Cock-in-a-box: the Daygame gift

Time for Gamechanger #3. This one might have been the biggest ever – this revolutionised the concept of Daygame, and made sure I never had AA in the same way ever again! This mindset is golden, and it’s also easy. Double win!

This was in August 2011 – a solid year into daygame

I’ve been Daygaming consistently every day with my mate and a mindset has developed which makes it pretty much impossible to get approach anxiety!

There’s so much advice out there: “push through your approach anxiety”, “have fun with it”, “enjoy it” and worst of all “go for it”!

If these work for you, great. But they didn’t for me. This is for 2 reasons:
1. They are commands and don’t give me a “how“. Have fun. “how?” Enjoy it! “how?”
2. They imply willpower over a situation. Anyone who knows anything about growing, developing or learning a new skill is that willpower is ultimately useless – it will eventually drain your energy and you will give up. If you don’t want to do it, deep inside, you won’t.

I developed the following mindset with Kyle Cease, a comedian I first heard of through an article by Andy Yosha. He’s highly influenced by motivational giant (literally) Tony Robbins, and he talks a lot about asking yourself why you are doing what you are doing! Go see his vids (Kyle’s), then to cut a long story short, if your actions are guided to improving the lives of others around you and by giving to others (1 of Robbins’ 6 emotional needs) you will do that thing without question. If you do something because you think you need to be able to do it to make you happy, you have already failed.

So if you think getting good at Daygame will make you happy, all the pressure is on Daygame. If you lose Daygame, you’re not happy, if you’re not doing it, you’re not happy. And because of this pressure on Daygame you get massive AA, so you don’t do approaches except by sheer willpower, so you don’t do Daygame, so you’re not happy. It’s an emotional black hole! And as it has been pointed out on the podcast time and time again, those who succeed are internally referenced – they get their validation from themselves. But Daygame is outside of you – you use it, but it’s not you. If you need it to make you whole, you are stuffed, because then it is controlling you, not the other way round!

BUT! Here’s a good “what if?” What if doing Daygame brings joy to others? What if by approaching people you are giving joy to them, and helping them? What if you are, in fact, a Saint? Well, fortunately the reality is that you are!

Once you realise this, when you approach you are not thinking “right, I’ll do a yad-stop, followed by this opener about her flowery dress, then I’ll make sure I do this and that… my goal is to get a number close… this approach I’m going to try and just do statements… etc.” How much pressure are you putting on yourself?

Instead you think the actual reality, which is this: “I’m about to absolutely make this person’s day! I’ve noticed the way she walks, her gorgeous legs, her attitude, style, whatever, so I’m going to make her feel great!” You think it’s possible to have AA like this? Na-ah!

Would you say “I don’t want to give to charity because of what people will think of me! What happens if the charity rejects my donation?” or “I’m not going to help that old lady with her shopping, what if she thinks I’m weird?” or “I’m not going to compliment that waiter on doing a good job, I’m scared to because people don’t do that!” or “I’m not going to give this birthday present to my friend… what if he likes it?”

Not a bit! You do it because for most of the population helping others and giving to others feels good, it’s culturally conditioned in us (except the looters) so use it!

Now I dare say that you could probably conquer AA with will-power (maybe… eventually), just doing it until you enjoy it, changing it from “approach anxiety” to “approach excitement” and all that another stuff. But I tell you, if you approach with the mind set that you are giving this person something brilliant, it is literally impossible to get AA!

This is my experience and it’s working for me, if it’s not your thing then fine – but I think it’ll apply to most people out there… I realise it’s not a new thing to say, but until now I’ve not really heard it in “my language” – maybe I have a different representational system to, for example, Marcus Oakey, who has said something along these lines…

Voil?! Now you know the how of “have fun”!

One thing I’ve learned in this game is that it’s the same as learning anything. If you grit your teeth and push through, you may get somewhere, but you’re not going to experience mastery if you don’t enjoy it. Fortunately, how you look at something can change how much you enjoy it. This “giving” idea was a true lightbulb moment.

Join me next time for another Gamechanger and subscribe to my fucking blog already. Click follow over there —>