Mar 09 2010
Facebook is up!
Im pumped that the Troy Cruz facebook fan page is now up and rollin’.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
Troy Cruz Facebook Page
-Troy Cruz
Feb 28 2010
Japan Trip, Troy Cruz Blog Future…Let’s Go!!
Whats up guys.
Its been a long time since my last post and I apologize for that. I work in the hedge fund industry and have been bombed at work.
First of all, I want to give props to the USA Olympic hockey team. This is the first time in my life I’ve taken any interest what-so-ever in hockey. Lookin good and making it interesting red and blue.
Anyway, Im heading out to Japan with my girl for 8 days…going to Kyoto, Nara, then staying in that Park Hyatt in Tokyo that, “Lost in Translation,” was filmed in. Way pumped.
When I get back I’m goin to make my posts much more frequent. Im also hoping to add podcasts, and and RSS feed if its not to complicated.
Sayonara!
Troy Cruz
Oct 12 2009
Personal Style – A Progression
What’s up guys.
I want to make an important point detailing a proper transition to your idea fashion and style. That distinction is that THE CHANGE NEEDS TO BE A SLOW AND GRADUAL PROGRESSION.
Ok….say you got excited after reading the fashion posts and went straight to Nordstrom’s. You picked out a cool pair of jeans that fit right, a new shirt with matching belt and cuff and you finished it off with a fresh pair of kicks by Mark Nason.
God Damn are you ready to roll hard.
Problem is, when you show up to the pre party to meet your friends, they are ALL going to give you major negative feedback, both consciously and subconsciously.
A widely accepted norm within social groups is style. As I pointed out in a previous post, if you look at most friends and social circles they will all have a similar style. Although there are some slight exceptions to this the vast majority of groups adhere to this pattern.
So a couple of your buddies have on t-shirts with clever sayings printed on them. Another guy has his plaid, GAP brand shirt tucked into his bright blue jeans with a woven leather belt pulling the look together.
Now you roll up looking like one of the guys you and your friends might have called, “Pretty boy,” or “Zoolander,” just last weekend.
Not good.
The only way to change your personal style is to do it very slow and deliberately. This will accomplish 3 things:
1. It will slowly introduce you to the added social pressure you will feel when you wear cooler clothing.
2. It will give your friends a much longer time to get used to the changes you make in your personal style and also provide them with a longer window of time for them to improve their style along with you.
3. It will allow you to learn and hone your style. If you were to go out and try to pick a cool outfit for the first time, even with the help of the 19 year old Bloomingdales girl, there’s going to be a problem. Most likely a problem with the look but definitely a problem with how the style looks and feels on you. You need to figure out what trends you like and fit naturally in your personality.
My personal style is sometimes preppy and sometimes edgy and occasionally in-between. If I went out this weekend with the skinny jeans that are tight around the ankles and a bright oversized hooded sweatshirt I would feel like shit. Even if the style looked good on me, I would wear it like shit and that is 90% of the battle.
The first night you go out with the intent to improve your style, just wear one piece of clothing or accessory that is cooler than what you typically would wear. A cool belt, name brand jeans, a chain, an embroidered shirt.
See how it feels. See how your friends react. See how people you don’t know react. Then move it up as fast as you are comfortable. Don’t be upset when your friends surprisingly don’t support you at first. With time they will be cool with it and more likely improve all of their wardrobes’ as well. And hey if they are never cool with it, they are probably pretty closed minded group.
Once again, I truly believe that having a strong style can help you immensely in nearly every aspect of life. Make the effort. Experience the difference that cool style can bring you first hand. Take the first step now!
Feel free to contact me with questions or successes you’ve had with your style progression at troy@troycruz.com.
Summary: Make your transition into a cool style a slow progression. By doing so you will avoid the common missteps that can be made by a sudden and dramatic shift.
Aug 19 2009
Troy Cruz’s Guide to Style 2/2
Those of you who read my blog know that I’m a huge of an advocate of having cool style. If you need a refresher on how important your style and image is on your entire life, take a look back at part one of this blog. In part 2, I’m going to show you how to approach the idea of improving your own personal style.
The basic premise that I teach is that you need to define what your image is, then improve upon it. So where do you fall? Below are some of the most common categories of dress:
- Preppy / High Society
- Nerdy / Earthy
- Trendy / Labels
- Business Professional
- Punk / Rock
Mind you, most people’s dress doesn’t fall into any of these categories. A polo shirt tucked into jeans with a brown weaved belt and white tennis shoes is probably the most common look for men. Horrible. My point is that even if you don’t have the most very stylish version of any particular category, it will still be a vast improvement from the average citizen.
Let’s go through the basics of the categories starting with:
Preppy / High Society. When I think of this I think of sport coats, blazers, tailored paints, fancy shoes, sweaters, and a lot of layers. If you have seen the TV show “Gossip Girl,” you have a good example of this category. You see a lot of this type of dress in affluent areas such as the Hamptons, other parts of New York and various parts of California.
The Nerdy / Earthy look is big in progressive areas like California and provide a very low maintenance attitude towards style. Some describe this as “Nerd Chic.” It consists of t-shirts with sayings or slogans on them, glasses, converse-style tennis shoes and messy hair styles.
Trendy / Labels style is seen all over the country especially in big cities. Big meathead guys like to wear this style but that doesn’t mean it’s not cool. I’m not only talking about name brand jeans, but gaudy name brand jeans, such as MEK Denim or jeans with shiny rhinestones attached. Loud shirts with embroidery and swarovski crystals. Ed Hardy and Christian Audigier are very old versions of this style.
Business professional is a mature look that gives the appearance that you just came from your professional occupation. A Suite, tie, suspenders, nice watch, neatly styled hair and cufflinks all fit into this category.
Punk / Rock. This look should have an “I don’t care,” flare to it. A leather jacket always fits. Name brands almost never fit. Darker colors, wallet chains, bracelets, necklaces, edgy hairstyle, jackets and coats.
Let say you have a job as an accountant for Google and live downtown San Francisco. You think you fall somewhere in between Preppy and Trendy. At work you dress business casual (even though Google’s dress code is much more lax in reality) and when you hit the town you wear jeans and some type of embroidered button down shirt with shoes from Aldo.
Sounds like a good start. The issue now is how you can improve on it.
By improving your style you are in a way standing out more than the average guy. This is not to be taken that any goofy means of standing out is good.
It means you want to stand out in a cool way. Leave the LED belt buckles at home. Distressed style is in right now.
Start by adding a single cool accessory. A really cool belt. A leather wrist cuff. A cool chain or necklace of some sort. A subtle ring. A leather jacket. And start slow, very slow.
What you will realize is that as your style stands out more and more, you will receive more and more social attention (social pressure) and need to ease into it slowly.
While the difference between these two pictures seems dramatic, the only real differences are the second guy has on a cool belt and his jeans are more distressed.
A single variation to what 90% of guys wear out is hugely impacting on the way you are initially received by people. If you have any questions about how to improve your specific style feel free to email me at Troy@troycruz.com
Summary: Take whatever your current style is and make it better by adding a cool accessory. If you’ve never worn anything edgy before, start very slowly and acclimate your social awareness to the new attention you will get. Even a slight improvement in style beyond the average guy will give you a major advantage on how you are initially received by the public.
Jul 17 2009
Oprah Show – Sex Therapist
I had to jump in here with a post between my 2 part Style series.
I turned on the TV just now to hear Oprah say, “If you have children in the room please send them out.” This got my attention. She went on to say, “Our sexual therapist is going to address common situations she see’s in her practice on a daily basis.”
I thought this would be an interesting angle as sexual therapists’ main clients are couples with problems in their relationships and sex life.
The sex therapist proceeds to say,” In today’s workplace, women often have to assume positions of power and authority. Therefore when they come home, they begin to infantilize their husband. (Treat them like a child) This makes them feel safer and more in control. You know, were ordering them around, telling them what to do, and then we all of the sudden wonder why were no longer attracted to them.”
“It’s hard to be attracted to a man that you don’t see as powerful and confident and equal to you. If you see him like a child you will not be attracted to him. They hate it, and their resentful for it, but he’ll slowly give in but grumbling along the way. It does a number on your sex life because he’s resentful and you’re disgusted by the monster you’ve created.”
There is an absolute ton of truth in that.
This is what is going on with a sickeningly high percentage of couples in our country. Women attempt to demasculinize their husband, and it’s not all the woman’s fault.
Women are always testing they guy they are with whether consciously or subconsciously. These tests may come in many different ways, but they all boil down to a test of the guy’s confidence.
A man’s confidence is such a huge, almost matrix-like indicator, in the basic value assessment that people are always taking on a day to day basis. Think about it, an individual knows everything there is to know about themselves. They remember the time in 7th grade PE class when they got picked second to last for basketball. They remember the time they asked the 4th hottest girl to Jr. year to homecoming and she said yes. Most importantly, they have a general assessment of all of the other guys on the entire planet, and where they think they rank among them.
You would probably be amazed at just how well men are at ranking themselves on a ‘cool’ or ‘value’ scale against other guys. In fact, I would put good money on the idea that within about 30 seconds of conversation, most guys will have a clear idea about which of them is more high value.
Whether you’ve known someone for a day, month, year or ten years, you still don’t know as much about them as they do of themselves.
Is a guy outgoing, talkative and speak in a loud voice when he’s at a chess club meeting? Then he probably thinks he is one of the cooler people at the chess club meeting.
Does he get quiet and shy when he’s at a cool party or night club? It simply means that he feels that the people at the club are cooler or have more social value than he does.
Notice this in your own life. Are there places you like you can really be yourself and let loose? What are the places you feel uptight and shy? Try to be aware of how this impacts your life, it’s the first step in improving it.
So back to women’s tests. If a women complains about something ridiculous that she never would have complained about in the past, call her out on it. If you don’t, it may not seem like a big deal, but it is another step in the slow shift of power. It shows her that you have less confidence in your perspective now than you did in the past.
I want to get more into this specifically in a later post. The therapist made the final suggestion to women to, “Let the man have a little of the power, let him make a decision every now and then.” That is just gross. Don’t fall into the trap of our quickly becoming pansy-culture.
Lesson: Men have evolved to be the leaders in relationships. We see this first hand as women loose sexual attraction for a man as she takes the power from him. Your confidence tells the world an amazing amount about you. Always be aware of what you are projecting and therefore telling the world about you.
- Troy Cruz
Jul 01 2009
Troy Cruz’s Guide To Style – Part 1/2
Style plays an immeasurable part in the overall first impression of a man. Simply by dressing the same guy differently, initial impressions can go from:
- Sloppy
- “Average Midwest father”
- Blue collar
To
- Powerful
- “Good with women”
- Sophisticated
That is HUGE. Most guys I’ve met would spend tons of money to improve their initial impression and image to that extent, but don’t realize how easy it is.
The initial impression people have of you will color everything you say to them from that point on. This is powerful stuff! What you say can be interpreted completely differently depending on the image people have of you. This image is creating in large part by your style and look. (Not Looks!)
Think of the impact this has on your career, social interactions and success with women.
If you look around in public, you will notice that nearly all couple’s style will fall into the same category and look similar. If a guy is wearing a short sleeve polo shirt with jeans and tennis shoes, you can make an educated guess that his wife or girlfriend will be wearing the female equivalent.
If a girl is wearing a super chic dress off Melrose Ave. in Los Angeles, with trendy matching shoes and bag, you can assume that she is with a guy who is, at a minimum, far more fashion forward than the average Joe.
You will also notice that at bars, dance clubs and often private parties, groups of friends will be dressed in the same ‘genre’ of clothing. Women don’t want to bring a guy around who looks like he doesn’t fit in with her social group. In part 2 of this post I will get into actually adjusting and amping up your personal style.
We can see that our style of dress has a huge impact on many important aspects of our life. Now why would clothing, a seemingly subtle variation between people, create such a big difference in people’s mental image of you?
S-O-C-I-A-L P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E
Why isn’t every guy who understands the importance of style dressing cool and getting the attention and interest of the high quality women they dream of? They simply can’t handle the pressure. The irony of it, is even if they did get their dream girl, there is a lot of social pressure that goes along with simply having a beautiful girl on your arm as well, but I digress.
There is a well known fact that the number one fear of all people is public speaking. Fear of having all eyes on them, fear of ridiculous amounts of attention. All of these things create social pressure.
Wikipedia defines peer pressure as:
“… the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms.”
Social pressure creates discomfort, uneasiness and is generally avoided by most people. When you wear cool clothing that stands out in anyway, you WILL feel social pressure. The more edgy and unique your style is, the most attention and social pressure you will feel.
Societies in general press its members to fit the norms of the group. If things were as our culture wanted, everyone would be the same. It would make things easy and the playing field even for below average, average and above average people. Society’s members are hardwired to discourage any other person from being unique and standing out. Unfortunately, standing out and being different is probably the single most attractive trait a man can possess.
Have any of you seen the TV show Daisy of Love? It’s a VH1, DC shoe version of The Bachelor. Daisy is a like a punk rock Barbie doll, who is pretty attractive. She dresses with huge edge and individualistic style. If you watch the show you will see that she is attracted almost exclusively to guys who have the same fashion style as her. This isn’t because they would look good together on the red carpet. It is because by dressing this way, these guys are showing that they can handle the social pressure that goes along with it. This ups the likelihood of these guys have other attractive characteristics such as being confident and a leader.
I want to point out that I understand that not everyone wants to look like Bret Michaels from The Rock of Love. Even if that’s the look you wanted, many professional jobs won’t allow for that type of image in the workplace. In my next post, I will address style improvements from the very corporate conservative, to the very edgy.
So can you take the heat? Are you still ready to take steps to improve your image and therefore your life?! Good! Stay tuned – the second part of this post will show you how.
Lesson: Dressing cool allows you to attract the high quality of women you dream of. However, dressing that way also brings added attention and social pressure – something that most guys don’t initially feel comfortable with. So step your of your comfort zone and try dressing the way you see guys dress who date beautiful women. Remember, couples almost always dress with the same type of style.
Check out the second part of Troy Cruz’s guide to style.
- Troy Cruz
Jun 17 2009
Troy Cruz’s Intro To Style
I want to warn you now, some or much of the proceeding post about fashion and style may not be what you want to hear. However, if you take the information in with an unbiased mindset, you will see the dynamics of what I write taking place all around you. From there, you will be able to make informed decisions about your personal style and understand the underlying impact of it.
This will be a 2 part post which, which in its entirety, will cover both the impact of your style and then how to improve upon it. (Or start completely from scratch)
So stay tuned, I will have the post up in the next day or two.
Jun 10 2009
Troy Cruz’s Guide To First Dates
Please answer the following multiple choice question.
When you think of first dates, you think of:
A) Nervousness/Anxiety
B) Formality
C) Interview Process
D) All Fun
First dates provide the opportunity for fun, discomfort, exhilaration, boredom and every emotion in between. I am not going to give you a list of ‘ideal first dates,’ but rather give some broad concepts that I feel are not well known by most men. In my experience, use of these concepts provide the template for some of the best first dates I have personally had.
First I want to deconstruct a typical first date scenario. Then I will I suggest a different a new strategy, and point out the difference between the two.
“Hey this is Troy, I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner and a movie sometime.”
I know this could look like I picked an easy target but you might be surprised to see how many men use a variation very similar to this. So what could be problematic with this approach? First off, it puts the girl in a situation where she has to choose YES or NO. It gives her the power to say NO, and make you look and feel like a dork. It also gives her the choice to say YES, but when it’s worded as above, it feels more like she is doing you a favor than two mutually interested people getting together.
Also, it puts you in the frame as the providing guy, who wants to spend a bunch of money and prove to her why he is worthy for her to spend more time with him. This reminds me of the show Planet Earth I was watching a few weeks ago about the various mating rituals found in the wild. This bird reminds me of the way a lot of guys come off with their overtly overcompensating efforts to show the girl a nice time.
While this video illustrates, surprisingly enough, the way that all birds of this species attract their mates, I suggest that as men, we use a different approach. We do need to give a girl reasons to spend time with us, but not by spending money and showing off our car, but rather by giving her excitement, good emotions and the chance to see the real you. Yeah you know, the guy behind the grandiose first date facade. Eventually she is going to find out who you really are. Better now on your terms than later on hers.
“Hey this is Troy, I’m going to be at the W hotel tonight watching the game. U should come by for a drink.”
Or
“I have to go to the mall to pick up a pair of jeans, you should tag along.”
First let’s talk about how these two propositions alleviate problems from our standard example above. Both put the interaction in a totally different frame. A frame that you will be doing the activity whether she decides to come or not. This puts less pressure on her and shows that you have a cool life of your own. You’re not the guy looking for a girl to come along, save them and make their life interesting. You are also not putting the girl on the spot by forcing her to produce a YES or NO answer.
Secondly, you’re not trying to impress her. You are giving her an opportunity to step into your life and see if the two of you click. It also removes the potential ‘provider’ frame that you can fall into with a more traditional dinner date.
These activities are fundamentally different as well and provide the surroundings to not only interact with her, but also to see her interact with others, and vice-versa. If you spend an hour at the mall shopping for whatever, I guarantee you will have a very complete ideaas to if the two of you are compatible.
This may seem like a very aloof style of first date, or at least compared to any Hollywood movie. In reality, this will cast you in a very attractive light and sub communicates a lot of value and positive attributes.
So leave the dozen red roses at home, let her step into your life, and project some positive attributes while you’re at it! If you have any particular questions about potential first date ideas, contact me at Troy@TroyCruz.com
Lesson: Leave behind all of your traditional ideas of what first dates should look like. Invite the girl to join you in a cool activity that you will be doing regardless of her accompanying you. It gives off all the right signs, and removes the uncomfortable aspects of an old school date.
- Troy Cruz
Jun 09 2009
What else does the box say? Shut up Steve!!
Your bouncing back on the dating scene for the first time in years (decades!). You’ve been working out, you’ve been cleaning up your diet, you’ve even gotten a new outfit and are ready to roll!
The problem is America doesn’t want you to roll. The media doesn’t want you to roll. Nobody wants you to roll!
The video above truly makes me want to puke. Through our countries culture, in everything from Hollywood movies to the subtle (and not so subtle as seen in the above commercial) cues and intricacies in our everyday media, we are bombarded with people showing us how to act – especially towards women.
in the last 50 years, there has been an unheard of 180 degree turn towards the portrayal of male and female interaction. The tone has clearly turned from one where the man is the leader to the woman leading. According to the commercial above, it is now cool to treat your man like a bitch.
Ever heard the saying, “Women love Jerks!” or seen an awesome woman with a guy that treats her like shit? I don’t advocate it. But I do advocate acting like a man! While women often say they want a guy who will bow down to there every like Steve, they are attracted to strong, decisive men. A man’s man. Watch the first 15 seconds of this 1952 FAB detergent commercial.
I am an absolute proponent of the progress our country has made in women’s equality. However, I don’t feel this in anyway justifies the sudden shift in our cultural norms that have occurred.
In David Deiada’s somewhat abstract book, “The way of the Superior Man,” he breaks down the spectrum of males and their masculinity and correspondingly females and their femininity. Deiada believes that 90%+ of all men naturally prefer to be in a relationship in which the man is the leader. Correspondingly, the same 90% of all women prefer to be in a relationship where the man leads. But how socially unsavvy for a woman to admit this!
I also like this excerpt : “It is time to evolve beyond the macho jerk ideal, all spine and no heart ,It is also time to evolve beyond the sensitive and caring wimp ideal, all heart and no spine.”
Our peers are also likely to pressure us to not act too manly. It may even be perceived as rude for the man to try to take the lead in decisions. I was talking to a buddy the other day who described to me a situation at a get-to-gather last weekend.
He described how his wife and he were talking about what the rest of the night had entailed for them. They had agreed on plans earlier in the night that she had forgotten about. When they had lost track of time and he told her they had to leave right then, other women at the party gave very shocked, disapproving looks. He later found out that they had continued to gossip about how rude he was for taking the lead and not pushing the decision to her.
She obviously shouldn’t have let her husband get out of line! It’s funny to point out that all of the women who made the biggest fuss about it, were the ones who are the most unhappy in their unbalanced marriages.
Hopefully now you have a better understanding of the unnatural impact that our culture has had on our views of male/female leadership. Im not asking you to call every lady at the next dinner party, “toots,” but to rather be determined to understand what is going on in the interaction, act a normal man, and not get sucked into acting in an unnaturally spineless way – because Steve’s wife thinks it’s a good idea.
Lesson: Humans amongst almost every other animal have evolved to be in balance with the male in the lead. Don’t let the violent shift in American culture’s portrayal of the modern relationship pressure you into acting against your nature.
- Troy Cruz