Ep. #76 Hacking Your Handsomeness with Ryan Magin

[Angel Donovan]: Hey Ryan, it’s awesome to have you on the show.

[Ryan Magin]: I appreciate having me on here, man. Thank you.

[Angel Donovan]: Let me know a bit about your background first. How did you get into all this fashion, style stuff?

[Ryan Magin]: Absolutely. First off, I never was into fashion. That’s the funny part. I didn’t even like it; I didn’t care about it; I didn’t even know about it – had no intention ever learning about it.

It wasn’t until I became an entrepreneur. Most of us in these types of business, we work online, and I was doing really well, making really good money and I could wear whatever I wanted and didn’t have to care about looking good ever.

So I had that mentality and I moved into a luxury apartment area in my downtown area. I live in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida here. I was paying a lot of money for rent so I thought I was the shit and I was throwing parties.

I actually met a girl who leaved underneath me and she’s now my current girlfriend. We’ve been together now about – if you count the little breakup which I’m going to explain about – I guess it’s about three years now.

We were together for a while, and it was around that time that my business was falling apart. I was doing a lot of stuff with Google and SEO, which I’m sure you’re very familiar with, but I was doing a lot of questionable things with Google SEO and I had a very unstable business. Although it was bringing me quite a large income while I was working, it was very unstable and not very sustainable.

I thought I was invincible and whatever, one thing led to another, and that fell apart. But it fell apart right after we had just moved in together. So I went from making $7,000-$10,000/month to making about $2,000/month, and that was the price of rent at our apartment.

I freaked out a little bit and fast forward a little bit, things were rocky and shaky for about a year after that, and she was really on the fast track in her career. She runs two medical clinics now; she does it really well – a very brilliant girl. She was really mingling with doctors, lawyers, really higher-ups, city officials, and one thing is she was kind of embarrassed to bring me around because I was this dude who worked on the Internet and I always dressed like a little punk skateboarder kid, because that’s how I grew up.

I grew up racing BMX and extreme sports were always a part of my life, so I had that attitude of sideways hats, skate shoes, [crosstalk 07:30] shorts. 95% of my wardrobe had no sleeves, so I looked like a young kid. She was a little embarrassed about that, and she had other things going on in her life, so we ended up breaking up, and that’s when things really – I guess you could say – hit rock bottom.

I had no money saved up; I had to move into a really crappy apartment with my friend. I was like, “Man, I need to change.” At that point, I took it out of spite. I was like, “Oh, if you want to date people that wear suits, fuck you. I’ll be the coolest-looking dude ever and I’ll be the most well-dressed guy in the room every time I go walk out that door.”

[Angel Donovan]: So your girlfriend started dating guys –.

[Ryan Magin]: She never really started dating; it was just, I took offense to the fact that she was embarrassed to bring me around guys that were wearing suits. That was just my entire – you know when you just pick one thing and you’re just mad about it? That was my thing and I was like, “You know what? Screw you. I’m going to be the best dressed dude ever.” And that sparked this entire passion for men’s style.

I started reading blogs, reading books, studying guys like Donald Trump and very wealthy men who wore suits all the time. It became an obsession, and I’m a very obsessive person. I really love health and fitness, so when I’m trying a new program, I’m 100% immersed in it and I read everything I can about that certain thing.

The same thing happened with style, and over the course of I guess it was six, seven months that me and her were not together, I basically threw all my clothes out, started from scratch, started buying singular piece by piece.

When I started, I didn’t have any money; I didn’t have any money saved and I had to get a new apartment. I had about a bed and – I had nothing. All my savings, the little bit that I had went to just making my life a little more comfortable [unclear 09:18] so I had something to sleep on; it wasn’t an air mattress.

I took little by little every week. When I got paid, I just bought a pair of boots here, I buy a nice shirt here, I take a jacket to the tailor, and one by one I just started reinventing my wardrobe. When I started doing that, I mean, I was a single guy at the time, so I would go out, and things just started getting very easy.

Drinks were getting handed to me, bartenders were serving me first, women were hitting on me, and I’m like, “Holy shit! What the hell is going on? This has never happened to me before” and it was 100% because I had this unspoken confidence because of how I was dressing.

Just going back a little bit, I never really had a problem meeting women. Naturally, I’m a very social person, so meeting women, hooking up with girls was never very hard for me, but being that I was out of practice being in a relationship for – at that time when we broke up, it was two years, I was very rusty. I just started dressing better and literally, women were hitting on me. I’ve never had that before; even with me being really social, it was never that easy.

[Angel Donovan]: Did you find that different women were taking an interest in you than the ones previously? Did you notice any difference between your hat-backwards days – I don’t know what you want to call that – versus where you brought yourself to? Were the types of women you were hooking up with or who were noticing you changing?

[Ryan Magin]: Yes, and that’s what spawned – and we’ll talk it about later with my products. The way I dress specifically attracted certain types of women.

When I would go out, let’s say it was a Friday night, I would go out early [unclear 10:59] I’d hit a happy hour. I’d wear a nice-fitting blazer, some dark jeans, a nice pair of boots and a button up. My shirt would be tucked in and I would look very wealthy, I should say, and that would attract a little older women, looking for a more comfortable kind of vibe, and I knew they were looking for money.

Let’s say that I wore a leather jacket with a white t-shirt, dark jeans and more of a rugged pair of boots, that would attract more of a rocker type of girl – a girl that likes tattoos. It was really weird. Then if I would take a hipster look, I’d wear real skinny pants, a pair of suspenders or something and thick-rimmed glasses, I’d hit an entirely different type of girl.

I was really starting to see the patterns of what I wore, as opposed to [unclear 11:51] everyone would walk up to me. Or would it be more apt to me if I said hello to them and they would talk back?

So definitely 100% what you wear will attract a certain type of girl. If you’re into a Latino – if you’re a Latino guy and you like big, baggy pants, Nike, Air Jordans, that’s the type of girl you’re going to attract. There’s a lot of correlation with what you wear and what you’re going to attract.

I also did find that when I dressed up in a suit, I did attract a very pretty, really good-looking girl, but she wasn’t always into me for being me. It was always like, “Oh, this guy must make money. He must be in finance. He must be this because he’s wearing a suit.” Because who wears a suit to a bar on a Friday night if they don’t work in that type of environment?

So I’m definitely 100% correct there. The type of girl that walks up to you or says hello or that is more attracted to you is 100% related to how you look. A lot of people don’t want to think that people are that judgmental in life, but I mean, that’s just being very naïve because people judge you all the time.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Especially when you’re talking about women approaching you – that really, really shows which ones are going to be more attracted, more interested. I just want to take a step back here, but I want to make sure we talk about social comfort and how people have their social comfort spheres – and that goes for women and who they approach also.

I want to get a bit more information about you. Where are you? Where did you live? How old are you? You said you’re back with your girlfriend now – is that a serious relationship? What’s the deal?

[Ryan Magin]: I’m 31 now, and I’ve really been full-out on this style thing for the last two years now or so. I live in St. Petersburg, Florida. We have a downtown area, but it’s not like New York City. How you dress as opposed to where you live is – you’re going to get a lot of different kinds of responses with that too.

Obviously, if you live in New York City, whereas living in St. Petersburg, Florida, if I just kind of tried to look good every time I go out, I look better than 90% of everybody in a bar.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, I can imagine it’s very different compared to New York or L.A. Actually each city in the US, I find, is different. San Diego, L.A., New York – you can really see the differences. You even see in their Tinder photos and online dating photos as well – there’s a completely different amount of effort if you compare L.A. to, say, San Diego. I mean, it’s amazing. Professional photos for everyone, versus just snapshots taking with iPhones kind of deal, and you see that in the dress as well.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, absolutely. I tell people too, the first thing I say is I have a rule, and this is a very actionable item that people can take: you want to be one step above every guy in the room.

If you live in, say a backwards county in Idaho, it’s not hard to be one step above every – I mean, it’s not a dirty t-shirt and be a step above everybody in the room. If you live in New York City, you got to be rockin’ a really nice outfit to be one step above everybody in the room, and then in situations like that, I always remember to go one step below everybody in the room because it’s a lot more affordable for everybody to be a little more rugged and badass-looking than the guy that’s all primed up, looking like he just walked out of Wall Street.

That’s my gauge when I first worked for my clients. Just think one step above, and that’s very simple to do. I mean, in your average town, you go to a nice club, most people are going to wear a button up and a nice pair of slacks and a nice pair of dress shoes – that’s your going out attire – and they think they look amazing. They’re like, “I dressed up tonight.”

Well, if you take it one step above that, you could wear the same outfit as the guy that’s wearing that, but you just get your outfit tailored. Your pants fit you perfect, your shirt’s not baggy and overflowing out of your belt, and you just look amazing because you took the extra time and you spent $20 more than the guy there, and you got all your stuff to fit you perfectly.

That’s a huge concept in fashion – fit is everything. Most people buy very ill-fitting clothing and it makes them look very unattractive.

[Angel Donovan]: You’re right. I love this relative thing we’re talking about here. It’s all relative to where you’re living, basically, and the standards around you.

I just want to put this weird example out there. Say, you went for the really awesome, cool look, really well-cut, everything from L.A. look and you’re in this backward town, what kind of impact is that going to have?

[Ryan Magin]: Once you get comfortable in what you’re wearing – I mean, I work with a lot of clients, like one-on-one and stuff, and it’s a very uncomfortable feeling to start dressing up nice. If you have the same group of friends, they’re going to mess with you.

I mean, we all have friends, we talk shit to each other, whatever, but if you’re like the guy that wore – myself, for example. I was the guy that looked like a skater/BMX rider who never had sleeves on, and then I go from that to tailored blazers and button-ups and slim jeans and nice boots. I got a lot of backlash from my friends. And I was just like, “No, you guys are just comfortable. I’m uncomfortable right now, so I’m growing as a person. I’m evolving. You guys are staying.”

You have to coach yourself through the first few steps. Like you were saying, if you really, really overdressed in a place that’s not – there’d be people who aren't accustomed to you, the girls are going to [unclear 17:07], the guys are going to hate you instantly.

I did a perfect example of this. I went to a wedding two weekends ago, and it was a beach wedding. Here in Florida, we have a lot of beach weddings. I wasn’t super, super dressed up, but I looked better than pretty much everybody that was going to be at that wedding.

I was with a friend of mine who went with me to the wedding as well, and he was like, “Oh.” I was like, “Man, let’s just talk to people. Let’s just go to a really shitty beach bar all dressed up and see what happens.”

Mind you, I have a girlfriend. Like I said, I have a girlfriend, so I just gauge responses. And the first thing that happened when I got there was the bartender walked right up to us and took our drink order. There was no waiting.

There was an attractive girl, she was younger, and she stood in front of us and talked to us for probably 20 minutes, totally ignoring everybody else in the bar. Now of course, this pissed the guys off at the bar. They started saying comments like, “Oh, what is this guy? Who are these guys right out of GQ magazine?” They weren’t saying it loud directly to us, but I could overhear because I’m a very observant person. I wanted this type of response; I wanted to see what would happen.

These things – we didn’t get into any fights or anything, nothing happened, but the attention that we got, the strength of our drinks were a lot stronger than I’m sure everybody else was getting in the bar, and I can only say that because she assumed that we were going to tip better.

My friend is a client of mine. I help him dress; I dressed him for the wedding that we were going to and he looked awesome too. Both of us looked like, literally, we could walk off the pages of a GQ magazine and take pictures. That creates discomfort in a lot of guys, so they hate on you.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. I guess the points I want to make here are like, what you bring into [unclear 18:47] is you can attract the wrong type of attention too if you look like you’re really the piece.

First of all, like you say, you’ll get some social pressure. If you really stand out a lot, say you’re in some backward town and you dress like a million dollars, you’re going to get some negative attention. Depending on where your confidence is, depending on where your social skills are, you might get into situations which are a little out of hand and they’re not going to help you on your little journey here.

That’s why I thought it was great that you brought up this point of being relative – just one point, one step ahead of the people in your area, and it’s kind of this calibration thing. I can see some guys are like, “Yeah, I’m going to look awesome; I’m going to make this real effort.” And then I’ll do that and I’ll get some negative social pressure because it’s too far out of the range in their city or their area. They’ll be like, “It didn’t work” and they’ll go backwards then they never try it again unfortunately and that’d be really sad if that happened.

I mean, this is a really important point to make, that it’s just one step ahead. There are other ways you can attract different attention, like people are going to think you have money, and I think there’s other dimensions there which we get into.

I have had problems when I overdress. I was into fashion about five years ago and I started dressing really up high and I wasn’t really calibrating for the places I was going, and I had women who were looking for money, gold diggers, who would approach me or would start talking to me.

I had people who would overcharge me [chuckling]. I was in Hong Kong and sometimes they'd do that, so I would get double the price than everyone else got told we were going to pay. It was annoying that things like that, you have to be aware of as well at the same time, so I love the point about being relative and trying to calibrate.

Is there anything you can tell guys, how do you calibrate to where you’re living to get it just right?

[Ryan Magin]: For the most part, everybody [unclear 20:32] – I don’t know. I traveled throughout the US, but I haven’t been – I’ve only been to Mexico and Canada as far as going outside of the states of the US. But you can kind of gauge – especially if you travel a lot – you can gauge what you’re going to look like or what people are going to look like before you go somewhere.

That’s kind of being judgmental on yourself, but I’m just being basically aware. For the most cases, the average guy – I call it the average guy, because you can see that if somebody tries to go out and look good, they always wear the same thing. They probably shop at the same stores.

Here in the US, they probably buy a shirt from Express, and it’s probably one size or two sizes too big. They buy black slacks from Express and they’re probably one size too big, and their shoes are probably a few years behind and they have a square toe.

When you just look around your town, when you go out on a Friday night, before you start buying clothes, you just see, take a mental note of what are people wearing.

There’s a difference. There are country, Western dress stuff, so if you live in a very country town, there is a different dynamic there. A country dress stuff is a really nice hat, everything is very slim fit, he’s got Wranglers on. So for each area, it is different, and it’s hard to gauge –.

I have a concept that I call “Your Daily Uniform” and it’s you just acquiring clothes that you know – like I could dress whether or not I’m going to be in a backwards country or if I’m going to New York City. I know exactly what I’m going to wear because for the most part, it’s the same thing. I just wear certain pieces.

Say, I would make my basic uniform a nice pair of jeans, a nice pair of boots and very slim-fitting, V-neck type of shirts. That’s it. And you can wear that everywhere. That’s my daily uniform; I wear that pretty much – I’m wearing that now. While we’re talking on the phone, I have on – well [unclear 22:21] I wear a lot more shorts because it’s hot here, but I have a slim-fitting, long-sleeve V-neck shirt on, my sleeves are rolled up.

I have a pair of shorts on that fit very well and I have a casual pair of shoes. I wear the same thing day in, day out because you can take the pressure off yourself of knowing what to wear.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, but that’s slightly a different point. I’m sure you’re doing that for the same reason as me. I buy the same pair of jeans every single time and I’ve got basically the same t-shirts I wear. It’s like your uniform concept. I don’t want to think about this stuff and I know it’s going to work pretty much everywhere.

I’m glad you brought this up. It’s a good baseline uniform that you can take anywhere if you’re traveling or whatever. You don’t have to really think about it. And guys, no matter which city they’re in, they don’t really have to think about it. It’s going to work; it’s going to be okay. It’s attractive. Maybe it’s not the most attractive or most awesome thing you can be wearing, but it’s never going to put you out of the picture.

[Ryan Magin]: With that baseline, it may always put you half a step above everybody, but there are certain things that you can do to really go over the top with that, to really make yourself stand out and more amazing.

It’s hard to really pinpoint what everybody wears in every different state or country, so you got to – as you get into fashion, I would start with what celebrities are wearing. Everybody has local celebrities too, like city officials, things like that – that’s your upper echelon, and they know what they’re doing.

If you live in Hollywood, you [unclear 23:49] Matthew McConaughey and Brad Pitt’s way, that’s full-out. They’re being dressed for those specific events, so that’s like the top. Can you go a little under that and still be higher up than everybody in your local bar? Most likely. So you got to gauge yourself.

It’s really not that complicated to do. If you want to dress up, you throw on a blazer that fits you well and you’re pretty much dressed up everywhere in the United States. And I’m sure it’s not too different when you’re overseas in Europe, in Hong Kong and things like that.

[Angel Donovan]: No, it’s not. The main problem for guys is that they feel uncomfortable doing this. The things you’re talking about, they’re not rocket science; it’s pretty straightforward advice, which is very practical. It just works, and it’s very simple – go and buy this, wear this, make sure it fits, which is hyper important, and you’ll be looking good.

How do you get guys out to do that? Have you found any tips for helping guys to take that first step? For you, you had this specific event in your life, and then you said, “My clothes have got to change because I don’t like this situation.”

Most guys, they’re going along and they don’t have a big event, a big pain event or something to make them think, “I really have to change this aspect of myself.”

[Ryan Magin]: The first thing is, it’s almost like people find fashion at some point when it was too late. I found it when it was too late, so now I’m making up for that. But for most people, you said, they are very comfortable. Society has deemed us to be very comfortable people. “Don’t be too audacious. Don’t have too big of a goal.”

Well, obviously that comes over into our day-to-day lives. Being that a lot of guys listening to you are probably ahead of that game because they’re all about self-improving and investing in themselves – it’s uncomfortable at first, and society makes fashion seem for men like you’re gay if you like fashion. That’s the number one barrier for guys.

“Dude, you like fashion? What, are you fucking homo?” It’s like, “No, I’m not. Is it wrong to want to look good?”

[Angel Donovan]: Gay guys always look good.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and that’s in my course. I say, “Dude, if you have a gay friend, most likely he needs to be on your speed dial because he’s the guy you want to go to the mall with. Not your girl friends.” The girls are going to tell you what to wear because they’re only basing that off their opinions, which are completely skewed because they have no idea what looks good on a guy.

The first thing is, you have to shadow the belief in your mind that fashion is for gay men, because that is 100%. And then the second thing that really blocks guys from doing this is they’re afraid with what their friends and family are going to think, because that creates a social pressure, and if they’re not confident enough to deal with that, then like you said, they’re going to revert back.

Yes, your friends are going to fuck with you if you start dressing better, especially if you dress way better than them. But in my case, my friends messed with me, but I stuck to it. I’m like, “No, I’m just going to do this for a month and see what happens.”

After about two or three weeks, I now dress all my friends. They pay me to take them to the mall. You got to get through those little hurdles of discomfort to really see the difference.

If 90% of your wardrobe is based off of t-shirts and cargo shorts, you need help, and that's the average guy’s uniform as well. The daytime uniform for guys is a pair of Nikes, cargo shorts that are really baggy and a shirt with a logo on it from two years ago. It’s like “Oh dude, your shirt’s way too old. This outfit does nothing for you and you look like just every other person walking around the streets of your town.”

If you’re not standing out in some way – and really, if you start dressing well, you’ll get compliments day in and day out. I consider a day a failure if I don’t get a compliment at some point during the day. I’m like, “Fuck! I didn’t get a compliment today. I must not look as good as I should have.” That’s just me, but everybody’s different. I hope that touched on your point there.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that’s great. The compliment point is important too because like most guys, they probably hadn’t had any compliments about their dress, and the probably don’t think it happens that much. But when you are dressing well, it does happen a lot daily. You walk into Starbucks and randomly, the girl behind the till’s going to be like, “Man, that’s a really nice shirt or whatever.” I think it’ll surprise the guys how often it does happen just walking about their days, doing things – people notice that stuff.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and then just being aware of the subtle few things that happen, whether or not you get served first at your local bar, or when you’re out of town – I mean, I’ve been upgraded to first class on planes because I dress better than other people. There’s a judgmental aspect in itself – they don’t want to put people in first class that don’t look like they deserve to be in first class.

If you look like you deserve to be somewhere, it changes how you can get in there and be there, and that’s how it is with higher end nightclubs in L.A., in New York. If you look like you should be in VIP, well they’re going to put you in VIP. Think of it like that.

[Angel Donovan]: It’s very true. It’s unfortunate we don’t like to think about the world this way, but the way you look is the way you’re treated off the bat. People are just going to assume you are in a category based on the way you dress in particular, because that’s something you can control. They think that if you’re dressing a bit better, it’s because you belong in that social category that they’ve got set up in their mind.

Yeah, you get more benefits as well. We’re not just talking about dating here; I think it’s something that most guys should think about in just a general sense, whether it’s for their careers, business and just in general in their lives. Upgrading your fashion sense and getting with it can make a big impact.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and to touch on that – this is completely going away from the dating aspect of dressing well – if you’re in an environment that you wear business casual every day, if you just take the little steps to go a little bit above everybody else in business casual, who do you think the boss is going to notice?

You can go too far with that – if you dress better than your boss, that’s a bad thing. So you don’t want to go too far with it. If you come in somewhere in the middle, a little above everybody there, you’re going to be the one that gets the higher end projects. You’re going to be the one that the boss trusts, and that obviously, if you know what you’re doing, is going to lead to higher pay raises, maybe a better promotion, perks of the job, extra days off.

To say one more thing about what stops guys, guys also have this mentality of “I don’t care how I look; I’m cool with who I am.” That stops guys in their tracks too because it’s like, “Okay, well I get it.” You have a girlfriend, cool, or you’re dating girls. But what if you just looked a little better when you go on your next date? What could that hurt?

[Angel Donovan]: I want to touch on that because that’s an important point. There are some advice out there, self-help, dating advice out there, which says you should be a really confident man and not care what other people think, and that’s all you need to do.

I was at a seminar this weekend, and I came across a little bit of the darker side of that. There’s a group of people, they’re doing some specific types of seminars – I’m not going to say who it is – and some of the instructors had pretty bad hygiene, like dress, to the point that I felt uncomfortable talking to them in terms of sweat smell or in terms of breath smell and things like this. You can imagine the image it’s setting for me.

This people, they’re in this structure, and within that structure they have [unclear 31:08] and everything, but they’re instructing newcomers like me – I’m obviously a lot better informed than the standard people going to their seminars who are just starting out. They might not realize this kind of stuff, but for me I was like, “There’s no way you guys are doing well in life.”

I’ve heard about this organization for a long time and I wanted to go and check it out and it really – I heard the first impression from the media and everything and I had a first impression when I went to that seminar, and it was awful. This thing must be some kind of weird set up. It’s not for real. It’s not actually benefiting people; there’s something not right about this because of this really bad first impression based on style and fashion and grooming, basically.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and you don’t get more than one first impression. If you’re in any type of situation where it matters how people perceive you, if you’re slacking on how you look and dress – and this goes all the way back to –. Whether you want to believe it or not, if you’re not in shape, people are judging you. Especially women.

If you’re a fat guy, and I’m not trying to talk shit about people that are overweight; I want to help people get better. But if you’re overweight, women look at you as if you’re lazy, and then potential employers will judge you, “Dude, this guy is really sloppy and lazy.”

If you take the effort to be in shape, to dress well, to groom yourself – a lot of my clients, and myself personally, I get haircuts every two weeks. Yeah, that’s a little more expensive, but I always look good. I’m always prepared. Whether or not I walk out the door, I could walk right into a job interview and be fine.

Going back to first impressions, you never know who you’re going to meet. If you’re dressed up well and you’re in a higher end establishment, say, a high end bar where you know wealthier people hang out. Let’s just say you were nice to some dude and you buy him a drink. You have a conversation with the guy; he just happens to be – let’s say you’re in finance – he just happens to own a finance company. He goes, “Man, I really like you. Won’t you come in for an interview on Monday?”

If you were wearing a sloppy outfit, he would not have invited you for that.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, there’s definitely the social referral thing. Unless you look good, they’re not going to feel comfortable introducing you to things in their lives, whether it be their friends. Even if the guys meets you and he really likes you, or the girl really likes you and she thinks you’re great boyfriend material for whatever reason, if she feels uncomfortable about introducing you to her friends, that’s going to affect the whole relationship.

I’ve seen that dynamic play out before, very specifically with your old taste of clothing. I’ve seen someone who had that old taste of clothing and he hasn’t grown out of it, and it can be an issue to introduce them to other people, because you know how other people are going to think about that.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah. I have a joke [unclear 33:54]. You can be the drunk guy, hammered, being an ass, but if you’re wearing a suit, people respect you more; they don’t care what you’re doing [chuckles].

It’s kind of funny because yeah, parents of girlfriends that you’re potentially going to meet, they’re going to judge you. They’re going to be like, “Wow, is my daughter going to marry a guy that looks like he could rob a convenience store? Or is my daughter going to marry a guy who looks like he can go out and be the President?”

Things like that, they really do matter. Women have preconceived notions of men, and it’s hard enough right now as a guy to meet a girl. If it was easy, none of us would even have a business, so it’s very hard for men to meet a quality, attractive girl. By dressing well, your first impression is going to be instant. She’s going to automatically assume that “Okay, he looks good enough. If I can make him my boyfriend, I can introduce him to my parents, my friends are going to like him. I’m not embarrassed to hold his hand and walk down the street.”

All these things are happening the second a woman looks at you and things about wanting to be with you. These are the things that guys won’t think about when they go out looking normal or average, as I like to call it. It really does matter.

The same thing with businessmen and potential clients. Especially with women, I call it invisible seduction. They’re already salivating over you before you even say hi if they like how you dress. If you hit all those checklists right away, it’s going to be that much easier to get a first date, a phone number, even just take her home for the evening.

It doesn’t matter what your goal is, if you dress better, you’re going to achieve that goal faster with a woman or even in life if you just look good doing it.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. I think something important that maybe guys don’t think about a lot is that a lot of attraction can take place before you even meet the girl. It’s like when you walk into a bar and you’re joking around with friends, it’s the way that you dress, it’s the way you’re talking with your friends – it’s everything that’s going on that a girl is potentially going to see earlier on in the night. Later on in the night, a girl approaches you and you won’t be thinking about it too much.

It’s basically because of everything that’s been going on. That’s in more so of course in social circles, social events – people notice a lot of stuff around them, not just with the person they’re talking to, but the other people around them and how they’re interacting, so you learn a lot about those people.

I think guys need to really have – a final point on how important it is for you to dress is just this idea that before you actually get anywhere near to talking with someone, they’ve already noticed a lot of things about you, whether it’s subconsciously or consciously, and that’s one of the reasons that this is so important.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah. I’d love to give your people things that they can go by today that are going to help them by this weekend.

[Angel Donovan]: Exactly, let’s get into that.

[Ryan Magin]: Cool. I have a checklist. When I have a client who comes to me for the first time, I make them do the same thing right away. The first thing is, whoever’s cutting your hair, fire them and find somebody new. Because for the most part, guys have been going to the same hairstylist, most likely they don’t even go to a hairstylist. I say stylist because – we’ll get to that, but they go to barbers.

Thinking about barber shop, it’s like an assembly line for average guys’ haircuts. They take ten minutes, you’re in, you’re out, boom – you’re gone. You don’t even talk to the guy. You might get a beer if you go to a higher end one, but that’s it.

[Angel Donovan]: Barbers are for the old generation. It’s not like you see new barbers which are focused on your hairstyles. They just focused on very standard, get people in and out as you’re saying, which used to be basically my father’s generation. I don’t know how you look at it.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, very similar to that. That’s the first step. I say, “Alright, find yourself a good hairstylist.” I say stylist because, as a guy, like to find – I tell my clients to get women, to find a girl that cuts hair that’s really good and just hire her, basically. Go to your local salon.

I interview my hairstylist. I want to know that they’re a fun person, that they’ll push the envelope a little bit, because you always want to be known as the fun haircut that they do. If you’re a single guy and you’re the fun guy that one of the stylist cuts their hair, all the women in the hairstyling salon are going to be attracted to you. Guaranteed. Works every time. So that’s just another easier way for you guys to meet girls.

[Angel Donovan]: So would you say you should take care of picking your hairstylist? You should maybe go to a few different places and find a girl that has a cool look. Maybe she has a cool look that you think is pretty cool and a bit more out there.

[Ryan Magin]: I like to find the really artsy – you can pretty much know. If you live in a city, you know the higher end – I would say go to the higher end hair salons because you’re going to get the best people, because they don’t hire people that suck. If the salon is known for being a higher end salon, yeah you’re going to pay a little bit more, but the compliments and the confidence you’re going to get from the haircut far outweighs the extra $10 that you’re going to pay going into a higher end salon.

[Angel Donovan]: And it’s worth doing this once, and then you’ll get a new haircut, and then you could go to other places, they'd give you the same. You don’t necessarily have to pay that money every time.

[Ryan Magin]: No you don’t, and you get a routine. I pay $26 for my haircut, and I do it every two weeks and I tip the girl ten bucks. Yeah, some people may be like, “Ooh, that’s a lot,” but in my opinion, I never walk out of there with a bad haircut.

That’s another fact too that when you go to a hairstylist, your hair is art to them. They want you to walk out of there happy because you’re going to tell all your friends. My hairstylist loves me because I sent her a lot of fucking people. That’s the first step.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, just for that first haircut, have you any brand names or chains that are higher end and that guys could trust to go there instead of trying to figure out what a high end salon is for them?

[Ryan Magin]: In the United States we have Aveda; they’re pretty much all over. They’re like a hairstylist school and they tons of salons. That’s one step. I know there’s J. Cons, but I don’t – they’re very territorial to the county and towns you live in.

We have Google, just do “hair salon Boise, Idaho” and see what pops up. With Yelp, you can get an idea if there’s good haircuts coming out of there.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, look at Yelp. Look at those two brands. That's a good start.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and that’s in the States. I don’t know what goes on overseas. Like I said, I only know what goes on here in the US in my area. That’s the first step.

Actually take the time and go walk in there and just talk to the girl at the front desk and be like, “Yeah, I’m looking for somebody. I’m a little out of my comfort zone; I really want to get a long-term relationship with a hairstylist who’s going to be a little fun, maybe push the envelope, give me some edgier hairstyles, things that are going to make me stand out.

Most of the time, the girl at the front desk will be like, “Okay, I know exactly who you need” and she’ll literally make you an appointment on the spot; that’s what happened to me. That’s happened twice now.

I lived in a different area in my town for a while, I did that the first time, I got an amazing girl. And then I moved farther away from there, so I got a new salon closer to me – same thing. That works every time.

[Angel Donovan]: Well that’s very important because you gave them a bit of guidance there, and of course at the end of the day, the hairstylist’s job is to make you happy. If you don’t tell her you want to push the edge a little bit or give her some idea of what you’re trying to do, then she might think, “Well, this guy’s very conservative” if you’ve got a conservative look for instance and she might adapt to that if you’re not really putting it out there.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, you got to tell you want to push the envelope a little bit, and tell her [unclear 41:12] girl. I went through a really long hair, and I was like, “I want you to take me out of my comfort zone. I don’t care if I say no, don’t do it or if I’m apprehensive. Just keep selling me on the benefits as to why I need this. [Crosstalk 41:25]

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, and you should expect to feel uncomfortable with a new haircut.

[Ryan Magin]: Oh, always. Every time. So that’s step one – you choose the hairstylist.

[Angel Donovan]: Great.

[Ryan Magin]: Step two is you take a look at all the clothes in your closet and throw out and get rid of all the shit that doesn’t fit.

[Angel Donovan]: [Chuckles] Burn it.

[Ryan Magin]: But ultimately, most of the time, everything a guy owns doesn’t fit or looks like shit. Step three would be, “Go, you need to buy the basic items that make a guy look good.”

[Angel Donovan]: Can we talk a little bit about around more fit, because it’s so important. Literally 90% of people walking around me all the time have clothes that don’t fit. In the US in particular, actually. When I shop in the US, I have to buy a small all the time to get it to fit me. There’s something crazy about sizes here as well, which encourages people to have clothes that don’t fit. I feel it when I’m here.

I’m not a tiny guy. When I’m built up a bit, I’m not actually that tiny, but I still can find myself getting small or medium, maximum, most of the time. How would you tell a guy to get something that fits?

[Ryan Magin]: First thing is probably whatever size of shirt they’re wearing right now, they could actually wear the next size down. That’s the starting point. Ultimately, you just want the shirt to be too baggy; you want it to hug your physique.

If you’re a little heavier, this is where heavier guys get really uncomfortable. A baggy shirt makes you look fatter; it doesn’t accentuate your natural human curves, which are the wide shoulders, narrow waist – they call it like an X-frame or the V-taper. So want to accentuate that even if you’re fat.

I’m not saying buy clothes that are skin tight on you, but buy one that hug your physique. That’s where people get a little uncomfortable because they’re 10-15 lbs overweight and they’re self-conscious about that, whatever. If you’re constantly that, wear darker clothing – and that's another tip if you’re a bigger guy. Wear dark – greys and blacks.

Back on the fit thing, your pants, you don’t want them to make you look like a square. You do want to go slim leg. I’m 6’2”, 215 lbs and I wear skinny jeans. Not the skin-tight ones that looks like you’re wearing leggings, but my pants, they fit me and I get lots of compliments on how I dress all the time.

So those two things – making sure that your shirt’s not overly baggy and that it hugs your physique, and you want to be able to see your shoes, so if the jeans that you wear overshadow your shoe, you’re definitely wearing too baggy a jeans.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, because the other thing is length that you have to get right as well. You can get it too long.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah. You don’t want to bunch it up too much at the bottom, but you don’t want them coming up too short either, especially jeans.

Shoes right now that are in style show a lot of ankle. That’s a big one right now; that’s more advanced stuff. I don’t really want to touch on that because when you’re thinking about that, you kind of know what the hell you’re doing anyways. You don’t want the bottom of your jeans to look like a giant accordion; your calves are folded over your ankles. Those are the basics of fit.

[Angel Donovan]: Great. Basically, just to round off that, the major point you made there is it should show the form of your body, not hide it. If you can’t see the form of your body, and if you’re a little bit overweight, it might be a good idea to do this anyway. It’s going to give you that little bit of encouragement.

Because what you’re doing every day is you’re hiding your – if you say you’re a few pounds overweight and you’re wearing these baggy clothes, it allows you to ignore the fact that there’s some weight that you’d like to get rid of. If you’re wearing something that actually shows your form, you’re like, “Yeah, I do need to get rid of this belly.” Every single day it’s a constant reminder.

At the end of the day, what you want is to get rid of that – a little bit of short-term pain in terms of discomfort is always going to be necessary no matter what we’re doing in this area of our lives anyway, so why not do it that way if it’s going to get the end result within a month or two months a lot easier.

[Ryan Magin]: Absolutely. You said it best. That nails everything. If you nail fit – and also if you’re still like, “Man, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” go get a magazine or Google images of celebrities. Brad Pitt, Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto – even rock stars – just Google these people and look at how their clothes fit. And then take their picture on your phone and go to the store and try to get clothes that make you look similar to that picture. There’s nothing wrong with that, and that’s an easy way.

I call that celebrity modeling. If you don’t know how to dress, pick a celebrity and just copy him. You’re going to be better, because Hollywood stylists dress celebrities day in and day out. They’re paid to make them look good.

[Angel Donovan]: That's an important point. Any film, even if it’s not the most modern film or whatever, there’s a lot of time and effort put into choosing the clothing, so pretty much anything people are wearing in films or on TV is normally pretty decent, if you look at the top shows and all of this.

You did mention rock stars there, and I was wondering if that could be a little bit problematic for some guys if they start looking at rocks tars? Because rock stars do tend to wear –.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, they push the envelope very, very far. If you are going for that – and we talked about this – I like what I call the bad boy look. We’ll touch on that in a second; let’s just go to the top first thing, because we can get into the bad boy look and that's going to probably confuse people if I don’t tell what they should start with first.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, let’s put the rock star and the bad boy look for the next subject. What else you got?

[Ryan Magin]: Number three. Now that you understand fit and you got a good haircut, now you’re miles ahead of everybody that you know or you’re surrounded by, next thing is you want to get a good pair of dark jeans. You’re going to take the same idea with fit. It doesn’t matter the brand; don’t get caught up in the brand. If you buy them from H&M, all these lower dollars [clear 47:10], that’s fine. Just make sure they fit you well and they accentuate your body, and a dark pair of jeans is very versatile. You can dress them up or dress them down. That would be step three: get yourself some nice, dark pants.

Step four would be grab yourself a nice pair of boots. Guys get uncomfortable when they were boots; they’re probably used to wearing athletic shoes their entire life. But one good pair of boots will dress up any outfit and they kind of give you an edge. They give you a little edginess. So guys, always wear boots; it’s kind of cool. And the cool think about boots is you don’t really ever need to clean them. The more you wear them, the more you beat them up, the better they look. So they’re very versatile, and they last fucking forever, man.

And then for shirts.

[Angel Donovan]: Let’s talk a bit about boots, because I think they’re really interesting. There’s lots of different colors you can get, and so some guys might want to start easy. Versus the ones you’re talking about which are beating up and look really cool and they get better over time – that could be a little bit more advanced for some guys.

But I’ll tell you – I’ve had more comments about my boots over the years than any other part of my clothing. Guys think, “Oh it’s just a thing on my feet!” But I think girls look at feet a lot. I’m not sure I know the scientific reason for that; I think it’s because it’s the smallest detail. Most guys are going to ignore it and not pay attention to it, so it’s kind of a good indicator. Does he have it all together, or does he just have some of it together? That’s the way I look at it.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and that’s absolutely correct. [Unclear 48:44] they always say that cliché saying that women look at a guy’s shoes first; I think it’s second. I think the haircut is first, because she just got to look at your face first.

Women don’t walk around looking at the ground. The guy who takes time to buy a nice pair of shoes and takes care of them – they don’t have mud all over them or anything like that. Once again, it says, “Oh, this guy takes care of himself.”

[Angel Donovan]: When you say boots, what types of boots are good? I know there are different heights

[Ryan Magin]: There are some really high boots that you can get – I don’t really go for those, and if you’re just starting out, I don’t recommend you go for those either.

A mid boot – every shoe company like Steve Madden, Aldo; I’m partial to a company called GBX. We have those here in the United States, but they don’t sell overseas I believe. There are stores in the mall – in any of your shoe stores, your higher end department stores – they all have their boots, and it’s really a personal preference. Guys do get messed up if you give them too many decisions.

They have what’s called a CAT toe boot, and it doesn’t have any designs on it and it’s just a basic military-looking boot. Every company has one like that. I usually tell guys to start there and get them in black.

You’ll get more compliments on a nice pair of brown boots than black, but when you’re just starting out, you want to always be matching; you want everything to go together. Like you said, you’re getting out of your comfort zone, so a good pair of black boots really goes far.

I like the edgier stuff. I prefer buckles on the sides of them, zippers. If you open your eyes to what’s available in boots, you’re going to see a lot of cool designs. And it’s hard to go wrong, honestly. I’ve never seen a guy buy a pair of boots and go, “These things are stupid.” I’ve never had a client do that to me.

[Angel Donovan]: Also in terms of economics, if you get the black boots which are the mid-sized ones you were talking about and they don’t have any crazy zips or anything on them, you can wear those for work too. Those will be fine for work or any other things. If you got economic issues and you want to just buy one pair of shoes, these black boots can go pretty much every situation you’re going to go in.

[Ryan Magin]: Exactly. And the good thing about boots is – don’t go too cheap on them. I like to spend around $100. There’s a mid-range we have here in the States; we have H&M and CottonOn and they sell boots for 50 bucks, but they don’t last six months. They fall apart.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So how long does the boots you buy last? That’s [unclear 51:14] the point of economics, it’s important. How long are we going to use these for?

[Ryan Magin]: Your middle-of-the-road brands which are Steve Madden, Aldo, GBX – they’re middle-of-the-road brands. There’s higher end that cost $500-$600, but middle-of-the-road can cost you anywhere between $100-$150, but they will last you – if you wear them every single day – a year. Even at the end of the year, you’re going to go “Damn, I’m not even going to throw these away; they still look beat-up and awesome.”

[Angel Donovan]: Right, and you get them resoled because the first thing to go sometimes is the sole if you really do wear them a lot. I’ve had boots that last years, but I love them, so I’ll get them resoled and they’re like brand new and they look beaten up, so they’re pretty cool.

[Ryan Magin]: Yup, exactly. The more beat up that the actual shell gets – I don’t know what they call it, the shell or the outer side – it just looks better. You can wear boots with a suit; you can wear boots with jeans; you can wear khakis, chinos, corduroys – it doesn’t matter. You can wear them with everything, and that’s why they’re on my checklist because they’re just easy for guys to get. They’re readily available, you can get them at any shopping mall, and they look good.

[Angel Donovan]: Great man, that’s a great round off of the boots topic, I think. Very practical advice for guys there.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and don’t be afraid to get out of your – just wear something edgier, man. People listen to this – you will get compliments on your shoes. I promise you that.

The next would be, so you’ve got the haircut, you got the dark jeans, you got a pair of boots, now, shirts. For most guys, all their shirts usually have logos on them; I avoid logos at all costs because I think logos – and I’m not talking about a little Polo logo or really small logos. I’m talking about t-shirts with giant naked women on them and things like that. You don’t want to wear that at all.

With shirts, I’d say stick to solid colors – black, white, grey, dark blue – and I’d say go V-neck. The reason I say go V-necks is because V-necks actually help your face look slimmer because of the center line that it creates on your chest.

[Angel Donovan]: Interesting.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and that’s actually scientifically proven. As far as shirts – that uniform right there, you can wear and look really good. Once again, fit is everything on the V-neck. Don’t buy one that’s too big; don’t buy one that’s too small. Buy a brand that you really like and that fits you well and you’ll know when you put on a shirt that fits you well. You will know.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, so this is pretty much what I do. I’ve got a brand of plain t-shirts that I buy – V-necks. I just like you to reinforce why you don’t buy pictures, because I’m sure, like you say, everyone has pretty much got these logos and pictures and words and stuff that they’re buying for all their different t-shirts. Why do you recommend not to do that?

[Ryan Magin]: This goes back to my extreme sports days. When you’re a kid and you’re in high school, what are you wearing? You’re wearing shirts with pictures on them and crazy logos. That’s what you wear in high school. Once you graduate high school, you go to college and college is a little more dressed up.

You wear different things in college, and especially when you graduate college and come into the real world – I mean if I see a 30-year-old guy wearing –. We have a brand called Fatal, and they just make you look young. They don’t make you look especially like you don’t make any type of money; they make you look like you’re going to rob a convenience store. Add those in with the baggy cargo shorts and skate shoes, then you look like a hoodlum.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. If you go back to your TV film thing, you never see logos on t-shirts or anything in those; it’s almost like plain black ones. If you think about Californication, the guy’s just wearing a plain black t-shirt every single show for the last ten seasons [chuckles].

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, David Duchovny. Definitely. It just makes you look young and makes you look cheap. There’s probably somebody somewhere like Rob Dyrdek – I don’t know if you know who that is, but he can get away with wearing logos on his shirts because he’s a multimillionaire [chuckles]. There are exceptions to the rule, but if you’re just starting out, they just make you look young and you’re not going to get respect from anybody that you want to get respect from if you look too young. So that’s why I say avoid logos on shirts.

You can wear that uniform – and now this is the cool part, and there are two options that I give people. You got to get a nice jacket. Whether that’d be a nice, well-fitting tailored blazer or a nice denim jacket or a leather jacket – it doesn’t matter which one – that’s how you’re going to dress one step above everybody and that’s it.

But there are lots of options there. I could talk about jackets for the scope of two Skype calls, but –.

[Angel Donovan]: It’s more complicated, right, the jacket?

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, because the jacket’s going to represent what you want to present to the world. If you wear a nice, well-fitting black blazer, now you’re going more for that type of Wall Street, Finance look. Even though you are wearing jeans so it’s a little dressed down, it’s not a full-suit; you’re going to exude an air of arrogance. “Yeah, I wear a blazer. I make a little bit of money.” That’s one option for guys to take.

Once again, fit is everything, and for a reference, look at the celebrities when they wear suits at the Oscars – that’s how you want your jacket to fit. Don’t buy a suit jacket that’s too big; it makes you look like a midget.

The second option – I send my clients more towards a leather jacket or a denim because they’re not quite as dressed up and they kind of give that bad boy look, the rugged edge, the “I’m cool, I’m a little rock star” kind of thing, and that gives a little more confidence. And guys, women are more attuned to talking to a man that has a little ruggedness and edge.

Women love bad boys – I mean, it’s proven. I prefer a dark – I call it waxed denim, and you can get them at American Eagle; I think Abercrombie & Fitch has them, Express has them. We have lots, and you could find a denim jacket in black in any store in my mall where I go locally, so I’m sure it’s similar in every other county or state. That’s a really, really good option for guys.

Levi’s makes what they call Trucker Jackets and they’re just like black denim, and it just adds that extra layer. Fashion is all about layers. If you take the extra mile to add in layers, it makes you assume that you’re a higher fashion guy and women immediately hit that check box in their mind, “This guy knows how to dress.”

If you want to go one step further, also climate conditions. I live in Florida so it’s hard for me to wear leather; it’s really hot. You got to take that into account as well, but you can get a leather jacket. They have fake leather jackets at H&M that are 60 bucks, 70 bucks, or you can go all the way up. Diesel has a lot of jackets that cost a grand. It’s where you want to spend what you can spend, but I can tell you, the more you can spend on certain pieces like a nice pair of boots, a nice jacket – these are lifetime pieces. They last you forever. You don’t throw them away. So that's one thing you take into account when you start investing.

I call it investing in fashion. The other day, I just a $450 Hugo Boss blazer, and that put me out of my comfort zone; I never really bought anything that expensive, but I didn’t have to take it to get tailored, and it’s going to last me for probably 10-15 years. It just looks amazing.

This is getting a little far – I mean, once you’re starting out, we’re getting along the scope of beginner fashion people now.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, I think we got a good collection of tips definitely to get them moving, to get them started. I would love to see some guys turning out, what they’re starting to put together just based on these tips and the reactions that would change. I know for a fact that things would start changing.

You’ve brought up the topic of bad boy a little bit earlier. What is it about the bad boy look that you think is interesting?

[Ryan Magin]: For me, what I base the outfit that I just gave everybody – it is kind of what you call the bad boy uniform. It creates a ruggedness, an edge. And guys, I’m telling you, it’s like when you put on a leather jacket or a denim jacket or a nice blazer, your mindset shifts, and it’s hard to explain it until you live it and do it, but it just does. It gives you that little sense of arrogance, which bad boy and confident people have.

A bad boy is just about being confident in your attitude and in your surroundings. You think of rock stars, they stand up on stage and they fucking sing in front of millions of people. That takes arrogance; that takes confidence, and that’s what guys if they struggle and they lack confidence, you can fake that a little bit just by how you dress and what you put on.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. It sounds like it’s communicating that little bit more confidence, because you’re standing out a little bit more than before.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, and it goes together with a nice pair of boots like what rock stars wear – they tend to wear boots. It’s like their staple. So you wear a nice pair of boots and you got your dark jeans that are worn in a little bit; you wear them a bit. Maybe you don’t shave or clean cut, so you have a little stubble going, and then boom – you have on this denim jacket, it’s like sex appeal.

They’re attracted to that; it’s an image and you are embodying that image. Women are predisposed to like certain types of guys. They talk about the girl next door liking the bad boy – the guy who flunks out of school but he’s a rock star. It just creates this little school girl crush on whoever they’re in front of. If you’re trying to pick up women, that breaks down the barriers, man.

I’m not saying that a bad boy is a loser, because you definitely don’t want to be a loser. But if you can dress up this rugged appearance and you have your shit together, dude, you’re a catch and you’re going to have no problem meeting women.

[Angel Donovan]: Is this a little bit more advanced, putting together a bad boy image?

[Ryan Magin]: I think it is, because it’s not so much it’s the mentality of the bad boy. I have my product about this image, and it’s more about the mentality and the confidence in how to exude this image. You could dress like this, but if you’re still shy and a pussy, it’s not going to work for you. I’m sure that makes sense because, I mean –.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that comes down to the negative social pressure we were talking about earlier. If you don’t have the confidence to put up, work with it, then you’re going to tend to get some negative social pressure and it’s going to work against you instead of for you.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah. I have two courses and you’ve done a review of my main course which is called 51 Handsome Guy Secrets and I like everybody to start there. For the most part, I really don’t sell bad boy until the people have gone through my course and know what the hell is going on, how to put together outfits and how things should fit, how to get it tailored, what socks to wear.

That’s what 51 Handsome Guy Secrets is, it’s step-by-step. It’s like do this, do this, tailor size this, buy this, get this, do this, it’s okay if you try this – and it just takes people along that line and it gives them a solid understanding of just the basics of passion and how to put outfits together that don’t suck.

[Angel Donovan]: Alright. We at Dating Skills Review, we think that fashion is huge and important because it’s really an easy thing to fix and to get started with. It takes you a little bit out of your comfort zone, there’s a little bit of discomfort. We find that everyone avoids it. Everyone wants to get into conversation skills, attraction skills and whatever stuff and they kind of avoid it.

For example, we’ve got this Dating Skills Academy mentoring now and nearly every single guy has to start working on his image because it’s something he’s avoided. Even if he’s doing pretty well with women, we still find that he’s done very little work with his image, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about for years.

Why is this? Why does everyone avoid this topic so much? We talked a little bit about discomfort and other things today, and I hope we’ve given guys a bit more motivation. We kind of slammed the nail in it a few times today – how important it is and how it impacts other areas of your life as well.

We’ve talked about in previous episodes before as well, but I just think it’s super important to talk about because it’s easy to work on compared to conversation skills and all the other stuff. That takes time; that takes mental change, neural connections change – real change.

Changing your image can be done in a week. It feels uncomfortable; guys don’t like that, but it really does make a big difference straight away. I’d love guys to get started there. If you haven’t taken action already, we’ve checked out Ryan’s course and we think it’s the most practical beginner’s course, which is why I’ve gotten one, today. We talked about a lot of the first steps which you can start acting all already, all the basic, practical stuff you just gave out today.

Guys could go to the shops this week and get that basic uniform and already be started. Once they’ve done that first uniform, did you find they’re going to be uncomfortable for a couple of weeks, a month? How does it work? The first step’s the hardest, but what happens afterwards?

[Ryan Magin]: It’s quick, man. I have a friend, he’s about 40 lbs overweight. He came to me like he wasn’t happy with how his life was going, he was lonely. The first thing I did, obviously I got him a workout program and he’s going to the gym. I took him to the mall, I got him some basic stuff. He spent 300 bucks, and I got him exactly what I just told you guys to buy, and he went out that weekend.

He went out of town, I think; he was with his family or something. He came back and he was like, “Dude, I’m obsessed with fashion now. The compliments were amazing.” It’s that quick. It’s just that little action step and I promise – I tell many people that are hesitant on taking any of my advice, I’m like, “Go to the mall and buy this. Wear it out this weekend and then call me on Monday.” That’s all I say. Everybody always calls me back.

The results speak for themselves and the discomfort and being uncomfortable in your clothes, it goes away very quickly because the second you get a compliment, it’s gone.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s how it goes down. Once you get that first compliment, you’re like, “Wow, okay.” Then you start resetting your discomfort with it, you start getting comfortable with it. Then I guess you see guys exploring more style and stuff steadily over time.

[Ryan Magin]: Yeah, you start getting obsessed with looking good, and I think it’s a good obsession, personally. But yeah, you start learning and researching on your own as well. All my clients have my course, so they know the basics and they go from that. That's it.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, thank you so much for all the details, those really practical advice on helping to hit guys on the head again on this topic because it’s important. I just love to get that out there again.

A couple of questions we always ask everyone who comes on the show. First of all, besides yourself, who do you think has really great, quality advice in this area? I’m talking very broadly here, so dating, sex, relationships. It could be fashion; it could be absolutely anything in this whole area – good advice that you’ve seen out there.

[Ryan Magin]: I’m really good friends with Jason Capital. He’s one of the reasons why I’m in this industry, doing what I’m doing. He’s the one who encouraged me to share fashion advice with guys. I really like his stuff; I think it’s very practical.

I’m a huge fan of Christian Hudson. His Girlfriend Activation System is a great product. I like Mark Manson and Models. I believe that book is awesome.

And just being a student of personal development. I read a ton of book, man. I find inspiration in freaking movies and TV and it’s all about just being better than myself and I want to make myself a higher value person.

[Angel Donovan]: That’s a great, great point. Thank you for making that. Are there any great books you’ve read recently?

[Ryan Magin]: I love The 50th Law by Robert Greene and 50 Cent. It’s like my go-to for motivation and just being awesome. One that I read is called The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. That book has had a profound impact. It’s all about taking the littlest action steps every day to improve your quality of life.

Fashion, fitness, self-confidence, dating – if you just do one thing every single day, you’re going to improve yourself no matter what.

[Angel Donovan]: Great, man. I love all of Robert Greene’s books; I’ve reread most of them. That guy does so much research, and so much has gone into each book, it’s just super high quality. It’s detailed, it’s hard to read some of them, but maybe get the audio ones and it goes any easier. Mastery, I literally had to get the audio one because it wouldn’t go into my head because it was so thick and deep.

[Ryan Magin]: The cool thing about Greene, you can read all of his subtitles and get the gist of it too [chuckles].

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, exactly. He has a title and it tells you what it is. It’s nice to get the reason why you’re read into the depth, but you could walk away with just a the titles and get what he’s pushing at.

Okay, man. If you had free tips to give guys to take away, to get better at this as fast as possible –.

[Ryan Magin]: I would say my course, but beyond that, there's something about a nice pair of boots, jeans, and a nice-fitting V-neck. I promise people they will never go wrong with that. That’s my go-to.

And a good hairstylist. Everything I gave you. I live it, I preach it; I would die with that advice, telling people to do that.

[Angel Donovan]: Great, Ryan. Thank you so much for making the time today to be on the show. It’s been a great, very passionate – I can the passion you have, so it’s been great to have that on the show. I really enjoyed having you here.

[Ryan Magin]: Thank you, man. I appreciate the ability to talk to your people and share the word of fashion.