---
title: Episode 54 A Lust For Life
episode_number: 54
era: early
source_file: Episode 54 A Lust For Life.mp3
audio_size_mb: 55.9
duration_sec: 1831.5
duration_min: 30.5
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.998
transcribed_at: 2026-05-28T06:46:42Z---

# Episode 54 A Lust For Life

**Speaker 0:** Tom Torero podcast 54 back in Europe. I landed about two hours ago from New York JFK. A night flight which was very bizarre, not just because of the lack of sleep, just because of the complementary alcohol, the change in time zones but on that flight were many, many children, lots of them screaming, somebody had a dog in like a dog basket who was yapping all night. There was a crazy guy having a big dispute and before we even got on the plane in New York JFK, the flight was delayed and they were giving us all sorts of reasons why, one hour, two hours and then off the plane in not just handcuffs but chains, chained feet, chained arms, being dragged by four or five burly NYPD and whoever. A guy was just being dragged off the plane. Something had gone on. Anyway, dramatic flight back here in Europe and I wanna record this podcast. A, because I have to put it out today. B, I wanna stay awake, so forgive, the croaky voice, maybe the low energy which ironically is the opposite of the topic of today's podcast which is about keeping a childlike sense of awe and wonder and enthusiasm, a lust for life and energy, not growing up. So we'll come back to that but anyway, so much to say about New York City. I hope you liked the videos I put out from there. I've got a shitload more of infields that obviously I'm saving for my infield video product coming out later this year, maybe Christmas twenty sixteen, Stealth Seduction, all my infields. So I got some great stuff, I've got some great lays. Most of my lays this trip were students at NYU, New York University, students I had met on Broadway or near Washington Square or Union Square. They were aged, one was 19, one was 22, the other one was 24. So there you go, very productive NYU explorations. The last lay of the trip was a knife edge lay and I'll write down the full story somewhere else another time and you can see it all. You can listen to it all in stealth seduction but this girl I had met in Washington Square Park, she was sitting on a bench, a good awkward approach with lots of people listening. Took her number, she was a dreamy literature student, 19 years old. We arranged to meet, she flaked and I was going to visit my aunt in Pennsylvania but anyway we arranged for a meet up on my last evening. Was staying in Greenwich Village just for one night before flying home. She said, yep, totally free. 07:00, meet me under the arch in Washington Square. So there I was 07:00 and just as I was walking towards the arch, two daygamers approached me and meaning well that they had a good chat to me but out of the corner of my eye I thought I could see her and it was her. She was there with a guy who turned out to be the gay guy and a bit of a white knight as well and they saw me talking to these two guys and they just walked off and then I texted her, hey, you know, what's up? Nothing. I sent her a message around 08:00 saying, listen, come and explain, this is my last evening blah blah blah, you know, just burning the boats, burning the bridges, not good text practice but just saying fuck it. And then she said, okay, there's been some drama, I'm coming. So I waited again, nothing. So I sent her royal flush message you know, like look, what the fuck, this is crazy, you're wasting my time blah blah blah. She appeared, 09:30 she met up with me. It turns out the gay guy had been suspicious of me with the other guys and he was protecting her and he had dragged her back to his house where there were some other guys who were her friends and they didn't want her to meet me, a stranger from Washington Square Park. So they gave her loads of sangria and they were just gonna party but she liked my royal flush angry messages. Again, I'm not recommending this as good text practice because it's all or nothing but it was my last evening in New York City, I had nothing to lose and because of her age I think, she didn't want to let me down, she kept saying 'Look, I'm not flaking on you, it was just my friends, they were trying to protect me and they meanwhile blah blah blah. She turned up anyway, we hit a couple of bars, she came back to mine, wham bam, it was beautiful. It was the best lay of the trip but it was right down to the wire and I put out a tweet I think last week saying, dating while you're traveling is like deciding which horse to back because you've got all these options and you're thinking, should I put her on Thursday or Wednesday or Friday or is this one more likely than this one? It's juggling whereas when you're staying in one place, you can take your time, you can double book, it doesn't matter if they flake, you don't need to be so reactive. I talk about that I think in an old YouTube video called why daygaming abroad is harder but it's definitely more exciting. It pushes you to lead, escalate, pull the trigger, not put up with shit. So God bless The USA, God bless NYC and God bless NYU. Couple of things before we start, I've been having lots of emails about possible coaching, guys are asking for infield coaching and I think like I said on the last podcast, I'm sold out, I'm completely sold out for infield coaching for April, May, June and now most of July. So we're into the summer, I won't be doing that much more infield coaching anyway. So apologies if I able to fit you in, I'll email you back today or tomorrow. What is available, I guess wherever I am is Skype coaching. So I know that's not ideal if you want a real actionable kick up the ass but with Skype coaching you can play me mp3s, we can talk about sticking points, blind spots, create an action plan and it can just be wider. We can obviously talk about relationships, texting, this kind of lifestyle shenanigans, Torero, Tom Foolery, whatever. What was the second thing? Oh yeah, just to say thank you to that army of men that appeared in Union Square that evening when I did a little meet up which turned into a pretty big meet up. Lots of new faces, just like in London daygame has a high attrition rate, know. The faces I saw last summer in my seminar, there were loads and loads of guys, they all disappeared during the winter and now we've got some new guys so they met up with each other, they found wings, we had a good talk and very nice, thank you for everybody who came up and said hello. All right, on to today's topic based on something a family member said to me over Christmas. It's been said to me many times even by guys who email me and comments but when a family member says it, you take it obviously a lot more seriously. That was the topic of last week's podcast when I was saying, you know, value feedback if it's from somebody valuable and someone who I love and have grown up with, they said, Tom, you need to grow up. That's your problem, Tom. You need to settle down. Okay? You need to do the right thing, right? You need to be responsible, I. E. Family, kids, car, mortgage, blah dee, blah dee, blah. Because them looking at what I do, they just saw it as fun and games and it got me thinking, first of all about that Tom Hanks movie, you might remember it if you're a child of the eighties and nineties called Big where the kid, the guy is in a child's body but he's an adult but he gets the chance to play in New York City and work for a toy company. So it got me thinking about that and it got me thinking about why most of the top seducers I've ever met, seen in field, hung around with, winged with, they all have this childlike quality about them, like this mischievous twinkle in their eye. They've got a smirk, they giggle, they're into stupid stuff, joking around, fooling around. They've got an ease about them, right? The sexual side of that is the swagger but swagger also has that lightness, that twinkle and think of the red carpet, think of Hollywood, think of the star quality of movie males, how they smirk, that twinkle in their eye, the way they walk. So they've got the weight but they've also got the lightness. This is the juxtaposition in game of badass and Buddha, intent and freedom from outcome. I talk about it in my podcast on charisma and charm. Charisma and charm is two things together, they don't seem to go together but when they do go together in perfect harmony, bang, you got the badass Buddha and that is power plus warmth. So today's topic really is keeping that warmth, keeping that sense of awe and wonder and mischievous joy but not being a fool, not being a clown, not being reckless, not being a child in the sense of never growing up like stunted growth. I don't mean in height but I mean, in your inner game, in your mind. Alright, let's consider why that lightness, that swagger, that ease is attractive. Now coming back to some central tenants of game, remember that who you are is who you attract and no, I'm not talking about bullshit law of attraction, I'm talking about simple win win, win lose or lose lose principles, yeah? Evolve for obvious reasons. So what you feel, she feels. And in the podcast about secret society I talked about micro expressions and how way before language humans were outstanding at reading very small muscular facial cues, body language, this is this mysterious wording game vibe, alright. But what you feel, she feels it in the beginning, yeah, it's a bit of fake it till you make it. When you've come out of a long day in the office, yeah, it's a bit of fake it till you make it first approach of the day, yeah, it's a bit awkward, it's a bit stiff, the wheels aren't turning properly but as you get into that rhythm, as you get into that flow, as your quote unquote vibe increases. Who you are is who you attract. So if you're feeling light and fun and playful then as we're going to talk about, the open goes well even before you've said anything, the pre open as you run around or you walk towards her, she's already smiling. Your stack is in the moment, it's observational. Your vibing is amazing, alright. You've got this role play aura and wonder about you. You can be silly without being a clown. So I'm going to keep coming back to that point that we're not talking about funny as in funny or happy as in Disney happy, we're talking about that quality you've seen in, I don't know, Leonardo DiCaprio when he's smashing it in Wolf of Wall Street, not the end but or even Leonardo DiCaprio in real life. Look at the way he moves, look at the way he speaks, look at the mischievous twinkle in his eye. Same with Tom Jones, if you know the Welsh singer Tom Jones, I always admired that cheekiness about him despite that gravitas, that masculinity that he obviously has. Same with Frank Sin Archer, yeah, the Rat Pack, both weight and lightness. Or something more contemporary, what about Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers? Again, masculine elements, so not a total clown, not a total buffoon but when he's crashing one of those weddings and he's using social proof and he's doing classic Mystery Method, if you watch Wedding Crashers, it's perfect swagger plus smirk. So learn from guys like that and like I said, it's not being happy because as I've said many times, we're not designed to be permanently happy. Happiness is just the carrot on the stick that just keeps us going. What I'm talking about is the charm, the ease which is infectious, right? People will gravitate towards you even if you're ordering a coffee and you've got this ease about you. People will describe you as charismatic, what you feel, they feel and that's not woo woo, you can test it, Right? Or you know it if you're feeling on top of the world, if you've had some good news or if you've just got laid, you walk down the street, you've got that swagger, you've got that red carpet walk, people look at you. You you might get a free coffee in Starbucks whereas if you're in a really bad mood, you think everybody's against you, it's been a shit day at work, maybe there's money problems or health problems, you see the bad in everyone and they see the bad in you. Remember that saying, I've said it before, if you keep getting bad service, it probably means you're a bad customer, right? So this is just coming back to that principle of who you are is who you attract. The childlike sense that I'm talking about has positivity. No, not universal happiness but positivity obviously. It has purpose, it has drive, it has energy and that you could say is passion. So it's passion, it's driving one direction, everything's aligned and other people can spot it in you. It propels you forward in a totally win win way and it's labeled as charm, it's labeled as allure, it's labeled as warmth, like I said charisma. In game a great concept that many guys forget is projecting this immediately in what in game is called assumed familiarity. Alright. So not walking up to her like she's a stranger, like she's a glass vase, like she's a marble statue but you're walking up to her like you've known her all your life, like she's the bratty sister or she's just a playful puppy that you know very well. So you start where you left off. So even as you run around or walk into her space, you're smirking, she's smiling, even as you say, hey, this is gonna sound cheeky. Right? Your eyes are twinkling, her eyes are twinkling. When you do the stack, you know, you look like a panda escaped from London Zoo. She gets it. It doesn't feel like you just met on the street or in a supermarket, right? So don't forget the principle of assumed familiarity. There's a section on it in Street Hustle but I think you know what I mean. Guys just forget it obviously because adrenaline, anxiety, nerves immediately shuts everything down. You've got serious stalker face, you've got a supplicating voice, you're speaking too fast, you're leaning in, everything's off, you're kissing your ass, It's the opposite of assumed familiarity and it's definitely not childlike. Okay. Now, being like a kid, coming back to when my family member said to me, grow up. No, I'm not talking about a character like maybe you remember Joey from Friends because yes, there would be a justifiable reason to say to an adult like that who just is a child, who is forgetful, who is irresponsible, who is just immature. Yeah, you would say to that adult, 'Look, you need some life experience, you need a kick up the arse, you need to toughen up, you need to be real, you do need to grow up. But when that family member said it to me, just thought it was ironic because what I cherish, what I try really hard to do is not lose that awe and wonder. Working as a primary school teacher for all those years made it very simple for me to carry on and be that kind of Tom Hanks character. So I'd finish my teaching and I'd go straight out into Central London and keep that vibe. Kids give you a great vibe, just like playing with dogs all day, that gives you a great vibe. So yeah, maybe I had it easier than a guy who works in an office or he's an accountant or he's got a really logical engineer medical job. I was laughing all day, not just jokes but that wit, that banter. And again we're lucky in The UK and that we have this concept of dark humor, of ironic wit and banter which as I've just experienced for the last week or so is very hard to explain to some of my American students and to get them to do it. I can show them what it is but it's not as ingrained in American culture as in British or European culture and I know that's a cliche but it's true. So American daygamers are super social, they can even be super funny like Saturday Night Live but the humor lacks the dryness. I've only ever seen it in people like Louis CK, Curb Your Enthusiasm, it's often East Coast stuff but on the whole I would say Americans are just either way too nice as in chitchat rapport or funny as in let's tell a joke funny. Anyway, why was I talking about that? Yeah, the difference between growing up and growing up. I've tried to keep this childlike sense of wonder even now when I'm not a primary school teacher, doing daygame I know that this is the secret source. Know that this sparkle, I know that this ease is what gives you so many extra points in front of the girl. You can have the best verbal game, you can have the best fashion, you can look amazing, you can be the most sexual guy, you can do all the non verbal stuff, you can be sexually aggressive but if the pickup is lacking this lightness, this fun, not funny but this joy, then it's going to be tough and that's when daygamers email me and say, look I did everything exactly word for word, like in the London daygame model, I brought street hustle, I followed it exactly, it still didn't work. The frustrating thing to say to them is that yeah, it's your delivery, it's your vibe, it's your underlying passion. Remember my saying, open with love. I've got a video on that about not being a daygame robot, so it's your delivery, opening with love. Oscar Wilde said, An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young. Yeah, a bit like when Picasso said, Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up because as we grow up and certainly as I've stopped teaching, we get jaded, we get bitter, we get cynical, we get I think fearful which is what causes these walls, these barriers to come down. We get angry, we get frustrated, we get full of rage, often passive aggressive. We're stuck in a rut, we drift deep, deep, deep into unreality, into the reality we've created in our head, into the distortion and this is a midlife crisis. It's way too forebrain, it's way too rational. You forget that life is a game, pickup is a game, right. The game will certainly end both for life and in pickup. You can have awful sets, Road to Nowhere's, the flakes but just like, it's like a board game, you laugh, you can start again, right. You can start the Pac Man machine again, you've infinite tries. With life you haven't got infinite tries which should be your motivation as in Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams, to seize the des carpe diem, yeah, however cheesy that sounds. A creative adult is the child who survived. I never forget that quote, that's a classic teacher's quote, The creative adult is the child who survived. So if you can keep this childlike quality, I know it's hard to define but I hope you've got it by now at this point in the podcast, if you can keep that vibe, whatever vibe means, you become creative and then the banter flows, alright? The quick wit just comes out, right? It's not telling jokes during stacking and vibing, it's this quick verbal banter. The role play is so much easier so your stories are no longer logical and boring and factual and heavy and probably depressive. They're light and weird and stupid and surreal, Monty Python esque and this is cocaine for girls, right? Just like with puppies and children, girls are attracted to this stuff like a magnet and if you've done a lot of night game you'll know that you pump the buying temperature with fun, spinning around, high fiving, dancing, even in the night, yeah, telling funny jokes. If you can spike that buying temperature and then lead, escalate, pull, go from social to sexual, attraction to arousal, bang, that is night game. Obviously in the day we calibrate it, remember secret society, we calibrate it to the environment but you still can't miss out that element of fun, that creative burst, that creative blast. John Cleese, the famous python and Mr Fulty Towers, Mr Fulty, he says, creativity is not a talent, it's a way of operating and I like that because people say, oh well, you're creative, I'm not creative, he was born creative, I just wasn't lucky. It's a way of thinking, it's a way of operating and you can certainly train your brain to be more creative. Daygame is the ultimate brain trainer because every set you do, you're in there into improv and it's not improv comedy as in a course in a comedy club. This is improv in terms of wit, sexual banter, flirtation, role play of the perfect kind and every set you do you got to be quick on your feet. And I do that exercise with students, sitting down pointing out girls and running through the model just verbally, say what you see with a twist. I've got that video remember, street improv for daygame. All right, let's get practical. You know I like to finish things practically not just with blah blah blah mental masturbation. So let's say you have that heavy job or you're going through a bit of a tough time or like me, the black dog of depression sometimes follows you around and appears. Okay, what do I do? What can you do? What do humans do to get into that more playful light state? Go outside. So the first thing I do when I'm feeling heavy or trapped is to get outside, preferably not into an urban concrete jungle but to a park or go down by the river or go to the city outskirts and explore, right? Get lost, take the risks, that doesn't mean being reckless but just like a kid who is climbing trees and running around and not being all full brain but going back to the hind brain, the minute, this is why travel's good, the minute you get out of your own designated comfort space, as I've said before, you are not just in the prison of your mind but you're the jailer. You're standing there with a key to your own mind to unlock it but we don't. We like to sulk in this heaviness. So just walking outside, getting outside but traveling even to a local town nearby, a different city, get on a cheap flight, go to a different place, go to a different climate, get some sunshine. Immediately, as we all know, you feel lighter yet exercise does this, moving, move, move, move, move, go for a jog, go for a run, go for a swim, do anything, do some stretching in your apartment, do some cardio. It will immediately fire everything up, yeah? But what about game? Now in Street Hustle I talk about pre game things to do, they're old classics like dancing around your apartment, listening to some music that you love, Some guys do visualizations, some guys do affirmations, some guys watch in fields of pickup guys they like to give them a blast of energy. But what about actual game? Role play. So get into role play. Make your stacks flirtatious, like I keep saying rather than logical. So don't forget that stacking into vibing and the importance of role play in your stories because guys do the assumption statements but they forget the assumption stories. So in vibing when you've got the topic, you're doing silly role play about going to the moon, going to Las Vegas, kidnapping her, being a spy, etcetera, etcetera. So that gets you into a flirtatious mode. A little trick I do on dates or when I'm dating a girl is just to pull out your phone, not pull out your dick, that's for privacy but pull out your phone, whack on the video camera and if you're nervous about filming her, get her to film you first and say, Hey mom, video from Berlin, this is my crazy wife and then grab the phone off her and start filming her and this is the magic about filming people. When you put a camera on somebody, man, woman, child, dog, they play up to the camera and you can do this in a club, you can do this in a barber, I like to do it on a date, even the first date, girls play up to the camera. They immediately go silly, they immediately get into the role play because it's human nature to want to show this side of yourself. So that sparks things up, spices things up and it's a nice memento as well yeah. And remember what was funny in the playground when you were in first, second, third grade is still funny with girls on dates. So when I'm walking along I nudge her, push her into a lamppost, pick her up, pretend to put her in a bin, give her a piggy back up some steps, do a false high five, all those stupid handshake things, pretend to read her palm, slap her hand, have fun physically, have fun verbally. You should know my spikes by now. I've put out hundreds in that little guide, How to Flirt with Girls. Learn five of those spikes at least, All my day game students learn at least five of those spikes to deliver, not just on the street but on a date. So spikes do the job. In Street Hustle, I talk about that £1 or $1 date trick where you're texting, you're pinging back and forth before the day and you say, listen, I've just got you something amazing. I've just splashed the cash on you because you deserve it and it cost me all of £1 If you want the gift, have to bring something, bring me a secret surprise also costing £1, something along those lines, that's a £1 gift and I usually buy them a shitty Barbie badge or like a Kinder Surprise Egg with a shitty toy, something ironic, something obviously kitsch. But the great thing is girls invest and they think about what they're going to get you and they worry about it. I've had girls bake me biscuits, make me handmade things, mix CDs, really cool stuff. So that's a little fun thing. And in Street Hustle I also talk about the adventure bubble of days gone by. Now if you remember my product, the Girlfriend Sequence, I recommended date number one, date number two and on date number two to do an adventure bubble. Now I do less of this because it does put you in the kind of boyfriend box rather than the lover box, it delays the escalation but for those girls that need a bit of time or maybe it's their background, maybe it's their vibe, maybe they're shy, you couldn't get very far on the first date. On the second date before you pull them back to yours for cooking and a DVD, Netflix and chill, do what I call an adventure bubble. Alright, my friend Anthony and I came up with this through riding those higher bikes through Hyde Park or taking that cheap clipper boat on your oyster card down the Thames. Finding something quirky to do going skateboarding with it, going to a cheap arcade, don't spend money, don't go to the cinema, don't have face to face dinner, just do something quirky and silly even if it's walking around a park. She'll feel like a kid, you'll feel like a kid, it builds trust, it builds rapport, it builds connection and it makes the escalation so much easier when you get her back to yours, alright, because she doesn't just think you're a horny dog. You haven't just got the power but you've got the warmth which takes us $3.60 back to what is charisma, what is this secret sauce that I'm talking about with Leonardo DiCaprio or Vince Vaughn or Frank Sinatra. It's an ease. It's the smirk, it's the swagger, it's the twinkle, it's the lightness. Should you grow up for pickup? No. Until next time, keep grabbing life by the horns. Ta da.