Transcription
You've got to understand the psychology behind power. The sense that you have no control, that you can't influence them with your ideas, is the most miserable feeling a human being can have. A lot of power is thinking ahead, two or three moves ahead. When you make other people think about what's going on in your head, you're the one who control of the situation. You just need to know these things.
You understand the most fundamental thing about human nature. What is power? It's not what you think it is. It's not, you know, Vladimir Putin or presidents or Biden or all these political figures and these big games. Power is a feeling. It's an essence. It's an emotion. It's a It's a human need and desire. And really, what power is is a sense of understanding yourself and and being able to control yourself. I like to look at it not through the lens of great power politics, but at it as an average everyday human being here in the United States or in England. The feeling that you have with your children, with your spouse, with your uh colleagues, the people who work for you, the sense that you have no control, that you can't influence them with your ideas, that you can't get them to maybe, you know, soften some of their ugly behavior if they if they have that, that you can't get them interested in helping you with a project or whatever, is the most miserable feeling a human being can have.
Malcolm X had a quote that I love, which is, "Absolute power corrupts, but absolute powerlessness corrupts even more." The feeling of powerlessness is actually more corrupting than the feeling of having a lot of power. Turns people into being passive-aggressive, into playing all kinds of weird games, negative games to get power. You want to feel that you have a degree of control over events in your life, over people, over your future. And that to me is what it power is. The sense that I'm not helpless in this world.
I remember when I first entered the work world as a very naive college graduate with all these ideals and things I'd read cuz I was studying literature and languages. I'm man, this is weird. People are playing all these kind of games. I'm in over my head. I made mistakes. I got fired for being, you know, too brash for to for outshine the master. It was painful. You just need to know these things so that when you enter the work world you're not naive, you're not stupid, you don't make the same kind of mistakes that I made. You spare yourself the pain.
You understand the most fundamental thing about human nature. People have egos. Even your boss has an ego. You think he he or she doesn't because they're powerful. They have They're even more insecure than other people. You need to be aware of these things so that you don't inadvertently make them feel insecure and suffer the consequences.
Yeah, well, if you can't control yourself, then you're in a lot of trouble in this world. If you can't control yourself, how can you control anything in your environment? How can you be a leader, right? So, you have to learn certain things about about your nature, about who you are and and not just just be anybody. You have to kind of tailor your appearances as well. Because for good or for bad, I'm a believer in looking at the human animal without shame and embarrassment, just as we are, right? And appearance does matter. It's the animal part of our nature. We we are We look at We look We judge people by how they how they how they appear, how they dress, their tone voice, their body language, etc., etc. It would be In an ideal world, we wouldn't judge people by appearances. We would just judge them by what's inside of them. Yes, I agree with that. But that we're not ideal. We're not descended from angels. We're descended from primates. So, you have to understand that appearances matter. And this is part of of the game. And so, you have to control your appearances a little bit. You have to tailor. You have to be a bit of actor in this world.
On and on and on. You know, we all have this idea like in the Laws of Human Nature, I write about irrationality, envy, aggression. We could go or narcissism. Narcissism is a good one. Oh, they're a narcissist. I'm not a narcissist. I'm not self-absorbed, but they are. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have any of those traits. Every single human being has self-absorption traits. We can't help it. We naturally think of ourselves first. Yes, there are people who are much deeper narcissists in life, no doubt. And there are toxic narcissists. But we all have a touch of it. I want you to be a little more humble in this world and not be so arrogant and not think that you are somehow exempt from having a dark side. That somehow you were born with a halo over your head. That you were born different. You don't have human nature. That you're a saintly person. You're much better. Get rid of your moral superiority cuz I find that deeply offensive. We are all cut from the same cloth. We all have the same flaws. But if you go around in life thinking, "I don't have any of these problems. I'm not a narcissist." You're never going to have the awareness to stop the fact that you are actually one.
The game of power is subtle. Human beings are subtle. They're complex, okay? I talk in the war book about Napoleon Bonaparte being kind of the master of what we of in warfare they call man management, motivation. And he would mix punishment and kindness. So, most of the time he was kind to his soldiers, right? But occasionally, he would be very mean and cruel and he would pick on people randomly to keep them on their heels so they didn't feel, "Wow, I can just do whatever I want because Napoleon likes me and and you know, I'm I'm he's on my side, etc." There's another law in there about using unpredictability to keep people in suspended terror. So, they don't know exactly what what you want so they have to try harder. You have to try harder to please you because they're not quite sure whether you like them or not, whether you find their work sufficient or not.
But where you really want to conceal your intentions is with your rivals, with your opponents, with your enemies. So, in warfare it's very obvious. It's very obvious in politics, but it's also very clear in business. If everybody of all the companies that are your rivals, if they know exactly where you're headed, they're going to steal they're going to try and and take over what you're doing. They're going to they're going to mimic you. They're going to mirror you. They know exactly where you're headed. You're too predictable. So, really where you really want to conceal your intentions is for those people who are not on your side, right? There's no there's no purpose for other people knowing who are not on your team for knowing what you're intending to do a year from now, a month from now, a week from now. There's no good in that, right? So, maybe your customers, your clients have a good sense of the brand, but you want to keep your enemies, your rivals completely on their heels, completely on the defense. You're on the offense.
You know, a lot of power is thinking ahead, two or three moves ahead. And in order to see think several moves in advance, you you know what your intentions are. You know where you're going to go in 6 months, right? And so, you have to have a vision of where you're headed, but you have to keep everybody else in the dark so that they can't predict what's happening next. So, part of concealing intentions, part of business, part of power is the ability to think strategically, to think in advance, to think several moves in advance. And that means having intentions, having moves that you planned out, but you want to keep other people on their heels. They don't know where you're going to go next.
When you talk, then then they kind of know who you are and they they start to almost disregard you. But when you're silent, particularly someone like him, "Why is 50 not reacting to what I'm talking about? Why isn't he saying he loves my ideas? What's he thinking? What's going on in his head?" When you make other people think about what's going on in your head, you're the one in control of the situation. Whereas if they know everything that you're thinking, everything that you're doing, then they have power. They have power over you. So, I would see him in a meeting and he would sit there all quiet and everybody else would be freaking out.
So, to sum it up, it's an aura of power, but it's also pure psychology, right? You've got to understand the psychology behind power. And I don't know what you're thinking now right now, Mark. It's appearances, right? You could be wearing a mask. You're smiling right now, but you're smiling You might not really be smiling. You might be kind of uncomfortable. You may not like me or something like that. I don't know. You're wearing a mask. So, power is about appearances and there's weakness and in my book, The Laws of Human Nature, I talk about the kind of the weak body language, the weak fixed signs that people can kind of feed off of you. They smell it. Then there are powerful things. And you You to create this aura of power, even though inside you might not feel so powerful or feel so comfortable or secure. But outwardly you want to show this appearance that puts makes people think, "Wow, this guy, he's he's authority. I respect him."
Talking less creates an aura of power. It makes you look larger than you actually are. It makes you think make people think, "He's mysterious. She He or she's mysterious." When you talk a lot, I don't know if you've noticed this, but people who talk a lot, they kind of there's something insecure about them. If you can't control your own mouth, if you can't control that, then what can you control? You can't control your emotions, you can't control your behavior. It signals weakness and insecurity. Whereas talking less, you're not going to say something stupid. And then when you do speak, it it's going to carry a lot of weight. So, it seems like a an important law always talk less than necessary less than necessary. It was actually extremely important to understand the psychology of what gives the appearance the aura of power and what doesn't.
Down to the baseline of every human being, we're all actors. Some are good actors, some act more, some are bad actors. But I always tell people if you look at children, 3 or 4 years old, or you remember your own childhood, you were constantly pretending, you were constantly acting to your parents. You would act like an angel to get something that you wanted. You'd act all sweet and innocent because you wanted some game. Being an actor is part of human nature. It's deeply deeply ingrained in all of us because we're a social animal. If you went around just speaking everything that you thought, you would offend everyone around you, right? If you told somebody that their clothes are ugly, that they look fat, that their ideas are stupid, they're going to hate you. You're not going to get very far in life. So, you learn at an early age to control what you say, to control who you are, to control what you do. So, get over this notion that we can all just hang out and just be who we are. You're never being who you are. You're always acting to some degree.
People rise to power. They become a CEO. They become a leader. They become a president or whatever based on certain qualities that they have, a strength. It could be aggression. It could be being a people pleaser, being just very empathetic. It could be having a populist touch. Could be good with words, an orator. That's their strength. They use that and they get a lot of power because they're good at They don't have to think about it. It's almost natural to them. They get to a position of power and now the times are changing cuz things are always changing, particularly nowadays, where things change month by month, right? Trends are changing. Young people are coming up. Tastes are changing. The world is changing. Your rivals are changing. The business world is changing. And you're still holding on to that one quality that brought you to the top. You're still thinking that my aggression or that my being popular and and pleasing everybody or my speaking well. And you keep holding on to that and the world has passed you by and you're weak.
And Machiavelli said, "If I could create the monster, the perfect, the Frankenstein of of a leader in business or politics, whatever, it would be somebody who could change with the times. Who They rose to power based on a strength. They see that it's not quite the right quality and they adapt and they become and they move with the times." He compared it to a river, right? And you're kind of moving like the water. You're flowing with this this river. And that's power. But being rigid and having a form and having a strategy that you always rely on, and having a personality that you always exude to the world and perform as is weak because you can't adapt. I mean, think of your own business, your own business, your business in the last 3 years. Can you begin to imagine all the incredible shifts that have occurred in just that time? To change yourself to become fluid, to be something different means you have to let go of the past. You have to let go of your ego. So, that's a very important quality. It's a delicate game. As I tried to say in the beginning, don't think of power as this these are these set laws that I have to follow. It's got to be this way. It's got to be A or B or C. Open your mind up. Don't be so Don't be so rigid about it.
So, sometimes you have to be consistent. Right? That's your brand. If you're suddenly changing your brand every 6 months, people don't know who you are, don't know what it's about. You're going to lose your customers, your clients. Right? But if you're too stuck, if you're too always the same, people are going to be bored with you. So, the game in 2025 and moving forward has a lot to do with attention. But attention is is money. Attention is something that you can monetize, right? Being able to get the attention in a world where people you're competing with millions of other people billions of other people out there, right? In order to gain people's attention, people get very bored. Right? They get very bored very quickly if you're always the same, if you always have one note.