---
title: Episode 118 In Praise Of Failure
episode_number: 118
era: mid
source_file: Episode 118 In Praise Of Failure.mp3
audio_size_mb: 57.1
duration_sec: 1872.3
duration_min: 31.2
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.996
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T16:56:15Z---

# Episode 118 In Praise Of Failure

**Speaker 0:** These are the sounds of days that are past. We record a new dimension of history, a scrapbook of sounds from thirteen years of violence and achievement, part of the greatest mass adventure man had yet undertaken. A voice can cut through the hazy fog of time and bring yesterday's images sharply into focus. Do you recognize this voice?

**Speaker 1:** Tom Torero podcast a 118 in praise of failure. Your favorite daygame uncle coming at you live, live, you filthy pirates from South America. You can narrow it down yourself somewhere near the Amazon. I'm here sorting out the apartment that I bought. It's already being rented, but I'm just going through a few things. The same guy that helps me with that helps me with my finances and my tax. And he's the voice of reason, so I'm here to see him. I am here to close some loops, hopefully. So forgive the slight delay in getting this podcast out. I was somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean when I was meant to be putting out this podcast. But anyway, what else have I do have I been doing? I've been back in Wales for the drizzly British summer. I was there just for a few days working towards my full motorbike license. So getting back into that. And it was remarkably similar to day game training, learning the mechanics of day game, using training wheels, not stabilizers, but, you know, cones in a car park and going through some basic theory. And then your field of view on the bike getting wider and wider and wider as you take the bike out you're with an instructor and you do harder things and it's muscle memory, time on the road, awareness, using more of your gut instinct. It's all about calibration. Time on the road, time in field. So, yeah, you can sit there and talk about roundabouts and junctions and emergency stops, but until you actually fucking do it, you yawn and it makes little sense when the instructor is rabbiting on. So that's why any good daygame coaching, daygame boot camp, it should be in field. Sure. There's the scaffolding, there's the London day game model, there's the basics, there's demos, but it's time in field feedback, etcetera etcetera. And then you're putting that into practice first with a wing and then on your own. What else have I been doing on top of that? I have been continuing with my August segments on my website tomtorero.com for my new book, the scaffolding for my new book if you like, below the belt. I think we have eight days left, seven days left. So there will be 30 sections in total for you to have a look at. Remember, they're not the final product. They're not the final thing. They're just my sketches. And then I'll reorder, then I'll edit, then I'll elaborate. I'll expand on it or what. It's to do with all the filthy stuff that goes on in the secret society, lover sex, faster daygame, you know, from daygame two point zero to daygame three point zero, filthy tales from me, debaucherous stories both for myself, wings and maybe I'll get other daygamers in the last part of the book to tell brief little dirty stories themselves. But more about that in the future. And the last plug, guess, support what I do if you can even just by watching a YouTube video or downloading the podcast or leaving a review on Lulu or iTunes or buying a book or buying my video video product if you want to see me doing it in field. There you go. Enough of the plugs. We shall continue the podcast series talking about failure and if you've been a madman and you've been listening to over a 100 of my podcasts from the beginning, you might remember podcast number three which was on failure stories because obviously there's no more no's than yes's. Podcast 72 was on failure stories part two. So I try to keep it balanced. I know the inherent nature of late reports is that they are lays. They are wins. Okay? Infield videos are often wins. A product of me banging gills around the world is banging. But you know if you do daygame or you've had some daygame training or you've read up on daygamers traveling around the world, there's more no's than yes's. It's not a numbers game, you're not just finding yes skills, there's that core skill set and then it's about putting in the time, being aware of the ratios and the percentages, keeping on track, getting feedback and that's what we'll talk about today. Why that failure, that inbuilt failure is so important. Right? Obviously, me being a bodybuilder, knowing all about training to failure. We shall talk about failure in other aspects of mastery. How you can can fail better, why you should fail more. And I'm not talking about just blanket failure, just failing in life, just being a complete loser. But using that failure, using it as fuel, using it as feedback, girl is your mirror, stuff that we'll clarify today. Yeah? Okay. Simple questions which I might have asked you before on the podcast, I can't remember. I asked you in Street Hustle. Be honest with yourself. How many times have you been rejected through cold approach daygame pickup in the last week? How many girls have turned you down? Okay. Keep that figure in your head and that tells you and that tells me if you're a keyboard seducer or if you're the real deal. Alright? Because the failures would outnumber the successful number closes. Yep. Remember that saying, the master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried. So think about how many girls have ghosted you this week, how many girls have flaked on you this week, how many dates have you got on this week, how many times were you blue balled this week. Right? Failure is par for the cause. Failure is what's the saying? Grist for the mill. I grist for the mill, you would say in evolution. Yep. It's those failures in the DNA. It's the genetic mutations that are vital for adaptive selection. They are the fuel free. Yep. Thomas Thomas Edison famously said, I failed my way to success. So you get the no, you get the no, you get the no, get the no, then you get the yes. Now, once again, we're not talking about spam approaching which is just having no skill, having no idea what you're doing, taking no feedback, and just hoping for the best. This is what the natural game be yourself guys are doing, Opening thousands of girls terrible percentages and ratios and eventually, sure. If you open enough, you'll just find one girl who's down. No. We're not playing fools, mate. We want that core skill set. Yeah? But after you get that, as I've said already, the more you open, I know the more I go out, the more I open with my core skill set which is now stabilized hopefully, I'll find the maybes, the strong maybes and God will give me for my efforts a few cheeky yes skills. I love the saying and I can't remember who said it but I've re quoted it many times. I love the saying, rejection can be delayed or you could think failure can be delayed but never denied. So in daygame, obviously, your body is doing everything possible not to feel that sting of rejection and this is why guys have approach anxiety. That's the biggest thing. You teach a student on a boot camp, on a one on one, getting over the approach anxiety because it's feedback, it's a blow to the ego. It's not nice when you're not calibrated to it, when you're not used to it. Guys delay another form of rejection, I call it delayed approach anxiety, which is going for the number, asking her for the number. Many students have a good set and then they just pull the ripcord and they run away and I say, What the fuck happened, man? And he says, Oh, she looked at me weird or she said she had to go or she had a boyfriend or a pigeon came near me or security was watching, something like that. He's had a good set but he doesn't want to rumble it. He doesn't want to face the mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall. He doesn't want that sting because she might say no. So that's largely the boot camp issues with we're dealing with getting the student to approach, obviously doing some some flirtation which is the attraction stuff, getting to the hook, getting him to stay in there with a bit of grounding and then fucking getting him to close. We say open strong, close strong and I wave my phone behind the student. After the break, halfway through the training, I make the student go back into the set if he keeps ejecting and that's even more embarrassing because she's met up with her mom or she's with her group of friends or she's gone into a shop and you have to go back and you have to ask for the number. Where else do guys delay rejection? Well, in economics, you call it the sunk cost fallacy, which is continuing down avenues which are dead ends. But you do it because you're so invested. Right? In economics, say sunk costs are sunk. Just forget about them, move on, but you can't. The human being, once they're invested in something, they keep on going, basically to save brain capacity. That's by the way why we do qualification on girls. We get girls to invest in us. Because when they do many small things for us or jump through many of our compliance hoops, they feel invested. So they carry on with us. They come out on a second, third date. They come back to us. They continue the relationship, whatever. That's why qualification is so powerful. But the flip side of that for the guy is that the guy is qualifying to the girl, he's going down dead ends, he's struggling with dead leads, he's maybe stuck in a dead end relationship. Yep. Often a Skype session, when I do a Skype session, it will be a guy who's either stuck in a dead end relationship or he's chasing dead leads. He's basically breaking my rule of Skype which is let's not talk about individual girls and he's saying, okay, I met this girl, the interaction was amazing, she was so into it, she texted two times and then she just stopped texting. What the fuck happened? How can I get her back? Or in a relationship situation, his girlfriend, his wife has cheated on him. They've always argued. He's lost the frame and he says, how do I get her back? Sunk cost fallacy. Okay? And he's delaying the sting of cutting that thread. He's delaying the feeling of saying, fuck it. I've gone too far down this road. I'm gonna turn back, get out of the forest and try a new route. It takes a lot of effort if you're a walker, if you're a mountaineer to admit, I fucked up. I've lost my way. Fuck. I have to go back to the starting point and then try again. Yep. In game, I preach all the time. Get to the rejection as quickly as possible. So we are, yes, filtering those roads to nowhere. We're filtering the time wasters, the friendly girls, the girls that are never gonna put out, the girls that are just seeking attention, seeking validation. Now, that doesn't mean we're just immediately rejecting any girl that gives us a bit of a blowback, any girl that gives us a shit test. It doesn't mean that we are filtering so hard that it's just pull pull pull. Are you into me? No. Fuck you. Are you into me? No. Fuck you. That's pretty spammy. You see that a lot in clubs and in night game, a guy will just, yo, what's up? Oh, fuck you, bitch. Yo, what's up? Oh, fuck you, bitch. Yo, what's up? He's filtering for pure down yes skills. Could you say that's game? Well, at least he's out, at least he's in field, and at least he's getting laid sometimes, but not with the girls he really wants, not with those maybe girls. So I wouldn't call that game, but fair play if that's what you wanna do, nacky yourself out with spam approaching. But still, still with the skill, you wanna get to rejection as quickly as possible. Remember, your mom used to say just rip off the plaster as quickly as you can or I can't remember in which movie. They just say shoot the fucking puppy. Not literally shooting a dog, but shoot the puppy. Get it out of the way. It's not nice. No form of blow to the ego is nice. That's just human nature. It's like a bucket of cold water. It's a metaphorical slap in the face. Funny quick story actually, not to scare newbies, but we were doing a boot camp in Sydney recently on the world tour. All the students were were doing fine. I took two down to Sydney Harbour. And by the Opera House, a very enthusiastic, good, young daygamer opened a hot young girl and 18. And her friends came over, a guy and a girl, and he dealt with it very well. He disarmed the guy, he flirted with the other girl and he tried to get the number from the original girl. She wasn't having it and anyway, they walked off. And then he came back to me, we were chatting about the set and a few seconds later, I can't remember if it was that girl or another girl, a different friend of the the girl he was trying to pick up. She ran towards him, she got right in his face. At first it looked like a kiss goes. It was really weird. We were thinking, what the fuck is this? Then out of nowhere she just slapped him in the face. She wasn't having any of it. Classical cock block, you know. Don't you dare pick up my friend without picking up me. That's what girls do. There's evolutionary reasons behind it but I've never seen a slap in the face in the daytime. Many times you see it in night game, but very rarely do you see that in daygame. So don't be scared. It was just random. Maybe she was a bit pissed. But anyway, rejection, yes, feels like a metaphorical slap in the face. But if you're in daygame, if you're in cold approach pickup, toughen the fuck up. Yep. Fuck it. You gotta face it. And that's overcoming AA. That's closing strong. That's filtering roads to nowhere over text. That's cutting girls that are wasting your time after two or three dates. Yep. That's having boundaries. Yeah. And if you're in sales, you understand leads, you understand yes, no, maybe, you understand funnels, you understand conversion rates. I always remember a Lithuanian girl I used to date in London. I think I tell this story in my first book, daygame. She was a charity sign up girl when I met her. She was one of my first ever direct cold approaches in Hammersmith, think. And long story short, after we fucked, we became friends basically because she was a nympho too. She liked fucking half of London. And it's okay to have female friends that you have fucked, my friends, because you're not in the friend zone. And that was cool. We fucked a few times and then went our separate ways. But anyway, she was a charity sign up person getting Londoners, grumpy, stressed, tired Londoners to sign up to give her their credit card details for some charity. And she would approach hundreds of grumpy people outside tube stops, metro stops every day. And I said, what's a good day? And she said, one. One sign up. Less than one, you get fired. Her best day was something like three or four and she's a hot Lithuanian girl. Okay? So they know about volume and funnels and how many convert etcetera etcetera. Doesn't mean it's a numbers game once again because she had skill. Most people that try the charity thing first day they would fail, they would get zero. Yep. So skill set first then numbers. And facing failure, adapting from it and then pushing forwards, that is exactly how kids learn. And kids have no problem with failure. That's built in to baby, toddler, small child, child, teenager, etc. Yeah. Sure. When you hit twelve thirteen, you're aware of yourself, your ego kicks in, you're aware of your peers and your status in the social hierarchy, that's when you start fearing failure and you stop thinking you can sing, you stop thinking you can dance, you stop thinking you're athletic, you stop thinking you're social and that gets set in stone and obviously that's harder to change but it can be changed. Many of my students are in their thirties, forties, even fifties. So you can do it. Okay. Desensitization to this sting. Alright. It's also how animals learn. The classic Pavlovian thing or rats in a maze conditioning. That's exactly how animals learn. Right. Why do we need rejection? I've already touched upon some of these, but let's clarify them in terms of game. First of all, I'd say, get over the rejection thing, dive in, go for the number, go for the escalation because it removes regret. Think of all those guys out there right now who are letting hot girls walk past them. They don't open. They feel like shit. They are friends with a girl but they can't escalate it. They can't take her out or make out or pull her home. Regret. Right? Or girl even worse on your bed and you don't do anything. Massive regret. And in the back of a London newspaper called The Metro, there's always these seeking advertisements where really chowdy guys, really weak guys say, is it you? I saw you on the bus station platform yesterday. You were wearing a yellow dress with red hair. You were so cute. Can I take you for a drink? He's praying that she'll see it. I mean, a, the frame is fucked and what a way what a way to hide your dick and then to kind of have to admit to all of London that you're a failure with with this fear of rejection. I mean, you're petrified of rejection and the only way you could do it is by writing into a newspaper. Doesn't set a good precedent for the day anyway. But there you go. Removes regret. It toughens you Toughens you up because you face your fucking fears. Okay? So, yeah, if you're gonna take on any new hobby like the motorbike thing, you know, you're just gonna have to accept. You're gonna fuck up. You're gonna fail some of those many tests. You might even fail some modules. You're gonna be shit in the beginning, but that's inherent in learning any new skill, right? That builds character, that builds grit. That's why daygam is a catalyst especially for the younger guys into toughening up in other areas, right? So get that sting out of the way. Right? Approach her. Ask her for the number. Ask her on a date. Verbally escalate. Physically escalate. Bounce back to yours and then pull the fucking trigger. And most importantly, would say as a teacher, and I've always been fascinated about this and I've always preached about this through my daygame, rejection teaches you a lot. Right? I know it's a cliche feedback not failure but it's true. I am proud of saying many times, the girl is your mirror. So I say to students, take feedback from the girl or multiple girls because sure there's a one off disaster like the girl slapping that student in the face. That's not enough data. But if was that to happen 10 times in a row, he's doing something fucking wrong. If 10 girls blow you out, not blow you off, 10 girls blow blow you out immediately without you even open opening your mouth, something's wrong. Is it your health? Is it your grooming? Is it your nasal hairs? The stray weird hairs? Is it bad breath? Is it your grumpy face? Are you coming in too close? Are you looking threatening and mean? Something's wrong. So either get a wing, he can video you. You can't hear this on audio or get an instructor, get a better daygamer than you to say, I'm watching the girl, that's what I always say to students, I'm watching the girl, I'm not really watching you and I'm watching her reaction, that's your sticking point. Yeah. She's the mirror. You got to face the fact and again our ego doesn't like facing facts. It's like stripping off and looking in the mirror and I'm saying Jesus Christ Tom, you got to get that sorted. That's another story which I'm working on. And this fee feedback makes you calibrated. The most critical thing in daygame. The difference between somebody who's a beginner and an intermediate or an intermediate to advanced. Their level of calibration like a motorbike rider. Yeah? Rejection fucking clarifies things. Alright? You really zero in from that mirrored feedback on what is key. So that's why I say don't spam. Don't spam. Don't spam. Do five approaches. Stop, maybe with your wing or an instructor and think, what happened? What was the feedback? What can I take from the mean reactions? Not mean as in angry, but mean as in average reactions across those five or 10. Don't do more than 10 in a session. Quality rather than quantity. Short in the beginning if you've got really bad a a, you might have to do quantity, quantity, quantity. Just hit and runs. Yep. Excuse me. Wanted to say, you look beautiful. Have a nice day. Next girl. Sorry. I just have to say you look lovely. Have a great day. Yeah. On average girls that are slightly older than hot girls that are slightly younger until you really don't feel that sting as much. Anyway, other reasons to get rejected. It's weirdly pleasurable if it's a if it's a fuel for forging on. Yeah? You might know that saying, pleasure is more in contemplation than realization. So working towards something thinking, okay, I failed but I move Okay, I'm nearly there. Fuck, I failed but I'm nearly there. Fuck, I nearly failed. I'm nearly there like leveling up on a video game. When you actually complete the fucking video game or you complete the daygame skill set, you get what you want, a threesome with two beautiful girls, you kind of go, oh, I had more fun trying to get it than getting it. You get the high for a little bit. I'm sure when I finally pass my motorbike test, I just have to be in Wales long enough to get the modules up and take the bloody thing. I'll go, yeah, and I'll be happy for a day. But then I'll look back on those days of failure with kind of rose tinted glasses. This is what we do and I think, oh, they were the fun times in a car park wheeling around the cones, you know, having a laugh with the instructor and the boys. Yeah, that was really fun. So yeah. Projection is weirdly pleasurable because it shows that you're improving if you're taking that mirrored feedback. Yeah? And most importantly now for me is that rejection makes you mortal. Okay? It puts a dent in your ego which is a good thing. Okay? Because it constantly reminds you that you're not perfect. You don't have to be perfect. It frees you from being perfect and this is a fucking liberating thing especially if you can be honest about your failure. That's why I did those daygame statistics videos and I published my data and I talk about blue balls and failure stories. Maybe not enough but a) this has to be inspirational. Guys have to get into it and see the fruits of daygame and I don't want to put guys off immediately. But yeah, in the new book below the belt, there's plenty of disaster, plenty of filthy disaster as well as a hi, there's disasters with a what do you call it? A tranny? Now what's the word I'm looking for? Anyway, went on an eye date with a tranny. I was on a date, girl back at mine on the bed, she pulls out a flick knife, stuff like that. That's all in the new book. That's already on the blog, so check that out. But yes, it pops a little bit that inflated ego and learning a new skill, realizing, okay, I'm not amazing at this, I'm not amazing at this, I've got lots to learn in this, gives you respect for the people that have walked the walk, that have climbed the mountain, people that are amazing at that specific skill set and it's humbling and you think fucking hell, this is great. This is something to work towards. And you might complete that, you might become a fucking great off road motorbike rider and then you say, okay, new skill. I'm gonna learn ping pong. Sorry. I should call it table tennis. Tennis de tabla. Get really good at that because you say, okay, fuck it. I'm gonna become really good at cooking. Get good at that. That's what guys need. And at the heart of that is failure, failure, failure, failure, win. Small win, middle win, big win. Alright? So if you're not failing, if you're not getting rejected in your daygame, in your dating, what does that mean? It means you are simply staying in your comfort zone. Right? Too much Tinder, too much online, too many fat girls, too many milfs, too many older girls. Come on. You don't need to be honest with me, you need to be honest with yourself. Are those the girls you really wanna fuck? Are you really approaching the hottest girls on the street or the hottest girls for you, your type? Are you really pushing things on a date? Okay. I know you can do two or three dates but can you try one? Can you try escalating fast? Not all the time but just try it. Have you pushed things for a same day lay? Have you left your phone at home? Have you done gutter game yet? If you're in your comfort zone, you know you're not gonna grow. And failure of the muscle, that's what is in bodybuilding. Failure, as I've said, it's in a skill set. So get out of the fucking comfort zone, expand it. That's where the pleasurable zone is. And then, yeah, desensitization to that means you're gonna have to do something else. That I've spoken about csiksen mihijl and flow states before. Flow states exist but then they wear off when your skill and your challenge level, they're no longer big enough to get that hit which is flow. You need to either improve the skill level or you need to improve the challenge level. And there's a limit to that you could say with day game. Sure. There's always a hotter girl, a hotter girl for you somewhere in the world. But you might want to do other things as well. That's why I say do day game, have other hobbies. Do day game, do other hobbies. If you want to get really good, sure. Period of immersion, just do day game. Just do day game. Two years or a three month trip around Europe. Just go mental. Yeah. One number a day for a year. Once you've got the skill set down, you can ease off. Enjoy it. Rather than enjoying the mechanics of daygame as I used to, I used to write about it, talk about it, blog about it. It was all about the mechanics of game, the mechanics of chess, the mechanics of poker. Now I'm enjoying the fruits of daygame. So the ability to travel. I talked about that in the last video I put up on my YouTube channel about how to earn money online. Roughly how much I earn lately and what that allows me to do and therefore it allows me to enjoy the day game skill set and to enjoy travelling and other hobbies. Yeah? So the message of this podcast to wrap up is join me in failure. It's a cheesy invitation but it's one I would urge you to do if you're just getting into daygame. I would urge you to get over approach anxiety. I would definitely urge you to go for the number even though it didn't seem like a great set because you never know. So stop predicting. She might really have to be running for the bus. She might really be going to work. So just pull out your phone. Pull out your phone. Do the married on a move. Sorry, I never got your name. Put out your hand. She goes to shake yours, but don't shake it. Pull her in a little bit. Hold her hand. Tie your eyes. And with your other hand, which is gonna be your left hand, that's why I keep my phone in my left back pocket. Pull out your phone and say you gotta go, I gotta go but another time I'd like to invite you out. How do I spell your name? Or your code is 00 or add yourself on Facebook etcetera etcetera etcetera. On the date, I know it's comfortable in the bar especially in the same seats, same venue. No. Change venue. Get it to sit next to you. It feels weird, go into the bathroom, tell yourself fuck it. I've got to do it. Here we go. Ego might take a beating but verbally escalate. And then once you've done that, as I talked about in street hustle, cough cough, you do physical escalation which is even more weird for the newbie And then the weirdest bit of all, you say to her, let's go. It's the hardest bit of the whole fucking thing. Guys are terrified to say, let's go. And she says, where are we going? And you say, let's go to mine to watch that thing you were talking about. Let's drink half a bottle of wine. We can only be an hour. It's just over there. You stand up. You give her the coat. You walk out. You lead. You bamboozle, you bounce at home. It's the most awkward thing. Once she's in your apartment, come on, it's bloody on. Right? You got 80% chance. It's yours to fuck up. But the fuck is on. Right? And most guys are okay. If she's on your bed, come on, pull the trigger. Sure. A little bit of token NMR. Sure. A little bit of on off on off. Fractionate it. Know where the point of no return is. I've spoken about all of this many times. If you wanna see it for real, watch Stealth Seduction. But yeah, you've only really failed if you didn't even try. Right? So the sting of approaching and her blowing you off, that's not really failure. I'd say that's a fucking success. If you ask for the number she says, uh-uh. It's not a failure. You fucking tried. If you went for the kiss, it's not a failure. Alright? It's a fucking success. If you got the kiss and you escalated and you got into the front door, it's not a failure. I always say one of my little secrets learning this was to I had a locked blog at the time. I would write down how far I had got and why that was a win. So, oh my god, I approached her. Oh my god, I got a number. Oh my god, I made out with her. Oh my god, I got to third base, whatever. I saw it as a win. The depressive victim mentality type guys just think everything's a loss unless p as in v. And I know, I own the prize, you do wanna get laid. But in the beginning, see these little wins. Okay? It takes away this thing. But if you just don't even try, if you don't go outside or you don't go for the number or you don't ask her out or if you put yourself in the friend zone or if you don't even ask her back to yours, it's your fucking fault my friend. Don't go on the internet and rage against women because because the failure is in you not trying and it's the man's role like it or not that we're the instigators. Alright? And you can complain as much as you like but you have to lead at these critical points. I talk about them in stealth seduction. They are absolutely key and they will never go away. It's always your responsibility. And these are the key moments where you look yourself in the mirror and you prepare for that bucket of cold water. But the more buckets of water you have on your head, you realize they're quite refreshing and they're bloody good for you. Alright. Enough spiel. I am going outside to enjoy new country, new continent, better weather than Britain. Speak to you next week.