Introduction:
Today’s guest is author, entrepreneur, blogger and semi-professional football player Scott Britton. Scott is a guy who was popular in high school and college because he played football, but once he left college, lost all those advantages and had to learn from the ground up how to be really good with women.
In this interview Scott reveals his best answers to the most common questions she’ll ask, how to escalate touch with a girl in a non-creepy that makes her feel comfortable, and the right questions to ask her make sure you have a great conversation. After this podcast, you’ll know exactly what to do for the first 20 minutes of an interaction with any woman.
Podcast:
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Key takeaways:
It’s difficult to say to yourself that you’re not as good as you want to be with women and that you want to seek help to get better. It’s hard to admit that to yourself, especially when you think everyone else has their shit together. But in reality, we all suffer with the same types of problem. It’s OK to accept that you want to improve this area of your life, and dedicate time towards doing so.
There are certain conversational questions that you will get asked over and over again, like where are you from, what do you do, who do you know at this party, what do you like to do for fun, etc. You should make sure you have good answers to these questions, and practice those.
Those questions come up partly because it’s a conversational habit, but also because they demonstrate social proof to the woman, and good answers make her feel socially and physically safe.
For the question “where are you from”, you can have a story around that. Scott’s answer was “I was born in Pennsylvania, have an awesome family there but I knew that New York is where I wanted to be, it’s where some of the most ambitious, interesting people are in the world and that’s, like, who I want to surround myself and spend my time with.” That conveys positive information about him and gives more context, and it’s not a boring monosyllabic answer. It gives her multiple things to ask about if she wants to.
If she asks “Who do you know here?” then you can talk about your friends and their accomplishments or how cool they are, and it reflects well on you because not only do you have friends (social proof) but your friends are cool, accomplished people.
Know what topics stall conversations. Avoid sad, depressing topics – and always be observant of the audience. If they’re yawning or checking their watch, then change topics.
Smile more in conversations. People engage with warmth and openness, and smiling is the perfect way to do that.
Also try to be high-energy – not crazy high, just one or two levels higher than the person you’re interacting with. It’s infectious. You want to be congruent, and you can be lower energy but also really interesting, but higher energy is fun and interesting, and you can learn how to do it and make it a habit even if you’re not usually a high energy guy. If you don’t know how to do that, then hang out with guys who do, and watch what they do.
Initiating touching and slowly escalating that over time is key. You should start it off small and non-sexual, like a high-five or a touch on the shoulder or something, and go from there. You can say “I’m just going to the bathroom” and as you move past her you put your hand on the small of her back, for example, or you can ask her to dance.
Find out what that person is really interested in, and then talk about that. You find out what they’re interested in by asking good questions, either ‘what’ questions like “what do you like to do for fun?” or ‘why’ questions like “Why did you move to New York?” which tend to get longer answers because they’re more open questions and if she’s interested and wants to talk to you, those questions give her that opportunity.
Think about the type of women you want to meet, and go to places where those women will be. Like we’ve said before, bars and clubs are not usually the best places to meet women. Things like improv, yoga, Crossfit, volunteering, cooking classes – whatever it is you like doing, go to places where women do that thing too.
Once you meet a girl you want to hang out with again, just invite her along to something with your friends. There’s less pressure, and it gives you social proof. Being the guy who organizes people and gets people together is always a good thing.
One thing Scott does well is meeting women on the street or in public places, by stopping them and saying “Hey I know this is totally random but you are absolutely beautiful and I’d be kicking myself if I didn’t come over here and see what you’re like. I’m Scott.”
This works for him because he’s better-looking than average, and outgoing, confident and athletic, and it’s not for everyone if you’re uncomfortable doing that, but it is possible. You can get good at that if you put the practice in, but it’s not necessary – you can meet fantastic women without ever having to do that.
Links from this episode
The Game by Neil Strauss
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Michael Ellsberg’s piece in Forbes where Tucker discusses being in therapy
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
Scott Britton’s Bio:
Entrepreneur and blogger who writes at life-longlearner.com (one of the top 50 self-improvement blogs in the world)
Author of Lifehacks: 63 Ways to Save Money, Improve Time Management, Produce Great Work, and Increase Productivity
Has his own podcast called The Competitive Edge and teaches productivity and sales courses at Udemy
Previously Business Development Executive at SinglePlatform before they were acquired
Was captain of the Football team at Princeton and now plays semi-professionally for Clube Regatas de Flamengo in Brazil (and also wrote an ebook about Ivy League football recruitment)
Named as one of NYC’s rising tech stars under 25 in 2012
LinkedIn
Twitter
Youtube channel
Podcast Audio Transcription:
Tucker:
Alright! So, basically, why don’t you just go ahead and start talking about like, “Where you started?” and the beginning of your journey and the world just kind of follow it through the end.
Scott:
Yeah Man Sure! So, I would say that, I think every guy who is into self-development like eventually or at some point, got turned on to some type so “you can improve your life with women” material. So, for a lot of guys, this was The Game.
Tucker:
Right.
Scott:
When I was in college, I always just thought like, okay like you just have to be like more handsome of more jack.
Tucker:
Hold on! Okay so, let’s start here. So, you played football at Princeton, right?
Scott:
Yup!
Tucker:
And then you went to high school in Pennsylvania. Like, did you go, were you around like Philipsburg, did you play them at all?
Scott:
No! I didn’t play them but definitely it was an area where it was like state champion after state champion. People cared about football. 10,000 fans are coming to our games.
Tucker:
Right. So, what was it like for you in high school with girls in? Since you were obviously good at football since you played in college. Right?
Scott:
Yeah man! So, to be totally candid, I got girls in high school.
Tucker:
I am sure you did, if you played football at a football high school, you should be getting some ass, dude. Like, something’s broken if you are not.
Scott:
Yeah! Absolutely man, I mean, it was easy as being good at football was good enough to get girls.
Tucker:
Yes! Right.
Scott:
And I had an expectation with me that, that was going to carry over on at Princeton and to an extent, it did. Now, it was definitely, like, football was not the most important thing in the world at Princeton but hey, like, you are athletic, you are doing well and you are going to a good school and there were girls at other colleges that like, loved how Princeton football looked or sounded but I realized after I graduated, there definitely were some changes and there were definitely some things that really motivated me to change myself.
Tucker:
So, you got girls in high school because of football, did more than well enough in college basically because of the football and then after college, you realize “No one gave a shit that I played football in college.”
Scott:
Yeah, well it only carries you so much. Right, it’s like “Oh, that’s cool” but like “how interesting you are in conversation? Are you the type of guy that I’d be proud to bring around my friends and parents?”
Tucker:
Right.
Scott:
And I think like…
Tucker:
Was there an incident that kind of where you were like “Holy shit what used to work for the last 8 years, not going to work anymore?” Was there one incident or series of incidents, like how did you come to this realization?
Scott:
So, I came to the realization that I could change the things that I did.
Tucker:
No no no. How did you come to the realization that same shit wasn’t going to work anymore? You know, what I am saying?
Scott:
Dude, I think it was just like perpetual, like going out to bars in New York City, getting drunk and then hoping that I stumbled into hookups, usually with girls that I didn’t like and just like exhausting my friends of friends stuff, “meet people through friends” and it’s like, alright, I asked my girlfriends to meet their friends and they are like, they either suck or I hooked up with them and, you know, I just don’t have any control over this part of my life.
Tucker:
So, you moved to New York after Princeton, you were working in an I-Bank or something, right?
Scott:
Yeah! I was working for a tech company.
Tucker:
Okay! Tech Company, close enough, so you basically had a good young professional job, you went to Princeton and played football there and then were you successful in New York City for the first whatever 6 months or year with women or not?
Scott:
I would say, I was doing alright, like I was doing alright with myself.
Tucker:
What does “doing alright” mean for you?
Scott:
I could go out and like probably like meet a girl, keep her engage in conversation, maybe get a date with her, if I got a girl on date, I could usually got her on a second date but that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to be able to see a girl that I knew, to a party or see a girl somewhere and know with certainly that I could get her on a date and then once I get her on a date, I could keep her around if that was something I wanted to do.
Tucker:
Okay, so when you were right out of college, you couldn’t do that, right?
Scott:
No! No dude, no I would just be like, out at the bar and be like talking to someone, alright, “Cool I’ll have to drink to make myself for more fun.” I just keep drinking, maybe I’ll get funnier and loser and maybe she’ll like me and it was just like totally a haphazard way to approaching my dating life.
Tucker:
So, you are out maybe 6 months or a year and you realized, “I am basically just like fumbling around in the dark and I have no idea what I am doing?” Right? You kind of had that realization at some point.
Scott:
Yeah! Totally, I think like most guys I was like “okay, cool, try online dating or try to get in better shape” and I wasn’t addressing the source.
Tucker:
So, once you got made that realization, now then let’s walk through the process of how you went from good looking, successful guy but who is basically just stumbling around failing or lucking into success to a guy who knew what he was doing and succeeded.
Scott:
Yeah man, so, I think one of the first things I did was I founded a group of people also were interested in getting better of this. So, I found like a group of guys that were like “You know what, I want to take control of my life with women and let’s figure how to do this.”
Tucker:
How did you do that? What do you mean?
Scott:
So, actually, somebody was reading my blog and they were like, “Hey, I am super-interested in personal development”, we got together and we started talking about dating and he was like, yeah I improved my dating skills and I improved my life with women and I was like, well, that’s sounds pretty cool, I want to start hang around this guy and I want to start to observe what they are doing and I want to start figure out like, can I do this, is this just luck or is there like a process here? And I started hanging around people that were good with women and instead of like getting shithouse drunk and hoping that good things would happen, I was trying to observe specifically like, how does this person act in conversation that makes them an attractive male, and what are the personality traits now and how did they show those in conversation?
Tucker:
Okay, so let’s start, walk through, actually the reason I am like keep interrupting you is, I want to get specifics because I know exactly what’s going to happen. If you want to be super specific. We have all our listener, all of them but there will be a certain segment for our listeners, who are writing be like oh “Scott Britton was great except I still don’t understand how he did, you know, x y z. He just magically showed up with friends or something like that, right? So some of our listeners are may be a little bit autistic. And they need to have shit, you know, like really spelled out.
Scott:
And people ask me all the time how do you find friends that are into personal development like, meetup.com. Like there is personal development meet up. Talk to other people, join book clubs around self-improvement, find other guys that are in different types of career, be candid, be like, yeah know like, I want to have more control over my dating life and that was not easy for me to say but I’d take conversation there, pretty much most guys that were single were like “I am sick of going out to bars and hoping I get lucky.”
Tucker:
Let’s actually thought about that for one second. What you just said is super important, “I want to take control over my dating life.” So you said “that was hard for me to say.” Why was that hard for you to say?
Scott:
Because I think for a while there are a lot of people like I wanted to see like I had all my shit together. Like I wanted the perception to be “Oh, yeah, Scott Britton’s got his life taken care of, he is in control” but you know in reality like that wasn’t the case and it wasn’t easy for me to basically be vulnerable about that part of my life for a while because so many guys associate that with masculinity, like your ability to attract girls. “Oh you can’t get girls? You are not a masculine alpha dude.”
Tucker:
Right! It took you a while to understand that it was okay to be humble, to have humility, to admit to yourself that you weren’t as good as you wanted to be in certain area and then ask other people for help, right?
Scott:
Absolutely.
Tucker:
It’s fucking hard dude. I don’t blame you; I am totally onboard with you, that takes a lot of effort to do that.
Scott:
It’s really hard, but one of the funny things is pretty much unanimously everyone I talk to and decided to be like, yeah I am like sick of going on online dates, like or that suck ass, like mean girls at bar. “Yeah me too but like, I don’t know that’s the only way.” Like everybody was in agreement with me, this part of my life isn’t taken care of. And I didn’t expect that response.
Tucker:
So, you didn’t expect that other guys would admit the same vulnerabilities?
Scott:
Absolutely!
Tucker:
But what I think what you learned something that we all learn is that everyone thinks everyone else has their shit together. But then the reality is none of us has anything together.
Scott:
This applies not only this dating stuff like business stuff like all these guys like these guys are killing it. It’s all a total shit show behind the scenes and you know I think it’s like even guys like yourself man. I was like “Oh my god like I read your books like seven years ago” and I am not saying your life is like that but you are just like, we all are just normal dudes, we all are just dudes who have issues, deal the same things, I am reading Meditations right now and here is most powerful dude in the world, Marcus Aurelius, this guy has a lot of same internal battles that I face, you know, that my buddy faces, I live with, like everybody is got same problems, issues, concerns.
Tucker:
Dude, I know, it’s funny, when Michael Ellsberg did that piece of me in Forbes where I talked about being in a therapy and all sort of that stuff, these guys came out of woodwork and they were like “I can’t believe you admitted that, I can’t believe this, thank you so much” and in my mind it’s kind of funny. In my mind I was like I have always admitted my vulnerabilities but the way people, certain types of guys looked to me was like that “Oh, this guy has everything together” and I looked at them and dude, I was like “none of us have everything together”. I might be good at certain things at certain times but that’s it like I am not good at everything.
Scott:
Absolutely. And actually I not only notice – we can talk more about this later – but when I started to become the person that was comfortable with like showing that stuff, guys and girls want to spend more time with me.
Tucker:
Yeah! Being vulnerable and being confident and owning who you are is a very attractive trait. But we’ll get into that I’m sure, with your stuff. But let’s just couple quick take away so if you want to meet – you actually did create a community of guys 5, 10, 20?
Scott:
Two other guys man, just three dudes. We grew eventually but first it’s just me and two other guys. Who are like, we are going to try get better.
Tucker:
Tell me exactly how you met them? Tell me a story, not like a love story but like what is it, a gym? A meet up group? At a bar?
Scott:
I met them ‘cause one of them emailed me ‘case they read something that I wrote and was like “Let’s grab a coffee” and I was like oh man this guy likes all the same things I do and they’re both interested in getting better at this”. Like well, let’s go out together. We went to a bar together and then like I met his roommate. His roommate was super interested into this stuff too and I am like “let’s all just start going out together” and that’s what we did. Now, not to say that that wasn’t a really valuable exercise but now I’m not like going to every bar to meet the types of girl I want to meet. But at the time it’s like “let’s go out to the bars talk to people and try to get better at this as a unit.”
Tucker:
I get it. So tell me how you progressed from there?
Scott:
Yeah, so what I realized is that there are always these conversational themes that would come up and everybody knows it, right? “So, what do you do? Where are you from? What are you interested in?” People just get in these habitual conversational patterns where you can basically like predict what somebody is going to say, right? You know what questions are going to be asked and I thinks it’s really funny that in our work life, if you are on sales like I was, it’s like you have all your rebuttals, you have all your things taken care of but nobody is ever really thoughtful on how they present themselves socially.
Tucker:
Right.
Scott:
Like, it’s like, “Oh yeah! I am from New Town” Shit, nobody cares. There are ways, but I am not about lines at all. But I am about understanding like what’s going to happen in a situation and being able to talk in a way that makes you attractive and intelligent to somebody.
Tucker:
Being prepared for things that are going to happen a lot, that’s not having a line, that’s practicing for shit, that’s how you get good at shit.
Scott:
Yeah! That’s life man. So, you know, what I would do is I would start to be just observant, like what people ask me and I literally had a journal because this part of my life was so important to me. We have talked about this: who you end up with, the mate that you find is the most important decision in my life. And so not dedicating like practice time, developing the same area, is just so stupid to me. Yet we are so all about reading business books and business progression, career progression but so few of us invest time in this.
Tucker:
I mean, dude, the reality is most people don’t invest in either one. I mean that’s the sad part. But right, you are talking about – and you are totally right. If you look at personal development, meaning relationship development, vs. business self-improvement type things meaning people have lot less fear admitting they need help learning how to negotiate or how to run a business. Whereas most people – I think you actually nailed it early on, most people are way too ashamed to admit that they need help with relationships, whether it’s with their friends or picking a girlfriend or anything like that. And the sad part is, you are totally right, our society doesn’t spend any time teaching people what relationships are, how to have them, how to find them, anything like that, even though it’s the most important thing in your life. It’s not just the person you marry but what about your friends, your family? What do you have that is more important than the relationships?
Scott:
Totally. Absolutely man, so I started you know, like I’d spend an hour ago in gym, I would spend dedicated time every day improving this specific skill. And I think one of the first things I did was, I had a note book and I write out the questions that people ask me to start out. So again, I mentioned these, “where are you from? What do you do?” And I call these like trigger questions because I knew these were going to happen. And I actually like thought about my answers. And I really wanted to showcase who I was and what’s important to me. This is another thing I did, but I established “this is who I am, this is what I care about in my life. And I want to make sure to tell that to people to filter that.” Does that makes sense?
Tucker:
It makes total sense.
Scott:
If I am a dude who is like a really into consciousness and meditation, I don’t want a girl that thinks that stuff is really stupid.
Tucker:
Right. Why would you battle that? Why would you fight that battle every day?
Scott:
Right you’re setting yourself up in failure. So I was clear about “this is who I am. This is what I care about.” And then I tried to showcase that in those answers.
Tucker:
So let’s talk more. I know I keep interrupting you. But I want to get really directly and specific because this is actually really good material dude. The advice you’re giving is fantastic. So the first thing is. First of the side you are going to spend time on personal development related to relationships, “I am going to get better at dealing with women” and then it’s dedicate time. And not all of us have a note book but if you have a note book, write this stuff down, really think about it. And the first thing you did is decide okay. These are what three or five things that always comes up in all conversation, right! So what are those? One is “where are you from?”, “what do you do?”, “who do you know?”
Scott:
That’s a big one like “Who do you know here?” and “what do you like to do for fun?”
Tucker:
You know why those three come up first, right?
Scott:
Because nobody else knows anything else to say. It’s a conversational pattern.
Tucker:
Sort of. Not really. Actually. You are right. It kind of is. It is a habit. But the reason it became a habit is because what’s that doing is providing social proof. If you are meeting someone in a context where a woman doesn’t have anything or know anything about you, she’s just trying to figure it out who and what you are. Because the first thing she cares about is safety, both social and physical safety. And like, where you’re from, what you do, and who you know, and who we know in common are all ways to ground you socially to help her understand who you are. But that being said, that’s the underlying reason. You are absolutely right. Most people don’t know what to say and those are the first things they think of because that’s what everyone says. Totally right. So you sat down and thought about this. Then what? Did you change your answers? I mean I know you didn’t lie, but how did you?
Scott:
So what I did do is enhance my answers.
Tucker:
So let’s go with where are you from? Where did you start?
Scott:
I start with like where I am from? Instead of saying that I am from Pennsylvania, I would say something like, “I was born in Pennsylvania, have an awesome family there but I knew that New York is where I wanted to be, it’s where some of the most ambitious, interesting people are in the world and that’s, like, who I want to surround myself and spend my time with.” And that’s a story that showcases who I am, what’s important to me, the type of people I want in my life, that is way more interesting than the “I am from Pennsylvania”.
Tucker:
Right! Because what you have done is, not only have told her you are from Pennsylvania, but also you told her a bunch of stuff about yourself. You are in New York now. You live there. You are there for a reason, here is my reason. Like “Here’s who I am. If it lines up let’s talk, but if it doesn’t, no problem.” So that’s first is where you’re from? What about “What you do?” What did you start with and where did you go?
Scott:
What did I do? So, at the time I was like working for a tech startup that sold software and I would say, “Right now I currently work for this really exciting startup and I really love it because not only do I love our product, it’s called Single Platform, but I also like, I want to be an entrepreneur, I read this book 4-hour Workweek, a couple of years ago and it just inspired me to go out and create something and put something in world and control my destiny, and right now I almost look at this startup as training ground for that.”
Tucker:
You would say almost exactly that?
Scott:
Yeah!
Tucker:
So, let me ask, did you refine it? Because to me that sounds a little pitchy.
Scott:
Well yeah. I mean, yeah I wouldn’t say like I refined it but I wanted to say more than “I work for this company called Single Platform.” You can shorten that, you can calibrate what gets the best response, you can say “I work for this Tech startup because I want to be an entrepreneur and for me, this is like a training ground for that and I love the people I work with.”
Tucker:
So, let’s talk about – did you see changes in women’s response from either of those things?
Scott:
So, I would say that they ask more questions, they wanted to. It wasn’t like so, where you from and this wasn’t like crickets, it’s like…
Tucker:
What do I say now?
Scott:
What do I say next? What do I say next? It was like, oh cool like because that given multiple threads for her to ask me about, right? When I told longer stories so it’s like, you are from Pennsylvania, you have an awesome family. She could ask me about that, you just moved to New York, you like ambitious people, let’s ask about that. What I noticed is that they would pick a particular thing they like want me to talk about and ask more and more about that, and the conversation just became much more like dynamic and interesting then like, let’s run down the series of questions that we always talk about or it’s like step one, where you from? Step two, what do you do? It was really cool because I was talking about things that I wanted to talk about and then giving her opportunities to dive deeper into those things.
Tucker:
OK, so where are you from and what do you do. Did you have any other questions that you practiced answers to or you thought about?
Scott:
Yeah yeah! So, like “who do you know here?” I would say not only how I know this person but I’d add a little context.
Tucker:
Right.
Scott:
Let’s say, I knew you at a party Tucker. I’d be like, “Yeah, I know Tucker, he is an awesome guy, I met him through my good friend Justin, who is a super cool entrepreneur” instead of saying, “I know Tucker”, right? Add more context to that or something like, if I was out with a buddy I played football with I’d be like, “Yeah my buddy Chris, we have been friends since college, played football together, absolutely amazing guy” and what I would try to do too is like talk about the positive, add some positive in there because people want to think they have cool friends and you should have cool friends. Make sure you let people know that your friends are cool or awesome or accomplished or interesting.
Tucker:
Or you are the type of person who says that about them. Exactly.
Scott:
Precisely! And that’s like the type of dude you want to be anyway. You want to be like a complementary, happy joyous person that has those types of people in your life.
Tucker:
So, those three, were there any others you thought about or gave enhanced answers to? Or are those three are the main ones?
Scott:
I mean, those three are the main ones but I just moved to Brazil, right? I am back now but when I moved down there, people were always like “Why do you live in Brazil?” And I could say, what I would usually say was like, “Some of my best friends in the world said this was an absolutely amazing place to be, that the people were incredibly kind, open to strangers and affectionate and those are important things to me. So, I wanted to come down here and check it out. You know, I am doing a bunch of different things here.”
Tucker:
Now that’s a good one. For the listeners, talk through exactly what you are doing because I think you have at least five separate things you are doing that are really good.
Scott:
Yeah, so I am saying the context of like, I came down here because I have friends, I am with friends, I have friends down here. I am complementing something that’s important to them, their country. I am saying Brazil is absolutely amazing, I love it here and then I am listing character traits that I want people to interact with that I want them to embody and that are important to me, right? If I say like, “Tucker, I love attentive podcast hosts”, you are going trying to be more attentive to me. Most people are going to be more attentive to me. You don’t want to say it if it’s not true, because people would detect that immediately. But yeah, people that are – I love affectionate women and I love people that are open and meeting new people and so when I say that in conversation, it screens that person and if they are not affectionate, or they don’t want to talk to me, they will go away, and it also coaxes them to behave that way around me, which is ultimately what I want.
Tucker:
You prime them, exactly. And then also, you are not just complementing them, you are complementing their identity. Most people are associate with their country, “aw I love Brazil, I think it’s so cool, I love Brazilians”, automatically they will feel better but it’s not direct, if you are complement someone, they’re like, what is this guy trying to sell me, right! But if you’re like, oh I love Brazil, it’s like oh, he loves me, I am Brazilian.
Scott:
Yeah! That’s really good.
Tucker:
Yeah, exactly. It’s really good, great one. So, you got the first part of the conversation covered pretty good, what are some other things you learned this time?
Scott:
So, I tried to understand, when there will be conversational lulls, so I like, look for patterns, right? And I would do this because, in my notebook, it started out with what do people ask me? But then after I started going out I would do a little postmortem of like, what did I do? Where did conversations die? And I would try to recall those instances and be like, huh, it seems like when I start talking about fitness or entrepreneurship, people really like talking about it and it looks like these type of people do. When I start talking about like, my aunt is sick, nobody wants to talk about that. It gets awkward, so I should probably avoid that and you know it’s funny man like, we are so rigorous and like testing what worked and what didn’t with marketing, business and all the stuff. We don’t do it with conversation. Most people don’t and so for me, I would do a little postmortem, every time I was out I was talking to girls or people that I wanted to make a great impression on and tried to figure out where did the conversation stall, where did it thrive? And let’s go ahead and try to remember this the next time I go out so that I can get the outcome that I want.
Tucker:
Let me ask a quick question. This might seem weird. Did you not know or were you not really capable of doing that in the moment? In normal conversation, you watch people respond to feedback, if I am fucking yawning and looking at my watch. It’s like, he doesn’t care what I am talking about, right? So, did you watch and respond in the moment or not?
Scott:
Totally, I always try to watch and respond but I still, if I start talking about my aunt and then I had to switch conversational topics or whatever it is, I still want to remember not to bring that up again. That’s what’s important. Obviously I am calibrating with you know how engaged you seem, facial expressions, body expressions, whether you are talking to me or talking to somebody else after I saw something but like in the future, I was like, okay don’t talk about this thing or find a way to talk about this thing.
Tucker:
So, can you talk about maybe some of the broader patterns you realized in terms of conversational lulls or things that are listeners could really learn from that you learned from?
Scott:
Yeah, so these are like really simple ones, but for me I just never thought about it. One, when you go into a situation, in a conversation or about to be in a conversation – smile! Like, it’s amazing. When I came up to start talking to somebody and have a big smile on my face, people were so much interested in talking to me than trying to be just like, cowboy cool guy. That dude in movies – that actually doesn’t work.
Tucker:
It sort of does, it sort of doesn’t. You are right though. When you are actually engaging someone smiling, warmth is – look man, people measure you for two things when they try to engage: warmth and openness, and then effectiveness. A smile is one of the best ways to convey warmth and openness. Yeah.
Scott:
And then I would say, like, other things: I would try to be high energy, and people like high energy and enthusiastic, and not overly, but I always try to go, like, one level above them. If somebody is completely dead, you didn’t want to be like, “Heeyyyyyy, hoooooooo,” they’d be like “who’s this weirdo”? If I came in and I was like, excited and engaged, people had a really good response to that. So, that’s genuinely a high level principle that I try to bring in is like, I am trying going to go in slightly higher than this person on the positive energy in every interaction and people want to be led and people want to be around people that are happy and joyous and for me, this was like a very natural progressions to be.
Tucker:
You seem like kind of a high energy dude, you know. That’s your personality!
Scott:
Thanks man! Yeah and you totally want to be congruent, right? As you know with like what your personality seems, how you even look physically sometimes but that’s something that you can build capacity for too. A lot of people are like, “well, I am not high energy.” You can become high energy and condition yourself to be a higher energy person if you set that intention, because I always wasn’t high energy either and then I was like, you know I just like high energy people. They like bring out the best in me, they make me laugh, they are funny, they are interesting. I am just going to try to be high energy even when I am not and before you know it, that became a default state.
Tucker:
It becomes a habit. The only thing I would point out is; there are some people who just have a lower setting. You can own a lower setting and still be very interesting and can be very compelling.
Scott:
Absolutely!
Tucker:
You don’t have to be high energy but if you are, it works well and if you want to become that way, you can absolutely learn how to level up your energy if that’s what you want.
Scott:
Absolutely! I would say another thing too, this was huge for me but I noticed for a while, I was trying to be super approval-seeking, especially with my gaze after I said something. So, I would like, say something and then I was like, did you agree with that? Did you like that? Did you accept that? One of my friends pointed out to me, I am like, I can’t understand why this person’s like going for the other guy and not interested in me and I am just like, “Dude every time you say something, you are like a puppy dog waiting to be petted.” And I was like, man you are so right and so what I tried to really work on is after I said something, definitely acknowledging that person but not like holding a gaze and like waiting for the response. Like, I would like try to develop the habit of looking at other people, saying something, smiling at other people in the interaction and not always be leaning in and even my posture, how I don’t like to lean back on my back heel when I said something vs. ducking in, waiting to be petted.
Tucker:
You kind of seem like an assertive dude, so was that more just, was it changing your mindset or just changing your body language?
Scott:
I would say, just my presentation. Like, yeah, I think looking for opportunities to basically showcase what was important to me was something I just never did with intention. And we talked a little bit about this in some of my other answers. In the dating world, these are called standards. I don’t like thinking of them that way. Where it’s like you want to state what after you establish what’s important to you, find ways to bring that up, if you can, to show more people about yourself and screen for people that aren’t a good fit for you. Listen it’s great to be able to attract a woman but like if she’s just never going to be a good fit for you then why waste your time. So I had like certain things in conversation that I would look to bring up about people, and let’s get specific here and talk about things that I screened for, I like women who are motivated, who are affectionate, who are caring and who are, individual, like individuality, right? They don’t need me there all the time. So, I would say things, I would look for opportunities to bring those things up. I would say things like, when I was in Brazil, “Yeah I love people from Brazil, they are so affectionate, everybody is hugging everyone and I just think that’s awesome. I wish, that was the case with New York City because it’s not” or I would say things like, “Yeah, my friend Cindy, she is amazing, she wants her own career, she wants to open up her own gym, she is always just doing cool stuff and getting her friends together” and yeah, I do feel that way, like I am never going to say a lie, but I also want that type of person in my life. So, I want to make sure to like bring that to forefront of conversation and it’s funny, I don’t know why but when those type of dialogues are when people just seem to be attracted, when you talk like that too.
Tucker:
It’s probably because you actually have opinions, you are like “I stand for XYZ not ABC” and then it gives someone something, either agree, you can talk about it or I disagree and it becomes a point of discussion or whatever. Whereas most guys are so worried about approval, either approval or they aren’t that interesting, or they are worried that the girl’s going to sleep with them, they are not thinking about actually asserting these things about themselves.
Scott:
Another thing too, is I got comfortable with touching. And I am not talking about weird creepy touching.
Tucker:
You mean, you just didn’t grab her tit after you met her? I don’t know.
Scott:
Yeah dude, that was my go-to move, like “Hey I’m Scott!” I just got comfortable like touching early and often and, you know, progressive touching so like, maybe just like a hand on shoulder, hand on the forearm after they say something that’s funny but I would actually try, eventually got to a point where instead of shaking someone’s hand, I would just get a hug right away, I try to get a hug right away, just to get that over. Is this like a touching physical person? There’s a tension and I’m like I am going to break the tension and when it come to shake my hand, I’d be like “Come on you got to give me a hug or no handshakes, no serious nonsense, we hug around here. “
Tucker:
You didn’t do that shit with me dude, you would’ve got forearmed if you did that shit with me. It’s different though, I am not a girl that you want to sleep with. Totally different.
Scott:
Yeah! Totally man, absolutely! And you know I found the response to that, super receptive and it’s funny like, there is like invisible touch barrier that you have to break is the male, once you touch them on the shoulder, on the arm, hug or whatever it is. They feel more comfortable touching you, it’s like you’ve given them permission and physical touch is such an important part of attraction and also a signal that you are a confident man. Even with dudes, a guy like touching the shoulder, “Good job bro”. I am like, that’s like a really alpha move because he is confident enough to touch me, and confident enough to be like, “I don’t think that’s weird” and it just says all the right things in my opinion.
Tucker:
Yeah, you are absolutely right! I think it kind of speaks to a larger issue that most people are afraid to do anything at all especially to be the first one to do it because they are so afraid of rejection or they are so afraid of being mocked and if you exhibit courage in that area, where you are not afraid of it then they will be very receptive to you. You said, I think you said earlier, people want to be led, and they will be receptive to your leadership.
Scott:
Yeah and if you want to talk mindset, I think that was a big thing for me in terms of being a leader, and basically like taking ownership of the first 20 minutes of conversation and interaction. Because I used to be like, I just used to be like; Oh, man that girl sucks, like she is a BZ” if it didn’t go well instead of being like, “No, I sucked, I am the one who is not interesting” and it’s my responsibility to take, basically like own how the first 20 minutes in the interaction goes and if she is not cool after the 20 minutes or it’s not going anywhere, it’s really flat then I can bounce but it sure as hell not going to be because I am boring, and that was a big mindset shift for me.
Tucker:
So, I totally agree with you. I have a very specific strategy I use for the first 20 minutes. Let’s talk through yours first though because this conversation’s about you, we already know the main three questions, four questions, you already have things like enhanced answers prepared and then you have things to do in lulls right? Like you notice where lulls happen, you avoid the lulls. Let’s say you get through the first five minutes with first one or two prepped answers. What do you do for the next ten to fifteen minutes?
Scott:
I try to find something that that person is clearly excited to talk about, and I try to dig into that right. So you can tell by their facial expressions and you can tell by tone of their voice. But it’s like we start talking about yoga or something or cross fit or whatever it is, some interest that person has and they are getting excited. I will just double down on that conversational thread. So that’s a really good one, I will do, I will try to work in, I guess you could call them like roleplays, like instances like joking conversation like taking adventure together.
Tucker:
What do you mean? Explain this, I am not sure what you mean.
Scott:
Yeah! Like, in example would be like, she says, “Oh my Gosh, I hate New York Yankees” and let’s say I am a Yankees fan. I’d be like, “You hate the Yankees? That’s my favorite baseball team. That’s it! Like, we are in a fight, we can’t be friends.” And just like you know this kind of like joking like, we are in a fight or like “You love New York? I love New York too. Let’s take a vacation there, let’s get on a plane tonight and just like go there and have a blast.” What’s the first thing you do? And if she responds well, and was like “Yeah let’s go, we are going to have a blast”, all of a sudden there is like this weird story of us doing this thing together and then I can recall that throughout the conversation, incredibly attractive. So, if somebody came up to me I’d be like, “Oh yeah this is my friend Cindy, we are going on a vacation together to New York tonight” and she is like, “Yeah, it’s awesome”, it’s just like an emotive interaction, that’s really fun when you have this ongoing joke that you can totally create if you take responsibility to do so and look for the opportunities to do that.
Tucker:
I think, what you said is really good advice for guys, which is figure out what the other person is interested in and talk about that, but I think there is a bridge missing here and I am sure you know what it is, because the first things you talked about were, I have enhanced answers for the three big questions, right? But then if I am a literalist guy who doesn’t know anything, my question is going to be, how do I get from the first three answers to figuring out what she is into? The obvious answer is, you need to ask questions as well.
Scott:
Yeah! Totally! You can ask something like, “what are doing this weekend?” And understand, she’ll list down activities that she is going to do. You could ask things like, “What are most excited about right now?” which could kind of hit or miss but some people really like that. “What are some of your favorite hobbies?”, I mean, this isn’t a brain surgery. It’s so funny, I used to be like ”nobody likes these questions are like, so not alpha, like when I read, all this crappy like pickup material back in the day”
Tucker:
Not alpha!
Scott:
And I was just like, no like, actually like this is just a really easy segment, just to get this person to talk about what they like. How do you know someone, is the one where we’re like, we played kickball together or whatever? Or what’s your favorite thing about your job? There is another one that you can do, what’s your favorite thing about, like anything, what was your favorite thing about going to this college? What’s your favorite thing about this thing you study? What’s your favorite thing about going to gym? What’s your favorite thing about anything? Like that’s just kind of opens up that can of worms.
Tucker:
That’s all fantastic advice. I tell you what I learned, I used to do something like that, just slightly different. Instead of ‘what’ questions, I ask ‘why’ questions. So, my goal when I meet someone, you have a really good strategy, I am going to dominate the first 20 minutes – not dominate, I am going to make sure the first 20 minutes is a really good conversation, right? And you can do that even if the other person isn’t super helpful, you can at least get through the first 20 minutes, and I think understanding the basic questions, who are you? Where you from? What’s your name? Who are your friends, who are not? All that stuff and then next, what I do after that, I try to figure out what’s interesting about that person. Because almost everyone – you are hard-pressed to find someone who has nothing interesting about them at all, and the way I found that works really well is asking why. So like, “Oh, you went to Princeton, why’d go there?” And then just start talking and then out of something they say, Aw you play football, did you like it? Why did you come to New York City, Why, why, why, why, why, why? And then you get people explaining things that creates open end of answers whereas you ask things, where you from? It’s fine to start but if you ask too many, you know what’s your favorite thing about X then you can answer that monosyllabically, right? Why’d you come to New York City? You almost can’t answer that with one sentence. That’s going to be a whole thing. You know what I’m saying?
Scott:
It also positions you as thoughtful person, right? If this is not just like some duty, just sitting there like nodding his head being like, “So, we are going to make out yet?”
Tucker:
You want to get out of here?
Scott:
This person has a genuine interest and is like curious about me, not just my circumstances.
Tucker:
Exactly! You ask two or three follow questions why, if the girl has any interest in you based on physical or other sort of characteristics, she is going to talk to you and she is going to start, all the sudden she is like ”Oh, yeah, I want to be an astronaut and a princess and a newscaster” and like everything comes out and then it’s like million things to talk about. That’s actually what I found but it’s the exact same strategy. I just – in my experience “why” works a little bit better than “what” but “what” is a good place to start, “what” questions will get you started and then it’s like “Oh, I hate the Yankees”. “Why do you hate the Yankees?”
Scott:
Yeah!
Tucker:
You know what I am saying? And then you can kind of go from there and then it’s like, let the conversation go. That’s really good advice. So, you got the intro, you got the first 20 minutes. What are some other things that you learned in your development journey?
Scott:
I would say that, I mean, the touch thing is huge, like escalating touch, and it doesn’t have to be like creepy, it’s like, again -
Tucker:
No, actually! It shouldn’t. Say the other thing, it should not be creepy.
Scott:
It should not be creepy and you can’t – right. Is she receptive when I touch her? Is she touching back? Is she standing close to me? All this stuff is important to be observant of and then like you want to gradually escalate that. So, an example would be like, let’s say that we are talking and joking and there is like a dance floor like, “Hey, let’s go dance for a bit” and then pull over her to the dance floor and like grip her in a certain way and if it is going well, in a few minutes grip her closer and just constantly building there. And I think that you can do that in another scenario just to get specific like, if I was sitting like, there was like a table over there and it was like, super loud I’d be like, “Hey, let’s go ahead and sit over there” and if she responded to my touches, I would like put my arm around the small of her back or I would like take her hand depending upon how well it went and then I would go over there and I’d be like, “Here, sit right next to me” and I would get us even closer than where we were before. It’s just a comfort building thing and you as the man need to take the lead and I didn’t always think that but like you need to take the lead, and she wants to you to take the lead.
Tucker:
If she likes you, she wants you to take the lead. Right.
Scott:
Absolutely! It should be obvious, if, usually it’s pretty – most socially calibrated people can see if she is not interested, she is like “No, I want to stay with my friends” or whatever and you feel like she is not really feeling it, okay then maybe it doesn’t make sense to keep pushing but…
Tucker:
What do you mean, maybe? Why would it make sense to keep pushing with a girl who’s like, “No, I am not going to go over there with you, I am staying here with my friends” How do you push that?
Scott:
I mean, so I would say, if a girl’s be like that, fine “I am going to go over there and have all the fun by myself.”
Tucker:
That’s not pushing, that’s moving away.
Scott:
I guess I wanted to say though, the reason I said that because there are some girls that are like, sassy or playful or whatever that aren’t going to be like, “Yes! That sounds good.”
Tucker:
I know what you mean.
Scott:
You don’t want to just completely like, pitching the tent! No, that doesn’t always mean, you can’t literally say, she doesn’t want to walk over with you or whatever like, it doesn’t always mean she is not interested.
Tucker:
No, I trying to tell guys, I am sure you know this, there are so many situations that are so dynamic and fluid, and there is no such thing as one rule that works all the time, there is not a check list to life unfortunately. You are totally, totally right about that.
Scott:
Yeah!
Tucker:
Alright! So, another thing at least in my experience, one of the easier or safer ways to initiate touch is like, let’s say you are standing on one side, you just walk to the other side and just put your hand on here, “Hey hold on, I am going to move over here because some of guys behind me” and you just put your hand on her shoulder as you walk around like, really small things like that. I am going to the bathroom, be right back and just kind of like, you know like, right in the back as you go by. Simple things, and in fact in my experience, the less sexual you make it at the beginning, the better, because if it’s not sexual and she is into you then she’ll genuinely, she’ll be cool escalating. If you start off very sexual, unless she is already really into you, you start off with sexual touching that generally will repel or in some way make her wary.
Scott:
If we are talking about just touching, I’d have to agree. If we are talking about conversation, I actually find in many instances, not every instance, like this is social dynamics is just, you know. Like you said, a million different things, when I am more forward about my interest in somebody in a no creepy way, it usually goes much better.
Turner:
Discussion is totally different dude, conversation is totally different, you know this. Like totally.
Scott:
Yeah! Totally and I’ll say, another touch you can do, you need to. I don’t know if this would work for like, a 35 year old woman but maybe like, a 24 year old girl, if she does something cool or says something awesome, “I love that”, and just give her a high-five.
Tucker:
Yeah! Yeah! It’s so stupid but people love that shit.
Scott:
People love it, Oh my GOD! We just touched and like, you know whatever.
Tucker:
We can go and make out in the bathroom.
Scott:
Yeah!
Tucker:
Yeah, it is, dude you are totally right! A lot of times, the fun guy, the only difference in the fun guy at the bar in everyone else is the fun guy has fun. Having fun can be simple as like, you make an obvious joke and high-five and laugh, and you don’t have to be an idiot, you can just be like, you just like you said, I think turning it up an octave or two without being like you know crazy cocaine guy, is the fantastic piece of advice and if you are not sure how to do that, to me the best advice is to hang out with guys who are good at that and then just figure out your version of that energy.
Scott:
Absolutely. It’s funny, you’ll notice when you start to hang out with those types of people, you just start adopting certain habits, movements, gestures ways and modes of interaction without even doing it intentionally which is just amazing because it just comes off naturally.
Tucker:
I tell dudes this all the time man, I didn’t make any of this shit up. I just watched or learned from better guys around me put it together. That’s what everyone does.
Scott:
That’s life man, that’s business, that’s everything. Just, you know find somebody who knows a little bit more than you and try to learn from them.
Tucker:
So, you’ve got, you got good interaction stuff, you got good sort of progress the conversation, you got good sort of techniques for the first 20 minutes, touch is great, what are some other things for guys, what are you now, 26? Something like that?
Scott:
26.
Tucker:
So, 26! Alright! So, guys let’s say generally either 18-24ish or guys that maybe progress slower socially that need to learn this stuff. What are some other things you learned in that age that you think are really helpful?
Scott:
So, I think that like realizing where the women that you want to meet, hang out and going there. Like, a lot of people are just like fishing in ponds.
Tucker:
The wrong ponds!
Scott:
The type of fish that they hate eating and it’s just like such an obvious concept but it is so something that we don’t do. Like, if you look at the number of times that you went out to bar and maybe you can even break it down like a certain type of bar, like a dive bar vs. a wine bar vs. whatever. And the number of times that you met somebody that you actually like and want t