Cultivating the X Factor

[TestY]

Kareas articles are what inspired the title of my journal. Hate to say it but I started this journal years ago and while I've had success since starting it I've lost sight of the original goal that I'd specified in the first post. My passion has gone down somewhat, it comes in fits and starts but nowhere near the consistency it was before, which is concerning. Working on building it back up but it's a grind.

In 2020 you wrote this:

This article is my starting point. Keeping things simple so I don't get overwhelmed.

It defines the three pillars of dating success as follows:

1. Your looks
2. The "X-Factor"
3. Your "Game" - Body language, verbal skills, etc)

Contrary to the title, my immediate focus is on number 1 and number 3 as they are things I can immediately work on.

His X-factor article series was good but the actual method of developing one's X-factor wasn't really presented in the series for some reason. Instead, it was presented in his article on California Pimp. Well, to be fair, he did actually write some specifics in the X-factor article series as well:

Just like I asked you – could you decide to feel confident now? – you could also decide to feel motivated now. Create the motivation first… then let all other state changes flow from there.

Motivation:

originally taught by Tony Robbins – he calls it a “quality quantifier.
...
Practice this exercise and use it to enhance any other emotional state you would like to create… toy with the thoughts in your mind, play around with your focus, until the emotions you’re summoning grow stronger and stronger.

Taking on useful characteristics:

Pick an actor you like, one that is known for his appeal to women, or maybe even a character that this actor portrays.

Then ask yourself:

• If you were this character, how would you look at people? How would you look at girls?
• How would you breathe?
• How would you gesture, move and carry yourself? How would you walk, what would your posture be like?
• What would your eyes project – what kind of depth, clarity, focus, lucidity and determination?
• What kind of vocal projection would you have – how powerful, masculine, deep and resonant would your voice be?
• How slow would you move and speak?

If you just imitate all of these physiological channels the way you envision your role model would, you will start noticing how your emotional state follows into that reality.
...
What makes a good actor is that he actually BECOMES his character.

And in article 5, he gives examples of useful states to practice in this, way: Calm and serene, conviction and certainty, masculine and powerful, socially confident, etc. If you're not satisfied with your current results, and your motivation therefore have dropped a bit (which is natural, as per Chase's writings on the winner effect) - why not give course-correcting a shot, and actually try to cultivate the X-Factor directly? I'm willing to bet on your results increasing as much as it skyrocketed Karea's game back in 2010.

 

[Beam]

In 2020 you wrote this:


His X-factor article series was good but the actual method of developing one's X-factor wasn't really presented in the series for some reason. Instead, it was presented in his article on California Pimp. Well, to be fair, he did actually write some specifics in the X-factor article series as well:



Motivation:


Taking on useful characteristics:


And in article 5, he gives examples of useful states to practice in this, way: Calm and serene, conviction and certainty, masculine and powerful, socially confident, etc. If you're not satisfied with your current results, and your motivation therefore have dropped a bit (which is natural, as per Chase's writings on the winner effect) - why not give course-correcting a shot, and actually try to cultivate the X-Factor directly? I'm willing to bet on your results increasing as much as it skyrocketed Karea's game back in 2010.

Appreciate the responses man. I don't know, I feel this sort of apathy towards it all. Maybe cause I feel like I've slipped back a bit and I'm not getting the results I'm used to and that if I work hard I'll only get what I already had before and not something better. Which is retarded because having what I had before would still be better than what I have now. I will read those articles.

 

[Beam]

I've realised that I need to get back to the basics with this journal. I'm not going to write down every interaction with the fairer sex like I have. It's time consuming and honestly a lot of it doesn't really benefit me. It was more that it was nice having an entire record of interactions I forgot about over the years. It's fun to read about it now. But at this point in time, it's not productive because most of the interactions, I think I know where it's falling apart and it takes a long time to write out everything that happened. It's more useful to extract out the most important parts.

So the focus should be on the skill building aspect. And tracking. Am I pushing myself in each interaction? Am I hitting the checklist for things I need to do in every interaction (and bad habits I need to avoid). Enzo and I put together a list of things he noticed I did in interactions that I need to be mindful of. Also, the program in Poland had a so much good feedback for me and it's been months now and I've done jack shit with it which is stupid. My mind just being lazy and apathetic. I'm going to revisit those notes.

I would like to start as part of the weekly journal putting up goals for the week that I want to hit (I want to experiment with X technique on Y amount of girls and see the result). And then in the next entry reviewing how I did and recalibrating. Progressive overload with pickup again instead of fuckarounditis and sticking in my comfort zone.

Enzos list of things he has noticed I've been struggling with lately:

- Closer distance on open
- She needs to know you find her attractive
- Approach with mentality of "I want to date this girl tonight"
- Find excuse to touch her as quickly as possible
- Move them
- Entitlement with the hottest chicks
- Girls love adventure. Take her on one and don't be afraid of not knowing where you're going to go. Figure it out on the fly. (But have ideas of places nearby for instant dates)
- Be convincing and authentic.
- Always be closing
- Fuck numbers and instagrams
- Don't lean back. Stand upright like you're being pulled from a string
- Don't cross arms. Use them to express yourself/touch her

 

[Marcellus]

Okay, I need to do a little rant and what I want to discuss is people just not understanding the premise of different life experiences.
I've been out with Beam twice in the last couple of weeks, and met his friend Enzo as well.

Enzo is very good. Gets lots of hot girls, doesn't really give a shit, has a good time, and has lots going for himself outside of pickup. He's an amazing guy. Here's my one big problem with him. HE JUST DOESN'T GET IT. And it's very frustrating because he's a really smart guy.

We go out to a festival on the weekend, lots of music and beautiful women around. Beam goes off to do an approach and me and Enzo stand to the side having a conversation, I go nice Beam starting early and Enzo goes you see that's his problem man, he's all about the pickup, you can't just be all about the pickup. A while later when we're discussing Beam's approach Enzo even goes and says to Beam that girls can smell the thirst on you and that all your life revolves around is the pickup. My counterpoint is that we all know this and have things going on in life. I even try and tell Enzo when we were talking privately that Beam isn't 100% life revolves around pickup. He goes to the gym, has goals he's trying to reach and just came back from travelling the world but he just can't seem to let it go. There was even a point during the night where Beam went it's great to hangout with PUA guys/Seducers because not only can you talk about picking up/seducing women BUT you can also talk about life shit/work/blah blah blah. Not sure how we got here and Enzo has great intentions but Beam is not the PICKUP ROBOT WHOSE whole life revolves around pickup, so frustrating.

There's another guy that joins later. He does pick up as well. He and Enzo are snipers mostly. 1-5 approaches, hit accuracy type shit. They try explaining to Beam to be more chill and calculated not just the spam guy. I counter in a different conversation when Beams out doing another approach that you have to GET TO THAT LEVEL first before you can do the sniper thing. You don't just go out as an intermediate and then boom I'm only going to sniper approach 1-5 girls a night and be super successful. I even explained that they weren't always like that and they agreed to but still kept on the offense. So annoying. Quickly, these guys have good intentions and they're good people with good game, But Jesus christ after talking and hearing them saying stuff from the mindset of guys that have laid lots of beautiful women and have been doing it 10+ years, it was just really frustrating having to explain that YES that stuff works for you but not for other's that aren't as good as you.

Lastly, they were dissecting one of Beam's approaches. Beam mentioned talking about a certain beach with the girls and how nice it is or something down there, just normal chit-chat. And they went hard in on the guy, saying what kind of stupid shit is that to talk about, girls are interested in that etc. GUYS! normal conversation is perfectly fine. Hector even advises it in Meet girls everywhere program. If you're not trying to take the girls home and just doing a usual day game open it's cool to have a basic conversation, you are going to refine and learn to get even better and have amazing conversations and that will come. Not every interaction is going to be life-changing for the girl.

RANT OVER. Typed this out really quick, it was a frustrating couple of hours, these guys are amazing but they just don't get it

 

[Karea Ricardus D.]

Are Enzo and the other advanced guy naturals or did they learn game online?

 

[Beam]

Okay, I need to do a little rant and what I want to discuss is people just not understanding the premise of different life experiences.
I've been out with Beam twice in the last couple of weeks, and met his friend Enzo as well.

Enzo is very good. Gets lots of hot girls, doesn't really give a shit, has a good time, and has lots going for himself outside of pickup. He's an amazing guy. Here's my one big problem with him. HE JUST DOESN'T GET IT. And it's very frustrating because he's a really smart guy.

We go out to a festival on the weekend, lots of music and beautiful women around. Beam goes off to do an approach and me and Enzo stand to the side having a conversation, I go nice Beam starting early and Enzo goes you see that's his problem man, he's all about the pickup, you can't just be all about the pickup. A while later when we're discussing Beam's approach Enzo even goes and says to Beam that girls can smell the thirst on you and that all your life revolves around is the pickup. My counterpoint is that we all know this and have things going on in life. I even try and tell Enzo when we were talking privately that Beam isn't 100% life revolves around pickup. He goes to the gym, has goals he's trying to reach and just came back from travelling the world but he just can't seem to let it go. There was even a point during the night where Beam went it's great to hangout with PUA guys/Seducers because not only can you talk about picking up/seducing women BUT you can also talk about life shit/work/blah blah blah. Not sure how we got here and Enzo has great intentions but Beam is not the PICKUP ROBOT WHOSE whole life revolves around pickup, so frustrating.

There's another guy that joins later. He does pick up as well. He and Enzo are snipers mostly. 1-5 approaches, hit accuracy type shit. They try explaining to Beam to be more chill and calculated not just the spam guy. I counter in a different conversation when Beams out doing another approach that you have to GET TO THAT LEVEL first before you can do the sniper thing. You don't just go out as an intermediate and then boom I'm only going to sniper approach 1-5 girls a night and be super successful. I even explained that they weren't always like that and they agreed to but still kept on the offense. So annoying. Quickly, these guys have good intentions and they're good people with good game, But Jesus christ after talking and hearing them saying stuff from the mindset of guys that have laid lots of beautiful women and have been doing it 10+ years, it was just really frustrating having to explain that YES that stuff works for you but not for other's that aren't as good as you.

Lastly, they were dissecting one of Beam's approaches. Beam mentioned talking about a certain beach with the girls and how nice it is or something down there, just normal chit-chat. And they went hard in on the guy, saying what kind of stupid shit is that to talk about, girls are interested in that etc. GUYS! normal conversation is perfectly fine. Hector even advises it in Meet girls everywhere program. If you're not trying to take the girls home and just doing a usual day game open it's cool to have a basic conversation, you are going to refine and learn to get even better and have amazing conversations and that will come. Not every interaction is going to be life-changing for the girl.

RANT OVER. Typed this out really quick, it was a frustrating couple of hours, these guys are amazing but they just don't get it

My man, you voiced exactly what was on my mind. It honestly kinda hurts to hear what Enzo said considering I've literally hung out with the dude multiple days a week for the last couple months but I'm not surprised. When we hang out he rags on other friends of his as well and we all know, if they rag on their other friends to you they're probably ragging on you with the others. I knew he was probably talking about me but if he's talking about me like this to others (and Marcellus knows me but others don't) it will build up a worse reputation for me that approaching 1000 chicks never would.

What makes it even more confusing is we literally talk about other shit all the time like money, politics, even random stuff like Titanic. Last December I was getting fed up with talking to girls and bemoaning that I hated how much effort it was and that I wanted to be focusing on other things like making music.

Enzo is the one usually reaching out to me talking about this girl/that girl, sending me memes of girls, podcasts about girls, inviting me out nearly every day to talk to girls. 90% of what we talk about is chicks. Which is fine, there's no problem with that and I've enjoyed the hangouts. But to come back and say that I'm the one obsessed with pickup is laughable. Case in point, at the festival Enzo was talking about chicks a ton, probably approached more than me and was even pointing out chicks for us to approach ("one of you better go and talk to her"). And literally we walked back to a previous spot of the festival and didn't end up seeing other parts of it because "the hot chicks are all there"

Had a chat to Marcellus just now on the phone just now about it and we think what it is is he knows I'm into pickup obviously and that I'm not a natural. So when I approach he's constantly looking at me under the lens of "pickup guy" and so everything I do gets cast in that context. He's even referred to me to others as his "pickup" friend which I despise but haven't called him out on yet. If I was approaching with the same frequency but the approaches were working he would not be saying anything, he'd be praising me.

He also seems to change his mind and give out contradictory advice. Case in point - the program I did in Poland, one of the coaches reached out months later and asked how I was going. When I told him I hadn't been disciplined learning the framework they had taught since I'd been caught up hanging out with Enzo, he ripped into me and told me "man, fucking 70-80 percent of guys do this. All you need to do is obsess about this for 12 months. Learn the process, obsess for 12 months and you probably won't have to seriously worry about dating again"

He used harsher language but that was the jist of it. When I told Enzo he said "Your coach is absolutely right. You need to be doing this every day. This needs to be your life and you need to put away music for a while.

Then literally the NEXT DAY we went to the festival where he made the comments to Marcellus about how pickup can't be my life. The fuck? Marcellus pointed out that he thinks Enzo is more emotional than logical, and day to day changes his mind. He has ADHD so it makes sense. I wonder if this is part of why he's so successful.

Look, he's my friend and I know he cares about me and wants me to succeed. But he doesn't understand. I've really got to set some boundaries and clear up some things with him in person next time I see him. I plan on calling him out on all this since I'm not usually one to talk about people behind their backs. As uncomfortable as it is I would prefer people say it to my face and I will provide them the same.

 

[Beam]

Are Enzo and the other advanced guy naturals or did they learn game online?

He's a natural who later found the community and has done some coaching with The Natural Lifestyle (James Marshall). He says he's not but the stories he's told me about what he got up to in high school say otherwise haha

 

[Beam]

Are Enzo and the other advanced guy naturals or did they learn game online?

The other guy is not I don't think, he found the pickup community in 2010 and has done some courses. He's 46. Also he's only good with a specific type of girl (Asian immigrants in their late 20s/early 30s - he's white) but not with other types. Should note that Enzo has ragged on him non-stop for hours to me "He only goes for FOBS", "He's not putting in the work", "He wants a harem, I honestly don't think he has what it takes he's not doing enough and bruh he's 46 and looks old as fuck why would they choose him"). It got to the point I had to tell him to chill out because it was making me uncomfortable.

Then when he starts getting success "You gotta listen and observe him"