---
title: Episode 58 Winning Not Whining
episode_number: 58
era: early
source_file: Episode 58 Winning Not Whining.mp3
audio_size_mb: 48.3
duration_sec: 1582.9
duration_min: 26.4
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.996
transcribed_at: 2026-05-28T06:51:56Z---

# Episode 58 Winning Not Whining

**Speaker 0:** Tom Torero podcast 58 from somewhere in sunny Central Europe. I'm sitting outside like a cat in the sun. I'm somewhere somewhere near The Czech Republic. I'm somewhere near Ukraine. And my laptop's outside today. I just couldn't be indoors. May is upon us. The skirts are out. The legs are out. So I'm distracted as I'm recording this podcast. But hey, dedication to a cause. I'm back from London. I was in London on the weekend to do a bit of coaching and more importantly to do that black sheep seminar. And I put a portion of that up. It was good, but the bit I'm not gonna put up, which was the second half of the seminar, was the interactive element where I shut up. It wasn't teacher Tom Chalk and talk lecture style as most pickup things are. It was guys not doing each other, but doing things on each other. They were in pairs looking at elements of the London daygame model, being flirtatious, observational, stacking properly, overcoming shit tests, qualifying each other, and that was good. You could straight away the benefit of actually making, guys do something. So I think in the future, if I do another one of these world tours, it's not just gonna be lecture lecture lecture, but it's gonna be interactive because you can do dummy runs on a lot of the skill set. Obviously, nothing replaces going out there and talking to girls, but going over common mistakes, going over common sticking points, you can. You can get yourself ready by doing some drills. So on to today, podcast 58, winning, not whining. Win, don't whine. My biggest pet hate is people that whine, especially in the West, in the Western world or the developed world, people that whine, people with a victim mentality, people that enjoy being negative, they're addicted to negativity. And from the off, as I've said many times before, no, we're not talking today about, winning to be happy as in a perpetual state of Disney happiness where everything is rainbows and flowers and bunny rabbits. We're talking about winning and happiness in terms of being in flow. If you know my flow mad stuff, you'll know what I'm talking about. So sure you can win with girls, I. E. Get that girl you want the hottie, you can win with money, make x amount of million. You can win if you're obsessed with ice hockey or you want to win a certain competition, certain medal, a certain badge, a certain apartment but winning in life which is what we need to think about is ultimately freedom. Yeah, the flow mad has freedom freedom of time because of his freedom of money. Yeah, freedom to do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants. Right? He's accountable to himself and this gives him this flow state, this bliss. Follow your bliss. If you listen to the Joseph Campbell stuff, he's happy, quote unquote happy. He's in control of his life. And most importantly, today, want you to focus on the fact that somebody like this is in control of their emotions. Right? They don't have a puppet master, nobody's pushing their buttons, they are in control of the weather in their own head. Jesus, as I'm recording this. A girl, a slinky girl with very long legs. Oh, it's just slide sliding past. Anyway, carry on carry on carry on. Perception is reality. So that was a good example. As I was thinking about what is winning in life that girl walked past. For me, she's I can see her in the distance. She's got that feminine walk. She's giving off that beautiful energy. She's flicking her hair. She's got some sexy shoes on. Oh, that is beautiful for me. Okay? And I think of that as beautiful and surprise surprise, I look for it and I see it more and more. And even though I haven't spoken to her, which I'd normally have done, that's made me more positive. Right? There's beautiful things in the world. I'm sitting in front of an art gallery surrounded by trees in blossom. There's blue sky. Birds are chirping. Everything's clean. I've just taken a train which was efficient, spotless, punctual, free Wi Fi. I had a free coffee on the train. I just stared out of the window for a couple of hours as I was traveling here watching these fields and meadows and just thinking, oh, once again, I'm not in an office. There's gratitude. Okay? And one of my little secrets is gratitude. Not to be thankful to our lord Jesus Christ or to the prophet Mohammed or to whoever you think you should be, you are told to be thankful to, but gratitude is something else. Gratitude is just stopping and what hippies would call mindfulness. I just call that sitting down like I was on the train and thinking, okay, I'm here and I can walk. I am free. I have some money in the bank to be able to do these things. I have a family back home. I have my health. I have my freedom. I have these opportunities with girls. I have this network of friends. I can follow my bliss and make videos or record podcasts or write blogs, whatever. So gratitude is an immediate strategy to win. Alright? Gratitude knocks out of the park the doom and gloom, the negativity, the pessimism. But our brains naturally draw themselves to negative things. Alright? Our brains have evolved to scan for threats for the negative. That's an obvious evolutionary thing. It wouldn't be healthy for our brain just to sit down all day and, feel in a state of bliss, feel positive because, we have to be wary. You know, we're drawn to drama. We scan for drama. That's why we're drawn to a fight. We love soap operas. So we have this negativity bias. And this negativity bias is just as addictive as sugar. This negativity bias I would argue is just as addictive as alcohol, as cocaine, as using hookers, whatever. And it's very easy in doom and gloom, as I said, to take on the victim role. Alright? Now, remember, perception is reality. I say this to all my students. Perception is reality. So if you think you're too short, you are too short. Alright? If I think I'm ugly, I am ugly. And I and I start to look for clues all around going, yep, that person thinks I'm ugly. That set didn't work because I'm ugly. Life sucks because I'm ugly. So if you think that, your city sucks, everything you see all day, you'll be looking for this looking for evidence to support this and you'll see it. I often use with students the example, I say, okay, imagine you think pigeons are robots sent from space to destroy the world. Now, automatically every day, you'll just see more pigeons. You'll see pigeons being more aggressive and your brain will start to form conspiracy theories. Yeah? Pigeons are against us. They they are terrible. Look, they're looking at us. Look, they're approaching us. Fuck. It's true. Fuck. The world is going to hell in a handcart. Alright? An interesting statistic I googled on the train is that 71% of people in the Western world that were polled for this think that the world is getting worse. Think that the world is going to the dogs. They are nostalgic for the past of their childhood or their parents or their grandparents. They think in absolutes. Most people think in black and white. Yeah? And, it triggers emotions, triggers negative emotions. Alright? And we're drawn to this drama. And we don't realize that, other people are setting up drama for us to, be drawn into. Other people are playing us. Other people are hustling us. And just like we do with girls, we create a bit of drama and the girl's drawn into it. Just like with a cat when you shake that ball of wool and the cat chases after it. Somebody who can push our buttons, somebody who can play with our emotions, that's a very powerful thing. So you obviously know, advertisers do it and movie makers do it, but you might not have considered that the media does it, that even some of the blogs you read do it. Yeah? Because if you, fall into the trap of thinking in black and white absolutes, all you need to do is be drawn into drama of somebody generating what they say in social media as rage clicks. Right? You are being gamed. You are being baited by somebody who's manufacturing drama. This is for their own good. It's because you will click, from this like outrage clickbait. It encourages pessimism. It gets this massive feeding frenzy of views and obviously from the views they get traffic and they can sell you something or they can, earn money off advertising. Yeah? So, they're trolling to trigger, I say. And who are they triggering? Fundamentalists, people that are negative with this victim mentality, people that want to moan, people that want to rant, people that want to whine. You get this, massive hate circle jerk. Yeah? Ironically, from people, viewing this content or reading this content on their iPhones and Starbucks, you know, the kind of champagne socialist, fundamentalist, apocalyptic people who love being angry. They love being negative and it generates, perhaps in you, it generates paranoia, paranoia, fear, fear, fatigue, fatigue. Yeah. So, there's nothing new here. That's what, you should realize. There's nothing new here. This has always been around but with the Internet and social media, of course, this is amplified. If you just read the papers, even a hundred years ago, you get the impression that the world is going to hell in a handcart and it drags you down. It immediately makes you negative. The people are pushing your buttons. Alright? You're not controlling the weather in your own head. You're outsourcing your emotions. So the one thing to take from this podcast is that I refuse to outsource my emotions. You are control in control of the weather in your own head. And by letting these negative influences consume your whole life, by being drawn into this clickbait. Yeah. You are being gained. Right? You are believe believing in, nostalgia, which is a very dangerous thing if you think that the world was much better in the good old days, you know? Whereas it's always been like this. People have always generated manufactured drama to draw you in. Alright? We So get the impression that the world is going to to the dogs. We get the impression that there's fear all around. We get the impression that everybody thinks in these black and whites. Yeah? It's overly simplistic. It's binary. It's my opic. I've said many times it's black and white thinking. Because if you accept the reality, if you're a realist like me and you say, okay, the world is not black and white, the world is gray. There's a spectrum between this camp and this camp, this side and this side. Well, doesn't sell newspapers. That doesn't generate clicks. If you say something's complex rather than simplistic, that's not good for media drama. Right? That doesn't push your buttons. Realism doesn't sell newspapers. Now, guys out there already, I can hear you saying, ah, Tom, you're a you're an optimist. Right? You're just sitting on the fence. You're I don't know. You're siding with the enemy. No. I'm just being a realist. Alright? There's so many things you can be grateful for. There's so many things you can be thankful for. Yeah? I'm not saying the world is perfect. I'm not saying you shouldn't be annoyed with, I don't know, PC culture, with feminism, with social justice worries. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I get it. I get it. But don't let it trigger your emotions. Right? It's not as significant as you're letting it seem. Right? You've got this bias. This is what conspiracy theorists always have. They've got this bias where, if you think something's true, like I said, like with the pigeons, you'll see it everywhere. So to win. Winning mentality is just that I'm controlling my emotions. I've got, not just a target, but I've got a mission, a philosophy that I'm moving towards. I'm working on my positivity. I'm recognizing that negativity is addictive. I'm care for what, is pushing my buttons. I'm not surrounding myself with negative people, surrounding myself with winners. Alright? Winners see, problems, obviously, is motivation. Winners have momentum. Winners Winners have habits rather than just the cheesy motivation. So they do something which is usually a bit boring and painful every day that builds momentum and you win because you just accept that everybody else is lazy. Yeah? And to readdress the balance in terms of the world going to hell, I want you to check out or at least read a synopsis of a couple of books. The first one is by, Peter Diamandis, d I a m a n d I s, Diamandis, I should say. His book is called Abundance, The Future Is Better Than You Think. I'll write that in the description. And the second one is called The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. Violence has declined. Now, these people are not being Mickey Mouse optimists, painting the world with rainbows. They're just presenting facts. Simple facts about the world, how it's changed in the hundred years, and what, the trajectories are doing. So an example. The present that we're living in right now, 2016, this is the most peaceful time in the history of the human species. Alright? If you look at global data, remember these are facts, not feelings. Facts, not feelings. Teen pregnancy, it's an all time low. Yeah? Combat deaths in wars, they're at their lowest in a hundred years. We are living longer than ever. Yeah? Happiness, if you believe that you can monitor happiness in terms of data, that's been increasing. You happier as you get older. Since 1990, only 1990, extreme poverty in the world has halved by 50%. Crime is massively on the decline in the West. Child mortality rates have halved since 1990. A great example I always say to people that are doom and gloom, just walk into a supermarket. Right? A supermarket anywhere in the Western world and you see abundance, you see choice. I'm amazed that people don't just walk into supermarkets and go, fuck, this is amazing. Look at all these types of milk. Look at all these types of bread. Look at all the vegetables from all over the world that you can eat. Our problem today, as you know, is resisting food rather than finding food. And for most of human history, 99.9% of human history. The problem was finding food. Now it's ironically resisting food. But I still walk into a supermarket or a technology store and I go, fuck yes. Now is a great time to be alive. Yeah? Every time I check something on the internet on my phone or I use my laptop or I use my phone to record a video, I go fuck yeah. This is an amazing time to work using the power of digital social media. I keep saying to guys, all you need is a laptop, a credit card, and a passport. I'd add to that a video camera as well on your iPhone. Yeah? A laptop, a credit card, a passport, and a phone. And that's it. You're a self made independent man. Anybody can start up a business. So technology is amazing. Right? Think about it how it impacts on your your, the ease of your life. Think about how it impacts on, medical care. I recently visited somebody in hospital and what that person had available to them in terms of treatment and just making their stay better. It was unbelievable. Think about that fifty years ago. Yeah? So I sound like I'm preaching. I sound like I'm one of those people in Sunday school saying, you should walk a mile in somebody else's shoes, but it's fucking true. Right? So if you close your laptop, step away from all that soap opera manufactured clickbait drama. If you remove negative influence in is in your life for a week, let's say you stop moaning with those friends, you stop taking it from one of your parents who's always negative towards you, you get out of an urban environment for half a day, you go to a park, you just sit still. God, sound like a fucking new age preacher, but maybe that's me getting older, just sitting still and thinking, I'm alive. I'm on a planet. It's spinning through time and space. I don't know what the fuck this is, but I'm alive. Things could be a lot more fucking worse. So universal, mindset truths, you like, which are as old as time. Starting with yourself, so changing yourself rather than raging others and trying to change others. In the Black Sheet Seminar, I said, look, you don't blame women for being masculine, blame yourself for being feminine. Alright? Don't blame women for being bitchy, blame yourself for not holding the frame. Take back responsibility because when you take back responsibility, you have control of your emotions. And as soon as you have control of your emotions, you're on the winner's path. Yeah? If you're letting other people trigger you, if you're very reactive, if you're prickly, if you're easily baited, you've got a very brittle frame. Alright? And every winner winner has superb frame, which is what black sheep is all about. Yeah? So don't put your emotions in the hands of someone else because you're very, very vulnerable. And as a and as an old mate, John used to say, just sometimes zoom out and just remember that it's just a game. Yeah? I heard on the radio the other day, it's like everybody, the population of planet earth, imagine that we're all in a car. The car is hurtling at a 100 miles an hour towards a brick wall. Death is certain. And nobody's looking out of the window enjoying the ride. Instead, we're arguing about where to sit in the car. Right? So if you zoom out, yep, you're gonna die. Yep, your time is limited. Yep, Yep, it could be snatched away from you at any point. It's only a game. It's almost laughable. Yeah? You can zoom out. It's almost laughable. The things that seem massive are trivial. Alright? So change what you can. Control is in our hands. And what can we change? Ourselves. And remember that perception is reality. Perception is reality. And this will help you. Here's the practical thing with your degin. Perception is reality. This explains the weasel. So guys say to me, I'm too old, referring to themselves. I'm too old for daygame. Well, you'll have that bias and everywhere you'll see evidence to support them. Whereas, plenty of day gamers I know are in their late thirties, forties, even fifties, they say, I'm not too old. And they find evidence to support them. So they get this positive reference experience, upwards trajectory of beliefs. And surprise, surprise, they're fine. Same with the short guy. Lots of students moan, I'm too short, I'm too short, that's why daygamers doesn't work. Where as I know many successful daygamers, they're short and they say, it doesn't matter. Confidence, charisma, swagger, escalation, that's what matters. They get results, it's no longer a problem. Me with my funny, geometrical face that looks like something from a Picasso period. Yeah? I just say, well, I've got to own it. What you can't fix, you feature. I'm fine with it because I've had enough evidence to support the fact that it's not just my pretty face that's important for getting girls. It's the way I talk. It's the way I walk. It's the way I act. It's what I do. It's it's it's masculinity. Yeah? Whereas if I was so obsessed with, you know, if only my cheek bones were like this, if only my nose was like this, if only my teeth were like this, then, once again, I'd find evidence to support how ugly I was and nothing would happen. I'd be winging. I wouldn't be winning. My father used to say, dominate, don't compete. Tom, dominate, don't compete. And if you're so obsessed with the competitive element of winning, I. Beating somebody else or pushing them down so, you can rise up, that takes a fucking lot of effort and it also gets you into these negative spin cycles of whining. Yeah. Whereas if you're just focused on, as I said, short term goals or long term mission. Yes. So for day game, short term goals might be, getting x number of notches a year, but your long term mission might be like mine, to be, to be non monogamous, to be free, to to live a lifestyle that a kid I only saw in movies. That's my mission also to show other guys that you don't need to settle down. You can be polygamous, you can get affection for many girls, you can travel. There's no big stigma with being single. Alright? Life improves as you get older. All these things that I'll come on to in the future. If you just focus on that and you're not scattering your attention to to quote unquote competitors. You're just focusing on being the best you're dominating. Right? And, automatically, you'll rise up without having to look around you, without having to watch your back. What did Frank Sinatra say? The best revenge is success. I think that was Sinatra. It's probably quoted to many people. The best revenge is success. So, of course, people piss you off and do things, and the human gut instinct is to say, you fucker. I'm gonna fight you, I'm gonna get you back, I'm gonna scheme and think of plots and your mind comes up with these things. And that has so much negative energy, not woo woo energy. Energy as in just fatigue, energy in just as bringing you down. Whereas if you said, okay, rather than working out some kind of massive scheme to get that person back, I'm just going to succeed. And then, yeah, watch and learn buddy, watch and learn. So you focus all your effort into doing that one thing again. It's just where you're placing your focus. So, like I said, perception is reality. Perception builds on itself and you're choosing where to put your focus. Don't let anybody else, tell you where to put your focus. And this is why it all ties into working for yourself, being your own boss. Yeah? Because when you're earning money for somebody else or following somebody else's instructions, they really got control of your emotions. I remember when I used to work and they'd make me go to x meeting, x training thing, do x task, fill in x form. They were definitely adding to my stress levels. They were definitely causing me worry and negativity but the moment you step away from it you say okay if I'm feeling negative it's because of me because I work for myself and then as simple as ABC, you take a piece of paper and you think what are the things that are bringing me down? Okay. It might be staying indoors. It might be lack of exercise. It might be too much sugar alcohol shit diet for a while. Yeah. It might be the media and the websites that I'm looking at. It might be, my wings. It might be people that I'm hanging around. It might even be family members. As I've said in my podcast on anxiety, depression and stress. Yeah. It's a sad fact that sometimes if you've got really, really negative family members at some point, you have to step away from that. Not just reject them outright and never speak to them again, but just distance yourself. And an easy way to distance yourself and immediately feel more optimistic, get into that winning mentality is to change your environment. So I could have recorded this podcast inside. Instead, I just stepped out two minutes. I'm in the sun, already. It's impacting on my emotions. Yeah? So travel has this amazing thing. And by travel, you don't need to jump on an airplane. You could just jump on a train to somewhere in your country you've never been before. Yeah? Even a new part of the city. Go to a different cafe. Shake up your routine. Alright? Winners are unpredictable. That's another magical thing about, the winning mindset. You're keeping other people on your toes because you're keeping yourself on your toes. Alright? Okay. I've got to go and have a pee. I've got to go and meet a student in ten minutes, and I'm starting to sound like Tony Robbins. But I hope that was useful because if you've got a winning mindset that's really as I say in street hustle all you need to succeed at daygame because people ask me Tom how did you get good at daygame? Why didn't you suffer the blows? Why didn't you give up? I say I had that will to win. Right? When I decide to do something, I go for it. I'm obsessive about it and for some things in life that's not good, but for a skill set, and remember daygame is a skill set, something that you have to get good at over time through repetition, trial and error, that was very good. So when I decided I wanted to get good at it, I got good at it and I focused on the positives. And having to deal with depression perhaps at a younger age, it taught me. The one good thing about cognitive behavioral therapy was that it taught me I am in control of the weather in my own head. So stop whining, start winning, keep those positive emails coming in. It's nice every day to wake up and hear a success story or, that a book or something you watched has helped. It just reminds me why I'm doing it. It encourages me to to keep putting all this stuff out there for free to keep doing it. Anyway, that was podcast 58. Until next time.