Chris LunaI’ve been thinking a lot about why some people are able to consistently make massive leaps in their life, while others seem to struggle to make any progress.
Don’t get me wrong, they think that they’re making progress. They get through lists, and have small moments of growth (even what they think is a breakthrough from time to time), but their life is mostly stuck cycling through the same set of shitty problems, which they never really deal with.
I’ll explain what I mean through two starkly contrasted examples…
Example #1: Ed
I recently ran into Ed, a guy in his early 50s, who used to attend my introductory dating lectures over five years ago, when I was still running them in the lecture rooms at Columbia University.
I hadn’t seen him in about four years, but I remember him clearly. Ed was a decent looking guy, with a great job in the tech field. At the time he was single, and he was trying to figure out the dating scene. During this process, he discovered my classes on Meetup, and decided to check them out.
Every Saturday, Ed would float in about 15 minutes late to my lectures. Then he would sit in the back and listen. He did this for about a eight months before he disappeared.
During this time, I once asked Ed, “What’s your goal?”
“To have more choice in my dating life,” he responded, with a confident swagger.
I thought this was a great goal until I dug deeper. I discovered that Ed had never had a serious girlfriend, and that he basically had no sex life other than a couple random hookups.
Originally, I thought that he wanted more choice to diversify his options, but in reality, even though he had a lot of advantages over other guys, he had no options.
Ed once attended an infield practice session, where we took the guys out to practice meeting women at a local rooftop lounge.
At that event, I discovered that although Ed came off as confident at the lectures, he was terrified to approach women, especially women that he was attracted to. As we chatted afterward, I learned that to compensate for this, he tried a few online dating websites, but his dates seldom made it past the first one.
I suggested that he take the Dating Mastery Program, where I get to go a lot further into these subjects, but he said that he didn’t need it.
Recently, I was out at a club, when I recognized Ed immediately. He was with a group of guys from the dating scene, who also had attended my workshops over the years.
He looked almost the same, except that his hair looked a bit more thin, and it definitely had more grey. Also, he wore glasses. I couldn’t remember him in glasses, so I asked about them. He explained that he use to wear contacts, but his prescription had worsened, so he had to wear them now. Basically, Ed looked the same, just older.
As we chatted, I hoped that he would say that everything had changed, that he had disappeared because he had found the woman of his dreams, and had moved on to the next phase of his life. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Essentially, he was in the exact same place.
He tried to mask it with the same confident swagger, but as I again dug deeper, I learned that he could now approach women, but still struggled to approach ones that he found attractive. He also said, that he would often run out of things to say, seldom got past the first dates, and that except for a relationship that lasted about a month (a year and a half ago) his sex life was still nonexistent.
I asked him, “What have you been doing to improve this area of your life?”
He had done a lot. He went out regularly with his wingmen, had read several books by dating coaches, watched every video he could find on the subject on YouTube, was active on a couple different online forums, and had attended intro lectures by dozens of dating coaches and gurus.
He had done a lot, and yes, he had made some progress, but honestly, it sounded like he had wasted the last five years of his life, especially when I contrast him with my second example, Jared.
Example #2: Jared
I met Jared about a year and a half ago. He had graduated college, worked as an engineer, and had just moved to New York. At the time, he was in his early thirties, and had never kissed a girl.
For a long time, Jared had neglected his love life to focus on other goals. At this point, his career was going well, but his love life sucked. Jared didn’t want to be alone, so he decided to make fixing his love life his number one priority for the next year.
When I asked him why, he argued, “What’s the point of being successful, if I have no one to share it with?”
Once Jared decided to fix his dating life, he started doing research on experts, which is how he found Craft of Charisma. He explored our website, read about our dating coaching programs, looked at our reviews, and then emailed me about the Dating Mastery Program.
I told him to drop by the lecture, and that afterwards we could grab coffee and talk about the program. We did, and he made it clear that he wanted to get married and start a family.
With that said, Jared was aware that he couldn’t force things, and that he needed to learn to date and learn how to be in a relationship. Although he realized that he might need to kiss a few frogs (the wrong girls for him), it was part of the process of discovering what he truly wanted in a partner. He had a few questions, which I answered, and then he wrote me a check to sign up for the Dating Mastery Program.
Jared took the program seriously. Each week, he showed up on time, and had a list of questions ready for me. When I answered them, he listened, and did whatever I told him to do, even when it didn’t make sense, because he knew that his approach to this problem wasn’t helping him get the results he wanted. He was willing and open to try something different.
Soon, Jared had his first kiss. Then he was dating a couple of different girls. Then the class ended, and he disappeared.
Recently, he emailed me. After the program, he dated a lot and became a bit of a playboy, but that helped him figure out what he wanted and needed, and once he had his first girlfriend, how to be in a relationship.
That relationship didn’t last, but soon after, he met an incredible girl, started dating her, fell in love, and because he knew what to do, within a year he married her. Now, they’ve begun planning the next phase of their lives together.
Why Jared Was Successful
Jared had a very clear idea of what he wanted. He was committed to his goal, and he made it a major priority. He also realized that life is short and that his time was valuable. He didn’t waste time struggling with problems that he didn’t know how to solve.
Instead, when he got stuck, he found an expert to help him solve a specific set of problems, so that he could make progress quickly, and move on with his life. In the end, being focused and willing to acknowledge that he needed help gave him choice in his dating life.
Ed and Jared are examples of two very different approaches to life… Which one is more like you?
Chris Luna
Founder, CEO, and Head Dating & Life Coach @ Craft of Charisma dating and relationship coaching.