Welcome back to another episode of Attraction HQ!
This is dating done differently with a strong element of a female perspective. So if you're a guy out there and you want to learn the skills, the mindsets to improve your confidence and your ability to approach and date women, but you want it down from an ethical perspective from a woman who teaches women as well, you are in the right place.
'Approach anxiety'
Hayley:
I've got a great guest for you today. His name is Shawn and he's from altershift. Shawn is an NLP specialist and coach so he's going to give you Some detailed and practical advice. And we're also going to be talking a little bit about whether developing skills for dating is manipulative, which is one of my favourite topics because I'm pro skills development. So welcome to the show, Shawn.
Shawn:
Thanks for having me on.
Hayley:
Awesome for the guys that are listening. Can you just give them a quick rundown of the kind of what you do and what NLP is?
Shawn:
Yeah, absolutely. So I do NLP and I work with other people to get past their inner obstacles and create the lives that they want. So oftentimes, there are these unconscious blocks these things that we have in our lives in our minds, that hold us back from the lives that we want to live and making the dating lives that we want. And I uncover those hidden blocks and I really help you to communicate better with others, and even yourself.
Hayley:
Right and I think a lot of the time we do I like your expression, hidden blocks, because a lot of the time the blocks that we create for ourselves, they that you know, they might not be what you think they are. So a common aspect I find when I'm coaching someone is what their what belief they hold or what they think the issue is usually is a misdirect on what's going on.
What I wanted to talk about today is one of those what I perceive as a misdirect or reasoning or rationale why men can talk themselves out of approaching the women that they want. And guys, if you're listening to this, if this is you, listen up, is it that you, when you want to approach a woman, you see women you're attracted to but you hesitate on saying hello to her because you believe that you're interrupting her, or inherently, that approaching a woman is somehow creepy or wrong and that you're about to be judged for that.
Then you think about learning kind of skills, quote, unquote, to maybe assist you to improve your communication with women, but then you back away from that as well because that also seems manipulative.
[...]
And why I want to ask you about this, Shawn is because things like NLP, any social skills development can kind of have a bad reputation some of the time and people can be quick to judge it as manipulative. What would you say to people who criticise NLP or learning or skill development in the area of social skills or understanding your psychology better?
What would you say to people who judge that as manipulative?
Shawn:
I have to ask him to look at communication on a broader level. When we're always communicating with ourselves and other people. We're just taking communication to an even advanced level to understand what's going on, whether that's matching someone's body language, or using the kind of phrases that they would use to gain better rapport with them. Just because they're not consciously aware of it, and you're creating a better connection that's going to empower you and empower them to connect more with you.
And so we're just taking the unconscious aspect of communication out and making it conscious for you so you can bring about better connections in your life.
Hayley:
Yeah, and what I love there is you put into really amazing tips which are very, very helpful.
So guys, if you're struggling to make the impact to impression that you want on the first approach, or you may be on not understanding why you should be somebody that way, a really simple and basic technique that you can use is you have to kind of images that you've already spoken to this person before and they are already your friend.
That means in terms of your body language, how proximity wise you allow yourself to get to the level of touchy use, how you speak about things and how you phrase things. What we don't need you to do, what is it is communicating in an overly formal way? That'd be like if you walked up to a woman and maybe you know, you shook her hand. You stood over a metre away from her and then you asked her a bunch of questions.
[...]
So, Shawn, I want to bring this back. So imagine if you're, you know, advising some of the guys here, a lot of the men that are listening to this podcast, they would probably really love to be able to feel more comfortable approaching women in real life a lot of the time, you know, maybe not in bars and nightclubs, but most of the daytime contacts. Now for men that are experiencing high levels of anxiety around saying hello to a woman, is there any tips or exercises or processes that you could lead them through or suggest to them, which would help them to move past that?
Shawn:
There's quite a few. And what I would first go to look at is what's bringing about the anxiety is it the fact that they don't believe they're good enough? Or is it just a simple process that they've done over and over again? You mentioned earlier how sometimes they think that they're interrupting somebody, if that's going on in somebody's head, that process can be interrupted in a moment. However, if it's the case where they don't feel that they're good enough, and the person who they are isn't going to be able to attain a woman such like that or be able to relate with someone like that, then that's more of a complex issue. And they can also be dealt with in several different ways.
Beyond approach anxiety
Thank you for reading this excerpt from my latest podcast on approach anxiety. You can listen to the whole episode below. If you want to learn great approach and dating skills why not join my next Training Day workshop?
Training Day is a 4-hours long workshop that will equip you will the skills you need to never again miss on the opportunity to talk to the woman you like.
