I’ve recently finished Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, a controversial, yet useful book. The information it shares makes one better prepared to navigate our complex and perilous world of influences, power and subtle manipulations.

I found it to be an eye-opener on some fronts, but mostly as providing different perspectives on things that on the surface, appear obvious.

I can recommend this book to just about anyone. Its information, just like a knife, can be used for useful, enriching and productive endeavours (like cutting vegetables for a family dinner), or for nefarious activities (such as inflicting harm upon others). It’s ones responsibility to use it correctly and morally.

Below are my key takeways, segmented by Behaviour, Resources, Relationships, Strategies and How you Show Up.

Behaviour

Attitude and Behaviour

• Be royal in your demeanor. How you present and carry yourself tells the people how they should treat you. As seen in Columbus, son of a cheese maker, who behaved like royalty, as someone who deserved to be treated well. He amazed the Portuguese king, and eventually got the Spanish royalty to get him what he wanted: a fully paid expedition, except for a lifetime 10% profit shares for him and his descendants. They felt like he was one of them. Even though he knew less about navigation than any of his sailors and was a bad leader, he still got what he wanted, because of how he carried himself.
• Beware of venerating a new seductive culture that is not your original one. Don’t despise and look down upon the culture that raised you and provided you gifts, for it will grow resentment of the ones that follow it.
• Boldness over timidity. Both are acquired behaviours. Timidity gives others time to think and plan. Makes even the tamest prone to attack when they sense blood in the water.
• Only the weak rest on their laurels and dote on past triumphs.

In victory, don’t go past your mark

• Success is intoxicating and dangerous. The moment of victory is the moment of greatest peril. Do not allow success to come to your head. Set a goal, and when you reach it, stop.
  • Know when to stop and consolidate wins, instead of persisting in pushing forward.
  • When success is attained, step back, and reflect upon the conditions that led to it. Don’t simply repeat the same actions again and again.
  • History is littered with corpses and fallen empires who did not know when to stop.
  • There is a Japanese saying that Furuya Sensei was fond of, “Katte kara kabuto no o wo shime yo” which means After victory, tighten your helmet. Never let your guard down even if you think you have won. That just might be what your opponent wants you to think.
  • The moment when you stop has great dramatic importance. What comes last sticks in the mind as an exclamation point. Best time to stop is after a victory. Keep going, and it will lessen it’s effect, or even reverse it.
  • “Nothing can be more important than to close your examination with a triumph. So many lawyers succeed in catching a witness in a serious contradiction; but, not satisfied with this, go on asking questions, and taper off their examination until the effect upon the jury of their former advantage is lost altogether. “Stop with a victory” is one of the maxims of cross-examination” - Francis L. Wellman, The Art of Cross Examination
• Bad luck teaches you patience, timing and the need to be prepared for the worst. Good luck deludes you into making you think your brilliance will carry you forward. And when inevitably misfortune comes you will lack adequate preparation.
• As it’s taught in riding school: you have to be able to control yourself, before your can control the horse.
  • And even when you can control yourself, there will be people forcing you to push forward. Be careful, and manage them. Feed them with small victories, but don’t allow yourself to be engulfed in the momentum and go all in.
• “A man famed for his tree-climbing skills once directed another to climb a tall tree and cut branches. While the fellow was precariously balanced aloft, the tree-climber watched without a word, but when he was descending and had reached the height of the eaves the expert called to him, ‘Careful how you go ! Take care coming down !’. ‘Why do you say that ? He’s so far down now that he could leap to the ground from there,’ I said. ‘Just so,’ replied the tree-climber. ‘While he’s up there among the treacherous branches I need not say a word – his fear is enough to guide him. It’s in the easy places that mistakes will always occur.’ Lowly commoner though he was, his words echoed the warnings of the sages.” - Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness

Don’t appear too perfect. Don’t boast.

• By making others aware of their inferior position, you are only stirring an unhappy admiration, this is, envy.
  • To show envy, is to admit your inferiority, and that is why people don’t normally admit it.
  • “Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.” - Plutarch
  • Cosimo de’ Medici avoided such issues by being simple on the outside, and only showing his wealth, elegance and opulence on the inside (of his house, for example).
    • “There is in the garden a plant which one ought to leave dry, although most people water it. It is the weed called Envy.” - Cosimo de’ Medici
• Kierkegaard believed that the creator of envy is as much to blame as the person who feels envy. Don’t crow about your victories and superiority.
  • The naturally perfect are the ones that need to work the most to hide their features. One does not require innate characteristics to aquire money and power, in contrast to bearing sharp natural intellect and bodily features considered to be beautiful.
• A sudden increase in power or promotion are dangerous. Downplay them, don’t flaunt them, and attribute them to luck, since luck is possible to all.
• Be careful of false modesties that can be seen through. Put on a good act. Otherwise it will only create more envy.
• People cannot envy power that they themselves have bestowed upon a person.
  • When Ivan the Terrible died, Boris Godunov knew he was the only one on the scene who could lead Russia. But if he sought the position eagerly, he would stir up envy and suspicion among the boyars, so he refused the crown, not once but several times. He made it point for people insist that he take the throne. George Washington used the same strategy to great effect, first in refusing to keep the position of Commander in Chief of the American army, second in resisting the presidency. In both cases he made himself more popular than ever.
• If needed, pay a high price to keep envy in check.
• “Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay” - Thoreau
• “It takes a great talent and skill to conceal one’s talent and skill” - La Rochefoucauld

Rationality and Control

• In the face of a hot headed enemy, an excellent response is no response.
• Nothing is as infuriating as a man who keeps his cool, when others are losing theirs.
• Petulance is not power, it is a sign of helplessness.
• Only use raging tirades if you are in control of them, with precision, and very rarely. They are a (dangerous) tool.
• “Wise men [should be] like coffers with double bottoms: which when others look into, when opened, they see not all that they hold.” - Sir Walter Raleigh

Use your words and actions wisely

• Once your words are out, you cannot take them back. Keep them under control and be particularly careful about sarcasm. The momentary satisfaction you get from your biting words will be outweigh by the price you pay
• “Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.” - Leonardo Da Vinci
• “If you are not in danger, do not fight” - Sun Tzu

Be strategic in your approach

• When in a position of power, don’t be completely predictable, as that could be exploited. when is a position of serving others, be careful when doing that, because it might make you be seen as unreliable, or even having a psychological pathology.
• Attach yourself to the real decision maker, not people with titles. As seen for Richelieu, who attached himself to King Louis XIII’s mother, instead of the king himself, since she was the one calling the shots. As a result, Richelieu rose quickly through the ranks.
• Winston Lord had worked on a report for days, which Kissinger handed back with the notation “Is this the best you can do?”. Lord rewrote and polished and finally resubmitted it; back it came with the same curt question. After redrafting it one more time–and once again getting the same question from Kissinger–Lord snapped, “Damn it, yes, it’s the best I can do.”. To which Kissinger replied: “Fine, then I guess I’ll read it this time.”
• North wind and the Sun made a bet on who could make a man take off his coat. First, the North wind gushed one him, but that only made the man hold on to it more tightly. Then, the Sun provided a warm heat that made the man take off top coat, and then blazing heat which made the man strip and bath in the river. Persuasion is more effective than force.
• “MAN: Kick him-he’ll forgive you. Flatter him-he may or may not see through you. But ignore him and he’ll hate you” - Idries Shah

Resources

Focus your energies

• What’s concentrated, coherent, and connected to it’s past, has power.
• Concentrate your forces: Intensity beats extensity every time. You gain more by finding a rich mine and digging it deeper, than by fleeting from one shallow mine to another
• Dispersion can be a good strategy when your opponents are stronger.
• Caveat: if the sole person providing you power dies or leaves the scene, you will be in trouble. Protect yourself against that risk by having different concentrated sources of power. As seen with Cesare Borgia’s transgression of this, who derived his power mainly from his father, the Pope, who gave him armies to fight with. When his father died, he was as good as dead.
• Do not spend time, attention or energy on things you cannot have. Your attention, or lack of, is a form of power. When King Louis wanted to punish someone on their court, he would just ignore them and cut them off.
• “I had far rather be confined to one element, and be admired in that, than be a Goose in all.”

Focus on the important things

• Paranoia over small ticket issues are often destructive in the end. As seen when Kissinger made a recommendation to create a group to “plug the leaks” after the publication of the Pentagon Papers. The Plumbers, as they became known, eventually broke into the Democratic Party offices in the Watergate Hotel, setting off the chain of events that led to Nixon’s downfall.
• When you make a mistake, treat it lightly. When a petty enemy attacks you, make none of it, show contempt. Show contempt publicly, but keep track of it privately. Don’t let a small problem or foe become a cancerous cell that gains power and overtakes you. Deal with them as appropriate.
• “To disregard, is to win regard” - Italian proverb

The value of Time

• Time is a human construct. Perception of time is subjective. Younger people feel like time is going slowly. Older people feel like time is whizzing by.
• Three types of time: Long, Forcing, and End Time:
  • Long Time: happening on a years time scale, and must be managed with patience and gentle guidance. Key is to not react impulsively, and wait for the right opportunity.
  • Forcing Time: when people are indecisive, give them a deadline. Never give them time. As seen with successful art dealer Joseph Duveen, who when dealing with indecisive clients, would mention that another tycoon would be interested, something happened and he had to leave the country, etc. This strategy works as long as the party does not know what you are up to.
  • End Time: when a plan must be executed with speed and force.
• Patience is worthless if it doesn’t conclude with action. A period of waiting that does not lead into an action is a sign of indecision and procrastination. Timing is important.
• “Space we can recover. Time, never” - Napoleon Bonaparte

Despise the free lunch

• Nothing is more costly than something given free of charge.
• What is worth, is worth paying for. Always pay the full price, there is no cutting corners to excellency, for bargains are often accompanied by a complicated psychological price tag.
• Generosity is a sign, and a magnet for power. Keep money in constant circulation.
• The powerful understand they need to protect their most precious resources. Indepence, time, energy and room to maneuver. By paying the full price they keep themselves free of dangerous engagements and worries.
• Avoid bargain demons (who only consider the explicit price tag, and not the cost in time, energy, dignity and peace of mind), the money sadists (who abuse their payer position power, by for example making you wait for a payment), the indiscriminate givers (who likely are looking qualm a emotional need, are emotional drains, and want to be loved; if they give to everyone, why should you feel special?)
• The powerful must have have grandiosity if spirit, and should never reveal any pettiness. Money is the most visible arena in which to display either grandior or pettiness.
• And if you want to meddle with the work of the creative people you hire, at least pay them well. Your money will more easily buy their decision, rather than your shows of power.
• Powerful people give freely, buying influence, rather than things.
• Consider strategic generosity: give when you are about to take.
• A one time gift given at a sudden unexpected time, bears more force and impact. It will not spoil your children, but rather keep them under your thumb.
• The more the money you spend on gifts and acts of generosity that play with sentiment, the more powerful they are.
• Don’t give in to greedy and inconsequent “El Dourado”s that will only exhaust your time and energy.

Relationships

Perils of Isolation

• Do not create a fortress around you, it will make you detached from the world and make you an easy target, since it will be easy to know where you are, and be attacked.
• Pontormo, a painter who spent 11 years secluded inside a chapel painting for his patron. Terrified of being copied by others and growing more and more afraid of fellow humans, he died, and his paintings / frescos did not survive him. Vesari, who saw his paintings, described them as being embodied by madness. Perspective flaws, too many characters, several compositional flaws, figures that overlapped one another. Pontormo obsessed over details, and lost track of the composition.
• Shakespeare was well known because many people knew about his works, he didnt work in isolation.
• Isolation is good to gather one’s thoughts and escape the claws of conformity by society, but this should be done judiciously.
• The more time you spend isolated, the harder it is to come back to society. Make sure you always have a way to come back to society.

Enemies, and Friends

• Without enemies we grow lazy. Having enemies sharpens our wits. If you don’t have enemies, find them
• Without a worthy opponent, a man, woman or group cannot grow stronger.
• You are better having declared opponents, instead of not knowing where they lie.
• You need people who deliver results, not that appease you.
• Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit. Gratitude is felt as a burden, revenge as a pleasure.
• A brahman, a great expert in Veda who has become a great archer as well, offers his services to his good friend, who is now the king. The brahman cries out when he sees the king, “Recognize me, your friend!”. The king answers him with contempt and then explains: “Yes, we were friends before, but our friendship was based on what power we had. I was friends with you, good brahman, because it served my purpose. No pauper is a friend to the rich, no fool to the wise, no coward to the brave. It is two men of equal wealth and equal birth who contract friendship and marriage, not a rich man and a pauper. An old friend—who needs him?” - The Mahabharata
• “To have a good enemy, choose a friend: They know where to strike” - Diane De Poitiers, 1499-1566, Mistress of Henry II of France

Succession

• The formulas used by the successful father worked well for him, because he had nothing to lose, and gave him his kingdom and fortunes. The son, who lives in a different set of circumstances, could have his father’s ways imposed onto him, in a domineering and oppressive way, imposing his lessons on the son. Instead of trying to put the son in a new direction, the father tries to put him on his own shoes, perhaps secretly wanting the son to fail, as he often resents his youth and opportunities. Resulting in the son to be cowed and cautions and fearful of losing what the father had gained.
  • Alexander the Great only wanted to outdo his father. To obliterate his name from history. He resented that his father conquered most of Greece, leaving not much for him to conquer. He wanted to out his successful father in the shadows, instead of the opposite. Which he did.
  • As a young rebel grows older, his struggle with his father often wanes, and he gradually comes to resemble the very man he used to defy.
  • The presence of the “father” must be constantly slain and kept in check. The old ways, the father, the comfort, are enemies of progression and power.
  • Keep an eye on the young, since they will do the same to you. Identify them and keep them under control.
• It would seem easy for the son or successor to build on a grand foundation left for him. But in the realm of power, the opposite is true. The pampered indulged child, almost always squanders their inheritance, for it doesnt start with a need to fill a void. As seen with Louis XIV, XV, XVI. Louis XIV, while navigating through troubled times, built Versailles instead of taking over his father’s palace, the Louvre, and reigned for (mostly glorified) 55 years. The last years of his reign were difficult, but it was hoped that his child would develop into the kind of strong ruler who would reinvigorate the land and add to the firm foundation that Louis XIV had laid. Instead, his son, Louis XV gave himself over to pleasure. Worn out by debauchery, his country and his own finances were in horrible disarray. His grandson Louis XVI inherited a realm in desperate need of reform and a strong leader. But Louis XVI was even weaker than his grandfather, and could only watch as the country descended into revolution.
  • “Necessity is what impels men to take action, and once the necessity is gone, only rot and decay are left” - Niccolò Machiavelli
• In Sumatra, the king would be killed ritually in a brutal fashion, in order to limit his boundless power and give space for the new generations.

Strategies

Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will disband

• Athenians found an effective way to deal with socially undesirable individuals. They didn’t fight, punish, or re-educate them. They ostracized them.
• Cancer begins with a single cell. Be quick and swift to isolate bad seeds from the group, before they infect a critical mass.
  • It’s better to isolate them, rather than destroy them. It’s less brutal. For in a game power, isolation spells defeat. Ostracize, limit their power. Spare no time arguing with them.
  • Swindlers isolate their targets from their normal social circles, making them more vulnerable to influence and manipulation. Apart from the void left I’m the sheep
  • Lure the poisonous person away, while staying away from their attacks, as seen with Pope Boniface’s isolation of Dante from the “Whites”, leaving a power void upon their faction. As a resultm Florence was taken over by the “Blacks”.
  • “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared” - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
• “When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter” - Chinese psroverb
• Alternate harshness with mercy to soften your target. Play on their fears, but also their loves. Target primary emotions: Love, hate, jealousy.

Mirror effect

• Dr. Milton H. Erickson, when faced with a couple with problems in bed, Erickson observed the same dynamics when they talked how they liked to dine. He didn’t address the problem directly, but rather them to schedule a dinner where both would have their desires met (for one desired a slow pace, the other a big meal). It worked as expected, and they transferred the lessons aquired in the dining table into their bedroom.
• Addressing people head-on will often lead to conflict. Instead, mirror their actions so they can reflect at their own time and pace, and fix themselves without admitting fault. They will think to have achieved it on their own, without anyone realising it. But be careful when being too obvious, as it will make them think you are manipulating them, undermining your efforts.

Reformation Perils

• People know that change is needed, and are ok with superficial changes, but are deeply troubled when the changes are deep and affect their core beliefs, structures and habits.
  • Change is upsetting to the human animal, even when it’s for the good. If change is needed, find ways to disguise it. Sweeten the poison.
  • As seen from Cromwell’s beheading due to his role in the overly ambitious reform and uprooting of Roman Catholicism.
• When you destroy the familiar, you create a void that people will rush fill. The past is powerful. Borrow from its legitimacy to create a comforting and familiar presence. It will sustain your actions with a familiar and romantic feel, cloaking the nature of the changes you are attempting.
  • Because the past is buried and dead, it gives you the flexibility to interpret it as you see fit.
  • The Roman used this when transforming monarchy to republic
  • Romans used this device when they transformed their monarchy into a republic. They may have installed two consuls in place of the king, but since the king had been served by twelve lictors, they retained the same number to serve under the consuls. The king had personally performed an annual sacrifice, in a great spectacle that stirred the public; the republic retained this practice, only transferring it to a special “chief of the ceremony, whom they called the King of the sacrifice.” These and similar gestures satisfied the people and kept them from clamoring for the monarchy’s return.
  • When Romans declared Christianity to be Rome’s official imperial religion, the evocation of light and fertility (Saturnalia, Festival of Lights, Germanic celebrations of the re-birth of the Sun which all happened in December) could not be ignored. In 354 AD, the Christian church co-opted the birthday of Mithras (the Aryan god of light), and declared December 25th to be the birthday of Jesus Christ.
• The ones that finish a revolution are rarely the bones who started it.

How you Show Up

Be flexible, assume formlessness

• Just like an animal’s shell protects them from dangers, it also makes them slower and inflexible to change. Same can be said for governments and systems that build protections that ultimately make them more rigid and vulnerable to change.
  • Rigidity heightens the desire for change.
• In a Chinese tale, a farmer observed a hare running straight into a tree, breaking it’s neck. Afterwards, he waited in front of the tree waiting for the same thing to happen. He never caught another one, and was ridiculed. Same could be said for someone who tries to govern using the same strategies as those of early kings. They would be acting no differently than the tale’s farmer.

Presence dilution

• “Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion” - Ninon de Lenclos
• “Absence diminishes small passions, and inflames greater loves. Just as wind douses a candle, and fans a fire.” - François de La Rochefoucauld

Reputation and Respect

• Be the master of your fate, and your reputation.
• Reputation is a critical resource. When you have it, protect it.
• “When the great lord passes, the peasants bow deeply and silently fart” - Ethiopian proverb

Symbology

• A symbol is a powerful form of expression that summaries several concepts
  • For example, the Sun King symbology created for Louis XIV which symbolized his provider god like status.
  • Or Diana the mistress of king Henri II of France, who dodged the common fate shared by many other elder mistresses of abandonment, by scattering around the reign multiple symbols related to her (Diana’s favorite colours [black and white] imprinted in several buildings and images, associations with goddess of hunt Diana), and creating a motif intertwining her initials and the king’s, which king Henri disseminated widely. There was no escaping her presence. Until his death, in 1559, he remained faithful to her.
• A symbol is a shortcut of expression, containing in itself several dozen meanings. Symbols are generally subtler and less threatening than words, which can be too incisive.
• Primacy of sight amongst the senses: “Truth is generally seen, rarely heard” - Baltasar Gracián