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  • Keep Your Hands Clean

    You’ll inevitably make mistakes or need to take care of messy problems. But it’s imperative to keep your hands clean. Find scapegoats to blame and use cat’s paws or fixers to handle problems while disguising your involvement.

    Your good name and reputation depend more on what you conceal than on what you 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.

    Mistakes themselves don’t hurt powerful people — it’s how they deal with them that counts. Making excuses or offering apologies are the worst possible responses. Excuses never satisfy anyone, and apologies dig a deeper hole for you. They raise questions about your competence (maybe you’ve made other mistakes too?), intentions, and motives.

    The more quickly you can shift attention to someone else the better. You need a scapegoat to keep your hands clean.

    The practice of using a scapegoat has a long history — Hebrew priests transferred the sins of the people to a goat (originating the term “scapegoat”), which would be abandoned in the wilderness. In some civilisations, a human scapegoat would be sacrificed to the gods.

    It has become a natural response to not look inward after a mistake or crime, we look outward to try and affix blame and guilt on a convenient object instead of taking responsibility for our actions.

    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

    This point is especially relevant in the modern political sphere. Mistakes in this arena can equal a ‘symbolic type-death’ by your country or city.

    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 cat’s-paw— 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.

  • Recreate Yourself

    Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create 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.

    3 Ways to Be The Consummate Chameleon

    1. You must learn to enlarge your actions through dramatic techniques such as surprise, suspense, the creation of sympathy, and symbolic identification.
    2. You must be constantly aware of your audience—of what will please them and what will bore them.
    3. You must arrange to place yourself at the centre, to command attention, and never to be upstaged at any cost.

    Because of his own obsessive interest in drama, Julius Caesar was perhaps the first public figure to understand the vital link between power and theatre. He sublimated this interest by making himself an actor and director on the world stage. Even while dying, he kept his sense of drama. Drawing the top of his gown over his face, he let go of the clothes lower part so that it draped his legs, allowing him to the covered and decent. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, his final words to his old friend Brutus, who was about to deliver a second blow, were in Greek, and as if rehearsed for the end of a play: “You too, my child?”

    Our culture despises being lied to and deceived while authenticity is heralded. Well, that’s what they say, and often what we say and what we do are two very different things. In order to excel in a particular field, you may have to morph your character to fit within the reality of your circumstances, as Dudevant did. Dudevant did not moan and complain about the lack of women’s rights within her society, she did not let the current state of her reality dissuade her from pursuing her ambitions. Instead, she conformed to the cliche, “if you can’t beat them, join them”. In order to excel in some area’s, you must mould your character and adapt. It’s not about creating a “fake persona” and trying to harm or be destructive to your environment. It’s about understanding the current state of culture and becoming a chameleon to your circumstances.

    Many may believe we have never lived in a time that is so “fake” and “disingenuous” with an ever-growing society of “fake entrepreneurs” and ‘20 page marketing click funnels’ trying to pursue us to believe the dream and buy the product. The internet has given everyone a platform to communicate and mould their own unique character. Some will try and manipulate and adopt a nefarious attitude with the intent to take, other’s will forge new identities in an effort to give themselves the opportunity to be virtues and give. It’s up to you to be able to tell the difference and conversely pick who you want to be.

    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

    Re-create yourself with a powerful new image that stands out and draws attention, rather than letting others define you. Then change your appearance and emotions to suit the occasion, or stage riveting dramas as backdrops for your actions.

  • Concentrate Your Forces

    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.

    The Goose and the Horse — A Fable About Maximizing Your Strengths

    A Goose who was plucking grass thought herself affronted by a horse who fed near her; and, in hissing accents thus addressed him:
    “I am certainly a more noble and perfect animal than you,” the goose hissed, “For the whole range and extent of your faculties is confined to one element. However, I can walk upon the ground, just as you do, as well as take to the air with my wings and when it pleases me, I can land on a pond or lake, refreshing myself in the cool waters. I enjoy the different powers of a bird, a fish and a quadruped.”

    The horse snorted disdainfully and replied, “It is true that you inhabit three elements, but you are not particularly distinguished at any of them. You fly, but your flight is so heavy and clumsy that you have no right to put yourself on a level with the lark or swallow. You can swim on the surface of the waters, but you cannot live in them as the fish do, you cannot find your food in that element, nor glide smoothly along the bottom of the waves. And when you walk, or rather waddle, upon the ground, with your broad feet and your long neck stretched out, hissing at everyone who passed by, you bring upon yourself the derision of all beholders.”

    “I confess that I am only formed to
    move along the ground,” the horse continued, “But how graceful is my make! How well turned my limbs!

    How highly finished my whole body! How great my strength! How astonishing my speed! I would rather be confined to one element, and be admired in that than be a goose in all!”

    Concentrate on a single goal, a single task, and beat it into submission. You will need help from other people, usually those who are more powerful than you. More energy is saved and more power attained when you affix yourself to a single, appropriate source of power.

    • Find out who controls the operation.
    • Find out the real director behind the scenes.

    Power itself 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.

    In ancient times, many a kingdom or empire fell when it expanded too broadly and increased its vulnerability. It happened to Rome and Athens: They could no longer protect themselves on all fronts and came under multiple attacks.

    By contrast, the Rothschild banking family, a global power that started in the Jewish ghetto of Frankfort, Germany, thrived due to a strategy of concentration and cohesion. They excluded outsiders (only family members controlled the business), their operation was impenetrable, and they lived by their founder’s advice to avoid diffusion, dissension, and division. One family member described their business as functioning as a watch, with the internal parts moving together invisibly.

    While other powerful families eventually disintegrated, the Rothchilds protected and expanded their wealth because they knew to concentrate their forces.

  • Know Who You Are Dealing With — Do Not Offend The Wrong Person

    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 lambs’ clothing. choose your victims and opponents carefully, — then never offend or deceive the wrong person.

    In 1920 there was a con artist by the name of Joe Furey. Furey had made hundreds of thousands of dollars running a con-artist ring in Denver, Colorado. Furey met yet another victim who fell for his con named J. Frank Norfleet who lost $45,000 to Fury.

    Furey and his men had worked such cons hundreds of times over, and the sucker was usually so embarrassed by his gullibility that he quietly learned his lessons and accepted the loss. But Norfleet was not like other suckers.

    The police couldn’t help him so he decided to take matters into his own hands. Norfleet told the detectives “I’ll get them if it takes the rest of my life”.

    He scoured the country searching for the group looking for others who had been fleeced in the same game. He managed to get one of the con artists locked up through this, he kept going.

    He tracked down another in Montana, roped him like a calf, and dragged him through the muddy streets to the town jail. He traveled all the way to England, Canada and Mexico in search of Joe Furrey and Furrey’s right hand man, W.B. Spencer.

    Finding Spencer in Montreal, Norfleet chased him through the streets.

    Spencer escaped but Norfleet stayed on his trail catching up with him in Salt Lake City. Preferring the mercy of the law to Norfleet’s wrath, Spencer turned himself in.

    Norfleet found Furey in Jacksonville, Florida and personally hauled him off to face justice in Texas. But he wouldn’t stop there: He continued on to Denver, determiend to break up the entire ring. Spending not only large sums of money but another year of his life in the pursuit, he managed to put all of the con ring’s leaders behind bars. Even some he didn’t catch had grown so terrified of him they they too turned themselves in. After five years of hunting, Norfleet had single-handedly destroyed the country’s largest confederation of con artists. The effort bankrupted him and ruined his marriage, but he died a satisfied man.”

    Understand: Deceive and lie enough and you will eventually come across people like this who will go to all ends of the earth to stop you. Proceed with caution.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    To wield power it’s essential to be able to read people and know who you’re dealing with. If you don’t understand your targets — choosing the wrong person or doing the wrong thing — you’ll waste time at best. At worst, you bring trouble on yourself, for instance, by insulting people when you think you’re flattering them, or by triggering their insecurity.

  • Make Other People Come to You—Use Bait if Necessary

    Make your opponent come to you. When you force others to act, you’re in control. Bait them, then attack. Make other people come to you—use bait if necessary.

    What does it mean to make other people come to you, using bait if necessary? Many people achieve power through aggression, but it has a downside. As you continue to use aggression as the main tactic you have to launch attacks in all directions at a growing number of enemies. This becomes tiring.

    At this point, you’re no longer in complete control — you’re reacting to your enemies without calculating the consequences, rather than planning several moves ahead.

    Power comes from acting effectively, not simply aggressively. Often, it’s more effective to lay traps, then wait for them to work. You win for the long term (the war) rather than the short term (the battle).

    Instead of reacting to your opponents, maintain the initiative by making them react to you — this keeps them on the defensive. Put another way, when you make people come to you, you’re in control of the situation.

    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.

    Let me repeat a portion of this quote for emphasis:

    “You have mistaken aggressive action for effective action”.

    Do not become misguided — they are NOT the same thing. Aggressive action does not mean it’s effective. It does not mean it’s efficient. It does not mean, it will work. Just because your aggressive emotions and actions give you the feeling you’re in control, does not make it true in reality. Usually, this is a self-constructed illusion that gives us a false sense of control and security.

    Is there ever a good time to go to your opponent, you ask? Yes, of course, there is an exception to the rule when you should go to your opponent. Depending on the situation, bait and wait is a wise choice but taking the lead to attack your opponent can be advantageous as well. The element of surprise does not give the opponent time to think of a counter-attack. They are left at your mercy and must respond to your terms.

    Your biggest issue is to know what tactic to use and the right time to use it. To bait and wait or to strike with force, that is the dilemma. You can be like the bear hunter who lays the honey bait trap. He doesn’t exhaust himself and risks his life to find the bear he lays a trap and waits patiently for the bear to come to him. Or if time is not on your side, strike quickly to intimidate and control. Choose your approach wisely.