Dr. Asian Rake is a dating consultant and a full-time professor at a top research university. Currently based in Singapore, he guides select clients to improve their lifestyles. To learn more about him and his services and products, visit www.asianrake.com.
Since the explosion of media coverage following the 2005 release of Neil Strauss’s New York Times bestseller, The Game, as well as the VH1 reality
show starring pickup artists Mystery and Matador, which has just finished its second season, the secret society of pickup artists has been thoroughly exposed
and forced into the mainstream in America.
Yet even with the plethora of resources the secret society produces–ebooks, paperbacks, audio courses, DVD series, television shows–I find it utterly
astounding that some adult American males still don’t know how to go about answering such simple questions as, “Should I pay for dinner?” or “Should I be her
friend first?”
I guess this is a good thing for those who have already taken advantage of the secret society’s knowledge. Less competition.
But, c’mon! If you haven’t yet given the resources of the attraction community a fair reading, do yourself a favor, and go check them out before you waste
your time reinventing the wheel.
Perhaps the sheer amount of information available is too overwhelming. This I understand. Every month, another breakthrough product or 10-DVD series is being
released. Who has that much time to go through everything?
Well, this is where one’s skills as a Ph.D. student, having learned to read a hundred books a month for one’s qualifying examinations, will certainly come in
handy. But seriously, it’s amazing how many guys have supposedly read the same pages and paragraphs I have, yet have only garnered a small fraction of the
rich knowledge contained therein. The erosion of critical reading and listening skills among the general population is disheartening, especially for a
university professor.
I could recommend the excellent and free video resources available on the website of The Social Man, as well as their upcoming The Social Man Method:
www.thesocialman.com I could tout the latest Venusian Arts ebook, Revelation, as perhaps the most comprehensive
general resource on attraction science currently available. I could suggest the Infield Insider monthly subscription DVD series featuring hours of infield
video footage and frame-by-frame analysis by Mehow and his guest pickup artist. Those are all outstanding resources among the hundreds out there.
But Revelation tops out at a very dense 322 pages. If a guy didn’t get through his first-year philosophy textbook, he probably won’t get through this one. If
he doesn’t already have considerable field experience, he will likely be unable to appreciate the subtleties revealed in the footage in the Infield Insider,
even after it’s broken down for him. A lot of it will go over his head. There is a reason most guys just “don’t get it”: They are blind to social dynamics,
and until they train their instincts and develop their emotional and social intelligence, they will have a very hard time discerning what’s going on.
So instead of applying the mental discipline to go through such material, our hapless fellow turns to the vapid Doc Love columns of magazines and periodicals
or the “pickup-lite” blogs dispensing feel-good dating advice.
Don’t despair. There are resources out there that are suitable for beginners and those who just want to get their feet wet.
A good starting point before turning to any of the more advanced resources is my Dating 101 audio course available on my website: http://www.doctorasianrake.com/?page_id=646 It has a 100% no questions asked two-month refund policy,
so you have absolutely nothing to lose.
If you are an Asian man sick of people telling you that Asian men are unattractive or unsexy or whatever negative stereotype you’ve encountered, then sign up
for my mailing list, and be among the first to get access to the upcoming The Power of Being Asian, which will be the best resource for Asian men in
harnessing their Asian identity to become powerfully attractive to women of all races and cultures. Instead of seeing your Asian identity and all its
associated negative connotations as holding you back, and instead of making race and ethnicity disappear as important factors, you will learn how to make
these stereotypes work for you and give you an edge over the majority non-Asian race or ethnicity. You can sign up at the top right corner of my website.
Perhaps it is gauche to recommend one’s own work, so I’ll stop there.
For those who want an even broader, more general introduction to the social arts, then look into the foundational books that formed the inspiration for
almost all the advancements in the attraction arts community for the past ten years.
The Top Ten
First Category: Required Reading
1. The first book in this category is Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People. This was originally published in 1937. Almost every social skills
book afterwards is a derivative of some sort. The guys in the seduction community who don’t see the value of this book are usually the really creepy ones
with major psychological problems. No, I don’t mean you.
The insights contained in this book are so foundational that if you can’t apply these, you have no business looking into the headier stuff. For instance,
Carnegie’s principle, “You Can’t Win an Argument,” was huge for me, an aspiring philosopher. I still to this day have lawyer and engineer clients who start
intellectual debates with women and me, even in bars. They don’t realize how important it is to give up their egoistic need to be right or to have everyone
know that they are right. It’s far more attractive to be unreactive, internally referenced, and completely confident in your own judgment, even if the
majority disagrees with you.
Carnegie’s frequent admonition to “Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise,” is what drives Qualification as an attraction technique. His
humorous, “Give a Dog a Good Name,” explains much of the effectiveness of Intention Mapping. Many of his other principles illustrate “Alpha Nice” strategies.
If you want to learn social circle game and entourage game, the teachings in this book are necessary to master. You will need to learn how to befriend not
just random hot girls, but more importantly, alpha males, high status people, and well-connected men and women. And if you can’t even apply Carnegie’s
principles, you have no business running more advanced game.
A good supplement to Carnegie, which avoids the archaic prose and endless examples, is Leil Lowndes’s How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships.
While Lowndes’s tips are fantastic, they are temporally parochial and will go out of date and lose their effectiveness if they haven’t already. That’s what
separates classics that stand the test of time like Carnegie’s.
2. This is probably a big surprise to newbies, but it’s no secret to the insider circle that Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich is a favorite among the top social artists and
inspired a lot of its breakthroughs in inner game. Like Carnegie’s, this is another 1937 classic that has stood the test of time. His chapters on sex
transmutation and auto-suggestion are must-reads for any man aspiring to mastery in a specialized field. My own program of affirmations and visualizations
were first inspired by Hill’s recommendations. I still get a lot of inquiries about what I do for affirmations and visualizations. Do yourself a favor. Get
this little book. Read it several times, a chapter a day until the lessons really sink in. Oh yeah, and you might get rich too!
3. For all the attention that Strauss’s The Game has brought to the community, his first book on the secret society is best taken as an entertaining read,
NOT as a manual or blueprint for getting better with girls.
His more recent Rules of the Game,
however, is a good how-to guide and presents a well-balanced perspective on attraction, with a proper amount of attention paid to lifestyle and identity. Out
of all the attraction manuals you would find in your local bookstore, this is by far your best bet.
And it’s a good introduction to the most popular style of social arts and perhaps the method best suited to absolute beginners: Indirect game using scripted
routines.
4. The most thorough step-by-step guide to the seductive arts is still Robert Greene’s The Art of Seduction. Perhaps it’s biggest fault is that it is too comprehensive.
Most lair guys don’t have the patience, motivation, or critical reading facility to get through the whole thing.
Greene draws on a lot of historical case studies, which I consider a real strength. If there is anything to the insights of the attraction community, then
they should be found among the writings of exemplars in times past.
His character portraits are the most valuable part of the book. The true masters have thought long and hard about the different styles of social artistry,
and many of them track the character types Greene lays out. It’s helped guide my own decisions about which attraction community teachings to adopt and which
to lay aside.
His detailed description of the seductive process is skewed to indirect methods, but he also takes into account the strengths of the direct approach. The
process he lays out is a meticulous breakdown of the steps in a typical seduction.
As with all the books in this must-read section, this book should be slowly absorbed and frequently re-read. A chapter or two a day is ideal.
5. This fifth book is my new Bible. I’ve been reading at least a chapter a day for over a year. Well, okay, I’ve lapsed recently, but I’m getting back to it.
I credit this book for the most profound changes in my mindset toward my career, relationships, and my life as a whole. It’s given me the courage to make the
hardest decisions I’ve ever faced.
David Deida’s The Way of the Superior Man is one of those books
that will probably go over the heads of most guys starting out. But once you get to an intermediate level, this must-read will become the single most
important book you could own. It holds the keys to real mastery. Incidentally, understanding of the teachings in this book can also be used to gauge a man’s
current level of development.
Written by Editorial Staff