Transcript of Stop Settling TODAY! How to Crush Self-Doubt and Attract the Special Woman You Deserve — Featuring Garrain Jones

You must become the man that matches that high-valued woman. If you're not a high-valued man, you don't stand a chance.

All right, welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, Dating Coach, Conal Barrett. I am here to help you flirt with confidence, get a great and do it by being authentic. No sketchy pickup moves needed, and also doing it with a lot of heart. Heart is a great word to transition into my special guest today because this man has a lot of heart. When he was four years old, someone tried to kill him by putting him in a dryer. When he was 10 years old, men tried to drown him. By age 12, his father had been murdered. Later, my guest today went went on to prison for drug charges. But now, after hitting rock bottom, a couple of times in his life, he is at the top. Garen Jones is a best-selling author. He's a thought leader, and he has helped millions of people change their mindset and change their lives. As the creator of Artist Power, his Artist Power programs, Garen helps people reconnect with their authentic selves. I'm all about that. He's helped them unlock their potential to achieve extraordinary life results. On today's episode, Garen is going to share his remarkable journey to give you some Actionable Insights to help you become an even better man.

By becoming the best man you can be, that's how you're going to get a great girlfriend who's going to fall in love with you. For more about Garen, you can go to garenjones. Com. That's G-A-R-R-A-I-N-Jones. Com. Garen, welcome to the show. It's a privilege to have you.

Thank you so much for having me on. It's always whenever I'm hearing somebody do an introduction, I tried to pretend like I'm not me so that I can be a neutral party listening. And I was like, I would probably want to listen to this guy.

Hell, yeah. Well, you came from a rock bottom, and we're going to talk about that because a lot of men have rock a lot of moments in their lives, their dating lives. By the way, stick around to the very end, because at the end of the episode, Garen is going to share with you his formula for attracting an incredible woman into his life and how it can help you. He has an amazing wife, and he's going to talk about his formula that you're going to love. So stick around till the very end. Here's how I love to kick off, Garen. I was listening to your book at the gym yesterday, your audiobook, which you narrate. The book is called Change Your Mindset, Change Your Life, a fantastic bestseller. And I want to do a short dramatic reading of a section of your book. I can't do it as well as you did, but I want to tee you up to talk about something. I want to talk about Rock Bottom moments. Here's what you write in the prolog to your book. One day, I was sitting in a parking lot on the corner of La Brea in Hollywood.

I was at rock bottom. The worst part about it was that I blamed everyone else for my situation. I felt like a washed-up singer, model, and person. It was August 2011 at 3:43 AM, and I was experiencing cold sweats. It was raining, and the right side of my car window was busted out from someone breaking in the night before. All that blame You finally caught up with me. I threw my hands up in a moment of surrender. Take it from there, if you would. Tell us more about that rock bottom moment and what happened to you and who you met later.

Well, I didn't know that that was rock bottom. I just knew that it felt at that time, I tried everything, and for some reason, I could not move forward in my life. Meanwhile, I would see less talented people than me flying all over the world and doing extraordinary things. I'm like, this is not making sense. At that time, I wasn't doing a lot of self-help and learning interpersonal skills and things of that nature. I was like, these people just got to be lucky, but it doesn't make sense. In my darkest moment, which I now know is my rock bottom, that's when I I remember saying, either I die in this moment or I do something about it. The moment I said, do something about it, new thoughts started to enter my brain because typically we're habitual creatures by nature. Why does this keep happening to me? Why is this? Because you probably keep asking the same question. But when I gave myself a new commanded statement, either I die or I do something about it It was as if it told the innate nature of my body that I had another option. In that split second, I'm like, What could I do about it?

Well, I blamed everybody else. I blame my skin color, the news, the weather, the president. I blame everybody for the situation that I was in. But what I realized was not one of those people said, Hey, don't write that book that you always said that you were going to write. Hey, don't do that. That was all me. It was in that moment I realized I was the bottleneck to my life because I never blamed myself. I never took radical responsibility for where my life was. When I took radical responsibility, I started thinking, well, what could I be responsible for? I was responsible for being overweight, responsible for having a negative attitude, responsible for gossiping and trying to tear people down, complaining. I was responsible for all of the things negative in my life. That's when I threw my hands up, and I'm just like, How can I? I'm tired of fighting. I don't want to fight anymore. I want to be healthy. I want to be happy. I want to be surrounded by nothing but positive people. I just want to inspire people, and I want to make a bunch of money, and I want that money to represent something Something that I passionately believe in that I would do for free.

Just show me a sign. Show me a sign. Show me a sign. A week later, I'm at a gas station with my last $2, and anybody that knows anything about Los Angeles gas, you get a gallon for $4.59. So I can even get a gallon. Last $2, putting what I can in there, homeless person asked me for money, and I said, You have more money than me. And he said, Change your mindset, change your life. So that statement right there took a life that would have gone on. I'd probably have been dead within the year and created a conscious interrupt that made me think, wait a second, what if my whole life was a lie based off of how I was thinking? Okay, so let me start thinking the opposite and doing the opposite in every area of my life where I'm not be. There started the trajectory of the man, of the devoted husband, of the devoted father, of the extraordinary businessman that you now see who did not grow up with any model of who I'm representing standing here as a man right now.

Incredible. Would you say that rock bottom was a good thing for you that you needed?

For me, yes. Yes. I don't think that everybody needs to hit rock bottom if they know what to look for. I didn't know what to look for, and I was hard-headed, and I wouldn't listen to somebody. Rock bottom is what I needed to hit Because as soon as you can bounce on the... Then all of a sudden, it's one of those things where I just needed something to just slap me up.

Yeah.

In the past, I've always been hard-headed. But again, I want to say, you don't have to do that. If you know the book to read, the mentors to have, the podcast to watch. I didn't know that at that time. So it was basically me against the world.

Amazing. I agree that you don't need to hit rock bottom, but boy, when it happens, it can be a gift if you turn it into one. It sounds like for you, you turned it into a gift.

I just kept giving.

Yeah, exactly. My rock bottom moment wasn't nearly as intense as yours, but in my own way, it was pretty painful for me is I was very lonely and largely dateless well into my adult life, and I settled for the one woman who liked me and who wanted to be with me, even though we were not in love with each other. We were both settling, but we chose each other out of a place of scarcity. Then nine weeks after our wedding, she dumped me. She left me for a cool, handsome guy in a Harley. The one thing you don't want to hear during your honeymoon period is, Hey, I saw your wife on the back of this guy's Harley. Not a good sign. As I was driving my red Honda Civic back to Dillard's Department store with my back seat filled with wedding gifts to be returned for store credit, I remember thinking, I've got to get me some dating options. I've got to stop settling. So That was a rock bottom moment for me. Luckily, it turned into something powerful. I guess back to you, Garen, for that guy out there who does have a rock bottom moment, or maybe he's trying to avoid a rock bottom moment, what advice do you have for a guy who has hit bottom or is afraid he might?

What does he need to do first?

The thing that I didn't realize was as valuable as it actually is Is a community of forward-thinking, goal-driven people who are living in the direction that you want to live in. I had no idea just how powerful being around the right combination of people because I was a lone wolf. I had friends, but in my mind, I was a lone wolf and I was selfish. It was just my ego. I allowed my ego to just take over. I would say, which would make sense, why just even our government tries everything they do to try to separate us from actually coming together as a community, whether it's black, white, gay, straight, like man, woman, the trans, cis community. Everything is like, pull them apart, pull them apart, pull them apart. You can clearly see it. I'm a gamer, so I can see games all day long. When somebody is really wanting to evolve or avoid hitting rock bottom, I'd say accountability is one of the single most things that you can sort out. You don't even need money for it. There's accountability groups all over Facebook. Your energy is worth more than your money. You just got to know what to look for.

Because it wasn't until I I was overweight, I was negative, I didn't have any money. I wanted to make a difference in my life, but I didn't know how to. I went into a community that was... They focused on health. They did personal development every day. They inspired their community. They were making a difference in the world. I just stayed in that environment. So naturally, you become the sum total of the people that you hang out with the most. I started getting I started feeling better about myself. I started sharing that wealth, which is health. I started motivating people. I started reading the same books because it's a form of language, the frequency that you're continuously in. When you're around two or more people, it amplifies the frequency. When you stay in those environments that are continuously growing, you cannot not grow because of how energy works.

Speaking of reading, do I have this number right? Did you read the power of positive thinking 282 times?

It's now 300. I think I'm probably on 367.

Okay, wow. You probably memorized it at this point. Yeah.

Well, the thing about it is it's like that movie Jumanji. Remember whenever they were turning the pages and then the pages started growing with the read or things started happening as you were changing. If you read a book properly that is meant to teach you something, you are actually called to apply. Then when you apply, that insinuates you grow. If you go back to read that same book, you will not be the same person. Every time I kept reading the book, I kept getting these really cool results in my life. I said, Why would I stop reading the book? I was going to these free leadership seminars, and they said, If you ever find a really good book, never stop reading it. Always keep it in your back pocket. So I just kept reading it. Meanwhile, I go to a friend's house. He's got this whole Shelf. He was like, Look at all these books that I read. Meanwhile, nothing in his life resembles, mainly any of those books that he read. What that told me was he reads books from memory, and I would read a book for mastery, not knowing what that was.

I would read a book until it started reading me, meaning my life was a replica of the information that was stored. If you see my book shelf right now, I'm going to show you. I literally have three books on the shelf. One of them is The Power of Positive Thinking, the other one is my book, and another one is called Boiling Energy that has to do with community healing while using music. And you come over there like, Yo, you only have three books? And I was like, Ask me how many times I read that book, though.

Well, let me put you on the spot then. For the listener, the man who is working on his dating life, maybe he's lonely, maybe he's got some self-doubt mindset issues. He just wants to feel better about himself, dating or otherwise. What's at the top of your reading list for our listener?

For that?

For a man listening who wants to rework his Other than your book and my book, we'll put those two aside.

I don't remember the author, but it's a really, really beautiful book that I think every man should read, and it's called No More Mr. Nice Guy.

Oh, Robert Glover.

No more Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover. The magic will start to triculate in the third read. Do not settle for the first read and be like, Oh, I got it. No. You want it to triculate. So after the third read, all of a sudden, you'll start absorbing, and then you'll start remembering things that you didn't even realize that neurons were shut off when you were five years old. You just keep reading over and over and over. So No More Mr. Nice Guy is a really, really, really good book. There's three that I would recommend. The Power by Rhonda Byrns. She also did The Secret, but The Power listening to the audiobook, was recorded in the frequency of the heart. Even if you're not listening it for memory, it's restructuring your being. And so it's all about mindfulness, loving yourself, honoring yourself, and then activating a part of yourself that most men shut off because boys don't cry. When some of the toughest men I've ever met in my life are so strong that they're not afraid to shed a vulnerable tears. That's number two book. Number three book is by Napoleon Hill. You've heard of Think and Grow Rich, but he wrote another book that's less popular because people took Thinking, Grow Rich out of context, and it's called Grow Rich with Peace of Mind.

That is one of the most powerful books that I've ever read in entire life on giving you the whole spiritual context of bringing your full embodiment while experiencing the wealth of life and maintaining peace simultaneously.

Those are great. I'll throw one more to your list. I'm a big fan of David Data's The Way of the Superior Man.

Yeah, that's a great one as well. I would have every man and every woman read that book because not every man harnesses the masculine energy, and not every woman harnesses the feminine energy. If you think in terms of masculine and feminine energy, everybody deserves to read that book, thinking in terms of energies, not the structure of man and woman. Then a lot of women can understand themselves even more by understanding their energy.

I just love how your teaching is so much about mindset and energy and thinking, thinking the right thoughts. I tell my clients or I tell men who want to work with me, and I put this in my book, dating success is 80% mindset. 20% mechanics, what to say, how to flirt. Those are important things, but they're not as important as being in tune with your authenticity, offering a lot of really authentic, genuine value, and giving women what they want from a very resourceful place of love and kindness and giving. Could you talk a little bit about why the right mindset is going to bring success to men in all areas of life and just make them feel more fulfilled?

Because a man who doesn't know where he's going will never lead a prosperous life. So it takes the right mind to know who you are, how you are, and where you're going. That is a leader. If you don't know how to lead yourself, no one's going to follow you, not even your dreams. You will always get and attract your level of worthiness, not what you show people, but when you look in the mirror and the truth shows up and nobody else is around. You will always, because we're the most powerful magnets in the world, and so you won't attract what you want, you'll attract who you really are. If you cannot stand what you keep attracting, it's an opportunity to take a good look in the mirror. If you want to keep shying away from that, well, then the riches of life and with money being the least of all value is going to keep shying away from you because you're repelling all the things that you want because you're not able to pour into your own That's why mindset is important because mind, body, soul, you can't be embodied unless you embody your full self.

I can tell you this from personal experience. No high-valued woman wants a weak man who doesn't know himself. You can pretend all day long, but she'll snuff it out. If she doesn't get it from you, she's going to get it from someone else.

So well said. That's why guys, and it's mostly men who teach the toxic pickup artist thing, pretend to be an alpha male, pretend to be somebody you're not. Use these lines. A good line is only going to go as far as the man who is saying the line can take it. And a woman can... Women have incredible bullshit detectors. They have bullshit detectors like a polygraph in the NYPD. It's like, I can tell when you're full of shit. That's why you just got to lean. You can't fake this. You really have to be your best, most badass self if you want an amazing, badass woman.

Yeah. And if you're being really, really, really honest. I tried to be the overly, overly masculine person. That shit didn't work. It was like, I feel like you're hiding something. I'm like, yeah, there's this really sensitive side of me that I don't want it because it's associated with soft. Then you know what I realized? That sensitivity is the same sensitivity that has had me in inspired millions of people because I'm sensitive to how broken the world's heart is. I have a sensitive to the world's suffering. That same sensitivity has my intuition at a very high level. All of the non-physical world things that are so wizard-like and magical, I have a sensitivity to pick up on those things, to be able to utilize and feel feel when I'm walking in a room and you can feel the energy bodies of everybody around. So if I don't embrace what's naturally inside of me, I can't be authentic. It's not necessary for me to over myself to be this overly masculine person when I'm not. You know what people tell me now? I love how safe I feel around you. I've never felt this safe in the presence of another masculine man who didn't want me.

In a drop of a heartbeat, I'll protect and provide my family. That's easy for me. In a drop of a heartbeat, I can be so soft with my daughter who's three, when she's crying and she's just like she's red-lining and I'm just holding her and holding her and being the space that can hold for all of her tears and be in the space that can hold for when my wife is angry, to be the space to hold for all of it. That takes a special man who knows himself that won't get lost in all these other identities. But the true self, when fully accepted, oh, my goodness, you have sweetness of life on the horizon for you.

I love that. Sweetness of life. What a great phrase. Another phrase you said about a minute ago was, The world's heart is broken. I'm paraphrasing rephrasing. There's a lot of brokenness out there. And there's also a crisis of your words, crisis of authenticity and a crisis of confidence in people today. Can you talk about that crisis and also how you can help people with that crisis heal?

Yeah. Well, we got to... Anytime I talk about something, it's important to talk about the context. It's hard to blame out when we talk about adult or deteriorated children. If you take this suffering or people lacking confidence, or let's just say the number one fear in the world, even more than death, is public speaking. Okay, I can hear that, but why? Okay, let's take it all the way back to when I was five, trying to sing and express myself when there's parental intolerance. It's like when parents are just sleep-deprived and everything, Can you please just shut up? When you tell a child You're too loud or too much, they turn that impact into the same thing that they turn the impact of the beginning state of language. Abcs turns into words, sentences, paragraphs, essays, books, libraries. All right, cool. The beginning of impact of, Shut up, you're too loud, you're too much. Me singing in front of my whole family, and they're like, Oh, Garen, you You can't sing, you can't dance. I wonder where my lack of confidence came from. It's possibly because when I was learning how to express, I didn't even know what puzzle pieces were in this box.

I was learning, Maybe it was a little messy, but I was five. When we're little, unconscious parenting will try to... They even have a song, Hush, little baby, won't you cry. Think about what that's actually saying. Your expression, I don't want to hear. If I could rewrite it, I would do it just like this. Cry, little baby, won't you cry? You get to express what is in your heart. And if no words, it's still your truth. So no more hushing what's real for you. Cry, little baby, Cry, little baby, won't you cry? Cry, little baby, won't you cry? I would sing that, and this is what it is.

Amazing. That was incredible.

That was incredible. This is what I sing to my kids. No, keep crying because we don't know what that is. I'm not going to put my parental intolerance off on your precious new expression where we don't even know what that is. It's got to come out. That's where it comes from.

I just got chills, by the way. You brought me back to being four years old and my mom scratching my back and singing that song to me. You have a better voice than she did, but wow, that was incredible.

Thank you. I really appreciate. But this is where it comes from. This is why I do inner child work, because while there's work for everyone out there, but for me, I'm The reason why we're able to get so deep, because I never take my eye off the kid inside of the adult. They're like, damn, I feel like you can see me. I was like, you want to know what I'm looking at? I'm like, I'm looking at I'm looking at little Garen. I'm looking at little Conal. I'm looking at little braided. I'm just zoning in and saying, hey, you have a friend. You're not alone. What is it that actually makes you happy?

I was listening to you on Ed Milet's podcast last year. It was a great spot. You two were talking about this very topic. You were talking about that inner child and getting in touch with that playful inner younger you and helping that younger version of you to, in a sense, come out and play as adults. You and Ed talked about that. It was really a fascinating chat. Can you talk a little bit about how to do that? How do we get in touch with that inner child, but also still be a man?

Yeah. Well, the thing about it is that is inside of you already. We just let it... We say, Oh, be a man. What exactly does that mean when we have been groomed? Boys don't cry. We don't share tears. We don't express our feelings. I wonder why the rate of men committing suicide is growing every year. I wonder where that comes from. Possibly because they don't know who to share or feel safe enough to share their deepest, darkest, most precious, vulnerable secrets that maybe a tear or two could probably just have cleared your nervous system. This is a very deep conversation. The best way I know how is to remember something that you used to love as a child. It's to remember anything. It doesn't matter, GI, Joe's, building sand castles, looking up at the sky, running, jumping, singing, dancing, even if you think it's really small. I want you to once a week, I don't have enough time. For yourself? That's probably the issue. You have not carved out time for the most important thing in the world, which is the self. Let's just say 5 to 10 minutes. If you You can't carve out 5 to 10 minutes a week for yourself and your heart, you probably deserve everything that's currently happening in your life.

Five to 10 minutes a week and take yourself on an inner child date. Yourself alone, don't bring anybody else, whether it was the playground, the seesaw, playing football, whatever, and just allow, imagine what it was like whenever you used to hit that baseball or go swimming And just be in the energy of that and allow yourself to just feel that and be like, I love you, little G. That right there can radically transform anyone's life. Why? Because the EKGs of the heart take the most powerful frequency in the world. So when you use it, it just might have special gifts for you. And what I learned was, oh, my goodness, the little kid The little kid is the one with the boundless energy. The little kid is the one with the endless creativity. The little kid is the one that always had these big aspirations of life. Where did it go?

You struggle with dating, right? Sure, you have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt. The apps don't work for you, and sometimes women put you in the friend zone. It's frustrating. Hey, I struggled with dating, too. As an introvert and a total nerd, I I didn't just live in the friend zone. I owned real estate there. But I escaped using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my best-selling book, Dating Sucks, But You Don't. Radical authenticity is why psychology today called me the best dating coach in America. Now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend. Go to datingtransformation. Com and book a free call with me. On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend, and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity. No creepy pickup tricks needed. Go to datingtransformation. Com Book a free call today and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend. I love it. You just reminded me of one of my favorite tips about how to flirt, how to talk to women, because that's probably the most common question I get as a dating coach.

How the heck do you talk to women? What do I say? My two-word answer is, Here's how you flirt with women. Let's play. Let's play like little kids. Let's make it light and playful and let your inner child come out. At first, you can get sexy, you can get masculine, you can have the intimacy later, but when you first meet that woman, let's play. Let's keep it fun and light. I think it just hits a chord inside of other people that makes them want to be with you. I say, Don't worry about the perfect pickup line. What's something playful you can say to make her giggle, make her smile? Make it innocent but light. You can get sexy later.

Yeah. No. That right there, easy. Me and my wife, in the beginning, we were like, wrestling. I'm like, No, it's so hot. She's like, He's so hot. And that's when we had the best sex. I didn't even know that was going to happen. This was like a thing that I fumbled upon, but it was something about this act of play that heightened the frequency.

I dated a woman years ago. We're not together now, but we dated for a while. We were three or four dates in, and I had met her by approaching her. She was walking outside of a women's clothing store in New York City, and I approached her with a very light, playful little icebreaker. It cracked some a joke. And I said, By the way, what was it you liked about me when you met me? And I was fishing for a compliment. I was hoping she was going to say, Oh, you were so witty, or the thing you said was such a good line. She didn't say that. She said, It was so innocent. You came up to me with innocence. All these other guys were cat calling her and making it about her body or her looks. And I came up in a playful, childlike way, and she said, I just love that. And that's what got me. And I never forgot that little feedbacks you gave me. That inner child is somebody you can have in your dating life. Yeah.

Then one thing I want to tell men, just make sure that you have a range, because if you always stay in that, then it'll be the point where when the dynamics of... Because the dynamics of the woman is always changing. You can never grasp what that is. That's like trying to really contain the waves of the ocean. If you just stay in that and she's in a different mode, then over time, she'll be like, Oh, I just feel like I'm mothering you or something. Make sure that when you're in the play, you also have, and you work on having a range where, say, for instance, you're walking down the street and it's like a dark alley and there's three other men and they're drunk. Like, literally, Baby, hold my hand to the right, look down, straight ahead, boom, I got you. That's not a time to play. She also wants to feel that, Oh, this man can also protect me as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

The range. So pray, protect, persevere.

That range is so important. To me, it's like music, and I'm not a musical expert. You are. You're a professional musician. You work with Ludacris. You're obviously a brilliant musician with a great singing voice. But I just recently started taking piano lessons, literally four months in. So I'm a total newb. But what I've noticed is how songs are so powerful when they have range. There's the soft, sweet part, there's the loud part, there's the power cord. The reason the power cord is so powerful is because that minor cord sets it up. Similarly, when you're in a relationship or courting, dating a woman, she wants lots of different cords.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love that. Because I never thought about it in a way where you think about songs that have range. One of my all time favorite songs as far as musically is Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. The level of range of where that song goes, I'm like, What? The first time I heard it, I was like, What is this? It just takes me on an entire journey. I love now you gave me something to think about, something that I embody every day inside of my marriage and inside of parenting and leadership as it pertains to business.

I had a first date once with an amazing woman named Eileen. We dated for about six months. She was my girlfriend. Our first date was like a great song. I just remember we were silly, we were cracking jokes, but also there were some really vulnerable, not serious, but vulnerable, genuine moments. There was laughter, there was sincerity, there was flirting, a whole range of things. She texted me that night on her way home, and she said, I just have the most incredible floaty feeling right now. To me, that was like, again, I didn't think about the music analogy, but I remember thinking, wow, it's like how we feel after a great song. That high, the highs, the lows, the counterpoint is just... Yeah. To me, a great first date can show her lots of different cords you can play.

Oh, that's good.

That's really good. So to speak. Back to you, though, in your dating life. Let's talk about your dating past or your relationship, whatever you'd like to discuss.

I'm in. Whatever question you want to ask.

Great. We'll get to your partner now, your wonderful wife. I'm sure I've never met her, but she seems amazing. I'm sure she is. But when you were last single, what were some of the, whatever it might be, moves? What worked for you? What didn't work? What lessons do you learn in dating that our listeners can take from a guy like you who has been with some pretty incredible women.

So interesting because a girl in seventh grade rejected me named Ashley Bostrom at the skating rink. She led me on the whole year, and I was deathly afraid to ask her out. Everybody's like, just ask her out. She's going to say yes. I asked her out, and she said no, because I'm in love with Roswell, which happened to be one of my best friends at the time. The level of crush, my soul, the level that my soul was crushed in that moment, I said, I will never in my life put myself in a position to be rejected like this again. In some weird way, I developed all of these skills to be able to position myself to be seen so that they can see me. I would find a way for women to always find attraction and come to me, come to me, come to me. One time, I was in a nightclub, and I would never approach a woman. I was in a nightclub, and I brought a book to a nightclub, and I was reading the book in the nightclub. The most beautiful that every single person in the club was trying to holler at came to me.

She was like, she just sat down with this weird look. She goes, Why are you reading a book in a club? I lied to her and I told her, I said, Because my friend dragged me here, I don't want to be here. I said, If I'm going to be here, well, then I'm just going to be here on my terms. I was just reading this book. She was like, So what are you reading? It was just something that was out of the ordinary that they're not typically used to. I got really good at finding ways to be seen. That's probably why I'm a really good salesman, and everything that I do sells out because I know how to position value. Thank you, Ashley Bostrom, because you gave me a great gift. But in my past, I never approached a woman. They would always approach me based off of what I was wearing, what I was smelling, that I was different than everybody in the room. If I would see everybody do one thing, I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that thing. I'm going to observe the masters and do the opposite. So I get really good at that, but I would not get really good at picking the woman that I actually wanted to be with.

I would pick what I thought was my picky list. Oh, this exotic woman with nice legs. I get this exotic woman with nice legs, but she'd have a fiery attitude, and she wouldn't know how to make money, and I'd be broke, too, so we couldn't figure life out. It was the same thing over and over over again. I was like, Why do I keep attracting the same women? Really beautiful, very exotic, nice legs, and there's nothing else to show for. That was my past, and I slept with... I had cheated on every girl I had ever had. I slept with so many women. In my young boy mind, I'm like, Score and count. I slept with this many women. This would validate my worth and things like that. It'd be like, Oh, man. Amongst the guys, I became cool because I sleep with all these women. I had no idea how unworthy I felt. I had no idea at that time that I was a broken boy trying to be a man with no real role models on how to actually be a man because even the men were all doing the same things, even when they were married.

I had no role models of the man I actually wanted to be like, so I just settled for what was there. That was my dating in the past. It wasn't good, but it gave me data on when I did find the right one who I was not going to be because I then found worthiness in myself. And you often treat people how you treat yourself.

Let me ask you this. Speaking of the younger Garen, if you could go back in time in 20 years or so, 25-year-old Garen, or roughly that age, if you can go back in time and give your younger self one piece of dating advice, what would it be?

If I would give him one… It's a weird question because I would not want to change anything or alter anything that happened because one degree different, then most likely I would not be here. But if I could keep the same life that I have right now and nothing changed, then let's play in that possibility. If I could go back, because I would not... I got Baby Chief, I got Soul, I got a relationship with my 23-year-old daughter now, my beautiful wife. I'm like, No, I'm not trading that for nothing. If I could keep everything, Everything I have the way that I have it now, then I can go back and I can give little Garen, young Garen, broken boy Garen, trying to fill a hole that he didn't know was bottomless advice. About dating, I'd say, you must learn how to work harder on yourself than you do on anything outside and anything else outside of you. Then I'd be Well, what does that look like? All right. So let me give you this book. Yeah. Give me this book called The Four Agreements. Well, let me give you this book called The Power of Positive Thinking, But I want you to read this book from the context of where you're in now, learning about how to love yourself, learning about how to respect yourself, learning about how to honor yourself, because anyone that you attract, you're going to give them what you give yourself.

If you give beyond what you give yourself, you're ultimately going to lose it because that energy is not a matching frequency and like attracts like. So over time, you'll lose what you're out of resonance with. I would teach him about how to be in resonance with self. I would teach him how to build a strong foundation of self. I would teach him about leadership because if you don't know about leadership, you're definitely never going to lead a household. I would teach him about resonance, strong foundation, self-respect, dignity, honor. I would get him around some healthy men who are married so that he could just learn. I'm talking about married is not the end of all, who are devotional husbands, who are devotional to their marriage and parenting, and find a way to get him exposed to that environment. That's what I would do.

That's great advice because so many men are saying, Hey, what are the tactics? What are the things to say and do? Don't get me wrong, I love tactics. I'm going to ask you for a couple of your tactics back in the day, if you have any you want to share. But I'd much rather tell men the truth, and I'll say, look, I can teach you all the best dating tactics in the world. But if it's coming, if those tactics that you're quote unquote using on women aren't coming from a really big supported, authentic man who has evolved into the best possible version of himself at that moment, how well are those tactics going to work? Not very well. What I love about what you would tell your younger self is this is what I heard you say, basically is just keep working on yourself, become a better version of you. Aristotle said the same thing. Aristotle wrote a book called the Nicamakian Ethics, which is not a really fun read. I'm not saying you need to, but I'll give you the TLDR version. He basically said, We are here to achieve eudaimonia, which is a fancy word that just means to flourish and to become the best version of ourselves and to be in harmony with our inherent character.

We all have an inherent character. We're all meant to be a specific version of ourselves, and we want to keep growing into that version of ourselves. To me, your answer was basically aligned with Aristotle, which is just be the most amazing version of you, and that's going to attract you, some incredible women in your life, regardless of what you say and how you flirt with them.

I love that. I love that.

Yeah. So your book's way more... Tell us all the tactics. Your book is way more fun to read than Aristotle's. Don't fast forward. This is not an ad. It's a free thing that's going to help you flirt with confidence. Because I'll bet that you struggle with what to say to women and how to flirt, right? Well, let's fix that. I'm going to give you what I call the Flirty 30. These are 30 flirty questions to ask women on the apps or on dates or when you approach so that you can confidently connect with cool, sexy women starting today. It's time to stop running out of things to say and start asking them flirty questions that are going to make them to date you. To get your copy of the Flirty 30, it's totally free, just go to datingtransformation. Com/flirty30, and that's F-L-I-R-T-Y-T-R-Y. Datingtransformation. Com You're about to start confidently flirting with women, going on dates, and soon getting a great girlfriend. Go get your Flirty 30. Yeah, let's talk about it. Let's finish up with a few fun dating questions. So back from your single days or just from things you see out in the world.

Let me back up. Let me ask you this. What are some of the dating mistakes you see or have seen men make that make you go, No, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that.

Mistakes that men make.

What makes you want to grab a guy and say, Don't do that, man. Come on.

If you are in a professional setting and a student comes in your professional setting, and somehow you have fallen for the student, and then somehow you end up in her vagina. That is the ultimate no-no. It's true. It's taking advantage of your power. This happens in music, it happens in entertainment, modeling, It happens in the spiritual communities with facilitators and head coaches and things of that nature, because when you're on this pedestal, people almost shrink, and it's almost like they'll do what you say. Then it becomes this wave of, Oh, no, that's leaky sexual energy. If you cannot contain yourself with discipline, honestly, you won't be truly respected. There'll be this lull shadow hanging over what people think of you and then who you really are. Those who are going to eventually bottleneck, and it will never work in your favor because that's how energy works. That's a major no-no. Were you about to say something?

No, go ahead. You're great. Okay, yeah.

That's a major no-no. I would say that trying to overcompensate and make your life look like something that it's actually not, I'm like, Bro, lying for the sake of approval is a hurt little boy, not going to work in your favor. I think one of the biggest things I want to speak about what I think all men should strive for. Do your best to live a life of integrity. If you truly want to attract the woman that your soul is craving, not the one you settle for. You must become the man that matches that high woman. So if you're not a high-valued man, you don't stand a chance with a woman who knows herself. So I need you to know yourself. What are you up to in the world. Don't get in a relationship and then be like, Oh, can you pay for me? I can't. I need you to take care of me. So maybe it's like an iteration of a baby over and over and over and over and over again. And what women look for, and 94% of my clientele are powerful, driven women, so let me give you a cheat code.

Great.

They are looking for... Because a lot of women, not I don't call women, but a lot of women, they have this vision of being married, having somebody that can wrap their arms around them so where they can actually just not have to protect themselves. They had to protect themselves their whole life from predators or people wanting something from them, their whole life. They want somebody that they can feel safe around physically, mentally, and spiritually. Knowing yourself, what you're up to, where you're going, and you can effortlessly communicate that is going to create a notion of safety inside of her womb. When you have some aspect of physical stature, I'm not saying that's the end all, be all. These are just conversations that I work with women on, and I ask them, What is your dream person? It's like someone who I feel safe walking down the street with. You being in your feminine and you want her to be in her feminine, that right there, there's no polarity. So either she's in her masculine, you're in your feminine, or you're in your rightful state, and she's in her rightful state. Then you can experience what the infinity sign actually represents, this coagulation of this where two becomes one type energy.

They are looking for somebody who can hold them and all of their emotions, no matter how crazy, no matter how rangeful, because as the little kid who is just learning to get all of the stuff out, women have also had their voices stuffed. Imagine that woman being a little girl that's times 10, never had an opportunity to really express what's in there. It might, in the beginning, come out as rage, and why do you have to be so angry? Women are associated with angry, especially black women. It's like, if you don't have confidence in yourself to know and communicate, I can hold for all of it. I signed up for all of it. That right there is what's missing in most men, is they blame the very thing that's actually needed to expand them. Like a woman's rage, once you allow yourself to hold, will expand you a thousand times greater than you sit right now by yourself.

That's fantastic. That was so good. As my improv teacher never says to me, I have no notes, nothing to add. That was great. Two final things, Garen, I'll let you go. You just mentioned what women want in men. You have a pretty amazing seeming wife named Blair, an fitness instructor who you met at a personal development seminar. When you first met her, whether it was your first date or the first interaction you had with her, do any moments jump out at you as a moment that stands out that helped you to, for lack of a better term, get the girl?

Every single time I had any point of connection, whether it was text, whether it's FaceTime in person, there was this energy that just goes… I was like, What is that? I don't know, but it was just so There was something so alive. She awoke an aliveness inside of me before I even knew what that term was. It just never stopped. On our first date, I saw something I'd never seen in my entire life. With every girl I'd ever dated, I'd never saw a past the next week. How I would just end up, because I settled for the girl, what would happen was I'd end up dating a girl who is trying to be a woman to then need enough evidence outside, outside evidence, and enough time to then see if she qualifies to be a wife when I didn't even know what a wife was, what wife material was. This is just this bottomless pit. With Blair, there was this portal opened up. This was on our first date, and I saw what I'd never seen before in my life.

What was your first date? What did you do?

She asked me on a date. She asked me on a date. She's like, Garen, has any woman ever asked you on a date? I was like, no. Garen Jones, I'd love to take you on a date. I was like, All right. I was like, Well, when you mean date, do you mean we're going to eat or we're together? She was like, I think it's like, I take you on a date, I pay for it. You take you on a date the next time you go, I was just like, I've never... This was a conversation I'd never heard in my life. And so as I close- It was Sadie Hawkins' day.

She asked you out.

As I closed, we went to Mr. Chou's in LA, and We went to Mr. Chou's in LA, and then I saw... Because I wasn't thinking about, No, I'll take you out. I was like, This is something new, but I'm open to it. I I saw my future. I saw her being the mother of our children. I saw her being my wife, and I told her that night.

The night of your first date?

That night on our first date. Wow. But I wasn't punching above my weight class. There was something that took over my whole body, and I was willing to express it in its full, raw, vulnerable truth. If it didn't work out, I was willing to take it didn't work out. But at least I was honest.

How did she respond when you said that?

She did like this, went to the bathroom, called her best friend I found out, and told her what happened. Then ultimately, what I saw is what happened.

I love that story. Not only did you not, quote, unquote, play it cool, like those so-called experts say, Oh, don't let a woman know you're into her. Be mysterious. I think that's bullshit. I love that you were so vulnerable and open with her. And look at the two of you now.

Yeah. And I'm saying this might not work for the next person, but it worked for me.

Let's finish up with that little dating formula that we teased at the top. You mentioned, oh, yeah, let's talk about a formula for dating or for attracting the girlfriend, the woman you want. What is that formula?

You write three columns. First column, write the attribute that you want in a woman and be as picky as possible. Typically, I wrote two attributes. This time, I decided I was going to be as picky as possible, and I had 62 attributes on there. Loves God, masculine, can easily slip into her feminine, can make her own money, but loves being taken care of, loves to travel, loves personal growth. I was writing I wrote down, if this were a build-a-bear, I'm being so picky. I wrote down 62 attributes. Then right after that, wrote down how I wanted to feel in the relationship. Next column. How you want to feel in the relationship, but how you want to feel is also what you should mirror if you're going to meet your mirror. I wrote down, I I want to feel seen and heard. I don't want to have to communicate things and for people to just know when I need help and support and love and things like that. I wrote that down in its entirety. Third column, the top five places where you would meet this person that you don't typically go to circle and star the one that you feel the most connected to that has the most attributes connected to it.

If you look at your attributes column and then you look at where you'll meet this person, make sure mine was literally circled and starved personal development seminar. Interesting how I met my wife who loves to read, who loves personal growth, who can make her own money, but loves being taken care of. That was the one that had the most That was the one I circled and started, and that's where I met. That's where I met Blaire. You have those three components. Now, here's what's going to happen. Just like you put a specific address in a GPS system, you are putting a specific address in your soulmate's GPS system. How that works is when you do that in a car, it'll give you five different ways to get there, the long way or the short way. When I wrote down my list, I didn't know that I wasn't half of those things on that list. It took three years for me to develop into the person that was actually the reflection of that list. When I became the reflection of that list, that's when I met my mirror.

I love it. That is a hell of a formula.

Here's the last thing I want to say.

Fire away.

When you look into the A mirror, you're not seeing what you actually look like. You're seeing a reflection of what you look like. In order for you to see what you look like, you literally got to take a selfie and then turn the photo, flip the photo, and you can see what you actually look like. A mirror reflects the opposite of what you look like. Sometimes you're like, This person is just like me. Not going to last because there's no friction to It'll last in the settling of it, but there's no friction that can help you climb that mountain. So, Blair is of the similar makeup, but she's the opposite of everything that's my genius, it's her weakness. Everything that's her genius is my weakness, and that's what creates. She's my mirror of the opposite part of me.

Beautiful. I love how elegant and nuanced that is, but also practical. Practical.

Yeah.

Super, super practical. Okay, let's finish with this. We're done. You've been amazing. Thank you so much, Garen. Before we go, I would love for you to talk a little bit about your Artist Power program and how this is creating some pretty amazing results and the people who take part in it. What's the concept of Artist Power, and how does that help your clients?

The artist is the little kid, the one that I never take my eye off of. We're We're all creators. We all started off as creators with big energy living in your bigness. When you tap into that energy, it unlocks the power. That's where my company, Artist Power, was birth, was thinking about, how can I create a world where adults feel safe enough to remember who they've always been deep down on the inside, where all their magic is, where all their energy is, where all their creativity is. Everything that I do has an ingredient of an inner child inside of it, whether it be the masterminds or the leadership. I've got a high-level leadership CFOs and Founders program that I'm doing starting January for 12 weeks, and then we're going to retreat in Costa Rica. But I'll be teaching the range of man, leadership, entrepreneur, But then also all of that is coming from the iteration of the little kid with full permission to be all of that. I'll be teaching that while just facilitating just mastermining and things with the people who are in the container, the right combination of people. Then we'll go to retreat, and then in June, have another retreat that is open for anyone that's over 18.

There's a whole interview view process, and that is all about play and activations and painting and dancing and singing and drumming and chanting and truly activating your soul's permission to full self-acceptance so that you can be who you are actually called to be in the world and not part of who you're called to be.

I love it. You can find out more about this program at his website, garranjones. Com. Again, that's G-A-R-R-A-I-N, Jones. Com. And your book is fantastic. Thank you so much for being here and sharing so much of your hard-earned wisdom. It's inspiring to see how you went from rock bottom to the apex mountain where you are now, and you deserve it.

Thank you so much, and thank you for the work that you do in the world as well. And I just want to acknowledge you for being brave enough to create platforms like this. So stories like mine have wings. I know that it's not easy. So for you spreading these messages, may you and your family just be enriched 10 times over in an effortless way for all of the value that you're putting out on the world. Thank you again for this opportunity.

You got it, man. All right. I'm going to go to the club tonight with my favorite book, See If Women, Come Up To Me.

Okay.

Thank you so much for being here. Stick around one second, Garen. And by the way, for you listening, don't forget your dream girlfriend. She's out there, and she's going to love you. She just has to meet the real authentic you. So go out there, take courageous, authentic action, and carpe datum sees the date. We'll see you next time.