Case Study: OODA loops, an example

with example

An excerpt from Praxeology: volume 1, Frame. I’ll follow it up with a field report as an example why it’s important. And for subscribers a bonus at the end.

But before I start, a quick shoutout for The Dog Walker, the best selling new book about Rex, a promise keeper who is screwing his life up. If it doesn’t make you laugh at least 3 times throughout then you have no heart. It’s fiction the way men intended it to be; not gay and enjoyable

Observe, Orient, Decide, Act

So far, I’ve covered how men come together around relationship issues. I’ve discussed the three types of dysfunctional relationships and the differences between the sexes. I’ve explained mental models, praxeology, and a utilitarian approach to fixing lives and relationships. Now, we look at the process that puts them all together to make better decisions—the OODA loop.

This is important because human beings are lazy. When I first started showing this to men, they would give unintentional lip service. They would describe their subpar sex life and problems in great detail. It was very obvious what kind of man they were before marriage, what kind of relationship they were in, how they treated their women like men, and in which ways it was sabotaging their goals. I could articulate all of this and always received the same response:

“Yes, exactly this! This is just what I need to hear, thanks for saving my life!”

This was always followed up with the same thing.

Nothing.

Men are so predictable in their troubles that you could see a man in a struggling relationship, tell him why it was struggling, what he could do to change it, the consequences of not doing it, and show (with examples) men making the same mistakes and suffering the aforementioned consequences. Again, they would respond with:

“You know that thing you told me not to do? I did it anyway, and the thing you said would happen, happened. Now that I’m here, what do I do?”

There is only one answer. Accept the consequences of your actions. All the choices have been made, all the consequences were accepted, and now it’s just about letting things happen. What is the point of being able to predict someone’s future if they don’t change anything because of it? OODA loops are the process for men to actually apply what they learn.

OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act and was developed by U.S. Air Force strategist John Boyd. The idea is that one can overcome obstacles with agility by constantly reassessing their actions and consequences. The process results in men having what is called calibration. The faster you can iterate an OODA loop, the faster you can learn and fix the problems in your life.

First is orientation. You can’t fix a problem that you can’t articulate. Our ego gets in our way more often than we care to admit. We think that we can overcome a wife who has fallen out of love with us or overcome a wife who has been cheating in hopes of finding her new husband before shedding the current one. We think we have to lose ten pounds to become fit when it’s really closer to forty. Orientation is about seeing things for what they are, not what we want them to be.

Your wife says she loves you, but you haven’t had sex in five months? Then she’s not in love with you. Is it a case of not being attractive or being too unattractive? In what way? For a simple example, let’s say it’s because you’ve gained a lot of weight and look unattractive to the point that she’s not sexually interested anymore.

Orient is how you take these observations and apply proper mental models to guide your future decisions. In the past, you may have held onto models about “in sickness and in health.” This is clearly not useful. Instead, you decide to adopt the model of being attractive to generate more desire. This is a simple and straightforward example, so I suggest you start looking at the rest of the models in this book with the same process.

Decide is where you make a decision based on your orientation. You decide to join a gym, eat healthier, and stop drinking. You decide on the gym, you decide on a program, you decide on your meals, you decide to throw out your alcohol. You make these decisions silently because (as I will outline later) a common reason these things fail is the need for validation. Like any New Year’s resolution, we get the same dopamine high from telling people about our goals as we get from actually achieving them.

Act is the final part. You’ve observed the dynamic, oriented yourself to the adequate mental model, and decided on a course of action—now it’s about following through. When you hear a lot of self-help types tell you to “fake it until you make it,” this is where that belongs. You knew what you were doing when you got here, so trust that. The only thing going through your mind is hesitation. Why? Because you’re worried about making a mistake, experiencing rejection, or both. Accept that—it’s built into the system.

After you conduct an action, you reiterate your loop. Observe the effect it had. Are you closer to your goal? Are you further from your goal? Are you tangential to your goal? Observe the results and orient yourself accordingly. Sometimes it’s obvious. You did something, your wife responded sexually, and you were happier when acting on it. Continue to do that or escalate. Reward good behavior, don’t reward bad behavior. It sounds easy, but it really isn’t.

Men run through an OODA loop and start seeing results. They stop treating their girl as a man and start treating her like the most responsible teenager in the house. The wife becomes more feminine, more submissive, and the sex life improves. You’d think this means men are happy with things and continue to reinforce this situation. They don’t. What actually happens is men feel bad that they are acting like such a jerk to their wife when she is acting so well. They revert back to their old behavior as some sort of reward.

Then the wife gets frustrated, loses sexual interest again (along with a little more trust that it’s ever going to be real), and the husband gets resentful. This is because he isn’t using his OODA loop. If you feel like you are acting like a misogynist, a jerk, a selfish prick, and your wife is responding well, then know that this is the reward.

“She loves the new me, so I will act like the old me to show her how much I appreciate it!”

See how silly that sounds? Yet men always default to this. It’s because they don’t observe. They see with their heart and not their eyes. In reality, they have a self-ideology of how a man should act. Their deep narrative has a categorical imperative. The models in this book act like tips and tricks to convince a girl to act right. Then, when she’s acting right, he assumes he has to go back to the previous model to continue to submit to his ideology.

Billy, observant

Hi, I think I did pretty well here. Who am I kidding? I'm absolutely thrilled with how I handled this. This might be my first real case of getting a handle on things. Still, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

My long-term girlfriend came home from a weekend-long skiing trip. I was out when she returned and came home a few hours later. The moment I walked into the apartment, I could tell the vibe was off. She was lying on the couch, visibly upset.

Me: "Hi."

Her: "Hi."

I went about my business, putting my gym bag away, prepping some food, etc. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, I haven’t seen her all weekend. I come home expecting to be greeted warmly, but instead, I get this attitude? My "I don't care" mode activated, and I took my time making my food. Finally, I sat near her to eat.

Me: "You okay?"

Her: "No."

Me: "What happened?"

Her: "I don’t know!" Starts crying.

I knew she’d just had a fun weekend with friends and was probably cheerful until she got home. Nothing serious had happened. A while ago, I would have dropped everything to try and solve her problem. This time, I kept quiet and tried to stay unbothered, casually browsing my phone. Internally, my brain was on overdrive, trying to figure out the "correct" response (obviously, I’m still new to this). But I think I played it cool.

Finally, I concluded: Her happiness is not my responsibility. I’m happy to support her when she approaches me constructively, but I’m not going to dig for answers. Still, I wondered—was this a test for reassurance or a test of my boundaries?

Her: "I came home and thought I’d see you after the weekend, but you weren’t here."

Me (not looking up, still on my phone): "I have Krav Maga lessons every Monday. You know that."

Her (through tears): "I forgot."

I stayed quiet.

Her: "I had to carry the skis, the snowboard, and all the stuff from the car by myself."

Ah, so this is about me not carrying her stuff? I figured it had to be a test. Carrying her things would have been a favor, but she seemed to expect it like I was her personal bellhop—and now she was upset because I wasn’t there to do it. The situation was obviously ridiculous, but I knew calling it out would make me sound defensive. So I just said:

Me: "Well, if I was here, you might have had to carry it all by yourself anyway."

She started crying more, got up, and went to the bedroom. I noticed she left her phone on the table—meaning she wasn’t actually going to do anything in there, just lying on the bed expecting me to follow. Instead, I put on a documentary and pretended to watch, casually putting my feet up.

Of course, I wasn’t really watching. My mind was racing. I didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing serious happened—and if it did, she needs to say so clearly.

A few minutes later, she came back.

Her: "Do you hate me?"

This time, her tone wasn’t accusatory. That’s when I realized—ah, now she’s looking for reassurance. I got up, walked over, and hugged her.

Me: "Would I hug someone I hate?"

Her: No response.

Me: "How was the trip?"

From there, we had a really pleasant evening. Later, I found out her period had come a week early. I did end up carrying some of her stuff from the car—but not before she gave me a little reward (reinforce the behavior you want, right?).

Anyway, just wanted to share! I wish I could act this cool naturally, but for now, I still have to analyze everything like a puzzle and execute accordingly. Still, I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Thanks for reading this far. Before I continue, don’t forget Frame is available on Kindle, Paperback and Hardcover

Analysis