Rules of the Game (18 page)

Examples: Become an engineer, and you can design the mobile phone of the future. Become a guitarist, and you can tour the world playing rock shows. Become a web designer, and you can help with the images of the world's biggest corporations
.

5.
Now examine the ad line you wrote. Remove adjectives, adverbs, and other unnecessary hype words (such as “exciting,” “biggest,” “best,” “most powerful”). Examine the verbs you used, and make sure they're exciting and active (“create” is better than “have”; “launch” is better than “do”). Then, using these tips, rewrite your ad line as simply, factually, and powerfully as possible in ten words or less.

Example: “help with the images of the world's biggest corporations” could become “reinvent the images of corporations” or even “reinvent the images of Fortune 500 companies.”

6.
Rewrite your answer to question #5 in the first person (begin with the word “I”).

Examples: I reinvent the images of Fortune 500 companies. I'm designing the mobile phone of the future
.

7.
This is your identity statement. Say it out loud until you're comfortable with it. If you feel it's uninteresting or inaccurate, rework it until it feels right—or repeat this exercise (starting with question 3) until you have an identity statement that is both truthful and interesting.

Most of the guidelines of the game are based on perceived relative status, and they change depending on how she feels your status compares to hers at any
given time. So if you currently have a high-status position in society, rather than playing it up, play it down. Do exactly the opposite of what's suggested above. Keep it vague. For example, instead of telling her you're the head of a major film studio or an award-winning screenwriter, just say that you “work in movies” and let her wring the details out of you if she so desires.

By Thomas Scott McKenzie

A man is but the product of his thoughts.
What he thinks, he becomes
.
—
MAHATMA GANDHI

I am a star. I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star.
I am a big, bright, shining star
.
—
DIRK DIGGLER, BOOGIE NIGHTS

It's been proven time and time again: Confidence is attractive. Confidence earns the admiration of your coworkers, the respect of your friends, and the interest of women. In fact, it's safe to say that without confidence, all the seduction techniques known to man will not help you attract the women you desire.

But many men struggle with this most crucial of characteristics. Difficult childhoods, less-than-model looks, meager bank accounts, dead-end jobs, piece-of-shit cars, receding hairlines, underarm odor, and dating dry spells all reduce worthy men to nervous, timid mice. Even men with rock-hard abs and shiny red convertibles are sometimes unable to look women in the eye and speak with a strong voice, because a domineering mother or ex-wife damaged their self-esteem and confidence.

Mastering Your Hidden Self: A Guide to the Huna Way
by Serge Kahili King offers an antidote to these confidence poisons. King teaches that we are not helpless victims vulnerable to our mind's tyranny. Instead,
we
control our minds. We control our emotions. We control our perceptions, our feelings, and our outlook. Harnessing ancient systems, King offers a concrete way to reprogram your mind so that you can stride through life with confidence, energy, and power.

In addition to the widely accepted teachings of the world's great religions and philosophies, a more esoteric body of secret knowledge has been shared by initiates throughout history. Building on both the mundane and the arcane, Huna offers a system of self-improvement that cuts through the confusion of modern life.

Essentially, Huna states that you are in control of your life, your mind, and your reality. “The most fundamental idea in Huna philosophy is that we each create our own personal experience of reality, by our beliefs, interpretations, actions and reactions, thoughts and feelings,” King writes.

A corollary to this is that our creative potential is unlimited. “You can create, in some form or another, anything you can conceive,” King continues. This is why it's important to replace limiting beliefs based on past dating experiences with unlimited beliefs about the present and future.

Within the Huna belief system, there are seven main principles.

To improve your inner game, it's vital that you recognize the detrimental effects of negative thoughts and energy. “Generally speaking, negative attitudes produce inner stress, which translates to physical tension and can affect organs and even cells,” King writes.

The simplest way to change a negative attitude to a positive one is to be aware of bad thoughts when they appear, then consciously change them to a positive opposite. “You can do this whether or not the apparent facts of the situation seem to warrant it,” King adds.

When it comes to the subconscious, the common perception is that it lurks in the recesses of your mind, never to be known until you spend years on a therapist's couch, only to discover that you're a helpless victim of some random childhood event.

King disagrees. He explains that we can, in fact, control our subconscious. “The subconscious is not an unruly, rebellious child, nor does it ever work against your best interests… Whenever the
ku
[subconscious] seems to be opposing you, it is because it is following previous orders that you either gave it or allowed to remain.”

A good example of how you can train your subconscious involves changing habits. Mental and physical habits are learned responses stored in your subconscious memory and released by associated stimuli. Huna teaches that the only way to eliminate a bad habit is to give your subconscious a more effective way to deal with the stimuli.

One strategy is to consider changing your speech habits. Maybe you litter your speech with brain farts and pausers. At some point in your life, perhaps these pausers allowed you extra time to choose your words. Eventually, they became a habit. Instead of accepting this bad habit or trying to quit cold turkey, Huna teaches that we must replace it. “The important point here is that there is no vacuum in the subconscious,” King writes.