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All right, Fan Mail Friday.
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If you re new to the Art of Charm podcast, this isn t a great place to start.
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Most of our content is more in-depth and longer format, so check out the best of at theartofcharm.com slash best, or the Fundamentals Toolbox at theartofcharm.com slash toolbox.
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That s where we ve got the fundamentals of body language and nonverbal communication, negotiation, networking, and everything else we teach here at the Art of Charm.
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All right, let s cut to it.
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Jason, take it away.
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Dear Jordan, this is a pretty basic one that I m sure you get all the time.
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What do I do when my girlfriend starts complaining about something?
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I never really know what to say, so I just kind of stand there slack-jawed and I feel like I m not doing it right.
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Suggestions?
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Signed, Bewildered Boy.
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I love these new nicknames.
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This is kind of an easy one, depending on what we re talking about.
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If she s complaining about something in your relationship, you need to set aside time, talk about it, figure out what s going on, what s actually making her upset.
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Is it something that you can and should change?
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There s a lot there, but I m gonna, for purposes of this question, assume that you mean she s venting about they didn t have enough time.
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ketchup packets at lunch, or that girl at work is trying to ruin your life, whatever.
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I mean, that s the type of thing I think we re talking about.
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Or just even a regular gripe, like the kind of thing that you and I would vent about.
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And here s the big secret that most guys don t know.
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A lot of times,
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people, especially women, don t really want you to give them advice or solve their problems for them.
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They often just want you to listen to what they have to say.
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They want someone to talk to, they want to vent about the problem that they re running into, so you can nod your head thoughtfully, repeat back a lot of what she s saying, showing that you actually understand, show a little bit of sympathy, tell her you re sorry things are that way, and also you can then either move on or, if she seems to want a solution to this problem,
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then you can try to find something along those lines.
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Oftentimes, though, she s not gonna want your advice.
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She wants someone who s gonna pay attention and sympathize or empathize with her.
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The trick is you have to actually pay attention and actively relate to what she s saying.
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If she does want your advice, she ll hopefully ask you what she should do, and you can also clarify if you re not sure by asking her the following.
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Would you like my advice here or is this mostly venting?
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Either way, I m cool with it.
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And this is important because otherwise it s going to sound like this.
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Do you actually want my advice or are you just complaining?
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That s not good.
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Or do you want some advice and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, here s a bunch of advice is a bunch of unsolicited advice.
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So get permission, see what the actual deal is.
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I m the same way.
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Sometimes I m venting.
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I don t want the problem solved.
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I just want to vent.
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Other times, I m looking for a little bit of feedback, and the same thing is true in many relationships, and I think a lot of guys being sort of tactical and having that sort of analytical brain a lot of the time, we try to solve everything, and it s not always the right response.
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Hi Jordan, I generally really like the Art of Charm.
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I think it provides messages which are really useful for many.
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On episode 31 of Fan Mail Friday, I think you may have misunderstood the core problem of the caller who had issues after he was pulled over and fined by the police whilst listening to AOC.
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Looking inside and finding the deeper issue won t help this individual get over the issue in this case.
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To me, it sounded like a really clear case of emotional conditioning.
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If you pair any strong emotional experience with an environmental stimuli, you may later induce the emotional reaction from simple exposure to the stimuli.
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This is why rape victims may respond violently and may vomit in response to the smell of the cologne worn by the attacker.
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The cologne in and of itself is benign, but what it is associated with is not.
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It s why lavender calms people.
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Lavender is so often paired with soothing baths and relaxing experiences that after enough pairing,
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the lavender itself elicits the response.
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This type of emotional conditioning can occur in two main ways.
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It can occur if the emotional experience is strong enough or if it occurs frequently enough.
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Conditioning happens to all of us.
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It s an evolutionary advantage as it allows us to pick up on signals of potential danger and thus encourage us to avoid potential danger before it occurs.
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The case sounds like it was strong enough to only need a single exposure to create an emotional response.
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It sounds like the guy s brain has paired your voice or something in the podcast as it was a salient auditory stimuli with the emotional experience of probable injustice, fear, anger, and a bunch of other emotions he experienced.
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If the guy wants to decrease the conditioned response, he needs to unpair them.
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Try listening to AOC in a calm, pleasant environment, possibly relaxing with a pot of tea, or in another environment, such as a hardcore workout, recognizing that it will make him feel uncomfortable.
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He should deliberately make an effort not to think about his experience with the officer whilst doing it.
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Perhaps doing something which forces his mind to engage with something else so he can t just ruminate on it whilst listening, so he can t further pair the stimuli and the emotion, i.e.
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listen via headphones whilst running so hard or working out so he can t think about it, or if he s not into exercise, get an adult coloring book and color away and don t stop listening until the page is colored.
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That way, his brain is exposed without the emotion being reinforced.
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Thus, the association will reduce.
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However, if he doesn t do it, he should recognize that the officer s questionable behavior will not only have landed him with a fine, but also will have made a permanent indent in his psyche by not allowing him to engage with something that was pleasurable for him before.
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Why would he allow the officer to have that much power over his life?
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Avoiding emotionally unpleasant experiences simply enables your body brain to accept that it is so horrible that it should never be tackled.
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I would suggest that s a bad outcome and probably extends to other experiences and leads to other bad outcomes in his life.
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AOC encourages constant self-improvement.
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This is a really clear way he can identify an area that needs improvement, tackle it, and improve upon it.
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Understanding the behavioral basis might help him to identify this pattern of avoidance in other areas of his life, challenge, and improve them.
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I also provide this alternate explanation of what may be going on for him with a background of having a PhD in psychology.
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My area of passion is the brain-behavior interface, understanding how learning, memory, and subconscious processes can influence complex behaviors.
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I have provided a super simplified explanation and by no means the scientific version, but hopefully it might help him to do things differently.
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Cheers, Felicity.
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Thanks, Felicity, for this explanation.
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We can definitely tell that she has a PhD in psychology, and this is a great explanation.
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It s much better than I have done myself.
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I didn t actually misunderstand what he was saying.
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I totally get the emotional conditioning.
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What I was saying is that I think people who are high performers are very conscious of this phenomenon.
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and they fight it where it hurts their growth, which is exactly what you re suggesting he do here, and you outline a great plan for doing so.
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Not listening to something like this podcast, The Art of Charm, because you have some sort of negative association, is something that only hurts the non-listener, so the process has to be short-circuited.
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What I was saying is I need him to look at, or I suggest it anyway, that he look at why this happened and figure out where else it s happening in his life, which is something that you also suggest in this email here.
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So thanks for providing a step-by-step on how to exactly do that.
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Thanks, Felicity, for sending that along.
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So awesome.
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Jordan, I have a question for a Fan Mail Friday episode.
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While working on developing my side career as an online technology expert, I had a sudden disheartening revelation.
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My life has been utterly normal.
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Except for my lack of social skills and my fixed mindset, I ve lived a normal life and followed the standard white male life template all the way through.
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Good at school, high school valedictorian, big name university, 9-5 job, stuck in a rut, etc.
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I ve never had to escape from an oppressive foreign country.
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I ve never had a horrific tragedy or death in my family.
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I ve never crashed my car and was told I d never walk again.
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I ve never been kidnapped, not even once, or maimed or pulled back from the brink of death.
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Can I still learn to be an entrepreneur?
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It seems that being normal is the one characteristic that no entrepreneur nowadays lays claim to.
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Is tragedy a prerequisite for success and wealth, or can normality ever hope to compete?
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I know this isn t strictly AOC material, but you have interviewed many entrepreneurs.
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What s your take on the role of tragedy in promoting later success and fortune?
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Somewhat facetiously, but not completely, Eric.
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Well, thanks, Eric, for that, I appreciate it.
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I m gonna tell you a little story about my dad s cousin, Holly, and her husband, Rick.
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I call him Aunt Holly and Uncle Rick because I guess in English we don t really have... Anyway, let s not split hairs.
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They run a flooring business.
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They re not on the show, and they never will be because they re really normal.
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It s not that interesting, but they are very successful.
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The reason that you think all entrepreneurs are wacky, death-defying, kidnap victims who ve escaped from Zimbabwe is because those are the people you hear about with interesting, harrowing tales that make the rounds on the internet and write books about it and write blogs about it and go on podcasts about it.
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Their strength in marketing is in their story.
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So in no way at all is that indicative of success in small business.
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If anything, it s more indicative of something entirely unrelated.
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Most small businesses are owned by people who ve never been on a podcast because they run a frickin  coffee shop and they re too busy having a normal, very fulfilling life.
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So don t sweat it.
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You can be an entrepreneur and you don t have to lose
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leg, have your Siamese twin die in a freak accident while escaping from a Mexican drug cartel to do it.
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Dear Jordan, I ve been dating steadily for the first time in my life using some of the stuff that I learned from you.
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One problem, I m sort of starting to suspect that I m a little inept sexually speaking.
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Obviously, this is a problem not just for the women that I m dating, but also for me.
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Did you have any advice on how to step up my game in the bedroom as well as the bar?
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Signed, need some new moves.
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Hey, yes, there s a really easy way for you to get better in the sack, and that is ask her what she wants you to do.
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Honestly, you are not the first guy in the world she s had to give a little bit of training and feedback to, unless you re really young.
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I have no indication of that here.
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As long as you re straightforward about wanting to get better in bed and showing a genuine desire to please her, she s going to be more than happy telling you what it takes, even if she s a little shy at first.
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Now, a bit of advice for you, be open-minded when she starts giving you advice.
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Do not let your ego get in the way of things.
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Remember, you re the one who asked for advice, so don t get upset when she gives it to you.
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Besides, she s molding you into the bedroom superhero you ve always wanted to be, so enjoy that process.
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If you listen with an open mind and you accept what she has to say, everything s gonna be just fine, I promise, and in no time, you ll be the man she s always dreamt of when it comes to getting down.
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I ve been listening to your podcast for a little over a year now, and I feel like I ve benefited greatly from the advice that you give.
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I am much happier, more social, and more confident than I ever was before.
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But despite how far I ve come, I find myself struggling with negative mindsets and insecurities that I developed as a child.
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I should mention that I am a 21-year-old Hispanic immigrant, illegal for most of my life.
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So you can probably imagine how growing up that it was drilled into me that there was something wrong with who I was.
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I was forced to hide part of myself and eventually the belief was formed that because I was Hispanic and brown, I was inferior to anyone who wasn t like me, especially white people.
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I emphasize white people because it s around this group of people that my insecurities arise most often.
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I m pretty good at catching the moments in which this happens,
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and I have come to notice that whenever I get real self-conscious about race, not only do I feel like shit, but hate also starts to build within me.
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I start to literally hate every white person, and I see them as evil beings, which of course, I know is not true.
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Logically, I know that skin color doesn t make anyone a better person, and that race should not be such a big deal.
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But sometimes it is, and in those situations, it can get real difficult for me.
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Although most of these episodes happen around large groups of strangers, it worries me that I might also have some hate and resentment towards my white friends.
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I don t want to hate anyone, and I also don t want to be held back from growing as a person or making amazing connections with people.
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I was hoping that maybe you could provide some advice that could help me get over this insecurity.
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Thank you for your time, Jordan.
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Keep up the good work and I ll be looking forward to hopefully receiving a response from you.
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Yeah, man, this is a doozy because I m like a pretty regular Joe white guy.
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In fact, my dad s name is Joe, right?
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So, I mean, we re really normal Midwestern
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not diverse that much at all.
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And so it s hard for me to identify with this situation.
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I can only kind of imagine what it must be like growing up being an illegal immigrant and having to just worry about that.
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I assume that also means that your parents were as well, which would have kind of programmed you with all kinds of different fear or suspicion and carefulness or care that I ve never experienced.
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I think it sounds to me, and I could be overstepping here, and I m sure Felicity or somebody else will let me know if I am, but it sounds like you resent a part of yourself as opposed to resenting white people per se, but the white people are really an object, a convenient object, and I m not saying this is even abnormal, it totally makes sense.
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I think they re the object that you blame for that resentment.
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And so I think the solution here is something that you ll find when you look inwards.
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Trusting yourself, building something like a business, or even getting really good at a hobby, or getting good at a job will help you get over this.
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And frankly, finding white people to be close to, like your friends, will help you stop seeing all of us as one group.
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I don t think you even do already.
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I think you re close to being able to do this, and I understand that these feelings are almost involuntary, or are involuntary.
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rather than try to get into the nitty gritty of this just through one email, I would say, you know what, go grab a therapist.
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If you re in school, you can probably get one for free.
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If not, find somebody who works on what they call the sliding scale, and we re gonna do an episode about this next week, about how to find a therapist.
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You can do the sliding scale, and they ll charge you essentially what you can afford.
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It doesn t sound like it s a major issue, but it was big enough for you to write in.
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I applaud your bravery for that.
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It can t be easy to admit that you re, I guess, a little bit racist by accident, and you want to undo it, and I think that s very admirable, and I think you ve probably gone through a lot that I can t really imagine.
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So I applaud you for writing this and being as vulnerable as you are.
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So thanks for that, Hugo.
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Hi Jordan, my father has attended your boot camp and he loved it.
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I have questions that he wasn t exactly able to answer due to the fact that he is married and gave me vague responses, and I m sure some of my questions may be answered in your podcasts, but they don t exactly go into depth with the specifics of my situation.
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I can have any woman I want, sure, and I ve mastered first impressions, so to speak.
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I have the looks, I have the charisma, and I have the confidence, but I lack an important key factor, the ability to hold on to a woman.
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The spelling.
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He lacks the ability to spell women and woman correctly to differentiate between those two.
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I don t take advantage of women.
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That is not my intention.
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My question to you is, once you have the woman in the honeymoon phase, how do you keep her interested in you until after the phase has ended?
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Because the second she feels uninterested, she s out of my life and I m sitting there looking like a beat up and used man whore.
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I m confused as to why a good 95% of women I meet just want to sleep with me.
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If you have any thoughts, please let me know.
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P.S.
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The women I m uninterested in, not that they re unattractive or anything, I just don t connect well with them, want me completely, and would love to have a relationship with me.
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And when I m interested, it s contrary-wise.
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but it s not, it s a real word.
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I m gonna have to use that, although it sounds like a fake word, so yeah, no, nevermind, I m not gonna use it.
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Anyway, this is a high-quality problem, but it s a real one, I totally get that.
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It sounds to me like you re giving off the wrong signals here.
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Sexual interest, but not something more stable.
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So, like you said, you ve got the looks, you ve got the confidence, you ve got the charisma, your dad even took our boot camp, taught you some stuff, as you said in your email.
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You re sending off sexual signals, which is signaling everything that women who are interested in something short-term are going to see as a great short-term thing.
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But you re not sending off the stability signals that are gonna keep non-crazy people or stable people into a relationship.
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And that s why I think the women that you re not as interested in are interested in you because they don t feel that outcome dependence.
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They don t feel that sort of sexual pressure coming from you that you probably learned about from your dad at boot camp.
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and so they re not feeling as much like you re going after them, which is actually bringing them closer to you.
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I don t want to get too deep into that, but it sounds like when you re hooking up with these women initially, maybe there s a little bit of a failure of rapport.
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If they re leaving during the honeymoon phase and not just right after it, you really need to work on your connection skills, getting them to trust you, and of course, the way that you do that is to become vulnerable, and frankly,
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given the rest of this email, I would imagine that being vulnerable is not necessarily a strong point.
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You re also doing something to turn them off that you re not aware of and that I just cannot diagnose in an email.
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This is why your dad came to boot camp.
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Not for the lady problems, but for the real work that needed to get done inside his marriage and with his people at work and in his other relationships, so I suggest that you do the same.
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Blog post of the week, true success needs no comparisons.
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That s the title.
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True success needs no comparisons.
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It s about comparing yourself, and myself for that matter, to others and having a bit of guilt in doing so.
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In the article we outlined why it s harmful, why it s not at all productive, and how you can get yourself to stop.
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For many of us, myself included, that was a huge relief.
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So check it out, it s on the blog.
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It s called True Success Needs No Comparisons, and it s very solid.
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We ve got a lot of action steps in there.
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You know our stuff is practical and actionable always.
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I hope you enjoyed that.
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Don t forget you can reach us at Friday at theartofcharm.com.
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We read everything.
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We d love to hear from you.
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More from AOC at theartofcharm.com.
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Now have a great weekend.
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Get out there and connect, and leave everyone better than you found them.
1
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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.
1
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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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That s why you need Kajabi.
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Kajabi makes it easy to run your entire online business from one platform so you can focus on what you love, creating.
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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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Thanks for listening to The Art of Charm.
2
SPEAKER_02
Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and everything for the extraordinary man at TheArtOfCharmPodcast.com.