This is a long post, so bear with me, but it's one of the most important mindset shifts you can have in your game, and it will pay dividends. So here goes:

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When I started learning game, almost every weekend I and my college buddies would chug a Four Loko (cheap liquid courage) and go out to the nightclubs. My game was very much lacking in structure and discipline, so I would have some good nights and some bad nights, largely depending on my mood. And I suffered some pretty humiliating rejections. Two in particular stick out in my mind.

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One night at a club in my hometown, I was in a high energy state, opening a lot of girls, and generally having a good night (by my standards at the time). At one point I approached a pair of girls, delivered my question opener, and then--without either of them saying a word--one of the girls pushed me away. Actually, physically pushed me. I was so pissed off at this girl for disrespecting me that it ruined my state for the rest of the night, and put a bitter end on what started out as a good night.

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Another time, I was out at the club, and started talking to a couple of not particularly attractive girls. Not to pick them up, but just to get in a social mood (which is generally a good idea, by the way). They seemed happy to talk to me. After a few minutes, I disengaged and started talking to other girls whom I actually wanted. Nothing stuck, and I ended up trying to talk to the two less attractive girls again. After a minute, I ran out of things to say and sat there awkwardly, trying to think of something. Then one girl whispered something in the other girl's ear, and then both girls got up and ran (literally RAN) away from me to the other side of the club. I felt so terrible, I immediately left the club to go sit in my car and mope.

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Here's another, tangentially related story:

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I had a good friend who was terrible with women. He was tall, decent looking, and funny. And he knew some game. But he never actually approached women, so he never was able to use it and gain the necessary reference experience to fully understand it. Consequently, he hadn't had sex in years, and he was depressed. One day I offered to help coach him, for free, since he was my good friend. I wasn't exactly Casanova, but I was having a lot more success with women than he was. He responded, sounding a little offended, "No, I've got it handled myself." The poor guy hadn't gotten laid in years. He obviously didn't have it "handled" himself.

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Have you figured out the common theme in these three stories?

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The one thing that will kill your game at every level is PRIDE! I had so much pride that I couldn't take the rejections and so ruined my nights out. My friend had so much pride that he couldn't take advantage of an opportunity to improve his life. Think about it for a moment. Maybe some of these scenarios sound familiar:

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  • You're afraid to talk to a woman, because you're afraid to be rejected, which would hurt your PRIDE.
  • Or you're afraid to talk to a woman, because other people might watch you doing it and think you look like a weirdo, which would hurt your PRIDE.
  • Or after your open, you stall for a minute because you can't think of what to say, and you say "Ok, bye!" and run away because you can't bear to risk hurting your PRIDE.
  • Or you get a nasty rejection, and you stay butthurt for the rest of the night and ruin all the other opportunities that come along, because you can't handle a stranger insulting your PRIDE.
  • Or you want to try out a bold, ballsy profile or routine on Tinder that you think might work, but you won't let yourself, because it might be too offensive and fail and hurt your PRIDE.
  • Or you want to learn game, but by trying to learn you are implicitly admitting that your current game skills are inadequate, which is an affront to your PRIDE.

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Do you get the picture?? Pride will kill your game at every level. A lot of people confuse pride with confidence, but they are not the same thing at all. In fact, a lot of people are timid because they have too much pride. They can't express themselves freely, because they're so afraid of other people thinking they're stupid or weird or "creepy" (the bane of every PUA's existence), which would hurt their pride. They intuitively recognize the truth of the ancient wisdom that "pride comes before a fall"...and they are deathly afraid of the fall.

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RSD Tyler likes to do this great exercise when he's speaking to a group of guys, where he takes a timid-looking guy from the audience, brings him up on stage, and makes him shout some silly word or phrase as loud as he can. Usually the guy comes up, looking mortified, and half-assedly semi-yells whatever Tyler told him to, totally embarrasses himself, and then Tyler helps him to express himself more freely.

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This timidity--what the RSD guys call being "stifled"--is a direct result of pride. These guys are SO AFRAID of doing something that looks stupid or creepy, that their bodies are locked down so that they are physically incapable of freely expressing themselves. Which, needless to say, is unattractive to women. For a lot of guys, pride is a self-imposed prison.

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I like to talk about the timidity associated with pride, because that's where I'm coming from myself. But I've noticed that some guys get hamstrung by their pride in a different way. These are the guys who are loud and boastful. They hog all conversations to themselves, telling everyone else how great they are.

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This sort of behavior will also kill your game, albeit perhaps not as immediately as timidity. Talking about yourself bores other people. Nobody else really cares about your life that much, especially someone that you just met. Even if you have the best job and the best house and the best car and the best body, nobody really wants to hear about it, because it's not relevant to them. And if you constantly talk about it, it just gives the impression that you're desperately trying to gain other people's approval because you lack confidence. So you come across as both annoying and unattractive.

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Whichever of the types you tend toward, by now you probably recognize a few ways that pride is hurting your game. It's a flaw of human nature that all of us have to deal with. So what do you do about it?

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The first step is to RECOGNIZE when you are doing something, or failing to do something, due to pride.

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Do you know you want to do something, but you don't do it because there's something holding you back? Be honest with yourself. Ask what it is that's holding you back. Is there a real, physical consequence that will befall you if you do this thing you want to do? If not, it must be something inside your mind. Often--you guessed it--pride.

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Say you see a girl you want to talk to, but feel compelled to walk away instead. Why? Where does that inner force come from? Take a step back and observe your own feelings and motivations. Are you afraid of rejection? Are you afraid of doing something socially improper? Are you afraid of onlookers judging you? These are all manifestations of pride, and you should recognize that. Or maybe it's a more practical consideration, such as if the girl is walking with an intimidating-looking guy, and you don't want to get your ass kicked. Whatever it is, be honest with yourself.

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Do this in all areas of life, not just game. Pride holds you back everywhere. Maybe you're afraid to go to the gym because you're fat, and you're afraid of people judging you. Your pride is keeping you fat. Maybe you're afraid to try a new career path because your pride can't handle the possibility of failure. Your pride is keeping you poor and/or unfulfilled in your career. Maybe you stopped talking to your father because he insulted you a long time ago. Your pride is ruining your relationships with your family.

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Recognize when your pride is holding you back. Maybe you still don't talk to the girl. Maybe you still don't go to the gym. Maybe you still don't call your Dad. Just the fact that you recognize that pride is controlling your behavior is a huge step in the right direction.

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The second step, then, is that once you've recognized that you're behaving in a certain way due to pride, to ask yourself what you would do in this situation if pride was not driving your actions.

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Would you talk to the girl? Would you go to the gym? Would you try the new career? Be honest. Maybe you would, or maybe you wouldn't. Maybe there's a good reason you wouldn't do these things. Answer the question: what would I do if I didn't care at all about my self-image?

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The third step is to assess how your life would be different if you didn't act on pride.

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Maybe if you were willing to talk to the girl, you would be on a nice date tonight and having amazing sex next week. Or maybe you wouldn't pick up the girl, but you'd gain a bit of valuable reference experience. Again, try to be honest with yourself. What if you went to the gym, unafraid of people judging you? Two months from now you would be stronger, healthier, better looking, and 15 pounds lighter.

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This is basically the "benefit" part of a cost/benefit analysis like they do in business. You tally up all the benefits and all the costs likely to occur due to a particular decision you are considering. In this case, the cost is always the same: your sense of pride.

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The fourth step is to determine, given the costs and benefits, whether the action would make your life better or worse.

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Are the benefits of approaching women enough to endure the risk of rejection, and thus hurting your sense of pride? Chances are, the answer is yes. If you consider it objectively, you will probably come to the conclusion that your pride isn't really doing you any good at all, and is in fact only holding you back. So you begin to realize that the "cost" of hurting your pride really isn't much of a cost at all, and you should give it very little importance.

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The fifth and final step is to take whatever action you've judged to be the most beneficial.

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This is the hardest step, of course, because it means actually sacking up and taking action...which is probably uncomfortable. But, if you were really honest with yourself and went through steps one through four, it should now be considerably easier to take action.

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That said, EVEN IF you do not take action, but you do honestly recognize your limitations and go through the thought processes in steps one through four, you have still made enormous progress. Keep doing it, and you will see your game--and every area of your life--improve dramatically.

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I believe this mindset will help you enormously. If you have stories about how your pride has held you back, or how overcoming your pride has improved your life, I'd love to hear them! Please share in the comments.