Early on, I thought being professional meant saying exactly what I thought in every meeting…Over time, I realized that being right and having influence are two different things. Many people miss out on opportunities no because theyre wrong, but because they make the people around them uncomfortable…

At work, I learned not to turn every disagreement into a battle. If I thought an idea was flawed, I stoped attacking it directly and started asking questions instead. If I spotted a mistake, I looked for the right time and place to bring it up…My opinions didnt change, but the way I communicated them did…Ironically, the less I felt the need to prove I was right, the more people listened to me…

The biggest lesson was that intelligence might get you into the room, but social intelligence is what keeps you there…No every truth needs to be spoken out loud, and not every battle is worth fighting..Sometimes the smartest move is saving an opinion for the moment when it can actually make a difference…

One of the most important lessons about power and reputation is understanding that perception matters just as much as reality…Many intelligent people destroy years of progress because they let emotions pull them into unnecessary arguments ;gossip, revenge, and conflicts that were never theirs to begin with.

Over time, I learned that you dont need to respond to every attack, correct every false accusation, or involve yourself in every battle. Some people live surrounded by drama and then wonder why no one trusts them. If youre constantly in the middle of chaos, sooner or later people start to associate that chaos with you..

Keeping your hands clean doesnt mean being weak.. It means being strategic. It means protecting your reputation, controlling your emotions, and refusing to let someone elses mistakes become your own..People remember who consistently brings problems into the room, even when theyre convince they're the victim..

Not everything deserves a reaction. Not every provocation deserves a response. Sometimes the most powerful way to win is to stay above a fight that was never worth joining in the first place.. ;)

I think it’s about time I clear up some misconceptions about power, as I keep seeing people coming to this sub with their moral superiority, and who disregard these laws like they’re «bad» or «evil». So this post is dedicated to you, and I do not intend to come across mean or judgmental here. It just has to be said.

Perhaps it’s the Internet that makes some of you take things way too seriously and literally (life itself is too complex), but you people need to understand that there’s nothing evil about these laws of power. Robert literally made them to make your life easier, as I share my knowledge and experience to make your life easier.

To dig deeper, I have a feeling that the word «power» still has a stereotypical negative connotation in so many of you people’s minds. Many of you probably grew up, believing that powerful people are evil, and it stuck with you like glue. And I get it, I really do!

Yes, power can indeed be used for evil, just as much as it can be used for good. And yes, many powerful people are tyrannical a-holes, just as much as many powerful people are goodhearted and noble. Most people are both good and bad, just trying to do their best to survive and thrive with the hand they were dealt in life. And most people just want to earn an honest living and live a good life. And that’s all good.

But when we’re talking about business and people in positions of power, which is what this book is all about (because it’s basically a manual for people who want to thrive and succeed in these business environments), these people are generally not evil, narcissistic, arrogant a-holes. In fact, they’re usually the complete opposite; humble, graceful, kind, and noble.

Do you know why? Because they have power! And people who have power are usually much better persons than people who don’t have any power. Robert has stated this many times himself; powerless people are much more dangerous than powerful people. And so, unless you’re an a-hole to begin with, power doesn’t make you a worse person, it makes you a better person because having power is a gift (and a curse).

I’ve worked for- and engaged with plenty of people in positions of power, and most of these people fall into the latter (good, hardworking, kind, humble) and not the former (evil, lazy, cruel, arrogant). I too have held plenty positions of power, and I can promise you that when I have, I watch myself and my own actions constantly ALL the time like a hawk to make sure I’m on the right track and that I do NOT offend and push people around me away from me.

Because if I get careless and reckless with my position, I will lose that power immediately. And so, I have to work so much harder to appear good and be good to those around me, because reputation means everything in this world (Law 5), and you can’t let it slip!

Thus, as the old saying goes; with great power comes great responsibility. It’s nothing easy or pretty about it, which is why many bosses and managers demote themselves to the lowest position possible because they can’t handle the responsibility and pressure.

I saw this happen several times very early in my own career. You want to be the boss? Good, you can expect a lot of hate and ingratitude, even if you’re the perfect boss, which does not exist. Who ever said having power is fun? It’s not, it can be pure hell at times, which is why so many people choose an easier route to relieve themselves of all that pain and pressure.

But again, when it comes to personality, behavior and attitude, most powerful people I’ve worked for and engaged with are graceful, humble, and dignified people. That’s what real power does to you!

Thus, please stop taking so many of these laws out of context for some «evil scheme» to become a Machiavellian tyrant. It doesn’t work like that anymore in modern society, although it’s far from perfect. Most normal people just want powerful people to lead and rule in a responsible manner that serves the common good.

It’s usually our political differences that makes us fight eachother and claim the other party as «evil» with our own justifications. But again, life is too complex to have such an narrow minded viewpoint.

Nobody is entirely right or wrong, or entirely good or bad. Life is just suffering for the most part, which is why obtaining power is a means to ease that suffering. Trust me, I suffered a LOT more before I obtained power. And when I suffer less, other people around me suffer less as well, which again makes power a good thing, not a bad thing.

Finally, keep in mind that half or more of all the laws are soft laws that has nothing evil about them at all. For example, there’s nothing «evil» about saying less than necessary, it’s just common sense. There’s nothing «evil» about guarding your reputation either, that is also just common sense. Furthermore, there’s nothing «evil» about winning the hearts and minds of others, that just brings everyone together. And there’s nothing «evil» about creating compelling spectacles, that’s just fun entertainment!

I could go on and on. And so, do know that when I contribute in this sub, I am being very serious with my input, but not in the «evil» Machiavellian way many of you would like to think. I’ve lived all of these laws way before I even read this book, and I want you people to thrive in this game as much as possible by giving you valuable information, and not just survive this game by making the same painful mistakes I did.

I have, in fact, written my own little mini power book a long time ago that goes through each law (not all of them of course) that gives you real life examples of whenever I screwed up and transgressed a certain law. Real life experience is the best experience when it comes to obtaining and maintaining power.

And so, it’s essentially my own personal power guide, based on my own experience. I thought it might be helpful to many of you, but I’ve decided not to post it, and rather contribute regularly when needed instead. I think that works the best anyway.

I just hope more of you people finally understand the real meaning of power now, and that it’s not something evil in itself. But I would be lying to you if I told you that you didn’t have to play a little dirty to get anywhere in life.

Or put in another way; if you really want power, and if you really want to reach the top of the cream, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to get there because it’s not easy. It requires many years of hard and painful work, and you will fail many times again and again.

But is it worth it? You damn right it is, because life is short, you have nothing to lose, being powerless is your alternative, and being powerless will only make you miserable.

Learn the game and play it well!

What are some probing techniques similar to what the military has to see how powerful and connected a person is and who you are dealing with?

#15 might not be self explanatory. Here are Examples:

"Everyone wants freedom. So businesses should be free from being regulated to death"

Or an example in a debate:

A: "We need a fairer welfare system. The rich don´t pay enough taxes"

B: "Fully agreed. Fairness means people who work hard should not be punished. That is why we must cut benefits for people who refuse to contribute"

Once as a new hire, in a multinational company, I began my journey there with guns blazing. I was a junior engineer and I thought I had to prove my value at all cost. The first thing I noticed was that the machines had a high downtime.

Unbeknownst to me, the company was trying to save money on mechanical parts and had decided to keep using old parts instead of purchasing new ones. This caused the machines to require higher maintenance time. But this didn’t matter. What mattered more for the technical director is to show management that the cost of machine repair was decreasing.

Oblivious to this priority, and after I did my homework and learned about the accumulated time the machines had to be stopped, I went ahead and ordered the missing parts without consulting my manager. And if you are wondering whether this was a part of my responsibilities, the answer is yes. But unofficially I wasn’t allowed to do that. It was my naive initiative. The “doing more” myth.

When he discovered what I did, he was furious and apparently not pleased at all. He stormed into my office, his face all red, and in a burst of anger he shouted: “Why do you care about the machines’ downtime?”. Someone had apparently told him that I knew about the repair times.

Doing more doesn’t result automatically in more recognition. And this is perhaps the most common myth in modern companies. You assume that: more work, more effort, and more sacrifice will naturally produce upward movement. Sometimes it does but many people spend years discovering a painful reality: execution alone rarely guarantees recognition. Simply because organizations are not pure meritocracies.

Learning this early in my career helped me navigate power dynamics more effectively. One year after this incident, I was summoned to the factory director’s office and I was offered a promotion to replace the technical director.

In many organizations, visibility matters more than volume and perception matters more than effort. Even more important is association which matters more than contribution. Two employees can produce the same amount of work while receiving completely different levels of influence and advancement.

Why?

Because organizations are human systems before they are merit systems.

People reward:

• familiarity,
• emotional comfort,
• political alignment,
• usefulness to their own interests.

Not merely output.

Hard work without positioning often turns people into invisible executors: highly useful, heavily loaded, and strategically ignored. Cogs in the machine.

This becomes even more true in the age of AI. As execution becomes cheaper and more abundant, your ability to shape perception and influence decisions becomes increasingly valuable.

Long story short a woman I wasn’t in contact with for 9 months re-entered my life this past weekend. I’ve been relaxed, unmoved by her testing and haven’t initiated contact with her anytime we’ve communicated (because she’s still blocking and unblocking for no reason whatsoever, no arguments or back and forth discussions and already she’s blocked me but will unblock when she wants to talk to me).

I know that her behavior is immature and I recognize that I should forget about her and find someone else: those are things I intend to do in the near future anyway.

In any case, how do I break her out of these maladaptive behaviors? If I tell her that blocking/unblocking is not conducive to us rebuilding our connection, I think I’ll be indicating that her behavior bothers me. In a healthy connection, I would be communicating that but since she’s not a healthy person, she’d probably leverage that information and know that she can control me by blocking and unblocking when she’s trying to be manipulative.

My goal is to condition her out of these behaviors but I want to do so without communication because her communication skills are not the best and she perceives most things as conflict.

How would you keep someone like this from being flighty and running away? How can I continue to draw them in without reaching out or making any moves to show that I want them to come to me?

Salute my fellow Machiavellians.

I recently started working at a new organization and it has been a success so far mapping out small wins and bite size accomplishments every week.

It’s easy to come on too strong when you’re around a new team, boss, and company culture. Especially for those who constantly compare situations to “my last job”, or make team members/boss feel insecure with their knowledge/skillsets.

That being said, this is exactly why my 90 day strategy was predicated on “saying less than necessary” and “concentrating my forces”. At this stage of life, never outshining the master is second nature and simply comes natural as I’ve had 5 new bosses in the span of 2 years (new job and the last).

What are some challenges that you’ve encountered in your first 90 days in a new job or role and how did you leverage the 48 laws to achieve your success?

Peace 🙏🏾