Ep. #78 Relationship Decisions: From Marriage, to Open Marriage, to 2 Girlfriends with Adam Lyons

[Angel Donovan]: Hey, Adam! It’s great to be here downtown in LA.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, dude. Thanks for coming, man! Very few people come to my house that interview me. I’ll invite people here so I can interview them; it’s nice that it’s the other way around.

[Angel Donovan]: Yes, it’s a great place. I know you’re moving, but it’s really not a bad place. How long have you been here?

[Adam Lyons]: I’ve been here since February. We came here from Austin, Texas.

It’s actually funny how I ended up here. I drove out to LA – no, I flew out to LA – for a marketing mastermind. It was at San Diego, actually, for the Traffic & Conversion, so I came out here for that. I came back to LA, I had some friends living in LA, I crashed with them and decided I just wasn’t going home.

And so I phoned my girlfriends – I was like, “Hey, I’m not coming home. I’m living in LA. You’re allowed to come and stay with me if you want. If you want to move in with me, you’re welcome to.”

[Angel Donovan]: Was this in January?

[Adam Lyons]: This is in January, yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: That’s so funny, because I was living in Mexico and I went to Traffic & Conversion. Somehow we missed each other; I saw a lot of the guys. And I went back to Mexico and I decided I wasn’t going to stay there anymore. And I went to San Diego; I stayed there for three months.

[Adam Lyons]: That’s hysterical! Yeah, same thing – I came out there and I just drove to LA and I just stayed in LA. My girlfriends picked up all my stuff and drove out to me and I moved here. I’ve been in this apartment – I think we’re going to move to just north of Malibu. We’re kind of tired of city living.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, I mean, you’re in the city.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, exactly.

[Angel Donovan]: Malibu is beautiful.

[Adam Lyons]: Malibu is stunning.

[Angel Donovan]: Beaches and everything.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, it’s good.

[Angel Donovan]: You can appreciate that. And then you’ve got everything next to you as well.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, exactly. There’s a lot of stuff going on. I grew up in a city; I’ve lived in a city most of my life. I lived in the suburbs of Texas for a while, which I loved as well. And then I was like, “Oh, I miss the city. I’m going to come back to it, be in here for a year.” And then I’m like, “Yup, over. Done.”

[Angel Donovan]: Time to get out again.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, over the sea, get some beauty back in my life.

[Angel Donovan]: So we’re here because you just recently announced a whole bunch of changes in your life, so it’s a good time to get in touch with you. You haven’t been on the podcast yet and I had wanted to get you on for a while, so this is a good excuse.

[Adam Lyons]: I appreciate it.

[Angel Donovan]: To talk about some interesting stuff to guys as well, because everyone goes through changes in their lives. We don’t tend to make one choice in our life and stick with it for 50,000 years or 80 years or however long we live these days. What’s been going on?

If you take it back maybe right to the start, this must go right back down to the start. You’re in London and became this famous pickup artist who’s doing a lot of social circle and stuff. And then what happened? Because you met a girl.

[Adam Lyons]: Yes, it’s kind of fascinating. No one’s ever bothered asking the story. Everyone assumes they know, and they make these assumptions. A lot of people want to speculate, but no one really knew what happened.

What happened is, I got really good. I didn't just get ‘okay’; I got stupidly good at this. From back in the day, at that point I started teaching people who now are known as some of the best instructors of the world.

I’ve trained three different people who, in different places, have been voted the number one pickup artist in the world since I was number one. I’m not just someone who has gotten good myself; I’ve gotten so good at passing the skill on that other people have become amazing at it.

Very few people really understood what I went through, and I went through a really dark place. Back in London – we’re going back seven to eight years now – I’m in a nightclub and I’m hanging out with Vercetti, who now works for Love Systems, and a guy buy the name of Jay, who went on to become a big venture capitalist working in San Francisco with some incredibly big companies who got a lot of grants using game. Two people I trained, both were students of mine at the time, and one of them went on to become an instructor of pickup and the other one went on to skills to make money. Two very different followings, but both had learned from me.

I’m sitting between them, and I’m depressed. They’re like, “What’s up?” I was like, “I don’t want to talk to any girls.” And I’m training them, but I don’t want to do it myself. They’re like, “Come on, man, you love this!”

We walked up to the club; I think we brought over 60 girls that night with us. It was me, the two of them, just brought the women to the club. Every girl on the club knew who we were; everyone that didn't know who we were wanted to know who we were. We had free champagne.

We were at China White in London, which is still a very big club. It’s at a different location now.

But we ran the club. Everyone knew who the fuck we were, and I’m sitting there alone, bored. They said, “What’s up?” and I was like, “I’ve gotten to the point where the game is so easy now, there is no challenge and I hate it.”

My friends said, “What do you mean?” I was like, “Look, just point to any girl here. Now, you know, being a dating coach, one of the hardest things for a PUA to ever do is say ‘You pick the girl and I will pick her up.’” It’s something most guys hate doing; it’s something I pride myself on. I developed this skill; I got very good at it and I could do it.

So he points to this super hot, tall, 6’4” tall blond, and I walk straight up to her and within 30 seconds we’re making out. In the middle of the make out, I pull away from her, I look at them and go, “See?!” And I just pushed the girl away and walked away.

He’s like, “Dude, what are you doing? She was all into you!” I was like, “Right, like the other girl. Or the other one. Or the other one. Or the 14 girls I’m currently fucking, I had on rotation.” So two a day, seven days a week, 14 girls.

I was like, “There’s got to be something else to this. I hate it!” One of my other friends said to me – not a PUA, just a very good friend of mine – “Have you ever considered that you are so good at using game that you’re not getting what you want out of it? You’re so good at giving other women what they want, that you don’t get what you want.”

I said, “I get what I want. I get laid.” “Is that really what you want? What about companionship?” And so I said to him, “I’m going to marry the next girl I meet.” And the next girl I meet is this girl called Amanda, and she was this hot model from Ford Models. She was in London, she was American and was cute, and I was like, “Done. This is the girl I’m going to marry.” And so I started running a very long game.

Of course, I didn't come out and tell everyone that it was just going to be the next girl that I met, because there was no need to say that. I didn't want to be like, “Oh, this was an experiment; this is the woman I’m going to marry because it’s a fucking experiment” but everything in my pickup career had been experiments at that point. It was always “I wonder what happens if, I wonder what happens if –.”

So I got married based on an “I wonder what happens if.” I changed some things, and I suppose it was the first lesson. When you learn game initially, it’s all about making the other girl work for you. You make her work harder; you’re disinterested, you’re not needy.

Well, when it comes to falling in love, when you want to fall in love – not making them fall in love, but you want to fall in love – you have to invest again.

And so for the first time, I started doing AFC things again. I bought flowers; I wrote poetry – I did the dumb shit that for years I’ve not done – and it worked! I fell in love! The more flowers I bought, the more I loved her. The more I chased her, the more I loved her. I generated love in myself.

I fell in love. Then I married this woman, and everything was wonderful. We had a plan for our future and we worked together. She’s an amazing instructor, she’s a very intelligent person and she’s beautiful and her family’s worth millions of dollars and they were helping me finance things and life was great.

But I wanted kids, and I’ve wanted kids since I was 18 years old. I wanted kids, that’s why I got into the game.

In my marriage, everything was wonderful, everything was great, except the kid thing. What happened was when we first got together, we agreed that between three to eight years, we’d have kids, give or take. Something like that.

And then as the time got closer and we got to three years, she’s like, “I’m more like 10 to 15.”

[Angel Donovan]: How old was Amanda then?

[Adam Lyons]: When we first got together, she was 20, married at 21. It’s young. At the time, kids were something she was very open to.

[Angel Donovan]: How old are you right now?

[Adam Lyons]: I’m now 34.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, so that was like 26.

[Adam Lyons]: There was a six-year gap between us. Suddenly at this point where she doesn’t want to have kids, and I get that, but she wants them in the future. But it causes rift because I didn't want to wait.

My dad’s old. I had a 53-year-old brother – he passed away last year. My dad’s 75. I’m 40 years younger than my dad. I don’t want to be 40 years older than my son. I want my son to be at an age where he can play with me and we can go out and do awesome things.

I’ve always imagined that. It was like one of the big things in my life, and suddenly I’m with this woman that if I stay with her, I don’t have that one thing that defined me for so long before game.

We sat down, we spoke about it, and we started trying to find solutions together, in open communication. One of them that she came up with was, “Why don’t you sleep with somebody else and have a kid with them, and we’ll stay married.

It seemed like the best idea ever. I’m like, “Done! I can do that” and so we opened our relationship up.

[Angel Donovan]: When was this?

[Adam Lyons]: This was two years ago, give or take. Or no, maybe even longer than that. It has been [unclear 12:42] so maybe three years ago now. But three years into the relationship, we opened it up. We don’t tell anyone; we just keep it quiet.

And we stopped having an open relationship. She stopped seeing a couple of other guys. She was a virgin when we first got married, and so she’d never had sex with anybody outside of me and she kind of liked the idea of having sex with somebody else. I’m not controlling; I’m like, “Whatever, have sex with whoever you like.”

It’s funny, because there were all these things before we got married, that she’s cheating on me. I’m like, “She’s a virgin.” I have confirmation of this because I had sex with her on our wedding night and she’s a virgin! You know when someone’s a virgin; her hymen tears and you’re well aware of it.

But we did then officially opened it up and we started seeing other people, and it was amazing. It did two things: it invigorated our relationship again. We’d gone from having these arguments about having kids to having great discussions about sex with other people and these awesome experiences that we were having.

I met a girl who would become my best friend, and I had more in common with this woman than any other girl that I’ve met including my wife. She was fun and beautiful and sexy, and she had a kid already, and she needed somebody to look after the kid.

His dad was nowhere to be seen and I started with my wife – if you go to my Facebook, you can see the pictures. Me, my wife, Brooke, her name is, and Brooke’s little boy became a weird, awesome, little family. We looked after the little kid together and I was having sex with Brooke and Amanda was having sex with a couple of other guys, and life was great.

[Angel Donovan]: And you’re living in separate houses?

[Adam Lyons]: Living in separate houses, but there was like –.

[Angel Donovan]: Brooke would come around sometimes?

[Adam Lyons]: Brooke has spent Christmas with us. I got stuck during Hurricane Sandy in New York City, and Brooke and Amanda went to Halloween together and were partying together. It was that kind of lifestyle.

And one day, I came home, and me and Amanda looked at each other and we realized that – hadn’t Amanda brought it up – my best friend, I’m in love with. And I knew it, and Amanda knew it, and Amanda had met another guy and she was really in love with him. We looked at each other and I said to her, “I’m going to file for divorce.”

I was like, “It’s the right thing to do. I want to have a kid with this other girl.” She’s my best friend; I spend all my time – I stay up to four o’clock in the morning in our house, while you’re in bed, playing board games with my best friend. I was like, “It sucks and I love you, and you’re intelligent and beautiful and wonderful.”

From a material level, she is everything you could ever want, but –.

[Angel Donovan]: Chemistry.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, there’s a core element; there’s something else, something that I can’t quantify.

[Angel Donovan]: I mean, can we quantify – can you think about it, a bit more of the – is it commonalities?

[Adam Lyons]: Actually, yeah. No, you’re right – you can quantify a bit more. Over the last four years, I’ve seen more and more of what me and Brooke have is a connection.

Brooke has an amazing amount in common with me, more than any other human being I’ve ever met. Brooke has so much in common with me that I think if I had met her before game, we would have ended up in a relationship together based purely on common ground.

I don’t think I would have had the game to get her; she’s too out of my league or would have been too out of my league when we first got together, but since then, game has definitely leveled the playing field.

The amount that we have in common, I think, if we had been friends before, we probably would have had some kind of relationship together just based on what I know about how her relationships typically form. I just don’t think I would have kept up. I’d think she’s quite demanding and I didn't have the knowledge of how to handle that back then, and I would have lost her.

The common ground, the fact that I want a kid and she wants a kid, the fact that we have so much chemistry together – I can tell you, sex with Brooke is better than anybody I’ve ever had sex with my entire life, and I’ve had sex with more women than I can possibly count. We’re in hundreds of women, maybe thousands. I don’t know. I stopped counting at 30.

People make a mistake of thinking Adam’s only slept with 30 women. I stopped counting at 30, and that was in my first six months of learning game, and I have been doing it hell of a lot longer since I’ve been in an open marriage and I’ve got an amazing girlfriend that likes sharing me with other women.

I have no idea how many women I’ve slept with, but it’s hundreds, at least, and I’ve never had sex as good as I do with Brooke. She’s inventive and unique and comes up with things that you don’t read about or you don’t see in porn. She thinks of them and is like, “We’ve got to do this.”

We went on a road trip with [crosstalk 17:04].

[Angel Donovan]: Seems like a bit like a team exploration.

[Adam Lyons]: It is! Yeah, it’s like you finally find somebody who gets you on a level that’s on something else.

I’d give you a perfect example; one of the only things I am comfortable sharing. We’re driving on a road trip and everyone else in the car is asleep. There’s like four of us in a huge, freakin’ eight-seater car. We pull over because Brooke needs to pee, and I was like, “I need to pee as well” so we both jumped out.

Brooke goes into the girls’ restroom and then she goes and she grabs my hand, pulls me in with her just, “Come on, quickie, go!” And it’s just like, that kind of –. And you got to remember that’s two years into our relationship together. That’s not like young love when you first meet. It’s my best friend who just wants to grab me and have me because we’ve got five minutes away from everybody else on a two-day road trip.

That chemistry, that – [unclear 17:49] I don’t know why the sex is better with her than anyone else. There’s something about her drive; she’s got some inherent sexiness that’s out of this world.

[Angel Donovan]: You mean it’s biological as well?

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, I think there’s a biological element to it. I think there is some kind of – whether it’s pheromones, or whether it’s genetics, or there’s something else going on that I have with her that I haven’t had with anyone else before.

And again, it’s not because I haven’t had with so many; it’s just I’ve never met one that’s this intense. I’ve had versions of it, but nothing like this.

But at the same time, this is a girl that, like on Wednesday night, I sat up with at two o’clock in the morning playing Dungeons & Dragons with here with all my friends. This is a girl who, for my birthday, knew that the correct place to take me wasn’t a nightclub, but was to take me to a Magic: The Gathering shop to buy me Magic cards.

It’s that kind of person who, at the same time, knows that the correct place to take me is also a strip club and buy dancers for me. It’s that level of connection that I have with her that makes her unique and makes her special. It was that connection that Amanda saw that made Amanda realize that there’s no place for her – Amanda – when Brooke is there. It was the natural think to do to get divorced, and it was completely amicable.

I can’t tell you how the lawyers were trying to argue. We’ve both hired lawyers to make sure the paperwork was done correctly, and the lawyers were trying to cause a fight, and me and Amanda would just be like, “Hey, we’re going to find each other and stop communicating between you two. Can you just do everything we say? And we don’t want your advice anymore.”

We just gotten to find, “Hey, what’s up?” “Good. Hey, my lawyer said this thing. I’m sorry, I didn't tell him to do that; they’re doing it themselves.” And Amanda was like, “It didn't sound like it would be you.” I was like, “It really isn’t. I’m so sorry.”

We sat on the phone with the lawyers in the background for 20 minutes and handed out the entire divorce. We were both completely amicable. It was things like, she’s like, “Can I keep the sofa?” I was like, “Keep the sofa!” Then she goes, “I don’t want the TV.” I was like, “You know what, I wanted the TV.” She says, “Yeah!”

It was just so easy. She’s like, “I want the jewelry.” I’m like, “Have all the jewelry.” And she’s like, “You want the video games, obviously.” I was like, “Of course.” It was the easiest divorce in the universe.

It was lovely, and we’re still best friends. She’s in Moscow right now, she’s on vacation. I know one of the guys that she’s away with and they’re having an amazing time. So excited for her.

And at the same time, when I announced that I’ve got – me and Brooke are pregnant now. We have a baby on the way.

[Angel Donovan]: Congratulations.

[Adam Lyons]: Thanks! We’re due in February.

When me and Brooke announced that we’re having a baby, Amanda was one of the first people we told, and she sent a box of gifts for Brooke and for me. That’s what our divorce was like and that's what our relationship was like.

Because we’re open-minded with each other. We communicate and we spoke and we knew that the most important thing is that we’re both happy, whether it’s the other one –.

[Angel Donovan]: So you characterized them. I mean, your whole relationship with Amanda has not been typical, right?

[Adam Lyons]: Yes.

[Angel Donovan]: You could call that a success. Most people don’t have – it’s a six-year success, because you kind of went through all of the stages. You realized that some things weren’t working together, which is normally where people kind of see it diving and start crashing and arguments and all sorts of things.

What do you think it is that allowed you to turn that around and make it a success? It’s a great experience in your life. At the end of the day, you’ve got six years which are good rather than –.

[Adam Lyons]: I would say to people, “I didn't fail at marriage; I succeeded at marriage. Marriage was great. I also succeeded at divorce – that was also great.” The marriage ended. Marriages end all the time. At some point, when you die, your marriage ends. It’s going to end at some point somehow.

We’d never idolized marriage. We didn't get married in a church with a whole bunch of our friends; we got married on a beach. Our marriage was for us; it wasn’t for everybody else. We had a hippie church, a hippie priest, and he was really chill, wearing a gold Rolex watch and he turned up in his beamer.

It was a very awesome marriage; it was for us and some close friends. It wasn’t about this big ceremony under God where we’re going to be together forever. It made sense; we loved each other, and it was wonderful, it was awesome and we worked at it.

And as working at it, we found the most common, the obvious solution where we found the most common ground and worked with that. Eventually, the correct solution for us was to separate.

Like every other decision we made, it wasn’t taken lightly. The divorce itself is very quick, but the decision to separate was when we first decided to start seeing other people. It was, as friends, “Let’s see what happens. Let’s follow this route” and the natural route was a separation, one that we both agreed with and were happy with.

There were tears, but the tears were wonderful. There were tears together. We sat on the floor, in our bedroom, hugging each other and crying and saying wonderful things that happened. Then she asked if she should keep the cuddly toys. I told her, “I want to keep my cat.”

It was very beautiful and very romantic as it should be. It’s as romantic as Romeo and Juliet at the end. It’s true love that had to end, and that’s fine, and that's okay, and it’s game that prepared me for that.

[Angel Donovan]: But also another thing is also that you’re prepared to let go.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: It seems like one of the main things where people go wrong is they go into it thinking, “This is going to last forever” when the statistics are against it, to be quite frank.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, completely! And also, people identify themselves based on their marriage. My marriage was an addition to me. I’m still me.

And this is one of the things that people don’t get: I got divorced because I wanted to get divorced. If I had an accident and I lost my left arm, I’m still me. I’m a bit different, but I’m not like not the same anymore.

There are people that do identify themselves based on their left arm. I don’t. I’m just me, and it’s a part of me and I love that part of me. I’d hate to see it go, but if it had to go, it had to go. That is the same with a marriage.

It was an amazing thing, but Amanda’s not gone from my life. I’m just not married to her anymore. I don’t get to have sex with her anymore.

I had sex with her many years; I had plenty of sex with that girl. I don’t need any more sex with that girl, like, it’s good. If I never have sex with her again, that’s totally fine.

The beautiful thing about game is that doesn’t mean I will never have sex with her again. I don’t ever want sex with her again; it’s also something I don’t want to work towards. I’ve taken extreme steps to ensure I don’t have to ever have sex with her again, and I have more than enough sex with other people. So what have I really lost?

I still got her as a friend; I don’t live with her anymore. That’s not the end of the universe. I live with other people instead.

When you live with somebody, there are good habits and bad habits. It made sense to lose the marriage – one of the best decisions I could possibly have made. It was as good as getting married in the first place. It was just as good.

Getting married in the first place was a great decision to – this isn’t the reason I got married but I got an amazing visa out of getting married. I can now live in America permanently. What a great benefit from being married! Not the reason I got married, but a great thing to take from it.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, you can [crosstalk 24:01].

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, I’m doing great. I’m doing wonderful. And actually, we decided to get divorced before my visa was finalized, but we both decided that we would try with the relationship and see if we could make it work throughout the visa process. We stayed married a little bit beyond that as well just to really give it a go.

We walked into the office the guys were like, “You guys look like the most happily married couple” because we were incredibly happy, and we loved being together, we loved spending time together.

But then it just didn't make sense.

[Angel Donovan]: Did you stay in contact weekly? Because I know we’ve all –.

[Adam Lyons]: Weekly.

[Angel Donovan]: I have a lot of ex-girlfriends which I really like and [unclear 24:37] finished really well. I do find, over time, maybe it’s got a little bit to do with travel as well or not being in the same location. Where's Amanda living these days?

[Adam Lyons]: She’s in Texas.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, so you just don’t bump into each other. It’s not as easy to stay in touch.

[Adam Lyons]: The thing is, people stay in touch for benefits. It’s like, “What do I get out of staying in touch?” If there is nothing to be gained and you’re not chasing them, then you let it disappear.

Sure, there are moments where me and Amanda don’t speak every week. But by and large, we talk once a week because she’s one of my best friends. To this day, when cool shit happens, I phone her up. I’m like, “You won’t believe what happened today.” And I guarantee you, when the baby’s born, Amanda would be phoned within the same day. I guarantee you that Amanda’s going to want to come and see the baby.

Amanda’s got presents for the baby; Amanda’s going to remember the baby on his birthday. That’s what’s going to happen, and that’s cool. That’s why I married her. She’s an awesome human being.

She was the first one to spot me and Brooke and say, “You two should be together.” She saw it first, and she’d loved me enough to suggest that that’s the right choice for me in life.

It was a great thing. And again, why do we learn game? We learn game – guys think they learn game to get laid. That’s maybe what you started learning, but that’s not the real reason you learn.

You don’t game because you want choice, you want control; you don’t want to feel like things are happening to you; you don’t want to feel like you’re controlling them. And I mastered it. I got my 10,000 hours in doing it; I got my 10,000 hours in teaching it – 20,000 hours now in game complete from start to finish, and more.

And I get it. I understand what I’m doing. Ultimately, everything I make, all the decisions I make are for myself and a big part of that is knowing that my next step is a step I want. And this was an amazing journey, and then it brought me to my next step, which was a relationship with Brooke.

Then the announcement that came out recently is, of course, I’m now in a relationship with two women. I have two girlfriends and I live with them both.

[Angel Donovan]: So this is Brooke and –?

[Adam Lyons]: Brooke and Jane. Jane’s the other one. I didn't make an announcement when it first happened because I’m not a marketing whore, I suppose. I didn't want to be like, “Oh by the way, look at these two chicks that I pulled. Look at how great I am,” which I know a lot of other PUAs do.

For me, that wasn’t unique. I’ve had two women multiple times. In my relationship with Amanda, I was having other women and I had an orgy while I was still in my relationship with Amanda with four women at once, with me being the only guy. So there was nothing unique to me about having multiple women.

What was unique was that we were falling in love, and that I’d never seen. I know that Mystery’s ultimate goal in the game was to have two women that lived in a house permanently with him and they’re both his girlfriends. He’s never done it to this day.

I know that a few other top PUAs – by top, I mean people from the game – their big dream in life was to live with two women and live happily together, and none of them have done it.

[Angel Donovan]: How did this happen? Or was it just –?

[Adam Lyons]: This started with Brooke. Brooke’s had relationships with girls before, and that’s the key element, I think, that a lot of people miss. Brooke’s been exclusive with women – not touching men at all, which is another reason why I think me and her get on because we understand. We think a lot alike in those respects.

Brooke said to me, “Just so you know, being with you, I’m not going to stop seeing other women. It’s going to happen and you need to know about it and you need to be cool with it. Sometimes I’m just craving a vagina and I need it on my face.”

I was like, “Okay. But any girl you sleep with, I get to sleep with too. And I get to see girls too.” And she’s like, “Done, no problem. If you can pick them up.” And I was like, “Don’t worry about it. I got that.”

We went out picking up chicks together. We would go out and we’d pick up girls, we’d take them home, we fuck them.

Brooke’s kind of the fuck them and leave them kind of girl, so she’ll fuck them and just loses interest and she wants them gone. I’m the fuck them and keep them kind of guy; I like to keep them around.

[Angel Donovan]: Has that created conflict?

[Adam Lyons]: It has. It has definitely created conflict. There’s been a couple of girls that Brooke’s just over with and wants them out of her life, and I’m still like, “But I really like her.” And Brooke’s like, “Oh my god, get over it!”

[Angel Donovan]: That’s an interesting problem there.

[Adam Lyons]: Fresh vagina! Just tell her to fuck off and let’s get another one. I think it does annoy her that she’s like, “You’re so emotional. Why do you get attached? Just fuck them.”

But that’s, again, why she’s so awesome. In many weird ways, she can be the guy in the relationship like that. She’s got that drive to just fuck and move on, whereas I’m like, “Honey, these people are cool!”

Except Jane. Jane was awesome, and Brooke and Jane – initially, Brooke had the big drive for Jane. She liked Jane a lot and wanted to see her and they were kind of staying in touch more than I was and I felt like Jane didn't really care about me. But we’re still having sex with the other, so whatever.

Then we came to LA and we stayed with Jane for a week. This was about a year ago today. I’m in LA for a week and we’d been seeing Jane for about six months already at that point, and when we came to LA, I had some of the best sex in my life.

I was having a threesome every morning and every night with the two of them, without fail. And I was like, “Holy crap! This is incredible.” They did some very beautiful things for me and one of them was, went to a nightclub – I’m never going to forget this. It’s got a little bit of detail, but whatever.

We went to this nightclub and they both put on matching collars with leashes. And I walked in the club and I had these two hot girls making out with each other on a leash behind me, and I was just like, “This is wild.”

I had guys high five me, not knowing who I was, just based on that alone. It was just an incredible experience. It was my birthday; it wasn’t like a random occasion. And it was a fetish club, so it was a little bit more acceptable. It was not like we went to the Roosevelt Hotel or what have you.

It was beautiful. It was just a great experience. After that, when we decided to move to LA, Jane was living in LA already. Jane helped with moving. We moved into her place first; we stayed there for a month. And then we got our own apartment and Jane helped us move into the apartment and she helped Brooke all the stuff from Texas to LA.

And one day, Jane was just there. The next thing we know, it has now been a year and a half.

[Angel Donovan]: It’s kind of one of those things that kind of just happens organically.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, it was just, organically, now there are three of us. People started making comments – a lot of people didn't even know that I got divorced because I didn't make a big deal out of that either and I trickled through, I told people.

The girls were kind of getting annoyed that every time I said something about going on a date, the first comment was, “What about Amanda?”

I was like, I need to make an announcement. I need to tell people – and we’ve been in a relationship for a year and a half now so they’ve kind of keeping it quiet from their families as well.

Brooke’s from Texas, and that’s not the easiest thing in the world to let your family know, “Hey, I’m in a relationship with two people. Jane’s from Russia” and her family’s pretty straight. I don’t know if you know their stance on any kind of homosexual behavior in Russia; it’s not really the best, so it’s tough for both of them to come out.

[Angel Donovan]: Did they talk to their parents directly?

[Adam Lyons]: No, we just released a video.

[Angel Donovan]: [Chuckles] Nice! And you let them discover it?

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, they’ve seen it now. And I think everyone saw it, just pretending it didn't really exist, but they’ve been speaking to their parents since, and no one’s really [crosstalk 31:28]

[Angel Donovan]: It was a nice video.

[Adam Lyons]: Thank you, I appreciate it. It’s an honest video, and it’s like the “Ten Things You Need To Know About Living With Two Women.” It’s just an honest look at our lives – no bullshit, no marketing, no hype. Just “This is what our life is like. These are the issues that we have.” And you get to see our dynamic.

It’s funny; there’s one of my favorite comments that somebody wrote is, “You can tell that I keep looking at Brooke more than Jane” and that’s because me and Brooke have been together for three years and me and Jane for a year and a half.

It’s nothing against Jane, and Jane notices it sometimes. She’s like, “I feel like I’m second.” I’m like, “You’re not second; you’re just newer.” It’s just different.

[Angel Donovan]: There’s always going to be those kinds of things. You’ve obviously had quite a bit of experience in the polyamory world and we’ve a bunch of people on here talking about polyamory and have written books on the subject.

These kinds of boundaries and these little subtleties, these little things, they work themselves out all the time. It’s communication, right?

[Adam Lyons]: It’s the biggest key. Oh my gosh, we were talking about this the other day, “We need to sit down weekly and have a discussion even if nothing’s wrong.” And I think that’s something you don’t talk about in relationships; it’s the importance of talking when everything’s okay.

“Something’s wrong; I need to speak to everyone. This is what’s wrong.” You need to get used to talking every week when things are right.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, that’s interesting. Could you give some little example of, when you sought the conversation. “Okay, I just want to talk about –.”

[Adam Lyons]: We got to a point where now things are set with times. There’s a set time we’re going to go and talk.

[Angel Donovan]: That’s interesting.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, it’s like a set thing. It’s started with dates. Dates were haphazard, and that wasn’t working, so we have some set routine.

But girls don’t like set routines for that; it’s like if you tell somebody, “Hey, Monday night is date night, Thursday night is date night, Saturday night is date night.” They’re like, “What if I want to go out on a Tuesday night?”

They’re not mandatory, but these are the ones that we attempt to do, and if you have to shift –. For the top of this week, me and Brooke would normally do Thursday nights, but we’ve moved down to Tuesday night. Me and Jane normally do Monday nights, but we moved up to Tuesday morning. Tuesday was my birthday, so I got two dates – one on the beach and one on the bay. It was a different way of doing it. But next week, we revert back to Monday and Thursday.

These are important, making sure you have that balanced. And there are set times to talk to each other as well. Me and Brook, me and Jane try to go on a set coffee date at some time.

[Angel Donovan]: This is all together?

[Adam Lyons]: Separately and together. For example, Monday night is my date night with Jane, Thursday with Brooke, Saturday is all three of us together. And they have a day where they go to spas and nails and stuff like that – and that’s just as important, for the girls to get bonding time with just them.

They went archery once without me, which was amazing for them and I was bummed because I didn't get to go archery. But it’s important they have to have that.

It’s actually nice – the more jealous they make me, the better I feel in the relationship. I feel stronger and more towards the rational part of the relationship when I’m the jealous one.

And if either of them are jealous, the relationship gets harder. But when it’s me that’s jealous, everything’s moving really smoothly.

[Angel Donovan]: Why is that? Is it because you can handle it?

[Adam Lyons]: It’s partly because I can handle it better, but also because when I get jealous, it drives me to one card a game, which means that the more jealous I am of the two of them being together, the more I work towards –.

[Angel Donovan]: More effort.

[Adam Lyons]: The more effort I put in, and they feel more secure because I’m putting more effort in.

When one of them feels jealous, I don’t need to put any effort in, and then the person that feels jealous isn’t getting any effort, because I don’t need to. All that works in reverse.

These are subtle things that I’ve noticed from being in a relationship. It’s fine – I mean, it’s awesome.

[Angel Donovan]: And of course, you’re also facing being a dad already.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, exactly. I’ve been raising Oliver since he was 18 months. He knows me as dad, and he’s an amazing child. I love him to bits. He’s nearly five now.

[Angel Donovan]: You just told me a nice, little story about that, which I’d love for you to share with everyone too because that was a nice, little moment.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, it’s on my YouTube channel.

[Angel Donovan]: It’s something we’d all love to go through for our kids.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, I think I’m one of the first ones that had to. I was curious about at what point do we learn approach anxiety, because we’re not born with that. I’ve seen it with Oliver [last name?]. I’ve got a video on my YouTube channel with Oliver going out, picking up chicks, and he gave you a beautiful demonstration of his line that he memorized.

He walks up to girls randomly and says, “Hey cutie, I like your top. Put your number on my phone.”

[Angel Donovan]: So how old is he?

[Adam Lyons]: He’s four, and he’s been with us since he was three, but for New Year’s this year, just about to turn four years old, and he’d already picked up girls on the street or whatever, got their phone numbers.

He had no fear of approaching. We’d go to these parties and this cute, five-year-old girl in a little, red dress, and he says, “I’m going to dance with that girl.” I’m like, “You go, kid! Get it!” He tells me what he was going to do and make him action it and off he goes.

He goes up to her and he’s like, “Hey, do you want to dance with me?” and she was like, “With you?” He’s like, “Yeah!” She’s like, “No.” And his little heart broke, and he asked her again. “Come on, I just want to dance with you.” And she’s like, “I don’t want to dance with you.” And he sat off in the corner of the room, alone, not in tears – just depressed. I just saw it.

He’d been excited for this party for three days. It’s all he’d been talking about, “I want to dance, I want to dance, I want to dance!” So I’m like, “Come on, go dance!” He’s like, “I don’t want to anymore.”

His mum’s like, “Come dance with me baby.” “I don’t want to dance anymore. I don’t want to dance with my mum; I don’t want to dance with anyone. Just want to sit in a corner, alone.”

I looked at him and I saw the face of every student I’ve ever trained with. I was like, “This is the moment. At three years old, not even four, he got his first rejection and it’s hitting so hard that those three days of happiness are gone. And he’s going to ruin his entire party.”

If I could leave him there, it’s over. That’s the end of his game; that’s the end of everything. He’s me all over again. I was like, “That’s not happening. That's my little boy. No way.”

And so his mum says, “Go and talk to Adam.” He comes up to me and I look at him and go, “You don’t know this about me yet, but as you get older you will. I am uniquely suited to help you in your problem. I can make that girl dance with you. I know how to make it happen.”

He’s like, “No, you can’t.” I was like, “Oh, I can. I’ve done it for hundreds of people. You know all of the guys that come to the house? Like Joe and John and Mike and all these guys?” He’s like, “Yeah?” “I teach all of them how to do this. I’ll teach you. I’ll make her dance with you if you want.”

He’s like, “How?” I was like, “You see those 12-year-old girls over there? Go and ask them to dance.” He goes, “Are they going to say no?” I was like, “They’re going to say yes.” He said, “Why?” I was like, “Because it’s a big group of girls, they’re older, and they’re not going to say no to you – you’re too cute.”

”Go up and ask them for a dance. When you dance with them, the five-year-old’s going to want to dance too.” He’s like, “You sure?” “I’m sure.”

He goes up to 12-year-olds. He was shy, awkward; he’s got approach anxiety, nervous, hesitating. He goes up to them and a few little nudges from me and his mum and he says to them, “Will you dance with me?” and they go, “Sure.” And they dance with him.

Sure enough, five minutes later, they’re all on the dance floor. Girl in the red dress walks up to him, “Hey, can I dance with you?” He’s like, “Sure you can!” and he dances with the five-year-old.

And then he loses interest in her because she’s not as fun; she is not as good as the 12-year-olds, and [unclear 38:04] didn’t tell you, and after dancing with her for about 45 seconds, he ignores her, goes back to the 12-year-olds. He then goes upstairs with the 12-year-olds back to their bedroom where they sit watching Disney movies and he’s sitting on the bed with four girls, watching Disney movies, and they think he’s absolutely adorable.

He then gets in a fight with a four-year-old – some kid. He punches him in the stomach; they were having kind of a brawl. It’s like, it’s your first party ever, and he got over approach anxiety, took four women to bed and got in a fight. You take after your old man, well done.

He got high on sugar pot, just like you’re enjoying drinking Coca Cola for the first time and getting a caffeine high. It was amazing; he said it was the best party of his life. And the approach anxiety never set in. If that had happened, that would have been the moment. I would have been able to pinpoint the moment that my boy lost the ability to game.

[Angel Donovan]: And that’s pretty young, to be honest. If I look back – I can’t remember what happened when I was four years old, but stuff could have happened when I was four, five or six. I can’t even remember it now, but it could have affected my life.

[Adam Lyons]: And that’s it – we may not remember. I mean, he’s scared of heights because before I met him, when his dad was still around, his dad let him fall off of the second story of a building.

He’s scared of heights. He doesn’t know why he’s scared of heights; he’s got this completely irrational fear of heights. Even if you’re holding him, he’s scared, and it’s because he fell two stories as a kid.

Thankfully, nothing really bad happened to him but it sticks with you. And he would never have been able to say to me when he’s 18 years old, “I don’t know why I’m scared of that girl; she’s going to reject me.” I don’t know where he would know that from.

He’s never going to be able to remember it was that moment, in that party, but it’s gone. We dealt with it. We fixed that. I showed him there is a solution to a problem. It’s not what you think it is. It’s not just go back up to her and ask her again and again and again and say to her, “Why won’t you dance with me?”

That isn’t the solution; that is needy behavior. The solution is to take a proactive approach that’s scientifically proven to work. This is what I teach my students, so I teach my little boy.

[Angel Donovan]: That’s great. You also brought up the social aspect there, which is basically what you became known for way back when – what year was it? 2007?

[Adam Lyons]: 2006, 2007. 2007 is when I’ve announced I know about it, but I was doing it since 2006.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, in London.

[Adam Lyons]: Yup.

[Angel Donovan]: We have an academy and we told them we were going to interview you and if they wanted to ask any questions, and of course, that’s what they focused on. They’re like, “Well, Adam’s more of the social stuff,” but some of the questions they were asking wasn’t really about clubbing. It was like, “How do we take people from our social lives – work, all of these social environments we go to – and bring them into our dating lives, or just bring them into our social circles and then take it from there?”

[Adam Lyons]: It all comes down to people’s ambitions, things they care about. This is one of the aspects that PUAs don’t focus on; they’re so busy thinking about “How do I make myself more attractive?” They don’t think that the other person is a human being; they don’t take into consideration that game should alter based on the other person.

I bring it back to me, with Brooke. Why are me and Brooke best friends? We’re best friends because we play Dungeons & Dragons together. We play Magic: The Gathering together. We play video games together. We sat up to four o’clock in the morning, playing games.

Those people at work, why are you hanging out with them? I can see how many students would tell me, “I really want to hang out with this girl from work,” and I’m like, “Why?” “Because I like her.” “Why do you like her?” “Because she’s hot.” “But is that the only reason?” “But is that the only reason?” “No.” “What else?” “Well because I like her.” “Why?!” “I like her.” “No, you don’t like her; you don’t know shit about her.”

I would say to him, “What does she do for fun? What are her ambitions in life? Why is she doing this job? Is this what she wants to do forever? What does she wish she can do? What does she do on a Thursday night at 9 pm when she’s not going out? What does she do?” They can’t answer any of these questions.

How the hell can you even possibly imagine being a friend if you do not know these things about her? I know Brooke and Jane’s passions, desires, loves; I know what they want to do in life. I know the things that mean the most to them.

I also know those about every female in my life. I can pinpoint any girl who is a female that I’ve regularly worked [clear 41:57] and hung out with or go to coffee with and know all of the answers to those questions about them.

If you cannot answer those questions about girls, then you can’t hang out with them. The amount of the times I see guys that are like, “Yeah, but if she likes me –.” I’m like, “That’s the ‘if.’ What if she doesn’t like you?” And they’re like, “Well, I think she does.” “Yeah, but you don’t know.” I know these girls like me. I know for a fact they like me. I know for a fact they’ll hang out with me.

One of the top strippers in a club in Orange County is an incredibly good friend of mine. I met her through my other friends. She will come and meet me for coffee anytime I invite her for coffee – not because she just likes me and wants to hang out for coffee, but because when we meet up, we talk about things that she wants to achieve in life in the future beyond stripping.

I don’t ask her how was last night at the strip club. I’m not like, “Hey, we should hang out more often.” These are pathetic things to talk about.

We talk about what she wants to work towards and legitimately analyze her business with her that she wants to set up, and I give her suggestions on how to improve it.

[Angel Donovan]: And that’s when she’s interested in for her future.

[Adam Lyons]: Bingo! Yeah, that’s what she cares about. And so because it matters to her, she will always find time for me.

Guys make a mistake that, “Yeah, well she’s just using you.” She’s not using me any more than I’m using her, because it’s when I want to hang out. It’s not when she wants to hang out. I’m not just doing it for her; I’m doing it for myself, because it helps me as well.

I had this great article about Ivanka Trump that somebody said to her, “I don’t think you love Donald Trump. I think you’re only with him for his money.” Then Ivanka says, “You don’t know anything about me. I’m madly in love with Donald Trump, and I am no more with him for his money than he is with me for my looks.”

Of course, what she means by that is he’s only with her for her looks. She’s only with him for his money. But through that, they have fallen in love – and that’s how this works.

There is a value exchange, but the problem is guys think it has to be about looks and it has to be about money, and it doesn’t have to be about those things.

In mine and Brooke’s case, our value exchange was Dungeons & Dragons. That was our value exchange. I create the story, she played it, we fell in love. And that value exchange can be anything.

If you find a musician that you’re in love with and you just happened to be an amazing music producer, the relationship will form over that, and then there’s a reason to hang out.

Then when you’re hanging out, that’s when your game kicks in. Any PUA who’s only focused on his game, any guy out there who thinks I need to focus on my dating skills, you are missing the other half of the game that is going on.

And the other guys that fail when someone like me swoops in, he takes her out to dinner the night before and hangs out with her and maybe gets to make out with her, but then she has to get up early the next day because she’s got this really important meeting, and he’s like, “Nah, I nearly had sex with her but she had to go next day to this meeting.”

And sure enough, she went out to dinner the night before with this guy and she made out with some other guy, but she sits with me for four hours straight in a meeting that she wants to be in. And then if I invite her out for a night in the town, she says yes, because she wants every minute with me. If I make out with her, I invite her back to my place and that guy says to her, “Meet me in the morning for breakfast,” she flakes them at breakfast, because she wants to fuck me. Because we have a connection beyond just the physical attraction, beyond just sexual attraction. There is a depth to that relationship, a depth that can’t be touched by anybody else who doesn’t go that deep.

That’s what social circle lets you do. Social circle gives you that boundary.

There are very few guys in the world who have every slept with a ten that didn't meet her through social circle. That’s because for a ten, the social circle is a safety; she uses it to know who she should and shouldn’t be fucking. If you can’t rise to the top of that social group, why would the ten allow herself to fuck a seven?

To a ten, she wants a ten, and a ten somebody who can move into her social group and be the best.

I had that situation with Amanda. One of my favorite stories with Amanda that never gets talked publicly, because when we were married we didn't speak about it – one of my greatest achievements with Amanda was one time, I flew out to America to see her. This was before we were dating, but we were kind of half-dating. I went out to see her and she told me that she’s going to dinner with another guy.

She’s like, “There’s this other guy, you’re in England, I only see you once every two months.” Obviously, she’s not having sex because she’s a virgin. “I’m not having sex with him, but I do want to go to dinner with him. I like him. We’d planned it before, you came last minute. I didn't know you were going to be here. I’m not flaking on him for you, but I still want to hang out with you.”

And I was like, “Fine, no problem.” She’s like, “Really?” I was like, “Yeah, it’s cool. Your roommate’s here, I’ll go out with your roommate.” Her roommate was another hot girl.

I took her roommate out to a bar and in the bar I picked up every single girl in the bar with her roommate – 100% of the females. There was not a girl in that bar who wasn’t sitting with me, having drinks and listening to stories about London.

I was in a small town in America, talking about London. I’m surrounded by women. I bought all of them drinks; I was the biggest – I suppose you’d call – AFC, because I was buying everyone drinks. Everyone’s like, “Oh my god” – that’s why I call myself AFC Adam, by the way, because I love using things that people say never work and making them work.

I’m surrounded by all these women; they all love me, they all want my phone number, and I’m happy to say – there will be somebody out there that’s like, “Ha! Adam hung out with a bunch of girls and didn't get anything.” I’m happy to say that I didn't make out with a single one of them. I got all of their phone numbers; I didn't want to make out with them. That wasn’t the goal.

The goal was very simply to show the roommate that when we go to a bar, I can have my pick of any woman in a bar. I then went back after being a perfect gentleman in a bar to her house; I didn't say shit. Amanda was already home when we got back; she’d already finished her dinner.

She was, “Wow, where did you guys go?” I was like, “Oh we went out, we had a quiet drink in the bar” and I went to bed.

Amanda sits out talking to her roommate, finds the whole story. She walks into the room and goes, “I hear you’re kind of a hit in the bar.” I was like, “Oh, I was just chatting. You know me, I’ve got a big mouth.”

She jumps straight on top of me and starts making out with me, going down on me – it was an incredible session, and she’s just like, “The other guy’s kind of boring.” I was like, “I’m sure he’s great. You could give him a chance.” And she goes, “I don’t want to.” I was like, “Alright. Don’t give him a chance then.” And it’s because I became the ten in her social circle.

I went to her local bar with her friend and all of them thought I was amazing. That’s how I got her. That’s how anyone gets a girl in their prime – you have to be the best of the best of the best, in whatever situation it is. The way of the best is depth; it’s being more than just a cool guy.

[Angel Donovan]: So it sounds like the basis of this is being able to talk to people about – going back to what you were talking about earlier, it’s being able to connect with people, talking about what they’re interested in.

And obviously, just be confident. If you’re going to be talking to a bunch of people at the same time, that’s probably not where the guys at home want to start. They probably want to focus on one-to-one relationships and start understanding people better as the basis.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah. Here’s a thing I like: confidence. That phrase comes up all the time: “Be confident, be confident, be confident.” It’s banned in my company. You’re not allowed to say “be confident,” actually. No instructor is allowed to say, “Be confident” to a student.

We define confidence as experience. If you’re struggling to communicate with people or to have depth, I almost always find it’s because you have no life experience. You’ve done the same fucking job for a long time, you’ve not really traveled, you don’t really know anyone, and I find that the more you travel, the more you collect life experiences, the more you push yourself into strange things that you usually –.

[Angel Donovan]: The more you have to talk about.

[Adam Lyons]: And the more experience you can pull from it. When you meet a girl that says, “Oh yeah, I was part of the London School of Ballet,” you can say, “Holy crap!” Walk randomly, “I did ballet for two years!” and then you bust out a couple of positions and first steps and what have you. Then they’re like, “Holy crap, that’s incredible!” I’m sitting here talking to you and I’m telling you, I did that. I did ballet for two years.

I did it not because I wanted to pick up girls, but because it was a fun thing to learn. I was like, “Fuck it! I’ll do some ballet,” and I did.

I became a qualified Yoga instructor a couple of years back. Why? Not specifically to talk to girls about yoga, but because I wanted to be a yoga instructor. Not that I’d teach; I just did it for fun. But when I meet a girl that’s into yoga, when I meet a girl that’s into ballet, I can hold down those conversations.

I can’t tell how many times I’ve been in a bar, some other PUA has recognized me, come up and talk to a girl that I’m talking to, and he started running some kind of game and spitting out some routines that I’ve heard before. Or maybe he’s trying to be natural, or maybe he’s stating his sexual intent or whatever the fuck he’s doing. And then the girl’s going to look at me and she’s going to say to the guy, “Oh I’m sorry, we were just having a really interesting conversation.”

And he’s like, “Man, Adam’s game is really tight!” Or “Holy crap!”

Like I was saying, no PUA has ever out-gamed me in a bar. Never. And I’ve gone head to head with some of the best instructors and they can’t out-game me. It’s because they don’t get that she would rather talk to me about ballet than she would listen to him stating his sexual intent.

Because I’m also quietly, subtly showing my sexual intent. I’m not disinterested.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. [Crosstalk 50:25] because everyone thinks about the “just be friends.”

I was actually at a conference the other night. I started talking to a guy next to me, and he’s talking to some girl in San Francisco and he doesn’t sound like it’s going so well. He’s like, “I don’t think I’m the “Let’s just be friends.” I was like, “This phrase is everywhere in society. It’s not just in people who are watching game or anything.”

But this is fear. It’s become this big fear, because it’s pretty much everywhere in the news so all these guys not getting anywhere, “let’s be friends,” have to run away from anything that’s anywhere near that.

Actually, as you’re showing –.

[Adam Lyons]: Embrace it! “Let’s just be friends” is my favorite place and I’ll tell you why.

I actually have a program on this that I’m going to do something with. I don’t know if I’ve recorded it already; I just haven’t released it yet. I don’t know why, but I haven’t.

This isn’t with pitch; it’s really not related. I don’t know what it will be, but I wrote a whole thing that was basically, “Fuck game – put me in the friend zone and I’ll get out of there every time.”

I love the friend zone. The friend zone is my favorite place to be. The friend zone lets me keep them in the friend zone so I can store them up for when I want to go and fuck them next.

I had a beautiful situation on Tuesday. I’m in a relationship with two girls, and that I got a surprise birthday party – the best one I can ever imagine.

I went out to dinner with Brooke; she arranged it, and Jane was getting ready to go out to a nightclub. And so I came home with Brooke, and we walk in, but the house lights were off.

I was expecting like a “Surprise!” whatever. As I come into the room where we are now, I started noticing these black lights everywhere. There’s a stripper pole in the middle of my living room and all the sofas were around the edge of the room and you can see it’s a big space.

In the room were all of my female friends. My two girlfriends turned my living room into a private strip club just for me, for my birthday. And all of the girls I’m in the friend zone with were my strippers for the night – in lingerie, giving me lap dances, talking to me, throwing themselves all over me.

I’ll be in that friend zone any day. That’s the best friend zone you can possibly be in. These are friends who some I’ve had some kind of intimacy with, some I haven’t had that kind of intimacy with, but they were all there, comfortable with being sexual around me, stripping for me, giving me an amazing show on pole.

The girls have never done pole dancing before. Learning how to do pole dancing – some of my friend strippers were teaching them how to dance. I’m sitting in this room and I’m like, “This is the best strip club I’ve been to in my life.” It’s mine, it’s free, it’s all for me and it was created by girlfriends, which again shows how wonderful my girlfriends are.

But more importantly, it shows just how powerful it is if the friend zone is done correctly. Because the difference is, most guys get stuck in the friend zone because the girl’s like, “I have no sexual interest in you.” Whereas there is no girl in my life that has no sexual interest in me, because all I do is talk about sex.

I tell every girl within 20 seconds of meeting them – or within 20 minutes of meeting them – “Just so you know, I’ve fucked every single girl I’m friends with.” I tell it as a fact; whether it’s true or not, it doesn’t matter. I tell every girl that's just how it is, I always fuck my female friends. At some point, I fuck my female friends.

I let them know, “You may want to consider that before we become friends. If you start hanging out with me, we can have sex. It’s going to happen. That’s because I don’t believe in – I have sex with people like I take them to dinner.”

I’m like, “It’s kind of a dinner; let’s fuck and see how we get on.” There is like a trust that is built, and I get the girl to say, “Yeah, I agree with you.” Once I’ve got that done, I don’t care about being a friend. I’ll be in the friend zone anytime, because they know that I’ve already said, I’ve already made it clear, “I’m probably going to have sex with you if we become friends.”

And then it never goes away, that sexuality keeps throughout the relationship. I’ll say, “Hey, my friends are throwing a bondage party next week. Do you want to come?” and that’s where we’d go. We’ll go to dinner at or near a bondage club and go to a bondage club afterwards, or we’ll do pole lessons in my house.

The pole that we have, it’s actually a house stripper pole, and we do pole dancing lessons in our house for fun with our female friends. I’ll invite every female friend I know, “Come and be part of my pole dancing social circle of friends.” Brooke leads it, to be honest at all – that’s all Brooke.

I have no fear of the friend zone. And you’re right, the average guy is stopped from truly progressing into game with the fear of the friend zone.

I was talking to somebody about this the other day. When you’re overweight and you need to exercise, you need to get fit, stop eating donuts. It’s a really good bit of advice. Don’t ever eat a fucking donut. Just work out, eat chicken, eat broccoli, don’t eat donuts.

Two years later, when you’ve lost the weight and you’re fit and you’re healthy and you get exercise, you can have a donut. It’s okay. It’s not a diet if you’ve got – in a diet, we’re having a cheat day. A donut’s good – kicks that metabolism [unclear 54:54] work for it again. It promotes whatever – somebody knows more about nutrition than I know about it, but it’s definitely a thing I heard people talk about.

But one thing is for sure: donut ain’t going to kill you, and it makes you feel good for a bit, because you get Dopamine, a little bit of a cheat – why not? That's what the friend zone is.

When you have no game, the friend zone is the worst place to be. When you’ve started learning it that you understand it, nothing will remain in the friend zone. It’s a great place to be. Get it back in your life, use it, grow, and then once you’ve got that friend zone and you’ve got game, it’s over. Add those girls to your friends circle, pick them out of it [crosstalk 55:28].

[Angel Donovan]: I think that’s a great note to finish this off. We ask everyone a couple of questions.

Besides yourself, who would you recommend as someone with quality advice about all of this area of our lives – sex, relationships, dating?

[Adam Lyons]: Without a doubt, the first one is Neil Strauss. I can say this, without a doubt, I’ve never been a student of Neil Strauss my friend, and I’m not fortunate enough to have learned from him. I genuinely mean that.

He’s the real deal, man. I’ve met some guys that think they’re the real deal, and they’re like, “Yeah, very few people have game like us.” And they’ll refer to me and them being the same. I’d go out and them and –.

I was at a dinner with a famous marketing guy. He’s helped a lot of big pickup companies launch. He’s worked with pretty much all of the big companies; I think he’s helping with the marketing.

We were at dinner and there were nine girls sitting next to us, and they were all stunning. We’re talking about going into business together and he looks to me and he goes, “Do me a favor. Just pick up the girls.” I’m like, “Okay,” and I moved up, I sat next to them and I picked up all nine, right in front of him, did not hesitate.

After five minutes, we we’re sitting there talking, he gets nervous and he leaves. I stayed there for 20 minutes, get phone numbers, talk to them. I walk out, and I was like, “You left early.” He was, “I just didn't expect you to do it.” I’m like, “Why not?” And he was, “None of the others did.” I was like, “Wow, really?” He goes, “Yeah, none of them did. They just didn't do it, but you did it.” I was like, “I’m the real deal, dude. I can do this. I can pick up chicks whenever I want. I always can. That’s the point. They really didn't do it?” And he was, “Nah, they all just said, ‘No, not now. This isn’t the right moment.” I was like, “It’s always the right moment. If I want to, it’s always the right moment. I can always just make it happen.”

I was like, “When I go in business with you, I’m not going to stop my relationship with you by not bringing the real deal.” I can do it.

Neil’s the real deal. For whatever people have said, or bullshit or whatever – I’ve seen him game. I’ve seen him out-game people. I’ve been in a situation where it was me, Neil, three PUAs – good guys; really good. People that I’ve considered good, and two other girls. Sorry, three girls total.

I got my girl. There were two girls left; three PUAs and Neil. You’d expect maybe Neil gets one and one of the other guys get one. Neil took them both – took them both and had a threesome with him.

All three guys couldn’t even get one of the two girls off of Neil. Amazing guy. Incredible, very talented. So Neil’s the real deal.

[Angel Donovan]: Going back to what we were talking about, the friend zone and experience of life, I mean, Neil – he’s a famous writer in his own right – and one of the things he’s done other than a writing career is he’s exploring new subjects, learning about new things, and he has a lot of experience to talk about.

[Adam Lyons]: Got it, and that’s game.

[Angel Donovan]: He could talk for hours and hours and hours about all sorts of topics.

[Adam Lyons]: And that’s why Neil knew he was going to win. You go head to head against Neil and you bring up your top topic, you think he hasn’t heard it or spoken about it before or dealt with it? Nah man, he can riff. He can join you on it. You can’t outmaneuver him; you have to beat him at his game. You’re competing on a different level.

He understands game and he understands life experiences. If you say to him, “Me and my friends went to Thailand,” he goes, “I’ve always wanted to go to Thailand!” And he was going to be like, “Let me recommend this beautiful place in Thailand – it only opened six months ago.” And you’re just going to be like, “Wait, I was there two years ago!” Your story doesn’t – it pales in comparison, because he’s traveling and seeing places and he knows so much.

That’s the bound; that’s the real element. These life experiences are worth so much.

[Angel Donovan]: And I mean, life’s about experience, so let’s not forget the aim in itself should be about getting experience in life; it’s not all about girls either. It just so happens that getting life experience helps us with this aspect of our lives as well.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, you got it man – 100%. If I wasn’t learning from Neil and I had to relearn my game again, there’s a guy called Carie.

[Angel Donovan]: Carie?

[Adam Lyons]: Carie, who is a student of mine, and he’s one of my best friends. He doesn’t really teach; he teaches for me occasionally, but it’s very hard to make him teach because he just doesn’t want to anymore. He makes a lot of money doing tech help for people. I mean, he actually does tech for a lot of other PUA companies. I’d learn from him.

He has memorized everything I’ve ever taught, and he’s been sitting next to me for six years. He knows all my content and if I ever had some kind of accident where I lost everything, I would just say to him, “Hey, can I download your brain again?” and I would sit there.

Still, to this day – I was teaching a student the other day and he goes, “Tell him the five promises.”

[Angel Donovan]: Stuff that you forgot.

[Adam Lyons]: Oh shit, I forgot about the five promises.

[Angel Donovan]: You forget your own shit.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, and he’s just like, “Dude, the five promises is killer. The student’s going to love that.” He doesn’t forget a thing. He’s got it all – notes, detailed. He revises my content still to this day to keep up to date with it. He’s the one person I think, if I went head to head with him, if he didn't give it to me, I actually have to compete against him. That's a coin toss; he would win that.

He understands it. So yeah, that’s who I’d go to.

[Angel Donovan]: Great. So for guys who are taking their first steps in this part of their life, a lot of them are at the beginner stage – that's the nature of these kinds of shows. What would be the top three things you would recommend they do? If there’s not even ground zero and they want to get results, of course, as fast as possible.

[Adam Lyons]: It’s funny, one of my instructors, one of the guys that taught me game, he’s a guy by the name of Misha – he’s based in Toronto. He’s an amazing instructor; I love him to bits. He’s still a very good friend of mine.

He’s funny, because he always says that people who are trying to learn from him now; he always just refers them to me. He’s like, “Adam surpassed me years ago.” He’s like, “Go and talk to Adam.”

But he said to me once, one of my students was like “I don’t want to do that technique because it’s like cheating.” And he always quotes me and he goes, “His favorite of Adams is, ‘Adam looked straight at him and said, ‘It’s not like cheating. It is cheating! Everything I teach is cheating! It’s easier, faster, quicker and it works.’” If I’m going to give you tips, I’ll give you cheats.

This isn’t same shit to other people; this is really easy stuff that will work. First thing is, what women do you already know in your life that you are in the friend zone with? Every girl you want in the friend zone with right now, get them. They owe you a favor, and their favor is to help you meet a woman.

They’re also guilty they friend zoned you – I guarantee it. They feel bad that it happened. Pull them to one side and say, “Hey, I need your help. I loved you; I was madly in love with you, I really wanted to get with you, and obviously we’re just friends. You would never go there with me now.”

They’ll be like, “No, no, no.” “Don’t lie to me, we’d never go there now.” There’s a chance, by the way, that just saying that, some of these girls are going to be like, “No, that’s not true. I just didn't know you like me.” That’s tip number one. It’s randomly going to happen, but in reality, most of the girls are going to be like, “I get it.” Then say to them, “Help me. I want to meet women, I don’t know how to do it. Come out with me. Be my wing girl. Help me meet people.”

And bam – just that alone, you don’t have to cold approach anymore; the girl’s going to do it for you. They’re going to bring women to you. Get her to do your hair. Get her to buy you clothes. Literally give her $500 and say, “I need my hair done; I need my clothes done; I need a fitness regime. What do I do?”

Pick the hottest girl and ask her to do that for you – and she will. She will make you over and she’ll make you better, and everything she says, she’s right, and everything you’ve learned in pickup is wrong. Whatever she says you should do, but make sure specifically it’s fashion, clothes, fitness, where to go and get her to approach on your behalf.

Making her approach on your behalf does something very important. It makes her not tell you bad shit. Sometimes girls give you bad advice, like get a nice car and goes, “A white KIA.” [Clear 01:02:35] Once you tell her to do it for you, she will start self-calibrating and realize that some of her advice is flawed, and she will correct it faster than you can and she will bring women to you and help you get them.

And then she’ll watch what you’re doing and she’ll tell you everything you’re doing wrong, and then you can fix it and correct it. That will help; it will help a lot.

As long as you’re doing game with that – because sometimes the girls will get it wrong – then you’ll be fine. That’ll be cheat number one.

Cheat number two: make sure every single girl you meet, when you first meet them, tell them that you’re incredibly sorry but you have that issue of being inappropriate and talking about sex. Say it just happens all the time, I’m so sorry about it. If you’re easily offended, we probably shouldn’t talk.

Say that when you first meet every girl. If you meet even a friend, I’d be like, “Hey, I’m Adam. Lovely to meet you. I feel I should warn you, I can be a bit inappropriate sometimes. I have this habit of talking about sex; I’ve gotten into trouble for it so many times before. I know it’s kind of weird to just bring it up now but this illustrates my point. I talk about sex all the time. If this is going to weird you out, then I’m going to be very polite and I’m going to excuse myself and step away. Sex is likely to come up in the topic of conversation; is that going to bother you?”

By saying that, you’re going to get girls that are going to be like, “Yeah, fuck off. I don’t want to talk to you.” You’re going to have a lot more that’ll say, “That’s absolutely fine.” Once that happens, just make sure you talk about sex a lot. If you can’t think of what to say, you can talk about 50 Shades of Grey – the movie that’s coming out; talk about bondage, talk about tying people up, talk about sexual fantasies. Make it a standard part of your conversation.

If you’ve gone 24 hours without talking about sex to a girl, make sure you start talking about sex to a girl. Just talk about it. Don’t talk about what you want to do. Don’t even just quiz them on what they want. Just be like, “In your opinion, what do girls like?”

[Angel Donovan]: Right. The 50 Shades example is a good one. It’s very popular.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, 50 Shades is cheating. It’s so good right now because it’s in the press. It’s going to make it very easy next year to talk about sex to anybody.

2015 is going to be a very easy year.

[Angel Donovan]: Just an interesting point there – have you seen –? You seem to be into bondage and the swinger area; have you seen that expand due to the 50 Shades books?

[Adam Lyons]: I’ve seen a massive expansion. I’ve also seen a rejection of 50 Shades from the actual hardcore communities. LA’s got a lot of sex parties that go down.

It’s actually funny, one of my friends invited me to one and I was like, “I’m sorry dude, I’m not going to come out.” He’s like, “Why?” I was like, “I have a sex party in my house every night. I live with two women. The reason we’ve got sex parties is to get variety. I have variety at home. My birthday, my girls invited a whole bunch of random girls to my house – I don’t need new girls in my life. I don’t need to go to a strip club, although I like going to strip clubs. I don’t need to go to a sex club to try and get that sexual experience. I literally can have it in my house whenever I want by picking girls I want to invite to it. But if you don’t have the access, then it’s a great way to go and explore and do something a bit different.”

[Angel Donovan]: And maybe we’d come a little bit more comfortable with the whole thing.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, and that's all like, again, going into those sex clubs, you need to go as a couple. People think that because they don’t have a girlfriend, they can’t do it. But you can find a girl you’re in the friend zone with.

If you’ve made that claim that you talk about sex, say something like, “I’ve always wanted to go to a sex club. I don’t want to go on my own.” Don’t say “I can’t go on my own”; say, “I don’t want to go on my own, but look, I don’t want to have sex with you because obviously I’m in the friend zone and you never wanted me. I’d like to go, would you go with me and then we’ll just separate when we’re there, just have our own people.”

[Angel Donovan]: I would just politely say like you said, “Don’t say ‘can’t’; I don’t want to.”

[Adam Lyons]: Exactly.

[Angel Donovan]: That’s very important. It’s very subtly there, but it makes a big difference.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, don’t say “can’t.” It’s “I don’t want to.” It needs to come like it’s your choice always.

It’s actually funny; someone said to me once, “If you ever doubt that Adam has game, sit and listen to how he talks in normal conversation and hear how particular he is about some words.” There are some phrases you will never hear me say, and that’s because it’s just so calculated.

It sounds simple and I’ll give advice that everyone’s like, “That’s kind of basic,” but there are those subtleties to it that makes the difference.

I think the third tip, the biggest one – and this is the hardest. If you’re a beginner, lose your quality. Don’t worry about eights, nines and tens. Start fucking fives and sixes. Just suck it up and go there.

What happens is once you guarantee that every night you are getting laid by somebody that is in your hand – because what happens is guys are like, “Oh, I don’t want to lower my quality. I’d rather just jack off until I get an eight, nine or a ten.” Well you know what? You’re going to be jacking off a lot.

Lower the quality first. My first girl was pale in comparison to the ones I sleep with now and I have in my life. Remove quality; it’s not about looks, ultimately. It’s about personal connection.

Get some girls that are lower quality but have a better connection. Learn about them, meet them, explore, expand, get regular sex from them. Tell them you only do open relationships; don’t get locked into a relationship. Don’t bring them home to your mum for Thanksgiving, but enjoy an open relationship with girls that you’re fucking. You will learn so much, you will no longer be needy because you don’t need sex. You won’t be frustrated with it, but then push to increase the quality.

[Angel Donovan]: So it happens naturally to some people; not everyone.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, exactly. Some of them get lazy and start fucking the fives and sixes and they keep fucking the fives and sixes. You got to push for the quality; it’s got to go up.

[Angel Donovan]: Is there any little trick to do that?

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, I do this thing – back in the day, and again I haven’t done it for a long time, but I suggest people if you fucked a five, that's fine. The next girl has to be a six. Keep fucking five –.

[Angel Donovan]: Just like a little rule or something.

[Adam Lyons]: Yeah, and then start fucking the six. And then you should be fucking a five and a six.

[Angel Donovan]: Or like if you’re seeing three girls – you’re seeing a five and two sixes, or you’re like, “Maybe I can carry on going out, meeting other girls – there’s no point meeting anything else but a seven.”

[Adam Lyons]: Exactly, don’t approach anything other than the next number.

[Angel Donovan]: And say, I’m going to see three girls. Then you could say goodbye to the five eventually and [crosstalk 01:07:50].

[Adam Lyons]: That’s exactly how to do it. Yeah, and it’s so easy. After, it takes time, but six months later you’ll find yourself with a pair of sevens and an eight, and you’re in an open relationship with all of them.

You’re like, “Wow, the quality’s good.” And then once you have the eight, it makes it easier to get the other ones and if you want to desensitize yourself to hot girls, join a spin cycling class. Go on a weekly basis. Don’t worry about picking them up; just go there. You’ll see really hot girls sweating, getting ugly, and just get in the friend zone with those tens.

When you’re friends with tens, picking up tens becomes really easy. Because you just assume that that quality of women is what all women look like.

When I have my private strip club, the one that was here, every single girl was stunning. Everyone – there was not an ugly girl in the house. They were all beautiful; they were all girls that one of them was a professional actress. She’s been in big feature films. Another one was one of the top dancers of Spearmint Rhino in Vegas.

These were high-caliber women in my party. There was no customary fat chick; there was no awkward Asian girl that was there. Every girl was stunning, hot, beautiful.

My two girlfriends were amongst those group of just stunning women, and that’s what quality should be like eventually. It should be amazing.

Amanda was a Ford model, and I had people find pictures of her and be like she’s a four at best. I’m like, “Yeah, but there are people in the world that were paying her thousands of dollars per day to sit there and pose in photographs.” And that’s the point.

You can always look at somebody in the red [clear 01:09:08] light and be like, “That girl is not hot.” But ultimately, there is a category of beauty that a girl in the right dress, with the right make up and everything, fits into, and every single girl at my party, at some point in her life, has some photos or has been in an event where someone has looked at them and be like, “That’s a ten and that’s the hottest girl in this room.” Every single one of them. And that’s the kind of quality that eventually you should be getting, and that you should have.

Bear in mind, these are girls that I am in the sexual friend zone. I suppose that should be a new phrase. You can coin it, let’s call it the sexual friend zone, which is where you want to be. And the sexual friend zone’s amazing.

[Angel Donovan]: Adam, we will finish there. Thank you so much for your time.

[Adam Lyons]: It was a pleasure! I don’t know if you do this. If anyone’s listening and they want to learn or want to find out more, we’ve changed our model of teaching. We don’t have boot camps; we don’t have that kind of thing anymore.

We only want to create the system that works, and so we’ve done two things. It’s kind of unfair, but it’s kind of awesome. I like stacking the deck. Everything I’ve taught here, like I said, these aren’t tips; these are cheats, and I’m stacking my deck with teaching now. I don’t just accept anyone.

I’ve created a process that lets me identify which students will get success and which once basically will just fuck around and won’t get it done. We’ve created this application form. The student can fill in the application form, we go through it; it’s a three-step process.

There’s a form that goes through round one of interviews, they go through round two of interviews. Only people that get through all three rounds can train, and when they train, it’s private, one-on-one, either with myself or with one of my instructors. It’s expensive; it’s not cheap.

Having said that, it guarantees results, because we’ve got students that we know wants to get good, and we have skills to make them good. For someone who wants to be elite, wants to be very good, it’s the best way to do it.

If somebody’s listening to this – and I suspect there’s going to be very few people that want to do this because it’s only going to be the ones that really want to get good – there is a video that explains about the application process and gets the going. They can find it at training.attractionexplained.com. If they click on that link, or they can just type in training.attractionexplained.com, and it will take then through where they can apply.

[Angel Donovan]: Great! Thanks for that, Adam.

[Adam Lyons]: Thank you, my pleasure!