Savoy is not the author’s real name, but a pen name, like what most guys (especially the teachers) have in the seduction community to protect their identity. Savoy is CEO of Love Systems, a corporation of dating instructors who teach guys how to meet, attract, and keep women. Magic Bullets ebook is the main product they offer as it provides the framework and concepts they teach in their bootcamps around the world.

If you’ve read the New York Times best seller The Game, you know a little about this new field where guys learn how to be more successful with women and dating from the book’s main character, Mystery. Mystery Method was that original corporation where Mystery – arguably the world’s greatest pick-up artist – owned the company. Since then, Mystery has left the company, which was later renamed to Love Systems.

In my review of The Game by Neil Strauss, I wrote a little about how the book provides several tips, and many insights, into the pick-up process. This is integrated in with an entertaining narration style of writing, which is why I’m assuming it was a New York Times best seller – that and the fact it revealed the intriguing pick-up community to the general public. The techniques and concepts in Magic Bullets describe the foundations used by the world’s best pick-up artists in The Game. Parts of the Love System’s seduction model has evolved over the years into a more reliable description of the seduction process.

The greatest part about this new model taught in Magic Bullets is the second phase (transition) because this determines if the relationship moves forward or ends quicker than it started. Any guy who can open (the first phase) knows that opening is easy once he can overcome approach anxiety. The barrier in the past for guys has been figuring out what happens after you open. It’s easy to use a canned opener like asking for an opinion, but what do you do to transition and move forward in the relationship? What do you say that doesn’t seem like a big “jump” from your opener to your conversation topic? The transition phase in the book’s model is the answer to this problem.

The model in the book which forms the basis of Love Systems is:

1. Opening
2. Transitioning
3. Attraction
4. Qualification
5. Comfort
6. Seduction
7. Relationships

If you have experience in the seduction community, you know the whole seduction process is a structured framework (your understanding of it may be a little different to the one above). The model provides a step-by-step guide of the entire process. Every intimate relationship goes through the model – almost always unconsciously unless you consciously understand the steps. The steps tell you exactly what you must do and when to catalyze the seduction process while having it under your control. All this ultimately means you can quickly build relationships with women you find attractive.

The steps tell you exactly what you must do and when to catalyze the seduction process while having it under your control.

If you grab your copy of Magic Bullets, you learn more about each step within the seven phases and no longer be clueless when you have an unsuccessful pick-up. You will continually improve yourself and your skills so you are better in your next approach. If you take this seriously, you can ultimately become like many experienced students of Love Systems who can have almost any woman they want. The instructors from Love Systems have learned and experienced seduction for years so you are sure to learn a lot from their expertise.

The book is nicely divided into four parts: introduction, emotional progression model, context, and skills. Here is more detail of the book’s table of contents:

I’m pretty sure Savoy said the book was originally 500 pages. What a whopper that would have been. Fortunately, it was condensed down to approximately 200 pages with the magical use of many to-the-point bullets. (That’s not the reason for the book’s name, but there’s an interesting fact.) The chunk of bullets means there is much jam-packed information. It is called Magic Bullets because, ironically, there is no magic bullet – an ultimate guaranteed solution – to successfully attract and hold onto a woman. The book is the closest thing to a “magic bullet”.

If you want a book that teaches you how to approach, attract, pick-up, and date more women in your life, Magic Bullets is your solution. It is a leader in the seduction community for one reason: it works. Thousands of guys have transformed themselves from being frozen stone-cold when approaching a woman to being “the man” in a nightclub and social situations in the day.

I highly recommend you grab your copy right now. It isn’t free, but the investment is worth it if you want to feel good around women. It is an ebook you can download and be reading within five minutes by clicking here today.

No longer do you have to try a mumbo-jumbo technique, a psychological trick, or the latest dietary secret to “remove” your fears. According to Jeffers, just do the thing you fear. If reading that statement scares you, you are normal!

There’s no wonder this book has sold over 2 million copies. With fear being so common in society, Jeffers has a solution that gets you to act in the face of fear.

Your fear disappears, or at least greatly diminishes, once you “just do it”. When you feel fear, yet take action, anxiety vanishes as you see the irrational nature of the fear. Then you become what people call “a confident person“. You save yourself time and worry in failed attempts to deal with your fear.

Jeffers’ best-selling book is named after a class she taught on fear. The class quickly became a hit. Her students were able to act in the face of their fears and build confidence from their action.

As was common in her classes, the students thought their fears were weird, unique problems. Her students felt different from the rest of society. As students gradually began to share their stories, each class always warmed and filled with a sense of excitement – a sense of hope their “weird problems” could at last be cured.

We think fear is a psychological problem. You may perceive yourself to have some mental or emotional problem, but it isn’t some weird problem. The fear you experience is more an educational problem than a psychological problem made clear to you in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.

The book’s main message is that fear comes from an uncertainty in capability to handle the situation. Our fears come from a disbelief in our ability to handle whatever life gives us. Jeffers says, “All you have to do to diminish your fear is to develop more trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way.”

All fear comes from an uncertainty in capability to handle the situation.

Though this may seem contradictory to the book’s main message, the book is not focused on removing fear – as the title goes: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Many of your fears can go away, and the book helps you to remove fears, but as Jeffers shares with her first truth about fear, “The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow.” The 5 truths about fear are real eye-openers.

Everybody fears doing, or being, something new because of the uncertainty within unfamiliar situations. If you don’t fear, you don’t grow. Moreover, if everyone experiences fear in approaching something new in life, the problem itself is not fear. The real problem is how you hold fear.

People paralyzed by fear feel helpless, indecisive, and angry; while those empowered by fear are powerful, action-oriented, and loving. The difference between the two categories of people is an educational problem solved by Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Fear, indecision, and anger are transformed into power, action, and love.

As you may have noticed in this review, the book doesn’t only talk about fears. It helps you become more decisive, powerful, action-oriented, and loving. Many personal problems relate to these issues that are subtle fears beyond our awareness. For example, a wife stays in her miserable marriage not realizing she fears the uncertain life ahead if she moved out. She continues to remain in the marriage blaming her husband for what occurs in her life. The wife has anger and indecisiveness originating from her fear. You likely do too.

Chapters are devoted to understanding fear, personal responsibility, blame, self-talk, positiveness, and transformation to name a few topics. Jeffers has you control the “chatterbox” within you that makes you worry. I think the chapter on wholeness is brilliant because a whole life prevents us from fearing loss in other areas of life. Another great chapter was on no-lose decision-making. The author made me realize that no matter what choice I select in any decision, each choice leads to its own unique, fulfilling reward. What a great way to remove anxiety in selecting a choice.

The book is written well and simple to read. It doesn’t have the psychological terminology that can throw you off reading books about the human mind. Its simplicity combined with a concise 209 pages will have you quickly finish the book. You can be feeling the fear and doing it anyway in no time. Securely grab your copy of Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway now from Amazon by clicking here.

The Game is a fantastic read. Author Neil Strauss takes you through his life-changing transformation from geek to woman-magnet. You follow his exciting tales as he starts out as a shy, passive, and introverted writer for The New York Times who within two years becomes one of the world’s greatest pick-up artists (PUAs).

A pick-up artist is a man who goes out and attracts women with his tremendous communication skills. Though they don’t refer to the skills as “communication skills”, the many pick-up artists throughout The Game are extremely competent in reading a woman’s body language, keeping her interested, and having great conversations. The PUAs ability to fine-tune their skills, rapidly adapt to situations, use routines, and maintain a high awareness of present social dynamics put the majority of people that learn communication skills to shame.

Each PUA (character) in The Game has a nickname that reflects his personality or has a strange story behind its origin. Strauss goes by the name of “Style” as he learns pick-up skills with guys like Extramask, Juggler, and WideFace from pioneers in the field like Mystery and Ross Jeffries.

Strauss is the book’s main character. After reading tid-bits of pick-up skills online from a “lair” (an online gathering place where guys learn how to attract women), Style meets up with Mystery at a workshop. Mystery is accompanied with friend and fellow instructor, Sinn. Mystery and Sinn instruct Style and two other students on what to expect at the workshop.

On the first night out, the two instructors blow the students’ minds away. They see the unattractive instructors attract women before their eyes. The three students get caught in disbelief as their past ideas about only good-looking guys get hot women is destroyed. Each student begins to practice what they learn following the workshop. Their practice is filled with failure, funny stories, and the occasional successful approach.

The workshop teases Style into the whole pick-up subject as he commits to getting this part of his life solved. He becomes sick of not talking to women then sets out on a journey to become ultra successful with women. After learning from the many greats like his best friend Mystery, attending seminars, reading lots of books on related topics, and practicing then failing, Style soon becomes one of the world’s best at picking-up women. He finally discovers what women want in men.

It is written in a novel format, which hooked me word-for-word… You really do penetrate the secret society of pick-up artists.

The PUAs’ social skills are mind-blowing. They have an amazing ability to penetrate a group of 10 people consisting of 9 men and 1 woman, and come out with the woman’s phone number. There is a scene in the book where a character by the name of Mystery basically steals Scott Baio‘s girlfriend, a very attractive lady. Mystery achieves this by firstly befriending Scott. He approaches the group by performing magic tricks to demonstrate a higher value, which sets him apart from other men. Scott’s girlfriend urges Mystery to show her more tricks, but he ignores her. Because of her requests, Mystery occasionally does something called a “neg” where he makes comments to Scott like, “Is she always this demanding?” In under 20 minutes, Scott’s girlfriend hands Mystery her phone number (a number-close).

The attraction community is filled with jargon like negging (a gentle put-down), average frustrated chump (AFC, typical guy who isn’t good with women), indicator of interest (IOI, a sign of interest a woman displays), and demonstration of higher value (DHV, a display of high status) to name a few of the many terms. Pick-up artists or soon-to-be pick-up artists go sarging in-field (meaning they go out to practice their pick-up skills on women). The men mostly go in-field for “night game” at clubs and bars, though there is a few pick-up scenes in the The Game at “day game” venues like bookstores. The first day game approach Strauss did was a success in number-closing a Playmate of the year.

Other stories with celebrities are well told. A character by the name of Papa number-closed Paris Hilton at a taco store. Another one is when Courtney Love moved into the pick-up artists’ house, named “Project Hollywood”, during Courtney’s legal battle. This situation goes on for a few chapters with Courtney having a funny “Muffin Day” and “Lemonade Day” where she makes mass amounts of muffins and lemonade for the guys. Later in the book when Strauss has mastered pick-up skills, he interviews a resistant Britney Spears for The New York Times. After running a few routines on her, Britney suddenly opens up and begins to heavily participate in the interview.

The Game contains occasional swearing and adult scenes. Moreover, it is written in a novel format, which hooked me word-for-word. I rarely read novels, but Strauss integrates a narrative style of writing by educating the reader with what goes on at a deeper level in a situation when the skills get used. You are pulled inside the minds of pick-up artists as you discover their social skills. You really do penetrate the secret society of pick-up artists.

People unfamiliar with the pick-up community will find The Game interesting. Those familiar with the community will likely have read the book. If this whole topic interests you, get your copy of Neil Strauss’ The Game directly from Amazon.com by clicking here today. Next, check out the videos below where Neil (the bald guy) discusses his book and some of the techniques on various television shows.

Videos

Neil Strauss on ABC Primetime Special

Neil Strauss on Jimmy Kimmel Live

UPDATE: Neil Strauss has released a follow up, Rules of the Game, which comes in a nice two-book set. One book contains fascinating stories while the other is a 30-day challenge that aims to get you using the many tips Strauss shares in the book. You can get Rules of the Game here.

Two years following the incident in a New York Times article, it was reported Jason raised his grade average to 4.614 (exceeding the perfect average of 4) by taking advanced courses and graduated with highest honors. He was smart.

Jason got better than perfect grades and still emotionally lost himself by trying to wound or kill his teacher. He could never improve his grade by stabbing his teacher. How can someone as smart as Jason do something so dumb?

The answer? Smart can be dumb. Studies show there is little to no correlation between IQ and emotional intelligence and that smart people are as likely to be good at communicating as “dumb people”. But I’ve observed smart people with poor communication skills make common mistakes in their communication. Intelligence can work against you.

How to Be Successful and Smart

I regard myself as an intelligent guy. I was no Einstein but got good marks in Mathematics, Physics, and other technical subjects. I graduated high school with the highest marks of my year level. I began a degree in Engineering, majoring in Mechatronics, an area of study that integrates mechanics, electronics, and computing. I would be able to design robotics and cybernetic systems – the wave of the future. Such skills would surely give me an edge in life.

After one year of study with decent marks, I began to see two major classes of students. The first category of student turned up to few lectures, partied every weekend, enjoyed a great social life, and did minimal work to pass courses. The second category of students were intelligent, hard workers, got good grades, and were very focused on their studies. Surely these intelligent, hard-working students would fill the great jobs before the lazier class of student?

Not so. Students are often shocked upon graduation that their technical qualifications are unimportant. Students in school are lead to believe their academic knowledge is the primary determinat of a great job and success. Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences defines various types of intelligence and emphasizes that schools are too focused on logic and linguistic intelligence. Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a more famous author that demotes the common belief that the government’s education system leads students to wealth and success. Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers contains further proof that IQ has little correlation with achievement.

Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence, says that IQ is too narrow to predicate success. The implications of emotional intelligence, which is summarized as an understanding of your emotions and the emotions of other people, are profound in communication and many areas of life. “Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities,” says Goleman, “either facilitating or interfering with them.”

Graduates enter the workforce only to realize that co-workers hate them, less intelligent people are the ones receiving promotions, and sucking up to the boss doesn’t help personal earnings. The students have “hard skills” such as technical know-how, but they lack the “soft skills” like conflict management and social etiquette. The transition for intelligent people from being goal-oriented to process and people-oriented is usually realized through experience.

It’s not that people dislike you because of your intelligence; it’s that people dislike you because you’re rude, not understanding, or annoying to be around.

If you have experience in hiring people, you know the importance of people skills. A person’s knowledge can be useless in some industries when the person has no people skills. You can have great ideas, theories, and solve complex problems, but if you cannot effectively communicate that material in a persuasive and exciting manner by relating to your fellow human, you face an uphill battle in whatever challenges you encounter. It’s not that people dislike you because of your intelligence; it’s that people dislike you because you’re rude, not understanding, or annoying to be around. The intelligent person with poor communication skills is insensitive.

Hopefully I can reveal the elusive obvious to you in this little exercise. I want you to think back to primary school or high school. Perhaps even college. Select the most memorable class to you.

I want you to categorize, and roughly rank, class members based on two sets of criteria: intelligence and popularity. You don’t need to go through every class member, but recall those at the end of each spectrum. That is, remember the smartest few in the class and the most popular few in the class. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, give a person a rank of ten in intelligence if you feel they were the most intelligent in the class. For the students who had lots of friends, give them a ten in the popularity category. Try to categorize roughly six students. If you have problems remembering, quickly write the ranks down on paper.

Now, with the students you have ranked in one category, rank them in the other category. So if you have ranked the smartest student as a ten in the intelligence category, give the person a rank you feel is appropriate in the popularity category. Do the same for students you ranked in the popularity category.

Now that you have several people in each category, think about the difference between the student-types.

Genius-Failure Paradox

Did you noticed a distinguishable difference in the students you ranked during the exercise? No difference may exist, but most who do this exercise notice the intelligent lack friends. The smartest were generally not very popular because they had poor social skills. Presumptuous? Likely, no.

Smarter, wealthier, or generally people who have feelings of superiority, refuse to seek help in dealing with people.

All intelligent people do not have poor people skills just like all unintelligent people do not have good people skills. You may think, “But I know someone who is smart and great with people.” Good. So do I. Intelligence and people skills are not mutually exclusive characteristics. Having one does not mean you cannot have the other.

Academically intelligent people fail in predictable areas of their lives for predictable reasons. What makes matters worse is they avoid solving the dilemma because of pride. The genius-failure paradox describes that people who want to feel smarter, wealthier, or generally superior to others refuse to seek help in dealing with people. You can feel inferior learning a skill like communication that you believe should be natural. To learn such a skill is an admission to your weakness and stupidity.

How the Problem Begins in Childhood

A study titled Reading Difficulties, Behavior, and Social Status published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, found that 81% of children referred to aggression and social behaviour as the number one reason for disliking another child. As children age, the researchers found that a child’s academic performance increased their peer acceptance.

The study also found that achievement and other factors are influential to peer acceptance. We do need to keep in mind that peer acceptance does not equate to only social skills. Peer acceptance can increase due to one variable that is completely unrelated to communication. What we can take from this study is that right from the beginning of our social interactions, we are liked or dislike based on our behaviour and social skills.

Herpreet Kaur Grewal in an article titled Lack of Social Skills Can Make Poor Even Poorer, refers to a study done by the Institute for Public Policy Research. The study confirms that the economy makes interpersonal skills as important as academic skills. Grewal says, “Those with good social skills born into poor families are 14% more likely to be well-off by age 30 than a similarly under-privileged person with average social skills.” The study presents a few interesting points that are worth noting for the purpose of this article.

Firstly, social skills and other communication skills were found to be more important later in life. Maybe you’ve experienced the same thing. When you were young, you could get away with yelling at other kids. You could even fight with little or no repercussions. Should you punch someone at work in the face tomorrow (I hope I haven’t given you any ideas) because of your inability to resolve conflict, the quality of your professional and personal life will suffer.

A second finding of interest to us is that the best way children can develop the communication skills required for life are through organized activities. These groups should have children of diverse ages, experiences, and interests, as well as adult leaders that provide guidance to the young group. The adult leaders typically have a goal they want the children to achieve together. Team sports are a good example of activities that fit the described criteria to help children develop their social skills. Even for mature adults, interacting with diverse individuals improves their communication skills because it requires a person to adapt and understand different people.

The implications of these findings on this article are vague, but I present them to you for your curiosity. Do smarter people participate in fewer organized activities that fit the criteria of developing children’s social skills? Do smarter people participate in more singular extra-curricular activities like learning to play a musical instrument? Is their a trade-off between social interaction and increasing your intelligence? Do the less-intelligent individuals spend their time in these socially-beneficial activities instead of studying?

One thing we do know is that social skills and other communication skills need to be frequently practiced. While people can naturally have the gift of the gab, be emotionally intelligent, or easily win friends, communication skills atrophy without use.

Poor communication skills can put you in a dangerous cyclic effect. Poor communication deters you from situations that require those skills, further decreasing your social skills. If a boy has poor communication skills during developmental years because he did not participate in activities like football that Grewal speaks of as important for social development, he can struggle to get out of the rut due to the cyclic effect of avoiding social situations.

Common Mistakes Smart People Make in Communication

Intelligent people solve problems with their superior logic. The individuals use rational thinking to eliminate problems. A dilemma arises when they attempt to solve an emotional problem with their logic.

The logic dilemma is partly given birth from an intelligent person’s love of information. Locating information makes life easier. With the Internet being a superhighway for information, intelligent people are inclined to read, learn, and analyse their issues via the World Wide Web. (Maybe that’s why you’re reading this article).

However, communication skills are skills. Communication skills are not information. Any skill develops through practice. If you are an intelligent person, I still want you to learn about communication skills, but know that acting on your knowledge is more likely to be a bottleneck in your personal development than gathering more information.

Intelligent people see problems and provide solutions – a harmful formula for human relations.

Back to the logic dilemma, people are an illogical formula. If people were a formula they would be defined by 1 + 1 = 3. Logic and intelligence cannot explain the complexities of human emotion. Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, emphasizes the importance of emotion in human relations and the little influence logic has on our behavior. “When dealing with people,” says Carnegie, “remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”

In my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program, I define two distinguishing behaviors of people that fall into the logical trap. Firstly is a common mistake we all make: we point out the obvious. Stating the obvious is frustrating and emotionally ignorant. Some examples include:

• “Breaking up with a guy is tough. Don’t worry, there’s the right man for you out there somewhere.” This starts well, but then the person says the emotionally-ignorant obvious.
• “I can’t believe you burned my toast. That’s stupid.” Do you really think he or she burned the toast on purpose?
• “Wow. I’m so sorry to hear about the burglar breaking into your car. You really should have locked your doors.” Thanks for the advice… Idiot!

The second common logical mistake is making factual statements. People make the factual statement mistake when they talk about an emotional issue with logic and rational. An indicator of this type of mistake is when the respondent says, “You don’t get it” or “You’re missing the point”.

As an example of the factual statement mistake, Jill is talking to her good friend Michael, an intelligent guy, about her recent break up. Jill begins to “open herself up” and discuss her broken relationship. The emotions she communicates are uncomfortable to Michael. As is common with smart people, Michael perceives Jill’s affliction and his own discomfort in clear terms. He does not see muddled emotions. He sees pain; not resentment and anguish; or hatred; not partial likeness and hatred.

Michael wants to resolve Jill’s hurt. In his black and white world, Michael sees clear emotions, problems, and provides a solution. He thinks giving her advice is best for her wellbeing. He may use his intelligence to give advice, provide reassurance, or create some other communication barrier. Intelligent people see problems and provide solutions – a harmful formula for human relations.

The logic-driven communication used by Michael frustrates Jill. Jill isn’t after a solution; she wants someone to empathize with her and understand what she feels. Michael is too intent on resolving problems and providing advice.

People want to emotionally connect with you. You cannot connect and make friends, however, when you erect an emotional barrier with advice and factual statements. To overcome this problem, I strongly recommend you get the Communication Secrets of Powerful People program then read chapters 9 and 10.

Combating Emotions with Logic

People today think they need to conquer their emotions. The smart, possibly think this more so because of their problem-solving habits and intellect. Popular self-help myths lead us to believe that emotions like depression and anger must be manipulated to achieve happiness.

Goleman says, “Even the most academically brilliant among us are vulnerable to being undone by unruly emotions.” Take for example, anxiety. The smart often try to suppress an emotion such as anxiety with self-talk (“I shouldn’t be worried about this”) to free themselves from what they do not want to feel. The secret cure to social anxiety, however, is acceptance of anxiety and doing what you are afraid of. Through this action day-by-day you can live on purpose. Goleman says that our fears, anxieties, anger, and emotions guide our everyday lives.

When intelligent people cannot resolve an issue, they may complain and blame others for the outcome. Their knowledge and past experience in solving problems causes them to look beyond themselves to explain why the problem remains. Even when they blame outsiders, a smart person may conclude that because a problem in unsolved, it cannot be solved or it is not worth the effort to solve.

Pat Wagner from Pattern Research, a Colorado company that provides organisations with a communication programs, says smart people tend to convert their self-diagnosed failings into virtues. They use their intellect to convert emotional weaknesses into strengths. Wagner terms them as smart flaws.

One particular smart flaw I used that Wagner mentioned was not starting a conversation because it would be a waste of time. The real reason I didn’t start a conversation was my fear. I was scared ****less. Now I am more aware of my most common smart flaws, I stop myself in my tracks when I use them then identify the real reason why I rationalize my behavior. Whenever I do not talk to someone because “it is a waste of time”, I now realize it could be because I am not dealing with my emotions. I maybe hiding: the fear of talking to strangers, feelings of unhappiness, or the anxiety that I will be boring.

Another emotional weakness with smart people – particularly guys when they want to approach a woman – is fear. “A smart guy’s strength is his mind,” says David DeAngelo, a dating coach for men. “His weakness is often his emotions. Smart guys are often immobilized by fear.”

Women wonder why men struggle to walk up then talk with them even when a woman sends obvious signals of interest that she wants to chat. A guy’s analytical mind switches on immobilizing him from action. A thousand crazy scenarios and potential problems race through his head in psychological war.

The problem for intelligent people who think a lot is they think a lot.

The analytical mind has its purpose. The mind has served humanity well in the past to get us where we are today. It has identified predators, threats, and immediate dangers.

The problem for intelligent people who think a lot is they think a lot! They tend to plan everything before taking action, which causes them to lose spontaneity and be boring. Such behavior may result in neediness, validation, and indecisiveness.

In social situations, over-analysis is a killer mistake. Intelligent people try to mind-read people in conversations. They micro-manage their interactions based on analytical feedback. This drives their fear and uncertainty in conversations.

The next time you catch yourself micro-managing your conversations and worrying what the other person thinks, remember the other person is likely to be more concerned with what you think about them. Remind yourself that you cannot mind-read – and trying to do so only creates anxiety. Live in the moment more often and you will notice people naturally attract to you.

A few last points I want to make on logical strength and emotional weakness deal with conversation. We hunger for emotional connection in conversations. We love drama, fun, and controversy. Facts, logic, and technical subjects are often boring and too complex. The emotional side of conversations engage people. Academically intelligent people may focus too much on logical topics. Women are especially interested in any type of drama. Watch their eyes light up when you talk about the latest celebrity fashion stuff ups and other popular dramas.

Another emotional weakness, in addition to the subject of conversations, is the vocabulary used. Academics often use technical vocabulary to prove their intelligence – a killer of rapport. Simple, duh-duh, language is more effective than technical linguistics and non-methodologically circumstantial language that homosapiens find distateful. The same goes for writing to keep people interested. I try to write in a casual way – similar to how a conversation goes; not technical stuff, things, and other types of stuff, you know? This last reason is why so many great findings in academic journals go hidden for years. The general public cannot be bothered reading jargon.

On that last point of being too technical for people, something that may interest you is how some people write emails to me. I teach communication, but that does not mean being technical, using complex vocabulary, and trying to be intelligent helps build rapport. You can tell the difference. Here’s one example of a technical email I received last week:

Dear Joshua. Allow me to extend my formal gratitude in your beautiful array of teachings…

The intent behind such emails is great. The problem when you speak in jargon is the person you talk or write to does not feel connected with you. Lots of organizations fail hard with this principle when handling complaints.

Let’s compare that email example with this one:

Hey Joshua. Thanks heaps for the articles. I’ve learned that… You’ve helped me improve my relationship with my partner because…

Can you sense the difference? The last example is more friendly, but not overly casual. The person in the first example who appears intelligent does not “connect” because they are too technical. Even if you are intelligent and have a complex vocabulary, use terminology the other person uses to build rapport. Do not try prove your intelligence. We want to improve your communication skills, not boost your ego.

A Little-Known Secret to Learn Communication Skills

Take a moment to imagine you have traveled back in time to the Stone Age with a smart friend. You and your friend arrive amongst a tribe when two saber-toothed tigers approach. What choice do you make: 1) Do you get help from your intelligent friend? or 2) Do you rely on tribe members that are intelligent as your dog back home, but you know they have spent their lifetime surviving and adapting to the environment?

Our trip in time to the Stone Age shows us that intelligence does not equate to survival and other important skills. Stone Age dwellers were far from the level of intelligence people have today. I remember hearing a strange statistic that the decisions we make when reading a newspaper (such as skimming sections, understanding an article, and selecting what to read) in one day exceeds the total decisions made by prehistoric people in their lifetime.

Intelligence doesn’t equate to effective communication skills.

Intelligent people must acknowledge their expertise is limited. You cannot be an expert in everything. Intelligence does not equate to effective communication skills. A person from the Stone Age is sure to teach you something. Instead of being right, concede you do not know everything about communication.

Find the first steps you need to take to develop expertise in an area of your interest – even from someone of less intelligence. If you are interested in how to hold a conversation, the dumbass you hate may teach you a lot. Find what you need to do first then take the next step.

The Attitude You Need to Develop an Amazing Life

What happens to intelligent people who struggle in their social life? They keep quite. Intelligent people are habituated in solving problems, being an expert, and working things out themselves so they refuse to ask for help. They choose to freeze themselves with fear and uncertainty than ask someone about social skills. There are several interesting reasons for rationalization and smart flaws.

Not in all cases, but smart people look down on less intelligent people. No way will an intelligent person ask someone less intelligent for help. If the intelligent person is also wealthy, not in a million years. To seek help from someone with less intelligence is demeaning to the ego and a sign of weakness.

People of less intelligence are not inferior. Their friends are not weird or immature. These are smart flaws. I sometimes catch myself thinking that someone with less intelligence or less skill cannot teach me. What a dangerous lie that is. You can learn from someone with an IQ of 60. Accept it. You will be more desirable when humbling yourself.

When helping an intelligent person improve their communication, it is good to explain how their expertise will strengthen when their communication skills strengthen. Dale Carnegie talks about appealing to those characteristics you want in others to create those characteristics. Intelligent people know they are smart. One such statement in appealing to those good characteristics for changing the intelligent person’s behavior would go along the lines of, “You and I know you’re an intelligent person. Improving your communication is another way of showing people your intelligence, expertise, and good skill-set.”

Another explanation of why smart people do not seek help is that social skills are assumed to be natural. People skills can be a laughable skill to develop. If you need to develop your people skills, you could be labeled as a “loser”. Intelligent people cannot risk humiliation when they ask for help. They need to maintain their feelings of importance.

It is easy to talk about the necessity of seeking help, but seeking help is tough. No one by their own can gather the life skills to overcome personal problems. There is no shame in seeking help; only shame in not seeking help.

Quietening your ego proves your expertise more than stubbornness. People will be attracted to you when you are not obsessed with being right. Asking for advice is a secret technique to make people feel important and increase your personal magnetism. Withholding your intelligence can win you friends, even if you do not play dumb like Arthur Schopenhauer suggests:

It is a real recommendation to be stupid. For just as warmth is agreeable to the body, so it does the mind good to feel its superiority; and a man will seek company likely to give him this feeling, as instinctively as he will approach the fireplace or walk in the sun if he wants to get warm. But this means that he will be disliked on account of his superiority; and if a man is to be liked, he must really be inferior in point of intellect.

There are millions of lessons waiting for you to be discovered in conversations. Listen, empathize, and make friends to discover the lessons. Then you will be smart.

(I have posted people’s comments from an older version of the article below.)