Meet Mike

He is a 50 year old entrepreneur who just made it big with his business podcast on YouTube.

He started it as a hobby around his main business a couple of years after his marriage broke up, to distract him from the emotional pain he was going through, and help others navigate the realities of building successful businesses. He’s done extremely well over the years and could easily retire if he wanted to – but would feel lost without something to get up for every morning.

The thought of not having a purpose actually scares him, and he now feels he is giving something back.

He found an audience of people who were desperate for real world advice from someone their own age – not some young pup who appeared to have the perfect life, and had it all figured out, but had barely lived.

Now he is getting recognised in the supermarket, he is finding it harder to make real, authentic connections in an organic way.

There is no shortage of women in his companies, and his audience – but he can’t get past the belief that they are only interested in him because of his public profile. That they are mostly attracted to the online persona and the wealth, and wouldn’t be interested in the real person…wouldn’t care for the things he didn’t say, wouldn’t share, would never admit publicly.

And who was that person anyway? He wasn’t sure he knew any more.

His whole identity was wrapped up in the show – his “baby”.

He loves his work to the point where he would happily sit up all night to see a project through but having done it way too many times with the bottle of Scotch for company, he tries to not do that – it only makes him feel much worse the following day.

He is what many would class as an over-thinker but has turned this into a superpower, attracting an audience of people who are also deep thinkers, but consider themselves mavericks, misfits and outsiders.

He has realised that living in a mostly online world is not doing his future self any favours – at some point you need to get out there and meet people.

But he’s scared.

Scared of feeling the gut punch of rejection and the humiliation once more.

At his age he has no wish to hang out in pubs and clubs, or trawl internet dating sites.

But he can also feel his time slipping away as so much of his life revolves around the show which he loves, and doesn’t feel like work, but knows he is using it as a way of shielding himself from new connections and truly living life to the full.

For a while he did have it all…

He remembers the honeymoon in Mexico with the ex-wife, and how she was so in the moment, abandoning herself to the infectious Latin rhythms, writhing her hips against him to try and get him to move with her, grabbing his arms and trying to pull him onto the dance floor.

But he knew his hips were too stiff and clunky to respond.

His body wouldn’t DO that.

And his self-consciousness wouldn’t let him try, even after several Margaritas.

So he pulled away and went to the bar to get another.

He hated himself for not being able to give her one of the things she most wanted – that soul-level connection. The dance-partner in crime who swept her off her feet and made her the envy of all the other women, who all desperately wanted THEIR men to lead THEM with confidence and assurance onto the dance floor, and later into the bedroom.

And he couldn’t bear to watch when the head of the hotel’s dance troupe came over to their table and whisked her away to dance with him. To be fair the guy did ask his permission first, but he couldn’t really say no, could he?

He never forgot how much that stung, how the tidal wave of humiliation became blind rage. He was that close to punching him.

But the young man was only doing his job and entertaining guests.

Whilst he knew logically it had nothing to do with the real reason she left him, it still felt to him like a defining moment.

Proving that he couldn’t live up to what she really wanted.

Years later, here he was…about to put that right – obviously not with his ex, that ship had long sailed – but for himself and his potential future partners.

About to walk into the Salsa club in the bar just around the corner from his office.

He heard the music often, walking past on his way home, and seen the smiles and sweaty bodies emerging to get some cool air before diving back in for more dances.

It took him months to pluck up the courage to leave work at a reasonable time and finally walk through the door.

When he did there was nothing wrong with it…they were friendly and welcoming enough, like it said on their website.

He just didn’t feel like he really fit in.

It was all too fast-moving…there was so much information:

How to step, how to hold your partner, how to count the music.

It was too much for his brain to handle all at once.

The teachers were nice (although one was a bit too shouty and excitable) telling him to “relax and feel the music”, and “stop looking at the floor”.

But he felt too weird and out of his comfort zone to look anywhere else…and he certainly couldn’t look at his partner. She had obviously been coming a few weeks and was looking bored, giving him the raised eyebrow when he couldn’t keep up.

He thought dancing was meant to help with stress – but this didn’t look or feel much like dancing. And his stress levels were going up rapidly…he felt like his brain was about to have a meltdown.

And was he imagining things or was that bloke over there looking at him a bit weird…did he recognise him?

Shortly after the class finished, he left, never to return.

Surely there was another way?

Does embarrassment REALLY have to be the cost of entry?

It was a price he was not willing to pay.

But unfortunately Mike’s story isn’t unusual.

It’s actually the experience of many who start Salsa classes.

They quit much faster than they started, believing that it’s not for them because they are rubbish, don’t have rhythm or coordination, or natural ability.

 

Why the Struggle Exists

The truth is that NO ONE struggles for ANY of the reasons above.

People struggle mostly because SOMETHING is triggering a threat response…and when threat is present the learning centres of the brain go offline.

Common likely causes are:

 

The environment – overwhelming

The structure – learning curve feels steep and non-linear

The delivery – no context or unclear explanation/demonstration

The pacing – moving too quickly,

The overload – bombarding you with too much information

The people – all progress at different speeds.

And people blame themselves rather than look at those OTHER things because – well, OTHER people seem to be doing ok, don’t they?

The system WORKS, doesn’t it?

 

Or does it?

The thing is, I don’t know of a single Salsa club which tracks the amount of people who start and disappear in the first few weeks – or follows up to ask them why they left.

Which means that no one is tracking the efficacy of the lesson structure, asking those who struggle about their experience, or addressing the most common reasons people don’t stick around.

(As any successful business owner will know, plugging the leaks in the system is one of the easiest ways to improve performance overall) 

The only KPI which matters is how many people turn up on an given night. Not how good a dancer they become, not how quickly and enjoyably they get to the level they desire, or if they even get there at all. 

The truth is that many people reach a level where they are functional enough to enjoy themselves – but never progress beyond, never achieve mastery.

They can regurgitate what they learn in class – sometimes extremely well – but cannot create to the music in real time.

Those who get REALLY good typically have done a lot of extra training and practice outside of the club environment.

 

Salsa’s Dirty Secret

The people who fall by the wayside are the dirty secret that no one talks about, but if they did talk about it, and track their numbers, I think it would paint a very different picture to all the social media highlight reels.

And it’s not the fault of the teachers – they didn’t invent the current model.

Now I know that many many people enjoy the Salsa club experience – and have exactly the experience they were seeking. If that’s you and you’re thriving, that’s awesome.

But I know many who didn’t.

Those people often ended up downgrading their desires and blaming themselves, when really it was the lack of underlying structure which let them down.

Often they would just slink off into the night never to be seen again like Mike.

But that’s enough about Mike and the mainstream clubs and classes.

 

Let’s talk about YOU

I’m guessing if you’ve stayed with me this far, just maybe you want something more.

The answers to some questions for starters.

Such as:

WHY it all feels so scary and hard, when others appear to find it easy.

WHY you can’t make those simple movements in a way which feels fluid and natural.

WHY you can’t let go and simply not worry about what everyone else is thinking

WHY you feel like a fish out of water with this when you’ve killed it in business.

 

The answer isn’t rocket science. (Radical new perspective)

But it IS still science:

Anatomy, Physiology, Neuroscience and Physics.

The immutable laws which govern all human activity and behaviour.

Without going too deeply in, most instructors teach dance as a purely physical activity, IGNORING the physiological, emotional and neurological parts of the equation.

And given that your brain controls EVERYTHING your body does, including how you feel, how you learn, how much you recall, as well as how you remember the experience after the fact, this REALLY matters.

MUCH more than most people realise.

But there’s more:

 

You came along for the feelings, but you only get taught the mechanics

Salsa dancing is fast and complex.

It is also the intersection of two closed systems:

A movement system and a musical one.

We navigate these two systems and communicate with our partner about them using a special language called “connection” – a mixture of tactile, spatial and positional cues, and body language.

Connection is only taught on a physical, mechanical level – when it’s just as much an emotional and energetic language.

And without the “feeling” part of the equation – it’s just exercise.

Not dancing.

 

 (Can you relate to this too?)

YOU have higher standards than others set for themselves – the quality of the experience matters to you.

There are particular types of people who are much less suited to the Salsa mainstream environment.

And many dancers and teachers get defensive here because their main mantra is to be inclusive and welcoming to everyone.

But it is precisely this that makes them unattractive to a specific type of person – like me, and possibly like you too.

You don’t value social conformity and crowds – you prefer the less travelled path. So why would you think that a mass market dance class would tick the boxes?

You don’t want to just muddle through…you want to LOOK GOOD and feel IN CONTROL.

You won’t let yourself be seen to struggle in public

 

You are a habitual over-achiever and a perfectionist

And I know it’s a kicker to feel like you’re starting from the beginning with ANYTHING when you’ve excelled and out-performed in all the other, traditional measures of wealth and success. 

But the truth is that you don’t need natural talent, exceptional ability or prior experience to reach a decent dance level quickly.

You need structure, and a process which delivers those early successes quickly so you are INSPIRED to continue.

Then you’ll find it much easier to apply those same traits and qualities that made you successful in the first place.

You want ALL the pieces of the jigsaw – not just the bits which have been dumbed down to make them palatable for the masses.

You LIKE depth and detail, and HATE to feel that you’re at the mercy of a one-size-fits-all approach.