November 4, 2012

What Do Women Want In a Man?

Any straight man, at one point or another in his life, will ask himself: “what do women want in a man?” And when he realizes he doesn’t truly have the answer, he’ll go searching for it.

One of the most common ways for guys to find out what do women want in a man is by asking his lady friends what they want in a man. Supposing they have a big enough sample of female friends to ask this, it may provide some value for them in understanding women’s desires.

However, this method is highly flawed because of two reasons:

1. Many women will simply not be completely honest. They’ll tell the guy what he wants to hear or what will make them look good rather than the naked truth; many times without even realizing.

For instance, a woman may not disclose to a guy that she wants a man who can dominate her physically in bed, because she is afraid that she’ll seem like a slut, but deep down she does have this craving.

2. Women often don’t know themselves what they want in a man. So they’ll talk about what they think they want in a guy, but it’s frequently not what they truly want and what generates emotional attraction towards a guy. And this phenomenon often applies for men as well.

Considering this, what is the best way to know: what do women want in a man?

I believe the best way is to study women’s behavior towards men.  And, if the sample of women is big enough, you’ll reach the most reliable conclusions.

If a women says she wants s guy who is sensitive, but she constantly dates ice-cold guys despite a generous availability of sensitive guys around her, then she obviously wants ice-cold guys rather than sensitive ones.

If she says she wants a guy who is tall and dark, but then falls madly in love with and desperately pursues a guy who is short and blonde, it’s likely that her desire for tall, blonde guys is only at a superficial level.

Working as a communication and confidence coach, having built for myself a pretty rich and active social life, and being a keen observer of human nature, I have noticed a few highly consistent patterns in numerous women’s behavior towards men, which indicate convincingly what women want in a man.

Of course, every woman is different, but there is definitely on overarching theme in women’s desires regarding men.

So, if you’re asking yourself “what do women want in a man?” I’d like to share with you my conclusions. I believe that above all, women truly want and react emotionally strongly to these traits:

1. Confidence

Yes, it’s true. Confidence is, by far, one of the most attractive traits you can have. The men that I know who are very successful with women are very different, but the one quality they noticeably have in common is a high dose of confidence.

They are comfortable in their own skin and they like themselves as they are. Consequently, they are sociable, they are genuine in social interactions, they are persistent and they don’t take crap from anybody. And women quickly pick up on this and it involuntarily generates attraction.

Fortunately, confidence is a psychological trait that you can develop through deliberate action. Trust me; I help people develop it for a living.

If you want to learn the steps you need to take in order to build confidence effectively and quickly, then make sure to watch this unique presentation I have created, in which I’ll reveal them to you.

2. Masculine Energy

Ultimately, a woman desires a man, not a girlfriend with a penis. There are certain traits that come off as (primarily) masculine, just as there are certain traits that come off as (primarily) feminine.

A masculine energy is what you convey when you manifest such masculine traits.

There is a wide range of characteristics that are generally masculine: decisiveness, dominance (not the same as aggressiveness), firm voice tone, strong eye contact, seeking challenge, having clear goals and ambitions in life, perseverance, practical thinking, being protective, achieving status, and so on.

The lesson here is two-folded:

1) Don’t be afraid to convey the masculine traits you have (yes, you have lots of them, even if you may have lost touch with some). Put them out there and be proud to be a man.

2) Develop your masculine traits. Pick just one or two of them at a time, and work on improving them.

3. Good Social Skills

If you look during social interactions at the guys women react very well to (they flirt with them, they seek their attention, they ‘eye-fuck’ them) these guys will demonstrate some class of sharp social skills.

Maybe they are funny or they are very fluent verbally. Maybe they are charismatic or they know how to make a girl feel special. Maybe they are good listeners or mesmerizing story tellers. Or maybe they have a mix of these qualities.

Any way you cut it, they have a range of good social skills. The bigger the range and the higher each skill in it, the more attractive they are.

We live in a social world; we always have. And this is why social skills make all the difference in the world, and they are worth enhancing. Again, this presentation will prove very useful here.

4. An Interesting Lifestyle

The key is to not be just another guy who goes to a boring 9 to 5 job, then watches TV and plays computer games all day long. Too many guys are like that, and they all lack an edge.

You don’t need to have a James Bond lifestyle either, but it does prove tremendously helpful if there are just a few elements in your life that make it unordinary, above average and exciting. They make it interesting and then women feel the natural urge to be a part of it, and to be with you.

This is why I always encourage men to take on interesting hobbies, to try new things, to constantly challenge themselves and to do things they are passionate about. A man with an interesting life is very sexy.

Okay; at this point you may be asking yourself: but what about money, looks and fame?

My answer is that these things do help, but now having theme is definitely not a deal breaker, at least not with the vast majority of women.

At the end of the day, confidence, masculine energy, good social skills and an interesting lifestyle outweigh everything else. What do women want in a man most of all? It’s these 4 traits.

This is great because, while there are limits to how much you can improve your looks and few people will ever become millionaires, becoming more confident, masculine, and skilled socially, and gaining a more interesting lifestyle are within your reach, no matter who you are.

So, all that’s left for me to say is: get out there, better yourself as a man, live the best life possible and have fun. Your attractiveness will soar as a result.

Image courtesy of sebastien.b

Filed Under: Personal Development, Psychology, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments
September 22, 2010

How Badly Do You Really Want It?

Take a moment to ask a person about their dreams and they’ll tell you about a fulfilling career, a great relationship, or their own island in the Pacific Ocean.

Take a couple more moments, as I often do in coaching, to ask them what they’re planning to do in order to make their dreams come true, and you’ll often hear the most unrealistic fairytales.

In my experience, most people are simply not willing to do the things which will realistically make them achieve their big dreams, things which happen to also be pretty hard. Thus, they automatically reject the most effective alternatives, they’re stuck with bad alternatives and they eventually abandon their dreams.

Real Stories

Here are three real examples, of people I’ve interacted with in the past few months:

  1. A person who wants to become a top professional in a Fortune 500 company, but is not willing to leave the small town they live in. Why? Because all their friends and relatives are there.
  2. A person who hates their job and wants to go into a new professional field, but is not willing to take the initial salary cut. Why? Because they would have to sell their fast car and take the subway for a while.
  3. A person who wants to have a successful business, but is not willing to work for 2 or 3 years at developing this business besides their regular job, until it becomes sustainable. Why? Too much work.

In all these examples, the path exists. The only problem is that the person is not willing to take the path. They don’t want to make the necessary compromises.

Quitting In the Face Of a Challenge

Now I’m not saying that all compromises are good. Sometimes, the effort to get to a certain place in your life is just not worth it by comparison with the benefits. However, this is not the case I’m talking about.

The real issue in my view is that many people aren’t willing to make even strategic compromises, which in the end would be worth it: the short-term compromise for the much bigger long-term benefits.

In my area of people skills, I see countless examples of people who aren’t willing to accept a challenge and put in the work to improve key people skills, even though they know how much it would enrich their lives. They stop at the level of: “Yeah, I know: I should probably work on this.” And they pay the price.

Reality Check

Let’s turn the discussion towards you. I invite you to look at your life, your career and your relationships, and ask yourself four magic questions:

  1. What are my biggest, boldest dreams in these areas?
  2. What are realistically, the things I need to do in order to achieve these dreams?
  3. Which of these things have I really accepted and decided to do?
  4. Which of these things am I really doing?

If you’re like 98% of people, you’ll find out that your deeds aren’t exactly aligned with your dreams. There is a gap between them which if you don’t face, can become as big as the Grand Canyon.

You may try to find shortcuts and creative solutions to achieve your goals with little effort or struggle. If your goals are high, chances are that you will not find them or they won’t work.

The roads to great places tend to have quite the bumps at some points. The best thing you can do is to accept the bumps in the road and go through them.

In a way, you could say that making those hard, initial compromises to get what will truly enrich your life is the easy way. I say this because if you look at things in perspective, you end up living a much more meaningful and joyful life.

However, the meaningful joyful life does imply an initial level of work, perseverance and sacrifice which only few people are willing to go through. But if you want something big and you want it badly enough, it makes sense to go beyond what most people are willing to do.

If you decide that you simply don’t want if badly enough, no problem. Just make sure that when you’re an old person and you tell stories to your grandchildren about your life, you don’t say that you could have been a great person but you didn’t have the opportunity. It was right there in your face!

Image courtesy of jurvetson

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Success Tagged With: , , , 23 Comments
April 21, 2010

How to Rise Above Family Pressure and Live the Life You Want

The family: a traditional source for love, advice, kind words, emotional support and apple pie. Also, quite often, a real pain in the ass when it comes to living the life you want. Let’s face it: you probably owe your family a lot, but at the same time, there are at least one or two big ways you feel it’s sabotaging your dreams.

I know in my family, I constantly felt pressure, especially from my dad, to live a certain way. The more I found out what I really wanted, the more I discovered it was not that way, and the pressure grew. Until at one point, I decided to move out of the family house completely, set some firm boundaries in the relationship with my parents and live exactly how I wanted.

My dad is still not very happy with how I spend my time, what I eat, the fact I have my own business instead of a regular job. Despite that, we now get along pretty well, and at the same time I don’t succumb to family pressure. This is how I do it and what I also teach others.

Most of the time, close family members like your parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters have positive intentions in trying to push you in a certain direction. They mean well, they do it out of love. But, this doesn’t mean they also do the right thing for you. I think there are 2 major problems with how families often guide their children.

  1. They try to keep them in the safe zone. They don’t want them to do anything risky or unconventional. They encourage them to choose the career filed in which you can find the biggest salaries, and you can get a job even if you’re half retarded, ignoring what the children really want, can and like to do.
  2. They spread out-of-date wisdom. Because our society has changed so much in the last decade, it’s very probable that older family members like parents in their 50’s or 60’s have understandings of things which no longer applies. Yet they continue to believe in them firmly, and to guide their children using these understandings.

The results you get is a lot of family pressure directing you in the wrong direction. And this doesn’t apply just to teenagers, who are still kind of immature and financially dependent on their parents. Most mature, experienced and financially independent adults I know also get this kind of pressure from their families, and they often give in to it.

Family pressure can be a powerful, hard to ignore factor for most people, applied with incredible skills. The good news is there is way to effectively deal with family pressure and live the life you want. Here are the main things which can help you:

  • Put some distance between you and the rest. If you’re living in the same house with your parents or grandparents (which in today’s world is common even for married people) and you see them every day, it’s hard not to succumb to their pressure. Make moving out at priority, save the money it takes and do it.
  • Realize you don’t need to please your family. There is this false belief that because you family is, well… your family, you must get along perfectly with every family member. You don’t. It’s a myth. There’s nothing wrong with upsetting dad once in a while or not living up to mom’s dream for you to be a doctor.
  • Learn to communicate assertively. Assertive communication is one the most valuable people skills you can have. It allows you to express yourself in a clear, direct way, but from a position of respect for others, and it’s a great way to deal with all the criticizing and negative comments you can get from family members which are not happy with your actions.

But these points are really only a frame to set for rising above family pressure. The most important thing is action. This is YOUR life, not your parents’ life. And while they’re not to be completely ignored, it’s only naturally to live the way YOU want.

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , , , 28 Comments