Happiness

A few weeks ago, I went out with one of Bojangles’ students from a bootcamp and he asked me “what’s the one bit of advice you would give to improve my confidence?”

I felt like I’d been put on the back foot because I couldn’t answer his question as well as I thought I should’ve been able to. There’s a few things I told him that felt more like generic answers to the question such as buying new clothes and going to the gym more.

Ever since then, I’ve been thinking to myself where confidence comes from, and I believe it comes from happiness.

You can’t teach someone happiness. You can’t teach them how to smile, how to be positive and how to truly be confident. That has to come from within themselves.

If you walk around London during a Saturday afternoon with a keen eye, you’ll spot a few of these PUA types with a false sense of confidence and an almost forced amount of positivity and fake happiness in order for them to seem like an upbeat guy. The only problem is that girls with real value and quality can spot it a mile off when a guy isn’t happy or confident in himself.

That’s why I see a lot of wannabe PUAs repeating the same lines on really hot girls and getting nowhere fast, but convincing themselves that they’re doing a good job because those lines will then work on a girl of a lot lower quality. They’re not moving forwards because they’ll never learn how to overcome this obstacle and it’ll hold them back. They don’t have access to the best. If you’re like me, I’m not happy when something holds me back.

The thing about happiness is that it’s infectious. If you’re in the presence of someone who is truly happy, they have an aura about them that sucks you in. You’ll be interested in why they’re so happy or what’s going on in their life, you’ll want to be associated with that person because he or she is so open to everyone. With that genuine happiness breeds a whole new level of confidence and lot more interest from anyone nearby. Have you ever been laughing in a public place and have people look at you to try find out what’s so funny? Or you may have been asked why you’re laughing? You yourself may be on the questioning end, asking what someone’s laughing at because you want in on it.

In acting, people from the outside world always assume that the hardest part of the job is to convince someone that you’re upset and can make tears come out of your eyes. It’s not. The hardest job is convincing someone that you’re happy.

It all comes down to your eyes. Girls are switched on to this and it’s just something you can’t fake. You can go up to a girl and tell her “you are fucking gorgeous” with a smile on your face (as I’ve seen done), but the tell-tale sign is in your eyes. It’s easy to fake a smile, but it’s impossible to fake genuine happiness and confidence in your eyes and demeanour.

Believe me, I know. I’ve spent enough time doing door to door sales in the freezing cold at 8pm at night with no sales and money trying to convince customers that I’m loving life and am positive. It just doesn’t work unless, as I said, you hit on a lower quality girl.

Two very good friends of mine are in a complete state of happiness and I’ve never seen them look more confident. I recently met up with one of them, his name is Will. Well, it’s not, but for the sake of this post, it is. It’s not far off anyway.

I used to live with Will in Dubai in 2009. We both worked the same job, it was essentially cold calling and there was no basic salary. We relied on chumps punching above their weight to sell financial packages to savvy investors and we weren’t earning much money at all. Some days, we couldn’t afford to eat.

Will’s 4 years older than me, and his face was etched in pain, his eyes were dull and he was negative all the time when we lived together. I left Dubai later that year but I recently caught up with him for the first time since.

There was a complete reversal from the guy I used to know. He’s earning over £200k a year now, he’s married to his long term girlfriend and he’s just become a father. He’s been a playa on the side for many years but now he can’t even bring himself to cheat on her. He’s just so happy and when we were walking around, it was like he was walking on air and he was glowing. You know in Disney’s Hercules when Herc goes all golden? He was like that.

Little nuisances or obstacles didn’t annoy him, he just laughed them off. There really was an aura about him and people would openly speak first to him and ask him questions about his life. We went to Boots (it’s a pharmacy/shop for you Yanks) because he wanted a particular brand of hair gel that he couldn’t get in Dubai, and as we got to the checkout the girl started asking him if he’s a body builder, where he’s from and all that. It felt good to be around him because he was on another level.

When you’re truly happy and confident, there is a certain sparkle and sharpness about your eyes. This is what people pick up on and your face is physically “brighter”. It’s just something you can’t fake. Like when a girl’s eyes light up and sparkle when she’s interested in you, your eyes will be completely different when your state of mind is a lot better.

I’m an upbeat guy. It’s in my nature, I can’t teach it and I can’t explain it. It’s just who I am. Sure, I’ve written about some bad things going on in my life and I complain about a lot of things because I’m not where I want to be right now. I have the foresight to discount the present because of where I’m going in the future. That’s what keeps me going and makes me brush off little things that, in the true scheme of things, don’t really matter.

It’s why I’m successful with a lot of girls I meet. It’s why I don’t have to rely on PUA lines and use my natural charm and charisma to do the work for me. I’m not bragging, I just want to put things in perspective. A lot of guys don’t have that natural positivity. I can’t teach it, you’ll have to achieve that state yourself.

So, how do you achieve happiness?

Well, again, that’s an answer I can’t give. Everybody’s situations are different but there will come a time, if you work hard enough at the things that matter to you, where you’ll find an inner peace and get to a level where my friend Will is at.

I’ve been in London just over 3 years and the year before I was in Dubai. I can’t remember the last time I was genuinely, truly happy except for a week I spent in Croatia. I felt more peaceful than I had in a very long time and that’s the feeling I’m trying to emulate again.

When your life is in order, you’ll just know. I can’t look at guys chasing girls non-stop and believe they’re truly happy. You’ll be at a higher level than you may have previously been, but I bet the guys that do it go home and wonder when their next shag is coming from. Or wishing that they had someone alongside them when they’re alone at home.

There’s a special happiness reserved for people that make a genuine connection with a girl, and there’s a special happiness reserved for people that work hard to be in a position that they truly want to be in. You may like your job, but do you really like working?

Sure, some guys are “happy” chasing women. It’s what they want to do with their life as I do too, but there is a lot of other things in your life that need to be figured out or put in place for your eyes to sparkle when you walk around.

If you wouldn’t trade your position for anything else in the world, you’re there.

TAKE A DAYGAME BOOTCAMP WITH THE 3 BROMIGOS