February 25, 2009

Hey, hope you guys enjoyed the video with me and Berto. Berto works for the business side of The Art of Charm and can answer your calls almost 24/7. He's a great guy who I lived with for about 4 months.

I wanted to drop our last concept and dive into a new one because my friend Eric from Boston had a great forum post on Bantering. He emailed it to me, I added a few points and he posted it on the Pickup Podcast forums. I thought it was money so I am posting it up here as well.

Here goes....

Banter






By : Eric from Boston

What Is Banter?
Banter is the basis of flirting; it contains very little “content” or valuable information. Essentially, it’s teasing in a playful way. Some call it breaking rapport; I call it, just having fun! Banter is a fantastic way to build STRONG attraction quickly. When I use banter, it sends the message that I am a person who likes to have fun and do not take things too seriously. It’s also a great way to actively display non-neediness. An important thing to remember, however, is that Banter should stop once a girl has qualified herself.

Why Banter Will Generate Attraction
Neediness is arguably the most unattractive quality in a man. Banter significantly helps reduce neediness, replacing it with humor and entertainment. It is the best way I know to verbally instigate the “cat-string theory”. Cat-string theory compares a cat chasing a string to a human chasing an interaction. If the string is dangling, the cat will be entertained for hours, but when the string falls and lies still on the ground, the cat loses interest. Similarly, a woman will probably lose interest once she knows she can “get” a guy, so he must entertain her in a way that makes her think she hasn’t “gotten” him yet. Anyway, banter also displays a lack of nervousness and inhibition. A man who can easily banter with a beautiful girl, is a man who is comfortable speaking with and teasing beautiful girls. Banter is itself a demonstration of high value.

Some examples of banter lines:
- Hey now! I’m not just some piece of meat.
- I’m high maintenance. You gotta wine and dine me!
- You’re adorable, but are you housetrained?
- You are TOO cute! Get outta here!
- OMG! You’re too much! How do they handle you?

How You Must Use Your Banter Lines—Banter Body Language
All banter must be delivered with a BIG SMILE that shows you are CLEARLY JOKING. I have seen too many guys throw out some ridiculous banter lines with a serious face. Then the girls get offended! No wonder, she took them seriously! Banter is content-less, playful “fluff” that serves one purpose: to instigate attraction! For this reason, banter lines need not be repeated. Let me reiterate that, DO NOT REPEAT BANTER LINES! Repeating meaningless, flirty lines displays low value. If she asks, “What?” just throw another banter line. Tease her that her “ears are too cute to hear you”. Everything is fun and positive and does not always have to make sense. For example, one of my favorite things to say to tall girls is, “You could probably eat peanuts off my head, huh?” It’s something I heard when I was young that stuck with me. I don’t even know what it means!

Banter Mindset
The main reason banter builds attraction easily, is because it breaks the state that most people were in and reminds them of what it was like to be a kid again. Banter is about being a little boy, just like when you were in elementary school, running around the playground and teasing the girls. This is no different! For those who’ve heard the term “getting in state,” when you are in-state, Banter comes very naturally. That’s the best place to be for building attraction. For those who are thinking, “Oh, this isn’t me. I could never do that,” please understand that is a limiting belief and it only stems from deep-rooted feelings of inferiority. You CAN do this! Like any skill, it takes practice to become good at bantering.

After You Banter, Qualify
Once the attraction is there, banter should transition into qualification. This can be as simple as, “You seem like a really fun girl to me. What puts a smile on your face?” If she’s attracted to you at this point (which she will be, if you’ve bantered successfully), she’ll qualify herself to you. Once this happens, you MUST accept her for what she’s told you. Her: “Puppies put a smile on my face,” you: “Awesome! Puppies rock,” not: “OMG, you WOULD like puppies, wouldn’t you?” If you tease her after she qualifies, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Qualification is the stepping stone from Banter to Rapport, the transition from breaking rapport to establishing rapport. I’ve made this mistake too many times, and I learned from it eventually. Learn from MY mistakes, so you don’t have to make your own mistakes!

Practice!
Practice bantering with yourself in the mirror, or with a friend. It will most likely feel awkward at first, but how do you expect to banter with a beautiful girl if you can’t do it with a close friend? With experience, it will become very natural and you’ll be bantering with everyone like it’s your job!

I asked my friend, Kevin Salas who's recently been made famous by the Pickup Podcast, for his skills in building quick, SOLID attraction. Here is what he had to add:

It's gratifying to know that I can flirt with any woman I so choose. Understanding banter allowed for that and many other things to happen. Being able to banter in the first stage of an interaction allows people to feel comfortable around you and open up to you with a lot more invested attraction. I even noticed bantering with the women in my family allowed for more fun and dynamic conversations. When my sister would come home and I'd say "Hey, how was your day?", she would ignore me. Yet, if I said "Hey remember that time you promise me you'd give me back my favorite bunny slippers?", we would get into an hour long conversation and she would be more than happy to talk about her day. This is useful for all and every interactions you have but, why is this important in attracting women?

Just understand that in demonstrating high value, Body Language and Touch are your biggest tools for generating attraction. All that is left is the verbal content. Bantering is strictly no content conversation. If you banter with a woman everything attractive will be demonstrated through your body language. Since you really are not saying anything (Bantering) your attractive body language will be read and she will be instantly attracted to you. Banter allows time to pass without you investing anything into the interaction. You are not trying to impress her or jump into rapport to quickly like they expect you to. Bantering forces you to be in the moment and creates quick wit. Unlike routines it allows you to calibrate much quicker since you can actually choose to listen to what she has to say or out-frame her. Ultimately the beginning of any interaction is intense and by bantering you break the tension through laughter.

Since communication is more than half transfered through Body Language than what you say truly does not matter. The less content the better. That's why bantering is your best bet in creating attraction out of thin air. Demonstrating High Value is just that. Demonstrating not Conversating. Trying to verbally convince someone how much of a badass you are can get some people laid. Yet, the people who are extremely good at this are able to date women not because of what they do or who they know. Instead they get what they want because of HOW they are. If you were such a badass you wouldn't have to talk about it.

This can be a 3 hour lecture yet, what most guys don't understand is this. Bantering doesn't make any sense. It's emotional. Meaning it's not logical. You can say your banter line "I'm not a piece of meat" and I can say "You're totally cute...We can go back and forth with our banter lines and thats how a banter conversation would sound like.

Does that make sense?...Nope it makes dollars

My Favorite Banter Lines are:
"Oh my god you girls are so totally cute"
"Get out of here, don't look at me like that, I know what you're thinking"
"Stop, stop being so cute, why don't you frown or something"

February 23, 2009

Berto and I just wanted to go over a few things floating in our heads. Approaching seems to be the number one issue on guys minds. We can teach you all the techniques possible but if you keep talking yourself out of it than you won't get far. Today's lesson is to...Put your negatives in the past. I can't approach becomes... I could not approach in the past....make sense? Holler

I fill really happy after this last program and it's because everything was flawless. My coaching, my game, in-class, in-field...it was almost to good to be true. This is what we like to call unconscious competence. Briefly the stages of learning are...

Unconscious Incompetence (You don't know you suck)
Conscious Incompetence (You are aware that you suck)
Conscious Competence (You are aware that you are now good)
Unconscious Competence (You are good without noticing it a.k.a. Being Natural)

There's at least a two hour lecture to go behind these points but a quick definition will help me get to the point of this blog post. Right now I'm doing what I do and I'm doing it well. Today is my lazy Sunday and besides relaxing I'm going to figure out what I can work on. No matter how good last week went I have to look at some negative points. Then I have to write them out and pick one new thing that I'm going to get obsessed with.

The only thing that stands out right now is on the teaching side and socializing side of my life. Both are similar in that I have to hold court in both situations. I have to work on projecting my voice a lot louder allowing it to resonate and make eye contact or address everyone in the group with my hands. These are all things that I am already good at yet I know it can be a whole lot better.

Since it took a while to get my lectures and stories really well polished now I can focus more on the body language that is going to be the most natural and engaging. Ultimately by the end of the day this may not be the thing I work solely on. I'm going over my weekly notes now and I'll see what tickles my fancy the most and take that on. 'Till next time...I'll Holler atchya :)