Power Communication Read online

  What you have just read on the concept of environment is not telling you to disrespect anyone (including, and most importantly, yourself). Offer everyone a base level of respect at first but no more, and no less. As you share an environment, you will adjust as you have logical reason to.

  Everyone wants respect. Respect is a funny thing though. Respect is always given. You cannot make people respect you; they have to give you respect. People who think they can force others to respect them are creating fear, not respect. Your presence must result in respect for you, not fear of you. Fear is completely unnecessary if you have respect. If too many people fear you, they will eventually group together to disassemble the source of their fear, you. If people respect you, they will band together to make you stronger.

  Being Neutral

  The body language of a true Alpha Male is very simple. It can be summed up in the following sentence: An Alpha makes every move deliberately, with conscious purpose, and without rush or apology.

  When an Alpha walks into the room, the first sign of his confidence is his speed and style of approach. It's slower and more deliberate. He never appears to be nervous or jumpy, and he isn't putting too much effort into anything. He keeps his composure at all times. He is centered and stable. When Alphas walk, they lead from the hips, with more of their weight on their heels. Most people look like they are about to fall over when they walk, with their head and chest ahead of their body catching the weight on their toes. Alphas keep their spines in alignment and their heads back. They are floating rather than having their back and neck muscles always fighting to keep them from falling over. The result is fewer back and neck problems, and the result of that is a happier person. You can achieve perfect Alpha posture by practicing the Alexander Technique (pull this one up on Google).

  Whether you are looking at it from the Eastern perspective of having your chakras aligned, or from the more scientific Western perspective known as chiropractic, you need to get your spine in alignment and keep it there for health reasons that most people don't even know about. All the nerves that go out into your body get there through your spine. The nerves exit your spine through the spaces between your vertebrae. When your spine is out of alignment, the spaces can close too much on one side, and the result is pinched nerves. If a set of nerves going to your heart, for instance, gets too restricted, your brain has trouble communicating with your heart, resulting in heart problems. I never went to a chiropractor myself until I was about 27 because I never thought I needed it. I stood up straight and worked out at least six days a week. A friend of mine who I found out was a chiropractor encouraged me to come in for a free visit and some x-rays. I was amazed when he took one look at my x-rays and told me that I had lung-related issues and slept too much. I admitted to getting bronchitis about twice a year but told him I liked the sleeping thing. After chiropractic treatment, I don't get bronchitis anymore. So go find a chiropractor and get some x-rays. You may find out that your stomach problems are because your T6 vertebra is out of alignment.

  Desensitization

  One of the quickest ways to help get your body language to neutral is through desensitization. Dogs wag their tails when they are happy. It's a trait in canine body language, and they don't even know they do it. When you bring a new puppy home for the first time, what does he do? He wanders around sniffing and scouting the place out. He is nervous from being unsure of his environment, and because of this won't be wagging his tail. As soon as he gets comfortable, he starts wagging his tail again.

  When you walk into a situation you are not normally in, you do not wag your tail, so to speak. There are all kinds of things you do that shout out, "I'm not comfortable." Rather than giving you a long list, I can much more effectively teach you how to become comfortable. Would it be easier to train that puppy to wag his tail when he's nervous, or would it be easier to simply make him comfortable so he does it naturally and automatically? It is the exact same with you, and we can make you comfortable through desensitization.

  Here is an example of some desensitization work I did with one of my clients:

  One of my clients had problems giving presentations at work. Here is how we fixed it. First we took him to a lesbian bar and taught him how to make friends. Next we had him give a 20-minute presentation on "The Danger of Potatoes" that we prepared for him (think Monty Python in a boardroom). On the third day, we had him give his last business presentation to us (the last one he actually gave at his company) while one person randomly shouted obscenities at him and another played with Nerf toys in our rented meeting room. It took some work, but he finally made it through all three while being able to hold his composure. He got a promotion five weeks later.

  The basic idea of desensitization is to put yourself in the situations you have not been in enough for the purpose of becoming used to them. It helps to practice situations that are exaggerated so that the real thing seems to be even easier.

  Motivation for Unnecessary Movement

  Every problem you will ever have with body language can be fixed by asking three questions: "What are you doing?" "Why are you doing it?" and "Is this beneficial for you?" Most people do not know all of their nervous twitches and mannerisms. As I said in the last part of this book, get a video camera and record a ton of footage of yourself. Get video of yourself at work giving presentations. Get footage of you with your kids or nephew, or go over to visit a friend who has kids and record yourself showing them how to use a yo-yo. Have your date or girlfriend record you, as part of the date, just playing with the camera. If you are by yourself, use a tripod and record yourself rocking out to your stereo while doing laundry.

  Next, ask yourself why you are displaying certain mannerisms. Are you being playful or boring? Do you look nervous or stressed? Do you look in control? Look for all the little things. If you have a friend who plays poker well, ask him to help find your tics. If you do not know why you are doing something, such as blinking a lot when you can't find your car keys, you simply stop doing it! No unnecessary movements! Have a reason for every movement you make. If you are a nail biter, stop. Even if people do not see you biting your nails, they can see the results of your doing it, and that advertises weakness. Type "stop nail biting" into Google and take care of that. Put "I need a drink" and "I need a cigarette" into this same category. The reason people develop nervous habits is simply to give them something to do to help take their mind off of their discomfort when they are nervous. If you need something to do when you're nervous, completely focus on your breathing. Some will know what I mean by that last statement, but most will need to study Zen meditation to figure it out.

  Diet and Exercise

  The bodies that we have today are a product of evolution. Most of that evolutionary time was spent hunting for meat, gathering fruit and vegetables, and running for our lives as bigger animals hunted us.

  The only diet that makes any sense is called the Paleolithic diet (look this up on Google) because it is the only diet that gives your body what it needs based on how your body evolved. As a very basic explanation, our ancestors didn't have Twinkies 40,000 years ago, and because of that, your body today hasn't evolved to digest Twinkies in a healthy way. Our ancestors ate meat, fruits, and raw vegetables, which our modern bodies have had thousands of years to adapt to.

  Your body has evolved to eat meat. If 40,000 years ago, a group of people decided to become strict vegetarians, they would have died out. There was an evolutionary advantage to eating meat. The first was that not eating meat meant less available food. The more food options you had, the greater your chances of having enough to eat and therefore, to survive. The second was that the more protein you ate, the better shape your muscles were in for hunting food and protecting yourself and your family from other animals hunting you. If you happen to be one of these people who think humans should not eat meat, you are probably only one step away from telling us that we should not walk because it's hard on our feet and cite calluses as your scientific reason for
this conclusion. If you think meat is murder, I will agree with you while I put more A1 on my T-bone steak. Try taking that steak away or telling me I shouldn't eat it, and I'll eat you. Alphas eat meat.

  Your body has evolved to eat fruit and raw vegetables. This ability gives you more food options and gives your body nutrition that it cannot get from meat alone, some of which is vital to things like your immune system. Don't ruin your vegetables by cooking all the nutrition out of them. Vegetables have far less nutrition after you cook them. If you hate the idea of eating your vegetables, buy a juicer, which extracts nutrition from fruit and vegetables for fast and easy consumption. To give you an example, you would be crazy to eat two pounds of raw carrots in one sitting. With the help of a juicer, you can get the nutrition in two pounds of carrots by drinking one glass of carrot juice. You'd be amazed at how well your body repairs itself when you're drinking a half bushel of raw organic vegetables a day (but go easy on fruit, which is high in calories). Alphas eat fruit and raw vegetables.

  As for the things you need to stop eating, at the top of that list is soy and high fructose corn syrup, followed by anything else considered "food" but made in a lab. I put soy at the top of the list because it loads your body with estrogens, which is never a good idea for men. If you happen to be one of these idiots who think soy is safe because Asian cultures have been eating it for thousands of years, you are very wrong. They eat traditionally fermented soy products in small amounts as a condiment (only 1.5 % of the calories in a Chinese diet). Modern soy foods are very different from those consumed traditionally in Asia. Most are made with soy protein isolate, which is a protein-rich powder extracted by an industrial process from the waste product of soy oil manufacturing. This process also uses a completely different soybean. The soybean consumed today has been bioengineered and is not the same as the one used by traditional Asian cultures. For the full story, Google "dangers of soy."

  As for high fructose corn syrup, it has replaced safer natural sugar and has been loaded unnecessarily into an unbelievable amount of popular foods. Some of the reasons to avoid high fructose corn syrup are significant risk of obesity, increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes, hypertension/elevated bad cholesterol levels, liver damage, and mercury exposure. As a good rule of thumb, start reading the labels on the food you eat, and if you don't know what an ingredient is, look it up on Google. It is amazing to me how clueless people are about what they put in their bodies. It's true that you are what you eat, and most people walking around are petri dishes of bioengineered sugar, unnatural hormones, and chemical food preservatives. Not good. You only get one body, and in my opinion it is well worth the time to educate yourself on how to properly feed it. Buy a book on the Paleolithic diet.

  Your body has evolved to do strenuous physical activities. When you consider what your ancestors had to do on any given day 40,000 years ago, it amazes me that people think five hours of exercise a week is asking too much. Alphas work out at least five days a week for at least one hour per day (warm-up, looking at cute girls, and showering not included in that time). Alphas go to the gym.

  So what does any of this have to do with body language? A very high percentage of what gives an Alpha his body language comes from the above things. Eating right and working out regularly provide many positive results. You will feel better, look healthier, and reduce stress. Your self-confidence will grow, women will become more attracted to you, and you will naturally be more dominant. All of these things play a huge part in how you carry yourself.

  Chances are good that if you are not exercising in some way for at least one hour a day, five days a week, you are fat and/or out of shape. Not sure if you're fat? Most fat people don't think they are fat because of the totally screwed-up, politically correct society we live in today. The only thing that gets me more confused than fat people walking into a McDonald's is why I am not supposed to call them fat. I know it makes them feel bad. If a doctor knew I had cancer but figured that he didn't want to tell me because I might get upset, I would call that doctor a fool. To know for sure where you're at, get a body fat test done at your local gym. If they do the pinch test with the calipers, make sure they use at least five sample spots. The most accurate test out there is the one where they dunk you in a tank of water. That test is on a truck that drives from gym to gym and stays at each place for a few days. Again, just ask about the dunk tank body fat test at your local gym. Look at the results and get on a program to deal with it. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are one of these skinny-as-a-rail types, the body fat test will show you that you don't have enough fat to be healthy and that you need to start eating normally again.

  Now let's look at a basic way to determine your fitness level outside of body fat. Have the gym check your VO2 max. This is a test of your cardiovascular system's ability to transport and use oxygen. Remember, as you read the results from your body fat and VO2 max tests, your goal is not average, which is fat and out of shape for Americans. Your goal is somewhere between healthy and ideal.

  It's What's on the Inside That Counts

  The outside of a person is a direct reflection of what's on the inside. Do I feel bad for stupid people living with the results of their own stupidity? No. How about lazy people living with the results of their own laziness? No on that one also. Then why would I feel bad for a fat person who is living with the results from a combination of laziness and stupidity? People are fat on the outside from a combination of laziness and stupidity on the inside. Just as anorexic people's bodies are a direct reflection of their inner problems, so is being fat. The same can be said for 99.9% of "ugly" people (excusing only those with extreme birth defects and survivors of drastically disfiguring physical trauma).

  The saying "It's what's on the inside that counts" is the motto for people who have given up on themselves. The way a person looks is a direct reflection of knowledge, inner strength, and discipline, which all has a compounding effect over a lifetime. No one living on raw broccoli and organic chicken breasts (without sauce), drinking only filtered water, and exercising an hour a day will stay fat or ugly. Have a common health condition? The answer can be found in modern medicine. Can't afford it? Put effort into earning the money to afford it.

  Many years ago, a small number of people could persuade me to feel guilty for my harsh black-and-white views on this. It never happens anymore. What changed? I met two amazing women. The first was a roommate of a good friend of mine. I didn't believe her when she told me that she used to weigh over 300 pounds. She went on to tell me that she underwent a combination of gastric bypass, liposuction, and a series of plastic surgeries to remove excess skin. How did she pay for it? She wasn't rich. She worked at a Wal-Mart. She worked and saved for years to accomplish this.

  The second girl I met at my gym. I caught myself lusting after her from across the room so I walked over to strike up a conversation. After a few minutes and a few smiles, she told me that she worked out so hard because she used to be 240 pounds. We have since become friends, and I've verified her story, which I didn't originally believe.

  The most interesting thing about both of these women (besides their incredible willpower) is how confident and friendly they both are. Because they used to be so overweight, they had to develop great personalities to survive in this world. They obviously couldn't get by on looks they didn't have. The result now is that they look great and have awesome personalities.

  Clothing and Grooming

  As we discussed in "Diet and Exercise," when you look good, you feel good, and looking/feeling good dramatically changes your body language automatically. Part of looking good is a matter of clothing and grooming. We can learn everything we need to know in this area by asking three questions: "Why do you look a certain way?" "What does that say about you?" and "Is it a benefit?" If you are like me, you have facial hair because real men have facial hair. If you shave your legs, you are either a woman, bicyclist, swimmer, or gay. Ultimately, this is the structure to use to discover and
build your identity:

  If you _____________________ , it's because you ______________________________ .

  The above sentence causes you to discover motive for everything you do. Put thought into everything. It all comes down to reasons, and remember that your saying, "I don't care," is never an acceptable reason.

  So start with trimming your nose and ear hair. Buy a tongue scraper. Keep your nails cut and clean. Straighten and whiten your teeth. You need to practice relaxing your jaw and lips so people don't see stress in your face, and that means they are going to see some of your teeth, so you'd better get them in "show shape."

  Get a tan. Your goal here is to look like you get about one hour of sun per day and no more. If you actually do this by being outdoors, be sure to use a sunscreen that blocks harmful UV light. If you don't have time for that, a few minutes once a week at a tanning salon will work. Tan with light, not the spray-on method. The light option has harmful UV already removed, and this is far better for you than bathing in chemicals.

  Use an exfoliating facial wash before bed. As for the hair most people never see, deal with that also (I use the 3/4-inch setting on my buzzer). Use a back brush in the shower with anti-bacterial soap and scrub EVERYTHING. If you have any clothes with any holes in them or with other signs of wear and tear (other than jeans), replace them.

  You may want to go back and read these paragraphs again to be sure you got all that, and keep in mind that there is a huge difference between grooming and primping. The right amount will attract girls to you while too much will turn you into their best gay friend. It's the difference between cleaned and decorated.