such as other CEOs, millionaires, and
billionaires. Bill Gates isnt known to call
random people and invite them to lunch, yet
he suddenly gave you a call out of the blue.
Yes, Bill is an important and successful per-
son, and the fact that he picked you is vital.
My friend recently used a subtle trick to re-
ward me with his time. We usually chat on-
line, but we had been meaning to catch up on
the phone for a long time. While we were
chatting on Skype, he suddenly said, I have
some time now to chat before I go to the
gym. Notice that he didn't ask me if I
wanted to chat. He also didn't ask if I was
available to chat. He just told me he was free.
He simply rewarded me with his time. It was
a subtle but very powerful trick.
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The opposite of reward is punishment.

Punishing with ones time is when someone
withdraws time that they previously had de-
voted to you. Lets say your girlfriend, whom
you've been with for a few years, suddenly
breaks up with you. While she was your girl-
friend her time was seemingly unlimited to
you; she was always willing to meet you and
do stuff with you. However, now shes sud-
denly unavailable as a result of higher prior-
ities in her life. Previously, you took her
seemingly unlimited time for granted, but
now that she took it away, you feel that
something is missing and want it back. Its as
though someone cut off your air supply and
you cant breathe. That air supply was that
unlimited time that you previously had,
but no longer have access to.
As a result, you feel punished by her
because shes taken away something that for
a long time was unquestionably yours. Once
she suddenly withdraws her time, you feel
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something is missing so you want to get it

back. Its pure punishment. Now lets say
that an ex-girlfriend suddenly has a change
of heart and gets back together with you. In-
stead of being perpetually unavailable, she
suddenly gives you a call and invites you to
coffee. Furthermore, she ends up spending a
whole day with you and doesnt act like she
has to be home at a certain time. She went
from extremely busy to very available. How
would you feel? Obviously you would feel
great. Even rewarded. Thats because the girl
is now rewarding you with her time instead
of punishing you with it.
One of the cruelest methods of punishing
someone with time is giving it initially and
then withdrawing it, such as when a girl re-
sponds to your first message, but then ig-
nores all subsequent messages. Because she
replied to the first message, you know that
you have the right number and also are
aware that she knows who you are. But since
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she's not replying to your ensuing messages,

it's pretty obvious she doesn't want to waste
her time on you. It stings extra hard because
it's a drastic withdrawal of her time.
While rewarding or punishing someone
with time can be a one-time occurrence, a
more effective way to reward or punish
someone is by gradually increasing or de-
creasing amounts of time that you devote to
them. When I lived in Romania, I spent lots
of time working in one of the libraries, an
ideal work environment because of the quiet
hours, the fast Internet, and not needing to
buy coffee. I also got to know the cute girl in
the coatroom. She always seemed excited
when I came by, asking me lots of questions
about my background and my plans in the
country. She was obviously interested be-
cause on more than one occasion I had to po-
litely excuse myself from the conversation,
otherwise I wouldve been chatting for hours
and failed to get any work done. Without
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even realizing it, I was making my time

scarce because I had higher priorities: I had
to work on an important project that had a
very tight deadline. The interaction was
markedly different from the many times in
the past where I had completely surrendered
my time to women. Suddenly, my time was
scarcer than hers; she was just some bored
girl working in the coat checkroom, while I
had an important project to finish.
So, I began to gradually reward her with
my time by increasing the time I spent chat-
ting with her. Instead of simply handing her
my jacket and immediately going to work, I
stayed a bit longer. I entertained her ques-
tions and asked her follow-up questions.
After I finished work, I would pick up my
jacket and linger for a bit. Initially, I stayed a
couple of minutes each time, but gradually,
five minutes turned into ten, and ten
minutes turned to twenty. Several weeks
later, we were easily chatting for more than
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thirty minutes. One night we were both

forced to leave because the library was clos-
ing. Now, at this point all I was doing was
talking and nothing else. I wasn't buying her
nice gifts or giving her money. However, by
merely standing there and talking to her, I
was rewarding her with my time. Of course,
the reward can continue even further. The
next step would have been for me to invite
her for coffee or dinner. The step after that
would have been taking a weekend trip to-
gether. After wed done that a couple of
times, perhaps we might move in together.
The ultimate step after that might be to get
married. Its important to emphasize that I
would continue to reward her with my time
only if she continued to reciprocate with
value.
Both of these situations are examples of
a time escalation ladder. While online chat-
ting is a form of communication, its a very
poor one. I type a sentence. She can respond
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either immediately or few hours later. Its

barely real-time. It doesnt communicate
emotions. In fact, its an excellent form of
communication if you dont want to show
emotions. On the other hand, video chatting
on Skype is on another level. It's real-time,
like talking with a person in front of you. It
requires a certain level of attention and com-
mitment from both parties. Its the next step
on the escalation ladder. Thus, the time es-
calation ladder might go like this: small chat,
long chat, lunch, dinner, casual dating, ex-
clusive dating, moving in together, becoming
engaged, and getting married. The only
factor thats really increasing is the time and
corresponding attention I reward her with.
The strength of the escalating ladder is that,
from her point of view, theres nothing more
powerful than having felt that she earned the
time and attention of a high value man, in-
stead of the common situation where a low-
value guy with unlimited time chases her
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because hes desperate. Its also not as if you

randomly decided to devote more time to
her; it's because after getting to know her,
you realized that shes indeed an interesting
person and you assign her a higher role than
certain other priorities and obligations.
Whereas the escalating ladder is gradu-
ally used to reward someone with your time,
a de-escalating ladder is used to gradually
punish someone with your time. One ex-
ample of this occurs when you meet a girl in
a bar and spend an hour talking to her before
getting her number. She promises to meet
you again. The first time you call her, you
talk to her for ten minutes and make plans to
go out. A few days later, she calls and tells
you that shes busy and cant see you. After
that, you never hear from her again. If you
look closely, youll notice a de-escalating lad-
der. The first time you met you spent an hour
talking to her, the subsequent phone call was
ten minutes, and the final call was only thirty
 120/411

seconds. She was slowly punishing you by

gently withdrawing her time with each
interaction.
As you can see, using time as a weapon is
an extremely powerful psychological tool.
But before you can utilize this potent tool
you must be aware of certain conditions. The
first is that you must own your time and util-
ize it correctly. Instead of always being avail-
able to others, others must feel they have to
work for your scarce time. The second is that
the other person must have demand for your
time. It makes no difference whatsoever if
you suddenly decide to stop calling some girl
who doesnt even know you exist, or one who
hates your guts. You cant take away
something that wasn't really valued in the
first place. The third condition is that you
must initially withdraw your time when
someone is interested in it. If youre super-
available in the first place, then you cant
punish someone by becoming unavailable.
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The same goes for reward. The power rests in

changing from being available to unavailable
or vice versa.
Unless youre a complete recluse, a big
chunk of your time will be used on forming
various relationships with people. However,
not all of the people who will try to enter
your life will be worthy of your time and at-
tention. Fortunately, your standards will dic-
tate who will get access to your time and who
will not.
 III

STANDARDS

Better to write for yourself and have no

public,
than to write for the public and have no
self."
Cyril Connolly

The other day I received an email from a

reader. He asked me for advice with a specif-
ic girl. The guy asked her out, but the girl re-
jected him. He wanted to know exactly what
he could do to win her back. What he's es-
sentially asking, even though he's not expli-
citly phrasing it this way, is how he can
change himself in order to win someone
else's (in this case, a girls) approval. I told
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him point-blank that it's her loss that she re-

jected him. He immediately replied, How
can it be her loss if she can have any guy she
wants? This is a perfect example of someone
with very low or even non-existent stand-
ards. Just because a girl can have any guy
she wants, it doesnt automatically mean
she's a high value woman. Most girls any-
where can have any guy they want, at least in
the short term. In America, a high majority
of the womenregardless of their lookscan
have most of the guys they want. Thats why
its important to define your standards and
stick to them.
Although you might not consciously real-
ize it, standards are already part of your life.
If you care about your appearance, then
you'll probably buy your clothes in an ex-
pensive department store instead of fre-
quenting thrift or second-hand clothing
stores. If you care about what you eat, then
youll skip fast food chains like McDonalds
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and Burger King and eat at a proper sit-down

restaurant that serves freshly cooked, high-
quality food. If you care about comfort when
traveling, then youll to choose to spend your
nights in a comfortable hotel room instead of
sharing your abode with 24 other smelly
backpackers in a multi-bed hostel dorm. The
high rollers will go even further and only
spend their nights in exclusive five-star ho-
tels such as the Hilton or Four Seasons.
Think about where youre living right now.
You probably have good reasons to live in the
center of the city or in the nice suburbs. You
decide whether you want to be surrounded
by other young professionals or by more es-
tablished families. And, if you had a choice,
you would most likely choose a safe neigh-
borhood instead of one riddled with crime.
Theres a good reason why you choose to do
something one way and not another; theres
a reason why you choose to hang out and
construct relationships with certain people
 125/411

who have similar interests and have accom-

plished similar things as yourself. Its be-
cause you have standards.
Possessing standards is important be-
cause they establish you as a high value man
in two crucial ways. First, by serving as a fil-
ter, standards force you to be more selective
with the kind of people and places that you
bless with your valuable time and attention.
Second, by erecting standards you effectively
change how others perceive you. Thats be-
cause others notice that your time and atten-
tion are now scarcer, instead of being seem-
ingly unlimited. They notice that you no
longer spend your valuable time with just
anyone. People are thus forced to fight for
your time and attention if they dont want to
be left out. For these reasons and more,
standards are an important component of
every confident and high value man.

The need for more

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The realization that I must consciously

analyze the people that enter my life and de-
termine if they meet my standards occurred
to me one day after I had finished chatting
with a cute waitress in a Colombian caf. As
the girl walked away, I thought for a few mo-
ments why I passed up a seemingly good op-
portunity to chat with a cute girl. Apart from
having no physical strength to game (I was
recovering from a nasty flu and wasnt feel-
ing well), I also noticed that there wasnt
anything special about her. While she wasnt
utterly ugly, she wasnt absolutely gorgeous.
While she wasnt frigidly cold, she wasnt
amiably warm. While she wasnt downright
rude, she wasnt especially polite. In every
aspect, she was well average. Just aver-
age. Nothing more, nothing less. It was a
rather surreal experience. Over the next sev-
eral weeks, as I reflected more on this experi-
ence, I realized that for the first time in my
life it was no longer enough that the woman
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be just cute or even just gorgeous: she

needed to be more. At that moment I
couldnt yet define this more, but I knew
that whatever that particular waitress had
was no longer enough.
That more that I discovered was actu-
ally a realization that I was developing stand-
ards when it came to women. Higher stand-
ards. Superior standards. It was no longer
sufficient for a woman to be woman; it was
no longer enough for a woman in my life to
be a human who merely possessed a pair of
breasts and a vagina. Unless she actually dif-
ferentiated herself somehow from the sea of
other similarly cute women, I wouldnt give
her another thought. Whereas before I had
been essentially smitten with any attractive
girl, I realized that since Im a relatively suc-
cessful guy, theres no reason I must spend
my time on average or below-average wo-
men. I needed to only surround myself with
other people who have similar (or higher)
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value compared to myself. I needed to estab-

lish standards. And, under no circumstances,
must I act like the guy who sent me the email
above, a guy who idolizes pretty much any
woman who crosses his path.
Standards are a filter of value. If you're a
high value man who has a decently-paying
job and a nice apartment, then why would
you deal with people who have no redeeming
qualities? There's a good reason why neither
Bruce Springsteen nor Bill Gates form busi-
ness relationships with homeless bums; they
only associate themselves with people of
similar value. Standards force you to filter
only the people who add value into your life,
while duly blocking everyone else.
Lets say you own a nightclub that you
want to have a certain reputation as an ex-
clusive place to see and be seen. Naturally,
you would want its clientele to be made up of
very high value people like famous DJs, act-
ors and actresses, and various other
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celebrities. The last thing you want is for the

club to lose its reputation by letting in people
of questionable value like low-level drug
dealers, petty thieves, and smelly homeless
people. So, what do you do? You hire a boun-
cer who will stand at the door and let certain
people in and block certain people out based
on specified criteria. If the person is a fam-
ous celebrity, hes automatically allowed in-
side. Otherwise, the bouncer engages in face
control, which means he only lets in good-
looking people and rejects not so good-look-
ing people. That helps to keep the clubs cli-
entele to a certain level of good looks and
overall value.
Or lets suppose youve just started a tech
company. Your goal is to develop the very
best software and sell it to millions of people
worldwide. Thus, you need to hire excellent
developers and designers. Since you only
want the best people who possess certain
skills (i.e., strong experience building similar
 130/411

applications, knowledge of a specific pro-

gramming language, and knowledge of a spe-
cific compiler), you create a list of qualifica-
tions that each of the candidates must pos-
sess. Only then will they be hired and given a
role in your company. In tech startups,
theres actually a well-known paradigm
called hire slow, fire fast. Essentially that
means that you should be very selective with
people that you hire. Take your time looking
over the candidates qualifications. Bring the
candidate for an on-site interview. Have the
whole team rigorously interview the candid-
ate. Dont rush when making the final de-
cision. And even if you end making a mistake
and hiring someone whos a bad fit for your
company, dont hesitate too long to fire the
person. Bad hires are like dead weight; not
only do they consume valuable resources
such as the companys time and money, but
they also decrease productivity of your best
employees by making them constantly
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explain simple concepts to the bad hires.

When I lived in Latin America, certain types
of women had a unique way of enforcing the
standards that they look for in a mate. In
some of the Argentinian and Brazilian clubs
that I used to frequent, it was common for
the girls to immediately wave their finger at
the guys they didnt like. It was their way of
hinting that the guy shouldnt even bother to
approach because he didnt pass the girls
standards. Since the girl didnt have a chance
to even talk to the guy, her standards were
obviously based on physical appearance
alone.
Filtering access, whether its to a posh
club, a software company, or a cute girl, has
a direct effect of making the eventual access
to it more valuable. People want something
that they cant easily have. They want
something that requires them to work for it.
And when they work for something, they
value it more as opposed to if they had
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gotten it with zero effort. After all, if anyone

can easily obtain something, then it must not
be in strong demand, and consequently not
worth very much. This is the powerful
scarcity principle at work.

Demystifying women
When it comes to women, one of the ma-
jor pitfalls men experience is idolizing any
cute woman they see walking around. Stand-
ards prevent that from happening because
they force you to define what exactly it is
youre looking for in a person. In this way,
standards help you cut through the fog of
the persons outward appearance and focus
on the details. They help you to demystify a
womans seemingly infallible beauty. When I
lived in Brazil, my friends and I had lots of
interactions with all kinds of women, includ-
ing local Brazilian women and foreigners.
One of the English girls we all knew was very
cute. She was blonde, tall, and had overall
model-level looks. She was truly a catch. Of
 133/411

course, she fully realized this and acted ap-

propriately to her external value.
But was she really a catch? As always,
that depends on your definition of the word.
One day, as my roommates and I were walk-
ing back to the house, the discussion shifted
to the girls. One of the guys mentioned that
he liked that English girl. Another guy re-
sponded, though shes a nice girl, lets be
honest here: shes nothing but a blonde
bimbo. It was an unexpected description of
her because, up until that point, all of us con-
sidered her a beautiful woman that every guy
would kill to be with. No one ever thought of
her in a negative sense, and all of us con-
sidered her to be just the opposite. However,
something strange happened. No one actu-
ally strongly disagreed when my friend
labeled her a blonde bimbo. People merely
thought about it for a moment, but then nod-
ded their heads in agreement. It was difficult
to argue with that statement because in
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many ways she was the stereotypical bimbo:

blonde, party girl, and not very intelligent.
A similar thing happened when I lived in
Romania and the guy who rented me the
apartment invited me to a friends house for
a sports match. During the games halftime,
a Coca-Cola commercial appeared on the TV.
The main protagonist was a young girl
wearing very short shorts. She was walking
quickly in a direction of a good-looking guy
who was, naturally, drinking a Coke. I imme-
diately recognized the girl because she had
starred in a popular music video that was
playing all over Romanian bars and clubs
several weeks earlier. Apparently, she was a
popular sex symbol in Romania. However,
my friends reaction was very different.
Whos that slut? he exclaimed in disbelief,
while looking around the room. That cer-
tainly wasnt a label that immediately came
to my mind when I recognized the girl. Of
course, the girl was dressed in a rather slutty
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manner, wearing very short and tight shorts

and a revealing top. But that only made her
even sexier, instead of sluttier, in my eyes.
In both cases my friends didnt see a gor-
geous and unattainable girl, but instead saw
a bimbo or a slut. They werent downplaying
her attractiveness because they were jealous
and saw someone they couldnt obtain. The
reason that my friend was able to honestly
call her a bimbo, while others were salivating
at the prospect of spending time with her, is
because my friend had enough experience to
see through the thick fog and strong emo-
tions and understood what she was all about.
Over the course of dealing with all kinds of
women, he had developed standards. Those
standards helped him properly understand
what kind of women he was dealing with.
And in both cases the women simply didnt
meet them. Similarly, my other friend didnt
see anything more there than some average-
looking girl who was dressing and acting like
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a slut. Of course, labeling her a slut doesnt

mean that he wouldnt try to sleep with her if
given an opportunity. Any man certainly
would, my friend included. But by labeling
her a slut, my friend instantly relegated her
to a lower-value category. He instinctively
categorized her as a girl who was below him,
not worthy of his time beyond a random
fling.
In this sense, standards are like special
glasses you wear that let you see the world
differently. Whereas before you simply
judged every girl as either attractive or unat-
tractivean utterly simplistic and unhelpful
criterianow youll objectively categorize her
based on an array of predefined characterist-
ics. When I lived in California, my roommate
and I used to frequent an upscale sushi res-
taurant in a nice part of town. One of the
waitresses was very cute, with an uncanny
resemblance to the punk rocker Avril Lav-
igne. My roommate was extremely smitten
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by her. After having dinner he would remark

to me how beautiful she was and how one
day he would collect the courage and ask her
out. Well, that day never came. As much as
he wanted to ask her out on a date, he never
managed to gather his courage beyond the
usual, Id like to order
There are two ways to view the Avril Lav-
igne lookalike. If you have no standards,
then what you see is a cute girl who works at
a high-end sushi restaurant in an expensive
part of town. Shes gorgeous. Shes desirable.
Every guy wants her, my friend included. But
once you adapt the standards mindset,
everything suddenly changes. Its like remov-
ing the rose-tinted glasses and seeing reality
for the first time. That girl suddenly becomes
just a normal employee in a service-oriented
job. Besides being cute, what else does she
have? By the looks of it, she doesnt have an
advanced political science or economics de-
gree. She hasnt written some
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groundbreaking papers or discovered a new

chemical element. It can even be the com-
plete opposite: she could be dumber than a
doornail. The only thing thats certain is that
shes some girl whos trying to get by, and
happens to be very attractive through no
work of her own doing.
How would you categorize her? That de-
pends on what she can contribute to you.
Right off the bat it would be some girl I
would want to have sex with. Anything else?
Probably not. Unless I learn more about her
by interviewing her (which will be dis-
cussed later), I cant upgrade her to higher-
value categories. And as a girl whos releg-
ated to a lower-value category, theres no
need to devote and invest much time into
strategizing your approach. There are mil-
lions, even billions, of cute girls like her on
this planet. On the other hand, had she
demonstrated certain achievements, then
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that would warrant more of my time in chas-

ing her. But certainly not before.
Just recently I was sitting in a restaur-
ants outdoor area. After I had sat down and
ordered, I noticed a couple sitting next to
me. My attention instantly shifted to the girl.
She wasnt just cute; she was truly gorgeous.
She had a slim body, a nice angular face, and
pleasant olive-toned skin. But her most strik-
ing feature was her amazingly beautiful
bright blue eyes. They looked especially re-
markable contrasted with her dark complex-
ion. She was one of those girls that you im-
mediately stop and admire. Although she
was sitting with a guy, I assumed they wer-
ent together because they werent sitting
very close or holding hands. I also assumed it
was either a friend or they were on the first
date. Since they were sitting so close to me, I
couldnt help but eavesdrop on the conversa-
tion. As I listened to her talk, though, my in-
terest in her took a rapid nosedive. She
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began talking about how the bouncer didnt

let her into some new club that had opened
the prior weekend, and how she hates her
parents. Then she related to the man the
time she went to a mall and bought some
new shoes. Then the topic shifted back to her
parents, and how they didnt understand
her. There were other things, but you get the
picture. Apart from her beauty, there wasnt
really much more. Of course, I didnt know
her too well, but the initial information I re-
ceived about her wasnt very encouraging.
So, immediately I began to consider how I
would categorize her. Its obvious that this
girl wouldnt have been someone to date
long-term. Its obvious that I wouldnt be
marrying her. How much of my time would I
devote to chasing and seducing her? She was
cute, but that wouldnt have automatically
given her a free pass to monopolize all of my
time.
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As a man, I'm sure you've had an experi-

ence where you were smitten by a very cute
girl. Perhaps it was even love at first sight. As
soon as you saw her you were already pictur-
ing approaching her, seducing her, and enga-
ging in violent monkey sex. Perhaps you
even thought about marrying her down the
road, moving into a huge house with a white
picket fence, and having lots of children.
Then she opened her mouth and completely
killed your interest and hopes for the future,
perhaps by talking in a valley girl accent,
employing a vocal fry, or something
equally nauseating and indicative of low
class.
If the above reasons havent convinced
you to develop standards, then heres one
more: standards enable you to save precious
time and energy that would be wasted on
dealing with people with whom you have
nothing in common and, in turn, cant add
any value to your life. Lets suppose I have a
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couple of hours during the day to have coffee

with a girl. And lets further say Im able to
pick and choose a girl from a wide array of
candidates (e.g. via online dating). In this
case, it would be important to learn what
each girl was about and not just invite the
first girl who looked fantastic. If she loves
yoga, but I find yoga to be boring, then why
would I want to sit with someone for an hour
or two and talk about nothing but yoga? That
would be a poor use of my time and hers. It
would even be a frustrating experience. I cer-
tainly would rather watch a movie or read a
great book instead of talking to someone
whose interests are completely the opposite
of mine. On the other hand, if shes into
travel and wants to go to Brazil, then we
would have tons of things to talk about. We
would connect quicker and smoother
without forcing anything through awkward
moments. The interaction would be benefi-
cial to both of us because we would be
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mutually adding value about our common

interests. Thats how you guarantee that the
time youll spend wont be converted into
frustration. But even before that step, you
need to define your standards.
The major problem is that most men
have low or non-existent standards. Most are
conditioned to respond to any signal from
pretty much any girl. They see an average-
looking woman and are immediately inter-
ested without first thinking what she can
bring to the table. Remember, every relation-
ship is an exchange of value between two
people. A hot girl will have no reason to
spend her time with some loser if she knows
she can do better by spending time with a
highly successful guy. Women always trade
up and almost never trade down, because
they have standards. But most men arent
like that. For most men its easier to live with
absolutely zero standards than to analyze the
qualifications of each person they come into
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contact with. They see a cute girl and will

drop everything in order to win just a minute
of her time and attention.
Mens lack of standards partly explains
why the West is overrun with masculine,
slutty, and spoiled women who don't put any
effort into their outward and inward appear-
ance (e.g. flip flops, jeans, obesity, flaky,
glued to their smartphones). If men dont de-
sire a woman who puts effort into looking
good, then women wont put effort into look-
ing good. Women have absolutely zero in-
centive to improve when they have a block
full of guys ready to hit on them as soon as
they go outside wearing their dirty pajamas.

Standards boost value

Another powerful effect of possessing
standards is that it alters how you are per-
ceived by others. People judge you by the
people with whom you hang out. Its a psy-
chological concept called social proof. I real-
ize that's like judging a book by its cover, but
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that's exactly how it is. A guy will do much

better in a bar if he brings a cute girl or two
with him. A girl can be physically attractive,
but if shes surrounded by interesting and
cool people, she will also seem interesting
and cool. I usually determine what kind of a
woman I'm dealing with by getting to know
her friends and acquaintances, and I'm
rarely wrong. If you have cool and interest-
ing friends, then you're perceived to be cool
and interesting. Otherwise why would all
these successful and high value people hang
out with you? They must be doing it because
they found you to be cool and interesting. Or
consider the reverse: lets say you see a beau-
tiful girl, but all her friends are just average
or below average. Wouldnt that raise imme-
diate red flags? Surely, there must be
something wrong with the girl if none of her
friends are cute or desirable.
Thus, in order to create a better first im-
pression, we have to pay closer attention to
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our standards. And since you dont really

have an opportunity to change the first im-
pression, its important to maximize it by
surrounding yourself with high quality
people. The payoff is more than worth it: the
more you pay attention to your social circle,
the higher your value will be.

Value, environment, and experience

The kinds of people and places you'll
choose to associate yourself with will gener-
ally depend three things: value, environ-
ment, and experience. Lets suppose youre a
Hollywood movie star like George Clooney or
Tom Cruise. Youre known the world over.
When you are at a movie premiere, you have
tons of gorgeous female fans that never miss
your movies. While you can have sex with
lots of them (by having sex with one or two
new women everyday), when it comes to
more serious commitments like marriage
you must choose one woman. After all, you
cant really marry them all. So, how do you
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choose whom to marry? You will have to nat-

urally elevate your standards. Its the basic
rule of supply and demand. There are lots of
women (demand) who desire only you (sup-
ply). And when theres considerable demand
for something thats scarce, the price of ad-
mission (your standards) automatically goes
up. While you would sleep with just about
anyone, provided shes cute and sexy, when
it comes to marriage you will demand
someone who has more. How is this more
defined? Again, that depends on what youre
looking for. Since youre a famous movie star
who commands a high salary for each movie,
you have lots of status, and thats something
you would likely want your future wife to
have. She could even be a famous movie star
herself. She could be involved in politics. She
could be involved in business. Regardless of
the specific method, she needs to somehow
differentiate herself from the sea of other
women. Since youre able to obtain any cute
 148/411

woman out there, its no longer enough for a

woman to be cute, and that results in your
standards automatically going up. She needs
to have value.
Standards are also shaped by your envir-
onment, because it describes what you con-
tinuously interact with, day in and day out.
Environment is your reference point. In
America, thanks to the powerful reach of
Hollywood and other mass media, a regular
girl who happens to have blonde hair and a
nice body is elevated to be highly important.
These girls are artificially made to seem spe-
cial and unique. But in countries where such
women are as common as a blue sky, theyre
nothing more than just normal. They arent
in such huge demand. Ive spent several
years in various Northern and Eastern
European countries, where the majority of
women perfectly fit the blonde bombshell
stereotype. Ive ridden buses with them and
passed them in the streets every single day.
 149/411

In fact, as I am writing this, a very cute

blonde girl just passed by on the street. Dont
get me wrong, such women are still very at-
tractive; a beautiful woman is still a beautiful
woman no matter where she is. But beautiful
is all she is. She no longer has this mythical
and spellbinding God-like status. When I
spend every single day surrounded by seem-
ingly beautiful women, the typical blonde
bombshell label loses its luster. If youre in a
desert with no water in sight, water becomes
scarce and dear. But if youre in a freshwater
lake, water is no longer scarce: its abundant.
Similarly, if the only time you see an attract-
ive woman is in a Hollywood movie and not
regularly out on the streets, then beauty be-
comes truly scarce and highly sought after.
When you find yourself in abundance of
something, the very first thing that will hap-
pen is that you will stop idolizing it. While
living Brazil, I was surrounded by gorgeous
and approachable women everywhere I went.
 150/411

It was a drastic change from the women in

American big cities, who were always busy
and loved playing endless games when you
approached them or asked them out. Then,
after a few weeks of living in Rio de Janeiro
and being surrounded by gorgeous women,
the excitement and magic gradually wore off.
It became the new normal to live in an envir-
onment filled with attractive and friendly
women. I started to take it for granted. One
day, an American friend visited me and
stayed at my place for New Years. He was a
young and outgoing guy who was just look-
ing for a good time. As soon as he landed and
got to my place, he couldnt stop talking
about how many gorgeous women he noticed
on his way from the airport. Then he took a
shower and we headed out on the street. He
was turning his neck so often that I was wor-
ried he might get whiplash. We entered a su-
permarket to buy some beer, and he was like
a kid in the candy store, running around and
 151/411

exclaiming how every woman was absolutely

gorgeous, and how I lucky I was to live in
such country. Was he right? Was I, in fact,
surrounded by gorgeous women? Absolutely,
there's no doubt about it. But being in an en-
vironment filled with gorgeous women did
not mean that every single woman automat-
ically caught my attention. It also didnt
mean that I had to game every single woman
that I noticed. That would require more time
than there's available in the world. For
something to catch my attention during that
period, a person or an object needed to be
unique. On the other hand, my friend was so
restless and hyper because he had come from
a completely different environment, where
the majority of women werent as pretty and
approachable. After a week of being in this
new environment, my friend also adjusted
and began behaving in a much more relaxed
manner.
 152/411

Later, my friend made another interest-

ing observation. One sunny afternoon, we
walked the half block from my house to the
beach. Right away he mentioned the amazing
location I lived in: merely half a block from
an amazing beach, one of the most amazing
in the city if not the whole country. I
shrugged my shoulders and told him I rarely
went there. When the beach is this close and
the weather is constantly sunny and hot,
theres rarely any desire to go. Thats in stark
contrast when you live somewhere very
north like Norway or Russia, where its con-
stantly cold and all you fantasize about is sit-
ting on the sand in some tropical country.
When something isnt scarcesuch as
being surrounded by gorgeous blonde wo-
men or living next to beautiful tropical
beachyou naturally pay less attention it. It
stops being untouchable and above you. If
there're fifty places in the world that all have
identical pyramids, then there's no need to
 153/411

travel all the way to Egypt. You can simply

visit the city closest to you that has them.
Similarly, you will not idolize a beautiful
blonde woman if such women are every-
where. Theyre not scarce. Theyre not spe-
cial. They all look alike. If I had a choice
between fifteen blonde women, and I had to
pick just one, I would demand something
more that the woman should possess for me
to be interested. I would interview each one
and determine which of the women had ad-
ditional characteristics like intelligence, cool-
ness, sexiness, or some other distinct
characteristic.
Standards are also influenced by past ex-
perience. If I spent most of my life living and
interacting with certain types of people, then
that's what I would expect to do in the fu-
ture. One of my favorite partners in crime in
Brazil was Cesar, a Brazilian guy who had
spent many years living in America, but had
recently moved back to Rio de Janeiro. He
 154/411

was cool, interesting and always up for a

great time. It didnt hurt that he was super
confident and always approached any wo-
man he desired. What made him different,
though, was that unlike my other friends,
Cesar was always willing to say no to wo-
men he didnt like and was always ready to
go home empty-handed. He wasnt desperate
to pick up just anyone. This is because he
knew the level of women he could get, and
also because he had a girlfriend on the side
that he visited several times a week. He
had standards, and if the girls in the club
didnt meet them, then he would simply go
home alone.
I experienced the same thing in Ro-
mania, where I met and began dating a very
nice girl. While she wasnt perfect, she was
very attractive, confident, and had a great
job as a marketing manager for a small tech
company. During that time I also traveled for
a week at a time to different countries. In
 155/411

Bulgaria, I met another girl with whom I

spent several days walking around the city.
We instantly hit it off, and I even tried to se-
duce her over the ensuing few days. She kept
evading me, saying that it wasnt worth it be-
cause I was leaving the country shortly any-
way. But during the seduction process, there
was something very different about my beha-
vior than many times in the past. Previously,
I would pursue a woman to the very end re-
gardless of any obstacles. But this time I was
holding back. After all, I had a very cute girl
back in Romania. I wasn't holding back be-
cause of loyalty (my relations with the Ro-
manian girl werent very serious); I was
holding back because it felt unnatural to ex-
pand so much energy on a girl who wasnt as
cute as my Romanian girlfriend. Every time I
thought about chasing the Bulgarian girl
more aggressively, I remembered that I
already had another girl, who was cuter, and
who I didnt need to chase aggressively. So if
 156/411

the Bulgarian girl didnt want to meet at a

bar, I was fine with that. If she didnt want to
come back to my place, I was fine with that.
Dont get me wrong, I was available; if the
Bulgarian girl wanted to meet and hang out,
I would join her. But I drew a line in the sand
about what I was willing to do, and how far I
was willing to go if she wanted to play games.
It simply didnt make sense to keep chasing
someone so diligently who just wasnt as
cute. While she was nice and pleasant, my
Romanian girlfriend was much cuter and
sexier.
Thanks to the fact that I had a cuter girl
waiting for me back home, I wasnt willing to
work hard for lesser-quality girls. I could ob-
jectively look at a girl and think to myself,
well, shes nice, and I can give her some of
my time, but thats it. I won't be rearranging
my schedule around her anytime soon. Es-
sentially, I will get laid either way. I felt ab-
solutely carefree. Some of my most
 157/411

successful friends are in these exact situ-

ations. They are either seriously dating or
married to very gorgeous and high-quality
women. Some of them are loyal, others are
less so. But even so, since their wives are so
attractive, I highly doubt they would chase
just about anything. They have beautiful
wives at home and know their worth. If they
would play the field, they would naturally
demand something of equal or greater value.
If you were in such a situation, how would
you act around women who were just cute?
Ill tell you how: you would be indifferent to
such women. You would be demanding
more.
Whether you actually choose to pursue
lower value woman when you have high
quality woman waiting at home is a different
story. Many high value guys have affairs with
lower-value women like secretaries, baristas,
or bartenders. Its not a question of pursuing
such women or not. The point is that by
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knowing what you can attain in terms of a

quality woman, you realize that you have op-
tions and shouldnt settle for the first aver-
age woman who agrees to see you. If you can
allocate ten hours to chasing and seducing a
high-quality girl, then should you also spend
ten hours to chasing a lower quality girl? Of
course not. That would be silly.
While standards are helpful for filtering
the opposite sex, they dont just apply to one
area of your life. When you possess stand-
ards, what you're in effect saying is that you
don't let just anyone into your life, and in or-
der for people and places to be associated
with you, they first need to pass a certain
test. They need to jump over a hurdle. Other-
wise they don't get inside.

Erecting standards
Establishing standards begins with de-
fining criteria that someone or something
else must possess. If the person or place
doesn't meet your criteria, you keep looking
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elsewhere. If you enter a coffee shop, but it

doesn't have comfortable chairs and soft mu-
sic conducive for working, then you leave
and go somewhere else, regardless if there
are cute girls working as baristas. If you or-
der a dish at a restaurant, but it still hasn't
arrived in 45 minutes, then you leave and
find another restaurant. If you're waiting for
a girl at a bar, but she shows up 30 minutes
late without sending you an explanation,
then you leave the bar and find another girl.
If you're very loyal to your friend, but he lets
you down in some crucial situation, then you
cut him loose and find another friend.
Standards are unique to you and you
only. Some people don't care about comfort-
able chairs in coffee shops as long as the cof-
fee is perfect. Others don't mind waiting 45
minutes for a dish at the restaurant because
they came to socialize with their friends and
are not starving. What one considers valid
criteria can be completely different from
 160/411

someone else. Nevertheless, it's important to

define them as you see fit and only allow the
people and places that pass them into your
life. The devil is always in the details. Object-
ively speaking, theres no such thing as a bad
coffee shop, but there are coffee shops that
dont pass your standards because they dont
meet your requirements.
When it comes to women, standards
help you figure what it is you really want
from the person. One evening I was watching
a TV series that took place in Ancient Rome.
There was a scene where a young and prom-
ising soldier was talking with an important
senator. The elderly senator was advising the
soldier to get married to a good woman from
a good family, so that she would give birth to
a son who could be a capable heir and ruler
one day. Initially it sounded rather strange to
marry a woman for the express purpose of
using her as a factory for the future heir to
the throne. First, theres no guarantee that a
 161/411

son will be even born. Second, its not like

that son will be yours; it will belong to
both parents. Nevertheless, the senators ad-
vice to the young soldier had merit. If you
were looking to be with a woman for the sole
purpose of finding one to produce healthy
offspring who could become an heir to the
throne, what kind of woman would you
choose? Would you still choose a woman
who spends the majority of her time smoking
and drinking in bars and clubs? Would you
choose a woman whos been with lots of men
and might easily cheat on you as soon as a
new man comes along? What other criteria
would you define? What other standards
would you demand? If youre in a position
where you need an heir to your throne or a
multi-million business, then your future off-
spring would need to be healthy so that one
day he could control your kingdom. That
means your future wife would need to spend
lots of time raising the kid instead of
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endlessly hanging out at bars with her girl-

friends or other men. These are your stand-
ards for your future wife. But, on the other
hand, if you were just looking for a great
time with a non-serious fling your standards
would be different. You would want a girl
who was fun and loved to go out and have a
good time. You would want a girl whos ex-
cellent in bed. You wouldnt even care if she
wanted children, or that she would or
wouldnt be a capable mother: thats none of
your concern. The major criterion is that you
would want the woman to be physically at-
tractive. Thats it. She would need to be hot
with a smoking body, but wouldnt necessar-
ily need to be intelligent, caring, affectionate,
or possess any other characteristic that youd
find indispensable in someone with whom
youd want to build a family.
The fact of the matter is that high value
men rarely marry, settle down, and have
large families with attention-seeking whores
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who wear high heels and short skirts every-

where they go. Ive had countless discussions
with my friends and most of them grimace at
the thought of marrying the party girl who
loves to do Jaeger shots while dancing on top
of the bar every weekend. One of my close
friends once told me that, There are women
you go out with to the clubs and then there
are the women you marry. His point was
that women are different and serve different
purposes depending on what you're looking
for.
When it comes to women Im interested
in romantically, a non-negotiable factor is
physical attractiveness: she must be cute.
Beyond that it depends on the womans role
in my life. After all, women are all different.
They can have different goals, needs, and de-
sires. A girl can be average in bed, but can be
very loyal and trustworthy. A girl can be very
outgoing and love going to the clubs, but can
absolutely suck in the kitchen, not knowing
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how to make a simple omelet. A girl can be

intelligent but absolutely terrible in bed.
When I see a new girl, I immediately make a
mental note of my expectations at the time
and whether I believe this particular girl will
meet them. That helps in preventing situ-
ations where Im smitten by a girls looks and
completely blinded to her imperfections.

This one is great to go with to the hot-

test club. And it would be awesome to show
her to my friends.

This one seems like she knows the city

well, maybe she can show me around the
city.

This one is cute. She has a beautiful face

and hair. But she's also very young and im-
mature. I can't really take her seriously.

This one is beautiful. Shes caring,

knows how to cook and clean. She doesnt
 165/411

drink or smoke. Shes also shy and not con-

stantly seeking attention. Furthermore, she
likes to read and prefers spending her week-
end nights at home instead of dancing with
every single guy all night at the clubs. She
seems like someone I can settle down and
have a family with. But I need to spend more
time with her to be sure.

The power in categorizing women this

way is that it forces you to analyze how a par-
ticular woman would actually bring you
value. Theres the girl with whom you chill;
theres the girl you have sex with and never
see again; theres the girl you have sex with
from time to time; theres the girl you casu-
ally date; theres the girl you seriously date;
theres the girl you live with; and theres the
girl you marry and have lots of kids with.
When you categorize youre no longer
assigning catch-all labels to people and
places. Instead of simply settling for a cute
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girl, it forces you to analyze whether this wo-

man is really right for your life.

Enforcing standards
While its important for people and
places to enter your life only after passing
your stringent standards, it's also important
that these people and places keep meeting
the same standards as time goes on. A res-
taurant that you first liked because it served
great food and service must keep serving
great food and providing great service. A
friend who you considered to be trustworthy
and loyal must remain trustworthy and loyal.
A girlfriend who you liked because she was
sexy and great in bed must continue to stay
sexy and great bed. Long ago, I used to be
friends with a great guy who was living a nice
life thanks to a high-paying job. A year later
he lost his job due to an economic downturn.
He was unable or unwilling to adjust to his
newly frugal lifestyle, so he began screwing
up. One day, I had to rescue him from a bar
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fight. A month later I received a call at 3am

to pick him up from a bad part of town. A
month later, the police impounded his brand
new car because he could no longer afford
the car payments. I really liked the guy. He
was a fun guy to go out with, and he had
helped me out in certain situations before he
fell on hard times. He was truly one of my
closest friends. But for any relationship to
work, the pros always need to outweigh the
cons, and with this guy the cons were quickly
outpacing the pros. I couldn't continually
save him from bad situations. After yet an-
other fuck up, where he needed to borrow
some money to cover a gambling debt, I told
him that I couldn't help him until he
straightened out his life. We haven't talked
since.
When I think about the people who I
consider my good friends, the following ad-
jectives pop up in my head: loyal, reliable,
trustworthy, etc. These are the standards and
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requirements that I consider important

when choosing and retaining friends. These
qualities are non-negotiable. That's how I act
towards my friends, and I expect them to act
the same way towards me.
One of the main reasons that people
break off relationships, whether it's business
partnerships, platonic friendships, or ro-
mantic relationships is because one person
no longer meets another's standards. In
Brazil, I had a close girlfriend whom I dated
for several years before we broke up and
went our separate ways. Even though I left
Brazil, we kept in touch and actually had dis-
cussions about seeing each other again here
and there. After a few years of traveling in
Europe and being with different girlfriends I
settled in Spain. Suddenly, out of nowhere,
the ex-girlfriend sent me a friend request on
Facebook (she had previously deleted me).
She wanted me back. However, I didnt want
her anymore. Whatever we had at that point
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was squarely in the past. I was in different

place in my life. The things that interested
me previously were of little interest to me
when she got back in touch. My values had
evolved, my interests had changed, and my
standards had transformed. I dont even
know if I would strike up a conversation with
her if I noticed her in a supermarket, like I
had done many years prior.
Many self-improvement goals cannot be
achieved overnight. You cannot suddenly be-
come super interesting by reading tons of
great books. You cannot suddenly become
super muscular by lifting super heavy
weights for one day. It takes lots of time to
go the gym each day and lift, not to mention
obtaining the necessary nutrients by eating
properly. But men can literally improve their
value overnight by erecting decent stand-
ards, enabling them to be more selective with
the people to whom they devote their time.
All it takes is a change of mindset. Its one of
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those quick wins that doesnt require any

other substantial changes.
Standards are an integral part of a high
value man. They make you scrutinize and op-
timize your time so that its spent on only
worthwhile people and places. But then how
do you decide if a person meets your stand-
ards? For that you must interview them.
 IV

INTERVIEWER

Don't judge a book by its cover.

George Eliot

Unless youre a hermit who lives in com-

plete seclusion and doesnt socialize with
anyone, you probably find it important to in-
teract with others in order to exchange vari-
ous knowledge and information. As humans,
were social creatures and our survival de-
pends on communication with other hu-
mans. There are various methods of commu-
nication, and the method you pick always de-
pends on the person and on your goals for
the interaction. Since high value men are ju-
dicious with their time and only interact with
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people that pass their standards, they only

let people into their lives after interviewing
them.

A prelude to interest
Since time is a currency that you want to
conserve and use prudently, and you only
want to deal with people who firmly fit into
your standards, its important to view inter-
viewing as a way to tell whether something
will capture your interest. After all, you cant
be interested in someone or something be-
fore you interview them and find out. Ima-
gine you're going to buy a new car. That
shiny new model BMW catches your interest.
You know that BMWs are quality cars, so
they pass your standards. However, the
problem is that you've never driven that par-
ticular model. You dont know whether that
model drives well, and you dont know if it is
reliable. Therefore, you decide that you must
take it for a test drive. That's your way of in-
terviewing the car. Unless you physically
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drive it, you'll simply never know whether

youll like it. It would be foolish to buy it
without a test drive.
The interview is always a prelude to in-
terest. If youre looking for a job at a tech
company, you dont get to interview right
away. There are things you must pass before-
hand. Usually, you must either pass a phone
screening or, provided someone can recom-
mend you, you can skip the phone screening
and go straight to the interview. The reason a
phone screening must be done first is be-
cause it is very cheap in terms of time and re-
sources. It takes an employee of a company
just 30 minutes to call the candidate, chat
with them, and get a reasonable understand-
ing of what the candidate is like. Thats op-
posed to a full-fledged interview that re-
quires the cooperation of 4-6 employees plus
an hour of each of their time.
The same thing happens when youre
trying to rent or buy an apartment or a
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house. You may be sold on a particular

neighborhood or the type of apartment only
after looking at the pictures, but you cant
make a reasonable decision until you actually
see the place with your own eyes. You still
need to ask lots of questions of the owners
before arriving at the decision. Seeing the
apartment in person would help you decide
whether you will rent it.
Interviewing someone requires time, and
time isnt free. The interview must be earned
before interest is granted. Lets say Im rush-
ing to a meeting and need directions to a cer-
tain address. I stop a cute girl on the street
and ask her for directions. She tells me.
Nothing about her piques my attention, and
I do not choose to interview her further. The
conversation stops right there, and I contin-
ue on to my destination. But lets say
something about her warrants a further in-
terview. Lets further imagine that I run a
software company that makes mobile apps.
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After asking her for directions, I notice she

starts using a new social networking applica-
tion. Since Im also thinking about making a
social app, I become interested in the app
shes using. So, I ask her about it. Her social
network application was a hook that enlis-
ted my interest. At this point Im ready to in-
terview her further by asking her questions
about the app, how it works, and why shes
using it. Its important to emphasize that Im
not asking her anything personal because
Im not interested in her personally. At least,
not yet. Im not searching the world for
friends. Im interested in learning about the
specific application that shes using, so that I
can gauge better whats popular with cus-
tomers in her market and demographic.

Begging vs. Interviewing

There are two ways to acquire something
from another person: you can either beg
them for it or interview them. The major dif-
ference between begging and interviewing is
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that when you beg you're trying to acquire

something without providing any value in re-
turn. On the other hand, when you interview,
you're providing value that, in turn, motiv-
ates the person to furnish you with the in-
formation you're seeking. Beggars have
lower value than the people they ask
something of; while interviewers have equal
or higher value than the people they ask
something of. Begging is when a homeless
person asks a passerby for spare change on
the street. On the other hand, interviewing is
what happens when the owner of a company
is trying to hire someone for a job.
While both types of people are trying to
acquire something, the chief difference is
whether the person whos asking for
something gives or promises something in
return. When you meet someone new, you
simply dont know if that person will take
your money and disappear, or they can actu-
ally provide value by investing your money
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and rewarding you with more than you ori-

ginally put in. People are willing to be inter-
viewed and provide information if they feel
they will be duly rewarded for it. The goal is
always to exchange value, which can take any
form. It can be information, knowledge, ex-
perience, or even money.
Compare a street beggar and an invest-
ment banker. While both are asking for my
money, the main difference is that a beggar
will take my money and thats it. Im giving
up something without getting anything back
in return (except perhaps a psychological
feeling that a poor man will possibly have
money to eat). On the other hand, an exclus-
ive banker who runs an investment fund will
first need to interview me before choosing to
take my money. Thats because the investor
promises a higher return with the money I
provide. Instead of taking my money and
making me poorer, hes promising to invest
my money and make me richer. The beggar
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is taking value; the investment banker is

promising to give back value. Thats a crucial
difference.
Another important distinction is that a
beggar would take all he can get, even a
single dollar bill (or few cents), and be per-
fectly content with it. Hell take anything he
can and not ask for more. On the other hand,
an investor would demand a minimum
amount of money before he can render me
his services. Obviously, both would be happy
with the maximum amount of money they
can get, but because the beggar isnt provid-
ing me with any value, he would happy with
any amount. The investor sets the terms that
you have to comply with; the beggar doesnt.
Furthermore, most of the time the discussion
isnt directly involving money. Instead, its
usually about another currency: information.
There are two primary objectives that
lead you to interview someone. The first ob-
jective is that youre looking to obtain some
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information that the person might possess.

Maybe the person can help you develop or
sell a product, or the person has connections
to very influential people who can do that. In
the second scenario youre interested in the
person directly instead of what he or she
does or represents. Such is the case when a
man is interested in a woman, but needs to
learn more about her before he can decide
the next steps. I say might because your in-
terest isnt yet established unless you inter-
view the person; in both of these cases the
interview serves as a way to see whether the
person possesses something that might be
useful to you.

Interviewing to acquire information

The first reason for interviewing
someone is because they might have access
to information that youd like to obtain. On
my second night out in Panama City while I
was leaving a bar, I saw a guy wearing a t-
shirt that had large capitals, Ukraine
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written on it. The guy also looked Ukrainian.

Since Ive never seen any Ukrainian (or other
Eastern Europeans) in Central America be-
fore, I was naturally curious about what he
was doing so far from home. I went over and
made a comment about his t-shirt. He smiled
and confirmed that he was Ukrainian. Then I
asked him, What are you doing here?
Those words were carefully chosen because I
wanted to stress the fact that he was in my
house. As someone who lives nearby (in
America), Panama was more of a backyard to
me than someone who lived more than
10,000 miles away. That owner frame
(more on that later) instantly established my
high value interviewing mindset from the
get-go, and from which I transitioned into
further interview questions.
Its important to clarify why I came up to
the guy in the first place. I wasnt looking for
a new friend. The reason I approached him
was because of the potential information that
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I thought I might acquire. What kind of in-

formation? For example, I wanted to figure
out why someone would travel so far from
their own country when there are many great
vacation alternatives closer to home. I was
being strategic. I felt that there just had to be
a reason why someone would indeed travel
so far. Perhaps he had a business or some
other interest in the country. Of course, he
couldve been a tourist, perhaps traveling on
a cruise or something. Tourists dont interest
me, and, if I had known that he was a tourist,
I probably wouldnt have approached him.
As someone who was traveling in that part of
the world, I also bring value to the table,
such as knowledge of the region and expert-
ise. This exchange of value is always the ideal
interviewing mindset.
After approaching and talking to the guy,
I learned that he was a mere tourist, who had
always wanted to visit this part of the world.
He was traveling as part of a prepackaged
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tour. Once it became clear that he was in-

deed a tourist and not an ex-pat who was
running a lucrative business, I wished him a
fun trip and we parted ways. I needed to in-
terview him in order to realize this; I
wouldve never learned this information
otherwise.
A similar thing happened to me last year
while I was traveling through Bulgaria. After
having lunch in the center of the capital,
Sofia, I was walking home when I noticed a
girl standing outside a Russian grocery store.
She was giving out some fliers with discounts
on various products. As I was passing her,
she approached me. I stopped and asked her
in English what those fliers were for. She
shrugged her shoulders. I switched to Russi-
an and quickly learned that she also spoke
fluent Russian. At this point I was immedi-
ately curious how a Bulgarian girl spoke flu-
ent Russian, especially with almost no accent
(As opposed to some of the other countries
 183/411

in the region, Bulgaria was never part of the

former Soviet Union and people there had no
reason to learn Russian). That was my in.
Now I had a reason to interview. But, if, lets
say, I were a Spanish guy, then I wouldnt
have that in in the previous example.
Theres not much of a connection between a
Spanish guy who speaks Spanish and a Bul-
garian girl who speaks Russian. But a Span-
ish guy will have an in if he walks into a
caf in Japan and the barista has a Spanish
accent. That would make him curious. Hope-
fully the guy would be wondering why a
Spanish girl moved to Japan and whether
theres a Spanish community there. I know
that I would be instantly curious.
When it comes to interviewing, its im-
portant that you must be curious about
something thats beyond the actual person;
you have to be interested in something that
they represent or are associated with. That
was exactly the case here, since I had no
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reason to be interested in the girl herself. She

wasnt extremely attractive, and I wasnt too
desperate to score; I had just arrived from
Romania where I had a sexy girlfriend. These
two reasons actually forced me away from
being shallow and looking at her physical at-
tributes; it forced me to look beyond the girl
herself.
There were also plenty of times when I
was on the receiving end of the interview.
When I was in New York, I caught up with a
good friend whom I had met in Brazil. We
met up in a Brooklyn bar and, after reminis-
cing about our Brazilian experiences for a
bit, he asked me about my plans for the fu-
ture. I mentioned that I might start an online
business because I personally knew someone
who was very successful in a particular area.
His eyes lit up and he began asking me more
about my friend and his business. Essen-
tially, he began to interview me. His greater
goal was to understand my friends business,
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and I was the stepping-stone towards realiz-

ing that goal.
I was willing to be interviewed because
in exchange for providing him with the in-
formation he wanted, he would share with
me information about his business interests
and future plans. I was interested in this ex-
change of value because I realized that my
friends intense interest in our conversation
meant that he was ambitious and probably
had plenty of useful ideas of his own. Be-
cause of that, he was a man of value with
whom I wanted to connect. That wouldnt
have happened if my friend simply begged
me for information or money without being
willing to give anything back. A conversa-
tion, like any other human interaction, must
be an equal exchange of value.
But in cases where the person doesnt
know you, its very rare for someone to ap-
proach and begin interviewing you. In my
case Im just a regular guy, pretty much like
 186/411

anyone else. Unless Im located in a country

where other people look physically different
from me, I do not arouse much attention or
curiosity. Random people dont approach me
because they assume they have nothing to
learn from me. But all of that changes as
soon as I possess something that someone
else might want to learn about. When I lived
in Eastern Europe, my girlfriend had a small
pet turtle. On warm and sunny days, I would
walk the turtle, letting it run around in the
grass and eat any vegetation it wanted.
People noticed something in the grass and
would come closer to see what it was. Natur-
ally, they would notice me next to it and ask
me about it. They would want to know what
kind of turtle it was, what it was like taking
care of it, what it liked to do, etc. Essentially,
they were interviewing me.
They werent interested in me personally
because I didnt represent anything of value
to them. But because the turtle couldnt talk,
 187/411

however, I suddenly had value as the inter-

mediary who could furnish them with the in-
formation they craved about the turtle. These
situations were quintessential one-sided in-
terviews where someone would constantly
ask questions, and all I did was answer. In
some cases, the questions about the turtle
would lead to questions about me personally.
It couldve been because my knowledge of
the turtle led to another area, or because we
had a mutual interest on a particular topic.
Unfortunately, most of the people that
approached were elderly grandmothers who
were walking their grandkids. Turtles rarely
attract young and gorgeous women. Thus,
these werent cases where people approached
me because they were sexually attracted to
me, and, in order to conceal their interest,
they began to ask me about the turtle first.
They werent looking for a younger lover less
than half their age. They werent looking for
new friends. They didnt have any hidden
 188/411

agenda. The elderly ladies wanted to know

about the turtle only, so that they could ex-
plain his habits to their enraptured
grandkids. Its also important to emphasize
that the grandmothers were quintessential
interviewers, not beggars. They werent com-
ing up to me because they were bored and
wanted to pass the time. They wanted to use
the information to share with their
grandkids. If I were walking my young cous-
in, and he was suddenly alerted by a small
turtle in the garden, then I would satisfy his
curiosity and learn more about the turtle by
interviewing its owner.
Like I already mentioned, the interview-
er will only interview if they absolutely need
the information that they believe the other
person possesses. For them, information is
king. If they determine that you don't have
the information they require, they won't ap-
proach you. In the above example when I
was interviewed about my turtle, people only
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came up to me because they absolutely had

to know specific information that only I, as
the owner of the turtle, possessed. There
were a number of situations where people
would pass by, make a comment about the
turtle, and talk amongst themselves without
even talking to me. They didnt ask me per-
sonally because they either didnt require the
information or the friend who was accompa-
nying them answered their questions. A beg-
gar would never do that. A beggar would al-
ways ask for something, but an interviewer
only does it when absolutely necessary.
In all these situations youre trying to
reach a greater goal. Only then will you nat-
urally interview people in order to get closer
to your objective. In Panama, I wasnt inter-
ested in chatting with a random Ukrainian
tourists because I needed a friend; I wanted
to know what a Ukrainian guy was doing
more than 15,000 miles away from his
homeland. In Bulgaria, I wasnt interested in
 190/411

some girl standing on the street and giving

out flyers; I wanted to know how a Bulgarian
girl spoke fluent Russian. When I was walk-
ing the turtle, people werent asking me
about the turtle because they were interested
in having sex with me; they wanted to know
about the turtle so they could share that in-
formation with their grandkids or other
friends.
The opposite of interviewing people for
some greater goal is when you, as a result of
personally lacking any greater goal, begin to
supplicate and validate to random people be-
cause these random people are your greater
goal. If you dont have a greater goal, then
that cute girl standing in front of you be-
comes your greater goal. And if the girl were
the supreme goal, than you would naturally
want to know everything about her. That
would lead you to ask her a series of ques-
tions. At this point youre simply extracting
value because youre using it to satisfy your
 191/411

own egoistical curiosityand not help any-

one else, as would be the case if you had a
greater goal. Thats the difference between
interviewing someone and begging someone.
A person whos begging for information is a
person who, by nature, cannot invest it. He
consumes it himself. Hes not in a position to
invest that information into something thats
greater than himself.

Interviewing for personal interest

In the previous examples the objective
was always the greater goal that the person
might possibly help you with. But there are
also situations where youre directly inter-
ested in the person. When a girl catches your
eye, you want to get to know her personally
in order to find out what shes all about. But
you still must interview, even if all you want
is to make a new friend or take a girl home.
Thats because, as the famous goes, you can-
not judge a book by its cover. A girl might
look gorgeous from a distance but be
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completely boring up close. And unless you

interview her, you simply dont know for
sure.
A couple of years ago, I was at a party in
Spain. Among the diverse group of people
there was a cute Romanian girl who looked
absolutely beautiful. I couldnt help but keep
admiring her from a distance. She had dark
Mediterranean skin, black wavy hair, and
amazingly big brown eyes. She also had a
very toned and slim body. It was obvious
that she took great care of herself. I was in
love. A half an hour later, I ended up sitting
next to her on the couch. I broke the ice by
mentioning that it was incredible to see so
many different nationalities present in one
place. She nodded and we began chatting. It
didnt take me longer than five minutes to
realize that this seemingly gorgeous girl was
completely boring. We really had nothing to
talk about. She didnt travel. She didnt have
cool hobbies. She had no great aspirations in
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life. Instead of being filled with vivacity, she

was lifeless and uninspiring. It was only after
I interviewed her that I realized that my first
impression of her was dead wrong and that
we really didnt have much of a future to-
gether. The beauty that I had witnessed be-
fore was simply a faade.
Another classic example of interviewing
for personal interest is when a father inter-
views her daughters boyfriend to see if hes
worthy of marrying her. Im sure youve
either experienced this firsthand or seen this
in movies (its especially popular in mafia
movies where the father is high value, mas-
culine, and old school). The fathers objective
is to learn more about the man with whom
his daughter has been spending lots of time.
He wants to know if this man will pass his
standards. After all, the father wants his
daughter to spend time with and eventually
marry someone of a certain value; he doesnt
want his precious daughter with some loser.
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The father invites the couple over to the

house. When the daughter is not around, he
talks to the boyfriend and learns more about
him. Its not a regular discussion that you
might have with your long-time friend; the
structure of the discussion more closely re-
sembles an interview, where the father asks
specific questions and the boyfriend an-
swers. This allows the father to understand
what kind of man the boyfriend is, and then
use this information to decide if hes good
enough to date his treasured daughter and
eventually become part of his family. After
all, if the daughter gets married to him he
will get certain privileges, like access to the
familys wealth.
Interviewing people for personal interest
gets trickier because youre not trying to ob-
tain a piece of information; your greater goal
actually becomes the person. And thats a
problem because if the person is the greater
goal, you risk supplicating and validating
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yourself to them. The solution here is to in-

terview the person by measuring them to
your standards. That way the person will im-
mediately feel that theyre dealing with a
high value individual instead of someone
who doesnt have much going on in life.
When meeting new people, I immediately
jump into interview mode by asking
someone where theyre from, but not just
their country of origin: I go deeper, probing
their city. That allows me to derive the per-
sons value depending on whether theyre
from a large or a small city.
Several months ago I was talking to a girl
from my home country. Since I was born in a
relatively large city, I immediately asked her
what city she was from. Her answer would
dictate at least a part of her value; someone
from a smaller village will have lower value
than someone who was born and grew up in
a large and popular city. Once it was estab-
lished that I have higher value because I was
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born and raised in a relatively big and well-

known city and she was from some tiny vil-
lage, I followed up by probing about what
she's studying in university and what she
wants to do for a living. Since that's a sign of
her value and ambitions, it allowed me to
properly gauge the type of person I was deal-
ing with. After interviewing her for a bit
longer, I decided that she was someone I was
interested in getting to know further.
I know men love to talk about going
straight to flirting and gaming a cute girl
instead of talking to her first. But to me that
seems rather strange. By flirting, youre dis-
playing interest, and it doesnt make sense to
display your interest to someone you know
absolutely nothing about. High value people
dont show their cards right away because
they know that lower-value people will do it
first. Before you can show your interest, the
person must somehow prove their worthi-
ness to you. When you need a car, do you
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immediately buy one at the dealership after

merely looking at it from afar? Of course not.
You first walk around it, learn its specs, see if
it fits your standards, get inside, play with
the gadgets, and take it for a test drive. Only
then will you formulate a proper decision
about whether to buy it or not. The test drive
lets you feel out the car that youll be pos-
sibly driving for many years to come. Its
foolish to dump a huge chunk of your hard-
earned cash onto something that you like
from afar. When you interview someone be-
fore demonstrating interest, you
immediately sub-communicate that you're
not just a person who deals with any-
oneyou have standards. And, unless a per-
son passes specific standards, that person
isn't worth your valuable time or interest.
The evaluation process doesnt need to
be overly protracted. It just needs to last long
enough for you to decide that whatever or
whoever piqued your interest fits your
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specifications and merits further investiga-

tion. Does that car drive as well as it looks?
Is that seemingly gorgeous girl as interesting
up close? Is that guy someone with influen-
tial business connections, or is he just an av-
erage tourist? And theres no way of knowing
any of these things unless you come out and
interview the person.

More demanding and not easily

impressed
One of the chief attributes of the inter-
viewing mindset is that the person whos do-
ing the interviewing is rarely easily im-
pressed or quickly satisfied. The main reason
for this is because, as a high value man,
youve seen and experienced your own share
of people and places. As a result, there are
very few things that can really impress you.
Otherwise theres no point in interviewing if
youre easily placated and satisfied with just
any answer you receive. A high value man
uses the interview to reinforce his standards.
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A beggar would ask for something and be

happy with what he gets, whether it's a dollar
on the street or a broken couch to crash on at
his friend's house. But an interviewer is more
demanding. He uses critical thinking to
question the information that's presented to
him. He doesnt put up with bullshit, doesnt
accept charity, and hes also not easily
impressed.
My Brazilian friend Cesar was like this.
Although he was born in Brazil, he moved to
America at a young age to study and work.
After graduating school, he started several
businesses in California. Realizing that he
missed his homeland, he rejoined his family
in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro). Cesar is a natur-
ally confident, high value guy. He lives life to
the fullest, traveling to new destinations and
making money on his own terms. But you
dont need me to tell you that: those attrib-
utes are obvious from the moment he came
through the door.
 200/411

The apartment where I lived in Rio was

absolutely amazingand Im saying this as a
humble guy. It was huge, perfectly located a
half block from the beach in one of the most
desirable areas of Rio de Janeiro. Naturally,
most people would be overly excited. And
most wereexcept Cesar. One Thursday, just
before our weekly poker game was to start,
Cesar came in and smiled. He followed me as
I showed him around. Can I say that he was
impressed? I dont think impressed was
quite the right word. He certainly liked the
place. He didnt mind being there. But what
was going through his mind was similar to
what an owner of an expensive car does
when he rides in his friends expensive car.
Hes not jealous. He may compliment the
guy, but he wouldnt be overwhelmingly im-
pressed. He also wouldnt be asking lots of
questions about it. That was precisely Cesars
behavior, natural behavior for someone
whos at the same level of value. He was so at
 201/411

ease that someone couldve easily mistaken

him for the owner of the apartment. Thats
quite impressive but, on the other hand, it
made sense because a high value guy like
Cesar could have been living in a similar or
even nicer apartment. In fact, as I later
learned, he had an even larger beachfront
apartment.
Im not saying that theres something
particularly wrong with guys who get im-
pressed easily. The point Im trying to make
is that guys who are easily impressed act this
way because they come from underprivileged
backgrounds and havent experienced the
finer things in life. A low-value guy who
lacks the interviewer mindset would act
completely differently in the presence of high
value people and assets. He might enter the
apartment and be in awe or envious of the
accommodations. Chances are that he'll be
covered in drool and ask the following ques-
tions: How much does it cost? How did you
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find it? Can I move in? If that fails, hed

jump straight into begging and validation:
please, pretty please, but I'm a great guy!
(Ive witnessed guys behave exactly like this).
Only low-value people need to resort to beg-
ging and validation; high value people are in-
terviewing to see if these new people are
worthy of their company.
Instead of being easily impressed, the in-
terviewer will most likely find himself in a
position of skepticism or doubt. That can
happen after you receive answers to your
questions, but you doubt their authenticity
because the information you're receiving
may conflict with your previous knowledge.
Ive seen many high value guys that were dif-
ficult to impress, and even a minor sign that
they were impressed by something meant
that you did something huge. If youve been
living and traveling all over the world, few
things can impress you. But someone whos
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never stepped outside his parents basement

is much more readily impressed and excited.
Sometimes its helpful to meet the other
person halfway instead of rejecting their de-
mands outright. This results in negotiation.
Negotiation is also the natural outcome
when two people understand their relatively
high value. When I briefly lived in Colombia,
I met a young American guy who had been
there for many years. One evening, while we
were having beers, he mentioned that he was
in the process of negotiation with a girl he
had met the prior weekend in a club. I looked
at him confusedly and asked what exactly he
meant by negotiation with a girl, since I
thought negotiating was a more formal pro-
cess that was only done in business or polit-
ical environments. He smiled and assured
me that its done with women as well. He
further added that negotiation is always ne-
cessary when two parties want something
from one other, but there are differences that
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prevent an exchange from taking place now.

Negotiation is the process where these differ-
ences are reconciled. The negotiating
mindset sub-communicates that you have
certain value and that youre not willing to
give it away for free. After all, if youre a
highly acclaimed engineer and some com-
pany made you a job offer, then it would
make sense to counter the offer with
something that you want instead of accept-
ing the offer outright. They might offer you a
salary, but, because youre highly trained and
experienced, you can counter back with a
higher number. Further negotiations ensue.
Hopefully both parties arrive at a number
theyre both comfortable with.
In cases where its not possible to negoti-
ate, and the other person is not flexible with
your demands and requirements, its import-
ant to be able to say no and walk away. I
was once at a Brazilian club with a good
friend. After suffering endless rejections, I
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became resigned to the fact that it wasnt my

night and relaxed at the bar. But my friend
was much luckier, and ended up hooking up
with a cute girl. He got her number and we
went home. The next day we went to a local
bar for a few beers. While we were talking,
my friends phone was constantly beeping
with messages. After a few more interrup-
tions, I finally asked him what was going on.
He replied that it was that girl he had met
the night before at the club. I asked him why
he didnt want to meet her, and he nonchal-
antly replied, I dont want to go across town
to see some average-looking girl. I remem-
ber the girl being very cute. Had it been me, I
wouldve easily gone over to her house, but
my friend was not interested. It was obvious
he was used to higher quality women, or at
least women that made the effort and
traveled to see him. And after interviewing
this particular girl, he determined that she
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just didnt pass his standards and wasnt

flexible enough to accommodate them.

Turning the tables

Since I wasnt born wealthy, I naturally
had to sell myself to other people for most of
my life. I begged others for jobs, sent my re-
sume to countless firms, and then patiently
waited for their replies. I went to multiple
job interviews, and sat across the table from
guys while I dutifully answered all their
questions. I validated myself countless times,
explaining why I was the best person for the
job and why they should hire me. I sold my-
self to the best of my ability. It was only last
year that I realized how destructive this pro-
cess had been. I realized that a lot of those
times I had simply sold myself short by over-
valuing the company over my own abilities.
After all, since I was a hardworking and
knowledgeable guy, there was no reason that
I needed to beg and take the first job that
was offered to me.
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If you come to the same realization, the

easiest way to solve this dilemma is by turn-
ing the tables. Instead of you being the inter-
viewee, become the interviewer yourself. If
youre interviewing for a job, then adapt the
mindset that its you whos shopping for a
new job and are entertaining all the various
offers. That enables you to lead the interac-
tion and demonstrate that its the other per-
sonand not youwho needs to validate and
explain themselves.
Heres how you can turn the tables in a
job interview. First, establish standards that
this company must match. Hows the com-
mute from your home? Does the company
provide competitive benefits? Is the com-
pany making money or are they just prom-
ising explosive growth in some distant fu-
ture? Do the people that are interviewing you
seem knowledgeable and experienced? Se-
cond, assume the position of the interviewer
instead of an interviewee. Say that you have
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many offers and that you will think about it.

Dont act overly satisfied like a kid waiting
for presents on Christmas Day. Be inquisit-
ive. Force them to go the extra mile to satisfy
you.
The important factor is that when youre
busy interviewing someone, youll never be
in a situation where that person will be inter-
viewing you. When youre interviewing
someone, youll never fall into the trap of
begging, validating, or supplicating yourself
to others. Instead of defending yourself, you
launch a pre-emptive attack and force them
to defend instead. Interviewing allows you to
establish a strong frame and announce that
you mean business. It establishes you as a
man whos always on the hunt for resources
and information that can further enrich him-
self and his interests. The person whos in-
terviewing is the one whos confidently set-
ting the pace and leading the interaction. He
can also stop anytime and walk away.
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Interviewing, negotiating, and the ability

to walk away if things dont work out in your
favor form a very potent weapon for the in-
terviewing mindset. Its a preemptive psy-
chological weapon against your adversary.
The actual questions that you ask matter less
than the very fact that its you whos inter-
viewing someone else, and not the other way
around. It shows that youre the chooser.
Choosers are extremely high value. You're
given information and decide what to do
with it. You are being lured for a job and you
decide whether to take it or not. You are be-
ing seduced by a woman, and you decide
whether to be with her or find another one.
The battle is halfway over as soon as its es-
tablished that youre asking questions that
need to be answered. Like a job interview,
youre monopolizing someone elses time.
Theyre essentially held captive as you wait
and think of the questions you want pose.
The authority is firmly established, just like
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when a child is made accountable to his

parent.
Ultimately, when a person has high
value, he is the permanent interviewer. He's
constantly evaluating, judging, and measur-
ing situations and people to see if they hold
up to his stringent standards. Hes like the
king whos admiring his kingdom from a
castle on top of the hilland not the other
way around. In all instances, the object of the
interview is to get you closer to some greater
goal, whether its to learn about a viable
business opportunity, hire a skilled employ-
ee, or seduce a gorgeous woman. But before
you can pursue this goal, you must internal-
ize the idea that it will belong to you at some
point in the future. Above all, you must feel
an absolute and unshakeable entitlement to
your goals.
 V

ENTITLEMENT

Whatever the mind can and believe,

it can achieve.
Napoleon Hill

I was once reading about an interesting

study comparing the behavior of kids with
successful and wealthy parents to kids of less
successful and poorer parents. The wealthy
parents always told their kids to ask and cla-
rify information whenever it was given to
them by some figures of authority. For ex-
ample, the wealthy parents made sure their
kids always asked questions of their teachers
at school if they were unsure of something.
When the kids went to the doctor, the
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parents saw to it that the kids asked ques-

tions to clarify anything about their health
they didnt understand. The less successful
parents, however, never did such thing. They
didnt care if their kids asked questions and
clarified information.
As a result of this prodding from the par-
ents, the kids of the wealthy parents became
more willing to request various pieces of in-
formation in all situations, far beyond the
classroom and the doctors office. One reas-
on for this was that the parents were paying
for their education, so the kids had every
right to make sure they understood
everything. This put the parents at ease be-
cause they felt they were getting their
moneys worth. But a more dominant reason
for encouraging this behavior is that they
wanted the kids to be comfortable with a
very important concept: entitlement. By
learning that they should ask questions, the
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kids were learning and mastering the crucial

concept of entitlement.
The study got me thinking about my own
childhood when I knew similar people who
always demanded that others clarify their
thoughts until they stopped being ambiguous
and were easily understood. But then Ive
also known people that never asked ques-
tions in class. I initially thought that this was
because of either shyness or lack of interest.
But, as I eventually realized, the real reason
was that they felt they werent entitled to that
information, especially information that was
concerned with them. If you pay a profes-
sional such as a doctor for a service, then
theres no reason why you cant ask them
anything you need to know about the service
theyre performing. Its your health, after all,
and youre entitled to ask all the questions in
the world about it as a paying customer.
These people who youre paying, either dir-
ectly out of your pocket or indirectly via your
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taxes, are obligated, in addition to providing

the services you ask, to answer any questions
you might have.
One thing I always noticed about high
value men is that they possess this inherent
sense of entitlement to everything, most
commonly information, money, and women.
They dont need to convince themselves that
something belongs to them: they know it be-
longs to them. After feeling entitled to
something, obtaining it is all but automatic;
all that's left is to physically go out and get it.
The lack of entitlement is a common im-
pediment to men who are trying to achieve
key things, such as being with quality wo-
men. Some feel that theyre entitled to cer-
tain types of women, while other guys dont.
One night in Rio de Janeiro, I was out in a
club with my roommates Mexican friend,
who had flown in for a week for the annual
Carnival celebrations. During the week,
when his friend was busy working late, I
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invited him to one of my favorite clubs. The

club was great, but unfortunately it wasnt
our lucky night. After tons of rejections we fi-
nally decided to head home. On the way
home, we passed a posh club few blocks from
our apartment, where we noticed three beau-
tiful girls stumbling home drunk. My friend
immediately wanted to approach. I knew
that our success was limited because I was
certain that these upper-class girls probably
didnt want anything to do with foreigners.
My friend, however, didnt agree. He looked
at me and asked me point blank: Do you
really think youre below them? I knew that
I wasnt, but I also knew that our chances
were slim. Nevertheless, my friend insisted.
We went over and began talking. One girl
immediately left, but the other two stayed. I
ended up getting one of the girls numbers
and seeing her a couple of times later. Why
did my friend feel that he was permitted to
have such upper class women? As a result of
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his experience in going for and getting the

things he wanted, my friend had developed a
rich sense of entitlement. He felt that those
women werent above him, so he went over
to talk to them. Thats how he acted with
many things in life, and it probably also ex-
plains his successful business ventures in
Mexico City.
While your ability to approach women is
a good indicator of your entitlement, many
times you need to restructure your life even
further to get what you want. Back in New
York, I had a close friend who was confident
but also a bit eccentric. He loved to go out
alone to the movies, to play billiards, and
head to the bars to pick up girls. I never un-
derstood why he would choose to do all these
things alone. It wasnt like he was a loner; he
had plenty of close friends. But if he wanted
to go out when his friends were busy and
couldnt join him, then he would simply go
out alone. After a long time I finally realized
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that he went out alone because he felt he was

entitled to the same fun and entertain-
mentand womenas the guys who had
many available friends and went out in large
groups. He was entitled to meeting women
regardless of whether his friends would ac-
company him, which clearly separated him
from other guys who would never dare to go
out alone.
What all my friends above had in com-
mon was thatjust like the rich kids in the
studythey possessed inherent entitlement
to vital things, whether it was women, busi-
ness, or generally having a good life. I came
to realize that it was this quality, more than
any other factor, that was the key to their
success.

Expectations with the world

Entitlement is paramount because it sets
the base for your interactions with the world.
First, it sets your expectations when it comes
to people and places. Second, it dictates how
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you view the world and your own presence in

it. And third, it shapes your attitude about
obtaining new things. People naturally have
all kinds of expectations about people and
places in their lives. I have certain expecta-
tions when I meet my mother, and these ex-
pectations are very different from those of a
barista who makes my coffee, or a sexy girl at
the club Im about to approach. If I pay
$1,000 per night at a high-class hotel, my ex-
pectations and my corresponding entitle-
ment is much higher than if I were paying
$10 per night at a dirty hostel. In the former
case, I would feel entitled to great service,
smiles, and decent food; in the latter case, I
would just feel entitled to some sort of bed
and a roof over my head. My expectations
and entitlement are massively different in
the two situations.
This reminds me of a time when I was
sitting with my girlfriend in a nice Mexican
restaurant in Barcelona, Spain. There were
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tables outside, but we opted to sit inside and

have more privacy. Fifteen minutes after we
ordered, a flower vendor entered and tried to
sell us flowers. Having lived and traveled all
over Latin America, I was no stranger to hav-
ing various vendors try to sell me things in
all kinds of public places, but Id never ex-
perienced someone entering a private room
in a restaurant before. I politely declined.
However, the vendor was adamant. He kept
pointing at my girlfriend, trying to convince
me to buy her flowers. I was getting increas-
ingly pissed off, so I told him to go and sell
them to other customers. The vendor still
wouldn't give up. Finally, I got up and
threatened to call the manager to escort him
out. The vendor acted like it was me who
overreacted. After yet more nagging, he fi-
nally left the room.
I suppose I could have acted differently
in that situation. I know many people
wouldn't have acted the way I did, but I felt I
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was entitled to my privacy. I wasn't sitting at

an outdoor cafe open to anyone passing by. I
was sitting in a room inside a building, one
that I had paid a premium to enjoy. Thus, I
had certain expectations about not being dis-
turbed, especially by aggressive vendors. I
was entitled to a certain dining experience,
and to sharing my time with my girlfriend
only and no one else.
Entitlement also determines how you en-
vision your place in the world. When I lived
in New York, not far from my place there
were various restaurants and clubs that were
designed for very exclusive clientele. The
people who frequented them were wealthy
businessmen; the parking lot was filled with
expensive cars such as Mercedes-Benzes,
BMWs, Jaguars, etc. I even saw a couple of
Lamborghinis there. The guys who frequen-
ted such establishments obviously had much
more lavish lifestyles than me. One day my
friend remarked that we should check out
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that restaurant. I wasnt so sure. I felt that I

really had no business there. At that time, I
didnt even have a car to hand to the over-
priced valet. However, my friend wasnt eas-
ily deterred. He wasnt rich either, but that
didnt stop him from feeling entitled to en-
joying that restaurant like everyone else. He
was also business-minded, so he naturally
viewed it as a place to make business con-
tacts for his new venture. As far as he was
concerned, there was nothing different
between him and the various nobility that
frequented those exclusive restaurant and
lounges; he didnt feel that he was out of this
exclusive club. He felt that his value was
equal to theirs (or even higher). And thats
why he felt entitled to things that others, in-
cluding myself, didnt.
My friend simply felt that he was good
enough. And that feeling of being good
enough is closely associated with entitle-
ment. The moment I realized that I was as
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entitled to scoring a woman as the next

guyno matter if he had tons of friends or
notwas the moment that I started to suc-
ceed. That was the big mental breakthrough
that enabled me to successfully try for new
things.
Entitlement also determines what kind
of things you can obtain. If you see a gor-
geous woman walking around, your entitle-
ment determines whether shes someone you
can ever get, even before you formulate an
approach. I used to be great friends with a
pretty cool and successful guy. He had no
problems approaching women, except for
one minor problem: he would never ap-
proach women who were taller than him.
Since he was on the short side of the scale
(55), that policy excluded plenty of women.
He just couldnt mentally accept the fact that
a taller woman would want to be with him.
He wasnt comfortable with seeing himself
with a taller woman because, in his mind,
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they possessed a higher value than shorter

women that he wasnt entitled to. Contrast
this with another friend, a Colombian guy I
met in Denmark, who was also short, but
had absolutely no qualms in approaching
taller women. He loved seeing himself next
to tall Scandinavian women. He felt entitled
to whatever kind of women pleased him at
that moment, short or tall. When you see a
cute girl sitting alone at the bar, the main
factor that will decide whether youll ap-
proach her is not whether you know the
"perfect" opener, but whether you feel en-
titled to have her. Deciding that youre en-
titled to having that cute girl next to you
comes before everything else. So, if you dont
believe that you can be with a hot/tall/beau-
tiful/blonde woman, then you simply wont
expend any energy in making that happen.
Entitlement is not limited to traveling
the world or approaching women that live in
expensive neighborhoods: entitlement is
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everything. It determines your level of living

and enjoyment. If you picture yourself living
in the basement and dating mediocre women
for your whole life, then that's how it will
turn out. However, if you picture yourself liv-
ing in a nice apartment or house with a high-
quality woman by your side, then you'll make
the proper adjustments that will facilitate
achieving that.
Entitlement can refer to pretty much
anything, whether it's tangible or not. Its
completely normal to be entitled to a quiet
and romantic dinner without interruptions
after agreeing to pay higher prices at a nice
restaurant, instead of eating at a cheaper but
much noisier restaurant. When you see other
guys traveling the world and living the life-
style they want, you can simply shrug it off
and decide that they're able to do it because
they're rich or lucky. Or, you can decide that
it's something that you should be able to do
as well. So, you set a goal to build a location-
 225/411

independent business and travel the world.

The difference between the two is that, in the
latter, you realize that youre entitled to the
same things that someone else possesses.
One of the reasons I embraced a
location-independent lifestyle is that I no-
ticed many of my good friends doing it, and
decided it was what I wanted as well. I cer-
tainly felt entitled to it, at least as much as
my friends were. So I did it. Without entitle-
ment, this dream would never have been
realized. So, if you don't internally believe
that you deserve to obtain something better
than what you currently possess, no force in
the world is going to compel you to get your
lazy butt off the couch and implement a plan.
A major part of the reason why I was able to
leave my dreaded 9-5 life behind and see the
world was because I wanted it bad enough.
And I also knew that I was entitled to finer
things in life.
 226/411

Entitlement is the gateway to getting

more: making more money, getting better
women and enjoying a better life. If thats
something that you want but something is
holding you back, its most likely entitle-
ment. Entitlement is about looking at your
super-successful friend, and instead of mak-
ing all kinds of random excuses why you
cant achieve the same success, you exclaim,
Im also entitled to it! and then go and get
it. In many cases, its really the difference
between being just average and being truly
great. Once you get comfortable with entitle-
ment, the rest usually just follows. It's like
putting yourself on autopilot on the way to
success.

No permission necessary
Realizing that youre suddenly entitled to
many more things in life means you are no
longer required to ask permission from oth-
ers. If you wander into your own kitchen and
grab an orange, do you need to ask someone
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elses permission before eating it? Probably

not. If you're walking around the city on a
hot day and pass a park with benches, you
won't ask for permission to sit down. That's
because you don't need permission to sit
down on a public benchyou are entitled to
it. That might not be the case if the bench
was in a private park that was accessible only
to certain people. When people lack entitle-
ment, they ask permission of others; they
need reinforcement and support that its
okay to obtain something, whether its asking
a cute girl out or starting a new business. On
the other hand, if you personally know that
youre entitled something, then you never
worry about procuring permission. You
simply go and take it. Thats what being un-
apologetic is all about. People with natural
entitlement also dont worry too much about
overstepping bounds. They know that there
will always be time to apologize later if ne-
cessary. Remember the powerful expression:
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its always better to ask for forgiveness than

to ask for permission. In this day and age
weve become so scared and complacent that
weve forgotten what were entitled to.
Unlike some of the other self-improve-
ments that can take months and even years
to master, getting comfortable with entitle-
ment is like flipping a mental switch. Essen-
tially, entitlement is one of the major differ-
ences in the mindset between high value and
low-value people, even before taking into ac-
count confidence and other achievements.
High value people naturally feel that theyre
entitled to many nice things; low-value
people automatically think that these things
will never belong to them. This mindset lets
the former obtain more stuff they feel they
have been entitled to from the very begin-
ning. Entitlement is also reinforced with ex-
perience. If for your whole life youve felt en-
titled to one thing but not the other, then
thats how youll feel in the future as well.
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Entitlement and confidence

While at first glance entitlement and
confidence may appear to be similar con-
cepts, they arent really the same thing. Enti-
tlement comes before confidence. Entitle-
ment is the prelude to the actual physical ac-
tion of obtaining something. If you dont feel
entitled to something, it doesnt matter how
much confidence you have, youre just not
going to do it. I consider myself a confident
guy, but if I didnt feel entitled to those up-
per class women stumbling home from the
posh Rio de Janeiro club, then no amount of
confidence would have made me approach
them. The body follows wherever the mind
instructs it to go. Its only once youve de-
cided that youre entitled to something that
you take the next natural step of formulating
ways of obtaining it. And thats where con-
fidence comes in. Confidence facilitates ob-
taining what you already believe youre en-
titled to. Theyre like two sides of the same
 230/411

coin. Being truly successful requires the mas-

tery of both.
 VI

CONFIDENCE

Be who you are and say what you feel,

because those who mind don't matter,
and those who matter don't mind.
Bernard M. Baruch

While I was going to college, I had a

good friend from home drive out to visit me
on campus. While I was in class, he was on
his own. He didnt mind and quickly adjus-
ted to the new environment. Instead of act-
ing lost and confused because he was in a
new city and didnt know anyone, he quickly
and assertively took control of the surround-
ings. He walked around with an assertive
swagger. He struck up random conversations
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with people (most of them happened to be

very cute girls) without a drop of self-doubt.
When we met up in the evening, he told me
that we should do a bunch of things like
checking out a new bar with a live band that
a few of his new female contacts had recom-
mended. He then took out his phone and
showed me a list of numbers he had ob-
tained, and asked me if I wanted to double
date. My friends behavior can be described
by many adjectives, but above all he was
confident.
Many years later, as I was wrapping up a
multi-year sojourn in Latin America, I met a
young American guy in my hostel in Bogota,
Colombia. Right away I noticed that he was
friendly, cool, and interesting. As I was head-
ing out of the hostel, I invited him to come
with me to a mall downtown. Before agree-
ing, he warned me that he likes to chat with
women. I wasn't exactly sure what he
meant, but it didnt take me long to find out.
 233/411

As soon as we headed out, he quickly began

approaching women. He approached a cute
girl waiting at a bus stop. He approached a
girl eating ice cream in the park. He ap-
proached a group of girls at a coffee table in
the mall. Later on, while we were having din-
ner, he even began flirting with the waitress.
My initial impression of him couldnt
have been more accurate. He definitely
proved himself as cool, interesting, friendly,
and outgoing. Those are all desirable qualit-
ies, but yet they dont completely do my
friend justice. Theres one important adject-
ive thats missing. In fact, its the same ad-
jective that perfectly describes my other
friend: confident. Theres really no better
word to describe my friends behaviors.
Confidence is one of the most attractive
traits that a man can have. It really lets you
get away with virtually anything. For in-
stance, it's commonly said that girls love
jerks as opposed to nice guys. But Ive
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personally known and hung out with plenty

of guys who absolutely killed it with women.
None of them were jerks to me, nor to the
women they dated. They were actually cool
and interesting guys that loved to have fun.
They were very confident and self-assured.
True, there are jerks that are very successful
with women, but correlation doesnt always
imply causation. In most cases, such guys
were irresistibly attractive to women not be-
cause they treated them badly, but rather
their supreme confidence was the root of
their predilection to treating others without
much deference and respect. Women sensed
that these guys werent idolizing and pedes-
taling them like many guys before and found
that highly refreshing and attractive.
Confident men embark on and achieve
amazing things. A confident man isnt scared
to go for what he wants. He takes risks. In-
stead of working for someone elses company
because hes unsure of whether hell succeed
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on his own, a confident man starts his own

business and builds his own empire. Instead
of wondering from a distance if that cute girl
likes him, a confident man knows that wo-
men want to be with him, so he does her a fa-
vor and approaches. During any of these en-
counters, hes sure to be faced with various
bouts of uncertainty: the business might fail,
or the cute woman might reject him. But he
doesnt care. He knows what he wants and
has the utmost trust that he not only he de-
serves it, but also that hes more than cap-
able of obtaining it. He has supreme belief in
himself. Instead of looking left and right for
reasons he might fail, he looks straight-
ahead in the direction of the goal. Hes fear-
less in the face of overwhelming indecision
because no obstacle is large enough to deter
him from his goals. Thats what confidence is
all about. And theres nothing in the world
more potent than being firmly sure of your
own abilities.
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Confidence is about doing something

without feeling a single drop of self-doubt.
Its about ignoring all external and internal
barriers that stand in your way. Internal bar-
riers are your own limiting beliefs and doubt
that prevent you from pushing forward with
a particular action. External barriers are the
things outside of your control like the envir-
onment. The moment you realize and over-
come these barriers is the exact moment you
become confident. Furthermore, the more
you keep doing something, the easier it gets
because there will be a natural positive feed-
back loop: as you realize that nothing cata-
strophic happens when you do something
new, you become motivated to keep going
further and achieving riskier things.
The moment you begin doubting your
actions because youre worried what others
think is the moment you begin to lose confid-
ence. Let's say a guy noticed a cute girl sit-
ting on a bench in the park. Naturally he
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wants to get to know her. A confident guy

will simply approach the girl without caring
about things that he cannot control, namely
the outcome. He will simply complete the ac-
tion without any concern for possible rejec-
tion or success. A guy lacking confidence,
however, will be more worried whether what
hes doing is the right thing. Hell be more
worried about the outcome than focusing on
the aspects he can control such as approach-
ing the girl. The same scenario happens if a
guy wants to embark on a new business ven-
ture. A confident guy will focus on the action
of starting the business and trying to sell his
services or products, gaining valuable experi-
ence and learning crucial lessons along the
way. A guy without confidence will instead
be focused on what might go wrong. Hell be
fearful of failure for a number of reasons,
most of which will be beyond his control. Ul-
timately, confidence is the ability to be thor-
oughly comfortable with who you are and
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what you represent. It's the feeling of convic-

tion that what youre thinking and doing is
absolutely right. It's also about taking risks
and plunging into the unknown. Confidence
is the triumph of action over thought.
The reason that confidence is so power-
ful is that it displays to the world two crucial
things. First, it demonstrates that you don't
care about other peoples opinions and reac-
tions to your actions. If you see a cute wo-
man, you immediately approach her without
racking your brain and crunching scenarios
of various things that might go wrong. Thats
important because not many people can do
something without caring how their environ-
ment will react. Were all mimicking our en-
vironment, and if someone can actually lead
instead of following, then thats pretty
special.
Second, it signals to the world that
whatever youre doing is something that
youve done many times before. It conveys
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that you have tons of experience in the area.

If a guy has traveled to over 50 countries,
hes absolutely sure that nothing unexpected
will happen as he plans a trip to number 51.
To him, taking a trip to a foreign country is
like walking to a neighborhood grocery store.
That probably would not be the case if a guy
had never gotten on the plane in his life.
Similarly, if a guy has approached tons of
girls, hell probably have no problem ap-
proaching another one. This would not be
the case if a guy had never approached a girl
in his life.
Confident people attract others for two
primary reasons. First, by being around con-
fident people, less confident people get to
achieve what they want. Going out with a
confident wingman who doesnt have a prob-
lem approaching women is rewarding be-
cause he can approach and then introduce
you to the women. In this situation you dont
need to be confident yourself. In Colombia, I
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met an Italian guy who could approach wo-

men pretty much anywhere. Since I couldnt
yet approach women so fearlessly, hanging
out with him enabled me to meet women
that I wouldnt have met otherwise. A few
years later when I got to Brazil, my ap-
proaching skills had improved dramatically,
and I became the guy who would boldly ap-
proach women and later introduce them to
my wingman.
The second reason that confidence is at-
tractive is that by hanging around confident
people, people will strengthen their own con-
fidence through the process of osmosis.
People naturally mimic others. Confidence
from one person rubs off onto another per-
son. Im actually speaking from experience,
because I owe a big chunk of my confidence
to hanging out for many years with very con-
fident guys. Before meeting them, I didnt
even know what was really possible. But
after seeing these guys take lots of risk in all
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areas of life, I started mimicking them and

gradually became more confident myself. Its
certainly one thing to read about people who
do fearless things, but its a completely dif-
ferent thing to surround yourself with such
people in real life and see them actually do
such amazing things. Seeing something that
you wanted to do yourself will be such a
shock to your system that your mind and
body will do everything possible to mimic it.
And very soon youll be completing such an
action with ease.

The unpredictable world

Confidence is crucial because we live in
an unpredictable world where many of the
things you do inevitably lead to unexpected
results. It takes confidence to deliver a
speech to a public audience. It takes confid-
ence to start a business. It takes confidence
to get on a plane to a third world shit-hole
that none of your friends have been to, one
that everyone is extremely scared of because
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they think theyll get kidnapped, killed, or

maimed as soon as they get off the plane. It
takes confidence to accomplish all of these
actions because the outcome in each of these
situations is far from certain.
On the other hand, you dont need con-
fidence to do things that youve done thou-
sands of times before. One such area is your
super-predictable morning routine: you get
up, roll out of bed, take a shower, drink cof-
fee, and head off to school or work. You do
this routine without any worrying or even
particular preparation. Thats because youve
repeated this routine over and over so many
times that theres no chance of something
unexpected happening. Another such routine
is your daily commute to work. Its so pre-
dictable and boring that you can all but do it
blindfolded. Youre not worried about taking
the wrong bus and getting lost in some un-
known part of town. Even if theres heavy
traffic, you know which alternate modes of
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transportation to take. Theres very little that

can turn your normal bus ride into an agon-
izing journey that will test your will and
spirit.
But it certainly wasnt always this way.
Any mundane and boring routine always ini-
tially had elements of uncertainty. While
traveling around Central America, my friend
and I had stopped in a small town in El Sal-
vador on our way to Guatemala. We found
the bus stop and soon a bus arrived that was
heading to Guatemala. We still had a prob-
lem, though: we werent sure if we needed to
have a ticket beforehand or if we could pay
on the bus. We looked around but didnt see
a ticket office anywhere. It was a nerve-
wracking moment because of the looming
uncertainty: would something happen if we
boarded the bus without a ticket? Would we
be forced to leave the bus later in some un-
known town? Coupled with the fact that we
were low on cash, it was a pretty stressful
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situation. That was a perfectly routine situ-

ation for confident Salvadorian locals, but an
extremely stressful one for foreigners like my
friend and me. The locals surely had more
confidence in that situation because all of
them knew how to obtain the bus ticket.
They had bought the ticket so many times
that an expected outcome was all but guar-
anteed. They were more confident because of
repetition.
Speaking a foreign language for the first
time also requires confidence. Lets say an
American guy who has been studying French
for several years in New York finally goes to
Paris and must speak with the locals. First,
even though he might think he knows French
well from doing well in class, that doesnt ne-
cessarily mean that hell be able to commu-
nicate with locals. Hell have to understand
the local accents and more words than he
already knows. Second, and most import-
antly, he needs, at least initially, confidence
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to communicate. Naturally, he will be afraid

of making mistakes during routine conversa-
tions, like ordering stuff at a restaurant,
something that he has no problems doing at
his favorite Manhattan bagel shop.
The reason for the fear is uncertainty as
to what other peoples reaction will to be. Are
the French people in Bordeaux or Marseille
going to understand what hes saying? Are
they going to shake their head in disbelief?
Are they going to make fun of his French? Or
are they going to be friendly and accommod-
ating with his less-than-perfect French? He
simply doesnt know because he has never
spoken to a living and breathing French per-
son. In ten years, after hes been living in
Paris and speaks fluent French, there will no
longer be any uncertainty when communic-
ating with others. But he needs confidence in
order to make those first crucial moves.
Of course, its easy to speak the foreign
language once youre fluent, but you must
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somehow speak it before youve mastered it,

even if you risk not being understood by oth-
ers. Its a classic catch-22. The same way you
cant jump into a pool after youve mastered
swimming from some textbook, you need to
get in the water while youre learning how to
swim. The key to learning anything effect-
ively is via constant feedback, whether its
talking to locals in a foreign language or
swimming at the deep end of the pool.
Without this constant feedback, youll be
deadlocked; too afraid to make any progress
because youre afraid to say something
wrong and receive immediate negative feed-
back. The learning process always involves
uncertainty. And that constant feedback that
makes learning so effective requires
confidence.
Being confident is also about not worry-
ing about judgment from others. During my
first week in Brazil, I met an American back-
packer in the hostel in Rio de Janeiro. At
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that point he had been traveling around

Brazil, but liked Rio so much that he exten-
ded his stay in the city from three days to
three weeks. I told him that since I was plan-
ning to live in Rio de Janeiro, I would spend
several weeks in the hostel while looking for
a more permanent apartment. My friend
smiled and said, Well, if you stay here too
long, youll become a permanent fixture in a
hostel like myself. What he meant was that
the longer the person stays, the more un-
wanted the person becomes. Theres a cer-
tain excitement with constantly meeting new
travelers. Theres also a certain taboo with
someone staying in a hostel for a long time.
I thought about the advice, but came to
the conclusion that my friends behavior only
reflected his lack of confidence. First, theres
no rule that specifies youre only allowed to
stay for a limited time and then you must get
out. Who has the right to dictate to you how
much youre allowed to stay? My friend was
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afraid that other people, including the hostel

owners, were going to look at him strangely
after he stayed beyond a typical amount of
time. He was afraid of being judged. And by
caring how others would perceive him, he
demonstrated a lack of confidence that in-
terfered with his desire to stay at the hostel
for a long time and enjoy one of the greatest
cities in the world. In my case, I needed to
stay somewhere until I rented an apartment
for a longer term. That could be a week, two
weeks, or even a month. A hostel was a good
option mainly because it was extremely
cheap. Of course, I have my own limit about
staying in a hostel, since it gets tiring to keep
telling newly arrived people about yourself.
But that has to do with my own personal
preferences, and nothing to do with being
viewed as a permanent hostel fixture by
others. When I went to Colombia couple of
years later, I ended up staying in a hostel
where people were staying from several
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weeks to several months. Several young

European backpackers had been staying
there for more than three months and had
no desire to go anywhere else. So much for
being a hostels permanent fixture.

Becoming confident
Achieving confidence cannot be done
overnight, but it can certainly be done given
enough work and patience. It begins with re-
moving factors that contribute to doubt.
There are mainly two kinds of doubt: intern-
al and external. Internal doubt is the doubt
in your head. External doubt has to do with
the environment. The first step is realizing
what you can and cant control. The only
thing that is fully under your control is your
own behavior and actions. When approach-
ing a cute girl, the only thing that you can
control is the physical act of putting one foot
in front of another and walking towards her.
Once you walk over to her and open your
mouth, youve done everything that you can,
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everything thats under your control.

Everything that comes after that is out of
your control and thus pointless to worry
about.
First, there are the internal elements
that exist inside your head and nowhere else.
This is all purely psychological and is closely
related to your ego. Worries like: Would she
make me look like a fool? Would she em-
barrass me and destroy my sensitive ego?
All of this is completely possible, and if you
have certain expectations of people, then you
would be hurt if they dont meet them. If a
girl you met in a bar promised to see you the
following week, but then changed her mind,
you would be hurt because her behavior ran
contrary to what you expected. In this case
the solution would be to lower your expecta-
tions concerning people you dont know.
Stop thinking that the world owes you
something. It doesnt. And it never will.
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After you approach and close your

mouth, the outcome now shifts from being
under your control to being out of your con-
trol. The environment matters. Will others
laugh at you if a cute girl rejects you on a
crowded bus? Will others think less of you if
you fail at an important business venture?
These are all external factors that you have
absolutely no control over. You can certainly
lessen the chance of something unexpected
by carefully choosing your environment,
such as approaching the girl in a social set-
ting where everyone knows each other. This
would make the outcome more predictable.
If youre approaching a girl in your social
circle, its safe to say that she wont call the
police or physically assault you. Her boy-
friend wouldnt appear out of nowhere and
beat you up. In general, the only foolproof
way to mitigate this threat is to realize that
some aspects of your environment will al-
ways be unpredictable. After all, you can
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leave your house tomorrow and get run over

by the bus, but doesnt mean that you should
remain in your house for the rest of your life.
An excellent way to alleviate both intern-
al and external doubts is by being busy. If
youre on a mission to get somewhere, you
simply dont have time to worry about what
others are thinking. That means you also
dont have time to poison your mind with
any self-doubt. For example, when I was in a
hurry to get somewhere, approaching wo-
men and asking for directions was never a
problem. I was so busy and urgently needed
to get somewhere that I simply couldnt
worry about what others might think. When
I was busy, I was naturally more confident.
But when I wasnt in a hurry, then my mind
was free to roam about many things, includ-
ing thoughts about being judged by others.
Paradoxically, its the time when Im casually
strolling and hitting on girls by asking them
for directions that Im the most stressed.
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Thats because the more you think about

your outward action, the less you think about
your inward action. Its difficult to concen-
trate on both simultaneously: its very diffi-
cult to concentrate on what youre trying to
do and, at the same time, worry how youll be
perceived while doing it.
Since we often cant control the environ-
ment, nor control the outcome, and we cant
magically manufacture confidence every
time we need to do something new, a solid
strategy is to simply embrace the unknown.
Instead of being afraid of the unfamiliar, re-
place that fear with the desire to do
something new and obtain a new experience.
Lets say you decide to travel to some off-the-
beaten-path destination like Zimbabwe. Fly-
ing there is certainly not a seamless process
like flying to France. First, the amount of
people who have been to the Zimbabwe is re-
latively small compared with the number of
people who have been to France. Therefore,
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there are less stories and advice that will

make the trip more predictable. Thats fur-
ther compounded by the fact that Africa is
less developed than Europe. All this leads to
one thing: traveling to Africa is fraught with
uncertainty and is much more unpredictable
than flying to France. Because of this, your
first trip to Zimbabwe will require more con-
fidence than flying to Paris. You arrive at the
airport and check-in for your flight. But in-
stead of feeling frightened, its important to
turn that fear into a sense of adventure.
While both emotions represent a natural way
of dealing with uncertainty, the former emo-
tion blocks you from achieving the unknown;
the latter emotion lets you embrace it.

Being assertive
Confidence also means being more
forceful and assertive with what you want.
One fine Sunday afternoon, I was walking
around with a good friend in New York. My
friend needed to go to the bathroom, but
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there was really no place to go. I mentioned

to him that I usually go into the nearest cof-
fee shop or restaurant and ask them to use
their bathroom without actually buying any-
thing. He immediately ran into the nearest
coffee shop without letting me finish my sen-
tence. After a few minutes, he came out of
the coffee shop.

Did you have any problems getting in?

I asked him.
No, no problems at all.
Did the people working there mind you
coming in without buying anything?
Not sure. I forgot to ask the lady, was
my friends clever response.

Of course, he didnt forget anything.

He simply refused to ask someone else for
something he needed to do. He needed to go
the bathroom, so he went to the bathroom.
After all, it wasnt very hard because there
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werent any physical barriers between him

and the bathroom.
There are also times where its important
to be even more assertive and persistent with
your demands. When I was in Latvia, the guy
who rented me the apartment invited me to a
local lounge to hang out with him and his
friends. We entered the lounge and immedi-
ately noticed a great table in the corner. It
was a real mystery why such a table was still
available when all the others were still taken.
As soon as we approached it, the mystery
was solved. The table was reserved. Just as I
was about to suggest looking for another
table or another restaurant, my friend mo-
tioned for us to sit down anyway. Confused,
and with a bit of excitement, we all sat at
down at the reserved table. The waitress
came back and informed us that the table
was reserved and directed us to sit some-
where else. We remained steadfast, telling
her that we wanted to sit at this table, and
 257/411

asked her if there was something that could

change her mind. She didnt yield. After she
threatened to call the manager, we got up
and moved to another table.
The previous example might even extend
beyond confidence into arrogance. In fact,
confidence and arrogance are close. Both sig-
nify the ability to go for what you want. The
difference is that with confidence you go for
what you feel youre entitled but doesnt
already belong to someone else. When youre
arrogant you go for something that you know
already belongs to another person. Arrog-
ance is when a confident person crosses the
line and infringes on another persons time
and space. Thats what people mean when
they say that someone crossed the line. For
example, suppose Im in the supermarket
and go straight to the cashier instead of
standing in line to check out. Am I being
confident? Yes. Am I being arrogant? Yes.
But lets say an elderly lady needs to buy just
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one item, her medicine. She is in a hurry to

get home. She goes straight to the cashier
and politely asks the next person in line if
she can cut in and buy the item. The person
looks at the old lady and agrees. In this case
the old lady is confident but not arrogant.
One of the major reasons that men are
fearful of being confident is that they fear
that they will become arrogant, a quality that
has negative connotations. Arrogance is a ta-
boo that will lead to criticism from others.
Thus, most people fear that they will in-
stantly turn from being a shy guy straight in-
to an arrogant jerk overnight. I think such
worries are grossly unfounded. Theres
simply no way to go from being painfully shy
to outright arrogant without noticing it. I
havent met anyone who has made such a
radical transformation. Ive witnessed some
guys transform from being shy to confident
but not arrogant. Its not something that
happens by accident.
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Experience is the father of confidence

Regardless of how you embark on ini-
tially risky things and confront the unpre-
dictable world, you can be sure that if you do
it enough, you will become less worried
about the outcome over time. Thats because
experience increases and solidifies confid-
ence. If youve done something beforeespe-
cially if youve done it many, many
timesyoure probably familiar with the pos-
sible outcomes. Fewer things can go wrong.
Fewer things will be out of your control. The
more you do something, the more a specific
outcome becomes second nature and routine
instead of something completely random and
unexpected.
Experience makes confidence grow like a
huge snowball that, while it takes some ini-
tial effort to get going, gradually grows big-
ger, soon becoming an avalanche. The more
you put your needs ahead of everyone elses,
and the less you stop caring what others
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think, the more automatic and self-assured

your actions become. Its a natural feedback
loop. Thats why a guy who has approached
many women on the street can more com-
fortably approach the next woman, com-
pared to the guy whos never talked to a
single woman outside his social circle. He
knows all the ways that something might
happen. Hes seen many things and is more
agile and nimble in new situations that he
hasnt seen before. This man still needs con-
fidence for subsequent approaches, but its a
small fraction of the amount of confidence a
man whos never approached needs to
muster up. Its the same when it comes to
travel. A guy whos used to traveling to third
world shit-holes is more comfortable with
taking a first trip to Zimbabwe than a guy
whose trips outside US were prepackaged
trips and cruises in the Caribbean. That first
trip will require lots of confidence, but sub-
sequent trips will require less and less of it
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because theyll become more predictable. I

certainly remember my first trip to Colombia
was in 2007. At that point not many people
were traveling there because they feared be-
ing kidnapped by an armed paramilitary
group as soon as they stepped out of the air-
port. I was definitely a bit scared when I flew
there, but my fears were allayed the moment
I landed and took a taxi to my hostel. I ended
up having a great time. My subsequent trips
became relatively routine and uninteresting.
Mitigating all doubt, whether its intern-
al or external, embracing the unknown, and
having blind faith that your experience will
turn unpredictable situations into routine
events will gradually make you more confid-
ent. But there will still be an element of un-
certainty remaining no matter how many
times youve done something. While that un-
certainty will greatly diminish, it will never
fully go away. Even the most confident
people dont fully know the outcome of any
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situation they havent experienced before.

Its just not possible. Even though hes done
it many times, the outgoing American guy
that I met in Colombia had no idea whether
the new girls he was approaching would
want to talk to him. A professional boxer still
gets butterflies before a match, no matter
how many previous bouts he has had. Those
butterflies are greatly lessened compared to
his very first match, but they still exist. When
I was getting ready for my first trip to Russia,
I had butterflies because I didnt know what
to expect. I felt that way despite having ex-
tensively traveled in three continents for
over seven years. There are simply no guar-
antees that something you already did 1,000
times will have a familiar outcome on the
1,001st time.
Nevertheless, even with the understand-
ing that there will never be a situation where
the outcome are completely predictable,
there are men that still push forward into the
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unknown, while other men become indecis-

ive and stall like deer caught between head-
lights. Thats because the former instinct-
ively control a very specific fear, a fear that
must be overcome in order to get what you
want.
 VII

CONFRONTATION

The impediment to action advances

action.
What stands in the way becomes the
way.
Marcus Aurelius

My whole life, at least ever since I can re-

member, Ive been inundated with the
concept that people are afraid of failure.
There is, of course, some validity to this fear.
Failure is a bad word. It carries a negative
meaning. I dont get up in the morning and
choose to purposely fail at something, and I
dont know anyone who voluntarily wants to
experience or be associated with failure. But
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the more I thought about it this fear, the

more perplexed I became. Just because fail-
ure is a bad word, that shouldnt mean that
people should automatically fear it, because
they dont have such a paralyzing fear about
every other bad word. And if people dont
fear failure then they must fear something
else. In order for me to understand this
something else I would need to understand
what fear really is.
People are not born with most types of
fear; its a psychological response to a trau-
matic experience. I have a young cousin who
refuses to take elevators under any condi-
tions, and instead always chooses to walk up
the stairs. Shes fearful of elevators because
long ago, when she was very young, the
doors started to close before she fully
entered. The chance of being stuck between
doors as the elevator ascended impacted her
traumatically. It was so traumatic that she
decided to no longer risk re-experiencing the
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same thing. But there had been no failure.

The elevator didnt experience a mechanical
malfunction. The only thing that she experi-
enced was stress. More precisely, she experi-
enced the psychological stress that couldve
occurred as a result of being stuck between
two sliding doors. Essentially, it was the
stress of an unpredictable situation that
couldve resulted in physical harm, even pos-
sible death. There was also additional social
stress as people in the elevator stared at her
as she entered the elevator while the doors
were closing. Consequently, she began to
avoid taking elevators because she wanted to
prevent the repeat of the psychological pain
she had experienced before. She developed a
fear.
Ive personally experienced plenty of
downright failures that never developed into
any subsequent fears. After I quit my stable
9-5 job and embarked upon working on my
own projects, I worked on several projects
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that were complete failures. Each time I ex-

pected them to be runaway successes, but in-
stead I kept failing over and over. While Ive
learned plenty of lessons as a result of these
failures, Ive never been fearful of repeating
the experience. I actually highly treasured
the experiences, and the ensuing failure was
a sign for me to go back to the drawing board
and try again. If I were independently
wealthy and didnt need to make money then
I would fail for a living. My fear was defin-
itely something else.

Success and stress

One of my most interesting experiences
was one where successand not failurewas
the real cause of my stress. I had just fin-
ished working on a project and launched it to
the world. Because of my numerous previous
failures, I had low expectations and expected
it to fail like the ones before. But this time
something was different. After launching it, I
expected to be greeted with crickets, but I
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suddenly had a herd of customers beating

down my door to place orders. At last, I
tasted the sweet nectar of success Almost
While most people loved my product,
there were plenty of people who were highly
critical of it. The complaints were nonstop:
poor customer service (I was just a one-man
shop), the product not arriving promptly, the
product not working, and many other things.
Many of those people found the most trivial
things to complain about. I was also re-
viewed in a popular technology magazine,
which led to an increase in customers and a
corresponding increase in complaints. I was
successful at last, yet the problems were only
piling up. That was something I certainly
didnt expect. How come I was so stressed
when I was so successful? What was I more
fearful of: failure, success, or something
else?
It certainly wasnt rejection, because
during rejection nothing really happens.
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Think about when you approach a beautiful

girl. What do you most fear? Rejection? I
wouldnt be so sure. Or lets say youre trying
to get a job. Whats the scariest part? Email-
ing the interviews to a bunch of employers?
Hardly. The fact that they might not reply?
Also doubtful. When things fail, theres no
stress, no confrontation, and no subsequent
fear developing. All of those outcomes are
natural elements on the road to success. Fail-
ure is rejection and rejection is silent. It can
actually be relieving.
This conundrum kept me occupied for a
while longer before I made an interesting ob-
servation: my fear wasnt of failure, and it
wasnt of success. It was actually from
something entirely different. My fear was of
something before success and failure. Per-
haps my fear was stemming from the steps
leading to success: the fear of exposure; the
fear of trying to put myself out there; and the
fear of the eventual confrontation.
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When approaching women, a mans

greater fear is not when the girl quickly re-
jects him, but rather when she actually faces
him and begins talking to him. That explains
why its dead easy for most guys to utter a
pre-packaged pick up line, but they get mor-
bidly fearful if the girl doesnt outright ignore
them and wants to continue the conversa-
tion. One of the most dreaded things are a
womans shit tests that are the result of her
interest. This doesnt happen if she outright
rejects you or ignores you; it happens be-
cause shes interested in you. Thats not fear
of rejection or failure; thats fear of the actual
conversation, conversation that could even-
tually lead to a number or a date.
Moreover, rejection becomes more terri-
fying the further the conversation progresses
because the longer you talk to the girl, the
more she learns about you, and the more the
possible rejection will mean theres
something wrong with you personally. On
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the other hand, if the girl rejects you before

taking the time to get to know you, that
means that the girl isnt rejecting you per-
sonally but is simply not open to meeting a
new man; she may be in a serious relation-
ship, having a terrible day, or be unavailable
for a plethora of other reasons. Similarly,
when job hunting, the most stressful part is
when someone actually replies and invites
you for an interview. Its when you have to
explain, argue, and even defend your know-
ledge and experience. The most stressful part
is when you have to physically confront an-
other human being, whether its a beautiful
girl shit testing you or an employee inter-
viewing you for a dream job.
Putting yourself out there involves inter-
acting with people that you might not know
well and can act in ways you didnt anticip-
ate. People are unpredictable. They can criti-
cize you or outright disagree with you. They
can even harm you physically. Those
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outcomes are all part of the inherent unpre-

dictability that comes with dealing with un-
expected situations. That means there will
always be stress whenever you're part of any
transaction, no matter what it is. Unless
you're selling something to someone who
you're absolutely sure will not say nolike
your motheryou will face uncertainty. That
may involve inevitable testing and possible
rejection. The outcome, whether its success
or failure, is actually a relief. Theres no
doubt that youre relieved after approaching
a girlregardless whether she said yes or
nobecause the confrontation with a
stranger is over, and because youre proud of
having completed the risky action in the first
place. That explains why you will always
boast to your friends after approaching a girl
regardless of the outcome: it didnt matter
whether you got her number or she slapped
you on the face. Im relieved after pitching a
product to a new customer regardless of
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whether he bought it. The outcome is mean-

ingless. The stress is the actual interaction
between two human beings.
The reason conflict arises during an in-
teraction between two or more people is be-
cause every interaction is always a competi-
tion for limited resources. Starting a busi-
ness can lead to confrontation. Businesses in
the similar lucrative industries will compete
for the same customers. Approaching a girl
on the street is also a form of competition for
limited resources, since beautiful women
have many men competing for them. And if
shes already with someone else, that com-
petition might quickly turn into a real phys-
ical confrontation; her friend or boyfriend
can appear out of nowhere and physically as-
sault you.

Road junkies and armchair travelers

The more I thought about it, the more I
realized that there are really two types of
men. There are men who are constantly
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interfacing with other people and, thus, are

persistently dealing with conflict. Then,
there are men who aren't interfacing with
other people and arent dealing with conflict.
Men of the first type are the salesmen, the
CEOs, MMA fighters, the army generals, sol-
diers, etc. Its anyone whose job is to deal
with other people. They're in constant com-
petition with others: the CEOs are paid to
compete with other companies for business;
and the MMA fighters fight people; the army
generals wage wars against other armies;
and the soldiers kill other soldiers. Men of
the second type are the writers, the program-
mers, the scientists, the researchers, the
mathematicians, etc. While their work is also
important, it never involves being in direct
contact with other people. They simply do
their work and collect a paycheck. Their job
has more to do with research or building a
product and less to do with interfacing with
other people.
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I have two close friends, both of whom

have dedicated their lives to business. The
first friend runs a very successful company
that makes over seven figures a year. Hes
one of the most confident guys Ive ever met.
He loves competition and has the typical go-
getter mentality. He spends his time travel-
ing the world in search of partners and cus-
tomers. He also loves to go out and pick up
women. Hes not scared of anything. The
second friend is working on his PhD disser-
tation about various business management
theories. He's a shy, introverted guy. Hes
much more comfortable toiling away at a
university computer lab than actually closing
deals with other people and making money.
Although he is not a bad looking guy, he is
deathly afraid of approaching women,
whether its in social settings where he
knows people (such as house parties) or out
in the open like the streets, bars, or clubs.
One evening I found him and his classmate
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having a spirited discussion about the proper

academic definition of a business model. The
discussion lasted over an hour. While the
discussion was interesting, I can tell you with
absolute certainty that this is something my
other friend would never do because he
would busy trying to make lots and lots of
money.
Business is one area where you can eas-
ily see these two types of men, but its far
from the only one. Traveling is another.
When it comes to traveling, therere also two
types of men: a road junky and an armchair
traveler. The former gets on the plane and
experiences life; the latter reads blogs all day
while living life vicariously through the ex-
perience of others. The former interacts with
other people and places firsthand; the other
interacts with his computer from the comfort
of his bedroom.
The reason theres such a divide between
types of people in both business and travel is
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because both of these areas require the man

to take endless risks in order to get what he
wants. These areas require confidence to
succeed. Pick any area that requires one to
go out and embrace risk, and youll un-
doubtedly discover more examples of these
two types of people.

Approaching for a living

While theres absolutely nothing wrong
with being a software developer who con-
stantly punches code on the keyboard in a
dark cubicle or a biochemist who spends
every day analyzing samples in a sterile lab,
you must be aware that what you spend your
time doing will inevitably mold your person-
ality in many important ways. A guy who's
constantly dealing with people will have no
problems in other situations of conflict. Hell
feel natural doing it. Hell feel right at home.
Thats why my friend who runs a successful
business is also dating a gorgeous girl and
has no shortage of women who want to see
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him. Most importantly, for a guy whose life

consists of interacting with different people,
theres also no such thing as approach anxi-
ety. His life is full of approaching; ap-
proaching people is what he does every
single day, whether its clients for his busi-
ness or a cute girl at a coffee shop. He cannot
have anxiety about something thats as nat-
ural to him as breathing.
Thats in stark contrast to a guy whose
only form of communication is writing code
on his computer. For him, going out and ac-
tually approaching women, or any human
beings for that matter, is a big deal. Hes not
used to it. He has no problem dealing with
computers because they obey his every com-
mand and cannot judge him, but its a differ-
ent story with real-life human beings who
are completely unpredictable. For instance,
take the process of negotiation, which is one
of the purest forms of confrontation between
two (or more) people. The people who
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regularly deal with others have no problems

negotiating. Its the people who dont have
social experience who are naturally afraid of
negotiating and would rather just buy
something for a fixed price, even if that
means paying more money. For them negoti-
ating is stressful.
Once I realized that conflict is important,
and that embracing conflict in one area made
me more capable in another, one of the key
questions I struggled with was whether this
conflict is temporary or permanent. Does my
life turn into one where I constantly deal
with various conflicts, or are there also peri-
ods of being relatively stress-free? After I
quit my job and embarked on a journey to
make my own money, one of the drastic
changes was that I now had to go out and
earn that money myself. I no longer had a
dedicated marketing department to generate
demand for my software. I no longer had
salespeople to sell my software. I no longer
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had a human resources department that

would hire talented developers. I no longer
had a business development department that
arranged joint marketing deals with other
companies. In other words, I no longer had
the people to embrace conflict for me. I had
to do everything myself. I had to reach out to
people. I had to hustle. Naturally, I was
stressed. In the beginning it was a very diffi-
cult thing to adapt to, but over time I adjus-
ted. As a result of constantly pitching my
products to other people, I actually started to
revive and improve my people skills. After
five years on my own, it became more or less
second nature to pitch my products to
people, and that has helped me in all areas of
life.
This experience taught me that there's
really no such thing as having a comfortable,
stress-free life, and at the same time having
freedom to live on your own terms. The bot-
tom line is that you're either dealing with
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people or you're working for someone else

who is dealing with people. You're either
selling something to others and getting
money in return, or you're working for
someone who's selling something to others,
who then pays you a salary. The people who
are not facing daily stress are working for
someone else, who, in turn, takes their labor
and packages it into a product or service that
will be sold to someone else for more money.
Theyre essentially working for someone who
embraces conflict. Either you confront others
or you work for someone who does. Theres
no such thing as doing both. The sooner you
realize that fact, the better off youll be.
The good news is that experience from
one area of conflict, such as pitching your
software to perspective customers, readily
transfers to another area such as picking up
women. I firmly believe that business and
game are two sides of the same coin. Guys
that spend every single day selling products
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door-to-door dont suddenly develop ap-

proach anxiety at a bar on Friday night. Guys
that fearlessly approach women at bars make
great salespeople. A fighter is a fighter. A go-
getter is a go-getter. A winner is a winner.

Physical escalation
To better adapt to confrontation, you
must find the source of the fear. And in order
to really understand any fear, its always use-
ful to dig deeper and discover its underlying
cause. Always ask yourself Whats the worst
thing that could really happen? In this case,
the underlying fear of psychological con-
frontation is the risk of a physical confronta-
tion. Theres always a risk that any confront-
ation between two (or more) people can es-
calate into a physical clash that will threaten
your life. The worst thing that can happen is
death. That explains why youll be less fear-
ful of anything bad happening if youre the
biggest guy in the environment. If youre a
big guy and some situation physically
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escalates, then you know youll be able to de-

feat your adversary because of your advant-
ageous physical size. That also explains why
its difficult to go out alone, especially in a
new environment where you dont know any-
one, but really simple to go out with a group
of friends. Theres safety in numbers. Your
crew is really a small army that can protect
you in case of any physical escalation. The
bigger the crew, the more confident you feel
to say and do what you please.
Besides, its luckily not very often that a
conflict escalates into a physical confronta-
tion in our society. Maybe a thousand years
ago it was a real possibility, but these days
most of us live in a civilized society with vari-
ous laws and law enforcement agencies. So,
while a physical confrontation is always pos-
sible, its a lot less probable. Unless youve
pissed off some very determined people and
have made lots of enemies, its rare that you
would be outright assaulted. People usually
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need a good reason to even contemplate at-

tacking you. That means that most of the
time you must be actually looking for a fight
in order to get it. But if youre someone, just
like most people, who isnt particularly look-
ing for a fightfew things are worth fighting
over anywayyoull always find a way to
avoid it. The moment you stop worrying
about physical confrontation is the exact mo-
ment your other fears of conflict start to
disappear.
A more probable scenario is that instead
of the confrontation turning violent, it turns
into a mere verbal disagreement. And in this
case too, in order to put your mind at ease, it
helps to work out the possible results of a
typical verbal conformation. If you're trying
to sell a product to a new customer or ap-
proach a new girl, only three things can
really happen. First, the other person can
agree with your request. Second, the other
person can decline your request. Third, the
 285/411

person might begin testing you or criticizing

you before eventually accepting or declining.
Criticism is actually helpful because it
provides feedback, helping you to pinpoint
specific areas that need improvement.
One thing that I've found to be very ef-
fective in making myself more comfortable
with confrontation is engaging in vigorous
physical activity like working out at a gym or
doing martial arts. Physical activities in-
crease levels of testosterone in your blood,
an important hormone thats responsible for
making you more comfortable with conflict. I
always noticed that after a vigorous Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu rolling session or a heavy set of
squats at a gym, Im much more willing to go
out and approach beautiful women. Working
out releases various endorphins into your
bloodstream, making you more at-ease and
comfortable with confrontation. Since youve
revved up your mind and body by doing
heavy squats or deadlifts, your body wants to
 286/411

maintain the heightened physical level,

which makes stopping everything and isolat-
ing yourself in a small room very difficult.
Even doing a set of push-ups or sit-ups every
morning before starting out your day does
wonders.

Action-based lifestyle
My experience has overwhelmingly
shown that half of the battle is just showing
up. In fact, I think showing up is actually
more than half the battle, probably around
eighty percent. Thats because showing up
transports you from your isolated and com-
fortable surroundings and pits you against
someone else, face-to-face. The rest usually
takes care of itself. During my travels, Ive
known many guys who loved going out and
picking up women. Some were successful,
others were less so. One of my friends loved
women so much that he couldnt resist ap-
proaching them pretty much anywhere:
parks, cafes, restaurants, streets, bars and
 287/411

clubs. While he succeeded sometimes, most

often the approach resulted in a failure. One
day, after he failed on every single approach,
my friends and I began jokingly calling him
the king of rejections. Despite being count-
lessly rejected, the king of rejections is a king
nonetheless. Thats because all those rejec-
tions are proof that he went out and em-
braced conflict. My other friend, who boot-
strapped his small company from his garage
into an operation with an office and multiple
employees, regularly approaches potential
clients everywhere theres an opportunity.
While hes also failed more than he has suc-
ceeded, without approaching he wouldnt
have signed up all those paying customers.
Rejections also taught him how to improve
his products and marketing, bringing more
knowledge about his business than all the
possible marketing surveys could ever do.
What really matters is the action; the
outcome is meaningless. Thats why rejection
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and success are really the same thing, be-

cause they both prove that you went out and
actually did something. In both cases you
have a unique experience and a story to tell
others. In both cases you actually lived your
life instead of just wondering what would
have happened if you had done so-and-so.
Thats why my firm belief is that its always
better to do something regardless of the out-
come. Showing up and embracing conflict
teaches you something new about yourself
and about how the world works. Rejection is
not permanent. Rejection doesnt damage
you by leaving any scars. Ive never experi-
enced a situation where a rejectionno mat-
ter how drastic and painfulhad a lasting ef-
fect on me, and Ive been rejected in all ways
imaginable. I also dont personally know
anyone who has experienced any long-term
negatives from repeated rejection. My friend
who endlessly approached women never
came to me and said, Man, Im so destroyed
 289/411

by all these rejections that I think Ill stop

doing these approaches. It was actually the
opposite: he was becoming addicted to tak-
ing action. The more he did it, the more he
wanted to keep doing it.
A good way to embrace conflict is to en-
vision your life as a series of contacts with
other people. Before approaching someone
you may be experiencing a plethora of con-
flicting thoughts, but you must realize that
those thoughts are temporary and transient,
and that nothing really matters unless you
actually make contact with someone else.
The contact doesnt need to be physical, but
it needs to signify the start of the interaction.
When it comes to business this means that
nothing matters unless youve actually gotten
closer to signing up a new customer that will
lead to more money in your pocket. Only ac-
tually calling or emailing the customer and
pitching to them your services is considered
making contact. It doesnt matter how long
 290/411

you spend drafting that proposal or wonder-

ing whom to contact, nothing truly matters
until you pick up the phone and call them or
you click send on your email client. When
it comes to women, nothing truly matters
until you go over and begin talking to her.
She might be busy or you might not be her
type, but all of that is a moot point. The im-
portant point is that you inserted yourself in-
to someone elses life. Their life is now
forever changed. They know that you exist.
They may or may not be interested in what
you represent or what youre selling, but a
contact has been made, a contact thats per-
manent, forever etched into both of your
histories.
The power of this action-based lifestyle
is that it forces you to focus on what really
matters and marginalizes everything else.
Both preparation and consequences are un-
important compared with the action itself.
Think about it: there can be a million ways of
 291/411

strategizing and devising a way to approach a

beautiful woman, but only one real way of
doing it. Theres only one way to approach a
client and pitch them your products and ser-
vices. The world may be complicated, but
when it comes to action it really is black and
white: you either do something, or not.
Theres no in-between. Theres no such thing
as trying to do something. Trying to do
something is your way of verbalizing your in-
tent of doing something, but you still havent
done anything yet. Action is like truth: it al-
ways triumphs in the end. Once you establish
committing the action as your benchmark for
living, you will actually learn to embrace
contact, and confrontation will no longer be
something that you fear. Heres a quick way
to see if youve been actually living or plan-
ning to live: can the things that youve done
fill up a book? If not, you better start living.
The mind has a cryptic way of remem-
bering the good while forgetting the bad. I
 292/411

personally remember all the experiences of

approaching women and starting business,
but rarely remember the failures and rejec-
tions. If you ask me about the last time I was
rejected, I would have to probably think
about it for a few moments, even though it
most likely happened very recently. Since a
rejection is meaningless, the brain puts it in
some distant place that is not easily access-
ible. But the memories of those magical ex-
periences when things actually clicked, and
you ended up bringing a new person into
your life, will be undoubtedly with you
forever. Sure rejections sting, but you only
experience that for a short duration, while
the memory of the action will stay with you
forever. I guess thats your brains way of
stressing that you should keep living your life
and not worry too much about bad experi-
ences and emotionsyour brain will flush
them out of memory quickly.

Real limitations
 293/411

The only limitations that should prevent

you from getting what you want should be
either legal or physical in nature. Thats a
good rule of thumb to keep in mind. You
can't sell a software product if the customer
lives a thousand miles away and you don't
have his number. You can't approach a girl
because she's sitting in a home that's
guarded by an armed militia or a pack of fe-
rocious dogs. Similarly, you cant do
something if its expressly forbidden by law
and youre at risk of being fined or even ar-
rested. But if the girl is sitting few tables
away from you at a coffee shop in a civilized
part of the world where talking to a stranger
doesnt automatically result in violence, you
have no reason not to approach.
Confidence and confrontation go hand in
hand. Its simply impossible to be confident
without also possessing the willingness to
embrace conflict. The people who are filled
with self-doubt are the same ones who
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always shy away from conflict. Furthermore,

having rock-solid confidence and the drive to
embrace conflict and competition increases
your inward conviction and makes your out-
ward presence much more formidable.
 VIII

PRESENCE

Act like you own it.

Anonymous

Human communication is
overwhelmingly non-verbal. In fact, it's gen-
erally accepted that 93% of communication
is non-verbal and only 7% is verbal. Effective
communication is less about the actual con-
tent of what youre trying to do and more
about the way you do it: the way you talk;
the way you walk; the way you carry yourself.
The context surrounding your words is much
more important than the actual words them-
selves; in fact, words by themselves actually
mean very little. The way you act, talk, and
 296/411

carry yourself forms your outward presence.

It projects who you are, both verbally and
nonverbally, onto the world. Presence is a
combination of entitlement, confidence, and
your ability to confront others in order to get
what you want. Man demonstrates his pres-
ence by controlling two main resources: time
and space.
A high value man moves straight ahead
with purpose and determination. He takes
slow and measured steps. The pace is pur-
posely chosen as not to be too slow or too
fast. He doesnt need to move fast because
hes never in a hurry; as a high value man,
nothing of importance really begins until he
arrives. He doesnt need to move slowly be-
cause he's goal-oriented and greatly values
his time. A high value man never aimlessly
wanders around like a lost puppy. Hes al-
ways trying to get somewhere and accom-
plish certain things.
 297/411

I discovered the importance of this pace

once after doing some heavy squats at the
gym. I realized that I was walking at a slower
and more controlled pace than usual. My
legs were physically exhausted, so I couldnt
make fast and jerky movements. This resul-
ted in an extremely confident swagger that
projected power and control. Strangely, a
similar thing happens when Im sick with a
cold. My body is busily fighting the infection,
which forces me to economize my energy
when moving about. I no longer have the en-
ergy to be overly concerned with the environ-
ment, and I instead assume a relaxed and de-
tached attitude.
In addition to masterfully controlling his
time, a high value man is an expert of con-
trolling his space. And hes naturally entitled
to lots of his own spaceboth the space that
he takes up physically, as well as the sur-
rounding space. A high value man instinct-
ively takes more space than his physical
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stature allows. When you walk, imagine that

its not only you walking, but that you're ac-
companied by two other friends on both
sides. Thats the amount of space you should
be taking. Thats your buffer zone. As
someone who's not afraid of confrontation,
you don't immediately move over to let oth-
ers pass. You wait for them to pass first,
slightly adjusting yourself to avoid a head-on
collision. When you sit down, you similarly
take control and own the space by spreading
and stretching your legs. Its important to be
comfortable with taking as much space as
you need, and even some additional space
beyond that. Taking up space should be
something that brings you increased comfort
and pleasure.
Space can either be freely available or re-
quire you to physically secure it. In your own
apartment or house, there's no competition
for resources because other people can't eas-
ily enter and sit down. The couch in your
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living room is always vacant for you to sit

down and relax. So are the various chairs in
the kitchen or in the bedrooms. This space is
private and belongs only to you, but things
get trickier in public areas. In places such as
coffee shops and restaurants, space is offered
on a first come, first serve basis. Usually, if
the place isnt packed, there will be space for
you to sit down without any issues. In bars
and clubs, space is at even more of a premi-
um. Since bars and clubs act as meeting
points for mating, there's a lot of sexual
rivalry. After all, if you cant secure a space
or maintain already-secured space, you have
less chance of approaching and taking a girl
home. In these cases its important to be
more assertive and fight for your space. If
youre complacent and abandon your space,
you enter an inferior position for achieving
anything important.
Competition to secure and protect space
is common with many animals in the wild.
 300/411

For example, lions and leopards protect any

infringement on their space in the savannas.
They know that if they let other animals in-
trude on their space, they will lose mating
rights to their female counterparts. Thats
evolution at work. The animals that didnt
protect their space lost their mating rights to
other animals. But those animals (including
humans) that are alive today clearly protec-
ted their space and were able to reproduce.
Thus, we are all descendants of people who
were aggressive in controlling and fighting
for their space. Learn to be comfortable with
entitlement to your own space.

Filling up the room

When a man is adept at asserting and
controlling his space, he literally fills up the
room. That means that regardless of the
man's physical size he's noticed by everyone
in a particular social setting such as a party,
meeting, dinner, coffee shop, restaurant, etc.
You may be sitting in a restaurant, and the
 301/411

next person who enters is immediately no-

ticed by everyone inside. The main reason
that person is noticed is because he's physic-
ally imposing. After all, it's really hard to
miss a very large man. But one doesnt need
to be physically imposing to be noticed;
many of the world's most powerful and fear-
ful leaders havent been particularly large
men. When I lived in California, I once dated
a great Chinese girl. Her parents owned a
popular restaurant in the area. Her father
also had some other businesses on the side,
including importing various commodities
from China. They were pretty successful.
After dating the girl for a year, I was invited
for a weekend barbecue at her parents
house. It was a sign that her parents were
taking me seriously as her daughters suitor.
Once I arrived, her mother was exceptionally
sweet and instantly began treating me like a
member of the family. Her father was more
stoic. He shook my hand with a firm
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handshake and told me to feel at home. I

looked at the father and immediately noticed
something. While he wasnt physically im-
posing (he was only 56 with skinny build),
he had an undeniably powerful presence.
There was no doubt that he was immediately
noticed anywhere he went, and crowds in-
stantly formed around him.
Of course, its important to note that it
was his house after all and, as the king in his
castle, he possessed indisputable authority.
But there was something more to it as well.
Ive been to many gatherings where the own-
er of the house never commanded such an
omnipotent presence. Those men were fun
and interesting, but they always lacked
something that I could never put my finger
on until I noticed this mans behavior. A cru-
cial part of his commanding presence was his
penetrating gaze. Another element was the
way he spoke, choosing every word with
careful precision, punctuated by pauses of
 303/411

perfect length. When he spoke everyone im-

mediately stopped what they were doing and
listened. Nobody interrupted. Nobody criti-
cized. Nobody dissented. His words held
weight.
What gave him such an authoritative
presence? I spent lots of time pondering this
question and finally came up with a theory.
First of all, theres really no one specific
thing thats responsible for such dominating
presence; its generally a combination of
various factors. The first is his seriousness
and determination. He's not flowing in the
wind, changing direction at whim: he is the
wind. He sets the tempo and the interaction.
Hes in control. He interviews. He asks the
questions. He hires. He makes decisions. He
walks into any place as though he owns it.
He controls the environment. He becomes
the owner of anyone or anything that he
comes in contact with.

Acting like an owner

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Consider for a moment how an owner

would act in a place such as his store or res-
taurant. After entering the place, he would
decide what to do. He might do something
himself, or he might direct one of his em-
ployees to do it instead. If he notices
something of interest, he gets curious and
asks about it. The owner would naturally be
in control. One of my friends in Brazil ex-
pertly displayed this ownership mentality
when we went out together. We would enter
a restaurant and the hostess would escort us
to a table. My friend, however, would always
have other ideas. Instead, he would ask for
another table somewhere else. Of course, he
wouldnt do this every single time, but if the
hostess didn't do a good job, he would imme-
diately take control of the situation and do
her job for her. Once the waitress brought
the menus and explained the specials, my
friend might immediately reconfirm them.
He might ask the waitress to remove or add
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ingredients. If he had been to the restaurant

before, he might ask the waitress to make a
meal that he had the previous week, even
though it was no longer on the menu. There
were times that he told her what he wanted,
even if it differed from what she offered.
Thats the ownership mentality all the way;
the real owner of the restaurant wouldnt
even look at the menu and would just order
what he wants or likes.
Why did my friend do this? Why is this
behavior important? Imagine that you really
owned that restaurant. Would you let
someone else tell you where to sit, or would
you pick the seat that you felt was best for
you? The reason you would choose a table
yourself is because you want to control your
environment. Since youll be sitting at a table
for the foreseeable future, it makes sense for
you, and not someone else, to decide where
youll be sitting. Of course, not all of my
friends actually owned restaurants, but the
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way each carried himself, there was no doubt

that he couldve been the actual owner of the
particular restaurant.
The owner naturally feels at home in
both familiar and unfamiliar environments.
Lets say youre the owner of a coffee shop.
Youve been traveling and havent been home
for a while. After several weeks (or months)
abroad, you finally return back home. Fol-
lowing a night full of well-deserved rest you
head out to your coffee shop to see how
things have been going. What are your first
thoughts as you step through the door? Well,
for starters, youre curious if anything has
changed in time youve been gone. You look
around. You pay special attention to the fur-
niture, the baristas working there, the num-
ber of customers inside. But as an owner,
you are even more inquisitive than the typic-
ally passive customer who just blindly orders
a drink, sits down, and begins punching
away on his laptop. After a quick look
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around, you strike up a conversation with the

baristas and other employees. You check on
how things are going, obviously hoping that
everything is going well. You might propose
a few ideas about some changes that you
want to make, whether thats hiring a new
employee, or making some alterations to the
interior design. Maybe youre curious about
the clientele, so you chat up the bartender
and begin interviewing him. While its not
immediately evident that youre the owner, it
is pretty clear that youre not some passerby.
The owner mentality is about having
complete control of any environment. That
consists of directing people what to do while
sitting back and being served. Regardless of
whether youre in a coffee shop, restaurant,
or a bar, or any other public area that is ser-
viced by others, your role is always the same:
youre there to be served. After all, because
youre the one whos paying for a service or
product, you have every right to demand the
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absolute best service fitted to your stringent

specifications. A lot of people dont realize
this position of strength and instead act like
docile sheep, letting others dictate what
theyre allowed to obtain. The high value
man, however, is always aware of this dy-
namic and leverages it to its full potential.
The owner mentality is also about having
options and alternatives. The high value man
always knows that if the product or service
hes planning to use is not up to his stand-
ards, he will simply go somewhere else.
When I was in Europe, one of my friends had
recommended a great bar in the center of Vi-
enna, Austria. He hyped it up by emphasiz-
ing that it was a very popular bar, serves ex-
cellent drinks, and was frequented by ex-
tremely beautiful women. Naturally, I had
very high expectations and was excited to
check it out. After finding the bar in some
dark alley, I entered it through narrow doors.
Right away I was disappointed. First, the bar
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was extremely crowded. It was tiny and filled

to the brim with people, with not an inch of
available space. After pushing my way inside,
I ordered my drink. I actually had to order
my drink from several different bartenders
because each one mysteriously forgot what I
ordered. The service was terrible. The only
thing that kept me there was the fact that a
good friend had recommended it. I stayed for
another twenty minutes before cutting my
losses and finding a much better bar. A lesser
man wouldve remained in the bar believing
that it was the best in town, but a high
value man can only take so much disappoint-
ment and disrespect before deciding to pur-
sue one of his many other options. That ap-
plies even to things that at first may seem
scarce.
This owner mentality and decisiveness is
truly universal in high value men. On more
than one occasion, Ive met people who were
very decisive, goal-oriented, and optimistic
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who always made things happen. Later, I

would learn that they either ran a business
(or two) or had leadership positions. They
didnt suddenly morph from someone dom-
ineering into someone complacent just be-
cause they werent in their own home or
business. They commanded people and
made their own rules in all spheres of life.
Their presence and behavior was exactly the
same, whether they were in their own office
or a public place. Adapting the owner mind-
set instantly unlocks a multitude of priv-
ileges. As an owner youre free to enter the
place and immediately leave it if something
bothers you. As an owner youre free to pick
your own table, regardless of what someone
else, like the hostess, has in mind. As an
owner youre free to quiz the waitress and
ask for something thats not on the menu. As
an owner, youre free to leave the establish-
ment if its not up to your standards.
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A strong presence is the ability to walk

into any environment and know that you can
control it if necessary. Its knowing that you
are capable of getting anything you want out
of that particular environment. Its knowing
that theres no one above you that should
dictate what youre entitled to have or to do.
Its knowing that youre more assertive than
anyone else, even if other people are physic-
ally larger or stronger than you. Your omni-
potent presence should shine through as
soon as you come through the door. People
should know that youre there to be reckoned
with. You transmit ambition and determina-
tion. And when you own the environment,
approaching anyone for anything that you
might need will become all but an
afterthought.
While controlling your environment is
an integral part of your powerful presence,
its also important to know when you should
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be forceful with your demands and when you

should be nonchalant.
 IX

NONCHALANT

As soon as you stop something, you get

it.
Andy Warhol

Up to this point, Ive spent a lot of time

talking about the various things you have to
do. Ive talked about building your value, go-
ing for what you want, and ways of overcom-
ing the obstacles that stand in your way. Ive
talked about having an assertive presence as
you move through the world. These are all
forms of action that you must engage in or-
der to get what you want. The volume of con-
tent about action is not an accident: action is
important. Everything starts with an action.
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Without acting and making a first move, you

won't learn what works and what doesnt so
that you can improve for next time. A good
rule of thumb is that the more you do
something, the more you learn, and the
sooner you succeed. Thats applicable to
business, women, and life in general.
I also mentioned that the outcome of any
one action isnt very important. I was both
right and wrong. In the beginning, when
youre trying to be more assertive about what
you want to achieve, its important to worry
more about pushing forward with action in-
stead of doing nothing because youre
deathly worried about a particular outcome.
But as you become more confident and ex-
perienced, youll inevitably see that, while
you have no problems performing a particu-
lar action, it doesnt necessarily yield the out-
come that you want. While you can certainly
continue to repeat a particular action,
whether its approaching a girl or starting a
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business, when you realize that the outcome

is not changing its better to reformulate
your problem and think of a new plan of at-
tack. Although launching a product and ap-
proaching a girl are fundamental actions,
there's a major difference between selling a
product to people who are desperate to use
it, and selling a product to someone who has
absolutely no need for it. Similarly, theres a
difference between approaching a girl whos
dying to talk to you, and endlessly calling a
girl who hasnt returned your last twenty
phone calls. Not all actions are the same. As
a matter of fact, in both examples, the former
is a smart action while the latter is a dumb
action.

Smart vs. Dumb

Smart actions differ from dumb actions
in important ways. A smart action is about
initiating a situation where you let people
know what youre buying or selling. Its also
about feeling out possible demand and, if it
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is there, satisfying it. It's doing something

that will have a lasting impact. On the other
hand, a dumb action is one where you ex-
pend lots of energy without getting any res-
ults. Boiling an ocean or persuading
someone to do something that they have zero
interest in doing and are clear examples of
dumb actions because they are wastes of
time. Many animals naturally only engage in
smart actions while shunning those who un-
dertake dumb actions. The lion or tiger
sleeps most of the day in the shade and only
mobilizes their resources on things that dir-
ectly affect its survival and reproduction like
hunting and mating. For humans, however,
the task is trickier since our world is more
complex, and its not always obvious which
are the smart actions and which are the
dumb actions. Your mission, should you ac-
cept it, is to analyze your behavior and re-
construct it so that you dont expend energy
on things that will never come to fruition.
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You should endeavor to only complete smart

actions while avoiding the dumb ones.
A smart action can be further classified
into active and passive actions. Approaching
a cute girl is an active action. While a woman
may find a man attractive, she would very
rarely outright approach the man. That's why
you must make the first step and find out. If
you see a cute woman sitting by herself, you
need to approach her in order to see if the in-
terest is mutual. Approaching prospective
clients is another active action. If you're in a
particular business and notice possible cus-
tomers whom you'd like to convert into your
clients, then you have to approach and talk
to them. They certainly won't approach you
first.
I was once sitting with a friend in a hip-
ster cafe. He had just started a mobile ad-
vertising company and was desperately look-
ing for customers. As we sipped our over-
priced artisan teas, my friend overhead
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several guys at the next table chatting about

their recently launched startup. The guys
were discussing redesigning their site in or-
der to make it more user-friendly. My friend
immediately realized that these guys were
potential customers. He got up and ap-
proached the table, introducing himself and
telling them that he was also in a tech busi-
ness. They were receptive and invited him to
join. Ten minutes later my friend returned to
our table after exchanging business cards.
Whether a flourishing business partnership
will ever develop depends on many things,
many of which are out of my friends control.
What was important, however, was for my
friend to approach and inform them about
his business. Otherwise they wouldnt have
even known that he existed.
In addition to smart actions that are act-
ive, there are also smart actions that are
passive. A passive smart action is advertising
your availability and readiness to do
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something. In this case, youre not outright

approaching someone, but you are letting
someone know that youre available to parti-
cipate in a particular event. Some friends of
mine wanted to go skiing and were organiz-
ing a trip. Since I wasnt a huge skier, my in-
terest was tepid at best. But, provided I
didnt have to do work to make the trip hap-
pen, I would certainly have considered going.
I told my friends, Let me know what you
guys decide. That was my way of advertising
my availability. I didnt want to be involved
in organizing the trip, but still wanted to
know the outcome of the planning.
Whether youll choose to employ an act-
ive or a passive action will depend on your
level of interest. If youre more interested in
doing something than your friends, then you
will actively suggest doing something instead
of merely advertising your availability. There
are also times when you cannot passively ad-
vertise your availability because the other
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person doesnt even know you exist. In that

situation, you would have to actively ap-
proach the other person so that he or she
was at least aware of your existence. The cute
girl whos sitting on a park bench has no idea
who you are. You cannot merely tell her that
you want to do something. You would first
need to approach and make it known that
youre available. After that you can decide
whether to continue being active by asking
her out, or become passive by telling her that
youre single and ready mingle and wait for
her to make a suggestion.
While approaching a prospective cus-
tomer whos interested in buying your
product is always a smart action, a dumb ac-
tion is the complete opposite: trying to sell
something to someone who would never be
interested. This can happen when the cus-
tomer youre targeting buys completely dif-
ferent products than the ones youre selling.
A dumb action always results in frustration
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for the buyer and rejection for the seller.

When my friend pitched his services to the
guys at the other table, he knew that there
was a relatively high chance of signing them
up because they were in a similar industry
and had a need for his products and ser-
vicesotherwise he wouldn't have bothered
to approach.
There must be some kind of a match
between what Im selling and what people
are willing to buy. Otherwise, without that
crucial match, nothing couldve worked. My
friend probably wouldnt have approached a
group of retired pensioners. Similarly, if I'm
selling a luxury car, then I probably won't
approach a guy who's very cost-conscious
and can only afford an economical car. If I'm
trying to get a friend to go to a great steak-
house, I will have a hard time convincing
him if hes a lifelong vegetarian. It doesnt
matter that the products Im selling are truly
quality products: the car is in great
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condition, very reliable and runs great; the

restaurant serves excellent steak, very juicy
and tastes great. Convincing might work in
certain situations, but will ultimately fail
when theres a wide disconnect between
what the buyer wants and what the seller is
willing to provide.
I used to have a pet turtle, and when he
was hungry, he would run after me because
he equated me with food. After giving him
food, he would instantly devour it and ask
for more. But when he wasn't hungry, it
didn't matter how much food I gave him, or
that it was his favorite food. He wouldn't eat.
In fact, when he wasnt hungry he didnt
want anything to do with me and pretty
much ignored me altogether. Feeding a pet
turtle when he has no desire to eat is a waste
of time and energy. Try it. Because I enjoyed
seeing my turtle eat, I felt frustrated and re-
jected when the turtle didn't take any food.
But that's exactly how one feels after
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committing a dumb action; one leaves the

interaction empty-handed with a sense of
disappointment. The quintessential dumb
action is characterized by convincing
someone to either become who you want or
do what you want. And people dont become
someone else just because thats what you
want.

Becoming nonchalant
When I thought about the best adjective
that expressed the mindset necessary to
transform from doing dumb actions to only
smart ones, the first word that popped into
my mind was nonchalant. According to the
dictionary, nonchalant means feeling or ap-
pearing casually calm and relaxed; not dis-
playing anxiety, interest, or enthusiasm. To
be nonchalant is to possess one of the most
virtuous human qualities. High value people
show that they are nonchalant by letting oth-
er people come to them instead of rushing to
other people. Im sure youve seen the
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following scene many times (either on TV or

in real life): a guy is comfortably relaxing in a
lounge, while a girl, with her body com-
pletely facing him, is trying to impress him,
ask him questions, and otherwise get him to
do something. The guy is completely care-
free. Hes just sipping on his drink and
chilling. He isnt worried about anything. He
doesnt care if the girl leaves him at any
second. He doesnt have a care in the world.
Or consider another scene. An employee
comes to his bosss office and wants to ask
him something. The boss is comfortably sit-
ting in his oversized leather chair. Hes lean-
ing back, staring out the window of his spa-
cious corner office on a high floor. Hes re-
laxed. The employee, while pleading for
something from his boss, moves his whole
body forward. The boss eases deeper into his
chair and ponders an answer, taking his
sweet time. It isnt very difficult to deduce
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who has more value in such a situation. Its

the one whos more relaxed.
Nonchalant is the exact opposite of
eager, overzealous, and desperate, which is
someone who you never want to be. In fact,
when I think about the most unattractive
traits that a man can possess, those are the
adjectives that immediately spring to mind.
Someone whos eager to do something either
grossly undervalues himself or doesnt have
the right priorities in life. Being nonchalant
is about maximizing the impact of your ac-
tions, so that youre not expending your en-
ergy on things that will never come to
fruition. Its about letting other people come
to you instead of the other way around. And
when people do that, you end up reaping an
important psychological benefit: the more
someone works to earn your presence, the
more they end up respecting you. If someone
has spent lots of time convincing me to do
something, they also in the process convince
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themselves that they did these things pre-

cisely because they wanted to do it. And be-
cause they wanted to do it, they are more
convinced that theyre doing it for the right
reasons. The mere fact that they convinced
themselves to spend time with you is infin-
itely more effective than any amount of con-
vincing or persuading that you do instead.
Nonchalance is also about picking your
battles and not getting involved in minor
squabbles. High value people are busy work-
ing on things that benefit them in some way.
They cant get involved in all the battles;
theres never enough time and resources to
fight wars on all fronts. Thus, theyre select-
ive about using their valuable resources and
energy. This doesnt necessarily mean being
idle and hoping that everything will come to
you. It still means initiating the action, but it
also means carefully choosing the right ac-
tion to initiate. As a result, when a nonchal-
ant guy decides to get involved in a
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particular situation, their actions carry more

weight. Thats analogous to being a large
ship slowly and steadily moving to its destin-
ation, instead of some lifeboat lifelessly bob-
bing in the water. The large ship is guaran-
teed to reach the destination sooner or later;
the small lifeboat may capsize along its un-
clear route. You want to be that stable, resol-
ute ship and not the lifeboat thats erratically
floating on the waves.
One of my most trusted indicators of
growth as a man is whether Im becoming
more nonchalant about various issues, issues
that I previously seriously cared about and
spent lots of energy on. I pay careful atten-
tion to things that concern me and con-
stantly reflect on whether theyre really part
of the big picture. I make sure that the things
I do contribute the absolute maximum value
to my bottom line. A lot of it is adjusting and
living in reality instead of some idealized
world works how you want it to work. That
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means, above all else, taking things at face

value.
All humans on this planet exist in an im-
plicit market of demand and supply. Long
ago when I was working at a software star-
tup, our manager, a charismatic and intelli-
gent guy, gave us one piece of advice that I
still remember to this day: build something
that people want. The advice made sense.
While he was specifically referring to soft-
ware products, the advice actually turned out
to be applicable to all things in life. Not only
should one build what people want, but one
must also do what people value. For
something to be worthwhile, whether you are
trying to seduce a cute girl or sell products,
someone else has to be interested in buying
what you're selling. The cute girl must be
available and interested in you for her to
meet you at a bar on Saturday night. It
doesn't matter how much I'm passionate
about my business; if the product I'm selling
 329/411

is one others do not want, my business will

fail.
After all, life is a series of actions and re-
actions: you do something and wait for
something else to happen. You create an ac-
tion and wait for the reaction. But you can't
just keep doing something if there's no reac-
tionthat's a poor use of your time. Ul-
timately not all situations will warrant your
participation and efforts. Thats why the
prudent man must decide if the juice is
worth the squeeze. He must decide whether
to get involved in a particular person or situ-
ation, spanning all aspects of life: women,
business, or life in general. And in order to
decide whether to get involved in a certain
situation, its crucially important to first test
for participation.

Testing for participation

Albert Einstein once said that the defini-
tion of insanity is doing the same thing over
and over again and expecting a different
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result. Thats what happens when you try to

sell something to someone who doesnt want
it. Thats what happens when you keep chas-
ing something that doesnt want to be
chased. It's important to be sensitive to exist-
ing demand in the market and avoid doing
something that no one wants. In order to do
that, its crucial to first determine whether a
given situation can benefit from your parti-
cipation. Testing for your participation is a
series of two steps: testing for demand and
testing for withdrawal.
Testing for demand is about ascertaining
whether theres an actual need that you
might be able to satisfy. Your job is always to
make the first contact, to ignite the spark, to
approach a cute girl, and to approach a
promising business contact. But after that,
you must step back and wait for a response.
Are they interested in what youre selling?
Yes? Continue. Maybe? Continue with cau-
tion. No? Stop expending your energy and do
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something else instead. There are situations

where our actions matter, and there are also
situations where they dont. You can cer-
tainly ignite a spark, but you cant keep the
flame burning all by yourself; other people
must contribute as well. Some things are just
not meant to be and are never going to work.
What they're looking for and what I can offer
them are two completely different things. No
amount of convincing would change that.
One of my good friends, Paul, is an ex-
pert in one of the subtlest arts out there: feel-
ing out interest. Not long ago, a group of us
were thinking about taking a weekend road
trip to the beach. I was interested, but a
couple of other friends at the table werent as
enthusiastic. Paul threw the idea into the air
and, as soon as it was obvious that a couple
of friends werent interested, he simply let it
go and stopped talking about it. Instead of
trying to prod these people to go by selling
them on the idea with all his might, Paul
 332/411

simply smiled and dropped the subject. The

more I thought about it, the more I realized
that he had always acted this way. If
something that he suggested had immediate
interest, then he would pursue the idea fur-
ther. However, if something that he sugges-
ted was not met with enthusiasm, that idea
would be quietly dropped. Paul is naturally
nonchalant. Of course, that didnt stop him
from pursuing the idea at a later date to oth-
er people. He never demands that others do
what he wants, and his questions always be-
gin with a very innocent tone: "How do you
feel about doing" After uttering those
words, he closes his mouth and waits for a
response. And usually it's not even necessary
to hear how people will respond, since their
facial expressions will tell the whole story. If
a person is excited or at least intrigued, then
he will follow up further. But if a person is
visibly not interested and starts vomiting out
excuses, then the idea is quietly dropped.
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My friend also perfectly understands

that it's easier to find someone who's excited
about an idea than to spend lots of time con-
vincing someone who is merely lukewarm or
completely apathetic, the same way it's easi-
er to seduce a new girl than to convince a girl
who has rejected you to give you another
chance. That means interest is more or less
static it either exists (in varying quantities)
or is absent. For instance, lets say you like
BMWs. BMWs are known world-over as
extremely well-engineered and quality cars.
If you already like BMWs, does a BMW
salesman still needs to sell you on the car?
Probably not. Youre already interested in
the car even before you walk into a dealer-
ship and test-drive it. There might be some
haggling about the price and various options,
but other than that youre pretty much set on
purchasing it.
Many things work like this. Take yourself
for instance. As a man, you have certain
 334/411

knowledge, experience, and qualifications.

You have certain value. When you apply for a
job, you list those qualifications on a piece of
paper and show up for the interview. If your
qualifications match the employers needs,
then you will be hired; if they dont match,
then you wont be hired. Thats because the
existence of interest depends on the product.
It matters more what the product represents
and does than a persons ability to generate
interest by convincing someone else to pur-
chase it. The products that you already want
have your built-in interest and dont need
much (or any) convincing or selling.
The opposite of actively asking for
something and feeling out the resulting de-
mand is passively announcing your availabil-
ity. Otherwise, other people simply do not
know if you're interested in doing something
or not. Announcing your availability is your
way of responding to someones possible de-
mand. When you announce your availability,
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you dont ask anyone if they want to do

something. You are not convincing anyone to
go to a bar. You are not cajoling someone to
go with you to Brazil. You simply tell one or
more people what youre going to do. A great
example of announcing availability is when
someone checks in on Facebook upon ar-
rival in a new destination. If someone saw
the check-in and wants to meet the person,
they can follow up by asking to meet up and
hang out. On the other hand, the absence of
any comments is an obvious sign that theres
no interest. One of my friends recently
showed me pictures of the girls he had met
in Europe. One of the girls was especially
cute. I asked him about her. He told me that
he had met her in Rome. After prodding him
for details, he told me that he had gone on
CouchSurfing and posted a message in the
Rome forum that he would be sightseeing all
day. He also posted his cell number, letting
others contact him if they were interested in
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meeting up. The girl saw the message and

contacted him. The rest is history.
What makes this technique especially
powerful is that you're not directly asking
anyone to do anything for you or with you.
You are simply stating your availability and
feeling out the resulting interest. If there's
interest, then that's great. If there's no in-
terest, then you do sightseeing on your own.
It sure beats spending an hour begging and
convincing others to spend their time with
you.
The persons interest will always dictate
how far they will go to make something hap-
pen. I recently experienced this situation
with one of my ex-girlfriends from Brazil,
with whom I kept in touch after leaving the
country. Several months later she expressed
interest in seeing me again. Since I didnt
want to return to Brazil, we began thinking
about other places to meet. At this point I
was pretty much over her and had no strong
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desire to see her again. I did tell her that I

was back in South America and living in Co-
lombia. She later contacted me and told me
she wanted to visit me in Colombia. I agreed.
The next day she bought a round-trip ticket.
We met up several weeks later. This was an-
other situation where I was nonchalant and
didnt ask anyone to do anything for me. I
simply advertised my availability to hang out
if she happened to be in the area. Because
she had high interest and a desire to see me,
she decided to buy the ticket and visit me.
A similar thing occurred with a good
friend whom Ive known for many years. Be-
cause we now live on different continents,
its not so easy to meet up in person and
catch up very often. So, every summer when
he has vacation, we try to organize a trip and
meet up. Last summer, I told him that I was
flexible with my time and would have no
problem with meeting him nearby (i.e., with-
in a 200 mile radius of the country I was
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living in). That was my way of announcing

availability. After that, the ball was firmly in
his court. He could decide to accept my
terms and meet me in my area, or he could
go somewhere else where I wouldnt have the
inclination to travel, like South America,
Asia, etc. I communicated that I was flexible,
but I obviously had limits. While I always
want to meet my friend, my interest isnt
high enough that I would get on a plane and
visit him in America.
This experience reminds me of the time I
was driving with a friend in his car. As we
were driving, we stopped at the corner and
my friend jumped out to buy a bottle of wa-
ter at a convenience store. He left his cell
phone in the car. While he was in the store,
his phone rang several times. When he came
back I informed him that he missed a phone
call. He looked at it and then put it back
down. I know who it is. If he still needs me,
hell call me back, he quickly uttered. He
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understood perfectly that if this was an ur-

gent and serious matter, his friend would call
him right back, repeatedly if necessary. Ac-
tionsas well as the absence of actionsare
an important indicator of interest and intent.
The beauty of advertising your availabil-
ity is that youre not specifically asking
someone for something, but merely stating
your intention to do something. And theres
a big difference between asking and stating.
When youre asking, youre specifically re-
questing something from someone,
something that may be indispensible for you
to continue living. But when youre stating,
youre not putting your life on hold and be-
coming dependent on someone else (see the
Time chapter). In the latter case your contri-
bution is minimal; youre providing some at-
tention and want to be notified if something
occurs, but at the same time you dont want
to expend more energy than necessary. Its
also another way of saying, I dont have
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much skin in the game, but theres a chance I

can make myself available provided that all
the logistical aspects are completed.
Just recently I went on a blind date with
a girl who was introduced to me by one of my
friends. Before the date my friend sent me a
couple of her pictures. While on the pictures
she looked very attractive and sexy, in real
life she was completely, lets just say, differ-
ent; I was only able to meet her on the street
after she called me and told me exactly
where she was standing because I never
wouldve recognized her otherwise. We had a
pleasant date walking around the city and
having some coffee. As we were wrapping up
the date and going home, she suggested that
we meet again in a couple of days before her
planned trip to another city. She was obvi-
ously interested because a girl wouldnt be
planning a future date unless there was some
chemistry. At this point the ball was firmly in
my court. I could be more aggressive and
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court her, or I could be more passive and

see what happens. Years ago I probably
wouldve been more aggressive and pursued
any opportunity to see a girl again. But this
time I was nonchalant. Since she didnt ex-
actly have model looks, my interest in her
was not sky-high. On the other hand, she was
certainly someone that, as my friend elo-
quently likes to say, I would never kick out
of my bed. I certainly wouldnt decline if she
wanted to meet up at a bar near her apart-
ment at 11 at night or invite me to her place
to kill a bottle of wine. The problem is, while
I knew she was interested in me, I didnt
know if her interest was so high that shed
offer me to spend the night. Its also possible
that she was being friendly and just wanted
to hang out. And since my own interest in
her was pretty low, I had low motivation to
contact her first.
This is a perfect situation where being
nonchalant after advertising your availability
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is the ideal strategy. She knows that Im free

to hang out because Im not here for work
and dont have a close social circle. Im just a
tourist with an open schedule. She also
knows that since my time is not truly scarce,
theres a low chance of me rejecting her if she
asks me out. She also knows that because Ill
be leaving next week, my time in the city is
limited. Those factors make it easy for her to
rationalize her behavior if she really wants to
see me. She can just say, I wanted to show
you a cool bar before you left town (many
girls have used that line before in similar
situations). It also means that she doesnt
need to have super-high interest in order to
contact me. Her interest just needs to be
above average. But if her interest were low,
then she would probably wait for me to con-
tact first. In that case what you have are two
people with lackluster interest, which would
result in a lackluster date. I have many more
interesting and productive things to do with
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my time than to spend it on lackluster dates.

By waiting for her to contact me, what Im
really doing is testing her interest. Is she ac-
tually interested in seeing me again and do-
ing something fun, like spending a night at
her apartment? Or are we going to sit in a
coffee shop and babble about safe topics all
evening? Her actions will demonstrate that
much more than any words.
If she does choose to contact me, then
its a definite sign of desire. It doesnt neces-
sarily mean that well end up getting drunk
and having wild sex in her apartment, but if
Im sitting at home and working on
something and suddenly get interrupted with
a text message from a girl whos asking me
out on a second date, thats powerful. Inter-
ruptions demonstrate a strong intent. So-
mething like that doesnt happen by accident
or luck. It meant that she first decided that
spending time with me was a good use of her
time, cleared out her schedule, reached for
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her phone and sent me a message asking if

Im available. That means theres real phys-
ical intent to do something. That means that
shell show up on time and wont flake. That
means that the date will be easy and fun.
That means shell be smiling and flirting.
That means that I wouldnt need to convince
her to do anything. That means I might end
up spending the night in her apartment. And
that means my participation in this situation
is more than warranted. Although I dont
have a crystal ball to tell me how the actual
date will turn out, its more than obvious that
showing up on this date will be a much bet-
ter use of my energy than, for example, try-
ing to convince another girl with tepid in-
terest to meet me.
On the other hand, a girl can promise
you absolutely everything and anything,
telling you that she loves you and wants to
see you, but if she cannot actually put one
foot in front of the other and meet you in
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person, then none of that matters. It doesnt

matter that shes dedicating days and nights
to chatting with you and cant wait for you to
arrive. It doesnt matter that she tells you
that you shared amazing, once-in-a-lifetime
chemistry. While she can have every excuse
in the book, theres no substitute for action.
The absence of action means theres no de-
sire working behind the scenes to motivate
her. As it turned out, the girl from the blind
date never did contact me again, which was a
sign that my participation wouldnt have
been warranted anyway.
Never underestimate the power of initial
demand. Demand needs no energy input. It
needs no convincing. It simply exists, waiting
for you to harness and enjoy it. It's also very
difficult, if not impossible, to create it out of
thin air. Someone either finds me attractive
or not. I can either choose to feel this de-
mand like my friend Paul, or I can futilely ex-
pend my time forcing it where there is none
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(i.e. by convincing others to do something).

The harder you try to convince someone to
do something, the more frustrating will be
the experience if they do show up. On the
other hand, the less I have to work on con-
vincing someone to do something, the easier
and more enjoyable the actual experience
will be.

Testing for withdrawal

About a year ago, I woke up, washed my
face and glanced outside the window. It was
a beautiful summer morning with clear skies
and bright sun. Instead of opening my laptop
and working like I usually did, I decided to
put on my running shoes and go for a quick
run. It was a strange departure from the
daily routine because for the past several
months I had spent my mornings replying to
client emails and going over the progress of
an important project I've been working on.
Unfortunately, the project wasn't working
out too well. The problem was that no matter
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how much effort I devoted to the project, I

wasn't making any more money than before.
Nevertheless, I was still hopeful that that
would somehow change in the future.
As I came back home and took a quick
shower, I realized something strange and
surreal. Even though I didn't work that
morning, nothing had really changed. I
didn't get praises or complaints from cus-
tomers. I didn't experience a financial crisis.
Nothing adverse or constructive happened. It
appeared that whether I worked that morn-
ing or not made no difference whatsoever. I
also realized that even if I took the rest of the
week off, still nothing would really change. It
was an eerie feeling knowing that the out-
come would be exactly the same whether I
worked in the morning or notmarginal or
no progress.
That convinced me to try an experiment
to see how much my efforts really mattered.
Over the next several weeks, I scaled down
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my efforts on the project by working less and

less. Again, nothing happened. That made
me realize that I had spent lots of time work-
ing on something that really made no differ-
ence! It was a polite way of saying that I had
wasted my own time. Without being aware of
it, I used the test of withdrawal to determine
whether my continued effort and participa-
tion even mattered. I discovered that it
didnt. If I stopped what I was doing and
nothing really changed, then how could I jus-
tify spending additional energy? After all, the
whole point of doing something is that you
reach a particular goal and obtain a certain
outcome. If every ounce of your energy,
sweat, and blood isn't getting you an inch
closer to that outcome, then something isn't
right.
One of the first things that I realized was
that for my efforts to ever be worthwhile, the
other side had to be making equivalent ef-
forts as well. Who is the other side? The
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people who are buying whatever it is you're

selling. When I was working on the project,
the other side was composed of the perspect-
ive customersor the imaginary customers
who only existed in my mind. If I was trying
to seduce the girl, then the girl had to be also
making an effort to meet me so I could actu-
ally seduce her. There are always two sides to
every interaction, and any effort will be fruit-
less unless the other side is mutually inter-
ested in the same outcome.
Another solid rule of thumb to determ-
ine whether you should exit a particular en-
deavor is when it simply stops being fun.
Certain conditions must be present to war-
rant continued participation in something,
and one of them is enjoyment. If what you've
been doing is causing you nothing but head-
aches and grief, then perhaps that's a sign
that your energy can and should be spent
elsewhere. Perhaps its time to cut your
losses and move on. I've talked to many
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people who have quit their lifelong jobs and

embarked on new adventures, sometimes
even making a 180-degree turn to a com-
pletely different career path. I always asked
them why they made such drastic changes.
The answers went, more often than not, like
this: I woke up one morning and had no de-
sire to go to work. It simply stopped being
fun. Things stop being fun for many reas-
ons, but usually it's a clear sign that you're
not being fulfilled, and that whatever
amount of time and energy you're putting in
you're not getting back in total benefit.
When I was chasing the Ukrainian girl
from the introduction, there were a lot of
things I couldn't figure out. For starters, I
didn't understand why she was always so re-
sponsive, but would never actually meet up.
Her ambiguous behavior drove me abso-
lutely crazy. But one thing I knew with abso-
lute certainty was that I was constantly mak-
ing three steps forward while she was barely
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making a half a step. I was expending much

more energy in getting her to see me than
vice versa. I was frustrated. It certainly
wasn't fun.
Most of these dilemmas couldve been
easily solved if people were straightforward
with their desires and expectations. Its hard
for me to imagine how much time I could
have saved if a friend simply had told me,
Sorry man, but I dont want to go hiking
with you for a week in the mountains. I hate
the outdoors. Its just not my thing. I would
rather just chill at home and watch TV. Or
how much time and agony I wouldve saved
if the Ukrainian girl told me, I like you just
enough to keep replying to your texts or
emails, but I simply dont like you enough to
physically meet you at a park or at a bar.
Such responses are very rare, and its much
more common to hear a barrage of excuses
instead. Thats because people are usually
polite and courteous, especially those whove
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already spent lots of time with you such as

your close friends. They dont want to tell
you things that may upset you. They would
rather express their lack of interest via inof-
fensive excuses than be blunt and tell you
that theyre not interested because your
ideas suck.
The test of withdrawal is as important
as, if not even more important than, the test
of demand for three main reasons. First, it
lets you know whether your continued in-
volvement in a situation is really warranted.
Its your way of answering the following
question: If I remove myself from the situ-
ation and nothing changes, then how much
did my presence really contribute? Second,
it lets you know whether you made an error
in getting involved in the first place, and al-
lows you to correct that mistake with a
timely exit. Third, it objectively allows you to
see whether the same conditions that origin-
ally made you become involved in that
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particular situation are still true. Theres the

old joke where a coworker goes on vacation,
and, upon his return announces that hes
back. But all he hears in return, Oh, you
were out? That means his presence and par-
ticipation were that crucial to the company
that no one even noticed that he was gone.
Theres an alternative that most people
readily embrace: partial withdrawal. While it
may work in certain situations where theres
partial demand for your presence, it certainly
wont work in tricky situations where your
presence isnt completely clear or estab-
lished. The situation quickly turns muddy
and murky and the question becomes: how
much of my time and attention should be
withdrawn, and how much of it should re-
main? And thats a difficult question to an-
swer because the response depends on many
variables. Fortunately, the solution is simple:
completely withdraw yourself from the situ-
ation. Completely stop what youre doing. Go
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cold turkey. Only then will you see how

much you really matter. The test of with-
drawal is that cold splash on water on your
face. Its your vital bridge back to reality.
For most people, however, complete
withdrawal is a very difficult task, even rival-
ing approaching a new person. Why are the
acts of withdrawing and approaching of sim-
ilar difficulty? Its because when you detach
yourself from a situation, you fear being con-
firmed as completely irrelevant if no one
even notices that youre gone. To know that
all your effort was for nothing is pretty de-
pressing. The other reason the prospect of
complete withdrawal is terrifying is because
people simply hate quitting. Quitting signi-
fies losing, and no one wants to be labeled as
a loser. But people quit all the timethey
just call it something else. People change
jobs. They change careers. They move to a
different country. They change their spouses.
All those things can be labeled as quitting,
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but theyre natural life changes that people

make without a second thought.
Furthermore, persisting through a losing
battle can be harmful in more ways than just
psychological. I was once friends with a guy
who had started an online business selling
furniture. A year and a half and many more
thousands of dollars down the drain later,
the company was still not profitable. Yet, he
continued to work on the business day-in
and day-out, burning more and more cash in
the process. He kept thinking (and praying)
that tomorrow things would turn around.
My friend was deeply involved with his busi-
ness. It was almost as if he were married to
it. Because he was so emotionally attached to
both the business and the idea of himself as a
winner, he failed to look at things object-
ively. His avoidance of quitting prevented
him from realizing that things wouldnt get
better, and that he was just burning through
money without an exit strategy.
 356/411

The test of participation is an objective

way of determining whether you can add
value in a particular situation, regardless of
how things may appear at first. Therefore,
it's only by completely withdrawing from a
draining situation will you objectively realize
if what youre doing truly matters. Dont
withdraw halfway or a quarter, go cold tur-
key and remove yourself completely. A com-
plete withdrawal will allow you channel your
valuable time and energy into more prom-
ising endeavors. And its only after youve
ended something old that you will be com-
pletely free to start something new.

The grand reset

Before I started traveling from place to
place, one of my favorite parts of the year
was spring cleaning. I enjoyed looking over
my accumulated stack of possessions, and
then deciding which things I needed and
which I could live without. Then I threw out
or gave away all the stuff that was just taking
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up space and not adding any value in my life.

It was always a truly liberating experience,
because I was able to get rid of dead weight
that was taking up valuable space and re-
sources. The same liberating experience
should be applied to your life as a whole. If
you've spent inordinate amount of energy
coming to people and convincing them to do
various things, instead of being nonchalant
and letting them come to you, then what you
need is a huge dose of spring cleaning for
your life; you need a huge dose of reset. Re-
set begins with looking around your life and
noticing the areas where your participation
is not needed. Think about the areas that are
not contributing to your bottom line. Are you
chasing some girls who don't even know you
exist? Are you trying to convince your friends
to do something but their lack or response is
leaving you frustrated and confused? Then
the best course of action is to simply stop
 358/411

doing those things and rechannel your en-

ergy into more productive tasks.
When I realized that a lot of my energy
was spent on things that didnt bring me
much value, I implemented a huge dose of
reset. I stopped contacting girls that were
wasting my time. I stopped expending en-
ergy on things that were yielding few returns.
At first, it felt really strange. I went from
having lots of contacts to keeping a very min-
imal list. Some friends inevitably disap-
peared from my life altogether. Others re-
marked that they hadnt heard from me, but
that was about it. Still others started to con-
tact me and see how I was doing and what I
was up to. Removing all the dead friends
from my life actually allowed me to better
optimize my time on people who mattered
instead of wasting lots of time and energy on
people who didnt. Over time, I adjusted to
this new reality and it became the new nor-
mal. It was a great feeling to only be involved
 359/411

in situations where my participation truly

mattered. So if youre still chasing that spe-
cial girl like I was without much success,
just stop. Believe me its not worth it, and
youll never really have her. After all, if she
wanted to be with you, she wouldve made
than happen long ago.
One of the laws of the universe is that
you actually obtain a lot of things when you
least need or want them. Banks loan out
money to people who have excellent credit
because these people live within their means
and always pay back their loans, instead of
loaning to people who cant pay back their
debts. People get job offers when theyre
gainfully employed instead of when theyre
desperately trying to find a job. Guys are al-
ways much more successful meeting new wo-
men when theyre already in a serious rela-
tionship or even happily married. People
dont overtly respond to verbal messages
such as convincing; they respond more
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readily to the subconscious signals of

someone whos living a great life without
them. When we stop pushing into people, we
start to have a magnetic effect and start
pulling people back to us.
Nonchalant is about making the world
work for you instead of against you. By being
nonchalant, you automatically transfer your
efforts from things that dont matter to the
things that do. It may sound strange that by
doing less you can actually come out in a
more powerful position, but thats exactly
what happens. Thats the magical power of
being nonchalant. It makes you much wor-
thier in the eyes of others, especially once
you start building your kingdom.
 X

KINGDOM

I dont go to partiesI give them.

Robert W. Woodruff

I remember that evening like it was yes-

terday. I was back in New York, and an old
friend whom I hadnt seen in several years
contacted me and suggested that we meet
up. Since he had recently started a business
and was extremely busy, we had trouble set-
tling on a time that suited us both. Finally,
after weeks of wrestling with this dilemma, I
made a concession and agreed to drop by his
office one evening. Upon entering his modest
office, I noticed two or three small rooms.
There were empty pizza boxes everywhere.
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The office was pretty barren with barely any

furniture. My friends spartan suite had
one medium-sized desk and a single wooden
chair. The only thing on his desk was a
laptop. His humble office wasnt anything
like I expected, especially when compared
with the offices of the heavily-funded Silicon
Valley startup where I was working at that
time. We spoke for about an hour, catching
up on our completely opposite lives. He ex-
plained in more detail what kind of business
he was running and the challenges he was fa-
cing. Many of the details were over my head,
but one thing was clear: there were lots of
things that needed to be done and never
enough time to achieve them all. He even
offered me a job, but I declined. A few days
later I flew back home to California. Even
though I didnt have my own office, my work
environment was much more comfortable
and pleasant. There was an onsite gym and a
basketball court. We had several different
 363/411

cafeterias with all kinds of food. In between

meals, the company graciously provided us
with unlimited snacks. Oh, and my cubicle
was next to a large window with plenty of
sunlight, a far cry from my friends window-
less and dreary office. I thought back about
my friends work environment and was cer-
tainly happy I wasnt working there. I even
felt a bit sympathetic for my friend who had
to toil in those barren conditions. I looked
out the window and noticed that the sun was
shining and the air was warm. I felt really
good to be back at work. Little did I know
that I was giving up a bigger reward and
freedom in the future for comfortable and
pleasant working conditions in the present.
Ten years later, I was on a whirlwind
tour of Europe, rapidly traveling through
most of the continents countries. After a
couple of months on the road, I received an
email from the same friend. He informed me
that he would soon be going to Ukraine for
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three weeks on business. He assured me that

he would take care of everything, including
accommodation, and all I had to do was to
show up. Since I wasnt too far away (I be-
lieve I was in Poland at that time), I agreed
to visit him. A week later, I took an overnight
train and arrived in the city. I barely slept on
the train and arrived in the coastal city com-
pletely exhausted. But I didnt mind that at
all; I knew that soon I would be resting in a
clean hotel room that my friend had already
reserved. I was also very eager to meet my
friend and catch up.
Unfortunately, things didnt exactly work
out this way. While I was walking around the
city like a drained zombie and sweating pro-
fusely on a scorching hot summer day, my
friend called and told me that he was delayed
and would be arriving late in the evening. I
was thoroughly exhausted and just dying to
take a nap. I finally found a nice park and sat
down on one of the benches. I was desperate
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to take even a short nap, but was afraid

someone might see me sleeping and steal my
stuff. Finally he called me in the evening and
invited me to his office. He was still working
and wouldnt be headed to the apartment for
several more hours. I went to his office and
waited for several more hours until he fin-
ished work. After work, we had dinner and
then finally headed home. All in all, includ-
ing the night on the train, I spent over 24
hours without any sleep. The next day my
friend told me that he urgently needed to go
to another city; they had some critical busi-
ness problems that needed to be resolved. I
didnt see him after that.

Kingdomless
While visiting my friend wasnt a flaw-
less experience by any means, it wasnt a
complete failure. I visited a new city. I saw a
friend whom I hadnt seen for a long time. I
also had a free place to stay for ten days. But
there was also something more; something
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about the experience left me with a very sour

taste. It left me feeling empty and dimin-
ished. After walking around the city alone for
several days, I finally realized what the prob-
lem was. By accepting my friends invitation,
I had given up my own autonomy and began
living life on his terms. Since I didnt have
my own accommodation, I had to wait for
him to land and finish his work before I
could even rest comfortably. Since I didnt
know anyone there, I was depending on him
and his friends for social contact. He was the
major reason I had gone there in the first
place, as I didnt have anything to see or do
in the city otherwise. That explains why I hit
a sudden low when he vanished the next day.
After wondering around the city like a
lost puppy and looking for things to do,
things became even clearer and my feelings
grew even stronger. I not only felt mildly in-
convenienced, but I also felt somehow used.
It was an unpleasant feeling. And in order to
 367/411

make more sense of it, I turned the tables

and began wondering if my friend would
ever do the same for me. That allowed me to
objectively judge whether I was simply
pissed off at not sleeping for a day, or if there
was something deeper that I was upset
about.
As soon as I switched roles with my
friend, it became more than obvious that he
would never do the same for me. In fact, of
all the time that I had known him (over ten
years), Id never known a more determined
and goal-oriented guy. He lives firmly on his
own terms. He didnt visit Ukraine to see
anyone in specific; he visited because he
needed to connect with his coworkers to
work on the business. Although he invited
me, he wouldnt have cared the least bit if I
had accepted his offer or not. I highly
doubted that he was the type of person to
drop everything and go see a friend on a
 368/411

whim just because he was on the same

continent.
At that point, what became more than
obvious was that in both of these situ-
ationswhen I visited his office in New York
and his office in Ukrainehe was building
his own kingdom, and I was either building
someone elses or wasnt building one at all.
That sour taste in my mouth I experienced
when almost nothing worked out was what
happens when you seek acceptance into
someone elses kingdom without having one
of your own. Thats also why I so clearly re-
membered that seemingly trivial evening
when I visited his office ten years earlier. It
seemed that ten years hadnt been enough
for me to learn that crucial lesson.

The rules of the kingdom

The official definition of kingdom states
that its a realm associated with or regarded
as being under the control of a particular
person. While were no longer in the era of
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kings and queens, a kingdom is still the cor-

rect term because its something that envel-
ops everything thats either outright yours or
something that you control or influence.
When you work for yourself youre building
your own kingdom; when you work for
someone else, youre building someone elses
kingdom. Thats why even though my
friends office was very modest and barren,
he was still building his own kingdom. On
the contrary, even though I was enjoying a
much better working environment, I was
building someone elses kingdom.
First, the kingdom includes the proper-
ties that you own or rent. The house you own
or rent is part of your kingdom. The business
you run is part of your kingdom. Second, the
kingdom is a collection of people that are
either outright loyal to you, or you have some
influence over. People such as your close
friends, business partners, a serious girl-
friend or wife are part of your kingdom.
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Those people are naturally the ones who re-

spect you and value your time. Theyre trust-
worthy. Theyre reliable. Theyre loyal. They
keep their word. They dont flake.
Of course, these wont be the only people
who you interact with: there will be countless
others who will try to get into your kingdom
by fighting for your attention and resources.
These people havent yet proved to you their
value. Moreover, because you have stand-
ards, those people will be on the periphery,
relegated to the outside of your kingdom,
protected from entering by armed sentries
and a large moat. Theyre slowly earning
your trust, but any misstep and theyre im-
mediately demoted to the back of the line.
Perhaps one day they will earn the keys to
your kingdom. Perhaps not.
Both times when I visited my friend, I
was a guest in his kingdom. It was his king-
dom because he owned all the resources:
physical (office, apartment) and human
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(business partners, friends). Most import-

antly, he also owned my time. Since he in-
vited me and I accepted, I was at the mercy
of his time. A guest usually does what hes
told; where the king leads, the guest follows.
Part of it is the unfamiliarity with the envir-
onment, as I didnt know the area and didnt
have any contacts. Thus, the price of admis-
sion to his kingdom was my sovereignty. The
more I thought about it, the more I realized
that Id spent a lot of time in other peoples
kingdoms instead of building my own. When
I was traveling through Europe few years
ago, I solicited people whom Id met previ-
ously to let me stay at their apartments.
There were obvious financial benefits to this
since accommodation in Europe is expens-
ive, and I didnt want to spend lots of money.
But by forfeiting the ability to pay for my
own accommodation, I also forfeited the
ability to be the king in my own castle and
instead became a guest in someone elses.
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In addition to giving up the freedom of

having your own space, you also give up the
freedom of having your own social circle.
This kept happening throughout my travels.
When I was in Copenhagen, Denmark, the
girl who hosted me invited me out to a bar. I
showed up and was introduced to her group
of Danish friends. They greeted me in Eng-
lish and then quickly resumed speaking Dan-
ish amongst themselves. In Prague, Czech
Republic, I met a Hungarian acquaintance
who was driving from Germany to Hungary,
and offered to give me a ride and then host
me for a few nights in Budapest. After get-
ting into his car, he introduced me to his two
other Hungarian friends. That was the last
time he spoke English. After that I sat there
like a mime for three hours as his friends all
spoke Hungarian. Similar thing happened
when I was renting a room in a fantastic flat
in Rio de Janeiro. As soon as I saw the amaz-
ing flat, I knew I needed to strongly impress
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the owner in order to rent the room. And

even once I began living there, it was more
than clear who was the real man. While I had
a very affordable room in a great location,
the owner of the apartment was still the king
of the castle and more than acted like one.
In all of these cases my value was relat-
ively low because I was just a foreigner
without a social circle seeking acceptance in
someone elses group. I was seeking value
without providing the same value in return.
And unless I quickly demonstrated that I was
cool and interesting, the others didnt see
much of a reason to pay me attention or even
talk in a language I could understand.
When someone does something for you,
especially something as generous as inviting
you into their group, its human nature to
somehow return the favor. I had a natural
tendency to be accepted by these people. I
had to impress them one way or another. I
needed to validate myself. After all, it was me
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who decided to be with them, and not the

other way around, since I had decided to be
the guest. Of course, this is something that
my Danish and Hungarian friends didnt
have to do. They could relax and be nonchal-
ant because they were at home in their
kingdoms.
Its not always the case that youre auto-
matically ignored when you enter an envir-
onment controlled by someone else. People
differ. Some people might be more curious
and open-minded than others, and would of
course be more willing to talk to you. Ive
had that happen too. But its rare that people
would be super interested in you for no reas-
on. Its not that people are generally closed-
minded and unfriendly, but rather that they
dont know you, and consequently they dont
know what to talk to you about. They need a
reason to open up to a complete stranger.
That takes energy and time. Its easier to just
keep talking to people you already know than
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to get to know someone new, especially if

there are language and cultural barriers, and
youre some guy from the street whos crash-
ing at someones place or needs a free ride to
another town.
All of that changes when you have a
kingdom. In that case everyone will talk to
you, or at least make a serious effort to do so.
They will have no choice: you have massive
value and they need to reciprocate somehow.
In fact, thats exactly what I experienced
when I briefly had my own kingdom. When I
moved to California I started a small busi-
ness. As my own boss, I was paying my own
salary and had freedom to do what I wanted
with my time. I remember once going to a
large house party, and when I arrived the girl
who had invited me was introducing me to
others, As the man who owns everything.
She was right. I had my own business, my
own suppliers, and my own distributors. I
didnt need anyone else. I was like a self-
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sufficient nation that wasnt looking for any

trading partners. People found that attract-
ive and automatically gravitated to me. A
couple of girls wanted to know what I did for
a living. One guy constantly bothered me for
a job. Several people approached me for a
business partnership. Others wanted me to
invest in their businesses or ideas. I felt like
a star who everyone wanted to get to know.
The reason I felt above everyone was be-
cause I had my own kingdom and everyone
wanted to join it. Although lots of people
needed me, I didnt need any of those people.
Since I had already been running my busi-
ness alone for few years, I knew that I would
have no problems running it for years to
come. I politely declined all solicitations.
They either wanted to work for me directly
or solicit my help so they could achieve
something of their own. They wanted my
time and attention. They wanted my influ-
ence. They wanted my resources. Theres
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nothing more gratifying than when others

come to you for something and you decide
whether that person adds value or not. Thats
pretty much the definition of power. And I
had it.

The power of kingdom

There are several reasons why building a
kingdom is so crucial. First, having a group
of people who value you creates powerful
validation for your beliefs, convictions, and
everything else that you stand for. When you
have a crew who deeply trusts you and be-
lieves in what youre doing, it means you
dont need to expand lots of energy to con-
vince people to like you. It means youre do-
ing something right. It means you matter. It
validates your beliefs and aspirations. When
you have a set of attractive women in your
rolodex who are always ready to get a drink
and spend a night with you, it means youre
less likely to spend lots of time on convincing
a random girl to like you.
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This explains why I was always the most

desperate when I was in new countries
without knowing anyone. I was desperate to
meet people, and meet cute women in partic-
ular. I was desperate to be liked and to be ac-
cepted. Its certainly not easy to be alone in a
huge megaclub where you dont speak the
local language and dont have any friends.
You might have awesome value, but what
everyone is seeing is a lonely guy without any
friends. Similarly, when you have a business
and a group of close business colleagues, it
means you dont have to beg for jobs from
others in order to feed yourself. Its like that
time I had a small business. I could go to a
party and just enjoy myself and people would
actually come to me and ask me for
something. This is opposed to going to a job
fair and submitting a resume with a hundred
or a thousand other applicants, all the while
being at the mercy of someone elses time
while waiting to hear back from them.
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Second, since humans have a natural

tendency to seek acceptance from others, a
man with his own kingdom will be less likely
to seek acceptance in some elses kingdom;
he will be less willing to sell himself short,
such as by working for someone else or by
seeking approval from lower value people
because he doesnt have his own crew. If I
have everything I need, then I wont be look-
ing for things from someone else. That
means that I wouldnt be looking to work for
someone else because theyre bribing me
with better office furniture, unlimited
snacks, a basketball court, and a free shuttle
bus to compensate for a tiresome two-hour
commute each way. That also means that I
wouldnt be spending a sleepless night on an
overnight train just to see a friend in another
city. I wouldnt be motivated to make any of
these sacrifices if I was busy building my
own kingdom. I wouldnt be desperate. I
would be calm, prudent, and pragmatic.
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A kingdom also goes a long way in en-

hancing your value, giving you independence
and strengthening your control. Ive already
spoken at length about how value is the cur-
rency thats exchanged in any human inter-
action, but it bears revisiting in the context
of kingdoms. When you have a kingdom,
youre not judged by whether you are merely
cooler and more interesting than someone
elseyoure way above that. Having your
own kingdom puts you in a league of your
own, providing you with value on steroids.
Theres a huge difference between entering a
social setting alone as one of the guests and
having the social setting in your own apart-
ment or bar where everyone knows exactly
who you are. When you enter a social setting
as nothing more than some guy off the street,
youll have to prove your value and why
youre cooler than the guy next to you, but
when you have a kingdom none of that is ne-
cessary. People see it. They enter your house.
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They enter your company office. They meet

your amazing crew. All of that is there, and it
speaks for itself. You dont need to spend lots
of time explaining your achievements. As
they say, The proof is in the pudding.
Then theres the inevitable problem of
competition, which is a natural outcome
when a lot of people fight for limited re-
sources: desirable women, space at a bar or a
club, etc. That problem also disappears when
you have a kingdom because, as the king,
youre automatically blessed with preferen-
tial access to all important things. There
wont be any competition with outsiders. No
one will be challenging you or busting your
balls. The king has inherent authority that in
all other situations would have to be earned
by other means. You can be the coolest guy
in the world, but if its my bar or apartment,
I will still be cooler.
The benefits of maintaining your king-
dom only keep increasing: not only will you
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not need to validate yourself, you will actu-

ally have greater influence and leverage to
get people to do what you want. If Im an in-
vited guest in someone elses house, I have
little leverage in telling them to do
something. As an invitee, Im overly grateful
for the hospitality. The first thing I want to
do is figure out how to return to favor. I may
take them out to dinner or wash their dishes.
The absolute last thing I want to do is ask for
something more. When I visited my friend in
Ukraine and we all had the dinner, he was
the king and could do what he wanted. He
could have asked me to help him, and I
would have had a tough time refusing. I
owed him for inviting me, for the hospitality,
etc. Its the irrefutable law of reciprocity: he
invited me, paid for my stay, and introduced
me to his crew. I had to return the favor
somehow. But that all changes once we
switch positions. When I invite someone else
to an environment I control, I gain a much
 383/411

stronger position to ask something in

return.
A great example is meeting and seducing
women. If youre just a guy off the street and
enter a bar, seducing a girl will be challen-
ging because she has no idea who you are
and doesnt know what kind of value you
have. Furthermore, if she is very attractive,
you can be sure there will be other guys com-
peting with you as well. But if you invite that
same girl to your exclusive VIP area at a posh
club, she has no questions. She knows you
have value. You dont have to prove a damn
thing to her; shes the one who has to prove
things to you. Although Im a huge pro-
ponent of meeting women during the day, I
cant deny that its an order of magnitude
easier to meet women in a close social circle
where youve already been pre-screened and
vetted. Furthermore, its much easier to meet
women when youre the guy who owns the
social circle because they all came to your
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VIP area, house, villa, or some other setting

that you control.
Its also much easier to meet other gor-
geous women when youre already in the
company of gorgeous women. Ive actually
tested this theory on a few occasions with in-
credible results. One night, I decided to go
out with my two beautiful female friends
who were visiting me from out of town. The
change from going out alone to going out
with two cute friends was literally night and
day. Pretty much any woman that I ap-
proached was receptive to talking with me. I
didnt have to work hard to build attraction.
Although, as usual, I still needed to bring my
A game, but provided I didnt act like a com-
plete loser things would usually go in my
favor.
When I went out with my two female
friends, people were interested in talking to
me because I was no longer some loner
without friends who was looking for
 385/411

company; I was in the company of cute wo-

men. And cute women didnt decide to be
with me because I was just some average
guy. There had to be a good reason that ex-
plained why these cute women were with me.
I must have added value to them somehow.
And if I added value to those cute females,
then I probably could add value to any new
woman in my life. Women were now compet-
ing for my attention because they wanted to
obtain this value. Thats why there was abso-
lutely no resistance in approaching new wo-
men. They even made it easier by sending
me approach invitations.
Although I mentioned inviting a girl to a
VIP area, thats just a placeholder for any-
thing where you have massive value. That
can be a cool party at your nice apartment,
an art gallery where you finished unveiling
your new project, or a launch of a new
product at your small startup. It can be any
place where you have strong, unambiguous
 386/411

and unrivalled status. I once had an out of

town girl visit me in Rio de Janeiro, where I
was living. I picked her up from the airport,
brought her to my nice apartment, and intro-
duced her to my large group of cool friends,
both locals and foreigners. I had instant
status because I wasnt just a guy off the
street trying to make something of myself. I
had already made something of myself. I was
taking her on a tour of my kingdom.
The lack of a kingdom partly explains
why cold approaching women is so challen-
ging. The women youre approaching simply
do not know who you are and what you rep-
resent. A kingdom makes it much easier. It
also makes little sense to approach women
on the street if youre meeting them through
your kingdom. In fact, I believe that high
value guys rarely approach on the street.
They meet others via the sheer force and
value of their kingdom. Celebrities sit at their
VIP tables. Rock stars invite women to their
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after-parties. Women come because you have

value. They want to be accepted into your
kingdom. All you have to do is sit and wait
for the fish to bite.
Another important advantage of having
your own kingdom is independence. As you
mightve already noticed, Im a big pro-
ponent of living on your terms. But what
does that really mean? The kingdom lets you
live life how you want to (your terms) and
not according to someone elses rules. When
youre a guest in someone elses kingdom,
like I was when I visited my friend, you are
dependent on them in many ways, as I men-
tioned earlier. Independence and sovereignty
are the price you pay for being a guest. On
the other hand, when you actually own all
the important resources, you never have to
beg, supplicate, or validate yourself to
anyone.
Last, but not least, a kingdom is about
control. When things are done on my terms
 388/411

with my resources, I have absolute control of

the environment. Control gives me the right
to do what I want. If I throw a party at my
house, I decide who to invite and who not to
invite. I also decide who to kick out later.
When I lived in Brazil, my roommates and I
decided to throw a huge Halloween party. Al-
though we invited only 30 people, more than
100 people actually showed up. Obviously
not all of them could fit in the apartment, so
my roommate, who was the owner of the
house, stood at the door and permitted cer-
tain people in (most of them happened to be
cute girls), while denying others. Similarly, if
Im running a business, I decide whom to
hire, fire, promote and demote. Thats how I
behaved when I ran my small company, and
why everyone wanted to talk to me when I
went to that house party. Thats what control
is all about. Essentially it lets you be the
chooser. Once you build out your kingdom,
you choose who enters and exits. For others
 389/411

to enter they have to impress you, instead of

it being the other way around.
So far Ive been talking about a kingdom
like its a great thing to have, but its not a
true necessity. Its completely possible to be
an average guy and still get what you want.
After all, the world is replete with average
guys, so being a bit cooler and more interest-
ing than someone else is usually enough to
tilt things in your favor. But that becomes
less true when youre surrounded by very
cool and interesting people. This usually
happens in places where you have a high
concentration of high value people. In these
places its not enough to be merely cool and
interesting. You have to bring more. You
must have your kingdom. In fact, in those
places having your own kingdom is more of a
requirement than an option.
One example of such a setting is Los
Angeles. Most of the wealth there is gener-
ated from entertainment, so if youre
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successful in that industry, youll have plenty

of value and status. On the other hand, if
youre just a regular guy with a 9-5 job, youll
have a tough time competing with the
former. Another great example is Dubai,
where there are two kinds of people: the ex-
pats who come and sell their labor in ex-
change for high and tax-free salary, and the
native Emirates who actually own most of
the capital, including malls, factories, real es-
tate, etc. Its a place of haves and have-nots.
The Emirates have their own kingdoms (both
metaphorically and literally), while the
laborers are merely working to pay their
bills. Theres a huge difference between the
wealth of the two classes. In order to com-
pete, youll have to make some serious
money. One of my friends who works there
has difficulties meeting women and asked
me for advice. I told him that the only way
you can come out on top is by gaining status.
And to do that, you need to assemble and
 391/411

build out your kingdom. You need a nice pad

(perhaps with a pool), a solid crew, and in-
fluential connections that get you access to
exclusive clubs and private parties. The no-
madic guy of the street scenario might work
in some parts of Europe where there is an
entrenched middle class, but it wont work in
places such as Dubai. There, a kingdom is
required.

Kingdom building
Building a kingdom is a process where
you assemble everything that allows you not
only to live comfortably but also ultimately
to thrive. The key to successful kingdom
building is realizing that you cant ever look
outside for salvation; it must always come
from within. A guy who embarks on kingdom
building doesnt hope that others will some-
how come to the rescue and complete him.
He doesnt expect anyone to help. He doesnt
hope that something will miraculously work
out that, in reality, has a very little chance of
 392/411

working out. Hes realistic and understands

that everything depends on him. Then he
simply carves out and takes whats his.
Kingdom building starts with figuring
out what you need. Generally a man needs
four things: a roof over his head, food and
water, friends to socialize with, and women
to have sex with. The first two can be taken
care with financial means; the second two
appear as a result of your value. If Im run-
ning a software business, then I can certainly
afford to have my own apartment and my
own food. And because I have value (as a res-
ult of being an owner of a successful busi-
ness), I have no problems attracting women
who find me appealing. And by building my
own business, Im adding value in terms of
products for customers and jobs for various
employees. Im not running around and ask-
ing for value. Im creating value seemingly
out of nothing. Thats what kingdom build-
ing is all about.
 393/411

Kingdom building is much more than

merely changing your environment. Its very
easy to alter your environment by moving to
a new place, but its completely different to
actually start a brand new life there. In order
to move from America to Brazil, all you have
to do is buy a ticket and rent an apartment.
But simply buying a ticket to Rio doesnt
solve all your problems; it merely transfers
them to another region of the world. Al-
though Brazil is a great country, no one there
will hand you things on a silver platter. If you
expect things to just work out, youll be
hugely disappointed.
When I was traveling and living in Latin
America, my goal was always to integrate as
tightly into the culture as possible. I learned
to speak the language fluently, even success-
fully imitating the local accent. I hated the
fact that I was a foreigner and worked hard
to be taken for a local. It was only after sev-
eral years of living and traveling that I
 394/411

realized I was making a mistake. The key, as

I painfully learned several years later, was to
accept the fact that I would always be a for-
eigner no matter how hard I tried to integ-
rate. After all, I hadnt been born in that
country. I had different traditions. I had dif-
ferent values. These values werent better or
worse than this new country; they were just
different. That meant that my value would be
derived not from trying to integrate myself
tightly into the society, but instead by trying
to be a cool and interesting foreigner. I had
to actually differentiate myself from all the
other expats. That wasnt easy, but it was
doable. Nowadays, I dont have any illusions
of getting on a plane and hoping that things
will somehow miraculously change. I know
that I must formulate a plan of attack regard-
less of whether Im changing environments.
When trying to build a kingdom in a new
environment, a sign that everything is going
well is when you dont have to try much to fit
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in with the local culture. In Romania, I got to

know a Swedish expat at the MMA (mixed
martial arts) school where I was training.
Apart from being a cool guy, he also seemed
a bit eccentric because he really had no de-
sire to socialize or go to various social gath-
erings with the guys from the school. He
would show up, train, and then leave. Later I
figured out why. Although hed only been in
Romania several weeks, he had already
found a great apartment in the center, star-
ted a small import/export business, and even
found a cute girlfriend. Essentially, he had
already started judiciously building out his
kingdom. It was modest, but it was growing.
He was too busy to socialize. He was also not
doing what I expected someone like him to
do: seeking out help and begging for value.
When Ive been in such situations, my first
instinct would be to seek help from others.
But he wasnt like that at all. He didnt ask
about the best restaurants in the city. He
 396/411

didnt ask about the best bars to pick up

girls. He didnt ask which neighborhoods to
avoid. He didnt ask to join us when we went
out. He didnt really ask anything. He didnt
ask because he was busy obtaining things.
Moreover, instead of begging for value, he
provided plenty of it. Since he had been
training MMA for a long time, he offered
various pointers. He was also a veteran of
several successful businesses, so he could
also provide useful advice in those areas. He
was a foreigner, but instead of asking locals
for help, he was actually helping them. He
was an independent-minded guy who got on
a plane, moved to another country, set up
shop, and then built out his own network. He
was a builder. A builder of networks, com-
panies, and kingdoms. People greatly admire
builders. They see that someone doesnt need
their hand held. Other people want to be
around such people.
 397/411

Building a kingdom requires you to be

very proactive about actually going and get-
ting stuff. Every action that you do for your
kingdom is like cementing a new brick on the
wall. You wont build a kingdom if youre sit-
ting in your moms basement and playing
video games all day long. One of the guys
whom I met in Brazil eventually left the trop-
ical country and moved to New York. Ini-
tially, he knew absolutely no one, but he
quickly set out to change that. He enrolled in
a university and began studying for his MBA.
Afterwards, he got a job at a large bank. He
met a nice girl and began having a serious re-
lationship. He also built a healthy social
circle. He successfully settled into New York
by building out his kingdom. Thats exactly
what I did when I moved to Lithuania earlier
this year. Once I settled in, I set out to
quickly acquire the things I needed. I found
an apartment and joined a BJJ school. I
needed to find customers for the product I
 398/411

was building, so I went to various shows and

tech mixers and made connections. I did all
that independently instead of begging people
for value and acceptance. I also found a great
dentist and even recommended him to some
locals. This is something I try to do in every
new country I make my home.

The anchor
A kingdom serves as your anchor. It
combines everything that makes you great
and further agglomerates it. Its an integral
component of any successful and high value
man. Essentially, someone with a kingdom is
truly completefinancially, socially, and psy-
chologically. He doesnt need much. Hes not
desperately searching for something. He has
a comfortable job so hes not frantically
sending out his resumes to anyone whos hir-
ing. He is surrounded by quality women, so
hes not being desperate and wasting time
hitting on every single girl. He has a crew of
 399/411

close friends so hes not begging people to

spend time with him.
While my benchmarks for self-improve-
ment in various areas have been to be more
confident and nonchalant, the big picture is
always ensuring that my time is used in the
most efficient way, and most of the time that
means investing it into something that will
pay dividends down the road. And the very
best investment you can do is not buying
stocks or bonds, but actually investing your
time into something that no one would be
able to take away from you: your very own
kingdom.
Ultimately, unlike a girl who youre fruit-
lessly chasing or a job youre dreaming of
getting, the kingdom is truly yours. That girl
might be yours today but gone tomorrow.
That dream job might or might not work out.
Ive had plenty of situations where Ive been
chasing a girl only to finally realize she
wasnt interested. People are flaky. They
 400/411

change their minds and do whatever they

want. The company you work for might de-
cide to downsize and lay you off. That
shouldnt be a surprise to you, because in
both instances you dont know own the actu-
al resource. When you dont control
something, it does whatever it wants. Easy
come, easy go. But a kingdom will always be
where youve left it. It belongs to you and no
one else; you decide how far you want to take
it. There was a time when I was eager to visit
other peoples kingdoms, but now I spend
most of the time in my own. And it doesnt
matter that my own kingdom is modest and
unpretentious. It matters even less that its a
small apartment with a wooden table and a
couple of chairs. I would rather be in my own
modest home than visit some friends gran-
diose office. After all, this is my kingdom and
not someone elses.
But dont just take my word for it. Heres
what one of my most confident and fearless
 401/411

friends, Paul, told me after I asked him if he

had any plans to return to Brazil: If I do re-
turn, it will be with four suitcases to take
what's mine. It was a very ambitious and
powerful statement. If he were to travel
again, he would actually do something more
permanent in the new country like building a
business, instead of simply wasting his time
going out, hitting on women, and returning
home after his savings ran out. He wanted
something more permanent. He wanted to
build his kingdom. But more importantly, he
needed to build the kingdom in order to have
a fulfilling life. There was no other way.
 CONCLUSION
Right now, its truly surreal to even
fathom that some flaky Ukrainian girl could
have such an enduring impact on my life. Ex-
cept that wasnt exactly the case. She wasnt
someone who directly changed my life. She
also wasnt someone who indirectly changed
my life. But she was the straw that broke the
camels back. She was the catalyst that accel-
erated a process that has been brewing in-
side me for a long time, a process that star-
ted long ago and was slowly but surely ex-
posing weaknesses in the things I was doing.
Things that were becoming more and more
difficult to ignore. Things that I had to rem-
edy sooner or later.
While Ive been successful in many of my
endeavors, Ive been in plenty of situations
that were outright frustrating, leaving me
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feeling hopeless and confused. There were

the constant flakes from women I desired,
the inability of seemingly close friends to
keep their promises, the business projects
that never materialized, and pretty much
everything in between. It seemed that I was
getting attacked from all sides, as though the
world had conspired against me in a series of
cruel jokes. Although I understood that re-
jections were as normal as breathing, these
werent isolated cases; they were emanating
from all areas of life. I had plateaued. I knew
I needed to change, but I didnt know what I
needed to change. All I knew was that I abso-
lutely had to change something.
But what exactly? What was this
something that I was so desperately
searching for? Although I hadnt yet located
it, I already had a hunch that finding this
something would be far from easy. I knew
it wouldnt require a simple fix; I knew that it
was something major and that rectifying it
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once and for all would require nothing less

than my utmost concentration and dedica-
tion. I also wasnt even sure that I had it in
me to achieve that.

Rebirth
There was another reason why finding
the origin of these problems was so difficult.
The problem, as I eventually realized, was
greater than anything that I ever faced: the
problem was me. It was my inability to re-
concile my idealized expectations and the
brute reality. I was living in an idealized
world, where I might look at a woman and
immediately imagine her liking me. Or I
might strongly believe that the product Im
building would be wanted by millions and
even billions of people worldwide. In this
idealized world the only thing that mattered
was what I thought; it didn't matter that a
girl or billions of prospective customers had
other plans that had nothing to do with me.
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But to say that I was greatly misguided

would be a massive understatement. The
only thing that shouldve matteredand did
ultimately matterwas the real outcome and
not what I thought should or would happen.
Just because I expected to get five after
adding two and two, did not mean that five
would be the actual result. It didnt matter
how much I actually wanted the answer to be
five, the answer would always be four. And
theres nothing I could ever do to change
that.
Thats because, as I eventually realized,
the realnot imaginaryworld didnt really
care about my beliefs, needs, or desires. It
didnt care about me. It didnt owe me any-
thing. I wasnt a special snowflake after all.
Apparently, the world didnt function like a
pizza restaurant that delivered hot pizza to
your doorstep after ordering it over the
phone. In order for me to get something, it
would actually have to be me who would
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need to go out into the world and grab it. I

would need to obtain everything myself in-
stead of perpetually waiting for the world to
hand it to me on a silver platter. My diver-
gent expectations and reality would need to
be reconciled, one way or another.
But changing anything is hard, especially
when that something is you. What made it
harder still, is that I couldnt simply change
one part without changing the rest. I couldnt
keep applying a band-aid and hoping that
my problems would heal on their own. I
needed to have a good hard look at the
source of the problem instead of just mask-
ing the symptoms. I needed to tear down the
unstable foundation and begin building a
new one, brick by brick. I had to devise a sys-
tem that would police my interactions with
the world and only bring out my absolute
best side. I needed to devise a set of rules
and apply them to everything I did. I had to
re-engineer myself from the ground up.
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And in the process of trying to improve

my game with a flaky girl, I began refining
and improving it so that it was fundament-
ally more effective with everyone. I began
learning and mastering universal game.

Universal game
Seduction game and business game are
both forms of communication, communica-
tion that enables you to get something that
you want from someone who has it. Improv-
ing your game helps you to be more success-
ful with women. Its helpful in one area only.
In contrast, improving as a man automatic-
ally improves your communication with all
kinds of people regardless of the actual goal:
whether its to seduce a cute woman, clinch
an important business deal, or any other
kind of exchange where you need something
from someone else. It makes all your com-
munication much more effective, allowing
you to get what you want in all areas. I real-
ized that if I could improve as a man, then
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not only would I be more successful in sedu-

cing women and business endeavors, but
likely in all other areas of my life. I needed to
master my seduction game. I needed to mas-
ter my business game. I needed to master my
life game. I needed to master universal
game. That was the only universal solution to
my universal problem.
It certainly wasnt an easy journey by any
means. I was constantly tempted to search
for shortcuts, quick tips, and various tricks.
Its always easier to patch a problem instead
of uprooting something thats firmly in the
ground and planting something new in its
place. But thats exactly what had to be done.
And, as a work in progress, improving your-
self is an ongoing and dynamic process that
is never truly complete.
And, last but not least, Im forever grate-
ful to that beautiful but exceptionally flaky
Ukrainian girl and many other flaky girls be-
fore her. I am grateful for their inability to
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take me by the hand and explain to me the

real reasons why they couldnt do what I
wanted, and instead resorted to countless ex-
cuses. These excuses, while barely bordering
on reality, actually forced me to work back-
wards, which compelled me to understand
that there was a massive disconnect between
what I wanted and what I ended up obtain-
ing. Once I discovered a link between the
two, the world that previously rejected me
gradually began to open up. After many
years of struggle and despair, I woke up to a
new day in a new worlda world of replete
with opportunities, a world ripe for the tak-
ing, a world that can finally function exactly
the way I want instead of working fastidi-
ously against me at every twist and turn.
Now its your turn. Today is your rebirth.
Its the beginning of the rest of your life. Go
out and grab what you need. The world is
waiting.
 About the Author

James Maverick once had a comfortable

existence living in a cozy apartment and
working in a secure 9-5 job.
In 2009 he got tired of the predictable,
cookie-cutter lifestyle and decided to make
drastic changes. He sold everything he had,
packed one medium-sized suitcase and flew
to Brazil on a one-way ticket. The plan was to
stay for three months, but he left two years
later.
Since then, he has visited 60 countries
and has lived in more than 10.
He loves warm weather, meeting inter-
esting people and freedom.
He can be found on www.mavericktrav-
eler.com where he writes about being a sov-
ereign man, traveling the world, and meeting
exotic women.
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