man 2.0 E n g i n ee r i n g T h e
ALPHA The Banned Chapter
By John Romaniello and Adam Bornstein
Roman Descending
How I Spent Eight Months with No Sex Drive, Ruined My Relationship, and the Untold Fall of Roman
NOTE: If you want to read this essay in context, it would have appeared as an interstitial passage between chapters 5 and 6. We recommend you read it when you get to that point in the book. The story will make the most sense, and the information in Chapter 6 will be more impactful. “I don’t know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.” — Woody Allen
I
’ve made it a point to read a lot of books in my life. These books have
covered everything from the Legend of Zelda (yeah, Zelda), to economic theory, psychology, philosophy, history, and more pop culture than you can shake a stick at. One of my favorite types of books are those that focus on success, and what fuels man to become better and push farther than what mere mortals are capable of achieving. I’ve read these books, taken their advice, and been able to distill both good and bad as a result. But from my own experiences, there’s one element in these “success” books that
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is always overlooked. And this isn’t just a slight oversight; it’s a massive and glaring omission. Which is why this chapter—while deeply personal and potentially viewed as graphic content—was so important to write. This is a story about how my sex drive and my life were intimately intertwined. One thing that’s important to note as we talk about sex drive is that all drive actually comes from the same place. What I mean is the same physiological reaction that’s responsible for sex drive, is also responsible for ambition, success in business, competition and motivation. When that part of your brain shuts down—or is not functioning as well as it can or should—it’s much easier to understand how sex and success are closely connected. And that connection is exactly where we need to start. For this story to make sense— and be applied to your own life—you need to realize that this isn’t as much a personal anecdote as it is a warning and maybe the answer to so many of your frustrations. Where Men Derive Power I have always been an exceptionally sexual being. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when it started, but the evolution definitely began as I started to change my body and transform physically. Starting from the time I was in high school, I became an extremely sexual man. This could be said for many high school guys, but sex was legitimately a big pat of my personality and my life. It wasn’t just the seeking of sex; it was an endless fascination with its nature and power—with intimacy, with male-female interaction. But that’s just my background to understand context. This story didn’t occur in high school. My tale starts when I was about 24 years old. And by this time, it was very clear that I had developed two very distinct gears in my approach to the opposite sex: extreme, devout monogamy…or extreme promiscuity. There was no in between. Either I was in a completed committed relationship and having a lot of sex with one woman, or I was single and having a lot of sex with a lot of women. Either way, I was having sex—there’s no need to quantify how much, just think a lot.
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As a result of these two full-throttle gears, I, like most young men, defined myself by my aspects of sexuality—my virility, desirability, and performance all factored into my assessment of who I was as a man. Before you judge me too harshly, I blame evolution for this. In that regard, I was an avatar of most men. Regardless of your level of sexual activity, feeling actualized as a sexual being is a factor in self-esteem; this is just one of the idiosyncrasies of being human. While it certainly applies to women, for men, the relationship between self-esteem and sexuality is especially strong. This is just one of the (many) complications that comes of being born with a penis. Put another way, from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, your manhood and your, um, manhood are indelibly tied together. It’s a deep psychological connection that we all experience. If you don’t believe it, consider for one moment how many men think they are bad in bed? I’m going to guess close to zero. That’s because men need to derive confidence in the bedroom, so that they can carry over that confidence outside the bedroom and into life. Confidence breeds confidence. Success breeds success. And these catalysts—the stronger the physiological response they create—the bigger the impact. Evolution and psychology notwithstanding, speaking purely personally, my sexual identity was part of my overall identity. And that’s exactly why sex is so important to you, and was so essential to me. So. That’s context. Let’s get into the story.
Once Upon a Time…
I
was 24 years old and had spent the majority of my adolescent and young
adult life as a very sexual being. By that point, I’d had a few “serious” relationships of 1-2 years, several casual relationships of weeks or months, and a slew of casual lovers that, when I was single, I referred to as being “in the rotation.” (Note: for women reading this, I mean no disrespect—as it happens, 90% of my sexual partners were friends or acquaintances with whom I had an arrangement. You know how these things go.) Anyway, I’m not saying this so that you’re forced to think about me naked (which, now that I said that, you probably are—the mind is weird, huh?) or to brag about all the notches on my belt. I’m just trying to really drive home the point that sex was a big part of my life. Where was I? Ah, yes. I was 24, and I had started dating an amazing girl named Aleksanda. A Polish beauty with piercing green eyes, she had a ridiculous body, an adorable pixie nose, and a smattering of freckles that I truly adored. For reasons pertaining to her privacy, I won’t share her last name, but it was just as Polish as her first name; and if she sounds a bit like a female villain in a Bond movie, it would be fitting because she looked like one too. She was a true beauty, but she was also a great catch in other regards. She was exceptionally intelligent and extremely savvy as an entrepreneur; by 24 she owned a percentage of three businesses, and was building an empire off a single $20,000 loan she’d gotten from her parents three years prior. Aleks was a great girl, and when we met we had a whirlwind romance. We spent all of our time together, and she essentially moved into my apartment. My family loved her, and while my friends weren’t pleased that they weren’t seeing a lot of me, they liked her. We started traveling and saw much of the world together.
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The relationship was great in every way. Our sex life was incredible; it was just the right amount of tenderness mixed with enough crazy shit that, well, I know I can’t print and be published. To that point, it was the best sex I’d had in my life (impressive, all things considered). Within six months we moved in together. We got to go shopping and pick out new furniture; we had more fun decorating that apartment over 5 weeks than I think most couples do in a year. Neither of us had a lot of experience cooking, so we bought cookbooks and tried to learn together. Some of our cooking turned out fantastic, and we preened with pride as we considered throwing dinner parties; some of it turned out horrific, be we laughed and kissed and relaxed as we ordered some healthy take out. Things couldn’t have been better. Until they got worse. Much worse. The trouble started about four months after we moved in. Slowly but surely, Aleks and I started having sex less and less often. What was amazing was that it didn’t seem strange to me, at least not at the time. When we first moved in we consistently had sex twice per day. And then it was once a day. That became three times per week, then once a week...and eventually just once per month. The regression was as puzzling as it was dramatic. When You Lose It…You Lose It Now I realize what some of you might be thinking: “Bro, welcome to relationships.” My response: fuck that. I’ve been in relationships and had consistent sex. More importantly, if you’re in a relationship—any relationship—and you don’t desire sex, you have a serious problem. That’s not an opinion; it’s a physiological fact. And the sooner men wake up to that reality, the sooner your lives will start to take the shape you want. We’ll touch on that in a bit, but I want to give you some more background on this. At some point, Aleks finally approached me and asked why we weren’t having sex. And
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while this might sound crazy, I didn’t even realize what had happened. I think the greatest shock of my life was when I realized that it was my fault we weren’t having sex. I didn’t want to have sex; I was no longer interested in sex. My first response to the conversation was overcompensation—like a stubborn client training with an injury, I knew it was a problem but instead of trying to address it, I ignored it by pushing through. In other words, I tried to force myself to have sex even when I didn’t want to. In the beginning, this worked, in the technical sense of the word: sex happened. When I did do it, I sometimes felt like I was initiating out of guilt, or acquiescing out of obligation. Unfortunately, I didn’t really enjoy it, and I began to have a hard time achieving orgasm. After a few months, my efforts dwindled; Aleks picked up the slack and tried to initiate more. I would try to make it happen, but then I started making excuses and trying to change the subject. Eventually, she stopped trying as often, and then stopped trying altogether. We settled into a rhythm of watching our favorite shows on TiVo, cooking dinner, and snuggling into bed without even considering the possibility of sex. At first, I was bothered by the void—the hole left by not wanting sex, and all the extra time on my hands from not having it. For a time, I wanted to want sex. Eventually, it stopped bothering me. Then, in moments of reflection, in the early hours of the night when I was pretending to be asleep in an effort to avoid another conversation about it, I was bothered about not being bothered about it. And then that stopped too. You can probably surmise that it had nothing to do with Aleks; it’s not that I was bored of having sex with her or found her unattractive. I just literally had no sex drive. And once I digested that reality, it catapulted me into a strong cycle of depression. Remember, my identity—all men’s identities—are in some way connected to their sex drive. And because my identify was so closely tied to it, once it was no longer present I began dwelling on it. It caused stress, it caused frustration, and it crushed me. But this story isn’t about my struggles—it’s about how my problems represent a growing number of men who are troubled by the same issues. Men are less interested in sex. It’s a hormonal issue, but it’s also a social one. In the interviews we conducted for this book, we found more than 300 men suffering from the same issues; low sex drive, lack
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of interest in sex, and a variety of other lifestyle problems that we simple shrug off as “normal” when they’re not. Just as bad, we talked with hundreds of women, the majority of whom shared the same revelation: their men had lost their mojo. The stereotypical portrayal of the viral, testosterone-charged man still exists, but its reality seems to have a much shorter shelf life. It’s a serious problem that’s connected to a host of other health problems—from fat loss and muscle gain to cardiovascular diseases. As we’ve discussed, this is the main reason we’ve written this book. But part of sharing the message is creating awareness and education that whatever you think is normal with a dwindling sex drive is not; plain and simple—it’s a health issue. And something you need to act upon immediately. Aleks did everything she could to try and fix the problem. She would come into the bedroom at night in ridiculous lingerie. I’d tell her she looked great. That she was absolutely stunning. And then, after a moment of silence, I’d pick up the TiVo remote and ask, “Soooo you want to watch Lost or Dexter? We went from being lovers to roommates. There was still affection and love, but a lack of sex led to a lack of intimacy. And naturally, that forced us to grow apart.
The Warning I tell you this story for many reasons. The first is not only comprehending the role and value of sex in your life, but also that once sex is in a relationship—its removal will kill it. During the last 8 months of our relationship we might have had sex 8 times—and one of those instances was on Valentine’s Day and another on my birthday. Awesome. We’re 25 years old and I’m on the sex schedule of a 60-year old married couple—sex on birthdays and holidays. It was very difficult. She would touch me, and I would react terribly. Imagine trying to be fed your favorite meal when you have a stomach virus. That’s exactly what happened to me. As a result, we grew apart. We stopped spending as much time together. Eventually, it
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became hard for us to even speak because the pink elephant in the room was all we could think about. But I cared about her so much, and I felt guilt and shame. I’m a man. I’m supposed to want sex and make it happen. And I couldn’t. Add to that the reality that I felt that she was experiencing guilt and shame, so I felt added guilt for her emotional struggles. But the problems weren’t reserved for my relationship. These problems crushed me as a man, and infiltrated every aspect of my life. Looking back, I didn’t even realize all the different ways it corrupted who I was, how I interacted with others, and what I was capable of achieving.
Hitting Bottom…And Climbing Back Up Needing to spend some time away from each other, we picked up hobbies. Aleks joined a ballroom dancing class with her best friend. At the same time, I began playing more poker. It started as 5 hours and quickly progressed to 10 and even 20 hours per week. Next thing you know, we both had “second jobs.” She was out dancing and I was playing poker. Then, one night in April, jus, I came home around 2:30am. I’d had a shitty round at the poker table, and if I recall took a loss of about 3K; certainly not my worst loss, but not a good night, either. I entered the apartment slowly and quietly, hoping not to wake her. I didn’t turn any lights on, undressed in the dark. It wasn’t until I actually climbed into bed and reach out for my cuddle buddy that I figured out she wasn’t there. I knew she had been out dancing, but she hadn’t stayed out this late before. I realized that I’d never gotten home before here—she was the one who had to come home to an empty apartment, whereas I’d always has someone waiting for me. I realized she’d been getting the short end of the stick, and that added even more guilt. I stayed in bed and just let my mind wander, and for a moment or two I might have almost drifted to sleep, but not quite. I wasn’t exactly waiting up, but rather trying to process my feelings certainly made sleep impossible. She eventually came back at 3:30; she had still been out dancing—or at least that’s what she told me. I had no reason not to believe, but for the first time, I began to think, actually, I have every reason not to believe her. She has every reason to believe I wasn’t really out playing poker, either.
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We made small talk and a few jokes; she showed me one of her dance moves and I described a bad beat at the poker table. Our laughs faded, and it was time for the inevitable. “So…I think we need to talk.” After nearly eight months of incredibly infrequent and probably lackluster sex, my lady and I called it quits. A dearth of sex is dangerous in any relationship, is it leads to lack of intimacy and a widening fissure between partners. Some relationships can survive that; mine couldn’t. She’d had enough of feeling unwanted and unattractive, and I’d had enough of feeling guilty about making her feel that way. The breakup wasn’t necessarily a surprise, but it was very strange, as breakups go; or at least, as mind had always gone. Whereas all others I’d experienced were sort of sudden and rash, the result of a really bad fight or someone doing something to break the last straw, this was different. When you break up because of a fight, you have a shield of anger to hide behind; you can focus on the thing that pissed you off, and the thoughts of the hurtful words the other person said keep you In my breakup with Aleks, though, there was no overwhelming anger or any anger at all. I didn’t have any overly strong feelings about it; even the idea that she might have been cheating on me didn’t affect me overly—in a detached sort of way, I really couldn’t blame her. There were no truly strong feelings about anything at that point in my life, but with specific regard to the breakup, there was just…sadness, I guess, is the right word. There was a feeling of removal, and of depression, but rather than being a sharpness caused by pain, it was more of a dull aching loss. The next day, I packed my stuff and prepared to move out. Aleks, being the awesome person that she is, made things easier on me by helping out. We worked in my office and smiled wistfully as we pulled books off the shelves and packed them away. We moved into the bedroom and had an awkward conversation about whether either of us wanted to hang on to pictures from our vacation album. We split them. In the main room, we looked at the paintings on the walls and remembered what a pain in the ass it was to hang them evenly and get them just right. We took a second to look at the furniture, and remembered picking it out and arranging it in a way that made her happy. We needed those moments, I think; needed a second to savor the memories and appreciate
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what we’d had before we began to mourn it’s loss. When everything was packed, we stood in the living room and looked around, basking for one last moment in our apartment before it became her apartment. We hugged, and promised to stay friends. And then it was done. I gave the keys, and there was no more we, no more us. There was me, and there was Aleks. And then we said goodbye.
Life Outside the Bedroom – Low T Damages More Than Your Sex Life
D
uring those difficult 10 months I was struggling with my libido, I was dealing with a few other factors at well. Some of this was my fault: being depressed and unmotivated, I fell into terrible patterns. I wasn’t taking care of my body. I was fatter and less muscular than I had been in years. My workouts were basically just going through the motions. My diet went to shit, of course.
But it didn’t stop there. In business, I stopped being motivated. I wasn’t outgoing and stopped picking up clients. If people cancelled sessions I didn’t make a big effort to reschedule. I just let things fall into decay. And most importantly, I had no ambition and was making no progress on my long-term goals. Something I haven’t touched on yet is that when I first started dating Aleks I was working on a book—or, at least, a treatment for a book. When we first moved in together, we’d make a joke about me spending time in my office “planning world domination.” I would spend a few hours a week in there, working on articles, making changes to the book idea. It was fun. But when my sex drive plummeted and then completely disappeared, I lost all creativity. And that was just the first domino to drop. That lack of production caused me to question whether I could even be successful. These questions sapped me of all motivation and prevented me from writing. As a result, that book project sat on a desk and gathered dust. During the Ordeal , things didn’t move, didn’t progress. It was more stagnation than stasis. My business did not increase. My writing did not improve. I did not did grow as a person (that would happen later, as a results of the trial). If anything, I traveled backwards in every way possible. And I think I almost died of boredom.
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I didn’t want to do anything. I did not feel, I did not experience, and I did not live. And the cause of all of it: Low testosterone. You see, I had my testosterone tested when I was 22. Back then, I was reading bodybuilding magazines and everyone was talking about testosterone and growth hormone. I was curious, and naturally I got mine tested. And the numbers were high. Make that very high—an impressive 890ng/dl (nanograms per decaliter). After I bottomed out, I started looking for answers. And if it wasn’t for a routine doctor visit, I might have never realized why my life had taken a turn for the worse. I had checked my T— and it came back as 390 g/dl. My doc said this was “normal” but I knew better; this is right about the point where research suggests many men begin to experience to symptoms of low T. Unfortunately, that still fell within the range of “normal”, because that range of is so vast. Depending on which lab you get tested at, “average” can be from as low as 260ng/dl to as high as 1080ng/dl). Meaning, that if you’re at around 800ng/dl and your testosterone falls by 50%, you’re still within the “reference range”, and therefore, not be considered low. (As a related aside, this is something I humbly suggest needs to be addressed by the medical community.) The “healthy range” for testosterone is vast. For me, 390 was extremely low. That was my light bulb moment. It was that discovery that led me to research all the different ways that low testosterone could disrupt and destroy a man’s life. And dig deeper into ways to naturally fix the problem. My experiments started with my diet. I focused on getting my insulin under control by manipulating carb intake. After all, if insulin is high then growth hormone is low. And when growth hormone is low, testosterone is oftentimes low too. I followed the low carb protocol for a month. A nearly identical program can be found in this book. I started taking apple cider vinegar, R-alpha lipoic acid and cinnamon. Everything was geared towards improving insulin. Sure enough, the weight started to drop. I increased my saturated fat and ate more animal fat, butter, and fish oil. And I combined that with a heavy lifting cycle, some strategic density training sessions, and focused more on my sleep. Every day I went to bed and got up at the same time.
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With each and every change, I saw changes. Physically, mentally, and sexually. I got back in great shape. I had more energy. I wanted to succeed again. And my sex drive returned. Within a few months, I was reborn. I was back to the future—but better than before. So I did what made sense: I tried to get Aleks back. Only at that point, she was dating her ballroom dancing instructor. As the saying goes, the only way to get over one woman is to get under another. With my libido finally ramped up and ready for action, I resolved to do just that. And that drive, led me to a breakthrough that has forever changed my life.
Roman Resurgent
How the Return of My Sex Drive Helped Me Make 6-Figures in Four Days, Find a New Relationship… and Write THIS Book NOTE: To read this essay in context, you should know that it was originally included as part of Chapter 6, specifically, after page 121. We recommend you read it when you get to that point in the book. The story will make the most sense, and the information in you read in Chapter 6 will be driven home more fully. “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” — Oscar Wilde
I
t has been said that, “behind every great man is a greater woman.” While
many gentleman would probably argue against this female propaganda, it might surprise you that this statement actually fairly accurate. We could discuss the virtues of woman (there are many) and what a good woman can do to improve a man’s life (a lot; trust me, the right woman will up your game.) But the real truth about the influence of a good woman has more to do with how a woman can activate your sex drive in a way that makes you a greater man, a more successful man. And even a better man. The Alpha man, if you will.
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In order for this to all make sense, let’s take you back to my own alpha evolution. If you recall, my fall from #AlphaStatus resulted in the death of the old me; my lower testosterone morphing me into shell of my former self with no discernable forward direction. This led to many things, including despondence and the end of a relationship with a great girl. I struggled for close to 8 months, and things seemed hopeless. But once I recognized the issue—low testosterone—I began a course of testosterone revitalization that sparked my sex life and my ambition. My quest began in earnest, and while I could certainly share the details with how I increased my testosterone and reclaimed my sex drive, most of that was covered in the beginning of this chapter, and the rest will be covered afterwards. So, let’s just get to the good part: the story. Before we move into it, I just want to touch on one noteworthy thing that happened during this time. Anyone who knows my “story” in the fitness industry know about the big party at the Beach House. Basically, I was invited by my friend Evan to go to a party in the Hamptons over Memorial Day weekend. I was on the road to recovery, but still out of shape, and understandably freaked out. As the story goes, I had to figure out how to get in shape—in moment of brilliance borne of desperation, I came up with an idea for a program based on hormonal manipulation1 , intended to help lose the last 5-15 pounds. It worked, and I went to the beach party. But that was just the beginning. Let’s look at the rest of the story…
1
Hat tip to Charles Poliquin
Once Upon a Time…
I
Fast-forward about 6 months after I began my quest to regain my sex drive. At this point, it was nearly fall. The beach party had come and gone, and
although I hadn’t gotten into “contest ready” shape, I had my abs back and was pretty dense. After the party, I just kept training, using the methods I’d developed, and got leaner and gained all my muscle back. I was maintaining about 192 and 8% bodyfat. My sex drive was back, business was picking up, and I was finally feeling like I was over Aleks. Things were good. At this point in my life, although I had a lot of clients in the city, I was primarily working out of a gym on Long Island—the gym owned by my Mentor, Alvin; the very gym I’d made my transformation in all those years ago. It was a great place to work and to train, a good place for running a personal training business. It was also a great place to meet women; particularly women between the ages of 18-26 (relax, I was 26 by this point and my cutoff was 21). You see, the gym was located in an area that was close two three college, and one medical school. My boss was active in the community and really liked offering big discounts to students, which helped the gyms image, and brought us business. Out of all the gyms in the area, we had the best student deals. As most college kids are watching their funds, we serviced a lot of students. Every year, between August and October when people started classes and getting to know the area, we’d get a fresh crop of youngin’s joining the gym. This was helpful to me as a manager, because it gave us a large pool of potential employees whenever we needed new staff. As a trainer, there were a lot of potential clients (some, interestingly, prioritized health over drinking). And as a guy…well, let’s just say there was a lot of option.
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In other words, every Fall brought a surplus of hot new girls to the gym.. And I’m not talking Minnesota in the spring hot, when every girl who sheds a layer of clothing suddenly appears to have lost 20 pounds and looks amazing. We’re talking more early 2000s FHM hot (in fact, one of our members—a girl named Tess—was actually featured in FHM). I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, so let me just state outright that I didn’t make it a habit to sleep with our members. Personally, I always developed crushes on some people but didn’t usually make a move. I try not to mix business and pleasure. But, occasionally I would see a member at a bar and…well, you know how that goes. Anyway, at some point during the rush of new members, my future walked into the gym. One day while working the training floor, I saw a girl signing up at the front desk. I caught a glimpse of here, and did a double take. She wasn’t actually a girl; standing at 5’8’’, she was a woman, and ho-lee shit was she put together. She was fairly muscular, but in a “I played sports” kinda way, not a bodybuilder kinda way. I don’t mean to objectify her, but I’ll just give a brief rundown of what drew me to her. She had these gorgeous, athletic thighs, an amazing bubble butt, and a tight body. I didn’t notice this when I first saw here, as she was wearing a jacket, but when she came out of the locker I noticed that contrary to all logic, despite being thin, she had these massive DD breasts. I’m not really a boob guy (ass man for life), but I’m also human and couldn’t help but notice that defied the laws of physics and smashed them into two sports bras to keep them contained. And did I mention she had a beautiful face, jet-black hair, and bright blue eyes? The first time I saw her, I couldn’t even control myself. I blurted out, “Damn girl.” It was a raw reaction, but completely honest. She was fucking gorgeous. Thankfully, I was completely across the room, and she couldn’t hear me. My client turned around to look at her and said, “oh, hell yes.” Boys will be boys. My libido, it was safe to say, had returned. In the words of George Costanza: I’m back baby!
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Leveraging The Drive Nothing happened for the next two months. Well, not exactly nothing. Out of respect for her, I tried not to gawk at her too much, but she caught my eye often; and most of the time, when I looked at her, she was looking back. After a while, it because obvious that my admiration for her was mutual. Over the course of the two months, we began to eye fuck each other unlike anything you have ever seen. Seriously, we were like the Romeo & Juliet of eye fucking. We wanted each other, but neither made a move. I thought it best not to date members, and I’d heard she had a boyfriend, anyway. So, rather than have a normal conversation like normal people, we just looked stared, each one of us watching the other, checking to see if the other was watching back. Watching her revealed a lot: this girl trained really hard. And she was a beast when it came to strength—she’d bang out RDL’s with 185, overhead press with 40-60 pound dumbbells. I’ll restate my earlier admiration: damn, girl. Now, it was great to see her take her workout so seriously, but equally great was how much she would sweat. She worked out in shorts and a tank top most of the time, and while the cut of the clothes was not meant to be revealing, her physique made it so. Needless to say, there was a lot of sweat covering a lot of visible skin. I have kind of a thing for sweat, and I maintain that if you and your partner have sex after a great workout, you’ll hear the voice of God immediately after. So, she’d train, and the sweat would form beads her skin. Her tank tops were woefully inadequate, and from across the room I would see the sweat beads clearly, having taken up real estate on her breasts. This happened every single time she worked out—for two months straight. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. When she was in the gym, I’d look at her, standing there, all sweat and out of breath, and the only thing I could think of was that I wanted to tackle her and lick her clean. That thought and the image of spun in my head for weeks. To that point in my life, I had never wanted anything like I wanted her. As you can probably surmise, my sex drive was back in force, and for the first time I felt like the old Roman again. It was a nice feeling, despite the mounting tension.
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Of course, this story has to go somewhere, so let’s get to it. Her name was Christine, but behind the desk, we called her House. She was a med student at the local osteopathic school, NYCOM, and so the nickname It was partially in deference to the show “House,” but primarily came from the fact that she was built, as the old saying goes, like a brick house. I’ll be honest and admit that I had no intention of making a move. Outside of my sometimes malleable “no fucking with the members”, rule, I was also a little gun shy. Keep in mind, I was coming off of a painful break up and had been out of the dating game for a while. My confidence, crushed during my struggle with low Testosterone, was returning but still shaky. I was so attracted her that I felt intimidated—for the first time in years, I was nervous about talking to a girl. And so I did nothing, content to admire from afar. Fate would not have it so. Neither would Christine. One day, after months and months of eye fucking, she got my number from the girl at the front desk2 . She gave me a call— which I missed—and left a voicemail inquiring about personal training. I listened to the voicemail four or five ties and tried to detect some sort of covert message behind the message. Every time I played it back and she kept saying “I’m interested in training,” but all I kept hearing was “I’m interested in fucking like the apocalypse is imminent.” Now, I love hot girls. And I love sex. But I love being a successful businessman more. And while my “don’t date members” policy was a bit malleable, I had another policy that was set in stone. Simply, I did not train women that I was supremely attracted. I had a lot of friends who slept with their clients, and it never ended well. I could see how in any case, it might lead to a really bad situation, but in this one it was pretty much a guarantee. So when House approached me, I tried to pass her off to four different trainers. But she said no. Her response was bulletproof from a training standpoint. She told me, As a side note, I want to mention that this was a major breach of protocol; my employees knew not to give out my number to anyone—the policy was to take their number and I’d call them from the gym. It’s a testament to how obvious my desire for this girl was that my front desk girl Karen, who was a stickler for the rules, gave out my number.
2
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“Listen, I’ve watched everyone in the gym, and I like your philosophy. I like your approach, and your clients appear to see faster results than anyone else. And that’s what I want. If I’m spending extra money, I’m only interested in you.” After that talk, it was tough to resist. On one hand, I felt proud as a trainer to have my work recognized. And on the other hand, that little voice kept saying, “Oh, fuck yeah, bro. House totally wants it!” Still, sensing that I might break my own rule, I came up with the only excuse that could work: I lied. Not a big lie—just a white one to protect both of us. I told her that I had no room for clients, that my roster was completely filled and I couldn’t possibly squeeze in a new client. BUT, if she wanted, I would do one session with her, and then write her a full program that would help her reach her goals. The $500,000 Workout Four days later had our training session, and it went well. To my credit, I was completely professional; there’s an old saying that God gave men a brain and a penis, but not enough blood to run both at the same time. In this case, my brain had won out, and I stayed completely focused on explaining things. I spent half of the time conducting an assessment, and the other half walking through some of my training principles. We ended with a high five—she was a cool chick—and she paid me the tremendously discounted price I’d quoted her. I got her email and said I’d send her a program soon. That night, I tried to figure out what approach I would take to writing this program. If you recall from my fall from Alpha—when my testosterone and sex drive disappeared—I mentioned that I was working on a book project. When I lost my way, so did this project. When I recovered, I started working on it again; however, the project had shifted. My experience with regaining sex drive had changes some of philosophies on training and nutrition, and I had begun to jot them down in my spare time. At no point had I immersed myself into the project. I hadn’t really figured out a way to communicate the information. But that night, I decided to go back and review what I had started. Just to get the brainstorming going. I look at all my notes and told myself: I’m going to write this chick the best fucking
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program in the history of time. And she will be amazed. And then she will want to fuck me. Now, look, I didn’t consciously think that. I was a subconscious thing that I only recognize in hindsight. Still, subconscious or not, it’s a pretty ridiculous thought: write a great training program and a woman will lust after you and want to lead you to her bed. But it’s not actually that ridiculous. In psychology there is a phenomenon known as projection. In the simplest terms, projection is when you want someone, or to impress them, and you project your ideas of what’s impressive onto them. Whether they will actually find these things impressive is obviously unclear, but what is clear is that you are assuming it will have an impact. You guys know what I’m talking about: you’re at the gym, and you see a hot girl; suddenly decide to add more weight to the barbell and find your hidden Herculean strength. Your subconscious thought process is, “This girl will want me more if I can lift this weight.” This general behavior is a remnant from our ancestors, when catching the eye of a potential mate might involve being physically impressive. It’s the same reason why some athletes perform better with big crowds or rise up in clutch moment. And the reasoning behind it is simple: we want people to view us a certain way. And like us. So we do things that we—not they—believe will help make this a reality. It’s a transfer of energy from desire to productivity, output, or strength. So there I am, projecting this idea on to her, assuming that writing a great training program might make her want me. Now, here’s where it gets crazy, here’s where you can start to see how important sex drive is to your success. Here’s what happened: For over a year, I had wanted to work on this project, write this book, or put my thoughts down. I could never muster the motivation to do it. But when it came to impressing this girl I wanted so badly, all of a sudden motivation was not an issue—that’s because sex drive comes from the same places as all drives do; it’s literally the same part of your brain. And so I sat down, and in a lust-fueled haze, churned out 8,000 words in one night. It was a program and workouts, design and explanation. It was a distillation of all my theories and research on fat loss. It was the best lessons I used and applied with clients to get lean over the years, as well as aspects of the program I’d used to recover from low T, and the beach party. I wrote and I wrote, and where there once was a drip, there now was a
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deluge. Lack of motivation and writers block were simply not issues. And when I was done, I had that Jerry Maguire type of mission statement feel. When I reviewed what I had created, I though it was by far the best training program I had ever written. I truly believed that in addition to impressing the pants off of House, this program was the next generation of fat loss. It was innovative and different—but with proven effectiveness of hundreds of people—that would change the game. Sensing that House didn’t need 8,000 words of rhetoric and theory, I eventually edited my thoughts into 3,000 words on rationale and created 4 types of workouts that rotated over a week. It was still epic, but more concise. I was proud of it, and proud of myself. I attached it to an email and sent it off to Christine, silently thanking her for providing the motivation for getting me to finally set pen to page. On Friday afternoon, just three days after sending the program, I saw her at the gym. I checked in and asked how the program was going. She had a few questions, which I answered. We drifted into small talk—I don’t remember much of the conversation we, but I do remember that she mentioned that she and were friends were going to head to The Downtown, the local bar. She concluded with, “you should come!” The unintentional double entendre wasn’t lost on me, and I’d be lying if I said my mind didn’t wander. We wound up meeting up at a different bar; she with one of her friends, I with two of mine. The conversation was free flowing and great—everyone contributed, and we all laughed a lot. My two friends, being awesome guys, told a few stories that made me sound exceptionally cool. We stayed out for a bit, but the night has to end eventually. We said goodbye and went off separately. I was feeling suddenly ALPHA, and decided I was going to make it happen. I sent her a text: Sooo… Her response: Do you want to come over? My answer: I guess I could stop by for a bit. Now, I should mention that we didn’t sleep together. We hung out and talked, and at around 3:45 in the morning she finally made a move and kissed me. Things were moving along—my shirt came off, and her hands roamed my body. Man, thank God I was lean again. And then something hilarious happened: my phone started ringing. I silenced it.
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Ringing again. She asked the obvious question: “who would be calling you at 4am?” Finally, I checked my phone: it was Aleks. You gotta be kidding me. The Universe is funny. That ended the night on an awkward note, but it was easy to overcome. Christine and I went on to date for over a year. To this day, I think she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve met. And on some level, I just might still believe that she was interested because I wrote the greatest training program she’d ever seen. Life Outside the Bedroom – How High Sex Drive Makes You More Successful More central to the story than the eventual sex we had (which, by the way, was insane) is what my desire for her did to my career and my business. My drive to succeed was fueled intensely by an innate desire to be suitable for her. Remember, sex drive isn’t just about sex; it’s about being suitable for a mate. She was a med student. She was going to be a doctor. Could she really consider dating me seriously? I didn’t know if she could consider me a long-term match. I mean, sure, I was very successful as a trainer—that was really the height of my training career, and I was commanding a $250+ hourly rate and had a few pro athletes on my roster. Still, I felt inadequate. I just couldn’t imagine her saying, Yes, I’m an ER Surgeon, and this is my husband, the trainer. The drive to be good for her—or perhaps “good enough” for her—led me to start making changes in my business. I wanted to do more than what I was doing. I wanted to write and change more people’s lives, but I also wanted to travel and start other business and not work so much. I called my buddy Joel Marion, and he suggested that I start a blog. I began looking into the world of online fitness; it seemed like something I could really be successful at. And so, while dating her, I decided to take my business online. I started blogging and began a new business venture. Even though I had zero readers and no audience, I knew it was only a matter of time before I hit on something big, and established myself as more than a trainer; that it was only a matter of time until I was more, period. I decided to release a digital information product. Once again, my desire for Christine
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would prove beneficial; the product I wanted to release would be based on a rotating training program and hormonal manipulation. I sat down and over the course of a few months, wrote the product and fleshed out the ideas more full. I designed what came to be known as Final Phase Fat Loss. That product was literally based on the program I wrote for Christine. Although the methods were in place before I had met her, it was my desire for her that had forced me to finally put them on paper. Indeed, some sections of the original 8,000-word email I wrote her were copied and pasted into what became the final manuscript. There’s a long and involved story about product creation, but that’s more of a discussion about business and marketing, so we’ll leave that for another day and another book. Suffice it to say that Joel and I launched the product. And it generated $465,000 in gross revenue…in just 4 days. My take home was just about $70,000—about half of what I made in a year working at the gym. I felt accomplished. I felt successful. Our launch of FPFL was lucrative, but it was also productive. After the launch, I had a mailing list of 20,000 people, and that allowed me to generate income and grow my business. I stopped training as much and focused on writing more articles and getting published in more places. That launch set me up to run an online business, which has led to many successes—including the writing of this book. In fact, the genesis of Final Phase Fat Loss is has evolved and been refined and tweaked several times, and it’s influence can be seen in the book you now have in your hands: Engineering the Alpha. Adam read that book and was fascinated by many of theories and decided to research and dig deeper. Together, we evolved some of those basic theories into what I originally intended for the book: To create a new evolution in fitness. To get better results and offer a different approach to everything that was being offered. In many ways, my sex drive is responsible for my success. Directly. I had this idea that was great and could help lots of people. And it turns out that I was right. But I never would have acted if I didn’t have the motivation and ambition. And the thing that gave me that was the intense desire to sleep with this girl. My sex drive allowed me to actualize the dream of writing a book and starting my business. That business, in turn has allowed me to set up four other businesses, write the book I always wanted, and live the life of my dreams.
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Although our relationship ended a few months after the launch (for reasons mostly related to my lingering insecurities and newfound workaholism) I fell comfortable saying that it was one of the most formative of my life. She motivated, inspired me and supported me. That motivation, inspired by my sex drive, change my life in profound ways. I owe Christine a huge debt of gratitude for helping me get there. It might seem complicated, but it’s actually quite simple. Without sex drive, you don’t have your motivation. It is what allowed me to shape and mold my life and bend it to my will, simply because I have the drive to do it. And no matter what your goal is, as long as you have that drive, you won’t look back and wonder about potential. You’ll be able to apply, push, and achieve. That is what greatness is about. And that’s why in many cases, the woman (or man) is needed to make you a little greater.
