There’s No Substitute for Experience

Experience is like currency or an investment that you can draw upon as you accumulate more of it. Recently I reflected on three areas of my life where experience over time was the defining feature of my achievements, namely: game, moving abroad and my PhD. There’s no substitute or shortcut to experience. You’ll always do better in any given endeavor over a long time horizon where you’ll accumulate knowledge and feedback that will help you grow.

Game

I first learned about game in late 2011, though I didn’t take any meaningful action on it until the summer of 2012. During that period (which included a 6-month stay in Poland) I dedicated a lot of time towards approaching women, specifically through daygame. In addition to approaching I tried to read as many articles and watch as many videos as I could on different aspects of game, improving my lifestyle and the dynamics of the Sexual Market Place (SMP).

Within a month of approaching I had met and began to date an attractive, blonde Polish girl that I saw regularly through the end of my stay. In the coming years I would continue to approach, meet and date numerous women, incorporating these experiences into my understanding of the opposite sex and learning about my desires.

Many game marketers try to appeal to men with the “one weird trick” gimmick that purports to attract women with little or no effort. Although I had some early success with meeting women, probably tied to my professional accomplishments and personality which combined to form an attractive and appealing character and disposition, its taken three years get to a base level of competence with meeting women regularly. Since 2012 I’ve probably approached about 1200 women in a variety of situations, but mostly through cold approaching on the street or some other public venue.

Moving Abroad

My decision to move to Poland was the culmination of nearly two years of thinking and planning. The seed that germinated the idea to move was planted decades earlier as I was raised by Polish parents and spent a year and half living in Poland as a child, followed by half a dozen short visits. The two years preceding my move to Poland included two trips for about a month each, and one long sabbatical for nearly half the year. Based on this experience I was able to closely analyze the logistics involved in living in Poland, what it would require financially, and what benefits and tradeoffs would be involved by moving away from California to Warsaw.

Many men wont have the luxury of having been exposed to another culture for a lifetime and being able to carefully assess whether they want to move to another country, but then again its not a decision that needs a ton of time. What is necessary though is a fair amount of experience living abroad, preferably in your destination of choice. Spending spring or summer in Europe is going to be a different experience that spending winter there, as will living in a big, capital city, versus a small town in the same country.

PhD

I’m in the process of writing a PhD in history at a well-regarded academic institution in Warsaw. It’ll cover both Polish and American history after World War I.

I’ve been formally enrolled as a doctoral candidate since September 2013, but the idea for my topic materialized in 2011. Since moving to Poland I’ve written about fifty pages of my dissertation (out of a prospective 300 page finished product) and collected thousands of supporting documents.

Reading a historical document, book or viewing a photograph, out of a plethora of possible sources, once, isn’t enough. It takes time to compare materials, incorporate what you know with new information that you discover and finally try to piece it into a cohesive whole in written form into something that is both original and stimulating for readers.

Gain Experience

The moral of the story is to gain as much experience as possible in the areas of life that interest you. This is distinct from collecting information which can lead to “paralysis by analysis” where we hesitate to make decisions until we’ve exhausted every opinion and bit of knowledge we can get our hands on. Experience means doing, whether its approaching women cold (in-person, not online) or traveling to a new country (not for a week but for a month or more). Experience gives us knowledge about the world and what in it we like or dislike. Although we often want instant gratification, the things we do get quickly aren’t as satisfying as the things we work for over time. Its comforting to know that if you put your mind to something, work at it, make mistakes, reflect and continue, our experience will lead us to success.