Ah the dreaded R word: Rejection.
Students are constantly asking me if I still get rejected?
The answer is that I do, but generally not in the way you think.
Whenever I get a phone number rather than a pull, I consider that a rejection. When a girl’s friends show up out of nowhere and she chooses them over me, I consider that a rejection. The standard of rejection has risen through the years.
So I get rejected a lot, but if you were to watch my “rejections” you might be envious.
BUT….
I certainly got rejected often (in the traditional and very obvious way) when I was starting out… and occasionally I still do. And I certainly had my share of pain for the first few years of learning.
Rejections, approach anxiety, confusion, bad advice, bad habits, bad game…yep, I’ll admit it, for most guys, learning game is difficult.
Even when you get good game, you still have to take action in order to get results, and that in itself is difficult. (I know plenty of “advanced guys” that don’t go out anymore and don’t get girls.)
Learning game is difficult. But you know what, I’m incredibly grateful for that fact.
And you should be as well.
Warning: I’m about to bend your mind a little…
…and hopefully reframe your entire emotional perception of game.
I get it. Nobody enjoys rejection, or struggling, or feeling like they aren’t making rapid enough progress; but what if all that “pain” was actually helping you.
Here’s why:
If game wasn’t hard, it would be impossible!
Take a minute to digest that weird and paradoxical-sounding statement.
What I mean is this:
- If game were easy to learn, no rejection, no massive action required, no learning curve, everyone would be doing good game.
- If everyone were doing good game, the limited amount of hot girls on Earth would be accustomed to good game and good game would no longer be enough to set you apart.
- If game no longer set you apart, you’d stop getting results. Then what would be the point?
So if game were easy, it wouldn’t actually get you results, and gaining any advantage from it would be impossible.
But that’s actually what game is: A massive unnatural advantage over the average guy.
This paradox is even clearer in another form of game I once did for a living, poker.
Have you ever stopped to think why poker players make so much more money than tic-tac-toe players, or even chess players? Probably not. Who even thinks about that?
Well, I think about that!
And here’s why:
Poker players make more money than tic-tac-toe players because it’s a more complex game.
Anyone can play tic-tac-toe for 30 minutes and never lose a game for the rest of their life because they’ve “solved” the game. Poker can’t be “solved” nearly so easily, and in the case of multiplayer poker, it arguably can’t be solved at all.
So you can’t make any money playing competitive tic-tac-toe because there is no competitive tic-tac-toe. That would be stupid and pointless.
The game isn’t difficult enough to be worthwhile.
Chess is a far more complex game, but it’s also hard to make a ton of money playing chess. Even grandmaster chess players often make more money teaching or writing books than by actually playing, and even the world champion (the chess player who actually does get really rich) makes more of his money off of appearances and endorsements than on actually playing chess.
Top poker players can make millions each year from the game itself and even very mediocre poker players can make a full-time living at it.
Is poker a tougher game than chess? No. But it is more random!
Let’s say you were to play chess with someone for money, and they beat you. How many more times would you have to lose before you just realized they were the better player and you quit? Probably not many.
However, it’s normal for people to play against one another in the same poker game for years on end. The fact that the bad player beats the good player often… the luck factor… is emotionally brutal for the good player, but good for him in the long run. It’s the very thing that keeps the game going. The bad player keeps playing, and keeps not improving, because the randomness keeps him unaware of his massive disadvantage.
Eventually, the luck factor stops working for the bad player and reality sets in. Sometimes incredibly painfully.
Meanwhile the good player ranks in most of the chips in the long run, despite a few emotionally painful bad beats.
Let’s bring this back to game.
-When you’re complaining that game is too painful, or it’s taking you a long time to learn game. You should instead be rejoicing.
If game was ridiculously easy to learn and “solved” by every joe-shmo, it would be pointless. You’d be on a level playing field with every other guy out there.
You’d have hundreds of millions of equally talented men competing for a very small demographic of in-demand women.
Essentially, you’d be unable to have any advantage whatsoever…which is what game actually is in the real world: A huge advantage over the vast majority of men who have none.
-When you’re complaining that you aren’t making smooth progress in game, you should again be rejoicing.
Most men settle for a life of mediocre sex and dating because frankly talking to girls and sometimes getting rejected IS actually emotionally difficult.
Very few men believe in themselves enough to even pursue growth in this area. It’s emotionally easier to just settle for what’s available to you. It’s easier to make excuses and assumptions. It’s easier to learn game tomorrow.
Even within the pickup community, it’s easier to sit in front of your laptop and complain and theorize to anonymous people on the internet than to actually go out and talk to girls.
And it’s these facts that make good game stand out in the minds of women.
That thrill of meeting that one-of-a-kind guy that “gets her” and that she actually wants to pursue is VERY rare for most women. Especially the hottest women.
-When you’re complaining that there are so many factors outside of your control in game, (the luck factor), you should instead be rejoicing.
If there were no luck factor in game, every guy who sucks at game would realize he sucks, know there was no luck involved and that he could easily get game, and then would do exactly that … and then you’d again have no advantage.
In the real world, the looks and money and status excuse keeps the average guy from even TRYING to talk to even a single girl. And that’s a beautiful thing!
So, this is easy for me to say as someone who’s already at a level of excellence, but I’m eternally grateful that game is both technically and emotionally difficult, as well as highly random.
Each and every one of these factors that is a barrier to someone new getting success, means less competition for me, my friends, and my students.
It’s a massive opportunity for the true student of game to have an even bigger advantage over the average guy.
And if you’re a beginner or intermediate struggling to get to the next level, know that it’s that very struggle that makes that next level so rewarding.
