How to Bring `Value’ to Your Conversations
by 
Eric Disco
Lately, this one of the most common problems I notice in my advanced coaching clients.
In bars, he’ll interact with women like this.
He starts with some banter.
“You guys look like trouble. I can see what’s going on here!”
The girls laugh. Maybe he jokes a bit more.
Then he transitions into personal conversation.
“So how do you guys know each other?”
I see the same variation in meeting women during the day.
He starts off with an innocuous question and then a few follow-up questions.
“Do you know how to get to a Chase ATM?”
“Can you tell me whether it’s open on Saturday?”
Then he transitions into personal conversation.
“I get the feeling you’re not from around here.”
This format of interaction can work. You will get into interactions with women at times using this.
But there’s a big problem.
In these types of interactions, you’re counting her to bring `value.’
What do I mean by `value’ in this context?
Value can be understood as an interesting conversation topic. Something to talk about.
In these interactions, you are putting the onus on her for the conversation to be interesting.
That means the conversation will be either interesting or boring depending on her response.
If you ask these girls how they know each other, they may give you a really interesting answer–or a boring one.
“We actually met each other when we were doing volunteer work in Haiti.”
This is? interesting. I would like to ask her more questions about her experience.
Or she may provide something boring.
“We work together at Macy’s.”
Yawn.
Now what do we talk about? Do we keep asking them questions until they provide something else interesting?
This type of interaction makes her feel like you’re ungrounded, swimming in the ether.
It seems like you’re hopelessly looking for a girl with an interesting life whom you can latch onto.
The Alternative: Talking about Yourself
Instead, the way to bring value to an interaction is to have interesting conversation about yourself ready to discuss.
This can take the form of:
- Simple I-Statements. You are prepared to make statements about yourself. “I went biking this weekend…”
- Storytelling. This is a longer form of an I Statement where you tell a short story.
- Opinion questions. Ask them for an opinion on a topic. Much like a story except that you get their opinion at the end.
- Interesting conversation questions. You can bring value to an interaction by asking them more interesting questions than name-from-do (what is your name, where are you from, what do you d0). For example, “How did your parents meet?”
- Turning the conversation back to you. By continually focusing on her, she starts to feel like the focus is too much on her. You can simply ask her to guess what you do.
- Have a good answer prepared for when she asks what you do. When she does ask what you do, you can have something good prepared to talk about rather than a one-word answer.
When you have something prepared to talk about, it allows you to lead the interaction instead of asking her to lead it.
It shows that you’re confident talking about yourself and who you are. You demonstrate to her that you have an interesting life worth talking about.
Doing this the first few times may feel awkward for guys. They want to be more `natural.’ But that awkwardness is a fear of sharing things about themselves, of taking risks.
This doesn’t mean you always have to tell a story at the beginning of an interaction. If she offers value right away, feel free to talk about her for a while.
The problem comes in when you feel like you need to talk about her in order for the interaction to be interesting.
She can sense that and it bores her to death.
Instead, go in prepared to have an interesting conversation whether she’s interesting or not.
If she’s not interesting at all, it will come out eventually.
But either way, you’re bringing your own value to every conversation.
Posted in Rapport Skills | 
11 Comments »
This is a really great point, Eric. When you think about it, why would a high-value man suddenly become interested in a stranger? Just because she’s pretty? But high value men have plenty of exposure to pretty girls all the time.
It makes more sense to talk more about yourself and what’s going on in your life at the moment. You don’t know anything about this girl–it makes no sense to be that interested in her right off the bat. Once she demonstrates value in some way, THEN she has earned your interest.
I’ve had tons of interactions with girls where it starts out great with the flirting/ teasing, and then everything comes to a grinding halt when I start rapport-seeking out of the blue. “So… what do you do?”
@Eric
This is my sticking point..it goes hand in hand with having a set stack to go through. But what you mentioned is exactly my problem, it doesnt feel ‘natural’ doing this. It could be because of what you said-fear of sharing things about myself, but I feel like for me I just like going up to girls and speaking whatever comes to mind. But I guess thats why Im not getting the results I want
I am so moved that my line appears in your post:-) I had some great interactions in Boston after our session – will post some details on the forum
I now live only a few hours from New York.
I really need to spend some time there, because it seems one of the few places in the US really conducive to trying to beat your anxiety.
In a smaller place, you could easily burn through all the cute girls in a matter of minutes.
That’s just my hunch, I would like to see if I’m somewhere near the mark. I have yet to live anywhere that you could do classic “Daygame”
In my opinion this is the core of picking up, why would a girl invest her time and stick with you if you don’t show/give any value? unless you are dealing with a gold digger, it is your “value” (overall qualities) that will make a girl stay, some guys have great and interesting life styles but fail miserably when communicating and bring value to conversations.
Amor – You are clearly on top of this, and I think that I understand your point, but, what value is SHE bringing?
@dave
You have no control over how much value she brings. You have control over 1) how much value you bring and 2) whether she will reveal something interesting to you about herself, something that will make you conclude that she is, indeed, bringing value. If she has no value beyond her looks, the only thing you can get out of the interaction is some sex. That hasn’t been my objective is a long time. However, finding the best way to show her your value and getting her to try to reveal her value is part of what we call game. In fact, the most desirable women will not be attracted to you if you are not skeptical about their ability to bring some value to the interaction.
–Lee
Dave,
I totally understand what you are saying but you gotta remember that in order for her to display her best qualities to you (qualification) you must “bait” her, show your value, show that you stand put from the rest of loser men she has dated before, like Eric has mentioned several times you are the “prize” you must believe this and transmit it to her but once again in order for this to happen, you must take the first step and show value.
Eric,
I do not know where exactly to post this, so I am going to do it here.
For the past 5 years I have had conversations with several women trying to figure out most of the stuff that you already did and have posted on your website, there is something though, that I hear often from them, in your opinion what exactly do they mean when women say: “He makes me feel alive” ? Does this refer exclusively in a sexual context? or what specific men actions, make women say this?
Hi Amor,
“He makes me feel alive.” What a great way of describing a woman’s sexual attraction.
Every person is original and different in their own way. We are all unique. Each guy is unique and brings something special to an interaction. However, almost every guy ends up using the same exact stale, boring way of interacting with women. They act on their attraction in acceptable ways. Their attraction causes them to be submissive and docile around her. So even though he may be unique and interesting, his approach is not. So she gets bored and never gets to know him.
When a guy comes along who is unpredictable, dominant, and not bowled over by her, this all of a sudden is interesting to her. She’s left guessing what’s going to happen next. She’s on a new journey and she doesn’t know if the destination will be riches or ruin. Life is about the challenge, particularly challenges where the outcome is uncertain. Are you good enough for it? Will you overcome it? When you put a woman in this position, this makes her feel alive.
Eric
Great way to explain!
You said a couple of very interesting key word there: “unpredictable and dominant” unpredictable is something easy to simplify but I am not sure what you mean by dominant? what would be a good example?
I have also ready many blogs written by women (Not feminist) I read them not to follow them obviously because that is what they THINK they want but that is not exactly what really moves their emotions, it did call my attention though that most of these blogs and female writers emphasize about “Romance” what is your approach on this? How can a man give romance without losing his “strong sexual appeal” and not becoming a wuss”?
This topic and my first topic might make a good posting :)