The Renaissance Man

@Daniel Balan Examples of beige from the Spiral Dynamics book. So this is straight from the source: The first peoples, newborn infants, senile elderly, late-stage Alzheimer’s victims, mentally ill street people, starving masses, bad drug trips, and ‘shell shock.’ Described in anthropological fiction like Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear.

THIS. If this was made clearer from the get-go 90% of the confusion about SD in this forum would disappear.

@Schizophonia I don't know what energy means here, so I'll interpret it as "vibe". 1) I want to release a good vibe, obviously. Who wants a bad vibe? 2) Of course, you can't ever 100% control your behavior. You probably can't control 10% but that's besides the point. And even if you could, it would be a stifled, fake, and shitty life. 3) Yes, I think that feedback is extremely precious if you want to socially improve. But only from close people I trust, not from strangers. And I don't know about "violent" lol. Close people I trust also know social calibration so "violent feedback" shouldn't be a problem.

Context: Todd V is a pick up artist that used to be a RSD coach. He's known for being very methodical in his cold approach style, but here you can see how he's also very methodical in his marketing. You may find some insights for your own business. I haven't purchased any of his product, so this is all information you can gather from his socials and website. I did this because I'm interested in marketing and I was familiar with Todd. Free Layer The funnel starts with free content, on social media. YouTube is probably the main one. YouTube is the platform that allows most trust to be built, because of the longer exposure. The next level is the two lead magnets: A collection of infields A course on inner game To unlock these you give your email, where email marketing begins. Newsletters contain little value, but are not bothering to read. Each of them has one or multiple pitches. Some of them are notifications for "special sales", more on that in a minute. This is all the free stuff. Todd is giving loads of value for free, and you start to trust him more and more. You create a positive association, start to interpret him as an authority figure, he starts to stand out as someone who is a viable solution to solve your dating problems. Course Layer Todd sells multiple products/services, but they're very purposefully structured. The first paid layer are the courses. There are 4 of them, all one-time purchases: The System (his overall framework for cold approach) €397 Verbal Game Academy (conversation) €597 Value Masterclass (conveying value & attractiveness) €347 Online Dating Academy €397 Together, the 4 courses provide a very solid dating foundation. Despite that, they are only the tip of the iceberg. Todd could price them higher, but he doesn't, because they're meant to be a low-entry barrier to create even more trust and get people to the real juice: the next layer. In fact, he routinely discounts the 4 courses at €197, which allows for the compelling [50% off!] headline. Coaching Layer The courses are pre-recorded, the coaching is tailored to you. And it's much more expensive. Todd offers 3 services, some are to small groups, some are online, some are still one-to-many. Mentorship Program €400/month with community, access to coaches for questions, and some live Q&As Digital Black Belt €300/week all about online dating, helps you create a profile, create pictures with AI (yes), and more In-Person Bootcamp €1000/day the classic cold approach bootcamp As you can can see, coaching costs the same as a course... per month, per week or even per day. The first two are online, the bootcamp is in person. Memberships are known to be far more profitable than one-time purchases. To lower the entry barrier to the subscriptions, there's often a "free trial" giving the first month or the first couple weeks at $1 (I guess to collect credit card information and remove friction through auto-billing future payments). You can/have to book a sales call for some of those. I think this is about 85% of his marketing. You could analyze his landing page's copy, or his video's CTAs, but this is the main funnel.

🔥🔥🔥

I haven't read the replies to your post but I have read your post. I think you're right, but you're also underestimating the forum. I believe the truth is in the middle in this case. You have probably experienced how quickly learning about certain concepts, especially about beliefs and epistemology, can make you vertically develop. It's insane. That is true development. You can see it when dealing with other people. They just don't see their blindness. That can happen in 6 months. That has happened to a lot of people here in 6 months. There's no denying that. New scenarios, worldviews that were not mentioned in any book or episode, yet the ability to maintain a detachment and catch the self-deception earlier than 99% of people. This doesn't mean zero self-deception, but it means far better than normal. In months. So the idea that a stage must take decades is false to me. It may be true if you actually stumble your way through development, not being aware it even exists. Only growing through experience and the various discrepancies that hopefully you start to notice. Then it takes decades. But if the light is shown straight to the problematic point, you can really develop certain areas at warp speed. And that's not even an opinion. I think it's quite common for people in this forum to have had this warp-speed perspective development in months or a couple years. Obviously there will always be the loud minority of people who are 4 stages earlier and make crazy claims.

@MsNobody @Leo Gura Drop the YT URL into NotebookLM by Google, tell it to give you the main points to contemplate, done. The solution is already here

@Something Funny We need a distinction. The word "understanding" is creating confusion. We're talking about two kinds of understanding here. This is recognition/memorization. We can call this "shallow understanding". This requires "deep understanding", which is not memorization or recognition, but it requires a grasp of the underlying principles, and an ability to move the pieces around and view them from whichever perspective you need and please. It's obviously on a spectrum, but having a clear distinction helps. Yes, unconsciously, in your mind, a model of how spiral dynamics works is developing. Can you feel the model? It feels like a cohesive, interconnected thing. Compare that to the scattered confusion you may have about the Proofs of God video. No cohesive model, only scattered pieces. That's the difference between deep understanding and shallow understanding. Leo is speaking english, and he follows a clear line of logic. Of course there's some understanding. But the trap is that it's only shallow, but you don't see it... until you try to explain it. I suggest that by actively looking for the model underneath, you can actually shortcut the process, and jump much closer to deep understanding, without needing "dumb repetition". Obviously some topics are just complex and you can't just go to deep understanding in one go. But it's not surprising to see a 5x improvement in how much it takes to get to deep understanding.

@Flowerfaeiry Let's say you're on one side of a corner. And on the other side there may or may not be another person. Would you be able to know if the another person is behind the corner just from the energy? If a person makes a sound behind a corner I hear it, after all. So it should be the same for energy, right?

@Arnam Motivation is too complex for a simple solution like the one you're looking for. No reply under this post will ever make your mind go David Goggins. Motivation is complex but it can be understood. I suggest you do a deep dive on motivation, reading 3-5 books on it, and trying to really get it. Pro-tip: clarity and habits are 90% of motivation. Clarity over what you want and clarity over the steps to get there, all the way to your hourly tasks. And for habits, it's mainly about making distractions invisible, and removing any friction for work and good habits.

@Something Funny Good question. Getting this right is actually a revolutionary skill, because it skyrockets your understanding of everything. The problem is that after watching a video you only have an illusion of understanding. You say you have no issue with understanding, but I say that's an illusion. I instead guess the reality is that you have a bunch of scattered ideas, and the interconnected understanding is fuzzy at best. Is this correct? When you study, try to go to the "model" that's behind the single bits of knowledge. Try to really understand the topic. I'm talking while you're studying, not after or in a review. I still suggest you take notes, but that's not the core issue here. From this new approach to learning, explaining the topic clearly, which you now struggle with, will become automatic. Because it's already all fleshed out in your mind. I know this advice sounds abstract, but it's like that on purpose: the task is pretty simple. Go to the underlying "model", the actual understanding, and not the memorization of the insights. An example might help. If you're studying Spiral Dynamics, you may hear from Leo a list of values, characteristics and examples. Normally, you'd take notes, and think: ok, stage orange has these traits. Understanding on the other hand means going one layer deeper. Why those specific traits? What do they have in common? What is it like to be a mind at stage orange? Why does it behave that way? Why can't it see the things Green sees? How does stage orange work? And as you answer, a model starts developing in your mind. A model of stage orange, holistic, complete, logical. That's understanding, and that's what you're looking for. You'll be suprised when from that new perspective, you'll be able to generate your own characteristics and examples with ease! Because you'll finally get it. Leo gets it, that's why he's able to talk about topics that way. He hasn't just memorized facts on the surface. He gets them. Consciously or not, his mind goes through the process I laid out in this reply. Just a shift in your approach to learning can make you 10x, no effort. PS - Studying how learning works - Meta-Learning - is a big thing of mine. This is my bread and butter, so I get what you're saying, I'm not just giving the first bunch of tips that came to mind.

Alex Hormozi! Especially the two books

Majed already made up his mind long before this conversation. It's no use discussing with logic. I want to understand why that's his perspective from his mouth (I guess fingers). That's where the juice is at.

Have you written a thread on this? I'm curious it sounds wild

@Emerald Thank you, that was very very insightful. Now I understand what you mean, it's quite illuminating to realize from a man's perspective. So I guess this risk isn't too frequent, given the ability an attractive man has to woo a woman.

Is this true? How do you know it's true? How did you verify this claim? I'm not saying it's false either. I'm asking you, as that's quite the claim you're making. Do you personally know high value self respecting men? Be honest though. Could this be false? How do you know it's true?

The clickbait game on this thread is wild lol

Is writing to confirm the title related to the structure problem in some way? Why is that a priority? Just to understand why she said that as a final response to your asks. By "prepared for that" you mean because you're asking too much? If that's the case, you could tell her about your concern that you're afraid you're asking too much, and maybe asking her what she would prefer, in case you have [insert hypothetical future problem] in the future. That way next time you know. Hmmm I thought the structure is the proper connection of the individual ideas. How can you have a good structure that gives you no guarantees? Isn't the proper connection of ideas the way you come up with a structure in the first place? Maybe you have some framework you were told to follow, and it clashes with the structure that would more naturally emerge from the ideas, and that's the difference I'm not getting. Is that it?

Ok from this it seems more about maintaining a kernel of rationality and perspective, more so than being strictly about having a man being in the Lover role. You didn't really mention the roles in this reply so I still can't fully get the dynamic at work, because it seems to not be just about maintaining some "rational distance" and not jumping feet-first into it. In your post you clearly stated how the Masculine Lover and Feminine Beloved dynamic is a necessity, because a man in the Beloved role will end up leaving. And also that he either naturally loves you, or he never will. And finally, that to make him "stay there", you must stay in your Beloved role. Am I getting this right? So my two questions from before are still open: How do you suggest the woman who's really into the man should behave in later phases of dating? How long should she maintain this dynamic going, even though emotionally she wants to invest a lot into the relationship? Does it depend on some factors? Is there a risk to take the advice of the Beloved too extremely, and resulting "too cold", ending up losing what would've been a good man? Where do you think that "too much" level is?

Hey Judy, I can tell you that by reading this what I feel is that the fact you've taken notes, and made several attempts shows that you've been hard working, instead of lazy and completely afraid and paralyzed. A professor sees the difference between hard work and laziness. Let me see if I understand the problem: it seems to be about how to structure your thesis. In particular this arises from the interconnectedness of the topic, where there's not a clear logical line but the information flows in every direction. Also it seems the problem is not about structuring or writing a thesis, but your thesis, because of the topic. Am I getting this right? First, as I said, your struggle seems ABSOLUTELY legitimate. And while you may be far more anxious than the average student, your problem feels normal in this situation. And regardless of the individual's anxiety, a very complex task is still very damn complex. I don't know your professor personally, but it seems like feedback on how to structure your thesis would be a valid and very important request, and she'd understand that. Second, I would seriously use AI (DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Claude), they're all free, but even the paid version could be worth it, since it's a special occasion, to help you in developing the structure. If you articulate the problem clearly, telling it exactly why and where you're struggling, and iterating response after response, I believe you can make some solid progress and gain a lot of clarity. I'm talking seriously, AI. I don't know how often you use AI, but I truly believe it would help. It's like having a second helping professor, with the difference it can answer infinite questions.

As a man, I'm trying to really understand your points about the Masculine Lover and Feminine Beloved. It seems like this "inauthentic" dynamic (inauthentic because often the woman needs to dominate her authentic feelings, not because it's problematic) needs to be present out of necessity, because only a man that naturally falls under the Lover role initially will create healthy ground for a relationship. So it's a matter of sorting, once again. It also seems like even if he falls naturally under the Lover role, the woman must still watch out and behave as the Beloved, because otherwise she may push him into the Beloved, even though he wasn't naturally there. Is this all correct? I have two questions: How do you suggest the woman who's really into the man should behave in later phases of dating? How long should she maintain this dynamic going, even though emotionally she wants to invest a lot into the relationship? Does it depend on some factors? Is there a risk to take the advice of the Beloved too extremely, and resulting "too cold", ending up losing what would've been a good man? Where do you think that "too much" level is?

You could reduce your caffeine intake gradually instead of going cold turkey. Eventually the headaches go away, but a softer transition may be better for you, since you describe them as debilitating.

I agree, and I was surprised by the name of the thread. How can that work for an adult, developed person? I feel everybody here has a different idea in their mind about what the masculine and feminine are, and how they can work together. And I also am very unclear on what masculine and feminine are. I can't pinpoint them in a sophisticated way. The idea of the child is extreme and shallow, but it has some truth deep in it. So where's the balance? What's the better, integrated version? I'd appreciate some perspective on this, if any of you can help.

@BlessedLion I wouldn't want him as a friend haha, but I think he's an exceptional thinker and strategist. And exceptional is an understatement. But at the surface he may appear like that. If you want to see his best work, check out his books and leave out the socials stuff.