Sanford Meisner was a fixture at the Neighbourhood Playhouse theatre in New York for 50 years and is best known as a teacher of acting. His style has influenced actors as famous and diverse as Tom Cruise, Naomi Watts, Mark Rydell, Jon Voight, Jeff Goldblum, Diane Keaton and Christoph Waltz to name but a few.
Meisner described acting as living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. His approach was for the actor to get out of their head so that they behave instinctively to their surrounding environments. But what does all of this have to do with the socialising and dating dynamics? Quite simply, if you are hoping to go out to socialize and to meet new people, then it makes sense that you must be in the best possible mental state to do so. If you are a chad, that is to say if you are a guy who is naturally extremely confident, then this won’t be difficult for you. You will find it easy to be in the right frame of mind and to attract women naturally and effortlessly. But what about those who lack that self-confidence? Who, through no fault of their own, have led lives such that they have not developed social poise and the ability to command a room?
Without a doubt, a great many men who come to the aid of dating channels, books and coaches fall into this category. Certainly, I was in this camp myself for a very long time. A possible solution is to look to acting techniques such as those laid out by Meisner, in order to better their performance in the social realm. If acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances then surely we can also live truthfully under real circumstances – just with an amplified and more enhanced personality than the one that comes naturally to us. How to do this? Well, as I’ve observed in previous videos, pretending to be someone else doesn’t usually work because you can’t control all of the different variables that make up a character. For example, it is difficult to control all aspects of your body language – your eye movements, the way your hands sit, the way that you walk and so on. Even if you are able to control some of these things, inevitably others will go under the radar. Which is why many actors, particularly method actors, prefer to make the necessary changes to themselves from the inside out. And this is where the technique of daydreaming or if you prefer, visualisation, really comes into its own.
Daydreaming
Meisner says the following “‘The fantasy of the daydream is the most personal, most secret of the acting values. What it means in ordinary language is that we use our imagination in order to fulfil in ourselves what we have more or less determined is our emotional condition before we begin the scene”
In other words, he recommends actors spend time daydreaming as a way of imagining the character and his values and so on prior to stepping on stage or in front of the camera. Well, we can do exactly the same thing before we go for a night out or to the coffee bars, the shops or restaurants in order to meet people. As crazy as it might sound, this type of visualisation has been used by prominent actors, politicians and sports stars for many many years now as a way of improving performance. So why should we not use this technique in the dating marketplace?
After all, scientific research backs up the fact that visualising the outcome of a performance or an event prior to it occurring works. In the 1970s a test was undertaken where 20 people were selected for an experiment where they were shown pictures of white and red blood cells, what they look like and how the body creates them. For 6 weeks, twice a day, each of these people created an image of his body making more white blood cells. They worked for about an hour each time in a quiet atmosphere. At the end of the experiment they had a blood test. The results were incredible – all 20 of the participants had increased the number of their white blood cells by a huge amount.
So you can see that the mind and the body are intimately connected, and that the imagination has a profound effect on the way that the body operates. That being the case, I want you to try this experiment before you go out to socialize and to meet women. I would like you to spend some time sitting quietly alone imagining yourself going into the social event you are about to attend. I want you to imagine everyone looking at you approvingly, admiringly, even enviously. I want you to imagine walking up to the most attractive girl in the venue, putting out your hand to introduce yourself and her accepting your approach with delight and visible excitement. I want you then to play the movie forward in your head so you imagine you and her spending a whole evening together becoming more and more intimate, until the night ends in whatever pleasurable way you would like to conjure up. Then you must go out and enjoy your evening for real.
What you will find – I guarantee – is that you will feel more confident, more able to socialize and more assured in your social presence and in your ability to be socially effective. I can’t guarantee that you will end up being intimate with the woman of your dreams that night, but I will venture that your overall experience will be better than if you had not done this exercise. Ideally you want to make a regular practice of doing this kind of daydreaming or visualisation.
You should incorporate it as part of your routine in much the same way that you might incorporate meditation, exercise or any other healthy habit. Because the power that the mind has over the body is mysterious and immense. And so we might as well tap into it in the same way that Meisner’s actors tap into it, in order to come across in the most powerful and impressive way possible in the dating marketplace.
As I have said before, the dating marketplace today is far more competitive than it’s ever been in the past. You have to stand out. Using a method like visualisation will help you to do just that. I’m really keen to hear how this goes for you, so do let me know in the comments below
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