How To Be Present

Spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle often talk about presence as the key to accessing a relaxed state of true inner confidence in all situations. Well that’s great in theory, but how do you do it in practice?

Moose MillerIn this insightful interview with Transformation Coach Moose Miller from MeetEveryMoment.com, you’ll learn the key techniques for dealing with difficult emotions and thought patterns that stop us from being confidently present in our interactions with other people.

Practicing these techniques consistently over time leads to a sense of relaxed confidence that men and women alike find tremendously appealing.

Here’s what you’ll learn:
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How To Connect More Deeply With Women

I was recently coaching a friend of mine who is highly successful in business, but really struggles when it comes to connecting with women. What I noticed most strongly in our conversation was that my friend talked mostly about what he thought, and very little about how he felt. This was a strategy that served him well in the business world, but didn’t work so well when it came to establishing connections with women.

Man and Woman Connecting

Photo Courtesy PhotoXpress.com.

If you want to connect more deeply with women, emotions are the key. Most of us guys have received a great deal of education on how to think, but very little on how to handle feelings. We rarely disclose how we feel to other people, and we aren’t good at acknowledging other people’s emotions either.

Our emotions are a deeply powerful part of our experience of life, which is why they are so important in connecting more deeply with other people. Women are generally much more aware of how they feel than us men are, partly because they’re biologically wired that way, and partly because they’ve usually spent a lot more time talking over their feelings with their girlfriends. Most men on the other hand are often out of practise when it comes to relating emotionally, because it’s often been seen as weak, or as a poor second to relating intellectually.… Continue reading…

Need Someone To Talk To? I’m available

Life can be hard and we all need a little support from time-to-time. I spend a lot of my time coaching other people, and being coached myself; I find it tremendously rewarding connecting with others and helping them get past obstacles int heir life that I’ve struggled with too. If you’re stuck and don’t know where to turn, contact me so we can line up a time to talk over Skype and see if I can help you in person. Often just having someone else there who understands where we’re coming from can help lessen our isolation and build our self-confidence.

Need Someone To Talk To?

Just this morning I had a call from someone who was overcome with anxiety and desperate to know what to do. I’ve been there myself, so I could offer empathy and reassure them that they were going to be OK. After a while talking to me, they felt much calmer and more able to cope with what they were going through.

Here’s some of the feedback I’ve been getting lately from people I talk to:

“I wish I’d had that conversation with you twenty years ago Graham”
– Paul, Chatswood Australia

“I cannot overstate how much talking to you has helped me.Continue reading…

Always Have Something To Say When Talking To Women

Ever worry that you’re going to run out of things to say when talking to a woman? It seems like the more attractive the women, the more fearful I get of that awkward silence when I don’t know what to say. One solution is to learn a bunch of canned routines and prefabricated stories that we can punch out to avoid the awkwardness; but using other guy’s stuff grates on me and somehow I never get around to polishing my own stories for use in social situations. I’d rather be spontaneous and live in-the-moment, responding to the flow of conversation rather than trying to control and manipulate it all the time. If only there were a way to learn how to do that…

Well it turns out there is!

Over the last few months I’ve fallen in love with Theatrical Improvisation, also known as Improv. This is the technique that comedians and actors use to be spontaneous on shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway, and the results are often hilarious. Lately I’ve been doing every Improv class and workshop I can get to. The rules of Improv really appeal to me because they’re all about freeing yourself from your own constraints and letting your natural creativity flow spontaneously.… Continue reading…

How to Feel Confident in Conversations

The way we speak in conversation with other people says a lot about how confident we feel, yet we’re often unaware of the subtle nuances of the way we’re communicating and the resulting message we’re sending about our self-image to other people. Simply changing the way we converse can boost our general level of confidence. When we hear ourselves communicating more effectively it reminds us of our innate power and inner confidence. And when others experience us as a powerful communicator, we connect better, gain greater trust and respect, and become the sort of person other people want to be around.

So here are some simple, easy ways to converse with greater confidence:

Be Clear and Direct, Avoiding Waffle

Ever notice how some people you talk with say the same thing over and over, rephrasing their point in different ways without ever stopping to ever see if you got it or not? As they waffle on and on, you find yourself losing interest and feeling confused about what it is they are really saying.

Confident communication is clear, direct and succinct. The fewer words you can make a point in, the more powerful it will be. Strunk and White’s advice in their classic book on writing The Elements of Style is equally applicable when speaking: make every word tell.… Continue reading…

How to Handle a Woman’s Tests

Women put men to the test all the time. Consciously and unconsciously, women are always sussing out what you’re made of and whether you have what it takes to protect her in the big wild world. This is important to her because when you really man-up, she gets to relax and play more; which is what she really wants.

Many women throw tests at men without even realizing that they’re doing it. I’ve had a lot of conversations with women lately about this and often they’re fascinated by the whole concept. They don’t even know that they’ve been doing it all their lives, and sometimes strongly deny throwing tests at men entirely… unaware that they’re throwing me a test in the process.

I remember when I first started spotting this dynamic between men and women, I often saw it in acting class when other students were improvising. A woman would walk on stage and say something derogatory to a man, and the man would usually act like a wounded child; thus failing the test. I’d be watching thinking “It’s just a test! Don’t collapse!” The guy didn’t realize that it was a test, and the scene would go downhill as she lost any attraction towards him.… Continue reading…

How To Be Funny

Learning to be funny can help you to be confident and there are plenty of advantages: you make other people feel good around you, become popular, and attractive. Women consistently say that they love a guy with a sense of humor, so it’s worth taking some time developing yours and learning to be funny.

I’ve always been a pretty funny guy; my sense of humor developed for coping with boring schoolroom classes where I’d constantly be making funny comments to keep myself and the other kids amused. Needless to say, I got sent out a lot. Even years later when working as an Engineer, I couldn’t help but put funny footnotes in technical documents. My inner comedian was bursting to get out and now I’m even studying stand-up comedy.

But even if you’ve never seen yourself as funny, it’s definitely a skill that you can learn to develop. You’ll love the satisfaction you get when you make people laugh; any comedian will tell you that this is the best drug out there. So here are my tips on how to be funny:

Notice What Amuses You

All good humor is based in truth. Start by noticing what amuses you, and work with that.… Continue reading…

How to Gain Confidence by Public Speaking

Public speaking is often seen as the ultimate in self-confidence. After all, if you can get up in front of an audience and talk from a platform, surely you must have amazing confidence. Well, yes and no. The truth is that public speaking is a skill that anyone can learn. You don’t have to have amazing confidence to do it. But like learning any new skill, particularly one that involves overcoming a fear, this will boost your general level of self-confidence; which is why learning public speaking is so appealing.

The key to effective public speaking is to tell stories in which you have some emotional investment. Your emotions are what connect you with your audience. If you can get up on stage an relive an exciting or emotionally engaging story, and tie it to some lesson or point that you learned, people will want to hear what you have to say. The secret is to avoid going into presenter mode where you lecture people, which audiences hate. And the way to avoid lecturing is to tell stories.

Storytelling is fun, entertaining, and helps you overcome your self-consciousness in front of other people. Plus you’ll find that if you tell personal stories, other people will relate to what you have to say and you’ll get positive reinforcement from them, further adding to your growing confidence.… Continue reading…

Get What You Deserve by Jay Levinson & Seth Godin

Now this is one fascinating book. It points out that the way other people treat us is determined by the way we communicate ourselves to them. In every interaction we have with other people, the way we communicate is marketing ourselves to them. Even if you think you aren’t involved in marketing yourself to other people and the world, you’re still doing it; just not intentionally and therefore probably not very effectively. This may explain why you’re not getting the results you want in some areas of your life. If you don’t have the life you want, it’s because you haven’t learned to communicate (i.e. market yourself) effectively in that area.

What you get in life from other people depends on the signals you send.

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How to Communicate Sexually With a Woman

I’ve been watching David DeAngelo’s Sexual Communication program recently, and here’s a summary of what I’ve learned:

There as a deeper level of communication between humans that most men are unaware of. It’s the same level that animals communicate on instinctively. It reminds me of what Eckhardt Tolle talks about in The Power Of Now about being totally present, and the Meisner acting technique of intuitive interactions and emotional connections uninhibited by our normal tendency to overanalyse and overthink. David D is onto something.

His four steps of sexual communication are:

#1: Sparking the Attraction

Attraction is unconscious. Women are naturally attracted to the Leader. Develop your masculine traits. Not needing approval. Confidence and lack of insecurity. Dominance and power are the ultimate aphrodisiac. Being unapologetic for who you are and what you want. Make decisions quickly. Not accepting second class behavior or treatment from others. Live in your own reality. Strong eye contact. Be territorial without whining or insecurity.

Women test men unconsciously. Start recognizing these tests and learn to pass the tests without taking them seriously. Forget “be yourself”: your normal persona is an accommodating, manipulative wuss and isn’t actually your real self anyway. When a woman tests you with criticism, smile and respond playfully with “I’m glad you like it”.… Continue reading…