How to Date Alicia Keys

Swizz Beatz just dropped 2 minutes of amazing knowledge on how to have a great relationship -- especially one as attractive and successful as Alicia Keys. Pay 1000% attention to his points as these will not only help you have a strong, long-lasting relationship, but also get you into one. Remember, communication starts at first glance.​

Nights with Steve: Drinking

This continues my Nights with Steve series. To learn more about this series, click here.

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I remember when I first heard my dad explain to his friends what I did for a living.

“He gets paid to drink.”

After an attempt to correct him, he modified it.

“He gets paid to go out with people and drink with them.”

A failed attempt.

Regardless, drinking does happen when I’m out with clients. When you go to a bar, it’s 100% designed for you to spend money -- mostly on drinks. Over the course of a night, drinks will be a major factor in how you act around people. From “liquid courage” to buying a round for the ladies across the bar, I’ve seen it all.

Then there are some who take it to the next level. Steve likes to drink as much as the next guy, but when he gets nervous around women, he tends to drink a lot in order to ease his anxiety.

In theory, it works, but what happens after is what you would tend -- or wish -- to forget.

On a recent session out with Steve, he was having a hard time approaching women. He’s had success before but just couldn’t get himself in the right state of mind that night. He decided he needed a have a drink to calm his nerves.

After a rum and coke, he was able to successfully approach the first woman of the night. I can see the gears turn in his head; he equated having a drink as the means to approach women. I warned him while working together, it’s important to limit drinking so you can better understand what you’re learning and control the sober version of you in a social-charged environment like a bar or lounge.

For the sake of transparency, when I work with clients, we agree to limit our drinking to two drinks a session to really push you in your "sober" mindset. Steve understood that but because he thought having drinks would help his success with women, he couldn’t give it up.

The more he drank, the looser he was, and the more he approached women. The guy became an approaching phenom. Women were responding well and he was getting excited. Things were going great.

Then, the night took a gradual turn as Steve began to get drunk. His words began to slur. His body language became poor as he was hunched over and projected lower energy. Also, his selection of quality, compatible women degraded as his judgment did.

While we were talking with a group of women, eventually, one was repulsed by how he was acting and told him to get away. A little belligerent at this point, Steve said some not so nice things in response. What happened marked the first time I’ve seen a guy physically get pushed out of an interaction with a group of women. I walked over to ask the ladies what happened.

“He was drunk and sloppy -- not a sexy look. How are you able to handle your liquor and he can’t?”

“I don’t rely on liquor to have a good time,” I responded and walked away to look after Steve.

When I approached him, I didn’t even have to open my mouth before he told me, “dude, I’m not drinking when we’re working together anymore.”

When we drink, the alcohol taps into our subconscious and brings out who we think is the best version of ourselves -- and in a few cases, this is true. We’re less uptight, more confident, and social. But with every upside of drinking, it comes with its fair share of side effects.

Impaired judgment, loss of coordination, inability to articulate words and maintaining posture -- wouldn’t it be better to learn how to be that awesome confident person sober, while avoiding the side effects of being drunk? As you get used to being in socially-pressured environments, you soon realize that alcohol has ZERO effect on your ability to approach and connect with women. YOU DO.

This isn't meant to be a public service announcement. But if there's anything you can learn from Steve, don’t let alcohol be your crutch when meeting women or working on your social skills. It’ll end up not only hurting your development, but also your wallet and regrettably, your head in the morning.

How to Meet Women At The Gym

First of all, this video is hilarious -- don’t be this guy.

I get asked by my clients, specifically men, all the time for advice on how to meet women at the gym -- and for good reason. There are a ton of attractive women at the gym. But the gym is a very difficult venue to meet women and there are a lot of risks involved, the biggest being potentially creeping her out, making it tough to go back to that gym (or her feeling uncomfortable going). So if you want to meet women at the gym, there are two ways to it. There’s the way shown above, which will get you the results I just mentioned; and the way I’m going to show you now.

The first thing is you want to limit the time you approach the women you’re interested in. Depending on the size of the gym, with two or three bad approaches, word can spread quickly and make you a total outcast at the gym.

The second thing is being consistent with your gym activity. You want to go the gym around the same time each day. Like going to the bar, after a while, you become more comfortable with the environment and not only will you notice the other people there at that time, they will also see you as a regular.

While at the gym -- working out, of course -- understand that any interactions you’ll have will be short and no effort should be made to extend it unnecessarily. You don’t want anyone’s impression of you being “that guy who’s always interrupting their workout.”

Because the context of your interaction (remember the 3 C’s) is working out, you can leverage that to say something and begin establishing a level of comfort. For example, if she’s on a machine you’d like to use, you can say, “Hey, do you mind if I hop in between your sets?” From there, you can make an observational statement (“you’re always working out around this time. You coming here straight from work?”), or a tease, such as switching the weights to make them incredibly heavy, then making fun of her for switching them back ("oh, I thought that's what you had before...I just assumed you were that strong...").

Whatever you say, the idea is to make every interaction fun. Over time, the two of you will become more familiar and know when each of your breaks are so you can have longer conversations. After a several interactions over a few times at the gym, if there have been consistently fun interactions, you can definitely ask for her number.

PROTIP: If you’re at the gym late (typically after 8:30), you can just as easily ask her to grab something at the gym’s smoothie bar or a bite at another place. Remember, if you have an opportunity, it’s always better to go for the date over the number.

It takes time to really understand the dynamics of interactions at the gym so be really patient before making your move. Many people see gym time as their “alone time,” so the last thing they want is someone bothering them or making them feel uncomfortable, which is why it’s so important to consistently be friendly and fun -- while working out.

And if you're still not sure what to do, watch that video above and don't do ANY of those things.

The Pros & Cons of Approaching Women Directly

Someone asked me what they thoughts were on approaching women. I am impartial to being direct but in the end, the situation will ultimately dictate what approach you take. This answer is more directed to a normal circumstance. 

Approaching 101

Having a hard time approaching that person across the room? Here are three rules you can live by to get over your fear, reluctance, anxiety or whatever excuse you have preventing you from doing it.

#wingtip: Approach and Get Approached

Easier said than done, right?