25th May 2020
jonathan

How To Go From Friend To Lover

Do you want to know a secret technique that got me many telephone numbers?

Do you want to know a secret technique that got me many telephone numbers and beautiful women coming back to my place in the past 10 years?

It’s called asking for it.

Nowadays, I see lots of men investing countless hours in the pursuit of becoming better versions of themselves in order to attract females. They become passionate about self-growth, read dozens of books, start hitting the gym, start watching TNL YouTube videos, but still struggle to make a move on the girls they like and remain stuck in the uncomfortable place known as the friend zone.

If this is your case, fear no more because today I’m going to help you end this platonic cycle of relationships and transition into real dating. Now, If I had to point the #1 issue causing this friend zone epidemic, I’d probably say that you are waiting for overt signals from the girl before you feel comfortable expressing your interest in her. For example, you might spend an excessive amount of energy talking about things you have no interest in, agreeing and nodding enthusiastically. Or you keep skipping over topics on a surface level without applying any pressure, flirtation or heavy eye contact, hoping instead that she will magically fall for your Olympic-level interview skills. Eventually, she will see you as nothing more than a friendly stranger and she will be gone soon before you think about asking for her number. Or she’ll offer her friendly flakey Instagram to add you to her ever growing follower list.

So how can you end this pattern? First, next time, before you go and talk to a woman, take a deep breath and set your intentions. You’re not meeting her to become her friend but because you’re considering her as a possible romantic partner. Second, if you want her telephone number or to ask her out for a coffee at that same moment, just express it. Don’t wait for the perfect moment, because there isn’t one. Once you start doing this two things will begin to happen: some women will be attracted to you and look forward to seeing you again and others will reject you. What a wonderful outcome either way. You either get the date or you know you did your masculine job and there are no “what ifs” haunting you for days, weeks, months or even years after.

This is the brave moment in which your seduction journey truly begins. If you watch our students develop throughout a typical TNL workshop you’ll see them evolving from typical ‘nice guys’ struggling to stop girls on the street, to comfortably taking numbers of very attractive women after only three days of live coaching. Learning to express your masculine intent is something that usually takes a lot of time, but because we have excellent female role-play assistants to practice conversation frameworks, intent and touch drills with the students every day before they do it with strangers in the street, then they are able to accelerate in this area much more quickly. Using drama classes to develop a student’s skills in a safe environment where he can experiment and learn before he takes his new learning to the street is the most effective tool we’ve found to help our students speed up the process and learn how to express their desires in a matter of days.

If you’ve spent your whole life not being able to look a woman in the eye and ask her out on a date then you need to join one of our workshops. The shocking thing is that we find this inability to be direct about your sexual intent is very common. The hard truth is that a man will find it hard to get what he is unable to ask for, never mind the other important things like being able to calibrate, contribute to the conversation, challenge, qualify, make an emotional impact and exchange contacts and all that while smoothly making physical moves at the same time.

The great thing is that firstly, you have a choice, you can develop the courage and the ability to ask, and secondly, no matter how long you may have struggled with any of these abilities we have worked out how to teach them to you – see it as the class on dating you never got in high school. I used to teach high school drama classes and not only do I wish I was able to teach there what we at TNL teach, I think that we’ve all been let down by society because these key competencies have been ignored.

But you don’t have to ignore them.

See you in class!

Go well,

Jonathan

Trapped In A Purposeless Life?

26th May 2020
James Marshall

When a door closes… TNL Responds to COVID 19

If you want to know if it’s possible to lose all the progress you’ve accumulated in the past X months while approaching girls, give this article a read

March 22nd 2020. We are all living through very strange and unpredictable times and in the past couple of weeks, the world around us has changed dramatically. If you’re in Europe you’re probably undergoing some sort of nationwide domestic lock-down to prevent the further spread of COVID-19. Most likely you are confined to your home. If you’re in the U.S. or Australia you have a week or so but it looks likely you’ll be in the same situation soon, as will the rest of the world.

This state of life will likely last for a couple of months or maybe more. All of us will have our lifestyles restricted and for many this will be a lonely and difficult time. This will be a very challenging moment for many men like you, as you are forced to stay at home, put your seduction and lifestyle habits on hold, and decide what to do with your time – both the time locked inside and the time after. Most people I’m sure are questioning how well they lived their lives up to this point, how much they relished and took advantage of their freedom and what changes they need to make when the gates are unlocked.

Many men reached out to us asking what TNL plans to do in terms of workshops and coaching and how you can keep improving and developing in your journey of masculinity and self-growth from home. First things first, The Natural Lifestyles was born from and still operates primarily as a live coaching company. That means we travel year-round to a dozen countries to meet our students so that they can receive face-to-face coaching and learn the TNL method in a small group, intensive, setting. In our experience, this is the approach that yields the most lasting results in the shortest amount of time.

For now however we are forced to suspend all live coaching and events until it is deemed safe for people to mingle in public again. This means effectively TNL is closing down until the Corona virus crisis is over or managed effectively. We intend to start teaching live again, hopefully later this year but we will not put any staff or clients in danger, so we have to be sensible and wait this out. Of course this may well change but if we’re able to travel and so are you, we’ll be back on the streets. Although for the coming months we won’t be on the road, changing lives on the streets of the busiest cities in the world, we won’t be disappearing completely.

After a 72-hour crazy escape through eastern Europe, bouncing from Kiev to Budapest to Lisbon we finally arrived at my farm in Northern Portugal as the borders closed behind us. So now that leaves myself, Liam, Alex and Shae locked in on my property for at least a month, and maybe much longer. We’re prepped and supplied and going to use the time to build an organic permaculture farm and complete my retreat centre, ready for an epic Warrior Training once the world goes back to it’s new normal.

This also means that some of the world’s greatest minds on seduction, lifestyle engineering, internal metamorphosis and mastering & leveraging the digital swipe generation are in one house with plenty of time to kill and a whole lot of ranting to do. So expect lots of new content, podcasts and a killer new online academy launch in the coming weeks, where you’ll be able to get on weekly calls with me and the team to prep your mindsets, body and lifestyle survival plan for the inevitable reopening of planet earth.

The answer is yes you can. It has everything to do with how you use the seemingly infinite amount of time in your hands right now. You can choose to spend your quarantine days binging on Netflix, porn and junk food or you can make the best of what you have and practice meditation, inner game work, and physical activity to become stronger in a tough time like this. Right now all your favourite TNL coaches are locked down in cities and countryside around the world. Liam, Shae, Alex, Jon and Kurt are all available for private hourly coaching calls to work through your personal plan for capitalizing socially and personally on this challenging time.

Peace,

James

Will TNL Stop Teaching Seduction?

26th May 2020
James Marshall

Will TNL Stop Teaching Seduction?

Is “male-oriented dating advice” still relevant?

As you may know, we removed many of our old videos including: Infield pickup, movie roasts & #AskTheNaturals series from our YouTube channel, due to warnings about possible channel takedowns of seduction related material. In other words, online censorship is becoming increasingly stronger and more punishing towards the topic of “male-oriented dating advice”. Some of the more extreme PUA channels have already been deleted and there is a risk we will get caught up in the same purge.

After consulting with our marketing and PR team and after our biggest competitor called me to warn us of the dating coach armageddon (you can guess who it was)... we decided to stay on the safer side, in order to be able to keep releasing quality content for you on a weekly basis and not risk having our platform to communicate with you nuked. The great news is that we’re currently working on setting up an independent platform to eventually be able to release content without any limitations. Those videos will eventually be put back up, I’ll keep you posted.

Rest assured, The Natural Lifestyles is and will always be a natural seduction company. While our original purpose remains unchanged, we continue to innovate and deepen our teaching scope. After dedicating the past 12 years of my life to coaching thousands of men all over the globe how to achieve their dream dating life, I saw the same key issues occurring over and over again. It became clear that issues with approaching and seducing women are often symptoms of a deeper condition. The real reason why you don’t go and meet that cute girl you saw on the street, don’t quit an unfulfilling job, start a business and move abroad —the things you truly want to do— is because of an unsettling feeling of unworthiness. Sure, you may lack the technical skill set needed or the right advice, but these things can be learned fairly quickly (that’s what we do on every TNL seduction workshop).

The truth is, no matter how much wealth or outward success you try to accumulate to cope with it, you’ll never feel truly good about yourself unless you decide to dig deeper and come to terms with your shadow self. The parts of you that are scared, blocked, repressed or undeveloped. Having had to deal with these issues myself, I spent a big chunk of my adult life traveling the world to meet mentors and masters in different schools of human potential. Whether through shamanic ceremonies in the Amazon jungle, training Kung Fu in China, seeking business and sexuality mentors - my quest to understand my deepest (and sometimes ugliest) self has exponentially improved my life. The lessons and quests I went through, helped to secure my own sense of being and purpose to the point where most of the “external qualities” began to improve by themselves. Using this personal foundation, I spent the last 2 years designing a workshop that would bring together an unprecedented group of world-class mentors and effective teachings that contributed to my own success and self-growth. It’s called Natural Warrior Training. This is not a substitution for the very successful 4 and 7-day intensive workshops or the infamous 10-day Eurotour, rather an additional expansion of our system focused on deep, personal work. Currently, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Natural Warrior Training and the rest of our live workshops are on hold. The regular schedule will resume once the apocalypse is over and it's safe to meet and mingle around in the streets again.

Hope this clears up any confusion. For now, stay safe, listen to real doctors, not laptop theorists. This will pass and life will go on. We should all be using this time to reflect on our regrets and make unshakeable vows to ourselves that once the doors open, we will not waste another day. Much love to you and your people.

Peace,

James

The True Cure for Approach Anxiety

27th May 2020
James Marshall

The True Cure for Approach Anxiety

Interviewing Zan Perrion

The Real Deal

When I started my own seduction journey in the early 2000s, most of the so-called dating ‘gurus’ were all advocating a very indirect and scripted way of interacting with women. Within this bunch of socially awkward dudes dressed in snake leather and talking about “HB 10s” and how to ”DHV” (if you don’t know you’re lucky), a man immediately got my attention as someone who immediately seemed like the real deal. His name was Zan Perrion and he was pioneering a method of connecting with women based on honesty and expressing one’s individual desire. In fact, Zan was one of the first few coaches to teach what became known as Natural Seduction.

As the years went by and TNL grew to be an élite coaching company worldwide, our paths crossed several times at international self-development conferences, and yet, we never had a good occasion to sit down and talk. Now, as a deadly pandemic is forcing most of us to take shelter and go monk mode for the next few months, I decided to finally reach out to Zan and invite him to be the next guest of the TNL lockdown podcast series. The interview was warm and wide-ranging. We discussed everything from the origins of the pickup community to the true cure for approach anxiety, from understanding social hierarchies to why I’ve never read a self-development book & how to 10x your learning, and from how to survive unfaithful partners & build a sense of worthiness to the fatherhood dilemma: when to settle for a family versus remaining an eternal free spirit.

What is the cure for ‘approach anxiety’?

I’m sure you’re dying of curiosity so I’ll say a little more about how to cure so-called approach anxiety. While you might benefit in the short term by pushing yourself outside of the comfort zone, the truth is that most times this irrational fear is just a symptom of something else…a poorly developed sense of self. Fix that and the majority of your social struggles will be gone in a blink. How? Like it or not, being confident and attractive is not something you can switch on and off at will. It’s not a static state and it’s not something you can “learn”. Confidence is the real time culmination of millions of choice points throughout your life. The bad news is that you can’t just do a confidence course, or a few days of self affirmations to change lifetime habits.

The good news is, they’re just habits: thoughts, feelings and actions you’ve repeated so many times they seem set in stone. By recognizing that true confidence will always fluctuate and that by making a dozen different decisions a day, you can very quickly reverse the spiral up. These habits are around meeting women for sure, but they’re also related to the social scene you roll in, your health, communication skills, emotional intelligence and sense of purpose. Are you daily actions creating powerful networks, boosting your health and emotional well-being? Or are you surrounded by toxic (or even just lazy) friends & colleagues, destructive habits and negative influences?

Beyond Seduction

As you can probably tell the discussion went well beyond seduction and I discovered that Zan and I have both made and continue to make seeking adventures and finding your true purpose the top of our priority lists. As we talked I realised that Zan and I were both inspired by the Beat poets, the group of American writers who went counter to the mainstream culture well before the hippies of the late 60s. On The Road by Jack Kerouac is probably the most famous novel produced by these writers and as I found out more and more about Zan I realised that we were both men who ven as boys had wanted something more from life and weren’t afraid to take the difficult and dangerous journey to get there, in fact, it was the road itself we were attracted to - for its characters, its raw emotion and the chance of seeing much more than what those around us were willing to settle for.

Of course I want you to go watch the video, but if you don’t then it’s this sense of adventure that I want to leave you with. I’m not suggesting that you need to jump onto a motorbike with a joint hanging out of your mouth and scream “Death or freedom!” as you take off into the sunset (although that sounds pretty cool doesn’t it?). The key thing you need to do in order to live life as an adventure is to learn to listen to your own intuition on where to explore and don’t let other people’s expectations get in the way.

I wish you well on the path.

Peace,

James

Looking For A New Girlfriend? Don’t Make These Mistakes

27th May 2020
jonathan

Looking For A New Girlfriend? Don’t Make These Mistakes

5 key rules that guide how you should enter into and engage in relationships

Why should I even have a girlfriend?

If you’ve been following TNL for a while, you’ve probably heard us speaking quite a lot on the topic of romantic relationships. Up until now the majority of this content has been focused on offering men guidance to meet any women they want and be surrounded by multiple lovers. That is because open and casual relationships are something every man craves deeply but, in the majority of cases, never manages to get an understanding of, except for a few lucky encounters. What most guys ignore, though, is that a standard monogamous relationship can be just as, if not more, challenging than a casual affair.

After spending the past 22 years in different kinds of relationships myself and, in the last few, coaching students for TNL on how to have a better dating life, I’ve come to realize that all men need at least some specific guidance when engaging in a classic relationship for two reasons: Firstly, an exclusive relationship makes you experience a very different level of engagement and growth to a casual affair. The level of awareness you can develop by connecting with one partner at a very deep level will make all of your interactions with women improve exponentially. Secondly, like it or not, a monogamous relationship is what brought you here.

Whether to forget a toxic ex that ruined your idea of love, or to learn how to seduce that cute girl that rejected you through high school and college, it is often a relationship with one woman that sets you on this journey of self-improvement. I have learned the hard way how much time you can waste and how much suffering you can generate for yourself and others while stuck in toxic relationships, but you don’t have to. That’s why I created 5 key rules that guide how you should enter into and engage in relationships:

Relationship Rule #1:

Don’t get together with the first person you date

“I married my high school sweetheart” is a common story, but unfortunately many of these relationships break down, sometimes due to the very fact that the people trying to maintain this long-term relationship have no experience of other people and how they work in relationships and, as a result of spending so much time in a relationship, little experience of themselves as a separate person. With a few rare exceptions I would say that you owe it to yourself to explore yourself and a number of others in relationships and use your early years as a period for experimentation and free exploration, rather than trying to get the whole thing sewed up. The motivations for sticking with this kind of relationship are often laziness or a fear of the unknown dating landscape. The big gamble that guys who do stick with their first girlfriend or in a relationship that occurs before any period of experimentation and exploration take is that if the relationship doesn’t work out they hit the worst of all beginner’s hells - the one where later in life, in your early 30s in my case, you suddenly enter the complicated modern dating landscape with almost no experience. I know this hell and so do many of my clients. Don’t go there!

Relationship Rule #2:

Don’t become a serial monogamist

Some people go from relationship to relationship with little or no space of time for healing, reflection, growth or freedom in between. This is known as Serial Monogamy, and like the serial killer the serial monogamist is always looking for his next victim...oops! I meant girlfriend. Personally I can relate to being in a place where it feels secure and good to me to be in a relationship, however, that is simply not a good enough reason for being in one! And the women I was in a relationship with really were victims because they were hoping to stay with me long-term while I was only looking for my next girlfriend. It was so hard not to! Men in particular are attracted to serial monogamy because they enter a kind of desert when a relationship ends. Most men are not able to approach women and find casual sex, and so their sex life simply ends when their ex walks out the door. Women are much more likely to share emotion and touch with each other, but with the end of a relationship a man often no longer has access to either of these things. No wonder the next girlfriend looks so attractive!

Relationship Rule #3:

Don’t date within your social circle

As I just mentioned, guys who ‘cold approach’ women they don’t already know are in the minority. You realise how crazy this is when you start cold approaching. I’ll let you in on a little secret - you could get James’s Five Principles online course and start learning today how to transform yourself into someone who has the confidence and skills to meet women and bring them into your life. The main problems that come from dating people that you already know are scarcity (how many women do you already know who you could possibly date?) and the complications that occur within social circles when people start and end relationships there. When you start approaching and realise that you really can bring completely new people into your life you start to realise that you really could afford to live without the negative effects on your social circles (jealousy from previous relationships within the group, divisions in the social circle when a relationship within it ends, etc.) that can easily come from finding your next girlfriend in your existing network of friends and acquaintances.

Relationship Rule #4:

Don’t mess with your ex

This rule is simple and very hard for many men to achieve (see rule 2). In my own life I’ve been driven to seek out my ex due to the scarcity described above in rule 3, and it never worked out well. The first time I did it I cheated on the girlfriend I had just got back together with within a week. The second time I did it was extremely humiliating because the woman I had broken up with over a year ago could see just how desperate and pathetic I was and how little I had to offer her when I asked her for another chance. As one of the people I interviewed on this topic said, “Once you decide to break up with someone that decision should be final.” You owe it to yourself and those you interact with to be able to work out what you want and stick to it. This can be part of a greater project of self-knowledge that our coaches can help you with either on a live workshop or through online coaching sessions where you deep-dive on things like your sense of self-worth and the mindsets and practices that guide you patterns of behaviour in relation to others.

Relationship Rule #5:

Be aware of your relationship patterns

Self-knowledge and introspection are essential tools to use if you want to start experiencing more joy, satisfaction, fulfilment and peace in relationships. Over the years I have come to create internal and external criteria for assessing what’s happening with me in a serious relationship. I’ve often said that if I’m not learning, growing and healing with a primary partner then we should break up. I’ve also come to use things like the ‘Second Date Rule’ offered by Dr. Robert A. Glover in his book No More Mr Nice Guy. Glover tells his readers to think about the kind of behaviour they put up with in relationships and then ask themselves, “If this kind of behaviour had been shown on the second date, would there have been a third one?” Obviously this rule is not an exact science for assessing what you will and won’t accept from someone you are in a close relationship with but, like I said in rule 4, you owe it to yourself and those you interact with to be able to work out what you want and stick to it. This is also known as setting boundaries and communicating expectations. This is what Glover’s book helps you learn to do and you start by looking at how you could possibly have gotten to a place in your life where you are willing to accept unacceptable behaviour. The ‘Nice Guy Syndrome’ that Glover describes is something that begins in childhood where your needs are not met and, because as a child you are egocentric, you begin to believe that this is because there is something wrong with you. This ‘Toxic Shame’ as Glover calls it, drives you to hide your feelings and needs and try to please others and meet their needs in the hope that they will accept you and in return meet your needs. Nice Guy Syndrome is one among many negative patterns that you can uncover and deactivate if you do take the path of introspection that leads to gaining this kind of self-knowledge.

Book a free consultation with one of our coaches (including me) so we can get the conversation started.

I wish you all the best,

Jon

How To Be More Direct Without Being A D*ck

28th May 2020
James Marshall

How To Be More Direct Without Being A D*ck

James Marshall’s Story

Can you be direct?

Do you know how to ask for what you want? Or do you do nice things and hope people (women specifically) will realize your needs and give them to you? If someone cuts in line or a waiter is rude to you, do you apologize, deflect and stay silent? When a girl you’re dating contradicts you or makes fun of your passion in public, do you let it slide or do you sit her down for a talk? The answer to these individual examples is all encapsulated under the principle of directness.

For a long time, an argument has divided men in the seduction community…

“When approaching women is it better to go DIRECT or INDIRECT?”

A Harsh Truth

Right now most of the world is under some kind of social distancing measures to avoid the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID 19 so no one is approaching anybody. So while we’re all on the bench, it’s a good time to dissect the way you used to relate to women in pre-corona days. And, just as importantly, it’s a good time to start making changes internally so that when you come out of the lockdown cocoon you won’t waste any more of your life. Yes, I am telling you that you have wasted large parts of your life so far. We all did in some ways; spending months or years in toxic relationships, dead-end jobs, addictions, depression, living for other people’s expectations, worrying about things that may never happen. The question is, how much did you waste? A few months, a year in total? We can live with that level of regret. 5 years, 10 years… That is huge chunks of your adult life you can’t get back.

How do I define waste? Were you enjoying your life, were you doing the things you wanted and were you with the people you wanted to be with in healthy, mutually respectful and pleasurable relationships? If the answer for long periods is no then that time was wasted. The truth is if that is a fact for you and you don’t change your internal patterns and external behaviour you will keep wasting big, priceless blocks of your life. I have to be blunt, none of us have any more time for living in denial, distraction or ignorance. It’s time to wake the fuck up.

Don’t ‘do’ direct, ‘be’ direct

Now, where was I…back to seduction technicalities:) When thinking about directness a lot of guys assume that it boils down to walking up to an attractive girl and telling her she’s hot. That is one example of an expression of a direct person but it isn’t directness in the bigger sense. How do I, James Marshall, the biggest supporter of direct game rights in the world, define good direct seduction? Ultimately, approaching women directly just means being honest and expressing why you like them and decided to meet them, versus, for example,"asking for directions" and hoping to covertly attract them in the process.

That’s really it. 10 years of TNL teachings, in a nutshell, presented to you for free. The biggest problem, however, that most of our students face when following this advice, is that they often copy-paste my lines into what they say with the result of being uncalibrated and creeping the girl out, or worse, getting ignored. The words I say aren’t magic, they have no power at all. It is the direct man delivering them, or whatever variation feels natural for him, that makes the difference. If you have been struggling with this in the past, the first thing you need to realize is that…

So how can you develop this trait more without sounding fake or offending people around you? First, start with small steps. Remember, it is all about developing the habit of expressing what you truly desire without too many filters. Next time someone asks your opinion on something, just tell him what you think and don’t worry about being rude. See what it’s like to have a debate, to disagree, to point out the flaw in an argument. Second, learn to embrace the idea of positive confrontation. I’m not suggesting you go out in the street and start a fight with the grocery store clerk, but that when you’re not happy with the way someone is treating you, you just point it out to them and have a constructive conversation about the issue. Third, for a deeper dive into this book a constructive conversation with one of our online coaches and start developing your ability to be direct and get what you want without trampling others and being a dick.

Peace,

James

No Tinder Matches? Read this…

28th May 2020
James Marshall

No Tinder Matches? Read this…

Do you ever struggle to make things happen once you get a woman’s telephone number?

How can text lead to sex?

Do you ever struggle to make things happen once you get a woman’s telephone number? Are you experiencing problems with expressing the full range of your personality through something as limiting as a Tinder bio? As with most social skills, texting requires a good amount of practice to master. But who in this world wants to sit down and have a lengthy typing session, or swipe yes or no to strangers on some app when you can leave the house and interact with so many beautiful females in real life? Personally, although I’ve experimented with every possible way to meet women, I usually tell my guys to not bother with online dating until you’ve got a handle on cold-approach. Why? Because the returns are low and so often it’s used as an excuse not to go out and meet women in real life.

Enter Corona Virus…

In the past month or so society has entered a worldwide domestic lockdown lifestyle, but no matter the circumstances, human nature hasn’t changed. The hot girls you’d normally approach in the street or bars are right now, in a similar way as you are, lonely, bored and horny. This has caused a massive surge in the use of dating apps like Tinder and Instagram (yes, Instagram is a dating site). That's why, in my opinion, there has never been a better time in recent history for a man to explore and master online dating. To help figure out an action plan so you can capitalize on this crazy situation I sat down with dating coach and Ted speaker, the one and only, Hayley Quinn. The great thing about Hayley is that she is not only an incredible dating coach (she’s been walking the beat as long as I have) but she is also a coach who teaches both men and women how to meet more quality partners online, as well as in real life, and this gives her a unique and valuable perspective.

Having a look from both sides of the screen

This was a unique interview in which we explored together both the masculine and feminine perspectives of online dating. Hayley told me about how to select the right profile picture. “What are the deal breakers?” I asked her. She said that we have to face up to the fact that in the social media age our standards for what constitutes a ‘good’ photo of you have radically escalated. Hayley noted that the ladies she coaches seem to have an amazing back catalogue of great photos that their friends have taken of them but not the men. It made me wonder why that is. Could it be part of a general difference between men and women where women are more likely to complement each other, whereas men are more likely to knock each other, even though women may still be as competitive as men at the same time in other ways? I told Hayley how I’ve asked female friends and lovers to let me watch them use Tinder and how they seemed to be so trivial in how they decide who was acceptable based on one photo as they swiped their way through many matches. So how do you avoid getting so easily rejected? What is a ‘good’ profile picture?

“You need a new, high resolution photo of you,” she directed me, as well as urging me to void anything that is going to interfere with your picture being clear, e.g. it was taken at night, you’re in a group, a photo with ‘red-eye’, or where you’re in sunglasses or a hat, “All of which,” Hayley tells me, “ have been statistically proven to ‘ding’ your profile.” Ok, got it. Don’t want to damage the most important part of your profile (your profile pic) with these more obvious errors. Next, you need to figure out what the theme is to your profile, your personal brand. This should be authentic to certain aspects of you. Don’t try to look like some generic hot guy in any style if that really isn’t you. Think about the background of your profile pic and photos in general. Think about the setting. Could she see herself in your photo? Direct sunlight is not good for photos so wait for a cloudy day. Use no more than one photo in the same outfit or at the same location. Not all your photos should be professional photos otherwise it will appear fake. Hayley’s general advice was to look relatively well-dressed and well-organised. Your dating profiles, just like your Instagram should be ‘well-cultivated.’ And yes, Hayley tells me, Instagram is rated and used as a dating site and must be a strong part of your online presence.

Who are you online?

Let’s talk about your online presence for a minute. Hayley told me that you can choose not to have an online presence, but if you are going to have one then it has to work for you and not against you. Do an audit of this part of your life and get rid of things that don’t reflect well on you. Post regularly and make it artful and interesting in some way. Change it regularly, make it different. Look at your profile page on Instagram. Are the images all the same or even mostly similar? Try to include different aspects of your life. It is possible to work an online niche, such as BDSM or photography, and use these as platforms that attract women who are interested in that niche. But before you go trying to set up as the next Instagram photography success just start with getting your friends to take good photos of you when you’re at an event or doing anything interesting so that you have something to use to create an online presence that is worth having, one that works for you by showing you and what you do rather than casting you in a bad light. Female friends, if you have them, are better at taking these photos Hayley claims! Probably had more practice I guess. You need to learn to relax and just pose for the photo. And if your friend won’t take a photo for you then maybe he isn’t really your friend. It’s worth thinking about.

When we talked about what to write on a bio Hayley’s advice was to avoid clichés. According to her, short and strong is better than long and rambling. Avoid being generic with how you describe yourself (what does ‘fun loving’ really mean anyway?) and no more emojis! Those days are over. Hayley’s suggestion was to be more dynamic and seductive by saying something more like “You would win me over if...” or “You should swipe right now if…”

How can text lead to sex?

And then you get to messaging! Everyone’s always looking for the great opening line, but the truth is that there is no one great opening line. It’s the same as in reality where words and phrases that have no charge and are generic have no power, and your message needs to be powerful if even just to stand out from the endless stream of messages that she is receiving that are ignored and forgotten. Hayley advised using a template of good messages in order to deal with the high rate of messaging you have to do in order to deal with the low returns involved with online dating. Having worked for some of these apps she informed me that even the most attractive men on dating apps only get a 35 to 40 percent return rate on their messages. When you look at it from the woman’s perspective you see that she has a large number of options and limited time, and if she’s seeing very low investment from you then she will easily move on. On top of this there’s always the ambiguity involved with the question of whether he’s just using the app for casual dating or if he is interested in, or even just open to, a relationship. Hayley told me about ’hey guys’, guys who just send a stream of heys with no response. The hard fact that Hayley made me aware of is that she has to show investment before you ask her out. Don’t immediately go in for a date otherwise you indicate that you have low standards and will respond kindly to any kind of communication, even lazy, low investment communication, from her.

Something I’ve noticed with sending messages is that it gets boring really quickly when you’re texting with matches and Hayley agreed with me that it can be very difficult to get to know somebody online who you haven’t met in real life. I’m an interesting conversationalist but my conversations are boring online. So how do I keep her interested? Hayley says that actually “How do I keep her interested” is a losing game. You need to balance your interest against hers and keep to your standards throughout this process. “Make your communication intermittent and impactful,” she said. One of the first things I coach guys to do on workshops is to contribute to the conversation and talk about yourself. When I text I don’t use emojis. I use a smile, a wink and …, and supplement that with voice mails in which I talk about what I’m doing/being/feeling and so contribute to the conversation. Hayley agreed that voice mails are great to use every now and then to spice it up and that she gets suspense too of playing the message.

My favorite part of using dating apps is when you stop using them

To close the book for now on online dating I want to say do it but keep seeding for real interaction. Beware the swipe! It can be a useful tool or a video game slot machine sukcing your attention away. Allocate limited time to this and don’t use it all day. When we talked about how you pivot from an app to another platform like Instagram or WhatsApp I told her that I usually just say something like “ I’m not on here much so let’s use whatever.” Hayley replied that there’s only two possible outcomes; one she doesn’t reply, two she objects and you challenge and negotiate. You can, and should be direct, but when you look at how people typically behave on these apps men are like, “Let’s swap details about each other and cut to the chase,” whereas women are more like “Let’s develop a connection.” How you do this is to always ask “What is she trying to show about herself in this message?” Women are quite artful with this at times, and I will often overtly comment on this, on what her communication shows about her. Call her out and don’t lower your standards, this is more for your personal integrity than for your external success.

And, as always, use your time and energy purposefully, and, as with all things online, make it real or get off it.

Peace,

James

Healing Vs Hustling

29th May 2020
James Marshall

Healing Vs Hustling

How to resolve your past pain during lockdown?

I’ve just released a new video that is sending shock waves through TNL networks. Grown men are breaking down and crying, many for the first time in years. If you have opened your inbox in the last month or so you’ve probably been bombarded by masses of life coaches and online educators reminding you to keep working hard and optimizing your lockdown time. Now, I don’t disagree with any of that. It is a good idea to take advantage of this unique moment in history, when the entire world pauses, to pivot your life plan and prepare for what happens next. However, what I also think this long period can offer is an occasion for healing, to go deeper inside of yourself and be real with yourself about what’s under the surface. Be prepared, what you’re going to find is not going to always be positivity and happiness, and, counter-intuitively, that is not a bad thing. It might just save your life.

Today I want to lead you through a thought journey, but to do so, I need you to be in touch with your entire emotional range. The first thing I want to touch base on is the idea of ”Hustle”. We live in a society that greatly celebrates the doers, the hard-workers, the men that become obsessed with their jobs. That’s good overall. At the end of the day, it is thanks to this 20% of people that get shit done that businesses, governments, and society itself keeps functioning. Those are the men who “succeed” on certain metrics, usually material ones. And that’s a big part of what I teach in courses like my Lifestyle Design Academy: how to leverage your networks and relationships to 10x the quality of your dating life, career and lifestyle results. The problem is that, for a lot of men, hustling stops being a means to an end and becomes the end itself. That’s because, like most forms of high-stimulation activities, hard work can be another way to get your dopamine spikes, external validation from friends and colleagues, and overall feeling you’re doing something that’s more important than anything else. This leads you to repress and despise any form of weaknesses like frustration, psychological and emotional pain, or any other negative feeling that can put you out of the constantly positive hustling mindset. On the flip side, is it’s easy to be really down on yourself if you can’t always live up to the extremely high standards of discipline and emotional balance you think you should have all the fucking time. If you recognize yourself in that statement, even a little bit, I suggest you spend a big chunk of your quarantine time starting to heal your inner wounds and acknowledging your past traumas, whether self-inflicted or created by others. The longer you decide to wait and postpone this, the higher the chances they’ll become a permanent part of you, calcifying those wounds into numb scars, anger or cynicism - which you will likely pass on to the next generation if they don’t take you out first.

Dealing with the grief of generations

So, the second thing I want you to realize today is, that it’s okay to feel sad. It is okay to wake up and feel lonely and a bit depressed (especially during Corona). It’s ok to have a tantrum or feel rage (seemingly for no obvious reason) sometimes, as long as you’re not damaging yourself or others around you. You have the privilege and burden of being born in the first generations that finally get to acknowledge their emotional pain and feel it fully. Your father, your grandfather, your frontier ancestor fighting a war, carving out life in a harsh environment, were all too busy copying with big challenges coming from outside. That often boiled down to a life-or-death type of outcome, with little resources left to work through the inner demons and trauma they experienced. That’s why they passed it on to you, they didn’t have the tools or self-awareness to know any better. For the first time, you have the choice of breaking this cycle, to save yourself and whoever comes next. The moment you finally acknowledge the repressed pain inside of you, something else amazing also happens. You begin to notice how almost everyone else is going through similar challenges. This creates an opportunity for you to truly understand what people need and desire in their lives at a very core level. How do you think I am able to empathize with my clients and lead them through their darkness? Because I’ve been to all those dark places too and come out on top. Once you do so and find a way to provide them some help to alleviate their own unique struggles, you’ll become a very valuable person in their lives.

Valuing yourself and others is what matters most

The idea of ”Value” is the last thing I want you to focus on today. Not in the networking brunch sense of the word. I want you to focus on valuing yourself, the shadow sides and the light. If you want to advance faster than anyone else in your workplace hierarchy or if you want to connect with very exclusive and influential people, you must become a valuable person, that is to yourself first. Then you will be able to offer true value to the mentors, friends, women and lifestyle collaborators you want in your life. The process of receiving and providing value tailored to the specific needs of the person in front of you is one of the cornerstones of my Seductive Economy Method and something I cover at great lengths in my Lifestyle Design Academy. What makes LDA completely different from the other lifestyle programs out there is that it comes from a perspective heavily focused on social dynamics and bringing key people into your life to multiply your effects. I will show you how your typical struggles like increasing productivity, finding your unique purpose or improving your inner game can be solved ten times faster when you know how to get access to the right mentors and partners (without spending a dime if you execute properly what I teach you). I will take you by hand and explain to you how to leapfrog over the entry level grind and join any organization you might have an interest in, directly at the top without having to spend years working your way up from the bottom. You’ll learn how to create emissaries and advocates spreading positive messages about you in their own social pyramids and connecting you with the Godfathers & Floating Alphas (this also works in having women referring you to other women for sex).

My Lifestyle Design Academy is essentially the culmination of my life’s work as a social engineer (not a hustler. Yes I work hard but not nearly as hard or as long as guys who try to do it all themselves). It’s the complete system of never-released principles and step by step strategies that I’ve only ever shared with my private 1-on-1 clients (who pay me a crazy amount of money to spend a few days together). If you want to hustle and build connections with others your first step needs to be healing. The good news is that, as well as ultimately helping you connect with others, dealing with your own, personal pain that has been passed on to you from previous generations can be processed and left behind, leaving you with a feeling of...

Peace,

James

How I Went From Living Hell To Ultimate Social Freedom

29th May 2020
jonathan

How I Went From Living Hell To Ultimate Social Freedom

Why is it that some people are able to keep operating, and even thriving, under very adverse conditions while others get destroyed by the obstacles in their path?

Maturity, Emotional Intelligence and Resilience

As you might know from my previous videos I’ve spent most of my adult life teaching other people. First, as an English and Drama teacher, and now most recently as an executive coach for TNL. To my surprise, I immediately noticed how the same mental patterns affecting my teenage students would show up almost unchanged in the more mature and successful men I ended up coaching years later as a seduction teacher. It is not necessarily true that the older you get the more in control of your emotions you become. You often just learn new ways to hide the pain and conflict inside of you and put your best poker face on, so to speak. If you’ve been feeling stuck with repressed psychological and emotional pain for a long time (and believe me when I say it, most of us do) then I want to help you by sharing with you my personal approach to building resilience by working with your thoughts, emotions, and psychology, also known as your Inner Game.

A Mate is A Real Friend

The Australian National Dictionary explains that the Australian usages of mate derive from the British word ‘mate’ meaning ‘a habitual companion, an associate, fellow, comrade; a fellow-worker or partner’, and that in British English it is now only in working-class use.

The first M stands for Mates. They are the people in your life that stick with you through hard times. When seeking Mates I truly recommend you look for people that are able to do at least one thing very well: sit with you and listen to a problem and simply hold the space rather than trying to offer advice, talk about their own problems or try and make the problem seem less than it is. What I’ve learned and what you will learn is that most of your ”friends” will often do these things or just disappear as soon as things are difficult and you need help in life. So value, cherish and seek out true friends. They are indispensable both for your inner growth and in order to face adversities. A true mate will be able to just be there for you, without judgement, without manipulation, just someone who enjoys your company, wants the best for you and is able to bring that out of you in some way.

Mediations are paths to truth

The Second M stands for Meditations. Note the ‘s’ on meditations. Classic meditation is something most of the ”inner game gurus” preach as the ultimate panacea to all world’s problems. I want to distance myself a bit from that. While I still recommend the more traditional forms of meditation, like Vipassana and other breath-work based techniques, you don’t have to sit in silence for 30 minutes every day to experience the benefits of meditation. Things like writing in a journal, reading a poem, dancing to your favorite music or walking in nature, can all work equally well to get you more in tune with your inner world and process your experience, as well as helping you to see reality with more clarity.

Morning is where you seize the day

The Third M stands for Morning Routine. A lot of people, including myself, see enormous benefits in having a regular schedule for their mornings, usually one that involves some type of movement or exercise. This helps you a lot to stay focused on work and other important activities in your life in general as well as during unsettling times. Your morning routine should be focussed around the pleasure of experiencing your body and enhancing its capabilities which will develop ‘natural discipline’. I choose chi gong because it gives me such a large number of physical, energetic and mental benefits as well as feeling really good to do, which keeps me coming back for more. When I complete a chi gong sequence I feel reset and ready for the day, which is the time when I repeat the Fourth M…

Make your own meaning

And finally, the last M stands for Making Meaning. What I want you to get out of this concept is that you must stop looking for ready-made answers in life because frankly, it is very likely you won’t find any that are truly useful for you. Instead, you must develop ways of constructing your own frameworks of meaning that will allow you to see past the disappointments, betrayals and other piles of bullshit that life throws at you. This is one way of seeing freedom – we never have complete control over our circumstances but it’s the way in which we interpret our reality that makes the difference. It’s the difference between being the actor in a bad movie or learning to write your own script instead. Meaning in life goes hand-in-hand with agency, they feed into each other as life progresses. This is where your Inner Game meets the outer reality of engaging with others and the world around you.

These simple principles are all aimed at helping you to engage with the pain and trauma that comes with life and find a way to face adversity successfully.

I wish you resilience,

Jon

How To Go From Friend To Lover

If I had to point the #1 issue causing this friend zone epidemic, I’d probably say that you are waiting for overt signals from the girl before you feel comfortable expressing your interest in her.