“Would You Like to Avoid People’s Games, Connect More Authentically With Others, and Get the Social Life You’ve Always Wanted…?”

If you’ve ever wanted to transform yourself from shy and socially awkward into an amazing social leader, you’re about to learn information that will absolutely change your life…

CARLOS XUMA’S DESK: Friday, 5:43 PM.

The one skill that they don’t teach you about in school is also the one that will either make you a great success in life, or struggle like crazy to realize your dreams… and you might never reach them.

I’m going to tell you all about this skill in a second, but first let me ask you a couple questions:

• Have you ever been in a social situation where you just knew someone was messing with you, but you didn’t know what to do about it?
• Have you ever had someone in your family that just knew exactly how to put you on the spot – and they’d leave you with that shaky, angry feeling because you knew you’d been made a fool out of?
• Have you ever known a person who could just predict everything you were going to say, and leave you with no ammo at all, and you felt like you were totally manipulated? And FRUSTRATED?
  
• Did you ever suspect there are unwritten “rules” to socializing that you just don’t “get”? That if you just knew the “rules” that these people are using for their games, you could at least be on a level playing field?
• Do you ever feel like you’ve missed opportunities with somebody – maybe a romantic interest – because you don’t have the right skills to respond correctly and make the interaction “count” for more?
• Do you often feel like you’re missing a depth and a level of relationship connection that you want to achieve because you don’t understand how to get past your partner’s games?

Now, on the other hand, have you ever been with someone who:

• Could de-fuse any confrontation and make friends in the process?
• Could spot when they were being played or manipulated – and somehow turn it back around on the other person?
• Always knew the right thing to say to put someone in their place?
• Knew how to read a social situation in just a few seconds and “feel out” everyone in the group?

I always wanted to be that person.

I was so shy growing up that I never really got an understanding of social dynamics the way some people seemed to. They always seemed so natural with it, too, which made it even harder to believe that I’d ever figure it out.

A long while back, I remember going to a singles party where everyone was really uptight and hard to talk to. I felt a little uncomfortable because it felt like they weren’t really there to meet people and have fun.
You might recognize some of the clues I saw of weird “gamey” behavior at this party:

• A lot of the guys were very aggressive and insecure…
• Many of the women seemed guarded and distant – and I found myself suckered into buying drinks – without getting any phone numbers…
• A lot of people seemed to push emotional buttons on me like I was a remote control…
• Almost no one there seemed like they were there to have a good time… they all seemed to have an agenda.

You probably figured this out already, but what I felt and didn’t recognize until later was this:

“Everyone Was Playing Social Games With Me…!”

The experience felt so awful at the time, and the people seemed so difficult, mostly because I didn’t know how to handle it when people played social games with me. The party probably wasn’t as bad as I remember it, but my social skills were.

And I’ve still found people like this lurking almost everywhere in my life. At work, at the bars and clubs, at parties and social gatherings… even at family gatherings.

I Think You’ve Felt This Before…

Maybe you’ve experienced something like my bad “party experience,” or even situations like this:

• – You go to a car dealership to shop around and you don’t want to buy anything, but after several hours you find yourself driving home in a new car that you had no intention of buying. But he made it sound so good, and you got a SWEET deal… How did you fall for that…?
• – You’re in a meeting with a co-worker, and she starts to undermine your abilities and performance in the meeting, but you can’t figure out how she’s doing it because she’s not directly insulting you. What kind of Game is she playing…?
• – You’re hanging out with your friends and someone makes a sly comment about you, and they all chuckle. You go along with it because you don’t want to look like you’re “uptight” or “un-cool.” But somewhere deep inside, you know you were just put-down… Do you know how to deal with it…?
• – You’re at a family get-together, having dinner together, and your mother starts bugging you about your job, and starting to manipulate you with guilt and fear. As usual, you end up angry and blow up, and eventually you tell her to mind her own business. You end up looking like the jerk, but it was the way she did it that pushed your buttons… How do you stop this from happening…?
• – You’re out with a friend, and you see a couple of women you want to go talk to. Finally your friend drags you over and you start talking with them. The longer you talk, though, the more your friend seems to be the one getting the attention, and you start getting more and more quiet… How can you stop feeling socially awkward and stay in the conversation…?

I’m pointing these situations out because I have been through ALL of them. And every time one of them happened, I thought of the perfect thing to say to handle the situation – only an hour too late.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could think of the right thing to say in these situations to destroy the game-playing right away – instead of later as you’re walking away…?

But This is the REALLY Scary Part…

The games other people play with us are NOTHING compared to the games we play on ourselves.

You see, there’s two kinds of games going on out there – the games we play with other people, and the ones we play in our own heads.

You want an example of one that every guy can relate to?

You’re talking with a woman at a bar, and the conversation is going well. She obviously needs to leave, and you know it’s time to go for the close. So you ask her:

“Hey, can I have your phone number to talk with you again? Maybe go out for a bite sometime?”

She tells you she’s not home that much or she would give it to you. “But give me your phone number and I’ll call you,” she says. You give her your number, even though you know at the back of your head that won’t hear from her. You know – deep in your gut – that you needed to just push a little more for her number so that you could make that second meeting happen.

But you gave in and wussed out.

What happened?

This is a classic game that a lot of guys play inside their own heads where they will settle for giving their own phone number on the wishful thinking that they impressed her so much that she’ll “definitely call!”

Even though we know that only 1 in 50 women ever will. (Probably much fewer…)

It’s a way for us to let ourselves down easy, and not risk coming away with nothing at all for the time we spent talking to her. After all, there’s still a chance she’ll call… isn’t there?

The skill of knowing how to handle your own internal games is something called “intra-personal skills,” and it’s something I will touch on again in a minute…

“Read My Lips – No More Games…!”

I’m sick of all the games.

I bet you are, too, aren’t you? And you’re absolutely right to be sick of them.

There’s something else I want you to know that is VERY important…

How you handle the social games people play will determine:

• How much money you will make at your job…
• The quality of person you date … and wind up marrying…
• How much fun you have when you go out with friends…
• The depth and intimacy you have in your relationships – with your family, your friends, and your lover…
• Your overall level of happiness, security, and confidence that you experience every day…

Does that sound serious to you?

It should, because in nearly EVERY study performed on the happiest, the most successful, the most fulfilled people in the world, they all came back with the same finding, time after time after time.

This probably won’t come as a surprise to you, but the discovery was this:

Your level of:

*Happiness*
*Financial success*
*Inner Fulfillment*
*Quality of Life*
and how attractive you are to the opposite sex
is DIRECTLY related to how strong your social skills are…

This has nothing to do with genetics, intelligence, or the forces that you might think of as being “out of your control…”

It really has nothing to do with upbringing or social status, either…

In nearly every person with any great level of success and fulfillment in their lives, the only thing that mattered was how well they managed the other people in their lives.

WOW…

I was blown away when I discovered that, and it really changed the way I looked at the world. For years I had believed that there were certain people who were just luckier than others, or just had the gift of “people skills…”

I thought that was why some guys just got more women than others, and why some women are more successful with men. They must be smarter or better looking, and that’s why they got more dates than me.

I just accepted this belief that these people had something “special” – a natural talent that I didn’t have.

Every time I saw my friends being more successful with socializing, being more popular with other people – and the more that I didn’t make friends, or attract women, or make connections – the more I reinforced that false belief.

What I didn’t realize was that I was creating this flawed foundation upon which my entire social life – and even my dating life – was being built. It was shaky and unsteady, and it couldn’t possibly help me get the kind of lifestyle I wanted to live.

Look, I have to admit something…

Until I was in my late 20s, I was socially CLUELESS.

I would go out and not have the faintest idea of how to handle a conversation when I got into it. I usually ended up talking about the one topic I knew the most.

You know how they say that you should “talk about what you know about”?

Well the problem was, the only topic I talked about was ME.

I would just yammer on and on about my life and all about me, not understanding how it was turning people off. Or I just wouldn’t see what was going on in the conversation to figure out when I was being manipulated or de-valued.

I was making a lot of OTHER social mistakes, too, without even knowing it…

This lack of social skill and ability was killing a BIG part of my social life.

“The LESS success I got socially, the MORE it seemed to lower my self-esteem in other areas, too…”

And I would get VERY self-conscious in social situations, because I always felt like other people were getting the better of me, or that they were just waiting to use something I said against me in some way.

This might sound a little paranoid, but when you don’t know how to handle people’s games, you do start to get very defensive.

I even found myself becoming very negative about people in general. I started avoiding social situations because I didn’t have a very good opinion of other people. And I didn’t have a good opinion because of how I felt after talking with them or feeling like I was being “played.”

For a while there I got pretty angry about it, too.

Maybe you’ve felt similar to this from time to time, too. That other people are just flaky, manipulative, and self-centered…?

And – even worse – you start to feel like you can’t trust anybody, either… You want to, but you get a little frustrated because you can’t figure out what’s going on in their games.

Now that I’m older, I can see these situations for what they are, but I also realized this:

NO ONE out there shows you how to spot these social games and avoid them in the first place…

Really. Think about it:

	Has anyone ever sat you down and explained how people try to manipulate you with guilt?
	Has anyone ever showed you how other people can trick you into doing what THEY want you to do?
	Has anyone ever explained to you how people use your insecurities and fears as a way to steer or control you?

Nope.

Yet it’s being done to you all the time.

And usually you figure it out after they’ve gamed you – after they got you to do what they wanted, or after you say what they want to hear, or you’ve given them what they want…

Then the next time it happens, it’s a slightly different situation, and you have to try and spot the game all over again – but you still don’t have a plan or a technique to avoid playing it the next time it comes up.

And the worst part of this feeling I had about my social ability was that I had NO IDEA where or how to start turning it around. How do I learn these social skills that I saw other people using all the time…?

These people seemed like such master communicators with this GIFT for handling people. I had no idea where to start learning how they do it. After all, to get social skills and confidence, you need to hang out and talk to people… and I didn’t have the confidence to go hang out and talk to people, so how could I ever get those skills…?

I was in a catch-22! It was a double-bind.

I had nowhere to get started, and I spent over ten years in this frustrated state.

I literally felt like a rat in one of those mazes, trying desperately to find the secret exit to get out. Because I knew if I could just get a look at the maze from above instead of being stuck IN it, I could find the solution.

Then I finally figured it out…

“The Solution is to Get Altitude and Perspective Over the Problem…”

I finally found a way to get myself on track, but it took a lot of work to figure it out – and it’s not something I would ever want you to have to find by trial and error. I know it’s not fun to beat your head against the wall just so it feels good when you stop.

The good thing is that you don’t have to go through that pain.

If you’re reading this right now, and you can identify with any of the situations I’ve just talked about, then what you’re about to read next is probably going to change your life – forever.

I’m not kidding – it’s THAT important.

You’ve probably experienced the frustration of being under the spell of a manipulative person at some point, haven’t you?

It’s disorienting and confusing, because you often don’t know how they managed to do to you what they did, but you’re left standing there, smacking your forehead and feeling like you’ve been had.

You didn’t see it coming, did you?

I went through years and years of research trying figure out what was happening in these social situations. I read TONS of self-help books, and very few of them really had any real explanation about what was happening. Nothing I found helped me to figure out the “rules” of these games people play. I even went to seminars on group and relationship dynamics, but no luck.

In the end, I didn’t get almost any of my strategies from those books or seminars.

I got these secrets from other PEOPLE.

I got very lucky to find some friends who I knew had some very powerful – and yet compassionate – methods for handling people who try to play games with you.

The funny thing was that when I pinned these “social naturals” down to help me out, most of them didn’t have the slightest idea they were using social strategies like this to manage game players and social manipulators. When I sat them down and described some of the things I saw that they were doing, they were as amazed as I was.

You see, they had learned these things on an intuitive level that you and I never got to develop.

If someone has won a social game situation, or avoided a manipulator or a socially dangerous personality, they’ve used a technique or tactic to do it. A “technique” is just knowing the right thing to say at the right time.

But here’s the best part:

If they have a method for handling social games, it can be broken down, taken apart, and you can learn it – just like any other skill out there.

AND you can use them to destroy the games you play in your own head, as well as the ones other people play with you.

“Here Are 3 Game Playing Personalities You Must Be Able To Spot Before They Manipulate You…”

As I studied these “naturals” at social strategy, there were three general types of people that these social experts all seemed to agree were the most dangerous – and the most important to spot before they game you. I want to tell you about all three right here so you can be on your guard…

GAME PLAYER 1: The Emotional Vampire

This is the person who we all know – usually a member of our family – that seems to just drain us dry of our energy. Every time you interact with them, your brain feels like you’ve just gone through a six hour final exam in algebra. You’re sapped and depleted.

And you simply dread talking to them.

Pretty soon, you just avoid being around them at all, if you can help it.

Another part of you realizes that if you do avoid them, then THEY are the ones who are still winning the game, even without you around.

But a lot of the time, you can’t avoid them because they’re your co-workers, or your family…

Sometimes it’s the person you’re in a serious relationship with.

• How do you spot this personality type?

Well, if you find yourself emotionally exhausted after dealing with a certain person in your life, and they leave you feeling worse than you did before you started talking with them, there’s a good chance this person is an emotional vampire.

They steal your energy with any number of subtle maneuvers, most you don’t notice until you’re caught up in their game, and by then it’s too late.

Also, if you find yourself dreading or resisting contact with this person because of the emotional drain they put on your batteries, chances are they’re a vampire of some kind.

If you’ve ever seen a name come up on your phone and you found yourself turning off the ringer without answering it, and there was no reason you couldn’t have taken the call – except maybe that sense of avoidance – well, you probably felt that person was going to be a potential vampire.

• How do you deal with them?

Don’t let them get their teeth in your neck!

The best defense here is a best offense, which is made up of my 3-part strategy:

1) Start by recognizing how they work, and being prepared for them up front.

You need to recognize their game before they blow the whistle and start the play. If you can’t see what they’re up to, you’ll probably find yourself just scratching your head later trying to figure out how you got twisted around their finger…

2) Let them make their first move…

You can’t just try to beat them to the punch, or the social player will just switch to a new tactic. You have to let them show you their cards, and then you can choose your own strategy.

3) And Then WATCH and MANAGE their play…

When they’ve revealed their cards, you can then use your own skills to create your own winning hand. (Okay I’m done with the game metaphors. Mostly.) Once you have them invested in their approach, you can then use it to steer the social dynamics toward a win-win finish.

That’s the really special thing about what I teach you – you’re going to learn how to get BOTH you and them to win!

What if you run into someone that doesn’t just drain your energy, but they try to get something from you? This is the next kind of gamer…

GAME PLAYER 2: The Emotional Blackmailer

This type of social game player plays games as a form of extortion – to get favors, or any number of possible rewards they can pull from the situation.

We’ve all played this one at some point or another. In its most innocent form, you may have just wanted to get a little appreciation from someone in your life.

Have you ever done a favor and said, “Oh, it was nothing…” but what you really wanted to hear was how it was a big something to the other person?

That’s a small kind of game. Innocent enough, but still a game.

Maybe you’ve met this kind of person:

• The woman who gets you to do favors for her because you fear being rejected or emotionally abandoned…
• The aunt that calls you up in the middle of the day to get your help running errands (when you already had things to do), but you can’t refuse her because she would gossip to everyone else in your family about just how “thoughtless” and “heartless” you are…
• The girlfriend who knows how to stroke your ego at the right time to make you feel manly one minute, but then she knows how to start withdrawing her approval and withholding affection because she knows you’ll work hard and do whatever she wants to get it back…
• The guy in a relationship that criticizes his girlfriend constantly to play on her insecurities and make sure she won’t leave him…
• The manager who knows exactly how to make you afraid that your performance appraisal will be bad if you don’t help his team out on their ‘special project’… After all, you don’t want to appear uncooperative, do you?

All of these people are playing a powerful kind of emotional game with us – Blackmail. What they do, through some subtle – and sometimes not-so-subtle games is put us in a position where we are forced to do something to avoid a nasty embarrassment of some kind.

The reason they do this is sometimes people don’t know the healthy way of getting what they want, so they use this game on us. They may not mean to play a game, but it comes out anyway.

• How do you spot this personality type?

If you feel like you did something against your will to avoid a negative outcome – an outcome that the other person could control – then chances are you were blackmailed.

• How do you deal with them?

The best offense is a great defense, and especially so with this type of game player.

Keep your eyes open, and don’t let their actions fly under your radar. Very often, the emotional blackmailer loses their ability to control you or manipulate you when you expose their game out into the open.

But there’s a particularly nasty game player that doesn’t try to hide it. In fact this type flaunts their power over you. It’s the…

GAME PLAYER 3: The Emotional Bully

Just like the bully on the playground, this is the person that pushes you around and uses you to achieve their own goals and ends.

• Maybe this is the person at work that pushes you into helping them for fear of their influence and power – or their ability to damage your career…
• Maybe this is the guy you met while you’re out at a club, and he intimidates you with his overbearing personality – or embarrasses you in public so that he can push you out of the picture, meet the woman you’re with, and steal her for himself…
• Maybe this is the woman that creates uncomfortable social situations – like crying fits or emotional tantrums – to get you to give in to her demands…

Quite honestly, these people can also be emotional terrorists.

Look, I know how charged a word that can be… Terrorist. Ouch.

I even debated mentioning it at all, but when I wrote it down, I knew that I was just telling the Truth.

(NOTE: When you’re pushed into shame about your politically “INcorrect” views or comments, this is also a form of game playing and emotional manipulation that people will often use to control you.)

• How do you spot this personality type?

The Emotional Bully is the kind of person can literally make your life a living hell with constant demands, emotional tirades, and total unpredictability. They leave you with a feeling of dread and anxiety 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If you find yourself feeling this way, or pushed into doing things for another person frequently, you’re probably in a relationship with a bully.

• How do you deal with them?

If you sense that you might be dealing with an emotional bully, remember that these covert abusers are often very good at covering their tracks, so other people might not see what you are experiencing. The best way to start is to make a note of abusive incidents so that you can review them later on when your head is clear.

One thing that you must get in the habit of doing is to not let the emotions of a game playing situation run away from you so that you react badly and only make your situation worse.

But the good news is that the emotional bully responds to some very simple strategies that end their games FAST. They are, in fact, one of the easiest game players to deal with once you’ve identified them.

Is There Any Hope…?

What I thought was just one problem – not having social skills – was actually TWO problems in one.

The first problem was that I wasn’t SEEING the games people were playing and what they were doing.

The second problem was that even if I did identify what they were doing, I didn’t know what to do to avoid being manipulated.

I am excited to say that there is a happy ending to this story. For both me and you.

With all that I’ve told you, you might be thinking that everyone is out to get you, just waiting to make your life a living hell.

Don’t get paranoid. That’s not true at all. Most of the social gamers are not playing you intentionally, even when it seems like they are.

You see, these game-playing people didn’t grow up with a big fat reference book on their shelf called “How to Play Games With People.” They weren’t taught how to play games…well, at least not directly.

We learned how to play games and manipulate like this from examples of other people. Usually by our families. We saw what worked and what didn’t to get results, and we adopted those strategies.

Let’s face it:

Any situation where you’re being emotionally manipulated is an opportunity for you to shine – IF you know how to handle the game player, and WHAT TO SAY to end the confrontation correctly…

And the cool thing is…

“Now you can learn how to manage people like this – or avoid the games and manipulation entirely…”

Oh, and an even cooler part of this is that once you can spot the games other people are playing, you can also get rid of your games.

Ahem …

Yes, you play games, too. We all do.

Once you accept this and learn the rules, the games aren’t a problem anymore.

In fact, you’ll find yourself looking forward to finding new and more intricate situations to figure out for yourself. It sounds funny, but you’ll actually feel excited to go find new and interesting people to talk with and get to know, because you’ll feel so confident and capable in your social ability.

It actually becomes FUN to play with people and get into social dynamics – no matter what kind, because you know that whatever someone can come up with, you have an arsenal of social skills of your own to handle them. And your social network will explode without you even realizing it.

And The Most Important Part is This…

When you have developed these social skills, you’ll find that you can actually connect with people on a much deeper and more AUTHENTIC level than ever before.

I noticed that when I would talk to people, and I could get past the games, I was able to really establish an indestructible sense of rapport.

This happened with women, men – everyone I socialized with.

It got to the point where I had to start being very careful with this skill because people were forming some unhealthy dependencies on me. One woman even told me she felt like I understood her ten times more than her therapist…

Yikes!

You see, it’s not just about dealing with all the people out there as potential enemies that you have to protect yourself against. I don’t want you to think that I’m going to teach you how to be a fortress of solitude and lack that human compassion…

This is really about developing your vital social powers to the point where you can actually let down your guard and get REAL with people like you never thought possible.

Most people don’t realize just how counter-productive and unnecessary their social games are, and they desperately need the other person to help them get past the games.

That person can be YOU.

“Here’s Something Truly Unique And Incredible For Your Social Skills…”

Until now, there was NOWHERE you could go to learn social skills and abilities like the ones I’ve discussed here.

You either had “it” or you didn’t… and if you didn’t, the only way you could figure these skills out was to be as thick-skulled as I am and spend years figuring it all out on your own.

A moment ago I told you about how I managed to capture some of these “natural” people – the men and women that are socially successful in any situation. They are like chameleons, able to blend into any social situation and make it work for them.

Well, their knack for social power can also work for YOU.

I managed to capture their techniques and their social strategies for you to learn.

What I did was create a home-study audio program where you can learn these Power Social Skills in your car, on the bus, or anywhere you like.

I just put the finishing touches on a personal development program called the “Power Social Skills – Social Dynamics” Program – where I will teach you how to handle or destroy any social games, avoid manipulation, identify the dangerous personalities out there, and get REAL & AUTHENTIC connection with just about anyone.

This program is the very first of its kind, designed from the ground up to help you overcome any of your social limitations and pull you out into the world like never before.

This program was created and structured to help you go from wherever you may be in your social abilities – from poor to average, or even good social ability – all the the way to COMPLETE SOCIAL MASTERY.

Unfortunately, most men and women NEVER learn more than a small fraction of the information that I’ve put together in this program – if they learn any of it at all.