The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene | Full Audiobook 🎧

[Music] preface the feeling of having no power over people and events is generally unbearable to us. When we feel helpless, we feel miserable. No one wants less power; everyone wants more.

In the world today, however, it is dangerous to seem too power-hungry, to be overt with your power moves. We have to seem fair and decent, so we need to be subtle, congenial yet cunning, Democratic yet devious. This game of constant duplicity most resembles the power dynamic that existed in the scheming world of the old aristocratic Court.

Throughout history, a court has always formed itself around the person in power—king, queen, emperor, leader. The courtiers who filled this court were in an especially delicate position. They had to serve their masters, but if they seemed to fawn, if they carried favor too obviously, the other courtiers around them would notice and would act against them. Attempts to win the master's favor, then, had to be subtle and even skilled. Courtiers capable of such subtlety still had to protect themselves from their fellow courtiers who, at all moments, were scheming to push them aside. Meanwhile, the court was supposed to represent the height of civilization and refinement; violent or overt power moves were frowned upon. Courtiers would work silently and secretly against any among them who used force. This was the courtier's dilemma: while appearing the very paragon of elegance, they had to outwit and thwart their own opponents in the subtlest of ways. The successful courtier learned, over time, to make all of his moves indirect. If he stabbed an opponent in the back, it was with a velvet glove on his hand and the sweetest of smiles on his face. Instead of using coercion or outright treachery, the perfect courtier got his way through seduction, charm, deception, and subtle strategy, always planning several moves ahead. Life in the court was a never-ending game that required constant vigilance and tactical thinking; it was civilized war.

Today we face a peculiarly similar paradox to that of the courtier. Everything must appear civilized, decent, Democratic, and fair. But if we play by those rules too strictly, if we take them too literally, we are crushed by those around us who are not so foolish. As the great Renaissance diplomat and courtier Niccolò Machiavelli wrote, any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.

The court imagined itself the pinnacle of refinement, but underneath its glittering surface, a cauldron of dark emotions—greed, envy, lust, hatred—boiled and simmered. Our world today similarly imagines itself the pinnacle of fairness, yet the same ugly emotions still stir within us as they have forever. The game is the same: outwardly you must seem to respect the niceties, but inwardly, unless you are a fool, you learn quickly to be prudent and to do as Napoleon advised: place your iron hand inside a velvet glove.

If, like the courtier of times gone by, you can master the arts of indirection—learning to seduce, charm, deceive, and subtly outmaneuver your opponents—you will attain the heights of power. You will be able to make people bend to your will without their realizing what you have done, and if they do not realize what you have done, they will neither resent nor resist you.

To some people, the notion of consciously playing power games, no matter how indirect, seems evil, asocial, a relic of the past. They believe they can opt out of the game by behaving in ways that have nothing to do with power. You must beware of such people; they are often among the most adept players at power. They utilize strategies that cleverly disguise the nature of the manipulation involved. These types, for example, will often display their weakness and lack of power as a kind of moral virtue. But true powerlessness, without any motive of self-interest, would not publicize its weakness to gain sympathy or respect. Making a show of one's weakness is actually a very effective strategy, subtle and deceptive in the game of power.

Another strategy of the supposed non-player is to demand equality in every area of life: everyone must be treated alike, whatever their status and strength. But if, to avoid the taint of power, you attempt to treat everyone equally and fairly, you will confront the problem that some people do certain things better than others. Treating everyone equally means ignoring their differences, elevating the less skillful and suppressing those who excel. Again, many of those who behave this way are actually deploying another power strategy: redistributing people's rewards in a way that they determine.

Yet another way of avoiding the game would be perfect honesty and straightforwardness, since one of the main techniques of those who seek power is deceit and secrecy. But being perfectly honest will inevitably hurt and insult a great many people, some of whom will choose to injure you in return. No one will see your honest statement as completely objective and free of some personal motivation, and they will be right. In truth, the use of honesty is indeed a power strategy intended to convince people of one's noble, good-hearted, selfless character; it is a form of persuasion, even a subtle form of coercion.

Finally, those who claim to be non-players may affect an air of naiveté to protect them from the accusation that they are after power. Beware again, however, for the appearance of naiveté can be an effective means of deceit, and even genuine naiveté is not free of the snares of power. Children may be naive in many ways, but they often act from an elemental need to gain control over those around them. Children suffer greatly from feeling powerless in the adult world, and they use any means available to get their way. Genuinely innocent people may still be playing for power and are often horribly effective at the game since they are not hindered by reflection. Once again, those who make a show or display 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 exquisite sense of justice. But since all of us hunger for power and almost all of our actions are aimed at gaining it, the non-players are merely throwing dust in our eyes, distracting us from their power plays with their air of moral superiority. If you observe them closely, you will see, in fact, that they are often the ones most skillful at indirect manipulation, even if some of them practice it unconsciously, and they greatly resent any publicizing of the tactics they use every day.

If the world is like a giant scheming court and we are trapped inside it, there is no use in trying to opt out of the game; that will only render you powerless, and powerlessness will make you miserable. Instead of struggling against the inevitable, instead of arguing and whining and feeling guilty, it is far better to excel at power. In fact, the better you are at dealing with power, the better friend, lover, husband, wife, and person you become. By following the route of the perfect courtier, you learn to make others feel better about themselves, becoming a source of pleasure to them. They will grow dependent on your abilities and desires, of your presence. By mastering the 48 Laws in this book, you spare others the pain that comes from bungling with power, by playing with fire without knowing its properties. If the game of power is inescapable, better to be an artist than a denier or a bungler.

Learning the game of power requires a certain way of looking at the world, a shifting of perspective. It takes effort and years of practice, for much of the game may not come naturally. Certain basic skills are required, and once you master these skills, you will be able to apply the laws of power more easily. The most important of these skills, and power's crucial foundation, is the ability to master your emotions. An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings. Emotions cloud reason, and if you cannot see the situation clearly, you cannot prepare for and respond to it with any degree of control. Anger is the most destructive of emotional responses, for it clouds your vision the most; it also has a ripple effect that invariably makes situations less controllable and heightens your enemy's resolve. If you are trying to destroy an enemy who has hurt you, far better to keep him off guard by feigning friendliness than showing your anger. Love and affection are also potentially destructive in that they blind you to the often self-serving interests of those whom you least suspect of playing a power game. You cannot repress anger or love or avoid feeling them, and you should not try, but you should be careful about how you express them, and most important, they should never influence your plans and strategies in any way.

Related to mastering your emotions is the ability to distance yourself from the present moment and think objectively about the past and future. Like the double-faced Roman deity and guardian of all gates and doorways, you must be able to look in both directions at once, the better to handle danger from wherever it comes. Such is the face you must create for yourself: one face looking continuously to the future, and the other to the past. For the future, the motto is "no days unalert." Nothing should catch you by surprise because you are constantly imagining problems before they arise. Instead of spending your time dreaming of your plans' happy ending, you must work on calculating every possible permutation and pitfall that might emerge in it. The further you see, the more steps ahead you plan, the more powerful you become.

The other face of Janus looks constantly to the past, though not to remember past hurts or bear grudges; that would only curb your power. Half of the game is learning how to forget those events in the past that eat away at you and cloud your reason. The real purpose of the backward-glancing eye is to educate yourself constantly. You look at the past to learn from those who came before you; the many historical examples in this book will greatly help that process. Then, having looked to the past, you look closer at hand to your own actions and those of your friends. This is the most vital school you can learn from because it comes from personal experience. You begin by examining the mistakes you have made in the past, the ones that have most grievously held you back. You analyze them in terms of the 48 Laws of Power, and you extract from them a lesson and an oath: "I shall never repeat such a mistake; I shall never fall into such a trap again." If you can evaluate and observe yourself in this way, you can learn to break the patterns of the past—an immensely valuable skill.

Power requires the ability to play with appearances; to this end, you must learn to wear many masks and keep a bag full of deceptive tricks. Deception and masquerade should not be seen as ugly or immoral. All human interaction requires deception on many levels, and in some ways, what separates humans from animals is our ability to lie and deceive. In Greek myths, in India's Mahabharata cycle, in the Middle Eastern Epic of Gilgamesh, it is the privilege of the gods to use deceptive arts. A great man—Odysseus, for instance—was judged by his ability to rival the craftiness of the gods, stealing of their divine power by matching them in wits and deception. Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power. You cannot succeed at deception unless you take a somewhat distanced approach to yourself, unless you can be many different people, wearing the mask that the day and the moment require. With such a flexible approach to all appearances, including your own, you lose a lot of the inward heaviness that holds people down. Make your face as malleable as the actor's; work to conceal your intentions from others. Practice luring people into traps. Playing with appearances and mastering the arts of deception are among the aesthetic pleasures of life; they are also key components in the acquisition of power.

If deception is the most potent weapon in your arsenal, then patience in all things is your crucial shield. Patience will protect you from making moronic blunders. Like mastering your emotions, patience is a skill; it does not come naturally, but nothing about power is natural. Power is more godlike than anything in the natural world, and patience is the supreme virtue of the gods who have nothing but time. Everything good will happen; the grass will grow again if you give it time and see several steps into the future. Impatience, on the other hand, only makes you look weak; it is a principal impediment to power.

Power is essentially amoral, and one of the most important skills to acquire is the ability to see circumstances rather than good or evil. Power is a game—this cannot be repeated too often—and in games you do not judge your opponents by their intentions but by the effect of their actions. You measure their strategy and their power by what you can see and feel. How often are someone's intentions made the issue only to cloud and deceive? What does it matter if another player—your friend or rival—intended good things and had only your interests at heart if the effects of his action lead to so much ruin and confusion? It is only natural for people to cover up their actions with all kinds of justifications, always assuming that they have acted out of goodness. You must learn to inwardly laugh each time you hear this and never get caught up in gauging someone's intentions and actions through a set of moral judgments that are really an excuse for the accumulation of power. It is a game. Your opponent sits opposite you; both of you behave as gentlemen or ladies, observing the rules of the game and taking nothing personally. You play with a strategy, and you observe your opponent's moves with as much calmness as you can muster. In the end, you will appreciate the politeness of those you are playing with more than their good and sweet intentions. Train your eye to follow the results of their moves, the outward circumstances, and do not be distracted by anything else.

Half of your mastery of power comes from what you do not do, what you do not allow yourself to get dragged into. For this skill, you must learn to judge all things by what they cost you. As Nietzsche wrote, the value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it but in what one pays for it, what it costs us. Perhaps you will attain your goal, and a worthy goal at that, but at what price? Apply this standard to everything, including whether to collaborate with other people, to come to their aid. In the end, like life, is short; opportunities are few, and you have only so much energy to draw on, and in this sense, time is as important a consideration as any other. Never waste valuable time or mental peace of mind on the affairs of others; that is too high a price to pay.

Power is a social game. To learn and master it, you must develop the ability to study and understand people. As the great 17th-century thinker and courtier Balthasar Gracian wrote, many people spend time studying the properties of animals or herbs; how much more important it would be to study those of people with whom we must live or die. To be a master player, you must also be a master psychologist. You must recognize motivations and see through the cloud of dust with which people surround their actions. An understanding of people's hidden motives is the single greatest piece of knowledge you can have in acquiring power; it opens up endless possibilities of deception, seduction, and manipulation. People are of infinite complexity, and you can spend a lifetime watching them without ever fully understanding them, so it is all the more important than to begin your education now. In doing so, you must also keep one principle in mind: never discriminate as to whom you study and whom you trust. Never trust anyone completely, and study everyone, including friends and loved ones.

Finally, you must learn always to take the indirect route to power. Disguise your cunning like a billiard ball that caroms several times before it hits its target. Your moves must be planned and developed in the least obvious way. By training yourself to be indirect, you can thrive in the modern court, appearing the paragon of decency while being the consummate manipulator.

Consider the 48 Laws of Power a kind of handbook on the arts of indirection. The laws are based on the writings of men and women who have studied and mastered the game of power. These writings span a period of more than 3,000 years and were created in civilizations as disparate as ancient China and Renaissance Italy, yet they share common threads and themes, together hinting at an essence of power that has yet to be fully or adequately articulated. The 48 Laws of Power are the distillation of this accumulated wisdom, gathered from the writings of the most illustrious strategists, statesmen, courtiers, seducers, and con artists in history. The laws have a simple premise: certain actions almost always increase one's power; the observance of the law, while others decrease it and even ruin us, the transgression of the law. These transgressions and observances are illustrated by historical examples. The laws are timeless and definitive.

The 48 Laws of Power can be used in several ways. By listening to this program straight through, you can learn about power in general, although several of the laws may seem not to pertain directly to your life. In time, you will probably find that all of them have some application and that, in fact, they are interrelated. By getting an overview of the entire subject, you will best be able to evaluate your own past actions and gain a greater degree of control over your immediate affairs. The program can also be picked apart for entertainment, for an enjoyable ride through the foibles and great deeds of our predecessors in power. A warning, however, to those who use the program for this purpose: it might be better to turn back. Power is endlessly seductive and deceptive in its own way; it is a labyrinth. Your mind becomes consumed with solving its infinite problems, and you soon realize how pleasantly lost you have become. In other words, it becomes most amusing by taking it seriously. Do not be frivolous with such a critical matter; the gods of power frown on the frivolous. They give ultimate satisfaction only to those who study and reflect and punish those who skim the surfaces looking for a good [Music] time.

Law One: Never Outshine the Master. Judgment: Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please and 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.

Transgression of the Law: Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's Finance Minister, in the first years of his reign, was a generous man who loved lavish parties, pretty women, and poetry. He also loved money, for he led an extravagant lifestyle. Fouquet was clever and very much indispensable to the king, so when the Prime Minister, Jules Mazarin, died in 1661, the Finance Minister expected to be named the successor. Instead, the king decided to abolish the position. This and other signs made Fouquet suspect that he was falling out of favor, and so he decided to ingratiate himself with the King by staging the most spectacular party the world had ever seen. The party's ostensible purpose would be to commemorate the completion of Vaux-le-Vicomte, but its real function was to pay tribute to the king, the guest of honor. The most brilliant nobility of Europe and some of the greatest minds of the time—La Fontaine, La Rochefoucauld, Madame de Sévigné—attended the party. Molière wrote a play for the occasion in which he himself was to perform at the evening's conclusion. The party began with a lavish seven-course dinner featuring foods from the Orient never before tasted in France, as well as new dishes created especially for the night. The meal was accompanied with music commissioned by Fouquet to honor the King. After dinner, there was a promenade through the château's gardens. The grounds and fountains of Vaux were to be the inspiration for Versailles. Fouquet personally accompanied the young king through the geometrically aligned arrangements of shrubbery and flower beds. Arriving at the garden's canals, they witnessed a fireworks display, which was followed by the performance of Molière's play. The party ran well into the night, and everyone agreed it was the most amazing affair they had ever attended. The next day, Fouquet was arrested by the king's head musketeer, d'Artagnan. Three months later, he went on trial for stealing from the country's treasury. Actually, most of the stealing he was accused of he had done on the king's behalf and with the king's permission. Fouquet was found guilty and sent to the most isolated prison in France, high in the Pyrenees mountains, where he spent the last 20 years of his life in solitary confinement.

Interpretation: Louis XIV, the Sun King, was a proud and arrogant man who wanted to be the center of attention at all times. He could not countenance being outdone in lavishness by anyone, and certainly not his finance minister. To succeed Fouquet, Louis chose Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a man famous for his parsimony and for giving the dullest party in Paris. Colbert made sure that any money liberated from the treasury went straight into Louis's hands. With the money, Louis built a palace even more magnificent than Fouquet's: the glorious Palace of Versailles. He used the same architects, decorators, and garden designers, and at Versailles, Louis hosted parties even more extravagant than the one that cost Fouquet his freedom. Let us examine the situation the evening of the party. As Fouquet presented spectacle on spectacle to Louis, each more magnificent than the one before, he imagined the affair as demonstrating his loyalty and devotion to the king. Not only did he think the party would put him back in the king's favor, he thought it would show his good taste, his connections, and his popularity, making him indispensable to the king and demonstrating that he would make an excellent prime minister. Instead, however, each new spectacle, each appreciative smile bestowed by the guests on Fouquet, made it seem to Louis that his own friends and subjects were more charmed by the Finance Minister than by the king himself, and that Fouquet was actually flaunting his wealth and power rather than flattering Louis XIV. Fouquet's elaborate party offended the king's vanity. Louis would not admit this to anyone, of course. Instead, he found a convenient excuse to rid himself of a man who had inadvertently made him feel insecure. Such is the fate, in some form or other, of all those who unbalance the master's sense of self, poke holes in his vanity, or make him doubt his preeminence.

Observance of the Law: In the early 1600s, the Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo found himself in a precarious position. He depended on the generosity of great rulers to support his research, and so, like all Renaissance scientists, he would sometimes make gifts of his inventions and discoveries to the leading patrons of the time. Once, for instance, he presented a military compass he had invented to the Duke of Gonzaga; then he dedicated a book explaining the use of the compass to the Medici. Both rulers were grateful, and through them, Galileo was able to find more students to teach. No matter how great the discovery, however, his patrons usually paid him with gifts, not cash. This made for a life of constant insecurity and dependence. "There must be an easier way," he thought. Galileo hit on a new strategy in 1610 when he discovered the moons of Jupiter. Instead of dividing the discovery among his patrons—giving one the telescope he had used, dedicating a book to another, and so on, as he had done in the past—he decided to focus exclusively on the Medici. He chose the Medici for one reason: shortly after Cosimo I had established the Medici dynasty in 1540, he had made Jupiter the mightiest of the gods, the Medici symbol—a symbol of power that went beyond politics and banking, one linked to ancient Rome and its divinities. Galileo turned his discovery of Jupiter's moons into a cosmic event honoring the Medici greatness. Shortly after the discovery, he announced that the bright stars—the moons of Jupiter—offered themselves in the heavens to his telescope at the same time as Cosimo II's enthronement. He said that the number of the moons—four—harmonized with the number of the Medici: Cosimo II had three brothers, and that the moons orbited Jupiter as these four suns revolved around Cosimo, the dynasty's founder. More than coincidence, this showed that the heavens themselves reflected the ascendancy of the Medici family. After he dedicated the discovery to the Medici, Galileo commissioned an emblem representing Jupiter sitting on a cloud with the four stars circling about him and presented this to Cosimo II as a symbol of his link to the stars. In 1610, Cosimo II made Galileo his official court philosopher and mathematician with a full salary—for a scientist, this was the coup of a lifetime. The days of begging for patronage were over.

Interpretation: In one stroke, Galileo gained more with his new strategy than he had in years of begging. The reason is simple: all masters want to appear more brilliant than other people. The producer of a great work wants to feel he is more than just the

Provider the financing he wants. He wants to appear creative and powerful, and also more important than the work produced in his name. Instead of insecurity, you must give him glory. Galileo did not challenge the intellectual authority of the Medici with his Discovery, or make them feel inferior in any way. By literally aligning them with the stars, he made them shine brilliantly among the courts of Italy. He did not outshine the master; he made the master outshine all others.

Keys to power: When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all. Do not fool yourself into thinking that life has changed much since the days of Louis the 14th and the Medici. Those who attain high standing in life are like kings and queens; they want to feel secure in their positions and superior to those around them in intelligence, wit, and charm.

It is a deadly but common misperception to believe that by displaying and vaunting your gifts and talents, you are winning the Master's affection. He may feign appreciation, but at his first opportunity, he will replace you with someone less intelligent, less attractive, less threatening. Just as Louis the 14th replaced the sparkling Fouquet with the bland Colbert, and as with Louis, he will not admit the truth but will find an excuse to rid himself of your presence.

This law involves two rules that you must realize: First, you can inadvertently outshine a master simply by being yourself. There are Masters who are more insecure than others—monstrously insecure. You may naturally outshine them by your charm and grace. No one had more natural talents than Asor Manfredi, Prince of Fenza, the most handsome of all the young princes of Italy. He captivated his subjects with his generosity and open spirit. In the year 1500, Cesare Borgia laid siege to Fenza. When the city surrendered, the citizens expected the worst from the cruel Borgia, who, however, decided to spare the town. He simply occupied its fortress, executed none of its citizens, and allowed Prince Manfredi (18 at the time) to remain with his court in complete freedom. A few weeks later, though, soldiers hauled Asor Manfredi away to a Roman prison. A year after that, his body was fished out of the river Tiber, a stone tied around his neck. Borgia justified the horrible deed with some sort of trumped-up charge of treason and conspiracy, but the real problem was that he was notoriously vain and insecure. The young man was outshining him without even trying. Given Manfredi's natural talents, the prince's mere presence made Borgia seem less attractive and charismatic.

The lesson is simple: If you cannot help being charming and superior, you must learn to avoid such monsters of vanity. Either that, or find a way to mute your good qualities when in the company of a Cesare Borgia.

Second, never imagine that because the Master loves you, you can do anything you want. Entire books could be written about favorites who fell out of favor by taking their status for granted, for daring to outshine.

Knowing the dangers of outshining your master, you can turn this law to your advantage. First, you must flatter and puff up your master. Overt flattery can be effective but has its limits; it is too direct and obvious and looks bad to other courtiers. Discreet flattery is much more powerful. If you are more intelligent than your master, for example, seem the opposite; make him appear more intelligent than you. Act naive; make it seem that you need his expertise. Commit harmless mistakes that will not hurt you in the long run but will give you the chance to ask for his help. Masters adore such requests. A master who cannot bestow on you the gifts of his experience may direct rancor and ill will at you instead. If your ideas are more creative than your Master's, ascribe them to him in as public a manner as possible. Make it clear that your advice is merely an echo of his advice. He must appear as the sun around which everyone revolves, radiating power and brilliance, the center of attention. If you are thrust into the position of entertaining him, a display of your limited means may win you his sympathy. Any attempt to impress him with your grace and generosity can prove fatal. Learn from Fouquet or pay the price. In all of these cases, it is not a weakness to disguise your strengths if in the end they lead to power. By letting others outshine you, you remain in control instead of being a victim of their insecurity. This will all come in handy the day you decide to rise above your inferior status. If, like Galileo, you can make your master shine even more in the eyes of others, then you are a godsend, and you will be instantly promoted.

Law Two: Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies. Judgment: Be wary of friends; they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy, and he will be more loyal 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 make them.

Transgression of the law: In the mid-9th century A.D., a young man named Michael III assumed the throne of the Byzantine Empire. His mother, the Empress Theodora, had been banished to a nunnery, and her lover, Theus, had been murdered. At the head of the conspiracy to depose Theodora and enthrone Michael had been Michael's uncle, Bardas, a man of intelligence and ambition. Michael was now a young, inexperienced ruler, surrounded by intriguers, murderers, and profligates. In this time of peril, he needed someone he could trust as his counselor, and his thoughts turned to Basil, his best friend. Basil had no experience whatsoever in government and politics; in fact, he was the head of the royal stables. But he had proven his love and gratitude time and again. They had met a few years before when Michael had been visiting the stables, just as a wild horse got loose. Basil, a young groom from peasant Macedonian stock, had saved Michael's life. The groom's strength and courage had impressed Michael, who immediately raised Basil from the obscurity of being a horse trainer to the position of head of the stables. He loaded his friend with gifts and favors, and they became inseparable. Basil was sent to the finest school in Byzantium, and the crude peasant became a cultured and sophisticated courtier. Now Michael was Emperor and in need of someone loyal; who could he better trust with the post of Chamberlain and chief counselor than a young man who owed him everything? Basil could be trained for the job, and Michael loved him like a brother. Ignoring the advice of those who recommended the much more qualified Bardas, Michael chose his friend. Basil learned well and was soon advising the emperor on all matters of state. The only problem seemed to be money; Basil never had enough. Exposure to the splendor of Byzantine court life made him avaricious for the perks of power. Michael doubled then tripled his salary, ennobled him, and married him off to his own mistress, Eudoxia Ingara. Keeping such a trusted friend and advisor satisfied was worth any price, but more trouble was to come. Bardas was now head of the army, and Basil convinced Michael that the man was hopelessly ambitious. Under the illusion that he could control his nephew, Bardas had conspired to put him on the throne, and he could conspire again, this time to get rid of Michael and assume the crown himself. Basil poured poison into Michael's ear until the emperor agreed to have his uncle murdered during a great horse race. Basil closed in on Bardas in the crowd and stabbed him to death. Soon after, Basil asked that he replace Bardas as head of the army, where he could keep control of the realm and quell rebellion. This was granted. Now Basil's power and wealth only grew, and a few years later, Michael, in financial straits from his own extravagance, asked him to pay back some of the money he had borrowed over the years. To Michael's shock and astonishment, Basil refused, with a look of such impudence that the emperor suddenly realized his predicament. The former stable boy had more money, more allies in the army and Senate, and in the end, more power than the emperor himself. A few weeks later, after a night of heavy drinking, Michael awoke to find himself surrounded by soldiers. Basil watched as they stabbed the emperor to death. Then, after proclaiming himself Emperor, he rode his horse through the streets of Byzantium, brandishing the head of his former benefactor and best friend at the end of a long pike.

Interpretation: Michael staked his future on the sense of gratitude he thought Basil must feel for him. Surely Basil would serve him best; he owed the emperor his wealth, his education, and his position. It was only on the fateful day when the emperor saw that impudent smile on Basil's face that he realized his deadly mistake. He had created a monster. He had allowed a man to see power up close, a man who then wanted more, who asked for anything and got it, who felt encumbered by the charity he had received and simply did what many people do in such a situation: They forget the favors they have received and imagine they have earned their success by their own merits. At Michael's moment of realization, he still could have saved his own life, but friendship and love blind every man to their interests. Nobody believes a friend can betray, and Michael went on disbelieving until the day his head ended up on a pike.

Keys to power: It is natural to want to employ your friends when you find yourself in times of need. The world is a harsh place, and your friends soften the harshness. Besides, you know them. Why depend on a stranger when you have a friend at hand? The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. When you decide to hire a friend, you gradually discover the qualities he or she has kept hidden. Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything. People want to feel they deserve their good fortune. The receipt of a favor can become oppressive; it means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving. There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly—a little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there—and before you know it, your friendship fades. The more favors and gifts you supply to revive the friendship, the less gratitude you receive. All working situations require a kind of distance between people; you are trying to work, not make friends. Friendliness, real or false, only obscures that fact. The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations. Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent whenever you can. Bury the hatchet with an enemy and make a point of putting him in your service. Never let the presence of enemies upset or distress you; you are far better off with a declared opponent or two than not knowing where your real enemies lie. The man of power welcomes conflict, using enemies to enhance his reputation as a sure-footed fighter who can be relied upon in times of uncertainty.

Law Three: Conceal your intentions. Judgment: Keep people off balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path; envelop them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.

Part One: Use decoy objects of desire and red herrings to throw people off the scent. If at any point in the deception you practice, people have the slightest suspicion as to your intentions, all is lost. Do not give them the chance to sense what you are up to; throw them off the scent by dragging red herrings across the path. Use false sincerity; send ambiguous signals; set up misleading objects of desire. Unable to distinguish the genuine from the false, they cannot pick out your real goal.

Observance of the law: In 1850, the young Otto von Bismarck, then a 35-year-old deputy in the Prussian Parliament, was at a turning point in his career. The issues of the day were the unification of the many states, including Prussia, into which Germany was then divided, and a war against Austria, the powerful neighbor to the south that hoped to keep the Germans weak and at odds, even threatening to intervene if they tried to unite. Prince William, next in line to be Prussia's king, was in favor of going to war, and the Parliament rallied to the cause, prepared to back any mobilization of troops. The only ones to oppose war were the present King Frederick William IV and his ministers, who preferred to appease the powerful Austrians. Throughout his career, Bismarck had been a loyal, even passionate, supporter of Prussian might and power. He dreamed of German unification, of going to war against Austria, and humiliating the country that for so long had kept Germany divided. A former soldier, he saw warfare as a glorious business. This, after all, was the man who years later would say, "The great questions of the time will be decided not by speeches and resolutions but by iron and blood." Passionate patriot and lover of military glory, Bismarck nevertheless gave a speech in Parliament at the height of the war fever that astonished all who heard it. "Woe unto the statesman," he said, "who makes war without a reason that will still be valid when the war is over. After the war, you will all look differently at these questions. Will you then have the courage to turn to the peasant contemplating the ashes of his farm, to the man who has been crippled, to the father who has lost his children?" Not only did Bismarck go on to talk of the madness of this war, but strangest of all, he praised Austria and defended her actions. This went against everything he had stood for. The consequences were immediate; Bismarck was against the war. What could this possibly mean? Other deputies were confused, and several of them changed their votes. Eventually, the king and his ministers won out, and war was averted. A few weeks after Bismarck's infamous speech, the king, grateful that he had spoken for peace, made him a cabinet minister. A few years later, he became the Prussian Premier. In this role, he eventually led his country and a peace-loving king into a war against Austria, crushing the former empire and establishing a mighty German state with Prussia at its head.

Interpretation: At the time of his speech in 1850, Bismarck made several calculations. First, he sensed that the Prussian military, which had not kept pace with other European armies, was unready for war; that Austria, in fact, might very well win—a disastrous result for the future. Second, if the war were lost and Bismarck had supported it, his career would be gravely jeopardized. The king and his conservative ministers wanted peace; Bismarck wanted power. The answer was to throw people off the scent by supporting a cause he detested, saying things he would laugh at if said by another. A whole country was fooled. It was because of Bismarck's speech that the king made him a minister, a position from which he quickly rose to be prime minister, attaining the power to strengthen the Prussian military and accomplish what he had wanted all along: the humiliation of Austria and the unification of Germany under Prussia's leadership. Through insincerity and misleading signals, he deceived everyone, concealed his purpose, and attained everything he wanted. Such is the power of hiding your intentions.

Keys to power: Most people are open books. They say what they feel, blurt out their opinions at every opportunity, and 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 takes effort to control your tongue and monitor what you reveal. Second, many believe that by being honest and open, they are winning people's hearts and showing their good nature. They are greatly deluded. Honesty is actually a blunt instrument, which bloodies more than it cuts. Your honesty is likely to offend people. 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. If you yearn for power, quickly lay honesty aside and train yourself in the art of concealing your intentions. Master the art, and you will always have the upper hand.

Basic to an ability to conceal one's intentions is a simple truth about human nature: Our first instinct is to always trust appearances. We cannot go around doubting the reality of what we see and hear, constantly imagining that appearances concealed something else; it would exhaust and terrify us. This fact makes it relatively easy to conceal one's intentions. Simply dangle an object you seem to desire, a goal you seem to aim for, in front of people's eyes, and they will take the appearance for reality. Once their eyes focus on the decoy, they will fail to notice what you are really up to. You can use this tactic in the following manner: Hide your intentions not by closing up, with the risk of appearing secretive and making people suspicious, but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals—just not your real ones. You will kill three birds with one stone: You appear friendly, open, and trusting; you conceal your intentions; and you send your rivals on time-consuming goose chases.

Another powerful tool in throwing people off the scent is false sincerity. People easily mistake sincerity for honesty. Remember, their first instinct is to trust appearances, and since they value honesty and want to believe in the honesty of those around them, they will rarely doubt you or see through your act. Seeming to believe what you say gives your words great weight. To make your false sincerity an effective weapon in concealing your intentions, espouse a belief in honesty and forthrightness as important social values. Do this as publicly as possible. Emphasize your position on this subject by occasionally divulging some heartfelt thought—though only one that is actually meaningless or irrelevant, of course. Napoleon's minister, Talleyrand, was a master at taking people into his confidence by revealing some apparent secret. This feigned confidence, a decoy, would then elicit a real confidence on the other person's part. Remember, the best deceivers do everything they can to cloak their roguish qualities; they cultivate an air of honesty in one area to disguise their dishonesty in others. Honesty is merely another decoy in their arsenal of weapons.

Part Two: Use smoke screens to disguise your actions. Deception is always the best strategy, but the best deceptions require a screen of smoke to distract people's attention from your real purpose. The bland exterior, like the unreadable poker face, is often the perfect smoke screen, hiding your intentions behind the comfortable and familiar. If you lead the sucker down a familiar path, he won't catch on when you lead him into a trap.

Observance of the law: In 1910, a Mr. Sam Gizel of Chicago sold his warehouse business for close to $1 million. He settled down to semi-retirement and the managing of his many properties, but deep inside he itched for the old days of deal-making. One day, a young man named Joseph W. visited his office, wanting to buy an apartment he had up for sale. Gizel explained the terms; the price was $8,000, but he only required a down payment of $2,000. W. said he would sleep on it, but he came back the following day and offered to pay the full $8,000 in cash if Gizel could wait a couple of days until a deal he was working on came through. Even in semi-retirement, a clever businessman like Gizel was curious as to how W. would be able to come up with so much cash (roughly $150,000 today) so quickly. W. seemed reluctant to say and quickly changed the subject, but Gizel was persistent. Finally, after assurances of confidentiality, W. told Gizel the following story: W.'s uncle was the secretary to a coterie of multi-millionaire financiers. These wealthy gentlemen had purchased a hunting lodge in Michigan 10 years ago at a cheap price. They had not used the lodge for a few years, so they had decided to sell it and had asked W.'s uncle to get whatever he could for it. For reasons—good reasons—of his own, the uncle had been nursing a grudge against the millionaires for years. This was his chance to get back at them; he would sell the property for $35,000 to a setup man, whom it was W.'s job to find. The financiers would be too wealthy to worry about this low price. The setup man would then turn around and sell the property again for its real price, around $155,000. The uncle, W., and the third man would split the profits from this second sale. It was all legal and for a good cause—the uncle's just retribution. Gizel had heard enough; he wanted to be the setup buyer. W. was reluctant to involve him, but Gizel would not back down. The idea of a large profit plus a little adventure had him champing at the bit. W. explained that Gizel would have to put up the $35,000 in cash to bring the deal off. Gizel, a millionaire, said he could get the money with a snap of his fingers. W. finally relented and agreed to arrange a meeting between the uncle, Gizel, and the financiers in the town of Galesburg, Illinois. On the train ride to Galesburg, Gizel met the uncle, an impressive man with whom he avidly discussed business. W. also brought along a companion, a somewhat ponchy man named George Gross. W. explained to Gizel that he himself was a boxing trainer, that Gross was one of the promising prizefighters he trained, and that he had asked Gross to come along to make sure the fighter stayed in shape. For a promising fighter, Gross was unimpressive-looking; he had gray hair and a beer belly, but Gizel was so excited about the deal that he didn't really think about the man's flabby appearance. Once in Galesburg, W. and his uncle went to fetch the financiers while Gizel waited in a hotel room with Gross, who promptly put on his boxing trunks. As Gizel half-watched, Gross began to shadow box. Distracted as he was, Gizel ignored how badly the boxer wheezed after a few minutes of exercise, although his style seemed real enough. An hour later, W. and his uncle reappeared with the financiers, an impressive, intimidating group of men all wearing fancy suits. The meeting went well, and the financiers agreed to sell the lodge to Gizel, who had already had the $35,000 wired to a local bank. This minor business now settled, the financiers sat back in their chairs and began to banter about high finance, throwing out the name J.P. Morgan as if they knew the man. Finally, one of them noticed the boxer in the corner of the room. W. explained what he was doing there. The financier countered that he, too, had a boxer in his entourage, whom he named. W. laughed brazenly and exclaimed that his man could easily knock out their man. Conversation escalated into argument. In the heat of passion, W. challenged the men to a bet. The financiers eagerly agreed and left to get their man ready for a fight. The next day, as soon as they had left, the uncle yelled at W. right in front of Gizel: They did not have enough money to bet with, and once the financiers discovered this, the uncle would be fired. W. apologized for getting him in this mess, but he had a plan; he knew the other boxer well, and with a little bribe they could fix the fight, but where would the money come from for the bet? The uncle replied: Without it, they were as good as dead. Finally, Gizel had heard enough. Unwilling to jeopardize his deal with any ill will, he offered his own $35,000 cash for part of the bet. Even if he lost that, he would wire for more money and still make a profit on the sale of the lodge. The uncle and nephew thanked him. With their own $115,000 and Gizel's $35,000, they would manage to have enough for the bet. That evening, as Gizel watched the two boxers rehearse the fix in the hotel room, his mind reeled at the killing he was going to make from both the boxing match and the sale of the lodge. The fight took place in a gym the next day. W. handled the cash, which was placed for security in a locked box. Everything was proceeding as planned. In the hotel room, the financiers were looking glum at how badly their fighter was doing, and Gizel was dreaming about the easy money he was about to make. Then, suddenly, a wild swing by the financiers' fighter hit Gross hard on the face, knocking him down. When he hit the canvas, blood spurted from his mouth. He coughed, then lay still. One of the financiers, a former doctor, checked his pulse; he was dead. The millionaires panicked; everyone had to get out before the police arrived; they could all be charged with murder. Terrified, Gizel hightailed it out of the gym and…

Back to Chicago, leaving behind his $35,000, which he was only too glad to forget; for it seemed a small price to pay to avoid being implicated in a crime he never wanted to see, while, or any of the others again.

After Gizel scurried out, Gross stood up under his own steam. The blood that had spurted from his mouth came from a ball filled with chicken blood and hot water that he had hidden in his cheek. The whole affair had been masterminded by While, better known as the Yellow Kid, one of the most creative con artists in history. While split the $35,000 with the finers and the boxers—all fellow con artists—a nice little profit for a few days' work.

Interpretation: The Yellow Kid had staked out Gizel as the perfect sucker long before he set up the con. He knew the boxing match scam would be the perfect ruse to separate Gizel from his money quickly and definitively, but he also knew that if he had begun by trying to interest Gizel in the boxing match, he would have failed miserably. He had to conceal his intentions and switch attention—create a smoke screen. In this case, the sale of the lodge on the train ride and in the hotel room. Gizel's mind had been completely occupied with the pending deal, the easy money, the chance to hobnob with wealthy men. He had failed to notice that Gross was out of shape and middle-aged at best. Such is the distracting power of a smoke screen. Engrossed in the business deal, Gizel's attention was easily diverted to the boxing match, but only at a point when it was already too late for him to notice the details that would have given Gross away. The match, after all, now depended on a bribe rather than on the boxer's physical condition, and Gizel was so distracted at the end by the illusion of the boxer's death that he completely forgot about his money. Learn from the Yellow Kid.

K. The familiar, inconspicuous front is the perfect smoke screen. Approach your mark with an idea that seems ordinary enough—a business deal, financial intrigue. The sucker's mind is distracted, his suspicions allay—that is when you gently guide him onto the second path, the slippery slope down which he slides helplessly into your trap.

Keys to power: If you believe that the deceivers are colorful folk who mislead with elaborate lies and tall tales, you are greatly mistaken. The best deceivers utilize a bland and inconspicuous front that calls no attention to themselves. They know that extravagant words and gestures immediately raise suspicion; instead, they envelop their mark in the familiar, the banal, the harmless. The simplest form of smoke screen is facial expression. Behind a bland, unreadable exterior, all sorts of mayhem can be planned without detection. This is a weapon that the most powerful men in history have learned to perfect. It was said that no one could read Franklin D. Roosevelt's face. Baron James Rothschild made a lifelong practice of disguising his real thoughts behind bland smiles and nondescript looks. Stendhal wrote of Talleyrand, "Never was a face less of a barometer." As one poker manual explains it, while playing his hand, the good player is seldom an actor; instead, he practices a bland behavior that minimizes readable patterns, frustrates and confuses opponents, and permits greater concentration.

An adaptable concept, the smoke screen can be practiced on a number of levels, all playing on the psychological principles of distraction and misdirection. One of the most effective smoke screens is the noble gesture. People want to believe apparently noble gestures are genuine; for the belief is pleasant. They rarely notice how deceptive these gestures can be. Another effective smoke screen is the pattern—the establishment of a series of actions that seduce the victim into believing you will continue in the same way. The pattern plays on the psychology of anticipation. Our behavior conforms to patterns, or so we like to think.

In 1878, the American robber baron Jay Gould created a company that began to threaten the monopoly of the telegraph company, Western Union. The directors of Western Union decided to buy Gould's company up. They had to spend a hefty sum, but they figured they had managed to rid themselves of an irritating competitive editor. A few months later, though, Gould was at it again, complaining he had been treated unfairly. He started up a second company to compete with Western Union and its new acquisition. The same thing happened again; Western Union bought him out to shut him up. Soon the pattern began for the third time, but now Gould went for the jugular. He suddenly staged a bloody takeover struggle and managed to gain complete control of Western Union. He had established a pattern that had tricked the company's directors into thinking his goal was to be bought out at a handsome rate. Once they paid him off, they relaxed and failed to notice that he was actually playing for higher stakes. The pattern is powerful in that it deceives the other person into expecting the opposite of what you are really doing. Remember, it takes patience and humility to dull your bright colors, to put on the mask of the inconspicuous. Do not despair at having to wear such a bland mask; it is often your unreadability that draws people to you and makes you appear a person of power.

[Music]

Law Four: Always say less than necessary.

Judgment: When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear and the less in control. Even if you're saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinx-like. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

Observance of the law: In the court of Louis XIV, nobles and ministers would spend days and nights debating issues of state. They would confer, argue, make and break alliances, and argue again, until finally the critical moment arrived. Two of them would be chosen to represent the different sides to Louis himself, who would decide what should be done. After these persons were chosen, everyone would argue some more: How should the issues be phrased? What would appeal to Louis? What would annoy him? At what time of day should the representatives approach him, and in what part of the Versailles Palace? What expression should they have on their faces? Finally, after all this was settled, the fateful moment would finally arrive. The two men would approach Louis—always a delicate matter—and when they finally had his ear, they would talk about the issue at hand, spelling out the options in detail. Louis would listen in silence, a most enigmatic look on his face. Finally, when each had finished his presentation and had asked for the King's opinion, he would look at them both and say, "I shall see." Then he would walk away. The ministers and court would never hear another word on this subject from the King; they would simply see the result weeks later, when he would come to a decision and act. He would never bother to consult them on the matter again.

Interpretation: Louis XIV was a man of very few words. His most famous remark is, "L'état, c'est moi"—"The state is me"—nothing could be more puffy, yet more eloquent. His infamous "I shall see" was one of several extremely short phrases that he would apply to all manner of requests. Louis was not always this way; as a young man, he was known for talking at length, delighting in his own eloquence. His later taciturnity was self-imposed, an act, a mask he used to keep everybody below him off balance. No one knew exactly where he stood or could predict his reactions. No one could try to deceive him by saying what they thought he wanted to hear, because no one knew what he wanted to hear. As they talked on and on to the silent Louis, they revealed more and more about themselves—information he would later use against them to great effect. In the end, Louis's silence kept those around him terrified and under his thumb; it was one of the foundations of his power. As Simone wrote, "No one knew as well as he how to sell his words, his smile, even his glances; everything in him was valuable because he created differences, and His Majesty was enhanced by the spareness of his words."

Keys to power: Power is, in many ways, a game of appearances, and when you say less than necessary, you inevitably appear greater and more powerful than you are. Your silence will make other people uncomfortable. Humans are machines of interpretation and explanation; they have to know what you are thinking. When you carefully control what you reveal, they cannot pierce your intentions or your meaning. Your short answers and silences will put them on the defensive, and they will jump in nervously, filling the silence with all kinds of comments that will reveal valuable information about them and their weaknesses. They will leave a meeting with you feeling as if they had been robbed, and they will go home and ponder your every word. This extra attention to your brief comments will only add to your power.

[Music]

Law Five: So much depends on reputation; guard it with your life.

Judgment: Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone, you can intimidate and win. Once it slips, however, you are vulnerable and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable; always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations; then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

Observance of the law: During China's War of the Three Kingdoms (A.D. 207-265), the great General Zhuge Liang, leading the forces of the Shu Kingdom, dispatched his vast army to a distant camp while he rested in a small town with a handful of soldiers. Suddenly, sentinels hurried in with the alarming news that an enemy force of over 150,000 troops under Sima Yi was approaching. With only 100 men to defend him, Zhuge Liang's situation was hopeless; the enemy would finally capture this renowned leader. Without lamenting his fate or wasting time trying to figure out how he had been caught, Liang ordered his troops to take down their flags, throw open the city gates, and hide. He himself then took a seat on the most visible part of the city's wall, wearing a Daoist robe; he lit some incense, strummed his lute, and began to chant. Minutes later, he could see the vast enemy army approaching—an endless phalanx of soldiers. Pretending not to notice them, he continued to sing and play the lute. Soon the army stood at the town gates; at its head was Sima Yi, who instantly recognized the man on the wall. Even so, as his soldiers itched to enter the unguarded town through its open gates, Sima Yi hesitated, held them back, and studied Liang on the wall. Then he ordered an immediate and speedy retreat.

Interpretation: Zhuge Liang was commonly known as the "Sleeping Dragon." His exploits in the War of the Three Kingdoms were legendary. Once, a man claiming to be a disaffected enemy lieutenant came to his camp offering help and information. Liang instantly recognized the situation as a setup; this man was a false deserter and should be beheaded. At the last minute, though, as the axe was about to fall, Liang stopped the execution and offered to spare the man's life if he agreed to become a double agent. Grateful and terrified, the man agreed and began supplying false information to the enemy. Liang won battle after battle. The "Sleeping Dragon" carefully cultivated his reputation of being the cleverest man in China, one who always had a trick up his sleeve. As powerful as any weapon, this reputation struck fear into his enemy. Sima Yi had fought against Zhuge Liang dozens of times and knew him well. When he came upon the empty city with Liang praying on the wall, he was stunned. The Daoist robes, the chanting, the incense—this had to be a game of intimidation; the man was obviously taunting him, daring him to walk into a trap. The game was so obvious that for one moment it crossed Yi's mind that Liang actually was alone and desperate, but so great was his fear of Liang that he dared not risk finding out. Such is the power of reputation; it can put a vast army on the defensive, even force them into retreat without a single arrow being fired.

Keys to power: The people around us, even our closest friends, will always, to some extent, remain mysterious and unfathomable. Their characters have secret recesses that they never reveal. The unknowable in other people could prove disturbing if we thought about it long enough, since it would make it impossible for us really to judge other people; so we prefer to ignore this fact and to judge people on their appearances, on what is most visible to our eyes—clothes, gestures, words, actions. In the social realm, appearances are the barometer of almost all of our judgments, and you must never be misled into believing otherwise. One false slip, one awkward or sudden change in your appearance, can prove disastrous. This is the reason for the supreme importance of making and maintaining a reputation that is of your own creation. That reputation will protect you in the dangerous game of appearances, distracting the probing eyes of others from knowing what you really are like and giving you a degree of control over how the world judges you—a powerful position to be in. Reputation has a power like magic; with one stroke of its wand, it can double your strength; it can also send people scurrying away from you. Whether the exact same deeds appear brilliant or dreadful can depend entirely on the reputation of the doer. In the beginning, you must work to establish a reputation for one outstanding quality—whether generosity, or honesty, or cunning. This quality sets you apart and gets other people to talk about you. You then make your reputation known to as many people as possible, subtly though. Take care to build slowly and with a firm foundation, and watch as it spreads like wildfire. Reputation is a treasure to be carefully collected and hoarded, especially when you are first establishing it. You must protect it strictly, anticipating all attacks on it. Once it is solid, do not let yourself get angry or defensive at the slanderous comments of your enemies; that reveals insecurity, not confidence in your reputation. Take the high road instead, and never appear desperate in your self-defense. On the other hand, an attack on another man's reputation is a potent weapon, particularly when you have less power than he does. He has much more to lose in such a battle, and your own thus far small reputation gives him a small target when he tries to return your fire. But this tactic must be practiced with skill; you must not seem to engage in petty vengeance. If you do not break your enemy's reputation cleverly, you will inadvertently ruin your own.

Law Six: Court attention at all costs.

Judgment: 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 costs. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious than the bland and timid masses.

Part One: Surround your name with the sensational and scandalous. Draw attention to yourself by creating an unforgettable, even controversial, image. Court scandal. Do anything to make yourself seem larger than life and shine more brightly than those around you. Make no distinction between kinds of attention; notoriety of any sort will bring you power. Better to be slandered and attacked than ignored.

Observance of the law: P.T. Barnum started his career as an assistant to the owner of a circus, Aaron Turner. In 1836, the circus stopped in Annapolis, Maryland, for a series of performances. On the morning of opening day, Barnum took a stroll through town wearing a new black suit. People started to follow him; someone in the gathering crowd shouted out that he was the Reverend Epaphras K. Avery, infamous as a man acquitted of the charge of murder but still believed guilty by most Americans. The angry mob tore off Barnum's suit and was ready to lynch him. After desperate appeals, Barnum finally convinced them to follow him to the circus, where he could verify his identity. Once there, old Turner confirmed that this was all a practical joke; he himself had spread the rumor that Barnum was Avery. The crowd dispersed, but Barnum, who had nearly been killed, was not amused. He wanted to know what could have induced his boss to play such a trick. "My dear Mr. Barnum," Turner replied, "it was all for our good. Remember, all we need to ensure success is notoriety." And indeed, everyone in town was talking about the joke, and the circus was packed that night and every night it stayed in Annapolis. Barnum had learned a lesson he would never forget.

Barnum's first big venture of his own was the American Museum, a collection of curiosities located in New York. One day, a beggar approached Barnum on the street; instead of giving him money, Barnum decided to employ him, taking him back to the museum. He gave the man five bricks and told him to make a slow circuit of several blocks; at certain points he was to lay down a brick on the sidewalk, always keeping one brick in hand. On the return journey, he was to replace each brick on the street with the one he held; meanwhile, he was to remain serious of countenance and to answer no questions. Once back at the museum, he was to enter, walk around inside, then leave through the back door and make the same brick-laying circuit again. On the man's first walk through the streets, several hundred people watched his mysterious movements. By his fourth circuit, onlookers swarmed around him, debating what he was doing. Every time he entered the museum, he was followed by people who bought tickets to keep watching him; many of them were distracted by the museum's collections and stayed inside. By the end of the first day, the "brick man" had drawn over a thousand people into the museum. A few days later, the police ordered him to cease and desist from his walks; the crowds were blocking traffic. The brick-laying stopped, but thousands of New Yorkers had entered the museum, and many of those had become P.T. Barnum converts. Barnum would put a band of musicians on a balcony overlooking the street beneath a huge banner proclaiming "Free Music for the Millions!" What generosity, New Yorkers thought, and they flocked to hear the free concerts. But Barnum took pains to hire the worst musicians he could find, and soon after the band struck up, people would hurry to buy tickets to the museum, where they would be out of earshot of the band's noise and of the booing of the crowd.

Interpretation: Barnum understood the fundamental truth about attracting attention: Once people's eyes are on you, you have a special legitimacy. For Barnum, creating interest meant creating a crowd. As he later wrote, "Every crowd has a silver lining." At the beginning of your rise to the top, then, spend all your energy on attracting attention; most important, the quality of the attention is irrelevant. No matter how badly his shows were reviewed or how slanderously personal were the attacks on his hoaxes, Barnum would never complain. If a newspaper critic reviled him particularly badly, in fact, he made sure to invite the man to an opening and to give him the best seat in the house. He would even write anonymous attacks on his own work just to keep his name in the papers. From Barnum's vantage, attention, whether negative or positive, was the main ingredient of his success. The worst fate in the world for a man who yearns for fame, glory, and, of course, power, is to be ignored.

Keys to power: Burning more brightly than those around you is a skill that no one is born with; you have to learn to attract attention as surely as the loadstone attracts iron. At the start of your career, you must attach your name and reputation to a quality, an image, that sets you apart from other people. This image can be something like a characteristic style of dress or a personality quirk that amuses people and gets talked about. 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 this peculiar appearance of yours should not be controversial; that to be attacked is somehow bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. To avoid being a flash in the pan and having your notoriety eclipsed by another, you must not discriminate between different types of attention; in the end, every kind will work in your favor. Once in the limelight, you must constantly renew it by adapting and varying your method of courting attention; if you don't, the public will grow tired, will take you for granted, and will move on to a newer star. The game requires constant vigilance and creativity.

Part Two: Create an air of mystery. In a world growing increasingly banal and familiar, what seems enigmatic instantly draws attention. Never make it too clear what you are doing or about to do; do not show all your cards. An air of mystery heightens your presence; it also creates anticipation. Everyone will be watching you to see what happens next. Use mystery to beguile, seduce, even frighten.

Observance of the law: Beginning in 1905, rumors started to spread throughout Paris of a young Oriental girl who danced in a private home, wrapped in veils that she gradually discarded. A local journalist who had seen her dancing reported that a woman from the Far East had come to Europe, laden with perfume and jewels, to introduce some of the richness of Oriental color and life into the satiated society of European cities. Soon everyone knew the dancer's name: Mahari. Early that year, in the winter, small and select audiences would gather in a salon filled with Indian statues and other relics, while an orchestra played music inspired by Hindu and Javanese melodies. After keeping the audience waiting and wondering, Mahari would suddenly appear in a startling costume: a white cotton prayer covered with Indian-type jewels, jeweled bands at the waist supporting a sarong that revealed as much as it concealed, bracelets up the arms. Then Mahari would dance in a style no one in France had seen before—her whole body swaying as if she were in a trance. She told her excited and curious audience that her dances told stories from Indian mythology and Javanese folktales. Soon the cream of Paris, ambassadors from far-off lands, were competing for invitations to the salon, where it was rumored that Mahari was actually performing sacred dances in the nude. The public wanted to know more about her. She told journalists that she was actually Dutch in origin but had grown up on the island of Java. She would also talk about time spent in India, how she had learned sacred Hindu dances there, and how Indian women can shoot straight, ride horseback, and are capable of doing logarithms and talking philosophy. By the summer of 1905, although few Parisians had actually seen Mahari dance, her name was on everyone's lips. As Mahari gave more interviews, the story of her origins kept changing: She had grown up in India; her grandmother was the daughter of a Javanese princess; she had lived on the island of Sumatra, where she had spent her time horseback riding, gun in hand, and risking her life. No one knew anything certain about her, but journalists did not mind these changes in her biography. They compared her to an Indian goddess, a creature from the ages of Baudelaire—whatever their imagination wanted to see in this mysterious woman from the East. In August of 1905, Mahari performed for the first time in public; crowds thronging to see her on opening night caused a riot. She had now become a cult figure, spawning many imitations. One reviewer wrote, "Mahari personifies all the poetry of India—its mysticism, its voluptuousness, its hypnotizing charm." Another noted, "If India possesses such unexpected treasures, then all Frenchmen will immigrate to the shores of the Ganges." Soon the fame of Mahari and her sacred Indian dances spread beyond Paris; she was invited to Berlin, Vienna, Milan. Over the next few years, she performed throughout Europe, mixed with the highest social circles, and earned an income that gave her an independence rarely enjoyed by a woman of the period. Then, near the end of World War I, she was arrested in France, tried, convicted, and finally executed as a German spy. Only during the trial did the truth come out: Mahari was not from Java or India, had not grown up in the Orient, did not have a drop of Eastern blood in her body. Her real name was Margaretha Zelle, and she came from the small, northern province of Friesland, Holland.

Interpretation: When Margaretha Zelle arrived in Paris in 1904, she had half a franc in her pocket. She was one of the thousands of beautiful young girls who flocked to Paris every year, taking work as artists' models, nightclub dancers, or vaudeville performers at the Folies Bergère. After a few years, they would inevitably be replaced by younger girls and would often end up on the streets, turning to prostitution or else returning to the towns they came from, older and chastened. Zelle had higher ambitions. She had no dance experience and had never performed in the theater, but as a young girl she had traveled with her family and had witnessed local dances in Java and Sumatra. Zelle clearly understood that what was important in her act was not the dance itself, or even her face or figure, but her ability to create an air of mystery about herself; the mystery she created.

Lay not just in her dancing, or her costumes, or the stories she would tell, or her endless lies about her origins; it lay in an atmosphere enveloping everything she did. There was nothing you could say for sure about her; she was always changing, always surprising her audience with new costumes, new dances, new stories. This air of mystery left the public always wanting to know more, always wondering about her next move. Malahari was no more beautiful than many of the other young girls who came to Paris, and she was not a particularly good dancer. What separated her from the mass? What attracted and held the public’s attention and made her famous and wealthy was her mystery. People are enthralled by mystery because it invites constant interpretation; they never tire of it. The mysterious cannot be grasped, and what cannot be seized and consumed creates power—keys to power in a world that is ever more banal, that has had its mystery and myth squeezed out of it. We secretly crave enigmas—people or things that cannot be instantly interpreted, seized, and consumed. That is the power of the mysterious; it invites layers of interpretation, excites our imagination, seduces us into believing that it conceals something marvelous. The world has become so familiar, and its inhabitants so predictable, that what wraps itself in mystery will almost always draw the limelight to it and make us watch it.

Do not imagine that to create an air of mystery you have to be grand and awe-inspiring. Mystery that is woven into your day-to-day demeanor and is subtle has that much more power to fascinate and attract attention. Remember, most people are upfront, can be read like an open book, take little care to control their words or image, and are hopelessly predictable. By simply holding back, keeping silent, occasionally uttering ambiguous phrases, deliberately appearing inconsistent, and acting odd in the subtlest of ways, you will emanate an aura of mystery. The people around you will then magnify that aura by constantly trying to interpret you. Mysterious people put others in a kind of inferior position—that of trying to figure them out—to degrees that they can control. They also elicit the fear surrounding anything uncertain or unknown. All great leaders know that an aura of mystery draws attention to them and creates an intimidating presence. If your social position prevents you from completely wrapping your actions in mystery, you must at least learn to make yourself less obvious; every now and then, act in a way that does not mesh with other people’s perception of you. This way you keep those around you on the defensive, eliciting the kind of attention that makes you powerful.

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.

Transgression and Observance of the Law: In 1883, a young Serbian scientist named Nicola Tesla was working for the European division of the Continental Edison Company. He was a brilliant inventor, and Charles Batchelor, a plant manager and a personal friend of Thomas Edison, persuaded him he should seek his fortune in America, giving him a letter of introduction to Edison himself. So began a life of woe and tribulation that lasted until Tesla’s death. When Tesla met Edison in New York, the famous inventor hired him on the spot. Tesla worked 18-hour days, finding ways to improve the primitive Edison dynamos. Finally, he offered to—he designed them completely—to Edison. This seemed a monumental task that could last years without paying off, but he told Tesla, “There’s $50,000 in it for you if you can do it.” Tesla labored day and night on the project, and after only a year he produced a greatly improved version of the dynamo, complete with automatic controls. He went to Edison to break the good news and receive his $50,000. Edison was—was pleased with the improvement, for which he and his company would take credit—but when it came to the issue of the money, he told the young Serb, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor,” and offered a small raise instead.

Tesla’s obsession was to create an alternating current system (AC) of electricity. Edison believed in the direct current system (DC) and not only refused to support Tesla’s research but later did all he could to sabotage him. Tesla turned to the great Pittsburgh magnate George Westinghouse, who had started his own electricity company. Westinghouse completely funded Tesla’s research and offered him a generous royalty agreement on future profits. The AC system Tesla developed is still the standard today, but after patents were filed in his name, other scientists came forward to take credit for the invention, claiming that they had laid the groundwork for him. His name was lost in the shuffle, and the public came to associate the invention with Westinghouse himself. A year later, Westinghouse was caught in a takeover bid from J. Pierpont Morgan, who made him resend the generous royalty contract he had signed with Tesla. Westinghouse explained to the scientist that his company would not survive if it had to pay him his full royalties. He persuaded Tesla to accept a buyout of his patents for $216,000—a large sum, no doubt, but far less than the $12 million they were worth at the time. The financiers had divested Tesla of the riches, the patents, and essentially the credit for the greatest invention of his career. The name of Guglielmo Marconi is forever linked with the invention of radio, but few know that in producing his invention, he broadcast a signal across the English Channel in 1899; Marconi made use of a patent Tesla had filed in 1897, and that his work depended on Tesla’s research. Once again, Tesla received no money and no credit. Tesla invented an induction motor as well as the AC power system, and he is the real father of radio, yet none of these discoveries bear his name. As an old man, he lived in poverty. 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.”

Interpretation: Many harbor the illusion that science, dealing with facts as it does, is beyond the petty rivalries that trouble the rest of the world. Nicola Tesla was one of those; he believed science had nothing to do with politics and claimed not to care for fame and riches. As he grew older, though, this ruined his scientific work; not associated with any particular discovery, he could attract no investors to his many ideas. While he pondered great inventions for the future, others stole the patents he had already developed and got the glory for themselves. He wanted to do everything on his own, but merely exhausted and impoverished himself in the process. Edison was Tesla’s polar opposite; he wasn’t actually much of a scientific thinker or inventor. He once said that he had no need to be a mathematician because he could always hire one. That was Edison’s main method; he was really a businessman and publicist, spotting the trends and the opportunities that were out there, then hiring the best in the field to do the work for him. If he had to, he would steal from his competitors, yet his name is much better known than Tesla’s and is associated with more inventions. The lesson is twofold: first, the 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 keep others from stealing it away or from piggybacking on your hard work. To accomplish this, you must always be vigilant and ruthless, keeping your creation quiet until you can be sure there are no vultures circling overhead. Second, learn to take advantage of other people’s work to further your own cause. Time is precious, and life is short. If you try to do it all on your own, you run yourself ragged, waste energy, and burn yourself out. It is far better to conserve your forces, pounce on the work others have done, and find a way to make it your own. Keys to power: This is the essence of the law; learn to get others to do the work for you while you take the credit, and you appear to be of godlike strength and power. If you think it important to do all the work yourself, you will never get far, and you will suffer the fate of the Teslas of the world. Find people with the skills and creativity you lack; either hire them while putting your own name on top of theirs, or find a way to take their work and make it your own. Their creativity thus becomes yours, and you seem a genius to the world.

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.

Observance of the Law: At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, the major powers of Europe gathered to carve up the remains of Napoleon’s fallen empire. The city was full of gaiety, and the balls were the most splendid in memory. Hovering over the proceedings, however, was the shadow of Napoleon himself. Instead of being executed or exiled far away, he had been sent to the island of Elba, not far from the coast of Italy. Even imprisoned on an island, a man as bold and creative as Napoleon Bonaparte made everyone nervous. The Austrians plotted to kill him on Elba but decided it was too risky. Alexander I of Russia’s temperamental Tsar heightened the anxiety by throwing a fit during the Congress when a part of Poland was denied him. “Beware,” he threatened, “I shall loose the monster!” Everyone knew he meant Napoleon. Of all the statesmen gathered in Vienna, only Talleyrand, Napoleon’s former foreign minister, seemed calm and unconcerned; it was as if he knew something the others did not. Meanwhile, on the island of Elba, Napoleon’s life was a mockery of his previous glory. As Elba’s king, he had been allowed to form a court: there was a cook, a wardrobe mistress, an official pianist, and a handful of officers. All this was designed to humiliate Napoleon, and it seemed to work. That winter, however, there occurred a series of events so strange and dramatic they might have been scripted in a play. Elba was surrounded by British ships; their cannons covered all possible exit points. Yet somehow, in broad daylight, on 26th February 1815, a ship with 900 men on board picked up Napoleon and put to sea. The English gave chase, but the ship got away. This almost impossible escape astonished the public throughout Europe and terrified the statesmen at the Congress of Vienna. Although it would have been safer to leave Europe, Napoleon not only chose to return to France; he raised the odds by marching on Paris with a tiny army in hopes of recapturing the throne. His strategy worked; people of all classes threw themselves at his feet. An army under Marshal Ney sped from Paris to arrest him, but when the soldiers saw their beloved former leader, they changed sides. Napoleon was declared Emperor again; volunteers swelled the ranks of his new army. Deliriousness swept the country; in Paris, crowds went wild. The king who had replaced Napoleon fled the country. For the next 100 days, Napoleon ruled France. Soon, however, the giddiness subsided; France was bankrupt, its resources nearly exhausted, and there was little Napoleon could do about this. At the Battle of Waterloo in June of that year, he was finally defeated for good. This time his enemies had learned their lesson; they exiled him to the barren island of St. Helena, off the west coast of Africa. There he had no more hope of escape.

Interpretation: Only years later did the facts of Napoleon’s dramatic escape from Elba come to light. Before he decided to attempt this bold move, visitors to his court had told him that he was more popular in France than ever and that the country would embrace him again. One of these visitors was Austria’s General Koller, who convinced Napoleon that if he escaped, the European powers, England included, would welcome him back into power. Napoleon was tipped off that the English would let him go, and indeed, his escape occurred in the middle of the afternoon, in full view of English spyglasses. What Napoleon did not know was that there was a man behind it all, pulling the strings, and that this man was his former minister, Talleyrand. And Talleyrand was doing all this not to bring back the glory days but to crush Napoleon once and for all. Considering the Emperor’s ambition unsettling to Europe’s stability, he had turned against him long ago. When Napoleon was exiled to Elba, Talleyrand had protested; Napoleon should be sent farther away, he argued, or Europe would never have peace. But no one listened. Instead of pushing his opinion, Talleyrand bided his time, working quietly. He eventually won over Castlereagh and Metternich, the foreign ministers of England and Austria. Together, these men baited Napoleon into escaping. Even Koller’s visit to whisper the promise of glory in the exile’s ear was part of the plan. Like a master card player, Talleyrand figured everything out in advance; he knew Napoleon would fall into the trap he had set. He also foresaw that Napoleon would lead the country into a war which, given France’s weakened condition, could only last a few 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.”

Keys to power: How many times has this scenario played itself out in history? An aggressive leader initiates a series of bold moves that begin by bringing him much power. Slowly, however, his power reaches a peak, and soon everything turns against him. His numerous enemies band together, trying to maintain his power; he exhausts himself going in this direction and that, and inevitably he collapses. The reason for this pattern is that the aggressive person is rarely in full control; he cannot see more than a couple of moves ahead, cannot see the consequences of this bold move or that one, because he is constantly being forced to react to the moves of his ever-growing host of enemies and to the unforeseen consequences of his own rash actions. His aggressive energy is turned against him. In the realm of power, you must ask yourself: What is the point of chasing here and there, trying to solve problems and defeat my enemies, if I never feel in control? Why am I always having to react to events instead of directing them? The answer is simple: your idea of power is wrong. You have mistaken aggressive action for effective action, and most often the most effective action is to stay back, keep calm, and let others be frustrated by the traps you lay for them, playing for long-term power rather than quick victory. Remember, the essence of power is the ability to keep the initiative, to get others to react to your moves, to keep your opponent and those around you on the defensive. When you make other people come to you, you suddenly become the one controlling the situation, and the one who has control has power. Two things must happen to place you in this position: you yourself must learn to master your emotions and never to be influenced by anger. Meanwhile, however, you must play on people’s natural tendency to react angrily when pushed and baited. In the long run, the ability to make others come to you is a weapon far more powerful than any tool of aggression. Manipulation is a dangerous game; once someone suspects he is being manipulated, it becomes harder and harder to control him. But when you make your opponent come to you, you create the illusion that he is controlling the situation; he does not feel the strings that pull him, just as Napoleon imagined that he himself was the master of his daring escape and return to power.

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.

Observance of the Law: In 1502, in Florence, Italy, an enormous block of marble stood in the works department of the Church of Santa Maria del Fiore. It had once been a magnificent piece of raw stone, but an unskilled sculptor had mistakenly bored a hole through it where there should have been a figure’s legs, generally mutilating it. Pierro Soderini, Florence’s mayor, had contemplated trying to save the block by commissioning Leonardo da Vinci to work on it or some other master, but had given up since everyone agreed that the stone had been ruined. So, despite the money that had been wasted on it, it 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 work on it. Michelangelo decided he would depict a young David, sling in hand. Weeks later, as Michelangelo was putting the final touches on the statue, Soderini entered the studio, fancying himself a bit of a connoisseur. He studied the huge work and told Michelangelo that while he thought it was magnificent, the nose, he judged, was too big. Michelangelo realized that Soderini was standing in a place right under the giant figure and did not have the proper perspective. Without a word, he gestured for Soderini to follow him to the scaffolding reaching the nose. He picked up his chisel as 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 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 the charade, he stood aside. “Look at it now,” he said. “I like it better.” Replied Soderini, “You’ve made it come alive.”

Interpretation: Michelangelo knew that by changing the shape of the nose he might ruin the entire sculpture. Yet Soderini was a patron who prided himself on his aesthetic judgment. To offend such a man by arguing would not only gain Michelangelo nothing; it would put future commissions in jeopardy. Michelangelo was too clever to argue; his solution was to change Soderini’s perspective, literally bringing him closer to the nose without making him realize that this was the cause of his misperception. Fortunately for posterity, Michelangelo found a way to keep the perfection of the statue intact while at the same time making Soderini believe he had improved it. Such is the double power of winning through actions rather than arguments; no one is offended, and your point is proven.

Keys to power: In the realm of power, you must learn to judge your moves by their long-term effects on other people. The problem in trying to prove a point or gain a victory through argument is that in the end you can never be certain how it affects the people you’re arguing with. They may appear to agree with you politely, but inside they may resent you, or perhaps something you said inadvertently even offended them. Words have that insidious ability to be interpreted according to the other person’s mood and insecurities. Even the best argument has no solid foundation, for we have all come to distrust the slippery nature of words; days after agreeing with someone, we often revert to our old opinion out of sheer habit. 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 will quote the Bible, refer to unverifiable statistics—who can be persuaded by bags of air like that? Action and demonstration are much more powerful and meaningful; they are there before our eyes for us to see. Yes, now the statue’s nose does look just right; there are no offensive words, no possibility of misinterpretation, no one can argue with a demonstrated proof. As Baltasar Gracián remarks, the truth is generally seen, rarely heard.

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.

Transgression of the Law: Born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1818, Marie Gilbert came to Paris in the 1840s to make her fortune as a dancer and performer, taking the name Lola Montez. Her mother was of distant Spanish descent; she claimed to be a flamenco dancer from Spain. By 1845, her career was languishing, and to survive she became a courtesan, quickly one of the more successful in Paris. Only one man could salvage Lola’s dancing career: Alexandre Dujarier, owner of the newspaper with the largest circulation in France and also the newspaper’s drama critic. She decided to woo and conquer him. Investigating his habits, she discovered that he went riding every morning. An excellent horsewoman herself, she rode out one morning and accidentally ran into him. Soon they were riding together every day. A few weeks later, Lola moved into his apartment for a while. The two were happy together; with Dujarier’s help, Lola began to revive her dancing career. Despite the risk to his social standing, Dujarier told friends he would marry her in the spring. Lola had never told him that she had eloped at age 19 with an Englishman and was still legally married. Although Dujarier was deeply in love, his life started to slide downhill; his fortunes in business changed, and influential friends began to avoid him. One night, Dujarier was invited to a party attended by some of the wealthiest young men in Paris. Lola wanted to go too, but he would not allow it; they had their first quarrel, and Dujarier attended the party by himself. There, hopelessly drunk, he insulted an influential drama critic, Jean-Baptiste Rousseau de Ballon, perhaps because of something the critic had said about Lola. The following morning, Ballon challenged him to a duel. Ballon was one of the best pistol shots in France. Dujarier tried to apologize, but the duel took place, and he was shot and killed. Thus ended the life of one of the most promising young men of Paris society. Devastated, Lola left Paris in 1846.

Lola Montez found herself in Munich, where she decided to woo and conquer King Ludwig of Bavaria. The best way to Ludwig, she discovered, was through his aide-de-camp, Count Otto von Reisbach, a man with a fondness for pretty girls. One day, when the Count was breakfasting at an outdoor café, Lola rode by on her horse, was accidentally thrown from the saddle, and landed at Reisbach’s feet. The Count rushed to help her and was enchanted; he promised to introduce her to Ludwig. Reisbach arranged an audience with the King for Lola, but when she arrived in the anteroom, she could hear the King saying he was too busy to meet a favor-seeking stranger. Lola pushed aside the sentries and entered his room anyway. In the process, the front of her dress somehow got torn—perhaps by her, perhaps by one of the sentries—and, to the astonishment of all, most especially the King, her bare breasts were brazenly exposed. Lola was granted her audience with Ludwig. Fifty-five hours later, she made her debut on the Bavarian stage. The reviews were terrible, but that did not stop Ludwig from arranging more performances. Ludwig was, in his own words, bewitched by Lola; he started to appear in public with her on his arm, and then he bought and furnished an apartment for her on one of Munich’s most fashionable boulevards. Although he had been known as a miser and was not given to flights of fancy, he started to shower Lola with gifts and to write poetry for her. Now his favored mistress, she catapulted to fame and fortune overnight. Lola began to lose her sense of proportion. One day, when she was out riding, an elderly man rode ahead of her a bit too slowly for her liking; unable to pass him, she began to slash him with her riding crop. On another occasion, she took her dog, unleashed, out for a stroll; the dog attacked a passerby, but instead of helping the man get the dog away, she whipped him with the leash. Incidents like this infuriated the stolid citizens of Bavaria, but Ludwig stood by her.

Lola and even had her naturalized as a Bavarian citizen. The king's entourage tried to wake him to the dangers of the affair, but those who criticized Lola were summarily fired. While Bavarians who had loved their King King now outwardly disrespected him. Lola was made a countess, had a new palace built for herself, and began to dabble in politics, advising Ludwig on policy. She was the most powerful force in the kingdom; her influence in the king's cabinet continued to grow, and she treated the other ministers with disdain. As a result, riots broke out throughout the realm; a once peaceful land was virtually in the grip of civil war, and students everywhere were chanting "Down with Lola."

By February of 1848, Ludwig was finally unable to withstand the pressure. With great sadness, he ordered Lola to leave Bavaria immediately. She left, but not until she was paid off. For the next five weeks, the Bavarians' wrath was turned against their formerly beloved king. In March of that year, he was forced to abdicate.

Lola Montez moved to England. More than anything, she needed respectability, and despite being married, she still had not arranged a divorce from the Englishman she had wed years before. She set her sights on George Trafford, a promising young army officer who was the son of an influential barrister. Although he was ten years younger than Lola and could have chosen a wife among the prettiest and wealthiest young girls of English society, Trafford fell under her spell. They were married in 1849. Soon arrested on the charge of bigamy, she skipped bail, and she and Trafford made their way to Spain. They quarreled horribly, and on one occasion, Lola slashed him with a knife. Finally, she drove him away. Returning to England, he found he had lost his position in the army. Ostracized from English society, he moved to Portugal, where he lived in poverty. After a few months, his short life ended in a boating accident. A few years later, the man who published Lola Montez's autobiography went bankrupt.

In 1853, Lola moved to California, where she met and married a man named Pat Hull. Their relationship was as stormy as all the others, and she left Hull for another man. He took to drink and fell into a deep depression that lasted till he died four years later, still a relatively young man at the age of 41. Lola gave away her clothes and finery and turned to God. She toured America lecturing on religious topics, dressed in white and wearing a halo-like white headgear. She died two years later, in 1861.

Interpretation: Lola Montez attracted men with her beauty, but her power over them went beyond the sexual. It was through the force of her character that she kept her lovers enthralled. Men were sucked into the maelstrom she churned up around her; they felt confused, upset, but the strength of the emotions she stirred also made them feel more alive. As is often the case with infection, the problems would only arise over time. Lola's inherent instability would begin to get under her lovers' skin; they would find themselves drawn into her problems, but their emotional attachment to her would make them want to help her. This was the crucial point of the disease, for Lola Montez could not be helped; her problems were too deep. Once the lover identified with them, he was lost; he would find himself embroiled in quarrels; the infection would spread to his family and friends, or, in the case of Ludwig, to an entire nation. You could spend a lifetime studying the pathology of infecting characters, but don't waste your time; just learn the lesson: when you suspect you are in the presence of an infector, don't argue, don't try to help, don't pass the person on to your friends, or you will become enmeshed; flee the infector's presence or suffer the consequences.

Keys to power: Those misfortunates among us who have been brought down by circumstances beyond their control deserve all the help and sympathy we can give them. But there are others who are not born to misfortune or unhappiness but who draw it upon themselves by their destructive actions and unsettling effect on others. It would be a great thing if we could raise them up, change their patterns, but more often than not, it is their patterns that end up getting inside and changing us. The incurably unhappy and unstable have a particularly strong infecting power because their characters and emotions are so intense; they often present themselves as victims, making it difficult at first to see their miseries as self-inflicted. Before you realize the real nature of their problems, you have been infected by them. Understand this: in the game of power, the people you associate with are critical. The risk of associating with infectors is that you will waste valuable time and energy trying to free yourself through a kind of guilt by association; you will also suffer in the eyes of others. Never underestimate the dangers of infection. Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you.

Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: When Otto von Bismarck became a deputy in the Prussian parliament in 1847, he was 32 years old and without an ally or friend. Looking around him, he decided that the side to ally himself with was not the parliament's liberals or conservatives, not any particular minister, and certainly not the people; it was with the King, Frederick William IV. This was an odd choice, to say the least, for Frederick was at a low point of his power, a weak, indecisive man; he consistently gave in to the liberals in parliament. In fact, he was spineless and stood for much that Bismarck disliked personally and politically. Yet Bismarck courted Frederick night and day. When other deputies attacked the king for his many inept moves, only Bismarck stood by him. Finally, it all paid off: in 1851, Bismarck was made a minister in the king's cabinet. Now he went to work; time and again he forced the king's hand, getting him to build up the military, to stand up to the liberals, to do exactly as Bismarck wished. He worked on Frederick's insecurity about his manliness, challenging him to be firm and to rule with pride, and he slowly restored the king's powers until the monarchy was once again the most powerful force in Prussia. When Frederick died in 1861, his brother William assumed the throne. William disliked Bismarck intensely and had no intention of keeping him around, but he also inherited the same situation: his brother had enemies galore who wanted to nibble his power away. He actually considered abdicating, feeling he lacked the strength to deal with this dangerous and precarious position. But Bismarck insinuated himself once again; he stood by the new king, gave him strength, and urged him into firm and decisive action. The king grew dependent on Bismarck's strong-arm tactics to keep his enemies at bay, and despite his antipathy toward the man, he soon made him his prime minister. The two quarreled often over policy; Bismarck was much more conservative, but the king understood his own dependency. Whenever the prime minister threatened to resign, the king gave in to him time after time. It was, in fact, Bismarck who set state policy. Years later, Bismarck's actions as Prussia's prime minister led the various German states to be united into one country. Now Bismarck finagled the king into letting himself be crowned emperor of Germany. Yet it was really Bismarck who had reached the heights of power as right-hand man to the emperor and as imperial chancellor and knighted prince; he pulled all the levers. "Iron and blood," in Bismarck's phrase. Then you will survive your masters, as Bismarck did; you will have all the benefits of power without the thorns that come from being a master.

Keys to power: The ultimate power is the power to get people to do as you wish. When you can do this without having to force people or hurt them, when they willingly grant you what you desire, then your power is untouchable. The best way to achieve this position is to create a relationship of dependence. The master requires your services; he is weak or unable to function without you. You have enmeshed yourself in his work so deeply that doing away with you would bring him great difficulty, or at least would mean valuable time lost in training another to replace you. Once such a relationship is established, you have the upper hand, the leverage to make the master do as you wish. It is the classic case of the man behind the throne, the servant of the king who actually controls the king. Do not be one of the many who mistakenly believe that the ultimate form of power is independence. Power involves a relationship between people; you will always need others as allies, pawns, or even as weak masters who serve as your front. The completely independent man would live in a cabin in the woods; he would have the freedom to come and go as he pleased, but he would have no power. The best you can hope for is that others will grow so dependent on you that you enjoy a kind of reverse independence; their need for you frees you. One last warning: do not imagine that your master's dependence on you will make him love you. In fact, he may resent and fear you, but as Machiavelli said, it is better to be feared than loved. Fear you can control; love never. Depending on an emotion as subtle and changeable as love or friendship will only make you insecure; better to have others depend on you out of fear of the consequences of losing you than out of love of your company.

[Music] [Music] Law 12: Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.

Judgment: One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-handed 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.

Observance of the law: Sometime in 1926, a tall, dapperly dressed man paid a visit to Al Capone, the most feared gangster of his time. Speaking with an elegant Continental accent, the man introduced himself as Count Victor Lustig. He promised that if Capone gave him $50,000, he could double it. Capone had more than enough funds to cover the investment, but he wasn't in the habit of entrusting large sums to total strangers. He looked the count over; something about the man was different—his classy style, his manner—and so Capone decided to play along. He counted out the bills personally and handed them to Lustig. "Okay, Count," said Capone, "double it in sixty days, like you said." Lustig left with the money, put it in a safe deposit box in Chicago, then headed to New York, where he had several other money-making schemes in progress. The $50,000 remained in the bank box untouched; Lustig made no effort to double it. Two months later, he returned to Chicago, took the money from the box, and paid Capone another visit. He looked at the gangster's stony-faced bodyguards, smiled apologetically, and said, "Please accept my profound regrets, Mr. Capone. I'm sorry to report that the plan failed. I failed." Capone slowly stood up; he glowered at Lustig, debating which part of the river to throw him in. But the count reached into his coat pocket, withdrew the $50,000, and placed it on the desk. "Here, sir, is your money, to the penny. Again, my sincere apologies. This is most embarrassing; things didn't work out the way I thought they would. I would have loved to have doubled your money for you and for myself—Lord knows I need it—but the plan just didn't materialize." Capone sagged back into his chair, confused. "I know you're a con man, Count," said Capone. "I knew it the moment you walked in here. I expected either $100,000 or nothing, but this—getting my money back…" "Well, again, my apologies, Mr. Capone," said Lustig as he picked up his hat and began to leave. "My God, you're honest!" yelled Capone. "If you're on the spot, here's five to help you along." He counted out five $1,000 bills out of the $50,000. The count seemed stunned, bowed deeply, mumbled his thanks, and left, taking the money. The $5,000 was what Lustig had been after all along.

Interpretation: Count Victor Lustig, a man who spoke several languages and prided himself on his refinement and culture, was one of the great con artists of modern times. He was known for his audacity, his fearlessness, and, most important, his knowledge of human psychology. He could size up a man in minutes, discovering his weaknesses, and he had radar for suckers. Lustig knew that most men build up defenses against crooks and other troublemakers; the con artist's job is to bring those defenses down. One sure way to do this is through an act of apparent sincerity and honesty. Who will distrust a person literally caught in the act of being honest? Lustig used selective honesty many times, but with Capone he went a step further; no normal con man would have dared such a con; he would have chosen his suckers for their meekness, for that look about them that says they will take their medicine without complaint. Capone and you would spend the rest of your life, whatever remained of it, afraid. But Lustig understood that a man like Capone spends his life mistrusting others; no one around him is honest or generous, and being so much in the company of wolves is exhausting, even depressing. A man like Capone yearns to be the recipient of an honest or generous gesture, to feel that not everyone has an angle or is out to rob him. Lustig's act of selective honesty disarmed Capone because it was so unexpected. A con artist loves conflicting emotions like these, since the person caught up in them is so easily distracted and deceived. Do not shy away from practicing this law on the Capones of the world; with a well-timed gesture of honesty or generosity, you will have the most brutal and cynical beast in the kingdom eating out of your hand.

Keys to power: The essence of deception is distraction. Distracting the people you want to deceive gives you the time and space to do something they won't notice. An act of kindness, generosity, or honesty is the most powerful form of distraction because it disarms other people's suspicions; it turns them into children eagerly lapping up any kind of 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; it is a device with infinite practical uses. Brazenly taking something from someone is dangerous, even for the powerful; the victim will plot revenge. It is also dangerous simply to ask for what you need, no matter how politely, unless the other person sees some gain for themselves; they may come to resent your neediness. Learn to give before you take; it softens the ground, takes the bite out of a future request, or simply creates a distraction. And the giving can take many forms: an actual gift, a generous act, a kind favor, an honest admission—whatever it takes. Selective honesty is best employed on your first encounter with someone; we are all creatures of habit, and our first impressions last a long time. If someone believes you are honest at the start of your relationship, it takes a lot to convince them otherwise; this gives you room to maneuver. A single act of honesty is often not enough; what is required is a reputation for honesty built on a series of acts, but these can be quite inconsequential. Once this reputation is established, as with first impressions, it is hard to shake. Selective kindness should also be part of your arsenal of deception; selective kindness will often break down even the most stubborn foe, aiming right for the heart; it corrodes the will to fight back. Remember, by playing on people's emotions, calculated acts of kindness can turn a Capone into a gullible child. As with any emotional approach, the tactic must be practiced with caution; if people see through it, their disappointed feelings of gratitude and warmth will become the most violent hatred and distrust. Unless you can make the gesture seem sincere and heartfelt, do not play with fire.

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

Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: In 433 BC, just before the Peloponnesian War, the island of Corcyra (later called Corfu) and the Greek city-state of Corinth stood on the brink of conflict. Both sides sent ambassadors to Athens to try to win over the Athenians to their side. The stakes were high, since whoever had Athens on his side was sure to win, and whoever won the war would certainly give the defeated side no mercy. Corcyra spoke first; its ambassador began by admitting that the island had never helped Athens before and, in fact, had allied itself with Athens' enemies. There were no ties of friendship or gratitude between Corcyra and Athens. Yes, the ambassador admitted, he had come to Athens now out of fear and concern for Corcyra's safety. The only thing he could offer was an alliance of mutual interests. Corcyra had a navy only surpassed in size and strength by Athens' own; an alliance between the two states would create a formidable force, one that could intimidate the rival state of Sparta. That, unfortunately, was all Corcyra had to offer. The representative from Corinth then gave a brilliant, passionate speech, in sharp contrast to the dry, colorless approach of the Corcyraean. He talked of everything Corinth had done for Athens in the past; he asked how it would look to Athens' other allies if the city struck an agreement with a former enemy over one with a present friend, one that had served Athens' interests loyally. Perhaps those allies would break their agreements with Athens if they saw that their loyalty was not valued. He referred to Hellenic law and the need to repay Corinth for all its good deeds. He finally went on to list the many services Corinth had performed for Athens and the importance of showing gratitude to one's friends. After the speech, the Athenians debated the issue in an assembly. On the second round, they voted overwhelmingly to ally with Corcyra and drop Corinth.

Interpretation: History has remembered the Athenians nobly, but they were the preeminent realists of Classical Greece. With them, all the rhetoric, all the emotional appeals in the world could not match a good pragmatic argument, especially one that added to their power. What the Corinthian ambassador did not realize was that his references to Corinth's past generosity to Athens only irritated the Athenians, subtly asking them to feel guilty and putting them under obligation. The Athenians could care less about past favors and friendly feelings. At the same time, they knew that if their other allies thought them ungrateful for abandoning Corinth, these city-states would still be unlikely to break their ties to Athens, the preeminent power in Greece. Athens ruled its empire by force and would simply compel any rebellious ally to return to the fold. When people choose between talk about the past and talk about the future, a pragmatic person will always opt for the future and forget the past. As the Corcyraeans realized, it is always best to speak pragmatically to a pragmatic person, and in the end, most people are, in fact, pragmatic; they will rarely act against their own self-interest.

Keys to power: In your quest for power, you will constantly find yourself in the position of asking for help from those more powerful than you. There is an art to asking for help, an art that depends on your ability to understand the person you are dealing with and to not confuse your needs with theirs. Most people never succeed at this because they are completely trapped in their own wants and desires; they start from the assumption that the people they are appealing to have a selfless interest in helping them; they talk as if their needs matter to these people, who probably couldn't care less. Sometimes they refer to larger issues, a great cause, or grand emotions such as love and gratitude; they go for the big picture when simple, everyday realities would have much more appeal. What they do not realize is that even the most powerful person is locked inside needs of his own, and that if you make no appeal to his self-interest, he merely sees you as desperate or, at best, a waste of time. A key step in the process is to understand the other person's psychology: Is he vain? Is he concerned about his reputation or his social standing? Does he have enemies you could help him vanquish? Is he simply motivated by money and power? When the Mongols invaded China in the 12th century, they threatened to obliterate a culture that had thrived for over 2,000 years. Their leader, Genghis Khan, saw nothing in China but a country that lacked pasturage for his horses, and he decided to destroy the place, leveling all its cities; for it would be better to exterminate the Chinese and let the grass grow. It was not a soldier, a general, or a king who saved the Chinese from devastation, but a man named Yelü Chucai, a foreigner himself. Chucai had come to appreciate the superiority of Chinese culture; he managed to make himself a trusted adviser to Genghis Khan and persuaded him that he would reap riches out of the place if, instead of destroying it, he simply taxed everyone who lived there. Khan saw the wisdom in this and did as Chucai advised. When Khan took the city of Kaifeng after a long siege and decided to massacre its inhabitants, as he had in other cities that had resisted him, Chucai told him that the finest craftsmen and engineers in China had fled to Kaifeng, and it would be better to put them to use. Kaifeng was spared. Never before had Genghis Khan shown such mercy, but then it really wasn't mercy that saved Kaifeng. Chucai knew Khan well; he was a barbaric peasant who cared nothing for culture or, indeed, for anything other than warfare and practical results. Chucai chose to appeal to the only emotion that would work on such a man: greed. Self-interest is the lever that will move people. Once you make them see how you can in some way meet their needs or advance their cause, their resistance to your requests for help will magically fall away. At each step on the way to acquiring power, you must train yourself to think your way inside the other person's mind, to see their needs and interests, to get rid of the screen of your own feelings that obscure the truth. Master this art, and there will be no limits to what you can accomplish.

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

Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: Joseph Duveen was undoubtedly the greatest art dealer of his time. From 1904 to 1940, he almost single-handedly monopolized America's millionaire art-collecting market. But one prize plum eluded him: the industrialist Andrew Mellon. Before he died, Duveen was determined to make Mellon a client. Duveen's friends said this was an impossible dream; Mellon was a stiff, taciturn man; the stories they had heard about the congenial, talkative Duveen rubbed him the wrong way. He had made it clear he had no desire to meet the man. Yet Duveen told his doubting friends, "Not only will Mellon buy from me, but he will buy only from me." For several years, he tracked his prey, learning the man's habits, tastes, phobias. To do this, he secretly put several of Mellon's staff on his own payroll, worming valuable information out of them. By the time he moved into action, he knew Mellon about as well as Mellon's wife did. In 1921, Mellon was visiting London and staying in a palatial suite on the third floor of Claridge's Hotel. Duveen booked himself into the suite just below Mellon's, on the second floor. He had arranged for his valet to befriend Mellon's valet, and on the fateful day he had chosen to make his move, Mellon's valet told Duveen's valet, who told Duveen, that he had just helped Mellon on with his overcoat and that the industrialist was making his way down the corridor to ring for the lift. Duveen's valet hurriedly helped Duveen with his own overcoat; seconds later, Duveen entered the lift, and lo and behold, there was Mellon. "How do you do, Mr. Mellon," said Duveen, introducing himself. "I am on my way to the National Gallery to look at some pictures." How uncanny; that was precisely where Mellon was headed, and so Duveen was able to accompany his prey to the one location that would ensure his success. He knew Mellon's tastes inside and out, and while the two men wandered through the museum, he dazzled the magnate with his knowledge. Once again, quite uncannily, they seemed to have remarkably similar tastes. Mellon...

Was pleasantly surprised this wasn't the duine he had expected. The man was charming and agreeable, and clearly had exquisite taste. When they returned to New York, Melon visited Du's exclusive gallery and fell in love with the collection. Everything, surprisingly enough, seemed to be precisely the kind of work he wanted to collect for the rest of his life. He was Duin's best and most generous client.

A man as ambitious and competitive as Joseph Duin left nothing to chance. What's the point of winging it, or just hoping you may be able to charm this or that client? It's like shooting ducks blindfolded. Arm yourself with a little knowledge, and your aim improves. Melon was the most spectacular of Duin's catches, but he spied on many a millionaire by secretly putting members of his clients' household staffs on his own payroll. He would gain constant access to valuable information about their masters' comings and goings, changes in taste, and other such tidbits of information that would put him a step ahead.

A rival of Duin, who wanted to make Henry Frick a client, noticed that whenever he visited this wealthy New Yorker, Deine was there before him, as if he had a sixth sense. To other dealers, De seemed to be everywhere and to know everything before they did. His powers discouraged and disheartened them, until many simply gave up going after the wealthy clients who could make a dealer rich. Such is the power of artful spying. It makes you seem all-powerful, clairvoyant. Your knowledge of your mark can also make you seem charming, so well can you anticipate their desires. No one sees the source of your power, and what they cannot see they cannot fight.

Keys to power: In the realm of power, your goal is a degree of control over future events. Part of the problem you face, then, is that people won't tell you all their thoughts, emotions, and plans. Carefully controlling what they say, they keep the most critical parts of their character hidden: their weaknesses, ulterior motives, obsessions. The result is that you cannot predict their moves and are constantly in the dark. The trick is to find a way to probe them, to find out their secrets and hidden intentions without letting them know what you are up to. This, this is not as difficult as you might think. A friendly front will let you secretly gather information on friends and enemies alike. Let others consult the horoscope or read tarot cards; you have more concrete means of seeing into the future.

The most common way of spying is to use other people, as Duin did. The method is simple, powerful, but risky. You will certainly gather information, but you have little control over the people who are doing the work. Perhaps they will ineptly reveal your spying, or even secretly turn against you. It is far better to be the spy yourself, to pose as a friend while secretly gathering information during social gatherings and innocuous encounters. Pay attention; this is when people's guards are down. By suppressing your own personality, you can make them reveal things. The brilliance of the maneuver is that they will mistake your interest in them for friendship, so that you not only learn, you make allies. Nevertheless, you should practice this tactic with caution and care. If people begin to suspect you are worming secrets out of them under the cover of conversation, they will strictly avoid you. Emphasize friendly chatter, not valuable information. Your search for gems of information cannot be too obvious, or your probing questions will reveal more about yourself and your intentions than about the information you hope to find.

A trick to try in spying comes from Lar Ro Fuko, who wrote, "Sincerity is found in very few men and is often the cleverest of ruses." One is sincere in order to draw out the confidence and secrets of the other. By pretending to bear your heart to another person, in other words, you make them more likely to reveal their own secrets. Give them a false confession, and they will give you a real one. 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.

Another method of indirect spying is to test people, to lay little traps that make them reveal things about themselves. Kroisos II, a notoriously clever 7th-century King of the Persians, had many ways of seeing through his subjects without raising suspicion. If he noticed, for instance, that two of his courtiers had become particularly friendly, he would call one of them aside and say he had information that the other was a traitor and would soon be killed. The king would tell the courtier he trusted him more than anyone and that he must keep this information secret. Then he would watch the two men carefully. If he saw that the second courtier had not changed in his behavior toward the king, he would conclude that the first courtier had kept the secret, and he would quickly promote the man, later taking him aside to confess, "I meant to kill your friend because of certain information that had reached me, but when I investigated the matter I found it was untrue." If, on the other hand, the second courtier started to avoid the king, acting aloof and tense, Kroisos would know that the secret had been revealed. He would ban the second courtier from his court, letting him know that the whole business had only been a test, but that even though the man had done nothing wrong, he could no longer trust him. The first courtier, however, had revealed the secret, and him Kroisos would ban from his entire kingdom.

It may seem an odd form of spying that reveals not empirical information but a person's character. Often, however, it is the best way of solving problems before they arise. By tempting people into certain acts, you learn about their loyalty, their honesty, and so on, and this kind of knowledge is often the most valuable of all. Armed with it, you can predict their actions in the future.

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.

Transgression of the law: No rivalry between leaders is more celebrated in Chinese history than the struggle between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang. These two generals began their careers as friends, fighting on the same side. Xiang Yu came from the nobility, large and powerful, given to bouts of violence and temper; a bit dull-witted, he was yet a mighty warrior who always fought at the head of his troops. Liu Bang came from peasant stock; he had never been much of a soldier and preferred women and wine to fighting. In fact, he was something of a scoundrel, but he was wily, and he had the ability to recognize the best strategists, keeping them as his advisors and listened to their advice. He had risen in the army through these strengths.

In 208 BC, the king of Chu sent two massive armies to conquer the powerful kingdom of Qin. One army went north under the generalship of Si Yi, with Xiang Yu second in command; the other, led by Liu Bang, headed straight toward Qin. The target was the kingdom's splendid capital, Xianyang. Xiang Yu, ever violent and impatient, could not stand the idea that Liu Bang would get to Xianyang first and perhaps would assume command of the entire army. At one point on the northern front, Xiang's commander, Si Yi, hesitated in sending his troops into battle. Furious, Xiang entered Si Yi's tent, proclaimed him a traitor, cut off his head, and assumed sole command of the army. Without waiting for orders, he left the northern front and marched directly on Xiangyang. He felt certain he was the better soldier and general than Liu, but to his utter astonishment, his rival, leading a smaller, swifter army, managed to reach Xianyang first.

Xiang had an advisor, Fan Zeng, who warned him, "This village headman Liu Bang used to be greedy only for riches and women, but since entering the capital he has not been led astray by wealth, wine, or sex. That shows he is aiming high." Fan Zeng urged Xiang to kill his rival before it was too late. He told the general to invite the wily peasant to a banquet at their camp outside Xianyang, and in the midst of a celebratory sword dance to have his head cut off. The invitation was sent; Liu fell for the rap and came to the banquet, but Xiang hesitated in ordering the sword dance, and by the time he gave the signal, Liu had sensed a trap and managed to escape. "B cried Fan Zeng in disgust, seeing that Xiang had botched the plot, "One cannot plan with a simpleton. Liu Bang will steal your empire yet and make us all his prisoners."

Realizing his mistake, Xiang hurriedly marched on Xianyang, this time determined to hack off his rival's head. Liu was never one to fight when the odds were against him, and he abandoned the city. Xiang captured Xianyang, murdered the young prince of Qin, and burned the city to the ground. Liu was now Xiang's bitter enemy, and he pursued him for many months, finally cornering him in a walled city, lacking food, his army in disarray. Liu sued for peace. Again, Fan Zeng warned Xiang, "Crush him now; if you let him go again, you will be sorry later." But Xiang decided to be merciful. He wanted to bring Liu back to Chu alive and to force his former friend to acknowledge him as master, but Fan proved right. Liu managed to use the negotiations for surrender as a distraction, and he escaped with a small army. Xiang, amazed that he had yet again let his rivals slip away, once more set out after Liu, this time with such ferocity that he seemed to have lost his mind. A few weeks later, in the thick of the hunt, Xiang scattered his forces unwisely, and in a surprise attack, Liu was able to surround his main garrison. For the first time, the tables were turned; now it was Xiang who sued for peace. Liu's top advisor urged him to destroy Xiang, crush his army, show no mercy. Making a false treaty, he lured Xiang into relaxing his defense, then slaughtered almost all of his army. Xiang managed to escape alone and on foot. Knowing that Liu had put a bounty on his head, he came upon a small group of his own retreating soldiers and cried out, "I hear Liu Bang has offered 1,000 pieces of gold and a thief of 10,000 families for my head. Let me do you a favor, then." He slid his own throat and died.

Interpretation: This is the fate that faces all of us when we sympathize with our enemies. When pity or the hope of reconciliation makes us pull back from doing away with them, we only strengthen their fear and hatred of us. We have beaten them, and they are humiliated, yet we nurture these resentful vipers who will one day kill us. Power cannot be dealt with this way; it must be exterminated, crushed, and denied the chance to return to haunt us. This is all the truer with a former friend who has become an enemy. The law governing fatal antagonisms reads: reconciliation is out of the question; only one side can win, and it must win totally. Liu Bang learned this lesson well. After defeating Xiang Yu, this son of a farmer went on to become supreme commander of the armies of Chu, crushing his next rival, the king of Chu, 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 Hsu, founder of the Han Dynasty.

Keys to power: It is no accident that the story illustrating this law comes from China. Chinese history abounds with examples of enemies who were left alive and returned to haunt the lenient. Crush the enemy is a key strategic tenant of Sun Tzu, the 4th-century BC author of The Art of War. The idea is simple: your enemies wish you ill; there is nothing they want more than to eliminate you. If, in your struggles with them, you stop halfway, or even 3/4 of the way, out of mercy or hope of reconciliation, you only make them more determined, more embittered, and they will someday take revenge. They may act friendly for the time being, but this is only because you have defeated them; they have no choice but to bide their time. The solution: have no mercy; crush your enemies as totally as they would crush you. Ultimately, the only peace and security you can hope for from your enemies is their disappearance.

Law 16: Use absence to increase respect and honor. Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: For many centuries, the Assyrians ruled upper Asia with an iron fist. In the 8th century BC, however, the people of Media (now Northwestern Iran) revolted against them and finally broke free. Now the Medes had to establish a new government. Determined to avoid any form of despotism, they refused to give ultimate power to any one man or to establish a monarchy. Without a leader, however, the country soon fell into chaos and fractured into small kingdoms, with village fighting against village. In one such village lived a man named Deioces, who began to make a name for himself for fair dealing and the ability to settle disputes. He did this so successfully, in fact, that soon any legal conflict in the area was brought to him, and his power increased throughout the land. The law had fallen into disrepute; the judges were corrupt, and no one entrusted their cases to the courts anymore, resorting to violence instead. When news spread of Deioces' wisdom, incorruptibility, and unshakeable impartiality, Median villages far and wide turned to him to settle all manner of cases. Soon he became the sole arbiter of justice in the land.

At the height of his power, Deioces suddenly decided he had had enough. He would no longer sit in the chair of judgment, would hear no more suits, settle no more disputes between brother and brother, village and village, complaining that he was spending so much time dealing with other people's problems that he had neglected his own affairs. He retired. The country once again descended into chaos. With the sudden withdrawal of a powerful arbiter like Deioces, crime increased, and contempt for the law was never greater. Deioces held a meeting of all the villages to decide how to get out of their predicament. "We cannot continue to live in this country under these conditions," said one tribal leader. "Let us appoint one of our number to rule so that we can live under orderly government rather than losing our homes altogether in the present chaos." And so, despite all that the Medes had suffered under the Assyrian despotism, they decided to set up a monarchy and name a king. And the man they most wanted to rule, of course, was the fair-minded Deioces. He was hard to convince, for he wanted nothing more to do with the villages' infighting and bickering, but the Medes begged and pleaded. Without him, the country had descended into a state of lawlessness. Deioces finally agreed, yet he also imposed conditions: an enormous palace was to be constructed for him; he was to be provided with bodyguards; and a capital city was to be built from which he could rule. All of this was done, and Deioces settled into his palace in the center of the capital. The palace was surrounded by walls and completely inaccessible to ordinary people. Deioces then established the terms of his rule: admission to his presence was forbidden; communication with the king was only possible through messengers; no one in the royal court could see him more than once a week, and then only by permission. Deioces ruled for 53 years, extended the Median Empire, and established the foundation for what would later be the Persian Empire under his great-great-grandson Cyrus. During Deioces' reign, the people's respect for him gradually turned into a form of worship. He was not a mere mortal, they believed, but the son of a god.

Interpretation: Deioces was a man of great ambition. He determined early on that the country needed a strong ruler, and that he was the man for the job. In a land plagued with anarchy, the most powerful man is the judge and arbiter. So Deioces began his career by making his reputation as a man of impeccable fairness. At the height of his power as a judge, however, Deioces realized the truth of the law of absence and presence. By serving so many clients, he had become too noticeable, too available, and had lost the respect he had earlier enjoyed. People were taking his services for granted. The only way to regain the veneration and power he wanted was to withdraw completely and let the Medes taste what life was like without him. As he expected, they came begging for him to rule. Once Deioces had discovered the truth of this law, he carried it to its ultimate realization in the palace his people had built for him. None could see him except a few courtiers, and those only rarely. As Herodotus wrote, "There was a risk that if they saw him habitually it might lead to jealousy and resentment, and plots would follow; but if nobody saw him, the legend would grow that he was a being of a different order from mere men."

Keys to power: Everything in the world depends on absence and presence. A strong presence will draw power and attention to you; you shine more brightly than those around you. But a point is inevitably reached where too much presence creates the opposite effect. The more you are seen and heard from, the more your value degrades; you become a habit. No matter how hard you try to be different, subtly, without your knowing why, people respect you less and less. At the right moment, you must learn to withdraw yourself before they unconsciously push you away. It is a game of hide-and-seek. Another, more everyday side of this law, but one that demonstrates its truth even further, is the law of scarcity in the science of economics. By withdrawing something from the market, you create instant value. Extend the law of scarcity to your own skills; make what you are offering the world rare and hard to find, and you instantly increase its value. There always comes a point when those in power overstay their welcome. We have grown tired of them, lost respect for them; we see them as no different from the rest of mankind, which is to say that we see them as rather worse, since we inevitably compare their current status in our eyes to their former one. There is an art to knowing when to retire. If it is done right, you regain the respect you had lost and retain a part of your power. Make yourself too available, and the aura of power you have created around yourself will wear away. Turn the game around; make yourself less accessible, and you increase the value of your presence.

Law 17: Keep others in suspense; cultivate an air of unpredictability. Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: In May of 1972, chess champion Boris Spassky anxiously awaited his rival, Bobby Fischer, in Reykjavík, Iceland. The two men had been scheduled to meet for the world championship of chess, but Fischer had not arrived on time, and the match was on hold. Fischer had problems with the size of the prize money, problems with the way the money was to be distributed, problems with the logistics of holding the match in Iceland. He might back out at any moment. Spassky tried to be patient. His Russian bosses felt that Fischer was humiliating him and told him to walk away, but Spassky wanted this match. He knew he could destroy Fischer, and nothing was going to spoil the greatest victory of his career. "So it seems that all our work may come to nothing," Spassky told a comrade, "but what can we do? It is Bobby's move. If he comes, we play; if he does not come, we do not play." A man who was willing to commit suicide as the initiative.

Fischer finally arrived in Reykjavík, but the problems and the threat of cancellation continued. He disliked the hall where the match was to be fought; he criticized the lighting; he complained about the noise of the cameras; he even hated the chairs in which he and Spassky were to sit. Now the Soviet Union took the initiative and threatened to withdraw their man. The bluff apparently worked. After all the weeks of waiting, the endless and infuriating negotiations, Fischer agreed to play. Everyone was relieved; no one more than Spassky. But on the day of the official introductions, Fischer arrived very late, and on the day when the match of the century was to begin, he was late again. This time, however, the consequences would be dire. If he showed up too late, he would forfeit the first game. What was going on? Was he playing some sort of mind game, or was Bobby Fischer perhaps afraid of Boris Spassky? It seemed to the assembled grand masters and to Spassky that this young kid from Brooklyn had a terrible case of the jitters. At 5:09, Fischer showed up exactly 1 minute before the match was to be cancelled.

The first game of a chess tournament is critical, since it sets the tone for the months to come. It is often a slow and quiet struggle, with the two players preparing themselves for the war and trying to read each other's strategies. This game was different. Fischer made a terrible move early on, perhaps the worst of his career, and when Spassky had him on the ropes, he seemed to give up. Yet Spassky knew that Fischer never gave up, even when facing checkmate; he fought to the bitter end, wearing the opponent down. This time, though, he seemed resigned. Then suddenly he broke out a bold move that put the room in a buzz. The move shocked Spassky, but he recovered and managed to win the game, but no one could figure out what Fischer was up to. Had he lost deliberately, or was he rattled, unsettled, even as some thought, insane?

After his defeat in the first game, Fischer complained all the more loudly about the room, the cameras, and everything else. He also failed to show up on time for the second game. This time the organizers had had enough; he was given a forfeit. Now he was down two games to none, a position from which no one had ever come back to win a chess championship. Fischer was clearly unhinged, yet in the third game, as all those who witnessed it remember, he had a ferocious look in his eye, a look that clearly bothered Spassky, and despite the hole he had dug for himself, he seemed supremely confident. He did make what appeared to be another blunder, as he had in the first game, but his cocky air made Spassky smell a trap. Yet, despite the Russian suspicions, he could not figure out the trap, and before he knew it, Fischer had checkmated him. In fact, Fischer's unorthodox tactics had completely unnerved his opponent. At the end of the game, Fischer leaped up and rushed out, yelling to his confederates as he smashed his fist into his palm, "I am crushing him with brute force!"

In the next games, Fischer pulled moves that no one had seen from him before, moves that were not his style. Now Spassky started to make blunders. After losing the sixth game, he started to cry. One grandmaster said, "After this, Spassky has got to ask himself if it's safe to go back to Russia." After the eighth game, Spassky decided he knew what was happening: Bobby Fischer was hypnotizing him. He decided not to look Fischer in the eye. He lost anyway. After the 14th game, he called a staff conference and announced, "An attempt is being made to control my mind." He wondered whether the orange juice they drank at the chess table could have been drugged; maybe chemicals were being blown into the air. Finally, Spassky went public, accusing the Fischer team of putting something in the chairs that was altering Spassky's mind. The KGB went on alert. Boris Spassky was embarrassing the Soviet Union. The chairs were taken apart and X-rayed; a chemist found nothing unusual in them. The only things anyone found anywhere, in fact, were two dead flies in the lighting fixture. Spassky began to complain of hallucinations. He tried to keep playing, but his mind was unraveling; he could not go on. On September 2nd, he resigned. Although still relatively young, he never recovered from this defeat.

Interpretation: In previous games between Fischer and Spassky, Fischer had always played a very consistent game.

And Spasky Fischer had not fared well. Spasky had an uncanny ability to read his opponent's strategy and use it against him. Adaptable and patient, he would build attacks that would defeat not in seven moves, but in 70. He defeated Fischer every time they played because he saw much further ahead and because he was a brilliant psychologist who never lost control. One master said, "He doesn't just look for the best move; he looks for the move that will disturb the man he is playing."

Fer, however, finally understood that this was one of the keys to Spasky's success: he played on your predictability, defeated you at your own game. Everything Fischer did for the championship match was an attempt to put the initiative on his side and to keep Spasky off balance. Clearly, the endless waiting had an effect on Spasky. Most powerful of all, though, were Fischer's deliberate blunders and his appearance of having no clear strategy. In fact, he was doing everything he could to scramble his old patterns, even if it meant losing the first match and forfeiting the second. Spasky was known for his sangfroid and level-headedness, but for the first time in his life he could not figure out his opponent. He slowly melted down until, at the end, he was the one who seemed insane.

Chess contains the concentrated essence of life, first because to win you have to be supremely patient and farseeing, and second because the game is built on patterns—whole sequences of moves that have been played before and will be played again with slight alterations. In any one match, your opponent analyzes the patterns you are playing and uses them to try to foresee your moves. Allowing him nothing predictable to base his strategy on gives you a big advantage in chess, as in life. When people cannot figure out what you are doing, they are kept in a state of terror, waiting, uncertain, confused. Keys to power: nothing is more terrifying than the sudden and unpredictable. That is why we are so frightened by earthquakes and tornadoes; we do not know when they will strike. After one has occurred, we wait in terror for the next one. To a lesser degree, this is the effect that unpredictable human behavior has on us. Animals behave in set patterns, which is why we are able to hunt and kill them. Only man has the capacity consciously to alter his behavior, to improvise and overcome the weight of routine and habit. Yet most men do not realize this power; they prefer the comforts of routine, of giving into the animal nature that has them repeating the same compulsive actions time and time again. They do this because it requires no effort and because they mistakenly believe that if they do not unsettle others, they will be left alone.

Understand: a person of power instills a kind of fear by deliberately unsettling those around him. To keep the initiative on his side, you sometimes need to strike without warning, to make others tremble when they least expect it. It is a device that the powerful have used for centuries. Unpredictability is most often the tactic of the master, but the underdog too can use it to great effect. If you find yourself outnumbered or cornered, throw in a series of unpredictable moves. Your enemies will be so confused that they will pull back or make a tactical blunder. People are always trying to read the motives behind your actions and to use your predictability against you. Throw in a completely inexplicable move, and you put them on the defensive because they do not understand you; they are unnerved, and in such a state you can easily intimidate them. Unpredictability is not only a weapon of terror; scrambling your patterns on a day-to-day basis will cause a stir around you and stimulate interest. People will talk about you, ascribe motives and explanations that have nothing to do with the truth, but that keep you constantly in their minds. In the end, the more capricious you appear, the more respect you will garner. Only the terminally subordinate act in a predictable manner. Law 18: Do not build fortresses to protect yourself.

Judgment: 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, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd. Transgression of the law: Chin Shi Huang Di, the first emperor of China (221-210 BC), was the mightiest man of his day. His empire was vaster and more powerful than that of Alexander the Great. He had conquered all of the kingdoms surrounding his own kingdom of Chin and unified them into one massive realm called China. But in the last years of his life, few, if anyone, saw him. The emperor lived in the most magnificent palace built to that date in the capital of Xianyang. The palace had 270 pavilions; all of these were connected by secret underground passageways, allowing the emperor to move through the palace without anyone seeing him. He slept in a different room every night, and anyone who inadvertently laid eyes on him was instantly beheaded. Only a handful of men knew his whereabouts, and if they revealed it to anyone, they too were put to death. The first emperor had grown so terrified of human contact that when he had to leave the palace, he traveled incognito, disguising himself carefully. On one such trip through the provinces, he suddenly died. His body was borne back to the capital in the emperor's carriage, with a cart packed with salted fish trailing behind it to cover up the smell of the rotting corpse. No one was to know of his death. He died alone, far from his wives, his family, his friends, and his courtiers, accompanied only by a minister and a handful of eunuchs.

Interpretation: Shi Huangdi started off as the king of Chin, a fearless warrior of unbridled ambition. Writers of the time described him as a man with a waspish nose, eyes like slits, the voice of a jackal, and the heart of a tiger or wolf. He could be merciful sometimes, but more often he swallowed men up without a scruple. It was through trickery and violence that he conquered the provinces surrounding his own and created China, forging a single nation and culture out of many. As part of this process of unification, however, the first emperor outlawed the writings and teachings of Confucius, the philosopher whose ideas on the moral life had already become virtually a religion in Chinese culture. On Shi Huangdi's order, thousands of books relating to Confucius were burned, and anyone who quoted Confucius was to be beheaded. This made many enemies for the emperor, and he grew constantly afraid, even paranoid. The executions mounted. A contemporary, the writer Han Fei, noted that, "Chin has been victorious for four generations, yet has lived in constant terror and apprehension of destruction." As the emperor withdrew deeper and deeper into the palace to protect himself, he slowly lost control of the realm. Eunuchs and ministers enacted political policies without his approval or even his knowledge. They also plotted against him. By the end, he was emperor in name only and was so isolated that barely anyone knew he had died. He had probably been poisoned by the same scheming ministers who encouraged his isolation. That is what isolation brings. Retreat into a fortress, and you lose contact with the sources of your power; you lose your ear for what is happening around you, as well as a sense of proportion. Instead of being safer, you cut yourself off from the kind of knowledge on which your life depends. Never enclose yourself so far from the streets that you cannot hear what is happening around you, including the plots against you. Keys to power: Machiavelli makes the argument that, in a strictly military sense, a fortress is invariably a mistake. It becomes a symbol of power's isolation and is an easy target for its builder's enemies. Designed to defend you, fortresses actually cut you off from help and cut into your flexibility. They may appear impregnable, but once you retire to one, everyone knows where you are, and a siege does not have to succeed to turn your fortress into a prison. The danger for most people comes when they feel threatened. In such times, they tend to retreat and close ranks, to find security in a kind of fortress. In doing so, however, they come to rely for information on a smaller and smaller circle and lose perspective on events around them; they lose maneuverability and become easy targets, and their isolation makes them paranoid. As in warfare and most games of strategy, isolation often precedes defeat and death. In moments of uncertainty and danger, you need to fight this desire to turn inward. Instead, make yourself more accessible; seek out old allies and make new ones; force yourself into more and more different circles. This has been the trick of powerful people for centuries. Finally, since power is a human creation, it is inevitably increased by contact with other people. Instead of falling into the fortress mentality, view the world in the following manner: it is like a vast palace with every room communicating with another. You need to be permeable, able to float in and out of different circles and mix with different types. That kind of mobility and social contact will protect you from plotters who will be unable to keep secrets from you and from your enemies who will be unable to isolate you from your allies. Always on the move, you mix and mingle in the rooms of the palace, never sitting or settling in one place. No hunter can fix his aim on such a swift-moving creature. Law 19: Know who you are dealing with; do not offend the wrong person.

Judgment: 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 lamb's clothing. Choose your victims and opponents carefully, then never offend or deceive the wrong person. Opponents, suckers, and victims: Preliminary topology: In your rise to power, you will come across many breeds of opponent, sucker, and victim. The highest form of the art of power is the ability to distinguish the wolves from the lambs, the foxes from the hares, the hawks from the vultures. If you make this distinction well, you will succeed without needing to coerce anyone too much. But if you deal blindly with whomever crosses your path, you will have a life of constant sorrow, if you even live that long. Being able to recognize types of people and to act accordingly is critical. The following are the five most dangerous and difficult types of mark in the jungle, as identified by artists, K.H., and otherwise, of the past:

The arrogant and proud man: Although he may initially disguise it, this man's touchy pride makes him very dangerous. Any perceived slight will lead to a vengeance of overwhelming violence. You may say to yourself, "But I only said such and such at a party where everyone was drunk." It does not matter; there is no sanity behind his overreaction, so do not waste time trying to figure him out. If at any point in your dealings with a person you sense an oversensitive and overactive pride, flee. Whatever you are hoping for from him isn't worth it.

The hopelessly insecure man: This man is related to the proud and arrogant type but is less violent and harder to spot. His ego is fragile; his sense of self, insecure; and if he feels himself deceived or attacked, the hurt will simmer. He will attack you in bites that will take forever to get big enough for you to notice. If you find you have deceived or harmed such a man, disappear for a long time. Do not stay around him, or he will nibble you to death.

Mr. Suspicion: Another variant on the breeds above. This is a future Joe Stalin. He sees what he wants to see, usually the worst in other people, and imagines that everyone is after him. Mr. Suspicion is, in fact, the least dangerous of the three genuinely unbalanced; he is easy to deceive, just as Stalin himself was constantly deceived. Play on his suspicious nature to get him to turn against other people, but if you do become the target of his suspicions, watch out.

The serpent with a long memory: If hurt or deceived, this man will show no anger on the surface. He will calculate and wait; then, when he is in a position to turn the tables, he will exact a revenge marked by a cold-blooded shrewdness. Recognize this man by his calculation and cunning in the different areas of his life; he is usually cold and unaffectionate. Be doubly careful of this snake, and if you have somehow injured him, either crush him completely or get him out of your sight.

The plain, unassuming, and often unintelligent man: Ah, your ears prick up when you find such a tempting victim, but this man is a lot harder to deceive than you imagine. Falling for a ruse often takes intelligence and imagination, a sense of the possible rewards. The blunt man will not take the bait because he does not recognize it; he is that unaware. The danger with this man is not that he will harm you or seek revenge, but merely that he will waste your time, energy, resources, and even your sanity in trying to deceive him. Have a test ready for a mark: a joke, a story. If his reaction is utterly literal, this is the type you were dealing with. Continue at your own risk.

Transgression of the law: In the early part of the 13th century, Muhammad, the Shah of Khwarazm, managed, after many wars, to forge a huge empire extending west to present-day Turkey and south to Afghanistan. The empire's center was the great Asian capital of Samarkand. The Shah had a powerful, well-trained army and could mobilize 200,000 warriors within days. In 1219, Muhammad received an embassy from a new tribal leader to the east, Genghis Khan. The embassy included all sorts of gifts to the great Muhammad, representing the finest goods from Khan's small but growing Mongol empire. Genghis Khan wanted to reopen the Silk Route to Europe and offered to share it with Muhammad while promising peace between the two empires. Muhammad did not know this upstart from the East, who, it seemed to him, was extremely arrogant to try to talk as an equal to one so clearly his superior. He ignored Khan's offer. Khan tried again; this time, he sent a caravan of 100 camels filled with the rarest articles he had plundered from China. Before the caravan reached Muhammad, however, Inalchuq, the governor of a region bordering on Samarkand, seized it for himself and executed its leaders. Genghis Khan was sure that this was a mistake, that Inalchuq had acted without Muhammad's approval. He sent yet another mission to Muhammad, reiterating his offer and asking that the governor be punished. This time, Muhammad himself had one of the ambassadors beheaded and sent the other two back with shaved heads—a horrifying insult in the Mongol code of honor. Khan sent a message to the Shah: "You have chosen war. What will happen will happen, and what is to be we know not; only God knows." Mobilizing his forces in 1220, he attacked Inalchuq's province, where he seized the capital, captured the governor, and ordered him executed by having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears. Over the next year, Khan led a series of guerrilla-like campaigns against the Shah's much larger army. His method was totally novel for the time: his soldiers could move very fast on horseback and had mastered the art of firing with bow and arrow while mounted. The speed and flexibility of his forces allowed him to deceive Muhammad as to his intentions and the directions of his movements. Eventually, he managed first to surround Samarkand, then to seize it. Muhammad fled, and a year later died, his vast empire broken and destroyed. Genghis Khan was sole master of Samarkand, the Silk Road, and most of Northern Asia.

Interpretation: Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some men are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme, given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous. Never reject them with an insult until you know them better; you may be dealing with a Genghis Khan. Keys to power: The ability to measure people and to know who you are dealing with is the most important skill of all in gathering and conserving power. Without it, you are blind. Not only will you offend the wrong people, you will choose the wrong people to work with and will think you are flattering people when you are actually insulting them. Before embarking on any move, take the measure of your mark or potential opponent; otherwise, you will waste time and make mistakes. Study people's weaknesses, the chinks in their armor, their areas of both pride and insecurity; know their ins and outs before you even decide whether or not to deal with them. Two final words of caution: First, in judging and measuring your opponent, never rely on your instincts; you will make the greatest mistakes of all if you rely on such inexact indicators. Nothing can substitute for gathering concrete knowledge; study and spy on your opponent for however long it takes; this will pay off in the long run. Second, never trust appearances; anyone with a serpent's heart can use a show of kindness to cloak it; a person who is blustery on the outside is often really a coward. Learn to see through appearances and their contradictions; never trust the version that people give of themselves; it is utterly unreliable. [Music] Law 20: Do not commit to anyone.

Judgment: 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. Part one: Do not commit to anyone but be courted by all. If you allow people to feel they possess you to any degree, you lose all power over them. By not committing your affections, they will only try harder to win you over. Stay aloof, and you gain the power that comes from their attention and frustrated desire. Play the Virgin Queen; give them hope but never satisfaction. Observance of the law: When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne of England in 1558, there was much ado about her finding a husband. The issue was debated in Parliament and was a main topic of conversation among Englishmen of all classes. They often disagreed as to whom she should marry, but everyone thought she should marry as soon as possible, for a queen must have a king and must bear heirs for the kingdom. The debates raged on for years. Meanwhile, the most handsome and eligible bachelors in the realm—Sir Robert Dudley, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh—vied for Elizabeth's hand. She did not discourage them, but she seemed to be in no hurry, and her hints as to which man might be her favorite often contradicted each other. In 1566, Parliament sent a delegation to Elizabeth urging her to marry before she was too old to bear children. She did not argue, nor did she discourage the delegation, but she remained a virgin nonetheless. The delicate game that Elizabeth played with her suitors slowly made her the subject of innumerable sexual fantasies and the object of cultish worship. The court physician, Simon Forman, used his diary to describe his dream of deflowering her; painters represented her as Diana and other goddesses; the poet Edmund Spenser and others wrote eulogies to the Virgin Queen. She was referred to as the world's empress, "that virtuous Virgo who rules the world and sets the stars in motion." In conversation with her, her many male suitors would employ bold sexual innuendo—a dare that Elizabeth did not discourage. She did all she could to stir their interest and simultaneously keep them at bay. Throughout Europe, kings and princes knew that a marriage with Elizabeth would seal an alliance between England and any nation. The king of Spain wooed her, as did the prince of Sweden and the Archduke of Austria. She politely refused them all. The great diplomatic issue of Elizabeth's reign was posed by the revolt of the Flemish and Dutch lowlands, which were then possessions of Spain. Should England break its alliance with Spain and choose France as its main ally on the continent, thereby encouraging Flemish and Dutch independence? By 1570, it had come to seem that an alliance with France would be England's wisest course. France had two eligible men of noble blood: the Dukes of Anjou and Alençon, brothers of the French king. Would either of them marry Elizabeth? Both had advantages, and Elizabeth kept the hopes of both alive. The issue simmered for years. The Duke of Anjou made several visits to England, kissed Elizabeth in public, even called her by pet names. She appeared to requite his affections. Meanwhile, as she flirted with the two brothers, a treaty was signed that sealed peace between France and England. By 1582, Elizabeth felt she could break off the courtship, in the case of the Duke of Anjou in particular. She did so with great relief, for the sake of diplomacy she had allowed herself to be courted by a man whose presence she could not stand and whom she found physically repulsive. Once peace between France and England was secure, she dropped the anxious duke as politely as she could. By this time, Elizabeth was too old to bear children; she was accordingly able to live the rest of her life as she desired, and she died the Virgin Queen. She left no direct heir but ruled through a period of incomparable peace and cultural fertility.

Interpretation: Elizabeth knew that marriage can often lead to a female ruler's undoing. By marrying and committing to an alliance with one party or nation, the queen becomes embroiled in conflicts that are not of her choosing—conflicts which may eventually overwhelm her or lead her into a feudal war. Also, the husband becomes the de facto ruler and often tries to do away with his wife, the queen. She had two goals as a ruler: to avoid marriage and to avoid war. She managed to combine these goals by dangling the possibility of marriage in order to forge alliances. The moment she committed to any single suitor would have been the moment she lost her power. She had to emanate mystery and desirability, never discouraging anyone's hopes but never yielding. Through this lifelong game of flirting and withdrawing, Elizabeth dominated the country and every man who sought to conquer her. As the center of attention, she was in control, keeping her independence above all. Elizabeth protected her power and made herself an object of worship. Keys to power: 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, this aura of power only grows with time, as your reputation for independence grows. More and more people will come to desire you, wanting to be the one who gets you to commit. Desire is like a virus; if we see that someone is desired by other people, we tend to find this person desirable too. The moment you commit, the magic is gone; you become like everyone else. People will try all kinds of underhanded methods to get you to commit; they will give you gifts, shower you with favors, all to put you under obligation. Encourage the attention; stimulate their interest, but do not commit at any cost. Accept the gifts and favors if you so desire, but be careful to maintain your inner aloofness; you cannot inadvertently allow yourself to feel obligated to anyone. Stay aloof, and people will come to you; it will become a challenge for them to win your affections. As long as you imitate the wise Virgin Queen and stimulate their hopes, you will remain a magnet of attention and desire. Part two: Do not commit to anyone; stay above the fray. Do not let people suck you into their petty fights and squabbles. Seem supportive and interested, but find a way to remain neutral. Let others do the fighting while you stand back, watch, and wait. When the fighting parties are good and tired, they will be ripe for the picking. You can make it a practice, in fact, to stir up quarrels between other people and then offer to mediate, gaining power as the go-between. Observance of the law: In the late 15th century, the strongest city-states in Italy—Venice, Florence, Rome, and Milan—found themselves constantly squabbling. Hovering above their struggles were the nations of France and Spain, ready to grab whatever they could from the weakened Italian powers. And trapped in the middle was the small state of Mantua, ruled by the young Duke Gianfrancesco Gonzaga. Mantua was strategically located in central Italy, and it seemed only a matter of time before one of the powers swallowed it up and it ceased to exist as an independent kingdom. Gonzaga was a fierce warrior and a skilled commander of troops, and he became a kind of mercenary general for whatever side paid him best. In the year 1490, he married Isabella d'Este, daughter of the ruler of another small Italian kingdom, Ferrara. Since he now spent most of his time

Away from Mana, it fell to Isabella to rule in his stead. Isabella's first true test as ruler came in 1498, when King Louis XII of France was preparing armies to attack Milan in their usual perfidious fashion. The Italian states immediately looked for ways to profit from Milan's difficulties. Pope Alexander VI promised not to intervene, thereby giving the French carte blanche. The Venetians signaled that they would not help Milan either, and in exchange for this, they hoped the French would give them Mana. The ruler of Milan, Lovo Sforza, suddenly found himself alone and abandoned. He turned to Isabella d'Este, one of his closest friends, also rumored to be his lover, and begged her to persuade Duke Gonzaga to come to his aid. Isabella tried, but her husband balked, for he saw Sforza's cause as hopeless.

And so, in 1499, Louis swooped down on Milan and took it with ease. Isabella now faced a dilemma. If she stayed loyal to Lovo, the French would now move against her; but if instead she allied herself with France, she would make enemies elsewhere in Italy, compromising Mana. Once Louis eventually withdrew, if she looked to Venice or Rome for help, they would simply swallow up Mana under the cloak of coming to her aid. Yet she had to do something; the mighty king of France was breathing down her neck. She decided to befriend him, as she had befriended Lovo Sforza before him, with alluring gifts, witty, intelligent letters, and the possibility of her company; for Isabella was famous as a woman of incomparable beauty and charm.

In 1500, Louis invited Isabella to a great party in Milan to celebrate his victory. Leonardo da Vinci built an enormous mechanical lion for the affair. When the lion opened its mouth, it spewed forth lilies, the symbols of French royalty. At the party, Isabella wore one of her celebrated dresses; she had by far the largest wardrobe of any of the Italian princesses. And just as she had hoped, she charmed and captivated Louis, who ignored all the other ladies vying for his attention. She soon became his constant companion, and in exchange for her friendship, he pledged to protect Mana's independence from Venice.

As one danger receded, however, another, more worrying one arose—this time from the south, in the form of Cesare Borgia. Starting in 1500, Borgia had marched steadily northward, gobbling up all the small kingdoms in his path in the name of his father, Pope Alexander. Isabella understood Cesare perfectly; he could be neither trusted nor in any way offended; he had to be cajoled and kept at arm's length. Isabella began by sending him gifts—falcons, prize dogs, perfumes, and dozens of masks, which she knew he always wore when he walked the streets of Rome. She sent messengers with flattering greetings, although these messengers also acted as her spies. At one point, Cesare inquired if he could house some troops in Mana. Isabella managed to dissuade him politely, knowing full well that once the troops were quartered in the city, they would never leave. Even when Isabella was charming Cesare, she convinced everyone around her to take care never to utter a harsh word about him, since he had spies everywhere and would use the slightest pretext for invasion. When Isabella had a child, she asked Cesare to be the godfather; she even dangled in front of him the possibility of a marriage between her family and his. Somehow, it all worked; for although elsewhere he seized everything in his path, he spared Mana.

In 1503, Cesare's father, Alexander, died, and a few years later, the new Pope, Julius II, went to war to drive the French troops from Italy. When the ruler of Ferrara, Alonso, Isabella's brother, sided with the French, Julius decided to attack and humble him. Once again, Isabella found herself in the middle—the Pope on one side, the French and her brother on the other. She dared not ally herself with either, but to offend either would be equally disastrous. Again, she played the double game at which she had become so expert. On the one hand, she got her husband, Gonzaga, to fight for the Pope, knowing he would not fight very hard. On the other, she let French troops pass through Mana to come to Ferrara's aid, while she publicly complained that the French had invaded her territory. She privately supplied them with valuable information to make the invasion plausible to Julius; she even had the French pretend to plunder Mana. It worked; once again, the Pope left Mana alone.

In 1513, after a lengthy siege, Julius defeated Ferrara, and the French troops withdrew, worn out by the effort. The Pope died a few months later. With his death, the nightmarish cycle of battles and petty squabbles began to repeat itself. A great deal changed in Italy during Isabella's reign: Popes came and went; Cesare Borgia rose and then fell; Venice lost its empire; Milan was invaded; Florence fell into decline; and Rome was sacked by the Habsburg emperor, Charles I. Through all this, tiny Mana not only survived but thrived; its court, the envy of Italy; its wealth and sovereignty would remain intact for a century after Isabella's death in 1539.

Interpretation: Learn to control yourself, to restrain your natural tendency to take sides and join in the fight. Be friendly and charming to each of the combatants, then step back as they collide. With every battle, they grow weaker, while you grow stronger; with every battle you avoid.

Keys to power: To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you, and this presents a great danger. Most people operate in a whirlpool of emotions, constantly reacting, churning up squabbles and conflicts. Your self-control and autonomy will only bother and infuriate them; they will try to draw you into the whirlpool, begging you to take sides in their endless battles or to make peace for them. If you succumb to their emotional entreaties, little by little, you will find your mind and time occupied by their problems. Do not allow whatever compassion and pity you possess to suck you in; you can never win in this game; the conflicts can only multiply. On the other hand, you cannot completely stand aside, for that would cause needless offense. To play the game properly, you must seem interested in other people's problems, even sometimes appear to take their side; but while you make outward gestures of support, you must maintain your inner energy and sanity by keeping your emotions disengaged. No matter how hard people try to pull you in, never let your interest in their affairs and petty squabbles go beyond the surface. Give them gifts, listen with a sympathetic look, even occasionally play the charmer, but inwardly keep both the friendly kings and the perfidious Borgias at arm's length by refusing to commit and thus maintaining your autonomy. You retain the initiative; your moves stay matters of your own choosing, not defensive reactions to the push and pull of those around you. Play a waiting game, and you cannot lose.

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

Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: In the winter of 1872, the US financier Asbury Harpending was visiting London when he received a cable: a diamond mine had been discovered in the American West. The cable came from a reliable source, William Ralston, owner of the Bank of California; but Harpending nevertheless took it as a practical joke, probably inspired by the recent discovery of huge diamond mines in South Africa. True, when reports had first come in of gold being discovered in the Western United States, everyone had been skeptical, and those had turned out to be true; but a diamond mine in the West? Harpending showed the cable to his fellow financier Baron Rothschild, one of the richest men in the world, saying it must be a joke. The Baron, however, replied, "Don't be too sure about that. America is a very large country; it has furnished the world with many surprises already; perhaps it has others in store." Harpending promptly took the first ship back to the States.

When Harpending reached San Francisco, there was an excitement in the air, recalling the Gold Rush days of the late 1840s. Two crusty prospectors, named Philip Arnold and John Slack, had been the ones to find the diamond mine. They had not divulged its location in Wyoming but had led a highly respected mining expert to it several weeks back, taking a circular route so he could not guess his whereabouts. Once there, the expert had watched as the miners dug up diamonds. Back in San Francisco, the expert had taken the gems to various jewelers, one of whom had estimated their worth at $1.5 million. Harpending and Ralston now asked Arnold and Slack to accompany them back to New York, where the jeweler Charles Tiffany would verify the original estimates. The prospectors responded uneasily; they smelled a trap. How could they trust these city slickers? What if Tiffany and the financiers managed to steal the whole mine out from under them? Ralston tried to allay their fears by giving them $100,000 and placing another $300,000 in escrow for them. If the deal went through, they would be paid an additional $300,000. The miners agreed.

The little group traveled to New York, where a meeting was held at the mansion of Samuel L. Barlow. The cream of the city's aristocracy was in attendance: General George Brinton McClellan, commander of the Union Army in the Civil War; General Benjamin Butler; Horace Greeley, editor of the newspaper The New York Tribune; Harpending, Ralston, and Tiffany. Only Slack and Arnold were missing; as tourists in the city, they had decided to go sightseeing. When Tiffany announced that the gems were real and worth a fortune, the financiers could barely control their excitement. They wired Rothschild and other tycoons to tell them about the diamond mine and inviting them to share in the investment. At the same time, they also told the prospectors that they wanted one more test; they insisted that a mining expert of their choosing accompany Slack and Arnold to the site to verify its wealth. The prospectors reluctantly agreed. In the meantime, they said they had to return to San Francisco. The jewels Tiffany had examined they left with Harpending for safekeeping.

Several weeks later, a man named Lewis Janin, the best mining expert in the country, met the prospectors in San Francisco. Janin was a born skeptic who was determined to make sure that the mine was not a fraud. Accompanying Janin were Harpending and several other interested financiers. As with the previous expert, the prospectors led the team through a complex series of canyons, completely confusing them as to their whereabouts. Arriving at the site, the financiers watched in amazement as Janin dug the area up, leveling anthills, turning over boulders, and finding emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and, most of all, diamonds. The dig lasted eight days, and by the end, Janin was convinced. He told the investors that they now possessed the richest field in mining history. With 100 men and proper machinery, he told them, he would guarantee to send out $1 million in diamonds every 30 days.

Returning to San Francisco a few days later, Ralston, Harpending, and Company acted fast to form a $10 million corporation of private investors. First, however, they had to get rid of Arnold and Slack; that meant hiding their excitement. They certainly did not want to reveal the field's real value, so they played possum. "Who knows if Janin is right," they told the prospectors; "the mine may not be as rich as we think." This just made the prospectors angry. Trying a different tactic, the financiers told the two men that if they insisted on having shares in the mine, they would end up being fleeced by the unscrupulous tycoons and investors who would run the corporation. Better, they said, to take the $700,000 already offered—an enormous sum at the time—and put their greed aside. This the prospectors seemed to understand, and they finally agreed to take the money, in return signing the rights to the site over to the financiers and leaving maps to it.

News of the mine spread like wildfire. Prospectors fanned out across Wyoming. Meanwhile, Harpending's group began spending the millions they had collected from their investors, buying equipment, hiring the best men in the business, and furnishing luxurious offices in New York and San Francisco. A few weeks later, on their first trip back to the site, they learned the hard truth: not a single diamond or ruby was to be found. It was all a fake; they were ruined. Harpending had unwittingly lured the richest men in the world into the biggest scam of the century.

Interpretation: Arnold and Slack pulled off their stupendous con not by using a fake engineer or bribing Tiffany; all of the experts had been real; all of them honestly believed in the existence of the mine and in the value of the gems. What had fooled them all was nothing else than Arnold and Slack themselves. The two men seemed to be such rubes, such hayseeds, so naive that no one for an instant had believed them capable of an audacious scam. The prospectors had simply observed the law of appearing more stupid than the mark—the deceivers' first commandment. The logistics of the con were quite simple. Months before Arnold and Slack announced the discovery of the diamond mine, they traveled to Europe, where they purchased some real gems for around $112,000—part of the money they had saved from their days as gold miners. They then salted the mine with these gems, which the first expert dug up and brought to San Francisco. The jewelers who had appraised these stones, including Tiffany himself, had gotten caught up in the field and had grossly overestimated their value. Then Ralston gave the prospectors $100,000 as security, and immediately after their trip to New York, they simply went to Amsterdam, where they bought sacks of uncut gems before returning to San Francisco. The second time they salted the mine, there were many more jewels to be found. The effectiveness of the scheme, however, rested not on tricks like these, but on the fact that Arnold and Slack played their parts to perfection. On their trip to New York, where they mingled with millionaires and tycoons, they played up their clodhopper image, wearing pants and coats a size or two too small and acting incredulous at everything they saw in the big city. No one believed that these country simpletons could possibly be conning the most devious, unscrupulous financiers of the time.

Keys to power: 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 brainpower; that is an unforgivable sin. But if you can make this iron rule work for you, it opens up all sorts of avenues of deception. Subliminally reassure people that they are more intelligent than you are, or even that you are a bit of a fool, and you can run rings around them. The feeling of intellectual superiority you give them will disarm their suspicion muscles. Intelligence is the obvious quality to downplay, but why stop there? Taste and sophistication rank close to intelligence on the vanity scale. Make people feel they are more sophisticated than you are, and their guard will come down. As Arnold and Slack knew, an air of complete naiveté can work wonders. Those fancy financiers were laughing at them behind their backs, but who laughed loudest in the end? In general, then, always make people believe they are smarter and more sophisticated than you are; they will keep you around because you make them feel better about themselves, and the longer you are around, the more opportunities you will have to deceive them.

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

Judgment: When you are weaker, never fight for honor's sake; choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror, 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.

Observance of the law: Sometime in the 1920s, the German writer Bertolt Brecht became a convert to the cause of Communism. From then on, his plays, essays, and poems reflected his revolutionary fervor, and he generally tried to make his ideological statements as clear as possible. When Hitler came to power in Germany, Brecht and his communist colleagues became marked men. He had many friends in the United States—Americans who sympathized with his beliefs, as well as fellow German intellectuals who had fled Hitler. In 1941, accordingly, Brecht emigrated to the United States and chose to settle in Los Angeles, where he hoped to make a living in the film business. Over the next few years, Brecht wrote screenplays with a pointedly anti-capitalist slant. He had little success in Hollywood, so in 1947, the war having ended, he decided to return to Europe. That same year, however, the US Congress's House Un-American Activities Committee began its investigation into supposed communist infiltration in Hollywood. It began to gather information on Brecht, who had so openly espoused Marxism, and on September 19th, 1947, only a month before he had planned to leave the United States, he received a subpoena to appear before the committee. In addition to Brecht, a number of other writers, producers, and directors were summoned to appear as well, and this group came to be known as the Hollywood 19.

Before going to Washington, the Hollywood 19 met to decide on a plan of action. Their approach would be confrontational. Instead of answering questions about their membership or lack of it in the Communist Party, they would read prepared statements that would challenge the authority of the committee and argue that its activities were unconstitutional. Even if this strategy meant imprisonment, it would gain publicity for their cause. Brecht disagreed. What good was it, he asked, to play the martyr and gain a little public sympathy if, in the process, they lost the ability to stage their plays and sell their scripts for years to come? He felt certain they were all more intelligent than the members of the committee. Why lower themselves to the level of their opponents by arguing with them? Why not outfox the committee by appearing to surrender to it while subtly mocking it? The Hollywood 19 listened to Brecht politely but decided to stick to their plan, leaving Brecht to go his own way.

The committee finally summoned Brecht on October 30th. They expected him to do what others among the Hollywood 19 who had testified before him had done: argue, refuse to answer questions, challenge the committee's right to hold its hearing, even yell and hurl insults. Much to their surprise, however, Brecht was the very picture of congeniality. He wore a suit—something he rarely did—smoked a cigar (he had heard that the committee chairman was a passionate cigar smoker), answered their questions politely, and generally deferred to their authority. Unlike the other witnesses, Brecht answered the question of whether he belonged to the Communist Party. He was not a member, he said, which happened to be the truth. One committee member asked him, "Is it true you have written a number of revolutionary plays?" Brecht had written many plays with overt communist messages, but he responded, "I have written a number of poems and songs and plays in the fight against Hitler, and of course they can be considered therefore as revolutionary, because I, of course, was for the overthrow of that government." This statement went unchallenged. Brecht's English was more than adequate, but he used an interpreter throughout his testimony—a tactic that allowed him to play subtle games with language. When committee members found communist leanings in lines from English editions of his poems, he would repeat the lines in German for the interpreter, who would then retranslate them, and somehow they would come out innocuous. At one point, a committee member read one of Brecht's revolutionary poems out loud in English and asked him if he had written it. "No," he responded, "I wrote a German poem which is very different from this." The author's elusive answers baffled the committee members, but his politeness and the way he yielded to their authority made it impossible for them to get angry with him. After only an hour of questioning, the committee members had had enough. "Thank you very much," said the chairman. "You are a good example to the other witnesses." Not only did they free him, they offered to help him if he had any trouble with immigration officials who might detain him for their own reasons. The following day, Brecht left the US, never to return.

Interpretation: The Hollywood 19's confrontational approach won them a lot of sympathy, and years later they gained a kind of vindication in public opinion; but they were also blacklisted and lost valuable years of profitable working time. Brecht, on the other hand, expressed his disgust at the committee more indirectly. It was not that he changed his beliefs or compromised his values; instead, during his short testimony, he kept the upper hand by appearing to yield while all the time running circles around the committee with vague responses, outright lies that went unchallenged because they were wrapped in enigmas and were word games. In the end, he kept the freedom to continue his revolutionary writing as opposed to suffering imprisonment or detainment in the United States, even while subtly mocking the committee and its authority with his pseudo-obedience. Keep in mind the following: People trying to make a show of their authority are easily deceived by the surrender tactic; your outward sign of submission makes them feel important, satisfied that you respect them; they become easier targets for a later counterattack or for the kind of indirect ridicule used by Brecht.

Measuring your power over time: Never sacrifice long-term maneuverability for the short-lived glories of martyrdom.

Keys to power: What gets us into trouble in the realm of power is often our own overreaction to the moves of our enemies and rivals. That overreaction creates problems we would have avoided had we been more reasonable; it also has an endless rebound effect, for the enemy then overreacts as well. 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. You will find that this often neutralizes their behavior; they expected, even wanted, you to react with force, and so they are caught off guard and confounded by your lack of resistance. By yielding, you in fact control the situation, because your surrender is part of a larger plan to lull them into believing they have defeated you. This is the essence of the surrender tactic; inwardly you stay firm, but outwardly you bend. Deprived of a reason to get angry, your opponents will often be bewildered instead, and they are unlikely to react with more violence, which would demand a reaction from you. Instead, you are allowed the time and space to plot the countermoves that will bring them down. In the battle of the intelligent against the brutal and the aggressive, the surrender tactic is the supreme weapon. It does require self-control; those who genuinely surrender give up their freedom and may be crushed by the humiliation of their defeat. You have to remember that you only appear to surrender—like the animal that plays dead to save its hide. Power is always in flux; since the game is by nature fluid and an arena of struggle, those with power almost always find themselves eventually on the downward swing. If you find yourself temporarily weakened, the surrender tactic is perfect for raising yourself up again; it disguises your ambition; it teaches you patience and self-control—key skills in the game—and it puts you in the best possible position for taking advantage of your oppressor's sudden slide. If you run away or fight back, in the long run you cannot win; if you surrender, you will almost always emerge victorious.

Law 23: Concentrate your forces.

Judgment: 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.

Transgression of the law: In China in the early 6th century BC, the kingdom of Wu began a war with the neighboring northern provinces of the Middle Kingdom. Wu was a growing power, but it lacked the great history and civilization of the Middle Kingdom—for centuries the center of Chinese culture. By defeating the Middle Kingdom, the king of Wu would instantly raise his status. The war began with great fanfare and several victories, but it soon bogged down. A victory on one front would leave the Wu armies vulnerable on another. The king's chief minister and advisor, Wu Zixu, warned him that the barbarous state of Yue to the south was beginning to notice the kingdom of Wu's problems and had designs to invade. The king only laughed at such worries. One more big victory, and the great Middle Kingdom would be his. In the year 490, Wu sent his son away to safety in the kingdom of Qi. In doing so, he sent the king a signal that he disapproved of the war and that he believed the king's selfish ambition was leading Wu to ruin. The king, sensing betrayal, lashed out at his minister, accusing him of a lack of loyalty, and in a fit of

Anger ordered him to kill himself. WSU obeyed his King, but before he plunged the knife into his chest, he cried, "Tear out my eyes, O King, and fix them on the Gate of Woo so that I may see the triumphant entry of Yu," as WSU Shu had predicted.

Within a few years, a Yu army passed beneath the Gate of Woo. As the Barbarians surrounded the palace, the king remembered his Minister's last words and felt the dead man's disembodied eyes watching his disgrace. Unable to bear his shame, the king killed himself, covering his face so that he would not have to meet the reproachful gaze of his minister in the next world.

Interpretation: The story of Woo is a paradigm of all the empires that have come to ruin by overreaching, drunk with success and sick with ambition. Such empires expand to grotesque proportions and meet a ruin that is total. For the Chinese, the fate of the kingdom of Woo serves as an elemental lesson on what happens when you dissipate your forces on several fronts, losing sight of distant dangers for the sake of present gain. "If you are not in danger," says Sun Tzu, "do not fight." It is almost a physical law: what is bloated beyond its proportions inevitably collapses. The mind must not wander from goal to goal or be distracted by success from its sense of purpose and proportion. What is concentrated, coherent, and connected to its past as power; what is dissipated, divided, and distended rots and falls to the ground. The bigger it bloats, the harder it falls.

Keys to power: As Schopenhauer wrote, "intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extensity." Napoleon knew the value of concentrating your forces at the enemy's weakest spot; it was the secret of his success on the battlefield. But his willpower and his mind were equally modeled on this notion: single-mindedness of purpose, total concentration on the goal, and the use of these qualities against people less focused, people in a state of distraction. Such an arrow will find its mark every time and overwhelm the enemy. Concentrate on a single goal, a single task, and beat it into submission.

In the world of power, you will constantly need help from other people, usually those more powerful than you. The fool flits from one person to another, believing that he will survive by spreading himself out. It is a corollary of the law of concentration, however, that much energy is saved and more power is attained by affixing yourself to a single appropriate source of power. Throughout his life, the 16th-century writer Pietro Aretino suffered the indignities of having to please this prince and that; at last he had had enough and decided to woo Charles V, promising the emperor the services of his powerful pen. He finally discovered the freedom that came from attachment to a single source of power. Michelangelo found this freedom with Pope Julius II; Galileo with the Medici. In the end, the single patron appreciates your loyalty and becomes dependent on your services in the long run; the master serves the slave. Power always exists in concentrated forms; in any organization, it is inevitable for a small group to hold the strings, and often it is not those with the titles. In the game of power, only the fool flails about without fixing his target. You must find out who controls the operations, who is the real director behind the scenes. As Richelieu discovered at the beginning of his rise to the top of the French political scene during the early 17th century, it was not King Louis XIII who decided things; it was the King's mother, and so he attached himself to her and catapulted through the ranks of the courtiers all the way to the top. It is enough to strike oil once; your wealth and power are assured for a lifetime.

Law 24: Play the perfect courtier. Judgment: 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 courtiership, and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.

Court society: It is a fact of human nature that the structure of a court society forms itself around power. In the past, the court gathered around the ruler and had many functions besides keeping the ruler amused; it was a way to solidify the hierarchy of royalty, nobility, and the upper classes, and to keep the nobility both subordinate and close to the ruler so that he could keep an eye on them. The court serves power in many ways, but most of all it glorifies the ruler, providing him with a microcosmic world that must struggle to please him.

To be a courtier was a dangerous game. A 19th-century Arab traveler to the court of Dar Fur in what is now Sudan reported that courtiers there had to do whatever the Sultan did: if he were injured, they had to suffer the same injury; if he fell off his horse during a hunt, they fell too. Mimicry like this appeared in courts all over the world. More troublesome was the danger of displeasing the ruler; one wrong move spelled death or exile. The successful courtier had to walk a tightrope, pleasing but not pleasing too much, obeying but somehow distinguishing himself from the other courtiers, while also never distinguishing himself so far as to make the ruler insecure.

Great courtiers throughout history have mastered the science of manipulating people; they make the king feel more kingly; they make everyone else fear their power. They are magicians of appearance, knowing that most things at court are judged by how they seem. Great courtiers are gracious and polite; their aggression is veiled and indirect. Masters of the word, they never say more than necessary, getting the most out of a compliment or hidden insult. They are magnets of pleasure; people want to be around them because they know how to please, yet they neither fawn nor humiliate themselves. Great courtiers become the king's favorites, enjoying the benefits of that position; they often end up more powerful than the ruler, for they are wizards in the accumulation of influence.

Many today dismiss court life as a relic of the past, a historical curiosity. They reason, according to Machiavelli, "as though Heaven, the Sun, the elements, and men had changed the order of their motions and power, and were different from what they were in ancient times." There may be no more Sun Kings, but there are still plenty of people who believe the sun revolves around them. The royal court may have more or less disappeared, or at least lost its power, but courts and courtiers still exist because power still exists. A courtier is rarely asked to fall off a horse anymore, but the laws that govern court politics are as timeless as the laws of power. There is much to be learned, then, from great courtiers past and present.

The laws of court politics: Avoid ostentation. It is never prudent to prattle on about yourself or call too much attention to your actions. The more you talk about your deeds, the more suspicion you cause; you also stir up enough envy among your peers to induce treachery and backstabbing. Be careful, ever so careful, in trumpeting your own achievements, and always talk less about yourself than about other people. Modesty is generally preferable.

Practice nonchalance. Never seem to be working too hard; your talent must appear to flow naturally, with an ease that makes people take you for a genius rather than a workaholic.

Be frugal with flattery. It may seem that your superiors cannot get enough flattery, but too much of even a good thing loses its value; it also stirs up suspicion among your peers. Learn to flatter indirectly, by downplaying your own contribution, for example, to make your master look better.

Arrange to be noticed. There is a paradox: you cannot display yourself too brazenly, yet you must also get yourself noticed. You stand no chance of rising if the ruler does not notice you in the swamp of courtiers. This task requires much art; it is often initially a matter of being seen in the literal sense. Pay attention to your physical appearance, then, and find a way to create a distinctive, a subtly distinctive style and image.

Alter your style and language according to the person you are dealing with. The pseudo-belief in equality—the idea that talking and acting the same way with everyone, no matter what their rank, makes you somehow a paragon of civilization—is a terrible mistake. Those below you will take it as a form of condescension, which it is, and those above you will be offended, although they may not admit it. You must change your style and your way of speaking to suit each person. This is not lying; it is acting, and acting is an art, not a gift from God. Learn the art.

Never be the bearer of bad news. The king kills the messenger who brings bad news; this is a cliché, but there is truth to it. You must struggle, and if necessary lie and cheat, to be sure that the lot of the bearer of bad news falls on a colleague, never on you. Bring only good news, and your approach will gladden your master.

Never affect friendliness and intimacy with your master. He does not want a friend for a subordinate; he wants a subordinate. Never approach him in an easy, friendly way, or act as if you are on the best of terms; that is his prerogative. If he chooses to deal with you on this level, assume a wary chumminess; otherwise, err in the opposite direction and make the distance between you clear.

Never criticize those above you directly. This may seem obvious, but there are often times when some sort of criticism is necessary; to say nothing or to give no advice would open you to risks of another sort. You must learn, however, to couch your advice and criticism as indirectly and as politely as possible. Think twice or three times before deciding you have made them sufficiently circuitous; err on the side of subtlety and gentleness.

Be frugal in asking those above you for favors. Nothing irritates a master more than having to reject someone's request; it stirs up guilt and resentment. Ask for favors as rarely as possible, and know when to stop.

Never joke about appearances or taste. A lively wit and a humorous disposition are essential qualities for a good courtier, and there are times when vulgarity is appropriate and engaging, but avoid any kind of joke about appearance or taste; to highly sensitive areas, especially with those above you; do not even try it when you are away from them; you will dig your own grave.

Do not be the court cynic. If you constantly criticize your equals or subordinates, some of that criticism will rub off on you, hovering over you like a gray cloud wherever you go. People will groan at each new cynical comment, and you will irritate them. By expressing modest admiration for other people's achievements, you paradoxically call attention to your own. The ability to express wonder and amazement, and seem like you mean it, is a rare and dying talent, but one still greatly valued.

Be self-observant. The mirror is a miraculous invention; without it, you would commit great sins against beauty and decorum. You also need a mirror for your actions; this can sometimes come from other people telling you what they see in you, but that is not the most trustworthy method. You must be the mirror, training your mind to see yourself as others see you. Are you acting too obsequious? Are you trying too hard to please? Do you seem desperate for attention, giving the impression that you are on the decline? Be observant about yourself, and you will avoid a mountain of blunders.

Master your emotions. As an actor in a great play, you must learn to cry and laugh on command, and when it is appropriate. You must be able both to disguise your anger and frustration and to fake your contentment and agreement. You must be the master of your own face. Call it lying if you like, but if you prefer to not play the game and to always be honest and upfront, do not complain when others call you obnoxious and arrogant.

Fit the spirit of the times. A slight affectation of a past era can be charming, as long as you choose a period at least 20 years back; wearing the fashions of 10 years ago is ludicrous, unless you enjoy the role of court jester. Your spirit and way of thinking must keep up with the times, even if the times offend your sensibilities. Be too forward-thinking, however, and no one will understand you; it is never a good idea to stand out too much in this area. You are best off at least being able to mimic the spirit of the times.

Be a source of pleasure. This is critical; it is an obvious law of human nature that we will flee what is unpleasant and distasteful, while charm and the promise of delight will draw us like moths to a flame. Make yourself the flame, and you will rise to the top; since life is otherwise so full of unpleasantness and pleasure so scarce, you will be as indispensable as food and drink. This may seem obvious, but what is obvious is often ignored or unappreciated. There are degrees to this; not everyone can play the role of favorite, for not everyone is blessed with charm and wit, but we can all control our unpleasant qualities and obscure them when necessary.

Law 25: Recreate yourself. Judgment: Do not accept the roles that society foists on you; recreate 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.

Observance of the law: In the year 1831, a young woman named Aurore Dupin de Francueil left her husband and family in the provinces and moved to Paris. She wanted to be a writer; marriage, she felt, was worse than prison, for it left her neither the time nor the freedom to pursue her passion. In Paris, she would establish her independence and make her living by writing.

Soon after Dudevant arrived in the capital, however, she had to confront certain harsh realities: to have any degree of freedom in Paris, you had to have money; for a woman, money could only come through marriage or prostitution; no woman had ever come close to making a living by writing. Women wrote as a hobby, supported by their husbands or by an inheritance. In fact, when Dudevant first showed her writing to an editor, he told her, "You should make babies, Madam, not literature." Clearly, Dudevant had come to Paris to attempt the impossible.

In the end, though, she came up with a strategy to do what no woman had ever done: a strategy to recreate herself completely, forging a public image of her own making. Women writers before her had been forced into a ready-made role: that of the second-rate artist who wrote mostly for other women. Dudevant decided that if she had to play a role, she would turn the game around; she would play the part of a man.

In 1832, a publisher accepted Dudevant's first major novel, *Indiana*. She had chosen to publish it under a pseudonym: George Sand, and all of Paris assumed this impressive new writer was male. Dudevant had sometimes worn men's clothing before creating George Sand; she had always found men's shirts and riding breeches more comfortable. Now, as a public figure, she exaggerated the image; she added long men's coats, gray hats, heavy boots, and dandyish cravats to her wardrobe; she smoked cigars and, in conversation, expressed herself like a man, unafraid to dominate the conversation or to use a saucy word. This strange male-female writer fascinated the public, and unlike other women writers, she found herself accepted into the circle of male artists. She drank and smoked with them, even carried on affairs with the most famous artists of Europe—Musset, Chopin. It was she who did the wooing, and also the abandoning; she moved on at her discretion. Those who knew Sand well understood that her male persona protected her from the public's prying eyes. Out in the world, she enjoyed playing the part to the extreme; in private, she remained herself. She also realized that the character of George Sand could grow stale or predictable, and to avoid this, she would every now and then dramatically alter the character she had created. Instead of conducting affairs with famous men, she would begin meddling in politics, leading demonstrations, inspiring student rebellions. No one would dictate to her the limits of the character she had created. Long after she died, and after most people had stopped reading her novels, the larger-than-life theatricality of that character has continued to fascinate and inspire.

Interpretation: The world wants to assign you a role in life, and once you accept that role, you are doomed; your power is limited to the tiny amount allotted to the role you have selected or have been forced to assume. An actor, on the other hand, plays many roles; enjoy that protean power, and if it is beyond you, at least forge a new identity, one of your own making, one that has had no boundaries assigned to it by an envious and resentful world. This act of defiance is Promethean; it makes you responsible for your own creation. Your new identity will protect you from the world precisely because it is not you; it is a costume you put on and take off; you need not take it personally. Your new identity sets you apart, gives you theatrical presence; those in the back rows can see you and hear you; those in the front rows marvel at your audacity.

Keys to power: The character you seem to have been born with is not necessarily who you are. Beyond the characteristics you have inherited, your parents, your friends, and your peers have helped to shape your personality. The Promethean task of the powerful is to take control of the process, to stop allowing others that ability to limit and mold them. Remake yourself into a character of power; working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks; it makes you, in essence, an artist, an artist creating yourself.

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 bad actor is the one who is always sincere; people who wear their hearts on their sleeves out in society are tiresome and embarrassing, their sincerity notwithstanding; it is hard to take them seriously. Good actors control themselves better; they can play sincere and heartfelt, can affect a tear and a compassionate look at will, but they don't have to feel it; they externalize emotion in a form that others can understand. Method acting is fatal in the real world; no ruler or leader could possibly play the part if all the emotions he showed had to be real. So learn self-control; adopt the plasticity of the actor who can mold his or her face to the emotion required.

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. This was the game Abraham Lincoln played: the homespun, common, country man. He knew was a kind of president that America had never had, but would delight in electing. Although many of these qualities came naturally to him, he played them up: the hat and clothes, the beard—no president before him had worn a beard. Lincoln was also the first president to use photographs to spread his image, helping to create the icon of the homespun president. You must appreciate the importance of stage entrances and exits. When Cleopatra first met Caesar in Egypt, she arrived rolled up in a carpet, which she arranged to have unfurled at his feet. Your own entrances and exits should be crafted and planned as carefully. Remember that overacting can be counterproductive; it is another way of spending too much effort trying to attract attention. The actor Richard Burton discovered early in his career that by standing totally still on stage, he drew attention to himself and away from the other actors. It is less what you do that matters, clearly, than how you do it; your gracefulness and imposing stillness on the social stage count for more than overdoing your part and moving around too much.

Finally, learn to play many roles, to be whatever the moment requires; adapt your mask to the situation. Be prudent in the faces you wear; Bismarck played this game to perfection: to a liberal he was a liberal; to a hawk he was a hawk; he could not be grasped, and what cannot be grasped cannot be consumed.

Law 26: Keep your hands clean. Judgment: 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 unwitting pawns and screens to disguise your involvement.

Part One: Conceal your mistakes; have a scapegoat around to take the blame. Our good name and reputation depend more on what we conceal than on what we reveal. Everyone makes mistakes, but those who are truly clever manage to hide them and to make sure someone else is blamed; a convenient scapegoat should always be kept around for such moments.

Observance of the law: Near the end of the second century AD, as China's mighty Han Empire slowly collapsed, the great General and Imperial Minister Cao Cao emerged as the most powerful man in the country. Seeking to extend his power base and to rid himself of the last of his rivals, Cao Cao began a campaign to take control of the strategically vital Central Plain. During the siege of a Kei City, he slightly miscalculated the timing for supplies of grain to arrive from the capital. As he waited for the shipment to come in, the army ran low on food, and Cao Cao was forced to order the chief of commissariat to reduce its rations. Cao Cao kept a tight rein on the army and ran a network of informers; his spies soon reported that the men were complaining, grumbling that he was living well while they themselves had barely enough to eat. "Perhaps Cao Cao is keeping the food for himself," they murmured. If the grumbling spread, Cao Cao could have a mutiny on his hands. He summoned the chief of commissariat to his tent. "I want to ask you to lend me something, and you must not refuse," Cao Cao told the chief. "What is it?" the chief replied. "I want the loan of your head, to show to the troops," said Cao Cao. "But I've done nothing wrong!" cried the chief. "I know," said Cao Cao with a sigh, "but if I do not put you to death, there will be a mutiny. Do not grieve; after you're gone, I'll look after your family." Put this way, the request left the chief no choice, so he resigned himself to his fate and was beheaded that very day. Seeing his head on public display, the soldiers stopped grumbling. Some saw through Cao Cao's gesture but kept quiet, stunned and intimidated by his violence, and most accepted his version of who was to blame, preferring to believe in his wisdom and fairness than in his incompetence and cruelty.

Interpretation: Occasional mistakes are inevitable; the world is just too unpredictable. People of power, however, are undone not by the mistakes they make but by the way they deal with them. Like surgeons, they must cut away the tumor with speed and finality. Excuses satisfy no one, and apologies make everyone uncomfortable. The mistake does not vanish with an apology; it deepens and festers. Better to cut it off instantly, distract attention from yourself, and focus attention on a convenient scapegoat before people have time to ponder your responsibility or your possible incompetence.

Keys to power: The use of scapegoats is as old as civilization itself, and examples of it can be found in cultures around the world. The main idea behind these sacrifices is the shifting of guilt and sin to an outside figure—object, animal, or man—which is then banished or destroyed. The bloody sacrifice of the scapegoat seems a barbaric relic of the past, but the practice lives on, to this day, if indirectly and symbolically. Since power depends on appearances, and those in power must seem never to make mistakes, the use of scapegoats is as popular as ever. What modern leader will take responsibility for his blunders? He searches out others to blame, a scapegoat to sacrifice. When Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution failed miserably, he made no apologies or excuses to the Chinese people; instead, like Cao Cao before him, he offered up scapegoats, including his own personal secretary and high-ranking member of the party, Chen Boda. Franklin D. Roosevelt had a reputation for honesty and fairness throughout his career; however, he faced many situations in which being the nice guy would have spelled political disaster, yet he could not be seen as the agent of any foul play. For 20 years, then, his secretary, Louis Howe, handled the back-room deals, the manipulation of the press, the underhanded campaign maneuvers, and whenever a mistake was committed or a dirty trick contradicting Roosevelt's carefully crafted image became public, Howe served as a scapegoat and never complained. Finally, history has time and again shown the value of using a close associate as a scapegoat; this is known as the fall of the favorite. Most kings had a personal favorite at court, a man whom they singled out, sometimes for no apparent reason, and lavished with favors and attention; but this court favorite could serve as a…

Convenient scapegoat in case of a threat to the king's reputation, the public would readily believe in the scapegoat's guilt. Why would the king sacrifice his favorite unless he were guilty? And the other courtiers, resentful of the favored anyway, would rejoice at his downfall. The king, meanwhile, would rid himself of a man who, by that time, had probably learned too much about him, perhaps becoming arrogant and even disdainful of him. Choosing a close associate as a scapegoat has the same value as the fall of the favorite; you may lose a friend or aid, but in the long-term scheme of things, it is more important to hide your mistakes than to hold on to someone who one day will probably turn against you. Besides, you can always find a new favorite to take his place.

Part Two: Make use of the cat's paw. In the fable, the monkey grabs the paw of his friend, the cat, and uses it to fish chestnuts out of the fire, thus getting the nuts he craves without hurting himself. If there is something unpleasant or unpopular that needs to be done, it is far too risky for you to do the work yourself. You need a catspaw, someone who does the dirty, dangerous work for you. The cat's paw grabs what you need, hurts whom you need hurt, and keeps people from noticing that you are the one responsible. Let someone else be the executioner or the bearer of bad news, while you bring only joy and glad tidings.

Observance of the law in 59 BC: The future Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, then 10 years old, witnessed the overthrow and banishment of her father, Ptolemy XII, at the hand of his eldest daughters, her own sisters. One of the daughters, Berenice, emerged as the leader of the rebellion, and to ensure that she would now rule Egypt alone, she imprisoned her other sisters and murdered her own husband. This may have been necessary as a practical step to secure her rule, but that a member of the royal family, a queen no less, would so overtly exact such violence on her own family horrified her subjects and stirred up powerful opposition. Four years later, this opposition was able to return Ptolemy to power, and he promptly had Berenice and the other elder sisters beheaded. In 51 BC, Ptolemy died, leaving four remaining children as heirs. As was the tradition in Egypt, the eldest son, Ptolemy XIII, only 10 at the time, married the elder sister, Cleopatra, now 18, and the couple took the throne together as king and queen. None of the four children felt satisfied with this; everyone, including Cleopatra, wanted more power. A struggle emerged between Cleopatra and Ptolemy, each trying to push the other to the side. In 48 BC, with the help of a government faction that feared Cleopatra's ambitions, Ptolemy was able to force his sister to flee the country, leaving himself as sole ruler.

In exile, Cleopatra schemed; she wanted to rule alone and to restore Egypt to its past glory, a goal she felt none of her other siblings could achieve. Yet, as long as they were alive, she could not realize her dream, and the example of Berenice had made it clear that no one would serve a queen who was seen murdering her own kind. Even Ptolemy XIII had not dared murder Cleopatra, although he knew she would plot against him from abroad. Within a year after Cleopatra's banishment, the Roman dictator Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt, determined to make the country a Roman colony. Cleopatra saw her chance. Re-entering Egypt in disguise, she traveled hundreds of miles to reach Caesar in Alexandria. Legend has it that she had herself smuggled into his presence, rolled up inside a carpet, which was gracefully unfurled at his feet, revealing the young queen. Cleopatra immediately went to work on the Roman; she appealed to his love of spectacle and his interest in Egyptian history and poured on her feminine charms. Caesar soon succumbed and restored Cleopatra to the throne.

Cleopatra's siblings seethed; she had outmaneuvered them. Ptolemy XIII would not wait to see what happened next. From his palace in Alexandria, he summoned a great army to march on the city and attack Caesar. In response, Caesar immediately put Ptolemy and the rest of the family under house arrest. But Cleopatra's younger sister, Arsinoe, escaped from the palace and placed herself at the head of the approaching Egyptian troops, proclaiming herself Queen of Egypt. Now Cleopatra finally saw her chance; she convinced Caesar to release Ptolemy from house arrest under the agreement that he would broker a truce. Of course, she knew he would do the opposite—that he would fight his way for control of the Egyptian army—but this was to Cleopatra's benefit, for it would divide the royal family. Better still, it would give Caesar the chance to defeat and kill her siblings in battle. Reinforced by troops from Rome, Caesar swiftly defeated the rebels. The Egyptians retreated; Ptolemy drowned in the Nile. Caesar captured Arsinoe and had her sent to Rome as a prisoner. He also executed the numerous enemies who had conspired against Cleopatra and imprisoned others who had opposed her, to reinforce her position as uncontested queen. Cleopatra now married the only sibling left, Ptolemy XIV, only 11 at the time and the weakest of the lot. Four years later, Ptolemy mysteriously died of poison. In 41 BC, Cleopatra employed on a second Roman leader, Mark Antony, the same tactic she had used so well on Julius Caesar. After seducing him, she hinted to him that her sister Arsinoe, still a prisoner in Rome, had conspired to destroy him. Mark Antony believed her and promptly had Arsinoe executed, thereby getting rid of the last of the siblings who had posed such a threat to Cleopatra.

Interpretation: Legend has it that Cleopatra succeeded through her seductive charms, but in reality, her power came from an ability to get people to do her bidding without realizing they were being manipulated. Caesar and Antony not only rid her of her most dangerous siblings, Ptolemy XIII and Arsinoe, they decimated all of her enemies in both the government and the military. The two men became her cat's paws; they entered the fire for her, did the ugly but necessary work, while shielding her from appearing as the destroyer of her siblings and fellow Egyptians. And in the end, both men acquiesced to her desire to rule Egypt, not as a Roman colony, but as an independent Allied Kingdom. And they did all this for her without realizing how she had manipulated them. This was persuasion of the subtlest and most powerful kind. A queen must never dirty her hands with ugly tasks, nor can a king appear in public with blood on his face. Yet power cannot survive without the constant squashing of enemies. There will always be dirty little tasks that have to be done to keep you on the throne. Like Cleopatra, you need a cat's paw. This will usually be a person from outside your immediate circle who will therefore be unlikely to realize how he or she is being used. You will find these dupes everywhere, people who enjoy doing you favors, especially if you throw them a minimal bone or two in exchange. But as they accomplish tasks that may seem to them innocent enough, or at least completely justified, they are actually clearing the field for you, spreading the information you feed them, undermining people they do not realize are your rivals, inadvertently furthering your cause, dirtying their hands while yours remain spotless.

Keys to power: As a leader, you may imagine that constant diligence and the appearance of working harder than anyone else signify power. Actually, though, they have the opposite effect; they imply weakness. Why are you working so hard? Perhaps you are incompetent and have to put in extra effort just to keep up. Perhaps you are one of those people who does not know how to delegate and has to meddle in everything. The truly powerful, on the other hand, seem never to be in a hurry or overburdened. While others work their fingers to the bone, they take their leisure; they know how to find the right people to put in the effort while they save their energy and keep their hands out of the fire. Similarly, you may believe that by taking on the dirty work yourself, involving yourself directly in unpleasant actions, you impose your power and instill fear. In fact, you make yourself look ugly and abusive of your high position. Truly powerful people keep their hands clean; only good things surround them, and the only announcements they make are of glorious achievements. You will often find it necessary, of course, to expend energy or to affect an evil but necessary action, but you must never appear to be this action's agent. Find a cat's paw; develop the arts of finding, using, and in time, getting rid of these people when their catspaw role has been fulfilled. The easiest and most effective way to use a catspaw is often to plant information with him that he will then spread to your primary target. False or planted information is a powerful tool, especially if spread by a dupe whom no one suspects. You will find it very easy to play innocent and disguise yourself as the source.

Law 27: Play on people's need to believe, to create a cult-like following. Judgment: 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. The science of charlatanism, or how to create a cult in five easy steps: In searching, as you must, for the methods that will gain you the most power for the least effort, you will find the creation of a cult-like following one of the most effective. Having a large following opens up all sorts of possibilities for deception; not only will your followers worship you, they will defend you from your enemies and will voluntarily take on the work of enticing others to join your fledgling cult. This kind of power will lift you to another realm; you will no longer have to struggle or use subterfuge to enforce your will; you are adored and can do no wrong. You might think it's a gargantuan task to create such a following, but in fact, it is fairly simple. As humans, we have a desperate need to believe in something, anything. This makes us eminently gullible; we simply cannot endure long periods of doubt or of the emptiness that comes from a lack of something to believe in. Dangle in front of us some new cause, elixir, get-rich-quick scheme, or the latest technological trend or art movement, and we leap from the water as one to take the bait. Look at the chronicles of the new trends and cults that have made a mass following for themselves; could fill a library. After a few centuries, a few decades, a few years, a few months, they generally look ridiculous, but at the time they seemed so attractive, so transcendental, so divine. Always in a rush to believe in something, we will manufacture saints and faiths out of nothing. Do not let this gullibility go to waste; make yourself the object of worship; make people form a cult around you. The great European charlatans of the 16th and 17th centuries mastered the art of cult making; they lived, as we do now, in a time of transformation; organized religion was on the wane, science on the rise; people were desperate to rally around a new cause or faith. The charlatans had begun by peddling health elixirs and alchemic shortcuts to wealth; moving quickly from town to town, they originally focused on small groups until, by accident, they stumbled on a truth of human nature: the larger the group they gathered around themselves, the easier it was to deceive. The charlatan would station himself on a high wooden platform—hence the term montebank—and crowds would swarm around him. In a group setting, people were more emotional, less able to reason. Had the charlatan spoken to them individually, they might have found him ridiculous, but lost in a crowd, they got caught up in a communal mood of rapt attention. It became impossible for them to find the distance to be skeptical. Any deficiencies in the charlatan's ideas were hidden by the zeal of the mass. Passion and enthusiasm swept through the crowd like a contagion, and they reacted violently to anyone who dared to spread a seed of doubt. Both consciously studying this dynamic over decades of experiment and spontaneously adapting to these situations as they happened, the charlatans perfected the science of attracting and holding a crowd, molding the crowd into followers and the followers into a cult. The gimmicks of the charlatans may seem quaint today, but there are thousands of charlatans among us still using the same tried and true methods their predecessors refined centuries ago, only changing the names of their elixirs and modernizing the look of their cults. We find these latter-day charlatans in all arenas of life: business, fashion, politics, art. Many of them, perhaps, are following in the charlatan tradition without having any knowledge of its history, but you can be more systematic and deliberate; simply follow the five steps of cult making that our charlatan ancestors perfected over the years.

Step One: Keep it vague; keep it simple. To create a cult, you must first attract attention. This you should do not through actions which are too clear and readable, but through words which are hazy and deceptive. Your initial speeches, conversations, and interviews must include two elements: on the one hand, the promise of something great and transformative, and on the other, a total vagueness. This combination will stimulate all kinds of hazy dreams in your listeners, who will make their own connections and see what they want to see. As a corollary to its vagueness, your appeal should also be simple. Most people's problems have complex causes, deep-rooted neuroses interconnected social factors, roots that go way back in time and are exceedingly hard to unravel. Few, however, have the patience to deal with this; most people want to hear that a simple solution will cure their problems. The ability to offer this kind of solution will give you great power and build you a following.

Step Two: Emphasize the visual and the sensual over the intellectual. Once people have begun to gather around you, two dangers will present themselves: boredom and skepticism. Boredom will make people go elsewhere; skepticism will allow them the distance to think rationally about whatever it is you are offering, blowing away the mist you have artfully created and revealing your ideas for what they are. You need to amuse the bored and ward off the cynic. The best way to do this is through theater or other devices of its kind. Surround yourself with luxury; dazzle your followers with visual splendor; fill their eyes with spectacle. Not only will this keep them from seeing the ridiculousness of your ideas, the holes in your belief system, it will also attract more attention, more followers. Appeal to all the senses; use incense for scent, soothing music for hearing, colorful charts and graphs for the eye. You might even tickle the mind, perhaps by using new technological gadgets to give your cult a pseudo-scientific veneer. As long as you do not make anyone really think, use the exotic, distant cultures, strange customs to create theatrical effects and to make the most banal and ordinary affairs seem signs of something extraordinary.

Step Three: Borrow the forms of organized religion to structure the group. Your cult-like following is growing; it is time to organize it. Find a way both elevating and comforting. Organized religions have long held unquestioned authority for large numbers of people and continue to do so in our supposedly secular age. And even if the religion itself has faded, some of its forms will resonate with power. The lofty and holy associations of organized religion can be endlessly exploited. Create rituals for your followers; organize them into a hierarchy, ranking them in grades of sanctity and giving them names and titles that resound with religious overtones. Ask them for sacrifices that will fill your coffers and increase your power. To emphasize your gatherings' quasi-religious nature, talk and act like a prophet. You are not a dictator, after all; you are a priest, a guru, a sage, a shaman, or any other word that hides your real power in the midst of religion.

Step Four: Disguise your source of income. Your group has grown, and you have structured it in a church-like form; your coffers are beginning to fill with your followers' money. You must never be seen as hungry for money and the power it brings. It is at this moment that you must disguise the source of your income. Your followers want to believe that if they follow you, all sorts of good things will fall into their lap. By surrounding yourself with luxury, you become living proof of the soundness of your belief system. Never reveal that your wealth actually comes from your followers' pockets; instead, make it seem to come from the truth of your methods. Followers will copy your each and every move in the belief that it will bring them the same results, and their imitative enthusiasm will blind them to the charlatan nature of your wealth.

Step Five: Set up an Us Versus Them dynamic. The group is now large and thriving, a magnet attracting more and more particles. If you are not careful, though, inertia will set in, and time and boredom will demagnetize the group. To keep your followers united, 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, unified by a bond of common goals. Then, to strengthen this bond, manufacture the notion of a devious enemy out to ruin you. There is a force of non-believers that will do anything to stop you; any outsider who tries to reveal the charlatan nature of your belief system can now be described as a member of this devious force. If you have no enemies, invent one. Given a strong enemy to react against, your followers will tighten and cohere; they have your cause to believe in and infidels to destroy.

Observance of the law in the year 1653: A 27-year-old Milanese man named Francesco Giuseppe Borri claimed to have had a vision. He went around town telling one and all that the Archangel Michael had appeared to him and announced that he had been chosen to be the Capitano Generale of the army of the new pope, an army that would seize and revitalize the world. The Archangel had further revealed that Borri now had the power to see people's souls and that he would soon discover the Philosopher's Stone, a long-sought-after substance that could change base metals into gold. Friends and acquaintances who heard Borri explain the vision and who witnessed the change that had come over him were impressed; for Borri had previously devoted himself to a life of wine, women, and gambling. Now he gave all that up, plunging himself into the study of alchemy and talking only of mysticism and the occult. The transformation was so sudden and miraculous, and Borri's words were so filled with enthusiasm that he began to create a following. Unfortunately, the Italian Inquisition began to notice him as well; they prosecuted anyone who delved into the occult, so he left Italy and began to wander Europe, from Austria to Holland, telling one and all that, "To those who follow me, all joy shall be granted." Wherever Borri stayed, he attracted followers. His method was simple: he spoke of his vision, which had grown more and more elaborate, and offered to look into the soul of anyone who believed him—and they were many. Seemingly in a trance, he would stare at this new follower for several minutes, then claim to have seen the person's soul, degree of enlightenment, and potential for spiritual greatness. If what he saw showed promise, he would add the person to his growing order of disciples—an honor indeed. The cult had six degrees into which the disciples were assigned according to what Borri had glimpsed in their souls. With work and total devotion to the cult, they could graduate to a higher degree. Borri, whom they called "His Excellency" and "Universal Doctor," demanded from them the strictest vows of poverty; all the goods and monies they possessed had to be turned over to him. But they did not mind handing over their property, for Borri had told them, "I shall soon bring my chemical studies to a happy conclusion by the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone, and by this means we shall all have as much gold as we desire." Given his growing wealth, Borri began to change his style of living, renting the most splendid apartment in the city into which he had temporarily settled. He would furnish it with fabulous furniture and accessories which he had begun to collect; he would drive through the city in a coach studded with jewels, with six magnificent black horses at its head. He never stayed too long in one place, and when he disappeared, saying he had more souls to gather into his flock, his reputation only grew in his absence. He became famous, although in fact he had never done a single concrete thing. From all over Europe, the blind, the crippled, and the desperate came to visit Borri, for word had spread that he had healing powers. He asked no fee for his services, which only made him seem more marvelous, and indeed, some claimed that in this or that city he had performed a miracle cure. By only hinting at his accomplishments, he encouraged people's imaginations to blow them up to fantastic proportions. His wealth, for example, actually came from the vast sums he was collecting from his increasingly select group of rich disciples, yet it was presumed that he had in fact perfected the Philosopher's Stone. The church continued to pursue him, denouncing him for heresy and witchcraft, and Borri's response to these charges was a dignified silence. This only enhanced his reputation and made his followers more passionate; only the great are persecuted, after all. How many understood Jesus Christ in his own time? Borri did not have to say a word; his followers now called the Pope the Antichrist, and so Borri's power grew and grew until one day he left the city of Amsterdam, where he had settled for a while, absconding with huge sums of borrowed money and diamonds that had been entrusted to him. He claimed to be able to remove the flaws from diamonds through the power of his gifted mind. Now he was on the run. The Inquisition eventually caught up with him, and for the last 20 years of his life he was imprisoned in Rome. But so great was the belief in his occult powers that, to his dying day, he was visited by wealthy believers, including Queen Christina of Sweden, supplying him with money and materials. These visitors allowed him to continue his search for the elusive Philosopher's Stone.

Interpretation: Before he formed his cult, Borri seems to have stumbled on a critical discovery. Tiring of his life of debauchery, he had decided to give it up and to devote himself to the occult, a genuine interest of his. He must have noticed, however, that when he alluded to a mystical experience rather than physical exhaustion as the source of his conversion, people of all classes wanted to hear more. Realizing the power he could gain by ascribing the change to something external and mysterious, he went further and further with his manufactured visions. The grander the vision and the more sacrifices he asked for, the more appealing and believable his story seemed to become. Remember, people are not interested in the truth about change; they do not want to hear that it has come from hard work or from anything as banal as exhaustion, boredom, or depression. They are dying to believe in something romantic, otherworldly; they want to hear of angels and out-of-body experiences. Indulge them; hint at the mystical source of some personal change; wrap it in ethereal colors, and a cult-like following will form around you. Adapt to people's needs; the Messiah must mirror the desires of his followers, and always aim high; the bigger and bolder your illusion, the better.

Law 28: Enter with boldness. Judgment: 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. Boldness and hesitation: A brief psychological comparison. Boldness and hesitation elicit very different psychological responses in their targets. Hesitation puts obstacles in your path; boldness eliminates them. Once you understand this, you will find it essential to overcome your natural timidity and practice the art of audacity. The following are among the most pronounced psychological effects of boldness and timidity: The bolder the lie, the better. We all have weaknesses, and our efforts are never perfect, but entering action with boldness has the magical effect of hiding our deficiencies. Con artists know that the bolder the lie, the more convincing it becomes; the sheer audacity of the story makes it more credible, distracting attention from its inconsistencies. When putting together a con or entering any kind of negotiation, go further than you planned; ask for the moon, and you will be surprised how often you get it. Lions circle the hesitant prey. People have a sixth sense for the weaknesses of others. If, in a first encounter, you demonstrate your willingness to compromise, back down, and retreat, you bring out the lion even in people who are not necessarily bloodthirsty. Everything depends on perception, and once you were seen as the…

Kind of person who quickly goes on the defensive, who is willing to negotiate and be amable, you will be pushed around without mercy. Boldness strikes fear; fear creates authority. The bold move makes you seem larger and more powerful than you are. If it comes suddenly, with the stealth and swiftness of a snake, it inspires that much more fear. By intimidating with a bold move, you establish a precedent in every subsequent encounter; people will be on the defensive in terror of your next strike.

Going halfway, with half a heart, digs the deeper grave. If you enter an action with less than total confidence, you set up obstacles in your own path. When a problem arises, you will grow confused, seeing options where there are none and inadvertently creating more problems still. Retreating from the hunter, the timid hare scurries more easily into his snares. Hesitation creates gaps; boldness obliterates them. When you take time to think, to hem and haw, you create a gap that allows others time to think as well. Your timidity infects people with awkward energy, elicits embarrassment; doubt springs up on all sides. Boldness destroys such gaps. The swiftness of the move and the energy of the action leave others no space to doubt and worry. In seduction, hesitation is fatal; it makes your victim conscious of your intentions. The bold move crowns seduction with triumph; it leaves no time for reflection. Audacity separates you from the herd; boldness gives you presence and makes you seem larger than life. The timid fade into the wallpaper; the bold draw attention, and what draws attention draws power. We cannot keep our eyes off the audacious; we cannot wait to see their next bold move.

Observance of the law: In 1514, the 22-year-old Pietro Aretino was working as a lowly assistant, a scullion, to a wealthy Roman family. He had ambitions of greatness as a writer, to inflame the world with his name, but how could a mere lackey hope to realize such dreams? That year, Pope Leo X received from the King of Portugal an embassy that included many gifts, most prominent among them a great elephant, the first in Rome since imperial times. The pontiff adored this elephant and showered it with attention and gifts. But despite his love and care, the elephant, which was called Hanno, became deathly ill. The Pope summoned doctors who administered a 500-lb purgative to the elephant, but all to no avail; the animal died, and the Pope went into mourning. To console himself, he summoned the great painter Raphael and ordered him to create a life-sized painting of Hanno above the animal's tomb, bearing the inscription: "What nature took away, Raphael has with his art restored."

Over the next few days, a pamphlet circulated throughout Rome that caused great mirth and laughter, entitled "The Last Will and Testament of the Elephant Hanno." It read, in part: "To my heir, the Cardinal Santa Croce, I give my knees so that he can imitate my genuflections. To my heir, Cardinal Santi Quattro, I give my jaws so that he can more readily devour all of Christ's revenues. To my heir, Cardinal Medici, I give my ears so that he can hear everyone's doings. To Cardinal Grimani, who had a reputation for lechery, the elephant bequeathed the appropriate oversized part of his own anatomy." On and on the anonymous pamphlet went, sparing none of the great in Rome, not even the Pope, with each one it took aim at their best-known weakness. The pamphlet ended with a verse: "See to it that Aretino is your friend, for he is a bad enemy to have; his words alone could ruin the high Pope, so God guard everyone from his tongue."

Interpretation: With one short pamphlet, Aretino, son of a poor shoemaker and a servant himself, hurled himself to fame. Everyone in Rome rushed to find out who this daring young man was; even the Pope, amused by his audacity, sought him out and ended up giving him a job in the papal service. Over the years, he came to be known as the "Scourge of Princes," and his biting tongue earned him the respect and fear of the great, from the King of France to the Holy Roman Emperor. The Aretino strategy is simple: 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; the bolder the attack, the more you stand out from the crowd and the more admiration you earn. Society is full of those who think daring thoughts but lack the guts to print and publicize them. Voice what the public feels; the expression of shared feelings is always powerful. Search out the most prominent target possible and sling your boldest shot; the world will enjoy the spectacle and will honor the underdog—you—that is, with glory and power.

Keys to power: Most of us are timid; we want to avoid tension and conflict, and we want to be liked by all. We may contemplate a bold action, but we rarely bring it to life. We are terrified of the consequences, of what others might think of us, of the hostility we will stir up if we dare go beyond our usual place. Although we may disguise our timidity as a concern for others, a desire not to hurt or offend them, in fact it is the opposite; we are really self-absorbed, worried about ourselves and how others perceive us. Boldness, on the other hand, is outer-directed and often makes people feel more at ease, since it is less self-conscious and less repressed. Few are born bold; even Napoleon had to cultivate the habit on the battlefield, where he knew it was a matter of life and death. In social settings he was awkward and timid, but he overcame this and practiced boldness in every part of his life because he saw its tremendous power, how it could literally enlarge a man, even one who, like Napoleon, was in fact conspicuously small. You must practice and develop your boldness; you will often find uses for it. The best place to be again is often the delicate world of negotiation, particularly those discussions in which you are asked to set your own price. How often we put ourselves down by asking for too little? When Christopher Columbus proposed that the Spanish Court finance his voyage to the Americas, he also made the insanely bold demand that he be called Grand Admiral of the Ocean. The Court agreed; the price he set was the price he received. He demanded to be treated with respect, and so he was. Understand: if boldness is not natural, neither is timidity; it is an acquired habit, picked up out of a desire to avoid conflict. If timidity has taken hold of you, then root it out; your fears of the consequences of a bold action are way out of proportion to reality, and in fact the consequences of timidity are far worse: your value is lowered, and you create a self-fulfilling cycle of doubt and disaster. Remember: the problems created by an audacious move can be disguised, even remedied, by more and greater audacity.

Law 29: Plan all the way to the end. Judgment: 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.

Transgression of the law: In 1510, a ship set out from the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) for Venezuela, where it was to rescue a besieged Spanish colony. Several miles out of port, a stowaway climbed out of a provision chest: Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a noble Spaniard who had come to the New World in search of gold but had fallen into debt and had escaped his creditors by hiding in the chest. Balboa had been obsessed with gold ever since Columbus had returned to Spain from his voyages with tales of a fabulous, but as yet undiscovered, kingdom called El Dorado. Balboa was one of the first adventurers to come in search of Columbus's land of gold, and he had decided from the beginning that he would be the one to find it, through sheer audacity and single-mindedness. Now that he was free of his creditors, nothing would stop him. Unfortunately, the ship's owner, a wealthy jurist named Francisco Fernández de Enciso, was furious when told of the stowaway, and he ordered that Balboa be left on the first island they came across. Before they found any island, however, Enciso received news that the colony he was to rescue had been abandoned. This was Balboa's chance. He told the sailors of his previous voyages to Panama and of the rumors he had heard of gold in the area. The excited sailors convinced Enciso to spare Balboa's life and to establish a colony in Panama. Weeks later, they named their new settlement Darién. Darién's first governor was Enciso, but Balboa was not a man to let others steal the initiative. He campaigned against Enciso among the sailors, who eventually made it clear that they preferred him as governor. Enciso fled to Spain, fearing for his life. Months later, when a representative of the Spanish Crown arrived to establish himself as the new official governor of Darién, he was turned away. On his return voyage to Spain, this man drowned. The drowning was accidental, but under Spanish law, Balboa had murdered the governor and usurped his position. Balboa's bravado had got him out of scrapes before, but now his hopes of wealth and glory seemed doomed. To lay claim to El Dorado, should he discover it, he would need the approval of the Spanish King, which, as an outlaw, he would never receive. There was only one solution. Panamanian Indians had told Balboa of a vast ocean on the other side of the Central American isthmus and had said that by traveling south upon this western coast he would reach a fabulous land of gold, called by a name that to his ears sounded like Birú. Balboa decided he would cross the treacherous jungles of Panama and become the first European to bathe his feet in this new ocean. From there he would march on El Dorado. If he did this on Spain's behalf, he would obtain the eternal gratitude of the King and would secure his own reprieve; only he had to act before Spanish authorities came to arrest him.

In 1513, then, Balboa set out with 190 soldiers. Halfway across the isthmus, some 90 miles wide at that point, only 60 soldiers remained, many having succumbed to the harsh conditions: the blood-sucking insects, the torrential rainfall, fever. Finally, from a mountaintop, Balboa became the first European to lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean. Days later, he marched in his armor into its waters, bearing the banner of Castile and claiming all its seas, lands, and islands in the name of the Spanish throne. Indians from the area greeted Balboa with gold, jewels, and precious pearls, the like of which he had never seen. When he asked where these had come from, the Indians pointed south, to the land of the Inca. But Balboa had only a few soldiers left; for the moment, he decided he should return to Darién, send the jewels and gold to Spain as a token of goodwill, and ask for a large army to aid him in the conquest of El Dorado.

When news reached Spain of Balboa's bold crossing of the isthmus, his discovery of the Western Ocean, and his planned conquest of El Dorado, the former criminal became a hero; he was instantly proclaimed governor of the new land. But before the King and Queen received word of his discovery, they had already sent a dozen ships under the command of a man named Pedro Arias Dávila, Pedrarias, with orders to arrest Balboa for murder and to take command of the colony. By the time Pedrarias arrived in Panama, he had learned that Balboa had been pardoned and that he was to share the governorship with the former outlaw. All the same, Balboa felt uneasy; gold was his dream, El Dorado his only desire. In pursuit of this goal, he had nearly died many times over, and to share the wealth and glory with a newcomer would be intolerable. He also soon discovered that Pedrarias was a jealous, bitter man and equally unhappy with the situation. Once again, the only solution for Balboa was to seize the initiative by proposing to cross the jungle with a larger army, carrying ship-building materials and tools. Once on the Pacific coast, he would create an armada with which to conquer the Incas. Surprisingly enough, Pedrarias agreed to the plan, perhaps sensing it would never work. Hundreds died in this second march through the jungle, and the timber they carried rotted in the torrential rains. Balboa, as usual, was undaunted; no power in the world could thwart his plan, and on arriving at the Pacific, he began to cut down trees for new lumber. But the men remaining to him were too few and too weak to mount an invasion, and once again Balboa had to return to Darién. Pedrarias had, in any case, invited Balboa back to discuss a new plan, and on the outskirts of the settlement, the explorer was met by Francisco Pizarro, an old friend who had accompanied him on his first crossing of the isthmus. But this was a trap. Leading 100 soldiers, Pizarro surrounded his former friend, arrested him, and returned him to Pedrarias, who tried him on charges of rebellion. A few days later, Balboa's head fell into a basket, along with those of his most trusted followers. Years later, Pizarro himself reached Peru, and Balboa and his deeds were forgotten.

Interpretation: Most men are ruled by the heart, not the head; their plans are vague, and when they meet obstacles, they improvise. But improvisation will only bring you as far as the next crisis and is never a substitute for thinking several steps ahead and planning to the end. Balboa had a dream of glory and wealth and a vague plan to reach it; yet his bold deeds and his discovery of the Pacific are largely forgotten, for he committed what, in the world of power, is the ultimate sin: he went partway, leaving the door open for others to take over. A real man of power would have had the prudence to see the dangers in the distance, the rivals who would want to share in the conquests, the vultures that would hover once they heard the word "gold." Balboa should have kept his knowledge of the Inca's secret until after he had conquered Peru; only then would his wealth and his head have been secure. Once Pedrarias arrived on the scene, a man of power and prudence would have schemed to kill or imprison him and to take over the army he had brought for the conquest of Peru. But Balboa was locked in the moment, always reacting emotionally, never thinking ahead. What good is it to have the greatest dream in the world if others reap the benefits and the glory? Never lose your head over a vague, open-ended dream; plan to the end.

Keys to power: Most people believe that they are, in fact, aware of the future, that they are planning and thinking ahead. They are usually deluded; what they are really doing is succumbing to their desires, to what they want the future to be. Their plans are vague, based on their imaginations rather than their reality. They may believe they are thinking all the way to the end, but they are really only focusing on the happy ending and deluding themselves by the strength of their desire. The ending is everything; it is the end of the action that determines who gets the glory, the money, the prize. Your conclusion must be crystal clear, and you must keep, keep it constantly in mind. You must also figure out how to ward off the vultures circling overhead, trying to live off the carcass of your creation, and you must anticipate the many possible crises that will tempt you to improvise. When you see several steps ahead and plan your moves all the way to the end, you will no longer be tempted by emotion or by the desire to improvise. Your clarity will relieve the anxiety and vagueness that are the primary reasons why so many fail to conclude their actions successfully. You see the ending, and you tolerate no deviation.

Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless. Judgment: Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. Conceal all the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks. 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.

Observance of the law: The great escape artist Harry Houdini once advertised his act as "the impossible possible," and indeed those who witnessed his dramatic escapes felt that what he did on stage contradicted common sense ideas of human capacity. Over the years, Houdini escaped from the chained carcass of an embalmed sea monster, a half-octopus, half-whale beast that had beached near Boston. He had himself sealed inside an enormous envelope from which he emerged without breaking the paper. He passed through brick walls; he wriggled free from straightjackets while dangling high in the air; he leaped from bridges into icy waters, his hands manacled and his legs in chains; he had himself submerged in glass cases full of water, hands padlocked, while the audience watched in amazement as he worked himself free, struggling for close to an hour, apparently without breathing. Each time he seemed to court certain death, yet survived with superhuman aplomb. Meanwhile, he said nothing about his methods, gave no clues as to how he accomplished any of his tricks. He left his audiences and critics speculating; his power and reputation enhanced by their struggles with the inexplicable. Perhaps the most baffling trick of all was making a 10,000-lb elephant disappear before an audience's eyes, a feat he repeated on stage for over 19 weeks. No one has ever really explained how he did this, for in the auditorium where he performed the trick, there was simply nowhere for an elephant to hide. The effortlessness of Houdini's escapes led some to think he used occult forces, his superior psychic abilities giving him special control over his body. But a German escape artist named Cini claimed to know Houdini's secret: he simply used elaborate gadgets. Cini also claimed to have defeated Houdini in a handcuff challenge in Holland. Houdini did not mind all kinds of speculation floating around about his methods, but he would not tolerate an outright lie, and in 1902 he challenged Cini to a handcuff duel. Cini accepted. Through a spy, he found out the secret word to unlock a pair of French combination lock cuffs that Houdini liked to use. His plan was to choose these cuffs to escape from on stage; this would definitely debunk Houdini. His genius simply lay in his use of mechanical gadgets. On the night of the challenge, just as Cini had planned, Houdini offered him a choice of cuffs, and he selected the ones with the combination lock. He was even able to disappear with them behind a screen to make a quick test and reemerged seconds later, confident of victory. Acting as if he had sensed fraud, Houdini refused to lock Cini in the cuffs. The two men argued and began to fight, even wrestling with each other on stage. After a few minutes of this, an apparently angry, frustrated Houdini gave up and locked Cini in the cuffs. For the next few minutes, Cini strained to get free; something was wrong. Minutes earlier he had opened the cuffs behind the screen; now the same code no longer worked. He sweated, racking his brain; hours went by; the audience left; and finally an exhausted and humiliated Cini gave up and asked to be released. The cuffs that Cini himself had opened behind the screen with the word "CLES" (French for "keys") now clicked open only with the word "FRAUD." Cini never figured out how Houdini had accomplished this uncanny feat.

Interpretation: Although we do not know for certain how Houdini accomplished many of his most ingenious escapes, one thing is clear: it was not the occult or any kind of magic that gave him his powers, but hard work and endless practice, all of which he carefully concealed from the world. Houdini never left anything to chance; day and night he studied the workings of locks, researched centuries-old sleight-of-hand tricks, poured over books on mechanics—whatever he could use. Every moment not spent researching he spent working his body, keeping himself exceptionally limber and learning how to control his muscles and his breathing. Early on in Houdini's career, an old Japanese performer whom he toured with taught him an ancient trick: how to swallow an ivory ball, then bring it back up. He practiced this endlessly with a small peeled potato tied to a string; up and down he would manipulate the potato with his throat muscles until they were strong enough to move it without the string. No one could check the inside of his throat, where he could conceal small tools to help him escape. Even so, Cini was fundamentally wrong; it was not Houdini's tools but his practice, work, and research that made his escapes possible. Cini, in fact, was completely outwitted by Houdini, who set the whole thing up. He let his opponent learn the code to the French cuffs, then baited him into choosing those cuffs on stage; then, during the two's tussle, the dexterous Houdini was able to change the code to "FRAUD." He had spent weeks practicing this trick, but the audience saw none of the sweat and toil behind the scenes, nor was Houdini ever nervous; he induced nervousness in others. He deliberately dragged out the time it would take to escape as a way of heightening the drama and making the audience squirm. His escapes from death, always graceful and easy, made him look like a Superman. As a person of power, you must research and practice endlessly before appearing in public, on stage or anywhere else. Never expose the sweat and labor behind your poise; some think such exposure will demonstrate their diligence and honesty, but it actually just makes them look weaker, as if anyone who practiced and worked at it could do what they had done, or as if they weren't really up to the job. Keep your effort and your tricks to yourself, and you seem to have the grace and ease of a god. One never sees the source of a god's power revealed; one only sees its effects.

Keys to power: In the "Book of the Courtier," published in 1528, Baldassare Castiglione describes the highly elaborate and courtly manners of the perfect court citizen; and yet Castiglione explains the courtier must execute these gestures with what he calls "sprezzatura," the capacity to make the difficult seem easy. He urges the courtier to practice in all things a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless. We all admire the achievement of some unusual feat, but if it is accomplished naturally and gracefully, our admiration increases tenfold; whereas to labor at what one is doing and to make bones over it shows an extreme lack of grace and causes everything, whatever its worth, to be discounted. The idea of "sprezzatura" is relevant to all forms of power, for power depends vitally on appearances and the illusions you create. Your public actions are like artworks; they must have visual appeal, must create anticipation, even entertain. When you reveal the inner workings of your creation, you become just one more mortal among others; what is understandable is not inspiring. We tell ourselves we could do as well if we had the money and time. Avoid the temptation of showing how clever you are; it is far more clever to conceal the mechanisms of your cleverness. There is another reason for concealing your shortcuts and tricks: when you let this information out, you give people ideas they can use against you; you lose the advantages of keeping silent. We tend to want the world to know what we have done; we want our vanity gratified by having our hard work and cleverness applauded, and we may even want sympathy for the hours it has taken to reach our point of artistry. Learn to control this propensity to blab, for its effect is often the opposite of what you expected. Remember: the more mystery surrounds your actions, the more awesome your power seems. You appear to be the only one who can do what you do, and the appearance of having an exclusive gift is immensely powerful. Finally, because you achieve your accomplishments with grace and ease, people believe that you could always do more if you tried harder; this elicits not only admiration but a touch of fear. Your powers are untapped; no one can fathom their limits.

Law 31: Control the options; get others to play with the cards you deal. Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: From early in his reign, Ivan IV, later known as Ivan the Terrible, had to confront an unpleasant reality: the country desperately needed reform, but he lacked the power to push it through. The greatest limit to his authority came from the boyars, the Russian princely class that dominated the country and terrorized the peasantry. In 1553, at the…

Age 23, Ivan fell ill. Lying in bed, nearing death, he asked the boyars to swear allegiance to his son as the new Tsar. Some hesitated; some even refused. Then and there, Ivan saw he had no power over the boyars. He recovered from his illness, but he never forgot the lesson. The boyars were out to destroy him.

And indeed, in the years to come, many of the most powerful of them defected to Russia's main enemies, Poland and Lithuania, where they plotted their return and the overthrow of the Tsar. Even one of Ivan's closest friends, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, suddenly turned against him, defecting to Lithuania in 1564 and becoming the strongest of Ivan's enemies. When Kurbsky began raising troops for an invasion, the Royal Dynasty seemed suddenly more precarious than ever, with Ingrian nobles fomenting invasion from the West, Tartars bearing down from the East, and the boyars stirring up trouble within the country. Russia's vast size made it a nightmare to defend. In whatever direction Ivan struck, he would leave himself vulnerable on the other side. Only if he had absolute power could he deal with this many-headed hydra, and he had no such power.

Ivan brooded until the morning of December 3rd, 1564, when the citizens of Moscow awoke to a strange sight. Hundreds of sleds filled the square before the Kremlin, loaded with the Tsar's treasures and with provisions for the entire court. They watched in disbelief as the Tsar and his court boarded the sleds and left town without explaining why. He established himself in a village south of Moscow for an entire month. A kind of terror gripped the capital, for the Muscovites feared that Ivan had abandoned them to the bloodthirsty boyars. Shops closed up, and riotous mobs gathered daily.

Finally, on January 3rd, 1565, a letter arrived from the Tsar, explaining that he could no longer bear the boyars' betrayals and had decided to abdicate once and for all. Read aloud in public, the letter had a startling effect. Merchants and commoners blamed the boyars for Ivan's decision and took to the street, terrifying the nobility with their fury. Soon, a group of delegates representing the church, the princes, and the people made the journey to Ivan's village and begged the Tsar, in the name of the Holy Land of Russia, to return to the throne. Ivan listened but would not change his mind. After days of hearing their pleas, however, he offered his subjects a choice: either they grant him absolute powers to govern as he pleased, with no interference from the boyars, or they find a new leader. Faced with a choice between civil war and the acceptance of despotic power, almost every sector of Russian society opted for a strong Tsar, calling for Ivan's return to Moscow and the restoration of law and order. In February, with much celebration, Ivan returned to Moscow. The Russians could no longer complain if he behaved dictatorially; they had given him this power themselves.

Interpretation: Withdrawal and disappearance are classic ways of controlling the options 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. In this method of controlling people's options, they choose the option that gives you power because the alternative is just too unpleasant. You force their hand, but indirectly, they seem to have a choice. Whenever people feel they have a choice, they walk into your trap that much more easily.

Keys to power: Words like freedom, options, and choice evoke a power of possibility far beyond the reality of the benefits they entail. When examined closely, the choices we have in the marketplace, in elections, in our jobs tend to have noticeable limitations. They are often a matter of a choice simply between A and B, with the rest of the alphabet out of the picture. Yet, as long as the faintest mirage of choice flickers on, we rarely focus on the missing options. We choose to believe that the game is fair and that we have our freedom. We prefer not to think too much about the depth of our liberty to choose. This supplies the clever and cunning with enormous opportunities for deception, for people who are choosing between alternatives find it hard to believe they are being manipulated or deceived. They cannot see that you are allowing them a small amount of free will in exchange for a much more powerful imposition of your own will. Setting up a narrow range of choices, then, should always be a part of your deceptions. There is a saying: If you can get the bird to walk into the cage on its own, it will sing that much more prettily.

The following are among the most common forms of controlling the options:

Color the choices: This was a favored technique of Henry Kissinger as President Nixon's Secretary of State. Kissinger considered himself better informed than his boss and believed that in most situations he could make the best decision on his own. But if he tried to determine policy, he would offend or perhaps enrage a notoriously insecure man. So Kissinger would 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. Time after time, Nixon fell for the bait, never suspecting that he was moving where Kissinger pushed him. This is an excellent device to use on the insecure.

Master: Force the resistor: This is a good technique to use on children and other willful people who enjoy doing the opposite of what you ask them to do. Push them to choose what you want them to do by appearing to advocate the opposite.

Alter the playing field: In the 1860s, John D. Rockefeller set out to create an oil monopoly. If he tried to buy up the smaller oil companies, they would figure out what he was doing and fight back. Instead, he began secretly buying up the railway companies that transported the oil. When he then attempted to take over a particular company and met with resistance, he reminded them of their dependence on the rails. Refusing them shipping or simply raising their fees could ruin their business. Rockefeller altered the playing field so that the only options the small oil producers had were the ones he gave them. In this tactic, your opponents know their hand is being forced, but it doesn't matter; the technique is effective against those who resist at all costs.

The shrinking options: The late 19th-century art dealer, Ambrose Vollard, perfected this technique. Customers would come to Vollard's shop to see some paintings. He would show three paintings, neglect to mention a price, and pretend to doze off. The visitors would have to leave without deciding. They would usually come back the next day to see the paintings again, but this time Vollard would pull out less interesting works, pretending he thought they were the same ones. The baffled customers would look at the new offerings, leave to think them over, and return yet again. Once again, the same thing would happen. Vollard would show paintings of lesser quality still. Finally, the buyers would realize they had better grab what he was showing them because tomorrow they would have to settle for something worse, perhaps at even higher prices. 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: The weak are the easiest to maneuver by controlling their options. Cardinal Richelieu, the great 17th-century provocateur, served as an unofficial assistant to the Duke of Orléans, who was notoriously indecisive. It was a constant struggle to convince the Duke to take action. He would hem and haw, weigh the options, and wait until the last moment, giving everyone around him an ulcer. But Richelieu discovered a way to handle him. He would describe all sorts of dangers, exaggerating them as much as possible, until the Duke saw a yawning abyss in every direction except one—the one Richelieu was pushing him to take. 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.

The horns of a dilemma: This idea was demonstrated by General William Sherman's infamous March through Georgia during the American Civil War. Although the Confederates knew what direction Sherman was heading in, they never knew if he would attack from the left or the right, for he divided his army into two wings. If the rebels retreated from one wing, they found themselves facing the other. This is a classic trial lawyer's technique. The lawyer leads the witness 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.

Understand: In your struggles with your rivals, it will often be necessary for you to hurt them. And if you are clearly the agent of their punishment, expect a counterattack; expect revenge. If, however, they seem to themselves to be the agents of their own misfortune, they will submit quietly. When Ivan left Moscow for his rural village, the citizens, asking him to return, agreed to his demand for absolute power. Over the years to come, they resented him less for the terror he unleashed on the country because, after all, they had granted him his power themselves. This is why it is always good to allow your victims their choice of poison and to cloak your involvement in providing it to them as far as possible. [Music]

Law 32: Play to people's fantasies. Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: The city-state of Venice was prosperous for so long that its citizens felt their small republic had destiny on its side. In the Middle Ages and High Renaissance, its virtual monopoly on trade to the east made it the wealthiest city in Europe. Under a beneficent republican government, Venetians enjoyed liberties that few other Italians had ever known. Yet in the 16th century, their fortunes suddenly changed. The opening of the New World transferred power to the Atlantic side of Europe, to the Spanish and Portuguese, and later the Dutch and English. Venice could not compete economically, and its empire gradually dwindled. The final blow was the devastating loss of a prized Mediterranean possession, the island of Cyprus, captured from Venice by the Turks in 1570. Now noble families went broke in Venice, and banks began to fold. A kind of gloom and desperation settled over the citizens. They had known a glittering past; had either lived through it or heard stories about it from their elders. The closeness of the glory years was humiliating. The Venetians half believed that the goddess Fortune was only playing a joke on them and that the old days would soon return. For the time being, though, what could they do?

In 1589, rumors began to swirl around Venice of the arrival, not far away, of a mysterious man called Il Bragadin—a master of alchemy, a man who had won incredible wealth through his ability, it was said, to multiply gold through the use of a secret substance. The rumor spread quickly because a few years earlier, a Venetian nobleman passing through Poland had heard a learned man prophesy that Venice would recover her past glory and power if she could find a man who understood the alchemic art of manufacturing gold. And so, as word reached Venice of the gold this Bragadin possessed, he clinked gold coins continuously in his hands, and golden objects filled his palace. Some began to dream that through him their city would prosper again. Members of Venice's most important noble families, accordingly, went together to Bragadin, where Bragadin lived. They toured his palace and watched in awe as he demonstrated his gold-making abilities, taking a pinch of seemingly worthless minerals and transforming it into several ounces of gold dust.

The Venetian Senate prepared to debate the idea of extending an official invitation to Bragadin to stay in Venice at the city's expense when word suddenly reached them that they were competing with the Duke of Mantua for his services. They heard of a magnificent party in Bragadin's palace for the Duke, featuring garments with golden buttons, gold watches, gold plates, and on and on. Worried they might lose Bragadin to Mantua, the Senate voted almost unanimously to invite him to Venice, promising him the mountain of money he would need to continue living in his luxurious style, but only if he came right away. Late that year, the mysterious Bragadin arrived in Venice, with his piercing dark eyes under thick brows and the two enormous black mastiffs that accompanied him everywhere. He was forbidding and impressive. He took up residence in a sumptuous palace on the island of Giudecca, with the Republic funding his banquets, his expensive clothes, and all his other whims. A kind of alchemy fever spread through Venice. On street corners, hawkers would sell coal-distilling apparatus, bellows, how-to books on the subject. Everyone began to practice alchemy—everyone except Bragadin. The alchemist seemed to be in no hurry to begin manufacturing the gold that would save Venice from ruin. Strangely enough, this only increased his popularity and following. People thronged from all over Europe, even Asia, to meet this remarkable man.

Months went by, with gifts pouring in to Bragadin from all sides; still, still he gave no sign of the miracle that the Venetians confidently expected him to produce. Eventually, the citizens began to grow impatient, wondering if he would wait forever. At first, the Senators warned them not to hurry him; he was a capricious devil who needed to be cajoled. Finally, though, the nobility began to wonder too, and the Senate came under pressure to show a return on the city's ballooning investment. Bragadin had only scorn for the doubters, but he responded to them. He had, he said, already deposited in the city's mint the mysterious substance with which he multiplied gold. He could use this substance up all at once and produce double the gold, but the more slowly the process took place, the more it would yield. If left alone for seven years, sealed in a casket, the substance would multiply the gold in the mint thirty times over. Most of the Senators agreed to wait to reap the gold mine Bragadin promised. Others, however, were angry: seven more years of this man living royally at the public trough. And many of the common citizens of Venice echoed these sentiments. Finally, the alchemist's enemies demanded he produce a proof of his skills—a substantial amount of gold. And so, loftily, apparently devoted to his art, Bragadin responded that Venice, in its impatience, had betrayed him and would therefore lose his services. He left town, going first to nearby Padua, then in 1590 to Munich at the invitation of the Duke of Bavaria, who, like the entire city of Venice, had known great wealth but had fallen into bankruptcy through his own profligacy and hoped to regain his fortune through the famous alchemist's services. And so Bragadin resumed the comfortable arrangement he had known in Venice, and the same pattern repeated itself.

Interpretation: The young Cypriot, Mamoun, had lived in Venice for several years before reincarnating himself as the alchemist, Bragadin. He saw how gloom had settled on the city, how everyone was hoping for redemption from some indefinite source. At first, Mamoun did not use vulgar demonstrations to convince people of his alchemic skill. His sumptuous palace, his opulent garments, the clink of gold in his hands—all these provided a superior argument to anything rational. And these established the cycle that kept him going. His obvious wealth confirmed his reputation as an alchemist, so that patrons like the Duke of Mantua gave money, which allowed him to live in wealth, which reinforced his reputation as an alchemist, and so on. Only once this reputation was established and dukes and senators were fighting over him did he resort to the trifling necessity of a demonstration. By then, however, people were easy to deceive; they wanted to believe. The Venetian Senators who watched him multiply gold wanted to believe so badly that they failed to notice the glass pipe up his sleeve from which he slipped gold dust into his pinches of minerals. Brilliant and capricious, he was the alchemist of their fantasies. And once he had created an aura like this, no one noticed his simple deceptions. 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. Had Bragadin arrived in Venice armed with a detailed analysis of the reasons behind the city's economic decline and of the hard steps that it could take to turn things around, he would have been scorned. The reality was too ugly, and the solution too painful—mostly the kind of hard work that the citizens' ancestors had mustered to create an empire. Fantasy, on the other hand—in this case, the romance of alchemy—was easy to understand and infinitely more palatable.

To gain power, you must be a source of pleasure for those around you, and pleasure comes from playing to people's fantasies. Never promise a gradual improvement through hard work; rather, promise the moon—the great and sudden transformation, the pot of gold.

Keys to power: Fantasy can never operate alone; it requires the backdrop of the humdrum and the mundane. It is the oppressiveness of reality that allows fantasy to take root and bloom. In 16th-century Venice, the reality was one of decline and loss of prestige. The corresponding fantasy described a sudden recovery of past glories through the miracle of alchemy. While the reality only got worse, the Venetians inhabited a happy dream world in which their city restored its fabulous wealth and power overnight, turning dust into gold. The person who can spin a fantasy out of an oppressive reality has access to untold power. As you search for the fantasy that will take hold of the masses, then keep your eye on the banal truths that weigh heavily on us all. Never be distracted by people's glamorous portraits of themselves and their lives. Search and dig for what really imprisons them. Once you find that, you have the magical key that will put great power in your hands. Remember: The key to fantasy is distance. The distant has a lore and promise; it seems simple and problem-free. What you are offering, then, should be ungraspable; never let it become oppressively familiar. It is the mirage in the distance, withdrawing as the sucker approaches. Never be too direct in describing the fantasy; keep it vague. As a forger of fantasies, let your victim come close enough to see and be tempted, but keep him far away enough that he stays dreaming and desiring.

LW 33: Discover each man's thumbscrew. Judgment: 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 thumbscrew: A strategic plan of action. We all have resistances. We live with a perpetual armor around ourselves to defend against change and the intrusive actions of friends and rivals. We would like nothing more than to be left to do things our own way, constantly butting up against these resistances will cost you a lot of energy. One of the most important things to realize about people, though, is that they all have a weakness—some part of their psychological armor that will not resist, that will bend to your will if you find it and push on it. Some people wear their weaknesses openly; others disguise them. Those who disguise them are often the ones most effectively undone through that one chink in their armor. In planning your assault, keep these principles in mind:

Pay attention to gestures and unconscious signals. As Sigmund Freud remarked, no mortal can keep a secret; if his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. This is a critical concept in the search for a person's weakness; it is revealed by seemingly unimportant gestures and passing words. The key is not only what you look for but where and how you look. Everyday conversation supplies the richest mine of weaknesses, so train yourself to listen. Start by always seeming interested; the appearance of a sympathetic ear will spur anyone to talk. A clever trick, often used by the 19th-century French statesman Talleyrand, is to appear to open up to the other person, to share a secret with them. It can be completely made up, or it can be real, but of no great importance to you. The important thing is that it should seem to come from the heart. This will usually elicit a response that is not only as frank as yours but more genuine—a response that reveals a weakness. If you suspect that someone has a particular soft spot, probe for it indirectly. If, for instance, you sense that a man has a need to be loved, openly flatter him. If he laps up your compliments, no matter how obvious, you are on the right track.

Train your eye for details: How someone tips a waiter, what delights a person—the hidden messages enclosed. Find people's idols, the things they worship and will do anything to get; perhaps you can be the supplier of their fantasies. Find the helpless child. Most weaknesses begin in childhood, before the self builds up compensatory defenses. Perhaps the child was pampered or indulged in a particular area, or perhaps a certain emotional need went unfulfilled. As he or she grows older, the indulgence or the deficiency may be buried, but it never disappears. Knowing about a childhood need gives you a powerful key to a person's weakness. One sign of this weakness is that when you touch on it, the person will often act like a child. Be on the lookout, then, for any behavior that should have been outgrown. If your victims or rivals went without something important, such as parental support, when they were children, supply it or its facsimile. If they reveal a secret taste, a hidden indulgence, indulge it. In either case, they will be unable to resist you.

Look for contrasts: An overt trait often conceals its opposite. People who thump their chests are often big cowards; a prudish exterior may hide a lascivious soul; the uptight are often screaming for adventure; the shy are dying for attention. By probing beyond appearances, you will often find people's weaknesses in the opposite of the qualities they reveal to you.

Find the weak link: Sometimes in your search for weaknesses, it is not what but who that matters. In today's versions of the court, there is often someone behind the scenes who has a great deal of power—a tremendous influence over the person superficially on top. These behind-the-scenes power brokers are the group's weak link. Win their favor, and you indirectly influence the king. Alternatively, even in a group of people acting with the appearance of one will, as when a group under attack closes ranks to resist an outsider, there is always a weak link in the chain. Find the one person who will bend under pressure.

Fill the void: The two main emotional voids to fill are insecurity and unhappiness. The insecure are suckers for any kind of social validation. As for the chronically unhappy, look for the roots of their unhappiness. The insecure and the unhappy are the people least able to disguise their weaknesses. The ability to fill their emotional voids is a great source of power and an indefinitely prolongable one.

Feed on uncontrollable emotions: The uncontrollable emotion can be a paranoid fear, a fear disproportionate to the situation, or any base motive, such as lust, greed, vanity, or hatred. People in the grip of these emotions often cannot control themselves, and you can do the controlling for them.

Observance of the law: Arabella Huntington, wife of the great late 19th-century railroad magnate, Collis P. Huntington, came from humble origins and always struggled for social recognition among her wealthy peers. When she gave a party in her San Francisco mansion, few of the social elite would show up; most of them took her for a gold digger—not their kind. Because of her husband's fabulous wealth, art dealers courted her, but with such condescension; they obviously saw her as an upstart. Only one man of consequence treated her differently: the dealer, Joseph Duveen. For the first few years of Duveen's relationship with Arabella, he made no effort to sell expensive art to her. Instead, he accompanied her to fine stores, chatted amiably about queens and princesses he knew, on and on. At last, she thought, a man who treated her as an equal, even a superior, in high society. Meanwhile, if Duveen did not try to sell art to her, he did subtly educate her in his aesthetic ideas—namely, that the best art was the most expensive art. And after Arabella had soaked up his way of seeing things, Duveen would act as if she always had exquisite taste, even though before she met him her aesthetics had been abysmal. When Collis Huntington…

Died in 1900. Arabella came into a fortune; she suddenly started to buy expensive paintings—by Rembrandt and Velasquez, for example—and only from Duveen. Years later, Duveen sold her Gainsborough's Blue Boy for the highest price ever paid for a work of art at the time; an astounding purchase for a family that previously had shown little interest in collecting.

Interpretation: Joseph Duveen instantly understood Arabella Huntington and what made her tick. She wanted to feel important, at home in society. Intensely insecure about her lower-class background, she needed confirmation of her new social status. Duveen waited, instead of rushing into trying to persuade her to collect art; he subtly went to work on her weaknesses. He made her feel that she deserved his attention, not because she was the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the world, but because of her own special character, and this completely melted her. Duveen never condescended to Arabella; rather than lecturing to her, he instilled his ideas in her indirectly. The result was one of his best and most devoted clients, and also the sale of the Blue Boy. People's need for validation and recognition, their need to feel important, is the best kind of weakness to exploit. First, it is almost universal; second, exploiting it is so very easy. All you have to do is find ways to make people feel better about their taste, their social standing, their intelligence. Once the fish are hooked, you can reel them in again and again, for years. You are filling a positive role, giving them what they cannot get on their own. They may never suspect that you are turning them like a thumbscrew, and if they do, they may not care, because you are making them feel better about themselves, and that is worth any price.

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

Judgment: 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. 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.

Observance of the law: When Christopher Columbus was trying to find funding for his legendary voyages, many around him believed he came from the Italian aristocracy. This view was passed into history through a biography written after the explorer's death by his son, which describes him as a descendant of a Count Columbo of the Castle of Karo in Montferrat. Columbo, in turn, was said to be descended from the legendary Roman general Colonius, and two of his first cousins were supposedly direct descendants of an emperor of Constantinople—an illustrious background indeed, but it was nothing more than illustrious fantasy. For Columbus was actually the son of Dominico Columbo, a humble weaver who had opened a wine shop when Christopher was a young man and who then made his living by selling cheese. Columbus himself had created the myth of his noble background because, from early on, he felt that destiny had singled him out for great things and that he had a kind of royalty in his blood. Accordingly, he acted as if he were indeed descended from noble stock.

After an uneventful career as a merchant on a commercial vessel, Columbus, originally from Genoa, settled in Lisbon. Using the fabricated story of his noble background, he married into an established Lisbon family that had excellent connections with Portuguese royalty. Through his in-laws, Columbus finagled a meeting with the King of Portugal, João II, whom he petitioned to finance a westward voyage aimed at discovering a shorter route to Asia. In return for announcing that any discoveries he achieved would be made in the king's name, Columbus wanted a series of rights: the title Grand Admiral of the Ocean Sea, the office of Viceroy over any lands he found, and 10% of the future commerce with such lands—all of these were to be hereditary and for all time. Columbus made these demands even though he had previously been a mere merchant; he knew almost nothing about navigation, he could not work a quadrant, and he had never led a group of men. In short, he had absolutely no qualifications for the journey he proposed. Furthermore, his petition included no details as to how he would accomplish his plans, just vague promises.

When Columbus finished his pitch, João II smiled. He politely declined the offer, but left the door open for the future. Here Columbus must have noticed something he would never forget: even as the king turned down the sailor's demands, he treated them as legitimate. He neither laughed at Columbus nor questioned his background or credentials. In fact, the king was impressed by the boldness of Columbus's requests and clearly felt comfortable in the company of a man who acted so confidently. The meeting must have convinced Columbus that his instincts were correct: by asking for the moon, he had instantly raised his own status, for the king assumed that unless a man who set such a high price on himself were mad—which Columbus did not appear to be—he must somehow be worth it.

A few years later, Columbus moved to Spain, using his Portuguese connections. He moved in elevated circles at the Spanish court, receiving subsidies from illustrious financiers and sharing tables with dukes and princes. To all these men, he repeated his request for financing for a voyage to the west and also for the rights he had demanded from João II. Some, such as the powerful Duke of Medina, wanted to help but could not, since they lacked the power to grant him the titles and rights he wanted. But Columbus would not back down. He soon realized that only one person could meet his demands: Queen Isabella. In 1487, he finally managed a meeting with the queen, and although he could not convince her to finance the voyage, he completely charmed her and became a frequent guest in the palace. In 1492, the Spanish finally expelled the Moorish invaders who, centuries earlier, had seized parts of the country. With the wartime burden on her treasury lifted, Isabella felt she could finally respond to the demands of her explorer friend, and she decided to pay for three ships, equipment, the salaries of the crews, and a modest stipend for Columbus. More important, she had a contract drawn up that granted Columbus the titles and rights on which he had insisted. The only one she denied, and only in the contract's fine print, was the 10% of all revenues from any lands discovered—an absurd demand, since he wanted no time limit on it. Had the clause been left in, it would eventually have made Columbus and his heirs the wealthiest family on the planet. Columbus never read the fine print, satisfied that his demands had been met. Columbus set sail that same year, in search of the passage to Asia. Before he left, he was careful to hire the best navigator he could find to help get him there. The mission failed to find such a passage, yet when Columbus petitioned the queen to finance an even more ambitious voyage the following year, she agreed. By then, she had come to see Columbus as destined for great things.

Interpretation: Columbus had an amazing power to charm the nobility, and it all came from the way he carried himself. He projected a sense of confidence that was completely out of proportion to his means. Nor was his confidence the aggressive, ugly self-promotion of an upstart; it was a quiet and calm self-assurance. In fact, it was the same confidence usually shown by the nobility themselves. The powerful in the old-style aristocracy felt no need to prove or assert themselves; being noble, they knew they always deserved more and asked for it. With Columbus, then, they felt an instant affinity, for he carried himself just the way they did: elevated above the crowd, destined for greatness.

Understand: It is within your power to set your own price. How you carry yourself reflects what you think of yourself. If you ask for little, shuffle your feet, and lower your head, people will assume this reflects your character. But this behavior is not you; it is only how you have chosen to present yourself to other people. You can just as easily present the Columbus front: buoyancy, confidence, and the feeling that you were born to wear a crown.

Keys to power: As children, we start our lives with great exuberance, expecting and demanding everything from the world. This generally carries over into our first foray into society, as we begin our careers. But as we grow older, the rebuffs and failures we experience set up boundaries that only get firmer with time. Coming to expect less from the world, we accept limitations that are really self-imposed. We start to bow and scrape and apologize for even the simplest of requests. The solution to such a shrinking of horizons is to deliberately force ourselves in the opposite direction, to downplay the failures and ignore the limitations, to make ourselves demand and expect as much as the child. To accomplish this, we must use a particular strategy upon ourselves—call it the strategy of the crown. The strategy of the crown is based on a simple chain of cause and effect: if we believe we are destined for great things, our belief will radiate outward, just as a crown creates an aura around a king. This outward radiance will infect the people around us, who will think we must have reasons to feel so confident. People who wear crowns seem to feel no inner sense of the limits to what they can ask for or what they can accomplish. This too radiates outward; limits and boundaries disappear. Use the strategy of the crown, and you will be surprised how often it bears fruit. Take as an example those happy children who ask for whatever they want and get it; their high expectations are their charm. Adults enjoy granting their wishes, just as Isabella enjoyed granting the wishes of Columbus.

Law 35: Master the art of timing.

Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: Starting out in life as a nondescript French seminary school teacher, Joseph Fouché wandered from town to town for most of the decade of the 1780s, teaching mathematics to young boys. Yet he never completely committed himself to the church, never took his vows as a priest; he had bigger plans, patiently waiting for his chance. He kept his options open, and when the French Revolution broke out in 1789, Fouché waited no longer. He got rid of his cassock, grew his hair long, and became a revolutionary; for this was the spirit of the times. To miss the boat at this critical moment could have spelled disaster. Fouché did not miss the boat. Befriending the revolutionary leader Robespierre, he quickly rose in the rebel ranks. In 1792, the town of Nevers elected Fouché to be its representative to the National Convention, created that year to frame a new constitution for a French Republic.

When Fouché arrived in Paris to take his seat at the convention, a violent rift had broken out between the moderates and the radical Jacobins. Fouché sensed that, in the long run, neither side would emerge victorious. Power rarely ends up in the hands of those who start a revolution, or even of those who further it; power sticks to those who bring it to a conclusion. That was the side Fouché wanted to be on. His sense of timing was uncanny. He started as a moderate, for moderates were in the majority. When the time came to decide on whether or not to execute Louis XVI, however, he saw that the people were clamoring for the king's head, so he cast the deciding vote for the guillotine. Now he had become a radical. Yet, as tensions came to the boil in Paris, he foresaw the danger of being too closely associated with any one faction, so he accepted a position in the provinces where he could lay low for a while. A few months later, he was assigned to the post of proconsul in Lyons, where he oversaw the execution of dozens of aristocrats. At a certain moment, however, he called a halt to the killings, sensing that the mood of the country was turning, and despite the blood already on his hands, the citizens of Lyons hailed him as a savior from what had become known as the Terror. So far, Fouché had played his cards brilliantly. But in 1794, his old friend Robespierre recalled him to Paris to account for his actions in Lyons. Robespierre had been the driving force behind the Terror; he had sent heads on both the right and the left rolling, and Fouché, whom he no longer trusted, seemed destined to provide the next head. Over the next few weeks, a tense struggle ensued. While Robespierre railed openly against Fouché, accusing him of dangerous ambitions and calling for his arrest, the crafty Fouché worked more indirectly, quietly gaining support among those who were beginning to tire of Robespierre's dictatorial control. Fouché was playing for time; he knew that the longer he survived, the more disaffected citizens he could rally against Robespierre. He had to have broad support before he moved against the powerful leader. He rallied support among both the moderates and the Jacobins, playing on the widespread fear of Robespierre; everyone was afraid of being the next to go to the guillotine. It all came to fruition on July 27th: the Convention turned against Robespierre, shouting down his usual lengthy speech. He was quickly arrested, and a few days later, it was Robespierre's head, not Fouché's, that fell into the basket.

When Fouché returned to the Convention after Robespierre's death, he played his most unexpected move. Having led the conspiracy against Robespierre, he was expected to sit with the moderates. But, lo and behold, he once again changed sides, joining the radical Jacobins. For perhaps the first time in his life, he aligned himself with the minority. Clearly, he sensed a reaction stirring; he knew that the moderate faction that had executed Robespierre and was now about to take power would initiate a new round of the Terror, this time against the radicals. In siding with the Jacobins, then, Fouché was sitting with the martyrs of the days to come, the people who would be considered blameless in the troubles that were on their way. Taking sides with what was about to become the losing team was a risky gambit, of course, but Fouché must have calculated he could keep his head long enough to quietly stir up the populace against the moderates and watch them fall from power. And indeed, although the moderates did call for his arrest in December of 1795 and would have sent him to the guillotine, too much time had passed; the executions had become unpopular with the people, and Fouché survived the swing of the pendulum one more time. A new government took over—the Directoire. It was not, however, a Jacobin government, but a moderate one—more moderate than the government that had reimposed the Terror. Fouché, the radical, had kept his head, but now he had to keep a low profile. He waited patiently on the sidelines for several years, allowing time to soften any bitter feelings against him. Then he approached the Directoire and convinced them he had a new passion: intelligence gathering. He became a paid spy for the government, excelled at the job, and in 1799 was rewarded by being made Minister of Police. Now he was not just empowered but required to extend his spying to every corner of France—a responsibility that would greatly reinforce his natural ability to sniff out where the wind was blowing. One of the first social trends he detected, in fact, came in the person of Napoleon, a brash young general whose destiny he right away saw was entwined with the future of France.

When Napoleon unleashed a coup d'état on November 9th, 1799, Fouché pretended to be asleep; indeed, he slept the whole day. For this indirect assistance—it might have been thought his job, after all, to prevent a military coup—Napoleon kept him on as Minister of Police in the new regime. Over the next few years, Napoleon came to rely on Fouché more and more; he even gave this former revolutionary a title—Duke of Otranto—and rewarded him with great wealth. By 1808, however, Fouché, always attuned to the times, sensed that Napoleon was on the downswing. His futile war with Spain, a country that posed no threat to France, was a sign that he was losing a sense of proportion. Never one to be caught on a sinking ship, Fouché conspired with Talleyrand to bring about Napoleon's downfall. Although the conspiracy failed, Talleyrand was fired; Fouché stayed, but was kept on a tight leash. It publicized a growing discontent with the Emperor, who seemed to be losing control. By 1814, Napoleon's power had crumbled, and Allied forces finally conquered him. The next government was a restoration of the monarchy, in the form of King Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI. Fouché, his nose always sniffing the air for the next social shift, knew Louis would not last long; he had none of Napoleon's flair. Fouché once again played his waiting game, laying low, staying away from the spotlight. Sure enough, in February of 1815, Napoleon escaped from the island of Elba, where he had been imprisoned. Louis XVIII panicked; his policies had alienated the citizenry, who were clamoring for Napoleon's return. So Louis turned to the one man who could maybe have saved his hide: Fouché, the former radical who had sent his brother Louis XVI to the guillotine, but was now one of the most popular and widely admired politicians in France. Fouché, however, would not side with a loser. He refused Louis's request for help by pretending that his help was unnecessary, by swearing that Napoleon would never return to power, although he knew otherwise. A short time later, of course, Napoleon and his new citizen army were closing in on Paris. Seeing his reign about to collapse, feeling that Fouché had betrayed him, and certain that he did not want this powerful and able man on Napoleon's team, King Louis ordered the minister's arrest and execution. On March 16th, 1815, policemen surrounded Fouché's coach on a Paris boulevard. Was this finally his end? Perhaps, but not immediately. Fouché told the police that an ex-member of government could not be arrested on the street. They fell for the story and allowed him to return home. Later that day, though, they came to his house and once again declared him under arrest. Fouché nodded, but would the officers be so kind as to allow a gentleman to wash and to change his clothes before leaving his house for the last time? They gave their permission. Fouché left the room, and the minutes went by. Fouché did not return. Finally, the policemen went into the next room, where they saw a ladder against an open window, leading down to the garden below. That day and the next, the police combed Paris for Fouché, but by then Napoleon's cannons were audible in the distance, and the king and all the king's men had to flee the city. As soon as Napoleon entered Paris, Fouché came out of hiding; he had cheated the executioner once again. Napoleon greeted his former Minister of Police and gladly restored him to his old post. During the 100 days that Napoleon remained in power, until Waterloo, it was essentially Fouché who governed France. After Napoleon fell, Louis XVIII returned to the throne, and like a cat with nine lives, Fouché stayed on to serve in yet another government. By then, his power and influence had grown so great that not even the king dared challenge him.

Interpretation: In a period of unprecedented turmoil, Joseph Fouché thrived through his mastery of the art of timing. He teaches us a number of key lessons. First, it is critical to recognize the spirit of the times. Fouché always looked two steps ahead, found the wave that would carry him to power, and rode it. You must always work with the times, anticipate their twists and turns, and never miss the boat. Sometimes the spirit of the times is obscure; recognize it not by what is loudest and most obvious in it, but by what lies hidden and dormant. Look forward to the Napoleons of the future, rather than holding on to the ruins of the past. Second, recognizing the prevailing winds does not necessarily mean running with them. Any potent social movement creates a powerful reaction, and it is wise to anticipate what that reaction will be, as Fouché did after the execution of Robespierre. Rather than ride the cresting wave of the moment, wait for the tide's ebb to carry you back to power. Upon occasion, bet on the reaction that is brewing and place yourself in the vanguard of it. Finally, Fouché had remarkable patience. Without patience as your sword and shield, your timing will fail, and you will inevitably find yourself a loser. When the times were against Fouché, he did not struggle, get emotional, or strike out rashly; he kept his cool and maintained a low profile, patiently building support among the citizenry—the bulwark of his next rise to power. Whenever he found himself in the weaker position, he played for time, which he knew would always be his ally if he was patient. Recognize the moment then to hide in the grass or slither under a rock, as well as the moment to bare your fangs and attack.

Keys to power: There are three kinds of time for us to deal with; each presents problems that can be solved with skill and patience. First, there is long time—the drawn-out, years-long kind of time that must be managed with patience and gentle guidance. Our handling of long time should be mostly defensive; this is the art of not reacting impulsively, of waiting for opportunity. Next, there is forced time—the short time that we can manipulate as an offensive weapon, upsetting the timing of our opponent. Finally, there is end time—when a plan must be executed with speed and force. We have waited, found the moment, and must not hesitate.

Long time: When you force the pace out of fear and impatience, you create a nest of problems that require fixing, and you end up taking much longer than if you had taken your time. Hurry may occasionally get there quicker, but papers fly everywhere, new dangers arise, and they find themselves in constant crisis mode, fixing the problems that they themselves have created, sometimes not acting in the face of danger is your best move. You wait; you deliberately slow down. As time passes, it will eventually present opportunities you had not imagined. Waiting involves controlling not only your own emotions but those of your colleagues, who, mistaking action for power, may try to push you into making rash moves. In your rivals, on the other hand, you can encourage this same mistake. If you let them rush headlong into trouble while you stand back and wait, you will soon find ripe moments to intervene and pick up the pieces. You do not deliberately slow time down to live longer or to take more pleasure in the moment, but the better to play the game of power. First, when your mind is uncluttered by constant emergencies, you will see further into the future. Second, you will be able to resist the baits that people dangle in front of you and will keep yourself from becoming another impatient sucker. Third, you will have more room to be flexible; opportunities will inevitably arise that you had not expected and would have missed had you forced the pace. Fourth, you will not move from one deal to the next without completing the first one. To build your power's foundation can take years; make sure that foundation is secure. Do not be a flash in the pan; success that is built up slowly and surely is the only kind that lasts.

Forced time: The trick in forcing time is to upset the timing of others, to make them hurry, to make them wait, to make them abandon their own pace, to distort their perception of time. By upsetting the timing of your opponent while you stay patient, you open up time for yourself, which is half the game. Making people wait is a powerful way of forcing time, as long as they do not figure out what you are up to; you control the clock. They linger in limbo and rapidly come unglued, opening up opportunities for you to strike. The opposite effect is equally powerful: you make your opponents hurry. Start off your dealings with them slowly, then suddenly apply pressure, making them feel that everything is happening at once. People who lack the time to think will make mistakes, so set their deadlines for them. This was the technique Machiavelli admired in Cesare Borgia, who, during negotiations, would suddenly press vehemently for a decision, upsetting his opponent's timing and patience; for who would dare make Cesare wait?

End time: You can play the game with the utmost artistry, waiting patiently for the right moment to act, putting your competitors off their form by messing with their timing. But it won't mean a thing unless you know how to finish. Do not be one of those people who look like paragons of patience but are actually just afraid to bring things to a close. Patience is worthless unless combined with a willingness to fall ruthlessly on your opponent at the right moment. You can wait as long as necessary for the conclusion to come, but when it comes, it must come quickly.

Use speed to paralyze your opponent. Cover up any mistakes you might make and impress people with your aura of authority and finality. With the patience of a snake charmer, you draw the snake out with calm and steady rhythms. Once the snake is out, though, would you dangle your foot above its deadly head? There is never a good reason to allow the slightest hitch in your end game. Your mastery of timing can really only be judged by how you work with end time, how you quickly change the pace and bring things to a swift and definitive conclusion.

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

Observance of the law: In the year 1527, King Henry VII of England decided he had to find a way to get rid of his wife, Katherine of Aragon. Catherine had failed to produce a son, a male heir who would ensure the continuance of his dynasty, and Henry thought he knew why. He had read in the Bible the passage: "And if a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing; he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless." Before marrying Henry, Catherine had married his older brother Arthur, but Arthur had died five months later. Henry had waited an appropriate time, then had married his brother's widow. Catherine was the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, and by marrying her, Henry had kept alive a valuable alliance. Now, however, Catherine had to assure him that her brief marriage with Arthur had never been consummated; otherwise, Henry would view their relationship as incestuous and their marriage as null and void. Katherine insisted that she had remained a virgin through her marriage to Arthur, and Pope Clement VII supported her by giving his blessing to the union, which he could not have done had he considered it incestuous. Yet, after years of marriage to Henry, Catherine had failed to produce a son, and in the early 1520s, she had entered menopause. To the king, this could only mean one thing: she had lied about her virginity; their union was incestuous, and God had punished them.

There was another reason why Henry wanted to get rid of Catherine: he had fallen in love with a younger woman, Anne Boleyn. Not only was he in love with her, but if he married her, he could still hope to sire a legitimate son. The marriage to Catherine had to be annulled. For this, however, Henry had to apply to the Vatican, but Pope Clement would never annul their marriage. By the summer of 1527, rumors spread throughout Europe that Henry was about to attempt the impossible: to annul his marriage against Clement's wishes. Catherine would never abdicate, let alone voluntarily enter a nunnery as Henry had urged her. But Henry had his own strategy. He stopped sleeping in the same bed with Catherine, since he considered her his sister-in-law, not his lawful wife. He insisted on calling her Princess Dowager of Wales, her title as Arthur's widow. Finally, in 1531, he banished her from court and shipped her off to a distant castle. The Pope ordered him to return her to court on pain of excommunication, the most severe penalty a Catholic could suffer. Henry not only ignored this threat; he insisted that his marriage to Catherine had been dissolved, and in 1533, he married Anne Boleyn. Clement refused to recognize the marriage, but Henry did not care. He no longer recognized the Pope's authority and proceeded to break with the Roman Catholic Church, establishing the Church of England in its stead, with the King as the head of the new church. And so, not surprisingly, the newly formed Church of England proclaimed Anne Boleyn England's rightful Queen. The Pope tried every threat in the book, but nothing worked. Henry simply ignored him. Clement fumed; no one had ever treated him so contemptuously. Henry had humiliated him, and he had no power of recourse. Even excommunication, which he constantly threatened but never carried out, would no longer matter. Katherine, too, felt the devastating sting of Henry's disdain. She tried to fight back, but in appealing to Henry, her words fell on deaf ears, and soon they fell on no one's. Isolated from the court, ignored by the king, mad with anger and frustration, Catherine slowly deteriorated and finally died in January of 1536 from a cancerous tumor of the heart.

Interpretation: When you pay attention to a person, the two of you become partners of sorts, each moving in step to the actions and reactions of the other. In the process, you lose your initiative. It is a dynamic of all interactions. By acknowledging other people, even if only to fight with them, you open yourself to their influence. Had Henry locked horns with Catherine, he would have found himself mired in endless arguments that would have weakened his resolve and eventually worn him down. Had he set out to convince Clement to change his verdict on the marriage's validity or tried to compromise and negotiate with him, he would have gotten bogged down in Clement's favorite tactic: playing for time, promising flexibility but actually getting what Popes always get: their way. Henry would have none of this; he played a devastating power game: total disdain. By ignoring people, you cancel them out. This unsettles and infuriates them, but since they have no dealings with you, there is nothing they can do. This is the offensive aspect of the law. Playing the card of contempt is immensely powerful, for it lets you determine the conditions of the conflict; the war is waged on your terms. This is the ultimate power pose: you are the king, and you ignore what offends you. Watch how this tactic infuriates people; half of what they do is to get your attention, and when you withhold it from them, they flounder in frustration.

Keys to power: If choosing to ignore enhances your power, it follows that the opposite approach—commitment and engagement—often weakens you. By paying undue attention to a puny enemy, you look puny, and the longer it takes you to crush such an enemy, the larger the enemy seems. When Athens set out to conquer the island of Sicily in 415 BC, a giant power was attacking a tiny one; yet, by entangling Athens in a long, drawn-out conflict, Syracuse, Sicily's most important city-state, was able to grow in stature and confidence, finally defeating Athens. It made itself famous for centuries to come. In recent times, President John F. Kennedy made a similar mistake in his attitude to Fidel Castro of Cuba; his failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 made Castro an international hero. When you are attacked by an inferior, deflect people's attention by making it clear that the attack has not even registered. Look away or answer sweetly, showing how little the attack concerns you. Similarly, when you yourself have committed a blunder, the best response is often to make less of your mistake by treating it lightly. Remember, the powerful responses to niggling, petty annoyances and irritations are contempt and disdain. Never show that something has affected you or that you are offended; that only shows you have acknowledged a problem. Contempt is a dish that is best served cold and without affection.

Law 37: Create compelling spectacles. Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power; everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.

Observance of the law: In 1536, the future King Henry II of France took his first mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Diane was 37 at the time and was the widow of the grand seneschal of Normandy. Henry, meanwhile, was a spritely lad of 17 who was just beginning to sow his wild oats. At first, their union seemed merely platonic, with Henry showing an intensely spiritual devotion to Diane, but it soon became clear that he loved her in every way, preferring her bed to that of his young wife, Catherine de' Medici. In 1547, King Francis I died, and Henry ascended to the throne. This new situation posed perils for Diane de Poitiers. She had just turned 48, and despite her notorious cold baths and rumored youth potions, she was beginning to show her age. Now that Henry was King, perhaps he would return to the Queen's bed and do as other kings had done: choose mistresses from the bevy of beauties who made the French court the envy of Europe. He was, after all, only 28 and cut a dashing figure. But Diane did not give up so easily. She would continue to enthrall her lover as she had enthralled him for the past 11 years. Diane's secret weapons were symbols and images, to which she had always paid great attention. Early on in her relationship with Henry, she had created a motif by intertwining her initials with his to symbolize their union. The idea worked like a charm. Henry put this insignia everywhere: on his royal robes, on monuments, on churches, on the facade of the Louvre, then the royal palace in Paris. Diane's favorite colors were black and white, which she wore exclusively, and wherever it was possible, the insignia appeared in these colors. Everyone recognized the symbol and its meaning. Soon after Henry took the throne, however, Diane went still further. She decided to identify herself with the Roman goddess Diana. Her namesake, Diana, was the goddess of the hunt, the traditional royal pastime and the particular passion of Henry. Equally important in Renaissance art, she symbolized chastity and purity. For a woman like Diane to identify herself with this goddess would instantly call up those images in the court, giving her an air of respectability, symbolizing her chaste relationship with Henry. It would also set her apart from the adulterous liaisons of royal mistresses past. To effect this association, Diane began by completely transforming her castle at Anet. She razed the building's structure and in its place erected a magnificent Doric-columned edifice modeled after a Roman temple. It was made in white Normandy stone flecked with black, reproducing Diane's trademark colors of black and white. The insignia of her and Henry's initials appeared on the columns, the doors, the windows, the carpets. Meanwhile, symbols of Diana—crescent moons, stags, and hounds—adorned the gates and facade. Inside, enormous tapestries depicting episodes in the life of the goddess lay on the floors and hung on the walls. In the garden stood the famous Guan sculpture, Diana the Huntress (which is now in the Louvre and which had an uncanny resemblance to Diane de Poitiers). Paintings and other depictions of Diana appeared in every corner of the castle. An overwhelmed Henry soon was trumpeting the image of Diane de Poitiers as a Roman goddess. In 1548, when the couple appeared together in Lyons for a royal celebration, the townspeople welcomed them with a tableau vivant depicting a scene with Diana the huntress. France's greatest poet of the period, Pierre de Ronsard, began to write verses in honor of Diana. Indeed, a kind of cult of Diana sprang up, all inspired by the king's mistress. It seemed to Henry that Diane had given herself a kind of divine aura, and as if he were destined to worship her for the rest of his life. And until his death in 1559, he did remain faithful to her, making her a duchess, giving her untold wealth, and displaying an almost religious devotion to his first and only mistress.

Interpretation: Diane de Poitiers, a woman from a modest bourgeois background, managed to captivate Henry for over 20 years. By the time she died, she was well into her 60s, yet his passion for her only increased with the years. She knew the king well: he was not an intellectual but a lover of the outdoors. He particularly loved jousting tournaments, with their bright pennants, brilliantly caparisoned horses, and beautifully dressed women. Henry's love of visual splendor seemed childlike to Diane, and she played on this weakness of his at every opportunity. Most astute of all was Diane's appropriation of the goddess Diana. Here she took the game beyond physical imagery into the realm of the psychic symbol. It was quite a feat to transform a king's mistress into an emblem of power and purity, but she managed it. Without the resonance of the goddess, Diane was merely an aging courtesan. With the imagery and symbolism of Diana on her shoulders, she seemed a mythic force, destined for greatness. You, too, can play with images like these, weaving visual clues into an encompassing gestalt, as Diane did with her colors and her insignia, establishing a trademark like these to set yourself apart. Then take the game further: find an image or symbol from the past that will neatly fit your situation and put it on your shoulders like a cape. It will make you seem larger than life.

Keys to power: Words put you on the defensive; if you have to explain yourself, your power is already in question. The image, on the other hand, imposes itself as a given. It discourages questions, creates forceful associations, resists unintended interpretations, communicates instantly, and forges bonds that transcend social differences. Words stir up arguments and divisions; images bring people together. They are the quintessential instruments of power. The symbol has the same force whether it is visual or a verbal description of something visual. The symbol of the Sun King, as explained by Louis XIV, who is known by that epithet, can be read on many layers, but the beauty of it is that its associations required no explanation; it spoke immediately to his subjects, distinguished him from all other kings, and conjured up a kind of majesty that went far beyond the words themselves. The symbol contained untold power. Things change in the game of symbols; it is probably no longer possible to pose as a Sun King or to wrap the mantle of Diana around you. Yet you can associate yourself with such symbols more indirectly, and of course, you can make your own mythology out of figures from more recent history, people who are comfortably dead but still powerfully associative in the public eye. The idea is to give yourself an aura, a stature that your normal, banal appearance simply will not create. By herself, Diane de Poitiers had no such radiant powers; she was as human and ordinary as most of us, but the symbol elevated her above the human lot and made her seem divine. Use the power of symbols as a way to rally, animate, and unite your troops or team. Always find a symbol to represent your cause; the more emotional associations, the better. The best way to use images and symbols is to organize them into a grand spectacle that awes people and distracts them from unpleasant realities. This is easy to do; people love what is grand, spectacular, and larger than life. Appeal to their emotions, and they will fly to your spectacle in hordes. The visual is the easiest route to their hearts.

Law 38: Think as you like but behave like others. 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, 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.

Transgression of the law: Around the year 478 BC, the city of Sparta sent an expedition to Persia, led by the young Spartan nobleman Pausanias. The city-states of Greece had recently fought off a mighty invasion from Persia, and now Pausanias, along with allied ships from Athens, had orders to punish the invaders and win back the islands and coastal towns that the Persians had occupied. Both the Athenians and the Spartans had great respect for Pausanias; he had proven himself as a fearless warrior with a flair for the dramatic. With amazing speed, Pausanias and his troops took Cyprus, then moved on to the mainland of Asia Minor, known as the Hellespont, and captured Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul). Now master of part of the Persian Empire, Pausanias began to show signs of behavior that went beyond his normal flamboyance. He appeared in public wearing pomade in his hair and flowing Persian robes and accompanied by a bodyguard of Egyptians. He held lavish banquets in which he sat in the Persian manner and demanded to be entertained. He stopped seeing his old friends, entered into communication with the Persian king Xerxes, and, all in all, affected the style and manner of a Persian dictator. Clearly, power and success had gone to Pausanias' head. His army—Athenians and Spartans alike—at first thought this was a passing fancy; he had always been a bit exaggerated in his gestures. But when he flaunted his disdain for the Greeks' simple way of life and insulted the common Greek soldier, they began to feel he had gone too far. Although there was no concrete evidence for this, rumor spread that he had gone over to the other side and that he dreamed of becoming a kind of Greek Xerxes. To quell the possibility of mutiny, the Spartans relieved Pausanias of his command and called him home. Pausanias, however, continued to dress in the Persian style even in Sparta. After a few months, he independently hired a trim and returned to the Hellespont, telling his compatriots he was going to continue the fight against the Persians. Actually, however, he had different plans: to make himself ruler of all Greece with the aid of Xerxes himself. The Spartans declared him a public enemy and sent a ship to capture him. Pausanias surrendered, certain that he could clear himself of the charges of treason. It did come out during the trial that during his reign as commander he had offended his fellow Greeks time and again, erecting monuments, for instance, in his own name rather than those of the cities whose troops had fought alongside him, as was the custom. Yet Pausanias proved right; despite the evidence of his numerous contacts with the enemy, the Spartans refused to imprison a man of such noble birth and let him go. Now thinking himself untouchable, Pausanias hired a messenger to take a letter to Xerxes, but the messenger instead took the letter to the Spartan authorities. These men wanted to find out more, so they had the messenger arrange to meet Pausanias in a temple where they could hide and listen behind a partition. What Pausanias said shocked them; they had never heard such contempt for their ways spoken so brazenly by one of their own, and they made arrangements for his immediate arrest. On his way home from the temple, Pausanias got word of what had happened. He ran to another temple to hide, but the authorities followed him there and placed sentries all around. Pausanias refused to surrender. Unwilling to forcibly remove him from the sacred temple, the authorities kept him trapped inside until he eventually died of starvation.

Interpretation: At first glance, it might seem that Pausanias simply fell in love with another culture, a phenomenon as old as time. Never comfortable with the asceticism of the Spartans, he found himself enthralled by the Persian love of luxury and sensual pleasure. He put on Persian robes and perfumes with a sense of deliverance from Greek discipline and simplicity. This is how it appears when people adopt a culture in which they were not raised. Often, however, there is also something else at play. People who flaunt their infatuation with a different culture are expressing a disdain and contempt for their own. They are using the outward appearance of the exotic to separate themselves from the common folk who unquestioningly follow the local customs and laws and to express their sense of superiority. Otherwise, they would act with more dignity, showing respect for those who do not share their desires—indeed, their need to show their difference so dramatically often makes them disliked by the people whose beliefs they challenge—indirectly and subtly, perhaps, but offensively nonetheless. Cultures have norms that reflect centuries of shared beliefs and ideals. Do not expect to scoff at such things with impunity; you will be punished somehow, even if just through isolation, a position of real powerlessness. Many of us, like Pausanias, feel the siren call of the exotic, the foreign. Measure and moderate this desire; flaunting your pleasure in alien ways of thinking and acting will reveal a different motive: to demonstrate your superiority over your fellows.

Keys to power: Wise and clever people learn early on that they can display conventional behavior and mouth conventional ideas without having to believe in them. The power these people gain from blending in is that of being left alone to have the thoughts they want to have and to express them to the people they want to express them to without suffering isolation or ostracism. Once they have established themselves in a position of power, they can try to convince a wider circle of the correctness of their ideas, perhaps working indirectly. Make a show of blending in, even going so far as to be the most zealous advocate of the prevailing orthodoxy. If you stick to conventional appearances in public, few will believe you think differently in private. Do not be so foolish as to imagine that in our own time the old orthodoxies are gone. Jonas Salk, for instance, thought science had gotten past politics and protocol, and so in his search for a polio vaccine, he broke all the rules: going public with the discovery before showing it to the scientific community, taking credit for the vaccine without acknowledging the scientists who had paved the way, making himself a star. The public may have loved him, but scientists shunned him; his disrespect for his community's orthodoxies left him isolated, and he wasted years trying to heal the breach and struggling for funding and cooperation. The logical extension of this law is the invaluable ability to be all things to all people. When you go into society, leave behind your own ideas and values and put on the mask that is most appropriate for the group in which you find yourself. People will swallow the bait because it flatters them to believe that you share their ideas. They will not take you as a hypocrite if you are careful, for how can they accuse you of hypocrisy if you do not let them know exactly what you stand for? Nor will they see you as lacking in values. Of course, you have values—the values you share with them while in their company.

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. Put your enemies off balance; find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them, and you hold the strings.

Observance of the law: By the late 1920s, Ras Tafari had nearly achieved his goal of assuming total control over Ethiopia, a country he felt needed strong and unified leadership. As regent to the Empress Zewditu, stepdaughter of the late Queen and heir to the throne, Tafari had spent several years weakening the power of Ethiopia's various warlords. Now only one real obstacle stood in his way: the Empress and her husband, Ras Gugsa. Tafari knew the royal couple hated him and wanted to get rid of him, so to cut short their plotting, he made Gugsa the governor of the northern province of Begemder, forcing him to leave the capital where the Empress lived. For several years, Gugsa played the loyal administrator, but Tafari did not trust him. He knew that Gugsa and the Empress were plotting revenge. As time passed and Gugsa made no move, the chances of a plot only increased. Tafari knew what he had to do: draw Gugsa out, get under his skin, and push him into action before he was ready. For several years, a northern tribe, the Auyu Galla, had been in virtual rebellion against the throne, robbing and pillaging local villages and refusing to pay taxes. Tafari had done nothing to stop them, letting them grow stronger. Finally, in 1929, he ordered Ras Gugsa to lead an army against these disobedient tribesmen. Gugsa agreed, but inwardly he seethed. He had no grudge against the Auyu Galla, and the demand that he fight them hurt his pride. He could not disobey the order, but as he worked to put together an army, he began to spread an ugly rumor that Tafari was in cahoots with the Pope and planned to convert the country to Roman Catholicism and make it a colony of Italy. Gugsa's armies swelled, and some of the tribes from which his soldiers came secretly agreed to fight Tafari. In March of 1930, an enormous force of 35,000 men began to march—not on the Auyu Galla, but south toward the capital of Addis Ababa. Made confident by his growing strength, Gugsa now openly led a holy war to depose Tafari and put the country back in the hands of true Christians. He did not see the trap that had been laid for him. Before Tafari had ordered Gugsa to fight the Auyu Galla, he had secured the support of the Ethiopian Church, and before the revolt got underway, he had bribed several of Gugsa's key allies not to show up for the battle. As the rebel army marched south, airplanes flew overhead, dropping leaflets announcing that the highest Church officials had recognized Tafari as the true Christian leader of Ethiopia and that they had excommunicated Gugsa for fermenting a civil war. These leaflets severely blunted the emotions behind the holy crusade, and his battle loomed.

The support that GSA's allies had promised him failed to show up. Soldiers began to flee or defect when the battle came. The rebel army quickly collapsed, refusing to surrender. Ras Gugsa was killed in the fighting. The Empress, distraught over her husband's death, died a few days later. On April 30th, Selassie issued a formal proclamation announcing his new title: Emperor of Ethiopia.

Interpretation: Selassie always saw several moves ahead. He knew that if he let Ras Gugsa decide the time and place of the revolt, the danger would be much greater than if he forced Gugsa to act on Selassie's terms. So he goaded him into rebellion by offending his manly pride, asking him to fight people he had no quarrel with, on behalf of a man he hated. Thinking everything out ahead, Selassie made sure that Gugsa's rebellion would come to nothing and that he could use it to do away with his last two enemies.

This is the essence of the law: When the waters are still, your opponents have the time and space to plot actions that they will initiate and control. So stir the waters! Force the fish to the surface. Get them to act before they are ready. Steal the initiative. The best way to do this is to play on uncontrollable emotions: pride, vanity, love, hate. Once the water is stirred up, the little fish cannot help but rise to the bait. The angrier they become, the less control they have, and finally they are caught in the whirlpool you have made, and they drown.

Keys to power: Angry people usually end up looking ridiculous, for their response seems out of proportion to what occasioned it. They have taken things too seriously, exaggerating the hurt or insult that has been done to them. They are so sensitive to slight that it becomes comical how much they take personally. More comical still is their belief that their outbursts signify power. The truth is the opposite: petulance is not power; it is a sign of helplessness. People may temporarily be cowed by your tantrums, but in the end they lose respect for you. They also realize they can easily undermine a person with so little self-control.

If a person explodes with anger at you, and it seems out of proportion to what you did to them, you must remind yourself that it is not exclusively directed at you. Do not be so vain. The cause is much larger, goes way back in time, involves dozens of prior hurts, and is actually not worth the bother to understand. Instead of seeing it as a personal grudge, look at the emotional outburst as a disguised power move, an attempt to control or punish you, cloaked in the form of hurt feelings and anger. This shift of perspective will let you play the game of power with more clarity and energy. Instead of overreacting and becoming ensnared in people's emotions, you will turn their loss of control to your advantage. You keep your head while they are losing theirs.

Once you train yourself not to take matters personally and to control your emotional responses, you will have placed yourself in a position of tremendous power. Now you can play with the emotional responses of other people. Stir the insecure into action by impinging their manhood and by dangling the prospect of an easy victory before their faces. With the arrogant, you can appear weaker than you are, taunting them into a rash action.

Law 40: Despise the free lunch. Judgment: 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 is no cutting corners with excellence. Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power. Money and power: In the realm of power, everything must be judged by its cost, and everything has a price. When what is offered for free or at bargain rates often comes with a psychological price tag: complicated feelings of obligation, compromises with quality, the insecurity those compromises bring on, and on. The powerful learn early to protect their most valuable resources: independence and room to maneuver. By paying the full price, they keep themselves free of dangerous entanglements and worries. Being open and flexible with money also teaches the value of strategic generosity. A variation on the old trick of giving when you are about to take. By giving the appropriate gift, you put the recipient under obligation. Generosity softens people up to be deceived. By gaining a reputation for liberality, you win people's admiration while distracting them from your power plays. By strategically spreading your wealth, you charm the other courtiers, creating pleasure and making valuable allies. Look at the masters of power: the Caesars, the Queen Elizabeths, the Michelangelos, the Medicis—not a miser among them. Even the great con artists spend freely to swindle. Tight purse strings are unattractive when engaged in seduction. Casanova would give completely, not only of himself but of his wallet. The powerful understand that money is psychologically charged and that it is also a vessel of politeness and sociability. They make the human side of money a weapon in their armory. For everyone able to play with money, thousands more are locked in a self-destructive refusal to use money creatively and strategically. These types represent the opposite pole to the powerful, and you must learn to recognize them, either to avoid their poisonous natures or to turn their inflexibility to your advantage.

The greedy fish: The greedy fish take the human side out of money. Cold and ruthless, they see only the lifeless balance sheet, viewing others solely as either pawns or obstructions in their pursuit of wealth. They trample on people's sentiments and alienate valuable allies. No one wants to work with the greedy fish, and over the years they end up isolated, which often proves their undoing.

The bargain demon: Powerful people judge everything by what it costs, not just in money but in time, dignity, and peace of mind. And this is exactly what bargain demons cannot do. Wasting valuable time digging for bargains, they worry endlessly about what they could have gotten elsewhere for a little less. On top of that, the bargain item they do buy is often shabby; perhaps it needs costly repairs or will have to be replaced twice as fast as a high-quality item. The costs of these pursuits—not always in money, though the price of a bargain is often deceptive—but in time and peace of mind, discourage normal people from undertaking them. But for the bargain demon, the bargain is an end in itself. These types might seem to harm only themselves, but their attitudes are contagious. Unless you resist them, they will infect you with the insecure feeling that you should have looked harder to find a cheaper price. Don't argue with them or try to change them; just mentally add up the cost in time and inner peace, if not in hidden financial expense, of the irrational pursuit of a bargain.

The financial sadist: Financial sadists play vicious power games with money as a way of asserting their power. They might, for example, make you wait for money that is owed you, promising that the check is in the mail; or if they hire you to work for them, they meddle in every aspect of the job, haggling and giving you ulcers. Sadists seem to think that paying for something gives them the right to torture and abuse the seller. They have no sense of the ceremonial element in money. If you are unlucky enough to get involved with this type, accepting a financial loss may be better in the long run than getting entangled in their destructive power games.

The indiscriminate giver: Generosity has a definite function in power; it attracts people, softens them up, makes allies out of them, but it has to be used strategically, with a definite end in mind. Indiscriminate givers, on the other hand, are generous because they want to be loved and admired by all, and their generosity is so indiscriminate and needy that it may not have the desired effect. If they give to one and all, why should the recipient feel special? Attractive as it may seem to make an indiscriminate giver your mark, in any involvement with this type you will often feel burdened by their insatiable emotional needs.

Transgression of the law: In the early 18th century, no one stood higher in English society than the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. The Duke, having led successful campaigns against the French, was considered Europe's premier general and strategist; and his wife, the Duchess, after much maneuvering, had established herself as the favorite of Queen Anne, who became ruler of England in 1702. In 1704, the Duke's triumph at the Battle of Blenheim made him the toast of England, and to honor him, the Queen awarded him a large plot of land in the town of Woodstock and the funds to create a great palace there, calling his planned home the Palace of Blenheim. The Duke chose as his architect the young John Vanbrugh, a kind of Renaissance man who wrote plays as well as designed buildings. And so construction began in the summer of 1705, with much fanfare and great hopes. Vanbrugh had a dramatist's sense of architecture; his palace was to be a monument to Marlborough's brilliance and power and was to include artificial lakes, enormous bridges, elaborate gardens, and other fantastical touches. From day one, however, the Duchess could not be pleased. She thought Vanbrugh was wasting money on yet another stands of trees. She wanted the palace finished as soon as possible. The Duchess tortured Vanbrugh and his workmen on every detail. She was consumed with petty matters. Although the government was paying for Blenheim, she counted every penny. Eventually, her grumbling about Blenheim and other things too created an irreparable rift between her and Queen Anne, who in 1711 dismissed her from the court, ordering her to vacate her apartments at the Royal Palace. When the Duchess left, fuming over the loss of her position and also of her royal salary, she emptied the apartment of every fixture, down to the brass doorknobs. Over the next 10 years, work on Blenheim would stop and start as the funds became harder to procure from the government. The Duchess thought Vanbrugh was out to ruin her. She quibbled over every carload of stone and bushel of lime, counted every extra yard of iron railing or foot of waycott, hurling abuse at the wasteful workmen, contractors, and surveyors. Marlborough, old and weary, wanted nothing more than to settle into the palace in his last years, but the project became bogged down in a swamp of litigation: the workmen suing the Duchess for wages, the Duchess suing the architect right back. In the midst of this interminable wrangling, the Duke died. He had never spent a night in his beloved Blenheim. After Marlborough's death, it became clear that he had a vast estate worth over 2 million—more than enough to pay for finishing the palace—but the Duchess would not relent. She held back Vanbrugh's wages as well as the workmen's, and finally had the architect dismissed. The man who took his place finished Blenheim in a few years, following Vanbrugh's designs to the letter. Vanbrugh died in 1726, locked out of the palace by the Duchess, unable to set foot in his greatest creation. Foreshadowing the Romantic Movement, Blenheim had started a whole new trend in architecture but had given its creator a 20-year nightmare.

Interpretation: For the Duchess of Marlborough, money was a way to play sadistic power games. She saw the loss of money as a symbolic loss of power. With Vanbrugh, her contortions went deeper still: he was a great artist, and she envied his power to create, to attain a fame outside her reach. She may not have had his gifts, but she did have the money to torture and abuse him over the pettiest details, to ruin his life. This kind of sadism, however, bears an awful price: it made construction that should have lasted 10 years take 20; it poisoned many a relationship, alienated the Duchess from the court, deeply pained the Duke who wanted only to live peacefully in Blenheim, created endless lawsuits, and took years off Vanbrugh's life. Finally, too, posterity had the last word: Vanbrugh is recognized as a genius, while the Duchess is forever remembered for her consummate cheapness. The powerful must have grandeur of spirit; they can never reveal any pettiness, and money is the most visible arena in which to display either grandeur or pettiness. Best spend freely, then, and create a reputation for generosity, which in the end will pay great dividends. Never let financial details blind you to the bigger picture of how people perceive you; their resentment will cost you in the long run. And if you want to meddle in the work of creative people under your hire, at least pay them well; your money will buy their submission better than your displays of power.

Law 41: Avoid stepping into a great man's shoes. Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: Alexander the Great had a dominant passion as a young man: an intense dislike for his father, King Philip of Macedonia. He hated Philip's cunning, cautious style of ruling, his bombastic speeches, his drinking and whoring, and his love of wrestling and of other wastes of time. Alexander knew he had to make himself the very opposite of his domineering father: he would force himself to be bold and reckless; he would control his tongue and be a man of few words; and he would not lose precious time in pursuit of pleasures that brought no glory. Alexander also resented the fact that Philip had conquered most of Greece. "My father will go on conquering till there is nothing extraordinary left for me to do," he once complained. While other sons of powerful men were content to inherit wealth and live a life of leisure, Alexander wanted only to outdo his father, to obliterate Philip's name from history by surpassing his accomplishments. Alexander itched to show others how superior he was to his father. A Thessalian horse dealer once brought a prize horse named Bucephalus to sell to Philip. None of the king's grooms could get near the horse; it was far too savage, and Philip berated the merchant for bringing him such a useless beast. Watching the whole affair, Alexander scowled and commented, "What a horse they are losing for want of skill and spirit to manage him." When he had said this several times, Philip finally had enough and challenged him to take on the horse. He called the merchant back secretly, hoping his son would have a nasty fall and learn a bitter lesson. But Alexander was the one to teach the lesson. Not only did he mount Bucephalus, he managed to ride him at full gallop, taming the horse that would later carry him all the way to India. The courtiers applauded wildly, but Philip seethed inside, seeing not a son but a rival to his power. Alexander's defiance of his father grew bolder. One day the two men had a heated argument before the entire court, and Philip drew his sword as if to strike his son. Having drunk too much wine, however, the king stumbled. Alexander pointed at his father and jeered, "Men of Macedonia, see there the man who is preparing to pass from Europe to Asia. He cannot pass from one table to another without falling." When Alexander was 18, a disgruntled courtier murdered Philip. As word of the regicide spread through Greece, city after city rose up in rebellion against their Macedonian rulers. Philip's advisors counseled Alexander, now the king, to proceed cautiously, to do as Philip had done and conquer through cunning. But Alexander would do things his way. He marched to the furthest reaches of the kingdom, suppressed the rebellious towns, and reunited the empire with brutal efficiency. As a young rebel grows older, his struggle against the father often wains, and he gradually comes to resemble the very man he wanted to defy. But Alexander's loathing of his father did not end with Philip's death. Once he had consolidated Greece, he set his eyes on Persia, the prize that had eluded his father, who had dreamed of conquering Asia. If he defeated the Persians, Alexander would finally surpass Philip in glory and fame. Alexander crossed into Asia with an army of 35,000 to face a Persian force numbering over a million. Before engaging the Persians in battle, he passed through the town of Gordium. Here, in the town's main temple, there stood an ancient chariot tied with cords made of the rind of the cornel tree. Legend had it that any man who could undo these cords, the Gordian knot, would rule the world. Many had tried to untie the enormous and intricate knot, but none had succeeded. Alexander, seeing he could not possibly untie the knot with his bare hands, took out his sword and with one slash cut it in half. This symbolic gesture showed the world that he would not do as others but would blaze his own path. Against astounding odds, Alexander conquered the Persians. Most expected him to stop there; it was a great triumph enough to secure his fame for eternity. But Alexander had the same relationship to his own deeds as he had to his father; his conquest of Persia represented the past, and he wanted never to rest on past triumphs or to allow the past to outshine the present. He moved on to India, extending his empire beyond all known limits. Only his disgruntled and weary soldiers prevented him from going further.

Interpretation: Alexander represents an extremely uncommon type in history: the son of a famous and successful man who manages to surpass the father in glory and power. The reason this type is uncommon is simple: the father most often manages to amass his fortune, his kingdom, because he begins with little or nothing. A desperate urge impels him to succeed; he has nothing to lose. By cunning and impetuousness, and has no famous father of his own to compete against, this kind of man has reason to believe in himself, to believe that his way of doing things is the best because, after all, it worked for him. When a man like this has a son, he becomes domineering and oppressive, imposing his lessons on the son, who is starting off life in circumstances totally different from those in which the father himself began. The sons of such men tend to become cowed and cautious, terrified of losing what their fathers have gained. The son will never step out of his father's shadow unless he adopts the ruthless strategy of Alexander: disparage the past, create your own kingdom, put the father in the shadows instead of letting him do the same to you. If you cannot materially start from ground zero, it would be foolish to renounce an inheritance. You can at least begin from ground zero psychologically by throwing off the weight of the past and charting a new direction. Alexander instinctively recognized that privileges of birth are impediments to power. Be merciless with the past, then—not only with your father and his father but with your own earlier achievements. Only the weak rest on their laurels and dot on past triumphs. In the game of power, there is never time to rest.

Keys to power: Power depends on the ability to fill a void, to occupy a field that has been cleared of the dead weight of the past. Only after the father figure has been properly done away with will you have the necessary space to create and establish a new order. There are several strategies you can adopt to accomplish this. Perhaps the simplest way to escape the shadow of the past is simply to belittle it, playing on the timeless antagonism between the generations, stirring up the young against the old. For this you need a convenient older figure to pillory. John F. Kennedy knew the dangers of getting lost in the past. He radically distinguished his presidency from that of his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and also from the preceding decade, the 1950s, which Eisenhower personified. Kennedy, for instance, would not play the dull and fatherly game of golf, a symbol of retirement and privilege and Eisenhower's passion. Instead, he played football on the White House lawn. In every aspect, his administration represented vigor and youth as opposed to the staid Eisenhower. Kennedy had discovered an old truth: the young are easily set against the old, since they yearn to make their own place in the world and resent the shadow of their fathers. Never let yourself be seen as following your predecessor's path; if you do, you will never surpass him. You must physically demonstrate your difference by establishing a style and symbolism that sets you apart. When General Douglas MacArthur assumed command of American forces in the Philippines during World War II, an assistant handed him a book containing the various precedents established by the commanders before him, the methods that had been successful for them. MacArthur asked the assistant how many copies there were of this book. "Six," the assistant answered. "Well," the general replied, "you get all those six copies together and burn them, every one of them. I'll not be bound by precedence. Anytime a problem comes up, I'll make the decision at once." Immediately adopt this ruthless strategy toward the past: burn all the books and train yourself to react to circumstances as they happen. You may believe that you have separated yourself from the predecessor or father figure, but as you grow older you must be eternally vigilant lest you become the father you had rebelled against. Finally, plenitude and prosperity tend to make us lazy and inactive. When our power is secure, we have no need to act. This is a serious danger, especially for those who achieve success and power at an early age. You must be prepared to return to square one psychologically rather than growing fat and lazy with prosperity. Pablo Picasso could deal with success but only by constantly changing the style of his painting, often breaking completely with what had made him successful before. How often our early triumphs turn us into a kind of caricature of ourselves! Powerful people recognize these traps. Like Alexander the Great, they struggle constantly to recreate themselves. The father must not be allowed to return; he must be slain at every step of the way.

Law 42: Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. Judgment: 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.

Observance of the law: Near the end of the 6th century BC, the city-state of Athens overthrew the series of petty tyrants who had dominated its politics for decades. It established instead a democracy that was to last over a century, a democracy that became the source of its power and its proudest achievement. But as the democracy evolved, so did a problem the Athenians had never faced: how to deal with those who did not concern themselves with the cohesion of a small city surrounded by enemies, who did not work for its greater glory but thought of only themselves and their own ambitions and petty intrigues. The Athenians understood that these people, if left alone, would sow dissension, divide the city into factions, and stir up anxieties, all of which could lead to the ruin of their democracy. Violent punishment no longer suited the new civilized order that Athens had created. Instead, the citizens found another, more satisfying and less brutal way to deal with the chronically selfish. Every year they would gather in the marketplace and write on a piece of earthenware, an ostrakon, the name of an individual they wanted to see banished from the city for 10 years. If a particular name appeared on 6,000 ballots, that person would instantly be exiled. If no one received 6,000 votes, the person with the most ostraka recording his name would suffer the 10-year ostracism. This ritual expulsion became a kind of festival. What a joy to be able to banish those irritating, anxiety-inducing individuals who wanted to rise above the group they should have served! In 490 BC, Aristides, one of the great generals of Athenian history, helped defeat the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. Meanwhile, off the battlefield, his fairness as a judge had earned him the nickname "The Just." But as the years went by, the Athenians came to dislike him. He made such a show of his righteousness, and this, they believed, disguised his feelings of superiority and scorn for the common folk. His omnipresence in Athenian politics became obnoxious. The citizens grew tired of hearing him called "The Just." They feared that this was just the type of man—judgmental, haughty—who would eventually stir up fierce divisions among them. In 482 BC, despite Aristides' invaluable expertise in the continuing war with the Persians, they collected the ostraka and had him banished. After Aristides' ostracism, the great general Themistocles emerged as the city's premier leader. But his many honors and victories went to his head, and he too became arrogant and overbearing, constantly reminding the Athenians of his triumphs in battle, the temples he had built, the dangers he had fended off. He seemed to be saying that...

Without him, the city would come to ruin. And so, in 472 BC, the Mystic Le's name was filled in on the ostrakon, and the city was rid of his poisonous presence.

The greatest political figure in fifth-century Athens was undoubtedly Pericles. Although several times threatened with ostracism, he avoided that fate by maintaining close ties with the people. Perhaps he had learned a lesson as a child from his favorite tutor, the incomparable Damon, who excelled above all other Athenians in his intelligence, his musical skills, and his rhetorical abilities. It was Damon who had trained Pericles in the arts of ruling, but he too suffered ostracism. His superior airs and his insulting manner toward the commoners stirred up too much resentment.

Toward the end of the century, there lived a man named Hyperbolus. Most writers of the time describe him as the city's most worthless citizen. He did not care what anyone thought of him and slandered whomever he disliked. He amused some but irritated more. In 4117 BC, Hyperbolus saw an opportunity to stir up anger against the two leading politicians of the time, Alcibiades and Nicias. He hoped that one of the two would be ostracized and that he would rise in that man's place. His campaign seemed likely to succeed. The Athenians disliked Alcibiades' flamboyant and carefree lifestyle and were wary of Nicias's wealth and aloofness. They seemed certain to ostracize one or the other. But Alcibiades and Nicias, although they were otherwise enemies, pulled their resources and managed to turn the ostracism on Hyperbolus instead. His obnoxiousness, they argued, could only be terminated by banishment.

Earlier sufferers of ostracism had been formidable, powerful men. Hyperbolus, however, was a low buffoon. And with his banishment, the Athenians felt that ostracism had been degraded, and so they ended the practice that for nearly a 100 years had been one of the keys to keeping the peace within Athens.

Interpretation: The Athenians sensed the dangers posed by asocial behavior and saw how such behavior often disguises itself in other forms: the holier-than-thou attitude that silently seeks to impose its standards on others; overweening ambition at the expense of the common good; the flaunting of superiority; quiet scheming; terminal obnoxiousness. Some of these behaviors would eat away at the city's cohesion by creating factions and sowing dissension. Others would ruin the democratic spirit by making the common citizen feel inferior and envious. The Athenians did not try to re-educate people who acted in these ways, or to absorb them somehow into the group, or to impose a violent punishment that would only create other problems. The solution was quick and effective: get rid of them.

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 one strand of misery from another or to see how the whole thing started. First, recognize troublemakers by their overbearing presence or by their complaining nature. Once you spot them, do not try to reform them or appease them; that will only make things worse. Do not attack them, whether directly or indirectly, for they are poisonous in nature and will work underground to destroy you. Do as the Athenians did: banish them before it is too late. Separate them from the group before they become the eye of a whirlpool. Do not give them time to stir up anxieties and seed discontent. Do not give them room to move. Let one person suffer so that the rest can live in peace.

Keys to power: In the past, an entire nation would be ruled by a king and his handful of ministers. Only the elite had any power to play with. Over the centuries, power has gradually become more and more diffused and democratized. This has created, however, a common misperception that groups no longer have centers of power; that power is spread out and scattered among many people. Actually, however, power has changed in its numbers but not in its essence. There may be fewer mighty tyrants commanding the power of life and death over millions, but there remain thousands of petty tyrants ruling smaller realms and enforcing their will through indirect power gains—charisma and so on. In every group, power is concentrated in the hands of one or two people, for this is one area in which human nature will never change. People will congregate around a single strong personality, like stars orbiting a sun. To labor under the illusion that this kind of power center no longer exists is to make endless mistakes, waste energy and time, and never hit the target.

Powerful people never waste time. Outwardly, they may play along with the game, pretending that power is shared among many, but inwardly they keep their eyes on the inevitable few in the group who hold the cards. These are the ones they work on when troubles arise. They look for the underlying cause: the single strong character who started the stirring and whose isolation or banishment will settle the waters again.

In his family therapy practice, Dr. Milton H. Erickson found that if the family dynamic was unsettled and dysfunctional, there was inevitably one person who was the stirrer, the troublemaker. In his sessions, he would symbolically isolate this rotten apple by seating him or her apart from the others, if only by a few feet. Slowly, the other family members would see the physically separate person as the source of their difficulty. Once you recognize who the stirrer is, pointing it out to other people will accomplish a great deal. Understanding who controls the group dynamic is a critical realization. Remember: Stirrers thrive by hiding in the group, disguising their actions among the reactions of others. Render their actions visible, and they lose their power to upset.

Finally, the reason you strike at the shepherd is because such an action will dishearten the sheep beyond any rational measure. When Hernando Cortez and Francisco Pizarro led their tiny forces against the Aztec and Incan Empires, they did not make the mistake of fighting on several fronts, nor were they intimidated by the numbers arrayed against them. They captured the kings—Montezuma and Atahualpa—vast empires fell into their hands. With the leader gone, the center of gravity is gone; there is nothing to revolve around, and everything falls apart. Aim at the leaders; bring them down, and look for the endless opportunities in the confusion that will ensue.

Law 43: Work on the hearts and minds of others. Judgment: 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.

Transgression of the law: Near the end of the reign of Louis XV, all of France seemed desperate for change. When the king's grandson and chosen successor, the future Louis XVI, married the 15-year-old daughter of the Empress of Austria, the French caught a glimpse of the future that seemed hopeful. The young bride, Marie Antoinette, was beautiful and full of life. She instantly changed the mood of the court, which was rank with Louis XV's debaucheries. Even the common people, who had yet to see her, talked excitedly of Marie Antoinette. The French had grown disgusted with the series of mistresses who had dominated Louis XV, and they looked forward to serving their new queen. In 1773, when Marie Antoinette publicly rode through the streets of Paris for the first time, applauding crowds swarmed around her carriage. "How fortunate," she wrote her mother, "to be in a position in which one can gain widespread affection at so little cost."

In 1774, Louis XV died, and Louis XVI took the throne. As soon as Marie became queen, she abandoned herself to the pleasures she loved the most: ordering and wearing the most expensive gowns and jewelry in the realm; sporting the most elaborate hair in history, her sculpted curls rising as much as 3 feet above her head; and throwing a constant succession of masked balls and fêtes. All of these whims she paid for on credit, never concerning herself with the cost or who paid the bills.

Marie Antoinette's greatest pleasure was the creation and designing of a private Garden of Eden at the Petit Trianon, a château on the grounds of Versailles, with its own woods. The gardens at Petit Trianon were to be as natural as possible, including moss applied by hand to the trees and rocks to heighten the pastoral effect. Marie employed peasant milkmaids to milk the finest-looking cows in the realm, launderers and cheese makers in special peasant outfits she helped design, shepherds to tend sheep with silk ribbons around their necks. When the queen inspected the barns, she would watch her milkmaids squeezing milk into porcelain vases made at the Royal ceramic works. To pass the time, Marie would gather flowers in the woods around the Petit Trianon or watch her "good peasants" doing their chores. The place became a separate world, its community limited to Marie's chosen favorites. With each new whim of Marie, the cost of maintaining the Petit Trianon soared. Meanwhile, France itself was deteriorating. There was famine and widespread discontent. Even socially insulated courtiers seethed with resentment. The queen treated them like children; only her favorites mattered, and these were becoming fewer and fewer. But Marie did not concern herself with this. Not once throughout her reign did she read a minister's report; not once did she tour the provinces and rally the people to her side; not once did she mingle among the Parisians or receive a delegation from them. She did none of these things because, as queen, she felt the people owed her their affection, and she was not required to love them in return.

In 1784, the queen became embroiled in a scandal. As part of an elaborate swindle, the most expensive diamond necklace in Europe had been purchased under her name. And during the swindler trial, her lavish lifestyle became public. People heard about the money she spent on jewels and dresses and masked dances. They gave her the nickname "Madame Déficit," and from then on she became the focus of the people's growing resentment. When she appeared in her box at the opera, the audience greeted her with hisses. Even the court turned against her, for while she had been running up her huge expenditures, the country was headed for ruin.

Five years later, in 1789, an unprecedented event took place: the beginning of the French Revolution. The queen did not worry. "Let the people have their little rebellion," she seemed to think. "It would soon quiet down, and she would be able to resume her life of pleasure." That year, the people marched on Versailles, forcing the royal family to quit the palace and take residence in Paris. This was a triumph for the rebels, but it offered the queen an opportunity to heal the wounds she had opened and establish contact with the people. The queen, however, had not learned her lesson. Not once would she leave the palace during her stay in Paris. Her subjects could rot in hell for all she cared.

In 1792, the royal couple was moved from the palace to a prison as the revolution officially declared the end of the monarchy. The following year, Louis XVI was tried, found guilty, and guillotined. As Marie Antoinette awaited the same fate, hardly a soul came to her defense: not one of her former friends in the court; not one of Europe's other monarchs, who, as members of their own countries' royal families, had all the reason in the world to show that revolution did not pay; not even her own family in Austria, including her brother, who now sat on the throne. She had become the world's pariah. In October of 1793, she finally knelt at the guillotine, unrepentant and defiant to the bitter end.

Interpretation: From early on, Marie Antoinette acquired the most dangerous of attitudes. As a young princess in Austria, she was endlessly flattered and cajoled. As the future queen of the French court, she was the center of everyone's attention. She never learned to charm or please other people, to become attuned to their individual psychologies. She never had to work to get her way, to use calculation or cunning, or the arts of persuasion. And, like everyone who was indulged from an early age, she evolved into a monster of insensitivity. Marie became the focus of an entire country's dissatisfaction because it is so infuriating to meet with a person who makes no effort to seduce you or attempt to persuade you, even if only for the purpose of deception. And do not imagine that she represents a bygone era or that she is even rare. Her type is today more common than ever. Such types live in their own bubble. They seem to feel they are born kings and queens and that attention is owed them. They do not consider anyone else's nature but bulldoze over people with the self-righteous arrogance of a Marie Antoinette. Pampered and indulged as children, as adults they still believe that everything must come to them. Convinced of their own charm, they make no effort to charm, seduce, or gently persuade. In the realm of power, such attitudes are disastrous at all times. You must attend to those around you, gauging their particular psychology, tailoring your words to what you know will entice and seduce them. This requires energy and art. The higher your station, the greater the need to remain attuned to the hearts and minds of those below you, creating a base of support to maintain you at the pinnacle. Without that base, your power will teeter, and at the slightest change of fortune, those below will gladly assist in your fall from grace.

Keys to power: In the game of power, you are surrounded by people who have absolutely no reason to help you unless it is in their interest to do so. And if you have nothing to offer their self-interest, you are likely to make them hostile, for they will see in you just one more competitor, one more waster of their time. Those that overcome this prevailing coldness are the ones who find the key that unlocks the stranger's heart and mind, seducing him into their corner, if necessary, softening them up for a punch. But most people never learn this side of the game. When they meet someone new, rather than stepping back and probing to see what makes this person unique, they talk about themselves, eager to impose their own willpower and prejudices. They argue, boast, and make a show of their power. They may not know it, but they are secretly creating an enemy, a resistor, because there is no more infuriating feeling than having your individuality ignored, your own psychology unacknowledged. It makes you feel lifeless and resentful. 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. Be alert to both what separates them from everyone else—their individual psychology—and what they share with everyone else—their basic emotional responses. Aim at the primary emotions: love, hate, jealousy. Once you move their emotions, you have reduced their control, making them more vulnerable to persuasion.

Ma Tong always appealed to popular emotions and spoke in the simplest terms. Educated and well-read himself, in his speeches he used visceral metaphors, voicing the public's deepest anxieties and encouraging them to vent their frustrations in public meetings. Rather than arguing the practical aspects of a particular program, he would describe how it would affect them on the most primitive, down-to-earth level. Do not believe that this approach works only with the illiterate and unschooled; it works on one and all. All of us are mortal and face the same dreadful fate, and all of us share the desire for attachment and belonging. Stir up these emotions, and you captivate our hearts. Finally, learn to play the numbers game. The wider your support base, the stronger your power. Understanding that one alienated, disaffected soul can spark a blaze of discontent. Louis XIV made sure to endear himself to the lowest members of his staff. You too must constantly win over more allies on all levels. A time will inevitably come when you will need them.

Law 44: Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect. Judgment: 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.

Mirror effects: Preliminary topology: Mirrors have the power to disturb us. Gazing at our own reflection in the mirror, we most often see what we want to see: the image of ourselves with which we are most comfortable. We tend not to look too closely, ignoring the wrinkles and blemishes. But if we do look hard at the reflection image, we sometimes feel that we are seeing ourselves as others see us—as a person among other people, an object rather than a subject. That feeling makes us shudder. We see ourselves, but from the outside, minus the thoughts, spirit, and soul that fill our consciousness. We are a thing. In using mirror effects, we symbolically recreate this disturbing power by mirroring the actions of other people, mimicking their movements to unsettle and infuriate them. Made to feel mocked, cloned, object-like, an image without a soul, they get angry or do the same thing slightly differently, and they might feel disarmed. You have perfectly reflected their wishes and desires. This is the narcissistic power of mirrors. In either case, the mirror effect unsettles your targets, whether angering or entrancing them, and in that instant you have the power to manipulate or seduce them. The effect contains great power because it operates on the most primitive emotions. There are four main mirror effects in the realm of power:

The neutralizing effect: This is the essence of the neutralizing effect: do what your enemies do, following their actions as best you can, and they cannot see what you are up to. They are blinded by your mirror. Their strategy for dealing with you depends on your reacting to them in a way characteristic of you. Neutralize it by playing a game of mimicry with them. The tactic has a mocking, even infuriating effect. Most of us remember the childhood experience of someone teasing us by repeating our words exactly. After a while—usually not long—we wanted to punch them in the face. Working more subtly as an adult, you can still unsettle your opponents this way, shielding your own strategy with the mirror. You lay invisible traps or push your opponents into the trap they planned for you.

The narcissist effect: Gazing at an image in the waters of a pond, the Greek youth Narcissus fell in love with it. And when he found out that the image was his own reflection and that he therefore could not consummate his love, he despaired and drowned himself. All of us have a similar problem: we are profoundly in love with ourselves, but since this love excludes a love object outside ourselves, it remains continuously unsatisfied and unfulfilled. The Narcissist effect plays on this universal narcissism. You look deep into the souls of other people, fathom their inmost desires, their values, their tastes, their spirit, and you reflect it back to them, making yourself into a kind of mirror image. Your ability to reflect their psyche gives you great power over them. They may even feel a tinge of love. This is simply the ability to mimic another person, not physically but psychologically, and it is immensely powerful because it plays upon the unsatisfied self-love of a child. Normally, people bombard us with their experiences, their tastes; they hardly ever make the effort to see things through our eyes. This is annoying, but it also creates great opportunity. If you can show you understand another person by reflecting their inmost feelings, they will be entranced and disarmed, all the more so because it happens so rarely. No one can resist this feeling of being harmoniously reflected in the outside world, even though you might well be manufacturing it for their benefit and for deceptive purposes of your own.

The moral effect: The power of verbal argument is extremely limited and often accomplishes the opposite of what is intended. As Gracian remarks, the truth is generally seen, rarely heard. The moral effect is a perfect way to demonstrate your ideas through action. Quite simply, you teach others a lesson by giving them a taste of their own medicine. In the moral effect, you mirror what other people have done to you and do so in a way that makes them realize you are doing to them exactly what they did to you. You make them feel that their behavior has been unpleasant, as opposed to hearing you complain and whine about it, which only gets their defenses up. And as they feel the result of their actions mirrored back at them, they realize, in the profoundest sense, how they hurt or punished others with their unsocial behavior. You objectify the qualities you want them to feel ashamed of and create a mirror in which they can gaze at their follies and learn a lesson about themselves. This technique is often used by educators, psychologists, and anyone who has to deal with unpleasant and unconscious behavior. This is the teacher's mirror. Whether or not there is actually anything wrong with the way people have treated you, however, it can often be to your advantage to reflect it back to them in a way that makes them feel guilty about it.

Hallucinatory effect: Mirrors are tremendously deceptive, for they create a sense that you were looking at the real world. Actually, though, you are only staring at a piece of glass, which, as everyone knows, cannot show the world exactly as it is. Everything in a mirror is reversed. When Alice goes through the Looking-Glass in Lewis Carroll's book, she enters a world that is back to front. And more than just visually. The hallucinatory effect comes from creating a perfect copy of an object, a place, a person. This copy acts as a kind of dummy; people take it for the real thing because it has the physical appearance of the real thing. This is the preeminent technique of con artists who strategically mimic the real world to deceive you. It also has applications in any arena that requires camouflage. This is the deceiver's mirror.

Observance of the mirror effect: Early on in his career, the ambitious statesman and general Alcibiades of Athens (450-404 BC) fashioned a formidable weapon that became the source of his power. In every encounter with others, he would sense their moods and tastes, then carefully tailor his words and actions to mirror their inmost desires. He would seduce them with the idea that their values were superior to everyone else's and that his goal was to model himself on them or help them realize their dreams. Few could resist his charms. The first man to fall under his spell was the philosopher Socrates. Alcibiades represented the opposite of the Socratic ideal of simplicity and uprightness. He lived lavishly and was completely unprincipled. Whenever he met Socrates, however, he mirrored the older man's sobriety, eating simply, accompanying Socrates on long walks, and talking only of philosophy and virtue. Socrates was not completely fooled; he was not unaware of Alcibiades's other life, but that only made him vulnerable to a logic that flattered him. "Only in my presence," he felt, "does this man submit to a virtuous influence. Only I have such power over him." This feeling intoxicated Socrates, who became Alcibiades's fervent admirer and supporter, one day even risking his own life to rescue the young man in battle. The Athenians considered Alcibiades their greatest orator, for he had an uncanny ability to tune into his audience's aspirations and mirror their desires. He made his greatest speeches in support of the invasion of Sicily, which he thought would bring great wealth to Athens and limitless glory to himself. The speeches gave expression to young Athenians' thirst to conquer lands for themselves rather than living off the victories of their ancestors. But he also tailored his words to reflect older men's nostalgia for the glory years when Athens led the Greeks against Persia and then went on to create an empire. All Athens now dreamed of conquering Sicily. Alcibiades's plan was approved, and he was made the expedition's commander. While Alcibiades was leading the invasion of Sicily, however, certain Athenians fabricated charges against him of profaning sacred statues. He knew his enemies would have him executed if he returned home, so at the last minute he deserted the Athenian fleet and defected to Athens's bitter enemy, Sparta. The Spartans welcomed this great man to their side, but they knew his reputation and were wary of him. Alcibiades loved luxury; the Spartans were a warrior people who worshiped austerity, and they were afraid he would corrupt their youth. But much to their relief, the Alcibiades who arrived in Sparta was not at all what they expected. He wore his hair untrimmed, as they did, took cold baths, ate coarse bread and black broth, and wore simple clothes. To the Spartans, this signified that he had come to see their way of life as superior to the Athenian. He had chosen to be a Spartan rather than being born one and should thus be honored above all others. They fell under his spell and gave him great powers. Unfortunately, Alcibiades rarely knew how to reign in his charm. He managed to seduce...

The king of Sparta's wife and made her pregnant. When this became public, he once more had to flee for his life. This time, Alabi defected to Persia, where he suddenly went from Spartan simplicity to embracing the lavish Persian lifestyle, down to the last detail. It was, of course, immensely flattering to the Persians to see a Greek of Alabi's stature prefer their culture over his own, and they showered him with honors, land, and power. Once seduced by the mirror, they failed to notice that, behind this shield, Alabes was playing a double game, secretly helping the Athenians in their war with Sparta and thus regaining favor with the city to which he desperately wanted to return and which welcomed him back with open arms in 408 BC.

Early in his political career, Alabes made a discovery that changed his whole approach to power. He had a colorful and forceful personality, but when he argued his ideas strongly with other people, he would win over a few while, at the same time, alienating many more. The secret to gaining ascendancy over large numbers, he came to believe, was not to impose his colors but to absorb the colors of those around him, like a chameleon. Once people fell for the trick, the deceptions he went on to practice would be invisible to them.

Understand: everyone is wrapped up in their own narcissistic shell. When you try to impose your own ego on them, a wall goes up; resistance is increased. By mirroring them, however, you seduce them into a kind of narcissistic rapture; they are gazing at a double of their own soul. This double is actually manufactured in its entirety by you. Once you have used the mirror to seduce them, you have great power over them. It is worth noting, however, the dangers and the promiscuous use of the mirror. In Alabi's presence, people felt larger, as if their egos had been doubled, but once he left, they felt empty and diminished. And when they saw him mirroring completely different people as totally as he had mirrored them, they felt not just diminished but betrayed. Alabi's overuse of the mirror effect made whole peoples feel used, so that he constantly had to flee from one place to another. Indeed, Alabi so angered the Spartans that they finally had him murdered; he had gone too far. The seducer's mirror must be used with caution and discrimination.

Law 45: Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once.

Judgment: 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 ways of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.

Transgression of the law: Sometime in the early 1520s, King Henry VII of England decided to divorce his wife, Katherine of Aragon, because she had failed to bear him a son and because he had fallen in love with the young and comely Anne Boleyn. The Pope, Clement VII, opposed the divorce and threatened the King with excommunication. The King's most powerful minister, Cardinal Wolsey, also saw no need for divorce, and his half-hearted support of the King cost him his position and soon his life. One man in Henry's cabinet, Thomas Cromwell, not only supported him in his desire for a divorce but had an idea for realizing it: a complete break with the past. He convinced the King that, by severing ties with Rome and making himself the head of a newly formed English church, he could divorce Catherine and marry Anne. By 1531, Henry saw this as the only solution. To reward Cromwell for his simple but brilliant idea, he elevated this son of a blacksmith to the post of Royal counselor. By 1534, Cromwell had been named the King's secretary and, as the power behind the throne, had become the most powerful man in England. But for him, the break with Rome went beyond the satisfaction of the King's carnal desires; he envisioned a new Protestant order in England, with the power of the Catholic Church smashed and its vast wealth in the hands of the King and the government. In that same year, he initiated a complete survey of the churches and monasteries of England, and, as it turned out, the treasures and monies that the churches had accumulated over the centuries were far more than he had imagined. His spies and agents came back with astonishing figures to justify his schemes. Cromwell circulated stories about the corruption in the English monasteries, their abuse of power, their exploitation of the people they supposedly served. Having won Parliament's support for breaking up the monasteries, he began to seize their holdings and to put them out of existence one by one. At the same time, he began to impose Protestantism, introducing reforms in religious ritual and punishing those who stuck to Catholicism and who now were called heretics. Virtually overnight, England was converted to a new official religion. A terror fell on the country. Some people had suffered under the Catholic Church, which, before the reforms, had been immensely powerful, but most Britain had strong ties to Catholicism and to its comforting rituals. They watched in horror as churches were demolished, images of the Madonna and Saints were broken in pieces, stained-glass windows were smashed, and the church's treasures were confiscated. With monasteries that had succoured the poor suddenly gone, the poor now flooded the streets. The growing ranks of the beggar class were further swelled by former monks. On top of all this, Cromwell levied high taxes to pay for his ecclesiastical reforms. In 1535, powerful revolts in the north of England threatened to topple Henry from his throne. By the following year, he had suppressed the rebellions, but he had also begun to see the costs of Cromwell's reforms. The King himself had never wanted to go this far; he had only wanted a divorce. It was now Cromwell's turn to watch uneasily as the King began slowly to undo his reforms, reinstating Catholic sacraments and other rituals that Cromwell had outlawed. Sensing his fall from grace in 1540, Cromwell decided to regain Henry's favor with one throw of the dice: he would find the King a new wife. Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, had died a few years before, and he had been pining for a new young Queen. It was Cromwell who found him one: Anne of Cleves, a German princess and, most important to Cromwell, a Protestant. On Cromwell's commission, the painter Holbein produced a flattering portrait of Anne. When Henry saw it, he fell in love and agreed to marry her. Cromwell seemed back in favor. Unfortunately, however, Holbein's painting was highly idealized, and when the King finally met the princess, she did not please him in the least. His anger against Cromwell, for the ill-conceived reforms, now for saddling him with an unattractive and Protestant wife, could no longer be contained. In June of that year, Cromwell was arrested, charged as a Protestant extremist and a heretic, and sent to the Tower. Six weeks later, before a large and enthusiastic crowd, the public executioner cut off his head.

Interpretation: Thomas Cromwell had a simple idea: he would break up the power and wealth of the church and lay the foundation for Protestantism in England, and he would do this in a mercilessly short time. He knew his speedy reforms would cause pain and resentment, but he thought these feelings would fade in a few years. More important, by identifying himself with change, he would become the leader of the New Order, making the King dependent on him. But there was a problem in this strategy: like a billiard ball hit too hard against the cushion, his reforms had reactions and caroms he did not envision and could not control. The man who initiates strong reforms often becomes the scapegoat for any kind of dissatisfaction, and eventually the reaction to his reforms may consume him. For change is upsetting to the human animal, even when it is for the good, because the world is and always has been full of insecurity and threat. We latch on to familiar faces and create habits and rituals to make the world more comfortable. Change can be pleasant and even sometimes desirable in the abstract, but too much of it creates an anxiety that will stir and boil beneath the surface and then eventually erupt. Never underestimate the hidden conservatism of those around you; it is powerful and entrenched. Never let the seductive charm of an idea cloud your reason. Just as you cannot make people see the world your way, you cannot wrench them into the future with painful changes; they will rebel. If reform is necessary, anticipate the reaction against it and find ways to disguise the change and sweeten the poison.

Keys to power: Human psychology contains many dualities, one of them being that 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. They know the change is necessary and that novelty provides relief from boredom, but deep inside they cling to the past. Change in the abstract, or superficial change, they desire, but a change that upsets core habits and routines is deeply disturbing to them. No revolution is gone without a powerful later reaction against it, for in the long run the void it creates proves too unsettling to the human animal, who unconsciously associates such voids with death and chaos. The opportunity for change and renewal seduces people to the side of the revolution, but once their enthusiasm fades—which it will—they are left with a certain emptiness, yearning for the past; they create an opening for it to creep back in. For Machiavelli, the prophet who preaches and brings change can only survive by taking up arms. When the masses inevitably yearn for the past, he must be ready to use force. But the armed prophet cannot last long unless he quickly creates a new set of values and rituals to replace the old ones and to soothe the anxieties of those who dread change. It is far easier and less bloody to play a kind of con game: preach change as much as you like and even enact your reforms, but give them the comforting appearance of older events and traditions. A simple gesture like using an old title or keeping the same number for a group will tie you to the past and support you with the authority of history. As Machiavelli himself observed, the Romans used this device when they transformed their monarchy into a republic. They may have installed two consuls in place of the king, but since the king had been served by twelve lictors, they retained the same number to serve under the consuls. The king had personally performed an annual sacrifice in a great spectacle that stirred the public; the Republic retained this practice, only transferring it to a special chief of the ceremony whom they called the King of the Sacrifice. These and similar gestures satisfied the people and kept them from clamoring for the monarchy's return. Another strategy to disguise change is to make a loud and public display of support for the values of the past. Seem to be a zealot for tradition, and few will notice how unconventional you really are. The answer to innate conservatism is to play the courtier's game. Galileo did this at the beginning of his scientific career; he later became more confrontational and paid for it. So pay lip service to tradition, identify the elements in your revolution that can be made to seem to build on the past, say the right things, make a show of conformity, and meanwhile let your theories do their radical work. Play with appearances and respect past protocol. Finally, powerful people pay attention to the Zeitgeist. If their reform is too far ahead of its time, few will understand it, and it will stir up anxiety and be hopelessly misinterpreted. The changes you make must seem less innovative than they are. England did eventually become a Protestant nation, as Cromwell wished, but it took over a century of gradual evolution. Watch the Zeitgeist. If you work in a tumultuous time, there is power to be gained by preaching a turn to the past, to comfort tradition and ritual during a period of stagnation. On the other hand, play the card of reform and revolution, but beware of what you stir up; those who finish a revolution are rarely those who started it. You will not succeed at this dangerous game unless you are willing to forestall the inevitable reaction against it by playing with appearances and building on the past.

Law 46: Never appear too perfect.

Judgment: 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.

Transgression of the law: Joe Orton met Kenneth Halliwell at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London, in 1953, where both had enrolled as acting students. They soon became lovers and moved in together. Halliwell, 25 at the time, was seven years older than Orton and seemed the more confident of the two, but neither had much talent as actors. After graduating, having settled down together in a dank London apartment, they decided to give up acting and collaborate as writers instead. Halliwell's inheritance was enough to keep them from having to find work for a few years, and in the beginning he was also the driving force behind the stories and novels they wrote; he would dictate to Orton, who would type the manuscripts, occasionally interjecting his own lines and ideas. As their first efforts attracted some interest from literary agents, but it sputtered; the promise they had shown was leading nowhere. Eventually, the inheritance money ran out, and the pair had to look for work. The collaborations were less enthusiastic and less frequent; the future looked bleak. In 1957, Orton began to write on his own, but it wasn't until five years later, when the lovers were jailed for six months for defacing dozens of library books, that he began to find his voice. Perhaps not by chance, this was the first time he and Halliwell had been separated in nine years. He came out of prison determined to express his contempt for English society in the form of theatrical farces. He and Halliwell moved back in together, but now the roles were reversed: Orton did the writing while Halliwell put in comments and ideas. In 1964, Joe Orton completed his first full-length play, *Entertaining Mr. Sloane*. The play made it to London's West End, where it received brilliant reviews; a great new writer had emerged from nowhere. Now success followed success at a dizzying pace. In 1966, Orton had a hit with his play *Loot*, and his popularity soared. Soon commissions came in from all sides, including from the Beatles, who paid Orton handsomely to write them a film script. Everything was pointing upwards, everything except Orton's relationship with Kenneth Halliwell. The pair still lived together, but as Orton grew successful, Halliwell began to deteriorate. Watching his lover become the center of attention, he suffered the humiliation of becoming a kind of personal assistant to the playwright, his role in what had once been a collaboration growing smaller and smaller. In the 1950s, he had supported Orton with his inheritance; now Orton supported him. At a party or among friends, people would naturally gravitate towards Orton; he was charming, and his mood was almost always buoyant. Unlike the handsome Orton, Halliwell was bald and awkward; his defensiveness made people want to avoid him. With Orton's success, the couple's problems only worsened. Halliwell's moods made their life together impossible. Orton claimed to want to leave him and had numerous affairs, but would always end up returning to his old friend and lover. He tried to help Halliwell launch a career as an artist, even arranging for a gallery to show his work, but the show was a flop, and this only heightened Halliwell's sense of inferiority. In May of 1967, the pair went on a brief holiday together in Tangier, Morocco. During the trip, Orton wrote in his diary: "We sat talking of how happy we felt and how it couldn't surely last; we'd have to pay for it, or we'd be struck down from afar by disaster, because we were perhaps too happy: to be young, good-looking, healthy, famous, comparatively rich and happy is surely going against nature." Halliwell outwardly seemed as happy as Orton; inwardly, though, he was seething. Two months later, in the early morning of August 10th, 1967, just days after helping Orton put the finishing touches to the wicked farce *What the Butler Saw*—undoubtedly his masterpiece—Kenneth Halliwell bludgeoned Joe Orton to death with repeated blows of a hammer to the head. He then took twenty-one sleeping pills and died himself, leaving behind a note that read: "If you read Orton's diary, all will be explained."

Interpretation: Kenneth Halliwell had tried to cast his deterioration as mental illness, but what Joe Orton's diaries revealed to him was the truth: it was envy, pure and simple, that lay at the heart of his sickness. The diaries, which Halliwell read on the sly, recounted the couple's days as equals and their struggle for recognition. After Orton found success, the diaries began to describe Halliwell's brooding, his rude comments at parties, his growing sense of inferiority. All of this Orton narrated with a distance that bordered on contempt. The diaries made clear Halliwell's bitterness over Orton's success. Eventually, the only thing that would have satisfied him would have been for Orton to have a failure of his own—an unsuccessful play, perhaps—so that they could have commiserated in their failure as they had done years before. When the opposite happened—as Orton grew only more successful and popular—Halliwell did the only thing that would make them equals again: he made them equals in death. With Orton's murder, he became almost as famous as his friend.

Posterous, Joe Orton only partly understood his lover's deterioration. His attempt to help Halliwell launch a career in art registered for what it was: charity and guilt. Orton basically had two possible solutions to the problem: he could have downplayed his own success, displaying some faults, deflecting Halliwell's envy; or, once he realized the nature of the problem, he could have fled, as if Halliwell were a viper—as, in fact, he was: a viper of envy. Once envy eats away at someone, everything you do only makes it grow, and day by day it festers inside them; eventually, they will attack. Only a minority can succeed at the game of life, and that minority inevitably arouses the envy of those around them. Once success happens your way, however, the people to fear the most are those in your own circle, the friends and acquaintances you have left behind. Feelings of inferiority gnaw at them; the thought of your success only heightens their feelings of stagnation. Envy, which the philosopher Kierkegaard calls "unhappy admiration," takes hold. You may not see it, but you will feel it someday, unless, that is, you learn strategies of deflection: little sacrifices to the gods of success. Either dampen your brilliance, occasionally purposefully revealing a defect, weakness, or anxiety, or attributing your success to luck, or simply find yourself new friends. Never underestimate the power of envy.

Keys to power: There are several strategies for dealing with the insidious, destructive emotion of envy. First, accept the fact that there will be people who will surpass you in some way, and also the fact that you may envy them, but make that feeling a way of pushing yourself to equal or surpass them someday. Let envy turn inward, and it poisons the soul; expel it outward, and it can move you to greater heights. Second, understand that as you gain power, those below you will feel envious of you. They may not show it, but it is inevitable. Do not naively accept the facade they show you; read between the lines of their criticisms, their little sarcastic remarks, the signs of backstabbing, the excessive praise that is preparing you for a fall, the resentful look in the eye. Half the problem with envy comes when we do not recognize it until it is too late. Finally, expect that when people envy you, they will work against you insidiously; they will put obstacles in your path that you will not foresee or that you cannot trace to their source. It is hard to defend yourself against this kind of attack, and by the time you realize that envy is at the root of a person's feelings about you, it is often too late. Your excuses, your false humility, your defensive actions only exacerbate the problem, since it is far, far easier to avoid creating envy in the first place than to get rid of it once it is there. You should strategize to forestall it before it grows. It is often your own actions that stir up envy, your own unawareness. By becoming conscious of those actions and qualities that create envy, you can take the teeth out of it before it nibbles you to death. Kierkegaard believed that there are types of people who create envy and are as guilty when it arises as those who feel it. The most obvious type we all know: the moment something good happens to them, whether by luck or design, they crow about it; in fact, they get pleasure out of making people feel inferior. This type is obvious and beyond hope. There are others, however, who stir up envy in more subtle and unconscious ways and are partly to blame for their troubles. Envy is often a problem, for example, for people with great natural talent, money, others can attain power as well, but superior intelligence, good looks, charm—these are qualities no one can acquire. The naturally perfect have to work the most to disguise their brilliance, displaying a defect or two to deflect envy before it takes root. It is a common, a naive mistake to think you are charming people with your natural talents when, in fact, they are coming to hate you. A great danger in the realm of power is the sudden improvement in fortune: an unexpected promotion, a victory, or success that seems to come out of nowhere. This is sure to stir up envy among your former peers. Subtly emphasize how lucky you have been to make your happiness seem more attainable to other people and the need for envy less acute, but be careful not to affect a false modesty that people can easily see through; this will only make them more envious. The act has to be good; your humility and your openness to those you have left behind have to seem genuine; any hint of insincerity will only make your new status more oppressive. Remember, despite your elevated position, it will do you no good to alienate your former peers; power requires a wide and solid support base, which envy can silently destroy. According to the Elizabethan statesman and writer Sir Francis Bacon, the wisest policy of the powerful is to create a kind of pity for themselves, as if their responsibilities were a burden and a sacrifice. How can one envy a man who has taken on a heavy load for the public interest? Disguise your power as a kind of self-sacrifice rather than a source of happiness, and you make it seem less enviable. Emphasize your troubles, and you turn a potential danger—envy—into a source of moral support—pity. A similar ploy is to hint that your good fortune will benefit those around you. To do this, you may need to open your purse strings to deflect envy. Gracian recommends that the powerful display a weakness, a minor social indiscretion, a harmless vice. Give those who envy you something to feed on; distract them from your more important sins. Remember, it is the reality that matters; you may have to play games with appearances, but in the end you will have what counts: true power. In some Arab countries, a man will avoid arousing envy by showing his wealth only on the inside of his house. Apply this wisdom to your own character. Beware of some of envy's disguises. Excessive praise isn't an almost sure sign that the person praising you envies you; they are either setting you up for a fall—it will be impossible for you to live up to their praise—or they are sharpening their blades behind your back. At the same time, those who are hypercritical of you or who slander you publicly probably envy you as well. Recognize their behavior as disguised envy, and you keep out of the trap of mutual mudslinging or of taking their criticisms to heart. Win your revenge by ignoring their measly presence. Do not try to help or do favors for those who envy you; they will think you are condescending to them. Joe Orton's attempt to help Halliwell find a gallery for his work only intensified his lover's feelings of inferiority and envy. Once envy reveals itself for what it is, the only solution is often to flee the presence of the envier, leaving them to stew in a hell of their own creation.

Law 47: Do not go past the mark you aimed for in victory; learn when to stop.

Judgment: 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.

Transgression of the law: In 559 BC, a young man named Cyrus gathered an immense army from the scattered tribes of Persia and marched against his grandfather, Astyages, King of the Medes. He defeated Astyages with ease.

Had himself crowned king of Media and Persia and began to forge the Persian Empire. Victory followed victory in quick succession. Cyrus defeated Croesus, ruler of Lydia, then conquered the Ionian islands and other smaller kingdoms. He marched on Babylon and crushed it. Now he was known as Cyrus the Great, king of the world.

After capturing the riches of Babylon, Cyrus set his sights on the east—on the half-barbaric tribes of the Maseti, a vast realm on the Caspian Sea, a fierce warrior race led by Queen Tomyris. The Maseti lacked the riches of Babylon, but Cyrus attacked them anyway, believing himself superhuman and incapable of defeat. The Maseti would fall easily to his vast armies, making his empire immense in 529 BC.

Then Cyrus marched to the wide River Araxes, gateway to the kingdom of the Maseti. As he set up camp on the western bank, he received a message from Queen Tomyris: "King of the Mes, I advise you to abandon this enterprise, for you cannot know if in the end it will do you any good. Rule your own people and try to bear the sight of me ruling mine. But, of course, you will refuse my advice, as the last thing you wish for is to live in peace."

Tomyris, confident of her army's strength and not wishing to delay the inevitable battle, offered to withdraw the troops on her side of the river, allowing Cyrus to cross its waters safely and fight her army on the eastern side, if that was his desire. Cyrus agreed. But instead of engaging the enemy directly, he decided to play a trick. The Maseti knew few luxuries. Once Cyrus had crossed the river and made his camp on the eastern side, he set the table for an elaborate banquet, full of meat delicacies and strong wine. Then he left his weakest troops in the camp and withdrew the rest of the army to the river.

A large Maseti detachment soon attacked the camp and killed all of the Persian soldiers in a fierce battle. Then, overwhelmed by the fabulous feast that had been left behind, they ate and drank to their hearts' content. Later, inevitably, they they fell asleep. The Persian army returned to the camp that night, killing many of the sleeping soldiers and capturing the rest. Among the prisoners was their general, a youth named Sparapises, son of Queen Tomyris.

When the queen learned what had happened, she sent a message to Cyrus, chiding him for using tricks to defeat her army. "Now listen to me," she wrote, "and I will advise you for your own good. Give me back my son and leave my country with your forces intact, and be content with your triumph over a third part of the Maseti. If you refuse, I swear by the sun, our Master, to give you more blood than you can drink, for all your gluttony."

Cyrus scoffed at her. He would not release her son. He would crush these barbarians. The queen's son, seeing he would not be released, could not stand the humiliation and so he killed himself. The news of her son's death overwhelmed Tomyris. She gathered all the forces that she could muster in her kingdom and, whipping them into a vengeful frenzy, engaged Cyrus's troops in a violent and bloody battle. Finally, the Maseti prevailed in their anger; they decimated the Persian army, killing Cyrus himself.

After the battle, Tomyris and her soldiers searched the battlefield for Cyrus's corpse. When she found it, she cut off his head and shoved it into a wineskin full of human blood, crying out, "Though I have conquered you and live, yet you have ruined me by treacherously taking my son. See now, I fulfill my threat; you have your fill of blood."

After Cyrus's death, the Persian Empire quickly unraveled. One act of arrogance undid all of Cyrus's good work.

Interpretation: There is nothing more exciting than victory, and nothing more dangerous. Cyrus had built his great empire on the ruins of a previous one. 100 years earlier, the powerful Assyrian Empire had been totally destroyed; its once splendid capital of Nineveh, but ruins in the sand. The Assyrians had suffered this fate because they had pushed too far, destroying one city-state after another until they lost sight of the purposes of their victories and also all of the costs. They overextended themselves and made many enemies who were finally able to band together and destroy them. Cyrus ignored the lesson of Assyria. He paid no heed to the warnings of oracles and advisors. He did not worry about offending a queen. His many victories had gone to his head, clouding his reason. Instead of consolidating his already vast empire, he pushed forward. Instead of recognizing each situation as different, he thought each new war would bring the same result as the one before, as long as he used the methods he knew: ruthless force and cunning.

Understand: In the realm of power, you must be guided by reason. To let a momentary thrill or an emotional victory influence or guide your moves will prove fatal. When you attain success, step back; be cautious. When you gain victory, understand the part played by the particular circumstances of a situation and never simply repeat the same actions again and again. History is littered with the ruins of victorious empires and the corpses of leaders who could not learn to stop and consolidate their gains.

Keys to power: Power has its own rhythms and patterns. Those who succeed at the game are the ones who control the patterns and vary them at will, keeping people off balance while they set the tempo. The essence of strategy is controlling what comes next, and the elation of victory can upset your ability to control what comes next in two ways: first, you owe your success to a pattern that you are apt to try to repeat; you will try to keep moving in the same direction without stopping to see whether this is still the direction that is best for you; second, success tends to go to your head and make you emotional, feeling invulnerable. You make aggressive moves that ultimately undo the victory you have gained. The lesson is simple: the powerful vary their rhythms and patterns, change course, adapt to circumstance, and learn to improvise. Rather than letting their dancing feet impel them forward, they step back and look where they are going. It is as if their bloodstream bore a kind of antidote to the intoxication of victory, letting them control their emotions and come to a kind of mental halt when they have attained success. They steady themselves, give themselves the space to reflect on what has happened, examine the role of circumstance and luck in their success. As they say in writing school, you have to be able to control yourself before you can control the horse.

Law 48: Assume formlessness. Judgment 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. Except 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.

Observance of the law: When World War II ended and the Japanese, who had invaded China in 1937, had finally been thrown out, the Chinese Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, decided the time had come to annihilate the Chinese Communists, their hated rivals, once and for all. They had almost succeeded in 1935, forcing the Communists into the Long March, the grueling retreat that had greatly diminished their numbers. Although the Communists had recovered somewhat during the war against Japan, it would not be difficult to defeat them now. They controlled only isolated areas in the countryside, had unsophisticated weaponry, lacked any military experience or training beyond mountain fighting, and controlled no important parts of China except areas of Manchuria, which they had managed to take after the Japanese retreat.

Shang decided to commit his best forces in Manchuria. He would take over its major cities and, from those bases, would spread through the northern industrial region, sweeping the Communists away. Once Manchuria had fallen, the Communists would collapse. In 1945 and 46, the plan worked perfectly. The Nationalists easily took the major Manchurian cities. Puzzlingly though, in the face of this critical campaign, the Communist strategy made no sense. When the Nationalists began their push, the Communists dispersed to Manchuria's most out-of-the-way corners. Their small units harassed the Nationalist armies, ambushing them here, retreating unexpectedly there, but these dispersed units never linked up, making them hard to attack. They would seize a town only to give it up a few weeks later, forming neither rear guards nor vanguards. They moved like mercury, never staying in one place. Elusive and formless, the Nationalists ascribed this to two things: cowardice in the face of superior forces and inexperience in strategy. Mao Tse-tung, the Communist leader, was more a poet and philosopher than a general, whereas Chang had studied warfare in the West and was a follower of the German military writer Carl von Clausewitz, among others.

Yet a pattern did eventually emerge in Mao's attacks. After the Nationalists had taken the cities, leaving the Communists to occupy what was generally considered Manchuria's useless space, the Communists started using that large space to surround the cities. If Chang sent an army from one city to reinforce another, the Communists would encircle the rescuing army. Chang's forces were slowly broken into smaller and smaller units, isolated from one another, their lines of supply and communication cut. The Nationalists still had superior firepower, but if they could not move, what good was it? A kind of terror overcame the Nationalist soldiers. Commanders comfortably remote from the front lines might laugh at Mao, but the soldiers had fought the Communists in the mountains and had come to fear their elusiveness. Now these soldiers sat in their cities and watched as their fast-moving enemies, as fluid as water, poured in on them from all sides. There seemed to be millions of them. The Communists also encircled the soldiers' spirits, bombarding them with propaganda to lower their morale and pressure them to desert. The Nationalists began to surrender in their minds; their encircled and isolated cities started collapsing even before directly attacked. One after another fell in quick succession. In November of 1948, the Nationalists surrendered Manchuria to the Communists, a humiliating blow to the technically superior Nationalist Army and one that proved decisive in the war. By the following year, the Communists controlled all of China.

Interpretation: The two board games that best approximate the strategies of war are chess and the Asian game of Go. In chess, the board is small in comparison to Go; the attack comes relatively quickly, forcing a decisive battle. It rarely pays to withdraw or to sacrifice your pieces, which must be concentrated at key areas. Go is much less formal; it is played on a large grid with 361 intersections—nearly six times as many positions as in chess. Black and white stones, one color for each side, are placed on the board's intersections one at a time, wherever you like. Once all your stones (180 for each side) are on the board, the object is to isolate the stones of your opponent by encircling them. A game of Go, called Weiqi in China, can last up to 300 moves. The strategy is more subtle and fluid than chess, developing slowly. The more complex the pattern your stones initially create on the board, the harder it is for your opponent to understand your strategy. Fighting to control a particular area is not worth the trouble; you have to think in larger terms, to be prepared to sacrifice an area in order eventually to dominate the board. What you are after is not an entrenched position but mobility. With mobility, you can isolate the opponent in small areas and then encircle them. The aim is not to kill off the opponent's pieces directly, as in chess, but to induce a kind of paralysis and collapse. Chess is linear, position-oriented, and aggressive; Go is nonlinear and fluid; aggression is indirect until the end of the game, when the winner can surround the opponent's stones at an accelerated pace.

Chinese military strategists have been influenced by Go for centuries; its proverbs have been applied to war time and again. Mao Tse-tung was an addict of Weiqi, and its precepts were ingrained in his strategies. A key Weiqi concept, for example, is to use the size of the board to your advantage, spreading out in every direction so that your opponent cannot fathom your movements in a simple linear way. Every Chinese, Mao once wrote, should consciously throw himself into this war of a jigsaw pattern against the Nationalists. Place your men in a jigsaw pattern, and Go, and your opponent loses himself trying to figure out what you are up to. Either he wastes time pursuing you, or, like Chiang Kai-shek, he assumes you are incompetent and fails to protect himself; and if he concentrates on single areas, as Western strategy advises, he becomes a sitting duck for encirclement. In the Weiqi way of war, you encircle the enemy's brain, using mind games, propaganda, and irritation tactics to confuse and dishearten. This was the strategy of the Communists—an apparent formlessness that disoriented and terrified their enemy. Where chess is linear and direct, the ancient game of Go is closer to the kind of strategy that will prove relevant in a world where battles are fought indirectly in vast, loosely connected areas. Its strategies are abstract and multi-dimensional, inhabiting a plane beyond time and space—the strategist's mind.

In this fluid form of warfare, you value movement over position; your speed and mobility make it impossible to predict your moves. Unable to understand you, your enemy can form no strategy to defeat you. Instead of fixing on particular spots, this indirect form of warfare spreads out. Just as you can use the large and disconnected nature of the real world to your advantage, be like a vapor; do not give your opponents anything solid to attack back. Watch as they exhaust themselves pursuing you, trying to cope with your elusiveness. Only formlessness allows you to truly surprise your enemies. By the time they figure out where you are and what you are up to, it is too late.

Keys to power: The human animal is distinguished by its constant creation of forms, rarely expressing its emotions directly. It gives them form through language or through socially acceptable rituals. We cannot communicate our emotions without a form. The forms that we create, however, change constantly—in fashion, in style, in all those human phenomena representing the mood of the moment. We are constantly altering the forms we have inherited from previous generations, and these changes are signs of life and vitality. Indeed, the things that don't change, the forms that rigidify, come to look to us like death, and we destroy them. The young show this most clearly, uncomfortable with the forms that society imposes upon them. Having no set identity, they play with their own characters, trying on a variety of masks and poses to express themselves. This is the vitality that drives the motor of form, creating constant changes in style. The powerful are often people who, in their youth, have shown immense creativity in expressing something new through a new form. Society grants them power because it hungers for and rewards this sort of newness. The problem comes later, when they often grow conservative and possessive. They no longer dream of creating new forms; their identities are set; their habits congeal; and their rigidity makes them easy targets. Everyone knows their next move. Instead of demanding respect, they elicit boredom. "Get off the stage," we say. "Let someone else, someone younger, entertain us." When locked in the past, the powerful look comical; they are overripe fruit waiting to fall from the tree. Power can only thrive if it is flexible in its forms. To be formless is not to be amorphous; everything has a form; form is impossible to avoid. The formlessness of power is more like that of water or mercury, taking the form of whatever is around it, changing constantly. It is never predictable. The powerful are constantly creating form, and their power comes from the rapidity with which they can change. Their formlessness is in the eye of the enemy, who cannot see what they are up to and so has nothing solid to attack. This is the premier pose of power—ungraspable, as elusive and swift as the god Mercury, who could take any form he pleased and used his ability to wreak havoc on Mount Olympus.

Human creations evolve toward abstraction, toward being more mental and less material. This evolution is clear in art, which, in this country, made the great discovery of abstraction and conceptualism. It can also be seen in politics, which, over time, have become less overtly violent, more complicated, indirect, and cerebral. Warfare and strategy, too, have followed this pattern. Strategy began in the manipulation of armies on land, positioning them in ordered formations. Land strategy is relatively two-dimensional and controlled by topography. But all the great powers have eventually taken to the sea for commerce and colonization and to protect their trading lanes. They have had to learn how to fight at sea. Maritime warfare requires tremendous creativity and abstract thinking, since the lines are constantly shifting. Naval captains distinguish themselves by their ability to adapt to the literal fluidity of the terrain and to confuse the enemy with an abstract, hard-to-anticipate form. They are operating in a third dimension—the mind. Back on land, guerrilla warfare, too, demonstrates this evolution toward abstraction. T.E. Lawrence was perhaps the first modern strategist to develop the theory behind this kind of warfare and to put it into practice. His ideas influenced Mao, who found in his writings an uncanny Western equivalent to Weiqi. Lawrence was working with Arabs fighting for their territory against the Turks. His idea was to make the Arabs blend into the vast desert, never providing a target, never collecting together in one place. As the Turks scrambled to fight this vaporous army, they spread themselves thin, wasting energy in moving from place to place. They had the superior firepower, but the Arabs kept the initiative by playing cat and mouse, giving the Turks nothing to hold on to, destroying their morale. "Most wars were wars of contact; ours should be a war of detachment," Lawrence wrote. "We were to contain the enemy by the silent threat of a vast unknown desert, not disclosing ourselves till we attacked." This is the ultimate form of strategy. The war of engagement has become far too dangerous and costly; indirection and elusiveness yield far better results at a much lower cost. The main cost, in fact, is mental—the thinking it takes to align your forces in scattered patterns and to undermine the minds and psychology of your opponents. And nothing will infuriate and disorient them more than formlessness. In a world where wars of detachment are the order of the day, formlessness is crucial.

The first psychological requirement of formlessness is to train yourself to take nothing personally. Never show any defensiveness. When you act defensive, you show your emotions, revealing a clear form. Your opponents will realize they have hit a nerve, an Achilles' heel, and they will hit it again and again. So train yourself to take nothing personally. Never let anyone get your back up. Be like a slippery ball that cannot be held. Let no one know what gets you or where your weaknesses lie. Make your face a formless mask, and you will infuriate and disorient your scheming colleagues and opponents. One man who used this technique was Baron James Rothschild, a German Jew in Paris, in a culture decidedly unfriendly to foreigners. Rothschild never took any attack on him personally or showed he had been hurt in any way. He furthermore adapted himself to the political climate, whatever it was—the stiffly formal Restoration monarchy of Louis XVIII, the bourgeois reign of Louis-Philippe, the democratic revolution of 1848, the upstart Louis-Napoleon crowned emperor in 1852. Rothschild accepted them one and all and blended in. He could afford to appear hypocritical or opportunistic because he was valued for his money, not his politics. His money was the currency of power. While he had adapted and thrived, never showing a form, all the other great families that had begun the century immensely wealthy were ruined in the period's complicated shifts and turns of fortune. Attaching themselves to the past, they revealed their embrace of a form.

Throughout history, the formless style of ruling has been most adeptly practiced by the queen who reigns alone. A queen is in a radically different position from a king because she is a woman. Her subjects and courtiers are likely to doubt her ability to rule, her strength of character. If she favors one side in some ideological struggle, she is said to be acting out of emotional attachment. Yet if she represses her emotions and plays the authoritarian in the male fashion, she arouses worse criticism still. Either by nature or by experience, then, queens tend to adopt a flexible style of governing that, in the end, often proves more powerful than the more direct male form. This feminine, formless style of ruling may have emerged as a way of prospering under difficult circumstances, but it has proved immensely seductive to those who have served under it. Being fluid, it is relatively easy for its subjects to obey, for they feel less coerced, less bent to their ruler's ideology. It also opens up options where an adherence to a doctrine closes them off. Without committing to one side, it allows the ruler to play one enemy off another. Rigid rulers may seem strong, but with time their inflexibility wears on the nerves, and their subjects find ways to push them from the stage. Flexible, formless rulers will be much criticized, but they will endure, and people will eventually come to identify with them, since they are, as their subjects are, changing with the wind, open to circumstance. Despite upsets and delays, the permeable style of power generally triumphs in the end.

When you find yourself in conflict with someone stronger and more rigid, allow them a momentary victory; seem to bow to their superiority. Then, by being formless and adaptable, slowly insinuate yourself into their soul. This way you will catch them off guard, for rigid people are always ready to ward off direct blows but are helpless against the subtle and insinuating. To succeed at such a strategy, you must play the chameleon, conform on the surface while breaking down your enemy from the inside.

In evolution, largeness is often the first step toward extinction. What is immense and bloated has no mobility but must constantly feed itself. The unintelligent are often seduced into believing that size connotes power—the bigger the better. In 483 BC, King Xerxes of Persia invaded Greece, believing he could conquer the country in one easy campaign. After all, he had the largest army ever assembled for one invasion. The historian Herodotus estimated it at over more than 5 million. The Persians planned to build a bridge across the Hellespont to overrun Greece from the land, while their equally immense navy would pin the Greek ships in harbor, preventing their forces from escaping to sea. The plan seemed sure. Yet as Xerxes prepared the invasion, his advisor Artabanus warned his master of grave misgivings. "The two mightiest powers in the world are against you," he said. Xerxes laughed. What powers could match his gigantic army? "I will tell you what they are," answered Artabanus, "the land and the sea. There are no safe harbors large enough to receive Xerxes' fleet, and the more land the Persians conquered, the longer their supply lines stretched, the more ruinous the cost of feeding this immense army would prove." Thinking his advisor a coward, Xerxes proceeded with his invasion. Yet, as Artabanus predicted, bad weather at sea decimated the Persian fleet, which was too large to take shelter in any harbor. On land, meanwhile, the Persian army destroyed everything in its path, which only made it impossible to feed, since the destruction included crops and stores of food. It was also an easy and slow-moving target. The Greeks practiced all kinds of deceptive maneuvers to disorient the Persians. Xerxes' eventual defeat at the hands of the Greek allies was an immense disaster. The story is emblematic of all those who sacrifice mobility for size. The flexible and fleet of foot will almost always win, for they have more strategic options. The more gigantic the enemy, the easier it is to induce collapse.

The need for formlessness becomes greater the older we get, as we grow more likely to become set in our ways and assume too rigid a form. We become predictable—always the first sign of decrepitude. Predictability makes us appear comical. Although ridicule and disdain might seem mild forms of attack, they are actually potent weapons and will eventually erode a foundation of power. An enemy who does not respect you will grow bold, and boldness makes even the smallest animal dangerous. As you get older, you must rely even less on the past. Be vigilant lest the form your character has taken makes you seem a relic. It is not a matter of mimicking the fashions of youth—that is equally worthy of laughter. Rather, your mind must constantly adapt to each circumstance, even the inevitable change that the time has come to move over and let those of younger age prepare for their ascendancy. Rigidity will only make you look uncanny—like a cadaver. Never forget, though, that formlessness is a strategic pose; it gives you room to create tactical surprises. As your enemies struggle to guess your next move, they reveal their own strategy, putting them at a decided disadvantage. It keeps the initiative on your side, putting your enemies in the position of never acting, constantly reacting. It foils their spying and intelligence. Remember, formlessness is a tool; never confuse it with a "go with the flow" style or with a religious resignation to…

The twists of Fortune. You use formlessness not because it creates inner harmony and peace, but because it will increase your power. Finally, learning to adapt to each new circumstance means seeing events through your own eyes and often ignoring the advice that people constantly pedal your way. It means that ultimately you must throw out the laws that others preach and the books they write to tell you what to do and the sage advice of the Elder. The laws that govern circumstances are abolished by new circumstances, Napoleon wrote, which means that it is up to you to gauge each new situation. Rely too much on other people's ideas and you end up taking a form not of your own making. Too much respect for other people's wisdom will make you depreciate your own. Be brutal with the past, especially your own, and have no respect for the philosophies that are foisted on you from outside.

This has been a Highbridge audio production. [Music] Also available from Robert Greene: *The Art of Seduction* and *33 Strategies of War* on the web at www.hHighbridgeAudio.com. Here is an excerpt from Greene's ruthless guide to psychological warfare, *The 33 Strategies of War*:

Do not fight the last war. The Gorilla War of the Mind strategy. What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments, repetitions of tired formulas, and the memory of old victories and defeats. You must consciously wage war against the past and force yourself to react to the present moment. Be ruthless on yourself. Do not repeat the same tired methods. Sometimes you must force yourself to strike out in new directions, even if they involve risk. What you may lose in comfort and security you will gain in surprise, making it harder for your enemies to tell what you will do. Wage guerrilla war on your mind, allowing no static lines of defense, no exposed citadels. Make everything fluid and mobile. The last war.

No one has risen to power faster than Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). In 1793, he went from Captain in the French Revolutionary Army to Brigadier General. In 1796, he became the leader of the French forces in Italy, fighting the Austrians, whom he crushed that year and again three years later. He became First Consul of France in 1801, Emperor in 1804. In 1805, he humiliated the Austrian and Russian armies at the Battle of Austerlitz. For many, Napoleon was more than a great General; he was a genius, a God of War.

Not everyone was impressed, though. There were Prussian generals who thought he had merely been lucky. If he ever faced the Prussians, he would be revealed as a great fake. Among these Prussian generals was Friedrich Ludwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen. Hohenlohe came from one of Germany's oldest aristocratic families, one with an illustrious military record. To Hohenlohe, success in war depended on organization, discipline, and the use of superior strategies developed by trained military minds. The Prussians exemplified all of these virtues. Prussian soldiers drilled relentlessly until they could perform elaborate maneuvers as precisely as a machine. Prussian generals intensely studied the victories of Frederick the Great. War, for them, was a mathematical affair, the application of timeless principles to the generals. Napoleon was a corpulent hothead leading an unruly citizen's army. Superior in knowledge and skill, they would out-strategize him. The Napoleonic myth would lie in ruins, and Europe could return to its old ways.

In August 1806, Hohenlohe and his fellow generals finally got what they wanted. King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, tired of Napoleon's broken promises, decided to declare war on him. In six weeks, he asked his generals to come up with a plan to crush the French. Hohenlohe was ecstatic. The campaign would be the climax of his career. He had been thinking for years about how to beat Napoleon, and he presented his plan to the general's first strategy session. Precise marches would place the army at the perfect angle from which to attack the French as they advanced through southern Prussia. An attack in oblique formation—Frederick the Great's favorite tactic—would deliver a devastating blow. The other generals, all in their sixties and seventies, presented their own plans, but these, too, were merely variances on the tactics of Frederick the Great. Discussion turned into argument. Several weeks went by. Finally, the king had to step in and create a compromised strategy that would satisfy all of his generals. A feeling of exuberance swept the country, which would soon relive the glory years of Frederick the Great.

On October 5th, a few days before the King was to declare war, disturbing news reached the generals. A reconnaissance mission revealed that divisions of Napoleon's army, which they had believed was dispersed, had marched east, merged, and was massing deep in southern Prussia. The captain who had led the scouting mission reported that the French soldiers were marching with packs on their backs, where the Prussians used slow-moving wagons to provision their troops. The French carried their own supplies and moved with astonishing speed and mobility. Before the generals had time to adjust their plans, Napoleon's army suddenly wheeled north, heading straight for Berlin, the heart of Prussia. The generals argued and dithered, moving their troops here and there, trying to decide where to attack. A mood of panic set in. Finally, the king ordered a retreat. The troops would reassemble to the north and attack Napoleon's flank as he advanced toward Berlin. Hohenlohe was in charge of the rear guard, protecting the Prussian retreat.

On October 14th, near the town of Vietinghof, Napoleon caught up with Hohenlohe, who finally faced the battle he had wanted so desperately. The numbers on both sides were equal, but while the French were an unruly force, fighting pell-mell and on the run, Hohenlohe kept his troops in tight order, orchestrating them like a choreographed ballet. The fighting went back and forth until finally the French captured the village of Vietinghof. Hohenlohe ordered his troops to retake the village. In a ritual dating back to Frederick the Great, a drum major beat out a cadence, and the Prussian soldiers, their colors flying, reformed their positions in perfect parade order, preparing to advance. They were in an open plane, though, and Napoleon's men were behind garden walls and on the house roofs. The Prussians fell like ninepins to the French marksmen. Confused, Hohenlohe ordered his soldiers to halt and change formation. The drums beat again. The Prussians marched with magnificent precision, always a sight to behold, but the French kept shooting, decimating the Prussian line. [Music] [Music]