How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - I Approached Models in Miami Stone-Cold Sober… and Everything Changed (Sober Dating, Part 2 of 3)

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Most guys need alcohol to approach women. But what if meeting women in bars actually gets easier when you’re sober—if done the right way? In Part 2 of his Sober Dating series, dating coach and bestselling author Connell Barrett shares his 5-step framework for reaching a fearless flow state when out meeting women, no booze required.Episode Highlights:01:58: What Happened When Connell Approached Models Sober10:03: Getting “Drunk” on Action: the Natural High that Beats Booze13:48: The 5 Master Steps–Your Framework for Confidently Approaching Women23:25: How Robbie Went from Frightened to Getting 5 Numbers in One Night29:30: The Truth about What to Say When You ApproachBOOK A FREE CONSULT WITH CONNELL TO LEARN HOW YOU CAN APPROACH WOMEN WITHOUT THE CRUTCH OF ALCOHOL: DatingTransformation.com

Because I knew I wasn't leaning on alcohol, I felt like I had a new superpower. I felt like the superpower was coming from inside of me, not from the jetpack of alcohol. Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach Connell Barrett. I help men attract women by being authentic. No sketchy pickup artist's needed here. And if you struggle to approach women, especially without alcohol, if you can only do it with liquid courage, then this episode is for you, because I'm going to help you to approach women stone cold, sober, and actually do it better than you would do it if you were having a beverage. And so, yeah, if you find yourself thinking, oh, man, I can't talk to women without a

couple tequila's in me, I'm going to help you do it and do it really complex. without needing booze. By the way, this is part two of my three-part series on sober dating. In the last episode, I shared my story about how I quit drinking for good. After a thousand days of sobriety, I just celebrated my 1,000th day sober. And so if you miss that episode, go back and check it out. It was the most recent episode. I think you'll really get something out of it.

But today we're going to zoom in on one huge piece of the journey of you finding your girlfriend. which is meeting women out in the real world and I want to make sure that you can approach women without needing alcohol. By the way, I have no problem with having a guy having a drink or two. I have no issues with alcohol for you or for anybody who wants to drink. For me, it was like a toxic relationship that had to end. So I teach this having no judgment of people who drink or drinking itself. But I also want you to be free to talk to women anywhere, wherever you want and not need alcohol to do it. So let me start. I want to tell you about the night in Miami many years ago when I went out and I proved to myself that liquid courage is a myth, that you can actually

approach women sober at night and actually have it go amazingly well. And you're actually going to do better at approaching if you don't have booze. if you follow my tips, my five simple steps I'll be telling you about. But let me start with the story. So this happened at Nikki Beach many, many years ago, is in Miami. Nikki Beach is a really fun hot spot. It's a tiki bar bungalow vibe, open air, right on the sand. And I was there in February.

And that means it's model season in Miami. Model season means there are lots of beautiful, gorgeous, women in Miami, some of them, many of them, literally professional models. And I used to go to Miami with the coaches who were helping me at the time. And it was model season. Let's go meet some models. And back then, this is back when I was not a coach, this is when I was just learning how to approach women and getting good at it. And normally back then, I would have one or two drinks to get the wheels off the runway, so to speak, to loosen up before talking to women. And that was my pattern is I told myself that alcohol just got me to take action, that liquid

courage is what I needed to start off a lot of nights, at least when it was in a bar in the nighttime. I didn't drink during the day when I would approach women during the day, which I also did a lot. But at night, I told myself, I need that liquid courage. However, this night, a Sunday night in Miami, I said, tonight I'm going to do it differently. I'm just going to try and experiment. no booze zero alcohol by the way sunday night at niki beach was the night to go to nicky beach that was the hot night i don't know if it still is but it was back in uh back in the day so i

walk into nicky beach and i could feel the nerves i'm with my friend tyler who's also sober and he and i are going to do our best to wingman each other and but i had that old voice. I still heard that voice that said, you can't do this without a drink, or this is going to be tough. But I just told myself, you know what? I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to go approach women and just see how it goes. So I walk over to a group of three women. They're standing at a tall cocktail table. And I started a conversation. I was definitely nervous. I was in my head. And it went fine. Didn't go great, but it went fine. Nothing magical, but nothing terrible. Just a normal, chill interaction. and that got me some momentum.

And then I told myself, don't spend a lot of time between interactions, talking to Tyler or not approaching. In other words, do a lot of approaches. I learned the power of social momentum, meaning that when you go out to approach women, more is better. So I immediately bounced from one approach to another one. I saw a second group of women. now the second time i had some butterflies but the anxiety was gone now it was just butterflies and i felt

lighter i felt looser and i began to have some fun and maybe it took one more approach one or two more and then i felt something really click by my third or maybe it was my fourth approach i hit what you might call a flow state there's a term called flow state which i'll talk about shortly basically flow state means that your mind goes into autopilot you're not worried about anything you're not focused on the future you're not worried about the past you're not quote unquote in your head you're just very present and flow state means that you link a lot of positivity and enjoyment to what you're doing other words everything feels good and i got into a flow state pretty quickly and suddenly i wasn't thinking i wasn't analyzing i wasn't trying to attract women i was

was just being and talking. And I now call that side of you, of me, of any guy, the higher self, that calm, grounded, fearless, expressive you at your best. I now call that the higher self. At the time, I just said, I'm in the zone. I'm in the zone. And so, by the way, I'm drinking water. I have a cup of water. And even though I just had a cup of water, I felt buzzed. I felt really confident, really energized, nice and loose. And it was kind of like, I told Tyler, I'm like, dude, I feel drunk. I was drunk on me. I was drunk on action. I was drunk on talking to people. And so I started to do bold things that night. I started, I saw no fear. I approached a man and a woman who were clearly together. And I just, hey, guys, what's up? How's your night going? And they were

pretty cool they were pretty chill i approached another man and woman who were together not because i was trying to steal her but i was just having fun i approached a woman and a man making out and i walked up and tapped him on the shoulder and i said hey can i cut in she laughed he looked at me like he wanted to punch me but he didn't he just kind of grimaced and she laughed and i just felt like oh man If I can do that, I can do anything. And I was absolutely fearless the rest of the night. I was walking up to the most beautiful women there, literally models. And I was having instant phone numbers, creating some real sparks.

I got two or three numbers that night. I was having fun. And I just gave zero fucks. And I remember the big moment that stands out that night other than the, may I cut in approach? by the way, don't do that. Don't try that at home. I was just in the mood that night to do that. But the highlight moment was I saw this really pretty woman. I found out her name's Rachel. I saw the stunning woman. She was surrounded by four guys, like literally surrounded. They were kind of all fawning over her, orbiting around her, like satellites. And I walk over and I say to

myself to Tyler. I say to Tyler, hey, what's the hardest approach in this room? And we both looked around and said, oh, that girl over there surrounded by guys. So he's like, go over there. And I said, I'm on it. I was fearless. I walked over. I cut right into the circle and I smiled. And I simply said to her with a smile on my face, I reached my hand out like a gentleman from the 19th century. I said, you, come with me with a nice smile of of an assumption that it's going to go well, a smile of, I belong here. I am worthy of you. I reached out my hand, calm and confident, and she took it, and I just pulled her away from these four men. My old coach, Owen, would probably call that parting the red sea. He was like,

you can part the red sea, walk up to women and just part the red sea and take a woman away from all these other guys. By the way, she wasn't with any of them. She wasn't dating one of them. It's not like I stole a woman away from her boyfriend, but these guys who were fawning over her talking to her, she basically just was drawn to my confidence in my flow state. So she takes my hand and, you know, Moses leads her away from these guys, leads Rachel away. And we start talking. We chat for about five minutes. And I'm just cracking jokes, having fun, being my smart-ass self.

and at one point she said what are you drinking by the way she assumed i was drunk i said i'm sober i was but when she asked me that i was so glad because i was like oh i'm sober she's like what do you know you're not you're drunk i can tell you're drunk i said no tell for yourself i gave her my cup and she sipped it and saw that it was water um she said wow i i used i thought you were drinking you're you're you're in such a i forget what she said she didn't say you're in a good state but she's like oh you're having so much fun um i thought you had a buzz going and i said well i do i'm drunk on me and now i'm getting a little bit drunk on you rachel and she laughed and a few minutes later we kissed we made out 15 minutes later after i pulled her away from these

four guys and it was it was one of the best nights i'd ever had approaching in terms of i'd had better nights in terms of results. If you want to hear the most amazing result, read the first chapter in my book, Dating sucks, but you don't. I talk about this incredible approaching result I had on the very first night I ever went out. But this was the night. I don't think I ever before that night felt that confident. I had never felt that confident. It was one of my best nights ever. And I never saw Rachel again. We never had another date. We didn't hook up. We had a bar kiss. It was just a huge ego boost. And so, yeah, it's not about she became the love of my life or anything, but this gorgeous

woman in a bar chose me over all these other guys. And I did not need any booze to, not only to approach her, but she actually thought I was buzzed because I was in such a good flow state. And once I got into that flow, I had all the same benefits of drinking, but without the toxic liquid in my body, and with a clarity of mind, I was confident, I was loose, I was connecting, I was having a blast. I, again, I wouldn't make this up if I'm not trying to make it seem like it was better than it was.

There were some blowouts. I approached some women who didn't want to talk to me that night, but most of the approaches went really well. and also i never had to refuel you know when you when you go to a bar you need that liquid courage got to go refuel get another drink i didn't have to worry about that i felt um clear confident loose charismatic but total clarity of mind as well total clarity of mind and that night at nicky beach taught me something incredible which was wow you can when you not only can you you go out sober and have an incredible night of approaching, actually, it's easier and more

effective to do it sober. Once you take just a few sober actions, you'll catch a natural buzz. You're going to feel drunk, but you will not have to have a single drop of alcohol, if you don't want. And it's a rush of real confidence, and it's 100% the authentic you. So how do we get there? what do you do when you want to go out sober well what you want to do is first don't do what you normally do what you normally do when you go out i would imagine is you go right to the bar

and you get a drink to get that quote unquote liquid courage going your way well don't do that the first thing you need to do when you go out is i want you to follow what i call the five master steps the five master of steps when you go out to approach women you need a first framework that takes your mind away from all the things that you're worried about. And that's what alcohol does. Alcohol takes your mind away from the things that you're worried about, the pain you're afraid of feeling, like rejection, like what do I say, like will women like me? And you want to give yourself a framework. And I call this framework the five master steps. So here are the five steps. I'm going to read this to you. I'm going to read some of the highlights. This is

from my book chapter chapter is this chapter nine i think and i'm going to go through these five master steps because when you when you go out sober you have to follow a framework otherwise you're going to get in your head you're going to get in your head and to quote tony robbins get in your head you're dead so instead of getting in your head follow these steps here's what you do when you go to the bars this is all i did that night at nicky beach and this is all you need to do step one open often meaning you approach lots of women and you minimize time in between approaches right you don't want to go to the bar and get a drink and walk around go to the bathroom no walk in talk to the first human female you see so you open often you approach often step two is offer

value offer authentic value in other words be you you are enough step three is make a connection what I call, be what I call man to woman. That is flirt a little bit. If she's sexy, tell her she's sexy. If she's a dork or a nerd, tease her. Authentically flirt with her. So step three is make an authentic connection, be man to woman. Step four is go for the clothes.

Basically, you escalate. Step four is you escalate. You go, bare minimum, you go for a number. Bare minimum. But it might mean you go for a first kiss if you're feeling it. feeling it. You could leave the venue with her, go somewhere else. You could have an instant date where you go from the approach to sitting down together and basically go on essentially a first date. And then step five is the least sexy step, but it's really important. Step five is

appreciate something great about the approach. Notice at least one awesome thing that you did well or that you can feel good about. So I'll go through those again. Step one approach often slash minimize time in between approaches. Step two, be yourself, offer authentic value. Be you. Step three, be man to a woman. Make a man to a woman connection flirt a little bit. Step four is essentially escalate. Go for it. Don't just settle for a good conversation. Get the digits minimum. Maybe even go for more. And then step five is no matter how long the approach lasts. I don't care if it's, I don't care if it's five. Five seconds, five minutes, five hours.

When it's over, ask yourself, what did I do well? What can I feel good about? Or what was funny? And step five is not sexy at all, but it's so important to protect your mindset. The reason why guys approach women, I'm sorry, the reason why guys don't approach women is because they're afraid they're going to get rejected and interpret that approach as a failure. You have to interpret every approach as a success. Either you win by getting a number or creating some nice sparks, or you learn by learning a lesson, or you feel good about taking

action, or something funny happened. I remember it wasn't that night, but on a different night I went out approaching. I remember I got harshly rejected by a woman who said, fuck off, Ginger. This was in Vegas. I approached. She said, fuck off, Ginger. And I laughed out loud at what she said. I was like, ha, ha, ha, oh my God, that was hilarious. And I turned to a different woman. And I approached a different woman. And I said, hey, did you hear what that woman just said to me? She just said, fuck off, Ginger. Can you believe that? But I was laughing about it. I was finding it funny and the second woman I approached was really into me and we ended up having an incredible interaction and I would never have approached the second woman who actually was way more beautiful

and interesting to me than the first one I'd never would have approached girl number two if I had taken girl number one's rejection personally so step five it ain't sexy it's basically a mindset tip but it's so important because if you judge your approach, if you give it a grade of like a, oh, that was a three out of ten. She wasn't into me. I said something stupid. Then you're going to judge yourself so harshly. You're never going to be able to recover.

You have to have a really short memory, a really short memory when we're out in the field, especially when you're doing this sober because you don't have the liquid fuel, the buzz, the state change of alcohol. So you've got to create that state change or maintain the good state yourself. And that's what I'm talking about here. That's why I'm harping about step five. So one more time. And then we'll go a little bit deeper on a couple of these steps of sober approaching.

Step one, open approach often. Step two. Offer authentic value. Step three. Be man to woman slash make a connection. Step four. Go for it. Escalate.

Go for the number. Step five. Find something great. about that approach and yeah we got to start a lot of conversations i think the most important steps are going to be step one and step five because we got us we have to talk we have to talk to a lot of women because when you follow that first step and you open conversations with a lot of girls and by the way i'm talking five to ten approaches in one hour at least if it's a busy bar at night then you're going to notice a real shift in your psychology and here's what happened

happens. What happens is when you approach often is the fearful part of your brain basically switches off. And what happens is you see the true opportunity that's out there rather than the false danger. And what this does is this leads to bolder actions and some really badass benefits. And then you enter a fearless flow state that feels like you're kind of drunk, even though you're completely clear-headed and sober. And again, I call this to higher self. It's really addictive. Now, if you want to learn about what actually causes this flow state to happen in our minds,

then I highly recommend a book called Flow, F-L-O-W, Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience, written by Mihaliy Chik Sent Mihai. I am not even going to try to pronounce it. But the book is called Flow. It's a classic book about. the psychology of getting into a flow state, basically how to get in the zone in different areas of life. So those are the five steps. When you go out at night, all you need to do is follow the five steps. And it's almost impossible to have a bad night emotionally. Now, you may or may not

get phone numbers and dates, but if you follow these five steps, especially steps one and five, approach often and interpret every approach in a positive, empowering way, then you're going to feel good. And if you're feeling good, you're going to talk to more girls. And if you talk to more girls, while you're feeling good, guess what? You're giving women what they want, which is a fun conversation with a guy who's feeling good, feeling confident in themselves. And that's all I did that night, that sober night out. And I think that what also happened for me, that night and what will happen for you, if you do this a few times, is not only was I in the zone without the crutch of alcohol, because I knew I wasn't leaning on alcohol, I felt like I had

a new superpower. I felt like the superpower was coming from inside of me, not from the jetpack of alcohol. It was coming from myself. And that felt just fantastic. And I recently saw the power of this in person with my client, Robbie. Not his real name, but a real story. So Robbie and I went out recently here in New York City. When I go out with my clients, I give them approaching missions to do. And something to keep in mind is when you go out sober, the first two approaches are going to be the hard ones. So just get them over with. Think of them as warm-ups. Think of them as you're stretching at the gym. It's your warm-up set. It's the warm-up before the game. They don't really count to count. You're just getting your mind accustomed to

this action and the discomfort, the uncomfortable actions you're taking in the setting. And then by exposing your mind to the thing that you're afraid of, approaching girls, your brain realizes nothing bad will happen. Then your mindset will come back pretty quickly. So, for example, my client, Robbie and I went out. He's 57, 58. He's a software engineer. He's Indian, Indian heritage, American raised. And Robbie has been very in his head about afraid to approach women, very afraid. In fact, until recently he had never done it until he started working with me. He was so afraid to approach women or to take a romantic risk that he had a huge crush once on this girl who, this woman who's a cashier at his grocery store, he never actually talked to her. One day he had written a note out for her saying, hey, I like you. You're so cute. Do you want to go on a date with me? Here's my number. He wordlessly handed her a post-it note or a written note and then ran away. I'm not laughing at him. I did shit like that too. And suffice it to say she never

texted him. She was not interested. Because think about that. That does not read as confident guy who passes a note, a 25-year-old guy who passes a note. You do that in fourth grade, not as a 25-year-old man. Anyway, that was Robbie when he and I first spoke. Fast forward to this night out. Robbie, he wants to go out to approach. He does not drink. He does smoke, which I yelled at him, but he doesn't drink. So Robbie's like, okay, what do I do, Connell? I gave him the five steps. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. He, uh did not want to do the first approach we're at a we're at a place called um howston hall in manhattan it's a beer hall and kind of like a um beer garden type vibe even though it's not

literally in a garden setting and there are two or three women on the dance on a dance floor part of howston hall and i say to robbie go approach them he was like i'll do it in a minute i'll do it in a minute i'm like no go now he's like but let me just do it in a second he's procrastinating putting it off he's addicted he was addicted to procrastination something i talked about in the last episode so i look robbie in the eye and i say bro either you go approach those girls like you told me you wanted to you're paying me thousands of dollars to approach women so either go do it or i'll put you in a headlock i will walk over to those women with you under my arm and I will say, excuse me, ladies, this is my friend Robbie.

He wanted to approach you, but he's afraid. So, Robbie, your choice. Go in under my arm or go in like a man. He laughed. He said, all right, I'll go, I'll go. He approaches, and it goes, okay. Doesn't go great, but it doesn't explode. They were like, hey, what's up?

Hi. He's like, hey, what's going on? How are you ladies doing? I'm like, oh, we're good. It went fine. friendly-ish they weren't into him they didn't drop to the floor and say have sex with us stud but they were pretty they were pretty chill pretty friendly i can see his his mind his body relax he does the second approach this time i didn't have to push him he just went in and did a second one

the second one goes a little better than the first one where a couple of women are really friendly and smiley and the second approach i can see he's standing taller he's he's following step one open often approach often not giving his mind time to overthink he does the second approach it goes well and then he's finally i see him stand taller he's got a little swagger he realizes oh there's nothing to fear they're just girls they're just women in a bar and he walks over to two uh women very pretty uh women who were seated at a um bench almost like a pick technique type bench. That's what Houston Hall has for seating. Yeah, it's a beer garden thing. Anyway, he walks over just like frickin' James Bond, just feeling so cool in the zone.

He locks over just tons of swag. And I couldn't hear what he said, but I could just see the women look up and smile and think, ooh, who is this confident guy? And he gets one of their phone numbers. I forget which one. And he ended up a person. approaching 15 or 16 women that night, and he got five phone numbers total. This is the guy who, a few weeks earlier, he couldn't say hi. He couldn't verbally say hello to the cute cashier at Trader Joe's grocery store. He had to give her a note, a creepy, wordless note. And now he's 15, 16 approaches on a Friday night, five or six phone numbers.

I never. I shouldn't say never. I rarely see in a client take such amazing action and get such great results. And all he did was follow the five steps. I know what you're thinking. You're probably asking, what did he say? Conwell, what did he say? What were the magic words he said? I don't know. There's no such magic words when you approach. When you walk up to women and you are just in the moment and you get in the zone, the words will come. And women want organic, spontaneous conversations with men. They don't want magic words. Women don't give a fuck what you say to them.

They want whatever you say to come from a guy who believes in himself. So I didn't give him any fancy lines. I don't think. If I did, they were just to help him get the wheels off the runway at the start. And then he was fine. He was more than fine. And so anyway, that's the power. of following these five steps. Now, even if you do drink, I want you to follow these steps,

but really these steps are perfect for a guy who wants to go out and approach women without alcohol because you'll get drunk on yourself. You'll get drunk on taking action, just like I did at Nikki Beach, just like Robbie did at Houston Hall. And, oh, last thing I'll mention about the approaching tips is you might be asking me this. You might be thinking, well, hey, am I going to look like a weird guy who's not drinking? What should I, what should I drink? Should I have water? Should I have seltzer? Should I pour water into a alcohol shaped glass? Women don't care. Women don't care if you are or aren't drinking. Women are out to have fun. They're out to meet. They're out to be with their friends. They're out to have a fun night of dancing and socializing.

They want to get out of their head and enjoy a nice night out. And then if the right guy approaches and he's got the nice overall loose flow state fun vibe going, that's what they want. They just want to have fun with a cool guy like you. They don't care that you're drinking. So drink whatever you want or don't drink. What I mean is don't worry about having water or not even having a drink. You could walk up without a drink in your hand. I've done it a hundred times at bars.

Women don't care. They don't care what you are or aren't drinking. They care that you're a good, authentic guy. He's bringing some real. fun and connection and worth to their life. So those are the five steps. If you want to read about the five steps in detail, I break them all down in my book. Dating sucks, but you don't. And if you want a free copy of dating sucks, but you don't, shoot me an email. Connell at datingtransformation.com. And by the way, if you've listened to this episode or any episodes

recently, and you're thinking, huh, I wonder how that whole dating coaching thing works. I want to approach girls. I want to get five phone numbers in one night. Then go to my website, datingtransformation.com, and you can book a free call with me. If you're looking to find out how dating coaching works, especially you're looking to get more confident with approaching, you want to get really good at flirting, or you just want to never get stuck in the front zone. those are some of my specialties.

So just go to my website, datingtransformation.com. You can book a free call with me. If we end up working together, awesome. If we don't, the call's free. And it's fine. Not everybody is a fit to be my client. But anyway, that's how you can find out about working with me. Okay, stay tuned for the next episode.

We're going to do part three of my special three-part series on sober dating. Don't forget, your dream girlfriend. She's out there. and she's going to love you, but she's going to have to meet the real authentic you. Until next time.