Ep. 147 - Neil Strauss: The Truth About Relationships

You can’t make everyone happy. Really, you can’t make anyone happy. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can let go of control, shame, or whatever your parents did to you, and start having sex. Or happiness. Whatever you're searching for. I’ll explain. My guest today, a seven-time New York Times best-selling author, Neil Strauss, has written books on Motley Crue, Marilyn Manson, and pornstar Jenna Jameson, before exploring the pickup artist scene. Sex was all around him. He was immersed in the seduction community, but Neil couldn't find love himself. No woman would kiss him. He grew up a loser, and couldn’t get a girlfriend for most of his life. Now he’s happily married. But between marriage and being a loser, he had a lot of “pleasure fantasy experiences.” Meaning, he learned how to pick up women and started having crazy sex orgies. One after another. And then he just stopped, and the sex parties ended. I wanted to know why. What made him decide he couldn’t handle it anymore? But I’ll get back to this. In his first book, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, Neil gives you easy tools you can use to have confidence. He teaches you how to feel like you're in control of a social situation. Neil was so busy having sex, he didn’t have time to get back to his normal life. Personally, I don’t think I’d like that. I would just constantly be jealous or insecure, to be honest. But back to happiness. Which I don’t even like to talk about really… We put too much pressure on ourselves to be happy. You can’t be happy all the time. And when you are happy, it should be special. But Neil had a good friend to help him refocus. “You need someone in your life who can reflect yourself back to you so you can see yourself a little bit,” he says. His producer and close friend, Rick Rubin, said, “Look, you got everything you wanted in The Game. Why are you still not happy?” That’s when Neil started looking for the truth. In his book, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships, Neil shows you how he gave up control. The book is about beliefs. ”It’s so hard to recognize your beliefs, let alone change them, because you’re living with yourself.” But behaviors are easier to change. That’s what he teaches you in this episode. You’ll learn how to feel healthier emotionally. When your personal life is together, you’re much more capable of achieving bigger things, accumulating wealth, and feeling less stressed and worried. Neil says, “There’s always a reason for what you’re doing, and if you don’t know the reason, then maybe you’re living an unconscious life.” And if you’re just curious about the sex, then there’s something here for you, too. ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air! ------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com ------------ Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to “The James Altucher Show” wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsiHeart RadioSpotify Follow me on social media:YouTubeTwitterFacebookLinkedIn