Sean (Seduction Master's Interview)

We have a special interview this time. Sean, our contributing columnist here at the Attraction Chronicles Blog, is also a full-time instructor. This is a sort of "introduction" to him so you can get acquainted, and respect his posts. (More than mine)

Here we go!

Tell me about yourself!





I'm 35 years old, proud East Coast boy, born on a farm in Connecticut, and worked my way across the country till I ended up in the crazy, wonderful San Francisco.

I've been chasing girls my whole life (well, since age 5), and from 17 to 32 really went out to learn all I could, from cool friends and from the amazing women I dated. It was only a few years ago I discovered David D, and from there went on to study with Lance Mason and PickUp 101. And once I did that, the whole game changed.



The ideas, and more importantly, the people at PickUp 101 inspired me to stay and make teaching other guys how to have great, passionate, happy relationships with women the focus of my life.

Describe the moment, when you suddenly realized, "I need to work out this part of my life."

That's easy to remember, but hard to tell the story.

See, I already found the girl I was going to spend the rest of my life with. When I was younger, I never had trouble dating, never had trouble getting girlfriends. And then one day finally I found the best of them all. I still remember the first moment I made eye contact with her across the floor of a packed club. I knew she was the girl for me.

So we dated. We fell in love. We moved in together. Got engaged. Started planning a wedding, looking at housing, talking baby names, vacationing with other couples, the whole thing.

And all this time as we were falling in love and building a life together, as I was doing everything I could to make this woman happy, she got sadder and sadder.

I'll tell you, there is no worse feeling than knowing that everything you do makes the woman you love uglier and more miserable every day.

Except for the feeling of find her face down in the tub with a note on the bathroom sink asking her family to please forgive her.

She survived. But we didn't.

And for months afterwards, I wandered around in a fog, asking everyone I knew if they had any idea what went wrong. What did I do wrong?

No one knew. Not my Dad, not my friends, not anyone. And I just refused to accept that. I refused to accept that this was just me. Hell, growing up, everyone I knew had parents who divorced. There were no happy couples. Dating was all about drama and heartbreak and diminished expectations.

And in my own life, I had gotten so good I could date anyone I wanted, but I still had NO IDEA how to really make it work.

So that's when I started looking, and talking. And I found out I wasn't the only one with a story like this. Especially since I've been coaching with PickUp101 full-time, I've heard stories just like mine from all different kinds of men, all who say the same thing. They say "I love women, and I just want to know how to do this right. I'm tired of screwing it up."

I'm in this because I want to find an amazing girl who makes me happier than all the rest combined, and then attract her and keep her happy. That's all I care about. I hear about guys saying things like "I want two MLTRs where both girls love me and love each other equally, and we all share the kinky love all the time."

And it's funny, because I remember thinking those same things... portrait of the artists as a pimp, right? I remember dating 4 girls at the same time and then trying to find time to hook up with new girls, and balancing it all... and it made me miserable. Dealing with amazing girls takes a lot of energy. The more amazing they are, the more you have to bust your ass to keep on top of them, because they are, like the great surfer Gerry Lopez said of Pipeline, a challenge for a lifetime.

I heard that kind of stuff and thought, man, those guys really haven't talked to enough women. Or they talked, but didn't listen. Because I'll tell you, I've dated hundreds of girls, from models and exotic dancers to doctors and lawyers, but I have never met ONE who would be happy in a situation where she didn't feel special and loved by her man.

I want to be able to make my relationship work for me every single day. And every guy I know, when I've really gotten to talk to him and get to what matters most, feels the same way. I know from reading your story, Donovan, you have that same perspective.

See, I think my Dad is an amazing guy. He's my hero. And he can do anything he puts his mind to. But it took him 50 years to find the woman who makes him happy, and now when I see them together, I think "that is the ONLY way it should be done. Someone needs to get the word out on how to do this."

Yeah, we all want to be the super-pimp and impress our friends, but at the end of the day, we all want that great chick who makes us feel like the greatest guy in the world. I worked my ass off to figure out how that works, and now that I know, and now that I have that, I'm on a mission to teach every guy I can how to get the same thing.

Have you had any mentors (perhaps well-known pickup artists) within the community/life that have helped you improve your game, and what did they teach you?

I was always pretty good with women. Me and my friends, who I am very fortunate to count as my friends to this day, were just annoyingly social. Anything to have fun, all the time. And from a young age, I understood that attitude will always attract women.

But I didn't really know what I didn't know until I was picked to compete on a reality dating show a few years ago. "For Love or Money." Me and 14 other guys competing for the "love" of one beautiful girl.

Now I thought coming in I had serious game. I mean, I was chosen out of thousands of guys who thought they were great with women to be one of the few, the proud, the elite. But when I got on the show, I was FLOORED at how much better these other guys were. It was like a great college player playing in his first NBA game.

And the thing was, these were all normal, really good, nice guys. No scheming, no tricks. They were just totally cool, charming, and confident. They just had it figured out, and it looked effortless.

So I ended up getting booted in the first round. I mean, I got crushed… I barely even appeared on screen. But it was great for me, because it made me aware that you can be a great guy, and really cultivate the qualities that will always attract women. These guys all learned how to be total Naturals. There had to be some way for other men to learn it as well.

I mean, I was good enough to make it to network TV as a prototypical "stud," but the truth was I wasn't good enough to get the girl when it really mattered. But I had no idea how to get better.
Until I met Lance Mason.

Let's be clear: when I first met Lance, I really didn't want to believe him.

Why?

Because I'm really competitive, and from the first second I saw him, I could tell how much better with women he was than me, or anyone I'd ever known.

But that only lasted a second, because I also saw what a good, normal, generous person he was. There was a damn good reason he was phenomenal with women: he had taken all the naturally attractive traits we sense in people we like, and not only figured out how they all worked, but also how to incorporate it into who he was.

And he knew exactly how to teach those skills to others.

Finally, I found the person who I knew could teach me the skills I wanted more than anything. And once I started learning, I knew I had to stay and teach as well.

Can you describe the first time you used a counter-intuitive routine that yielded it's promised results, and how you felt?

I always assumed that in order to get to know a girl, you had to ask her all sorts of really deep questions and get her to prove to you how special and deep she is. But anytime I tried, girls would just tell me the lamest answers, or ignore the question altogether.

So I stopped asking girls questions like this "what are you passionate about," "tell me three cool things about you," "what is so special about you," and it's not because they aren't interesting paths of conversation.

It's because girls tend to be crap storytellers and question-answerers. They never learn to develop the same verbal skills that men do (why? because they don't have to try to pickup girls!).

Here's the thing I've found: even when a girl is really into me, she is unlikely to build herself up in any way. In fact, she is very likely to do the opposite and downplay anything cool she may have done. It may be because I ask her direct questions intended to get her to prove herself to me, her instinct is actually to do the opposite and make herself appear less cool so that she can be sure I really do like her for who she is, and not some fabulous concoction she has put together.

Men lie to make themselves look better.

Women lie to make themselves look worse.

It's totally counter-intuitive, because as men, we think everyone thinks like us. But once you understand women a little better, it starts to make sense.

I mean, it's something you just can't figure out until you experience it... but when women talk amongst themselves there is NO bragging allowed. Women are all about harmony and soothing feelings and empathizing.

Men are all about one-upsmanship. You ask me what I'm passionate about and I'll ramble on for 20 minutes. But these questions really intimidate and go against the nature of women, and I've always found they get me fairly dull answers. So what to do?

So don't ask those questions. Instead, start with the theme for yourself and invite her to join in. It's like, you go first, so you make it possible for her to feel safe following you. Tell her "y'know, it's weird, but I'm discovering lately that I'm really passionate about X..." and then tell your story. Keep leading her in, and let her know it's ok to talk about important feelings like that.

Whenever possible, avoid asking direct, interrogatory questions of women when you are trying to really connect with them. That's just not how they talk. They listen, and intuit, and empathize. And they also KNOW that when we ask questions, we're not really listening... so don't bullshit 'em. Let them connect with you by following you on what you love, and then you tell them your intuitions about them.

Say, like me, you're passionate about teaching. Tell your story, and then say you can tell just from the way she carries herself she loves teaching others as well. Tell her how you crave adventure and new places and then guess that she has the same jones, the need to see new places for herself and experience the world (this one is gold in any city, as women in cities are almost always from somewhere else).

Don't ask. Presume. Intuit. Take some chances and show that you understand people without interviewing them.

Lance Mason taught me this when I started at PickUp101, and it's absolutely true. Your job is to find out what makes her special, and make it clear to her that you see it, and insist on it, and that is why she deserves you.

Presume the best of the girl, and she may just meet your expectations.

Could you descibe what you're life was like before you were aware of this, and what options you have with women now?

I'd usually get the girl, but inevitably I would screw it up. Or, even worse, I'd see her and lame-ass excuse my way out of talking to her.

But now not only do I get to flirt and teach and write for a living, I have an awesome chick who just gets sexier and sexier the longer we are together, and she makes me totally happy.

I gotta tell you, it's much better than before, when I'd have the hot chick who just made me insane and miserable.

The hottie who makes you happy is the one you keep around. :-)

What was your hardest/biggest sticking point?

Dropping any act and just being real. It's so much more comfortable to look for the perfect routine or the perfect approach, and I didn't want to think that the only way to get really good was to talk to people who were already really good, get coaching from them, and just keep practicing.

One thing I've learned is this: you can figure out all you need to know about women by practicing feeling their reactions. This is not the same as listening to their words. Rather, it's about empathizing with their emotions and their bodies. Really focus on what they are trying to tell you instead of how cool you are coming across to them, and you will learn what they need to be happy.

And if you can make the girl happy, she will do ANYTHING to make you happy.

Do you have a favorite routine/step in your model, can you describe it, and what it accomplishes?

Oh, absolutely. I have one simple go-to move that I can use anytime, anywhere to get a girl attracted to me. And NO ONE else does it, so I really shouldn't even share it, but just for you, Donovan. =)

I tell the girl she's cute. That's pretty much the sum of my approach technique. Find a cute girl, walk up to her, smile, and tell her she's cute. If she's with friends, I tell them they are all cute, but she is so cute I don't know how they can stand it. Or I'll ask them to translate for me because my English is very poor... how you say, esta muy cuto. No culo, cuto, si? ;-)

Then I let her smile and enjoy it for a second, and then pull her back in by telling her "and this is the point at which you tell me I am also cute." More smiles. More fun. I'll tell the whole group that we make a cute couple, right? Then I may go into how we will have beautiful babies, and they are all invited to the wedding.

This is something I developed from bantering with girls. I think of banter as this tool we have at PickUp101 to express our affection to girls in really creative ways.

Of course, all that is well and good, but honestly, I prefer to use as few words as possible. My real favorite move is just to say a few words to a girl, then fake her out into looking in the other direction, and then swoop down and lift her up on my shoulder in a fireman's carry, telling her friends I just need to borrow her for about 10, no, 15 minutes.

This works best if you can then convince the girl you are, in fact, a fireman. :-)

Have you had the experience yet, where you feel that you've reached a certain degree of mastery? Can you explain the time, and how you got the realization?

Yeah, man. See, I never felt like the acronyms told me to feel. I honestly believe that thinking in terms of a competitive scale is the most damaging thing a guy can do. There are no chumps, there are no masters. We are all BORN knowing how to attract people.

But some people have it buried under years of bad experiences, and fear, and a constant reminder to play it safe and careful and avoid pain at all costs. And it's not their fault.

See, the guys that get it, the cool guys, the Natural, are just guys who had the least re-inforcement of negative feedback. They just never covered up their instincitve ability to get attention and create joy.

I was a Natural when I was a fat, happy baby. We all were. And I held on to that ability for a long time. But I lost it after my big breakup, and ended up living in the past, and in my head. We all go there from time to time, but it's a terrible place to stay.

I had to get back into the world, and recover what I knew instinctively… how to be social, and attractive, and make women happy.

It was just a few months ago when I realized I KNEW and FELT exactly what my girl needed all the time that I knew I had it back.

It's like grooming a golf swing. You work and work and work, and then one day you just know, this is for real. This skill isn't something I do, it's just something I am.

Now I know that no matter what happens, I will always be able to attract the girls I want, and be able to have the relationships that make me happy.

What advice would you give to newbies starting out, in order to greatly accelerate their learning curve?

Make it easy all the time. Do NOT look for the Olympian challenge to prove yourself.

If you want to learn how to play basketball, you start by shooting layups. You warm up by shooting from 3 feet away. You do NOT learn by shooting half-court jumpers with a man in your face.

So don't wait until Friday to go out and do 100 sets perfectly following someone else's ideas of how interactions should go. Instead, work on being cooler, friendlier, and more social every single day in simple ways. Smile and say Hi to people at work. Flirt with the girl serving you coffee. Tell your mom a funny story. Just keep doing small things every day to open yourself up, to smile more, and to attract people more.

What's your belief on inner game, and how did you improve it?

Physical skill. Work from the outside to affect the inside. I really worked on changing how I used my body to communicate to people, and that really changed how I felt.

I mean, when I walk down the street with a knowing smile and a slow strut like Wooderson in "Dazed and Confused," I can't help but be in a great mood.

You want to change your inner game? Let go of the need to look cool. Fuck it. Look FUN. Have fun. Be willing to look and be goofy. Smile. Laugh.

Bob your head to a hip-hop beat and say "yeah yeah yeah," in answer to the endless loop of annoying conscious mind questions.

Let the body and the lizard brain take over.

Do you have a personal favorite field report that you could relay?

Man, anyone who knows me will tell you I've got no END of stories (no matter how much they might want me to just occassionally shut the *** up! :-). Since I still haven't gotten around to writing the story of how I pulled a dancer right off the stage at the Spearmint Rhino in Vegas and made her my girlfriend, so I'll have to go with a more romantic, chick-flick story... :-)

She is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Warm, honey skin, soft brown eyes, long lashes, silky hair flowing under a funky cap, just a touch of sparkly blue eye-shadow, and a sly smile under pillowy lips.

It's a crowded Sunday in a little café in Union Square in San Francisco. Workers are putting up the giant Christmas tree, and shoppers are everywhere. It's not quiet, calm, and peaceful. People are jostling about, and everyone can see everything. Perfect. Put this on display for all to see – this is exactly what I have prepared for.

Get in line for food and keep looking at her. I fix her image in my mind. I look away. Let the nerves build up. Feel it in my chest, in my heart. I want this beautiful girl. I want her so much. I want her to have my kids, and her kids, and walk hand-in-hand on the boardwalk on the beach, win her giant stuffed animals for her at games of chance, snuggle on Sunday mornings, and buy her sparkly things to make her smile. I let all the silly and wussy and once- again-silly thoughts fill me up. I will use them as fuel.

I will walk up to her, alone. I will have no pretext, no introduction, no excuse. It will be her, and it will be me, and in this secret world, we will be. I want the nerves. I want the fear. I want this to be hard. For a man who didn't know what he was doing, that would make it impossible. For me… for me it makes it perfect.

Then my single 100%-perfect girl takes a seat at a table right behind me… with her 99%-perfect girl friend. She's here, now. I know from experience if I leave now, without meeting her, it will wake me from a sound sleep when I am old and grey, and the not knowing will haunt me like a ghost. Fuck it. I have studied, practiced and worked at this for a reason. This girl is the reason. She is the one that brought me here today. When you find the princess, she will not be waiting for you on a bed made of Twinkies and tits. She will be in a castle, guarded by a dragon, behind a wall of flames. Walk through the flames.

I step out of line. Walk to her table. I feel every eye upon me. Stand at their table. They both look up.

I say nothing. I don't worry about what to say. My hands are down, my eyes are steady. I open my mouth.

"I was on my way out, and I saw you." Is my voice quavering a little? It is. Good.

"I couldn't leave without meeting you. May I sit?"

They both stare at me. The room stares at me. I wait. She says yes. I reach back to table behind me and grab a chair from another table without asking. Is someone else using it? Not anymore. Chair bangs against other chairs. It appears unsmooth, but I don't care.

I sit. Look at her… gently, but seeing her. I don't say anything. A year passes. She asks, "so what are you doing today?"

I mention something about Christmas shopping. Start talking normal stuff. Introduce myself, they introduce themselves. Gia and Lily. My internal circuits are all afire, but I will not stop. That's how it works. I don't have to keep going. I just have to … Not. Stop.

Gia is from Indonesia. Lily is from Thailand. They live here now. I tell them I teach dogs owners how to understand their dogs. They love dogs, Golden Retrievers. I tell them how big the hearts of a Golden are, that they are made of love. Time passes. I talk about the park near my house. Watching sunset from the swings, and the cafe close by with the best hot chocolate in the city.

The air is heavy with this moment I feel the weight. Time to go. Tell them so. Tell Gia to meet me at my house next week and we'll go to the park. She agrees. Offers me her number. We hug, and her skin smells like summer.

I stand. Legs still working. Nice surprise.

Walk out, slow, stunned. Kick-to-the-head stunned. My world is of muffled sound, like under the sea, like leaving a Metallica show. Everything is slow and gentle, everything is floaty.

Talk twice over next week, flirty, funny, sexy. Normal topics too. School, work, fun. She's coming over Saturday.

With two bottles of wine, one white, one red. With a dog treat for my dog.

We will be as lovers who meet again and again, as the wheel does turn, as it was meant to be.

What is your current sticking point?

Don't say stupid shit.

One of my favorite quotes is from Chris Rock (and I believe that comedians really do have all the wisdom we need to manage relationships if you listen hard enough).

"A woman knows if she's gonna !#@* you in the first 5 minutes of meeting you. Women know right away. They're shaking hands like, "I'm gonna !#@* him. I hope he don't say nothing too stupid!"

Just let her like you, take the time to get to know each other, and then have the kind of sex that makes objects in the room spontaneously combust. J

What are you goals now within the community, and in life?

I want to tell everyone in the world about how the Art of Attraction workshop, and everything we teach at PickUp101, can change your life. Finding happiness from your relationships with women may be the hardest thing to learn, and to teach, and I really feel we've cracked the code. We see it every weekend when guys leave our workshops, exhausted and happy, and go right out and make the very first woman they see smile.

Every man deserves that power and that happiness. We are creating a community that men can be proud of, and women will be thankful for. And the bigger it gets, the better it is.

I've heard some really great people talk about pickup, about the process of attracting women, as a great burden, like it's something you have to pscyh yourself up for and battle through. Like there are guys out there who thought like I did when I found that one great girl, like "whew, sure am glad that hard work is over. Now I can finally relax!"

I got into teaching because I know that's not true. Being an attractive man is not about putting on an act at certain times to impress people. It's about becoming that best version of yourself, that guy you wanted to be when you were 8 years old. I teach guys that this is all about finding out what is cool, what is passionate, what is already attractive about you, and then learning how to bring that out.

We are all born social. We are all born charming. The hard work is in uncovering that instinct and letting other people share in the vibe. And it can't just be something you try out. You can't just attract that great girl one day and then stop. You have to attract her every single day. And the day you stop is the day she leaves.

I have one rule for keeping my chick happy. Make her smile every day. That's it. No exceptions, no excuses. It doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing, I make a point of doing something every single day to make her smile. And it's not even anything that clever (I usually just lift her on my shoulder and smack her ass). :-)

But I do it every day. And it's not work for me. It's effort, but it's not work. I enjoy making her happy, because she treats me like a frickin' god. And y'know what? That's what makes this all work for me... it's a circle of good. You keep putting the good energy out, and it will come back to you.

So to everyone reading, just keep it rocking and keep it cracking and just keep livin'.

This game is not that complicated. All you have to do is put a smile on her face and keep it there. It's up to you to make it happen.

Thanks Sean!

Stay tuned for more from Sean on the blog. Or even to get him as an instructor, check out the Pickup101 workshop schedule. You might have to make the trip to San Fran though!

Other Seduction Masters Interviews:

• Introducing the Seduction Masters Interviews
• Stephen Nash (Playboy)
• Thundercat
• Herbal
• Neil Strauss