Life With Soul

This is what my workload currently looks like

I’m changing the way I blog and keep people updated via my Jeremy Soul facebook account (and at some point in the next few months, I’ll probably get into twitter properly too). I’ve become a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk, who advocates being really passionate about your business and what you do, and expressing that fully and openly to people.

He makes a lot of good points (and I even pitched to him to be a business mentor for Project Rockstar – no dice this year, but as always, who knows what the future brings). One thing I’ve think I’ve gotten partially from him, but also kinda realised myself, is that good dating and good relationships – whether they’re with family, friends, lovers, partners, colleagues or even all you guys as readers, fans, followers and clients – require honest communication.

Writing this blog, articles, doing podcasts, interviews etc. is partly about marketing. I am trying to spread the message about what I can do and hopefully change the course of my life as well as anyone else who’s willing to listen and “join the conversation”.

But that doesn’t mean all that marketing can’t be honest and show a truly real side of me. I feel the same about seduction and dating as I do about marketing: honesty and integrity pays out in the long run. I’ve met many, many successful people in all fields of life, from dating experts to businessmen to celebrities, in the last few years. From my experiences, I’ve learned two things:

1. Having integrity can benefit your life hugely in the long run.

2. Running my business or my dating life without integrity, even if it were to bring me “success”, would not make me happy. I would hate the process.

Screwing other people over, lying, cheating and manipulating others to get a few short-term results? No, thank you.

I feel very strongly about this issue. Years ago, I felt so strongly about this that I went against the grain of almost the entire seduction industry (and in particular, a few popular seduction gurus of that time) by asserting that being direct and honest when you went to talk to women could work; in fact, that it could be better, and even more powerful than the artificial lines, pretexts and ploys that many men have historically used to meet women.

People challenged me and no one believed in the power of being direct or in the power of daytime dating. Now, I get recognised in clubs and streets all over the world by Jeremy Soul followers who cottoned on to what I was doing (and I am still a sucker for attention and praise – so do feel free to introduce yourself if you see me somewhere!) and the current in the seduction industry (and particularly within Love Systems) has shifted towards being more direct and honest. Now people believe what I believed and acted on five years ago: being a gentleman is one of the most powerful ways to enrich your love life.

If it’s true with love and sex, I believe it to be true with business as well. If you treat people well, you build potentially synergistic relationships that will continue to offer value to you in the future. If you treat people badly (or if you “act like a d*ck”), then you may get a short-term gain, but you screw yourself over in the long run.

I don’t want to get all sciencey on everyone (maybe not all of my readers are as into biology and psychology as much as I am), but this is basically the evolutionary basis for altruism (which is a fancy word for “being nice to other people”). Anyone wanting to find out more about this, check out the research done on the Prisoner’s Dilemma (wikipedia it!).

Without going into tons of detail right now (and perhaps I will in a later blog post – when it’s not 1am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning), this year so far for me has been a huge series of sucker punches and curveballs. A lot of stuff I didn’t expect to happen, happened, not least of which being my father’s health taking a sudden turn for the worse.

When that happened, and I finally found time to process the learnings over my last 3-month world tour (Europe, USA and Australia) running Daytime Dating workshops, the power of relationships and the importance of family dawned on me. The relationships we have with our parents are literally the first relationships we ever develop. Beyond a genetic link and genetic self-interest, there’s also a shared history we have with them that is very difficult for any other relationship to match.

Which brings me to another point: at the end of the day, isn’t it all about creating that history? About building memories and experiences? And ultimately, don’t those memories and experiences almost always involve other people in some way?

Look, don’t get me wrong. Money is important, status is cool, adrenaline is fun, but ultimately, whatever you’re doing, you need other people to help you do it, and whatever you end up enjoying, you want to enjoy it with other people.

I found some great notes on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People recently that said this:

We all start out life as babies completely dependent on our parents or other person to take care of us. This is a state of weakness and powerlessness.

As we grow up we work to become independent, moving out of our parent’s home, earning money for ourselves, etc. A person at this level is able to do things for himself and does not need anyone else to survive.

The greatest human achievements come from people working at the third level, interdependence. This is when people work together to achieve a common goal, and is the level of maturity of many people in a mature society or organization. This is how mankind has achieved things together that no single person could do alone. Interdependence is the state of human development of greatest maturity and power.

That had a huge impact on me. When I read that, it tallied with everything I’d learned myself in the last world tour and everything I was discovering with my family.

And this all brings me to my final point: life is too short and good relationships are too scarce to make hiding your feelings a worthwhile endeavour. Whether it’s that girl in the coffee shop (and if you’re reading this, you know who you are), that wonderful girlfriend you have back home who hasn’t seen you in months (you know how much I miss you), your best friends, your family, your son, your brother or whatever, let them know you appreciate them.

Whether it’s with a compliment that takes them by surprise, an act of kindness, support when they need it, or even just a mind-blowingly good orgasm (certainly one of my preferred ways to thank the wonderful women in my life), let them know. One day your life may take an unexpected turn and you will be glad you did.

Oh, and one last thing: realise that with the good will come the bad. Bad relationships will always happen – bad friends, bad lovers, bad colleagues and even bad family members. There will be naysayers, criticisers and those who move against you.

In the last few years, I’ve been called all kinds of things and judged by all kinds of people for who I am and what I do (one day I might post the hilarious religious hate mail I got). If you’re going to make ripples in the world, expect to irk a few people. If you do that, you know you’re making an impact and doing something right.

Learn from all of it, protect your downside, and filter all your relationships with all that you learn so you get more of the good and less of the bad.

Regards,

Jeremy Soul