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Tag: Options

  • Work On The Heart And Mind Of Others

    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.

    “When Louis XV’s grandson and chose a successor, Louis XVI married the 15-year-old daughter of the Empress of Austria, the French caught a glimpse of the future that seemed hopeful. Marie Antoinette was her name. She was beautiful and full of life. See, the French had grown disgusted with the series of mistresses who had dominated Louis XV and they looked forward to serving a new queen. Marie Antoinette publicly rode through the streets of Paris for the first time greeted with applauding crowd swarming her carriage. “How fortunate,” she wrote to 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 Maria Antoinette became Queen, she abandoned herself to the pleasures she loved the most, ordering, wearing the most expensive gowns and jewellery in the realm, sporting the most elaborate hair in history. Her sculpted coif is rising as much as three feet above her head, drawing a constant succession of mass balls and fetes, all of these whims, she paid for on credit never concerning herself with the cost of who paid the bills. Marie Antoinette’s greatest pleasure was the creation and designing of a private garden of Eden, a chateau on the grounds of the sailors with its own woods.

    With each new whim, the cost of maintaining these garden soared. Meanwhile, France itself was deteriorating. There were famine and widespread discontent. Even the socially insulated courtiers cede with resentment. The Queen treated them like children. Only her favourites matter and these were becoming fewer and fewer, but Marie Antoinette did not concern herself with this. Not once throughout her reign did she read a minister’s report. Not once did she tour with the provinces and rally the people to her side. Not once did she mingle among the pageants or receive a delegation from her. She did none of these things because as Queen, she felt the people owed her their affection and she was not required to love in return.” This was one of her biggest mistakes.

    “In 1784, the Queen became embroidered 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’s trial, her lavish lifestyle became public. She’d become the focus of the people’s growing resentment. Five years later in 1789, an unprecedented event took place, the beginning of the French Revolution but the Queen did not worry but the people have their little rebellion, she seemed to think. That year, the people marched on Versailles forcing the Royal family to quit the palace and take residence in Paris. This offered the Queen an opportunity to heal the wounds she had opened and established contact with the people, establish respect but the Queen had not learned her lesson. Not once would she leave the palace during her stay in Paris as subjects could rot in hell for all she cared?

    Three years later, the Royal Couple was moved from the palace to prison as a revolution officially declared the end of the monarchy. Louis XVI was then tried, found guilty and guillotined. As Marie Antoinette awaited the same fate, hardly a soul came to her defence. Not one of her former friends in the court, not even one of Europe’s other monarchs who were family to her came to her side. Not even her own brother who had now taken the throne. In October of 1793, she finally knelt at the guillotine unrepentant and defiant to the bitter end.

    Making people do what you want by force may work in the short term, but it isn’t a sustainable long-term strategy because it generates resistance. Working on the hearts and minds of others — so they bend to your will voluntarily — is more effective and less costly.

    The key to working on the hearts and minds of others is to use people’s emotions and weaknesses. Understand their individual psychology and their emotional responses. Target strong emotions such as hate, envy, and love. Play on what they’re afraid of and what’s dear to them. When you connect with their emotions, they’re more susceptible to your control.

    Win others’ hearts and minds, and you’ll have them eating out of your hand. Play on their emotions and weaknesses appeal to their self-interest and they’ll willingly do what you want. Build broad support — someday you’ll need it. Neglect this at your peril.

  • Master The Art Of Timing

    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.

    The first concept to understand in ‘mastering the art of timing’…

    The first practical step towards this is taking autonomy of one’s emotions.

    The key is fostering a keen awareness of how our emotions can cloud our perception of time. Notice how chaotic uncontrolled emotions can often distort the perception of time. It takes you out of the present moment and into your head, instead of staying in the reality of the moment.

    To take control of one’s emotion is to take control over time.

    Joseph Fouche, who served as a key official and chief of police under France’s top leaders including Robespierre and Napoleon, had an uncanny ability to read the chaotic times, align himself with the latest leaders, and avoid getting caught up in retribution for the crimes of the leaders who fell. He also knew when to keep a low profile and wait.

    Three Categories of Time

    1. Long time:

    • The drawn-out, years-long kind of time that must be managed with patience and gentle guidance. Our handling of a long time should be mostly defensive—this is the art of not reacting impulsively, of waiting for an opportunity.
    • 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.
    • Hasteners 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.

    2. Forced time:

    • The short-term time that we can manipulate as an offensive weapon, upsetting the timing of our opponents.
    • 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.

    3. End Time:

    • When a plan must be executed with speed and force. We have waited, found the moment, and must not hesitate.
    • 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.

  • Be Royal In Your Own Fashion: Act Like A King To Be Treated Like One

    Don’t be too humble. You will be treated the way you treat yourself. You will be thought of the way you think of yourself. Project confidence and a regal demeanor and others will respect you for it. If you act humbly, and only ask for just enough, and shuffle around quietly, you will be treated with little respect. This fits into other Laws Greene talks about such as “Play to People’s Fantasies.”

    The idea is: people will try to make sense of whatever you present to them. If you act very confidently, they will see this as a sign of deep inner confidence, either that or you are a mad man. People rarely see through the masks others wear, and so, if you think it’s a good idea to demote your personal status to accommodate the feelings of others, know that it can often backfire.

    Louis Phillipe’s life story serves as a cautionary tale. When it became his turn to become king, he assumed a very different attitude from his predecessors. He associated with the bankers and business people instead of the elites. He wore the same clothes, walked the same streets, and was interested in the same things as the bankers. He did this proudly. And perhaps, his aim was to make the people feel that they were equals – that the best politics of the day would be exemplified by a leader who could act as the man of the people, but none of this worked.

    Louis Phillipe’s attitude only projected weakness and this attracted resentment and anger. One time, he was late for a meeting, and was publicly berated by Rothschild. Resentment was being built up in the minds of his people, and they finally took to the streets. Feeling under pressure, Louis Philippe fired his Prime Minister and replaced him with a liberal, but this only highlighted how weak he was. He was eventually forced to resign along with his staff. They shamefully packed their bags, like a travelling circus, and left.

    The opposite of Louis Phillipe’s story is that of Christopher Columbus. Columbus did not have a royal background, but he acted like he did. His father was a humble businessman, but he told others that he came from a royal bloodline. He made bold and sometimes even outrageous claims, but in the company of royalty, he only made them feel comfortable. When he was about to embark on his voyage, he asked to be given grand titles, and inherit a certain percentage of the proceeds that would come out of the adventure, but while he wasn’t given all of his lofty demands, he wasn’t treated as a silly man either. He was seen as someone who knew his worth and carried himself well. He was respected.

    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 couple of years later Columbus moved to Spain, he maneuvered through the Spanish court repeating the request for the financing of his voyage. After many rejections Columbus would not back down. He then realized the only person that could meet his demands would be Queen Isabella. In 1487 he had managed a meeting with the Queen, he failed to convince her to finance his voyage, but he completely charmed her and became a frequent guest of the palace. After the wartime burden on her treasury lifted, Isabella decided she would adhere to his request, pay for three ships, equipment, and a modest salary for Columbus.

    Even though he had hired the best navigator he could find he was unable to find the passage to Asia. Yet even when Columbus proposed the queen finance a second more audacious voyage the following year, she agreed. She had come to see Columbus as destined for greatness…so what happened next? Well the rest is history, Christopher Columbus is now talked about in millions of schools around the world.

    It is up to you to set your own price. Ask for less and that is just what you will get. Ask for more, however, and you send a signal that you are worth a king’s ransom. Even those who turn you down respect you for your confidence, and that respect will eventually pay off in ways you cannot imagine.

  • Control The Options: Get Other’s To Play With The Cards You Deal

    To deceive people, seem to give them a meaningful choice. But sharply limit their options to a few that work in your favour regardless of which they choose. Your victims will feel in control, but you’ll pull the strings.

    We all like having choices, and often don’t notice that the choices we have can be very limited, whether in elections, our jobs, or the marketplace. We accept this, even though it isn’t fair, because the alternative, unlimited freedom of choice, is too overwhelming to contemplate. A limited range is easier to deal with and provokes less anxiety.

    The fact that most people aren’t bothered by limited choices creates great opportunity for deception. People won’t feel they’re being deceived if they have at least a small amount of choice.

    Here are some ways to control the options for your benefit:

    Spin The Choices: Henry Kissinger often used this technique with President Nixon. He’d propose three or four choices presented so that his favored option always looked best compared to the others. This works well with an insecure boss like Nixon.

    Advocate The Opposite: Present what you don’t want as your favored option, and people who are contrarians will choose the opposite (what you do want). This technique works with children as well.

    Alter The Playing Field: In the 1860s, John. D Rockefeller set out to create an oil monopoly. If he tried to buy up 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 attempted to take over a particular company, and met with with resistance, he reminded them of their dependence on the rails. Rockefeller altered the playing field so that the only options the small oil producers had were the one’s 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 Weak Man on the Precipice: Cardinal de Retz, served as an unofficial assistant to the Duke of Orleans, who was notoriously indecisive. It was a constant struggle to convince the duke tot ake action — he would weight the options, and wait til the last moment. But Retz 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 Retz was pushing him to take. Work on their emotions — use fear and terror to propel them into action. Try reason and they will always find a way to procrastinate.

    Controlling the options has one main purpose: to disguise yourself as the agent of power and punishment. The tactic works best, then, for those whose power is fragile, and who cannot operate too openly without incurring suspicion, resentment and anger. Even as a general rule, however, it is rarely wise to be seen as exerting power directly and forcefully, no matter how secure or strong you are. It is usually more elegant and more effective to give people the illusion of choice.

    There are situations in which it is to your advantage to allow your rivals a large degree of freedom: As you watch them operate, you give yourself rich opportunities to spy, gather information, and plan your deceptions.