 You now have a plan of action for that first date. We've explored the three dating markets. Now you got some opportunities lined up to actually put these skills into action. And what skills are these, Johnny? Are flirting skills. Uh-oh. And a lot of us... Here comes the letters. When it comes to flirting, we focus only on the words. And this was a big one because, again, and I feel that this goes right along with the problem that everyone's having with the Me Too era is that we are not paying attention to the subtle signs of interest that are usually not vocalized. They are not present in the words. They are nuances that come out in body language. If you're nervous, if you have anxiety, or you're just a bit self-conscious on this date because you really like... Just inexperienced. You're inexperienced because you really like this other person. Guess what? You're focused internally on how you're feeling and what's going on with you while you're trying to get through this first date. So guess what? You are unable to read anything that is going on with the other person. And that's why self-development is so important because once you start to work on your own stuff, then you're slowly able to start focusing outward and you can then pay attention and be present to the other person verbalizing how they're feeling through their body language. And we had an episode last year, the listening episode, the art of listening, understanding that there are five levels to listening. And the content is the first level. Just the words are the first level. So when we talk about listening here at The Art of Charm, we talk about listening with our eyes and our ears. We are listening with our eyes to look at the subtle signs of interest that the other person is displaying. And in video work on Tuesday in our boot camp, we film all of our clients interacting with our coaches in conversation. They practice with each other and then they actually approach our coaches on camera. And inevitably, we play back the video first with no sound. Yep, it's terrifying. And everyone watches with no sound and they go, oh my God. Here's my favorite part about it. We don't even have to point anything out yet. They're already seeing all the issues and then we begin to start breaking it down so they could correct it. They're also seeing a totally different experience because they're no longer focused on just the words. So when it comes to flirting, the first thing we need to pay attention to is not just the words that the other person is saying, but also their body language, their actions. And with that body language, we first have to show them that we are open and interested. And unfortunately, as Johnny was saying earlier, when we get nervous, a lot of us self soothe by closing our body language off, crossing our arms, making ourselves smaller, almost removing ourselves from that tension that we're feeling on the date. You're programmed to do it. So without being conscious of what you're doing, you're already going through the motions of getting yourself comfortable because you're uncomfortable and your body's going to do what it normally does. And what usually happens is you tend to get smaller because you're trying to protect yourself because you're uncomfortable. So your arms get crossed, you tend to get smaller and because of that, you now look submissive. You now look weak. You look uninteresting. You look uninteresting. You look uncomfortable. Everyone thinks they smile more. They do not think that they self soothe and close their body language. And oftentimes we feel that we are fully committed to the interaction, but we're not. We're not committed to the interaction. And when we talk about commitment, we mean committing to the interaction both verbally and nonverbally. So one of the first things that we want you to focus on with your body language is just getting open, uncrossing those arms, allowing your chest to be open. And now you're going to be able to read the body language signals of the other person more readily. When we are closing ourselves off, we're actually closing off our mind from picking up on these signals. And it's funny because on Friday, we go back and film again. And after working through fixing some of our body language stuff and now understanding how to use words to our advantage, we realize the conversation is completely different on Friday. And that video work looks entirely different. There's less dramatic pauses. There's less awkward silences. And ultimately, there's more comfort from both parties. In these settings, we are going to mirror each other. Why? Because we want the other person to like us. So what's going to happen if you start closing off your body language, the other person is going to start closing off their body language. They're going to start feeling discomfort, too. So when we are paying attention to our body language, we're allowing ourselves to be more comfortable in this setting of the first date. Now let's talk about the words. What we choose to focus on when it comes to flirting is numero uno in terms of importance because a lot of us, when we think about flirting, we think about witty one-liners. We think about being this comedian that just has the other person laughing the whole time. And in actuality, most flirting is not just based around getting the other person laughing. Most flirting is around showing that you can have a range of emotions and be expressive and be engaged in conversation. It's not about being a stand-up comedian. If you go into this date, you're, of course, you're focused on make a great first impression, be witty, be memorable. You've put all this pressure on yourself. So what inevitably ends up happening is you start asking the other person questions because you're now sitting directly across from them and you're, how was your week? And when, how do you like your job? And is it, do you enjoy it? And when you go through this, what we call it, ends up being an interrogation rather than a conversation, you're dragging information on the other person. What happens there is they feel interrogated and there was not much effort that they put in all the effort. While you feel that you were doing the work, you'll find it as difficult to do any flirting because you're not, you don't have anything to flirt about. Exactly. And what happens is you get so focused on trying to make this moment happen, you're in your head looking for zingers, looking for the one-liners, looking for something and you're not allowing the conversation to build and it has to be able to build so that your emotions, your personality, your wit, and your charm quotes is able to shine through. It's as if you're walking into the batter's box and you're letting the pitcher know, your first question to the other person, you're basically letting the pitcher know, I'm ready, let's do this, you're wound out, you got your bat, you're all set up, you're waiting for that pitch and because you've asked the question, you immediately go into your head and you start to think about what woody one-liners or what do you got to answer this person with. That's you anticipating the pitch and while you're waiting for it to come over the plate, it's high and outside and you weren't expecting that. So, you're at a loss, what do you end up doing? Well, I guess I should ask another question, say you let the batter know, I'm ready again and you're anticipating, you're in your head, looking for your zingers, you're anticipating the pitch and now it's low and inside. Wow, that wasn't over the plate, I wasn't ready for that one. So, you let the pitcher know, you're ready, you ask another question and we know and it is observable through the video work that you could only ask so many questions before the conversation collapses in on itself and now there's just this awkwardness because you can only ask so many questions before it just gets weird. Right, before the other person is like, hey, I'm done with this. Done. Now, when it comes to being humorous, you know, this is the ultimate misconception in my mind that we've heard time and time again over the last decade plus, that I don't have a sense of humor, I'm not funny. Yes. And, you know, time and time again, come Thursday, when we do our improv conversation games in class, typically the person on Tuesday that was the quietest, maybe the little more reserved one who hadn't said anything silly, lights up the room on Thursday. Yeah. Why? Because they're just free to express themselves. Yes. Humor is freedom. It is not lining up the perfect line for the perfect moment. It's simply a form of self-expression. Yes. Of you allowing that thought in your head to be transmitted to the other person without fear of approval, without fear of judgment. Yes. And humor is the seasoning in this recipe. It is the salt and pepper in the flirting conversation on the first date. Humor is not the meat and potatoes, the tofu and potatoes. It is the salt and pepper. So when we think about flirting and being silly, we could take the pressure off of ourselves. We don't need to have a witty one-liner zinger every single moment of this first date to get the other person to like us.