11 Solcast - Episode Eleven with Pat Stedman: Breakups, Attracting Women and Discovering your True Self

Welcome to episode 11 of the Soulcast. We've got my friend Pat Steadman with us today. A lot of juicy relationship info and other stuff that's going to help you navigate your romantic and spiritual life. So I really enjoyed this. Hope you do too. Without further ado, welcome Pat Steadman, my friend and Twitter's leading dating and relationship strategist. Welcome to the Soulcast.

Sol, it's good to be here.

Thanks, man. Happy to have you. Very glad to have you. So I guess just for the people listening, if you could maybe dive into a bit of what your story is and kind of what your thing is and how you got there. Yeah, sure.

Uh, just, just real quick because it's, uh, it's a story told many times before, but yeah, I didn't really know what I was doing with women. I had a very beautiful girlfriend in high school, but it kind of like happened, um, just happened on its own. And then when she broke up with me, inevitably, because I kind of felt in and over my head, I went down all like the pickup circle, etc. So I spent a long time in that world trying to learn how to attract women, pick up women. And it was, you know, very, very big change from in the beginning, a lot of the struggles. By the end, you know, dating a lot of different girls, very often concurrently. And then I met my wife, we got married. And then so a lot of my focus has now been on deepening relationships as, as well as all the dating stuff that I used to do. So it's, uh, it's been a journey. It's been about 11 years.

So awesome. Yeah, I think it's almost a rite of passage that most young men have to go through, or hopefully go through at some point, is, um, having the, the relationships that don't necessarily work out and then kind of learning, um, where you might have gone wrong and, and what to do right. I feel like everyone You know, hopefully everyone goes through something like that to kind of focus on what they want in relationships and how to work them out better. But not everyone does realize. So I don't know.

Yeah, you know, I, when I, when I get a book together and people have been saying you should write a book, write a book, but I have to really wait. You know, it's like you have to really wait for to feel inspired to write a book. Like I got my masterclass and that felt really much in alignment. But I'm not quite ready to know what I want to write about that I feel like it's going to matter. But it's going to be dedicated to all of those women because, I mean, they're the best teachers. You just learn so much about yourself.

Yeah, exactly. Well, heartbreak is one of the biggest teachers as well. It's that first, especially when you're younger, it's that first kind of taste of the real negative emotions, I guess, unless you've had some kind of death in the family. Growing up, um, which I luckily didn't have. But that first heartbreak, it definitely feels like a big deal at the time. Uh, I have a lot of guys that message me and say, hey man, going through my first breakup, or, you know, I'm moving away, how do I get over a breakup? Um, so I guess I would like to get your opinion as well as I have a few thoughts on it. But what do you recommend maybe for the younger guy who's, who's had his first serious girlfriend and really maybe, you know, felt some, some very strong feelings. Like, what would you say to those guys if they're going through a difficult breakup right now?

I, I would— I think it's important to frame it as a rite of passage, because guys who— when that happens to you, like almost every young guy who's really gotten something serious, I mean, they've had these delusions, these fantasies of been, been with her forever, like it was gonna work out. Like, I remember with my first relationship, I mean, it was— things were not going well, right? It was not like— I wasn't, I wasn't happy, you know? But at the same time, I just, I, I was confused because I thought that we were just gonna be together. Like, it just didn't make any sense to me that we weren't.

Yeah.

And so a lot of it was like a worldview shattering. And I think for a lot of young guys, they're like, they— when this happens to them, they feel like it's some sort of like no one can understand what they're feeling like, where's really it's like, no, this is a rite of passage, you know. This is just something that every guy goes through, and congrats, like, now you're a man, you know. It's—

yeah, that is good, kind of viewing it as a learning lesson instead of, you know, the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Which, you know, by the feeling of, of that, definitely feels like one of the worst things that are happening to you. But yeah, it's not— it's definitely not the end of the world. And a lot of the time, the struggle or, or kind of working through that pain can lead to internal self-development and a better understanding of yourself, which I think is super important. And yeah, like you said, you become more of a man the more you delve into your own psyche and and understand and look at yourself like, maybe I wasn't that good in the relationship, and maybe I could have been more open or, or done more or whatever. So yeah, I think that's important as well. So I understand you're doing— your main role as a coach is to advise people. What are the most common mistakes, I guess, that you see guys make? Guys or girls doing. I know I don't really have much of a large female listener base at the moment, but, uh, yeah, interested on, on what you have to say about that.

Yeah, well, I, I— okay, so my work with clients, it focuses on a lot of the deeper aspects of the psyche, and then we tend to bring it out from there into more tactical awareness. And so when we talk about the deeper stuff, we're really like, I like to talk about it like strategy versus tactics. Strategy is, is your deeper mindset. And a lot of that has to do with unwiring beliefs. And a lot of those beliefs revolve around, for guys, these like a lack of deservedness or self-consciousness. And there's this element of putting women on a pedestal. And, you know, I hate to sound too generic at this point. Everybody really Like, that's a very common sort of pickup thing, you know, whatever.

Yeah, but it's very true though.

It's very true. And one of the things that, especially for my client base, right, my client base is, I mean, they're guys who are doing well for themselves or who are on a really good trajectory, right?

Yeah.

On other aspects of their life because One of the things when a guy comes to me, I mean, well, first off, this is a professional business, so obviously you have to have some disposable income. But if they're not in good shape at all, I also tell them, you have to at the very least be doing this concurrently. If they're in really bad shape, it's like, hire a trainer. Don't work with me yet. Yeah. Right? But this sort of sense that women are above them in some way, and the truth is that objectively they're, I mean, they're pretty much minimum like 7s, sort of if you were to grade a guy, and a lot of them are like 9s and 10s. And so you have the situation, it's like you are literally better than 90% of guys out there.

Yeah, yeah.

And—

But they just don't see their own self-worth. And they don't really conceptualize that, maybe.

Yeah, you know, Jordan Peterson, he had this whole thing going around. I think it's, I think it's good. It's very based on like an evo, you know, evolutionary biology kind of background about— it goes back to the like eggs are expensive, like sperm's cheap sort of.

Yeah.

And I take issue with that to an extent. I mean, there's a really good psychologist, Roy Bumgardner, who's done a lot of work on, on this stuff. And what he's shows is that men and women on a macro level are on average the same, but men have a much bigger band than women. So in the top, you're only going to see men. Pretty much men are going to excel in, in pretty much every field, and they're going to have a higher IQ, and they're going to be more talented. And they're also going to be like more likely to have mental illness, to be— to have genetic problems, to be criminals.

Yeah, you're— they're— men are both tail ends of the distribution graph. So you're getting the best performers, but you're also getting the worst performers and the stupidest. And it's that higher genetic variation that, like you said, you got to compete. And that, that means there's going to be a lot of high performers, but also low performers. And women kind of average around the middle more so, a fatter a fatter distribution plot.

Exactly. So this argument about sperm's cheap and, you know, eggs are expensive, like, isn't really true. It depends on where you're at, because if, if your sperm is in like the top, you know, 10-20%, then actually it's very expensive. And that the eggs—

valuable maybe would be a better word than expensive.

Yes, yes, exactly. It's more valuable. More valuable. And, and so, and you see this dynamic with women. It's like, well, what does she really have to offer? I mean, women are wonderful, but the truth is a lot of women, you know, they just don't have a lot that's very interesting about them.

Yeah.

And if you look past the, the, like, their image and how they, how they appear physically, then you can— you have to really judge them more. And I think it's really important when a guy looks at a woman, it's like, okay, you're attractive, so you get an interview, but you don't get the job. Like, the job is a little bit more of a—

Yeah, exactly, a deeper thing. Yeah.

So a lot of it is that sort of macro reframing, but then we zoom it more into the micro, and that involves a lot of the sort of standard nuance about game, how to respond to a situation. But I find that tactically, it's not so much even really knowing what to do. I think this is where a lot of coaches and whatever mess up, is that they'll teach people these little techniques and they'll teach people, okay, you got to respond in this way and do this. Or maybe they'll even go a step deeper and say women respond to this. And that's good. But the main thing is being able to have an awareness of what's going on in the interaction. Because if a guy can't see where you guys are at, what is, what is the energy between you and the woman? What's her level of investment? And what kind of girl is she? Then you're not going to actually have the awareness to sort of respond tactically. It's kind of like if you were to think of yourself in, in combat. I mean, I mean, how are you supposed to determine your tactics in the situation? You can have a whole book of tactics, right? But yeah, you're just gonna throw one out there because you think maybe— no, you want to have reconnaissance, right? You have to be able to have intel. So a lot of it's developing the ability to, to figure that stuff out.

Yeah, that's a, that's a very interesting point. Um, I think the, the pickup artist stuff, uh it has— that's almost like the beginner's tactics and to say, you know, if she gives you this response, then these 3 responses are a good thing to make you look cool in the situation. But it can come across as very unnatural and it's sort of like a training wheels situation where you want to use those tools to kind of get into the game and make sure that you kind of understand why you're saying these things and then get into the real world and start to have the more meaningful connections. And that's almost like training wheels to just get you in there, uh, to then lead you. I think it's the best use of it anyway, is to use them as training wheels or whatever. But like you said, you're not going to be able to cover those deep insecurities and those deep kind of internal states which kind of launch the root of proper attraction. Um, but yeah, it's, It's interesting because I went through the same thing, you know, like you look up things like why did my girlfriend break up with me or whatever, or why am I fighting with my girlfriend, and you get these surface-level answers. But I think there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that goes on which takes a while to get to the bottom of.

I mean, people just don't really want to, want to do the work. Like they, they want really cheap, simple answers to it. And look, and I get it for the, you know, for guys starting off and everything. Sometimes there can be some benefit just to have something to hang your hat on. But I see a lot of guys get trapped in the fact that they, they really just start to, to believe that if I just learn this one thing, then it's going to be better. It's like, yeah, man, like I'm still like, I've been spending, especially this last month. I've been doing a lot of my own deep work, and the things that I've been uncovering are so ridiculously subtle. Like, they're so subtle, and yet they make these, these massive improvements. And yeah, I mean, I feel bad for guys who don't, who don't do that, but I mean, frankly, the results come accordingly. Every, every guy who's willing to really like say, okay, I'm here to learn. Uh, I know, I know things are gonna be good in the end, but I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna keep through the process. I mean, they always, like everything always improved dramatically for them. Um, so I would say probably the, the hardest people to work with are the guys who just have a sense of, uh, They almost won't really, like, they don't have a sense of confidence in the process themselves. And most of those guys won't even do coaching, but you'll see some that are doing it, but they're on, but they're, they'll keep falling into like catastrophizing, like, why is it so difficult for me? It's never going to happen. Uh, and that's, That's not good. That's, that's the big thing that has to be broken.

Yeah, no doubt. So I had a few things here. One tweet that I remember that stuck in my, my head from you that I just read, I was talking about the impact of walking and you realizing how much more your mind works and your thoughts kind of generate and how you can sort things out. Through walking a lot. And, and I was— I have definitely noticed the same thing. It's like, when in doubt, just go for a walk. It's just like a 15-minute walk. I try and do 10 minutes after every time I eat to promote digestion. But this is like an extra thing that it, for whatever reason, you know, whether it's blood flow, whether it's all your muscles kind of moving together in that very natural human movement, it seems to have some kind of cognition benefit, uh, like all exercise, but that's so unique to walking, uh, in that you, you get ideas and things come up.

So just, yeah, yeah, it's, um, I think especially when it comes to when you're in nature, I think it's— yes, yeah, there's something really, really natural to it. And even if I don't go for like a full walk, like right now due to all the quarantine stuff, I mean, I I was living in New York City and I've, I've left the city. I mean, we still have our apartment there because we got a big reduction in the end, but yeah, um, I mean, the city sucks at the moment, so there's—

yeah, I mean, I can imagine, man.

Just a little digression, I mean, New York City is all boarded up, everyone's like freaked out wearing masks, nothing's open, so it's not really like a fun place to be.

Like, we'll spend a night or two every 2 weeks, but yeah, uh, so especially with all the lockdown and things, like there's, like you said, there's, I mean, you have Central Park, which is great, but not that big area of nature that you might otherwise need. Yeah, especially now.

The reason to be in New York City is because of the energy. The energy normally is, it's this really aggressive masculine energy. I mean, really, it's, it's a very masculine city. New York. Um, yeah, and there's just always so much stuff to do. And but yeah, without any of that, it's like, it's like, it's like a castrated guy, you know? It's like there's just nothing. It's, it's— yeah, yeah, nothing to look at, right? So, um, okay, but yeah, so when it comes to the walks and stuff, so, so I'm not in New York right now and I'm at my, my parents' house. My wife and I are at my parents' house. In South Jersey, which is much more bucolic, and a huge garden. Like, I spent 7 hours yesterday just doing gardening, which was another amazing— it's just—

that's nice.

Unbelievable. But yeah, but yeah, I'll go for walks through all these different towns, and it's, it's also fun because it's like there's an exploring aspect to it. Like, I don't know the street, what's going on here, and I mean, one, it's a good opportunity to listen to things like, you know, Soulcast, right? Haha.

Yeah. Well, if you're into that.

Yeah. But it's also just even, you know, turn it off, the audio and yeah, just ideas flow. Like there's, it's kind of like an active daydreaming.

Yes. You get lost in the movement. It becomes automatic after a while and then your brain can kind of just whir in the background and things will pop up. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's funny that you mentioned that about the nature. It's like maybe it's also being in nature and getting that, that good quality air as well as performing the actual movement itself. I think it was, um, Nietzsche that said, never trust a thought made indoors. So yeah, there's, there's definitely something to that, I think. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, children seem to be so much smarter about these things than adults get into as well. I feel if we acted more like kids, I feel like we'd be a lot happier in general and healthier. Yeah, the other thing is, um, about the walking, especially barefoot, barefoot, is, uh, the— you know, you've seen those acupressure mats that are like to stimulate blood flow and things? Which people step on inside their, inside their houses. But you know what a free acupressure mat is? Just walking across terrain outside and little sticks and stones that'll get into the nooks and crannies of your foot and kind of release those inner foot muscles that don't necessarily get stretched or anything. So that's an added benefit of going actually barefoot. I know that there are barefoot shoes, which I also think are very good, especially if you're running on, you know, you do need a little bit of on like a long walk, it's just, just beneficial. But that barefoot shoe itself provides a very thin layer of rubber between you and the actual ground, so you can still see, feel all the bumps and grooves. And that's a much more natural way. Like, normal shoes feel weird to me now that I've worn them for so long. They feel like just, you know, they feel like what they are. It's like these big clubs of material on the end of your foot, and your balance is a a little bit off and things.

Yeah, a lot of them have like elevation in strange places too. So it's like, they're— yeah, you can definitely feel how— I mean, some shoes are better than others, but you can definitely feel that you're not walking the way you were meant to walk.

Thank God we don't have to wear high heels. Yeah, unless you're into that.

I don't know. Uh, yeah, man, I mean, I I mean, I don't know. I still like girls wearing it, so I'm not trying to push that narrative. Yeah, but it is true that it's not— it's difficult stuff. It can't be good for them to do.

No, it's impressive.

There's a lot of girls too, like a lot of girls from Eastern Europe and from Latin America. I mean, they, they learn how to wear heels. They wear heels like regularly since they've been 15.

Yeah. So they get it for everything as well.

Real naturals with it.

Yeah. All right. Um, I think one of the main things that I wanted to touch on in terms of attraction, I guess, is that the, the idea that the attraction becomes much more intense and natural when you show your true self. Right? And so this is me, this is what I like, this is how I want to spend my life, this is how I want to live. You know, these are my flaws, these are my strengths. I'm very confident in myself. You can come on board with that and hang out with me as my relationship, but if you're not into that, then that's fine as well. So that kind of developing knowledge of who you are, and obviously that comes down to some internal work. To recognize what actually you do want because most people don't have any clue what they want. They've never sat down and really written it out and decided what they want in their life, what they want to minimize in their life. So if you haven't done that, recommend doing that. But yeah, that, that idea that when you show your true self and you're not lying because you think you might want to please someone else, uh, is that you can connect with people on a much deeper level to the point where the people that are going to be attracted to you are going to be much more attracted to you because is the real you, and then there's no level of lying or deceit behind it as well.

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. So there's a trap that guys get into, and I call it the anxious avoidant dynamic. A lot of it's also sort of master-master-slave, and you see a lot of guys, and they're usually guys who felt really disempowered with women initially, They're guys who have that pedestal who women didn't tend to pay a lot of attention to. And so they learn game and they learn all this stuff and they have this sort of, they have this need and learning game and learning all these sort of mindset hacks or whatever, not really deeper mindset stuff, but just sort of like, you know, I'm the prize, blah blah blah. They think that stuff. And then they'll act around women. They'll want to collect women for their own validation, and they'll want to control a woman and have a woman act a certain way towards them for their own validation. Now, the problem with that is, well, A, it's like a— it's a game that you can't really win. You're constantly You're constantly going to be in this dynamic with them where you have to assert this dominance. You have to do this. And there's actually, I mean, if you do it right, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like pressure around it to act in a certain way. But the other thing is that it sort of diminishes the woman herself. And so you have this relationship of sorts that's really based on on caricatures and LARPing, basically play acting. Yeah. And there's not really a depth to it. What a lot of these guys are afraid to do actually is to let go and to basically just say, hey, this is me and I don't give a fuck if you don't wanna hang out with me, if you don't, oh, you don't like me, right? Okay, like, get out of here. And obviously, understanding women and understanding game and being an attractive person in general helps with that. I mean, you could be a really— I mean, realistically, most people who are very, very miserable individuals, they might say that, but that's more of a defense mechanism. But if you are— if you know your value and you know that you are attractive, what women will do won't, won't faze you. And yeah, you'll bring in women who really actually do care about you for who you are. I mean, it sounds like so like a fantasy to a lot of guys, but, but the key thing here is that when, when people talk about blue pill, these are guys who are really, like, they don't have a good sense of self, and they want a woman to act like a mother and love them unconditionally so that they feel good about themselves. Whereas this is not about, like, her making you feel good about yourself. This is her just accepting you or not accepting you. And so it's like third position, right? And people get stuck between like, like I have an addiction and it's either like I can't get my fix or I can. Whereas the third position is like, well, get rid of your fix, need for a fix, right? Become internally validated versus externally validated. And yeah, when you have, uh, and the great thing also is that a lot of women, you know, they have their own kind of confidence issues and image issues, which guys who are so absorbed with their own problems don't see. When you kind of communicate to a girl about how okay you are with yourself, you can also start to have her be okay with herself and bring that stuff out. And I, I call these like kind of alchemical relationships. And I really believe that this is where, where guys predominantly lead. And a lot of people talk about all the problems with modern women. And I mean, these are very accurate criticisms. I'm not going to dispute reality, but I think people get a lot of the inputs wrong. Women are a product of the men in their life. And a lot of these women have had really weak fathers or they've had absent fathers or, you know, sometimes abusive fathers, right? And so they have they just don't have a really good sense of self, and so they cling to all sorts of things that make them harder, right? I'm gonna be a bad bitch, you know? It's like, you look at that girl, I mean, this is someone who has really serious self-esteem issues. And so a lot of what I work on with clients is avoiding the ones that you really just can't do anything about. I mean, some are really far gone. Yeah, but it's understanding how to really— I call it psychological game, and it's just really being able to cut to the core of somebody, but not necessarily doing it in like a mean way, but just like a non-judgmental way. Yes, yes, yeah.

But no, I think that's huge. That's like, um, gone.

No, I was just gonna say calling out the truth about, about them and who they are and where their blocks are.

Yeah, I think, yeah, when you work through that yourself, you can then look at other people and, and kind of see maybe that some of the same things. Oh, okay, I can see why they're acting that way. Um, and then in a non-judgmental safe space, if you will, uh, with someone that you kind of develop a relationship with, you can, yeah, work at those deeper issues and, and, and talk about that stuff. To let them have their own walls kind of fall down as well. I guess that leads to a more, a larger point of doing that with everyone, you know, like be the source of quote unquote happiness, I guess, like always be the guy in the room that's like, all right, cool, let's get it done. And that mindset that you don't take yourself too seriously, you're always trying to help other people and be open and tell the truth. I think there's a lot of value to doing that in today's society because people notice, man. They notice when someone's not just giving in to the monotony of whatever it is you're doing or— and not letting it get them down. Like, think about when you meet someone that's just like maybe a girl that's unbelievably bubbly and smiley and happy to be with you. It's, it's a breath of fresh air. And people— you can be that force in other people's life as well. Oh yeah.

I mean, the being just a positive, a positive person, but not like a stupid positive person. I mean, there's, there's, you know, I mean, I suppose that even like not annoyingly positive. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Cause I find a lot of that stuff is actually a defense mechanism as well.

Yeah.

They're, they're just like, oh, nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong. Everything's great. But, but just being, you know, relaxed and Totally trusting the flow of the situation. Like, if something bad happens, it's either fixable or survivable. And not— I mean, it's what leadership really is. Leadership is keeping people's spirits and hope alive, making them more resilient. And people just want to be around you. I mean, that's— And that's why I talk a lot about energy. And for some people, this is such a— it's really esoteric why I talk about like really serious psychological things.

It's like, yeah, like studies and yeah, yeah.

I mean, whatever. Like women are drawn to your vibe. And yeah, if you bring up your vibration, if you become a a positive, resourceful person and you just spread that light around, I mean, that is what women are drawn towards. And that's why women love guys who are the adventurer, because the adventurer, he has this sort of sense of whatever's around the corner, it's exciting. Like, can't— like, are you ready for it? Let's like— they're always seeking, seeking something that's going to just that that's going to expand life and that's going to— yeah, and women are frankly bored most of the time. I mean, they're so bored. And so as a guy, if you can be positive and not boring, you're already way ahead of the curve.

Yeah, well, it's girls just want to have fun, you know, it's, it's very true. And when you can be the guy that doesn't just sit them down for a date at a restaurant, like an expensive restaurant, and go, oh, how are you? How was work? You know, these kind of boring small talk things that maybe she's heard 100 times before with other guys. But maybe you'll go for a barefoot walk in a park or, or just something out of the ordinary, but also bringing that energy, like you say, with you. And whatever happens on the date, just have fun with it. And kind of it displays at a deeper level that you're a resilient person. And if you go back to the Evo-Psych side of it, a more resilient person that can fix problems and doesn't matter— doesn't, you know, stress about what's coming his way— is going to be more likely to solve any problems if, if you were to mate with them, you know, look, or look after your kids or whatever. So I think it's partially that as well, but the attraction level of just wanting to be around people that make you feel good. But that in turn means you have to feel good about yourself to begin with. So it all relates back to that inner work and kind of figuring out who you are at a deeper sense.

Yeah. When you have guys who are like, the reason that people default to small talk is, is not so much a matter of they don't know what to say. It's that they're worried about what they should say, which comes from a position of anxiety. And so they default to safety, safe conversation, which creates no attraction at all. No attraction at all.

No tension.

No tension. And that's why, I mean, it's— I mean, the tension thing, this is what people talk about. Well, girls love assholes. It's like, a healthy girl does not love an asshole. But girls prefer assholes to quote-unquote nice guys because nice guys are really repressed and boring and they create no tension. And so an asshole at the very least is creating tension. At the very least he's saying things that he's not trying to calibrate himself excessively around her. Yeah, so she's gonna be drawn to that, and that's better than nothing. And so for most women, their life is bouncing between a guy who, you know, treats her like shit but makes her feel something, and guys who kind of are gonna be there for her but don't make her feel anything. And no, but if a girl meets a guy who's third position, who is able to create the tension but is not, doesn't feel, but is also like kind and doesn't need to be a dick. I don't want to be with a girl, and this is one of the things when I talk with my clients, it's like, this is how you would game her. She's very predictable. It's easy. If you do these things, because this is how she is. She's a broken girl. She wants you to abuse her. But Yeah. The question is, do you want to be that guy? Because if you act as like a third position guy and you sort of speak your truth to her, but without being like, you know, a total dick and manipulating her, eventually she's going to realize that you were something different because you didn't chase after her. But she's not gonna be able to be with you because she's gonna be looking at you like— she's gonna interpret any sense of kindness as being weak. And a woman who's broken like that, I mean, personally, I don't think it's worth it. But you have to decide for yourself if, you know, she's attractive and you want to have that control, if you're still in the power game. Thing, then, you know, so be it. But yeah, I like to filter those women out so that they, they can appreciate this, the sort of full perspective.

Yeah, I think there's a, a lot of girls out there like that, and— but there are also girls that aren't like that, and, you know, maybe they had a good father figure growing up, and there's a different kind of vibe to them. Um, and I think a lot of guys get blackpilled because they think, oh, the average broken Western woman is just, you know, garbage or whatever. But you could say that about a lot of the average dude as well. It's like unexciting, doesn't push himself, you know, all these things that, that make a guy less attractive. But there are enough girls out there, good girls, that you can find one that is going to mesh well with you for a relationship and to build something with. Like, it's always— I, you know, if someone says that to me, I'll go, okay, well, how many new girls have you talked to in the last couple weeks? Oh, zero. Oh, cool. So, so how do you know that every single American girl is, is not worth pursuing? Like it's this, uh, narrative that gets portrayed for sometimes within young guys' spheres online. But you know, if you've, if there's a girl that, you know, acts that way, then okay, cool. Not for you. But there are girls out there. If, if you delve into maybe different areas, you're not just swiping on Tinder or whatever, um, enough to find, you know, a quality relationship. I think.

Yeah, I mean, and honestly, Sol, it's just to me people are making excuses. It's like they don't want to put themselves out there.

They scared of talking to girls.

Yep, scared of talking to girls. And they have frankly a really negative energy to themselves. And so yeah, if you have a really negative energy, you're gonna attract women with negative energy to the extent you attract them at all. Yeah, and that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so that's why I, I talk about these different markets. Like, there's broadly two different dating markets, and some guys teach you how to sort of win in the bad market, but I'm— yeah, I try to get guys into the good market because it's a completely different world. Like, I don't even understand— like, I, I, I understand it because I can see it objectively. I see these people, but it's so far removed from my experience and the women that I spend time with, and that like, I don't understand how it's like they just don't want to believe the possibility.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. The levels of, uh, vulnerability that you expose yourself to and trust and all of that, that opens up another layer of relationships and connection with a girl that, you know, experiencing myself, I have surface-level relationships before when I was younger. And then, you know, when you, when you, when you delve deeper and become more open and all that, it unlocks like attraction, you know, sex gets better. But in general, you don't fight as much. Um, if at all, uh, like you're both just there being who you both are and trusting each other in that. And that is almost like a seed for this new level of relationship that might come from the two different dating markets kind of thing.

Mm-hmm. 100%. 100%. Yeah.

Um, probably the last thing that I wanted to, uh, bring up with you is, um, the idea of, like, I think you mentioned it before, uh, vibrational energy and how you can operate from a low vibrational mindset. Things like anger, fear, anxiety, jealousy, all those emotions which are tied to a sort of attachment to the ego, um, and not really conceptualizing that your thoughts that, that might be negative that pop into your head they're not you as such. So a low consciousness, consciousness mindset makes it almost impossible to have a deep bond with the opposite sex. So yeah, I guess maybe interested in your thoughts on that and, and, and how guys can maybe make those first steps to just be aware of their own emotions and their own emotional reactions that might come into their head that they don't necessarily have to follow and get upset about and, and how that kind of correlates to the low consciousness mindset and the vibrational scale, if you will.

Yeah. So for guys who aren't really familiar with it, uh, Hawkins was one of the really big people who pioneered this scale. Uh, it's called, I think the book that describes it is called Power Versus Force. But there's another— the book actually that I read that was more— that kind of informed— like, I was developing this, and as usual, like, you're kind of playing around with some ideas. And someone on my email list, which I recommend you guys get on for, you know, the almost daily emails, but he— yeah, he sent me a PDF of this book and and like by, by a guy named Dodson, and it was called Levels of Energy. And it was like, okay, I've— I'm reading basically what somebody's already developed. Like, this is like saves me 2 years of reasoning to try to like put it together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was really just revelatory. I mean, I went through it. And so the idea behind it is that you have these different levels of —of energy, right? But when you're at different points in this vibration field, and it's not like a clear-cut, it's not like a hard science. No, but there are real— there are trends to it. And so on the very, very low levels, you have druggies, people who are just incomplete, like on the verge of suicide. Like suicide is is the bottom of the, of the tier, pretty much. And then you move from there to people who are really trying to numb themselves, which is where they're starting to abuse substances. And then they start to get into a position of, of, uh, of sort of like fear, like, like victim, like someone's gonna hit me, someone's gonna abuse me, uh, the world's out to get me. And then it moves up to anger and pride. And anger and pride and the ability to inflict sort of punishment on others, that's the top of the bottom. Because anger is actually like a big improvement. And this is why you have to be really nuanced about people. Like there's some guys out in the dating world who get guys who have been really beaten down in their experiences with women and by life, it gets them really angry at women. And the reality is that, to be fair, that's actually healthy in a sense, quote unquote. Yeah, for guys who are on the verge of like ending it all because their life is so bad. Because they've been beaten up so much. Because the anger, that sense of pride, that's— that, that actually pulls them up the vibrational scale. Now, yes, exactly. If they— because there's at least now some agency, like, I can do something about it, right?

Yeah, it's that idea that, you know, use your anger to fuel you.

Yeah, to improvement. And, and I, I call that a lot of— I call that dark energy. And so when you see guys who are using this sort of envy, greed, power, like seeking out power. This is, I mean, it's, some guys can get really motivated by that and they can achieve a lot of successful stuff. Like you see a lot of people who are very successful, who have pockets, who are, who maybe exist in this anger pride stage because it fuels them. Now it's not healthy for them. They don't have a good life. But I mean, they might even superficially have a good life, but in terms of looking on their inner emotional state, you're not gonna see that these people are, like, there are ways that you could jab these people that would really hurt them. Like there's tons and tons of pain points. So you move out from there and you start to get into more of like a, like a mid-vibration level where these people don't really have much of a— they're, they're sort of like going with the flow, but they're not really— how do I put it? This is what Dodson says. It's sort of like the normies, right? They're just sort of in a state of responsiveness to things. They're not like a—

they're like, not that bad, not that good.

Yeah, just going with the motions. Where, yeah, where things start to really shift, you start to shift in the higher vibration, is when you have courage. And when, you know what, I'm gonna take a risk, I'm gonna do this. Yeah. And that's important because if you were really to define on a big range what's the difference between low vibration and high vibration, it's fear versus love. Really, that's what it is. Because once you, once you take courage, you've left fear. And from there it starts to go into things like, you know, like entrepreneurship, and then, you know, just seeking knowledge for the sake of seeking knowledge, right? So there is actually just being, being sort of intellectually curious is very high vibration. Curiosity, actually, in general, is a very high vibration trait, because curiosity is pursuit of learning without agenda, just for the sake of the love of it. And then you get to the really higher, higher tiers, and it's love and humor, like laughing. Like, that's why people who have a really good sense of humor— not like the dark kind of sense of humor where it's sort of like, eh, I look disgusting, haha, you know, like that kind of stuff. I hate that stuff. That's really cringy. Yeah, it is. But people who just find humor in even bad situations, like they can just, like, it's not a big deal and to be able to surrender to the flow of things.

I mean, that is really— Roll with the punches.

Exactly, exactly. Like nothing can get them down. Now, to be a little bit more precise here, obviously as humans we experience a range of different emotions, and there's gonna be times where you feel anger, there's gonna be times when you, you know, feel fear, right? Although hopefully, you know, less and less, right? So the way to look at this is not that you are one thing or another. It's sort of like you have a range, and the way I talk about it is that there's certain pockets. You might have pockets that bring you down into a lower vibration field. And so a lot of the deep work is resolving those pockets so you can't get triggered, so to speak, and fall back down there. Because there's some people— there's a lot of guys, I mean, they are fundamentally high vibration, like, and you can tell that they are like, they have a lot of love within them. They're, they're not, but, but they have a lot of pain pockets that bring them down into lower positions. And so once those get resolved, they actually are just phenomenal. And I think in some ways it's easier. Those guys have it easier than, than ones who are just sort of on the, the lower, more middle, the, you know, the normie kind of like, I haven't woken up. I'm not really thinking about anything. Like there's a lot more repression there in my perspective, at least Because the awareness is how you really change things. If you don't have awareness, how can you grow? Yeah, exactly.

Well, Pat, I want to say thank you for coming on the Soulcast. I feel like we had a great conversation. Is there anything else you wanted to kind of mention? Where can people find you online?

And yeah, you guys can find me on Twitter at @pat_steadman. Stedman. And for the list in the masterclass and stuff, I mean, it's probably easier just to like, you're gonna see me on Twitter posting that stuff. I presume most of the people watching the Soulcast are on Twitter. So yeah, yeah, probably Pat_Stedman. But you can also find me on my website, patstedman.com. Cool. Awesome, man.

Well, thanks so much and see you next time.

Yep. Thanks for having me on, Sol. See ya.