This is installment number three of my diatribe, “Get a Fucking Life.” What started as me rambling about how guys don’t get out of the house enough has turned into an all-out guide to becoming a well-rounded individual.

Part 1: Being Well Read
Part 2: Developing Artistic Taste
Part 3: Trying New Things
Part 4: Having Opinions

Today’s section will talk about trying new things.

Before we jump right in, a former student emailed me about this series. He’s a guy who has his life together, is very intelligent and opinionated and in general, a well-rounded individual. He pointed out that reading Hemingway or developing opinions on Chaucer or Bach never got him laid in a dance club.

Well… touche. Although, I’ll make the following points:

1) Being a well-rounded individual is going to make you irresistible in a more long-term dating context, not a same night lay context — therefore this shit is gold for dates, girls you’ve been seeing for a while, and generally connecting with a girl deeply and keeping her around for a long time.
2) The second point I’ll make is what my high school literature teacher always told us: “You read literature because you can NEVER meet enough people.” What I take from this is yes, even though reading Hemingway or Hayek’s perspective on libertarianism may not directly get you laid in a dance club environment, what it WILL do is develop your perspective to be more varied, allow you to be able to relate to more people’s experiences and ideas, and generally have a wider body of knowledge for dealing with people in general.

Anyone who has read a lot can tell you, that often the best ideas you take from a certain book often have NOTHING to do with the book you read.

Anyway, with that said… moving on.

Trying new things. This installment is to battle what I see in way too many guys: the guys who have been caged into the same day-to-day grind as every other guy.

- They go to work (often at a good job)
- They come home and unwind
- They watch the typical sports/sitcoms/movies
- On Fridays/Saturdays they hang out with the same 3-4 friends.

Often times, I meet guys who don’t even have THIS much variance and balance in their life. They’re stuck in 60-80 per week jobs, they work two jobs, they have absolute no hobbies outside of World of Warcraft, etc.

Now, there’s nothing “wrong” with the above list. It represents about 90% of the male population between the ages of 20 and 40 in the Western world.

And THAT’S the problem. Because that means you have the same amount going for you as 90% of the male population, no more, sometimes less.

I mention this in my my book, but ask yourself: if you were lined up next to 10 random guys from a bar you frequent, what would make you stand out from them? Most of them will be fairly educated. Most of them will have decent jobs. Most of them will have taken the one or cool vacations here and there. Most of them will have one or two off-the-wall Vegas story or something.

What do you have that they don’t?

What can you offer that most other guys can’t?

Do you secretly write poetry in your spare time and hide it in your closet? Have you been skydiving three times? Did you climb a glacier in the Alps once? Have you tried eating things like snake, worms, spiders? What have you done that’s cool and interesting and has shaped you as a person?

It’s hard to list too many examples here, because the possibilities are literally endless, so I want to give you a classic exercise that my friend Mr. Awesome introduced to me years ago. Then I’ll post some of my answers.

Take out a sheet of paper.

One one side, I want you to take 10 minutes and list unique things that you have done or experienced that most people haven’t. It could be everything from climbing a mountain, to writing your school’s play in high school, to recovering from cancer, to going on a 10-day meditation retreat, to starting your own business in college.

Write things that you’ve done that no one or almost no one you know has done or experienced.

Now, turn the paper over. Take 10 minutes and write all of the the things you WANT TO DO before you die on it. Assuming money and time wasn’t an issue, list EVERYTHING you would do before you died.

Some examples from my list: write a novel, see the pyramids, learn to box, live in Japan, speak five languages, climb a mountain, etc.

Go fucking nuts. Write until you can’t think of anything else or the 10 minutes are up.

Now, take a look at your lists.

1) If your first list has fewer than 10 things, you REALLY need to get out more.
2) If your second list has fewer than 10 things, you need to put yourself out there and start trying new things and experiencing the world. You lack curiosity and ambition for quality experience.
3) Pick three items from your second list and make it your goal to do them within the next year.

In the end, working all day and night to have a great job and make a ton of money is a very superficial satisfaction. I don’t need to tell you guys this. Enjoyment of life comes from varied life experience.

The more life experience you indulge in, the more developed of a person you’ll become, the more mature your perspective on life and people will become, the easier you’ll relate to women and the more culture, worldliness and value you’ll seem to add to their lives.