Tuesday 20 March 2012

Rejection doesn't matter - Part 2

This article is about how this attitude keeps even the somewhat legit coaches from seeing the light, and keeps worsening the state of this industry.

Say the average dude from previous part keeps going. Eventually he either becomes too fucked up mentally and quits, or maybe, just maybe, after having done enough approaches, in spite of all the cognitive dissonance, he becomes decent with women (even if only in his head) and thus, decides to help other average dudes to improve their love lives. He believes in this epic journey, how this journey transforms lives etc. (Of course, his journey has certainly been epic). At this stage, his intentions are somewhat legit even if he is fairly fucked up in his head.

Good examples of this are Rob Judge and Dj Fuji. (Actually, these days given the kind of stuff Rob promotes and tries to sell, I seriously doubt if he even bothers believing that he is trying to help others. A part of me is seriously ashamed and embarrassed that I believed in that guy once and that I seriously considered inviting him out with my regular normal friends. Anyway). There is actually a good chance that these dudes have read Tim Ferriss' 4 hour work week by now, and think PUA coaching and products is the perfect way to live the 4 hour work week life.

(Now I know there are coaches who are just total scams right from the off, but I feel a lot of coaches fall into this category. By now, they are too brainwashed to see any objectivity and are on different levels of crazy. As an example, there was some dude on RSD and another on Zan Perrion's who was saying how after 1000 approaches, he didn't get anything from it, but still genuinely believed that others should feel inspired from his journey).

So now this dude does about helping others. There is a huge problem right from the off. The guys who come for help are totally clueless and very likely, already too far away from reality. They have no clue what success means and how to really get there. How phone numbers don't mean shit. How maybe all you need to do is go out, talk to a few women, and if a woman likes you, just escalate. Maybe be a little realistic about who you can and can't get. These guys are easily wowed. For most of them, just being able to approach a few good looking girls and getting a number means "you changed my life man" (I know this is what I felt after my first 2-3 cold approach numbers. That I had somehow stumbled upon this hidden treasure which no one knew about).

So the coach gets a few clients, and a lot of them say, wow dude, you changed my life. This is so awesome. Thank you so much. Of course, anyone would get a kick and a high from that. Now, if some dude comes to them and says, I can get numbers now, thanks a lot, you changed my life - of course the coach is not going to slap him and say that it doesn't mean shit, tell me when you get laid regularly and with hot girls and your success ratio is reasonable. Till then, don't thank me. Post bootcamp highs, sporadic testimonials where a guy randomly picks up a hot girl etc. just keep heightening the problem and the coach thinks he really does have special powers. He just feels great that he is helping so many people and is making a living out it. What can possibly be better?

Then many months later, one of his clients ends up finding Aaron Sleazy, reads through it, reflects on his own experiences and realizes how he has been deluding himself for all this time and sends a stinking negative review to his coach. He tries to help him a bit, talk to him but the client tells the coach to get the hell away from him. Coach thinks - "rejection doesn't matter", you can't please everyone, I am getting all these positive replies from clients who tell me I have changed their lives, so well one person telling me I am a scam doesn't mean shit. He focuses on clients whose lives he had impacted. The problem gets severely severely compounded because some guys never wake up, others even when they wake up are too embarrassed to name drop and sometimes never write about their negative experiences, others move on and just think yeah, lets forget this, I was stupid, lets move on. The other side of this coin is that stupid people who get numbers etc. are way too excited and write a lot about their positive experiences. Thus, combination of rejection doesn't matter, few negative reviews and lots of fake positive reviews never let the coach see the light.

The same problem gets extended to justify scammy marketing and scammy products. A coach starts realizing that it is not easy to sell products and that the only potential way to do it is to get slightly scammy and exaggerate things a bit. But hey, at least my product is really good. Once again, few negative reviews, lots of positive reviews and since negative reviews don't matter, he thinks this is great. Now he freely uses scammy marketing to sell products. Soon this whole thing just degenerates. Also, this idea that he focuses only on "people who he can help", "I can't please everyone" etc. just keeps worsening the situation.

So you see how these attitudes affect even somewhat legit people? Take into account how some people naturally don't care much or care very little when it comes to making money and that some folks are just outright scammy, and you see why this industry is what it is.

So to conclude, please be careful when you use take this attitude of "rejection doesn't matter" too far. Lots of rejection exists to tell you that something is wrong. For an average guy, it is okay to a large degree because one tends to see the rejection fast, a lot of times getting rejected is for a reason that is not related to him - so it's relatively fine. For a coach though, assuming you really do care about helping people (big if), please pay lots of special attention to every negative review, because most clients don't know what the fuck they are talking about when they send you a positive review and you won't get to see a lot of cases where it did not help the person because they don't write about it.

4 comments:

  1. I was on the selling side, and your observations are extremely astute.

    I myself didn't coach, I was just a partner/marketer. Even back then I knew that since I hadn't achieved amazing results that I should have no right to teach.

    But I did market and promote the heck out of our coaches... Coz I honestly thought our coaches are gods... Why? Coz back then,

    1)I was honestly impressed with seeing a guy getting phone numbers from hot chicks in the street

    2)I saw them fuck hot chicks and have one night stands... To me back then that was a sign that one is a dating god

    I of course never questioned the amount of approaches they did, nor worked out the math in my head...

    So I actually believed we were selling coaching with amazin guys who change lives, which was reinforced by all the clients glowing testimonials and giddy over-excitement. The clients themselves were feeding into the hype by telling us how we're changing lives...

    So the 1 guy who was asking for proof or saying skeptical things or unsatisfied, we just rationalized him away as bitter and negative (these guys were really the exception)

    I believed that "success is around the corner" - as in I'll become as amazin as I thought our coaches are... Of course after I got results, I started seeing the light... On things like the numbers game... How phone numbers mean nothing...

    We actually had a huge falling out when when me and another business partner started asking skeptical questions of our coaches like (so how much do you ACTUALLY) get laid? What are your ratios? Etc etc...
    Thats when those of us on the marketing side started figuring this thing out.


    I also got to meet some gurus. Some outright shared tactics on how to trick an manipulate guys on workshops... Slowly but surely we started figuring out the nature of the biz...

    So yes, a lot of the people on the business side can be just as deluded about what they're selling as well.

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  2. Yes and the whole thing just keeps feeding into each other. When I talked to Rob and he was genuinely convinced that he is helping transform lives, and how so many seemingly legit dudes kept praising him etc. a part of me believed that maybe I am not able to understand what he is really teaching? Because hey, everyone can't possibly be deluded? If everyone is happy and getting results, maybe something is wrong with me?

    I had some realizations later when I met a couple of guys who thought that Rob and Zack were shit after having taking coaching with them, but when I asked them to write about it, they were too embarrassed and told me to just forget about it and move on.

    The other part I feel is that for people like Rob, Zack, Dj Fuji and others, it has to be really really really hard to admit that all their lives they have been believing in a total scam. In fact Alek, I genuinely commend you for it because to admit that what you spent so many years believing, practicing and preaching to others so passionately, is actually a total scam. To admit such a thing would require a degree of strength and humility which I don't imagine too many possess.

    Also considering these guys have even put their real names, faces and lives out there to show how much they really believe in this, it has to be even harder, and then the sunk cost fallacy keeps worsening the situation.

    I definitely think these people will realize what they have been doing at some point in their lives, and I wouldn't want to be in their shoes at that point.

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    Replies
    1. Because hey, everyone can't possibly be deluded?

      That's at the core of it all. It's a huge feedback loop, where everyone thinks "everyone else can't be deluded" so everybody feeds everybody else with stories that maintain the illusion.

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    2. so wait.... is Johnny really Aaron Sleazy? So this is another pua ''natural'' coach just trying to cut down all his opponents in the pua industry.

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