Building An Identity 

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 Durden so amazing to observe. Tyler Durden 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 Durden '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 Neil Strauss is a writer. Tyler Durden 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 Neil Strauss , Tyler Durden and I share in common: we each possess a strong identity. Neil Strauss , Tyler Durden 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 Durden and Neil Strauss 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. ( Neil Strauss lives in the same house as I, and Tyler Durden 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 Durden '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 Durden '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 Neil Strauss , Tyler Durden 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 Durden '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.

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 Durden 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 Durden 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. Learn more about my good buddy Tyler Durden at www.realsocialdynamics.com. His close friend and business partner Papa lives in my house.

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 Durden 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. Neil Strauss writes almost every day (and gets paid for it, making him a full-time professional). Tyler Durden 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.