The 48 Laws of Power. Robert Greene

What do I love about: The 48 Laws of Power?

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What do I love about: The 48 Laws of Power?

This book is filled with wisdom for everyday living. I appreciate the authors effort to consider laws from different perspective by providing reversals to almost every law. My favorite laws were law 5 on reputation, law 10 on association, law 34 on presentation and law 43 on winning others.

What do I not love about: The 48 Laws of Power?

I must say this book was quite voluminous and sometimes dragged unnecessarily.

Who should read: The 48 Laws of Power?

Anyone big on personal development should read this.

Who should not read: The 48 Laws of Power?

I have meet people who have negative connotation and believe this book is used for manipulation. With such perceptions, I do not see you getting any value out of this book.

Notes on The 48 Laws of Power

Law 1: Never outshine the master

This rule involves two rules you must realize. First, you can inadvertently outshine a master simply by being yourself. There are masters who are more insecure than others, monstrously insecure, you may naturally outshine them by your charm and grace. Second, never imagine that because the master loves you, you can do anything you want.
By letting others outshine you, you remain in control, instead of being a victim of their insecurity

Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies

Without enemies around us we grow lazy. An enemy at our heels sharpens our wits, keeping focused and alert

Law 3: Conceal your intentions

Your honesty is likely to offend people, it is much more prudent to tailor your words, telling people what they want to hear rather than the coarse and ugly truth of what you feel or think. More importantly, by being unabashedly open, you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions
You can use this tactic: hide your intentions not by closing up (with the risk of appearing secretive, and making people suspicious) but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals- just not your real ones. You will kill three birds with one stone: you appear friendly, open and trusting, you conceal your intentions, and you send your rivals on time-consuming wild goose chases
Remember, the paranoid and wary are often the easiest to deceive. Win their trust in one area and you have a smoke screen that blinds their view in another, letting you creep and level them with a devasting blow

Law 4: Always say less than necessary

When you are trying to impress people, the more you say, the more common you appear and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

Law 5: So much depends on reputation- guard it with your life

Law 6: Court attention at all cost

To avoid being a flash in the pan, and having your notoriety eclipsed by another, you must not discriminate between the different types of attention: in the end every kind will work in your favour.
Society craves larger than life figures, people who stand above the general mediocrity. Never be afraid then of the qualities that set you apart and draw attention to you. Court controversy, even scandal. It is better to be attacked, even slandered than ignored. All professions are ruled by this law and all professionals must have a bit of the showman about them.
He did everything he could to make sure that he received more attention than his great rival Nikola Tesla, who may actually have been more brilliant than he was but whose name was far less known.
Understand people feel superior to the person whose actions they can predict.
The mysterious cannot be grasped. And what cannot be seized and consumed creates power.
Both artist and con artists understand the vital link between being mysterious and attracting interest.
The attention you attract must never offend or challenge the reputation of those above you.
Understand that there are times when it is not in your interest to be the center of attention. When in the presence of a king or queen, for instance or the equivalent thereof, bow and retreat to the shadows; never compete.
If you find yourself trapped, cornered and on the defensive in some situation, try a simple experiment: do something that cannot be easily explained or interpreted.
An air of mystery works wonders for those who need to develop an aura of power and get themselves noticed, but it must seem measured and under control.

Law 7: Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.

It is far better to conserve your forces, pounce on the work others have done and find a way to make it your own.
Fools say they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others experiences
He took credit for the work of those below him while graciously giving credit for his own labour to those above. That is the way to play the game.

Law 8: Make other people come to you – Use bait if necessary

Law 9: Win through your actions, never through arguments

Learn to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly.
Choose your battles carefully. If it does not matter in the long run whether the other person agrees with you- or if time and their own experience will make them understand what you mean- then it is best not even to bother with a demonstration. Save your energy and walk away.

Law 10: Infection: avoid the unhappy and unlucky

Never associate with those who share your defects- they will reinforce everything that holds you back. Only create associations with positive affinities. Make this a rule of life and you will benefit more than from all the therapy in the world

Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you

If you are ambitious, it is much wiser to seek out weak rulers or masters whom you can create a relationship of dependency. You become their strength, their intelligence, their spine.
There are many ways to obtain such a position. Foremost among them is to possess a talent and creative skill that simply cannot be replaced.
Michelangelo’s power was intensive, depending on one skill, his ability as an artist; Kissinger’s was extensive. He got himself involved in so many aspects and department of the administration that his involvement became a card in his hands.
The intensive form of power provides more freedom than the extensive, because those who have it depend on no particular master, or particular position of power, for their security.
Machiavelli said, it is better to be feared than loved. Fear you can control, Love, never

Law 12: Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.

Few people can resist a gift even from the most hardened enemy, which is why it is often the perfect way to disarm people.

Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people’s self-interest, never to their mercy or gratitude

Law 14: Pose as a friend, work as a spy

Law 15: Crush your enemy totally

Your enemies wish you ill
The goal of total victory is an axiom of modern warfare

Law 16: Use absent to increase respect and honor

Absence diminishes minor passions and inflames great ones, as the window douses a candle and fans a fire
Love never dies of starvation but often of indigestion
Create a pattern of presence and absence
Try to keep yourself obscure and make people demand your return.
Make yourself too available and the aura of power you have created around yourself will wear away. Make yourself less accessible and you increase the value of your presence
Use absence to create respect and esteem. If presence diminishes fame, absence augments it
In love and seduction, absence is only effective once you have surrounded the other with your image, been seen by him or her everywhere. Everything must remind your lover of your presence, so that when you do choose to be away, the lover will always be thinking of you, will always be seeing you in his or her minds eye.
Remember in the beginning make yourself not scarce but omnipresent. Only what is seen, appreciated, loved will be missed in its absence

Rule 17: Keep others in suspended terror. Cultivate an air of unpredictability

Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy if possible
The more capricious you appear, the more respect you will garner
Patterns are powerful and you can terrify people by disrupting them. Such power should only be used judiciously

Rue 18: Do not build fortresses to protect yourself- Isolation is dangerous

As in warfare and most games of strategy, isolation often precedes defeat and death
In moments of uncertainty and danger, you need to fight this desire to turn inward

Law 19: Know who you are dealing with- Do not offend the wrong person

Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some men are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin and fail to worry about insulting them
All people have insecurities and often the best way to deceive a sucker is to play upon his insecurities
The ability to measure people and to know who you are dealing with is the most important skill of all in gathering and conserving power. Without it you are blind.
Study peoples weakness, the chinks in their armor, their areas of both pride and insecurity. Know their ins and outs before you even decide whether or not to deal with them
In judging and measuring your opponent, never rely on instincts and never trust appearances

Law 20: Do not commit to anyone

Give them hope but never satisfaction
People who rush to the support of others tend to gain a little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained, while those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants. Their aloofness is powerful and everyone wants them on their side.

Law 21: Play a sucker to catch- seem dumber than your mark

The feeling that someone else is more intelligent than we are is almost intolerable
It is critical never inadvertently to insult or impugn a person’s brain power. That is an unforgivable sin.
Subliminally reassure people that they are more intelligent than you are, or even that you are a bit of a moron and you can run rings around them
Taste and sophistication rank close to intelligence on the vanity scale; make people feel they are sophisticated than you are and their guard will come down.

Law 22: Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power

Weakness is no sin and can even become a strength if you learn how to play it right.
Surrender conceals great power
People trying to make a show of their authority are easily deceived by the surrender tactic

Law 23: Concentrate your forces

Intensity defeats extensity everytime
If you are not in danger do not fight. Sun-Tzu
Intelligence is a magnitude of intensity and not a magnitude of extensity
Casanova attributed his success in life to his ability to concentrate on a single goal and push at it until it yielded
When a man gets it into his head to do something and when he exclusively occupies himself in that design he must succeed whatever the difficulties
Perfection resides in quality not quantity. Extent alone never rises above mediocrity and it is the misfortune of men with wide general interests that while they would like to have their fingers in every pie, they have one in none. Intensity gives eminence and rises to the heroic in matters sublime

Law 24: Play the perfect courtier

The pseudo belief in equality- the idea that talking and acting the same way with everyone, no matter what their rank, makes you somehow a paragon of civilization- is a terrible mistake.
Not only is an inability to adapt to another culture the height of barbarism, it puts you at a disadvantage
Be frugal in asking those above you for favors. Do not ask for favors on anther persons behalf. Least of all a friend’s.
Avoid any kind of joke about appearance or taste, two highly sensitive areas, especially with those above you.
You must be the mirror, training your mind to try to see yourself as others see you.
Never spend so much time on your studies that you neglect your social skills. And the greatest skill of all is the ability to make the master look more talented than those around him.
In matter of taste, you can never be too obsequious with your master

Law 25: Re-create yourself

The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are doomed.
Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. It makes you in essence an artist- an artist creating yourself
Adopt the plasticity of the actor who can mold his or her face to the emotion required.
You must learn to orchestrate events in a similar manner, revealing all your cards at once, but unfolding them in a way that heightens their dramatic effect.
Know how to be all things to all men. A discreet Proteus- a scholar among scholars, a saint amongst saints.

Law 26: Keep your hands clean

It is an extremely human response to not look inward after a mistake or crime, but rather to look outward and to affix blame and guilt on a convenient object.
All men make mistake, but the wise conceal the blunders they have made while the fools make them public

Law 27: Play on peoples need to believe to create a cult-like following

Emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking
As humans, we have a desperate need to believe in something, anything. This makes us eminently gullible
Having a large following opens up all sorts of possibilities for deception; not only will your followers worship you, they will defend you from your enemies and will voluntarily take on the work of enticing others to join your fledging cult. This kind of power will lift you to another realm: You will no longer have to struggle or use subterfudge to enforce your will. You are adored and can do no wrong.
Done right, the combination of vague promises, cloudy but alluring concepts and foery enthusiasm will stir peoples sous and a group will form around you.
Use incense for scent, soothing music for hearing, colourful charts and graphs for the eye
His patients believed so deeply in his skills that they willed themselves into health
Our tendency to doubt, the distance that allows us to reason, is broken down when we join a group.

Law 28: Enter action with boldness

Timidity has no place in the realm of power; you will often benefit, however by being able to feign it

Law 29: Plan all the way to the end

The ending is everything. It is the end of the action that determines who gets the glory, the money, the prize

Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless

Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work. It only raises questions
The more mystery surrounds your actions, the more awesome your power seems. You appear to be the only one who can do what you do- and the appearance of having an exclusive gift is immensely powerful.

Law 31: Control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal

Controlling the options has one main purpose: to disguise yourself as the agent of power and punishment
It is usually more elegant and more effective to give people the illusion of choice.

Law 32: Play to peoples fantasies

Never be distracted by people’s glamorous portraits of themselves and their lives
Reality: Change is slow and gradual. It requires hard work, a bit of luck, a fair amount of self-sacrifice, and a lot of patience
Fantasy: A sudden transformation will bring total change in one’s fortunes, bypassing hardwork, luck, self-sacrifice and time in one fantastic stroke.
Remember the key to fantasy is distance. The distant has allure and promise, seems simple and problem free.

Law 33: Discover each man’s thumbscrew

The two main emotional voids to fill are insecurity and unhappiness
Remember when searching for suckers, always look for the dissatisfied, the unhappy, the insecure. Such people are riddled with weaknesses and have needs that you can fill.
Always look for passions and obsessions that cannot be controlled. The stronger the passion, the more vulnerable the person. This may seem surprising, for passionate people look strong. In fact, however, they are simply filling the stage with their theatricality, distracting people from how weak and helpless they really are.
People’s need for validation and recognition, their need to feel important, is the best kind of weakness to exploit.
Timidity is a potent weakness to exploit.
The more emotional the weakness, the greater the potential danger

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 you are treated; in the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you.
By asking for the moon, he had instantly raised his own status, for the king assumed that unless a man who set such a high price on himself were mad, which Columbus did not appear to be, he must somehow be worth it.
Understand it is within your power to set your own price. How you carry yourself reflects what you think of yourself. If you ask for little, shuffle your feet and lower your head, people will assume this reflects your character.
The solution to such a shrinking horizon is to deliberately force ourselves in the opposite direction-to downplay the failures and ignore the limitations, to make ourselves demand and expect as much as the child. This is done using the strategy called “strategy of the crown” based on a simple chain of cause and effect: if we believe we are destined for great things, our belief will radiate outward, just as crown creates an aura around a king.
Even while you know you are practicing a kind of deception on yourself, act like a king. You are likely to be treated as one.
Always make a bold demand. Set your price high and do not waver. Go after the highest person in the building.
Remember it is up to you to set your own price. Ask for less and that is just what you will get. Ask for more, however and you send a signal that you are worth a king’s ransom. Even those who turn you down respect you for your confidence and that respect will eventually pay off in ways you cannot imagine.

Law 35: Master the art of timing

Power rarely ends up in the hands of those who start a revolution, or even of those who further it; power sticks to those who bring it to a conclusion.
First recognize the spirit of time. Recognize it is not by what is loudest and most obvious in it, but by what lies hidden and dormant
Second recognizing the prevailing winds does not necessarily mean running with them
Finally patience. Without patience as your sword and shield, your timing will fail and you will inevitably find yourself a loser.
Sometimes not acting in the face of danger is your best move- you wait, you deliberately slow down. As time passes it will eventually present opportunities you had not imagined.
You must wait as long as necessary for the conclusion to come, but when it comes, it must come quickly

Law 36: Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge

Remember you choose to let things bother you. You can just as easily choose not to notice the irritating offender, to consider the matter trivial and unworthy of your interest. That is a powerful move.
Desires often create paradoxical effects: The more you want something, the more you chase after it, the more it eludes you. The more interest you show, the more you repel the objects of your desire.
It is tempting to want to fix our mistakes, but the harder we try, the worse we often make them. It is sometimes more politic to leave them alone.
An infinitely more powerful tactic is to act as if it never really interested you in the first place.
The powerful response to niggling, petty annoyances and irritations are contempt and disdain. Never show that something has affected you or that you are offended- that only shows you have acknowledged a problem

Law 37: Create compelling spectacles

People do not always want words, or rational explanations or demonstrations of the powers of science; they want an immediate appeal to their emotions
Your search for power depends on shortcuts. You must always circumvent people’s suspicions, their perverse desire to resist your will
Using words to plead your case is risky business: words are dangerous instruments and often go astray
The visual has come to dominate the others and is the sense we most depend on and trust.

Law 38: Think as you like but behave like others

You pretend to disagree with dangerous ideas, but in the course of your disagreement you give those ideas expression and exposure
Martyrdom serves no purpose-better to live on in an oppressive world, even to thrive in it. Meanwhile find a way to express your ideas subtly for those who understand you.
When you go into society, leave behind your own ideas and values, and put on the masks that is most appropriate for the group in which you find yourself

Law 39: Stir up waters to catch fish

To show your frustration is to show that you have lost your power to shape events
Remember tantrums neither intimidate nor inspire loyalty. They only create doubts and uneasiness about your power. Exposing your weakness, these stormy eruptions often herald a fall.
Anger only cuts off our options and the powerful cannot thrive without options

Law 40: Despise the free lunch

There is no cutting corners with excellence
Being open and flexible with money also teaches the value of strategic generosity, a variation of the old trick of “giving when you are about to take”. By giving the appropriate gift, you put the recipient under obligation. Generosity often softens people up-to be deceived
Power requires self discipline. The prospect of wealth, particularly easy, sudden wealth plays havoc with emotions
Two fundamental properties of money: First it has to circulate to bring power. What money should buy is not lifeless objects but power over people
The more your gifts and your acts of generosity play with sentiment, the more powerful they are.
Bait your deceptions with the possibility of easy money. People are essentially lazy and want wealth to fall in their lap rather than to work for it. For a small sum, sell them advice on how t make millions.

Law 41: Avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes

Necessity is what impels men to take action and once the necessity is gone, only rot and decay are left
Be merciless with the past, then -not only with your father and his father but with your own earlier achievements
Plenitude and prosperity tend to make us lazy and inactive

Law 42: Strike the shephard and the sheep will scatter

Once you recognize who the stirrer is, pointing it out to other people will accomplish a great deal.

Law 43: Work on the hearts and minds of others

The key to persuasion is softening people up and breaking them down gently.
Push people to despair, then give them relief. If they expect pain and you give them pleasure, you win their hearts
Self interest is the strongest motive of all
THERE IS NO REVERSAL TO THIS LAW

Law 44: Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect

The secret to gaining ascendancy over large numbers, he came to believe was not to impose his colours but to absorb the colours of those around him like a chameleon.
Everyone is wrapped up in their own narcissistic shell. When you try to impose your own ego on them, a wall goes up, resistance is increased.
Feed their fantasies of power and greatness by reflecting their ideals, and they will succumb
The goal of power is always to lower peoples resistance to you. For this you need tricks and one trick is to teach them a lesson
When you are dealing with the intractable willpower of other people, direct communication often only heightens their resistance
Remember the wordless communication, the indirect compliment contains the most power
Even if the person or event has positive associations, you will suffer from not being able to live up to them, since the past generally appears greater than the present. If you ever notice people associating you with some past event or person, do everything you can to separate yourself from that memory and to shatter the reflection

Law 45: Preach the need for change, but never reform too much as once

Play with appearance and respect past protocol

Law 46: Never appear too perfect

Never be so foolish as to believe that you are stirring up admiration by flaunting the qualities that raise you above others.
Of all the disorders of the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to

Law 47:Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop

Do not allow success to go to your head
Luck and circumstance always play a role in power

Law 48: Assume formlessness

The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes
The premier pose of power: ungraspable, as elusive, and swift as the god mercury
When you find yourself in conflict with someone stronger and more rigid, allow them a momentary victory. Seem to bow to their superiority. Then, by being formless and adaptable, slowly insinuate yourself into their soul.
As you get older, you must rely even less on the past
Be brutal with the past, especially your own, and have no respect for the philosophies that are foisted on you from outside
Mao said: when we fight you, we make sure you cannot get away

What do I love about: The 48 Laws of Power?

What do I not love about: The 48 Laws of Power?

Who should read: The 48 Laws of Power?

Who should not read: The 48 Laws of Power?

Notes on The 48 Laws of Power

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