2013: Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear
11:00 AM Posted by Unknown
Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Smart failure for a fast changing world - Why you will fail to have a great career
8:11 PM Posted by Unknown
Larry Smith - Why you will fail to have a great career
Eddie Obeng: Smart failure for a fast-changing world
What If Money Was No Object...?
9:37 PM Posted by Unknown
So I always ask the question:
"What would you like to do if money were no object?"
"How would you really enjoy spending your life?"
Well it's so amazing as the result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say "Well, we'd like to be painters, we'd like to be poets, we'd like to be writers... but as everybody knows you can't earn any money that way."
Another person says "Well I'd like to live an out-of-door's life and ride horses." I said "You wanna teach in a riding school?"
Let's go through with it. What do YOU want to do?
When we finally got down to something which the individual says he really wants to do I will say to him...
"You do that! And forget the money!"
Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living - that is to go on doing things you don't like doing! Which is stupid!
Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.
And after all, if you do really like what you are doing - it doesn't really matter what it is - you can eventually become a master of it.
The only way of becoming the master of something, to be really with it. And then you will be able to get a good fee for whatever it is.
So don't worry too much, somebody is interested in everything. Anything you can be interested in, you'll find others who are.
But it's absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don't like in order to go on spending things you don't like, doing things you don't like and to teach your children to follow in the same track.
See, what we are doing is we are bringing up children and educating them to live the same sort of lives we are living. In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing.
So it's all 'retch and no vomit' - it never gets there!
And so therefore it's so important to consider this question:
"What do I desire?"
- Alan Watts
Another person says "Well I'd like to live an out-of-door's life and ride horses." I said "You wanna teach in a riding school?"
Let's go through with it. What do YOU want to do?
When we finally got down to something which the individual says he really wants to do I will say to him...
"You do that! And forget the money!"
Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living - that is to go on doing things you don't like doing! Which is stupid!
Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.
And after all, if you do really like what you are doing - it doesn't really matter what it is - you can eventually become a master of it.
The only way of becoming the master of something, to be really with it. And then you will be able to get a good fee for whatever it is.
So don't worry too much, somebody is interested in everything. Anything you can be interested in, you'll find others who are.
But it's absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don't like in order to go on spending things you don't like, doing things you don't like and to teach your children to follow in the same track.
See, what we are doing is we are bringing up children and educating them to live the same sort of lives we are living. In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing.
So it's all 'retch and no vomit' - it never gets there!
And so therefore it's so important to consider this question:
"What do I desire?"
- Alan Watts
How Large Is Your Network? The Power of 2nd and 3rd Degree Connections
7:57 AM Posted by Unknown
The following articled is reblogged from Reid Hoffman. I found it well articulated and well thought out article about the social connections we have in this digital age. ~ Source: link.
Imagine you receive a digital camera with a built-in memory card for your birthday. You bring it on a six-month trip to Africa where you won’t have access to a computer—so all the photos you want to keep must fit on that one memory card. When you first arrive you snap photos freely, and maybe even record some short videos. But after a month or so, the memory card starts filling up. Now you’re forced to be more judicious in deciding how to use that storage. You might take fewer pictures. You might decide to reduce the quality/resolution of the photos you do take in order to fit more. You’ll probably cut back on videos. Still, inevitably, you’ll hit capacity, at which point if you wish to take new photos you’ll have to delete old ones.
Just as a digital camera cannot store an infinite number of photos and videos, you cannot maintain an infinite number of relationships. Which is why, even if you are judicious about your choices, at some point you hit a limit, and any new relationship means sacrificing an old one.
The maximum number of relationships we can realistically manage—the number that can fit on the memory card, as it were—is described as Dunbar’s Number, after evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar. But maybe it shouldn’t be. In the early nineties, Dunbar studied the social connections within groups of monkeys and apes. He theorized that the maximum size of their overall social group was limited by the small size of their neocortex. It requires brainpower to socialize with other animals, so it follows that the smaller the primate’s brain, the less efficient it is at socializing, and the fewer other primates it can befriend. He then extrapolated that humans have an especially large neocortex and so should be able to more efficiently socialize with a great number of humans. Based on our neocortex size, Dunbar calculated that humans should be able to maintain relationships with no more than roughly 150 people at a time. To cross-check the theory, he studied anthropological field reports and other clues from villages and tribes in the hunter-gatherer era. Sure enough, he found the size of surviving tribes tended to be about 150. And when he observed modern human societies, he found that many businesses and military groups organize their people into cliques of about 150. To wit: Dunbar’s Number of 150.
But Dunbar’s research is not exactly about the total number of people that any one person can know. The research focused on how many nonhuman primates (and humans, but only by extrapolation) can survive together in a tribe. Of course, group limits and the number of people you can know are closely related concepts, especially if you consider everyone in your life to be part of your social group. Yet most of us define our total social group more broadly than Dunbar did in his research. Survival in the modern world doesn’t depend on having direct, face-to-face contact with everyone in our social network/group, as it did for the tribes he studied.
Regardless of how you parse Dunbar’s research, what is definitely the case is that there is a limit to the number of relationships you can maintain, if for no other reason than the fact that we have only twenty-four hours in each day. But, contrary to popular understanding of Dunbar’s Number, there is not one blunt limit. There are different limits for each type of relationship. Think back to the digital camera. You can either take low-resolution photographs and store one hundred photos in total, or you can take high-resolution photographs and store forty. With relationships, while you can only have a few close buddies you see every day, you can stay in touch with many distant friends if you only email them once or twice a year.
But there’s a twist. While the number of close allies and weak ties you can keep up is limited, those aren’t your only connections. You can actually maintain a much broader social network that exceeds the size of the memory card. It’s by smartly leveraging this extended network that you fully experience the power of I-to-the-We.
Your Extended Social Network: Second- and Third-Degree Connections
Your allies, weak ties, and the other people you know right now are your first-degree connections. A la Dunbar, there are limits to the number of first-degree connections you can have at any one time. But your friends know people you don’t know. These friends of friends are your second-degree connections. And those friends of friends have friends of their own—those friends of friends of friends are your third-degree connections.
Social network theorists use degree-of-separation terminology to refer to individuals who sit within your social network. A network is a system of interconnected things, like the world’s airports or the Internet (a network of computers and servers). A social network is a set of people and the connections that link them. Everyone you interact with in a professional context comprises your professional social network.
Your Network Is Bigger and More Powerful Than You Think
Think of the times you’ve met someone and discovered you know people in common. The clerk at the local hardware store once hiked through Yosemite with your brother-in-law. Your new girlfriend is in the same bowling league as your boss. “It’s a small world,” we say after such realizations. It’s fun to make these unexpected connections. A busy city street can seem awash with strangers, so when we encounter a familiar face, we notice it.
But is the world actually that small? Psychologist Stanley Milgram and his student Jeffrey Travers found that it is. In fact, it’s smaller and more interconnected than the occasional surprising mutual acquaintance might suggest. In 1967 they conducted a famous study in which they asked a couple hundred people in Nebraska to mail a letter to someone they knew personally who might in turn know a target stockbroker in Massachusetts. Travers and Milgram tracked how long it took for the letter to pass hands and reach its destination. On average, it took six different stops before it showed up at the stockbroker’s home or office in Massachusetts. In other words, the original sender in Nebraska sat six degrees apart from the recipient in Massachusetts. It was this study that birthed the Six Degrees of Separation theory, and the credible idea that you share mutual acquaintances with complete strangers on the other side of the world.
In 2001, sociologist Duncan Watts, inspired by Milgram’s findings, led a more ambitious, rigorous study on a global scale. He recruited eighteen targets in thirteen countries. From an archival inspector in Estonia to a policeman in Western Australia to a professor in upstate New York, the targets were selected to be as diverse as possible. Then he signed up more than sixty thousand people from across the United States to participate in the test. They were to forward an email message to one of the eighteen targets, or to a friend who might know one of the targets. Amazingly, factoring in the emails that never made it to their destination, Watts found that Milgram had been right all along: the median distance that separated a participant from a target was between five and seven degrees.
It is a small world, after all. Small because it is so interconnected.
Milgram’s and Watts’s research shows planet Earth as one massive social network, with every human being connected to every other via no more than about six intermediary people. It’s neat to ponder being connected to billions of people through your friends, and the practical implications for the start-up of you are significant as well. Suppose you want to become a doctor and would like to meet a premier M.D. in your specific field of interest. You’ve heard that getting an introduction is the only way you’ll be able to meet her. The good news is that you know that you are at most only six degrees away from her. The bad news is that following Milgram’s or Watts’s procedure—asking one good friend to forward an email and hope that six or seven email forwards later the email will arrive at the target’s computer—is neither efficient nor reliable. Even if it does arrive, the introduction would be highly diluted. Saying you’re a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend doesn’t quite carry enough heft to open doors.
But if there were a master chart of the entire human social network, you could locate the shortest possible path from you to the doctor. Now, increasingly, there is. Out of an estimated one billion professionals in the world, well over 170 million of them are on LinkedIn. Now, you can search this network to find the connections and friends of connections who can introduce you to that all-star doctor with the fewest number of handoffs. You don’t need to randomly forward an email and hope it arrives at your destination after six twists and turns.
Here’s where the caveat to the Six Degrees of Separation theory comes in. Academically, the theory is correct, but when it comes to meeting people who can help you professionally, three degrees of separation is what matters. Three degrees is the magic number because when you’re introduced to a second- or third-degree connection, at least one person in an introduction chain personally knows the origin or target person. In this example: You—> Karen—> Jane—> Sarah. Karen and Jane are in the middle, and both of them know either You or Sarah—the two people who are trying to connect. That’s how trust is preserved. If one additional degree of separation is added, a person in the middle of the chain will know neither You nor Sarah, and thus have no stake in making sure the introduction goes smoothly. After all, why would a person bother to introduce a total stranger (even if that stranger is a friend of a friend of a friend) to another total stranger?
So, the extended network that’s available to you professionally doesn’t contain the roughly seven billion other humans on the planet who sit six degrees away. But it does contain all the people who sit two or three degrees away, because they are the people you can reach via an introduction. This is a large group. Suppose you have 40 friends, and assume that each friend has 35 other friends in turn, and each of those friends of friends has 45 unique friends of their own. If you do the math (40 × 35 × 45), that’s 54,000 people you can reach via an introduction.
Now you know why one of LinkedIn’s early marketing taglines was: Your Network Is Bigger Than You Think. It is!
Adapted from my book with Ben Casnocha titled The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career.
Interesting Campaign Video - Reverse Psychology?
10:55 AM Posted by Unknown
The Ogilvy's Anti-Smoking ad campaign in India is very interesting from concept and execution point of view. But when it comes to most commercially motivated anti
Lately there have been heavy anti-smoking campaign going on Indian media screens. I suspect it must be tobacco-industry-funded effort. When you are at home watching 007 the scroll comes to tell you how cigarate is injurious to health ( in principle there is nothingn wrong in that, but will it change anything?). While in cinema hall there is dedicated air time for it with few slide shows. This is a mafia game. The say out of sight is out of mind. So they bring the topic in audience mind with ulterior motive. Even the guy who didn't smoke for a week will have urge because of this subtle reminder. Since they can't advertise legally. They anti-advertise to drive up the sales numbers. Oh! Capitalism. Wicked.
Focus On What You Want, Not What You Don't Want
48 laws of Power by Robert Greene
2:37 AM Posted by Unknown
I'm reading five books simultaneously this is one of 'em.
The 48 Laws of Power
by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 check you infuriate and unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power.
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.
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.
Law 27
Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Law 33
Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usual y 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Impossible Is Possible
3:01 AM Posted by Unknown
I've no idea what Addidas was thinking about when they came up with this line. But trust me, impossible is something not nothing. I know for sure you can't reduce it to nothing.
Impossible is possible (But be warned, it’s time consuming and hard, if you have the balls go for it). Impossible is possible
— Emmanuel(@FlyingCocoon) December 2, 2012
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