---
title: Episode 191 Delusions Of Grandeur
episode_number: 191
era: late
source_file: Episode 191 Delusions Of Grandeur.mp3
audio_size_mb: 50.8
duration_sec: 1664.8
duration_min: 27.7
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.994
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T17:10:59Z---

# Episode 191 Delusions Of Grandeur

**Speaker 0:** A delightful song. Tom Torero podcast episode number a 191. I hope, like me, you have a gigantic ego. You have ridiculous delusions of grandeur if you're a pickup artist, certainly if you're starting out. That's the topic of today. Having a big ego, why it's a necessity, how it links to that song that you just heard and where I am. We shall come on to that. But before we begin as ever because I need to make money, I'm giving you this shit for free and upsell to my books. Specifically my printed books. I use the publisher Lulu, They print the books and they ship them to you around the world and they are running 15% off all print books. It doesn't apply to the kindle stuff. It's until the April 18 and the code to use at checkout is one five, not the number 15 but written o n e f I v e in capitals. I'll put the code below. You can get daygame, my first book, Torero travels, cold calling, below the belt, last year's book and my textbook, the bible street hustle. All of them 15% off each. Okay. Hello. Once again from Russia where I'm pleased to say winter really is over. Many times it tricked me into thinking it was over and then the snow came back even in Finland, the van was buried in snow. But now the temperatures are well above zero. People are stumbling around with a kind of drunken happy face. Perhaps they are drunk, in Russia. But it's the first time I've seen people smiling. They look like bears coming out of a snow cave, delirious, confused. What is this warmth, what is this sunlight. Girls have removed their winter coats. So would I ever do a Russian winter again? A full Russian winter? No. But I'm glad I did it and I'm glad I filmed it and did pickup in the snow. So yes, everybody's happy and daygame is a lot easier. I shall tell you a daygame story at the end of the podcast, which boosts my ridiculous ego and why I encourage you to have a big ego and why did I play that song about Rasputin, a cover of Bony m's delightful Ra Ra Rasputin. Well, let us look at the lyrics. There lived a certain man in Russia long ago. He was big and strong just like Tom Torero, in his eyes a flaming glow. Most people looked at him with terror and with fear, but to Moscow chicks, he was such a lovely deer. He could preach the bible like a preacher, full of ecstasy and fire but he also was the kind of teacher women would desire. Rarararasputin, lover of the Russian queen. There was a cat that really was gone. Rarararasputin, Russia's greatest love machine. It was a shame how he carried on. And this morning, after a lay yesterday, so I was walking around with my shoulders back that drunken giddiness about me, I went for a sunny walk along the canals here in Saint Petersburg and I got a coffee and realized that the coffee shop was just a few doors down from the former residence of the mad monk who died just over a hundred years ago in this city. Gregory Rasputin. I'm sure you've heard of Rasputin. Perhaps you've even thought about the links between Rasputin and game. The dark triad elements that make up Rasputin's attractiveness. He was a mystic. He was a self proclaimed healer. That's how he, did a bit of snake seduction getting into high society and then into befriending czar Nicholas the second and then certainly befriending his wife through quote unquote healing of his son on numerous occasions. He was a self proclaimed holy man. I think he came from Siberia but he ended his days here quite dramatically if you believe the the multiple enigmatic mystical stories of Rasputin's death. But anyway, I'm obviously interested in from him being a womanizer because after he became this self proclaimed healer, people would go to the apartment which I walked past this morning and people wanted to be healed and then old women would come and he would do healing, he would take money for these healing sessions and then obviously, through this charisma and through this dark magnetism, attractive women would come and see him into the night. So not only did he perhaps sleep with some of the royal family but he slept with a lot of women in Russia and his methodology he would say was attaining grace through sin. What a fantastic hustler. So, he enjoyed a bit of the old alcohol. He enjoyed, running that hustle of healing for money but he also was a seducer. Drawing people in. Now there's lots of mythology about Rasputin but facts are facts and the history is there. There's even photographs and footage of Rasputin. So you can consider why he was attractive to women and how he rose the ranks from Siberian peasant to, you know, being in the winter palace and being part of the Russian royal family. Well, through sheer delusions of grandeur. See, you knew I would link it eventually to dark triad traits specifically with rasputin. What are the dark triad traits? Well, I write a lot about this in, last year's book, below the belt. Why pick up artists have or good pick up artists, great pick up artists, have certainly elevated levels at times of the three dark triad traits. Narcissism which today's podcast is about, Machiavellianism which is the definition of game being sneaky and psychopathy. So no, not being a serial killer but having that coldness about you where you can have abundance, where you can move on, where you're not crying over one particular girl who you've never slept with, you just fancy her at the gym or in your office. Shoot the puppy, you can move on. That's a necessity from from moving place to place I. Black sheep and from moving girl to girl. And did rasputin have elevated levels? For sure. Yeah. You have to have this narcissism about you. You have to have this irrational self confidence at the beginning. You have to be a blagger. That's why I called it hustling. Because let's zoom out and consider what is game, what is pickup. Pickup at the beginning for sure, certainly for the first few years and you could argue indefinitely is faked SMV, is faked sexual market value. At the start, you're coming from a place with a lower sexual market value than you'd like. So game principles are teaching you high value male behavior, high smv male behavior. So in the beginning pickup is a mask. Pickup is something you put on, it doesn't feel normal. You change your clothes, you start peacocking, you change your walk, you change your posture, you change your smirk, you have to fake the aloofness, you have to fake abundance, you have to rehearse your escalation steps, you have to fake being cocky. Certainly for the nice guy, for the timid guy, for the shy guy, you're not used to negging hot girls or teasing hot girls or adding in sexual spikes. You have to learn all this. This is what game is. And people will try and shame you for it saying game is manipulation, game is fake. Well, in a Darwinian sense, you are faking a guy who naturally, if you believe in natural seduces, somebody who naturally exhibits these high SMV behaviors, you're having to learn it. But this is where the chicken and egg, fake it till you make it thing comes from. Right? Because you're faking it at the beginning but by putting these behaviors on, putting this mask on, hopefully over time like Rasputin, it goes from mask to metamorphosis. Fake it till you make it leads to making it. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. So Rasputin has to fake being the bee's knees, he has to fake being a healer, he has to fake being a dark triad master but over time when enough reference experiences come your way and enough people confirm that you are that person, well, you embody it, you become it and then does game become a lot easier? Yes. Do you have to think about what you're doing? Do you have to think about your escalation steps? No. So if you're just getting into game, black it. You're gonna fake it. You're gonna fake the swagger. You're gonna fake the cockiness as I said. You're gonna fake the aloofness. The peacocking, the the new fashion is gonna feel weird. Escalating out of comfort is gonna feel weird. But it's just getting the reference experiences until you can do it on autopilot. And then yeah, there is an argument for saying you are not thinking about pickup that you really have raised your SMV by a few points and you have situational competence. Can you be confident at everything? No. The definition of confidence, I've said many times in talks is situational competence. So do I know how to play basketball? No. I have zero situational competence. So am I confident of playing basketball? No. But am I confident with talking to girls on the street, texting them, going on dates, pulling them back, sleeping with them? Yes, because I've ingrained these behaviors again and again and again on autopilot. So as Muhammad Ali said, it's not bragging if you can back it up. That narcissism that people will accuse you of, if it's achievement based, well, eventually the delusions of grandeur are grand. They are wonderful. The delusion melts away. Back in April 2016, I think it was from Italy from Rome. I made one of those Torero tomfoolery videos called I have a big dot dot dot and it was about having this big ego and not apologizing for it. If you're just getting into game and people are trying to shame you or if you start putting out content or if you start exhibiting your paintings or photographs or publishing a book, people will say stay in your lane, know know your place, keep your head down, don't you dare suggest that you're making it in any kind of form. You'll be shamed for this by other guys, that's a sad thing. By other guys, crabs in the bucket kind of thing. But if you're a content creator, if you're on YouTube, if you have a personal brand, well by definition you are a narcissist, right? All humans are narcissists. This is very Darwinian. Anyone who's ever won an Olympic gold medal as I say in that video from Rome. Anyone who was a Roman emperor, the building of Rome. This is based on male competition. This is healthy. This is Darwinian. Any climber, someone who's looked at a Himalayan peak and said, I'm gonna climb that. And this involves a healthy amount of delusions of grandeur. I often get emails saying, Tom, you have a big ego, need to lose the ego, you need to do meditation, you need to align your chakras, you need to get over this. But that's a shaming tactic. You wouldn't say that to somebody who's striving to win that medal or to the mountaineer or to Tiger Woods yesterday at the masters. That epic comeback in golf. He was shamed many times. Tiger Woods was shamed many times for having this ridiculous ego delusions of grandeur. Well, who's laughing now, you know? That's a ridiculous comeback to win the masters after what was it? A ten year gap and being shamed in the press, being shamed for being a bad boy. The smile on Tiger's face that was an illustration of this podcast topic. And as the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats. So people watching that comeback yesterday, they'll feel inspired. People that had had a slump that had been shamed for other things, they'll watch that come back and I'll think, it's possible. Think of Roger Bannister, the man who broke the four minute mile in Oxford. I think it was in the early fifties. And until he had run that distance in under four minutes, obviously, had done it. He was the first person by definition to have done it. But very very soon after, I can't remember how long that record stood for. It was just a matter of days or weeks. Many people copied it. Many people achieved what he had done after he was the first person to break that limit. So how does that apply to daygame? Well, you read about a same day lay story, a fast crazy same day lay. You read about a threesome story. You read about a lay report from a new daygame destination. The first person to go there and to try it out and then many people follow. Many people are inspired to do it. Many people see that it's possible and they go for it. So at the beginning, this is good. And if you're just starting out as a nice guy, as a shy guy, as a timid guy, as a quiet guy, you need more ego. You need to walk with more swagger. You need more delusions of grandeur. Try visualizing what you're going for. So what is your specific target? Do you want to bang a stripper? Do you want to bang a girl in a toilet? Do you want one lay a month? Do you want one lay a week? Do you want to beat your wing? Healthy competition at the start is good. So being inspired by other people's successes, stuff you read on the internet, your wing stories, competing with your wing, that's all good. But what's the danger of competition? What's the danger of ego? Well, it can backfire, it can get out of control. If you can't back it up and it's just a mask forever then by definition you're just a parody of yourself. It can create tensions with wings, it can create depression and that you're now just picking up girls to show off to other men just to create content. I wrote a blog post on this recently called morphing motivations. How there's a day in daygame certainly I've noticed in the last few years where you're taking what was once quite an innocent pure craft going out talking to girls trying to smash girls for your sake for the joy of doing this a bit like any other underground subculture. Think of skateboarding, think of surfing. What happens when it goes mainstream? It's about beating records. It's about league tables. It's about who's the best, it's about sponsorship, it's about getting on TV. Of course, it morphs. So competition at the beginning can be good but it can be detrimental if you're just walking around. I know guys that are walking around doing the calculations in their head about approach to number and number to date and okay, I'm down this month by 0.246 and my wing got 1.65 improvement. You know, this is this is getting away from why you're originally doing daygame. So it's a double edged sword. An ego can leave you feeling depressed if you never move from mask to metamorphosis. I talk about this in below the belt but if you're not enjoying day game, if you're an intermediate going through a slump, read that blog post morphing motivations. A couple of other ways to initially boost your ego for daygame is first of all write down your successes. You don't have to publish them on a blog or on Twitter which can lead to what we just talked about. In the beginning for myself, I had a locked blog and I had a lot of documents and data where I would record the positives. I've encouraged you to do this before but I don't think enough guys do it. They just write down the negatives. They dwell on the negatives. This is how much I got blown out this week. This is my failure rate. This is the girls I didn't approach. I was the complete opposite. I don't know why. Well, I do know why delusions of grandeur in the beginning. I would go home and write down the positives. So I managed to do this, this girl smiled, I managed to do a two set, I managed to get an email, I managed to get a Facebook, I kissed a girl on a date, couldn't believe it. I would write up field reports then I would write up lay reports on forums. I was into forums for about a year on this London seduction forum and I would read that other people's reports and there would be that sense of competition. There would be that sense of camaraderie. It would kick me up the ass and then I was lucky to have very good wings. I winged with Rami, with Tony Hussle. Tony Hussle was extremely competitive and in below the belt, I talk about why that's good, why that's bad, the the fuel to the fire, how the fire can consume you. But how without meeting people like Rami or Tony Hustle or living with loads of daygamers in Marble Arch, I wouldn't have got to where I was. Ironically also when people try and put you down, when people try to say stay in your lane, keep your head down, they try to quash your delusions of grandeur. I find that that spurs me on even more. It's probably from being bullied at school. But all the good things I've done, all the books I've written, all the talks I've given, all the decent videos in my opinion that I've made have been soon after I've gotten some hate mail or you know you've been roasted or someone's implied that you shouldn't be doing it. My natural reaction is well, fuck you and I'm gonna prove you wrong. Now, again, that is ridiculous from a a personal level. If you just live for that, it can get you into trouble. But results, for Tiger Woods saying fuck you and making a comeback, it certainly leads to results. And for climbers trying to scale peaks, knowing that there are other climbers who wanna do it, failing, having people say that you can't do it is great fuel for your personal fire to say fuck you. So anyway, coming back to how you can boost your ego, write down your successes. Consider coaching, right? Not many people think about this but coaching is good in that you can earn money from doing daygame if you're intermediate and above. Know you can collect some phone numbers, you can demo so you can show guys different scenarios, you can help them with texting, you've had enough lays where you've seen enough scenarios. I made a podcast many many years ago on how to become a day game coach. So get into coaching but what coaching also does is boost your ego. If you're quite new to the game, I remember my first few coaching sessions where I had to demo. I realized that I performed better, I did riskier sets, I spoke to hotter girls and I often got laid more when I was teaching boot camp or from the approaches I did on boot camp. Why is that? It's because there's pressure, there's a gun to your head, there's a spotlight on you where you have to perform, you have to be a bit more dancing monkey. And ego comes into it. Ego comes into play. You don't want to fail in front of a student. So you put that extra oomph into it. You have that extra mojo. You have that extra twinkle and what do you know? You get more results. So it's a win for the student. He sees better game and it's a win for you. I remembered when I was living with John Matrix, the only times we'd really daygame, we were such lazy bastards. The only times we would really daygame properly would be on the boot camps because we knew we would have to do demo sets every Saturday and Sunday. So let's say we did five ten demo sets a weekend, we would live off those numbers that we have collected for the rest of the week which made our Monday to Friday game very lazy. But anyway, I shall finish with a lay report, a bragging lay report, another Tom Torero bragging lay report. Why? Because it's good for my own growth. It's good for my own ego. And I'm not gonna lie, the first few months in Russia were tough. My heart just wasn't into it. I got laid, I got some decent stuff on film. I wasn't worried about the documentary, was more worried about my mojo and I was worried about thinking well, when my best days passed, am I always going to be now sleeping with girls in their mid twenties, upper twenties, you know, has the quality gone down, has my fire gone down well as they say you can't trick your dick your dick doesn't lie and I came back here after van adventures in Helsinki and there was sunshine and I had a new camera set up and I walked out of my apartment and daygame gods delivered. I saw a girl, a student she was 18, she was a medical student. I opened her, I instantiated her, she seemed very bookish being a medical student. She seemed very cultural, very knowledgeable, bit quirky and anyway 18 years old, hot, I had those voices in my head you know even on the instant date and my best days over is this just going to be another dead end is this city not working, should I just you know should I just pause the project and anyway long story short yesterday was the first date the day two as they say in pickup and it was a walk in the sunshine It was a shisha bar and a beer then back to mine. Great sex, the best lay of the year, the hottest girl of the year, the best pull of the year and I'm smashing this girl yesterday multiple times. My dick realized, you know, you haven't lost your mojo, it was just this is what you needed to go for. And walking around yesterday evening, walking around this morning in the sunshine with more swagger. So this is the chicken and the egg thing, which comes first? The higher SMV or the game which produces or fakes the higher SMV which then becomes higher SMV. It's this upward spiral of girls this morning looking at me, grinning at me, giving me IOIs. Why? Because I got laid yesterday with an 18 year old. Do you need to know that? No. And in that morphing motivations post I say if somebody gets laid abroad and they don't talk about it or tweet about it, did it really happen? Like the tree falling in the forest and nobody sees it or hears it, did it really happen? Well, For delusions of grandeur, for gain progress, it was good for me. Do I need to pick up any more girls to get any more reference experiences to say to my ego, you can do this, you haven't lost it. No. Just once in a while I need to do a Tiger Woods, hit a gold medal to remind myself I've still got it and I find much less now I'm as ridiculously egotistical having a point to prove. I'm doing other things, The focus certainly shifts but once in a while, do you need to feel like rasputin? Yes. Do you need to relight the mojo and the swagger? Yes. So enough bragging for today. I shall leave it there because it's too beautiful to be indoors. I hope this is gonna last so I'm going outside now for more day game hopefully still with that swagger in the sun and next week I don't know where I'll be. I might be in the van, I might be in The UK seeing family. So I wish you well. We shall get back to a bit more of the Bony M cover. Enjoy this delightful story of the dark monk himself, mister Rasputin. Until next week, goodbye. Oh, those Russians.