Adam Lyons on Comfort Building

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Introduction

If you’ve ever wondered how you could get almost anybody that you meet to want to spend time with you, to like you, to want to be your friend, and to genuinely enjoy your company and be somebody that they want to make part of their life – within only a few minutes of meeting you – then you’re in the right place.

My name is Adam Lyons, and I’ve been a dating coach for going on eight years now, travelling around the world teaching people how to improve their skill set with

members of the opposite sex. But one of the most frequent questions that people always ask me is, “How do you yourself make so many friends so quickly?” You see, I went from pretty much being a nobody as a dating coach in Central London, and within a few years I ended

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up knowing almost all of the major dating experts around the world.

Whenever I go out and meet new people, I’m always getting comments like, “Wow, you’re such a friendly guy. How is it that you’re so friendly? How do you get along with so many people so well?” Up until now, I’ve never really put everything down in one complete concise place, and I figure what better place to do that than in a

program specifically about how to make people feel comfortable with you?

Now right at the beginning here, I want to state very clearly that this program is not actually about how to get people to be attracted to you. We cover that topic in our

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other programs such as the Breaking Rapport Program, the Qualification Program, etc. This particular program is about how to get people to like you. Some people are going to think well, why would I want people to like me? I just want them to be attracted to me. However, liking is the foundation, the bedrock of getting people to become attracted to you.

Think of it like building a really fancy house that looks incredibly impressive and imposing. If you don’t have it on a solid foundation and you’ve made the mistake of building it somewhere where there’s a swampland, you’ll soon find that your pretty house ends up sinking

incredibly quickly. And that is exactly what’s going to happen to you in the social swim if you concentrate

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specifically on just building attraction and don’t have that solid foundation of comfort where somebody actually enjoys your company and wants to be with you.

You can have all these fancy little gimmicks and tricks that make somebody think, “Wow, this guy’s so much fun; he’s really attractive, I really want to be with him,” but then the next morning when they wake up and have to have breakfast with you, or when they want to

introduce you to their parents, or when they want you to meet them at work for lunch, you’ve got to back up that attraction with a solid foundation for getting people to actually like you.

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Now of course, getting people to like you has a broader scope than attraction itself. You can use this skill to make friends with whom you can network within your business. You can also use it to get in with a girl – or a guy if that’s what you’re using this for – to get in with their family, in with their group of friends, and get them all to like you. You’d be surprised that when you’re having a bit of turmoil in your relationship, how having your partner’s friends stick up for you can sometimes play a major role in fixing your relationship. I can tell you now that that’s something I definitely went through in my own relationship when my wife and I had some difficulties between us. It was the fact that her friends liked me and supported me that helped us through some of these situations.

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Now of course, all this doesn’t mean that absolutely everybody’s going to like you, and of course, no

psychological techniques that you employ are going to have a 100% success rate. However, to the best of my knowledge, this skill set that I’m going to teach you is by far the best way to go about getting as many people to like you as possible. I personally use these techniques to generate the level of comfort and friendship that I do with people that I meet every day.

I’m going to teach you as best I can the best way to approach somebody, to start a conversation, and to very quickly build a certain amount of rapport between the two of you so that the other person feels that you really are somebody that they want to have in their life as a

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friend. And from that solid foundation, you can then use some of the other programs and techniques available at www.attractionexplained.com to generate attraction, and change that nice, friendly relationship into something more if that’s what you really want to do.

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Chapter 1 – Pre-selection

The first technique, the most important thing I’m going to teach you, the crucial factor that really underlies

absolutely everything in attraction, is selection. Pre-selection is the concept that if somebody is already attracted to you, then other people can’t help but to find attractive. In psychology it’s one of the most powerful triggers of attraction, and psychologists all around the world have proven this time and time again.

There was actually a great study that was done by Benedict Jones in 2006 where they showed the subjects of the study, who were females, pictures of various guys, some alone, others in the company of girls. They noticed

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12 Don’t underestimate the value of pre-selection in building comfort. It’s the difference between being desperate and having options.

that when the girls were asked to rate each guy on a scale of 1 to 10 on how attractive he was, the girls would always rate him higher if

there were girls looking at him and smiling at him. Another study (one of my favorite ones) is when they take a picture of a guy and

they say to the women, “On the scale of 1 to 10, how attractive is this guy? The same picture is then shown to another group of girls who are asked, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how attractive is this married guy?” The men are almost always given scores that are a lot higher when the girls find out that he’s already taken.

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The point is that the pre-selection tree is an incredibly powerful way to generate attraction. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that it’s also a great way of generating comfort. Imagine this scenario: A lone guy walks into a bar looking to meet some women. As he wanders around, every girl in the bar can see that he’s available and that he’s looking at girls. And every girl he speaks to knows that

he’s attempting to attract her. Now, sometimes that can work in his favor if he’s

ridiculously good-looking, or if he’s got exceptional conversational skills; the girl’s going to observe this guy going around talking to all the other girls and that the

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other girls are laughing and enjoying his company; That’s actually going to build him up some pre-selection.

But what if that isn’t the case? What if things aren’t really working out for that guy? What if he’s not 100% perfect? What if the girls in the venue that he speaks to are just not the friendliest girls he’s ever met? Suddenly he finds that things aren’t going well, and he can end up

generating negative pre-selection, i.e., the girls in the bar aren’t finding him attractive, so other girls in the bar don’t want to talk to him because they’ve already seen him get rejected by a number of other girls.

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One of the best ways to utilize pre-selection to build comfort is to actually walk into a bar with some girls. By going into a venue already accompanied by women, you don’t look single and desperate. Usually when a guy is with a group of girls, everyone

assumes that the guy is

dating at least one of the

girls, therefore other

women in the venue don’t

see him as a threat. They

actually feel very comfortable in his presence. If you’re that guy, you can go up to them, talk to them with the other girls around you, and have a conversation.

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You’ll find that the women aren’t going to reject you, they’re not going to try and get rid of you; they’re not going to push you away, because they feel comfortable. They’re thinking, “Oh, this guy’s already got a girl. It’s okay to talk to him.” Then during the conversation, they’ll find out that you’re not actually dating any of these girls. They’re friends of yours, or maybe family members. We’re going to talk about the different ways of building that up in a second.

So now the girl you’re interested in feels comfortable. She’s thinking, “Oh, okay, I’ve met this guy already, I’ve spoken to him, and he’s nice. And contrary to what I thought, he’s also available – wow!” and then she can start feeling attraction for you, or you can start building attraction or however you want to go about doing it.

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The point is that pre-selection is incredibly powerful in building comfort because she doesn’t feel threatened. If a lion is already eating its meat, then the other deer don’t have to worry about it so much. He’s already got his food; he’s not going to come after anybody else just yet. It’s the same kind of thing. If you’ve already got some girls around you, the other women don’t feel as

threatened. But the question is, how can you very

quickly build up pre-selection? Well, there are two simple ways of doing it. The first way is you can use

pre-selection that you already have in your life. You can potentially contact some female friends of yours and say, “Hey, do you want to go down to the bar?” Take them out, go for a night on the town, and while you’re out with

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them you can start meeting other girls. You can even potentially recruit them to help you out. You’d be surprised how many girls are down for helping out with things like that an alternate way of doing it is to contact some friends and family members and do it that way.

Worst case scenario, you can maybe go out with some friends from work. You could organize after work drinks or something. However, another way of doing it is to actually use the techniques within this program to make female friends – specifically to make female friends that

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you can out with and hang out with as a form of pre-selection.

Now, if you get on well with these girls you could

potentially turn that into a relationship if you want, but if you don’t want to, you could just keep them as friends in your life. These will be girls that will hang out with you, interact with you; they’re not connected to your family, they’re not connected to your social circle, they’re not connected to your work, so you don’t have to worry about any repercussions backfiring in your life outside the dating arena. But as an added benefit, this means you can be a little bit crazy. When you’re with them you can drink a little bit more if that’s what you want to do, you could have a different type of personality than you would

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have at work; maybe you’re a bit more gregarious or unreserved and it would be totally acceptable because these girls don’t really know you in any other setting.

You’re essentially using this entire program to make female friends that give you pre-selection, which you can then use for comfort, to go back through the entire program to make more friends or make friends that turn into relationships, or you can use it to generate

attraction. You can also use pre-selection to create jealousy plot lines between girls and have them

competing for you, or even just to show that you have a whole bunch of women that are naturally attracted to you and want to be with you.

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The point I want to make here is that pre-selection is an incredibly powerful tool. And when people ask me how I get it, I’d say one of the best ways is to just befriend girls - and everything that you’re going to be learning this book will teach you exactly how to do just that.

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Chapter 2 - Starting the conversation

The first part of building comfort with somebody is the fact that you have to actually go up to them and start a conversation. And this is really the part where a lot of people struggle. They don’t know how to start a conversation, how to get is started or make it happen. I’m going to teach you a basic process and a very simple method of remembering some key steps to make a

successful approach. I won’t be giving you specific lines to use; Instead, I’m going to give you examples and a simple format to create your own. Within this program, you’ll also have access to a

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whole bunch of example lines if that’s what you’re

looking for, and feel free to use those if you feel they can work for you. However, it’s always better to create your own lines and come up with things that are a little bit more natural, things you feel more comfortable using. The point is, each of these lines that I give you, or even ones that you find elsewhere on the web or maybe even learned from your friends, you can just put into this nice simple format that will help you remember exactly how to go about approaching and how to start a conversation with somebody very, very quickly and very, very easily. This process is simply remembered by one word: OATLESS. It’s just a simple way for remembering the exact format of how you should go about approaching somebody and starting a conversation.

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The first step is the O, which stands for “Observe.” The A is for “Approach,” T is for “Touch,” L is for “Line,” as in the line you’re going to deliver, E is the “Explanation” of that line (which we’ll cover in a second) and the two S’s at the end are to “Shake” hands and “Swap” names.

Observation

Let’s start with the first step, which is “Observe.” Let me say this right at the beginning so

that we get it out of the way: If you see someone you’re attracted to, you should always approach. There’s no

reason not to. If you see somebody and you think, “Wow, that person’s incredibly beautiful, I want to talk to them,” then approach. Don’t worry about whether it’s going to work or not, or whether your observational skills have told

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you one thing or another. It doesn’t matter. If you’re attracted to somebody, you should approach. However, having said that, it can be incredibly powerful to observe somebody for bit before you approach them.

Observing allows you to learn a lot of great information that can help you start the conversation. If you’re in a situation where you see two different girls that you’d like to approach, it can be beneficial to observe the two, and maybe go for the one where you will have a higher success rate.

But again, let me make this very clear. Observing should never be used as an excuse not to approach. Never use it as an excuse to hesitate so much that you can’t

approach. Observing is a powerful skill set, providing it doesn’t become a barrier to starting a conversation.

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What do I look for when I’m observing? The key thing to look for is people that I feel are going to be a little bit easier to talk to. I’m going to give you three scenarios. In the first, imagine that you’ve got an incredibly

beautiful girl all on her own. Then imagine that you’ve got two girls

deep in conversation with each other. In the third scenario,

you’ve got two girls with a really big, scary-looking guy. Now imagine that you had to figure out which of those three you wanted to talk to. If I did a show of hands in a seminar room where I do my teaching, I’d probably find

Why not take the time to make your life easier

if you can?

Look for wedding rings, the speed they’re moving,

whether

they’re looking around or focused on what they’re

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that most people want to talk to the girl who was on her own.

Most people would not want to talk to the two girls with the big scary guy for fear of the guy getting aggressive, but in reality that’s probably the best scenario to

approach and the least likely one to have any hostility. Sound crazy? Bear with me; it will all make sense. The reason the two girls and a big scary guy is the best set of people to approach is because you can talk to the big scary guy. And if you talk to the big scary guy before you talk to his girls, he’s likely to be nice to you. You can talk about sports, you can talk about video games, or you can talk about what’s going on in the bar. You can talk about the food and whether it’s any good. The point is, it’s a lot easier to talk to a guy, because you’ve been

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talking to guys your entire life and you know exactly what you can talk to them about.

Once the guy likes you and thinks you’re cool, you can direct your attention to two girls with him. All you have to do is figure out which one is his, and the other one is yours. You’ve just got yourself an instant wingman. He’s going to talk to his girl and you can talk to your girl – problem solved. It’s actually an incredibly easy way to go about talking to people. You’ll typically find this goes for bigger groups as well; groups of four, five, six, however you want to do it. As long as there are enough girls for all the other guys in the group, you probably won’t have any problems at all.

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The next set to watch out for is the two girls deep in conversation with each other. Yes, it’s nice to go up and talk to two girls and not have to worry about a guy, but the problem is, the girls are probably in such deep conversation with each other that they don’t really want to be interrupted. So you either need to have a wing, somebody to help you out with the situation, or you need to be so interesting that you’re better than whatever conversation it is that they’re having - and that can be very difficult to do, and it’s a lot

of pressure for you to do all on your own.

The reason that one girl alone is often bad news, especially if she’s good-looking, is because

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most girls who are out on their own are usually waiting for a guy. Think about it. If she was out with girls, they’d be going to the restroom together, or they’d be travelling together or getting ready together because that’s

typically what girls tend to do. It’s only when she’s out with a guy that she’ll be standing alone. Her guy goes to the restroom and she waits for him. The guy’s gone to get drinks and she’s waiting for him. The guy hasn’t arrived yet, whatever the situation is…

When that guy comes back, he’s probably not going to be happy to find his beautiful girl talking to a random guy, and that’s when guys get aggressive – when you talk to their girl before you talk to them.

If you want to avoid any animosity from a big, scary guy, one girl alone isn’t necessarily the best girl to go and talk

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to. One of the things that I observe is which of the groups I feel is going to be easier. Like I said, I’m not going to avoid a girl if I’m attracted to her, but if I’ve got a choice between two really hot girls and a big scary guy versus a hot girl on her own, I’m going to go for the two hot girls and the scary guy, because I know I’ve got a much better chance of approaching successfully.

There are other things I look for. For example, speed of movement. If you’re looking to approach girls on the street and you see a girl walking at a fast pace, you know that girl’s probably in a rush to get somewhere and she’s probably not going to want to stop and have a conversation with you. In that situation, if I’ve got an option between somebody who’s moving fast and

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person. Other things I look for are people that look preoccupied. If they’re on a phone talking, or maybe if they’re really analyzing the shopping that they’re buying and what they’re doing; I’m going to lean more towards looking at people that are killing time, strolling around and window shopping or shuffling their feet as they walk down the road – in other words, people that don’t look particularly busy; because I know I’ve got a much better chance of succeeding if I approach them.

A simple exercise that you can use to practice your observation skills and is that the next time you’re in a coffee shop – maybe make it a point to sit once every other day in a coffee shop – observe people around you and try to understand what’s going on in their life. Just think simple things: Are they busy? Are they killing time

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right now? Are they waiting for somebody? Are they hanging out with their best friend, or is it somebody they’ve only just met? Start asking these questions in your head, and maybe try and think of two points for every single person that you might like to speak to. So you see a girl sitting with her friend and you think, what are two things I can figure out about this girl? One, that’s obviously somebody she’s known for a long time, and two, they’re on their lunch break. Then go and approach, and when you approach

confirm through your conversation that they are on their lunch break and how long they’ve known each other.

What will happen over time with these interactions is that you’ll become better and better at observing things and

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finding out whether you’re correct. In fact, it can get pretty freaky. I’ve gotten to the point where. When I’m out with my friends, I can often tell you the relationship status of the people around us, whether they’re single, whether it’s a first date or a second date just based on skill at observing people. This becomes a great

conversational topic for the people I’m around, not to mention that it’s really impressive for other girls to watch. It’s a really useful skill to have to be able to observe people and analyze them, and also basically to cold read what you see around you and to be correct about it. So practicing that observational skill is one great exercise you can do.

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35 Approach

Next up is A, and this is the “Approach.” When it comes down to approaching, it’s absolutely crucial that that you don’t hesitate. A lot of guys who learn dating and pick-up have heard of the “Three Second Rule,” which is that you must approach within three seconds. The truth is, from the minute that you make eye contact with a girl, you have to approach.

Now, the three second rule might be a great way to get you motivated to start approaching people, but the truth is, three seconds of making eye contact while you’re nervously shuffling and not sure whether you’re going to approach can be really deadly. On the other hand, three seconds of really good eye contact can actually be great.

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The point is, make sure you’re not doing the nervous one versus the good one. It always makes good sense that once you make eye contact with a girl, you go and approach them.

One of the things you can look for when you’re observing is whether someone’s making eye contact with you; and the minute you make eye contact, you go straight up to them and you approach directly, no hesitation. You’ve made eye contact; maybe give it a bit of a smile and go straight up to them.

Now, what if you don’t? What if you hesitate? Let’s take a moment and analyze the subtext of the communication between the two of you if you don’t approach

straightaway and you hesitate instead. Now bear in mind, hesitation can be something as small as one little

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footstep out of place. It only takes one awkward footstep to completely kill an interaction and let the other person know that you’re hesitating, and that you’re a little bit worried about approaching. So let’s think about it. Why would you hesitate? She has no idea why you’re planning to approach her. So what could be the reason that you’ve hesitated on the approach? Potentially the reason you hesitated is because you were worried that she might reject you.

Do you think she’s likely to pick up on that? I think it’s pretty likely that she realizes the reason you’re scared of approaching is because you’re worried that she might reject you for something. Well, what are you likely to be rejected for? Probably the fact that you’re going to try and pick her up.

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The next thing she thinks about is why would you

hesitate? Why are you worried about that? Oh – because in your head, you believe there’s a chance this actually won’t work.

So, she knows nothing about you whatsoever except for the information that you plan on approaching her; you’re probably interested

in trying to hit on her and you don’t think you’re good

enough for her. Not a great start to the conversation, is it… letting her know that you don’t think you’re good enough for her. After all, you’re the only person who knows who you are, and if in your opinion she’s better

Important Rule:

Hesitation is the death

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than you based purely on looks, you’re going to be struggling from step one.

To make sure you don’t get stuck by that, all you need to do if you make eye contact is to approach straightaway. Something that can help with this is to use a smile to

trigger a response from the other person. Human beings mirror each other all the time. In fact, when you’re a little baby, if people smile at you, you tend to respond with a really big smile. That rule applies to adults as well. All you have to do when you make eye contact with somebody is give them a big cheesy grin. A nice big cheesy grin will almost always be duplicated by the

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person at the other end. The point is, if you look at somebody, make eye contact and smile, and they smile back at you, there’s a really good chance that they’re going to be okay with you approaching them and having a conversation.

Plus, it’s very difficult for somebody who’s smiling at you to be rude, like, “Go away.” It’s very hard. They’re very unlikely to do that. If they’re smiling at you, they’re probably going to be friendly and approachable, which makes it a lot easier to have a conversation with them. A great exercise to practice as you’re walking around during the day is to try and make eye contact with every single girl you see in the street. Bear in mind that you may have to make eyed contact longer than you think. Sometimes you could be looking at a girl and she doesn’t

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know you’re looking at her, and she’s not going to

respond, so keep looking for as long as you possibly can. Sometimes you may turn your head to look at her as you go by; it doesn’t matter. Keep looking at her and wait for the eye contact. The minute you get the eye contact – cheesy grin. Throw that cheesy grin out and see how many of them reciprocate. The minute someone

reciprocates, approach. I can almost guarantee you that every single time you do that, the person’s going to be very friendly and very warm towards you.

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42 Touch

After approaching, the next thing is “Touch.” Touch is incredibly important. Why? Because one day, you’re

probably going to want to

make out with this person.

And even if you don’t, you

might want to hug them. If you

have never touched

them until that point, you

are going to struggle.

However, if they’re comfortable touching you, it’s going to make it a lot easier for them to make out with you or whatever else it is you’re going to try and do.

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I remember this one time I went out on a date with a girl and when we first went out, I held my arm out to link arms with her – and she pulled my arm away. As we were walking down the street, I tried again a few

seconds later and she pushed my arm away once more. I looked at her and said, “Hey, you need to link arms with me.” She said, “Why? I don’t like doing that.” I replied, “First of all, you’re small and I don’t want to lose you in the crowd. Secondly, I’m a guy, and I don’t want people looking at me as I walk down the street thinking that I’m not looking after the girl I’m with by offering her my arm. I’m a gentleman and this is how it’s done. Lock arms with me.”

So she agreed; about half an hour into our date, this girl’s cuddling up to my arm, she’s hugging me; she’s

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absolutely loving the fact that I’m touching her. Later on I said to her, “Do you know why it was so important that I link arms with you?” and she said, “No, why?” I said, “Because now it’s

weirder for me to not touch you than to touch you.” And

she said, “I don’t believe it,” so I push her away and she said, “Wow, that is weird! Come back here, come back here!” And we give each other a big hug. At that point we share our first kiss.

It’s an incredible thing. She became used to me touching her rather than not touching her. I’d only known her for about two or three hours, but in those two or three hours that I’d known her, for about two of them we’d been

Important Rule: The

sooner you touch

someone, the better the

interaction is going to

be

.

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touching a lot more than not. So she was more used to me touching her than not touching her. And that is how you want every single one of your interactions to be. The more you can get somebody used to being touched by you, the better it’s going to be later on when you want to do something else. There are different points where you can touch somebody. And of course you want to make sure that you don’t freak them out when you first touch them. I suggest you first touch somebody on the forearm. Anywhere between the wrist and the elbow is usually a good area where someone’s not going to freak out when you’re having a conversation with them. If you touch somebody anywhere else, there’s a chance it could go wrong – their butt, their hand, their shoulder; if

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they’re carrying a handbag they might freak out. But the forearm, you’re never going to go wrong there.

The way I do it is I just allow my hand to rest on their arm. I don’t apply any pressure, I don’t poke them, I don’t push them and I don’t do that light, awkward brush. I just allow the weight of my hand to rest on their arm. What will ultimately happen is they’ll look at my hand, look up at me, and at that point I start speaking. I never start speaking until they’re looking at my face. That way I know they’re going to hear every single word that I have to say. After all, if I’ve spent so many years making sure the words I say are so powerful that I’m going to make sure that they listen to every single word that I say.

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47 Lines

This brings us to “Lines;” I’m going to teach you three different types of lines that you can use. The first line is rejection-proof. There is no way whatsoever you can get rejected by using this type of line. The second line has a little bit more chance of rejection, but it’s almost always going to be seen favorably. And the third type I’m going to teach you are the ones that I typically use and they can be a lot harder to learn. You may not be using those right away, but still they

really are the best ones. But to start off as a beginner, it’s great to learn how to approach

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without getting rejected, and the easiest way to do that is by using a functional line.

1 - Functional Lines

A functional line is essentially a question that helps you start a conversation. It’s something that you need help with, some information that you need, so you’re going to ask somebody that you’ve just met. This can be

something like: “Hey, do you know where the nearest Starbucks is?” In fact, that particular line ended up making me quite famous. I used to use that line whenever somebody asked me to demonstrate my approach method on television.

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When you’re approaching on live television, one of the scariest things is that you might fail publicly on camera. I needed to come up with something so I knew I would not get rejected on live TV to avoid looking bad and not being able to do the skill set that I teach. So one of the easiest ways to approach someone and guarantee that you don’t get rejected is to say, “Hey, do you know where the nearest Starbucks is?”

Think about it. Why can’t you ever get rejected from that? No, they don’t know where the nearest Starbucks is. That’s okay, they don’t have to know where it is, but the point is that we’re still in a conversation with each other. If they don’t know where it is and I can then use that to continue the conversation using a transition – which I’m going to teach you later on.

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If they do know where it is, then I’ve got a conversation started right there and I can transition out of that to keep the conversation going afterwards. The worst case

scenario of a girl actually saying, “Hey, I’m not

interested. I’ve got a boyfriend,” doesn’t make sense. A girl can never actually reject you; she can’t be rude to you and say something like, “Go away,” because then she’s being rude. Ironically, even though you’re approaching her, if she tries to reject you for asking a functional line, she’s the rude one.

Think about is. “Hey, excuse me; do you happen to know where the nearest Starbucks is?” “Uh, no… I have a boyfriend.” Okay, you can keep your boyfriend, that’s fine. I’m looking for a Starbucks, that’s all I want. I don’t want your boyfriend. You see how ridiculous this sounds?

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It sounds ridiculous because it is. They can’t reject you for this!

So any line where you need a piece of information is

something you can’t get rejected for. Example:

“Do you know what time this nightclub closes?” “Hey, do you know where the restrooms are?” “What’s the name of that drink? I’m thinking about getting one, it looks quite good.”

“Do you know if there’s another lunch bar around here? I always go into the same places and I want to go

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“Do you know what the number is of the next bus that’s coming along?”

Whatever it is, the point is that as long as you’re 100% genuinely asking a question, you’re never going to get rejected for asking a functional line, and it’s a great way of starting a conversation.

2- Compliment Lines

The second set of lines I’m going to teach you are compliment lines. Compliments are incredibly powerful. Almost every single human being on the planet loves receiving compliments, and you can use that to start a conversation. In fact, going back to doing approaches on live television, one of the things I used to do all the time was that before I did an approach, I would actually warm

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up by giving people compliments. I wouldn’t try and start a conversation; I would just go up to random people and give them really big compliments.

The reason this works is because when you give

someone a compliment, they tend to look at you and give you a big grin. So I would do something like five of these before I approached live on television, and I would start to trick myself into thinking that every time I approached someone, they would smile because they love me; so me going around and approaching people is just going to make everybody really happy and they’re going to want me to do it. It’s a very positive way to give yourself the confidence to go and approach somebody.

The way you give a compliment is you pinpoint

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them that they’ve worked at. Now, there’s a lot in that sentence, so I’m going to break it down.

You don’t just to up to somebody and say, “Hey, you’re really beautiful.” And you definitely don’t say to

somebody, “I love your eyes, they’re really pretty.” Why? Because those two things are typically things that

somebody hasn’t worked at. Good-looking people are born with the facial structure that makes them pretty, and their eyes are something that they’ve never really done anything with. Their eyes are just their eyes. The best compliment you can ever receive is based on something that you have actually worked at. That’s why girls just love receiving compliments about their hair – most girls put the effort into doing their hair and spend a lot of time putting their look together.

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Also, you’ll probably be aware that girls spend a lot of time getting dressed, making sure that all their clothes match and that sort of thing. These tend to be good things to give people compliments on as well, specifically because

they’ve put so much time and energy into it that they want the payoff. They want the reward from that time and energy, and of course the reward comes in the compliments they receive.

Think about it. A girl gets dressed up specifically to receive compliments. But she doesn’t want to hear “Hey, you’re really beautiful,” because she’s heard that before. She wants to know that this particular outfit that she’s

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put together was done incredibly well. A simple stock line to cover this would be, “Hey, I really love that outfit, the way that you’ve matched…” then pinpoint whatever is matched on the outfit. “It looks really good and I wanted to take the time to let you know.” That’s a really simple and powerful way of giving someone a compliment that they’re going to appreciate a lot better than, “Hey, you look really hot,” or “Wow, nice ass!” Those kinds of things don’t tend to go over incredibly well.

So pinpoint something about the person that you think stands out, and more importantly, that you think they care about, and use that to craft your compliment. Then of course just make sure that you explain what it is or why you felt the need to say it – which we’ll go into a little bit when we cover explanations.

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The final type of line, and in my opinion the best one, is observational. Observational lines work specifically because they are current to the situation, and if they are done correctly, you’re not even directing it at the person. You’re kind of just saying it to yourself and then the other person is joining in your conversation.

The one difficulty you may face here is you’ve got to figure these lines out yourself. I can’t predict every single situation that you’re going to be in where you could potentially create an observational line. What I am going to do is give you some suggestions and examples tailored for some common situations. However, you’ll find that observational lines work a lot better if you learn how to create them yourself.

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A very simple one you can use when you’re shopping in your local food market or grocers is if you see somebody who’s trying to figure out which of two things to buy. You can go up and make that decision for them. The way you do it is you point at the item and say, “That’s the best one.” What you’re doing is tapping into their inner

subconscious. They’re obviously trying to figure out which one, and you’re making that decision for them.

It doesn’t really matter if your decision’s right or not, because you’re not trying to actually help them, you’re trying to start a conversation. By pinpointing it and saying “that’s the right one,” you are helping them with their decision-making process. Sometimes a person just needs that flip of a coin and your random jumping-in becomes that coin. By making that standard observation,

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you’re helping them out with their decision, and find that they jump into a

very good

conversation with you.

Another simple observational line is when you see somebody trying to take a picture of themselves. You know, that thing with their arms stretched out and

they’re trying to take a picture and you know it’s going to be wonky and they’re going to cut their head off. You just go up to them and, “Hey, let me take that picture for you,” and you step right in, take the camera, and take the picture on their behalf. Again, another simple way of using an observational line.

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Some of the others that I’ve used are when I’m walking down a busy street maybe in New York or London. I’ll turn to a girl next to me and say, “Man, I just wish there were less people on the pavement sometimes!” Again, I’m going to use this when I think the girl looks annoyed with the crowd bumping into her or jostling her, or maybe if she’s trying to move quickly to get through. It’s a very simpler way of jumping in and tapping into what’s going on in her head at that precise moment.

Along those same lines, if you’re maybe out and about and it’s raining and you see a car go through a puddle and splash some people, you can say out loud to a girl nearby, “Man, I’m glad I’m not on the other side of the road!”

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The point is that by tapping into what’s going on in somebody’s subconscious and the key things that they’re thinking about at that exact moment, you have a great chance of starting a conversation. You’re just tapping in to the inner dialogue that they’re already having inside their head. The fact that they get to voice those thoughts out loud ensures that they jump into a nice comfortable conversation with you.

Explanation

That moves us on to E, which is the “Explanation.” Why do we add an explanation after any of the lines we use? Specifically because psychologists have found that people tend to be more compliant if they get a reason for

something. You’d be surprised; you can actually jump to the front of a coffee line if you give someone a reason.

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Something like, “Hey guys, I’m really sorry; I have to grab a coffee right now, I’m about to miss my plane. I’ve only got a few minutes and I’ve got to jump on board this plane. Hope you don’t mind. I just want to jump this line, grab this coffee right now; I’d really appreciate it.”

Something like that is going to work really well. Give someone a good reason why you’ve got to skip the line and you’ve got a great chance of convincing them to let you skip past.

I’ve actually done some videos on You Tube showing examples of a guy who went up to a girl and said, “Do you mind if I have that seat, because I have a nose?” The explanation didn’t even make any sense! Yet people

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still gave him their seats a lot more than when he just said, “Hey, do you mind if I have that seat?” This is a very powerful thing to learn. By adding an explanation to your line, you’ve got a much better success rate and a much better chance of getting them to comply with you. For example, if I just say, “Hey, do you know where the nearest Starbucks is?” there’s a pretty good chance the girl’s going to say, “No, I don’t.” But if you say, “Hey, I’m so sorry to bother you, but the last three people I’ve stopped haven’t really helped me and I really am looking for a Starbucks to meet one of my friends. Do you

happen to know where the nearest one is?” I have a much better chance of that person stopping and actually helping me find that Starbucks.

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So add an explanation to absolutely every single line that you use, and you’ll find that your success rate drastically increases. If you give someone a compliment and you give a reason why you’re giving that compliment, it’s got a much better

chance of sinking in.

For example if you say, “Hey, I really

love that outfit. The way it matches your shoes is a really good look. I wanted to take the time to let you know because I hate the fact that I might go away and not say it to you and then you could go for a whole day without anyone ever telling you how great that outfit is, and I know from my sister how much girls love it when

Adding a reason to something can greatly increase your chance of

compliance. Psychologists such as

Stanley Milgram have shown

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somebody gives them a compliment and how much effort they put into their outfits to make it look good so I

wanted to take the time to let you know.” Maybe a little bit long-winded, but it does cover everything you’d need to fully explain why you’re giving that compliment and to allow the girl to really appreciate exactly where the compliment’s coming from.

The great thing about observational lines and why I tend to use those when I’m starting a conversation is because the explanation is built into the line. The explanation comes first. They’re already in that situation, and you’re jumping on board with it. Why are you helping work out which of the two items they should buy in the grocers? Because they’re looking stuck like they don’t know which one to get.

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Shaking Hands, Swapping names

The two final parts of OATLESS are “Shaking hands” and “Swapping names.” The reason we do this is very simple. We shake hands because it increases touch; and as I covered earlier, the more you touch somebody the more comfortable they’re going to feel being touched by you. And the reason we swap names is so that they

specifically remember who you are.

Hopefully, you’re going to remember who they are, too, but that’s not as important. One of the most important things for you is to make sure that they get your name. That way if you meet 20 people in one night, you’ve got 20 people who know who you are. You can go around and call all of them “babe” or “hon” or “chick” or

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your name is incredibly powerful. When people are calling your name all over the bar when you’re talking to a girl who you’re actually interested in generating attraction with, she’s going to wonder how you’ve got so many friends in this bar when you’ve only been in town for 24 hours.

That is the power of comfort, and it comes from learning how to approach somebody correctly to ensure that your success rate is a lot higher and that your chance for rejection is incredibly low.

Now at this point, you’ve got a very simple decision to make. The question is, are you just going to pre-open, or are you going to hold down the set? What I mean by this is, are you going to quit at this point and go around and meet somebody else, or is this the person that you’re

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going to start and build a conversation with, to generate solid comfort with, and have them want to be part of your life?

I typically say that if you’re going to pre-open, try and keep it to no longer than 10 seconds. You’ve gone in, got your information about the Starbucks or whatever,

swapped names and then you’re out of there.

Why do we do that? We do that for a number of reasons. One, on that first interaction, you may have decided you don’t really like them. They’re not as friendly as you wanted them to be, the conversation didn’t go as well as you wanted; whatever the situation is, it wasn’t exactly what you wanted it to be. At that point you can just move on and go meet somebody else. You’ve already got

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them to be somebody that you recognize and that you like within the venue.

The other reason is what I call the Cinderella Effect. When Cinderella walked into the ball when she went to meet Prince Charming, everybody turned and looked at her. They all wanted to know who she was, and all eyes turned towards her. When you walk into a bar or a club, it’s pretty likely that that doesn’t happen to you. I know it definitely doesn’t happen to me. But you can create that effect by having short, 10-second interactions with people.

Think about it. Say you went to a bar and spoke to a random dude about the match that was being played on in the television, then you swapped names with this guy. And then when you move around, when you see that guy

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around the bar, he looks at you and you’re going to have this familiarity with each other because you spoke to each other earlier. And with that familiarity, the guy’s going to nod his head, smile at you; he’s going to pick out your face in the crowd over other people.

Now imagine you’ve spoken to 20 people at the bar and had 20 short 10-second interactions. As you move around, people are going to turn their heads and look at you; “Hey, I met this guy earlier. Hey man, how are you doing?” They’re all going to look at you and start

interacting with you as the night goes on. So what happens is, even though you’re not as attractive as Cinderella, you’ve actually gained a level of attraction similar to Cinderella, because all these people are looking at you and wondering who the hell you are.

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At that point, the girl’s going to think, “Wait, who the hell’s this guy? Why’s everyone staring at him instead of me?” It’s an incredibly powerful skill set specifically based on the fact that you’re going around and having these short interactions with people.

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Chapter 3 – Transitions

However, if you don’t just want to have that 10-second interaction with somebody, if you’re talking to them and you’re thinking, “Wow! This person I like; this is

somebody that I do want to have a conversation with,” at this point you want to learn how to transition to keep that conversation going.

There are a number of different ways to transition a conversation from that initial opener, but it is incredibly important that you do at least one of them. See, the opening line is where all conversations go to die. If you don’t get out of the conversation fast, then that

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“Hi, do you know where the nearest Starbucks is?” “Yeah, it’s just over there.”

“Oh, thanks ever so much. I love Starbucks.” “Awesome, me too.”

” Starbucks is so good, the coffee’s great; it’s like a god thing to have.”

“I’ve noticed; it’s so much fun.” “Dude, seriously, I love the cakes…”

You see where it goes – it dies. Starbucks is not a great conversation topic. In fact, most of the opening lines that you use are going to die rapidly if you don’t get away from them. The key is to transition off of that topic as quickly as you can. In fact, the faster you can transition

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and the more you can transition, the better the interaction’s going to go.

I like to transition two or three times during the first minute of the conversation so that it feels like our

conversation has a little more depth. You typically tend to find that each transition gets a little bit deeper and the conversation gets a little bit better as you go.

To start off with, I’m going to teach you four simple transitions. Now, before I teach you these, a different transition you can use is to just do a different opening line. For example, if you open with a functional line you could transition into a compliment. Or if you open with a compliment, you can transition into a functional or an observational, so they can all work as simple transitions. However, the four things I’m going to show you now are

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four specific techniques that make great transitions. Then we’re going to talk about having conversations and how you can use conversation flow to

transition as well – but we’ll get to that later on, because it gets a little bit complicated.

The Accent

To start off with, the first transition that I’m going to teach you is my personal favorite, which is the accent. The way I do this is by saying:

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“Wow, you’ve got a really cool accent. I’m trying to figure out where it’s from. Whereabouts is it from?”

That’s a much better way of saying, “Where are you from?” or, “Do you come here often?” These are the classic lines people have always used. They’re the common lines people use in conversation when they’re trying to find out more about somebody – but they’ve been overused. Everybody’s heard them before. But commenting on somebody’s accent is almost always going to be a winner.

The best thing is if the person doesn’t think they have an accent. You typically find that in places like America, they think that nobody has an accent apart from people that aren’t from America. But the truth is that regional dialects and regional accents exist all over. Someone from New

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York does not sound like someone from California, does not sound like somebody from Texas, and so on. If you’re from England, people from London don’t sound the same as people that come from York, etc.

The point is, almost everybody has an accent that makes them sound like they’re from somewhere else. Even if you don’t know exactly what that accent is, it doesn’t matter because you’re not predicting it. You’re just

saying, “Wow, you have a really cool accent, I’m trying to place it. Whereabouts is it from?” Then when they give you that information, they are telling you so much about themselves. They’re telling you where they’re from, what their upbringing is; they’re telling you that maybe they moved around a bit. You’re going to learn a lot about this

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person incredibly quickly, and each thing that they tell you is a new topic of conversation.

They’re essentially giving you a lot of information about themselves and a lot of threads of conversation for you to talk about, which are great ways to keep a

conversation going with somebody.

The Occasion

The next transition is the occasion. The occasion is what I typically use when I can see that there is an occasion going on. For example, if you see a bunch of

bridesmaids, they’ve got sashes or tiaras or whatever the situation is; if it looks like a big group of girls having an occasion I’ll say something like, “Hey guys, what’s the

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occasion? What’s going on, how do you guys all know each other?”

That will be my transition. Here’s another example: “Hey, do you happen to know what time this club closes? I have some friends coming in later on and I just want to make sure they get here before it closes….wait, wait guys, what’s the occasion? What’s going on here, I’ve totally missed this.”

This is a very simple way of transitioning and learning more about what they’re doing that night. They’ll ultimately tell you that they’re bridesmaids, or it’s someone’s birthday, or whatever.

A little note here: If you ever talk to a girl and you find out that they’re having some kind of bachelorette party, a

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great thing to do is ask who has the list. This is a list of things that the girls have to achieve during the night of the bachelorette party. It starts quite innocently enough with “get a guy to buy you a drink” and ends up with things like “make out with a guy you’ve never met before.” What’s great about this is that most girls don’t think guys know the list exists. The fact that you know about the list gives you instant pre-selection, because you must know girls to know that the list exists. Secondly, you can help them work through the list, but the way to do it is not to be part of the early challenges. What I like to do is help them get other guys to achieve

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the first parts of the list. For example, if it’s get a guy to buy you a drink, I will help them find a guy who will buy them a drink. That way I can go through all the things that are very easy and simple and build up a lot of comfort with them.

When I’ve completed the first half of the list with them, they’ll move onto the more raunchy stuff like “make out with a random dude.” But they’re not going to want to make out with a random dude; they’re going to want to make out with a random dude that they kind of know - and that’s the point where I’ll start accepting some of the items on the list, like sneaking off into a corner and having a nice big make-out session and what have you, with a girl that I’ve just met. That’s a very simple tip that you can use when you’re doing the occasion.

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82 The Introduction

The next one and one of my favorite transitions is the introduction. The introduction works by a very simple process. The first person that you approach in a group is the first person responsible for keeping you in or out of the group.

If you get that person to introduce you to somebody else in the group, and that person to introduce you to

somebody else in the group, you essentially get deep into the group. Once you’re three people in, that person can’t really reject you because they met you through

somebody else in the group and they don’t know whether you’re a friend of theirs or how long you’ve known each other. And the first person you approached, they’re not really around anymore, so they can’t really reject you

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either, because you’re having a conversation with a person three deep in the group. The point is, it’s very difficult to kick you out at that point.

So a very simple transition to use is just to say, “Oh hey, nice to meet you. Is this your friend? Who’s this, what’s his name? Nice to meet you,” and do the same thing again. “Oh, who’s this? Nice to meet you; pleasure,” and once you’re two or three people in, it’s very difficult to get you kicked out of the group at that point.

The Opinion

Finally, the last transition and arguably one of the best – in fact, the University of Chicago identifies this as one of the best lines you can use to generate attraction with somebody – is the Opinion.

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I know a lot of people have used opinion lines to start a conversation, and while that might be an okay way to start a conversation, it’s quite common to get stuck because logically speaking, why would I ask this person whom I don’t know about their opinion? Likewise, a lot of the people you approach will wonder, “Why is this person asking me on something? I obviously don’t know them; I don’t really care.”

But when you use it as a transition, you’ve already had a conversation with them. In fact, it’s almost like you’ve built up that foundation I was talking about earlier, so it sort of seems acceptable at this point to ask them what they think about something.

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The best opinions are always going to be based on something that you yourself care about, and typically are based on relationships. If you make up an opinion, the chances of it succeeding are incredibly low. No one wants to hear a conversation that you don’t really care about, and if you’re making it up, you probably don’t care about it.

Whenever I’m using an opinion, I almost always make it about somebody’s relationship that I know and that I really want help with. So I’ll say something like:

“You know what? Seeing as how you seem really, really friendly…”

I almost always start my opinion with that line, because it ensures via qualification that they’re much more likely to

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be friendly to me. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you’ve definitely got to watch the

qualification program, because it teaches you specifically how to use preloading (which is what that was) to get the person to be friendly.

“Hey, you know what? Seeing as how you’re so friendly, maybe you can help me out with something. My friend’s in this typical situation…”

Then I break down the situation for them. At the end of it I follow up with:

“I would love to get some advice on what I could tell my friend. The problem is, I can’t ask anyone else that we know because they know the situation and they’ll think I’m being a busybody and I don’t really want that, but I

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do want to help out my friend. What advice could you give me that I could give him?”

That’s a really nice way of starting an opinion transition that keeps the conversation flowing. Plus it contains things like gossip, relationships, and drama which is pretty much all you find cover-to-cover in any female magazine and TV show, stuff that girls absolutely love.

Marketing people around the world have figured out that this is what girls really like, so you might as well steal that information and use it to start a conversation with a girl.

You can use these simple transitions to get off that first topic of conversation. You can use all four of them, or

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just one of them; it’s completely up to you. Of course the more you use, the longer the conversation will be, but sometimes you’ll find that the occasion one just doesn’t work, or there are only a couple of people so the

introductory one isn’t possible. However, they’re all different options for you to use to transition the

conversation. It’s up to you to pick the one the best suits the situation.

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Chapter 4 - Commonalities

Now we have to get to the meat of the conversation. And the meat of the conversation is finding rapport with the other person. Let’s revisit comfort for a second and figure out exactly what comfort is. Comfort is made up of two things: It’s made up of trust and rapport. Trust that you’re not going to do anything horrible to them or make them think that you might try and kill them or something, and rapport is where the two of you have some things in common; some common ground with each other so that the conversation feels nice and comfortable.

And this is where we start this rapport, with that ability to build up commonalities with the other person. If you and

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the other person can find something in common with each other, you’ve got a great chance of having a

conversation. Here’s a question for you: How well do you know the girl who works at the checkout in your local grocery store? You probably see her quite often every time you do your weekly grocery shopping – yet how well do you actually know her as a person? Do you go out and have a coffee every so often? Do you have a

conversation with them when you see them? Probably not; this is a person you see on a semi-regular basis, and yet they don’t really have anything to do with your life other than checking out your groceries.

But what if one day as you were going through that checkout you discovered that she were about to go on

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holiday to Australia? She’s about to fly out to Australia, to Sidney for two weeks – which just happens to be the exact two weeks that you’re going to be there. Suddenly, you’ll find that you look at the checkout person a little bit

differently. I can almost guarantee that at this point you’d swap contact details with them with a plan to meet up while you’re in Australia and hangout, especially considering you’re going to be in exactly the same place. The point is, now that the two of you have something in common, you have a reason to stay in touch – that reason is a commonality.

How well do you know the checkout girl in your

local super market?

What if you saw her on vacation?

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When you have something in common between the two of you, it becomes a conversational topic. You can talk about the things you plan to do in Australia, what you’re looking forward to the most, whether you’ve been before, whether it’s expensive or not. All of these typical

conversational topics will flow naturally, and the two of you will find yourselves in a great, comfortable

conversation. You’ve got a reason to swap contact details; she’s going to want to hang out with you. Essentially, she now has comfort with you.

And if you’ve followed everything I’ve taught you up to this point, you will have already developed trust. They know you’re not a weirdo, because you’re hanging out with other girls, or you haven’t freaked them out by using any weird, strange lines that might make them think that

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you’re some kind of axe murderer. So you’ve got trust, and now if you can build a commonality, you’re going to get rapport.

The key to building rapport with somebody or finding a commonality is to identify things that they care about. Now, in an ideal world, that would be something you care about, too, but if you’re the one going out and

approaching people, you must be willing to have great conversations with people that you don’t have anything in common with, or who share common interests with you. It’s a great skill set to be able to generate commonalities with them or to essentially find things that they

absolutely love, and then be able to talk about it and build a commonality with it. Now there are typically three things that you’re going to find very easy to find solid

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commonalities with. It might be great to find out that you’re wearing the same color socks as the girl that you’re talking to, but that’s not really going to be a commonality that will generate a great conversation.

Location – Career – Hobbies

The three things that will start a great conversation are location (things like going abroad, where you grow up), career, and hobbies. These are the three things that most people really care about. The most important one of all is hobbies. People care about hobbies the most

because it’s something that you put your time, energy, and money into that doesn’t give you anything back other than pure enjoyment.