The Arena - Issue #001

Welcome to the first issue of The Arena Newsletter 🤝

I’ll be sending this out periodically to start — I’m thinking maybe once or twice a month.

I personally hate spam in my e-mail, so I’ll only send it out when I have something on my mind rather than forcing anything.

So let’s get into it…

Dating

Recently I was reading a thread on Reddit where a guy was asking if trying dating apps was worth it or not.

Reading through the discussion brought to mind how there are clearly two groups of men in the dating world right now:

Group #1 - Those that spend the majority of their time looking up studies, data, and anecdotes to reinforce why they aren’t able to make online dating (or any type of dating) work.

These are the guys that are essentially trying to rationalize their failure.

“I haven’t succeeded because study X shows that the odds are against me, and it’s not worth anyone else trying unless you’re a 10/10 gigachad”

Group #2 - Those that turn it into a game and want to figure out how to succeed. They spend time researching how to get the best photos, prompts, text game etc.

They view it as a game that can be conquered through strategy and effort.

They don’t view any dating avenue as an immovable object that is impossible to overcome.

Here’s the thing — guys that hate dating apps will usually say approaching in real life is superior, but I always find these claims a bit weird.

Don’t get me wrong, there are clearly advantages to approaching in person — you get to show more of the attributes that women are attracted to such as your charisma, confidence, body language, and the way you carry yourself.

However, you’re STILL at the mercy of being judged off a quick glance just like with online dating. Women will still judge you based off your presentation.

It’s not like it’s an easier game. It’s just a different game, and it is equally cutthroat in many ways.

Dating is similar to any venture in life, and I often compare it to business:

It rewards those that put in the effort, and those that are persistent in the face of rejection and failure.

Some of the most attractive women I’ve ever dated have come from dating apps, but it took persistence to weed through the rest of the pack to get to them.

It wasn’t something that happened over night or with the click of a button.

It took trial and error with photos, prompts, text game, and simply being at the right place at the right time.

Many times the attractive women are only on there for a short amount of time because they get bombarded with weirdos messaging them and they leave.

If you happen to be there during that time period and you have good presentation, you can get with women you’d rarely come across in every day life.

Never limit your options. Use all of the tools you have at your disposal and work to find the strategy that gets you the results while everyone else gives up.

Everything can be leveraged for your gain with the right approach.

What others say simply doesn’t matter.

Fashion

Black Friday sales are coming up this week which is one of the best times of the year to invest in your wardrobe.

If I come across any good sales I’ll send out an additional e-mail this week with links.

In the meantime, I’m grinding away to get the Men’s Fashion 101 course finished. There’s going to be a lot of content in there.

In the meantime, I dropped my Men’s Fashion 101 video on How to dress for Fall a couple of weeks ago:

Fitness

My motivation in the gym has been so-so the last few months.

I’ve mainly been focused on work and growing the YouTube channel, so my energy has primarily gone into those two things.

I always prefer to take the approach of focusing on 1 or 2 things at most to work on improving, because energy and focus levels are finite.

You can’t put maximum effort into everything at once, so some things have to go into maintenance mode while you bring something else up.

So with that said, I’ve been running a bit of an experiment.

I’ve been giving myself a time limit of 30 minutes in the gym to see if its possible to maintain my physique & strength, or even gain.

The results have actually been surprising.

My weight is a few pounds heavier than my normal weight I hang around, and I haven’t gained any extra fat — at least not noticeably, lol.

I’ve also gotten stronger and recently set a PR on Romanian Deadlifts (455lbs for 5 reps).

The key has been to increase the intensity. 

The less time you have to train, the more you have to push things in terms of intensity and dial in your focus.

Most of my sets are heavy, and done until to failure or maybe a rep short of failure.

This style of training can be brutal, but highly effective, especially when you’re in a time crunch.

If you’re interested in hearing me talk more about this, let me know.

A quote that’s been on my mind

"When every idea is acceptable to you, it leads to destruction in the end.

When everything could be true, or you can’t decide who you want to be, it will lead you down a path you don’t want to go.

The best path for your life is incredibly simple.

It’s founded on a single idea that makes it crystal clear what’s on the path, and what’s a distraction from the path.

Staying on the path is the way to receive the benefits of taking action on an idea.

Being distracted, getting on different paths all the time, and aimlessly wandering in directions that you don’t understand or know what results it will generate, will cause you to stumble and fall and ultimately destroy your life.

Decide what results you truly want in your life. Think in decades, not days. What consistent actions lead to those results? What path leads to that end?"

by Jordan O’Connor '

Your feedback

I want to hear from you.

Let me know what type of content you want to see more of, and what specific problems you are facing right now.

Are there any problems you are facing where there doesn’t seem to be good content or answers for? Reply to this e-mail and let me know.

Until next time,

Danny