Monthly archive April, 2006

Last weekend I had a lot of fun in a motorcycle safety training course, and it reminded me of some of the stuff that I had discussed here before. Learning how to ride a motorcycle, like the acquisition of any skill, is both fun and challenging. What you have to remember is that the same thing that makes it fun — namely, stimulation, creation and establishment of new neural pathways — is exactly what makes it challenging. You’re doing something new, so your whole brain is lighting up. That’s the fun part. And, at the same time, because it’s new, it’s a challenge — you’ve never done this before. So don’t you be complaining about the fact that it’s tough, because that’s not a bug — it’s a feature. Most of the time in life, fun = challenging.

It’s also a pushing out of your comfort zone. Remember that everything that you want is outside of your comfort zone. Because if it were inside your comfort zone, chances are that you already have the thing in question (or it’s so trivial as to not even be desirable to you). So, if you want to learn how to ride a motorcycle, you have to do things you’re not accustomed to. Like learning the controls, doing tight turns, counterbalancing and shifting with your feet. Now this all may seem obvious to you, but again: it’s the obvious that we most often tend to overlook. That’s why I make a point of repeating the obvious. But one thing happened to me that made me realize something that wasn’t so obvious.

One of the skills you have to master to pass the motorcycle safety test is the U-turn test. Basically, there’s a box, and you’re supposed to make two U-turns in opposite directions in the box without putting your foot down or crossing the lines. Pretty straightforward.

We got a few chances to practice this test. We’d go in, slow down, do a figure-8 inside the box, and then return to the back of the line to do it again.

As it turns out, this was a challenging exercise for me. Almost every time, I had to put my foot down, or I didn’t get the speed right and I would venture outside of the box. This was definitely a skill that required some work.

But this is the funny part: by the third or fourth time I did this exercise, I noticed something. In order to get back in line to do the exercise again, I had to double back and make a very sharp turn. And every time I made this turn, I did it with speed and grace. And did not put my foot down even once. Never even occurred to me that it was a problem.

And it was basically the exact same manoeuvre that we had to do in the box. Strange business.

So what was going on here?

Let’s go back to the Tranxu quote from the last post:

“When the archer shoots for no particular prize, he has all his skills; when he shoots to win a brass buckle, he is already nervous; when he shoots for a gold prize, he goes blind, sees two targets, and is out of his mind. His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He cares! He thinks more of winning than of shooting, and the need to win drains him of power.”

That, my friend, was exactly what was happening. Once I was inside the box, I felt as if I was being tested and observed. I *cared. And that’s why I would botch it. Whereas, when I was just getting back to the end of the line, I was just doing my thing, steering the bike the way I already knew how. The way my unconscious knew how.

So let me give you a new definition of ‘caring’: caring about your results equals getting in your own way. Pure and simple.

Because often what happens when you care is that you start to override your unconscious mind with your conscious faculty.

Is this a bad thing? Well, let me ask you this: If I were to ask you right now to get up and walk, but to do the whole thing by consciously picking every muscle you had to contract and relax,would that make you a better walker or worse?

You’d probably stumble and fall into a big uncoordinated heap within two steps. You have no *idea* how you walk, buddy. Deal with it.

There’s the physiological reason why you’re better off using your unconscious mind. And here’s the metaphysical one: nothing forestalls your results faster than lusting after results.

When you ‘care’, like it or not, you are lusting after results. Stop that.

I brought up the story of my motorcycle lesson because this kind of thing manifests itself in incredibly insidious ways.

Consciously or not, we spend a huge amount of our lives trying to gain approval. We’ve gotten so used to this that sometimes we forget why we care about this approval in the first place.

Now, I could go into all the subtle ways in which you kiss up to your boss, try to make your friends think you’re cool or make a show of being a good citizen. But this newsletter is about dating, so let me focus on that.

Chances are very good that if you are male and reading this newsletter that you have spent your entire life trying to get the approval of women. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty.

It all starts with the greatest woman of them all: mom. She brought you into this world, she taught you everything you know. And from day one, your survival depended on her approval.

Luckily, she already liked you from the start, but that didn’t stop you from trying every little trick in the book to endear yourself to mom. Admit it: even as a grown-up today, you could probably make a list of two dozen things you do (or don’t do) to keep mom happy.

Then you grew up a little, and started noticing the cute little girls running around. And you wanted them to like you. And the model you had for making that happen was “get her approval” — just like you did with mom.

If this is all old hat to you and you’ve already broken out of this model, congratulations. You are a far more developed, aware human being than most of the people on this planet.

But chances are that you, like me, have vestiges of this behavior still operating. So what I want you to do is this: actually make a list of all the things you do in your dealings with women, ranging from the smallest scale stuff to the big stuff. Do you wear cologne? What kind? Where do you live? What kind of car do you drive? What do you wear when you go out?

Now in a column next to that, I want you to be perfectly honest with yourself as to *why* you do that thing you do. You have only two answers to pick from: you do it because it makes you happy and enriches your life; OR you do it because it just might make girls like you better.

So the two possibilities to the answer ‘Why?’ are ‘Because of me’ and ‘Because of others (especially girls).’

Now you have the list. And a useful exercise is to just go through it systematically and, one by one, expunge all those behaviours that are there to get approval from girls. Because every bit of time and energy that you spend on getting approval from others (girls or otherwise) is time and energy you can’t spend on making you happy and enriching your life — what I call FULFILMENT.

Funny thing is that every week I get letters from guys saying that their most successful outings are when they’re all grungy, unshaven, in a total “I don’t give a damn” mode and they just show up somewhere to watch a game or chill out. And, lo and behold, some dream woman materializes and won’t leave our man alone.

Does this sound familiar to you at all?

So the practical lesson is this: replace the approval-seeking mindset with the “let’s just see what happens and have fun with it” mindset. Instead of lusting after results, you are watching the fabulous, miraculous experiment called Life unfolding around you.

Now, am I saying that you should deliberately ignore your hygiene and dress poorly, because that’s how you’re going to be successful with women? Nice try, but that’s just another (somewhat smellier) way of getting approval.

What matters here is *intention*. Why are you doing what you are doing? You could do anything and no matter how ridiculous it is, as long as it comes from a wellspring of deep self-acceptance, then it’s empowering you. It adds energy TO you. If it’s just another bait for the world to like you back, it’s taking energy AWAY from you.

I went through a lot of stuff in this letter, so let’s summarize the key points:

1) Any new journey of learning will be both fun and tough. There’s a lot of new information and potentially foreign ways of looking at the world and dealing with it in The Tao of Dating . I don’t expect you to learn it all instantly. Take it easy on yourself, avoid judging yourself, and enjoy the process.

2) The whole purpose of The Tao of Dating is to get out of your own way so you can get to the success and fulfilment you’re already programmed to achieve. Have faith in the workings of the universe. Learn to practice surrender. As Lao Tzu says in Chapter 48 of the Tao Te Ching, “In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can’t be gained by interfering.” And if the surrender thing is not working, it means you’re not surrendering nearly enough.

3) As a practical manifestation of the previous point, do the exercise of writing down your approval-seeking behaviours and resolve to get rid of one of them per week. Write the behaviour in question down, stick it on your cell phone or wallet, and become aware of its presence in your life. Then either replace it with something more useful and fulfilling or reframe it such that it’s not about approval-seeking.

Example: if you’re one of the people who wears those ridiculous strategically-ripped designer jeans (the 1980s ended once, and they will again) because you think people might think you look cool in them, either chuck them and wear non-perforated pants, or only wear them on hot days because they provide better ventilation. Be a trend-SETTER, not a fad follower.

4) Raise your standards. One way of getting rid of the ‘caring’ phenomenon is to raise your standards such that they are so much higher than those of anyone who could be observing you that you couldn’t possibly be worried about what they think. Your goal is to lead a fulfilling life according to YOUR standards, not those of anyone else.

5) Work on the non-doing. As an extension of Exercise 3, resolve to systematically rid yourself of artifice. Tricks and techniques are cute and can get you short-term results, but they are real impediments to long-term fulfilment (those who know what I’m talking about, give me a holler). They’re like training wheels — they help you get by, but very soon will get in your way.

And, the live Tao of Dating seminar is finally coming — June 2-4 in Los Angeles! We’ll have a series of review teleseminars leading up to it, so look out for them — you can sign up at www.thetaoofdating.com.

Online Dating Tip O’ The Morning from Evan Katz, author of I Can’t Believe I’m Buying This Book .
“If he’s interested in me, he’ll write to me.”Or so the perception goes for millions of women.

Let me tell you the reality.

Men start their pursuit of online love with an arbitrary search (such as 40-50, as if 39 was too young or 51 was too old). The women whom they find physically attractive get bookmarked on their favourites list. For the sake of this example, let’s say that there are thirty women on a man’s favourites list (although it’s often more, for young demographics in densely populated cities).

Now, who is he going to contact first? If he’s an average man, he’ll write to the hottest woman with whom he thinks he has a chance. Generally this means sending off twenty emails or winks to these women in a matter of minutes. Of course, none of them will write him back because their inboxes are full and his email was impersonal.

The guys then get a bit of a reality check. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still going to write to women, who are, on average, more attractive than they are. But this time, they’re going to actually read what the women wrote in their profiles. This is why a great profile serves two purposes: 1) it gives the guy his opening line and 2) it attracts the kind of guys who care about more than looks. Anyway, let’s say our fictional man whips out five semi-personal emails in a half-hour. And, to his surprise, one of the women writes back.

This is wonderful news, but it’s not wonderful enough to stop him from browsing more women online. Over the next few days, while corresponding with this one woman, he adds ten new women to his favorites list. And so it continues. He writes to hot women, gets ignored, and then writes to more obtainable women, with mixed results.

What this means is that there are women on his favorites list that he never emails – even though he thinks that they’re attractive. It’s not right, it’s not wrong. It’s just common, and worth understanding. Especially since one of those women might be you.

Having dated online for seven years, I can assure you that if one of these women wrote to me first, I’d be thrilled and flattered. In fact, my first three online girlfriends all initiated contact with me. So remember, before you write to that cute guy you’ve been eyeing: as long as you don’t lose power in that initial email (by fawning over him instead of coyly flirting with him), you will have gotten the ball rolling in an easy, low-stakes fashion.

Think of it like smiling at a guy at a bar so that he approaches you. You may have initiated contact, but he still has to make the first move.

For more advice from Evan please visit www.evanmarckatz.com.