The World's Best Book Summaries
Overview of Law #8: Make Other People Come to You—Use Bait if Necessary Make your opponent come to you. When you force others to act, you’re in control. Bait them, then attack. Make other people come to you—use bait if necessary.
Ever wonder how you can be mysterious? Or how being mysterious might benefit you in work and life? Mystery can bring you power. If you’re mysterious, people want to know more, and their lack of knowledge and desire to figure you out gives you power over them. Use the examples below to learn why and how to be mysterious to gain more power over others.
In 12 Rules for Life, Rule #3 is “Make Friends With People Who Want The Best For You.” What does this mean? Why would you ever friends with people who don’t want the best for you? Life isn’t that simple. Sometimes you attract friends who want to bring you down. Sometimes you find it hard to let go of friends you’ve had for a long time. Learn how to surround yourself with better friends who really care about you.
Penny Knight is Nike founder Phil Knight’s first and only wife. They met in 1968, in the early days of Nike’s founding, married the same year, and have been together since. Learn the history of Penny Knight, Phil Knight, and Nike, in this excerpt from our summary of Shoe Dog.
Do you ever wonder how to be unpredictable? Do you wonder why you’d want to be? Learning how to be unpredictable can help you gain power by taking your enemy by surprise. We’ll cover how to be unpredictable, why you’d want to be unpredictable, and what history can teach us about the power of unpredictability.
Who was Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord? And how did the aristocrat manage to remain a powerful French diplomat and politician after the French Revolution brought down the monarchy? In particular, what can we learn by analyzing the Talleyrand-Napoleon relationship? The Talleyrand-Napoleon relationship was a complex one. Napoleon didn’t trust Talleyrand, but Talleyrand was too good an aide to give up. We’ll cover the 7 lessons about maintaining power we can learn from analyzing the Talleyrand-Napoleon relationship and Talleyrand’s canny diplomacy strategies.
Overview of Law #16: Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor Once you’ve become well-known and admired, use absence to increase respect and honor. The more you’re seen and heard from after a certain point, the more you cheapen your brand. People will lose interest and respect for you. But if you make yourself scarce for a while, you’ll renew people’s respect and appreciation.
Overview of Law #10: Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and the Unlucky People who are perpetually miserable spread misery like an infection, and they’ll drown you in it. Avoid these people like the plague. Conversely, if you associate with happy people, you’ll share in the good fortune they attract and spread. Seek them out. Infection: Avoid the unhappy and the unlucky.
Overview of Law #22: Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power Surrendering can be a tool of power. When you’re weaker, surrender rather than fighting for the sake of honor. This gives you time to build strength and undermine your victor, while you wait for his power to weaken. You’ll win in the end. You can transform weakness into power.
Overview of Law #26: Keep Your Hands Clean You’ll inevitably make mistakes or need to take care of messy problems. But it’s imperative to keep your hands clean. Find scapegoats to blame and use cat’s paws or fixers to handle problems while disguising your involvement.