The Glory Of Group-Think

Alright we're gonna play a little game here......

I'm gonna lay out three instances of phenomenon and leave it up to YOU to guess what it is.

You game??

OK here they are:

1- A news piece on "the community" is done that portrays studying success with women in a negative light, and people get annoyed that something they're a part of is being disliked by the mainstream.

2- The "trend of the week" in pickup (ie: compliments VS teases / structured gameplan VS free flowing) is something someone disagrees with, and he goes and makes post after post on various internet forums about how the trend is wrong and he wants everyone to see the light.

3- A famous guru keeps a semi circle of eyes-glazed-over followers around him at all times, and the followers constantly look to their guru to discover their own path.

Any guesses?? What's the commonality here??

Well I guess the title of the article kind of gave it away......... :)

What we're talking about is the bizarre nature of human psychology in all it's glory.

It's the phenomenon known as RELYING ON GROUP THINK.

The way it works is basically that people have two ways of determining their sense of "reality":

1) First hand experience.

2) The second hand experience of other people.

Because we don't have the time and energy to verify everything about the world for ourselves, our psychology is usually tuned to rely most heavily on 2nd hand information.

There's a whole intricate system to this -- which if you've experienced The Blueprint then you're versed in my spiel on that.

The long and short of it is that the stronger your ability is to SEE THE WORLD THROUGH YOUR OWN EYES the more confidence you can gain more quickly.

This actually results in you being a lot more attractive to women, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Right here what we're talking about is this.......:

The "dating community" is supposed to teach you how to see the world through your own eyes and become a a man who dictates his own sense of reality.

But more often than not it winds up as just a NEW form of social conditioning & group think to replace the old crutch previously provided by the mainstream.

Now let's breakdown the three examples under this new light.

1- What the mainstream masses think about studying success with girls has nothing to do with you.

Literally nothing. No, no, duuuuude, it's like, literally NOTHING to your life.

You can try all day long, but you will not find a single tangible change to your day-to-day existence based on whether the media's coverage of this stuff is favourable or not.

And it *definitely* doesn't affect the way women respond to you.

So why would you feel an emotional reaction to a story, or even invest a single minute of your life into watching a nonsense media spectacle AT ALL??

Well if you're noticing this in yourself, it's probably because you've been drawing your confidence from a "well" of group-think.

If more people accepted your way of thinking then the "I want people to agree with me" mechanism up in your head would be happier with you.

This would raise your confidence, and funny enough, make you more confident around women because you'd feel like you're doing the "right thing".

Even though what other people think means absolutely nothing -- so long as YOU are getting the results that you want.

Next........

2- What other people in the community think about what works FOR YOU has nothing to do with the way you choose to interact and relate to women.

I've read posts from guys who said they used to get success using pick up lines and then read about going natural and lost confidence in what they were doing before (or vice versa).

Uhhhh, why??!!

If what you were doing before was getting you the dating & sex life that you wanted then why would you switch it up??

Again, if you're one of those guys then the reason is probably that you were previously gaining confidence in the "pick up lines" from the fact that there was a whole community of guys claiming they worked.

Pull that out of the equation and it's like the rug being ripped out from under you, and that's just nonsense.

One of my goals in creating The Blueprint as a "set of principles" instead of a "how to" was because what works for YOU is not always what will work for somebody else.

The bottom line is this: if you THINK what you're saying to a woman will "work" then it PROBABLY WILL.

That's because of the confidence and congruence that you have behind it, and so when you're talking to her she's feeling that vibe and energy coming off of you.

So whether a bunch of guys who you`ve never met on the internet agree with you or not, you have to find your own way of doing things.

And lastly.........

3- Just because a "guru" offers you his or her experience does not mean that it alleviates you the responsibility of having to think.

One of the freakiest aspects of the "guru phenomenon" is that in many cases the guru initially has LESS confidence than the average person.

What needs to be understood here is that most people who lack confidence will respond by becoming introverted or deferring to other people constantly.

But in the case of a "guru" its often somebody who has learned an "alternate strategy" where they gain enough people to surround them and validate what they're saying that they can say:

"Look, all these people agree with me...I must be right!!"

Meanwhile the followers all get to say:

"Wow there's all these other people who agree with him/her....He/she must be right!!"

So there is basically a symbiotic relationship going on here.

Both the guru and the followers are exploiting eachother as a crutch to gain a stronger sense of their own beliefs.

This is actually a topic that goes a lot deeper and it deserves it's own article -- including of my own experiences with it, because they are freaky and bizarre.

OK so what is a healthy approach to knowledge then??

Well first of all, it's great to go out and seek new ideas.

Looking for better opinions, cultures, and perspectives is always one of the best things you can ever do.

Beyond that, being involved in a mastermind group that continually attunes your mind to the "frequencies" (as they say) of presence and abundance is probably one of the biggest factors for learning success with women that you can possibly find.

The difference between a healthy approach and a bone-headed one is whether or not you're moving towards your own core or just replacing one form of social conditioning with another.

So next time you feel yourself having an emotional reaction to someone not agreeing with you, ask yourself:

-"Am I reacting because I rely on other people to agree with me in order to feel confident that my sense of reality is accurate??"

-"Am I reacting because the foundation that my sense of reality is laid upon is shaky and easily de-stabilized??"

-"Am I reacting because secretly I'm not sure whether I'm right or wrong??"

And if any of those are the case, then start continually "putting yourself in check" when you feel yourself relying on the crutch of people's opinions instead of seeing the world through your own eyes.

In fact here's a tip for you to play around with...

Whenever you feel the urge to correct somebody, experiment with just letting it go.

Notice how it makes you feel BETTER because you're confirming to yourself that you don't need other people's approval to be certain of your beliefs.

Moreover, notice how when you slip up and correct somebody that you feel the cheap thrill of their agreement followed by a buyer's remorse for knowing how irrational it was to care about what they think.

Of course there's a big difference between straightening out a buddy to help him out and relying on other people's agreement as an addiction to a psychological crutch -- but this is obvious by the emotions you feel in your body when you open your mouth.

The act of "offering value" always aligns you with the present moment and a clean feeling of self esteem.

The act of "taking value" (ie: speaking to gain agreement from the other person) will conversely get you in your head and leave you feeling antsy and clasping for straws.

Anyway hopefully this article hasn't been too aggressive or freaked anyone out.

It's just a little something to let stew up in the noggin' for the next time you find yourself caring about other people's approval of your ideas.

Of course it's always good to cross-reference your beliefs with outside input whenever possible -- the challenge is knowing the difference between when it's constructive or just useless and absurd.

Have fun!!


Tyler

PS: Been hearing all sorts of crazy rumours about some sort of massive Summer Special -- you NEED to click this link to see what I'm talking about: www.rsdsummerspecial.com.

PPS: Tim has been super active on his blog. Have a quick click over to: www.naturaltim.com.