Are you afraid of the unknown?

Hey man,

Not knowing what will happen is scary, you’ve been there before. Something happens and instead of surrendering to the experience, you instead reject yourself.

I get it, but just around the corner is the version of you who accepts himself for who he is, does not fear to approach and is attractive to women.

Let’s go on a journey of discovering him.

A week ago, I adventured into the unknown.

I decided that I would move to Barcelona. Despite traveling half the world, I felt uncomfortable committing to move there for at least 6 months.

A part of me wanted to stay home with my parents. The way they took care of me, the free stuff and especially how good our relationship has become lately due to the inner work I’ve done…

But I also knew, that despite how comfortable it would have been - it was not the solution.

So, here we are, at the airport in the early morning.

I kiss my mother goodbye and go into the airport.

It’s 5am in this little city, so the airport is pretty quiet. Just a few people slowly making their way towards the security line.

I go to check-in when the machine tells me I can only check-in 24 hours before departure.

That’s weird, I think, because my plane leaves in 1 hour.

I check my ticket

Oh man

I bought a ticket for 5th of March, not 5th of February!

Ok, I think, this can be solved. I walk over to the service desk and tell the woman behind the counter what is happening.

She says “Ah, I cannot help you, but you can try to call the airline customer service”

A glimpse of hope in my eyes

I do, but they don’t open before 9am.

Glimpse disappears

Ah man, but ok, this can be solved.

I go online and look to buy a new ticket

500 euros

Man

Now I’m feeling frustrated because I already had a ticket before, and now I have to buy a new one for 3 times the price.

Lately I’ve noticed that a part of me is very greedy and it’s holding my full potential back, so I recognize this is one of those moments

Fuck it, lets just do it

I go to buy it, but the web page tells me that I cannot buy a new ticket when there is less than 1 hour until departure.

Fear kicks in

I’ve messed up

I thank the woman for her help and start walking to find myself a seat

My first instinct is to call my mother, but something in me tells me that I wanna handle this myself.

That’s when the self-critic comes in

You know the voice right, the one who tells you that you’re not good enough and that you should not have done what you did and so on..

I’m just about to hear the voice that says “You’ve messed up”

when I practice what I teach, using the AAUE-framework and like a miracle, I cut the sentence in half and give myself some compassion.

I tell myself

“It’s okay man, it can happen to anyone.

“Yeah, don’t worry, we got this”

Have you ever heard that a second miracle is more likely to happen after the first one?

Well, as Life would have it, two pilots are walking in my direction

The airport is still pretty empty, so I assume they are flying with the plane I was about to.

“Hey guys, you flying to Amsterdam?”

“Yeah” they say and smile

“Cool, oh and btw nice teeth” one of guys smiling had beautiful teeth, I know, random, but I notice peoples teeth quickly)

He says thank you, and asks me where I’m going

I tell them what happened

“You know what, come with us, and we’ll see what we can do”

Wow, 

We walk towards the counter

I follow them and suddenly my expectations rise

you know what I mean right?

It’s like when you’re on a date, and it seems like it’s going somewhere so you get your hopes up, and that’s also often when you start getting too attached to the outcome and mess it up.

He calls one guy…nothing

Another guy…nothing again

It’s like I was getting my hopes up and now she’s about to hit me with the “It was nice meeting you”

Finally, he calls a third person and the atmosphere shift

“Hey, we can get you a new ticket, but you have to buy it for almost 500 euros. Is that okay?”

I’m blessed with a new opportunity!

I say yes and give him my debit card.

Boom, we have a ticket!

As we’re standing there, the cabin crew comes, two lovely ladies, and they all tell me this was fun and we’re seeing each other on the plane.

I’m left alone with the check-in desk now, and it’s around 30 minutes til departure.

I try to check-in my luggage, but man…it doesn’t work.

The guy behind the counter calls someone and the person tells him that it doesn’t work.

Wtf

He tries to tell him that the cabin crew had said I’m going on the plane, and after a bit of back and forth we manage to send my luggage

Man! Let’s go on the plane

I get on the plane and before I find my seat, I talk with the flight attendee

Gorgeous woman and as she stands next to the cockpit

She snaps a photo of me and the pilots

I find my new seat, and next to me is this girl and man

She is cute…

…and we know how it’s to meet a cute girl.

Expectations.

Now I have to act in a certain way, be attractive, say funny stuff and make her like me.

And I do feel this now as well, but for some reason I decide that no, I just want to enjoy myself with her instead of overthinking how to seduce her.

Which turned out to be the right move.

For the next 90 minutes we have this awesome conversation about everything and nothing

going so deep into our personality, insecurities and just enjoy each others time

so much so that the plane ride feels like a dream.

In the end, I figure out she’s in a relationship so I’m happy I chose to enjoy the interaction instead of trying to impress her.

This was awesome, but next time I’m double-checking my ticket before buying!

Here are the 3 ways I made it work, and how you can use it for you dating life.

1. Boost your Inner dialogue

The way you speak with yourself on the inside is the way you will express yourself on the outside. If you’re constantly self-criticizing and pushing yourself down then it’s no wonder that your confidence is low.

If you want your confidence to be high so that attracting women is something you do without thinking, then you need to use your thinking to create such a relationship with yourself where you are mostly positive and in a good mood.

It’s not something that happened overnight for me, but I’ve created a framework that you can use to speed up this process.

It’s called the AAUE framework, and here is the link:

2. Outcome Independence

It sucks when you almost get a date or take her home and then it doesn’t. Likely what happened is that you got over-excited and started to change your behavior.

This change in behavior went from a place of enjoying the interaction to where it became important for you to get her home. This causes you to limit yourself by acting in a way you think she will like and you go from playing to win to playing not to lose.

It’s a process for me too, and what I recommend is to remind yourself of your intention, and keep that the most important part of the interaction. Your intention is that which you choose to focus on, which you are actually able to control.

For example, your intention could be to follow your excitement, saying and doing what you find most exciting in the moment. This keeps you in the moment and takes the pressure off you.

3. Authentic Conversation 

So often we complicate things. Trying to be perfect is a common factor for someone with the Escapism Syndrome.

”I’m not good enough”
”I don’t know what to say”
”I’ll be rejected”

These are all ideas that stem from the fear of vulnerability, and because we’ve suffered from Escapism Syndrome for so long, we decide believe it.

Instead, do the authentic conversation.

Say exactly what you think and mean without trying to impress her or make it perfect.

Think she is hot? Say it
Her legs turn you on? Let her know
You feel nervous? That’s fine, but own it and express it in a way where you don’t expect her to fix it for you.

The times I’ve had the best approaches and interactions has been when I’ve just said exactly what was on my mind. It’s scarier, but way more exciting for both you and the girl!

And there you go

These 3 steps are confronting your biggest fear, which is the fear of the unknown.

This will guide your journey of self-discovery much more than meeting girls you are not into on dating apps and using pick-up lines for cold-approaching.

Which is why you are here with me reading this, and not somewhere else memorizing lines or buying a booster pack for your Tinder Platinum.

It’s because you, like me, are interested in the most exciting adventure of them all.

The adventure of You.

Because of that, I’d like to invite you to join me — here is my offer.

I currently have capacity to take on 3 more guys.

I’ll see you,

Edin