48 Laws of Power

48 Laws of Power

This book “The 48 Laws of Power” is written by Robert Greene, and it is very good book for people who want to be in power. To green, Power is a game and any one can win this game who follows these laws. Since around 3000 years, “The 48 Laws of Power” have been 48 actions that most powerful people follow. Please visit the Books Review Section to read more of my book reviews. and you can easily purchase this book on Amazon.

So, without further delay let’s begin

Law 1: Never outshine the Master

Make those in authority or above you feel at ease. Make them comfortably superior. Hide your talents, otherwise your superior will feel uncomfortable. Make them feel secure even if you are superior then them. This may involve some harmless mistakes, but ask their help so that they feel secure from you.

Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, Use the enemies

Friends mostly knows very crucial things about you, your secrets. They can betray you and put you in more harm’s way than anyone else. Friends are mostly jealous and they are prone to envy. However, if you hire a former enemy, they will prove themselves more trustworthy.

Law 3: Conceal your intensions

Always conceal your intensions, this way your opponents cannot defend themselves. Lead them astray, conceal your true intentions, and show them when the time is right to take advantage of surprise. By cloaking your intensions, people will believe you to be friendly and honest. This will lead them further down the wrong path.

Law 4: Always say less than necessary:

Controlling your talk is very effective way to be Smart. Person who talks less is less prone to mistakes.  Powerful people know to impress others by saying less. The more your say the more you open yourself to mistakes. You cannot conceal your intensions unless you control your saying

Law 5: So much Depend upon reputation; Guard it with your life

Reputation is one of the most important aspect of one person personality, he shoud guard it at all cost. It is cornerstone of your Power. You can use your reputation to win or solve issues. Make your reputation impenetrable.

Law 6: Court Attention at all costs

As everything is judged by appearance in world, you must stand out. Make yourself appear larger. No-one should ignore your presence. One way to do this is to surround your name with sensation and scandal. Bear in mind that notoriety of any sort brings Power. It is preferable to be slandered then to be ignored.

Law 7. Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit

Never do for yourself what others can do for you.  Use their wisdom and knowledge for your own cause. If you think you can do all work for yourself, you won’t go far. You will be stuck in scrap work and lose focus for your goal. Manage your time and outsource your work. 

Law 8. Make Other People Come to You – Use Bait if Necessary

Making your opponent come to you is always preferred since it forces them to change their plans and ideas. Draw them in, then launch an attack. you can never respond to your opponents; instead, they must respond to you. This is playing the long game, taking a back seat, and maintaining your composure as others fall victim to the traps you have purposefully set for them.

Law 9. Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument

Any victory you achieve through argument will be temporary. Instead of a sincere shift in opinion, your opponents will simmer with resentment. Let your actions speak for you instead. You are more likely to influence people’s ideas in the long run if you persuade them through your actions rather than with your words. Words are plentiful, and individuals will say anything to support their position. You show your beliefs by your actions.

Law 10. Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and the Unlucky

Like infectious diseases, emotional states can spread quickly. Some unfortunate people occasionally bring their own bad luck upon themselves, and if you get too near, they may also bring you down. Therefore, be sure to surround yourself with the positive people. Always be positive. Avoid negative people

Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you

Always keep a role with you for which everyone is dependent on you. it will help you to make you valuable.

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

Be honest with everyone, once they have trust on you! you can take advantage of this trust. but beware not to use too much as to lose trust.

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

This Law is for sales, or grab people’s attention. as if you appeal their self interest you will have upper hand that you are solving their problem, never beg for mercy or gratitude as you will be lower hand in this case. upper hand is alwas better than lower hand.

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

Keep in mind, friend can betray you when you are in Power. keep your eyes open; always. work like spy.

Law 15: Crush your enemy totally

Don’t start fight by yourself, and if fight breakout, make sure to crush your enemy once and for all. 

Law 16: Use absence to increase strength and honor

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.

Law 17: Keep others in suspended terror, cultivate an air of unpredictability

Too much unpredictability will be seen as a sign of indecisiveness, or even of some more serious psychic problem. Patterns are powerful, and you can terrify people by disrupting them. Such power should only be used judiciously.

Law 18: Do not build a fortress to protect yourself, isolation is dangerous

United we rule, Divided we fall. always keep yourself company. isolation is dangerous. but as previously mentioned. always keep your eyes open.

Law 19: Know who you’re dealing with, do not offend the wrong person

Keep your friends close but enemies closer. you mist know who you are dealing with. don;t mess up with wrong person.

Law 20: Do not commit to anyone

Do not commit to anyone, but be courted by all.

When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. You instantly seem powerful because you make yourself ungraspable, rather than succumbing to the group, or to the relationship, as most people do.

People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained, while those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants.

Do not commit to anyone, stay above the fray.

Remember: You have only so much energy and so much time. Every moment wasted on the affairs of others subtracts from your strength.

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

Given how important the idea of intelligence is to most people’s vanity, it is critical never inadvertently to insult or impugn a person’s brain power.

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

People trying to make a show of their authority are easily deceived by the surrender tactic.

It is always our first instinct to react, to meet aggression with some other kind of aggression. But the next time someone pushes you and you find yourself starting to react, try this: Do not resist or fight back, but yield, turn the other cheek, bend.

If you surrender instead, you have an opportunity to coil around your enemy and strike with your fangs from close up.

Law 23: Concentrate your forces

intensity defeats extensity every time.

Law 24: Play the perfect courtier

The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around Power and politics dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yield to superiors and assert power in the most oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership  and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in court. below are the laws 

• Avoid ostentation: In simple words dont show-off or you will be monitored
• Practice non-chalance: Never seem to be work too hard. your talent should appear natural
• Be frugal with flattery: too much of anything is bad. don’t flatter seniors more than it looks un-natural. be vigilant and indirectly flatter the masters
• Arrange to be noticed: keep balance in noticing. dont show off too much but don’t get out of sight completely. make a balance
• Alter your style and language according to the person you are dealing with
• Never be the bearer of bad news
• Never affect friendliness and intimacy with your master
• Never criticize those above you directly
• Be frugal in asking those above you for favors
• Never joke about appearances of tastes
• Do not be the court cynic
• Be self observant
• Master your emotions
• Fit the spirits of the times
• Be the source of pleasure

Law 25: Recreate Yourself

Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you.

The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are doomed.

Remake yourself into a character of power. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks.

The first step in the process of self-creation is self-consciousness— being aware of yourself as an actor and taking control of your appearance and emotions.

The second step in the process of self-creation is a variation on the George Sand strategy: the creation of a memorable character, one that compels attention, that stands out above the other players on the stage.

Law 26: Keep your hands clean

Conceal your mistakes, have a scapegoat around to blame.

Make use of the cats paw.

Law 27: Play on people’s need to believe to create a cult like following

Five rules of cult making

• Keep it vague, keep it simple
• Emphasize the visual and sensational over the intellectual
• Borrow the forms of organized religion to structure the group
• Disguise your source of incomeSet up an us vs them dynamic

Law 28: Enter action with boldness

The bolder lie the better. Lions circle the hesitant prey.Boldness strikes fear, fear creates authority. Going halfway with half a heart digs a deeper grave. Hesitation creates gaps, boldness obliterates them. Audacity separates you from the herd.

When you are as small and obscure as David was, you must find a Goliath to attack. The larger the target, the more attention you gain.

Law 29: Plan all the way to the end

Planning is one of the most important aspect of life. Plan all the way to the end.

Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless

show your accomplishments like they are no big deal, this will strike your superiority in other’s mind.

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

You give people a sense of how things will fall apart without you, and you offer them a “choice”: 

• I stay away and you suffer the consequences, or I return under circumstances that I dictate.

Color the choices, propose three or four choices of action for each situation, and would present them in such a way that the one he preferred always seemed the best solution compared to the others.

Force the resister, Push them to “choose” what you want them to do by appearing to advocate the opposite.Alter the playing field.

The shrinking options: A variation on this technique is to raise the price every time the buyer hesitates and another day goes by. This is an excellent negotiating ploy to use on the chronically indecisive, who will fall for the idea that they are getting a better deal today than if they wait till tomorrow.

The weak man on the precipice: This tactic is similar to “Color the Choices,” but with the weak you have to be more aggressive. Work on their emotions— use fear and terror to propel them into action. Try reason and they will always find a way to procrastinate.

Brothers in Crime: You attract your victims to some criminal scheme, creating a bond of blood and guilt between you.

The horns of a dilemma: The lawyer leads the witnesses to decide between two possible explanations of an event, both of which poke a hole in their story. They have to answer the lawyer’s questions, but whatever they say they hurt themselves. The key to this move is to strike quickly: Deny the victim the time to think of an escape. As they wriggle between the horns of the dilemma, they dig their own grave.

Law 32: Play to people’s fantasies

People rarely believe that their problems arise from their own misdeeds and stupidity. Someone or something out there is to blame— the other, the world, the gods— and so salvation comes from the outside as well.

Law 33: Discover each man’s thumbscrew

Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an 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.

Finding the thumbscrews

Pay attention to gestures and unconscious signalsFind the helpless child, look to their childhoodLook for contrasts, an overt trait often reveals its oppositeFind the weak link,Fill their emotional voidFeed on their uncontrollable emotion

Always look for passions and obsessions that cannot be controlled. What people cannot control, you can control for them.

Law 34: Be royal in your own fashion. Act like a king to be treated like one

Attitude is base of look powerfull. if you want to be Powerfull act like one.

Law 35: Master the art of timing

Master the time or it will Mater you

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

Remember: You choose to let things bother you. You can just as easily choose not to notice the irritating offender, to consider the matter trivial and unworthy of your interest. That is the powerful move.

Desire often creates paradoxical effects: The more you want something, the more you chase after it, the more it eludes you. The more interest you show, the more you repel the object of your desire. This is because your interest is too strong— it makes people awkward, even fearful. Uncontrollable desire makes you seem weak, unworthy, pathetic.

Law 37: Create compelling spectacles

No notes.

Law 38: Think as you like but behave like others

If Machiavelli had had a prince for disciple, the first thing he would have recommended him to do would have been to write a book against Machiavellism.

Law 39: Stir up waters to catch fish

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.

Law 40: Despise the free lunch

The worth of money is not in its possession, but in its use.

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

Law 42: Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter

Within any group, trouble can most often be traced to a single source, the unhappy, chronically dissatisfied one who will always stir up dissension and infect the group with his or her ill ease. Before you know what hit you the dissatisfaction spreads. Act before it becomes impossible to disentangle

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

43: Work on the hearts and minds of others

Remember: The key to persuasion is softening people up and breaking them down, gently. Seduce them with a two-pronged approach: Work on their emotions and play on their intellectual weaknesses.

44: Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect

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.

45: Preach the need to change, but never reform too much at once

If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.

Even while people understand the need for change, knowing how important it is for institutions and individuals to be occasionally renewed, they are also irritated and upset by changes that affect them personally.

46: Never appear too perfect

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.

Do not try to help or do favors for those who envy you; they will think you are condescending to them.

47: Do not go past the mark you aimed for. In victory, know when to stop

48: Assume formlessness

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.