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It is time for Fan Mail Fridays.
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I m your host, AJ Harbinger, sitting in for Jordan again this week.
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And I m here with our producer, Jason DeFilippo.
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We ll be answering your questions and dropping some of that fantastic knowledge, as well as feedback to help you kick the weekend off right.
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Now, if you re new to the Art of Charm podcast, this is not a great place to start.
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Most of our content is a lot more in depth and much longer format.
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So check out the best of at theartofcharm.com slash best or the fundamentals toolbox at theartofcharm.com slash toolbox.
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And as always, we ll send all of this straight to your inbox.
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If you text charmed to three, three, four, four, four.
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There we ve got the fundamentals of body language, nonverbal communication, attraction, negotiation, networking, et cetera, and everything else we teach here at the art of charm.
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Now let s cut to it.
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Hey guys, I found the podcast some months ago and I ve been following it since then.
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I love the content and how the topics are explained and delivered.
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Congrats and thanks to the whole AOC team.
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I was wondering if you could give me some advice about the following situation.
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I m not a person with a lot of friends, but I have some, and I would like to expand my group and my network.
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I am dating someone, so I m not looking for somebody else in a romantic way, but I would like to meet new people and make new friends.
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What s happening to me lately is that if I meet a guy, and not in a dating context, and want to get to know him and try and find something in common and make a connection, the guy expects to move the beginning friendship to another level.
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Could be to a relationship, or just to have sex, etc.
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So, when I say that I m not interested, I lose the contact.
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So I don t know if I m sending the wrong message when I first talk to the guys, and the truth is that me having someone is not being set on the first meeting or contact because the new guys don t ask about it, and I don t mention it because I think it would look pretentious if they don t ask.
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I guess my question would be, how could I handle that first approach or first meetings so the relationship develops as a friendship and not as a romantic or sexual one?
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Thanks in advance, Monica.
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That s a great question, Monica, and I know a lot of people struggle with how to start conversations with people we re only interested in having platonic relationships with.
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Here at The Art of Charm, we teach a very simple conversation formula that is the easiest way to start and engage people in conversation.
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It s simply we ask a question taking interest in the other person.
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Then we must listen to their answer and relate on an emotional level through a self-disclosing statement.
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For example, ask someone what they re drinking.
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Listen to their response and then reply with an emotional statement about their drink preference.
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Do you love it?
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Do you hate it?
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Let them know.
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What I think is happening is that you are telegraphing too much interest without letting him know that you are unavailable.
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So a simple response to their answer could be, my boyfriend and I love tequila, always gets the party started, and it s low carb too.
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This statement has the emotional disclosure we re looking for while removing you as being available romantically.
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It s not pretentious at all.
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Most high-value men will appreciate it, so they re not wasting their time chasing a romantic connection with you.
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Now, some practice, you should be able to easily mention your relationship status while staying interesting and engaging conversationally, so that the other party always knows that this is a platonic relationship that you are interested in.
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I m currently going through a tough breakup.
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We were together for two years and I can say that I poured my heart and soul into what we had.
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I m 27 years old and I believe that most of the things I ve reached for and things that I ve done have not truly been for myself.
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I guess I ve always craved and felt like I needed validation from friends, family, strangers, girlfriends, most likely stemming from a severe lack of attention throughout my childhood and an absence of truly meaningful relationships.
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I ve been so focused on making everyone else smile and laugh and be happy that I ve failed to truly find my place within myself.
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It s never been, what do I want to do?
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It s always been, what will make me look better in my girlfriend s eyes?
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I ve heard the saying, no matter where you go, there you are.
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The full meaning of that never really hit me until this morning.
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I ve made all these plans to travel, get my motorcycle license, buy this thing, hang out with this person or that person, but I can t escape myself.
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I know those things won t change me if I m only doing them for show or as a temporary distraction to keep myself from focusing on emotional pain and the real source of my problems, which I feel is me.
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What I m hoping for is some direction on where to start.
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How do you overcome these things within yourself?
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What practices can I implement to truly dig deep and discover my actual wants, goals, and needs without the creeping thoughts and influence of needing to prove or show that I m valuable to other people?
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Also, I m a woman and just want to say that your podcast is definitely for those who are open to learning and not just for the guys.
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I really don t know where else to go with this problem and thank you in advance for any advice.
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Sincerely, Lost Within Myself.
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Alright, loster than myself, the most important thing to do in this situation is to make a list of all the experiences or events that you may have been interested in in the past, but for some reason made excuses not to participate in.
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Take your time and really think about any instances where you place someone else s wants or needs above yours.
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This is important.
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Now, you mentioned motorcycles, travel, spending time with people that matter.
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All of these are great examples of ways to begin to find your true passion and self and get that excitement back in your life.
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Now it s time to book that trip you ve been putting off, pick up that phone and call those people that really matter to you, or sign up for that class that scared you, but it s always been something you think about.
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You are given a great opportunity here to start anew and find what truly makes you tick.
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Getting outside of your comfort zone is scary at first, but it s where living truly begins.
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We work with clients every week in Los Angeles that are tired of their comfort zone and finally realize that they need to confront some of those fears.
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Don t settle for your comfort zone.
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Instead, I want you to focus on taking one small step outside of it every day and amazing things will begin to happen for you.
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I m a single dad with 50-50 joint legal and physical custody of my 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.
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I ve been divorced for seven years and have week-on-week-off custody.
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Because we agreed to stay in the same school district for the kids, I m stuck in the suburbs about 30 miles from Minneapolis where I work and play.
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I had one serious three-year relationship since the divorce that ended about two years ago.
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Since then, I ve been back on the dating scene with very mixed results despite listening to your killer advice.
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My first challenge is finding quality career women that are willing to deal with being stuck in the burbs at least until the kids go to college.
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Second, the dating pool for a 42-year-old divorcee breaks down to the following.
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30-somethings that only want babies and I don t want more kids.
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30 to 40-somethings with their own kids and I don t want a Brady Bunch.
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30 to 40-somethings that don t like kids or are simply too selfish to consider it.
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And finally, 30 to 40-somethings that like kids but don t want their own kids, aka the magical unicorn.
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I d love to hear your thoughts, insights, and advice.
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Sincerely, Stranded in Sub-Purgatory.
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All right, Stranded in Sub-Purgatory.
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These are limiting beliefs.
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I can tell you, we work with divorced dads all the time, and they always assume that kids make them undateable.
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but by the time they finish their week, they realize that these limiting beliefs are holding them back from the abundance that is out there in life.
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There are plenty of people who are interested in you and are not worried about your children.
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It all starts with an abundance mindset.
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If you label something a unicorn, then it becomes even harder for you to find it.
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Focus your free time on activities that excite you and follow your passionate side.
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not look at apps or different ways that you can find single people.
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What I found time and time again is those are the best places to be meeting people in your life.
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Instead of the standard traditional route that some of us are finding, whether it s Match.com, eHarmony, and then all of a sudden we drain the pool of fish down to something so small that we can t possibly find that option for us.
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If you are unhappy with your current dating results, you need to change where you are meeting people.
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Those people that you re truly interested in, those unicorns, they exist and they just so happen to be outside of that dating app.
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Hey AOC team, I m 34 and my marriage of 10 years is ending.
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Throughout our marriage, I supported my wife in every way I could, including financially, while she finished her undergrad degree, then professional designation, and then her MBA.
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I ve been slowly working on my own program on the side, but I ve always put her programs first because I felt they would be better for our family, with the expectation that once she was done, I would be able to pursue my program more aggressively.
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Well, as it turned out, we separated four days after her last
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graduation.
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So the reciprocity I was banking on isn t going to happen.
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The position I m in now is this.
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I still want to complete my degree and it s going to mean a few more years of school and a whole bunch more money.
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I m working in the industry I want to work in, but it s pretty low paying for a professional and I m going to have to support myself and share custody and expenses for our son as well.
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This means there s not going to be much left over for paying for school.
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I see my main options right now as being one, stop the schooling.
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Two, go back to what I was doing before or something else in the field where the money is better and I won t be held back by my lack of designation, but without the same level of job satisfaction.
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Three, take out student loans to continue my current program at my current job.
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or four, sell our shared condo and take my share of the proceeds and use that for school.
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I m hoping that as a third party, you can see an option that makes sense to you logically or financially.
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Thanks again for the great show.
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I look forward to it each week and it always gives me food for thought.
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Sincerely, High and Dry.
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Alright high and dry, I do not believe that student loans are a terrible option here.
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Especially since you already have a condo that can earn you recurring revenue to cover those loan payments if you do choose to rent it.
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Or, on the flip side, completely pay off your debt if you hold out and choose to sell it when the market bounces back.
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That means you re covered.
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Investing in yourself through education is always the best way to improve your current situation.
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And I would highly recommend it in this particular situation.
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Hey, Art of Charm listeners, I m excited to share a new podcast I ve been absolutely binging.
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Winning is an everyday mindset, and Craig Robinson and John Calipari are here to help.
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On Ways to Win podcast, Craig and Coach Cal use their on-court wisdom to solve your off-court problems.
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Whether it s trouble at home or a workplace dilemma, the coaches will help you find a winning formula for success.
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You ll hear from prominent athletes, business leaders, and celebrities who reveal insights that made them into the leaders they are today.
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And don t miss President Obama sharing how he deals with pressure by projecting confidence, believing in your team, and taking criticism.
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Listen to Ways to Win wherever you get your podcasts.
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Over the last 17 years, we have launched our fair share of online courses, coaching programs, and finding the right platform has always been a challenge.
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They say if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.
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But if you re an entrepreneur, you know the hard work that comes with it.
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That s why you need Kajabi.
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There are thousands of creators on Kajabi making six and seven figures with less than 50,000 followers.
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Right now, Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to kajabi.com slash charm.
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That s K-A-J-A-B-I dot com slash charm.
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Go to kajabi.com slash charm and join the creators and entrepreneurs who have made over seven billion dollars.
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All right, back to the show.
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I ve listened to your podcast for about a year and love your advice and apply quite a lot of it to myself.
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A previous Fan Mail Friday brought up a question that I think a lot of people encounter, especially near the San Francisco tech scene.
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Here s my background.
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My boyfriend and I are both engineers and even among other engineers, finding each other has been like meeting someone who speaks my language for the first time in my life.
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Needless to say, we like each other a lot, sometimes too much.
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We live together and it often feels like the only things in his life revolve around me or work or talking to me about his work.
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He does have friends all over the country that he s mentioned a few times, but his habit has been to talk to them once every few years.
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How do I encourage my boyfriend to develop other friendships?
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And is there anything I can do to help start the process?
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Or do I just need to make my own choices more firm and accept that on his side, he actually doesn t need anything but his computer and the beautiful math he codes?
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What if something happens to me or our relationship?
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I can t get over the thought that he must be lonely and just doesn t want to start the difficult task of making new friends.
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The relationship is one of the best things that has happened in either of our lives, so there s no way I m giving up this easy.
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But how do I encourage him to take a chance for himself?
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Regards, Pushing Him.
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Alright, pushing him.
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How do we get our boyfriend outside of his comfort zone?
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We do something here at The Art of Charm called a social sales funnel.
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We look at our social lives just like we look at business.
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How can we welcome more people into our lives?
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And the easiest way to do that is to invite people over.
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Invite people that you re meeting out over to your house and give your boyfriend who sounds introverted an opportunity to have fun in his home environment.
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A lot of times we think meeting people has to be scary and we have to do it outside of our apartment or our home and all of a sudden it becomes a chore and it sounds like that s what s happening to him.
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So what you should be doing is going out, meeting people when you can, and then put together an event that you can host at your house, whether it s watching a football game, a poker night, Taco Tuesday are some great examples, and give people at your meeting an opportunity to come into your life.
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You re going to end up surprising him with these social activities, and he s going to start to have fun along the way.
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If he sees how much fun you have, it often will make him more willing to participate.
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Social events can always be intimidating for introverts, so make it really easy and fun for him to participate, and he will begin to overcome his anxieties.
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I know for me, particularly with my girlfriend, Amy, being very introverted when we first met, she was intimidated with my social life and the fact that I was going out and meeting people.
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But what ended up making it so much fun was having people at our house hosting them.
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It allowed her to feel a lot more comfortable in an environment that she understood.
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And all of a sudden she was starting to flex her social muscles or spread her social butterfly wings and have a great time with me.
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And I m going to throw my two cents in here as well because I was a startup engineer in San Francisco for about eight years.
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And the one thing that a lot of engineers do is they do get inside their own head and they just want to talk about work because it s a very hard job.
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And if you re both engineers, that s great that you guys have that common ground and you found each other, which is fantastic.
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The thing about San Francisco that a lot of people forget is it s one of the single most social places on the planet.
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There are so many meetups and so many different opportunities to meet other people before you even get to doing your own social sales funnel in your home.
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and you need to meet new people to bring to your home, just check out any of all any of the tech meetups.
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There s tons of them every week.
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So you can go out.
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I don t know if you guys are Java programmers, PHP programmers, JavaScript programmers, node programmers, who knows what you re programming,
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but what you can do is find other people that are going to these meetups and meet the cool people and then invite them back to your house.
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That s, that s a good place to start your social sales funnel and meet new people and just get out of the house and interact with folks.
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I really do miss the San Francisco tech scene for that because everybody that I ve ever met at any of these meetups is just, they re phenomenal people and you re going to really be able to expand your social circle if you just get out of the house and go, go meet them.
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I hope you all enjoyed that.
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Don t forget, you can email us at friday at the art of charm.com with all of your questions.
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Now, don t forget to check out the art of charm challenge.
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You can find that at the art of charm.com slash challenge or text charmed.
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That s C-H-A-R-M-E-D-2-3-3-4-4-4.
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There you ll get step-by-step instructions on how to become better at making personal and professional connections, becoming a better networker, increasing your personal social capital as well as charisma.
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And the best part is, this is for both guys and gals.
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So be sure to check it out at theartofcharm.com slash challenge.
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Or if you re lazy, text charm to 33444.
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That s charmed, C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
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You can always find more at theartofcharm.com.
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Now have a great weekend, go out there and connect, and as always, leave everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to The Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.