A New Chapter: Flying to California, Then Back To The UK For Monk Mode
I flew to California last night, closing a powerful chapter in NYC. While I’ll miss my bros, especially Carl, this move marks another step in my journey.
We will test a hypothesis.
Can Inner Game, lead to personal and professional breakthroughs?
We'll find out.
Reflecting on NYC: Growth and Challenges
NYC was a tough experience for me. This year has been significant in so many ways. I started the year in Budapest, feeling like I was finally hitting my stride—crushing it in the gym, pushing forward in business, and ascending in my personal life. Surrounded by good friends, I felt a kind of happiness I hadn’t experienced before. This was sick.
I was dating multiple women, which at the time, felt like another marker of success. But as I navigated these relationships, I started to see things differently. I felt SUPER empty and hallow. Some of these experiences opened my eyes to aspects of female nature that were both enlightening and unsettling. Despite these connections, something felt off, and I found myself questioning where my life was going.......
Empty, casual sex, was starting to really bother me.
Success and Identity
While Budapest was a high point, it was also the start of something deeper unraveling within me. The sheer hustle it took to create outcomes, was obscene. I experienced a fair bit of racism, which I was expecting, but responded to it by working even harder. This was useful, because as I started to succeed more—whether in business or personal achievements—old narratives of inadequacy and deficiency no longer fit. I saw how much of a beast of a human being I am. My mind struggled to process my new reality. I had always been driven by the belief that I was "less than" and needed to outwork everyone just to level the playing field. And now, I was getting the rewards from that mentality, but they felt so strangely empty.
A real void was opening up within me. A black hole.
The dark side of the player's journey.
When I began achieving real results, I realised I didn’t know how to relate to myself anymore and had an incredibly poor relationship to myself. I was barely ever present, just always grinding like an animal.
I was catching the attention of people I used to feel invisible to, and yet, this didn’t match the internal image I had of myself, and also, didn't lead to the relationship I craved for years.
The old story—that I was somehow deficient—no longer held true, but I wasn’t sure what the new story was, because things were not developing the way I wanted them to...
Trauma Resurfacing: Confronting My Past
It was during this period of success that deep childhood wounds began to surface. Flashbacks from my traumatic past—the first 20 years of my life marked by suffering—came rushing the fuck back.
I had worked so hard to distance myself from that darkness, but as I achieved more externally, it was as if my inner world fractured. Suddenly, I was forced to confront old traumas and unresolved pain that I hadn’t fully processed.
So I fucked off to Mexico for 6 months!
Mexico: A Time of Growth and Inner Conflict
After leaving Budapest, I spent time in Mexico, a place that was both beautiful and challenging. I immersed myself in inner work, but it wasn’t easy. My mind resisted change, and it took months of effort to start making miniscule, slow progress. I couldn't do it alone, and was fortunate to find a mentor, Dr. Gavin, who helped me navigate this inner turmoil. And who still
During this time, I felt a mix of emotions. Real peace, and deep gratitude for Mexico. And also, somehow hollow. I banged a bunch of girls, but it felt emotionless, and the cycle of 3 years of casual, non-stop ghosting, building limited to none emotional closeness with women, was starting to tug at my heartstrings. I struggled with low-quality experiences that left me feeling bad about future prospects.
Questions began to arise. Why am I not connecting with women with substance? Why are my dating experiences so surface level, and without any feeling, emotion, or depth? Was this what I signed up for? No. It wasn't.
The contrast between my external progress and my internal dissatisfaction grew clearer.
Something, had changed. And the road for me, was very different to the one I signed up for. The promises made to me at the start, of a brighter future in dating and relationships, didn't quite pan out. Instead, what I saw, was a lot of getting my dick wet, with a range of mentally ill undesirables and completely undateable women.
I can get laid, fine. But this wasn't what I wanted. I am not meeting anyone I can actually date, and at this point, its gone on for 3+ years. I don't really know what to do.
I go to NYC.
NYC: Battling the Competitive Dating Market
Coming to NYC, I hoped to refine my social skills and learn from my mentor, Dante. I did make some progress in those areas, but the dating scene here was tougher than I anticipated. The competitiveness of the market, combined with my own inner challenges, made it difficult to find hope for future connection.
Despite my efforts, cold approach, dating apps, and meeting people in real life, wasn’t giving me a sense of hope. In a city like NYC, where everything is fast-paced and hyper-competitive, I felt my self-worth taking a hit. I began to question whether this was a battle worth fighting.
3 of the dates I went on, were truly negative experiences. I shrugged them off, but part of my internally was becoming jaded.
Is this really the state of woman in 2024?
A Harsh Reality Check
The dating market in NYC had a noticeable impact on my worldview. I realised that in the eyes of many women in competitive environments, I wasn’t meeting certain superficial standards of value.
After struggling on for a month, I spoke to Dante, and we decided I would just stop dating for 6-7 months.
This reality check was tough to swallow, but I found myself reflecting on the toll it was taking on me, and my Inner Game. Despite being 6'5" and confident in other areas of my life, and having improved myself so much, I couldn’t help but feel the seeming impossibility of finding someone weigh down on me.
The truth is, I am an
extremely niche product. For guys who are in this boat, who have no market, all you have is the numbers game.
And given the extremely superficial nature of woman, unless she can fit you within a specific box and you meet the fantasy that exists within her mind, there is basically nothing you can do.
Taking a Break: Focusing on Myself
After years of fighting uphill battles in dating, both in Europe and the U.S., I’ve decided it’s time for a break.
It was suffocating being surrounded by men who would pull me in different directions, and share their thinking, but whom were ultimately clueless on the subject matter of dating and relationships, for a niche product like moi.
It just doesn't work the way it was supposed to. And it is what it is.
The constant cycle of effort and empty experiences is no longer serving me. I’ve learned a lot from these experiences, and while I’m grateful for the growth they brought, it’s clear that now is the time to step back.
I’m choosing to focus on my personal improvement.
Training hard, improving myself, and taking six months away from dating to reset.
Why did I hit this utter brick wall?
SMV
You can't sell a product, no one wants.
The market ultimately decides.
Instead, I will go away, and find ways to create a product I can atleast sell somehow. The strategy Dante and I have devised, is an extreme image overhaul, of a full body suit of tattoos, style overhaul, and accompanying personality changes to shift into.
Let this be my last post on this matter now.
Back to work.
-MAC
