How I Went From Eating Fast Food, Being Ultra-Shy And Reading Fantasy Novels To Being Named As One Of The World's Top 100 Most Influential People in Health And Fitness

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And my guest today has spent many years abroad in Europe and the developing world, including South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East. He speaks several languages, he's worked for various governments and NGOs overseas. He's traveled through war zones, he's even been kidnapped a couple of times. And as he'll tell you, the only reason that he's still alive and kicking is because of his ability to kind of talk his way into and out of just about any type of situation due to his high amount of body language and social confidence skills that he's kind of a ninja in. And he actually has an entire website devoted to social influence and interpersonal dynamics and social engineering. Over@the artofcharm.com his name is Jordan Harbinger and I've actually been listening to some of his episodes over there, his podcast episodes over@theartofcharm.com and he really has some fantastic advice to share. The reason that I wanted to get him on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast is because I know that so many of you are out there working on your bodies and working on your fitness and eating healthy, but ultimately, you know, if you look good and you're healthy, it doesn't matter that much if you can't carry on a conversation or have social confidence or be able to engage with folks on a dynamic level in social situations. And Jordan is really the expert when it comes to this stuff. So he's going to fill us in on some of his biggest wins today. So, Jordan, thanks so much for coming on the call.

Hey, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. It's fun to be on another podcast or show because I know a lot of people are like, oh, I want.

To look at this website.

But honestly, the podcast is what we've been doing for years and it's fun to be interviewed on other people's shows and I just have to remember to stop talking at some point. Otherwise, otherwise it turns into my show. Even though it's in your feed.

You've had a podcast for a long time, haven't you?

Yeah, seven and a half years. And it's been, it's Funny, because back.

Then nobody gave a rat's ass about podcasting. And it's only kind of recently where most people and businesses are like, oh, wait, we're not addressing this channel.

Yeah, exactly. I've been podcasting for, I guess, about five and a half years or so, and it's been interesting to kind of see the evolution. Especially, you know, you're over in the self help region of. Of the itunes sphere, right?

Yes. Yeah. Currently number one in self help, depending on which trendy self help person has published a book and paid someone to promote the crap out of their show. But yeah, number one or number two, depending on that situation.

Nice. And I'm over in the health and fitness, and it's been amazing to see it go from literally maybe a dozen shows to a dozen a day added. It's amazing and a little bit dizzying to try and keep up with everything that's going on in the world of podcasting. So for you over at the Art of Charm and the Art of Charm podcast, tell me a little bit about why you exist and what kind of things you help people with.

Sure. So what essentially we do is teach.

At the Art of Charm in our live programs and in some degree on our podcast is we teach men and we focus on men. I'll explain why in a little bit. We focus on teaching men confidence and emotional intelligence in essentially a very structured way that anybody can learn and master. So we teach emotional intelligence and advanced social skills in a teachable, relatable way.

And the reason that that is key.

And important, not just the social skills, but the way that it's taught is because most people listening right now go.

Well, I think most people are born.

With social skills, or a lot of people are thinking, oh, well, you have.

It or you don't.

But the truth of the matter is it's a.

It's a nurture versus nature type of situation.

And the key is that we've all grown up with people that had seemingly much more of this than others. You know, if you have a sister or a brother, you might think, well.

They'Re the one that was born with all of those. We were born in the same environment.

But there's distinct levels of feedback that people get that create that sort of beneficial pattern. Just like if you grow up with parents who are fit, you're probably gonna be more fit as an adult than somebody who grew up with parents who ate fast food every day. And I don't know where you stand on that, but that's sort of how it works. With social skills as well.

And so what we do is we.

Say, hey, listen, guy who wants to take either his relationships at work or with his loved ones to another level, or guys who are single, we want to create a space where you can learn these skills. And the other type of client we get is high end. And this might be more your audience. High end. Military, special forces, entrepreneurs, intelligence agents that go, wait a minute, there's something out there that I don't know that will give me a 1% edge over other people or a 5% edge or 10% edge.

Where is it?

Where do I sign up and how far do I have to travel to get it done?

Yeah, I want to talk about that 10% edge here in just a minute. But what you said about nature versus nurture is really interesting to me as well as about parents eating fast food versus not. I grew up in a household where pizza, hamburgers, and fast food were the norm. A salad was considered.

Is that why you're fat?

Salad was considered iceberg lettuce with some ranch dressing on it. And I was also a really, really shy kid. And my parents literally had to coax me out of my room when we would have company so that I'd put down whatever fantasy novel I happened to be reading and come out and say hello and make eye contact and then disappear back into my dark chamber. And it's kind of been a journey for me in terms of really learning how to relate to people and how to carry on conversations. And I've even had to study things like body language, books and things of that nature. But I'm curious, do you have techniques for shy people? Or were you shy growing up? Or what kind of brought you into this whole nature versus nurture idea?

Well, essentially what I thought growing up.

Was, oh, man, there's all these kids and they're much so, yes, I had massive social anxiety shyness as a kid.

And it was weird because my dad's outgoing.

So I thought, oh, there's some kids that are outgoing, there's some kids that are not.

But what I noticed about myself, I.

Was always very self aware. What I noticed about myself was if I was, say, at a boy scout meeting, right? To give you a little hint of how big of a parent I was.

But if I was at like a boy scout meeting or something with all my friends, no girls, et cetera, I was fine.

I was loud, outgoing, fun. Everybody's like, this guy's great. And then in school, I was this.

Like, completely introverted weirdo. And people who are in scouts with.

Me were like, why are you so different in school than you are at meeting or after school at your house when we hang out? What's the deal?

And I remember having friends for years.

That I never really hung out with.

At my house or at their house.

And then one day I'd be like.

Hey, why don't you come over after school?

I got a new video game or something.

And they're like, okay, cool. So they would come over, and then.

They would go, honestly, Jordan, I've never seen you like this before. You're so silly and, like, hilarious.

Why don't you do this at school?

And I'm like, I don't know. Because that was the true answer. I had no idea why, but looking back, it's because of all kinds of different factors that I had manufactured in my head and external circumstances that I was interpreting in certain ways.

Essentially, it comes down to belief systems.

And so one of the core principles at the art of charm, and this is something that I'm sure you can relate to as a fitness guy, is.

That your beliefs influence your actions, which influence your results. So you can tell somebody, you know what? You gotta stop eating salad that just is romaine lettuce or iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing on it. And they go, okay. And then you tell them 500 other.

Things to stop doing or to start.

Doing to try to manually change their behaviors. And then after a week, you're like, how's your new plan going?

And they're like, man, I don't even remember half the crap you told me. It's too hard. And then they don't do it, and they can't get there right for you.

But a guy who's a good coach.

I assume you do a little bit of this as well. And it sounds like it from what you and I had discussed when you were on my show, oh, so long ago.

But you tell somebody, hey, listen, what you need to do.

And this is. I'm totally generalizing, and this is not advice you gave on my show, But I'm just throwing this out there for the example.

You can say what you need to do is reprogram your brain using A, B, and C to realize that things that don't necessarily taste great but are good for you are now the things.

That you prefer, right? So you acquire a taste for beet juice.

You know, you acquire a taste for.

Things that don't have fructose added.

You.

You tell yourself that high fructose corn syrup actually tastes gross because it's too sweet.

And you reinforce that mindset by drinking.

Things like beet juice or whatever that's naturally sweetened.

And you start to think, oh, okay.

This is the appropriate level of sweetness that I have.

And whether or not you know this.

Ben, this is probably happening in your brain when you start to change your diet, right?

You start to go, now if I.

Gave you a Coca Cola, you'd probably.

Be like, it kind of brings back some childhood deliciousness.

But I'm not really into finishing this whole bottle because it's kind of gross, right?

But if I gave you fresh juice.

With kale, beets, and ginger, you might.

Be like, this is really good. But if I give a kid who's had Pepsi instead of water for the.

Last three months of his life, if.

I give him that kill juice, he's.

Gonna be like, you guys are ridiculous. This is disgusting.

You talked about reprogramming your brain. Is that something that you've done to yourself or a technique that you use?

Yes. This is what the Art of Charm is about. And it's not being fake.

It's not trying to add layers onto your personality. It's all about removing.

It's a subtractive process. And so this is a huge concept here. And I'll sort of take it one piece at a time, right? Reprogramming your brain is actually not that tricky. It's not self hypnosis. It's not tons of pilgrimages to Tibetan mountains to talk to monks and meditate for 10 days or 10 years on end. What it is is essentially the example that we gave before.

If you want to reprogram your brain.

Say you have a fear that says going to parties and talking to people I don't know is really awkward for me.

Well, what we would do at the.

Art of Charm is give you series of baby steps that would be like.

All right, don't go to parties and talk to random strangers, but when you.

Go out this morning, I want you to smile at 10 strangers.

And that level of rejection should also be scary, awkward.

But you're not gonna be stuck in a conversation with that person for three hours at a party, right?

So once we get you past that.

Type of exercise, we have several different levels where you engage in small talk with certain people. You try to get information about people. You try to notice things about people. You get into conversations with people who are essentially paid to talk with you, like baristas and waitresses.

And we literally roll you up gradients, and we can go up really high.

So guys who are A Green Beret or something might be like, listen, I'm not getting anything out of talking to a waitress, dude. I can do that. You know, I can talk to anybody.

And we go, oh, okay, cool. Why don't we go to a really.

Intimidating environment, set it up in a really scary way for you based on your personal weak points that we observed over the last few days of our.

Live training program, so we can tailor.

A situation that we know will be just, like, really outside your comfort zone. And then we can push you through it over and over and over, and.

We will videotape you while in it.

And then we will show you the tape and figure out where you can.

Cause the thing is, people's body language.

Vocal tonality, and eye contact.

People listening right now are going to. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty good at that stuff. You are when you are. But when you're outside your comfort zone, when something is really intimidating, then you aren't. And that's where it's actually important.

Right?

People go, oh, I'm really good at body language during job interviews.

I'm fine.

Wait, are you sure? Because you're good with body language when.

You'Re hanging out with your friends, but.

What about when there's three multimillionaire law.

Partners who've been in the game for 40 years staring at you from across a boardroom table, and you have to give a PowerPoint that moves the needle? Then how's your body language? Then how's your eye contact? Then how's your vocal tonality?

Especially when it's not going well.

Right?

And that's where it counts. People think, oh, I don't need that. You know, I have girls talking to me all the time.

If they're single and they're looking for girls and they don't, their ego doesn't want to quite let them admit that.

And it's like, well, that's fine. Well, why are you still single?

Oh, well, they're not the girls I'm interested in.

Okay, well, then how is your charismatic personal magnetism and presence? How's that? When you're around a bunch of women.

That you're attracted to?

Oh, well, then it's garbage. Well, then come to the art of charm, for God's sake. Stop telling yourself that you're good at this stuff. And it's the same thing with fitness. Oh, I'm in okay shape. Well, yeah, you can walk down the.

Block and get the mail. And if that's the bar, then fine. But the numbers say you have high blood pressure. And your cholesterol's through the roof. Like, let's push the envelope. Right. And you do that with yourself all the time. That's why you've done all this ridiculous fitness stuff.

If you just went, you know what? I can run three miles and I'm totally fine.

I'm a fitness expert now. That's all fine and good, but it all depends on context, and it depends on what you want.

If you don't have what you want.

Then it's time to push yourself outside your comfort zone. And that's not just the old cliche of growth happens and learning happens outside your comfort zone. It's actually a real process, and it's something that I'd like to think we've kind of mastered at aoc, at the Art of Charm.

Yeah. At Ben Greenfield Fitness. One of the things that we like to do is dig into some of the brass tacks, some of the nitty gritty, like the in the streets, in the trenches type of stuff. And you've hit on a few examples that I'd love to dig into in a little bit more detail with you. So if you don't mind, can I throw a few examples at you and put you on the spot?

Sure, yeah. Please do.

Let's say I'm a really fit guy and I've been working out at the gym. I've got a nice body, and I think that that's all there is to getting people to respect me, to look at me, to kind of command that success that I desire. Yet I'm standing, let's say, at the coffee shop in line, and I want to strike up a conversation with the barista, but I'm simply too shy or I don't feel like I can use that confidence that I have in my body to actually be able to translate it into social graces. So what would you do with someone like that who is fit but doesn't have the actual social confidence?

Right. A perfect example. And this goes back to beliefs influence actions, which influence results.

And sort of at an intuitive level.

As humans, we all kind of get this at some level. So, for example, I might ask, and this might not be you in particular, but there's a lot of people listening.

And the reason that they're so into.

Fitness is because they wanted to, whether.

They still want to or not, at some point, they wanted to be really.

Fit so that they would be more attractive. They were not thinking, you know, this is great for my longevity, and it's really going to make my clothes fit nicer. Or, you know, I'm going to feel.

So good in the morning.

They were like, if I get a six pack, I will probably get the girls. I want profit, right?

They didn't know what that even meant.

But they thought big muscles, caveman girls equals, you know, reproduction and survival value. At some level, subconsciously or consciously that was happening. And I know this because I was in college and I was like, if.

I keep getting bigger, I'll keep getting more secure with myself, which means girlfriend, right?

And that didn't work. I got enormous. It was like a 209 pound bodybuilder, but three years before that was 145. All right, so that's how much weight I gained over that period of time and £60 over two or three years.

And guess what? My level of self confidence didn't go.

Up that much, right?

Because I wasn't changing my belief systems.

I was actually just trying to change my behaviors, appearance.

And so what you look at when.

You look at a client or a student at the art of charm that comes in and is super fit but isn't getting the results they want is you start to go, okay, well why did you get into fitness? And it's usually the reason that I just mentioned, right? But now there's a bunch of side benefits that they really love. They're really interested in that. It becomes a hobby and a passion, which is great. Some people are passionate about drinking. It's not as healthy as running or whatever, right?

So you look at that and you think, okay, well, the reason that this.

Hasn'T fixed the problem, it's like gold medalist syndrome for the Olympians.

They go through their whole life training.

To be the best at pole vaulting and then they win the gold and they're like, oh, crap, that's it, I'm at the top. And now my life hasn't magically turned into this dream fantasy. It was great for like a three month period, but now I'm back to my old self and I have nothing left to achieve. I'm the best in the world at this, but no one cares anymore.

And that's a big problem.

A lot of them go into depression, substance abuse, et cetera.

And we end up with a very.

Sort of mild version of that when we're getting really fit and we think it's gonna change our results with something, and yet it doesn't.

And we might see marked improvement. Like, wow, girls are checking me out left and right, girls are smiling at me, girls are flirting at me.

But now I just don't know what to do.

This is going to change radically.

And it's the same concept for women. You know, I, they get really fit and I lost all this weight and now guys are flirting with me. But I, I'm not any better at managing relationships. I don't feel any differently about myself. And that's because the mindsets have not changed.

So for a guy in that position, it would be really easy for me.

On the show to go, well, you.

Should just start smiling and talking with people and put yourself out there. But that's all cliched advice.

It's not real.

Right?

It's, it's what fake dating coaches say when, or matchmakers when they don't really know how to solve the problem. It's so that they can blame the client. And that's, it's just not, it's not realistic.

And I know this because I was.

That guy who was jacked going, why don't I meet girls? And I had men, women, and experts, so called experts giving me advice.

It was like, man, you just gotta go up and talk to people, you know, like, just put yourself out there. And it's like, no, that's terrifying.

I'm not freaking doing that. You know what I mean?

Or I am doing that. But all of my rabid insecurities, which are what caused me to become super.

Fit bodybuilder guy in the first place, shine through after 10 minutes. And it's not really useful.

You know, why am I a super strong fit guy?

But every time I go out with a girl, I can tell after half an hour, she's like, I want to go home and I never see her again. What's the deal? And that's a mindset issue.

And so what we would do is we would have to take a really.

Good introspective look at why your mindsets are the way they are. And we would want to put you through those baby steps that I mentioned before, depending on. And they'll be totally tailored, depending on what your issues are. Because we need to remove the blind spot and we need to shine a light on it. And then we need to show you exactly how to fix it. And we need to help you take those first few steps.

So if we're looking at, hey, Jordan, we don't care.

That's all fine and good. We understand how that's the, the process works. But we want practical advice now. Okay, I totally get it. So I'm going there what you would do if you were that muscly fit dude. And I guess Fit and muscly are not the same thing. But, you know, humor me.

Yeah, we get the idea.

Yeah, you're going through and you're like, you know, this. This waitress smiles at me all the.

Time, or this girl at work smiles at me all the time, but I don't really know what to do.

Your problem is not what to do.

With this particular girl. Your problem is you don't know how to handle this situation in general. Because again, another principle at the Art.

Of Charm, how you do anything is.

How you do everything.

And so what we mean by that.

Is you might have a special unique situation, or so you think.

But really, it's only appearing that way.

Because you don't have enough experience to show otherwise.

So rather than trying to figure out.

How to situationally and strategically approach this one special person at work or at.

The bar or whatever, you need to.

Work on how you do that with everybody. And so what I would say is there's a few things depending on. Again, this is such a broad subject, but say you have trouble making eye contact. The reason is a belief system thing. It's a confidence level thing.

But the way that we would change the action, which would temporarily change the results and hopefully lead to positive feedback.

And reinforcement from external parties, that would help you change the belief system. Here's a simple drill. For example, if you're having trouble making eye contact, which is one of my huge issues that I have with a lot of guys coming into aoc, and also just something I had when I.

Was younger, is look at people in.

The eye just long enough to notice their eye color.

And what this drill does and do.

This for two weeks, and this is, you know, some sort of arbitrary time period, because what I'm trying to get you to do is develop the habit of doing this.

If you look at people long enough to notice their eye color, you're very. Unfortunately, you're not present at that moment.

Because you're focusing on their eye color. But what it does is it gets you to, quote, unquote, fake it until you make it where you're looking at.

Them just long enough to notice their eye color.

You're not thinking, oh, my God, they're looking right at my eyes. And it's too. It's too awkward, it's too pressing, you know, it's too forward.

You're at least noticing their eye contact, but you're not being creepy eye contact.

Guy, where you're like, I'm working on my eye contact and I'm not breaking eye contact. And the Woman's like, reaching for the shotgun under the counter because you're freaking her out, right? She's like, dialing 911 underneath the table on her cell phone, wondering when you're going to pounce.

You know, it's not like that.

It's a really sort of arbitrary time period that once you notice the eye color, you can look away all you want. And most people feel a sense of relief when you do that. But what this does is it gets you used to looking people in the eye as a habit. Now, this doesn't change the belief system. It does change your physiology. And what we also know at the art of Charm is that the mind follows the body, and the body follows the mind.

And so we can work a lot on physiology. It's not the answer, but what physiology.

Changes do is they change your mindsets slowly but surely. And what they also do is then they will change the results temporarily.

So if you look at behavior with.

An arrow point, if we had a diagram, it would be behavior, arrow, actions, arrow results, you know, left to right. And if we have the actions changing, that will change the results, which will then change the behavior. It's almost like a circular cycle. And then eventually changing the mindsets due.

To that feedback, like, oh, when I look people in the eye, they don't reject me or they don't feel like.

It'S weird, or whatever weird belief system you had that was preventing you from.

Doing that before will start to erode.

Because the evidence to show that that belief was false is starting to present itself every day.

What are some of the best social situations that you would take someone into to have them practice that simple eye trick that you just talked about or any other methods that you te someone wanted to go out and start to build that extreme social confidence and put themselves into situations where they were immersed in that type of pressure? Obviously, I think the number one thing that a lot of people would think of would be going out to a bar or a club. But I would imagine there are other situations that you would encourage folks to put themselves into.

Yeah, there definitely are. One of the things, again, it depends heavily on the client. So if we get. If we've got a boot camp full of younger guys that are trying to get better jobs and they're starting off in their careers? We might say, okay, well, what you need to do is sell me on why you should be here, or why should I give you a job? And it might be a drill or an exercise, but we would be videotaping it, and we'd be particularly hard on them. And they don't really know when the drill begins or ends a lot of the time, which is really fun because it's kind of like, yeah, knock it off. This is crap. Get to the point.

And they're like, jordan's mean. But we watch them just break down.

And we go, hey, listen, when this happens, you need to ground yourself again using the principles that we taught in the beginning. Make better eye contact, which was what we taught you before. Here's how you do it, et cetera.

But if we get a guy who's.

Like a Green Beret and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just spent three.

Months in Fallujah that's not grilling him. And talking to him in a not.

So nice way is not going to do the trick, right? Because he's thinking, drill sergeant, life and death, sniper fire.

I can't just be like, you get over here right now.

Because he's going to be like, I could kill you with a credit card.

So we would take them into a.

Situation that they're not used to. So we might go, hey, I have an idea.

Why don't we go to a really.

Swanky lounge and make sure that you're not really dressed appropriately and make sure that we get there late so it's really crowded and hot. And then we're gonna put you into the frying pan.

And then we're gonna ask you to.

Complete a series of drills or missions. And then we're gonna see how your body language, composure, charisma, eye contact, vocal tonality. Hold up to that.

Because what you find is guys like Navy seals and intelligence agents who are like, these smooth bastards in every situation. You throw them around some, like four.

Foot five, super cute girl, and they.

Just melt because they're not used to it. They're used to a bunch of dudes.

And maybe like, what's that Director, like, explosions behind you, walking away slowly?

Yep, exactly like Tom Cruise sprinting from the. From the explosion, right? Like, what kind of thrill or mission would you actually throw at someone in this kind of situation?

It can be really simple.

It can actually be something like, all.

Right, you're gonna go in here and.

You'Re going to go and talk to five people. You're gonna find out where.

Where they work, what they're doing here.

Whether or not they know anyone, who they're here with.

Super simple stuff. And that's really easy. If you asked me to do that.

And we were at Starbucks, I'd just turn to the person behind Me and.

Go, hey, man, are you from around here?

Do you know?

Blah, blah, blah.

And I'd just start asking questions, and it would be totally fine and totally.

Normal if you asked me to do this.

And we were in Cambodia and everybody had tattoos on their face. I might be a little bit more apprehensive about the situation, right?

So we would tailor it towards your.

Pretty much towards your specific weak points as a student.

And that's why we keep our bootcamp small, because we will take you to.

Places where we know you're not gonna hold up. And that is the beauty of the program, because you only grow when you're pushed way outside your comfort zone, especially if you've already been doing that with yourself, which I'd imagine a lot of people listening have been. Have been really pushing themselves.

They're the dudes who wear the weight.

Vest to the grocery store because kids and groceries aren't heavy enough. Right, Ben? So.

So you know who you are. So we have to take those guys.

And step it up a notch. But there might also be a guy.

Who'S like, listen, this is all fine.

And good, but I'm a computer programmer, and I run on the weekend. That's gonna be way too much for me. We will scale it down, and we'll make sure that it works for you, because there's no point in having you curl up into the fetal position in the corner of the bar and not.

Do anything for the next five hours.

Right. It's not just the weighted vest, by the way. Now, it's also the elevation training mask that you wear at the grocery store.

Oh, that's right. That's right.

Basically, Bane from Batman shopping for kale, right?

Yeah.

Well, don't try to walk into a bank with that.

I was jogging with my elevation mask. It was, like, the first time I.

Used it, and I was like, oh, I need to get some cash. And I walked in there, and everybody's B hole clenched up so tight. Cause I was walking in there with.

This mask with, like, tubes or valves.

On it, and then I was like.

Oh, oh, hey, everybody.

Cause I realized they couldn't hear me.

So I took it off, and they were like, right.

And I was thinking, you know, I'm lucky I didn't get shot right now, probably because anytime you walk into a.

Mask with something covering your face, they just. They don't like it. Especially in a big city.

Yeah, Yeah, I got it. So I do want to share with people how I went from, you know, being ultra shy and reading fantasy novels. To really getting a lot more into talking to people and eventually, you know, becoming relatively influential in health and in fitness and kind of helping to change people's lives. But before I share kind of what I ended up doing, what I'd like to hear a little bit about is this body language thing, especially when it comes to fit people. Do you see fit people, especially folks who have nice bodies, who have obviously worked hard to achieve physical fitness? Do you notice them making specific body language mistakes or do you see body language patterns from these people that might be holding them back from social success or just the ability to get along well with other people?

That's such a good question. Thank you for asking me that. That's actually an awesome question. And the answer is yes, absolutely.

I know one of the things that.

You'Re big on are very big specific details. And I can give some drills and stuff that apply across the board towards the end of the show. So don't let me forget because I don't want people to be like, wah.

All he said was, it depends on the client. Screw Jordan Harbinger. But yes, I do see very specific.

Mistakes that guys who are really good with their physiology and especially with their physique make. And the reason is, again, it goes back to the belief system. So a lot of guys are like.

I need to be super fit. And maybe they're like the bodybuilder guys.

Especially guys who pride themselves on building themselves upwards.

They'll do this and it's all. It's because they started doing that for whatever reason, right? Some sort of reason of inferiority or.

Wanting to be on top of their game when it comes to that.

So what they'll do when it comes.

To a high pressure situation or where they feel like they need to make a quote unquote great first impression is they will puff themselves up even more.

And the problem is that causes weird.

Unnatural movements that women look at and go, okay, meathead, right?

And guys, guys who are trained will notice this too.

Or guys who aren't trained, guys who are just aware will notice that too.

So I might see. I might be with a bunch of.

My buddies who are, you know, really fit, really buff dudes or fitness models or something. And we'll be hanging out, having fun. They're moving a certain way. I notice the way people move. It's something that, that I've trained myself to look for and especially when I used to do martial arts.

And so then when we go and meet girls, they're walking around and their.

Arms are swinging out A little bit more. Their chest is puffed up, and they.

Might have some confident body language, but.

They take it just a notch too far. It's just like a 5%, hey, man.

Tone it down kind of thing. And the problem there is that they're screening in the wrong type of people when they're doing that. And furthermore, people who are very aware.

Of body language, which, first of all, women are about 20 times better at.

Reading nonverbal cues than men are.

And this is just an evolutionary psychology thing because they physically can't protect themselves as well as men can. So they needed to, quote, unquote, evolve to be able to spot threats much better.

And so they'll look at that and they'll go, huh, That's. This guy's overcompensating.

There's an insecurity there somewhere. Not sure what's going on.

The other thing is, a lot of.

Times guys who are very, very fit.

And very, very good physically might be.

Very, very uncomfortable in certain regular, quote unquote situations with regular clothes and regular social beings and regular people that aren't into the same hobbies and beliefs that they have.

So the problem that that causes is.

They will then start to clam up a little bit and get a little bit nervous. And this isn't just for fit people. I suppose this melts over into everybody.

But they'll start to get nervous. And here's the thing. When you are nervous or whatever emotional.

State you're in, people, especially females, who are, again, much more adept and much.

More aware, will start to unconsciously or.

Subconsciously mirror you a little bit. So if I have nervous body language because I'm nervous and I'm talking with somebody, and she starts to get nervous.

Because she's mirroring me, she'll mirror my state, right?

It's something that we all do as humans.

She'll start to feel a little bit nervous. And instead of going, oh, I'm probably nervous because he's nervous and I'm subconsciously mirroring him, she just goes, this guy's.

Making me feel nervous and I don't like it.

I have to go to the bathroom.

Bye. That's what happens. And it's subconscious for most of us. And there's women right now that are.

Going, oh, maybe that happens.

And there's other women listening that are like, yes.

Oh, my God. That happens to me, like, every day.

I go out, and every Friday when I go out, that happens every time.

So guys who are doing that, what we have to do is train ourselves.

Not to be nervous.

But what we try to do, especially.

Guys that are very physically aware, like.

Athletes, they try to, quote, unquote, act not nervous, which makes you look really weird. Because that acting not nervous is just you being nervous, only you're adding a weird layer of, I'm really confident right.

Now, I guess, on top of that.

Whole thing, which just comes across as.

Really janky and disjointed. And what that does is causes people.

To go, huh, there's something weird going on with this guy.

And I'm not sure what it is, but it's making me feel strange. So I'm not sure I trust him. And that's not where you want to be when you're trying to make new friends, network or get dates, right?

So the whole thing with sticking the chest out or folding the arms across the chest or figuring out a way to kind of make your body talk for itself is not a good idea.

It's generally not that great of an.

Idea to do it manually.

Again, you're changing the actions, which are.

Changing the results, but you're not changing the belief systems. But the belief systems are where it's at. That's the juice.

Because if you change the belief system.

To be, I am confident and at ease in these situations through exposure therapy, like what we do at AOC or for repeated practice, et cetera, things like that.

If you worked at a bar once.

And now you're physically confident, you probably don't get nervous at bars because you're used to that situation.

But if you're trying to do it manually, you're leaving it up to other.

People'S subconscious interpretation of how you feel. So does that make sense?

So what you're doing is you're saying, all right, I wanna look like I'm tough and I'm in charge. So you're crossing your arms and you're.

Standing there with your chest puffed out.

And people are going, wow, that guy looks really angry. But you're like, no, I'm just confident, but it doesn't matter. People interpret you and experience you through their emotional state and through yours. So if your emotional state is, I'm.

A little nervous, but I'm trying to look confident. What they see is, that guy's edgy, that guy's anxious, and he looks like he might be a little bit angry.

And so you have to manage that. The best way to do that is.

To have your belief systems in order.

Because if you're walking around and you're thinking, you know what? This is cool.

I'M just another day at this bar that I go to every day after work for a drink. Happy hour. It's fun.

You're probably smiling, you're relaxed. It would be really tough for somebody.

To go, that guy's angry.

No, you're clearly not.

But you still look confident. You're just not trying to look confident. You just are.

Got it. So what about when we walk into a room? When we walk into, you know, we've got people like triathletes and marathoners and cyclists listening in as well. We walk into, you know, some kind of a race function or show up at an event. We go to a party. What are some of the biggest tips that you have for folks to actually engage in intelligent conversation in these kind of situations and not just basically be that person who is the boring surface conversationalist? Do you have a few kind of practical tips that you'd give to folks?

Yeah, definitely. Also a good question.

It's almost like you've done this before. So what I would say is, there's.

A couple I'll start by talking about. It's funny because I just said, don't.

Try to look confident.

I'm going to start off by just breaking that rule right now.

When you walk into any doorway, one of the greatest ways to make a.

First impression and sort of to back it up a little bit.

People's first impressions are not created when.

We want them to be.

So what this means is, say I'm.

A cyclist, which I kind of wish I were, and I just got an awesome bike, and I'm stoked on it. I'm looking at it right now.

Say I walk into a party that.

You'Re having, and I'm looking around and I see pretty much nobody that I know. And I'm hoping that there's a bunch of friends there that they're going to show up later.

But I'm walking around and I'm thinking.

I'll just kill time until Ben and, you know, Abel or whatever gets here. Because I don't really know these folks. And, you know, they all look like they know each other or whatever sort of excuse I'm telling myself to not engage.

And I'm like, I'm just going to go to the bar first and grab a quick beer, and then maybe I'll check out the hors d'.

Oeuvres.

And then I'm going to go wash.

My hands, and then I'm going to go, you know, check my phone somewhere.

And then I want to go up.

And talk to a Few random strangers. Because I get a text from you, and you're like, yo, man, I'm really running late. Like, 45 minutes, so we'll see you when we get there.

And I'm thinking, crap, Now I'm just gonna stand around, all right? I'm gonna go talk to strangers.

I don't really want to do it, but. But I'm going to.

And then I walk up to a group. Now, I'm not necessarily the guy, especially.

If I'm trying to talk to, say, the members of the opposite sex or somebody that I'm trying to engage with on that level.

My first impression is not made when I'm like, hey, I'm Jordan.

Nice to meet you guys, or whatever. I start the conversation with. My first impression was made when I.

Was walking around, checking my phone, getting a beer, washing my hands, standing on.

The balcony, pretending to admire the view, but clearly just kind of awkward.

That was my first impression. So it's when you become a blimber.

That was the first impression that you made on everyone else in the room?

Yes, exactly.

That was the first impression that. So the first impression is made when.

You become a blip on their radar.

And that's a key distinction because as.

To take it sort of to the.

The. The extreme guys will walk into a bar, and they're like, let's go get some girls, bro. Right? So they walk down there, and they're like, oh, there's a lot of girls here. I'm kind of freaked out. Yeah, let's go get some shots. Let's do some drinking, and let's hang out in the corner and pretend like we're talking about sports, and then pretend like we're watching the basketball game until the alcohol kicks in, and then the booze kicks in, and they walk up.

To a group of girls, and they're.

Like, hey, guys, what's up? That's not your first impression. Your first impression was you being a.

Wiener in the corner for 45 minutes.

Right.

And guys don't get that. And that's really a big problem, because then you go, well, you know, women only want guys with money.

Or you start to fill in the blanks with whatever weird excuse you have for that not working out for you, when the truth is you just made a crap first impression, and it was totally manageable. You just didn't know when that window was, so you missed it by an hour. Right.

And so when you're walking into those types of environments, realize your first impression is made when you become a blip on Their radar. If you're walking in the door and people are facing the door, how you look when you're standing in the door.

Taking your coat off is your first impression that you're making on everybody looking at you at that point.

So what we do at AOC is we say, listen, straighten up your body.

Language anytime you walk through a doorway.

It's a great way to fix a.

Habit and make a habit work.

And so we don't mean puff your.

Chest out and start walking with your arms swayed out like Mark Wahlberg walking away from an explosion or Tom Cruise or whatever walking away from an explosion.

I mean, just smile, head up, chin.

Up, shoulders up, shoulders back.

It's pretty easy. Just don't slouch.

How's that? Don't slouch. Don't slouch.

Put a smile on your face.

That's it.

It's a really low bar. Because when people aren't watching or when we think people aren't watching that most of us have crappy. We look like crap.

We're picking our nose and stuff. And you know who you are, you know? You know what I mean?

Like, you're doing all kinds of stuff.

You're that guy with the weighted vest and the altitude training mask, picking your.

Nose, like, hey, I know that's my.

Neighbor over there with the weighted vest and a bunch of kids and like.

Is that a Batman costume? What is that thing? Yeah, you're making that first impression. And so it's fine to do that.

It's fine to change your physiology manually.

I recommend doing it, but don't rely.

On it to change your results.

And so once you do that, so straighten up when you go through doorways. Also, people have a way of talking.

Themselves out of talking to strangers.

They'll go, oh, well, you know, those people look busy. And I'm kind of thirsty, and I should probably wash my hands and go to the bathroom, and I'm gonna go scope out the venue and see what hors d' oeuvres they have. That type of thing that, like, sharking thing. That guy.

Especially if guys are out looking for girls, this is what they do. And I know there's women listening, so I'll keep it general.

But they're sharking around, walking around. They're talking themselves out of really what you're doing.

And let's admit it, you're looking at everybody going, who's gonna be somebody that looks like I can maybe go talk to them?

Who am I looking at right now?

That doesn't scare me. Or intimidate me.

And what you're doing is you're just.

Talking yourself out of talking to everybody.

And you're going, oh, well, those people look busy.

They're, like, laughing and having fun. They probably know each other.

Oh, there's a group over there. They look too serious.

I don't really want to get involved in that. What about those people? Oh, I think they're foreign and they're speaking another language. I don't want to interrupt them. That would be annoying for them or something like that.

And we all make these excuses really.

Almost subconsciously in the back of our head, and then we decide to believe them.

And so the way to short circuit that process is to walk up to.

People having no idea what you're gonna say.

Don't think about it. Don't think about who to go talk to. We call it the two snaps rule. And essentially, if you can, if you're thinking about talking to somebody longer than.

This, then it's too long. That was finger snapping twice for those of you with crappy headphones.

And so that's too long. So what you do is you walk in, you straighten up your body language, you put a smile on your face, you see people directly in front of you and go, hey, man, how's it going?

It doesn't matter.

You can even say, I like salad.

And it's totally fine. It doesn't matter.

I like kale smoothies and ginger juice.

I like kale smoothies. Do you have an altitude training mask? I mean, honestly, it's still better than.

Walking around for 45 minutes pretending to text somebody urgently while playing Candy Crush instead of being social.

Yeah, that's a great practical tip. I mean, I mean, from. From that two snap tip to the. To the looking at the eye color tip to kind of immersing yourself in these social situations, you've got a lot of practical things here. And. And again, the website is theartofcharm.com so you can go check out some of some of Jordan's. Basically what he does with folks. He works with students, he works with clients. He's got a whole system over there for teaching you a lot of these tools. One of the things that I mentioned that I wanted to share with folks and wanted to bounce off you, Jordan, to kind of hear your thoughts on. To finish up, was how I ended up kind of getting myself out of that shyness mode. For me, it seems counterintuitive, but it involved putting myself right out in the limelight and becoming involved with speech and debate and Public speaking. In high school, my parents put me in a speech and debate class in which I had to get up and give talks in front of a classroom. And then from there I joined the speech and debate team in college and spent a couple of years on that. And by the time I'd really gotten used to speaking on stage in front of lots and lots of people, I gradually began to be able to get better at one on one conversations. But for me, I started with the one to many. And I was actually more comfortable with that than one on one or group situations or parties or things of that nature. And it wasn't until several years later when I read the book, I think it's called the Power of the Introvert, something along those lines. I don't remember the exact name of the book. Do you know the book I'm talking about?

I do not.

Okay. It's basically a book about how introverts often thrive in situations where they are in A1 to many type of situation. And that could be speaking on stage, speech and debate, whatever, but it's basically you in front of a lot of people. And for me, that ended up being my avenue to actually hone my social skills and get comfortable speaking with people one on one. So that was my trick was I just started putting myself into situations where I had to present to folks. And you know, now I'm doing a lot of it just, you know, on, on a podcast, on a microphone, you know, one to many. But that, that was what I use. And I was curious if you've ever kind of seen that type of method work, putting people in situations where they just have to be in the limelight in front of a bunch of people and then using that to build social confidence.

Oh, absolutely. I mean that's something that is very common. And a lot of guys will say like, oh, I don't need aoc, I'm.

Taking Toastmasters or something like that.

And that's great. I just want to make sure that.

I really clarify that what we are.

Doing at the Art of Charm is.

Not necessarily rudimentary social skills. A lot of people are like, oh, I'm just fine in a room, I don't need these tips.

What we're doing is that's the low.

Bar and we'll do that in class. But what we also do is the elite level. Like the guys who come in from the Central Intelligence Agency. They don't need help chit chatting with people at a bar. They need the very nuanced how to be confident in terms of Getting people to like and trust you super, super fast. One of the guys that I recently interviewed and that I've worked with, and I can't really say too much about it, but he's the director of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Program. And essentially their job is to recruit spies inside the United States from foreign diplomats. And let's just say that we're on the same page on a lot of things and talk about a lot of things. So that's sort of the level where AOC goes to.

But I think your way in terms.

Of getting over shyness, that's.

That's excellent. A lot of people can't start there, and I definitely don't think people should end there. There's other things that happened that you.

May or may not even realize as.

A result of you speaking on stage that then combined to make you comfortable.

Speaking with others and relating to others. And there's also a bunch of other things that were probably already in place that made you just fine in personal relationships, I would imagine at the point.

At which you were shy and introverted.

And correct me if I'm wrong, honestly.

But you probably had some good friends.

And decent relationships with your close family and friends. You were just crap with new people.

Yep, that, that and one of those guys who had a very small number of very close friends and not a large social circle.

Right.

So you can imagine the situation for you would have been totally different if.

You had that shyness. And also you didn't have that many friends either because you didn't connect well with people or because you lived in Zaire and all of your friends were a different culture and you had no way to meet them, or because you.

Moved to Germany or because you worked in a new company and you were.

The youngest person there, or because your job was something really intense that required you to connect with people like sales. You know what I mean? That would have been a completely different situation.

So it's not just about getting over shyness.

It's about getting ninja level social skills in a really short period of time. And that's what we do. Like, you get people strong and fit, like ridiculously fit.

I would imagine using your training.

If you were my trainer, I'd probably be running instead of three miles, I'd probably be running freaking 30 miles next year or two years from now. And it's the same thing with the social skills at aoc. The things that we would teach will.

Take you from wow. I gave a really good PowerPoint to wow.

I have so many close friends. I'D never envisioned my life like this.

Or whatever, and not to be Mr.

Promote my own crap, but honestly, rather.

Than going to the website, go get the podcast.

It's free and there's like 260 right now.

It is a good podcast. I've been listening in. So as you guys can tell from listening to my podcast interview with Jordan, he is a little bit shy, so it's tough listening, but you'll get used to it. No, I'm just kidding. And by the way, I did leave out a detail. I did actually grow up in Zaire, so. No, are you.

That's a joke.

I'm just kidding.

Okay.

I don't think it's a country anymore.

I don't think it's a real place.

It's gotten renamed to something new.

Yeah, yeah, you grew up in Rhodesia, which also doesn't exist.

Anyways, though, you could check out Jordan's podcast. You can check out the Art of Charm. I think it's really cool what he's doing. And just so those of you listening in know, we have no financial relationship or anything like that. I just, I. I like Jordan. I like some of the stuff that he's teaching, and I think that it could help out a lot of folks who are listening in. And I really see the benefit of building social confidence and having good body language, building proper personal habits and kind of making yourself a better person by learning the right way to interact with the rest of the world. And this whole interpersonal dynamics thing, I think is kind of under emphasized a lot of the time. And folks like Jordan are out there to help you out. So, Jordan, thanks for coming on the call today, man.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it. A lot of fun.

All right, folks, well, check out jordan@theartofcharm.com or check out his podcast, the Art of Charm podcast, which you should be able to find in itunes. And until next time, this is Ben and Jordan Signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com thanks for listening.

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