Knowing the right answer isn’t enough. You have to DO the right answer. For example, you know that you shouldn’t eat that burger if you’re working on losing weight. But you have feelings of hunger and craving, so you go ahead and eat that hamburger anyway. You let emotion take over rationality, regardless of the fact that you knew what was the right thing to do you still did the opposite. Another example: you text a woman and she doesn’t respond. You KNOW the right answer is to leave it at that and invest your time elsewhere, but instead what you DO is you text her a second, maybe even a third time, trying to illicit a response. You let fear of loss blind you to what you were taught in TRP. You come up with excuses as to why she didn’t respond the first time, justifying in your mind beta behavior. All that time and effort internalizing TRP is thrown by the wayside.

In judo, before you are taught a single throw, the first thing you learn is how to fall. Just like with judo, in TRP the first thing you need to learn is to adhere to the lessons. Otherwise, that knowledge is rendered useless.

Just because it feels good doesn’t mean it’s the right answer. The lessons on TRP are field tested and proven, and a lot of the times implementing these lessons just may not feel right, may not feel comfortable, and may seem to go against your better judgment. But you have to have trust in the process, and embrace the fact that TRP is only of value if you adhere to it.

Say you go to the bar. You’ve read in TRP to be polarizing. But when you approach that first woman, you panic and instead of riling up her emotions, you stick to what is comfortable and feels safe: the mundane and basic interview questions. You then predictably fail with that interaction. So even though you knew the right course of action, you blew it because you went back to the patterns of behavior that you’re used to in the past regardless of the fact that they are defunct.

You may read something on TRP that is endorsed by the community and that piece of knowledge you may internalize. But realize that when the pressure is on and when you are in the heat of the moment with only seconds to decide on the right course of action, you emotions, fears, and insecurities will manifest themselves in vicious ways that will hinder your efforts to apply said TRP knowledge.

I’ve seen it all the time: men come up to me asking for advice, I give it to them, they leave enlightened, only to revert back to their old habits when it comes time to act. Unfortunately it’s hard to change old habits and patterns of behavior. What’s required is a conscious effort and all-out attack on your old self in order to implement these new and functional TRP lessons.

Knowing what you should do is only meaningful if you follow through with it. The biggest obstacle I see in men who don’t follow through with advice given to them is a lack of trust. Trying out new advice is like doing a trust fall: at first it’s scary because of its novelty, but if you follow through you will be “caught” so to speak and the outcomes will be in your favor.

Self-discipline and the ability to take risks are pivotal before you try to read up on any lesson on TRP. Especially in the beginning, every fiber in your body will try to revert to what is comfortable instead of what you know is rational. Just like the first example and the choice of whether or not to eat that burger because you’re on a diet, you have to put up a fight with your cravings and your inner self in order to perform the right action. This is no different when it comes to applying TRP dogma.

I remember one of my first matches in judo, I was nervous as fuck. Unlucky in the seeding, my first fight was with a brown belt. Fortunately, I trained under one of the best coaches in the country. When it was time for our match, I looked at my judo coach, imploring him for advice. Now this was a lopsided match against my favor, and in these type of situations most coaches would say to go out there and just have fun. But my coach, who had supreme confidence in me, took two looks sizing up my opponent, then looked me in the eye and told me “o soto gari”, which is a throw I practiced. On the mat, I was scared for my life. When the referee threw up his hand and the match started, I tensed up, every fiber in my body telling me to be on the defensive and not let my opponent throw me. But fortunately I had such faith in my coach I grabbed onto my opponent’s gi, closed my eyes, and threw him with all my might. I won that match only because I not only knew the right answer, I was able to implement it. In fact I became one of my coach’s favorite students because I had the uncanny ability of doing everything he told me to do, something that other fighters on my team struggled with.

One of my friends flatout said to my face once: “dude I keep telling you what to do but if you’re going to keep reverting back to what’s comfortable I’m not going to waste my time giving you advice.” And that’s why it’s so inherently important to have the ability to follow through with the TRP lessons, regardless of how many lessons you internalize.

Reading up on TRP isn’t the first step, getting over your fears is the first step. Being able to lose a woman is the first step. Being able to act with confidence and trust in the process is the first step. For example, when I was first starting out with the night scene, my friend would tell me to go over and high five then twirl that attractive woman I was eyeing. Taking a minute to fight back my fears, I’d finally walk over to her, giving her a stiff high five and a shaky twirl. She would look at me disgusted and annoyed, to which I would excuse myself and scurry back to my friend. Immediately he would tell me it didn’t work because I didn’t have confidence in my actions. I was too afraid she would reject me the whole time. I half-hearted the lesson he gave me to run. Had I done what’s right and went over to her with 100% assurance my high five and twirl would work out, I’d have a much better outcome.

It’s often complained on TRP that posts are now just “rehashed lessons”. What I believe is truly the issue is that there is a dissonance between what the community is telling readers to do and what the readers actually do. It doesn’t matter if a lesson was already presented on TRP before, what matters is if that lesson is being implemented by the greater community. If 100 men read this post and only 10 act on it, then I was a success for 10 men, not 100. The other 90 have not improved their situation one bit, regardless of their newfound knowledge.

Conclusion: Don’t just take advice from TRP, go out and implement it. In fact, if you read a piece of advice that TRP overwhelmingly endorses, then I would recommend to implement it with no hesitations. For we are defined not by what we know but by how we act. Knowledge without implementation is useless. Only by being able to take risks and overpower your emotions in order to do the lessons of TRP will you be able to succeed.