---
title: Episode 116 Minimalism
episode_number: 116
era: mid
source_file: Episode 116 Minimalism.mp3
audio_size_mb: 54.7
duration_sec: 1792.9
duration_min: 29.9
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.994
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T16:55:06Z---

# Episode 116 Minimalism

**Speaker 0:** Good morning, afternoon, evening, whenever you are listening to this, wherever you are listening to this, it's the Tom Torero podcast episode one one six on minimalism, a podcast that I have wanted to make since my channel began, since I started these podcasts. Anyway, we'll come on to that in a minute. I've just returned from the South Of France. It was magnific. It was delicious. It was blissful. Just like you imagine it. Kind of like movie magic. It really was relaxing in the the truest sense of joie de vivre. And maybe you've seen that video I've just put out on YouTube showing you bits and pieces from my trip down there. It was amazing. Perhaps you are also following my tomtorero.com website daily in August. It's the dirty 30. It's filthy. It's flirty. It's the daily dose of filth. So extracts from my new book, below the belt, lots of lay reports and filthy stories from the last few years Every day in August, I'm not really announcing it anywhere else. They are not on YouTube. It's just articles. It's just reports. They are on my website, tomtorero.com. Alright. Lots to talk about today. The theme is minimalism. Yet it's about your life. Yet it's about a state of mind. And for the final bit of the podcast, yes, we shall keep it about day game and street hustling and attraction and seduction, dating, all of that good stuff. Why minimalism is important, stripping it all down. Why really it's the icing on the cake after you let go of the London daygame model. But let's kick off as ever with a quote from a great minimalist, Henry David Thorero on Less Is More. And he says, I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life. Living is so dear. Nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan like as to put to route all that was not life, to cut abroad, swathe, and shave close, to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms. And who'd have thought mister Torero talking about living deep and sucking out all the marrow of life. Perhaps he was good with the ladies, not just good in cabins. But that sums up the philosophy of this channel, grabbing life by the horns. Watch, as I said, that latest video. Living intently. Yep. Because this is not about, deprivation. This is about intention. We shall come on to the difference in a second. And if you've been following the channel from the very beginning or me even before that, you will recognize these themes of being a flow mad fitting your life into one bag maybe you remember that video from three four years ago where I open up the contents of my swag bag my travel shoulder bag which I've gone around the world with many times maybe you've seen flow mad part one and flow mad part two they are on these themes they are free now on YouTube watch part two the end of part two is when again I open up the travel bag and then I grab the go pro and I take you, the viewer, with me to Prague and I talk about where to stay, Airbnb, how to hustle, how to number farm, the daygame areas, all that good stuff. And if you've seen the last episode of the World Tour series which was called Hustle on Munich, at the end of that I've got something slightly bigger. That's what she said. It's a silver pilot's case which I travel around the world with this time to make that documentary. Needed a bit more room because I had camera gear, I had tripods and inside that was the swag bag anyway. But if you're interested in the contents of the bag that I travel with, basically my life's possessions, please don't email me. It's one of the most common questions I get. Half of my emails are about daygame and street hustling and the other half are about minimalism essentially, or working around the world. So that question has been answered in video form. Just watch it. But the theme is always being the vagabond, life on the edge, life on your own terms, holding the frame. Yeah. Black sheep, being a gypsy. And starting with possessions. Right? Because people think, well, this is, this is just the domain of the rich, the domain of the middle class, the upper middle class. You can only practice minimalism, when you've got loads of stuff. I get the irony. Okay? But, sure, poor people need things. Humans need things. Money is important. But I've said many times when you reach around 50,000 British pounds a year, you're making that, yourself, not working for for a boss, working for somebody else, but you make about £50,000 a year or let's say in US dollars, $65,000 roughly today. If you're making that a year for yourself, your needs are met. Okay? And studies show that earning more than that doesn't really change your lifestyle. I've got up to around £50,000 a year through my daygame stuff, through my Skype, through my live teaching, through my books, through my video products. I also own a property now which I shall talk about another time a small property which I rent out on airbnb so that earns me money all these things total around 50,000 a year and that's more than enough to fund my, lifestyle, fund my activities. I shall make a separate video on explaining exactly where that income comes from and how it all works out and how it can be passive and how you maintain it and the tax and etcetera etcetera etcetera. But if you watch my videos and you think, fuck, how much does that cost? You know, where's he getting that money from? Well, that's roughly what it cost. I used to do it on much less. I used to do it on around 30,000 British pounds, a kind of a British teacher's salary. And in the years after I quit my job, that's kind of what I was making and I was living just fine. Only recently, only this year, I've tried things like better hotels because of points and card systems or business class flights with air miles and first class lounges because of access cards and all that. It really hasn't made a difference. Sure, it's a novelty, sure it's fun, but you quickly desensitize to it. So we're talking about basic needs met. Yeah? And the old saying is you pack what you fear. So you see I know it's different for girls. Girls need to look hot, so they take loads of clothes and shoes and makeup. Fine. But for guys, they pack what they fear. So one guy might pack loads of things to do with his health because he's really, really worried about that. Another guy might pack loads of things to distract him, like books and video games because that's what he fears. Another guy might pack loads of warm clothes because he's worried about getting trapped out in the cold. You pack what you fear. And when you strip it down and you look inside the, the contents of my travel bag, you see basic clothes, which I've said, for a guy, keep very basic. You can always buy them on the road in somewhere like H and M and discard. You wash them yourself, shock horror in the bath or the shower, drip dry. You've got your office, which is your laptop, and for me, my cameras. You've got your toiletries, which again, just buy on the road. You've got your passport, which is, the bible and, credit cards. And you've got your phone, right, with, with your books on the phone, with your music on the phone. Yeah. Your movies are streamed on your laptop. So everything is kept very minimal. As I said, it's about intention, not deprivation. So you're not trying to deprive yourself of something. You're just trying to focus on other things. We shall come on to why you should be a minimalist, the minimalist philosophy in a second. But just when I step back and I consider, okay, if it's not business class stuff, swankier hotels, first class lounges, what are the things I really get a kick out of? What are the things I really love in life? As, Faroosh said, what are the things if you back life into a corner, reduce it to its lowest terms, if you shave close, what are the things that you really value? And for me, hot girls. Hot girls are free. Okay? You're not a provider. You're not buying hookers. Hot girls are free because of your day game skills. Time with hot girls, you're not going on long provider dinner cinema dates. It's just a coffee. It's just a couple of beers in a cheap pub. And after the sex, there is no more dating. It's totally free. The sex is free. Time with hot girls. Hot girls are amazing. You gotta love women in that sense. Not in an idealistic worshiping sense, but in that sense of they bring so much to your life. Not just the sex, but that beautiful female energy. So that's free. Time with people, friends and family, open relationships, that's all free. Okay? The minute money's involved, it's weird. Okay? Never do business with your friends. Forests, trees, they bring a lot to my life. Lakes, swimming in lakes, swimming in the sea, waves, beaches, snow, that's all free. Skiing might not be free, but standing in the mountains, climbing mountains, looking at snow, being in snow, being in the winter, that's free. Fires, wood fires, log fires, combine it with time with people, with hot girls. It's all free. Looking up at the stars, that is free. Dogs might not be free unless you nick one off the street, but you know what I mean. These are the things I value the most and I used to have a lot more. Everyone starts out with more. I've never been a big hoarder luckily but I did have a lot more after university and then when I was a school teacher. Luckily, I was always moving around, rented accommodation, just rooms and shared houses, so I couldn't have that much. But you just collect stuff. You collect clutter. You collect clothes. You in those days, you collected, music as in CDs and DVDs and physical books. So you have lot of stuff. And the last time I had that amount of stuff was, in the house of horrors, as I call it, in those articles on my website, in Marble Arch in Central London and I was living in a cupboard as I talk about in that report. Basically a cupboard with a window onto the roof right in the attic on the Top Floor but that had side cupboards or I used to use other cupboards around the house and I filled it with my stuff from when I was a school teacher. And I was going on more and more travelling, adventures and I went on a long travelling adventure for a few months. I came back to the house and I realised the housemates had had a big clean up. They had thought I had moved out actually was their explanation. And they'd thrown everything of mine away. All my books, all my music, most of my clothes. I was fucking fuming for a few days. Actually, few weeks. I made them try and go and get the stuff back. They said they'd given it charity shops. Some of the stuff had sentimental value, you know, nostalgia is dangerous, but we're all sentimental for the past. The only dead thing that smells sweet as they say. And there was my grandfather's dinner jacket, which had been given to my father and then given to me. Things like that. Yeah. Little oh, I had a a piece of a Banksy mural that I had taken off a wall before a deconstruction in London. Bit of a a Banksy rat, if you I'm talking about. I had that safe and that that had been thrown out into a skip. Probably worth tens of thousands, millions in the future. But there you go. And you're angry and then you then you realize that I hadn't looked at most of that stuff anyway. I didn't wear that stuff. You don't miss that stuff. So since then, when I've just been on the road since about 2014, yeah, the contents of the bag, that's really my life. I've got bits and pieces at my mom's house but, again, that's ready to go to a charity shop cause I never look in those boxes, I never read those books anymore, they're all online. Most of my life is online. Try not to be sentimental, try not to keep things. And yeah, I could quite happily at the drop of a hat tomorrow if you said Tom you need to go back to Hong Kong, just pick up the bag as long as your passport is good to go, your credit cards are good to go, you are good to go. And I've always been obsessed about this minimal living. Right? If you trace my life back to teenage years, even childhood, I was obsessed about vans and tree houses and sheds and cabins. I remember when I was working in a hostel. I went to another hostel in Snowdonia, beautiful part of Great Britain in Wales. And I was in the hostel there in Bangor, and I picked up a book called I've got it in front of me here still. See, I've kept that sentimental. Cabin fever, sheds, shelters, huts, and hideaways. Yeah. I guess I nicked this from the hostel. But there you go. I should I should just give it away because I've read it so many times. Cabin Fever, Sheds, Shelters, Huts and Hideaways. And it's it's a book about precisely this. Minimal living, living in small spaces. And it's a kind of a photographic journey of these kind of things. I was obsessed with writing huts of writers like Roald Dahl or Dylan Thomas or Thorero, as we've just heard from his Walden. Guys that went into huts to write for solitude, for silence. Maybe they were at the edge of their garden. Dylan Thomas' is in a beautiful location. It's been reconstructed in Larne in West Wales, looking out onto the estuary. But just these mini places like a Russian dacha, they call it in Russia, a summer house or a Swedish cabin. When I did that husky thing, we stayed in little wooden cabins in the Arctic Circle. There's a video on YouTube of that. I love them. Yeah. Little fires. It's very cozy. It's very warm. I talk about Mount Athos in, my book. Which one is it? In cold calling, I think, or Torero travels. There's more about it in cold calling. When I many, many years ago ended a relationship, I went to this monastic peninsula in Greece called Mount Athos. And I walked around. I'm not, religious, but I enjoyed that solitude. I enjoyed that silence. And I found hermits living in tiny caves and little wooden structures high in the mountains. And I was fascinated by that. Or fascinated by mountaineering cabins in the Alps or in the Himalayas. Very snug in your sleeping bag with your with your little paraffin stove, looking at the stars. Magical. And, obviously then RVs. We've just interviewed a guy who's living in a van, van life, stealth stealth vanning. Is that what it's called? We interviewed this guy in New York City. He's gonna be on the documentary. He's a daygamer. He gave up his life, I think, in Chicago, moved to New York, and he lives in a van. And I've always thought that is fucking cool. This was way before, like, the tiny house movement, which I agree is a little bit bohemian. It's a little bit rich kids playing poor. But I get the ethos. I get the idea. Even your grandma's mobile home. I get that idea. Well, they're not buying it. They're not buying the mobile home. They're buying freedom. This dream of freedom. And I think when I was about nine or 10, I watched on television, this was before the internet, a documentary. It was an early kind of vlog thing. This guy had a really old video camera and he filming himself. It was a guy who had moved from the South Of England all the way up to Inverness in Scotland to search for the Loch Ness monster. It's a guy called Steve. I subsequently met him on many occasions. I think his van, his mobile library converted thing is still somewhere parked. Not mobile, but parked on the shores of Loch Ness. And he kitted out this ex mobile library and he put in a a stove and a bed and he lived simply by the loch looking for monster. But really, it wasn't anything to do with the monster. It was to do with his freedom. You might say escapism in the beginning, but, it became a lifestyle. This was, I don't know, thirty years ago almost. If you're listening, Steve, God bless you because you really started off this chain reaction in me. And, yeah, a few years after that, I went up to Loch Ness. I met him on a subsequent trip with a girl, with a beautiful Czech girl. I went just to see if he was there and sure enough, the mobile home was still parked up what's it called? Doors. Doors Beach at the North end of the loch. But yes, you can see why I'm fascinated by this. I've spoken before about the book. I've got it here, Jupiter's Travels. Ted Simon, the guy that spent four years riding around the world on a an old Triumph motorbike. One of the original kind of around the world motorbike guys obsessed with stuff like that, just living out of his, panniers and obviously going to Japan. That was kind of the ultimate thing for me based on, the Mecca of minimalism. Yeah. Simplicity, clarity. So many things, I love about Japan. Not manga, not anime, not really the girls, sadly, but the mountains and the food and and the minimalistic ethos. Okay? And this is not to do with spirituality, it's to do with human happiness. And so therefore we ask, why minimalism? Yeah? People are doing it. It's a craze. I know it's a bit of a posh craze now. But why, why do minimalism in this in this more kind of masculine sense, in this flow mad sense? Why do we do it? Well, you get out of debt because it's just cheaper. Yep. So definitely I've spoken about before. Get out of debt. That's the first step to freedom. Importantly, it removes stress. So all those things you have and you don't use and you have to think about and you have to clean, they cause stress. Clutter causes stress, such as cleaning your environment. Obvious human psychology makes you feel better. And the money you save, you spend it on experiences rather than things. If you watch my YouTube channel, I spend my money on experiences, not things, which is all to do with this love of life, grabbing life by the horns, licking the lid of life, joy de vivre, experience life, sucking the marrow out of it. Beautiful. It makes travel easy. Okay. This is a big thing. I don't have to wait for my baggage because I don't have any on the luggage carousel. It can't get lost. Things can't really get broken or stolen that easily because I'm carrying everything. It's carry on. The reason I don't have a solid suitcase is because I can scrunch that bag, into an overhead bin or under the seat so I can have it on my lap. So yeah, that swag bag is much easier than the pilot's case. But the ease of travel. So I can go anywhere within an hour right now. Yeah? It gives me purpose. It gives me focus. It gives me that Japanese clarity. So people say, what's the point of your life? Cheesy as it sounds, journey not destination, there is no point. The point is this clarity, being in the moment. Again, it sounds all hippie ish, you know, paying attention, power of now. But it's true. If you've been to Japan or if you've lived simply or if you've ridden a motorbike or if you own an RV or if you surf, you understand what I mean. I don't have to explain it yet. You're paying attention. You're not in your head. You're in your body. Importantly, for a daygamer, for a guy, it gives you, a self assuredness. Yeah? You're self reliant. And with that, you have confidence. All that stuff brings confidence that, I don't need anything except the shirt on my back and my balls to do daygame or this bag to travel. I can go. Don't need anybody else's help. Don't need a wing. Don't even need a travel buddy. I've put myself in difficult situations, once. Therefore, I can do it again. And all that stuff, it's cheesy, makes you stronger. But embracing that risk, embracing embracing uncertainty because you you don't have a a boss, you don't have a mortgage, you don't have a nine to five, you don't have a schedule. You say, I can be my own drill sergeant. Okay? I can take control. This is at the heart of being a black sheep. This is why I'm obsessed about it. And, of course, it has obvious links to daygame. Minimalistic daygame. Yes. Stripping daygame down, stripping pickup down to strip her down. Yeah. It's the Occam's Razor thing. You might know that if there are two explanations to something. Occam's Razor says that the simpler one is usually the better. Now that doesn't always ring true. It's a philosophical thing but you get what I mean. In pickup, especially now, there's loads of blogs, there's loads of people writing mental masturbation. There's loads of armchair pickup artist. Guys that just write articles. They never go out. You never see them in field. You never see see them practicing what they're preaching. So we need to declutter. You need to declutter pickup. The London daygame model tries to do that. But even that, guys go, it's too complicated. What is stacking? What is vibing? There's too many things to think about. Guys buy street hustle. There's the plug. And they say it's just too much to think about. So I made the beginner daygame video. They watch that. I give it to every student of mine. I say, did you watch it? He says, yeah. But it was too complicated. So we have to declutter game. What is the essence of game? I've said many times, it's just calibrated intent. Or as Tyler from RSD would say, it's intent plus freedom from outcome. That is it. It is calibrating natural intent. We don't use the word natural, natural game, being yourself because, of course, to get that intent across rather than adding stuff on, see game, as I say in street hustle, as removing. Like, you give the sculpture a big block of granite, he chips away, and inside is a is a beautiful statue. Yeah? So it's inside you. It's gonna be deep inside her. You have to bring it out. Yeah? G y d o, get your dick out. That takes a lot of, calibration through infield practice. It's not easy. And once you have that pull pull pull animalistic intent, go go go go, you have to back off, which is what I'm trying to do. You need that freedom from outcome, that joie de viva, that letting go. And it's the sweet spot. It's the balance of the badass Buddha. That is optimal game. Yeah? And the London daygame model is only a model. I keep saying that. Guys complain that, people are becoming robots. I say it's just a model. It's just for beginners and pre intermediates to get you over the bad habits of the nice guy. Yeah? Once you are upper intermediate, intermediate, you are getting laid once a month. You can get phone numbers. Then drop the fucking model. Okay? Stop watching this channel. Maybe don't. Stop listening to these podcasts because they're not all related to technical game, but you know what I mean. Stop watching other people's infields. I stopped watching, pickup artist channels years ago. I keep telling you log off forums. Stop reading the mental masturbation, come up with your own vibe, your own style. Switch from verbal game to nonverbal game. The secret society is implied. Stop the flash game, Go on autopilot. Go on gut reactions. Yep. Stop being social, as I spoke about in yesterday's blog article. Switch to sexual. Yep. This is the evolution of daygame. Going from social to sexual attraction material should become arousal stuff. Yeah? Routines become riffing. The joy of improvisation. I've made a whole video on daygame improvisation. Here I am telling you to read articles and watch videos. But you understand the point. I'm hammering at home that the London daygame model is surprise surprise, a model. It stabilizes. It's scaffolding. In, daygame three point zero, my lecture series, I explain why you need to remove the scaffolding once a building has been renovated. Yeah? So guys are still following long date models. Some guys are still going on three dates, four dates. They're doing really complex venues and adventure bubbles. The whole scheme is very complicated. They're using complicated lines to get her back home. They're saying, should I say this? Do you think she she'll come back if I say this? Do you think I should use hey or hi or excuse me or sorry or should I use the word nice or beautiful. What they haven't realized is it's just an example. It's just a template. And then from structure comes freedom. So you drop it. You go from four dates to three dates to two dates to one date. You try that one venue, one drink, bounce home. Then you try the just on the street gutter game, bounce her home. You might start off with let's go back and, watch Netflix. Then you might strip that down to let's just go back and have a glass of wine. Then you might strip that down to let's go. Then you might strip that down to saying nothing and just walking her home. But how does she know? How does she know? Those kind of questions reveal that the guy is right at the beginning. He's stuck in his head. He's stuck in theory. He's stuck in keyboard, armchair pickup artistry. Because when you're in field, you realize it is really not what you say. Now that is completely unhelpful advice for the beginner. This is why I hate be yourself natural game freestyle thing. Because if you tell a newbie surfer to just go in the big waves bro off Hawaii and just freestyle, do your best, be natural, go with the flow, he's gonna fuck up. He's gonna fuck himself up in big wave surfing. Yeah? So you need basic surf lessons. This is the board. This is how you stand. This is how you ride a a small wave, a medium wave. This is how you turn, etcetera, etcetera. And then you can freestyle. Out of structure comes freedom, and you strip it back. And the aim of the game, which is what I'm trying to do now with my game, is to just keep shedding layers, keep chipping away at all that external stuff until you really reach the zen point of not hiding your dick. And therefore, we come full circle from daygame to Thorero. When Thorero said, live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. Well, Torero says, don't hide your dick. And you can take that in a daygame sense as in being direct, going for what you want, avoiding the friend zone. You can take that in a life sense, okay, of holding the frame, being your own boss, traveling, life on your terms, okay, being the vagabond. And you can, take it all the way to through level of a kind of a philosophy, almost a religion, where where you strip everything back and replace outer game within a game. And, you get this beautiful upward spiral. Then when you sort out the inner game in terms of your minimalism, the outer game stuff sorts itself out anyway. But as I said, don't take this as philosophy or religious advice because it's pretty useless on that level. It has to be practical as in everything on my channel. First, it has to be practical. So, learn the London daygame model and then strip it back. Okay? Start by selling some of your stuff, putting it on eBay, giving it away, see how you get on and then strip it down okay start by taking off some of your clothes and then strip it down start by traveling to local destinations if you've never traveled before just go to a different city in your country okay or take a short flight if you're in Europe or take a short flight in The United States if you're American. Try a little daygame trip. Then, try taking less. Then lighten in the bag. Try going with a wing first of all and then try going on your own. Try going for a week first. See if you like it, then try going for a month. Try to do, a little adventure trip. Yeah. Maybe to, I don't know, Morocco, and then go hardcore and go to Himalayas or India. Don't just travel around the world and drop everything and sell everything and go nuts. Little baby steps. And year upon year, you realize what you need, what you don't need, what makes you happy, what kind of girls you like, what kind of daygame style works for you. Don't be a clone. A, don't copy this material. It pisses me off. That's, for some writers out there. But b, don't copy my style. Don't copy my lines. They're just examples. And I appreciate if you watch my videos in stealth seduction, but you are you. Okay? This is my daygame style. This is my, fat weird fashion style. This is how I stand. This is how I talk. These are my jokes. But you have your own thing. So strip it back to find you. And in, stripping it back to find you, you will strip her down. And as, Thorero said, I hope you live deep and you suck out the marrow of life or or she certainly sucks out something else. But there we go. That was podcast a 116 on minimalism. Next week, I don't know where I'm gonna be. Depends on the weather. Depends on things here with my family. I haven't made plans yet, but that fits in with today's topic. Keep reading those daily posts. It's the dirty 30 series on my website. If you want to know more about my complete toolkit for the London daygame model in dating and relationships, it's my textbook street hustle. That's on my website. And if you wanna see me in action, seventeen hours infield, that's my infield video product stealth seduction, which is also on my website with reviews. Until next week. Ta da.