Vertex Views

Tag: trust

  • Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power

    When you are weak, never fight for honor’s sake; instead choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, 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.

    4 Reasons to Surrender

    1. When you are weak, there is nothing to gain by fighting a useless fight.
    2. No one comes to help a weaker adversary; they will not put themselves in danger.
    3. You are alone and must submit.
    4. Fighting gives you nothing but martyrdom.

    The more volatile one’s character the more they tend to meet fire with fire, aggression with aggression. Doing the opposite of what you’re conditioned to may prove extremely useful.

    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 oppressors sudden slide.

    In ancient China, a king, Goujian, lost a battle to the ruler of Wu. Rather than fleeing, he gave the victor his riches and went to work in Wu’s stables, where he could watch and learn how to defeat him in the future. Eventually, he was allowed to return home, and when the kingdom of Wu was undermined by drought and infighting, Goujian attacked and won easily.

    Power fluctuates. The person on top today will eventually fall. Surrender often puts you in the best position to benefit when the crash inevitably comes. You can transform weakness into power.

  • Play A Sucker To Catch A Sucker—Seem Dumber Than Your Mark

    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.

    This feeling is especially prevalent in the insecure who feel inferior to their surroundings. Many will condemn the skills and accomplishments of others by using justifications that placate their ego and satisfy their self-worth. They’ll say things like,

    “She only has book knowledge, I got real knowledge.”
    “His parents paid for his educational if only my parents had the money.”
    “If only I was that smart.”
    “If only I was as fast and athletic as him.”

    We see this every single day, people will downplay the talents, skills and achievements of others to avoid the pain of feeling bad about their lack of character, skills and accomplishments. People do not like to feel like they are inferior to others.

    What if we flipped it around? What if we used peoples achievements and skills to push us to greater heights, instead of using negativity to protect our self-worth. Once you figure out how to take positive inspiration from people who ‘make it’, you set yourself up for even greater heights of fulfilment and success. Find someone who looks like you who has what you have, and you grant yourself the mental fortitude and momentum of self-belief that it can be done. Everyone is their own unique individual and no situation will be exactly the same, but at least you have a rough blueprint to follow that may produce similar results to what you want.

    In the late 1800s, two San Francisco con artists swindled a group of wealthy New York businessmen and financiers into buying a fake diamond mine from them for a large amount of money.

    They seeded the mine with real diamonds and other jewels and had inspectors evaluate and authenticate the supposed mine. But what tilted the scheme in their favour was the fact that they came off as bumbling, naive rubes who’d stumbled on a fortune and didn’t know where to turn. The businessmen felt superior and never suspected them of having the intelligence and capability to pull off a sophisticated scam. Further, after several influential businessmen had signed off on the deal, no one in the financial world wanted to impugn their intelligence.

    The con artists got away with the money, and the reputation of at least one of the businessmen was damaged beyond repair. These con artists knew to seem dumber than your mark.

    There is, however, one situation where it pays to do the opposite— when you can cover up a deception with a show of intelligence. In matters of smarts as in most things, appearances are what count. If you seem to have authority and knowledge, people will believe what you say. This can be very useful in getting you out of a scrape.

  • Do Not Commit To Anyone

    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.

    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.

    You must learn the tricks that will enhance your image. Emanate mystery and desirability, never discouraging anyone’s hopes but never yielding. When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. You instantly seem powerful because you make yourself un-graspable, rather than succumbing to the group, or to the relationship, as most people do. 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. 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 favours, all to put you under obligation.
    • Accept the gifts and favours if you so desire, but be careful to maintain your inner aloofness.

    This idea of non-commitment while being courted brings up the conversation of certain women who play this game very tactfully through many mediums of social media. This is not to say men don’t play the same game, it just appears woman are far more prominent at courting attention.

    We see this in individuals who have large social media followings. Through posting provocative photos and video’s they attract and court mass attention. Modern society uses the word ‘thirst’ to describe this phenomenon.

    The possibility of having somebody — the mystery of not knowing what’s going to come next is what’s enticing to so many people. It’s why the opposite sex has so much ‘potential for power‘. There’s a certain power to be said about a woman who can excite interest and entice a man through the unknown. Do I believe the same can be said for men? Yes. But women have often been represented as ‘sexual beings’, and on the occasion worshipped as god’s through dozens of cultures over thousands of years. This has clearly influenced the manner to which we treat and look at the female gender today.

    Make your moves matters of your own choosing, not defensive reactions to the push and pull of others around you.

  • Do Not Build Fortresses To Protect Yourself Isolation Is Dangerous

    When you’re constantly building and refining projects it’s very easy to lose contact with the people close to you. By maintaining minimal contact for weeks and months on end you can fall into a very detached state from the surrounding culture and its people—AKA “the streets”. It’s clear there are many benefits to having such tendencies, though the setbacks should be outlined.

    Imagine one day popping your head out of the cave that you’ve created for yourself to find the people around you have dramatically changed. Imagine the feeling of missing countless opportunities because you were too busy in your tunnel. You may be one of the many that happily accept this fate in exchange for peace and silence. Or you may not be comfortable with the feeling of missed opportunities and information. Whichever camp you lay within, it’s more often than not intelligent to poke your head out of the cave every now and again keeping your ear to the streets and remaining aware of your changing environment.

    In the 1660s Louis XIV had the palace of Versailles built for him and his court. He purposefully designed the palace so his nobility remained close to him. The king’s bedroom occupied the literal centre of the palace as the focus of everyone’s attention.

    Every single morning he would see individuals and groups of people in a precise order, first the king’s illegitimate sons and his grandchildren, then the princes and princesses of the blood, and then the physician and surgeon. There followed the grand officers, the king’s official reader, and so on and so forth from government officials to entertainers. This ritual was known as ‘the lever’. By the end of the ceremony, the room would be packed with over a hundred people. The day was organized so that all the palace’s energy was directed at and passed through the king. Louis XIV kept a very close ear to his surroundings. It’s much more difficult to plot an assassination of such a king.

    There was no possibility of privacy in the palace, not even for the king — every room communicated with another. Everyone’s actions were interdependent, and nothing and no one passed unnoticed

    From the design of the palace of Versailles with the king’s bed at the centre to his daily ritual requiring his family, courtiers, and government officials to check in with him (around 100 people), Louis XIV made himself the centre of activity. He was always looking around, observing everything, including anyone who failed to show up at his meals and other events. Because of the constant togetherness, nothing escaped the king’s notice. By keeping court activity revolving around him and understanding that isolation is dangerous, Louis XIV managed to maintain peace for fifty years.

    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 and mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.

    5 Dangers That Isolation Brings

    1. You lose contact with the sources of your power.
    2. You lose your ear for what is happening around you.
    3. You lose your sense of proportion.
    4. You cut yourself off from the kind of knowledge on which your life depends.
    5. You cannot hear what is happening around you, including the plots against you.

    It becomes harder to break out of your isolation when you choose to. It sinks you deep into its quicksand without your noticing.

  • Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability

    Because people crave predictability and a sense of control, you can throw others off balance and even terrify them by cultivating an air of unpredictability. While your opponents are stressing themselves out by trying the explain and anticipate what you’re doing, you can achieve your objectives almost unnoticed.

    Unpredictable, sudden events like tornadoes and flash floods terrify people, leaving them in fear of the next one, you can have a similar effect on people by cultivating an air of unpredictability.

    We want other people to be predictable, and we ourselves follow patterns and routines, out of laziness, a preference for comfort, or a desire to keep the peace. Animals follow patterns as well, which allows us to hunt them successfully.

    But unpredictability is an important tool for wielding power — by suddenly doing something no one expected you create fear and confusion, which keeps others off balance, allowing you room to manoeuvre. It may also prompt them to make mistakes.

    You can use this tactic effectively even if you are the underdog. For instance, during the Civil War General Stonewall Jackson confused and stymied the much larger Union forces that were marching on Richmond, by repeatedly moving north and then back south again. In response, Union General George McClellan slowed his forces, while trying to figure out what was going on, which gave the South time to reinforce Richmond.

    Understand: A person of power instils 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.

    This reminds me of a story Tony Robins told in his book ‘Awaken The Giant Within’. Every time Tony would go on his walk he would give a particular homeless man some money. He decided to make this a habit. One instance when he went to reach for his wallet he found he didn’t have any cash on him. Tony apologized, but the homeless man became aggravated and upset. Tony had conditioned the homeless man to receive money every time he passed him. The one time the homeless man didn’t receive it, unstable emotion and a minor conflict resulted.

    If Tony had been more unpredictable with his actions and intermittently given money to the homeless man, than the above situation may have never occurred because he wouldn’t have known when to expect the stimuli. If the money was given sporadically then the habit is never created as your constantly left on edge not knowing when the next reward will come.

    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 keeps 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