Czech
Don Juan
This past week I had the utmost pleasure of interviewing the owner of one of the most successful dating conferences in the world. Anthony “Dream” Johnson is the smarts and the face behind The 21 Convention.
Starting T21C at only 17 years of age, Anthony has quickly proven himself to be a successful young entrepreneur, as featured on WGN Chicago and in the NY Times #1 best seller The Four Hour Work Week.
Now 23 years old, Anthony has grown T21C into more than just another dating conference for men. Business, Entrepreneurship and leadership, Health and Nutrition, Weight-lifting and all manner of essential masculine life skills are taught by exclusive speakers from around the world.
You can visit the latest about The 21 Convention at www.the21convention.com, including free footage of T21C’s most popular speakers: DJ Fuji, Adam Lyons, Doug McGuff and more.
Hi Anthony. First of all, thank you for doing this interview. Entrepreneurship can be non-stop work so I appreciate you taking the time out of your day. Tell me about The 21 Convention. You most recently held an event in Austin, Texas from August 17-19. How did it go?
Hey Adrian
Thanks for the opportunity. I love doing interviews like this, so it’s not a problem at all.
Re the Austin Texas convention, it was awesome. I saw that from the perspective of an attendee. As the architect of the event, and the manager, it sailed smoothly. Big contributors to that were my team of volunteers, and my girlfriend who functioned as a personal assistant.
She had the same role at the 2012 London conference just 7 weeks prior, so her experience going in to Austin was a big boost, in addition to her being awesome in general.
My lead volunteer in Austin also volunteered for the London conference this year, so the same applies to him, as does the end result (being on top of things 100%).
Finally, I’ve heard nothing but positive things from all of the attendees and speakers this year, more than ever in fact. For the first time ever, I even got a hand written thank you letter from one of the attendees just last week, which, considering the ease of e-mail, was a real surprise, but a welcomed one at that.
I remember a couple years ago when your videos of Dj Fuji speaking live went viral. Are there any up-and-coming speakers we should pay attention to?
Yes. While it’s easy to say “all of them” in this instance, I would say pay close attention to the videos from Greg Swann, Socrates, Simon Shawcross, and Dr. Mike Mew.
While he is a returning speaker, I would also say pay attention to Dr. Doug McGuff’s talk from this year. His last speech on the paleo diet and a Body by Science approach to exercise went viral, and is now at 185,000 views as of this interview, which is the second highest viewed video of all time from The 21 Convention.
His 2012 speech is even better than the last, and by nature of the content, is more polarizing.
If any of the 2012 videos go ultra-viral, it will be his. (I think it has the potential to go 7 digit viral).
One of the reasons I’m a fan of your conference is because you teach Lifestyle Design. Part of being a man is not just attracting women—it’s about attracting wealth, health and success into all areas of your life. Why did you choose to have speakers from several topics over just presenting dating coaches? And how did you manage to integrate all of the topics into one super-conference?
The best way I’ve heard the answer put was by Eric Daniels after the Austin conference this past August. In an interview he said that “ … here you get a sense that all of these are important”, referring to the panorama focus on life that the conference has, implicitly and explicitly in the very tag-line.
In the end, perhaps the deepest conviction I hold is that human life is important. Man’s life is of the greatest importance, and my own life is of the greatest personal importance. I translate this out to mean that all of life is fundamentally important, not just certain aspects of it. And even though some aspects are of greater importance than others, this does not take away from the original conviction that all of life is important.
Hence I want to address as much of it as possible, and I want to see the best and highest possible of my own life, and the world around me, now, today, this very moment, and in my lifetime.
Not some distant, just out of reach future. I want to see it made real. Because of this, there wasn’t really an alternative to making the event all encompassing.
To me, nothing else was possible.
As far as integrating them : above all, developing a personal understanding and desire to understand further a large array of topics. Once I had a basic understanding of a subject, I had a thirst to learn more. And with that thirst enough know-how to seek out the right speakers.
I started with baby steps. First a personal trainer in 2009. Then more personal trainers, a doctor, and a top nutrition author/blogger. And so the story has gone each and every year with business authors, self-defense trainers, exercise machine unveilings, and so on.
All of life is important, so as long as a speaker is right by the best of my judgment, and has a specific idea he wants to communicate, I’m game to have him present at the event. There are almost no limits to topic selection on my end so long as those 2 criteria are met.
What’s your own experience with picking up girls and using The Mystery Method?
MM helped (tremendously) motivate me to start talking to women, and even more importantly, think critically about male/female relationships, social dynamics, and my self in this context.
Who I wanted to become, what I wanted to do with my life, what sort of women and friends I wanted in my life, what those relationships would look like, and so on.
I can trace almost all of that back to MM, and the basic idea that I could improve my success with women through thought and action.
Since last year I have noticed a lot less advertising from pick up artists. Boot camp prices have gone down. There is much more focus on “coach training.” Do you think there are any changing trends amongst the “seduction community?”
I’m not super keen on the day-to-day stuff, but I imagine the prices have gone down because demand has dropped now that The Game is aging, and the VH1 show is also in the rear-view mirror. Without those 2 factors constantly jacking the demand up, the prices dropping is at least a little is predictable (but how much, for how long, etc is anyone’s guess).
As far as trends, I think you’ll see less and less DVD courses offered, more e-books, and more free as well as paid online video. The free stuff in particular to help draw attention, and in turn help the coaches keep the business running smoothly.
As far as more intellectual trends, I’m just not involved enough to comment on it. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years the term pickup-artist became less of a taboo among coaches, and even saw a resurgence of some kind.
Starting T21C at only 17 years of age, Anthony has quickly proven himself to be a successful young entrepreneur, as featured on WGN Chicago and in the NY Times #1 best seller The Four Hour Work Week.
Now 23 years old, Anthony has grown T21C into more than just another dating conference for men. Business, Entrepreneurship and leadership, Health and Nutrition, Weight-lifting and all manner of essential masculine life skills are taught by exclusive speakers from around the world.
You can visit the latest about The 21 Convention at www.the21convention.com, including free footage of T21C’s most popular speakers: DJ Fuji, Adam Lyons, Doug McGuff and more.
Hi Anthony. First of all, thank you for doing this interview. Entrepreneurship can be non-stop work so I appreciate you taking the time out of your day. Tell me about The 21 Convention. You most recently held an event in Austin, Texas from August 17-19. How did it go?
Hey Adrian
Thanks for the opportunity. I love doing interviews like this, so it’s not a problem at all.
Re the Austin Texas convention, it was awesome. I saw that from the perspective of an attendee. As the architect of the event, and the manager, it sailed smoothly. Big contributors to that were my team of volunteers, and my girlfriend who functioned as a personal assistant.
She had the same role at the 2012 London conference just 7 weeks prior, so her experience going in to Austin was a big boost, in addition to her being awesome in general.
My lead volunteer in Austin also volunteered for the London conference this year, so the same applies to him, as does the end result (being on top of things 100%).
Finally, I’ve heard nothing but positive things from all of the attendees and speakers this year, more than ever in fact. For the first time ever, I even got a hand written thank you letter from one of the attendees just last week, which, considering the ease of e-mail, was a real surprise, but a welcomed one at that.
I remember a couple years ago when your videos of Dj Fuji speaking live went viral. Are there any up-and-coming speakers we should pay attention to?
Yes. While it’s easy to say “all of them” in this instance, I would say pay close attention to the videos from Greg Swann, Socrates, Simon Shawcross, and Dr. Mike Mew.
While he is a returning speaker, I would also say pay attention to Dr. Doug McGuff’s talk from this year. His last speech on the paleo diet and a Body by Science approach to exercise went viral, and is now at 185,000 views as of this interview, which is the second highest viewed video of all time from The 21 Convention.
His 2012 speech is even better than the last, and by nature of the content, is more polarizing.
If any of the 2012 videos go ultra-viral, it will be his. (I think it has the potential to go 7 digit viral).
One of the reasons I’m a fan of your conference is because you teach Lifestyle Design. Part of being a man is not just attracting women—it’s about attracting wealth, health and success into all areas of your life. Why did you choose to have speakers from several topics over just presenting dating coaches? And how did you manage to integrate all of the topics into one super-conference?
The best way I’ve heard the answer put was by Eric Daniels after the Austin conference this past August. In an interview he said that “ … here you get a sense that all of these are important”, referring to the panorama focus on life that the conference has, implicitly and explicitly in the very tag-line.
In the end, perhaps the deepest conviction I hold is that human life is important. Man’s life is of the greatest importance, and my own life is of the greatest personal importance. I translate this out to mean that all of life is fundamentally important, not just certain aspects of it. And even though some aspects are of greater importance than others, this does not take away from the original conviction that all of life is important.
Hence I want to address as much of it as possible, and I want to see the best and highest possible of my own life, and the world around me, now, today, this very moment, and in my lifetime.
Not some distant, just out of reach future. I want to see it made real. Because of this, there wasn’t really an alternative to making the event all encompassing.
To me, nothing else was possible.
As far as integrating them : above all, developing a personal understanding and desire to understand further a large array of topics. Once I had a basic understanding of a subject, I had a thirst to learn more. And with that thirst enough know-how to seek out the right speakers.
I started with baby steps. First a personal trainer in 2009. Then more personal trainers, a doctor, and a top nutrition author/blogger. And so the story has gone each and every year with business authors, self-defense trainers, exercise machine unveilings, and so on.
All of life is important, so as long as a speaker is right by the best of my judgment, and has a specific idea he wants to communicate, I’m game to have him present at the event. There are almost no limits to topic selection on my end so long as those 2 criteria are met.
What’s your own experience with picking up girls and using The Mystery Method?
MM helped (tremendously) motivate me to start talking to women, and even more importantly, think critically about male/female relationships, social dynamics, and my self in this context.
Who I wanted to become, what I wanted to do with my life, what sort of women and friends I wanted in my life, what those relationships would look like, and so on.
I can trace almost all of that back to MM, and the basic idea that I could improve my success with women through thought and action.
Since last year I have noticed a lot less advertising from pick up artists. Boot camp prices have gone down. There is much more focus on “coach training.” Do you think there are any changing trends amongst the “seduction community?”
I’m not super keen on the day-to-day stuff, but I imagine the prices have gone down because demand has dropped now that The Game is aging, and the VH1 show is also in the rear-view mirror. Without those 2 factors constantly jacking the demand up, the prices dropping is at least a little is predictable (but how much, for how long, etc is anyone’s guess).
As far as trends, I think you’ll see less and less DVD courses offered, more e-books, and more free as well as paid online video. The free stuff in particular to help draw attention, and in turn help the coaches keep the business running smoothly.
As far as more intellectual trends, I’m just not involved enough to comment on it. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years the term pickup-artist became less of a taboo among coaches, and even saw a resurgence of some kind.
