Saturday, June 8, 2019

48 Laws of power (Robert Greene) - Book Summary



Good evening friends, today we are going to discuss the book “48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene. We going to go through each law one by one following with the short explanation of each.

Law 1

Never Outshine the Master

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.

Reversal:

You cannot worry about upsetting every person you come across, but you must be selectively cruel. If your superior is a falling star, there is nothing to fear from outshining him.

Law 2

Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies

Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily 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.

Reversal:

A man of power, for example, often has dirty work that has to be done, but for the sake of appearances it is generally preferable to have other people do it for him; friends often do this the best, since their affection for him makes them willing to take chances. Also, if your plans go awry for some reason, you can use a friend as a convenient scapegoat.

Law 3

Conceal your Intentions

Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.

Reversal:

No smoke screen, red herring, false sincerity, or any other diversionary device will succeed in concealing your intentions if you already have an established reputation for deception. And as you get older and achieve success, it often becomes increasingly difficult to disguise your cunning. Everyone knows you practice deception; persist in playing naive and you run the risk of seeming the rankest hypocrite, which will severely limit your room to maneuver. In such cases it is better to own up, to appear the honest rogue, or, better, the repentant rogue. Not only will you be admired for your frankness, but, most wonderful and strange of all, you will be able to continue your stratagems.

Law 4

Always Say Less than Necessary

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

Reversal:

There are times when it is unwise to be silent. Silence can arouse suspicion and even insecurity, especially in your superiors; a vague or ambiguous comment can open you up to interpretations you had not bargained for. Silence and saying less than necessary must be practiced with caution, then, and in the right situations. It is occasionally wiser to imitate the court jester, who plays the fool but knows he is smarter than the king. He talks and talks and entertains, and no one suspects that he is more than just a fool. Also, words can sometimes act as a kind of smoke screen for any deception you might practice. By bending your listener’s ear with talk, you can distract and mesmerize them; the more you talk, in fact, the less suspicious of you they become. The verbose are not perceived as sly and manipulative but as helpless and unsophisticated. This is the reverse of the silent policy employed by the powerful: By talking more, and making yourself appear weaker and less intelligent than your mark, you can practice deception with greater ease.

Law 5

So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations.

Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

Law 6

Court Attention at all Cost

Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious, than the bland and timid masses.

Law 7

Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit

Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered.

Never do yourself what others can do for you.

Reversal:

There are times when taking the credit for work that others have done is not the wise course: If your power is not firmly enough established, you will seem to be pushing people out of the limelight. To be a brilliant exploiter of talent your position must be unshakable, or you will be accused of deception.

Be sure you know when letting other people share the credit serves your purpose. It is especially important to not be greedy when you have a master above you. President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to the People’s Republic of China was originally his idea, but it might never have come off but for the deft diplomacy of Henry Kissinger. Nor would it have been as successful without Kissinger’s skills. Still, when the time came to take credit, Kissinger adroitly let Nixon take the lion’s share. Knowing that the truth would come out later, he was careful not to jeopardize his standing in the short term by hogging the limelight. Kissinger played the game expertly: He took credit for the work of those below him while graciously giving credit for his own labors to those above. That is the way to play the game.

Law 8

Make other People come to you – use Bait if Necessary

When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains – then attack. You hold the cards.

Reversal:

Although it is generally the wiser policy to make others exhaust themselves chasing you, there are opposite cases where striking suddenly and aggressively at the enemy so demoralizes him that his energies sink. Instead of making others come to you, you go to them, force the issue, take the lead. Fast attack can be an awesome weapon, for it forces the other person to react without the time to think or plan. With no time to think, people make errors of judgment, and are thrown on the defensive. This tactic is the obverse of waiting and baiting, but it serves the same function: You make your enemy respond on your terms.

Men like Cesare Borgia and Napoleon used the element of speed to intimidate and control. A rapid and unforeseen move is terrifying and demoralizing. You must choose your tactics depending on the situation. If you have time on your side, and know that you and your enemies are at least at equal strength, then deplete their strength by making them come to you. If time is against you—your enemies are weaker, and waiting will only give them the chance to recover—give them no such chance. Strike quickly and they have nowhere to go. As the boxer Joe Louis put it, “He can run, but he can’t hide.”

Law 9

Win through your Actions, Never through Argument

Any momentary triumph you think gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory: The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.

Reversal:

Verbal argument has one vital use in the realm of power: To distract and cover your tracks when you are practicing deception or are caught in a lie. In such cases it is to your advantage to argue with all the conviction you can muster. Draw the other person into an argument to distract them from your deceptive move. When caught in a lie, the more emotional and certain you appear, the less likely it seems that you are lying.

Law 10

Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky

You can die from someone else’s misery – emotional states are as infectious as disease. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you.

Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.

Law 11

Learn to Keep People Dependent on You

To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.

Reversal:

The weakness of making others depend on you is that you are in some measure dependent on them. But trying to move beyond that point means getting rid of those above you—it means standing alone, depending on no one. Such is the monopolistic drive of a J. P. Morgan or a John D. Rockefeller—to drive out all competition, to be in complete control. If you can corner the market, so much the better.

No such independence comes without a price. You are forced to isolate yourself. Monopolies often turn inward and destroy themselves from the internal pressure. They also stir up powerful resentment, making their enemies bond together to fight them. The drive for complete control is often ruinous and fruitless. Interdependence remains the law, independence a rare and often fatal exception. Better to place yourself in a position of mutual dependence, then, and to follow this critical law rather than look for its reversal. You will not have the unbearable pressure of being on top, and the master above you will in essence be your slave, for he will depend on you.

Law 12

Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim

One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A timely gift – a Trojan horse – will serve the same purpose.

Reversal:

When you have a history of deceit behind you, no amount of honesty, generosity, or kindness will fool people. In fact, it will only call attention to itself. Once people have come to see you as deceitful, to act honest all of a sudden is simply suspicious. In these cases, it is better to play the rogue.

Law 13

When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude

If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for himself.

Reversal:

Some people will see an appeal to their self-interest as ugly and ignoble. They actually prefer to be able to exercise charity, mercy, and justice, which are their ways of feeling superior to you: When you beg them for help, you emphasize their power and position. They are strong enough to need nothing from you except the chance to feel superior. This is the wine that intoxicates them. They are dying to fund your project, to introduce you to powerful people—provided, of course, that all this is done in public, and for a good cause (usually the more public, the better). Not everyone, then, can be approached through cynical self-interest. Some people will be put off by it, because they don’t want to seem to be motivated by such things. They need opportunities to display their good heart.

Do not be shy. Give them that opportunity. It’s not as if you are conning them by asking for help—it is really their pleasure to give, and to be seen giving. You must distinguish the differences among powerful people and figure out what makes them tick. When they ooze greed, do not appeal to their charity. When they want to look charitable and noble, do not appeal to their greed.

Law 14

Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

Reversal:

Information is critical to power, but just as you spy on other people, you must be prepared for them to spy on you. One of the most potent weapons in the battle for information, then, is giving out false information. As Winston Churchill said, “Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” You must surround yourself with such a bodyguard, so that your truth cannot be penetrated. By planting the information of your choice, you control the game.

Law 15

Crush your Enemy Totally

All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely. (Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.) If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation: The enemy will recover, and will seek revenge. Crush him, not only in body but in spirit.

Reversal:

This law should very rarely be ignored, but it does sometimes happen that it is better to let your enemies destroy themselves, if such a thing is possible, than to make them suffer by your hand.

Law 16

Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor

Too much circulation makes the price go down: The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear. If you are already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about, even more admired. You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.

Reversal:

This law only applies once a certain level of power has been attained. The need to withdraw only comes after you have established your presence; leave too early and you do not increase your respect, you are simply forgotten. When you are first entering onto the world’s stage, create an image that is recognizable, reproducible, and is seen everywhere. Until that status is attained, absence is dangerous—instead of fanning the flames, it will extinguish them.

In love and seduction, similarly, absence is only effective once you have surrounded the other with your image, been seen by him or her everywhere. Everything must remind your lover of your presence, so that when you do choose to be away, the lover will always be thinking of you, will always be seeing you in his or her mind’s eye.

Remember: In the beginning, make yourself not scarce but omnipresent. Only what is seen, appreciated, and loved will be missed in its absence.

Law 17

Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability

Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.

Reversal:

Sometimes predictability can work in your favor: By creating a pattern for people to be familiar and comfortable with, you can lull them to sleep. They have prepared everything according to their preconceived notions about you. You can use this in several ways: First, it sets up a smoke screen, a comfortable front behind which you can carry on deceptive actions. Second, it allows you on rare occasions to do something completely against the pattern, unsettling your opponent so deeply he will fall to the ground without being pushed.

A warning: Unpredictability can work against you sometimes, especially if you are in a subordinate position. There are times when it is better to let people feel comfortable and settled around you than to disturb them. Too much unpredictability will be seen as a sign of indecisiveness, or even of some more serious psychic problem. Patterns are powerful, and you can terrify people by disrupting them. Such power should only be used judiciously.

Law 18

Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous

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

Reversal:

It is hardly ever right and propitious to choose isolation. Without keeping an ear on what is happening in the streets, you will be unable to protect yourself. About the only thing that constant human contact cannot facilitate is thought. The weight of society’s pressure to conform, and the lack of distance from other people, can make it impossible to think clearly about what is going on around you. As a temporary recourse, then, isolation can help you to gain perspective. Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons, where we have nothing to do but think. Machiavelli could write The Prince only once he found himself in exile and isolated on a farm far from the political intrigues of Florence.

The danger is, however, that this kind of isolation will sire all kinds of strange and perverted ideas. You may gain perspective on the larger picture, but you lose a sense of your own smallness and limitations. Also, the more isolated you are, the harder it is to break out of your isolation when you choose to—it sinks you deep into its quicksand without your noticing. If you need time to think, then, choose isolation only as a last resort, and only in small doses. Be careful to keep your way back into society open.

Law 19

Know Who You’re 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.

Law 20

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.

Reversal:

Both parts of this law will turn against you if you take it too far. The game proposed here is delicate and difficult. If you play too many parties against one another, they will see through the maneuver and will gang up on you. If you keep your growing number of suitors waiting too long, you will inspire not desire but distrust. People will start to lose interest. Eventually you may find it worthwhile to commit to one side—if only for appearances’ sake, to prove you are capable of attachment.

Even then, however, the key will be to maintain your inner independence—to keep yourself from getting emotionally involved. Preserve the unspoken option of being able to leave at any moment and reclaim your freedom if the side you are allied with starts to collapse. The friends you made while you were being courted will give you plenty of places to go once you jump ship.

Law 21

Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber than your Mark

No one likes feeling stupider than the next persons. The trick, 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.

Reversal:

To reveal the true nature of your intelligence rarely pays; you should get in the habit of downplaying it at all times. If people inadvertently learn the truth—that you are actually much smarter than you look—they will admire you more for being discreet than for making your brilliance show. At the start of your climb to the top, of course, you cannot play too stupid: You may want to let your bosses know, in a subtle way, that you are smarter than the competition around you. As you climb the ladder, however, you should to some degree try to dampen your brilliance.

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.

Law 22

Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power

When you are weaker, never fight for honor’s sake; choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror, 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.

Reversal:

The point of surrendering is to save your hide for a later date when you can reassert yourself. It is precisely to avoid martyrdom that one surrenders, but there are times when the enemy will not relent, and martyrdom seems the only way out. Furthermore, if you are willing to die, others may gain power and inspiration from your example. Yet martyrdom, surrender’s reversal, is a messy, inexact tactic, and is as violent as the aggression it combats. For every famous martyr there are thousands more who have inspired neither a religion nor a rebellion, so that if martyrdom does sometimes grant a certain power, it does so unpredictably. More important, you will not be around to enjoy that power, such as it is. And there is finally something selfish and arrogant about martyrs, as if they felt their followers were less important than their own glory.

When power deserts you, it is best to ignore this Law’s reversal. Leave martyrdom alone: The pendulum will swing back your way eventually, and you should stay alive to see it.

Law 23

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.

Reversal:

There are dangers in concentration, and moments when dispersion is the proper tactical move. Fighting the Nationalists for control of China, Mao Tse-tung and the Communists fought a protracted war on several fronts, using sabotage and ambush as their main weapons. Dispersal is often suitable for the weaker side; it is, in fact, a crucial principle of guerrilla warfare. When fighting a stronger army, concentrating your forces only makes you an easier target—better to dissolve into the scenery and frustrate your enemy with the elusiveness of your presence.

Tying yourself to a single source of power has one preeminent danger: If that person dies, leaves, or falls from grace, you suffer. This is what happened to Cesare Borgia, who derived his power from his father, Pope Alexander VI. It was the pope who gave Cesare armies to fight with and wars to wage in his name. When he suddenly died (perhaps from poison), Cesare was as good as dead. He had made far too many enemies over the years, and was now without his father’s protection. In cases when you may need protection, then, it is often wise to entwine yourself around several sources of power. Such a move would be especially prudent in periods of great tumult and violent change, or when your enemies are numerous. The more patrons and masters you serve the less risk you run if one of them falls from power. Such dispersion will even allow you to play one off against the other. Even if you concentrate on the single source of power, you still must practice caution, and prepare for the day when your master or patron is no longer there to help you.

Finally, being too single-minded in purpose can make you an intolerable bore, especially in the arts. The Renaissance painter Paolo Uccello was so obsessed with perspective that his paintings look lifeless and contrived. Whereas Leonardo da Vinci interested himself in everything—architecture, painting, warfare, sculpture, mechanics. Diffusion was the source of his power. But such genius is rare, and the rest of us are better off erring on the side of intensity.

Law 24

Play the Perfect Courtier

The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the mot oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.

Law 25

Re-Create 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 if for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions – your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

Law 26

Keep Your Hands Clean

You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s-paws to disguise your involvement.

Reversal:

The cat’s-paw and the scapegoat must be used with extreme caution and delicacy. They are like screens that hide your own involvement in dirty work from the public; if at any moment the screen is lifted and you are seen as the manipulator, the puppet master, the whole dynamic turns around—your hand will be seen everywhere, and you will be blamed for misfortunes you may have had nothing to do with. Once the truth is revealed, events will snowball beyond your control.

If you have to use a cat’s-paw or a scapegoat in an action of great consequence, be very careful: Too much can go wrong. It is often wiser to use such dupes in more innocent endeavors, where mistakes or miscalculations will cause no serious harm. Finally, there are moments when it is advantageous to not disguise your involvement or responsibility, but rather to take the blame yourself for some mistake. If you have power and are secure in it, you should sometimes play the penitent: With a sorrowful look, you ask for forgiveness from those weaker than you. It is the ploy of the king who makes a show of his own sacrifices for the good of the people. Similarly, upon occasion you may want to appear as the agent of punishment in order to instill fear and trembling in your subordinates. Instead of the cat‘s-paw you show your own mighty hand as a threatening gesture. Play such a card sparingly. If you play it too often, fear will turn into resentment and hatred. Before you know it, such emotions will spark a vigorous opposition that will someday bring you down. Get in the habit of using a cat’s-paw—it is far safer.

Law 27

Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cult like Following

People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.

Reversal:

One reason to create a following is that a group is often easier to deceive than an individual, and turns over to you that much more power. This comes, however, with a danger: If at any moment the group sees through you, you will find yourself facing not one deceived soul but an angry crowd that will tear you to pieces as avidly as it once followed you. The charlatans constantly faced this danger, and were always ready to move out of town as it inevitably became clear that their elixirs did not work and their ideas were sham. Too slow and they paid with their lives. In playing with the crowd, you are playing with fire, and must constantly keep an eye out for any sparks of doubt, any enemies who will turn the crowd against you. When you play with the emotions of a crowd, you have to know how to adapt, attuning yourself instantaneously to all of the moods and desires that a group will produce. Use spies, be on top of everything, and keep your bags packed.

For this reason, you may often prefer to deal with people one by one. Isolating them from their normal milieu can have the same effect as putting them in a group—it makes them more prone to suggestion and intimidation. Choose the right sucker and if he eventually sees through you he may prove easier to escape than a crowd.

Law 28

Enter Action with Boldness

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

Reversal:

Boldness should never be the strategy behind all of your actions. It is a tactical instrument, to be used at the right moment. Plan and think ahead, and make the final element the bold move that will bring you success. In other words, since boldness is a learned response, it is also one that you learn to control and utilize at will. To go through life armed only with audacity would be tiring and also fatal. You would offend too many people, as is proven by those who cannot control their boldness. One such person was Lola Montez; her audacity brought her triumphs and led to her seduction of the king of Bavaria. But since she could never rein in her boldness, it also led to her downfall—in Bavaria, in England, wherever she turned. It crossed the border between boldness and the appearance of cruelty, even insanity. Ivan the Terrible suffered the same fate: When the power of boldness brought him success, he stuck to it, to the point where it became a lifelong pattern of violence and sadism. He lost the ability to tell when boldness was appropriate and when it was not.

Timidity has no place in the realm of power; you will often benefit, however, by being able to feign it. At that point, of course, it is no longer timidity but an offensive weapon: You are luring people in with your show of shyness, all the better to pounce on them boldly later.

Law 29

Plan All the Way to the End

The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and give the glory to others. By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead.

Reversal:

It is a cliché among strategists that your plan must include alternatives and have a degree of flexibility. That is certainly true. If you are locked into a plan too rigidly, you will be unable to deal with sudden shifts of fortune. Once you have examined the future possibilities and decided on your target, you must build in alternatives and be open to new routes toward your goal.

Most people, however, lose less from over-planning and rigidity than from vagueness and a tendency to improvise constantly in the face of circumstance. There is no real purpose in contemplating a reversal to this Law, then, for no good can come from refusing to think far into the future and planning to the end. If you are clear- and far-thinking enough, you will understand that the future is uncertain, and that you must be open to adaptation. Only having a clear objective and a far-reaching plan allows you that freedom.

Law 30

Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless

Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work – it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.

Reversal:

The secrecy with which you surround your actions must seem lighthearted in spirit. A zeal to conceal your work creates an unpleasant, almost paranoiac impression: you are taking the game too seriously. Houdini was careful to make the concealment of his tricks seem a game, all part of the show. Never show your work until it is finished, but if you put too much effort into keeping it under wraps you will be like the painter Pontormo, who spent the last years of his life hiding his frescoes from the public eye and only succeeded in driving himself mad.

Always keep your sense of humor about yourself. There are also times when revealing the inner workings of your projects can prove worthwhile. It all depends on your audience’s taste, and on the times in which you operate. P. T. Barnum recognized that his public wanted to feel involved in his shows, and that understanding his tricks delighted them, partly, perhaps, because implicitly debunking people who kept their sources of power hidden from the masses appealed to America’s democratic spirit. The public also appreciated the showman’s humor and honesty. Barnum took this to the extreme of publicizing his own humbuggery in his popular autobiography, written when his career was at its height.

As long as the partial disclosure of tricks and techniques is carefully planned, rather than the result of an uncontrollable need to blab, it is the ultimate in cleverness. It gives the audience the illusion of being superior and involved, even while much of what you do remains concealed from them.

Law 31

Control the Options: Get Others to Play with the Cards you Deal

The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice: Your victims feel they are in control, but are actually your puppets. Give people options that come out in your favor whichever one they choose. Force them to make choices between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose. Put them on the horns of a dilemma: They are gored wherever they turn.

Reversal:

Controlling the options has one main purpose: to disguise yourself as the agent of power and punishment. The tactic works best, then, for those whose power is fragile, and who cannot operate too openly without incurring suspicion, resentment, and anger. Even as a general rule, however, it is rarely wise to be seen as exerting power directly and forcefully, no matter how secure or strong you are. It is usually more elegant and more effective to give people the illusion of choice.

On the other hand, by limiting other people’s options you sometimes limit your own. There are situations in which it is to your advantage to allow your rivals a large degree of freedom: As you watch them operate, you give yourself rich opportunities to spy, gather information, and plan your deceptions. The nineteenth-century banker James Rothschild liked this method: He felt that if he tried to control his opponents’ movements, he lost the chance to observe their strategy and plan a more effective course. The more freedom he allowed them in the short term, the more forcefully he could act against them in the long run.

Law 32

Play to People’s Fantasies

The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes for disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.

Reversal:

If there is power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses, there is also danger. Fantasy usually contains an element of play—the public half realizes it is being duped, but it keeps the dream alive anyway, relishing the entertainment and the temporary diversion from the everyday that you are providing. So keep it light—never come too close to the place where you are actually expected to produce results. That place may prove extremely hazardous.

After Bragadino established himself in Munich, he found that the sober-minded Bavarians had far less faith in alchemy than the temperamental Venetians. Only the duke really believed in it, for he needed it desperately to rescue him from the hopeless mess he was in. As Bragadino played his familiar waiting game, accepting gifts and expecting patience, the public grew angry. Money was being spent and was yielding no results. In 1592 the Bavarians demanded justice, and eventually Bragadino found himself swinging from the gallows. As before, he had promised and had not delivered, but this time he had misjudged the forbearance of his hosts, and his inability to fulfill their fantasy proved fatal.

One last thing: Never make the mistake of imagining that fantasy is always fantastical. It certainly contrasts with reality, but reality itself is sometimes so theatrical and stylized that fantasy becomes a desire for simple things. The image Abraham Lincoln created of himself, for example, as a homespun country lawyer with a beard, made him the common man’s president.

P. T. Barnum created a successful act with Tom Thumb, a dwarf who dressed up as famous leaders of the past, such as Napoleon, and lampooned them wickedly. The show delighted everyone, right up to Queen Victoria, by appealing to the fantasy of the time: Enough of the vainglorious rulers of history, the common man knows best. Tom Thumb reversed the familiar pattern of fantasy in which the strange and unknown becomes the ideal. But the act still obeyed the Law, for underlying it was the fantasy that the simple man is without problems, and is happier than the powerful and the rich.

Both Lincoln and Tom Thumb played the commoner but carefully maintained their distance. Should you play with such a fantasy, you too must carefully cultivate distance and not allow your “common” persona to become too familiar or it will not project as fantasy.

Law 33

Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew

Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.

Reversal:

Playing on people’s weakness has one significant danger: You may stir up an action you cannot control.

In your games of power, you always look several steps ahead and plan accordingly. And you exploit the fact that other people are more emotional and incapable of such foresight. But when you play on their vulnerabilities, the areas over which they have least control, you can unleash emotions that will upset your plans. Push timid people into bold action and they may go too far; answer their need for attention or recognition and they may need more than you want to give them. The helpless, childish element you are playing on can turn against you.

The more emotional the weakness, the greater the potential danger. Know the limits to this game, then, and never get carried away by your control over your victims. You are after power, not the thrill of control.

Law 34

Be Royal in your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be treated like one

The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated; In the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you. For a king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others. By acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown.

Reversal:

The idea behind the assumption of regal confidence is to set yourself apart from other people, but if you take this too far it will be your undoing. Never make the mistake of thinking that you elevate yourself by humiliating people. Also, it is never a good idea to loom too high above the crowd—you make an easy target. And there are times when an aristocratic pose is eminently dangerous.

Finally, it is true that you can sometimes find some power through affecting a kind of earthy vulgarity, which will prove amusing by its extreme-ness. But to the extent that you win this game by going beyond the limits, separating yourself from other people by appearing even more vulgar than they are, the game is dangerous: There will always be people more vulgar than you, and you will easily be replaced the following season by someone younger and worse.

Law 35

Master the Art of Timing

Never seem to be in a hurry – hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself, and over time. Always seem patient, as if you know that everything will come to you eventually. Become a detective of the right moment; sniff out the spirit of the times, the trends that will carry you to power. Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe, and to strike fiercely when it has reached fruition.

Law 36

Disdain Things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best Revenge

By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem.

Reversal:

You must play the card of contempt with care and delicacy. Most small troubles will vanish on their own if you leave them be; but some will grow and fester unless you attend to them. Ignore a person of inferior stature and the next time you look he has become a serious rival, and your contempt has made him vengeful as well. The great princes of Renaissance Italy chose to ignore Cesare Borgia at the outset of his career as a young general in the army of his father, Pope Alexander VI. By the time they paid attention it was too late—the cub was now a lion, gobbling up chunks of Italy. Often, then, while you show contempt publicly you will also need to keep an eye on the problem privately, monitoring its status and making sure it goes away. Do not let it become a cancerous cell.

Develop the skill of sensing problems when they are still small and taking care of them before they become intractable. Learn to distinguish between the potentially disastrous and the mildly irritating, the nuisance that will quietly go away on its own. In either case, though, never completely take your eye off it. As long as it is alive it can smolder and spark into life.

Law 37

Create Compelling Spectacles

Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power – everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.

Law 38

Think as you like but Behave like others

If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior. It is far safer to blend in and nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness.

Reversal:

The only time it is worth standing out is when you already stand out—when you have achieved an unshakable position of power, and can display your difference from others as a sign of the distance between you. As president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson would sometimes hold meetings while he sat on the toilet. Since no one else either could or would claim such a “privilege,” Johnson was showing people that he did not have to observe the protocols and niceties of others. The Roman emperor Caligula played the same game: He would wear a woman’s negligee, or a bathrobe, to receive important visitors. He even went so far as to have his horse elected consul. But it backfired, for the people hated Caligula, and his gestures eventually brought his overthrow. The truth is that even those who attain the heights of power would be better off at least affecting the common touch, for at some point they may need popular support.

Finally, there is always a place for the gadfly, the person who successfully defies custom and mocks what has grown lifeless in a culture. Oscar Wilde, for example, achieved considerable social power on this foundation: He made it clear that he disdained the usual ways of doing things, and when he gave public readings his audiences not only expected him to insult them but welcomed it. We notice, however, that his eccentric role eventually destroyed him. Even had he come to a better end, remember that he possessed an unusual genius: Without his gift to amuse and delight, his barbs would simply have offended people.

Law 39

Stir up Waters to Catch Fish

Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies off-balance: Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings.

Reversal:

When playing with people’s emotions you have to be careful. Study the enemy beforehand: Some fish are best left at the bottom of the pond. The leaders of the city of Tyre, capital of ancient Phoenicia, felt confident they could withstand Alexander the Great, who had conquered the Orient but had not attacked their city, which stood well protected on the water. They sent ambassadors to Alexander saying that although they would recognize him as emperor they would not allow him or his forces to enter Tyre. This of course enraged him, and he immediately mounted a siege. For four months the city withstood him, and finally he decided that the struggle was not worth it, and that he would come to terms with the Tyrians. But they, feeling that they had already baited Alexander and gotten away with it, and confident that they could withstand him, refused to negotiate—in fact they killed his messengers. This pushed Alexander over the edge. Now it did not matter to him how long the siege lasted or how large an army it needed; he had the resources, and would do whatever it took. He remounted his assault so strenuously that he captured Tyre within days, burned it to the ground, and sold its people into slavery. You can bait the powerful and get them to commit and divide their forces as Sun Pin did, but test the waters first. Find the gap in their strength. If there is no gap—if they are impossibly strong—you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by provoking them. Choose carefully whom you bait, and never stir up the sharks.

Finally, there are times when a well-timed burst of anger can do you good, but your anger must be manufactured and under your control. Then you can determine exactly how and on whom it will fall. Never stir up reactions that will work against you in the long run. And use your thunder-bolts rarely, to make them the more intimidating and meaningful. Whether purposefully staged or not, if your outbursts come too often, they will lose their power.

Law 40

Despise the Free Lunch

What is offered for free is dangerous – it usually involves either a trick or a hidden obligation. What has worth, is worth paying for. By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit. It is also often wise to pay the full price – there is no cutting corners with excellence. Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power.

Reversal:

The powerful never forget that what is offered for free is inevitably a trick. Friends who offer favors without asking for payment will later want something far dearer than the money you would have paid them. The bargain has hidden problems, both material and psychological. Learn to pay, then, and to pay well. On the other hand, this Law offers great opportunities for swindling and deception if you apply it from the other side. Dangling the lure of a free lunch is the con artist’s stock in trade.

No man was better at this than the most successful con artist of our age, Joseph Weil, a.k.a. “The Yellow Kid.” The Yellow Kid learned early that what made his swindles possible was his fellow humans’ greed. “This desire to get something for nothing,” he once wrote, “has been very costly to many people who have dealt with me and with other con men.... When people learn—as I doubt they will—that they can’t get something for nothing, crime will diminish and we shall all live in greater harmony.”

Over the years Weil devised many ways to seduce people with the prospect of easy money. He would hand out “free” real estate—who could resist such an offer?—and then the suckers would learn they had to pay $25 to register the sale. Since the land was free, it seemed worth the high fee, and the Yellow Kid would make thousands of dollars on the phony registration. In exchange he would give his suckers a phony deed. Other times, he would tell suckers about a fixed horse race, or a stock that would earn 200 percent in a few weeks. As he spun his stories he would watch the sucker’s eyes open wide at the thought of a free lunch.

Law 41

Avoid Stepping into a Great Man’s Shoes

What happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after. If you succeed a great man or have a famous parent, you will have to accomplish double their achievements to outshine them. Do not get lost in their shadow, or stuck in a past not of your own making: Establish your own name and identity by changing course. Slay the overbearing father, disparage his legacy, and gain power by shining in your own way.

Reversal:

The shadow of a great predecessor could be used to advantage if it is chosen as a trick, a tactic that can be discarded once it has brought you power. Napoleon III used the name and legend of his illustrious grand-uncle Napoleon Bonaparte to help him become first president and then emperor of France. Once on the throne, however, he did not stay tied to the past; he quickly showed how different his reign would be, and was careful to keep the public from expecting him to attain the heights that Bonaparte had attained. The past often has elements worth appropriating, qualities that would be foolish to reject out of a need to distinguish yourself. Even Alexander the Great recognized and was influenced by his father’s skill in organizing an army. Making a display of doing things differently from your predecessor can make you seem childish and in fact out of control, unless your actions have a logic of their own.

Joseph II, son of the Austrian empress Maria Theresa, made a show of doing the exact opposite of his mother—dressing like an ordinary citizen, staying in inns instead of palaces, appearing as the “people’s emperor.” Maria Theresa, on the other hand, had been regal and aristocratic. The problem was that she had also been beloved, an empress who ruled wisely after years of learning the hard way. If you have the kind of intelligence and instinct that will point you in the right direction, playing the rebel will not be dangerous. But if you are mediocre, as Joseph II was in comparison to his mother, you are better off learning from your predecessor’s knowledge and experience, which are based on something real.

Finally, it is often wise to keep an eye on the young, your future rivals in power. Just as you try to rid yourself of your father, they will soon play the same trick on you, denigrating everything you have accomplished. Just as you rise by rebelling against the past, keep an eye on those rising from below, and never give them the chance to do the same to you.

The great Baroque artist and architect Pietro Bernini was a master at sniffing out younger potential rivals and keeping them in his shadow. One day a young stonemason named Francesco Borromini showed Bernini his architectural sketches. Recognizing his talent immediately, Bernini instantly hired Borromini as his assistant, which delighted the young man but was actually only a tactic to keep him close at hand, so that he could play psychological games on him and create in him a kind of inferiority complex. And indeed, despite Borromini’s brilliance, Bernini has the greater fame. His strategy with Borromini he made a lifelong practice: Fearing that the great sculptor Alessandro Algardi, for example, would eclipse him in fame, he arranged it so that Algardi could only find work as his assistant. And any assistant who rebelled against Bernini and tried to strike out on his own would find his career ruined.

Law 42

Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will Scatter

Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual – the stirrer, the arrogant underling, the poisoned of goodwill. If you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence. Do not wait for the troubles they cause to multiply, do not try to negotiate with them – they are irredeemable. Neutralize their influence by isolating or banishing them. Strike at the source of the trouble and the sheep will scatter.

Reversal:

“Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge,” writes Machiavelli. If you act to isolate your enemy, make sure he lacks the means to repay the favor. If you apply this Law, in other words, apply it from a position of superiority, so that you have nothing to fear from his resentment.

Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln’s successor as U.S. president, saw Ulysses S. Grant as a troublesome member of his government. So he isolated Grant, as a prelude to forcing him out. This only enraged the great general, however, who responded by forming a support base in the Republican party and going on to become the next president. It would have been far wiser to keep a man like Grant in the fold, where he could do less harm, than to make him revengeful. And so you may often find it better to keep people on your side, where you can watch them, than to risk creating an angry enemy. Keeping them close, you can secretly whittle away at their support base, so that when the time comes to cut them loose they will fall fast and hard without knowing what hit them.

Law 43

Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others

Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear and what they fear. Ignore the hearts and minds of others and they will grow to hate you.

Law 44

Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect

The mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for deception: When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your strategy. The Mirror Effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share their values; by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson. Few can resist the power of Mirror Effect.

Law 45

Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once

Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt. If you are new to a position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respecting the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.

Reversal:

The past is a corpse to be used as you see fit. If what happened in the recent past was painful and harsh, it is self-destructive to associate yourself with it. When Napoleon came to power, the French Revolution was fresh in everyone’s minds. If the court that he established had borne any resemblance to the lavish court of Louis XVI and Marie- Antoinette, his courtiers would have spent all their time worrying about their own necks. Instead, Napoleon established a court remarkable for its sobriety and lack of ostentation. It was the court of a man who valued work and military virtues. This new form seemed appropriate and reassuring.

In other words, pay attention to the times. But understand: If you make a bold change from the past, you must avoid at all costs the appearance of a void or vacuum, or you will create terror. Even an ugly recent history will seem preferable to an empty space. Fill that space immediately with new rituals and forms. Soothing and growing familiar, these will secure your position among the masses.

Finally, the arts, fashion, and technology would seem to be areas in which power would come from creating a radical rupture with the past and appearing cutting edge. Indeed, such a strategy can bring great power, but it has many dangers. It is inevitable that your innovations will be outdone by someone else. You have little control— someone younger and fresher moves in a sudden new direction, making your bold innovation of yesterday seem tiresome and tame today. You are forever playing catchup; your power is tenuous and short-lived. You want a power built on something more solid. Using the past, tinkering with tradition, playing with convention to subvert it will give your creations something more than a momentary appeal. Periods of dizzying change disguise the fact that a yearning for the past will inevitably creep back in. In the end, using the past for your own purposes will bring you more power than trying to cut it out completely—a futile and self-destructive endeavor.

Law 46

Never appear too Perfect

Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.

Reversal:

The reason for being careful with the envious is that they are so indirect, and will find innumerable ways to undermine you. But treading carefully around them will often only make their envy worse. They sense that you are being cautious, and it registers as yet another sign of your superiority. That is why you must act before envy takes root.

Once envy is there, however, whether through your fault or not, it is sometimes best to affect the opposite approach: Display the utmost disdain for those who envy you. Instead of hiding your perfection, make it obvious. Make every new triumph an opportunity to make the envious squirm. Your good fortune and power become their living hell. If you attain a position of unimpeachable power, their envy will have no effect on you, and you will have the best revenge of all: They are trapped in envy while you are free in your power.

This is how Michelangelo triumphed over the venomous architect Bramante, who turned Pope Julius against Michelangelo’s design for his tomb. Bramante envied Michelangelo’s godlike skills, and to this one triumph—the aborted tomb project—he thought to add another, by pushing the pope to commission Michelangelo to paint the murals in the Sistine Chapel. The project would take years, during which Michelangelo would accomplish no more of his brilliant sculptures. Furthermore, Bramante considered Michelangelo not nearly as skilled in painting as in sculpture. The chapel would spoil his image as the perfect artist.

Michelangelo saw the trap and wanted to turn down the commission, but he could not refuse the pope, so he accepted it without complaint. Then, however, he used Bramante’s envy to spur him to greater heights, making the Sistine Chapel his most perfect work of all. Every time Bramante heard of it or saw it, he felt more oppressed by his own envy—the sweetest and most lasting revenge you can exact on the envious.

Law 47

Do not go Past the Mark you Aimed for; In Victory, Learn when to Stop

The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed for, and by going too far, you make more enemies than you defeat. Do not allow success to go to your head. There is no substitute for strategy and careful planning. Set a goal, and when you reach it, stop.

Reversal:

As Machiavelli says, either destroy a man or leave him alone entirely. Inflicting half punishment or mild injury will only create an enemy whose bitterness will grow with time, and who will take revenge. When you beat an enemy, then, make your victory complete. Crush him into nonexis tence. In the moment of victory, you do not restrain yourself from crushing the enemy you have defeated, but rather from needlessly advancing against others. Be merciless with your enemy, but do not create new enemies by overreaching.

There are some who become more cautious than ever after a victory, which they see as just giving them more possessions to worry about and protect. Your caution after victory should never make you hesitate, or lose momentum, but rather act as a safeguard against rash action. On the other hand, momentum as a phenomenon is greatly overrated.

You create your own successes, and if they follow one upon the other, it is your own doing. Belief in momentum will only make you emotional, less prone to act strategically, and more apt to repeat the same methods. Leave momentum for those who have nothing better to rely upon.

Law 48

Assume Formlessness

By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.

Reversal:

Using space to disperse and create an abstract pattern should not mean forsaking the concentration of your power when it is valuable to you. Formlessness makes your enemies hunt all over for you, scattering their own forces, mental as well as physical. When you finally engage them, though, hit them with a powerful, concentrated blow. That is how Mao succeeded against the Nationalists: He broke their forces into small, isolated units, which he then could easily overwhelm with a strong attack. The law of concentration prevailed.

When you play with formlessness, keep on top of the process, and keep your long term strategy in mind. When you assume a form and go on the attack, use concentration, speed, and power. As Mao said, “When we fight you, we make sure you can’t get away.”

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

The Journey (Tarun Deep Singh, Genre: Philosophy) - Book Summary



Book Genre: Self-help, philosophy

Blurb

Every human is a seeker of ‘Truth’. But almost all give up in the middle since they are threatened by their alter ego, ‘The Fallen One’. The first step is to accept that yes, ‘I’ am ‘The Fallen One’ and then proceed for soul searching. This is unstable equilibrium so the caution has to be practiced. So, I would like to reach ‘Youth of India’ in particular by presenting them what ‘search for self-realization’ has to offer. It is not easy, perhaps the most difficult task to be undertaken, but the persistence is the key. The book also contains few concepts related to science and mathematics which should interest logical minds. It is also meant for those who have gone under the same set of experience while performing soul search.

Chapter 1 – The Fallen One

In this chapter the main focus is on the very entity responsible for challenging virtues in an individual. This is ‘something’ which is not separable for any of us. It is just a myth that we consider him to be something not part of us, it seduces us to commit evil. So we just guard ourselves from outer world but what about inner aspect which we just ignore. We believe that propagator of evil is ruler of Hell, which resides outside, so it does make sense to talk about concepts of Heaven and Hell. And how far they have penetrated our psychology? We are keen on finding answers what will happen after death but do we seriously try to change the way we live, something which can change the way we perceive and accept the end.

Chapter 2 – The War: Dark and Light

What will an individual do when he is threatened? Most of us will become violent and try to justify our actions by calling it an act of self-defense. That’s the impact evil has on inner world of an individual, the noises in forms of evil thoughts which originates in his mind. But he does not realize that he is just fighting under their influence since light has nothing to do with any dispute. The seeker is forced to engage since he is not yet evolved as source of light but he should be selective in such battles else he will never experience a respite. The very break he needs to continue his journey.

Chapter 3 – Faith Hurts

A stand has to be taken in the war. Either an individual will surrender to ‘The Fallen One’ or he will keep fighting. But sooner or later his resources will decline and he has to grab something to ensure continuation of the journey. That something is ‘Faith’. But getting attached to ‘Faith’ brings pains, sufferings and feeling of burning. The reason faith forbids engaging in any futile activity which may feed ‘The Fallen One’. Just imagine starving ‘The Fallen One’ who have been fed incessantly will react. He will grow aggressive will try to tear the new beliefs in pieces and that gives a feeling to an individual that faith hurts.

Chapter 4 – Who Am I?

Faith has its own way of awakening. Answers flow, doubts vaporize and sometimes events are of such magnitude happen that an individual may not have ever comprehended them. He would not have asked answers for few questions but still they are revealed. In fact, he would not have even asked such questions. So, answers to such questions may be discarded as mere illusion or myths of sleeping body but in reality they are indications that consciousness is gaining dynamism; then, the perception and outlook of the traveler changes. All the earlier believes begin to fall apart. A new human rises and the basic question about our origin begins to dissolve. An individual who always believed to have separate identity throughout his journey so far finds out that he is just an infinitesimal part of Infinite.

Chapter 5 – Death: The Biggest Lie?

Matter, any physical form, has inevitable end. Why to ignore this fact, the basis of any life? Death is not being afraid of but it has to be respected since it will cease the opportunity form consciousness to continue further. But is it really the ‘Truth’? That is something which is revealed during the journey. No it is not since few destined one escaped it by becoming eternal. And then the ‘Death’ just appears as annihilation of physical form not of the consciousness.

Chapter 6 – The Selfless Warrior: Consciousness at The Highest Level

Individual have realized and accepted that Death is inevitable. But that is only by physical aspect. If the consciousness is raised to highest level the fear of death will just vanish. And right there a warrior is born. His agenda is not to raise war but to initiate the war against evil irrespective of fact whether it is found inside or outside. He does not make errors in selecting the war since he is the only one to recognize right and wrong. He does not carry out order from any living person, like in army a soldier has to respond to orders from his superior; He just listens to the will of ‘The One’. He is not seeker anymore but ‘A Transformation’ whom ‘Light’ has Himself designated as ‘His Own’.

Saturday, June 1, 2019

A Game of Thrones (by George RR Martin) - book review




People ask me from time to time, why do you read so much? And I quote them a phrase from one of my favorite books: “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That’s why I read so much Jon Snow.”
And here's what Tyrion Lannister had to say about 'death':
Here's what the Night's Watch think about the dead and the death: Do the dead frighten you?
I hope at least some of you would have figured out which book am I talking about. It’s A Game of Thrones, the first book of the series “A Song of Ice and Fire”, by George RR Martin, first published in 1996. The HBO produced TV adaptation of this book is insanely famous across the world, mainly because of the bold content and gruesome visuals. However, there’s more, much more to the book that one can enjoy, and learn from. Despite being an intricately crafted monolith of a book, stretching to a mind numbing length of 800 pages, akin to the fictional “WALL” in the Westerosi universe, the story can essentially be broken down into 3 simple categories: 1. The longest part of this book tells how the noble Stark family deals with conspiracy and court politics in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, with particular emphasis on Eddard Stark, the father and leader of the noble family. 2. A second story follows the exiled princess Daenerys, one of the last descendants from the previous royal family, as she grows up on another continent. 3. A third story follows Jon Snow, the illegitimate son of Eddard Stark, as he grows up in the north of Westeros. He is in the special military order called the Night’s Watch, which is dedicated to protecting the civilized Seven Kingdoms from the dangers beyond the Wall. So, it’s not that hard to follow, after all. Okay, there’s a lot going on here, but the book is actually pretty clear about everything. Talking about the takeaway for the reader, I’d like to share 3 powerful and deep quotes from the book, spoken by the lead characters at different intervals of time. 1. “Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.” We’ve been taught from our childhoods, that we should always speak the truth. From our national flag to the photo of Gandhi on our currency notes, everything encourages us to stick with the truth with all our might, for truth always prevails. Yet, how many of us actually do it in real life? We lie so much every day that it has become an integral part of our life. We lie to our colleagues, our friends, our spouses, and, most shockingly, ourselves. It’s easier to deny a truth, much harder to face it. And that is the question this book will leave the reader with. Are you brave enough? 2. “We all need to be mocked from time to time Lord Mormont lest we start to take ourselves too seriously.” A sense of humor can win over any situation. We face numerous challenges in our daily lives. The pressure of completing an assigned job, the fear of running out of salary before the days in the month, the uncertainty of losing our loved ones over petty disagreements, or any of the other million things that run in our minds. Though we can’t control everything that life throws at us, we can surely control how we react to it. This book leaves the reader with a lasting lesson of not taking ourselves too seriously in life. Nobody gets out of it alive, anyway. 3. “Winter is coming.” Talking about the industry I’m a part of: technology and education. Winter is coming, a constantly recurring phrase throughout the series, tells us the importance of being vigilant at all times. Being complacent with our current knowledge, is the luxury we educators cannot afford. For the times change constantly, and technologies change with it. We need to keep learning if we are to stay abreast. “...a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That’s why I read so much Jon Snow...”
I hope this blog post has inspired you to pick-up the book, and give it a read. “May the gods be with you.” Tags: Book Summary,Politics,Indian Politics,Emotional Intelligence,Psychology,Behavioral Science,Communication Skills,

The One Thing (by Gary Keller) - 15 minutes long summary


Good evening friends and today we will be discussing the book ‘The ONE Thing’ by Gary Keller.

The book introduces the readers to the concept of ‘ONE Thing’ by the help of quotations, stories, and results from researches.

The first quotation that appears in the book is:

“IF YOU CHASE TWO RABBITS... YOU WILL NOT CATCH EITHER ONE.”

Following up with it is the Domino effect and right next would be how it works for us in life.

THE DOMINO EFFECT

A domino effect is essentially what happens in a domino fall.

A research showed that a single domino is capable of bringing down another domino that is actually 50 percent larger.

This idea was then replicated in an experiment with 8 dominoes.

The first was a mere two inches, the last almost three feet tall. The resulting domino fall began with a gentle tick and quickly ended “with a loud SLAM.” Imagine what would happen if this kept going.

The 10th domino would be almost as tall as NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. By the 18th, you’re looking at a domino that would rival the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Number 57 would practically bridge the distance between the earth and the moon!

Line up enough dominoes and, with a simple flick, you can start a chain reaction of surprising power.

The idea is that: When one thing, the right thing, is set in motion, it can topple many things.

GETTING EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS: Success is built sequentially.

So when you think about success, shoot for the moon. The moon is reachable if you prioritize everything and put all of your energy into accomplishing the most important thing. Getting extraordinary results is all about creating a domino effect in your life. Toppling dominoes is pretty straightforward. You line them up and tip over the first one. In the real world, though, it’s a bit more complicated. The challenge is that life doesn’t line everything up for us. Highly successful people know this. So every day they line up their priorities anew, find the lead domino, and whack away at it until it falls.

When you see someone who has a lot of knowledge, they learned it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of skills, they developed them over time. When you see someone who has done a lot, they accomplished it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of money, they earned it over time.

The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.

...

Now the book talks about six lies that lie between you and success. We are going to cover them one by one. So the first one is:

Lie #1. Everything Matters Equally

Equality is a lie.

Understanding this is the basis of all great decisions. So, how do you decide? When you have a lot to get done in the day, how do you decide what to do first?

The 80/20 Principle

It says the minority of your effort leads to the majority of your results. It points us in a very clear direction: the majority of our results are due to 20% of our activities.

A to-do list becomes a success list when you apply 80-20 Principle to it.

...

Lie #2. Multitasking

So, if doing the most important thing is the most important thing, why would you try to do anything else at the same time? It’s a great question.

In 2009, Clifford Nass set out to answer just that, “how well so-called multitaskers multitasked”.

Nass had been “in awe” of multitaskers and deemed himself to be a poor one. So he gave 262 students questionnaires to determine how often they multitasked. He divided the test subjects into two groups of high and low multitaskers and began with the presumption that the frequent multitaskers would perform better. He was wrong.

“I was sure they had some secret ability” said Nass. “But it turns out that high multitaskers are suckers for irrelevancy.” They were outperformed on every measure. Although they’d convinced themselves and the world that they were great at it, there was just one problem. To quote Nass, “Multitaskers were just lousy at everything.”

Multitasking is a lie.

Every time we try to do two or more things at once, we’re simply dividing up our focus and dumbing down all of the outcomes in the process.

...

Lie #3. A Disciplined Life

There is this pervasive idea that the successful person is the “disciplined person” who leads a “disciplined life.”

It’s a lie.

The truth is we don’t need any more discipline than we already have. We just need to direct and manage it a little better.

Success is not a marathon, but actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over. When we know something that needs to be done but isn’t currently getting done, we often say, “I just need more discipline.”

Actually, we need the habit of doing it. And we need just enough discipline to build the habit.

When you discipline yourself, you’re essentially training yourself to act in a specific way. Stay with this long enough and it becomes a habit. So when you see people who look like “disciplined” people, what you’re really seeing is people who’ve trained a handful of habits into their lives. This makes them seem “disciplined” when actually they’re not. No one is.

...

SELECTED DISCIPLINE WORKS SWIMMINGLY

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is a case study of selected discipline. When he was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, his kindergarten teacher told his mother that he will never be able to focus on anything. Bob Bowman, his coach since age 11, reports that Michael spent a lot of time on the side of the pool by the lifeguard stand for disruptive behavior. That same misbehavior has cropped up from time to time in his adult life as well. Yet, he’s set dozens of world records winning gold medals in every Olympics. Talking about Phelps, one reporter said, “If he were a country he’d be ranked 12th over the last three Olympics.”

Now, how did this happen? How did the boy who would “never be able to focus on anything” achieve so much? Phelps became a person of selected discipline.

From age 14 through the Beijing Olympics when he was 23, Phelps trained seven days a week, 365 days a year. He figured that by training on Sundays he got a 52-training-day advantage on the competition. He spent up to six hours in the water each day.

It is not a stretch to say that Phelps channeled all of his energy into one discipline that developed into one habit—swimming daily. The payoff from developing the right habit is pretty obvious.

...

TODDLER TORTURE: In the late ’60s, researcher Walter Mischel began methodically tormenting four-year-olds at a nursery school. The devilish experiment was called “The Marshmallow Test.” It was an interesting way to look at willpower.

Kids were offered a treat — the now infamous marshmallow. The child was told that the researcher had to step away, and if he could wait 15 minutes until the researcher returned, he’d be awarded a second treat. One treat now or two later.

On average, kids held out less than three minutes.

And only three out of ten managed to delay their gratification until the researcher returned.

It was pretty apparent most kids struggled with delayed gratification. Willpower was in short supply.

Initially no one had any idea what success or failure in the marshmallow test might say about a child’s future.

Starting in 1981, Mischel began systematically tracking down the original subjects to measure their relative academic and social progress. His hunch was correct—willpower or the ability to delay gratification was a huge indicator of future success.

So, when your mother told you “all good things come to those who wait,” she wasn’t kidding.

...

Lie #4. Willpower Is Always on Will-Call

Willpower is like the power bar on your cell phone.

A research showed just how fleeting our willpower can be. Researcher divided 165 undergraduate students into two groups and asked them to memorize either a two digit or a seven-digit number.

When they were ready, students would then go to another room where they would recall the number. Along the way, they were offered a snack for participating in the study. The two choices were chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit salad—guilty pleasure or healthy treat. Here’s the kicker: students asked to memorize the seven-digit number were nearly twice as likely to choose cake. This tiny extra cognitive load was just enough to prevent a prudent choice.

The implications are staggering. The more we use our mind, the less minding power we have. Willpower is like a fast-twitch muscle that gets tired and needs rest. It’s incredibly powerful, but it has no endurance.

A measly five extra digits is all it takes to drain our willpower dry. While decisions tap our willpower, the food we eat is also a key player in our level of willpower.

...

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The brain makes up 1/50th of our body mass but consumes a staggering 1/5th of the calories we bum for energy.

A 2007 article detailed nine separate studies on the impact of nutrition and willpower.

In one set, researchers assigned tasks that did or did not involve willpower and measured blood-sugar levels before and after each task. Participants who exercised willpower showed a marked drop in the levels of glucose in the bloodstream.

Subsequent studies showed the impact on performance when two groups completed one willpower-related task and then did another. Between tasks, one group was given a glass of lemonade sweetened with real sugar and the other was given a placebo, lemonade with Splenda. The placebo group had roughly twice as many errors on the subsequent test as the sugar group.

The studies concluded that willpower is a mental muscle that doesn’t bounce back quickly. If you employ it for one task, there will be less power available for the next unless you refuel. To do our best, we literally have to feed our minds. Foods that elevate blood sugar evenly over long periods, like complex carbohydrates and proteins, become the fuel of choice for high-achievers.

...

Lie #5. A Balanced Life

COUNTERBALANCING

The problem is that when you focus on what is truly important, something will always be underserved. Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results. But you can’t leave everything undone, and that’s where counterbalancing comes in. The idea of counterbalancing is that you never go so far that you can’t find your way back or stay so long that there is nothing waiting for you when you return.

In the world of professional success, it’s not about how much overtime you put in; the key ingredient is the focused time. To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance in relation to all other work issues, with only infrequent counterbalancing to address them.

You never forsake your personal life for work and vice-versa. You can move back and forth quickly between these and often even combine the activities around them, but you can’t neglect any of them for long.

In your professional life, go long and make peace with the idea that the pursuit of extraordinary results may require you to be out of balance for long periods.

Going long allows you to focus on what matters most, even at the expense of other, lesser priorities.

...

Lie #6. BIG IS BAD

“We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.”

For more than four decades, Stanford psychologist Carol S. Dweck has studied the science of how our self-conceptions influence our actions. Her work offers great insight into why thinking big is such a big deal.

Dweck’s work with children revealed two mindsets in action —a “growth” mindset that generally thinks big and seeks growth and a “fixed” mindset that places artificial limits and avoids failure.

Growth-minded students, as she calls them, employ better learning strategies, experience less helplessness, exhibit more positive effort, and achieve more in the classroom than their fixed-minded peers. They are less likely to place limits on their lives and more likely to reach for their potential. Dweck points out that mindsets can and do change. Like any other habit, you set your mind to it until the right mindset becomes routine.

...

PURPOSE, PRIORITY AND PRODUCTIVITY

Think of purpose, priority, and productivity as three parts of an iceberg.

With typically only 1/9 of an iceberg above water, whatever you see is just the tip of everything that is there. This is exactly how productivity, priority, and purpose are related. What you see is determined by what you don’t.

You see the productivity, what you don’t see is ‘priority’ and ‘purpose’.

And to help you in prioritizing, there is one question that is repeatedly posed in the book, try to answer this for yourself:

“What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

...

THE BEGGING BOWL:

Upon coming out of his palace one morning and encountering a beggar, a king asks, “What do you want?” The beggar laughingly says, “You ask as though you can fulfill my desire!” Offended, the king replies, “Of course I can. What is it?”

Note that this is not an ordinary beggar but a saint dressed as one. After a long conversation that was belittling to the king, beggar asked the king to fill his bowl.

“That’s it?” asked the king, and he instructed his vizier to “fill the man’s begging bowl with money.”

But now whatever, no matter what the king poured in the bowl, it disappeared and the bowl would be empty.

Word spread throughout the kingdom, and a huge crowd gathered. The prestige and power of the king were at stake, so he told his vizier, “If my kingdom is to be lost, I am ready to lose it, but I cannot be defeated by this beggar.” He continued to empty his wealth into the bowl. Diamonds, pearls, emeralds. His treasury was becoming empty. And yet the begging bowl seemed bottomless.

Finally, as the crowd stood in utter silence, the king dropped at the beggar’s feet and admitted defeat. “You are victorious, but before you go, fulfill my curiosity. What is the secret of this begging bowl?”

The beggar humbly replied, “There is no secret. It is simply made up of human desire.”

One of our biggest challenges is making sure our life’s purpose doesn’t become a beggar’s bowl, a bottomless pit of desire continually searching for the next thing that will make us happy.

SUCCESS IS AN INSIDE JOB

One evening, a young boy hopped up on his busy father’s lap to seek for his attention and time. Now the father quickly started racking his brain and he hits upon a promising idea. He grabbed his son, gave him a huge hug, and announced that their first game would be to put a puzzle together, and when that was done they will head outside to play.

Earlier while reading the newspaper, he had seen a full-page ad with a picture of the world. He quickly found it, tore it into little pieces, and spread them out on the table. He found some tape for his son and said, “I want to see how fast you can put this puzzle together.” The boy enthusiastically dove right in, while his father, confident that he had now bought some extra time, buried himself back in his paper.

Within minutes, the boy once again yanked down his father’s newspaper and proudly announced, “Dad, I’m done!” The father was astonished. The man was looking at the picture, not a single piece out of place. In a voice mixed with parental pride and wonder, the father asked, “How on earth did you do that so fast?”

What had happened here was that the pieces were lying on a glass-top table and the boy had dropped a piece on the floor. While picking this piece, he noticed the picture of a man on the back of the pieces. That was it! When the boy put the man together, the world just fell into place.

The lesson of this story is that “Success is an inside job”. Put yourself together, and your world falls into place.

You are the first domino.

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Screw it, let’s do it (by Richard Branson) - 15 minutes long summary






This post is about the book “Screw it, let’s do it” by Richard Branson. We are going to cover the best lessons that are presented in this book by the author.

The first lesson that Richard talks about is “Take The First Step”.
Plato once said, 'The beginning is the most important part of any work.' A journey of a thousand miles starts with that first step. If you look ahead to the end, and all the weary miles between, with all the dangers you might face, you might never take that first step. And whatever it is you want to achieve in life, if you don't make the effort, you won't reach your goal. So take the first step. 

Second is “Believe It Can Be Done”.
Richard’s mum, Eve, is a perfect example of this.

During the war, she wanted to be a pilot. She went to Heston airfield and asked for a job. She was told only men could be pilots. Eve was very pretty and had been a dancer on stage. She didn't look like a man. That didn't stop her. She wore a leather flying jacket and hid her blonde hair under a leather helmet. She talked with a deep voice. And she got the job she wanted. She learned how to glide and began to teach the new pilots. These were the young men who flew fighter planes in the Battle of Britain. 

After the war, she wanted to be an air hostess. Back then, they had to speak Spanish and be trained as nurses, but Eve chatted up the night porter at the airline and he secretly put her name on the list. Soon, she was an air hostess. She still couldn’t speak Spanish and she wasn’t a nurse. But she had used her wits. She wouldn’t say no. She just did it.

Third is about the “Birth of Virgin Music” and the lesson “Have Fun and Money Will Come”.

Throughout 1977, Richard had been working on making something out of Virgin Music. By the end of the year, Richard needed a break. His girlfriend, Joan and he had split up. He was sad but he likes to make the best of things. He always likes to get away from London in the winter. Music, sun and sea makes him feel good. 

The distance from London gives him the space and freedom to think and plan out fresh ideas. He went to Jamaica. It was part holiday, part work. He swam in a worm sea. He sat on the beach. He listened to some great reggae bands. Then he heard a new kind of music. It was made by local DJs and radio jocks, who were known as `toasters'. It was a kind of early rap, so he was at the start of something big. Jamaican musicians won't take checks so he signed up almost twenty reggae bands and some toasters from a case filled with cash. They went on to sell lots of records with them. It was a perfect example of his motto — have fun and the money will come. 

Now a touch of reality:

If you do have to work for a boss at a job you don't like, as almost everyone does at some point, don't moan about it. Have a positive outlook on life and just get on with it. Work hard and earn your pay. Enjoy the people you come into contact with through your job. And if you are still unhappy, make it instead your goal to divide your private life from your work life. Have fun in your own time, you will feel happier and you'll enjoy your life and your job more. 

Next is: Be bold. Calculate the risks and take them.

In 2004 Richard made a TV series, The rebel Billionaire. The final episode had a twist at the end. Richard offered the prize winner, Shawn Nelson, a check for one million dollars - but there was a catch. He could take the check or toss a coin for an even bigger mystery prize. If he lost the toss, he would lose it all. Richard held out the check. Shawn took it and saw the long line of zeros. Then Richard took it back, put it in his hip pocket and held out a silver coin. 

'Which one will it be?' Richard said. 'The coin or the check?'
Life is full of hard choices. Which one would Shawn go for? Shawn looked shaken. It was a huge gamble. All or nothing. He asked Richard, 'what would you do?' 'It's up to you,' Richard said. Richard could have told him that he takes risks, but they are calculated risks. He weighs the odds in everything he does. Instead, Richard said nothing. 

Shawn had to make up his own mind. Shawn walked back and forth, trying to decide. It was tempting to gamble. It would make him look cool. Also, the unknown prize might be amazing. At last, he said he couldn't risk losing that much money on the toss of a coin. He owned a small company. He could use the money wisely to help his business grow. It could change his life for the better. It would also help the people who worked for him and believed in him. 'I'll take the check, ' he said. 

Richard was pleased and told him 'If you had gone for the coin toss, I would have lost all respect for you'. 

He made the right choice and didn't gamble on something that he couldn't control. He got the million dollars but not the mystery prize. The big prize was to be president of Virgin for three months. Virgin has 200 companies so Shawn would have learnt a lot. It was a golden chance. Richard does say that 'Believe in yourself. You can do it' but he also says, 'Be bold but don't gamble.'  

The next lesson is: Challenge yourself.

Everyone needs something to aim for. You can call it a challenge, or you can call it a goal. It is what makes us human. It was challenges that took us from being caveman to reaching for the stars. If you challenge yourself, you will grow. Your life will change. Your outlook will be positive. It's not always easy to reach your goal but that's no reason to stop. Never say die. Say yourself 'I can do it. I'll keep on trying until I win.' 

Ricky’s First Big Challenge:
Ricky’s first big challenge was when he was five years old. He went to Devon for two weeks one summer with family and relatives. When they got there, he ran onto the beach and started at the sea, he couldn’t swim and his aunt Joyce bet him ten shillings that he couldn’t learn to swim by the end of the holiday. Ricky took the bet.

Most days, the sea was rough and the waves were high, but Ricky tried for hours. Day after day, he splashed along with one foot on the bottom. He grew blue with cold and swallowed a lot of sea water but still he couldn’t swim.

Ricky had lost the bet and his aunt told him to never mind as there is always a next year.

As they set off for home in the car, Ricky gazed out of the window. He wished he had learned to swim, he hated losing the bet. And, the family hadn’t got home so they were still really on holiday. Ricky thought, now was his last chance.

“Stop the car,” he shouted. His dad followed as both of his parents knew about the bet and they obviously knew their son. Ricky jumped out of the car, stripped quickly, and ran across a field to the river. When Ricky turned his head, he saw everyone standing and watching him, his mum smiled, waved and called out “You can do it, Ricky”. As soon as Ricky got in the middle, the current caught him. He went under, choked, came up and swept downstream. He put one foot on a rock and pushed off, and soon he was swimming. He swain in an awkward circle, but he’d won the bet.

Next: Stand on your feet.
‘IF YOU WANT MILK, don't sit on a stool in the middle of the field in the hope that the cow will back you up.'

An old recipe for rabbit pie said,' First, catch the rabbit.' Note that it didn't say, 'First, buy the rabbit, or sit on your bottom until someone gives it to you.'

Lessons like these, taught to Richard by his mum from when he was a toddler, are what have made him stand on his own two feet. He was trained to think for himself and get things done.

Stand on your feet (The Virgin Story)
Although Richard relies on himself and believes in his goals, he lost faith in himself once. In 1986, Richard was told that he should take Virgin public. Two of his partners who knew him well, were not very keen. They said he would hate losing control.

But the bankers said it was a good idea. It would give him more capital to work with. Other big private companies, like Body Shop and Sock Shop, had gone public. They were doing well. Pushed hard by the bankers, Richard launched Virgin on the stock exchange.

Around 70,000 people applied for shares by post. Those who had left it too late lined up in the city to buy shares in person. Richard writes he will never forget walking up the long line of people to thank them for their faith in him. He was very moved when they said things like, 'We're not going holiday this year, we're putting our savings in Virgin' and, 'We're banking on you, Richard.'

But it wasn’t long though that he realized he had made a mistake. Now instead of having casual meetings on his houseboat to discuss what bands to sign, he had to ask board of directors for a meeting for which he would usually have to wait for four weeks. Plus, these people had no idea what music business was all about.

They didn't see how a hit record could make millions overnight. Richard could not sign someone who was hot before his rivals did. Or they'd say things like, 'Sign the Rolling Stones? My wife doesn't like them. Janet Jackson? Who's she?'

Richard has always made fast decisions and acted on his instinct. But now, he was stifled. Most of all, he no longer felt that he was standing on his own feet.

Then, there was a huge stock-market crash. Richard felt that he was letting down all the people who had bought Virgin shares. Many were friends and family as well as Virgin’s staff. But many were like the couple who had given him their life savings.

Then, Richard made up his mind. He would buy all the shares back — at the price everyone had paid for them. He didn't have to pay that much, but he didn't want to let people down. He raised the £182 million needed and Virgin became private company again.

After this Richard writes, “I felt nothing but relief. Once again, I was the captain of my ship and master of my fate. I believe in myself. I believe in the hands that work, in the brains that think, and in the hearts that love.”

Next: Live the moment!
Richard’s grandmother lived life to the full. At the age of 89 she became the oldest person in Britain to pass the advanced Latin American ballroom-dancing exam. She was ninety when she became the oldest person to hit a hole in one at golf. She never stopped learning. In her mid-90s she read Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, which may make her one of the few people to have read it all the way through! Shortly before her death at the age of 99 she went on a cruise around in Jamaica wearing only her swimming costume. Her attitude was that you've only got one go in life, so you should make the most of it.

About having regrets, Richard writes:
In a way, regrets are like wanting the peach you have thrown away. It’s gone, but you are filled with remorse. You wish you hadn't thrown it away. You want it back. Richard believes that the one thing that helps is to have no regrets. Regrets weigh you down. They hold you back in the past when you should move on.

About living in the future:
Always living in the future can slow us down as much as always looking behind. Many people are always looking ahead and they never seem content. They look for quick fixes, like winning the lottery. Goals are important. Money is important. But the bottom line is money is just a means to an end, not an end in itself. And what is going on now is just as important as what you're planning for the future. So, even though Richard’s diary is full for months ahead, he has learned to live for the moment. 

Next: Value friends and family.
If anyone asks Richard what he believes in above all else, he would say his family.

And it is true that sometimes families split up. Then, some people don't have anyone. But close friends can be like a family. We all need a strong support network.

Even though Richard was taught to stand on his own feet, Richard writes, “without my loyal family and friends, I would be lost”.

Next: Have respect.
One time Richard had to go to a meeting. He was already late, so he grabbed some papers and jumped into a taxi. On the way, the driver got very chatty. He had recognized him and said “I know you. You're that Rick Branson. You've got a record label.” And after that, the cabby would not shut up. He told Ricky that he might be a cabby by the day but he was also a drummer in a band.

He asked if Richard would like to hear his demo tape. Richard’s heart sank. People were always playing tapes to him in the hopes they would be discovered. But Rick didn't want to be rude. 'That would be lovely,' he said. The cabby had house around the corner and he had got Richard to accept his offer for tea, and just outside this house when Richard heard 'I can feel it, coming in the air tonight...' coming from the speakers. Cabby jumped out of the front seat and held the door open for Rick. The cab driver was Phil Collins, laughing like mad.

When Richard made “The Rebel Billionaire”, he copied the idea from Phil. He made himself look like an old cabby and drove the young contestants to the manor house. Rick had his ears peeled and listened to what they said in the back. Rick also noted how they treated an old man who couldn't lift heavy cases. Rick learned a lot about them from that, much to their dismay. Respect is about how you treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.

It is very important to always keep eyes and ears open and to be polite. They say that you never know who might hear or see you.

Is money root of all evil?
It's said that money is root of all evil, but it doesn't have to be. Money can be used for good.

The biggest charities in the world were started by rich men and women, but some were begun with next to nothing.

Harvard, the wealthiest college in America, is a charitable trust. It started with a few books and just £350.

IKEA started in a garden shed. Its parent company is a charitable trust.

The man who dreamed up the Big Mac started life selling paper cups. His company now gives $50 million a year to charity.

And, you don't need to be rich to do good. Children used to collect silver paper and empty cola tins to raise money for good causes. There are many ways of helping others.

That was all about the book, hope you liked it and thank you all very much for visiting.
An excerpt from Chapter 2 - Be Bold:
Richard writes:
I get sent thousand of ideas each week – they are people’s goals and dreams. There are too many for me to look at. My staff read them first and weed them out. I look at the best ones.

One plan I was offered ended in disaster. I was young. My urge to try anything almost killed me. Sadly, it killed the inventor.

A man called Richard Ellis sent me a photo of his ‘flying machine’. It had a three-wheeledbike beneath two large wings. It was powered by a small outboard engine. There were rotors above the pilot’s head. The photo showed a man soaring above the treetops. I was curious and I invited him to show me how it worked.

When he came, we went to the local airfield with Joan and some friends. He took his machine to a landing strip. You had to pedal like mad to get speed up. Then the engine would cut in and start the rotors. He said I would be second person to try it. But he didn’t want me to fly.

‘You need to get used to it first,’ he said.

It looked like fun. I sat on machine. He gave me a cable with a rubber switch at end, which went in mouth. I had to bite on the switch to make the engine cut out. I would stop at the end of the runway before I took off. ‘Ok! Go!’ Ellis shouted.
I put the cable in my mouth and set off down the runway. I pedaled like hell. The engine kicked in. I went faster and faster. When it seemed fast enough, I bit into the switch to stop. Nothing happened. I went even faster. I bit harder. Nothing. I reached thirty miles an hour. I could see Joan looking at me at the endof the runway as I got closer. Suddenly, I rose into the air. The flying machine took off, with me hanging on. I was flying.
I soared over some trees. I rose higher. When I was at one hundred feet, I knew I had to stop it somehow. I tugged at wires and pulled them out. I burned my hands on the hot engine but at last the engine cut out and I spun down to the ground. At the very last moment, a small gust of wind flipped the machine over. Flipped the machine over. A wing took the Impact. I fell out onto the grass. I was safe but shocked. 

A week later, Ellis took off in the flying machine. It crashed to earth. He died on Impact. His death was sad, but people with vision do die. Mountain climbers fall, and test pilots crash. As a child, I knew the war hero, Douglas Bader. He was a friend of my aunt Clare’s. He lost his legs in a flying accident. He learned to walk and also flew again. You can take care and try to avoid the risks, but you can’t protect yourself all the time. I am sure that luck plays a very large part. It’s easy to give up when things are hard but I believe we have to keep chasing our dreams and our goals, as these exciting people did. And once we decided to do something, we should never look back, never regret it.

Lessons from chapter 1: HAVE FUN
- Have Fun, Work Hard and Money Will Come
- Don’t Waste Time – Grab Your Chances
- Have a Positive Outlook On Life
- When it’s Not Fun, Move On

Lessons from chapter 2. BE BOLD
- Calculate the Risks and Take Them
- Believe in Yourself
- Chase Your Dreams and Goals
- Have No Regrets
- Be Bold
- Keep Your Word

Download Link For The Book: Screw it, Let's Do It (GitHub)
Tags: Book Summary, Management, Non-fiction

Friday, May 17, 2019

How much SIP in Nifty50 would return?



If we had invested an amount of Rs 1000 in Nifty50 on the 3rd of Jan, 1994, today that amount would turn out to be Rs 11407 (as of 17th May 2019). Another metric we can look at is the 'Gain per day', how much do we gain each day here on if we stay invested.

Answer is: Rs 1.1.

Here is a graph that shows how this number is not prone to fluctuations and how it grows over time:

The curve is a "knee curve" with knee forming in year '1994" itself.

Here is a closer look at the three quarters of 1994:



So, the curve settle around 1.1 right in the third quarter (ending in Sep) of 1994.

This figure shows that investment in Nifty50 is profitable.

What if we invest Rs 1000 every month instead of a one time investment at the inception of the fund?

If we were to invest Rs 1000 each month in Nifty50, we would be having a current value of our investment to be Rs 1,691,507.

The figure 'Gain per day' would stand at: Rs 182.

This is a very slowly changing number:

Datetime
Gain per day
2019 May, 10
182.934
2019 May, 13
180.754
2019 May, 14
181.933
2019 May, 15
180.858
2019 May, 16
182.462


But if we look at its growth over time, it mimics the original Nifty50 curve but while the range of "Gain per day" is 0 to 185, the range of Nifty50 is 1000 to 12000.

Here is a look at the two curves, first "Gain per day":


Now, original Nifty50:



Sunday, May 12, 2019

Little Boy (by Helen Buckley)



Once a little boy went to school.

One morning

The teacher said:

"Today we are going to make a picture."

"Good!" thought the little boy.

He liked to make all kinds;

Lions and tigers,

Chickens and cows,

Trains and boats;

And he took out his box of crayons

And began to draw.

But the teacher said, "Wait!"

"It is not time to begin!"

And she waited until everyone looked ready.

"Now," said the teacher,

"We are going to make flowers."

"Good!" thought the little boy,

He liked to make beautiful ones

With his pink and orange and blue crayons.

But the teacher said "Wait!"

"And I will show you how."

And it was red, with a green stem.

"There," said the teacher,

"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at his teacher's flower

Then he looked at his own flower.

He liked his flower better than the teacher's

But he did not say this.

He just turned his paper over,

And made a flower like the teacher's.

It was red, with a green stem.

On another day

The teacher said:

"Today we are going to make something with clay."

"Good!" thought the little boy;

He liked clay.

He could make all kinds of things with clay:

Snakes and snowmen,

Elephants and mice,

Cars and trucks

And he began to pull and pinch

His ball of clay.

But the teacher said, "Wait!"

"It is not time to begin!"

And she waited until everyone looked ready.

"Now," said the teacher,

"We are going to make a dish."

"Good!" thought the little boy,

He liked to make dishes.

And he began to make some

That were all shapes and sizes.

But the teacher said "Wait!"

"And I will show you how."

And she showed everyone how to make

One deep dish.

"There," said the teacher,

"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at the teacher's dish;

Then he looked at his own.

He liked his better than the teacher's

But he did not say this.

He just rolled his clay into a big ball again

And made a dish like the teacher's.

It was a deep dish.

And pretty soon

The little boy learned to wait,

And to watch

And to make things just like the teacher.

And pretty soon

He didn't make things of his own anymore.

Then it happened

That the little boy and his family

Moved to another house,

In another city,

And the little boy

Had to go to another school.

The teacher said:

"Today we are going to make a picture."

"Good!" thought the little boy.

And he waited for the teacher

To tell what to do.

But the teacher didn't say anything.

She just walked around the room.

When she came to the little boy

She asked, "Don't you want to make a picture?"

"Yes," said the little boy.

"What are we going to make?"

"I don't know until you make it," said the teacher.

"How shall I make it?" asked the little boy.

"Why, anyway you like," said the teacher.

"And any color?" asked the little boy.

"Any color," said the teacher.

And he began to make a red flower with a green stem.

~Helen Buckley, The Little Boy

(HT Amanda White)