I have revised my strategy somewhat regarding which direction I want to take Lifestyle Maverick.

For now, it’s probably not going to be a daily newsletter.

More soon.

Take it easy.

Linus

Ida, our big ol’ bear of a rottweiler female, is a real Alpha dog.

We were in a dog park yesterday. One of the first things that happened was her, walking up to a smaller dog, followed by the smaller dog immediately lying down with tail in between its legs and Ida checking out her scent. It was beautiful.

Our other dog, an amstaff, we adopted from another family. Her previous owners weren’t exactly alpha. Lexi, the dog, is a bit hyper sometimes. Jumpy and barky. How do you make it stop?

You show her… that you’re the alpha. You must be unfazed by her behavior. Personally, I just stand still, and stare down her eyes until she stops.

And the same thing seems to work with actual human females.

One characteristic that is almost universal in all sorts of displays of alpha behavior: being unfazed.

It’s application in many social situations… like dating… is the ultimate display of confidence – which is an alpha trait.

For example, you’re on a date, and some how you find yourself in the middle of that awkward silence.

Except to you, it’s just silence. Not awkward.

A beta male would be fazed by it. Nervously darting eyes. Mumbling. Trying to come up with something to say.

The alpha takes his time, and doesn’t say anything if he doesn’t have something to say. So he simply sits, quietly, and smiles in knowing gratitude as he watches the beautiful woman opposite him fill the silence.

And Clark Gable is the man.

Btw – kind of feel like I have to throw in a disclaimer here: This is not a tactic. I am not talking about something you would to as a “technique for gaming chicks.” This isn’t some way you would try to act. It works from the inside out: become a true alpha male, and you will automatically possess these various traits. You do not become an alpha by doing things an alpha would do. It’s the other way around. (“if the alpha male jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge?”)

Are you extroverted or are you just pretending?

Rules of society tells us that the formula for social acceptance is to to be loud and “put ourselves out there.”

I call bullshit. (and even if it were true, screw external validation)

Though I hate putting labels on things (introverted/extroverted) – I would have to say that I’m naturally introverted. Turned inward.

And I own that.

And I think a lot more people are really introverted but would hate to admit it.

Says author Susan Cain:

Introverts prefer quiet, minimally stimulating environments, while extroverts need higher levels of stimulation to feel their best. Stimulation comes in all forms – social stimulation, but also lights, noise, and so on. Introverts even salivate more than extroverts do if you place a drop of lemon juice on their tongues! So an introvert is more likely to enjoy a quiet glass of wine with a close friend than a loud, raucous party full of strangers.

It’s also important to understand that introversion is different from shyness. Shyness is the fear of negative judgment, while introversion is simply the preference for less stimulation. Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.

If you are an introvert, you probably know it.

Don’t apologize.

I am a big fan of good ol’ fashioned human ingenuity.

Figuring out a way to get what you need to get done done, using the resources you already have.

Bootstrapping.

Most people are in the habit of figuring out why they can’t (start a business, reinvent themselves, go meet the love of their lives).

A bootstrapping mentality is the opposite.

I just read an article on Lifehacker today. It’s about how one could go about building their own, DIY adjustable desk.

My favorite suggestion:

“Take the idea of height-adjustable and flip it on its head: Buy a tall table and high chair, then sit or stand without adjusting anything but yourself.”

Source

Another one of my favorite examples of bootstrapping is from Canadian indie rock band Hollerado. Excerpt from Seth Godin’s Poke The Box:

“For our first American tour, no-one wanted to book us. So, instead of booking shows, we drove as far away from our homes in Canada as we could get.

We would then show up at venues where a show was going on and tell them we were 2,000 miles away from home, had a gig booked down the street but it somehow fell through. “Would you guys mind if we played a short set here tonight?”

IT WORKED! We played countless shows this way.

Since we rarely got paid more than a few drinks and sometimes pizza, we needed to make gas money. We had a laptop with the tracks to our demo CD. We would go to Best Buy, get a CD burner and a couple spindles of blank CDs. We would burn a hundred demos in the parking lot and then return the CD burner to Best Buy.

We would then put the demos in Ziploc bags. (Hence the name of our first record…record in a bag.)

Once we had a stash of demos, we would drive to the nearest mall and set up shop in front of Hot Topic (probably the most shameless thing we have done for our band).
We would stand there for hours, with discmen and demos, asking anyone who would stop to take a listen if they wanted to buy a demo in a bag. We could sell the discs for 5 bucks and still make $4.50 to put towards gas.”

Source

Stories like that just make you smile, don’t they?

Start thinking about how YOU could start doing that thing you tell yourself you can’t do yet.

That’s how you’re going to get it done. Start now.

“Tribe” is a buzzword. And most people don’t get what it really means.

Photojojo.com

Photojojo is one of my favorite businesses. I think they’re awesome.

Not because I’m particularly big on photography, but because they’re an awesome  business. And here’s why:

They’re focusing 100% on their community. Their readers.

They’re building a real tribe.

When someone joins the photojojo subscriber list… and starts consuming their content (twice-a-week emails)… and engages their brand… they’re suddenly part of the in-crowd.

In their heads, there are two kinds of people who like photography: the normal people, and people who read photojojo.

That’s a tribe.

There are normal people who use normal computers… and there are people who use Macs.

There are also Linux people. There are also tribes within tribes. There are also Ubuntu people.

There are normal cell phone people and there are the iPhone people.

Apple is one of the best examples of tribe building of all time. Study them.

What it ultimately comes down to is this:

People who get it, and people who don’t.

The difference between a member of a tribe and just a reader… is that a tribe member defines himself by being a member of the tribe.

People who read mass-market magazines like Cosmo are just readers. They don’t define who they are, their identity, by their Cosmo subscription. (they do, actually, but to a very small degree)

And Apple fanboys think of themselves as fans of Apple, and they’re proud of it.

And this idea holds true in every little micro-niche on earth.

When you tie that to a brand or a persona, something magical happens: you build a tribe.

And when you build your own business, that’s what you need to do, too.

Here’s a short cliff’s notes version of the principles that determine your success, or lack thereof, in your future or existing internet business.

If you want more in-depth training about stuff like this, tell me all about it!

(recorded pretty late, hence the mellow tone — understand if it isn’t the most engaging video in the world… but the content is solid, promise!)

You probably have no idea who Gary Vaynerchuk is, but you should. This is the video that originally turned me onto him, and made me start following him.

And I think it communicates the essence of why I want to teach all this marketing stuff to you guys. So you can start doing what you love.

Yeah, it might get a little bumpy, and yeah you might get scared out of your freaking mind at some points along the way… and you should! … because being a maverick is all about grabbing life by the balls, breaking out of your comfort zone and going after what you want, no matter what.

… And if that doesn’t scare and excite the shit out of you, you’re probably some sort of psychopath.

Are you familiar with the 80/20 principle? Also known as the Pareto Principle?

If not, then you should be. It’s one of the cornerstones of being successful in any area of life.

The principle asserts that approximately 80 percent of your results are produced by 20 percent of your effort.

It isn’t necessarily 80/20 – the point is the it’s almost never 50/50 – always an imbalance. Sometimes it’s 51/49 and sometimes it’s 99/1.

This translates everywhere. 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population. 80% of the population live in 20% of the cities. 80% of your happiness (or lack thereof) is caused by 20% of the things going on in your life.

And so on and  so forth, in any area you could think of.

In the process of attraction and seduction, only a few things you do will carry most of the impact. (eye contact, for example)

In business, 20% of your customers will be responsible for 80% of your income.

A few important notes:

80/20 is exponential. Within the top 20%, there’s another top 20%.

Which means this: 5% of your effort will be responsible for 50% of your results.

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If your mind didn’t just explode a little bit, read that bit again, and think about the implications of that in your life, whatever you’re trying to do.

If there are a hundred things you could learn to pick up a beautiful woman, only five of those things would determine 50% of the outcome of your interactions.

I can think of a few that are almost universal in all interactions:

• Eye contact
• Facial expression
• Body language
• Tonality
• Sexual tension

(note how none of them are “the words coming out of your mouth”)

If you can get those five things right, you’re pretty much done.

In business, the same is true.

You need to focus on:

• Getting your audience right, trying to sell what you’re selling to the RIGHT PERSON
• Communicating effectively to that person
• Selling what people already want to buy
• Engaging and building a relationship with your audience
• Follow-up, providing additional value to the customer beyond the first sale

In both of these examples, this is in stark contrast to what most people spend most of their time on… when in fact, they should spend at least 80% of their time mastering the 5% that make the difference.

In the “pick-up community” everybody wants the best pick-up line, or whatever magic technique that will make the girl spread her legs… when in fact, it’s more about being, walking, talking and acting like an attractive man would. Not tricks, and not routines.

In the “business opportunity” world, everybody wants the new magic technique that’s gonna flood their website with visitors and give them money without blinking. When, in fact, the process is really about finding someone with an urgent problem they would pay money to solve, and putting yourself in a position where you can solve that problem. All the website traffic in the world make no difference if you can’t make a compelling offer to the person visiting.

MED

I first heard it from Tim Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body) and it stands for Minimal Effective Dose.

When you get a prescription from your doctor, he doesn’t give you a maximum dose. You only take enough of the drug to get the job done. Take any less, and it doesn’t work. Take more, and there’s side effects.

MED is the idea of treating everything like a drug.

Do exactly enough to get the job done. No more and no less.

You have an example of this right in front of you now. The Lifestyle Maverick is our new business.

We put up just one page explaining what this is all about… and some articles, like this one, attempting to communicate that further.

We just want to see if anyone is interested. We won’t take the time to spend months developing intricate products only to find no one wants what we’re selling.

So it’s a little bet. Put something up. If people like it, we go ahead and develop it further. If no one likes it, we dump the idea and move on. Uncommon sense. Most people have a “brilliant idea” which they’re sure is gonna rock the world. So they spend years creating their product, writing their book, polishing their script, and then they pray someone’s gonna buy it… instead of testing the core message before burning all their resources on an untested, unproven pipe dream.

As far as seduction or pick-up goes, this is where we get into qualification. You screen your future partner to make sure she’s a good fit for you. And you do it fast. You don’t want to spend three hours talking to someone only to find out she’s a nazi. Or something.

Welcome to Lifestyle Maverick!

I’m Linus, and this stuff excites the shit out of me. To start off with, we’ll be posting a few articles about these various topics — so you can sort of gauge whether or not you want to be a part of all this, or not.

What topics?

First, what you may already be familiar with: the art of seduction. “Game”, meeting and dating women – etcetera.

(on that note, we’re talking more about how to become a man that is naturally attractive and charming to women… not “routines” and the type of stuff guys do where they put on a fake mask and pretend to be someone else)

Second, where my expertise lies: Building small “lifestyle” internet businesses and marketing them.

Why? It’s a lifestyle thing. Nine-to-fives suck, and you know it. In my business, I do what I love doing — writing — for a couple of hours a day about stuff I’m deeply passionate about, for people I care about and who really wants to hear what I have to say.

Hopefully, you are, or will be one of those people.

I can show you how to break the chain, get out of the “Hamster Wheel of Doom” and build a real lifestyle business that allows you to work whenever you want, from wherever you want in the world, doing the stuff you really love doing.

Third, there’s the “everything else” category — which includes everything that is relevant to living out a successful life as a man on planet earth in the 21st century. Health and fitness, time management and productivity, traveling, and whatever else that is relevant to your well-being.

It comes down to this: what do YOU want out of life? … and how does your current path match up to that reality?

Our mission is to help you bridge that gap.

If you’re one of those “weirdos” who actually does stuff differently than the vast majority of the population… then you’re by definition a maverick.

Welcome to the gang.

Welcome to life as a Lifestyle Maverick.

Enjoy,
Linus

P.S. You can check out more details and sign up for more info here — would highly appreciate it if you did.