The World's Best Book Summaries
Overview of Law #23: Concentrate Your Forces Conserve your resources and energies by concentrating your forces where you’ll get the most benefit. Concentrate on mining the richest mine rather than a whole string of mines.
Overview of Law #1: Never Outshine the Master Ensure that those above you always feel superior. But don’t overdo it when trying to impress or please them, or you’ll inadvertently make them feel insecure and you’ll suffer the backlash. Go out of your way to make your bosses look better and feel smarter than anyone else. Never outshine the master.
Overview of Law #5: Guard Your Reputation with Your Life Reputation is integral to power. So much depends on reputation—guard it with your life. With a strong reputation, you can influence and intimidate others. Beware of attacks on your reputation and squelch them immediately. Meanwhile, undermine your opponents’ reputations.
Overview of Law #9: Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument Arguing your point rarely changes anyone’s mind — even when you appear to win, you lose because you stir up resentment. A far better way of getting others to agree with you is to demonstrate your point without saying anything. People believe what they can see. Win through your actions, never through argument.
Overview of Law #24: Play the Perfect Courtier Courtiers of old were often masters of manipulation, expert at working their schemes within specific rules of behavior required in court. Learn from the courtiers’ failures and successes and how you can play the perfect courtier, and you can rise in any system.
Who was Victor Lustig? What made him one of the greatest conmen in history? What can we learn from him? Victor Lustig was a stylish swindler who successfully scammed people throughout Europe and the United States in the early 1900s. Although he ended his life in prison, Victor Lustig was a powerful force at his peak. We’ll cover the three primary lessons about power we can learn from Victor Lustig.
Overview of Law #25: Re-Create Yourself Re-create yourself with a powerful new image that stands out and draws attention, rather than letting others define you. Then change your appearance and emotions to suit the occasion, or stage riveting dramas as backdrops for your actions.
What are the 48 Laws of Power? How can I use them to succeed? The 48 Laws of Power come from Robert Greene’s book The 48 Laws of Power, in which Greene culls lessons from the lives of powerful historical figures to distill a set of laws that you can follow to become powerful in your own life. Keep reading for the complete list of the 48 Laws of Power, with explanations.
We often believe that to surrender is to lose. But what if we could surrender to win? How would that change how we view power dynamics? How would affect how we act in the face of probable defeat? Surrendering to win is an age-old technique to win in the long run, even if it means losing today. We’ll cover what it means to surrender to win, why you’d want to surrender to win, and examples of historical figures who’ve surrendered and won big.
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.