April 21, 2011

Guys, It’s Time to Seduce with Style

If you’re a guy and you want more social and dating success, there are a lot of personal tweaks you can make to achieve this. Interestingly enough, I find that enhancing your look, which is a relatively accessible change to make, is an often ignored one.

I’m not talking about your looks here; I’m talking about your look; about the way you use your looks and project your personality through clothes, accessories and body-language.

Over the past few weeks, whenever I would talk with another guy about men’s fashion and building a personal look, I would find myself keenly recommending the same one ebook. So, I decided to review it here.

The ebook is called Seduce with Style. It’s the best information product I know for men who want to develop a personal look that boosts their social life and their success with women.

You can get the full details about the ebook here.

Also, check out this free SWS chapter about the 8 most common style mistakes to avoid.

Why Style Matters

Do you need to dress well and have style in order to be an attractive guy? In my perspective, absolutely not. Does it help? You’ve better believe it.

In fact, I think learning to dress with style as a guy is such a good move that if you’re looking to improve your social and dating life, this is what you should start with.

Optimizing your look as a guy involves significantly less effort than other personal changes and you’ll instantly see positive results: people (read girls) looking at you more, smiling more, flirting with you more etc.

Girls typically react to a guy’s look much more than to his looks. Often without even realizing it, they rate guys based on their look and what it sub-communicates. Then they often justify how we they react to a guy by invoking other, ‘less superficial’ factors.

I ignored the power of a stylish personal look for the most part of my life. I didn’t understand look, I only understood looks. But when I did start paying attention to the clothes I wore and to developing a personal style, I was floored by the positive impact.

Eventually, I realized there is a deeper, more subtle meaning to clothing and style, and that your look goes beyond your looks.

My Review of Seduce With Style

AlphaWolf, the author of Seduce with Style, is an Attraction Style Coach. I had an awesome conversation with him this week about the ebook, men, women, seduction and life, and I was impressed by his pragmatic thinking and his passion for what he does.

The ebook he wrote is not your average what-to-wear and how-to-tie-a-tie book for men. It digs into the underlying principles of men’s style and sexual communication, in order to teach men how to develop a seductive and expressive style.

As a guy, you’ll find in Seduce with Style practical advice on choosing and matching clothing pieces, adapting clothes to your constitution, choosing colors, layering clothes and accessorizing.

You will also find a powerful approach to your look as a way of communicating certain characteristics and seducing. One of my favorite sections of the book is the one about the 8 Style Attraction Switches and how to integrate them into your look.

Bottom line: if you’re a guy and you want to become more seductive, definitely take a look at your look. And if you do so, definitely get your copy of Seduce with Style in order to enhance your look.

Check out Seduce with Style here.

When you dress well and you know it, the challenges in your social life don’t disappear overnight, but they do become much easier to surpass.

Image courtesy of glitterygin20

Filed Under: Lifestyle, News, Success Tagged With: , , , , , , 3 Comments
January 16, 2011

How to Start a Conversation

Some people seem to naturally know how to start a conversation. They can kickoff conversations anywhere, from a party, to a seminar, to a queue at the supermarket. I’ve always admired these rare people.

On the other hand, working as a social confidence coach, I often meet people who don’t know how to start a conversation and struggle with this, either all around or in particular types of situations.

Learning how to start a conversation easily and effectively has been one of the key points in developing my people skills, and this is a big part of why I also enjoy teaching it.

Forget What You Thought You Knew About Starting a Conversation

Chances are, you already have a baggage of concepts on how to start a conversation from word of mouth, family education, books and articles.

My first recommendation in order to boost your conversation skills is to leave them behind, because most of them probably come from limiting mindsets. I’m talking about mindsets that overemphasize the importance of politeness or make impressing others the conversational priority.

I find that most advice on how to start a conversation makes you come off either rigid and insecure (at best) or creepy (at worst). So I’m going to take you into a somewhat different frame for starting conversations.

I think you first need to get a good idea of how to develop your conversation confidence. Once you get the attitude component handled, starting conversations with anyone becomes a walk in the park.

Check out my instructional presentation on this topic on this page, which will teach you a simple, 3-step formula for developing your conversation confidence.

The Golden Rule: Be Friendly

Forget about impressing people right off the bat when you start a conversation. You’ll have plenty of time to impress with your slick, charming self. I have one golden rule for starting a conversation and that is to be, or at least appear, friendly.

Your goal is not to impress, it is to show that you are a relaxed and sociable person who wants to have an enjoyable chat. That’s the best way to engage another person in a conversation.

When I work with my clients to help them improve the way they initiate a conversation, we focus on developing a friendly vibe more than anything else. And a friendly vibe is demonstrated mostly by your non-verbals.

So instead of focusing on coming up with clever conversation starters that will instantly woo the other person, focus on:

  • Smiling and holding eye contact;
  • Breathing regularly and relaxing your body;
  • Keeping your posture open and non-threatening.

Ask Good Questions

One of the most important tools for engaging another person in a conversation is your curiosity. Your curiosity best manifests itself in the way you ask questions, which is one people skill I think is critical.

First of all, you want to ask big, open-ended questions that require more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer and create for the other person the context to really talk about themselves.

Secondly, you don’t want to stick with the typical questions as conversation starters just because other people do so. The questions you ask, in my view, should be authentic and reflect your honest interests. You have much better chances of taking a conversation somewhere by putting your real interests forward.

Yes, Preparation Is Fine

If you struggle with starting conversations with some people or in some contexts, it’s OK to use conversation starters you’ve learned ahead of time and practiced before. Equipped with good conversation starters, you will have a tool for engaging people and you will feel more at ease.

However, it’s really dangerous to become depended on lines and conversation starters. This instructional presentation on conversation confidence I made explains why. If you have trouble starting conversations, it’s a must to check it out.

On the other hand keep in mind that at a certain point, as your conversation and people skills sharpen, memorized conversations starters are best to be left behind. Furthermore, remember that good conversation starters reflect your authentic curiosity. They’re not lines you use robotically; they’re adjusted to you and to the social context.

A Conversation Is a Two-Way Street

I often find that lots of people hesitate to talk about themselves, especially at the beginning of a conversation. They may believe it’s impolite or they may not be comfortable with opening up, so they choose to bombard the other person with questions as an alternative.

Nobody wants to feel like they’re in an interrogatory when they’re having a conversation: What do you do? Where do you live? Where do you work? Where are you from? What hobbies do you have? That is too many questions for two minutes of conversation.

Study people who are able to start conversations with ease in a semi-obsessive-compulsive manner like I did, and you’ll notice they are very open and talkative, and they have something to say about almost anything. This is why I believe that learning how to start a conversation is an exercise in opening up more.

If I were to synthesize how to start a conversation in one concise phrase, it would be this: have a combination of friendliness, curiosity, authenticity and verve. This mix is an almost magical key which opens many doors in social interactions. And more open doors mean more options.

Image courtesy of Batara

Filed Under: Communication Skills, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 16 Comments
December 13, 2010

How to Be Charismatic

Charisma is a sexy word and a sexy trait. I believe that knowing how to be charismatic can greatly enhance your relationships, your career and your social life, so I couldn’t pass up writing about it.

What Is Charisma?

Charisma is hard to define exactly, which is why, interestingly enough, many definitions will actually mention that it’s hard to define exactly.

This is probably because there are so many kinds of people, with so different personalities that are commonly labeled as being charismatic. What do Gandhi and Oprah have in common? Not much, but they’re both considered highly charismatic.

That’s just it with charisma: it’s not one trait, it is rather a label we use to describe a wide range of personality traits. Basically, anytime someone makes us feel warm and tingly inside on a consistent basis, we call that person “charismatic”.

The critical thing all charismatic people have in common is a strong appeal to others which enables them to connect with others and influence them at a deep emotional level. For this reason, I think that knowing how to be charismatic is a noteworthy thing. This being said…

Here’s How to Be Charismatic

Now, there may be many types of charisma, but there is a common thread running through all of them. Understand this common thread and you’re on your way to consciously developing your charisma and skyrocketing your people skills.

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As a social confidence coach, charisma is one of the most fascinating traits for me to study. I believe there are five important things you need to do in order to be charismatic.

1. Fucking Relax!

Every charismatic person I’ve ever known or studied is very comfortable in social situations. They are able to relax around people and have chill interactions, or else they are able to fake it really, really well.

Now, I want to emphasize that this is rare: most people aren’t fully relaxed and themselves in most social interactions, with the exception of those with close friends and family. There is a certain degree of discomfort they feel in social interactions. Learn to get over that, and you send out a radically different vibe.

If this is an issue for you, check out my free conversation confidence guide. In this guide, I’ll reveal to you the secrets to becoming confident and relaxed in social settings. Go here to learn more about it.

2. Be Present

Another thing charismatic people have in common is that they are present in social interactions. They’re not in their heads, hyper-analyzing the interaction or imagining where it will go. They are in the moment.

This is extremely important because being in the moment allows you to respond to what’s happening in the interaction in a calibrated and at the same time spontaneous way. Whenever you catch yourself being in your head when interacting with someone, stop yourself and practice being present.

By the way, my free conversation confidence guide will help significantly you with this as well.

3. Listen At A Deep Level

Deep listening means not only paying attention to what the other person is saying, but also being able to hear what has not been said, but it is there. It means understanding the needs certain words convey or understanding the emotions certain body language reflects.

If you want to learn how to be charismatic, this is a skill you simply have to master. A deep interpersonal connection happens when you are listening at a deep level. It’s essential to really pay attention to the other person and read the more subtle messages beyond the simple words.

4. Be Expressive

Charismatic people can convey their own feelings and ideas in a powerful way. They are able to state things clearly, and they use suggestive words that elicit powerful emotions. They also put their voice and their body language into it, thus enhancing the power of words.

This expressive style of communication can be learned. The main thing is to consciously focus on using more and better both the verbal and non-verbal channel, in order to get across your message.

5. Develop Your Social Intelligence

This is a tricky one. Charisma is to a large extent the result of understanding social dynamics, of understanding how people behave around other people, why they do so and what consequences it has.

A person with good social intelligence is able to adapt their social behavior to produce effective results. You truly comprehend how to be charismatic and you can be so when you have a well developed social intelligence.

The five points above are much more than simple action steps. They are each attitudes, habits and people skills in themselves.

You want to know how to become charismatic? Here’s how: You put in the time and energy to get a fine-tuned understanding of these five traits and to develop them.

Charisma is not that illusive trait people make it out to be. It has a structure; it can be learned to a big degree. If you put in the work, you see the results.

Image courtesy of Gregory Bastien

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 33 Comments