The Lonely Leader

So Cuisine suggested I read The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene, and if you've been listening to our calls, you know all the drama that has ensued since I started reading it. I promised to post some quotes that apply to network marketing, and I will.

However, I ran across this interesting passage this morning, and I wanted to put it in here right away.

The book is divided into three sections. In the first section, you learn about different seducer types, the point being that one of them "resonates" with you--and that's your type. In the second section, you learn about different "victim" types--these are the different types of people that you will be seducing. The third section (which I have yet to read) describes exactly how to go about it.

I mentioned to Solid yesterday that I had been reading the victim types and didn't really find any correlation to what we're doing with this project concerning sales and network marketing. And then I came across the description of "The Lonely Leader." Here is what it says:

Powerful people are not necessarily different from everyone else, but they are treated differently, and this has a big effect on their personalities. Everyone around them tends to be fawning and courtierlike, to have an angle, to want something from them. This makes them suspicious and distrustful, and a little hard around the edges, but do not mistake the appearance for the reality: Lonely Leaders long to be seduced, to have someone break through their isolation and overwhelm them. The problem is that most people are too intimidated to try, or use the kind of tactics--flattery, charm--that they see through and despise. To seduce such types, it is better to act like their equal or even their superior--the kind of treatment they never get. If you are blunt with them you will seem genuine, and they will be touched--you care enough to be honest, even perhaps at some risk. (Being blunt with the powerful can be dangerous.) Lonely Leaders can be made emotional by inflicting some pain, followed by tenderness.

This is one of the hardest types to seduce, not only because they are suspicious but because their minds are burdened with cares and responsibilities. They have less mental space for a seduction. You will have to be patient and clever, slowly filling their minds with thoughts of you. Succeed, though, and you can gain power in turn, for in their loneliness they will come to depend on you. (page 179)

I found this passage so significant because we are always taught to look for "leaders" (Solid and I have talked about it as "top-down" recruiting), and yet often we are intimidated by these types--even me, who I would definitely put in the category as of one of them!

The people who fall into this category are the ones who will make the most money in network marketing. This passage gives us some guidance on how to reach them.

Rage to Master

This morning I felt impressed to write up the Rage to Master story that I have been using off and on for prospecting--I believe it's so powerful that I need to get it down on paper and use it consistently.

The history of this story is that a long time ago I read an article that talked about how the only thing that stands between us and success is persistance and a drive to succeed. I had since lost the article, and when I started thinking about it again in relation to Style's LMR story, I did some research to try an find it again.

I couldn't.

Instead, I found a body of research by Ellen Winner on gifted children, and so when I talked to prospects about the rage to master, I mentioned that she is the author of the concept.

BUT GUESS WHAT? This morning, I found the orginal article!!! Turns out the researcher is neuroscientist and medical doctor, Richard Restak--and he lives right here is Washington, DC!

It's so full of good stuff that I wish I could post the whole article here. For now, here's the link. Enjoy!

Diamond and Poo Video

Here's the video that I was telling Solid about on our call the other day. She had been talking to her son about "being yourself"--a term that PUAs shy away from and that I personally had had a hard time with: when I was "myself," I would say rude things and lose friends. On the PUA side, guys think, "Well clearly being myself doesn't work, because I can't get a girl!"

In this video, Jamie Smart uses a great analogy to describe why this happens and what it really means to "be yourself":

My Night Out With Cuisine, Part 2

Click here to read Part 1.

Well, last night was Knack's birthday party--I had an awesome time!! But more on that later...first I need to finish writing about my first night out with Cuisine...

So Cuisine was talking to his target, and I continued talking to the non-target. All the while, the non-target was "girl coding" to her friend. This term, coined by Mystery, refers to nonverbal cues girls give each other about the situation they're in: Things like, "Let's get out of here," "Rescue me from this guy," etc.

I heard Mystery use the term once on the show, but I don't remember him going into detail in his book or other materials, so I'm not sure how PUAs learn to read it.

However, as a girl myself, I am already fluent. So it was fascinating to me to observe it in action as I was talking to the non-target. In this case, she was coding to her friend (by continuing to turn her body toward her, look in her directin, and place her arm on her friend's arm): "I'm still here, I'm not leaving you, I can rescue you from this guy if you need me." Fortunately for Cuisine, the target was not coding back that she needed help.

Anyway, eventually Shelley and Penny showed up and said that they wanted to check out another part of the bar. I hated to leave Cuisine by himself, but I asked them what they had been doing this whole time and they said, "Standing over there in a corner by ourselves." Ack! Now I felt obligated to go help them meet some people. We decided to leave Penny with Cuisine, and Shelley and I headed downstairs.

I asked her who she wanted to meet and she pointed out a man in a blue shirt. He seemed to be by himself, but he was standing next to a group of about eight young guys, so I decided to open the big group, with the idea that I would merge him into the conversation.

So I went up and got the guys' attention with my opener--"My husband and I are having an argument I need help settling it." One of them turned and said "He's right!" I thought that was a pretty funny comeback and said that I hoped that the women he was asking told him the same thing!

Anyway, so I asked my question and passed around the notepad where I was tabulating the results. One of the guys was quite rude and said to his buddy, "How do you eat a v%^$#?" I said, "Hey--ladies present," to which he replied, "Yeah, so?" What a jerk!!!

Anyway, one of the guys was intrigued by the question and broke off from the group to tell me his Oreo "ritual"--and I mean RITUAL! He told me all about how he gets a pint of milk--"1%, not skim, not 2%"--and how a stack of Oreos from one of the big Costco bags contains exactly 14 Oreos, and one glass of milk lasts for precisely 7 Oreos, and how you take the Oreo in between your two fingers and dip it in the milk and hold it there for 4 seconds, so that when you eat it, it is half soft and half crunchy. It was a hoot! He told me he loves Oreos so much he is actually filming a documentary about the history of the Oreo! Ha ha ha!

During the discussion, Shelley had come in and she joined in somewhat, but mostly he was just telling me the whole story. At the end, we tried to leave and he said, "Wait, let me give you my email address!" And he proceeded to tell me that he wanted me to be in the movie and to email him. I couldn't believe it! What a riot.

Shelley and I headed back to our friends--Cuisine was there and we debriefed the set upstairs--that's when he told me about the name and height mistakes. He also told me that he had gotten the number in spite of my screw ups. Girl Candy and Smooth Virus had shown up by this time. Girl Candy lives in Cuisine's building and is not a true PUA, but "is very, very good," Cuisine says. Smooth Virus was one of the founders of the DC Lair and can be seen on the Knack Revelation videos.

My next assignment was to open a set for Penny...but I gotta run, so I'll have to write about that later.

My Night Out With Cuisine, Part 1

In just a few hours I am heading out for my second night out with Cuisine. Since I still haven't written about my first night out (despite having promised Solid on our call that I would have it done last Wednesday, not to mention the fact that it was over three weeks ago), I figure I had better get cracking!

Prior to going out I had prepared my opener--a topic I have used at parties for several years with good success: Oreos.

In the past, I had just used it as a conversation starter by asking "So how do you eat an Oreo?" when the conversation came to a stand still. But in reading Neil Strauss' Rules of the Game, I learned the value of opinion openers. And opinions that have to do with the difference between men and women are especially engaging.

Plus, Neil says it's important that your question has a "root"--that is, it's just weird to go up and ask a stranger's opinion on something. You must have a reason for asking.

So I made up a story that my husband and I had had an argument about whether it was a "guy" thing to just eat an oreo whole and that we were taking a survey. I was asking 20 men and he was somewhere else asking 20 women, and we were going to get together later to compare notes.

This was a great story, because first, it disqualified me--I said at the outset that I'm married, so they know I'm not hitting on them, I'm just there to have fun. And second, it sparked a whole fun conversation about Oreos, about men and women, about marriage/figthing in relationships, etc.

So I was excited as I headed into the city on the Metro (our subway). In fact, I was so excited that I considered asking some of the men that were on my train--but then I thought better of it. As these thoughts were going through my mind, I realized that one of the reasons women have a "bitch shield", as Mystery calls it, is simply SAFETY. This is a main reason why it is so important that men spend a lot of time comfort building before trying to make a move. A woman needs time to develop a sense of safety and security--this man is not going to rape her, beat her, take money from her, etc. He really is genuine. OK, I can let my guard down.

So anyway, I arrived in town to find that Cuisine had invited two other women (he told me he might). Neither of these were targets, but rather friends that could provide him with pre-selection value and were looking to meet men themselves. I was the only one in the group who was taken. ;o)

We talked on the street for awhile and strategized for a few minutes. I would be the one to open sets--of the three girls, I was the only who felt comfortable doing it. My primary job was to talk to and distract anyone who was not Cuisine's target. I would know who his target was because it would be the one he called "trouble." I would also be helping the other women meet men.

Two other PUAs were on their way, but we decided to head on in to our first bar without them.

The bar Cuisine chose was one that catered to an "older" crowd--which made me feel a lot better. I was concerned that I was going to be twice the age of all the people we met! Cuisine is 38, and one of the girls that came with us appeared to be in her 30s, so it was a good strategy.

The bar was on two levels, so first we went upstairs. Everyone hung up their coats and Shelley (the 30-something) and I headed to the bathroom--with a quick joke to Cuisine that it was real...not just "a girl thing"!

When we came out, Cuisine was already in a two-set, and just by his body language it was obvious who is target was. I knew my job was to distract the other girl, but I was caught off guard that he had already opened. How do I enter the set? I wasn't sure.

In the meantime, there was a 3-set of men between me and Cuisine. They were already opened up toward me, so I went ahead and approached them--they were my first Oreo guinea pigs! It worked quite well--in fact, a little too well...they kept wanting to talk to me, and I had to find an excuse to leave.

Eventually I managed to do so and made my way over to Cuisine's set. I just walked up and said hi and Cuisine introduced me to the two women. He made kind of a joke about which girl belonged to which name and said to them (about me) "Ah, she knows how f%@#'ed I am with names." I took up the game and said, "You mean he got it right? Wow!" Then I turned to Cuisine and said, "Right on!" and high-fived him.

Later during our debriefing, Cuisine told me that that was my first mistake of the evening--ack! He had already run a name routine with them and by making a joke out of it and high-fiving him, I had DLV'd him--that is, I had inadvertantly lowered his value in their eyes. Oops!

After we talked for a few minutes as a group, I started talking to the non-target as I was supposed to. I'm not sure how long we talked, but it seemed to me like a really long time. It surprised me, because I thought it would be a pretty quick matter for Cuisine to get the phone number. But in retrospect I realized that this is real life! The only experience I had was watching the TV show, which is full of editing.

My second mistake of the evening occurred when the non-target and I started talking about height. It started innocently enough--she mentioned that she had worked on the Obama campaign, and I asked her if she had ever met him. She said she had only seen him from a distance at the inaugural ball. I asked if he was tall, and her eyes got big and she said, "Yes, but then, I'm so short, everyone seems tall to me."

At that point I said, "Really, you're short?" (She was sitting on a bar stool and I was standing.) And I looked at her legs and her shoes--I knew that the ideal thing for Cuisine would be to get the non-target away from him and his target, so I was hoping when I did that she would stand up so I could see her and turn her back to them--but she didn't.

Instead, she said, "Well, compared to her," at which point she turned and brought her friend into the conversation.

I then said to the friend, "Oh, how tall are you?" She replied, I said something, and then I went back to talking with the non-target.

Cuisine and I would later argue about who actually said the words, "How tall are you?" I thought it was the friend, but I in retrospect I realized that Cuisine was right--I had been the one to actually ask the question. And it was a no-no because Cuisine is somewhat short and calling attention to that fact was another DLV.

Despite my two mess ups, Cuisine was eventually able to get his target's phone number, though I'll have to write about that another time. It's time to get ready for my second night out--this time I get to meet Knack, one of Mystery's right hand men at Venusion Arts.

Very exciting! :o)

Click here for Part 2.