ABOUT ME
Thank you for being here, it's Adam Ooi speaking and simply, I help humans to interact better with other humans. Be it in your relationship with others, or your relationship with yourself, I specialise in helping clients to overcome their limiting beliefs, negative self-perceptions and Egoic attachments; bringing about true change and development in their lives. I focus on cultivating the core principles of "Direct, Congruent & Authentic with Empathy" - direct in your intent, congruent in your external actions, authentic in your internal decision making, all executed with incredible empathy for the person you're interacting with. I refer to myself as a "Social Dynamics Coach", as it's the closest tree to describing all the branches I deal with on the daily: from the masculine-feminine sexual dynamic, inter-family conflicts, Egoic existential crisis' to simply being a soundboard for the trials of someone's life - there's really no one way of describing "what" it is that I do - but as to WHY I do it, it's my purpose to guide all beings on their journeys of self-cultivation, and to liberate all beings into realising their true nature. By helping people to cultivate supreme excellence in their temple; purpose-physical-mental-social development, transcended by an inner knowing of their true nature, I believe this not only pushes humanity forward, but brings it closer together.
My Story
My formative years could be characterised as being extremely dependent on others for social security & emotional oxygen. I couldn't do a thing alone. Even down to the simplest acts of going to the mall, beach or gym... I always had to have someone with me. This fear of being alone stemming back to my inception, as my Father initially abandoned both my Mother and I for the first 3 months of my life, and as the subconscious sponge that all infants are, I learned to take on the emotions of those I was around, and formed a hyper attachment-complex as a result. In one way, it was a blessing. This need to be around people actually made me quite social; finding several girlfriends throughout primary/early high school and making friends relatively easily despite being moved around Australia/UK throughout years 2-7. But the sword cuts both ways... the late 16 year old Adam was a raging hormonal ball of emotional sensitivity - not to mention overly-protective of his girlfriend at the time - any mention of her going out with friends or hanging with other males would inspire immense jealously/insecurity - no doubt in response to the fear pattern of "being left alone", and ultimately this lead to an explosive ending of the relationship. I hadn't noticed at the time, but slowly I’d been cocooning myself by spending all my free time with her and not going out with friends, simultaneously falling in love with the health and fitness lifestyle to the point of obsession. I used my GF & the gym as an excuse to decline invites to house parties/gatherings which at that age provided critical social development. Despite the positives of a loving committed relationship in which I lost my virginity, and learned deeply about the sexual dance of masculine-feminine energy + the creation of a lifelong pursuit of physical mastery and healthy living, I'd up ended using them both as tools of insulation and as a result, was left with a gaping hole in my social/emotional skillset leading into my senior years of high school...
A Teenager's Emotions - Taken From The Bowl Sip #136
At 16 years old I attempted my first ever cold approach... And I didn't even know it was a cold approach.
Having recently broken up with my girlfriend, it was school holidays and I was at the beach with a group of friends. Sun shining, we were tossing ball in the water and I noticed a beautiful Aussie born Asian girl playing with what looked like her much younger sister nearby. Over the next 30 minutes we must've simultaneously looked at each other 10 times. Short of waving a gigantic green flag, she couldn't have sent a clearer signal.
Yet all I could sense was fear inside.
The pounding in my chest,
The anxiety like electricity running a wire.
Afraid of the potential of failing…
Afraid of the judgement from my friends…
Afraid of myself.
Eventually, our group decided to head back to the towels, and like a prisoner I dragged my heels through the water behind them... as slowly as possible... furiously debating in my mind "Go say something to her! You clearly like each other, but what if I'm wrong? Wtf am I even supposed to say? Why am I so scared?? THIS IS FUCKED!!?%$^"... We'd literally reached the shore and were a solid 50 metres away from her at this point... My heart was threatening to explode, the sheer intensity of the nerves… I looked over my shoulder one last time and came to a complete stop. "FUCK IT!", I turned my ass around and started marching back towards her. I just couldn’t live with myself walking away from this..
Time playing in slow motion…
The walk back lasted an eternity,
Coming within 10 metres, her back was towards me, though her younger sister faced and 'girl-signalled' what was happening... She turned around, and as our eyes met I squeaked out in a 1000 stutters, "Umm, heyy.. I saw you and thought you were kinda cute, wanted to say hi, my names Adam :)"... She lit up like an absolute firework! Her eyes shining like diamonds with a smile bigger than Everest... The relief as my cardiac arrest subsided... She greeted back and thanked me for the compliment - We shook hands and got to knowing each other; it was such a great time, the lols, the instant connection, the natural flow… what had I been so worried about?
I eventually signalled that I'd need to go back to my mates but that we should meet up again soon, she said to come meet her friends back on the sand and we'd exchange details. Walking back to my towel, my friends were yahoo'ing like idiots causing me to blush, and a group of complete strangers who'd watched the whole event take place started clapping out of respect - even more embarrassing. Meeting up a week later on Australia day, we connected deeply, and as the sun slipped beneath the earth, standing in the calm waters, holding her in my arms … Our lips made first touch.
You could say that this experience was the beginning of my journey into self-cultivation and social dynamics... But despite the happy ending, I couldn't ignore my obvious lack of emotional control... the IMMENSE ANXIETY inspired by merely going up to a cold stranger - who let's be honest, wasn't even that cold. And so, with my 3 closest friends we endeavoured to learn more about what we'd soon find out was termed as the world of "Cold approach" i.e. the art of how to approach perfect strangers and create relationships; anytime, anywhere with anyone. You might note my omission of the word "Pick up" in that description, and it's because even though I was keenly aware of all the various "PUA" or pick up artist material such as Neil Strauss's famous book "The Game", and all the various YouTube channels which posted online content on the subject, I never resonated with the pervasive ‘Pick up mentality’ of 'Do this, say this and get the woman.' For my friends and I, we saw the art of learning how to interact with people as a way of overcoming ourselves, we didn't want to be afraid of people, especially not members of the opposite sex who inspired the greatest levels of fear, which ultimately, only a reflected a fear we held of ourselves. By being forced into the fire of our anxiety, and to walk through to the other-side knowing that our success was never dependent on the external outcome; the number, the date or the sex, rather, our success was determined by our self-action, our internal value by demonstrating the very best "50" we could manifest - side note: "Your 50%" is a concept I use to describe everything one can control in an interaction between two people i.e. intent, eye contact, vocal projection/tonality, body language and vibe + all the associated mentalities/principles of DCA w/ E.
From late 16-19 years old, I learned as much as I could about this art form whilst simultaneously falling into the trap of romantic complacency - I'd developed just enough skill to suppress my anxiety and go up to anyone on the street: man, woman or child and give them genuine love, regardless of whether there was sexual intent or not, and I'd also managed to learn how to progress sexually polarised interactions with women to the point of exchanging details... but I'd hit a plateau. In two years of training, I'd not managed to go on a single date from "all the people" I'd met, which in hindsight could only have been a couple hundred at most, which may sound like a lot to the layman, but for clients nowadays, they'd likely meet 50 people in one day under my instruction.
Romantically complacent, at 19 years old I'd reached a level where I'd thought it was good enough just to be able to go up to a random person, mostly because of how anxiety inspiring it was at the time, and to simply create a nice interaction but that be the end of it, which was satisfying on some level allowing for my complacency - but it wasn't until a fateful Friday night sitting in the bean bag, eating pizza while playing Call of Duty, when I said to myself, "Surely there is more to life than this...", moments later my best friend Matt called me up and mentioned the idea of a "30 Day Challenge"; where you simply go out and meet people every day for 30 days. I'd previously only been going out maximum 1x per week, sometimes only once every second week and that just wasn't working, well it worked enough to barely manage those initial fears of meeting someone, but I knew from my previous sexual experiences prior to cold approach how much was to be learned about oneself in a more intimate space: the sexual progression between masculine-feminine energy and all the relating social/emotional skill to be expressed in relationships. So I said "Fuck it!" again. The following day beginning the 30D, and that's truly when everything changed. I didn't know how nauseous one could feel by simply having to go meet a few strangers each day... every day. One day was bad enough, but for the first 2 weeks I felt sick to my stomach every time out. It truly took all of my being to not give up, sometimes walking up and down the mall for hours at a time not speaking to anyone, deathly afraid of what other people would think and the potential for failure. However, at roughly the 2 week mark I'd finally broken the wall - meeting a lovely asian girl in the mall, who I took on a date at the botanic gardens. My first date from active cold approach. This was a surreal moment, as after 2 years of social training I'd not demonstrated a social skillset/energy developed enough to have someone else want to dive deeper, now, after 2 weeks, I'd done just that. But one cannot rest halfway up the mountain, as it became evident on that botanics date that I was simply terrified of how/when to initiate the kiss... I was thrusted into the next stage of learning as I realised what had been so natural with my previous girlfriends had been long forgotten. I really was learning about the sexual dance all over again. It was crystal clear, this had nothing to do with who I was getting, but who I was becoming.
The growth ramped up from there: meeting people while still difficult became an enjoyable activity, I was connecting more and more and regularly going out on dates in which I was simultaneously forced to overcome psychologically induced erectile dysfunction aka "Sexual performance anxiety" - which as a side note, I now term more accurately as “Sexual Experience anxiety”: self-created by rushing the moment, allowing the anxiety to overwhelm me. It was just one obstacle after another, but nonetheless moving forward, no longer complacent but fully dedicated to what it meant to cultivate one's self. After the 30D was completed, I continued my cold social training for several months, participating in my first ever open relationships which lead to meeting a "Blue moon", the girl who completely altered my perception of reality, with whom I fell in love with instantly and entered a 2 year monogamous relationship.
The Zen of Things
It was during this hardcore phase of social training (roughly 18 years old) that I was first introduced to the universe of self-help and zen philosophy by my first spiritual mentor; Paul Eliseo, a senior PT/NLP & Hypnosis practitioner whom I met at the gym running my first business in Personal Training. He would give me a new book each week and review my thoughts in the following, beginning with “Change your thoughts, change your life; living the wisdom of the Tao” written by Wayne Dyer, based on the teachings of Lao Tzu's 2500 year old Tao Te Ching. This text was my first invitation to the complete and total destruction of my Egoic concept, to relinquish my attachments to the material world, and learn to see the oneness in all things. I resonated so deeply with Wayne's interpretation of Lao Tzu that his book has remained my No. 1 recommendation ever since. I'd previously been a slave to my emotional reactions, a prisoner to my attachment patterns and lived with a self-centered view point with no concern for the wider experience of humanity. Now, as a result of studying The Buddha, Zen masters, Stoic philosophers and so many others, I felt that I'd found the fingers I was searching for, all pointing towards the moon of truth which was always inside me, the presence of now.
Fast forward to late 21-22 years old, I'd reached a stage where I wanted to start teaching others what I had learned through social dynamics, and now had a few years experience in regards to spiritual exploration/self-cultivation. I saw the errors in the dating community, how the focus on external validation was actually setting people further back on the path, how young men were being taught to use "Lines and tricks" to substitute for their lack of true social/emotional skill. So with one of my closest friends, Jordan, we started running free workshops in Adelaide, South Australia. From there, putting out free content online regarding our approach towards social dynamics rooted in the journey of who you are becoming, incorporating the teachings of zen philosophy and quickly lined up our first clients via free Skype coaching, which lead to our first paid Boot camps at home, and then interstate.
On January 16th, 2016 my best friend and brother in the journey, Matthew Burnside, took his own life after a long battle with what was conjectured to be Schizophrenia, but doctors were never able to definitively nail down. Matt had been one of those "3 close friends" I'd begun the journey with, and that both Jordan and I shared an unspeakable bond with. We looked up to him in so many respects, he was a beacon of strength and light, truly fearless when it came to social dynamics. He was the last person you’d think would ever take his own life, but as I’ve described in my annual podcast series “How to deal with suicide”, he couldn’t stand to live as a bird in a cage.
It was at this time that Jordan decided to go on a separate path in life with no bad blood between us. I was left with a decision, “Do I go this alone?”, with no real plan other then, 'I can't stand the thought of someone repeating the same mistakes as I did', I put my head down and went to work on "The Bowl". Creating the Bowl Dojo Podcast as the place where I could speak at length with nuance about all the experiences/teachings I had regarding social dynamics & self-cultivation. I found a very specialised audience gravitating towards my energy; the few who actually desired true change, and were willing to do the work for it without any quick fixes. I sold the ideas of “Relentless action, accurate feedback with sound guidance.” - “A love for the journey, being at peace with the outcome and a joy for doing the damn thing.” - “The journey will always be your journey.” - “I’m a Man, you’re a Woman, Let’s see if we connect.” - While these messages didn't gain the mass audience that all the other channels in the space garnered, particularly as I was always very reluctant to post the sexy click-bait "Infield approach content" as I knew that most people only desired that kind of content as an excuse to not go out and meet people themselves (arm-chair theorising), but even more so, I ethically had issues with it despite always protecting the identity of the females I interacted with (which not all channels were so integral about), and always showed interactions in full context with little to no editing (which even fewer channels were willing to do). Men more than ever needed to see how to interact with women properly, with respect, honour and sound masculine principles. However, I ended up removing all infield content from the channel in mid 2019, when an overseas scandal exposed a dating company for posting “Street to bedroom” infield content (something which I’d never partaken in for obvious ethical reasons) - consequently, 20 of YouTube’s biggest infield dating channels were overnight blacklisted and removed without question. My channel was spared from the exorcism, despite having 1 infield video with over 350K views, and several others in the 10s of 1000s, and I believe it was largely because of the integrity I displayed in every infield interaction. However, I saw the writing on the wall, YouTube was telling all creators that this kind of content was going to be eventually ruled out (regardless of the message/integrity), and I wasn’t willing to risk the 1000s of hours of non-infield podcast/short film content I’d spent 4+ years creating over this one issue. The Bowl was much more than its practical dating instruction, and in truth, I was happy to shed that first audience skin from whom I felt the pressure to have to make infield content, the horizon of the work I wished to deliver to the world was only just coming into view.
Looking back, I can safely say that my infield content was the kind that I’d want taught in high schools, and to this day I would happily instruct 5 to 95 year olds in my method of approaching a woman; with respect and love. Through those early videos, people could see I wasn't trying to win her or prim the feathers of self-absorbed pride, it was pure like that fumbling 16 year old back at the beach "I was just walking by, I saw you and thought you looked beautiful, my names Adam :)" - Direct, Congruent and Authentic w/ Empathy, it was this approach that spurred on my first ever international coaching experiences, conducting 1on1/Group Boot camps in NYC, Miami, London and Toronto and drawing a roster of online coaching clients in further reaching countries. The most satisfying thing to come of all this, was literally seeing before my eyes how people could learn to overcome themselves, and in doing so, provide a better experience for someone else. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve personally witnessed a woman break into tears upon receiving one of mine or my client’s approaches, simply blown away that a stranger would come up to them purely to give love and expect nothing in return. Ultimately, all these things we do aren't for us. Social dynamics isn't solely for our own benefit, but for how it recognises another, how it makes someone else feel seen, understood and loved for who they are. All human beings benefit from a higher level of self-cultivation and awareness, how we interrelate with each other is the very fabric of life.
The Temple
After a couple years focussed on correcting the hole in dating re: masculine-feminine sexual dynamics, a pattern emerged that I couldn't ignore; the issues people had in their social development were never isolated. Human beings are holistic entities which operate in total coordination; an issue in one room indicates an issue in the entire temple. How rare was it to find someone who demonstrated neediness based attachments with a sexual interest, that didn't also demonstrate the same pattern in other areas of life. How difficult it was to find someone who lacked DCA w/ E principles, who didn't also lack a core understanding of their purpose in life. I was forced to take a step back and completely alter my coaching approach, even if someone came for purely social-romantic concerns, I needed to know why they woke up in the morning - their reason for existence, I needed to ask them the question "Who are you?", I had to cut to the core of their Egoic concept as I'd been learning throughout all of my young adult life. Upon this change of direction I saw completely different conversations opening up: repressed fears, cement-like regrets, deeply embedded pain. hateful mindsets, the limiting beliefs, negative self-perceptions and Egoic attachments; it wasn't until addressing these fundamental issues within a person's “Hurt locker” aka stored pain, that the ability to create change in one specific area of the temple (say, socially), came much more fluidly.
And so, my concept of "The Temple" was born; a way of viewing one's development in this life in order of:
Purpose
Physical
Mental
Social
+ Inner knowing
The thesis being that you must develop ALL of who you are, starting with your reason for living as a human, then taking care of the physical unit you'll serve your meaningful work through, then upgrading the mental frameworks through which you perceive life, thus allowing you to connect in the best way possible with others; demonstrating a social skillset which can deliver the best to all one may encounter - all of which must be transcended by an inner knowing of one's true nature; to understand that the temple itself or one's Ego is but a concept. All humans are destined to contend with the Ego, and so we are faced with a choice of whether to harness it for meaningful or destructive work.
Finally, to approach the building of one's temple with the intent of supreme excellence; that one would endeavour to express their best effort in each moment, that there'll never be a moment when you will say "I'm done.", that your meaning is embedded in the journey itself acknowledging that our human condition is imperfect, and the only perfection offered to us is the moment at hand, love itself. That… is supreme excellence.
Which brings us to the fundamental question:
Who am I?
I'm but a leaf of the great tree,
The mother and the child experiencing each other,
Both a product of life, and life itself.
I am the clouds in the sky,
The sun in the waves,
And the love in her tears.
I am grateful for all that pursue the best of journeys, on their best of paths.
May you live with fire in your heart,
And peace in your soul.
Adam Ooi
8th of September, 2022
Got Questions?
Go ahead and submit any questions you have regarding Boot camps, potto contexts, feedback or anything else in the box to the left. I will do my very best to respond as soon as possible!
- Adam.
