---
title: Episode 128 Life In Your 20s
episode_number: 128
era: mid
source_file: Episode 128 Life In Your 20s.mp3
audio_size_mb: 55.7
duration_sec: 1825.1
duration_min: 30.4
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.998
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T16:57:41Z---

# Episode 128 Life In Your 20s

**Speaker 0:** Tom Torero podcast a 128 on life in your twenties as a bloke and how you can build up your sexual market value ready to have a lot of fun in your thirties. Sounding a bit cold here today because I am. I am back from gay Parry. I'm back in The UK, and no rest for the wicked. Tomorrow, I'm flying a long, long way east to Japan, my beloved Japan. My third year in a row there, always in the autumn. I can't wait. It's gonna be exciting. So let's get this podcast done. It's an important one because many guys who are in their late teens, in their twenties, that's the usual market for guys googling this stuff at first. They want to know how to build up their sexual market value. They want to know how to get a bit of gravitas. They want to know how to get ready for their peak SMV, sexual market value years when they hit 30 to 35. So that's what we shall be talking about today. I've got a few side notes. Let me have a look. Yes. Go to my website, tomterrero.com, where I have been daily blogging. Not just vlogging each week, but daily blogging. So writing articles, embedding videos, commenting on previous things I've done, expanding it from just hustling to today, did one on the decisive moment, photography and photojournalism to daygame approaching. So I hope you like it. It's all free. It's on the blog. And last week, I turned 38. So that also gave me impetus to make this podcast thinking, what would I have said to myself when I was 28? Because I started daygame pretty much when I was 28, 29. So just at the end of my twenties, it always makes me laugh when a guy who's 25 writes to me and says, I feel too old for daygame. I feel too old for clubs and bars, therefore, I'm past it. Or it feels weird talking to an 18 year old and I'm 25. Well, Tom Torero is 38, and the last, couple of girls I daygamed and slept with were both 19 years old. So that's why we need to explain sexual market value if you've just tuned in, you've just found all my stuff. You've got to believe me and many other daygamers when we say that it just gets better. Peak time for a man is somewhere around thirty five. Peak time for a woman is somewhere between eighteen and twenty one. So yes, we do have the last laugh. Yes, our sexual market value does decline, I would say after 40. You need tighter game to get, tighter gills. And then after 50, yeah, you really need to be on top of it. After 60, we're gonna be playing a bit of the old provider game. Not now, but later. Okay. We'll talk about that in a bit. So we can see daygame in our twenties or game and pickup in our twenties as the rite of passage. Because we don't really in the West have a rite of passage anymore when we say, okay, the boy has become a man. There's no rainforest or tribal savannah rituals. But in my mind, with the students I've taught and for myself, game is that rite of passage, taking you from boyhood and cluelessness and being a romantic beater, you could say, to waking up, opening your eyes, seeing how the world is, not how you want it to be, and toughening up. Alright. I know a lot of people, throw that around, just toughen up, just be a man. But daygame really does fucking put hairs on your chest, cold approach pickup. Social calibration sharpened thousands of approaches, thousands of rejections, but a lot of kinky fun, a lot of sex, a lot of girls, a lot of dating, a lot of mating. It is all good stuff. And that teaches you a hell of a lot. I've always said girls are a carrot on the stick, so this stuff goes way, way, way, way, way further down the rabbit hole. You will see things, you can only imagine right now if you keep going with this. It teaches you about yourself. The girl is your mirror, so you have to face all your demons. But without sounding like Tony Robbins, let us just consider the difference between male and female value, not just the age thing, but how it comes about. Many guys moan, and I wrote a blog post on this recently, about it not being fair that women are just, born hot, you know, when they're 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. It comes on a plate. She's hot. She gets everything her heart desires. She gets all her validation. She's out there on Instagram, endless numbers of contact details and guys wanting to date her and sleep with her, life is easy. And many guys on the monosphere, they moan. They say this isn't fair, fuck women, this is this is terrible. But I always say and I said on the blog post, imagine it like this, Would you rather be a lottery winner or a self made millionaire? So imagine it when she's 18 or you could say seventeen sixteen here in Europe, where the girl is just given a million pounds in cash. And the disclaimer is she has to spend all of it, or she has to get rid of it by the time she's 28. So 18 to 28, let's say, she's got a decade and some girls just, splash it all on parties and crazy lifestyles and then they're sad when it's not there. Some of them cleverly invest it. Maybe it's a wrong investment and they lose all the money, I. E. A divorce. Or they invest it in the right thing and they get their family and their kids and they do it properly. But for a person who's 18 getting a million quid or even a million dollars, it's very confusing. They haven't earned it. They don't know how they got it. They can't get it again. It was just given to them. Compare that to a guy where we start off with very low sexual market value in when we're 18. Girls don't really know we exist. They are the same age as us. And we have to build it like a business with our own hands. So from market trading to getting a premises, to getting multiple premises, learning all the ins and outs of a business and expanding and hiring staff, etcetera. So male sexual market value, yep, there's the ascribed elements, I took about the genetic stuff. There's the external elements, which is status largely and the money thing. But then there's all the learned stuff, which is what your twenties is all about when you're laying down the foundations and the bricks. All the things which, first of all, is about becoming social, then it's getting savvy, then it's increasing your social intelligence, so it's going from social to sexual. And this takes a long time and there's so many things you can do in your twenties. Some of them I did without knowing before I even considered beginning game, I didn't know what game and pickup was, but I was doing these things in my twenties. And I look back on the first half, certainly in my twenties, and I don't think, oh, fuck. I wish I had learned game. I think actually the depression and the traveling and the stuff I'm gonna tell you today, it was good. As cliched as it sounds, it made me who I am, and it's given me a lot of, a lot of solid foundation on which to do the pickup stuff. So how can we build value? Let's make this completely practical, this podcast. If you're in your twenties or your late teens, even if you're in your early thirties, think about building value. We'll talk about if you're in your thirties and beyond towards the end of the podcast, how you can, cash in. But first of all, something I wish I had done more of is just learn the basics of nutrition and fitness. I'm not saying you have to become a steroid gym guy or you have to become super anal and all vegan about your diet and measure everything to the nth degree. But just know about sugar, know about carbs, know about proteins and fats and dairy and calories, calories in calories out, body composition, la la la. I'm not preaching you on this but know the basics. And what some of you might not realize that in my early twenties after I got off the antidepressants and I slimmed down. I slimmed down by running marathons, half marathons, I climbed mountains, I climbed Mont Blanc, I was extremely skinny, I was extremely fit before I had dodgy knees and a slightly dodgy back. Yeah. I was, enjoying the the freedom that a guy in his twenties has with his body doing crazy things. I was doing bungee jumps, I was doing, skydives, and I was jumping off cliffs into the sea. So enjoying your body but taking care of it, that will, be fantastic when you're in your thirties and beyond. I can tell you. Okay. The second thing, start learning about money. Okay. And obviously learning about debt and avoiding debt and considering is university the right option for you as opposed to a trade or a startup or being online, but also having shitty jobs. I've said in other podcasts, I worked in a supermarket, I worked in a pub, I was a waiter, I was, doing door to door stuff, I was working in a hostel, I was a busker, I was in debt and then slowly I got out of debt. So yeah, it's, having those shitty jobs to know what they are, know what you like, know what you don't like. And, as your dad probably said to you, learn the the real value of hard work and money. And the quicker you can do that, I started straight after university with those shitty jobs, the better. Because in your thirties, you need to be set. You need to be sorted. You certainly need to be on the right path out of debt knowing what you're doing. A little bit of saving. We'll come on to that later. The third thing, which I shouldn't have to say on this blog, on this podcast, it's to learn game. And I'm jealous, yeah, of guys that are 18 or 21 and they're learning game principles as in the biology behind male female dynamics and what women respond to, why men and women are different, la di da di da. Everything that I talk about, write about, and film. Learn game. It goes without saying. So start with your social awareness. If you're a chronic introvert like I was, The first step was just to be socially aware. That's why I was working in pubs and hostels and befriending girls. That's fine. The second thing is to learn attraction. So that's the addictive stuff, the teasing and the challenging. You get high on it, spinning girls around, high fiving, telling jokes. It's all good, but it doesn't often lead to sexy times. Because as I've said, you have to convert that attraction into arousal. So that's sexual tension, that's the sexual hook point, that is learning to escalate, learning to slow things down, strip unnecessary things away, be comfortable with your sexuality, not hiding your dick, etcetera. All that's covered in street hustle. Number four, I've said, don't settle. And it sounds a bit flippant when I say to one of my students in his late teens and twenties, don't settle down. He always smiles and goes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But guys do. They get a long term girlfriend for four years, six years, seven years. That's a huge chunk out of your twenties gone. And then they break up. She moves out. He's distraught. It's all the way back to square one like he was 16 again. So yeah, some mini relationships are good because they teach you things about a woman living with you and having to have a fucking strong frame more so than in game when you're in a relationship. The game doesn't actually stop. There's no harbor from it. Being in a mini relationship teaches you about connection obviously and deeper rapport and why you like casual sex and why males are not monogamous and why you will be looking around and how she tests your frame continuously, etcetera. That's in the relationship section of street hustle. So sure, have many relationships but don't settle. Don't get married. After 35 and with a lot of notches under your belt, a lot of traveling and fun with girls, okay, do what you want. I'm not anti, quote unquote, settling down and having kids then, it's your life, it's about happiness, you do what you want. But I'm only cautious to the guys that are telling me they want that and they're 22 and they've slept with one or two or three girls. It's not enough. Okay? So play the field. Number five, a huge one. Guys email me this about bad logistics. How do I go back to hers? Because they live with their parents. And mommy cooks and mommy cleans and he never grows up. He remains soft. I know guys that are like this in their late twenties, thirties. I know one guy who's in his late thirties and he still lives with his mom. Not good. Not good for game and logistics, but just not good for for you becoming a man. You will always remain a boy if you stay living with your parents. I know Spanish guys suffer from this. I know Italian guys suffer from this, where, La Familia, you know, mommy is combing his hair and cooking his pasta, and then he gets married and his new wife is basically his mom. Not good. So move out as quick as you can. And if you have to live in a shithole room, live in a shared house in a big city. It's not a coincidence why daygame evolved in London and New York because you need huge volume, anonymity, transience, loneliness. I've said many times this is the correct ingredients for daygamer for learning how to socialize. You can fuck up as many times as you want in London to get social awareness and then to learn attraction and then to learn arousal. It's just never ending. The street just continually refreshes. Okay? Number six. Something I did a lot of in my early twenties is budget travel. And you can hitch. You can carpool. Loads of apps for that. You can stay in hostels like I did, you can interrail, you can, go on buses, you can sleep on train and bus floors. I was getting cheap flights when EasyJet and Ryanair, these kind of UK budget airlines had just started in around 2001. I was taking flights to Greece for £30, £40 and backpacking. So don't make the excuse that you don't have money. You can find a way with today's technology and the internet and sharing and using your day game skills to socialize with guys. You can find wings. Many guys on my find a wing post, they will put you up. You can sleep on their sofa and day game with them. I was busking. I went to India. I went to Egypt with no money. This is I went to Canada. I went to Morocco, going around the desert on my own. This stuff opens your eyes. This stuff toughens you up. If you're just living with mummy in your town, you're not gonna know about how the world works, how your culture is different from other cultures, how your country differs. You're not gonna know about staying safe. You're not gonna know about money. You're not gonna have street awareness. Yep. Number seven. I've said read. Open your eyes. And you could say, you don't need to read the classics but you need to read key texts that many guys all over the internet are saying read this. It might be one year old or it might be a 100 years old, a thousand years old. People are saying this is a classic book for men, it will really really help you. So health, wealth, women, that's the big three as mister Tony Robbins says. And the argument now is do you need university? If you've got connection to the Internet, you could save yourself a hell of a lot of time and money by teaching yourself most things apart from practical skill sets and obviously things like medicine. Although you could teach yourself using the Internet, you could teach yourself physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, the basics of biology. Lots of lectures are online. Lots of things are online. Most texts you can download for free using certain loopholes. So no excuses. Read. Open your mind. Number eight, watch classic movies. Again, the excuse that you can't afford them is bullshit because they're all over the Internet for free. And I've made a post on, top 10 game movies. I think it is. It's in the archive section as well as the books you should read. Go to the archive section. It's the top tab, the second tab on the top of my website. And that'll tell you what films to watch that will make you a man. Classic alpha movies, with non PC role models. Critical, especially for today. So get into that stuff in your twenties. Watch as many as you can. It's, it's better education than you'll ever get at school. Number nine, which obviously links with the game thing, taking action. So to counter, the theory and to counter the too much reading and to counter the too much watching, so you're not a theory junkie. You're not becoming, here's a big trap, a self help procrastinator. This is why I warn about self help seminars and reading. It's too easy to say, I'm working on myself. I'm working on my inner game. Many guys I've met in seminars have said, I'm not daygaming at the moment. I'm working on my inner game. I'm doing self improvement. And sure, there's lessons to be learned in the books, but none of them stick or make sense unless you apply them. It's the ninety ten rule. I've bashed on about many times before. 90% practical infield action, 10% theory. It's the same as if you're learning tennis. 90% outside hitting balls, 10% tweaking, reading, watching with a coach. So taking massive action. Number 10, a big one, especially for people that grew up, recently with social media, I say stop consuming a lot of social media. Stop watching TV, stop watching the news, stop watching newspapers, and put all that, stop reading newspapers, put all that time that you spend on Twitter and just having pointless arguments in echo chambers and just looking at online gossip, spend all that time on yourself. Imagine all those hours you spend now just reading and getting angry. Imagine if you spent them on yourself applied, talking to girls, relaxing, having fun, traveling, looking at the desert, into the mountains, reading the classics. Even watching a classic movie would be better than five hours ranting on Twitter. So if the world's gonna end, I always say you're gonna know about it. Alright? And people say, well, that's selfish. Not really. It's selfish in a good way to focus on yourself, save yourself before saving others. Yep, it's grassroots, it's bottom up, la di da di da, the classic Torero stuff. Point eleven, have guys and wings that are older than you, not as gay game lovers, but as mentors. Yep. As guides, you can watch them. You can listen to them. Sure. They'll give you advice that will just, be water off a duck's back because you'll forget it. You have to really live the experience to take the lesson from it, but they can point you in the in the right direction. And an older daygame wing, you can find it on my post. Find a daygame wing. Just Google that Tom Torero. You'll get the post. Okay. Point number 12. Master other skills. So the temptation is to just go into pickup a 100% and to be honest like I've said before, balance is a bit of a myth. Everybody that becomes great at this is an obsessive. They go into it for two or three years. That's how you become great at something. But have other interests. It doesn't really matter what it is but master something. Take a really big interest in something. The islands of Scotland or skiing or filmmaking or photography. Try to make it adventurous. Try to make it outdoorsy. Try to make it physical. So archery, for example, rather than World of Warcraft. It would be better to play tennis or play football rather than just to follow a football team around a country and learn every statistic ever about that football team. It'd be better to get out there and play. Yep. Number 13, which I point out when I train guys. Dress cooler than guys your age. Dress slicker. Now this doesn't mean a suit and a pocket square and a Rolex. People get completely the wrong idea about looking dapper because that means provider. It would look weird if an 18 year old was in a suit or it's too try hard, it's too hipster. That's not what I'm talking about. Better to dress more action hero, more rough and ready. So, yep, you're gonna have to fake some of your d h v stories. You're gonna have to fake some of your peacocking. Maybe you didn't really get that ring in Mexico, but with time, you'll go to Mexico and there'll be a story about that bracelet or that ring or that tattoo. But just differentiate yourself from guys your age. Alright? They're in adidas. They're chronically hipster, and it is gonna feel weird, but you'll grow into it. I've made a video on fashion. Again, it's in the archive section under basics, I think, of, on my blog. Point number 14. How are doing on time? Yeah. Two more points to go. Point 14. The joys of hedonism. There's a podcast on this. Don't be all square. Don't be all uptight. You'll have years ahead of you in life to be, all serious and conservative. Now is the time to let loose and go wild. Be reckless. Time to get drunk. Do stupid shit. Even, me, the geeky Tom Torero, I used to go to nightclubs. I used to get pissed. I used to, smoke grass as in grass cuttings, obviously. And I used to, yeah, enjoy house music. I used to enjoy drum and bass. I used to drink on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights when I was training to be a teacher. I was taking huge risks, doing silly things. If I look back on a lot of the travel I was doing, that budget travel, it was silly. I was on my own with cash. I remember one time being in Morocco and the cash machine in Marrakesh swallowed my only bank card and I was fucked. And I had to work out an ingenious way of getting enough money to get back to Spain and then from Spain to, fly home. But anyway, that's another story for another time. Reed Torero travels if you wanna know about my early travel adventures. But listen, in your twenties, you'll never have as much energy again. You'll never have as much reckless energy as you can. Testosterone, testosterone. So live your life. Get offline. And I'm glad that I didn't really know what internet was, I didn't really have internet until I was at Oxford. I remember that's the first time I had an email account in around 1998 so before then my life was offline. Sure, was watching some films on VHS tapes and, listening to records and CDs and cassettes, but my life was offline. And I'm so thankful that I was outside, that I was walking, that I was climbing, that I was had other interests that didn't revolve around a smartphone because there wasn't a smartphone. And I'm not raging against the internet, it's fantastic. I make a living off it. But, yeah, in your twenties, you should be going fucking wild outside. And finally, the thing that you're after if you're a teenager or you're in your twenties as a guy is the gravitas. It's the swagger. It's the cockiness. Like I said, it's those real d h three stories. It's that amused mastery, that aloofness that comes with getting older. So in your twenties, you have to fake it till you make it. You have to walk like you're on a red carpet. You have to move like you're underwater. You have to dress as I said in a bit more of a rock and roll way, and it's gonna feel weird. And maybe your family will laugh at you, your friends will laugh at you because you don't fit in, you're the black sheep, but you'll grow into it. You'll quite literally grow into it. People will say, oh, you've changed. They'll try to hold you back. Loved ones do this because they want you to remain the same. They want you to remain there. So they'll say, don't go to India, don't go to Morocco, don't do this. You don't wanna move to London and start dating girls. No. No. No. Just stay here and date the local girls. But no. You're building your value. Now, last five minutes of the podcast, we cash in that value in our thirties. In your thirties, it's about maintaining the value which will carry on in your forties and your fifties as as I've said. Listen to the Hank Moody podcast. That was a daygamer who was 50 years old. I think he's now 52. Still going strong, picking up 23 year olds without provider game. And the thirties is really about delivering your value. So thank God I learned game when I was 28, 29. Game pickup daygame is a value delivery mechanism. It also, adds to your value actually. I'll put the link to this infographic underneath this podcast on my blog because look at that infographic I made on male sexual market value. But most importantly, to deliver that value. You'll have it, so deliver it. If you've got a Ferrari in the garage, drive it. Okay? It's no good just sitting there gathering dust in the garage. And reap the rewards. Peak sexual market value is between thirty and thirty five, I would say. So you got your health, you got your wealth, although we're not gonna use that, for slimy snake seduction. Most importantly, you've got game. So game takes two years, I would say, to learn the fundamentals and get okay, get good. Three years plus mastery. Yep. And you're gonna enjoy it. So now I'm 38, I'm still enjoying it. Like I said, I picked up those 19 year olds on stealth seduction, 17 year old, 18, 19, 20, 21. Game has just gotten easier because my skills increased because I know what I'm doing but also I get more more IOIs. Younger girls have that teacher fantasy that, 50 shades of grey fantasy. Not all girls go for it but, it pays off. So if you're in your twenties, relax. You've got a lot of time. If you've got glasses, I forgot to mention this, consider contact lenses or laser eye because it does make a difference. It gets rid of that geeky image. Only when you're approaching, you can wear your glasses at university or in your house. Just try digging without glasses. It takes that stereotype away. And if you've got spots, I had chronic acne as in boils around my mouth and my nose until my mid twenties. I should have got it sorted. I went to my local doctor, say to them that it's psychologically affecting you and you want to see a dermatologist and the dermatologist can prescribe you a miracle drug called Roacutane and there's a lot of scare stories about it. People say it'll drive you crazy. Before Roacutane, I had had, anxiety and depression and being prescribed a lot of antidepressants, but I was depressed largely because of a lack of girls and, being a chronic introvert because of the acne. So I got the acne sorted with Roacutane. You have a couple of months of dry skin and some breakouts, and then really, trust me, the boils and the big spots go forever. I'm ten years in now. Occasionally, have tiny little ones if you're ill or you've been drinking too much. You've had too much sugar, but, thank god. And then without glasses, without spots, getting older, sorting my fashion, learning to be social. Holy shit. It was right place, right time really because game was the game was published 2005, which is when I read it. I started game 2007 dabbling, but 2009 properly, just the right time and the stars aligned everything gets easier. So there we go, I sound like your grandfather or your father perhaps I'm the uncle you never had. But if you're 20, if you're in your twenties and you've got questions that got older guys like myself, old dinosaurs can answer for you, leave them on my blog. YouTube's too scattered. Just go to tomtorero.com and underneath this podcast, leave the questions. However embarrassing they are, you can be anonymous. And old gits like myself or even older gits in their forties and fifties and sixties can answer. Your worries, your niggles. This is what it's for. I wish this was available when I was nineteen twenty one. It would have would have blown my head off in a good way. It would have changed my life in that fight club sense. We need this. We need this rite of passage and I'm so thankful to have found game and to have learned game and now with this technology, we can pass it on. That was podcast a 128. I'm saving my voice. The next podcast, whoopi do, I am bloody excited. It's gonna be from futuristic, clean, polite, but kinky, weird, and wonderful, autumnal Japan. Until then, keep grabbing life by the horns.