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.

So I suppose SOMETHING should be said here. And I guess since he has nothing to say, I’ll say something.

First of all, everyone should know that there was no in-fighting, melodrama or money issues. He and I are still on very good terms and as far as I understand he’s leaving without any bad blood or ill will towards anyone. For anyone who’s curious, he’s planning on going back to school and pursuing a real life job.

I’ve known Doc for almost three years now. To be honest, when I met the guy, I thought he was really obnoxious. He was in the middle of what he refers to as his “over alpha” phase — basically, he had just lost his virginity and kind of thought he was a lot better than he actually was and acted like everyone should know it. In short, he was the obnoxious “alpha” community guy who was over-compensating for everything — trying to be too loud, too funny, too cool, etc.

Looking back, it’s ironic that I ended up working with him, but being the main day game guy in Boston and me being the main night game here, it made sense at the time.

As time went on, he mellowed out, he matured, he got a lot smarter — not just intellectually, but emotionally as well. Today, I’d call him a good friend. Three years ago I never would have guessed that.

I owe the guy a lot. Although it’s annoying now and then, he’s one of the only people in my life who gets on my case when I fuck up. Having friends who will always call you out on your bullshit is valuable, especially working in an industry like this.

Last summer when I was completely disillusioned with the whole scene, being a coach and freaking out because I had just quit my day job, his enthusiasm and persistence helped get me through that. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably be back in a cubicle right now.

But it’s because of that experience that I don’t blame him in the least bit for leaving and am not bitter at all. Sure, this scene improves the lives of thousands of men the world over, but there are some fucked up aspects of it, especially once you get good, and ABSOLUTELY when you start working in it. In some ways, it takes a strong stomach to work in this field.

Despite whatever you think about Neil Strauss, he wrote in his book, “The only way to win the game is to quit playing it.” There’s definitely a lot of truth in that. The only guys who stay in this scene after they get good are validation junkies or instructors (and often both). The guys who get what they came for eventually find themselves leaving. Now it’s Doc’s turn.

I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. I imagine I’ll keep in touch with him, so if for some insanely unlikely reason you need to get in touch with him, you can email me.

As for Practical Pickup, it will be shutting down in its present incarnation. I will be continuing on, flying solo. I’m not worried about it. Actually, I’ve got more business right now than I’ve ever had before. I have big plans for this blog and the industry in general, so you guys should stick around. I’ll continue coaching, but probably not in any organized bootcamp format.

Which PUA’s you ask? We made quite the rounds this trip. Among spending time with DJ Fuji (Mehow’s top instructor), the ever-lovely Erika, and Megatron (currently in the running in both Practical Pickup’s Coolest Former Student Award and Most Fucked Up Sense of Humor that would Make El Topo Wince Award — BTW, Megs, your blog is pink and looks really gay), we spent some quality time with old skoolers Cameron Teone and Formhandle (of Fast Seduction fame) — and this isn’t even to mention a bizarre text correspondence I had with Hypnotica… brother.

We giggled while Cameron frantically hit on LA platinum blonde crackwhores with fake tits… Well, they giggled, I mostly drank.

Fuji’s mohawk now glows in the dark. Which was helpful because Cameron’s apartment lacked such modern affairs as electricity and dining room furniture. But he sure as fuck had Chex Mix and beer.

I once fucked a girl in a church. This was considered appropriate dinner conversation.

We gave an amazing and dynamic talk to a group of 50+ guys — except I forgot our products in Boston and we didn’t convert one single bootcamp sale. One bootcamp student’s credit card got declined… after a full day’s coaching. If I’m homeless in two months, you won’t have to ask why.

Woo woo spiritual shit actually works. Who knew? Erika might as well be friggin’ Ms. Cleo the way she reads my mind. She cured Formhandle’s cough and my indigestion with nothing but her hands. Doc was skeptical, so she put her hand on his chest and he almost started crying. Respect the woo woo.

We taught, “What’s black, blue and hates sex? … The five year old in my trunk,” as an opener… and it hooked. Take your routine’s manual and wipe your ass with it.

In 2008 terms, those numbers are laughable. I think every major lair I’ve visited has had at least 2-3 guys who can top those numbers, not to mention select-few coaches who are pushing 50+ a year.

The truth is, in 2008, a LOT of people are getting laid. It’s not a big deal anymore. Lay reports used to garner THOUSANDS of views and comments on forums. Now people barely read them. There are guys I’ve gone out with who are better than many of the “big name” coaches out there. And what’s huge is that people are just starting to figure this out.

In my opinion, THAT is the big story of 2008. The community has gotten so big and so good, they’re realizing the bar set four years ago was incredibly low. So what does this mean for the community? Well, I think this is what we saw this year as a result:

1) The Over-Commercialization of PUA – This has been going on for a few years now, but I feel like it exploded in 2008. I knew a lot of people were trying to hop onto the bandwagon, but it wasn’t until I started coaching that I realized how MANY people were on it. Aside from the big three or four companies, there’s literally dozens of small-fry companies and then dozens more amateur coaches on top of that, who just take a bit of money on the side.

But I don’t think this was as big of a deal as it was in 2007 for two reasons. For one, I think the market growth is finally slowing down, the massive influx of new customers that “The Game” and the TV show brought has finally stopped. Secondly, the economy has gone to shit and I think the whole industry is suffering from that.

As a result, a lot of guys who are really good have decided that it’s too hard and takes too much work to successfully coach, so they’ve started up PUA community sites. There are literally dozens of large-scale PUA-content sites, all trying to create mailing lists, give away free reports, and sell affiliate products.

But the biggest effect of the over-commercialization is that it’s KILLED all but the local message boards. What we’re left with is the company message boards: The Attraction Forums, RSDNation, Charisma Arts’ board, etc. All of which are highly moderated, censored and are full of fanboys for their own company. FastSeduction has been reduced to a support group of uber old skoolers who sit around and pontificate on new theories over and over again.

2) The Anti-Community Meme – I think the biggest thing about the generation of guys that “The Game” and the TV show brought in, is that most of these guys were already pretty normal pre-community. They just had one screw loose — they needed to be more dominant, or they needed to learn to open — once that happened, everything else was already in place.

The result of this is that you’ve seen some guys get good super fast. We’ve also watched a lot of guys get WORSE because of the community.

Like I mentioned above, the guys who got good really fast are quickly discovering that their favorite “guru” isn’t quite as good as they thought — people are seeing through the marketing bullshit. So they’re disgruntled. And then you have the guys who used to be pretty normal and have a girlfriend here or there who have learned community theory and gotten worse. So THEY’RE disgruntled too.

In general, people are becoming incredibly disillusioned with the whole community. People openly make fun of not only gurus, but the whole CONCEPT of gurus on message boards now. People scoff at the idea of changing yourself, talk about how they wish they never found the community, how the whole thing is a scam, etc.

Nothing summarizes this discontent quite like the The Barry Kirkey Show, a podcast full of nothing but seduction community members who do nothing but, yup, you guessed it, bash the seduction community (Real Social Dynamics in particular). But these aren’t just some angry newbies… the show is full of former coaches and long-term PUA’s who have grown to find the whole system a joke.

3) Change of Focus from Outer Game to Inner Game – With the release of “The Blueprint” and “Flawless Natural” this year — easily the two biggest products of the year, RSD has cemented itself as the market-leader and the vanguard of the new “inner game only” trend.

I believe this reflects market-forces. As I mentioned above, that great influx of the “normal guys” who were attracted to the community by “The Game” and VH1 were dudes who really just needed to fix their inner game issues.

But as a result, an erroneous belief spread that “inner game is the only game” and that really all you need is to be in state, to have fun, to “be the party” and other similarly vague concepts that most guys are unable to implement on their own, much less even know what they mean.

The truth is, and much of this is reflected in the backlash that began the second part of 2008, that people are realizing fixing your inner game doesn’t fix everything.

People knew from before that fixing your outer game doesn’t fix everything either. So if inner game doesn’t fix it, and outer game doesn’t fix it. What the fuck fixes it?

Hence, everyone getting pissed off.

Where everything is headed – Again, I see all of these trends as simply a result of natural market forces. The PUA community has become an industry. There’s no changing that or going back, so get used to it. We must analyze the community as a market to make any sense of it.

Up until this point, companies have fought over who has the better “model” for success. We’ve been arguing over canned versus natural and inner versus outer for years now.

The truth is, and what very few people are catching onto, is that not every guy needs the same thing. Guys with awful social skills need routines and outer game. Guys with good social skills but bad inner game need inner game work. Not everybody is built the same way. This is what I’ve been trying to spearhead with Practical Pickup and will continue to do so.

So here are my predictions for 2009 as far as the community is concerned:

1) Market forces will force a lot of websites and small companies to close shop. The economy, the market saturation, and the lack of quality new content coming out will force a lot of people to the sidelines, possibly even a major company or two. I predict we’ll have FEWER companies and PUA websites at the end of 2009 as 2008, but they will be of higher quality and content.

2) The backlash will continue and grow in the short-term but eventually be incorporated into the market in a meaningful way. What I mean by this is, this backlash is occurring because what is being supplied isn’t meeting demand anymore. Guys are starting to demand more and different things from companies and the companies haven’t adapted to satisfy them. The first company to do this will have a huge leg up going into the next few years.

3) Local lairs and organizations will play much bigger roles. Since the only national and international boards are controlled by commercial interests, localized boards will take more precedent for objective information. They will also grow because of a larger focus on actually going out versus digesting more material. Local boards and lairs may even be able to grow enough to form viable business models that may threaten the larger international companies in the future (we’re already seeing this in NYC).

4) A new meme will have to be established in the community. Mystery Method dominated the marketplace with it’s outer-game focus and RSD has dominated by focusing on inner game. Unfortunately, the community seems short on innovators. 2009 will be determined greatly by who can be the first to come up with the “next great big thing.”

Who will it be?