Playing to Win

00:00:00.980 And we are live. So guys, welcome to another Playing to Win episode. The last one was actually

00:00:07.260 Dr. Ryan Taraband's recording from my 1% Forum in Toronto back in January that I released.

00:00:13.500 We have him live today and we're going to talk about his book, The Value of Others, which

00:00:17.420 was recently just published and released on Amazon. You should have your copy. If you

00:00:23.100 don't, you're going to want to get it after this podcast. You must have been busy putting

00:00:28.080 this book together and doing a bit of a podcast for right now. How are things with you?

00:00:33.240 Well, first of all, Rich, it's great to see you again. Thanks for having me back on the

00:00:36.580 show. The book has absolutely kept me preoccupied. It was kind of my third job after my private

00:00:43.760 practice and all of the content creation I do on YouTube. So in my spare time when I wasn't

00:00:48.960 doing those two things, I've been working on the book for the past year or so. It took

00:00:53.580 me about eight or nine months to write the content and then another three months to get

00:00:57.640 it all formatted and ready for launch. And it came out less than two weeks ago and I'm

00:01:02.340 just super stoked with the response that it's received thus far, especially considering that

00:01:07.020 I don't have an agent. I don't have a publishing house. I don't have a sales team. I don't have

00:01:10.320 a marketer. And it's a number one bestseller in a number of Amazon categories right now, which

00:01:16.700 is just phenomenal that that's possible, right? And no small part due to some of the advice

00:01:22.220 that you gave me. I thanked you in the book and I'll thank you here on the book as well.

00:01:26.900 Yeah. I skipped to the end to get the shadow because a friend of mine, I don't know if

00:01:31.360 you know Jason Hartman, but he's in real estate business. He sent me a WhatsApp message. He's

00:01:35.980 like, hey, I gave you a shout out at the end of the book. I just skipped to the acknowledgements,

00:01:39.320 but I'm only at chapter five because I'm a very slow listener when it comes to audio books.

00:01:44.760 But thus far, it's been good. So I wanted to go through a couple of chapters, maybe

00:01:49.060 get you to summarize them a little bit, give the viewers some insight, maybe talk a little

00:01:53.080 bit about why they should get the book, who the book is for. Maybe, is there a demographic

00:01:59.540 that you would say the book is not for? Like, have you had any challenges from anybody on

00:02:04.560 it?

00:02:05.700 Well, I wrote the book for everybody, but I'm sure not everyone will be for the book.

00:02:10.260 That's kind of the way I put it. It's not explicitly for men, at least not exclusively.

00:02:14.760 I mentioned that in the preface. And I think that's because any kind of sustainable solution

00:02:21.480 in the sexual marketplace has to be palatable to both men and women. And I think that prioritizing

00:02:28.420 one side's needs and wants unduly over the other is not really a recipe for long-term

00:02:33.560 success.

00:02:34.760 That said, I can imagine that the book would be challenging for folks who have a more romanticized

00:02:40.260 view of relationships. I mean, the subtitle is understanding the economic model of relationships

00:02:44.980 and putting the word economic that close to relationship already ruffles a lot of people's

00:02:49.720 feathers.

00:02:51.500 Have you, have you had any negative reviews or any hate for anybody, like anybody in your

00:02:55.520 professional community at all? I was actually curious as I was listening to it, how they would

00:02:59.720 have received that had they gone through the whole thing?

00:03:03.560 No, not yet. Hopefully not ever. Um, I think it would require a lot of investment to go through

00:03:11.900 a 400 page book that you dislike and then to leave a negative review. So I think that's just

00:03:18.080 a barrier to entry that most people who disagree with the message aren't willing to cross.

00:03:21.780 Hopefully.

00:03:22.220 So, so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

00:03:25.700 Yeah. You'll get, you'll get called a misogynist at some point if it hasn't happened yet.

00:03:29.800 It's, it's, it's.

00:03:30.320 Oh, I've been called that just not in response to the book.

00:03:33.120 Yeah. Um, so a few of the chapters here, and again, I've only had the opportunity to

00:03:39.420 get to a chapter five. Um, I was on a road trip the other week with my daughter and I did

00:03:43.920 ask, I was like, you know, would this be, did you put it on 50? No, I didn't. No, I didn't.

00:03:47.660 Um, I got another book instead. I got Suzanne Vanker's, um, like something along the lines

00:03:53.960 of how to win at life. And it was actually a reasonable, uh, sequence of ideas dispense

00:04:01.200 for women, which I thought were pretty good. Um, I got to reach out to her, maybe get her

00:04:06.080 on a podcast in the future. There's a couple of things that I would definitely challenge

00:04:09.060 her on, uh, like things around money and, uh, uh, some, some of the advice she dispensed

00:04:14.980 around dating, but I want to come back to your stuff here.

00:04:17.020 Um, so I've gotten to chapter five, you start talking about negotiation. Um, let's, let's

00:04:26.620 kind of enter this with the economic models and the value on the sexual marketplace.

00:04:32.160 What do you mean by our value as humans on the sexual marketplace in the book as it's

00:04:38.460 written?

00:04:39.400 Well, I don't usually say our value as humans. I explicitly talk about our value in the sexual

00:04:43.840 marketplace, which is very contextually defined. It's obviously a very touchy subject to start

00:04:50.100 talking about people's intrinsic or fundamental value as people. And so that's why I don't

00:04:54.800 do that. Um, but in a marketplace, things have prices and in general, people trade all kinds

00:05:04.680 of things of comparable value. And that's sort of the basis of exchange is that we trade unequal

00:05:10.680 things of comparable value. And if the things are too different with respect to their valuations,

00:05:17.320 no transaction occurs. And my fundamental premise is that people have needs. People want things from

00:05:24.840 other people. And so the pro-social solution that human beings have created over tens of thousands of

00:05:30.680 years is to move towards each other and attempt to give other people what they might want in exchange

00:05:35.960 for what they want in return. And that's the basis of society. And that's the basis of relationships.

00:05:41.160 And when that occurs and both people are more or less getting what they need and want, then

00:05:46.520 individuals, relationships, and societies thrive. And for whatever reason, if that exchange is not

00:05:52.120 possible, no relationship exists. And to my mind, this helps explain why some people are rich in

00:05:59.160 relationship opportunities of all kinds, whether they're romantic or professional friendships,

00:06:04.280 and other people are not, it's not the good people. It's not the loving people. It's not

00:06:08.840 the virtuous people who are rich in relationship opportunities. It's the people that other people

00:06:14.280 want things from. And the more that you have what more people more want, it's a little awkward,

00:06:20.360 but it works. Um, the more likely you're going to have relationship opportunities of all kinds.

00:06:25.480 Did you get into, in the book, how to establish one's sexual marketplace value for men and women?

00:06:31.720 Yeah. Chapter three is all about sexual marketplace value, which I had to sort of define because the

00:06:39.080 whole book is about value, right? And sexual marketplace value is something that people are

00:06:45.720 understandably very sensitive about. At least when it's applied to themselves, everyone makes use of it

00:06:53.240 to some degree when selecting for relationships, even if it's just a quantity, as opposed to like

00:06:59.800 a numeric value. When people tell women that they could do better, they're making use of sexual

00:07:05.240 marketplace value as a quantity, if not as a specific number. And the economic principle is that you have

00:07:12.280 limited time, energy, attention. Most people are looking for a monogamous relationship, which means that

00:07:19.000 if they're exchanging that commitment to one person, they're not giving it to any other person on the

00:07:23.400 planet. So they understandably want to be sure that they're transacting with their perceived best

00:07:32.520 option. They're getting the most for what they're willing to give in return. And sexual marketplace value

00:07:38.520 is generally how people determine what their perceived best option is when they're looking to mate and date.

00:07:43.640 Is there a sequence of steps or this plus this will sort of equal your SMV? Is there a way that the average

00:07:52.680 man or woman can establish what their value looks like and where their opportunities lie to improve?

00:07:57.800 Yeah, it's really tough. Sexual marketplace value is actually a fairly complicated subject. That's why I talk

00:08:04.760 about that there's three different kinds. There's what I call normalized sexual marketplace value, perceived

00:08:09.560 sexual marketplace value and transacted sexual marketplace value. Normalized sexual marketplace

00:08:14.280 value is basically how much a given man or woman models the archetype of attractiveness held out by

00:08:20.840 his or her culture. This is both culturally informed and biologically determined. So this is sort of like

00:08:27.720 the more a woman looks like a supermodel, the more conventionally attractive she is, the more a man looks

00:08:32.520 like a Hollywood movie star and has that kind of status and success, the higher his normalized sexual

00:08:38.280 marketplace value would be. The issue with that is that people do have individual tastes and preferences

00:08:45.880 that deviate from those conventional norms. And some of this is socially desirable responses. People say, oh,

00:08:54.040 money doesn't matter to me or height doesn't matter to me, et cetera, et cetera. It's hard to, you can trust that

00:08:59.720 to a point. I think that a lot of people are afraid of coming off as too superficial or materialistic and so they cover

00:09:06.200 their preferences. But people generally do have legitimate differences in tastes. And that is what

00:09:15.080 perceived sexual marketplace value is. Value doesn't exist objectively. It exists in the mind of the

00:09:20.760 valuer. And ultimately that's what determines whether two people enter into a relationship is that I see you

00:09:29.000 as a high value woman, you see me as a high value man, et cetera. And then ultimately,

00:09:36.440 value is created at the point of transaction. Like nothing is worth anything until somebody is

00:09:41.320 actually willing to pay for it and the other party accepts that payment, at which point in time that

00:09:47.080 thing is worth exactly what it was transacted for. And so transacted sexual marketplace value has to do with

00:09:53.400 with examining the types of relationships that men and women have entered into in the past to sort of do

00:10:00.680 a comparable comparison to their current sexual marketplace value in the same way that houses

00:10:08.280 are generally valued by comparing the value at which comparable house is the same size in the same

00:10:16.600 neighborhood but recently sold at. And so for men that transacted sexual marketplace value has to do

00:10:22.840 with how attractive the women are that he was able to sleep with. And for women that transacted sexual

00:10:28.040 marketplace values, how attractive those men are that she was able to achieve commitment from.

00:10:34.360 So they're gendered and they're gendered in the way that it's typically harder for them to get. Like

00:10:39.560 it's easier for women to get sex than commitment because they're the gatekeepers of sex. And it's generally

00:10:44.040 harder for men to get sex than commitment. And so each gender is more or less measured based on the

00:10:50.920 good that it's harder for them to achieve. Do you think that the differences that exist between men

00:10:58.520 and women, like for example, it's been said that men are success objects to women and women are beauty

00:11:02.520 objects to men. Do you think that that rings true? Sure. In a lot of different ways. Now that's obviously,

00:11:08.360 it's changing to a certain extent given women's relative material success in 2024.

00:11:16.280 You talked about all these women that now have boats.

00:11:18.680 Oh, really? There's some boat captains out there?

00:11:23.400 Oh, you're talking about it in my book. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So a lot of women do have their own

00:11:29.960 boats. They're captains of their own ships. And generally what people want is what people lack. In fact,

00:11:37.480 that word want has two meanings. One is to desire and one is to lack. Like when we talk about extreme

00:11:44.520 want, we talk about extreme poverty. And it makes sense that what you lack is precisely what you would

00:11:49.800 desire because you'd like to fill that void, whatever that is. And generally the more people have, the

00:11:55.880 harder it is to find what they might want because they lack less and less. That said, I think women still

00:12:05.000 want to enter into relationships that will significantly improve their standard of living.

00:12:10.440 And because they're doing so well, that diminishes the pool of potential candidates that they're likely

00:12:16.040 to mate with. I think you've done videos on this where you talk about like how women have priced

00:12:20.360 themselves out of the data market. And there's this sort of chasm that exists where you have all these

00:12:24.200 female captains now. And then you have male captains and male captains don't really need a female

00:12:29.560 captain. They certainly don't want their boat if they have a better boat. So it's like, what is the

00:12:34.360 solution to this, to this, uh, like void that like this chasm that's being created, you know, between

00:12:41.640 men and women, because women have been told, go out there, you know, put off having a family,

00:12:46.200 climb the corporate ladder, get a degree. Is there, is there anybody out there talking to women

00:12:52.280 and giving them useful, actionable advice so that they can get what they want earlier on in life?

00:12:59.720 With respect to their long-term goals, not that I'm aware of most of the content that I'm aware

00:13:05.240 that's directed towards women is about getting what they want at that stage in their life,

00:13:09.800 which when their twenties is generally not about starting a family and finding a long-term partner

00:13:15.640 for better or for worse. I don't think they would listen to the advice, even if they had somebody

00:13:19.560 shouting at the top of a building, would they? They might not. I mean, I certainly got some

00:13:23.640 good advice when I was a young man that I didn't follow on some level. People do have to make their

00:13:27.560 own mistakes. Yeah. Fortunately. Yeah. There's a lot of truth to that. Yeah. It's like, you know,

00:13:33.320 Moff and I were doing this ladies night, uh, series for well over a year now. And it's like,

00:13:37.320 one of the things that we just found popped up over and over again was the gals were just,

00:13:42.280 they would come to the acceptance and the realization by the time they hit usually thirties,

00:13:47.240 definitely forties for sure. Uh, having that conversation in their twenties was very rare.

00:13:52.600 There was only a very, very small contingent, maybe less than 5% of women that we had on the show,

00:13:58.200 uh, that were willing to hear the narrative, like, you know, preserve your value. You know,

00:14:02.600 it's a good idea if you want to have a family to start looking at, you know, locking a guy down and

00:14:06.280 this is how you do it. And this is what men are attracted to. But the vast majority of them are just like,

00:14:11.160 YOLO going to go out and have some fun and you know, we'll deal with that one later.

00:14:16.520 Um, you talk about negotiation in the book and there's a few people I think that might take issue

00:14:23.560 with the notion of negotiating a relationship. Um, it's been said that, um, you know, if you start to

00:14:31.160 negotiate terms of a relationship, it sort of leads down the path of obligated compliance and then

00:14:38.200 resentment, you know, sort of, you know, as you travel down that I don't, I didn't take it as you

00:14:43.720 talk in, in that sense or regard, but what did you mean when, when it, when it came to the point in

00:14:49.400 the book about negotiating that the, almost like the terms of that relationship?

00:14:53.640 Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that when it gets to the point where you're using your words to

00:14:59.000 explicitly negotiate the terms of relationships, that's actually generally a suboptimal outcome.

00:15:05.080 That doesn't necessarily mean that relationships aren't negotiated in nonverbal and indirect means

00:15:11.880 all the time. And that's generally what the courtship is for. In general, men go to the

00:15:17.480 sexual marketplace to exchange resources for sexual opportunity and women are attempting to

00:15:21.800 exchange their sexual opportunity for resources. All things being equal, both sides want to maximize

00:15:26.680 their gain and minimize their loss, which means that most men would ideally get a lot of sexual

00:15:31.720 opportunity very cheaply. It doesn't cost them a lot of time, energy, and money to do so. Whereas

00:15:37.080 vice versa for women, they would prefer to get as much as they can and to not necessarily give much

00:15:42.120 in return. It's that kind of selfishness and self-interest that drives competitive negotiation.

00:15:48.520 So this can be explicitly discussed between men and women, but it's usually discussed behaviorally and

00:15:54.200 nonverbally. Like for example, if a woman makes a man wait certain number of dates or a certain period

00:16:03.320 of time before she has sex with him, even if that's not like explicitly negotiated, what is behaviorally

00:16:10.600 taking place is they're both deciding that the value of my sexual opportunity is worth this much time,

00:16:18.520 this much attention, this much courtship. And that sets kind of a standard for the basis the

00:16:23.400 relationship moving forward. Like the longer that a woman makes a man wait, the higher she's pricing

00:16:29.240 her sexual opportunity. And that becomes an anchor point for the, the sexual relationship moving

00:16:35.640 forward with that man. But that, but that negotiation, as you put it, could be completely different for a

00:16:42.760 guy that she's got a strong draw to could happen on the first date, right? Absolutely. Women want different

00:16:48.280 things from different men at different times, which is not very satisfying, but it is true.

00:16:54.600 And that also changes. It's not even just different times in their life. It's also different times of

00:16:59.800 the month for them as well, because they're obligatory shift too, right? I have sympathy for that, man.

00:17:04.200 It's like if my hormones were all over the place too, I would have a tough time. Yeah.

00:17:08.120 Yeah. Um, you talk about, uh, the most powerful player wins the game. What do you mean by that?

00:17:16.040 Well, I conceive of negotiation as a game. It's a, it's the game of getting what you want from other

00:17:22.840 people. And that game can be played out in lots of different ways in lots of different contexts between

00:17:29.160 lots of different people. But ultimately the one who wins the game of negotiation is the more powerful

00:17:34.280 player. Power is also kind of tricky to define because there's lots of what I call power proxies.

00:17:42.520 These are things like being physically strong or rich or high status. These things are often confused

00:17:48.840 with power, but are not technically power. If those things were technically power, then nobody weaker

00:17:54.760 or lower status or poorer should ever be able to defeat a strong, physically stronger, higher status,

00:18:02.600 richer person. And we see that all the time. Kings get toppled, politicians careers are ruined,

00:18:08.360 and that shouldn't be possible if the less powerful people were really less powerful.

00:18:15.800 Now, the reason for that is power is the ability to get other people to do what you want in so many

00:18:23.160 words, which means that power is ultimately psychological. It's my ability to reach into you

00:18:30.280 in some way, generally with my words or with my incentives, to motivate you to forget what you

00:18:35.720 want and do what I want instead. They're all functionally forms of emotional manipulation.

00:18:41.800 And that is actually the lever of power that gets people to move, is that something is incited inside

00:18:48.040 of themselves that compels them or incites them to move in your chosen direction. And you can do that

00:18:55.400 without being physically strong, you can do that without having a lot of money, and you can do that

00:18:59.800 without being high status. Obviously, it's easier to impel motivation in others with those things,

00:19:06.600 and those things are good in and of themselves, but they only work to the extent that they can

00:19:14.840 excite that emotional motivation inside of other people. Does that make sense?

00:19:19.720 Yeah. What do you think of Robert Greene's book, The 48 Laws of Power, since we were talking about

00:19:24.600 power?

00:19:24.840 Yeah. I'm actually about 75% of the way through it now. It's my first read through. I'm

00:19:32.360 embarrassed to admit it's a fantastic book.

00:19:35.240 Yeah. It's like drinking from the fire hose. There's a lot in there.

00:19:37.560 Yeah. And it takes a long time to digest. It's clearly a very well thought out, beautiful,

00:19:43.160 interesting book. I wish I had read it a long time ago. And he has a lot of principles of power,

00:19:52.200 obviously, in that book. I haven't read anything that I really disagreed with. The difficulty,

00:19:58.760 though, with that book is it's sometimes hard to know who the more powerful player is because so many

00:20:04.600 of those principles are covert. They're inside of the person. It's hard to look at a person and know

00:20:11.640 who might be more powerful in a given interaction. And so when I talk about, in my book, my principles

00:20:16.840 of power, I list out 10 of them. And they're all principles that are overt and obvious, and you can

00:20:25.000 see and measure to some extent. Can you give us the 10 principles of power?

00:20:30.120 I don't know if I can list them all off off the top of my head, but I can try to rattle off a few of

00:20:34.440 them. One of them is, in general, the more powerful player is the one who moves less. So this is one of

00:20:41.560 the easiest ones to see in a given relationship. Think about a king's court. A king sits on his

00:20:47.560 throne. The whole court revolves around him. If you want an audience with the king, you come to the

00:20:53.400 king. And the further you travel, the more respect you're paying to that person. The king doesn't go

00:21:00.440 to you, and he certainly doesn't meet halfway. Do you understand? So when it comes to romantic

00:21:05.720 relationships, you can tell who moves less by examining, well, who initiates contact more

00:21:12.360 frequently? What is the length and tone of those communications? Just compare your emails to your

00:21:21.240 boss with your boss's emails to you. Your boss generally takes longer to respond, uses fewer words,

00:21:29.800 sometimes doesn't respond at all, because that's the prerogative of power.

00:21:33.880 If you were the lower status person and you try to dispense with some of those formalities,

00:21:38.280 it would come off as insubordinate. You wouldn't be able to pull it off.

00:21:42.600 The ability to move less is a prerogative of power. And so if you're concerned about who might

00:21:49.320 have more power in a relationship, just examine who moves to whom.

00:21:53.880 Yeah, let's talk about that element of power, because I find that fascinating. I mentioned it

00:22:01.560 in my book, if you're going to date, it's ideal or it's a stronger show of her interest in you if

00:22:08.440 she'll come to your front door rather than you go into her front door. And I saw a video that you

00:22:13.080 published in the last few weeks where you were talking about the notion of a date really boils down

00:22:19.320 to a sexual opportunity. And that's going to require access to somebody's place where the

00:22:25.720 sexual opportunity can take place. And I think your recommendation, and you can correct me,

00:22:31.240 obviously, was that they come to you so that you have access to your place, you know, down the

00:22:37.080 street. It's certainly one of the strongest indicators of genuine burning desire in my eyes.

00:22:43.960 Anyway, if she's willing to literally drive an hour, two hours to come and see you basically at

00:22:50.360 your front door, it doesn't necessarily have to be at your house. It could be at a bar or restaurant

00:22:53.880 down the street from your house. But the further she has to travel to make the effort to come and

00:22:57.640 see you, the greater the interest. And I always find it's interesting because one of the complaints

00:23:01.560 that I hear from a lot of guys when I talk to them is, oh, you know, I had this date, you know,

00:23:05.400 lined up and there's about an hour's distance, you know, between us and we were going to meet halfway

00:23:10.120 and she flaked on me because of the 30 minute drive. And it's just like, yeah, you don't have

00:23:15.640 better options. And she figured that it wasn't worth her while. Does that sound about right to you,

00:23:21.320 you know, with that notion of power and them coming to your? Absolutely.

00:23:24.920 And I think you summarized some of my ideas very well. What I generally say is that a date

00:23:30.200 is connection plus sexual opportunity, right? You need both. And that's why it's God's perfect

00:23:36.600 creation because when everything goes well, both the man and the woman get what they want.

00:23:40.600 The woman gets her connection. She gets attended to, she gets her emotional stimulation. She gets

00:23:46.520 her attention. Uh, she, she gets the dinner and the affection. And if everything goes right,

00:23:53.160 the man gets his sexual experience, which is pretty self-explanatory. And in general,

00:23:58.840 it's the man's responsibility to direct the relationship in the direction of a sexual encounter.

00:24:07.960 Like it's pretty rare for a woman to do that. She has to be very, very attracted and sort of like

00:24:14.920 fed up with the man's, uh, unwillingness to lead. And then she does it more or less

00:24:20.520 out of desperation. Uh, in general, men have to move the encounter in the direction of a sexual

00:24:26.840 relationship. And that's why it's generally useful to schedule the logistics of dates around

00:24:34.280 a man's place because if you're halfway, well, where do you go? Are you going to rent a hotel?

00:24:40.360 Are you going to get on a subway and go to their house? Well, you can't really invite yourself into

00:24:45.800 their space anyway. And so it's useful to have the space that you can invite the woman back to

00:24:52.760 so that when the date is going well, it's actually fairly effortless to guide the interaction

00:24:59.160 in that direction. Does that make sense? Yeah. The opportunity to escalate needs to

00:25:03.000 exist. Otherwise it's just an interview, isn't it? That's what I say. Yeah, absolutely. And I

00:25:07.640 don't want to sign up for an interview. I mean, that sounds really lame. No, it is. No, it's absolutely

00:25:12.280 true. And guys need to get it through their heads. Like, you know, the point of a date is to lead to

00:25:16.680 more to escalation at some point, not just sit there back to back doing interviews, feeding women and

00:25:22.520 never having the opportunity to see them again or to escalate. Um, so a lot of women are bad at this.

00:25:29.000 And I talk about this in the book a little bit later is I understand the impulse to want to

00:25:33.800 interview a man. They're trying to do their due diligence to see who is this guy? What's he about?

00:25:38.840 Are we compatible, et cetera? But one of the worst ways to figure that out is by asking direct questions.

00:25:44.680 Like if a woman asks both an honest and a dishonest man, are you honest? She's going to be told yes by

00:25:52.200 both men. That is a bad question because it functionally doesn't differentiate between those two classes of

00:25:57.720 individuals. This is why successful companies, they don't simply or even ever rely on structured

00:26:05.560 interviews to hire. They give them actual tasks that they're expected to perform in the course of

00:26:12.280 their duties. Like lateral creative problem solving things to test their divergent thinking and their

00:26:20.040 creativity. They invite them to dinner with the other partners of the firm so that you know if they're

00:26:27.160 a decent guy and can get along with the other partners of the firm. It's like there's lots you

00:26:33.880 call the, their previous employers and their references. You, you do a lot of indirect due diligence

00:26:39.480 and that's generally a better way of figuring out who you're dealing with than simply asking them to

00:26:45.240 tell you about themselves. Yeah. It's like the whole stated preferences usually conflict with the

00:26:51.320 observed behavior. Sure. And it's also not a lot of fun to just answer a bunch of questions.

00:26:59.080 It's not fun for the women and it's not fun for the men. And generally what happens is when these women

00:27:05.400 enter into dates with that interview mentality, well, they just get a lot of factual information when the

00:27:10.840 man complies with it, which doesn't make her feel anything. And so she leaves the date with a lot

00:27:16.680 of information, but no feeling, which she's going to use to inform her decision about whether or not

00:27:21.160 to see that man again. And if she kind of feels nothing really, then there's probably not going to be a

00:27:27.640 second date. Yeah, absolutely. Um, sorry. Okay. So we were talking about a bunch of the power plays.

00:27:34.280 What were a few more? If you can recall, you said there was 10, we covered one of them.

00:27:38.040 One of them is the willingness to transgress. So these principles of power are sort of

00:27:48.120 value neutral. I'm not advocating for any of these things. I'm just sort of relating what tends to be

00:27:55.640 associated with power. And one of them is the willingness to transgress. Basically those who are

00:28:00.760 willing to violate not only just like the laws, but most people are shackled internally. They're

00:28:10.120 shackled internally by their ideal self that was usually put into their minds by their parents,

00:28:18.920 their culture, and their early relationships. And so lots of people are playing in a much smaller field

00:28:26.520 of play than they really have to, which makes it more difficult for them to maneuver. Like if you

00:28:32.680 can only zig, but I can zig and zag, it's going to be hard for you to beat me. I have more space to

00:28:39.800 play. I have more maneuvers. And so it's going to be more difficult for you to go head to head with me.

00:28:46.680 So for better or for worse, those who operate under a larger field of play and are more willing to

00:28:55.320 execute more varied maneuvers generally have a larger playbook, which is often associated with

00:29:01.880 greater success. Howling is also part of the game. That's another thing to consider is that every game

00:29:08.920 has a set of rules and usually violation of those rules is very clearly defined as also the penalties

00:29:15.080 associated with them. But like, if you wanted to be a, a top ranked tennis player and to never ever

00:29:25.160 have a ball go out of bounds, like good luck with that. If you want to be an NBA player and never

00:29:29.720 commit a personal foul, like good luck with that. You'd have to be so much better than anybody else

00:29:34.920 you're playing against to restrict yourself in that way. And that just wouldn't be possible because

00:29:39.240 at those highest levels of performance, the difference between the first place and the hundredth

00:29:44.600 place is actually very small. Sometimes it's measured in, you know, seconds, milliseconds,

00:29:50.680 even you wouldn't be able to win.

00:29:52.760 Why is attractiveness the key to power and sexual relationships?

00:30:00.440 Well, attractiveness is the key to power because

00:30:06.520 generally it helps attractive people get more of what they want across all three phases of the

00:30:12.360 relationship, which I say is attraction, negotiation and maintenance. Attractive people are more

00:30:18.440 likely to be selected. If they're attractive passengers, captains can see them more obviously

00:30:24.520 among the group of folks in front of his ship. And attractive captains are targeted more often by

00:30:30.200 passengers for passage on their ships. Attractive people can negotiate better terms for themselves.

00:30:37.560 They generally get more of what they want and less of what they don't, whether that's fair or not.

00:30:42.120 And they're more likely to maintain their relationships if they so desire, because one,

00:30:47.400 they generally have more optionality than the person they're dealing with, which means that they're also

00:30:53.800 more powerful and the other person might be more invested in the relationship.

00:31:00.120 Yeah. Maintenance also allows them to defend their relationship against their intrasexual competition

00:31:06.680 more readily. So if you're a more attractive option, people generally aren't going to leave

00:31:12.280 you for a less attractive option. Let's put it that way.

00:31:14.600 So the maintenance phase, I think is a tough phase for...

00:31:20.280 It's actually not the tough phase, I would say. It's the most often neglected phase.

00:31:25.000 Mm-hmm.

00:31:25.960 Would you agree with that?

00:31:26.840 Yeah, I talk about that in the book. And the reason for that is you have to go...

00:31:31.560 You have to successfully navigate the attraction and the negotiation phase to get to the maintenance

00:31:36.440 phase. And there's attrition at every level of the sales funnel, right? So fewer people end up in

00:31:41.560 the maintenance phase by definition.

00:31:43.080 The maintenance phase is interesting because it's different for men and women. I mean, if you get into

00:31:48.680 a situation where you've gotten married or you live in a way that looks like marriage to the state,

00:31:56.840 you still have an obligation as a man to a woman to maintain and ideally become a better version of

00:32:03.160 yourself than you were five, six years ago when you perhaps met her. The flip side of that though is

00:32:09.400 women don't necessarily have that same obligation because the tolerances that men and women have for

00:32:14.840 each other in the maintenance phase are quite different, aren't they?

00:32:19.080 It can be. I've heard the jokes say that men get married hoping that the woman will never change

00:32:24.680 and women get married hoping that the man will.

00:32:26.520 Yeah.

00:32:27.080 And I think one way around that, it's certainly not a guarantee. Nothing is a guarantee with

00:32:32.840 relationships or with women. But one of the strongest indicators of that is to get involved in

00:32:38.520 a long-term relationship with somebody with a growth mindset. And some women do have that.

00:32:43.400 And they do value bettering themselves and maintaining their appearance and

00:32:50.440 broadening and enriching their experience. They find that intrinsically valuable. But if you don't

00:32:55.160 have a woman like that, it's going to require a lot of cajoling or ultimatums or

00:33:03.560 other kinds of nastiness. There's not much you can do about it.

00:33:07.720 Why does love have nothing to do with relationships?

00:33:11.400 Oh yeah. That's my favorite chapter in the book. Love doesn't have anything to do with relationships

00:33:16.200 because relationships are fundamentally about the transaction of value, right? People need and

00:33:22.440 want things from other people and they trade those things. And the value of those things emerges out of

00:33:30.040 the trading. The issue is that love, like loyalty and friendship, can't be bought or earned. It's

00:33:35.880 always given spontaneously at the pleasure of the giver with no strings attached, which means that it's

00:33:41.560 kind of valueless or invaluable. Because even if the price tag is exorbitant, things that have a value

00:33:50.760 can be bought. You know what I'm saying? But love can't ever be bought, which means that there's

00:33:56.280 nothing that you can do to earn it. There's nothing that you can do to get it, if that's what you're

00:34:01.400 looking for. It's always just given at the mysterious pleasure of the giver. We also know that it's not

00:34:07.480 necessary to have a relationship to love. People every day love people that they're not in relationships.

00:34:14.440 And often they're in relationships with people that they don't love. So if both of those things are true,

00:34:20.120 I don't see how we can say that the basis of relationships is love. People generally don't

00:34:26.440 end up with the people who love them the most. It's not like love always wins in the end. Life is

00:34:32.200 not a romantic comedy. Now this is not to say that people in relationships can't love each other, but

00:34:37.400 that has nothing to do with really what they're giving each other. That's almost like a happy

00:34:43.240 coincidence. If that love were based on what they were receiving in the relationship, then that love

00:34:48.280 would have a value, the value of what they were receiving, which would make love transactional,

00:34:53.080 which I don't think it is. So that's kind of why I think that love doesn't have anything to

00:34:56.600 do with relationships. I had an interesting conversation with a guy yesterday. I did a

00:35:04.920 live Twitter X space, whatever you want to call them. And this guy was mentioning that the last,

00:35:13.080 I don't know, five or six gals that he's been with, and it happened with every single one of them

00:35:19.400 within a span of about, he said four to five weeks or so, but they would profess being in love with him

00:35:26.600 very rapidly, which is genuinely unusual. It's like, you know, I've, I think most guys experience with that

00:35:35.160 is that it's like constipation. Women really struggle to get it out and they like to hold it back.

00:35:39.480 And when, and when it's out, it's like, you know, okay, it's, it's, it's obvious like, you know,

00:35:44.520 she definitely loves this guy. And I asked him, I said to him, I go, you know, is it, is it like,

00:35:49.160 I love you or kind of like, I love your guts, you know, sort of thing. Like, it's a casual sort of

00:35:53.800 like friendly, playful way about it. But no, it's like, I am in love with you. And that's a very strong

00:35:59.800 come on for most guys within a span of like four or five weeks of meeting a woman. What's your take on

00:36:05.320 that? It is possible. Like I've worked closely with some men who were very, very good at cultivating

00:36:12.440 that kind of emotional reaction in women. And they generally did this by playing up the romantic

00:36:19.720 dimensions of the relationship. They did it by really pitching them a dream. And those men very

00:36:28.360 early on, were talking about a future that they saw with this woman, or that this woman was the,

00:36:34.360 the most beautiful, the most amazing person that they've ever met. And maybe they even met in a

00:36:40.520 previous life and that there's some sort of deep karmic cosmic connection between the two of them.

00:36:46.360 And they sweep them off their feet and take them to Michelin star restaurants. And it's almost like

00:36:52.600 you're the girl who gets the attention from the prince in the movie. It's like you're whisked

00:36:59.560 very suddenly into this entirely new world from a attractive, successful man who seems to be

00:37:07.080 unilaterally and intensely devoted to you. That will make a woman fall in love in four to five weeks.

00:37:13.960 Now, was that the guys admitting the strategy or was that the women telling the story of their

00:37:19.080 experience about how they felt? No, this is the men telling me when they didn't always or ever mean

00:37:28.680 those things in the way that the woman received them. And when I spoke with a number of these guys,

00:37:34.760 we discovered that that strategy on their part, which was very effective, was designed to protect

00:37:42.920 themselves because they felt that if they could get a woman to love them at that level of intensity,

00:37:50.440 well, that woman wouldn't be leaving him and that he would be protected against her rejection.

00:37:57.240 Generally, though, what happened was the man in question was unable to sustain that level of interest

00:38:04.040 and passion and courtship. And the woman first becomes a little confused and then a little

00:38:12.440 disappointed and then a little irate or a lot irate. And she kind of sees through it. And often these

00:38:20.440 relationships that burn really bright really fast also burn out very quickly in extravagant ways.

00:38:26.600 You have another chapter in the book that's titled People Really Don't Want Relationships. And again,

00:38:33.320 guys, I haven't gotten that far in the book yet, so I'm very curious as to the story behind that one

00:38:38.920 as well. Sure. I mean, the basis of that chapter, which I think is the last chapter in the book,

00:38:44.120 was actually spelled out on the first page, which is that people enter into relationships because they

00:38:49.160 want things from other people. And one way that they've discovered to get those things

00:38:54.360 things is by exchanging unequal goods of comparable value in relationship. But that generally means,

00:39:01.400 technically, that people don't want relationships. They want the value that is transacted in those

00:39:07.080 relationships. And entering into a relationship is just one way that people have discovered of getting

00:39:12.760 that value. If those people find ways that are safer, cheaper, or easier to get the same value,

00:39:21.000 they're going to prefer those ways to entering into relationships with men and women. And that's,

00:39:26.280 I think, precisely what we're seeing. We are in the midst of a relationship crisis, Rich, as you know,

00:39:32.680 like in the last 10 years, the number of men and women who are getting married,

00:39:39.960 entering into relationships, or even hooking up, have dropped precipitously, in some cases,

00:39:45.800 to historically unprecedented lows, like the marriage rate in America's lowest it's ever been

00:39:50.040 in recorded history, for instance. And I think that has to do with the fact that we now have some

00:39:57.400 possibilities of getting what we want, or at least something very similar to it, more easily,

00:40:03.400 more cheaply, and more safely elsewhere than dealing with the opposite sex. And that's precisely what

00:40:08.520 is happening. And it's kind of rational. Like very few people are going to choose a more expensive,

00:40:15.160 riskier, and more inaccessible solution over one that's safer, cheaper, and easier.

00:40:21.000 What if the, you know, like in your practice itself, dealing with your clients, what are the biggest

00:40:28.360 grievances that men express that are that much different from the ones that women are expressing?

00:40:34.280 Like, what are the differences in the sexes there? From where you're sitting?

00:40:40.920 It's going to sound bad, but a lot of men, they come to me and they really want to know

00:40:47.640 what a woman wants. Like, help me figure out women. And I think on the whole, that's because

00:40:55.000 they're good faith actors in relationships. They're like, okay, clearly, I've had some issues

00:41:01.080 attracting or maintaining relationships with women. Maybe if I get better at understanding

00:41:05.480 what women really want, and I can get better at giving it to them, maybe I can have more

00:41:09.720 satisfying relationships with women in the future. When I talk to women, they're not concerned about

00:41:16.520 what men want. They're concerned about how do I get what I want? Both men and women are trying to

00:41:22.840 figure out how to give women women what they want. Interesting. And that's, in my experience,

00:41:29.560 the biggest difference between my consultations with, between men and women. I've never had a

00:41:33.640 woman come to me and say, Orion, help me understand men so I can give them more of what they want,

00:41:37.880 because I understand that that could be the secret of a successful relationship, which it is.

00:41:43.000 Like, when two people are effortlessly and reciprocally getting their needs met, that's a good

00:41:49.480 relationship. When people say, I love this, it's because they're getting a lot of what they want

00:41:55.400 and a little of what they don't. And that love, that positive emotionality, in my opinion, isn't

00:42:00.520 technically love. It's the satisfaction of being gratified. And that's generally what people are

00:42:05.080 looking for when they enter into relationships. Yeah, it's interesting when you sort of merit on a

00:42:13.800 on that soundbite for a bit, because it's like, you know, guys are trying to give women what they

00:42:18.520 want to attract and retain them. And women are trying to get what they want from guys,

00:42:23.960 not that concerned with what guys want. And when the women come to me and say,

00:42:28.360 how can I get more of what I want? And I start to explain, well, you have to understand what men want.

00:42:33.080 And by giving men more of what they want, you have the best chance of getting what you want.

00:42:37.160 How do they like that? That's a tough sell. A lot of them are like, that's interesting. I don't really

00:42:40.760 want to do that, though. Yeah, it's, I can't remember where I heard this. It was definitely

00:42:45.480 my youth. But there's, it was a line something along the soundbite of, you know, you can get

00:42:50.040 anything in the world that you want, if you help as many people get what they want. And I think that

00:42:53.640 guys definitely subscribe to that, especially when it comes to attracting and retaining women.

00:42:57.320 It doesn't always work, Rich. You know, as you know, sometimes people can work very hard to be

00:43:03.560 taken advantage of or taken for granted. But absolutely, that's probably the best chance

00:43:08.920 that you have of becoming successful, broadly defined, is being used by other people in a way

00:43:15.080 that's important and necessary for their needs and desires. You have to allow yourself to be used. As a

00:43:22.680 guy, we understand that. You can't expect to get paid if you're not used in terms of your time,

00:43:27.640 your energy, and your skill set. Expecting the paycheck without being used is absurd.

00:43:32.920 Yeah, you're very honest in that, especially when you break it down in your videos. Like,

00:43:38.120 I love the way that you break it down in the videos. It's just so clear and concise. Let me

00:43:42.680 just grab this over here. It says, Ryan's work is applied. EvoPsych, Rich's work is raw truth.

00:43:47.800 Thanks to both of you. My life is not just better. It's perfect. Eternally grateful.

00:43:52.920 Right on.

00:43:53.320 Let's, uh, I don't know what a BNG is or what country that's from, but, uh, thank you Zornitska.

00:43:59.560 I think I'm pronouncing that right.

00:44:00.600 Lovely. Thank you.

00:44:01.160 Um, yeah, it's, you know, it's really interesting. Like you gotta take all these different perspectives

00:44:06.840 and sort of weigh them out. And, you know, like your book is, is, is very dead sleep packed with,

00:44:13.320 um, useful and expensive words. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm again, halfway through it. And it's one of those

00:44:21.480 books that I know that I'm going to have to go through twice and start to bookmark, you know,

00:44:25.080 the stuff as I'm doing it. Um, it's, it's a, it's a greater, how can I sell this? Your videos are like

00:44:34.440 an introduction to the ideas that the book sort of expands on in a lot more depth. Like when you did the

00:44:40.360 talk on the sailboat thing, um, at my forum back in January here in Toronto, I thought the way that

00:44:46.600 you went into the analogy and how that works, you know, differences, you know, between men and women,

00:44:52.840 you got like right into the weeds. So it's like, if you like Orion's videos and you think that the,

00:44:58.520 uh, the value that you're getting out of them is, is right there, you're going to go even further

00:45:03.320 down the rabbit hole if you get the book. And I do recommend it. It's, it's going to go on my

00:45:08.920 recommended reading list to the guys that I talked to for sure. Um, congratulations on

00:45:14.360 the bestseller, you know, everything that's going on with it. Is there a follow-up coming?

00:45:18.600 Like, are you going to work on another one or have you had enough?

00:45:21.240 I would like to write another book. I had so much fun writing this one actually. Um,

00:45:25.560 but it just was released two weeks ago. I'm going to be doing a lot of appearances to promote it.

00:45:30.760 Of course.

00:45:31.160 I might need a break before I start another project. And I think my next goal might be to create some sort of

00:45:38.040 community before I focus on building, uh, writing another book. But yeah, I have lots of ideas,

00:45:43.800 lots of things I'd like to talk about. It's not a casual book like you were getting at. It generally

00:45:49.240 requires your concentration and attention and some things you might have to sit with, um, before they

00:45:54.280 start to make sense. I did try to explain everything as clearly and simply as I could. And if I failed

00:46:01.480 in that, that's really my fault. Um, the, it's also a different medium. Like the YouTube is

00:46:06.920 it's for a more popular audience. It's I think more casual. It's the spoken word. Whereas a book,

00:46:12.760 this is something that I hope might still be relevant in a hundred years. That was my goal in

00:46:17.720 writing it. I didn't want to make something that was just, um, a, a pamphlet that might have been a

00:46:24.040 quick cash grab because of my internet celebrity. And I also didn't want to write something that in a

00:46:29.560 couple of years would be obsolete because it was just speaking about the popular moment today,

00:46:36.200 which will change as soon as it's identified. Yeah. I think it'll be evergreen for a while.

00:46:41.720 I hope so. That's my intention anyway. And it's one of those ones that even if you

00:46:45.800 listen to audio books, guys, I would recommend getting the print version just so you can highlight

00:46:49.800 it and underline stuff. Cause it's one of those ones where you're going to, you know, dog ear the

00:46:53.720 pages. You're going to start to mark it up and it's worthwhile doing that. Cause I mean, if you ever

00:46:58.200 have somebody that needs, um, you know, that type of content and they're not the sort that sort of

00:47:05.160 will go out and buy a book or whatever, you can just hand them your copy and you'll have what they

00:47:09.320 need out of it as well too. So there's that. Um, what's up and coming for you, man. You were,

00:47:14.840 you were talking about a few things there. Uh, the channel has been very successful. You know,

00:47:18.840 I think you're going to hit a million subs probably within the next 12 months for sure.

00:47:22.120 Uh, the book knocked it out of the park. So congrats on, on that. Um, what else is up and

00:47:28.120 coming for you? Well, I'm going to a number of different podcast appearances these days. I was

00:47:35.880 just on Michael Sartain's podcast. Uh, we recorded this past weekend. I think the episode drops

00:47:42.520 tomorrow. Did you do it with Rolo too, or just Michael? It was just, it was just Michael. I haven't

00:47:47.000 met Rolo yet. And I was on diary of a CEO a few days ago as well. That guy's interesting. He's

00:47:54.120 a very good interviewer. He's an excellent interviewer. I had a wonderful time. He was

00:47:58.840 empathic and authentic and very well informed. He clearly takes what he does very seriously.

00:48:05.400 And his team was also excellent. Uh, he has like 10 people at least who are working and

00:48:11.560 they're all very friendly and competent. And I had a great experience.

00:48:15.640 Awesome. Cool. All right. Well guys, we'll wrap it up on that note. You can find it on Amazon.

00:48:20.120 Um, you know, it's a self published, uh, copy. It's Orion. Uh, yeah, show them the cover. There

00:48:25.720 you go. So it's easy to find. It's right on the best sellers list. It's, uh, hand moffs here in the

00:48:31.240 chat. How do I get a signed copy of the book? Um, a few people have requested that and I'm still

00:48:36.520 trying to figure out how I can logistically offer that. Um, well, probably you have a suggestion,

00:48:42.840 rich. Well, I was going to suggest, you know, we talked offline about, um, you know, doing,

00:48:46.920 do my event next May. So if you're going to be there, um, you know, maybe one of the things I

00:48:51.000 can do is, uh, grab a box of your books and maybe you can sign a few for some people.

00:48:55.240 Oh, that would be wonderful. Yeah. And I can't wait, man. I had such a good time

00:49:00.040 at your conference in January. I was really impressed by your community and what you've been able to build.

00:49:05.720 And it was a lot of fun getting to meet the other presenters and also the attendees.

00:49:10.600 I had a, I had a wonderful experience. Yeah. You guys will want to be on my email

00:49:14.680 list to get notified, uh, when the tickets go on sale, but we're just working at the

00:49:17.960 details right now. It's going to be in the Bahamas in May of 2025.

00:49:21.880 So much nicer than Toronto in January. Thank you for doing that.

00:49:24.680 Yeah. I, you know, Toronto was sort of a test venue. I wanted to see what was going to happen.

00:49:29.160 If people were even had the appetite to buy a ticket and the flying sort of thing, but Bahamas is a,

00:49:34.600 it's a much nicer venue and it's a, it's a nicer place to be. So, um, keep an eye out for that one.

00:49:40.520 But again, thanks for popping in guys, grab a copy of the book, Orion, uh, all the best with your

00:49:44.920 future endeavors and success with this book. Thanks, Rich. Thanks.

PTW # 98 - Dr. Orion Taraban - The Value of Others

Summary

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