The School of Greatness - 73 Jordan Harbinger: How to Increase Confidence and Overcome Fear of Rejection
Episode Date: June 17, 2014This week on the School of Greatness podcast, Lewis Howes and Jordan Harbinger discuss the journey of cultivating a confident way of being. It's a powerful one. To get the show notes and more valuable... information about the two, we welcome you to www.lewishowes.com/73
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This is episode number 73 with Jordan Harbinger.
Welcome to the School of Greatness.
My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message
to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
Thanks for spending some time with me today.
Now let the class begin.
Hey, what is up, greats?
Thanks so much for tuning in today on the School of Greatness podcast.
My name is Lewis Howes.
I'm your host.
If you're joining me for the first time, thanks so much for tuning in. I appreciate you for checking out the show. And if you've been listening for all 73
episodes, then I thank you as well. I'm super pumped to introduce to you Jordan Harbinger,
who's got an amazing podcast called The Art of Charm, and his business is called The Art of Charm
as well. And what The Art of Charm is, it's an educational business and relationship platform to support
you on social dynamics and understanding psychology in order to win more friends, earn
the respect of your peers.
And they usually work with a lot of men to teach them how to get the girl of their dreams.
Now, in this episode, we really talk about how to translate these social dynamics into
business and into relationships for both men and women.
So for the ladies that are listening, don't be turned off because all this can be translated
for you as well.
But Jordan goes into a lot of different things about how to build confidence.
And we talk about if confidence is something you're born with or something that
can be learned skill. Talk about some really interesting and unique exercises for changing
your beliefs about yourself and that internal conversation that we have sometimes that holds
us back from our own greatness. So he talks about a few really key exercises that I'm excited about
to practice and learn
because I think it's going to support me in taking me to the next level as well.
So I'm very excited about that.
And then we just go into some other great stories and examples about how to become the
best version of ourselves and really applying the right habits to increasing these skills
in our daily lives with relationships and in
business.
So make sure to listen to the entire show.
Jordan's a really smart, funny guy.
I think you're going to love this.
So without further ado, let's jump into this class and these lessons with the one and only
Jordan Harbinger.
Welcome back everyone to the school of greatness my name is lewis howes your host and i'm here with a friend of mine jordan harbinger what's up brother hey man thanks for having me on the show
yeah i'm super pumped we've been friends for about a year and a half maybe two years now
actually since i moved to la and our mutual friend, Caleb Bacon, introduced us. And we actually had dinner
at some, you know, swanky little spot in West Hollywood one night. And I was like, you know
what, this guy's all right. So here we are a couple years later, been hanging out for a while,
helping each other in business, you know, talking about different things. And I've been on your show,
you've got The Art of Char of charm and it's all about
where ordinary guys become extraordinary men. And I like that. So you've got a really clean site
and you teach basically men what you teach the art of charm. And then you talk about what the
art of charm is. You say, we'll teach you how to leverage the power of social dynamics and psychology to win more friends, earn the respect of your peers, and get the girl of your dreams.
And to me, it kind of sounds like how to win friends and influence people, the book, but how to learn it and actually be it, not just intellectually know it.
Yeah, I love that. In fact, I might have to
steal that. It's so true because I love that book. And that's one of the things that I started out
with, right, is how to win friends and influence people. When I read that, you know, 10 years ago,
and I was like, this is really cool. This guy's onto something. Maybe I should work with this guy.
And then I found out he died like, you know, 50 years ago. So, so cause that book is from like
1936 or 38 or something like that. I mean, it's pre-World War II, but the book, the principles
held up. And then I went, okay, I need to learn how to apply all this stuff. And then I found out
somehow they're there. Of course there's Dale Carnegie courses, but they teach you things like,
and not to, not to dump on those guys. They're great, but they teach you things like,
look him in the eye and be like, hi, my name is Jordan Harbinger. Nice to meet you. And I'm like, that's all fine and dandy, but what happens when you're doing all that stuff and people still think that you're a close talker or you have really bad body language that comes across as insecure or you have a weird quirk.
You have a weird quirk.
You're creepy.
You have awkward eye contact.
There's a million things that can go wrong.
Yeah, yeah.
Disingenuous behaviors of any kind.
There's a million things that can go wrong in romantic, dating, business, social situations. And no one's going to be like, hey, Lewis, I like you, but you're a close talker.
I mean, I would have to be really good friends with you before I would be comfortable saying that.
And nobody's going to do that otherwise.
So you're missing out on business and opportunities because yeah, somebody thinks that you're awkward or somebody thinks that
you're goofy or somebody thinks that you talk too close or you have bad breath or, you know,
a million combination skills or lack of skills when it comes to nonverbal communication can
literally be the difference between somebody who's crushing it in business because of the
relationships that they make and somebody who just can't get things off the ground. Yeah. And you know, for me,
the key to success really in anything, whether it's relationships or business or whatever,
is understanding people and being able to communicate effectively, but also having the,
the social dynamics and understanding psychology behind listening skills, behind
speaking, behind body language, all of that comes into communication when you have to
understand people.
And that's really the key to being successful in anything.
And what I like is that you guys teach this.
You guys do workshops.
You do three-day type of retreats where people dive in and learn these skills.
Because we're not born with these skills necessarily.
We don't just have these skills.
And there's a lot of, you mostly work with men.
But, you know, we don't all just develop this on our own.
It's something that really needs to be developed by practicing it, wouldn't you say?
Yeah, it definitely is a learned skill.
And a lot of people don't really believe that.
I remember when I first started the Art of Charm with our team here,
some of the critiques we were getting or criticism we were getting was really bizarre to us because it made no sense.
Because we had learned confidence.
We had learned relationship development.
We had learned nonverbal communication.
And then you'd get some guy who's like 30, 35.
You know, we were in our late 20s at that time.
And we would get some guys like 35 and he'd go, nah, you're either we were in our late twenties at that time. And we would get some guys like 35
and he'd go, nah, you're either born with that or you're not. And it's like, wait, what? That's
the most ridiculous thing in the world. It's not like being tall. It's like, it's not like having
blue eyes, but people really thought that was the case. And it's kind of like you see an athlete and
you go, Oh yeah, well, you know, that took me years to realize that that was an excuse process and a bad mindset that people have.
It'd be like looking at you as an athlete and going, yeah, well, you know, he was born with really good hand-eye coordination and with low body fat and really fast.
There's some element of that.
But at the end of the day, you practice every day, right?
Right.
Almost every day.
And you eat right.
day, right? Almost every day. And you eat right. You know, you don't, you don't just walk onto the handball court and go, Hey guys, um, I kind of want to be a professional handball player. Is
that cool? And they're like, yeah, sure, bro. You look tall. I mean, that's not how it works.
Um, and it's a journey for sure. It is. And people will do that with, with dating skills or with
confidence in general, or with relationship building.
They're like, oh, well, he has the gift of gab.
And I'm thinking to myself, I didn't say two words in pretty much all of middle school
unless I was called on by the teacher.
And then fast forward to now, I can't shut up and I get paid to talk, right?
This is a practice and learned skill set.
Nobody thought I was a funny, charismatic guy in college.
Nobody.
Nobody thought I was that way in high school. And in law school, I, you know, I sort of grew over time and actually faced a lot
of resistance because of it, where people were like, hey, what happened to you? First year,
you were all quiet, you know, shy guy in the corner, and now you're a loudmouth. What's up
with that? And, you know, some people thought it was great. They're like, you're coming out of your
shell. And other people were like, look at this guy. He doesn't know his place. You know, some people thought it was great. They're like, you're coming out of your shell. And other people were like, look at this guy.
He doesn't know his place.
You know, you're supposed to shut up and be quiet like you always did.
You know, and I wasn't naturally like that.
So what we do is we teach this in a systematic,
and this and emotional intelligence really are the keys.
We teach emotional intelligence in a way that's systematic
that anyone can learn and master.
So you'll get a guy who's an engineer or something like that
or a software guy who's in a cubicle a lot,
and he's like, I'm stuck in this hole all day.
I don't have this skill set.
And then we'll also get guys like we had SEAL Team 6 come in here.
We had some green berets come in here, and they go,
you know, they were awesome dudes,
and they didn't need this in order to reproduce or date girls. They were killing it, but they're like, there's a 0.1% chance we're going to need
this. And when we do, it's going to be because it's a life or death situation. And we need to
be able to deploy this skillset like ASAP expertly without fail. Right. Right. So, you know, when we
talk about confidence, you know, cause a lot of people, confidence is a big key to getting what you want, really,
and being confident and exuding confidence.
You said that example, that 37-year-old guy who was like, you either have this or you
don't, you're in the ball with this or not, but is confidence a learned skill then?
If it's a learned skill, can you also lose confidence or unlearn it?
Yeah, that's a great question. You totally can. In fact,
there's a lot of guys listening right now who probably think, man, you know, in college,
I was the man or in high school, I was the man or at my old job, I was the man or when I had my
family. And it's usually it's usually followed by a dramatic circumstance change. So say you had a
lot of situational confidence in college, or you were
really the king of the hill when you lived in your town and you were in the cool band in town,
and you were also a bartender at the cool venue in town. Then you move to the big city thinking
you're going to take your show on the road and maybe, you know, your, your family falls apart
or God forbid, right. Or you lose your job or your band stops doing what it's doing,
you might become much less confident.
And a lot of guys come through because they're divorced
and they're like, you know, I don't know where to start.
I don't have confidence in this area.
Because everybody has situational confidence.
And by definition, that's only in certain situations.
So that might be like you on the handball court playing arena football.
You're out there crushing it. And then maybe when you started speaking, and this might be a bad example,
because this might not be the case, but humor me. When you started public speaking, you might have
been like, whoa, this is kind of terrifying. I don't really know what I'm doing here.
Yeah, that's true.
It's true, right?
It's true.
Yeah. And that's normal. Because for me, I can go up on a stage and speak to hundreds of people
and so can you.
But if somebody was like, all right, there's a crowd watching you play a sport, I'd be
like, I just want to go home and cry right now.
I do not want to play a sport in front of other people.
I don't even like playing sports in front of myself, let alone with like tons of people
watching and women everywhere.
You know,
it's not my thing. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that at all. And that, that the thought of that is, is mortifying. So like, there's tons of people out there that, that have situational
confidence. They're a college professor and they go up there and they're just killing it and they
get hired into a great corporation and they're really killing it. And then there's a company
softball game and they're like, Whoa, this is my worst nightmare. You know, I, the, the, the boss at the law firm, he might
have to put on the softball glove and then the interns are running circles around him sometimes
literally. And it's the worst thing. It's his worst day of his life. He just wants to sit down
and drink wine. So how does someone first, you know, for me to get kind of follow up with that
example, I did want to become a great public speaker and I was terrified to get in front of anyone after I was done playing football.
And I said to myself, the only way to get to overcome this is to go through it by practicing every week.
So I joined a Toastmasters organization in Columbus and I went and practiced standing in front of a small room of about 20 people each
and every week. And sometimes I presented and sometimes I just answered a couple of questions,
but I went through it as opposed to just thinking that I was going to be able to
magically be good on stage without practicing it. So how does someone become more confident
or increase their confidence level initially? And then how does someone do that
when it's a new situation as well?
Sure, so confidence essentially, it comes down to this.
Your beliefs influence your actions,
which influence your results.
And that's one of the key principles at the Art of Charm
is so your mindsets influence what your body does
and what you say and do, which influence your outcomes.
So we know that a lot of,
for example, like pickup artist guys and weird guys like that, that really are not doing what
we're doing, but are sort of trying to mimic those results. They do stuff like, okay, you need to
wear this goofy hat and you need to say this cool thing and look this way because it seems cool,
but they don't bother attacking the mindsets that are toxic, right? The bad stuff that's causing them to be not confident in the first place or the ideas that
they have that are causing their lives to be where they are, right? And that's a problem because
people who are really perceptives and women are much more perceptive than men, generally speaking,
they can see through that stuff in a New York minute. So if you don't have the proper mindset, you're in trouble.
And the same thing happens in sports, for example, I would imagine,
where if you don't have that sort of killer third quarter,
fourth quarter instinct where you're like, all right, I'm tired,
they're tired, I'm a competitive son of a bitch,
and so I want to win this, so I'm going to dig of a bitch, but I wanna, and so I wanna win this,
so I'm gonna dig deep and get it.
You know, discipline only matters when you need it.
It doesn't matter in the beginning of the game
where you're like all, you're hydrated and fresh, right?
It matters in the fourth quarter
when you just wanna go home.
Yep.
And you're tied up or whatever.
And so that's the way.
So how does someone change their mindset then to,
you know, if the mindset's at the root of confidence, increasing your confidence, what are the things that we should be thinking first before we start doing something?
So as we know, changing our thinking and changing our habits is a huge pain in the butt, right?
It's not easy.
It's really difficult.
And the only thing that can really change mindsets is looking at evidence that your belief is not true
if it's not serving you. So for example, feedback, positive feedback and or negative feedback if
we're trying to get rid of something else. So for example, if you are a guy and you're,
you're short, a problem that you don't have, Lewis, if you're a guy and you're short and you
go and you walk around and you know, women women aren't certain girls don't like you.
You might have a story in your head that says women don't like me because I'm too short.
And then maybe you go on a business trip to Japan.
Right.
Just randomly.
And all of these girls are like, oh, my God, you're so tall and handsome.
You don't necessarily keep that belief system.
Right.
That you're too short. Of course,
now you're probably like into Asian girls because they're shorter than you or whatever. We'll take
that aside. This is just an example. Get your mind out of the gutter. But you know, you'll take that
example and you go, oh, okay. And then suddenly you might come back. Say you're in Japan for a
year. You're stationed over there. Now you come back to the United States. You don't, you're not
thinking I'm too short. You're thinking women love me. This is great. I don't have this problem. Same thing. If you
go to a sport, maybe if you went to go play basketball in Asia, you would, even though
you're not necessarily a basketball pro, you would probably crush it with, you know, a lot of the
guys around you because you'd be tall and athletic already. So you'd come back to the U S if you'd
never been here before and essentially thinking, I'm really good at basketball.
On an objective scale, I'm really good at this sport.
And that's a thing that takes a long time to format that behavior.
So how do we get that positive feedback?
Well, we change a little bit of our physiology.
We change our actions, of course, to try to influence our mindsets.
And it can be really difficult.
But that's essentially what we do at The Art of Charm.
We have our live programs where guys come in and learn this stuff.
And I'll give you guys a couple of, of drills right now. Um, if you're interested to go over
some of the ways that we help change confident mindsets. And these are very simple. And our,
our podcast, essentially the art of charm is every week we're doing like a ton of these things. So
for example, a lot of guys have bad posture
and a lot of women have bad posture. And one of the ways that you read other people is by looking
at their nonverbal communication. In fact, we know, and I'm sure you've heard this before,
that nonverbal communication is the vast, it's like 70 plus percent or 80 plus percent
of whatever communication. And that study is dubious, but you know, from your own experience
and from the science that nonverbal communication speaks much, much more loudly than words and actions are always
louder than words. And we also know that people from science, again, that people trust what they
see versus what they hear. Your body has a difficult time lying. So, and you've met guys
that walk around going, Oh, I'm so great. I'm so rich. My business is so great.
But something in their body language, something you say, this guy's not passing the sniff
test.
I don't want to do a deal with this guy.
Right.
Right.
And you're usually, you're looking at something that has to do with this nonverbal behavior.
And this is like the Malcolm Gladwell blink, you know, looking at something, not knowing
what it is, but having your quoteunquote gut tell you tell you otherwise and so we know that our body language affects our communication no matter what
and we know this happens in relationships and that your body language is a reflection of your
internal state so your mindset is always communicated through your body language whether
or not you're an amazing actor and you think you're faking it somebody who's watching what's
important can easily tell read the cues anyways yeah they can read the cues. And so we spend a
lot of time at AOC teaching people how to read cues as well as teaching people how to transmit
the right communication. And the only way to really nail body language is to have proper
mindsets because you can't be thinking, stand up straight, look people
in the eye, smile, move slowly, reach out and shake hands with people. And you just stay, have your
weight evenly distributed on both of your balls or your feet. I mean, you can't think about that
stuff because you'd be in, you'd be such a weirdo in conversation because you'd be in your head the
whole time. Right. And you'd be totally ungrounded to use a little bit of a woo-woo term, which with which you might be familiar. So if we have our
mindsets in place and we are naturally confident, and if you don't believe me, think about a time
when you're naturally confident, you stand around looking good, you're upright, you're smiling,
you're relaxed, you're open, your weight is quote unquote evenly, all these little things that body language experts
will tell you are signs of confident body language. They just happen. So what we need to do
is focus on changing those, right? And so one of the drills that we do to get people into great
posture, which is just one sort of element or channel of body language is we say, all right,
listen, you know, a lot of people hunch over, especially us guys that sit
all day, we hunch over a ton. So if you're at your desk right now, coding away on a computer
or programming or doing anything that requires a computer, which is like 99% of us, most of the
time, you probably sit way too much. And so if you're standing upright, you know, that you're,
you're displaying confident body language. If you're smiling, that's confident. If you're standing upright, you know that you're displaying confident body language.
If you're smiling, that's confident.
If you're open, you know, facing somebody with open body language, that's very confident.
Now, how do we keep doing that?
We need to build a habit.
Well, the best way to build a habit, and this is just a beginner's drill again, and if you
guys need more explanation of this, we talk about it on our show, Ad Nauseam, for many
people.
this. We talk about it on our show ad nauseum. You know, every time you walk through a doorway,
straighten up, chin up and smile. Just like just like you have a light on your chest that you're going to shine on other people in the room. You don't have to exaggerate it. You know, you're not
you're not Iron Man. You can you can shine that light on people in the room and do it every time
you walk through a doorway. So this is a tough habit to build, but think about it. How many times during the day are
you walking through a doorway? Like a million times a day. And so if you're doing that constantly
throughout the day, then you're constantly changing your physiology to something confident
and positive. And not only that, think about when you make your first impression. It's usually when
people first see you, not when you first see them, right? Sure. And when you're walking through the door,
right? When you're walking through the door. So if you're straightening up and you're smiling,
every time you walk through a door, you're changing your own physiology, which helps change
your mindset. Cause we know that the mind follows the body and the body follows the mind. We've,
we've already established that with that. Now, if you're
doing that every time you walk in the door, not only are you changing that physiology and those
mindsets, you're also making a kick butt first impression on pretty much everybody that sees you,
which is money, right? I mean, there's probably a million better adjectives than money, but it's
great. It's baller. It's greatness embodied. Exactly. So let's repeat that again
over time. So when you walk through, anytime you walk through a door, straighten, put a smile on
your face. I would say a genuine smile. Then what'd you say? Straighten your shoulders.
Yeah. Shoulders back. The easiest way to do it is, and this isn't something I invented with this,
the string here, but string pulling your head up, string pulling you back down. You might even, if you have a trouble visualizing
that straight line, just a string pulling your head up. And that's sort of a Zen meditation yoga
thing, I think. And, and if you, if you imagine that string pulling your head up, your back's
going to straighten out, your chin's going to be at the right level. And then the, the genuine smile,
you know, that can be something that a lot
of people in and of themselves need to work on because some people go here and there's a weird
plastic smile happening and it's awkward, you know, but if you think the people in this room
might be my next business contact, my next life partner that I spend the rest of my life with,
there might be some cute kids or beautiful flowers. I mean, anything you can
appreciate, you can put that on. It doesn't have to be this beaming, insane, Tony Robbins smile.
You can have a real kind of calm, subdued, normal smile. You don't have to be like,
bam, Billy Mays here for the smile. You don't have to do that. You can just be totally natural. And
in fact, the more authentic you can be with this, the more powerful it is because people connect
with the real you. And whenever there's anything disingenuous going on, it's awkward. And so a lot
of people right now are going, but wait, you just told me to straighten up my body language and act
confident. And I'm not, isn't that disingenuous? And here's the thing. It's, it's not because everybody, I believe this and maybe I'm just, you know,
drink too much of the Kool-Aid here, but I believe that everybody, when they're with their friends
and family and when they're just relaxed and calm and doing something they love and they're,
they're not overly stressed by, by the day and by life, they're naturally confident and relaxed,
you know? And if you think about it anytime, if you're listening to this right day and by life, they're naturally confident and relaxed. And if you think about it,
anytime, if you're listening to this right now and your life is a ball of stress and anxiety,
it's probably because of work, your boss, maybe your relationship isn't doing so well. Maybe all
of those things are wrong, but I bet you could call your mom, brother, sister, someone in your
family, a close friend, and you could go hang out have a beer with them and you'd
be a totally different person right and and we want to be that person around everyone wherever
possible sure if you're because i remember when i was a kid i was always such a ball of stress at
school and i hated it and i would skip and like stay home and program on my computer and stuff and
i was just like this giant geek.
And I remember having a friend come over after school one day and I was so silly and goofy
and just funny.
And he goes, I've never seen, I've known this kid for years.
I grew up with this guy.
I grew up with this guy.
You know, we never really hung out that much after school, just during school and at sports
and stuff and with other people.
And it was just me and him.
And he goes, I've never seen you like this in my whole life. Why don't you bring this to school? You'd be the
most popular guy there. You're hilarious. And I didn't believe him of course, because my mindsets
were poor, but at the same time, I thought, wow, I feel so good and so light right now.
But when I go to school, everything clenches up. And if we can release that by displaying
and that confidence and changing that mindset so that
we're confident, not just in one situation where you're the drummer on stage in a band,
or you're playing arena football, but in any situation that you can, if you can display that
everywhere and you can change your physiology and mindsets to get there, man, you are going to feel
a million times better. And that in itself is attractive.
Sure. Yeah. I mean, a lot of business coaches and life coaches or coaches in general say,
and I know you've heard this, how you do anything is how you do everything.
Yeah. That's one of my favorites.
You can't just do it once and expect to have it pop up. Be confident every three days or
something when you go to a meeting. It's like like if you're going to be dragging and lazy and insecure
and have this baggage most of the time,
then that's probably going to translate into when you want to be confident.
You're not going to be able to step up into this confident being that you could be
unless you're practicing it constantly.
And of course, there's going to be ebbs and flows
and moments where we're, you know,
having remorse or grief or having downtimes. But I think the more you practice, I like that,
that drill of like going through a door and practicing being confident and expressing it
in a genuine way, that's going to be automatic, like Jordan was saying. So I really like that
exercise. You know, it's funny, you should mention how you do anything is how you do everything and that a lot of people expect that they'll be able to do this.
Because I remember 10 years ago when I started learning this stuff, I remember thinking to myself, oh, you know, when I see like this girl tomorrow that I have a crush on, I'm going to like walk up and every guy knows what I'm talking about right now, because we've always done this. They're like, all right, you know, whenever I see the opportunity
to get this kind of like business deal,
I'm just going to walk up there and be like,
hey, I've got the right thing for your business,
you know, or whatever.
And we never do that.
When we see that, when that happens,
we always make excuses.
It's because we don't,
and I heard this from the Green Berets
and Army Special Forces,
so I can't totally take cred here,
but it's, you never rise to the level of your
expectations, but you always default to the level of your training. And what that means is that's
exactly what you were saying. It is powerful. It is because what that means is, you know,
these guys might think, I don't want to shoot today. I don't want to work out today because
I'm tired. But here's the thing. If you're getting shot at by Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula or whatever,
you don't go,
all right, time to get into superhero
Army Special Forces mode.
You are in extreme fight or flight survival lizard brain,
and the only thing that's working
is the fact that you've shot 10,000 rounds
in the past year,
and you could probably hit a target at 100 yards,
you know, basically with mud in one eye
and blood coming out of the other.
You know what I mean?
That's a great visual.
Yeah, I hope no one has that.
Yeah, if you have that,
stop listening and go to the hospital right now.
Oh, man.
So I want to ask you this question. Why do so many men, why are so many men afraid to go up and talk to a woman when they think, wow, that woman is really attractive. I
would love to talk to that woman. How come basically 99% of the time in general, most men
won't go talk to that woman?
You know what?
It's fear of rejection, and that doesn't surprise anyone, but I'm going to dig a little bit deeper because everybody goes, well, yeah, duh, thanks.
But we don't want to get rejected.
But here's the thing.
We don't really know why because women right now are listening, and they're going, yeah,
but we're not scary.
I'm not going to reject you.
I'm not going to throw a drink in your face unless you deserve it. I'm just going to be like, I have to go to
the bathroom. What's the big deal? And, you know, women right now are also saying, how come the only
guys that approach me are the gross ones that I don't like? And all the cool, normal guys who have
their stuff together are like, are scared. I hate that. Why does that happen? The reason is because
when, when you're a thinker, when you're a smart guy,
when we're in our heads a lot,
and also when you are somebody
who's maybe confident in many situations,
but not necessarily with the opposite sex,
which is the vast majority of men,
it has to do with any kind of feedback.
So you might get a guy who's really confident
in every area of their life,
but one time in third grade,
he wrote a girl a note and was like,
you're really pretty.
And she told the whole class and he is scarred.
And that trauma is ridiculously childish as that is,
made a dent somewhere in a mindset
in a subconscious part of this guy's brain.
And I'm telling a personal story right now
that made a dent in somewhere in this guy's brain
that says when you put yourself out there with women,
there is an extreme danger
that this could happen to you again.
And that's insane
because in order for that to happen again,
I'd have to walk up to a girl at a party,
you know, at Lewis Howe's house,
at your house,
and have her be like,
can you believe it?
This Jordan guy actually thinks I'm going to go out with him.
What an idiot.
What an idiot.
That is never going to happen.
Get out of here, Jordan Harbinger.
And that's totally never going to happen.
Even if it did, I wouldn't expect everybody,
I think everybody would be appalled
and she would be out on her butt.
You know what I mean?
Right.
So like, it's not a realistic fear,
but it doesn't matter
because our emotions guide
us when it comes to this.
This is completely reptilian lizard brain stuff that happens.
And so we have to spend a long time weeding out these mindsets that say, hey, women are
scary.
And that's why when you think back to your childhood, maybe you knew a kid that had an older
sister and maybe he was super confident with girls because his sister had the girls over to her house
all the time. And he saw that they burp and fart like everybody else. And they, you know, they swim
in the pool and they talk about how insecure they are with boys. And so he got a good view of all that stuff and realized, oh, they're really not that scary.
And pretty girls are just kind of like everybody else.
And maybe you got another guy who grew up with his sister and he's not confident because his sister and her friends treated him like crap.
And he thought, okay, well, girls don't like me, especially girls that are my sister's friends or look like my sister
or remind me in any way of my sister or any of the friends that i saw in the 20 years growing up with
her because they were all mean to me when we were younger right now as adults as adults they might
all be madly in love with them but it won't matter because that childhood mindset that pattern was
was set and that fear was built so how how does someone, you know, whether it's getting rejected,
a fear of getting rejected from a,
a girl that they're interested in or a man that they're interested in,
or,
uh,
you know,
they're getting rejected.
No one's hiring them to find a job or every time they put themselves out
there to pitch,
to get a new client,
no one wants to work with them.
How does someone overcome or shift out
of like this mindset? Because, you know, let's say you're getting rejected a lot. That doesn't feel
good to anyone. That feedback, that feedback's not helping. Yeah. It's like, Oh, why don't I
keep putting myself out there? I'm never going to win. So what can someone do to like, you know,
obviously it's, you probably got to, you go much more in detail in your trainings,
but, uh, just sort of some mindset things that people can do to shift out of it so that they're not terrified to put themselves out there again.
Sure.
So one of the things that I had to do personally was we had a sales guy at the Art of Charm, and one day he just quit with no warning.
This is years and years ago.
And he quit when we called to wish him a happy
birthday. Wow. Can you believe it? Cause we were like, Hey, you know, you're working remotely.
And we just called to wish you a happy birthday. And he goes, yeah. Um, I'm by the way, I meant
to tell you guys a couple months back, I'm not really going to be working after like next week
or so. So, and we were were we were freaking out because we thought
oh my god we just lost like our revenue generating person and this is not we're like we're in launch
phase this is the worst this is our worst nightmare so i had to learn how to sell our
programs which was terrifying uh because i was i hated that idea that I would have to like ask for the sale and
pitch and go develop relationships and things like that for the company. I thought that was,
you know, totally going to be someone else's job and I'd create this content and it'd be fun.
And I had to learn it was survival. And so I called thousand tens, probably tens of thousands
of people over the next few years. And I heard no much more often
than I heard yes, because if I didn't, we'd be having this show on my jet if I'd heard yes.
But, you know, we had tons of rejection and the thing that steeled me and not, not stole,
steeled as, you know, as in the metal, steeled me to that was the idea that every 10 to 15 to 25
or whatever the number was back then,
people that I would call who would be like,
yeah, no thanks.
There would be one that would be like,
yeah, oh, awesome.
This is amazing.
I'm looking forward to this opportunity.
This is going to be great.
And they would come in and have an amazing time.
And so I'd go, oh, I'm actually doing people a favor
by persuading them to come to the art of charm because it's a
life-changing experience so that mindset and this is what you need to think about your own products
and services as an entrepreneur you need to be thinking man if they don't do this they're making
a huge mistake and I care about them enough not to let them make that mistake and so if you believe
in your products and services that much, you will
still get rejected a ton. But when people reject you, you'll go, you know what? I feel bad that
they don't understand how awesome this is going to be. And then you look at your own processes and
you go, how am I not communicating this? It's fixable. It's not that they go. And that's the
thing I had to learn to take it not personally, not take it personally, because it's really easy to go,
no thanks, I don't want to go to the Art of Charm
because I don't like red and black
and those are your colors or whatever at the time, right?
And I could have gone, he doesn't like me.
What a jerk.
I don't like him either.
Well, I hate my life, you know,
or whatever that follows from that.
I easily could have done that.
But what I did is go, okay, I'm doing something not quite on point that needs to be tweaked in order to
communicate this. It's like, you know, if you write a sales letter, if you're a copywriter,
if it doesn't convert, you don't go, everyone on the internet hates me. You go, all right,
I need to tweak stuff so that it converts better. Right. Exactly. I like that. Well, Jordan, this has been extremely
helpful for me. And I know you have lots of great tips and strategies and exercises that people can
follow over at theartofcharm.com and at the Art of Charm podcast, which is absolutely free. I
recommend everyone check it out. You're running it two or three times a week right now. And most of it is for enhancing the psychology and social dynamic skills for men.
Wouldn't you say that's most of the episodes?
Yeah, we have tons, I mean thousands of female fans.
But usually they're like, I'm applying some of it and I'm really enjoying the conversation about other stuff.
And then there's a lot of entrepreneurial stuff and business stuff in there that women really dig. But I think, yeah, 98% of our audience is dudes who are like,
okay, great business stuff. Tell me how to meet and attract women and manage relationships.
But the thing is, once you understand how to meet and attract women, you can do that in any of the
other, you know, in business as well. So it all, it all cross, crosses over. So, you know,
I think it's fascinating stuff.
There's always, as a single guy still, I'm always learning ways to just connect with women.
And not like a sexual way or try to swoon them over or whatever it may be.
But just to have a relationship and have a connection and build that foundation with women.
Because I think women are fascinating.
They inspire me. They bring a lot out of me. Their energy is women because I think women are fascinating. They inspire me.
They bring a lot out of me.
Their energy is infectious, I think.
So the ways to connect with women and obviously to apply these skills to connect with men,
to connect with everyone.
But I think it's important for everyone to know, again, if you want to really be a leader
in your life, in your community, in your business,
you need to be able to understand these type of social dynamic skills and understand people and
what makes people tick. So whether you're using it to apply to attract a woman or for business,
these skills all cross crossover. And I think they're valuable to learn and check out. So
yeah, make sure to check out theartofcharm.com. And where
can we find you personally online? Are you on? Yeah, people can email me. I answer everything.
I'm jordanh at theartofcharm.com. Also, I'm on Facebook, of course. I encourage people to hit
me up there just because it's something that I can see and check. But I'm also theartofcharm
on Twitter if people are still using the Twitters
love it man are you on Instagram too or no I'm not you know it's just it was I had to draw the
line at Instagram and I think it's I think it's cool but I just don't take enough pictures and
I also I'm like I'm not gonna put a filter on this and my girlfriend loves it so I'm like hey
join Instagram where I'm in every picture
anyway. I love that. Well, I'll make sure to send everyone over there over at the show notes. So
check that out over at lewishouse.com. And final question for the day before we let you go is what
is your definition of greatness? You know, I, that's a great question. I should have seen that
one coming. You know, I think in this might sound
a little cliche, but I think people who are just going for it and not well, all right, I'll try to
keep it short. Life is a battle against this process of rationalization where you look at
the clock in the morning and you go, I can sleep for another half hour because and you make up some
reason in your head that makes sense at the time. Or I don't need to study for this test. I can keep hanging out with my friends because,
and you make up some reason, or I don't need to pitch this right now, or I shouldn't talk to her,
or I shouldn't create this business idea because it won't work. You're constantly rationalizing
yourself back in, which is logically persuading yourself back into your comfort zone. And I feel
like my whole life is a constant battle against that process inside my own brain. And I think that people who achieve greatness,
not that I'm there yet, don't get me wrong, but I think that people who achieve greatness
are people who are absolutely ninja warriors against their own logical fallacies and logical
processes that would normally keep them safe and comfy and cozy and
mediocre. I love it, man. Good definition. Thanks again, Jordan, for coming on and make sure to
check out theartofcharm.com and the show notes over at lewishouse.com. Thanks, brother.
Thank you so much, man. and there you have it i hope you guys enjoyed this episode and if you did go ahead and share
it with your friends over on twitter or facebook or linkedin or google plus just go ahead back to
the show notes at lewishouse.com slash 73 to see all the different
notes that we talked about, the exercises, the examples from Jordan, and all the other
links back to his podcast as well over on The Art of Charm on iTunes.
I really appreciate you guys and all your support.
Keep sending and updating those Instagram photos, tagging me where you're listening
to the show all over the world.
It's a lot of fun to connect with you over there.
And make sure to check out the show notes, lewishouse.com slash 73.
Got some big things coming up ahead in the near future.
Some huge guests that I think you're going to love.
And I'm so grateful that you guys come on here each and every week
to hear who I bring on to teach these lessons on greatness.
Thank you guys so much for tuning in today
and make sure to go out there and do something great. And pushing me down
And pushing me down Down
Down
Down And it's pushing me down Thank you.