MModern Wisdom
← All episodes
Neil Strauss27 May 2024

Why The World’s #1 Pickup Artist Left The Game Behind - Neil Strauss - #789

2Frameworks
15Insights

Listen

Frameworks in this episode

Self-Mastery3 steps

The Three-Part Emotional Healing Formula

Rewire childhood wounds with intensives, weekly accountability, and in-the-moment tools

Read →
Communication3 steps

The Value-Add Divorce Blueprint

Turn a family separation into a gain for the child instead of a loss

Read →

Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 2

Myth Buster

Looks, money, status: the black-pill triage list gets it backwards

Responding to the 'LMS' (looks, money, status) priority list, Strauss argues people don't actually want those traits, they want what the traits represent: safety and competence. He learned this hacking attraction in The Game as a short, unknown, broke guy, then watching men with all three call him for advice because their surface traits didn't fix their insecurity.

  • Height isn't what women want; it's the safety height signals
  • Money and status stand in for security and competence, which anyone can embody
  • Looks, money and status get your foot in the door; who you are keeps you in it
  • People with money, looks and status still lose partners through low-status, insecure behavior

“it wasn't height that they were looking for. What they were looking for was safety.”

Neil Strauss

“the money, looks, and status might get your foot in the door, but after that, it's who you are that enables you to stay in…”

Neil Strauss
#attraction#dating#status#self-esteem
Myth Buster

A conflict-free relationship is a warning sign, not the goal

Strauss reframes what a healthy relationship looks like against the fantasy sold by movies and pop songs. Zero conflict usually signals a 'parallel relationship' of two people living separate lives under one roof. Conflict itself is good; the real marker of health is how quickly you recover from conflict and return to where you were before it.

  • A relationship with zero conflict is a warning sign, often a parallel relationship
  • Conflict is normal and even healthy (absent abuse)
  • Health is measured by speed of recovery back to connection
  • Movies and pop songs sell an unrealistic expectation of frictionless love

“a relationship with zero conflict is a warning sign. It's not a great relationship.”

Neil Strauss

“a healthy relationship is how quickly you recover from the conflict and truly get back to where you were before it.”

Neil Strauss
#relationships#conflict#expectations#health

Hot Take· 4

Hot Take

Why branding yourself is a trap: don't become a widow to your own generation

Strauss argues that planting a flag on one identity or message dooms you when you, and the world, inevitably keep evolving. He cites Leonard Cohen: those married to the spirit of their generation become widows in the next. Staying tied to a message you no longer believe creates a split self that makes you a hypocrite and costs you your freedom.

  • It would be a tragedy to get stuck marketing who you were 20 years ago
  • People who keep selling a message they no longer believe create a split self
  • Your audience only expects what you've done before because they can't know what's next, so surprise them
  • Catering to audience expectations costs you the freedom of choice you claim to value

“Those who are married to the spirit of their generation are doomed to become widows in the next.”

Neil Strauss

“your audience only expects what you've done before because they don't know what you're gonna do next. So surprise them and give it to them.”

Neil Strauss
#identity#authenticity#reinvention#personal-brand
Hot Take

The cynicism safety blanket: sour grapes at an existential level

Chris Williamson names the 'cynicism safety blanket': the benefit of never trying is never having to feel the pain of failure. Strauss adds his own antidote, catching himself the instant he starts comparing his work to a more successful person and redirecting to 'what can I learn from that?' rather than tearing them down.

  • Never trying protects you from ever feeling the sting of failure
  • Cynicism is sour grapes at an existential level
  • When someone does better, you can either try to rise or drag them down to your level
  • The people trying to drag others down are the loudest voices in the culture right now

“the benefit of never trying is never having to feel the pain of failure ... the cynicism safety blanket.”

Chris Williamson

“if somebody is doing better than you, you can either try to do better or you can try to bring them down to your level.”

Neil Strauss
#cynicism#mindset#envy#growth
Hot Take

All perpetrators perpetrate from the victim position

Discussing men, embitterment and online radicalization, Strauss offers a rule he calls the truest thing he knows: all perpetrators perpetrate from the victim position. Every side of every war frames itself as surrounded and victimized, and that victim story is the on-ramp to hate. The first step to reality is getting out of the victim narrative.

  • The victim story is where hate and permission-to-perpetrate begin
  • Every side of a conflict casts itself as the victim ('we're surrounded by enemies')
  • Getting out of the victim story is the first step toward seeing reality
  • You can instead ask how to curate the variables around you so they help you

“all perpetrators perpetrate from the victim position. I mean, look at every war going on.”

Neil Strauss
#victimhood#masculinity#psychology#conflict
Hot Take

You can game attraction, but you can't game connection

Williamson argues that while attraction can be gamed the way courtship was in The Game, connection cannot. Dating advice obsesses over mate value, status and resources but almost never addresses the felt experience of love, or how to handle the jealousy, uncertainty and fear of abandonment that real attachment brings. In a world that conquered disease and space, love still feels unsophisticated and un-discussed.

  • Attraction is gameable; connection is much harder to fake
  • Evolutionary-psych framing is sterile and transactional (mate value, resources, fertility)
  • Almost no one teaches the actual felt experience of being in love
  • Creating a persona to win someone means they see the mask, not you

“you can quite easily game attraction, but it is much more difficult to game connection.”

Chris Williamson
#love#connection#attraction#dating-advice

Explainer· 4

Explainer

The confluent 'pick-and-choose' era of relationships

The hosts trace how marriage evolved from an economic arrangement (land, workers, inheritance) to a love-based union to today's 'confluent' era, where we stay together only as long as we mutually benefit. Strauss prefers a 'pick-and-choose' framing: modern people assemble a bespoke relationship from a menu (kids or not, marriage or not, monogamy or not).

  • Historically marriage combined lands, labor and inheritance rights
  • The confluent era: together as long as each partner benefits the other
  • Strauss sees himself as an example of the pick-and-choose model (a child without marriage)
  • More choice doesn't make us happier; the paradox of choice erodes satisfaction

“we can be in a relationship for as long as you benefit me and I benefit you. And if either of us stop benefiting each…”

Neil Strauss

“we sort of have this checklist and we can kind of design the thing that we want.”

Neil Strauss
#relationships#marriage-history#culture#paradox-of-choice
Explainer

Internal vs external locus of control in relationships and life

Strauss contrasts blaming the outside world (external locus of control) with asking how you can change and do better (internal locus). Blaming others is comforting because it means you don't have to change, but it fuels hate; taking responsibility is more work but makes you far happier and gives you agency.

  • External locus: 'women/men/the world are like that, so I opt out' means you never have to change
  • Internal locus: 'how can I do better, be more empathic?' is harder but happier
  • Strauss defaults to blaming and examining himself because he can't control culture, only his response
  • Controlling your reaction is the ultimate agency

“I can't control the culture, I can't control what people think. But what I can do is control how I respond to it.”

Neil Strauss
#locus-of-control#agency#responsibility#mindset
Explainer

Enmeshment vs abandonment: the childhood wound almost no one recognizes

Strauss explains enmeshment as the opposite of abandonment, and harder to spot because it feels like closeness. In abandonment a parent isn't there to meet the child's needs; in enmeshment the child's role is to meet the parent's needs (cheering up a depressed parent, absorbing an anxious parent's worry, becoming a surrogate therapist). Enmeshed adults later date 'projects' they can fix, then resent them.

  • Abandonment: the parent isn't there (physically or emotionally) to meet the child's needs
  • Enmeshment: the child is made responsible for the parent's emotional needs
  • Signs include a parent making you their therapist, best friend, or self-esteem mirror ('daddy's little girl')
  • Enmeshed adults date people they can help and fix, then grow resentful and break away

“enmeshment is the opposite of abandonment, and that's why we don't recognize it.”

Neil Strauss

“the enmeshment is when the child's role is to meet the parent's needs.”

Neil Strauss
#enmeshment#childhood#trauma#parenting
Explainer

Your childhood is a hypnotic induction, and pruning built your prison

Strauss frames the mechanism behind his healing work: the brain wires connections at a huge rate in the first three years, then prunes what it doesn't use, leaving a wiring that becomes 'the prison you live in.' The Meadows calls its method post-induction therapy because your childhood functions like a hypnotic induction or a cult you were indoctrinated into by your parents' beliefs.

  • The infant brain forms neural connections at a huge rate, then prunes unused ones after ~age three
  • Patterns like 'no one will meet my needs' get wired in pre-memory and persist
  • Childhood acts like a hypnotic induction or a cult of your parents' beliefs
  • Post-induction therapy aims to 'un-brainwash' you from your first 17 years

“this brain where you built all these connections, removed what you didn't need, now becomes the prison you live in.”

Neil Strauss

“the post-induction therapy is unbrainwashing you from this cult you're in for the first 17 years.”

Neil Strauss
#neuroscience#trauma#childhood#therapy

Story· 2

Story

The 'amazing divorce': best friends with his ex, having a second child together

Strauss describes an unusually good divorce in which he and his ex-wife co-parent so well they decided to have another child together, five-plus years after separating. Because the romantic energy was gone (she felt 'like my sister'), they conceived via syringe rather than the old-fashioned way. They even celebrate a 'D anniversary' to mark compassionately exiting the relationship.

  • Getting out of a relationship is harder than getting into one, so it's worth celebrating
  • They remained best friends and great co-parents after the split
  • Romantic energy being absent made conception the natural way feel wrong, so they used a syringe
  • Strauss reflects on how easily someone could get pregnant with a man's genetic material

“it's such an amazing divorce that we're actually having another child together with my son's mom.”

Neil Strauss

“getting out of a relationship is harder than getting into one ... so we should celebrate the fact that we're able to compassionately get out…”

Neil Strauss
#divorce#co-parenting#relationships#conception
Story

The Power of Low Self-Esteem: Churchill's brutal father letter

Williamson reads a devastating 1893 letter from Churchill's father telling his 19-year-old son he'd become a 'mere social wastrel,' and Strauss reveals his next book, The Power of Low Self-Esteem, is about how great figures did great things despite (and because of) not feeling enough. Self-compassion, he adds, means talking to yourself like the parent you needed, not the parent you had.

  • Churchill's father wrote that he no longer attached the slightest weight to anything his son said
  • Even after defeating the Nazis, Churchill likely still didn't feel like enough
  • Strauss's next book argues low self-esteem can inspire great achievement
  • Self-compassion is talking to yourself like the parent you needed, not the one you had

“self-compassion is talking to yourself like the parent you needed and not the parent you had.”

Neil Strauss

“it's okay to not feel like you're enough and let that inspire you to do great things.”

Neil Strauss
#self-esteem#self-compassion#achievement#churchill

Tool· 2

Tool

Nonviolent Communication: honor what's alive in the other person

Strauss praises Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication (despite its off-putting name and boring book) as a simple system that defuses conflict. 'Violence' is criticizing, judging, controlling, or diagnosing; the moment you do it, even when right, the other person gets defensive. Instead you reflect and honor what's alive in them, turning a partner's complaint into a collaborative search for a fix.

  • Violence = criticize, judge, control, punish/reward, or diagnose
  • Even when you're right, criticizing makes the other person defensive and the talk fails
  • Reflect the feeling and need underneath ('sounds like you need more connection')
  • Turn a complaint into a collaborative 'what could we do?' rather than a defense

“once you start criticizing, accusing, judging, the other person gets defensive, and the conversation doesn't go well.”

Neil Strauss

“it honors what's alive in someone else.”

Neil Strauss
#communication#nvc#conflict-resolution#relationships
Tool

The decision tool: what would tomorrow-you want today-you to do?

Williamson offers a decision heuristic that improves on Strauss's creative-vs-destructive test: rather than agonizing over your epitaph or the end of your life, ask what tomorrow-you would want today-you to do. It's regret minimization on a tight enough feedback loop to actually act on, whether the choice is a cookie, a text, or sleeping with someone.

  • Judge a choice by whether tomorrow-you would want today-you to make it
  • End-of-life framing is too abstract to guide daily decisions
  • It's effectively regret minimization on a short time horizon
  • Pairs with Strauss's creative-self vs destructive-self test

“What would you tomorrow want you today to do?”

Chris Williamson

“It's regret minimization, but it's done on a time scale that's sufficiently tight in a feedback loop way that you can probably make it work.”

Chris Williamson
#decision-making#regret-minimization#self-mastery#willpower

Takeaway· 1

Takeaway

Heal yourself first: you attract at your own level of self-esteem

Drawing on attachment theory, Strauss explains we are drawn to what's familiar, so a narcissistic parent leads you to seek narcissists to finally be seen by. The fix is to heal yourself rather than expect a partner to heal you, because you attract people at your own level of self-esteem, even when they look like the opposite side of the same coin.

  • We love what's familiar, so childhood wounds steer who we pursue
  • An abandoning parent primes you to choose emotionally or physically absent partners
  • You attract people at your own level of self-esteem (Nathaniel Branden)
  • Take your list of what you want in a partner and go embody it yourself

“step one is heal yourself instead of trying to expect someone else to heal you.”

Neil Strauss

“whenever somebody is complaining about their partner, my brain is always thinking ... you're attracting your own level of that.”

Neil Strauss
#attachment-theory#self-esteem#healing#relationships