Disclaimer: I am not a dating coach nor am I selling any dating products or services this blog is really for recreational usage to reflect on my previous experiences in daygame and to share my insight. For those wondering I am based in London/Nice/San Fransisco so for those who want to network in the future please email darrenpua1@gmail.com thanks
During the 2013- 2019 Era TNL were dominating the dating sphere – Selling courses for $15k for 1 weeks dating course – the most expensive dating coaches in the world . Recently however they haven’t been doing so well . Several of their more prominent coaches: Liam McRae, Travel Bum, Jonathan Neil Thomson , Tony Solo all departed leaving behind not much to replace them other than Alex Leon who himself seemed to be a carbon copy of Liam McRae . Now it’s just pretty much James and Alex Leon plus one female coach (whom i have no clue about hence i won’t be analysing here in this post . They used to be the talk of the town but what happened?
Loss of Prominent Coaches
Similar to RSD , Simple Pickup daygame.com and RSD – Prominent coaches seemed to slip away leaving lesser ones in their place. My example stems from the person whom I’d argue is most likely was TNL’s most popular coach Liam McRae leaving to free-up is private life. Again in my previous blog post on the decline of the men’s dating industry I made more examples similars to this:
Liam McRae was – in my eyes at least TNL’s biggest asset – he was by far the most relatable of the coaches in my eyes and losing him permanently was a big blow. Replacing him with Alex Leon was – in my eyes a good move. However the other new coach in Johnathan Neil Thomson in my eyes – not so much. The guy had a weird aura In which he would almost tell you off while lecturing or making a video – his delivery was in such a tone that it reminded me of being told off by my own father- furthermore looking at his instagram posts the captions appeared odd and he was often poorly dressed and looking like- well a bum.
Here we have Jonathan Neil holding a guinea pig dressed in yellow – not exactly showing the aura of confidence or dress sense a man should have who’s attracting high tier women.
Exhibit A/B was TNL’s coach playing the ukelele on the beach dressed I what appears to be his underwear – hardly a great looking photo for a ex-dating coach of the most expensive dating company in the world , the photos don’t look convincing and to some degree look like a guy in his mid thirties who’s somewhat living the life of a bum . An early 20s musician you’d forgive this sort of behaviour but mid thirties doing this sort of shit? I don’t see it as much maturity or development more so a musician bum who shouldn’t be coaching one of the most expensive dating companies in the world.
I sound harsh here but then there evidence of a conflict where he “lost his best friend” ( who used to be James Marshall ) and “job” this was during covid lockdown where John Neil Thomsen worked for TNL prior to covid occurring . Showing at least some proof of internal conflict was clearly going on and with John no longer following James Marshall or the other TNL members on instagram it was clear that there were some serious friction behind the scene. A few years before this James Marshall had some conflict with another member Travel Bum with financial issues.
This situation could be compared to Simple Pickup which saw conflicts between three so called best friends , Tom Torero / Nick Krausser’s conflicts and the many conflicts that ran the course of RSD .
This was a bit damming to James having to deal with unreliable coaches in John Neil Thomsen and Travel Bum- but looking at Jonathan’s posts its quite clear from my opinion he’d mentally lost the plot and wasn’t a reliable coach. He never seemed to take any accountability for his actions . Anyone who looks to self help books to justify meaning in their life is clearly a concern in my eyes. This can usually draw a sense of delusion or lack of responsibility- in John’s case when it was found out to be causing a ruckus from the inside of his best friend’s business he justified his bad behaviour by what was written in a random self book that’s usually designed to lure dumb people in to buying their shitty viewpoints.
This seems to be a random assortment of words with little clear defined meaning. Words like “Disconnecting” “healing” “unexpectedly cut the cord” when it was clear he was the one causing internal conflicts and with some potential proof showing that he was overly aggravating towards students . Instead of taking some responsibility for his broken down friendship with James he seems to wallow in self help word salad something which a lot of dating coaches seem to do over time akin to maybe Sasha Daygame or Shae Matthews – this makes them appear insightful when in reality what they are doing/saying isn’t offering anything unique .
Shae Matthews – My problem with Shae is that he was also a very spiritual guided coach who seemed to offer – well nothing. When you scratch beneath the service as a TNL coach he often blap excessively and not offer much value he also has no infield himself which is a concern. Although he offered some insight into his love life in the “Tinder Seduction stories” book written by Liam McRae. It was just often him taking advantage of the fact he was an Australian in the developing country of Bosnia fucking girls who were often far less well off socio economically …and that’s just about it really . Not saying this is the wrong thing to do but bar this and his appearances on TNL podcasts were he reproduces and re-shills self help ideas like “take responsibility for you actions” he’s not really offering much unique insight on the table to the point where you think what is the point of him? And in TNL training he’s often giving mediation classes- hardly work $15k a week to approach a few girls and meditate for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNk0viT-8gA&t=404s
Again from this video i see him as a half assed yoga coach mixed in with a lot of word salad/ spiritual guru nonsense . Sounding akin to the Buddhist that wants to be a PUA coach . I think these students would be far better off doing 10 minutes of mediation at home and binge listening to Tom Torero’s seduction podcasts than listening to this. The fact that this video also has less views that any of the other ones made by TNL in the last year or so is also pretty telling he just isn’t viewed by the mainstream as as valuable an asset as James.
Are PUA companies even sustainable? :
My argument in my previous blog post was a resounding no due to the high rate of coaches retiring. In TNL despite the company selling $15k courses the money or profits weren’t able to sustain the business model. Like many of the new self industry models it required the continuous selling of high ticket high profit margin . But how could they sustain this over 10-20 years ? What’s the justification of a $15k programme where you approach women for a whole week while meditating . What is James Marshall going to do that’s so damn awesome – my feelings are not really aligned with the price point of whatever he’s selling or trying to sell. Oh shit I used the word “aligned” guess I am a spiritual guru now.
For most new people in PUA time spent finding wingmen will probably yield better results than investment in any dating coaches. They don’t need spiritual gurus like Shae Matthews or to pay for high ticket coaching when the reality of approaching and dating Is clear – during my time doing daygame roughly 0.8 percent of my approaches would actually end in lays. Improving your value, your dress sense etc. probably could boost that figure up to 1-3 percent but regardless of how many high ticket sales you buy or whichever coach you get its unlikely to make a huge impact on these figures- the bulk of men will still say 0.5 to 3 percent of every 100 approaches they do converting to lays . That $10k you want to spend on a programme – just commit to finding wingmen for free + buy better clothes maybe invest in yourself so your SMV is higher- travel , take language lessons etc. . You don’t really need the coaching , spirituality and mediation if you need that its all free and available on the internet- you don’t need to pay Shae Matthews $15k for a “ spiritual” speeches mixed in with some approaches or for James Marshall’s mentorship who’s heart just doesn’t seem in it anymore in my eyes .
Most PUA Companies lose their best assets through time
I mean look at simple pickup – lots of infighting let to Jason leaving , followed by Kong and then Kong took Jason’s girl . RSD- A lot of infighting between coaches too, 21 convention whilst not a “pua company” per say also got harmed with the fall out between Rollo Tommasi and Anthony Johnson – Here TNL has followed a similar line of events with a betrayal by Travel Bum on James Marshall leading to his departure . James Marshall having a big feud with his best friend Johnathan which led to him leaving the company although I argue the likes of Tony Solo and Liam McRae were bigger misses (which weren’t due to conflicts per say just these two wanting to do other things with their life) Again to repeat my initial point the majority of Simple Pickup wanted out after the company got it’s first successes and the same could be said for RSD after the business model seemingly evaporated.
James Marshall – Losing passion per say in teaching?
Now im not a John Anthony fan but I believe he’s right in saying that James Marshall’s daygame appears off on some occasions – I’d say that James lacks some degree of passion when he approaches women and it comes across as quite lazy ( however i’ve noticed a lot of improvements in his infield recently) nowadays judging by his body language and tonality it seems that he’s somewhat lost his passion.
He also admitted to being near retiring in 2019 which seems to be a ploy to glean sales rather than any legitimate reasoning rather than actually wanting to retire . It seems almost impossible for him to do so now without the company faltering as it’s just him and Alex Leon left and one other female coach whom I don’t know at all so won’t comment on.
Looking at this screenshot from James Marshall’s website its clear that sales aren’t what they used to be and interest has dropped -significantly maybe this is the end of the road of dating high ticket sales? Or do Shae Matthews and James have enough about them to trigger more sales for the company – maybe their characters and personality don’t have the mass mainstream appeal anymore like they did. It’s also worth to note that there seems to be no more Euro tour which was was a 10 day dating bootcamp with many coaches included the likes of Gareth Jones, Sasha Daygame, Liam Mcrae etc. Nowadays it seems to be just Shae or Alex.
Again it brings back to the point how unsustainable pua coaching is when its top earner James Marshall wants out- or maybe there wasn’t much to begin with we were in sort of a “bull run “ of pua in 2011-2018 which I’d argue peaked in 2016 . James was able to sell a significant amount of coaching courses this time enough to seemingly buy a luxury villa in Portugal and a flat in Budapest along with some bitcoin. But now looking at his website come June the 2nd 2024 it seems that his courses aren’t selling as well. What happened? Are people giving up hope on pua? Has the crusade against men which cost Tom Torero his life harmed other companies too simultaneously by making men too shy to approach? Or has covid / inflation leading to less disposable income fucked up men’s desire to invest in high ticket coaches or are men sick and tired of being sold dating course and online marketing for something which has such a high failure rate.
James Marshall is still the best speech maker of the PUA industry
I am still a massive James Marshall fan i dont want to take anything away from the guy even though this blog post could be interpreted as a unfair critique of him – I just think he’s run out of momentum , he made several incredible speeches on the 21 convention that surpassed most others in the field. Heck in the James Marshall v John Anthony debate even the biggest John Anthony fan could say that James Marshall’s speeches dicked all over his. I see him as a more mature version of the Tom Torero and Nick Krausser’s of this world. But I also feel his mysterious marketing as a sort of spiritual guru maybe was unsustainable long term. His team is not quite what it was- and may never be quite the same again as I don’t see any good new coaches coming through the pipeline if anything I’ve seen a shift towards more online dating coaching and “lifestyle coaching” whatever that is. He profited well from making the best seduction speeches at the 21 convention but maybe lacked the passion and desire to make the business further . Maybe having a dating coach like Alex Leon who despite his incredible amplitude for social circle game seemed like a short sited pick as social circle game really isn’t relatable for the majority of dating clients as they don’t have the time to prance around in the Maldives taking photos with bikini models. In fact James Marshall’s lifestyle in general is unrelatable to the majority of men. He met his first wife in Ukraine in 2008 and was one of the first to do daygame there- he enjoyed great success but im pretty sure many 7/10 men in Ukraine would do very well in 2008 before online dating apps entered the fold. He spent the bulk of his time in eastern europe exploiting his relatively high smv in the area and never lived for prolong periods in expensive cities like London or even Australia – maybe he was tired of the competition
There’s still some examples of infield of his where i think he’s better than even people whom i rate higher as coaches such as Tom Torero – For example here:
and there’s the penultimate approach in this video here:
Both are examples of very good day game in eyes (for whats that’s worth) I feel the John Anthony was quite selective of his criticism of James and was just critiquing a few approaches of James and of his students of course with the failure rate of daygame and the fact that most approaches end in failure critiquing one coach for having a couple of approaches that end in failure itself seems a bit ridiculous . Even John himself has admitted to having a 1 in 10 close rate from phone numbers acquired how you gonna then criticise a coach for having a few bad cold approaches and then critique his student who’s just started cold approaching?
Moving To the Third World to Take advantage of SMV
James has said before in interviews that he thought Australia was overly competitive . But his ideas area similar to that of my other favourite coaches- namely Tom Torero , Nick Krausser and Yad who all spent significant time in Eastern Europe albeit these three didn’t have large team like James Marshall did. I still believe he was more impactful from his 21 convention speeches than anything and that this was what was pivotal in him gaining popularity. I still feel perhaps he made poor choices in terms of coaches – namely John Thomsen his ex best friend who as I mentioned before always came across as an aggressive control freaking – lunatic who places the ukulele and seems express his mental illness on instagram – not a great choice for a coach, even the best coaches on his team now namely Alex Leon to some degree isn’t relatable to the 30-50 years working their 9-5s and wanting to just to date a half decent chick i don’t know how capable these men are of spending their time photographing models in the Maldives . But it could be argued that Shae Matthews and even Tony Solo who again seemed to be another mentally intense spiritual guy had their problems. Shae doesn’t seem much different from 5-6 years ago -still yapping and still peddling the same spiritual bullshit- Tony got married and retired but again in his videos he seemed to over complicate things and yap on consistently. It seemed these individuals would speak to seem deep but scratch beneath the surface there was not much unique insight that couldn’t already be learnt
Is charging $15k for dating coaching morally wrong ?
I mean this is a topic of discussion which I wish people would understand about dating coaches – they are not miracle men – they can’t hide a lack of SMV in their clients. Heck even James Marshall talked about in his last chapter of a book that looks were an important factor towards attraction and how his short clients (short as in not tall )would often struggle. Pua and daygame results merely reflect a man’s smv and value they bring- it can cover up some flaws short term but long term it requires work and dedication most of which needs to be done outside of coaching. I feel James Marshall got lucky making so much money out of his clients that he did and given the clients infield the results seem pretty mediocre ( not saying I am any better or could be any better of a coach im just saying it doesn’t strike me for value for money) A lot of the self industry itself just wants to sell high ticket sales with products that really aren’t worth it under no real justification just simply that “this is worth it for the transformation it will bring you” With most of their rich clients just paying for the most expensive coaching thinking the most expensive correlates to the best results which is not often the case and given James Marshall appears to not have as much passion as he usually does it may be seen as a waste of money.
PUA has Ran out of gas
If a multi – million dollar company in terms of Simple Pickup and RSD were going to run out of gas then it’s inevitable TNL were – eventually . Pick Up artist forums with the exception of SoSauve are dead- the most proactive individuals in the space are seemingly wiped off the face of it. Between the 2021-2023 era it was hard to even find people in the space that were going out regularly. Most men on the dating WhatsApp groups/Telegram gave up or turned their attention to tinder which was a lot easier to manage. I’d think if online dating didn’t exist the likes of TNL would be far more profitable as people were pushed into action more. Instead men have dilly dallied – in most cases doing neither online or cold approach but rather moving towards the red pill and absorbing as much of Rollo Tommasi as possible whilst venting about how much better “things were back in the day” It seems this new paradigm shift has forced men into well- doing nothing. Yad’s retirement, Simple Pickup’s ending, RSD’s failings and now TNL’s can be seen as examples of a crumbling industry that has little left in the tank. Can it make a comeback? I doubt it as there simply aren’t enough mature people doing it regularly that are setting a good example. The passion doesn’t seem to be there anymore – it seems to have been lost either by an overstimulation of red pill content, fear from the mainstream media and the attribute that men have lower testosterone now and are a lot more beta as a result performing less proactive action.
Self Help Businessmen All Built the same way
Once you hang around self help businessmen for a while you realise a lot of them are cut from the same cloth with not much preparatory about them – Sasha Daygame, Tom Torero, James Marshall , Simple pickup, numerous RSD members were all selling courses some of which was their low ticket item like a book , then it developed to training videos and then there was one level beyond that which was the actual in person coaching . They all followed similar business formats – James was no different with his Marshall Meditation method series (which i myself have purchased) who’s mediation tapes were not much different from your regular run of the mill Youtube 10 minute meditation videos.
Conclusions:
- TNL lost a good quantity of its best coaches and was unable to replace them
- TNL went down the similar route of Simple Pickup,Rsd, daygame.com with internal conflicts/ men’s PUA community movements crumbling harming their internal progress and causing the business to dry up or their products to be weaker in quality. Also the loss of key coaches may make their coaching products less desirable (possibly) .
- TNL proved the high sales ticket model was only sustianable for so long
- James Marshall’s speeches at the 21 convention whilst amazing weren’t sustainable to maintain his business past 10 years. Whilst he had an amazing run its clear looking at his website and the lack fo coaches participating on his courses that sales have dried up .
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