The 50th law of power pdf download

This could mean offering to take over projects that others have left undone or proposing to put into action some new idea of your own, but nothing too grandiose to raise suspicion.

What you are doing is cultivating a taste for doing things yourself—making your own decisions, learning from your own mistakes. If your bosses do not allow you to make such a move on any scale, then you are not in the right place.

If you fail in this venture, then you have gained a valuable education. But generally taking on such things on your own initiative forces you to work harder and better. You are more creative and motivated because there is more at stake; you rise to the challenge. Keep in mind the following: what you really value in life is ownership, not money.

If ever there is a choice—more money or more responsibility —you must always opt for the latter. A lower-paying position that offers more room to make decisions and carve out little empires is infinitely preferable to something that pays well but constricts your movements.

This was not easy. All kinds of rival powers were competing for control of the country—families that dominated the political scene, foreign kings scheming to take over certain regions, city-states with spheres of influence, and finally the church itself. Cesare Borgia was a shrewd young man. His goal was to expand beyond Romagna and eventually unify all of Italy, making it a great power. But his position now depended on various outside forces that controlled his destiny, each one above the other—the army beholden to the powerful families and king of France, then the pope himself who could die any day and be replaced by someone antagonistic to Borgia.

These alliances could shift and turn against him. He had to eliminate these dependencies, one by one, until he could stand on his own, with nobody above him. Using bribery, he put himself at the head of the family faction his father had allied him with, then moved to eliminate its main rival. He worked to get rid of the mercenary army and establish his own. He schemed to make alliances that would secure him against the French king who now saw him as a threat.

He gobbled up more and more regions. He was on the verge of expanding his base to a point of no return when he suddenly fell gravely ill in Shortly thereafter, his father died and was soon replaced by a pope determined to stop Cesare Borgia. Who knows how far he could have gotten if his plans had not become unraveled by such unforeseen circumstances. Borgia was a kind of self-reliant entrepreneur before his time. He understood that people are political creatures, continually scheming to secure their own interests.

If you form partnerships with them or depend upon them for your advancement and protection, you are asking for trouble. Your goal in life must be to always move higher and higher up the food chain, where you alone control the direction of your enterprise and depend on no one. Since this goal is a future ideal, in the present you must strive to keep yourself free of unnecessary entanglements and alliances.

And if you cannot avoid having partners, make sure that you are clear as to what function they serve for you and how you will free yourself of them at the right moment You must remember that when people give you things or do you favors it is always with strings attached. They want something from you in return —assistance, unquestioned loyalty, and so forth. You want to keep yourself free of as many of these obligations as possible, so get in the habit of taking what you need for yourself instead of expecting others to give it to you.

But there is one last impediment to making this work. Your tendency will be to look at what other people have done in your field, how you could possibly repeat or emulate their success. Understand: you are one of a kind. Your character traits are a kind of chemical mix that will never be repeated in history.

There are ideas unique to you, a specific rhythm and perspective that are your strengths, not your weaknesses. You must not be afraid of your uniqueness and you must care less and less what people think of you.

This has been the path of the most powerful people in history. Throughout his life the great jazz musician Miles Davis was always being pushed into making his sound fit the particular rage of the time. Instead he kept insisting on putting his own stamp on anything he played. As he got older this became more and more extreme until he revolutionized the jazz world with his constant innovations in sound.

At a certain point he simply stopped listening to others. John F. Kennedy refused to run a campaign like Franklin Delano Roosevelt or any other American politician in the past. He created his own inimitable style, based on the times he lived in and his own personality.

By going his own way, he forever altered the course of political campaigning. This uniqueness that you express is not anything wild or too strange. That is an affectation in itself. People are rarely that different. Rather you are being yourself, as far as you can take that. The world cannot help but respond to such authenticity. Reversal of Perspective We might think of people who are independent and used to being alone as reclusive, prickly, and hard to be around. In our culture we tend to elevate those who are smooth talkers, seem more gregarious, and fit in better, conforming to certain norms.

They smile and seem happier. This is a superficial appraisal of character; if we reverse our perspective and look at this from the fearless point of view we come to the opposite conclusion. People who are self-sufficient are generally types who are more comfortable with themselves. They do not look for things that they need from other people. Paradoxically this makes them more attractive and seductive. We wish we could be more like that and want to be around them, hoping that some of their independence might rub off on us.

The needy, clingy types—often the most sociable—unconsciously push us away. If people do not do what they want or expect, they are not hurt or let down. Their happiness comes from within and is all the more profound for that reason. Finally, do not be taken in by the culture of ease. Self-help books and experts will try to convince you that you can have what you want by following a few simple steps.

Things that come easy and fast will leave you just as fast. The only way to gain self-reliance or any power is through great effort and practice. And this effort should not be seen as something ugly or dull; it is the process of gaining power over yourself that is the most satisfying of all, knowing that step-by-step you are elevating yourself above the dependent masses.

It represented to him all the struggles he had been through on the streets, and he had hopes that it would turn his life around for good. In May of that year, however, a few weeks before the launch date, a hired assassin shot nine bullets into him while he sat in the back of a car, one bullet going through his jaw and nearly killing him. In a flash, all of the momentum he had built up reversed itself. Columbia canceled the release of the record and dropped Fifty from his contract.

There was too much violence associated with him; it was bad for business. A few inquiries made it clear that other labels felt the same—he was being blackballed from the industry. One executive told him flatly he would have to wait at least two years before he could think of resurrecting his career. The assassination attempt was the result of an old drug beef from his days as a dealer; the killers could not afford to let him survive and would try to finish the job.

Fifty had to keep a low profile. At the same time, he had no money and could not return to street hustling. Even many of his friends, who had hoped to be part of his success as a rapper, started to avoid him.

In just a few short weeks he had gone from being poised for fame and fortune to hitting the bottom. And there seemed no way to move out of the corner he found himself in. Could this be the end of all his efforts? It would have been better to die that day than to feel this powerlessness. The music on the radio was all so packaged and produced. Even the tough stuff, the gangsta rap, was fake.

The lyrics did not reflect anything from the streets that he knew. The attempt to pass it off as real and urban angered him to a point he could not endure. This was not the time for him to be afraid and depressed, or to sit around and wait a few years while all of the violence around him died down. He had never been a fake studio gangsta and now he had the nine bullet wounds to prove it.

This was the moment to convert all of his anger and dark emotions into a powerful campaign that would shake the very foundations of hip-hop. As a hustler on the streets Fifty had learned a fundamental lesson: Access to money and resources is severely limited in the hood. A hustler must transform every little event and every trifling object into some gimmick for making money. Even the worst shit that happens to you can be converted into gold if you are clever enough.

All of the negative factors now facing him—little money, no connections, the price on his head— could be turned into their opposites, advantages and opportunities. That is how he would confront the seemingly insurmountable obstacles now in his path.

With no executives to have to please or worry about, he could push his lyrics and the hard sounds as far as he wanted. His voice had changed as a result of the pieces of bullet still lodged in his tongue—it now had a hiss.

It was still painful for him to move his mouth, so he had to rap more slowly. Instead of trying to normalize and retrain his voice, he determined to turn it into a virtue. His new style of rapping would be more deliberate and menacing; that hiss would remind listeners of the bullet that had gone through his jaw. He would play all of that up. Just putting out the song was message enough—he was defying his assassins openly and publicly.

Fifty was back, and to shut him up they would have to finish the job. The palpable anger in his voice and the hard-driving sound of the song made it a sensation on the streets. It also came with an added punch—because he seemed to be inviting more violence, the public had to grab up everything he produced before he was killed.

The life-and-death angle made for a compelling spectacle. Now the songs started to pour out of him. He fed off all the anger he felt and the doubts people had had about him. He was also consumed with a sense of urgency—this was his last chance to make it and so he worked night and day. Soon he realized the greatest advantage he possessed in this campaign —the feeling that he had already hit bottom and had nothing to lose. He could attack the record industry and poke fun at its timidity.

He could pirate the most popular songs on the radio and put his own lyrics over them to create wicked parodies. And the further he took this the more his audiences responded. They loved the transgressive edge to it. It was like a crusade against all the fake crap on the radio, and to listen to Fifty was to participate in the cause. On and on he went, transforming every conceivable negative into a positive. To compensate for the lack of money to distribute his mix-tapes far and wide, he decided to encourage bootleggers to pirate his tracks and spread his music around like a virus.

With the price still on his head, he could not give concerts or do any kind of public promotion; but somehow he turned even this into a marketing device. Hearing his music everywhere but not being able to see him only added to the mystique and the attention people paid to him. Rumors and word of mouth helped form a kind of Fifty mythology. He made himself even scarcer to feed this process. The momentum now was devastating—you could not go far in New York without hearing his music blasted from some corner.

Soon one of his mix-tapes reached the ears of Eminem, who decided this was the future of hip-hop and quickly signed Fifty in early to his and Dr. They are completely neutral. The universe does not care about your fate; it is indifferent to the violence that may hit you or to death itself. Things merely happen to you.

It is your mind that chooses to interpret them as negative or positive. And because you have layers of fear that dwell deep within you, your natural tendency is to interpret temporary obstacles in your path as something larger— setbacks and crises. In such a frame of mind, you exaggerate the dangers. If someone attacks and harms you in some way, you focus on the money or position you have lost in the battle, the negative publicity, or the harsh emotions that have been churned up.

This causes you to grow cautious, to retreat, hoping to spare yourself more of these negative things. It is a time, you tell yourself, to lay low and wait for things to get better; you need calmness and security.

What you do not realize is that you are inadvertently making the situation worse. Your rival only gets stronger as you sit back; the negative publicity becomes firmly associated with you.

Being conservative turns into a habit that carries over into less difficult moments. It becomes harder and harder to move to the offensive. What you need to do, as Fifty discovered, is take the opposite approach.

Instead of becoming discouraged and depressed by any kind of downturn, you must see this as a wake-up call, a challenge that you will transform into an opportunity for power. Your energy levels rise. You move to the attack, surprising your enemies with boldness. You care less what people think about you and this paradoxically causes them to admire you—the negative publicity is turned around. You do not wait for things to get better —you seize this chance to prove yourself.

Mentally framing a negative event as a blessing in disguise makes it easier for you to move forward. Understand: we live in a society of relative prosperity, but in many ways this turns out to be a detriment to our spirit. We come to feel that we naturally deserve good things, that we have certain privileges due to us. When setbacks occur, it is almost a personal affront or punishment. We either blame other people or we blame ourselves.

In both cases, we lose valuable time and become unnecessarily emotional. In places like the hood or in any kind of materially impoverished environment, the response to hardship is much different. There, bad things happening assume a kind of normality. They are part of daily life. It is foolish to wait; tomorrow may bring even worse shit. The hood would have consumed him.

This hustler mind-set is more realistic and effective. The truth is that life is by nature harsh and competitive. No matter how much money or resources you have accumulated, someone will try to take them from you, or unexpected changes in the world will push you backward. These are not adverse circumstances but merely life as it is. You have no time to lose to fear and depression, and you do not have the luxury of waiting.

All of the most powerful people in history demonstrate in one way or another this fearless attitude towards adversity. Look at George Washington. He was a wealthy landowner but his attitude towards life had been forged by years fighting for the British in the French and Indian War, amid the harsh environment of frontier America. In , Washington was made supreme commander of the American Revolutionary army. At first glance this position seemed more like a curse.

The army was a semi- organized mob. It had no training, was poorly paid and outfitted, and its morale was low—most of the soldiers did not really believe they could succeed in defeating the all-powerful British. Throughout , British forces pushed this weak American army around, from Boston to New York, until by the end of the year Washington had been forced to retreat to New Jersey. This was the darkest moment in his career and in the war for independence. Assessing this situation, a cautious leader would have chosen to wait out the winter, muster more troops, and hope for some change in fortune.

But Washington had a different mind-set. As he perceived it, his army would be considered by the British as too weak to pose any threat. Moving to the attack would excite the troops and gain some much-needed positive publicity. Thinking in this manner, he decided to lead a raid on an enemy garrison in Trenton, which proved to be a great success.

He followed this up with an attack on British supplies at Princeton. These daring victories captivated the American public. Confidence had been restored in Washington as a leader and the American army as a legitimate force. From then on, Washington waged a guerrilla-style war, wearing out the British with the great distances they had to cover.

Everything was turned around—lack of funds and experience led to a more creative way of fighting. The smallness of his forces allowed him to torment the enemy with fluid maneuvering over rough terrain. At no point did he decide to wait for more troops or more money or better circumstances—he went continually on the attack with what he had.

It was a campaign of supreme fearlessness, in which all negatives were converted into advantages. This is a common occurrence in history: almost all great military and political triumphs are preceded by some kind of crisis.

That is because a substantial victory can only come out of a moment of danger and attack. Without these moments, leaders are never challenged, never get to prove themselves.

If the path is too smooth, they grow arrogant and make a fatal mistake. The fearless types require some kind of adversity against which they can measure themselves. The tenseness of such dark moments brings out their creativity and urgency, making them rise to the occasion and turn the tide of fortune from defeat to a great victory. You must adopt an attitude that is the opposite to how most people think and operate.

When things are going well, that is precisely when you must be concerned and vigilant. You know it will not last and you will not be caught unprepared. When things are going badly, that is when you are most encouraged and fearless. It is only out of danger and difficulty that you can rise at all.

By simply embracing the moment as something positive and necessary you have already converted it into gold. These powers come from a mix of heightened concentration, energy, and ingenuity in the face of obstacles.

Each of us has the capacity to develop these powers, but first we have to be aware of their existence. This is difficult, however, in a culture that emphasizes material means— technology, money, connections—as the answer to everything. We place unnecessary limits on what the mind can accomplish, and that becomes our reality. Look at our concept of opportunity and you will see this in its clearest light.

According to conventional wisdom, an opportunity is something that exists out there in the world; if it comes our way and we seize it, it brings us money and power. This could be a particular job, the perfect fit for us; it could be a chance to create or join a new venture. It could be meeting the appropriate person. In any event, it depends on being at the right place at the right time and having the proper skills to take advantage of this propitious moment.

We generally believe there are only a few such golden chances in life, and most of us are waiting for them to cross our path. This concept is extremely limited in scope. It makes us dependent on outside forces. It stems from a fearful, passive attitude towards life that is counterproductive. It constrains our minds to a small circle of possibility. Many of us have had the following experience: we find ourselves in an urgent, difficult situation.

Perhaps we have to get something done in an impossibly short amount of time, or someone we had counted on for help does not come through, or we are in a foreign land and must suddenly fend for ourselves. In these situations, necessity crowds in on us. We have to get work done and figure out problems quickly or we suffer immediate consequences. What usually happens is that our minds snap to attention.

We find the necessary energy because we have to. We pay attention to details that normally elude us, because they might spell the difference between success and failure, life and death.

We are surprised at how inventive we become. It is at such moments that we get a glimpse of that potential mental power within us that generally lies untapped.

If only we could have such a spirit and attitude in everyday life. They operate this way on a daily basis. They channel their aggressive energy into hunting down possibilities for expansion in the most banal and insignificant events. Everything is an instrument in their hands, and with this enlarged notion of opportunity, they create more of it in their lives and gain great power.

Perhaps the greatest opportunist in history is Napoleon Bonaparte. Nothing escaped his attention. He focused with supreme intensity on all of the details, finding ways to transform even the most trivial aspects of warfare—how to march and carry supplies, how to organize troops into divisions—into tools of power.

He ruthlessly exploited the slightest mistake of his opponents. He was the master at turning the worst moments in battle into material for a devastating counterattack. By looking for these opportunities, he found them. This became a mental skill that he refined to an art.

This power is open to each and every one of us if we put into practice the following four principles of the art. In exploring the interior, he saw nothing but a bunch of goats, cats, rats, and some unfamiliar animals that made strange noises at night.

It was a shelterless environment. He decided to keep to the shoreline, slept in a cave, found enough to eat by catching fish, and slowly gave way to a deep depression.

He knew he would run out of gunpowder, his knife would get rusty, and his clothes would rot on his back. He could not survive on just fish. He did not have enough supplies to get by and the loneliness was crushing. If only he had brought over more materials from his ship. Then suddenly the shoreline was invaded by sea lions; it was their mating season.

Now he was forced to move inland. There, he could not simply harpoon fish and sit in a cave brooding. He quickly discovered that this dark forest contained everything he needed.

He built a series of huts out of the native woods. He cultivated various fruit trees. He taught himself to hunt the goats. He domesticated dozens of feral cats—they protected him against the rats and provided him much needed companionship. He took apart his useless rifle and fashioned tools out of it. Recalling what he learned from his father, who had been a shoemaker, he made his own clothes out of animal hides.

It was as if he had suddenly come to life and his depression disappeared. He was finally rescued from the island, but the experience completely altered his way of thinking.

Years later he would recall his time there as the happiest in his life. Most of us are like Selkirk when he first found himself stranded—we look at our material resources and wish we had more. But a different possibility exists for us as well—the realization that more resources are not necessarily coming from the outside and that we must use what we already have to better effect. What we have in hand could be research material for a particular book, or people who work within our organization.

When we go to work with what is there, we find new ways to employ this material. Your creative spirit is squashed. What keeps you in such positions is a fear of having to sink or swim on your own. Instead, you should have a greater fear of what will happen to you if you remain dependent on others for power. Your goal in every maneuver in life must be ownership, working the corner for yourself.

When it is yours, it is yours to lose — you are more motivated, more creative, more alive. The ultimate power in life is to be completely self-reliant, completely yourself. It is how you look at it that matters. Your lack of resources can be an advantage, forcing you to be more inventive with the little that you have.

Losing a battle can allow you to frame yourself as the sympathetic underdog. Do not let fears make you wait for a better moment or become conservative. If there are circumstances you cannot control, make the best of them.

It is the ultimate alchemy to transform all such negatives into advantages and power. If you try to micromanage it all, you lose even greater control in the long run. The answer is to let go and move with the chaos that presents itself to you — from within it, you will find endless opportunities that elude most people. If you encounter walls or boundaries, slip around them.

In addition, Greene provides instruction on how to identify victims by type. Each fascinating character and each cunning tactic demonstrates a fundamental truth about who we are, and the targets we've become - or hope to win over.

The Art of Seduction is an indispensable primer on the essence of one of history's greatest weapons and the ultimate power trip. Imagine the Power You Could Have You know what I'm talking about We all crave for power. Even if we don't, we all know that we do. We want to be in some sort of control, even though most refuse to admit it. Note: this summary is written and published by Millionaire Mind Publishing. It is not the original book and not written by the original author.

Learn how to apply the main ideas and principles from the original book in a quick, easy read! Charm, persuasion, and the ability to create illusions are some of the many dazzling gifts of a Seducer, the compelling figure who is able to mislead, manipulate and give pleasure all at once. Seduction is not really just about sex; when raised to the level of art, it becomes an indirect and subtle form of power, which can win elections, topple empires, and enslave great minds.

The tactics provided by this book are equally applicable to social and political seductions. The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene unearths the two sides of seduction: the characters and the process.

The first part of the book gets to the heart of each seductive character and its main tactics, strengths and weaknesses. Discover who you or your pursuer most resembles. In addition, this section of the book provides instruction on how to identify each potential victim by type, and how to pick the one that is perfect for you. In part II, immerse yourself in the 24 maneuvers and strategies of the seductive process, the ritual by which a seducer gains control over their target.

These maneuvers will guide you through the seduction, providing cunning, amoral instructions to help you master this subtle, elusive, all-pervasive form of power. Just as equally important as The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction is an indispensable primer of persuasion that offers the best lessons on how to get what you want from whomever you want and how to prevent yourself from falling under someone else's spell.

This summary highlights key ideas and captures important lessons found in the original book. Unessential information has been removed to save the reader time. If you've already read the original, this summary will serve as a reminder of main ideas and key concepts.

If you haven't, don't worry, here you will find every bit of practical information without having to use so much time to read the original book. Take action and get this book right now! The reality is, no matter what you think Jay-Z is, he first and foremost a business.

And as much as Martha Stewart or Oprah, he has turned himself into a lifestyle. You can wake up to the local radio station playing Jay-Z's latest hit, spritz yourself with his 9IX cologne, slip on a pair of his Rocawear jeans, lace up your Reebok S. In the book "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene, Greene the author of several other bestselling books like; The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, and The 50th Law gives out 48 laws through which we can gain maximum power and control in life.

He was of the opinion that life is filled with principles that make things happen. Without the knowledge of these principles, we'll simply be victims of life. That's not a good thing for anyone which is why you deserve to know the principles of power.

In this workbook you will get; Chapter by chapter summaries for guidance and recollection of the 48 laws Questions which hone your insight and stretch your own boundaries Concise key point sum ups at the end of each chapter to capture crucial facts And much more!

The summary aspect of this book serves as a refresher to help you keep touch of the 48 laws of power and its pecks without having to go back to reread the original book each time you feel like you've forgotten a thing or two. While the workbook aspect helps you put what you've read into practice to help make it stick both in your head, and in your everyday life. In order to maximize the benefits of this book, you need to attempt ALL questions. Take out the time to reflect on the answers before you write them down and don't be in a hurry.

If you need to take some time off when answering the questions, then by all means do so. No one will penalize you for any wrong answer or not answering immediately but you must answer the questions to get the best of the workbook. It is advised that you get 2 copies of this workbook so. Robert Greene, the 1 New York Times bestselling author, has been the consigliere to millions for more than two decades. Now, with entries that are drawn from his five books, plus never-before-published works, The Daily Laws offers a page of refined and concise wisdom for each day of the year, in an easy-to-digest lesson that will only take a few minutes to absorb.