A few months back, the guys in the Boston Lair asked to do an interview with me. I talk a bit about my own development, entering into the industry and becoming a coach, where I think the industry and community are headed, and other interesting tidbits. Check it out.

Entropy, thanks for taking the time to do this interview.

You are currently living in the Boston area. What do you like about being here?

Just about everything but the weather.

Where have you traveled to in the world?

All over the place. Parts of Europe, mostly in Germany. The Caribbean, Mexico a number of times, Costa Rica, Argentina, New Zealand, all over the US. Actually going to Israel and Turkey this summer and then hopefully another shot over to Germany/Amsterdam before Fall.

Describe for me the events that lead up to you joining the community. When did you join the community and for what reasons?

My story’s pretty well known at this point. But here are the Cliff’s Notes: never successful with women, had always been a pussy. Landed a girlfriend by being in a band, was with her for four years, one of which was long-distance. Was in love, thought I was going to marry her when she left me for a guy she had only known for weeks. Everything I knew about dating and relationships (i.e., nothing) kind of crashed down on me and I went into this awful depression. When I came out of it, I was on a mission to not only hook up with as many women as possible but to figure out what I did wrong. That brought me here.

After you found the community, you went out 4-5 nights a week for months. How did doing that affect your life in general? Where were you in your life at that time?

I was fortunate in that I was in my 5th year of college. I was just kind of cleaning up the extra credits that I needed, so I was taking a low course load both my last semesters. Also, I had been in college long enough to have kind of mastered how to get good grades without going to class and with doing as little homework as possible. Put bluntly, I’m a fast learner and college became extremely easy for me once I learned the in’s and out’s. So yeah, I was out 5 nights a week for about a year straight and it didn’t affect my academic life a whole lot. When I got out and got a job, I had to cut it down to 3-4 nights a week. And then when I got a REAL job, it went down to like 2-3 nights a week, which is what I recommend for most guys who aren’t deadbeats like I was, lol.

What sort of progress did you see yourself making during that time?

Oh, leaps and bounds. It’s true what they say, if you want to get REALLY good, like retardedly good at this stuff, going out 5+ nights a week will do it for you. I think most coaches/gurus had a period like that. For me, I got good pretty fast. Within about six months, I was getting results comparable to guys who had been around for 1-2 years. I also had a natural friend who I went out with a lot and I learned a lot by hanging out with him. But yeah, after only about a year I was getting laid pretty regularly and easily.

After you were in the community for about two years you started coaching. Why did you decide to coach and what made you decide to coach the way that you do?

Basically, my reputation started preceding me locally here in Boston. I would go to seminars and meetings and I’d get 4-5 guys asking for my number to go out some time. At first I didn’t mind, but pretty soon it was like, “There’s no way in hell I have time to hang out with even half of these guys.” So my roommate at the time said I should charge them. Like $200 a night or something. I did and surprisingly some guys took me up on it. It kind of just snowballed from there.

As far as how I coach, I’m pragmatic. I got good not using any specific theory or model, so I don’t force theory or a model onto guys. I believe that everyone’s got different strengths or weaknesses, so I see it kind of as my job to help guys accentuate their strengths and patch up their weaknesses. The way I coach you may be 100% different than I coach a guy from last week.

List some of the ways that you find coaching to be rewarding.

The results. When guys get results. And not necessarily that night. I mean, I’ve had guys get laid while I’m coaching them, and that’s cool or whatever. But what really gets me excited is when I get an email six months later from a guy saying that he has an amazing girlfriend who he thought was way out of his league, or guys who lose their virginities, first kisses, stuff like that. The life changing stuff. I’ve yet to be invited to a wedding, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I have one to go to in the next year or so because of my job. That’s just awesome.

Tell me about launching Practical Pickup, where you have come since then, where you are now, and where you see it going in the future.

Practical Pickup came together kind of as a fluke. Doc had been teaching some day game on the side like I was with night game. Saffron had been teaching Asian Playboy bootcamps. El Topo came to town in January of 08′ and met us and was like, “Dude, you guys should work together.” So we threw a local bootcamp for real cheap, like $350, and it sold out in two days. At first it was pretty straightforward, we taught almost all lair guys. But the Boston market dried up after a few months we were kind of fucked. We had to go national and that was HARD. REALLY HARD. We scraped by, sleeping on couches, coaching guys for no profit, etc. just to get our name out there. It eventually paid off.

I’ve learned a lot since then, both about picking up women, coaching and the industry. My style with women has definitely changed. I don’t really know how to describe it, but if you read my blog, you can kind of get a sense for it. Coaching, there was a learning curve to get guys to understand what you meant and what to do. When we started, we’d do tons of demo sets. The students liked seeing them, but they didn’t exactly learn to do it. Then we started doing no demo sets, and students complained that they needed to see a certain concept done. So it’s finding a balance. Also, people have different learning styles, which I try to address now.

As far as the industry, that was the eye-opener. Oh my God. This industry is NOT what it seems. I’m not going to gossip or do an expose here, but I’ll just say when I finally met a bunch of the “gurus” and went out with them, it was a huge letdown. There are some unhealthy market forces going on right now, which I trust will resolve themselves in time. But for now, I just try to steer guys clear of people or companies I see as toxic.

As for the future? Two words: in-field video. The great equalizer. Stay tuned.

What does it take to run your own company? Is it easy? What skills do you need to do that?

A shitload of time and effort. It’s not easy. But it’s not hard in the sense that anyone could do it. I have friends who are high school drop outs and successful entrepreneurs. The hard part is the time investment and always being willing to learn from your mistakes. For six months there, it seemed like EVERYTHING I did didn’t work out how I wanted it to. But you just have to keep learning. I never studied marketing or sales, so that had a steep learning curve for me, not to mention programming webpages, shopping carts, finding affiliates, etc.

But as far as skills, same skills as any entrepreneur: intelligence, persistence and flexibility. You need to know when you can do it right, or when it’s better to get someone else to do it for you. You need to know when you fucked up and how to do better next time. You can’t have your ego involved, if you fucked up, you have to learn from it immediately or else you’re cooked.

Speaking of skills, what skills have you borrowed from your life and incorporated into pickup?

I think a lot of those same entrepreneurial traits helped me get good at pick up fast and have helped me continue to improve where most coaches hit a ceiling. Always be willing to look at your mistakes, always question yourself, always seek out others’ perspectives. I’ve always done that naturally and I think that’s why I’ve succeeded in both the business side and the pick up side.

Also, what skills have you learned in pickup that transfer over into your normal life?

Tons. I’ll tell you, it’s always a mind fuck whenever I go and hang out with an old college friend and his work friends or something, you know, just a standard get together. As retarded as the metaphor is, I do feel like Neo in the Matrix around people like that now. It’s kind of indescribable. But my confidence in social situations is usually immaculate these days. I can read people’s intentions instantly, sometimes when they don’t even see it in themselves. My social intelligence overall has just shot through the roof.

List a couple of your AHA! moments, when something went off like a light bulb in your head.

There were a few. In order of occurrence:

- First time out with a community guy, watching him open like 8 sets in an hour. My AA was so bad back then, it utterly blew me away. I could hardly talk until the last hour of the night.
- Out with my natural friend, watching him open girls with “Can I pee in your butt?” and pulling a girl home with it. I was still in the reality that we had to use scripted lines and shit.
- Getting a hot girl to ditch the four guys she was with using nothing but my eye contact.
- Taking a girl home and having sex with her within 30 minutes of meeting her.
- Realizing that there are girls out there who are fine dating you while you date other women.
- Realizing that generating a genuine emotional connection, even with girls I just met, often trumps even the most solid attraction game.

- Getting 30 second make-outs with only saying like four words to the girl. It showed me how powerful and important non-verbal communication is.

Well now everyone will want to know so I have to ask, what is the key to getting 30 second make outs?

LOL. 

Well, she has to be attracted to you physically for starters, followed by perfect eye contact and body language, smooth and quick kino, and not fucking yourself up by saying something stupid and killing the mood. 30 second makeouts are actually pretty worthless most of the time as the second you talk or your body language falters, it breaks state and it becomes awkward really fast.

Her being drunk never hurts either.

What separates you from other pickup artists?

I don’t lie in my marketing. LOL. But seriously, I’m kind of a hybrid of a guy because I’m very comfort and inner game focused like guys like Zan or Hypnotica, but I still get the same night lays and stuff that guys like Sinn get.

What were your keys to success?

Try, try, try and try again. It drives me crazy when students think I have some sort of magical powers or something. I’ve done probably around 2500 sets, and 2400 of those didn’t go very far. That’s a lot of failure. Pick yourself up and try again. Quit bitching. Don’t be a pussy. Learn from your mistakes.

Where are you in your game now; are you where you want to be or is there still room for improvement?

There’s a ton of room for improvement. I’ve been fortunate to have known and gone out with some amazing naturals. The PUA community really just scratches the surface. There’s a lot of work to still be done. I don’t really consider myself that good yet.

For one, relationships needs to be addressed. Whether you want to keep a harem of FB’s or have open relationships, polyamory, or retain an amazing girlfriend, there are a lot of skills involved in that, skills that are more complex and harder than any pick up in many ways.

Second of all is emotional connections and how they relate to game. The seduction community vastly underestimates the power of opening yourself up and making yourself emotionally vulnerable — yes, even in a loud night club while you’re bantering and teasing. It’s a whole new ball game and something that I want to get better at that I think no one else is doing. A lot of my sets these days look really plain and boring: I open and say hi, I talk about boring shit like work and friends, I buy her a drink, we make out, she tells me I understand her more than anyone she’s ever met and we go home and have great sex. No LMR. No cockblocks. It’s a whole new ball game. Seriously.

Entropy, thanks so much for taking the time and putting in the effort to make this a great interview.