It’s Your Move: How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want by Nick Savoy – Book Review by Erika Awakening

This is a book review of It’s Your Move: How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want by Nick Savoy that features highlights of the new book plus never-before-revealed details about how Nick Savoy and Erika Awakening met, and how this top-notch dating coach inspired her to begin a whole new career.

Who is Nick Savoy?  For those who don’t already know of him, he is the president of Love Systems, which is the largest and most successful dating coaching organization worldwide.  This article is a review of his upcoming book for women:  It’s Your Move: How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want.

Why should we listen to what Nick Savoy has to say about dating advice for women?

Why should we listen to what Nick Savoy (who sometimes goes by Savoy) has to say about dating for women?  Savoy has mostly coached men, so why should we listen to what he says in It’s Your Move:  How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want?  Simply put, Nick Savoy and his colleagues have distilled insights gained from over 100,000 “pickups” of women by men.  He has also followed those men through the relationships that resulted from those pickups.  And he has coached women who were seeking dating advice.  Nick Savoy has a brilliant analytical mind, and in his new book for women, he has mapped out the entire landscape of modern-day dating for both women and men.

By the way, I am not making any commissions or being compensated in any way for writing this book review of It’s Your Move: How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want by Nick Savoy. I just felt like writing this from my heart :)

How I met Nick Savoy

Before we turn to the It’s Your Move book, I will give a little background about how I know Nick Savoy.  It all dates back to the year 2006, the year I almost died.  After spending a week in the hospital during which I was simultaneously dehydrating, drowning in my own fluids, had lost about half my blood, and was in imminent danger of being moved to intensive care for any number of life-ending calamities … I knew that my life had to change.  I was living a very “conventionally successful” life but deep down I was not happy.  And one of the areas that I was not happy about was my dating life.

Shortly after I got out of the hospital, I met a guy named Jeff who was a “player.”  Jeff and I really hit it off and we dated for about three months.  Then things pretty much “collapsed.”  I was not too devastated, in part because I never had sex with him and had not invested emotionally too much.  What mostly stuck with me after Jeff was that I loved his “playful player” nature because it brought back to life in me the part that had died long before my near-death experience.

I became fascinated with players, and over the rest of 2006, I started reading dating advice, both in books and online.  First, I digested all of the dating advice for women and found it shockingly unsatisfying.  Then one day, a copy of the book “The Game” by Neil Strauss landed in my lap.  I could not put it down.  Finally, I had found an account of dating and relationships that intuitively “made sense” to me in the context of the aliveness that I had seen in my player Jeff.  The aliveness that – as I look back now – was deep down what I wanted to bring alive in myself.

By early 2007, it was clear to me that the women’s dating advice industry was a dead end.  I wanted to learn from the men in the Game, who clearly had real social dynamics dialed in.  I found the website that belonged to Nick Savoy’s company and sent them an email requesting coaching.   Once they understood what I was looking for – how do I connect with players and yet also have real relationships with them? – they connected me with Savoy.

From the very first few emails, I knew I was going to like him.  I flew to Los Angeles for what they call a “one-on-one” coaching experience.  Don’t ask me how I knew ahead of time, but I did know that this was going to be more than just coaching.

To make a long story short, I spent a day and a night with Nick Savoy in Los Angeles.  We visited many venues, and he poured out his wisdom about how guys think.  Meanwhile, the chemistry between us was also building.  This was exactly the kind of coaching that I wanted.  I wanted to FEEL that aliveness and learn how to bring it out in other people at the same time.  How Nick Savoy managed to be the ideal combination of the perfect chivalrous gentleman and the highly sexualized “bad boy” … well, that’s why you need to read his book.  He took me to a lovely dinner, for which he paid even though I was the client.  Absolutely chivalrous the entire day.  Yet, he was not the “nice guy” who always gets blown off by women.  No, he was not the “nice guy” at all.  Before we were halfway through dinner, he had me on his lap with incredibly high sexual tension that had the whole room buzzing.  We were not doing anything scandalous at all.  Nonetheless, the sexual tension he had built with me was so powerful that we almost got kicked out of the restaurant.  No joke, the maitre d’ came over and said if we didn’t cool it off fast, we were going to be history.  Hahaha :)

I won’t go into all the details of what happened.  I spent the night and had an early flight in the morning to get back to my job.  What I remember most about the experience is how clearly Nick Savoy really was an expert at what he does.  And what I remember also most is how caring he was.  How a man can be both exquisitely professional and also inspire beautiful romantic passion AT THE SAME TIME is a question to ask a Love Systems coach lol.  Everything he has ever done and said with me has been honest and above board. I forgot my very expensive jewelry and watch on his nightstand, and he had it all sent to me promptly. Then he kept following up with me.

I was definitely interested in Nick Savoy after that.  The day that I got back from my one-on-one with Savoy, Jeff the Player emailed me out of the blue lol!!  But, dare I say, against all the odds, Nick Savoy had managed to get me to lose some interest in Jeff the Player.  Haha :)

The chemistry between me and Nick Savoy was strong.  Realistically, I figured this was not at all a viable romantic possibility for me.  “He’s not just a player, Erika.  He’s a PROFESSIONAL player.  You CANNOT be interested in him.”  And I kinda kept my distance for quite some months.  He kept texting me though, and over time I definitely felt he was sincerely interested in me.  It was not until August that year that Savoy and I were reunited at Burning Man for what turned out to be one of the most magical weeks of my life.  Rarely in my life have I felt so simultaneously alive, present, connected, and inspired, as I did with Savoy at Burning Man that year.  Our final night together, he handcuffed me to his belt and we wandered all over the Playa, having one adventure after another.  And it was Divine.  You can read his account of our adventures by Read About Erika Awakening and Nick Savoy Here.

Anyway, I digress.  Things did not work out with us romantically, in part because of long distance and whatever other things that are just not meant to be.  However, it was absolutely clear to me after Burning Man that “I want to do what Savoy does.”  I wanted to become a coach just like him.

Over the next year, I got a bunch of training from a range of coaches and facilitators, and it was almost a year exactly after our Burning Man experience that I finally started my blog.  Literally, I kid you not, I was reading Savoy’s blog one day in September 2007.  And suddenly I saw the “create blog” button at the top of his blog.  I clicked the button, and the rest is history.  So began my brand new career, which has now turned into a multiple six-figure personal transformation business.

The bottom line:   I give Nick Savoy credit for giving me the inspiration to create a whole new life, leaving my legal career behind to pursue what I really loved instead.  If that is not a testimonial for a great coach, I don’t know what is.  And I tell you all this so that you will understand why it is important that you read Nick’s book, It’s Your Move.  Whether you are a man or a woman, read this book.  It is so important that you be able to see the “game” from both perspectives, like Nick Savoy does, if you want to play well. You can read my Appreciation Thread for him by CLICKING HERE.

So now back to the book – It’s Your Move:  How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want

What you need to know about this book, It’s Your Move by Nick Savoy:

1.  It’s Your Move:  How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want is not just dating advice for women.  How much happier would our dating and relationships be if we all understood each other a little bit better?  I am certain the initial success of my first blog Awakening from the Dream was due in large part to the fact that I had spent so much time studying the men’s dating advice.  I understood their perspective and could speak to it.  As a result, I had hundreds of people reading my blog and dozens of men pursuing me romantically.  If you are a woman, read this book It’s Your Move to improve your own dating “game.”  If you are a man, read this book It’s Your Move to understand what you have been missing about women’s perspective.

2.  This is a very practical guide.  Nick Savoy has a brilliant analytical mind and is a brilliant writer.  He is not giving you “airy fairy” advice as many women’s relationship coaches do about tuning in to your feminine nature.  That kind of advice has its place, but it leaves women lacking for the nuts and bolts of dating and relationships.  It’s Your Move covers all kinds of practical logistics and questions you probably never even thought about that just might determine the outcome of your next date.  Such as where you are meeting, what message that is sending, and what that is going to mean at the end of the night.  And how the assumptions you are making about the man are not helping you get what you want!

3.  Nick Savoy’s fundamental caring for his fellow human beings shines through in every word of the book.  The same sincere caring that I felt from Nick Savoy during and after my coaching experience with him is present throughout this book.  He helps you see both the man and the woman’s perspective in every situation, and shows equal respect for both.  He helps you navigate some of the common “incompatibilities” between men and women without being disrespectful to any of the people involved.  If you apply the principles in this book, you will act with more self-respect and more respect for others at the same time.

4.  It’s Your Move will help you think more clearly, and become more conscious of who you are and what you want.  Nick Savoy frequently points out throughout the book how women sabotaged relationships by not being clear about what they wanted.  Often we engage in indirect strategies and passive-aggressive behaviors by default.  We were often taught these behaviors in childhood.  And even though we know deep down they do not work (look at the divorce rate), we do them on auto-pilot.  This book will help you become more aware of the behaviors and the fact that you may not be clear about your expectations and desires.  These insights alone make it well worth reading this book.

5.  It’s Your Move gives practical and workable suggestions for a variety of “difficult” dating conversations and situations.  Literally, Nick Savoy gives you exact words you can say out loud to a man that would actually work.

6.  Perhaps the most priceless selling point of It’s Your Move is how clearly it will help you see a man’s perspective.   So many of us cycle through dating and relationship situations with no real empathy for how the other person is feeling or what they are needing.  The women’s dating industry in general has a real weak spot with helping women understand men as human beings (not just objects of a pretty disrespectful “let me nail down this man into a commitment” attitude).  Here, Nick Savoy’s extensive experience coaching men is PRICELESS, and again this alone makes this book worth your reading.  He can tell you exactly how the man is feeling and what he is thinking when you insist that he not go to “poker night” with the boys for the umpteenth time.

7.  It’s Your Move will help you maximize your options and take seeming “rejections” less personally.  This book is very grounded and I at least felt a deep sense of calm even reading it.  This is part of what drew me to the men’s dating advice in the first place.  The women’s advice tended to revolve around certain judgments about the way things “should be,” which get women very insecure always feeling they are “failing” at a system that doesn’t work in the first place – whereas the men were always asking “what actually works?”  I am not a fan of a “scientific” approach to life in general, but there is a certain attitude of detached curiosity in seeing it all as a system and a game that makes it all less personal and less emotionally upsetting.  I’m not sure I am explaining this well.  I think if you read the book, you’ll understand what I mean.

8.  Honesty and perhaps an invitation for something more?  One of my favorite parts of the book is at the very end.  Here, Nick Savoy acknowledges how “absurd” the modern dating scene is.  And that honestly is the issue that led me to move away from the dating and relationship advice industry for the most part.  Dating and getting married, to me, never felt fully satisfying.  It lacked the sense of purpose that I get from transformational coaching and teaching personal development, for example.  So what I see, though it perhaps is not what Nick Savoy actually intended, is an invitation here for all of us to go beyond this “absurd” game to something more meaningful … that, at least, is what I have chosen to do.

Whether you continue to play the “game” or not, however, you can’t afford to miss out on this book by Nick Savoy.  You will gain precious insights into the psyches and motivations of men and women.  You will be more conscious of all the finer details of human interactions.  And, if you choose to go beyond the “game” of dating and relationships to something more, you will be far better equipped to do so having mastered the game “as it is.”

Go here now to pre-order your copy of It’s Your Move: How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want by Nick Savoy. It is being released on February 5, but you can pre-order it now by CLICKING HERE.

Oh, and Nick Savoy just appeared on the Today Show with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb to talk about It’s Your Move: How to Play the Game and Win the Man You Want. Check it out here:

Love,

Erika Awakening, High Priestess of Miracles at TAPsmarter