Survey Results

Wow. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I got a ton of awesome feedback from you guys. Some people literally wrote a page or two.

So first of all… thanks a ton. I read every single reply (over one hundred total) and got a ton of good info.

I’ll share some of the insights provided.

First of all… I am not very popular with the ladies. Only TEN percent of the readers who responded were girls. I would have guessed somewhere between 30-40%, so I was way off.

(interestingly, the only people who told me they like the old design better were girls…)

Pretty much everyone who responded has been reading for months or years and reads every post. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that dedicated readers are more likely to fill out a survey, though.

I guess my career as a pollster may not be about to take off.

There were two big things people criticized:

I preach about consistency, but haven’t been super consistent.

A lot of people specifically brought up Best in the Land, and a few people even said it was their favorite site of mine.

But… as people pointed out, it has fallen by the wayside and I haven’t been updating it.

The reason I stopped was because no one really commented there and readership wasn’t very high. My writing commitments are pretty high now (especially considering I do all this for fun and not for profit), so I dropped it to spend time elsewhere.

That may change in the future.

I’m also aware that I haven’t been perfect about updating this twice a week. There are some somewhat valid reasons for that, but now I am writing several articles in advance (on all sites) to safeguard against anything coming up in the future.

If I fall off with consistency in the future, send me an e-mail and bug me and I’ll write one when I get the e-mail, guaranteed.

I’m too preachy sometimes

This is one I wrestle with a bit. I agree with everyone who said this, including those who said that I act like think I’m better than everyone else. What’s particularly interesting is that four or five people used the word “preachy”.

Some of my friends told me that I don’t come off this way in real life, even though I’m at least as opinionated, stubborn, and evangelical about the stuff I do.

One of my big goals in life is to be the same person to everyone. Some people are huge jerks online, but really nice in real life. Others are the other way around. I want to be the same in every setting with any person from friend to stranger, celebrity to janitor.

But I’m not. I think in real life I’m a lot warmer, friendlier, and a bit more empathetic (although no one has ever called me that…).

When I take the attitude of “hey look at this great thing I’m doing”, it’s not to separate me from other people, but rather to show other people something great that they could try too. Maybe that doesn’t always come through.

At the same time, I’m arrogant by nature (how many times does it say Tynan on this page?). I don’t think I have the most potential or that I’m the best at any single skill. I know people who are better than me at pretty much everything I do, including things I pride myself on being good at.

But I DO think that I make better decisions than pretty much everyone else, and that snobbery will probably continue to come through to some extent.

That’s probably enough on that topic. Since people took a lot of time to help me with my survey I’m trying to address the good and the bad of each one and share my thought processes.

Bottom line – I’m going to be aware of this and proofread posts while thinking “is this who I really am in real life?”

Stories vs. Self Improvement

Number one – I’m done saying “personal development”. How is that phrase any better than “self improvement”. What’s development? It’s not necessarily good by definition. Developing a crack habit is development. So F the stigma of new age seminars, I’m going back to “self improvement”.

Or maybe I’ll make up my own word like “lifestyle design” and write a book about it.

Anyway… people definitely weighed in on this issue. I just went through all of the comments again and tallied the amount of people who had strong opinions one way or another.

13 people want me to focus on self improvement stuff

12 people want me to focus on stories

This ties in with other people saying that I should focus on one thing. Good point, because right now it’s a bit like reading two blogs stuck in one (don’t worry, I’m not making any more blogs).

A particularly illustrative comment:

“I’m not even really sure what your blog is centered around, except you :)”

At the end of the day it is just a blog about me and my life, half written to entertain others and half to keep a personal record of what I’m doing and thinking.

More Pictures

Everyone wants more pictures, videos, podcasts, and personal home visits where I dramatically reenact their favorite stories.

I’ll see what I can do. I like pictures too, and videos are a good idea.

Maybe I’ll just walk around outside with my phone in front of me videoing myself.

Archives

The archives are a problem. Nothing is ordered by category and things are hard to find. I will fix that.

PUA Stuff

A bunch of people ask why I never post pickup stuff. This is probably because a good number of pickup sites link to me, so that’s where some of you come from (and why you’re all dudes).

There are a few reasons I don’t post field reports and such.

1. I’m not really in the field anymore. Other than for karaoke, I just don’t go to clubs. Girls are pretty much the last thing on my mind these days. Umm… except for the 10% who read my site…

2. I want communication with girls I’m with to be direct, not for her to read about it online. I’ve been tempted before to write about interesting relationship things, but each time I felt like it could be seen (and maybe even WAS subconsciously) as an “easy way out” for communicating.

I don’t know if I’ve explained that well

If you are here because you’re interested in pickup stuff, I have a whole book / audio / online course at www.makeherchaseyou.com.

If you go there and sign up for the newsletter you’ll get my weekly article about pickup, written the same way I write these articles.

In conclusion

How do you like these bold things? I like them and will start using them more.

There was a ton of other stuff I thought was useful and will implement… these are just some of the bigger things that many people commented on.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“Please don’t worry about subscribers too much…pretty soon you’ll start doing bullet lists and annoying titles and it’ll be like every other blog.”

Not to worry. I’ll throw the occasional one in for the digg crowd (like the 8 things you don’t have to do), but I’ll stick with what I do best.

“Be more insane in your real life.”

Is that serious? Man… I do the best I can.

“I have this site bookmarked on every computer I use so I don’t miss anything. Your writing has improved so much since the beginning. I’ve told a lot of people about the site so I hope they are all reading too.”

Love you, mom! Just kidding… she hates my site because of these two posts. She actually refused to send my front page newspaper article to my grandmother (who scrapbooks everything) because it had the address to my site at the bottom!

I’m really glad this person said my writing has improved, though, because I wonder if maybe it’s gotten worse.

“Tell us what the bloody hell Conversion Doubler is in English. I was expecting to understand by now.”

Haha… if you don’t know than it’s probably not something that will be very interesting to you.

“Give me money, for free.”

Ok. Send me your paypal info and tell me what you wrote in the other box.