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Authority: If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse expectation.... Mix a little mystery with everything, and the very mystery stirs up veneration. And when you explain, be not too explicit.... In this manner you imitate the Divine way when you cause men to wonder and watch. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)
LAW 7 GET OTHERS TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU, BUT ALWAYS TAKE THE CREDIT JUDGMENT 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 a godlike 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.
THE TORTOISE, THE ELEPHANT, AND THE HIPPOPOTAMUS
In 1917, during his later impoverished years, Tesla was told he was to receive the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. He turned the medal down. “You propose,” he said, “to honor me with a medal which I could pin upon my coat and strut for a vain hour before the members of your Institute. You would decorate my body and continue to let starve, for failure to supply recognition, my mind and its creative products, which have supplied the foundation upon which the major portion of your Institute exists.”
Everybody steals in commerce and industry. I’ve stolen a lot myself. But I know how to steal. Thomas Edison, 1847-1931
borrower. Writers who have delved into human nature, ancient masters of strategy, historians of human stupidity and folly, kings and queens who have learned the hard way how to handle the burdens of power—their knowledge is gathering dust, waiting for you to come and stand on their shoulders. Their wit can be your wit, their skill can be your skill, and they will never come around to tell people how unoriginal you really are.
As Bismarck once said, “Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.” Image: The Vulture. Of all the creatures in the jungle, he has it the easiest. The hard work of others becomes his work; their failure to survive becomes his nourishment. Keep an eye on the Vulture—while you are hard at work, he is cir- cling above. Do not fight him, join him.
LAW 8 MAKE OTHER PEOPLE COME TO YOU—USE BAIT IF NECESSARY JUDGMENT 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.
months. One diplomat in Vienna, who understood that Talleyrand was behind it all, said, “He has set the house ablaze in order to save it from the plague.” When I have laid bait for deer, I don’t shoot at the first doe that comes to sniff, but wait until the whole herd has gathered round. Otto von Bismarck, 1815-1898
Authority: Good warriors make others come to them, and do not go to others. This is the principle of emptiness and fullness of others and self. When you induce opponents to come to you, then their force is always empty; as long as you do not go to them, your force is always full. Attacking emptiness with fullness is like throwing stones on eggs. (Zhang Yu, eleventh-century commentator on The Art of War)
You must choose your tactics depending on the situation. If you have time on your side, and know that you and your enemies are at least at equal strength, then deplete their strength by making them come to you. If time is against you—your enemies are weaker, and waiting will only give them the chance to recover—give them no such chance. Strike quickly and they have nowhere to go. As the boxer Joe Louis put it, “He can run, but he can’t hide.”
LAW 9 WIN THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, NEVER THROUGH ARGUMENT
JUDGMENT 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.
It is not simply a question of avoiding an argument with those who stand above you. We all believe we are masters in the realm of opinions and reasoning. You must be careful, then: Learn to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly.
gathered dust in the dark halls of the church. This was where things stood until some Florentine friends of the great Michelangelo decided to write to the artist, then living in Rome. He alone, they said, could do something with the marble, which was still magnificent raw material. Michelangelo traveled to Florence, examined the stone, and came to the conclusion that he could in fact carve a fine figure from it, by adapting the pose to the way the rock had been mutilated. Soderini argued that this was a waste of time—nobody could salvage such a disaster—but he finally agreed to let the artist
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well as a bit of marble dust that lay on the planks. With Soderini just a few feet below him on the scaffolding, Michelangelo started to tap lightly with the chisel, letting the bits of dust he had gathered in his hand to fall little by little. He actually did nothing to change the nose, but gave every appearance of working on it. After a few minutes of this charade he stood aside: “Look at it now.” “I like it better,” replied Soderini, “you’ve made it come alive.”
Understand this: Words are a dime a dozen. Everyone knows that in the heat of an argument, we will all say anything to support our cause. We
As Baltasar Gracián remarks, “The truth is generally seen, rarely heard.”
heckler once interrupted Nikita Khrushchev in the middle of a speech in which he was denouncing the crimes of Stalin. “You were a colleague of Stalin’s,” the heckler yelled, “why didn’t you stop him then?” Khrushschev apparently could not see the heckler and barked out, “Who said that?” No hand went up. No one moved a muscle. After a few seconds of tense silence, Khrushchev finally said in a quiet voice, “Now you know why I didn’t stop him.” Instead of just arguing that anyone facing Stalin was afraid, knowing that the slightest sign of rebellion would mean certain death, he had made them feel
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everyone understands you without anything being said. In 1975, when Henry Kissinger was engaged in some frustrating negotiations with the Israelis over the return of part of the Sinai desert that they had seized in the 1967 war, he suddenly broke off a tense meeting and decided to do some sight-seeing. He paid a visit to the ruins of the ancient fortress of Masada, known to all Israelis as the place where seven hundred Jewish warriors committed mass suicide in A.D. 73 rather than give in to the Roman troops besieging them. The Israelis instantly understood the message of Kissinger’s visit: He
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GOD AND ABRAHAM The Most High God had promised that He would not take Abraham’s soul unless the man wanted to die and asked Him to do so. When Abraham’s life was drawing to a close, and God determined to seize him, He sent an angel in the guise of a decrepit old man who was almost entirely incapacitated. The old man stopped outside Abraham door and said to him, “Oh Abraham, I would like something to eat.” Abraham was amazed to hear him say this. “Die,” exclaimed Abraham. It would be better for you than to go on living in that condition.” Abraham always kept food ready at his home for passing
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LAW 10 INFECTION: AVOID THE UNHAPPY AND UNLUCKY
JUDGMENT 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.
THE NUT AND THE CAMPANILE A nut found itself carried by a crow to the top of a tall campanile, and by falling into a crevice succeeded in escaping its dread fate. It then besought the wall to shelter it, by appealing to it by the grace of God, and praising its height, and the beauty and noble tone of us bells. “Alas,” it went on, “as I have not been able to drop beneath the green branches of my old Father and to lie in the fallow earth covered by his fallen leaves, do you, at least, not abandon me. When I found myself in the beak of the cruel crow I made a vow, that if I escaped I would end my
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Regard no foolish man as cultured, though you may reckom a gifted man as wise; and esteem no ignorant abstainer a true ascetic. Do not consort with fools, especially those who consider themselves wise. And be not self-satisfied with your own ignorance. Let your intercourse be only with men of good repute: for it is by such association that men themselves attain to good repute. Do you not observe how sesame-oil is mingled with roses or violets and how, when it has been for some time in association with roses or violets, it ceases to he sesame-oil and is called oil of roses or oil of violets? A
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Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much.... I do not know the man I should avoid so soon as that spare Cassius.... Such men as he be never at heart’s ease whiles they behold a greater than themselves, and therefore are they very dangerous. Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare, 1564-1616
Use the positive side of this emotional osmosis to advantage. If, for example, you are miserly by nature, you will never go beyond a certain limit; only generous souls attain greatness.
LAW 11 LEARN TO KEEP PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON YOU JUDGMENT
disliked, personally and politically. Yet Bismarck courted
Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his
Michelangelo. You do not have to have the talent of a Michelangelo; you do have to have a skill that sets you apart from the crowd. You should create a situation in which you can always latch on to another master or patron but your master cannot easily find another servant with your particular talent.
does civility and decency, and then respect. The first lesson which experience should teach you is to keep hope alive but never satisfied, keeping even a royal patron ever in need of you. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)
LAW 12 USE SELECTIVE HONESTY AND GENEROSITY TO DISARM YOUR VICTIM
affectionate gesture. In ancient China this was called “giving before you take”—the giving makes it hard for the other person to notice the taking.
saying: “When you are about to take, you should give.” (Han-fei-tzu, Chinese philosopher, third century B.C.)
Talleyrand said with apparent sincerity, “In business one ought to show one’s hand.” No one who heard him could believe their ears: A man who never once in his life had shown his cards was telling other people to show theirs. Tactics like this made it impossible to distinguish Talleyrand’s real deceptions from his fake ones. By embracing his reputation for dishonesty, he preserved his ability to deceive.
LAW 13 WHEN ASKING FOR HELP, APPEAL TO PEOPLE’S SELF-INTEREST, NEVER TO THEIR MERCY OR GRATITUDE JUDGMENT
peasant had in his garden an apple-tree, which bore no fruit, but only served as a perch for the sparrows and grasshoppers. He resolved to cut it down, and, taking his ax in hand, made a bold stroke at its roots. The grasshoppers and sparrows entreated him not to cut down the tree that sheltered them, but to spare it, and they would sing to him and lighten his labors. He paid no attention to their request, but gave the tree a second and a third blow with his ax. When he reached the hollow of the tree, he found a hive full of honey. Having tasted the honeycomb, he threw down his ax, and,
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Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves. They always think of their own case as soon as ever any remark is made, and their whole attention is engrossed and absorbed by the merest chance reference to anything which affects them personally, be it never so remote. ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860
Authority: The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interests to promote yours. (Jean de La Bruyère, 1645-1696)
LAW 14 POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY
Rulers see through spies, as cows through smell, Brahmins through scriptures and the rest of the people through their normal eyes. Kautilya, Indian philosopher third century B. C. KEYS TO POWER
If you have reason to suspect that a person is telling you a lie, look as though you believed every word he said. This will give him courage to go on; he will become more vehement in his assertions, and in the end betray himself. Again, if you perceive that a person is trying to conceal something from you, but with only partial success, look as though you did not believe him. The opposition on your part will provoke him into leading out his reserve of truth and bringing the whole force of it to bear upon your incredulity. ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860
Another trick was identified by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who suggested vehemently contradicting people you’re in conversation with as a way of irritating them, stirring them up so that they lose some of the control over their words. In their emotional reaction they will reveal all kinds of truths about themselves, truths you can later use against them.
Authority: Now, the reason a brilliant sovereign and a wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move, and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men, is their foreknowledge of the enemy situation. This “foreknowledge” cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor by astrologic calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation—from spies. (Sun-tzu, The Art of War, fourth century B.C.)
As Winston Churchill said, “Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
LAW 15 CRUSH YOUR ENEMY TOTALLY JUDGMENT
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.
The remnants of an enemy can become active like those of a disease or fire. Hence, these should be exterminated completely.... One should never ignore an enemy, knowing him to be weak. He becomes dangerous in due course, like the spark of fire in a haystack. KAUTILYA, INDIAN PHILOSOPHER, THIRD CENTURY B.C.
Liu Pang learned this lesson well. After defeating Hsiang Yu, this son of a farmer went on to become supreme commander of the armies of Ch‘u. Crushing his next rival—the king of Ch’u, his own former leader—he crowned himself emperor, defeated everyone in his path, and went down in history as one of the greatest rulers of China, the immortal Han Kao-tsu, founder of the Han Dynasty.
