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📘 As 48 Leis do Poder – Resumo Completo
O audiolivro As 48 Leis do Poder é um verdadeiro manual estratégico para quem deseja compreender e dominar as dinâmicas do poder em qualquer ambiente – seja no trabalho, nos negócios ou na vida pessoal. Baseado em exemplos históricos, lições de líderes, reis, generais e mestres do poder ao longo dos séculos, Robert Greene nos apresenta 48 leis atemporais que mostram como o poder é conquistado, mantido e até mesmo perdido.
🌟 Principais lições que você encontrará no audiolivro:
✔️ Por que nunca devemos ofuscar o brilho do mestre
✔️ Como ocultar intenções e gerar mistério
✔️ A importância de dizer menos do que o necessário
✔️ Quando usar a ausência como estratégia
✔️ Como conquistar as pessoas apelando para o interesse próprio delas
✔️ A arte de vencer sem precisar discutir
✔️ O perigo de se isolar demais
✔️ Como ser imprevisível para dominar o jogo
✔️ E muito mais…
Cada uma das 48 leis é acompanhada por exemplos práticos, histórias fascinantes e reflexões sobre como aplicá-las de forma inteligente no dia a dia – seja para proteger sua reputação, conquistar aliados, ou evitar ser manipulado.
🔑 Este é mais do que um simples audiolivro. É um guia estratégico para quem quer se tornar um líder mais forte, um profissional mais influente, e alguém que entende o jogo invisível do poder.
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You are about to listen to the complete audiobook of the book The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene, narrated by me, Elyson Sotti. If you are looking for a summary or a quick review of this book, just click on the video that appears here above in the card or in the description. If you are interested in tips, reviews and updates on topics such as creativity, marketing, and visual arts, be sure to check out the channel. And if you want to receive new audiobook releases, just subscribe to the channel and activate the bell. In the description of this video you have access to the summary and written review of this book on my blog, as well as the download of the audiobook files. If you are thinking about purchasing this book, be sure to check out the links in the description, so you get a discount and also help the channel grow. Now I wish you an excellent book and enjoy it. The 48 Laws of Power, written by Robert Greene Foreword The feeling of having no power over people and events is, in general, unbearable. When we feel powerless, we are unhappy. No one wants less power. Everyone wants more. In today’s world, however, it is dangerous to appear too power-hungry and too deliberate in our moves to gain power. We must appear fair and decent. Consequently, we must be subtle, pleasant, but cunning. Demographic, but not entirely honest. This game of constant duplicity is similar to the power dynamics that existed in the scheming world of the ancient aristocratic court. Throughout history, there has always been a court formed around a person in power, a king, queen, and emperor, the leader. The courtiers who made up this court were in a very delicate position. They had to serve their lords. But if their flattery was too obvious, the other courtiers would notice and take action against them. Attempts to please the lord, therefore, had to be subtle, and even the most skillful and subtle courtiers still had to protect themselves from their fellow courtiers, who were constantly scheming to get them out of the way. Meanwhile, the court was supposed to represent the height of civilization and refinement. Violent or overt acts of power were frowned upon. Courtiers worked quietly and secretly against those among them who used force. This was the dilemma of the courtier; while appearing to be the very model of elegance, he had to be as clever as possible and frustrate his adversaries’ moves as subtly as possible. Over time, successful courtiers learned to always act indirectly. They stabbed their adversaries in the back. They did so with kid gloves on their hands and the gentlest of smiles on their faces. Instead of coercing or overtly betraying , the perfect courtier got what he wanted by deduction, charm, deceit, and subtle strategy, always planning several moves in advance. Life at court was an endless game that required constant vigilance and tactical thinking. It was civilized warfare. Today we face a paradox peculiarly similar to that of the courtier. Everything must appear civilized, decent, bureaucratic, and fair. But if we adhere too rigidly to these rules, if we take them too literally, we are crushed by those around us who are not so foolish. As the great Renaissance courtier and diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli wrote, The man who tries to be good all the time is doomed to ruin among the countless others who are not good. The Court imagined itself to be the pinnacle of refinement, but beneath the glittering surface there simmered a cauldron of emotions and excuses: greed, envy, lust, and hatred. Our world today also imagines itself to be the pinnacle of justice, but the same ugly emotions continue to boil within us, as they always have. The game is the same. On the outside, you must appear to be a person of scruples, but inside, unless you are a fool, you will soon learn to do so. Napoleon advised putting on his iron hand with a velvet glove. If, like a courtier of old, you are able to master the art of deception, learning to seduce, charm, deceive and subtly outwit your adversaries, you will reach the pinnacles of power, you will be able to bend people without them realizing what you are doing. And if they do not realize what you are doing, they will not resent you or offer you resistance. For some people, the idea of consciously participating in the power game, whether indirectly or not, seems like an unsociable evil or a relic of the past. They believe that they can choose to stay out of the game, behaving as if they had nothing to do with power. You have to be careful with people like this, because although they often internalize these opinions, they are the greatest experts in the power game. They use strategies that skillfully disguise their manipulative nature. Such types, for example, tend to display their weakness and lack of power as a kind of moral virtue. But true importance, without any motive of self-interest, does not advertise one’s own weakness in order to gain respect or sympathy. Flaunting one’s weakness is actually a very effective, subtle, and deceitful strategy in the power game, as you will see in Law 22. The surrender tactic, another strategy of those who claim to be out of the game , is to demand equality in all areas of life. Everyone must be treated equally, regardless of their status or strength. But if, in order to avoid the stigma of power, you want to treat everyone equally and fairly, you will face the problem that some people do certain things better than others. Treating everyone equally means ignoring their differences, raising the bar for those who are less capable and lowering it for those who excel. Once again, many of those who behave in this way are actually using another power strategy, redistributing the rewards in the way they themselves determine. Another way to avoid gambling would be to be completely honest and frank, since one of the main techniques of those who seek power is deceit and secrecy. But total honesty inevitably ends up hurting and offending a large number of people, and some will want to pay you back in kind. No one will see your honest statement as completely objective and free from any personal motivation. And they will be right; in fact, honesty is a power strategy intended to convince others that you have a noble, good, and altruistic character. It is a form of persuasion, even a subtle way of coercing people. Finally, those who claim not to be gamblers affect an air of naivety and to protect themselves from accusations that they are seeking power once again. Be careful, because the appearance of naivety can be an effective means of deceiving others. As you will see in Law number 21, you seem more foolish than usual, and even genuine naivety is not free from the pitfalls of power. Children can be very naive, but they often act out of a basic need to control those around them. They suffer greatly, feeling powerless in the adult world , and they use whatever means are available to them to get what they want. Genuinely innocent people can also play the power game and are often terribly effective at it, since reflection is not an obstacle for them. Again, those who make a show of innocence are the least innocent of all. You can recognize these supposed non-players by the way they flaunt their moral qualities, their piety, their rare sense of justice. But since we all want power and almost all of our actions are aimed at obtaining it, the non-players are simply pulling the wool over our eyes, distracting us from their cards with their air of moral superiority. If you look closely, you will see that they are in fact the most skillful. in covert manipulation, even though some practice it without being aware of it and greatly resent any publicity given to the tactics they use every day. Their world is like a gigantic fraudulent court and we are trapped in it. There is no point in choosing to stay out of the game. It will only make you powerless and powerlessness will make you unhappy. Instead of fighting the inevitable. Instead of arguing, complaining and feeling guilty, it is much better to excel in power. In fact, the better you handle power, the better you will be as a person, a friend, a lover, a husband or a wife. By following in the footsteps of Mayor Cortesão, as in Law 24, you learn to make others feel better about themselves by becoming a source of pleasure for them. They have become dependent on your skill and have craved your presence, mastering the 48 laws of this book. You spare others the pain of not knowing how to handle power , of playing with fire without knowing that it burns. Your power game is inevitable. It is better to be an artist than to be in denial or to act clumsily. To learn the game of power, you have to see the world in a certain way, to change your perspective. It takes effort and years of practice, because much of the game may not come naturally. Certain basic skills are required, and once you have mastered them, you will be able to apply the laws of power with greater ease. The most important and crucial foundation of power is the ability to control your emotions. Reacting emotionally to a situation is the greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you far more than any temporary satisfaction you might get from expressing your feelings. Emotions dull reason, and if you cannot see clearly, you cannot be prepared and react with any degree of control to the situation. Anger is the most destructive emotional reaction, because it clouds your vision the most. It also has a ripple effect that invariably makes situations less controllable and sharpens your enemy’s resolve. If you are trying to destroy an enemy who has hurt you, it is far better to disarm him by feigning friendship than by showing that you are angry. Love and affection are also potentially destructive when they prevent you from seeing the often selfish interests of those you least suspect and who are playing the power game. You cannot repress anger or love, or avoid feeling anger or love, and you shouldn’t even try. But be careful how you express these feelings. And most importantly, they should never influence your plans and strategies. Related to controlling your emotions is the ability to distance yourself from the present moment and think objectively about the past and the future. Like Janus, the two-faced deity of Roman mythology, who is the guardian of all gates and entrances, you must be able to look in both directions at the same time in order to better deal with danger, wherever it comes from. This is the face you must create for yourself. One that always looks to the future and the other to the past, to the future. The motto is to always be alert every day. Nothing should take you by surprise, because you are constantly imagining problems before they arise. Instead of wasting time dreaming of a happy ending to your plan, you should calculate all the possible combinations and pitfalls that may arise. The better your vision, the more you plan steps in advance, the more powerful you will become. The other side of Janus constantly looks to the past, but never stops remembering past hurts or holding grudges. This would only limit your power. The most important part of the game is learning to forget these things that happened in the past and that consume your energy and cloud your reasoning. The true purpose of the eye that looks back is to constantly educate yourself. You look to the past to learn from those who lived before you. Then, having seen the past, you take a closer look at your own actions and those of your friends. This is the most important school for you, because it is based on personal experience. You begin by examining the mistakes you have made in the past, those that have most painfully prevented you from progressing. You analyze them in terms of the 48 laws of power and draw from them a lesson and an oath: Never make that mistake again. I will not fall into that trap again. If you are able to evaluate and observe yourself in this way, you will learn to break free from the patterns of the past, a skill of enormous value. Power requires the ability to play with appearances. To this end, you must learn to wear many masks and have a hat full of tricks. Deception and disguise should not be seen as ugly and immoral. All human interactions require deception on many levels , and in a way, what distinguishes humans from animals is our ability to lie and deceive. In Greek myths, the cycle of the sea is an Indian bravado, in the Egyptian myth of Gilgamesh, in the Middle East, the arts of illusion are the privileges of the gods. A great man, Ulysses, for example, was judged by his ability to rival the cunning of the gods, stealing part of their divine power, when he was their equal in cunning and deceit. Deception is an art that civilization has developed. It is the most potent weapon in the game of power. You cannot cheat well if you do not distance yourself a little, if you cannot be many different people wearing the mask that the day and the moment demand. With this flexible approach to all appearances, including your own, you lose much of the internal weight that keeps people grounded. Make your face as malleable as that of an actor who works to hide his intentions from others. Practice luring people into traps. Playing with appearances and mastering the art of illusion are one of life’s aesthetic pleasures. They are also key components to gaining power. If deception is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal, then patience in everything is your greatest shield. It will prevent you from making stupid mistakes like controlling your emotions. Patience is an art. It does not come naturally, but nothing when it comes to power. It is natural. Power is the most divine thing in the natural world. Patience is the supreme virtue of the gods, who possess nothing but time. Everything good will happen. The grass will grow again if you give it time and foresee several steps in the future in advance. Impatience, on the other hand, only makes you look weak. It is the main obstacle to power. Power is essentially amoral and is the main skill to acquire. It is becoming with instances and not good or evil. Power is a game, it cannot be repeated enough. And in the game you do not judge your opponents by their inventions, but by the effect of their actions. You measure their strategy and power by what you can see and feel. How often will someone’s intentions serve only to disturb and deceive? What does it matter if the other player, your friend or rival, had good intentions and was only thinking of your interests? If the effects of his actions led to so much ruin and confusion. It is natural for people to disguise their actions with all sorts of justifications, always claiming to have acted out of generosity. You need to learn to laugh inwardly whenever you hear this and never fall into the trap of evaluating someone’s actions and intentions using moral judgments that are, in fact, an excuse for the accumulation of power. It is a game. Your opponent sits across from you and both of you behave like ladies or gentlemen, observing the rules of the game and not taking anything personally. You play with strategy and observe your opponent’s moves as calmly as possible. In the end, you appreciate the politeness of someone who is playing with more than good intentions. Train your eye to follow the results of his moves, external circumstances and do not be distracted by anything else. Half of your control over power comes from what you do not do, from what you do not allow yourself to be dragged into doing. To do this, you must learn to judge all things by the price you will have to pay for them. As Nietzsche wrote, the value of a thing sometimes lies not in what you get out of it, but in what you pay for it or what it costs us. Perhaps you will achieve your goal. It is a goal worthy of being achieved, but at what price? Use this criterion for everything, including knowing whether to collaborate with others or rush to their aid. After all, life is short, opportunities are few and your energy has a limit. And in this sense, time is as important as any other factor. Do not waste valuable time or peace of mind on other people’s affairs. The price is too high. Power is a social game. To learn to master it, you must develop the ability to study and understand people. As the great thinker and courtier of the 16th century, Baltasar Gracián, wrote. Many people spend their time studying the properties of animals and herbs. It would be much more important to study the characteristics of the people with whom we must live and die. To be a master of the game, you must be a master yourself. In psychology, you must recognize motivations and see through the cloud of dust with which people surround their actions. Understanding people’s hidden motives and the greater knowledge needed to gain power is what opens up endless possibilities for deception, seduction, and manipulation. People are infinitely complex, and you can spend a lifetime observing them and never understand them. Therefore, it is extremely important to start learning right now. And in doing so, you must also keep in mind one principle: never discriminate against those you study and those you trust. Never trust anyone completely , and study everyone, including your friends and loved ones. Generally, you must always learn to take the most indirect route to power. Disguise your cunning like a billiard ball that bounces several times before hitting the target. Your moves must be planned and developed in the least obvious way possible. By training yourself to be deceitful, you thrive in the modern court, appearing to be a model of decency while being a consummate manipulator. Consider the 48 Laws of Power as a kind of manual for the arts of deception. The laws are based on the writings of men and women who have studied and mastered the game of power, and these texts span a period of more than 1,000 years and were created in civilizations as disparate as ancient China and Renaissance Italy. And yet they share common threads, together suggesting an essence of power that has yet to be fully formulated. The 48 Laws of Power are the distillation of this accumulated wisdom. The statesmen Bismarck and Talleyrand, the courtiers Castiglione and Gracián, or the seducers like Ninon de Leon Ross and Casanova, and charlatans like Loki, the he of the story. Laws have a simple premise: certain actions almost always increase one’s power and compliance with the law, while others diminish and even ruin it. Disregard for the law. These transgressions and obediences are illustrated with historical examples. Laws are eternal and definitive. The 48 Laws of Power can be used in many ways. By reading the book from cover to cover, you will learn about power in general. Although many of the laws may not seem to directly relate to your life, in time you will probably discover that they all have some application and that, in fact, they are interrelated. With an overview of the subject, you will be able to better evaluate your own actions in the past and achieve a greater degree of control over your immediate problems. Reading the entire book will continue to inspire you with ideas and reevaluations for a long time to come. The book is also designed for reference and examination of the law that at the time you read it would seem most pertinent to your case. Let’s say you are having problems with a superior and cannot understand why your efforts have not resulted in a greater feeling of gratitude in a promotion. Several laws deal specifically with the relationship between boss and subordinate, and it is almost certain that you are violating one of them. By leafing through the opening paragraphs on the 48 laws, in the summary, you will identify the pertinent law. Finally, the book can be leafed through and read at random, as a diversion, as a pleasant stroll through the foibles and great deeds of our ancestors in power. A warning, however, to those who use the book for this purpose, it is better to turn back. Power, in itself, is infinitely seductive and illusory, and a labyrinth will only consume itself in solving endless problems. And you will soon realize that you are pleasantly lost. In other words, it is very fun to take it seriously. Do not be frivolous with such an important subject. The gods of power frown upon frivolity. They please only those who study and reflect , and punish those who seek to amuse themselves in the foaming waters. The man who tries to be good all the time is doomed to ruin among the countless others who are not good. Therefore, the prince who wishes to maintain his authority must learn not to be good , and use this knowledge or refrain from using it as necessary. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, written in 1469. There are no principles, only facts. There is no good and evil, only circumstances. The superior man relies on facts and inconsistencies to guide him. If there were fixed principles and laws, nations would not change them. As we change our shirts. And one man cannot be expected to be wiser than an entire nation. Honoré de Balzac, 1799 to 1850. Law number one: Do not outshine the master. Always make those above you feel comfortably superior, by trying to please or impress. Don’t overdo it by showing off your own talents , or you may just end up inspiring fear and insecurity. Make your teachers seem more brilliant than they really are. Everyone has their insecurities. When you put yourself out there and show off your talents, it’s only natural that this will arouse all sorts of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity. This is to be expected. You can’t spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others, but about those above you. You need to take other approaches when it comes to being able to outshine your teacher. Perhaps the biggest mistake is made by those who achieve high status in life and, like kings and queens, want to feel secure in their position and superior to those around them. Intelligence, insight, and charm are a deadly misperception, but it’s common to believe that by showing off and flaunting your gifts and talents you are winning the Lord’s affection. He may feign appreciation, but at the first opportunity he will replace you with someone less brilliant, attractive, and threatening. Two rules. The first is that you can inadvertently outshine your master by simply being yourself. There are masters who are more insecure than others. The lesson is simple: if you can’t help but be charming and superior, you must learn to avoid these monsters of vanity and either find a way to erase your good qualities when you are with your master. And the second rule is not to imagine that you can do whatever you want just because your master likes you. Entire books could be written about favorites who fell from grace because they took their status for granted. By daring to shine knowing the dangers of outshining your master, you can take advantage of this law beyond that. First, you must flatter and court your master. Explicit flattery can be effective, but it has its limits. It is too direct and obvious and gives other courtiers a bad impression. Courting discreetly is much more effective if you are smarter than your lord, for example, pretend otherwise. Let him seem smarter than you. Show ingenuity and make it seem like you need his skills. Make harmless mistakes that won’t affect you in the long run, but will give him a chance to ask for your help. Lords love these requests. A master who can’t give you his expertise may take out his anger and ill will on you. If your ideas are more creative than your master’s, attribute them to him in the most public way possible. Make it clear that your advice is simply repeating his advice. If you are smarter than your master, it’s fine to play the court jester, but don’t make him seem cold and grumpy in comparison. Tone down your sense of humor if necessary, and figure out how to make it seem like he’s the one amusing and cheering others up, or vice versa. You can’t worry about upsetting everyone you meet, but you must be selectively cruel. If your superior is a shooting star, there is no danger of outshining him. Show no mercy. Your master had no qualms about his cold-blooded rise to the top. Calculate his strength. If he is weak, quietly hasten his downfall. Outdo him. Be more charming, more intelligent than he is at key moments. If he is much weaker and is about to fall, let nature take its course. Don’t risk outshining a weak superior. It may seem cruel or spiteful, but if your master is firm in his position and you know you are more capable than him, be patient and wait for the most propitious moment. The natural course of things and power will eventually weaken your master. He will fall one day , and if you play it right, you will survive and one day outshine him. Avoid outshining your master. All superiority is hateful, but the superiority of a subject over his prince is not only stupid but fatal. Baltasar Gracián Law number two Do not trust your friends too much. Learn to use your enemies. Be careful with friends. They will betray you more quickly, because they are more easily led to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former friend and he will be more faithful to you than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to have them. No one believes that a friend can betray. Friends are like teeth, and the jaw is a dangerous animal. If you are not careful, they will end up chewing you up. It is natural to want to employ friends when you are going through hard times yourself. The world is arid, and friends make it soft. Besides, do you know them? Why depend on a stranger when you have a friend at hand? The problem is that you don’t always know your friends as well as you think you do. They tend to agree. To avoid arguments, they disguise their qualities. To displease, perhaps so as not to offend each other. They find each other’s jokes too funny, since honesty rarely strengthens friendship. You may never know what a friend really feels. They will say they like poetry, they love music, they envy your good taste in clothes. Maybe they are being honest, but they are often not. When you decide to hire a friend, you gradually discover the qualities that he or she was hiding. Curiously, it is your act of kindness that upsets everything. People want to feel that they deserve the luck they are having. Receiving a favor can be oppressive. It means that you were chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you deserve it. There is almost an act of indulgence in hiring friends who, deep down, are hurting you. The damage slowly creeps in, a little more honesty, a flash of envy and resentment here and there. And before you know it, the friendship is gone. The more favors and gifts you dole out to rekindle the friendship, the less gratitude you will receive in return. Ingratitude has a long and deep history. It has demonstrated its powers for so many centuries that it is really interesting that people continue to underestimate it. You better pay attention. If you never expect gratitude from a friend, you will be pleasantly surprised when they show their gratitude. The problem with using or hiring friends is that it inevitably limits your power. It is rare that a friend is the person most capable of helping you, and after all, ability and competence are far more important than feelings of friendship. All work situations require a certain distance between people. You are trying to work, not make friends. Real or fake friendship only obscures this fact. The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to advance your interests in any given situation. Keep your friends for friendship, but for work choose those who are capable and competent. Your enemies, on the other hand, are a hidden gold mine that you must learn to exploit. As Lincoln said, you destroy the enemy when you make him a friend. Without enemies around us, we would grow lazy. The enemy at our heels sharpens our perceptions and keeps us focused and alert. Sometimes, then, it is better to use our enemies as enemies rather than to turn them into friends or allies. A clearly defined enemy is a much stronger argument in your favor than all the words you can muster. Never let the presence of enemies disturb or distress you. You are much better off with one or two open adversaries than when you do not know who your real enemy is. The man of power welcomes conflict by using the enemy to enhance his reputation as a reliable fighter who can be relied upon in uncertain times. Conversely, although in general it is best not to mix work with friendship. There are times when a friend can be more effective than an enemy. A man of power, for example, will often have to do dirty work, but to save face it is better to let others do it for him. Friends are the best, since they are willing to risk themselves for the affection they feel for him. Furthermore, if your plans go awry in . . . for some reason, a friend makes a very convenient scapegoat. This fall of the favorite was a trick often used by kings and sovereigns. They would let their best friend at court take the blame for a mistake, since the public would not believe that they would deliberately sacrifice a friend for that purpose. Of course, once you have made this move, you have lost your friend forever. It is best, therefore, to reserve the role of scapegoat for someone close to you, but not too close. Finally, the problem with working with friends is that it blurs the boundaries and distances that the job requires. But if both partners in the arrangement understand the dangers involved, a friend can be very effective. You must never let your guard down in this venture. However, always be on the lookout for any signs of emotional disturbance, such as envy and ingratitude. Nothing is stable in the realm of power , and even the closest friends can become the worst enemies. Men are quicker to return an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge an easy pleasure. Many people think that a wise prince should, if he has the opportunity, cunningly encourage an enmity of an enmity, so that by eliminating it he may increase his greatness. Princes, especially young ones, will find greater faith and usefulness in them. in those men whom, at the beginning of their power, they viewed with suspicion rather than in those whom they began by trusting. Niccolo Machiavelli. Know how to take advantage of your enemies. You must learn that it is not by the blade that you hold the sword, but by the hilt, in order to be able to defend yourself. The wise man profits more from his enemies than the fool from his friends. Baltasar Gracián Law number three Conceal your intentions. Keep people in doubt and in the dark, never revealing the purpose of your actions. Not knowing what you intend, they cannot prepare a defense. Lead them down the wrong path far away. Surround them with enough smoke and when they realize your intentions, it will be too late. Part one Use objects of desire and false clues to deceive others. If at any point in your deception people have the slightest suspicion as to your intentions, all is lost. Do not give them a chance to realize what you intend. Disguise yourself by placing false clues along the way. Use false sincerity, send ambiguous signals, invent objects of desire. It disorients people who are unable to distinguish between false and true. They cannot see their real purpose. Most people are like an open book. They say what they feel, they never miss an opportunity to let their opinions slip , and they constantly reveal their plans and intentions. They do this for several reasons. First, it is easy and natural to always want to talk about one’s feelings and plans for the future. It is difficult to control one’s tongue and monitor what is revealed. Second, many believe that by being honest and frank, they are winning people’s hearts and showing their good nature. They are immensely deluded. Honesty is, in fact, a dull knife. Your honesty will bleed more than it cuts; it will probably offend others. It is much wiser to measure your words by telling people what they want to hear, rather than the unvarnished truth of what you feel or think. Most importantly, by being so frank in your modesty of mind, you become so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to inspire respect or fear. And the person who does not arouse these feelings does not accumulate power. If you want power, immediately put honesty aside and begin to practice the art of disguising your intentions. Master the art and you will always prevail. Fundamental to the skill of concealing one’s intentions is a simple truth about human nature. Our first instinct is always to trust appearances. We cannot go around doubting the reality of what we see and hear. Constantly imagining that appearances hide something else would exhaust us and terrify us. And this makes it relatively easy to conceal one’s intentions. Simply dangle an object that you seem to desire, a goal that you seem to want to achieve, in front of people’s eyes, and they will mistake the appearance for reality. Once their eyes are fixed on the bait, they will not notice what you are really up to. In seducing them with conflicting signals, such as desire and indifference, you not only mislead them, but also inflame their desire to possess you. A tactic that often works when you want to set up a false trail and appear to be supporting an idea or cause that actually contradicts your feelings; most people will think you have changed your mind, since it is not common to joke so lightly about things as charged with emotion as your own opinions and values. The same applies if an object of desire used as a decoy appears to want something that you are not at all interested in, and your enemies will lose their way, miscalculating everything. During the War of the Spanish Succession in 1711, the Duke of Marlborough, head of the English army, wanted to destroy a very important French fort that protected a vital road to France, but he knew that by destroying it, the French would notice. What he wanted to do was advance along that road. Instead, he simply captured the fort and the Guarani with some of his troops, as if he wanted it for some particular purpose. The French attacked the fort and the duke allowed it to be retaken again in possession of the fort. However, they destroyed it, imagining that the duke had some important reason for wanting to keep it. Now the fort was no more. The way was clear and Marlborough could easily enter France. Use this tactic in the following way: Do not hide your intentions by closing yourself off at the risk of appearing mysterious and making people suspicious, but by talking endlessly about your desires and objectives. Only, no. The real ones. You will kill three birds with one stone. You will appear to be a cordial, frank and trustworthy person. You will hide your intentions and leave your rivals dazed, trying in vain to find something that will take them time to discover. Another effective tool for misleading people is false sincerity. They easily confuse sincerity with honesty. Remember that the first instinct is to trust appearances. And since people value honesty and want to believe in the honesty of those around them, they will rarely doubt you when they see what you are doing. Appearing to believe what you say gives great weight to your words. This is how Iago deceived and destroyed Othello. Given the intensity of his emotions, his apparent sincerity, his concern over Desdemona’s supposed infidelity, how could Othello distrust him? This is also how the great charlatan and she, the one who heard, covered the eyes of his victims, seeming to believe so much in the bait that he waved before them. A fake horse, a racehorse presented as a sure thing. It was difficult to doubt its reality. Of course, it is important not to exaggerate in this area. Sincerity is a treacherous weapon. It appears to be too much in love and will arouse suspicion. Be a person of restraint and trust, or your ruse will seem like the fraud it is, so that your false sincerity will be an effective weapon in hiding your true intentions. Adopt a belief in honesty and frankness as important social values. Do this as publicly as possible. Emphasize your position on this by occasionally disclosing a sincere idea, but only if it is really important or irrelevant, of course. Napoleon’s minister, Talleyrand, was a master at arousing people’s trust by revealing a supposed secret. This feigned trust would then be baited into real trust in the other person. Remember that the greatest impostors will do everything they can to cover up their treacherous virtues. They cultivate an air of honesty in one area, but disguise their dishonesty in others. Honesty is simply another bait in their arsenal. Part Two Disguise Your Actions with Smoke Screens. Cheating is always the best strategy, but the best deceptions require a smokescreen to distract people from your true purpose. The affable exterior, as well as the inscrutable poker face, is almost always the perfect smokescreen, hiding your intentions behind the comfortable and familiar. If you lead your victim down an unfamiliar path, they won’t realize you’re leading them into a trap. Remember, paranoid and suspicious people are the easiest to fool. Gain their trust in one area and you have the smokescreen that clouds their vision in another, allowing you to sneak up and crush them with a devastating blow. A gesture that seems honest or that suggests the other person’s superiority. These are perfect diversionary tactics. Properly set up, the smokescreen is a very powerful weapon. If you think cheaters are those colorful people who deceive With elaborate lies and incredible stories, you are deceived. The greatest impostors are those who use a soft, invisible facade that does not attract attention. They know that extravagant gestures and words immediately arouse suspicion. Instead, they wrap their target in a familiar, harmless aura. Once you have drawn your victims’ attention to the familiar, they will not notice the fraud that is going on behind their backs. The root of this lies in a very simple truth: people can only focus on one thing at a time. It is really very difficult for them to imagine that the soft, harmless person they are dealing with is at the same time plotting something else. The grayer and more uniform the smoke of your smokescreen, the better. It hides its intentions in the bait and false clues discussed in part one. You actively distract people with the smokescreen. You deceive your victim, luring them into your web. Because it is so hypnotic. This is often the best way to disguise your intentions. The simplest form of smokescreen is the facial expression behind a bland and readable exterior. All sorts of violent and harmful actions may be being plotted without being noticed. This is a weapon that most powerful men in history have learned to use to perfection. It was said that no one could read Franklin Roosevelt’s face. Baron James Rothschild had a lifelong habit of disguising what he was really thinking with affable smiles and indefinable looks. Stendhal wrote of Talleyrand, ” Never a servile face, much less a barometer.” Harry, who would make his opponents at the negotiating table cry with boredom with his monotonous tone of voice, his expressionless gaze, and his endless details. And then, when their eyes were already wide open, he would suddenly hit them with a reaction of bold terms, caught off guard and easily intimidated, as one poker manual explains. When it is his turn to play, the good player is rarely an actor. Instead, he practices a cool demeanor that animalizes legible patterns, frustrates and confuses the opponent, and allows for greater concentration. The smokescreen can be practiced on several levels, all of which play on the psychological principles of distraction and misdirection. One of the most effective smokescreens is the noble gesture. People want to believe that apparently noble gestures are authentic because it is a pleasant belief. They seldom notice how they fool the art dealer. Joseph once found himself faced with a terrible problem . The millionaires who paid so well for his paintings no longer had as much space on their walls , and with inheritance taxes rising ever higher, it seemed unlikely that they would continue to buy them. The solution was the Net Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which he also helped create in 1937, getting what Andrew Mellon had donated to his collection. The National Gallery was the perfect front for Devon in one gesture. His clients evaded taxes, made room on their walls for new acquisitions, and reduced the number of paintings on the market, keeping up the pressure to raise their prices. All this while the donors appeared to be benefactors of society. Another effective smokescreen is the pattern, when a series of actions is established that seduce the victim into believing that things will always continue the same way. The pattern plays on the psychology of expectation. Our behavior fits the pattern, or so we like to think. In 1878, American robber Baron Jay Gould created a company that began to threaten the monopoly of the telegraph companies: Western Union. The directors of Western Union decided to buy Gould’s company. It required a considerable amount of money, but they thought they had managed to get rid of an annoying adversary. A few months later, however, Goldin There he was again, complaining that he had been treated unfairly. He started a second company to compete with this meeting and his new acquisition. The same thing happened again. Western Union bought the company to shut him up. Soon the pattern was repeated for the third time. But now Gould went for the jugular. Suddenly he initiated and quickly achieved a bloody hostile takeover of Western. He had established a pattern that fooled the company’s directors into thinking that his goal was to be bought at a reasonable price. After buying, they would relax and not realize that they were actually bidding higher. The pattern works so well because people delude themselves into expecting the opposite of what you are really doing. Another psychological weakness that underlies smokescreens is the tendency of people to confuse appearances with reality. The idea that if someone looks like they belong, they really do. This habit makes camouflage a very effective facade. The trick is simple: you simply blend in with the people around you. The more you blend in, the less suspicious you become. During the Cold War, in the 1950s and 1960s, as we now know, many British civil servants passed secret information to the Soviets. No one found out for years because they were apparently honest guys. They had attended good schools and fit perfectly into the alumni network model of prestigious schools. Blending in is the perfect smokescreen for espionage. The more you blend in, the better you will be able to disguise your intentions. Remember that it takes patience and humility to erase your bright colors and put on the mask of the insignificant person. Don’t despair at having to wear this mask. It is almost always your illegibility that attracts others and makes you seem powerful, or vice versa. There is no smokescreen, false leads, insincerity or other diversionary tactic that will disguise your intentions. If you already have a reputation as a fraud, as you age and become more successful , it becomes increasingly difficult to disguise your cleverness. Everyone knows you are a phony. Keep playing the naive and you risk looking like a big hypocrite, which will seriously limit your room for maneuver. In such cases, it is better to come clean, to appear to be an honest scoundrel, or rather, a repentant scoundrel. Not only will they admire you for your weakness, but, what is more strange and wonderful, you will be able to continue your tricks. As he grew older, Pitti Barnum, the king of fraud in the 19th century, learned to accept his reputation as a great impostor. At one point, he organized a buffalo hunt in New Jersey, complete with Indians and some imported buffalo. He advertised the hunt as being genuine, but the result was so artificial that the crowd, instead of getting angry and demanding their money back, had a great time. They knew that Barnum was always out walking. It was the secret of his success, and they liked him for it. Learning his lesson, Barnum stopped hiding his tricks, even revealing his frauds in an autobiography, as Kierkegaard wrote. The world wants to be deceived. Finally, although it is wiser to distract attention from one’s purposes by presenting a smooth and familiar exterior, there are times when the colorful gesture is visible and the diversionary tactic is correct. The great acrobats of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries used humor and entertainment to deceive their audiences. Dazzled by the spectacle, the public did not perceive the charlatans’ true intentions. Thus, the charlatan star himself would appear in the city, in a black carriage drawn by black horses, accompanied by clowns, sleepwalkers and variety showmen, attracting the people to his demonstrations of miraculous elixirs and potions. Or the charlatan made entertainment seem like the topic of the day, when in fact the topic of the day was the sale of miraculous elixirs and potions. Show and entertainment are clearly excellent devices for disguising one’s intention, but they cannot be used indefinitely. The public gets tired and suspicious and ends up seeing through the trick. Powerful people with affable exteriors. On the other hand, the Thais, the Rothschilds, the and the can practice their dissimulations. In the same place all their lives. Their act does not wear out and rarely arouses suspicion. Notes by the narrator Charles Maurice of Excellency of 1754 In 1838, he was a French politician and diplomat who participated in several historical events, including the French Revolution and Napoleon’s Coup d’état and the French Revolution. He was sympathetic to the discontented and promoted the French Revolution. He collaborated in the drafting of the first French Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. He proposed the nationalization of all the assets of the French Church and resigned from his bishopric in 1791. He had a great friendship with Napoleon and became a great friend of Napoleon. He was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by Napoleon after the coup d’état of 1799 and participated in Napoleon’s coup d’état in 1799. The income is the prime minister. He was the first prime minister of France between July and September 1815. He held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs on four different occasions. End of notes. The text continues. The colored smokescreen should be used with caution, therefore, and only on the right occasion. Do not let yourself be seen as an impostor, even if today it is impossible not to be one. Let your greatest cleverness lie in dissimulating what appears to be cleverness. Baltasar Gracián has heard of a very skillful general who intends to surprise a city by announcing his plans to the enemy. Hide your purposes and hide your progress. Do not reveal the extent of your objectives until it is impossible to oppose them, until the fight is over. Achieve victory before declaring war. In short, imitate those warriors whose intentions no one knows except the destroyed country through which they pass. Words of Ninon de la Incluso, 1623–1706 . Law number four Say less than necessary. When you try to impress people with words, the more you say, the more commonplace you seem and the less control you seem to have of the situation. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, broad, and enigmatic. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying little. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something stupid. Power is, in many ways, a game of appearances. And when you say less than necessary, you will inevitably seem bigger and more powerful than you are. Your silence will make people uncomfortable. Human beings are machines for interpreting and explaining and explaining. They need to know what the other person is thinking. If you carefully control what you reveal, they will not be able to fathom your intentions or your thoughts. Your short answers and silence will put them on the defensive. And they will rush to fill the silence with a series of comments, which will reveal valuable information about themselves and their weaknesses. They will leave a meeting with you feeling robbed and will go home thinking about every word you said. This extra attention to your few remarks will only increase the power you have to say less than necessary. It is not just for kings and statesmen in almost every walk of life. And the less you say, the deeper and more mysterious you seem. As a young artist Andy Warhol had the revelation that it was impossible to convince people to do what you wanted them to do just by talking. They would turn on you, subvert your wishes , and obey you out of sheer perversity. He once told a friend, “I have learned that you actually have more power when you keep your mouth shut, saying less than necessary. You create the appearance of meaning and power, too. The less you say, the less risk you have of saying something stupid or even dangerous. In 1825, a new tsar, Nicholas I, ascended the throne in Russia. Immediately there was a rebellion led by liberals who demanded that the country modernize, if its industries and civil structures were to be equal to the rest of Europe, and brutally crushed this revolt. The December Uprising. Nicholas first sentenced to death one of its leaders, Kondratieff, who was reelected on the day of the execution. He was relieved, and climbed to the gallows with the rope around his neck. The trapdoor opened, but as he was suspended in the air, the rope broke and he fell to the ground. At the time, such occurrences were considered a sign of providence or divine will to anyone who was saved from death. In this way, he was usually pardoned. When Riley got up, dirty and scratched, but believing his neck was safe, he shouted to the crowd, “ See? In Russia? They don’t know how to make anything right, not even a rope.” The messenger immediately went to the Winter Palace with the news of the hanging, which had not happened. Despite this frustrating turn of events, Nicholas first started to sign the pardon, but then he said something. After this miracle, Kizaru asked the messenger. Mister Messenger answered. He said that in Russia they don’t even know how to make a rope. In this case, despite that, we will prove the opposite. And he tore up the pardon. The next day, he went to the gallows again. This time the rope did not break. Learn your lesson. Words, once spoken, cannot be taken back. Keep them under control. Be particularly careful with sarcasm. The momentary satisfaction you get from saying sarcastic phrases will be less than the price you pay for them, or vice versa. There are times when it is unwise to remain silent. Silence can arouse suspicion and even insecurity, especially in your superiors. A vague and ambiguous comment can expose you to interpretations you were not expecting. Remaining silent and saying less than necessary are techniques that should be practiced with caution, therefore, and at the right time. Occasionally, it is wiser to imitate the court jester, who plays the fool but knows he is smarter than the king. He talks and talks and distracts everyone. No one suspects that he is not such a fool after all. Sometimes, words also act as a kind of smokescreen. When you want to deceive others, by filling your listeners with words, you distract and hypnotize them. The more you talk, the less they distrust you. Verbiage is not perceived as malicious and manipulative, but as a sign of incompetence and naivety. This is the opposite of the policy of silence used by the powerful. By speaking more and appearing weaker and less intelligent than you are, you practice dissimulation much more easily. Do not open your mouth before your subordinates. The longer you remain silent, the faster others begin to spill the beans. When they move their lips and spill the beans, I can understand your true intention. If the sovereign is not mysterious, the ministers will have the opportunity to take advantage of frog words in the spell and the Chinese philosopher of the third century BC. Law number five Much depends on reputation. Give your life to defend it. Reputation is the cornerstone of power. With reputation. Only you can intimidate and overcome one slip, however, and you are vulnerable and will be attacked from all sides. Make your reputation impregnable and always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. In the meantime, learn to destroy your enemies by undermining their own reputations. Then, stand back and let public opinion destroy them. The people around us, even our best friends, will always be, to a certain extent, mysterious and inscrutable. Their personalities have secrets that they do not reveal. If we dwell too much on this or on the mysteries of others, it can be an uncomfortable thing, because it would make it impossible for us to truly judge other people. Therefore, we prefer to ignore this fact and judge people by their appearance, by what is most visible to our eyes, such as their clothes, gestures, words and actions. In the social sphere, appearances are the barometer of almost all our judgments, and you should not delude yourself into believing otherwise. A false slip or a strange or sudden change in your appearance can prove disastrous. This is why it is so important to make and maintain a reputation that you have created yourself. This reputation will protect you from the dangerous game of appearances, distracting the prying eyes of others from knowing what you are really like, and giving you some control over how the world judges you. A powerful position. Reputation has magical power. With a single stroke of the wand, it can double your strength. It can also make people run away from you in a hurry if the same actions seem brilliant or horrible. It depends entirely on the reputation of the person who did them. At first, you should strive to build a reputation for one important quality, be it generosity, honesty, or cunning. This quality will put you in the spotlight and keep people talking about you. Make sure that as many people as possible know about your reputation. Take care to build it slowly and on a firm foundation , and watch it spread like wildfire. A solid reputation increases your presence and exaggerates your strength without you having to expend much energy. It can also create an aura around you that inspires respect or even fear. As the saying goes, your fame inevitably comes first, and if it inspires respect, much of the work will already be done before you enter the scene or utter a single word. Your success seems predestined by your past triumphs. Make your reputation simple and based on one authentic quality. This single quality, efficiency, say, or seduction, becomes a kind of calling card that announces your presence and bewitches others. The reputation of honesty allows you to practice all kinds of fraud. Perhaps you have already tarnished your reputation and cannot create another one. Therefore, it is wise to associate yourself with someone whose image contradicts yours, using that person’s good name to clean up and improve yours. It is difficult, for example, to clean up a reputation for dishonesty alone, but a model of honesty can help. Reputation is a treasure that should be carefully collected and guarded, especially when you are starting out. You must guard it rigidly, anticipating all attacks when it is solid. Do not become angry or defensive at the slanderous comments of your enemies. This reveals insecurity and lack of confidence in your reputation. Take the easy way out and never show desperation in defending yourself. On the other hand, attacking another man’s reputation is a powerful weapon, particularly if you have less power than he does. He has much more to lose in such a dispute, and your own still small reputation is a small target when he tries to fire back. But this tactic must be practiced skillfully. You must not appear interested in petty revenge if you are not clever in damaging your enemy’s reputation and will inadvertently ruin your own. Thomas Erickson, considered the inventor who controlled electricity, believed that a viable system should be based on direct current. When the Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla appeared to have succeeded in creating a system based on alternating current and Edison was furious, he decided to destroy Tesla’s reputation by making the public believe that the A, C or alternating current system was inherently unsafe, and Tesla was responsible for promoting it for this purpose. He captured small domestic animals of all kinds and electrocuted them, killing them with an alternating current. As if that were not enough, in 1890, he managed to get the authorities of the New York State prison to carry out the first execution of a death row inmate by electric shock, using an alternating current. But all the electrocution experiments they had carried out had been on small creatures. The charge was too weak and the man was only half dead in the execution, which was perhaps the most cruel execution authorized by the State in the country. The procedure was to be repeated. It was a horrible spectacle, although in the long run, what survived was Edison’s name at the time. His campaign did more damage to his own reputation than to Tesla’s. He retreated. The lesson is simple: don’t overdo it with attacks like this, because it will draw more attention to your own vindictive nature than to the person you are defaming. When your own reputation is solid, use more subtle tactics, such as satire and ridicule, to weaken your opponent while you show yourself as a charming prankster. The mighty lion plays with the mouse that crosses his path. Anything else would damage his fearsome reputation. The reverse, not the other way around. Reputation is critical. There are no exceptions to this law. Perhaps by not caring what people think of you, you gain a reputation for insolence and arrogance, but that in itself is a valuable image. Oscar Wilde used it to great advantage, because since we have to live in society and depend on the opinions of others, there is nothing to be gained by neglecting our own reputation. When you do not care how people see you, you are letting others decide that for you. Be the master of your own destiny and also of your reputation. Therefore I would wish the courtier to defend his inherent worth with skill and cunning and to ensure that wherever he goes as a stranger he is preceded by a good reputation, for fame which seems to rest on the opinions of many fosters a certain unshakable faith in a man’s worth, which is then easily reinforced in the already predisposed and prepared minds. Words of idleness to be and Castiglione, 1478 to 1529. Law number six Attract attention at all costs. Judge everything by appearances. What is not seen is not counted. Do not get lost in the crowd. Stand out. Make yourself visible at all costs. Attract people’s attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious than the timid and mild masses. Part of being that your name for scandal is sensationalism. Draw attention to yourself, creating an unforgettable, even controversial image. Make a scandal. Do anything to seem to exaggerate everything and shine brighter than everyone around you. Do not discriminate between different types of attention. Any kind of notoriety will give you more power than anyone else, no matter how much they talk about you. Crowds tend to act in unison. If one person stops what they are doing to watch your beggar lay bricks on the street, others will do the same. They gather like clumps of dust. Then, a little push and they enter your museum or watch your show. To create a crowd, you have to do something different or eccentric. Any kind of curiosity will do, because crowds are magnetically attracted to the unusual and inexplicable. And once you have captured their attention, do not let it go. If it is diverted to other people, it will be at your expense as you start to gain attention all the way to the top. So spend all your energy on attracting attention , and more importantly, the quality of the attention is irrelevant. The worst thing in the world for a man who wants fame, glory and, of course, power is to be ignored. Shining brighter than the people around him is not an innate ability. You have to learn to attract attention as surely as a magnet attracts iron. At the beginning of your career, you must associate your name and reputation with a quality, an image that will set you apart from others. This image may be something like a distinctive style of dress or a quirk of personality that amuses people and makes them talk about it. Once the image is established, you have an appearance, a place in the sky for your star. It is a common mistake to imagine that your peculiar appearance should not be controversial, that being attacked is a bad thing. Nothing is further from the truth, to avoid being a frustrated success or having your notoriety eclipsed by another, you must not discriminate between different types of attention. In the end, all of them will be favorable. Society likes exaggerated figures, people who place themselves above the general mediocrity. Do not be afraid, therefore, of the qualities that make you different from others and draw attention to yourself. Court controversy until scandal. It is better to be attacked until slandered, than to remain ignored. All professions obey this law and all professionals must have a bit of an exhibitionist. If you find yourself in a lowly position, with little opportunity to attract attention, one trick that works is to attack the most visible people. The most famous, the most powerful one that finds a defamatory attack on a person in a position of power would have a similar effect. Remember, however, to use this tactic rarely once you have attracted public attention so as not to wear it out. Once in the spotlight, you must always renew, adapt and vary your method of attracting attention. Otherwise, The public gets tired, gets used to you, and turns its eyes to a new star. The game requires constant vigilance and creativity. Understand that people feel superior to those whose actions they can predict. If you show them who is in control, playing against their expectations, you will at the same time inspire respect and tighten the threads of attention that are slipping away. Part Two Create an air of mystery in an increasingly banal and familiar world. What seems enigmatic quickly grabs attention. Never make it too clear what you are doing or will do. Don’t reveal all your cards. An air of mystery accentuates your presence. It also creates anticipation. Everyone will be watching to see what will happen next. Use mystery to deceive, seduce, and even frighten. In the past, the world was full of terrifying and unknown things, diseases, disasters, despots, capricious people, the mystery of death itself, what we could not understand and imagined in the form of myths and spirits. Over the centuries, however, we have succeeded, through science and reason, in making light and darkness, what was mysterious and forbidden, become familiar and comfortable. But this light comes at a price: in an increasingly banal world, with no more room for mysteries and myths, we intimately yearn for enigmas, people or things that cannot be instantly interpreted, understood and consumed. This is the power of the mysterious. It invites multiple interpretations, excites our imagination, seduces us into believing that it hides something wonderful. The world has become so familiar and its inhabitants so predictable that what was shrouded in mystery almost always attracts the spotlight and makes us look. Do not imagine that to create an air of mystery you have to be magnificent and amazing. The mystery that is woven into your daily and subtle behavior You have this power to fascinate and attract attention. Remember, most people are weak, like an open book. Rarely do they bother to control their words or image and are hopelessly predictable, holding back, remaining silent, occasionally uttering ambiguous phrases, deliberately appearing incoherent and subtly eccentric. You will emanate an aura of mystery and the people around you, constantly trying to read you, will amplify this aura. Artists and charlatans understand the vital link between being mysterious and attracting interest. An air of mystery can make the mediocre seem intelligent and profound. It is very easy. Talk little about your work, provoke and excite with seductive, even contradictory, comments. Then step back and let others try to understand. Mysterious people put others in a kind of inferior position and try to understand them in controllable degrees. They also evoke the fear that surrounds everything that is uncertain or unknown. All great leaders know that an aura of mystery attracts attention and creates an intimidating presence. If your social position prevents you from completely shrouding your actions in mystery, you should at least learn to make yourself less obvious from time to time. Act in a way that doesn’t fit with other people’s perceptions of you. This keeps people around you guessing, generating the kind of attention that makes you powerful. Done right, creating an enigma can also attract the kind of attention that inspires terror in your enemy. If you find yourself trapped, cornered and on the defensive, try a simple experiment. Do something that cannot be easily explained or interpreted. Choose a simple action, but execute it in a way that leaves your opponent unsure of many possible interpretations, making your intentions unclear. Don’t simply be unpredictable, although this tactic can also work, as you’ll see in Law 17. Your madness will seem to have no meaning, that is, no rhyme or reason, and no possible explanation. If you do this right, you’ll leave everyone shaking in fear, and the sentries will abandon their posts. Call it Hamlet’s tactic of feigned madness, because Hamlet uses it to great effect in Shakespeare’s play, frightening his stepfather, Claudius, with his enigmatic behavior. Mystery makes your strength seem greater, your power more terrifying, and vice versa. At the beginning of your climb to the top, you must attract attention at all costs, but along the way you must constantly adapt. Don’t bore your audience with the same tactics. An air of mystery works wonders for those who need to develop an aura of power to make themselves noticed. But it should come across as measured and controlled. Don’t let your air of mystery slowly turn into a reputation for deception. The mystery you create should come across as a harmless, fun game. Recognize when you’re going too far and back off. There are times when the need for attention must be postponed and when the last thing you want is scandal and notoriety, the attention you draw should never offend or challenge the reputation of those above you. No, not at all. If they are secure, comparing yourself to them will not only make you look petty but desperate. It is an art to know when to draw attention and when to withdraw, therefore do not appear to be overly attention-seeking, because that is a sign of insecurity and insecurity takes away power. Understand that there are times when it is not in your interest to be the center of attention in the presence of a king or queen, for example, or the equivalent of bowing down and staying in the shadows. Do not enter into competition when you declare yourself and immediately create expectations. Mix a little mystery into everything and the mystery itself It will arouse veneration. And when you explain, do not be too explicit. In this way you imitate the divine way when you make men stand watching in wonder. Words of Baltasar Gracián. Flaunt and be seen, that which is not seen as if it were not. It was the light that gave its brilliance to all creation. Display fills many empty spaces, covers up deficiencies , and makes everything reborn, especially if supported by genuine merit. Words of Baltasar Agraciar If, it happens that the courtier takes part in a fight in a public spectacle such as a joust, he should ensure that his horse is beautifully dressed, that he himself is properly dressed, with appropriate regalia, and ingenious devices to attract the gaze of the spectators towards him as surely as a magnet attracts iron. Words of good dancing and Castiglione Law number seven Make others work for you, but always take the credit. Use the wisdom, knowledge, and physical effort of others for your own benefit. Not only will this help save you valuable time and energy, it will also give you a divine aura of efficiency and speed. In the end, your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Do not do for yourself what others can do for you. Many have harbored the illusion that science, because it deals with facts, is above the petty rivalries that hamper the rest of the world. Nikola Tesla was one of these. He believed that science had nothing to do with politics and claimed not to care about fame or wealth. In his later years, however, this ruined his scientific work without being associated with any particular discovery. He could not attract investors for his many ideas. While he was imagining great inventions for the future, others were stealing the patents he had already developed and taking the glory. This is a two-step lesson. First, credit for an invention or creation is as important, if not more important, than the invention itself. You must secure the credit for yourself and prevent others from stealing it or hanging on your back. To do this, you must remain vigilant and relentless, keeping quiet about your inventions until you are sure that no vultures are flying nearby. Second, learn to use the work of others to your advantage. Time is precious and life is short. If you try to do everything yourself, you will wear yourself out, waste energy and burn yourself out. It is far better to conserve your strength, lay your claws on the work that others have already done and find a way to take it over. The dynamics of the world of power are those of the jungle for those who live by hunting and killing. And then there are the vast numbers of creatures like hyenas and vultures that live off what others hunt. These latter types, less imaginative, are often incapable of doing the work essential to creating power. They understand early on that if they wait long enough, another animal will always find work for them. Don’t be naive now, even as you work on some project; there are vultures all around trying to figure out a way to survive and even thrive on your creativity. There is no point in complaining or suffering bitterly like Tesla did. Better to protect yourself and learn to play the game. Once you have established a power base, become a vulture yourself and save a lot of your time and energy, the essence of the law. Learn to make others do the work for you while you take the credit and it will seem as if you have godlike energy and power. Do you think it is important to do all the work yourself? You will not get very far and you will suffer a lot. Find people with the skills and creativity that you do not have. Hire them and put your name first before theirs or find a way to steal their work and say that you did the creativity for them. So you will be on your own and the world will see you as a genius. There is another application of this law that does not require you to exploit the work of your contemporaries. Use the past, a vast arsenal of knowledge and wisdom. Isaac Newton called this standing on the shoulders of giants. He meant that in making his discoveries he had built on achievements largely outside his gender aura. He knew it, and it could be attributed to his shrewd ability to make the most of the insights of scientists from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Shakespeare borrowed plots, characterizations , and even dialogue from Plutarch, among other authors, because he knew that no one surpassed Plutarch in subtle psychology and witty quotations. How many other authors have since borrowed or plagiarized from Shakespeare? We know how rare it is for politicians today to write their own speeches. Their own words would not win them a single vote, their eloquence and wit. If they exist, they owe it to a speechwriter. Other people do the work, they get the credit. The flip side is that this kind of power is available to everyone. Learn to use the knowledge of the past and you will look like a genius, even if in reality you are nothing more than a clever plagiarist. Writers who have delved into human nature. Ancient masters of strategy, historians of human stupidity and folly, kings and queens who learned the hard way how to handle the weight of power. Their knowledge is gathering dust, waiting for you to climb on their shoulders. Their wit can be your wit. Their skill can be your skill, and they will not come to tell you that you are unoriginal. You can struggle, make endless mistakes, spend time and energy trying to do it from your own experience. Or you can use the armies of the past, as Bismarck once said: Fools say they learn by experience. I prefer to take advantage of the experience of others or vice versa. There are times when taking credit for the work of others is not the wisest course of action. If your power is not firmly established, it will appear that you are pushing others out of the spotlight. To be a brilliant scout of talent, your position must be unshakable or you are or will be accused of fraud. Be sure to know when it is in your best interest. Share credit with others. It is very important not to be greedy when you have a master in a higher position. President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to the People’s Republic of China was originally his idea, but it would never have happened had it not been for the skillful diplomacy of Henry Kissinger, nor would it have been as successful as it was for Kissinger’s skill. Nevertheless, when it came to taking credit, Kissinger wisely let Nixon have the lion’s share, knowing that the truth would eventually come out. He was careful not to jeopardize his position in the short term by grabbing the limelight. He played it smart, taking credit for the work of those below him, while graciously giving credit for his own efforts to those above him. This is how it is played. There is much to know. Life is short and life is no life without knowledge, and therefore an excellent trick is to acquire everyone’s knowledge. Thus, while others sweat, you gain the reputation of an oracle. Words of Baltasar Gracián Everyone steals in commerce and industry. I have stolen a lot myself, but I know how to steal. Words of Thomas Edison Law number eight Make people come to you. Use bait if necessary. When you force others to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning your own plans in the process. Seduce him with the possibility of fabulous gains. Then attack. You call the shots. How many times has this scenario been repeated in history? An aggressive leader begins a series of bold moves that initially bring him great power. Slowly, however, his power reaches a peak and soon everything turns against him. His many enemies band together, trying to maintain his power. He exhausts himself, going from one side to the other and inevitably collapsing. The reason for this pattern is that aggressive people are rarely in full control of the situation. They cannot see more than one or two moves ahead, they cannot see the consequences of this or that bold move as they are constantly forced to react to the moves of their growing army of enemies and the unpredictable consequences of their own actions. Reckless. Their aggressive energy turns against them. In the sphere of power, you must ask yourself what is the point of running around trying to solve the problem and defeat enemies, if I never feel in control because I always have to react to events instead of directing them? The answer is simple: your idea of power is wrong. You confuse aggressive actions with effective actions , and what often works best is to stand still, remain calm, and let others get frustrated by the traps you set for them, playing the game to gain power in the long run, not to achieve a quick victory. Remember, the essence of power is the ability to take the initiative, to make others react to your moves, putting your opponent and the people around you on the defensive. When you make people come to you, suddenly you are the one in control of the situation. And the one in control has the power. Two things need to happen to put you in this position. You yourself have to learn to control your emotions and never let yourself be carried away by anger. In the meantime, you must take advantage of people’s natural tendency to react with anger when forced and deceived in the long run. The ability to make people come to you is a much more powerful weapon than any aggressive tool. We all have a limit to our energies, and there comes a time when they are at their peak. When you make someone else come to you, they wear themselves out and waste energy along the way. Another advantage of making your opponent come to you is that it forces him to operate on your territory. Being on hostile ground makes him nervous and he almost always gets bogged down and makes mistakes in negotiations or meetings. It is always wiser to lure others into your territory or into the territory you have chosen. You have your references, but as long as he does not see anything familiar and is subtly put on the defensive, manipulation is a dangerous game. When someone suspects that he is being manipulated, it becomes increasingly difficult to control him. But when you make your opponent come to you, you create the illusion that he is the one in control. It all depends on how soft the bait is. If your trap is sufficiently attractive, the turbulence of your enemies’ emotions and desires will not let them see the reality. The greedier they are, the better they can be led. The great 19th century robber baron Daniel Drogo was a master at playing the stock market when he wanted a particular stock to be bought or sold, driving its price up or down. He rarely resorted to a direct method. One of his tricks was to run past an exclusive club near Wall Street, obviously on his way to the Stock Exchange , and take out his customary red handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. A piece of paper would fall out and he would pretend not to notice. The club members were always trying to predict Drogo’s moves and would jump on the paper. which invariably contained a stock tip. Word would spread, and bankers would buy and sell the stocks dancing in Drew’s hands. If you can get people to dig their own graves, why waste your sweat? Pickpockets are masters at this. The key to picking a pocket is knowing whose pocket it is in. Experienced pickpockets often ply their trade in train stations and other places where signs clearly read Beware of Pickpockets. Passersby, upon seeing the sign, invariably reach into their pockets to see if it’s still there. For the careful pickpockets, that’s like falling over themselves. It’s even been known that they themselves put up the Beware of Pickpockets signs to ensure their success. When you get people to come to you, sometimes it’s better to let them know you’re forcing them. You trade deception for overt manipulation. The psychological ramifications are profound. The person who makes others come to him appears powerful and commands respect. If you consider it a matter of honor to have people come to you and get them to come, they will continue to do so even after you stop trying. The reverse. Although it is generally wiser to make others exhaust themselves by running after you, there are cases in which suddenly and aggressively attacking the enemy demoralizes him so much that his energy is drained. Instead of making others come to you, you go to them, insist, and take the lead. The quick attack can be a frightening weapon, because it forces the other person to react without time to think or plan, without time to think. People make errors of judgment and become defensive. This tactic is the opposite of waiting and baiting, but it serves the same function. You make your enemy react on your own terms. A quick and unexpected move terrifies and demoralizes. You must choose your tactics according to the situation. If time is on your side and you know that you and your enemies are at least equal in strength, then wear them down by making them come to you. If time is not on your side, your enemies are weaker and waiting will only give them a chance to recover. Do not give them that opportunity. Strike quickly and they will have nowhere to go, as the boxer John Lewis says. He runs but does not hide. Good warriors make others come to them and do not go to others. This is the principle of emptiness and fullness in self-other relations. If you induce your adversaries to come to you, their strength is emptied, as long as you do not go to them. Your strength will always be full. Attacking the empty with the full is like throwing stones at eggs. Zangwill, 11th century commentator on the art of war. Law nine. Win by your actions. Do not argue any momentary triumph you have achieved by arguing. It is, in fact, a Pyrrhic victory. The resentment and ill will you arouse are stronger and more permanent than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more effective to make others agree with you by your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate. Don’t explain. The argumentative person does not understand that words are not neutral and that by arguing with a superior, he is questioning the intelligence of someone more powerful than himself. He also does not realize who he is talking to, since every man believes he is right and words have rarely convinced him otherwise. The argumentative person’s reasoning falls on deaf ears. If cornered, he only adds more arguments, digging his own grave. After making the other person feel insecure and inferior in his beliefs. Not even the eloquence of Socrates can save the situation. It’s not just about avoiding arguing with those above you. We all believe that we are masters in the realm of opinions and reasoning. You need to be careful, so learn to demonstrate the certainty of your ideas indirectly. In the sphere of power, you must learn to judge your moves by their long-term effects on other people. The problem with trying to prove yourself right or win with arguments is that in the end you’re never quite sure how it affects the people you’re arguing with. They may seem to agree with you out of politeness, but deep down they feel hurt. Or maybe something you said inevitably offended them. Words have an insidious ability to be interpreted according to the other person’s mood or insecurity. Even the best arguments are not solidly founded, because we all suspect the slippery nature of words and days after agreeing with someone, we often revert to our old opinion out of habit. Understand this: words are a dime a dozen. Everyone knows that in the heat of an argument, we’ll all say anything to make our case. We quote the Bible, we cite unverified statistics. Those who are convinced by these air bubbles, attitudes and demonstrations have much more power and meaning. They are there, before our eyes. Yes, now the statue’s nose looks right. There are no offensive terms, no possibility of misunderstanding. No one can argue with visible proof, as Baltazar Graciano observes. Truth is usually seen, rarely heard. Christopher Rain was the English version of the Renaissance man. He had mastered the sciences of mathematics, astronomy, physics and philosophy. Yet, during his extremely long career as England’s most famous architect, his patrons frequently told him to make impractical changes to his designs. Never once did he argue or offend. He had other ways of proving his point. In 1688, Rain designed a magnificent building for the City of Westminster Town Hall. The mayor, however, was not pleased. In fact, he was angry. He told Rain that he was afraid that the second floor was not secure and that it might collapse , destroying his office on the first floor. He demanded that Rain build the rising base with two stone columns as extra support. Rain, an excellent engineer, knew that these columns would be useless and that the mayor’s fears were unfounded. But he built them, and the mayor thanked him. It was only years later that the workers, on a high scaffold, saw that the columns ended just short of the roof. They were fake, but the two men had their way. The mayor could relax, and Rain made sure that posterity would know that his original design worked and that the columns were unnecessary. The power of making a point is that your opponents are not on the defensive and are therefore more willing to be convinced than to make them feel it literally and physically. What you want to say is far more effective than arguing. A man once interrupted Nikita Khrushchev in the middle of a speech in which he was denouncing Stalin’s crimes. Were you a colleague of Stalin’s? The man shouted. Why didn’t you stop him? At the time, Khrushchev apparently couldn’t see the guy. And he growled. Who said that? No one raised a hand. No one moved a muscle. A few seconds of tense silence passed. Khrushchev said in a calm voice. Now you know why I didn’t stop you? Instead of simply arguing that anyone in front of Stalin would be afraid, knowing that the slightest sign of defiance meant certain death, he made them feel what it was like to confront him, and Stalin made them feel the paranoia, the fear of speaking out loud, the terror of confronting the leader, in this case, Khrushchev. The demonstration was conclusive and there was no further discussion of the form of persuasion that is even more effective than attitude and symbol. The power of a symbol. A flag, a mythical story, a monument to an episode charged with emotions that everyone understands without you having to say anything. When the goal is to have power or try to keep it, always look for the indirect route and also choose your battles carefully. If it doesn’t matter in the long run and whether the other person agrees with you or not, or if time and experience make them understand what you mean, then it is better not to even bother showing anything. Save your energy and avoid the opposite. Verbal argument has a vital utility in defending the power to extract and hide your tracks. When you are practicing dissimulation or are caught lying, in these cases, you gain more by arguing with all the conviction possible. Draw the other person into an argument to distract them from your underhanded moves when caught lying. The more emotional and confident you appear, the less likely you are to appear to be lying. This technique has saved the skin of many a charlatan. Count Victor Lustig, a con man par excellence, had once sold dozens of victims across the country a strange box that he claimed could copy money. Seeing that they had been duped, the victims generally preferred not to go to the police so as not to risk the embarrassment of the case becoming public. But Sheriff Richards of Ramos, Oklahoma, was not the kind of man to accept being cheated out of $10,000 , and one morning he followed Lustig to a hotel in Chicago. Lustig heard a knock on the door. When he opened it, he saw the barrel of a shotgun. What’s the matter? he asked calmly. You son of a bitch. I’m going to kill you. You tricked me with that box of yours. Lustig pretended not to understand. I mean, it’s not working. He asked. You know it’s not. But that’s impossible. There’s no way it can’t work. Did you use it the way you were supposed to? Yes, I did exactly what you told me to do, the sheriff said. No, you must have done something wrong. The argument was going nowhere. The barrel of the shotgun was gently lowered. Lustig moved on to the next phase of his argument. He launched into a barrage of technical jargon about how the box worked, leaving the sheriff dazed, looking less confident, and arguing less insistently. Look, I’ll give you your money back right now. I’ll also give you written instructions on how to operate the machine, and I’ll go to Oklahoma to make sure it’s working properly. There’s nothing to lose in a deal like that. The sheriff agreed, reluctantly wanting to make him completely satisfied. Lustig took out a hundred $100 bills and handed them to him, telling him to relax and have a good weekend in Chicago. Calmer and a little confused, the sheriff finally left. In the days that followed this meeting, Lucien checked the newspaper every morning. He ended up finding what he was looking for, a short article with the news of the arrest, trial and conviction of Sheriff Richards for passing counterfeit bills. Lustig won the argument. The sheriff never bothered him again. Don’t argue. In society, nothing should be discussed. Only produce results. Words by Benjamin Disraeli 804 to 1881. If you like it, use the Bucks that I bring here on the channel. Have you thought about becoming a member? In addition to supporting this work, you have exclusive access to content that is not publicly available. That’s right, including complete audiobooks and PDFs of the books, extra materials and even news before everyone else. All this for a symbolic value that helps a lot in the continuity of this project. If the knowledge you are acquiring in these books is transforming your life, become a member and support the continuation of this channel. Thank you for your support and an excellent book. Law Number Ten Contagion Avoid the unhappy and unlucky. The misery of others can kill you. Emotional states are as contagious as diseases. You may think you are helping the drowning man, but you are only hastening your own disaster. The unhappy sometimes bring about their own unhappiness. They will bring about yours too. It associates itself with the happy and fortunate. The contagious personality type is not restricted to women. It has nothing to do with gender. Its root is an inner instability that radiates, attracting disasters. There is almost a desire to destroy and disturb. You could spend your whole life studying the pathology of contagious personalities, but don’t waste your time. Learn the lesson only if you suspect that you are in the presence of a contagious person. Don’t argue, don’t try to help. Don’t pass the person on to your friends or you will fall into the web. Run away or you will suffer the consequences. Those unfortunate people who are brought down by circumstances beyond their control deserve all our help and sympathy. But there are others who were not born unhappy or unfortunate, but who attract unhappiness and misfortune with their destructive acts and the disturbing effect they have on others. It would be great if they could be called back to life, to change their patterns. But it is almost always these patterns that are assimilated by us and change us. The reason is simple: human beings are extremely susceptible to the moods, emotions and even ways of thinking of those with whom they live. The irremediably unhappy and unstable person has a very strong power of contamination , because their personality and emotions are very intense. They usually present themselves as victims, which makes it difficult to see right away that they themselves are the source of this suffering. By the time you realize the true nature of your problems, you are already contaminated. Understand this: in the game of power, the people you associate with are very important. There is a risk of associating with others and contaminating others. You waste precious time and energy trying to get rid of it. Guilty of some kind of association, you will also be a sufferer in the eyes of others. Never underestimate the danger of contagion. There are many types of contagious people that we must be careful with. One of the most insidious, however, is the one who suffers from chronic dissatisfaction. There is only one solution for this: quarantine. But when you recognize the problem, it is usually too late. How can you protect yourself from these insidious viruses? The answer lies in judging people by the effects they have on the world and not by the reasons they give for their own problems. Contagious people are recognized by the unhappiness they bring upon themselves through their turbulent past, the long string of broken relationships, their unstable careers and the very strength of a personality that takes over you and makes you lose your mind. Be alert to these signs of the infected. Learn to look the discontented in the eye and, most importantly, do not show pity. Do not complicate things by trying to help. If you are contaminated, you will not change, but you will become confused. The other aspect of contamination is equally valid and perhaps easier to understand. There are people who attract happiness with their good humor, their natural liveliness and intelligence. They are sources of pleasure and you should associate with them to share the prosperity they attract to themselves. We are not just talking about good humor and success. All positive qualities can be contagious. Take advantage of the positive aspect of this emotional osmosis. If you are sad by nature, for example, you will never go beyond a certain limit. Only generous souls achieve greatness. Associate with the generous and they will contaminate you, releasing what is tight and pent up inside you. If you are melancholic and gravitate towards cheerful people, you will tend to isolate yourself. Force yourself to be friends with the gregarious. Never associate with those who have the same defects. They will reinforce everything that hinders your path. Create associations only with positive affinities. Let this be a rule of life and you will benefit more than with all the therapies in the world. The reverse. This law does not accept the reverse. Its application is universal. There is no gain by associating with those who can infect you with their misery. Power and luck are only obtained by associating with the fortunate. Ignore this law at your own risk. Recognize the fortunate so that you can choose your company and the unfortunate so that you can avoid it or misfortune is, in general, foolishness. And among those who suffer from it, there is no disease more contagious, there is no embrace at the door for the smallest of misfortunes, because if you do, many others will follow. Do not die from the misfortune of others. Words of Baltasar Gracián. Law number 11 Learn to keep people dependent on you in order to maintain your independence. You must always be needed and loved. The more they depend on you, the more freedom you will have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you will have nothing to fear. Do not teach them enough to the point that they can do without you. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. If you can do this without forcing or hurting people, if they willingly give you what you want, then your power is untouchable. The best way to achieve this position is by creating a relationship of dependence. Does the Lord need your services? He is weak or unable to function without you, who have become so involved in his work that eliminating you would put him in great difficulty or at least give him precious time to train someone else to replace you. Once such a relationship has been established, you are the one who has the control and influence to force the Lord to do what you want. The classic case of the man behind the throne, the servant of the king who actually controls the king. Don’t be like so many who deceive themselves into believing that power and independence imply a relationship between people. You will always need others as allies, pawns, or even as weak masters who serve as a front for you. The totally independent man would live in a cabin in the woods, be free to come and go as he pleases, but would have no power. The most you can hope for is that others will become so dependent on you that you will enjoy a kind of independence that is the opposite of their need for you to set them free. You don’t need to have the talent of a Michelangelo; all you need is a skill that sets you apart from the crowd. You must create a situation in which you can always cling to another master or patron, but your master cannot easily find another servant with your particular talent. And if in reality you are not indispensable, you must find a way to appear to be the owner of specialized knowledge and skill, and to appear to have specialized knowledge and skill will give you a margin of safety to make your superiors think they cannot live without you. Real dependence on your master, however, makes him more vulnerable to you than false dependence, and you can always make your skill indispensable. This is what is meant by intertwined destinies, like ivy that clings to the wall but is so rooted in the source of power that it will be too much of an Attic trauma to tear it away. And you do not necessarily have to keep intertwining with your master . or someone else will be, as long as they are also indispensable or in jail to make others depend on you. One path to take is the secret service tactic. By knowing other people’s secrets, by keeping information that they would not like to see disclosed, your fate is sealed with theirs. You become untouchable. The ministers of the secret police have held this position for centuries. They can make or break a king. One last warning: do not think that your master, because he depends on you, will really love you. He may resent and fear you. But, as Machiavelli said, it is better to be feared than loved. Fear. You can control love, not depending on feelings as subtle and fickle as love or friendship only makes you insecure. It is better for others to depend on you because they fear the consequences of losing you than because they enjoy your company. The reverse, the negative side of making others dependent on you, is that you become dependent on them in a way, but not accepting this means freeing yourself from your superiors, being alone without depending on anyone. This is the monopolistic impulse of J. Morgan or John Rockefeller. Eliminate all competition, be in total control. If you can corner the market, so much the better. All independence has its price. You are forced to isolate yourself. Monopolies often turn inward and destroy themselves by internal pressure. They also arouse strong resentment, causing enemies to unite against them. The impulse for total control is often pernicious and useless. Independence is the rule, independence a rare and almost always fatal exception. It is better to place yourself in a position of mutual dependence and follow this rule than to seek the reverse. You will not suffer the unbearable pressure of being on top and the Lord above you being your slave, because He is the one who will depend on you. Make people depend on you. There is more to be gained from these dependencies than from courting them. Those who have quenched their thirst quickly turn their backs on the source, no longer needing it. When there is no dependency, civility and decency disappear, and then respect. The first thing to learn from experience is to keep hope alive, but never satisfied. To keep even a real patron, always needing you. Words by Baltasar Gracián. Law number 12 Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim. A sincere and honest gesture will cover up dozens of dishonest ones. Even the most suspicious people let their guard down when faced with frank and generous attitudes, and once your selective honesty disarms them, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. The opportune gift, a Trojan horse, will be equally useful. The best way to achieve this is by appearing sincere and honest. Who will distrust a person literally caught in an honest act? The essence of deception is distraction. By distracting the people you are trying to deceive, you gain time and space to do something they have not noticed. A delicate, generous or honest gesture is often the most effective form of distraction, because it disarms the other person’s suspicions. They become like children, eagerly accepting any demonstration of affection. It is best to use selective honesty right from the first meeting. We are all creatures of habit and our first impressions last a long time. If someone believes from the start that you are honest, it will take time to convince them. Otherwise, you gain room to maneuver. In general, a single honest act is not enough. What is needed is a reputation as an honest person, based on a series of acts, but these can be quite inconsequential. Honesty is one of the best ways to disarm the provident, but it is not the only one. Any kind of noble, seemingly altruistic act will do. Perhaps the best, however, is generosity. Rare are the people who can resist a gift, even from the most bitter enemy. That is why this is often the perfect way to disarm people. A gift awakens the child in us, instantly breaking down our defenses. Although we view other people’s behavior with disbelief, we rarely see the Machiavellian element of a gift that often hides ulterior motives. A gift is the perfect object to hide a false attitude. Selective kindness often disarms the most stubborn enemy, striking right at the heart. It corrodes the desire to retaliate. Remember this playing on other people’s emotions. Calculated gestures of kindness can turn a Capone target into a naive child. Like any emotional approach, the tactic must be practiced with caution. If people sense feelings of gratitude and cordiality frustrated and turn into hatred and distrust in their most violent form. If you can’t make the gesture seem sincere, don’t play with fire. The opposite is true. When you have a history of deception, no amount of honesty, generosity, or kindness can fool people. In fact, it will only draw more attention to yourself when you are already perceived as a phony. An honest attitude is suddenly suspect. In these cases, it is better to play the rogue. Nothing in the sphere of power is written in stone. Open falsehood sometimes covers your tracks and even makes you admired for the honesty of your dishonesty. Law number 13 When asking for help, appeal to people’s selfishness, never to their mercy or gratitude. If you need to ask an ally for help, do not bother reminding them of your existence and past good deeds. They will find a way to ignore you. Instead, reveal something in your request or in your alliance that will benefit them and overemphasize it. They will react enthusiastically if they see that they can gain something from it in their quest for power; you will constantly find yourself in the position of having to ask for help from those more powerful. Asking for help is an art that depends on your ability to understand the person you are dealing with and not confuse what you need with their needs. Most people fail to do this because they are so caught up in their own wants and needs. They start by assuming that the people they are dealing with have an altruistic interest in helping them. They talk as if their needs matter to these people who probably don’t care at all. Sometimes they refer to bigger issues, a great cause, or grandiose emotions like love and gratitude. They prefer the big picture when simple everyday realities would serve much more purpose. What they don’t realize is that even the most powerful person is caught up in their own set of needs, and that if you don’t acknowledge their selfishness, they will simply see you as desperate or, at best, a waste of time. Every person you deal with is like another culture, a strange land, with a past that has nothing to do with yours. However, it is possible to bridge the gap between two people by appealing to the other person’s selfishness. Don’t be subtle. You have valuable knowledge to share. You will fill his coffers with gold. You will make his life longer and happier. This is a language we all speak and understand. An essential step in this process is to understand the other person’s psychology. Is he vain? Is he concerned about his reputation or social standing? Does he have enemies that you could help him overcome? His motivation is only money and power. Selfishness is the lever that moves people. It is getting them to see that you can somehow satisfy their needs or further their cause. Resistance to your requests for help disappears as if by magic. At each step on the path to gaining power, you must always try to see what is going on in the other person’s mind, what their needs and interests are, in order to pull back the curtain of your own feelings that obscure the truth. Master this art and there will be no limits for you, or vice versa. There are people who consider appealing to their selfishness as an ugly and ignoble attitude. They, in fact, prefer to be able to exercise charity, mercy and justice, which is their way of feeling superior to you. When you beg them for help, you are emphasizing their power and position. They are strong enough not to need anything from you except the chance to feel superior. And this is the wine that intoxicates them and they are dying to sponsor your project. Introduce you to powerful people, provided, of course, that all this is done in public for a good cause. In general, the more public, the better. Not everyone, therefore, can be approached using cynical selfishness. Some people will be put off by this because they don’t want to appear motivated by these things. They want an opportunity to show off their good hearts. Don’t be shy. Give them this opportunity. It’s not that you’re abusing your good faith by asking for help. They actually enjoy giving and being seen to give. You must be able to tell the difference between powerful people and find out what their basic motives and needs are. If they exude greed, don’t appeal to their charity. If they want to appear noble and charitable, don’t appeal to their greed. The quickest and most effective way to make a fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interest to promote your interest. Words of Gian from April 1000 645 to 1696. Law 14 Play the friend, Act the spy. Knowing your rival is very important. Use spies to gather valuable information that will put you one step ahead. Better still, play the spy yourself and in social gatherings, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. Every occasion is an opportunity for clever espionage. Thus, the power of good espionage makes you seem omnipotent, clairvoyant. Your knowledge of your victim can also make you seem charming, able to predict their desires so well. No one sees the source of your power, and what cannot be seen cannot be fought in the sphere of power. Your goal is a degree of control over future events. Part of your problem, therefore, is that people will not tell you everything they think, feel, and plan by controlling what they say. They almost always keep hidden the most critical parts of their personality, their weaknesses, their secret motives, their observations. The result is that you cannot predict their movements and are constantly in the dark. The trick is to find a way to probe them, to discover their secrets and hidden intentions, without letting them know what you are up to. It is not as difficult as you think. A friendly facade will allow you to gather confidential information from friends and enemies alike. Likewise, let others consult their horoscopes or tarot cards. You have more concrete means of seeing the future. The most common way to spy is by using other people. The simplest, most effective, but risky method. You certainly get information, but you have little control over the people doing the work. Perhaps through ineptitude, they will reveal your spying or even secretly turn against you. It is much better to be yourself, the spy, to make fun of friends while secretly gathering information at innocent social gatherings. Pay attention when people let their guard down and stifle your own personality. You can get them to reveal things. The advantage of this maneuver is that they will mistake your interest for friendship. And you not only learn things, you gain allies. However, you should practice this tactic with caution, because people will begin to suspect that you are extracting secrets from them under the guise of conversation. They will avoid you completely. Emphasize friendly chit-chat, not valuable information. Your search for valuable information cannot be too obvious , or your probing will reveal more about yourself and your intentions than about what you want to know. There is a trick to try. Espionage is given to us by La Fouche Rum Cold, who wrote: Sincerity is found in very few men, and it is often the cleverest in trickery. If you are sincere in order to gain trust and obtain the other’s secrets, pretending to open your heart, you, in other words, make people inclined to reveal their own secrets. Make her confess falsely and she will give you a true A. Another trick was identified by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who strongly suggested contradicting the person you are talking to in order to irritate her until she loses control of what she is saying. By reacting with emotion, she will reveal the whole truth about this truth that you can then use against her. Another indirect method of espionage is to test people, to set little traps that will make them reveal things about themselves. By trying to make people commit certain acts, you learn about their loyalty, honesty and other things. And this type of knowledge is almost always the most valuable of all. With this weapon, you can predict how people will act in the future. Conversely, information is essential to power, but just as you spy on others, you must also prepare to be spied on. One of the most effective weapons in the fight for information, therefore, is to spread false information. As Winston Churchill said, the truth is so precious that it should always be accompanied by lies. You must surround yourself with these bodyguards to protect your truth, spreading the information you choose. The game is in your hands, spreading false information, therefore, gives you a huge advantage while espionage gives you a third eye. Disinformation, an enemy blind in one eye, a cyclops. He always misses the target. Now, what makes a brilliant sovereign and a wise general always conquer the enemy and his achievements surpass those of common men? It is the foreknowledge of the enemy’s situation. This foreknowledge does not come from spirits or gods, nor from an analogy with past events, nor from astrological calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the situation of the enemy of the spies. Words of Sun Tzu in The Art of War. If you have come this far, it is because you are in the middle of the book and I want to know how your experience is going. Be sure to give your opinion here in the comments about the book and the audiobook. And if you, like me, like to smell the new pages of a book, here in the description there is a link where you can buy a copy on Amazon and still help the channel. Message given, let’s get back to reading. Law number 15 Completely annihilate the enemy. All great leaders know that the dangerous enemy must be crushed completely, without leaving a single ember. No matter how small, it will end up turning into a bonfire. You lose more by making concessions than by total annihilation. The enemy will recover and take revenge and crush you. Physically and spiritually. The idea is simple: your enemies do not like you. What they want most is to destroy you. If, when fighting them, you stop halfway, or even after going 3/4 of the way out of mercy or hope of reconciliation, you will only make them more determined, more bitter, and one day they will take revenge. They may act friendly for a while, but that is only because you have defeated them. They have no choice but to wait for the solution, to show no mercy and to crush you completely as they have, or else they will crush the only peace and security you can expect from your enemies. And when they disappear, the principle of crushing the enemy is as old as the Bible. The first to put it into practice was Moses, who learned from God himself who opened the Red Sea for the Jews and then let the waters flow again, drowning the Egyptians who were right behind them. In this way, not a single one of them would be left. Moses, when he came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments and saw his people worshiping the golden calf, ordered all the sinners to be killed. Shortly before he died, he told his people that finally, about to enter the Promised Land, that when they defeated the tribes of Canaan, they should have them, quote, destroyed completely, without alliance or mercy. Total victory as a goal is one of the axioms of modern warfare and was codified as such by Cromwell vom Clausewitz, the philosopher minister of war. Analyzing the campaigns of Napoleon vom Clausewitz. And he wrote Open quote: We maintain that the total annihilation of the enemy forces must always be the predominant idea. Once a great victory has been achieved, there can be no talk of resting, of taking a breath, but only of pursuing, of going after the enemy again, conquering his capital, attacking his reserves and everything else that can give your country. Aid and comfort. Close quote. This is because after the war comes negotiations and divisions of territory. If you have only had a partial victory, you will inevitably lose in the negotiations, what did you gain from the war? The solution is simple: do not give your enemy options, Annihilate them and you will be the one who will dismantle their territory. The goal of power is to control your enemies completely, to make them submit to something you want. You cannot afford to make concessions. With no other option, they will be forced to do what you say. This law does not apply only to the battlefield. Negotiations are like an insidious viper that eats away at your victory. So do not negotiate with the enemy. Do not give them any hope, any room to maneuver. They are crushed, period. Understand this in your struggle for power, you will stir up rivalries and create enemies. There will be people you cannot convince to remain your enemies no matter what. But whatever pain you cause them, deliberately or not, do not take their hatred personally. Just recognize that there is no possibility of peace between the two of you, especially if you remain in power. If you let them stay around, they will seek revenge as surely as after the day. Come night and expecting them to show their cards is foolish. Be realistic with the enemy around like this, you will never be safe. Learn from the examples of history and the wisdom of Moses. Do not compromise. It is not a question of death, of course, but of exile. Sufficiently weakened and then banished forever from your court. Your enemies become harmless, they no longer have any hope of recovering from insinuating themselves and hurting you. And if it is impossible to banish them, at least know that they are plotting against you. And do not pay attention to their feigned gestures of friendship. Your only weapon in such a situation is your own caution. You cannot banish them immediately, so plan the best moment to act. The reverse is rarely to ignore this law. But it happens that sometimes it is better to let your enemies destroy themselves if that is possible, than to make them suffer at your hands. In war, for example, a good general knows that by attacking A cornered army, your soldiers will fight with much more enthusiasm. That is why it is sometimes better to leave them an emergency exit, an escape route. By retreating, they wear themselves out, and retreat leaves them more demoralized than any defeat at the hands of this general. On the battlefield. If you have someone with the rope around his neck, but only if you are sure that there is no chance of recovery, it is better to let him know that he himself is the agent of his own destruction. The result will be the same and you will not feel so bad. Finally, by crushing the enemy, you sometimes irritate him so much that he spends years plotting revenge. The Treaty of Versailles had this effect on the Germans. Some say that in the long run it is better to show a certain madness. The problem is that your madness entails another risk. It can encourage the enemy who still harbors a grudge, but now has more room to act. It is almost always wiser to crush the enemy. If years later he wants revenge, do not let your guard down. Simply crush him again, for it must be noted that men must be either petted or annihilated. They will avenge themselves for small offenses, but they cannot do the same for great ones. When we offend a man, therefore, we must do so in such a way that we need not fear his revenge. Words of Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469 to 1527. Law 16 Use absence to increase respect and honor. Too much circulation makes prices fall. The more you are seen and heard, the more common you will appear. If you have already established yourself in a group, by temporarily withdrawing, you will become a more talked about, even more admired figure. You must know when to withdraw. You create a value with scarcity or that which withdraws. What becomes scarce suddenly seems to deserve our respect and esteem ; what remains too long, saturating us with its presence, arouses our contempt. In the Middle Ages, ladies constantly demanded proof of their love from their knights, sending them on long and arduous quests, all to create an oscillation between absence and presence. Everything in the world depends on absence and presence. A strong presence attracts power and attention to you. You shine more than the people around you, but there inevitably comes a point where too much presence creates the opposite effect. The more you are seen and heard, the more your value diminishes. You become a habit. No matter how much you try to be different, subtle, without you knowing it, people begin to respect you less and less. You have to learn to withdraw at the right moment, before they unconsciously force you to do so. It is a game of hide and seek. The truth of this law can be easily proven when it comes to love and seduction. At first, the absence of the loved one stimulates your imagination, enveloping him or her in a kind of aura. But this aura disappears when you know too much, when your imagination no longer has room to wander. The loved one becomes a person like any other, someone whose presence no longer arouses much interest. That is why the 19th century French courtesan advised always pretending to be moving away from the loved one. Quote: love does not die of starvation. Quote: unquote, she wrote, but often, yes, of indigestion. When you allow yourself to be treated like any other person, it is already too late, you have already been swallowed and digested. To prevent this from happening, you have to let the other person’s longing for your presence command respect, threatening them with the possibility of losing you forever. Create a pattern of presence and absence. Once you are dead, everything about you changes. You are immediately enveloped in an aura of respectability. People remember the criticisms they made of you, the arguments you had, and they are filled with regret and guilt. They miss a presence that will never return. But you don’t have to wait until you die by completely withdrawing and for a while you create a kind of death before death and when you return, it will be as if you have returned from another world. An air of resurrection will be associated with you and people will feel relieved by your return. Another more common aspect of this law, but which demonstrates its truth even better, is the law of scarcity in economics. By removing a product from the market, you instantly create a value, adjusting the law of scarcity to your own abilities. Make what you offer the world rare and difficult to find and you will instantly increase its value. There always comes a time when those in power abuse our hospitality. We grow tired of them, we lose respect, we begin to see them as equal to the rest of humanity, which is to say we see them as worse, because we inevitably compare what we see now with what we saw before. It is an art to know when to withdraw. By practicing it correctly, you regain the respect you have lost and you retain a part of your power, you make yourself more available. It is the aura of power that you have built around yourself. It will disappear. Turn the tables, make yourself less accessible and the value of your presence will increase. The reverse This law only applies after you have reached a certain level of power. The need to withdraw from the scene only arises after you have established your presence. Withdraw too soon and you will no longer be respected, you will simply be forgotten. When you are beginning to act on the world stage, create an image that can be recognized, reproduced and seen everywhere. Until you have achieved this status, absence is dangerous. Instead of fanning the flames, it will extinguish them in love and seduction. Similarly, absence is only effective if you have enveloped the other person with your own image. If he or she is already seeing you everywhere, everything should remind him or her of your love, of your presence, so that if you decide to withdraw, he or she will always be thinking of you, always seeing you in his or her mind. Remember, the beginning does not disappear. Be omnipresent. Only that which is seen, appreciated, and loved will be missed in its absence. Use absence to create respect and esteem. Presence diminishes fame. Absence makes the man grow, who when absent is considered a lion, when present becomes common and ridiculous. Talents lose their luster when we grow accustomed to them, for the outer covering of the mind is seen more easily than its richer inner core, or even the great genius withdraws so that men will respect him and so that the desire awakened by his absence will make him esteemed. Words of Baltasar Gracián Law 17 Keep others in a latent state of terror. Cultivate an atmosphere of unpredictability. Men are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in the actions of others. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables. Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems incoherent or absurd will keep them disoriented, and they will exhaust themselves trying to explain your movements, taking it to the extreme. This strategy can intimidate and terrify. Chess contains the essence of life. First, because to win, you have to be extremely patient and foresighted. Second, because the game is based on patterns, entire sequences of moves that have been made before and will continue to be made with slight alterations in any game. Your opponent analyzes the patterns you are using and uses them to try to predict your moves, giving you nothing predictable on which to base your strategies. You gain a great advantage in chess, as in life, when you cannot imagine what you are doing. People are in a state of terror, waiting uncertainly, confused. Nothing is more terrifying than the sudden and unforeseen. That is why we fear earthquakes and tornadoes so much. We do not know when they will happen after the first one. We wait in terror for the second one to a lesser degree. And as soon as unpredictable human behavior acts on us, animals have a fixed pattern of behavior, which is why it is possible to hunt and kill them. Only man has the ability to consciously change his behavior, to improvise and free himself from the burden of routine and habit. But most men do not realize this power. They prefer the comfort of the routine of animal nature, which makes them repeat the same actions over and over. Compulsively, they act like this many times because of the law of least resistance and because they deceive themselves into thinking that if they do not disturb anyone, no one will disturb them. Understand that the person with power instills a certain fear by deliberately disturbing the people around him, keeping the initiative on his side. Sometimes you need to strike suddenly, making others tremble when they least expect it is a trick used by the powerful for centuries. Filippo Maria, the last of the Viscount Dukes of Milan in 15th century Italy, consciously did the opposite of what was expected of him. For example, he would sometimes shower a courtier with attention. And then, just when the man was beginning to think he was going to be promoted at any moment, he would start treating him with the utmost contempt. Confused, the man would leave the court, but the duke would suddenly remember him and treat him well again. Unpredictability is often the master tactic. But the poor devil can also use it to great effect. If you are outnumbered or cornered, make a series of unpredictable moves. Your enemies will be so confused that they will retreat or make a tactical error. In the spring of 1862, during the American Civil War, General Stone Jackson, with an army of 4,600 Confederate soldiers, was harassing the larger Union armies in the Shenandoah Valley. Meanwhile, not far away, General George Britton Cleland, leading an army of 90,000 Union men, was marching south from Washington to besiege Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. During that campaign, Jackson repeatedly took his troops out of the valley and then returned. His movements made no sense. Was he preparing to help defend Richmond? Was he marching on Washington now that McClellan had left it? The defenseless Union was heading north to raze everything there, because his small army was moving in circles. Jackson’s inexplicable movements caused the Union generals to turn back to Richmond while they waited to find out what he was up to. In the meantime, the South had managed to send reinforcements to the city, a battle that could have crushed the Confederacy, which turned into a draw. Jackson used this tactic repeatedly when facing numerically superior forces. Disorient yourself. Always confuse and surprise the enemy, if possible, he said. These tactics always won , and a small army would therefore be able to destroy a larger one. This law applies not only to war, but to everyday situations. Others are always trying to understand the reason for your actions and use your predictability against you. Make a totally unpredictable move and you will put them on the defensive. Without understanding anything, they will be distressed and in this state, it is easy to intimidate them. Pablo Picasso once said that the best calculation is no calculation. When you have achieved a certain degree of recognition, others generally imagine that if you do something, it must be for an intelligent reason. Therefore, it is foolish to plan your moves too carefully in advance . It is better to act capriciously for a while. Picasso worked with the art dealer Paul Rosenberg, leaving him free to sell his paintings. But one day, for no apparent reason, he told the man that he would not give him any more works to sell. According to Picasso, Rosenberg spent 48 hours trying to figure out why I would be reserving pieces for another medium. I kept working and sleeping, and Rosenberg kept figuring it out. Two days later, he came back nervous, anxious, saying. After all, my dear friend, you wouldn’t abandon me if I offered you all this and said a substantially higher amount for these paintings than the price I am used to paying, would you? Unpredictability is not only an instrument of terror that scrambles your patterns daily, it shakes things up and stimulates interest. People have talked about you, attributed motives and given explanations that have nothing to do with the truth, but they will always be thinking about you. In the end, the more capricious you seem, the more respect you will earn. Only the extremely subordinate act predictably. The enlightened ruler is so mysterious that he seems to have no home. It is so inexplicable that one does not know where to look for it. It rests in starvation up there, and its ministers tremble down here or in the spell. A Chinese philosopher from the third century BC, life at court is a serious and melancholic game of chess, where we have to put information, our weapons and scouts, create a plan, pursue it and defend ourselves against our adversary’s plan. Sometimes, however, it is better to take risks and make the most capricious and unpredictable move. Words and candlestick and vice versa. Sometimes predictability works in your favor, creating a pattern with which people feel comfortable. You leave them numb. They set everything up according to what they know about you. This tactic can be useful in several ways. First, it is a smokescreen, a comfortable facade behind which you can deceive others. Second, it allows you, on rare occasions, to do something completely contrary to the pattern, disturbing your adversary so much that he dismantles it on his own. In 1974, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman were about to face each other in a heavyweight boxing championship bout. Everyone knew what was going to happen. The big George Foreman would try to score a knockout punch while Daly would dance around him until he was exhausted. That was how he fought. That was his pattern, and he had been doing the same thing for ten years. But in this case, it seemed to give form an advantage. He had a devastating punch, and if he waited, sooner or later he would have to close in. Ali, the master strategist, had other plans. In the press conferences before the big fight, he said he was going to change his style and punch form. No one, least of all Foreman, believed him. The plan was suicide. Ali was joking, as usual. But then, before the fight, Ali’s trainer loosened the ring ropes, as is customary when a boxer wants to be very aggressive. No one, however, believed the maneuver. It had to be a setup. To the astonishment of everyone there. And he did exactly what he had said. While he was in formation, he expected him to start dancing around him. He went straight for him and punched him , completely disrupting his opponent’s strategy. Confused, Forma didn’t finish. Exhausted, he didn’t run after Ali, but threw punches like a madman, receiving just as many in return. Finally, Ali landed a drastic right cross that knocked him out. Forma has the habit of assuming that a person’s behavior will always conform to their previous patterns. And it’s so ingrained that not even there, announcing a change in strategy, could he change that. Foreman fell into a trap, a trap he had been warned about . Unpredictability sometimes backfires, especially if you are in a lower position. There are times when it is better to let the people around you feel at ease and at ease. Too much unpredictability is seen as a sign of indecision or even a more serious psychological problem. Patterns have great power and if you break them, you can make people very scared. You must be sensible when using this power. Law 18. Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous. The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere. Everyone needs to protect themselves. A fortress seems very safe, but isolation exposes you to more danger than it protects you from. You become isolated from valuable information and become an easy and obvious target. The best thing to do is to move among people. Finding allies and blending in with the crowd serves as a shield against your enemies. Withdraw into a fortress and you lose contact with the sources of your power. You do not hear what is going on around you and you lose your sense of boundaries. Instead of becoming more secure, you isolate yourself from the knowledge that you depend on to live. Don’t distance yourself so much from the streets that you can’t hear what’s going on around you, including what’s being plotted against you. Machiavelli argues that, in a strictly military sense, a fortress is always a mistake. It becomes a symbol of isolation from power and is an easy target for the enemies of its builder. Designed to defend you and the fortress, it actually isolates you from any kind of help and hampers your flexibility. It may seem impregnable, but once you’re inside, everyone knows where you are. And it takes nothing but your body to turn your fortress into a prison with its small, confined spaces. Fortresses are extremely vulnerable to plagues and contagious diseases. From a strategic point of view, the isolation of a fortress offers no protection and creates more problems than it solves. As human beings, we are social creatures. By nature. Power depends on social intention and circulation. To become powerful, you must put yourself at the center of things, as ISO 14 did, and become a member. All activity must revolve around you , and you must be alert to everything that is happening on the street and to anyone who might be plotting against you. For most people, danger arises when they feel threatened. At that time, they tend to withdraw and close ranks, seeking the safety of some kind of fortress. In doing so, however, they begin to rely on information from an ever-shrinking circle and lose perspective on what is going on around them. They lose their ability to maneuver and become easy targets, and isolation makes them paranoid, as in war and most strategic games. Isolation almost always precedes defeat and death. In times of uncertainty and danger, you must fight this urge to turn inward. Instead, make yourself more accessible. Seek out old and new allies. Strengthen your entry into larger and more diverse circles. This has been the trick of powerful people for centuries. The Roman statesman Cicero was a lower-class nobleman who had little chance of gaining power unless he could work his way into the city’s ruling aristocracy. He did this brilliantly, identifying all the influential people and discovering their connections. He mixed everywhere, knew everyone, and had such a vast network of connections that an enemy here could easily be offset by an ally there. The French statesman Talleyrand played the same game. Although he came from one of France’s oldest aristocratic families, he made a point of keeping in touch with what was happening on the streets of Paris, which allowed him to anticipate trends and problems. He even took a certain pleasure in mixing with the disreputable criminal types who provided him with valuable information. Whenever there was a crime, a transition of power, the end of the Directory, the fall of Napoleon, the abdication of Louis XVIII, he managed to survive and even prosper, because he never closed himself off in a small circle, always associating himself with the new order. This is true for kings and queens and those at the highest levels of power. As soon as you lose contact with your people, seeking safety in isolation, rebellion begins to brew. Never think that you are in such a high position that you can afford to distance yourself from even the lowest echelons. By retreating to a fortress, you become an easy target for your conspiring subjects, who see your isolation as an insult and a reason for rebellion. Human beings are very social creatures. It follows that the social attitudes that make us pleasant company can only be practiced by constant exposure and circulation. The more you are in contact with others, the more graceful and relaxed you become. Isolation, in turn, creates a strangeness in your gestures, which leads to even greater isolation. When people start to avoid you. In 1545, Duke Cosimo, first of Medici, decided, in order to ensure the immortality of his name, to commission some frescoes for the main chapel of the church of San Lorenzo, in Florence. He could choose from several good painters and ended up choosing Jacopo da Apontu. Already at a certain age, Contorno wanted to make these frescoes his masterpiece and legacy to humanity. His first decision was to enclose the chapel with walls, partitions and curtains. He didn’t want anyone to witness the creation of his masterpiece or steal his ideas. He would surpass Michelangelo himself when some curious young men forced their way into the chapel and Jacobo locked it even more painfully, one filling the ceiling of the chapel with biblical scenes. The creation of Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark and others. High on the central wall, he painted Christ in all his majesty, resurrecting the dead on the day of the Last Judgment. The artist worked on the chapel for 11 years, rarely leaving it, as he had developed a phobia of human contact and feared that his ideas of form would be stolen. He died before completing the frescoes, and none of them survive. But the great Renaissance writer Vasari, a friend of the painter who saw them shortly after the artist’s death, left a record of his impressions. The lack of proportion was total. The scenes collided with each other, figures from different stories juxtaposed in a maddening quantity. The master would become obsessed with the details, but he would lose the sense of the overall composition. Vasari interrupted his description of the frescoes, saying that if he continued, I think he would go mad and become as entangled in this painting as I believe Jacopo spent in the 11 years painting. He was confused, and to all who saw it, instead of crowning his career as a painter, a work was his downfall. These frescoes were the visual equivalent of the effects of isolation on the human mind. A loss of proportion, an obsession with laying them down, combined with an inability to see the big picture, a kind of extravagant ugliness that no longer communicates anything. Clearly, isolation is as deadly to the creative arts as it is to the social arts. Shakespeare is the most famous writer in the history of literature because, as a playwright for the popular stage, he opened himself up to the masses, making his works accessible to everyone, regardless of taste or education. With artists who retreat into their fortresses, their works lose their measure, communicating only to their small circle of acquaintances. This kind of art remains trapped and powerless, because, since power is a human creation, it inevitably increases in contact with other people. Instead of giving in to the fortress mentality, See the world this way. The Palace of Versailles is immense. Each room communicates with the other. You need to be permeable, able to enter and leave different circles and mix with different types of people, and this social modality and contact will protect you from conspirators who will not be able to hide their secrets from you and from enemies who will not be able to isolate you from your allies. Always changing, you mingle in the rooms of the palace without sitting or resting in a single place. There is no hunter capable of taking aim at such a fleet-footed creature. A good and wise prince, wishing to maintain this character and prevent his children from having the opportunity to become tyrannical, will not build fortresses so that they may rely on the good will of their subjects rather than on the strength of citadels. Words of Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469 to 1527. Isolation is a danger to reason without favoring virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly lustful, probably superstitious, and possibly mad. Words by Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1709–1784. The reverse is not always true. It is good to choose isolation without listening to what is happening outside. You cannot protect yourself. Constant human contact does not make it easier to think. The constant pressure from society to be just right and the lack of distance from other people make it impossible to think clearly about what is happening around you. As a temporary measure. Therefore, isolation helps you to see things better. Many serious thinkers have been produced in prisons, where the only thing to do is to think. Machiavelli could only write The Prince because he was exiled and alone in the countryside, far from the political intrigues of Florence. The danger, however, is that this isolation breeds strange and perverted ideas. You may have a better overall perspective, but you lose the sense of your own smallness and limitations as well. The more isolated you are, the harder it is to get out of your isolation when you want to. Before you know it, you have fallen into a pit of quicksand. But if you need time to think, choose isolation only as a last resort and only in small doses. Be careful to leave the way back to society open. Law 19. Know who you are dealing with. Don’t offend the wrong person. There are many different types of people in the world and you can’t expect everyone to react the same way to your strategies. Deceive or outwit certain people and they will spend the rest of their lives trying to get revenge on you. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Be careful when choosing your victims and adversaries in your rise to power, you may come across all sorts of foolish adversaries and victims. The art of power, in its most refined form, is knowing how to distinguish wolves from sheep, foxes from hares, hawks from vultures. If you make this distinction well, you will get what you want without having to coerce anyone. But if you deal blindly with whoever crosses your path, you will live in constant regret. If you live that long. Being able to recognize the types of people and act accordingly is extremely important. The following are the five most dangerous and difficult types in the jungle, as identified by con artists and con artists of the past. The arrogant and proud man, although he may initially disguise it, the subtlety and pride of this man makes him very dangerous. At the slightest sign, he wants to take revenge in an extremely violent way. You can say , but I only said this and that at a party where everyone was drunk. It doesn’t matter, there is no sanity in his overreaction, so don’t waste your time trying to understand him. If at any time or in dealing with a person, you notice an overly sensitive and active pride. Run away. Whatever you are expecting from him, it is not worth it. The man is hopelessly insecure. This man is related to the proud and arrogant type, but he is less violent and harder to identify. His ego is fragile, his sense of self insecure , and if he feels deceived or attacked, the hurt is contained. He will bite you little by little and it will take a long time for this bite to grow and for you to realize what is happening. If you discover that you have deceived or hurt one of these men, get away for a while. Don’t stay around him or he will bite you until you die or become suspicious. Another variation of the above types is the future lies beyond. He sees what he wants to see, usually the worst in other people, and imagines that everyone is out to get him. The suspicious person is, in fact, the least dangerous of the three. Genuinely unbalanced, he is easy to fool, just as Stalin himself was constantly fooled. Play on his suspicious nature to turn him against other people. But if you become the target of his suspicion, beware. The snake with a long memory, if hurt or deceived, this man will not show his anger superficially. He will calculate and wait. Then, when he is in a position to turn the tables, he will exact his revenge marked by a cold sagacity. Recognize this man by his caution and cunning in different areas of life. He is usually cold and insensitive. Double your attention with this snake and if you have hurt him in any way, crush him completely or remove him from your sight. The man is simple, unpretentious, often not very intelligent. Your ears itch when you find such a tempting victim. But this man is much harder to deceive than you imagine. Falling for a deception generally requires intelligence and imagination. An idea of the possibility of profiting from it. The dull man does not take the bait because he does not recognize it. He is distracted to that point. The danger is not that this man will hurt you or want revenge, but that trying to deceive him is simply a waste of time, energy, resources, and even your sanity. Have a test for the fool handy, a joke, a story. If his reaction is completely literal, this is the type you are dealing with. If you want to continue the risk, it is on you. Never think that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you. Some men take a long time to take offense, which can lead you to think that they are insensitive and not to worry about insulting them. But, offended in their honor and pride, they will attack you with a violence that seems sudden and exaggerated due to the delay in their reaction. If you want to oppose someone, it is best to act politely and respectfully. Even if you find the request bold or the offer absurd. Do not reject people by insulting them before getting to know them better. Most men accept the humiliation of having been deceived with a certain resignation. And they learn their lesson by recognizing that nothing is free and that it was their own greed for easy money that brought them down. Some, however, refuse to swallow the frog instead of reflecting on their own naivety and greed. They consider themselves to be completely innocent victims. Such men may seem to be preaching justice and honesty, but in reality they are extremely insecure people. The fact that they have been made to look like idiots and have been deceived has triggered an insecurity and they are desperate to make amends. Everyone is insecure and the best way to fool a fool is almost always to play on his insecurities. But when it comes to power, everything is a matter of degree and the determined person, the one with a mind more insecure than the average mortal, represents a great danger. Be careful if you practice any kind of fraud or deception and study your victims well. Some people’s insecurity and fragile egos cannot stand the slightest insult. To know if you are dealing with one of these types. Try the first one. Make light jokes, say, at your expense. The confident person will find it funny. The overly insecure person will react as a personal insult. If you suspect that you are dealing with such a person, find another victim. You never know for sure who you are dealing with. The man who is unimportant or wealthy today may be a powerful person tomorrow. We forget many things in our lives, but rarely insults. Knowing how to assess people and recognize who you are dealing with is the most important thing in gaining and maintaining power. Without this skill, you are blind. Not only will you offend the wrong people, you will also choose the wrong types to work with and think you are complimenting people when in fact you are insulting them. Before you make any move, assess your potential victim or adversary. Otherwise, you will be wasting your time and creating a misunderstanding. Study people’s weaknesses, the chinks in their armor, and their areas of pride and insecurity. Get to know their particularities before you decide whether or not to do business with them. Two more words of warning: First, when judging and evaluating your opponent, never trust your instincts. You will make the biggest mistake of your life if you trust such imprecise indicators. Nothing can replace concrete knowledge. Study and spy on your opponent for as long as necessary. Will it be worth it in the long run? Second, do not trust appearances. A serpent’s heart can hide under a cloak of apparent kindness. Those who outwardly make a fuss are usually, in reality, cowards. Learn to understand appearances with their contradictions. Do not trust the version that people give of themselves. It is not at all reliable. Believe me, there are no people so insignificant and despicable, and they may, one of these days, be useful to you, which they certainly will not be. If you have ever treated them with contempt, injustices are forgotten. Contempt never. Our pride keeps this memory forever. Words of Lord Chesterfield 1694 to 1773 or in verse. What good is there in not knowing others? Learn to tell the lions from the lambs or suffer the consequences. Obey this law completely. It has no reverse. Don’t bother looking for it. Law Number 20 Don’t commit yourself to anyone. A fool is one who rushes to take sides. Don’t commit yourself to parties or causes, only to yourself by remaining independent. You dominate others, pitting people against each other, making them follow you. Part One Don’t commit yourself to anyone, but be courted by everyone, letting others feel that they own you in some way. You lose power over them by not compromising your affections. They have worked harder to win you. Keep your distance and you will gain the power that comes from their attention and frustrated desires. Play the role of the Virgin Queen of hopes, never satisfaction, since power depends so much on appearances. You need to learn a few tricks to enhance your image. Refusing to commit yourself to anyone or a group is one of them. When you withdraw, you don’t arouse anger, but a certain respect. You appear instantly powerful because you become unattainable. Instead of surrendering to a group or a relationship, as most people do over time, this aura of power only grows as your reputation as an independent person grows. The more desired you become, the more you will be by everyone, wanting to be the one to make you commit. Desire is like a virus. If we see someone else being desired by someone else, we tend to find them desirable too. Once you commit, your charm is gone. You become like everyone else. People have tried every underhanded method possible to get you to commit. They will shower you with gifts, shower you with favors, all to make you feel like a debtor. Encourage attention, stimulate interest, but do not commit yourself in any way. Accept gifts and favors if you wish, but be careful to keep your distance. You cannot allow yourself to inadvertently feel indebted to anyone. But remember that the goal is not to get rid of people or to make them think you are incapable of commitment. As the virgin queen, you must stir the Greek general and statesman to Hades. He was a master at this game. It was he who inspired and led the mighty Athenian army that invaded Sicily in 414 BC. When he was home, the jealous Athenians tried to overthrow him with false accusations. He went over to the enemy, the Spartans, rather than face trial in his own city. Later, when the Athenians were defeated at Syracuse, he left Sparta for Persia, even though Sparta’s power was on the rise. But now both the Athenians and the Spartans were courting Alcibiades for his influence with the Persians , and the Persians were showering him with tributes for his power over both the Athenians and the Spartans. He made promises to all sides, but he would not commit to any. And in the end, he was the one who called the shots. If you want power and influence, try the auxiliary tactic. Place yourself in the middle of two competing forces, lure one side in by promising help. The other, always eager to outdo the enemy, will follow you too. As the two vie for your attention, you quickly become a person who seems to be highly sought after. With great influence, you will have more power this way than by hastily committing to one side. To perfect your tactics, you must remain intimately free of emotional entanglements and see everyone around you as pawns in your advancement. You cannot allow yourself to be a lackey for any cause. In the midst of the 1968 U.S. presidential election, Henry Kissinger telephoned Richard Nixon’s staff to make a mistake by aligning themselves with Nelson Rockefeller, who had failed in his bid for the Republican nomination. Now Rockefeller was offering the Nixon campaign valuable inside information about the Vietnam peace negotiations that were taking place in Paris. He had a man on the negotiating team who kept him informed of the latest developments. The Nixon staff gladly accepted the offer. At the same time, however, Kissinger also approached the Democratic candidate, Robert Onfray, and offered his help. Humphrey’s people asked him for confidential information about Nixon , and he gave it to them. “Look,” Kissinger told the people, “I’ve hated Nixon for years.” In fact, he had no interest in either side. What he wanted, in fact, was what he got. The promise of a high-level cabinet post from either Nixon or Trump, no matter which side won the election. Kissinger’s career was assured. The winner, of course, was Nixon, who got his cabinet post. Even so, he was careful not to sound too much like a Nixon man. When he was reelected in 1972, men far more loyal than he was later fired. Kissinger was also the only senior Nixon official who survived Watergate and served the next president, Gerald Ford, while keeping a low profile. He thrived in turbulent times and uses this strategy frequently. Note the strange phenomenon that people who rush to support others tend to get little respect because their help is so easily obtained, while those who hold back find themselves surrounded by beggars. Their distance is powerful , and everyone wants them on their side. Picasso, after the first years of poverty and the most successful artist in the world did not compromise with this or that sleazebag, even though they surrounded him on all sides with attractive offers and formidable promises. On the contrary, he seemed to have no interest in their services. This technique drove the sleazebags crazy, and while they were squabbling over the price of their works, they smiled. When Henry Kissinger, as US Secretary of State , wanted to ease the tension with Russia, he made no concessions or conciliatory gestures, but courted China. This infuriated and even frightened the Soviets. They were already politically isolated and feared becoming even more so if the United States and China joined forces. Kissinger’s move pushed them to the negotiating table. The tactic has a parallel in seduction. If you want to win over a woman, advise her to extend or seduce her sister first. Keep your distance and people will come to you. It will be a challenge for them to win your affection, as long as you imitate the wise Virgin Queen and keep your hopes alive , you will always be attracting interest and desire. Do not commit yourself to anyone or anything, for that is to be a slave and a slave to all men, above all, keep yourself free from commitments and obligations. These are the other’s devices to keep you in their power. Words of Baltasar Gracián, 1601 to 1658. Smart men are slow to act, for it is easier to avoid commitments than to get out of one successfully. At such times, try your common sense. It is safer to avoid them than to come out victorious in one. One obligation leads to another greater one and you come to the brink of disaster. Words of Baltasar Gracián. Part Two Do not commit yourself to anyone. Do not get into fights. Do not let yourself be drawn into petty quarrels and arguments. Appear interested and helpful, but find a way to remain neutral. Let others fight while you stand back, watching and waiting. When the contending parties tire of it, they will be ripe for the picking. You can make a practice of encouraging people to argue and then offering to mediate, gaining power as an intermediary. When you enter a fight that you did not start, you lose the initiative. The interests of the combatants become your interests. You become a tool they use. Learn to control yourself, to suppress your natural tendency to take sides and join the fight. Be kind and charming to each of your combatants. Then step back and let them fight it out. With each battle, they become weaker while you grow stronger with each battle you avoid. To win the game of power, you must master your emotions. But even if you achieve this self-control, you cannot control the temperament of the people around you. That is where the danger lies. Most people live in a whirlwind of emotions, constantly reacting, fueling arguments and conflicts. Your self-control and autonomy will only make them upset and angry. They will try to drag you into their turmoil, begging you to take sides in their endless battles or make peace for them. If you succumb to their emotional pleas, you will gradually find your mind and time occupied with their problems. Do not allow yourself to be sucked into any compassion or pity you may feel. You will not emerge victorious from this game. The conflicts will only multiply. On the other hand, you cannot stay completely out of it, as it would be a useless affront. To play this game well, you must appear interested in other people’s problems, but while outwardly demonstrating your support, you must inwardly maintain your energy and sanity and not allow yourself to get emotionally involved. No matter how much people try to attract you, do not let your interest in business get in the way. and discussions about them go beyond the superficial. Give them gifts. Listen with an air of sympathy, even occasionally play the seducer, but inwardly keep your distance from the kindly kings and the perfidious ones, refusing to commit yourself and thus maintaining your autonomy. The initiative remains yours. Your moves remain your own choices and not defensive reactions to the push and pull of others around you. Taking your time to choose your weapons can be a weapon in itself, especially if you let others exhaust themselves and fight and then take advantage of their exhaustion. In ancient China, the kingdom of Xing once invaded the kingdom of Sing, the ruler of a neighboring province. He thought he should rush to its defense, but his advisor told him to wait. “Sing, it will not be destroyed yet ,” he said, “and Shin is not yet exhausted. If Shin is not exhausted, we cannot influence much. Besides, the merit of supporting a state in danger is not as great as the virtue of resurrecting the ruined state.” The counselor’s argument won out, and as he had predicted, Rohan later had the glory of saving Rice from the brink of destruction , and after winning over an exhausted Shin, he stayed out of the fray until the forces involved had exhausted each other. When was it safe for him to intervene? That’s the advantage of staying out of the fray. You gain time to position yourself, to take advantage of the situation. As soon as one side begins to lose, you can also play the game a little further, promising support to both sides in a conflict while maneuvering so that you will be the one to gain the upper hand in the fight. This is what Castro, who castrates Kane, ruler of the Italian city of Lucca in the 14th century, did when he had his plans for the city of Pistoia. A siege would be too costly in terms of lives and money, but Castro, who knew that in Pistoia there were two factions, the blacks and the whites who hated each other, negotiated with the blacks, promising to help them against the whites. Then, without their knowledge, he promised the whites that he would help them against the blacks, and Gaston, who kept his promises, sent an army to one of the city gates, controlled by the blacks who were sent to guard them and, of course, let them in. Meanwhile, another army. Meanwhile, another army of his entered through a gate controlled by the whites. The two armies met halfway. They occupied the city, killed the leaders of their factions, ended the internal war and handed Pistoia over to Castro, who, preserving his autonomy, gives him options. When people come to blows, you can play the mediator, the peacemaker, while in reality you are ensuring your own interests. You can promise help to one side and the other will have to lure you in with a higher offer or as a trick. You can appear to support both sides. Then you play the antagonist of both. Often in a conflict, you are tempted to side with the stronger side or the side that offers you the obvious advantages of an alliance. This is a risky business. First, it is often difficult to predict which side will prevail in the long run. And even if you do, what if, with the stronger party, you find yourself swallowed up and lost or conveniently forgotten? When they are victorious, side with the weaker and you are doomed. But play the waiting game and you cannot lose. In France, after three days of rebellion during the June Revolution of 1830, the elderly statesman Talleyrand sat at his window in Paris, listening to the pealing of bells that signaled that the fighting was over. Turning to an assistant, he said, “Ah, the bells are winning. Who are we, Prince?” the assistant asked, gesturing for the man to be quiet. Talleyrand replied, “Not a word. Tomorrow I will tell you who we are.” He knew very well that only fools rush into things, that if you commit yourself too quickly, you lose your ability to maneuver. People also respect you less for it. Who knows, maybe tomorrow, they think, you will commit yourself to a different cause, since you gave yourself so easily to this one. Good fortune is a fickle deity that changes sides too often. Commitment to one party takes away from you the advantage of time and the luxury of waiting. Let others fall in love with this or that group, but not you. Don’t rush and don’t lose your head. Finally, there are times when it is wiser to abandon any pretense of being a vaunted helpful person. On the contrary, your independence and self-confidence, your independent aristocratic attitude, are all-important if you want to win respect. George Washington recognized this in his effort to give the young American Republic a firm footing with the president. Washington avoided the temptation to ally himself with France or England, despite the pressures he felt to do so. He wanted the country to gain worldwide respect for its independence, although a treaty with France might have helped in the short term. In time, he knew that it was more effective to establish the nation’s autonomy. Europe had to see the United States as a power on an equal footing. Remember that your energy and time have a limit. Every moment wasted on other people’s problems subtracts from your energy. You may fear being accused of insensitivity, but in the end, by remaining independent and self-confident, you will be more respected and will gain the power to choose when to take the initiative and when not to help others. When the snipe and the mussel fight, the fisherman wins. An old Chinese proverb Consider that it takes more courage to not compromise than to win a battle. And there where there is already a fool interfering. Be careful not to have two words of Baltasar Gracián. The reverse. Both sides of this law will revolt against you if you overdo it. The game proposed here is dedicated and difficult. If you put too many parties at odds with each other, they will eventually see through the maneuver and conspire against you. If you keep more and more suitors waiting too long, you will not arouse desire, but rather distrust. People will begin to lose interest and you will end up thinking that it is worth committing to one of the parties, even if only for appearances, to prove that you are capable of being supportive. Even in this case, however, the key will be to maintain your inner independence, not to allow yourself to become emotionally involved, to preserve the tacit option of being able to leave at any time and claim your freedom. If the party you have allied with threatens to collapse with the friends you made while you were being courted, they will offer you a place to go. After you jump ship. Law number 21 Play the fool to catch the fools. Look more foolish than usual. No one likes to feel more foolish than the other. The trick, therefore, is to make your victims feel smarter and smarter than you. Once convinced of this, they never suspect that you might have ulterior motives. The feeling that someone is smarter than us is almost unbearable. We usually try to explain it in various ways. His knowledge is just theory, while mine is based on reality. Her parents paid for her to study. If only my parents had had that much money. If only I had been privileged. He is not as smart as he thinks. She may know her narrow field better than I do, but outside of that, she is not smart at all. Even Einstein was an idiot when it came to physics, since the idea of intelligence is so important to vanity. of most people. It is important never to inadvertently insult or impugn the power of a person’s brain. This is an unpardonable sin. But if you can take advantage of this rule, it will open all the doors to fraud for you. Subliminally assure people that they are more intelligent than you, or even that you are a bit of a brute and will be able to do whatever you want with them. The feeling of intellectual superiority that you give them will ease their suspicions. In 1865, the Prussian adviser Otto Ovato Bismarck wanted Austria to sign a certain treaty, and this treaty was entirely in Prussia’s favor and against Austria’s interests. And Bismarck would have to resort to strategy to convince the Austrians. But the Austrian negotiator Count Blume was an avid card player. His favorite game was 15, and he used to say that he could judge a man’s character by his Prussian style of play. He would later write: That was the last time I played 15. I was so reckless that everyone was astonished. I lost several pieces of silverware, the currency of the time, but I managed to fool Bram because he thought I was more irresponsible than I am. In fact. And he backed down. Besides appearing rash, Bismarck also acted ignorant and foolish, saying absurd things and strutting around with an excess of nervous energy. All this made Blume think he had valuable information. He knew that Bismarck was aggressive. The Prussian already had that reputation and the way he played confirmed it. And aggressive men, Blume knew, can be foolish and reckless. Consequently, when it came to signing the treaty, Blume felt he had the upper hand. A rash fool like Bismarck, he thought, is incapable of calculating and deceiving in cold blood. That is why he only glanced at the treaty before signing. He did not read the small print as soon as the ink was dry. A joyful Bismarck exclaimed to his face, “Well! I didn’t think I would find an Austrian diplomat willing to sign this document. The Chinese have a saying: “Put on a pig mask to kill a tiger.” This is a reference to an ancient hunting technique in which the hunter covers himself with the skin and snout of a pig and snarls. The powerful tiger thinks a pig is coming, so it lets the pig approach, relishing the prospect of an easy meal. But it’s the hunter who has the last laugh. Who does dressing up as a pig work well on? Like tigers, you’re very arrogant and self-assured. The more they think you’re easy to catch, the easier it is for you to turn the tables. This trick is also useful if you’re ambitious and lowly in the hierarchy. Appearing less intelligent than you are, even a bit of a fool, is the perfect disguise. You seem somewhat harmless, and no one will believe you have dangerous ambitions. They might even promote you, because you seem so pleasant and subservient. Claudius, before becoming Emperor of Rome, is the prince of France who later became Louis. 13 They used this tactic when their superiors suspected that they had a claim to the throne, by playing the fool when they were young, they were left alone. When the time came to strike and act with vigor and decision, they caught everyone off guard. Intelligence is the obvious quality to be minimized. But why stop there? Taste and sophistication are right up there with intelligence on the scale of vanity. Make people feel more sophisticated than you and they will let their guard down. Always let people believe that they are smarter and more sophisticated than you and they will keep you around because you make them feel better. And the longer you are around, the more chances you have of fooling them. Know how to use stupidity. The wise man uses this card. Sometimes there are times when the greatest wisdom is to appear to know nothing. You don’t have to be ignorant, you just have to be able to pretend that you are. It is not very good to be wise among fools and lucid among lunatics. He who pretends to be a fool is not a fool. The best way is to be well received by everyone and pretend to be a great idiot. Words by Baltasar Gracián. Now, there is nothing more that a man can be proud of than his intellectual capacity, for it is this that puts him in command of the animal world. It is very imprudent to let someone see him as decidedly superior in this point and to let other people see it too. Therefore, although social class and money can always count on privileged treatment in society, with this, intellectual capacity cannot count the greatest favor that can be done to intelligence and ignore it. And if people notice it, it is because they consider it an impertinence or something that its possessor has no legitimate right to and of which he only dares to be proud. And in retaliation and revenge for his conduct, people secretly tend to humiliate him in some way and if they delay in doing so, it is only because they wait for the most appropriate occasion. A man may be as humble as possible in this sense, and yet he will hardly be able to get people to forgive him the sin of placing himself intellectually above them. In Gordon of Roses, Sade observes, “You should know that fools are 100 times more averse to meeting the wise man than the wise man is disposed to be in the company of fools.” On the other hand, being a fool is a true recommendation, for just as warmth is pleasant to the body, so is it pleasant to feel one’s superiority. And man seeks the company that will give him this feeling as instinctively as he draws near to the fire or walks in the sun when he wants to warm himself. But this means that he will not please his superiority. And if a man wants to please, he must be intellectually inferior. Words by Arthur Schopenhauer in 1788–1860. The reverse is rarely worth revealing the true nature of your intelligence. You must form the habit of always minimizing it. If people inadvertently learn the truth that you are actually smarter than you appear, they will admire you even more. Be discreet and don’t show off. At the beginning of your rise, of course, you can’t play dumb. It’s good to let your bosses know subtly that you are smarter than your competitors. As you move up, however, try to shine less. There is, however, one situation in which it pays to do the opposite, when you can cover up a cheating by showing off your intelligence. When it comes to cleverness, as in most things, appearances are important. If you appear to have authority and knowledge, people will believe what you say. This can serve to get you out of trouble. Once, José do Veneno’s axe was at a party in New York, at the house of a tycoon to whom he had just sold a Doré painting for a very high price. One of the guests was a young French art critic who seemed extremely cultured and sure of himself and of impressing him. The magnate’s daughter showed him the dossier that was not yet hanging on the wall. The critic studied it. A few minutes later, he said, “You know, I don’t think this is a Doré.” He followed the young woman when she ran to tell her father. “ You know, young man, that at least twenty art experts here in Europe have been consulted. They have also said that the painting is not authentic. And now you have made the same mistake.” His confident tone and air of authority intimidated the Frenchman, who apologized for the young man’s mistake. Did he know that the art market was flooded with frauds and that many paintings had been falsely attributed to old masters? He did his best to distinguish the real from the fake, but in his eagerness to win a work, he often exaggerated its authenticity. The important thing for him was that the buyer believed that he had bought a work from the king. and that the old man himself would convince everyone of his expertise with his air of impeccable authority. With this in mind, it is important to be able to play the teacher when necessary and not impose this attitude on others for no reason. Law 22 Use the tactic of surrender. Transform weakness into power. If you are weaker, do not fight just for the sake of honor. It is better to surrender by surrendering. If you have time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror, time to wait for him to lose his power, do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you by running ahead, turning the other cheek. You will enrage him and unbalance him. Make surrender an instrument of power. If you are the weaker party, you will gain nothing by getting involved in a useless fight. No one comes to the aid of the weak. This only brings harm. The weak are alone and must surrender. Fighting will give you nothing but martyrdom. And many people who do not believe in your cause will die. Weakness is not a sin and can even become a strength if you learn to play it right. Fortunes change and powers are almost always overthrown. Surrender disguises great power, awakening the complacency of the enemy. You have time to recover, time to undermine the terrain, time to take revenge. Do not sacrifice this time in exchange for merit, for participating in a battle in which you will not emerge victorious. What causes us problems in the sphere of power is almost always our own overreaction to the moves of our enemies and rivals. And this overreaction creates difficulties that we could have avoided if we were more sensible. It also has the endless ricochet effect, because the enemy will react with the same overreaction, as the Athenians did with the Mille ans. Our first instinct is always to react, to meet aggression with another aggression. But the next time someone gives you a push and you feel yourself starting to react, try this. Do not resist, do not fight, give in, turn the other cheek, bow down. Does this almost always neutralize their behavior? They expected, even wanted, you to react energetically and were therefore caught off guard, and your lack of resistance left them confused. In fact, by giving in, you gain control of the situation, because it is part of a larger plan to make them believe they have defeated you. This is the essence of the surrender tactic: inwardly you remain firm, but outwardly you bow down without any further reason to be angry. Your opponents are confused. They are unlikely to react with more violence, which will require you to react. Instead, you have time and space to mount a counter-move to overthrow them. In a confrontation between the intelligent and the aggressive brute, the surrender tactic is the best weapon. But you need to have self-control. Those who truly surrender lose their freedom and can be crushed by the humiliation of defeat. You must remember that you only have to appear to surrender, like the animal that plays dead to save its skin. We have seen that it is better to surrender than to fight against a stronger enemy, than to be sure of defeat. It is almost always better to surrender than to run away at the last minute. Escape may be a salvation, but the aggressor will eventually catch up with you and surrender. However, you will have the opportunity to encircle the enemy and attack him tooth and nail at close range. When foreign trade began to threaten Japan’s independence in the middle of the twentieth century, the Japanese discussed how to defeat the foreigners. Or so wrote Minister Masayoshi. I am therefore convinced that our policy should be to make cordial alliances and send ships to all foreign countries , trade with them, copy the foreigners in what they do best, thus making up for our own deficiencies, fostering our national strength and completing our armaments. and thus gradually subject foreigners to our influence, until in the end all the countries of the world will know the blessings of perfect tranquility and our hegemony will be recognized throughout the world. This is a brilliant application of the law. Use surrender to gain access to the enemy. Learn from him and insinuate yourself slowly, outwardly conforming to his habits, but inwardly preserving your own culture. In the end you will emerge victorious, for while he considers you weak and inferior and takes no precautions to defend himself, you use this time to recover and become stronger than him. This gentle and permeable form of invasion is almost always the best, for the enemy has no reason to react, nothing to prepare or resist. And if the Japanese had resisted Western influence by force, they might have suffered a devastating invasion that would have forever altered their culture. Surrender is also a way of laughing at the enemy, of turning power against them, as Brecht did. Milan Kundera’s novel The Joke, based on the author’s experiences in a penal colony in Czechoslovakia, tells of a prison guards organizing a relay race between guards and prisoners. For them, this was a chance to show off their physical superiority. The prisoners knew they were going to lose, so they did everything they could to please, feigning exaggerated effort while barely moving, falling to the ground after running only a few meters, limping, walking slower and slower as the guards raced ahead, accepting to participate in the race and lose at the same time. They had obeyed the guards, but their excessive obedience made the event ridiculous to the point of ruining it. Over-obedience, surrender in this case, was a demonstration of superiority. Conversely, resistance would have put the prisoners in a cycle of violence, lowering them to the level of the guards. Superiority, however, put the guards in a ridiculous situation, but they could not fairly punish the prisoners, who only did what they had asked. Power is always in flux, since the game is by nature fluid in an arena of constant struggle. Those in power almost always find themselves on the downswing of the pendulum. If you are temporarily weakened, the surrender tactic is perfect for getting you back on your feet. It disguises your ambition, teaches you patience and self-control, key skills in the game, and puts you in the best possible position to take advantage of your oppressor’s sudden slip-up. If you run away or fight back, you cannot win in the long run. If you surrender, you are almost certain to emerge victorious. You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Again I say to you, do not resist an evil person. But if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him. Two words of Jesus Christ in Matthew, verse five, paragraphs 38 to 41. The weak never give in when they should. Words of the Cardinal from 1613 to 1679. Return. He lived in exile in London, at a time when he was at the height of his anti-French stance. One day, walking through the streets, he found himself surrounded by an angry mob. Hang him and hang the Frenchman, they shouted. Return. And he calmly addressed the mob, saying the following: The English want to kill me because I am French. Hasn’t he been punished enough for not being born English. The crowd applauded his sensible words and escorted him back to his quarters. Brown raved. A Delta is Clifton, in the show de Man, ed. 1985. Remember that those who are trying to show their authority are easily fooled by the tactic of surrender. If you appear submissive, they feel important, content because they are being respected, making them easier targets for a counterattack or for a covert mockery, as Bush did. By assessing your power over time. Do not sacrifice long-term maneuverability for the ephemeral glories of martyrdom. When a great lord passes by, the wise peasant bows low and farts in silence. Ethiopian proverb Or the other way around The purpose of surrender is to save your skin for when you can stand your ground again. It is to avoid martyrdom that one surrenders. But there are times when the enemy does not rest and martyrdom seems to be the only escape. Besides, if you are willing to die, others may take away your example, power and inspiration. But martyrdom, the reverse of surrender, is a confusing tactic, imprecise and as violent as the aggression it combats. For every famous martyr, there are thousands who did not inspire religions or rebellions, so if martyrdom sometimes confers a certain power, it is unforeseen and unpredictable. What is more important? You will not be around to enjoy this power. And there is definitely something selfish and arrogant about martyrs, as if they thought their followers were less important than their own glory. When power abandons you, it is best to ignore this reversal of the law. Forget martyrdom. The pendulum will eventually swing back to your side again, and you need to be alive to see it. Law Number 23 Concentrate your forces, preserve your strength and your energies, concentrating them on your strongest point. You gain more by discovering a rich mine and digging to the bottom than by jumping from one shallow mine to another. Profundity defeats superficiality. Always seek out the sources of power to promote it. Discover a key patron— the cow full of milk that will feed you for a long time. The world is experiencing an epidemic of ever-increasing divisions within countries, political groups, families, and even individuals. We are all in a state of total distraction and diffusion. We can barely put our heads in one direction before we are pulled in a hundred others. The level of conflict in the modern world is higher than ever, and we have become accustomed to it. The solution is a way of withdrawing into ourselves , into the past, into more concentrated forms of thought and action. As Schopenhauer wrote, intellect is a measure of depth, not a measure of superficiality. Napoleon knew the value of concentrating his forces on the enemy’s weak point. It was the secret of his success on the battlefield. But his willpower and his mind were also shaped by this notion. According to this notion, purpose, single-mindedness , and the use of these qualities against less focused, distracted people. The arrow will always hit the target and conquer the enemy. Casanova attributed his success in life to his ability to concentrate on a single goal and push until it yielded. It was his ability to give himself completely to the women he desired that made him so alluring during the weeks or months that one of those women lived in his orbit. He thought of no one else when he was imprisoned in the treacherous passages of the Palazzo delle Dore and in Venice, a prison from which no one had ever escaped. He thought of escape as his only goal. Day after day, a change of cell that meant months and months of futile digging, did not discourage him. He persisted and finally escaped. “I have always believed,” he wrote later, “that if a man sets his mind to doing one thing and if he dedicates himself exclusively to that, he will eventually succeed. No matter how difficult it may be, that man will become grand vizier or pope. Concentrate on one goal, one task, and persist until you succeed. In the world of power, you are always in need of help from others, usually from those who have more power than you. The fool jumps from one to the other, believing that he will survive by spreading himself thin. But one of the corollaries of the law of concentration is that one saves much energy and gains more power by clinging to a single adequate source of power. The scientist Nikola Tesla ruined himself by believing that he would retain his independence if he did not have to serve a single master. He even rejected the offer of J.P. Morgan, who offered him a rich contract. In the end, Tesla’s quote-unquote independence meant that he could not depend on a single patron, but was always trying to nullify a dozen of them. By the end of his life, he realized his mistake. All the great Renaissance painters and writers struggled with this problem, no more so than the seventeenth-century writer Pietro Ariel. Throughout his life, he suffered the indignity of having to please this or that prince. Eventually he had had enough and went to court horses, all five of them, promising the emperor the services of his powerful pen. Finally, he discovered the freedom of serving a single source of power. Michelangelo discovered this freedom with Pope Julius. According to him, he read with the Medici. In the end, the sole patron appreciates his loyalty and becomes dependent on his services. In time, the master serves the slave. Ultimately, power is always concentrated in any organization. It is inevitable that a small group will control everything, and it is almost always not those with titles. In the game of power, only the fool strikes here and there, without fixing his target. It is necessary to find out who controls the operations, who really runs the scene behind the scenes. As Richelieu discovered at the beginning of his rise to the top of the French political scene in the early 17th century. It was not King Louis the Eighth. It was his mother who decided things. So he attached himself to her and bypassed all levels of courtiers, straight to the top. If you find oil once , your wealth and power are guaranteed for the rest of your life. The best strategy is to always be very strong. First in general, then at the decisive moment. There is no better and simpler law of strategy than to keep your forces concentrated. In short, the first principle is to act with maximum concentration. Book of War, by Col. Van Clausewitz, 1000 780.881. Value depth more than superficiality. Perfection lies in quality, not quantity. The superficial does not leave mediocrity, and the misfortune of men with broad and generalized interests is that, while they want to command everything, they end up commanding nothing. The depth of fame is equivalent to heroism in sublime matters, in the words of Baltasar Gracián. The opposite, concentration, can be dangerous , and there are times when dispersion is the appropriate tactic. Fighting against the nationalists for control of China, Mao Zedong and the communists waged a war of retraction on several fronts, using sabotage and ambushes as their main weapon. Dispersion is usually appropriate for the weaker side. It is, in fact, the crucial principle of guerrilla warfare. When fighting against a superior army, by concentrating your forces, you only become an easier target. It is best to spread out across the landscape and frustrate your enemy with the intangibility of your presence. Attaching yourself to a single source of power is very dangerous. If that person dies, leaves, or falls from grace, you suffer. This is especially prudent in times of great turmoil and violent change, or when your enemies are numerous. The more patrons and lords you have, the less risk you run. If one of them loses power, this dispersion will even allow you to play them off against each other. Even if you focus on a single source of power, you still have to be cautious and prepare for the day when your lord or patron is no longer there to protect you. Finally, overdoing a single purpose can make you an insufferable bore, especially in the arts. The Renaissance painter Paul the Fair was so obsessed with perspective that his paintings can seem dull and even false. While Leonardo da Vinci dabbled in everything from architecture, painting, warfare, structure, and mechanics, decentralization was the source of his power. But such geniuses are rare. As for the rest of us, it is best to lean toward profundity. Louis 24 Play the perfect courtier. The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political skill. He masters the art of deception. He flatters, defers to superiors, and asserts his power over others in the most gentle and underhanded ways. Learn and apply the laws of the court, and there will be no limits to you. Law 25 Recreate yourself. Do not accept the roles that society forces upon you. Recreate yourself by forging a new identity, one that will attract attention and not tire the audience. Be the master of your own image, instead of letting others define it for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions. Your power will grow stronger and your character will seem larger than life. Understand this. The world wants to assign you a role in life , and the moment you accept that role, you are lost. Your power is limited only to that tiny portion assigned to the role you have chosen or been forced to assume. An actor, on the other hand, plays many roles. Enjoy your multifocal power, Arme. But if that is not possible, forge at least a new identity of your own making, its limits defined by an envious and resentful world. Your new identity will protect you from the world precisely because it is not you. It is a costume you put on and then take off. You do not have to take things personally. It is your new identity. It will distinguish you and give you a dramatic presence. Those in the back row will be able to see and hear you. Those in the front row were amazed at your boldness. The personality that seems innate to you is not necessarily you. In addition to inherited characteristics, your parents, friends and colleagues helped to shape you. The Promethean task of the powerful is to take control of the process, to no longer allow others to have this ability to limit and shape you. Recreate yourself as a powerful person. Sculpting yourself from a block of clay should be one of the most important and enjoyable tasks of your life. It makes you essentially an artist, an artist creating yourself. In fact, the idea of self-creation comes from the world of art. For thousands of years, only kings and the highest courtiers were free to change their public image and determine their own identity. Likewise, only kings and the wealthiest lords could contemplate their own image in art and consciously alter it. The rest of humanity played a restricted role, demanded by society, and had little self-awareness. The first step in the process of self-creation is self-awareness, being conscious of yourself, as the act of taking control of your appearance and your emotions. As I said in Detroit, the bad actor is the one who is always sincere. People who are always exposing to everyone how they feel are boring and embarrassing. Despite their sincerity, it is difficult to take them seriously. People who cry in public may temporarily arouse sympathy, but their obsessive vanity soon turns that sympathy into disdain and irritation. They cry to get attention, and what we perceive as a malicious side in us. We do not want to give them this satisfaction. Good actors control themselves more. They can fake sincerity and frankness. They can fake tears and a passive air if they want, but they do not have to feel it. They externalize emotions in a way that other people can understand. Acting by method is fatal. In the real world, no ruler or leader would be able to play this role if all the emotions shown had to be real. So learn to control yourself. Adopt the plasticity of the actor, who can express the necessary emotions on his face. The second step in the process of self-creation is a variation of George Sand’s strategy. The creation of a memorable character who commands attention, who rises above the other actors on the stage. This was the game of Abraham Lincoln, the simple country man. He was a type of president that America had never had, but who would have been delighted in an elegy, although many of these qualities were natural to him; he represented them in his hat, his clothes, his beard. No president before him had worn a beard. Lincoln was also the first president to use photographs to publicize his image, helping to create the icon of the president. Simple, in quotation marks. Good drama, however, requires more than an interesting appearance or a single moment in the spotlight. Drama unfolds over time. It is an unfolding event. Rhythm and timing are critical. One of the most important elements in the rhythm of a drama is Rodin’s suspense, for example. Sometimes he could escape in a matter of seconds, but he would prolong the act to keep the audience on edge. He thought he could keep the audience on the edge of their seats and let the events unfold slowly. Then he would speed them up at the right moment, according to a plan and a tempo that you control. Great rulers from Napoleon to Mao Zedong have used dramatic rhythm to surprise and distract their audience. Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood the importance of staging political events in a particular order and rhythm. During the 1932 presidential election, the United States was going through a very difficult economic crisis. Banks were failing at an alarming rate. Soon after winning the election, Roosevelt went into a kind of recess. He said nothing about his plans or cabinet appointments. He even refused to meet with then-President Herbert Rudder to discuss the transition. When Roosevelt took office, the country was in a state of great anxiety. In his speech, Roosevelt changed gears. He spoke with energy and made it clear that he intended to take the country in a completely new direction, abandoning the timidity of his predecessors. From then on, his speeches, public decisions, cabinet appointments, and bold laws acquired an incredibly fast pace. The period following his inauguration became known as The Hundred Days , and his success in changing the mood of the country was due to Rusev’s cleverness and use of dramatic contrast. He kept his audience in suspense and impressed them with a series of bold gestures that seemed all the more imposing because they were not known where they came from. You need to learn how to orchestrate events in this way without showing all your cards at once, but revealing them gradually to add drama and disguise countless sins. Good drama can also confuse and deceive your enemy. You must also appreciate the importance of entrances and exits from the scene. When Cleopatra went to meet Caesar in Egypt, she arrived rolled up in a carpet that she had unrolled at her feet. George Washington twice left power with flourishes and fanfare. First as a general, then as a president who declined to run for a third term, showing that he knew how to make the moment matter. Dramatically and symbolically, you should be just as careful when planning your own entrances and exits. Remember that overdoing the temptation can be counterproductive and another way of trying too hard to get attention. Actor Richard Burton discovered early in his career that standing completely still on stage could make him look like a stunned, stunned, and stunned. that made people look at him and not at the other actors. The important thing is not so much what you do clearly, but how you make your graceful and imposing immobility on the social stage counts more than the exaggeration in the acting and movements. Finally, learn to play many roles, to be what the occasion demands. Adapt your mask to the situation that has multiple faces. Bismarck was excellent at this game with the liberals. He was liberal with the aggressive. He was aggressive. No one could hold him. And what is not held, is not consumed. Know how to be all things to all men. A discreet Proteus, a scholar among scholars, a saint among saints. This is the art of winning everyone over, because like attracts like. Record the temperaments of the people you meet and adapt to each of them. Go from serious to jovial, changing your mood discreetly. Words by Baltasar Gracián. In society, it is not said that a man is a great actor. It’s not that he feels, but he’s a great simulator, even though he doesn’t feel anything. Words by Denis from Detroit, from 1000 713.784. There can’t be an inverse to this very important law. Bad theater is bad theater. Even to seem natural, you need to have art. In other words, they represent hammyness. It only creates embarrassment. Of course, you shouldn’t be too dramatic. Avoid histrionic gestures, but that’s simply bad theater, since it concerns centuries-old theater norms against exaggeration in representation. In essence, there’s no inverse to this law. If you like the audiobooks that I bring here on the channel, have you thought about becoming a member? In addition to supporting this work, you have exclusive access to content that is not publicly available. That’s right, including complete audiobooks and PDFs of the books, extra materials and even news before everyone else. All this for a symbolic value that helps a lot in the continuity of this project. If the knowledge you are acquiring in these books is transforming your life. Become a member and support the continuation of this channel. Thank you for your support and an excellent book. Law 26 Keep your hands clean. You must appear to be a model of civility. Your hands are not soiled by mistakes and unsavory acts. Maintain this impeccable appearance by making others your plaything and scapegoat to disguise your participation. Part one and hide your mistakes. Have a scapegoat nearby to take the blame. Our good reputation depends more on what we hide than on what we reveal. We all make mistakes, but the clever ones can hide them and find someone to accuse. It is always convenient to have a scapegoat nearby at such times. Occasional mistakes are inevitable. The world is too unpredictable. People in power, however, are not destroyed by the mistakes they make, but by the way they deal with them. Like surgeons, they need to cut out the tumor quickly and irrevocably. Excuses are too blunt a tool for this delicate operation. The powerful avoid them. By apologizing, you open the door to all sorts of doubts about your competence, your intentions, and about other mistakes you may not have confessed to. Apologies satisfy no one, and an apology makes everyone feel embarrassed. A mistake doesn’t go away with an apology; it grows and festers. Better to wake up immediately, divert attention from yourself and focus it on a convenient scapegoat. Before people have time to think about your responsibility or possible incompetence. The use of scapegoats is as old as civilization itself , and we can find examples in cultures all over the world. The main idea behind these sacrifices is to pass guilt and sin onto an external figure, an animal object. The man who is later banished or destroyed. The Hebrews used to take a live goat, hence the term scapegoat, on whose head the priest would place both hands while confessing the sins of the children of Israel. After transferring these sins to the animal, it was taken to the desert and left there abandoned. In the case of the Athenians and the Aztecs, the scapegoat was human, almost always a person fed and raised for this purpose, since it was considered that famine and plagues were punishments imposed by the gods on humans for their bad acts. The people suffered not only from famine and plagues, but from guilt as well. They freed themselves from this feeling of guilt by transferring it to an innocent person, whose death was intended to satisfy the divine powers and banish evil from among them. It is an extremely human attitude to not look within oneself for the reason for a mistake or crime, but rather to look outside and place the blame on a convenient object. This deep need to externalize one’s own guilt, to project it onto another person or object, has an immense power that the cunning know how to control. Sacrifice. And it is a ritual, perhaps the oldest of all. And ritual is also a source of power. The bloody sacrifice of the scapegoat seems like a barbaric relic of the past, but the practice persists to this day, albeit in an indirect and symbolic form, since power depends on appearances and those in power have to appear to never make mistakes. Scapegoats are more popular than ever. The modern leader would take responsibility for his mistakes. He looks for other people to incriminate a scapegoat to sacrifice. Franklin Roosevelt had a reputation as an honest and fair man. Throughout his career, however, he faced many situations in which being a good guy would have meant political disaster, but he could not be seen as the agent of foul play. For 20 years, therefore, his secretary Louis Rudd played the role of scapegoat. He did business behind the scenes, manipulated the press, engineered clandestine campaigns, and whenever a mistake was made or a dirty trick was made public, he contradicted Roosevelt’s carefully crafted image, or he served as a scapegoat who never complained about it. In addition to conveniently deflecting blame, the scapegoat serves as a warning to others. In 1631, there were plots to remove the French Cardinal Richelieu from power, a plot known as The Day of the Fools. In quotation marks. They almost succeeded, since the highest echelons of the government, including the Queen Mother, participated in it, but with luck and his own accomplices. Richelieu suffered. One of the main conspirators was a man named Marilac, the napkin, the keeper of the seals. Richelieu could not have him arrested without compromising the Queen Mother, a tactic that would have been extremely dangerous. So he targeted Marilac’s brother, a marshal in the army. This man had nothing to do with the plot. Richelieu. However, fearing that there were still other conspiracies in the air, especially in the army, he decided to set an example. He fabricated accusations against Marilac’s brother and he was tried and executed. In this way, he indirectly punished the real criminal who thought he was protected and warned future conspirators that he would not fight to sacrifice innocents to protect his own power. In fact, it is almost always preferable to choose the most innocent victim possible as a scapegoat. People like that will not have enough power to fight against you and your naive protests may seem exaggerated. They may be seen, in other words, as a sign of your guilt. Be careful, however, not to create a martyr; it is important that you continue to be the victim, the poor leader betrayed by the incompetence of those around him. If the scapegoat seems too weak, and his punishment too cruel, the plan may backfire. Sometimes you have to find a more powerful scapegoat who, in the long run, arouses less sympathy. Following this trend, history has shown time and again that it pays to use a close associate as a scapegoat. This is known as the “in quotation marks”. The fall of the favorite Most kings had a personal favorite at court, a man whom they singled out from the others, sometimes for no apparent reason, and showered with favors and attention. But this favorite could serve as a convenient scapegoat if the king’s reputation was threatened. The public would easily believe in the scapegoat’s guilt, because the king would sacrifice his favorite if he were not guilty. And the other courtiers, already resentful of the favorite, would gain from his downfall. The king,
meanwhile, would get rid of a man who probably already knew too much about him, even acting arrogantly and contemptuously. Choosing a close associate as a scapegoat is as valuable as the downfall of a favorite. You may lose a friend or aide, but in the long run it is more important to hide your mistakes than to trust someone who will probably one day turn against you. Besides, you can always replace him with another favorite. Madness is not committing follies without being able to hide them. All men make mistakes, but the wise man hides the mistakes he has made, while the fool makes them public. Reputation depends more on what you hide than on what you show. If you cannot be good, be careful. I use the words of Balthasar Gracián. The Athenians regularly kept a number of degraded and useless beings, and when a calamity occurred, such as a plague, flood , or famine, these scapegoats were taken away and then sacrificed, apparently by stoning. Outside the city. Words by Sir James George Frazer in the Golden Dawn book, 1854 to 1941 Part Two. Don’t put your hand in the fire. A queen should not dirty her hands with inglorious tasks. No king can appear in public with his face stained with blood, but power cannot survive without the constant crushing of enemies. There will always be dirty little tasks that need to be done to keep you on the throne. Usually, it will be someone outside your immediate circle who probably doesn’t realize they are being used. You find these suckers everywhere, people who like to do you favors, especially if you throw them a bone or two in return. But while they perform tasks that to them may seem quite innocent or at least entirely justified, they are actually paving the way for you, spreading the information you give them, slowly destroying people they don’t realize are their rivals, and inadvertently furthering your cause. Getting their hands dirty while yours remains unsullied. If you are temporarily weakened and need time to recover, it is almost always more advantageous to use the people around you as a screen to hide your intentions. It is like a cat’s paw to do the work for you. Find a third party with whom to share an enemy, even if for different reasons. Then use your superior power to strike blows that would cost you much more energy, since you are weaker. You can even gently guide them into hostile attitudes. Always look for the blatantly aggressive target. They are often more willing to get into a fight, and you can choose exactly the right fight for your objective. Know that doing a favor is not easy. You should not make a fuss or be too obvious, because the recipient feels the weight of the obligation. This may give a certain power to the giver, but it is a power that ends up self-destructing because it only arouses resentment and resistance. A favor done indirectly and with elegance has ten times more power. The person being courted uses his gloved hand to soften the blows, to deal with the blows against him, to disguise the scars, to make the act of rescue more elegant and clean. By helping others, the courtier of pain ends up helping himself. Never impose a favor on yourself. Find a way to indirectly get your friends out of trouble, without imposing yourself or making them feel indebted. As a leader, you may think that constant zeal and the appearance of working harder than everyone else means power. In fact, however, all this has the opposite effect and suggests weakness. Why do you work so hard? Maybe you are incompetent and have to work harder to stay where you are. Maybe you are one of those people who do not know how to delegate power and need to get involved in everything. The truly powerful, on the other hand, never seem to be in a hurry or overworked, while others are exhausted, they rest, they know where to find someone who will work while they save their energy and do not burn their hands in the fire. Similarly, you may feel that by taking on the dirty work, by directly involving yourself in unpleasant actions, you are imposing your power and inspiring fear. In fact, you are presenting an ugly and abusive image of your high position. Truly powerful people do not dirty their hands, they surround themselves only with good things and only announce glorious achievements. Often you will find that it is necessary, of course, to expend energy or to have a harmful but necessary attitude. But you must never appear to be the agent of this action. Find someone to dirty your hands for you. Develop the art of finding, using and, in due time, getting rid of such people. After fulfilling his role as the cat’s paw on the eve of an important naval battle, the great Chinese strategist of the 13th century shocked. Liang found himself falsely accused of secretly working for the other side. As a sign of his loyalty, his commander ordered him to produce 100,000 arrows for the army in three days, or he would die rather than attempt to make arrows. An impossible task. Liang took a dozen boats and had straw piles tied to the sides of each one. Late in the afternoon, while the river was usually covered in fog, he dragged the boats toward the enemy camp. Fearing a trap by the wily man, he shocked Liang. The enemy did not use their own boats to attack the enemy’s, which he could barely see, but rained down on them a cloud of arrows fired from the bank. As Liang’s boats drew closer, he increased the rain of arrows that stuck in the straw. After several hours, the men hidden on board hurriedly took their boats downriver to where Shukla Liang met them and collected his 100,000 rattling arrows that would never do a job that others could do for him. He was always thinking of tricks like that. The key to planning such a strategy is the ability to think ahead, to figure out ways to entice others to do the job for you. A key element of making this strategy work is to disguise your objective, shrouding it in a cloak of mystery, like the strange enemy boats that appear indistinctly out of the fog. If your rivals are not sure what you want, they will react in ways that will hurt themselves. In fact, they are the ones who got their hands dirty for you. If you disguise your intentions, it becomes much easier to guide them to do exactly what you want done but would rather not do yourself. This may require performing several moves beforehand, like a billiard ball bouncing around the corners a few times before hitting the pocket. The early twentieth century American con man and Well knew that no matter how skillful he was, if he approached the rich, perfect sucker directly. Since he was a stranger, the guy would be suspicious. So I would look for someone the sucker already knew to get his hands dirty for him, someone lower in the hierarchy and who would be an unlikely target, less suspicious. And I would get this person interested in a scheme that promised to make a lot of money. Convinced that the scheme was for real, he would usually suggest, without anyone reminding him, that his boss or rich friend should also chip in with more money to invest, that this boss or friend would increase the size of the pot and everyone would make more. The guy who served as cover would then involve the rich sucker, who had been Weyl’s target all along, but who would not suspect a trap since his trusted subordinate had tied him up. Strategies of this kind are usually the best way to approach people in power. Use an associate or subordinate to make the connection between you and your main target. The cover establishes your credibility and protects you from the unpleasant appearance of being overly flattering. The easiest and most effective way to take advantage of the disguise is almost always by giving him false information that he will then tell his main target. False or invented information is a powerful weapon, especially if it is spread by a dupe who no one suspects. You will see that it is very easy to play innocent and not let anyone realize its origin. The strategic therapist Milton Leite Erickson used to have among his patients couples in which the wife wanted to go to therapy, but the husband flatly refused. Instead of tiring himself trying to deal directly with the man, Erickson would see the wife alone and, as she spoke, he would insert interpretations of her husband’s behavior into the conversation, which he knew would irritate him. She would certainly tell her husband what the doctor had said. After a few weeks, he would be so furious that he would end up insisting on going with his wife to settle the score with the doctor. Finally, the occasion in which he deliberately offers to pull the chestnut out of the fire can give him great power and is the ruse of the perfect courtier. Your symbol is Walter Rayleigh, who once put his coat in the mud so that Queen Elizabeth would not get her shoes dirty, as the instrument that protects a gentleman or a pair of unpleasant or dangerous things. You have earned immense respect that will sooner or later pay dividends. And remember, you will be able to give your assistance in a subtle and graceful way, instead of showing yourself proud and annoying. Your reward will be even more satisfying and powerful. Do everything that is pleasant for yourself for what is unpleasant and vile. You use others. With the first procedure, you come out favored. With the second, you deflect ill will. Important business almost always requires rewards and punishments. From you only what is good should come. The bad will come from others. Words of Baltasar Gracián I would rather betray the whole world than let the world betray me. Words of General Su The people from 155 to 220 after Christ. The justice of Che. Once a misfortune happened in the city of Chao. The town shoemaker had murdered one of his customers. He was then taken to the judge, who sentenced him to be hanged. When the verdict was announced, one of the citizens stood up and shouted, “If I may, Your Lordship has just sentenced to death the only shoemaker in the town. He is the only one we have, and when he is hanged, who will mend our shoes? Who? Who?” cried everyone in the town of Chao with one voice. The judge nodded in agreement and reconsidered his verdict. “Good people of Chao,” he said, “what you say is true, since we have only one shoemaker. It would be a grave wrong to the community to let him die. And since there are two roofers in the town, let one of them be hanged in his place.” From the book Daring Off the Wall, this folklore by Nathan uses it: one must not be too direct. Look at the forest. The straight trees are cut down, the crooked ones remain standing. Words from the Hindu philosopher of the third century BC. Callia or in verse. Disguise and scapegoat must be used with extreme caution and delicacy. They are curtains that hide from the public your own involvement in the dirty work. If suddenly the curtain is lifted and you are seen as the manipulator, the master of the puppets, the whole dynamic will change course. Your hand will be seen everywhere and you will be accused of misfortunes with which you had nothing to do. Once the truth comes out, things will take on an uncontrollable proportion. In 1572, Queen Catherine de Medici of France was plotting to kill Gaspar de Coligny, admiral of the French navy and an important member of the French Protestant Huguenot community. Coligny was a friend of the Qatari son Charles the Ninth, and she feared his growing influence over the young king. She arranged for a member of the Guise family, one of the 10 most powerful in France, to assassinate him. But secretly, Catherine had another plan. She wanted the 1ON3 to accuse the Guises of having killed one of their leaders and to take revenge. In one fell swoop, she would eliminate or harm two dangerous rivals: Coligny and the Guise family. But both plans backfired. The assassination missed its target, wounding only Coligny. Knowing that Catherine was his enemy, he seriously suspected that she had plotted the attack and told the king. In the end, the failed assassination and the ensuing arguments set off a series of events that resulted in a bloody civil war between Catholics and Protestants, culminating in the horrific massacre known as St. Bartholomew’s Day, when thousands of Protestants were killed. If you have to use a disguise or a scapegoat in an action with serious consequences, be careful! Overdoing it can be harmful. It is always wiser to use these fools in more innocent tasks when a mistake will not cause serious harm. Finally, there are times when it is more advantageous not to disguise your involvement or responsibility, but to take the blame for a mistake yourself. If you have power and are secure in it, you must sometimes play the penitent with the sorrowful look, you ask forgiveness from the weak. It is the king’s trick of showing off his sacrifice for the well-being of the people. Occasionally, it is also good to portray yourself as the punishing agent to inspire fear and terror in your subordinates. Instead of the cat’s paw, you show your powerful hand with the threatening gesture. Use this trump card sparingly. If you use it too often, fear turns into resentment and hatred. Before you know it, these emotions will have transformed into strong opposition that will eventually bring you down. Get used to using the cat’s paw. It’s much safer. Law 27 Play on people’s need to believe in something to create a following of devotees. People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focus of this desire by offering them a cause, a faith to follow. Use empty words but full of promises. Emphasize enthusiasm, rather than rationality and clarity of thought. Give your new disciples rituals to perform. Ask them to sacrifice themselves for you. In the absence of an organized religion and great causes, your new belief system will give you immeasurable power. The Science of Quackery or How to Create a Cult in Five Steps in the necessary search for methods to obtain power with the least effort. You will find that creating a following of devotees is the most effective. Having a large following opens up countless possibilities for deception. Not only will they worship him, they will defend him from his enemies and willingly take on the work of attracting others to his new cult. This kind of power will elevate you to a new realm. You will no longer have to struggle or use subterfuge to impose your will. You are adored and you can do no wrong. You may think that creating such a following is a colossal task, but it is quite simple. As human beings, we have a desperate need to believe in something, anything. This makes us eminently credulous. We simply cannot stand the long periods of doubt or the emptiness of not having something to believe in. All we have to do is wave a new cause, a new elixir, a get-rich-quick scheme, or the latest technological trend or artistic movement in front of us and we will jump at the bait. See the story The chronicles of the nine trends and cults that have built massive followings. They alone are enough to fill a library. After a few centuries, a few decades, a few years, a few months, it all usually becomes ridiculous. But at the time it seemed so appealing, so transcendent, so divine. Always in a hurry to believe something, we create saints and beliefs out of thin air. Don’t waste this credulity. Make yourself an object of worship. Get people to create a cult around you. The great European charlatans of the 17th and 18th centuries mastered the art of cult-building. They lived, as we know, in a time of great transformation. Organized religion was on the decline, science was on the rise. People were desperate to rally around a new cause or faith. The charlatans began by groping for medicinal elixirs and alchemical shortcuts to wealth. In their rapid passage from town to town, they initially targeted small groups until, by chance, they stumbled upon a real fact of human nature. The more people gathered around them, the easier it was to deceive them. The charlatan would stand on a wooden platform, hence the term bench jumping, and crowds would gather around him. In groups, people became more emotional, less capable of reasoning. If the charlatan had spoken to them individually, they would have found him ridiculous. But lost in the crowd, they found themselves trapped in a common state of ecstasy. It was difficult for them to find the distance that gave way to skepticism. Any deficiencies in the charlatan’s ideas were covered up by the zeal of the crowd. Passion and enthusiasm took hold of the crowd as if by contagion, and they reacted violently to anyone who dared to sow even a seed of doubt. And they studied it consciously. This dynamic, over decades of experience and spontaneously adapting to situations as they arose, charlatans perfected their science of attracting and winning over crowds, transforming them into followers and followers into cults. The advertising trick of charlatans today may seem old-fashioned, but there are still thousands among us who continue to use the same tried and tested methods that their predecessors perfected centuries ago, only changing the names of their elixirs and modernizing the face of their cults. We find these contemporary charlatans in all walks of life, in business, fashion, politics, and art. Many of them, perhaps, follow the charlatan tradition without any historical knowledge. But you can be more systematic and deliberate. Simply follow the five steps of cult building that our charlatan ancestors have perfected over the years. First step: be vague, be simple. To create a cult, you must first attract attention. This should not be done with actions that are very clear and easy to understand, but with words that are nebulous and misleading. At the beginning, your speeches, conversations, and interviews should include two elements: one is the promise of something grand and transformative, and the other is complete uncertainty. These two elements combined will stimulate all sorts of nebulous dreams in your listeners, who will make their own connections and see what they want to see. Make your vagueness appealing. Use words that resonate but have obscure meanings, words that are full of warmth and enthusiasm. Fancy titles for simple things are helpful, as are the use of numbers and the creation of new words for vague concepts. All of this creates the impression of specialized knowledge, giving you a veneer of depth. To prove my point, try to make the subject of your worship so novel that few will understand it. Done right, the combination of vague promises, nebulous but appealing concepts, and fiery enthusiasm stirs people’s souls and a group will form around you. Use too vague a speech and you will lose credibility. Being specific, however, is more dangerous if you explain in detail the benefits that people will get from following your worship; you will have to satisfy them. As a corollary to this vagueness, your appeal must also be simple. Most people’s problems are complex in origin – deep-seated neuroses, interrelated social factors, roots in the distant past, too difficult to untangle for days. Few, however, have the patience to deal with this. Most people want a simple solution to their problems. The ability to offer such a solution will give you great power and increase your following, rather than complicated explanations based on real life. Go back to the primitive solutions of our ancestors – the old natural medicine, the mysterious panaceas. Step Two Emphasize the visual and sensory elements. Give preference to the intellectual after people begin to congregate around you. Two dangers naturally arise – boredom and skepticism. Boredom will make people withdraw. Skepticism will allow them to step back and analyze more rationally what you offer, dispelling the fog you have ingeniously created and revealing what you really think. You need to distract the bored and drive away the skeptics. The best way is to do theater and other things of that nature. Surround yourself with luxury. Stun your followers with visual splendor. Fill their eyes with spectacles. Not only will you prevent them from seeing that your ideas are absurd, that your belief system is flawed, but you will also attract more attention and attract more followers. Appeal to all the senses. Use incense for the nostrils, soothing music for the ears, colorful charts and graphs for the eyes. You can even tickle the mind with perhaps the latest technical gadgets to give your cult a pseudoscientific veneer, as long as you don’t make anyone really think. Use exotic elements, distant cultures, and strange customs to create theatrical effects and make the most banal and commonplace incidents seem like evidence of something extraordinary. Third Step Copy the forms of organized religion to structure the group. Your following is growing. It’s time to organize it. Find a way that is both cheerful and enjoyable. Organized religions have long exercised unquestioned authority over large numbers of people , and they continue to do so in our supposedly secular age. And even though religion has lost some of its influence, its forms still resonate with power. The lofty and sacred associations of organized religion can be endlessly exploited. Create rituals for your followers. Organize them into hierarchies, leveling them in degrees of sainthood and giving them religiously-tinged names and titles. Ask them for sacrifices that fill your coffers and increase your power to emphasize the quasi-religious nature of your group. Speak and act like a prophet. You are not a dictator, after all, you are a priest, a guru, a wise man, a shaman or any other term that hides your true power in the mists of religion. Fourth step Disguise your source of income. Your group has grown and you have structured it like a church. Your coffers are beginning to fill with money from your followers, but you cannot seem too greedy for money and the power it brings. This is when you need to disguise your source of income. Your followers want to believe that by following you, everything good will fall into their laps. By surrounding yourself with luxury, you become proof of the stability of your belief system. Never reveal that your wealth comes from their pockets. On the contrary, make it seem as if it originates from the authenticity of your methods. They will imitate your every move, believing that they will achieve the same results and, in their eagerness, they will not realize that your wealth is pure charlatanism. Fifth and final step Establish a dynamic in verses. The group is now large and is thriving like a magnet, attracting more and more particles. But if you are not careful, inertia sets in and eventually boredom sets in. God magnetizes the group to keep his followers together. You must now do what all religions and belief systems have done: create an us versus them dynamic. First, make sure your followers believe they are part of an exclusive club. Yes, united by a common goal. Then, to reinforce this unity, create the idea that a treacherous enemy, bent on destroying you, exists in an army of infidels who will do anything to stop you. Any outsider who tries to expose the charlatan nature of your belief system can now be described as a member of this treacherous force. If you have no enemies, invent one. By finding a Judas to beat up, your followers will become more united and cohesive. They have a cause to believe in and the infidels to destroy. Remember, people are not interested in the truth about change. They don’t want to hear that it is the result of a lot of effort or was motivated by banal things like exhaustion, boredom or depression. They are dying to believe in something romantic from another world, to hear about angels and out-of-body experiences. I appreciate you talking about the mystical origin of some personal change. Surround yourself with colors and hysteria and a group of worshippers will form around you. Adapt yourself to the needs of the people. The Messiah must reflect the desires of his followers and always aim high. The bigger and bolder his illusion, the better. In a group, the desire for social union, older than civilization itself, yearns to be awakened. This desire can be subordinated to a unifying cause, but underneath there is a repressed sexuality that Oxalá doesn’t quite know how to exploit and manipulate. This is what Mesmer teaches us. Our tendency to doubt or the distance that allows us to rationalize ends when we gather in a group. The warmth and contagious effect of the group overcomes the skepticism of the individual. This is the power you gain by creating a cult. Furthermore, by playing on people’s repressed sexuality, you lead them to see the exaltation of their feelings as a sign of your mystical strength. You gain immense power by working on people’s dissatisfaction with their desire for a kind of promiscuous, pagan unity. Remember, too, that the most effective cults mix religion with science. Take the latest technological trend or fad and mix it with a noble cause, a mystical faith, a new way of healing. The interpretations that people will give to your hybrid cult will grow dizzyingly and they will attribute to you a power that you never imagined you had. The charlatan gains his great power by simply opening up a possibility for men to believe what they already believe. The gullible cannot keep their distance. They crowd around the miracle worker, entering his personal aura. They surrender themselves to the illusion solemnly, like cattle. Words of Grete, by Francesco Men are so simple-minded and so dominated by their immediate needs that a liar will always find plenty of those ready to be deceived. Words of Niccolo Machiavelli. The opposite. One of the reasons for creating a following is that, in general, it is easier to deceive a group than an individual and you end up with much more power. This, however, is dangerous. If at some point the group realizes what you are doing, you will not only find yourself facing a deluded soul, but an angry crowd that will slam you, will pass by as eagerly as they followed you before. Or the charlatans constantly faced this risk and were always ready to move to another city when it became clear that their elixirs did not work and their ideas were a sham. If they delayed, they paid with their lives. When you play with the crowds, you play with fire and you must keep your eyes open, always on the lookout for glimmers of doubt in the enemies who have turned the crowd against you. When you play with the emotions of a crowd, you must know how to adapt, constantly tuning in to the moods and desires of the group. Use spies, stay informed and in control, and have your bags packed. For this reason, you may prefer to deal with people individually, isolating them in their normal environment. You can achieve the same effect as when you put them in a group. They become more susceptible to suggestion and intimidation. Pick the sucker, right? And if he does eventually notice what you are doing, it may be easier to run away from him than from a crowd. Law 28 Be bold. Law 28 Be bold, unsure of what to do. Don’t try. Your doubts and hesitations have contaminated your actions. Timidity is dangerous. It is better to act boldly. Any mistake made with boldness is easily corrected with more boldness. Everyone admires the courageous. No one praises the timid. Boldness is hesitation. A brief psychological comparison. Boldness and hesitation arouse different psychological reactions in their targets. Hesitation puts obstacles in your way. Boldness removes them. When you understand this, you will see that it is essential to overcome your natural shyness and practice the art of boldness. These are some of the most pronounced psychological effects of boldness and shyness. The bolder the lie, the better. We all have weaknesses, and our efforts are never perfect. But acting boldly has the magic of hiding our shortcomings. Con artists know that the bolder the lie, the more convenient it is. Blatant audacity makes the story more believable, distracting attention from your inconsistencies when you commit a deception or engage in some kind of negotiation. Go further than you planned. Ask for the moon and you will be surprised at how often you will get it. Lions circle their hesitant prey. People have a sixth sense for other people’s weaknesses. If on a first date you demonstrate your willingness to compromise, to give in and to retreat, you will bring out the lion in even people who are not necessarily bloodthirsty. It is all about perception. And once you are seen as the type who is quick to get on the defensive, who is willing to negotiate and be docile, you will be controlled mercilessly. Courage reminds you of fear. Fear reminds you of authority. A bold move makes you seem bigger and more powerful than you are. If it is sudden with speed and concealment, the action of a serpent inspires even greater fear. By intimidating. With a bold move, you set a precedent. In future encounters, people will be on the defensive with the fear of a new attack, doing things half-heartedly and half-heartedly, you dig your grave deeper. If you start acting without being fully confident, you will be putting obstacles in your own way. If a problem arises, you will become confused, seeing options where there are none and unwittingly creating even more problems by retreating before the hunter. The timid hare falls more quickly into your traps. Hesitation creates gaps, courage dissolves them. When you stop to think, when you hesitate, you create a gap that gives others time to think too. Your timidity infects people with a strange energy, creating embarrassment. Doubt arises from all sides. Courage dissolves the gaps. Quickness of movement and energy of action leave no room for doubts and worries. In seduction, hesitation is fatal. It makes your victim aware of your intentions. A courageous move is the crown of triumph. Seduction leaves no time for reflection. Audacity sets you apart from the herd. Courage gives you presence and makes you seem larger than life. The timid blend into the wallpaper. The courageous attract attention, and the attention-grabbing attracts power. It is impossible to look away from the audacious. We are anxious to see what their next move will be. The excessive deceives, the human eye distracts and astounds us. And it is so obvious that we cannot imagine that there is any illusion or fraud there. Arm yourself with greatness and courage, stretch your deceptions as far as you can. Then keep stretching. If you sense that the sucker is suspicious, do as the intrepid Lustig did. Instead of backing down or lowering the price, he simply raised it, asking for and getting a bribe, asking for more. You put the other person on the defensive, you cut through the damaging effect of commitment and doubt, and you win them over with your courage. The world is full of men who despise you, who fear your ambition , and who mentally protect themselves from their ever-shrinking areas of power. You must establish your authority and gain respect, but as soon as your enemies see your growing audacity, they will act to counter you. Negotiate with the enemy and you will give him opportunities. A small compromise becomes the fulcrum to destroy you. A sudden bold move, without discussion or warning, undoes these fulcrums and increases your authority. You terrify those who doubt and despise you and gain the confidence of the many who admire and glorify those who have courage. Fear the great, from the King of France to the Emperor of the Burgundian rabbis. The bigger the target, the more attention you attract. The bolder the attack, the more you stand out from the crowd and the more admired you will be. Society is full of people with bold ideas but without the stomach to print and publish them. Give voice to public sentiment, the expression of common feelings is always powerful. Find the most obvious target possible and take your boldest shot. The world will enjoy the spectacle and you will give it to the poor devil. This is glory and power. Life or death? You must practice and develop your boldness. You will often find occasions to use it. The best place to start is often the delicate world of negotiations, particularly those discussions in which you are asked to set your own price. How often have we undervalued ourselves by asking for too little? When Christopher Columbus proposed that the Spanish finance his voyage to the Americas, he also demanded, with insane boldness, the title of Grand Admiral of the Oceans. The Court agreed. The price he set was the price he received. He demanded to be treated with respect and was enriched without war. He also knew that in negotiations, making bold demands works best. than to start with gradual concessions and try to satisfy the other person. Set your price high and then, as Count Lustig did, raise it even higher. Understand that boldness is not natural, but neither is shyness. It is a habit acquired because one wants to avoid conflicts. If you are dominated by shyness, therefore, get rid of it. The fear you feel about the possible consequences of boldness is not proportional to reality. And, in fact, shyness has worse consequences. Your value is lowered and you create a vicious circle of doubts and disasters. Remember that the problems created by a bold attitude can be disguised, even remedied, by even greater boldness. I certainly think it is better to be impetuous than prudent, because luck is a woman and you must, if you wish, dominate her, conquer her by force. And it is clear that she allows herself to be dominated by the bold, rather than the one who acts coldly and, therefore, like a woman. She is always a friend to the young, for they are less cautious, more ferocious, and dominate her with more audacity. Words of Niccolo Machiavelli. Always set to work without fear of imprudence. The fear of failure in the mind of the one who acts is already, to the observer, an evident desire for failure. Actions are dangerous when there are doubts as to their wisdom. It would be safer to do nothing. Words of Baltasar Gracián How to be victorious in love, but with those who touch your heart, I noticed that you are shy. This quality may affect a bourgeois woman, but you must use other weapons to attack the heart of a woman of the world. I tell you in the name of women there is not a single one of us who does not prefer a light and impolite one to too much. CONSIDERATION Men lose more hearts through clumsiness than virtue saves them when a esteem and a lover shows themselves, the more our pride will worry, especially the. In other words, the more respect he has for our resistance, the more respect we will demand from him. We would like to say to men, for pity’s sake, do not suppose us so virtuous. You force us to exaggerate. We are continually struggling to hide the fact that we allow ourselves to be loved. Put a woman in a position to say that she has only yielded to some kind of violence or a surprise. Convince her that you do not underestimate her and I will answer for her with a little more courage on your part. It would put both of you at ease. Remember what Mr. De La Rochefoucauld told you recently: A sensible man in love may act like a madman, but he must not and cannot act like an idiot. From the book La Flash Heroes and Epic Philosophy of Desengrosso, written by Li in close from 1620 to 1705. On the contrary , boldness should not be a strategy behind all actions. It is a tactical instrument to be used at the right moment. Plan and think beforehand, and let the final element be a bold move that will bring you success. In other words, since boldness is a learned reaction, you also learn to control it or use it at will. Going through life armed only with boldness would be tiring and also fatal. You would offend many people, as those who cannot control their boldness prove. Timidity has no place in the realm of power, but it will often be advantageous for you to pretend to be shy. Then, of course, it is no longer shyness, but an offensive weapon. You are deceiving others, displaying shyness in order to show them your claws courageously. More later. Law Number 29 Plan to the end. The outcome is everything. Plan to the end, considering all the possible consequences, obstacles and setbacks that could nullify your effort and leave others to take the credit. Plan everything to the end. You won’t be caught off guard and you’ll know when to gently stop your luck. Help determine the future by thinking ahead. Most men follow their hearts, not their heads. Their plans are vague, and when faced with obstacles, they improvise. But improvisation will get you through the next crisis and is no substitute for anticipating the next steps and planning until the end. There is a very simple reason why most men do not know when to quit. They have no concrete idea of their objective. Once they have achieved victory, they want to stop, aim for a goal and not deviate from it. It seems almost inhuman, in fact, but nothing is more important to maintain power. Those who exaggerate their triumphs create a backlash that inevitably leads to decline. The only solution is to plan for the long term, to foresee the future with the same clarity as the gods on Mount Olympus who see through the clouds. The outcome of all things. According to the cosmology of the ancient Greeks, the gods have the total vision of the future. They saw everything that would happen in the smallest and most intricate details. Men, on the other hand, were victims of fate, prisoners of the moment and their emotions, unable to see beyond the immediate danger. Heroes like Ulysses, able to see beyond the present and plan several steps in advance, seemed to defy fate, to come close to the gods in their ability to determine the future. The comparison remains valid. Those who think ahead and patiently bring their plans to fruition seem to have a divine power. Most people are too caught up in the moment to plan with this kind of foresight. The ability to ignore immediate dangers and pleasures translates into power and the power to be able to overcome the natural human tendency to react to things as they happen. Instead of training, they take a step back, imagining the bigger things taking shape beyond their immediate field of vision. Most people believe that they are aware of the future, that they are planning and thinking ahead. They are usually deluding themselves. In reality, what are they doing? They are shaking off their own desires, what they want the future to be. Their plans are vague, based on imagination rather than reality. They may believe they are thinking everything through to the end, but they are, in fact, focusing only on the happy ending and deluding themselves with the strength of their desire. If we could see the remote dangers, the ones that loom in the distance, how many mistakes would we avoid? How many plans would we abort instantly if we realized that by avoiding a small danger we only end up falling into a bigger one? There is so much power. Not in what you do, but in what you don’t do, in those foolish and rash actions that you refrain from before they get you into bigger trouble. Plan every detail before you act. Don’t let the vagueness of your plans get you into trouble. There will be unforeseen consequences. New enemies will emerge. Someone will take advantage of your efforts. Unhappy endings are much more common than happy ones. Don’t be fooled by the happy ending you are imagining. The 1848 elections in France were a struggle between Louis Adolph Thiers, the man of order, and General Louis, who was dignified by him, and Hynek, the right-wing agitator. When Thiers realized that he had inevitably fallen behind in this race, he desperately sought a solution. His eye fell on Louis Bonaparte, the nephew and grandson of the great Napoleon, and a modest representative of Parliament. This Bonaparte seemed a bit of an imbecile, but his name alone was enough to get him elected. In a country that longed for a strong ruler, he would be a puppet in the hands of Thiers and in the end, he would be pushed out of the picture. The plan worked perfectly and Napoleon was elected by a landslide. The problem was that Therese failed to foresee one very simple fact : the imbecile was in reality a man of enormous ambition. Three years later, he dissolved Parliament and declared himself Emperor. and ruled France for another 18 years, to the horror of Dias and his party. The outcome is everything. It is what determines who gets the glory, the money, the prize. Your outcome must be crystal clear, and you must not lose sight of it. You must also figure out how to get rid of the vultures that are circling overhead, trying to survive on the carcasses of your creation. And you must foresee the many possible crises that will tempt you to improvise. Bismarck overcame these dangers because he planned to the end. He stayed the course through every crisis and never let anyone steal his glory. Having achieved his goal, he shrank back like a turtle in its shell. This is the kind of self-control. It is divine. When you foresee several steps in advance and plan your moves to the end, you will no longer be tempted by emotion or the desire to improvise. Your lucidity will free you from anxiety and uncertainty, which is the basic reason why so many fail to complete their actions successfully. You see the outcome and do not tolerate deviations. Not to enter is so much easier than to have to leave. We must act contrary to the reed, which is the first to sprout. I throw a long, straight stem, but then, exhausted, it makes several dense knots, indicating that it no longer has the original vigor and momentum. It is better to begin gently and quietly, saving the breath for the struggle and the vigorous blows to finish our work. In the beginning, we are the ones who guide the affairs and keep them in our power. But often, once set in motion, they are the ones who guide and drag us. Hand words are from 1533 to 1592. See the outcome. No matter what you are considering, God often allows a man a moment of happiness, and then ruins him completely. The book of Herodotus’ Histories in the fifth century before Christ. Those who seek seers to know the future are unconsciously depriving themselves of an inner suggestion. 1000 times more accurate than anything they can say. Words by Walter Benjamin, from 1892 to 1940. Experience shows that by foreseeing the steps to be taken well in advance, it is possible to act quickly when it comes to executing them. Words by Cardinal Richelieu, from 1585 to 1642 or vice versa. Among strategies, the idea that your plan should include alternatives and have a certain flexibility and skill is already common. There is no doubt about that. If you stick to a plan too rigidly, you will not be able to deal with sudden changes in fortune. After examining future possibilities and deciding what your goal is, you should increase the alternatives and be open to new ways to get there. Most people, however, lose less by over-planning and rigidity than by being vague and having a tendency to improvise. Lieutenant, given the circumstances. Therefore, there is no reason to consider the opposite of this law, because nothing is gained by refusing to think about the future and planning everything to the end, thinking clearly and in advance. And you will see that the future is uncertain and that you must be willing to make adjustments. Only a clear goal and a long-range plan will give you this freedom. Law number 30 Make your achievements seem easy. Your actions must seem natural and effortless. All the technique and effort required for their execution , as well as the tricks, must be concealed. When you act and act without effort, as if you were capable of much more. Do not be tempted to reveal the work you have done. This will only arouse doubts. Do not teach anyone your tricks or they will be used against you. As a person of power, you must research and practice exhaustively before appearing in public, on stage or anywhere else. Never expose the sweat and effort behind your pose. There are people who think that this exposure will show that they are honest and diligent, but in fact they will only seem weaker, as if practice and effort were enough for anyone to do what they did, or as if they were not up to the task. Keep your effort and your tricks to yourself and you will seem to have the grace and ease of a god. No one ever sees the source of divine power revealed. Only its effects are seen. Humanity got its first notions of power from primitive encounters with nature. A lightning bolt streaking across the sky, a sudden flood, the swiftness and ferocity of a wild animal. These forces would not require thought or planning. They astounded us with their suddenness, their grace, and their power over life and death. And this is still the kind of power we are always trying to imitate. Using science and technology, we have recreated the speed and sublime power of nature. But something is missing. Our machines are noisy and clumsy. They reveal the effort they make. Even the best creations of technology cannot erase our admiration for things that move quickly and easily. The power that children have to make us yield to their will comes from a kind of seductive charm that we feel in the presence of a creature less reflective and more graceful than ourselves. We cannot return to this state, but if we can create the appearance of this kind of ease, we will awaken in others the primitive reverence that nature has always evoked in humanity. One of the first European writers to expound this principle came from one of the most unnatural environments, the Renaissance court. In The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528, Balda, Sayre Castiglione described the highly elaborate and sophisticated manners of the perfect courtier, and yet, Castiglione explains, the courtier must perform these gestures with what he calls expressiveness— the ability to make the difficult appear easy. He recommends that the courtier practice a certain carelessness in everything that disguises artistic talent and makes what is said and done appear natural and easy. We all admire the achievement of some extraordinary effect, but if it is natural and graceful, our admiration is tenfold. Whereas to put effort into what one is doing and make no mystery of it reveals an extreme lack of grace and makes everything, no matter how valuable, seem discounted. The idea of expressiveness comes mainly from the world of art. All the great artists of the Renaissance kept their works carefully secret. Only when they were finished was the work shown to the public. Michelangelo forbade even the popes to see his work in progress. The Renaissance artist was careful to close the doors of his studios, both to his patrons and to the general public, not for fear of imitation, but because the making of the work would spoil the magic of the effect and its studied atmosphere of easy and natural beauty. The Renaissance painter Vasari, who was also the first great art critic, ridiculed the works of Paulo Tello, who was obsessed with the laws of perspective. An effort to improve the appearance of perspective was too obvious. In his works, his paintings were ugly and elaborate, overloaded with the effort he made to achieve the effects he wanted. We react in the same way when we hear artists acting in an overly exaggerated way; the excess of effort undoes the illusion. It also makes us feel embarrassed. Calm and graceful artists sometimes do not let us feel comfortable, giving the illusion of being themselves naturally, even though everything they do involves a lot of work and practice. The idea of disregarding nature is relevant in all forms of power, because power depends vitally on the appearances and illusions you create. Your actions in public are like works of art. They should please the eye, create expectations, even entertain. When you reveal the effort that went into your creation, you become just another mortal among so many. What is understandable does not inspire respect. We think we could do the same. What if we also had the time and money? Avoid the temptation to show how brilliant you are. You are smarter by hiding the mechanisms of your brilliance. By applying this concept to his daily life, the big screen greatly enhanced his aura of power. He never liked to work too hard, so he made others work for him, spying, researching or making detailed analyses. With so much power available, he himself never seemed to tire when his spies revealed that a certain thing was about to happen; he would comment on it socially, as if he could sense its imminence. Consequently, people thought he was clairvoyant. His core statements and wit always seemed to sum up a situation perfectly, but they were based on a lot of research and reasoning for those in government, including Napoleon himself. Talleyrand gave the impression of immense power, an effect that depended entirely on the apparent ease with which he performed his feats. There is another reason to hide your shortcuts and tricks. If you leak this information, you are giving others ideas that they can use against you. You lose the benefit of silence. We tend to want the world to know what we have done. We want to reward our vanity by winning applause for our efforts and brilliance, and we even want sympathy for the hours it took to create our masterpiece. Learn to control this tendency and let your tongue be in your mouth, because its effect will almost always be the opposite of what you expected. Remember, the more mysterious your actions, the greater your power. You seem like the only person capable of doing what you do, and the appearance of having a unique talent has immense power. Finally, how do you achieve things with grace and ease? People always think that if they tried harder, they could do more. This arouses not only admiration but also a certain fear. Your powers are limitless. No one knows how far they have gone. Any action, however trivial, not only reveals a person’s skill, but also very often makes him or her seem greater than he or she really is. This is because it leads observers to believe that the man who does things so easily must be more skillful than he or she really is. Words by Balthazar and Castiglione, 1478 to 1529. A verse of a poem will take us an hour, perhaps, But if it does not seem like the idea of a moment, our sewing and unstitching will have been useless. Words by Adam Kurtz in William Butler and before 1865 to 1939. Don’t let anyone know exactly what you are capable of. The wise man does not allow anyone to probe deeply into his knowledge and skills, if he wants to be respected by everyone. He allows himself to be known, but not to be understood. No one should know the extent of his skills, lest he disappoint anyone. It gives you the opportunity to fully understand them, because assumptions and doubts about the extent of your talents evoke more respect than knowing precisely how far they go, so that they are always excellent words of Baltasar Gracián. The wise man does not say what he knows. The fool does not know what he says. Chinese proverb The opposite. The secrecy with which you surround your actions should give the appearance of carelessness. The zeal to hide your work creates an unpleasant, almost paranoid impression. You are taking the game too seriously. Rodin was careful to make the mystery of his tricks seem like a game; it was all part of the show. Do not show your work before it is finished, but if you try too hard to hide it, you will end up like a madman. Keep your good humor. There are also times when it is worth revealing the effort of your projects. It all depends on the taste of your audience and the time in which you operate. Pitti Mao realized that the public wanted to participate in his shows and loved to understand his tricks. In part, perhaps because the American democratic spirit liked to implicitly unmask those who hid the source of their power from the masses. The public also appreciated the humor and honesty of the show. Barnum went so far as to publish his own hoaxes in his popular autobiography, written at the height of his career. As long as the partial revelation of the trick and techniques is carefully planned and does not result from an uncontrollable need to spill the beans, it is the height of the audience’s cleverness. The illusion of being superior and participating. Even if much of what you do is not seen by anyone. Law number 31 Control the options. You are the one who calls the shots. The best tricks are those that seem to leave the other person a choice. Your victims think they are in control, but in fact they are your puppets. Give people options that always work out in your favor and force them to choose between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose. Put people in a dilemma and they will have no escape. Words like freedom, options, and choices evoke possibilities far beyond their actual benefits. When we look closely at our options in the marketplace, at the ballot box, or in jobs, they tend to be incredibly limited. Almost always, it is a choice between A and B. The rest of the alphabet is not included. However, if there is even the slightest mirage of options out there, we rarely try to see the ones that are missing. We choose, in quotation marks, to believe that the game is fair and that we maintain our freedom. We prefer not to think too much about the scope of our freedom of choice. This unwillingness to probe the limitations of our options comes from the fact that too much freedom generates anxiety. The phrase, in quotation marks, unlimited options, sounds infinitely promising, but in reality, unlimited options would paralyze us and disturb our ability to choose. Our limited range of options is comfortable. With this, the clever and the cunning gain enormous opportunities to cheat. Those who are choosing between two alternatives find it hard to believe that they are being manipulated or deceived. He doesn’t see that you are allowing him a small amount of free will in exchange for a much stronger imposition of your own free will. Defining a narrow range of options, therefore, should always be part of your cheating. There is a saying that the bird that enters the cage of its own free will sings the best. These are some of the most common forms of option control. Disguise the options. Henry Kissinger’s favorite technique as Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon. He considered himself better informed than his boss and believed that in most situations he could make better decisions for himself. But if he tried to dictate policy, he would offend. Or perhaps irritate a notoriously insecure man. So Kissinger would suggest three or four course of action for each situation and present them in such a way that his favorite always seemed the best compared to the others over and over again. Nixon took the bait, never suspecting that he was being led by Kissinger. It was an excellent device to use on the insecure master. Out with the resister. One of the main problems faced by Dr. Milton Erickson, a pioneer of hypnosis therapy in the 1950s, was relapse. His patients seemed to be recovering quickly, but their apparent susceptibility to therapy masked a deep resistance. They would quickly fall back into their old habits, blame the doctor, and stop seeing him. To prevent this, Erickson began to tell some patients to relapse and start feeling as bad as they did when they first came to see him. To go back to square one. Given this option, patients generally chose to avoid relapse. Which, of course, is exactly what Erickson wanted. This is a good technique to use with children and other willful people who like to be contrarians, forced to choose what you want them to do while pretending to prefer the opposite. Change the game board. In the 1860s, John John Locke Seller decided to create an oil monopoly. If he tried to buy it, the smaller companies would know what he was doing and would fight back. Instead, he started by secretly buying up the railroad companies that transported the oil. Later, when they tried to buy a particular company and met resistance, he would remind them that it depended on his railroads, and would refuse to ship it or simply raise his rates. He could ruin their business. Rockefeller changed the game board so that the small oil producers were left with only the options he offered them. In this tactic, his opponents know they are being forced. But it doesn’t matter. The technique works on those who resist at all costs. Reduced options. The 21st century art dealer Ambrose Evola perfected this technique. Customers would come to Volare’s store to look at some Cesans. He would then show them three paintings, forget to tell them the price, and pretend to be dozing off. The visitors would have to leave without having made up their minds. They would usually come back the next day to see the paintings again. But then Volare would show them less interesting works, pretending to think they were the same as the previous day. The customers, disconcerted, would examine the new offerings and leave to think about it and come back later. Once again the scene would repeat itself. The hype would show them paintings of even lower quality. Eventually, the buyers would realize that it was better to take what he was showing, because tomorrow they might have to settle for something worse, perhaps even more expensive. A variation of this technique is to raise the price every time the buyer hesitates, postponing the decision until the next day. It is an excellent negotiating tactic with chronic indecisive people who will think it is better to buy today than to wait until tomorrow. The weak man on the edge of the precipice. The weak are the easiest to manipulate, controlling their options. Cardinal de Rates, the great 17th-century agitator, served as an unofficial assistant to the 11-year-old duke, who was notoriously indecisive. It was a constant struggle to convince the duke to act. He would hesitate, weigh his options, and wait until the last possible moment, giving people around him ulcers. But first he found a way to deal with him. He would describe all sorts of dangers, exaggerating them to the extreme until the duke saw abysses opening up in every direction except the one he was actually forcing him to follow. This tactic is similar to disguising options, but with the weak you have to be more aggressive. Work on their emotions. Use fear and terror to force them to take action. Try reasoning, and he will always find a way to leave brothers in crime for later. This is a traditional con technique. You lure your victims into some criminal scheme, creating a bond of blood and guilt between you. They are involved in your fraud, they are committing a crime or they think they are committing one and they are easily manipulated to do so. We have seen that a great French con man of the 1920s involved the government so much in his frauds and cheating that the state did not dare to prosecute him and chose to, quote, leave him alone. It is wiser to involve in your frauds the person who can do you the most harm if you fail, this involvement can be subtle. The mere assumption that they are involved and narrowing their options will buy their silence in the grip of a dilemma. This idea was demonstrated in General William Sherman’s famous March on Georgia during the American Civil War. Although the Confederates knew which direction Sherman was heading, they never knew whether he would be on the right or the left, for he divided his armies into two wings , and by turning away from one they would face the other. This is a classic technique used by lawyers in trials. The lawyer leads the witnesses to decide between two possible explanations for what happened, both of which undermine their story. They have to answer the lawyer’s questions, but everything they say incriminates them. The key to this move is to attack quickly, not to give the victims time to think of their escape. While they try to solve the dilemma, they dig their own grave. Understand In fighting your rivals, it is usually necessary to hurt them. If you are clearly the agent of their punishment , expect a counterattack and expect revenge. If, however, they believe that they are the agents of their own misfortune, they will submit quietly. When Ivan the Terrible left Moscow for a small town in the countryside, the citizens who asked to return agreed to his demands for absolute power. In the future, he will resent it. They will be less upset by the terror he unleashed throughout the country, because, after all, they were the ones who had given him this power. Therefore, it is always good to let the victim choose the poison and to dissimulate as much as possible that you are offering it to him. For the wounds and all other evils that men inflict on themselves spontaneously and of their own free will are, in the long run, less painful than those inflicted by other people. Words by Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527The Liar. Once upon a time in America a king, feeling in a strange state of mind and in need of some amusement, sent heralds throughout his kingdom proclaiming the following : Listen, whoever proves to be the greatest liar in Armenia will receive a golden apple from the hands of His Majesty. The king, people from all towns and villages, of all ranks and conditions. Princes, merchants, farmers, priests, rich and poor, tall and short, fat and thin, came in droves to the palace. There was no lack of liars in that land , and each one told his lie to the king. Rulers, however, are accustomed to all kinds of lies, and none of them convinced the king that it was the best. He began to tire of this kind of sport and was already thinking of calling off the competition without declaring a winner, when there appeared before him a poor, ragged man, carrying under his arm a large clay jar. What can I do for you? asked His Majesty. The man said, slightly astonished. Of course. Don’t you remember? You owe me a pot of gold. And I have come to get it. You are a great liar. And the king exclaimed. I owe you nothing. A great liar I am, said the poor man. Then give me the golden apple. The king, realizing that the man was trying to outwit him. No, no, you are not a liar. Then give me a pot of gold that you owe me. Sir, said the man. The king found himself in a dilemma. He handed over the golden apple. This is a tale and a fable from Armenian folklore. Charles Downing, 1993. The reverse. Controlling options has only one purpose: to mislead you as an agent of power and punishment. The tactic works best, therefore, with those whose power is fragile, who are unable to act openly without arousing suspicion, resentment, and even anger. As a general rule, it is rarely wise to be seen exercising power in a direct and overbearing manner. No matter how secure or important you are. On the other hand, by limiting the options of others, you sometimes limit your own to situations where it is more advantageous to give your rivals more freedom. By watching them act, you have great opportunities to spy, gather information, and plan their frauds. The 19th-century banker James Rothschild was fond of this method. He knew that if he tried to control the movements of his adversaries, he would lose the chance to observe their strategies and plan more effective action. The more freedom he gave them in the short term, the more he could impose his will in the long term. Law 32 Arouse the fantasy of people in general. Avoid the truth because it is ugly and unpleasant. Do not appeal to what is true or real unless you are prepared to face the anger that comes with disenchantment. Life is so hard and distressing that people who can create romances or conjure up fantasies are like oases in the middle of the desert. Everyone runs to them. There is enormous power in arousing people’s fantasies, such is the power of fantasies that take hold of us, especially in times of scarcity and decline. People rarely believe that the source of their problems is their own wickedness and stupidity. The blame is always on someone or something external. The other, the world, the gods , and therefore salvation also come from outside. To gain power, you have to be a source of pleasure for the people around you. And pleasure comes from playing to their fantasies. Do not promise them gradual improvement through hard work. Instead, promise them the moon, the great and sudden transformation, the pot of gold. Fantasy does not act alone. It requires routine as a backdrop and the oppression of reality that allows fantasy to take root and flourish. In 16th-century Venice, reality was decline and loss of prestige. The corresponding fantasy described a sudden recovery of past glories through the miracle of alchemy. Whoever can weave a fantasy from the threads of harsh reality has access to incalculable powers in the pursuit of the fantasy that will dominate the masses. So keep an eye on the trivialities that weigh so heavily on us all. Do not be distracted by the glamorous portrait that people paint of themselves and their lives. Find out what really imprisons them. Once you discover this, you have the magic key that will put great power in your hands. Although times and people change, let us examine some of the oppressive realities that do not change and the opportunities for power they provide in reality. Change is slow and gradual. It requires hard work, a little luck, a fair amount of personal sacrifice and a lot of patience. The fantasy, a sudden transformation, will bring about a total change in a person’s destiny, bypassing work, luck, personal sacrifice and delay in one fell swoop. Fantastic. This is the fantasy par excellence of the charlatans who still haunt us today. Promise a great and radical change from poverty to wealth, from sickness to health, from misery to ecstasy. And you will have followers. What did the great German con man of the sixteenth century do? Leo Royale Torrent Set out to become court physician to the Prince of Brandes Burg without ever having studied medicine. Instead of prescribing amputations, cupping and foul-tasting purgatives, the medicines of the time, Turned say offered sweet elixirs and promised immediate recovery. Sophisticated courtiers, in particular, wanted their drinkable gold solution that cost a fortune. If you were struck by an unexplained illness, a disease, you consulted a horoscope and prescribed a talisman. Who could resist this fantasy? Wealth and well-being, without pain or sacrifice? The reality, society has well-defined codes and limits. We understand these limits and know that we have to move within the same familiar circuits, day and night, in fantasy. We can enter a totally new world, with different codes. and with the promise of adventure. In the early 18th century, all of London was abuzz with rumors about a mysterious stranger, a young man named George Human Person. He had just arrived from a land that most Englishmen considered fantastic—the island of Formosa, now Taiwan, off the coast of China. Oxford hired Salman Nazar to teach him the language spoken on that island. A few years later, he translated the Bible and then wrote a book that quickly became a bestseller on the history and geography of Formosa. English royalty welcomed the young man lavishly, and wherever he went, he entertained his hosts with wonderful stories about his homeland and its bizarre customs. When Alma Nasar died, however, his will revealed that he was just a Frenchman with a fertile imagination. Everything he had told about Formosa, its alphabet, its languages, its literature, its entire culture, was his own invention. He relied on the ignorance of his listeners to invent a complicated story that satisfied a craving for the strange and exotic. British culture’s tight control over people’s dangerous dreams gave them a wonderful opportunity to explore their fantasies, the fantasy of the exotic and, of course, sexual fantasy. But don’t get too close, because the physical disturbs the power of fantasy. It can be seen clinging and then becomes tiresome. This is the fate of most courtiers. The physical charms of the mistress only arouse the appetite of her master for different pleasures and a new beauty to be adored. To give power to fantasy it must remain to some extent directly realized and real. The dancer Mathura Hari, for example, who became famous in Paris before the First World War, had a rather ordinary appearance. Her power came from the fantasy she created about herself as an exotic and strange woman, impenetrable and indecipherable. The taboo with which she operated was not so much sex itself as the disrespect of social codes. Another form of fantasy, like the exotic, is simply the hope of relief from boredom. Charlatans love to play on the oppressiveness of the working world, its lack of adventure. Their scams involve, say, the recovery of the Spanish Treasury with the possible participation of an attractive Mexican senorita and a connection with the president of a South American country. Anything that offers a reprieve from the grind. Reality, society, is fragmented and full of conflict. Fantasy. People can come together in a mystical union of souls in the 1920s. The con man Oscar Craftsman got rich suddenly by playing the old trick of being French and basically promised any sucker with the last name Drake a good share of the missing Drake treasure, to which I had access in rooms. Thousands of people all over the Midwest fell for the scam , which Rats cleverly turned into a crusade against the government and anyone who tried to prevent the Drake fortune from reaching its rightful heirs. A mystical union of the oppressed Drake was created, with meetings and heated rallies. Promise a union of this kind and you will gain great power. But it is a dangerous power that can easily be turned against you. This is a fantasy for demagogues. The reality of death. The dead do not return. The past cannot be changed. The fantasy. A sudden reversal of this intolerable fact. This hoax has many variations, but it requires great skill and subtlety. The beauty and importance of Vermeer’s art have long been recognized, but his paintings are few and far between. In the 1930s, however, vermin began to appear on the art market. Experts were called in to check them out, and they assured them that they were authentic. To own one of these new reds would be the pinnacle of a collector’s career. It was like the resurrection of Lazarus. Curiously, Red had come back to life. The past had been altered. It was only later that it was discovered that the new worms were the work of a middle-aged Dutch forger, a certain Juan van Niger, and that he had chosen Vermeer because he understood the mechanism of fantasy. The paintings seemed real precisely because the public and the special guests wanted so badly to believe that they were. Remember, the key to fantasy is distance. What is distant fascinates and promises. It seems simple and unproblematic that you are offering, so it must be unattainable. Don’t let it become oppressively familiar and the mirage far away that recedes as the fool approaches. Don’t be too objective in describing the fantasy. Keep it vague like a fantasy forger. Let the victim come close enough to see and be tempted, but keep him far enough away to continue dreaming and wishing. A lie is a spell, a fabrication that can be embellished like a fantasy. It can be dressed up with mystical ideas. The truth is cold, dark, not so comfortable to assimilate. A lie is more appetizing. The most detestable person in the world is the one who always speaks the truth. Rome never craves it. I always find it more interesting and profitable to romance than to tell the truth. Words of a goddess come from Burgo de Yellow Keene, 1875-1976The Funeral of the Lioness. The lion having suddenly lost his queen, everyone rushed to show loyalty to the monarch, offering him consolation. But unfortunately, these compliments only made the widower more distressed. News spread throughout the kingdom about the time and place of the funeral. The officials were ordered to stand by, to conduct the ceremony and distribute the people according to their respective places in society. It may well be imagined that no one was missing. The monarch gave vent to his grief, and the whole cave, since lions have no other temples, resounded with his lamentations. Following his example, all the courtiers roared in their different tones. The court is a place where everyone is sad, happy or indifferent, depending on the reigning prince, or if someone does not feel that way, at least they try to appear to feel that way. Everyone tries to imitate the lord. It is said that a single head animates thousands of bodies, clearly showing that human beings are nothing more than machines. But let us return to our subject. Only the deer did not cry. How could he do that? The death of the queen was really a revenge for him. She had strangled his wife and son. A courtier thought it fair to tell the dismayed monarch and even claimed to have seen the deer laugh. The wrath of King Solomon is terrible, especially that of a lion king. Wretched stranger! He exclaimed. You dare to laugh when everyone around you is in tears. Will they not stain you? Will we go in the royal claws with your profane blood? Avenge, Brave wolf, our queen, by sacrificing this traitor and his anguish to the soul! To which the deer replied the Lord, It is no longer time to cry. Sorrow is superfluous here. Your revered wife has just appeared to me, reposing on a bed of roses. I recognized her instantly. Friend, she said to me, End this funeral pomp. Stop these useless tears. They provide a thousand delights in the Champs-Élysées, conversing with saints like myself. Let the king’s despair remain for a while. Uncontained, he gratifies me. He had barely spoken when someone cried out, A miracle, a miracle! Then the deer, instead of being punished, receives a beautiful gift. Let the king dream, praise him, and as you use some pleasant and fantastic lies, however indignant he may be with you, he will swallow the bait and make you his best friend. Fables Watching Elephant 1621 to 1695. If you want to tell lies that seem true, Don’t tell the truth, which no one will believe. Emperor Tokugawa of Japan, 17th Century No man need despair of convincing others of his most extravagant hypothesis. If he has enough art to present it in favorable colors. Words from within 1711 to 1776 or vice versa, if it can awaken the fantasies of the masses. There are risks too. Fantasy in general has a playful element. The public more or less realizes that it is being deceived. Even so, it feeds the dream, has fun and enjoys the temporary departure from routine that you are giving them. So don’t exaggerate, don’t get too close to the point where you are expected to produce results. That place can be extremely risky. One last thing: never make the mistake of thinking that fantasy is always fantastic. It certainly contrasts with reality, but reality itself is sometimes so theatrical and stylized that fantasy becomes a desire for simple things. The image that opens the tongue has been created for itself, for example, as a simple provincial lawyer. The bearded man made him the people’s president. Pitt, and Barnum created a highly successful act, with Tom also a dwarf dressed up as famous leaders of the past, such as Napoleon, and satirizing him maliciously. The show pleased everyone, even Queen Victoria, because it appealed to the fantasy of the time. Enough, with the vain rulers of history, the common man is the one who knows things. Tom inverted the familiar model of fantasy, in which the ideal is what is strange and unknown, but the act continued to obey the law, because the basis was the fantasy that the common man has no problems and is happier than the rich and powerful. Both Lincoln and Tom represented the commoner who carefully kept his distance. If you play with this fantasy, you must also be careful to cultivate distance and not let your commoner persona become too familiar or it will not project as a fantasy. Law 33 Find each other’s weak points. Everyone has a weak spot, a chink in the castle wall. This weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need. It can also be a secret pleasure. Whatever it is, once you find this nerve, that is where you must press. Law number 34 Be aristocratic in your own way. Act like a king to be treated like one. The way you behave in general determines how you are treated in the long run, whether you appear vulgar or common. You will make people disrespect you, because a king respects himself and inspires the same feeling in others. By acting royally and confidently in your powers, you show yourself destined to wear the crown. Law number 35. Master the art of knowing the right time. Never appear to be in a hurry. Haste attracts a lack of control over yourself and time. Always show yourself to be patient, as if you know that everything will eventually come to you. Become a detective of the right moment. Sniff out the spirit of the times, the trends that will bring you to power. Learn to wake up when it is not yet time and to attack fiercely when it is time. Law 36: Disdain what you cannot have, and ignoring it is the best revenge. By acknowledging a trivial problem, you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you give to an enemy, the stronger you make him. It is a small mistake. Sometimes it becomes worse and more visible if you try to fix it. Sometimes it is better to leave things as they are. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt. The less interest you show, the more superior you will appear. Law 37: Create attractive spectacles, surprising images and grand symbolic gestures. Create an aura of power. Everyone reacts to them on stage. Shows that make those around you, full of interesting visual elements and radiant and real symbols, without your presence, dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing. Law 38 Think as you wish, but behave as others do. If you boast that you are against the trends of the time, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you are just trying to attract attention and that you think you are superior. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior and much more insecure. Join them and develop a common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant friends and with those who will certainly appreciate your uniqueness. Law 39 Stir the waters to attract the fish. Anger and emotional reactions are counterproductive from a strategic point of view. You must always remain calm and objective. But if you can irritate the enemy without losing your temper, you gain an undeniable advantage. Unbalance the enemy. Find a loophole in his vanity to confuse him and you will be in control. Law 40: Despise what comes for free. What is offered for free is dangerous. It is usually a ruse or has a hidden obligation. If it has value, it is worth paying for. By paying, you free yourself from problems of gratitude and guilt. It is also wise to pay the full price with excellence. There is no saving. Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power. Law 41: Avoid following in the footsteps of a great man. What comes first always seems better and more original than what comes later. If you replace a great man or have a famous father, you will have to do twice as much as they did to outshine them. Do not get lost in their shadow or stuck in a past that was not your doing. Establish your own name and identity by changing course. Kill the domineering father, belittle his legacy , and seize power by your own light. Law 42. Attack the shepherd and the sheep scatter. The root of problems can often be found in a single individual— the strong one, the agitator, the arrogant underling, the poisoner of goodwill. If you give these people room to act, others will succumb to their influence. Don’t wait for the problems they cause to multiply. Don’t try to negotiate with them. They are unyielding. Neutralize their influence by isolating or banishing them. Attack the source of the problems—and the sheep scatter. Law 43. Win hearts and minds. Coercion provokes reactions that end up working against you. You have to entice people to want to come to you. The seduced person becomes a faithful pawn. Seduce others by acting on their individual psychology and weak points. Soften the resistant by acting on their emotions, playing on what they like or fear , and ignore the hearts of others, and they will hate you. Law 44. Disarm and enrage. In effect, the mirror. The mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for deception. When you mirror your enemies by acting exactly as they do, they do not understand your strategy or effect. The mirror ridicules and humiliates them, causing them to overreact, holding a mirror up to their psyches. You seduce them with the illusion that they share your values. By mirroring their actions, you teach them a lesson. Rare are those who resist. Law 45 Preach the need for change, but do not change too much at once. In theory, everyone knows that change is necessary, but in practice, people are creatures of habit, too much innovation is traumatic and leads to rebellion. Whether you are new to a position of power or an outsider trying to build your power base, show explicitly that you respect the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it appear as a slight improvement on the past. Law 46 Do not appear too perfect. To appear better than others is always dangerous. But what is most dangerous is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is a sign of cunning to occasionally display a few defects and admit to harmless vices in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can appear perfect with impunity. Law 47 Do not overstep the mark in victory. Learn to stop The world of victory is almost always the most dangerous. In the heat of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can make you go beyond your goal, and by going too far, you make more enemies than you defeat. Do not let success go to your head. There is no substitute for strategy and careful planning. Set your goal, and when you reach it, stop. Law 48 Avoid having a set form. Narrator’s Notes This is the last law. End of notes. The text continues. By taking a form. By having a visible plan, you expose yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form that your enemy can grab. Stay flexible and in motion. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and none of the laws here are fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and amorphous as water. Don’t bet on stability or permanent order. Everything changes. The schedule for publishing here on the channel works as follows: We post the episodes of the audiobooks here on the channel every five days, so that you can really get a feel for the content and have time to catch up. And at the end, after all the episodes are posted, we publish a single, complete video of the book so that you can watch it all at once here on the channel or access our blog and download the file so you can watch it offline. Subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications so you ‘ll be reminded of when our meetings will take place. I look forward to this exchange of knowledge with you. Thank you very much for listening so far. 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