You Are Not Your Thoughts
Remember the time you had your first French kiss?
How about your favorite vacation spot?
The bad news you received that one time?
What about that thing you have been worrying about lately?
Can you think of a zebra without stripes but with purple polka dots?
Where were these thoughts before you were thinking about them? Where do these thoughts go when you are no longer thinking of them? Have you ever thought about it until now?
This is called self-awareness, the conscious knowledge of your own thoughts, feelings, character, motives, and desires. In other words, you are not your thoughts. You are the one observing your thoughts.
I would like to propose that the majority of the time (if not all of the time) you are not in control of what you think next.
Don’t believe me? Let’s do a 60-second experiment.
Stop reading this.
Set a timer on your phone for 60-seconds.
Do nothing. Don’t try to think or not think of something or anything; just notice whatever thoughts come into your awareness.
Answer the question below.
How many of those thoughts did you know you were going to think before you became aware of them?
If you are honest with yourself, you do not know what thought is coming up next. You only realize that you are having a thought after you have already noticed that you are thinking about it. You know, like your favorite color. You didn’t plan to think of your favorite color before it popped into your mind; it was just there. It’s like when you hear a song that takes you back to a certain moment or when a smell transports you back to a childhood memory or when someone pushes one of your buttons and you become angry or you begin to hold back the tears during a scene in a movie.
Stay with me. I assure you that this is going somewhere and will apply to how successful you are in getting a woman to talk to you, hold a conversation, agree to a date with you, and begin to build a lasting relationship.
Every moment you are communicating with another human you are in control of their thoughts.
If you walk up to a woman and use a pick-up line that she has heard many times before, you have instantly flooded her mind with thoughts of all of the previous creeps who have done the same thing… including you.
Do you want to waste your time and your words by asking a woman questions such as…
Where are you from?
Where did you grow up?
What do you do?
Do you come here often?
Can I buy you a drink?
This weather has been crazy, huh?
What brings you here?
None of these questions lead her to want to continue talking and spending time with you, because these questions do not prompt thoughts that lead to her feeling something. (Except for her disdain for you.) You have not evoked a connection within her on an emotional level.
Before approaching a woman, have a plan. What emotions do you want her to experience throughout the conversation?
I am not advising you to manipulate women. I am telling you to have a plan so you don’t ask stupid and boring shit like “Where are you from?”
Here is a list of emotional states to help get you started…
Curiosity
Fun
Happiness
Comfort
Fascination
Intrigue
Attraction
Desire
Flirtation
Adventure
By starting with what you want her to feel when she is with you, you can begin to organize the words that are coming out of your mouth to lead her into each desired emotional state by asking the right questions and telling the right stories at the right time within these two constraints… be authentic and be honest. Because you are the source of her feeling these emotional states, these emotional states will be linked to being with you.
You must let go of the outcome and the things that you cannot control. If you walk up to a woman with the intention of getting her to go on a date with you, you have already lost. You cannot control what she decides to do. What you can control is what you say, the direction the conversation takes, and how well you create the next thought that you want her to think.
Let’s take “curiosity, fun, and fascination” as an example.
When was the last time that you really felt curious about something? Let me tell you what I mean. A couple of months ago, I was on a flight from San Francisco to South Florida, and I was sitting next to this woman who had a stack of books on her lap with a folder underneath. One corner of the folder was sticking out and had the NASA logo printed on it. I love everything space. At first, I didn’t say anything but with every minute of that flight that passed I wanted more and more to get to learn more about her and how she is involved with NASA. I restrained myself from saying anything to her for a while, and deep down inside the desire of wanting to know what she was all about grew and grew to the point where I could not stop myself from turning toward her and asking her what she did for NASA. This turned into a fascinating discussion that I will never forget. The more she spoke the more questions I had. That was the most fun that I ever had on a flight and I will never forget it. Every time that I think about that day, it makes me feel those feelings all over again.
You know what I mean, right? You’ve had a moment where your curiosity was almost overwhelming.
Tell me about it.
Very important note: Make sure the story is true! No deceit!
In this recollection, I took you through the steps of feeling curiosity, fun, and fascination by telling a story that has these emotional states contained within it. As you read the story, I am firing off thoughts within your mind of times that you have been curious, had fun, and were fascinated.
In order to understand what I am describing to you, your mind has to add meaning to the words and the story itself. This process of adding meaning draws upon times when you have been in similar situations and felt these same emotional states. Your mind becomes flooded with and focused on the emotional states that I want you to feel.
If I was in front of you telling this story, several other things would be happening outside of your awareness to link the emotions of my story to the present moment.
Questions… From the beginning, I evoked the feeling of curiosity by asking a question, “When was the last time that you really felt curious about something?” When you ask someone a question, thoughts begin to appear in their mind in order for them to answer. In this instance, your mind began to collect and present thoughts of when you felt curious about something.
Gestures… Every time that I refer to myself, I gesture to myself by physically pointing at my chest. Every time that I refer to the NASA employee, I gesture to the person that I am telling the story to. Unconsciously, the person I am speaking to will connect the characters in my story to me and them, and the emotional states become associated with us.
I asked for a story… When my story was over, I asked for a story in return focused on curiosity. The end of my story gets you thinking about (and feeling) a time in your life that you had a moment where your curiosity was almost overwhelming. I then ask you to tell me about it. As you tell your story, you will strengthen that emotional state and link the cause of the good feelings to us being together.
You have stories from your own life that will illustrate any emotional state that you want to evoke within another human. Write your stories down and clean them up. In other words, rewrite your stories to make them interesting and intriguing. (Once again, this doesn’t mean embellishing or using someone else’s stories.) After cleaning your stories up, practice saying them out loud. Pay close attention to your descriptive words, your pauses, words to emphasize, and your tone of voice. Practice on family and friends and have them give you feedback.
You should have stories for every emotional state that you want to evoke within your listener, and you should be able to tell your story without any “umms” or “ahhs”. The way you speak is important, takes practice, and gives you confidence. You will have stories to keep a conversation going that are intriguing, fun, and that make you different than most other guys.
Mastering your story-telling abilities is one of the most powerful things you can do to stand out in every area of your life and be remembered.