James Maverick - The Sovereign Man: The Proven 10-Step Program To Conquering Yourself, Attracting Women, And Dominating Your Life

THE SOVEREIGN MAN

James Maverick

First Electronic Edition, October 2014

Copyright 2014 James Maverick

All rights reserved.

http://www.mavericktraveler.com

CONTENTS

The year 2011 was a pivotal year in my life. I had just finished a blitzkrieg through Europe, visiting over 20 countries in a span of several months. It was a nice introduction to a new continent, one that I wanted to discover and explore for a very long time. The timing also couldnt have been better: after five years of living in Latin America, I was burned out and ready for a change.

As I was wrapping up my European adventures in Ukraine, I ended up chatting with a very cute and friendly girl on an overnight train. Before we parted ways, I got her number and we made plans to see each other again. I called her a couple of days later. We met up and walked around the city. The next day I flew to Croatia to meet an old friend, where I planned to spend few weeks before returning to Ukraine. While I was traveling, the girl and I kept in close touch. We constantly emailed each other, with her sending me pictures from her trip to Turkey, and me sending her pictures from the beautiful colonial Croatian towns. She truly seemed enthusiastic to see me, and the feeling was mutual. In fact, we made plans to meet up on the day of my return. Once I landed in Ukraine, I could sense her excitement from the number of smileys in her reply to my hello text. Assuming that her enthusiasm would translate into a quick date, I asked her to get a drink later that night. After several minutes of thinking, she replied that she was busy that evening but would be free in a couple of days, on Thursday. The long reply coupled with her inability to meet me the same night naturally raised a couple of red flags in my mind, but I shrugged them all off. I agreed to reschedule, and eagerly waited for Thursday to arrive. On Thursday she informed that she was busy and couldnt meet. We rescheduled for Saturday. Saturday came and she was still busy. This happened again on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Although I was naturally frustrated, I was even more stumped because unlike the previous situations where a girl either outright rejected me or readily wanted to see me, things with this girl werent as black and white. She was responsive, always answering my emails and texts in a speedy manner. Things always seemed very promising, but every time we were set to meet, she was unavailable for one flimsy reason or another. Something was definitely off, but I just couldnt put my finger on it. All I knew was that I was putting in more energy into the interaction than she was. I was initiating contact. I was arranging dates. After she flaked once more, I stopped contacting her. And just like that she completely disappeared from my life.

I moved on but kept the experience in the back of my mind. I wanted to understand what exactly had happened so I could prevent it in the future. I was frustrated that it didnt work out, but what really kept me up at night was my inability to persuade her to see me. I felt completely powerless and desperate. Even though she was energetically replying to my messages and communicating with me, no amount of convincing could get her out of the house and into the bar.

I returned to America for the winter but flew back to Europe in the spring. This time I moved to the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain, where I decided to set up camp and work on my startup. For several months previously I had been thinking building a specific web application, and since I had the programming knowledge, I was able to build it relatively quickly. Six weeks later the app was finished. All I now needed were visitors and customers, but since I was a firm believer in the if you build it, they will come methodology, I wasnt worried at all. Expecting a barrage of customers to begin using my service, I enthusiastically launched the app to the world.

Nothing happened. My launch was greeted with a silence so deafening that I even checked multiple times if my website was available and accessible to the world. Refusing to give up, I tried all kinds of marketing and advertising. I received a trickle of customers and made a bit of money, but the amount I earned was a cruel joke compared to the amount of time I had worked on the project day in and day out. Although it was a brutal disappointment, I refused to give up. I kept adding features and refining the app, but none of that seemed to make much of a difference. In fact, nothing I did seemed to work at all. It soon became obvious that continuing to work on the application was a complete waste of my time. It was a tough break because I had spent so much time building something and wasnt rewarded for it. Once again, I felt not only frustrated but also confused.

At first glance, both of these situationsthe girl flaking and the business failingseemed completely unrelated. The only connection between them was that I couldnt figure out why both of these things, which were destined to succeed and seemed so close at hand, had failed. I couldnt figure out why a project with a great idea flopped. Similarly, I couldnt fathom why a girl who was being super responsive, an obvious sign of attraction, just couldnt make the seemingly minor step and meet me in the bar that was only fifteen minutes from her house. None of these things made any sense.

Another common factor was that in both situations I was expending increasingly more energy as time went on without being rewarded for it. I worked hard on the project and spent lots of time attracting customers, but when I launched it, no one came. I spent lots of energy trying to arrange the dates with the girl by yielding to her schedule and rearranging mine, but she kept declining. In both cases, I put in 90% of the work while the other party contributed only about 10%. Something was definitely wrong.

I discovered an important clue six months later during one of my trips back to New York. One of my good friends whom I hadn't seen for a long time invited me out for a drink. We sat down and after quickly catching up, I started telling him about my two major failures that had recently taken place, and how it was a riddle that my brain had worked cathartically to solve in the background for the entire time since. My friend listened patiently. After I finished, he took a slow sip of his beer and stared out the window. I followed his gaze by admiring the beautiful spring day outside. Maybe no one wanted your product, my friend shrugged, still looking out the window. "I'm talking about the business side. I really don't know why that girl didn't want to meet you," he clarified his explanation.

Nobody wanted my product. There was no demand. I thought to myself as I sipped my beer. I mulled over that thought for a few moments, letting it sink in.

Over the ensuing weeks and months, I gradually realized that my friend was absolutely right. And he wasn't just right about the product I builtnobody did want itbut it also explained why the girl continuously refused to see me. The problem was demand, or, more accurately, the lack of it. My project failed because there was absolutely no market for what I was selling. Similarly, the girl didnt want to meet me because she just wasnt interested in me enough to leave her house and meet me in a bar.

As I kept thinking more about what demand really meant, I immediately pictured one of those hole in the wall restaurants. Such a restaurant doesnt have a glitzy storefront or an aesthetically designed interior, but for one reason or another its always filled with hungry people. Its not even unusual to find a line of customers stretching around the block. The reasons for the restaurants success arent hard to understand: when people are hungry, they go to the restaurant. They like the tasty food. They tell their friends about it. Then when their friends are hungry, they also go to the restaurant. This model works in complete contrast to other restaurants that go out of business despite spending lots of money on flashy fliers and other advertising.