Post: #1

I read the following very old post on Roosh's blog:

Quote:You should be able to talk for hours without stopping. If a crowd wouldn’t form, you’re not interesting. There’s ways to become interesting, but it’s probably not by what you’re doing now.

Great advice but a little vague, so I'm seeking advice. How did YOU become more interesting?

Post: #2

(07-17-2014 07:15 PM)BarryInSF Wrote:  I read the following very old post on Roosh's blog:

Quote:You should be able to talk for hours without stopping. If a crowd wouldn’t form, you’re not interesting. There’s ways to become interesting, but it’s probably not by what you’re doing now.

Great advice but a little vague, so I'm seeking advice. How did YOU become more interesting?

Go out and live life my dude. Travel, Adrenaline pumping (bunjee, jump), do something you love in life as a career.

Read the classics, interesting books, theories.

Great drunken stories always help. Keep a pulse on what's going on the world, what's new, crazy stories.

Your life should be a great story you can tell to anyone.

Be "the most interesting man in the world"

I mean there are literally a million things you can do to make yourself more interesting.

There also are ways of embellishing stories of course.

Post: #3

Whenever you have an option to try something new, take a chance and try it. Try anything that will push you out of your comfort zone. Befriend people from different walks of life and learn about them. Take trips to places you are curious about, even if it's a part of your state you've never visited. Volunteer for interesting causes. Conquer a fear. Learn a musical instrument and write a few songs. Speak up about something controversial.

That should get you started.

Post: #4

Adrenaline junkie and party stories bro.
Everyone like a fuck up, and everyone likes their crazy friend.
Tell stories that don't always end well.
Success stories are just bragging, mix in failure stories and make em laugh too.
My last year has skydiving, snowboarding, wakeboarding, parties, fights, hookup failures, and every other bit of dumb you could want. If you do cool shit, and don't worry about consequences, cool shit will happen.

But really, just do THINGS.

You a hella good programmer? Write an app and talk about it.
You race motorcycles when you were little? Talk about it.
You look at your life and think... no one would read a book about me? Fix it.

Take up kick boxing.
Train mma.
Run a tough Mudder.
Do something, you think is cool, then start telling stories about what you've done.

Storytelling is an art all its own.

I've been telling one person a story and looked up 10 minutes later to see 20+ people listening, more times than I can count.

How to be interesting? Do whatever the fuck interests you.

Post: #5

Question everything around you. Reason in your head why things are the way they are.

Travel. Talk to people about your experiences. Learn to tell better stories. Actively listen when people talk. Ask leading questions that compell them to explain themselves. Then steer the conversation in different directions.

Post: #6

^^^ That's another good point altogether. Being a good storyteller. Sometimes people don't have the best story but they know how to say it and hold people's attention. The actual art of storytelling is something I need work on and I'm not sure how to improve it.

Post: #7

If I'm speaking from my heart about things that I consider important, especially when I'm offering a friend advice, I'm extremely boring.

When I flip the entertain switch, I have a number of go to stories that I use that never fail to entertain. I tell them a certain way, based on game principles, designed to hold the audience's attention and keep them in suspense at times.

Travelling and just generally having experiences is where all my stories come from.

If you want to seem interesting, it helps to actually do things that interest you (and would interest others if they could do them to).

Post: #8

(07-17-2014 07:41 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  ^^^ That's another good point altogether. Being a good storyteller. Sometimes people don't have the best story but they know how to say it and hold people's attention. The actual art of storytelling is something I need work on and I'm not sure how to improve it.

I think that is my problem too. The truth is I already have a lot of the life experiences suggested above, but I still don't feel like I have interesting stories. Maybe it's the way I tell them. I can feel myself losing people as I speak.

I used to belong to Toastmasters years ago (great place to go if you need to come out of your shell) and I may join again so I can work on the Storytelling manual: http://www.toastmasters.org/226K


Barry

Post: #9

Do stuff, especially things where you have a feeling you might regret not doing it.

And learn, find stuff that interests you and learn about it. As long as it is not super random or niche, you can bring up stuff you know in conversations (without making it seem like you are trying to see interesting.) Not enough people these days seem to value learning.

Post: #10

Read everything there is to read. Read about everything. As Quintus says, you must contain a universe inside yourself.

Have some interesting hobbies. You can turn almost any hobby into an interesting story.

If you can't travel, walk around. Know everything there is to know about your hometown. Know its sites, know its politics, know its history.

Honestly this was always a huge strength for me, even before I got into the sphere.

Case in point: yesterday I pulled this girl on an instant date. We were together all day, and I was interesting enough to hold that down? Why? Because I knew about everything. I didn't even need to run douchebag game - just the usual teasing, leading her, and touching.

Being interesting just really helps. Its what's in your head that makes you interesting, I have found, and if you can convey it with some passion, you're in real good shape. And if you just lack good speaking skills, don't worry, that's something that's easily remedied. Make some videos, podcasts, etc. (you don't need to publish them) on a consistent basis over a few months and your conversational skills will jump through the roof.

Newbie to the game though I am, this stuff has given me an excellent foundation to start with.

Post: #11

I think good storytellers are people who have experienced the ups and downs of life. They have enough wisdom that they can relate to virtually any situation. Roosh, for example, is undoubtedly a good storyteller—he has traveled to many countries, slept with hundreds of women, acquired knowledge by reading many books, and always take risks. Essentially, a good storyteller is someone who constantly seeks novelty. That's why war veterans and elderly people are such good storytellers.

Post: #12

For being a better storyteller.

Focus on the pacing of the story.
If youre losing listeners that part needs a faster pace.

Always end on a high note joke, or a awful ending, or anything memorable.:

If you can't make a good solid end point (a dramatic finish, a joke, a moral, an ironic moral, whatever),
don't tell it.
I hate hearing a great story, it builds and builds, and nothing happens at the end. All this tension, so much drama, and it leads to nothing.
If that's how it happened... find a way to frame the nothing as something or don't tell it.

Also.
You have to be reliving it as you tell it.
Paint the moments.
If you aren't passionate, they won't be.
And tell stories over and over.. I come from a family of story telling partiers and risk takers.
Heard some of my dads best over 100 times in different company.

You get your pacing down, your details perfect, find the right pauses to cause laughter, etc.


Its like any public speaking, the best way to get better is to do it.


Also, practice to yourself.. I talk to myself when I'm alone anyways... its just how my brain works. Ill be thinking through future conversational situations and find myself pacing, making the arm motions, and delievering it out loud.

If you've had a crazy weekend, imagine a situation it comes up in conversation and pace through it. Figure out what parts need trimmed and added. When I tell a story its never a first draft, I've recited it a million times in my headm



As for losing people... if you feel em fading, skip to the ending and don't add those details next time. Give an abridged version. The story is for the audience, so remember what they like and fix what they don't.

Post: #13

I second what everyone else says.

I would add though that while you should become well read and know a variety of subjects, not everything will be applicable to any situation, a lot of girls don't give a damn about anything deep. I'm very well read but if I start trying to talk about East of Eden or monetary policy with most girls I'm going to lose them. Your better off telling some good stories and being light when you first start talking to a girl, figure out her interests and calibrate to that. It took me a long time to figure that out, I've had to really dumb down my talking points at times, save the complicated stuff for those girls you know will understand and contribute.

Post: #14

Great advice all around guys!

The only other thing to say is to get off of the internet. Seriously.

If you look at how much time you waste on the internet, watching shows, watching TV, bullshitting around on your phone...and cut that time out...I guarantee you that you will now have infinitely more free time. Fill this time with ANYTHING. Just go out and do things. Even if you don't start changing your life at this point, just having more sleep will be better for you and will allow you to do everything else in life with more intensity.

Accept that not every day, or every outing, will be a crazy enough to write home enough. Win some, lose some.

Post: #15

(07-17-2014 07:56 PM)BarryInSF Wrote:  I think that is my problem too. The truth is I already have a lot of the life experiences suggested above, but I still don't feel like I have interesting stories. Maybe it's the way I tell them. I can feel myself losing people as I speak.

Once thing you can do is work on storytelling in the following format (taken from Models):
1) Set Up: Sets the scene or gives the context for the story.
2) Conflict/Content: This part causes tension or expectancy; it hooks people by getting them wondering what's going to happen next. This is the most crucial part for maintaining interest.
3) Resolution: This releases the tension and thus provides a satisfying conclusion. Can view this as a punchline or a simple summing up.

Example:
1) Sometimes when I'm drunk I forget to pack my wallet when I leave my house.
2) So this one time I was about to leave a pub after getting the bill from the waitress, and I reached into my pocket to find that my wallet wasn't there. My friends had already left so I had no way to pay.
3) Luckily it was summertime and the bar had a patio. I pretended to go out for a smoke, hopped the fence, and fucked off. I'm still afraid to go back there in case they recognize me.

Post: #16

(07-17-2014 07:41 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  ^^^ That's another good point altogether. Being a good storyteller. Sometimes people don't have the best story but they know how to say it and hold people's attention. The actual art of storytelling is something I need work on and I'm not sure how to improve it.

I'm with you on this. It seemed when I was younger I was better at it and the skill wanes when unexercised.

I also don't like to come off as too unbelievable because some of the best, most interesting stories I have to tell are really crazy, especially to those who haven't had experiences nearly as crazy.

My goal would be to learn to properly dumb them down a bit, yet interject game principals while remaining charming by trying to involve people more.

The only offset is that with the attention span of small groups, or individual women being so short due to the smart phone revolution, it's a fine line between grabbing attention, and maintaining solid frame and interest, without letting the other(s) you're speaking with side tracking the convo thus reducing the overall impact.

One thing Roosh stated in his books is to slow down your speaking. I've fiddled with this a lot, but in America, if you get too slow and chill, regardless of charm and frame, people mentally wander off. I've started to adjust to a mediocre speed and that seems to translate my message better. WIP.

Post: #17

It's sort of become the art of packing the best impact in the leanest amount of wording told in a witty charming manner. This is definitely a key the best players have nailed down that puts them ahead of everyone else. I guess a large part of that stems overall from working on frame, so there isn't much real-time thought in wording shit, just letting it flow unabashedly.

Post: #18

(07-17-2014 10:49 PM)Ingocnito Wrote:  One thing Roosh stated in his books is to slow down your speaking. I've fiddled with this a lot, but in America, if you get too slow and chill, regardless of charm and frame, people mentally wander off. I've started to adjust to a mediocre speed and that seems to translate my message better. WIP.

I've experienced this too. Sometimes I talk and feel like I'm just losing people if I have to say more than a few sentences as once. Which is why I don't like rambling and my communication style tends to be really direct with people that I don't know well. Now when I'm with best friends that I've known forever, it's a different story, I can ramble forever at any pace and I know they're hearing me out. But for people you don't know well, you have to have your delivery down tight or you can start seeing their eyes and attention wandering within seconds.

For those of you that have done Toastmasters, do they actually teach how to be an electrifying storyteller? I would love to be one of those people who could talk about the most mundane shit, yet make it so colorful and interesting that people lean in to hear what I'm saying.

Post: #19

I think this tied in with how to be cool. Soup started a pretty good thread on it but I cant find it ATM. Soup?

You can be the most interesting man on earth, but if you dont know how to express/show it to the world then you are just like that computer scientist who is a genius but a boring nerd.

Frankly I have seen the most charming guys say the lamest thing and it just come off as the most interesting thing ever. A lot to do with your attitude, body language, and your "cool".

Entertaining a crowd or, like Roosh said, how to be a good clown, has very little to do with what you say or whats going on in your life, but how you say it and how you think about it. For ex, the basics understanding of women on this forum, if discussed in a conventional manner will get you stoned by every women alive, but this guy took it and add a bit of funny twist and its hilarious





Look for George Calin or Louis CK. The thing they say, if taken out of context, is very banal. But the way they say it make a whole room explode.

My life when I was a beta was just as interesting as it is now, but I couldnt talk for 30 secs. Its not until I learn how to use tonality and body language correctly that I start to make girls giggle every time.

Oh, but the most important thing is, you gotta have fun and fuck what people think. IF you are feeling down or insecure nobody gives a fuck if you just rescue Mike Tyson's tiger from a kitten sex orgy. If everyone who has a cool story is interesting then tour guides or war veterans would be the coolest men on earth.

Post: #20

Seriously, this community is fucking amazing, there is so much wisdom and knowledge in just the above posts alone !

Post: #21

Found it

/thread-28945....to+be+cool

Golden advice here. This should be in sticky or must-read section.

Like roosh said, having game = being cool + being interesting: http://www.rooshv.com/the-two-things-tha...es-down-to

Getting laid consistently = having game + having tight logistics

Post: #22

(07-17-2014 07:41 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  ^^^ That's another good point altogether. Being a good storyteller. Sometimes people don't have the best story but they know how to say it and hold people's attention. The actual art of storytelling is something I need work on and I'm not sure how to improve it.

That's so true. I was hanging out with a guy last weekend, friend of a friend who I'd just met that day. He had scenarios in his life that should have been interesting - he'd traveled a lot, Africa, Europe, into some adrenaline sports, but his stories were negative game. People ended up laughing at him and not in a good way. There's an art to doing a "hilarity ensued" story vs. "I'm a sorry ass loser" story.

Post: #23

(07-17-2014 08:49 PM)redbeard Wrote:  The only other thing to say is to get off of the internet. Seriously.

Awesome advice. I stopped using Facebook a long time ago. Now I only use my computer for work, and one dating site.

Post: #24

A few more thoughts came to me on this topic while I was brushing my teeth this morning.

I think if you have to try to be interesting, then you're not interesting. It's the same with confidence. You are either confident or you are not. If you are trying to be confident, then you're not confident. While I think "fake it till you make it" applies to some areas of life, I don't think you can fake being interesting or confident, anyone that's good at reading people can easily see through it. I don't think anyone should ever try to force it.

"Interesting" can be really subjective. Just like looks where one guy's 8 is another guy's 5. Someone that I consider fascinating is someone you may care less about. Personal chemistry has a lot to do with who you find interesting. Sometimes I just "click" with people and our conversation goes on and on and me and the other person have everything in the world to talk about. Then some people I just can't talk to for more than ten minutes as I can't connect with them. We probably just don't find each other interesting. You don't always have control over this. You can't be interesting to everyone. Don't try to be all things to all people or consider it a failure if any one particular person didn't find you interesting. No different than looks.

One thing all interesting people have in common is that they are passionate. They may not be extroverts that light up the room, but when you talk to them they tend to be intense people that hold your attention. And not necessarily in the best way. That guy Rodger Elliot, the virgin shooter was pretty damn interesting to me. Even if morbidly so, but what made his monologues intriguing was their raw intensity. He himself was not interesting, but his intensity was. When I mentioned above that sometimes it's not your stories but how you tell them, I think it comes down to this. Communicating that you are an intense and passionate person. You see some people talk and they are just full of life and experiences, victories and tribulations. That's contagious. That's why everyone leans in to listen, they want to be galvanized by that person's passion. And just like with confidence, I think passion is a difficult thing to fake.

Also, don't beat yourself up too much if you feel you aren't interesting enough. Interesting is relative to the people surrounding you. At a gathering of Mormons I'd probably be the most interesting guy in the building. At a table with George Clooney, Mike Tyson, Porfirio Rubirosa and the Dos Equis guy, I'd be feeling woefully inadequate. And I'm sure those 4 guys never give a single thought to whether they are interesting or make any attempt to be. They just are the way they are from their life experience. That doesn't come overnight. It takes years to build naturally and accumulate a depth of life experience. Read the lyrics of notably intense song writers and see how they experience life. It really gives some insight to where you need to be. Don't worry about how interesting you are tonight when you go out. Think about how you'll be in a few years down the line. Start investing in yourself for a more interesting future. Are you taking risks, being open enough to novel experiences, pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone? Talking to everyone you can and seeing what they have to offer? Or playing it safe all the time?

Post: #25

What are some interesting hobbies that everyone on RVF has?