Women love confidence.  You’ve heard it a million times right?  But confidence isn’t something you can buy-especially not at Ed Hardy.  Confidence is something you have to work on-and opportunities are literally everywhere.

I have a friend named Chris who is simply put, outgoing.  It doesn’t matter where he is or what the situation, he finds someone to talk to and probably has their email by the end of the conversation.  I am not just talking about hot women, either.  Chris was in line at Sports Authority the other day and some guy in front of him was buying Asics.  Chris asked the guy about why he was buying those instead of Nikes or whatever and by the end of the conversation he had a new draft in his fantasy football league and a new friend.  Chris strikes up a conversation with anyone, anywhere.  The old lady at the coffee shop, the teenage boy buying a soda at the gas station.  I asked him his trick.  I said “Chris, how do you just start talking to people without them blowing you off?”  He said “Ruben honestly about 5% of the time people do blow me off, but 95% of the time I just smile and start talking about something going on around us or an object in their hand or whatever.  If you direct the conversation away from that person, and towards something neutral then people aren’t on the defensive, and they are happy to engage another person! I mean, people are social by nature-you just have to look around you and create an unforced bond by talking about something besides them.”

“So” I asked him “This is why it’s easy for you to talk to hot girls when we’re all out.”

“Well yeah!  Hot girls are the same as the old lady in line at the market Ruben-they don’t respond well to your coming up and saying ‘Hey where are YOU from, what do YOU do for a living?’  But if you talk about your surroundings or current events I don’t know…anything besides interviewing them, they love it and want to talk!”

Ever since this conversation with Chris I have actually made it a point to reach out to people, using these regular people I am not attracted to to sharpen my social skills.  I was at the park and saw a guy throwing a ball to his dog and said “Hey is he a Doxen?  How old? I used to have one growing up…” We ended up finding out that we worked in the same building.  Pretty funny.  Imagine if that had been a hot girl!  The point is, if you want to radiate confidence naturally, then you have to be the kind of person that likes talking to people and naturally chats anyone up just to experience human connectivity. Once you become comfortable striking up a conversation with any old person, then a hot girl won’t be nearly as intimidating.  Try it-I did, and I am actually satisfied being able to approach and talk to anyone, it feels good to make a connection, no matter who the person is.