The Easy Path Project Live Stream #04
Join the TEPP Livestream M-F around 7:30pm Central!
Watch replays in the live stream playlist!
Inner Game Impact
Breaking Free from Social Anxiety Through Simple Mindset Shifts
Hey everyone! Michael here from the Easy Path Project, and we’re back for another discussion on Inner Game. Tonight is going to be a good one, so strap yourself in and get ready – it’s going to be fun.
Are You Feeling Awkward Around Women? A Simple Shift Can Change Everything
For the last couple of nights, I’ve been giving you background, theory, and ideas about how you can apply what I teach here at the Easy Path Project. We focus on comfortable, easy ways to improve your inner game.
I don’t think anything you do in dating, forming relationships, or personal development works without starting with your inner game. It’s all about who you are and who you really are. That’s what we’re going to talk about tonight.
The Lens Problem: Why You’re Not Seeing Reality Clearly
One thing I’ve been discussing for the last couple of nights is how we get so trapped in our own heads that we’re not functioning correctly. We don’t actually see reality clearly because we’re looking through a dirty lens. Instead of seeing things as they are, you see them through a filter of past rejections, past hurts, past failures, or insecurities.
Once you get beyond that and start removing these layers of crap, it becomes much easier to expose who you really are. That’s when you’ll find that people respond to you significantly better over time. The more you become the authentic you and express yourself authentically in interactions, the better your results.
When people talk about “be yourself,” there’s a lot of discussion around that concept. The bottom line is that you need to clear away the things that make you less desirable, less attractive, or less than anything. You just need to start sweeping that stuff away – like you need a psychic broom and just sweep, sweep, sweep.
The Exponential Growth Theory
Each step, each tiny incremental improvement you make, accumulates and presents itself in how you present yourself to the world. If you have a situation where you feel deficient in some way and you start improving that deficiency, you’ll naturally feel better. As you go through life feeling better, you’ll treat other people better and demonstrate your fulfillment, happiness, and contentment – and they’re going to feel it.
One of the sad things about life is that so many people are stuck in their heads, creating a real shortage of goodwill and cheer. If you become a pleasant person who lightens the mood when you come around, that’s a characteristic you want to possess and enhance.
Tonight’s Focus: Inner Game Impact
Tonight we’re talking about small tweaks and little shifts in your understanding – shifts in the way you think about particular situations. I’ve written down eight common situations that come up every single day, things people stumble over. I think I’ve got some ideas that can help.
Question #1: How Do I Stop Feeling So Disappointed or Taking It Personally When Someone I Like Isn’t Interested or Ghosts Me?
This is incredibly common now. Getting bent out of shape over something like this is like getting bummed out by a cloudy day or rain. I hear it everywhere, and unfortunately, I’m guilty of ghosting people myself in certain situations.
Here’s what you need to understand: other people have considerations too. It’s not just about you wanting that person and expecting them to be receptive. They have their own considerations, and one of those might be avoiding a difficult situation if there isn’t a fit.
The Reality of Modern Dating
When women go on dating apps, they get an incredible amount of attention. Every single man on the app will contact her. She might be chatting with you, then suddenly six other guys show up, and she thinks, “Instead of sticking with this one guy, let me check out these other six guys.” It’s not cool, but that’s the way it is.
The Core Truth About Self-Worth
Who you are and how you feel about yourself has nothing to do with other people or their opinions. Most people are concerned about themselves and don’t spend much time thinking about you. If they do think about you, they use shortcuts and don’t sit around analyzing you extensively.
If you’re someone who ruminates and lets ideas circle in your head, situations like this can take on greater meaning than they’re actually worth. They’re just not worth putting effort into thinking about them.
The Confidence Shift
Once you feel confident about who you are, you won’t worry about what other people think. Here’s an interesting way to think about how focus shifts:
When you feel insecure, you try to prevent situations or avoid them. After you feel more confident, the emphasis shifts from trying to prevent feeling bad to recovering from feeling bad. You’re not going to prevent yourself from taking opportunities or pursuing situations.
Once you’ve been shot down, broken up with, ghosted, or dumped a few times, you develop emotional calluses. You don’t feel the same impact, and you approach situations more confidently. Even if it doesn’t turn out as you hoped, you know there’s nothing lost by trying. You heal quickly, recover, and move on.
The question becomes more about emotional resilience than stopping the feelings.
Question #2: How Do I Handle the Feeling That I’m Competing with Countless Other Guys on Apps, Many Who Seem Richer, Better Looking, or Smoother?
Unless you’re six feet tall, make $100,000 a year, and look like Brad Pitt from 20 years ago, I wouldn’t even try to compete in that marketplace. You can’t – or you can, but here’s a sobering statistic: 87% of men in the United States are below six feet tall. When women set their filters to six feet on dating apps, 87% of guys will never even have their profiles seen.
The Old Days vs. Now
Back in my day, you could date a really pretty girl locally because she dated from who was around. There was no social media, no cell phones – just who you knew and who your friends’ friends were. Social circles were huge back then.
Nowadays, that same girl might have 5,700 DMs from guys in Saudi Arabia on Instagram. Anything having to do with dating apps is like trying to go into a casino and win at roulette – it’s almost a sucker’s game.
The Real-World Solution
Here’s how to circumvent the apps, Instagram, and Tinder and actually meet girls with a real chance to get to know them: go out into the world and meet people in person.
Go to the gym, coffee shops, local baseball games – anywhere there are people. Get out, get among people, and be social.
I remember when my buddy’s father got divorced at about age 50 and got back into dating. He found he had more opportunities to date than when he was young, and he was a good-looking young man.
Why In-Person Works
Apps are often just for passing time or stroking egos. But if you meet a girl and make eye contact across the room, or strike up a conversation when buying candy at a gas station, that’s real. She’s got her synapses firing because you’re directly in front of her.
The Abundance Reality
There are four and a half billion women on this planet. Why would you have “oneitis” – getting fixated on one girl at work or the coffee shop? There are so many other girls out there, and they’re probably starved for attention.
If you’ve been paying attention to social media recently, it’s flooded with videos of girls saying, “Men don’t approach us anymore. I don’t know where to meet men. I’m miserable because I’m not dating and nobody pays attention to me.”
A lot of guys have checked out and tried to play the app game, leaving this whole wide field of opportunity sitting right there for you. You don’t have to put in a ton of effort. Get to feeling cool, start exuding cool, and suddenly you are cool. People will look at you and think, “That guy must be cool.”
You Are Not Your Stuff
Remember: you aren’t your stuff. You’re not how you look, how much money you make, or what kind of education you have. There’s that scene in the movie “Anger Management” with Jack Nicholson where he asks someone to tell him who he is. The guy starts rattling off things like “I’m a banker,” and Nicholson says, “No, I’m not asking what you do. Tell me who you are.”
Even if you were hot, made money, and had status, but you’re not a cool dude, a girl might stick with you, but it won’t be a fulfilling relationship. You won’t feel awesome about it.
Think more about: “I’m a cool guy. There are lots of girls out there, and I’m going to find one (or a small group) that really totally dig me.”
Question #3: What If I Feel Like I’m Boring? How Do I Become a More Interesting Person to Date?
Inner game finds validation internally. If you become a more interesting person, you will naturally become more interesting to others.
The Art of Conversation
Here’s a simple approach: think of yourself as an interviewer, but don’t be “50 questions guy.” Be “introspective questions guy.”
- Ask a question
- Listen to her response
- Don’t think about what you’re going to say next – just listen
- If she says something that requires clarification, ask a follow-up question: “What does that mean?” or “How does that make you feel?”
- Listen some more
This gives you more conversation handholds and areas to grasp the discussion. Sometimes you might want to share cool things about yourself, or you can even make outlandish stuff up.
If she asks a boring question like “What do you do?” you could say something ridiculous like “I’m a cowboy, just in town for…” She’ll say “Really?” and you’ll say “No.” Then she either laughs or thinks you’re weird, and you keep going.
The idea is to build rapport and get insight into who she is. Once she starts opening up, you’re making progress.
The Jay Abraham Story
I told a story about Jay Abraham who spoke to a man in a hotel bar and just asked questions, follow-up questions, and clarified. The guy thought Abraham was an excellent conversationalist. It’s a technique, but it works.
Understanding Her Reality
Think about how a woman’s life often is – especially someone who’s graduated college and has a job. Her life is basically taking care of responsibilities and going to work, which is its own form of tedium. It can be pretty boring or unfulfilling.
If you come along and make her feel better, even in the slightest way, she’s probably going to want you to stick around and give you more opportunities to make her feel better.
You can get on a high horse and say you’re going to be your own man and do things your way, but tell me how that works out for you. If you treat a woman in a way that she finds pleasant, entertaining, and emotionally engaging, you’re going to find that’s a really pleasant place to be. The more buttons you push (in a positive way), the happier she’s going to be.
A woman who’s really happy to be in a relationship with you – I bet you’ll find that to be something really special.
Own What You’re Into
You don’t necessarily have to worry about being boring. Be into the stuff you’re into and own it. If you like Star Wars or Star Trek, most girls won’t want extensive conversations about that, but some might. The point is, if you’re into what you’re into and you own it, you don’t feel like you have to live up to someone else’s expectations.
The question becomes: How can I pursue my passions and develop myself for my own satisfaction?
It’s practical to consider the other person in a relationship, but if you’re not feeling good and secure about who you are, everything else will be clumsy, uncomfortable, and probably short-lived.
You want to build on rock, not sand. The rock is already inside you – it’s having firm confidence that you are enough, that you don’t ask others for approval, that you’re authentic, and that what you say goes because it’s well-considered and thoughtful.
Question #4: How Much Does My Income or Career Status Really Matter to Women Looking for a Serious Relationship?
Let me break this into two parts: casual relationships and serious relationships.
For Casual/Early Relationships
If you’re not necessarily looking for a serious relationship, focus on being:
- Entertaining
- Pleasant
- Presentable (to the point where if her friends see you, she can show you off)
- Lighthearted and positive
In this phase, it doesn’t matter how much money you make, what status you have, what stuff you own, or what job you have. If you’re entertaining a girl, that goes a long way.
Moving to Serious Relationships
Here’s the interesting part: if you want to develop from a fling into a full-time serious relationship, you need to be all those entertaining things, even more so. When you get into a relationship, you can deal with money problems, but if she isn’t having fun with you anymore and you’re not engaging her emotionally, it doesn’t matter how much money you make.
The Balance
For long-term relationships, you need both entertainment value AND stability. Regardless of how much fun you are, if you’re living day-to-day and barely getting by, that gets tiresome quickly.
Some guys work on making money but aren’t fun and entertaining – they might find themselves sharing that money and house with someone else.
Inner Game Focus
Inner game focuses on intrinsic qualities like character, ambition, and values over purely external markers. While acknowledging practical realities, the anxiety about your status decreases when you’re comfortable with who and where you are.
You don’t have to be rich, but you have to be comfortable with who you are. If you’re not bringing money, that doesn’t define who you are. Character, ambition, and values matter more for forming lasting bonds.
People in general are bored and want somebody to make them not bored. If you can do that, you’ll be in demand.
Beyond basic stability, character carries more weight than status in forming lasting bonds.
Join the TEPP Livestream M-F around 7:30pm Central!
Watch replays in the live stream playlist!
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