Identity and Grounding (Mystery)

[Admin]

I read an article recently by my good buddy Thundercat that said:
"But what Mystery does, though teachable, is very much a style tailored to Mystery. He is successful at what he does because no one else can really imitate him. That's what makes Tyler so amazing to observe. Tyler does the same things as Mystery, but WITHOUT the magic tricks. Yet he is still able to create IMMENSE value for himself. How does he do this? Well, from what I've gathered, his method is more relatable to normal guys like me, because anyone with the proper skillset can use Tyler's methods to create value for themselves."
Thundercat's misunderstanding between a person's customized style and the game plan or method he uses to systematically convey his unique personality concerns me. This is because only a few days ago did we share a 3:00am meal at a diner after our visit to an exotic dance club together.
During our meal Thundercat himself admitted that he doesn't possess a strong identity as I do. I will attempt to resolve his misunderstanding between STYLE and METHOD as well as reveal some insights on how to specifically customize material to convey a unique identity (for both you and my friend Thundercat). Once you customize your material to fit your chosen "strong identity" will you no doubt make others who watch you work wrongfully assume it is your particular identity that gets you the girls and not the method that powers the conveying of it.
As those who have taken a Mystery Method seminar know, MM consists of three main areas:
PART 1. A format (or game plan) which has 3 stages, each with 3 phases.
PART 2. Mental tools to get you from phase to phase (isolation tactics, kiss tactics, extraction tactics, etc).
PART 3. Scripts and personality conveying material (content) to fill in each of the 9 phases.
While parts 1 and 2 (the MM format and it's tactics) don't change from person to person, part 3 (personality conveying material) does. We each possess a unique identity. You are not me. I am a magician. My wing Style is a writer. Tyler D. is a public speaker. Does this mean you have to be a magician, a writer, or a public speaker in order to attract women? Of course not! But what you DO need is what Style, Tyler D. and I share in common: we each possess a strong identity. Style, Tyler D. and I have each customized our material to convey our strong and unique personalities. That is, in fact, the PURPOSE of personality conveying material. It certainly would be counter-productive to convey that you are a magician if you aren't one. Nor a writer or public speaker for that matter.
Tyler D. and Style use the same game plan or method that I do. How do I know? Because we adapted my original (and now out-of-date) FMAC method into a powerful algorithm together (M3). Both are former students of mine, turned teachers. And yes they have both taught me as much about the game as I have them since we began. (Style lives in the same house as I, and Tyler D. is here too, visiting.) While we all use the same method, we have customized the material so that we each have a different style. In fact, Tyler D.'s style is still evolving. His identity has, for a long time, been one with few attractive qualities: a student. This may be the reason why Thundercat, in misunderstanding the difference between method and style, has concluded that Tyler D.'s material is more applicable to "normal guys" than mine. What this reveals please me: The identity I have chosen is strong enough to confuse even a close friend.
What Style, Tyler D. and I do when we teach others the game is give examples of field-tested personality conveying routines to students. Should our students stick to this STOCK material forever? No way! What they should do is identify who they are and swap out our stock examples for customized stories from their real life as soon as possible. The reason they are given examples is so that they can appreciate what constitutes a good personality conveying routine. Some amazing routines are thankfully generic enough to share ("The Cube" routine for instance), while others must by their very nature be unique to each person.
Like mine, some of Thundercat's material should possess a common theme. He will use this material to draw his target into his world (and not into Mystery's world or Tyler D.'s world). Thundercat's material must specifically suit his identity. Each person who uses MM will ultimately swap out the stock routines we teach them and use original material over time.

[Admin]

I am now revealing this idea outside of my private lounge for the first time here:
GROUNDING: HOW TO GROUND YOUR IDENTITY TO YOUR TARGET'S REALITY WITH YOUR BACK-STORY
I'm sure you've found yourself in a set and have reached the point where your target says, "What do you do?" You either give her your honest but lame answer like, "I'm a student", or "I'm a system's administrator", or worse, you try to circumvent the question entirely with "I'm an ass model."
The problem is you don't have an attractive identity, or if you do, it's not a strong one. Some guys will experiment with "I'm a rockstar", or "I'm a promoter", or "I'm a public speaker", but your target will either feel you are lying (in the same way we believe an "actress" is likely a "waitress"), or if they DO believe your evidence, they become intimidated when you get weighed down by the stereotype they have of you.
If instead of answering her question "What do you do" with "I'm " you can ground your present identity to her reality and harness the opportunity to convey a much richer personality. Here's how you do it.
Instead say:
1. "Well when I was little I wanted to be a ."
2. "When I was a teenager happened." Tell stories about how you got from 1 to 3.
3. "Now I'm . Can you believe it?"
Here is the applied format that I used to ground my identity to a recent HB9's reality. It helped to attract her and build enough comfort to get her back to my place. (Not the exotic dancer but another girl.)
1. What do I do? When I was young I wanted to be a magician.
2. Tell story of my first birthday party magic show and how the money was used to see a Copperfield show. (5 minute story.)
2.1 Tell story of how my biggest audience scared the shit out of me and how I went up and kicked ass. I really get into the fear of it all. (3 minute story.)
2.2 Talk about my first real TV experience. (2 minute story.)
2.3 Tell her about moving to Hollywood and why. This is a "vulnerability routine" in C&T stage. (3 minute story.)
3.0 Tell her what is now on my plate - my WTF? underground internet show, my TV reality show interest, the book I'm writing, and my seminars on various topics such as social dynamics and wealth building. (5 minutes of stories.)
3.1 Tell her what I am planning on doing next - illusion show concepts, publicity stunts, etc. (5 minutes of stories.)
That was at least 23 minutes of story-telling and I was holding this beautiful girl long before I performed any magic. The reason magic works for me of course is because I'm a magician. As Thundercat noted in his article, "Tyler does the same things as Mystery, but WITHOUT the magic tricks. Yet he is still able to create IMMENSE value for himself." This is, to me, compelling evidence to support that you do not need to use my style or do magic in any way to use MM. Tyler D. performs no magic what-so-ever yet can still, by sticking to the method and running his unique personality conveying material, attract women like moths to a flame. Just don't go running around telling women you conduct workshops on social dynamics if you don't.
If I just come in and say "I'm a magician", my target really wouldn't feel that we share commonalities or lifestyle. She would have to rely on stereotyping. I would also not appear very humble. She would feel that I'm too different for her and I would otherwise over-qualify myself. Some women it seems would actually reject a date with George Clooney because they don't understand his lifestyle - they feel they lack commonality and this lack creates discomfort. But what if he gave her his back-story and taught her what happened, step-by-step, to him to become who he is today? This is the concept of GROUNDING applied.
By giving my target my back-story, I ground myself to her reality ("When I was as a regular Joe") so that she could see how she too could be the type of person I now am ("This is who I am today") if only she were to make similar decisions along the way. You can even later use this format to encourage your target to ground HER life to YOU during the F2M attract phase by having her stick to the format. Simply ask, "Woah. Back up. So what happened next?"
Notice in my list of grounding stories above that the common theme is "This is what lead me to become who I am today." Thundercat too must do this - once he decides what his identity in fact IS. Does this mean he must steal my identity to do MM? No. He won't be telling stories of his first birthday party magic show. That would be a lie. He won't talk about how he learned the secret to a card trick by beating it out of a classmate of his, or how years later that classmate saw him on TV and said, "I can't believe your future changed that day." No, he won't use my specific material. Nor will you. But both you and Thundercat will use material from your own real life experiences as I do. The format or game plan is the Mystery Method. The personalized MATERIAL you use to fill in the format is what constitutes your style.
If Tyler D. for instance says "I'm a public speaker", what does that mean to his target? She can only go by an accepted stereotype and unless she herself is a public speaker (commonality) he needs to explain how he became one. He must explain that if she did the same things he did, she too would be a public speaker. If he were to say, "I travel the world giving lectures on social dynamics", he would likely over-qualify himself. If he instead said, "Well, when I was in school I went to this seminar" and "I started to help the lecturer for shits and giggles" and then "I taught a little bit at the seminars", he would be grounding his reality to hers. He could then continue with "I started traveling with them for fun during the summer" and then "I put together my own seminar and conducted it for the first time with the help of my friend Papa. It was exciting and I was nervous", and on and on all the way to "Now I travel the world, people look up to me and I make mad cash ... can you believe it? I never would have thought I could do it if you said I'd be doing this 10 yrs ago", he would be grounding his reality to hers using my grounding method and his own original back-story material.
Now, how does one answer the deep question, "Who am I?" A friend of mine told me, "You are what you repeatedly do."
I do magic on a regular basis. I perform it almost every day, whether for a beautiful woman or any other other person. Style writes almost every day (and gets paid for it, making him a full-time professional). Tyler D. mostly focuses on conducting seminars and workshops. What do YOU do on a regular basis? Besides being a social butterfly that is. Remember, the pick-up arts exists to enrich your life, not define it. What stories do you already possess that convey who you have become today?
GROUNDING REALITY is far reaching. It will change the way you M2F attract, F2M attract, and build COMFORT but will not alter their basic structure. It will also change the way you choose and structure routines, sequence them (which routines you will use and when), and convey to your target the way you handle challenges in your life.
So this is what you must now do to improve your game:
1. Figure out who YOU are by looking at what you DO repeatedly - something you can say in a word or two. (ex: magician, writer, toy inventor, CEO, hacker, rock climber, rapper, public speaker, traveler)
2. Come up with several stories that convey how you got from being a normal kid to doing what you repeatedly do.
3. Practice telling these stories to others to make the stories enthusiastic and natural.
Mystery

[brianyates]

I use my sense of humour. I've used it in these forums, actually (if you want a sample. everyone deserves a laugh or 2). Personally, I'm more into music than comedy, but my sense of humour gets better results. I could probably use the topic of music to qualify? "What's your favorite song?". If she names one that I like "Ok, you're not all bad." If it's a song I hate "Aw, that SUCKS." If it's a song I don't know, "How's it go? Can you sing it for me?"

"It's not what you do; it's the way you do it"- Jim Sturgess, "Across the Universe"

[The Wanderer]

Good stuff, Mystery. May your boa's feathers forever shine. :D

[Dish]

Many thanks Mystery. This is very illustrative. It explains my discomfort with the magic trick routines... I'm not a magician. I should create and stick to my own identity.

[MasterminDDevelopment]

Thanks dude. Always inspiring to listen to your mindspills. (or read in this case)

So in a nutshell:
Instead of trying to be some interesting guy, figure out how to communicate the already interesting things that makes you stand out today.

Once you see the beauty of your unique life so far, suck her into that world. Let her feel the broad scala of emotions you had to go through to become who you are today.

Ride the waves together, fall from the board together, splash her now and then and when you finally reach the shore, both exhausted from the adventure you've just been through, her eyes will be begging for more.

My problem in this area used to be the variety of activities that I do regularly. I write, I do graphic design, practice nature and model photography, study ancient and current civilizations and the way they behave etc..

I always had troube determining the one thing that I enjoy the most. My lightbulb moment came when I was doing a 'Values' NLP exercise and figured out that one of the biggest values that I had was that I want to make the world a better place.

Once this realisation struck me, I began to see that that was the overarching motivation that drove me to figure the world out and communicating what I found out to others.

Now when I am asked: what do you do? My routine goes something like this:

Me: I am changing the world, are you with me?

She: What do you mean?

Me: Look around. We live in a world today that thinks that getting more stuff or making more money is the way to happiness. Take a look at a random commercial and it will say: Are you lonely/ugly/depressed/sad/less cool then your neighbour, GET MORE STUFF. NOW NEWER THEN NEW!! Cool people get more stuff! Are you cool enough to get more stuff?

And it works! For over 30 years now we take more material from the Earth then it can reproduce. 30 years! Can you believed people are giving in to this limiting believe for that long while at the same time there are more depressed people and suicides then ever before?!

Don't you think it is time to wake up those people? Don't you want to protect your offspring from a world of greed and neediness?

She: Yeah.. but how?

Continue routine.....

I really like the results I am getting with this routine so far and I try to get to it in every set, usually stacking it on an opinion opener. It can use a little tweaking here and there, so I am looking forward to see if I can improve it by using the above explanation.

So if you recognize the problem I was having that you aren't able to pinpoint your identity, try answering the following questions and look for emerging patterns, you might find an overarching value that will tell you what makes you unique:

* What would I do when I had 6 months left to live?
* What gives my the most pleasure?
* What do I want people to tell about me on my funeral (and now)?
* What would I do if money wasn't an issue?

Peace,
MasterminD
http://94.100.113.41/404100001-404150000/404106201-404106300/404106232_5_ANPP.jpeg
ps. Critique is welcome :)

[FlightDeck]

* What would I do when I had 6 months left to live?
* What gives my the most pleasure?
* What do I want people to tell about me on my funeral (and now)?
* What would I do if money wasn't an issue?

Excellent questions to find out more about who you really are. Interesting that sometimes I don't even realize these basic things about myself.

[Sammyz]

I guess i'll be working on my back story tonight :P maybe i'll post it when i am done for you guys to admire ;) haha

(i know i am demonstrating higher value and with that "i am a prize" attitude but i am not trying to pick up anyone in this forum lol thats just not how i roll :D haha!

i am turning 24 years this July and as i was reading Mystery's and Styles books i realized that I've always kinda lived by those rules and was prolly doing them unconsiously, and you can imagine the number of girls i've been exposed to and flirted with and more while living in a small country in the middle of nowhere and believe you me nothing spreads faster than the rep of an alpha male. However when a highschool romance later on in college developed into something more serious (a 3 year relationship) it ended horrible for me. it feels like a huge part of me went down the drain with that relationship. Its been a year since the breakup and i am still where i started and feels like i need to build my game from zero.. i've heard all that there is more fish in the sea, scars heal with time, you'll forget, she will regret it etc.. Thanx to mystery, Style and others i have solid guidlines, advice, examples, and routines that will help me to one day get back up prolly better than before :D but seriously fuck it 4/5 times out a week?!?! i got loads of work and commitments i'd be lucky if i can do 2...!

[Von_Halen]

I'm gonna need help finding my identity, tho. I do lots of things. I'm pretty athletic, I'm a poet, a musician, an Electrical Engineer, a pretty good dancer, and a street magician.... What should i focus my main on, since they're all pretty big parts in my life?

[zine]

This is just such great writing. Maybe mystery should be a writer and not a pua haha. Everything I read here like this just feels like it creates such a huge shift in me and inspires me to take steps forward. I love it.
http://www.self-confdence-coach.com/flashstuff/images/venusianarts.com
http://www.self-confdence-coach.com/flashstuff/images/10.gif