Pdon's Weblog

Compliance-Value and the simplicity of a Name

pdon — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:17:07 +0000

A concept that I am exploring, credit to JCH’s Unbreakable Program for introducing it to me, is the relationship and importance of value/compliance/investment. The ability to achieve compliance or even mini-compliance is directly tied to the value that you give them.

Value – can be any number of things – good looks, charisma, non-verbals, making them feel good about themselves, body language, vibe, money, both historical and present , making them feel safe, making them feel self-appreciated, etc.

Compliance - comes in many forms as well, whether active compliance of actions, verbal compliance of following the conversational thread where you are leading it, etc.

General Structure – Once value is given, and compliance is received and rewarded (a separate but very related concept), then more and more investment will be achieved. She will be investing in you and the conversation through her compliance and acceptance of the value that is being given to her. Her compliance and acceptance of the value, though they might come before her actual realization of investing into you, lead her into a backwards justification loop where she must like you if she is complying so much or feeling so good about the value.

Notes and applications
You can almost force compliance with value and immediate compliance request. The perfect example is something that I have been toying with a lot lately in my quest to discover natural escalation points. The introduction. At a certain point in a conversation, the second somebody earns even the slightest qualification, their reward is the intro. Concrete example – She makes me laugh. “Me – Hey, you’re a lot of fun (the value, makes her feel good about herself as I qualify her genuinely) … what’s your name? [put out my hand right away]… She will almost always comply and in this brief moment, so many things have been achieved.

You’ve given her value by qualifying her on an attribute that you genuinely like. You’ve received compliance as she shakes your hand and gives her name. You now have each others’ names, much more advantageous in this situation. You’ve shown that you have standards by not just introducing yourself until you qualified her. You’ve gotten kino. You’ve found a natural escalation point. You’ve created a great transition point (you now have control of the conversation and can lead it anywhere you want it to go). You’ve established yourself as a leader of the conversation, especially if you now lead it in a new direction.

I’ve found that this works very well. The vibe almost instantly changes from whatever it was (banter, disinterest, etc) to one much more personal and intimate. This is a natural escalation point as well.

A few more things to experiment with:
- After get the name, reward her. “XYZ, my name is Bryan. It’s great to meet you, you’ve got a real fun vibe”
- Try moving into more compliance “You know what, let’s get a drink”. Compliance request should follow immediately the value that is given (the longer you wait after giving the value, the lower the chance to get compliance)
- Use it as a topic changer to do one of a few key things. (1) Move into a topic that can make things more personal, like “so what brings you out today”, or a rapport topic “since you seem fun, let me ask you a fun question” . Really need to just get a good sense of the venue and the energy and how far can push it (2) Get immediate compliance after giving a bit more value “Great to meet you, you’ve got a great energy… you know what, let’s get a drink”
- Experiment with the body language (reward her with body language)

Field Report – Misc Happy Hours

pdon — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:19:39 +0000

Goals
This is consolidated over several Happy Hours. My goals at these happy hours were the following:

Overall Goal
Get into a lot of sets

Overall Flow
- Grab a drink (establish compliance)
- Catch some outliers
- Move into the below

Openers to try
- Short Sets (coming into the sets together)
- Direct Opener and Walk away (with time constraint)
- Direct Opener and Stick.
- Catch eye contact and introduce self (going up to them)
- Catch eye contact of somebody nearby and just turn and talk to them
- Pull random people into sets

Other things to try once get into set (beyond what I do naturally)
- Natural escalation (get the name if don’t already have it, upon first approval)
- PFA boring conversation busters (in the beginning) to lead into an open-ended question or whatever else (just wing it after this)
- Just have time of my life and lots of fun
- Body language – lock in with the hips and the eyes. At some point, do a push/pull
- Qualify into chase dynamic (does this really work, or did my chase dynamic forming decline, this used to work really well for me) Did it stop doing so well when i became self conscious of the weirdness of it. Try both)

Interaction Details
Over these several interactions, I’ve been able to try a lot of these things. A “where I’m at, good process for getting into sets will be listed below in the Lessons section”. Here are a few interactions of note:

First friendly set – after getting drinks with wingwoman, spotted two guys by the bar. Said cheers, clinked drinks. Introduced ourselves, then took the leadership of introducing wingwoman into the set, then basically just introduced ourselves. This provided a good opener and a homebase. Was able to talk to them for a bit, basic AFC chat, but provided a good jump-off.

Introduced into set by friend – Didn’t pay much attention at first, but did bust on her when had the opportunity as well as banter and joke about her not being up to par with the Ivy League crowd. Age game didn’t work well, should have made it for drinks like I have in the past. I must have been chase dynamic enough and playful enough with a good vibe. She re-opened me later. We connected on China. I disqualified a lot, but always with a confident air. Qualified with a high five on China. MCR’d and slight location bounce, when we were trying to hold stuff… had her sit down, this showed good leadership. Part way through, she said that I was the most fun person she met that night. Moved into a “where would you go” hoop. She was down for it. Could have done a bit better with the hook/recognize the hook/relate or dig deeper. At one point, her friends came by and pretty much ended the set. Lesson learned. See below

Pulling Into Set 1
Was talking to a few friends, saw a cute girl sort of standing by herself nearby. She was with friends, but not really talking to them. We made eye contact, and I just started talking to her like we knew each other. I joked about how she must be jealous of my name tag and showed her, she laughed. She was slightly uncomfortable for a second which I saw in the body language. Asked her if she was having fun. Her comfort increased, then she turned torwards me and started to ask the buying questions of what I did. I made her chase, which worked well (though I could have qualified, as I’m always working on this). She chased, when she got it. She tried to relate to it by saying her father was an engineer, however, I busted on her for her english and she turned out to be an immigrant. And vibe was lost. Lesson learned.

Pulling into Set 2
Saw a girl kick her friend and say she’s hungry. Just repeated it back to her in a playful way “She’s hungry!”. She laughed, acknowledged it. Then I smiled and kept talking to my friend. She came by and opened me and the person I was talking to. The conversation was weird. Pretty standard fighting type banter. Her hips never truly opened to me so she had something closed off about her. She made several comments like to friends how she wanted to date somebody “not like me”… I knew there was some connection there and she was a lot of fun. I asked her about China.. which was ok, but put her in a position of authority which probably didn’t want to do especially given her already penchance for cockiness. Did one thing well. When I realized she was fun, I told her so and then asked her what her name was. This was a good escalation point. I should have used it to springboard into something else tho. I felt the mood change to friendly at that point. We went back to banter mode however, I should have figured out an escalation point to get out of this. Later on, told her we were going to dinner. I was pretty alpha about it with her friends and stuff (making them eat the chocolate) and she should join us. I could have done better by closing. See the “always be closing” point.

Later at dinner, she actually joined us but sat across the table. I told her she was fun and asked where “so and so” found her at certain points, kept up the banter. She seemed interested, joined in the Facebook conversation at one point, saying how she would add us on FB, so I knew she had some interest. I really should have escalated and/or closed in some form if I was interested. At the end, could have said “hey, I have to talk to you for a second”. But was with somebody, so it didn’t seem appropriate. I think that really held me back in a sense.

Pulled Girls into Set 3
Used wingperson to pull girl into our set. “Hey, my friend really likes your hat”. This is gimmicy and not something I’d want to rely on, but did go to prove to me how important a wingwoman can be. The girls came in. We joked around a bit. I tried to play the chase game, they didn’t bite. I assigned one girl the role of my “Mandarin teacher” This isn’t perfect because it puts her in an authority place, but it does seem to build connection. The conversation with the hat girl pseudo died out. I think I want to experiment with PFAs as boring conversation busters.

Could Have Done Better
- Related and recognized the hook better when she said that she wanted to go to Brazil. Perhaps asked her where we would go when we went to Brazil, what would we see… then did a cold read on her description of it.
- Always be closing. Once there is a vibe going, we’ve been talking for 10 minutes or so. Close. And then proceed to keep talking. Friends can come at any point, so leaving the close until the end is both risky and standard.
- Don’t be mean. Busting on a girl is one thing, but being mean like saying she didn’t know how to talk could backfire, as it did.
- Use escalation points to springboard – The name thing is a great escalation point, she does something I like, I reward her with “hey, you’re a lot of fun… what’s your name?”. However, in the seconds after that escalation, is important to springboard it into something else. Maybe escalate to a drink or location bounce, experiment with this. Or at the minimum of a topic change… let me ask you a question since you are so fun…. xyz.
- Busting the boring conversations with PFAs

Did Well
- First Friendly Set opened with a “cheers”. Opened very easily and got the social momentum rolling
- Maintained a playful vibe (turning things into games is fun for them always, keep this in mind)
- Maintained high status (forcing them to chase)
- Disqualified, but maintained the confidence
- Pulling girls into sets – Works really well, just pull them in with a nice comfortable and playful vibe and they are often more than happy to join into the conversation.
- Name escalation – Worked very well, gives a good vibe to the conversation and makes them feel rewarded.
- Called out and qualified a girl for being so much fun. She reacted well to it.

Lessons

Opening Sets – Where I’m at Process/Routine
This is a work in progress, but at the moment, my compilation of the process that seems to be working well at Happy Hours in terms of being able to open multiple sets which is what I am concentrating on at the moment.

- Wingperson – If possible, come in with wingperson, wingwoman works even better, this is best way to enjoy an evening.
- Drink – Grab a drink (this is not absolutely necessary, but seems to be working well for me at the moment, so keep it in and can experiment later with it to see how to work it w/o it)
- Find a wingperson – If no wingperson, grab an outlier or a friendly group and keep making my way around until I find somebody I vibe with (outlier guys work well for this and I think they are more than happy to have the company since they are otherwise standing there alone). Then.. hey, let’s go meet some people.
- First friendly set – clink glasses – Once have the drink and the wingperson, open the next friendly set that I see. It could be a pair of dudes, and in fact, given my desire to do better with guys, let’s make it so. Introduce self into the set as a short set (cheers, clink glasses (first compliance), having fun tonight? (yes/no to build the second compliance)… share something about self, ask what brought them out that night and vibe off of it. As soon as get the next friendly vibe off of them, do intro’s… vibe a bit longer, then prepare to roll-off.
- Stick or Roll Off – If in a really good set, stick, if not, roll off and hit the next friendly and open set or roll into a set of people that you know already. (can roll with or w/o the wingperson)
- Pull into sets or Transition off of Eye contact or flopsies – Take opportunity when in sets to pull other people into the sets, just ride the energy of the situations and pull people in as they walk by or make interesting comments to people next to you about the environment or things that are going on. As soon as do this, you’re able to roll into the next set and just keep on rolling. When time to roll off, by now, should have a couple of friendly areas so roll back into those sets and re-open
- Random Direct Approaches – All the while, taking time to do some direct approaches but without a desired outcome (approach and then leave with time constraint). Do these on anybody that is interesting or makes friendly eye contact
- Natural escalation – Should be mainly on the banter level for the above conversations, but if at any moment somebody catches interest. Qualify them and naturally escalate to a better conversation, another drink, etc.

Always Be Closing
At the 3rd or 4th (experiment with this) true escalation point or qualification. Or even better, if you’re future planning… number close. Because at any moment, the set could be interrupted (especially if this is night game) and this seems to happen a lot.

Be comfortable
I’ve said this before, but always treat them like I already know them from the standpoint of comfort. The more comfortable I am, the more comfortable they will be. If my frame of comfort is stronger than whatever discomfort they might have, they will fall right into it.

Name escalation
This is a great escalation point. First thing she does that impresses me. Qualify her and ask her for her name. It gives a great and personal vibe to the conversation and is an instant point where I can change the topic smoothly. Since you are so fun, I think we could get along well, let’s skip the bs and let me ask you a question.

Having a wingman or wingwoman (even better!) is money

Day 2 and beyond Notes

pdon — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:44:26 +0000

Notes from some of the follow-up and Day 2 lessons that I learned (see specific notes for more details)

Did Well
- Baiting – Hey, are you doing xyz? Oh, cuz I was going to give you a compliment. She asks what. Then break the thread and tell her that I’ll tell her in a second, but I gotta tell her abc first. Then either come back to it or wait for her to bring it back up. This worked really well.
- Role-played very well.
- Hooks – Now that I am always looking for hooks, it’s good because I’m always able to jump off of conversations before they fizzle out. don’t always have to do this, but it helps to know what topics I have available. I think this is really starting to help.
- When on the phone or text – I was the one who stopped the call/text flow. This is good leadership and position of strength
- Frame Control – Did a pretty good job of frame control… when she asked me a question, stalled for a bit and then came back to it.
- Hoops – Did well moving through hoops.
- Qualification – got her to qualify a lot on skills (what secret skills she has)
- when qualifying girls on their skills, they seem to really go for it. Remember to do this more. “what secret skills do you have that I would never guess”… if you were writing a resume and there was a section for non-work related skills what would you put?

Could Have Done Better
- conversational threads / acknowledge / relate back – since i don’t seem to be guessing correctly, try acknowledging the situation… making a guess… then asking her how feels
- SOI – tried to SOI, but I don’t think I was strong enough about it… said… creativity, that’s a sexy quality. she sort of let it roll off. Need to be stronger with this.

Lessons Learned
- Qualifying girls on their skills seemed to really work – add this to my list of qualifications to use.
- SOI needs to be stronger and not snuck in there.
- Rolling hoops into each other really works well. (childhood occupation, into secret superpowers, into traveling the world, they flow really wel)

Field Report – 11/21/08 – Dinner and Club

pdon — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:03:51 +0000

Goals
I had specific goals in this case.

At the club:
(1) Be social and make approaches
(2) Kino and qualifying, and body language (eye contact)

At Dinner (social circle intro stuff)
(1) Sexual vibe (eye contact, flirty frame with everybody)
(2) Work on conversational hooks/acknowledgement/relating back to her (conversational technique)
(3) Work on playful false assumptions
(4) Qualifying

Interaction Details
The plan was this – Go to dinner, meet a friend as well as a fairly large group of people that I wouldn’t know. After dinner, we would go to a club. The group that I was meeting is a fairly open group of people, so I expect everybody to be fairly social and open to meeting new people.

I arrive at the dinner a bit late. My friend saves a seat for me. At this point, since all the other seats are full, I go to the spot that my friend saved for me, however, it is important for me to make my presence known to everybody. Since I am a leader and social, the way to do this was immediately upon my arrival, I introduce myself to everybody at the table to show some leadership (instead of waiting for people to introduce themselves or just introducing myself to the person next to me).

I spot the cutest girl at my dinner table (we’ll call her HB) and make note of her. However, she is on the opposite side of the table, so to make any sort of direct interaction immediately would be strange and difficult. I want to talk to her, but since this is social circle interaction, I wait for my opportunity. I make small talk with the others at the table, establishing some social proof by befriending them. As the conversation goes on, I am being myself, cracking jokes, making people laugh… I notice out of the corner of my eye that HB has a good energy and laughs when she’s hearing my jokes. I find a couple of opportunities to bust on her and we establish a good friendly rapport and common sense of humor.

As we leave dinner, we end up walking with each other. I make a comment about a fur coat that she is wearing. You must be warm in that coat. We vibe off of that and make some jokes about the different animals that went into keeping her warm and how she would be sweating while the rest of us were freezing. This was sort of my version of a playful assumption and turning a situation into a funny scenario. Worked well, she joked with me and we had a nice friendly vibe going.

At bubble tea, we sat down and she says she’s not hungry, then sees the menu and gets excited about something. I genuinely feed off of this energy, it cracks me up and I start busting out laughing. She asks why and I tell her that she has a good sense of humor. We vibe off of this for a little bit. At this point, we have a pretty good rapport going on.

Fast forward, we are waiting outside of the club together with a group of people. I callback humor to the coat about how warm she must be. She gives me a hug and shares the warmth. Obvious IOI and kino and comfort. At some point, we get to talking about my age. Something that always comes up. I have her guess for a little bit. Could have done this better I think (see below). She doesn’t completely figure out my age, but at some point when I ask her for her age, she says she’s 96. I joke that she looks really well for her age and things like that. She plays along, she has a pretty good sense of humor. I continue the role-play and ask her what she’s learned. She says cooking. Good opportunity to role-play, I ask her what she will be cooking for me. She goes into this whole 6 course meal plan. And the role-play works pretty well, she talks about it for a while and I do my best to reward her and be excited and appreciative of her commitment to the role-play.

At one point, she tells me about a consolation. A pretty good topic since it’s dreams. I say how I like being in NJ because can really see the stars, can’t really see them in Manhatten. Baiting her a bit about where I grew up. She says that she knows about them because of xyz. I ask her “how was it growing up in xyz”…she says “ok” and loses her attention for a minute. Next up, she sits down and I say it must be cold. She says no, that I should join her. I don’t, I say it must be cold down there because I don’t want to be too eager and jump at it.

We enter the club. It’s open bar, but she offers to get me a drink. I accept and let her “serve” me. We grab a spot near the bathroom and I offer up a cheers and chink glasses. I think this is always a good thing to do when drinking with a group of people, builds some unity and connection.

Up next, she goes to the bathroom and asks me to hold her drink. I do. I guess I could have asked for something in return or been smart about it, but I was too slow. When she returns, I say “ok, your turn” and hand her my drink. Though this might not be the best, because she could have refused it, she didn’t, and in the end, it ends up being an MCR and compliance misstep avoided. In fact, this is probably a good thing to do, getting a girl to hold a drink for you. I could imagine using this in the future, if in a group setting. If just 1 on 1, then going to the bathroom and asking her to hold your drink is sort of momentum losing (unless well into the interaction). However, in a small group, it gets her immediately attentive to you, she has to be since she’s holding your drink. A little while later I gave her another friend’s drink to hold and she was like, am i your drink holder? But she held it, nice MCR and nice fun and playfulness.

At one point, I made a joke about waiting for a friend with sensuous hips. While just a funny thing to say, it did get her in anticipation and she asked about it a few times. This was just me being me. Probably could have done without this because it brought attention onto somebody else (and risked losing the interaction), but it didn’t end up doing any harm in the long run.

Dancing in the club. She had said that she would dance if enough drink. I think dancing just isn’t her thing and she was embaressed to do it, but was hard to get much energy out of her. I could have helped this by qualifying a bit. We danced a bunch. Noticed that she did come over to hang out with us when we were dancing. Dancing is a good way that I show that I know how to have fun. I got some light kino in by dancing with her, but really there wasn’t super amounts of chemistry going on, on the dance floor. One thing I did notice, she sort of stuck with our group, so that was a good thing.

At one point, cameras came up and she mentioned photography. I qualified her on being creative. asked more about the art. I probably could have related a bit better onto these hooks and gotten the emotions out of them. She mentioned that she photographed night time and I asked her what it was about that. And she said the lack of detail, which sort of puzzled me. But I could have gone into the feeling of creativity. What drives her to be creative and how I like it.

Dance for a while both with her and with other people. I’m having a good time w/o her at this point, she sits down, talks to other, etc. At one point, I sit down and she comes and sits next to me. IOI of course. She mentioned something about drinking and I qualified her that she had a humorous way of putting things. then something else happened and she called me mean. Then i said well, yeah, i’m a bit mean… and she seems like a nice person so we can’t be friends. This was my push/pull attempt, it worked ok. She didn’t really try too hard, so I pulled her back in. (if she had fought to stay “in” that would have been an IOI, but if not, I pull her back in) then she said “am i nice”… which turned into me saying how she was nice… then she sort of denied it for a while… then ok, you’re a bad girl. then she started searching for a word of how she was.. came up with humane… which i qualified her on, oh you have a good heart. then turned out that wasn’t what she meant… then settled on noble. So I said.. noble? what’s the most noble thing you’ve done, which I thought was pretty decent. She was hesitant at first, but I said “come on, we might be married one day, or we might never talk again”… she went with it, and started to tell her story. She described a story where she forgave somebody. I looked for the hooks… came up with “how it feels to forgive somebody and be free afterwards”. described that feeling back to her, it didn’t really hit or click… at this point, i could have been like… “so, how did you feel”… i think that would have been a good way to get into the feelings of it. but instead… i did “ah, so yeah… like, say in h.s. when somebody did something to you… you were all mad at them and held a grudge, but then when you finally let go, you feel free of it. (trying to relate it back to her… it didn’t quite work, but did help me lead into the next one). she was like “sort of…” so I said… well, what were you like in h.s. Sort of jumping into the thread that I had created. Not the smoothest, but she went with it… she said, “I needed a lot of attention.” We got interrupted at that point…

I made some decision of “let’s go eat something” and she said ok. This displayed some good leadership.

i asked her if she was an only child (sort of an educated guess because of the attention thing, and from xyz)… she said yes. then i did a cold read that she must have had a lot of stuffed animals (my theory on people that grow up a bit lonely have stuffed animals). She did and I played onto that she must have told them all her secrets growing up. Could have been a bit smoother like “hey, sometimes it’s the things that don’t talk back that we can really relate to and talk to during some of our loneliest or troublesome parts of life”. But I just related it back to me at this point, saying how I had a dog. She liked this… and asked what my dog’s name was (seemed like she connected onto it).

We bounced to eat. Don’t remember too much from dinner conversation, but this is a venue change… good for comfort.

On ride home, gave her my phone because she spotted picture on my phone and asked about it, I was just taking my phone out at the moment. I gave to her, then she called her own phone. At that point, I had the number there… I just asked her to put her name into the phone as well. Then she proceeded to put my name into her phone. Sort of number closed herself for the most part. I then text messaged her right then and there for laughs. Done deal. See related documents for the follow-ups and day 2 and beyond that has ensued.

Misc other interactions in the club
There were a couple other minor interactions in the club that I can learn from.
- HB opened a 3 set of girls incidentally. (I think they bumped into each other). I could have moved in with her and qualified them on their energy (they had good dancing energy). Then cheers with them and then opened them as a short set and vibed from there
- The girl that danced with me and then went away. Obviously she was a high energy club girl, but I never got her name. I should have naturally escalated her at some point and told her she had good energy and asked for her name. Instead, I went the cocky funny route upon leaving and said “you have to be polite and tell me your name”. Both are ok, but I think approval and natural escalation comes from a higher value standpoint then trying to get her name at the very end when she asked me to come out to a club in an obvious promotional manner. She had even been the one that opened me in the beginning and said she wanted to learn my dance moves. Then after we danced, she came back to dhv me in front of the other girl, telling her I was a good teacher. I gave her a high five, a bit of approval and mcr, but definitely could have done more with this.

Could Have Done better
- Really need to tweak out this age thing. Next time it comes up, I think that I will try to make it a mutual game and guess her age at the same time as she’s guessing my age. Like how I did it with WL. Either that or do away with the game and get her age right away. I notice that girls always won’t tell or make it a guess, but I want to try making it fun and see what happens.
- Lost her on the “how did it feel growing up in xyz” – I don’t think there was anything critically wrong with my conversational path here, but perhaps I could have tried a PFA instead of a rapport seeking question. Then get the conversation flowing about xyz, then asked the rapport seeking question once I’m given some sort of emotion to key into.
- Don’t deny her attempt to escalate the interaction – If she asks me to sit down. I don’t have to take it as an order or appear to eager. But “hey, let’s see if it really is warmer”… then check it out.
- Don’t man-crush on another man – It’s not really necessary, and if I’m DHV’ing another guy, that doesn’t really help my cause.
- Hooked a little better onto the emotions – i.e. when talking about creativity and cameras. (do exercises on this)
- Pulled a little harder before the soft push (like in the rapport cycles). Pull pull pulll to get her feeling happy, then the slight push to break rapport momentarily, then the pull again.
- Keep working on this find hook / acknowledge / relate back to them technique

Did Well
- Immediate presence felt – I entered the social atmosphere with a strong, positive energy and immediately made my presence known. I remember this as something that KM used to do and it works well. He was never one to silently enter into a room. When he came in, everybody knew he was there. Not in any kind of obnoxious way, but, he was sure to say hello to everybody. Something I have been working on. When entering a social situation, I am finding that it is better to enter it with a strong frame. Everybody should notice me coming in. Even if this doesn’t translate into any immediate interactions, the key is to come in with a good positive, social energy. This establishes you as a social person and somebody who has charisma and presence as opposed to somebody who nobody notices that they entered the room. Of course, want to not overdo it or try too hard, so currently, I just come in, introduce myself to everybody, big smile. This is key to note, must be coming from a position of “hey, I’m a social person and a leader” coming into the room as opposed to the mentality of “hey, can I meet you”. Sort of like opening up the room with short sets.
- Waiting for my opportunity – Since this is social circle and I know that she’s going to be at the table for a while at dinner, I wait for my opportunity to either bust on her, call her out on something she is doing, qualify her (tho this didn’t happen esp since she was across the table). When it comes, I gave a strong frame (good eye contact) and joked about something with her. Busted on her for something that I can’t remember, then maintained eye contact and made it known that I was talking directly to her. I’ve found, that in big group, busting on them is a good way to get it started, followed by some possible shared eye contact and laughs at other things going on around the table.
- Eye Contact – once again, upon the initial introductions, this eye contact and sexual framing (just from the strong eye contact) worked well and was key.
- Vibed off of energy – I genuinely liked her energy. So when she said something funny or did something cute that I enjoyed, I full on enjoyed the moment as if I had known her forever. I also used it as an opportunity to show approval of her. By telling her that I liked her energy and she was funny, I’m justifying why I am enjoying her and it all makes sense.
- Familiarity – I think that one of the key concepts in letting people get comfortable with me so fast is that I feel comfortable around them. Not afraid to bust on them, make fun of them, etc. By feeling so comfortable like they are already a friend that I just haven’t met yet… they seem to feel comfortable with me quickly.
- Role play – when given the opportunity to role-play about cooking, I took it. This is a good role-play since it puts her in the position of serving me. I’m careful to appreciate and not be too demanding, but really reward her for the different dishes that she says she will cook. And I also call this back a few times over the course of the night. Call-back humor is good.
- Cheers – Always good to do.
- Good MCR – getting her to hold your drink while you hit the bathroom really quickly
- Location bounces – Dinner – bubble tea – club – within the club (to the bar, to the dance floor, downstairs) – after the club to eat – driving her home. By the time the night was over, we had bounced to so many different places both outside and within the club that it felt like we had known each other for a long time.
- We could be married one day or never talk again, either way, it’s all good – works well. Keep this one for future use.
- Had pretty good established leadership – making decisions of going downstairs, where to eat, etc.
- Good cold read – the stuffed animals thing, leads well into secrets and can relate to it with my dog (bringing in comfort)

Lessons
- Strong, and a bit of flirty eye contact and smile work well when appropriate (when introduced and am genuinely approving of her energy), when have any kind of moment or catch eyes at the table.
- Be comfortable. The more comfortable I feel with them, the more comfortable they are with me. Whether this is immediately busting on them, enjoying their energy, etc. This works well in making people open up quickly.
- Approval Giving – I already knew this, but an extra emphasis
- When vibe off of energy – approve of their energy. Let her know that I am having a good time and laughing because of her and her energy that I like.
- Good MCR – Getting her to hold your drink. Might even be a good thing to do right up front if enter the club with a group of people and are just settling in. (try this more next time)
- Location bouncing – Even within the club, this does a lot to build comfort. Do this often. Even if just hanging out in a club, bounce her to the bar, then to dance floor, then to another floor to check something out, grab food afterwards, etc.
- Push part of push/pull is a pretty good test – If she fights to come back in, it’s definitely on. If sense her going away with the push or ignoring it, it’s ok too. Just be sure to pull her back in. Could amp it up a bit more (like the FT in the club rapport cycles)… aka, reward her heavily on the pull before pushing. (gets her used to the praise and then she wants to keep it)
- “Married or never talk again” technique is money
- Keep establishing and maintaining that leadership – MCR’ing, being decisive, leading and having fun.
- A really money cold read is the stuffed animal thing. If she seems like she was lonely growing up or needed somebody to connect with, cold read her on having a lot of stuffed animals (or even if not, just give it a shot, a lot of girls did). This leads really well into a number of things, like childhood, what memories bring her back. Or into secrets, depending on how intimate the conversation is feeling at that moment.
- Always be ready to run the short set. These opportunities can occur at any moment.
- Give approval and escalate on anybody that genuinely wins my approval.
- Not a bad idea at some point (assuming you guys are comfortable with each other) to let the conversation die down and see if she’ll start it back up (only do this if think that she will and should be well into the conversation). Might even make a statement about how we should just enjoy the vibe for a bit. (one of my favorite things to do in a club is just chill and enjoy the atmosphere).

Field Report 11/9/08 – More on Leadership

pdon — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:58:34 +0000

Goals
This was a situation where I got a group of people together. There was a co-leader, so it wasn’t all on me. But in essence it was. I had extreme low energy, and it affected my abilities.

Interaction Details
The day went fairly smoothly, all teams competed well and the event was a success. I fell short a bit in my own handling of my smaller team once we broke down. At that point, it became less of me as organizer and more of me as an acutal leader. My lack of energy hindered me, but I also had some things I could have done better.

Did Well
- MCRs – Had a person helping me on my team. MCR’ing, getting her to be in charge of little things kept her very participatory.
- Had a decent portrayal as the leader, almost default since I had organized it all.
- Got the picture together by grabbing the photographer.

Could Have Done Better
There was one point, actually throughout where my team wasn’t all that participatory. It didn’t feel like a team and that was largely my fault and my low energy. What I mainly could have done better was gotten my own team working well together and motivated.

- Motivate – This is part of the fun aspect. Partly due to my lack of energy, I think it came across that I wasn’t gung ho about everything. I needed to have put more energy in the beginning to my team to get people enthusiastic. Could have fostered bonding amongst them, gotten some energy momentum going (i.e. gotten us all posed for a picture in the beginning), made sure everybody was together. Get them to bond, especially in the beginning. (all hands in, build the team unity based around the nickname)
- MCR / given some authority – Could have asked another person to take co-captainship of the team, since I was going to be going around organizing the other teams as well. This would have helped establish some leadership as well as shifted some responsibility off of me. Given other roles… camera person, in charge of the list. If people aren’t enthusiastic, get them involved (give them a task).
- Done more with MCRs in general – I had the perfect situation with the captains, so I could have given them little tasks to do (have your team do this, etc). Could have picked the captains a bit better to be people with a little more authority.
- Kept the team together – People kept wandering off on their own. Since it was a team, I should have fostered more of a team feel to it or at least the people who were enthusiastic. I think this is mainly keeping the team focus.
- Have high standards – At a couple of the taks, I was unsure of myself and thus accepted less than I wanted. As a leader, I should have high standards of excellance to get people feeling the same way about it. My slight lack of enthusiasm for the scavenger hunt probably came across in my teams lack of enthusiasm.

Key Takeaways
- Continue to keep the good of the team in mind and (the team in general)
- Must be 100% buying into my own event and that people will want to do it – Holding the event to a high standard, not being embarassed to put myself out there as enthusiastic… because I am unaffected even if people aren’t going for it. If I’m not buying into the “fun”, why would anybody else?
- Be more dominant and sure of self.
- Get people participatory (MCRs) by assigning roles – establishes leadership, gets people involved, and eases own burden.

Misc Leadership Thoughts from previous musings
- Have an archetype as a leader. Russell Crowe in Gladiator in the beginning (how he connects with each person and works for the good of the empire aka the good of his group that he is leading)
- Get commitment from people through assigning them tasks and the MCRs
- Always be looking out for the best interest of the group
- Connect with people, “make the rounds”
- Show genuine gratitude when people do help out or fulfill the mcrs.

Field Report – 10/9/08 – Happy Hour and KTown

pdon — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:22:49 +0000

Goals
My goals were to make approaches. I had based my “strategy” on previous interactions at happy hour and planned on working on short sets, being social, good body language, and having fun. If got into set, planned on working on some qualifications and pull/pull/pull/push (using the qualifications). KTown daygame, idea was to approach.

Interaction Details
Ended up making no approaches. Why? Because when I got there, it seemed like all the sets (or at least the ones that I had envisioned) were taken. Gone were the sets that had just been there last time. There were no lone girls or friendly looking groups of girls. Also, sat there alone for a while… and the longer that happened, the more awkward it got. Since the room was small… circling was out, and that’s never a good idea anyway. My friend that I was meeting was mad late… so I bounced. Headed over to KTown

Could Have Done Better
- Obviously, could have approached. More important in this field report is the lessons learned (see below)

Did Well
- Though I didn’t approach in KTown, I felt a good mindset and very chill. My mentality was one of.. approach who I feel like approaching, and there was no pressure because of it. I didn’t feel pressured to approach every hot girl, just whoever I felt like approaching.

Lessons
- For street game, approach whoever I feel like approaching. She has to have something that really attracts me or intrigues me for me to actually approach. And with this mindset, I think approaching will be easier going forward. Plus will be able to work this into daily routine. The 2 key things, make it part of the daily routine and approach who I want to approach.
- In happy hour. Since people are there explicitly mingling, everything seems to be a mixed set. So, I need to just bust in with high energy. Not as that guy who just comes and lingers on the fringe of the conversation, but just roll in.. say whats up… clink glasses and bring some fun energy into the conversation. Come in with an easy yes/no question so people will engage, then either make some statement, bait, or ask an open-ended question to engage. From there on in… I’ll have to feel out what the next steps are in the conversation, but this is a good place to start.

Field Report – 10/5/08 – Casual Introduced By Friend

pdon — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:23:32 +0000

Goals
In this situation, I was introduced to a girl by a friend in a social atmosphere. The goal here is to make the girl feel comfortable, be natural, friendly, a bit mysterious, etc. It’s important to not be weird since she’s a friend of a friend as well as not be blatantly hitting on her right away as that could be offensive. At a certain point, she asked the buying questions… so I made her chase at first. Turning point in the interaction was when I started busting on her for asking me if I worked with porn. She had a good energy and exhibited some good qualities.

Interaction Details

Interaction started off basic. I asked her the standard yes/no question to get her committed to the interaction. I didn’t really reward her commitment to the conversation (which was pretty high since she didn’t know other people). At a certain point, she asked the buying questions and I made her chase. I also got into what she did by finding out how she knew my friend. Once she chased, we related on one of my jobs (coding)… and was able to do this experientially.

Could Have Done better
- Followup to the yes/no question could have been something open-ended to get her talking. So, what brought you out today? For example, which is what I intend to be my standard follow-up because it opens the door to getting into her world (exploring church, looking for churches, so-and-so brought me out, etc). Conversation was a bit dry at first… asked a few boring questions, but just took it from there… instead of… did you like it? (unless that was the first yes or no question)… could have been more open-ended… what did you think?… could have commented on her first experience in a new place. vibed off of something she said?… work with xyz? what’s that like? Gotten more into her feelings and mine (we could have vibed on what it was like for our first time in fellowship hall… etc)
- Reward her better for commitment to conversation.
- There were some distinct good qualities that she exhibited (kind heart, good sense of humor). I should have rewarded those by qualifying her and giving that “being won over” impression. Not outright challenging her, because it is social situation… but digging a bit deeper into those qualities. i.e. So tell me more about these world views. This would have been fastest and easiest way to escalate the interaction.
- I let her “win me over” and then I locked into the conversation. This was good from a high status point of view, but I probably could have gotten to this point faster and been more friendly initially with the intention of making her feel more comfortable. Used the open-ended questions to get into her world. (see above)

Did Well
- Got her committed to the conversation.
- Busted on her and made her feel comfortable. By misquoting her words, I was able to make her feel comfortable.
- Demonstrated leadership and MCRs by leading her around the social environment and introducing her to people.
- Related experientially on our jobs.

Lessons

- I am learning the difference between night and social. In social… I have to be less challenging and more.. .”being won over”. In nightclub, where attention spans are less… need to challenge the girls and get them trying to impress right away. They don’t have the patience for such a long get to know you phase, so have to demonstrate immediately that I am high status and get them to “prove themselves to me”
- Making them feel comfortable right away – 2 good ways that I am discovering… busting on them, makes it playful and as if we have known each other. And qualifying them (pulls) makes it feel like you are discovering them in a very personal manner and is very powerful. I am learning about their extraordinary qualities.

Field Report – 10/3/08 – Day 2

pdon — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:45:27 +0000

Goals
- Work on Rewarding and getting deeper into feelings
- Work on Qualifying, Hoops, etc. – Since I have been working on listing out my series of progressive hoops (from absolute requirements, to fun, to deeper level qualifications), wanted to work on getting these into the interaction.

Interaction Details
This was a day 2 obtained from a combination of displayed fun leadership during the previous field report and some follow-up IM qualification and disqualification of self. In the time period leading up to the interaction, I injected some role-playing in on some fantasy trips that we would be taking around the world as well as some fun food-eating trips.

The intial part of the day 2 was annoying as she was an hour late and didn’t apologize when she showed up. Normally this wouldn’t be something I would want to stand for as it pretty much left me sitting there waiting for her. But dammit, I was hungry so I didn’t feel like leaving or cancelling out. Her not apologizing when she got there annoyed me, but I didn’t want to put any pressure on the situation by giving her a hard time (more on this below). Fast forward to dinner conversation…

Conversation was decent. She is chatty. Sort of has a hard exterior and not the type to really chase (or perhaps I didn’t work the chase dynamic well enough). I was trying to qualify her by making lead-in types of demands (the hoops)… but something about it felt unnatural with this girl as we weren’t really in rapport… and she seems like sort of girl that wouldn’t want to go into that fantasy world… so didn’t do it as much as I would have liked. Instead… got her talking and rewarded her with qualifying. Some constructive thoughts on the conversation below.

When we jumped out to the club. I did well with the kino and pushing, pulling. Bought her a drink, but made sure that she got the next round. Which she did. She had a pretty strong frame… so she swayed me into hers a few times (like deciding when we should leave the area or the restaurant)… but I always tend to be conscious of this, so I think I handled it fairly well by getting compliance back… leading her around the club… things like that. She was kino’ing fairly hard by end of the night, so if I had wanted to, I probably could have escalated, but I didn’t want to take it there.

At end of night, she apologized for making me drive further. Then again and again (3 times total)… so, I know she’s got some respect of my frame.

Did Well
- Roleplaying over IM – Was able to get some good role-playing in about us going around the world in a plane.
- Initial Qualification and Disqualification of self – Over IM, qualified her on her fun nature, adventurousness, and her asian culture. Disqualified myself when she tried to respond to my qualifications with qualifications of her own. Used something along the lines of.. thank you, but you should have seen me when I was doing xyz, I wasn’t so (her qualification)
- Threw out a good hoop – What did you want to be when you grew up – She jumped through it willingly and this could have been a place to Learn… confirm… affirm?
- Kino and push/pull on the dance floor – I wasn’t perfect at it, but we held hands and danced a lot, so the kino was definitely there.
- Showed decent interaction leadership. For the most part, I decided what we were going to be doing and when.

Could Have Improved On
- If really, absolutely wanted to hold frame. When she was more than 20 minutes late, I should have called her back and told her that I was going to go to xyz (maybe the manhatten mall or someplace that showed that I am holding my frame) and to give me a call when she got there. Not good to be sitting around waiting like a sucker. At the time, I was being a bit lazy and also, since there was a wait at the restaurant (normally wouldn’t do the dinner date, but this had been the whole basis of us meeting up because of the result of a food conversation… and since already have some rapport with her, figured it would be ok). Even if this meant losing our reservations… this is preferable. It’s not acceptable for her to be late and waste my time like that. I think this would be my strategy going forward if somebody is late… just show that not sitting around like a sucker. If it’s something that you have a set time for… just let them know… hey, we missed that time… and roll with it. Or get something in return for the wait… a drink or something.
- Gotten her talking more from an experiential or feelings point of view. Though we had entertaining conversation, for the most part, we didn’t get into that hardcore deep rapport place that I’m looking to take things. For example, when she mentioned what she wanted to be when she grew up… they were some very adventurous things (pilot… police.. etc). I could have responded with “wow, sounds like a lot of fun… very adrenaline oriented… what was it about those jobs that drew you to it?”… getting her to talk about her feelings. Or… if I had a good feel for it, I could have said.. I can imagine you sitting there, in the cockpit of the plane… doing mach 3, adrenaline pumping… the world at your feet… etc (being descriptive and imginative)… then related to it on my own experiential level. Multiple ways I could have done this… but bottomline would have been to get her talking about these things in experiential way.

Then… if she went into “the rush”… could have related to it with my skater days… snowboarding… dancing… etc. When we talked about the food… instead of having it be topical… could have moved it to experiential (oooh, nothing like hot pot on a cold day… really warms the stomach and fills you up). Even when we talked about where we would be travelling, could have made it more experiential… ooh, I love China.. the feeling of being connected to my homeland… etc. Just talked with more passion and feeling on all the subjects I think would have gotten us more experiential.
- Rewarding – there were a few times when she told me a story and I didn’t respond and just looked away. They weren’t bad stories, just that… I didn’t have a response, or I was looking for water. This is a no-no. I should always reward her for making conversational effort. Only when she doesn’t or is giving a ST, should I do a takeaway.
- Threading – Could have topic surfed around. Got stuck talking on a few of the same topics. Could have done this with hoops or storytelling. Though, for the most part we had interesting conversation, I think this was minor. I sensed she wasn’t impressed with any of the bad boy stuff… or biting on any of the baiting about my family… we talked passionately about food, but eventually ran out of stuff to talk about.
- Passion and experiential talking – I am normally good at this, but I could have been moreso. Put more feeling and descriptions of the experience into all of my storytelling and questioning.

Lessons
- I’m still working on the qualifications and hoops, but am seeing that this is a very powerful tool which I’ll write about in a later entry. Going forward, I want to dig deeper and be demanding when I throw these hoops out there. Find out about her… find things to approve of… reward her… and know that I’m ok being in that zone.
- Rapport / Rewarding – Concentrate on getting to the emotions and experiential descriptions of whatever topic we are talking about. Get her to emote so that I can relate. Really drive these interactions into deep rapport. (see above notes for how could have done this in the interaction)
- Always reward the conversational effort, even if she is being boring. Acknowledge what she said. Give her some reward… and then thread out of it and surf on to the next topic if it truly bores you.
- Passion and experiential conversation – This is key. Want to be talking experientially, what it feels like to be doing xyz. Why I am passionate about xyz. How did she feel when she did xyz. What was it about the experience of xyz that made her like it?
- Chasing and Baiting – Realize that they don’t always chase the bait. Just move on and find more hot topics. Don’t bait with a need to share that story.

Service Industry – Waitresses, Bartenders, Store Clerks, etc.

pdon — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:27:30 +0000

I’ve always been decent with this and have had some pretty entertaining experiences but for the most part it has always been hit or miss. Now that I’ve really started to refine my game, I’ve discovered a few keys to the interactions that were successful, so my goal is to start a running list here of things that I am finding to work well.

Firstly, the definition – service industry. More specifically, people who given the situation you are in have to be interacting with you because of their job. In general, these people are easy to talk to. They are being paid to interact with you and oftentimes, as it is with waitresses, it is in their best interest to be nice to you. The tough part comes in standing out from the crowd. All day, they are serving and interacting with people, so just the simple conversations and everyday pleasantries just aren’t going to cut it, they hear this all day.

So here are the keys that I’ve discovered so far. I’ve mainly catered this towards waitresses since this is the most common scenario for me, but can be applied the other service industries with appropriate modifications:

- Break them out of their job mindset – This part alone has gotten me pretty far without anything else. Basically what it entails is being somehow different or entertaining than a normal customer. There are many ways of doing this, from being expressive, to asking interesting questions, to being funny, or interesting. The key here is to break them out of their occupational mindset. When they initially see you, barring any kind of initial overwhelming chemistry, they are seeing a customer and talking to you is a job to them. You want to get them out of that mindset as quickly as possible.

The easiest and most consistent way that I’ve found so far is to do this right at the beginning of the interaction. The first thing a waitress will do is walk up and introduce themselves “My name is HBWaitress, I’ll be your waitress today, can I get you something to drink?”. At this point, completely ignore their question and say something else to break her out of her state. A simple “How is your evening going so far?” instead of the standard telling her what you want to drink often does the trick. Depending on her reaction, you can either vibe off of that, or very effective as well, when she inevitably asks “How are you?”, share something interesting about what your group just did. Maybe you just came back from the circus and are having a great time… well tell her. If it’s interesting enough, you’re in. If not, you’ve at least accomplished the next point.

- Bring her into your world – One of the keys to the game in general but particularly for otherwise cold approaches, is to bring her into your world. By sharing something about your or your group. Perhaps something that you enjoy doing, what your favorite thing about the restaurant is and how it relates to something else you do outside, you are adding depth to her understanding of your personality and building some trust. Mentioning things like friends, family, your childhood, or other trust-building topics is an even bigger plus.

- Show understanding of or enter into her world – Make some kind of statement that demonstrates an understanding of her world or at least an attempt at it. Don’t be afraid to be wrong. Perhaps comment on how tired she must be from working so hard with your big group… and thank her for doing such a good job. If she has an accent, find out where she’s from and can go into that. Or comment on something about the atmosphere of the venue. Comment on how by the end of the night, they must be absolutely sick of donuts (if they’re at a dunkin donuts). Note – I’ve seen a cold read be completely wrong and still work. The cold read was the complete opposite of how she was feeling, but it still had the effect (when the person didn’t panic) of turning the service relationship into something more personal.

- Talk to her like a friend – This is basic as well, but use her name! Be friendly. Don’t talk to her like she works for you.

- Talk and flirt with her on several circumstances – Don’t be afraid to engage her in a real conversation when she comes by. If you and your group are arguing about something, ask for her opinion (if this is happening naturally, this is a great way to break her out of her service-oriented state as well). Flirt with her or bust on her if she does something funny like drops your fork or spills water on you. Be playful in your incredulance that they are out of garlic at the garlic restaurant. Be careful to always do so in a friendly, confident, and non-needy way. One of the main keys here is vibe. Don’t be so needy of her attention that you are constantly staring her down and trying to talk to her. It has to be natural.

- Be respectful of her time – Remember, however, that she is on the job. This is part of showing that you understand her world. You could be the most charming guy in the world but if you’re bogging her down with conversation when her boss is yelling at her and customers are complaining, you’re going to be causing her unnecessary stress.

- Naturally escalate – Like most other conversations, you want things to escalate naturally. Qualify her as much as possible. More than a key to a successful pickup, this should be a part of who you are. As a charasmatic, in-demand, man you have choice and girls have to meet your standards. So, naturally somebody would have to pass several of your qualifications beyond just looking cute for you to even consider escalating the interaction. If she has passed all of your qualifications (whatever they may be) or at least a few key ones like being playful, funny, etc. When it gets to the end of the night and you want to get her number, she needs to feel like she earned it.

- If it’s a regular spot - If you know you’re going to see them again. Treat them that way! You don’t have to number close in the first night if it’s a regular place you go. Build that rapport and trust over time and it will feel more natural.

- Getting the number - I’ve seen a few ways this is done, but the key from what I’ve seen is for it to be earned. You want to justify the number close so she feels like she earned it. “Hey, you’ve been very sweet and you’ve got a great sense of humor. I could be wrong, but something tells me that you’d be a lot of fun to hang out with. Is it true?… she answers “of course!”… we should hang out then… hand her your phone” (credit N. Sparks). This could be done without the question in the middle, but I like it there because it forces her to qualify herself and if she answers enthusiastically… almost makes it a natural next step for you to ask for her number.

That’s it for now. Enjoy!

Field Report – 9/27/08 – Leadership and Charisma

pdon — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:10:46 +0000

Goals
The interaction of the day was one in which I was the organizer of an event. Because of the sheer number of people involved, the game here becomes much less one of 1 on 1 and more one of establishing and demonstrating charisma. In addtion to wanting to demonstrate this charisma in an atractive way by showing that I was fun, dominant, chill, a leader, and unaffected (credit Christian’s 5 characteristics of a charismatic man in a social situation)… I also wanted to work on my leadership skills for the sake of being able to successfully lead and coordinate groups of people. In this capacity, the goal would be for the greater good of the group, maintaining their confidence and respect of me as a leader, handling any and all adversities, and achieving the goals of the group… to have a successful fun event where everybody is taken care of.

Interaction Details
For the most part, the trip went as planned. There were a few people who were late, who we ended up having to wait for and almost missed our trip deadlines. During the rafting itself, I did a pretty good job of going around to each raft and making sure everybody was ok. Eating became a big ordeal, but it always is. There will always be some people who don’t want to eat something. One interesting bit was that there were multiple social circles here that didn’t all know each other, so part of my job was to get everybody interacting. I did to some extent, but without going further into awakward ice breakers, I think I did the best I could.

Did Well
- Checking in on everybody to make sure they are ok – This is a key point to establishing leadership, it shows that you care and puts me in the position of being the one who is taking care of everybody.
- Having some personal conversations with each person. Related to the above, but really sitting down and having at least a few minute talk with each person there ensures that I am a personal leader
- MCRs – This is something new I experimented with to help establish myself in the leadership role. Rather than doing everything myself, I found that it did wonders to get some key people helping me out with things… handing things out, getting people into certain areas, etc. By establishing these mini-compliance circumstances… “hey, could you give me a hand with this” I am accomplishing a bunch of things, most importantly establishing leadership. But also making people feel involved and have ownership of the situation. And getting people to circulate and talk to others. The key as well, is to pick people from each group so that the leadership is established in each circle (if there are multiple social circles). Key is, these tasks should be small, don’t want to burden people… just enough to make them feel important and get them involved and MCR’ing. Any bigger tasks should fall to people who have expressed interest in helping.
- Asking people to accompany me on a small task (even if only to give a small amount of help to me). This really helped create some time to bond with that person as well as got some MCR out of it.
- Preframed people into having a good time.
- Was fun and dominant… chill when I needed to be (like at dinner at times)
- Comprehensive and handled the details of everything.
- Wasn’t bossy, but made people feel good about themselves for helping.

Could Have Done Better
- Kept better tabs on everybody. There were a few people I “forgot” about. Not intentionally. In fact, I had a list of people to check in on. Just didn’t take the time to do it as I normally would have.
- Better prepare for people being late or otherwise having
- When taking the picture, when tried to organize for the girls, didn’t generate the proper picture momentum, just started shoving people up there. When they got there, there was no structure of what is going on. So in the future, I should get things set up, or at least with a small amount of people (event momentum) before sending everybody in. Similar to how I do the evites and make sure some people are going first before sending the invite out wide.
- Stay chill and unaffected by the adversity. I think I get a bit serious and stressed out. I can still be chill without giving off the impression that everything is ok. Bring the person to the side so people won’t hear the conversation. Really flush out what all of our options are and then inform everybody.
- Keep people informed. It is the unknown that people are most annoyed by. Not knowing what is going on.
- Be prepared for adversity. Things like people being late will always happen, can plan ahead for this by stressing people be there on time and telling them what will happen if they are not. As well as giving an earlier get there time. But when people do get there late… the better of the group would need to be taken into account.
- For most part, handled the eating situation well. In future, best bet would be to brainstorm everybody’s situation, figure out who the key people I want there is, then pick the location most convenient for everybody. Then get a sense for the type of food and at most propose a couple of options and make a decision.
- Next time, for the MCRs if there is somebody who may be questioning my leadership or threatening to take over. Use MCR on them as a tool? Don’t argue with them or try to dominate over. Perhaps read up on this in some leadership book? Perhaps when they are speaking, maintain my frame… then talk to them later on. If they are like… “we should do this”… ask them to explain why. So that at that point, they become an idea giver rather than somebody usurping the leadership of the situation. Then if their idea truly is good… then say “i like that, let’s go with it”. This is similar to men/women in the Superior Man book. Always leading… take in ideas, but always take them into consideration and do what feels right and must give my approval before implementing.