Saturday, March 10, 2007

Burned out

Tonight was a tough one....

The sets that last night flew open for the students were all of a sudden blowing them out left and right. Same Venue same crowd... no idea why the sudden change. I always feel really protective of my studenst and I have a major reputation for lecturing and yelling at girls who are rude. If any girls are reading this, SO what if some guy is attracted to you be flateered. There's no reason to be rude about it ever. Seriously just let them know that you are not interested in a polite way. There's no reason to ever tell anyone to fuck off... I had 6-8 students with me all night and I was caught in the great trap of workshop... Some of them wanted me to game, some wanted me to watch. The real value in WS in my eyes is in getting real time feedback and finding out what your individual sticking points are, so I always encourage guys to do as many sets as they can. We demo the first night and the second night I try to only wing for the guys...

I personally would much rather game than watch, but it's important to give feedback so I always have this loop running through my head... to game or watch. Tonight it got really bad as a couple students were adament to watch as I had a ton of guys in set. I don't give stock feedback, so I have to watch the entire set. So by the time I got to open my first set it was 1:30. It flew open and I was in hardcore until a winging miscue caused the obstacle to drag away.. Oh well I'm so exhausted now that it wouldn't matter the idea of talking anymore is slightly less attractive than having my head stuck into a bear trap.

I really need a break... I literally cannot keep this pace up. I have 11 days off including a 14 hour flight and trying to recover from jet lag before my next program in Vegas which is followed up on the Mon by Day game and that Fri starts my LA program than I think I have 2 weeks until London. I may have to cancel London or die...whichever is easier. I'm finding myself getting more and more annoyed with bars and clubs and gaming and I'd love to take a month off and sit on a beach with HBperfect. But it doesn't look like it's going to happen. I never got into this to be a guru or a teacher, it just kind of happened and as much as I LOVE the satisfaction I get from seeing guys get it(like late tonight) it's rapidly getting balanced out by how much I hate gaming. I am literally bored to death of my own small talk and have no interest in almost anything ANYONE I meet. Guy or girl has to say at this point. I almost miss my days working at Abercrombie where at least I could be anti-social and I could leave it at home for the day.

The pressure of always being on and having to game at the drop of a hat is getting to me. I'm not just a gaming robot and there are some nights where I don't want to. It's not even the students. For the most part I'd say 99% of the students are amazing but I put the pressure on myself. If I am in the airport and there's a hot girl I feel guilt if I don't game her. It's retarded and I do it to myself, but that's the way I got good. The major reason I think I got to be good is because I forced myself to game when I was sick and tired, and hating it. Because I was determined to get this skillset. But now that I have it I literally don't know how to turn it off. It's a compulsion, when I am doing my job and watching the studnets in the back of my mind it's there telling me that I'm just using that as an excuse for my approach anxiety... It never goes away. And right now I've lost the desire. The hunger that made me take huge sets and go into retarded situations is gone...

And then when I do game on WS I have 12 guys standing around watching and when a girl tries to bounce me, I can't because I can't leave the guys. SO it's really game until the guys see what you can do but forego your results which are the very reason you are gaming in the first place. My job forces me to game for other guys approval that I'm good rather than for my own sex life and I think that's why the drive is fading. I think what's the point if it's on and I can pull I still have to debrief 12 guys in front of her which will creep her out to the same degree that throwing a batch of spiders in her hair would... I'm not in this for guys approavl, I'm in this for the women and WS is directly and adversely affecting the outcome... and when every weekend is a workshop, well the desire to game starts to fade real fast.

I really need a break ASAP. And I don't think it's going to come, so instead I need to dig down deep again for the next month and make it happen, because I will not lower the quality of my programs. I have done fifty some programs without Mystery plus another 40 so with him and I have had 1 refund request. And the guy tried to schedule a phone consult afterward which led me to believe that he planned it all along. I can't let this affect my teahcing even if it means pushing myself to exhaustion and sacrificing every set I talk to.. I owe that to my students. And really every time I get emails from guys who I have helped, it is all worth. It's just hard to look back 4 years and remember that I WAS that student and if not for Mystery,Savoy, and some others who pushed themselves to help me, I 'd still be in a horrible horrible place. And Every weekend I'm helping bring guys out of those places. I truly do believe the community saved my life and I think that it has the potential to save a lot of others as well. I can't lose sight of that in my selfish whining.... Ok end of rant. I really just needed to get a lot of shit off my chest and I figure the blog is as good a place and anywhere.

Thanks for listening.

S

16 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:35 AM

    It sounds like what style was going through in the game....

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  2. Anonymous9:10 AM

    Hang in there. You make a huge difference.

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  3. sinn, seriously take a break, ur own health must be more important then ur job man, go reread what you wrote in that last post, if u hate gaming, u kind of hate your job, maybe ur just talking like this cuz of that bad night or u really feel thsi way, but seriously i think i should take a break, ur killin urself

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  4. Anonymous10:36 AM

    the fact is not that you hate gaming, is that with the time you started to obligate yourself to game, just like you said when you see a HB and you can't just pass without gaming. IMO the reason is: it's hard wired in your mind the obligation of gaming (and this can real be related to your tough routine of giving workshops one after another without some "time-off", so it's just in your mind all the time). So as crac said, I break could make all the difference. I'm not a PUA, I'm hardly trying to get to this point, and even without practicing and going out that much sometimes I feel really tired about reading game stuff and having to practice, so imagine you that is over and over teaching and going out for that? Take a break, dude, I'm sure everybody will understand.

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  5. Anonymous10:38 AM

    hey man,

    take a break :)) the consequences of getting burned out are ... well, you probably know what they are... :) eat well, sleep well, go to Hawaii with an HBPerfect... or pick one up where you there (effortlessly :))

    by the way, why isn't the Leadership Team page on the MMC website up-to-date? Is it deliberate? As long as I know, guys like Mystery, Londonplayboy, Masters, sheriff and a few others are with the Venusian Arts Corp now...

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  6. Anonymous11:55 AM

    I HIGHLY doubt that Masters is with VA!!!

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  7. Sinn,

    I've been there - not with gaming, but at other times in my life. You need to give yourself a break. I checked out the schedule the other day, and dude, seriously, it reads "Sinn, Sinn, Sinn, Sinn, Sinn, Sinn". It's not sustainable. I have been impressed with the way that you seem to have integrated the game naturally into the rest of your life without letting it overtake you. Don't let go of that, set some boundaries so that you can have a life outside work.

    In particular, the other guys should be able to back you up enough to cover. There is no sense in them running their best instructor into the ground. Set some boundaries for yourself, and now that you know where your limit is, plan future schedules accordingly.

    Of course, another take on this is that you are jetlagged, tired, and missing HBPerfect! Reframe, and remember, you have created this situation for yourself, what can you learn from it (etc etc and all the other Hall/NLP stuff).

    Hope to see you at Day Game in London, but if it's the right thing for you, ditch it. You have put in more than you have gotten out of gaming - 90 bootcamps plus one on ones is 1000 students. You don't owe the community anything.

    Sure you will do the right thing,

    CC

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  8. Sinn, I love reading your material. Your helping a lot of people, but you have to take a break ;) Best Part will be that you'll come back twice as strong !

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  9. Anonymous4:24 PM

    I think most of the PUAs and dating gurus are full of shit. But you seem like you're a pretty cool guy and I really like your blog, everyone has bad days, you'll be fine when you get home. keep pushing yourself man, you can be the best of them all.

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  10. Anonymous4:32 PM

    Sinn, you are an inspiration to the rest of us. Please do not lose sight of the incredible impact you have made on people's lifes. You have a gift and all of us are indebted to you, each and every time you share it with us. Good Luck and please keep up the great work!!!

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  11. Anonymous6:36 PM

    Hey dude,

    Its Metro from Sydney.

    You are definetly the hardest working instructor i have met.

    Keep up the good work. Its all worth it.

    Metro

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  12. Anonymous7:37 PM

    I had to quit fundraising for a while for similar reasons to what you're posting here. Taking the rust off sucks. If you keep going the way you are, you will burn out. Take a month off, pace yourself in the future. There is plenty of NLP and Inner Game stuff out there for you to learn how to do that, along with "7 Habits Of Highly Effective People" & "First Things First".

    Everyone is better off, students and yourself, if you are able to this in a way that doesn't jeopardize your personal life, or your comic career.

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  13. Anonymous8:04 PM

    http://www.amazon.com/First-Things-Stephen-R-Covey/dp/0671864416

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  14. I took off 7 months after getting really burned out at my job (computer programming.) Now I'm back on the job and enjoying my work since I had that break. Once you start hating your job you need to step back, get some perspective, and consider taking a break.

    I think you've already done the above, so take the break you deserve.

    Do you think your purpose in life is to always be a seduction instructor? If yes, then you need to take a break so you don't burn out on your purpose. If no, you need to take a break to see what your true purpose is. Note that both options involve stopping.

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  15. Dude, Since meeting you I have found new inspiration for my life in the Game. For that I owe you thanks.

    If anyone can deal with it you can.

    See you soon.

    cheers

    Malibu

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  16. I've been in that same situation myself. I mean, heck, I've been doing back-to-back bootcamps for the past year and mostly on my own.

    Now that I'm bringing in coaches to help out, it's definitely helped relieve some of the pressure. But I'm still the one that has to do the lecture/exercises portion as well as lead/coordinate the in-field work.

    It's certainly not an easy thing, but I know I get seriously energized and charged when I see my students doing really well.

    But yeah, taking a vacation away from it all and all the airplane travel is something we all have to do before serious burnout happens. No real easy answer as we all have to find our own way to balance our commitments and workload.

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