Review Detail

Mark Manson's "Model's: Attract Women through Honesty" is a pretty comprehensive system for attracting and dating women and becoming a better man. Within its pages Mark has crammed a lot of information that covers everything from what the journey is all about, to what attracts women to practical advice on how to approach, attract and date women.

As I read through this book, I realized that it contains most of the really good practical advice that was originally exchanged between men in the pickup artist community before the Mystery Method became popular - but that never made it into commercial training programs or books later on. It also adds to that a fair amount of innovative material, in particular where it comes to mindsets and how to integrate all this stuff into your life.

A Comprehensive and Effective Dating System

At over 300 pages this is a large book which covers a lot of topics. It covers most of the important things really well. If I were to list the things that have made a significant impact to my success in the game, this book, just on its own, would cover probably 80% of them.

Throughout its pages Mark strips away the details telling you the big things to focus on, and this is all really solid advice. If you do everything that is pointed out in this book there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you will get better and better results.

The fact that this is basically a "complete dating system in a box" makes this great for beginners or intermediates who don't have a complete picture of everything it takes to improve their results with women and dating in general.

It doesn't go deep into subjects like sex and relationships, and makes some over-simplifications in places - but that's unavoidable if you don't want to create a "Monster Book" that scares people away or loses them half way through.

I recommend this to either someone with no dating advice experience or someone who has been struggling to get results for a while.

For those struggling, in particular if you've been struggling with a routines based or 'mystery method' type system, this book is designed to give you a 'reset' and push you back in the direction of results. In this respect it is comparable to The 4 Elements of Game by Rob Judge. however where The 4 Elements of Game keeps advice to the bare essentials to attract women, this book aims to take you further. More on this later.

Highly Practical, Always Returning to "What to Actually Do"

One of the strongest aspects of the Models book is how it brings everything back to practical implementation tips. From what to say, to how to approach, to what to do, there are always examples given from Mark Manson's own personal stories of what he has done. This brings the content alive so that you can implement it yourself.

The focus on putting his advice into action is also something that the book doesn't miss an opportunity to drum into you. It rightfully identifies this as the major difference between men who get the results they want and the men who don't. This focus on action carries all the way through the book, from chapter to chapter, through to the "Action plan" in the conclusion.

This final action plan is a good summary and "reinforcement plan". If someone buys this book and doesn't improve his life - there's only one reason - he didn't implement this simple action plan.

This practicality is also applied to some tricky subjects.

There are a range of dating advice concepts that have been circulating for up to 15 years now that have remained hard to understand and actually implement. They were left as unfinished tools, abstract ideas that simply were not explained clearly enough or empowered with actionable advice. Several of these topics are confronted in the book including the themes of "Needyness" and "Ego". Mark succeeds in bringing some excellent ideas and practical tips to put into action to these subjects (and not have them simply cluttering up your mind with no action output attached to them).

Finally, this ease of implementation is all brought together with some solid advice on how to learn from your experiences and have your experiences support your learning. All of this is clearly based on Mark's experience and rounds out the whole focus on getting real results.

Digging Deep into Inner Game Topics

The practical focus of this book stretches back to its strongest theme: inner game and mindsets. At the core of the system are changes in your outlooks, mindsets and perceptions of the world. This is the most innovative part of the book, and is what Mark Manson is best known for today.

He tackles topics such as what attracts women, what authenticity and honesty are, passion and leadership, what is investing in yourself and how you should lead and develop your life. These are all linked back to the impact you make with women and more broadly on society at large.

The topics are kept practical. The book makes inner game, an intangible subject by nature, more practical. It does this by taking attraction and qualifying tactics and reaching behind to the mindsets behind them. It also encourages you to focus on the mindsets, not the tactics.

Mark tackles the subjects very well in a clear writing style, but it will still probably take you a few reads to understand what Mark is getting at - just because of the nature of the subject, so take your time. It's deep in places.

The one area I found to not be tackled as well was "Vulnerability" which Mark says leads to higher investment in oneself and thus diminishes neediness. This concept remained quite abstract and wasn't given the clarity of other areas, so will probably leave you unsure and left wondering how it works. Perhaps Mark clarifies it further in his other products or in one of his upcoming books - I hope so, as it is another area where advice has to date remained too intangible to be really useful.

Aspires to Take You Further: Self Actualization

Mark Manson sets the bar pretty high when he tells you what your ultimate goal is and where you should be heading. He doesn't hold back his opinions about the weak state of masculinity in today's society and pushes and encourages you to develop yourself giving you practical goals that he feels are necessary to become a better man.

This will differentiate this book from any other you have read on dating advice. The goal Mark is looking to give you is getting you on the path to satisfaction and happiness. To transform your dating lifestyle permanently. He tackles the subject from a long term perspective, not the short term fix for your current issue of needing to meet and attract more women that you like.

This point is important. One of the weaknesses of a lot of dating advice is that it focuses on short term goals and not on changing your inner game and lifestyle enough. Transforming your inner game and lifestyle is necessary to keep and build strong and healthy relationships with women. Mark shoots straight for that long term goal from the start.

Some guys will actually pass over this book because it doesn't make the 'marketing' promises that other books and programs do about getting any girl quickly (short term results). That's a real shame, because it is more likely to take you much further in the long run.

He presents some very thought provoking and challenging new ideas. This makes it a good book to stretch yourself, especially if you feel things haven't been advancing in your life recently. Think of it as an 'inner game shake up'. I don't agree with everything, but it's a worthy challenging read all the same.

Is this approach, going straight for the long term goal from the start, right for you?

The long term goal of satisfaction is where you will ultimately end up, no matter who you are. But you may not be ready to look at it, and be more comfortable with smaller short term goals, for a number of reasons.

The biggest reason is that you may already feel 'overwhelmed' with the task set before you and taking on the lofty lifestyle and inner game transformation goals from the start may cause you to drop out before you get there. Sometimes we can't aim too high - because keeping our motivation up is important. We need to focus on smaller steps. Essentially. broadening your perspective too much too quickly may overwhelm you.

As a result, if you are already feeling overwhelmed, it would make sense to get your reset from The 4 Elements of Game, get things moving in the right direction with short term goals of meeting and dating more women. Then once you get a bit of success behind you, and are feeling more on top of things, come back to this book to dig into the details, broaden your approach and take on the longer term stuff.

If you can handle it - this book, the longer term focus, is the better one which will ultimately take you further more efficiently. But I know for most men this journey isn't emotionally easy and taking smaller steps in terms of goals is easier.

Decide which one you are. A good indicator is how much general self-help, psychology and other reading you do. Have you consistently and naturally enjoyed expanding your mind and ideas? If the answer is yes, this book will be a great fit for you now.

Could Some of these Ideas Hold You Back?

For 95% of men what I'm about to say isn't relevant. It will only come up for men who are interested in pushing themselves to mastery of the approaching, attracting and other dating skillsets. This isn't necessary to develop a dating lifestyle that satisfies you, it goes beyond that. So keep in mind that this weakness is probably not relevant to you.

There are two mindsets in this book that in my opinion would limit you from complete actualization in this area of your life if you are very capable and experienced.

• Mindset #1: "Most of the women you meet, things are simply not going to work no matter what you do. 95% of this picking up women stuff has nothing to do with you… The difference between being good with women and bad with women is often only the difference between successfully getting with 8% of women you meet and 1% you meet… you are still failing over 90% of the time."
• Mindset #2: Look at rejection as incompatibility.
• If you are struggling, feeling overwhelmed and getting absolutely no success. In that case what you need is the simpler and less aspirational The 4 Elements of Game.
• If you're new to dating advice. This book is likely to be overwhelming for you, so instead check out a better book for getting started and getting some quick results under your belt like "Make Women Want You".