Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Interview With Jordan Harbinger on the Art of Building Confidence and Relationships
Episode Date: December 24, 2014In this podcast I interview Jordan from The Art of Charm and we talk about how to increase confidence in dealing with others without being a douche and how to build genuine relationships that will imp...rove your work, social, and love life. JORDAN'S WEBSITE: http://theartofcharm.com/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/
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All right. Hey, Jordan, it's good to talk to you again. Thanks for coming on the show.
Hey, likewise. Thanks for the opportunity.
Yeah, totally. You know, I like having a variety of guests on the show as opposed to just caught, you know, there's only so much that can be said about picking the weight up and
putting it down and, you know, controlling your food intake. Yeah, no kidding, right diet and
exercise. But if it were it so easy, I would look like you. It really like me, there's there's a lot
to be said for being that easy, actually. I mean, yeah, there are a lot of little things that you
put together and it all works. But it's mainly's kind of like you know the old saying is the best
diet is the one that you're going to stick to kind of thing yeah there's truth in that i mean
there there is people always go oh you do crossfit oh that's you know it's not the optimal blah blah
blah and i'm like wait wait just stop it's fun so i go yeah and they're like oh yeah fair enough
like yeah i'm sure if I did these different
Olympic lifts I could work out less and you know blah blah blah but here's the thing I'm not going
to go to the gym and do that because that looks really boring so I'm just not going to work out
at all yeah no I understand I mean that's that's something that uh in emailing with people that
um I'm not I'm not an anti-crossfit person I think if have a bad coach, it's a bad idea and it can be dangerous.
But if you have a good coach and you're not going to be stupid about it,
I understand that.
Having fun, a group thing that you can go do with your friends and stuff.
And especially if you're not, because maybe it's not the best way to build,
to maximize muscle size or maximize strength,
but you can definitely get in shape doing it.
And if you enjoy it and you look forward to it, then that's for you. For me,
I enjoy weightlifting. I like waking up early. I look forward to it. So it works.
Yeah, it makes sense if you really like it. But that's the same thing we teach at the Art of
Charm, right? A lot of people go, oh, this is going to be painful. This is going to be awful.
And if you're going up and approaching strangers or you're a guy trying to date women or you're trying to pitch your business or you're trying to sell yourself in some way, it can be really awful.
But if you gamify it, you make it fun, you get some positive feedback from it, then you won't be able to stop doing it, which is great.
And it's the same thing with working out, right?
You hate vegetables until you just tell your brain, these are good and you enjoy them.
And then eventually that sort of sticks.
And now I'm the guy that's like,
can we have Brussels sprouts for dinner?
And my girlfriend's like, okay.
And my mom's like, who are you?
Right?
Because when I was a kid,
I would throw those down the garbage disposal
the second she went to the bathroom.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's, you know, there was actually,
there was a guy, I forget his name.
He was like a known chef guy, a celebrity chef guy.
And he wrote a book where, I forget the name of it, The Man Who Ate Everything or something like that.
And his thing was he made the list of all of his foods that he didn't like.
I mean, nasty as shit, monkey brains and whatever.
And he had to eat every one, I think it was eight times or ten times or something like that.
had to eat every one, I think it was eight times or 10 times or something like that.
It was some number that he had to eat each one of those foods on his list that he hated the most and made it a whole fun thing and what everyone around the world eating all this weird stuff
and found that, uh, I think it was around eight to 10 times. Maybe he had to eat the stuff 20
times or 15 times. I mean, it took him an entire year to do this. Uh, and in the end, what he found
that if you eat something enough, with only a couple
exceptions, he came to actually like all these foods that he hated. So it's a similar thing.
Anything that's uncomfortable, at first is not fun. I mean, it's who likes, you know,
sucking at something or feeling awkward or, you know, if something whether it's food,
it tastes like crap, but you do it enough and it becomes comfortable.
Yeah, that's true.
And obviously the game here for you guys is to get people interested in nutrition and fitness and actually make a habit out of it.
Otherwise, they're just listening to you talk about it and reading you write about it with no tangible result, which is bad news.
Exactly.
And so let's segue into what you do.
And so let's segue into what you do because I don't know.
I mean some of the readers and listeners are going to be familiar with our previous interview.
Maybe they'll all have come across to you just on their internet travels.
So what exactly is The Art of Charm?
The Art of Charm essentially is a company that teaches – this is going to sound like mumbo-jumbo.
But basically we teach emotional intelligence in a way that anyone can learn and master. So what I mean by that is, and we specialize in men and dating advice and relationship building and networking for business and things like that. So guys will come in and anyone from SEAL Team 6,
a Green Beret type guy to entrepreneurs to just college guys that are like, hey, I know that my
people skills are what is going to differentiate me in the job market. So teach me, Yoda, right? So we have a team of coaches,
therapists, all-star performers here, performance coaches that teach people how to really sell
themselves, manage first impressions, create really meaningful, solid connections with people.
And we do that day in and day out in our week-long residential program so
guys flying from all over the world in fact i'm looking at my my classroom now and i've got quite
an eclectic mix of guys from denmark australia the u.s and canada some doctors a couple doctors
one is a surgeon uh military u.s marine special forces.S. Army Intel, and who actually got wounded in action in Afghanistan,
as well as a couple of just like software engineer types and a sniper.
So it's a really unique mix, really unique mix,
and a pro hockey player, actually, a pro hockey player as well.
I forgot about Mike.
So essentially a really eclectic mix of guys,
not guys that tie their shoelaces together
and not guys that have
duct tape on their glasses. And, you know, there, there's a few software engineers here and there
for sure. No doubt. But, but it's not just guys who are like, I've never had a girlfriend. It's
usually guys who go, wait a minute, there's a thing out there that teaches a skill that I don't
know that will give me a 5% edge or a 2% edge or a 1% edge in life. Where do I sign up?
And so it's really go-getters, action takers,
high performers that we see come through here.
That's great.
Yeah.
So it's not just your typical,
because you have these dating,
I guess that's a whole world, right?
Like all these pickup artists, all this cheesy type.
I guess that's like the dark side of what you're doing, huh?
Yeah.
And it's just like the cheesy side too,
because guys go, how come your programs are residential and I can learn from this guy over the internet?
And I'm like, because that guy just wants your money.
Yeah.
He's just going to sell you a bunch of videos.
Yeah, man.
Like if you think that going up and creating a meaningful relationship is as simple as going, hey, who lies more than you are probably beyond repair and I can't help you slash I don't want to, right?
then you are probably beyond repair and I can't help you slash I don't want to. Right. And but if you're a guy that's that thinks that that stuff is your only resort.
Well, the art of charm is the sort of white hat alternative.
And there's a reason that people fly in from all over the world, even though in their own backyard, in their own country,
there's probably some, quote, unquote, dating coach who's really just a pickup guy who's like, I'll go to the club with you for five hundred dollars.
And we are not that. So yes, there's
that. But that stuff is, it really misses the point because the core sort of belief system or
the core, I guess one of the core values of the art of charm is that your beliefs influence your
actions, which influence your results. So it's all about mindset, right? If you don't like vegetables
and you tell yourself that vegetables are gross, you're not going to eat vegetables, which is the belief influencing the action. And what happens if you don't eat
vegetables? Let's oversimplify it. You don't get the nutrients you need. You can't build muscle.
You get fat. You get soft, whatever. That's a belief system in place. If you go, eat vegetables,
you idiot, then the person might be able to force themselves to eat vegetables for a few days.
They'll get some and then they'll slip
and then they'll fail inevitably.
It's same thing with working out.
If they go, working out is awesome.
I can't stop doing it.
I wish I had more time to do it.
I wish I could do it more without overtraining myself.
That's a good place to be, right?
There's a lot of people that love working out.
They would do it all day if they could,
but they know that's actually bad for them too.
So they don't, but they have very healthy mindsets.
They're in great shape. They eat well because they're taking care of their body. If they're forcing themselves to go to the gym and every minute that they're there,
they're like, this blows. I can't wait to go home and eat a gallon of ice cream. Those people do
not get fit and they don't stay that way. That's for damn sure. Right? So again, belief systems in
every area of your life influence your actions, which influence your results. It's no different with social skills. And that's what we're training you here in at
the art of charm. Yeah, that's great. And I mean, that really, there is that point of you have to
find the right balance. And you just even on the fitness side of things where I just actually
talked a little bit about in my in the previous podcast podcast where you have some of these people that get so overly consumed with just building muscle or losing fat or just looking a certain way where
they become... I mean, to me, I think that's the dark side of the fitness industry that I really
don't like is the body dysmorphia type stuff where people get so harsh on themselves and they nitpick themselves to death
or they turn into just narcissistic maniacs
that you would read some of their captions
and you'd think that like,
this is Alexander the Great or something.
Like, oh no, it's just some dude
who knows how to bench press.
Right, like check out my six pack
that no one knows about.
Not even that.
No, no, no, dude.
That's even, that's tame.
That's like whatever.
That's some Bush League bragging, right? No, nogging right no no yeah yeah no i'm talking about like uh you
would have a wall of text talking about like achieving your dreams and you can do anything
and you know taking over the world like oh yeah no not really dude you just pick the weight up
you put it down you eat the food and that's you know so yeah it's there is there's a lot of that and even in
business there's a lot of that too there's i'll ask a lot of entrepreneur i talked to a ton of
entrepreneurs and there's some that are really successful and there's some that aren't of course
and we keep in touch on facebook especially with art of charm alumni and i can tell when their
business is going well and when it's not.
Because I'll say, what are your plans?
On people's birthdays, I always send them a message.
And I'm just like, what's up?
What are your birthday goals?
And a successful entrepreneur is usually like,
well, I'm going to get this app out
and I'm going to launch this to an audience of 100,000,
hope to turn it into 200,000 within 18 months.
And then I talk to the wantrepreneurs,
like especially guys who sell. The wantrepreneurs talk to the wantrepreneurs, especially guys who
sell... Yeah, wantrepreneurs, guys
who sell supplements
online that they made up or whatever
or some multi-level marketing guys.
Pills in a bottle.
Pills in a bottle, yeah, and multi-level
marketing types and they always go, world
domination, the sky is
the limit in the world. The only
limits are those that I put on myself and i'm
like you will be in the exact same place next year and i can look at our facebook thread and i can
see like the year before that they were like i'm gonna travel and be a freedom lifestyle entrepreneur
and the year before that they're like i'm gonna make a million dollars i just read four hour work
week and it changed my life totally and it's it's just like, oh, guys, you're
killing me here. Yeah, because it really is just like all this woo woo sort of like non actionable
motivational stuff that just wears off after not a very long period of time. And you can tell those
guys just are not successful. It's all about habit building and successful habits require plans and goals, not just like, my dreams are going to come true this year. You know,
it's like, oh, spare me. Yeah, I know. I mean, I maybe it's just my personality or whatever. But I
I'm all for goal setting and having big goals. But I don't really sit around and think about
it too much. Like I just know where I'm going. And 95% of my attention is on the task in front of me.
You know what I mean?
Like what am I doing right now?
I'm writing this thing because I have to get this little step done and there are 2,000 more steps that need to occur before the big thing occurs.
So who cares about the big thing?
You know what I mean?
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, that's for sure true.
And people love to get their dopamine so
they're like yeah i want to focus on the big thing now and then later on forget about it and go eat
you know there's actually research on that there's uh i'm probably actually read a blog post on it
one of these days um that showed that people what it boiled down to is that people that talk about
their goals more or talk about what they're going to do more are less likely to actually do it.
Um, and yeah, yeah. I mean, researchers, one of the theories was that it's just because,
and this psychologically makes sense that when you are, uh, telling somebody about your, oh, this is what you're going to do. And especially start pumping it up and how you're going to
dominate the world and you're going to be buying 10 Lambos and whatever. And then people, you know,
like, oh, that's so sick. You're so amazing. And you get that gratification, then the gratification that you'd normally have to work for, like if you go and do
it and you go buy 10 Lambos and people are going to, you know, they're going to be like, wow,
that's pretty impressive for what it is. Uh, but just by talking about it, you get some of that
gratification, which kind of, you know, takes a little bit of the wind out of your sails to
actually get an action and do it. Yeah. And that's dangerous because I love talking about my goals and I love talking
about my aspirations, but usually I'm talking about it when I'm not taking action on it. And
I think a lot of people, they'll substitute that talk for action. And if people are wondering what
this is about, how many times have you heard somebody say that they're going to go to the
gym tomorrow or that they're going to start working out or they're going to start eating right or they're going to
start a business and if you're a dude you've heard your friends be like yeah you know what next time
i see that girl i'm just gonna like walk up there and how many times has that actually happened
right and how many i only know a couple guys that actually just they just they truly don't give a
shit and they'll do anything they don't care they're not afraid to get rejected right but they don't talk about it either they don't go next time
i see her i'm going to walk up there no it's just you're at the bar and you're like where did jordan
go oh he's already walking over to that girl yeah i remember we saw her last week you know it's
it's like it's a thing that people who are all talk i mean it's just i can predict business
success basically about how much b BS you're spewing around.
And reading people for a living helps with that.
And of course, running a successful business helps with that.
But it really does give you that.
I know that research, right?
That gives you that dopamine.
And you're just patting yourself on the back prematurely. And then you go back to your autopilot world where you don't do squat.
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
So let's get back to what you do. So teaching people con like, is it, would you say you're teaching
people how to be confident or, uh, you're teaching them, would you say you're teaching them how to be
charming? Like it kind of reminds me of like the, what's the famous Carnegie book, like how to win
friends and influence people or whatever. Like, tell me a little bit more about, I'm just curious, like, how does this process
work?
What, what, give me some inside scoop.
Um, yeah, so basically we teach confidence and emotional intelligence.
And so what that means is I'm not teaching you which fork to use.
The art of charm team is not going to teach you, Oh, hold the door open.
I mean, it's not a lot of little, it's not etiquette.
It's charm is essentially getting the answers getting things
that you want out of life without having to manipulate your way to getting them essentially
right so getting people to like and trust you in a very authentic way is going to open far more
doors than just being like a loud baller who bullies his way to what he wants. And you see that in every aspect of business from Hollywood
to even to high finance, where I used to work as an attorney, to the law game. I mean,
people are buying you, whether or not you're an entrepreneur or not. And if you don't have
that aspect of yourself together, you will limit your success, period. There's a lot of startups.
I live in San Francisco now. Art of Charm is down in LA, but there's a lot of startups. And man, these guys are geniuses,
and they're doing all kinds of just insane, really potentially world-changing projects.
No one will ever find out. They'll probably never get off the ground, or they'll get swallowed alive
by a competitor because they're just weird, and they can't sell themselves. Therefore,
they can't sell their product. They can't create the relationships that they need.
And there's a competitor out there that has like one charismatic front man. Yeah. That's like,
here's a cup that measures the calories that you put in it. And it's like, Oh my God, that's
amazing. And other people are like, but we invented that already. And it's like, shut up,
nerd. No one's talking to you. Right. Cause no one knows who those people are and they're sitting there going this will change the dynamics
of blah blah blah whatever no one cares what does it do yeah and so we teach you how to translate
your what's in your brain to effective communication whether or not you're an engineer
or a you know street performer i like it i want to check i I mean, I haven't even, I, this is a, an area that I
from mainly, mainly from a writing standpoint have studied a fair amount in, um, just being
persuasive in, in terms of words. I mean, I, you know, I think of Cialdini stuff like influence
and whatever, but I've, I would say I've probably read 10 or 15 books on the subject of just
persuasion and influence. And I think it's a pretty fascinating, especially some of the work out there that's a, that has a good basis in science and a good basis in research,
because it is pretty fascinating. A lot of it is like, oh, duh, of course, kind of stuff,
but it's not until, until you see it, like once you see it, you immediately know, oh, that works.
Like I don't even, I don't even have to even test it. I know that works just because, you know, you and I are in many ways programmed in the same ways.
At least we're programmed culturally in very, very similar ways to respond to different things in different ways.
And there are definitely, I think, just cues that we all come hardwire with that either, you know, instinctively inspire trust and liking or do the opposite.
Yeah, definitely. What are some examples? What's some stuff that like, you know, that,
that, that the re that the listeners that we could apply, like, you know, if we wanted to
make, uh, I mean, obviously you can never make someone like you, but if we want to have a better
chance of having somebody, uh, like us or want to listen to what we have to say.
Yeah. You know, it's funny cause you because you just touched on something that I haven't
hadn't really thought of in a while. If you're you're either moving towards people liking and
trusting you or you're moving away, there's really no sort of neutral ground. You know,
a lot of people think like, oh, I'm unless you just I mean, even if you sit there and say nothing,
I guess you're still probably like there's maybe a chance it's neutral. But also,
that's probably more likely for people to think that you're antisocial.
Exactly. Exactly. So a lot of people are like, oh, I don't want to encounter my boss at this
work party. I don't want to encounter my boss at this event. So I'm not going to go or I'm
going to lay low. There's always going to be somebody that's moving towards it and somebody
that's moving away. No matter what you do, if you think just avoiding a situation and think about it like this, if you are a single
guy or a single girl and you don't want people to not like you, what do you do? Maybe you stay home
and you don't go to social events. Well, how is that working for your social life? Your social
skills are actually deteriorating. Your social circle is actually deteriorating. Your dating life
is non-existent. You're not maintaining neutrality.
You're actually moving away from any development whatsoever. So it's the same thing in everything.
I know that. I have no social life. All I do is work and spend time with my family.
Right. Yeah, I hear you. And so same thing probably with working out. It's like,
oh, I don't want to eat something that's bad for me, so I'm not going to eat anything at all.
Well, actually, that's just, and you know more than I do, that's just as bad for your physique.
Taking in zero calories is probably even worse than taking in bad calories, depending on
how much you're talking about.
Well, yeah, sure.
I mean, or a different analogy could be people, like when they're dieting to lose weight,
a lot of times they think that they cannot eat certain types of foods under any circumstances. They think that like, you know, a square of chocolate because of the sugar and
because of the magic voodoo in chocolate is going to automatically make them fat. So they'll go
really hard in restricting foods. And then, I mean, you only can take that. Yeah, sure. Maybe
you could live without chocolate for a bit, but when you're restricting, when anything that tastes
good to you, when you think that you can't eat,
you have to be low carb, you have to eat on some weird schedule. You can only eat these certain
types of proteins and vegetables. Some people, they get told some really terrible advice. So
they go so hard in restricting it. Then it just flips in the other direction and they just end
up binging. Whereas a more moderate, you know, just having a little bit of thing that a
little bit of what you like every day, making sure that it all just kind of fits is that is the way
to go. Okay, yeah, excellent. I think that you're, you're probably onto some exact same sort of
similar concept that we teach, or that we use at AOC as well. Because, you know, like, like we
just sort of touched on, you're moving towards or away. And if you're not working on yourself, you're deteriorating.
I mean, that's the same with a physical skill as it is with your physique.
It's the same as with any even emotional intelligence.
So a lot of people, they'll do something like, oh, I don't want to embarrass myself.
So they'll avoid a situation or I don't want to trigger anxiety.
And I don't like the bar.
I don't like the bar and club scene.
And that's fine.
You know, I don't either.
But you have to push yourself through those uncomfortable situations, not even just bars or,
or clubs or things like that. But if you're not dating because you're not meeting anybody that
you like, so you're sitting at home, well, how's that working out for you? Right. Yeah. And so
some of the things that we'll teach, you know, even married guys who come through the art of
charm is, is simply how to create and maintain strong social circles.
And if you're not consistently refining the way that you show up to people, the way that you
appear to people, then you're probably not working on yourself at all because it's not about a fake
persona. It's about figuring out what makes you authentic and how to communicate that most
effectively because really we're putting on a mask all of the time when we go out. And the goal of AOC Art of Charm
is really to remove that mask as much as possible.
It's so hard to do, but if you think about it,
everybody has this.
When you're at home by yourself,
you're probably like singing.
If you're at home with your wife,
you're like singing and dancing and messing around.
And you're being goofy.
And then you go out in public
and yeah, you're probably not always like that, right?
Yeah.
Maybe that's because you're worried that people will think it's a little bit strange,
but really, if you did the same level of silliness with your wife at the mall as you did at home,
there would be zero consequences in reality.
Right.
Right?
Depending on how often that involves being naked, probably.
But, you know, you really can get away with a lot more.
Depends where you go.
If you go in the changing room, you can get away with a lot more. It depends where you go. If you go in the changing room, you can get away with it.
Exactly.
And so it really does depend on a lot of what's inside.
Again, your belief system.
How much can you get away with?
I mean, you actually spend, and we don't notice this because we're so used to it, doing it through our whole lives.
You expend a lot of energy being fake even if you're not thinking I'm being fake,
you're just behaving yourself. You're not doing what naturally comes to you. That requires energy.
That's why people who have to work in offices and stuff are tired at the end of the day. They're
using a lot of brainpower. They're using a lot of willpower, but they're not just being themselves.
Otherwise they're being professional and they're in. That's why you can sit through a meeting.
And at the end, you're like, I am over it. I'm. Because you're not, you have to bottle everything in that whole time.
Why is sitting down in a chair and looking at a PowerPoint taxing?
Because you're forcing yourself out of your actual nature as a human.
That's why.
For like eight hours.
That's why.
Yeah.
I mean, I can totally relate to that.
I guess it's maybe, it's just a personality thing for me.
I've been someone, I mean, pretty, I just always kind of
never really cared that much what people thought about me. So I tended to just kind of behave
however I wanted to behave. Uh, I mean, I don't go out of my way to be rude or whatever, but,
um, I'm that guy that if somebody is saying something that I think is, you know, they
shouldn't be saying, I'm going to say something or my sense of humor is I grew up on the internet.
So my sense of humor is, uh, what you'd expect from someone that grew up on the internet. So my sense of humor is what you'd expect from someone
that grew up on the internet. And, you know, but I find that a lot of people, they find that
refreshing that I'm not an uptight type of person. I don't, I don't, I can be professional if I need
to. I just don't really have to. There's only, there are only very select meetings with certain
people where I know that I have to be professional. Otherwise,
I'm just me. I say what I say and, you know, I'm going to make the jokes that I make. And if people
don't like it, then, okay, I guess they can just not be around me, but it's, I find that easier.
I mean, it's not that I go out of my way to offend, but this is the way I am. I'm not going
to, uh, you know, like you say, I'm not going to try to be someone that I'm not for eight hours a day just so other people can approve of me.
You know what I mean?
Of course.
Of course.
So – go ahead.
I was just going to ask.
So in this world though, like that's kind of how I guess I always was.
I was just kind of a – didn't give a shit about what people thought and just did what I thought was right kind of person. But other people, they seem to, I mean, the people I know
are much more wrapped up with reputation and what other people think. And, you know, if something
gets posted on Facebook that they think is a little bit off, like I'll sometimes I'll comment
on friends stuff on Facebook and say something that they don't want their other people. Like
they don't want other people to see that, that, you know, that I said that because then they might think that they're kind of weird being
associated with somebody that would make a joke like that. And do you think, is this something
that anyone can learn or, you know, is, is trying, because when you think of charm, you usually think
of just that, that, you know, kid that grew up, everyone always liked him. And then he was the,
you know, the high school, either maybe he was the high school
you know football star guy or now he's the politician or whatever yeah of course it is
learnable and here's the thing yeah you're right people think well wait no that guy was cool and
in high school and now he's great now or maybe he's not so great now and but everybody falls
from grace but people think yeah you're born with it but here's the thing that's one it's a it's a misunderstanding and it's also a an excuse at
the same time right so oh i wasn't born with it well okay maybe but it's easy to say the same
thing about being tall and playing basketball but it's faulty logic right oh he's really tall so
he's really good at basketball i know a lot of tall people that suck at basketball.
Also, Spud Webb, so scoreboard, right? That guy was like 5'5", 5'6", and he was a pro. He was
pro on the Bulls with Michael Jordan. So it doesn't really matter if someone was born with
it or not. The other thing is no one's born with that. It's not a nature versus nurture type of
thing most of the time, people who seem
to have it younger as a kid, they just had different circumstances surrounding them.
Yeah. I think it'd be more of an environment thing, what they, the type of environment they
grew up in. Exactly. There's circumstances that surround them that give them positive feedback,
positive interactions. And I'll give you an example. Uh, my girl, my ex-girlfriend,
um, she has a little,
two little brothers and they were in high school back when we were dating like 10 years ago. And so they were like really popular, cool kids, et cetera. And she was like, that's so weird. You
know, I was, and I didn't get that gene. I was really quiet and not popular. And I thought,
it's not that. Think about it. You're, you know, We're at her house. All her friends are over.
They're all these other hot girls, right?
And we're hanging out in the pool.
And her little brother's there socializing, splashing, learning how to socialize around cute girls.
He brings his other buddies from school in.
And they're like, dude, at Matt's house, there's always a ton of hot girls and a college guy who lets us drink beer when the mom's not there.
Right?
Because I was a dumbass and let them do that so like you know in in so he of course he was the cool kid because
when he had to deal with girls his own age at school he was like whatever i just got done
hanging out with a bunch of college girls you're you know this is not hard yeah and and all of the
guys were like yo you gotta go to matt's house he's the most popular kid around because there's
a bunch of girls in bikinis with you know fully developed breasts hanging out in the pool like everybody
wanted to hang out at matt's house so matt was the cool kid so he went to college and he stayed that
way right but if you were a nerdy dude and even if you had an older sister or you decided you
were shy and you minimize contact with them then yeah you had some awkward experiences and then in
school that was reflected when you got
rejected going to prom or nobody asked you to the sadie hawkins dance now lo and behold here you are
looking at a rejection from eighth grade and you're 35 or 45 years old and when you go to look
at a girl that you think is cute but you're afraid to talk to her you're not thinking well in my
recent experience this logical reason happened that requires me to think that this will never pan out for me.
You just go, oh, but in third grade, Jenny didn't like me and went to the fair alone.
And I felt sad.
And meanwhile, that was 40 years ago or 30 years ago.
And it's still scarry.
Yeah, it's so buried in your subconscious at this point.
You don't even realize why you're so nervous.
Yeah.
But the reason is because it affected your belief system.
And your belief system is influencing your actions, which are influencing your results.
Boom, full circle, right?
Because your beliefs don't change by themselves.
They change based on feedback.
And the only way to get that is to continually push yourself out there.
And if you get hurt once, no matter how long ago it was, and you withdraw into a shell,
you will not get feedback that confirms that. And and also you won't be looking for it anyway you're going to be looking for something
that confirms what you already believe yes you're always going to be looking for something that
confirms your belief that's why people think oh well i have bad genetics no that's just a convenient
excuse it makes you fat and all your friends are fat do you think all your friends really have bad
genetics no you're all fat because you have crappy habits. That's why.
But it has nothing to do with anything else other than you're looking for evidence to back that up because it's a hell of a lot easier than making real change.
So guys will do that with social skills.
They go, well, you know, I'm pretty good with the opposite sex.
Really?
How's that working out for you?
You're married happily and you have kids.
Great.
How's your business going?
Right?
If there's some area of your life that is not working out, it is a direct result of your belief systems influencing your actions and influencing your results. Can the art of charm help you? Maybe. But if you decide that there's no way because blah, blah, blah circumstances, wah, wah, wah, then no, we're not going to be able to help you. No one's going to be able to help you. And yes, then you are officially a victim. Congratulations. You're right. No one can help you. That sometimes is.
I mean, I run into that here and there.
I mean, the vast majority of people that I run into in my work are they've experienced that, but they're still willing to try.
But I will run into that sometimes where it's very clear that a person doesn't particularly really even want to be helped. They just kind of want to have their, their current beliefs confirmed that, uh, you know, it's this problem or it's that problem or, uh, you know, it is just
a genetic thing or whatever. Indeed. And so what you're talking about then is it's similar to the
fitness thing in that it's changing behavior patterns. It's not really changing. You're not
asking people to change who they are so they can, you know, cause when I, uh, my previous, before I had gotten a little
bit educated, like I said, I mean, I've read more, more from a standpoint of, uh, for copywriting
and marketing and stuff and how to be persuasive and how to sell in that regard. But, um, where
you're not, you're not trying to put on a fake, like, you know, Paul, you think of the politician where, you know where a lot of these people are going to smile, shake your hand.
They're going to tell you all kinds of things, but then all kinds of things that they don't believe.
But when they're sitting around with their buddies smoking cigars, they're just talking shit about everybody they just shook hands with.
It's more about changing your beliefs, which then allow you to change behavior patterns, but not necessarily changing your personality or something.
Yeah, absolutely.
In fact, it's the opposite of inauthentic.
What we're doing is a subtractive process at the Art of Charm.
So what that means is rather than adding weird layers to your personality and figuring out how to, let's say, make you look cool in front of other people by
pretending to be this, that, and the other thing. We don't do that. We don't need to do that. And
what actually happens is we're taking away little flavors that people have where they go, all right,
now I'm showing up, a client might come into AOC rather than being like, wear this cool
light up necklace. We're like, you know.
Pheromones all over the bottom right now.
Pheromones, yeah, all that other bull crap.
We don't do that.
We go, oh, okay.
So when you get into a social situation, such as a cocktail party, you're trying to network
with entrepreneurs, let's break this down.
What happens?
And they go, well, you know, I look for someone that I know.
Okay, stop there.
Why?
Well, it feels comfortable.
Okay, how has that comfort served you? Well, it makes me feel, or they'll go, Oh, I guess it has.
And I need to break out of my comfort zone. We're like, wait, back up. Why are you doing it anyway?
Well, you know, it makes me feel less shy. And so, cause I'm with somebody that I knew
and so I like it. Okay. Well, good. Now what would we know that that's like the short circuit
right there, right? So he's, the problem is they go to the networking event, they look for someone they know, and they stay in their comfort zone there, because they're afraid of and we'll drill it down with questions over 60 hours. It's a residential program, you cannot escape, right? We'll drill it down to what's really happening. And it's usually down to something just for an example of, well, I don't want to feel alone at this event because I feel like
dot, dot, dot, not worthy of other people's time or not able to sell myself adequately or
need somebody there for social proof. There's a million reasons, but what it comes down to is a
belief that you're not good enough as you are for some reason. And we're not going to have a kumbaya
after that. We're going to just figure out a practical way to get past it and fix it with a
drill or an exercise that will become a social habit that will get you past it you know
we're not therapists we have therapists on staff but we're not we're not laying you down on the
couch yeah um it's actual practical application and that's why we have clients like navy seals and
and military intelligence because they don't need to go oh i i did not i didn't get enough
attention from my uncle and my dad uncle mom whatever grandma as a child we need them to go, oh, I didn't get enough attention from my uncle, my dad, uncle, mom, whatever,
grandma as a child. We need them to go, oh, okay, so when I feel that I need to do this in order to
short circuit that negative process and that negative feedback loop and make myself effective
in that situation. Because entrepreneurs, yeah, yeah, they want to get over their stuff, but
really they want to be able to sell their business so they can make money. And so we focus on the
practical. And so we're going to drill down, we're going to drill down we're going to take away layers take away inauthentic masks that people wear because
when you're connecting with somebody and you're being fake and salesy you're not connecting with
them you're trying to but even if that person's like jordan was really cool they don't really
know me they know like the personality that i had on at that time yeah that's a lot of people i think their bullshit detectors are are better than the a lot than
many people think you know when you're yeah of course yeah they are and so if people get a whiff
of that and women are especially good at this you're screwed buddy female intuition right you're
screwed buddy because if they go no that guy was cute and he seemed cool but something's up yeah you're you're done because women aren't going to go you know what he was probably just nervous
and therefore he came across as a little bit flighty and inauthentic but i'll give him another
shot they just go and that was creepy something's off dot dot dot i can't gamble with my safety
because i'm a female so next yeah especially if it's a you know if it's a girl that gets
approached a lot i mean she's already gonna have her guard if it's a you know if it's a girl that gets approached a lot i mean
she's already gonna have her guard up because she gets you know bullshitted so much right and you
think she hasn't seen that before i mean that might work on little starlets in hollywood when
you're james cameron but if you're trying that on anybody with two brain cells to rub together
they're gonna go yeah that guy no thanks next what like that because what you're saying is
when you layer on a mask like that because what you're saying is when you layer
on a mask like that you're prohibiting connection with other people of course because you're not
really getting into rapport yeah you know that's something we teach a lot but also what you're
sub communicating and it's all about sub communication is hey if you really knew me
you probably wouldn't like me so i chose this personality over my real one because i want to
fool you and the girl's going not only this fake, but obviously his real personality sucks or he wouldn't choose this one.
So I'm going to pass because I don't even really like the fake one. So I'm certainly not going to
like the real one. Yeah, that's a very good point. You know what I mean? They're not going to give
you the benefit of the doubt and go, oh, he probably feels some social anxiety. And that's
understandable because that happens to everyone. No, they're going to go, well, if this guy's kind of on the fence, then your real personality must
suck. So I'm just going to choose the confident guy who I know is going to be authentic and legit.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a very good point. I totally agree with that. What are, what would you say?
So you, you brought up this point of, okay, someone's at a networking event and they want
to stick to just the people they know because, you know, it makes them uncomfortable, whatever.
That's like a, that's a, probably a common mistake that we've all made, whether it be a
networking event or a party or any sort of get together. I mean, we've all experienced that
before. What are a couple other common mistakes? Say, what's a common mistake that whether it be
approaching women or creating business relationships that you see people making and maybe what they should do instead.
I think a lot of people are always trying to,
well, man, where do I even begin?
Yeah, I know.
Just anything that comes right off the top of your head.
I know.
I mean, with business relationships,
people are always asking about,
they're trying to do this,
there's sort of three levels to this,
or maybe there's four.
There's the whole, like, I want this from you, like from you like the whole hey mike can i be on your show and you're like yeah okay fine and then there's hey mike why don't i interview you see if it works out if the
demographic overlaps and you get a lot of traffic from it i would love to come on your show if it
makes sense to you yeah that's sort of level two it's kind of what i did and then there's or maybe
that's level three but there's also like these other sort of guys who are doing it
wrong where they're like, I'd love to have you on the show. And then you go on their show and
they're like, great. Now please post this and social media and promote my business and sell
my product on your website. And you're like, dude, what, what just happened? I get hit with
that. I mean, I, you know, I, i don't take it personally because i understand what they're trying they're trying to do what they think is you know right and
gonna work but i get hit with that quite often but it's like they're trying to give you value
but really they're not they're really just trying to get something and they're veiling it in this
cutesy clever way where it makes it look like they're doing you a favor and then which is just
a copy paste email you're like yeah okay yeah okay yeah and and it's a trend now among internet marketers especially
because internet marketing in in i know you sell things on the internet but it is different there's
a trend where people go wait a minute i can sit home on my ass and just send like form letters
to people dot dot dot profit right and and that's not how it works, but that's what other marketers sell when they teach marketing.
Yeah.
And then the level up from there is like, give value,
which is this nebulous freaking comment.
And that's why people go,
I would love to promote your stuff on my outlet and blah, blah, blah.
And then you're like, yeah, but you don't have any following.
And this is actually, now you're just asking for my time. Yeah. And then you want like, yeah, but you don't have any following. And this is actually now you're just asking for my time.
And then you want me to share it.
Have you gotten hit with the people that come to you and they say, we're putting together this crazy summit of all these experts.
And, you know, it's going to be on the subject of whatever related to whatever you're doing.
And we want a call from you.
And really what it boils down to is they're going to each of these people and they line them up,
they get them to agree to promote what's going to be this final product, which is just interviews
to all of their individual followings, you know, to try to make affiliate money.
Where the person that the organizer, of course, is, you know, taking a big chunk of the money,
but I've turned those down just straight up. Like, I don't like what you're doing. I don't
agree with this kind of approach. Well, if that's what you think we're doing, then I guess you're
not a fit. I'm like, well, that is what you're doing. What are you talking about? And they just
never write back. But yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. No, you're right. There's it's like,
hey, I know that you think you invented this BS, but you didn't. What it is, you know what I mean? Yeah, you're the seventh this week.
Yeah, it's really funny.
They're like, oh, well, if you don't want to spread your message to everyone,
it's like, dude, I know what you're doing is forcing all of us morons
to promote you and mail it out.
And actually just make free money for you.
Like, really, we're giving you all the content,
and then we're just promoting for you
so you can make money.
To our own audience.
Yes.
And then, and what do you do?
You what, sign up for, thanks for the help, buddy.
You signed up for free conference call
and then like made a spreadsheet
with all of our names on it.
That is actually what it is.
And yeah, I totally agree on that point.
I mean, that's ridiculous.
It is a ridiculous thing.
Neil Patel, he runs quicksprout.com and some other stuff.
One of the internet marketers who I really like who just knows his shit and works hard, he wrote a blog post on this recently.
One of the things, I think it was like he used some sort of sensational type of title like why you think rich people are douchebags or something like that. And one of the
points though, as he was saying is like, when you're approaching somebody that's successful,
a business person or whatever, uh, always think, always look for what you can give.
Like, what can you actually truly give them? Don't just come in asking for things right away,
because you know, if you have any sort of success in a field, you get that all the time. And even
if it doesn't get you all worked up, you don't, it's just, you know, you have to, if you're the person approaching that,
that successful person, you have to realize that their time is short and they get people
wanting free stuff all the time. So if you come in really actually willing to give something
before even asking to get anything without necessarily even the expectation of getting
anything that puts you in a much better position.
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
In fact, this happened to me last night, and I'm going to give you this as an example.
The guy is a bad example because he actually is a great person, but it came out super weird and i'll uh let me i'm gonna actually go into my facebook right now
and grab the message thread so that i can sort of share it in an abbreviated fashion um all right
so this guy hits me up out of the blue and he's he goes where's the start of this giant thread
i'm not gonna read the whole thing of course was like, hey, thanks for listening to the show
because he wrote me some random
thanks, I love your show email.
And I was like, cool, man, spread the word
on iTunes if you would. And he goes,
I don't use iTunes, but I'm going to do you one better.
I really love your show, but it's probably
not converting as much business as it should
because I'm not interested in buying any
of your products. First of all,
don't tell somebody that and then ask them for something.
But anyway, he goes, I'm totally-
That's an interesting way to begin.
Interesting approach, right?
You basically are not good at selling your stuff.
So let me aware you real quick.
And I'm like, thanks guy who doesn't run his own business
telling me how, and not that I can't learn anything,
but honestly, this is a multi-seven figure company
and you're gonna tell me that what I'm doing that's made all that money is it's not working for you.
Yeah. Well, maybe you're not really our target demo, but but I digress.
And then it's like, I'm interested in this stuff.
But, you know, I don't really think about coming to your program at the Art of Charm because I think that, you know, you haven't convinced me enough.
And I'm thinking like, well, you know, I'm sold out four months in advance.
What else do we need to do? He goes, my offer't convinced me enough. And I'm thinking like, well, you know, I'm sold out four months in advance. What else do we need to do?
He goes, my offer to you is this.
I'm down to help.
I don't want any money
and I don't want to work with you officially,
but I want to meet with you and chat.
And I'm thinking, oh my God,
I know what you think you're doing.
You think you're offering me a lot of value,
but what you're asking is for a meeting
of my entire person meeting with me and the value proposition of
what I get to talk to you killed and skinned so right and and I'm thinking so you don't want a
job you don't want to let me quote unquote hire you but you still want my time do keep selling
it buddy right and then I go what do you have in mind in a nutshell he goes are you asking for
recommendations now on Facebook I said yes and he's well, off the top of my head, the pitch is off. You need to use videos,
which we already do. And also you need different plugs in your show. And I'm thinking like,
that's so vague. That's not helpful. There's nothing there. And that's what I had to pry
out of you. What am I going to get out of you when I meet with you in person? And then I was like,
well, what else do you have?
He's like, well, I haven't really thought about it.
So wait a minute.
You want an in-person meeting with me because I'm doing everything wrong,
but you really haven't thought about how I would fix it.
Now you're just really, really blowing it, right?
And then I go, cool, I'll forward this to marketing.
And he's like, well, don't get me wrong.
I mean, I love this.
And then he sort of backtracks a bunch.
He's like, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, thanks for your time. And then he's like,
I don't understand why you're not more stoked about this. He just flat out said it.
And I was like, this is one of the, I haven't had one even this weird. This is really weird.
It's weird. Right. And I just replied because he kept going and going and going.
I would have politely just ended it you know
a bit ago personally yeah no i know it's honestly it's uh i i do humor people because i have learned
things from people that maybe have a crappy pitch oh yeah i'm totally open to uh i i any suggestion
anything like i've gotten so many good suggestions and so much good feedback from people on books, on everything that I do.
The whole tone of this conversation is just completely off, and you know where this is going.
Yeah, and honestly, I asked him, I was like, how did you find us and all this stuff, trying to give him a chance to sort of redo this whole botch.
And he's like, I'm a consultant, I'm a coach.
And I'm like, yeah, you and everybody else, though.
What have you done?
Show me the money.
Yeah, you're a coach.
Okay, got it.
But what have you built?
Why should I believe you?
Where's your credibility?
And I straight up told him that.
And he's like, no, there's no risk to you.
I just want to give you a helping hand.
And I'm like, I don't even care.
I would rather give you $1,000 and lose it
than meet with you for three hours and find out it was a waste of time. And he's like,
you could step up your marketing the next day with my recommendations. And I'm like,
you don't have any, you just told me you haven't even thought about this yet.
And so it's like, I straight up said, how would you give me the plan for doing so?
Well, I could write it up, but I'd rather meet in person. I know now we get the real deal.
Well, I could write it up, but I'd rather meet in person.
I know.
Now we get the real deal.
You just want to meet.
You don't actually have any value for me yet.
You just want to hang out with me.
I can't afford it.
I'm sorry.
So I told him, no thanks.
And I told him, email me.
I'll connect you with my marketing team.
Because I know what's going to happen.
I'm going to put my marketing specialist in touch with him, which, by the way, is the perfect person to handle this particular query
because he's trying to help with marketing,
and he's going to go, nah, and he's going to blow the guy off,
meaning he really just wanted to have a beer with me
and not actually give me any help.
And I told him, I'm like, by the way, I get this every single day.
And he was like, oh, thinking like, you know, and that's the thing.
Prime failure of perception is we might walk up to a girl and be like, I'm an engineer.
I'm in good shape.
And you walk up to a girl and you're like, hey, what are you drinking?
And she goes, I'm busy.
And you go, what a bitch.
Here's the thing.
You just did what every other guy did for the last pretty much 10 to 12 years of her life right
she's done being like oh nice to meet you gotta go she's over it yeah you know what and she doesn't
know that you're not a crazy person like the last guy that talked to her seven minutes ago and it
opens the conversation in exactly the same way right she doesn't know that so you go oh this
is terrible she doesn't understand me.
Because as guys, if a woman walked up and was like, hey, you're really cute.
Do you want to go out sometime?
We'd be like, oh, my God.
Hell, yeah.
Where do I sign up?
But meanwhile, every guy who walks up to her and says that is like, I mean, you might as
well say you want some D because she already knows what you're trying to get at.
That doesn't work.
You don't teach that?
It does.
But, you know, that's like advanced level.
I don't want to give that away on the show.
No, but it's tricky and guys don't think about that because as a perfectly nice guy,
that really should work because it is authentic. But we've got to learn to communicate that in a different way while remaining authentic and not a douche. And you're right. That is why people
think rich people are douchebags because I totally did. I totally, years and years
ago, I remember I was talking with Tim Ferriss because he was just starting his business and we
were starting ours as well. And we were talking and I was like, man, how do you deal with all
these people talking to you and emailing you? And he goes, I just ignore them. And I was like,
isn't that mean? And he's like, trust me. And two months later, I was like, oh God,
I'm just ignoring all these people now. I can't deal with it. So I hired an assistant because I do reply to everything.
But I can't sit here and deal with every single person that wants to, quote unquote, give me value because it's really just this hidden.
And this is that level two we were talking about, that hidden way for them to get something from you.
It's not really altruistic.
that hidden way for them to get something from you,
it's not really altruistic.
They don't realize that the opportunity cost of them not having their proverbial crap together
is actually costing my company more money
meeting with them than them just spitballing ideas
over a beer for two hours.
Yeah, yeah.
And they don't understand that.
Speaking of Tim Ferriss,
this reminds me of something I saw on a blog
of his blog post a while ago about his, some assistant, I mean, the guy might still be with him, I don't
know, but the story of how his assistant came to work with him, and it's a similar type
of thing, but the guy, he had a very well thought out, long, you could say, essay on,
he didn't come across like, you don't know what you're doing, of course he wasn't stupid
and do it that way, but what he did do is he gave a very long specific list of things that
he thought he could help Tim with. And, and, and, you know, this is why Tim should believe the guy
could do it. And if I remember correctly, I read it a while ago, I remember correctly in the
beginning, the guy started doing the work for nothing. He didn't even ask for money for it.
He showed that he actually could get stuff done.
And then Tim took him on as his assistant.
And I don't know if they're still working together,
but they had done several of his book launches together.
And this became a really important dude for Tim,
somebody that he could go to and say,
hey, I need this done.
And the guy figures it out.
But it started with really a cold email like that, but approached very differently.
Yeah, I mean, it's I know, we digressed a lot and probably vented a little bit. I think a lot
of people are going, what's up with these guys. But honestly, the message is here. And the message
is, you need to really actually think about how to deliver something and do it in a way that's
super easy and essentially cost-free yes the
interns that work at the art of charm and guys that get jobs here even though i'm not hiring
are guys that like literally do something where they go hey jordan i really think this guy's a
good fit for the show i've taken the liberty of digging up his contact info drafting an email
that introduces you to but i didn't want to send it without okay from you first, because then you might feel compelled to reply. Reply okay to this message, no need for anything more,
and I'll send the intro if you're interested. Otherwise, just ignore this. And I'm like,
okay. I'd love an intro to this author not having to do anything. He did that like 20 times.
And then finally, he was like, by the way, I've noticed this other thing was wrong with your
website. I know how to clean this up. I've researched it. It'll probably improve your
traffic by 5%, which in my estimation could make you a certain amount of money. I don't really know
because I don't know your actual numbers. If you'd like me to do this, I will happily do it
for free. But then next time I do it for another one of your websites, I'd like to be paid an
hourly rate of 50 bucks.
And I go, cool, do the first one for free.
Then we'll see how it pans out.
He did the first one for free.
I made like, I don't even know how many thousands of dollars.
So he paid for himself 10 times over.
And I was like, when can you do the next website?
Now he does all my web work because I trust him.
He knows what he's doing.
He ends up making me money.
You know, that's how you get a job.
You don't get a job by going, no, I know these secret things. Oh, well, I haven't really thought
of them yet, but I probably know a lot of stuff that could help you because you know, whatever.
Oh, and also I'm a big fan of your show. Please hire me or please spend time with me. No way,
man. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Um, all right. So that's, I want to, I want to go over just one
other mistake. So that's with business. We've covered like a sort of networking type of mistake people make.
Then there's a business mistake, which I totally agree with, and I've run into it many times myself.
And there is definitely a great lesson, even though it was kind of maybe it seems a little bit like a tangent, but it's not.
There's an important – I think that's a very important thing in terms of building relationships is focusing on what you can actually do for people.
And it's one of the things that's worked very well for me. I spend a couple hours a day going through all my, I answer
everything myself. And I guess my space is a little bit different. I don't get, I don't get
very many, like, let me add value to your life. Most people are just book readers and they have
fitness questions or they just want to tell me they like what I'm doing. But I never charge for that time. I do like
answer what I'm doing. A lot of other people in my position wouldn't even bother with.
And I do it because I enjoy it. And people really, really genuinely appreciate that. And it really
helps build. I mean, it helps build relationships. And at this point now, I could say that I've built
relationships really with, I don't know, a couple thousand people that could email me tomorrow and I'm going to remember them.
And, you know, and they're going to feel like they have some sort of connection with me. And that definitely has a lot of value.
Let's say with women then.
So what's a common mistake that people make with trying to get a girl, like they see a girl that they want to speak, they want to talk to, or they want the girl to like them or whatever?
Yeah, there's the standard opening with stupid pickup lines or stuff like that.
But what's something else?
I'm genuinely curious.
Sure. I mean, a lot of people don't realize that and stop me if I've already mentioned this maybe in our other interview, but people don't realize when the first impression is
made. Did we talk about that already? I don't think so. No. Refresh my memory. Okay. Because
whenever I go off on a crazy person tangent, I often lose my train of thought and everything
else. But yeah, essentially people don't know when their first impression is made what i mean by that is uh especially when it comes to business or when it comes to guys in
the opposite sex so say let's use a dating analogy because a lot of what we focus on at aoc is dating
related essentially guys will do the following they walk into a bar with their friends they spot
a bunch of cute girls they go all right cool let's get drinks they get drinks they circle up they go
around the place to look for other maybe cuter girls or different cute girls.
Get the lay of the land, right?
Well, here's the problem.
They're continuing.
They might finish their drink and then they might go up and talk to a couple girls and
the girls are maybe they're responsive.
Maybe they're not.
But sometimes what guys don't realize is they've already blown it.
And what happens is they walk past those girls.
They had certain type of body language.
They had a certain type of appearance. They had a certain way of relating to other people in the
venue, relating to the server that they had, the way that they ordered the drinks, the way that
they behaved around their friends, the way they behaved around others. That was their first
impression because they became a blip on the female radar, to use the National Geographic
version, right? They became a blip on her radar when they
walked in. But guys think, we think, and humans in general think, our first impression is made
when we quote unquote make our move. So the guy thinks, I'm going to go up there and talk to her
and it's going to be funny and creative and cute. No. She's already decided whether or not she's
going to talk to you well before then. It's when she noticed you. So if you're good looking,
it's probably earlier. If it wasn't, maybe you're lucky. In fact,
you might even be luckier not being super stellar, tall and good looking because you can afford to
screw up a little bit more in the beginning and make it up on the back end. But the problem is
guys do that all of the time. And then they go, God, why are girls so short with me? Why was she
so short with me? She already decided whether or not she was going to blow you off pretty much before you even had a chance to open your mouth um and
probably before you even started walking up to her she was like nope waited 20 minutes to talk to me
being a chicken right and you know or nope saw him be a douche to the server or nope he ran into a
guy and was like watch where you're going total turn off you know you've already messed it Yeah. You've already blown it. Yeah. And that could be she might have seen you there
last week acting like an a-hole. Yeah. And that was your first impression. And you don't even know
because you didn't even see her. Right. So and we do this in business situations as well. Absolutely.
You know, we go to we might go to a mixer or something like that or a networking event or
we're talking with other people and we're blowing off folks or we're circling around eating appetizers or waiting for our friends to show up.
And then you might find out that, oh, I do know the guy who's running it. And that's the guy you
want to talk to. So you're being weird and hovering around us. And then as after I talked to the guy
who runs it, you're all, hey, my name's John. How you doing? And I'm like, why are you so chummy now?
Whereas before I was here hanging out with other people, you didn't think I was worthy of your time
at that point. What's the deal? Oh, wait a minute. You want me to introduce you to that guy? No,
thanks. I'm out of here. And I'm going to remember that for a while. And then you're going to go,
oh, hey. Oh, and I get this all the time, especially coming from Silicon Valley where
I live now.
I'll go to an event in New York or something and maybe I'm dressed informally or maybe I'm even here in the city
and I'm just kind of like slumming it, which is my own first impression.
But somebody will go, oh, you know, I'm here to do this business thing.
I'm here to network, whatever.
And we'll chat.
We might be polite.
Maybe they'll blow me off or something like that.
And then they'll find out, oh, wait, Jordan is one of the speakers at this event.
Or, oh, wait a minute.
He's got a show that has 800,000 people listening to it.
That's, wait a minute.
Now I want to be all chummy.
Whereas before, you didn't have the time of day.
So what that tells me is you're not really interested in connecting.
You're interested in getting something from me.
So I'm going to be very short with you at that point. Because I don't want to deal with you if you just want my audience.
Why didn't you have time for me before when we were just chit-chatting? Oh, because you're the
type of person I cannot rely on because you're not actually looking to give any value. You just
want something for yourself. And people in my position and in your position, we learn to deal
with that. We learn to sniff that out in advance because it's our daily reality as a successful person running a business.
And we can't afford to waste our time with those people.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've run into that.
I've run into that.
I mean there's that version of it where when they're just chatting with you, they don't realize you're doing anything or whatever.
And then they realize it and they change their tone.
whatever. And then they realize it and they change their tone. Or, I mean, I've, I've had,
I've had that, but I've also had where people that knew me before I'm doing what I was doing,
what I was doing, what I'm doing now, um, that, you know, never cared to, they never cared to talk to me. They didn't care what I was doing. They, I was, I was nothing to them. And now all
of a sudden they hear I've sold a bunch of books or I have a big website or I have a supplement
company, whatever. And all of a sudden they are, you know, they want to hang out. Uh, they want me, they want my advice on,
on business things they're doing. Um, and I mean, like you, I politely blow them off. Like I had to
straight up tell them like, Oh wait, but, uh, two years ago you didn't care. Like, don't, don't,
don't come talk to me now asking for me thing, asking things from me now. Uh, you didn't care. Like, don't come talk to me now asking things from me now.
You know, because just two years ago, you didn't even want to speak to me.
So, you know, there's been some of those awkward moments.
I don't care, though.
I'll just straight tell them because I think that type of behavior is shitty, and I think they should be called out on it.
You know what?
I agree.
I tend to be – it sort of depends on who it is, but I try to be as polite as possible.
But it's so funny because I'll be like, hey, reach out to me in a few months or something
like that and just hope that they'll forget because most people will. But you're right.
Other times I'll be like, no, I'm not going to help you with this. And here's why. And it feels
pretty good, but you got to kind of balance that. You got to kind of balance your own ego with like
real results. Because again, small world the, those people become really successful or
even if they don't and they just meet other folks, you don't want them being like, Oh yeah,
Jordan's a total dick. Right. So it's, it's really a double edged sword, but I do, I do think you're
doing them a favor by calling it out. Cause I think that people go through the beginning stages
of a business, not really realizing that their relationships with
other people matter and that these little nuanced communications can make or break a business.
There's, like I said, there's tons of startups in Silicon Valley that will never get anywhere
because they're terrible at selling themselves and they're terrible at the impressions that they make
regarding their product. And so a competitor with maybe an inferior product and a better,
a little bit of better, uh,
startup game is going to school them. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, also this, this first impression thing, you kind of like, there's maybe a lesson in there even going back to women. I mean, uh,
that don't judge people so quickly. I mean, especially, especially you talk about like
when you're slumming it, right? Like I, I wear gym clothes. That's, that's what I wear. I go to the gym early in the morning
and I work all day. Like why, why would I dress in nice clothes so I can sit with my staff and,
and at my computer all day? Like, I just want to be comfortable. If I, if I could just not even
wear pants and if I could just wear underwear all day, I would just do that. But you know,
so, you know, if somebody were to see me walking around, I'd be like, who's that random meathead dude in his workout clothes every day?
And, I mean, I always joke that, like, there's the rich guy uniform.
Like, if you see, you know, an older dude, you know, clean cut,
wearing all Nike gear, you know that guy's rich.
If it's all Nike workout gear, it's like a joke.
But it's one of those funny things that you've just seen so many times. Like, um, yeah, my dad's neighbor is,
has tons of money and that's all he wears Nike workout gear. And if you saw him around, you'd
think, ah, whatever the dude's worth $200 million Nike gear all the time. Uh, another friend of
mine, he has a big software company. His he's become more and more bummish the more money he makes. Sometimes his hair is like,
sometimes he looks so ridiculous. His name's Steve. I'll be like, Steve, seriously, you should
get haircut. You actually are starting to look homeless. He's like, yeah, totally. He's like,
whatever, dude, you look like a schizophrenic person. Like, please. He's like, ah, whatever,
long hair. Don't care. Like, what do I, I don't know how to impress anybody.
You know what? It's true. And it's funny
because I actually consciously think of this. I still suit up when necessary. I like to present
a professional image, but there's just something to be said for going to an event where everybody's
worth like $10 million. And I'm like, I'm going to wear shoes that I'm not going to tie, jeans with
a hole in it and a t-shirt. And then
people look at you and they're just like Silicon Valley, huh? And I'm like, yep. And they're like,
you fricking dick, you know, cause they know, but it's, it's fun. It's just feels good to do that.
But on the other side of the coin, you got to be conscious of your first impression of it.
I, you know, it might be fun for me to do that sometimes, but realistically, if I'm trying to
partner with a media company and I show up like that, what's that guy might be old and stodgy, or he might be young and stodgy.
And he might be thinking, if you're willing to show up like that, it shows me that you don't
really care as much about your impression. And that's what you're supposed to be teaching guys.
So I don't buy it. I'm not going to do business with you. And that's a risk that you run.
Sure. So it's no matter who you are, it's a matter of being smart about it. Yeah. Yeah. I just saying like in the day to day life, it's sometimes I think people will make too quick of judgments. And even even, you know, it could be going back to that scenario with if the if the if you're you come into the club or the place, whatever, and you're walking around and you're kind of, you know, you blow off the waiter or whatever.
around and you're kind of, you know, you blow off the waiter or whatever it might be, you actually might be a great guy. Maybe the waiter did something that was rude and maybe the reader
said something to you, but the girl doesn't see that. She just sees how you behaved or, you know,
maybe you had a momentary lapse of whatever. Um, so it also, I mean, they can work in that,
in that way too. You're right. And so that's why it pays to maintain your composure at all times. And it
pays to be able to read between the lines and be able to sub communicate as well. Yeah. Because
if you can't, you will lose. And when it comes down to it, it's all about people buying you,
they buy you, they don't buy your product. People do business with people that they like,
even if it's not the best deal for their company. Yeah, yeah, that's very true. All right. Well,
I'm sure we could
just go on and on. I mean, it's, uh, there's plenty of interesting things to talk about, but,
um, man, yeah, I'll tell you in, in it's, this went in a totally different direction than I
thought it was because usually we do teach like body language, eye contact, nonverbal communication,
lie detection through body language. Um, every, I mean, just name it. There's 300 hours of audio on the Art of Charm podcast.
So I would say that if people are looking for anything even remotely tangentially related
to what we discussed today, check out the Art of Charm podcast.
You're already listening to podcasts.
The Art of Charm podcast.com has them on the web, but iTunes, any podcatcher, any app you're
using will have it too.
And it's a top 50 iTunes podcast. And usually I
behave myself probably a little bit more so than I did here today. So I encourage you to check it
out. It's all right. This is how I always am. So if someone's listening, they're used to it.
Good, good. Thanks so much.
Yeah, that's great. Definitely. I highly recommend Jordan's stuff, as you see. He's a great guy.
And I like the angle that you take on it which makes it
like you said it's an authentic thing
and it makes it genuinely applicable
to life not just
how to run cheesy game on girls
in clubs. Exactly
it goes so far beyond that
I appreciate you saying so. Yeah totally
so thanks Law for taking the time
I really appreciate it and
we'll have to do it again.
You got it.
Talk soon.
Okay.