Hey Donovan, cool to see your site on a new domain finally! Yeah, I dropped out for awhile. It's been a crazy eight months or so; I moved to New York, Charisma Arts and I parted ways, helped get another startup in the beverage space off the ground, and am now doing this Hidden Mic Pickups thing. There's been a lot of partying, some amazing women, and a lot of growth in there too.
WE ALL WANT TO KNOW - WHAT HAPPENED WITH CHARISMA ARTS?
Without going into specifics, the relationship just wasn't working out. But I have respect for what they teach and I think the guys who work there are amazing. The Juggler Method is a powerful thing, and it was fun to help take that company from two guys in a coffee shop into the worldwide success that it is today.
COOL, SO BACK TO YOU SOMEHOW I FEEL LIKE THE PERSONAL GROWTH AND THE WOMEN MIGHT BE RELATED.
And you'd be right, mostly. I mean, New York is a tough town - everyone here is good at things. So if you don't bring your "A" game, whether it be to work, dating, partying, networking, or anything else that involves people coming together, you're toast.
Quick story - I got professionally connected to a woman here by a close friend, and I didn't have much context about who she was. It turns out that she comes from one of the wealthiest families in town; Andy Warhol had been her debutante's ball date. So I come into her office, slightly casual vibe based on the strength of my friend's connection to her, and she sits me down and says "Why are you here?" I stammered a little bit and she said "Not good enough kid - you've got fifteen seconds to tell me why we should keep talking." I ended up getting about five minutes of her time.
Those sorts of things occur only every now and then, but more generally, a lot of my growth has been focused on being a stronger man. Its much harder to be a good boyfriend and a strong man in general than it is to be a guy who is good at meeting women. A woman - and I'm thinking a real woman, like the wife of King Leonides in the movie 300 - has an intuition about a man's strength, heart and truth. Even if he's fooling himself, he can't fool her. I've confronted some truths about who I am and what I want, and it took a real woman to make me do that.
ARE THERE ANY SPECIFICS THAT HAVE HELPED YOU OUT?
Well, I didn't walk away from my relationship from last summer soon enough, and it cost us both a potential friendship. It forced me to develop some standards for what I will and won't accept in a relationship. It's funny - you know, within the first three or four times of dating or spending time with someone, if it's going to work out. If you get a bad intuition, or there are obvious red flags, it's your choice about how long you want to delay the inevitable and how much pain you want to go through. Big, big lesson.
More recently, one of the girls I've been together with on and off here is one of the top models in the world. You wouldn't believe the social pressures she faces - everyone wants her to be around, everyone wants to have access to her world, but there is a lot of disingenuousness surrounding her. Dealing with this has required patience, maturity and support. You learn what it means to be the bigger man. I've also learned to appreciate "feminine" things that in the past would have annoyed me, but which I now see as part of the yin and yang of male : female relations.
SO ARE YOU STILL DOING PICK UP?
You know, I never thought that I did pick-up, per se. I had a chance to meet with Stephen Nash when I was out here, and we both concur that the skills you need to have a great girlfriend and a healthy relationship are very different than the skills you need for pickup. I think every guy should read his stuff and Deida's work first, then start to work on their interaction skills.
With that said, I'm always meeting new people. Sometimes you get a number if you connect with someone... and I think that social skills and conversation skills are essential for having quality people in your life. When you have the right vibe and energy, you attract great people.
HAVING A POSITIVE ENERGY AND VIBE SPEAKING OF WHICH, TELL ME ABOUT MASTER THE VIBE.
I'm so excited about this Donovan. Hidden Mic Pickups is a monthly audio series that features live, flirtatious interactions between women, and guys with great social skills. I remember when I was 21 and trying to get my social and dating life on track, I kept thinking to myself "I just wish I could hear someone else do it." Seven years later now, and there's still no one doing that.
SO IS THE PRODUCT EXCLUSIVELY PICK UPS?
Well we're meeting women everywhere. House parties, clubs, book launch events... so sometimes you'll hear a true "pick up" - a guy who walks up to a girl with the intention of getting her number. Other times, well... there's a clip we have from our friend Haresh, who was at a Mexican restaurant meeting friends for after-work Margaritas. One of Haresh's friends' friends brings a girl. So you hear how they connect, and how he sort of isolates her from the group, and this really daring way that he gets sets their next meetup.
We're trying to cover the spectrum of what guys struggle with, and what we've personally struggled with. There are going to be months where we feature lots of interactions that cut off after the first three minutes, and I've got one interaction that is about an hour long, so that will be it for the month. Whatever the case, all the audio we picked is targeted to solve a particular problem.
HOWS THIS DIFFERENT FROM SOME OF THE AMATEUR HIDDEN MIC STUFF IVE HEARD?
For one thing, we use really good recording technology, so you actually hear what people are saying and you don't have to suffer through lots of hiss and wind noise and jostling and all that. Of course, we have guys who are at the top of their game doing it too, so you're not going to hear something that is flatly wrong and then try to emulate it.
Then we're explaining why this stuff works. This is critical, because if I'm listening to this, I don't want to just hear a guy meet women, I want to be able to do it myself with my own personality and my own stories and my own energy. Extracting the theory behind why something works is critical.
IS THERE A PARTICULAR STYLE YOURE USING? YOU WERE ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF CHARISMA ARTS, AND YOURE WORKING WITH SEBASTIAN FROM THEAPPROACH. BOTH COMPANIES ARE KNOWN FOR NATURAL GAME.
Sebastian and I both have direct styles of interaction; he's a lot lower-key than I am, but we're both pretty direct.
With that said, we're working with some great guys who are talented in a lot of different styles of interaction. Someone who wants to learn indirect, Mystery-style interaction skills will hear that, and someone who's shy and laid back will also hear our friend who makes that work for himself.
ARE THERE ANY THINGS YOUVE LEARNED FROM GOING THROUGH THIS PROCESS?
Absolutely! There's one huge thing that stands out to me... that's the pacing at which these interactions move. I know that when I'm talking to people, it feels like things are moving very fast. But in fact, unless you're running a routine or completely know where you're going, conversations move slowly. That's the point - you're getting to know the other person, and taking in their vibe, not just blasting through the interaction. Its more Gears of War (stop and pop) than it is Halo (run and gun).
I didn't realize until I mic'd myself up how many little pauses there are, how things can get misinterpreted, and how there can be up to 15 seconds of dead space. I started paying attention to this during some business meetings too. And what you learn is that both personally and professionally, it is very unnatural to have a twenty to sixty minute conversation where it's like click click click and everything moves perfectly.
Ahh, other than that... I've loved seeing how different people make different things work. I have to tell you - Sebastian's interactions are very low on flirtatiousness and tricks, but he's smooth, has a great energy, and does a few key things that make the girls stick around. Its been great for me and since I'm the one who breaks down and narrates each interaction, I've had to pick out a lot of things I've never done before myself. Its been a great learning experience.
IT SOUNDS GREAT. SO WHATS NEXT FOR YOU?
Sebastian and I are working to get Master the Vibe nailed down - making sure the sound quality keeps getting better and better, making sure that customer support is A
, and making sure that people are getting value out of the product. We're having fun with it and we're going to have lots of little surprises in the future. I am also starting another business in technology right now - very early stage but very exciting. Other than that getting back into tennis this summer. If you know any New Yorkers who want to play, let me know!
UPDATE: Christian has since left Master The Vibe and has released Hidden Mic Pickups.
Suggested free e-books to read:
Love Systems - The Ultimate Guide To Text And Phone GameAsf - Fast Seduction Mailing List Energy And Attraction
Kevin Hogan - Communication Relationships Nlp Hypnosis And Other Atricles
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