I recently watched a video with Tony Robbins, John Reese and Frank Kern, that really gelled together something I have thought about for a while. I highly recommend this video, since Frank and John talk to Tony about the question of why so many of the people that get involved with Internet Marketing never get anywhere with it. They maybe buy a few products, but never end up really acting on it and making major changes to their life.

The similarities between this and men’s efforts to improve with women should be self-evident. Plenty of men read blogs, and invest in books, programs, or workshops to improve, but don’t quite make all of the steps necessary to put it in to practice. The video is about 40 minutes long, and well worth the time to view it:

Tony Robbins, Frank Kern, and John Reese Video.

The most important part of this video, in my mind, is this diagram that Tony draws:

We all believe we have some Potential, and that Potential leads us to take the Actions that we perform. Those Actions then return a Result, and that Result either changes or reinforces our Beliefs. Our Beliefs directly effect what we believe our Potential is. The cycle continues.

This cycle can be a flat line, where nothing ever changes, it can be a downward cycle, where negative beliefs work around to negative actions, which furthers our negative beliefs, or it can be a positive cycle, that leads onwards and upwards.

Tony focuses on changing these beliefs in this video, and that is good and useful to some degree, but isn’t always the best, or most effective way to go about this.

The thing with this cycle is that there is no beginning point. Any one of these boxes can be targeted to turn this cycle into a positive, upwards cycle. You can start anywhere here, and things will improve.

For instance, take a guy with bad beliefs about his abilities and chances with women, beliefs that hold him back from taking the proper actions to get amazing results. Now put him in a hot tub with 4 Swedish bikini models that all want to take him to their room and molest him, and his inner game is gonna get fixed right away.

Those Results instantly change his Beliefs, which effects what he sees as his Potential, which will impact his Actions.

So much self help and “inner game” stuff targets the Belief portion of this cycle, and this is why I think a lot of inner game stuff is BS. Your and my Beliefs are the hardest to change out of those 4 things. After all, we have years and years of results that reinforce our beliefs.

Do you think that saying “I am sexy” 10 times to yourself in the morning can overcome being treated as unsexy since junior high? You can’t think your way out of years of experience.

I think we all have a belief about how hot of women we can get. It’s this little belief that is lurking down inside of all of us. Take the guy that thinks that he can only get girls that look so-so, let him date Megan Fox for a couple months, and his beliefs about how hot of women he can get are gonna change pretty quickly.

A strong result will do far more to change beliefs than anything else.

Here’s a real world example. I was working with a guy at a workshop a couple weekends ago, and he thought he had a problem with women. His belief was that he just didn’t quite have what it took to be successful with women, and that there was something wrong with him. I pushed him into action to talk to a woman in Union Square, and he ended up instadating her and spent an hour with her in a cafe.

That Result from his Actions did far more to change his Beliefs than inner game work could have.

Actions and Results are the fastest and easiest way to change beliefs, and with it, inner game.

This is why I have always been rubbed the wrong way when people say that they need to work on their inner game. The best way to get better Inner Game is to get better Outer Game. The inner game will improve from the outside in.

Here’s another example from my life.

I’ve noticed that I feel much more confident lately. It’s a “new level of confidence and power” (Pantera rules). I figured out what this comes from, and it comes from all the “find your purpose” crap that gets thrown around all the time.

I say it’s crap when it’s really not. It’s actually incredibly important stuff. I’ve only recently started to see the power behind this. A couple months ago I invested in some art supplies and got to work with a big art project, the first since I finished art school, other than the random drawings and doodles. I don’t need to get really deep into it, but suffice to say, creating art is VERY important to me. The world makes more sense when I create stuff.

Because I am doing this, my life feels more complete, and I have a sense of being a fuller person. I feel like I bring much more to the table when I meet a woman, and I have a rich life to bring her into, one that is very satisfying for me. If she isn’t interested, that is fine, I know that it isn’t because I have a douschy, pathetic life.

The beginning of this advance was Action. I performed an Action (started making a series of 101 prints), which led to a Result (a feeling of satisfaction about my life), which led to a Belief (I have a rich, full life to share with women), which led to Potential (more women).

Most of my inner game advances came as a result of Actions and their Results, not the other way around.

There are still specific things I remember that changed my inner game. The time I was waiting for one girl outside her apartment to pick her up for a date, when another woman called while I was waiting. There are others that I won’t share publicly here

I think that most inner game issues can be addressed by taking Proper Action. Proper Action will do far more for your inner game than anything else, and Results from that Action will improve your inner game far more than thinking about it will.