Power University: Change Log

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3.0. Core Update (Dating)

Date: 20-30 November 2019

Overview: The 3.0 update focused mainly on the dating and seduction section, but provided an upgrade throughout the whole course.

Basics of Power

  • Social inflaters: new lesson tackling the phenomenon of those who pretend to be higher status than you are. Teaches how recognizing them and how to deal with them
  • “Belly first dominant walk”: added the “belly first” style of dominant walk, together with a video reference

Workplace Power

  • Female power: add a new video example on how to express power with femininity
  • Added more examples

Dating & Seduction

Overall, a major general update following a focused study on the best evolutionary psychology resources

  • Sexual market value: new lesson
  • What influences your SMV: new lesson with practical suggestions
  • Mating strategies: new lesson, spun off from first lesson and more in-depth
  • Mathematical way of finding your partner: new bonus lesson for those who want to settle down

Relationship Power Dynamics

  • Games of chicken: added threats of violence

Sticky Social Situations

  • De-escalation techniques: new lesson, spun off from the general overview and added more examples and techniques
  • Handling mistakes: new lesson, spun off from “the list lesson”, improved and added more video examples

Bonuses

Social finessing, previously one big lesson consisting of quick “power pills” to help people improve their EI, is now 3 different lessons:

  • Power: new lesson with more example
  • Persuasion: new lesson with more examples
  • Social Intelligence: new lesson with more examples

3.1 Update (Quizzes)

Version 3.1. saw a few aesthetics updates, and two new quizzes for male self-assessment:

  • Provider/lover strategy: this quiz helps men to self-assess if they might be more suited for a provider or a lover strategy
  • Short-term or long term: this quiz helps men self-assess what they do actually prefer, and decide when it’s time to settle down (based on Geoffrey Miller’s work)

4.0. Core Update (Basics of Power)

Date: January 2020

Based on the questions I received I realized that people would benefit from the basics a bit clearer.
And this is what this updated did: it added two lessons about the basic strategies of power.

Basics of Power

  • The Fundamental Life Strategies of Power: New lesson on basic strategies and mindsets to help people be the most

Social Skills

  • Warmth & Power: New lesson on warmth and power, the two dimensions people first assess when judging others
  • Frame Control: New lesson on how to control frames

Relationships

  • What games is she playing: added one quiz on manipulative techniques

4.1. Workplace Self-assessment

Date: February 2020

  • Quiz for women’s self-assessment: I added one quiz based on Lois Frankel’s work
  • Dating as a provider examples: I added a couple of screenshots to provide more examples on how to date effectively as a provider

5.0 Core Update (Career Strategies)

Date: December 2019 – May 2020

Across these months I have focused on learning and researching as much as possible on workplace power dynamics and career strategies.

The result has been a complete overhaul of the career section. Not anymore just about power dynamics, but about career strategies. Hence the new name.

Part of the update:

  • Women winning in business: 2 lessons for women to learn how to adapt and thrive in what’s still a male world
  • Career success strategies: proven strategies to help you advance in your career
  • Boss management: how to establish a boss relationship that helps you advance in your career
  • Effective self-promotion: including Machiavellian strategies
  • Enlightened business culture: for founders and bosses who want to establish cultures that nourish great relationships and effective action
  • Political landmines: common mistakes you need to be aware of
  • Exec soft-skills & how to convey power: this is the equivalent of the “how to convey power” lessons in the first module, but tailored to the workplace
  • Bonuses: excel tools to keep track of your network, and self-assessment quizzes

Social Skills

  • Frame control expansion: I realized that frames and frame control is a hugely important topic to help students master social interactions.
    So now there are 3 lessons on frame: a basic one, a lesson on techniques with lots of examples, and a lesson on mindset.
    Soon a quiz on frames to follow

6.0 Core Update

Date: September 2020 – December 2020

New Design

The new theme improved the design of the website, and it was especially aimed at improving the design and usability of the course.

This is a feedback from an early customer who could compare the two systems:

power university user interface customer feedbackIt’s a public post, so you can also read or comment on it here.

New Structure:

The most foundational lessons are now in the intro.

I’ve noticed too many enter the course thinking “I must be high-power/dominant” without fully appreciating the importance of alliances and the drawbacks of overpowering people.

So now they get those crucial lessons first thing.

The social skills module now comes before social power dynamics.
That makes more sense from a learning progression point of view.

Basics:

  • Social exchanges: new lesson added. This is a foundational lesson for understanding social dynamics and for some of the most important strategies for social success

Power Dynamics:

  • 2 new dominance styles: in the lesson “Archetypes of Dominance“, added the “status inflater” and the “easy life man”
  • Body language of dominance: added a “mindset” for a high power walk
  • Assertiveness quiz: 3 questions to give people a feel of how to strike an assertive balance between submission, assertion, and aggression

Social Skills: Advanced

  • Social exchange quiz: 9 questions drawing from very different social scenarios. Includes analysis and strategic thinking. The goal is to help people internalize the basic rules of effective and successful socialization
  • Assertiveness: a much-needed field guide to assertiveness. Including, of course, how to be assertive AND high-power (the two overlap but are not always the same)
  • Introduction power dynamics: 2 new cases studies -one turned into a quiz-, together with strategic thinking on how to handle the aggressive openers
  • Microaggressions & calibration: new lesson on calibration and handling all the smaller daily power moves. It replaced the former lesson “dealing with mean jokes”, and it’s both more advanced, as well as better tackling and explaining the basics
  • Covert power moves – quiz: new quiz to help you level up your skills in reading covert power moves and more subtle power dynamics, including strategies to dealing with them. The example is from dating, but principles apply to all socialization.
  • Manipulation: a brand new lesson on this very important aspect of social dynamics. How manipulation works, the strategies, how to defend oneself, and how to integrate manipulation in your social strategies.

Frame Control Strategies: New Module

Since frame control is so important, as well as so misunderstood, I dedicated a whole module to it.

  • Frames 101: two new paragraphs on:
    • Mindsets  and belief of frame control
    • “Frame cementing” technique, a super powerful tool of persuasion ju-jitsu
  • Quiz – frame analysis: a new quiz on how to properly analyze frames, including power dynamics and strategies
  • Frame control techniques: broke it into two lessons, added 2 more techniques (“frame shocking” and “frame stealing”), added more examples, plus general upgrade and improvement.

Relationships Power Dynamics

Leadership: New Module

  • Leadership 101: new lesson on basic dynamics, strategies, and mindsets of leadership

Removed:

To keep Power University as optimized as possible, I have removed some lessons or quizzes.
Worry not, the overall quality has gone up, and you can still find the best from these lessons:

  • Dealing with mean jokes: there is a similar free post, and the lesson on microaggressions and calibration better cover this topic, too
  • Case study – Johnny Depp: an interesting breakdown, but there is far better now on PU to help you internalize high-power behaviors
  • Dealing with cold-blooded dominant men: it’s now an add-on in the private forums
  • Workplace warfare: there is a similar post now. Warfare is rare, and you better avoid it than engaging, so this wasn’t a core lesson
  • Handling rejections with power: there is a similar public post now
  • World’s lies & manipulations – the systemic games people play: I will later turn this one into a public post. In PU, it will soon be replaced by a far better overview on manipulation.
  • Genders & culture – different approaches to power: people are more similar than they are different, and focusing on commonalities is a better strategy for both learning and success. There is enough about gender differences in the course, and more practical. PU is ultimately about practical strategies, and this lesson was too theoretical.
  • Verbal judo – handling slights and personal attacks: an interesting lesson, I’m considering to upgrade it and put it back. But as of now, the frame control module better covers this topic, and engaging in verbal slights is something that high-power, high-quality folks rarely do
  • Dominant verbal bullying – Jamie Dimon quiz: too specific, not enough added value. To get into PU, it’s either something is a 9 or 10 in added value, or it’s out

6.2. Strategies of Power

Date: January 2021

  • Fundamental strategies of power: New example with the mafia; going a bit deeper into the dangers of collaborations; added a new approach/mindset called “high-collaboration, high-paranoia”.

7.0 Core Update

Date: July 2021 – October 2021

New Course Infrastructure (Learning Management System)

The new course improves the user experience and adds new features such as:

  • Better structure
  • Assignments: at the end of each important module or lesson there are now assignments to help students follow through

New Lessons Structured Started

The new concept is to break up lessons into smaller chunks, rather than having very long lessons.

Power 101:

Social Skills – Advanced:

  • Basics of Social Power Dynamics: this is a new, foundational overview, of social power dynamics. It introduces many basic and foundational concepts that will help you understand -and retain & acquire- power

Frame Control Strategies:

Expanded and more comprehensive module.
And a new structure and layout that will help you learn and improve your frame control:

Leadership

Dating Module

Re-upgraded it all as Seduction University launched, so each single lesson improved with more real-life examples and practical strategies/techniques.

Bonuses

  • Machiavellianism: new groundbreaking lesson on how to become more Machiavellian, how to think like a Machiavellian, and real-life examples of Machiavellianism to internalize the approach

Removed:

  • Practical steps to increase your confidence and power: took the best wisdom and examples from it and combined it with the lesson “basic laws of power”.
  • “From Hello to Babies: Overview of Games & Manipulation”: It was too long (6.000 + words) and needed an upgrade. Broken it up into several lessons and put it into “Seduction University”
  • 3 quizzes to increase your emotional intelligence: Matthew is working on a specific product on emotional and social intelligence, both of which are supposed to be the more basic precursors to power dynamics. I’d rather have PU focused on power and strategies

7.2. Various Smaller Updates

Date: October 2021 – January 2022

  • Dating module upgrades: as we launched Seduction University we upgraded and improved the lessons that are shared between the two courses
  • Countless typos, grammar, sentence improvements: largely thanks to Bel (many thanks man!), who flagged hundreds of typos, grammar, syntax issues and more
  • Several smaller updates and improvements: part of which in conjunction with the release of the book “The Social Strategist”. As Ali and I went through the editing process, it was also an opportunity to address the parts that are shared between PU and the book
  • Traffic Light System: to understand and assess social power dynamics

8.0 Core Update (Structure & Organization)

Date: 11 June 2022 – 10 July 2022

Structural & Organizational Update

We addressed first and foremost the structure and organization to take full advantage of the new course learning management system.

While the older system only had modules -> lessons, the new learning management system has modules -> lessons -> topics.
Because we wanted to avoid a proliferation of lessons with the older system, lessons we much longer. And because we have too much great and groundbreaking content, some techniques and examples had to be fitted into the “closest matching lesson”. The downside is that this led to very long lessons, and a poorer match between lesson titles, and content.

In the new system the topics are nested under the lessons in a drop-down menu, keeping the front end sleek, compact, and easy to navigate.
So taking advantage of the better technology we re-organized the content with the following benefits:

  • Shorter lessons for faster and easier consumption: no more intimidating lessons of 8.000 words requiring 2-3h to go through. Now whenever you have an half an hour free, you can do one more lesson.
  • One lesson, one topic (higher semantic relevancy between titles and content): you can read a lesson’s title and know exactly what’s inside. It’s not just a cosmetic change, since when you prepare your mind to a certain topic, you’re also better able to internalize that content.
    Furthermore, it makes it easier to go back to PU and find exactly what you were looking for
  • “Prioritization Tags” for maximum efficiency (“optional”, “advanced”, “theory”, “foundational”, etc.): with higher granularity we could mark what’s “foundational”, “advanced”, or “nice to have” but not necessary.
    This way, if you are in a hurry and fully internalized, you can skip the “OPTIONAL” lessons.
    More beginner students may also keep the advanced lessons for after they’ve finished PU -or go faster through them to get an idea, without getting discouraged if it sounds too complex-.
    Either way, more options and empowerment and more efficient learning experience.
  • Ordered lessons: PU was already ordered from most basic to more advanced, but with the optional of higher granularity not each module is also better ordered, going from:
    • “Most foundational” to “optional”: mindsets -> high-level strategies -> techniques -> examples
    • “Simplest” to “most advanced”: foundational -> basic -> advanced
  • Dedicated lessons for examples & case studies: we could also separate the mindsets, strategies, and techniques, from some of the examples and case studies that show and apply those concepts.
    We believe that examples and case studies are incredibly helpful, but if you want to focus on the “main meat”, now you have the option to skip the case studies.
  • Lessons for positive behavior to emulate, and negative behavior to learn and defend from, but not to emulate: to gain more immediate clarity, in some case we broke up lessons for examples of dominant behavior that is too dominant, disempowering, and hence often ineffective, and “high-power” but effective.
    For example, the lesson on dominant archetypes now differentiates between “positive archetypes” and “not-so-good ones that you want to learn from and defend from, but not necessarily to mold and emulate”

Content Updates & Upgrades

Albeit the main goal was a structural re-organization, we also had plenty more great content that we picked up from various studies, life experience, video examples and, of course, our forum and community.

Some of the content upgrade includes:

High-Value Socialization

Formerly called “social exchange”:

  • Advanced rules: separated it from the previous, longer main lesson on social exchanges, and added several examples and case studies
  • How to recognize the takers: how to exactly spot the “takers” that you want to avoid

Power 101

Several new examples for covert power moves, including solutions and best techniques.

  • Power tests: important new concept in the “introductions” lesson on how some people test others early on for what they can get away with, including how to ace those tests

Frames

Broken up along to more lessons, starting from mindsets and highest-level strategies, to the techniques.
Now each major technique is a separate topic.
And we added a sub-section specifically for self-defense, which is what most people are interested in.

Plenty more examples and case studies, including:

  • Keep your grenade technique: the approach was already in PU, but too hidden. It needed its own technique name and definition, which we now have

Dating & Seduction

We slimmed down this module and maintained, but also importantly improved, the foundations.

The reasons are two-fold: we want to keep Power Univeristy compact and streamlined, and we now have Seduction University focusing on dating and seduction.

Leveling Up

New module for better granularity.
It includes:

Power Tech

This is were a lot of the new golden nuggets entered PU, including:

Machiavellianism

Turned into its own module as I come to think that this is the pinnacle of strategic thinking and living.

Many of the previous lessons, especially the socially exchange, provide the foundations upon which Machiavellianism is built.

Broken up the lessons to make them briefer and easier to consume, and added many concepts, examples and case studies all across the lessons.

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