Wasn’t unexpected this news you laid on me
Yet I grieve for the dreams in the casket
It’s not the pain that stabs once and leaves
This is the one that ever stays on instead

Never believed I could not get my wish
Never believed it was my wish alone
Never thought there could be a heart
That outstrengthed my own dark stone

I hear in your voice the same longing
That outruns my race to escape you
That which you conceal for belonging
Your secret in your heartbeat comes through

The season for writing bad poetry has returned
An ancient ocean has today been churned
A fusion once occurred, two souls together burned
Fate rips them apart and no one seems concerned

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You should know that the reason I started this blog was to find a few good men. A few good friends. Men of extraordinary ambition. Men with innate talent.

I have a few good friends. Three, to be precise. I have always had three friends. Over the years, when I lost touch with one friend, someone else took their place. All this time, I have only had two female friends. Rest have all been men.

I like people. I like talking to people. I like educating people, and sometimes even learning from them. Although the number of people who I think are worthy enough of teaching me something is very small.

Most people lead ordinary lives. That much is obvious.

But not all do. Some people lead extraordinary lives. People who have principles that resemble mine. Growth is encouraged in body, mind, skill and spirit. Enrichment of the soul and enlightenment are sought on a daily basis. The needs of the body and mind are not neglected, frowned upon, or considered to be something to be ashamed of.

I am very picky in who my friends are going to be. I may be friendly (on my terms) with a lot of people. But I don’t consider anyone to be a friend easily.

A woman who’s loved me dearly remained frustrated for a long time that I didn’t bestow upon her the status of a friend. She wasn’t alone.

I want my friends to be members of what I call…

Men who want to acquire wealth by giving the world their gifts.

Men who work towards achieving higher mental and physical fitness.

Men who strive for exemplary behavior in their dealings with other people.

Men who accept the consequences of their own actions.

Men who learn from their mistakes.

Men who are not afraid of making the said mistakes.

Men who constantly push the envelope.

And who push themselves to their own limits.

I don’t care what their profession is. It could be anything. It’s irrelevant. What is relevant is that they be employed in a line of work that is suitable for them. Something that resonates with their natural innate talents.

What is important to me is that they be self aware. Self awareness comes from introspection. Or by talking to a friend who is not afraid of calling a spade a spade.

I want friends who can tell me when I am wrong. Who can show me the face of reality like no one else would dare to.

That’s the kind of men (and women) I am looking forward to meet. It is so hard to meet people like that. Like I said, people who are self aware, and who are marching towards a mission in their lives are rare. I want to be in the company of men and women like this.

Sure gossiping and making fun of lesser beings is nice. But that’s just entertainment. I want my connections to be deeper than that. I want my friendships to be more fruitful than that. I want my friends to be more than just emotional tampons, and I hope I can also live up to my end of the deal.

This post is somewhat of a rant. Why? Because I am upset that it is so hard to find men and women like this. It is becoming so hard for me to be able to connect with anyone. Right now, I only know of five people who truly understand what it is that I am saying. Most people don’t. They just can’t.

I may be a narcissistic Machiavellian psychopath. But even I need to be able to connect with people from time to time. Women provide the emotional affectionate connection that I need. And so do my family members. But the kind of logical connections I need… the male bonding I need… that’s hard to find.

Generally, I am down to two options. Either drop my standards, and accept the friendship of men (and I use that term lightly in this context) who have rigid mindsets and stubborn beliefs, and are stuck in life for the most part…. OR to be friendless.

Neither option is very conducive for my personal satisfaction.

In a survey I took recently, I found that I am psychologically older than I am chronologically, and that is mostly because I have very few friends, and I am unable to stay in touch with them because either they are on the move, or I am on the move. You might want to take that survey yourself. It’s here…

http://www.realage.com/

So why am I making you read all this?

Well, it’s simple. If you read this blog and agree with what I have to say, then we can be good friends. Just click here and drop me a message. I’ll get back to you.

It’s as simple as that. Like I said, I started this blog so that the world would fill up with more men who are friendship material for me. That is one of the major reasons why I write here.

Almost 2000-3000 people visit this blog each month, so I am hoping some of them will want to connect with me. And some of those interested people will actually become great friends for a long time to come.

Click here, and drop me a message. Tell me something about yourself. Who you are, where you live, what you do, and what kind of problems you are dealing with. As far as I am concerned, here’s what you need to know….

How about you?

Drop me a line. Let’s see if we like each other enough to be friends.

We could do a lot of fun things together. Projects, activities and all.

Lakshay Behl

As a man you are going to have to be a leader. In your family, in your business, in your relationships, people look up to you for leadership. For leading them fearlessly. People who submit to you want to know that they are safe with you. Women who give themselves to you want to know that you know what you are doing.

And that’s one of the greatest reasons for tests. Women just want to feel safe and secure. And the only way they can do that is by trusting your deepest wisdom.

Now, instead of telling you to merely ACT like a leader, I am telling you to just BE a leader.

A leader is NOT the man who knows the best way of doing everything. A Leader MAY NOT make the best decision every single time. A leader is merely sure of what he wants to do. That’s it. That’s leadership in a nutshell.

Knowing what you want to do.

Of course, whenever you make a mistake, there will be consequences. Loss, failure, rejection… Those are the three most consequences of making mistakes. Neither of the three is too bad.

And like a leader, just take the consequences. Don’t blame anyone else… especially a person who was under your direct command. If they did not do what you wanted them to do, then you should (have) fire(d) them from your business or life.  They were under your command, and they were under your care, guidance and protection. It is your fault that you could extract a proper fee for this privilege from them.

Imagine a simple family. A man, his wife, their two sons and a daughter. The youngest son is disrespectful towards everyone… including his siblings and parents. If the father were a poor leader, he’d making excuses like, “I couldn’t get to the meeting on time because my youngest son spilled a cup of coffee on my shirt just before I was about to leave.”

For such a man, my only response would have been, “Look man. That’s your family. And that’s your problem. It’s not mine. You have repeatedly failed to show up on time, and for that reason, you’re fired.” This is simply good business.

So what I am saying is this… Take the consequences. Never apologize for your actions (unless you have a real reason to)

Yesterday I saw a guy asking a girl out, and when she tested his resolve by using the standard female phrases like, “I am not that kind of a girl” and “How dare you ask me that?” he apologized. He fucking apologized? Oh yes, he did. He said to her, as I recall, “I’m sorry to have offended you. No, no… I was just joking. I don’t want to date you. I know you would never date me.”

Obviously, if he had just stood his ground, she would have probably been dating him right now. But he chose to run away from the consequences of his actions.

I make a lot of mistakes everyday. But the consequences are mine to bear. No one else’s.

Your deepest wisdom is what you need to trust.

Listen to your gut, and then do as it tells you.

If you instinctively want to talk to women, go talk to them.

If you instinctively want to make that phone call and ask for a business loan, do it.

Deep down, we all know what the right thing to do is most of the times. The real testing times in a man’s life are not when he is afraid to do what he knows he must. The real testing times are when he doesn’t even know which way to go.

Real men have their fears

There is no denying that I fear approaching women every morning. There is no denying that I fear failing as a writer every other day. There is no denying that I fear I might not b able to build a business as grand as I have envisioned. There is no denying that I have a healthy amount of fear (of loss) before I fire a client.

I have all those fears… And despite all those fears, I manage to listen to my inner voice… my inner wisdom… and take the shot.

I start walking towards the girl I am about to approach without a pickup line.

I start dialing the number of the person I am afraid to call before I know what to say.

I start working on my business systems whenever I am afraid I might not achieve my goals.

This ties right into the concept of eliminating anxiety. You start acting courageously, and the anxiety vanishes.

This also ties right into the concept of just doing it. You start working, and even if you are bad when you start, you still end up finishing your work.

And at the end of the day, if I am proven to be wrong, I am wrong. I take the consequences. Financial loss, loss of a relationship, loss of love, rejection and failure… I take those things daily. I accept the consequences of anything and everything I do. I have in my day approached women with an offer to come straight to my apartment… and gotten slapped, as well as laid because of it. Both those consequences were expected, and both were just as easily accepted.

Take the consequences.

It’s so much manlier than just asking for forgiveness.

I once sought forgiveness for having done something that a girl didn’t approve of, but I loved doing it. I never saw her again. She lost respect for me the second I uttered, “I’m sorry for having done that” just to appease her.

Listen to your own wisdom over everyone else’s, take the shot, and take the consequences without blaming anyone else or anything external.

Till next time

Lakshay Behl

Wrong move, Charlie!

Imagine the following scenario:

I want to be self reliant in terms of electricity. I want to build my own windmill, and harness the natural energies so that I don’t have to rely upon an energy companies. And it would be nice not to have to pay through the nose for energy. Plus, if there’s a surplus, I can always sell it and make some money.

So should I start by going to the electricity company and telling them to take me off their grid?

Of course not. That comes later… way later. That happens when I have a reliable source of energy built up, and ready to serve me day and night in all four seasons. When I have tested it under extreme condition such as cyclones (assuming cyclones are relatively common in my area). Only then do I cut myself off the grid.

If I do it before I have ever started erecting my windmills, I will be without electricity, and consequently, be rendered incapable to doing whatever it is that I need to do. And that includes erecting the windmill itself. So getting off the grid would be counterproductive.

Being a business owner is just like that. It is a noble endeavor. I am a capitalist and I appreciate every effort in the direction of building a purely capitalistic Darwinian society.

But quitting your job before you’ve even thought of a name for your company is foolish.

If you walk the streets of Paris, they are lined with aspiring artists, actors and musicians who want to make it big in the world of entertainment and/or fine arts. But many of them are starving. They may be talented, and they may practice a lot, but producers and music directors and art investors aren’t exactly lining up to buy their time and work. And they are all hopeful. One day… one lucky day… some one is going to notice their talent, and give them a shot at superstardom. And that is when they will make it count.

Of the thousands of starving artists, three, maybe five will achieve their dream this year. Twenty or so within the next three years. Most will give up on the dream, though. It’s almost impossible not to. How could anyone go on believing in an utterly improbabilistic dream when they don’t have food to eat, and their family and friends and partners grow tired of their self-delusion and refusal to “settle down”?

There are two, and only two ways according to them. Either settle down, get a job, get married, have kids and give up on the dreams. Or keep chasing the dream, and starve as long as it takes, and accept even embrace the humiliation that the world throws at you while you leech food, money, and other basic resources off of it without producing anything of saleable value. It’s either black of white for them. Either give up, or give it your all.

A romantic notion.

One that I held myself for a conceivably long period of time.

And a foolish one at that.

See, it’s not necessary to give up on your dreams when you go out and take up a part time or a full time job. Not at all.

Ask any young waitress in New York and odds are that she’ll tell you that the waiting tables thing is only a temporary thing while she hunts a gig on or off Broadway.

And she may or may not have the drive to follow through. Many such people who take up a job claiming that it’s temporary and “only to support me until I make it big” lose their drive and their way, and end up wasting their free time frolicking and partying with their friends or wallowing in self pity. But many times, it’s real. They actually go on and keep auditioning, while keeping their temporary job to sustain them.

And this I admire. This is a sensible approach to business and life. Someone quitting their job in order to become an entrepreneur is not admirable, but foolish. And to be perfectly clear here, I made that same blunder and paid dearly for it. If I could do it all over again, I would take a job, and use my salary to boost my business. Of course I got m lucky breaks early on, and so I didn’t burn myself out.

But if you are thinking about quitting your job, I recommend that you don’t do it. Don’t do it until such time as you are making twice your salary from your business. Business is highly leveragable. If you want to create a business that requires you to work on it for only 20 hours a week, you can do it. You need to be wise about investing those 20 hours. That’s all.

Plus your current salary will allow you to stay in your own apartment, no matter how small, and that will bestow upon you all the freedom you need in order to build a business, and also a lifestyle.

You can be working from 8 PM till 2 in the morning on your business, and then from 9 to 6 on your job. And that is a perfectly valid setup.

Creating a real business requires input. Sometimes, it’s just time. Some people manage to create a business with nothing more than their time and effort. And while I can do it, I wouldn’t dream of doing it myself. I would be forced to do everything manually, and I would not be able to buy any tools, data or hire any help. And that totally sucks.

On the other hand, if you have even a small amount of surplus cash, that really helps. You can go to odesk.com and hire someone to do the jobs that you really don’t know how to do. You can even hire part time interns from local colleges around your place, and have them do the boring tasks for a very small amount of money. And if your job pays well, then of course you can hire people full time.

Now that is awesome.

If you have a shred of intelligence about your strategy and marketing, you can really build a big enough business in a year or two for you to quit your job and be very secure financially.

So if you have quit your job already, I recommend finding another job unless the following conditions are met:

1. You have some sort of cash lump sum dedicated to creating a business

2. You have enough money to sustain your life for the next year or two

And if those conditions are met, you can happily start working on creating a business. Otherwise, get back to finding a job.

Now what to do if those two conditions are, in fact, met in your case? I’ll write another post about that.

I just made a new friend. Her name’s Sweeta. Nice Bengali girl with the potential to be truly hot. Potential, though that is untapped. She is fat, she knows it, and that is seriously detrimental to her attractiveness.

How did I meet her?

Well, she’s an Indian Airlines supervisor. As I strolled through the airport waiting for my next flight, I saw her sitting in a remote isolated corner of the airport. I asked her if where I might find an outlet to charge my Mac Batteries. She told me to get on an empty island (the place where the airline staff sit, and where they hand you your boarding pass) and use the outlet in there. I thanked her and told her that she’s very kind.

Alas, the outlet had no power. I tried another. No luck again. Seeing as how I had another 5 hours before my departure, and how I could potentially be bored out of my mind in the cold airport, I decided to sit next to her and talk to her.

She was friendly, and we started talking.

Within twenty minutes, she had told me more about her life than she has probably told her parents.

Anyway, sometime later during the night, the subject of working out was discussed. I said what was on my mind, and I told her I really thought that she should join a gym.

I insisted that within a year she could look like a queen. She frowned and said, “Who has a year?”

She’s a Bharatnatyam dancer. It’s a classical folk dance for the uninitiated. She insisted that she would lose all the fat within a month of resuming her dancing. She also insisted that she does not have time right now… either for working out in a gym, or for dancing.

Fascinating, eh?

Of course I didn’t press the issue. I expressed my views once, and left it at that. Of course I was not surprised.

The poorest and the most broke person is often the one dreaming and scheming about millions. The fattest unhealthiest person is often the person who assumes that next month he’ll start working at it hard, and get a six pack within three months.

On the surface, these people seem to be extremely confident. Of course, they can fool a lot of people. But not your immodest host. Oh no, they can’t fool me. I see right through their act.

See, it’s overcompensation. They know that can of Coke in their hand right now is just as harmful as any other can of coke will be, and has been. But they don’t want to deal with the reality now… their future “self” will take care of it. And they believe it too. Hence the seemingly unmistakable overconfidence.

Unfortunately, they don’t realize that life isn’t changed in the future. You can’t make decisions any other time than now. Now is the time to act. Now is the time to resist. Now is the time to choose. Choice is what makes you feel alive. Your decisions are what make you feel that you are living.

Unless you are making a decision right now, you are a little less alive. Unless you are actively making a choice right now, you are slightly dead.

Most people are being pushed around by life. They allow life to jerk them. They are merely going through the motions. Wake up, urinate, brush, excrete, bathe, cook, dress, drive, work, meet, drive, talk, pretend to be interested in a boring conversation, eat, wash, sleep. Almost all their decisions are passive in nature.

They are not as alive as they can be.

When you are alive… truly alive… the world is more vibrant. The life around is you is a lot more visible. People are not but silhouettes of carcasses walking around. You become aware, enlightened, and feel serenity. Nigh unassuming. Things start happening.

Planning is an action that requires you to project your mental patterns, experiences, intuition, and images into the future. And a little bit of planning is required too. I spend almost half an hour everyday planning. And I devote a special 2 hour session to planning every Sunday.

But when I am done with the planning, I work on execution. Extraordinary execution of an average plan is far superior to diluted, half hearted execution of a master plan.

However, when your plans are unrealistic… such as going from being Jabba the Hutt to Chris Hemsworth within a matter of months, I can only think og it being nigh undoable.

I know that getting a six pack of abs is going to cost me years, not months. And I am no Jabba. I am no Seth Rogen even. I allow myself a reasonable amount of time. The gym trainer keeps telling everyone how six months is all they need. And people like it. They like being lied to.

The gym trainer isn’t lying, though. He’ll always put in a little disclaimer, “If you are willing to do whatever it takes…” and in that case he is right. I could have my six pack showing in a month if I do whatever it takes to get that. But am I willing, or even capable of doing whatever it takes?

No, and probably not.

This is the good old fashioned will power paradox. The person with the higher willpower will start executing some sort of a reasonable plan now, and expect the finish line to appear in say, 12 months. The person with the lower will power KNOWS that they will reach the finish line in six months. Only they’ll start next month.

If you make plans and routinely leave it up to the future you to execute them, then harken unto me, for you need to devour these words of wisdom like a savage man who hasn’t gotten laid in six years devours a naked woman. Make a decision now. And then act. You’ll feel more alive. Decision without action is delusion of course. Decision followed up with appropriate course of action is what I am talking about.

Your future self is only a slightly different version of your current self. And in most cases, a worse version. Why? Because unless you actively decide and execute right now, your life is simply going to be worse. Your state of mind is simply going to be more fearful, resentful, ad suspicious. Your will power is decidedly going to be lower. And your body is going to be in worse shape than it is now. If you don’t feel ready today, and you wait to be ready tomorrow, then know this… Tomorrow you will be even less ready.

Act now. Take a plan, any plan. Then act. Execute. Decide and do. That’s how winning is done. One baby step at a time, a journey of a thousand miles in due time.

I am a huge fan of the power of compounding. But that power only works over a sufficiently long period of time. Otherwise you are better off with liner growth.

So act. Act now. Time is on your side. You have many more years of glorious living to do. Start doing things now.

It’s not as if one day you’ll suddenly wake up with a six pack of abs and a Million Dollars in the bank. It’s not as if one day you’ll wake up with the status of a celebrity. You can achieve everything. But only if you act now.

Now is the only time. Present is a present from nature to you.

Do.

Don’t just be.

Lakshay Behl

I really did not want to go on this trip. I just wanted to sleep, for I had been sleep deprived for many days. I’d sleep for 5 hours, and get back to work immediately. Work’s fun, but too much work is not. No matter how much I love something, I get bored after a while.

Bored, and burned. Burned is more important than bored. Boredom… well, you can deal with it. Listen to a song, or reminisce, ponder and philosophize as a beautiful classical music score lingers in the background.

But burned… now that’s a state of mind I have never been able to deal with successfully. It has always affected me. I’d study Math for four hours, and then I’d get burned. I couldn’t study that same subject anymore. Not for another three days.
I love working out. But once I am spent, I am done. I can’t push myself anymore. I need to rest.

Since I am always pushing my mental and physical limits, and always subjecting my mind and body to the test, resting is very important to me.

But for the previous 10 days or so, I had worked like a mad man. Working on my own business. And on my clients’ businesses. Taking care of logistics, even. Stuff that I never do. Stuff that I am just not cut out to do. Stuff that I shouldn’t be doing.

But since I didn’t have any one to lend me a helping hand, I had to do it. Not the best use of time, and certainly not the best use of my energies. And even though I did a spectacular job, I got sick. Like, physically sick.

And now my throat hurts.

It’s funny how half the time I board a flight, I am sick. Maybe that is because I work too much before going anywhere. I lose focus, and I lose balance.

And that needs to be rectified now that it has been identified.

I had decided I’d cancel the trip. It’d be a financial drain on my hosts anyway. Yes, someone else was paying for the trip. But it’s not one of the places that I want to visit. I have never had any intention of going there. And I do have a lot of work to take care of. And I’d also miss out on my workouts. I also would have to move a few appointments around, and cancel or postpone a few dates

So I tried to cancel the trip. That was about 11 AM. And here I am, 11:30 PM, writing out this post in a different city.
They called me over and over again. They forced me to go. They insisted so much that I finally caved. I could have declined, but I decided to go anyway.

The flight was scheduled to fly at 8:15 PM. I was in bed till 5:45 PM. At 6, I decided to go. By 6:30 the packing was done. By 7:30, I had the boarding pass in my hand. Although that one hour seemed to have gone by in three minutes.

So I boarded the plane at 8 PM, sweaty and out of breath, very sick, hungry and sleep deprived. I was literally so angry that I wanted to kill someone. I still don’t know if I was angry at myself or at them. After all I had allowed myself to be swayed by someone else’s emotional manipulation, and I had caved and given in. The decision I had taken wasn’t exactly in my best interests. I don’t do that.

So I was angry. And thirsty. Oh, thirsty as hell.

I settled down in my aisle seat.

There was this fat couple sitting next to me. I politely smiled and said hello, and turned my attention back to my inner frustration. Once again, I had done what I never do… To be polite and social is not my style.

Anyway, as the flight progressed, the guy sitting next to me started talking to me. I was in no mood to listen to music or to write something, so I indulged him. I found out that he is a manufacturer, and that he recently got married. Can’t recall his name, though.

It turned out he was an interesting person.

I told him some shocking statistics about how all humans have descended from 80% of the women in history, but only 40% of men. That means, more than half the men in the history of the planet had been wiped out by sexual selection.

Then I went on to tell him some scary (for men) stats on cuckoldry. While he acted unsurprised, I could see the shock and horror in his face. This was getting interesting.

Then I told him how the average sperm count of human males has fallen drastically over the last 90 years. He agreed and said that he believed we would get wiped out in the next 100 years. Of course, I don’t believe that will happen, but it was interesting to see how impressionable he was, and how easily he took to my lead.

Even women and dogs test a man more before deciding to follow his lead.

And just to add some more shock value, I challenged some of the feminism inspired diatribe that he had uttered. I decimated his arguments, and proclaimed that there is no such thing as a 50-50 relationship. Either the man leads, or the woman. And in a feminist relationship, where people claim to have 50-50 control, it’s actually the woman who does the leading. And gets sad consequently because no matter what she says she wants her man to lead and dominate her.

I could discern the conspicuous discomfort in his wife’s face now. It was beginning to get interesting. She gave him this disapproving look, as if to tell him to stop talking to me. He immediately complied, and rested his head back on his seat, and closed his eyes.

But it had gotten too funny for me. Just to rattle their cage, and to show them how pathetic their beliefs were had somehow become important to me. I guess my anger had been channeled, and they were going to be the subjects of my evil glacier-cold cruelty. Needless to say, I was not about to give up that easily.

But I needed an in. Of course I am blunt and puerile, but that does not mean I don’t know how to be subtle. It’s just that being subtle requires more mental energy, and I only make that expenditure when the pleasure to be gained imminently is too tempting.

This was tempting.
So I picked up the inflight magazine. You know the one with boring travel articles and really bad ads. I had earlier seen him looking at a Shiv Khera seminar ad. Shiv Khera is an old time motivational speaker, for those who do not know him.
I quickly located that ad, and opened again with, “Are you planning to go to this seminar?” That got his attention easily. He started talking to me again about business, and I was only too happy to oblige him.

Yeah, I know. I’m evil.

So just for the sake of shocking him, I tore out that page form that magazine that had the ad on it. I started talking about how bad the ad was, especially considering how one of the seminars advertised was sales mastery. He didn’t seem to understand, but he agreed anyway. So I prodded him along.

I told him what could have been done to make that ad better. This was my perfect segue into a discussion about his business.Once there, getting back to personal life would only be a matter of minutes. I just wanted to shock the wifey.

So I asked him how he acquired his clients. He told me almost all his business came form referrals. But of course when it got slow, he’d make cold calls and try to get appointments.

I gave him a brilliant idea. What if he were to write a short report titled, “7 Things to Watch Out For Before You Hire Someone For Manufacturing Your <his industry>”. And then to give it out to people who are searching for <his industry> manufacturers on Google, Yahoo and Bing. He liked the idea. I started grilling him. He told me that it was difficult for him to get appointments, especially with new prospects and clients, and that people didn’t seem to have much respect for him.

Not only was the dude taking shit from his wife of six months at home, but also from his clients and prospects at work. And I am sure, he was taking shit from his employees too. But I didn’t have time to question about that.

So he seemed to agree that writing such a report would immediately give him the expert positioning that he really wanted.
It’s easy for me to recognize what it is that people are lacking in their lives. He’s lacking significance. He wants to be taken seriously. Only he doesn’t have the balls to demand respect.

So I gave him a crash course on demanding respect. The wife got twitchy again. But he was lapping it up. She elbowed him… and he ignored her this time.

Food arrived, and I kept delivering my words of wisdom with a punch as he chewed on.

Like I said, I had (and still have) a sore throat. So I was not about to eat that junk. But he did eat. And not just food.

By the time I was done, the wife was looking angrily at me. Just to throw the final punch, I spoke to her, for the first time in the entire trip, and said, “Don’t you agree?” with the most charming smile I could conjure up. What was she going to say?

No?

She agreed reluctantly, and started staring out the window.

Oh, by the way, I am at an airport right now. I have to catch anther flight in a few hours before I get to my destination.

There’s this somewhat fat but cute girl sitting across me in the waiting area. She’s wearing a backless top. Of course, she’s held eye contact with me for an inappropriate duration of time for me to know that she wants to talk. But I don’t know yet.

Her back is nice, but the rolls of fat are turning me off. I can’t see the back anymore now that she is sitting facing me.

That was totally irrelevant, wasn’t it?

Not exactly.

It actually ties right into the theme of this post.

“Does this post even have a theme?”

You bet it does.

“So why don’t you tell me what it is?”

In time, my young padawan. In due time.

I also uncovered that the dude sitting next to me had no business goals other than to “be happy and keep everyone else happy.” He later amended that to, “be happy by keeping everyone else happy.”

I had spent the entire week hating myself for having stagnated business wise. I hadn’t gone out even once, and I had been eating only fruits, buts and eggs. No milk, no carbs, no whole foods of any sort. Just fruits, almonds and eggs. I hadn’t made love. I hadn’t had a good week. I had just worked hard.

So I was hating on myself for having wasted an entire week.

And then there was this guy. He’s married at 26. And he has no goals. He has a small factory, and a fat wife who bosses him around, and that’s his life.

He was uncomfortable sitting around in that economy seat. So much so that he constantly topsied and turvied. I had a slight aching in my throat.

Suddenly, my problems seemed to be luxury problems to have. It was as if I had forgotten what it is like to be a “normal” person that my mother so desperately wishes I would become.

My problem is that some semi-attractive chick is staring at me, and I am not sure if I should go talk to her or not. His problem is that probably the only woman he’s ever had sex with doesn’t seem a least bit interested.

I live in a different world.

I had to work 40 hours last week, and I got sick. He routinely gets to his factory at 7 AM, and gets home by 11 PM. All seven days of the week.

I had 9 meetings last week. He has more meetings in a day. I meet compliant intelligent people. He, according to his own admission, meets people who labor for 200 bucks a day, and spends half his life shouting orders.

It was a gentle reminder that I have come so far. I may feel lost and numb sometimes. It does get lonely sometimes. But for most people, numbness and lack of direction is the way of life.

I may feel sick and fat some days. Yes, I have come to a point in my life where I look at myself in the mirror and hate on the remnants of fat around my waistline. How I hate those love handles.

But for most people, the way of life is to never have stepped inside a gym, and to never have experienced the rush of pushing up the crushing weight of a barbell loaded with 90 Kilos of steel.

My problem is that someone else is paying for a trip to a place that I don’t particularly want to visit. Most people will never get on an airplane for a vacation more than once or twice a year.

Of course I am bragging a little here. Can’t stop that, you know? I am decidedly narcissistic, and a bit too self-consumed. But there’s also a lesson in there for you. Either you decide to make life your bitch, or life makes you it’s bitch by default.

And life will test you hard if you decide that you are going to lead. Life will test you, just like women and dogs do. But once you deal with the tests, you will have a submissive life. Things shall be easy, and success will come readily. Just like you will have a submissive woman, or a submissive dog for an extremely pleasurable period of time in your life. Until they test you again, of course. Tests are a way of life. Of life of a superior man.

In order to find that out, let’s take an example. Since I am a young man with extraordinarily high levels of testosterone surging through my body, all my thoughts race towards dating and seducing young women. Let’s take a typical example… Here’s the sequence of events that take place, in chronological order:

Guy sees girl.

Guy approaches girl.

Guy asks girl out for a drink or a coffee.

Girl gives him a hard time, but finally reluctantly agrees, since he seems to be OK.

He gets to the venue on time. She never shows. He calls her and she tells her she forgot.

He says, “No Problem! I understand. So when are you free next week?”

She seems reluctant but reschedules for Tuesday.

Tuesday arrives and the guy shows up right on time. Actually, he has spent his entire day day-dreaming about how great it would be to finally meet her.

He shows up right on time. She doesn’t show up again. So he waits. Fifteen minutes later, she texts him, “gonna b late. c u @ 7?” He replies, “sure. J ”

He waits for three hours at the same venue.

She finally shows up at quarter to 8.

He feels like he is on the line.

He feels like he needs to impress her.

He entertains her by telling her jokes.

He wants to buy the more expensive items on the menu for her to display his resourcefulness. She obliges him by buying the most expensive drinks and food his money can buy.

She tells him she’s a feminist. He tells her he too is one, and hates when men are disrespectful towards women.

He tries to slip in a sexual remark like the sly slime he is. She tests him by challenging him… “How dare you talk about ‘that’?” He apologizes profusely.

She tests him again by disagreeing with him. He tells her, “I see your point of view. I agree with it. I am sorry, I stand corrected.” She knows he just can’t afford to alienate her at any cost.

At the end of the night, he walks her home. She rushes in without so much as a hug, let alone kiss or love making.

He stands at her curb wondering what went wrong!

How many times have you seen this play out in the real world? If you are anything like me, you’ve seen this exact same scenario play out umpteen number of times.

During this entire two week period from the guy first seeing the girl, to the guy finally insistently getting her to spend his money on expensive food and drinks, and finally going home to his favorite girlfriend (his left hand, of course!) who had the upper hand?

If your answer is anything other than, “the girl” then you are really wrong. The girl was more powerful at all times. The guy was just ‘weak’ and ‘spineless’. Those are the two words that come to the forefront of my mind to describe him. She might end up describing him as ‘weird’. That is, if she ever has a moment and a breath to spare about him, which seems to be likely only once. I mean she might mention to her friends how he spent $424 on her last night and all she had to ‘give up’ was a miserable handshake. About how she kept him waiting for four hours and how he had nothing better to do than to wait for her. About how he thought she was such a ‘modest’ and ‘homely’ girl who he said he could ‘introduce to my mother’. And how he has already texted her 114 times this morning. But that’s it. She’ll use him to gain social status among her female friends. She’ll probably also make fun of him with the guy she is in love with… perhaps, someone like me. Other than that, he’d not figure on her radar of activities or thoughts.

On the other hand, you can bet anything that the guy would spend his entire nights dreaming about her, and days day-dreaming about her. Perhaps writing bad poetry about her (fake-tanned, cosmetically enhanced and salon polished, I might add) beauty. Maybe telling all his friends about ‘this girl I am seeing seems to be great, let’s see where it goes’.

He’s waiting for the next “date”, she’s not even thinking about him. He is thinking about how great it would be to spend the rest of his life with her while she is making sweet, sweaty love to another man. He is feeling restless to see her again, she won’t be holding her breath for him anytime soon.

Who has the upper hand I his interpersonal dynamic?

The girl, right?

Now of course women have the upper hand in dating most of the times. But not always. With me, they don’t.

Of course the rich businessman has the upper hand in almost any business negotiation. But not always. With me, even Donald Trump would have a tough time negotiating.

And I am about to give you the key to what maybe referred to as the ultimate negotiation power.

It’s called NON-NEEDINESS

When you can walk away from a deal or relationship more easily than the other person, you simply have more negotiation power.

When you need the deal or the relationship LESS than they need the deal or relationship, you have a lot more negotiation power.

The magnitude of negotiation power you have is proportional to the difference between how much you need it and how much they need it. The lesser you need the deal or relationship as compared to the other person(s), the more powerful you are.

So if you want to have power, simply be prepared to walk away. I know it’s easier said than done. But this ties perfectly into my rule of never depending upon one, where I talk about having a front end of leads.

When you can walk away, you aren’t needy. People who have one foot out the door aren’t needy, and are treated with respect as such.

Defining Neediness

Let me clarify something right away. Having needs does NOT make you needy. Everyone has needs, and since not every single man or woman on the planet is a needy person, we can safely conclude that having needs doesn’t make you a needy person… it’s simply human to have needs.

Neediness is a function of how you behave. It’s reflected in how you go about getting your needs met. In the unreasonably long sadistic example of the man guy chasing after and day-dreaming about that girl, we can sense neediness on him.

Is it his need for love, affection, intimacy and sex that makes him needy? Or is it behaviors?

I’d say it’s latter more than former.

The way he sets out to get his needs met is… needy. It is clear that the guy has no other options in the sexual marketplace. Notice how that statement instantly exposes his low sexual market value, and consequently, his low attractiveness.

Secondly, observe how he is unwilling to leave the woman. He wastes hours of his time waiting around for her as she comes up with up one lame excuse after another. When a woman wastes my time, she is gone before she sets her vain eyes upon my bright face. I leave her cold.

Thirdly, his persistence with this woman is repugnant. To me, it is disgusting. I am pretty persistent, but I am persistent about getting my needs met. Not about getting them met from one particular person. If someone isn’t interested in a personal or business relationship with me, I don’t even bother asking why not. I move on to someone else who is already interested.

Notice, I did not say I give up on my needs. My needs get met, and I am persistent there. I am just not persistent with an unwilling person.

I realize that there are a lot more willing and enthusiastic takers for my offers out there in the world than I can ever talk to. Why would I even consider wasting time with someone who isn’t very interested in the deal in the first place?

And that, my friend, is the reason why I have a power in all my negotiations… I am willing to walk away at all times.

How to walk away from long-term relationships?

In business, as well as in your personal life, there comes a time when you need to end a relationship for one or more reasons. The way I see it… it is better to end a relationship sooner instead of dragging along a dead horse. Relationships may require investments in terms of time, money, energy and other resources… but at the end of the day, the purpose of a relationship is to create value for us. I get into business relationships, sometimes upon great amounts of time and financial investment… only because the reward is well worth it in terms of tangible and intangible benefits received.

The purpose of a relationship is to make your life easier.

Or at least the purpose of a GOOD relationship is to make your life easier. And of course that of your fellow relatee. (I just made up a word. Relatee is so much cooler than relative. The word relative is loaded with negative connotations.)

Let’s take an example.

I have a skill. Let’s say I have painfully acquired the power of selling stuff, if I have a good enough budget. And a gentleman has a product that he needs marketed. He also has a good enough budget, but lacks the skills to sell it himself. It’s a good idea for both of us to get into a business relationship. It’s a synergistic relationship. I get to leverage his resources, and he gets to leverage my skills.

The relationship is beneficial to both of us, as in without the relationship we would not have had equivalent returns on our skills and resources respectively as we will have by combining those things.

But when such a relationship demands more input than it produces output, it just makes sense to walk away from the relationship. There are millions of other relationships right around the corner just waiting to happen. Statistically, some of them, say 10%, are bound to be better.

But how do you end the relationship?

Many men and women, upon getting married, think that they are out of the sexual marketplace. Many vendors and clients, upon getting into a long term business relationship, think that they got “that area” of business handled. But this is exactly the wrong way to think about it.

For instance, let’s say that I run a business, and I use a particular supplier for my DVD’s. I get all my DVD’s manufactured by him, and he generally gives me great quality product at reasonable prices. So I am happy with the arrangement, and I decide to stick to him for a very long time. So far, so good, right?

But to him, I am just one of the many clients. He has 200 other clients, and many of them order much more frequently than me. Many of his other clients place much larger orders with him.

I, on the other hand, am not even looking at the marketplace. I am not looking around for a DVD manufacturer. He is my only DVD manufacturer, and I blindly trust him to have my best interests at heart. I don’t even go out from time to time and see what else is available for my money.

Who is at a distinct disadvantage in this situation?

Me, of course!

If our relationship ended, he’d go on living his life as if nothing happened. His business would not be affected in the least… for he will replace me with another client.

On the other hand, since I lose access to my only manufacturer by breaking things up with him… I am at a distinct disadvantage Suddenly my entire business is put on hold… until I find a suitable replacement for the manufacturer. Ironically, my urgency and need to get the manufacturing back on track weakens my negotiation power in the marketplace with other manufacturers.

However, if I had always kept my options open… If I had always kept my eyes wide open… I would always be looking around. I may never have placed an order with any other manufacturer, but I would have known them. I would have known what kind of product is available for my money. I would have known what kind of quality can be expected for my price points.

In such a situation, had that relationship ended, I would simply have switched to a different manufacturer within a day.

That’s how good business is run. If you want real power in your marketplace, position yourself in such a way that your clients just cannot get the same offer elsewhere even if they tried. For instance, in our business, we charge a lot of money. But we charge only a fraction of incremental profits we bring in. So if we bring in $10 Million in additional profit for your company, we’d charge you $2.5 Million.

We are selling money on discount. There is no one else in the market that does this, apart from Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy. Naturally, our clients need us a lot more than we need them. Sure we need clients, but we have a lot of potential clients on our waiting list… who are just waiting to get us involved in their businesses.

A man and a woman get married. The woman puts on a lot of weight and cuts her hair short within a short number of years post marriage. The man, on the other hand, keeps working out… and keeps growing career-wise. He also keeps on working on becoming more charming, and keeps flirting with other women. He may not have sex with any other woman… but he definitely flirts with a lot of willing ladies.

Who has more power in the relationship?

Answer: The one who has other options. If both the man and the woman retain their value, the relationship has a great probability of surviving the tests of time. For women, all they need to do to be known as high value relationship material is to simply stay sexy, sweet and loyal. That’s all they need to do.

In any case, the point I am trying to make is a very important one for any human being. If you want a great relationship, then you need to be prepared for the end of that relationship at all times.

In other words, if your relationship with a particular client, or woman ends right now, your pain of disconnection should be lower than their pain of disconnection. That’s the key.

And that happens naturally when you engage in the business of life in a reasonable manner.

1. All relationships require investment.
2. All investments are risky
3. You must never invest anything you are unwilling to lose
4. You must strive to achieve the greatest returns on your investments in the shortest amount of time.

If you keep those four points in mind, you’ll be well on your way to meaningful relationships. And you will retain your sense of power.

All your business and personal relationships require investments. Investments in terms of time, money, energy and other resources. If you initiate a relationship… which you will as a proactive man who takes charge of his life… then you will need to invest something in the beginning. Your investment at the beginning of a relationship will be higher than that of the other person.

When you approach a random cutie in the library and ask her out, you are investing a lot. You are investing your time, and you are making an offer to invest further time and money by buying her a coffee or a drink. And most importantly… Your balls are on the line. You are putting yourself in a situation where she can reject you… sometimes even publicly. So you are the one investing in the beginning. She pretends to be disinterested, and she can afford to, since she has nothing to lose.

The key here is to be ready to lose whatever you invest.

Your time, your self esteem, even a certain amount of social standing is at risk. If you can not afford to lose all that, then don’t approach. If course, the idea here is to test by investing as little as possible. So I don’t waste a lot of time dealing with pleasantries. I try to invest as little time as possible when approaching a woman… to find out how interested she is. To test her interest levels. So when I say “Hi” I am testing. When I make a joke about her, I am testing. When I invite her for a cup of coffee, I am testing. As soon as I sense a lack of interest, I cut my losses and move on.

I know that when I am approaching a woman, I have certain things on the line. And I am willing to risk those things, and even lose them. I often lose a few minutes of my time upon approaching an uninterested woman. Many times, the said uninterested woman will also end up publicly rejecting me, causing me to lose social status. Therefore I only approach in anonymity… in places and situations where I will never have to meet those people who witness this rejection again.

You must also strive to achieve greatest amounts of return on your minimal investment as soon as possible.

So if I approach you for a JV deal, I will try to get the best deal I can for myself. I have an absolute minimum that I have in mind… and I will not accept a deal that offers me less return than the absolute minimum I decide upon.

This is the idea behind chase reversal.

You must strive to reverse the chase. In the beginning, you are the one who is chasing. But as you get the other person(s) to invest more and more in your deal or relationship, you reverse the chase.

When a client has paid $1000 buying our products, the chase has been effectively reversed. We just placed an advertisement, and offered some nuggets of wisdom for free… that they could use to make more money. They, in turn, ended up investing over $1000 buying our products, and now they are way more invested in us than we are in them. Chase reversed!

When a woman has told me her dark and dirty fantasies, the chase has effectively been reversed. She is more invested in me than I am in her. All I did was spend an hour and bought her an ice cream. She flirted with me, tried to impress me since I am not easily impressed, told me her secrets, and made out with me. She is more invested now, and the relationship is in a sweet spot.

The secret to a successful relationship lies in chase reversal. As soon as you reverse the chase, the game changes.

And the way you reverse a chase is by making offers, and getting people to invest in you as soon as possible.

I can tell you from personal experience that whenever I invest more than I am willing to lose… or whenever I invest more than the other person has invested… the relationship ended, and it ended badly for me. In business as well as in other areas of life.

So to summarize, the secret to having the negotiation power of Billionaires is non-neediness. Or the willingness to walk out at a moment’s notice. That happens by keeping your investment in the other person minimal. And by keeping your options (and mind) open.

In long term relationships, you, your clients, and your woman will be happy when you keep your investments lower than them. The relationship will thrive when you invest in others a little less than they do in you.

I am not talking about becoming the man who doesn’t want to invest anything in anyone else. That relationship is bound to fail. I am merely telling you to keep your investments minimal.

Committed to your powerfulness

Lakshay Behl

Like I said. If you are going to err, err on the side of over-confidence. At least you’ll get laid.

Of course, taking calculated risks is something I learned the hard way. I dumped nearly $160,000 in my first business that tanked within a year. Once I became the testosterone laden disciplined young man, I took control of my parents’ finances. And I sold their house. Then I sunk that money in business. In retrospect, that was the single most difficult thing to swallow. Luckily, I prevailed, thanks in no short amount to my inordinate and unchecked self-confidence and delusions of grandeur.

Now, people just believe me. I am so confident. But more importantly, I have a reputation now. This reputation has been hard earned over the years. I have worked so hard to get here. I am not complaining. You might have worked hard. You might even have worked harder than me. But without a concrete plan, calculated risks, and delusions of grandeur (God-complex, really) you can’t hit it big. Not according to my experience, anyway.

The trouble with narcissists is that they are unable to connect with others. While their self serving and narcissistic tendencies do help them acquire material success, they still lead empty and lonely lives.

With me, things are different. I can easily connect with people. It’s like a gift… I can become as self-serving and God-complex-inspired-narcissistic as I want, and then turn back into an emotional little love and affection starved human being whenever I want. It may be a gift, I don’t know. All I know is that narcissism is one click away, and so is my ability to connect.

Bottom line is this… If you are floating in self-doubt, you aren’t getting anywhere. So try to believe in yourself for once. It really does work. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, really. One that can take you to the heights of success and raised self esteem.

You act courageously, and you achieve success. Then, once you have success, your belief in your own abilities and powers increases. With reinforced self-confidence, you act again, this time with more passion, and succeed yet again. This adds to your self-confidence. After two or three successes, your self confidence increases so much, that you totally forget the little failures that you have to face along the way. They become sort of companions to you. You don’t even notice them anymore. But your self confidence, and the magnitude of your goals keeps on increasing. And that is what I call the positive loop. You can only go upwards.

Lakshay Behl

P.S. Beware, like the positive loop, there is also a negative loop. Marred with self doubt, you don’t act. Without action, there are no results. Eventually, your already lowered self belief takes a further hit. As more time passes, your ability to act at all completely deserts you. It becomes more and more difficult for you to get started. People call it paralysis by analysis. Have you ever met that startup guy who’s just getting started “next” month? Everytime you meet him, he is about to get started. Yet, three years later he has burned a ton of his father’s savings, and is now getting a job. He is now “enlightened” that a real career is one where you must absolutely gain some experience first, and save up some money before trying a business

P.P.S. That steak I had? The killing streak… where I used to kill animals. It’s gone now. At least as far as actions are concerned. Partly because I am able to channel my anger so much better now, but also because I am getting content. I am losing the eye of the tiger. I am turning into a lazy king. It’s just that my self confidence has grown to epic un-proportionate levels. Everything sees easy. A bit too easy, really. So I have started imposing and asserting my desires and wants upon others. Others barely challenge me, but when they do, it grounds me back. For a while, at least. And then I act again and get my needs and wants met. Back onto the cloud 9.

P.P.P.S. You know how they say it’s lonely at the top? They’re not lying. Even my best friends are losing touch with how I feel. They think I am too unstoppable. And they’re right, you know? I haven’t met a single man or woman who matches me in my self-belief levels. It is rather sad, if you look at it. But I can’t let that pull me down.

When people think of success, they think two steps forward, and one step backwards. It doesn’t work that way in the real world, though. For me at least, it was different. I would fail four times in a row, and then I’d succeed big. Even today, I launch ten test campaigns, and eight of them are losers right off the bad. One of them is not losing money, but isn’t much profitable either. One of them is a clear home run. I focus all my resources on the one home run, and hit it big. People think I get lucky. If only they knew how often I fail!

I am often wrong even now… but I am never in doubt.

I mean, if I have a plan, I am executing it. No matter what you say.

I have especially grown accustomed to criticism from people who are unsuccessful. These people, without exception, fear risk so much, that they just don’t risk anything. They’ve chosen mediocrity and a fear-based life. They are slaves. But somehow, they think they are qualified to offer advice to me. Them offering advice to me on succeeding is like me offering advice to Bill Gates on how to run a software company. I know not the first thing about software. I only had a brief affair with coding when I was in high school. She’s such a slut, and I really don’t want her around me. Not only do I dislike her looks, I despise her purposelessness so much more.

I’ll tell you something… Never ask a real estate broker if the property will go up in value. He doesn’t have a crystal ball, and he does not know what will happen. No matter how big of an expert he is. This isn’t investment advice, this is people advice. Investment advice is easily found on the internet. What I am saying is much more profound.

I’m saying don’t ask a car salesman what his car is worth.

I am telling you not to rely on a stock broker to tell you which stocks are going up in value.

In short, never rely on getting advice from someone who:

1. Is an expert. That is his or her sole job. He or she doesn’t act, but just offers advice. Like the stockbroker who won’t risk his own money buying the stock he’s recommending to you. Or the sexy realtor who’ll never tire of praising her property, but will never put a single cent of her own money in that neighborhood.
2. Is selling you a related project. That’s just stupid. Not everyone is Lakshay Behl. In fact, there is no other Lakshay Behl around. I’ll tell you that as my client you might make more money, or you might make less. I’ll make it clear that you are taking a risk, and I’ll help you arrive at an informed decision. But other sellers are not doing this. They are just not able enough to be able to afford this. They’ll tell you a lie… white, grey or black if it helps them get your money.
3. Who has never done what you want to do. One of my maternal uncle keeps offering me advice to this date. He kept on telling me how he was sleepless ever since I decided to not get placed in a nice comfortable job with a good paycheck. Now, he keeps telling me how I Got-It-Made™ and how I Struck-The-Gold™ and how I got lucky in business… and that I shouldn’t jeopardize it by taking any more risks. He’s never been a risk taker all his life… and he thinks he can offer me advice on risk taking. As much as I respect him and hate having to disappoint me time and time again… and as much as I would love for him to sleep easy during the nights… I realize that his experience is exactly paramount to ZERO compared to my own when it comes to risk taking. So I’ll thankfully pass on his advice.

Like I said. If you are going to err, err on the side of over-confidence. At least you’ll get laid.

To be continued…

Read Part 8 of 8