Hey dudes,

I've been reviewing Blueprint Decoded (fantastic "inner game" videos by RSD) up to session 5 so far, and here's my summary/review of the rest of it, all the way to the end in one fell swoop.

There's a ton of awesome shit in there that isn't covered below, but I don't want to be writing this forever, lol, so I'm just focusing on what IMHO is the heart of it, the pure gold.

Situational vs. core confidence

Have you ever noticed how you're way more confident in some contexts than in others? Maybe at work, or talking about some topic you know a lot about. This is what Tyler calls "situational confidence," and analyzing it illuminates how confidence works in general.

Let's imagine a guy who theoretically should have zero success with women – a short, fat, ugly, balding guy, with a shitty car, who works as a manager at Denny's. A guy who feels intimidated by trendy nightclubs full of hot women and high-value guys with nicer cars and jobs. A guy like that would never get laid, right?

Well, wrong – a guy like that often is still able to hook up with the waitresses working for him. And the reason is, in the context of that Denny's, this troll we've created is still the boss: he doesn't care what other people think; other people are reacting to him and not vice versa; he's in the moment rather than in his head; people laugh at his jokes; and so on. All of these characteristics make him The Man at that Denny's, even if he's a total loser (on paper) everywhere else. In short, he has massive situational confidence.

But here's the thing – let's take that Denny's manager out to a trendy nightclub, and see how uncomfortable he is. Meanwhile, in walks a dude who is even worse on paper – shorter, fatter, uglier, with a shittier job, and a shittier car. But it looks like he feels totally comfortable. He's cracking jokes, he's talking to people, and clearly having a great time. What's his secret?

Maybe he secretly owns a ton of Facebook stock. Or maybe he's got a gigantic dick. Or maybe he just won the lottery. Who knows.

Or maybe – maybe he's just a guy, a random guy who likes himself. Crazy thought, huh?

We can call this "core confidence" – confidence that doesn't depend on your circumstances.

How do you get it? Let's first talk about a concept called "state."

Social value and state

A funny thing about confidence is that even the chumpiest chump of us all has a rough, intuitive sense of how a cool, confident, high-value guy acts. It's not that we don't know what to do – it's that our brain doesn't always allow us to act that way.

Why? Because our brains are continually checking out social cues that say how much value we have, and only letting us act like someone with that amount of value. If people are treating you like a chump, your brain says, "You're supposed to act like a chump." If people are treating you like you're awesome, your brain says, "It's OK, act like you're awesome!" This is called "state."

We can speculate that this may have served a useful evolutionary function long ago, in societies where the alpha male might bash your head in with a rock if you start macking on the high-value females. Don't act like you're the man unless everyone is already treating you like it, your biology says, as a way to keep you out of trouble.

But today, that pretty much never happens. Yes, if you hit on a football player's girlfriend right in front of him, he might beat your ass, but beyond that, there is no tribal AMOG in the nightclub who is going to bash your head with a rock just for hitting on that HB9. It's a evolutionary drive that no longer serves its original purpose.

And like many biological drives, it can be retrained. We naturally like fatty food, for example, but if you educate yourself about diet and nutrition, and are disciplined, you can learn to limit your fat intake.

So how do you overcome this primal state-cramping mechanism, this psychological self-cockblocking?

First, and most importantly, you have to commit yourself to not obsessing about it. If you notice you're not in state, you should accept it, and still go out anyway. Focusing on the fact that you're not in state will only make it worse. (See also the Mark Manson article linked below.)

And in fact, you can sometimes actually bootstrap yourself into state, by basically telling your brain, "Look, I know you don't want to give me access to our 'cool alpha male' behaviors, but I'm just going to go out anyway and try to fake it. So if you don't give me access, we're both going to look like fools, aren't we?" By analogy, imagine you're in a plane, and your friend doesn't want to give you the pilot's manual, but you just start the plane down the runway anyway. "How about now? You gonna give it to me now?" you say. The plane takes off. "We're both screwed now if you don't give me that manual." So you friend gives up and hands you the manual. In short, if you go out and act confident, you might start feeling confident.

But going deeper...

Self-value and state

There are actually two things that affect your perception of your own value and hence access to state – in addition to social cues, there's your own internal rules and standards. Things that often appear in people's rules for when they value themselves include: clothes, grooming, looks, money, relationships, skills, and social roles. You might have a rule that says, "When I get my unibrow waxed off, my value goes up, and I allow myself to feel good about myself." Another guy might have a rule that says, "When I start making six figures, I'll have enough value to feel good about myself."

You should pay attention to what criteria you personally judge yourself by. Short term, you can use this information (and probably already do) to get into state: dress sharp before you go out, for example, if that makes you feel good about yourself. That kind of thing may not work well long term, though (see Mark Manson's "State is Overrated", though I'm not sure he and RSD mean it in the same exact way).

So longer term, you want to hack whatever complicated ruleset you have, and replace it with the following simple rule:

"I allow myself to feel good about myself whenever."

You see yourself as having value, always, period. You value your own opinion of yourself more than other people's. You believe that you, your energy, and your perspectives are offering real value to other people, and if they don't recognize it, it's their loss, not yours.

You can test how well you've internalized this attitude by doing the opposite of whatever normally gets you into state. If dressing nice really makes you feel good about yourself, try going out in mediocre clothes, determined to feel good and have fun anyway. If you depend on a wingman to prop your state up, try going out solo. If having a bunch of pickup lines (or pickup theory) fresh in your mind makes you feel ready to go out, try not thinking about it and see what happens.

Going out and offering value

If you do these things – have a core belief in your own value, don't monitor your state, avoid chasing superficial conditions that get you into state, and act confident even when you don't feel confident – you probably don't need to crack another pickup book again if you don't want to.

But here's the funny thing – once the above really sinks in, you might find your drive to go out lessening. After all, if you have value all by yourself, and you don't need a girl to validate you, why go out? Why not be lazy? Don't say "sex," because it's not hard to get a halfway decent girlfriend, plus there's plenty of porn on the internet. Much easier than hitting the clubs, no?

Two reasons:

One, you might not really internalize this new mindset unless you are trying it out regularly. An intellectual epiphany at your computer screen only goes so deep. So you have go out regularly, exercising your social and self-confidence muscles, so to speak, or you'll fall back into your old chumpy patterns.

Two, an amazing thing happens when you no longer are seeking value from other people – you can now offer value. You can be the cool guy that girls go out hoping they will meet. When you approach, you can be implicitly thinking, "Let's see if this girl is cool. Maybe I can add some fun and excitement to her night."

Key to this attitude is understanding that women like to be seduced by attractive people, and they even – gasp – enjoy having sex with them. Amazing! By going out, having fun, being yourself, and sexing the ladies, you're adding fun and excitement to their lives, not getting away with something underhanded.

What to expect

If you do this, you might not have amazing success right off the bat, because probably you still have many layers of social conditioning to peel off, and don't completely believe in yourself yet.

And total, rock-solid belief in yourself, to the point where you can approach supermodels without anxiety, will take a long time. But for now, you can aim for the midpoint between total belief and total chumpiness: indifference. If you can just learn to not care what people think of you, and have a great night out even if you get blown out of every set, you're halfway there.

TL;DR – Believe in yourself, have fun, go out and meet real live female women