Cold Approach as a Path to Mastery

Everyone doing cold approach needs to read Mastery by George Leonard.

The Internet and high-tech culture has created a scenario where people in all areas of life expect too much for too little activity. These points have been made ad-nauseum, but are no less true now, than they were before. Human beings, in general, tend to be impatient and pushy for what they want. The rapid rate of technological development that gives us a few legitimate quick fixes has caused us all to expect ALL of our problems to be solved in warp-speed.

Enter Mastery. George Leonard, an aikido teacher, writes about the path to greatness that is not only found in his chosen martial art, but in all fields of study and activity. The desire for things to always be easy and pleasurable causes us to take an unrealistic view on life. Leonard says this is due to us idealizing the climax, the end result of things, while ignoring or downplaying the necessary plateau that comes before it. "One epiphany follows another. One fantasy is crowded out by the next. Climax is piled upon climax. There's no plateau."

He expounds further on this notion: "The quick-fix, antimastery mentality touches almost everything in our lives. Look at modern medicine and pharmacology. "Fast, temporary relief" is the battle cry. Symptoms receive immediate attention; underlying causes remain in the shadows. More and more research studies show that most illnesses are caused by environmental factors or way of life. The typical twelve-minute office visit doesn't give the doctor time to get to know the patient's face, much less his or her way of life. It does give time for writing a prescription."

The overwhelming majority of men I see, either already in the community or eager to join, think that they can hop in right in, do as many faulty approaches as possible without constant reflection and tweaking, and solve their dating problem in a flash. It's common to hear "I've done 1,000 approaches in 2 days and I'm still bad! What gives?!" They think that repetition for repetition's sake will turn them into Casanova. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my personal journey in cold approach, I've spent a sizeable portion of my time repeating certain mistakes almost endlessly. I've spent years banging my head on the same walls, only figuring out how to stop last-minute from cracking my skull open on yet another attempt. It's beyond possible to waste multiple years mindlessly approaching.

Guys in cold approach tend to be very short-sighted, not understanding that this is a skill that takes time to hone. You will not and CANNOT see the results you want in a week, month, or year. It takes multiple years of consistent effort and dedication to growth to get where you want to be. This is undertaking mastery, which is a winding road of bumps, bruises, and opportunities, of both reaching goals you set and goalless practice just for the sake of the activity itself. The willingness to JUST PRACTICE with nothing else in mind is a trait of the true learner who will eventually realize his greatness. It's often quoted what Arjun said to Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, "We have a right to our labor, but not to the fruits of our labor". Doing our work for the sake of the work itself calls on our passion for our work and the usefulness we see in it. If what you have dedicated your time and energy to is worth doing, it's worth doing whether or not you get exactly what you want from it. Usually those who grow to be incredible talents in cold approach do it for the sake of approaching itself. Girls will come, sex will come, you'll get a myriad of experiences to reflect on and speak about, but the main thing is approaching.

Viewing it from this point of view, your mindset should always be "how can I make this approach/conversation/line/escalation sequence better?" Ironically, it is the approacher who is on the "destination-less" path who is more apt to continually improve. Guys who just can't wait to "get to this place and get it over with" tend not to be very good. In my opinion, the long path with no end in sight is much more rewarding overall, and is something everyone getting into this should work to embody. "The people who love the process or the journey more than the destination go farther, faster, and end up outperforming the people who are only in it for the destination." says Chris Do, creative entrepreneur and founder of The Futur.

Leonard writes about the journey of mastery: "This journey will take you along a path that is both arduous and exhilarating. It will bring you unexpected heartaches and unexpected rewards, and you will never reach a final destination. (It would be a paltry skill indeed that could be finally, completely mastered.) You'll probably end up learning as much about yourself as about the skill you're pursuing." I can definitely attest to this, as the practices I took up in trying to learn game shined a spotlight on how I do pretty much everything in my life. Habits and patterns show up from area to area, if we would but look for them. You'll spend just as much time fixing personal stumbling blocks that hinder you in all aspects of your life as you will learning specific game-related skills. The progress you make in fixing those things will aid you with what you do in the field. "The world globes itself in a drop of dew."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

About the learning curve of mastery, he writes: "There's really no way around it. Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it. In the actual learning experience, progress is less regular; the upward spurts vary; the plateaus have their own dips and rises along the way.""....this is the inexorable fact of the journey- you also have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere.""How do you best move toward mastery? To put it simply, you practice diligently, but you practice primarily for the sake of the practice itself. Rather than being frustrated while on the plateau, you learn to appreciate and enjoy it just as much as you do the upward surges."

To expect master-level results after beginner-level effort is absurd, and an effort to shortcut the inevitable. You must train yourself to understand that the process can't be skipped, that you will need to bump your head on many walls, and manage cuts and bruises to your ego and self-concept along the way. You will become an amazing man that commands women's love and devotion, just not in YOUR time. You will have girls in your life that you could never have dreamed of in earlier years, when the time is RIGHT. Things have their own appointed time to happen. The more you try to rush and power through to get to what you want, the more you'll hold yourself back, because your ability to move through stages depends on your willingness to make every necessary mistake, learn the accompanying lesson, and repeat this cycle infinitely. The more you allow the process to simply unfold, without rushing or pushing, the faster you will move through it. Great things are rarely put together quickly, and this is no exception to the rule.

Leonard breaks down 3 main learner archetypes: the Dabbler, the Obsessive, and the Hacker, and how they all differ from the master learner. The Dabbler is delighted by the newness of an activity, but as soon as he hits his first plateau, he's looking for something else to do. He thinks that to plateau means that the activity isn't "the right one" and goes off in search of an easier time. The Obsessive doesn't sprint away when times get hard; he tries too hard to push past the plateau, not understanding that it is an essential component of the entire learning process. He hopes to "work the plateau away" and becomes disillusioned and burnt out when he realizes it can't be done. The Hacker also stays put, but does not expend too much effort to improve. He believes that his weaknesses and flaws don't matter (they DO), and that mere time in activity will compensate for everything else (it WON'T).

Relating it to cold approach, we could say that the Dabbler is the guy who starts approaching for the way it makes others look at him, for how it makes him feel "masculine", maybe even collecting some girls' numbers...until he runs into a snag with what he's doing and decides to give it up. For him, it's more about how he looks to the outside observer, and less about actually being good at this. The Obsessive is an archetype I know like the back of my hand, because it was me for the longest time. This type of learner does not mind working hard BUT sets an impossible date on completion of task. His quick-fix seeker has him try to power through by sheer will to get to the other side. Only problem is, he's not actually focused on learning, just achieving the end result he thinks will make him happy as quickly as he can. He approaches day and night, destroying the rest of his life, in hopes of avoiding the lulls and valleys that must present themselves. His brutal, self-destructive behavior only lead to self-harm and, more often that not, quitting because of unrealistic expectations on progress.

I truly tried to go from initiate to master in 2 years flat. No joke at all. I was desperate enough to want to change so badly that I took massive action, but it was coming from a very shortsighted, hurried place. I wanted to "get this shit done, and get on with my life", because I viewed it as a problem in itself, a knot in my sail, a burden I was tasked with solving. When I made incredible progress, I celebrated none of it and paid it no mind. I was "still not where I want to be". The only thing that mattered was "I am not where I want to be and I'm unhappy about it". Pretty soon, depression, burnout, and health issues stopped me from approaching seriously at all. My monomaniacal desire to achieve had done me in.

The Hacker would be the guy who never actually leaves the field, he stays in...just not actively improving. He learns no new techniques, gives his game no new upgrades, backslides skill-wise, and then wonders why he isn't being given exciting, fresh experiences with women. This was also me: after going through my burnout phase and getting back into action, I was extremely hesitant to update what I was doing. I didn't want to "spend even more time in this godforsaken thing" and wanted to move on with my life, even though my ragged results (if you could call them that) left me disappointed. For years, I had a chip on my shoulder saying "I've put so much damn time into this thing that I should be getting THESE types of results", but blind work without patience and experimentation mean nothing and lead to nothing.

The Master learning archetype is patient, persistent, and perseveres through temporary setbacks. He knows that along this process he will be sorely tested because it is a new skill, new neural pathways and cognitive maps that he's building. He knows that he will meet with some nice rewards, but he doesn't let them go to his head and inflate his ego. However wonderful they seem, there is also more to be learned, and the path itself reminds him of that. His indifference to "success" or "failure" with his eyes fixed on the long-game afford him a myriad of different experiences which allow him to GROW. These attitudes assure him improvement over the passage of time. The longer he stays in, the better he gets (in this case). He adds many new wrinkles to his skillset because not only does he love practicing for the sake of the activity itself, he is interested in seeing just how good he can actually become. The result is that even when trying some pretty silly things, he's always enjoying the process and always on the upward swing. He moves through his process much quicker and internalizes lessons much deeper than his peers. With a mindset like that, he CANNOT HELP BUT BECOME BETTER. As an added consequence, he is met with "fun times" which other practitioners could only dream of experiencing.

Putting this into a cold approach student archetype, our ideal student embarks on the journey of approaching for the passion he has for it, and to find out how high his ceiling really is. He sets up a consistent schedule of activity: small at first, increasing over a reasonable amount of time, but never overwhelming. He is not focused on "getting a few girls, then getting out", he has no feelings attached to showing off women to his family and friends. His love of approach causes him to be patient, experiment and try different things (flirts, escalation, questions, etc.). It also eggs him on to approach in scenarios he would usually shy away from, for the sake of fun and experience. He has mentors and masters to council with, that provide necessary information, but he sees and accepts no substitute to himself out in field "bangin' the guns". He's already enjoying himself, he's already expanding his self-concept and sense of possibility, but now he starts being gifted with moments, sex, dates from women that other guys would have deemed impossible to get. He himself would have said the same, but adhering to the right mindset and the right process changed him. He is no longer the person he was when he started. Even if he might not feel like it all the time, he's A LOT CLOSER to the masters he idolizes than he is to the newbie who decided to "give this stuff a try". THIS is who you want to be.

If you find on reading this that you want to develop that mindset and get help with your process of overcoming to become, in cold approach, feel free to drop a line on this blog and we'll see what we can do for you. Re-read this until it sinks in and changes you, and share it with others you think it can help. Until next time!