Check out the new FAQ Page
November 15, 2009
Answers to frequently asked questions here on the FAQ page.
My Appearance on AXN’s The Duke
August 25, 2009
This was from a few months ago, when I was featured in an episode of AXN Asia’s The Duke. The filming took place in the winter. It was all sort of tongue-in-cheek, and we had a lot of good laughs.
The show’s hosts–Rovilson, Marc, and Eunice–were tremendous fun, totally laidback, professional, and down to earth, without any airs. And the after party was off the hook.
Thanks are due to LL for helping me burn the DVD and edit it into this clip. Enjoy!
My TV Panel on Singaporean Women
August 8, 2009
To all you Singaporeans, Happy National Day! Can’t wait for the fireworks to begin!
Here’s a fun TV show that was filmed a long time ago, but it has only just been released. You can find them on the Razor TV site here.
I’ve embedded below the last two segments and the first segment. You can see the influence of my friend, Zan, in episode 7 and of Brad P. in episode 8.
After doing quite a few TV appearances and interviews, I’ve learned a lot about the media. The number one thing is to stay positive. Some of my hardest earned lessons include:
1. Check with the hosts on set before filming begins about the nature of the questions and the general angle they will be taking. Don’t believe the assurances of the producers over email. They will say whatever they need to get you on set. I learned this the hard way from that old Shan & Rozz interview when the producers said they just wanted to interview people with interesting jobs, but then they took a somewhat hostile angle in the interview. They were all very nice off-camera, though, and Rosalyn did come around early on in the 45 minute interview.
2. Do your due diligence on the show and the hosts. This is somewhat related to #1. Prior to filming that Shan & Rozz show, I had never heard of either Shan or Rozz and knew almost nothing about Clicknetwork beyond the fact that they had only done one episode before mine and that they were an online TV station. I didn’t even think many people would see the show. I also didn’t realize that they were much more of a comedy act than an Oprah-style talk show.
3. Be very careful what you say. Err on the side of saying less. I’m still learning to control my tongue, realizing that the editors’ first and foremost priorities are their own interests. They may very well cut out your best parts and leave in your worst parts. That Shan & Rozz interview lasted about 45 minutes but was edited to a relatively strange 6 minutes.
4. Watch your health and energy levels, and feel free to back out if you’re not feeling well. I was in the middle of a flu and was full of Panadol and Red Bull during that Shan & Rozz interview. In fact, I was still sipping Red Bull right in the middle of the shooting.
I also was on a caffeine high from a big cup of Starbucks coffee right before and during this Razor TV interview. Watching the clips now, I notice I was talking pretty fast, probably too fast for my Singaporean audience, which is probably not used to my Canadian accent. Watch the caffeine intake.
Having said that, this TV filming with Jamie Yeo, Melissa, and Bryan was a lot of fun to do, and we had plenty to talk about. Enjoy! Feedback and flaming are welcome.
My Real Claim to Fame
July 27, 2009
Here’s my final column for the time being in Singapore’s second-highest circulation paper, The New Paper. I gotta say, I’m disappointed by the headline (”My many intimate dates didn’t lead to happiness”), which gives the piece a negative tone overall. Here’s a link to the article in their online edition.
Below is the original, full version of the article, with the parts that were left out of the published version in bold print.
The Real Claim to Fame
This will be my last column for a while. Ongoing writing projects have been piling up calling for my undivided attention, so I’m taking an indefinite leave of absence from contributing in this space.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned in my journey of personal development has been the importance of thinking big and that it is never too late to pursue your dreams.
A few years ago, I was frustrated with my social life. I had been the social misfit and had never mastered those social skills that all the cool people in high school and college just seemed to know instinctively.
I embarked on a period of experimentation and learning to gain the experience and knowledge I missed out on. This involved initiating social interactions with thousands of interesting people, many of whom became my new friends.
I learned a lot about how beautiful women think and feel and about social dynamics overall. And I have endeavored to pass to others the lessons I learned.
Even more, I discovered a great deal of profound insights about myself and made some major and lasting transformations.
I learned that the most significant element in interacting with people is to be your authentic and best self. Be honest about who you are—your limitations and your strengths. As long as you are striving to improve yourself, never be ashamed. I learned that society often tries to impose its own arbitrary social norms, but that a real man determines his own reality.
It’s Never Too Late to Change
I took a stand on the things about myself that I’ve wanted to change for decades but never followed through with. At the ripe old age of 30, I got into the best shape of my life. I also took up new hobbies and learned new skills that I had wanted to pursue for many years but kept putting off. In other words, I stopped making excuses for myself and my social predicament, took responsibility for my own life, and got those parts of my life handled. I started to become my ideal self. And I have never before been happier.
Most of all, I concluded that while intimate encounters with many women may bring a lot of pleasure, it doesn’t lead to sustained happiness. So since 2008, I have instead chosen to have meaningful, long-term relationships.
Early on, during that time of social experimentation, I went on a string of intimate encounters lasting a couple of months. I had mentioned this to the reporter writing the original feature article on me that was published almost a year ago in The New Paper. But somehow the headline misleadingly proclaimed that this was my “claim to fame.”
Actually, in the international attraction industry, which does a brisk business every year in the tens of millions of US dollars, very few people even knew about that statistic. If anything, my real “claim to fame” is various innovations and advancements in a natural, direct style of interacting with women, which I have come to call, Genuine Game. It is predicated on getting yourself into the right place emotionally and mentally, and then expressing yourself honestly and with humor. For more on this, see the articles on my website.
What credentials do I have for coaching others in the social arts? The world of social coaching is unusual in that there is no governing body or set of verifiable standards. A lot of people masquerade as dating coaches. For me, usually, men start by hearing my story and identifying with it. They then read my articles and get my Dating 101 audio course. Then they derive tremendous help from them, so they know that my advice works. If they need feedback that’s more personalized, they’ll get in touch with me, and as I get to know them, I tell them exactly what I can and can’t do to help them.
While I lament the deceptive headline, I do not mean to imply that I think there is anything morally objectionable to casual encounters between mutually consenting adults, or that I have any major regrets about my past. Every man should at least have the freedom to sow his wild oats before settling down, should he choose to do so.
Those experiences contributed to make me the man I am today. Though it took me until my early thirties to figure things out socially and catch up in my facility in social dynamics, it is never too late to realize one’s dreams. Without those experiences, I would likely never have learned enough about women and myself or matured enough emotionally to approach and attract my later long-term girlfriends, who have enriched my life deeply.
While I let slip away much of my social life in high school, college, and my twenties, I now have a whole range of life opportunities open to me that I could have only dreamt of a mere five years ago.
It is never too late to become whoever you want to be.
Although I am on a writing sabbatical, you can still keep in touch with me by signing up for my mailing list, which you can find on the top right-hand corner of my website. Subscribers will get free excerpts of my forthcoming book as they become available. But sign up now as I will be closing the list to new subscribers in the very near future.
I owe a big thanks to the many loyal and supportive fans of this Dr. Date column. See you on the other side!
Dear Dr. Date,
What’s the best way to get a girl’s number?
Yours, Jerky Jeff
Dear Jeff,
This is the wrong question.
What you should really ask is, “How do I get a girl attracted to me?”
If a girl is attracted to you, it is quite easy to get her number. She may even ask you for yours first.
If she is not attracted to you, then it won’t matter how you ask, then the number doesn’t matter. If she gives you a number at all, either she will give you a fake number, or she won’t pick up or return your calls.
So how do you get a girl attracted to you? For more on this, check out the articles on my website and get a hold of the Dating 101 audio course. Let’s keep in touch, Jerky Jeff!
Coaching Clarification
May 19, 2009
I’ve still been getting requests for personal coaching, so here’s an announcement to clarify things. I appreciate your interest and laud your desire for self-improvement. However, I’m taking a writing sabbatical, so I’m currently turning away requests for personal coaching of any kind.
Furthermore, this will apply as long as I’m still holding my current full-time day job. I haven’t been conducting any consulting work for money since last November, and I would like to keep it that way.
Cheers!
Writing Sabbatical and Hiatus from Personal Coaching
April 16, 2009
‘Tis the season to be writing!
For almost a year now, I’ve had a couple of really important writing projects on the backburner, and it is about time that I got my priorities straight and finished them. The solitary, writing mode does not mix well with the outgoing, social mode.
So, I’m taking a sabbatical from extensive blog writing and personal coaching for a while to finish these books and other projects. I’m really psyched about this! The summer will also see me traveling a lot for research and writing, and it’s just gonna be awesome.
I’ve already pulled back from leading bootcamps and other such programs for some time now, a decision that I’ve been quite happy about, so this has been a gradual transition for me.
I’ll still be updating the blog in the meantime, so check back.
I’m also still happy to field your questions privately over email, so feel free to continue contacting me at asianrake “at” asianrake.com
Play on, The Asian Rake.
Improving the Site
April 13, 2009
Stay tuned 
Required Reading
February 19, 2009
This was originally an article I wrote for Amped Asia that they posted on their website almost a month ago. I’ve just been too busy to cross-post it here until now.
The Reading List
Since the explosion of media coverage following the 2005 release of Neil Strauss’s New York Times bestseller, The Game, as well as the VH1 reality show starring pickup artists Mystery and Matador, which has finished its second season, the secret society of pickup artists has been thoroughly exposed and forced into the mainstream in America.
Yet even with the plethora of resources the secret society produces–ebooks, paperbacks, audio courses, DVD series, television shows–I find it utterly astounding that some adult American males still don’t know how to go about answering such simple questions as, “Should I pay for dinner?” or “Should I be her friend first?”
I guess this is a good thing for those who have already taken advantage of the secret society’s knowledge. Less competition.
But, c’mon! If you haven’t yet given the resources of the attraction industry a fair reading, do yourself a favor, and go check them out before you waste your time reinventing the wheel.
Perhaps the sheer amount of information available is too overwhelming. This I understand. Every month, another breakthrough product or 10-DVD series is being released. Who has that much time to go through everything?
Well, this is where one’s skills as a Ph.D. student, having learned to read a hundred books a month for one’s qualifying examinations, will certainly come in handy, LOL. But seriously, it’s amazing how many guys have supposedly read the same pages and paragraphs I have, yet have only garnered a small fraction of the rich knowledge contained therein. The erosion of critical reading and listening skills among the general population is disheartening, especially for a university professor.
I could recommend the excellent and free video resources available on the website of The Social Man, as well as their upcoming The Social Man Method. I could tout the latest Venusian Arts ebook, Revelation, as currently, the most comprehensive general resource on attraction science currently available. I could suggest the Infield Insider monthly subscription DVD series featuring hours of infield video footage and frame-by-frame analysis by Mehow and his guest pickup artist. Those are all outstanding resources among the hundreds out there.
Even though it is the best overall attraction arts e-book on the market at the moment, Revelation tops out at a very dense 322 pages. If a guy didn’t get through his first-year philosophy textbook, he probably won’t get through this one. If he doesn’t already have considerable field experience, he will likely be unable to appreciate the subtleties revealed in the footage in the Infield Insider, even after it’s broken down for him. A lot of it will go over his head. There is a reason most guys just “don’t get it”: They are blind to social dynamics, and until they train their instincts and develop their emotional and social intelligence, they will have a very hard time discerning what’s going on.
So instead of applying the mental discipline to go through such material, our hapless fellow turns to the vapid Doc Love columns of magazines and periodicals or the “pickup-lite” blogs dispensing feel-good dating advice (yes, I happen to write such a column, but I endeavor to make it worthwhile reading).
Don’t despair. There are resources out there that are suitable for beginners and those who just want to get their feet wet.
A good starting point before turning to any of the more advanced resources is my Dating 101 audio course available on my website. It has a 100% no questions asked two-month refund policy, so you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain!
If you are an Asian man sick of people telling you that Asian men are unattractive or unsexy or whatever negative stereotype you’ve encountered, then sign up for my mailing list, and be among the first to get access to the upcoming The Power of Being Asian, which will be the best resource for Asian men in harnessing their Asian identity to become powerfully attractive to women of all races and cultures. Instead of seeing your Asian identity and all its associated negative connotations as holding you back, and instead of making race and ethnicity disappear as important factors, you will learn how to make these stereotypes work for you and give you an edge over the majority non-Asian race or ethnicity. You can sign up at the top right corner of my website.
Perhaps it is gauche to recommend one’s own work, so I’ll stop there.
For those who want an even broader, more general introduction to the social arts, then look into the foundational books that formed the inspiration for almost all the advancements in the attraction arts industry for the past ten years.
The Top Ten
First Category: Required Reading
1. The first book in this category is Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People. This was originally published in 1937. Almost every social skills book afterwards is a derivative of some sort. The guys in the seduction community who don’t see the value of this book are usually the really creepy ones with major psychological problems. No, I don’t mean you.
The insights contained in this book are so foundational that if you can’t apply these, you have no business looking into the headier stuff. For instance, Carnegie’s principle, “You Can’t Win an Argument,” was huge for me, an aspiring philosopher. I still to this day have lawyer and engineer clients who start intellectual debates with women and me, even in bars. They don’t realize how important it is to give up their egoistic need to be right or to have everyone know that they are right. It’s far more attractive to be unreactive, internally referenced, and completely confident in your own judgment, even if the majority disagrees with you.
Carnegie’s frequent admonition to “Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise,” is what drives Qualification as an attraction technique. His humorous, “Give a Dog a Good Name,” explains much of the effectiveness of Intention Mapping. Many of his other principles illustrate “Alpha Nice” strategies.
If you want to learn how to develop social circles and entourages, the teachings in this book are necessary to master. You will need to learn how to befriend not just random girls, but more importantly, alpha males, high status people, and well-connected men and women. And if you can’t even apply Carnegie’s principles, you have no business running more advanced strategies.
A good supplement to Carnegie, which avoids the archaic prose and endless examples, is Leil Lowndes’s How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships. While Lowndes’s tips are fantastic, they are a little parochial and will go out of date and lose their effectiveness if they haven’t already. That’s what separates classics that stand the test of time like Carnegie’s.
2. This is probably a big surprise to newbies, but it’s no secret to the insider circle that Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich is a favorite among the top social artists and inspired a lot of its breakthroughs in inner game. Like Carnegie’s, this is another 1937 classic that has stood the test of time. His chapters on sex transmutation and auto-suggestion are must-reads for any man aspiring to mastery in a specialized field. My own program of affirmations and visualizations were first inspired by Hill’s recommendations. I still get a lot of inquiries about what I do for affirmations and visualizations. Do yourself a favor. Get this little book. Read it several times, a chapter a day until the lessons really sink in. Oh yeah, and you might get rich too!
3. For all the attention that Strauss’s The Game has brought to the community, his first book on the secret society is best taken as an entertaining read, NOT as a manual or blueprint for getting better with girls.
His more recent Rules of the Game, however, is a good how-to guide and presents a well-balanced perspective on attraction, with a proper amount of attention paid to lifestyle and identity. Out of all the attraction manuals you would find in your local bookstore, this is by far your best bet.
And it’s a good introduction to the most popular style of social arts and perhaps the method best suited to absolute beginners: Indirect game using scripted routines.
4. The most thorough step-by-step guide to the seductive arts is still Robert Greene’s The Art of Seduction. Perhaps it’s biggest fault is that it is too thorough. Most lair guys don’t have the patience, motivation, or critical reading facility to get through the whole thing.
Greene draws on a lot of historical case studies, which I consider a real strength. If there is anything to the insights of the attraction community, then they should be found among the writings of exemplars in times past.
His character portraits are the most valuable part of the book. The true masters have thought long and hard about the different styles of social artistry, and many of them track the character types Greene lays out. It’s helped guide my own decisions about which attraction community teachings to adopt and which to lay aside.
His detailed description of the courtship process is skewed to indirect methods, but he also takes into account the strengths of the direct approach. The process he lays out is a meticulous breakdown of the steps in a typical courtship.
As with all the books in this must-read section, this book should be slowly absorbed and frequently re-read. A chapter or two a day is ideal.
5. This fifth book is my new Bible. I’ve been reading at least a chapter a day for over a year. Well, okay, I’ve lapsed recently, but I’m getting back to it. I credit this book for the most profound changes in my mindset toward my career, relationships, and my life as a whole. It’s given me the courage to make the hardest decisions I’ve ever faced.
David Deida’s The Way of the Superior Man is one of those books that will probably go over the heads of most guys starting out. But once you get to an intermediate level, this must-read will become the single most important book you could own. It holds the keys to real mastery. Incidentally, understanding of the teachings in this book can also be used to gauge a man’s current level of development.
Second Category: Highly Recommended
1. As a scientific account of what’s behind social dynamics and why some people are more attuned to social dynamics, this is likely the most accessible book available. Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships shows how advances in neuroscience, psychology, and various other fields have already unearthed a lot of the reasons for why community material actually works. Unlike the community ebooks, Goleman does not depend on facile appeals to evolutionary accounts. He doesn’t have to. Goleman’s classic Emotional Intelligence is also quite good, though not as directly applicable to social dynamics as his more recent work.
2. Cited repeatedly in Mystery’s Venusian Arts Handbook back in 2004, Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion has spawned a whole industry. This has become a classic in the attraction community. Cialdini is currently a Distinguished Graduate Research Professor at Arizona State University.
The six principles he elucidates in his book are all major concepts in the social arts: Reciprocation, Commitment and Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Authority, and Scarcity. His book not only helped advance thinking in social dynamics, it also changed the way I saw myself, my relationships, my career, and my research in such fields as philosophy and religious studies.
3. Like Cialdini, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced like “chick sent me high”) is another renowned professor who has turned his research into an entire industry. His Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience explains what is behind the whole “being in state” teaching, which has become a hobby-horse of the boys at Real Social Dynamics though curiously, they make no mention of Csikszentmihalyi’s work. I read about his work in a philosophy class before encountering it in some of David DeAngelo’s DVD products.
This will help you understand why “being in state” is so powerful and the prime driver behind natural game, which has recently become such a contested term in the community, with Real Social Dynamics, PUA Training, Charisma Arts, and just about everyone else trying to lay claim to it, bereaving it of any significant meaning. Most have lost sight of the fact that Vin DiCarlo and Sebastian Drake were the first to come out with “natural game.” Csikszentmihalyi does a better job of explaining “being in state” than does neuro-linguistic programming.
But more importantly, Flow will explain how the experts achieve flow on a consistent basis, as well as the personality types of those most prone to flow experiences. He also draws on literature and data from a wide variety of cultures, periods, and societies, including Daoist and Buddhist teachings.
Interestingly, his son is a well-established scholar of early Chinese philosophy.
If you can maximize your flow experiences, you will be a happier, more successful, and more fulfilled human being. What better reason do you need to pick this up? On the subject of happiness and what it takes to get it, the relatively new field of positive psychology pioneered by professors at Penn, Harvard, and elsewhere, has a lot of great things to say, and the best introduction to this field is Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis
4. This list would be incomplete without some mention of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). The best general introduction I’ve found is Introducing NLP: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People by Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour. The writing can be dry and pedantic in places, but the knowledge is invaluable. If you’re interested in NLP, save up a couple thousand dollars and take a course in it.
I prefer the more accessible NLP of Anthony Robbins. His Ultimate Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement helped take my inner game to the next level. You might also want to check out his Awaken the Giant Within, which covers the same material but in a different format.
5. And finally, I would be remiss if I left out some literature on evolutionary accounts of sex and relationships. Most attraction community ebooks appeal to this exclusively for their academic understanding of social dynamics. I find this one-sidedness disappointing. As bemoaned by many academics, evolutionary accounts are too ad hoc. You can pretty much come up with an evolutionary explanation for almost any perspective on social phenomena. Despite this, it is good to know the research. The best book on this subject is Robin Baker’s Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict and Other Bedroom Battles. The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley is also quite good.
So there you have it. The Top Ten books that will change your life. I recommend you go through them in the order I’ve laid out. The first five deserve slow and steady study, as well as repeated readings.
If you are Singaporean, then you must read this
January 30, 2009
Well, you don’t have to. That was just to get your attention. LOL
For your weekend reading, you absolutely must check out this article in the New York Times.
It’s all very interesting, but I found the last couple of pages the most enlightening. If you understand the importance of ‘dominance’ as a universally attractive masculine trait, then you’ll be able to appreciate this article. If you don’t yet get it, then maybe you will after reading this article. It’s entitled, “What do Women Want?”
Check it out!
New York City with Miss Model Behavior
January 5, 2009
When visiting friends and family in New York City over the holidays, I had the opportunity to hang out with Miss Model Behavior, who won me over a while back with her hilariously insightful post on promoters, nomoters, and fromoters. Her blog’s latest incarnation is a team-authored blog on life in NYC. I’ve linked her contributions on dating and relationships in my blogroll. Go check it out! Her delightful posts on such subjects as being friends with the ex, SMS relationships, and the intricacies of the intense NYC club scene, are not only thought-provoking but also charming and entertaining. I love showcasing the female perspective on dating, seduction, and relationships. MMB is as articulate and pretty in person as her writing suggests.
Play on!
