Space & Trust in a Relationship

This is a follow-up post to lisaq’s post on 20-forty answering the question, “is it okay to go out with the girls or should couples always go out together?” You should read her post.

When I read this post, it brought me back to so many moments when that issue came up in my previous relationships. Whenever my girl would want to go out without me, there were so many different things that went on in my mind.

“Why does she want to go out somewhere without me? “

“What’s wrong with me that makes her not want me there?”

“I wonder what’s she is going to be doing since I’m not around. Actually, I wonder what her friends will make/let her do with me not there.”

Then the usual sequence of ideas goes from that to wondering what drunk idiots will do when they see my girl with her friends, without her man. And then what she would do. Needless to say, it would cause a lot of problems in my relationships. What I would confuse for showing how much I care and don’t want anything bad to happen to her was actually showing a lack of trust in her, her friends and most importantly, insecurities about myself.

Never again.

I think it’s important that we talk more about relationships, as it is very important not only to gain one but also to maintain a very healthy one. This is one issue that proves to be a deal-breaker. If you haven’t read my post about fulfilling a woman’s emotional needs, I highly suggest you give it a good read. By far, one of my best.

In any relationship, it is important to establish two important things – trust and space. Yeah, trust is a given but it’s so easy to give off the feeling that you don’t trust her inadvertently. That whole “not trusting the drunk guys out there” thing is a lame excuse (just like Lisa said). If you really trust her, you’ll also trust the fact that she’ll know how to handle those drunk men. And what if she gets drunk herself? If you have to worry about her actions being different when she’s drunk, then that is something that you will have to confront her with, but ONLY if you have seen or heard that she does things while drunk that can be questionable.

On the same note, I feel as though trust can be related to space. Most people have different test levels of trust. Sure, we can trust someone we like with some personal secrets, or with some of our personal belongings, and of course, our love, but then when it comes to being separated – even if for just a few hours – it becomes a different test of trust. If you feel good about your relationship and actually trust her, I think it’s good for both of you to have other things to do in each other’s lives that don’t involve the other person. A typical example is a girls’ night or a guys’ night. But other examples may have to do with hobbies that only you enjoy.

Remember in high school when you had your girl but you played a sport and had to dedicate a crapload of time practicing and playing your sport (for me, it was football)? Your girl wasn’t around that much – unless she went to see you play at a game, but still, she couldn’t talk to you until after the game was over. With practice everyday, you she rarely had a chance to see you. But, whenever she did have that chance to be with you, you could tell she really appreciated the time with you – and vice-versa. I strongly believe that you need to find something like that and continue to hold on to a good chunk of your world as you two slowly merge them together.

When I talk about building your life, making yourself interesting and doing things that YOU love to do, once you get into a relationship, that doesn’t mean that you have to give up any of those things. Logically speaking, if you did give up those things, you wouldn’t be interesting and you certainly wouldn’t be the attractive person that your girl fell head over heels with – which is not what you want to do, right? Plus, you won't feel obligated to have to do everything with your girl if you have other activities going on in your life (I don't see anything wrong with that, just as long as it doesn't interfere with your relationship.).

So if there is anything you take from this it should be a few things.

1. Read lisaq’s blog, 20-forty.

2. Allow your girl to have nights out with her friends and without you. If she doesn’t invite you, chances are it’s a girls’ thing and be ok with it. Give her the benefit that she has nothing up her sleeve. Don’t give yourself reason to doubt if she hasn’t done that for you, already.

3. In the meantime, go and have your poker nights or your beer and wings nights with your boys.

4. Make sure that you are still having a life and doing things that you love. Remember, your whole point of wanting to be with a woman may be to actually share those things about yourself with her. Not doing those things and changing your life would be counter-productive.

I’m sure we could get deeper into this but I’ll save this for another post.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Not Your Typical Valentine’s Day Post (Part 2)

This is another story about Valentine’s Day that makes me remember how much fun I used to have in high school and just being a guy who was so happy to have someone that I cared about. Please check out Part 1 as I talk about Valentine’s Day and my perception of the holiday.

So for Valentine’s Day, I had another awesome and elaborate plan. This was going to definitely take the cake, compared to what I did the year before. Here is basically what I did.

I had the unbelievable fortune to be able to pretty much do whatever I wanted in high school. I could have almost come and go as I pleased and I almost always had my way. Wanting to take full advantage of that, I decided to let everyone in my class know how much I loved this girl. So I bought 8 carnations and hid them in my guidance counselor’s office. Every period, I would leave my class, claiming to go to the bathroom, make a pit stop at the counselor’s office, grab a carnation and head straight to my girlfriend’s class. Now I had a pretty crap memory and couldn’t remember where her classes were, and so I give thanks to the other guidance counselors who helped me out and gave me her class schedule.

Walking to her class, I had no idea what I was going to do. I mean this could have either worked out big time, or completely crashed and burned. And who was to say that the teacher would have allowed me to go in there and interrupt the class just to hand out a flower?

Well, I just popped into the class – I don’t even remember knocking - looked for her, walked over and handed her the flower. Feeling pretty good about how I was doing, I pushed it a little more and gave her a kiss on the cheek, whispering, “I love you,” in her ear. If you could hear the “awws,” it was ridiculous. The teacher just couldn’t help but smile and say, “that was the most adorable thing I have ever seen.”

So I knew I was in the clear. I proceeded to do that every period. There was one class that we were in together and so I just beat her there and placed the flower on her desk. I mean, you couldn’t find a happier person than her and I was happy because of that. Even at lunch, I remember guys just heckling me about what I was doing. Come to find out they were just mad that they didn’t think of it first. And yes, I did look for her during her lunch break to give her a flower and a kiss.

At the end of the day, I figured I had to have some type of conclusion to this demonstration so after giving her the last flower in her class; I went back to the counselor’s office and gathered the rest of her gifts. It included chocolate and little teddy bears. I proceeded to go her locker and stuff the chocolate bars in between her books (it looked just like little books - it was genius!) and tie the bears to one of the hooks so that it’ll fall out of her locker when she opened it.

I decided not to be in the vicinity when this went down and I remember being at my locker getting ready to leave for practice when I heard a scream. I couldn’t help but to smirk. Then as I walk over to her, I remember her running toward me and jumping into my arms. Man, I did good.

Not a bad way to go out, senior year in high school. I don’t think I could have topped that even if I tried, but it was all fun for me. Seeing the look on her face and knowing that she was happy made it all worthwhile.

If that’s what you are looking to do for Valentine’s Day, don’t bother. Why don’t you do it now or prepare for something big tomorrow? Well, tomorrow is a special day within itself but still. Why wait? It’s not like you’re going to love her more on that day, more so than any other day. Forget Valentine’s Day and if you really wanted to spoil her with something nice, you’d have done it already. Don’t feel forced to have to do anything over the top on that day. If there's anything you do guys, just give something that is creative and from the heart. Be sincere. This is not Christmas when you may be able to get away with a token gift. And ladies, although it would be nice, let’s not pressure your man into doing something if that is just not him. A. He’s already feeling the pressure. B. If he comes up short, it's going to be a letdown.

I already find it interesting that we are coming across the time when most breakups occur during the year.

I have one more story that I want to share which took place in college which I thought was silly but I liked it so I’ll talk share it anyway.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Not Your Typical Valentine's Day Post (Part 1)

I am going to confess something here on Project Infinity. I used to LOVE Valentine’s Day. I would get so excited about the things I could do to surprise my significant other and make her happy that my guy friends would find it nearly disgusting. Of course I didn’t care. When it came to making my girl happy, I would have no fear of taking chances and I would have no doubt that she’d be happy. There was just one problem. A problem many guys think about when it comes to getting something for their girl. I had very little money.

But being creative was always my thing and so even if I had tons of money, it wouldn’t have made a difference – at least to me. These days, I do have indifference with V-Day because I don’t believe that there needs to be a set day to celebrate your love or infatuation for another. There are 364 other days you can do that. Guys typically get so caught up and pressured into having to do something big on these days and some women have been spoiled and others have these expecations for what their guys are going to do and at times, it can become a letdown and often lead to arguments, sadness, bitterness, jealously (of others) and rethinking of the person that they love, just because he didn’t come through BIG TIME on this one day. The idea of that just sounds ridiculous. And you know, with all the horror stories I hear about V-Day, it's just better to say that some people love it others don't. It's just like the idea of New Year's Eve and the New Year's Kiss. Some people love it because they have someone to kiss. Others hate it. To me, it's just a moment in time. Would be nice, but doesn't HAVE to happen and it doesn't affect my emotion either way

V-Day in perspective does not compare Christmas, your birthday, your wedding day, the day of the birth of your child and other significant days. It just doesn’t. If your man can find various ways to tell you how much they love you and appreciate you throughout the year, why does V-Day HAVE to be different? Ok, the rant is over.

Having said that, I thought it would be cool to share a few stories of what I have done on or around V-Day that I thought were fun, special, creative and most importantly, meaningful.* These things didn't have to be done around this holiday but being younger, I admittedly was caught up in the hype. Here’s the first one.

*Let me preface by saying that these gifts were given in high school and some in college – you probably couldn’t replicate these considering the circumstances but I hope these stories can give you some ideas.

10th grade was the year I found someone that I cared about immensely for the first time. It was one of those relationships where we were good friends for a few years and then things began become more intimate and romantic. It was awesome. This was also my first REAL relationship. I was in a relationship before but I didn’t really consider it one. We were “together” for about 6 months and I probably saw her a handful of times. Her mom hated guys and if I got a chance to see her, it was some ridiculous scenario and lasted only 5 minutes. Clearly, I was not happy about that and “ended things.” (What was I really ending, anyway?) Blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, at my high school English class, every student was required to perform what is called a declamation. Performing a declamation required us to find some type of speech or monologue, memorize it and perform it in front of the class. It was supposed to teach public speaking and getting over certain fears when speaking in front of crowds. What can create more pressure than speaking in front of people that know you and are quick to make fun of you if you mess up?

Well our teacher gave us a cool opportunity. She allowed us to create our own declamation. I instantly thought this was better than memorizing some other literary non-sense so I jumped on it, not having any clue as to what to write about.

And then it hit me. What a way to surprise my girl than with something very cool, memorable and from the heart? So I decided to write a “since you've been gone” letter from me to my ex talking about my new girlfriend, my new love and how much she made me happy. Now on paper it sounds ridiculous and I’m not going to post what I wrote just because I know the person who I wrote this wouldn’t want that. But I will say this. It was one of the best things I have ever written. But there’s more to this.

So I bought a bouquet of roses and during homeroom, snuck it from my homeroom to the class where I was going to do the declamation. Completely interrupting homeroom, I hid it behind my teacher’s desk and my plan was to bring it out during my declamation, give it to her and continue. So awesome! My English teacher saw what I was doing and she thought it was going to be amazingly sweet. You could hear the collective “aww” from down the hall; it was absurd. So somehow I was able to keep this secret from her for a little over 3 hours. I found that to be incredible since about 60 people had already knew what was going down and people had to have told other people. But anyway, the time came and I had to do it.

For some reason, although my hands were sweaty, but I still felt pretty confident. It was by doing that speech where I found the importance of not only the ease of memorizing what you write yourself, but also the importance of how passionate you are with what you write. It’s part of the reason why I think President-elect Obama is an amazing speaker. There is a lot of confidence and passion there and it shows in his presentation. It's powerful. But I digress.

I remember making the speech and it felt like I was looking at her the entire time. I was so anxious to get to the point when I would so smoothly walk to behind the teacher’s desk and pull out the flowers. And when it happened, it was amazing. That moment when I gave her the flowers must have felt like it lasted for years – and it was an unbelieveable feeling. At that point, nothing else was going on. Not my speech, not my class, nothing. No one was around. It was just me and her. And I could tell that she felt that too. The rest of the speech didn’t matter to me. I did what I really wanted to do. But at that point, I was peaking confidence and I just finished the speech with ease. Needless to say, I got a near standing ovation for that one - and an A.

That became the talk of the school for many weeks. The girls loved me and the guys clearly hated on me. It didn’t matter. It was something that I knew she would never, ever forget.

I didn’t do this on V-Day but it was around the holiday and this served as the perfect way to give her something cool to show her how much she meant to me.

This was a fun story I wanted to share with everyone here. I hope you enjoyed it. I have one or two more stories to share that I think you’d love as well. I’ll share another one on Monday. In the meantime, instead of thinking of ways to “win” her on V-Day, try figuring out a way to “win” her NOW.

If you’d like help with that, shoot me an email or find me on Twitter.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

How to Look Sharp For Less

Clients always ask me how much to spend on clothes, and I tell them the same thing. You don't have to spend a million bucks to look like a million bucks.

I love to give examples of the little things you can do to sharpen your wardrobe, but then I came across this article from Jae from Kinowear. He always knows how to explain these things so well.

Read this to better understand how great outfits can be made without breaking the bank.

A lot of guys think they need a lot of money to own a wardrobe that turns heads, but you’d be surprised to find that a lot of stylish guys out there don’t spend that much.

By shopping smart you could look just as good, if not better, than the guy wearing expensive labels from head to toe.

Don’t get me wrong, most of the time you get what you pay for — but the common person can’t tell whether you’re wearing a $300 cashmere sweater or a $90 one. As long as you know how to pick out a $90 one that could pass for $300.

Unless you hang around people who really know fashion, it’s unnecessary to spend this much except for your own pleasure.

In this article, I want to talk about how you can look designer, at the fraction of the costs.

Think in Outfits

If you want to create killer outfits than you have to be a smart shopper, and a smart shopper will always think in outfits. Before you buy something, you should always ask yourself, “What can I wear with this?”

Our natural inclination is to judge a piece by itself. Too many times I’ll find a client’s closet full of busy pieces — so much that any possible outfit combination would look a mess.

If you come across a solid colored shirt, imagine how it would balance well with your patterned blazer or your leather jacket with all the pockets and zippers. Or if you find a dress shirt with patterns on it, the next piece you would need is something that would compliment it instead of clash with it, like a simple jacket.

Here’s a look from lookbook.nu of a guy wearing a blazer and shirt from H&M, a cardigan from Tiger of Sweden, “drkshdw” coated jeans from rick owens, and a vintage leather skinny tie. Everything is fairly cheap from these places except for the jeans - which you could probably find on sale online. Regardless, it’s clear that it doesn’t take a lot of money to put together an outfit like this.

Don’t judge a single garment by how much it costs, but more on how it will look in combination with other pieces.

Which girl is more attractive to you?

Quality Wins Every Time

Both of these women could have very well spent the same amount of money on their respective outfits. Except the one on the right looks like she does better for herself than the other.

I think both of these women are attractive in their own way, and I like both of their styles. But both of these looks can be achieved without spending a lot of money. Especially the girl on the left. So if nobody can tell, why spend?

When it comes to attractiveness, no matter who you are, the majority of our modern society will judge you on money, status, and how well-dressed and groomed you are. The better you fair in these areas, the more influence you have. This doesn’t mean you have to dress up like a wealthy businessman to be highly attractive. You may like wearing skinny jeans and a t-shirt, or a sweater with slacks — whatever you wear, the key is that the pieces should look high quality.

The good news is that they don’t have to cost you a lot of money. The trick is to find inexpensive pieces that look just as good as the expensive pieces.

Here’s how:

1. Find the best fit you can, and then get the details tailored

I’ve said this about a hundred times and I’m sure I’ll say it a hundred times more: FIT IS KING.

By now, you should know that nothing will more “money” than a great fit. Keep this in mind when shopping, first and foremost. Rarely will you find anything that fits perfectly off the rack, so buy the best fit that you can find, and then get it tailored. It’s smarter to get a cheaper piece tailored to fit you perfectly than get a fancy piece that’s mediocre in fit.

2. Try a dark pair of raw jeans

Avoid the distressed jeans and go for a solid pair like raw denim. Crazy back pocket graphics are now out of style — so keep it simple.

So why darker jeans? Generally darker jeans look more classy and higher quality than most light-colored jeans - especially ones with no wash like raw denim. Most of the time, jeans that are machine washed and given that faded look come out cheesy and looking cheap. When in doubt, go for a solid pair of jeans.

I’m not saying you should go buy the cheapest pair of dark jeans out there. Jeans are something that guys wear almost everyday, so you should definitely invest in a quality pair for great comfort and fit. But hunt around and you could find a pair that look just as good as a designer pair for less.

3. Check the details, such as the buttons

The quality of all your clothing is spoken through the details. Hard plastic is the most common material for buttons nowadays, and natural materials such as bone, ivory, or shell are used in premium apparel.

When buying a shirt or a jacket, check if the buttons looks cheap. Do they look thin and brittle? Sometimes buttons will be poorly sewn on and look like they’re going to fall off at any moment.

For button down shirts, try too look for strong buttons that look have a shine to them like mother of pearl or that resemble the natural materials. A simple detail to make a shirt look more “designer.”

4. Examine the stitching

The stitching is another detail that reveals signs of quality. The stitching should be uniform and even throughout the garment. If stitches have been dropped, then the quality of work done is very poor. You should definitely not see threads hanging out where the seams are - it should be clean and unnoticeable.

5. Choose your fabric with care

A lot of clothing makers will copy the popular trends of the runway. For example, in a high-end designer store you may see a lot of patent leather clothing. You’ll see patent leather jackets, patent leather shoes, etc. Even if you bought these type of shoes for way less at a cheaper store, the common person won’t be able to perceive the difference.

So before you buy a shirt or a pair of jeans, ask yourself, “If I saw this on someone else, would I think it was cheap or expensive?”

Some people buy very expensive pieces but they look horrible - nobody would know they spent a lot of money on it. Others look great, and it seems like everything they have on is high quality; but the truth is they didn’t spend a lot of money at all.

6. Infuse some color into your outfits

Few things make you look more confident than picking clothes with color. Either go for bold colors such as red and purple, or subtle colors such as pastel blue or icy pink.

Pink is a color that is flattering on all skin types, yet so many men avoid it. Everyone is wearing black, gray, white, and blue — so why not stand out with that pink shirt underneath your blazer with confidence?

Another thing you should do is to find out what colors are best for your skin type. Many guys walk around wearing all the wrong colors for them, and they don’t know how much of a difference it would make in their appearance if they wore the right ones.

There are colors that generally work for light, medium, and dark-skinned people, but I highly recommend getting a color analysis done to find what your best colors are according to your specific hair color, eye color, and skin tone.

7. Add the right accessories

The right accents to your outfit will really take it to a higher level. For example, you could buy a fairly inexpensive french cuff shirt and add a snazzy pair of cuff links, and the shirt will look a lot more expensive than it is.

Or add a skinny tie and a knit scarf to any outfit and it’ll give it more class.

8. Patterns make things more interesting

Most designer shirts have small patterns on them. The guys who usually purchase these type of shirts are either gay, or really confident. If you wear a shirt like this, you’ll get a lot of compliments. Even if it’s not an expensive shirt people it’ll look a lot more stylish than a solid shirt.

9. Your outfit is only as good as your weakest link

The quality of your outfit is affected by the piece that looks the worst. Notice I didn’t say “cheapest” but “looks the worst.” You could be wearing a great pair of shoes, jeans, and shirt, but then wear a cap that cheapens the entire outfit.

10. Spend on the most important pieces, save on the rest

You should at least have one really nice part of your outfit that is the main attraction of your outfit. For example it may have been those really nice shoes you splurged on for your birthday, or that designer pair of jeans that your girlfriend bought you.

Or you may have found a jacket that you couldn’t pass on - so you decided to buy that while saving money on everything else. Just make sure that if you’re going to splurge on a pricey and really nice piece that it covers a big part of your body, and it’s not an accessory that nobody will notice. For example, splurge on a jacket or a pair of pants first before you splurge on a watch!

Conclusion

In conclusion, remember that to be your most attractive self you don’t have to look “wealthy,” but what you wear should look quality. When shopping, don’t just go for the most expensive individual pieces, but think in outfits and think about how a cheaper item may be mixed with other items to create a quality outfit combination.

If you like these article, you should sign up for Wingman Labs below
and get even more exclusive content that will improve your social skills.

Virginity = $3.5 Million

Yeah, you thought what I talked about was insane. Oh, you don't remember? It was actually one of the first articles that I ever wrote on Project Infinity. You know, the one about Natalie Dylan, offering her virginity up for auction? You can see the article here to refresh your memory. But if you thought this story was just going to go away, you are sorrowly mistaken. Check this out.

Bids have been made in excess of $3.5 million. $3.5 million! There have been over ten thousand bids made for this 22-year old brunette. I still don't think she's even that hot.

But I also find it ridiculous that in this economy, there are men willing to shell out even half of that amount of a night of virgin sex, when you can take $3.5 million and buy a house, a boat, throw a huge and ridiculous party, invite hot girls over who you can seduce however they want and still have pocket change.

Blows my mind sometimes what people are into and the lengths they'll go.

But yeah. $3.5 million.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

What Is Hooking Up?

This is a post from 20/40. It's a site that offers relationship and dating advice. This post is from Lisa, who explains that not everyone has the same idea of what "hooking up" really is. I found the CBS interview very interesting because it does help some guys understand more about why relationship work like they do in high school, college and post-grad. A very fun read. You can see the article here, but I'm posting it here as well because I think it's worth it.

My roommate and a guy friend of ours were all hanging out one night, eating dinner when the topic switched to “hooking up.” Beth*, my roommate, was talking about hooking up with a guy that we all know. Tyler looked surprised and wondered why he hadn’t heard about this yet. I laughed and told Tyler that I didn’t think our definition of “hooking up” was the same as Beth’s. Indeed it wasn’t. Beth considered hooking up to essentially be synonymous with making out.

Tyler and I still laugh at what we both considered to be naivety on Beth’s part. However, I just recently stumbled across and news clip, because you know I love the news clips, about hooking up. Apparently Beth was just as on target as Tyler and I thought we were. People are now referring to hooking up as anything from simply kissing to having sex to everything in between.

Turns out, the term “hooking up” in reference to everything from kissing to sex is a relatively new concept. People hook up in high school and through college rather than concentrating on traditional dating and finding a lifelong mate. Because people are waiting longer to get married nowadays, they stay in the hooking up phase until after college, when they finally settle into traditional dating and mate seeking.

I suppose it makes sense. Hooking up, to whatever extent, allows people to get their fill of fun and doesn’t require the commitment of a relationship. However, I will probably always think of hooking up in terms of having casual sex.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Are You Ready for 2009?

It’s only been a few days in 2009 and already things have changed in my life that I need to be (already) prepared for. I unofficially have time off from the hotel (they say it’s a week-by-week basis so I am going to take that as, “we don’t know when you’ll be back”). This is a blessing for me because I have less hours in my week now (thanks to having one less job), I can focus on Project Infinity, and I can simulate what a work week could be like doing Project Infinity full-time (as this is one of my goals for 2009). I'll have to figure out the money situation as it comes, but that's for another article.

To start the New Year off right, I’d like to give you some really cool goals to accomplish in 2009.

One of the goals for Project Infinity is to be more open to you guys so from now on, I would like to get more contributions to add to my site and my articles. If you have anything you’d like to add to my articles or my site, I would love you guys to email me and I’ll add it and give you link love (of course). It’ll evolve as we go along but it’ll definitely induce more conversation as we all try to achieve a better life for ourselves.

1. New Year, New You. Last night, I was involved in a Podcast with some other “men of style” and we talked about tons of topics about how to improve your style sense. I would certainly give it a listen.

But in general, if there is something you’d like to change about yourself, considering 2009 the year you make an upgrade – a newer version of you. So if you can keep that mentality, the other goals will seem to make sense.

2. Get a New Look. Want to be a stand-out in 2009? Well, you are going to need a new look. Check out my style section for some guidelines on how to look good on the outside. For your hair and face, I write a good article about changing the style of your hair and how to improve your facial features (without the need of plastic surgery, of course).

3. Forget the Past. For some of you, you couldn’t be happier that 2008 is over. Some of you had a terrible year. Forget about it. It’s in the past. Look forward to what’s going on now and will happen in the future. Convince yourself that 2009 will be different and much better than 2008. Whatever issues you have that are lingering from 2008, bring closure to them and move on. This is a new year. Worrying about the past is just an excuse as to why you can’t face the present. Don’t make that excuse.

4. Slow Down. Whatever you do, slow down. Whether it’s your speech, your movements, your life – slow everything down. I always like to compare to those movies or TV shows you would watch and the scenes where everything is in slow motion. Not only does slowing things down keep you in control of what’s going on in your life, it just looks cool. Find someone, whether in your life or on TV that is the epitome of being cool, calm and collected, able to handle any situation presented to him or her in a clear and efficient way. Notice what they do and how they handle different scenarios. Then try to mimic those things in your everyday life. I promise you that you will see the results once you get the hang of it. I can also promise you that when you slow things down, you’ll be able to see things that you wouldn’t normally see.

5. Take the Initiative. This could mean many things. Be a leader. Make the first move. Be the one to take the risk. Those are some of the things that come to mind when I hear “initiative.” This year, start DOING things. Don’t wait on other people to say it’s ok to do something. Just do it. Whatever you want in life, you have to go out and get it. Never be afraid to want something and being vocal about it. Take action. No matter what it is.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “wait, Thomas, these goals seems kind of vague. Especially after you ranted about resolutions the other night.” And you have a point. These goals are vague. But you have to understand that I can’t set goals for you. Each and every one of these goals can be applied to any aspect in your life. When it comes to dating, these goals are exceptional. In the professional world, you can definitely make an impact pursuing some of these goals. In your everyday life, these goals are remarkable.

At the end of the day, decide what change you want to make and go for it. Have a plan, stick to it, have someone to hold you accountable, work hard and persevere.

2009 is going to a great year for those who want it. You gotta want it. I know I want it. Do you?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Quick Year In Review

Well, as most of you may know, I have to work at the hotel tonight. It’s the first time that I may not actually be able to go out on New Year’s Eve and it does piss me off, considering the fact that we’ve had crap occupancy and although tonight will not be any different, they are still making everyone work. I could say a lot of things about that but I’ll save it for another time.

Anyway, I usually go to my friends’ house parties downtown, but lately, there have been less and less of them. Don’t know why, really. It might be because of the money it may cost to throw them or maybe the clean up afterwards, but the number of options has diminished over the past several years.

I would recommend going to a bar (and I still do, just because I’m sure it’s an amazing experience) but bars like to jack up the price of drinks and charge a cover. I don’t plan on shelling out $50 bucks to get into a place I always go to without having a sip to drink. In fact, the only time I went to bar, was several years ago and I was underage. What a night that was! If you want to know what happened, you can email me and I’ll share the story with you. If I remember correctly, it was during my sophomore year in college.

But I will say that if there is any time to be sociable and meet people (and maybe meet women), New Year’s Eve is that time. If you don’t have parties to go to, go out to a bar, there will be so many people out that no one has time to care if you are going out alone. Everyone looks like they are with someone anyway. Plus, everyone is focused on bringing in the new year! Go out, join them and celebrate!

Anyway, this year has been amazing for me. I can’t really talk much about Project Infinity because it’s only been around for 4 months – and that’s been amazing within itself – but I did accomplish many things this year. I graduated from college, finally found my current purpose and my identity in this world, and have met some amazing people in my pursuit to meet as many people as possible and was able to start a project that turned into something much more. I’d like to think that I accomplished a good amount.

So what’s in store for 2009? Many, many things. I have tons of goals that I have set for Project Infinity and myself. 2009 will be an amazing year. I plan on taking over the world!

Well, not exactly, but I do plan on making a difference and affecting the lives of as many people as I can. Because that’s what it’s really about, right? Making a difference and changing the world around you, in some way, right?

Oh, yeah. That and having fun doing every bit of it, too.

Happy New Year and have an amazing 2009!

How to Actually Keep Your Resolution

Every time it gets closer and closer to January 1, we have this compelling desire to create a list of New Year resolutions. We have all of these things that we’d like to change and we swear that we are going to change them. And in most cases we do – for about a few weeks. Then it’s downhill from there. Next thing you know, January 1 is approaching again and you’re making the same resolution – and it becomes a cycle of just setting yourself up for failure.

Let it be known that there is sincere desire to make these changes for ourselves. It’s just so hard. I’ll admit, when I used to make resolutions, I would try so hard to keep them and a few months later, I would just forget about it. Sometimes, we try hard to get right into making a change that we go into it without a plan or at least some course of action that will get you the results you want for a long time.

A lot of you guys come to me because you aren’t looking just to meet and attract women. You all are looking for a long-term relationship. Some of you are looking for a girlfriend. Some of you are looking for a wife. Clearly you understand that with achieving that, you are going to need a course of action. Resolutions take the same principle. You are going to need a plan and set some short-term goals to make your resolution a piece of cake.

Later on in the week, I will give you several resolutions that will change your 2009 for the better. But for now, here’s how you plan these resolutions.

Be specific. Don’t be vague with the goal you are trying to set. In order to be able to view this goal being accomplished, you have to view it as specifically as possible. Here’s an extreme example. Let’s say your resolution is to start going to the gym. Yeah, that’s great but that could mean you could go tomorrow once and that’s it – I know most of you wouldn’t actually do that, but still. You have to push it as far as you can. Let your goal be, “I’m going to go to the gym 4 times a week and have a specific workout routine for each day. While I’m there, I’m going to lose fat, gain muscle and be in the best shape of my life. I’ll be lifting weights some of the time and doing cardio in the form of running or playing basketball. I will look like the effing man!” Yes, maybe a bit extreme but definitely possible to visualize and when you can visualize yourself accomplishing something, you are already halfway there to making it happen.

Set a form of accountability. Have a friend hold you accountable for your resolution. Make sure he or she is a hard ass about it too. Having another person encourage you or join you in the resolution will ease the pressure and make it easier to keeping your resolution. You are never alone.

Set short-term goals. The easiest way to follow-through with your resolutions is to set smaller milestones in order to ease the path to accomplishing your goal. With a design background, I’ll use this example. Clients rely on setting these milestones to make sure that they are getting what they ordered on time and exactly how they wanted it. You need to rely on these milestones too. So with the gym thing, set some smaller goals for yourself. Maybe you want to increase your bench press weight every so often, decrease your body fat, lose a couple of pounds, whatever. Setting shorter goals will eventually lead you to keeping your resolution.

Reward yourself. When doing a design project, if you complete a milestone, you get paid a portion of the total. Simple enough. Reward yourself when you accomplish those smaller goals toward your resolution. Just make sure that the reward doesn’t counter your progress. So if you are trying to lose 20 pounds and you lost 5 so far, don’t reward yourself by going to an Old Country Buffet and cleaning house. Do something more fun. Maybe buy yourself a video game or a cool toy (Best Buy), or if you are a woman, buy yourself a nice dress or treat yourself to a day at the spa. If you keep doing this, let the rewards get better and serve as a motivator as you get closer to keeping your resolution.

Who knows, maybe for actually following through with your resolution, you’ll treat yourself to a Caribbean vacation cruise! You can thank me by bringing me with you.

What are some other ways that can help keep your resolution? What do you do?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Learning About the Alpha Woman

So a while back, I made a post about learning about the alpha male. There were so many good examples that I used there. Well, recently, I came across this site called AlphaWomen. It's a site helping women improve their relationships, dating lives and other aspects of their lives. I’ve been snooping around for a while and I have to say that there is a bevy of information here that I think is so important. You have so many different women on here talking about anything and everything that it would be hard to not find an aspect or topic uncovered.

I recently saw a video about two women; Freda (owner of AlphaWomen) and Katherine talk about dating, relationships and views on life. I thought it would be pretty interesting to give my personal take on what they talked about and how you can use what they are saying here to be better with attracting and understanding women.

You can see the videos here. It’s broken into four parts. If you can read and listen at the same time, then by all means, go for it. But I think it would be better if you listened to each video, then read what I talk about after.

There were many different things that should be talked about that I think could ease your pain and frustration and give you hope in meeting wonderful women.

There seems to be this thing that women who are in their 20s and 30s are all about dating multiple men and are so career-driven that they forcefully cannot commit themselves to a relationship. This is far from the truth. Women are looking for a relationship almost all of the time. I cannot and will not include college because there are too many stimuli that affect what goes on in the female mind. Shit, that statement goes for men as well.

Just like women, you too should just go with your gut. Stop over thinking everything and just act. Trust your instincts. As a human race, that was all we had and now we take that for granted. Don’t forget that your instinct will never fail you. Instinct is what has brought us to where we are today.

Now both of them bring up a good point. It may seem as though their pride is too high for them to approach guys. And maybe it is too high but notice the difference. Freda is not afraid to be alone and Katherine seems to have some issues. I personally think that everyone should have some desire to pursue his or her match. I don’t think sitting and waiting for someone to find you is the best way so when I hear quotes like, “if they want me, they’ll figure out a way to get to me,” it almost tells me that you’re being a little lazy in your pursuit. Actually, it tells me that you’re not really doing anything. I couldn’t imagine the world if everyone did that. But, if that’s her way of doing things then it’s cool. As a very attractive-looking woman, I can’t see her having problems with men approaching her.

But then again she mentions that men were different 50-plus years ago. And yes she is right but women were also different 50 years ago. We all were and we are constantly changing and it’s hard to keep up because there are so many things out there that dictate how we should be. But despite all that, there are men (although few) out there who believe in “old-school” romance. It’s possible to find them.

Katherine seems like such a sweetheart. I can tell she has such an amazing heart and is just wants to give it to the right person. It’s just a shame she hasn’t found him yet. And yes, I agree, it is ok to love. Nowadays, it’s become one of the riskier things we do in life but we are more likely to take that risk and reap the rewards more blindly than going all-in on a stock you know nothing about. Money is important, yes, but we treasure love much more and it’s so deep in our subconscious that we don’t even realize.

Now Freda brings up another good point that all men should listen to. The reason why she can’t get excited about being in a relationship is because guys are just not interesting enough – in other words, there aren’t guys out there that can stimulate her mind. Her mind, gentlemen. Do you see why I stress the importance of establishing a connection with them? You need to engage them just as much as they need to engage you. If you can have her leave every conversation feeling better or stronger than she was before she talked to you, you become something much more valuable to her and she’ll want to keep you around.

I cannot stress this enough. Don’t make women have to dumb themselves down so they think that they can talk to you. Wouldn’t you find that insulting if you knew that’s what women did? Have some pride in how awesome you are and let her know she doesn’t have to dumb herself down for you! I can understand why Freda can be so frustrated with relationships and now has this pseudo-wall up, protecting herself from lower quality guys. It seems like she hasn’t been pushed, or challenged, or “tested” enough by a guy that really cares about her becoming a better person while being with him.

Maybe, I interpreted it wrong, but regardless, it’s important to the health of any long-lasting relationship that you stimulate her mind. Physical attraction will always be there at the beginning but it certainly won’t last. When that dissipates, you better hope there is something else there that is much stronger and deeper.

You want to know what else makes you attractive, guys? Knowing what you want. Which is why I make guys determine their goals from the get-go. If you don’t know what you want, how is any woman going to feel safe or comfortable with you? Knowing what you want leaves a sense of security around your life and people notice it immediately.

Freda then asks Katherine why should she be the one chasing and convincing a guy why he should be with you. Well, I think the answer is the same reason why we chase and convince you why you should be with us. It works both ways and I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to “chase” a guy. We just talked about knowing what we want. When a guy “chases” a woman he is seen as inferior and weak. When a woman “chases” a man, she thinks she is seen as inferior and weak. There lies the difference. Any good man would understand the significance of a woman going after a man and if he sees her as a potential fit then great. If not, so be it. There is a big gap in the amount of approaches men and women do. But the gap between success is small and that’s because for the amount of approaches guys do and the fewer that women do, the amount of success will be pretty much equal. The success rate for women is much higher because they have a limited amount of approaches. But I’m just speaking my opinion based on observation.

In the end, knowing what you want is important. You may have high expectations or set high standards and be seen as some picky asshole. Just understand that you’ve seen that from the women you meet pretty much your entire life. Those women you thought were “bitches” to you because they were always vocal about what they wanted were just being picky and didn’t see you as a potential fit and that is perfectly acceptable. So, if it’s acceptable for them to have standards and be vocal about it, why can’t it be the same for guys?

Do what you want and be passionate about it! If you want it bad enough, you will achieve whatever goal you set. Have the courage to be vocal about what you want. And most importantly, never settle.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.