Thursday, February 16

What do I do on Valentines day?

There seems to be some confusion among guys as to what they should do on Valentines day.  Typically recovering nice guys, who previously were all chocolates, flowers and expensive dinners, swing too far in the opposite direction and become Mr Badass McJerk and tell a girl 'fuck off I'm playing Call of Duty that day'.


Like many things in life, I believe it's all about balance.  I like to do nice and thoughtful things to everybody I care about in my life but I do them because I want to, not because I feel I have to or as some kind of 'business exchange' for vaginal access.

When it comes to birthdays, Valentines Days or Xmas, what I do depends on what type of relationship I have with the girl (or what type of relationship I want to have with her).

For example;

FB's - Anything from nothing to a text message.
Women I am dating (i.e. MLTR potential but still early days) - Text message to a phone call.
MLTRs - Phone call to a simple bunch of flowers.
Primary LTR or Girlfriend - A simple bunch of flowers to something nicer (dinner, etc).

I also like to cook for a girl on Valentines day.  It's thoughtful, personal and doesn't get caught up in all the commercial bullshit surrounding the day.

The above is not a hard and fast rule.  Sometimes I'll do a little more and somethings I'll do a little less, but you get the idea.

Ericssons 10,000 hour theory. How are you going to get your hours in?

I was in an airport the other day and I saw an interesting looking book called '30 second psychology'.  I really like books that take complicated and sometimes dry topics and present them in an easy to digest way.

Flicking through the book I came across this gem and couldn't help but think of you guys.

Have a read yourself:


So first, the bad news.  Getting this area of your life handled is not a quick fix.  Anything that suggests you can go from zero to hero in a week, or that all you need to know is just 'one weird tip' is nothing more than A-grade BULLSHIT!

The bit that I didn't capture in the bottom right was something along the lines of:

Biographies of musical geniuses like Mozart and Michael Jackson nearly always reveal that they started off slow and only after almost countless hours of consistent, dedicated, deliberate practice and hard work they had a breakthrough.

Something to think about, isn't it?  Back in the day the solution to approach anxiety was 1,000 approaches.  I know the numbers are different, but the idea that you have to put in the time is a similar principle.

I know sometimes students look at the UDS coaches and think that they could never be like that.  It's just outside their reality that it's possible, or they have a limiting belief that some people these guys were born with it.  Well, according to this theory anybody could reach this level.  In sports, you could argue some people have certain a genetic makeup that provides them with an advantage, however I would argue that this only comes into play once people reach the highest levels of competition.  The thing is, you don't need to achieve anywhere near the equivalent of an Olympic athlete (or even a state-level athlete) to achieve life long fulfillment in this area of your life.  I've also seen too many people with genetic disadvantages still do very well to agree that 'nature' plays that much of a part.

If it takes 10,000 hours to become an 'Olympian level master' at this, I wonder many hours it takes just to be 'really damn good' if you have a great system in place like the Pickup Mansion or the 30/30?