Calibration (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Calibration

[Erock]

Wow I am simply amazed that you can write that much. I don't think anybody has responded because nobody has had time to read it haha.

Erock

[Bud921]

Steve,

Thank you for this article. It was just what I needed. I am currently in the "newbie" stage of blogging and it has been very difficult. This article allowed me to view the newbie stage from a different perspective. I have been down on myself lately for not "exploding right out of the gate." Although I know if I keep my heart into it, the results will come, I sometimes struggle internally. Thanks again for this article. I look to implement some of your ideas into my future posts, and continue to calibrate in a timely matter.

-Bud

A Boundless World

[Hyperchiller]

Good stuff Steve.

Tyler Durden from RSD talks about calibration in the RSD Blueprint too but in a social context. It's interesting how you have applied it in a general success context.

[Fullcrum]

Wow, awesome, love the social dynamics stuff and the martial arts stuff. These are two of my BIGGEST passions (they got me into personal development) and its funny how you touched on them in some depth at the beginning of the article.

This is really interesting. I think I'll post a complete review when I finish reading it .

[Wanderer]

I thought you ^^ said Tyler Durden been the guy in fight club, and was wondering at what point he spoke about Calibration.
On a side note, I will print the article and read it later.

[Savage]

Tyler Durden is the Brad Pitt character from Fight Club. I don't remember hiim talking about calibration in the movie, but it's been a while since I've seen it.

However, in the book The Game by Neil Strauss, one of the pick-up artist characters is also named Tyler Durden. I've never had any interaction with him, and I don't own any of his products, so I don't know what he's like in real life. The Game paints him in a pretty negative light (like a manipulative social machine), but that could be because he's a competitor of Strauss', isn't he?

The only guy from the PUA community that I've personally met is Zan Perrion -- we met during the summer when he came to Vegas. He seemed like a pretty cool guy. There's a chapter about him in The Game.

One of the reasons I decided to use a social dynamics example for this article is because I have a lot of readers in the PUA community. I don't know exactly how they first got turned on to my website, but I see a lot of pingbacks from blogs and forums in that community. I even did a recent radio interview for a PUA-related show.

I'm not a pick-up artist myself, but I recognize that this is a path that leads a lot of guys into self improvement. There's a dark side to that field (read The Game to learn more about it), but it has many positive aspects as well.

[Fullcrum]

Tyler Durden basically reformed himself after that book, partly because the book put his negative aspects into the public light. His blog is here: Real Social Dynamics Blog

You'll like the most recent video.

I don't fill my RSS with garbage. There are very few blogs I read. Basically, it's your blog and all the RSD guys (Tyler and Papa made RSD). This includes Tim and Alex.

[Vanderlei]

Excellent article, I get a lot of inspiration and awareness from it.

"If you want to learn to swim, jump into the water" - Bruce Lee

[Andreas]

How do you do it Steve? Reading this article was like a direct download from your brain. I may have entered alpha-brainwave state while reading it. The words just flowed. I suspect that they flowed just as easily out of you.

The article is sublime. I will keep it in my heart.

However, I noticed what seems to be a small typo:

Such people would do much better if they stopped reading and planning and starting doing. Learning isn’t doing.

Don't you mean, "Learning is doing"?
I thought about emailing you about this privately, but I remembered that, as a faithful reader, I'm here to help point out small typos so you can hate me for it, and spread the word about how awful I am.

The article is sublime.

[honeyluv]

I'm so glad you posted this article, Steve. I never thought about calibration before, and the way you really delved into explaining the dynamics of it in detail was incredibly eye-opening. Especially the part about negative feedback. I've been so unconsciously worried about it (in everything from social networking, to writing, to my business), that I never realized how I can benefit from it as a newbie. It's so counter-intuitive at first glance, but now I understand that I should welcome the experience.

Thank you for the wonderful insights!

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Andreas

However, I noticed what seems to be a small typo:

Thanks. I edited that part to fix it. That phrase was redundant anyway, so I chopped it and merged a couple paragraphs.

I actually wrote more than 10,000 words of original content today (this evening I wrote some additional material for another source). The recent juice feast seems to have made writing easier than ever. Before the juice feast, I might have been able to write that much on a good day, but it would have taken significantly more time, and I'd have felt hugely fatigued afterwards. Instead I still feel totally alert and happy.

[Wulfen]

Awesome article! Congrats, Steve!

I reached the the path of Personal Development from the Pickup scene. I've been in the seduction community for more than 4 years, posting under "Wulfen" in the english community and "Lobo Feroz" in the spanish community, where I'm fairly known. It's great that Steve has delved into the dark side. K3wl, now you're one of us too! Let me share some ideas from our side.

Calibration is a skill that every man that wants to be good with women must possess. Why? Because if you stare in the comfort zone (i.e. you stand in the corner of a bar with a beer in your hand) nothing happens, because of the fact that in seduction the man is the initiator. OTOH, if you are overtly agressive, desperate, horny or plain obnoxious, girls will run away from you (you're freaking them out). You need a delicate mixture of social savoir-faire and daring, thus calibration is a must.

Calibration "in the field" is like swinging a pendulum: you need to miscalibrate to each side before you can find the neat middle point. Also, this is why making mistakes with women is good for you. The one alone at the corner is the one who won't miscalibrate, but also the one who won't learn. There are no failures, just learning experiences.

On Tyler: he's a cool cool guy. Haven't met him personally, but we've known each other from teh intarwebs way before "The Game" was written, and a couple friends of mine have met him IRL and have a great opinion of him. The Tyler in the book is not an accurate representation of the man, but an archetypical portrait of the guy that gets into the community for the wrong reasons and tries to pick up girls with a fake personality, tricks and routines, what we call a "Social Robot". Tyler is nothing like that, you only need to see him in any RSD video to see that he's a very outgoing, laid back dude. Remember also that the book "The Game" is a novelization, and as such is not a very accurate depiction of reality.

A quick note on the article: I think that this sentence to approach girls can be improved a little. When you say “Would you might if I practice on you just for fun for a couple minutes?" - in my experience, this is not optimal. The tricky issue here is "practice on you": girls don't want to be considered a target for practice, or in a general sense, they don't like to feel that they're being used. A nice variation is "Hey girls, I'm rather shy, can you tell me what can I say to talk to women / make friends with women?". This way you're asking them with helping you with women in general. Anyhow, any guy that can approach beautiful girls and say with a straight face "I'm shy", which is, obviously, totally false, it's sooo in

“Okay what do you think of this? [Switch to deep voice] Hey, baby. What’s your sign?” This one's cool. I'm stealing it.

Ok, another thing. There are plenty of people from the seduction community that also enter the personal development world. We start in a path of personal improvement to get girls, and now that we're at it, we go on and tackle a general approach to self-growth. In fact Herbal, another guy from "The Game", is a big fan of Steve. I remember dicussing with him in the ASF forums how to implement polyphasic sleep when going out to the clubs all nite long (btw, his solution: take the 20'' nap in the car, with earplugs).

I haven't seen many people going the other way around, that is, people from the personal development world going into the pickup scene. I tought it might be because they might see the art of seduction something banal, or the fact that it requires a bigger leap out of your comfort zone than, say, learning to implement the GTD organizing system. That's why is awesome to see Steve actually being interested in and talking about this stuff. I think it's a skillset that, apart from enabling you to have a fulfilling emotional and sexual life, can bring in other awesome rewards, in terms of sociability, self-confidence and general positive vision on life.

Rock hard, ride free,

Wulfen (Lobo Feroz)

P.S.: Steve, I recall that at some point you were allowing other websites to translate up to 5 articles from your blog, is that still valid? This article is a diamond that I would love to show to the spanish community.

[supertom]

I understand purpose a bit better now after reading this, it might take you 100 responces to find your purpsoe but after your well calibrated to it, your intune with it as it evolves.

Very inspiring article, not like the ones that put you down lols

[Matiasfx]

Reading and learning are awesome, but make sure you’re using these as supplements for in-field experience, not substitutes. If you’re reading about any skill you want to develop, but you aren’t regularly performing in the field yet, you’re just procrastinating. Deep down you already knew that, didn’t you? I’m here to remind you of this, so you can hate me for it and help spread the word about how awful I am.

yes, i know, i know!! Thanks for the reminder Steve, once again great timing for me.

The whole post its awesome!!

Have a good weekend.

mat

[Scorpio]

Steve,

You've used the term Info Crack a few times referring to the content on other self-help blogs. I have vague idea, but what do you mean by that?

A good site for social calibration advice:

How to have more social success

It's got a very basic slant to it, but I mention it because some people need more advice than just being told to "Talk to lots of people and you'll figure everything out."

[Plato]

Calibration is one of the most fascinating processes I've ever come across.

Your advice for dealing with newbie fear is spot on from my experience (I've gone through a lot of it!). In dating I was able to build a group of friends who were extremely committed to the same goals as me and we were able to use each other as a support system to barrel through it. Except for Sam who is now an instructor... he was already long past the newbie fear stage when I met him. Hopefully in a year or two I will be at the level he is now.

Same thing when I played golf... There were 4 of us who started at the same time, all aged 10-12. We played together every free day we had and a few years later we were all playing for the county. Jason is a professional now. There's no way we'd have done what we did without each other as a reason to keep turning up.

Something I've had more trouble cracking is when I get beyond the most basic competence and begin to be aware of the endless factors affecting each decision. It's like you have to go through the monstrous process of trying out different perspectives and generalised rules because there's no way you can process everything consciously. This can be SO frustrating because progress isn't visibly noticeable any more and switching perspectives is as confusing as the information itself at times. The real risk here is boredom to the point of not seeing the point in it any more.

I'm going through this in poker at the moment. Success is not on autopilot yet. I'm still trying to calibrate the skill of recognising the type of player I'm up against and adapting it. Just gotta remember to barrel on... it will be worth it.

Thanks for the kick.

[Claradonna]

Pick up artists are darkworkers. They are focused on the external, and the award, rather than on the true process of connection.

[Savage]

I use the term info-crack to refer to posting content merely for the sake of posting content. It's not specific to the self-help field -- or even to blogging.

From a blogger's perspective, info-crack is what you put out when you have nothing special to say, but you feel you have to post something anyway, if only to appease your RSS subscribers and keep them hooked. So you pop out a shallow top-10 post or something along those lines. But the content is totally uninspired, and you know it. You're posting for the sake of posting, not because you have something meaningful to share.

From a reader's perspective, you digest info-crack when you subscribe to dozens of RSS feeds, and you can't even remember what most of them posted the previous week, let alone yesterday. Digesting such content may give you a momentary high, but it provides no long-term benefit. Reading it is a waste of your time.

I've written some info-crack myself from time to time, but I have a strong aversion to doing so. I'd rather go more than a week w/o posting anything and wait until I have an inspired idea to share. Not everyone will share my enthusiasm for every idea of course, but at least I'll know that I care about what I'm sharing and that I'm not just posting for the sake of posting.

[Plato]

Originally Posted by Claradonna

Pick up artists are darkworkers. They are focused on the external, and the award, rather than on the true process of connection.

I was thinking about this yesterday. I'm not sure whether it is true. In my case it was and is, but it's perfectly possible to use PUA material like the mystery method with love energy. In fact that's where I went wrong... I was making good progress with it using fear energy, then I started reading THIS VERY WEBSITE and came across the notion that I could use love energy. I tried it as an experiment and it depolarized me, which sucked. I'm only just beginning to understand what happened and re-polarize, after flopping around in I-don't-know land for a year. It's been a fascinating experience and one I don't regret though. Knowing what love energy feels like has helped me understand non-darkworkers a lot better, if nothing else. Before that I could only see eye to eye with other darkworkers. Everyone else was a mystery.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Plato

Something I've had more trouble cracking is when I get beyond the most basic competence and begin to be aware of the endless factors affecting each decision. It's like you have to go through the monstrous process of trying out different perspectives and generalised rules because there's no way you can process everything consciously. This can be SO frustrating because progress isn't visibly noticeable any more and switching perspectives is as confusing as the information itself at times. The real risk here is boredom to the point of not seeing the point in it any more.

I'm going through this in poker at the moment. Success is not on autopilot yet. I'm still trying to calibrate the skill of recognising the type of player I'm up against and adapting it. Just gotta remember to barrel on... it will be worth it.

I can totally relate. I had to go through this phase while learning about the raw food diet. I was exposed to an explosion of ideas that seemed like it would take years to sort out.

My advice is to prioritize what's most important, and work on making the grosser adjustments first. Then hack away at the finer adjustments over a period of years.

For example, going 100% raw and making it stick was the most important change. Getting the right balance of fruit, fat, and greens was more important than learning about the benefits of goji berries.

In poker you can prioritize your learning by what you expect will generate the greatest increase in your avg winnings. Some poker skills are very subtle and don't come up very often, but you can get hooked into investing a lot of time in them for little payoff.

When I first learned LLHE, the most important skills for me to learn were knowing which hands to play in each position, playing tight-aggressive, and being able to figure out when I was very likely beaten after the flop. Just working on those basics was enough to make me a winning player. I never pursued poker beyond the low limits though. The tourist players that Vegas attracts aren't much of a challenge to beat, but it was fun to at least get the basics down and be able to have the hobby pay for itself.

An old friend of mine became a successful poker pro. He hates the lifestyle, but he's making too much money at it to be able to easily quit. A lot of people who get good at poker seem to feel trapped by it. So be careful that this is a path you really want to pursue.

[Kryalis]

Excellent article as always, kind of feels like Do it Now! 2.0. But your refreshing viewpoint has inspired me to take up my new profession in bomb disposal blogging. No point in reading about it when I could be out doing right?

... what could possibly go wrong? Live Twitter thread below

Now was it the red or blue wire? 02:00 remaining (about 3 minutes ago)
Come on Hollywood don't fail me now! (about 2 minutes ago)
Have to wait until it says 00:01 right? (about 1 minute ago)

[Plato]

I like that advice. It sounds obvious but I know in practice I get distracted by stupid stuff. Newbie PUA's tend to obsess about "openers" I notice (I did it too), rather than the important things like getting in the habit of talking to lots of people, vocal tonality (the biggest personality factor by far imo) and moving the interaction the way you want it to go.

Sometimes I find the trickiest thing is recognizing when you've done something well but got unlucky, and when you've done something badly but got lucky. It can sidetrack you so it's important to get empricial evidence of some kind.

e.g. at poker I've started using pokertracker which records every stat imaginable and I can assess areas to improve in. In PUA I should probably begin recording what gets me the best repsonse rates by recording them. In golf I eventually learned that to figure out the best strategies for playing holes (what club to use etc) I had to go out and actually get statistics. This was huge. It revealed where I was losing sometimes 0.25 a hole by using a sub-optimal strategy.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

An old friend of mine became a successful poker pro. He hates the lifestyle, but he's making too much money at it to be able to easily quit. A lot of people who get good at poker seem to feel trapped by it. So be careful that this is a path you really want to pursue.

Mmm yes, I've become aware of this too so I don't allow myself to play more than 2 hours a day. Any more and my life tends to fall apart at a disturbingly fast rate. Given my financial situation winning a five figure sum over the space of a year can free me a lot to travel and things like that so it's a real benefit. As a career definately not. Given my passion and knowledge I see myself owning golf courses and golf training facilities.

[andreelerowes]

“Okay what do you think of this? [Switch to deep voice] Hey, baby. What’s your sign?” This one's cool. I'm stealing it.

I think the only proper answer to what's your sign is "stop." maybe "no parking." or you can point behind the guy and say "Watch out for falling rock!" and take off...

[Peaceflmeadow]

Great article Steve, and even better, absolute perfect timing.

I have an event this weekend, for which I am a newbie at, and all day I have been fighting excuses and reasons why I shouldn't proceed. I can feel fear, I knew I was lacking courage, but I couldn't pinpoint what exactly was driving this to get myself motivated correctly. Was it the fear of failure, of looking like a 'newbie', or the possibility of injury since it is an active sport, or what. I thoroughly enjoyed myself when I pushed through twice now....but for some reason there is a large barrier that keeps holding me back.

Your article made me realize how much its the newbie fear, the fear of looking foolish or inexperienced.....and how I DO totally need to embrace that, enjoy something that I have fun at, and move past this. My perspective immediately shifted, and I am now focused on getting past the newbie stage, and instead of tentavily tackling this, going in headfirst and 100% into the barrier, and blowing past it.

So off I go again tomorrow, time to relish the chance to be a newbie and make mistakes so I can grow and calibrate to this new skill.

Thanks again for the bit of well timed clarity.

Erin
Castle Rock, CO

[Andrew Brunelle]

Wow, Steve. You've given all of us who were anxiously awaiting your next non-juice feast post a mouthful to digest. I'm glad you've calibrated yourself back to talking about more mainstream ideas, rather than talking about what kind of juice you made. This has to be one of your most in-depth articles. I liked it almost as much as How to Get from a 7 to a 10. Great stuff.

I can see your progression looking back to your earlier 2004 posts that you've become a much better blogger and are continuing to do so. Why else would people keep coming back to read 8000 words? Anyway, keep up the good work.

[Pequod]

If I were trying to develop this particular skill, here’s what I’d do. I’d go up to women and tell them the plain and simple truth. I’ve never actually done this, so take my advice with a grain of salt because this isn’t a calibration I’ve bothered to develop, but I’ll bet you it would work well at initiating fun conversations.

I’d walk up to a group of women with a big smile on my face. I’d get their attention and say to them, “Hey guys, I’m currently learning how to meet women at night clubs, but I’m a total newbie at this. Would you mind if I practice on you just for fun for a couple minutes? And would you give me some honest feedback afterwards?”

Steve, I have done this!! Several years ago, I wanted to get better with women and took a workshop. In a nightclub I walked up to a group of girls sitting outside, sat down with them, told them I was taking a workshop on dating women, and asked if they would give me feedback. They seemend amused, but the alpha girl was somehow pissy (maybe because I bumped in right next to her), and started mocking me.

Another one was a test to really push through my shyness. I decided to behave totally insane in public just to find out how people would respond: In a suit and in front of a full terrace I started to hop while making a lot of noise imitating the sound of a rooster. After a few minutes or so I sank on the ground and prayed loudly to the worms in the sky. Guess what the response was? .... Nothing!!! People are so absorbed in their own worlds that they don't notice.

[Pequod]

In addition to my previous post: did these stunts help me? (I did many more like these)

Surprisingly, not really. In those days I was so shy that I couldn't have a conversation with a guy, lest with an attractive girl. It was just a short bust of tremendous willpower, but without any sustained effects. The gain was mostly in learning that nobody is watching me, and a training in courage. But it also left me depleted in energy, and I needed a lot of time recovering.

What did help in the end was sustained low-intensity effort (I joined Toastmasters, started to do improv, became a leader in the students-society, started traveling to other countries on my own, studied NLP, did psychotherapy, venturing in PD). Really a LOT of effort was needed to break out shyness and it cost me several years of hard work and pushing myself time after time.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Pequod

In addition to my previous post: did these stunts help me? (I did many more like these)

Surprisingly, not really. In those days I was so shy that I couldn't have a conversation with a guy, lest with an attractive girl. It was just a short bust of tremendous willpower, but without any sustained effects. The gain was mostly in learning that nobody is watching me, and a training in courage. But it also left me depleted in energy, and I needed a lot of time recovering.

What did help in the end was sustained low-intensity effort (I joined Toastmasters, started to do improv, became a leader in the students-society, started traveling to other countries on my own, studied NLP, did psychotherapy, venturing in PD). Really a LOT of effort was needed to break out shyness and it cost me several years of hard work and pushing myself time after time.

I've seen similar patterns in my own life. The short burst of willpower gives you a peak experience, but it takes time to raise your default to that level. Although the peak experience isn't sustainable right away, the benefit is that it helps you clarify where you want to go.

My first 30-day trial of the raw food diet was around 6 years ago. It was a peak experience to be sure (amazing happiness and mental clarity), but it took too much discipline to maintain it back then. However, that experience gave me a clear idea of a new level I eventually wanted to reach. Then the challenge was to figure out how to raise my default to that level. It took several years to lock in that new level and make it realistic and sustainable, but it sure was worth the effort.

[Pequod]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I've seen similar patterns in my own life. The short burst of willpower gives you a peak experience, but it takes time to raise your default to that level. Although the peak experience isn't sustainable right away, the benefit is that it helps you clarify where you want to go.

My first 30-day trial of the raw food diet was around 6 years ago. It was a peak experience to be sure (amazing happiness and mental clarity), but it took too much discipline to maintain it back then. However, that experience gave me a clear idea of a new level I eventually wanted to reach. Then the challenge was to figure out how to raise my default to that level. It took several years to lock in that new level and make it realistic and sustainable, but it sure was worth the effort.

I recognize this pattern too. I was so shy that I was scared to death just to answer the telephone and at the same time I had this vison of me as a people-person, charming, kind and socially adept.

There is another factor though: one has to start small. All my approaches of women led me nowhere, and it is very demotivating to approach 20-30 women on a night and have maybe 1 decent conversation. I would go home totally messed up, burnt up, with headaches, literally shaking and having a fever from the intens fear that I pushed myself through time after time. It was only hard work and no fun at all. After a while I would rather have my teeth pulled than talk to a girl.

What I needed was self-confidence through validation from my own life, being more grounded, know who I am and what I want in a relationship and social skills trained in more safe environment like Toastmasters and clubs. Also I needed to make sure it was fun to train my social skills.