The last two years have left a lot of people feeling a bit rusty when it comes to getting out there again and meeting people “in real life.”

In today’s video, I share 7 things you can do to get off dating apps once and for all and meet someone YOU choose in real life, by inspiring them to make the first move . . .

It’s my hope that this week’s video will help you feel both prepared and excited to get out there again. You’ve got this!

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Realize Your Potential Once and For All.
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MHVirtualRetreat.com

Matthew:

One of the reasons that people use dating apps is the perceived easiness of being on a dating app as a way of meeting people. Of course, a lot of people’s experience is that it’s not that easy. It gets complicated really fast, it takes a lot of effort, and often nothing real materializes out of it. You never actually end up on any dates, or you don’t meet anyone that you really like. It’s hard to get things off the ground. So, is there a way for real life meetings to feel easy again?

Now, one would think that the biggest thing we need on our side if we want to start meeting people in real life, if we want to have the ability to approach people, to take risks, to create opportunity, the number one thing we would need is bravery. Now, it’s true that having bravery can help create opportunities, because it means getting outside our comfort zones to actually make something happen. If you think about it, attraction needs a moment. Attraction doesn’t just happen unless there’s a moment to support it. And one of the reasons why we don’t create moments with other people where attraction can happen is because we are afraid or they’re afraid. We’re all afraid of rejection, we’re all afraid the embarrassment of saying the wrong thing.

Now, while it may be true that bravery is useful, I believe that there’s an even more subtle secret to creating opportunities in real life. And that is, to make other people brave in the way that you behave. So in this video, I’m going to give you seven things that you can do to make other people brave around you. Because if your superpower is in making other people brave in your presence, you’re the one who will reap the rewards of that.

Number 1, don’t, don’t create a friend fortress. This is where you and your friends get in a huddle where you are all facing inwards at each other, and it’s really difficult for anyone to come into that little world and speak to any of you. So imagine you are out with a friend, and that friend is here. Now, if you are pointed at each other, this doesn’t work with no one here. I can’t work like this, Jameson. I need an actor. Thank you.

You imagine this is the bar here, and the two of us are pointed at the bar like this in a kind of V shape. No one can get in here and talk to either of us. But, if we position ourselves out a little bit, and we’re just having a nice conversation with each other, but half of our body, half of our energy is pointed at each other. So Monkey can be here making an interesting point. The thing about eggs, but at the same time, half of our energy is pointed out to the room. There’s this whole space that someone can come and talk to us now, without having to do this, where they have to peel this open, banana reference, in order to speak to me and Monkey, who is drunk.

Number 2, “The Look.” If we want someone to come and be brave to speak to us, looking at them, making actual eye contact, is essential. And by the way, the first look is just a moment where you register each other. It’s the second or the third look where someone realizes you are now intentionally looking at them. And you could be doing something perfectly routine, like drinking a coffee or reading a book in a coffee shop. But every now and again, you just look up from your book, look around the room, look at them, and then keep reading your book. Or if you’re on a phone call, you’re talking, talking, talking, having a nice time, you look at them, you keep looking down, and then you look up again at them and keep talking. It’s very subtle, but those little moments equal more bravery on their part. Now that doesn’t mean you have to look for a long amount of time.

I had a woman the other day who I was on stage with and I said, “How long do you think you should look for if you were trying to make someone else brave,” and she said, “Hmm, five seconds?” And then I got the whole to count as I stared at someone for five seconds. Watch.

Number 3, you can make people braver if you get closer to them physically. How much space is there? How difficult would it be? Even if you were looking at them and they were looking back thinking, “Oh, this person likes me, this person’s attracted to me. I should go over there.” How much space do they have to close down to come over and make a move? Think of it this way. If you want them to talk to you first, imagine that the part of it you are helping with is getting closer, and the part they’re doing is the talking. And as a general note, by the way, move around a room a little bit. Even if we’re just walking around, grabbing a drink, going to the restroom, just moving. We’re creating more opportunities for things to happen. We’re putting ourselves in the flow, in the traffic of the room.

Number 4, use “The Favor.” I’ve been saying this for years, I’ll wrap it up really quickly right here. One of the easiest ways to talk to someone is simply to ask them a favor. “Could you hold my jacket for a second? Do you know anywhere good to go after this? Could you recommend me anything you’ve had here before?” If you can ask someone a small favor, you’re giving them permission to talk to you in that moment. The nice thing about the favor is that they don’t necessarily see it as you hitting on them, they just see it as an opportunity to be gracious, to be generous, to be chivalrous towards you. And thus, it makes them braver.

Number 5, use what I call “Two Hit Theory.” One of the things that makes us nervous when we want to talk to people is, we overthink how much we have to do in the first moment we speak to them. In other words we think, “I have to go over there, I have to say something interesting, I have to maintain in a conversation. And if it’s to go anywhere at some point, one of us has to ask for the other one’s number so that we can continue this conversation after this meeting.” Now, if you start to stack all of those things that have to happen for this to be a successful interaction, you’ll overwhelm yourself before you even go over there.

Two Hit Theory takes the opposite approach. You go and say something to someone with no intention of carrying on the conversation. In that moment, you might literally look over and say, “That looks really good, what you got? What you just ordered looks delicious.” And they’re like, “Yeah, it is blah, blah, blah.” And you say, “Well, I hope you enjoy it.” Or, “Hey, how’s it going?” Sometimes, literally, it’s just that.

You’re standing next to someone you say, “Hey, how’s it going?” And you don’t have any intention of carrying it on. You’ll be surprised how brave you get when you don’t have any intention of continuing the conversation. That’s Hit One. The second hit is later on in that social setting, when that person feels like they can talk to you, they can have another exchange, because you gave them permission earlier on.

Number 6, develop the mindset of a restaurant owner. Have you ever been in a restaurant and noticed that there is some man or woman who’s walking around and checking in with people saying, “Hey, how are you? Are you enjoying your meal? How is everything?” And then you later learn that person is the owner. Now, the fact that people didn’t necessarily know that they were the owner when he or she came over to greet them, doesn’t really matter. All the customers really knew was that someone is coming over and being warm and asking me if I’m having a nice time, if I’m enjoying my food. It’s the warmth. It’s the confidence that makes us engage with that person.

Now, I like to think of having a restaurant owner mentality in life in general. I was asked recently, “What would you do if you were on a hike walking one way, and someone you were attracted to is walking the other way? How would you strike up a conversation with that person?” Well, one way to do that is literally have the restaurant owner mindset when it comes to the hike. This is my hike. I own the hike. So when you’re walking past that person, “Hey, are you having a nice hike? Are you having a good . . . How’s your hike today?” You literally apply that same mindset.

Now, this leads us to my last point. What we say is not nearly as important as the fact that we are saying something. Because when we say something to someone, we are creating a moment where attraction can happen. Attraction cannot happen without a moment. But also, at its core, saying something is really just giving someone permission. It’s not about being the wittiest person in the room. It’s not about saying the cleverest thing or the most seductive thing. And it certainly isn’t about saying the most original thing. On dating apps, there are all sorts of prompts and witty ways to draw out a novel initial exchange. In real life, we don’t actually need all of that. What we need is the opportunity to actually connect for a moment. For a moment to occur that could lead to attraction. Those moments will never occur if we’re trying to make those moments perfect.

But if, instead of trying to be perfect, all we do is work on giving people permission on making them brave, we will be creating those moments all the time. Talk to most couples who have been together a long time and ask them, “What’s the first line you ever said to each other?” They won’t remember, because the line wasn’t important. But the permission that led to everything else, was everything.

Now look, the things I’m talking about in this video feel small, but why is it they feel so hard to implement in our lives? It’s because what might represent an inch of difference in our body language, or in our smile, or in the things we say, feels like moving a mountain internally.

What I want to do with you, if you’ll let me, is show you how to change the inner wiring that you have, so that those small things on the outside you start to do naturally. Because I know if you start to do those things, your life is going to change, no question. It is inevitable. Your life will change. But it’s hard sometimes to do even the small things when we’re still working on old software.

Now in March, I have my Virtual Retreat coming up from the 18th to the 20th. And that is where we update the software in you once and for all, so that you can finally take advantage of everything that is available to you in your life and realize your potential. Because once you figure out how to control your confidence, how you see yourself, your relationship with yourself, your associations on the inside, the changes on the outside become natural.

If you’ve taken any of my programs or watched any of my videos and you’ve found it hard to make the changes on the outside, it’s because the inside isn’t cooperating. What we’re going to do over three days is bring those things into alignment.

To learn more, go to MHVirtualRetreat.com. It’s going to be a wonderful three days, and I really hope you join us. I also have a video there waiting for you to explain more about the program so you can learn all about it. MHVirtualRetreat.com is the link. I’ll leave it here, and it’s also in the description below. Thank you for watching.