So much of power is not what you do but what you do not do – the rash and foolish actions that you refrain from before they get you into trouble. Plan in detail before you act – do not let vague plans lead you into trouble.
This mental habit offers excellent ground for deception, using a strategy that Machiavelli calls “acclimatization” – deliberately creating some pattern to make your enemies believe that your next action will follow true to form. Having lulled them into complacency, you now have room to work against their expectations, break the pattern, and take them by surprise.
If you are trying to mislead your enemies, it is often better to concoct something ambiguous and hard to read, as opposed to an outright deception – that deception can be uncovered and enemies can turn their discovery to their advantage, especially if you think they are still fooled and act under that belief.
Boldness... is outer directed... and makes others feel more at ease because it’s less self-conscious.
Although time is the critical factor in attaining Mastery and this intuitive feel, the time we are talking about is not neutral or simply quantitative. An hour of Einstein’s thinking at the age of sixteen does not equal an hour spent by an average high school student working on a problem in physics. It is not a matter of studying a subject for twenty years, and then emerging as a Master. The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus.
The secret enemy, though, will react with anger. Any strong emotion and you will know that there’s something boiling under the surface. Often the best way to get people to reveal themselves is to provoke tension and argument.
The only way to break out of a negative dynamic is to confront it. Repressing your anger, avoiding the person threatening you, always looking to conciliate – these common strategies spell ruin. Avoidance of conflict becomes a habit, and you lose the taste for battle. Feeling guilty is pointless; it is not your fault you have enemies.
Real pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, feeling confidence in your abilities, gaining fluency in skills, and experiencing the power this brings. You develop patience. Boredom no longer signals the need for distraction, but rather the need for new challenges to conquer.
Love never dies of starvation,” she wrote, “but often of indigestion.
Do not take so seriously people’s promises or their ardor in wanting to help you. If they come through, so much the better, but be prepared for the more frequent change of heart. Rely upon yourself to get things done and you will not be disappointed.
On the internet, it is easy to find studies that support both sides of an argument. In general, you should never accept the validity of people’s ideas because they have supplied “evidence.” Instead, examine the evidence yourself in the cold light of day, with as much skepticism as you can muster. Your first impulse should always be to find the evidence that disconfirms your most cherished beliefs and those of others. That is true science.
If you need everything in your life to be simple and safe, this open-ended nature of the task will fill you with anxiety. If you are worried about what others might think and about how your position in the group might be jeopardized, then you will never really create anything. You will unconsciously tether your mind to certain conventions, and your ideas will grow stale and flat.
Understand: we can never really experience what other people are experiencing. We always remain on the outside looking in, and this is the cause of so many misunderstandings and conflicts.
First, it is essential that you begin with one skill that you can master, and that serves as a foundation for acquiring others. You must avoid at all cost the idea that you can manage learning several skills at a time.
You see, you keep learning. People are always looking for a single magic turning point. There isn’t one. It’s much more of a gradual getting better and better and better and better.
One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself. – LEONARDO DA VINCI In.
Practical knowledge is the ultimate commodity, and is what will pay you dividends for decades to come – far more than the paltry increase in pay you might receive at some seemingly lucrative position that offers fewer learning opportunities.
The great questions of the time will be decided, not by speeches and resolutions of majorities, but by iron and blood.
What limits individuals as well as nations is the inability to confront reality, to see things for what they are. As we grow older, we become more rooted in the past. Habit takes over. Something that has worked for us before becomes a doctrine, a shell to protect us from reality. Repetition replaces creativity.
According to Freud, seduction begins early in life, in our relationship with our parents. They seduce us physically, both with bodily contact and by satisfying desires such as hunger, and we in turn try to seduce them into paying us attention. We are creatures by nature vulnerable to seduction throughout our lives.