 Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast. We have a very special toolbox episode set up for you guys today. And this was inspired through a conversation that AJ and I had with our guest, Connor Beaton on why young men are opting out of the dating market. And we're going to put that interview in the show notes for those of you who want more contacts on this subject that have an opportunity to listen to it. And that conversation was spawned due to a study that it was, was brought up. Yes, this was actually a Pew research study and it found that among men under 30 years old, over 60% are single. And that's almost double of women in that same age bracket. And it's pretty shocking to hear that studies have been making the rounds online and there's a number of other studies now around what's going on with young men, an increase in loneliness. And we're also seeing it inside of our X Factor accelerator program that more and more men are coming to us for dating help. Because they're feeling challenged in the current dating market. And we've talked in the past about the rise of online dating and technology and AI, and there are a number of factors that are making us less attractive to the opposite sex. So a big goal for today's show is to explain how we work with our clients and how you, the listener, can unlock your X Factor to be more successful in dating, to attract more of the opposite sex in your life, but then also just attract amazing, interesting, awesome people into your life. And this is a big part of what we do inside the X Factor accelerator. We're going to walk you through three traits that are going to make you more attractive. And when you master these traits, you're going to see that everything becomes a lot easier. So you're not fretting over the first message. You're not fretting over how do I have to use AI and chat GPT to make my profile more interesting? And how do I go approach that person instead? It's actually going to create a funnel into your life of attractive partners, amazing friends and a vibrant social life and making life so much more fun in the first place. Just to set up some context for this conversation that this is just not a problem that we're seeing here in America. This is a problem that all advanced technological cultures are facing. We're seeing it in the East. We're seeing it in Europe. We're seeing it in Canada. And so it's safe to say that due to all this technology that is supposed to be connecting us in certain areas, it has the direct opposite effect. And this technology is also stifling the three major areas that allow us to be attractive. And those are the areas that we're going to be discussing today. And they are about developing our personality, developing our confidence and developing and building out our network. All of those have a direct correlation to what makes us attractive. And as young adults in the past, we had been out developing all of these areas in our lives through socialization, because that socialization is what enhances us and makes us attractive to others. And with the technology that we have, like even growing up in the neighborhood that I had grown up in, there was a bunch of us that were playing football, they were riding bikes. The neighborhood was full. When I call home now and talk to my dad about the neighborhood and what's going on, there's no kids outside. There's no kids playing ball, riding bikes. And the children that are there in that town, they're at home. They're on their computers. They're playing video games. And how has this changed over the last 20 years? Like I remember as a kid of the 80s, when I got my first computer, when I got this Amiga 500, this was a new world and then came the PC and then came the internet and it offered so many opportunities, so much fun, so many games, so many internet forums to chat with and who could have foreseen where this was leading us in the long term. Now this is the normal thing to do. We sit at our computer, we chat on our phones. We play a game. We watch something. We stream something on the laptop. And this epidemic of loneliness is so pervasive across the globe. Just like you said, Johnny, there was a very recent study done by Beretto and his team, and they analyzed the frequency of loneliness that was reported by over 46,000 people between 16 and 99 years old across almost 240 countries. And this study is best summarized with one of their closing remarks. And that is, I quote, we found the most vulnerable to loneliness were younger men living in individualistic cultures. Younger men were more lonely than middle aged men and middle aged men were more lonely than senior citizens. That's the epidemic of loneliness. And it hits those of us that grew up with all that amazing technology. This is affecting all of us, right? So I'm slightly older. I'm Gen X. And when we were making plans with our friends, when we were younger or we wanted to make plans, we had to check to see if our plans interrupted our television programming. Right? It's like, on Thursday, it's my block of shows. I can't be bothered. I watch these every week and I'm hooked. Well, those block of shows on Thursday, right, with the internet, we don't I don't have to wait for those shows to come up. Now I fill my schedule with all of the shows that emotionally stimulate me 24 seven. And if we don't take heed of that and acknowledge that, then all of a sudden we become consumed by all of the stimulus that technology offers us. We're in the past. If I wanted to be stimulated, I would have to make plans with my friends. If I wasn't getting that stimulation from television. And there was a phenomenon growing up where even if we were online or even if we were playing video games, we were inviting friends over to participate in that with us. Yeah. You know, we had multiple controllers. We weren't streaming online in different places and in different locations from our friends. I remember crowding around the 56 K modem waiting for AOL to go to their friends to pile in a chat room, but not just to date ourselves. There's something else that we talked about with Connor that I want to bring up here that's very present for a lot of our clients. And that is this pressure on our career and this pressure to succeed in this individualistic and capitalistic culture. So many young men are forced to focus solely on their career waiting and prolonging the dating, the hoping that buying nice things, buying a house, buying the fancy car, buying the watch will then overcome all of these issues that they're having in their dating life to make them more attractive. And unfortunately, so we're talking about a lack of socialization. We're also talking about putting most of our focus and energy around our career. And for many men, that involves exercising your analytical mind. Yeah, exactly. So your analytical mind is running on overdrive. Well, guess what? That analytical mind doesn't help with building out that personality and being more charismatic. It doesn't help with that inner critic and your confidence. And your analytical mind is not helpful when trying to make connections and connect with people on an emotional level. So we've hypermasculinized our analytical mind and focused on developing that out for career success, to the detriment of our personality, to the detriment of our confidence and to the detriment of our connections and relationships in our life. And I want to add to that as well. We will double down on the skills that have gotten us to a certain degree in our life. So as AJ was saying, we're doing a lot of this analytical thingy because we're focusing on our career. If focusing on our career puts food on our table, a roof over our head and clothes on our back, well, then we're going to double down on that skill that has provided so much for us. And this is where we start to run into problems because the only skill that was developed was this analytical problem solution oriented mindset that our personality traits weren't able to be developed. Our imagination wasn't being able to be developed. Our connection skills were not able to be developed like they were in the past. So this creates the gap that we are looking to close. This is the gap that our programs are designed to close. This is the gap that this show is designed to close. And we're going to show you three areas where this technology has hindered and created a gap that is keeping us from not only that connection and that warmth, but also a lot of meaning in our lives and a lot of purpose in our lives because we are finding ourselves distanced from other people and that need is allows us with the feels good. At our core, we are herd animals and all herd animals need three things in order to feel good, attention, approval and acceptance. Attention, approval and acceptance allows us as herd animals to know that we are safe, that that we can relax. Without feeling those three things, our anxiety goes higher because we're not feeling protected. So when we think about personality, what we're talking about here is how do you go from ordinary or average? So if you've been listening to the show, you've heard us ask time and time again of our guests, what makes you extraordinary? What is your X factor? How do you stand out? Your personality is one way that you stand out. That makes you extraordinary. And that personality could take many shapes or forms. It could be your creativity. It could be your music inclination. It could be your ability to use your imagination to build video games or to play Dungeons and Dragons or to master board games. But that personality has to be developed outside of your career. It has to be showcased to other people to stand out from the crowd. And what we see time and time again, a roadblock or a pitfall that our clients are facing around showcasing their personality is being in their head overthinking everything and worried about what to say next. And oftentimes they'll join the X factor asking the exact words, AJ, what do you say in this situation? What do you say, Johnny, in this situation? Well, your personality is different than my personality. My personality is different than Johnny's personality. And if I worried about what I should say to be more like Johnny or to be more like Michael, well, I'm overthinking and I'm not going to be present and I'm not going to be charismatic. And in the moment that attracts people's attention that wins people over and keeps them wanting more of my personality around them. So for the analytical driven mind, I'm going to connect us together and then we're going to give the solution to this. So when you're out at social engagements, if you feel that you are in your head and these symptoms to that are you're going to be at a loss for words, having a lot of anxiety going on, your mind just blanks out. This is due to not being socialized in an area where you are using your personality to connect and draw people in. Now, what's cool about this is now that we've identified the gap in the problem, it's OK, what is the solution to then being able to build out our personality? And what's so awesome about this is that we've been doing this for 17 years. This is a skill that you can develop at any point in your life. It just needs a bit of attention. And for you analytically driven mindset, folks, a few simple frameworks will allow you to feel good in developing this out to give you an area, a place where you can follow a few simple rules and begin to develop this. Now, we had recently just did an episode about improv and improv is working on this very thing, being present in the moment, connecting with with other people. And this is what's fun about that is we went through this that whole episode talking about all the skills that can be developed and through improv. And there is so many of us who feel that these are skills that we're supposed to be have have developed earlier in life. Well, they're going to they're going to develop at any point that you put in the effort and the attention it deserves. Let's be honest, for a lot of us in our career, it's not a great place to work on our sense of humor. No, no one wants to walk in the doctor's office and hear your monologue. No one wants to come to the law office and hear you crack in jokes about the bone in the case. So oftentimes we've neglected our sense of humor and showcasing it because our career has demanded that we be serious and that we focus on the task at hand. So are you creating opportunities in your life to build out and to strengthen that sense of humor? Are you creating opportunities in your life to share a bit more of your story? So if someone was to ask me at a cocktail party, hey, what do you do for a living, AJ? I could say I host a podcast. I coach emotional intelligence. I work with the military, or I could say, you know what, 16 years ago, I fell in love with human dynamics. I was struggling myself with some imposter syndrome and really connecting with others after I graduated from college. And I just went on this journey of self development to figure out how to unlock my personality and be a more charismatic conversationalist. And through that journey, I started a podcast and that turned into a coaching company and now we work with clients worldwide. Which of those two answers at the cocktail party is going to stand out? It's going to draw a crowd over is going to lead to that woman standing across the room, taking interest, the podcast host or the storyteller who shares a journey of not only what he does, but how he fell into that line of work and what you love about your career. That's the difference in allowing your personality to pull people in, to attract people to you, to draw in women into your life or just trading on facts and information and feeling boring and feeling stuck in your head in these environments where you should be meeting and connecting with people. And storytelling is such a creative art form when we talk about being creative. We think about painting, making music, playing an instrument. But what about telling stories? And I don't mean writing a novel, which is certainly an art form, but also giving an answer like that where someone asked you, hey, AJ, what do you do? And instead of the facts, there comes this art form that is called storytelling that's not a novel, but it's 30 seconds of letting people into AJ's life, showing them the world through your eyes, bringing in a little bit of vulnerability as well, which speaks to your confidence of being able to bring this out into the world and not worrying about what people might think or say about. And we'll talk about confidence in a bit, but these are such important parts of connecting to another human being, whether that is a social event where you don't know anyone or whether this is maybe at work in the coffee kitchen, getting a warm beverage or it is at a date. I mean, how boring would a date become for everyone involved if we only threw facts around? I can Google that stuff. I don't need, you know, I can look that up on your LinkedIn. I want to talk to you. I want to see the world through your eyes. And when we think about charisma, it's not just what you're saying, but it's also how you're listening and what you're picking up on what others are sharing in conversation and that ability to actively listen to a conversation, to showcase empathy, to recognize and validate emotional bids, that creates the spark. That creates the attraction that we're looking for, that we're craving on that first date, that we're craving from a romantic partner. And I know, Michael, there's a great study about just the importance of listening and empathy in our romantic relationships. Yeah, and this was done by Davis and Othout in 1987. So this is a little bit age, but it's still very much up to date. It's called maintenance of satisfaction in romantic relationships, empathy and relational competence. And they interviewed heterosexual romantic couples. And what they found was that empathy, so active listening is a core part of being empathetic, was positively associated with satisfaction in romantic relationships. So now we need to maybe talk just very briefly about what empathy is for those that are shaking their head and scratching their chin. It's like, what are they talking about? So empathy in a nutshell is your ability to understand and share the feelings of others. And that increases the connection in a relationship. And I'm going to argue that this is not only true for romantic relationships. This is just the part where the rubber really hits the road because now you're married to someone, now you have kids with someone. So those relationships are really important. But empathy and active listening also kicks in in fostering those social relationships, the friends, the dates, the coworkers. Because by being empathetic, you show that you are attuned to the other person's needs. And that is important for trust, because if I'm talking with Johnny and I don't feel like he understands my needs, I don't feel he understands where what I'm talking about, why I feel this way. What is the likelihood that I'm going to trust Johnny, right? But or I talk to Johnny and when I talk about a struggle or when I talk about a victory, Johnny is there to support to high five me on a victory and to lend an ear in the shoulder. When I talk about a struggle, it's like, OK, this person gets me. I've just met him. I've just talked to him for two minutes. But this person gets me why, because we're showing empathy. And again, it's not about what is it that we're going to say to remedy this. It's what are the actions that we're going to do that we're convey that actions are always going to speak louder than words. And this is where a lot of analytical mindsets get you in trouble because you're looking now for the right answer for what has just being said. When if if it's empathy, it is how you're conveying that empathy through your body language, through nonverbal communication. Now, these three areas, your sense of humor, your ability to actively listen, showcase empathy and your storytelling. Are skills that you can build. So if you think right now, I'm boring, I don't have much personality outside of my work. I don't have much going on in my life. How do I stand out? How do I become extraordinary? Well, you work on these three areas to build out that exciting, fun personality. And I'm going to let you in on a secret. Chat, GPT, Google Bard, they can't do this for you. They're not going to solve this personality issue in your dating life. But you know what will you chasing after a passion, working on these areas and creating environments for you to practice these skills, which is why we have implementation sessions in the X factor accelerator, working on these exact three things you're listening, your storytelling and your ability to showcase your sense of humor. And when those three in combination come together, you become charismatic, you become memorable. And that first date turns into a second date. And it turns into her being excited to tell her friends at brunch about meeting you and connecting with you and having an opportunity to see you again. Now, the second factor that we're going to talk about here, confidence, right? The first step to unlocking your X factor with dating is to grow your charisma, become someone who can showcase personality effortlessly. Your second step is actually overcoming that inner critic and building confidence in yourself, not only to speak your mind, but to take action in areas that are attractive to actually move that relationship forward from just a first date or a great conversation or some flirty text messaging to someone who is action oriented and is liberated from their inner critic to showcase themselves, to find their voice and communicate who they are with the opposite sex. So AJ, this is something really interesting that we see every time when we do our implementation workshop on vulnerability, where everyone just shares a little bit as much as they're comfortable doing. And this 90 minute workshop, when we're done, no one wants to leave because they're like, Hey, we opened up this. I want to hear more about that. I want to hear more about that. And the participants are like, but I shared something that I'm a little bit embarrassed about. I'm shared, I shared something that my inner critic was speaking up about. But by doing exactly that and showing that human part, everyone else is like, no, I want to hear more about that. Tell me more about that trip. I really want to hear how this played out. And it's amazing to see how conversations just keep rolling and no one's asking, what's the next thing I should say? What's the next question I should ask? Like the moment this vulnerability enters the playing field, the conversation just goes. So the second attraction trigger that we wanted to discuss here is confidence and confidence is something that has to be built, maintained and strengthened as you grow older. As time moves on, it is something that you are actively working on. Confidence is something that you gain, that you just turn on and now you have it, it is fleeting. And so it needs to be worked on continuously. And it needs to have daily attention. If you were to build a skyscraper and leave it go, after years, nature itself, gravity and nature will deteriorate that building and will bring it down. It will come back to earth. Your confidence is just like that building where it needs to have that attention, reinforcement and maintenance in order to stay with you. And this is what makes it difficult because if you're not out regularly in social situations, you will not be able to build that confidence. If all the work that you were going to put in to developing out your personality, it needs that continuous work in order for you to get stronger in it without it, then we lose those skills, the atrophy. Part of that is to navigate your inner critic and to be able to no matter what is going on upstairs in your mind, that you continue to put one foot in front of the other and gaining that confidence. I think one of the because this is the strikes me so many times and I have to try my best not to not to smile when I hear it yet again is that people try to think their way into confidence. Yes, I can make a plan. I can read another book. I can do another video course and then I will be confident and then I'm stepping out into the world. But confidence is a muscle that you need to slowly train up. And it's it's easy. Like building up confidence is something that happens surprisingly fast, if you know exactly what you're doing and you have the right guidance and you can't think your way into confidence. It will actually backfire because your mind is going to ask you, well, if that's true, why aren't you outside? Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you say hi? Why didn't you make a joke? And it just backfires all the time. It's a muscle that needs to be trained. And when you create high expectations of yourself, you've run the risk of feeling never good enough. And if that is the inner critic voice going on in your head, it's going to be very hard to approach someone that's attractive to you. It's going to be very hard for you to navigate and manage the lulls in conversation to introduce yourself to that next opportunity. And I mean, ask any woman she will tell you that confidence is sexy. Confidence is attractive and the science backs it up. Yes. So let's talk about sex here, because I think the amount of sexual encounters can be loosely seen as a good benchmark for for confidence, at least according to the study done by Bailey and team in the year 2000, called do individual differences in social sexuality, represent genetic or environmentally contingent strategies? Now, that's a mouthful. What they found was that confidence as part of a larger personality factor known as extroversion was positively related to sociosexuality, which means having sexual encounters outside of a committed relationship, romantic partner or being in a marriage. So the higher confidence, more sex, more sexual partners. And what they also found is that this extra level of confidence leads to being more outgoing and more assertive and leading to more opportunities for sexual relationships. But on the other side, if we put sex to the side for just half a second, there's another study that showed that confidence also helps in maintaining relationships because it brings about behavior like better conflict resolution, more positive emotional states and and also resilience when there are difficulties in relationships and that that confidence then allows you to say, let's sit down. Let's talk about this instead of blowing up instead of retreating instead of taking out your phone and staring at it, having the confidence to say, no, you know what, I'm fine with this. Let's sit down. Let's make a cup of coffee. Let's chat. Let's chat about this and find a solution. And that's what makes those relationships bloom and last for a really long time and experience builds confidence. So like you were saying earlier, Michael, thinking your way to being more confident versus acting your way to facing life's challenges, to overcoming hurdles, to picking up new skills, to putting yourself in the arena creates the fertile ground for that confidence to grow and blossom as well as gives you tons of things to talk about on the first eight tons of conversational opportunities. So I have I have the perfect example for this because I was just talking with Brian just two hours before we were recording this. And Brian is an American, US American, who moved to China and primarily to learn the language. He wanted to learn Mandarin. And so he got in touch to work with me because he said, look, I don't have the confidence I all my only friends are the people in my language learning group. I don't do anything. I just come home after work. What I really want to do with my life is I want to have a vibrant social circle. I want my calendar to be so full that every evening is filled with something and I'm meeting new people and I'm way too scared to start talking with someone. And like like like we talked about, confidence doesn't mean that you think your way out of it. And it doesn't mean that you start with the most difficult things out there. You built this up like a muscle. So I said to him, well, you know, let's start easy instead of you talking to strangers. Why don't you go to a park, put in headphones and just dance for 30 seconds? Make a little bit of a fool out of yourself. Be there in the park, dance a little bit. The next week, I told him to go to a park and to just lie down on the sidewalk, as if he's this weird person who's just sunbathing in a park on a Tuesday afternoon. And two weeks into this, he said, Michael, if I can dance all by myself in a park, people looking at me, if I can lie down on the sidewalk with people looking at me, I can talk to people like that is nothing compared to what I've done before. And that's what he started doing. And then he did this really amazing thing that brought both a smile to my face and tears into my eyes where he sent me this text message after we've stopped working together. He sent this text message and he said, Michael was my mom's birthday and I wanted to send her a video. But I thought instead of me recording myself, I'm going to go out and I'm going to ask strangers that I meet in the park or in the shopping mall to wish my mom a happy birthday. And then he sends me this beautifully edited one minute video where like every five seconds, a new person comes into the camera, wishes his mom a happy birthday. I guess that's what they said. It was Mandarin. I'm not familiar with the language, but it was just so amazing to see how he was smiling in the video and the people that he approached. They're like, well, what's happening here? I'm in the presence of a really confident person. And that just took us seven weeks. And that was it from a complete 180 degree turn from I can't talk to strangers to, hey, look at me. Fifty people have wished my mom a happy birthday. Seven weeks if you just know what you're doing. So the thing with confidence is while it's fairly easy to build, you need to know why you want to have it. And I invite you to ask yourself, why do I want to be confident? How will it change my life if I'm confident? And maybe even more importantly, what am I going to lose out on if I don't work on this? Because if you don't work on this today, if you wait another five years before you start working on this, there are five years that you've lost where you're not doing the things that you want to do, where you're still falling back to old behaviors. And the fact is no one can force you to train up your confidence. That's up to you. So I would really invite you to ask yourself, what am I going to gain? And if I work on this, and what am I going to lose if I don't? And what's key here is many of our clients are contextually confident in their career in other areas of their life. But this lacking in social confidence is an impediment to their romantic success. If you can't approach someone you're interested in, if you can't strike up a conversation and flirt with someone that is attractive to you, confidence is at the root of it. If you have an inner critic that's holding you back and creating anxiety around talking to people that are attractive to you, then, of course, it's going to impede your ability to be successful romantically. So as we talked about in the first step of unlocking your X factor in dating, we have to showcase our personality and become charismatic. The second step is we have to take action. We have to start approaching people. We have to not just rely on dating apps and rely on Chad GPT to come up with the next response. The third piece, and this is typically after the first date, where there's challenges, is we have to have a vibrant social life. We have to have connections in a network in our life in order to maintain the attraction, in order to actually showcase the preselection that's necessary for that partner to want to be with you, to want to stay around. And I know for many you might be feeling, hey, I'm a bit of a lone wolf. I like going out on my own. I like doing things on my own. I don't need friends. I have a career that I love, but I don't need to have a crazy weekend to be successful. And then I'm just going to hop on the apps and I'm just going to start messaging people and going on dates. And that's going to be my way to success. In every relationship that I've ever been in, upon meeting the woman that I'm going to be dating, eventually there is always a moment where they want to meet your friends. And there's a reason why women will force the issue upon meeting your friends. There's part of birds to a feather, right? It's like you're gaining a larger context of who this person is. But also, are you selected by other people? Do other people trust you? Do other people feel good around you? Do other people talk good about you? All of these are actions and behaviors that send signals out to your prospective girlfriend. And there's also a danger that she needs to check for, which is do I need to take care of this dude? Because a lot of guys, when they're looking for a romantic partner, it's like, yeah, if I have a romantic partner, my evenings are filled. There's going to be sex, I'm going to meet her friends. She's going to take me to parties, she's going to introduce me to hobbies. So all I need is a girlfriend and then I'll be good and all of that stuff will be. Well, guess what kind of burden that puts on the lady? It's like she doesn't want to drag you everywhere. She doesn't want to drag you to Pilates class and then drag you to her girl's night and then bring you here and there. It's like you need to have your own life. And that's what she's also checking for when she asked to meet your friends. And there's also this piece where she is going to be betting on you. You may not be the person that she wants to marry yet, but she needs to gain some insight if you are going to turn into that person that she wants to be married. Your friends, your peer group will help determine that. Is your peer group high value that has a lot of inspiration and motivation and aspiration within that peer group? Because she knows those are selective pressures that will push you into a certain direction. If there is none of those things there. Well, there's nothing that is motivating you to be better. There is nothing motivating you into shaping and changing into the person that she is betting on that you will become. And there's nothing less attractive than being needy, always available, having nothing else going on in your life. So if you're thinking that, oh, all I have to do is get a girlfriend and everything else is going to fall into place, you're neglecting one of the biggest attraction triggers, which is having a social life, having a peer group and a network that shows you're preselected, that shows you're someone of high value that other people want to spend time with, that other people want in their life to put the burden of your social life, your best friend, your therapist, your romantic partner, your sexual partner, all on a woman as a guy. There's nothing less attractive than putting all of that on a partner. And you don't want to wait until you've had the first date and find yourself then chasing friends for that opportunity when she's interested in meeting who's in your life, who is in your network. And this is why so many of our X Factor participants find success in their dating life because they're learning the social skills that create a high value network. They're not just focusing on attraction triggers and how do I get this one woman, this one specific attractive partner in my life. They're looking at it more holistically of how do I become extraordinary by attracting amazing people into my life, not just women. There's yet another powerful thing that a peer group does for you. And that has to do with compliance and conformity. And this is a study done by Kildini and Goldstein. And if the name Kildini rings a bell, that's the author of influence and persuasion, some amazing bestselling books that have a lot of wisdom in them. Anyway, in their review paper on compliance and conformity, they in very short say that when times are uncertain, when situations are uncertain, humans do what the herd does. So how does that apply to you at a social event? Imagine you're coming into a social event and no one knows you. You have to prove yourself. You're standing there all by yourself in the corner. And if I know you listener, you're going to clutch your beer and you're going to hold it really close to your chest and you're going to just look at your phone a lot. Now let's replay, let's rewind this and say that at the social event, you know a couple of people. So the moment the stranger you walk into the venue, there are a bunch of people whose face lights up. It's like, oh, there's AJ, there's Johnny. They walk over to you. They give you a high five. They give you a hug. They take you to the bar. They buy you a drink. This is the uncertainty they were talking about. People don't know you, but now they are a few influencers. They are a few people in this crowd that do know you and they like you. They appreciate you. They want you to be there. And the rest of the herd does what the leader is doing. Everyone else is thinking, oh, there's AJ, there's Johnny. They must be cool dudes if they are being welcomed like this by their friends. I need to meet them because this is someone, you know, I want to have in my life as well. And having options in your social life changes your behavior in your romantic life. So Brad started X Factor After Divorce that basically cut him out of his entire social circle. His ex-wife was very extroverted. He found himself very introverted, working in a high-stakes security job. And he didn't really share much, didn't really get super vulnerable with his social circle. And when he lost his wife, he lost his friends. He was starting over and the first thing he did was fire up his online dating profile. And he started to get some dates, went on a couple first dates, thought he had a great conversation, but never really got the second date and was really struggling to understand why. And one thing that we found in his communication, especially on that first date was he was incredibly available. He was like, Hey, this was great. You want to hang out on Saturday? Oh, you don't want to hang out on Saturday? Well, let's hang out on Monday. Oh, Tuesday look good for you. And this availability created neediness that was picked up on with these women that he had great first dates with. Why is this guy so available? What's going on here that he doesn't have more in his life? So we started talking about finding a social circle through your passions and one passion that he had neglected was dancing. His ex-wife wasn't really into dancing and he wanted to go to lessons, wanted to go to classes, but never really found the opportunity. So we encouraged him to take some dance lessons, put himself out there to find some people who enjoyed dancing. And in the salsa class, not only was he having some fun dancing, but he actually met a few guys in the class and they invited him to check out some other music venues. And all of a sudden his passion for dance led to building a bit of a social circle. After class, he went for drinks to some of his classmates and they started making plans together. Low and behold, fast forward a month later and we checked in on his dating life. Not only was he going on second dates and third dates with some online dating opportunities, but he actually met someone in his dance class. So when you actually understand that having this pre-selection, this third attraction trigger working in your favor, you unlock your ex-factor in dating. You become extraordinary. You go from ordinary to available, almost needy to having people in your life that want to spend time with you, to not being so available for those opportunities that you're meeting online or in person, and you create the attraction that's necessary to succeed with the opposite sex. I think this is not to get too sentimental here, but this is what I love most about my job. And whenever we have our coaching calls and I joke that it's my time here in Austria, it's 8 p.m. on a Saturday and I don't mind at all because I love working with these people, seeing this change happening. Just to put together a summary of what we talked about today, due to technology, all of us, including you sitting there listening to the show, have allowed certain aspects that make you attractive to be stifled due to all the stimulus and work that we've been putting into our careers. The three main areas that are being neglected are our personality, building our social confidence, and connecting to our network. It is also those three areas that allow us to be incredibly attractive to the opposite sex. And by developing those areas, that makes us a better person. And by developing those areas and making us a better person, it makes us a more attractive person. You go from ordinary to extraordinary.