Dan & Jennifer have a good article up on their blog about 5 techniques you can use to banish people from your life who keep you down and spread negativity like a cancer.  Check it out…

Negative “energy vampires” are not living a life full of happiness and success, yet they will happily drag you down to their level unless you escape their clutches before it is too late!

Use these 5 basic guidelines as an outline that will help to safeguard you from negativity, and will also help you to identify negative people so that you can remove yourself from their sphere of influence.

Once you have internalized not practicing the following unsuccessful habits, you will suddenly start noticing people in your life who consistently practice them on an almost daily basis.

1. No Gossiping

It doesn’t matter how justified you think you are in talking about other people’s perceived shortcomings, doing so will never serve to bring about positive results.

When people do things that you don’t agree with or that you don’t understand, all that demonstrates is that they do not see life in the same way that you see it. It doesn’t it make them a bad person, it just means that their understanding of any given situation is different than yours.

Granted, in many circumstances it may seem painfully obvious that someone could have handled a situation in a more positive manner. However, even if that is the case, rehashing the details with other people will only perpetuate the negativity.

In addition, many people thrive on discourse and chaos, so by participating in negative discussions about others, all you are doing is indirectly giving people permission to continue adding fuel to that fire. When you are seen as a “negative fuel source,” you will invariably find that people will continue stopping by to get a fill-up!

2. No Whining or Complaining

Let me ask you this: Does whining or complaining about any given situation actually do anyone any good whatsoever?

I’m not talking about constructive criticism, learning from our mistakes, or recognizing pitfalls so that we can avoid them in the future. No, I’m talking about when a situation is already clearly less than desirable, yet you continue to talk about how undesirable it is!

When the office thermostat is broken and it is cold as a deep-freeze in your building, will anything be gained by continuing to repeat the obvious? If your spouse or significant other is being (in your opinion) unreasonable, are you going to gain anything by constantly spouting off about how upset you are about the situation?

Complaining accomplishes absolutely nothing other than drawing attention to an already less than favorable set of circumstances. If something is worth complaining about, then it is also worth taking action on. Stop whining, and start taking action, because if you don’t, all of the whiners and complainers will crowd around you in order to get their negativity fix.

3. No Co-Dependency

All of us have friends, family members, or co-workers who bring real-world negative issues to us, and ask for our input. Sometimes they are looking for advice, while other times they just want to “vent”.

In either case, however, pumping up their already negative point of view by agreeing how terrible any given situation is will only serve to cement in their minds how terrible that situation is! In addition, you will be sending them the clear signal that you are willing to be a sounding board for their complaints in the future.

Rather than rallying the forces of negativity in order to combat someone’s issues, instead just provide for them a calming, reassuring voice of reason when their lives are in turmoil. Don’t turn your back on them, but don’t fuel their point of view that they are the “victim” either.

Instead, listen with a compassionate ear while keeping your own feelings in check. You will do them much more of a service by helping them to find a positive spin on their situation rather than becoming a participant in their negativity.

4. No Cross Contamination

It is impossible to swim in a river full of muddy water, yet still be able to get out of that river without a speck of dirt on you. The only way to avoid that dirt – or that negativity – is to refuse to take a dip into that river in the first place.

From an emotional standpoint, it is not possible for you to participate in negativity, and then go back into your positive bubble without dragging some of that negativity in with you.

Most people would say that it is not possible for them to completely avoid negativity, and I would tend to agree. However, just because you are physically present in a situation does not mean that you need to actually participate on an emotional level.

You can be involved in a discussion or in the resolution of a negative situation without allowing your own emotional set point to drop down to a less-than positive level. When life throws negativity at you, stay in the game, but practice equanimity in order to handle the situation without allowing the negative vibrations to affect you on an individual level.

5. No Being “Holier than Thou”

After finding all of these great ways to recognize and avoid negativity, it becomes very easy to think that you are somehow “different” than everyone else. You start to feel “enlightened” and you recognize how a large number of the people in your life are on planes, trains, and automobiles that are all headed in the wrong direction.

Here’s a clue: get a grip on yourself! You are no better, nor any worse than any of those people. Those people are neither better, nor any worse than you.

The only difference between the “enlightened” you and the people who practice negativity is that you see things from a different point of view than they do. It is not appropriate for you to try to force your way of thinking onto those people, and in most cases it is also quite impossible.

By running around life with an attitude that you are somehow better than other people, all you will do is serve to alienate most of the people around you. Then, before you know it, other “holier than thou” individuals will start to flock to your side. Then all you will have accomplished is serving to divide your circle of influence into people who live on the “right” or the “wrong” side of the tracks – from your point of view.

Conclusion: By following guidelines similar to the methods that you just read, and by  practicing the fine art of being positive, you will begin to enjoy your life and consciously create it to be whatever it is that you want it to be.

That’s the prize.

However, be advised that these success habits are just that – habits. Only practicing them when it is convenient for you to do so will only bring about positive results in small doses. Consistency is key.

Also, be prepared to burn some bridges in the process. Right now in your life there are probably people who will fade away completely when they realize that you will not be participating in their drama anymore.

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top!

These are some good tips to keep you feeling positive and focused on positivity.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that being positive is an incredibly attractive trait in any person, and you can’t go wrong with filling your life with good, positive habits!

Don Kanonji writes:

Constant Rejection Making You Hate Women?

I’m pretty sure this happens/happened to everyone: Guy founds the community, goes out and tries some approaches only to be rejected dozens of times in a row.Guy becomes the mysoginist of the century and thinks all girls are a bunch of useless cunts who only care about rich and famous dudes.

For me and after a few years of a fucked up life I’m trying desperately to learn how to love myself and when some random girl just looks at me like I’m some kind of freak she basically reminds me of how much I need to change everything about myself.

How the f*** I’m supposed to like me the way I am, if I need to change EVERYTHING about me ?!

Well, I’m currently trying the best I can to get rid of this disease but sometimes I wonder if I need game or professional help.

What kind of things you say to yourself in these kind of situations?

I refuse to give up, but sometimes i feel like my head is about to explode

I feel your pain, Don.  This is probably the most common thing that pops up when going out and trying to pick up girls.  I know that when I first started pick-up, I had a LOT of issues to deal with in this regard.  I mean, its easy to become resentful of women when you want them so badly, yet you feel they all will reject you.  I think that’s just human nature, to despise that which we can’t have, and therefore make it seem like we don’t want it.

But let’s face it, we all want to be loved.  We want to feel like we’re a person of value to someone else.  And if you’re dealing with inner game issues, and are insecure about who you are, those rejections you collect when you go out to practice pick-up is… well, counterproductive!

Here’s the real problem though, and its solution…

The real problem is that if you get upset by rejection, you are STILL allowing other people to define your self worth.  What I mean by this is, you feel insecure about how attractive you are, how worthy you are, etc./whatever – and you’re seeking validation of your self-worth from other people (in this case, girls you find attractive).  So when they reject you, everything bad you think about yourself gets validated!  (I’m ugly, I’m stupid, I’m a loser, etc., etc.)

This can be devastating, especially to a guy who’s trying to start learning these pick-up tactics.

The key here, is to learn to love yourself FIRST.  Be secure with who you are FIRST.  Be the source of your own validation BEFORE you start trying to meet girls.  When you have this measure of self-love, guess what?  Rejection doesn’t sting anymore.  Learning to love yourself for who and what you are is the single, most important first step to true confidence, and will help you in all aspects of life – but it will especially help you with women!  That’s why I’ve created courses like Pure Personality and other things, to teach guys how to be confident with themselves and display that confidence to others.

So if you’re dealing with bitter feelings towards women because of rejection, take a deep breath, and let that anger go.  It’s not really anger for them, its anger you’re directing towards yourself, and its unhealthy.  You need to start doing things that boost you up.  If you need to do daily affirmations, do that.  If you need to work out and let off aggression, do that.  Learn to stop focusing on the negative about yourself, and focus on the positive.  Make a list of what you like about yourself, and every time you start to beat yourself up, shift your focus to those positive aspects.  Watch a funny movie.  Do WHATEVER it takes to change your mood to something positive, and learn to be comfortable feeling good about yourself.

Once you embrace this, you’ll find you can get rejected a billion times and not be hurt by it.  But you know what?  You WON’T get rejected a billion times, because women will be attracted to your positivity – I don’t care what you look like.  People will WANT to be around you if you have a good attitude.

And when that happens, it will be so easy for you to stay positive and happy.  I guarantee it.

Triple S writes:

So I was wondering if there are places where you don’t feel comfortable sarging at? For me, it’s the subway. If you’ve never been to Montreal, our subway is old, noisy and underground. During rush hours, it’s jam-packed and everyone is squeezed in. I take it everyday to go to and come back from work. I know a bit about public transportation game from what I read here, but yet, I never feel like doing an approach. Is it because of AA? Maybe a little, but more than that, it’s just that I don’t feel the environement is adequate. I mean first of all, most of the people have headphones on. I’d guess about 95 % of people take the subway with music, in the other 5 %, 3 % are talking to someone, 1.5 % are reading a book or a paper and the other 0.5 % have nothing.

I tried an approach once and got shut down pretty quickly but that’s not what discouraged me. I sometimes wish I could, and it could definately be something that I could work on, but I just feel like it wouldn’t be a place where people like to be approached. I guess if you meet someone on the platform, that’s another story, but on the actual subway itself? I just don’t feel it, even though I wish I did because there are tons of pretty girls.

How about you? Any places like that where you just don’t feel right?

Well, to be fair, there are TONS of places you can try and pick up chicks at that will make you feel uncomfortable.  Heck, pretty much ANY place can make you feel uncomfortable if the circumstances for chatting up a girl are wrong.  But pick up is always about pushing yourself outside your “comfort zone” and going after what you want, even if you are uncomfortable doing it.

I can understand how trying to pick up a girl on a crowded subway would intimidate anyone.  But you need to tailor your pick-up to the situation.  A high-energy style pick-up on a crowded subway car probably isn’t the right method, especially considering girls on the subway are probably very wary of “wierdos.”

But whether its a subway car, a bus stop, a movie theater, a funeral, or any number of other strange venues, there is ALWAYS a way to pick up a girl.  You just have to know what is.  I happen to think that the more awkward or uncomfortable the venue, the better it is to try the indirect approach to meeting a girl rather than anything too direct.

Fellow Pirates,

Have you ever noticed how when you’re not trying to pick up girls, they seem to be more interested in you? And when you deliberately try, it’s like they scatter away. There’s been many ways to explain this, (inner game issues, outcome attachment, a sixth sense that girls have, etc) I have been thinking about this for a few days, letting it brew since I got the original idea. I think there’s a scientific basis for it. Let me try and set this up for you so it makes sense.

I just finished reading a book by Daniel Pink called Drive, which is essentially a book on motivation. I don’t intend to summarize the whole book in one paragraph but I will give you a brief introduction. Pink introduces the idea of Motivation 2.0 which is the rewards/punishment model of behavioral psychology (he calls it carrots and sticks) and he makes the case that it is an outdated model that no longer works in our current business climate.

He then talks about a new kind of motivation, dubbed 3.0, which centers on the research of Edward Deci and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) Essentially this new model of motivation is based on 3 core needs all humans have in order to enjoy what they do. They are: Autonomy (to have the freedom to set your own schedule and choose your own projects), Mastery (to get better at something) and Purpose (to have your work mean something)

What researchers have found through experiments is that Motivation 2.0 works really well for tasks that are algorithmic in nature. So if a job is comprised of a series of steps that are clearly laid out, then carrots and sticks work really well, that is the larger the reward, the better the performance. However, this model falls really short when tasks are creative in nature, require conceptual thinking and are not clearly laid out. In fact it falls really flat. Time and time again, researchers found that the large reward cripples people’s ability to do even simpler tasks like solving a puzzle.

In fact there are several well-documented averse effects that rewards/punishments introduce when dealing with creative tasks: (I’m only listing the ones that are relevant to the discussion here as we’ll see in a bit)
1) First rewards/punishments really crush creativity and ingenuity.
2) Second, they can extinguish intrinsic motivation, so the activity becomes more work and less fun.
3) It narrows down thinking and encourages cheating, shortcuts and unethical behavior (like a salesperson lying to you so he can make his quota)
4) It fosters short-term thinking

So how is this relevant to our discussion?

When we look at the idea of attracting women, do you think that it’s an algorithmic (i.e. step by step) type of task or a more creative type of task? Regardless of what PUA’s tell you, I would argue that it’s more of a creative task requiring ingenuity, wit, creativity, etc. There is no system that is clearly laid out, step by step that will guarantee results.

Now, assuming this, when you go out with the sole purpose of approaching women or picking up women, what type of motivation do you have in mind? Again, I would argue that you’re operating more out of a reward/punishment mindset where the reward is sex (or maybe a relationship) and the punishment is loneliness.

Given this, it’s no wonder that your tongue gets tied and you’re stuck trying to think of what to say next. Your brain has a clear destination in sight and is asking for the algorithm (the formula) of how to get there!! All your creativity is gone and if you try to do this all the time, as many PUA’s say you should practice relentlessly, then it slowly starts to feel like work and it’s no longer fun. And the most dangerous part is that you’re now thinking short-term and you tend to disregard longer term consequences. You want to get laid and you’ll do it at any cost, thus behavior such as trying to get the girl drunk or trying to force her (unethical behavior) definitely comes to mind!! If you’re a good guy, you’ll just leave frustrated.

This is also known as being attached to the outcome, but given the rewards/punishment model and 30+ years of scientific research to back it up, it’s a lot simpler to understand if seen in this light.

On the other hand, when you’re out having fun and not even thinking about pick-up, you’re being yourself, your entire creative mind is available to you so you’re naturally witty, charming and creative, and if the reward doesn’t even enter your mind (or you somehow DON’T think of sex as a reward) then you’re free to act as you please and things end up in intimacy it’s no big deal.

It’s the equivalent of the painter who’s painting for fun rather than for a commissioned piece. He doesn’t know where the painting is going to end up, he has no fixed end in sight and is simply enjoying the process but is tweaking as he goes. Research in fact found the pieces produced through this process were seen as much better work (and thus of higher value) by art appraisers than pieces that were paid for in advance.

In conclusion, we’re faced with the question of “How do you implement this in a way that reverses the negative effects of reward/punishment thinking and act more naturally?”

I only have two ideas, but am leaving this open for discussion:

1) Don’t focus on sex or relationship as a reward and loneliness as punishment. Go out there with the focus on having fun and enjoying yourself, not to run game.

2) Change the meaning of sex/relationship from a reward you get to something that happens. It’s not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Sure it’s hard to ignore horniness when you see lots of scantily clad young women throwing their sexuality around like a status symbol. When sex is no longer a reward or loneliness no longer a punishment you’re finally free.

This is just a hypothesis of mine and clearly not a scientific theory so take it with a grain of salt. It’s just a different way of thinking that maybe will help you answer the question of what to do or understand what people mean by “just be yourself” or “do whatever you feel like doing”

As always, excellent advice from Zan.  :-)

Sheriff writes:

I’m going to add something here, that you should do EVERY SINGLE MONTH, at least, maybe every week.

I still get value from this exercise, and it takes very little time. However, just knowing this exercise won’t help, you have to actually DO IT.

Take one piece of A4. At the top write “I see a hot girl”. At the bottom write: “we start having sex” (or “she says ‘I do’”, or whatever your actual outcome is).

Then fill in a plausible and detailed explanation of how you got from seeing this chick to being balls deep. Whenever you get to a point where you’re not sure what to write, you’ve found a sticking point.

For the VAST majority of guys I’ve met, this will be:

“I see a hot girl. I go and run some opinion opener from the internet on her. Then, uh.. um. Maybe I tease her? Uh, and, uh.”

BANG. Sticking point identified. Do some research at this point. What comes next? Post a question to the forum. Ask someone what should happen next.

You don’t need to work out the best thing to say – you’re not looking for lines to memorize, and you’re not looking for some kind of magical routine – it’ll never go down the way you’ve planned it anyway. You’re looking for an understanding of a plausible next step. Don’t accept answers like “Then you be an alpha male and she fucks you” – not good enough. Ask for specific sample dialogue. Don’t try and replicate those, don’t try and parrot that shit off, but use them to get an understanding of what and why happens next.

As my own example, the first time I did this, I got to: “we’re making out in the club”, and I was like WTF happens next? So I asked a natural buddy, and he said: “Last time I just told the girl I’d make her a cocktail back at mine”.

What did I do? I went out and spent a far too much money on cocktail alcohol and equipment. Next time I went out, I was making out with this girl, and was like: “So, uh, do you want a cocktail back at mine?”. Answer: “No”. DOH! Asked for more advice on this, was told to make the bounce home gentler and less obvious … and with time, got that shit sorted. Learning how to bounce was a massive sticking point for me, and I hadn’t even realised it – once I had that sorted, I started having a one-night stand. The point being: you won’t get this stuff right first time, but a plausible idea of how to go about it is crucial

Do I use some long-winded and complicated extraction technique now? No, of course not. Now I instinctively know how to bounce, instinctively know the subtleties, and tend to just say: “ok, we’re out of here!”. But the identification of the sticking point through the above exercise (and subsequent ones), the focus on actually closing and getting from A to B is what started accelerating my game.

Key points:

• Write personal, detailed, and fictional descriptions of how you went from seeing a girl to fucking her to help you get the process straight in your head, and identify your weak points
• Ask for advice any time you find yourself having trouble writing plausible dialogue or action sequences
• The point isn’t to prescript the interaction, the point is to identify your sticking points in getting from A to B – it won’t ever go down the way you planned anyway
• Don’t accept wishy-washy advice that doesn’t come with plausible detailed examples

Hope this helps – just reading it won’t though – actually TRY IT.

To find out more on overcoming sticking points, check out the Love Systems Sticking Points Interview.

Good stuff.  If you’re dealing with sticking points, dealing with them can greatly improve your game.