Interview With Savoy About Settlement With Mystery

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For those following community politics, we have the big news that the year-and-a-half lawsuit between 1) Mystery Method Corporation, Savoy, Love Systems, and Love Systems’ Instructors and 2) Mystery, Lovedrop, and Matador has settled.

This was recently announced on both the Venusian Arts website and on Savoy’s blog. Despite Savoy’s statement that he wasn’t going to talk about it, I have his cell phone number and am persistent. Eventually he gave in.

SC: Congratulations on settling this case. It must be a relief. Do you feel that you won?

SAVOY: No, there’s no winner. The point of a settlement is that there aren’t winners and losers. Both sides have said that they are happy with the settlement, and we’re moving on.

SC: What can you tell me about the settlement?

SAVOY: Not much. We’ve agreed to keep the terms confidential. What I can say is that monetary damages are being paid to me in return for dismissing my claims for defamation.

SC: Does that make you feel vindicated in a way, after all of the negative publicity you suffered during this?

SAVOY: Yes and no. Obviously, it’s nice, but I decided early on that I wasn’t going to worry about what random people who didn’t know the situation had to say. This isn’t an industry you should be in if you can’t handle criticism. Guys read The Game, which of course is written by Mystery’s best friend, and they feel attached to that character without really thinking about whether there might be some bias going on or that a book written by one guy’s best friend isn’t necessarily a good guide to a complex dispute that began two years later and involved several other people. It’s natural.

The part that does make me happy is being able to clear my name. I had a business career before Love Systems, and I will have a business career after it. It will be nice for people to be able to google my name without this crap.

SC: So how do you feel about Mystery now?

S: We settled, we shook hands, and it’s in the past now. I mean, we’re not rushing off to plan a vacation together, but if I run into any of those guys, I’ll gladly have a beer with them. The more I dug into this, the harder it was to figure what exactly Mystery was doing versus what various people around him were doing and who knew what and who was driving the bus, and now that it’s all settled, I really don’t care anymore. I genuinely wish them all the best. I really do.

SC:Looking back, what would you have done differently?

SAVOY: I’ve been thinking a lot about this, but it’s tough to give a really insightful answer. The “key lessons” from this are things I knew anyway – common sense things that most people would know anyway – but ignored.

SC: Such as..?

SAVOY: OK, fine. Like, first of all, always get any deal written down and signed. No shit, right? Well, but when you’re making plans with friends, your first thought isn’t always “let’s call a lawyer and get this documented”. But it should be. As one of my mentors told me, “a deal that starts with a handshake ends with a gun”. These days, even when I’m making agreements with guys I’ve been working with and friends with for years and trust implicitly, everything still gets written down and signed off on. Even with the best will in the world, sometimes people understand things differently or remember them differently. Writing it all down also forces you into being precise about exactly what you’ve agreed to. I’m the first to admit that I should have insisted on this and that I should have known better.

Another lesson is one that I need to remind myself of every day. The more difficult or sensitive the issue, the closer you want you form of communication to be. In person is better than video chat, video chat is better than the phone, and anything, even a geriatric one-winged carrier pigeon suffering from tuberculosis, is better than email. Never, ever, ever transmit a negative message or discuss a sensitive issue via email. It’s a rule I break all the time, because email is just so convenient and is great for breaking down complex issues, but I really try to discipline myself not to.

And, oh yeah, legal insurance.

SC: Mike Long used to work with Mystery and now he’s been talking you up in his newsletters. Is a Mike Long – Love Systems alliance in the works?

SAVOY: This isn’t a board game, with alliances and enemies. If Mike Long finds value in what I or other Love Systems instructors have to offer, I’m pleased to make it available to him and his community. But it doesn’t change what we’re doing, and I don’t think it changes what he’s doing.

He’s an interesting and very successful guy, and what a lot of people don’t know about him is he has pretty good game himself.

SC: Will you still be publishing Game Over: The Rise and Fall of the Mystery Method?

SAVOY: No. That project is no longer relevant. In a way, it sucks because I put a lot of work into it and had three of the seven beats already written, and parts of it were really funny in a kind of dark and sarcastic sort of way. But it still comes from a place of negativity and I’m glad to be moving on from that. There’s a small amount of stuff in there I can save and use for a different book. I’m not sure exactly what that different book will be – the publisher I was working with is understandably a bit irritated with me at the moment.

SC: So now that the lawsuit is over and the book isn’t going to happen, what do you see as the future direction of Love Systems?

SAVOY: Love Systems is unique for a lot of reasons, most obviously how we’re structured. We don’t follow the guru system, which I think is usually (not always) counter-productive and dangerous. And this by the way has nothing to do with Mystery or the lawsuit; its one of the basic principles of Love Systems. Just because Guru X is good with women does not make him someone you should learn from. I can go to any bar in Hollywood and find guys who are good with women. But can they teach it to others? And will it work for different men, or just for guys who are kind of like the guru?

I’ll give you a couple of examples. I’m pretty big and tall, I naturally have a pretty dominant energy with women, and I have an intuitive feel for female sexuality and sexual triggers. When I’m out meeting women for myself, I use and leverage the hell out of these techniques. But none of this is in Magic Bullets and I don’t teach this stuff at bootcamps – unless I’m working with a guy who has similar attributes to me. The cool thing about Love Systems is that because of our diversity, stuff that works for all of us is virtually guaranteed to work for our students.

SC: [interrupting] What do you mean by diversity?

We have instructors from Sweden to Thailand. We have white instructors, Hispanic instructors, South Asian (Indian subcontinent) instructors, East Asian instructors, and black instructors. We have 5’3 guys and 6’3 guys. We have guys in their early 20s and guys who are almost 40. At least five instructors don’t even have English as a first language. And we’re all into different types of women. But we’re all successful with women, and we all use systems that are based off of Magic Bullets. So when one of us comes up with something and the rest of us try it out and it works, we know we’re onto something that probably relates to universal female psychology or social dynamics and we’re comfortable rolling it out. Of course, at our bootcamps, we take advantage of the opportunity of customizing our methodology for each student’s unique identity. That’s why we bring so many instructors to every bootcamp, and one of the reasons why live training is so important and valuable. But I don’t know whether the guy buying Magic Bullets is an 18-year old high school student or a divorced 55-year old investment banker, so I need to keep it pretty universal. I can’t assume that everyone is just like me. No one cares how Savoy picks up women. People want to pick up women themselves.

But, look, diversity is just one component. We don’t lower our standards one inch to get diversity – it’s just happened that way. We also have an intense focus on teaching. Having great game doesn’t get you in the door as a potential instructor. Having great game and a passion and a knack for teaching does. And then we train the hell out of you so you become an awesome instructor as well as pickup artist.

It’s kind of funny to see guys’ faces when a bootcamp starts, and someone like Mr. M or Cajun or Fader or LBD walks in. It’s like – they’ve heard all about these guys and expect them to godlike chick magnets. But they’re all short and none of them look like a pickup artist. You read about Mr. M picking up a playmate in just a few minutes in the hallway outside a bootcamp, and then this short little Asian dude walks into the room and people go WTF. But it’s also awesome because it helps students realize that there is nothing separating them from being as successful with women as an elite Love Systems lead instructor other than time, practice, and access to training.

Before, I was also going to give the example of Derek Cajun on Keys to the VIP, which I think you’ve written about on your blog. What I thought was awesome about that was that he decided to go on national TV and use the exact same system he teaches students – which is based on Magic Bullets. He didn’t use any of his personal techniques or stuff that is specifically calibrated to him – he just used the generic stuff you can get straight off the Love Systems website. He even used routines straight from the Love Systems Routines Manual. He did this to prove a point – what we teach works, and you don’t need years of study. Cajun was a student at one of our bootcamp’s just a year or so before he went on the show.

SC: Right, so…back to the question about the future direction of Love Systems?

Sorry I’m rambling, I just get so passionate this stuff. Well, something you’re going to see a lot more of in the future is our Game 2.0 initiative. We’ve pretty much mastered “cold approach” – both as practitioners and teachers. Yes, there’s always more to learn, and yes, we’re only really scratching the surface in terms of female psychology, but when you’re consistently going out and bringing home or dating the women you want, how much further do you really need to go? At our last Super Conference, the different instructor teams competed to see how many of their students took hot women home. Fader’s team was over 50%. The last LA bootcamp that I went to, 6 of the 8 students got laid – with hot women. This isn’t hype – this is verifiable information. Our training has gotten that good. Our instructors really are that good and that dedicated.

Game 2.0 is all about how can we leverage our cold approach skillsets. And that’s where you’re seeing all this exciting stuff like Braddock (Donovan: who I’m interviewing within the next two weeks) and Mr. M’s social circle mastery program. Now instead of trying to steal the hot girl off of the guy who come to the club with 6 beautiful women, we teach our students how to BE the guy who has the hot women in his social circle in the first place. You got Soul’s Day Game program, which fuses direct game, day game, and the Magic Bullets approach. You’ve got my relationship management stuff – the DVDs will be out in a couple months – that makes anything from traditional relationships, to multiple relationships, to friends with benefits into a breeze. And there’s lots more to come – some of this stuff isn’t ready to be announced but we can talk about it off the record.

SC: And that’s where we’ll keep it…unless I need to extort cash from you one day!

More Love System updates at their website here.

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There Are 20 Responses So Far. »

  1. Great article.

    I am glad this is finally over and settled and am very excited about focusing on what is important - the development of dating science and helping guys lead better lives.

    This is a great community where there are many great things happening and that, rather than a lawsuit, should be the focus.

  2. This is great news. Now we can focus on teaching workshops, getting girls and kicking @ss.

  3. Nice article

  4. good point about not having sensitive debates in emails/texts.

    also very good point about people that are good with women not necessarily being good teachers, since their ‘game’ may very well rely on personal attributes the student doesn’t have and cannot realistically acquire.

  5. What a load of horse-hockey.

    If I were a plaintiff in a libel suit and the best I could get from the other side was a statement along the lines of, ‘If we made any inaccurate statements, we apologize” I personally would be pretty damn unhappy.

    What kind of retraction is that?

    A victory would be, ‘We stated X, Y, Z. Those statements were false, without foundation, counter to the factual situation, and we retract and apologize for these falsehoods”.

    I’ve been in lawsuits before, (as everyone knows), so I’m not exactly making an uneducated statement here.

    Here is my take on it: BOTH sides ran out of money. Trial was set for October. No one wanted to spend one more penny on lawyers for a trial that could have gone either way, or neither way.

    So they settled because they finally realized as most smart litigants do: USUALLY ONLY THE LAWYERS WIN.

    The real issue is: who gets to keep the Mystery Method domain and the right to the Mystery Method
    Trademark”???

    THAT is where the real $$$$$$$$$$ are in terms of future earning potential from people doing searches for “Mystery” And if Benedict DOES keep it, will he have to put some kind of prominent disclaimer on the site stating that it is NOT associated with Mystery from the VH-1 TV show.

    That’s an important message to avoid deceiving the public who might otherwise be led to believe that Mystery from the show is associated with the site.

    THESE are the real substantive issues. Not some jive-ass retraction that admitted NOTHING and actually left open the possibility that ALL of the statements on the Venusian Arts forum were TRUE.

    Nice try with all the hot-air and smoke-blowing, Nick, but we ain’t buying it.

    Only the lawyers won this…

    RJ
    93/93

  6. While he was with Savoy and “The Mystery Method”, Sinn deceived students into believing that Mystery was still affiliated with the company.

  7. Has anyone noticed that RJ has turned into Ray Gordon?

    Secondly, is there any way to prevent RJ from turning every thread into RJ-against-the-world?

  8. >While he was with Savoy and “The Mystery Method”, Sinn deceived students into believing that Mystery was still affiliated with the company.

    Well that’s on Sinn then, and Mystery would have a claim against Sinn if that were true. Still, that’s a pretty strong accusation - got anything to back it up?

  9. I have to agree with Ross…

    this interview didn’t clear up the one question everyone really has…

    who gets to use the Mystery Method name?

    Because we all know that come the premier of season 2 of the pickup artist… that is the company that will be profiting from it.

  10. >this interview didn’t clear up the one question everyone really has…

    Quoting from the interview:

    SC: What can you tell me about the settlement?
    SAVOY: Not much. We’ve agreed to keep the terms confidential.

  11. RJ, Savoy didn’t even reference the VA apology. He said that damages are being paid for dismissing the defamation suit. That’s it.

    Reading is a wonderful thing

  12. Exactly…

    SC: What can you tell me about the settlement?
    SAVOY: Not much. We’ve agreed to keep the terms confidential.

    i wouldn’t call that clearing things up.

    While I understand keeping the terms confidential…

    So then what I will have to assume is that Love Systems can still use The Mystery Method website?

    Sorry, my curiosity has more to do with my own personal stake (changing links and stuff on my site) than it does with the gossip which i could give a shit about.. or the defemation claims and stuff…

  13. RJ is an expert on pointless lawsuits. What a badge of honor!

  14. Hi Bobby, no offense, but I’m not sure who it is you are criticizing here or why. Donovan didn’t say Savoy “cleared things up” and Savoy said right away that he wasn’t able to talk about the details of the settlement.

    You’re buying into RJ’s frame. It’s like saying an apple is no good because it’s not a hamburger, but no one promised you a hamburger. The interview wasn’t titled:

    “Donovan gets Savoy to reveal all details of a confidential settlement! (includes bonus details if you are a Love Systems or Mystery Method affiliate)”

    (Yes, that’s a cheap shot. I’m saying this all in fun)

  15. Haha that’s funny R for D.

    TheMysteryMethod is switching to Love Systems shortly at least with affiliates.

  16. … and Sinn the reaction-monkey responds by posting an old video making fun of Mystery on his blog. What a coincidence.

  17. Amused, I don’t get it? That’s the second slam against Sinn and I don’t understand either of them.

    Do you have any evidence that Sinn was doing what you accused him of in your first comment?

    What the heck does the second comment have to do with this? I assume Sinn was out of the lawsuit when he left Mystery Method / Love Systems in February. You can’t really blame Love Systems for what Sinn is doing now.

  18. R for D I wasn’t critizing anyone.. I was just expressing my disapoitment at still not getting the answer I had been waiting for a couple months.

    The interview itself was fine… Sounds like Love Systems is up to some good stuff.

  19. QUOTE:
    SC: Mike Long used to work with Mystery and now he’s been talking you up in his newsletters. Is a Mike Long – Love Systems alliance in the works?

    SAVOY: This isn’t a board game, with alliances and enemies.
    –END QUOTE–

    Ha Ha!!

    Cracked me up.

  20. I think there will be more information coming out in the next few weeks, which should clear things up.

    Or at least I hope so, because I don’t really know any more than you guys do.

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