The 48 Laws of Power is a non-fiction book written by Robert Greene in 1998. While working as a writer in Hollywood, Greene figured out that today's elite shares the same similar traits with powerful people in the past. The 48 Laws of Power can give you an insight into how you should handle yourself in certain situations and how people operate around you. Knowing these laws will open your eyes and make you aware of the mindset of a human being and how to use them for your advantage.
Law 1: Never outshine the master.
Always work towards making your master appear more brilliant than anyone, and never ever make the mistake of stealing the spotlight from them. Do this and your master will reciprocate that loyalty to you.
Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies.
Hire a former enemy, and he will be more loyal than a friend because they have more to prove. Friends have more tendency to envy and jealousy and are more secretive.
Law 3: Conceal your intentions.
Never reveal your trump card and always throw people off the scent. Talk about false desires and false goals but never reveal your true plans. Always appear friendly, open, and trusting.
Law 4: Always say less than necessary.
When you say less than necessary, you appear mysterious and difficult to read. A person who cannot control his words cannot control himself and can be easily manipulated or exploited.
Law 5: So much depends on reputation, guard it with your life.
Always think ahead and be alert to potential attacks on your reputation. Always be careful with your personal actions as they will reflect the kind of person you are. At the same time, always find weaknesses in your enemies' reputations.
Law 6: Court attention at all costs.
You must always associate your name and reputation with quality, or trait that sets you apart from other people. Always hang out with the popular, the powerful, and the talented.
Law 7: Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.
This law applies if you are the boss and happens quite naturally anyway. The credit always goes to the employer and not the employee. Knowing this law will give you a better understanding of how things work in the real world.
Law 8: Make other people come to you, use bait if necessary.
By making people come to you instead of you going to them, you will have the advantage because it is your territory or a place of your choice. You also have lesser effort and more control if people come to you instead of the other way around.
Law 9: Win through your actions, never through argument.
A person who talks a lot with no action is nothing more than an arrogant liar. By making people see your actions instead of arguments, you can convince people more about what you can do and what kind of person you really are.
Law 10: Avoid the unhappy or unlucky
When you are in the presence of a miserable or unlucky person, stay away from them as they have a tendency to drown you in their misery and misfortune. Don't argue and don't try to help. Just leave them.
Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you.
Don't teach people everything, instead, keep the special things only you can do to yourself. By doing this, people will see you as somebody important because only you can do certain things.
Law 12: Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.
Honesty and any other acts of kindness are very useful tools in the world of deception. When people are honest or generous to you, you will instantly think you have earned their trust, but you need to be careful and look through those actions and see if you have something that they want.
Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interest and never to their mercy or gratitude.
To successfully get help from others, you have to focus on what they want and not yours. When asking for help, make sure they will get something out of it as well and they will continue helping you in the future.
Law 14: Pose as a friend, work as a spy.
When you are closer to people as a friend, you are less likely suspicious. While in this position, learn to probe and find out their weaknesses and intentions.
Law 15: Crush your enemy totally.
If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out from it.
Law 16: Use absence to increase respect and honor.
Too much circulation makes the price go down, the more you are seen and heard from the more common you appear. You can increase your value by applying the law of scarcity to you. The more you are seen and heard from the, lower your value becomes. Always try to work in the dark or behind the curtains and achieve more rather than being in the spotlight.
Law 17: Keep others in suspender terror. Cultivate an air of unpredictability.
Predictability gives others a sense of control. Always turn the tables and be deliberately unpredictable. A behavior pattern that doesn't seem to make sense will keep enemies off-balance and will eventually wear themselves out trying to figure out your next move.
Law 18: Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous.
Isolation becomes dangerous when taken to an extreme. You get cut off from friends and valuable information and become an easy target.
Law 19: Know who you are dealing with. Do not offend the wrong person.
Learn to read people's personalities and try to find out who can be helpful to you and who can be liabilities. Also, deceive and outmaneuver the wrong people and they will spend their entire lives seeking revenge and attack when you're weak. Help the right people and you will get more favors in return.
Law 20: Do not commit to anyone.
It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side and only commit to yourself. By maintaining your own independence, you become Master of Others.
Law 21: Play a sucker to catch a sucker. Seem dumber than your mark.
Always make your enemies feel smarter than you and they won't perceive you as a threat. You have the ultimate advantage when you are invisible. Playing stupid might be the best defense strategy that you can apply.
Law 22: Use the surrender tactic. Transform weakness into power.
When you are weaker, never fight for honor's sake. Choosing surrender over pride becomes an advantage and will give you time to recover. Life is a wheel of fortune and there will come a time for your enemy's power to wane.
Law 23: Concentrate your forces.
Flaunt your assets to make them look overwhelmingly big and strong. Always appear big with a lot of force.
Law 24: Play the perfect courtier.
Master the art of indirection. Learn how to flatter. Yield to superiors and assert the power to others in the most graceful way. Always make kings feel more kingly and be friendly even to your enemies.
Law 25: Re-create yourself.
Always be the master of your own image rather than let people define who you are. Be a master of your appearance and emotions.
Law 26: Keep your hands clean.
Your name and reputation depend more on what you conceal rather than what you reveal. Always keep your mistakes to yourself and never admit to them or talk about them.
Law 27: Play on people's need to believe to create a cult-like following.
People are always driven by a cause to believe in. Use those beliefs to create some sort of a following or a group so you'll have a bigger force.
Law 28: Enter action with boldness.
Everyone admires the bold, no one honors the timid. Always be decisive and be bold with decisions. When deciding on something or making a move, never show any hesitation because hesitation is indecisiveness, and indecisiveness is weakness.
Law 29: Plan all the way to the end.
Always put into account all possible outcomes and plan in detail. Be a master of contingencies. There shouldn't be anything that surprises you when a plan fails because you will already have a backup plan for that.
Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless.
Never show people how hard you work. No matter how difficult something is, speak as if it was easy to do. By not revealing effort in accomplishments, you make it look as if it was achieved naturally and leave people wondering how you do such very difficult things.
Law 31: Control the options. Get others to play with the cards that you deal with.
Always give people the illusion that they are in control of their choices. Make people choose options that come out in your favor whichever one they choose. Make them think they have free will when in fact, you will still have the benefit whatever their choices are.
Law 32: Play to people's fantasies.
Life is normally harsh and miserable that people who can create a romantic illusion or conjure up fantasy are like water in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. Find out what people's fantasies are and try to make them a reality.
Law 33: Discover each man's thumbscrew.
Everyone has a weakness. To manipulate certain situations to your favor, you have to know which buttons to press and how to use other people's weaknesses to your advantage.
Law 34: Be royal in your own fashion. Act like a king to be treated like one.
The way you carry yourself will determine how people will treat you. Act vulgar, common, or disrespectful and you will be treated the same way. Act with grace, finesse, and confidence in a regal manner, and people will treat you highly.
Law 35: Master the art of timing.
Never seem to be in a hurry. Hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself and time. Lack of control is a weakness. The CIA has a saying "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast".
Law 36: Disdain things you cannot have. Ignoring them is the best revenge.
By fixating on a certain problem, you acknowledge its presence and credibility. The more attention you pay to an enemy, the stronger they become. The less interest you reveal in problems, the more superior you appear.
Law 37: Create compelling spectacles.
Always dazzle with appearance and illusions so no one will know what you're really doing.
Law 38: Think as you like but behave like others.
Always blend in wherever you are. Always appear like you're the common man who gets along with others even though you don't particularly agree with certain practices. Be unorthodox only in your mind rather than show it in public.
Law 39: Stir up waters to catch fish.
Always avoid the display of anger and emotions. During difficult situations, always look at other people's reactions and how they handle their emotions when under stress. Associate yourself with the calm and objective. The ones who are easy to anger are weak and in less control.
Law 40: Despise the free lunch.
When people offer something that is free, it usually has a hidden obligation behind it. Somehow you will have to do some sort of reciprocation in the future. By resisting the free lunch, you are not indebted to others.
Law 41: Avoid stepping into a great man's shoes.
Be careful in replacing someone who has done great things. You will be under pressure to double those achievements. The first always appears to be better and more original. Instead, create your own course and become your own first version.
Law 42: Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.
In groups, there are always just one or two people that most of the members like. Understand this principle and you won't have to take down an entire group, but only one or two people who matter most to the group.
Law 43: Work on the hearts and minds of others.
You must always convince others into wanting to move in your direction. The way to make them agree with you is to operate on their emotions, playing on what they love or fear.
Law 44: Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect.
When you exactly do what your enemy does, you leave them in confusion and in the dark of what your true strategy is. By doing this, you are somehow displaying some sort of mockery to them and shows them that you aren't intimidated by them.
Law 45: Preach the need for change but never reform too much at once.
If you have a new position in an office or in government, always show credit to older things. Always make it appear as a gentle improvement of the past and not you changing things radically. Rushing is a weakness. Patience shows you are in control.
Law 46: Never appear too perfect.
Appearing too perfect and without errors will make people hate you, and will encourage them to look for faults. If you appear too perfect, others will constantly obsess about making you look dirty and broken. Show a few faults, or weaknesses every now and then and you appear as a common man.
Law 47: Do not go past the mark you aimed for. In victory, learn when to stop.
Sometimes by going over the goal, you attract more problems. The higher you go, the bigger your problems will be. Set a goal, and when you have reached that goal, stop.
Law 48: Assume formlessness
Always appear adaptable and on the move. Never stay on a fixed ideal or a fixed belief. By being stagnant and open, you become predictable and easy to take down.
Comments