Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in redpoleq's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
5:00 am	Blog REDUX Wow, back on the blog and in less than 5 months.  That must be a new record.  Recently(as in about an hour ago) I was talking with Joe and he got me thinking. I read and consume a lot of knowledge and I often, because of my focus on pickup and PickUp Asia, file it away because I don't really see a way for it to fit in.  Sometimes I post it on The A-Team because I think it would be really valuable, but for the most part, I haven't had a great outlet for lots of bits of info that I read. So, I realized that this BLOG is probably as good a place as any to start posting the things that I read and watch, so from now on, pretty much any article I read, or YouTube clip I watch I'll add on to here with a short commentary. Maybe I should start calling this blog, "What I'm Reading and Watching".  I won't change the name for now, but to get started I'll post a bunch of things.  This will also allow me to close some of the tabs in my browser because apparently having 30+ tabs open isn't normal...go figure. First up, is a video featuring Seth Godin talking about the value of taking risks and why it's so necessary these days: Next up is an article about the potential repercussions of Japan shutting down all of their nuclear power generators which forces them to import lots and lots of petroleum and natural gas, which will a) rapidly impoverish their economy and b) mean that they will no longer be a net buyer of US treasuries)and potentially a major seller) which could lead to US treasury yields blowing out and all the havoc that would wreak worldwide: http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/japan-another-spinning-plate-global-economy-circus/72033 And while we're on the topic of nuclear power, the shutting down of the plants in the first place is the dumbest thing I ever heard.  It accounted for 30% of Japan's electricity generation and the costs of electricity in Japan were already not cheap.  The economy is in a slump so having higher prices for electricity is definitely not good. Given that the yen is quite strong at the moment, though it's rapidly weakened over the past month or so, it may not be such a big deal in the short run.  I wonder if their goal is to shock the Japanese people into begging for nuclear power again because really this just increases Japan's dependence on other countries which given their fiscal future, is a big no-no. The past 2 months they've had some pretty big trade deficits for the first time in many, many years.  Now, I think that Japan will be alright in the long run, because while things could get ugly, the population is declining which means they'll need less resources in the future, and really many Japanese companies are doing quite well overseas. As such, there are huge pools of foreign currency that the government could tap if it needed to buy resources from abroad if things really got ugly.  And by really got ugly, that means that it would have already sold it's huge pool of US Treasuries.  Ultimately as long as Japan has more things that it and it's companies can sell than it needs to import, it will be alright and I think they're good there in the long run. And here's an article talking about how men's self body image improves when they lose their virginity while women's declines...not particularly interesting, but it does mesh quite well with what a female sex and relationship counselor told me a while back about women's perception of their value being in flux post sex and going up or going down depending on how the man treats them. http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/09/like-a-virgin-having-sex-for-the-first-time-makes-women-feel-less-attractive-but-boosts-mens-self-image/?iid=obinsite And here's a really great article by Gary North(who's Reality check I read twice a week).  It's about the value of focusing on a skill for long periods of time.  Long enough to develop it beyond the abilities of most people and how that will put you in the way of opportunity: http://www.garynorth.com/members/9158.cfm Another pretty interesting article is about a study done one women doing a scavenger hunt.  Half of the women were given a pink bag and the other half were given a Victoria's Secret bag to carry during the hunt.  Half of the women carrying a Victoria's Secret bag felt sexier during the hunt and in this article he talks about why that is. Basically, it seems that women who felt that their personalities were fixed and unchangeable felt sexier while those who thought that they could change themselves to be as they wanted didn't feel the same positive boost to their sexiness.  I think this explains exactly why Asians like wearing brands so much... http://www.kevinhogan.com/victoriassecretinfluencefactors.htm Ok, I think that's it for today...more cool stuff next time.  (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
7:20 am	Light Years... Holy fuck...it's been over 2 years since I last updated this blog.  As it turns out though, Pattaya(where I happen to be right now) is a great place for introspection. It's a raw, dirty, low down kind of place...so REAL. Not frills, ruffles, or lace on anything here.  And if it is you can be sure that there is something nasty hiding behind it! I missed Thanksgiving, but it's never to later to count your blessings and now is as good a time as any.  My life has gotten increasingly crazy in the past 2 years. I'm still homeless, but I've expanded my vagabond wanderings.  I know hit, Taipei, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Pattaya regularly.  Additionally, this past year, I went to Kuala Lumpur twice, New York city twice, Siam Reap once(to see Angkor Wat), and DC once to see the fam. Last year, I also went to Phuket twice(and went surfing!) and I went to Tioman, a small resort island in Malaysia, Bali, and Gili Tarawangan where I had some of the most amazing snorkeling sights including, seeing sea turtles, and rays. Likely the most dramatic and toughest decision I made was to boot Kid44 out of PickUp Asia.  It's the kind of move I should have done way earlier.  I really wasn't focused enough on the health of the business and was reluctant to make the irreversible tough call. But, in 2010, I finally got rid of him and it's been nothing but good for me and my clients.  We're almost non-existent in Japan now unfortunately because of the damage I allowed him to do to our reputation, but one thing that was a definite blessing was that his hatred for travel has meant that he was pretty well isolated from all of our other markets such that the damage was contained to our lease lucrative market. He's still kicking around doing his own thing, but it's going nowhere.  So I get some additional satisfaction there.  Yeah, I wish him ill.  And for sure he has his grievances and lots of bad names to call me.  I won't call him names, but I will say, I'm happy he's (mostly) behind me. Right now the biggest markets are Korea and China.  Korea, as always is steady as she goes with an awesome community of guys there with nothing but the best intentions for one another and it's always a pleasure to pass through and rub shoulders with the guys. China is a fairly new market but Kane Vast has done an amazing job of hooking things up there, representing PickUp Asia and really going beyond the call of duty and any of my expectations in terms of helping things along there.  Additionally, he's become a great friend and business partner in launching ManUpChina.com with me earlier this year. It's growing well and while it could be moving along faster, it has definitely exceeded my expectations and even more importantly been a hell of a lot of fun.  We're still only 5 months into that project, so we're still taking baby steps, but it's been a super exciting experience so far. I lived in Korea for a good chunk of 2010 with BlueM and eNeRGy and that was also a great experience.  Especially with Vision right upstairs for a good portion of it.  Nothing like having a gang all in one place.  And Hookah:30 almost every night of the week was a bonus. Lots of great times in Korea and as always I can only wish for more time there(and plan for it too, but looks like it might be a while). In 2010, with the assistance of Ryker(who I begged to join me), I did my first digital product launch and it was an awesome success.  We netted a few thousand dollars and it was probably the best product we've put out to date though we're working on something now that has the potential to surpass it. Since then we did several other product launches as well and the beginning of next year we should have the framework for a comprehensive online digital product delivery funnel.  That will be the most exciting thing in my life since 2005 when I had no boss for the first time since University. While my life has definitely been exciting, it would be nice if I could slow down the pace a bit.  I'm rarely in one place for more than 2 weeks and my accommodations are often quite dodgy.  Much love to everyone who let me crash.  Don't take it personally.  Just that I'm ambitious and envision a time when I'll be staying at 5 star hotels--or not, but at least have it as an option. Over the past year, I've really rebuilt PickUp Asia to the point where it once was and it's doing quite well again with a steady stream of boot camp students.  And it looks likely that I've arranged things well enough that I'll be able to skip winter if I so choose.  Yup, crowning off the year with enough cash to last me until Spring and spending those months in SE Asia is sounding pretty fuckin' sweet right now. I added two advanced courses including the Art and Science of Sex and The Art of Seduction: Comfort and Story-Telling Workshop.  They've been well received and they've been a blast to teach. Right now, the main focus is re-designing the website and building out ManUp China.  I'm working closely with Ryker on the first and with Kane Vast on the 2nd.  The first will give me a more steady automatic stream of income while the 2nd has huge growth potential if we execute well. I'm actually considering(it's painful to even contemplate) moving to China in the Spring to give closer support to Kane.  Instead of doing a typical boot camp style, we've set up a 6 month program that is really comprehensive. I think this is an awesome way to teach game as it gives the students more time to learn and integrate it into their everyday lives, builds a stronger connection AND provides a stream of income rather than a one-off payment. My travel schedule has meant that I've lost out on some amazing girls, but it also means that I've done some really cool things that I may never have tried.  I'm still working on the bi-wing game plan, but I have been able to get two of my girls together a few times for some fun and that's been a fantastic learning experience---and a lot of fun too! I still have 1.5 years that I've decided to dedicate to this business before I consider moving on to something else and it seems like I've wisened up a good bit and have figured out how to cut my losses, focus and prioritize.  Always lots of room for improvement of course, but I'm really happy with how things are going for me. Like anyone, I have my complaints, but there's nothing else I'd rather be doing with my life right now. Looking back to the last post, it's amazing to think about all that I've done since then(and I've got pics and video to prove it, HA!) I have my off days, but as I tell the guys in the Awakening the Man Within Seminar, "small changes in direction lead to large long term results" and I'm reaping the benefits now and only see more ahead. (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
2:30 am	The more things change... Well, in my last substantive post I mentioned that you never know which door will open to you and as predicted, what has happened over the past couple of months has been like nothing I could have anticipated back in November. As usual, I'm not sure whether the changes are good or bad...but they are changing. Since that last post in November, my life has gone through some SERIOUS changes, and I suppose that now(seeing as I'm home at 2:30am on a Saturday night) is as good as any to catch up on documenting the legend. First a quick summary of what's happened since I last took the time to sit down and rant--and make no mistake about it, the reason I'm writing this is solely for the purpose of ranting. After my return from The Millionaire Mind Intensive, I had a rough three months.  And when I say rough, that means not enough money.  The good thing is that it added to my resourcefulness and I I developed the Remote Mentor Program which is a conference call coaching program. We had two guys sign-up for it and they were fantastic, and are super happy with the results.  Hell, I'm impressed.  I was able to do more over the phone than I thought possible, but I have to be honest and say that I was working with good stuff. As Kid44 likes to say, it was all about optimizing these guys and not about fixing. In fact I'm planning on launching it again very soon, and have already gotten e-mails from two guys who want to sign-up.  I think this can also work as a good training ground for new instructors, so while it's not a huge money maker(although potentially it could be), it's probably more valuable as a way to train our future trainers. I also worked out a deal with a guy to switch our website over to wordpress, which has allowed me to add pages to the site for whatever I want.  Very cool.  And definitely worth it, even though my partner was totally against it. The main things about it that pisses me off, is that this is what Jovi advised us to do back in the day, but with all the back and forth around the switch to the new website, it didn't happen until now and even then I got a lot of resistance with pushing this thing forward. In any case, it's been a huge help to our marketing which I think has improved massively. I made my first foray into bi-wing game and it went much better and much worse than I'd hope.  On the pro- side of the ledger, things progressed much further than I expected.  On the con- side of the ledger, things progressed further than I was prepared and it ruined the relationship.  Bye-bye bicurious wing girl--RIP. This winter was tough and it wreaked havoc on my relationships AND resulted in me moving out of my apartment.  My choice was to continue to rack up debt(as if I didn't have enough of that already) in the hopes that I would be able to turn things around or take drastic measures. Okay, I suppose I didn't have to hit the doomsday button(and get a job) but as of March, I've been homeless.  I'm grateful to Mr. Right who is housing my things, as well as BlueMystery, Sexual Kimchi, Ultimate Player, and Tim who have put me up over the past few months as I've been roving around Asia. And as a result of that the weakness in my SNL/ONS game has become a glaring hole.  An extremely irritating ulcer really.  Dodgy logistics and low probability of an ongoing relationship are deadly for my game.  I mentioned this in the previous post while I was in Vancouver and things have gotten even "worse". I mentioned dropping 4 good sets in Korea and 2 in Vancouver.  I'm losing track of the good sets that I didn't close since February when I moved out of my apartment.  It's been a slooooooooooow year punctuated by glorious flame-outs.  How can one man drop sooooo many sets? While that's been a continous sore point, in other areas things are progressing quite nicely.  Our students are doing amazing of course and there have been some major movements as far as growing the business goes. But before I get to those I want to back track and review a bit of what's happened since February. I was able to renew my Japanese Visa so I'm good until Feb 2012, by which I'll be able to apply for permanent residence status!  That's cool.  Always good to have more than on country you can live in indefinitely, so that was one major hurdle cleared. Ironically, with my recent travel schedule, I probably wouldn't have needed it.  Almost as soon as my Visa was approved, I went off to run two boot camps back to back, which allowed me to repay my ex-room mate who I was in debt to for about US$3,000!  Yikes! I followed that 10 day trip by flying off to LA for the Guerrilla Business School which was spectacular.  I learned a lot, and it really propelled me into working harder ON the business and making some changes(initial direction has large longterm effects and all).  I followed 6 days in LA with a trip to Hong Kong(almost missed my plane!) where I stayed for 5 days.  Shout out to Sam from the PickUp Asia newsletter for taking good care of me while I was there.  Thanks, man! This was a HUGE watershed, because thanks to BlueM, PickUp Asia had their television debut!  BlueM and I were interviewed for a very well known English language television show, The Pearl Report, on Hong Kong's most popular network channel.  Not only was it fun, but it brought us from nobody's in Hong Kong to somebodies(I'll be headed there to run our first boot camp there next week!) Following that, I went off to Vietnam which because of my extended stay in Hong Kong could only be for 10 days.  Amazing there.  I went to Nah Trang, which is the scuba diving capital of Vietnam, but I didn't end up scuba diving unfortunately, though that was one of my main purposes for being there.  Ah, well. Maybe next time. So I spent 7 days, in a penthouse hotel overlooking the beach and could see the sunrise from my bed every morning.  I had some wild adventures there and definitely leveled up my ONS/SNL game massively(which isn't hard when you consider the low base point) and I had a chance to unwind and do some serious thinking and mental prep work.   It was good to give myself a chance to start processing all the stuff I learned at the GBS.  Did I mentioned that those guys got me again!  At that seminar I ended up signing up for Alex Mandossian's Internet Optimization University AND The Greatest Marketing Seminar in the World.  The first is done remotely, but the 2nd requires ANOTHER trip to LA in September. The good thing about both of these courses, each of which was US$2,000, is that BlueMystery will be able to join me so I'm pleased about that as it brings him more into the fold. I followed up Vietnam with a return to Hong Kong to pick up my large suitcase(and one night in Taiwan that has me sold) I headed back to Japan.  I've been hopping cities so much, I can't keep them straigh unfortunately.  In any case, somewhere in April I ended up in Seoul again and I did the Awakening the Man Within Seminar for the first time. It was a good start, and I rolled it out next in Tokyo, then in Hong Kong, and last weekend in Shanghai, improving it with each iteration.  I'm super proud about it because I'd been wanting to do this since November after I decided to TOTALLY and UNASHAMEDLY steal Peak Potential's model(still in the early stages of stealing it though...we're still at the petty theif stage). The seminar was an awesome experience for me because I learned a lot about organizing presentations, and as with anything, this is the first step to something that will be a huge part of our business down the line.  The audiences were small and mostly boot camp alumni, so it didn't really have the effect it was intended to have, but it's a start. The basic idea is sound, it's just a matter of marketing(isn't it always?) I've gotten into outsourcing, and that's an increasing part of the business as well.  Started with audio editing for the Skypecasts we used to run, and am now moving into some admin. assistance things and will be doing some web stuff soon.  Apprehensive about decreasing my control level but that's part of growth and getting bigger. Next week, I'm off to Hong Kong for the first boot camp in Hong Kong, which will increase our reach to 4 major Asian cities(Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Hong Kong) while Shanghai is still in the works.  Definitely a lot of potential here and in Hong Kong.  Did I mention that we've been invited to speak at a PickUp conference in Sydney and in Melbourne?  So aside from the September trip to LA for about 10 days, I'll be heading to Australia for at least 3 weekends.  Maybe longer...who needs winter? More potential there. Having said that, I think my "game" has leveled up immensly by being on the road and interacting with SO many different women from SO many different places with such varying backgrounds.  In Vietnam it was all Scandinavians all the time, while in Hong Kong it's been a hodgepodge. It's been girls from all over China, as well as Korean, Japanese, Russian, Taiwanese(YUM!), just to throw out a few, and all of the rapid re-calibrating across cultures, accents and language barriers has definitely made the first 20-minutes or so extra tight. I reconfigured my comfort game in Vietnam, and now I'm working on my sexcalation...assuming I've really progrssed as far as I'd like to think I have with the other areas of my game, I should be very close to cracking to code on travel/ONS game. That would be huge for the business(it's always good to be able to show off) and for my mental health(no more trashing of hotel rooms and random homes of those kind enough to take me in). Did I mention that I rented a motorcycle in Vietnam?   I love motorcycles.  I knew I would, of course. I could bitch and moan about my game for paragraph after paragraph and chronicle all of the failings that have taken place, but I'll spare myself.  The memories are etched pretty firmly and vividly into my brain...and then there are the pictures. So while on a personal level this has been the most sexless life of my year since I was 19, even spending my birthday with the guys(who I have much love for, of course), I think that we're building a super strong foundation for the business this year and I think this will be the year we become big. (If not, I've been invited to stay with a guy in Brazil who lives in a beach resort area where the population doubles during the summer!) Here's crossing my fingers that this year will mirror 2007...   (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
5:05 am	The Door There are few things that make me sad in life.  Most things I just see as the way it is.  Unfortunate, but I don't get that sad feeling.  What really gives me that sad feeling is those doors in life that I didn't open.  Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't push hard enough. A lot of people fear what might be behind the door, but I like to leave it open.  I can always close the door behind me later... Image for life: A hallway with doors and a small frosted window on each door.  (Comment on this)
Monday, November 3rd, 2008
5:16 am	Turning the Page According to LiveJournal it's been 35 weeks since I last wrote. It's interesting because on one hand I feel like not much has happened and yet so much has. I suppose that's exactly why I keep this kind of journal. It allows me to keep track of the changes in life. I'm in Vancouver as I write this, and much as I was in Korea for the first time around this time last year I think this is indicative of B-I-G changes coming. Most of this year has been pretty bland. Granted there was a lot of drama around the end of Spring which has ultimately led to Allusion going his own way and Kid44 and I continuing with the business. Allusion is now hosting in Kabukicho, and it seems he's doing well. Not that I would expect anything less given his pickup INSTRUCTOR(and other bizarre) background. Being a magician can't hurt either. Last I saw he was really excited about the $800 suit one if his customers bought him. Most of this year has just been perpetuating what's already been happening. Last year was a year of many firsts. It was also a really challenging year with taking on the whole pickup instructor identity. This year, on the other hand has been an endless cycle of Osaka-Tokyo-Korea and back. I've been on more airplanes this year than I have in my entire life up until now(I'm pretty sure that's not an exaggeration). Things got really crazy in June when our article came out in Japanzine Magazine: http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/jz/1658/A+Different+Kind+of+Bootcamp:+The+Pickup+Artists Very exciting...it makes us legitimate. We've been much more successful at bringing guys in since. That was HUGE for us. There was another article that was supposed to be done on us that may never see the light of day, unfortunately. We've had more than a few project fall through. Including working with a guy who is permanently on crutches and developing him into an awesome guy. We even had a photo journalist lined up for it. Don't know if that's ever going to happen. It's kind of weird to think that my life has become one endless rotation through 3 Asian cities. I never would have imagined it. Now it's about adding more cities to the rotation and setting down firmer roots. We've got possibilities in Paris, Belgium, Australia, Vancouver and Bogota in Colombia. As with most things, we'll probably be surprised by which ones come through, which ones don't, and which ones materialize that we didn't even consider. My relationships are absolutely amazing. I have the most wonderful and caring women in my life right now and I'm so grateful. They bring me more joy and happiness than one man is entitled to. Don't get me wrong, I'll take AND GLADLY--I just had no idea that things could be this good. I'm not sure what's changed. Perhaps I've become a lot more solid and my path, Ironically, I don't think that's translated into my game becoming all that much better though. With my travel schedule and all the time that managing all my relationships takes, my game doesn't really seem up to it. I've been reflecting on this a lot lately as I seem to have hit brick wall in since the summer. And I keep hitting it. It's getting rather unpleasant really. This knockin' my noggin's takin' can't go on. Seriously. It's amazing to see what my students can do. They accomplish a lot more and meet with more success than I can with a much more rickety foundation. Maybe that's not the right term. There's definitely something that holds me back from pulling off the awesome shit that they can. I admit. I am envious. Not that I need to be the best or anything. It's just that with all my travel, and all the time I'm away from my girls is wearing. So, I need to elevate my game. But actually, I think that's wrong. I don't need to elevate my game. My level of game creates more than enough of the opportunities I seek. There is something in my thought processes that is keeping me where I am. Some sort of mental block that once broken, I think would make me a truly AWESOME pickup artist. Perhaps it's the current contentment with my life. I only feel the pull when I'm on the road. And if things continue to go well, I could probably alleviate that by bringing my girls with me. But would that be the easy way out? It's not about becoming and awesome pickup artist after all. It's about building the kind of life you want to have with women. Off the top of my head I can think of 4 dropped ONS's from my last extended trip to Korea and 3 from this trip to Vancouver. Kid44 uses the analogy of the surfing pipeline as a metaphor for game and at this point I feel like I'm staring down the pipeline. I can see it clearly right there, but somehow I hesitate from riding it. I watch it crash. This does not make me a happy boy. So... I'm actually in Vancouver for T. Harv Eker's Millionaire Mind Intensive. I program I've been wanting to attend for years--I think I originally heard about him from Mike Litman's(of Interviews with Millionaire's fame) mailing list. So I was able to tick off another one of my goals. Now I have to get out and see Jim Rohn before he dies. As with most things I do, this was good for me. Very good. This past year I consolidated my life as a pickup instructor. Now, I pretty much know what I'm doing. The quality of the guys who come out of our boot camps is awesome. I'm so proud of them. Plus, I'm having a lot of fun. It's now time to amp things up to the next level. This seminar was my first step into doing that. I guess I knew it, but I didn't think of it that way. I'm always improving myself, so I didn't think this would be some kind of watershed moment, but I guess it was just the kick in the pants I needed. It's nice to know I know how to get myself in front of the right ass kicking. I learned a TON of stuff and I think we'll be re-vamping the whole system. I'm pretty happy about all this. I see a lot of good things happening and the business going B-I-G! I even signed up for another seminar that will be in LA in the Spring--$1700 plus I have to fly out there AND get a hotel room for 6 nights. All this for The Guerrilla Business School. I'm also thinking of doing a $3800 program in Orlando in March by Richard Bandler so I can learn to do trainings and presentations. Doing all this stuff will definitely be moving things. It has to, otherwise I won't be able to afford them. HA! To a new chapter... (Comment on this)
Friday, February 29th, 2008
3:51 am	Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men? Don't have anything in particular I want to say, but I just felt the need to put some stuff down on paper. My head is swimming. I read a bunch of books that are messing with my head. Well, not a bunch. Just two. Ask and It Is Given and The Power of Now.  They're both kinda new agey and weird, but they have some interesting things to say. There's one exercise in Ask and It Is Given, that I especially like.  You start of the 1st day with $1,000(imaginary) and you IMAGINE spending it.  I even write it down.  Then each day after you're supposed to add another $1,000 so that on day 10 you have to spend $10,000 all in one day.  It's actually I lot more challenging than I thought it would be. Partly because I stopped shopping because it used to be depressing.  Now it's really fun.  Yesterday I went into Bulgari and tried on a $18,000 watch!  It was easy, because I was thinking about buying it.  Sure it's imaginary, but it so much fun.  I've never had so much fun shopping in my life actually. This is supposed to increase my money consciousness so that I want more and will "allow" it to come into my life.  I don't know about all that, but it's definitely fun.  Plus, you can use the money for anything, so you can buy stuff for your friends and family, or you can give it to charity, or take a bunch of poor kids shopping.  Whatever you imagine.  Very cool. We're working on launching the new site because we're going to re-name ourselves PickUp Asia because we're not the local Osaka Crew we thought we'd be.  We've got guys in Korea clamoring for us to come out there again, and we've got potential hook-ups in Singapore and Vietnam.  We've got some articles coming out on us in the next couple of months(FINALLY) and I'm working on our first information product on Day2s with more already in the mind-line. I've been doing a lot of wacky stuff with my game and I'm not sure if it's working yet, but I'm definitely either getting blown or blown out.  I'm showing a lot more interest and laying out sexual frames early and heavy.  Not really sure where this will take me, but I definitely feel like it's more natural.  I'm not "gaming", I'm just laying it out in a fun way, take it or leave it. I've been running a lot more game in English too because of this, which is fine for now.  I think I actually need to push it further.  I think I may be pushing it just far enough for it to be incongruent, but not so far that it's so bizarre that it must be for real.  Calibration, calibration. Interestingly, it's led me to re-listen to The October Man sequence which is like a crash course in basic principles of managing mind malleability.  It's definitely twisting my mind up something fierce(had to use the cliche).  I'm having fun for the most part, but my relationship dynamics are all out of whack. Things are extremely awesome with my Primary(in fact, maybe TOO awesome) and seem to be quite good with the rest of my girls too, but for some reason it's not translating into regular meets.  Could be the whole "over fucking" thing rearing it's head.  I'm really having a hard time with this concept. Perhaps since I'm still working on my skills, I'm more concerned with getting that stuff right than I am about getting the total calibration right.  I don't know though.  Hmmmm... Our students continue to do awesome(for the most part) and some of them might be better than us(said slightly tongue in cheek).  I can tell you that at this point, I think I'm a better pick-up teacher than I am a pick-up artist.  But then again, I'm in one of those weird transition periods where I'm sorting out more what I want , and how to engineer it rather than just trying to get the lay. I've been "nexting" girls fast and furiously.  I don't even put girls info into my phone until I have a solid time-bridge or a sustained back and forth by phone or text.  And when I don't hear from them in a while, NEEEEEEEEEXT!!!!! It's interesting because it keeps me uncluttered and focused on engineering the relationships I want and all these other girls are like faulty prototypes or something.  You just look at them and go, "I think that's where I went wrong" scrap it and use what you learned to turn out a better prototype.  Of course it helps that meeting women is not problem(not anymore).  It's funny when I read the problems that our guys are having.  The amount of time it took me to get to the point where I was having the problems they're hitting up against in months or even weeks is astounding.  I suppose the downside is that they don't have the same track record of slow, steady progress to fall back on though.  Their past that they're escaping from is much closer than mine was when I was hitting these issues.  A bit like know.  My "game" sucks if you look at my "score" but i know that I know what I'm doing and that I could get the lay if I wanted to but I don't want it unless i get it right so I don't bother.  Ok, I think that's good for now.  Bed time. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 7th, 2008
4:15 am	Farewell 2007 I can't believe it's been over 7 months since I wrote anything in this journal. Not because time flies, but rather because I've done so much incredible stuff in the meantime. You can get an idea by checking out the pics on my myspace page and you can see that it's been a busy year. Somehow I forgot to mention that I took 3 Japanese people sightseeing to New York and Washington, DC for 8 days. That was a lot of fun, but much harder work than I expected. I think they had a great time, so that's what really matters. I also went to Bali and learned how to surf. That was an awesome trip. I really didn't want to leave. I spent 10 days in Korea courtesy of The Osaka Crew. Some guys in Korea asked us to come over to teach them! It was so exciting. We're planning to go back there again this year(once it thaws!). I think I like Seoul more than Osaka actually. It's a bigger city, with more going on and Korean people are funny because they just don't give a fuck. The food in Korea is amazing too. Man, you eat good there. Not like here in Japan where you finish every meal wondering if you should order more. Also, gotta love the cheap taxis. Made me feel rich going everywhere in a taxi. The taxi drivers are nuts though...they drive super fast. Fun though. In October I moved to a new apartment. That was pretty traumatic, but with help from my temporary roommate it ultimately went pretty smoothly. I really like my apartment but the grocery store is far enough away that I never want to go there. So, I've been eating out way to much (ie ALL THE TIME). It's an expensive way to live. I can tell that I don't really want to stay her long because I haven't unpacked my boxes really and I still got cardboard boxes for tables. So I think I'll be moving in the next few months back down by where I used to live. We'll see. I spent 3 days in Tottori with a girl I'm dating. It was pretty nice. We had a great view from the bathtub where we spent a good number of hours and the food was great too. I'm soooo sick of eating crab. Well, I was sick of it. It's been a few weeks so I'm probably good now. Thousands of trips between here and Tokyo last year and more to come. Already have two trips planned for THIS MONTH and it's still onｌｙ January. I've got another for February as well. The business is taking off spectacularly for the most part. We've now raised our prices to $1,000(120,000yen) for a bootcamp and we've brought Miles on board 100% and he's added a lot to the business and to the bottom line by giving us back-end products. Since he's joined, he's rolled out our EXTREMELY popular Sexual Mastery Seminar, a Comfort Seminar, and a Day Game seminar. This year we'll be adding a relationship management seminar, a storytelling workshop, a Single Night Lay seminar, Strippers and Hired Guns seminar, and some on magic and other fun mystic arts stuff. We'll also be doing Advanced bootcamps for out Alumni and we're planning on getting into the Japanese market as well. There's a lot going on really. Oh, did I mention that we've got some guys working on bringing us to Vietnam? That will definitely be one of the highlights of this year as it's been one of my dreams for a long time. One of the coolest things was that in November we had sales of over $20,000!!!! HOLY SHIT! And it looks like we'll continue to be able to grow very quickly. We're going to be changing our name to PickUpAsia.com to reflect the fact that we are no longer just in Japan. Can you believe I'm the CEO of a multinational company...that sounds so cool. We'll probably be launching the new website by the end of this month, and in February at the latest. In the last post I was talking about my concerns about my game. They're gone for the most part. Let's just say that the second half of the year my problem was making girls feel special enough to stick around as an mLTR. I really could have done with fewer new girls and done more with hanging on longer to the ones I had, but that will be this years project I think. That, Single Night Lay game, and this will be the year of the 3-some. I've lost on 2 in the past 30 days so it's only a matter of time. I think that's good for now. My life is awesomer every year and it's only accelerating. I'll try and keep this more up to date... (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 16th, 2007
6:24 am	Honing Those Game Skills Been back in Osaka for a week now. I'm in a weird mood recently. The business is going great. I'm really happy with what we're doing for the students. The testimonials are incredible. I couldn't be happier. At the same time though I'm torn about my own game. I'm pretty happy with it but I'm wondering if I should be doing more with it. Like most guys who are in the game I have my mLTRs and then I still go out on the hunt. Last year I was really happy with my closing game. I used to feel that if I got a girl on a day 2 it was a done deal, but this year I've only managed to close 2 girls although I should have closed another 4 girls. 3 of which I would've considered to be out of my league a year ago. I'm doing a lot of things differently. I used to schedule girls directly at my house, but now I've been trying to run perfect game. Multiple venue changes, properly qualifying and running comfort game before moving into seduction. I've worked a lot on my kino escalation and using freeze-outs properly along with push-pull. And while it's true I get much better reactions, I don't close as much. I also don't seem to DLV myself either. They come back after I unsuccessfully seduce them. Allusion is advising me to do shit I think is stupid so I just blow myself out. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 31st, 2007
2:43 am	VFSH2077.JPG VFSH2077.JPG Originally uploaded by redpoleq (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
4:42 pm	WOW!!!! I just got my first bit of hate mail. From Danette Lambert, who I graduated from Howard with. It's interesting because I was always completely oblivious to the fact that she didn't like me. So oblivious in fact that I asked to crash at her place in Hiroshima once a few years back. No idea why she accepted. I only found out she hated me much later from some mutual friends. I haven't spoken to her in over 5 years and then she somehow finds The Osaka Crew blog and posts this comment: You are getting some because you are a black man in Japan and all those Japanese girls think you have a big penis and your nasty personality is just an cultural or language difference. Your shit would not fly here in the States and that is why you are never coming home. Keep up your little fantasy world, thinking you are the shit. There are a few of us in the old US of A who know better. If only it were that simple. I'll leave it to my compatriots to refute her arguments, though we all know that most women don't care about size at all. It's definitely a weird feeling to find out that someone has so much dislike for you that they feel the need to tell you. I've always held to the philosophy that what other people think of me(especially if it's bad) is none of my business. It's hard to be told you have a nasty personality, or in this case, had because I haven't seen her in over 5 years and people do change. In fact, that's the reason I write this blog. To keep track of my changes. It's been difficult the past few months when people ask me what I do. People have all sorts of mis-conceptions about the kind of work we do at The Osaka Crew. They think that this is about sex and getting women to give us sex. It's not. Humans have drives, one of them, and one of the strongest, is our sex drive. Women are attracted to guys that have value and so the goal is to become a man of value. It's especially interesting because since I've developed this skill set I've been having less sex, not more. I've been spending more time with my guy friends, working on ourselves. Reading, discussing our issues(our limiting beliefs), and trying to find new beliefs that will move us more towards getting the lives we want. I'm really proud of the testimonials we have on our site because I know we made such a huge difference in the lives of our clients And the thing is, it's not just about picking-up. Two of our clients have used what we teach to improve their marraiges and re-create that magic that was there in the beginning. Their wives love it. When guys get better with women, everyone wins, because every guy wants their woman to be happy. I guess I need to get used to this though... (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
9:53 pm	The Good Life Gets Better Well, we launched The Osaka Crew website at the end of January and it's going really, really well.  We've held two bootcamps so far and all of our customers seem to have nothing but good words for us. It's really exciting seeing these guys improve so much over the course of a few days.  Amazing stuff to have the opportunity to have that kind of impact on other people's lives. We're headed up to Tokyo later this month and we're going to hold a workshop there and scout out some venues to use for in-field training.  Cain's never been so it will be wicked fun combing the streets of Tokyo with nothing to do but run game. We gave away a free 1-hour consultation to people who signed up for our mailing list and the people who have come were great to meet and have been fun to work with.  This is a truly great job.  I've been studying a bunch of really interesting stuff as well.  I started out by reading a manual on sex that is based on some polynesian sexual practices.  Then I've been combining this with some tao-tantric stuff, plus my knowledge of NLP and some other stuff on special sexual techniques.  It's amazing what imagination can do.  It's all been some pretty cool stuff and the girls LOVE it.  I'm getting a much better understanding of how the human psyche works.  If I can just work through some of my limiting beliefs about women and sex, I'll be able to have the most awesome lifestyle. Dangerous stuff though.  I'm still experimenting with it.  I'm not really sure where the ethical line is in all this so I'm treading carefully.  Don't want any girls to commit suicide. On Friday, I'm going to have my first Modeling gig.  Yup!  That's right.  I'm going to be a model.  Can you believe it?  ONLY IN JAPAN! (Comment on this)
Monday, February 12th, 2007
11:44 pm	WTF!?!?!?!?!??! Crazy weekend! I love hanging out with my crew so much. It really is rediculous. I think we're getting to the point where we're having too much fun and we weird everyone around us out. We give off so much energy when we roll. Sunday, Cain and I went to see Cyril, this half-Japanese/half-Italian magician who's really famous here. Cain has been working on his magic for a long time and he's finally convinced that he's ready to start getting paid for it. We went to see the show as a research project to a certain extent, though I went just to tag along. Pretty cool. My first live magic show. But the whole time I just kept thinking that I've seen Cain do the same stuff thousands of times. It definitely solidified in my mind that he can be famous--and I think in his mind too. Monday we went to a car show and it was my first time to game race queens. Awesome fun! I think that will be my and Cain's new area for development. Race Queen Game. They were actually pretty responsive, and I think we could've done more if it weren't for us being on such tight schedules. I had the most bizarre experience too. I was being my normal j-walking self and this one car was just not having it. He just laid on his horn and kept advancing toward me. Those of you who know me know that I stare the drivers down when I'm j-walking, mostly because I want to make sure they see me, but I guess this guy though he was big and bad and scary. I've recently decided that I'm a bit of an adrenaline junky, but I like to get that pump out of perfectly normal situations like this. So there I am looking at him as he's honking and driving towards me in some werid game of chicken. I'm watching as his bumper is moving closer and closer towards me and then I jump and land on HIS HOOD!! The adrenaline was shooting through me at this point. Me perched on top of his car, one foot on the hood and one on the top of his bumper. He gets out the car, some J-guy about my age with blondish hair and sunglasses(his car also has tinted windows and it's night time by the way). I'm wondering is if this guy is yakuza or something and if he's the type to start a fight(not that Japanese guys have fights. They just shove each-other around until one person supplicates). I just dismount from his car and continue striding on my way. The adernaline is still there, but I make a point to not look over my shoulder as if to say that what happened was insignificant though I'm waiting to see if something happens. Maybe he'll come up behind me and drop kick me, or punch me in the back of the head, or pull a gun. Maybe he's got a bunch of people in the car and they're going to jump. I had no idea, but I figured there was no point in making it look like I was concerned. I didn't feel the need to yell at him, that's not my style I don't yell. I just handle my business. So I head up to starbucks, my heart rate still up, my brain processing the overload of hormones flooding my body. Fucking weird. (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 8th, 2007
8:02 am	Jackpot!! Well, I'm really excited. We at theosakacrew.com just got our first teaching engagement! That's right, it's been less than a month and already we've gotten our first customers. I'm really excited(I know I already said that). A bit nervous though, but I'm sure that it will be a blast and a great experience. Sometimes I really do impress myself. This is the fastest return I've ever gotten off any project. A big shout out to my man CAIN for hooking up the website so PHATLY. If you need any webwork, I can't recommend him highly enough. The wheels are turning...and I may have finally found my calling. Going to try to do a tour for my students to New York and DC again. I tried for Christmas, but I think the short notice and high price of that season did me in. So, we'll give it another go. Should definitely be fun. Man, my life gets better every year! (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 4th, 2007
10:53 pm	Where We've Come From Image.jpg Originally uploaded by redpoleq. It's always chilling to look at our past. I was just telling a friend that I would show her "Roots". Mixed feelings watching it...it's like those dark memories you want to keep locked away but are really proud of. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 20th, 2007
1:02 am	Check it out!!! THE OSAKA CREW (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007
1:54 am	How Times Change I have a confession to make. It's time to come out of the closet.  I am a PUA What's a PUA you ask?  PUA stands for Pick-Up Artist.  I am one of the top 10 PUAs in Japan.  I've been on this path for almost 2 years, but I've really only more than dabble since March when I first read The Game by Niel Strauss a.k.a. Style. My game proficiency really started accelerating after I met Kid44 who used to roll with the top PUAs: Style, Mystery, Lovedrop, Affection, Sinn, etc.  Plus, after rolling with my friend who took a boot-camp I really improved my kino. Since then I've been working tirelessly on improving my game.  All of my close friends are PUAs as well.  In fact, the core group are all Advanced PUAs at this point. Interestingly enough, this is the only skill I've consciously developed since martial arts!  And no, I'm not anywhere close to mastery.  I'm not at the point where I can walk into a bar, or a club, or a restaurant and have a girl back at my house on the same day.  At least not consistently. But I can go up and talk to almost anyone and have them love me.  Getting girls phone numbers...easy.  Even getting kisses is a regular thing for me now.  There's almost nothing I like better than leaning against a bar side-by-side with my friends with beautiful women we met just minutes or hours before laughing around us while guys are looking on trying to figure out how we did it. No, I'm not satisfied with my game.  There is definitely a big difference between being advanced and being a master.  I don't have the consistency I want, and I'm not always in top form mentally.  Sometimes I doubt my progress.  I'm still not at the point where I can always feel that I played the game flawlessly. But I can tell you that I have so much fun now.  Wherever I go I know that I can have a fun, cool interaction with new people. So now, we've decided to start teaching--holding seminars in Japan.  Licensing material to be translated and sold in Japanese.  The website isn't up yet, but it will be TheOsakaCrew.com. Over the next 6 months we'll be building this business and assuming all goes well, I'll be semi-living in Tokyo.  Not my favorite city, but if I'm bringing in a lot of cash, I think I'll be ok. Also, I'm supposed to be working with a New York based hip-hop magazine, Street's Mos', to provide content from Japan and ultimately sell the magazine here.  The first project I'm working on is to get some Japanese models to put in the magazine.  As I said he also wants content on Japan's hip-hop culture, which I will find people to provide for me.  But what I'm most excited about is sponsoring events at clubs, doing features on fashion parties, and interviewing top guys(and girls) in the Hip-hop industry. I also want to develop some Japanese content that I can throw in as an insert with advertisements showing where to buy stuff that's advertised in the magazine.  I'm thinking that we could start an on-line shop that has all the stuff advertised and we can sell it.  With the website all in Japanese we can charge higher prices and then just have it shipped directly.  So, there's a lot of room for growth and a lot of opportunities to do interesting things. I'm not altogether happy with the responsiveness from the owner in NY, but I'm hoping that will improve.  We'll see. That will do for now $M1L$ "If a girl is at your house and you've run solid game then she's waiting for you to make it ok for her to have sex with you." (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 26th, 2006
5:59 am	VFSH0005.JPG VFSH0005.JPG Originally uploaded by redpoleq. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
11:37 am	Why I'm Crazy but Won't Change Anyway It's been a long while since I've written a real post.  I've been busy with things I don't want to commit to paper and certainly that I don't want floating around on the internet.  Yes, that's right, I'm back on drugs...ok, not nearly that serious, but still I prefer to keep it close to the vest. Since May, things have been getting really interesting.  I've done a lot, had a lot of experiences.  Mostly good, a few bad, but I can say that I think my progress is accelerating.  Of course I've said that before, and even then I was right.  going for 1mph to 2mph is acceleration after all. Looking back at my last substantive post in April, it's interesting to see that I was just getting started with my lunch parties.  Since then we've had 5 parties.  I've taken my students out for: Idian, Tex-Mex, Turkish, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, and Syrian.  This Sunday, we're having Brazilian food.  Out of everything I mentioned working on the that last post, this is the only thing that's working. I'm making money off the Jagermeister machine, but I haven't brought in any others.  I haven't really tried all that much honestly.  I'm a bit jaded with doing business with bars and clubs now because I had a bad experience with one bar manger.  That made me shift away from thinking as much about creating value and more about how to make sure I get paid for the value I create. Thinking about protecting myself and my ideas instead of thinking how much I can help them really takes away from the excitement of doing business.  Having said that, I'm working on a very interesting deal with a bar/club to lease them lighting equipment.  They want a controller, 3 scanners(the moving mirror lights you see in clubs) and a laser for 25,000yen(approx. $220) per month.  I don't know anything about lights or lighting equipment so my whole plan is to find people who can handle everything, pay them, buy the equipment and finance the whole thing.  Recently though, the more I've been investigating how to do this to make sure I make a decent return the more uncertain I am about the deal. There are so many unknowns and not a lot of near term upside.  Part of me wants to do the deal for the experience and because I find it difficult to turn down an opportunity when I'm given one, so I trying to figure out how to make the deal work.  Got a meeting today that should help me with that a bit, but like I said, still a lot of uncertainties making it difficult to figure out what my costs will be and thus difficult to figure out what kind of return I can get. One thing that is going very well for me right now is mywaribiki.com.  Finally, it seems to be working just as it needs to.  I've been really happy with the work that Jiri(pronounced Yuri) has done.  He's the programmer.  I think we can be a really good team because he's really a tech guy who like programming and doesn't seem to be much of a people person whereas I am more the person who is out there talking to the owners building the relationships and thinking about how the system could operate to best serve the customers and ultimately to what direction to take the business in. With a direct response marketing mindset it's so much easier to sell because we don't want to make money unless they make money.  Any services they get, I want to be paid for by the increased business it generates.  When you have a situation like that with measurable results it makes it a lot easier to stand behind your product. Of all the ideas I've come up with so far I really think that this has the most potential because it's the most easily scalable.  The program is written and it doesn't matter if we have 2 customers or 100, we don't need to do much more for the additional 98 customers.  I still have to figure how much to charge for it though. Right now it is supposed to be being tested at two restaurants, Sahara Moon and Shanti Shanti.  After a month or two we'll hopefully be able to work out most of the bugs and then we can really roll it out.  I'm sure there will be more setbacks than I can imagine along the way, such is life. So yesterday, I was with a longtime friend of mine, Tomoko.  She's really risk averse so she tends to think that all business unless it's big business is risky business.  She cares about things like schooling, and what kind of family you came from, and told me that doing business with bars/clubs(night businesses) is lowering myself.  She really thinks I'm wasting my time and doing things the hard way because I'm not using my background to my advantage. I couldn't figure out why at first, but as I got to thinking more about it, I realized that I find it difficult to talk about things that are not personal achievements.  What I mean by that is that while graduating from Howard and getting a Fulbright are achievements, they aren't things that I am personally proud of.  I'm much more proud of getting my red sash in Kung-fu, and building the lifestyle I have now; of the businesses I've started and failed, the sales I've made, and the things I'm working on now. Those are the things that I wanted to do and that I pushed myself to do.  Everything else was like opening the car door.  You don't get any points for opening the car door.  That's just what you have to do so you can drive someplace.  So while those are all great things and great experiences I don't get the same feeling of satisfaction from them.  I've said it before that I could probably acheive success much more easily back home, but I wouldn't get the same satisfaction.  Here, no one cares where I went to school, what I did in the past, or who I know.  The start point was me. Of course my past made me who I am, but it's only that they those I work with see.  And because of that I truly feel like all my acheivements are mine and mine alone.  For some stupid reason that's really important to me. I was talking to Jovi today and he thinks we should change because he's the same way about certain things.  Successful people he knows toot their own horn about those things that other people will be impressed by.  And I know that many successful people use whatever they can get their hands on to be successful.  Walt Whitman wrote reviews for his own work under a pen name, for example.  And pretty much everyone in politics had a leg up from family ties or business ties or both. But what makes me crazy is that I'd rather be happy than successful I guess.  Maybe I will change eventually.  Jovi definitely gave me some compelling reasons to change, but I'm hard-headed and stubborn, so we'll see. (Comment on this)
Monday, July 17th, 2006
12:05 am	VFSH0044.JPG VFSH0044.JPG Originally uploaded by redpoleq. Me,holding the 2nd place trophy our 5-man crew won in this years Tenjin festival yacht race. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 12th, 2006
2:58 am	Nowadays I'm getting massive IOI's and AI's almost everywhere i go.  I'm now in the matrix.  I took the red pill. "Do you really believe my looks have anything to do with my ability to game in this place?" (Comment on this)