How to Unlock Your X-Factor in Dating and Build Attraction Effortlessly

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3:36Learn to build bonds that last a lifetime with coworkers, friends, or your significant other, fortifying your personal and professional life alike. Imagine being guided through a transformative journey by seasoned coaches who have already catalyzed this transformation of thousands of men just like you. Benefit from one-on-one mentorship and group sessions designed to chisel the best version of yourself piece by piece. Visit unlockyourxfactor.com to take your first step towards unlocking your limitless potential today because you deserve nothing less than extraordinary. Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down the science of powerful communication and winning mindsets so you have the cheat code to succeed with people.

4:19Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you. Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research in the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it. In order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise. And we're going to show you how. I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm.

4:54And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. Let's kick off today's toolbox. We have Johnny and Michael from the Art of Charm joining me today to talk about how to unlock your X factor in dating and build attraction effortlessly. We discuss the three traits you must show to stand out online or in person, why so many men are struggling with dating, and what technology is doing to our mojo, as well as the secret to being yourself and becoming irresistible, and how to go from boring and ordinary to extraordinary and memorable on a first date.

5:42AJ, this podcast has come together because of a conversation that we had with one of our guests, Connor Beaton, on his podcast. And we linked it in the show notes for you to check out as well. Yes, this was actually a Pew research study, and it found that among men under 30 years old, over 60 % are single, and that's almost double of women in that same age bracket. And it's pretty shocking to hear that study's been making the rounds online and there's a number of other studies now around what's going on with young men, an increase in loneliness. And we're also seeing it inside of our X Factor Accelerator program that more and more men are coming to us for dating help because they're feeling challenged in the current dating market.

6:27And we've talked in the past about the rise of online dating and technology and AI. And there are a number of factors that are making us less attractive to the opposite sex. So a big goal for today's show is to explain how we work with our clients and how you, the listener, can unlock your X factor to be more successful in dating, to attract more of the opposite sex in your life, but then also just attract amazing, interesting, awesome people into your life. And this is a big part of what we do inside the X Factor Accelerator, we're going to walk you through three traits that are going to make you more attractive.

7:03And when you master these traits, you're going to see that everything becomes a lot easier. So you're not fretting over the first message. You're not fretting over how do I have to use AI and chat GPT to make my profile more interesting? And how do I go approach that person instead? It's actually going to create a funnel into your life of attractive partners, amazing friends and a vibrant social life. And making life so much more fun in the first place. Just to set up some context for this conversation, that this is just not a problem that we're seeing here in America. This is a problem that all advanced technological cultures are facing.

7:42We're seeing it in the East. We're seeing it in Europe. We're seeing it in Canada. And so it's safe to say that due to all this technology that is supposed to be connecting us, In certain areas, it has the direct opposite effect. And this technology is also stifling the three major areas that allow us to be attractive. And those are the areas that we're going to be discussing today. And they are about developing our personality, developing our confidence, and developing and building out our network. All of those have a direct correlation to what makes us attractive. And as young adults, in the past, we had been out developing all of these areas in our lives through socialization.

8:36Because that socialization is what enhances us and makes us attractive to others. And with the technology that we have, like even growing up in the neighborhood that I had grown up in, there was a bunch of us that were playing football. They were riding bikes. The neighborhood was full. When I call home now and talk to my dad about the neighborhood and what's going on, there's no kids outside. There's there's no kids playing ball, riding bikes. And the children that are there in that town, they're they're at home. They're on their computers. They're playing video games. And how has this changed over the last 20 years?

9:17Like I remember as a kid of the 80s, when I got my first computer, when I got this Amiga 500, this was a new world and then came the PC and then came the internet. And it offered so many opportunities, so much fun, so many games, so many internet forums to chat with. And who could have foreseen where this was leading us in the long term? Now, this is the normal thing to do. We sit at our computer, we chat on our phones, we play a game, we watch something, we stream something on the laptop. And this epidemic of loneliness is so pervasive across the globe. Just like you said, Johnny, there was a very recent study done by Beretto and his team.

9:57And they analyzed the frequency of loneliness that was reported by over 46 ,000 people between 16 and 99 years old across almost 240 countries. And this study is best summarized with one of their closing remarks. And that is, I quote, we found the most vulnerable to loneliness were younger men living in individualistic cultures. Younger men were more lonely than middle-aged men, and middle-aged men were more lonely than senior citizens. That's the epidemic of loneliness, and it hits those of us that grew up with all that amazing technology. This is affecting all of us, right? So I'm slightly older.

10:43I'm Gen X. And when we were making plans with our friends when we were younger or we wanted to make plans, we had to check to see if our plans interrupted our television programming. Right. It's like on Thursday, it's my block of shows. I can't be bothered. I watch these every week and I'm hooked. Well, those block of shows on Thursday, right? With the internet, I don't have to wait for those shows to come up. Now I fill my schedule with all of the shows that emotionally stimulate me 24-7. And if we don't take heed of that and acknowledge that, then all of a sudden we become consumed by all of the stimulus that technology offers us.

11:36Where in the past, if I wanted to be stimulated, I would have to make plans with my friends if I wasn't getting that stimulation from television. And there was a phenomenon growing up where even if we were online or even if we were playing video games, we were inviting friends over to participate and do that with us. Yeah. You know, we had multiple controllers. We weren't streaming online in different places and in different locations from our friends. I remember crowding around the 56K modem waiting for AOL to roll with my friends to pile in a chat room. But not just to date ourselves. There's something else that we talked about with Connor that I want to bring up here that's very present for a lot of our clients.

12:18And that is this pressure on our career and this pressure to succeed in this individualistic and capitalistic culture. So many young men are forced to focus solely on their career, waiting and prolonging the dating, the hoping that buying nice things, buying a house, buying the fancy car, buying the watch will then overcome all of these issues that they're having in their dating life to make them more attractive. And unfortunately, so we're talking about a lack of socialization. We're also talking about putting most of our focus and energy around our career. And for many men, that involves exercising your analytical mind.

12:59Yeah, exactly. So your analytical mind is running on overdrive. Well, guess what? That analytical mind doesn't help with building out that personality and being more charismatic. It doesn't help with that inner critic and your confidence. And your analytical mind is not helpful when trying to make connections and connect with people on an emotional level. So we've hyper-masculinized our analytical mind and focused on developing that out for career success to the detriment of our personality, to the detriment of our confidence, and to the detriment of our connections and relationships in our life.

13:33And I want to add to that as well. We will double down on the skills that have gotten us to a certain degree in our life. So as AJ was saying, we're doing a lot of this analytical thingy because we're focusing on our career. If focusing on our career puts food on our table, a roof over our head, and clothes on our back, well, then we're going to double down on that skill that has provided so much for us. And this is where you start to run into problems because the only skill that was developed was this analytical problem solution oriented mindset that our personality traits weren't able to be developed.

14:16Our imagination wasn't being able to be developed. Our connection skills were not able to be developed like they were in the past. So this creates the gap that we are looking to close. This is the gap that our programs are designed to close. This is the gap that this show is designed to close. And we're going to show you three areas where this technology has hindered and created a gap that is keeping us from not only that connection and that warmth, but also a lot of meaning in our lives and a lot of purpose in our lives because we are finding ourselves distanced from other people and that need allows us what to feel good.

15:03At our core, we are herd animals and all herd animals need three things in order to feel good. Attention, approval, and acceptance. Attention, approval, and acceptance allows us as herd animals to know that we are safe, that we can relax. Without feeling those three things, our anxiety goes higher because we're not feeling protected. So when we think about personality, what we're talking about here is how do you go from ordinary or average? So if you've been listening to the show, you've heard us ask time and time again of our guests, what makes you extraordinary? What is your X factor? How do you stand out?

15:50Your personality is one way that you stand out that makes you extraordinary. And that personality could take many shapes or forms. It could be your creativity. It could be your music inclination. It could be your ability to use your imagination to build video games or to play Dungeons and Dragons or to master board games. but that personality has to be developed outside of your career. It has to be showcased to other people to stand out from the crowd. And what we see time and time again, a roadblock or a pitfall that our clients are facing around showcasing their personality is being in their head, overthinking everything and worried about what to say next.

16:34And oftentimes they'll join the X factor asking the exact words, AJ, what do you say in this situation? What do you say, Johnny, in this situation? Well, your personality is different than my personality. My personality is different than Johnny's personality. And if I worried about what I should say to be more like Johnny or to be more like Michael, well, I'm overthinking. And I'm not going to be present. And I'm not going to be charismatic and in the moment that attracts people's attention, that wins people over and keeps them wanting more of my personality around them. So for the analytical driven mind, I'm going to connect us together and then we're going to give the solution to this.

17:14So when you're out at social engagements, if you feel that you are in your head and the symptoms to that are you're going to be at a loss for words, having a lot of anxiety going on, your mind just blanks out. this is due to not being socialized in an area where you are using your personality to connect and draw people in now what's cool about this is now that we've identified the gap and the problem it's okay what is the solution to then being able to build out our personality and what's so awesome about this is that we've been doing this for 17 years. This is a skill that you can develop at any point in your life.

18:03It just needs a bit of attention. And for you analytically driven mindset folks, a few simple frameworks will allow you to feel good in developing this out, that give you an area, a place where you can follow a few simple rules and begin to develop this. Now, we had recently just did an episode about improv and improv is working on this very thing, being present in the moment, connecting with other people. And this is, what's fun about that is we went through this, that whole episode talking about all the skills that can be developed in through improv. And there's so many of us who feel that these are skills that we're supposed to be, have, have developed earlier in life.

18:59Well, they're going to, they're going to develop at any point that you put in the effort and the attention that it deserves. Let's be honest for a lot of us in our career, it's not a great place to work on our sense of humor. No, no one wants to walk in the doctor's office and hear your, your monologue. No one wants to come to the law office and hear you cracking jokes about the opponent in the case. So oftentimes we've neglected our sense of humor and showcasing it because our career has demanded that we be serious and that we focus on the task at hand. So are you creating opportunities in your life to build out and to strengthen that sense of humor?

19:35Are you creating opportunities in your life to share a bit more of your story? So if someone was to ask me at a cocktail party, hey, what do you do for a living, AJ? I could say, well, I host a podcast. I coach emotional intelligence. I work with the military. Or I could say, you know what? 16 years ago, I fell in love with human dynamics. I was struggling myself with some imposter syndrome and really connecting with others after I graduated from college. And I just went on this journey of self-development to figure out how to unlock my personality and be a more charismatic conversationalist. and through that journey, I started a podcast and that turned into a coaching company and now we work with clients worldwide.

20:18Which of those two answers at the cocktail party is gonna stand out, is gonna draw a crowd over, is gonna lead to that woman standing across the room taking interest, the podcast host or the storyteller who shares a journey of not only what he does, but how he fell into that line of work and what you love about your career. That's the difference in allowing your personality to pull people in, to attract people to you, to draw in women into your life, or just trading on facts and information and feeling boring and feeling stuck in your head in these environments where you should be meeting and connecting with people.

20:57And storytelling is such a creative art form. When we talk about being creative, we think about painting, making music, playing an instrument but what about telling stories and I don't mean writing a novel which is certainly an art form but also giving an answer like that where someone asks you hey AJ what do you do and instead of the facts there comes this art form that's called storytelling that's not a novel but it's 30 seconds of letting people into AJ's life through showing them the world through your eyes, bringing in a little bit of vulnerability as well, which speaks to your confidence of being able to bring this out into the world and not worrying about what people might think or say about it.

21:47We'll talk about confidence in a bit, but these are such important parts of connecting to another human being, whether that is at a social event where you don't know anyone or whether this is maybe at work in a coffee kitchen, getting a warm beverage, or it is at a date. I mean, how boring would a date become for everyone involved if we only threw facts around? I can Google that stuff. I don't need, you know, I can look that up on your LinkedIn. I want to talk to you. I want to see the world through your eyes. And when we think about charisma, it's not just what you're saying, but it's also how you're listening and what you're picking up on what others are sharing in conversation.

22:28And that ability to actively listen to a conversation, to showcase empathy, to recognize and validate emotional bids, that creates the spark. That creates the attraction that we're looking for, that we're craving on that first date, that we're craving from a romantic partner. And I know, Michael, there's a great study about just the importance of listening and empathy in our romantic relationships. Yeah, and this was done by Davis and Othout in 1987. So this is a little bit aged, but it's still very much up to date. It's called Maintenance of Satisfaction in Romantic Relationships, Empathy and Relational Competence.

23:08And they interviewed heterosexual romantic couples. And what they found was that empathy, so active listening is a core part of being empathetic, was positively associated with satisfaction in romantic relationships. So now we need to maybe talk just very briefly about what empathy is for those that are shaking their head and scratching their chin. It's like, What are they talking about? So empathy in a nutshell is your ability to understand and share the feelings of others. And that increases the connection in a relationship. And I'm going to argue that this is not only true for romantic relationships.

23:47This is just the part where the rubber really hits the road because now you're married to someone. Now you have kids with someone. So those relationships are really important. But empathy and active listening also kicks in in fostering those social relationships, the friends, the dates, the co-workers. because by being empathetic, you show that you are attuned to the other person's needs. And that is important for trust because if I'm talking with Johnny and I don't feel like he understands my needs, I don't feel he understands what I'm talking about, why I feel this way, what is the likelihood that I'm going to trust Johnny, right?

24:26Or I talk to Johnny and when I talk about a struggle or when I talk about a victory, Johnny is there to support, to high-five me on a victory and to lend an ear on the shoulder when I talk about a struggle. It's like, okay, this person gets me. I've just met him. I've just talked to him for two minutes, but this person gets me. Why? Because we're showing empathy. And again, it's not about what is it that we're going to say to remedy this. It's what are the actions that we're going to do that we'll convey that. Actions are always going to speak louder than words. And this is where a lot of analytical mindsets get you in trouble because you're looking now for the right answer for what has just been said.

25:11When if it's empathy, it is how you're conveying that empathy through your body language, through nonverbal communication. Now, these three areas, your sense of humor, your ability to actively listen, showcase empathy, and your storytelling are skills that you can build. So if you think right now, I'm boring. I don't have much personality outside of my work. I don't have much going on in my life. How do I stand out? How do I become extraordinary? Well, you work on these three areas to build out that exciting, fun personality. And I'm going to let you in on a secret. chat GPT, Google Bard, they can't do this for you.

25:52They're not going to solve this personality issue in your dating life. But you know what will? You chasing after a passion, working on these areas and creating environments for you to practice these skills, which is why we have implementation sessions in the X Factor Accelerator, working on these exact three things, your listening, your storytelling, and your ability to showcase your sense of humor. and when those three in combination come together, you become charismatic, you become memorable and that first date turns into a second date and it turns into her being excited to tell her friends at brunch about meeting you and connecting with you and having an opportunity to see you again.

26:33Now, the second factor that we're gonna talk about here, confidence, right? The first step to unlocking your X factor with dating is to grow your charisma, become someone who can showcase personality effortlessly Your second step is actually overcoming that inner critic and building confidence in yourself, not only to speak your mind, but to take action in areas that are attractive, to actually move that relationship forward from just a first date or a great conversation or some flirty text messaging to someone who is action oriented and is liberated from their inner critic to showcase themselves, to find their voice and communicate who they are with the opposite sex.

27:15So AJ, this is something really interesting that we see every time when we do our implementation workshop on vulnerability, where everyone just shares a little bit as much as they're comfortable doing. And this 90 minute workshop, when we're done, no one wants to leave because they're like, Hey, we opened up this. I want to hear more about that. I want to hear more about that. And the participants are like, but I shared something that I'm a little bit embarrassed about. I shared something that my inner critic was speaking up about, but by doing exactly that and showing that human part, everyone else is like, no, I want to hear more about it.

27:49Tell me more about that trip. I really want to hear how this played out. It's amazing to see how conversations just keep rolling and no one's asking, what's the next thing I should say? What's the next question I should ask? The moment this vulnerability enters the playing field, the conversation just goes. So the second attraction trigger that we wanted to discuss here is confidence. And confidence is something that has to be built, maintained, and strengthened as you grow older. As time moves on, it is something that you are actively working on. Confidence is something that you gain, that you just turn on and now you have it.