RE: Book Club Round 1: The 48 Laws of Power
First to P Dog and others, you can change your rep in high school - I did it several times. Now one of the methods I used was basiclly disappering from the face of the earth for over a year, a bit drastic but very effective. Instead go on overseas exchange, friends of mine went to Germany and came back few months later as new people.
My first experiments with changing my rep started in my first year of high school. I began by befriending cooler older guys in school by bringing value to them and dominating swim team. Those closer to my age saw me hanging with these guys and thought I must be cool. Then being with cool older guys I was also exposed to cool older girls, which got me attention from girls my age.
Then there was my exile as mentioned above, mysterious disappearance was great for rep. In my final two years of high school I refused to be the kind of guy who spent all his time with the one group of people - instead becoming a social butterfly. I'd hang out with one group at lunch times on a Monday, another the next. Then there was different groups, sporting teams etc. Just do it.
Law 5 - So Much Depends on Reputation, Guard it With Your Life
Your reputation can win you battles without you having to step on to the battle field. It's like passive income, working for you even while you sleep - a force multiplier.
Destroy enemies by chipping away at their rep - create an opening and let media/general public blow a bigger hole in it than you ever could. All you need to do is leave a few dirty marks on them and let them try and rub it away, creating bigger stains. If someone spreads rumors about you - accept it, laugh it off if possible. Small stains wash off eventually, the more you fuss, try and protect your reputation and deny the accusations the more guilty you will look. Don't fan the flames, let it die out.
Greene gives example of Chuke Liang - great Chinese general. One day Liang had sent his vast army marching to a camp far away while he and 100 close troops occupied a small town to rest. Word reached Liang that 150,000 troops were marching straight towards him.
Liang changed in to a monks outfit, ordered his small group of troops to hide amongst the town after opening the weak gates of the walled town. Liang climbed atop the gate, burned incense and began playing a lute. As the troops neared the gates the leader recognised Liang and panicked - it must be a trap, no way would such a famous general be in such a position. He ordered his troops to retreat.
Liang's reputation was so powerful he had defeated 150,000 troops with incense and a lute. He was a master of information warfare - using his own spies, turning enemy spies in to double agents spreading false information and sabotaging his enemies. He would make enemies believe there best general was a traitor - he would be killed by his own leaders without Liang having to fight them on the battlefield.
Before PT Barnum was famous for his circus and traveling acts he tried to open a museum and came under attack from a competitor owned by a large company. With no reputation of his own Barnum attacked his competitor, writing letters to newspaper and slowly spreading word that all was not well with his competitor. The mud he threw began to stick and eventually their share price began to suffer, leading to doubt, more share price slump and and continued downward spiral leading to disaster.
A few years later as Barnum's reputation had grown a competitor unveiled a hypnotism show that he thought was low-brow. Eventually though it was pulling a large crowd away from Barnum and he countered by unveiling his own hypnotism show. For the main act Barnum would hypnotise a little girl and then tell the audience he would cut of the girls finger. The little girl would snap out of the fake trance and runaway shreiking - making a mockery of hypnotsim. With each crow that left in hysterics world slowly spread the hypnotism was rubbish. The cheap stunt eventually destroyed his competitors main attraction.
Sow the seed of doubt. Give hints, not the full picture. Make people curious and let them reach there own conclusions (that you have lead them towards) - the message will be far more powerful than if you had spelled it all out and told them exactly what to belive.
Appearances are everything - wear a cheap suit and people will know it. Charge low prices, people will belive the quality is low.
Greene advocates building your rep around one thing. Casanova cultivated his rep as being a seducer, as word spread women would come to him curious and even willing to be swept off their feet.
My own observations - trying to get a friend to see that his girlfriend is wrong for him is one of the toughest things to do. I had tried and failed in the past, losing a close friend even. Recently rather than expressing she was wrong for him I gradually sowed doubt about their relationship. Rather than say she was cheating I'd say I saw her with a guy - let him figure out the rest without pushing him to the conclusion. Over time he began seeing all the flaws that my friends and I had long know and dumped her.
I used to work with a lot of pro-photographers and one of them was trying to crack in to wedding photography. He did a few friends weddings for free to build a portfolio - all beautiful work. But he was getting nowhere. He was able to get the odd meeting with perspective clients but they never called back for his services.
Having worked for his friends for free they did not appreciate his work (things that are cheaply earned are cheaply valued - free is even worse) and refereed no business his way. The few perspective clients were being offered insanely cheap introductory rates, free prints and more.
I told him to quit introductory rates, stop telling people you are new (he had been a semi-professional sports and modeling photographer for over 5 years). Then I told him to double his rates and keep doubling them until business was booming. He was booked solid within 6 months, charging 5 times his regular rate. I helped him with some initial cheap publicity (no advertising) and since then he does nothing to promote at all apart from maintain his website.
Law 6 - Court Attention At All Costs
Appearance is everything and if people cannot see you, you may as well not exist. Be a stand out, be mysterious, colorful, bold and anything but boring.
Be controversial and scandalous. All press is good press. Better to be hated than ignored.
PT Barnum hired a beggar to promote his museum of curiosities. He gave the beggar 5 bricks and told him to walk a circuit of a few blocks around the museum, on his first lap he would drop 4 of the bricks at intervals around the circuit, retaining 1. On subsequent laps he would stop at each brick and replace it with the one already in his hand. After a few laps the bizzare stunt had attracted a bunch of people following the beggar who was to remain serious and not answer any questions. He walked through the museum as part of his lap bringing in paying customers to follow him around the museum, many who would remain there, before resuming another lap. The stunt went on for days attracting thousands of people until police ordered the beggar and Barnum to cease due to crowds blocking traffic.
When one of his traveling acts, a woman claimed to be 161 and George Washington's nurse, got stale he wrote letters to newspapers claiming she was a robot. Crowds flocked back to see if she truly was an automaton. He would hire awful bands to play for free from balconies near his museum but just out of earshot. A free band would attract attention, there awfulness would drive them in to his museum to get away from the sound. By the way if like me you love reading about Barnums stunts check out A Customer Born Every Minute by Joe Vitale.
He would do anything to drag attention and never criticiscised bad publicity - in fact he would even write against himself anonymously to keep his name and businesses in attention.
Do not discriminate between good and bad attention, both are better than none. Mystery obviously read this law when he began peacocking, Greene singles out dressing in a bizarre manner. Greene again states to pick one thing to become notorious for - take the Kardashians being Armenian princesses with big butts. They have parlayed a defunct title and fat ass into fame and fortune - because they have not differentiated between good and bad publicity (has there genuinely been any good publicity?). They will do anything to avoid being ignored, sex tape, shitty endorsements, nightclub appearances, trashy reality tv showing just how retarded they are.
The alternative to going to any lengths for attention is mystery. Mata Hari is the epitome of this, word spread among Paris of a beautiful woman from the Orient dancing in a sexy manner the likes of which no one had seen before. She intrigued and bewildered all who visited, with exotic perfumes, dress, music, dance and tales of Javanese and Indian folktales/mythology.
Word kept spreading along with rumours and questions about her - Mata Hari was in no rush to spell it all out - just a few exotic tales here and there. She restricted access to her shows, rather than throwing open the doors, the most powerful Parisians and foreign diplomats were among those clamoring to see. Slowly shit let slip little details, first she was Dutch and grew up in Java - then her story changed to being descendant of Javanese royalty. Together with rumors flying around no one really knew anything about her.
After tiny shows in apartments Mata Hari finally performed in public, sparking riots amongst the crush. She then toured around Europe - Berlin, Vienna, Milan and beyond mixing with the famous and powerful. In the dying days of WWI she was arrested in France and executed as a German spy - only then did the truth come out.
She was mysterious, constantly reinventing herself, performances and stories. This was all that separated her from the flow of pretty woman who came to Paris to during the time to become dancers (as women now flock to Hollywood to become movie stars), she was not even a good dancer or that beautiful.
'I blew most of my money on fast cars, booze and women. The rest I squandered' - George Best
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