In the middle of this strange thought, I woke up. The dream and its intense mood stayed with me for quite some time. It made me think--this is clearly how it is in history. People never appreciate the moment they are living in. We can look back at all of the tumultuous, exciting periods in history with an air of nostalgia, but it's an illusion. Those in that moment have no such perspective and no such appreciation. If only we could now have that perspective and realize that we are living through one of the great transformational moments and that the old is finally dying away. I leave you with that thought. Thank you.

You can read all of The Descent of Power as an ebook.

Like Napoleon, the two founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, came from a radically different background than your average CEO. They were scientists at Stanford, their field being statistics and probability. In founding Google in the late 1990s, based around their innovations in the field of search engines, they came to several important conclusions: the Internet is going to radically alter the business environment. The world is entering a new era--the Information Age. They wanted their company to reflect these changes and the historic fatality I've been talking about. They needed to create their own business and organizational model. And so they studied in depth how other businesses operated, particularly in technology, to see if there were lessons to be learned.

Most of these companies, like Microsoft, had intense layers of bureaucracy. They would have a giant staff of software engineers to create new products. But before such products could be launched, they had to be integrated with everything else, and they had to be as close to perfect as possible. Once the product was ready, large-scale sales and marketing teams would go into action, making sure they saturated the public. If these companies were creating any kind of content, there was an editorial staff.
To keep this all running smoothly, they had to have a very large management staff.

To roll out any new product would take years, as this machinery was slow and lumbering. All of the different departments and layers of bureaucracy had to be brought into the process. By the time the product came out, competitors had already appeared, but it was too late to adapt to what was evolving. The sheer size of the company made it difficult to maintain close ties to the public; better to make perfect products and sell them hard than respond to public feedback. Everything was geared towards market domination--using vast resources and muscle to maintain that.

All of this bureaucracy created small power bases from within the company, increasing the political games being played and adding to the slowness. A company like IBM once dominated the computer field, but completely lost ground in the 1980s, mostly because it did not believe in the personal computer. There were some from within the company that thought differently, but they could not get their voices heard or influence the entrenched culture. All of the resources that IBM had were useless in the face of such rigidity--proving that structure, strategy and ideas are more important than money and technology. (In war, a similar example would be the Blitzkrieg of 1941: the French had superior equipment and technology, but their ideas on how to use them were completely outmoded and they collapsed in the face of a superior strategy.)

To Page and Brin, a company in this new environment had to be lean and fast, able to stay ahead of the innovation cycle and adapt quickly to trends. They had to build a new kind of structure. This governed most of their key organizational decisions. They would not produce any content; Google would serve as a platform for others to create or move content, enhancing the flow of information. They would have no editorial staff. To make money, they would sell advertising space, but all of this would be automated. Customers would buy through a self-serve platform. This allowed Google to have a minimal sales staff. Any kind of feedback or data on advertising sales could flow directly and immediately to anyone within the company--there were no bottlenecks from within to slow down the flow of information.

Google would have a relatively small staff of engineers. They would hire the best but keep the numbers down. They predicated this all on their philosophy of release often, release early. They would not spend months perfecting their latest product--in fact they would release it in a beta version and let the customers help improve it with their feedback. This meant no marketing or sales team to push the new product. This would also help them to develop close ties to their client base and make people feel involved in the process.

As a result of all this, the company would need far fewer managers to keep Google running. As far as possible, employees would be self-managed.

It is this remarkable lightness of Google that has allowed them to move, adapt and expand at such a rapid rate. It is the foundation of their power, as it was for Napoleon. To ignore this simple truth is to ignore a fundamental principle of strategy.

In addition, Google created a completely different culture, to reflect the historic fatality I had mentioned in the beginning. The company was broken down into small units that could be self-managed. They created the 20% rule: all employees must devote 20% of their time to creating something of their own--a pet project, an innovative idea that could later fit into Google or if not, could be taken elsewhere. Periodically small teams of peers would review these projects and critique them. It became possible to rise fast within the company and make a fortune.

The culture was centered around the idea that Google was the spearhead of a revolution: this was the company that was going to give the world access to information, to news, to everything going on in the world, opening things up and allowing people to make what they wanted with it. This sense of being part of a cause created an extremely motivated workforce that does not need to be policed by teams of managers. A degree of chaos is allowed for and even encouraged.

With such an organization in place, Google could practice a kind of maneuver warfare. Most companies focus on dominating a particular position in the marketplace, like armies that marched to meet the enemy at a set point. This is old style warfare and business--linear and predictable. In the new environment what matters is putting your company in a position in which it can quickly adapt to the latest trend and get a toehold there before others. To do so, you have to be built for that.

As a company that focused on primarily having a search engine as its center, Google could quickly move to other areas--Gmail or Google News, et al--all with the aim of creating a kind of operating system for the Internet. If some new trend appears on the horizon, they are ready to pounce and exploit it. For instance, they saw great potential for YouTube, tried to produce their own version of it and when that failed, they simply bought YouTube. This kind of fluidity is rare in business and devastatingly powerful.

As opposed to past models, Google does not invent something they think is clever and then figure out how to market it to the masses, with all of the time and money that requires. They work on what is already there--the demand that is palpable. As opposed to the traditional business practice as it evolved in the era of mass consumption, their ideal is to create less and less distance between themselves and their customers.

I focus on Google because to me they are the most radical version of a new business model that has succeeded on a large scale. I could also bring in other companies that have experimented as well and had success. A company like Zara, which has adapted brilliantly to the new environment, has based its model on the speed with which it can produce items that respond to the latest trends, giving consumers a much wider choice. The company is structured in a similar loose fashion to Google. There are many other examples as well on smaller scales all around the world. As the tsunami of the global meltdown is receding, these are the companies that are poised to take over.

I do not mean to imply that Google is infallible and already we see signs of their limitations. Like Napoleon, they could slowly morph into the enemy, into a slightly more mobile version of Microsoft. This was merely to point out the radical departure they made in the initial structure of the company and the power that brought them. If they are smart, they could dominate the scene for years to come, but nothing is certain.

This then is the point that we have reached. What is really changing in the world is not technology, or the globalization of capital, but the relationships between people--relationships that were once hierarchical and based on the force of authority. This has been radically flattened. What matters most now are the connections between people, the interdependencies and networks that can be formed and the unimpeded flow of information. Any kind of obstruction to that flow will be seen as something from the past, someone or some group trying to halt the course of an historic fatality.

We are in the midst of a countercurrent. As the new is flowing in, the tide of the old is still there. We see signs of this decrepitude everywhere. Looking at large businesses with their big marketing campaigns, often tied around celebrities, we are simply seeing dinosaurs making a lot of noise before they disappear. The signs of this old order clinging to power are everywhere, and it will be quite a spectacle to see them become extinct in the years to come.

Without grasping this wider perspective of what is happening in the world, the crest of a change that began millennia ago but greatly accelerated by the advent of the Information Age, nothing you do will have any kind of lasting effect or power.

Stay tuned for the next installment, or read The Descent of Power as an ebook.

The campaign in Italy was going badly for the French and so in desperation, they named the 26-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte, former artillery lieutenant, commander of all French forces fighting in Italy. Through some bold maneuvering and some innovative strategies Napoleon was able to save France from disaster, but barely. As a result of his success he was named commander in chief of the French army. After the Italian campaign, Napoleon did some reflecting. He felt there was a better way to wage war; he needed a new kind of army or organizational principle.

Napoleon began by analyzing the way his enemies waged war and their organizational model. Essentially, a typical general would have at his command an army of a certain size and configuration. To make this army more mobile a general could break it up into groups, but what he might gain in flexibility he would lose in control. How could a general continue to direct and monitor the battle, if his army was divided and scattered? This would also violate the key military principle of keeping one's forces concentrated. Control then was more important than mobility, so he would keep this army together.

The general would stay in the back of the advancing forces and command the battle from this safe position. Those in front, the scouts and vanguards, might see something unexpected as the enemy approached, but before they could get the army to adjust to these changes, they would have to pass messages to the general in the back, who would then relay his response to the front, all of which took a lot of time. In addition, this massive force had to be fed and for this purpose large wagons--led by horses and oxen--would accompany the army, slowing it down. In times of bad weather, which were frequent, these supply wagons would come to a complete halt.

Because of all this, armies advanced slowly, both sides tending to march to a point where they would meet in battle. Once there, some clever maneuvering and superior firepower could decide the issue. This form of warfare was completely linear and predictable. Although armies at the turn of the 19th century might look modern, with the latest rifles and artillery, they were fighting according to a model that was ancient. This was essentially the way wars had been fought since Alexander the Great. It was out of fear that generals adhered to this rigid system. War is inherently chaotic and such a system offered the maximum in control.

Napoleon had once compared these generals to Marie Antoinette. What he meant was the following: the Queen had lived through a period of incredible turmoil in France--famine, widespread discontent among the peasants and bourgeoisie, the dissemination of dangerous ideas in the press, etc. To handle all of this, Marie Antoinette employed a strategy: she increased the distance between herself and the French people so as to control what she saw and heard. She imagined that the turmoil was in fact rather superficial. After all, the French monarchy had been through a lot, and this too would pass. Its prestige and authority could never really be challenged. Why lose your head over such momentary fluctuations?

And so she held on to these beliefs all the way to the bitter end.
These generals operated in a similar way. They looked to the past, instead of examining the present. They increased their distance from the common soldier and the shifting realities of war. They held on to the old organizational principle as if it were magical. Ultimately such faith in a timeless power structure or model is a form of magical thinking--your belief system overrides reality.

Napoleon was different from these leaders. He was much younger. He had grown up with the revolution--rising from the bottom of the military, which had now been fashioned into a kind of citizens' army. He was deeply aware of the great changes in the world--social, political, technological. He was aware that this altered the psychology of warfare--the French army was fighting for the sake of the revolution, for the sake of an idea. It was a whole new culture and social dynamic. War had to catch up with these changes; it had to become fast and fluid, to fit the times. In military terms, speed is a force multiplier. It brings momentum and surprise into the battlefield--with speed, an army of 25,000 could have the force of 100,000.

In order to have such power, however, Napoleon would have to reconstruct his army from the ground up. And it is at this point that Napoleon made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of warfare--namely that structure is strategy. The structure of your group, of your army, is what gives it speed and mobility, creates its tone, rhythm and way of action. If you structure it in a dense, bureaucratic and ad-hoc way, you will have a slow, lumbering army, no matter what you try to make them do. You have to be willing to accept a degree of chaos. You have to let go. The fluidity you gain will more than compensate for any momentary loss of control.

After much analysis, Napoleon decided upon the following: He would break his army up into smaller divisions, ranging in size from 20,000 to 80,000. Each of these divisions would be led by a field marshal, who would be inculcated in Napoleon's philosophy of war and in what he wanted in a particular campaign, but these marshals would be allowed to make their own decisions based on what they saw on the battlefield. They would fight in the front of the lines instead of safely in the back, so they could react in real time.

This would be replicated all the way down the line. Lieutenants and sergeants could make decisions for their units based on what they saw, as long as it fit into the overall mission of the division. Napoleon understood very well the new social order and what motivated the common soldier. He enjoyed he freedom from within the army structure, the chance to prove himself, to show initiative. Napoleon would build into the structure of this army the chance for the lowest soldier to rise to the top, based on merit and bravery, a novel concept at the time. Furthermore, they would all be fighting for an idea--to spread the revolution to the rest of Europe.

Napoleon added one small technical detail that revealed his way of thinking: his soldiers would now carry their supplies in carefully designed backpacks, each individual responsible for keeping his supplies in order.

These were the components of the new army--smaller, more mobile units; no supply wagons to slow them down; important decisions that could be made by leaders in the moment; soldiers who were more intensely motivated and engaged in the struggle. It was a force that was considerably faster and more fluid than any other army in Europe. With such a weapon Napoleon could evolve a new strategy, what is known as maneuver warfare. Instead of advancing his troops along a single line, he could throw his five or ten divisions at the enemy in scattered patterns, and they would decide to advance depending on how the enemy reacted. In this way, he recaptured the initiative. He could adjust faster than the enemy and destroy its willpower by making it impossible to foresee his maneuvers.

As you can imagine, with such an army Napoleon dominated the scene for ten years in a way that no other military force has done in history. But there is a second chapter to this story. For the next ten years, from 1806 to 1816, we see a steady decline in his powers. He starts to believe that his success comes from his magical personality and genius, as opposed to the strategies he had invented. He creates his own aristocracy and distances himself from the revolutionary ideals. He begins to slow down with age, and to fight wars the way his enemies had fought them. He believes in overwhelming the enemy with size and firepower, instead of mobility. All of this leads to his tragic campaign in Russia in 1812 and his final defeat at Waterloo in 1816. In essence he had morphed into a kind of Marie Antoinette himself, holding on to the power he had, believing in the magic of his authority and growing increasingly arrogant.

This then is the pattern and the lesson we can learn from any revolutionary period in history: you are either a Marie Antoinette or a Napoleon Bonaparte. One or the other spirit tends to dominate your decision-making process. If you are a Marie Antoinette, you manage to convince yourself that nothing is really changing in the world. You concern yourself with the present, with the pleasures at hand. You trust in the power and privileges you have had in the past. All of this will continue, you tell yourself. In essence, you manage to keep your distance from the events around you. You live in your bubble. Hard times or adversity only strengthen this bubble. If you're a Napoleon Bonaparte, you move in the opposite direction--towards the change coming from the bottom up, towards reality. You want more contact with the world, no matter how chaotic and challenging that might be, because power lies in moving in that direction and exploiting the moment.

The following are the two most critical strategic principles that you must adhere to in times of change: first, speed is of the essence. You need to be able to adapt quickly to events. To do so, your group must be organized to allow for such fluidity. This means creating a structure that is looser and that leaves room for initiative from within. Your brilliant strategies will mean nothing in such times if your organization is bureaucratic and hierarchical. Second, you must unite this group around an idea, a reason for fighting or advancing, beyond money. You are creating a culture where you are harnessing the creativity and energy of your soldiers. The old is finally dying out and leaving space for something youthful and new. You are riding this tide, this historic fatality as it sweeps the globe. In conjunction with these principles, you must be continually vigilant that any kind of success does not slowly transform you into a Marie Antoinette.

Stay tuned for the next installment, or read The Descent of Power as an ebook.

When we face situations that are novel, we tend to react in one of several ways. We try to deny the reality. We hold on even more firmly to the past and how things were done. We interpret events according to how we want to see them. Or, we do the opposite--we succumb to all of the chaos and confusion, believing that all of the old rules can be tossed out and that anything goes. We try this and we try that, never with much thought or calculation. Both responses are reactive and emotional. They do not represent an attempt to actually come to terms with the changes going on and work to exploit them in a rational manner.

To really gain power, there is only one way to orient ourselves in such turbulent times--by adopting a different way of thinking, what I prefer to call "strategy in depth." I differentiate this from the normal idea of strategy, which is so often confused with merely planning and thinking ahead. Strategy in depth is a mental discipline that can take years to acquire.

To give you an idea of what I mean by this, I like to employ the following metaphor: business, or life, is a kind of battlefield. On the ground, fighting the daily battles to make your business competitive and to keep your army advancing together can get quite confusing. Sometimes those on your side act more like enemies or obstructers. There is a lot of smoke, sudden shifts in the battle and chaos. On the ground, you have no real perspective of what is really going on. You are constantly reacting to this or to that. If you were able to stand on a ladder and elevate your perspective some ten feet, suddenly you would have a different idea about what is happening. You would see some patterns to the fighting. You thought you were advancing but in fact you seem to be retreating. There's more going on than you had imagined.

If you were able to somehow elevate to a hundred feet, what you saw at ten feet would now prove to be an illusion. You would realize that the battles you are fighting today are not really worth your attention, because on the horizon something much worse is taking shape. Your sense of a pattern to the battle would now be more accurate than before, and your strategies more rational and effective. If somehow you could raise your perspective to a mountaintop you would have the clarity of the gods on Mount Olympus, seeing far and wide. What you had seen at a hundred feet elevation would prove to have been somewhat inaccurate or piecemeal.

People who remain on the ground operate in what I call tactical hell. They are constantly reacting to what others bring and this creates a kind of constant wave effect--each reverberation of an action/reaction keeps you locked in this mode, your emotions continually buffeted by this back and forth. You might think you are being rational, but you are far from it. The view from ten feet is better, but still rather hellish. You can delude yourself that you have real perspective, when you are simply seeing a small piece of the puzzle. The higher you go, the more you enter the realm of strategy, which requires depth of thinking and true perspective.

In normal times, it is quite difficult to elevate your perspective--it is simply unnatural for the human animal to not react, to not get caught up in the moment. In times of confusion and change like ours, this process is made that much harder. Add to that the incredible distractions that new technology has inserted into our lives and it can become almost impossible. In such circumstances, we tend to take pieces of information from the media, which inundates us with all kinds of snapshots of the moment, and elevate them into some kind of trend; we give these pieces disproportionate weight and act on them without a sense of real direction or depth. This confusion tends to perpetuate itself as more and more people are locked in this tactical hell.

To be a strategist in depth in this era, you must work at acquiring several skills. First and primary is the ability to control your own emotions that tend to cloud your sense of judgment. What matters is not your ego or appearing right or being admired, but winning. To win you must be realistic and see things as they are. From this base of inner balance, you study history and its many lessons; you immerse yourself in the present and the trends that are taking shape. You encompass in your considerations not merely the battle in front of you, but the larger war, the cultural and social factors--everything. You understand what is happening, the historic moment we are living through. Once you reach the proper elevation, you can then make rational decisions--moving with calibrated boldness or biding your time.

In times of great change it might seem that there are no patterns to discern in the present and nothing to be learned from history. After all, events are unprecedented. But this is an illusion born out of our confusion. There have been other periods in history of comparable change and turmoil. In looking at them in depth we can see certain patterns--why most people succumb to the chaos but a few manage to rise to the top. Those who succeed generally follow the same simple path and adhere to a few basic strategic principles that are particularly relevant to revolutionary times.

To give you an idea what I am talking about, I want to take you inside the mind of the man whom I consider to be the greatest strategist who ever lived--Napoleon Bonaparte.

Stay tuned for the next installment, or read The Descent of Power as an ebook.

The competition heats up. Someone hits upon something that promises fast money and in fact yields a substantial return; it gains momentum. The profit that is produced has little to do with real economic forces, but rather with human psychology--greed, the contagion of emotions, exuberance that comes from something fast and easy. Money is poured into things that have no real value apart from what people imagine is there and once real economic forces come into play, the bubble is burst and it all collapses.

Another aspect of bubbles, one that is generally less discussed, is that they tend to prefigure or occur in periods of transition. People sense that something is going on; a significant shift is occurring in how business is done. They are more likely to believe that all of the old rules of investing and building value are a thing of the past and that anything goes. And so in such transitional periods people are much more susceptible to the psychology of a bubble and the exuberance it breeds.

The fact that we went through two bubbles, one succeeding the other in a matter of a few short years is an undeniable sign of something stirring from below--a sign of change and systemic instability. The first bubble was in tech stocks and its affect was relatively mild. But the second bubble (in finance and housing) burst at a moment when the wave that had been building since the 90s had finally gained sufficient momentum. These two forces--deep social changes and the economic bubble--converged at a moment in time to create a kind of tsunami. The old order that had been clinging to power and resisting what had been stirring from below was finally swept away in a cycle in capitalism known as Creative Destruction.

As this tsunami is just now beginning to recede, what we see in its wake is an altered landscape that at first glance seems like devastation. Businesses that had been dependent on times of prosperity, that created products that had no deep connection to consumers and needed a lot of marketing to be sold, these are wiped out by the tsunami, never to return. Large companies that had used their size as tremendous leverage in the marketplace find that it is difficult to adapt; they are dependent on their scale of mass. They are like dinosaurs--big and lumbering, they will continue to make noise but they are doomed to disappear within a decade or two.

Other companies, however, which had foreseen the tremendous shift going on and had structured their business accordingly, they are poised to not only survive the tsunami, but to thrive. I am referring to a company like Google, which I will talk about later on, but there other examples as well. Last and most important, with all the destruction that is going on, there is finally space for new businesses to spring up, based on a model that fits the times. A thousand flowers can now bloom.

Stay tuned for the next installment, or read The Descent of Power as an ebook.

Second, it gave us the power to purchase items straight from the source, cutting out the middleman. This would tend to lower prices, but more importantly it greatly increased our choices. We could shop from any place around the world, finding precisely what we needed or wanted.

Third, we could express our opinions on any subject that mattered to us and find some kind of audience. We could review the products that we had purchased and gain some power as consumers. Or we could voice our opinions on political matters and find others that shared them.

What interests me here is not the technology, but how it changes our relationship to power and authority, altering in so many ways the social dynamic--how people interact with one another. In this instance, the Internet is flattening out relationships that were once hierarchical and funneled through various centers. This tends to eat away at the prestige and authority of traditional sources of information such as newspapers, or expert opinions. It calls into question the need for so many middlemen in the world, and reveals the dubious source of their power.

Take for instance the availability of digital music files and iTunes. When this began to spread it altered our relationship to music itself. We could pirate it on the internet or if so inclined, purchased this music directly and quickly. We could easily share these files. Now it became possible to accumulate a vast library of music and store it the way we wanted to, making us in some ways creatively involved in the process. We no longer had to purchase an entire album, which would often contain songs that were there just to fill space.

This created a massive problem for the record industry; they went into panic mode. It essentially destroyed their business model in which they were the sole powers that marketed, distributed and sold this music. This model was based on their ability to dominate the flow of money, and seduce artists into accepting their role as vassals to the industry, to be discarded when they were no longer so hot. Record executives tried desperately to hold back these changes, but once the genie was let out of the bottle it was too late. Who was going to go back to the old way of purchasing music? The aura of their authority and power had been shattered.

We could chart the same course for the mainstream media. It is interesting to note that this great dissolving of these power centers was preceded by an intense concentration of their power. This is almost a physical law that we have seen before in history, but the subject for another night.
I compare these changes that the web was producing in society in the late 90s and onwards to a small wave that was forming far out in the ocean, slowly gaining volume and force as it spread.

Stay tuned for the next installment, or read The Descent of Power as an ebook.

With this came all kinds of institutions such as civic government, social organization, warfare, culture on a new level. It created the concept of surplus and leisure time. Slowly, sometimes by force, it conquered the world. Mostly it conquered because it contained an idea that was deeply seductive to human nature--a desire for settlement, for roots, for consistency and familiarity. Once it came into being, it was fated to spread everywhere.

Now, in The 48 Laws I lay out what I consider to be another historic fatality--the evolution of power from something heavily concentrated, to something more and more diluted. I like to imagine this as kind of a mathematical equation. Let us imagine a tribe of some 1000 people in some place in ancient times. We could say this tribe had a certain amount of power, based on its wealth and resources. The majority of this power, the control over it, was in the hands of one man--the ruler, the king. He might, in this case, depend on a small cadre of people to assist him, but he largely determined the roles they could play.

Let us say, with success and prosperity, this tribe grew to a size of some 10,000. Now, such supreme concentration was too difficult. The ruler would have to bring in others--advisors, generals, high priests. He could keep this number relatively limited and the percentage of power was mostly in his hands, but now ever so slightly diluted. If this town evolved into a city of some 100,000, suddenly there came a qualitative change. The complexity of ruling such numbers grew exponentially. Power at this moment had to be genuinely distributed in order to maintain a sense of control. Now there were teams of ministers, the military, the growing aristocracy and its court. To service this administration, bureaucracies had to evolve. Power remained concentrated, but with a different scale of distribution.

We can make three generalizations at this point. When a group of people is given power, it forms a power center. This means, for instance, that a team of military leaders tends to think in two directions--how to promote the interests of the ruler, while also advancing its own agenda. Things now become political, as their interests will clash with other power centers. The ruler must now manage this growing complexity. The power environment becomes increasingly dangerous.

Second, once people have been given power on this level, they do not want to give it back or return to an older way of governing. They work to keep what they have and extend their power base. And finally, once power becomes diluted and divided this way, it tends to keep on dividing, like a split atom. More and more people must be brought in to keep the whole functioning. And so over the course of centuries, power slowly became less and less concentrated.

Two events in history sped this process along. First, after the Middle Ages, the birth of modern capitalism and a merchant society. This meant the emergence of a middle class and new power centers in business that began to wield more and more influence. The second were the great political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, creating a new power center among the citizens of that state. To a lesser degree we could talk of modern media as another power center that came to prominence in the 20th century, which in turn acted to dissolve and dilute previous concentrations of influence.

We could look now to a country like the United States in the present, and see an almost extreme point of development--networks of hundreds of power centers crisscrossing each other: from within political parties, for instance, all kinds of niche groups, pushing their own agendas, making governance almost impossible.

Of course there remain concentrations of power and wealth in the world today. But on the other hand, there is no denying the remarkable evolution and dilution of power from that time millennia ago when it was mostly in the hands of one man.

From this position in the present we can project into the future a period of even greater dilution, as more and more people around the globe feel the right and necessity to have more control over their lives. In 100 or 200 years we can imagine a point of complete division. This is not so much about particular political or economic systems, but rather about something deep within human nature. The need to have such power has an inexorable appeal to us. Once the process began it cannot be stopped until it reaches its logical conclusion. It is because of this that we can talk of this division of power as a great historic fatality, perhaps on the level of agriculture or even greater in my opinion for its far-reaching ramifications.

Stay tuned for the next installment, or read The Descent of Power as an ebook.

The subject that I am going to talk about this evening is the state of the world as I see it, what is really going on--not what the newspapers report, not the conventional wisdom. But before I get to that, I want to give you some context about my perspective, my way of thinking and where it comes from.

In 1996 I began work on my first book, The 48 Laws of Power. The book had a simple premise: every human being has an innate desire for power. What I mean by power is the ability to control to some degree the events around us--to be able to influence people, move them in our direction, direct our career path and protect ourselves from those who are malicious. It also means having some control over our own destructive impulses. When we exercise such control, we feel energized and confident. When we experience the opposite--helpless in the face of circumstance--we become miserable and prone to all kinds of irrational behavior. To gain power, we try almost anything, but we are never quite sure of what really works.

The problem in writing such a book, as I saw it then, was the massive amount of confusion surrounding the subject. Few people like to admit they are motivated by ambition or a hunger for power. That seems too ugly. If somehow they attain some success in life it is because of their goodness or talent, never because of any maneuvering or political gamesmanship. Many people are masters at passive aggression--disguising their grabs at power behind a benign or smiling façade.

All of this moralizing and denial creates a great deal of fog. To pierce this fog and get at the reality, I devised a method that has served me well in all of my subsequent writings: I would ignore people's words and justifications; instead, I would study their actions. To show what is timeless and universal in this hunger for power, I would look at the most illustrious people in history--all periods, all cultures--and ruthlessly dissect their successes and failures. In doing this research, I discovered patterns, which turned into laws, 48 of them. When you observe these laws, good things happen to you; when you transgress them, you court disaster. These laws apply as much to Louis XIV as to Bill Gates. They represent the physical reality of what happens in the world, not the deceptive appearances that people like to present.

The book came out in 1998, and slowly it gained some momentum. Around three years after the publication, I began to be sought out by people in various lines of work who wanted advice. Some of them were quite powerful in their fields. At first, I was somewhat intimidated, as I have no real solid background in business or a degree in psychology and I had not personally attained the heights of power. But soon it became clear to me that these people did not want help in technical matters or cared about my credentials. Their weakness was dealing with the political side of human nature, how to handle all of the maneuverings that I describe in The 48 Laws. They were confused. I saw that my advice could be very useful and that the ideas I had discussed in the first book were more than relevant to their experiences.

As I acquired more and more of these consulting relationships, I began to gain access to the inner workings of many important businesses. I saw a pattern in the problems that many executives were facing, and over the years my ideas on this coalesced into the following theory: we are in the midst of one of those great transitional moments in history in which the old ways of operating and thinking are finally dying off. Something new is trying to emerge. All of this makes people confused and uncertain; it is infecting everyone unconsciously.

I saw signs of this struggle in business, but also in politics--particularly in the Obama campaign. In the middle of these speculations, the global economy crashed and this only confirmed what I had been thinking.

I want to talk to you tonight about these countercurrents of the old and the new, what is really going on under the surface creating the turmoil that we are experiencing. As with the subject of power, I'm not satisfied with how people are describing these events. There is too much politicizing and too little perspective. The human being handles change with difficulty. It makes us hold on to the past or become overwhelmed by the apparent chaos. It makes us even more emotional. People who live through revolutionary moments generally have little notion as to what is going on. In this particular case, our lack of understanding makes it very difficult for us to exploit the tremendous changes and opportunities that are germinating at this moment.

What I want to do tonight is to broaden our viewpoint and provide a different way of looking at this strange new world we have entered. Clearing up some of our confusion can help make our actions more effective. To accomplish this reversal of perspective, I will be bringing in many ideas, examples from history and so on, but all with the purpose of explaining the present moment, so bear with me.

Stay tuned for the next installment, or read The Descent of Power as an ebook.

Reality can be rather harsh. Your days are numbered. It takes constant effort to carve a place for yourself in this ruthlessly competitive world and hold on to it. People can be treacherous. They bring endless battles into your life. Your task is to resist the temptation to wish it were all different; instead you must fearlessly accept these circumstances, even embrace them. By focusing your attention on what is going on around you, you will gain a sharp appreciation for what makes some people advance and others fall behind. By seeing through people's manipulations, you can turn them around. The firmer your grasp on reality, the more power you will have to alter it for your purposes.

Chapter 2
Make Everything Your Own - Self-Reliance

When you work for others, you are at their mercy. They own your work; they own you. Your creative spirit is squashed. What keeps you in such positions is a fear of having to sink or swim on your own. Instead you should have a greater fear of what will happen to you if you remain dependent on others for power. Your goal in every maneuver in life must be ownership, working the corner for yourself. When it is yours, it is yours to lose - you are more motivated, more creative, more alive. The ultimate power in life is to be completely self-reliant, completely yourself.

Chapter 3
Turn Shit into Sugar - Opportunism

Every negative situation contains the possibility for something positive, an opportunity. It is how you look at it that matters. Your lack of resources can be an advantage, forcing you to be more inventive with the little that you have. Losing a battle can allow you to frame yourself as the sympathetic underdog. Do not let fears make you wait for a better moment or become conservative. If there are circumstances you cannot control, make the best of them. It is the ultimate alchemy to transform all such negatives into advantages and power.

Chapter 4
Keep Moving - Calculated Momentum

In the present there is constant change and so much we cannot control. If you try to micromanage it all, you lose even greater control in the long run. The answer is to let go and move with the chaos that presents itself to you - from within it, you will find endless opportunities that elude most people. Don't give others the chance to pin you down; keep moving and changing your appearances to fit the environment. If you encounter walls or boundaries, slip around them. Do not let anything disrupt your flow.

Chapter 5
Know When to Be Bad - Aggression

You will always find yourself among the aggressive and the passive-aggressive who seek to harm you in some way. You must get over any general fears you have of confronting people or you will find it extremely difficult to assert yourself in the face of those who are more cunning and ruthless. Before it is too late you must master the art of knowing when and how to be bad - using deception, manipulation and outright force at the appropriate moments. Everyone operates with a flexible morality when it comes to their self-interest - you are simply making this more conscious and effective.

Chapter 6
Lead from the Front - Authority

In any group, the person on top consciously or unconsciously sets the tone. If leaders are fearful, hesitant to take any risks, or overly concerned for their ego and reputation, then this invariably filters its way through the entire group and makes effective action impossible. Complaining and haranguing people to work harder has a counterproductive effect. You must adopt the opposite style: imbue your troops with the proper spirit through your actions, not words. They see you working harder than anyone, holding yourself to the highest standards, taking risks with confidence, and making tough decisions. This inspires and binds the group together. In these democratic times, you must practice what you preach.

Chapter 7
Know Your Environment from the Inside Out - Connection

Most people think first of what they want to express or make, then find the audience for their idea. You must work the opposite angle, thinking first of the public. You need to keep your focus on their changing needs, the trends that are washing through them. beginning with their demand, you create the appropriate supply. Do not be afraid of people's criticisms - without such feedback your work will be too personal and delusional. You must maintain as close a relationship to your environment as possible, getting an inside "feel" for what is happening around you. Never lose touch with your base.

Chapter 8
Respect the Process - Mastery

The fools in life want things fast and easy - money, success, attention. Boredom is their great enemy and fear. Whatever they manage to get slips through their hands as fast as it comes in. You, on the other hand, want to outlast your rivals. You are building the foundation for something that can continue to expand. To make this happen, you will have to serve an apprenticeship. You must learn early on to endure the hours of practice and drudgery, knowing that in the end all of that time will translate into a higher pleasure - mastery of a craft and of yourself. Your goal is to reach the ultimate skill level - an intuitive feel for what must come next.

Chapter 9
Push Beyond Your Limits - Self-Belief

Your sense of who you are will determine your actions and what you end up getting in life. If you see your reach as limited, that you are mostly helpless in the face of so many difficulties, that it is best to keep your ambitions low, then you will receive the little that you expect. knowing this dynamic, you must train yourself for the opposite - ask for more, aim high, and believe that you are destined for something great. Your sense of self-worth comes from you alone - never the opinion of others. With a rising confidence in your abilities, you will take risks that will increase your chances of success. People follow those who know where they are going, so cultivate an air of certainty and boldness.

Chapter 10
Confront Your Mortality - the Sublime

In the face of our inevitable mortality we can do one of two things. we can attempt to avoid the thought at all costs, clinging to the illusion that we have all the time in the world. Or we can confront this reality, accept and even embrace it, converting our consciousness of death into something positive and active. In adopting such a fearless philosophy, we gain a sense of proportion, become able to separate what is petty from what is truly important. Knowing our days to be numbered, we have a sense of urgency and mission. We can appreciate life all the more for its impermanence. If we can overcome the fear of death, then there is nothing left to fear.

If you'd like, you can also download a PDF version.

Confronted with this discrepancy between desire and reality, we can go in one of two directions. We can try our best to ignore these outside forces and escape into an inner world of dreams and fantasies. This is the childish reaction, born out of weakness and fear. Or we can see reality as something that must be accepted and dealt with. In coming to such a realization, we move towards power. Instead of whining about people's lack of support or attention, we decide we will find ways to appeal to their self-interest and improve our communication skills. Instead of fearing change, we decide to embrace it in all its forms and discover how we can exploit it. Instead of resenting how difficult it is to get attention and approval for our projects, we use this resistance to make ourselves work harder, with more discipline and focus. To the degree that we accept reality, we now have the power to shape it.

Most of us throughout our lives are pulled in both directions. We find ourselves indulging in daydreams and deluding ourselves about what is happening around us, but then we recognize the importance of seeing things as they are and we make ourselves wake up to reality. There are people, however, who never engage in this struggle. Their fear of reality is so great and their sense of self is so fragile that their only solution in life is to retreat to a world of illusion and find a way to stay there. For our purposes we shall such a type a neurotic.

The personalities of neurotics are generally formed around some kind of trauma in childhood--parental neglect or suffocation, a nasty divorce in which they were buffeted by unwanted changes, some humiliating experience, a sudden loss of prestige or affection, etc. Their fears for a repeat of such experiences are intense and exaggerated. They come to see the world around them as filled with things that are unpredictable and beyond their control. The only way to gain control is to construct certain illusions in their mind, creating an inner space that is familiar and predictable. They see themselves as good, powerful and talented; people who don't recognize this are malicious and evil. If neurotics believe and feel these things, then they are real.

Neurotics emphasize the past over the present. They look back to a time before the traumas and imagine a world that was once safe and pleasant. They cling to that memory. They cannot think too deeply about the world or themselves because such self-reflection might disturb their illusions. Instead, they value emotion over reason. Their strategies in life are rather repetitive--all designed to maintain their defenses.

We know we are dealing with such types because we are constantly hitting a wall with them. If we try to open their minds to another way of seeing something, they take this as criticism and a personal attack. They get upset and try to draw us into an emotional back-and-forth, during which our reasoning powers are neutralized and they can dominate. Their defenses can take the shape of a fortress, or a bubble that bends a little--but in either case we cannot really penetrate their world and inject some reality.

In their youth neurotics can seem rather interesting--dramatic, imaginative, and volatile. They often have an idea that they adhere to with incredible fanaticism, which can be seductive. But as the years go by, their detachment from reality becomes more noticeable. That one idea of theirs starts to seem obsessive and absurd. When people are young, their illusions and dreams can seem charming; as an adult, they start to seem pathetic and out of touch. We unconsciously avoid them and their increasing isolation makes them more fearful and neurotic. Sometimes their behavior is downright bizarre and self-defeating--such as deliberately alienating friends and family.

I was thinking of this neurotic syndrome as I contemplated the actions of the Republican Party through much of 2008. I did not make this connection with neurosis out of malice or personal political preferences. The Democrats have their own pathologies and psychological tics that I have outlined in other blogs, and which will certainly spark their own fall from grace years down the line. And there are certainly Republicans who demonstrate common sense and independent reasoning. But during the last election cycle, many of the actions of its leadership followed irrational and self-destructive patterns. Some of these included the following:

• Sudden bold gestures designed to draw attention and create some kind of excited response, such as McCain's announcement he was going to suspend his campaign during the economic crisis. These gestures were not tied to any overall strategy and they were oddly disconnected from the moment. They seemed like the actions of a child stamping his feet to get attention.

• Peddling the same, simple ideas from election cycles long past: lower taxes, less government, the need to return to the kind of values exemplified in small-town America. It was as if they were living in a time warp and had taken no notice of Bush spending patterns or the economic meltdown in progress or any of the other immediate concerns of most Americans.

• Emotion over reason. Facts did not really matter. If Sarah Palin could assert that Obama had palled around with terrorists, it was enough to believe that. Anything could be asserted as long as the emotions behind them were sincere and strong.

• Actions designed to curry favor with the base at the expense of alienating critical portions of the electorate such as Hispanics, all of this from the need to maintain ideological purity but ensuring an electoral disaster.

• The constant appeal to fears--the country being overrun by illegal immigrants, the imminent decline of Judeo-Christian values, terrorists in our midst, socialism or communism if Obama is elected, the loss of countless freedoms, and so on. The party of John Wayne had morphed into the party of Chicken Little.

• Constant whining and finger-pointing. If they lost badly in 2006 and were trailing in the polls in 2008, it was not because of their actions but because of the liberal media, or natural election cycles or whatever other rationale could be found. This prevented any kind of self-reflection or challenge to their cherished beliefs. Everything to maintain the bubble and the illusion that they still represented mainstream America.

Considering where they had been a mere four or eight years earlier, the turnaround and fall from grace was rather shocking. How to explain this sudden group neurosis, these strategies detached from reality? In fact, this transformation was not as sudden or radical as it seems. The seeds of this neurotic reaction go back several decades.

For many Americans the events of the late 1960s and 70s were deeply traumatizing. America's self-image as the world's beacon of freedom and democracy had been shaken to the core by Vietnam and Watergate. Racial tensions and the emergence of feminism posed real challenges to the old order and power structures. White male dominance was no longer such a given. On the world stage, America's supremacy was being challenged on several fronts. The world had become increasingly more chaotic; traditional values seemed to be dissolving. By the end of the 1970s many felt disturbed by the present and nostalgic for the past. (Change can be very upsetting to the human animal.) In culture, people suddenly became obsessed with the 1950s--a period that seemed stable, prosperous and idyllic in retrospect.

All of this set the stage for a charismatic leader--Ronald Reagan, the right man at the right time. He crafted a simple message of lower taxes, individual responsibility, the promotion of traditional values, and America as the global safeguard of these values. Government was something that had gotten in the way of the American spirit and needed to be pruned back like an overgrown tree, to a minimal form.

This message was immensely seductive but it stemmed from a reaction against change; it was a look backward and built on desire, not reality. We could not return to the simplicity of the 1950s, which were not as simple as we had liked to remember. Taxes could not be cut in some revolutionary manner while military spending escalated. The world had become increasingly complex and problems could not be solved by something so facile and reductive.

America could not maintain its preeminent position around the world without investing in education programs. The private sector could not see immediate value in such investments; it required some government intervention. Devaluing such social investments led us down the path of decay in education for which we are now paying a steep price. But the newness of the ideas and the easy fix they represented kept people under the spell of Reagan and diverted them from the realities bubbling up to the surface in the 60s and 70s.

Soon Reagan himself slipped into the past, and nostalgia for him supplanted that of the 1950s among Republicans. Underneath it all remained the same fears--of chaos, change and loss of identity. The attack launched on Iraq by George W. Bush can be seen as part of this last, dying sweep of nostalgia--America reasserting its global preeminence, establishing a stable order in the heart of darkness.

With the passing of the years we began to see through the childish illusions and rigidity of the Republican Party. As the election cycle of 2008 geared up we continued to hear the same platitudes about taxes, morality, terrorism and the endless stoking of fears. But now, the level of detachment from reality, and the disconnect to events was abundantly clear. In our face was the destructive result of devaluing government and its importance in regulating runaway capitalism. Playing upon our emotions and fears no longer had the desired effect--it seemed desperate and many were repelled. As with any neurotic, the defeats and rejection that the public gave them caused no real self-examination. The reaction instead was emotional--blame the messengers or the mainstream media, play the victim and martyr. Neurotics cannot learn from their mistakes. They get angry and defensive, not wise.

In essence, the dominant strain of Republicanism can be defined as a fear of modernity and a desire to return to a more comfortable and simpler past. They want to deny certain realities--the changing demographics of America, our diminishing role on the world stage (all a part of the rising and falling cycles of any civilization), the globalization of power and the less control that gives people on the local level, the increasing chaos and unpredictability in all facets of life.

Reality in this case does not lead to an either/or dynamic. America's diminished role on the world stage does not mean it is doomed to fall like Rome or that it cannot reinvent itself in the near future. Asserting the undeniable importance of government in solving some problems does not imply that socialism or communism is the way to go. Stating that social values are shifting does not mean it is all good, or that we are helpless to resist some changes. But to neurotics, it can only be black or white, everything or nothing. The strength of their fears and insecurities require they react in this manner.

Which leads Republicans to a double bind: to bring about the changes they want, they have to have power. To have power in 21st century America they must broaden their base and accept certain givens, certain aspects of modernity. But to do so means abandoning some of their most cherished beliefs. Such a thought induces panic and so they prefer retreating to what is safe and familiar, ensuring their continued isolation and confirming their worst fears.

A key concept in The 50th Law is that of the masks of fear. It works like this: we generally acknowledge fear as a sign of weakness. If from childhood we are marked by a particular anxiety or insecurity, we learn over the years to cover this up with what seems to be the opposite--aggression and even bravado. In this way, we can hide these insecurities from the public and even from ourselves. We assert our opinions more loudly than others; we remain so rigidly true to some idea we fell for in our youth that it seems we are a rock of consistency and resolution. Rip away this mask, this deceptive veneer, and you will see below a frightened child--terrified of change, chaos, anything different or unfamiliar.

These are the masks that are worn by such types as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Dick Cheney. The louder and more persistently they talk, the harder it is for us to see through that façade. We may view them as irritating and repetitive, but at least we are not discerning that deep well of insecurity that is impelling them forward. The 50th Law demands that you look beyond such masks and view the strategies and ideas that people utilize. If they are rigid, reactive, backward looking, full of attempts at denying certain realities, and asserted with much loudness then you can be sure there is a great deal of fear underneath, causing an individual or group to cover this up with the opposite.

Nothing is set in stone. As the Democrats overreach and stop learning the lessons that came from being out of power, the cycle could very easily swing back. But for the Republicans the only hope is that they have the capacity to evolve and stop yearning for the past. They would have to refashion their principles around new realities, aiming at creating a party that would deliver efficient, streamlined government, one that could offer creative ideas instead of repackaged simplifications. This might very well happen as the old Republicans die off and are replaced by a younger generation that is no longer so neurotically tied to Ronald Reagan and ideas that have long since lost their relevance. Until that happens, it will be a long march in the wilderness.

Coming next: Part Four--Barack Obama, Realism and Observance of the Law

In the meantime, you can pre-order The 50th Law, read more about it from Harper Studio, or check Thisis50.com for updates.

This is the source of our deepest dread--of being abandoned and facing life alone, of emptiness and separation. This infantile fear bears little relationship to reality (the mother is never very far away); it stems from weakness and ignorance. As adults, we may think we have left such a fear behind, but it remains buried deep within and determines our actions in ways we cannot imagine. From our birth to our death, we continually crave comfort, warmth and security in whatever form we can find it. Forward is life and power but a part of us always wants to regress to the womb.

In childhood, a critical phase is reached. We are no longer so weak and helpless. We have a restless, adventurous spirit and we want to explore the world around us. If we are bold and given room by our parents to attempt things, we can develop a taste for risk and freedom that will mark us well into adulthood. But if we are held back, if we experience traumas in the form of unwanted change and confrontations, adversity, criticism from others, failure on any level, feeling too alone, then the opposite movement will occur. We will develop irrational fears about the world, and we will always move back to the warmth of the family to protect us. The need for comfort becomes more powerful than the desire to explore. And if our parents are nervous and full of fears themselves, this centripetal pull will be even stronger.

Our childish anxieties always have a grain of truth to them: there is danger in the world and pain that can come from venturing too far. But the anxiety we feel makes us exaggerate the danger, focus unnecessarily on the threat and causes us to stop moving out into the world. This at least gives us the illusion of control. If we stay within the circle of what is warm and familiar we can protect ourselves from hardship and suffering--or so it seems.

In adolescence we add a new layer of fear. We look beyond our family to our peers. Our greatest anxiety is to be ridiculed and excluded from a group, which now represents to us a new circle of warmth. We seek their approval. Our personality becomes formed around this desire. We smooth away our rough edges, what makes us an individual, and become obsessed with what people think of us and how we can please them.

At some point on this journey we find ourselves thrust into the cold and merciless work world. The illusion of being protected by mother, family or group is now gone. We must fend for ourselves. Our actions will determine how far we advance towards power. And if we continue to carry within us the irrational and unchallenged fears of our youth, we will inevitably resort to the regressive pattern that began in infancy. We will stick to a job or position that seems secure. Within that job, we can collect a paycheck and have our needs met--a womb-like relationship. We will adhere to the behavior patterns of our peers, or listen to the voices of our parents. Deep within, our thought process will also be infected. Certain ideas, cherished beliefs, strategies of action will become fixed in our brains; we will no longer be so open to new concepts or ways of doing things. Our minds will circle in familiar patterns.

We can express this in the following way (see diagram above): we begin life holding on to positions of comfort and dependency. As we get older we are naturally drawn outward, towards actions that will bring us power. This outer zone seems unfamiliar and unpredictable, but inviting. At certain points of moving in this direction, however, we inevitably encounter a resistance or obstacle that triggers a fear--that of being alone, having to confront people and possibly displease them, making mistakes and being criticized, feeling bored and empty, dealing with change and possible adversity, losing what we have, facing death itself. At the instant we feel this fear we look backwards towards what is safe and comforting and move in that direction. We do not explore or take risks. We react and retreat in a single line. We draw a circle around ourselves that cuts us off from power, one that becomes a kind of self-imposed prison.

Life naturally involves moments of pain and loneliness, battles and setbacks. To feel fear and retreat because of them is to struggle against life itself. As conscious, rational adults, we are called to finally move past these childish illusions and fears, to embrace life and reality.

This is the essence of the 50th Law: when you move past this self-imposed circle, then you suddenly have options. You enter the realm of power. In the face of adversity, you no longer retreat along a single line. You explore the world and remain open to trying several things, depending on circumstances. With antagonists coming your way, you can bait them into a rash attack and follow this up with a counterattack; or you can lay low and buy time, seem to befriend them; or, believing the threat to be minor, you can choose to ignore them and conserve your energy. Beyond the circle of fear, you have the freedom to experiment and be creative with your response. You adhere to the 50th Law when you operate in this way.

Moving in the regressive, fearful direction, your options narrow with each passing year. Your fears tend to create new fears, as you back yourself into a corner and lose contact with power. Moving in the other direction brings the opposite dynamic. By being bold and true to your individuality, you make people respect you. They tend to get out of your way or follow you. You create your own circumstances, and one success tends to bring another. You have flow, moving with the chaos and changes in the modern world, instead of holding on to the past. All of this translates into potential force, as defined by Sun-tzu.

At such a point, the fears noted on the circle reverse themselves into forms of power. Overcoming the fear of loneliness, for instance, helps you develop self-reliance; moving past the fear of criticism brings you the power to learn from your mistakes; getting over the fear of boredom and empty moments helps you cultivate discipline and the ability to learn any craft.

Understand: we all feel too much fear in our lives. It is the source of our unhappiness. Almost all powerful, creative people in this world feel less fear than others; it is the secret of their success in any field.

Being fearless is not necessarily what you think. It does not mean being aggressive and bold at every moment. People who are uncontrollably aggressive in life are often secretly governed by fears and insecurities. Fearlessness on this level is more about possessing balance. When events occur, neutral or seemingly negative, fearless types have the capacity to focus on reality and not give disproportionate weight to the threat or risk. Having confronted and overcome the fear of death itself gives them a sense of proportion and priority--considering that our days are numbered, it is often not worth it to get so upset over the petty battles of the moment; better to act with urgency and energy on things that really matter. Unconcerned with what people think of them, these types feel free to give rein to their desires and whims, to be themselves.

In the end, what marks their spirit is a sense of calmness, freedom and mobility that are the necessary qualities for power in periods of dynamic change such as now. They are not weighed down by all the negative emotions that come from being overly concerned about others opinions, or feeling dependent on people. This frees up more energy to be creative. And what spells the difference between these types and those encircled by fear is merely the attitude towards life that they have chosen.

The book The 50th Law is based on a simple premise and strategy: You are asleep. You are not aware of the degree to which fear determines your actions. What bothers people now and makes them fret and retreat would hardly have upset an American in the 19th century, facing constant threats from the environment. We cannot see this, however. We don't have enough distance and detachment to observe how far we have traveled down the path of fear. And so the book is designed to fill such a role--to wake you up and make you reflect upon the fears inhibiting your mobility. There is no good in avoiding our fears and pretending they don't exist--we must turn around and look them square in the eye so we can move past them.

The fearless types in history generally experienced harsh circumstances that toughened them up. But many people suffer adversity and are simply overwhelmed by them. The difference is the ability that some people have to absorb these experiences and reflect on the negative influence of fear in their lives. What matters is awareness not experience. And so The 50th Law functions as a tool for leading you to similar levels of awareness. Each chapter focuses on a particular primal fear we all feel. It shows how the fear hides itself within you and subtly misdirects you in life. It indicates ways to confront and overcome each of these fears, strategies on how to convert them into their opposites. Each chapter is illustrated with stories from Fifty's life, as well as from historical figures who are exemplars of the 50th Law. Such stories serve as inspiration and guideposts.

This is only half of the equation, however. What will probably happen is that at some point during or after the reading you will have to confront some novel situation or difficulty. Made aware of how fear will cause you unconsciously to react and retreat, you will stop that motion and reflect. You will not give undue attention to the threat or danger that it involves. That alone will make you open to the possibility of trying something different. And having tasted a bit of the freedom that comes from moving past the circle, you will want more and more of this. Once you set foot on this path, you will never want to turn back.

Coming next--Part Three, The Republicans, Barack Obama and the 50th Law.

In the meantime, you can pre-order The 50th Law, read more about it from Harper Studio, or check Thisis50.com for updates.

Over the course of the past eighteen months I have started dozens of blog entries, only to find that the passage of a few days or a week made my ideas seem irrelevant. Events in the world were moving too fast for me to keep up with them. The main culprit here was the book I had been working on during this period, The 50th Law (due out on September 8, 2009), and my tendency to want to concentrate on only one thing at a time. In the months to come I plan to recycle several ideas that are worth salvaging from those aborted blogs, but for now I would like to simply describe the evolution of the new book and how it has altered my perception of many of the dramatic events we have witnessed in the past few years. (I will be posting this in four parts.)

In early 2007, people in Fifty Cent's camp contacted me to set up a meeting between us. He was a big fan of The 48 Laws and was interested in collaborating on some kind of book project. I agreed to the meeting (who wouldn't), but I was initially skeptical about such a collaboration.

I am not someone who is normally drawn to the world of celebrities. By necessity, anyone who has reached the top has had to resort to all kinds of manipulative maneuvers, but most people in the limelight try to disguise all of that as best they can. They want to project to the public their angelic, spiritual side, highlighting the progressive causes they support, their inner goodness. Obviously a rapper would have a different angle, wanting to project an image of toughness and infallibility. But all of this is mythmaking--a power maneuver in its own right. My primary interest is ripping away the façade people like to present and showing you the inner workings of power, rats and all. And it is often easier to practice this analysis on dead people.

In our first meeting, however, I quickly saw that Fifty was different. He was in the midst of a power struggle with a rival rapper and he talked quite openly about the strategies he was employing, including mistakes he had made along the way. He analyzed his own actions with detachment, as if he were talking about another person. Over the last few years he had witnessed a lot of nasty maneuvering within the music business, and he seemed to want to discuss this with somebody from the outside. He was not interested in myths but reality. Contrary to his public persona, he had a Zen-like calmness that impressed me.

After the meeting and doing some research on him I came to the following conclusion: Fifty is a master practitioner of the The 48 Laws; he exemplifies a type that has always fascinated me--what Machiavelli calls the New Prince. Most princes or traditional leaders in this world occupy their position of power because of their background, connections and a bit of luck. They have a good education and perhaps some skill, but their power is limited because it depends on external factors--things that have been given to them from the outside, including knowledge. If fortune shifts, they are not able to adapt very easily. They remain tied to the past, ideas from books, and all kinds of conventions they have absorbed over the years. These shifts in fortune finally reveal them to be incompetent or mediocre.

New Princes generally emerge in times of great turmoil and chaos. They start at the bottom--with no privileges, connections, or money. What they have in abundance is ambition and hunger for power. If they make mistakes, they quickly analyze what they did wrong and learn the lesson. Considering the odds against them, they must stay focused, alert and patient. If they begin to rise up the ladder, it is almost purely by their own actions. They do not depend on others. They can handle downturns in fortune because they are used to adversity and turning negatives into positives. Since their education comes from experience and observation, they can think in the moment and adapt to their environment. They re-write the rules that others then slavishly follow. A classic example of a New Prince would be Napoleon Bonaparte.

Considering the openness that I sensed in my initial meeting with Fifty, I believed that this book project could represent for me a unique opportunity to study a New Prince in action. In a modern twist, Fifty could serve as my Cesare Borgia, and I as his Machiavelli.

I had another thought at the time: America can be country of great social mobility, but in many ways we remain people who are locked in mental ghettos. Academics tend to live in their cloistered world and talk among themselves. Celebrities associate with their own kind, to an absurd extent. As most of us get older, we like to be around people who share our values, even though this might close us off from interesting encounters that would challenge our most cherished beliefs and preconceptions. Look at any progressive neighborhood, such as where I live within Los Angeles, and you will see a rather depressing homogeneity in people's style, tastes and values. To me, these ghettos are dull and deadening. I live for encounters with people from other cultures who think in different ways and make me reflect on my own limited perspective.

Although Fifty and I might have a similar way of looking at the power game, we come from diametrically opposed backgrounds. This book could be an experiment in which we would bring our two worlds together, on the plane of ideas, and see where this would lead.

With these considerations in mind I agreed to do the project. Together we came up with a method. I would follow him around and witness him in action on many fronts. I would go to Southside Queens and interview people who knew him from his drug-dealing days. As much as possible I would try to pierce the world of the urban hustler and learn its secrets. Most important, Fifty and I would have lengthy discussions about the power game and what it means to advance in this harsh, competitive world. From all this research and our talks, the exact subject and structure of this book would come to us.

Several weeks into the process, after witnessing many strange events (some of which eventually found their way into the book), I had a revelation of sorts about hustling, the New Prince and Fifty himself. We humans are generally frightened and timid creatures; we carry within us so many deeply embedded fears--of change, criticism, being alone, death itself. People who feel less fear in life have a distinct advantage. They are more adaptable and their careers are longer. Fearlessness is in fact the quality that distinguishes a New Prince, and one that Fifty has in abundance.

In his days as a hustler, he had to deal with endless confrontations, violence and betrayal. He learned that to feel fear on the streets could be fatal; he had to project a bold front. He saw the value in taking risks, experimenting and even failing--a hustler is always trying new things. And he has brought this fearless mindset into the world of corporate America, which is generally governed by cautious and conservative Princes, intellectually tied to the past. What they perceive as chaos, he sees as the normal state of things. Change, turmoil and adversity do not faze him in the least; in fact, they bring out the best in him. This is his strategic advantage.

At the base of all fears is that of death itself--a dread that influences our daily actions in so many ways. Fifty had that fear bleed out of him the day he survived the assassination attempt on him in 2000. This, I believe, accounts for his uncanny calmness.

Without really understanding it fully, I could sense that this quality was the source of his remarkable rise from the bottom to the top. There is another aspect to it: although we may seem to be rational, civilized creatures, we remain animals and as such we tend to read signals from people in a preverbal manner. In an encounter with someone new, we register their levels of fear and timidity--from their tone of voice, mannerisms, the look in their eye. If we sense that their fear level is higher than our own, we unconsciously look down on them, treat them with a touch of disdain and respect them less. If their fear level is lower than ours, we are either intimidated and get out of their way, or we are seduced by their self-assurance and follow them.

Confidence can be contagious, just as the awkwardness and timidity of others can infect us as well. Fifty's fearlessness has this seductive power over those around him. In the few short weeks I had spent trailing him, I could feel its inspiring effect on myself.

The task before me was to get at the heart of this quality, break it down, make it understandable so that anyone could move closer to the ideal of fearlessness and experience the power it could bring. This, I decided, had to be the subject of the book and in discussing it with Fifty he agreed.

Together we mapped out ten common types of fears and the reverse power that you can obtain by overcoming them. We found stories from his own life that would illustrate these ideas, many of them culled from his days as a hustler and even highlighting mistakes along the way that taught him valuable lessons. Later, from my own research, I would bring in examples from other historical figures who exemplified this trait. Many of them would be African Americans--Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Miles Davis, Malcolm X, Hurricane Carter, et al--whose fearless quality was forged by their harsh struggles against racism. Others would come from all periods and cultures--the Stoics, Joan of Arc, JFK, Leonardo da Vinci, Mao tse-tung, and so on.

With all of this research in hand, I began to write the book in 2008. But as I thought about the material and analyzed our discussions, I came to the conclusion that there was something much larger going on here. This was not merely about some inspiring personal quality that can bring power. Without a fearless attitude, you have no balance, no hold on reality. You overreact to events and your strategies misfire. You could understand all of the laws of power but if you remain infected by fears, you will apply them in the wrong way and any success you have will be fleeting. The truth is that a fearless approach is the necessary starting point of almost any successful or creative action in this world. The 50th is in fact the ultimate law of power, the key to the castle.

Coming next:

Part Two--a glimpse into the Law itself, its mechanisms, and how freedom from fear translates into freedom in general.

Part Three--The Republicans, Barack Obama and the 50th Law.

Part Four--The Economic Meltdown, the Fear Culture and the 50th Law.

In the meantime, you can pre-order The 50th Law, read more about it from Harper Studio, or check Thisis50.com for updates.

Vibe.com has an interview with Robert Greene on his collaboration with 50 Cent for the book The 50th Law.

Essentially the hustler is a figure to me, thats very American. It goes back to the 19th Century. Its ingrained in our country. We've always kind of had that figure. But it kinda got taken to another level in urban America in the 20th century. Predominantly associated with the black hustler. The hustler is an entrepreneur. This book celebrates their mentality. These are people who are incredibly resourceful. They are incredibly inventive and creative. They just don't have the resources for anything that we consider worthy. But much of what they do is just as interesting as a business man or politician. Its working with the little you have, and making something out of it. The attitude, and the way they go about it fascinated me.

In looking at this election cycle, pundits have been talking about the importance of authenticity. "It is fatal for a politician to look fake. They must show that they believe in something with conviction. The public has grown tired of professional politicians." But this is nothing new. The desire for authenticity in leaders comes and goes in cycles. John F. Kennedy benefited from this hunger and he also knew how to exploit it to maximum effect. He was not fake, but he could be a consummate actor when necessary. Andrew Jackson was perhaps our first great politician to use this dynamic to gain power. (In this vein, I recommend one of my favorite all-time books The Fall of Public Man, by Richard Sennett.)

Authenticity is a tricky thing. In dealing with people we know, it is hard to read through a person and see how deep their sincerity runs. Children learn how to play up their emotions for effect, and when we see people being emotional, we tend to think it is authentic. There are, however, certain give-away signs; we can often discern people who are fake by their body language and facial expressions--a Richard Nixon, or Mitt Romney come to mind. On the other hand, we can be easily duped by these same eyes. Ronald Reagan would be seem to be the archetype of the genuine politician, whether you liked him or not, but Reagan was an actor--schooled by years in Hollywood and television commercials in how to make sincerity count on camera, how to convey conviction. He was not necessarily fake, but an actor nonetheless.

It is hard to base a judgment of a political figure on such tricky things. And it is just as hard to win an election based primarily on appearing more authentic than the other side. Kennedy won the election partly by framing himself as new, fresh, more genuine than the stuffy figures of the Eisenhower era, but this framing was very strategic. He also benefited from the timing of his campaign--a moment of relative prosperity when people were yearning for change. Something was in the air. He exploited this.

In the end, in war, business or politics, it is strategy that will secure your victory, not the depth of your emotions or convictions. Authenticity or the appearance of it can certainly help (or hurt in some cases), but is never enough.

As I talked about it in Strategy 20 of the WAR book, politics is maneuver warfare: staking out positions and fighting for them. Taking positions that push you into corners might gain you some momentary success, as you come out fighting, but in the end, you have decreasing options and you end up tiring the public by doing the same thing, by being so predictable.

Franklin Roosevelt was the master of the game, although he had the advantage of dealing with much shorter campaign times. His goal was to seem overall like a strong leader, with definite convictions, but to never commit too tightly to anything early on in the campaign. He wanted positions that would allow him to react to inevitable changes in the news and exploit them. He wanted flexibility and at the same time he used his opponents' rigid, one-line ideas, to push them further into corners. He set a firm tone, took an overall stance (against big business, for the working man), but gave himself room to maneuver. He was amazingly fluid, striking back at his opponents or playing above the fray, depending on what was needed for the moment. He won four presidential campaigns.

With all this in mind, let us look at the three main Democratic candidates as they play maneuver warfare. First and least would have to be John Edwards. Like a boxer who comes to rely on one punch and finds himself boxed into a corner, John Edwards came out at the bell as the fighter for the middle class. This position may have looked good at the start, as he staked out solid positions. But it is a position that is too familiar from elections in the 80s or 90s. It does not wear well over time. It becomes a one-note campaign that may gain in stridency but wears down your patience and interest over the months of this primary slog. It is a defensive posture that ends up in a corner, where it will die.

Barack Obama has taken more of the JFK approach. His message has been remarkably consistent, backed up by his record. He is running a positive campaign, focused on uniting the country, and on the future. It is politics for a new generation, not predicated on the old wars of the baby boomers. He has not strayed from this and so it seems quite authentic. He has been admirably consistent. On specific issues he has come out with specific programs, all framed by a coherent philosophy. Because it is not tied to anything as rigid as being the defender of the middle class, he does not appear a one-note candidate and you do not grow bored of hearing his speeches. He can change the subject without veering from an overall tone.

The problem is that his strategy is very much dependent on circumstance. When times are good, people are in the mood for such an uplifting message. Then you can catch wind in your sails and even tack in certain directions, all carried away by your optimism. This worked brilliantly for Kennedy. In such times, people are more willing to take a risk on somebody new. (Bear in mind as well that Kennedy had more years in the Senate and had his World War II experiences to round out his resume.) It also helps in such circumstances to paint the other side as conservative, a force from the past, to play up what is uninspiring in their message. (It helps to have Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon as your main opponent.)

When world events were at a relative lull, Obama was in a good position. When the worsening economy began to take center stage, his message did not resonate as well, and his options shrank. And considering the volatile nature of the times we live in, it would have been better to bet on problems and difficult times up ahead. His message remains consistent, rings true, but has less and less appeal when future problems loom more than future possibilities. (It is not a question of him having altered his strategy, which he could and should not do, but the timing--a few more years in the Senate, and some patience.)

It is not too late to remedy this, but he is facing the tag-team of Master Triangulators. Triangulation is Dick Morris's name for something that Clinton did that is a variation on the old military strategy of according with the enemy, what I call Mirroring in the 48 Laws, and discuss as well in the Counterattack Strategy.

So much of marketing or politics involves separation--what makes you different from all the other politicians out there. Hillary has her years as First Lady, her solid seven-year record in the Senate, her famous husband. She can stand apart as the person with the most experience, the most battle-tested, and it is hard to take that away from her. Obama has successfully separated himself as the agent of change, a new face, somebody to break up the stale politics of Washington. A figure of hope. He also has his solid stance against the war.

The triangulation strategy means embracing Obama so tightly that he cannot get away anymore and separate himself. On the Iraq war--move Hillary in his direction, make her come out with new proclamations about getting out of Iraq that are parallel to his. Obfuscate her past votes on the war by focusing attention on the future. In one debate, she masterfully asked Obama to agree to the same commitment to end the war. On change, make the argument she would be the first woman president--an undeniable shift in the political landscape.

On the seamier side, bait Barack Obama into dirty fights about his own record and votes. If he avoids the bait, he starts to look a bit weak and as if he were hiding something. If he takes the bait, as he did in the past debate, he starts to look less and less like a different kind of politician, losing the one sterling quality that separated him from the others in this war over position.

It is a masterful bit of strategizing. If some of the dirt rubs off on Hillary, as it will, much of it will really settle on Bill, who is willing to be sullied at this point. Besides, she is not building her campaign on her purity and nobility in spirit. She is the tough lady, the Margaret Thatcher of the Democratic Party, who will get the job done. From her down moment in New Hampshire she has shown remarkable fluidity. She can play the underdog, the victim of sorts. She can also be the crusader. This flexibility does not come off as mere opportunism, as with a Mitt Romney, because it is anchored by her core message of being the candidate of experience. She has not tailored her message to each audience, like Romney, merely shifted tone to fit the circumstance.

For Obama, he has not lost yet. But he must not repeat the mistakes of the debate. He must strike a delicate balance of deflecting their accusations in a more diplomatic manner, showing a difference in feel and attitude. He is not a politician in their style. Let others on his team, surrogates if you will, make the case about his record on the Iraq War, or his votes in Illinois. Focus attention as much as he can on the future, on what he will do to change the dynamic in Washington and make the case that Hillary will bring more of the same stalemate by exactly the kind of partisan bickering she is trying to stir up. Anger does not play well on television. Being spirited and enthusiastic has great infecting power, but anger makes everyone uncomfortable. (In the televised debates of 1960, it was Nixon who seemed to lose his cool.)

The problem for the Democrats, as they face in each election, is where all of this positions the eventual winner once it is all over. John Kerry, for instance, left himself in a terrible position after winning the nomination. This is something to analyze in more detail when I look at the maneuvering of the Republicans and how it will play out for the general election.

One final note: much has been made of the unusualness of this campaign cycle. This generally refers to how volatile it has been, how there is no clear frontrunner in either party, how unpredictable it has all become. Attention is generally focused on the candidates. On the Democratic side, the voters have some good, solid choices and so their votes are evenly split. On the Republican side, the lack of a candidate to excite the public is why things go back and forth and no one can seem to win two primaries in a row.

My theory would be different. I would look at the voters instead of the candidates, the changed cultural landscape of America. We are a much more fragmented public than ever before. Our minds are barraged by so much information from so many directions. We find it harder and harder to focus on anything for very long. Because of this our loyalties to a brand, to a politician, to a rock group are much thinner. There are too many things competing for our attention. This makes us vulnerable to changes in the air, to circumstances altering our opinions, to wild viral swings.

This is not to say that some people do not feel very deeply attached to one candidate or the other, only that there are less people than before who feel this way and there are more of the undecideds, the ambivalents, etc. One candidate will win, and people will attach themselves to him or her, but this attachment is a bit tenuous. Politics is so much more complicated than before. It is time to re-read The Prince. Just a theory.