How to Read Women, Know What to Say, and Get Her Asking YOU Out: Hayley Quinn’s Secrets to Attraction

The fact I would say to anybody who's having that dialogue with themselves,

is it creepy? Am I going to be creepy? How do I not overstep boundaries?

The fact you're thinking in those terms, I think inherently means you're not the creepy guy.

You're so unlikely to be that guy.

In fact, you're probably so far over in the other direction that you're not communicating intentions

and women just aren't seeing you. And that is a big shame.
Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach Conal Barrett.
I am here to help you learn to flirt, gain self-confidence and get a great girlfriend all by being authentic. No sketchy, toxic pickup artist moves needed.
And today I have a really special guest who's going to help you meet your future girlfriend. My guest today is Haley Quinn.
Haley is the leading UK dating coach, and she's a real superstar in this world of dating coaches. Haley coaches both men and women, and she has transformed countless lives with her approach to finding love.
She's the founder of HaleyQuinn.com. That's H-A-Y-L-E-Y-Q-U-I-N-N.com.
She's got masterclasses. She's got coaching.
She's got virtual coaching. It's all there on her website.
And she's also written a really great book called Do This, Not That Dating, which has 75 plus tips for difficult dating situations.

And that's something you should definitely check out.

One last thing, her TED Talk has gotten over 3 million views.

That's 3 million more views than my non-existent TED Talk.

So get ready for an action-packed episode with lots of insight from a true shining light in this world.

Oh, wow, we're almost out of time, Hayley. But thank you for being here.
That was awesome. Thank you for the long introduction.
I enjoyed my 30 seconds of flattery there. Now I want to crack on and get the good work done.
Let's do a two-part episode. The first one is your introduction.
The second episode is just advice. Anyway, so I was reading your book yesterday.
Actually, I was listening to it. I think I've forgotten how to read because all I do are listen to audio books and podcasts, but I was listening to your book, do this, do this, not that dating.
And I was really struck by something. So I'm going to read a quote to you from your book.
You wrote, quote, rejection isn't a reflection of your worth, but a redirection towards someone who's a better match.

And then a quote a few sentences later said reads just because the front cover of the book isn't exactly what a person wants in terms of them meeting you, seeing you.

That doesn't mean the content of the book is bad. Can you talk about how men can change the way they look at quote unquote rejection? Well, yeah, it's men, but it's also everybody because I think rejection is a fundamental part of everyday life.
It can feel like an emotionally sucky part of everyday life, but it is life. And actually, if we can accept rejection as something that we will all face particularly those of us or those people out there who strive to do things differently you know if you strive to put yourself out there and be compelling and to meet women particularly meeting women in real life that is quite confrontational but through that confrontation I think there's so much scope for great personal development, great learning, great confidence building.
And I just would say as well to acknowledge the guys who are out there fighting the good fight doing that right now. That's a brave and courageous thing that you're doing.
And by facing up to rejection and trying to find new strategies of how to think about it, you place yourself in this remarkably better position to obtain success and get the things that you want out of life. So you mentioned meeting, you mentioned meeting people in real life.
Uh-huh. That's my favorite topic.
I love, I do minimal. I, and I still, I don't know if you know this, but to this day or for a really long time now, like over 15 years, I do real world dating boot camps.
I still coach that. I'm on the front lines.
So with men and women, we're taking them out there to meet people in the real world. There's no workshops.
There's no notepads. We are doing it.
and because of that I obviously I'm completely biased but I see it not only as the best way

to meet people but also just a fantastic form of personal development. Let me play devil's advocate.
Okay. I'm going to play the part of the guy listening to this podcast.
He's a little bit shy. He's a nice guy.
He's a true gentleman. He does not want to creep women out and And he's going to say, come on, you guys, everybody's on the apps.
Women don't want somebody to come up and hit on them and be creepy. What do you say to that guy? I say, it's not, it's not where it's how, how that's important.
You can be creepy on an app and you can be creepy in real life, but you, and I think the fact I would say to anybody who's having that dialogue with themselves, is it creepy? Am I going to be creepy? How do I not overstep boundaries? The fact you're thinking in those terms, I think inherently means you're not the creepy guy. You're so unlikely to be that guy.
In fact, you're probably so far over in the other direction that you're not communicating intentions and women just aren't seeing you and that is a big shame because I work with women too and women are often convinced there's no good guys out there they've just run out they missed the sale they're gone and in fact I see that there's tons of amazing guys every day but there's that communication gap where because they don't want to be the creepy guy, they don't want to press on boundaries, that they're simply not communicating with women in a way that is recognizable to women for a whole bunch of bad social reasons as being romantic. And therefore they're not being discovered and there's less romance all around for everybody.
Well, you know, who doesn't worry about off as creepy? Actual creeps. Right.
Actual creeps don't give a damn. So I tell my clients, I say, by the way, the fact that you're nervous that you're in your head, that you don't want to quote creep women out, that's a sign that you're a healthy, normal person.
It's a sign that you care and have empathy for people. So that's a good thing.
But we can overlearn that lesson. We can take the whole, we can take the whole bottle of be nice and don't creep women out instead of just a pill.
Don't you think? Okay. So you're a woman obviously, and I know you're married now, but you've been on the front lines both as a coach and once upon a time as a single woman, actually let's do this.
Let's, let's go into some of that frontline coaching that you still do in person, which I love that you're still out there. Uh, do you have any fun, any fun, uh, wins, success stories, moments, clients who you saw crush it when you thought you weren't sure it was going to happen with something great happened? Well, I think when I do real world coaching and you do a practical bootcamp, you're never sure what's going to happen.
That's part of the wonder of meeting people in real life. And that's the personal development.
That's why myself, I always coach on the events. I wouldn't personally feel comfortable with saying, hey, come take my program.
And then I'm not even there. And I've outsourced it to a bunch of people.
I take great pride in the coaching, the work that me and my team do um and I love the the transformation I think there's nothing like it you can start with and it's just sometimes for guys it's as simple as just giving them permission that they are allowed to do something and inhabit a certain part of their personality could be really really transformational so to think about one for one of the last sessions I had a lovely guy he was actually from the north of England we have guys from all over the world but he was a he was a Geordie if you guys in the states know what that is he was 49 years old and he really wanted to go out there and meet women in real life and actually find someone.

And he was terribly shy, was walking down the street in Soho, our Soho in London, not too different to NYC Soho. And he saw a woman who was sat by herself, drinking a glass of wine and eating a plate of oysters.
Now, the dating coach in me saw this and I thought, that is an unusual, not typical thing for someone to be doing. He was very able to think on his feet.
He walked over to her and he said, and I think he cracked again. These were his own words.
He made a joke about how he preferred Chinese food. He earned up, sat down next to her.
They ended up trying an oyster oyster they were there for like i i had he was there for over an hour swap numbers started going on dates with this woman so it's like it's a magical moment of serendipity and trusting yourself and also just choosing to notice things i think people communicate who they are all the time i think people actually communicate that in some ways that they'd like to be spoken to. And when you can tap into that, and when you see reciprocation from the woman, it creates these kind of magical meet cute moments.
And, you know, whether it turns into a relationship or not, I think it can feel incredibly confidence building, incredibly fun for both people. You know what? It can even, even if you get the, the quote unquote nightmare scenario where it turns out she's got a boyfriend or something, you could, it can still be an amazing moment.
It can still be a great interaction. So I think there's, I cannot encourage men enough, particularly if they feel a little bit slammed on the dating apps, which I think for men are a harder grift than they are for women to be able to build themselves up to the point about going out there and meeting women in person.
That's a great story. I love how he noticed that unusual thing that stood out, or maybe you noticed it and pointed it out to him.
I give my clients, I don't like to tell men what to say or have them plan it because you don't want to, I don't like a scripted, a scripted opening line. I don't want it to sound

too forced, but I let them know, Hey, if you notice something unusual, like a woman eating

oysters by herself, that's something you can absolutely use as a way in, in a very genuine,

organic, or as you said, serendipitous way, which I love.

And also I'd like to add to that. Totally agree.
I think observations, when you find them are great. Sometimes you don't get the observation.
What you get is an intuitive feeling of, I just want to go and talk to this person. And if that's what comes up for you, that's the truth.
Lead with that. That's the authentic thing.
So I think as well for guys learning how to meet women in real life, continually kind of lowering this threshold and getting away from this idea of like a pitch perfect performance and recognizing actually they are enough. And actually if they just send the invitation, they create the opportunity.
If the woman is in the reciprocal space that she also needs to be into to make this magic happen, then things can happen and what a great story that they would have if they became a couple yeah what a great way every time they would meet somebody in the future they're going to hear oh how did you two meet and a woman like that gets to say oh he just came up to me i was eating oysters and having some wine and next thing i knew we were clicking and connecting. Whereas if he's the 800th guy who swiped right on her on Tinder, she's not even going to see his profile.
Yeah. And I, and I think that's kind of a, obviously happy relationships do come out of dating apps and I don't want to completely naysay them because I think it's good to be open-minded to all options.
However, I think that's an inherent problem kind of baked into the DNA of of an app is you meet on an app and for women serendipity romance bold moves like so much of this is how women view romance and an app is inherently unromantic so i feel that but it can take quite a lot for both people to show up to a dating app date in like the optimum frame of mind for something magical to happen. Whilst I think in real life, you overcome a lot of those initial hurdles.
Yeah, that's very well said. And you said something else that I my girlfriend echoed to me when I first met her, how sometimes a woman will make herself a bit more approachable in in ways great and small.
Like Like my girlfriend Jess said to me, she came out with me on one of my in-person programs when I first met her. That's how I knew she was the one.
She starts ordering my clients around, like, get over there. She wants to talk to you.
And I'm like, oh, my God, she's the one for me. But anyway, she said that when she would go out with her girlfriends in her single days they were in a

group but she would literally separate herself from that herd and make it easier for a guy to come over because she knows that it can be intimidating to see a group of five or six women together so yeah women sometimes will actually try to make it easier for you sometimes and i would say jess certainly seems to have her wits about her in terms of uh how to meet a guy which is probably why she's ended up as being your girlfriend.

Look, some women are smart and they're tapped into this. But to put this to men as well, I think part of what makes this so difficult, and I know this working with women as well, is just how a man may not intuitively understand how do I start a conversation? How do I break the ice and connect with this woman? lots of women also do not intuitively understand how do I start a conversation how do I break the ice and connect with this woman lots of women also do not intuitively understand how to send the right signals to men so I work with women who would love to meet men they actually would especially in real life they desire to get off the apps and meet men but they're like I feel I don't know what signals to send am I coming off as desperate I don't want the world to know I'm single.
What if someone talks to me and I don't like them? There's like this whole pile on of reasons which also inhibit women from interacting really freely. So, yes, I would say some socially savvy and confident women will understand.
Look, if I just give great space by myself, I'm not going to come and say hello to you, but I'll give you a clear opportunity. I'll give you a clear shot to say hello to me.
Many, many other women won't, but if approached in the, in, in, I'm not going to say the right way, because there isn't a right way, a good enough way that they will be receptive to making that connection. Right.
Good enough is good enough. Just do it just do it absolutely just do it I remember early in my journey I approached a woman at Whole Foods in the daytime maybe we can talk about daytime approaching uh even more because I feel like so many men say okay I'm at a bar I'm at a club it's okay I can find the liquid courage or the social permission I think in in the daytime, it gets harder for a lot of men.
And I remember early on, I approached a woman at Whole Foods when I was first learning all these things in the late double zeros. And I got her number.
Her name's Ashley. We're standing in the cereal aisle.
It was fantastic. And she could tell how nervous I was.
And I even said something like, thank you for being so friendly and nice. And she said something to me and I felt like she was talking to all men.
She looked at me and said, it's okay. You can come up to us.
We like it. Do you still, that was a long time ago.
That was about 15 years ago. In 2025 now in this dating app world, do you think women still feel that way generally? I think I can't speak on behalf of all women.
I would say enough women are interested in meeting men in real life. You're right.
The daytime presents, I would say the negatives of that are there's no context. So, you know, if you're at a bar or a singles event, there is context.
You will probably find it for, I would say for guys that are really just starting out on this, that could be a good way to build confidence. The benefit of meeting people in the daytime is they're sober.
I think that's great. We do all our coaching sober.
We, I think in the daytime we do every, I think it's one-to-one. So for the guys that are more introverted, don't like crowds, don't love loud music volumes, there's some really good wins there.
It was a little while ago now, but I also met my husband at the gym, which I think is another one of those environments where you perhaps think, I'm not allowed to, am I allowed to do that? Is that just really immediately in the creepy bracket? So I would say learning to meet women in in whole foods it's not the easiest yards for someone who's a complete beginner without coaching or a community or some some kind of support to go alongside it is it possible yes can it be amazing absolutely and i would think about how you can do that as part of i guess a, a really well-balanced dating strategy. And it also depends, I guess, on your personality and where you're at in your journey to do things.
So I would say if you're beginning, don't wedge yourself to any particular idea about how you're going to meet women. Just come back to this very simple idea of, look, I'm going to take action.
I'm going to present myself and I'm going to do that across the board. Fantastic.
You mentioned how you and your husband met and I was looking at your website and there seems to be some controversy about who talked to whom first. We'll get him on a separate episode.
What's your story about how you met your now husband at the gym? I'm going to put myself in the savvy woman bucket there. And I like, I noticed him noticing me.
I wouldn't say he was like my 100% my normal type. I but I was kind of in a in a good frame of mind around dating.
And I was like, I'll be open minded. I walked out of the gym slowly.
We also had a bit of serendipity. We got locked.
We were both late for gym class. And we were locked out of this kind of gym class at the same time.
We were both there banging on the door at the same time, which gave us an opportunity to get started. What I really loved about, there's a lot of things I loved about how he connected with me.
One of them was when we'd finished that gym session, I came out and I

said, Oh, you know, I really feel like something fruity. And he said, there was a fruit shop down the road.
Let's go. And he took charge.
He chose me a few flat peaches, which I'd never tried before. And he just bought me a bag of peaches, which was such like a simple gesture.
But I really really really really liked it and I think from that

moment he was super clear always was being really forthcoming we lived in opposite directions he would always say look I'll walk you back from the gym and I'd be like no no it's out of your way he'd say look it's 10 minutes extra to be in your company I'm happy to do it and he was just I think compared other guys, he just showed up for me in a way that was so solid, so clear, so kind, um, and self-assured. It was just, he was, uh, he, he definitely became the one.
Well, my interpretation from a coaching perspective, from your story anyway, is the less, the takeaway for me would be he put himself in a place at the gym where he was just going about his life, working on himself, being fit. Great.
And a situation arose where he was talking to a woman he clearly was interested in and attracted to. And then it wasn't about fancy, cool, amazing things he said that I know of.
He just started chatting with you. And then he took that chance.
He said, Hey, let's go, let's go get some fruit together. Um, that's my takeaway.
Any lessons that you glean for the listener from what your husband, your now husband did, right? Yeah. I think, as I said, you know, taking, taking the chance is the best in terms of like big levers and little levers that is the big lever take the action

there's like a lot of other little tiny ones like ah maybe you could say that a bit differently or

just be aware of that on your messages the big lever is taking action if you do that especially

in person you are like light years ahead in terms of how you're positioning yourself as a guy um

i also really enjoyed that there was uh that i guess from a guy's perspective as well he just took a little step forwards and I was okay to go along with that next step. Didn't mean we were always perfectly aligned in terms of like where and how we wanted our relationship to go but I was open to it and I think for men out there as well to the world of dating, knowing yes, there's things that you can do to show up differently as a man, but women have a role to play in this too, you know? And she also has things she needs to bring to the table to make that magic happen and to make that magic work.
So you can only do your bit and then you have to, you can only open that door and then she has to walk through it. Like the song says, it takes two, baby.
It takes two. I love the idea of big levers and little levers.
I love that. I think you're right.
Taking a risk, taking a chance is a gigantic lever. Being authentic, being you're putting that vulnerable real self out there.
That's a massive lever. I think one of the mistakes that men make, at least with approaching, is the little lever of what do I say? What's the right line? I think a lot of men take that little, what I think is a smaller lever, and turn it into something that's a big lever.
But I think what to say is a small lever. Most of the women I dated from approaching, they don't remember what I said to them.
They just liked my general vibe. I think that's a, you know, that quote, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Yeah. So I think if you sweat it, and I think a lot of that, think about how datey advice is given.
It's like, oh, this is the perfect line. It weighs in heavily on perfection or this idea of performance.
Or there's this magic stuff that women love to hear. And in fact, if you allow, as you just said, if you allow that to build up to the point it actually inhibits you from taking action because you're thinking about all the other stuff you have to do.
Instead, you have to be very, very step by step, very, very simple in terms of how you teach it. That's going to be way more effective.
I would say to worry about what to say or thinking about how to, I don't know, notice a woman is eating a plate of oysters. Do that when you're already comfortably regularly meeting women in person.
Maybe reflect and think about how you could refine that. At the start, just act.
And you know what? You may never need to refine.

There are many men who have never done an ounce

of dating coaching throughout our history as a species

who have done this before you.

So you also do not need to be,

no one needs to be Casanova,

no one needs to be Serrano de Bergerac.

You need to take a chance.

You need to present yourself to a woman.

And that might, is in fact, in an overall likelihood enough. Fantastic.
You struggle with dating, right? Sure. You have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt.
The apps don't work for you. And sometimes women put you in the friend zone.
It's frustrating. Hey, I struggled with dating too.
As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone, I owned real estate there. But I escaped.
Using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my best-selling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't, and Radical Authenticity is Why Psychology Today called me the best dating coach in America.
And now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend. So go to datingtransformation.com and book a free call with me.
On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend, and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity. No creepy pickup tricks needed.
So go to datingtransformation.com, book a free call today, and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend. One or two more sort of practical dating questions, then I want to get a little bit deeper about something you said on your TED Talk.
But before we get to that, I want to ask you this. I can't ask a woman dating expert, I can't let you come on my podcast without asking you about the woman's perspective.
And one of the most common questions I get from men and listeners of the pod is, how do you read women on a date? How do I read them? How can I tell if she likes me? How do I read and figure out the situation? Maybe let's pivot away from approaching for a second and go to say the first date or that first one-on-one conversation. Any thoughts on do's and don'ts or what, what you tell your male clients about how to read women? Okay.
You know, I'm going to say something that's maybe a bit controversial. I don't think you should even try.
I think reading other people who you don't know very well is really difficult. I think you can look for very obvious indicators.
Is she happy to spend time with you? Does she say yes to the date? Does she spend a good amount of a decent amount of time with you on that date? Does she ask you questions about yourself like there's some basic stuff in there in terms of her contribution but I wouldn't frame it in terms of signs that she likes me because I think that can actually often be quite disempowering yeah instead I'd flip that around if I was a guy I would go in there and think what would I like to have from her what would I like to see her contribute what would make me more interested in her what make me more attracted to her if i got this contribution from her because a guy you can know what you feel about something right but you know mystically understanding somebody you've only met for a couple of hours it is extremely difficult also the best way to get to that that uh that answer is through communication I think as the guy choose to state you know trust your own sense of what you would like to have happen next in this situation state it and communicate it to her get her response that is harder because you may you may think well if I just got these 10 magical signs I could be more sure about what she wants and then I wouldn't have to face so much fear of rejection.

I'd feel like on safer territory.

However, I think that can often be misleading.

instead I think it's better to sort of rip that safety blanket off and as provided she is participating and investing

to trust your own decision about what you would like to have happen next

and to communicate and to state what you'd like to happen with her and listen radically to her.

I love that.

That's radical.

You even say on your website, I want to, quote, radically change your dating habits.

That's a very radical change than what most men are trying to do.

In a good way, I think.

It's great.

It's like, you know, I'm going to focus on what I can control. I'm going to bring my best self to the date.
I'm going to try to get her to contribute. I think of dating as a, I love acting or improv.
I've taken a lot of improv classes. I love the art of one-on-one playful, true, artistic connection in an improv setting.
And I see dates the same way. I'm like, I'm here to play with you.
I'm here to bring a truthful, real playful self. And if you'll play with me, we'll probably be in a good place.
And if you aren't going to play with me, then maybe we're not a good fit. And that's okay, too.
But I'm not going to try to read every single syllable you say. Exactly.
And I think that's a good intention, nice and easy, as well, to bring into a date. And I think simple is good as well.
You know, like you could, again, simple means like less overthinking, less anxiety, more ability to be, you know, to express who you are. Yeah.
Keep it as simple as you can. Dating's tough.
Dating's hard. There's the self-doubt.
There's the identity. There's the being lonely, looking for love.
Keep it as simple as you possibly can. Okay.
I want to play this clip from your TED talk. You have a great TED talk.
It's only got 3 million views. That's all.
And there was about a 45 second excerpt that really made me stop and nod my head. I'm going to play it and then we'll talk about it.
So here it is. And that's really because I'm concerned that in our quest for love, sometimes it can be the ultimate distraction to fixing ourselves and doing the real work that will actually make us happy.
Because don't get me wrong, I think the desire for attachment, for intimacy, for security, for love, those goals are natural. They're human, and they're good.
But I think sometimes the way we go about them is a bit weird, whether that's crazy, ridiculous, on-off, destructive relationships, or needing to go out on a date every single night of the week with a different person. You know, like the hip form of dating, where you have someone on the back burner, someone on the front burner, someone under the grill,

and then someone else over there in the freezer

just in case, God forbid, right,

you spend a night by yourself.

Amazing.

That's so great.

The part that really caught my attention,

other than the part at the end that made me laugh,

was you talked about how,

let's do the real work here.

Let's not just talk about tactics

and the practical parts of dating, but let's also do the, do the real work that makes us happy. It makes us more fulfilled.
Um, can you talk about how, how we do that work or how we begin to do the real work? Well, I guess for some people will be, will identify with what I said at that section of the Ted talk, which is dating is a dating is a distraction. Other people, and I think this will probably represent the majority of the guys that I would imagine listening to this podcast, is dating a distraction? Is it that they're actually just trying to create some movement and some traction in that area of their life? So maybe the idea of, wow, I've had all these crazy relationships and my life is stacked full of dates.
That may be a perceived high quality problem that just like simply hasn't happened yet for them. So I think a good way to think about it is obviously we can, we can, uh, I think society quite neatly sets up that finding a romantic partner is just like, and it is, it's an amazing achievement, but is it a silver bullet for all your life's problems no uh look at how the pickup artist industry though i have some positive things to say about that but they often make a romantic achievement like what do they focus on the number yeah a date having sex with someone and then there's a bit it's like the advice drops off the end of a cliff um As someone who's been married for quite a while, I can quite safely say that the work therefore continues.
So it's not that you meet someone and that's it. You passed, go, congrats, you've won it life.
It is an achievement. It's a great thing, but it's a continued and evolving work and process.
commitment particularly is, particularly, is an evolving work in progress. It is, as it says on the tin.
So before you get to that stage, I often think it's good with where you're at now. I know it can feel difficult.
And as a woman, I probably have not had to get anywhere near confronting the levels of, I think, loneliness that many single men

have had to confront and to face. But there is a real value at this period in your life when you are by yourself.
You never have such a profound opportunity for personal development, for self growth, for understanding who you are. So I get it's really, really tough.
It's tough for men, it's tough for women, it's tough for everybody. But there is a value in that time that isn't to be underestimated.
Well said. I think loneliness is a deep internal wound that many men need to heal, many people, men in the case of this podcast.
For me, when I got into this world in the mid 2000s, so I started working on my dating life right when I read the game. I was like, no way you can learn how to get girls.
Wait, what? So the game came out in the mid double zeros. That's when I read that book and started taking action.
And then I took my first dating bootcamp as a student in 2009. And for me, the biggest internal work I had to do, I didn't know it at the time, but now I realize what it was, is I just felt insignificant at women.
I just felt like, oh, I'm a nerdy, skinny ginger who's barely dated until he was in his 30s. I guess women don't really much like me.
And that was the internal work that I needed to do. And I guess my question for you is, how does a man know what the internal work is that he needs? By taking the risk and pulling the big lever.
Because when you start taking risks, when you put yourself in a space of action, you know, you get feedback. Yeah, feedback is tough.
Because you're going to find out things about yourself, you're going to get you're going to hear an echo of what those some of those vulnerabilities are. You for some people, not so much others.
There may be communication skills there or points of self-awareness. They're going to come to the surface.
But again, that can be challenging. It's a lot easier, isn't it, just to sit at your home and watch Netflix or scroll the Internet and the internet and just think oh you know it'll just it'll happen or it won't happen but actually by doing the work and putting yourself out there you face up to a lot of this stuff but that's that's as i said i think feedback is the breakfast of champions i think that's how you that's how you learn that's how you grow and as i said it's not just the the feedback isn't just there for men either.
It's, it's a, it's a human thing. You know, women, women also have vulnerabilities.
Women also have limiting beliefs. Women also have, you know, not so helpful narratives around dating that they also get feedback on in different ways.
What do you, what, what have you found are two or three of the top limiting beliefs that men have about themselves? They might not know they're limiting. They might just be beliefs, but what are the top two or three beliefs that you look at in your male clients and think, oh, we got to fix that, sir? Well, I think as you said, a profound one is for everyone is I'm just not the kind of person that people find attractive, that there's this one kind of person and it's certainly not me that that people

that people like um so I think that could be just just not identifying as like you know the romantic hero feeling like instead I'm like the uh I'm like the funny person or I'm a nice person but I'm not that that guy and also I guess seeing again this is a kind of a negative side of some of the pickup world and industry is I think it very much presents that there is one, there is a one way, or maybe there's a couple of different ways that you can be successful and romantically attractive as a man. And I think if you don't neatly fix fit into either of those boxes, that can be very, very challenging.
So I'd say like, just again, lack of self-belief. I'm not that guy is going to be huge.
I think another big one is just feeling that they do not have permission to present themselves as a sexual masculine man, that they're not allowed again. And I like, again, we could probably do a whole podcast episode on reasons why men feel that they're not allowed to express themselves sexually and that i mean it's it's a very logical conclusion for men to draw we're looking and taking feedback from the world around them so again i think if a guy is at that space where he he's struggling to find a healthy way to express sexual romantic interest in a woman you know there's a there's a thousand good reasons why he's arrived in that place however the big stick point there is it becomes a there can becomes a huge uh communication breakdown where because he's not able to authentically communicate his interest his feelings his intentions towards a woman it's like sending out like a patchy signal and expecting that signal to hit home with the woman it just doesn't resonate right and then as i said the woman her patchy signal her patchy bit is like probably being quite narrow in terms of how she expects romance to happen what she the kind of how she imagines a man to interact with her women often literally do not get it that for a man to approach a woman particularly in real life could be really hard like women just don't get it they here's a woman's limiting belief if i was attractive enough he would just come and sweep me off my feet they don't consider that hey perhaps this guy's feeling a bit scared or he doesn't know if he's got permission to do it.
They just think that men are like, you know, that men are like hardwired Casanovas. And they think again, then their own stuff, women's own feelings of lack of confidence around their looks.
That's the storyline she'll take. She'll go, there's no good men out there, or I'm not attractive enough.
She won't go, there's loads of good guys out there, but they're struggling to communicate and relate to me right now for some reasons that are on them and some reasons that are societal. What can I do to help? Most women don't think like that.
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Yeah, that's a great lever, mental lever to give a guy,

to tell him, you know what, that woman you're afraid to approach, why don't you go over there and make her night better by letting her feel sexy and intriguing and attractive to you? She may or may not be your type, but why don't you go over there and give her what she wants? And that idea of helping a man focus on what he's offering the other person as opposed to what might happen if she rejects me.

To me, I've seen some really nice shifts that men make when they make that mental mindset change. So I think, yeah, I would, I would phrase that as you're talking about creating an intention for your approaches.
And I think when you go in the kind of pickup the intention of how do I get something from, how do I I want. Well, you're going to probably feel a bit icky.
And if you feel like he, you're probably not going to be able to take the action. And that's a problem because without pulling that action lever, you're stuck.
So what intention can you give yourself? And you're right. Like, uh, altruism.
How can I make her day better? How can I make a day as a really, really solid one? It could be, how can I be curious about her? So even if she's not a hundred percent, your type and you might not be a hundred percent of hers, curiosity is a really good one as well. Or how can I express myself? Self-expression is lovely as well.
Cause you feel good. Everyone feels good when they get to express themselves.
So you got to find an intention or again, a framework for meeting and interacting with women that helps to propel and support your self-esteem. That's really, really important.
That's why I think personalized help and coaching, if you are so inclined, is so important because different people have different combination locks to unlock that confidence. I've had clients, I had a client named Ted.
I just said, just walk up to women and find out what makes them interesting to you. What makes them fascinating? Because he's such an inquisitive guy.
That was his lever that said, oh, I love finding out what makes people interesting, but a different person that might not work with. For me, it was let's express some genuine, playful, fun energy, because that was what lit me up at the time.
But every guy is a little bit different. Okay, I want to finish up with some talking about old school PUA stuff.
The good, the bad, the ugly, because I have a lot of feelings about PUA guys. On one hand, these are the first guys I ever hired to help me back when I was nervous and nerdy and so in my head.
So they did help me change my life. At the same time, there's plenty of cringe in this area too.
Tell us a little bit about your past. You used to write, as I understand it, write advice or ghostwrite for pickup artists back in the day.
Can you clarify what you used to do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is going back a lot, like a long, this is like 2008, 2009.
The real long form of the story that I'll try and keep brief is that I had a boy, I was very young. I was maybe like 18 or 19 and I had a boyfriend that was into pickup.
Uh, I wasn't super happy with how he treated me as a result of the pickup industry. Let's say that.
And I was like a, uh, also quite a feminist at the time. And I was like, you know, I'm going to blow this industry wide open.
Let me see what's in there. Come at me, uh, in my, in my much more confrontational space in my life that I was at the time.
So deciding, uh, to try and rebel, I reached out to some pickup artists on Twitter and through blogs. That era was really just beginning.
Some of them got back to me probably because I was an 18 year old woman. And they actually, I was trying to find work, I wanted to be a writer.
And they, they, some of them offered me a job, ghostwriting on their blog, some of their blogs perform well, then I started to write more and more content. And I was attending their seminars in New York and in London.
And then they said, Hey, well, why don't you talk for like five minutes? You can be like the woman's opinion. Right.
And I didn't know what I was doing, but I tried. I threw myself out there.
After that, I at around 2010, I found myself with nowhere to live. And I ended up moving into a pickup artist lair with a few guys that I'd met through the scene.
We actually sublet a room in that house to a student who subsidized our rent and therefore we all existed. So it was, it was digital nomadism.
It was best. Basically I was the girl in the guy gang.
It was a very, like, it was a very crazy period in my life life but I learned a lot and also my coaching I was they were just like well you know you got this guy you got six hours with him in a nightclub or in a supermarket or sorry uh how do you say that in a grocery store and uh good luck so my coaching was very was probably not that great 15 years ago but it was formed on the fly and through all these kind of real life interactions so as a as a not i'm not informally as a nerdy introverted slightly socially anxious person myself i can say that the world of pickup gave so much to my life you know it it gave me so many friends it gave me my career these amazing experiences that I've had it developed me so there's been so much good that's come and I also saw lots of coaches trying to do good there's some bad stuff as well bad stuff terrible standards back in the day for coaching products and boot camps so if you did a boot camp back in 2010, you know, I don't, I don't know if people were really thinking about it in the same ways in terms of, you know, who is ready for this coaching or who needs other mental health support. You know, there weren't really any standards.
It was just like fly by the seat of your pants. I think that wasn't helpful for a lot of people.
I also the initial terminology was very problematic yeah it probably started out just kind of being fun and a kind of a funnish way to talk about women but again if you're thinking about the guy who needs to pull that lever if you talk to his average nice and i mean that in a positive way man yeah does he want to approach a target no he probably doesn't so that is he gonna get that target back to his seduction location yeah exactly he's bounced back i don't know extraction uh like i mean it's like it's fun it's funny not funny when i look back on it through the lens of the past yeah i mean there's a lot of things in our society that we've changed since the 20s, the noughties and the 2010s, right? We're in a different space now. The pickup artist industry is the same.
I think there were some casualties there. There was some bad stuff there, but it also gave a lot to my life.
So here are a couple of things that make me cringe or even made me cringe back then. But I thought, well, I guess this is what you do.
One coach, one coach said you want to tell a woman that you want to take things to a quote new direction, but you pronounce it like new direction. So it's like subliminal say new direction and that's going to turn well again isn't that a

nice idea isn't it isn't it a nice idea that you could say a two-word kind of abracadabra phrase yeah and a woman will see you as a sexual object wow wouldn't it be great if there was such a shortcut but it's it's like mind kind of mind-blowingly unrealistic so i think totally hear that i I mean, yeah, I can see why me. The other thing, uh, actually the guy who said, I won't name him.
The guy who said this was actually a pretty good guy. I don't, I don't think he meant it with the, the way it sounds, but one of the, one of the coaches I went to his seminar, he said, he talked about, Oh, well, if you, if you make it, if you escalate physically on a woman and she doesn't like it, use a, quote, statement of empathy.

And I'm like, okay, I get where that's coming from, but having a planned statement of empathy, that sounds like something Ted Bundy did to get women in his car.

I mean, how about, like, having actual empathy?

How about not doing things that are going to make you have to apologize, probably?

All that said, I totally agree with you. These men, mostly men changed my life.
I'm also going to share one more. I had with you approach a thousand women to get battle hardened to your fear of rejection, be rejected, you know, rather than actually trying to understand that process differently or think about rejection differently, just, you know, self-flagellate until, you know, it's meaningless to you.
And again, I think it's like I can kind of see the grain of the idea in there, but the application I think was very, very unhelpful. Are there any, this is maybe a good way to end.
I can tease this at the beginning. Are there any old school PUA moves that actually to this day you might still say, you know, that's pretty good.
Here's mine. I actually still use this in my coaching.
The push-pull. You probably know what the push-pull is.
The push-pull is essentially a compliment combined with a tease. You know, oh my God, you're so cute.
You're such a dork. I don't know if I should ask you out or call you my kid sister, that kind of thing.
That actually does work. And I still think you can do that in a way that's fun and not toxic.
That's my favorite old school PUA move. Do you have any that you're thinking? Yes.
Yeah, absolutely. I've got one.
I stand by today. It's the three second rule.
Oh yeah. You're interested in three, two, one, off you go.
Count yourself down, go for it. Because again, it's putting you in a space of taking action and not overthinking.
And for that, I would say the three second rule I think is stood the test of time. And I, I learned this from my old coach.
I did a program in London circa 2010. Uh, who knows? I might've met you.
But, uh, uh, this was not pickup move so much as just a fun little banter, uh, playing around with accents. I would walk up to women in London and I would, and I would see if they could do a good American accent.
And then I would tease them if they couldn't do it. I would walk up and say, okay, repeat after me with an American accent.
I would like to pay for this cheeseburger with my credit card. And then she would try to do an American accent.
And then I would tease her, fuck with her for that. And it worked pretty well, actually, come to think of it.
Not that I can do a good British accent, but that's my London story. Well, I think maybe off, off, off, you know, not to throw names around, but often as you will have, you'll have to tell me more about your stories because I think I was, I was very deep into the pickup industry, London, 2010, um, with all the big, you know, all the old great companies of that time.
And as I said, I feel that there was some good, some bad, there was definitely some ugly some ugly but for guys now I would say like I know dating advice can feel like an area that you're like oh do I have to do that is that a right thing for me to do again it's like it is I think approached in the right way it can be an amazing form of personal development it can be incredibly confidence building incredibly empowering and also it's your life so putting yourself out there to take the risks and build towards getting the relationships with women you want. I mean, it's a great journey and it's a hundred percent worth it.
So if you're here and you're curious about coaching, go for it. We're going to, I'm going to tee you up to talk about your coaching.
I have one last little anecdote from London. And this is where my heart is with every man who ever coached me, even the ones who were unintentionally gross.
I was with my then coach in London and I wasn't, I was, I was sort of auditing his program. I wasn't actually taking it.
And he and I were chatting and we look over and he goes, Oh, look over there. It's my old client, Phil, Philip or something, maybe.
And I look over and I see this tall, beautiful woman wearing an overcoat glasses. She's got that, she's being gamed by this guy, right? She's got sunglasses on, she's glamorous, she's attractive and she's giving him that look of, all right, I'm liking what I'm hearing.
And then the man who was talking to her was a young man of color in a wheelchair. And this was a young man in a wheelchair.
I didn't even meet him. But the image of this young man in a wheelchair with the resourcefulness and the courage to go up to a woman and shoot his shot when he has every reason to feel like he's limited, and why bother? He's in a wheelchair.
She's a tall, beautiful woman. And it was going well.
That was so inspiring to me. And if that's what a PUA was able to do for that young man, hey, more power to him.
I love that story. I love that story.
I want to say I think I know exactly who you mean. He was quite famous in London at that period in time.
And for the guys out there, I said meeting women in real life, it's the great equalizer. Yeah.
Dating apps can feel a little unequal, but dating in real life. Yeah.
No, I'm sorry. I finished your thought.
I didn't mean to cut you off. Yeah.
I just said, you know, on dating apps, I can feel like some odds are skewed against guys in terms of how those apps are set up and populated, but in real life, it's a great, great, great equalizer if you can pull that lever and present yourself. Yeah.
And I think now in 2025, I'm not just saying this as a marketer. I really believe this.
I think this is the best time for single men to be out meeting women in real life because women are just so sick of the apps and online dating. And they're just like, why can't guys just come up to me like a man and make it organic? So to that point, if you would share a little bit about your programs, what it's like to work with you and how you help men in person or not in person or maybe virtually share a little bit about how that would work.
And also of course, where, where guys can find you. Okay, absolutely.
So you can find me at hayleyquinn.com. Thanks for pointing out.
It's got two Ys, English spelling. So I have two main programs.
I've got virtual masterclass, which you can join from anywhere in the world. It is a live program.
Like I am actively there, live on Zoom calls, coaching you. Nothing I do is a random mass market, I don't know, QA.
Everything I do is highly personal. I've been coaching for over 15 years.
I have, I think, a very, very sharp and well-tuned step-by-step process to get you from a stage of perhaps just being a bit discouraged on dating apps to actually meeting the women you want, maybe somewhat online, but meeting them life dating and presenting yourself as the amazing man that you are it's a six-week long progress program it's super comprehensive we have a fantastic online learning area we do whatsapp discussion groups you get on the spot advice it's highly personal for most and it runs across four time zones so for most guys especially guys in the states that's going to be a great shout for you. However, if you really want to step it up, and I always say this, if you want to become, if you're really focused on meeting women in real life, that really excites you.
That's where you see the future of your dating life. You're ready for that personal development.
In addition to doing the six-week online virtual masterclass program, you can bolt on a four-day in-person boot camp with me, mostly in London, but sometimes in New York as well. Uh, and I said, there's nothing like it for actually getting out there and developing the tool for putting your notepad down, getting out there in real life and actually going through my tried and tested training exercises.
And that's real academy to find out anything. You could just hit the let's chat button on my website, fill in form, and I will personally get back to you.
Well, if you couldn't already tell from this episode, she knows her stuff. And you're probably too much of a gentle lady to say this, but I'll say it.
I was checking out your reviews. You have a fistful of rave reviews, 4.8 out of five average for client reviews.
If it was five, that would be tough to believe. 4.8 is basically just life-changingly amazing.
So you're great at what you do. Haley, thank you so much for being here.
You were a treat today. Oh, my pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me. And thank you for listening.
And by the way, don't forget your dream girlfriend. She's out there.
Maybe she's in London. Maybe she's waiting for

you in Haley's program, but your dream girlfriend is out there and she's already into you. She's

going to love you, but she's going to have to meet the real authentic you. So go out there,