Alger wrote:I agree that getting too hung up on the ideas is really bad. I say read the material for fun and every idea in the books does not need to be applied or used. It can offer insight though.
There's nothing wrong with reading and getting a different perspective. But, in my opinion, everything you read is not really all that applicable to you as an individual. Sure, you can get some ideas, but you're never, ever going to develop your skill set and create your own style of PU if you just take an idea from one book and another from another book.
Like most in the Community, I read "The Game" then I skimmed over "Mystery Method." I bought one or two of David D's CDs (cocky funny and online dating, the former was helpful but the latter sucked). Over the years, I've tried to read but didn't complete a few dozen ebooks and other sources of information. That was about the extent of my 'formal education.' Instead of reading everything out there, I adopted a handful of concepts that were intuitive for me to understand, and thus, implement. I focused on 4 or 5 specific things to execute and figured that if I took care of these things, if I executed on them, then everything else would fall into place. For me, it was storytelling, cocky/funny, comfort building, sexual innuendos, and non-verbal cues (this encompasses understanding her non-verbal cues and how to project confidence, success, and strength through my non-verbal cues). I focused on tightening those things up and that's made all the difference in the world for me.
Over time, I've really felt that the more I've read, the worse my Game got because I started getting too fancy. There's a guy in Dallas, Bull Run (I think he's a member here and at Lair), whose post I once read about this very thing and he basically said that PU is based on two concepts: focus and Occam's Razor. Basically he was saying that you should focus your energies on a handful of simple concepts and if you execute on those concepts then you're going to be incredibly dangerous in the field. If you've noticed, you'll see that that's so true because virtually every "Guru" has some kind of specific niche that they've mined and execute on over and over again. They're probably not as successful outside of their specific niche, but when they're working their niche they're scary dangerous because they've taken a handful of simple concepts, strung them together, and execute on them.
The problem is finding which of the tactics/techniques/concepts/ideology/whatever suits you best. You'll get an idea of what you want to try by reading, but it'll be a long arduous process. If you put the books down and start experimenting, start asking more experienced guys for advice, start watching other guys run their Game, then you're going to find out what things you need to focus on. Once you've discovered the things that you're going to focus on, it's all about practice from there.
Read a little, get familiar with our Jargon, with the general concept of PU (which, I think, "The Game" will provide for you). Then, put down the books and start living in the real world.
Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 6:25 pm