Hey guys, it’s time to dive back into those glimmering pools of sublime wisdom that are my lessons with Sebastian Drake. I’m going to use this post to cover our last two sessions – they were basically two parts of a single lesson, and it makes more sense and improves the flow to present them together. The topic was behavior modification: inspiring people to behave around you in a way that you like.

Lessons 6 and 7 with Sebastian Drake: Behavior Modification

The basic premise behind Sebastian’s style of behavior modification is that people are malleable; they behave differently in different situations and around different people. I seem like a very different guy when I’m having a beer with my buddies than when I’m sipping a malted milkshake with my grandparents. We’re all complex, multifaceted beings, and the different contexts we find ourselves in bring out different aspects of who we are. According to Sebastian, we can use this inherent malleability to draw out particular aspects of people when they’re around us, so that they act in a way that we like. Let’s get to it.

 

Picking a Role and Listing Traits

 

First, Sebastian had me pick one role that I’d like a woman to play in my life. What sort of relationship would I like to have with a woman right now? For instance, it could be an exclusive relationship, an open relationship, a friends-with-benefits situation, or anything in between.

 

Once I’d picked a type of relationship, Sebastian had me make a list of all the traits I’d want in a woman with whom I had that type of relationship. I made a long list, which Sebastian and I then narrowed down to the major ones (eliminating some cool but nonessential traits like “has seen and liked the original Star Wars trilogy,” “drinks whisky,” and “can spot Jelly Belly flavors based on color and pattern of the bean”). Once I had my list condensed and ready, we moved on to a discussion of Sebastian’s behavior modification method, which he calls intention mapping.

 

Intention Mapping

 

Intention mapping involves three steps:

1) Screening: by screening for certain traits, you get her to say that she’s what you want.

2) Qualification: you tell her that she’s what you want, and that this is why you like her.

3) Sex/Afterglow: you reinforce it by telling her again in the bedroom.

 

Sebastian and I didn’t talk very much about screening, because it’s done when you first meet someone, and I was on my way home to spend Thanksgiving weekend with my family – not a situation where I was likely to meet a ton of new people. We talked about it just a little bit and focused instead on qualification.

Screening (partial)

 

Sebastian did briefly teach me one thing about screening before we moved on to qualification. He looked at my final, condensed list and pointed out that there was only one real deal-breaker on it, one trait was absolutely non-negotiable for me. That trait was “tolerance and open-mindedness.” I absolutely will not spend time with an intolerant or bigoted person, but all the other traits were at least slightly negotiable. For instance, if a woman’s not extremely independent, that’s a bummer, but I might let it slide if she’s very fun and vivacious, or kind, or adventurous, or creative, or whatever. Tolerance was my only absolute no-budging, must-have requirement.

 

Sebastian pointed out that, ironically, we’re very calm and understated when discussing our non-negotiable stuff, while we tend to yell and kick up a fuss about the things that we care less about. This is because with our deal-breaker traits, we know exactly where we stand. With things that are more negotiable, we’re worried that we might cave, and so we put up a show of force. This just reveals our weak position. People act weak when strong and strong when weak.

 

The takeaway from this was: be calm, relaxed, and nonchalant when discussing traits that you seek in other people. Never declare that something is non-negotiable. Doing so just shows your fear that you’re going to give in and negotiate.

 

That was just one tidbit of info on screening. Sebastian’s going to cover the topic at greater length sometime soon.

 

Qualification

 

After you’ve screened her, hopefully causing her to claim that she has the trait you’re looking for, the next stage is qualifying her on that trait – telling her that she has the trait and that you like that about her. If she actually does behave in the way that you’re qualifying her for, then this is a form of positive reinforcement. If she doesn’t quite behave in this way (or only does so rarely), then by praising her, you encourage her to live up to your praise by altering her behavior. Sebastian taught me to ways to carry out this qualification.

Offhand Compliments

The first is through offhand compliments. This is pretty straightforward – just give her a compliment about a trait or behavior, letting her know as well that this trait or behavior makes you feel good. Sebastian gave an example: “It’s so cool that you always cook dinner for us. It’s always so delicious, and it always makes me happy.” Use this when she actually is acting in a way that you like. This is the positive reinforcement bit I was talking about.

Using Rewards to Stop Bad Behavior

The second is a method of altering bad behavior. When someone is acting in a way that you don’t like, you use praise so that they change their behavior to live up to your praise.

 

You can’t really persuade people to change their behaviors by pointing out how bad things are. Ever try to persuade a friend or loved one to quit smoking by telling them how awful it is – how it makes them smell and yellows their teeth, how it’s peeling years off their life? How’d that go? Yeah, thought so.

 

That sort of thing only works when the person has truly hit rock bottom. Otherwise, all you do is encourage them to ask themselves why they’re persisting in their bad behavior if it’s so terrible for them. They’ll backwards-rationalize that they must really like it if they’re doing it in spite of all these serious downsides.

 

Instead of starkly pointing out the negatives, try changing bad behavior by emphasizing and complimenting them on the positives. The example Sebastian gave was an imaginary nephew of mine who’s behaving like a delinquent, abusing drugs and skipping school and not taking advice from anyone. He suggested saying something like, “You know, [imaginary nephew’s name], I think it’s really cool that you always give a listen to what I have to say. Maybe we don’t always see eye to eye, but you hear me out even if it’s not something you’d normally pay attention to. I appreciate that.” People don’t like to contradict the praise they receive, and they’ll try to live up to it. Imaginary nephew is probably going to start listening.

 

Sebastian gave me a couple additional details about using this “carrot, not stick” approach to stopping bad behavior:

 

This isn’t used to correct very serious bad behavior, and it’s not a quick fix to correct bad behavior as it’s going on. It’s for modifying general traits and habitual behaviors.

 

Include negatives (like the “maybe we don’t always see eye to eye, but…” bit in our example) only if necessary to make the compliment seem credible. If you don’t need them for that purpose, leave them out. Don’t be negative-centric. If you do have to include them, deemphasize them by speaking quickly and softly through them, and definitely phrase your statement so that you express a positive first. Maybe even use hyperbole with the negatives. Instead of saying, “Maybe you don’t always have great self-control,” you could say something like, “Maybe you don’t always have Bruce Lee self-control, snatching flies out of the air and stuff, but…”

 

Use “me” statements, not just “you” statements. Remember to mention at some point that the trait you’re complimenting them on makes you happy in some way, instead of just focusing on what they do and how they act. Sebastian suggests not going more than two “you” statements in a row without breaking it up with a “me” statement.

If there’s a pretty significant problem and you can’t credibly say that things are good (for example, if someone’s smoking, you can’t credibly compliment them on quitting or being healthy), you still shouldn’t point out that things are bad. Everyone wants to feel that they’re in control and that they take action when they see things are bad. Pointing out that they know things are bad and aren’t making a change just makes them feel disempowered. Instead, tell them that you know they’re strong and that when things reach a point where it’s clearly time for a change, you know they’ll make that change.

My Thoughts

 

Sebastian had me try out both types of behavior-mod qualifiers on various friends and family, and I learned a few things from the experience.

 

A compliment almost always goes over well. Everyone responded positively, most people enthusiastically too. You might feel like you’re about to get called out for being full of it or obnoxious when you compliment someone on a trait that they don’t quite have, but you probably won’t. I didn’t, and some of my compliments were pretty serious stretches. People want to accept compliments – why would they contradict you when you say something nice about them? If it’s anything short of a barefaced lie that’s obvious to both of you, they’ll probably go with it.

 

Some people in the “pickup” community discourage giving praise, calling it a form of supplication. That’s not what it felt like to me at all. Actually, giving someone a compliment made me feel more powerful. I think the principle at work is that I must be a high-value person of some authority if I’m in a position to assess and reward the behavior of others. If I’m in a place where I can raise other people up, then I must be pretty high up myself. I once had a friend point out to me that I was being very complimentary to a girlfriend of mine when the three of us were out eating together. He actually took me aside and said, “Dude, you’re kind of supplicating her a lot.” My response was, “I’ll supplicate the hell out of her if I want. I like her and she likes me. This is how we treat each other.”

 

It feels genuinely good to give compliments, especially very sincere compliments about good qualities the person truly does have (as opposed to the ones used to modify bad behavior). People light up when someone they care about acknowledges their positive attributes and behaviors, and everyone ends up feeling uplifted.

 

Cheers,

Clark