Ignore These 5 Dating Lies—Or Stay Single Forever!

Take it from a guy who's dated some of the most beautiful women, me, despite the fact that I look like a Weasley brother from the Harry Potter movies.

You don't have to be some Hollywood handsome guy.

Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach Conal Barrett.
I am here to help you flirt with confidence and get a great girlfriend. All by being authentic, what I call radical authenticity.
In other words, no pickup artist moves, no weird, fake, toxic,, just being your true best real self because women like you for you. And I have a question for you.
Have you ever said to yourself, if only I was better looking, I'd have a better dating life. Women would be more into me.
Or have you ever said to yourself, I just don't know what to say. I don't know how to flirt.
I don't know. I run out of things to say.
I'm not sure what to say. And if I could just talk to women better, if I could flirt better, I would be able to get more dates and get a great girlfriend, get a great relationship.
Or maybe you've said to yourself, shit, I just don't have the money. I'm too old or I'm not rich enough.

Well, if any of those thoughts have ever come to you, today's episode will help you.

Because these are common myths.

There are some big myths in dating that are hurting your confidence.

And by hurting your confidence, it's hurting your dating life.

One of the myths is that it's all about looks.

Another myth is, ah, women only want really rich guys, right? The three sixes, six pack abs, six figures, six feet tall, other ways to be six something. And basically, this can take a toll on your confidence.
It can make you try hard with a woman. Bottom line is it can hurt your confidence and make you insecure.
And it's the insecurity. It's the lowered confidence that really hurts you much more than your bank account or how good looking you think you need to be or are.
And it can kill attraction. It can keep you from approaching women.
And yeah, there are these, there are these five really toxic, poisonous, damaging myths that are hurting so many men. Some of these myths I'm confident are hurting you.
So what I'm going to do today is go through these five common dating myths. Five of the biggest, maybe the five biggest.
And I'm going to go through and destroy them for you, with you. Because the truth is you don't need to be super tall, super handsome, super ripped to have a great dating life, to attract a wonderful woman in your life.
You just need to take the right action, learn the right way to flirt, and feel a certain amount of self-confidence. And that is going to get you the girlfriend you want.
So today we're going to take a sledgehammer, take some dynamite to five of the biggest myths that hold men back. And I'll bet some of these are holding you back.
Okay. So we're going to break that down.
Hey, by the way, before we break it down, I want to mention a client that I have who's just crushing it. I'm going to call him Aaron.
Aaron lives in Australia, although he's American. He spends six months in the US, six months in Australia.
He's in Sydney right now. And I just did a coaching session with Aaron last night and his biggest problem, his biggest sticking point has been struggling with approaching women in real life.
He was afraid that it's weird to approach a woman, that it would come off as weird and creepy. And so he and I have been working on his approaching game.
So we had a coaching session last night and I said, tell me about your last week. What actions have you taken? Did you do the missions I gave you? I gave him some missions to do, to say some things and take some actions and talk to women in coffee shops.
And in the last week, he talked to 12 women and he got four phone numbers slash Instagrams. He got two dates.
He had a, he had a, what I call an instant date. He went from this coffee shop with a beautiful girl named Anna in Sydney, Australia.
And they started chatting. They had a 45 minute coffee chat at his local coffee shop.
And then they went on an instant date to the beach. And then they ended up back at his place later that night for a night of love and romance.
And all he did was he said, you know what? I bring a lot to the table. I can talk to women.
There's nothing creepy and weird about chatting up a woman in a coffee shop or a bar or at the beach. In fact, women like it.
That's the new belief. I have helped him upload into his dating software.
And there's a great moment, something Anna said to him as they were leaving the coffee shop together to go on their instant date. She said, I'm so glad you came up to me.
No guys do this. No guys just come and talk to me.
I love that she said that to him I mean I love his his success story too but I love the fact that she was giving him this great feedback this is a beautiful girl by the way he called her his nine out of ten and and Aaron by the way Aaron's 38 he shaves his head because he had a receding hairline or he has a receding hairline so he goes full cue ball he goes full Bruce Willis Jason Statham type of look and he had this limiting belief that oh man women want guys with a full head of hair who are you know better looking maybe younger than me he's pushing 40. Bottom line is he approached this gorgeous girl Anna Anna, at a coffee shop and she loved it.
Not only did she love it, his very actions of walking up to her, being genuine, being authentic, that's what attracted her. And she gave him that amazing feedback.
Not just, hey, let's go on a date. I'm yours for the night, but also you're doing this right.
Keep doing it. And anyway,

so if you want that kind of success, if you freeze up when you want to talk to a beautiful woman,

you don't know why. Or if you just don't even approach a woman because you aren't sure what

to say or you're afraid you're going to come off as creepy and you want to be like Aaron and be walking up to women in coffee shops, chatting and flirting and getting dates and phone numbers, then here's what you can do. I do a personalized one-on-one coaching.
And if you'd like, you and I can hop on a free one-on-one consultation call. I will help you get clear on what's holding you back.
I'll tell you the exact cause of your approach anxiety if you have that. Or I'll tell you why you run out of things to say.
I'll tell you why you are struggling and not getting the results you want. And then I'll share with you a roadmap.
And I'll say, hey, here's what you need to do with or without me. Here's what you need to do to get more dates, flirt with a lot of confidence and get a great girlfriend and do it with authenticity, right? Do it with that radical authenticity approach.
So I do a free consultation calls. There's no charge.
It's about a 45 minute fun, chill conversation where I give you a roadmap to get your girlfriend. And if we decide to work together, amazing.
And if we don't, that's fine. I do free consultations because I love doing it.
So yeah, you can go to datingtransformation.com. There's a little red book a call button on my website.
So if you resonate with what I'm about, or if you want to fix these problems or get a, get some dating

results that you're not getting right now, just go to datingtransformation.com, book the free call button and you will chat. First, you'll chat with a member of my team briefly, and then you'll talk with me.
Um, yeah. So feel free to do that.
Uh, just a heads up. I do one-on-one personalized coaching.
I don't do like, you know, group coaching where there's 30 guys on a Zoom call and talking to me. It's all one-on-one because one-on-one is what gets the best results for men.
It's what my coaches helped me get the best results I got back when I had coaches. It was always personalized.
So that's how I coach. So because of that, I don't have a lot of time in slots.
And so my ability to do free consultations with guys is very short. So the slots are limited is what I'm saying.
But if you want to do a free coaching session with me, I'm sorry, a free coaching consultation, just go to datingtransformation.com and book that free call button. And if you don't, here we go.
Let's get to these five big myths. Okay, here we go.
Here's the biggest dating myth. I think it's the most prevalent dating myth, which is number one, biggest, most prevalent dating myth is that your looks matter so much to women, that it's all about looks.
You have to be great looking. That's a big myth.
But here's the truth. The truth is that good looks are way overrated, way overrated.
Now, hey, if you have chiseled Hemsworthian features, good for you. But take it from a guy who's dated some of the most beautiful women, me, despite the fact that I look like a Weasley brother from the Harry Potter movies.
You don't have to be some Hollywood handsome guy. You don't need to be the best looking guy in the world.
Looks don't really matter all that much to women unless you make them matter. Okay.

And there's a lot of high profile examples in culture and media, right? Of average looking guys with incredibly beautiful women. Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts back in the day.
Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe back in the 50s. Pete Davidson and half of Hollywood recently, right? There's nothing great looking about Pete Davidson.
These three different examples I just gave, these men had something that their partners saw value in. Marilyn Monroe had a thing for brainy, nerdy guys, like Arthur Miller.
Julia Roberts, maybe she loved musicians. Pete Davidson, he's funny.
He's funny. He's edgy.
He's kind of a little bit of a Hollywood bad boy. He's certainly not good looking.
No

offense to Pete. And by the way, I used to buy into the whole looks matter myth as well, which is partially why I married a woman many, many years ago who I wasn't in love with.
I actually wanted to be single. I wanted to date around, but I felt like, hey, I'm just not attractive enough to do that.
Too skinny.

I'm a ginger. I don't have muscles.
I just don't have the looks that women want. So I settled.
I settled for marrying the one woman who, who wanted to be with me. And then she dumped me nine weeks after our wedding, not nine weeks, not nine months or nine years, nine weeks.
it was over fast it was over quickly and and yeah and so then I started hiring coaches getting some good wingmen and I met so many not hot guys chubby scrawny short who these guys were attracting some incredible women One of my first mentors was this 5'8 guy, ginger, bit of a tummy, balding, receding hairline. And he was incredible with women.
He would walk up to women and have instant makeouts within seconds because he understood what does work with women. confidence, playfulness, charisma, authentic charisma.
And I was just watching these guys have incredible results, my original mentors, and I thought, oh my God, I didn't know this was possible. I didn't know you could be an average looking guy and have a gorgeous, beautiful woman, and also just a quality woman with a great style, a great mind, intelligent, a good life, just beautiful inside and out.
What I call a wow girl. I didn't realize you could date women like that and be an average looking guy.
But so many men buy into this myth. And I think we buy into this myth about how important looks are for a couple of reasons.
First, it's societal conditioning. We're told that good looks are paramount in dating.
So society says this to us. And also is men.
I think men are more visual, right? Men are more into physical beauty and more visual than women are. You know, what guy doesn't like a pretty face?

An attractive figure.

And I think we project onto women the way we look at them, right?

You probably think, well, I want a beautiful woman.

I want a pretty face.

So they must all want an attractive, pretty face in a man.

So we project onto women the way we feel about women, assuming that they see the world the way we do, which they don't. And then there's also the ego factor, right? I mean, nothing puffs out the chest like hearing from a guy friend.
It's like, dude, that girl you were with last night was hot. Or man, oh my God, she's gorgeous.
How did you get her? How'd you date her? So I think because men prioritize looks, we project our preferences onto women and assume

that women see us the same way. And yeah, so if you want to date a beautiful woman,

a model caliber woman, gorgeous woman, or just a woman you find physically attractive,

then you probably assume that a woman like that wants a super good looking guy too. So it's a fair assumption to make, but it's not an accurate assumption.
Okay. It's not an accurate assumption.
And the truth is that women see a man's looks, they look at looks sort of the way, basically good looks, being a good looking guy, it's kind of like having a jacuzzi. It's like, it's nice to have, but it's way overrated.
It's like way overrated. And bottom line is women are like, okay, cool.
If he's good looking, it's a nice bonus, but it's just not required. The typical woman, sure, she would love to have that really handsome guy in her life.
Most women wouldn't say no to it. But good looking is way down on most women's must lists.
There's a poll done by a health app called Clue. And the poll was worldwide, 64,000 women were polled.
And they were asked the traits they want most in a male partner. And the top five included kindness, intelligence, education, being supportive, confidence was there.
Nowhere in the top five, nowhere in the top 10 was must be good looking. So looks are way overrated.
Take it from Ron Weasley's twin brother. You don't have to be Hollywood handsome to date an incredibly attractive woman.
So what do you want to do then? So what's the move? Well, the move is to play to your strengths. Instead of focusing on what you lack, you want to start focusing on what you offer.
Focusing on what you think you lack is only going to hurt you. Play to your strengths.
If you're intelligent, lean into your intelligence when talking to women. And even before you talk to women, remind yourself how intelligent you are.
If you have wit, if you have sense of humor, then lean into that. Get good at flirting.
I mean, one of the main things that I do here on the podcast, I try to do is help guys like you become amazing at flirting. Do what I call man to woman communication.
Not every woman wants a Brad Pitt looking guy, but every woman wants a guy who's good at flirting or who can make her feel sexy and knows how to chat and flirt with her. And so basically this comes down to accentuating the positive.
Okay. If you are great looking, great, awesome bonus.
But if not, feature something else. For me, it's my sense of humor and my sense of playfulness and my flirting skills.
I'm really funny on my better days and I'm good at flirting. I've been working on it for 20 years.
I better be. So I play to my strengths.
So bottom line, if you don't have good looks, that's okay. Feature what you do bring to the table, whether it's your intelligence, your sense of humor, your heart, your sense of fun.
Not every woman wants a great looking guy. Most women don't care.
Every woman wants to have fun on a date, become more fun, become a better flirt, show off your intelligence, show off your wit. That is going to be so much more attractive to women than how good looking you may be, may or may not be.

Okay. The next myth I want to talk to you about is number two.
The myth is that women want to date alpha males. Total BS.
The truth is alpha males don't exist. They literally aren't a thing.
There is no such thing as an alpha male.

In nature, that is. Don't get me wrong.
Different men are assertive. Some men are assertive.

Some men are more passive. Some men are more neutral.
If that's your definition of alpha male, fine. But that's not about being an alpha male.
There is no such thing as an alpha male.

Let me back up there. Let me tell you a quick story.
I was once in a conference room in Vegas taking this pickup seminar as a student, this BO drenched, dark Vegas conference room. And this pickup dude on stage was like kind of strutting back and forth, praising the supposed panty dropping power of being a dominant man, an alpha man.
And he had this stupid catchphrase. It was so freaking annoying.
He said, the alpha male gets all the tail. He was so over the top.
I almost thought it was like performance art but it wasn't he was like you know the tom cruise character in the movie magnolia where he plays this pickup artist dude who's on stage giving these men all these um these gross, toxic catchphrases. Respect the cock.
And tame the cunt. Tame it.
Take it on headfirst with the skills that I will teach you at work and say, no You will not control me! NO! You will not take my soul! NO! You will not win this game! Because it is a game guys, you want to think it's not, huh? You want to think it's not, you go back to the schoolyard and you have that crush on big-titted Mary Jane. Respect the cock.
Well, this guy was like Tom Cruise in that movie. The alpha male gets all the tail.
Here's the problem, though. Alpha males aren't a thing.
It's a total myth that's been made up. Or not made up, but misunderstood.
The idea of the alpha male, it first gained credence back in the 1970s. When a wildlife biologist, a guy by the name of L.
David Metch, M-E-C-H. L.
David Metch was studying wolves. He's a wildlife biologist, expert in wolves.
And he published a book that documented the existence of alpha wolves in the wild. And a couple of decades later in the nineties, he tried to repeat his findings about these alpha wolves, but he couldn't.
And he did, he looked at his research and he was horrified. It turns out the so-called alpha behavior he observed in these wolves was actually just mom and dad wolves caring for their pups.
So actually what he interpreted as alpha behavior from alpha wolves was actually parents, mom and dad wolves, just being moms and dads, being loving and caring. So he, to his credit, renounced his own findings.
He said, hey, I was wrong, world. There's no such thing as alpha wolves.
But it was too late by then because by then this myth of the alpha animal, the alpha wolf, had cemented into conventional wisdom not just about wolves, but about people and about men. So many of these mostly male pickup and dating gurus, so many of them are giving the same outdated bad dating advice about alpha males.
And it's even worse now. It's become even worse and more heightened in 2025 because of who's running our government.
And whatever you feel about politics right now, we have to all admit that right now the world is looking at our male leaders in Washington and saying, oh, well, look at these quote alphas. I guess that's what women want.
And it's not. It's not.
And this whole alpha male myth has informed so much bad dating advice. Go on TikTok right now and you'll have all this toxic alpha male poison being poured in your ear and Instagram.

Truth is, there's no concrete scientific evidence at all for so-called alpha males getting to mate with all the women in nature or in humans.

There's none.

There's nothing.

There's just no evidence of this, no data.

Don't get me wrong.

Yes, there are absolutely plenty of times in dating when you have to be assertive. You definitely need to be confident in yourself.
I'm not saying we never want to take action. Quite the opposite.
I want you to take courageous, authentic, romantic risks regularly, every day. But don't put on some fake alpha male mask.
It just doesn't work. But it's just, even in nature, it's just not there.
Like let's take it. Let's take a quick look at our closest relative, our closest animal relative are the chimpanzees.
Studies show that the aggressive chimp does not become the group leader. Typically it's the smaller and more docile chimps that become dominant in the sense that they're high status, not acting dominant, but they're seen as high status.
And they do it by completing often more feminine tasks. chimpanzeeses, the most high-status chimpanzees in their societies, are usually doing feminine tasks.
They're doing caring tasks. They're grooming other chimps.
They're taking care of other chimps. Another close biological relative to humans, the bonobos, are apes that live in a matriarchal society.

So if anything, if nature shows us anything, it's not that dominant alpha behavior makes you the high status being. It's actually more loving, kind, nurturing, parental, sometimes even maternal.
So yes, and I absolutely stand by this.

Yes, I concede, not even concede, it's just truth. Yes, assertiveness, courage, boldness, absolutely essential.
There are elements to the whole quote alpha male thing that has the whiff of truth to it.

A woman must sense your strength.

She must sense a backbone, steel, self-certainty, absolutely, a thousand percent. But the idea that the alpha male is out there getting all the girls, it's a myth, it's a troublesome one.
At worst, it leads to this alpha male behavior, leads to toxicity. It stifles your growth.
It makes you be inauthentic. It makes you be somebody you're not.
It encourages us to see so-called beta males as weak. It encourages us to put men in these really destructive, disempowering categories.
Beta males, simps. He's a beta male.
He's not an alpha. He's a simp.
There's something wrong with him. And that really takes a toll on the confidence of a lot of men.
That's at worst. At best, the

alpha male myth leads to guys wearing Axe body spray, bumping chests and things, saying things

like brah, bro, and baller. So what is your move? I want you to just say to yourself right now,

there is no such thing as an alpha male. Drop the alpha mask, okay? Drop the alpha male mask.
It just doesn't work. Yes, there are times when you must take decisive action to quote unquote man up and make a move.
In fact, absolutely, we must take courageous risks in dating. We must as men.
It's our job to lead the dating dance. But studies show that non-alpha qualities like kindness, generosity, these are the key indicators that women are looking for to select a man as her boyfriend.
Back to that Clue poll I mentioned, the Clue health app poll. 64,000 women were polled.
And the number one thing women want in a man, according to 64,000 women all over the world, is kindness. None of them said alpha male.
They do want confidence. Confidence was fifth out on the list, but none of them said alpha male.
They do want confidence. Confidence was fifth out of on the list, but none of them said alpha dominant, badass.
They said confident. Mostly they want kind, intelligent, and supportive.
And these are traits women want in their partner. This is not what you bring to a first date necessarily, or it's not what you lead.
Of course you bring kindness to a date, but you don't necessarily lead with it. I would never have one of my clients.
So I do in-person coaching, take guys out in New York city and I'll say, go approach that woman, say this, do that. I'm never going to go up and say, Hey, walk up to that woman and be really kind.
That's not really a dating approaching move, but in terms of the traits women want, they don't want dominance. They don't want toxicity.
They don't want some fake alpha male. They want kindness.
They want authenticity. They want a good man with a big heart and a strong backbone.
So please forget that alpha male myth. Okay.
Myth number three. Myth number three is that women just want a bunch of rich guys.
Women just want rich guys. Give me the guy who makes the money.
The truth is, women want men with a purpose. Women want a man who's got ambition and purpose and passion, but his bank account, not that important.

As long as he's financially stable, you're fine.

Here's a quick story.

I was out in LA once with my client, Jason,

a brand new client.

We're out on the town and we're at a rooftop bar

called EPLP in the shadows of the Hollywood

but and we're at a, um, we're at a rooftop bar, um,

called EPLP in the shadows of the Hollywood Hills,

bustling night,

Friday night,

I think.

And it's my first night working with him.

So we're going out to approach women and I'm,

I,

before I can really help him approach women first,

I want to see what he can do. I want to just observe a few approaches.

So we walk onto this rooftop bar and I say,

Hey,

go over there,

approach those two women.

Thank you. women, first I want to see what he can do.
I want to just observe a few approaches. So we walk onto this rooftop bar and I say, hey, go over there, approach those two women.
And I said, show me what you can do. And because I want to look and see, hey, what's his vocal tonality like? Does he make eye contact or does he stare at his shoelaces? Does he stand tall? Does he slouch? I'm looking for behavioral blind spots that might be hurting a guy's chance, chances when he approaches.
And a little bit about Jason. Jason's a fit guy, a very wealthy doctor in his forties.
And, uh, he's a, um a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, LA. And so anyway, it's our first night.
I've just met him first day, and I just want to see what he can do. So he walks over to two women, a brunette and a redhead.
They were both drinking martinis. And he walks over and he says, hi.
He hands them his business card.

He has a black and gold business card with his job title on it.

He's like, hi.

Hands them the business card.

I'm a plastic surgeon for celebrities in Beverly Hills.

That was his opening line.

And the women were confused.

They were probably thinking, is he looking for clients? Is he trying to tell me something that I need to have a nose job? The redheaded woman actually covered her nose in confusion and a little bit of uncertainty. and um and then they realized oh my god, this guy is hitting on us.
They essentially realized, oh, this is his pickup line. And they looked at each other, and after a couple minutes of kind of flat conversation, they just said, well, nice meeting you, which is code for not a chance, dude.
And they left. So his approach was rejected.
By the way, I'm watching this and I'm like, I've seen everything. So I'm not surprised.
Although I'd never seen the business card approach. That was new.
But I'm watching it and I'm cringing a little bit. But mainly I can take it because I've seen everything and I've done the worst approaches in the world myself back in the day.
So anyway, I'm watching the women leave and I take Jason aside and I say, here's why these women lost interest. I basically said, you were trying to impress them and it turned them off.
And I went on, I said, when you try, when you try really hard to impress a woman, in this case with money, when you try to impress them with money and status, it's a big turnoff because it comes across as overcompensating. And it basically tells her that you're not at her level, that you're beneath her and nobody wants wants to date beneath them.
So I realized at that moment that, oh, Jason's a very successful plastic surgeon, but he's got his head up as assets. He's buying into this myth that the road to a woman's heart is traveled in a Lamborghini, traveled in his cool job status.
When in reality, having money, having a high status, cool job, that is a nice bonus in the eyes of women, but it does not create sparks and attraction. And this is one of those many myths, one of those many myths that we want to get rid of.
So yeah, so I took him aside, I gave him a little pep talk and I said, let's try something different. No more business card, no more business card approaches.
Um, I want you to start approaching women and I want you to lean into when the time is right in the conversation. I want you to talk about your career.
Um, but do it in a way that is about the passion you have for your job as a plastic surgeon. What does your job as a plastic surgeon

allow you to give? What does it allow you to feel? What do you love about it? So a few approaches

later that night, he approaches a very attractive, stylish woman who is an entertainment attorney.

And they're sitting on this little bench, or sorry, in these two patio chairs. and rather than boasting and bragging to her about his cool job and i'm a plastic surgeon

he instead was really opening up to her about his cool job and I'm a plastic surgeon. He instead was really opening up to her about how incredible he feels when he gets to do an operation on a patient who's insecure about her nose and he gets to transform her self-confidence.
and then this woman really melted when he started talking about some of the work he does is pro bono. That's probably not the right term, but it's free.
He does free plastic surgery for people who have been in fires, burn victims. That's how he gives back.
I'm like, oh my God, that's the most, like when he told me he does that, he grafts healthy skin onto the neck of a burn victim who's been in a fire. He does it for free.
He does it because he likes to give back. And he just, that's his huge giant heart.
God bless Jason. He's a beautiful guy, but he was hiding that.
He thought that would make him look weak or soft. And I'm like, no, lean into that.
Play that up. So he's talking to this woman.
I forget her name. It's been a few years, but he's talking to this entertainment attorney and a beautiful, beautiful brunette.
And he's talking about, oh my God, I love my job. I get to help people feel better about their looks.
I get to help them change their confidence.

I get to help a burn victim be able to look in the mirror again and feel like they're worth something and not feel like they're scarred or weird. And that just lights me up.
I love doing that. So he was leading with his heart and his passion, not his bank account.
And the two of them just hit it off amazingly. It was a total change from his business card pickup from earlier.
And so what's your takeaway here? Well, the tip here, the lesson here is three words. Express, don't impress.
And this goes beyond money, but let's stick with the area of money for a second. I don't care you're a millionaire i don't care if you're as rich as scrooge mcduck i don't care if you swim in a giant vault of coins like scrooge mcduck boasting about your financial status is going to hurt you with women not help you okay women want a man of substance not a man who flashes his fancy creds his fancy resume so the fix here is don't try to impress express express yourself convey your passion for the work you do convey what you love about what you do convey what what giving back allows you to feel and how it allows you to feel like a person who's contributing to society.
And that passion is attractive. Expressing yourself is attractive.
So share with women what you love most about your career, about how it makes you feel, and whom it lets you help, rather than focusing on money or status or the things it lets you buy. Okay? Now, by the way, if you're not a rich guy, if you're not making six, seven figures, no worries.
You don't have to be. You just need a stable income, steady income.
All women want is a guy with a job, mostly. Mostly women just want a guy who's got a job.
If you get a weekly paycheck, you're in a good place. You're in a very good

place. But what you can do is whatever you're passionate about in your career, in your job,

lean into that. Talk about what you love about what you do or an aspect of it.
Or if you hate

what you do, talk about the new career you're going to switch to. Talk about your career ambitions.

Talk about your career ambitions. Talk about your big plan.
Basically

ambition, passion, purpose, and expressing that. That is catnip to women.
So don't impress.

Express.

There's your three-word mantra.

You struggle with dating, right?

Sure, you have a good job and cool friends,

but you just aren't sure how to flirt,

the apps don't work for you,

and sometimes women put you in the friend zone.

It's frustrating.

Hey, I struggled with dating too.

As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone. I owned real estate there.
But I escaped using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my bestselling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't.
Andenticity is Why Psychology Today called me the best dating coach in America. And now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend.
So go to datingtransformation.com and book a free call with me. On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend, and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity.
No creepy pickup tricks needed. So go to datingtransformation.com, book a free call today, and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend.
Okay, let's go with myth number four. Here's a big one.
This is about flirting. I run into this a dozen times a week with my clients or with men who are talking to me online or on social media.
Here's myth number four is that you think that your conversation skills must be amazing to attract women. not so let's smash that right now The truth is you can and should lower the bar for how good you think your conversation needs to be.
I'll say it again. You don't have to have amazing game.
You don't have to say the most amazingly witty things. It's a nice, it's a nice, again, it's a nice bonus if you're witty and great, have great, great conversation skills, but you don't need it.
Okay. Lower the bar for your conversational skillset.
You don't have to be the wittiest guy in the block to get a woman into you. In fact, trying to up your game and straining to be clever, straining to be charismatic can actually create tension and make you come across as try hard and just get you stuck.
In fact, if you've ever struggled with, oh, I don't know what to say. If you've ever run out of things to say when texting a woman or talking to a woman, it's because your bar is too high.
Your conversational bar is too high. So lower the bar.
Here's a, here's a fix. Be borderline boring.
I want you to try to be boring or at least embrace being boring. So one of my favorite exercises is I go out with my clients when they want to approach women.
And as their wingman, as their infield wingman, I'm literally side by side, shoulder to shoulder with guys, helping them approach women. And if my guy is stuck about, oh, what do I say? What's the right thing to say? What's the right move? What's the cool witty thing? Then I say, okay, here's your mission.
I want you to be boring for the next three approaches. Go up to that girl over there and I want you to try to bore her.
My client, John, did this once. He's into AI.
He loves all things AI and chat GPT. He's just a total nerd.
He's an engineer, scientist, loves science stuff. So I'm like, you know what? I want you to go up to those women over there and talk about chat GPT for two minutes.
Talk about AI. He's like, no, I can't do that.
They're going to hate me. I'm like, do it.
Bore them. I dare you to bore them.
He walks over and he says, hey, ladies. You know what? I want to say AI is my favorite topic.
Chat GPT, isn't it great? And they're like, yeah, we use it all the time. And his approach went great.
I'm not saying they all just bowed down and said, oh my God, please date us. I'm not saying there was some kind of instant, crazy, instant moment of attraction, but he didn't bore them.
Actually, they were engaged by him because he's a great guy. Remember, your worth and value to women, it comes from who you are.
It comes from what a great catch you are. It comes from you being a great, authentic man or just a good man with a good heart, smart, intelligent, well-meaning.
You are special. You are a special person.
I mean that. You're not one in a million, you're one in eight billion.
And you can talk about boring things and women will find it interesting because it's coming from you. So I dare you to be boring.
Here's another example of me doing this exercise. My client, Taylor and I were out once and he was super in his head.
He's like, I don't know what to say. How do I start off the approach? What do I say? I said, here's your approach line.
Walk over to those girls and say, hi, I don't know what to say. I told him to say that.
And he said, are you serious? I said, yeah. Go over.
Say, hey, I don't know what to say. And his face was a combination of relief and fear.
The relief was, wait, what? I can just say something that simple? And then fear was, are you sure this is going to work? And I said, let's find out. So Taylor walks over to two women in this busy bar in the Lower East Side in New York City, a place called Gem, really loud, filled with 23-year-old young, beautiful women.
He's 27, so very age appropriate. And I'm the oldest one there by 20 years.
But anyway, Taylor walks up to these two women and he says, hi, uh, I just saw you and, uh, I don't know what to say. And they said, hi, what's up? How are you? They smiled.
They didn't even hear what he said. Basically.
I mean, they heard the words, but didn't register. They were just like, oh, okay, cool.
Well-dressed guy is talking to us. And Taylor was making out with the cuter of the two girls in under 10 minutes.
And his opener was, hi, I don't know what to say to you. Try that.
Be boring or be borderline boring. Remember, you're talking to a person.
You're not giving a TED talk. You're not doing a standup comedy set.
You're just talking to another human. So lower the bar for how good your verbal conversational skills have to be.
I'm not saying don't work on them. I'm not saying don't try to improve your conversation.
Absolutely. But paradoxically, I want you to lower the bar for how good you think it has to be on a date or when you approach.

Paradoxically, when you lower this bar, that will actually improve your conversational flow because you'll be able to relax more into your more natural charismatic side, or at least a more present side, which is going to be more charismatic to women who like your type. And if you want one more tip about better conversation by lowering the bar, follow a little simple mantra that I give my clients, which is when in doubt, if I'm not sure what to say, I go into my mind and heart and I just say, what am I thinking and feeling right now? What's the most honest thing I'm thinking and feeling right now? And I just say the honest thing.
So I've been talking to a woman five minutes in or two or three minutes in, and I might've said, sorry, could you repeat yourself? I'm in my head. You're really pretty.
And I get nervous around pretty girls,able, authentic. Or when I would go out, sometimes those first couple of approaches were tough to do.
Or I was sober some nights, not drinking. And I just would say to a girl, I'm sorry, I'm really nervous.
Or I'm not in the zone yet. So I'm sorry if I'm in my head, I haven't had a drink yet.
Just really own it. Just whatever you're thinking and feeling is what you should say.
As long as it's not vulgar, don't say something vulgar. But yeah, lean into that, lean into the vulnerability.
Speak your true, real thoughts. Be boring.
I dare you to be boring. I don't think you're, you're not capable of being boring because every little thing you do is going to be interesting to a woman who likes your type.
So lower that bar. Paradoxically, by lowering the bar, it'll make it easier to actually be conversational and charismatic because you'll be more loose and more, more free, just like you are with your, your best friends, right? What best friends are you most comfortable with? What people in your life are you most comfortable with? Who are the people I have the best conversations with? I'll bet you don't think about anything about what to say with them, right? You're just speaking your thoughts.
You're just present. You're just listening.
You're just sharing. Do the same thing on a date or do the same thing with an approach.

Okay, let's go with the fifth mission mission for the fifth myth.

I give my clients missions, so I confuse my words. Here is myth number five, okay?

The biggest myth you want to destroy.

The big myth is that rejection means you're not enough. That's a myth though.
The truth is rejection is necessary and it's good for you. I think this idea that rejection equals inadequacy.
Rejection means women don't want me. This might be the biggest, baddest myth of all because it causes so many problems.
My book, Dating Sucks But You Don't, I title it that because dating sucks because rejection can suck. You take a chance with your heart.
You ask out your crush. You approach a girl.
You send that flirty text. And if you get turned down, you can feel wounded.
But what causes that pain is not the rejection itself. It's how you interpret that response.
You're giving it a painful meaning. you're turning that so-called rejection into evidence.
Oh, I'm not attractive. I'm too short.
I'm ugly. I'm just not.
I'm just not enough. I'm inadequate.
And that's the problem, is your interpretation of what she just said to you, not the actual thing she said to you or didn't say to you if

she ghosted you. You see, all of us, all men, all people actually, we all have a core inherent

need to feel special, to feel worthy, worthy and special. It's baked into all of us.
It's just

how humans are. This driving force to feel special, to feel important, it's hardwired into our psyche.
It's why men climb mountains. It's why they pump iron.
It's in part because it's why I became a dating coach, why I became an author, because I wanted to feel cooler. I wanted to feel high status.
I wanted to feel special. And one of the most powerful ways to feel special and important as a man is through attraction from a woman, through dating.
Validation from the right woman can be intoxicating and it can help you realize something really special. When a woman is into you, it can make you feel, yes, I am enough.
I am special. I'm attractive.
Yes. And there's nothing wrong with that feeling.
Okay. There's nothing wrong with that feeling.
But when you get rejected, it can make you doubt that worth. It can make you feel less special, insignificant, inadequate.
If you interpret it that way, you'll feel that way. You feel less special.
You misinterpret that rejection as a sign that you're not attractive. And then you extrapolate.
Your brain does this really disempowering, painful thing called catastrophizing. Oh, well, if that woman just blew me off, then I guess I'm not attractive to all women like that.
And I guess I'm not enough. And maybe that means I'll never be able to receive love.
And that would mean that I guess I'll end up lonely or settling. And those are both really painful outcomes.
Ending up alone or lonely and alone, and also settling. For a woman you're not that into, oh man, those are bad outcomes.
That's heavy stuff. So viewing rejection through the lens of rejection equals inadequacy.
That's what approach anxiety primarily is. But that's why dating sucks, because it takes a romantic risk, turns it into judgment day on your very worth as a man.
So that's why you probably take few or little romantic risks and actions. It's probably why you don't actually take chances very often, if at all.
And it's certainly why I didn't. I never approached a single woman in my life until I was 38 years old.
I never really went after or pursued a woman who was beautiful inside and out to me, what I call wow girls, my nines and tens.

I never did this until I was 38 for approaching 35 for just trying it all.

Because I was afraid of rejection.

Rejection equaled, Connell, you're not enough.

So that's why you're not taking action, likely.

Is rejection, if a woman rejected you, it would cut deep. It would make you feel unattractive and less of a man.
And if you did take a chance, say you approach a gorgeous woman at the bar, even if you did walk up to her, if you still equate rejection with, I'm not worthy, then it makes it so hard to relax, hard to be authentic and loose and fun. And that just hurts the interaction and leads to possibly, probably rejection, which is the exact outcome that you don't want.
So you get stuck in this vicious downward kind of spiral. Okay, so that's the myth.
Rejection equals, rejection sucks because it means you're not enough. Here's the truth though.
The truth is rejection is necessary. It's good for you.
And here's how you get there, is I want you to start to look at rejection through new eyes. Through new eyes.
When I take a client out for in-person coaching, one of the first things I usually do is I approach a girl first. I want him to see me embrace rejection.
Sometimes I actually get rejected on purpose because I want him to see me suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous rejection to, to, to approach or not to approach. That is the question.
No, I want him to see me get rejected. I want him to be like, see like, Oh, that's, that's not so bad.
If it happens to Connell, I can take it. Um, I have him, maybe I have him choose like a scary approach situation.
Like say there's a large group of girls on the dance floor and I'll go in, I'll talk to the cute one, I'll break into their little party. And I will often, not always, but often get rebuffed.
And I do this because I just want my client to see, oh man, rejection is nothing to fear. Those cute girls all told Connell to go away.
He's dated tons of amazing women, has a great girlfriend. Oh, maybe rejection is not so bad.
So yeah, I want you to see that rejection is not something to fear. But actually, just think of it as part of the process.
Rejection is required. you can't, I repeat, you can't get an incredible gorgeous girlfriend without dealing with at least some rejection, some kind of pushback.
And you definitely cannot, you literally cannot approach women without getting some rejection. Nobody's 100% here.
Nobody. Ryan Gosling wouldn't be 100%.
He'd go up to a lesbian. She'd be like, not interested.
So you cannot approach and not get turned down, at least from time to time. You can't go on Tinder without getting ghosted or flaked on.
You can't go on first dates without having at least

a little bit of, hey, I'm just not feeling it. That's just part of dating.
It's all part of

putting yourself out there. So what if, what if you saw rejection as painless? What if you were

immune to it? What if you just gave far fewer fucks about what people's reactions mean to you? Oh man, you'd be free, which is what I want for you. You could take new bold actions.
You could talk to lots of women. You could go on dates and just feel so much more loose and free, which is going to make you more attractive and make the dates go better.

So I want you to see rejection for what it really is.

No biggie.

It's not a vampire bat flapping at you.

It's a mosquito to swat away.

A woman's rejection is not, I repeat, not evidence of your worth or importance as a

man.

It's only evidence that she is not interested in you at that moment. But that might be because she's just, you're not her type.
Here's how little rejection means. I was at a bar with my client, Stephen, once.
And I approached a woman with Steven behind me, approached two girls actually. And my approach got rebuffed really quickly, like instant, instant stiff arm.
She was like the Heisman Trophy guy, just stiff arm. No thanks.
Like that fast. And I thought, okay, fine.
At least I tried as a cute little brunette. And fast forward about 90 minutes.
Stephen and I are on the dance floor. Stephen's talking to a different woman.
It's going well. I'm being his wingman, standing next to him, helping him if he needs me.
But I'm just basically dancing.

I'm Billy Idol.

I'm just basically dancing.

I'm Billy Idol.

I'm dancing by myself.

So I'm dancing by myself.

And that same girl, the cute little brunette,

who about 60, maybe 90 minutes earlier rebuffed me,

she comes up and starts dancing near me. And then she kind of dances in front of me.
And we start dancing together in vertical spoon situation. I'm behind her.
And we're kind of grinding a little bit. And then she turns toward me and gives me these big eyes of, hey.
And then we kiss. This girl rejected me 90 minutes earlier.

And 90 minutes later, I'm making out with her on the dance floor.

What did her earlier rejection mean? Nothing. It had nothing to do with me.

It was more about how she felt in the moment. Probably what happened when I first approached her

Thank you. nothing.
It had nothing to do with me. It was more about how she felt in the moment.
Probably what happened when I first approached her, maybe my approach wasn't good. I don't know.
I think it was okay. But probably what was the deal was she just got to the bar.
She wasn't feeling good yet. Maybe she hadn't had a drink yet.
She wasn't in the mood at that moment. Women really base their behavior and what they do on how they feel in that moment she didn't feel like being approached when i came up to her it wasn't personal in other words her quote rejection to me earlier wasn't rejection it wasn't rejection it was not yet but wait 90 minutes and i will come dirty dance with you and make out with you on the dance floor in under a minute, two minutes, basically.

So that's how little rejection means.

You could approach a woman at 10 p.m. and she turns you down and 11 p.m.
you're making out on the dance floor.

That's possible.

So, again, see rejection for what it is.

No big thing. Rejection means next to nothing.
You can brush it off. Brush it off.
Just brush it off the way you do in other areas of life where you don't really care about rejection. When the Delta ticket agent rejects your request for a business class upgrade, you don't take that personally.
When the restaurant hostess says, oh, sorry, we don't have a table for you. It's a busy day.
You don't take that personally. So don't take a dating rejection personally.
It ain't personal. It's business.
Okay. Your worth is not on the line.
It's not personal. Now you might be saying, oh, come on.
You're crazy. Of course it's personal.
This is my love life. What are you talking about, Connell? To which I would reply, why are you talking to a podcast? I can't hear you.
But the truth is, a woman who barely knows you literally can't. Well, she can reject you, but she can't truly reject you.
She doesn't know you well enough. Now, if your long-term girlfriend, if my girlfriend Jess, if she sat me down today, God forbid, and she said, I don't love you, you've never made me orgasm.
And I'm leaving you for Fabio. Okay, that's rejection.
But if a woman you barely know blows you off, she's probably just saying, I like the Beatles. You're the Stones.
No shame there. The Stones rock, dude.
The Stones rock. Or she might be like the girl at that bar I mentioned who actually was into me.
She just wasn't in the mood to be approached. Try again in an hour.
She might be super into you. So yeah, so much of this podcast is about creating a model, a blueprint for your love life where there is no rejection.
Not really in the not in the deep existential i'm not enough way and when you realize that rejection literally does not exist in the way that you've been looking at it then there's nothing to fear and when there's nothing to fear you can take massive action be authentic be free be you oh man, that's when the floodgates open and you can achieve amazing things. Okay.
Those are the five biggest myths that I wanted to help smash for you today. I hope you've enjoyed this episode.
Thank you for listening, by the way. And again, if you would like a free consultation with me to find out how dating coaching works, or if you want to say, Connell, I'm so afraid of rejection.
I never talk to women. I'm really struggling.
Then book a free call with me. Datingtransformation.com.
Click book a call. And you and I, one-on-one,'ll talk soon.
And if you don't want to do that, no worries.

Keep listening to this podcast.

Thank you so much.

There's so many podcasts you could be listening to.

Thank you for spending so much time listening to me today.

And go out there, be authentic.

Women like you for you.

And your future girlfriend's going to love you for you,

but she's going to have to meet the real you.