My Favorite Law Of Power

Hello guys. Good morning. Hope you had a great night? I slept a bit better today, but I had a nightmare. I think it's just because of my leg though... Nothing serious.

Today, I bring you something from a book called the 48 laws of power by Robert Greene. It's an amoral book that cares only about achieving absolute power in whatever field you are. I won't take them too seriously if you don't want people to tag you as "bad" or "power hungry" though. While I don't live too much by the rules, I definitely love some of the laws, maybe because of the stories. The author draws stories from history, and today, I'm going to tell stories from the book the way I tell them in real life when I'm having a conversation with a friend.

Enjoy guys.

Court Attention At All Cost

This law simply makes you aware that attention is all that matters no matter how you get it. It says "there is no bad publicity". It tells stories I like so much of P.T. Barnum. It starts at first with when he was still working under someone (I'm not sure about the name, but I'll call him Aaron coz that's what I always use). Aaron was a circus manager, and Barnum was his assistant. So they had a show later in the evening in a small town. PT Barnum on Aaron's suggestion decided to take a stroll in his suit and shoes. After a while, he noticed that people were following him. They wanted to stone him to death as they thought he was a certain pastor that had committed a crime but had been set free by the court. After a lot of supplications from Barnum, they followed him to the circus to verify who he was. The manager confirmed his identity, but Barnum was still visibly shaken. He then told Barnum to pull himself together and revealed that he was in fact the one that started the rumor. Barnum asked why, but the manager simply responded that he would see. That night, the circus was overflowing with people.

This singular event changed Barnum for life. He would take these lesson to the extreme.

Barnum at some point decided to start a museum that was nothing but a collection of oddities. While the museum was young, he saw a beggar on the street that asked him for alms. He decided instead to employ the beggar. He gave the beggar about five bricks and had him arrange them from a certain point in the city to and fro for a while while also giving him a set of rules to make it dramatic (for example, always have two in your hand at all times etc). Anyways as Barnum expected, people were gathering to see what the man was up to, and at the designated time, people followed him into the museum when the arrangement got to the museum. After the third day of this, there was so much traffic in the area that the police had to stop the man.

Barnum would put a sign at the back of the museum that says "free music for the masses", but would make sure to employ all the worst musicians in town. As soon as the loud music started, it would be so horrible that the crowd would have to run into the museum to escape the noise. lol...

I love Barnum!!!

There was a time he was scammed. The head of a Chinese fish and the body of a Russian monkey were pieced together in Japan (the countries are probably not accurate, but enjoy the story please (: ) , and sold to Barnum as a mermaid. Barnum found out that he was filled dupped but he found a way around the situation. He took pictures of disney mermaids and sent it to different media outlets and told them he had a mermaid. Now, at this point, Barnum was the trash of the town as different media always had something bad to say about him. So any potential hoax he was pulling off was going to spread like wild fire. The effect of the last act was that people would come from all over the world and may not even take a look at the "mermaid". They came for different related reasons. Professors may come for example just to hear archaeologists talk about the possibility of it. Most people hadn't even heard of mermaids before then!

There are many more PT Barnum stories reach over just so hilarious. There's one involving a dwarf that even took him to the queen herself!! He was just great at getting attention, but as long as people kept coming to his museum, Mr Barnum was very fine. I think he was the one that said this "there's no bad publicity as every publicity gives you a quota of renown". Basically, he's saying even bad publicity makes you more popular so it makes up for it.

There are other laws I love too like "Court the attention of all, but do not commit to any". For this law, he uses says "give hope to all, but satisfaction to none". He tells stories about the virgin queen of England and how she would court all the powerful king's sons around England, and would not marry any.

Another law I love so much is "your reputation is your life, guard it". It's a simple law, but with impressive results.

Thanks for reading guys. If you've read this book, please feel free to tell your favorite stories from it. You're the best guys...