If you think we’re friends, and you don’t meet this criteria, then you’re my fan. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate my fans, but do differentiate them from friends.

I’m certainly not above making new connections – I pride myself on being able to make friends quickly and easily – I just don’t have the capacity to devote time to friends if everyone is my friend.

Friends Vs. Fans

With the advances in transportation, communication and now the popularity of social networking it’s never been easier to keep in touch. Become popular enough, or a social networking whore, and you’ll have no time for anything but entertaining superficial relationships with fans and strangers.

If you’re not popular enough – or don’t have enough exposure to new people – then you’re in danger of settling for friends that don’t meet your own personal criteria. Deep connections with the wrong people can be just as bad as superficial connections with too many right people.

As you can probably already tell a happy medium exists somewhere in the equation. Make no mistake, you don’t want to compromise on the quality of the people that you surround yourself with. What you do want is to have an amount of people in your life that you can devote enough time to in order to maintain deep connections.

Certain friends require more maintenance than others. I have friends that I can call once every couple of months, we catch up and empower each other on our journey, and then go about our separate lives. Then there are friends that I keep up with weekly or even daily.

When things are not totally reciprocal, such as when a person with less connections wants to make friends with a very connected person, a phenomenon known as “fan” happens. One person might respect and admire the other, while the other might not have had the pleasure to find this out about them.

It’s important to realize when you are being a fan. If you’re a fan of too many people, you might not have enough time left over to nurture deep friendships and  still get your work done.

The solution is time management (or possibly friend management) and is a two-step process involving honesty and assertiveness. Be clear with people that you cannot devote time to them because you’re working towards a very important goal. At the same time, make it a point to not only devote time to your friends but really be with them and listen.

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
~Walter Winchell.

They say that sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down. The real friends, the ones that aren’t just fans, will come-a-knockin regardless of whether you’re up or down.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

If you’ve been away from someone you care about or love for at least two hours, the first 90-seconds that you see them has more impact on the relationship than spending hours with them later.

Pavlov’s Dogs

Damnit, he got me! It makes perfect sense (and resonates with me) if you look at it from a psychological perspective. Remember hearing about Pavlov and his salivating dogs? I studied psychology all throughout university, so I heard this story one too many times. Dr. Ivan Pavlov won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for this experiment.

We all know that dogs naturally salivate when you bring them food, if you don’t know, just try it. Ivan Pavlov inserted a special device that measured how much saliva a dog produced when food was brought to it. This was the control of the experiment.

Next, Dr. Pavlov added another factor. He synchronized a bell *dong*, with bringing the dog food. Surely the saliva level was the same. He continued to condition the dog repeatedly for some time by always giving the food and the *dong* together.

After doing this conditioning for enough time, Dr. Pavlov was able to force the dog to salivate by merely ringing the bell. Measuring the levels of saliva, they were significantly like the control, when the dog used to salivate over food. Pretty wild stuff right?

The scary part is that this could easily happen to us. And it does. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way, and the worst part is that we don’t always have the self-awareness to know that it’s happening to us. Not just wish salivating, but with EVERYTHING.

We’re Like Dogs Too

We’re like dogs too, in the sense that we can be conditioned for just about anything. Imagine everyday at school, in first period, the teacher walks in, yells at you, and smacks you in the back of the head with a ruler. What will your opinion be of this teacher? More interestingly, what will happen to your blood pressure and anxiety level as soon as she first walks through the door. This is not a good type of reinforcement.

Imagine at the start of your work day, your boss comes up to you and gives you a hearty greeting. Your boss praises you, and tells you not to hesitate to approach her, because it’s your bosses job to serve you, and you’re all working towards a mutual mission. Pretty good reinforcement eh?

90 Second Rule

What’s up with the whole “first 90 seconds” thing, what’s the significance in that? This is my take on it: At “first” our brain experiences a sense of novelty (a new experience), at which point we’re much more mentally stimulated, excited, and aware. After this, our brain gets used to the other person being there, and they’ve already had an opportunity to set an impression on us and set the tone to go in a certain direction.

The other reason is that when someone is gone, you miss them, and this is the opportunity to enjoy being reunited. When someone’s been by your side for 10 hours, you’re not really “missing them,” are you?

The 90 Second Rule video, created by Jim Fannin, is really simple, that’s what I like about it. Sure it stereotypes men as the bread winner, but surely we can look past that, in order to see a perfect illustration of the 90 second rule principles. Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dear readers, which relationships in your life do you think would most benefit from using the 90 second rule?

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

We’ve all heard the old adage, “you only have one chance to make a first impression”.  Well, nowhere is that more true than in dating.  Sure, there are people who have disastrous first dates but then somehow turn things around.  But, in general, a disastrous first date means that your chances with that person is over.

I wish I could give you step by step guidelines on where to go and what to say so that you’d be guaranteed to have a good first date, each and every time.  I can’t.  It’s just not possible. Bad dates are unavoidable, kind of like death and taxes.  But with the right planning you can be sure to have a lot fewer of them.

Key to planning your first date is realizing that your goal for the date should be pretty simple: you want to get to know each other just a little bit better and decide if you’d like to have another date.  Note – I didn’t say, to get laid.  That could happen, sure.  But I firmly believe that if you go into your date with that as your goal then your head is in the wrong place.  And, needless to say, if that’s your goal, these suggestions probably aren’t for you.

Let’s be honest, it really doesn’t take that much time to figure out if you’d like to get to know someone better.  Plus, a smart dater realizes that it takes a lot of first dates to meet a person you’d like to have a relationship with. Therefore, it makes sense to plan a short date, one that could be over in as little as 30 minutes if the two of you aren’t hitting it off.

Below are my Top 5 First Date Ideas

1. Meet for coffee or some other hot beverage. Try, if at all possible, to avoid the major chains unless you really do stop by Starbucks on a regular basis.
2. Go for a walk. I do this a lot during the summer.  Some of my best first dates have been for leisurely walks in the park.
3. Go out for ice cream/gelato. There’s a place I love to go that has indoor seating and another that’s walking distance from some pleasant park benches.  Sure this sounds old-fashioned, but I love ice cream and on a warm summer night this is pretty much my ideal date.
4. Go sightseeing in your own town. I’ve lived in NYC for most of my life but there are dozens of touristy things I’ve never done or haven’t done since I was a kid.  Depending on the season and my date’s interests I might suggest something random; for example, “riding the Staten Island Ferry, going to the San Gennaro Festival, visiting the Intrepid.
5. You can always just meet for a drink. Find a bar, lounge, pub or club that you like and that you feel comfortable in.  Make sure it’s not so crowded and/or loud that you can’t hear your date and vice versa.

Each of these ideas can be expanded on so that your date can be as long as you’d like it to be.  If you’re enjoying your walk, you can suggest stopping in somewhere for a drink or a bit to eat.  If you’ve met for coffee you can follow it up with a walk or a meal.  Drinks can easily turn into dinner.  Planning a short date doesn’t restrict you to a 30 minute window, but it does protect you against having to spend long periods of time with someone you don’t actually like.

SINgleGIRL writes on her site, Sex, Lies, and Dating in the City, which is a no holds barred, everything revealed, personal as you get, look at this anonymous woman.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

I’m going to keep it real and talk about a problem that has been the bane of my existence as I was growing up. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, I MIGHT be the only one, but I am guilty of sacrificing what I want, and who I am, in order to fit into a girl’s life.

Growing up most kids don’t have firm opinions on their own identity, where they’re going in life, or what moral stances are most important to them. I was no exception, and was easily swayed by peer pressure, which led to some bad decisions.

No decisions were as bad as the ones I made in order to please girls. I mentioned I didn’t have a FIRM moral stance on certain issues, but gray area or not, I had an intuitive feeling if something wasn’t ultimately right or wrong. The only thing that was easily swayed was my justification of things being okay to do “just this once.”

My Mistakes

In my escapades of trying to please girls I’ve gone through adopting a certain music and fashion sense, changing my hair, piercing my ear, traveling 2 hours in a ridiculously bad blizzard, buying them stuff, being nice to parents I didn’t particularly like, and putting up with their best-friends who were absolutely unfit to be friends with.

At one point I even smoked cigarettes because a girl who I was madly infatuated with smoked. We’d often go for a walk, or sit in the park, and smoke a few cigarettes while we talked. Eventually I’d even smoke when I wasn’t with her, which turned into a very unhealthy habit that my asthma hated me for.

An interesting thing to note is that during the periods of time where I was feeling the most desperate and needy, I actually got the most girls. This might be counter intuitive to what you thought I was about to say, but the truth is that at these lowest points of self-restraint and ‘standards’ I overplayed the numbers game and ended up with a few bottom of the rung girls.

It should be noted that while I might have gotten these girls, who were for sure of low standard and quality, this type of behavior never got me the high-quality girls, who I would ultimately go on to admire and have a super fun and healthy relationship with (such as current and best girlfriend ever!)

Yes, girls can sense when you’re needy, and it is actually quite repulsive, but the lowest quality girls are even needier and don’t seem to care. That’s why the high-quality girls, the ones that are actually worth your time, won’t usually fall for these low-level tactics.

My Revelation

When that starts to make sense in your own mind you realize that you have a few viable choices. You can continue your behavior and continue to pursue things that aren’t worth more than one night of your life, if that. Alternatively, you can change your state of mind, and ultimately your behavior, in order to become the type of person who is naturally attractive to the high value girls.

This is actually much easier to do than it sounds. I believe that we actually flip a switch in our mind when we make a decision and take action on it. For me that decision was to decide exactly the type of woman I want to marry, have children and build a life long passionate friendship with.

The main ingredient in what I did was to take action. The first step was to figure out what it was that I needed to do. I think that most people are able to figure out what type of questions they need to ask themselves with enough maturity and experience. I also think that anyone has the potential to take action on this information when given a chance and the right motivation.

I would love nothing more than for you to have the type of relationship that I have described, but unfortunately I can’t go to your house, ask you these questions, and motivate you to do what’s best for you. Trust me, I had a roommate in college who I couldn’t pursuade to take ANY action. I literally locked him in a room with a girl who was willing and able, and he ended up running out of the room scared.

Free Advice

Ultimately, if you want to go for bottom of the rung, or if you refuse to work on your confidence and social skills, then there isn’t anything I can do for you. On the other hand, if you do want to take your life into your hands, I’d like to give you some FREE advice.

I’ve taken what I learned since I started dating in sixth grade and I’ve written down the things that have worked for me. The important ones that got me the self-confidence, and skill, in order to get the girls that were not only the highest quality, but the best fit for me, and put them into my free ebook, for your reading pleasure, titled How to Get a Girlfriend.

The funny thing is that after you know the right questions, and you start filtering out girls and being selective, you will naturally be more confident, which will automatically make you more attractive to girls without compromising who you are.

If you’ve enjoyed this post, please vote for it on StumbleUpon. I appreciate it!

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Desperately seeking technical support!

I’m currently running the latest version of Girlfriend 5.0 and having some problems. I’ve been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 for years as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases have always conflicted with it. I hear that DrinkingBuddies won’t crash if you minimize Girlfriend with the sound off, but since I can’t find the switch to turn it off, I just run them separately and it works OK.

Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with Golfware, often trying to abort my Golf program with some sort of timing incompatibility. I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance with Girlfriend 2.0.

After months of conflicts, I consulted a friend who has experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn’t have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring upgrade to run properly. He was right. As soon as I purged my cache, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed a Girlfriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs were supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. After a hard drive clean up and thorough virus scan I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time using a SCSI probe and virus protection. It worked OK for a while until I discovered Girlfriend 1.0 wasn’t completely uninstalled!

I tried to run Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has an unadvertised feature that automatically senses the presence of Girlfriend 1.0 and communicates with it in some way, resulting in the immediate removal of both versions!

The version I have now works pretty well, but, like all versions, there are still some problems. The Girlfriend package is written in some obscure language that I can’t understand, much less reprogram. And I’ve never liked how Girlfriend is totally ‘object-oriented.’

A year ago, a friend upgraded his version to GirlfriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate-and-Stay resident version. He discovered GirlfriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don’t upgrade to Fiance9e 1.0. So he did. But soon after that, you have to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a ‘huge resource hog.’ It has taken up all his space, so he can’t load anything else. One of the primary reasons that he upgraded to Wife is because it came bundled with FreeSex 1.0. Well, it turns out that the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSex (particularly the new Plug and Play items he wanted to try). On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. And, although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw 1.0, which has an automatic popup feature he can’t turn off.

I told him to install Mistress 1.0, but he said that he heard that if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife, that Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won’t install anyway, due to insufficient resources. If anybody out there is able to offer technical advice…

If after reading this article you’re still considering dating, feel free to download my free ebook ‘How To Get A Girlfriend.‘

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As far as I know, this joke is in the public domain. If you know otherwise, please contact me.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

In this interview Dan and Jennifer from www.AskDanAndJennifer.com tell us how they started their online relationship media empire. They tell us how they’ve managed a safe and comfortable place for people from all over the world to ask and get answers for their most personal sex-love-relationship related questions.

Our friends also discuss their unorthodox relationship that is 9.5 years difference in age between the two of them with Jennifer being the older of the two. They also go into quite some detail about safe sex, to the point where I accuse Dan of working for Trojan/Lifestyles!

The dating-duo discuss the tipping point of their site taking off, as well as their amazing success on YouTube with their dating question and answer sessions. I then ask them the tough question of what will happen to AskDanAndJennifer if Dan and Jennifer break up!

If you’re currently dating, or interested in improving your already existing relationship, check out my free ebook, How To Get A Girlfriend.

Enjoy the podcast and feel free to leave feedback in the comment box below. I’d like to know if there is anyone you would like me to interview for future podcasts.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Back in the day, and you know a story is good when it starts with ‘back in the day‘, I started to read a lot of books on picking up women. It was the thing to do, all the cool kids were doing it. Anyway, I quickly realized that much of what was written in these books was geared for guys to improve themselves inside out.

There’s also the whole other side to ‘pick up‘, which involves silly carnival tricks, gimmicks, and pick up lines. That’s not the side that got me on the path of personal development, and it’s not the side that holds my interest today.

What makes this book different is that it’s not a guide for how to get a one night stand, or sleep with as many women as your ‘heart’ desires. It’s a look into the concepts and mentality of dating with the ultimate goal of marriage in mind.

Table of Contents

1. Preliminary Introspection
2. Building Confidence
3. Approaching
4. Communicating Powerfully
5. Asking Her Out
6. Dating Essentials
7. Recommended Resources

This book is both a 47 page compilation of some of my best relationship articles, as well as some original content written specifically for this ebook. The overall content has something for everybody.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this guide is for guys only. It’s not. While I do take the tone of speaking as a guy, to other guys, the actual book has a lot to offer to both species… ahem, genders.

Since this book speaks about interpersonal interactions, it can just as easily be applied to cultivating business relationships, not just personal ones.

Get Your Free Copy

This book is free of charge. No donations necessary. The only thing I’m going to ask is that you subscribe to my free newsletter, or subscribe to my RSS feed via feedreader or e-mail.

The reason I don’t put the download link right on this page is two fold. One is that I want to control download rate, and the other is that I want to increase the subscriber base of the site. You get free book, I get to provide you with free content in the future. Sounds like a good deal to me.

When you subscribe to my newsletter, you will receive an initial e-mail with a download link. If you’re already a subscriber, I will send out a broadcast e-mail with a link for you. When you subscribe through RSS, feedreader or e-mail, you’ll be able to find a download link at the bottom of the article.

You can sign up to the newsletter by clicking this link, or by entering your name and e-mail in the right hand side of the sidebar. You can sign up for RSS by clicking this link.

Acknowledgement

Big thanks goes to Joshua Denney, who has been my slave for the past 24 hours, working non-stop to get this ebook packaged to meet the deadline. You can e-mail him at Think Web Strategy for design inquiries.

There are more very special acknowledgments at the end of the book, but you’ll just have to download to see. Thank you very much to everyone who did help, and a big thank you to those who inspired me.

Huge thanks goes out to my readers. You give my life purpose each and every day, and I appreciate you tremendously.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

In our society, a concept like Shomer Negiah seems very strange. Premarital sex and the like has gone from frowned-upon act that was restricted to something of a sport. People use sex to not only feel good sexually, but to feel good about themselves. They look at it as both spoils of a conquest and an ego boost that gives a superficial sense of self-worth.

Touch Exploitation

Although sex is no longer reserved for marriage, love, and intimacy, the concept of the human touch as a powerful force has not slipped through the cracks of our society. For years I’ve read about people exploiting “kino” the warmth and closeness of touch, in order to create an artificial closeness with another human being.

This is often used by people that find a person they are attracted to, in order to magnify this attraction ten-fold and create an intense bond on false pretenses. It’s also used in business and other situations in which forging a bond is of benefit to one party or the other.

I don’t see anything wrong with bonding, creating relationships, or getting close to people. I think relationships of all sorts, shapes, and sizes are what we’re here to explore and experience. However, I believe that the power of touch is so powerful that it can leave us blinded to the true nature and intention of a person, leading us to make bad decisions based on this false “information.”

Hillary Clinton on Shomer Negiah

Rabbi Jonathan Shippel once told me an interesting anecdote. A group of Rabbis had an urgent need to speak with President Bill Clinton. Unfortunately, when they arrived unannounced at the white house, the President was away on business. Luckily for them, the first lady Hillary Clinton was in the office and invited the Rabbis in to hear them out.

When the Rabbis got up to the oval office they were greeted by Mrs. Clinton. It was business as usual, and Mrs. Clinton extended her arm for a handshake, but received a response that she wasn’t expecting. The Rabbi did not give her his hand. She was a bit thrown off, but in order to not embarrass her he immediately jumped in and said “Please do not be offended Mrs. Clinton, but because of our religious beliefs, I do not hold the hand of a member of the opposite sex.”

This ignited and peaked Mrs. Clinton’s curiosity. She immediately wanted to know the nature and reason behind having such a custom. The Rabbi explained that a man saves even the simplest touch for none other than his own wife. Mrs. Clinton responded “Wow, I wish Bill knew about this Shomer Negiah.”

Touching Correctly

In the concept of Shomer Negiah, there is a way to touch correctly; meaning with the best intentions, and with the best goal in mind. This goal is to make each touch more special, more profound, and more exclusive, so that each time you touch you’re enabling a connection on a powerful spiritual level.

1. Dating. Don’t touch during dating. You’ll just manipulate yourself, and drown in the extacy of oxytocin hormones swimming through your bodies, blinded to the fact that you may be dating someone that is less than an ideal fit (or even worse) for you. Date by getting to know if you can relate to the person, if you click, if they’re kind, and if your long term goals align (see non-negotiables of dating).

   Touching not only desensitizes you but actually limits the time that you spend discussing what you really do need to know about your significant other because you inadvertently begin to deem some things unnecessary. The physical connection will feel good regardless of compatibility anyway, and you may experience clouded judgment and make the wrong decision for you. Besides, if you are one who worries about testing the engine before committing, you should know that it is much easier to train a person in sex(the way you may want it), than to turn a perfectly unsuitable spouse into a great one.

2. Business. The most you can do is be conscious, meaning keep a watchful eye, for people that are overly touchy-feely during business encounters. If there are two equal deals, why do you pick one person over another, and why would you pick a lesser deal with one person (touch perhaps?).

   Physically proximity may give you the impression that you have a bond with this person, though no such thing really exists. You can do something more, by limiting your handshakes to people of the opposite sex only. Make sure you don’t offend them, and send them over to this article if you need to for explanations, or just tell them what you learned here.

3. Marriage. Shomer Negiah coincides very well with the idea of family purity in Judaism. During the week of a women’s menstrual flow, and the week after, the couple does not touch. This allows for the human need for withdrawal/reconnection to happen monthly by creating a small physical space. No sex, no touching, and if you have a small bed you can sleep in separate ones.

   This allows the reconnection, after two weeks, to feel a honeymoon all over again.I’m not saying you can’t have a perfectly healthy relationship without this rule, or that with this rule everything will be perfect in your relationship, but it does solve a very important issue. Everyone lives by withdrawal/reconnection as sure as there is gravity, and some couples tend to create spiritual, intellectual, and emotional distance, or create fights just so there can be a makeup session. By creating this small physical space, you can enjoy each other, and grow closer at the same time.

The Magic Touch

I recommend reading The Magic Touch: A Candid Look at the Jewish Approach To Relationships by Gila Manolson (Link 1 – Link 2). The book goes into great detail into to the “why” of Shomer Negiah and brings these concepts to life with not only her personal story but stories of her students, as well as biblical examples. I’m looking forward to meeting Mrs. Manolson in Har Nof, Jesusalem if the opportunity should present itself.

If you enjoy this post, please Stumble it in the Judaism category. Thank you!

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

It seems that we are always searching for what is sensible, logical, and politically correct. The older we become, the more such formalities encompass our thoughts and, surely, become us—our identities and traits are unshakable, arguably as they were, have been, and always will be.

Perhaps that is why children are often advised by their elder counterparts to discontinue their illogical, irrelevant pursuits through the utmost peeks of their imagination, in favor of what we believe is “realistic”. Children are silenced, their questions ignored, and their brilliance shunned, for truly they are living in the real world and they are yet unaware of this.

My parents had come home to me and told me about their friends’ undisciplined children. “They kept asking all of these unwarranted questions! The parents didn’t even stop them!”, and yet they did not fail to mention how smart they thought the children were, how observant, how expressive. Though they were not disciplined in the conventional sense, their unmitigated ability to speak and to ask had manifested the most profound capabilities in the realm of self expression. For when children are hushed, they limit their questions to necessities. They reject abstractions to please us, but what they are completely unaware of is that so many of us are hitting the snooze button every morning, hoping to avoid the kind of pathetic reality that we are forcing on them!

But this approach is condemnation. What is it with us and our desire to complicate the world? Why is it that fun is equivalent to unproductive and productive consists of what is un-fun?

And haven’t we all been there? Haven’t we felt so alive drawing, singing, dancing, acting, and listening to some half witted grownup telling us that we must stick to those ways of the world that they think they know so well?

So why are children so happy and grownups so miserable? Surely they do not have to pay the bills, watch what they eat, and be independent, but when was the last time YOU looked out the window and just found the deepest pleasure in seeing a squirrel, fluffy and nimble, or knelt down to pick a flower in the springtime. When we find ourselves so concerned with everything else, we forget that once these were the phenomena of our waking days. Why should we be the arbiters of their desensitization when so much what they employ can help us so greatly?

“Grown-ups can never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to have to explain things to them always and forever” ~ Antoine de Saint Exupéry (The Little Prince)

So what is it that we can learn from children? To name a few things:

1. They are happy to get up in the morning

I have a question for you. When was the last time you stayed up and watched the sun rise? Last summer I remember sitting with my two best friends, watching the sun rise, and feeling so alive. It is a brand new day and a brand new you. Who knows what the day may bring? Don’t miss out on all of the amazing opportunities before you, and take them with gratitude.

2. They do not want to go to sleep at night

Just like the morning, the night has its wonderful mysteries and romantic stories. Whether you spend some time with your family, take a bubble bath, or make love to your spouse, do not go straight to sleep all the time.

3. They play games!

Yes, they love to pretend, and somehow, it always works for them. They live a new life every day, and that life is what they choose to make of it. We can think of life as anything, there is no ultimate truth. When was the last time you played hide and seek without getting frustrated? I did today with my phone! Make little mishaps into games!

4. They know that they don’t know everything…they always ask questions

Stop being Mr. Knowitall. You don’t.

5. They take pleasure in the little things.

I think that at one point we stop thinking of getting treats as exciting ventures. Why? Probably because everything, including ice cream is so accessible. Make it a point to limit such commodities in order to really feel their value. Don’t eat your favorite unhealthy food for a week and then go get it. It will be so great!

6. They appreciate the big things that we seem to ignore.

The seasons, for instance. Could you imagine how amazing it is when a child sees snow for the first time? And the next? And children long for the glistening snow to make angels, the sparkling rain in which they play, the sunny days that they can spend outside in the park. Don’t ignore the child within, and stare in amazement the next time you encounter one of nature’s pleasures.

And remember, adults are just big children.

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Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

The end of relationship can be a difficult time for many people.  The sense of loss, the questions about what could have been, and the uncertainty about the future can be overwhelming at times.  However, there are many things you can do to help yourself cope.  In this article, I share 7 simple strategies.

1. Surround yourselves with friends

Your friends can offer wonderful support when you are feeling down.  They care about you and want to make sure that you are doing well.  Going out and having a fun time with the people that really care about you will keep you upbeat and positive.

Oftentimes when you are dating someone, the tendency can be to neglect the time you spend with your friends.  Fortunately, most friends are very understanding of this and won’t give you any slack when you come running back to them because are you are in need of some support.

Take full advantage of your friends’ generosity.  And remember: the next relationship you have, try not to neglect your friends so much.

2. Don’t play the blame game

When you’re feeling hurt or disappointed, it becomes very easy to play the blame game.  It’s very easy to list off your ex’s negative qualities and place on the blame on them.  Although this can feel satisfying in the moment – you get the ego trip of being the one who is “right” – it doesn’t really serve you to do this.

First, recognize that there are two sides to every story and, chances are, you share equal responsibility for why the relationship ended.  Don’t take it to the other extreme where you start blaming yourself incessantly.  The thoughts of “If only I did this instead” don’t really serve you either.  Completely blaming yourself is not a healthy thing to do.

Perhaps after some reflection, you can come to the realization that there is no blame required; that a relationship can end without it being anyone’s “fault.”  It takes a bit of maturity to realize that sometimes two people just aren’t compatible and things don’t always work out the way they do in Hollywood movies.

3. Heal Resentments and Hurts

You are probably going to want to be in another relationship in the future and, in order to give your next stab at the love the best possible chance, you want to start off with a clean slate.

Carrying unresolved anger and resentment into a future relationship will prevent it from developing on its own.  Unconscious fears that the same problems will occur as in the previous relationship will limit your ability to be present and authentic.

Instead, a healthier approach is to come to a place where you have forgiven any resentments you may have had and appreciate what you got out of that relationship.  Now, this can prove to be difficult to do at times, especially when you know you are right.  However, it is a beneficial step if you want to prevent similar problems from occurring in the future.

4. Reconnect with Yourself

When you are in a relationship, your sense of identity can get wrapped up in another person.  It can feel like your partner is a part of you.  This is precisely the reason that a breakup can hurt so much: you can feel like you have lost a part of yourself.

Being newly single provides you the opportunity to connect with yourself once again.  You can realize that you are whole and complete on your own – that you don’t need anyone to complete you.  From here, you can seek out another partner, not from a place of lack but from a place of wholeness.  As a nice side effect, this also makes you far more attractive.

5. Clarify What You Are Looking For

After the breakup, you can look back at the relationship and clearly define for yourself what you liked and didn’t like both about your partner and about the relationship.  Maybe they were physically attractive and intelligence but they were emotionally closed off and didn’t have a great sense of humor.

Take this time to really define what qualities are important for you in the opposite sex and what you are looking for in your next relationship.  The more clarity you have now, the more intelligent choices you can make in the future.

6. Appreciate the Lessons

With all the experiences of the previous relationship comes a giant database of experiences from which you can learn some valuable lessons.  Ask yourself the following questions:

• What did I learn from this relationship?
• What would I have done differently?  Why?
• What made me a great partner? What didn’t make me a great partner?

By reflecting on these questions, you open yourself to some great insights into yourself.  With these insights, comes the opportunity for massive personal growth.

7. Decide What You Want Next

Now that you are single again, decide what you would like next.  Do you want to stay single for a while?  Would you like to get into another relationship soon?  Do you just want to wait and see what happens?

Decide where you want to go from here.  Perhaps you have been neglecting other areas of your life.  Maybe it’s time to put your focus back on your career or work on your health and fitness.  Create a road map for moving forward.

Please share your own strategies for recovering from a breakup by commenting.

Anand Dhillon writes about personal development and self-mastery at AnandDhillon.com. For more by Anand, read the series How to Master Money & Wealth.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

At the time of this writing Hugh Hefner is 82 years old. He has slept with more beautiful women, by their own free will, than any other man in the history of the world. He must be doing something right.

No, having wild crazy sex is not every human beings idea of happiness, nor is it the only means to having a good time. In reality sex is among the lowest forms of pleasure, below love, below following a great cause, and below cultivating our own creative nature.

However, it does not escape me that many readers of this blog are men that wouldn’t mind having sex with hundreds of beautiful women throughout their life time. While not everyone can be Hef, there are certain things you can do to be a ladies man – similar to Hef.

Seven Steps To Pimp Like Hef

1. Create Your Own Universe.

“Life is too short to be living somebody else’s dream.”
~Hugh Hefner

We only have a short amount of time on this world. Both to take pleasure in everything around us, contribute to society, and live out our dreams.

When you set your own rules in life you become a charismatic ruler. Within your own universe you are the law. As far as you’re concerned you create your own destiny – you are man!

Besides, if all you do is try to live into someone else’s vision of a great life you’ll always miss your own great life. You’ll never take pleasure in what you have. You’ll never be you. However, I think anyone of us here would trade our left sock, at least, to live inside of Hef’s dream – am I wrong?

“Follow your own particular dreams. We are handed a life by peers, parents and society, you can do that or follow your own dreams. Life is short, be a dreamer but be a practical person.”
~Hugh Hefner

Nothing is more true than this. When we allow our peers, parents and society to dictate who we are, we aren’t even a person. We’re just a mushed together version of other people’s expectations. The lady man’s only expectations are the ones he places on himself. He is his own motivator and executor.

2. Aim To Please.

“I have about 100 pairs of pajamas. I like to see people dressed comfortably.”
~Hugh Hefner

A real ladies man cares about the comfort and well-being of the people that surround him. This includes taking extra steps to include the physical, emotional and perhaps even spiritual comfort of your ladies.

You can do this by being a good listener, by keeping them in good threads, or by letting them be without judgment and criticism. Of course it’s important to establish yourself as the source of their good feelings. That’s what keeps them coming back to you!

3. Act Like You’re Young, Even If You Aren’t.

“In many ways, I’m younger than I was 20 years ago”
~Hugh Hefner

People have an irrational fear of death in many forms, shapes and sizes. More so than being old, acting old can lead people to have an adverse outlook towards you because you are a representative of what’s old and decrepit. I personally don’t feel this way, I think age can be accompanied with wisdom and experience, which I personally revere highly.

Anyway, if you’re feeling young, despite your age, you are making the people around you feel much better. They’ll be drawn to your youthful energy and look forward to spending their time with you. You will become the source of all that is youthful, energetic and vital.

4. Take Up Space.

Hugh Hefner’s bed is huge and fits a good 7 people – comfortably! Come on, surely you can see the benefit of being able to fit 7 people in your bed, and if you can’t, I don’t know how you made it this far in the article.

With such a huge bed the possibilities are expansive. You can sleep sideways, diagonally, backwards, forwards, one leg up, one leg hanging off the couch, under the pillows, next to the pillows, on top of the pillows. The only limits are the ones set by your imagination.

The point. When you take up space you establish that you are a powerful force that others can look to for strength and calmness. The Ladies’ Man thing to do here would be to share some of this space with the women in your life – of course!

5. Live With Passion.

“I didn’t want to repeat my parents’ life. I saw in their lives a routine and a lack of dreaming, a lack of the possibilities, a lack of passion. And I didn’t want to live without passion.”
~Hugh Hefner

Passion is a contagious beast, and if you’re living your passion you’re leading by example. Hugh always talks about living the dream he had as a young boy. All that he does is for that boy. The magazine’s success? He edited it for himself, and in turn it became super popular with everyone that thought like him (which is every man and certain women).

“I remain very much connected to my childhood … I have never been too jaded or too sophisticated — it keeps me alive every day.”
~Hugh Hefner

You can live with passion, and it is passion that will make you live. What a great win-win situation. It just shows how being happy and not too serious increases the pleasure that we can extract from our day to day.

6. Break The Boundaries.

“One of the things I’ve tried to do with my life is redefine the boundaries that I think are very limiting. I’m not suggesting that everybody should have three girlfriends, or necessarily have girlfriends living with them. I think there are many, many options to living your life.”
~Hugh Hefner

You aren’t going to be the best version of yourself if you don’t allow yourself to be unique and original. In fact, you won’t be the best at anything, you’ll only be a good copy of someone successful, if you’re even so lucky.

How many times have we heard of the term ‘Think Outside The Box’? It’s an expression that means to think differently than you normally would, and/or to think different from mainstream thought. That’s what makes one unique, and being different in a good way is what separates the ladies’ man from the average chump.

7. Expand Your Brand. 

After working on the first edition of Playboy in his kitchen, and selling 50,000 copies off the bat, Hef went on to do great things. You can find everything from clubs, movies, television, radio, internet and every conceivable type of merchandise.

So how does this help you become a ladies man? Well, my curious grasshopper, once you’ve got a good thing going you can leverage it. This works not only for business but for your luck with women. The truth is dating, relationships, and other ‘related activities’ are largely based on a principle known as the numbers game.

When playing the numbers game it is important to understand that working and reworking your tactics, as well as tracking the progress, and then reworking again, is the name of the game. Once you’re known as a ladies man among some, it’s just a matter of the word getting out.

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In life there are certain things that you have to be right about — fact. When you’re performing open heart surgery, nursing a baby, racing at 180 miles per hour, or landing a passenger plane you need to be right. Being wrong would be a catastrophe. What I consider just as important as human life are the relationships that we have with other people.

However, despite being of equal value, life and relationships are not necessarily appreciated in quite the same respect. A person might be terrified of picking up a gun and killing another human being, even in self defense, but have no problem ignoring their mother for 30 years. A person may be against killing people even in video games, but keeps arguing with their spouse over ice cream for weeks on end.

There is clearly an imbalance. Why bother to care about human life if we don’t appreciate and nurture the relationships with those that are alive? I’m not suggesting to balance this out by starting to care just as little about human life. What i’m suggesting is that we become conscious of what our relationships really mean to us.

If you think about it, you really do value the people in your life. You value your family for being your family, your friends for being like your family but by choice, and your co-workers for putting up with you. The best way to show them that they matter, is by appreciating them and creating workability within the relationship.

“Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.”
~William James

8 Tips To Create Workability in Relationships

1. Love them. I’m not talking about the word ‘love’, i’m talking about the action. However you think it is appropriate to show someone you love them, so that they will have no doubt in their mind that you do, is the best way to do this. Saying I love you is important, but it’s important to follow through.
2. Listen attentively. Without waiting for your turn to talk, just listen, and ask questions (and then more questions) about what they’re saying to you. When I’m on the phone I like to close my eyes and listen to people so that I’m not being distracted by anything else. The attention is appreciated.
3. Forget Right. If you know in the bottom of your heart that you’re right and they’re wrong, it doesn’t mean you have to prove that to anyone. Consider that if you do prove them wrong they will me embarrassed, feel guilty, or resent you. It’s much easier to just drop it.
4. Acknowledge wrong. When you’re wrong, and we all are at one point or another (many times a day), it is important to just acknowledge that you are wrong. Clean up the mess and reclaim the integrity in your word. It’s not that words are cheap, it’s that people make words cheap, so make your word mean something.
5. No criticism. It’s always easy to criticize someone. This is a super-sensitive subject because you want to avoid causing someone embarrassment or providing criticism without a solution. Your criticism might also be not needed, not wanted, or unappreciated. If I see someone is harming other people in their life, I’ll ask if it’s okay for me to give them a constructive criticism, and only then will I proceed.
6. Don’t Interpret. What people do, all of us, is make an interpretation of what information means when we experience it with our senses. If your friend isn’t being very talkative you start to assume that they’re mad at you, or they’re tired. You may react by getting mad at them or being sad for them. What makes sense is to find out, by asking the person, what’s going on, or what they meant when they said something.
7. Do Not Embarrass. In the Jewish religion, and I’m not sure about other religions, it is considered that embarrassing someone is like killing their soul. After I heard that, I never ever wanted to embarrass someone again. It makes sense practically – nothing good ever comes out of embarrassing someone.
8. No Guilt Trips. Making someone guilty is not necessarily going to make them change their ways. They may very well think that you are a malicious person and get very defensive.

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“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.”
~John Donne

No matter how much you’ve worked on your self-control you cannot deny that people in your life influence you. We happen to be the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.

Spend one half of your time with your 4 friends and the other half with your spouse? It follows that you’ll be even more susceptible to influence from your spouse. This assimilation can lead to a blossoming healthy relationship, or take us into a downward spiral of self.

I’m personally not married, but I know how much time I spend with my girlfriend alone, and I observe how my parents and the parents of all my friends functions together. No where do I see couples where one person has a crap diet while the other is super healthy. With that said, let’s take a look at ways that we can get fit with our spouses.

1. Walk it out: The recommended minimum exercise is 3 times a week at 30 minutes a pop (depending on who you ask). You can take that a step further and go for walks after dinner or before bed every day of the week. A great time to talk and bond as well.
2. Couple’s sport: Find a couples sport, such as tennis, basketball, volleyball, etc. that you can play against with another couple you are friends with. This will encourage cooperation and teamwork strategies, which you’ll apply to other areas of your life, all while getting fit!
3. Crafting healthy meals: Getting caught without a healthy meal is like getting caught with your pants off (not from personal experience). Take the time to figure out who is going to be preparing what healthy meals so that you aren’t caught off guard with nothing healthy and forced to eat fast food.
4. Tossing the junk: If there’s no junk food in the house, you aren’t going to eat junk food in the house. Not keeping junk food in the house is a team effort if I’ve ever seen one. Make that decision together and keep healthy snacks like fruits, nuts, yogurts, and berries.
5. Enrolling your goals: If you have a certain weight loss or physical fitness goal don’t keep it to yourself. Keeping it to yourself is a sure fire way of losing motivation. On the other hand, if you share your goals with your significant other, they can keep you accountable and remind you when you’re slacking.
6. Sleep together: This isn’t what it sounds like (unless you want it to). Get on the same sleeping schedule so that neither of you is waking the other up. This will allow your body to function optimally, maximizing your sleep, and maximizing the use of your circadian rhythm.
7. Motivate (read: not criticize): There is a fine line between motivating your partner and making them feel like poop. The self-esteem has much to do with how we’re going to treat our bodies. Be kind, compassionate, and loving- this will help them grow into their goals instead of into those big clothes.

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Side note: I’m in the middle of finals week to finish up my master’s degree. I won’t be writing much through the 15th, but this is a great opportunity to write a guest article for this site if you have been thinking about it. It would mean getting your self-improvement message out to thousands of readers as well as getting some exposure for your site if you have one. Contact me, or check contribute page for details.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.”
~John Donne

No matter how much you’ve worked on your self-control you cannot deny that people in your life influence you. We happen to be the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.

Spend one half of your time with your 4 friends and the other half with your spouse? It follows that you’ll be even more susceptible to influence from your spouse. This assimilation can lead to a blossoming healthy relationship, or take us into a downward spiral.

I’m personally not married, but I know how much time I spend with my girlfriend alone, and I observe how my parents and the parents of all my friends functions together. No where do I see couples where one person is super happy and successful while the other is depressed and miserable. Such couples do not last.

Let’s take a look at some ways your spouse may be killing you softly:

1. Taking Away Your Health. It is pertinent to your health that your health goals are aligned with those of your spouse. Since you’re going to find yourself assimilating into each other to some degree you don’t want to be the healthy person that gets brought down by a food slob.

It’s important that you are agreeable as to what type of food you will have in the house, what type of places you will go out to eat, and what your nutritional and fitness values are.

2. Digging Into Your Wallet. Is it possible for one person to be a frugal saver while their spouse is a frivolous hyper consumer? Sure, if the saver is saving merely for the spending pleasure of the spouse.

If there are more serious saving goals, such as mortgage, investments, children’s education, than the hyper consumer lifestyle will be a burden on the overall financial health of this family unit. That is why it is important to be agreeable on financial goals, and the type of lifestyle that each spouse could expect to maintain, together.

3. Taking Away Your Dreams. Everyone in life has dreams, aspirations, and goals to do something, become someone, or go somewhere. Unfortunately for some these dreams haven’t been alive since they were a kid- we’ll have to address that in a different post. For the rest of us dreamers, it’s very important to discuss them as part of your non-negotiables before we even get into a serious relationship.

If you’re already in a relationship keep an eye on that spouse that bashes every vision that you dare to dream. The absolute pessimist that doesn’t let you breath. I’m not talking about the critical pessimist that won’t let you take the whole family saving and blow them on a hot stock. I’m talking about the one that won’t let you paint because they think you’ll never make something of yourself.

4. Taking Away Your Character. Do you consider yourself a nice person? What happens when day in and day out your spouse gossips, name-calls, and insults other people. Whether this is done in front of them, or behind their back, you are still being exposed to this type of mentality.

Whatever you resist persists, and if you let this behavior enter your mind, sooner or later you will also find yourself speaking like this.

What other areas of your life would you say your spouse is capable for ruining your life? Happiness, goals, values? I leave this article open for debate in the comments section below.

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“Let’s face it, the type of relationship you’re in can positively make or break you. Financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually the quality of your significant other can uplift and inspire you or rub your face into the dirt.”
~Alex Shalman

By the time you’re thinking about a break up the issue is staring you dead in the face. You’re heart is possibly wrapped in a noose, and you’re off planning your great escape. The problem occurs when you realize it’s not as easy as you thought to walk out that door. Powerful factors like guilt, fear and the risk of being on your own are burning in your chest. All very bad reasons to stay by the way.

If you were to ask me for my advice I might tell you that the best thing to do is go ‘cold turkey’, pack up your bags and leave without looking back. However, I’d be a bit if a hypocrite if I told you that, because I’ve had a couple of big break ups and that’s not exactly the method that I used. I know, it’s often much harder than it sounds.

Before we even begin discussing the awesome strategy that I have developed to end a relationship, and end up on the other side with your heart intact, I’m going to give you a powerful reason why you might want to leave for good. The number one reason to leave your sucky relationship is that the person that is absolutely perfect for you is out there, you just have to create them first.

The Perfect Partner: From Your Mind Into Your Arms

The person that would be the absolute perfect match for us, and be all that we desire lives within our imagination. This person can be manifested into reality as long as we make some powerful distinctions. This means we have to create a very vivid and precise image of what we want. In order to do this, take out a pen and paper and write down everything you’re looking for.

Here are some suggestions for categories:

1. Physical Appearance. While looks may not be number one, we’d be lieing to ourselves if we said we want to be with someone we aren’t attracted to. Write down the height, hair color, eye color, skin color and whatever else that you find yourself attracted to. This is your type and may vary as you have more than one.
2. Dominance. This is really important in relationships. Decide what you are and what you’re looking for.

“If you want real passion, you need a ravisher and a ravishee; otherwise, you just have two buddies who decide to rub genitals in bed.”
~David Deida (The Way of The Superior Man)

3. Finances. Not one of the most important things on my personal list, but everyone is different. Make sure you define if you want your ideal mate to be well off financially, struggling, dirt poor, or on the start of an ambitious journey.
4. Personality. Define if you want them to be easy to get along with, hard headed, responsible, virtuous, of high moral stature, or whatever else you prefer.

For a bigger list of things you might want to consider, look at the list of non-negotiables. By considering this before hand you can attract the person into your life that already has all the qualities you’re looking for. Remember the point is to make this person ideal for you, your tastes, and your deepest passions.

Once you’ve got this perfect person on paper, you can be certain they’re out there somewhere in the world. For me this was a compelling enough reason to leave, so it made the next part of this exercise much easier. Let’s take a look at check lists for getting out of that old “not-good-anymore” relationships.

Get Rid Of Your “Insignificant” Other: Pros and Cons on Steroids

So have you played that old game of taking out a sheet of paper and jotting a line down the center? You know, the one where you write the pros of staying with this person versus the cons of leaving them? You probably have used this method, and you aren’t the only one. I’ve been in this boat as well, and if you’re anything like me you’ve failed a few times with this process.

I’ll tell you why the traditional pros and cons list fails for getting out of a relationship. When you fill up the pros column with reasons to stay with the person, and the cons column with reasons to leave, it doesn’t really matter which list is bigger. What matters is that you will always tell yourself that you will find some way to overcome the cons in order to help the pros survive.

Did you just get that? That’s the psychological secret behind this method. In order to use it to your advantage all you have to do is reverse the order! Place the reasons to leave into the pros column, and the reasons to stay into the cons column. This way you’ll find yourself making more and more reasons in your mind how you can overcome the cons, in order to make the pros happen. Once you’ve convinced yourself, the actions follow.

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“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” ~Anthony Robbins

It’s no secret that most people would give an arm and a leg to be in a delicious and extraordinary relationship. A relationship where there is love, passion, and understanding. One in which both partners communicate, feel fulfilled, and are content in all their desires.

The problem is that many people either don’t have the tools, desire, or imagination to create such a relationship. The fact is that some people do not deserve such a relationship, and not because I think they’re a bad person, but because they just aren’t ready for it on some level. This type of relationship is truly off limits to some. That’s not to say that these limits can’t be reached.

In order to deserve and obtain this type of relationship, one must have achieved a certain level of development as a person. A level of communication, compassion, caring that for some might come naturally, and for others takes quite a bit of work. An article about that can be found here, because that’s not what this article is about. This article consists of steps to create an awesome relationship once you are ready to be in an awesome relationship.

12 Fun Ways To Enhance Your Relationships

1. The proactive listening game. When your partner is speaking, listen very attentively, ask questions to clarify, and restate what was said with the intention to understand better. When your partner feels understood, they will also feel appreciated, and satisfied, which will facilitate better communication. This will work out problems while they’re the size of peanuts instead of mountains. (more on proactive listening)
2. Don’t be the person that people lie to. Your reaction to people plays an enormous role in the amount of information that people disclose to you. If you take a level-headed approach, and respond carefully, you will almost certainly avoid being lied to by the people in your life. Honesty can than truly be the best policy. (more on handling being lied to and detecting lies)
3. Share a bucket list. Create a running list of things to do, places to experience, and goals to accomplish. I’m talking about things to do together, with you and your partner. They give you something to anticipate with excitement and plan together. (more on bucket lists)
4. Share each others strong suits. During dinner, or any quite and intimate time together, take the time to tell your partner what you admire about them. You can tell them about those special things that you admire and adore about them. Extra points if you mention something they didn’t know about themselves.
5. Get complete, ASAP and on schedule. If you have a grievance with your partner, or suspect that your partner has some issue with you, talk to them and work it out as soon as possible. You’ll feel much lighter without the bitterness associated with holding on to negative thoughts. You can also schedule an end of the week/month/year session in which you clear things up and make sure there are no misunderstandings about anything.
6. Drop the rackets, kill the ego. Rackets are those stories we keep running in our minds, that may or may not be true, but don’t bring a positive addition to the outcome. You may be right, but it may not benefit your relationship with your partner. This is where you decide the relationship is more important than your ego, and get off it.
7. You’re together, accept each other. Here’s the thing about criticism. In almost every situation you have no right giving it. If you have an urgent need to express a criticism it needs to be constructive, tactfully presented, with compassion in mind and most importantly with a strategic solution to what can be done about this issue (don’t leave them hanging.)
8. Do NOT play the blame game. This right in line with number 6. It’s never about being right or wrong, and the time spent arguing is never worth it and cannot be gotten back. Taking responsibility, and moving on to bigger better things as soon as possible will make life awesome.
9. Share The Landmark Forum. When Marina and I did the landmark forum together, it brought our extraordinary relationship to new heights that I didn’t expect. At the point I couldn’t even imagine getting any closer to her, despite the fact that we were getting closer each day. As an example, if our relationship was at a 15 out of 10 already, it hit 30 over the course of a weekend. I would say that we got our money’s worth. (more on landmark forum)
10. Learn & have adventures together. There is a limitless amount of activities you can share together, or things you can learn together. Sharing in experiences, and creating great memories, provides great things to go back to when you’re having intimate reflections on life. Better to fill life up with pleasant moments to reflect upon than otherwise.
11. Pet the puppy. A term I picked up a long time ago, and recently heard again from Susan Rink. To Pet the puppy, all you need to do is acknowledge, and let your partner know you appreciate them, when they do a something nice, or go out of their way for you. You can never appreciate someone too much, so don’t hold back. (more on pet the puppy)
12. Discuss Your Non-Negotiables. This should be done within the first few dates. Put everything on the table that you aren’t willing to budge from in your life, such as where you want to live, if you want to have kids, and what type of lifestyle you expect to have. These things are crucial! (more on non-negotiables)

“I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.” -Woody Allen

Once you have created your delicious relationship, and want to go longer than 12 minutes, you can check out 500 Love Making Tips. You can learn all of this with just a life time of experience, if you’re lucky, or as I always say ‘why reinvent the wheel?’
What are your ideas for creating a delicious relationship? Share the comments section below.

As always, if you like the article, please share it on StumbleUpon and bookmark on del.icio.us. I would appreciate it!

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land, there is no other life but this.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Have you ever wondered what would be possible if you could press a button and stop time? With time stopped you would be able to squeeze as much pleasure out of every morsel of food, delicious kiss, majestic mountain or awe inspiring sunrise. These are things that most of us rush through in life, because we’re too busy, or off chasing the next best thing. We never find the next best thing, because we’re always searching, instead of appreciating all the pleasures that life has already laid out for us.

Today I share with you the secret of forgetting the past, eliminating the future, all within the only time which really exists- now. The key is to recognize what pleasure really is, because if we can see what it truly is, we can truly stop, become present, and enjoy it. Keep reading to learn the identity of the 5 levels of pleasure of human existence.

The Five Levels of Pleasure Worth Being Present For

5. Physical and Material Pleasure

This level of pleasure is one that we all enjoy, it’s anything that we experience with our fives senses. Such as delicious food, great music, a great view, beautiful clothes, a pleasant perfume. The awesome thing is that this is just the beginning, and actually the lowest of the five levels of pleasure. So if you like this it’s just going to get better! But wait, the point is to really stay present and enjoy this level too!

In order to squeeze the most out of the fifth level of pleasure:

1. Enjoy Your Taste. This world is absolutely full of foods and drinks that have an awesome taste. It’s considered a sin to not try a new fruit, because we are lucky enough to have all these amazing fruits, instead of nutrient filled yuck. So it is our duty to try the fruits, the wines, and even the cakes that are available to us. By chewing the food slowly, we can savor every morsel, and enjoy this basic pleasure that is available to us.
2. Enjoy Your Hearing. Our ears are such an incredible sense. It allows us to hear a great symphony, the cries of our young child, the intimate whispers of our significant other, and to even find our way around in the dark. It is our duty to enjoy great music and great conversations, without thinking about where we need to go to next.
3. Enjoy Your Touch. Our skin, fingers and loins were all meant to touch, feel, and experience the pleasures of our lives. We’re meant to touch every fabric, play with every new texture, and experience every nuance of loving and embracing each other.
4. Enjoy Your Sight. The world isn’t one big flat desert. No, it’s full of beautiful trees, flowers, gardens, animals, people, sunrises, buildings, paintings, and colors. It is our obligation to appreciate our eyes and look at and enjoy all of these creations.
5. Enjoy Your Smell. Our strongest sense is our sense of smell, yet we often take it for granted by not smelling every amazing thing we can get our noses on. There are an infinite number of aromas for us to choose from, from natures flowers, to man’s pastries and perfumes, we can smell to our hearts desires. Nothing forges a stronger memory in our mind than smell, so smell, and associate that smell with all things great.
6. Enjoy Your Possessions. Whether it’s your money, cars, clothes, jewelry, vacation, or home, enjoy it and do not take it for granted. You don’t always need the bigger, newer thing. By mastering the art of enjoying what you have, you’ll never feel need, and you’ll always be happy where you are.

4. Love (not Infatuation)

Infatuation is merely a physical attraction, and it leaves us just as easily as it comes to us. That’s not what love is, real love is pretty permanent. You wouldn’t expect a parent to stop loving their children, would you? The little secret about real love is that it’s not completely simple and easy. It takes making a commitment to each other, REALLY getting to know each other, and investing yourself by putting time and effort into creating a beautiful, delicious relationship. The goal of course is to create a life time of passionate friendship with the person you love.

In order to squeeze the most out of the fourth level of pleasure:

1. Get To Know Them. Whether it’s your parents, grandparents, siblings, children or significant other the greatest gift you could give them is to listen to them, get to know them, let them express themselves, and support them. You cannot give them full support unless you know what they really want and to find that out you will need to be a proactive listener.
2. Learn Together. To make ourselves better is an underlying purpose of our existence. To share this with another, to learn together, to grow together physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually is a magnificent bond forming activity. With every book, class, workshop, talk, experience, journey, or adventure you co-create a relationship that is deeper and stronger than it was before.
3. Talk Intimately. Couples often talk for hours when they first meet, but sometimes stop as the novelty of the person wears off. This is where you need to get aware of this and bring the conversations back. Bring them back with family and friends you haven’t talked to in awhile. Don’t just check in to see how today was, check in to see what they’re dreams are and what they’re grateful for.
4. Kiss and Embrace. Make some eye contact and really embrace each other. Not only is hugging an excellent bond, but when you hug your brain releases oxytocin, a chemical that’s also associated with touch and orgasms. Don’t rush your kisses, but stop what you’re doing and enjoy that kiss with the person you love. It’s such a great way to enjoy each other, relieve stress, build self-esteem, and feel well all around.
5. Share Sex. So you might want to wait until you are married, but whenever IT happens, you are now sharing one of life’s greatest physical pleasures together. I feel like the more people you have sex with, the more you are desensitized to sex as a more meaningful connection. Let’s just take the romance out of it for a moment and say that sex is just sex, when you’re hot you’re hot, and when you’re not you’re not. The pleasure that you do share when you’re both hot can be tremendous, and should be shared together often.

3. A Great Cause

It’s hard to imagine giving up true love for anything. Surely no amount of money would justify giving away the love of our life, or our beloved child, right? Well that’s not exactly true. We would give up love, children and even our family for a greater cause. In fact, people would do a whole lot in order to live out their life purpose, or to do something that they believe to be the greatest good.

In order to squeeze the most out of the third level of pleasure:

1. Save a Life. This doesn’t mean you have to find someone that’s currently drowning, not literally that is. You can save a life by changing a life, and you can do that by listening, being supportive, offering your time, money, and love in order to feed, empower, educate or in any way enrich someone’s life. Few things are more fulfilling than saving a life.
2. Create Peace. I’m not talking about joining an army and “creating peace”, there are many more passive ways, ways that can bring peace to your nation, and all nations of the world. It includes ending the prejudice, racism, and hate within yourself. Just within yourself. If everyone did this just within themselves than we would have no alternative but peace, right?
3. Feed The Hungry. Buy, make, or grow some food for a hungry family. How fulfilling would it be if you found a way to end hunger for hundreds of thousands, millions… all the people in the world? With the amount of food that is wasted, thrown out, or allowed to spoil, we have enough to make sure all the hungry mouths in the world are fed. Even better than giving them food is to teach them how to grow and obtain their own.
4. Promote Education. Illiteracy plagues many places in the world. You could mentor, tutor, and find many other ways to donate your time and money to promote education in all parts of the world. Higher education among everyone in the world will likely solve many of the other problems, don’t you think?
5. Promote CANI. CANI means Constant and Never-ending Improvement. It’s one of the things I have commitment myself to doing every day of my life. If you, and everyone you know, and everyone they know, etc. participate in making themselves better, than the rest of the world will follow. It starts with one person, and it spreads when you lead by example.

2. The Power To Create

The power to create is above physical pleasures, above love, above fighting for a great cause. If you believe in God than the reason is that God is the ultimate creator, and by creating, you are getting as close to God’s essence as humanly possible. If you aren’t a believer, than think of creation as the ultimate act of self-control, where your mind and body are in sync to produce a unique result.

In order to squeeze the most out of the second level of pleasure:

1. Paint, Draw, or Sculpt. Your mind takes all of it’s experiences and sights, and creates a unique image. You then use your hand and fingers to translate that idea into a real viable painting or sculpture. Congratulations, you have just used the power of self-control in order to create. This act of creation is a high level of pleasure.
2. Write Anything. Just put the pen to the paper and start writing. Your experience, knowledge, and ideas will create a new world inside of the realm of your paper. You can transfer monumental ideas, as I try to do with this article, to thousands, if not millions of people.
3. Cook a Dish. The power of creating food is often over looked, or dumbed down, by the majority of people who think that food is simply fuel for the body. The few that realize the creative genius that can go into preparing a meal, and considering all the intricacies involved, get to enjoy this pleasure the most.
4. Tend a Garden. It’s easy enough that nearly anyone can do it, yet it delivers a high level of fulfillment and pleasure. Tend a garden and create life from a seedling into a flower, a fruit, a vegetable, or a big old tree! You get to watch the life and growth of something you yourself put into the soil and took care of.
5. Raise a Child Well. While having the baby is one of the easiest things we can do (especially guys), raising this child to be an intelligent, healthy, happy, and well-intentioned human being is a tremendous effort and a cause that many people give their life for. It is, and if it isn’t, it should be, every parents goal.

1. A Touch of God

After mastering the other four levels of pleasure there aren’t that many new things from which you can gain fulfillment. You can repeatedly do 5-2, and you’ll like it, but you’ll also seek the ultimate pleasure, which is not just to know the true origin of existence, but to encounter God, source, oneness or whatever it is that you believe in as a superior force.

In order to squeeze the most out of the first level of pleasure:

1. Practice Gratitude. This takes the cake as far as creating pleasure in our lives. To be able to really appreciate, and be thankful for all our senses, and the beauty that we are able to experience due to this unique ability. Wake up feeling like a little kid, just bursting out of bed and ready to live!
2. Commit to The Great Good. One of the things that I believe to bring the highest level of pleasure is to believe that all people are part of one entity, or unit. From that belief we can commit to improving ourselves, but also to do things for the greatest good of all.
3. Know It’s Not Just Us. Recognize that you are part of this beautiful world, and that this world is not entirely created by you. You only have power of your present, but you have to appreciate your mortality, humanity, and the scope of the world. Be humbled by this force, whatever it is, that has such a tremendous power to create. Allow yourself to be glorified by the gift that was bared for you and not by a feasible hand.

By the way the cool watch you see in the picture above is The Now Watch. I love it because it’s a constant reminder to stop, slow down and enjoy the many pleasures that life has to offer. Instead of letting my mind wander in the past, or get lost in the future, this watch gives me laser sharp focus on the present and appreciate the beauty that is all around me.

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Update: I’ve had lecture and discussion on this very topic on many occasions, so I did not know what the primary source was, but it was nice of Nechemia to point out that it was in fact an Aish idea. Head over there to see a great article on pleasure.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

The problem with dating today is that it can be very superficial. People find themselves attracted to looks, money or status, but they often overlook the other, more important things that hold relationships together. Eventually this oversight ends up being unavoidable, which is one of the factors that influences the huge divorce rate world wide.

It’s clear that breaking up is with someone you care about, or committed a lot of time to is never easy. Frankly it can result in a severe emotional shock which can carry over into other aspects of life, as well as future relationships. Why not avoid this pain? Seems easier than having to break free when a relationship is crumbling.

One of the secrets to creating an extraordinary relationship is to know what you’re getting into before making a huge commitment. As a person you have certain goals, morals and ideals for the way you want your life to go. Some are flexible, while others are non-negotiable.

If we could determine what each others non-negotiables are before jumping into a commitment, then surely we could avoid some of the pain that is involved in breaking up. Dating serves as an interview process for marriage. In one sense we are dating to find out what we like, and don’t like. On the other hand, we know what we like, more than we are willing to admit. Write down you non-negotiables, and discuss them within the first couple of dates.

Keep reading to find out more about non-negotiables.

Dating To Commit Rule #1: Put Your Non-Negotiables On The Table

1. Children. Do you want them? How many? What kind of lifestyle do we need to have, and how are we willing to adjust in order to give the kids enough love and attention? Who will raise the children? Will they be raised with a religious affiliation?
2. Demographics. Where do you plan to live? Where do you plan to work? How do you feel about relocating?
3. Finances. Who will be the bread winner? What will the money be spent on? What kind of lifestyle are you expecting to have? Who will control the finances?
4. Sexuality. How do you feel about and view sex? Are you open to experimenting?
5. Communication. How do you deal with arguments? Will you argue in public and in front of your children (if you have any)? How often do you need to talk to feel reassured? Is there anything you need to tell me, in order for me to understand you better? Do you need a cooling off period, space, to talk things out?
6. Parenting. Where will the kids go to school? How will conflict be handled in front of the kids? How will they be disciplined? What would you like to provide for them? School, private education, cars, extra-curricular activities?
7. In-laws. I heard an anecdote not too long ago about the difference between in-laws and outlaws. The difference is between the two is that the outlaws are wanted… (back on topic now) Will the in-laws live with us? Will they help in raising the children? How often will we visit them? How close will we live to them? To what extent are you willing to take advice from the in-laws?
8. Leisure time. What is your ideal way to relax and blow off steam? How many vacations do you want and where? Do you want to travel the world? How do you like to spend your days off?
9. Spirituality/Religion. Are you actively observing a religion? Which part of your participation in your religion is a non-negotiable? Do you need me to convert to your religion? Do you like to take part in yoga or meditation? What religious values will you instill in your children, and will you be willing to raise the children with mixed beliefs?
10. Expectations. Income, status, lifestyle, sex, love, pets?
11. Chores. How do you want to distribute the chores? How will these ideas be instilled in our children?
12. Morals. Do you consume alcohol, drugs, tobacco? Are you willing to stop? What do you feel about abortion, euthanasia, medical marijuana? Are you willing to live with someone who may have different views?
13. Affection. Do you like to be kissed, cuddled, massaged, bathed, spoken to in a particular way, etc?

Now you might find that you don’t have answers to these questions, or are very flexible. That just means it’s a non-negotiable for you. On the other hand, you might have some non-negotiables that are not on this list. Please share them in the comments section!

If you like this post, please give it a stumble. I appreciate it! =)

Photo by banoootah_qtr.

Credit: I first learned about Non-negotiables from Kimber Sherman, at which point Marina and I brain-stormed to give you this list. We didn’t talk about our non-negotiables when we first met, but lucky for us we’re very compatible!

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

While hanky panky can be a fun, intimate, and even orgasmic experience, it can also be your demise if you have a deadline to complete, need some rest, or some quality alone time. This is why, for the sake of productivity, I have carefully compiled a list to help you stay on point, and keep the girlfriend at a distance.

1. Backup your database. We all know this sounds like an easy task, but really it can take up to half a day. Plenty of time to keep the girlfriend salivating for hanky pank.

2. Tell her the truth. We all know honesty is the best policy, so when she asks, honestly tell her that her shoes are ugly. Ok, actually this might permanently delay hanky panky.

3. Going out with the boys. When she asks how come you go out with the boys so much, tell her they’re more fun. 9 times out of 10, she’ll reply with “then let the boys sex you up!”

4. Go to the gym. If you work out hard enough, you’ll be too tired for hanky panky, and at least you’ll have a good excuse.

5. Eat 2 cloves of garlic. Garlic is a healthy vegetable that fights off bacteria, viruses, and even fungi. Current research shows that it also wards off several strands of hanky panky.

6. Rent sexy and the city. Put on a marathon of sex and the city in the living room. This will keep the girlfriend pre-occupied for several hours, giving you plenty of time to get things done, and ultimately delay hanky panky.

7. Shower schedule. By making your personal shower schedule be once a month, you will likely make the likely hood of being afflicted by hanky panky also be once a month. These are great monthly bursts of productivity, without the girlfriend interrupting.

This post was inspired by Nate Whitehill. Nate delays hanky panky for months at a time in order to maintain a clear mental state and steady profits. Thanks to John Chow for contributing to the list.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

The idea of the bucket list, which is like the gotta get goals list that so many of us participated in writing months ago, is not a new one at all. In fact, I just got back from watching The Bucket List, a movie staring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, in which the pair team up to complete their very own bucket list.

I’m hoping that unlike the movie, most of the people here are not quite ready to kick the bucket and aren’t reading this on their death bed. I still think it’s important to have a bucket list that is time sensitive, except I suggest using this year as the deadline, and not the end of your life.

Having a partner to do the bucket list with you is an absolutely amazing way to strengthen a bond, forging what could be a life long friendship. Not only will you share the experience of persevering and meeting your goals, but you’ll gain some great memories in the process.

The number one most important thing about having an accomplice join you on your bucket list adventures is that you’ll have something to look forward to together. In fact, looking forward to something is a unique human ability that is also known as hope.

The reason why having a mutual bucket list, aside from your own personal bucket list is important is quite fundamental. When you share a mutual goal, your daily conversations will be geared toward the future goal, and toward the current steps necessary to accomplish this goal. Gossip, complaining, and other futile conversation will take a back seat, as you plan and work toward achieving your goals.

What a bucket list can do for your relationship is make you a team in the game of life. On the same team, your synergy will fuel and strengthen not only your efforts, but your friendship as well. This works doubly for romantic relationships.

Creating A Bucket List

1. Remember that you’re a team. You will have equal input on what will go into the bucket list in order to make it fair and enjoyable for both parties involved. Either pick all items that are mutually enjoyable, or divide individually enjoyable items equally. This way you can do things for the sake of your partner, but have them do the same in return.
2. Brain storm categories. Sit down with your pen and paper, or laptop as we did, and make a list of categories to fill your bucket list with. For example, some of the categories we started to think of today were travel, fun, dining, and personal development.
3. Brain storm specifics. After making up our first four initial categories we started to populate them. Just to give you a quick scenario, here is an abridged version of some of the things we want to accomplish for 2008 together.
   1. Travel
      1. Kiev/Israel/Riga and (Italy or France)
   2. Fun
      1. Carriage ride in central park
      2. Sky diving
   3. Dining
      1. French Restaurant (Brooklyn Heights)
      2. Max Brenner (Triple Date)
      3. Sawa (Pier Village)
      4. Moracan Food (NYC)
   4. Personal Development
      1. Do 13 week Benjamin Franklin challenge together.
      2. Make personal development videos
      3. Start a personal development club at school.
4. Let it sit for awhile. It’s important that after creating a bucket list, you walk away from it and let it sit for awhile. This will give your mind a chance to get excited about it, and come back to it with a fresh head.
5. Get a realistic game plan. On one hand, you want to think in practical terms as far as scheduling and budget. On the other hand, you want to pretend that this is your last chance to accomplish your dreams. In fact, this pretending isn’t all that impractical, because if you don’t do it now (it’s always now), than you’ll likely never do it.

Keep in mind that a bucket list can be done alone, with a significant other, and with a friend. You can have multiple bucket lists running at the same time, so don’t limit yourself. Each item on your bucket list could be:

• something you’ve always wanted to do
• a fun adventure
• something you want to say you did before you died
• something that adds to the depth of your character and makes you a more interesting person
• or anything else you want to do.

A bucket list is not something you want to limit yourself in, so shoot for the stars. You want to completely go out of your comfort zone with this exercise, but still set goals that are attainable for you. If you truly believe that the moon is attainable for you this year, than put it on your list and start dialing NASA.

Don’t put off things you can do this year until the next. Next year you’ll think of adventures that are different and even more fun.

Who is going to be your bucket list partner? What’s on your bucket list?

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

{Disclamer: Definition of what a winning person is may differ}

I happen to think that a winning personality is someone that is trusted, loved, and respected. To you, it may mean someone who is rich, charismatic, or successful. We won’t dwell on semantics during this post, and just stick to my initial definition. In order to have a winning personality, it is of utmost importance to have everyone’s best interest in mind.

Qualities of a winning personality

1. Exhibit integrity (via wiki)

One is said to have integrity to the extent that everything he does and believes is based on the same core set of values. While those values may change, it is their consistency with each other and with the person’s actions that determine his integrity.

2. Do not speak badly of others

When you confide in a friend and speak badly of others, what’s to say that you won’t speak badly about the friend to someone else? When you establish yourself as someone that does not speak badly, you will find that more people confide in you.

3. Stay optimistic

I don’t mean blindly optimistic where you think it’ll rain money tomorrow. I’m talking about putting aside what’s going wrong in order to focus on what’s important and stay on course.

4. Help others when you can

They say you don’t know how much money you have until you give it away. I think the same goes for knowledge and all of our abilities in general. I think part of our purpose in developing ourselves, our skills and talents is to be able to share it.

5. High ambitions

This is one of the most contagious qualities. The reason is that your dreams or goals not only bring you hope, but hope to the people around you. You enroll (or recruit) them into this dream, and it inspires and motivates them to dream goals of their own.

6. Kind and compassionate

One of the most important qualities a person can possess. The ability to feel the suffering of others, and to care and possibly do something about it. If you think it sucks to feel someone else’s pain in addition to your own, you can also consider the feeling of unlimited love and joy that others experience as well.

7. Believe in and respect yourself

If you don’t respect yourself, you can’t honestly expect others to do it. When you make decisions, with love and respect of yourself in mind, you’ll be pleased to see yourself taking action on a higher level.

8. Persist until you succeed

Being ambitious is not enough. In The Hidden Secret in Think and Grow Rich, Brian Kim talks about persistence as the key to succeeding. It’s when you fall down, realize that your set back is a lesson learned, and get up to persevere.

9. Open mindedness

If you aren’t open minded, than your set in your ways, doomed to never discover a newer and better way. Than again, you might already know everything you need to do to be happy (you are special!)

10. Take responsibility

Blaming others doesn’t really solve problems. A person with a winning personality will take responsibility for what happened and take measures to prevent the situation from repeating itself.

When you constantly exhibit the above qualities, you will be forging a name for yourself as a person with a winning personality. A winning personality will not only enrich your own life, but also open many doors for you as you interact with others.

Eventually things catch up to you. If you’re known as a crook than the people around you will figure you out and distrust you. If you’re a person of integrity, than people around you will trust and confide in you. How would having a winning personality affect you in business and relationships?

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Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

The time in my life when I got serious about personal development started on the tail end of me studying books on how to pickup women. The whole pickup world became a fun hobby for me and several of my friends, so we ended up reading a few more books than one would deem… healthy. Regardless, it wasn’t long before I realized what the underlying message in these books was, or at least the message that I got out of them.

Become a better you that is more interesting, and more valuable. Pickup is a great way to build confidence and propel people into social interactions that they may not have had the nerve to get into before. In a way, pickup teaches you not to just be socially competent, but excel in all social interactions.

The problem with being just a set of techniques is that after 20 minutes of performing captivating maneuvers to capture the attention and interest of women you will have to start being yourself. Whatever it is that is unique and amazing about you as a person will have to shine eventually.

Neil Strauss, a best selling author and master pickup artist, wrote two books that were of particular interest to me. The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, which discussed his entry into the seduction community, and how he went from dud to stud. His newest book, Rules of The Game, are actually two books in one, in which he discusses both the light and dark side of the game.

I thought it would be a great opportunity to go and meet Neil Strauss yesterday at his book signing in New York City. I think his ideas are excellent, and despite what his genre, or focus of his business is I believe him to be a very inspirational person for millions of people. Alright, I’m also a fan of his writing, and his stories are definitely captivating, not to mention hilarious.

Regardless if you agree with what the pickup community preaches, if you put aside your personal views on the subject, you might also be able to see the greater good in what Neil is doing. Likewise, you might also be able to see the greater evil. On one hand, Neil encourages people to reach a new potential. On the other hand, with this new found power comes responsibility, which could be misused if used by the wrong person.

I didn’t go to this event solo. If you guys remember Marina Tsipenyuk, who recently wrote The evolution of co-mentoring relationships: a quest for dialogue, accompanied me to the signing. Before we went I gave Marina a fair warning that Neil’s fans would most certainly be actively practicing pickup techniques. Unfortunately, after all attempts were made, she was left unimpressed by any pickup approaches that night.

During Q&A Marina asked Neil a really interesting question that got a great laugh from the crowd:

How does a man who uses The Game approach a woman that uses The Rules.

If you haven’t heard, The Rules is a step by step booklet that tells woman how they should act toward a man, in order to first have him fall for her, but ultimately find and marry Mr. Right. This question got a few laughs, but I think it’s a really interesting topic that I’ll cover at a later time.

My overall impression is that Neil is a very down to earth guy, and I hope to see more of him as he continues his career in pickup, personal development and writing. If you haven’t done so, pick up The Game, and Rules of the Game on amazon or your local book store.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

View people you are likely to quarrel with as your partners in personal growth. They are likely to make you more aware of your vulnerabilities, limitations, and mistakes. Don’t let this get you down. Rather, let it serve as your coach. You now have more awareness of what you need to strengthen, fix, and keep on developing. ~ Rabbi Zelig Pliskin

What if we could change the way we look at our enemies? What if instead of hindering our progress they are assisting us in our personal development? In our world of endless possibilities where we control our thoughts this is not so far fetched at all.

As we look at life, we are making assumptions and interpretations, and organizing thoughts and experiences to coincide with our beliefs. In order to experience the benefits Rabbi Pliskin’s paradigm has to offer we must follow a simple 2 steps process. 1) Understand it. 2) Use it.

Whenever we experience a negative feeling that we think is brought on by another person we have the amazing opportunity to find out why we feel this way. Introspection allows us to learn about ourselves and grow. In the presence of other people, especially those that push us out of our comfort zone, we tend to grow much quicker.

How do you deal with ‘the enemy’?

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Photo by JoF

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Consider having an out of body experience. Imagine walking along and meeting yourself, the way you are now. Would you be friends with yourself?

If your character and actions are not congruent with what you think makes up a good friend, then perhaps its time to start lowering standards of friends, or raising standards of yourself.

What do you look for when considering who you will accept as a friend? Do you need them to be nice, intelligent, outgoing, good looking, fashionable, or perhaps settle for anyone that’s willing to talk to you? Seriously, would you be friends with a liar and a thief just because you’re lonely and in need of companionship?

To me integrity and compassion are at the foundation of a good person, and friend. I also like to surround myself with people that I can learn from about life. I enjoy the company of intelligent people that are positive, optimistic, and motivated. I love it when my friends have a special talent, unique philosophy, and other outstanding characteristics. Basically, I like to become friends with people I admire, and I admire the people that are my friends.

The strategy is to raise the standards of what you expect from yourself. If you wouldn’t be friends with a person that is just like you, then perhaps you aren’t living up to your potential, and you aren’t really satisfied with who you are. It’s fine to say that whoever you are is perfect, but it’s not practical.

I believe that the journey is more important than the destination. I do not believe that a person is ‘imperfect’ until they achieve something or other. Are you aware of your philosophies and behavior? Are you the type of person that you would consider being friends with?

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Photo by dboy

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My mentoring experience had marked one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences that I had ever undergone. I was hoping to extend a dialogue over a group of people who I had never before encountered, but I had not, under any circumstances, known the kind of mental dialogue that this would foster within me and the kind of relationships that I would inadvertently, and then very intentionally, develop.

By overcoming the frustration of an absence of knowledge through the proactive investment of time and energy, I had gone from a stranger in the classroom to a valuable asset, which a mentor should certainly be. The evolution of the relationships that have marked this experience had, thus, presented for me, the true meaning of mentorship, and, subsequently, co-mentorship.

In co-mentoring, the “‘co’ makes the mentoring reciprocal and mutual. This reciprocity means that over time the mentee and mentor roles may shift; no one is stuck in one or the other for the duration of the relationship” (Co-Mentoring as a Pedagogy). Unlike mentoring, which generally assumes a kind of hierarchical relationship, co-mentoring establishes a dialogue that allows the mentor and mentee to freely shift roles, teach one another, and learn at the same time.

The role of a mentor can be multi-faceted, and the mentor and mentee are capable of equal exchanges of knowledge. This gives the mentor a greater incentive to work with a mentee. Whereas traditional mentoring requires a hierarchical way of operating in which the roles are very rigid, co-mentoring insists that each person has a lot to put on the table.

But such relationships are NOT restricted to the classroom. You can find co-mentoring between children and parents, friends, and co-workers, among others. It is a way to give and receive in all kinds of settings, whether casual or professional. It is an open-minded embrace of different ideologies, an effort to connect them in some way, and produce a beautiful array of color where black and white was custom.

So the next time you find yourself in a mentorship, ask yourself:

• If you assume the role of the mentor: What can I learn?
• If you are the mentee: What can I teach?

Marina Tsipenyuk is a student at Rutgers University studying political science and finance. She is currently involved in a historical research project and mentors a women’s studies course. She hopes to go to law school and, eventually, become a lawyer.

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Photo by b_d_Solis

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1. Be Punctual
Obviously, don’t arrive late. But also be cautious of arriving too early as well. Respect the other individual’s schedule. If you have a planned appointment, arriving a few minutes ahead of schedule is professional and respectful but make sure to let whoever greets you know that you are aware you’re early and it’s not a problem for you to have a seat and wait.

Remember to take the necessary measures to ensure your timely arrival – for example, if you don’t know where you’re going, leave a little bit earlier just in case you have trouble. If circumstances out of your control are causing you to run late, be sure you call ahead and let them know what has happened. Offer to reschedule if necessary.

2. Dress to Impress
This almost goes without saying. You always want to present yourself in a clean, put-together fashion. If you arrive looking like you just rolled out of bed, it will create an image of carelessness and disrespect for the person you are meeting. Putting some effort into your external appearance will also boost your confidence. You will walk in with your head held high if you feel like you look your best. Whether we like it or not, there is a certain amount of judgment that takes placed based upon how someone looks.

Remember that a short skirt may look fashionable to you, but to others it may be inappropriate. Be mindful of who you are meeting and the purpose for which you are meeting them.
A job interview? Keep the short skirt in the closet!

3. Perfect Your Handshake
The handshake is an important part of the professional greeting. Believe it or not, your handshake says a lot about you. Are you a strong, hearty shaker? Or do you have a limp, lifeless grip? If you aren’t comfortable with this cultural routine, you need to get comfortable. It is essential.

Practice with your friends and have them critique you. Remember to keep it firm, not too long (but don’t pull away like they’re made of asbestos either), and be sure to make eye contact.

4. Get Comfortable with Small Talk
Chit chat is a necessity – it gets the flow of conversation going, it helps build rapport, and it shows that you’re a friendly, confident individual.

Take some time to master the art because it can be difficult to those who are naturally shy or reserved. There are always the universal topics to fall back on, like weather, traffic, etc. But it helps to know a little something about the person with whom you are meeting. Maybe you can ask how they’re favorite sports team is doing, or if they’ve seen any good jazz shows lately, or how they’re golf game is going. Do a little research and see what you can find out. A few minutes of friendly chit chat can make people warm to you almost immediately.

5. Remember Names
Nothing turns people off more than having to re-introduce themselves. It makes them feel unimportant and disrespected. Consequently, nothing makes people feel more special than when someone they have met only briefly remembers their name. Do your best to commit names to memory upon meeting people the first time. If you need to, after attending a party or conference, make a few notes on whom you met and what you spoke about. That way, you’ll be able to remember them in the future.

For a few more tips on that will help you make a winning first impression, check out 8 Tips For Better People Skills at the Executive Assistant’s Toolbox.

This article was written by Chrissy. She can be found writing regularly at The Executive Assistant’s Toolbox – a blog that offers tips and tricks for professional and personal development. Stop by and see what’s new today!

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Today I see that communication is not the answer, but merely the number one tool to accomplish this admirable goal. As with everything, the simplest answer is usually the best answer. Today, I have put my finger on the fundamental (the core idea) of stopping racism, prejudice, and violence.

Part of the way I choose to live my life, and what makes it so exciting for me, is that I often do experiments by altering my paradigm (the lens through which I see life). Such experiments are the key to living life by design. While driving today, it occurred to me to do one such experiment, to see if I can alter the way I view every person that comes into my field of vision.

Changing My Views Of People – The Experiment

The experiment went as follows. For every person passing by me in a car, if the person was in my field of vision for even a minute, I would think “I love this person” to myself. By thinking this way, towards random people I have never met before, and may never see again, it made me feel a deeper level of connection with them, and with everyone around me. After all, the more people that we are able to feel a deep love for, the more love that will exist in our lives. Would you agree?

Whether you believe we are all creatures of god, particles of matter, or otherwise connected within the universe, you might be able to see that all humans are connected in some way. If not, maybe you can, if only for a moment, imagine that we share this connection, this oneness.

If you are choosing (if only temporarily) to adopt this paradigm, then you could see how it does not resonate with your new belief system to think, feel, or otherwise experience thoughts that promote racism, prejudice, violence or bigotry. You are only putting those thoughts and energy out towards someone or something that is part of yourself, part of the one.

Wouldn’t you agree that allowing yourself to be consumed by thoughts of love would not only allow you to feel lighter, brighter, and better but it would also influence the way you act towards or treat other people? What if every person on earth experienced such thoughts? How would your day to day look then? Would you be willing to take responsibility for this change?

This paradigm was greatly influenced by Neil, my amazing life coach.

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My grandfather is what you would call a worrier. He tends to ingest boat loads of information from television and radio, and gets upset over the constant bad news. When something happens within the family he tends to work himself up even more. In a way, there isn’t anything wrong with experiencing ‘negative’ emotions. The problem is that at his ripe old age, being overly upset or stressed could lead to health problems.

If my grandfather could show that he was more laid back with information that came to him then we would feel like we could be more open. In a way, this makes me feel that, it’s his fault that we lie to him.

A couple of reasons why people lie in a relationship is to avoid the other person getting mad, or getting hurt. This is understandable, as such situations can be stressful and emotionally draining. If you’re the type of person to take things personally, to get very upset or angry when hearing bad news, then chances are that people will go out of their way to lie to you.

I want to change my ways, but what can I do?

Do not abandon all hope, there is still a light at the end of the tunnel. If you want to be entrusted with more information and secrets, or just not be lied to all the time, here are some approaches that you could take.

• Be non-judgmental. Take a stance of neutrality when interacting with people. If they see that you aren’t throwing your opinion around, they will be inclined to open up to you and tell you more.
• Don’t over react. Take some time to think before formulating a response to the information that you hear. Your first reaction may not be the best way of dealing with a situation. If people see you as cool and collected in your interactions they will be more inclined to open up to you.

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Relationships should be about helping the other person become a better version of themselves. This could come from encouragement, proactive listening, or fighting it out until a point is made. As long as there is passion, as long as you care, as long as you have a pulse there will be a reason to work it out and enrich each other’s lives. Being indifferent, not caring about the outcome, and not being affected by what the other person says, does or feels is the toxic that lacerates relationships.

Being indifferent in a relationship is a trademark sign of giving up. The passion is gone, and what’s left is a mutual comfort or beneficial living arrangement. So what can you do once you’ve reached the point of indifference? Is it really the point of no-return?

Here are a few things you can give try in order to put the spark back into your relationship.

1. Get some space. Take some time away from your relationship, and use that energy to get your thoughts together, and spend some time with friends and family. You might just get your old self back, the one your significant other was so attracted to when you just met.
2. Be romantic. Put some effort into planning something special for your significant other. Just the act of planning, and exerting effort will put you into a better state of mind toward them.
3. Just love them. Just like making yourself laugh can actually put you into a happy mood, you can achieve the same results just by loving someone. Just love them and you will love them. Think about that.
4. See other people. Agree to date other people for a bit. You might realize what you were missing, or you might find something that works better for you.
5. See a couple’s counselor. Most relationship problems stem from a lack of communication. That’s because most people do not know how to communicate properly. See a professional, learn this skill, and improve your relationship.
6. Listen to understand. Keep listening and asking questions. Do not offer advice, an opinion, or become defensive. Just listen, ask, and dig deeper for understanding. You might rebuild and strengthen a bad connection.
7. Be spontaneous. Even creatures of habit need a change. If your relationship is too habitual and not exciting enough, this could lead to boredom and indifference. Do something crazy, different, spontaneous, and extraordinary. Create some memories, after all this is what life’s special moments are made of.
8. Set mutual goals. There is definitely something fulfilling about goal achievement. Share amongst you a mutual addiction for achieving something great. You could end up being a great team again, and rekindling old flames.

These are just some suggestions for eradicating indifference. I’m sure that you could think of several more on your own, and I would love it if you would share this in the comment section below.

Remember, there is no shame in cutting your loses and moving on from a relationship. Essentially a relationship is supposed to make you happy, and if it’s doing the complete opposite, and draining you of your life energy, than you might just be better off alone. That’s your call!

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No question, absolutely, no matter how valued and wonderful a relationship with another person becomes to you, the constant variable in your life is always you. You are always with you. Now I know that this news is not earth-shattering and I’m not telling you anything you shouldn’t already know, however, it is rather amazing how many people blame all of the problems in the relationship on the other person while never even considering the contribution they themselves make.

You are the only one who can create your life, so in your life everything comes back to you. It only makes sense to work on yourself first.

Work on yourself and get happy and comfortable by yourself and then go out and attract a wonderful co-creator to create a great life with.

One important benefit of developing a healthy sense of self-respect before you settle into a long-term relationship is that as you grow you automatically raise your standards. As you grow to respect and Love yourself you automatically put yourself into a position where you can attract someone who loves and respects you back. You can attract someone who is worthy of your love.

The truth is that if you are a person who wants to create a wonderful life, if you have big goals and big dreams you owe it to yourself to be extremely selective when it comes to choosing a mate. Relationships are such a crucial part of life. A great relationship can help you become the best you can be, it can enhance your efforts, a great relationship will help you reach beyond yourself but a bad relationship can prevent you from even coming close to achieving the things you want.

It is a question of where your energy goes. If you have big goals and big dreams you need to focus your energy on those goals and dreams but if you are caught in a difficult or bad relationship your energy will be spent taking care of that instead.

If you are continuously caught up in the drama of a relationship and you are fighting with each other, being abusive with each other, being mean with each other and one or the other of you continuously pouts and freaks for attention when they don’t get their way, then all of your energy will be going into the relationship.

Fighting anything takes energy away from your life, fighting your Life partner takes energy away from your soul.

You can’t create a magnificent life if you are wasting all of your energy just trying to maintain an impossible relationship. If one partner is a Prima Donna and demanding all of the attention and resources from the relationship, the energy and resources left over do not leave enough to create a magnificent life. Whether you think it is Love or not, if either party is excessively high-maintenance, neither party will be able to focus their much-needed attentions and energies on the goals, dreams and aspirations of a magnificent life. They will be co-creators of chaos instead of achievements.

Relationships like that are not worth it. If you are strong and happy on your own and you realize that you can be happy with or without a relationship, if you have a high self-regard and esteem then you can walk away from an abusive or controlling relationship.

The Law of Attraction states that we attract what we think about. If you are constantly concerned with making a partner happy, and the state of your relationship you are attracting more of the same. However, if both parties are happy with themselves and together they can put forth their combined energies to achieve their wildest dreams and their most cherished goals, their life together is Unlimited.

Isn’t that what you really want from a Life partner?
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Karen Lynch writes passionately and extensively on the Power of Self-Development and the Law of Attraction. You can read more of her Inspirational and Motivational writings at www.livethepower.com/blog

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