---
title: Episode 33 Fake It Till You Make It
episode_number: 33
era: early
source_file: Episode 33 Fake It Till You Make It.mp3
audio_size_mb: 59.8
duration_sec: 1958.4
duration_min: 32.6
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.996
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T17:15:54Z---

# Episode 33 Fake It Till You Make It

**Speaker 0:** Tom Torero podcast 33. Yaksha Mash once again. We're in Poland. If this is my final day in Poland tomorrow, I go back to London touchdown for a little bit, clean my pants, have a cup of tea, and then I go to Kazakhstan. In true Borat style, I'm doing an expedition, a daygame recce with a guy called Eddie from Street Attraction. We're going to Kazakhstan to test the waters to see if our borak dreams are true or not. So the next podcast I do will probably be with Eddie from Kazakhstan. But anyway, today, once again in Poland, I'm not alone. I'm with another fellow nomadic daygamer who lives on the road, who's quite recently not quit his job, but mobilized his life. He's a year into daygame with very very good success and his name is Ian. Hi Ian. Hello. Hi mate. Cheers for coming on. I'm liking these guests. It's much less lonely than me sitting in my pants in a Soviet apartment, you know, crying into my microphone. This is nice. And I've had some comments where they say they like not just the sound of my voice, but the sound of somebody else. So I'm gonna talk to Ian today about two things. Obviously, his daygame journey. He's a year in, as I said. What he did before daygame, why he got into daygame, how it's gone in the last year, the successes. We're gonna try and pull a theme out of this. It's nice to have a theme. So we'll come on to that. And the second thing, which a portion of you guys will be interested in, is his travel and how he's mobilized his work, how he's got an online thing going as well, where he lives, how he daygames, countries he's been to, and the abundance he's got. Why we're sitting here in Poland. So that's what we'll talk about. The theme for today, knitting it all together. I do like to knit it all together is fake it till you make it. Now immediately when you say to someone, fake it till you make it, you get a negative reaction. People think of catch me if you can. Probably Leonardo DiCaprio. It's the heist. The natural game guys or the be yourself guys would would they would gasp at this saying, well, yeah, that's the problem with pickup. It's just a load of clowns using tricks, magic tricks to to pretend they've got value. So game is a mask, and that's why it's often criticized. It's not the real you. You just need to be yourself. I'm not gonna rant on natural game. I've ranted many times, but you get the idea. Whereas when I was having a chat with Ian, we were chatting the other day about how really, if you think about it, all game tools and techniques are trying to just replicate the traits of a naturally quote unquote, for whatever reason, high value guy. So think of a film star or that jock from school, someone who got positive reference early, somebody with massive abundance. Imagine you're Robbie Williams, yeah, or back in the day before he got married. You're Robbie Williams, you've got that cockiness, laddishness, self assured swagger, his smirk. Watch Robbie Williams being interviewed. I'll link it below. Back in the day, phenomenal. Watch his eye, trying to kiss close this TV reporter. Cockiness. So does Robbie Williams need to learn any tactics? No. But look at how he's behaving. So then go back to all my street hustle stuff and think, okay. That's what we're trying to do. So when I got into it or Ian got into game or anybody else got into game, it's kind of like the placebo effect. You say to yourself, okay, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. If I think I am, I am. So if I think I'm too short and that's a problem, it's gonna be a problem. If I lack confidence, well, I can either wallow in that fact or I can put on a bit of swagger and try my best. I can walk tall. I can practice my eye contact. I can practice my smile. I can change my fashion. I can learn some stories. I can learn some escalation routines. And then what do you know? You come full circle and hopefully, like Ian is today. What a man of swagger. It's basically like sitting with Robbie Williams. That's how electric this atmosphere is. But no, that's joke society. If this is what you can achieve in a year in, like, you just gotta project ten years ahead and then, you know, that's that is ridiculous swagger and self confidence. Maybe more than Robbie Williams. Maybe we'll both have egos bigger than Robbie Williams at what was the big Nebworth. Do you remember that? Yeah. That was the day he said he thought it was Jesus Christ. Nebworth. That's when he was addicted to Red Bull as well. Anyway, enough about Robbie Williams. Williams. Let's talk about Ian. Alright. Ian, do you wanna say, first of all, about daygame? So why are you going to daygame? What you were doing before? And why you said fuck this for a lot? I'm gonna change

**Speaker 1:** my life. Yeah. Okay. So before daygame, I was generally meeting girls or trying to meet girls through things like Facebook, plenty of fish, other online crap like that. I was working very hard. I was running two businesses. That was my main focus in life. I just channeled pretty much all my energy into this work, work, work, like 14 a day. Steady girlfriends? There was one, yeah, for three and a half years Yeah. Which before that, going back to it must have been sort of 2008, late two thousand and eight maybe. I've read the game. Yeah. So I've become aware of kind of the pickup community.

**Speaker 0:** I hadn't Could we say your age? Or as David Brent would say, you know, bracket it, Brent is in his thirties. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm 35. Really? Yeah. Alright. So 2008?

**Speaker 1:** Yeah. So 2008, read the game. Was very interested in it, but didn't really do anything, didn't try and apply any of it. But that opened my eyes to what was out there, but it would be a long time to come before I I did anything about it. 2009, towards the end of that year, I met a girl through Facebook, stayed in a relationship three and a half years, and was working very hard all through that. We split up must have been sort of summer two thousand and thirteen. Yeah. And then I focused even more just on work. So, yeah, like fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. All my thoughts were consumed by it. That Two different businesses. Yeah? Yeah. Two two businesses.

**Speaker 0:** One one with premises and one online even then. Yeah.

**Speaker 1:** An ecommerce business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that built up to last year summer. Went on holiday for the first time in four years, maybe five years. Took a week out, went and laid on a beach, took a book, Tim Ferriss four hour work week. And being out of my normal environment allowed my brain to just chill out a bit. Read that book, gave me time to reflect on what I wanted to do in life, drew up a list of things I wanted to achieve, and very high on that list was to master or try and achieve something through daygame.

**Speaker 0:** So you you knew of daygame as this London thing going on or British thing, New York thing going on, and then you and you jumped in?

**Speaker 1:** Yes. I I think it must have been the start of 2014. I saw some YouTube videos online just yeah. Which made me aware of daygame. So, yeah, it's summer July 2014, decided to change everything in my life, came back from that holiday, set about changing my businesses so they'd function without me, which was a complete huge change for me because I was always a control freak. I hated delegating any powers, but I'd made my mind up so that was that. Signed up to do a boot camp in London in September. And then by the end of October,

**Speaker 0:** I left my hometown, left the country, and set about traveling and daygaming. Wow. So that's, yeah, a year anniversary. Happy anniversary here as he toasts with his wine glass. Only a year. Jesus. Only a year. And we were well, we weren't estimating. You know, it's what seven girls from daygame this year. And how many countries did we see? Nine. Nine countries. That's not bad, is it? Really. I think I did a poll a while back on a daygame site, and I asked guys who had been in it for a year what their average was because I was curious. And the average was one or two girls in the first year. Now, obviously, it depends on your background. Depends on your starting point, depends on your age, depends on your location. But, yeah, one or two mastering cold approach. As I say, six months for the, you know, fake it till you make it skills, twelve months for competency, which is kind of a bit reliable, two years for satisfaction, and then kind of saying, okay, fuck it, daygam's done. So that's in a year. Very, very impressive. And it started in Australia. Not only did you like the country, but you had day game success in Australia. Yeah. And was that the first time you got a whiff of the Robbie Williams kind of, oh, this is different from where I was in the South Of England? Yeah. So

**Speaker 1:** I arrived in Australia at the start of this year, and I went at it pretty hard with daygame. You know, I was out pretty much every day. Did a lot of approaches. That was when I really started to see some progression. And by the end of my time out there, I was out there for nearly three months. The final sort of week or two was when it really felt like things had clicked into place. And in a way, I was sad to leave.

**Speaker 0:** Was that an abundance of phone numbers and then dates and then a regular or two regular girls? Yeah. So there was

**Speaker 1:** two regular girls at that point. And I think for my last, like, ten days in Sydney, I had at least one day today. Some days, more than one. So it was just everything had snowballed, and the work that I put in there had started to start to pay dividends.

**Speaker 0:** So how does that feeling of abundance iron out all these little kinks, you know, in in a daygamer, you know, the the the voice, the eyes, the walk, the the texting, the way you are on a date. How does simply having phone numbers in your phone a day to week and a couple of girls, so regular sex life, how does that then change you into thinking, oh, you know, well, what what behaviors changed in you?

**Speaker 1:** I think the biggest thing would be the lack of having to think. So before I would be you know, when I first got into it, I'd be thinking when I'm walking to approach. I'd be thinking about everything. Thinking I'd be very inside my head, thinking what might be the right thing to say, what not to say. If I get a phone number, what to text, what not to text, all this time just thinking. And then gradually when success started to creep in, confidence built and less thought was required to the point where no thought is kind of required. It just becomes internal.

**Speaker 0:** Yeah. If you see what I agree with, in terms of the pickup communities being, you know, the training wheels, just the scaffolding. And obviously, when you build the building, you take the scaffolding off. You don't leave the scaffolding on. So nobody says that all these street hustle things and daygame things are to be kept. It would be highly weird if you kept them. Like, if you had to think about every text or if you had to like do with this keynote ladder on every date. After a year or two, that's weird. So the pattern in psychology they say is the unconscious incompetency I. E. Your life before game anybody's life before game you have no idea and you don't know you have no idea because you've not tried it. Then you get into the awful stage of the first six months, which is this conscious incompetency. And that's the asking your friends, oh, what does this text mean? Can you help me out with the date escalation? I mean, what did she mean? All that stuff. Kind of sensing that you're not really there. Then you get into the conscious competency, which perhaps we're all still in. I'm consciously competent of what I'm doing. And then the blissful moments of Robbie Williams is the unconscious competency. As we always often say, yeah, if you took time out or, you know, you had a girlfriend for years and years, you might slide. And I wonder how Robbie Williams is now with his wife. You know, it'd be interesting to see how if his behaviors changed, how's his cockiness, his cheekiness. I don't know. But you can change for the better, that's fine. No more cold approach for Robbie. Fine. Good on him. Like Frank Sinatra, you know, a man of swagger. Got married many times and was very happily married until the end of his life. So once again, I'm not against marriage, but he had a great life in Vegas with the rat pack. So good on Frank. Anyway, let's bring it back to point number two. So that day game success was linked with the travel. So what happened then with the travel from October then Australia? What were what were the next countries? What were the next successes?

**Speaker 1:** Yep. So I came back to England in April. Spent a few weeks, maybe a month back there, and then set about traveling around Europe at the start of May. And it was interesting. It was like going back. The confidence that I had in Australia had slipped, and I was traveling for sort of one week in one country, another week in another, then maybe two weeks in another. And for the first four or five weeks of being back in Europe, I just kept thinking I should go back to Australia. And I was I was looking at flights on Skyscanner. How much would it be to to go back to Australia? Because that was where I'd achieved, you know, some success and my confidence was higher. And then coming back to Europe, it was it was like going back. Not going back to square one, but going back and having to build back up again from the bottom. And only spending a week here and a week there, it just it just didn't work. It was very hard trying to rush things through kind of makes made me a bit needy because trying to rush girls out on dates, etcetera, rather than just

**Speaker 0:** Could you say some of the countries you went to before you settled on Dia, Poland? Yep. So first country this summer was Belgium.

**Speaker 1:** Went to Antwerp, which was really nice. It was good for daygame, and I think if I stayed there for longer, I would have had some good success. But it's not it's not a huge city, but it was nice. Then I headed into Holland, spent some time in Rotterdam, which I wasn't really a huge fan of. I just wasn't really feeling it. Moved on to Germany, spent two weeks in Berlin, which was it was okay. It was good. Had a few dates, but no real success. And then I came to Poland and fell in love with this beautiful country.

**Speaker 0:** And practically, if we're talking about flow mad, let's talk about the Australian dream versus the Polish dream. Not that there is a Polish dream with a lot of guys in America and Britain because weirdly, we you know, when you were a teenager, I was a teenager. The dream is to go to Australia. Yeah? Everyone was going half of my mates from school now live in Australia. They're married to Aussies. That was it. Go to Bondi. Go to whatever, Brisbane and that's the sweet life. And yeah, for the beaches and the weather and the awesome country, but the the cost of living, the first time I went to Australia, no one had warned me and I was like, holy shit. A beer's worth more than in London, you know. So now you're in Poland and we're sitting there having a pre dinner drink which is peanuts. We come to this cafe because it's peanuts. You have a very good quality of life here, I know. And you're even thinking about different routes in different places. So do you want to talk about your costings? I mean, vaguely, very briefly. So,

**Speaker 1:** yeah, Australia was it was quite a surprise to me in terms of costs. Accommodation wasn't cheap by any means, but things like, yeah, drinks in bars, unbelievable. It made London look cheap in some places. And then coming here to Poland, that's one of the reasons that it's, you know, such a beautiful country. Cost of living is incredibly low. Got a lovely studio apartment, which is peanuts. It's cheaper. I'm spending less now than I did when I was living in England working. My life is now spending less. Friends asked me how I can afford to keep traveling, but I'm spending less money now than I was when I was back home in England. So yeah.

**Speaker 0:** It's a it's a classic Tim Ferriss thing or I talk about it in flow mad. The people look at your Facebook or whatever or hear about you going to these countries and assume that you must have like retired or hit the jackpot. When you do the maths, go on a website like, I think it's Numbeo or type into Google price comparison, city comparison. Type in your city, whether that's New York or LA or wherever, London, and then you can compare it to any city in the world with a price index. So type in if you want a surprise, type in Sofia, Bulgaria, S O F I A. That's probably the cheapest quote unquote European city. If you want accommodation, the and you'll see the difference. So you're gonna save money every day that you're in Sofia and not in London or New York. And then you factor in the girls and things start, this is interesting, you know. That links your your business then. Because guys are gonna say, well, how can you just not quit your job, but how can you mobilize your life? Because you still have a premises, a concrete business in the South Of England. So how can you be sitting here and doing that?

**Speaker 1:** Okay. So I've got two businesses. The ecommerce business, I used to have staff when I was there running it myself. But then I I looked at lots of options to be able to leave and for it to function without me physically being there. And in the end, I went down the route of finding a fulfillment company that they hold all the stock, process the orders, deal with the customer care, and just charge a flat rate per per parcel that goes out, which is more costly than taking on staff, but has much less headaches. If, you know, if if I had a manager and they went sick and I was in Australia, I could be screwed. If, you know, if a couple of people quit while I was away, again, I could be screwed. So a fulfillment company, it costs a little bit more, but is a lot easier. It takes away all the headaches. So it allows me to just oversee things, which I can just do from my laptop anywhere, still deal with some larger customers, suppliers, do that myself still, but all the physical stuff is done by them. And my other business, that was kind of more straightforward, took on a good manager, and that ticks over okay without me at the moment. Touch wood. I see you most mornings in here with your laptop like me.

**Speaker 0:** So what's your what does your day look like? Because obviously, quit again, another myth that quitting your job equals happiness, you know, unlimited free time or day game equals happiness. Both awful myths. Retired men, you know, you only have to look around, and Q, to see the happiness of retired men. So you work, don't you? What's your and you're you've just put in the gym again. What's the structure a bit of structure to your day? Yeah. So it's an interesting question, actually. So when I first left England,

**Speaker 1:** I, for the first, I don't know, maybe three or four months, really pushed the boundaries of how little I could do and things not fall apart. I I just needed to kind of cleanse my head from years of just being a complete workaholic. And then after three or four months, my life started to feel a bit unbalanced. I needed to do some more work just to a, because my businesses were starting to slip a bit with me just kind of ignoring them. And b, I needed some balance in my life, not just going out daygaming all the time. So I needed to do some more work. So now I typical day, wake up, you know, grab some breakfast, head out in the morning. I like to leave my flat. I've got Wi Fi in the flat, but I can focus a lot easier if I go and sit in a cafe. Do some mornings, it'll just be an hour. Some mornings, it'll be three hours, but I'll do my work, head back, grab some lunch. Just recently started hitting the gym, which is painful. And then there's always, you know, bit of time in the afternoon for some day game. I've not done that much recently, but I'm still most days, I try and do a few approaches at least.

**Speaker 0:** And that brings us three sixty very nicely in in a born newscaster or continuity man. You know, there's people that link the programs very smoothly. And you've linked it back to abundance because I'm doing the silly thing of coming to this part of the world for five days or six days and then try and do everything quickly and as you said burn everything and it all goes a bit desperate needy, wrong. And then you leave. Whereas the smart move is obviously revisiting, which is what you do or you spend a lot of time here. And you've built up how many did you say here? Four? Three or four? Four. I'm seeing

**Speaker 1:** four girls at the moment here. Yeah. I slept with them dating a couple of others, which yeah. Alright.

**Speaker 0:** So you're highly qualified to answer this million dollar question. Alright? Which is back to the fake as you make it. In night game, there's many magic tricks that you can pull because it's the nighttime. And you're you're a big fan of clubs. You're off to a club tonight. So, you'll you'll see this in action as you walk into the club, you know it well. The red rope outside the club for faked VIP, faked the club are faking it because they're saying that the club is full or sold out. You walk into the venue, it's half empty. Know? Or in a is it the in betweeners? Watch the first in betweeners movie. They they walk into a bar in Magaluf or something and it's completely deserted. And the balance has just said, yeah, mate, it's full of pussy. Full of pussy. So you got those tricks going on. And the PUAs in the venue are also kind of often faking value. You might know these old tricks as as you walk into the venue, you wave at random people or you high five the bounces, you make friends with the bounces, you have some kind of guest list like I used to do, you do entourage, and then you try and sleep with some of those girls. That's a common hustle in London. Merging sets, essential skill if you're night gamer. You open one, you leave the set, you open another set, and then you bring those two girls together, and they have no idea how they both know you, but they don't ask usually. And they're on their best behavior. That's merging sets, increasing your value, DHV in. You might have heard of this is really old school game, an accomplishment intro. Have you ever heard of that, Ian? Yeah. It's Mystery Method. So far as out with you tonight, you chat to a girl, then you just disappear to the bathroom. And I say, oh, wow. Isn't Ian such a great guy? I mean, that Hollywood movie, he's just done the stunts for. That was ridiculous. Anyway, oh, he's back now. That's an accomplishment intro. Mystery went as far as to use, fake photographers. I I do know a guy in London who does the autograph trick. He says he's a BMX rider. He might be a BMX rider actually, but anyway, he signs autographs. And flash game, I think it's called, where a light bulb goes off and in a club everyone looks. And they just assume that if you're sitting there with a photographer or a bodyguard, then that's value. But in the street, on the street, on the date is totally different. So if you're thinking about raising your value on the street, what would you say if you can look back exactly a year because it is exactly a year. Forgive the ambient noise, gents, but it is what's the time? It's coming out to 06:00 and this place is buzzing actually. Mostly women. Case closed. Anyway, hope you can hear me. So, yeah, look at yourself a year ago when you were maybe trying to do a lot of these things like smile, eye contact, speaking louder, changing your fashion, telling some story.

**Speaker 1:** And what's the difference between that Ian on the boot camp and now? Well, there's a huge huge difference. That Ian was terrified, trying to smile, but probably just looking petrified, thinking everything inside my head, what am I supposed to say, what am I supposed to do, Probably very robotic, but doing my best to convey that I was confident probably very badly at the time. And now after a year, the like I said before, the thought a lot of the thought has gone out of it. It's still it's still scary. It's I still have I still have anxiety approaching at times, but it's manageable. It's not at the same level, but it's still there, especially at the start of any day. It's still still always there, but it's just the knowledge that nothing bad is gonna happen.

**Speaker 0:** Yeah. And in a year, if you if you multiply that by two years, five years, ten years, and touch wood, fingers crossed, God bless Poland, wherever you are, the change is gonna be ridiculous, I guess. And as we've said with the podcast interviewing the real Hank Moody I think 48 years old my good friend the real Hank Moody and a phenomenal daygamer now so thirty five thirty five it's looking alright you know unless you want to settle down fine but you still got another ten years in this journey. And I'm fascinated by myself. How's it gonna change? How am I gonna be? Because I look back at my old videos or my old podcasts or whatever my old things and you just go, oh, that's when I was trying to be a pickup artist. So that's when it didn't quite work. Do you know what mean? Every day every day, it's like, what's gonna happen next? Yeah. Yeah. Completely. If if someone had told me

**Speaker 1:** a year ago where I'd be now, I wouldn't have believed them. I've, you know, I've changed quite considerably. I'm not a completely different person, but I'm a much more confident version of the person I used to be, which has changed me in in many ways, not just in in the field of of meeting girls. You know, it's it's I'm a more confident person in general. It's it's much broader than just, you know, just the girls.

**Speaker 0:** Yeah. And hopefully, it's three sixty in that you eventually quote unquote become yourself. You are yourself. And then you can look in the mirror and say, well, yeah, I I kind of I am being myself. I always had it in me. There's that famous Robert Browning quote, a man's reach should exceed his grasp. So by kind of overreaching, that cheesy thing of reaching for the the the stars or whatever or the moon, you go way beyond what you thought you were. There's a debate whether that was inside you all along. Did you learn something? Did you need the training wheels? Did you need the scaffolding? That's all for debate. But the advice if I had seen you in a year ago and gone, mate, you're fine. You're absolutely fine. It's all in your head. Right? Just just be Ian. Find Ian and just go for it, man. You know? I can see why that's very confusing to some guys. So yeah. If if I tried to go down that route,

**Speaker 1:** it would have been a disaster. I needed that framework to to follow the model and that's helped me no end. I, you know, I don't follow it to the letter like I used to, but it sent me in the direction that gave me the confidence to build.

**Speaker 0:** Yeah. Yeah. I think people mistake it as you have to follow the model. You have to follow the model. No, it's it's CS training wheels. And we're coming up to our half an hour designated time. That's all we can give you anymore when we have to charge. That's what our lawyers have said. But to finish, I am gonna give away something cool based on an email I got after why did he email me? Oh yeah, after one of my world tour videos when I showed how I was in a VIP lounge. I think that was in Johannesburg. And the guy said, how do you do that then? What's the what's the hustle? Well, you can read Catch Me If You Can or you can watch the movie. I got this hustle from Las Vegas and it does work, but you need some daygame skill. As Ian said, it needs to be the same thing. So VIP lounges in airports are fantastic because you can sleep, have a shower, have free tea and coffee and food. But you usually have to pay to get in or have some kind of card. But most of these airlines have this deal where a cardholder, a first class ticket holder can sign in a guest. So what you need is the skill of blagging, winging it, or just confidence. So linger outside the airport lounge, not in view of the reception desk, and just wait for a single male. That's right. We're gonna do some gay game. Don't do a family. Don't do a group. Don't do a a woman, I'd suggest, because you'll think you're hitting on her. I I go for guys that look, you know, they're they're relaxed. They're quite happy. They got time to kill. Just as he's going in, stop him. They're going to stop and say and be very polite. And don't, know, don't need to lie. You just need to say, look. I've got a long stopover, which I had. I'm quite tired. I need some WiFi. I need to charge my laptop, and I'd love a cup of coffee. Do you mind if you just sign me in as a guest? And nine times out of 10, they've said yes. You can try the same hustle with an upgrade. Do that when you're checking in. And if you're in a Las Vegas hotel in a casino, you can try the room upgrades. I think you need to Google $10 upgrade trick. I haven't got time to say what it is, but it works a treat. You can get a room upgrade. It's very easy. Dave Digger and I did it. And then John Matrix was so mad that it didn't he hadn't asked for it. He went back downstairs, got it, upgraded his room. Worked three out of three. And on that bombshell, in the words of Jeremy Clarkson, we shall say, for this podcast, podcast three. Cheers, Ian. I'll see you probably here, I guess, in a in a month or so or whenever. See you soon. Thanks for doing this. Yes. Thank you. And I'll speak to you guys from Kazakhstan. It's very nice. Goodbye.