Sparks. He is a four-time – this is his fourth time – returning speaker to The 21

Convention. I first met him back in 2009, and I was blown away by his speech, one of

the best that year, and every year since, of course, of course. He is the head coach

of The Social Man, one of the world leaders in dating and social skills development for

men. The title of his speech today is How to Hold Conversation Like a Man. Without further

adieu, we welcome Nick Sparks back to the stage.

Fourth time being up on The 21 Convention stage. First of all, I just want to say I

feel very fortunate to be up here, so thank you for having me again, Anthony. It’s awesome.

This is always the best. I always look forward to this event. I also feel very nervous. I

don't know if I’m giving all signs of that too much, but I’ve been doing this a lot

now in the past three or four years, but it never gets any easy for me. Whenever I stand

up here, I’m still trying to hold back myself from shaking, but I will do my best.

The title of my speech today is How to Hold Conversation Like a Man. It’s not the most

simple concept in the world to really define, to really explain but I’ll do my best. I

found through trying to explain this concept that one of the best ways that I can do it

is to start off with a story that I think really highlights what it means to hold conversation

like a man, what it means to be a man, take a masculine role in the conversation with

a woman. Three years ago now, my first time standing

at a 21 Convention, I opened up with a story, and about me and a girl which I thought was

going to help illustrate some points and teach some things, and some of the feedback I got

after that speech was along the lines of, “Oh, man. This asshole is just bragging

about some girls like he sounds like a douche bag,” this and that. Looking back, it might

have been a little bragging. It might have been a little douchey. I admit that. It’s

probably against my best self-interest to start with a story, but I’m going to go

ahead and do it anyway and hopefully I can try to keep the douche level as low as possible.

I’ll do my best. Thank you. Let’s see. This story starts out several

years ago. I was in Amsterdam on vacation. Great place to go. Visit it if you’ve never

been. I was staying in a hostel. I highly recommend staying in a hostel if you’re

ever traveling alone. It’s the best way to meet people. You’re always going to have

other people traveling alone. All over the world, really interesting cast, great way

to go out, find people to go out and do things with. I highly recommend staying in hostel.

It was in this one particular hostel that I’ve met this lovely Romanian girl – very

sweet, spoke good enough English, and we were getting to know one another. We were all sitting

around in a group. I was staying in a 15-person dorm room, which was about as big of a dorm

room I’ve ever stayed in a hostel, and we were sitting around in a circle, me and a

bunch of all other roommates. It was getting closer to the evening, and we were all just

kind of sitting around, getting to know each other, [unintelligible 0:03:30] having some

beers, having a good time, laughing, and this sweet Romanian girl, she was just sitting

right next to me. As we were talking, I was looking. We were

flirting a little bit. She started leaning closer to me, and she started like nuzzling

up a little bit, smiling, looking at me, and I thought, “This is a great start to a vacation.

This is perfect. I could not have planned this vacation any better. Welcome to Amsterdam!”

Of course, as fate would have it, as luck would have it, it’s never that simple because

as we were all sitting around, all of a sudden I hear some yelling. We look out the window.

Down at the courtyard, the thing is just to make this clear, we were on the second floor.

The window overlooked this courtyard, and directly across the courtyard was the all-male

dorm. I was in a coed. This was the all-male dorm. Sure enough, coming into the courtyard,

there were Norwegian guys yelling and screaming, beating their chests super like alpha, and

of course all the girls in the room go screaming over the window. “What’s going on?”

They want to like go, check out the action that’s happening down in the courtyard.

The guys were yelling up, making this big scene. The ringleader of the guys, the loudest

one, the one that’s talking the most, he pulls himself up. He grabs the window ledge,

pulls himself up to it like carries in the girls like “Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.”

Like helping to pull him in, like taking care of him. He stands up. His friends come up,

and he’s just in the middle of the circle. He’s holding court, telling all these stories

like making all these jokes. Everybody was like the focus is on him, and I see my sweet

Romanian girl starting to drift towards him as well, starting to lean forward, starting

to look at him more in the eyes, starting smiling looking at him.

I just think to myself, “Son of a bitch! Son of…There goes my beautiful, perfect

vacation. Son of a bitch!” I was not happy at all. I was not happy at all. At this point

that I found myself at a crossroads. There were several different directions I could

go and there were several different directions I wanted to go, there were several different

directions I was dying to go. My first impulse, the first reaction that

I had, the first thing that I wanted to do, I think it’s really common. I certainly

had it before, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. In fact, I would say we’ve all

experienced this first impulse, and that first impulse was to just feel sorry for myself.

Get pissed like kind of shut my mouth, kind of slink back in and think, “Screw this

guy! He’s such a douche bag. If she wants to be with a guy like that, fine go. She can

have him. I really didn’t like her that much anyway. This guy sucks. These people

are lame. I didn’t even like them. I wasn’t having a good time. Screw them.” Right?

Hold myself back, feel sorry for myself, make excuses, it was my first impulse. Thank God,

I started to do it. I started to shrink back when he first came in. That was my first impulse.

I started to do it. Thank God, I didn’t let that happen for too long. Because what

would have happened? I’ve done it before. We’ve all been there before. I would have

said screw this people, gone out to the bar by myself, right? I’ll find some chick myself.

I don’t need them. I would have been in such a bad mood that I would have turned off

anybody that got close to me. I would have ended up just getting hammered, stumbling

home, passing out, listening to them banging on the bed next to me or something like that.

I think it was the worst decision. Luckily, I didn’t go down that path, luckily.

My second impulse, my second action that I was desperate to take and this one was hard

for me to fight because this is standard MO like whenever I’m screwing up in a conversation

with a woman or in general like this is my biggest problem, right? That second impulse

for me, that second thing like, “I’ll know what I’ll do. Here’s what I’ll

do. I’ll show this guy. I was to say like I’m 10 times as entertaining. I’m 10 times

as charming. I’m 10 times as funny. I can hold court a million times better than this

guy. Does he realize who the heck he’s dealing with right now? Nick Sparks!” Right?

This was next impulse, my ego, my ego. What? I can be funnier. I can be better. Me, me,

me, me. Let me show everybody how hilarious I am, how much better I am than this guy.

That was my second impulse. I started like getting out there and trying to outdo him,

try to one up his jokes, one up his stories, to try to be the bigger center of attention

than he was. Thank God, I didn’t go down that path either though. I know where that

would have gone. I’ve been there before. I’ve done it before. Him and I would have

gotten to some sort of penis measuring competition. Who’s got the bigger one? Girls always get

turned off. “Oh, gosh. Guys, here they go with their stupid like childhood thing.”

The girls would have gotten turned off. They would have gone and done their own thing.

Maybe he and I would have been friends, maybe not. I don't know, but as long as I was playing

his game, I was never going to win. Luckily, I did not give in to my second impulse.

What did I do instead? Again, I like to tell this story because I really think it highlights

some of the most common mistakes what I often refer to as taking the feminine role in conversation.

It really helps luckily the course of action I chose to take instead I think really highlights

more the masculine role. What did I do in that situation? I realized that I’ve been

in his situation before. I can relate to him like perfectly. What does he want? He wants

that validation, and so I was going to give it to him. What I started to do? I became

his biggest cheerleader. I became his biggest cheerleader.

I started anytime he told a story, “No way. That’s awesome! Shut up! I did something

like that. It wasn’t nearly as cool. What was that like? That must have been incredible.

That’s really amazing, dude. That’s sweet. What was that? Tell me more about that part.

Did you do this or did you do that?” It’s crazy. It’s sweet.

I wasn’t holding myself out of the conversation, right? I wasn’t slinking back into my corner,

and I wasn’t trying to one-up him. I was very much a part of that conversation. I became

as active a member of that conversation as anybody else there, right? But I let him keep

his stage. I let him keep the spotlight. This is what I really think. If anything, the masculine

role in a conversation is it’s certainly not feeling sorry for yourself, making excuses,

holding yourself back. “Woe is me! Victim! Victim! Victim!” Right? It’s certainly

not trying to steal the center of attention. I really consider that to be the woman’s

role more, more on that in a second. But what’s the masculine role in a conversation?

It’s really, really simple. It’s to set the framework, to set the stage, i.e. the

stage to which they can start talking more to get them talking, and then it’s to provide

validation. It’s to provide your own source of I like this. I think this is good. That’s

awesome. We need more of that and not so much of that. Right? Do I want to be the jester

in that situation or do I want to be the king? And so, I like to say they really do a great

job at highlighting both the biggest mistakes that I see guys make when I’m working with

them in conversation. It also highlights what they should be doing instead.

The biggest mistakes I see in conversation really, really simple. Number 1 is definitely

physical, body language. We can talk about that a way more in the Q&A session and anything.

This is all about conversation, right? Number 1 physical leave out the table, but in conversation-wise,

the next two biggest things that people screw up in conversations: not doing anything, holding

themselves out of the conversation because they’re just feeling sorry for themselves,

making excuses, either not approaching or just kind of like in the group, letting everybody

else talk, feeling like I’m just left out of the group, number 1. Number 2: try to make

themselves the center of attention, try to look at me, look how funny, look how charismatic,

look how interesting I am. Like I said, this is my biggest mistake. Whenever

things don’t go well with me with me with a girl, and it happens. Whenever it happens

though, it’s only one reason because I’m making it all about myself. I’m not making

it about her, right? As interesting as I can be, as funny as I can be, as well as I can

hold a spotlight so to speak, I can’t even come close to touching a woman when she’s

fully lit up, when she’s just completely on like I can’t even be half as magnetic

as she can. Sometimes I think I can be and I wish I could be sometimes. I have that tendency

to want to want a little too much, but I always consider that the feminine role. That’s

what she was born for. The feminine was the flower. The feminine is the spotlight, and

so the second biggest mistake that I see is when guys try to take that away from her and

make it about them instead of making it about her.

One of my assistant coaches, she coined the term, “It’s much better to be interested

than to be interesting.” Because that’s really your two big goals in a conversation,

not to try to impress her with how funny or whatever you are. It doesn’t work. Consistency

will always falter. What are your two jobs in a conversation with a woman? One, get her

talking as much as possible. Two, make her feel good about it when she does. That’s

it. That’s all you have to do. The most common line I use to open up a conversation

or I have my guys to open up a conversation, “Hey! How’s it going?” It’s not your

job to try to be funnier, interesting, and win them over. It’s not your job to say

the right thing. It’s just your job to start the conversation. It’s your job to just

get it going, and then see what she has to offer. We’ll talk a little bit more about

how you’ll make that happen specifically. Don’t worry, but I want to emphasize first

and foremost that if you go in there just try to impress her. It’s always going to