Hey. James from Social Coach here.
In this video, I'm going to share with you
how a Prussian philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche,
how he beat approach anxiety.
Before you go, "I don't need somebody,
philosopher teaching me this stuff,"
this is by far and away the greatest piece of life advice,
self-help I've heard this year.
But first, I want to tell you about a story about
how something happened to me
and I realised how it applies so profoundly to dating.
I was doing a residential
with some of my favourite clients
on quite a famous Southeast Asian party island
and I decided to take the guys for a walk to see a sunset.
And I see the two hottest girls I've seen this year.
Maybe in many years,
and they're sitting together.
Unfortunately, it was just an impossible approach at that time.
Anyway, I walked on, kept looking, not much luck.
Then about 10 minutes later, I was back that way.
I walked past and one of the girls had gone,
probably to go to the bar,
and there's this one girl sitting on her own.
It was a suicide approach. Just to give you an idea.
She was on one of those sort of beach lounger bean bags.
Right beside her was another
beach lounger bean bag that was free,
and then there was a little nine-inch gap,
and then there was two other people.
There was at least five rows,
possibly six back,
and there were families,
couples in their 30s and 40s,
not a place you want to be seen and get rejected.
But what the hell?
So, I walked up to her and as I got closer,
I realised, A, how young she was,
B, how impossible this approach was.
I sat down to her on the bean bag beside her
and I was literally an inch from touching shoulders with her
and there are people right there.
I just sort of said hi
and then asked her how her week was going.
Eventually, I got something about diving.
Then I dug into that
and I got a bit about her travels.
She's been to Zanzibar and, yeah,
it was going really well.
Five-minute mark, it's going great and then it's, like,
she sort of checks herself,
and it's, "Oh, listen, my sister is going to be back any minute,
so she really needs her seat."
I'm, like, "No problem. As soon as she gets back,
I'll give it straight back to her.
So, tell me more about Zanzibar."
Another minute it's going good and then, again,
she says something and I go,
"No problem, blah, blah, blah," back to an authentic question.
Then another minute or two later,
third time, she stops, pauses, looks around
and quite harshly, just says,
"Listen, I'm only 18 years old.
I think you're a bit too old for me,"
so that 30 people around me can hear it.
How did I handle that moment?
I didn't let her sort of reject me in a harsh way.
I went, "Okay, no problem.
It was great to meet you
and best of luck with your travels and diving,"
and left her with a whole bunch of good energy,
as I've probably taught you in another video.
So, I walk off from the most humiliating rejection
I've had in at least five years,
maybe a decade,
and I felt great.
The reason I felt great was at least I had a go.
I didn't spend the next two weeks wondering
whether I could've got the hottest girl I've seen this year.
As I'm walking away, I paused to reflect
on this philosophical nugget.
Marcus Aurelius, in his awesome, awesome book,
it's a war journal called Meditations,
talks a lot about this concept,
and Friedrich Nietzsche, he talks a lot about it
in some of his writings.
It's called amor fati,
I think, amor fati, and strictly translated from the Latin,
it's love your fate.
The best summary of this concept that I've come across is this,
that one wants nothing to be different,
not merely to bear your fate,
but to love it.
The most profound thing about amor fati to me is that
just accepting that you can't affect everything that happens to you.
You can't affect very much of it,
but you can affect your reaction to it.
Once you get to a certain age,
for me it was probably mid-30s,
you realise,
and this is a concept from Nietzsche,
that the most awful stuff that happens to you
is the stuff that makes you the man you are today.
Just so many human beings,
myself especially,
spend so much of our life force, our time and energy,
just worrying, complaining,
fretting over bad things that happen to us,
even though, in many cases,
we have no control over this happening.
Things like how other people treat us,
the economy, our boss, the stock market, the weather,
complaining about the weather all the time.
It's just a huge waste of human energy.
What Nietzsche and Marcus Aurelius is saying is
just learn to love everything that happens
and focus on what you can,
the thoughts in your mind.
Now, how does this concept apply to dating
and particularly you getting over your approach anxiety
and getting out there?
If you take a view that every time you get rejected,
you're going to learn something, which you do ...
I definitely do every time I get rejected,
almost certainly I've made some sort of mistake.
So, rather than rejection,
"Oh, this girl doesn't like me.
She was mean to me. This hurts.
I don't want to do it again,"
it's like, "Okay, I go try something, it fails
but I learned something really special out of the experience."
Now, this concept assumes you have at least
basic skills at approaching,
touch, eye contact and body language,
asking open-ended questions,
good listening,
connecting with a girl,
at least some social intelligence,
because I don't want guys running around
doing these crazy pick-up artist approaches,
making girls feel uncomfortable, taking this mindset.
But as you're walking over to the girls
and approaching them smoothly
and comfortably and building good conversations,
trying to get to know them before you hit on them,
then I think this is an incredible mindset for you to adopt.
When I approach and get rejected, it's not painful.
I learned something.
It's a huge growth opportunity for me.
Anyway, I'm thinking of this philosophical concept as
I'm walking away from this humiliating rejection in five years,
if not a decade,
and I say how can I apply Nietzsche to this situation
and then it hit me.
Because I'm on a residential, on a party island,
I hadn't shaved for like two, maybe three weeks.
I'm 45 now. If I didn't shave, I get a lot of grey hair,
a lot of grey hair,
which is mixed in with red and black
and it gets pretty shaggy.
This sort of thing wasn't attractive to young girls.
So, this girl, despite rejecting me, gave me a really,
really valuable lesson.
I am almost certain that the remaining approaches
I did on that island with my clients were helped
by trimming my beard down a bit.
So, even though I did something almost suicidal
and got rejected,
I'm ever so grateful to that
smoking hot girl for doing this to me.
So, I hope you enjoyed learning this concept
as much as I did.
It's not just dating. It can change your whole life.
Stop worrying about shit you can't control
and learn to love what the universe or God
or your faith delivers you.
You can't control it.
Just get on with the stuff you can control.
Please like and subscribe.
I'll keep making these videos for you
Just a quick thanks to Tim Ferriss and his podcast
for putting me on to this philosophical gem.
I'll see you in the next video.
Ciao.
