power is something that's part of human nature there's no such thing as a group of people who don't want power so that's why you need to read the book in case you don't know this is the 48 Laws of Power a book that I wrote in 1998 and it's about to have its 25th anniversary this coming year why should you read this book well if you don't want a life full of pain and misery you want to read this book the reason is power is this kind of weird game that goes on in the world
it has its own rules its own conventions its own laws but nobody talks about them nobody writes about them and you're kind of thrown out into the world when you're 23 years old and suddenly you or 22 and suddenly you discover that you're doing all of the wrong things and that you're talking too much you're trying too hard to make people insecure you're being too naive or you're doing people's faces you're trusting people too much on and on you make all these mistakes and it's painful it costs you years of emotional trauma you get fired
you don't know why you got fired you get in a fight with a with a colleague you don't know why and it's bitter you hire a terrible business partner ends up stealing your company on and on and on and on and on these things are real they are not imagined they're not something in a television show it is something going on every single day in every office in America and in the world right but nobody tells you how to navigate this thing this book is there it's like a straight shot of whiskey I'm not covering
things up I'm not bullshitting with you I'm not trying to soft pedal them and make everything look nice and pleasant I'm giving you the world straight as it is you might think when you first look at the book it's a bit frightening crush your enemy totally I don't have any enemies I don't want to crush them I'm a nice guy that's fine it's not about you going out and using all of these laws a lot of it's about defense knowing that there are malevolent aggressive toxic people out there here's how you defend yourself here are
the rules of combat the rules of the game so you don't violate them so you don't make a mess of all of the games that are being played and set yourself back years even decades in your life how to navigate more easily the power environment because power is something that's part of human nature there's no such thing as a group of people who don't want Power all right so that's why you need to read the book second thing is how have I used the laws of power in my own life well it's a little bit
odd to ask that because when I wrote the book it kind of made me successful and it put me in a position where I don't really have to use the law so much but I have used them in various ways it's definitely true so for instance there's a law in there that I tell people is incredibly important it's called learn to keep people dependent on you law number 11. perhaps the most important law of all the idea is if you're replaceable in your job if somebody younger cheaper and better looking I'm sorry can take your
position you'll be fired tomorrow and they'll come in they'll replace you right so you want to make people dependent on you you want to be the one person who can do what you do so for me this has been my strategy of life I talk about my books all the time a lot of writers are very secretive they don't want to reveal what they're doing next I talk about I don't care because nobody can write the kind of books that I write I'm not bragging it's just that the way I do things is so different
and so peculiar and with certain amount of effort and research that it's not replicable so I've created a position in my niche in the book world where I don't have to depend on other people I can write my own ticket because I do something that nobody else can replace okay I don't think there's anybody who could write the 48 Laws of Power out there besides me because it's a reflection of my own weirdness my own uniqueness which is extremely important another law is interaction with boldness very important law 28 I had a partner on this
book a man named yoastelfers you see his name down here very brilliant man Dutchman who packaged the book who did the design Etc and when we finished it we turned it in and you know that the 48 Laws of Power is very different it's very weird there's nothing else out there like it it's very bold in its difference for Better or For Worse the editors when we first turned it in a year before publication went the editor had a meeting with me because Robert can we change this a little bit can we soften it can
we maybe not have so many different sections and I said no you either take it as it is or walking away from your very large advance I don't care you know this is the book as it is it's different it's bold if it fails it fails but this is how it is take it or leave it and that they ended up taking it being bold and not apologizing about it is what made it so successful the final one is disdain things you cannot have ignoring is the best revenge I believe it's 36. anyway I recently
had somebody who whose name I will not mention who I found initially very interesting I led him into my life he worked with me on various different things and then I discovered that it wasn't working out we didn't mesh well together our ideas weren't congruent we didn't have a similar spirit and I wanted to kind of break off the relationship and he wouldn't have it and he just kept coming at me and coming at me and coming at me and coming at me complaining blaming me yelling at me saying every single day and I just
thought all right I'm just going to ignore it I'm not going to answer I'm not going to get involved I'm not going to get enmeshed in it right because it's going to ruin me it's going to make me look weak I'm just going to ignore it it doesn't exist I've got my own life to lead ignoring Petty things is the ultimate form of power assume for lossless I know that law number that's 48 I use all the time I never repeat the same book twice I'm always on to the next project I use all the
laws to be honest with you so that gives you a sense of how important they've been in my daily life but I can't emphasize enough I know it's my own book and I have a stake in you buying it but I can't emphasize enough because I've received so many emails from people who said I'm not an evil person I'm not a bad person but man your book saved me from so many bad situations from outshining the master from Talking Too Much from putting too much trust in friends thank you Robert so I think the book
is important as much for defense as it is for offense
