13 Power Moves Examples to Dominate Anyone

What is a Power Move? A power move is a conscious, often conspicuous display of dominance that instantly and memorably shifts the social power dynamics in your favor.

It’s a concentrated display of status and control.
This is the definitive guide, breaking down the meaning and definition of power moves, complete with an analysis of 13 real-world examples (including intellectual, negotiation, and social moves) to help you understand, identify, and execute them effectively.

Intro

To be accurate, any action that alters the social power dynamics is a power move.

However, as it’s most often intended, a power move tends to be a conspicuous or flashy social behavior that dramatically changes the power dynamics in an interaction.

The difference between a “power move” and generally dominant behavior is that dominant behavior is baseline behavior. Power moves instead tend to be “concentrated displays of power”.

Power moves can be divided into several categories, including:

• Dialectical power moves: quips or rebuttals that win the exchange and display mental superiority
• Negotiation power moves: gambits that win a concession (see an example here)
• Raw muscle power moves: using physical size (example), superior weaponry, or fearlessness displays
• Status power moves: displays of higher rank within a hierarchical structure,
• Mental power moves: anything that displays higher confidence or higher-value mindsets

The beauty of good power moves is that a single well-placed power move can change everything, from your reputation, to the outcomes you get.
Sometimes a great power move can “flip the script”, taking you from subservient to dominant.

Let’s now explore 13 power moves examples you can also use in real life:

1. Beat Them At Half-Power

Nothing shows absolute dominance like beating everyone else with a handicap.

For example:

Competition lines up with special running shoes, fuel gels, and moisture-wicking shorts? You outrun them in jeans.

Subtly or openly parade your handicap: it sub-communicates you’d have crushed them 10x harder if you even cared to put in some effort.
Tyson Fury does it here:

Tyson: This is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world (stands up and shows his ‘soft’ physique)
Tyson: (turns to his fit and athletic opponent) Have a look. Fat man. That’s who beat you

Winning Against The Odds: Self-Esteem Power Move

This power move is also a great mental approach to life.

For example, think of yourself as the underdog who upsets the odds, the comeback man, or the hero who leads the way for other underdogs and shows the world what’s possible.

For example, I’m even prouder of myself for having achieved what I’ve achieved despite the odds.
See more here.

2. Display “F U” Money

Money is the true power equalizer. 

Money doesn’t look at your dress, skin color, or appearance.

If you have lots of money, you can always pull a power move that propels you from the bottom to the top.
As a matter of fact, the best moment to execute this power move is right when people are looking down on you.

Why?

Because with this power move, you are telling them:

If me, someone whom you think is beneath you, can buy you and all your worthless establishment, what does it say about you?
It says you must really be a nobody.

Look at an example here:

Bartender: (dismissive, looking down on him, implying he can’t afford it) The Latour is 400 pounds a bottle
The Saint: Then we will have two bottles. (hands a wallop of bills) There, you count it 

However, there is an art to this power move.
You don’t want to flash credit cards at women, which screams ‘simping‘. And you don’t want to look like you are throwing money because you have been emotionally unsettled by people, like in this scene from “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

To execute this power move correctly:

1. Pick an expensive item
2. Remain calm and collected in front of perceived slights: as a matter of fact, smile a little, as if you’re thinking “LOL, if this poor loser only knew the gulf that exists between me and him”
3. Take out a big wallop of money: the bigger, the better. And make sure it’s big notes
4. Handle money as if it were paper, almost with disdain: most people are careful around money, you treating it like paper highlights the difference between you and them -and like you got so much you couldn’t care less-
5. Always say “keep the change”: researcher Deborah Tannen notes that very large tips can be offensive as it’s a way to “show them”.
   Exactly what you want! Show them you could buy them and own them, if you wanted to.

Alternative ways:

• Bring a guy with you who handles the payments for you: If you have someone paying for you, the power move is already executed, so you can even tell your man “Don’t tip, they’re rude”. Then leave.

Lots of money also displays the power of freedom.
As Nassim Nicholas Taleb says:

This is sometimes called “fuck you money,” which, in spite of its coarseness, means that it allows you to act like a Victorian gentleman, free from slavery.
It shields you from prostituting your mind and frees you from outside authority–any outside authority.

That’s the type of money I always wanted: the money that buys me freedom and mental freedom.

How To Use It To Score On Dates

SEE SEDUCTION UNIVERSITY

F*ck You Money For Women

Women can best pull this power move with a feminine twist -a “coquette style“, for example.

See Charlotte executing it to perfection:

Friend 1: Charlotte, this is really inappropriate
Sidney: Yes, you’re such a… 
Charlotte: What, what am I, Sidney? (stares them with a power gaze, drops a note inside the glass, walks out)

Her frame control is confident, without being overly aggressive.
Faced with a judge-role shame attack, she refused to backtrack and owned the accusation with pride.

3. Rub Their Noses In Your Wins

Double power if you can also remind them of their losses as you do it.

Jorge Lorenzo used it against Valentino Rossi.
Valentino Rossi, a formerly dominant racer, called the new young guys “pussies” for being afraid of tough racing.
Unluckily for Rossi, the “pussies” were finishing ahead of him, so the power move came natural: 

Rossi: Young riders are p*ssies
Lorenzo: Shame for Rossi to be beaten by p*ssies

Obama does something similar here:

Obama: I have no more campaigns to run. My only agend..
Republicans: (interrupt with applause, cheering) Yeeeeeah
Obama: I know, because I won both of them (=suck my winning d*ck, losers)

The secret to doing it well is to move forward right after you deliver the power move, lest you look narcissistic, too into yourself, and emotionally thin-skinned.

Note: Winners Don’t Overreact

Here’s a power nugget of wisdom for you:

Look at the video above again.

And note who goes wild at Obama’s joke.
It’s the backbenchers and the smaller players who truly go wild.

Top players know how to act high dominance, and they know that overreactions signal low power.

4. Show Your Superiority Without Words

Nothing says “I’m better than you”… Than saying it without words.

The law of least social effort says that the less effort you expend, the more powerful you look.

So when you cut off or ignore people without saying a word, you naturally come across as superior. 
Some tips on how to pull off this power move:

• Exhale emphatically
• Roll your eyes upward
• Show disgust with facial expression
• show disappointment with facial expression

5. Let Them Wait (With Royal Attitude)

Letting people wait is a power move.

An ahole power move we don’t advise… Unless it’s called for.

However, if we are dispassionately discussing power moves, then there is one way to execute it well.

How?

The secret is “sprezzatura”, like it’s the most normal thing in the world, and like people are supposed to wait for you.

Wanna see an example of this power move?

Look at how this man from the movie “Il Marchese del Grillo” does it.
Note his tonality, and his body language:

Butler: Mr. Marquis, there is downstairs a French official in barouche, he says he is…
Marchese: Oh yeah, that’s captain Blachard, let him wait (waves hands in the air as if to say “who cares”), I had even forgotten about him (and stays seated talking to his mother)

This is how old-world royalty moves and thinks.
They think like they are owed power, and that it’s actually fair for people to wait for them.

6. Ask Their Opinion, Then Contradict Them 

This is typical social power at play.

And I love this example from “Meet The Parents”.

Guys who “met her parents” know that there is always a certain power tug-of-war between husbands and fathers-in-law.
If the two meet before marriage, the father-in-law can:

• Be territorial with his daughter
• Seek ways to “test” the new man
• Make a point that he remains the big cock of the house and he isn’t going to be dethroned by this new man

On the other hand, the groom-to-be wants to be liked by the family, which can put him in a subservient frame of mind that gives all his power away.

In this example, De Niro displays his power with lots of verbal signals of power.
And caps it all off with the “contradict power move”:

Jack: Let me ask you a question, Greg: can you really trust another human being, Greg?
Greg: (thinks about it) Sure, I think so
Jack: No, the answer is that you cannot 
Greg: (does not reply, looks away, owned)

7. Make Them Nervous, Then Tell Them to Relax

Making people nervous with your presence, questions, or jokes is a dead giveaway of dominance.

To avoid breaking rapport after you made people anxious, you can then say you were “just joking”.
Denzel Washington does it in a few of his movies.

And De Niro does it here:

Jack: Oh, you’d be surprised how accurate they are. I can tell fairly easy if one is lying or not
Greg: (Squeaks and sweats)
Jack: Relax, relax

8. Extend An “Offer They Can’t Refuse”

Could we make a list of power moves without this classic?

No, we couldn’t:

Producer: Johnny Fontane will never get that part
(…) You don’t understand: Johnny Fontane never gets that movie
(wakes up next to the severed head of his favorite horse. Johnny Fontane gets the part.)

Animal cruelty aside, these types of power moves are actually classy.

They say:

We can get to you easily, but for this time, we just wanted to warn you.
You can play ball with us and get your fair value back, or your will force us to use force. 
We hope you choose to negotiate in friendliness.

Usually, they choose friendliness :).

To pull it off, show that:

• You can reach a favorable outcome with or without them (flaunting other options)
• Take what you are negotiating through negotiations or with nastier means (violence, hostile takeover, replacing them, etc.)
• Make them pay a very high price if they don’t negotiate as you please

9. Let Them Try to Lead You, Then Make a Show of NOT Following

Principle:

Never adapt to others, always let others adapt to you.

Who adapts to whom is all about power dynamics.

And when people try to “teach” you about their culture, they are indirectly saying that you should learn their culture because it’s important.

The moment you start following them, not only you empower them, but you also become, well… The follower.
And power players don’t follow.

The real power players refuse to follow and take the lead, instead.
See here a great example:

Streisand: (teaches De Niro how to pronounce) L’chaim! L’ha-ha. Like you have popcorn stuck in the throat. It’s a…
De Niro: (looks away, smiles derisively, as if to say “fuck you and your BS”) OK, to family (refuses the learner’s frame, takes back the lead)
Everyone: laughs

10. Hit With a Back-Handed Compliment

Nothing screams “power move” like offending people with a compliment.

Billy Bats does it well here:

Billy: This kid was great.
They used to call him “spitshine Tommy” (LOL)
I swear to God, he made your shoes look like fucking mirrors. He was the best. Made a lot of money, too (you don’t make a lot of money shining shoes, it implies Tommy was poor and working hard for a pittance)
Salute, Tommy!

This whole dialogue is an attack masked as a compliment.
It’s covert-aggression (albeit not too covert).
It’s far more annoying being on receiving end of covert aggression. If you get angry without playing their same game you look over-reactive because it was not overt aggression -plus the attacker can always say “take it easy it was just a joke”-.

11. Use Humor to Ridicule Their Authority

Harsh truths can sound overly aggressive if you just blurt them out.

But frame them as a joke, and you can get away with almost anything.
Humor makes it harder for others to challenge you back. If they do, they’d look over-reactive. 

Joe Rogan: you want people to walk down the street with a mask on?
Bill Burr: let’s not start this, Joe
Joe Rogan: do you, though? Let’s start it
Bill Burr: I’m not going to sit here with no medical degree, listening to you with no medical degree, with an American flag behind you, smoking a cigar, acting like we know what’s up better than the CDC

Ouch!

In that same interview:

Burr: You don’t have the body fortitude. Your fu*king knuckles would scrape on the floor

🟰 You’re like a dumb gorilla

Burr: Oh God, you’re so tough with your fucking open nose and throat. G.I. Joe and his five o’clock shadow. This is a man over here.

🟰 you’re a posturer pretending to be tough

And later:

Burr: Now is the bitch Joe. Now is the bitch
(Joe laughs with hissing sound)

🟰 In the end, you’re not even tough.

Burr frames Rogan as a loudmouth talking things he doesn’t understand.
It took away all of Rogan’s authority.
It robbed him of any credibility, present and future, to talk about anything outside of, maybe, combat sports and pot.

Humor is a technique that suits people like Bill Burr especially well. Since it’s his job to make fun of others, you cannot attack him back easily.

👉 See “the jester” in Power University.

12. Let Them Come To You… Then Leave Them Hanging

Law of kings #1: Use your smaller allies to look hyperdominant. Smaller allies can’t rebel witout losing the alliance. They’re forced to submit. Use their neediness to display dominance with impunity

Calling people up to you displays power.
And letting them hang there displays total dominance.

Example:

Trump: Where is the United Kingdom <— Acts like a teacher taking attendance
Starmer: (walks to Trump) <— Obeys like a good pupil
Trump: (turns around and leaves Starmer hanging, who then must walk back in shame)

Starmer already lost power walking to Trump. Trump could re-empower him a bit. Instead, he doubles down and embarrasses him even more.

13. Drop Hints, Let Them Connect The Dots

Machiavelli said it first:

Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

What’s the point of having power, if you cannot flaunt it?

However, there is an art to displaying power.
Crass people are too obvious, and sound like they’re bragging because they aren’t used to having power.

Instead, you want to do it in one of two ways:

1. with full confidence, as if to say “this is the reality of things, friends”
2. As if you’re trying to hide your real power.

Here are some examples of this power move:

Random guy: So, what do you do?
You: I do some charity work to help less fortunate people (= I’m rich, I don’t need to work)

And:

Random Guy: Where are you from?
Me: Originally, Italy, but EU during summers and most of the times… I travel the world (=I live life my way, free of any confines, and you can’t put me in a box)

And:

Him: If you had to choose between a man who’s rich, handsome, or one who is poor and average, what would you choose?
Her: Well… I have a lot of money and don’t need any help there.
I’ve also been around models for many years, and beauty does not impress me.
I think real men have the confidence of being who they are, flaws and everything (= your low-value criteria don’t apply to me. I have all that you crave and I go for chemistry because I can)

The above guy is trying to put her in a typical female box that reduces her power.
She switches the power tables by making him come across as petty and low-value.
And speaking of switching the power tables…

14. Switch The Power Tables

This is the ULTIMATE power move.

Going from power down, to winning.

SEE POWER UNIVERSITY

Remember: Life Success Needs More Than Showy Power Moves

This article, just like its cousin “office power moves“, is based on solid principles of power dynamics.

However, this article is more intended as humorous than to acquire real-life power.
But a series of power moves is not as useful for advancing in life.

For that, we built:

• Power University, the ultimate power move on life