Interview with Scot McKay
1) Could you share with us a little on your background and how you first got started in all this stuff?
Man, my life has pretty much been a case study in how to go from no game whatsoever, to reasonably successful with women, back to Nowheres-ville and then finally to the wild success I always hoped for. If you look up “roller coaster” on Wikipedia, they start talking about my dating history.
So basically I’m that kid who was the least popular one in all of seventh grade who finally made something of himself by, oh, the 20-year high-school reunion. [laughs]
Ultimately, it took a very unfortunate divorce I never wanted to happen to get me to look in the mirror and want to get this area of my life taken care of once and for all.
I knew I needed to understand women better, and I knew I couldn’t allow myself to become a victim.
Being a student of David D. was a tremendous help, as I related to his teaching almost immediately. Within a brief amount of time I was seeing real success and coming up with my own theories and ideas.
This all led to my friends—and ex-girlfriends also, actually—encouraging me to somehow tell others my secrets. My first newsletter in December 2006 was to about thirteen people. Things just grew from there.
I remember I’d actually play the latest DYD “Dating Gurus” discs in the car while driving with women. Who knew that PUA stuff was supposed to be “underground”, right? When women started telling me that I should make one of those discs someday, I knew I may have a good reason to quit the IT world once and for all.
In November 2007 David D. actually interviewed me for his “Dating Gurus” series, almost exactly sixty days after I had applied for a business license to officially create X & Y Communications. That was an incredible treat, of course, and it opened tons of doors. I’ll always be grateful to David D. for that, and to Cliff from CliffsList for recommending me.
From there we’ve never looked back. By then I had actually met the greatest woman of all time and knew she was the partner of my dreams. That’s Emily of course, and today she and I are pretty much the only husband and wife team doing what we do.
She has become quite the “lady guru” in her own right. She’s actually going to be on the Christian Carter “dating expert” CD series next month. She rocks.
2) Tell us more about your website/products…
Well, it’s not really my style to pitch products so early in an interview like this, so why don’t I give out some free stuff first?
If you are reading this and on Facebook, friend me at http://profile.to/scot-mckay and then hop over to our Facebook group at http://groups.to/freestuff. We call the group “Free Stuff From X & Y Communications”, and it lives up to its name.
We also have tons of other free stuff like our podcast for guys called “The Chick Whisperer”, which one of our female newsletter readers actually named. You can find that on iTunes under “podcasts” in the “health/self-help” section.
Of course, there’s also a newsletter. Even though everyone and their pet parakeet has a newsletter these days, I remain committed to writing fresh content every single time I hit “send” on one of mine. So that sets ours apart. A trip to Leading Man will hook you up with that.
And yes, Leading Man is actually our newest (and arguably the coolest) premium product. I figured we’d heard enough about pickup for a while, so I actually put my heart and soul into building a complete system for relationship management. In other words, literally everything that comes after pickup. It has proven to be very, very popular…and hardly any refund requests.
We’ve got a ton of other cool stuff that most guys in the Community have already heard about, like Virtuosity and the Deserve What You Want e-book. All of that is in one place at DeserveWhatYouWant.Com actually.
If you like what you read in the newsletters and hear in the podcasts, I’m certain you’ll dig the in-depth material found in our premium programs.
3) What obstacles or problems have you been forced to overcome when you first started off learning how to become better with women, and how did you overcome them?
From the beginning, I was very shy around women. For some reason, I automatically assumed—even from a very young age—that women just wouldn’t be interested.
Oddly, I was especially affected by the meme in our society that “men are oppressors” and that any flirtation or such towards women was universally unwelcome. You know, ye olde “men get lucky and women give it up” concept.
Who knows how I got so crossed-up there. My Dad is a reasonably masculine guy and I was raised in a functional home for the most part.
Chalk it up to the reality that almost anyone can be brainwashed into thinking being “Mr. Nice Guys” and walking on eggshells could get you somewhere with women.
It never did of course.
The funny part, though, is that I’ve always been a naturally “cocky/funny” guy. I suppose that’s why David D.’s stuff just hit me between the eyes. I had spent the first three and a half decades of my life trying to kill that trait, thinking it was one of the least attractive facets of my being.
Looking back, though, it was when I was both my cockiest and funniest that I attracted the most women. Go figure.
Later, after a divorce from a woman who was later diagnosed with a serious mental illness, I really felt as if I’d done all I could have done to be a great husband…and was still rejected.
Getting out of that funk was a massive undertaking. It really felt like my nuts had been put to the sword, there. In a weird sort of way, the event of my divorce was so well-defined and powerfully damaging that it was almost easy to acknowledge I was at “rock bottom” and make an immediate, cogent decision to survive and thrive rather than admitting victim hood and defeat.
I think it’s when we as guys are slowly snuffed out over time that we run the gravest risk of ultimately giving in to failure. It’s a lot like the “frog boiling” analogy I suppose.
4) With so much dating advice flying around these days, what do you see are the 3 main mistakes guys are still making with women? Any specific examples? How to do you fix, prevent, avoid those mistakes then?
Wow, limiting this answer to only three is a challenge. That said, I’m going to respond with the first three major factors that come to mind.
First, I think guys fail to recognize that women are real, live human beings who bleed red and actually are more like us guys than different from us. They certainly are not the “enemy”. Yet, reading some pickup stuff out there, you’d think they were all card-carrying Al Qaeda operatives or something.
We’ve got to truly admire and appreciate womanhood in a manner that is mature enough to go way beyond simple sexual conquest. Then and only then will we ignite a woman’s holistic femininity and have her respond powerfully to us.
That brings up the second point, which is masculinity. I’m appalled by the concept I’ve seen various places of guys coming off as possibly gay in order to “build rapport” in pickup situations.
Yes, a gay man who is the life of the party will indeed be able to get hot women to talk to him. But is that really the point?
We as guys need to go back to basics. We are hard-wired to be masculine, and women are hard-wired to be feminine. Regardless of what society has tried to tinker with over the past four decades or so, attempting to change our masculine nature as a man is about as useful as trying to change our genitalia. It is what it is. And two neuter creatures cannot attract each other.
As such, we should relax in our natural masculine nature, and be unashamed of being a man and acting on our attraction. We are generally not bad people. Being a solid man of high character—but a real man nonetheless—will always be attractive to most women in a primal, visceral sense. Trying to undermine that in ourselves for some externally-imposed political reason is nonsense…yet we tend to fall for it in droves, don’t we?
Women want men, and men want women. That’s as simple as it gets.
Finally, I believe men dramatically underestimate the power of leadership. Women respond to a man who leads. Show me a woman who “wears the pants” and I’ll show you a bitter woman.
The most striking demonstration of this fact comes when we as men are brave enough to put aside myopic attempts to “get laid” and rather make an honest effort to represent what women want. When we lead in that area, how do women respond? Of course, and almost invariably, emotionally-healthy women respond by following our lead. That is, they open up to us sexually and gladly seek to meet our needs also.
5) From the time you first started dwelling upon this to right now–in this present moment–if you could do it all again, how would you do it differently?
Well, that’s an easy one. I would have started the tangible, objective process of learning to understand women and improve my skills with them exactly three decades earlier than I did.
You guys out there, regardless of your age make the decision TODAY to make your greatest success with women happen NOW rather than later. Learn how to deserve what you want and redirect your efforts in that direction effective immediately. Stop squandering precious time spent on idle entertainment in the name of “seduction advice”, and will your success into being with solid teaching rather than by settling for marketing hype and/or a cult of personality.
6) Do you have a favorite routine/step in your model? Can you describe it, and what it accomplishes?
It’s funny…most of the time my work as described as “natural game”, and I’ve heard others describe me as against routines.
But truthfully, what I’m against is faking what is actually attractive to women in the name of a “quick fix”. I don’t see that as “training wheels”, which I’ve heard others euphemistically refer to such practices as.
Next year I’m going to unveil a mindset so radically different yet so painfully obvious that it will no doubt create A LOT of waves in the Seduction Community.
Suffice it to say, for now at least, that I am most certainly NOT a natural. But then again, I have never relied on canned routines, either. My guess is that the vast majority of guys out there can relate to that, and what I’m currently hard at work on is the program that will bridge that gap once and for all.
That said, I have to say that despite my wishes to the contrary, there is a time and place for routines in the online dating world. Online dating is as yet so formulaic, that it’s my exception to the “no routines” ideal.
You really have to “go through the motions” of getting the profile and the first e-mails right. Let’s face it, success is so quantifiable online and the processes right there in black and white. So when you have a subject line that works, for example, there’s no denying the objectivity of that.
7) Do you have a personal favorite field report of your own that you could relate based on that?
Given the context of your question, I’ll stick to online dating for now.
I’ll never forget the day I decided to ignore “nice guy” online dating guidelines and start emailing women a second time when they didn’t respond the first. I happened across the concept of writing a simple “Hey, are you playing hard to get already?” email about three days after sending a first one that went unreplied to.
To my amazement, I started getting up to 50% of the women I wrote that second e-mail to responding with something to the effect of “I’m sorry” or “I was busy” or even “I never saw your first note”. Fifty percent. If you do the simple algebra there, that means that incorporating that one simple strategy increased my overall response percentage by like a third. If half of the women I wrote to wrote back the first time, this added half of the “lost” half back into the mix in one fell swoop. It was a wild, wild phenomenon…and a “game changer” to say the least.
Later I found out by asking women I’d gone on to meet about this that some of the sharpest women online actually respond ONLY to second emails. That’s how they choose to “weed out” the “cut and paste” guys who have no real interest in them particularly. Fascinating.
Adding “Re:” to the subject line of first e-mails also proved to be a disarmingly simple way to increase response rate. That would definitely classify as a “canned routine”, no doubt. [laughs]
What 5 meaty tips, tricks & techniques could you give to advise anyone who wants to become great in their interactions with women?
Well, this brings to mind what I call “The Big Four”…which are the cornerstones of everything I teach. They aren’t exactly tricks or techniques per se, but they’re the most important factors that separate the men from the boys as pertaining to success with women.
1) Masculinity
Get in touch with that which makes you a real man. Not “macho” stuff, but rather what it is that women see as masculine. Become an effective decision maker, a calming influence and make courage a habit in your life. That’s just the start, but you get the idea. It isn’t about beating people up and risking your life doing stupid human tricks.
2) Confidence
If you don’t believe that you’re attractive enough to date, why should she? Boldly exert your right to be a chooser, and start evaluating the women you meet as if you call the shots. Quit begging and kowtowing to women and start assuming you are the prize.
3) Inspire Confidence
Realize that women must feel safe and secure in your presence or you will get nowhere with them. Your masculinity and confidence get a great woman’s attention, but it’s when she feels safe in your presence that she really opens up to you. Pushing your “agenda”, disregarding personal safety (e.g. driving like a maniac with her in the passenger seat) doing creepy/idiosyncratic stuff, and “failing to deploy” whenever the chips are down (including when it’s time to kiss her) destroy her trust and therefore obliterate any sense of security she could have previously enjoyed in your presence.
4) Character
This is the most overlooked trait, but the single most important to long-term success with women. You must have a core belief system that is rock solid. You must be a man who does what he promises, and behaves the same in private as he does in public. By developing strong character, you cement a particularly sharp woman’s affection and her respect.
Sure, you may succeed at pickup without being a man of high character, but you’ll also pickup the women you deserve. Do so at your own risk.
You asked me for a fifth, and I’ll gladly oblige. That’s Leadership. Quit following. Stop picking women up for dates and asking them where they’d like to go. Forget about asking her if it’s okay to kiss her or to treat her to a special plan you have for her. Boldly act in her best interest. I can all but promise you she will respond in kind…powerfully.
9) What secret tips, tricks or techniques can you share with us right now that very few guys are aware of, and that will give a guy who’s just starting out in this to have an edge over other guys who are trying to compete for his ‘target’?
OK, how about some “hidden” secrets?
First is harnessing the sheer power and ease of day game. Most teaching I see out there tries to make this way, way more complicated than it has to be. Just start talking to EVERYONE you meet. Stop seeing pickup as a contest instead of a conversation. You aren’t going to “win” or “lose”. You are evaluating women you find initially interesting, that’s all.
Next, realize that flirting isn’t “rocket science”. It’s just any communication whatsoever that would only feel appropriate between a man and a woman.
Take “approach anxiety” and will it into becoming simple “nervous energy”. Don’t be paralyzed, be excited. Believe this on behalf of your physiological response to these situations and watch the change happen in your mind. I promise you’ll be shocked by how effective this strategy is.
I actually wrote a book on the power of cooking for your date, but I still think hardly any guys understand how breathtakingly powerful it is to do so. You can get women to come over your house before they’ve ever even met you. And once they are there, strong rapport and high comfort levels are almost so easy to attain it’s like the whole experience is on autopilot.
It’s not exactly “hidden”, but I’d encourage any guy who hasn’t already done so to get online. Stop kidding yourself. There are models, actresses and even hot kindergarten teachers online. If you aren’t maximizing this opportunity you’re nuts.
I’ve got tons more of this stuff in my newsletters. Like “take a GPS on dates”. [laughs]
10) What do you think a newbie who’s trying to get good at all this should be doing in the next 14-30 days?
The very first step is to figure out what success looks like to you. Resist the temptation to be led by some charismatic figure into believing you want something out of life that you don’t actually want.
If you originally Googled “I want a great girlfriend” and ended up on the trail to becoming a “Master PUA”, something went awry there.
If you want a great girlfriend, focus your learning on that goal. If you really do want to become a Master PUA, go for that until you attain it.
Next, be sure to do lots of research into different teachers before narrowing down to two or three whose material you really, truly resonate with. Then, absorb like a sponge—paying especially careful attention to what literally jumps off the page at you. Also take careful note of repeated themes across the teaching of more than one of the guys whose content you are interested in.
Finally, and by far most importantly, get out there and practice in the real world. I see so many guys who read and read, but never actually find the stones to put anything they learn into practice. Develop the healthy habit of putting what you discover to the test in the real world lest you grow complacent and lapse into being the dreaded “keyboard jockey”.
My first book Deserve What You Want is actually designed to motivate you exactly as such. That’s available through the main site or the “online store” link above…or actually by simply going to Deserve What You Want.
Thanks for the chance to share with your readers, David. Your questions have been stellar ones, and I’ve had a blast doing my level best to answer them thoughtfully.
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