Vertex Views

Tag: trust

  • Use Absence To Increase Respect & Honor

    What withdraws, what becomes scarce, suddenly seems to deserve our respect and honour. What stays too long, inundating us with its presence, makes us disdain it.

    A man said to a Dervish: “Why do I not see you more often?”

    The Dervish replied, “Because the words ‘Why have you not been to see me?’ are sweeter to my ear than the words ‘Why have you come again?”’
    ~ Mulla Jami, quoted in Idries Shah’s Caravan of Dreams, 1968

    ‘ Why have you not been to see me’ implies you missed the person in some capacity, and ‘why have you come again’ means your presence is not celebrated, instead it is questioned. Is your presence questioned or celebrated?

    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

    Make yourself less accessible to enhance your value in others’ minds.

    Once you’ve become well-known and admired, use absence to increase respect and honour. The more you’re seen and heard from after a certain point, the more you cheapen your brand. People will lose interest and respect for you. But if you make yourself scarce for a while, you’ll renew people’s respect and appreciation.

    The cycle of seduction and love works this way. When your lover begins taking you for granted, pull away for a while without explanation. Your absence regenerates the person’s desire for you, and when you return he or she cherishes and respects you again. Similarly, novelists J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon stirred endless fascination and interest by disappearing from the public eye.

    A strong presence will draw power and attention to you. However, too much presence creates the opposite effect. When you are seen and heard more, your value degrades. You must learn to withdraw yourself before you are unconsciously pushed away. Starve the other person of your presence. Sometimes in relationships, it is important to ensure you are not taken for granted. So, there is nothing wrong in forcing your respect by letting them know that they can lose you if not valued or respected.

  • Pose As a Friend Work As a Spy

    I believe the practical nature of ‘spying’ has changed quite a bit throughout history. What we witness in Game of Thrones depicts the character Varys deploy dozens of ‘little birds” (street children) to act as a network of spies and informants in an effort to gain knowledge and power.

    This is not something that has to be done today. Spying can easily be done with a couple clicks and some intelligence without the risk of any real danger.

    Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, a politician and diplomat consistently suppressed his need to express his ideas as he let other’s talk endlessly about themselves as they inadvertently revealed intentions and plans.

    “Wit and grace marked his conversation. He possessed the art of concealing his thoughts or his malice beneath a transparent veil of insinuations, words that imply something more than they express. Only when necessary did he inject his own personality.” — Baron de Vitrolles (A contemporary of Talleyrand)

    The key here is Talleyrand’s ability to suppress himself in the conversation, to make others talk endlessly about themselves and inadvertently reveal their intentions and plans.

    The Risks of Hiring Spies

    • You have little control over the people who are doing the work.
    • Perhaps they will ineptly expose your spying.
    • They may secretly turn against you.

    When you offer a fake confidence, pretending to bare your soul, others will respond with real confidences. Another conversational trick is to strongly disagree with or contradict someone — they’ll get agitated and say more than they intended to.

    The information you gather from spying is power because it enables you to predict how others will act in the future, and you can plan accordingly. This is why you should pose as a friend, work as a spy.

  • Get Others To Do The Work For You But Always Take The Credit

    The world of power has the dynamics of the jungle: There are those who live by hunting and killing, and there are also vast numbers of creatures (hyenas, vultures) who live off the hunting of others. These latter, less imaginative types are often incapable of doing the work that is essential for the creation of power.

    They understand early on, though, that if they wait long enough, they can always find another animal to do the work for them. Do not be naive: At this very moment, while you are slaving away on some project, there are vultures circling above trying to figure out a way to survive and even thrive off your creativity. It is useless to complain about this, or to wear yourself ragged with bitterness, as Tesla did. Better to protect yourself and join the game. Once you have established a power base, become a vulture yourself, and save yourself a lot of time and energy.

    People do this every single day, people will take a video or article, copy it onto their site, re-post it, and find ways to monetize it to make money from it. In certain situations, it could be perceived as immoral or even illegal. Regardless this reality is being lived every single day.

    Francisco Pizarro exemplified the first method of taking from others after they’ve done the work. He was a soldier in the army of the explorer Balboa, who discovered the Incan empire in Peru. After Balboa spent many years searching for it and finally found it, Pizarro turned on Balboa and helped get him executed for treason so he could take the riches and credit for himself.

    The artist Peter Paul Rubens used the second method of getting others to do the work for you: actively enlisting others to do your work. When he received more requests for paintings than he could fulfill, he hired many skilled painters with various specialties and set up a production line, in which multiple paintings could be worked on at the same time. Clients were impressed that he could do so many paintings in a short time.

    When you take credit for a large amount of work by others, people think you have amazing ability. By contrast, if you try to do all the work yourself, you won’t accomplish much, or others will take advantage of your efforts. Be a user of others’ efforts instead. Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.

  • Never Put Too Much Trust In Friends. Learn How To Use Your Enemies

    Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and 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.

    In the mid-ninth century A.D., a young man named Michael III assumed the throne of the Byzantine Empire. His mother, Empress Theodora, had been banished to a nunnery, and her lover, Theoctistus, 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 councillor, and his thoughts turned to Basilius, his best friend. Basilius 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. Basilius, a young groom from peasant Macedonian stock, had saved Michael’s life. The groom’s strength and courage had impressed Michael, who immediately raised Basilius from the obscurity of being a horse trainer to die position of head of die stables. He loaded his friend with gifts and favours and they became inseparable. Basilius 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 councillor than a young man who owed him everything

    Basilius 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.

    Basilius learned well and was soon advising the emperor on all matters of state. The only problem seemed to be money Basilius never had enough. Exposure to the splendour 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 Ingerina.

    Keeping such a trusted friend and adviser satisfied was worth any price. But more trouble was to come. Bardas was now head of die army, and Basilius 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 die crown himself. Basilius poured poison into Michael’s ear until the emperor agreed to have his uncle murdered. During a great horse race, Basilius closed in on Bardas in the crowd and stabbed him to death. Soon after, Basilius asked that he replace Bardas as head of the army, where he could keep control of the realm and quell the rebellion. This was granted.

    Now Basilius’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, Basilius refused, with a look of such impudence.

    Michael III staked his future on the sense of gratitude he thought Basilius must feel for him. Surely Basilius would serve him best; he owed die, emperor, his wealth, his education, and his position. Then, once Basilius was in power, anything he needed it was best to give to him, strengthening the bonds between the two men. It was only on the fateful day when the emperor saw that impudent smile on Basilius’s face that he realized his deadly mistake.

    He had created a monster. He had allowed a man to see the 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 favours they have received and imagine they have earned their success by their own merits.

    At Michael’s moment of realization, he could still 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.

    Concluding, the problem of working with friends is that it confuses the boundaries and distances that working requires. But if both partners in the arrangement understand the dangers involved, a friend often can be employed to great effect. You must never let your guard down in such a venture, however; always be on the lookout for any signs of emotional disturbance such as envy and ingratitude. Nothing is stable in the realm of power, and even the closest of friends can be transformed into the worst of enemies.