Special Series! Stop Trying to ‘Approach’—Do THIS to Meet & Attract Women IRL the Right Way (Part 1 of 4)

Good looks are like jacuzzis. They're nice to have, but they're way overrated.

Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach Conal Barrett.
I'm here to help you flirt with confidence, get more dates, and get a great girlfriend in your life, and do it by being authentic, genuine, real, no sketchy, manipulative, pickup artist nonsense needed. This is about being what I call radically authentic.
And in this episode, I'm going to reveal for you the five biggest mental blocks that are stopping you from meeting incredible women out in the real world. You know, when you see that intriguing, stylish woman at the bar, or that gorgeous girl in your yoga class, or you're shopping and you see that incredible woman walk by you in Whole Foods, I'm going to give you the five mental blocks that are stopping you from meeting these women, or some of them.
And also in this episode, I'm going to give you five game-changing breakthroughs that will make it so much easier for you to start conversations, to flirt authentically and organically with women, and attract the kinds of dates and women you want, and get a great girlfriend. Because let's be honest, you would love to meet some wonderful women in real life, if you could, but something always stops you.
You probably freeze up. You want to go talk to women, but you freeze up or you overthink it.
Or maybe you wait for that perfect moment, but by the time you decide to act, she's gone. The moment's passed and the opportunity is gone as well.
And the thing about this is, is the problem isn't you. The real problem is how you're thinking about meeting women and quote unquote, approaching them.
It's a mindset issue. Right now, you're trying to quote unquote, approach and attract women.
Probably you're thinking of it that way. You're thinking I'm going to approach and she will either accept it or reject it.
And that creates pressure and it kills confidence and it gets you in your head. The truth is women don't want to feel approached by a guy who's like running game or saying something he read on the internet or parroting lines he heard from some so-called dating expert.
Women want to feel like a fun, flirty, natural conversation just happened, like in the movies. And today's episode is about me helping you

stop, quote unquote, trying to approach women, which is very stressful and hard to do,

and just break the ice in authentic, natural, organic ways, just like in the movies,

so that you can have these real life, life romantic natural moments and meet women that way. And let's be real.
If you're like most guys, you're tired of the apps. You're pretty much burnt out on apps, or at least you'd love to take a break from them.
The endless swiping, the dead end conversations, the ghosting, There is a better way. There really is.
Or I should say an alternative way. And that's why this week I am kicking off a special four-part series here for Valentine's Week.
Valentine's Day is this Friday. And in honor of that, I want to help you get back to meeting women in real life.
Do it confidently, authentically, organically, and in a way that works. And to not feel like you have to be stuck on the dating apps.
And by the way, I'm a fan of dating apps. I met my girlfriend Jess on a dating app.
That said, my previous three relationships before I met her, the three previous girlfriends I had throughout the previous decade, I met all of them through in real life conversations. Whether you want to call that approaching or just meeting them in real world situations, I'm a big fan of this.
And I think that right now in our society, this is the very best time to be able to go out and meet women in real life because women are just as burnt out on the dating apps as you are. They're dying for a cool guy to come up and chat with them.
Actually, this week, Valentine's week, love is on women's minds. Right now, women are out there everywhere thinking about love, thinking about finding the right guy, hoping a great guy is going to come up and talk to her in a charming, confident, real way.
And that guy could be you. I'll tell you this.
Women never go to their girlfriends and say, hey, guess what? This guy matched up with me on Tinder. He's the 800th guy to try to match with me on Tinder.
Women don't do that. But here's what women do.
They go home and tell their girlfriends, hey, guess what? This really charming, nice, gentlemanly guy just started talking to me at the ice cream section of Whole Foods in the frozen food area. Yeah, I was just looking at ice cream.
We start talking about ice cream. The next thing I know, I'm giving him my phone number and we're going out tomorrow night.
Women love those meet cute moments in real life. And that's what I want to teach you in this episode is how to be able to do that in a way that doesn't feel like approaching.
It feels genuine and real and authentic and like it just happened. But you're able to make it happen using the tips and the techniques I'm about to give you.
So I'd love for you to stick around this entire week because today's episode is the first in a four-part series of how you can confidently meet women in real life. And think of today's episode as the first of four crucial puzzle pieces that you're going to need

to put into place to become what I call a 1% man. What is a 1% man? A 1% man is a man who can confidently start and hold conversations with attractive women and do it anywhere without the crutch of cheesy pickup lines

or without the crutch of cheesy pickup lines or without the crutch of alcohol and also without hesitation. That's my definition of a 1% man.
In other words, I would say at most 5% of single men walk up to women in real life and try to flirt with them at most, probably not even that many, but at most 5% in the Tinder online dating era that we're now in. And I would say of those 5%, most of those guys are either using alcohol as liquid courage at night, or they're using sketchy, planned, rehearsed, robotic pickup lines, scripted material that so-called dating experts give them.
The number of men who walk up to a woman, can walk up to a woman and just be genuine and flirty and confident, less than 1%, less than 1% of men. And I call that a 1% man.
And I spent years approaching literally thousands of women, making me a 1% man. and in these next four episodes, I want to help you become a 1% man by Valentine's Day.
Are you up for it? Are you ready? Let's do it. Let's make this Valentine's Day your last one without an incredible woman in your life.
Because by the end of this week and the end of this four-part series about meeting women in real life, you're going to have everything that you need to be done with approach anxiety, to be able to spark real connections, to know exactly what to say and how to say it when you meet a woman, whether it's at a bar or your gym or a coffee shop or a bookstore, and this is going to open up a whole new world for you. You can always return to the apps.
There's nothing wrong with getting some good leads, some good options on the dating apps, but I don't want you to feel like you have to be quarantined and only be swiping for love. You should be able to feel free and confident to walk up to women anywhere.
As one of my very first coaches said to me, he once said, Connell, unless you can walk up to a woman, be yourself and chat comfortably and confidently, you got work to do. And that really hit me hard in the moment.
And I'll say the same thing to you. Until you can walk up to a really attractive woman, be yourself, be authentic, and give yourself a chance at romance and sparks and just hold a nice conversation, there's work to be done as a man.
So let's start doing that work right now. So today in part one, I'm going to help you break through from the five biggest mental blocks that are holding you back.
I'll go through those right now. And I'm also going to give you these five powerful breakthroughs.
And it all starts right now. So here we go.
And I'm going to begin with a story. I was at a Starbucks back in the 2000s on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
And I'm sitting in Starbucks and I'm doing my thing. I'm reading.
I'm doing a little bit of work. And I see this woman who is absolutely my type at the time, gorgeous brunette.
She was seated by herself. And she looked exactly like my dream girl at the time.
I had a huge crush on Katie Holmes. Katie Holmes is from my hometown, Toledo, Ohio.
And at the time, Katie Holmes was my crush. This was before Tom Cruise maybe had fully indoctrinated her.
But I saw this gorgeous brunette seated by herself. She was wearing a denim miniskirt, long, tan, thin legs.
And she was just totally my type. And I wanted to talk to her so badly.
And I tried to, or I should say I tried to try, but I was in conflict. It's almost like there was an angel on one shoulder rooting me on, and there was a devil on the other side standing on my other shoulder talking me out of it.
So it's like on one side there was the angel saying, oh, what a babe. She's your type.
Go chat her up, Connell. And the devil on the other side was saying, no, she might think you're creepy.
And the angel said, no, creepy. You're not creepy.
You're a catch. Wouldn't you love to date a girl like that? And the devil said, but if she rejects you, it will hurt.
Girls like that only date outgoing guys, not shy nerds like you. And what if people see you get shot down? And the angel said, oh, don't listen to him.
Just walk right over there. Be yourself and say something.
And then it was as if the angel was impaled by a pitchfork by the devil. And essentially, the devil won out.
What happened was I was having this internal battle. And I walked over to her table where she was seated.

And I walked around her table sort of like a frightened shark.

And I kept circling, trying to think, oh, maybe I'll say this.

Maybe I'll do that.

Oh, but what if I get rejected?

How will she respond?

And I got so nervous.

I kept circling her table.

And then I just went back and sat down at my table in my seat, and I did nothing.

And then she walked.

She got up.

She walked up.

She finished her iced coffee and walked out into the Manhattan afternoon.

And I remember vividly thinking, well, there's another beautiful girl who's not going to date me, who I'll never even meet. Why am I so frozen? Why can't I talk to women like that? And actually, it was that experience that essentially was the last straw for me to then say, I'm going to go get a coach.
I'm going to go get some help. And that actually led me to my first coach who helped me immeasurably.
So for me, that moment was an important moment. And maybe that's relatable to you.
If you've ever seen a really beautiful woman you wanted to talk to and you felt like you had a foot on the gas and a foot on the brakes, I know exactly how that feels because that's what happened to me that day. And she was about the 5,000th girl, beautiful girl I'd seen in New York City and never approached a single one of them.
So why did that happen to me and why does it happen to you? Well, here's the cause. The reason is not that I'm, I don't know, I'm a coward.
It's not that. It's not that you're a coward.
It's not that you are not good enough as a person. It's not that you're just not that guy, okay? The problem is that you have up to five blocks, mental blocks that are getting in the way.
These five giant speed bumps are there, up to five of them. And if you have any of these five mental blocks, it's going to be really tough for you to go chat up a beautiful woman.
If you have all five, like I had, it's going to be pretty much impossible. That's why I never approached a single woman my entire life until I was 38 years old.
It's the very first chapter of my book is me talking about that. And this was basically the last straw moment where I said, it's time for me to get some help here.
So what I want to do is save you several thousand dollars if I can. I don't want you to have to hire somebody for thousands of dollars.
I want to help you remove these blocks right now. So here are the five mental blocks that get in the way.
These are the five blocks that essentially stop you from talking to beautiful women. And let's go through them one by one.
First, I'll go through each block, explain what it is and how it hurts you. And then we're going to go through in a few minutes and smash through every one.
Okay? Here we go. Mental block number one is thinking that you're not enough.
Thinking that you are just not in her league. You tell yourself, well, I can't go talk to her.
I'm not tall enough. I'm not rich enough.
I'm not good looking enough. I'm not charismatic enough.
I'm just not in her league. And feeling not enough is probably the single most powerful mental block of all.
Because this is existential. This is about your very identity as a man and your worth and your attractiveness to women.
And so I saw that Starbucks girl, that sunny Sunday afternoon in the double zeros. And basically I could just feel that feeling inside that said, she's out of your league.
She's gorgeous. She's Katie Holmes, beautiful.
Why the hell would she want to be with a skinny, nerdy ginger like you? Nice guy. Connell,

you're a nice guy, but you're, you know, you're like a five, five or a six at best. She's a 10.
And basically, because I felt like she was out of my league, I felt I am not enough for her. That made it virtually impossible to go over and talk to her.
The very first night, I actually did go out and approach women.

A similar internal event happened. I had to approach women because I had paid a coach a lot of money to basically make me do it.
But the very first night I ever went out to approach women, before I even talked to one girl, I hid in the bathroom. And I didn't hit, I should say, I didn't hide in the bathroom.
I went into the restroom at this club and I had a panic attack. I had these dry heaves.
I thought it was just butterflies, but it was way more than butterflies. I was vomiting up stomach acid.
I was shaking. I had a full-on panic attack in a men's room stall at the Plunge Rooftop Bar in the meatpacking district of Manhattan.
And I didn't know it was a panic attack. I just thought I was nervous, but it was a panic attack.
And I now realize, oh, what was happening was that core mental block, that poisonous, toxic story of you're not enough, I was about to find out if that was true. That's what I was telling myself.
I was about to find out whether or not I was enough for women. And that made it almost impossible to approach women.
And when I finally had to do it, I had a panic attack. So, okay, that's mental block number one.
Mental block number two is you think that women don't want you to, quote, bother them. You assume that women don't want a guy to just walk over to them and talk to them.
That'd be bothering them. That would be creepy or intrusive or some kind of a bother.
So that's the second block that you might be dealing with. And again, let me go back to Starbucks girl.

I remember thinking she's on her phone. She's enjoying her iced coffee.
She's just chilling on a Sunday afternoon. Does she really want me coming over and barging in on her and bothering her and hitting on her? So that's the second block that gets in the way.
Okay. The third mental block that gets you in your head and makes it really difficult to go talk to women is the third block is you think that you are going to be doing something creepy by talking to her.
You think that your actions are creepy or that you will come off like a creep. So that means you fear that, Hey, approaching, hitting on a girl, going to talk to her, it's weird.
It's unnatural. It makes women uncomfortable.
Even using the word approach, which I don't love that word. I use it often because it's easy to coach that way.
Everybody knows what approaching means. But as you notice, the title of this episode is Stop Approaching Women.
I'll talk about that in a little bit, what that means. But basically, even the word itself might put you in the mind of, well, it's approaching.
So if it doesn't go well, that could come off as creepy because it might be weird or unnatural or socially frowned upon and socially creepy to go up and shoot my shot with that woman. And this happens for lots of reasons.
It might just be a feeling and a story inside your mind. I think a lot of people, I think we've been conditioned now in 2025.
You know, here we are more than 15, 16, I think that's 17 years or so since Tinder launched, basically changed dating forever. And I think society now, we've been conditioned to think that dating happens online now, on apps.
And doing something like this in real life is socially unacceptable. So that's the third block that's holding you back.
You think you might creep her out. And I remember that feeling too.
Look, I'm a nice guy. I'm a nice boy from Ohio.
Denny and Greta Barrett raised their youngest son, Connell, to be nice, to not bother people, to not be a creep, to be a nice boy from the Midwest. And I remember on some level that afternoon at Starbucks thinking, or at least feeling on some level, oh, nice guys don't walk up and creep women out.
I'll be creeping on her. I'm not a cat caller.
I'm not that guy who bothers women, creeps on women. So that's the third block.
Mental block number four that is getting in the way or could be getting in the way, probably is for you, is that you think, well, you tell yourself you don't know what to say. You basically say, I don't know what to say.
Or you might say, I don't have the perfect thing to say. So that's block number four.
Block number four is feeling that you don't know what to say or that you have to say the perfect thing. So you might think, well, oh my God, that woman is beautiful.
She's gorgeous. She's in my gym.
I love her. She looks so adorable in the yoga outfit or that stunning woman at the bar you see.
But what do I say? What line's going to work with her? What's clever enough? What's witty enough? What's good game? And yeah, that really shoves you in your head and sends you down a spiral of, how about this line? How about that line? How about this line? Again, back to Starbucks girl. I remember circling her table like that scared little shark, like jaws in reverse, except I was afraid she was going to bite me, or I was afraid the situation was going to bite me.
I remember circling her table thinking, okay, should I use that cocky, funny line that that guru mentioned on YouTube? Should I try to say something funny? Should I crack a joke? Should I ask her what kind of coffee she's drinking? I was trying to think of the perfect thing to say. And my mental block in that moment was, I don't know what to say.
I don't have the right thing to say. So that's mental block number four.
And mental block number five, and we're going to fix all these blocks in like two minutes, so stick around. Mental block number five is you see going up to a woman, quote unquote approaching, you see walking up to her and talking to her, you see it as a win-lose.
Basically, you feel, what if I get rejected? You have a win-lose paradigm when it comes to talking to an attractive woman. Basically, the paradigm is, and by the way, the majority of men make this mistake.
This win-lose paradigm is, okay, if I go over to her to talk to her and she's attracted and into me, that's a win.

That's a success.

If not, I failed.

And that's a failure.

And I got rejected and I screwed up. And what happens is this binary model turns a given interaction into a really high-stakes coin toss.

It's like an existential high-stakes coin toss.

Heads you in, tails you suck. Validation versus rejection.
And this amps up the fear factor so much. And it makes you feel like your very self-worth might be on the line.
Your very value as a man. And again, this is why I circled this woman's table thinking, well, what's going to work? What's going to turn this into a win and not a loss? This is why a little bit later on in my journey, I'm in the bathroom stall before I actually finally approach a woman for the first time.
I'm having a panic attack because the loss story, the win loss story, the loss would be, oh, well, Connell's about to find out if he is as worthless to attractive women as he fears. And so I'm puking in the bathroom stall, scared to death of rejection.
So block number five is seeing the very act of approaching, of talking to a woman, flirting with a woman, you're meeting in real life, seeing that as win-lose. And basically the way that comes out in your mind is, what if I get rejected? Your mind basically goes on a what if.
What if I get rejected? And what will that mean? And your mind comes up with a disempowering, poisonous meaning for it. Oh, it'll mean I'm not enough.
It'll mean I'm too short. It'll mean I'm too fat.
It'll mean I'm not rich enough. It'll mean I'm not cool enough.
It'll mean girls just don't like me, at least not women like that. It'll mean something really painful.
And then our brains do something called catastrophizing. Well, if women like that don't want me to go up and talk to them, then that must mean I can't date a woman like that.
And that must mean I'll be alone, and that must mean I'll have to marry an inflatable woman or move to Myanmar and become a monk. Basically, it means loneliness or settling.
Make sense? Think about this. These mental blocks that most men have, I believe, most single men, this mental block number five, win-loss, it can turn that interaction, that quote approach, into heads, I'm a god, or heads, I get love.
No, sorry, not I'm a god. Heads, yes, I get love.
I'm worth something. Tails, I am worthless and I'll have to be alone or I'll have to settle for somebody I'm not that into.
So this mindset turns the simple 10-second process of walking up and saying hello to another person, it turns it into a moment of existential judgment

on your worth as a man. It's like, no wonder I was puking in the bathroom.

No wonder you feel frozen. No wonder.
By the way, this is all very common. There's nothing wrong

with you. There was nothing wrong with me.
Quite the opposite. You're an amazing guy.
You're a

great guy. You have so much to offer women.
It's just that you and definitely me back then, we had these mental blocks that were getting in the way. It's kind of like having an old, outdated software.
It's like I was running Windows 97. What I needed was the best new operating system.
Okay, so those are the five biggest mental blocks. Now, what do you say we take a fucking sledgehammer to these babies and just destroy them right now for good forever? Are you up for it? Let's go.
Let's do it. Let's talk about the five breakthroughs.
Let's smash through each of these blocks right now. I'm going to show you the truth.
I'm going to show you the wisdom. I'm going to show you some practical actions that are going to first weaken, if not destroy, these blocks and smash them into pieces and create some brand new and improved breakthrough beliefs and feelings that are going to make it so much easier for you to confidently walk up to women and feel amazing, feel confident in yourself, know what to say and do, and get some great dating results.

So let's do it.

Here we go.

Here are the five breakthroughs.

Here's breakthrough number one.

Breakthrough number one.

Remember, the old one was you're not enough.

You're not what women want.

Here's the breakthrough, though.

Breakthrough number one is you are already enough. You're not what women want.
Here's the breakthrough though. Breakthrough number one is you are already enough.
You are worthy of love. You are worthy of a wonderful girlfriend and you have so much going for you.
You might not realize it, but you do. To quote a line from Swingers, Vince Vaughn says it to Jon Favreau's character, you are so money, man, you don't even know it.
So yeah, you are already enough. Look, bottom line is the truth is women are not looking for perfection.
They're not looking for Hollywood star or a multimillionaire. Most of them aren't.
They just want a good, solid, authentic man whose life is together, who can bring romance and connection to her, eventually bring love to her, and who has his life together and can make her part of his quality good life and who can fit into her quality good life. So yeah, being able to attract a great girlfriend, or for that matter, just being able to walk up to a woman and make something good happen and flirt and get a phone number, you don't have to be great looking.
You don't have to have six-pack abs. Good looks are like jacuzzis.
They're nice to have, but they're way overrated. You don't need to look like Brad Pitt to walk up to a beautiful woman, have some success.
You can look like Brad Garrett and still make it happen. No, no offense, Brad.
So I want you to really lean into this and buy into this. What women want is a guy who can bring value to her life, help her romantically thrive and survive.
That does not mean he has to be a millionaire, great looking, six foot three. Those are nice bonuses like jacuzzis, but they're not required.
I don't have a six pack. I have a two liter.
I'm padding it right now. I'm okay looking.
I'm probably a maybe a seven, certainly not a 10.

So anyway, use me as an example if you would. Okay, here is a practical tip.
I want you to write down five things about you that make you an incredible catch for a great girl. Right now.
Do it right now. Do it right now.
Pause this podcast and write down five things about you and make them specific that make you a fantastic catch, at least in theory. And don't overthink this.
Underthink it. Make these specific, but they can be small.
I'm intelligent. Could be one of them.
I have a college education. I'm financially

stable. I have a regular paycheck.
That's attractive to women. I have a big heart.
I'm a

good son. You might write, I play a musical instrument.
I'm funny. I have a good sense of

humor. Or I'm fun.
Maybe you're not even funny. I'm fun.
I know how to have a good time. I'm

deeply intelligent. I'm well-educated.
I'm kind. Kindness is such an underrated thing that women are dying for from a man.
But they also want a man who believes in himself, who can blend that confidence with kindness. And if your confidence is low right now, that's what you and I are working on.
But also lean into the fact that you're kind. So yeah, write down five things that are specific reasons that if you look at them, you think, hey, you know what? On paper, that's a pretty attractive guy.
And this tip can really help your mindset and your psychology because in any given moment, your lack of confidence will come with women. Your lack of confidence with women

will come from focusing on what you think you lack. I'm too short.
My abs are not good enough. I'm not a millionaire.
And instead, we want to shift that focus, put that spotlight of your focus on what we know you offer. Hey, I'm intelligent.
I'm well-educated. I make a solid living.
I'm a dog dad. I'm a single dad.
I'm a great dad. I'm intelligent.
Whatever it is. And giving your brain specific reasons will help feed that sense of confidence.
Okay? So write out five things. And that will help you start to get in touch with your enoughness.
Because if you take nothing away from this episode, if you stop listening in 10 seconds, which I hope you don't, but if you stop listening, if you take nothing else away from this episode, take away the urgency and importance of you being in touch with your worth, your value to women, your significance as a man. It has to be there.
It doesn't have to be there, but it sure does help for you to be able to go up to women and chat and talk to them and be yourself. If you're in touch with your worth, then you become almost rejection-proof.
Your confidence becomes bulletproof. And every woman is attracted to a confident man.
no high, incredible woman wants to be with a man who thinks like he's just not enough for her or for women in general.

So you've got to transform that belief.

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, and radical authenticity 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. 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.
Breakthrough number two is the concept of that women absolutely want you to come talk to them. Absolutely.
So the old belief, I'm sorry, the old block that we talked about is, oh, women don't want me to bother them. But what I want you to do is buy into this idea of a new breakthrough number two, which is women want you to talk to them.
She wants me to talk to her. That's the mindset I want you to start to have when you see that woman out in the world.
She wants me to talk to her. The truth is most women would love to meet a great guy, naturally, who just comes up and chats with her, as long as it's not forced, as long as it's not awkward, and as long as he's essentially comfortable in himself.
Here's a quick story. Early on, after I'd started to go out and meet women and finally start approaching girls, it's pretty early in my journey doing this.
And I'm getting my sea legs. So I'm starting to do it, but I'm still working on my confidence.
I'm at Whole Foods and I'm in the cereal aisle. And I see this really attractive woman in the cereal aisle.
And I noticed that she's holding the last box of cereal. That's just one of my favorite cereals.
I believe it was honey bunches of oats or some kind of like oat based cereal. And I said, I think my opening line was, oh hey I see you have a very good taste in cereal.
That was all I said, is I see you have very good taste in cereal. And she looked at me and smiled, and I said, she said, yeah, I do.
I love the cereal. And we talked about how we both liked that cereal, and we chatted about each other for literally, it was only three or four minutes.
It wasn't very long. And then I got her phone number.
I said, Hey, can I get your number? It'd be nice to take you out sometime and get to know you better. She said, sure.
And I was just so appreciative that it went well. So anyway, she said something to me that blew my mind.
She, at the end of, at the end of this conversation, we exchanged numbers and we had a date a few nights later. But as we said goodbye in the cereal aisle at Whole Foods, I said something to the effect of, hey, by the way, thank you for being so polite, or no, thank you for being so nice.
She could tell that I was nervous about talking to her. And then she said something to me that blew my mind.
She said this to me, obviously, but it's like she was talking to all men. It's like she was talking to you.
Here's what she said. She said, you know, you can just come up and talk to us.
We like it. She said it with a smile.
She was encouraging. She basically said, yeah, you can just come up and talk to us, ladies.
We actually like it. And that just felt so good to hear.

And the big lesson I took away from that was that I want you to think about the idea that, oh, well, women don't want me to talk to them. Women don't like men to come up and talk to them.
I'm bothering them. Well, it depends on the guy.
do women like ashley from whole foods does she want every guy coming up to her and quote unquote

approaching Well, it depends on the guy. Do women like Ashley from Whole Foods, does she want every guy coming up to her and quote unquote approaching and hitting on her? Hell no.
Especially if he's not a guy who's got his life together. But does she want a confident gentleman, a nice guy who's got real, his life together, who's got a lot of things to offer her? Does she want a guy like that coming up to her? Hell yeah, she does.
I know because she told me and because she went out with me and many other women have. So the truth is the breakthrough I want you to have is that women want you to come and talk to you.
They actually want you to. Okay.
So here's a practical tip. Think of it this way.
Here's my practical tip for you. Don't hit on women.
Don't even quote unquote approach women. What I mean is don't make her feel like you're putting on moves.
Okay? Instead, I want you to think about breaking the ice with women in a disarming, indirect way. So think disarming and indirect.
And what do I mean by indirect? I mean, at least in the daytime, when you talk to a woman in the grocery store, if you walk up to a woman in the cereal aisle and say, hey, you are gorgeous. I had to meet you.
I had to meet the beautiful hot woman who likes the same cereal as me. That can work.
Don't get me wrong. But it's very polarizing and it's very hit or miss.
And you're either going to get a real big thumbs up, which is amazing, but you can also get a really big thumbs down. Probably most of the time you will because that can come off as too intense, too sexual, too soon.
What I want you to do, here's your practical tip to really start to feel how much women want you to come talk to them, is use indirect icebreakers. So think spontaneous and specific observation.
So back to Ashley at Whole Foods. What I did is I noticed, here's how I broke the ice with her.
I noticed that she was holding a box of cereal that was the kind of cereal I liked. And I simply observed that and I called it out and I said, oh, hey, I see you have very good taste in cereal.
And that instantly got me into a conversation with her. And that took away the feeling that I was quote unquote approaching her.
It felt more to her like a natural conversation just happened. make sense so yeah i guess i'm saying if you want you want to be you want to use organic openers

in an

organic Whole Foods.

But yeah, you want your openers to feel really natural and not like you're, quote, approaching

or putting on moves.

And so the best way to do that is indirect and spontaneous.

If it's spontaneous, it won't feel planned because it

wasn't. And if it's indirect, she won't feel like you're quote hitting on her.
And don't get me wrong. There's going to be ways to flirt.
And I'll get to that later this week in terms of how to put some romantic energy on the table and what I did with Ashley. But just for the sake of the open the first words you say, keep it indirect, keep it spontaneous.
And a great way to do it is with an observation, something you notice and just call that out. Okay, here is breakthrough number three.
Breakthrough number three is talking to women in real life is attractive to them. talking to women in real life actually can make women attracted to you, the very act of it.
So again, the original block, let me go back to the block I mentioned. The original block I mentioned was, block number three is, you think you might creep her out.
But the truth is, and the breakthrough is, actually, not only is breaking the ice with a woman not creepy, talking to them actually is attractive to them. Women want you to talk to them.
At least they would prefer you do it and fully commit to it rather than not do it at all. So the breakthrough number three is talking to women in real life is attractive.
It's not creepy. Because the mental block is telling you that, oh, talking to women is creepy.
No, it's not. You know what's creepy to women? Hesitation.
Timidity. Walking on eggshells around a woman.
That's creepy as fuck. Women really don't like that, but they love when a man just really commits to the interaction, to the icebreaker, to what I call, notice I'm trying to avoid using the word approach because I don't really like that word.
I like open, opening a conversation or icebreaker or delivering an opener. That's the language I'll be using for this episode anyway.
So women don't want to be approached so much as they want to have a man come up and open, open a conversation, open a possibility, break the ice. And what's actually creepy is when you want to do it, but you don't.
And you stare at her and you hover around her. Like, let's go, let's go back to Starbucks girl.
Uh, I would imagine that she could sense I was trying to talk to her, but I couldn't. She probably could sense that.
And I know this because other women who I finally did talk to after five minutes of procrastinating told me, oh yeah, I could feel you hovering. It was a little weird.
So the hesitation and the timidity is actually way creepier to women than just walking up and talking to her. Talking to women in real life is attractive.
Here's a quick story. I'm on a rooftop bar.
I'm about three or four months into my approaching journey where I'm out there working with different coaches. I'm learning how to talk to women.
I'm getting lots of reps. I'm in a rooftop bar and I'm with my then good friend, Taylor.
Taylor was my wingman for first year or so of me working on this. And Taylor and I are giving each other missions to do.
He had to go talk to every girl I pointed to. I had to talk to every woman he pointed me to.
It was just a deal we made with each other. And he signals to a seat with a really cute girl with short brown hair, a really pretty blonde, her very pretty blonde friend, both very stylish, very attractive, stylish people.
And sitting with them as a big, muscular guy in a T-shirt, big arms. He looked like, kind of had a Vin Diesel vibe, bald, hugely muscular.
And Taylor says, go over there. Go over there and talk to them.
And he actually said, go sit down with them because the three of them were seated on this rooftop bar. And then there was a fourth seat that was empty.
So he said, go over there, take that seat, shoot your shot. And I was so nervous.
So I walk over, I'm so scared. I'm thinking, oh man, I'm barging in on them.
It's, it's so weird and creepy to talk to people, especially when they're their own little conversation I'll be bothering them the guy, he's one of their boyfriends probably he's going to want to kick my butt but I made a commitment to Taylor I had to do whatever he said so I go over, I sit down and my opener is not even very good I just sat down down and said, hey guys, what's up? You look

friendly. I wanted to come say hi.
That's all I said. So I sit down, but here's what I did.
I committed as best I could. Basically, I went all the way.
I didn't tiptoe. I grabbed a seat.
I sat there like I belong there, even though I was faking it. So I sit down.
Hey guys, what's up? I'm Connell. You guys seem friendly.
How's your night? That's my opener. The cute brunette, the short brown hair, think young Winona Ryder.
She leans forward from across the table. Her eyes get really big.
And she said, oh my God, you just came right over here and sat down and started talking to us. Do you know what you are? And in my mind, in that pause, I'm thinking, um, I'm a creepy weirdo who's about to get his ass kicked by your boyfriend.
That's what I'm thinking. I held my, kept my cool.
I said, no, I don't know. What am I? She said, you're normal.
You just came right over here and talked to us like a normal person. Thank you.
And then she pointed to a different table. She said, see that guy over there? She pointed to another guy.
Ironically, another ginger. Kind of had a look like me a lot, like a skinny ginger dude.
She said, see that guy over there? He's been staring at us all night and it's creeping us out. And she just basically said, thank you for coming over and being normal and unhesitatingly saying hi to us.
By the way, The dude, he was friendly. He was not intimidated or he wasn't antagonistic.
He wasn't even dating either of them. He was just a friend.
So this giant hulk of a man who I thought was, you know, he looked like a bottle of muscle milk made corporeal, just this massive mound of Vin Diesel-like muscle. He was cool and chill.
He was like, hey, what's up, man? And he wasn't even with either of them romantically. So all this bullshit in my head was, I'm creepy.
He's going to punch me. They're going to think I'm a weirdo.
All of it was nonsense. And that was such a powerful moment for me.
So here's a practical tip to help you have that kind of experience. Here's what made that work.
It wasn't anything I said. All I said was, hey, what's up? You look friendly.
How's your night? Very bland, generic words. What made it work was I fully committed to it.
I fully committed. I walked over.
I sat down like I belonged there. I looked them right in the eyes.
I smiled a confident smile. I was not feeling confident, but I was faking it until I was making it, I guess.
And that's what made it work. And so here's your practical tip is I want you to fully commit to your opener.
Whoever she is, whatever you say, fully commit to it. What do I mean by that? Well, think of it like three points of a triangle here.
There's three things you want to do to commit. You need to commit with your eyes.
Good eye contact. Okay? Look her in the eyes when you break the ice.
you need to commit with your voice the second tip of the triangle your voice has to be

or at least sound, resonant in that context. She needs to hear you as if you believe in what you're saying.
And the third piece of the triangle here of a committed open is body language. you have to stand.
If you're standing, you got to stand tall, take up some space, manspread a little bit, shoulders back. So think eye contact, good vocal tonality, and good body language.
So here's basically how I walked up, what I said to them that night, 15, 16, whatever it was years ago. I walked over.
I sat down like I knew them already and said, hey, guys, what's up? I'm Connell. You look like you're friendly.
How's your night going? Pretty normal, pretty confident sounding, right? Here's what you don't want to do. Hey, excuse me? Hi.
Oh, over here. Hi, I'm over here.
Yeah. Hi.
I don't want to bother you. I'm sorry.
I don't want to bother you, but is it okay if I sit here for one second, please? Or am I bothering you? That's not, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but that's not far off from what some men do when they want to go talk to a girl, is they let their vocal tonality become very hushed and soft and timid. And I understand where it's coming from.
It's coming from a really understandable place, but that mental block is making it happen. And you need to break through that and just make sure you look her in the eye, use your voice and use your body language and just make sure you commit to that open.
Just like LeBron commits when he drives to the basket, right? Just like, I don't know, Tiger Woods in his prime, fully committed to that swing, that full driver swing. He wasn't decelerating.
He was fully committing. You want to fully commit when you walk up to a woman.
Whatever you're going to say, whatever you're going to do, make sure your eyes, your voice, and your body language are all fully committed. One last quick story to underline this breakthrough number three point is I remember a different girl at Whole Foods.
I've done a lot of talking to women at Whole Foods. I met a woman named Lisa at Whole Foods a few years ago, many years ago actually.
And my opener was actually really funny. It was kind of clever.
I thought it was around wintertime. It was really cold.
And she was wearing, she looked incredible. She was wearing a white, stylish winter coat with fringe on top.
She just looked like the cover of a magazine. And I walked up to her in the frozen food section of Whole Foods, and I said, hey, I just saw you, and you look like the cover of the J.Crew winter catalog.
I had to come meet the cover model or something like that. And it went great.
The conversation went great. Got her number.
Two or three nights later, we're on our first date. And on our date, I said, hey, what was it you liked about me when I met you? And I was fishing for a compliment to be candid.
I was trying to hear. I was hoping she would say, oh my God, what you said was so witty, so funny.
She couldn't even remember what I said. She said on our date, she said, oh, I just liked that you stood nice and tall and you looked me right in the eye.
That's what I liked. And I said, yeah, okay, I'll give this guy a shot.
And she didn't even remember my witty, funny opener. So I just will never forget that.
You look me in the eye, you stood tall and you look me right in the eye. So that is how you're going to have your breakthrough is you're going to apply this concept of full commitment.
Okay. Eye contact, voice, body language.
It just sends all the right signals to tell a woman, this guy is somebody I'm going to pay attention to. He's a man of real worth and value to the world and hopefully to her.
Okay, breakthrough number four is that you don't need to say the perfect thing. You need to say the authentic thing.
You don't have to say the perfect thing. You just have to say the authentic thing, the real thing.
Again, the mental block is I don't know what to say or I don't have the perfect thing to say. But here's the breakthrough you want, is you don't need the perfect thing.
You just need to say something authentic and commit to it. Don't fast forward.
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Go get your flirty30. So basically what you need to do here is lower the bar for how good you think your opening line has to be.
This might be one of the biggest myths in dating, or maybe that, let me rephrase that. One of the biggest blocks that I hear from more men than any other block is, hey, Connell, I would approach girls, I would go meet women, but I just don't know what to say.
And the truth is, it's not really about what you say. It's that you just need to say something authentic and that you commit to it.
And that gives you a really good chance of a good response. So there's a big myth that you have to say something perfect.
Think the last example with Lisa, the one I just mentioned. She actually didn't remember my perfect opener.
She remembered my overall vibe and my body language. So breakthrough number four is you don't need to say something perfect.
Just say the authentic thing. So lower the, so your tip here is I want you to lower the bar for how good you think that opening line has to be.
Here's a way to put this into practice.

When in doubt, when you see a woman you want to talk to,

go up to her and say the honest thing,

the honest, genuine thing,

as long as it is G-rated.

Keep it G-rated.

Don't be vulgar, of course.

But there's something really powerful about being vulnerable authentic and just leaning into literally what you're thinking so the practical tip is when in doubt say the honest thing or one of the little catchphrases i give my clients is whatever i'm thinking and feeling is what i'm saying and doing so literally seeing a woman and just speaking your thoughts. So here's a quick story.
Um, my client, um, uh, client, a client named, uh, I'm going to, Oh, actually, uh, I, he was on my podcast last week. You might've heard this episode.
There was a coaching session I did. So I'll retell the story, my client, Jason.
So I do in-person coaching in field, in-person coaching. I call it the wingman weekend where I go out with guys here in New York city and I help them approach women, help them talk to girls.
I'm literally side by side, shoulder to shoulder with them, helping them to talk to women. And so I'm doing a in-person weekend with Jason a while back.
And his big sticking point was, I don't know what to say. I can't approach a pretty girl because I just don't know what to say.
And I said, well, then let's just say exactly what you're thinking. Or I gave him an intentionally bad opening line.
I made him walk up to women, and he had to start by saying, hi, I'm Jason, and I don't know what to say to you. I thought he was going to have to do it like five times before he might get a good response.
But literally the first girl, he walked up to two young women, probably mid twenties. He's late twenties, mid twenties, really cute.
Both just looking good for the, on their Friday night. And he walks up and says, Hey, I'm Jason.
I just saw you. I don't know what to say.

And she said, what, huh? And she barely even heard it. What she saw was his relaxed confidence.
What she saw was when I gave him permission to say just an honest, simple, lower bar thing, he relaxed. He stood taller.
He stopped getting so tense. And he just walked up and said, hey, what's up? Hey, I'm Jason.
I just saw you, but I don't know what to say to you. She's like, huh, what? And then less than five minutes later, they were making out.
They were making out. And guess what? She did not remember anything he said to her, at least not the opening line.
But that didn't matter because you don't need to say the perfect thing. You just need to say the authentic thing.
And sometimes the authentic thing is something a little bit more bold.

So with Jason, I had him say something that was super like not good game because I wanted him to realize your game, what you say barely matters at all.

But sometimes you can say something that is super true and really real. And that can feel really refreshing, uh, um, liberating and, and well, yeah, I guess it can feel refreshing too.
Uh, and so different client, different night where I'm out helping Barry. So Barry, I love Barry.
Barry is a client of Indian heritage. Used to think that he's just not enough because he's Indian.
Women don't like me. Cute girls, especially cute white girls, don't want to date nerdy Barry.
That was basically his I'm not enough story. So we had been working on that.
And fast forward to a night out where we're doing in-person coaching. I'm with Barry.
By the way, Barry is, I can't make this up, I promise. Barry is chubby.
Don't get me wrong. He's got like a nice kind of handsome face, but he's like a chubby handsome face.
He kind of has a Jonah. Remember like younger Jonah Hill when Jonah Hill was chubby? He has like a young Jonah Hill body.
So Barry, mid-20s, Indian, American raised, but Indian heritage, has an engineering job, has a software engineering job. And he's probably 30, 40 pounds overweight.

So there is nothing about him that says, I'm a society 10 out of 10. He's Indian, chunky, nerdy engineer.
Cute face. But other than that, most people would say, don't talk to hot girls.
Why would you bother? Right? Anyway, so Barry's my client. We're out at this place called Gem.
It's a bar in New York City. Lots of young women in their 20s are there, his crowd, his audience.
And so Barry, it's our first night where I'm helping him talk to women. And he's really nervous.
He's really in his head. He's not taking much action yet.
And I said, okay, let me do one for you. I said, look around the room.
And he's thinking, basically, he was in his head because he didn't know what to say. What's the perfect thing? What's the right thing to say? And I said, look around the room.
Who's the hottest girl here to you? And he points over to a young woman, early 20s, probably tight jeans, white top, blonde hair, just a total cutie, like absolute adorably cute, hot girl at a bar. And he said, oh, her.
And I said, okay. And I'm whispering to him, okay, what's the deepest, most honest thing that you could tell her if you had to tell her something? He said, if I could say anything to her, I would tell her that she's a total 10.
I would tell her that I'm nervous, but I think she's a 10. And I said, okay.
And I was going to have him do it, but I could tell he wouldn't. So anyway, I tap her on the shoulder.
I say, hey, excuse me. That's my friend over there.
He wanted me to tell you that you're a total. He's actually pretty nervous, but he said you're a total 10..
And she looked at me and then she looked over at

Barry and she realized everything that was happening was a hundred percent genuine. There was no game.
There was no, like, this wasn't some funky move we were doing. It was happening organically in the moment.
So she looks at the both of us and she looks over at Barry and she, she blush smiles. And she puts her hand on her, kind of like her clutching her chest as if to say, what? I'm a 10? Oh my God, that is so sweet.
And she's not saying it to me. She's saying it to Barry, even though I was speaking for him.
I guess this was my Cyrano de Bergerac moment. So she basically looks at Barry and said, oh my God, really? You're so sweet.
Now Barry has some confidence because she's looking at him with her, you know, in a blushy, like she's a human heart eye emoji. Barry, I was the one who approached her, but Barry had turned her into a human heart eye emoji.

And the two of them start talking.

Three or four minutes later, they disappear together to like a quiet booth in the bar on an instant date. And I'm the world's proudest, happiest coach when I have those moments.
So think about this. Barry, the chubby Indian software engineer who's 40 pounds, 30, 40 pounds overweight, he is on an instant date with the total dime, dime of the bar.
Way, quote unquote, out of his league. But is he really out of his league or is he an amazing, amazing, smart, intelligent, great guy? Of course he is.
And all he did was he applied breakthrough number four. He didn't say the perfect thing.
Well, technically, I said it, but it was coming from Barry. He said the authentic thing.
He said the honest thing. So here's your practical tip that I want you to do.
The next night you're out or the next day you're out when you see an attractive woman, I want you to make a shift. And I want you to think of a...
The next time you see a really attractive woman, notice your mind trying to come up with a perfect line. Instead, instead of asking yourself, what is the perfect thing to say? Ask yourself, what is an honest and G-rated thing I could say to break the ice with her? And then say that.
Okay? Now, why does this work? Well, or why did it work with Barry? Or why does it work in general? Think of it this way. When you're trying to say the perfect approach line, you're accidentally making the situation about your agenda.
You're making it about what you want. I want her number.
I want a date. I want validation.
I want sex. Those are all understandable things to want, but it makes you feel like a taker to her.
But when you shift to authentically sharing of yourself and you're giving her an honest compliment, a true, genuine compliment, or just a true moment of sharing something authentic, you go from being a taker to a giver. You become a contributor that feels so much better to you because instead of worrying about what you're going to get for your ego gratification, you're focused more on how you can make her smile, how you can share something genuine and real to hopefully make her day or night better.
And when a man of value like you or Barry or Jason, when you give to women, they love it. And that lifts you above all these other guys who are just trying to take.
And you become a giver and women love men who give, and they want to give back, and they give back in wonderful ways. Okay, last one.
Let's finish strong. Breakthrough number five.
Breakthrough number five is this. Your mindset should be when you look at an approach or look at a context of walking up to that woman, your breakthrough mindset is I literally cannot lose because every woman I talk to, either it's a win if I get a result or I grow as a man even if she doesn't want to date me.
Let me say that again. You literally cannot lose.
I want you to look at every approach as a win-win. Think of it this way.
I can't lose. Every approach is either win or learn.
It's either party or ponder. It's either celebrate or contemplate.
That changes talking to a woman in real life from a win-loss paradigm to a win-win paradigm. And this really changes the game.
Again, the sticking point here, the block is the win-loss mindset of, oh man, if she likes me, great, but if she doesn't, then I guess I suck. And we need to rewire that.
We need to turn walking up to a woman, approaching any woman, talking to any woman as a guaranteed win. Because either you get a phone number or a date or a great, fun, sexy interaction, and that can change your life.
Or you'll get a lesson. You'll have something that you'll learn from it and use for the next girl you talk to.
Or you might get an insight. Or you might just have a real fun, crazy story to tell your friends about that girl you talked to and then it was going well, but then her little friend came over and cock-blocked you and it all blew up.
You might be able to laugh about it. The bottom line is we want to stop looking at talking to women as a win-lose.
We've got to see it as a win-win because this is what turns approaching into something where there's no fear anymore. You literally cannot lose.
So the reason why I no longer have any approach anxiety, In large part, it's because, well, first of all, I know that I'm enough, but also I literally see every single interaction I have with a woman as a success. Every woman I talk to or every woman my client talks to when I'm going out to coach, that's just one approach closer to a breakthrough.
Or it's one lesson that we can use to have a better, successful conversation with the next woman. Or maybe every single girl you talk to, think of it this way, every single woman you talk to, it gives you momentum, gives you social momentum, and makes it easier to talk to the next woman and the one after that and the one after that.
Does that make sense? Because my view is this. I want to see, I want you to think of talking to a beautiful woman out in the real world like this.
Either you get a result, you win that way, or you get to put, even if you don't get a result, you get to put another brick in the wall in the cathedral of your character. I really believe in that.
Every time you approach a woman, you either win because you get a result, or even if you don't, you put another brick in the wall of the cathedral of your character as a man? And that is a powerful way to change this whole mindset and make talking to beautiful women something that you want to do. And the more you want to do it, the more you will do it.
The more you do it, the better you get, the better you get. That's when the results really start to kick in.

So your practical tip for this fifth and final breakthrough is go out today or tomorrow. Do it within the next 24 hours, ideally today.
Go out today. And I want you to find, go up to the most stunningly beautiful woman who you see that day.

And I want you to give her a specific, authentic, G-rated compliment. So I want it to be specific, I want it to be genuine, and I want it to be G-rated.
Meaning I don't want it to be about her body. And I really don't want it to be about her physical

appearance, even though she might be physically beautiful to you. So I'd love for you to find a beautiful woman, a woman you would love to talk to and give her a specific compliment such as, hey, excuse me, miss.
I just want to say you have fantastic style. I love those boots you're wearing.
that's a really cool coat. Or you might notice a woman has a really great tattoo.
I love noticing tattoos. Or pieces of jewelry a woman has on.
Hey, excuse me, that's a really cool bracelet. That's awesome.
Is that jade? Boom. You just gave a specific authentic G-rated compliment to a really attractive woman.
And so that is your tip. Let's call this a mission, actually, a tip slash mission.
Go out in the next 24 hours and find a beautiful woman and give a specific authentic G-rated compliment to her. This will probably scare you, and that's okay, because here's what I want for you.
I want you to not just be a man who's listening to this podcast but not taking action. If you're not taking action, then nothing amazing is going to happen.
However, the right 30-second interaction with a gorgeous woman, it could completely change the game for you. I can't wait for you to have an approach.
You deliver an opener and have it not get you a phone number and a result, but it still goes well or you still feel good about it. I remember I approached a gorgeous woman at a farmer's market here in New York City at Union Square.
And I walked up, I was feeling really confident. I walked up, I actually gave her a direct compliment about her looks, which I just told you not to do.
But that's what I was, that's the way I was feeling that day. And I walked over and I said, I said, she looked like a young Susan Sarandon, just to paint a picture in your mind.
Young Susan Sarandon. I

walked up and I said, hey, you are absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to come meet you.
And her face lit up and then she held up her left hand, showed me a big sparkly engagement ring or wedding ring. so no result right is? Is that a failure? Well, no.
First of all, she felt so complimented that I boldly came up and said that to her. And she showed me the ring, basically.
She basically said, sorry, I'm flattered, but look at this. And then she paused.
And then we chatted for like a minute. And then she said, hmm, which of my friends should I set you up with.
And then she paused and then we chatted for like a minute and then she said,

which of my friends should I set you up with? And then she went into her phone and she started trying to find girlfriends of hers to connect me to. So that's an example of either you win or you learn, or in this case, either you win or you get a wing woman.
All of a sudden, I had this gorgeous woman becoming my wing woman. And bottom line is I want you to experience quote unquote rejection or at least have a not get a number, not get a date.
Because once you can look at that in a way and feel good about it, then you're going to have a really, that's going to change things for you. So the practical tip for this fifth breakthrough is go out, give a beautiful woman a specific, authentic, G-rated compliment.
And no matter how it goes, whether she loves talking to you or whether she just says, okay, fine, thanks, and then walks away, I want you to find something good about it. Find something specific to tell yourself what was good about that.
Was my opener good? Can I feel good that I... Maybe just the fact that you walked up to a woman you find so attractive is going to feel amazing to you.
And that's what I want for you. I want you to start feeling great about meeting women out in real life.
Okay. So let me finish up.
I

want to tell one final story about the moment I knew I was what I call a 1% man. So again,

what's a 1% man? A 1% man is a guy who can do all these things we've been talking about.

A 1% man can authentically talk to a beautiful woman out in the real world without weird pickup lines and without alcohol. So let me fast forward to, so I told you that Starbucks story, right? It was about 12, 14 months later, I'm at the same coffee shop, the same Starbucks on 29th and Park Avenue in New York City, Manhattan.
And I'm at the same coffee shop where I had the failure with Katie Holmes' lookalike. And it's a Sunday afternoon, another Sunday afternoon, doing some work from the magazine I worked for at the time.
And sitting at the table, a table near me, is beautiful, glossy haired brunette, another, another beautiful brunette, something about that Starbucks. And I remember by then I'd been taking a lot of action, putting a lot of effort into my dating life, working with coaches.
I've been doing a lot of meeting women out in the world. And so I'd had a lot of these shifts happen.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I had a lot of these shifts. And I remember I looked over there and I was excited to talk to her.
I was actually looking forward to it. So I look over and I noticed something about her.
I'm looking for something to notice to notice something unusual that's a great way to break the ice with a woman is notice something that's unusual and I noticed that she uh she was writing on her laptop and she had a book a screenplay writing book I forget the name of it but it said something like you know screenplay 101 or something like that and so I just noticed that and my ice my icebreaker was simply, oh, hey, how's your screenplay going?

Very simple, right?

I think I might have said, hey, excuse me, miss.

I might have said, hey, I just noticed your screenplay book.

How is your screenplay going?

Is that what you're writing here today?

And we start talking.

Her name is Sienna.

Sienna is just absolutely sweet. Very, very attractive, obviously.
Turns out she's not a writer, but she's working really hard on writing projects in her spare time. And at the time, I was a journalist, a full-time journalist and a writer at a magazine.
So we talked about writing a lot. And I ended up getting her phone number.
And we set up a date for later that week. And so I remember as I was preparing for this episode, I was thinking about that Sienna interaction.
And I was comparing it to the previous one at that same Starbucks. And so many things had changed in that 12, 14 months or so.
I felt so much more worthy of a woman like that. So I knew I was enough.
That first block was gone. Okay.
I remember thinking, being excited to break the ice with her. Instead of feeling like, oh, I'm bothering her, I said to myself, oh, what would be a fun way to break the ice with her? Something that she might enjoy.
And she did enjoy it. And then I didn't even have a thought about, am I creepy? Because, hey, what's more normal than talking to somebody who's next to you at a coffee shop or talking to the woman next to you at the gym who's on the machine next to you, right? So these three or four or five blocks had essentially dissolved.
I knew that I didn't have to say something perfect. I said something that was good enough and something that was genuine.

I was genuinely interested in her being a screenwriter because I'm a writer as well.

So the block number four had gone.

And on some level, I didn't have this down on paper yet.

I didn't have this concept of win-lose versus win-win.

But basically, I told myself every girl I talked to,

to win no matter what happens. Because hey, we might have a great chat.
Maybe we'll be into each other. And even if not, at least I took a shot at romance, right? And that win-win mentality made it really easy for me to break the ice with Sienna.
So Sienna and I have a first date. It goes well.
fast forward, I don't know, 10 or 12 dates later, she just very openly, vulnerably comes out and just says, hey, you know what? I'm really loving what's happening with us. Would you like to be my boyfriend? It was an amazing moment.
It was the first time in my life a woman ever said that to me. And I was just so blown away.
This incredible, beautiful, smart writer, beautiful brunette, glossy hair, stylish. I broke the ice with her in literally the same coffee shop that I'd had that big failure with the other girl, the Katie Holmes lookalike.
And wow, what an amazing turnaround for me. And I guess I'd become what I now call a 1% man, a guy who can break the ice with any woman comfortably.
And when there's a nice natural chemistry, good things can happen. And I want the same for you.
So thank you very much for listening. Go out there.
You might need to rewind some of this episode. We covered a lot, and I do get that.
But I really want you to break down those blocks that hold you back and have these breakthroughs that are going to help you have those great real world interactions with women. So I can't wait for you to actually have those kinds of breakthroughs because the bottom line is you and I are cut from the same cloth.
You and I are very similar. The reason why you're listening to this podcast, especially if you're still listening this far into the episode, into a pretty in-depth episode, is because I think you probably see some of yourself in some of the same problems that I've talked about you have, and maybe you see a little bit of yourself in me.
And that is super, super common. So I hope this has helped you.
Okay, that ends episode number one of this four-week series. Okay, so now that you have everything that you need to break through these mental blocks that are holding you back, now you might be thinking, or you maybe have already been thinking, okay, what do I actually do when I see a woman I want to meet and I decide to go talk to her? What do I talk about? What do I say? What do I not say? How do I escalate things so it doesn't fizzle out? How do I get phone numbers? Let's get into that.
We're going to talk about that in the next episode. We're going to go into that in the next episode.
I'm going to share with you what I call the five master steps of flirting with, talking with women when you talk to them, when you meet them, when you break that ice so that you can have fun, flirty, connected, genuine, authentic interactions with them. So I'm going to take you through these five master steps of what to say, how to say it, so you can get phone numbers and dates from these women you'll be meeting now that you've had these five breakthroughs.
So you're going to get a very simple, repeatable system to help you start conversations, keep the conversation flowing, create some sparks, and soon get some pretty wonderful women in your life and sooner or later, a great girlfriend.

So don't miss the next episode, episode number two.

And I'll end with this.

Please don't forget, your dream girlfriend,

she is out there and she's gonna love you.

She just has to meet the real authentic you.

So carpe datum, seize the date.