Human beings evolved to live and compete in small tribal groups, where everyone knew everyone else and higher-order social interactions were limited by Dunbar's number. Our deep instincts and behavioral patterns reflect this evolutionary history.

As a consequence, we're not particularly sophisticated creatures. Women had an evolutionary advantage in conforming to the direction of the strongest individual around, to the point of genuinely changing their inner state to better please him. Men could either take a leader role or a follower role - for most, the latter solution was the safest path, and as a consequence we all have instincts and mechanisms that make us follow whoever appears to be a strong leader.

What we call social magnetism is a reflection of mostly subconsciously communicated signals that some individuals send and everyone else perceives, signals indicating the fitness of this individual to be a leader that we'd want to follow. We imitate what he does and do as he says out of sheer instinct far more than conscious calculation.

Have you ever been in the situation where a social group is entered by an individual whose energy, charisma and personality seem irresistible? everyone turns to him, everyone laughs at his jokes, everyone seems to try to please him, sometimes even despite themselves. They may dislike the guy for one reason or another, he may represent a type of person they'd normally hate to be associated with, but they can't resist him nonetheless.

This is not a mysterious situation, but a consequence of those evolutionary adaptations towards recognizing and following strong leadership that we discussed. Nowadays the advantage of these adaptations is, at most, social; back in our caveman days, it meant the difference between having strong leadership in a conflict with a nearby tribe and surviving, or not having it and being wiped out. That's why these instincts are so deeply ingrained, overpowering even our rationality.

Women are in "follower mode" nearly 24/7. It's extremely rare for a woman to default to "leader mode"; it usually happens because of a pronounced lack of external leadership, or peculiar circumstances that pushed her in that direction. Even for these women, the solidity of their leader frame is never particularly high, and will break when clashing with the leader frame of a competent male. This not because women are bad or inferior, but because this is how our species evolved.

Most men default to follower mode. This is the normal evolutionary path for human males, as attempting to take a leadership position requires an extra investment and carries an extra risk: in most instances, it's safer to be a good follower than risk being the leader.

As a practical consequence of this theoretical discussion, you can change the way 99% of your social and sexual interactions go by internalizing this principle: women and beta males conform to the frame set by the local alpha. The reason why any woman fucks you is that, consciously or not, you've pulled her into the frame where you're higher SMV than her. The reason why men do as you say is that, consciously or not, you've pulled them into the frame where you know best and are capable of leading them securely.

For the vast majority of people this happens subconsciously. The reason we find passion to be enthralling, for example, is that people speaking passionately about what they know or believe in do it with a self-belief in their voice and demeanor that automatically pulls us into their frame; we become followers in that interaction, by instinct, and that pleases our hindbrains (those of women that much more). Even hopeless nerds will find that people somehow seem to listen to and respect them when they talk about topics they understand with conviction.

The practical advice is to then recognize and apply this principle consciously instead of subconsciously. You can learn to speak with self-belief about any topic (politicians and marketers, hardly distinguishable categories nowadays, do it professionally even). There are countless guides that go into the minutiae of tone, speech patterns and body language; what I advise you to focus on is your inner state, concentrating on maintaining whichever frame you've set and watching as, one by one, people in your social group conform to it. Trust me, it's almost magical the way this happens: people seem to inexplicably change their minds in the face of someone who seems entirely convinced that reality is whatever he thinks it is.