The Truth About Wayne Elise & Charisma Arts: The Sequel

(cue dramatic music)

First of all, to address some of the earlier comments made by other readers, please note that my actual first article begins after the heading and the introductory paragraph that were both written by Donovan, and the intended title of what I originally wrote is “Farewell to Juggler”. My motivation for writing that article was purely emotional: I wanted to examine the feelings I have toward my former co-worker, and express the one that truly matters: my respect to him. I wanted to do that because, having occupied most of my days for a long and transforming period of time, Charisma Arts played tremendously important role in my life. I needed a sort of sentimental purification ritual to be able to let Charisma Arts go, so that I can move on without carrying any unnecessary weight. Hence, “Farewell to Juggler”.

I agree with Jaht, who pointed out that I write mostly about myself. Unfortunately, we’re all human (well, most of us) and therefore our ability to be objective is limited by our individual perception. If I speak on any subject, including the subject so much larger-than-life as Wayne “Juggler” Elise (see the photograph illustrating my original post), I can only speak about it through the distorting lens of my subjective experience. That’s why, technically, what you are reading should be titled “Dimitri Vorontzov expressing his highly subjective opinion about Wayne Elise & Charisma Arts”. Read it at your own risk and filter it through your on experience.

I must say I’m amused that today, almost year into my solo instructorship, I still act as a Charisma Arts spokesman. Isn’t it astonishing how even now I can boost Charisma Arts’ sales with one accurately placed blog post? My very good friend (he is one of my best students, and a current Charisma Arts instructor) called me yesterday and made me notice the ingeniously funny step taken by Juggler’s company. Soon after my article appeared on Seduction Chronicles, some wise person from Charisma Arts management (I’m using “wise” in the sense of “silly”) dumped their shopping cart right on the home page of the company website! Hey, any publicity is good publicity! Then I guess someone even wiser (see above) realized it makes the company look a little desperate for making a buck, so the shopping cart on the front page was replaced with a blog article by one of the new instructors (funny though… I remember writing THAT VERY article well over two years ago. Just kidding. I wrote a different article entirely… but it had a lot of the same words).

Here, this will make it legit. Dear readers, if you’d like to visit Charisma Arts ultra-high-tech shopping cart and purchase Juggler’s best-selling ebook, please follow this link:

http://www.charismaarts.com/how-to-meet-and-connect/

Phew… Okay. I payed my dues to society.

Now, the promised Truth (= my subjective opinion, remember?)

You might find this boring. I wish I could electrify the readers by saying that Charisma Arts is just a cover-up for the extensive international drug trafficking operation run by Dominic “Wayne Elise” Pappalardo and his cynical henchmen, and that all the former “instructors” are currently sleeping with fishes after taking a cement bath – but that wouldn’t be accurate (they were shot in the head.)

Okay, jokes aside. The truth is (I think) that after Neil Strauss had published “The Game” in 2005, the book had generated sudden explosive increase of interest to the dating community. Juggler had contributed a short chapter to “The Game”, in which he poked friendly fun at Neil Strauss, kinda in the same way as I poke fun at Juggler now. With the book on the New York Times bestseller list, suddenly Juggler found himself attacked by more prospective students than he could possibly handle. There were people to teach, and not enough time to teach them. So Juggler raised the prices for his instruction, and hired a few guys to teach the bootcamps.

(What I’m saying is, the market grew very abruptly, and it sent Charisma Arts on the extensive path of business development, meaning that the company almost instantly expanded its sphere of influence and the number of employees, before the owner could actually determine the unique principles for operating his business. You can’t blame Juggler for allowing to let his business get out of hands for a while. When success hit him, the man was a street comedian, not a career banker, for goodness sake. No wonder that in the beginning of is business career Juggler had to grope his way in the fog (insert your on groping-related pun here).

I think Juggler is the kind of guy who easily becomes drawn to people and who is fast to form friendships. So quite naturally when he had working positions to fill, he offered to some of his friends the opportunity to have a cool, fun and unusual job that involves travel, partying and helping other guys. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

The problem is, a good dating instructor is not easy to come by. There are some exceptions, but normally it takes months to train a beginner to get good at dating, and it takes much longer to train a guy how to teach that stuff. Some of the members of the first generation of Charisma Arts crew were great instructors. Others were just random guys who started working for Juggler simply because he liked them. This lead to the generally uneven quality of the overall curriculum. Speaking as one of Charisma Arts former clients: a Charisma Arts weekend bootcamp I took a few years ago SUCKED, big time. I’d like to emphasize that it was NOT taught by Juggler, and that later most of the bootcamps I had the chance to witness were high-class. I certainly hope that the situation has further improved these days.

Another problem is, this is a tough job. Even very talented guys, if they are mainly attracted to the exciting sides of the dating instructor profession, such as travel, partying, meeting interesting people and (let’s face it) getting plenty of action, to say nothing of (let’s face it some more) getting paid big bucks – such instructors are bound to burn out very quickly. So they quit.

Some people don’t burn out, though. Who? Just those guys who develop actual keen concern about their students’ happiness. I don’t want to make it sound pompous (there are too many guys in the community already whose writing sounds like they’re curing cancer or ending the world hunger, or at least running for President, whereas, to boil it down to the basics, what we all actually do is teach horny guys how to get laid) – but frankly, it does take a certain serious degree of genuine care for others to be a dating instructor. The instructors who have that quality, have staying power. Others don’t.

Third problem: I already said that I think Juggler is a man who forms strong friendships quickly. I also think he might be quick to cut off a friend when he suspects disloyalty. Perhaps too quick, but that’s just my opinion. I think Juggler’s personal code of ethics is so extremely high that he expects a lot from other people, so naturally most humans end up disappointing him… and you know how it is among us, professional alpha males: “I find it hard to forgive the follies and vices of others, or their offenses against me. My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever”, and so on (that was a quote from Mr. Darcy, the hero of “Pride and Prejudice”… highly recommended!) I suppose this should explain why, to the best of my knowledge, most of the sacked former Charisma Arts instructors only found out about their expulsion when they arrived to teach a scheduled bootcamp and met a replacement instructor who would refuse to speak to them (I’m almost not exaggerating). I think the “Now Firing!” business policy and the boycott of all the formerly praised instructors were the only two things in my experience of Charisma Arts that hinted on the unusual (possibly alien) form of intelligence behind its facade.

We shouldn’t forget that any moderately developed dating instruction service has two major aspects: teaching methodology and business. The two are interconnected, and they tend to transform overtime. I believe that the last phase of Charisma Arts development required Wayne Elise to intensify his business. This meant to make the “Juggler Method” brand easier to recognize. That’s why from the certain moment the company needed only people who would teach dating exactly the way Juggler wanted them to teach, without any deviation from the “general line”. So all the Trotskyists were purged and all heretics burned, and that’s why these days anyone can see that Charisma Arts staff enjoys the unity of opinion that is quite rare in modern society outside of North Korea.

I think the current (I think I shouldn’t use the word “totalitarian” here) state of Juggler’s company is the typical “opposite extreme”, a recoil from a formerly way-too-liberal business model. I believe it must be a passing stage, and when Charisma Arts finds its center it has a chance to finally become a truly successful enterprise it deserves to be (provided they fire a few more people. Only joking.)

I can relate to Juggler’s titanic (no kidding!) efforts to make his company work, and I understand that trial and error is often the only way to learn the ropes. I am certain that Juggler means well. I think he is motivated by the genuine desire to serve his students to the best of his ability, and that’s what counts. Wisdom comes when we learn to judge people by their intentions, and not by the outcome of their actions. I find Wayne Elise extremely likable. He might not be perfect, but no one ever is (the only known exception: Neil Strauss). Again and again: I feel a lot of respect and gratitude to Wayne Elise for who he is.

Summary: Wayne Elise is a good guy and Charisma Arts is a good company.

Such is my subjective opinion on this matter. I did my best to express it truthfully.

Best,

Dimitri Vorontzov

P.S. I am a bit ashamed of my quip about how the letters in “Wayne Elise” may be rearranged to spell “a senile yew”. I take it back. In fact, these letters can only be rearranged to spell “Alien? We? Yes!”

Read Part 1: The Truth Behind Wayne Elise