Retail Value: $49.95

I went to a dinner last night. Some really rich guy spoke and gave everyone a signed copy of his book. I’d seen this guy before so I ended up taking home a second copy of . . . well, I’m not going to name it.

Later that night, I decided to turn my second copy into a book safe, you know, one of those “cut out the middle pages to make a secret hiding place” book safes. So I did it. Two hours later I had myself my very own hidden book compartment.

At first, I was really proud I still had all my fingers (me + razors = usage of Johnson & Johnson products).

And then, I was more proud that I destroyed a perfectly good 2007 book, retail value: $49.95. Current value: priceless.

Then, today, my mom e-mailed me and told me not to make a book safe out of it--I think she may have overheard talking to my sister--because she plans to give the high value book away. Um ok.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Maybe I’ll give my mom my first copy.

Does anyone read this?

Never Say Die

I was watching an MTV special on completive eating. It focused on a few of the competitors, particularly Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi--6-time winner of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

During one of the segments, he went to a restaurant and ate twenty-one pounds of pasta and other food. Looking at him eat made me gag. As with most people, I was impressed with how much food he could fit in his stomach.

What really inspired me though was when he talked about throwing up. (Throwing up is illegal in competitive eating.) He said that he always hits a point he feels like he is going to throw up. The trick is to not throw up. If you don’t throw up, it trains your mind and body to deal with the problem. If, on the other hand, you do throw up, it causes your body to get used to throwing up when it hits that point. This leads to always throwing up.

This reminded me of Mystery and how he said approach anxiety never goes away. (ie even he gets nervous before approaching a girl).

The difference between successful and unsuccessful person is not that one has less problems to overcome, but instead that the successful person has trained himself to hammer past those problems.

It’s easy to say that Kobayashi is a better competitive eater than me because he has a bigger stomach, but that’s not the case. He feels the same gag reflex that I feel. His need to barf is no greater than mine. The difference between him and me is that he has trained his body and mind to never let that gag reflex take over. He has trained himself to not accept failure

If you’re faced with a problem and you always take the easy way out, you will have trained your mind and body to always do the easy thing. But if you never accept failure, you will have trained your body and mind in the opposite, and success will surely follow.

Holding Ground

I was standing in line at the Costco checkout. All the carts were backed up so I couldn’t easily roll my cart to the conveyor belt. Instead of carrying 20 pounds of Arizona green tea four feet, I pushed the line of carts forward to make space for mine.

Apparently, the cashier was holding the carts back with her foot because people push them and end up hitting her leg. She yelled at me (in a friendly way) not to push and explained that the line of carts hits and hurts her leg. I ignored her.

I then stood in line and she told me the store again. I looked at her with complete non-expression on my face.

When I paid for my stuff, she proceeded to tell me the spiel again. I again gave her the complete non-expression on my face. I didn’t even say “sorry,” “ok,” or anything. I think she got even more pissed.

I was about to tell her what to do to fix her problem (i.e. lecture your slacker helper to move the carts instead of lecturing each new customer), but instead, I experimented with not letting her dominate me.

I’ll never know exactly how she felt, but she sure did look frustrated.

No Excuses

Excuses are just your body and mind exhibiting weakness. Conquer excuses and you’ll conquer your weaknesses.

For lent, I gave up excuses. I know that’s not something one traditionally gives up for lent, but hey, I haven’t been to church in 10 years.

I promised I’d never tell my friends or myself “I can’t go out cause I’m tired”, “I can’t finished this cause I don’t feel like it”, “I’m too busy”, or “I have to work tomorrow.”

This was probably one of the best experiences of my life. I did things I never thought I could. Worse (or perhaps best) of all, because my friends knew I couldn’t say no, they called my ass out nearly every night. A few weeks and a handful of friends knowing you’re always 100% game equals a serious social lifestyle.

I also got more accomplished during those 40 days than the six previous months. Whenever I knew I had to do something like wash my car, rake the law, paint the bathroom, and do work, I knew no excuse would work, so I just did it without hesitation.

I highly recommend giving up excuses for lent . . . or forever.

Alpha Male Memory

Becoming the Alpha Male is not easy--especially if you’re not naturally a leader. How does someone enter a room and just own it? There is no easy answer. The Alpha Male is the leader of the group, the person in charge, and the one everyone looks to for guidance. The Alpha male monkey is the one who gets to mate with all the females, eat first, and gets all the spoils.

There’s this guy name David Hayakawa. He’s an attorney who also plans a few parties every year. Supposedly his parties are the greatest thing to ever happen to the Honolulu night scene. I went to one and it was aight.

He had a Halloween party a month ago and my friends went. I though, decided to boycott it.

Tangent moment: never say “no” if your friend calls you to go do something. The more you say “yes,” the more likely they’ll call you again, the more people you’ll meet, and the more you’ll get out of life. Yes’s grow Yes’s and No’s grow No’s.

Back to the boycott. I decided to boycott the party because David Hayakawa never remembers my name or remembers meeting me. I swear, I’ve met this guy five times and not once did he remember me. The second and third time I met him I even said, “I met you before.” I extended my olive branch out. Nothing.

I told my friends I wasn’t going and they laughed. Yeah it was stupid reason, but I’m stubborn. They made excuses like he has a bad memory or not to take it personally because he doesn’t remember most guys. As far as I was concerned, he was out alpha-ing me by saying he was so important and I’m so insignificant that he can’t even remember meeting me much less my name. What really bugged me was that he probably doesn’t even know he doing this.

When did having a bad memory become alpha?

The party came and went, my friends told me I missed out; I’m sure I would have had fun.

Realistically, I’m never going to walk up to David Hayakawa and make him remember my name or even try to make myself memorable for it. I like to think I’m above that.

The question now is how do I become/act alpha without getting the other guys to dislike me?

Last weekend I went to a party. As soon as I walked in, I saw a guy I met briefly seven months ago. I remembered his name and yell “Jake (not his real name), wasup? How you been?” He clearly did not remember my name and I just hammered past that (note, never say “I’m ______” if you’ve said someone’s name you’ve previously met; it just lowers your value such that people forgetting your name is normal. Assume, that the person remembers your name because you’re important. You know the other person’s name so assuming he remembers yours is not an insult or pretentious.) I talked to him like I was a nice and friendly person who finds it normal to see people I’ve met and remember their names. More importantly, I out alpha-ed him with “my brain is bigger than yours.” Throw in some good frame control and not an ounce of value was lost.

Jake later approached me and we talked more.

There are many ways to exhibit dominance. Acting like people are less important than you will demonstrate dominance, but it will only create short-term gain. Give people respect and they will follow you to the ends of the earth. There’s nothing more alpha than leading your people to the promise land.

Become Your "A" Game

"A" Game is all you have; become your "A" Game.

People say, “bring your 'A' Game,” or “I’m going to bring my 'A' Game” or other crazy things like that.

Instead, work your "A" Game so hard, it becomes you.

It reminds me of those cartoons where the rabbit runs so fast it leaves its shadow behind. Then when the rabbit stops, the shadow catches up. You are the shadow and your "A" Game is the rabbit.

At first, your game will surpass you. You will spit the routines and tricks and it will feel unnatural. You will feel as if you are speaking outside your body; your shadow has not caught up to your rabbit. Slowly, your shadow will catch up to your rabbit. The words will come naturally. The stories will become genuine. You will drop the routines and exert 100% natural game.

The girl will never know you had a good night, or you were “on,” or you were “in state”; she will just think that you are a naturally charismatic and interesting person all the time.

Become your "A" Game and you’ll never have to “bring it.”

Not Even Water

Eight years ago, I was talking to the hottest girl I had ever met (up to that point). We were discussing a bunch of things and she asked me if I wanted a beer.

Me: “I don’t drink.”

Her: “Not even water?”

Men Logic, Women Emotion

The Way Of The Superior Man by David Deida is quite possibly the greatest book ever written. Men deal in logic, women deal in emotion. If you want a girl to do something, convince her with emotion. No amount of logic will get you into her pants.

So I had a fight with my girlfriend a while ago. I pretty much fucked up her birthday and she was pissed. I thought we were going to break up. I did the usual: “Why are you mad? Tell me, what did I do? What can I do to make it up?” Nothing.

After half an hour of talking, and half an hour of David Deida in my mind saying “logic doesn’t work with women”, and half an hour of me not listening to his brilliance, and half an hour of her still being pissed at me, I finally gave in and thought “alright David, I’ll try it your way.”

Me: How’s the Saturday part of your birthday?
Her: Perfect.
Me: Really?
Her: Yeah.
Me: You are only allowed to think of the positive. Think of the Saturday, not Sunday (the day I messed up). What made Saturday so perfect?

And, in an instant, her mood changed from sad to happy. Men, women, who knows; one of us is definitely from another planet.

I later asked her what happened to make her feel better and she stood there with a blank face saying "I have no idea."

Over Hype To Sell

Donald Trump is the master of over-hype. He promises the universe, but delivers the moon. Miraculously he does a damn good job making the moon look like Saturn to just the right number of buyers willing to pay a premium.

Four months ago, Trump promised a new version of the Apprentice filled with celebrity A-listers. What kind of A-list celebrity would be on a reality show is beyond me, but with Trump’s hype, he convinced me it could be done.

Now, Trump has released the “cast” of celebrity A-listers, and well, they’re more like C-Listers. Oh well, I never would have watched it anyway.


Yet, somehow, he managed to twist it. He said he had 125 celebrities begging to be on the show. Hmmm. He then “selected” 14 with business experience. For some reason I’m magically drawn to watch your show again.

Trump’s over hype works because he is always doing something. Instead of focusing on the fact that his latest project is under-delivering, he re-frames the issue onto his next project. He never once makes an excuse or a comment that he promised A but is delivering D, and no one questions is future credibility. Instead, Trump hypes again and people follow. He over hypes so well that nobody pays attention to his latest “failure”.

Lesson: people are drawn to those with big ideas. Past failure is inconsequential. Hype, hype, hype and watch the masses follow.
Good job Mr. Trump, you could sell AIDS to an African.

Welcome To My Blog

Welcome to my blog. This blog is about my random thoughts of the moment. Most blogs have themes; this one doesn’t.

At first, I was going to make this blog about pickup, you know, PUA (pick up artist) stuff: The Mystery Method, The Game, Real Social Dynamics, Pickup 101, David Deangelo, Juggler . . . the list goes on and on. But no, this blog is not about that--not entirely, mostly because I’m done with that part of my life, i.e. I have a girlfriend and she’s awesome, no, she’s not just awesome, she’s a “keeper.” If I ever get my ass dumped again, I may cast the PUA resurrection spell. I’ll cross that bridge if I get there.