Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your
desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your
talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and
insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are
and you will attain the heights of power.
Problem about working with friends is that it confuses the boundaries and
distances that working requires. If both partners in the arrangement
understand the dangers involved, a friend often can be employed to great
effect. You must never let your guard down in such a 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 of friends can be transformed into the worst of enemies.
It takes effort to control your tongue and monitor what you reveal.
It is much more prudent to tailor your words, telling people what they
want to hear rather than the coarse and ugly truth of what you feel or
think. More important, by being unabashedly open you make yourself so
predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or
fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire
such emotions.
Train yourself in the art of concealing your intentions. Master the
art and you will always have the upper hand. Our first instinct is to
always trust appearances. This fact makes it relatively easy to
conceal one's intentions. Let's talk about how People Conceal
Intentions and Fool You.
There are times when it is unwise to be silent. Silence can arouse
suspicion and even insecurity, especially in your superiors; a vague or
ambiguous comment can open you up to interpretations you had not bargained
for. Silence and saying less than necessary must be practiced with
caution, then, and in the right situations. Let us take a look at 6 ways
to exert more power by practicing listening.
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. In the social realm, appearances
are the barometer of almost all our judgments. Your reputation will
protect you in the dangerous game of appearances, distracting the probing
eyes of others from knowing what you are really like, and giving you a
degree of control over how the world judges you — a powerful position to
be in.
Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for
nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in
oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet
of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious, than the
bland and timid masses.
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your
own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and
energy, it will give you an aura of efficiency and speed. In the end
your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do
yourself what others can do for you.
When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It
is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own
plans in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains—then attack. You
hold the cards.
Any momentary triumph you think you have gained through argument is
really a Pyrrhic victory: The resentment and ill will you stir up is
stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much
more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions,
without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.
You can die from someone else's misery—emotional states are as
infectious as diseases. You may feel you are helping the drowning man
but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate
sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on
you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.
To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted.
The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people
depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing
to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.
One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones.
Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard
of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens
a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A
timely gift—a Trojan horse—will serve the same purpose.
If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of
your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you.
Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him,
that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will
respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for
himself.
Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable
information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy
yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect
questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There
is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.
All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be
crushed completely. (Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.) If
one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will
eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through
total annihilation: The enemy will recover, and will seek revenge. Crush
him, not only in body but in spirit.
Too much circulation makes the price go down: The more you are seen and
heard from, the more common you appear. If you are already established in
a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about,
even more admired. You must learn when to leave. Create value through
scarcity.
Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity
in other people's actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of
control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that
seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off- balance and
they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an
extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.
The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere— everyone has to
protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you
to more dangers than it protects you from—it cuts you off from valuable
information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to
circulate among people, find allies and mingle. You are shielded from your
enemies by the crowd.
There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never
assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way.
Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their
lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lambs' clothing. Choose your
victims and opponents carefully. Never offend or deceive the wrong
person!
It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side
or cause but yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the
master of others— playing people against one another, making them pursue
you.
No one likes feeling stupider than the next person. The trick, then, is
to make your victims feel smart—and not just smart, but smarter than you
are. Once convinced of this, they will never suspect that you may have
ulterior motives.
When you are weak, never fight for honor’s sake; instead choose surrender
instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to wait for his power
to wane. Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating
you-surrender first. By turning the other cheek, you infuriate and
unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power.
Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their
strongest point. You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it
deeper, than by flitting from one shallow mine to another—intensity
defeats extensity every time. When looking for sources of power to elevate
you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give you milk for a
long time to come.
The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around
power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he
flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the most
oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtier-ship and
there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.
Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create yourself by
forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the
audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others
define it for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures
and actions—your power will be enhanced and your character will seem
larger than life.
You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are never
soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by
using others as scapegoats and cat's-paws to disguise your
involvement.
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the
focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to
follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm
over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to
perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of
organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you
untold power.
If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts
and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better
to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are
easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one
honors the timid.
The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all
the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might
reverse your hard work and give the glory to others. By planning to the
end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to
stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far
ahead.
Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and
practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be
concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more.
Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work—it only raises
questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against
you.
The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a
choice: Your victims feel they are in control, but are actually your
puppets. Give people options that come out in your favor whichever one
they choose. Force them to make choices between the lesser of two evils,
both of which serve your purpose. Put them on the horns of a dilemma: They
are gored wherever they turn.
The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never
appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that
comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people
who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the
desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the
fantasies of the masses.
Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is
usually insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a
small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can
turn to your advantage.
The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated: In
the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you.
For a king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others. By
acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem
destined to wear a crown.
Never seem to be in a hurry—hurrying betrays a lack of control over
yourself, and over time. Always seem patient, as if you know that
everything will come to you eventually. Become a detective of the right
moment; sniff out the spirit of the times, the trends that will carry you
to power. Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe, and to strike
fiercely when it has reached fruition.
By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility.
The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a
small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it.
It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want
but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the
more superior you seem.
Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of
power—everyone responds to them. Stage the spectacles for those around
you, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your
presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really
doing.
If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your
unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only
want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to
punish you for making them feel inferior. It is far safer to blend in and
nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant
friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness.
Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always
stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while
staying calm yourself you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies’
off-balance: Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle
them and you hold the strings.
What is offered for free is dangerous—it usually involves either a trick
or a hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your
own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit. It is also often
wise to pay the full price—there are no cutting corners with excellence.
Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a
sign and a magnet for power.
What happens first always appears better and more original than what
comes after. If you succeed a great man or have a famous parent, you will
have to accomplish double their achievements to outshine them. Do not get
lost in their shadow, or stuck in a past not of your own making: Establish
your own name and identity by changing course. Slay the overbearing
father, disparage his legacy, and gain power by shining in your own
way.
Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual—the stirrer,
the arrogant underling, the poisoner of goodwill. If you allow such people
room to operate, others will succumb to their influence. Do not wait for
the troubles they cause to multiply, do not try to negotiate with
them—they are irredeemable. Neutralize their influence by isolating or
banishing them. Strike at the source of the trouble and the sheep will
scatter.
Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You
must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you
have seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to
operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the
resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear and
what they fear. Ignore the hearts and minds of others and they will grow
to hate you.
The mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for
deception: When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they
cannot figure out your strategy. The Mirror Effect mocks and humiliates
them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you
seduce them with the illusion that you share their values; by holding up a
mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson. Few can resist the power
of the Mirror Effect.
Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the
day-to-day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is
traumatic, and will lead to revolt. If you are new to a position of power,
or an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respecting the
old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a
gentle improvement on the past.
Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of
all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent
enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to
harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and
approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.
The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat
of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you
had aimed for, and by going too far, you make more enemies than you
defeat. Do not allow success to go to your head. There is no substitute
for strategy and careful planning. Set a goal, and when you reach it,
stop.
By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack.
Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp keep yourself adaptable
and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is
fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as
water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.
