It’s been a crazy two weeks. For those of you curious, I spoke again at The 21 Convention, finished editing my interview with Dan Rose (Videos embedded at the end of this post. Note: This is him interviewing me. I interviewed him here), went on the Casanova Crew Podcast to talk about what it takes to be a coach, and signed up a few more students into my Long Term Coaching Program. Oh, and I finally kinda learned how to use my new Canon EOS Rebel T2i. Sorta. (See pictures).

The 21 Convention was, as always, a blast. Even though I spent most of it working, it’s always great to see old friends and make new ones. Got a chance to catch up with Anthony (Dream), Chris Orleans, Psych, Adam Lyons, Erika, and a bunch of others. It’s always interesting meeting people at the 21 convention. There’s something about the event that’s just different than any other event I’ve spoken at. Maybe it’s the theme. Maybe it’s Orlando. Maybe it’s Anthony. Whatever the case is, the people there are just real. They’re still pickup guys and the speakers are still mostly pickup “gurus,” but for some reason when you’re there at the event, it just doesn’t feel like pickup. It feels more… intimate. Like people are putting on less of a front. Like there’s less of that ‘I’m trying to be alpha’ attitude you sometimes see at seduction conferences and events. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me.

Then again, some of you will probably disagree seeing as how there was all this drama that happened this year. Those of you following the gossip train might have heard about it. Oh it was even better in person, trust me. Yet another reason why you should have showed up. Free drama! It’s like watching the fights at hockey games, hahaha.

This year I continued where my 2009 speech left off. Last year I spoke on fundamentals. Why they’re important and what it takes to be successful in pickup. This year the theme was action. Specifically, what action to take to implement those fundamentals. This year I wanted to give people actual, real-world action plans to achieve their goals. And true to form, I also gave away another free boot camp, although this time it was for the most deserving individual. Look for the 2010 footage to hit the 21 Convention site soon.

Speaking of which, Anthony is putting on a double event next year in 2011, holding conference in both London and Orlando. I believe it’s the last year he’ll be holding the U.S. event in Orlando, although Orlando is starting to grow on me given that the Crowne Plaza hotel has really fast internet (stop laughing) and that for some reason, insane numbers of hot women showed up this year. Not sure why, but I suspect it has something to do with god smiting me for having a girlfriend this year.

Anyhow, if you’re really cheap the type that plans ahead, I’d highly recommend picking up tickets for the 2011 events now as prices are stupid low. As of this writing, tickets are $175 and £175 for Orlando and London, respectively. I’ll be speaking at BOTH events next year. That’s almost $400/£400 off the door price! Prices go up as we get closer to the event, so if you even have an inkling that you might want to go, I’d suggest picking up a ticket. You can always sell it off (even for a profit) later if you can’t make it. (No scalpers please)

As an added bonus, if you buy a ticket in the next few days, I’ll be offering a FREE hour-long consultation either at the event or over video coaching. That’s worth over $150 by itself. Just send me an email after you’ve purchased your ticket and we’ll get you setup. On top of that, you can use coupon code “djfuji10″ for an additional discount on your ticket.

Sign up for Orlando 2011

Sign up for London 2011

Edit: Just talked to Anthony and he said there’s only a couple of tickets left at those discounted prices and after they’re sold out, price will go up again. Don’t procrastinate.

Not quite.

The reality of my career is that it’s a lot of hard work and dedication, both to get here and to keep things going. Ever wonder why most guys who start teaching this end up dropping out within a year or two? Think about who’s still teaching infield nowadays. 9 out of 10 of the ‘big names’ from a few years back are no longer doing it. They’re either running the business while their coaches do the instruction, or they’re out of the business altogether. I think a lot of that is because people get drawn into this industry for the wrong reasons. You HAVE to love this line of work if you don’t want to burn out quickly. 80-hour weeks, constantly on the road, the uncertainty of never knowing when your next paycheck is coming, and then on top of that, turning down women every night when you’re teaching and they approach you. That’s the reality of my job. But what keeps me going is seeing the change in students. Seeing the way a student’s eyes light up when they realize hope is not all lost. Seeing a students’ lives change before my very eyes. Those things make up for all the blood, sweat, and tears we put into this as instructors. That’s why we do what we do.

Anyhow, I don’t want to rehash everything we talked about on the podcast. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, JTR’s show is a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the pickup and seduction industry. It delves into the drama, the gossip, and the real-life personalities that both teach and learn in this community. It definitely humanizes an industry that can initially seem like a very jaded group of bitter men. You can download the mp3 from his site or you can stream it from the main page. Note that my interview is episode #25. There’s no direct linking so you may have to scroll a bit.

This is a 3-part series where Dan Rose from the Sex God Method interviews me on getting good at pickup, body language, mindsets, why pickup is so difficult for Asian men, AMOGing, and a bunch of other stuff. Enjoy.

Feel free to leave comments on the video or in this post.

Photo by EuphoriaLuv

So I’m addicted to the new TV show Flash Forward, about something that causes the entire world to black out for 2 minutes while seeing a vision of their lives 6 months in the future. It’s a really, really good show so far – if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d highly recommend it. Just remember that it’s like lays potato chips – you can’t have just one. You’ve been warned.

One of the things in particular that struck me about the show was the really progressive interracial and gay relationships between various characters. There’s both a blasian (Black + Asian) and lesbian+interracial relationship, both of which are pretty rare, especially in Hollywood. Some are even saying that it’s the first-ever on-screen romance between an Asian man and Black woman. Kudos to ABC for having the balls to break stereotypes like that.

More specifically, Korean-American actor John Cho (of Harold and Kumar fame) plays an FBI agent who is engaged to hottie Gabrielle Union (Bad Boys II). The whole black-girl-with-asian-guy thing has become WAY more common over the last few years (I have my theories on that), although it’s still a pretty rare thing to see overall. I’ve dated several black girls (okay, mostly half black), and you do see a lot of double takes when you’re out in public.

This brings me to an important point – Asian (including Indian) men generally have a harder time dating (especially interracially) than any other ethnic group. That’s why the ‘blasian’ relationship from the show was such a big deal. Hell, it’s getting to the point where Asian guys are even having trouble dating Asian women [PDF].

But why? Asian women certainly don’t seem to have a problem with dating, interracially or otherwise. What’s causing this discrepancy and how do we fix it?

Let me start off by saying I don’t normally focus much on interracial dating and the whole ‘Asian’ thing because I don’t see it as being that big of a deal. It’s no different than any other disqualifier.

Yeah, I said it. It’s a disqualifier. All you militant-asian-pride-malcolm-x-types, that’s your cue to start flaming and ranting.

Being Asian in America (and much of western society) is a disqualifier. Same with being short. Or having a round face. Or being introverted. Come to think of it, if I really wanted to feel sorry for myself, it’d certainly be understandable… considering that I am all of these things.

Yup, Asian, short, round-faced, and introverted. What a combination, huh?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with being asian. I’m very proud of my ethnic and cultural background. But I also don’t bury my head in the sand and delude myself when there are dozens of studies done that show that in the western dating scene (and much of the non-asian world in general), being Asian is not an advantage. Blame it on the media, or on cultural programming, or evolutionary psychology, or any number of factors, but the facts are the facts. Don’t believe me? Let’s do a quick google search to see what we can find…

“Caucasian females are least likely to date Asian men…”

–blackstate.com, 2008 U.S. Census Results

“…in 75 percent of Asian-white marriages, the husband is white.”

–interracialdatingcentral.com

“Asian American men are the least preferred mate for Caucasian women.”

–University of California, Irvine Case Study

“But statistically the one man in America no one wants a triple X throwdown with is sideshow William Hung, actor John Cho and a multitude of their Asian American male counterparts.”

–cintrawilson.com

“The researchers, after controlling for all other attributes (height, weight, attractiveness, etc.), calculated how much extra income (relative to the income of the average online male dater, $62,500) a man would need to overcome the racial barrier. …For equal success with a white woman, an African-American needs to earn an additional $154,000; a Hispanic man needs $77,000; an Asian needs $247,000.”

–Tierney, J., http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/single-female-seeking-same-race-male/)

“…our main finding is that Asians generally receive lower ratings than men of other races. In fact, when we run the regressions separately for each race, we find that even Asian women find white, black, and Hispanic men to be more attractive than Asian men. Given that Asian men were the group that other races expressed strongest preference against, and that Asian women expressed the least preference against other races, the results in Table 6 suggest that attractiveness may play an important role in the determination of racial preferences, especially those against Asian men.”

(Fisman, R., Iyengar, S., et al., Columbia University, “Racial Preferences in Dating”, 2007)

If you’re an asian guy reading this, you probably didn’t need those studies to confirm what we’ve all thought pretty much our entire lives:

Dating is f*cking hard for Asian guys.

It’s true. But here’s the thing– crying about it helps NO ONE. That’s why I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking or talking about this issue. Do I have to approach things differently being Asian? Sure, but it’s really minor. 95% of “game” is the same no matter how old, tall, or what color you are.

Dating is really no different than any other skill. And it’s simply that. A skill.

Look at it this way: Many of us either came to America or had parents or grandparents that did. That means a whole lot of Asians are bilingual or don’t speak English as their mother tongue. Now go to any high school in America and look at the racial demographics of the Advanced Placement/Honors English course. Notice anything? Perhaps the disproportionately high percentage of Asian kids in that class, many of whom learned English as a second or third language?

Now imagine if those kids would be sitting in that class if their parents had let them give up on ever getting A’s in English because they didn’t grow up speaking it. Unlikely.

What I’m getting at is that the hardships you were born with or had growing up mean relatively little in terms of achieving success. Otherwise Asians wouldn’t be good at academics in a foreign country where they didn’t grow up speaking the language. That’s a BIG barrier to success but it’s hardly even noticeable among academic success with Asians and Asian Americans. Our culture hasn’t let that hold us back. If anything, the culture has stressed that you should do whatever it takes to overcome those obstacles. Now take this same attitude and apply it to dating (or any other skill), and what you’ll find is that a simple shift in emphasis and mindset makes a world of difference.

If you want to be successful at this or anything else in life, the key is to acknowledge your situation, then to systematically enhance and highlight your strengths while minimizing your weaknesses.

For most Asian guys who are interested in bettering their dating lives (whether interracially or not), you’ll likely have some similar sticking points due to cultural upbringing. Here are the common ones:

• Dominance. Going after what you want in life and expecting to get it. Asking for what you want.
• Leading & Taking Risks. Directly related to dominance.
• Playful. Teasing, fun, and having a good sense of humor.
• Kinesthetic: Being comfortable with physical contact and touching
• Emotionally Expressive. Being expressive facially and with body language and tonality
• Sexuality. Being comfortable expressing your sexuality

If there’s enough interest, I’ll address each of these points in-depth in a future article. Leave me a comment if you’re interested.

So let’s talk action. Take out a sheet of paper right now. Make two vertical columns, and label the left side “strengths” and the right side “weaknesses.” Now write down 10 of each.

Now turn the sheet over and for each strength, write 3 ways you can enhance or take advantage of them. For weaknesses, write 3 ACTIONABLE TASKS you can do to correct the weakness or minimize its effect.

When you’re done, you’ll have a list of 30 actionable things to do. This is your action to-do list. Every week, work on one or two of these items. Stay consistent with it. Hold yourself accountable.

At the end of every month, write down your progress with your task list.

12 months from now, look back on your original list and do the entire drill all over again. I’d be willing to bet that if you stayed with it, looking back on those 12 months will be an eye-opener. Without even realizing it, you’ll have achieved a lot more success than you ever thought possible.